This study presents apparent-time changes in the morphology of the expression mitai-na 'similar to'. Based on apparent-time data, we argue that the morphological boundary between mitai and the attributive morpheme -na in the phrase mitai-na has disappeared, and that this complex phrase is now processed as a monomorphemic form. We suggest that relative frequency is the key to understanding the results. We further supplement our argument with data on the standardization of the adverbial adjective form in the Kansai dialect. Young speakers overwhelmingly use the standard form of adverbials for all adjectives except two: yō 'a lot, well' and hayō 'quickly, early' (instead of Standard Japanese yoku and hayaku ). The three linguistic forms that display unusual behavior ( mitai-na and the adverbial forms of yō and hayō ) all have a high relative frequency. We conclude that when a complex form occurs more frequently than its components (high relative frequency), then it behaves as a monomorphemic unit. The irregular adverbial forms are leftover from an obsolete system, in the same way that many English irregular past forms are leftover from the Germanic strong verb system. In contrast, the irregular form mitai-na emerged from and competes with the regular inflection paradigm for mitai , illustrating a previously undocumented path for the diachronic emergence of irregular morphology.


The profitability of alternative range-based production systems is frequently affected by government policies. Moreover, the comparative profitability of wild and domestic animal production systems on African semi-arid savannas has not been well analyzed. This paper presents a simple method for analyzing government policy effects on ranch profits and reports application of the method to 30 commercial cattle, 7 wildlife, and 13 mixed ranches in Zimbabwe. Ranches were selected in 4 contiguous woodland savanna areas with abundant wildlife and in 2 adjacent open savanna areas with sparse wildlife. Financial profits were calculated from 1989/90 ranch data and economic profits were estimated from the opportunity costs of inputs and outputs. A policy analysis matrix was used to estimate financial-economic profit-differences. Cattle ranches in the 2 areas with sparse wildlife were the most profitable group studied. Profits were lower (but similar) for cattle and mixed ranches in the areas with abundant wildlife. The financial profit was higher than economic profit for all ranch types, thus creating production disincentives. However, currency over valuation and implicit taxes on exported beef created greater production disincentives for cattle than wildlife producers. While the policy interventions negated the government's stated objectives of increasing foreign currency earnings and being self sufficient in beef production, they did appear to have beneficial range management consequences by encouraging fewer cattle on historically overstocked cattle ranches.


Forty years of empirical research on the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in schools has repeatedly shown that ICT is by no means "wild" and "threatening", but rather largely ineffective. Therefore, I argue that the "wildness" of ICT in schools is primarily a matter of impactful teachers' beliefs. I analyse some elements of these beliefs and suggest that its them that need "taming". On this basis I propose that they can be tamed by becoming closely familiar with their content and structures, by professionalising them based on research and thirdly
by reframing the use of ICT in school as a question of enabling participation in a world that is changing through digital transformation.


Watch the VIDEO of the presentation. The Way to Open Science contains many  components. One of these  components would be open repositories based on open source software  with free access to researchers. Open access policies are essential, as are open infrastructures and open contents. Repositories can support this openness by offering open licenses, open metadata , the possibility to use open formats  and open thesauri.  Another principal point is transparency. Open peer review should be possible, and the description of processes should also be transparent. Of course, an open license should provide all data types and metadata as well. It is important to help researchers to make their results visible and accessible and to encourage them to publish in OA-Journals and use repositories for the underlying data. Open Access Policies are supporting these efforts. Open data can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose. In order to do so, Open Licenses are required. Also Metadata are important components of the Way  to Open Science. Metadata are data about data which should be free of all restrictions on access, structured and based on standards. Open formats are defined by a published specification and are not restricted in their use. They are mainly used by open-source software. Open Thesauruses are freely accessible for everyone without costs and with a free license. Open Processes should be documented, transparent, repeatable and reusable. An open peer review process is also  a step  forward to Open Science. Authors and referees are no longer anonymous. The whole process and the decision letters are open. Of course Open licenses allow the reuse of any work or data without any restrictions. The lecture will deal with various aspects of open science and focus on the role of repositories – with all chances and challenges.


PURPOSE
We present final outcomes from the multiple-component Fit and Strong! intervention for older adults with lower extremity osteoarthritis.

DESIGN AND METHODS
A randomized controlled trial compared the effects of this exercise and behavior-change program followed by home-based reinforcement (n=115) with a wait list control (n=100) at 2, 6, and 12 months. Fit and Strong! combined flexibility, aerobic walking, and resistance training with education and group problem solving to enhance self-efficacy for exercise and maintenance of physical activity. All participants developed individualized plans for long-term maintenance.

RESULTS
Relative to controls, treatment participants experienced statistically significant improvements in self-efficacy for exercise (p=.001), minutes of exercise per week (p=.000), and lower extremity stiffness (p=.018) at 2 months. These benefits were maintained at 6 months and were accompanied by increased self-efficacy for adherence to exercise over time (p=.001), reduced pain (p=.040), and a marginally significant increase in self-efficacy for arthritis pain management (p=.052). Despite a substantially smaller sample size at 12 months, significant treatment-group effects were maintained on self-efficacy for exercise (p=.006) and minutes of exercise per week (p=.001), accompanied by marginally significant reductions in lower extremity stiffness (p=.056) and pain (p=.066). No adverse health effects were seen. Effect sizes for self-efficacy for exercise and for maintenance of physical activity were 0.798 and 0.713, and 0.905 and 0.669, respectively, in the treatment group at 6 and 12 months.

IMPLICATIONS
This consistent pattern of benefits indicates that this low-cost intervention is efficacious for older adults with lower extremity osteoarthritis.


Micrometer-sized Ag particles adsorb substantial oxygen above 200 °C. A dispersion of these particles in alcohol can be successfully used as a die-attach material by sintering the Ag particles to form a soft porous bonding layer. Since the low- temperature sintering of micrometer-sized Ag particles is unlikely to involve the nanometer size effect associated with melting, it was considered that the low-temperature sintering between Ag layers of micrometer thickness would occur in air. The contact surface of a light emitting diode die and a glass substrate were both coated with an Ag sputtered layer of 2 μm in thickness. The Ag-Ag direct bonding proceeded by sintering above 200 °C in air. The bonding strength of the Ag-Ag direct bonding exceeded that of the low-temperature sintering of micrometer-sized Ag particles, and the bonding strength depended on oxygen concentration in the sintering atmosphere. On the Ag sputtered surface of the glass substrate, a substantial morphology change was observed by heating the Ag sputtered layer in air. It was supposed that this morphology change was caused by abnormal grain growth of Ag in the Ag sputtered surface. It is concluded that low-temperature sintering of Ag materials is accelerated by the abnormal grain growth of Ag with oxygen adsorption near the Ag surface.


This paper reports on the development of an Internet based laboratory for control used at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The experimental platform used in the laboratory is a safety critical 3 degree-of-freedom helicopter. The distinctive feature of the laboratory is a supervisory safety controller, which ensures the integrity of the 3DOF helicopter but at the same time allows the users to be flexible in their design choices. The main part of the controller is a real-time look ahead simulation of linearized plant dynamics with a feedback law. The paper also presents an evaluation of the remote laboratory facilities in a form of a comparison of the student experiences performing the experiments in a traditional laboratory setting and performing the same experiments using the remote laboratory.


Aging of the mammary gland is closely associated with increased susceptibility to diseases such as cancer, but there have been limited systematic studies of aging-induced alterations within this organ. We performed high-throughput single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) profiling of mammary tissues from young and old nulliparous mice, including both epithelial and stromal cell types. Our analysis identified altered proportions and distinct gene expression patterns in numerous cell populations as a consequence of the aging process, independent of parity and lactation. In addition, we detected a subset of luminal cells that express both hormone-sensing and alveolar markers and decrease in relative abundance with age. These data provide a high-resolution landscape of aging mammary tissues, with potential implications for normal tissue functions and cancer predisposition.


The etiopathogenesis of essential tremor (ET) is not definitively resolved. The role of genetics in the development of ET is supported by epidemiological and family studies. A high frequency of positive family history of ET or tremor among subjects with ET has been reported. In addition, twin studies have shown higher concordance rates of ET in monozygotic than in dizygotic twins. However, a role of environmental factors, at least in nonfamilial forms, cannot be excluded. Linkage and whole exome sequencing studies have identified several susceptibility loci for familial ET, which only should explain a small percentage of ET heritability. Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) identified two genes related with ET risk, but the results of further meta-analysis showed a modest increase in the risk for familial ET by two LINGO1 gene variants. Recently, missense mutations in TENM4 gene, a regulator of axon guidance and central myelination, possibly cause essential tremor. Several case–control association studies have shown association between the variants of certain genes in the risk for ET, but they deserve confirmation by further studies.

Key Concepts

Genetic factors play an important role in the risk for ET, as is supported by the high frequency of positive family history of tremor, and data from twin studies.
As not all cases of ET are explained by genetic factors, a possible role of unknown environmental factors has been suggested in sporadic ET.
The usual inheritance pattern is autosomal dominant with incomplete penetrance, although typical autosomal dominant, multifactorial, non-Mendelian or other inheritance patterns have been described.
Linkage studies identified three susceptibility loci (ETM1, ETM2 and ETM3) for ET in several families, but they have not been replicated in others.
Whole exome sequencing studies have identified other three susceptibility loci (FUS/TLS or ETM4, HTRA2 and TENM4) in several families. These data await confirmation.
Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) described increased risk related with variants of LINGO1 (a meta-analysis of studies showed a modest increase of risk in familial essential tremor) and SLC1A2 (not confirmed in a meta-analysis) genes.
A recent study, which deserve further replication, has shown association between two variants of heme-oxygenase 1 and 2 (HMOX1 and HMOX2), involved in iron metabolism, and the risk for ET.
Interaction between genes could possibly influence the risk for ET, as suggested in recent experimental models.

Keywords:

essential tremor;
family history;
genetics;
genetic polymorphisms;
linkage studies, exome sequencing studies


The epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have always remained the integral part of the Indian cultural tradition. They have been told or retold several times, getting communicated from one generation to another. The Ramayana celebrates the victory of goodness over evil, obedience, call of duty, brotherhood, compassion, sacrifice – all looped into the thread of Indian culture. These issues are depicted mainly through male characters, while most of the females have been kept on the margins. In this very stream is Urmila (Laxmana's wife), who has not received the lime light she deserves. Kavita Kane, in her novel Sita's Sister, has lifted the Urmila of the traditional versions of the Ramayana, from the periphery and placed her on the centre stage of the fabric. She has reiterated the myth from a daring and unwavering Urmila's perspective – a standpoint that is not dissimilar to that of the modern Indian woman. The present paper explores this particular stand of Kane's Urmila and studies her proximity from this contemporary angle.


In January 1983 the US-owned multinational Timex, a prominent employer in Dundee since 1946, announced it would cease production of mechanical wristwatches in the city. Substantial redundancies would accompany closure of the Milton of Craigie production unit where 2,000 mainly male skilled engineers and toolmakers were employed. About 2,000 mainly female assembly-line workers would be retained at another factory in the city, at Camperdown, as Timex completed its diversification into subcontracting work in electronics. With this announcement Timex violated the workforce's moral economy. Significant changes were only permissible where negotiated with union representatives and where the security of those affected was preserved. Capital was leaving Dundee, despite the firm's receipt of many grants from national and local government. On 8 April Milton workers resisted compulsory redundancy by occupying their plant. Timex was not stopped from ending watchmaking, but compulsory redundancies were averted and a union voice was preserved. Those who wished were transferred to Camperdown. The occupation was a crucial episode in Dundee's deindustrialization, but has been obscured in popular memory by the bitter dispute accompanying the firm's final departure from the city in 1993.


Purpose: The aim of this article is to identify and determine the influence of key interest groups in terms of implementing sustainable development principles. Design/Methodology/Approach: Analysis of processes and behaviour of institutions and social groups using statistical data. Findings: Sustainable development appears today to be the most rational response of societies to the global problems of humanity. Despite widespread understanding and recognition as well as various initiatives, progress in implementing the principles of sustainable development is far from being satisfactory. Antipodally, transnational corporations based on the logic of microeconomic rationality continue to grow in strength. Therefore, it is very important to identify and seek opportunities to strengthen forces and interests that are guided by an equal consideration of economic, social and environmental factors in the implemented activities. The analysis of the issue shows the key role of the state in this process, but also of non-governmental organisations which, thanks to their activity and organisation, are able to effectively influence their surroundings to follow the principles of sustainable development. Countries with the highest number of NGOs also lead the sustainability ranking. There is great causative potential for regulated financial markets to increasingly involve financial institutions in sustainability criteria in their own operations and those of their clients. The European Union's regulations and initiatives, which provide directional support for UN programmes, play a very important role in this process. Practical implications: The conducted analysis shows that combining the interests and activities of informal institutions, alongside selective support of the formal ones, synergistically strenghtens the implementation of sustainable development principles. Originality/Value: The analysis is part of a search for causal factors enabling the dissemination and acceleration of the implementation of sustainable development principles in the world.


Based on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (25th September 2015), transport systems have to be 1) Sustainable. 2) Quality and resilient. 3) Safe. To this end, note that the Italian Ministry of Research funded the Research Project PRIN USR342 that involves related ideas and focuses on 3 paving solutions (made with recycled materials and sustainable technologies), 4 sets of modules (software), and 2 platforms. The objective of the study here presented deals with the assessment of the best pavement technology based on energy and environmental performance. Consequently, a life cycle assessment, LCA, was applied, considering material production, construction, maintenance, and end of life. The environmental impact of the different pavement technologies was derived. Results demonstrate that the use of warm mix asphalts and of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) yields the lowest energy consumption and environ-mental impact. Furthermore, under the hypotheses of the study, the production of mixtures is crucial because it corresponds to a contribution of about 60-70% in the life cycle of the different materials. LCA approach confirms as a methodology able to help decision makers when strategies and actions for the eco-design of road pavements are needed.


There is an argument in philosophy of science that revolutions in science are either idea-driven or tool-driven. We explore this debate in light of recent efforts by many scientific disciplines to embrace methods to improve the reproducibility of their research. One of the most profound changes driven by this concern for reproducibility and transparency is from analysing data using tools dependent on point-and-clicking with a mouse in closed source software, to tools based on writing scripts in open source programming languages and making them openly available. We present bibliometric evidence for this change in ecology and in archaeology to test if the adoption of these new tools is revolutionary or transformational. We identify a positive citation effect for papers that use the open source programming language R. We discuss how computational approaches to improving reproducibility and transparency in archaeology are mediated and transformed by the use of R code.


Particle swarm optimization (PSO), a prevalent optimization algorithm, has been successfully applied to various fields of science and engineering. However, PSO still suffers from some problems such as premature convergence. To solve these problems, we propose a mutation PSO (MPSO) in this paper. Compared with the traditional PSO, there are two main improvements of the proposed MPSO. First, a new particle update rule is explored. The new rule updates a particle's position according to not only its best known position and the global best known position of the swarm, but also a number of other particles' best known positions. The second improvement is that a mutation operator is employed. Mutation operator is used to avoid premature convergence. The MPSO is utilized to train a multilayer perceptron (MLP). The MLP trained by MPSO is finally applied to two classification problems: Iris flower classification and scene classification. For comparison purposes, traditional PSO, genetic algorithm (GA), and back-propagation (BP) are also investigated. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed MPSO for MLP training.


This licentiate thesis presents the use of participatory approach to developing a data warehouse for data mining in health care. Uganda is one of the countries that faced the largest brunt of the HIV/AIDS epidemic at its inception in the early 1980s with reports of close to a million deaths. Government and nongovernmental interventions over the years saw massive reductions in HIV prevalence rates over the years. This reduction in HIV prevalence rates led to great praises by the international community and a call for other countries to model Uganda's approach to battling the epidemic. In the last decade the reduction in HIV prevalence rates have stagnated and in some cases increased. This has lead to a call for reexamination of the HIV/AIDS fight with an emphasis on collective efforts of all approaches. One of these collective efforts is the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for those already infected with the virus. Antiretroviral therapy has numerous challenges in Uganda not least of which is the cost of the therapy especially on a developing country with limited resources. It is estimated that of the close to 1 million infected in Uganda only 300,000 are on antiretroviral therapy (UNAIDS, 2009). Additional challenges of the therapy includes following through a treatment regimen that is prescribed. Given the costs of the therapy and the limited number of people able to access the therapy it is imperative that this effort be as effective as possible. This research hinges on using data mining techniques with monitoring HIV patient's therapy, most specifically their adherence to ART medication. This is crucial given that failure to adhere to therapy means treatment failure, virus mutation and huge losses in terms of costs incurred in administering the therapy to the patients. A system was developed to monitor patient adherence to therapy, by using a participatory approach of gathering system specification and testing to ensure acceptance of the system by the stakeholders. Due to the cost implications of over the shelf software the development of the system was implemented using open source software with limited license costs. These can be implemented in resource constrained settings in Uganda and elsewhere to assist in monitoring patients in HIV therapy. A algorithm that is used to analyze the patient data warehouses for information on and quickly assists therapists in identifying potential risks such as non-adherence and treatment failure. Open source dimensional modeling tools power architect and DB designer were used to model the data warehouse using open source MYSQL database. The thesis is organized in three parts with the first part presenting the background information, the problem, justification, objectives of the research and a justification for the use of participatory methodology. The second part presents the papers, on which this research is based and the final part contains the summary discussions, conclusions and areas for future research. The research is sponsored by SIDA under the collaboration between Makerere University and Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) in Sweden.


This paper reports a new document retrieval method using nonrelevant documents. From a large data set of documents, we need to find documents that relate to human interesting in as few iterations of human testing or checking as possible. In each iteration a comparatively small batch of documents is evaluated for relating to the human interesting. We applied active learning techniques based on support vector machine for evaluating successive batches, which is called relevance feedback. Our proposed approach has been very useful for document retrieval with relevance feedback experimentally. The relevance feedback needs a set of relevant and nonrelevant documents to work usefully. However, the initial retrieved documents, which are displayed to a user, sometimes don't include relevant documents. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new feedback method using information of nonrelevant documents only. We named this method "nonrelevance feedback document retrieval". The nonrelevance feedback document retrieval is based on one-class support vector machine. Our experimental results show that this method can retrieve relevant documents using information of nonrelevant documents only.


In this paper we describe a multiagent system in which agents negotiate to allocate resources and satisfy constraints in a real-time environment of multisensor target tracking. The agents attempt to optimize the use of their own consumable resources while adhering to the global goal, i.e., accurate and effective multisensor target tracking. Agents negotiate based on different strategies which are selected and instantiated using case-based reasoning (CBR). Agents are also fully reflective in that they are aware of all their resources including system-level ones such as CPU allocation, and this allows them to achieve real-time behavior. We focus our discussion on multisensor target racking, case-based negotiation, and real-time behavior, and present experimental results comparing our methodology to ones using either no negotiation or using a static negotiation protocol.


The light compensation irradiance for planktonic metabolic balance, defined as the irradiance where gross planktonic primary production equals community respiration, is an important property describing ecosystem dynamics. Planktonic communities receiving irradiances above the compensation irradiance or compensation depth (i.e., the depth at which the compensation irradiance is received) are autotrophic and act as CO2 sinks, whereas those at lower irradiances or located deeper in the water column act as CO2 sources. However, this property is undefined for heterotrophic communities in which metabolic balance is not set by light availability. The compensation irradiance for planktonic metabolism in the ocean was quantified experimentally and calculated using data available in the literature to assess its variability and possible controls. Gross primary production by the oceanic planktonic communities examined here meet their respiratory requirements at irradiances of about 1.1 ± 0.4 mol quanta m−2 d−1 and tend to be autotrophic above a depth of 36 ± 9 m, on average. The depth of nitracline is closely correlated with the compensation depth for community metabolism across the studied areas, but the compensation depth tends to be located above the depth of the nitracline. This is expected from the facts that the underlying, net heterotrophic communities should act as sources of inorganic nutrients and that the nitracline cannot develop within the mixed layer where the compensation depth is often located. These results imply that the planktonic communities examined extending from 36 m depth, on average, to the bottom of the euphotic layer tend to be heterotrophic, acting as CO2 and inorganic nutrient sources.


How have individuals of social animals in nature evolved to learn from each other, and what would be the optimal strategy for such learning in a specific environment? Here, we address both problems by employing a deep reinforcement learning model to optimize the social learning strategies (SLSs) of agents in a cooperative game in a multi-dimensional landscape. Throughout the training for maximizing the overall payoff, we find that the agent spontaneously learns various concepts of social learning, such as copying, focusing on frequent and well-performing neighbors, self-comparison, and the importance of balancing between individual and social learning, without any explicit guidance or prior knowledge about the system. The SLS from a fully trained agent outperforms all of the traditional, baseline SLSs in terms of mean payoff. We demonstrate the superior performance of the reinforcement learning agent in various environments, including temporally changing environments and real social networks, which also verifies the adaptability of our framework to different social settings.


Microstructures of Ni/Cu and Ni-Co/Cu multilayers were investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis. These multilayered structures were fabricated on copper substrates using electrodeposition technique. At an as-deposited Ni/Cu multilayer with the layer thickness of h=5nm, a single diffraction peak appeared, although the multilayer of h=100nm exhibited the diffractions splitting into two peaks which resulted from both the Ni and Cu layers. In the Ni-Co/Cu multilayers, it was found that composition of the Ni-Co layer depended on an electric potential applied during deposition. The fcc and hcp structures were detected at the Ni-rich and the Co-rich deposits, respectively. The Vickers hardness of the Co-Ni/Cu multilayer was higher than that of the Ni/Cu multilayer.


Renovascular disease is an important cause of hypertension in children and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality risks. Secondary hypertension is more common in children than in adults, with children accounting for 75% to 80% of cases. In 70% of secondary hypertension in children, the cause is fibromuscular hyperplasia. Other associated conditions are aorto-aortitis, the midaortic syndrome, and Williams-Bueren syndrome. Imaging techniques have an important role in the early discovery of renal artery stenosis. Although renal arteriography remains the definitive method, noninvasive and less invasive radiographic procedures such as ultrasonography with duplex Doppler scanning and radionuclide scintigraphy have been used as adjunct diagnostic tools in children. The authors describe three young children with renovascular hypertension in whom dynamic radionuclide scintigraphy with Tc-99m MAG3 played an essential role in the diagnosis of renovascular hypertension.


Indirect evidence for life on Mars has been reported from the study of meteorite ALH84001. The formation temperature of the carbonates is controversial; some estimates suggest 20° to 80°C, whereas others exceed 650°C. Paleomagnetism can be used to distinguish between these possibilities because heating can remagnetize ferrimagnetic minerals. Study of two adjacent pyroxene grains from the crushed zone of ALH84001 shows that each possesses a stable natural remanent magnetization (NRM), implying that Mars had a substantial magnetic field when the grains cooled. However, NRM directions from these particles differ, implying that the meteorite has not been heated significantly since the formation of the internal crushed zone about 4 billion years ago. The carbonate globules postdate this brecciation, and thus formed at low temperatures.


Aggregate occupies at least three-quarters of the volume of asphalt mixture and can significantly affect the performance of pavement. The geometrical morphology influences the slippage and interlock among aggregates for resisting and distributing applied loads. In recent years, the discrete-element method (DEM) has been employed for simulation of asphalt mixture structure. This paper introduces an approach for simulation of aggregate and asphalt mixtures using parameterized shape and size gradation. Both the plane geometry factor (PGF) and the section aspect ratio (SAR) were employed to describe the three-dimensional (3D) geometric characteristics of aggregates. A numerical technique of aggregate models was implemented with probabilistic parameters depending on statistical results of PGFs and SARs. The 3D numerical model of asphalt mixtures was assembled with three different components, and was validated by uniaxial compression tests via comparison with the laboratory result. It was found that the PGF and SAR are appropriate to describe the three-dimensional features of aggregate shapes, because a simplified space object can be described by a two-dimensional (2D) graphical projection and a vector scalar corresponding to the space vector. Probability distribution curves of PGFs and SARs between coarse aggregates were in concordance with the Gauss-type function, because their correlation coefficients were all greater than 95%. It was verified that the developed clumping algorithm of aggregates was reasonable in terms of the shape and size gradation. Based on the parallel-bond model and Burger's model, the results of virtual tests were in good agreement with those of laboratory uniaxial tests. The angularity (PGF) of aggregates has a beneficial effect on the strength and stability of asphalt mixtures, whereas the flat-elongated feature (SAR) has a negative effect on the strength and stability of asphalt mixtures.


Wi-Fi access provides a very convenient way for mobile terminals to connect the Internet. However, locating points where connections can be made is not always easy. In this paper, we propose a Neighbor Wi-Fi Access Point Advertisement System. The features of our system are as follows: (1) A personal access point function operates on mobile terminals that continuously detect and collect information on nearby WiFi access points (APs) within its radio detection range. (2) Detected and collected Wi-Fi AP information, such as locations and network names, are shared between mobile terminals in proximity with each other. (3) Neighbor Wi-Fi AP information can then be advertised to clients through their personal access points. In our system, a client is a mobile terminal that does not have access privileges for nearby APs. In such cases, clients will not connect to the Internet through the restricted APs; they will simply obtain information regarding APs that are available nearby, yet outside their normal detection range. We developed a prototype system and have confirmed the usability of its basic functions by experiment.


This dissertation addresses a key issue in the efficient execution of transaction systems in shared environments. Until recently, transaction systems typically ran on dedicated database server machines. Transaction systems are increasingly popular beyond the database domain, and thus are often run outside of the dedicated server environment: on client machines, personal computers on user desktops, or multi-use enterprise servers. The key difference between these environments is that server machines are dedicated to running one application (e.g., a database server) in isolation, while in the other environments the machine is shared by multiple applications (e.g., word processors, email programs, web browsers, and applications that use transactions). In these latter environments, the transaction system needs to cooperate with the operating system to effectively share the resources of the machine with all of the applications on the machine.
In this dissertation, we first describe a space of trade-offs between transaction performance in a multiprogrammed environment and the required degree of customized operating system support. We argue that the current alternatives represent the two possible extremes: poor performance with no additional support required, and excellent performance with extensive operating system support required.
Second, we present a new point in the space of trade-offs that is between these extremes. This technique improves performance over current practice by utilizing existing operating system facilities to integrate transaction buffer management with operating system virtual memory management.
Third, we describe an implementation of the new approach in a commercial operating system, Digital Unix, running on AlphaStation 250 workstations. We also present two more systems, built on the same platform, that are representative of the two existing alternatives. The implementation of the three systems on an identical platform enables, for the first time, a fair evaluation of the full spectrum of degrees of virtual memory support for transaction buffer management.
We conclude that current transaction buffer management designs perform poorly in the increasingly common memory-competitive environments. We argue that this poor performance is the result of fundamental structural decisions. We lend evidence to this argument by demonstrating significant performance improvements in a restructured transaction buffer management system that uses existing operating systems facilities. Finally, we demonstrate prototype implementations of transaction support that will be available in future extensible operating systems that provide further performance improvements.


This paper presents the results of resistivity-IP imaging for two sites where Zn-Pb post-mining wastes are deposited. At the first one the historical washed waste and tailings were stored directly on the soil. In the second location tailings were used as filling material for the reclaimed sinkhole. For both of the investigated locations differences between the geoelectrical properties of the waste and surrounding sediments were noticed. The tailings are characterized by lower resistivity and increased normalized chargeability in comparison to the natural sediments. These features are caused by the presence of the Fe and Pb sulphides and clay minerals. Washed waste exhibited raised resistivity, but it was lower than values observed for uncontaminated sediments. This kind of waste does not show increased chargeability.


This paper discusses the design of an adaptive checker for concurrent error detection in fully differential analog circuits. The checker monitors the fully differential analog code, which states that, in nominal operation, the common mode signal of any symmetric node pair remains within a narrow band around the quiescent DC bias. The checker measures the common mode voltage and reports an error whenever the measured value exceeds a threshold. Its key feature is that this comparison threshold is dynamically adjusted in order to lower the probability of false alarms. The design was fabricated in a 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The chip test results prove the feasibility of the adaptive thresholding concept.


The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of Diabetes in elderly females. Oxidative stress is regarded as a main causal factor for natural ageing. This study tested the hypothesis that healthy elderly people show higher oxidative DNA damage levels and lower antioxidative enzymatic defense capacities. In type II diabetic patients, persistence of hyperglycemia is one of the causes of increased in oxygen free radicals. This increase oxidative stress and makes the life threatening cardiovascular complications. Blood samples were drawn from selective 100 elderly females (with and without diabetes). In elderly females having menopause, there occur hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and hyperlipoproteinemia, these on the body, escort an increase in free radicals, with mounting oxidative stress. In diabetes the body suffers with a poor or negligible glycemic control. All diabetic post menopausal females with CVD have been reported a significant high levels of Fasting Blood Sugar, Total Cholesterol, Triglycerides, LDL-C, VLDL-C, CAT, NT-proBNP and MDA and significantly lower levels of HDL-C, GPx, SOD as compared to control subjects. In type-II diabetes mellitus elderly female patients during the postmenopause, the probability of secondary complications of cardiovascular diseases increases.


We study the evolution and cyclical dependency of the cross sectional distribution of firm level job creation rates from 1975 to 2004 for the Austrian private sector. We find that the share of firms that o not adjust has declined over time, but that the share of entries, exits, growing and declining firms increased. The share of firms adjusting is higher in upswings than in downturns and the higher order moments of the job creation distribution follow distinct cyclical patterns. The smallest firms and firms at the extremes of the growth rate distribution are largely unaffected by the business cycle.


Bilevel optimization studies problems where the optimal response to a second mathematical optimization problem is integrated in the constraints. Such structure arises in a variety of decision-making problems in areas such as market equilibria, policy design or product pricing. We introduce near-optimal robustness for bilevel problems, protecting the upper-level decision-maker from bounded rationality at the lower level and show it is a restriction of the corresponding pessimistic bilevel problem. Essential properties are derived in generic and specific settings. This model finds a corresponding and intuitive interpretation in various situations cast as bilevel optimization problems. We develop a duality-based solution method for cases where the lower level is convex, leveraging the methodology from robust and bilevel literature. The models obtained are tested numerically using different solvers and formulations, showing the successful implementation of the near-optimal robust bilevel problem.


Historically, privacy and efficiency have largely been at odds with one another when querying remote data sources: traditional query optimization techniques provide efficient retrieval by exporting information about the intension of a query to data sources, while private information retrieval (PIR) schemes hide query intension at the cost of extreme computational or communication overheads. Given the increasing use of Internet-scale distributed databases, exploring the spectrum between these two extremes is worthwhile. In this paper, we explore the degree to which query intension is leaked to remote data sources when a variety of existing query processing and view materialization techniques are used. We show that these information flows can be quantified in a concrete manner, and investigate the notion of privacy-aware distributed query evaluation. We then propose two techniques to improve the balance between privacy and efficiency when processing distributed queries, and discuss a number of interesting directions for future work.


This thesis encompasses work on the coordination chemistry and catalytic activity of half sandwich ruthenium(II)-arene phosphine complexes. The investigation of phosphine dissociation and association reactions of these complexes represents the unifying theme of this study and, in addition to providing fundamental insights into the coordination chemistry of these compounds, allowed structure-activity relationships to be made and assisted in the development of new synthetic procedures. The thesis is organised into three parts according to the type of phosphine ligand investigated. The dissociation characteristics and catalytic activity of bis-phosphine complexes are presented in Chapter 2. The former properties were established by kinetic studies of ligand exchange and gasphase fragmentation analysis by tandem mass spectrometry, and helped to rationalise trends in the observed catalytic activity for the hydrogenation of styrene to ethylbenzene. The more active complexes were also shown to be chemoselective catalysts for the hydrogenation of aldehydes in the presence of olefinic bonds. Mechanistic studies were carried out in order to rationalise the preferential hydrogenation of aldehydes, which is consequently suggested to proceed via an ionic outer-sphere mechanism. Chapter 3 describes investigations on the coordination chemistry of ruthenium(II)-arene complexes containing diphosphine ligands. Complexes containing κ1-coordinated diphosphine ligands, with or without triphenylphosphine as a co-ligand, were prepared or characterised as the corresponding borane adducts. Mechanistic studies, including determination of enthalpies, entropies and, in two cases, volumes of activation, for the chelation reactions of the isolated κ1-diphosphine complexes were undertaken. The coordination chemistry of a chiral diphosphine, (R)-BINAPO, was also investigated; the synthesis of complexes containing this ligand in a range of coordination modes was achieved. The final chapter concerns the reactivity and catalytic activity of ruthenium(II) complexes containing (PPh2CH2)3CMe (triphos). Investigations of the catalytic activity of ruthenium(II)-arene complexes containing the κ2-coordinated triphos ligand were carried out together with pertinent reactivity studies and comparisons to structural analogues, which helped rationalise the observed activities. The reactivity and catalytic chemistry of one of the structural analogues, a ruthenium(II)-acetate κ3-triphos complex, was also investigated in detail as it proved to be a highly active catalyst for the hydrogenation of 1-alkenes.


Pre registration health and social care students undertake IPL to optimise their interprofessional working skills in preparation for the reality of their future professional practice (Department of Health 2000). The importance of preparing students' tutors for interprofessional education (IPE) has also been identified (Barr, 2002) as well as the value of using the "IPL team as a way of role modelling" (Cooper, 2004). Additionally tutors' experiences of IPL can be used as a resource to support student learning (Page and Meerabeau 2004). Nine academic tutors were interviewed in this qualitative study which explored their experiences of planning and implementing a new IPL programme. Tutors described difficulties in relinquishing power, tribalistic behaviour, ineffective communication and geographical constraints during the planning process which hampered their own IPL teamwork. A 'parallel process' is identified indicating how tutor experiences in surmounting these issues mirror many of the same skills that the tutors aim to develop in supporting student learners during the IPL programme. Findings are interpreted alongside discussion of the 'parallel process' and practical strategies for responding to the challenges of IPL are identified. The value of tutor reflection is discussed in relation to tutors being able to optimally position themselves to support student learners and be effective role models for diverse groups of students undertaking IPL programmes.


Experimental and theoretical studies of hybrid system combined an evaporative air cooler and refrigeration unit are presented. The aim of the current study is to enhance performance of the evaporative air cooler and reduce moisture content in the outlet air as well as to produce fresh water. Heat and mass transfer for wetted pad in the air cooler and the evaporator of the refrigeration unit are formulated and simulated under Basra climate conditions in (May, June, July, and August).  Different controlling parameters like (inlet temperature, relative humidity, evaporator coil temperature, frontal air velocity and thickness of the wetted pad are studied). The evaporative air cooler used in the  experimental rig. was of (2061) cfm volumetric flow rate with dimension (0.72m, 0.72m, 0.85m). It has a selector of two air velocities (low and high)  the minimum and maximum frontal air velocities are (0.5 m/s - 4 m/s) respectively. The refrigeration unit consist of a Compressor of 1/3hp capacity (AC 220 volts, R134a refrigerant). The evaporator coil has one row, 18 tube of 24.5 cm length,  and outside diameter of 0.9 cm. The experimental results show a decrease in outlet temperature by (1-3 ) and the fresh water production increases with increasing, humidity ratio, relative humidity, and decreasing of the coil temperature. A comparison between the experimental and theoretical work shows a good  agreement[


The robust H/sub /spl infin// filtering problem for a class of continuous-time uncertain linear descriptor systems with time-varying discrete and distributed delays is investigated. The time delays are assumed to be constant and known. The uncertainties under consideration are norm-bounded, and possible time-varying, uncertainties. Sufficient condition for the existence of an H/sub /spl infin// filter is expressed in terms of strict linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Instead of using decomposition technique, a unified form of LMIs is proposed to show the exponential stability of the augmented systems. The condition for assuring the stability of the "fast" subsystem is implied from the unified form of LMIs, which is shown to be less conservative than the characteristic equation based conditions or matrix norm-based conditions. The suitable filter is derived through a convex optimization problem. A numerical example is given to show the effectiveness of the method.


INTRODUCTION If one were to attempt an initial definition of the ontology of our age, one might do worse than to characterize it in terms of a war against inhabitancy. --Robert P. Marzec 314 The focus of this essay is Sylvie Courtine-Denamy's The House of Jacob which received the Alberto Benveniste Prize for Sephardi Literature in 2002. This is an autobiographical journey into the turbulent history of Sephardic Jewry from fourteenth-century Spain to the death camps. As Julia Kristeva suggests in her foreword to the book, what is at stake in Courtine-Denamy's herstory of an alternative Jewish tradition (a tradition that can be interpreted as critical to the one currently promoted in Israel) is "an intimacy that reinvigorates" (x). The force of this intimacy, according to Kristeva, lies not so much in the autobiographical sources of Courtine-Denamy's account but in her use of a language which (in contrast to "Hebrew, the sacred language") draws on sensory experience and "the universe of kinship" (xv, xiii). More importantly for my intervention here, this is the language of a landless people whose distinct fate and history exemplify what Robert Marzec has aptly called "the war against inhabitancy" (314). Inhabitancy, as Marzec defines it, refers to "an obligation between humankind and the land, between human subjects as born in and through a relation to an ecosystem" (315). According to Marzec, what we are currently experiencing in the face of "the 'abject' of dislocated inhabitants" is the latest stage of the erasure of inhabitancy as a distinct form of human subjectivity (310). Marzec traces this erasure back to the enclosure movement in England and imperial territorializing politics, arguing that the "specter" of this systematic severing of the bonds between the human animal and its habitat still "haunts all neoimperial orders of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century world" (314, 315). What I find valuable in Marzec's reclamation of the real of an interconnected land is that it opens up a space within which to rethink the human possibility of dwelling and dwelling-with against the "blood-and-soil" politics that has historically enframed this possibility and beyond the uncritical celebrations of "a free-floating human subjectivity," a figure much cathected by certain forms of postmodern cosmopolitanism (Marzec 321). As I will go on to demonstrate, Courtine-Denamy's The House of Jacob makes an important contribution to the cultivation of a contagious, hospitable and guilt-free imaginary that does justice to the human need to connect through and across a shared (home)land. What is more, I will suggest, this imaginary functions as a form of resistance in the face of the distinct spatial pathologies that are part of the legacy of the war on inhabitancy: namely, territorial occupation, land dispossession, exile, displacement, migration, the nationalist politics of "blood-and-soil," but also the systematic abjection of the national "thing." In what follows, I intend to trace this imaginary as it unfolds in Courtine-Denamy's sensory and affect-based language. Kristeva's foreword to the book (significantly written in the form of a letter addressed to the author) will serve as the main intertext in light of which I will explore the intimate national and language politics of The House of Jacob. Given my concern with what for Kristeva is a central idea in the book (that is, "language as one's only homeland" ["Foreword" xi]), my intention here is to attend closely to the possibilities opened up by this idea in Courtine-Denamy's narrative. At the same time, I want to reflect on Kristeva's cosmopolitan reinvestment of this idea, in other words, her (subtly yet clearly) corrective reiteration of Courtine-Denamy's suggestion; to wit, "Languages as One's Only Homeland," which she uses as the subtitle of her foreword (ix, emphasis added). Finally, I propose to approach this reinvestment as the site of a productive (though by no means nonconflictual) dialogue between Kristeva and Jacques Derrida, especially his Monolingualism of the Other Or the Prosthesis of Origin. …


Arden Syntax for Medical Logic Module (MLM)1 was designed for writing and sharing task-specific health knowledge in 1989. Several researchers have developed frameworks to improve the sharability and adaptability of Arden Syntax MLMs, an issue known as "curly braces" problem. Karadimas et al proposed an Arden Syntax MLM-based decision support system that uses an object oriented model and the dynamic linking features of the Java platform.2 Peleg et al proposed creating a Guideline Expression Language (GEL) based on Arden Syntax's logic grammar.3 The New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH) has a collection of about 200 MLMs. In a process of adapting the current MLMs for an object-oriented event monitor, we identified two problems that may influence the "curly braces" one: (1) the query expressions within the curly braces of Arden Syntax used in our institution are cryptic to the physicians, institutional dependent and written ineffectively (unpublished results), and (2) the events are coded individually within a curly braces, resulting sometimes in a large number of events - up to 200.


Translocation of mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus) to restore viable populations to their former range has become a common practice. Because differences in post-release vital rates between animals from multiple source populations has not been well studied, wildlife and land managers may arbitrarily choose the source population or base the source population on immediate availability when planning translocation projects. Similarly, an understanding of the optimal proportion of individuals from different age and sex classes for translocation would benefit translocation planning. During 2006 and 2007, we captured and translocated 125 mountain quail from 2 ecologically distinct areas: 38 from southern California and 87 from southwestern Oregon. We released mountain quail in the Bennett Hills of south-central Idaho. We radio-marked and monitored a subsample of 58 quail and used them for a 2-part survival analysis. Cumulative survival probability was 0.23 ± 0.05 (SE) at 150 days post-release. We first examined an a priori hypothesis (model) that survival varied between the 2 distinct source populations. We found that source population did not explain variation in survival. This result suggests that wildlife managers have flexibility in selecting source populations for mountain quail translocation efforts. In a post hoc examination, we pooled the quail across source populations and evaluated differences in survival probabilities between sex and age classes. The most parsimonious model indicated that adult male survival was substantially less than survival rates of other mountain quail age and sex classes (i.e., interaction between sex and age). This result suggests that translocation success could benefit by translocating yearling males rather than adult males, perhaps because adult male breeding behavior results in vulnerability to predators. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.


Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is the leading cause of viral encephalitis worldwide. Annually it causes between 13,000 and 20,000 deaths mainly in South-East Asia. Vaccination programmes have drastically reduced the number of JEV cases however outbreaks do still occur. Recently G1 has overtaken G3 as the dominant genotype in most endemic countries and as all currently licensed vaccines are based on G3 it is necessary to evaluate the potential of emerging genotypes to break through current control measures.
 This project seeks to generate a virus-like-particle (VLP) neutralisation assay in order to investigate the potential for emergent or divergent genotypes of JEV to infect vaccinated individuals. Using this assay, we will evaluate the ability of vaccinee sera to neutralise emergent genotypes as well as to introduce a variety of SNPs that have been shown to enhance virulence and investigate whether any combination of these are able to invalidate vaccine protection.
 There is also concern that recombination between wild-type and live attenuated vaccine strains may occur in the vaccine setting which could result in rescue of the virulent potential of the attenuated virus. Evidence of this is being sought in silico using publicly available data and existing techniques.
 These data will provide a clearer picture of the nature of JEV in endemic areas and whether the current strategy of vaccination is sufficient to prevent naturally acquired infection in the long term or if other strategies must now be considered.


In 2009-11, the researchers were engaged in the Basic Law Education (BLE) Project financed by the Quality Education Fund of the HKSAR Government. The project aimed at providing Liberal Studies teachers curricular and pedagogical support in the teaching of the Hong Kong Basic Law, human rights and law-related concepts. As part of the project, the human rights friendly ethos of the participating schools was studied. The research methodology comprised both a questionnaire survey, using the Indicators and Evaluative Checklist for Human Rights Friendly Environment in Schools, and in-depth focus group interviews with groups of students and teachers who had participated in the survey. Human rights education is an important part of civic education in the 21st century and it can best be supported by a human rights friendly school ethos. This paper makes use of the research findings from the study and explores, with the help of a case study, why and how a school can promote a human right friendly school ethos and the complications that may arise. The paper can be of reference value to researchers and civic educators who are interested in human right education. It can also be of help to school leaders and teachers who are trying to develop a human right respecting school environment which is now universally required. Keywords: Human Rights, Human Rights Friendly School Ethos, Democratic Participation, Hong Kong


This paper examines the effects of climate change (greenhouse gas emissions) and air pollution (methane and nitrous oxide emissions) on the tourism industry in Southeast Asian (SEA) countries, using dynamic panel data for the period 1998-2012. A two-stage least squares (2SLS) method is applied by adding an instrumental variable and lagged variables to solve for endogeneity. 2SLS estimation shows that air pollution has a negative effect on total tourist arrivals but there was not enough evidence to reach a conclusion about the impact of climate change. Surprisingly, nitrous oxide emission was the key driver which negatively and significantly affected tourist demand. This emission is largely caused by high levels of fossil fuel consumption and motor vehicle traffic. These findings suggest that governments may need to make critical policy decisions about whether to give up short-term economic growth to pursue long-term environmental improvement, with a view to enhancing the quality of tourist destinations in Southeast Asia in the future.


Background Chronic mesenteric ischemia (CMI) is characterized by long-standing abdominal symptoms due to insufficient mesenteric circulation. Data on the effect of revascularisation on quality of life (QoL) for CMI are scarce. This study is the first to evaluate the impact of revascularisation on quality of life. Methods Seventy-nine patients with CMI or acute-on-chronic mesenteric ischemia (AoCMI) underwent an intervention of one or more mesenteric arteries between January 2010 and July 2012. QoL before and after intervention was measured with the EuroQol-5D. Preintervention questionnaires were of standard care. Postintervention data were obtained by resending a questionnaire to the patients between February and May 2013. To investigate the clinical relevance of our findings, the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) was used. Since there is no established MCID for CMI, we used the literature reference MCID of inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS) of 0.074. Results Fifty-five (69.6%) of 79 patients returned their questionnaire and 23 (29.1%) were completely filled out. There was a significant increase of the median EQ-index score from 0.70 to 0.81 (p=0.02) and a significant reduction of symptoms in the domains usual activities (34.4%) and pain/discomfort (32.3%). There was a significant improvement of 17% in overall current health condition (VAS) (p=0.001). The MCID between baseline and postoperative EQ-5D index score was 0.162, indicating a clinically relevant improvement of quality of life after revascularisation. Conclusion Quality of life of CMI patients is improved after mesenteric artery revascularisation.


A growing body of literature has examined relations among qualities of character—or marital virtues—and marital outcomes. Results of past research have suggested positive relations between qualities such as generosity, kindness, and forgiveness, and marital well-being. We expand on previous research by examining relations between three qualities of character and marital satisfaction with 1,513 respondents randomly selected from three states. Specifically, we examined the effects of participants' perceptions of their partners' humility, compassion, and positivity on their own marital satisfaction. Results indicated statistically significant, positive associations between each of these qualities and marital satisfaction, although results vary by gender. Furthermore, a statistically significant interaction effect suggested that spousal humility may be a protective factor against marital stress among women. Implications for practice and program development are discussed.


After suffering an accidental blow to the head during soccer, a 42-year old male presented with agitation, confused speech and variable dysphasia. CT-imaging revealed a depressed parietotemporal skull fracture with an associated epidural hematoma. The epidural hematoma was surgically evacuated. In this photo report CT- and clinical images of an impressive depressed skull fracture, with an associated linear fracture are demonstrated.


The guaranteed delivery model is widely used in online advertising. The publisher sells impressions in advance by promising to serve each advertiser an agreed-upon number of target impressions that satisfy specific attribute requirements over a fixed time period. Previous efforts usually model the service as a crowd-level or user-level supply allocation problem and focus on searching optimal allocation for online serving, assuming that forecasts of supply are available and contracts are already signed. Existing techniques are not sufficient to meet the needs of today's industry trends: 1) advertisers pursue more precise targeting, which requires not only user-level attributes but also request-level attributes; 2) users prefer more friendly ad serving, which imposes more diverse serving constraints; 3) the bottleneck of the publisher's revenue growth lies in not only the ad serving, but also the forecast accuracy and sales strategy. These issues are non-trivial to address, since the scale of the request-level model is orders of magnitude larger than that of the crowd-level or user-level models. Facing the challenges, we present a holistic design of a request-level guaranteed delivery advertising planning system with careful optimization for all three critical components including impression forecasting, selling and serving. Our system has been deployed in the Tencent online guaranteed delivery advertising system serving billion level users for nearly one year. Evaluations on large-scale real data and the performance of the deployed system both demonstrate that our design can significantly increase the request-level impression forecast accuracy and delivery rate.


The invention discloses a serpentine flame retardant foaming agent. The technical scheme is characterized in that the serpentine flame retardant foaming agent is composed of serpentine, high-viscosity attapulgite clay powder, active attapulgite clay, sodium bicarbonate, sodium alkyl benzene sulfonate, sodium polyacrylate, sodium pyrophosphate, ammonium polyphosphate and zinc borate; and all the ingredients of the serpentine flame retardant foaming agent are stirred, ground and packaged to obtain a finished product of the serpentine retardant foaming agent. After water is added into the gangue flame retardant foaming agent and the mixture is stirred at a high speed, a great amount of gases are rapidly released, and thus, porous foam sludge is formed; the foam slurry is directly used for extinguishing a fire after being sprayed by using a high-pressure water gun; the foam slurry is stably covered on the surface layer of a combustible material to form a foam slurry film which can be used for rapidly isolating the contact of the combustible material and the air and preventing the combustible material from continuing combusting, and thus, the aims of flame retarding and fire extinguishing are achieved; and the serpentine flame retardant foaming agent is suitable for producing flame retarding and fire extinguishing products, light boards, light walls and silencing and noise reducing products.


Transport properties of a complex network can be reflected by the two-point resistance between any pair of two nodes. We systematically investigate a variety of typical complex networks encountered in nature and technology, in which we assume each link has unit resistance, and we find for non-sparse network connections a universal relation exists that the two-point resistance is equal to the sum of the inverse degree of two nodes up to a constant. We interpret our observations by the localization property of the network's Laplacian eigenvectors. The findings in this work can possibly be applied to probe transport properties of general non-sparse complex networks.


[Abstract]: Till today, the top-senior management of corporate Australia seems to be dominated by professionals such as accountants, lawyers and economist. From the current situation, it seems that the attractiveness of senior engineers as potential candidate for top-senior
management position such as managing director and CEO position tends to be low.

This thesis uses researches and analysis to assess the factors affecting the advancement of engineers to top-senior management levels and targeted to investigate one aspect of this observation. It involves undertaking literature survey in the area of leadership and
management especially in the field of engineering and researching attributes of professionals, including engineers, who are in influential leadership positions.

The overall project has attracted interests from Engineers Australia and its leadership arm, Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management (CELM). Based on the results
of such projects, they are able to modify the structure of education for engineering courses with the intention to prepare or groom them into potential future top-senior
management staffs.


First place winner of oral presentations in the Natural Science/Engineering section at the 9th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum (URCAF) held at the Eugene Hughes Metropolitan Complex , Wichita State University, May 1, 2009


: Fauna of haemoparasites of batrachians is studied in Kyrgyzstan for the first time. Descriptions of 12 haemoparasites species are given. Eight species have been found in Central Asia for the first time.


This book is a collection of keynote reviews and detailed case-studies covering the principal areas of active research and state-of-the-art industrial practice in the field of mine water management. It addresses both issues of water quantity (such as the impact of Iongwall mining on the piezometry and hydraulic properties of overlying aquifers) and water quality (spanning an array of sites from deep coal mines to open-pit base metal mines), as well as a wealth of hybrid, integrated studies in which hydrogeological and geochemical aspects are considered (and managed) together.

The papers presented in this book are intended for practicing geologists and engineers involved in the management of active and abandoned mine sites all over the world. It is also of interest to academic geoscientists and students with interests in low-temperature aqueous geochemistry and the hydrogeology of complex, quasi-karstic groundwater flow systems.


The mean electromotive force that occurs in the framework of mean-field magnetohydrodynamics is studied for cases in which magnetic field fluctuations are not only due to the action of velocity fluctuations on the mean magnetic field. The possibility of magnetic field fluctuations independent of a mean magnetic field, as they may occur as a consequence of a small-scale dynamo, is taken into account. Particular attention is paid to the effect of a mean rotation of the fluid on the mean electromotive force, although only small rotation rates are considered. Anisotropies of the turbulence due to gradients of its intensity or its helicity are admitted. The mean magnetic field is considered to be weak enough to exclude quenching effects. A -approximation is used in the equation describing the deviation of the cross-helicity tensor from that for zero mean magnetic field, which applies in the limit of large hydrodynamic Reynolds numbers. For the effects described by the mean electromotive force like -effect, turbulent diffusion of magnetic fields etc in addition to the contributions determined by the velocity fluctuations also those determined by the magnetic field fluctuations independent of the mean magnetic field are derived. Several old results are confirmed, partially under more general assumptions, and quite a few new ones are given. Provided the kinematic helicity and the current helicity of the fluctuations have the same signs the -effect is always diminished by the magnetic fluctuations. In the absence of rotation these have, however, no influence on the turbulent diffusion. Besides the diamagnetic effect due to a gradient of the intensity of the velocity fluctuations there is a paramagnetic effect due to a gradient of the intensity of the magnetic fluctuations. In the absence of rotation these two effects compensate each other in the case of equipartition of the kinetic and magnetic energies of the fluctuations of the original turbulence, i.e. that with zero mean magnetic field, but the rotation makes the situation more complex. The:TJ-effect works in the same way with velocity fluctuations and magnetic field fluctuations. A contribution to the electromotive force connected with the symmetric parts of the gradient tensor of the mean magnetic field, which does not occur in the absence of rotation, was found in the case of rotation, resulting from velocity or magnetic fluctuations. The implications of the results for the mean electromotive force for mean-field dynamo models are discussed with special emphasis to dynamos working without -effect. The results for the coefficients defining the mean electromotive force which are determined by the velocity fluctuations in the case of vanishing mean motion agree formally with the results obtained in the kinematic approach, specified by second-order approximation and high-conductivity limit. However, their range of validity is clearly larger.


A key question for the evolution of thermokarst wetlands and lakes in Arctic and sub-Arctic permafrost regions is how large-scale warming interacts with local landscape conditions in driving permafrost thaw and its spatial variability. To answer this question, which also relates to risks for ecology, society, and health, we perform systematic model simulations of various soil-permafrost cases combined with different surface-warming trends. Results show that both the prevalence and the thaw of permafrost depended strongly on local soil conditions and varied greatly with these for the same temperature conditions at the surface. Greater ice contents and depth extents, but also greater subsurface volumes thawing at depth under warming, are found for peat soils than other studied soil/rock formations. As such, more thaw-driven regime shifts in wetland/lake ecosystems, and associated releases of previously frozen carbon and pathogens, may be expected under the same surface warming for peatlands than other soil conditions. Such risks may also increase in fast permafrost thaw in mineral soils, with only small thaw-protection effects indicated in the present simulations for possible desertification enhancement of mineral soil covers.


[1] Since the middle 1950s, neutron monitors have provided a continuous record of the intensity of secondary atmospheric particles produced by the primary cosmic radiation above the atmosphere. The number of counts due to these secondary particles is related to the primary spectrum above the atmosphere through the so-called atmospheric yield function. This yield function includes the secondary particles produced in the atmosphere, as well as inside the particular detector. In this paper the primary focus is to recalculate the yield function for neutron monitors. The motivation for this study is that the quality of the experimental observations has increased to such an extent that it has become possible to reduce uncertainties in the yield function down to approximately 10%. It thus becomes possible to refine our knowledge of the atmospheric cascade process considerably. We parameterize the yield functions in a simple way; we also make reference to the yield and response functions of muon, Cherenkov and stratospheric balloon detectors, and we compare their response to that of the neutron monitors.


When concept drift occurs within streaming data, a streaming data classification framework needs to update the learning model to maintain its performance. Labeled samples required for training a new model are often unavailable immediately in real world applications. This delay of labels might negatively impact the performance of traditional streaming data classification frameworks. To solve this problem, we propose Sliding Reservoir Approach for Delayed Labeling (SRADL). By combining chunk based semisupervised learning with a novel approach to manage labeled data, SRADL does not need to wait for the labeling process to finish before updating the learning model. Experiments with two delayed-label scenarios show that SRADL improves prediction performance over the naïve approach by as much as 7.5% in certain cases. The most gain comes from 18-chunk labeling delay time with continuous labeling delivery scenario in real world data experiments.


Power Two Wheel (PTW) riders comprise a vulnerable road user category as they exhibit high risk rates compared to other drivers, as well as high severity rates. This in combination with the increase of the riding population calls for effective measures towards improving PTW road safety. A prerequisite for the design of such measures is the understanding of accident causation factors, an element of which is PTW risky behaviour. The present study investigates PTW risky behaviour using verbal methods. In particular, it employs already established methodologies to identify PTW rider patterns, attitudes and risky behaviour. Within this study, the hypothesis that the riding population can be divided into two distinct groups namely, commuters and sports riders, that exhibit different behaviour is also tested. This hypothesis does not seem to be confirmed by the findings of the study, and results indicate that a Greek sports rider may also be a commuter.


In this paper we briefly present ongoing research related to Intranets in order to define shortcomings and needs for further research. The ongoing research mainly focuses on different aspects of: implementation, initiative, stakeholders, roles, and other organisational questions. A new Agenda is presented where some of the questions appearing in the state-of-the-art are categorized and presented as a suggestion for further research.


We present a paradigmatic method for exactly studying non-Markovian dynamics of a multi-level V-type atom interacting with a zero-temperature bosonic bath. Special attention is paid to the entanglement evolution and the dynamical non-Markovianity of a three-level V-type atom. We find that the entanglement negativity decays faster and non-Markovianity is smaller in the resonance regions than those in the non-resonance regions. More importantly, the quantum interference between the dynamical non-Markovianities induced by different transition channels is manifested, and the frequency domains for constructive and destructive interferences are found.


Shared care is becoming the most popular separation arrangement internationally. Yet, the evidence base on shared care remains thin in the UK with estimates of its prevalence varying between three and 17 per cent. Capturing a relatively new and evolving phenomenon such as shared care is a challenge for longitudinal surveys as much of their value is based on asking the same questions over time. This project explores how shared care is understood, negotiated and practiced by separated families, to assess the appropriateness of existing questions in Understanding Society in capturing the phenomenon, and to suggest changes where appropriate.


For a long time, a digital divide was given between young Web users and older population, which out of anxiety or incapability restrained from using the new technologies. Recently, the so-called "Silver Surfers" and "Digital Immigrants" tend to use the Web not only for sending emails but also increasingly for socializing on social media services (e.g., Kubler 2009; Frees & Koch 2015). This paper aims to discuss the differences in use and adoption of social media platforms between different generations. An online questionnaire was created and distributed among social media users of all ages. The results indicate that the older generations represented a not insignificant part of social media community. They often use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family, some apply Twitter and are fond of new followers and many re-tweets, and others just enjoy new videos on YouTube. There indeed appear to exist inter-generational differences in social media usage. In addition, data analysis leads to the conclusion that there are intra-generational gender-dependent particularities as well.


The ability to accurately quantify proteins in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues using targeted mass spectrometry opens exciting perspectives for biomarker discovery. We have developed and evaluated a selected reaction monitoring assay for the human receptor tyrosine-protein kinase erbB-2 (HER2) in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded breast tumors. Peptide candidates were identified using an untargeted mass spectrometry approach in relevant cell lines. A multiplexed assay was developed for the six best candidate peptides and evaluated for linearity, precision and lower limit of quantification. Results showed a linear response over a calibration range of 0.012 to 100 fmol on column (R: 0.99–1.00).The lower limit of quantification was 0.155 fmol on column for all peptides evaluated. The six HER2 peptides were quantified by selected reaction monitoring in a cohort of 40 archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissues from women with invasive breast carcinomas, which showed different levels of HER2 gene amplification as assessed by standard methods used in clinical pathology. The amounts of the six HER2 peptides were highly and significantly correlated with each other, indicating that peptide levels can be used as surrogates of protein amounts in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. After normalization for sample size, selected reaction monitoring peptide measurements were able to correctly predict 90% of cases based on HER2 amplification as defined by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and College of American Pathologists. In conclusion, the developed assay showed good analytical performance and a high agreement with immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization data. This study demonstrated that selected reaction monitoring allows to accurately quantify protein expression in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues and represents therefore a powerful approach for biomarker discovery studies. The untargeted mass spectrometry data is available via ProteomeXchange whereas the quantification data by selected reaction monitoring is available on the Panorama Public website. Molecular & Cellular Proteomics 14: 10.1074/mcp.O115.049049, 2786– 2799, 2015.


University of Florida The present essay reassesses the central narratives of that renowned Purāṇic 'glorification' (māhātmya) of Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa. In retelling the ancient stories pertaining to Śaiva Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa embeds itself within the authoritative tradition of Vārāṇasī māhātmyas, even while effecting an ambitious literary project: a radical reconfiguration of the Śaiva landscape of the city. This reconfiguration would seek to legitimize new Śaiva forms—most prominently, an imperial temple dedicated to Viśveśvara—while reconciling them with Vārāṇasī's existing Pāśupata infrastructure. Belying facile characterizations of Purāṇa as mere 'myth', the Kāśīkhaṇḍa composers took care in ensuring that the many, interwoven strands of its grand narrative of Vārāṇasī's past were purposefully linked to ideological concerns of the present. A close reading of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa's narrative strategies provokes a reevaluation of current scholarly understandings of Vārāṇasī history that view texts as imperfectly reflecting historical realities, rather than as actively constructing that very history.


We wished to analyze our initial experience with the Cardiatis Multilayer Stent for visceral artery aneurysms. Two males with a hepatic artery aneurysm (34 mm and 48 mm in diameter, respectively) were treated, via a percutaneous femoral approach, with multilayer stents. We deployed the stent in front of the aneurysm neck, covering the hepatic artery branches. At 12 months, a computed tomography scan showed thrombosis of the aneurysmal sac and patency of all the branches of the hepatic artery. The Multilayer Stent appears to be a viable alternative for the treatment of visceral artery aneurysms in patients at high surgical risk, but long-term follow-up is needed.  2011 Published by European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.


Background This study aims to estimate to what extent working conditions and health behaviours mediate the increased risk of low educated workers to report a poor health. Methods Respondents of the longitudinal Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in 18 European countries were selected aged between 50 years and 64 years, in paid employment at baseline and with information on education and self-rated health (n=15,126). Health behaviours and physical and psychosocial work characteristics were measured at baseline, while self-rated health was measured at 2 year follow up. We used loglinear regression models and Inverse Odds Weighting causal mediation analysis to estimate the total effect of low education on self-rated health and to decompose the effect into natural direct (NDE) and natural indirect effects (NIE). Results Lower educated workers were more likely to be in poor health compared to higher educated workers. The total effect of low education on self-rated health was RR=1.81 [95% CI 1.66–1.97]. For work conditions, having a physical demanding job was the strongest mediator, followed by lack of job control and lack of job rewards. NIE through working conditions was RR=1.16 [95% CI 1.06–1.25], explaining about 30% of educational inequalities in self-rated health. For health behaviour, body mass index and alcohol were the strongest mediators, followed by smoking. NIE though health behaviour was RR=1.14 [95% CI 1.07–1.20], explaining about 27% of educational inequalities in self-rated health. Conclusions Preventive interventions focusing on reducing physical work demands as well as improving health behaviour may contribute to reducing educational inequalities in self-rated health among workers in Europe.


Principle Topic The number of entrepreneurship classes at universities has grown rapidly in recent years. But (how) can such offers effectively motivate and qualify students for entrepreneurial careers? Empirical studies have shown a positive impact of taking entrepreneurship classes on students' entrepreneurial intentions (e.g. Souitaris et al., 2007; Peterman and Kennedy, 2003) but have not differentiated teaching styles and neglected the university and individual context. Teaching styles include active modes that emphasize active experimentation (e.g. business plan seminars) and reflective modes that emphasize reflective observation (e.g. lectures). This paper illuminates how the extent of entrepreneurship education within university departments influences students' entrepreneurial intentions (and its drivers as suggested by the theory of planned behavior: attitudes to the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control). Specifically, we argue that the effect of such education is not the same for all contexts, but is (1) contingent on its mode (active vs. reflective), (2) contingent on the regional context and (3) complemented by individual-level influences. Method We employed hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) on data from 1,959 male students, 65 university departments (engineering, computer science, business) and 30 regions. Results and Implications The study extends prior research by providing large-scale evidence that the supply with entrepreneurship education substantially raises entrepreneurial intentions. However, this effect is contingent on the mode and context of such education: Active modes directly affect intentions, whereas reflective modes were only effective in regions high in human capital density and start-up intensity. Parental role models but not work experience were positively related to intentions. Only role models affected all drivers of entrepreneurial intentions (attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control). In contrast, entrepreneurship education (alone or in interaction with the context) enhanced students' attitudes toward self-employment, while work experience was positively related to perceived behavioral control. The findings have important implications for entrepreneurship research and education.


We perform numerical simulations to study self-assembly of nanoparticles mediated by an elastic planar surface. We show how the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of these surfaces leads to anisotropic interactions between the particles resulting in aggregates having different geometrical features. The morphology of the patterns can be controlled by the mechanical properties of the surface and the strength of the particle adhesion. We use simple scaling arguments to understand the formation of the different structures, and we show how the adhering particles can cause the underlying elastic substrate to wrinkle if two of its opposite edges are clamped. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results and suggest how elastic surfaces could be used in nanofabrication.


SUMMARYForty honey bee eggs from two unrelated, similar-sized colonies were measured weekly from 1 June to 12 August 1990, in Ithaca, NY, USA. The eggs were obtained from a section of comb, containing both worker- and drone- sized cells, on which the queen was confined for 24 h. Egg length and width fluctuated significantly in both colonies throughout the experimental period. There was no statistical difference between sexes, and eggs destined to produce drones during the swarming season were not necessarily larger.Dry weights of drones were measured at 14-day intervals during spring (1990, Lake Placid, FL) and summer (1989 and 1990, Ithaca, NY), using a pool of 12–15 colonies. Weights varied significantly throughout all the sampling periods. The 1989 (NY) and 1990 (FL) data showed a tendency for drones to become lighter after swarming and heavier during swarming. The more extensive sampling in 1990 (NY) showed a mean drone dry weight varying from 56.86 mg to 30.71 mg, but there was no association with sw...


DNA methylation is a major epigenetic modification of the genome that has the potential to silence gene expression. Recently, the role of epigenetic alteration as a distinct and crucial mechanism to regulate genes governing cell proliferation in atherosclerosis has emerged. Aberrant methylation is related to aging, and, because it affects a large number of CpG islands, age-related methylation may be an important contributor to increased atherosclerosis among older individuals by upregulating atherosclerosis-susceptible genes and downregulating atherosclerosis-protective genes. Further dissection of epigenetic alterations in atherosclerosis and aging will lead to the identification of novel epigenetic modifiers and improved diagnosis and treatment for atherosclerosis-related diseases.


Hyperimmunoglobulin D syndrome is one of the autoinflammatory syndromes which are characterized by febrile attacks. Recently it is made possible to reach more reliable data by the possibilities that are opened up by molecular genetics to highlight the aetiopathogenesis of this group of diseases. Hyperimmunoglobulin D syndrome could present itself with a broad spectrum of symptoms. Although most of the Hyperimmunoglobulin D syndrome patients are reported from Europe and especially Dutch ancestry, case reports are presented from all over the world. Hyperimmunoglobulin D syndrome should be kept in mind for the differential diagnosis of periodic fever syndromes or before accepting an familial meditterinenan fever patient as colchichine-resistant.


The impacts of natural resource development projects have documented positive impacts on local communities, but there is much less evidence of long-term community impacts or benefits as development outcomes. Understanding these impacts of resource development projects on communities' livelihoods, stability and prosperity is fundamental to the achievement of sustainable development outcomes in rural communities in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as it plays an important role in the livelihoods of   rural population. To explore the relationship between natural resource-based development projects and    community livelihoods capacity as sustainable development outcomes, an interview data from 90 participants in two provinces of PNG associated with resource projects were collected and analyzed. Community livelihoods impacts were assessed using Likert Scale and thematic network analysis to determine impacts on development outcomes on stability and prosperity in the community. The findings demonstrated that the scale and levels of impacts on communities in terms of livelihoods assets-bases, stability and prosperity; were reflective and indicative of the form and nature of development projects in the region, and the difference in development stages of natural resource projects in each of the regions. Keywords: Natural resources projects, mining, agriculture, community livelihoods, sustainable development outcomes, stability, prosperity.


The distribution of the spinetail devil ray Mobula mobular in the eastern tropical Atlantic remains poorly known compared to the Pacific and Indian Oceans. We used fisherydependent data and generalized additive models to examine the environmental characteristics associated with the presence of M. mobular in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Results revealed that the distribution of M. mobular is significantly associated with seasonal upwelling systems in coastal and pelagic areas. Our model predicted the presence of the species in areas where there is evidence of its occurrence, such as the Angolan upwelling system and the coast of Ghana. In addition, our model predicted new hotspot areas, including locations around the Mauritanian upwelling system, the Guinea coast, offshore Ghana and the south coast of Angola and Brazil, where sample sizes are limited. Those areas, as well as the environmental preferences depicted by the model, provide valuable information about the habitat and ecology of the spinetail devil ray. Future research lines derived from this study, as well as its limitations, are discussed. Furthermore, in light of our results we discuss the improvements that are needed to contribute to the conservation and management of this vulnerable species.


The dielectric constant of TlInS2 crystal was measured in the temperature range including incommensurate (IC1 and IC2) and commensurate (C1 and C2) phase transitions under external bias electric field. It has been revealed that maxima in the temperature dependence of dielectric constant of TlInS2 at the C1 and C2 phase transition points shift to higher temperatures. The anomaly at IC2 transition point shifts to lower temperatures on applying the external electric fields. A new complete theoretical model including the presence of two order parameters and two polar sublattices in TlInS2 has been suggested.


Objective: To present the long-term results of hydrophilic dilatation catheter or steroid-coated hydrophilic dilatation catheter usage in the management of primary urethral stricture. Methods: Forty-one male patients with a diagnosis of primary urethral stricture shorter than 1.5 cm and no comorbities were included in this study. After application of internal uretrotomy, these patients were randomized into two groups. A steroid-coated (triamcinolone acetonide (1%) 18F hydrophilic dilatation catheter was applied to the patients in group 1 for 2 weeks and an 18F hydrophilic dilatation catheter was applied to the patients in group 2 for 2 weeks, and catheters were removed after 3 days. Uroflowmetry and recurrence rate was used in postoperative follow-ups. Results: Mean patient age  were respectively 45.1±8.0 and 47±8.8(68-29) years. Urethral stricture length was evaluated for group 1 7.4±4.0 mm and group 2 7.8±4.3 mm p:0.79. All patients uroflowmetry value (Q max) were followed up on 6,12,24 and 36 month and results were evaluated. Recurrence of urethral stricture was determined in 3 (13%) patients in group 1, and 3 (15%) patients in group 2 (p<0.05) and statisticaly significant. Conclusions: As an adjuvant treatment, this method is effortless, low in complications, and hopeful. Certainly, application to larger patient populations is needed to objectively accept its efficiency.


This paper investigates whether the quality of a firm's corporate governance practices and its sustainability disclosures are inversely related to its assessed default risk. It is expected that high reported standards of corporate governance will reduce the assessment of a company's default risk by lenders, underwriters and ratings agencies, and therefore reduce the cost of debt for such companies. A corporate governance index based on annual report disclosures was developed to rate each company's corporate governance quality. Derivation of this index was centred on corporate governance indicators suggested by prior research and best practice; particularly the Australian Stock Exchange "Principles of Good Corporate Governance and Best Practice Recommendations". It is similarly expected that the voluntary disclosure of sustainability information (Corporate Social Reporting or CSR) will enhance a firm's management reputation. The assessment of default risk is captured by a firm's individual credit rating supplied by Standard and Poor's. Our results indicate that neither annual report disclosures about corporate governance practices nor sustainability disclosures are significantly related to assessed default risk when firm size is controlled. Key words: corporate governance, sustainability, disclosure, default risk, credit rating JEL classifications: G32, G34, M14


Abstract. In this study, an application has been made in the field of agriculture over the internet of things that are frequently needed in our lives with the developing technology. Due to the increasing human population and consumption needs, countries have begun use agricultural areas and the energy used in agricultural areas more effectively. It is known that temperature and humidity values are critical in greenhouses used in agricultural areas. For this reason, the temperature and humidity values were measured from four different points of the greenhouse by wireless communication in the greenhouse and these values were sent to the main station, and then the greenhouse supervisors were given the opportunity to monitor instantly with Flutter. In addition, if the temperature in the greenhouse falls below the value determined by the responsible people, the greenhouse workers are warned with the help of an audible warning.