The exploration problem is a central issue in mobile robotics. A complete coverage is not practical if the environment is large with a few small hotspots, and the sampling cost is high. So, it is desirable to build robot teams that can coordinate to maximize sampling at these hotspots while minimizing resource costs, and consequently learn more accurately about properties of such environmental phenomena. An important issue in designing such teams is the exploration strategy. The contribution of this paper is in the evaluation of an adaptive exploration strategy called adaptive cluster sampling (ACS), which is demonstrated to reduce the resource costs (i.e., mission time and energy consumption) of a robot team, and yield more information about the environment by directing robot exploration towards hotspots. Due to the adaptive nature of the strategy, it is not obvious how the sampled data can be used to provide unbiased, low-variance estimates of the properties. This paper therefore discusses how estimators that are Rao-Blackwellized can be used to achieve low error. This paper also presents the first analysis of the characteristics of the environmental phenomena that favor the ACS strategy and estimators. Quantitative experimental results in a mineral prospecting task simulation show that our approach is more efficient in exploration by yielding more minerals and information with fewer resources and providing more precise mineral density estimates than previous methods.


We used data from VHF and GPS radio-tagged jaguars, Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) to quantify jaguar habitat selection and how adult individuals in the Upper Parana River region selected among the available habitat types. We followed the framework in which animals make decisions about resource use at hierarchical stages, namely selection of home range within a study area (second-order selection) and selection of patches within a home range (third-order selection). We quantified habitat preferences at two orders of selection with respect to habitat types and to test the null hypothesis that habitat utilization by jaguars was random at both study sites. Using compositional analysis, we assessed habitat selection by jaguars at second- and third-orders of selection. Jaguars consistently preferred dense marshes and primary forests, and avoided human-dominated areas such as intensively managed open pastures. Although the avoidance of disturbed and developed habitat types by jaguars is not surprising, this is the first study to document it. If small protected areas, such as the ones already existing in the Upper Parana region, are to sustain jaguar populations they, must include and protect as many primary forests and marshlands as possible, so that jaguars can disperse, hunt wild prey and take care of their cubs without being disturbed. What is urgently needed in these jaguar-protected areas is the creation of larger protected areas that can sustain jaguars in their favored habitat.


Hydrogels, water swollen polymer matrices, have been utilised in many biomedical applications, as there is the potential to manipulate the properties for a given application by changing the chemical structure of the constituent monomers The eye provides an excellent site to examne the interaction between a synthetic material and a complex biological fluid without invasive surgery. There is a need for the development of new synthetic hydrogels for use in the anterior eye, Three applications of hydrogels in the eye were considered in this thesis. For some patients, the only hope of any visual improvement lies in the use of an artificial cornea, or keratoprosthesis, Preliminary investigations of a series of simple homogeneous hydrogel copolymers revealed that the mechanical properties required to withstand surgery and in eye stresses, were not achieved This lead to work on the development of semi-interpenetrating polymer networks based on the aforementioned copolymers, Manufacture of the device and cell response were also studied. Lasers have been employed in ocular surgery to correct refractive defects. If an irregular surface is ablated, an irregular surface is obtained. A hydrogel system was investigated that could be applied to the eye prior to ablation to create a smooth surface. Factors that may influence ablation rate were explored, Soft contact lenses can be used as a probe to study the interaction between synthetic materials and the biological constituents of tears. This has lead to the development of many sensitive analytical techniques for protein and lipid deposition, one of which is fluorescence spectrophotometry. Various commercially available soft contact lenses were worn for different periods of time and then analysed for protein and lipid deposition using fluorescence spectrophotometry, The influence of water content, degree of ionicity and the lens material on the level and type of deposition was investigated.


Omalizumab is effective treatment for patients with severe asthma. It is reserved for patients with truly severe disease as it is expensive and associated with significant treatment burden. Identifying this small number of patients in problematic severe asthma (PSA) group is challenging. We evaluated the impact of multi-disciplinary severe asthma (SA) protocol on identifying those with severe disease and on potential use of omalizumab. After initial clinic visit, 19 patients aged between 6–15yrs with PSA underwent specialist nurse led SA protocol which included: assessment of clinical status, lung function, atopy, inhaler technique, asthma control test (ACT), quality of life (QoL); home visit for further assessment of environment, adherence and psychosocial comorbidities; school contact to address impact on education. Before SA protocol, 17/19 patients met criteria for use of omalizumab. After SA protocol, only 6(35%)were eligible as modifiable factors were identified in 11(65%). They included poor adherence, ongoing allergen exposure and psychological issues. 5/6 patients received omalizumab and 4(80%) improved. Of other 11 patients, clinical status improved in 6 (55%), unchanged but stable in 4(36%), worsened in 1(9%) after assessment. SA protocol identified modifiable factors in significant proportion of PSA children limiting omalizumab use to those with truly severe disease. Home visit assessment is essential to identify these factors which would otherwise be unrecognised. We hypothesise that proper recognition and management of these factors might not only ensure appropriate use of omalizumab but also improve its effectiveness.


Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a large scale network with from dozens to thousands tiny devices. Using fields of WSNs (military, health, smart home e.g.) has a large-scale and its usage areas increasing day by day. Secure issue of WSNs is an important research area and applications of WSN have some big security deficiencies. Intrusion Detection System is a second-line of the security mechanism for networks, and it is very important to integrity, confidentiality and availability. Intrusion Detection in WSNs is somewhat different from wired and non-energy constraint wireless network because WSN has some constraints influencing cyber security approaches and attack types. This paper is a survey describing attack types of WSNs intrusion detection approaches being against to this attack types.


IN OTHER JOURNALS . . . 449 THE PEOPLE'S RESEARCH PROJECT Each year Australians invest more than half a billion dollars in health and medical research, and it seems even this is not enough! A recent public opinion poll by Research Australia (a non-profit organisation dedicated to raising the profile of health and medical research) showed that most Australians not only consider such research to be vital, but also believe that government funding should be increased. Of some surprise is the finding that most Australians are prepared to pay an extra dollar on medical prescriptions provided that it is used for research. But what do Australians want for their money? At a recent "talkfest" on setting the agenda for health and medical research, a prominent academic offered the opinion that the public does not care, and that setting research priorities is the business of governments and the scientific community. Although challenged on his view, there is some truth in his assertion. Indeed, the National Health and Medical Research Council Strategic Plan 2003–2006 states that "the research priorities have been identified by Government, Council and major stockholders." Whether a major stockholder is the public is not clear. But, there is another idea. In his recent essay Set them free, Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and science commentator, argues that it is time to ask what the public wants and to address how money is spent according to agendas set by scientists and government bureaucracies. His solution? An experiment: devote one per cent of the annual research budget to "research of real interest to lay people, who pay for all publiclyfinanced research through taxes." The People's Research Project! Now there's a challenge for the National Health and Medical Research Council.


Across the United States, one in five children has or will have a serious mental illness. This project intended 1) to determine current efforts among rural school libraries and communities to promote mental health literacy, and 2) to determine rural school libraries' capacity to promote community health literacy. This project used a mixed method design, including activities such as a quantitative survey of mental health support administered to rural school librarians, counselors, and administrators; qualitative interviews and focus groups with rural school librarians, counselors, and administrators; environmental analyses of school libraries where best practices are happening.


Introduction: The LG Group commissioned NFER to undertake research to support local authorities by identifying a range of opportunities for local authorities and businesses to work together for mutual benefit. The research also aimed to identify and provide case studies of how local authorities have and can create linkages between their work to engage young people, economic development and business support to achieve improved outcomes for young people and employers. Findings The following nine themes emerged from the case study examples identified by the research. Simplify opportunities for the business community to work with young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). Engage local businesses in strategy development and designing offers for young people NEET. Use communication processes to create opportunities for young people NEET. Support planning officers to work with businesses to create opportunities for young people NEET. Research the local drivers causing young people to become NEET and develop better targeted support. Raise awareness of how businesses and employers can offer opportunities for young people NEET, and support them to provide such opportunities. Take advantage of new funding arrangements to develop innovative early interventions for young people NEET. Identify and use potential links between initiatives for vulnerable young people NEET, enterprise development and business support. Involve local businesses in careers information, advice and guidance in schools.


The number of devices with touch input such as smart phones, computers, and tablets has grown extensively in recent years. Native applications on these devices have access to this touch and gesture information and can provide a rich, interactive experience. Web applications, however, lack a consistent and uniform way to retrieve touch and gesture input. With the quality and robustness of web applications continually growing and replacing native applications in many areas, a way to access and harness touch input is critical. This paper proposes two JavaScript libraries that provide a reliable and easy way for web applications to use touch efficiently and effectively. First, getTjs abstracts the gathering of touch events for most mobile and desktop touch devices. GenGesjs, the second library, receives this information and identifies gestures based on the touch input. Web applications can have this gesture information pushed to them as it is received or instead request the most recent gestures when desired. An example of interfacing with both libraries is provided in the form of WebMol. WebMol is a web


Online and blended learning requires the reconstruction of instructor and learner roles, relations, and practices in many aspects. Assessment becomes an important issue in non-traditional learning environments. Assessment literacy, i.e., understanding assessment and assessment strategies, is critical for both instructors and students in creating online and blended environments that are effective for teaching and learning. Instructors need to identify and implement assessment strategies and methods appropriate to online or blended learning. This includes an understanding of the potential of a variety of technology tools for monitoring student learning and improving their teaching effectiveness. From the students perspective, good assessment practices can show them what is important to learn and how they should approach learning; hence, engaging them in goal-oriented and self-regulatory cognitions and behaviors. The book targets instructors, instructional designers, and educational leaders who are interested in understanding and implementing either summative or formative assessment in online and blended learning environments. This book will assist the relevant audience in the theory and practice of assessment in online and blended learning environments. Providing both a research and practice perspective, this book can help instructors make the connection between pedagogy and technology tools to maximize their teaching and student learning. Among the questions addressed in this book are: What assessment strategies can be used in online or blended learning? How can instructors design effective assessment strategies? What methods or technology tools can be used for assessment in online or blended learning? How does peer-assessment work in online or blended learning environments?


Prolapse of rectum usually occurs in the children with insufficient qi and blood, in the elders with declined qi and blood or deficiency of qi in the middle jiao (burner), in the women who made qi exhausted during labor resulting in deficiency of qi and blood, and in those with chronic diarrhea, habitual constipation and long-standing cough. All these may cause sinking of qi in middle jiao and induce the disorder. Therefore in treating the disorder, the primary causes should also be treated simultaneously.


Tissue repair is a highly dynamic process comprising the sequential phases of inflammation, tissue formation, and maturation. The mechanisms that orchestrate the natural sequence of the wound healing response remain elusive. Influx of macrophages plays a crucial role in tissue repair. However, the precise function of macrophages during the healing response has remained a subject of debate due to their functional dichotomy as effectors of both, tissue injury and repair. In this study the hypothesis was examined whether macrophages recruited during the diverse phases of skin repair after mechanical injury exert specific functions to restore tissue integrity. For this purpose a mouse model was developed that allows conditional depletion of macrophages during the sequential stages of the repair response by using the inducible diphtheria toxin receptor mouse model in combination with a myeloid cell-specific Cre mouse line. Depletion of macrophages restricted to the early stage of the repair response (inflammatory phase) significantly reduced the formation of a vascularized granulation tissue and showed impaired re-epithelialization. However, recruitment of macrophages during the mid phase of repair, after macrophage depletion was stopped, rescued the impaired healing response and resulted in minimized scar formation. In contrast, depletion of macrophages restricted to the mid stage of the repair response (phase of tissue formation) resulted in severe hemorrhages within the wound tissue. Under these conditions, transition into the subsequent phase of tissue maturation and wound closure did not occur. Finally, macrophage depletion restricted to the late stage of repair (phase of tissue maturation) did not significantly impact the outcome of the repair response. Taken together, these results demonstrate that macrophages exert distinct functions during the different phases of skin repair, which are crucial to control the natural sequence of repair events. Furthermore, the effect of macrophages on endothelial cell function and wound angiogenesis appeared to be critical. Therefore the impact of macrophage-derived vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) on the outcome of the wound healing response was analyzed, by using conditional gene targeting to specifically deplete VEGF-A expression in myeloid cells. It could be shown that during the early phase of repair, myeloid cell-derived VEGF-A is essential to induce the angiogenic response, in contrast, at later stages of the wound healing response epidermal-derived VEGF-A controls vascular growth. We further showed that myeloid cell-derived VEGF-A is critical for tip cell formation, a process fundamental for vascular sprouting. Collectively, our findings propose novel mechanistic insights on macrophage-mediated repair events after skin injury and potentially might identify new therapeutic targets that can promote wound angiogenesis in impaired wound healing conditions.


Within the vestibular system of virtually all vertebrate species, gravity and linear acceleration are detected via coupling of calcified masses to the cilia of mechanosensory hair cells. The mammalian ear contains thousands of minute biomineralized particles called otoconia, whereas the inner ear of teleost fish contains three large ear stones called otoliths that serve a similar function. Otoconia and otoliths are composed of calcium carbonate crystals condensed on a core protein lattice. Otoconin‐90 (Oc90) is the major matrix protein of mammalian and avian otoconia, while otolith matrix protein (OMP) is the most abundant matrix protein found in the otoliths of teleost fish. We have identified a novel gene, otoc1, which encodes the zebrafish ortholog of Oc90. Expression of otoc1 was detected in the ear between 15 hpf and 72 hpf, and was restricted primarily to the macula and the developing epithelial pillars of the semicircular canals. Expression of otoc1 was also detected in epiphysis, optic stalk, midbrain, diencephalon, flexural organ, and spinal cord. During embryogenesis, expression of otoc1 mRNA preceded the appearance of omp‐1 transcripts. Knockdown of otoc1 mRNA translation with antisense morpholinos produced a variety of aberrant otolith phenotypes. Our results suggest that Otoc1 may serve to nucleate calcium carbonate mineralization of aragonitic otoliths. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2008


There is a lot of effort directed toward realizing the power network of the future. The future power network is expected to depend on a large number of renewable energy resources connected directly to the low and medium voltage power network. Demand side management (DSM) is an important element for reaching this goal. Demand side management is concerned with actions that reshape the energy consumption pattern for the end-users during peak time or during times when consumption exceeds generation. To control and coordinate the operation of the network with these new characteristics efficiently and with a certain degree of reliability, intelligent coordination approaches are required. The intermittency and variability of renewable energy resources, the large number of distributed consumption and generation units, and the local operation constraints for these units should be considered when designing the appropriate control and coordination systems. Agent-based systems are proposed and being implemented to control and coordinate the operation of different entities inside the future power network. By using agent technology we can satisfy the local constraints of different entities while simultaneously satisfying global goals by using coordination approaches for coordinating and adapting the agents' actions. Approaches developed rely on two control types for altering demand: price-based control (indirect control) and direct-load control. In this survey article we review previously and currently developed agent-based coordination approaches that depend on direct-load control for matching supply and demand in the power network of the future.


Over 53 nights of all sky airglow imager data collected during January-April 2012 from the low latitude station Kolhapur (16.68°N, 74.26°E; 10.6°N dip latitude) have been analyzed to study the F-region dynamics through the imaging of OI 630 nm emission line. The observed night airglow data were supported by the ionosonde measurements from Tirunelveli (8.7°N, 77.8°E; 0.51°N dip latitude). Well defined magnetic field aligned depletions were observed during the observation period. Out of 53 nights, 40 nights exhibited the occurrence of north-south aligned equatorial plasma bubbles. These plasma bubbles were found moving towards east with drift speed in range between 70 to 200 m s -1 . We have analyzed the zonal drift velocity variation and relation of bubble occurrence with the base height of the ionosphere together with the effects of the geomagnetic Ap and solar flux F 10.7 cm index in its first appearance.


On-the-fly laser machining is defined as a process that aims to generate pockets/patches on target components that are rotated or moved at a constant velocity. Since it is a nonintegrated process (i.e., linear/rotary stage system moving the part is independent of that of the laser), it can be deployed to/into large industrial installations to perform in situ machining, i.e., without the need of disassembly. This allows a high degree of flexibility in its applications (e.g., balancing) and can result in significant cost savings for the user (e.g., no dis(assembly) cost). This paper introduces the concept of on-the-fly laser machining encompassing models for generating user-defined ablated features as well as error budgeting to understand the sources of errors on this highly dynamic process. Additionally, the paper presents laser pulse placement strategies aimed at increasing the surface finish of the targeted component by reducing the area surface roughness that are possible for on-the-fly laser machining. The overall concept was validated by balancing a rotor system through ablation of different pocket shapes by the use of a Yb:YAG pulsed fiber laser. In this respect, first, two different laser pulse placement strategies (square and hexagonal) were introduced in this research and have been validated on Inconel 718 target material; thus, it was concluded that hexagonal pulse placement reduces surface roughness by up to 17% compared to the traditional square laser pulse placement. The concept of on-the-fly laser machining has been validated by ablating two different features (4 × 60 mm and 12 × 4 mm) on a rotative target part at constant speed (100 rpm and 86 rpm) with the scope of being balanced. The mass removal of the ablated features to enable online balancing has been achieved within < 4 mg of the predicted value. Additionally, the error modeling revealed that most of the uncertainties in the dimensions of the feature/pocket originate from the stability of the rotor speed, which led to the conclusion that for the same mass of material to be removed it is advisable to ablate features (pockets) with longer circumferential dimensions, i.e., stretched and shallower pockets rather than compact and deep.


TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is a major disease protein in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and related neurodegenerative diseases. Both the cytoplasmic accumulation of toxic ubiquitinated and hyperphosphorylated TDP-43 fragments and the loss of normal TDP-43 from the nucleus may contribute to the disease progression by impairing normal RNA and protein homeostasis. Therefore, both the removal of pathological protein and the rescue of TDP-43 mislocalization may be critical for halting or reversing TDP-43 proteinopathies. Here, we report poly(A)-binding protein nuclear 1 (PABPN1) as a novel TDP-43 interaction partner that acts as a potent suppressor of TDP-43 toxicity. Overexpression of full-length PABPN1 but not a truncated version lacking the nuclear localization signal protects from pathogenic TDP-43-mediated toxicity, promotes the degradation of pathological TDP-43 and restores normal solubility and nuclear localization of endogenous TDP-43. Reduced levels of PABPN1 enhances the phenotypes in several cell culture and Drosophila models of ALS and results in the cytoplasmic mislocalization of TDP-43. Moreover, PABPN1 rescues the dysregulated stress granule (SG) dynamics and facilitates the removal of persistent SGs in TDP-43-mediated disease conditions. These findings demonstrate a role for PABPN1 in rescuing several cytopathological features of TDP-43 proteinopathy by increasing the turnover of pathologic proteins.


Having experienced a period of crisis, the young scholars included in this anthology provide evidence that critical periods can be favorable to the flourishing of the social sciences and that crises in society and the polity may provide new incentives for the profession. The authors have used the most critical period of Brazil's change from a liberal to an authoritarian government to further their training in Europe and the United States, returning to their country to shed new light on past and current events. They have adapted their training to a non-liberal environment and combined local research with a universalistic orientation in their analyses of Brazilian social structure. This book investigates the roles of the peasantry in Brazilian society, past and present. It describes the pact established between traditional rural elites and the central government, which favored the previous populistic style of urban politics but left unaltered the rural social structure. In addition to analyzing the political trade-offs between the traditional elite and the central government, the authors focus on the class structure within which peasant leagues emerged. The country's political development is analyzed through a bi-polar political structure wherein populist and authoritarian regimes alternate in power. Other aspects of the military government's impact are discussed through the use of public policy models aimed at analyzing the output of both liberal and authoritarian regimes. Continuity between the current administration and previous authoritarian governments is shown as well as new developments, such as changes in municipal taxation, which allow for the emergence of new technical elites. The increase in authoritarian legislation is discussed within this analytical framework, as is the expansion of entrepreneurial activities. This book brings together the analytical result of recent research by a distinguished group of young Brazilian social scientists. It is ... the first book written in English about Brazil by Brazilians and, as such, represents an extremely important contribution to the literature ... An up-to-date selected bibliography on* social science research in Brazil from 1960-77 is an essential reference point for all future undertakings. Shepard Forman, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.


Counteracting Cannabis What is the role of steroid hormones in vulnerability to addiction? Working with rodents, Vallée et al. (p. 94) found that all major drugs of abuse (morphine, cocaine, alcohol, nicotine) increase neurosteroid levels, with the active ingredient in cannabis (THC) inducing a particularly large increase. THC and other drugs increased levels of pregnenolone, long thought to be an inactive precursor of downstream active steroids. Pregnenolone antagonized most of the known behavioral and somatic effects of THC. The universal precursor of steroid hormones acts as a negative allosteric modulator of cannabinoid receptors. Pregnenolone is considered the inactive precursor of all steroid hormones, and its potential functional effects have been largely uninvestigated. The administration of the main active principle of Cannabis sativa (marijuana), ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), substantially increases the synthesis of pregnenolone in the brain via activation of the type-1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptor. Pregnenolone then, acting as a signaling-specific inhibitor of the CB1 receptor, reduces several effects of THC. This negative feedback mediated by pregnenolone reveals a previously unknown paracrine/autocrine loop protecting the brain from CB1 receptor overactivation that could open an unforeseen approach for the treatment of cannabis intoxication and addiction.


The occurrence of inflectional middle voice in Modern Greek texts is motivated by diverse pragmatic pressures which are related to particular components of its semantic structure. The prototypical value of the semantic category instantiated by middle inflection comprises various internally complex components such as HIGH AFFECT and LOW VOLITION of a nonagentive subject, and LOW INDIVIDUATION of an agent-like source. The semantic component of HIGH AFFECT is shown to be analogous to the expressive function of Subject Enhancement, whereas the components of LOW VOLITION and LOW INDIVIDUATION are related to the textual strategy of Agent Defocusing. Both the semantic components and the pragmatic functions of middle voice are encompassed by more general speaker based strategies of foregrounding and/or backgrounding some element of a conceived situation; these strategies are shaped by subsystems of encyclopedic knowledge that are utilized in particular communicative contexts.


The maintenance of mountain environments and population is closely linked to the perpetuation of pastoral and craft skills. Wool - whose cycle is vital in mountain civilisation - has since millennia been a central livestock product and a raw material for handicraft in the valleys, having therefore a great value, both in term of use and exchange. Big industry is today excluding local European wool from the market; a EU regulation (no. 1774/2002) reduces it to special waste. In the 70s, wool processing cycle has been interpreted as a strategic tool for a re-conquest of mountains. The Charte pour la montagne, drawn up by the Longo mai collective, provides analysis and action lines resulting in the recovery of a spinning mill in the Briancon area. In this cultural environment, in 1989, the Atelier - Laines d'Europe is founded as an association of breeders, textile craftsmen, artists, educators, researchers and museum institutions engaged in the revival of local wool: they thus form a mutual support network creating local projects focused on the reuse of native sheep fibre and the experimentation for putting it in value.


The role of Emergency Management is to respond effectively to a major emergency that cannot be handled by the day to day independent services such as fire fighters, police, and medical response facilities. However, normal evolutionary processes typically make the ability to respond to disasters more difficult. This leads to long term decision and policy conflicts and incompatibilities about desirable goals, with implications for practitioners and system designers.


Single-cell genomics technologies enable multimodal profiling of millions of cells across temporal and spatial dimensions. Experimental limitations prevent the measurement of all-encompassing cellular states in their native temporal dynamics or spatial tissue niche. Optimal transport theory has emerged as a powerful tool to overcome such constraints, enabling the recovery of the original cellular context. However, most algorithmic implementations currently available have not kept up the pace with increasing dataset complexity, so that current methods are unable to incorporate multimodal information or scale to single-cell atlases. Here, we introduce multi-omics single-cell optimal transport (moscot), a general and scalable framework for optimal transport applications in single-cell genomics, supporting multimodality across all applications. We demonstrate moscot's ability to efficiently reconstruct developmental trajectories of 1.7 million cells of mouse embryos across 20 time points and identify driver genes for first heart field formation. The moscot formulation can be used to transport cells across spatial dimensions as well: To demonstrate this, we enrich spatial transcriptomics datasets by mapping multimodal information from single-cell profiles in a mouse liver sample, and align multiple coronal sections of the mouse brain. We then present moscot.spatiotemporal, a new approach that leverages gene expression across spatial and temporal dimensions to uncover the spatiotemporal dynamics of mouse embryogenesis. Finally, we disentangle lineage relationships in a novel murine, time-resolved pancreas development dataset using paired measurements of gene expression and chromatin accessibility, finding evidence for a shared ancestry between delta and epsilon cells. Moscot is available as an easy-to-use, open-source python package with extensive documentation at https://moscot-tools.org.


Research on the relationship between technology dynamics and Public Administration (PA) began some years ago and was inspired by the realization that technological development has produced a far-reaching interaction with PA. It is emphasized how technological development and PA influence each other, as investments are managed by public agencies. There are some branches of PA that heavily rely on technology for their activities; such as the defense sector, the space agencies, the agencies for environmental protection, and those that are responsible for food control and safety and so on. Some technological advancements have found fertile ground in PA. The impact of technologies such as ICT or space technologies on PA is from a political and social point of view the most important. The adoption of such technologies can make it possible to offer more services to citizens. The adoption of new technologies can also enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the bureaucratic apparatus and can even influence positively the mechanisms of political representation. The most interesting applications of technology are those relating to earth observations because these are able to strengthen enormously security and transportation systems, to foster the development of some production activities such as agriculture and fishing, and to improve air navigation and territorial control systems. The contributions included in this work revolve around the application of ICT in the activities and structures of PA of some European countries. In particular, these contributions discuss the various development stages of the implementation of e-government as well as the different actors of PA itself.


Groups of unknown order are of major interest due to their applications including time-lock puzzles, verifiable delay functions, and accumulators. In this paper we focus on trustless setup: in this setting, the most popular unknown-order group construction is ideal class groups of imaginary quadratic fields. We argue that the full impact of Sutherland's generic group-order algorithm has not been recognised in this context, and show that group sizes currently being proposed in practice (namely, approximately 830 bits) do not meet the claimed security level. Instead, we claim that random group orders should be at least 3300 bits to meet a 128-bit security level. For ideal class groups this leads to discriminants of around 6656 bits, which are much larger than desirable. One drawback of class groups is that current approaches require approximately $2\log_2(N)$ bits to represent an element in a group of order N. We provide two solutions to mitigate this blow-up in the size of representations. First, we explain how an idea of Bleichenbacher can be used to compress class group elements to $(3/2)\log_2(N)$ bits. Second, we note that using Jacobians of hyperelliptic curves (in other words, class groups of quadratic function fields) allows efficient compression to the optimal element representation size of $\log_2(N)$ bits. We discuss point-counting approaches for hyperelliptic curves and argue that genus-3 curves are secure in the trustless unknown-order setting. We conclude that in practice, Jacobians of hyperelliptic curves are more efficient in practice than ideal class groups at the same security level -- both in the group operation and in the size of the element representation.


This article argues that the Icelandic legendary saga Áns saga bogsveigis was written as a complementary Egils saga with an alternative outcome, one in which it is not the aggressive tyrant who wins, but the farmers. To achieve this, the author uses an option that Egill's family did not have, because it was humiliating: The hero plays the wretched fool; consequently, he is not taken seriously, and therefore he can build up power in secret until he is able to defeat the king. At the same time, Áns saga seems to be a twist on Þorsteins þáttr bǿjarmagns, which seems to be a twist on the myth of Þórr's visit to Útgarða-Loki. In the myth, the superhumanly strong hero is unexpectedly humiliated, because his opponent controls what he sees. In Þorsteins þáttr, the hero turns the tables, because he controls what his opponent sees. In Áns saga, the herculean hero chooses to be humiliated, and this is why he unexpectedly wins.


With the failure of Dennard's law, which stated that shrinking transistors will be more power-efficient, computer hardware has today become very divergent. Initially the change only concerned the number of processor on a chip (multicores), but has today further escalated into complex heterogeneous system with non-intuitive properties – properties that can improve performance and power consumption but also strain the programmer expected to develop on them. Answering these challenges is the OpenMP task-parallel model – a programming model that simplifies writing parallel software. Our focus in the thesis has been to explore performance and quality-of-service directions of the OpenMP task-parallel model, particularly by taking architectural features into account. The first question tackled is: what capabilities does existing state of the art runtime-systems have and how do they perform? We empirically evaluated the performance of several modern task-parallel runtime-systems. Performance and power-consumption was measured through the use of benchmarks and we show that the two primary causes for bottlenecks in modern runtime-systems lies in either the task management overheads or how tasks are being distributed across processors. Next, we consider quality-of-service improvements in task-parallel runtime-systems. Striving to improve execution performance, current state of the art runtime-systems seldom take dynamic architectural features such as temperature into account when deciding how work should be distributed across the processors, which can lead to overheating. We developed and evaluated two strategies for thermal-awareness in task-parallel runtime-systems. The first improves performance when the computer system is constrained by temperature while the second strategy strives to reduce temperature while meeting soft real-time objectives. We end the thesis by focusing on performance. Here we introduce our original contribution called B LYSK – a prototype OpenMP framework created exclusively for performance research. We found that overheads in current runtime-systems can be expensive, which often lead to performance degradation. We introduce a novel way of preserving task-graphs throughout application runs: task-graphs are recorded, identified and optimized the first time an OpenMP application is executed and are later re-used in following executions, removing unnecessary overheads. Our proposed solution can nearly double the performance compared with other state of the art runtimesystems. Performance can also be improved through heterogeneity. Today, manufacturers are placing processors with different capabilities on the same chip. Because they are different, their power-consuming characteristics and performance differ. Heterogeneity adds another dimension to the multiprocessing problem: how should work be distributed across the heterogeneous processors? We evaluated the performance of existing, homogeneous scheduling algorithms and found them to be an ill-match for heterogeneous systems. We proposed a novel scheduling algorithm


Data mining consists of evolving set of techniques that can be used to extract valuable information and knowledge from massive volumes of data. Data mining research & tools have focused on commercial sector applications. Only a fewer data mining research have focused on scientific data. This paper aims at further data mining study on scientific data. This paper highlights the data mining techniques applied to mine for surface changes over time (e.g. Earthquake rupture). The data mining techniques help researchers to predict the changes in the intensity of volcanoes. This paper uses predictive statistical models that can be applied to areas such as seismic activity , the spreading of fire. The basic problem in this class of systems is unobservable dynamics with respect to earthquakes. The space-time patterns associated with time, location and magnitude of the sudden events from the force threshold are observable. This paper highlights the observable space time earthquake patterns from unobservable dynamics using data mining techniques, pattern recognition and ensemble forecasting. Thus this paper gives insight on how data mining can be applied in finding the consequences of earthquakes and hence alerting the public.


We estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty program – the Uruguayan PANES – on political support for the government that implemented it. The program mainly consisted of a monthly cash transfer for a period of roughly two and half years. Using the discontinuity in program assignment based on a pre-treatment score, we find that beneficiary households are 21 to 28 percentage points more likely to favor the current government (relative to the previous government). Impacts on political support are larger among poorer households and for those near the center of the political spectrum, consistent with the probabilistic voting model in political economy. Effects persist after the cash transfer program ends. We estimate that the annual cost of increasing government political support by 1 percentage point is roughly 0.9% of annual government social expenditures.


Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates for use as reinforcements in next generation structural composite materials because of their extremely high specific stiffness and strength. They cannot, however, be viewed as simple replacements for carbon fibers because there are key differences between these materials in areas such as handling, processing, and matrix design. It is impossible to know for certain that CNT composites will represent a significant advance over carbon fiber composites before these various factors have been optimized, which is an extremely costly and time intensive process. This work attempts to place an upper bound on CNT composite mechanical properties by performing molecular dynamics simulations on idealized model systems with a reactive forcefield that permits modeling of both elastic deformations and fracture. Amorphous carbon (AC) was chosen for the matrix material in this work because of its structural simplicity and physical compatibility with the CNT fillers. It is also much stiffer and stronger than typical engineering polymer matrices. Three different arrangements of CNTs in the simulation cell have been investigated: a single-wall nanotube (SWNT) array, a multi-wall nanotube (MWNT) array, and a SWNT bundle system. The SWNT and MWNT array systems are clearly idealizations, but the SWNT bundle system is a step closer to real systems in which individual tubes aggregate into large assemblies. The effect of chemical crosslinking on composite properties is modeled by adding bonds between the CNTs and AC. The balance between weakening the CNTs and improving fiber-matrix load transfer is explored by systematically varying the extent of crosslinking. It is, of course, impossible to capture the full range of deformation and fracture processes that occur in real materials with even the largest atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. With this limitation in mind, the simulation results reported here provide a plausible upper limit on achievable CNT composite properties and yield some insight on the influence of processing conditions on the mechanical properties of CNT composites.


Gives an overview of COVERS 3.0-a Microsoft Windows-based modeling and simulation environment for concurrent real-time systems. COVERS offers an object-oriented modeling methodology based on C++ and the Statecharts behavioral notation. Timed transition systems are used as a model semantics. COVERS enables the user to perform the whole modeling and simulation cycle within a single graphical environment, where every bit of the specification is animated and accessible. Extendible libraries of frequently used objects are supplied, as well as models of classical systems for educational purposes. COVERS 3.0 is free software, available over the Internet for non-commercial use.


The rabbit rectus femoris muscle was evaluated as a potential model for skeletal muscle reperfusion injury studies. Six white New Zealand rabbits were used. On one randomly selected hind limb, ischemia was induced by direct clamping of the rectus femoris muscle's vascular pedicle. On the other side, blood flow was interrupted by clamping the femoral artery above and below the origin of the vascular pedicle that supplies the rectus femoris muscle. The duration of normothermic ischemia was 4 hr and was followed by 24 hr of normothermic reperfusion. The interruption and restoration of blood flow was monitored using a laser flow meter. The rectus femoris muscles were weighed on a suspension spring balance prior to ischemia and at the end of reperfusion to estimate edema. The extent of muscle necrosis was determined using planimetry following staining with nitroblue tetrazolium. The muscle necrosis obtained by direct clamping of the vascular pedicle (66.9 +/- 14.3%) was significantly greater than that obtained by indirect clamping (18.6 +/- 11.4%) (P < 0.03 by t test). Unlike the indirect clamping technique, direct clamping achieved a good magnitude of muscle necrosis, thus allowing that specific model to be used in skeletal muscle reperfusion injury studies. The muscle weight gain observed in the direct clamping muscle group was 19.8 +/- 9.0% and was significantly greater than that observed in the opposite group being 6.3 +/- 6.5% (P < 0.05 by t test). The rabbit rectus femoris muscle is a suitable model for evaluating skeletal muscle reperfusion injury provided that direct clamping of the vascular pedicle is utilized.


Regionally extensive dacite-andesite and rhyodacite porphyries within the mid-Paleozoic flyschlike fill of the Hill End Trough of New South Wales have characteristics that are consistent with their being lava flows: conformable, no crosscutting relationships; planar coherent, irregular autobrecciated and quenched margins; vesicular; internally coherent and not vitriclastic; internally uniformly porphyritic and not zoned; and observable topographic influence on the character of succeeding stratigraphic units. The relatively deep marine environment that is inferred from the flyschlike nature of the enveloping stratigraphic succession may be responsible for the regionally extensive character of these lavas. Although subaerial equivalents are demonstrably viscous and immobile, subaqueously erupted and emplaced silicic lavas may behave fluidly and may be highly mobile because of the inability of volatiles to escape under conditions of high environmental (water) pressures.


In recent years, hashing methods have been proved efficient for large-scale Web media search. However, existing general hashing methods have limited discriminative power for describing fine-grained objects that share similar overall appearance but have subtle difference. To solve this problem, we for the first time introduce attention mechanism to the learning of hashing codes. Specifically, we propose a novel deep hashing model, named deep saliency hashing (DSaH), which automatically mines salient regions and learns semantic-preserving hashing codes simultaneously. DSaH is a two-step end-to-end model consisting of an attention network and a hashing network. Our loss function contains three basic components, including the semantic loss, the saliency loss, and the quantization loss. The saliency loss guides the attention network to mine discriminative regions from pairs of images. We conduct extensive experiments on both fine-grained and general retrieval datasets for performance evaluation. Experimental results on Oxford Flowers-17 and Stanford Dogs-120 demonstrate that our DSaH performs the best for fine-grained retrieval task and beats the existing best retrieval performance (DPSH) by approximately 12%. DSaH also outperforms several state-of-the-art hashing methods on general datasets, including CIFAR-10 and NUS-WIDE.


Teflon polishing is compared with pitch polishing as a method for achieving supersmooth and flat optical surfaces. Because a Teflon lap wears slowly, it will retain its surface shape to produce extremely flat optical surfaces, lambda/100, consistently and reliably for extended periods of time, of the order of days. To compare the two methods, we polished 50-mm-diameter samples of various optical materials, using colloidal suspensions in water on both pitch and Teflon laps under the same polishing conditions. Flatness was maintained to better than lambda/10, and roughness less than 10 A rms was measured on all samples by two Talystep surface-profiling instruments, one in the United States and one in Australia, with excellent agreement between measurements made by the two instruments. It was possible to obtain flat andsmooth surfaces (<4-A rms roughness) on all materials (except for F4, flint glass), but only certain combinations of material, abrasive, and lap could be used to give the correct polishing conditions and s rface chemistry.


Russian Symbolist Theater Michael Green 2013-05-28 Although by writers better known for their verse and narrative prose, the plays of the Symbolists were not intended, like the dramatic poems of the Romantics, for the study rather than the stage. Instead, they are highly theatrical creations in a new style that demanded a new style of production. Meyerhold played a decisive role in the new Symbolist theatre and it was his production of Blok's The Puppet Show in Komissarzhevskaya's Theatre that launched the new direction in Russian drama. Among the works collected here are the plays The Puppet Show and The Rose and the Cross (Blok), The Triumph of Death (Sologub), The Comedy of Alexis and The Venetian Madcaps (Kuzmin), Thamyris Kitharodos (Annensky), and The Tragedy of Judas (Remizov) and essays by Briusov, Blok, Ivanov, Bely, Sologub, and Andreyev. Rounding out this essential anthology are Michael Green's general introduction, as well as insightful prefaces for each writer, placing the plays and essays into their cultural and historical contexts.


The discrepancies in the provision of quality health care services and adherence to patient safety in Illinois have been widely reported. This study investigated the situation by analyzing the available data with an objective of identifying the factors associated with poor patient safety and quality profile in the region. The impact of poor patient safety and quality was also investigated. Finally, strategies necessary for patient safety and quality enhancement in the region were identified. The study was carried out using a qualitative method based on case study approach. The study analyzed a total of 93 patient records in 5 hospitals in Illinois and 50 online case studies from 5 different databases recorded between the year 2006 and 2015. The data collection for this study was done from April 16, 2016 to April 29, 2016. The study results identified insufficient and unqualified workforce, lack of adequate equipment and patient-related factors to be associated with poor quality and patient safety to a significantly varying degree (P<0.05). Patient confidence, worsening of the clinical condition, trauma and occurrence of death were identified as some of the impacts of poor patient safety and quality. The study finally identified timely response to patient need, responsible leadership, adoption of advanced technology, collaboration with other health institutions and reduction of error as important strategies in patient safety and quality enhancement.


Most commercial films are hybrid, at the boundaries of two or more genres. Literary adaptations, furthermore, seemingly straddle two media and their study crosses disciplines. Analysis here of Jude (Winterbottom, 1996) examines paratextual and peritextual features to account for its emergence and subsequent fortunes. These involve not only directorial vision, conscious conflation of filmmaking styles, and 'fidelity' or otherwise to its 'source', but conjunction of particular taste formations, conflicting commercial strategies, contrasting audiences and modes of address, and yoking together of institutional models, each with its distinctive ethos, of financing, production, and distribution. Like any text, Jude is a contingent product of time and place. Its disappointing takings, despite critical praise and enduring admiration, are, this paper contends, explained by its positioning at the boundary of two markets; months earlier this would have been refreshing and radical, but in the brief period between conception and release its commercial context altered irrevocably.


A highly transparent barrier rib was investigated for use in a transparent ac plasma display panel. SU-8 photoresist is an appropriate material for a highly transparent barrier rib because it absorbs only a small amount of light and provides a simple fabrication method for a rectangular barrier rib. SU-8 photoresist barrier rib had a problem with reliability because it can be damaged by the plasma. Therefore, a silicon dioxide layer covered the SU-8 photoresist barrier rib for protection. Using this method, we obtained a highly transparent barrier rib with a long lifetime and a transmittance level of approximately 90%.


A debated question in the literature is the degree of anatomical and functional lateralization of the executive control processes sub-served by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during recognition memory retrieval. We investigated if transient inhibition and excitation of the left and right DLPFC at retrieval by means of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) modulate recognition memory performance in 100 healthy controls (HCs) and in eight patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Recognition memory tasks of faces, buildings, and words were used in different experiments. rTMS-inhibition of the right DLPFC enhanced recognition memory in both HCs and MCIs. rTMS-excitation of the same region in HCs deteriorated memory performance. Inhibition of the right DLPFC could modulate the excitability of a network of brain regions, in the ipsilateral as well as in the contralateral hemisphere, enhancing function in HCs or restoring an adaptive equilibrium in MCI.


Catastrophic health events are natural or man-made incidents that result in casualty numbers that overwhelm the immediate response capabilities of healthcare systems. These events overpower hospitals even when the latter trigger contingency capacity surges that are usually sufficient to deal with regular disasters. We seek to build effective location-allocation plans for the overwhelming number of casualties expected in these events by using alternative care facilities to address surge capacity issues and incorporating triage and the movement of self-evacuees for effective treatment allocation. We first tailor and apply our framework in a deterministic location-allocation model for catastrophic radiological incidents, which are events whereby the release of radioactive material leads to significant consequences to people, the environment, and facilities. We formulate a mixed integer linear programming model to locate alternative care facilities, allocate casualties for triage, and allocate triaged casualties for treatment to minimize the total weighted casualty transportation time. The model is applied to the study of two separate radiological dispersal device incidents, both based on Department of Homeland Security's National Planning Scenario 11. We generate the optimal plan for each incident and use sensitivity analyses to draw insights on facility budgeting and triage capacity allocation at hospitals. These insights lead to some response planning rules of thumb. With the above model as a basis, we incorporate data uncertainties, using probabilistically distributed scenarios, and the time sensitivity of information to create a three-stage stochastic programming location-allocation model for general catastrophic health events. In the first stage, the model locates alternative care facilities prior to any scenario realization. In the second stage, it allocates casualties for triage, given initial damage scenarios involving uncertainties in casualty demands, transportation times, and numbers of self-evacuees. In the third stage, it allocates casualties for treatment, given triage scenarios and initial damage scenarios. Model solution time increases exponentially with the number of binary location variables. Given that large solution times are unacceptable in disaster response, we propose an algorithm based on Benders' decomposition to obtain good solutions fast. The algorithm uses valid inequalities to reduce feasibility cuts, flow cover inequalities to generate stronger cuts, and perturbed dual subproblems to reduce the effect of degeneracy. We implement the model and algorithm in the case study of an earthquake situation in the southernmost part of the San Andreas Fault. We compare the effectiveness of our algorithm to classical Benders' decomposition and perform sensitivity analyses on facility budgets and capacities to obtain interesting insights.


Social media protest networks involve many participants, from long-time activists to individuals who are engaged only in a particular protest event. We propose a new approach to studying how various communities of users participate in protest events. Our approach combines two methodological innovations. First, rather than study tweets central to one event, we collect full timelines of user activity leading up to participation in a focal event. Second, we propose bi-spectral clustering as a scalable computational method for rapidly identifying communities of users by the words (hashtags) they use. Using a large sample of tweets from users who discussed the 2016 protests in Charlotte, North Carolina following the extrajudicial killing of Keith Lamont Scott as a case study, we demonstrate how bi-spectral clustering can be applied to sort, sample, and identify ideologically and thematically coherent clusters whose members participated in the protest on Twitter. Our proposed approach provides another tool in the mixed methods scholar's toolkit to computationally sort and cluster large-scale network data by allowing researchers to look beyond focal hashtags or keywords and situate protest messages within the broader communication context of participating users.


This work examines the use of a small number of naturally-derived materials as scaffolds, specifically for bone tissue engineering. Damaged bone is typically replaced with grafts, and second only to blood, bone is the most transplanted tissue [1]. The ability to produce autologous grafts from patients' own cells using an engineered scaffold would therefore be extremely valuable. This thesis reports the design and use of microparticle cell carriers for bone tissue engineering applications, as potential injectable or mouldable units. The suitability of silk fibroin (SF) and gelatin (G) blends as biomaterials was tested in two-dimensional cultures, using 3T3 fibroblasts and rat MSCs (rMSCs). The blends (25:75, 50:50 and 75:25) were shown to be biocompatible and with appropriate mechanical properties for bone tissue engineering with Young's moduli between 36 and 59 MPa. The SF/G blends supported the osteodifferentiation of rMSCs at levels equivalent to tissue culture plastic. Although SF alone did not strongly support cell attachment, the cells that did adhere showed high levels of osteodifferentiation, measured by osteopontin expression. The inclusion of gelatin significantly improved cell attachment while retaining the ability of the SF/G blends to support osteodifferentiation. Novel microparticles were created from the same SF/G blends in a reproducible, controllable manner using a flow focussing device assembled from commercially available fittings. Cell behaviour on the 3D scaffolds mimicked the results observed on 2D films: cell adhesion was significantly improved by the addition of gelatin with the seeding efficiency of 3T3 fibroblasts increasing from 25% on SF microparticles to 69 – 81% on the blended microparticles. Osteogenic differentiation of rMSCs was observed on SF/G 25:75 microparticles in both basal and osteogenic medium, and osteopontin expression was shown to be slightly higher than for rMSCs grown on commercially available Cultispher-S microparticles. Although attempts were made to mould the particles into larger 3D structure, successful preliminary results could not be repeated. Adapting the flow focussing device from liquid-liquid to a liquid-air system allowed the rapid production of oxidised alginate microparticles, blended with extracellular matrix proteins, and with encapsulated cells. These microparticle scaffolds were also shown to support cell viability (75% of rMSCs were viable after 7 days) and osteogenic differentiation. With the potential to easily encapsulate different proteins or ECM extracts, alginate-blended microparticles are potentially useful tools for culture of different cell types. Finally, the culture of microparticles within a hollow fibre bioreactor, with the hollow fibre mimicking blood capillaries, was shown to improve cell viability compared to a non-perfused control: 20 times more 3T3 fibroblasts were harvested from the bioreactor than from the control. This showed the potential for using the hollow fibre bioreactor to rapidly produce large, viable, tissue engineered constructs in vitro.


Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that simplifies network management by decoupling the control plane and data plane, such that switches become simple data forwarding devices and network management is controlled by logically centralized servers. In SDN-enabled networks, network flow is managed by a set of associated rules that are maintained by switches in their local Ternary Content Addressable Memories (TCAMs) which support high-speed parallel lookup on wildcard patterns. Since TCAM is an expensive hardware and extremely power-hungry, each switch has only limited TCAM space and it is inefficient and even infeasible to maintain all rules at local switches. On the other hand, if we eliminate TCAM occupation by forwarding all packets to the centralized controller for processing, it results in a long delay and heavy processing burden on the controller. In this paper, we strive for the fine balance between rule caching and remote packet processing by formulating a minimum weighted flow provisioning ( MWFP) problem with an objective of minimizing the total cost of TCAM occupation and remote packet processing. We propose an efficient offline algorithm if the network traffic is given, otherwise, we propose two online algorithms with guaranteed competitive ratios. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments by simulations using real network traffic traces. The simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms can significantly reduce the total cost of remote controller processing and TCAM occupation, and the solutions obtained are nearly optimal.


This Article deals with one section of the CWA, section 303, and its implications for flow-impaired streams and related policy issues. While the CWA's main thrust is controlling pollution from 'point sources' through a system of permits and technology-based effluent limits, section 303 takes a different approach, focusing on the quality of individual waterbodies and requiring corrective steps for each one that falls below standards. Section 303 addresses not only point source discharges, but other human activities that affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters, including pollution from non-point sources, and perhaps even flow impairment. Thus, more than any other part of the CWA, section 303 may help bridge the management gap between water quality and quantity. Section 303 provides a means of making real progress in addressing the problem of flow-impaired streams, but it is not the complete answer. Part II deals generally with the CWA's potential to regulate water quantity-specifically, its ability to affect water allocations and uses that are generally governed by state law. Part III briefly reviews the text and implementing regulations of section 303, emphasizing their requirements for protecting and restoring the quality of individual waterbodies. Part IV looks specifically at how EPA and the states have applied-or more commonly, declined to apply-these section 303 requirements to flow-impaired streams. Part V examines the legal and policy rationale for addressing flow impairment problems under section 303, and offers suggestions on how EPA and the states can begin to make progress toward resolving these problems.


This article claims that congressional authority over civil rights is linked to an American rights-based tradition. It traces that tradition from the Revolution, through Reconstruction, and onto today. Contrary to scholars like Rogers Smith and Larry Yackle, I claim that a fairly stable national ethos, which can be traced to the founding documents, has played a vital role in centuries of civil rights development. The principle of liberal equality, lying at the core of the Fourteenth Amendment, is essential to developing national civil rights policies. Part II of the article discusses the concepts of liberty and equality during the revolutionary period. Emphasis is given to the early understanding of the national statements of purpose in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. That part also discusses the constitutional compromises that failed to achieve the stated ends of national government. Part III turns to several abolitionist views on the existence of a national obligation to protect rights. Those constitutional theories became influential during debates on the ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments, which granted Congress the power to pass laws securing rights intrinsic to national citizenship against arbitrary abuses. Debates on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, the subjects of Part IV, made the principle of equal rights enforceable through federal statutes. As Part V recounts, the Court variously restrained the reach of new congressional powers. The article concludes, in part VI, with a critique of recent Supreme Court decisions, such as United States v. Morrison and Board of Trustees v. Garrett, which have further limited congressional civil rights authority.


The 105th Congress has debated the decennial census sampling issue mainly in the appropriations process, beginning with FY1997 supplemental appropriations legislation for disaster relief. In FY1998 appropriations for Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies (CJS), the Senate (S. 1022) instructed the Bureau of the Census not to make "irreversible" Census 2000 sampling plans, while the House (H.R. 2267) sought a moratorium on these plans, pending expedited judicial review of their constitutionality and legality.


The scheme to propagate correlations between on-line and off-line state variables in atmospheric inversions using the fixed-lag Kalman smoother proposed in Bruhwiler et al. (2005) is explained as a process to impose a balanced constraint on the on-line state variables. It is then extended to the fixed-lag ensemble square root Kalman smoother and fixed-lag square root sigma-point Kalman smoother, allowing us to treat nonlinear observation operators easily. Further, to constrain the posterior fluxes within their feasible ranges, the constrained fixed-lag Kalman smoother is presented and the variable transform technique is proposed for the other two smoothers. Comparisons between various methods and observational data are conducted using a synthetic inversion of atmospheric CH 4 fluxes. The results indicate that our developed methods are good alternatives to existing methods for conducting sequential inversion of atmospheric trace gases. It is also shown that the benefit to include the correlations between on-line and off-line state variables is case dependent.


BACKGROUND
N-of-1 trials are within-patient, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over comparisons of two drugs for chronic illnesses. We have investigated the use of these, offered to doctors as individualised medication effectiveness tests (IMETs), as a tool to improve drug prescribing.

AIM
To examine patient perspectives and experiences of n-of-1 trials.

DESIGN OF STUDY
We provided n-of-1 trials for osteoarthritis (OA), comparing paracetamol and ibuprofen; and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), comparing dexamphetamine or methylphenidate and placebo. Patients or their carers were surveyed before and after the trials by questionnaire, and after the trial by semistructured interview with thematic analysis.

SETTING
Australian community-based patients and practitioners.

METHOD
Forty-two patients with OA and 21 carers of patients with ADHD, for whom the effectiveness of proposed or existing medication was uncertain, completed the questionnaires, and 25 patients/carers (11 with OA and 14 with ADHD) participated in semi-structured interviews.

RESULTS
Patients in this purposive sample were generally very satisfied with the n-of-1 trial process. Their participation led to increased knowledge, awareness and understanding of their condition, their bodies' response to it, and its management. Some of this arose specifically from use of daily symptom diaries. This led to a sense of empowerment and control as well as improved individually-focused care.

CONCLUSIONS
N-of-1 trials appeared to empower these patients as a result of both collecting information about their responses to different treatment options, and participating actively in subsequent therapeutic decisions. They are a patient-centred intervention that may improve medication management in suitable chronic diseases.


My study is an exploration of four women educators' experiences of living "openly" with HIV in their respective workplaces. All four women were from the different geographical demarcations ofthe Ethekweni region. I used in-depth interviews , as outlined by Seidman (1999), to learn more about the experiences of the four women. The key findings of my study were (l) the evidence of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV, (2) the inclusion of people living with HIV, shown by employers and colleagues and (3) the emergence of a new generation that is better informed, receptive and supporti ve of people living with HIV.


Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a condition characterized by elevated mean pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary vascular remodeling and secondary right heart failure. Mouse models are instrumental in understanding the pathophysiology of PAH and require precise methods to non‐invasively and longitudinally evaluate in vivo cardiac morphology and function. In this study we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure in vivo cardiac dimensions in mice with PAH. PAH was induced in C57BL/6 mice using 10% hypoxia and weekly, subcutaneous injections of 20 mg/kg of SU5416 for three weeks. Short axis images at 1 mm intervals from the base to the apex of the heart were collected by proton MRI with a fast low angle SHot (FLASH)‐cine sequence, TE: 2.11 ms and TR: 8 ms. Thirteen images were collected throughout each cardiac cycle. Measurements are presented of right ventricle (RV) lateral wall thickness and ejection fraction. RV wall thickness at the uppermost region of the ventricle was greater in PAH mice than control at end‐diastole (control, 0.30 + 0.05 mm, PAH; 0.48 + 0.06 mm, p< 0.01, n=6) but not different at end‐systole (control, 0.59 + 0.11 mm; PAH, 0.70 + 0.11 mm, n=6). RV ejection fraction was decreased in PAH mice (control, 71.9% + 2.5, PAH 57.6% + 5.4, p=0.04, n=6). These data demonstrate that MR imaging can detect right ventricle remodeling and cardiac dysfunction under in vivo conditions.


Lengths of flat copper conductor insulated with aromatic polyamid (aramid) tape or cellulose tape were bent into rings and secured around the edge of discs. Two discs were placed edge-to-edge in one plane and breakdown voltages were measured between the conductors. The conductor assemblies were dried under vacuum, impregnated and immersed in several low-flammability liquids at temperatures up to 180 degrees C under air. Comparisons were made with mineral oil which was tested up to 130 degrees C under nitrogen. With the discs set to provide a 1-mm liquid gap between the insulated conductors, the variation of breakdown voltage with temperature is limited to a few percent and values tend to their highest at 80 degrees C for both AC and lightning impulse. With the conductors in contact, alternating breakdown voltages vary little, whereas impulse voltages fall appreciably with temperature rise, especially for cellulose. >


Over the past decade or more, state policymakers have concentrated on putting the architecture of standardsbased reform in place: setting challenging academic content standards and performance standards for all students; and instituting compatible tests, incentives, and accountability systems to reinforce these ambitious outcomes. Many states and districts have also restructured their governance systems to delegate more authority to local decision-makers. But clearly defined learning goals and accountability systems do not by themselves yield continued improvement in student learning. Some states with high standards and related assessment and accountability programs in place are finding that their early gains in student achievement have plateaued in certain academic areas. Furthermore, achievement gaps between students from majority groups and those from minority groups continue to exist, and students with disabilities still have poorer educational outcomes than other students. Acknowledging that clear standards and strong incentives alone are not sufficient to dramatically change teaching and learning, policymakers and policy analysts have started to talk about and implement "capacitybuilding" strategies. "Capacity" in this policy context refers to the wherewithal needed to translate high standards and incentives into effective inby Diane Massell struction and strong student performance. This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs examines capacity-building strategies used in eight states, and analyzes their promise and continuing challenges. One way of defining capacity is to ask what elements are needed to support effective instruction. People often think of capacity in terms of teachers' knowledge and skills. But effective classrooms also require quality instructional materials and students motivated and ready to learn. And, classrooms exist within larger contexts—the school, the school district, and the state education system—that provide educational direction and leadership, and influence social norms as well as access to resources and knowledge. The capacity of classrooms and of organizations that support classrooms fall into seven areas we think are essential to generating improvement in teaching and learning. Disciplines Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Disability and Equity in Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Leadership | Education Policy | Teacher Education and Professional Development Comments View on the CPRE website. This policy brief is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_policybriefs/79


The law is a symbolic construction and therefore rests on a variety of undertakings. What gives law its meaning is, for some, ideology, for others, the welfare of the majority. However, what is manifest is a conception of the law as a material structure that carries symbols of everyday life. The analyses that are made in the law and semiotics movements show that the laws symbolism cannot be understood by reference only to itself, a strictly legal meaning. It is a symbol that conveys life, a symbol that in itself is contaminated with life, politics, morality and so on. Law and Semiotics is an obvious meeting point between traditions, because it is the place where all the discussions about the law can find a common language. This is a collection of different papers where the institution of the law is investigated, in combination with, and as part of, a multiplicity of sign systems. Firstly, law can be understood as part of a global system of meaning (Part I); and, secondly, that despite the homogenising threat of globalisation, the play of legal meaning retains a socio-historical specificity (Part II). The global issues of human migration, human rights, colonisation and transnational power are played out in local spaces, in the public discourses through which they are given localised representation, in moments of activism, and as a tool of subversion. The law is a rhetorical device which at once constitutes these global and local truths but which is also constituted by them.


Abstract. In the present study we compare the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) data with that obtained from operating sky-radiometer at a remote rural location in southern India (Gadanki, 13.45° N, 79.18° E) from April 2008 to March 2011. While the comparison between total (coarse mode + fine mode) AODs shows correlation coefficient (R) value of about 0.71 for Terra and 0.77 for Aqua, if one separates the AOD into fine and coarse mode, the comparison becomes very poor, particularly for fine mode with an R value of 0.44 for both Terra and Aqua. The coarse mode AOD derived from MODIS and sky-radiometer compare better with an R value of 0.74 for Terra and 0.66 for Aqua. The seasonal variation is also well captured by both ground-based and satellite measurements. It is shown that both the total AOD and fine mode AOD are significantly underestimated with slope of regression line 0.75 and 0.35 respectively, whereas the coarse mode AOD is overestimated with a slope value of 1.28 for Terra. Similar results are found for Aqua where the slope of the regression line for total AOD and fine mode AOD are 0.72 and 0.27 whereas 0.95 for coarse mode. The fine mode fraction derived from MODIS data is less than one-half of that derived from the sky-radiometer data. Based on these observations and comparison of single scattering albedo observed using sky-radiometer with that of MODIS aerosol models, we argue that the selection of aerosol types used in the MODIS retrieval algorithm may not be appropriate particularly in the case of southern India. Instead of selecting a moderately absorbing aerosol model (as being done currently in the MODIS retrieval) a more absorbing aerosol model could be a better fit for the fine mode aerosols, while reverse is true for the coarse mode aerosols, where instead of using "dust aerosols" which is relatively absorbing type, usage of coarse sea-salt particles which is less absorbing is more appropriate. However, not all the differences could be accounted based on aerosol model, other factors like errors in retrieval of surface reflectance may also be significant in causing underestimation of AOD by MODIS.


Two bacterial strains Ach-343 and Opo-235 were isolated, respectively from nodules of Miocene-Pliocene relict legumes Astragalus chorinensis Bunge and Oxytropis popoviana Peschkova originated from Buryatia (Baikal Lake region, Russia). For identification of these strains the sequencing of 16S rRNA (rrs) gene was used. Strain Opo-235 belonged to the species Mesorhizobium japonicum, while the strain Ach-343 was identified as M. kowhaii (100 and 99.9% rrs similarity with the type strains MAFF 303099T and ICMP 19512T, respectively). Symbiotic genes of these strains as well as some genes that promote plant growth (acdS, gibberellin- and auxin-synthesis related genes) were searched throughout the whole genome sequences. The sets of plant growth-promoting genes found were almost identical in both strains, whereas the sets of symbiotic genes were different and complemented each other with several nod, nif, and fix genes. Effects of mono- and co-inoculation of Astragalus sericeocanus, Oxytropis caespitosa, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Medicago sativa, and Trifolium pratense plants with the strains M. kowhaii Ach-343 and M. japonicum Opo-235 expressing fluorescent proteins mCherry (red) and EGFP (green) were studied in the gnotobiotic plant nodulation assay. It was shown that both strains had a wide range of host specificity, including species of different legume genera from two tribes (Galegeae and Trifolieae). The effects of co-microsymbionts on plants depended on the plant species and varied from decrease, no effect, to increase in the number of nodules, nitrogen-fixing activity and plant biomass. One of the reasons for this phenomenon may be the discovered complementarity in co-microsymbionts of symbiotic genes responsible for the specific modification of Nod-factors and nitrogenase activity. Localization and co-localization of the strains in nodules was confirmed by the confocal microscopy. Analysis of histological and ultrastructural organization of A. chorinensis and O. popoviana root nodules was performed. It can be concluded that the strains M. kowhaii Ach-343 and M. japonicum Opo-235 demonstrate lack of high symbiotic specificity that is characteristic for primitive legume-rhizobia systems. Further study of the root nodule bacteria having complementary sets of symbiotic genes will contribute to clarify the evolutionary paths of legume-rhizobia relationships and the mechanisms of effective integration between partners.


The current study utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the factor-to-factor relations and temporal associations between disturbances in negative affect (NA) and positive symptoms of psychosis (PP). Data were drawn from a large, public-domain data set (MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study). A dimensional approach was used to conceptualize and identify latent variables of NA (depression, anxiety, and guilt) and PP (hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder) among individuals with a diagnosis of primary psychotic disorder. Results showed that anxiety, guilt, and depressed mood modeled an NA latent variable, and that hallucinations and unusual thought content modeled a PP latent variable. As predicted, results revealed strong, significant cross-sectional (synchronous) associations between NA and PP at each measured time-frame, suggesting that NA and PP occurred concurrently within the sample. Contrary to predictions, no significant cross-lagged effect between NA and PP was identified (10 weeks and 20 weeks respectively).


Asynchronous stochastic algorithms with various variance reduction techniques (such as SVRG, S2GD, SAGA and q-SAGA) are popular in solving large scale learning problems. Recently, Reddi et al. (2015) proposed an unified variance reduction framework (i.e., HSAG) to analyze the asynchronous stochastic gradient optimization. However, the HSAG framework cannot incorporate the S2GD technique, the analysis of the HSAG framework is limited to the SVRG and SAGA techniques on the smooth convex optimization. They did not analyze other important various variance techniques (e.g., S2GD and q-SAGA) and other important optimization problems (e.g., convex optimization with non-smooth regularization and non-convex optimization with cardinality constraint). In this paper, we bridge this gap by using an unified q-memorization framework for various variance reduction techniques (including SVRG, S2GD, SAGA, q-SAGA) to analyze asynchronous stochastic algorithms for three important optimization problems. Specifically, based on the q-memorization framework, 1) we propose an asynchronous stochastic gradient hard thresholding algorithm with q-memorization (AsySGHT-qM) for the non-convex optimization with cardinality constraint, and prove that the convergence rate of AsySGHT-qM before reaching the inherent error induced by gradient hard thresholding methods is geometric. 2) We propose an asynchronous stochastic proximal gradient algorithm (AsySPG-qM) for the convex optimization with non-smooth regularization, and prove that AsySPG-qM can achieve a linear convergence rate. 3) We propose an asynchronous stochastic gradient descent algorithm (AsySGD-qM) for the general non-convex optimization problem, and prove that AsySGD-qM can achieve a sublinear convergence rate to stationary points. The experimental results on various large-scale datasets confirm the fast convergence of our AsySGHT-qM, AsySPG-qM and AsySGD-qM through concrete realizations of SVRG and SAGA. ©2020 Bin Gu, Wenhan Xian, Zhouyuan Huo, Cheng Deng, and Heng Huang. License: CC-BY 4.0, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Attribution requirements are provided at http://jmlr.org/papers/v21/18-434.html. Gu, Xian, Huo, Deng, and Huang


A mathematical model, based on a mesoscopic approach, describing the competition between tumor cells and immune system in terms of kinetic integro-differential equations is presented. Four interacting components are considered, representing, respectively, tumors cells, cells of the host environment, cells of the immune system, and interleukins, which are capable to modify the tumor-immune system interaction and to contribute to destroy tumor cells. The internal state variable (activity) measures the capability of a cell of prevailing in a binary interaction. Under suitable assumptions, a closed set of autonomous ordinary differential equations is then derived by a moment procedure and two three-dimensional reduced systems are obtained in some partial quasi-steady state approximations. Their qualitative analysis is finally performed, with particular attention to equilibria and their stability, bifurcations, and their meaning. Results are obtained on asymptotically autonomous dynamical systems, and also on the occurrence of a particular backward bifurcation.


Severability clauses can help administrative agencies minimize the damage caused by judicial review and can make the regulatory environment more efficient, participatory, and predictable. Yet agencies rarely include these clauses in their rules because courts tend to treat administrative rules with severability clauses the same as those without. Courts have treated administrative severability clauses in this way largely because they have mistakenly analogized them to severability clauses contained in statutes. While Congress routinely includes severability clauses in statutes that are drafted in distinct iterations, by different committees with legislative staff who often lack the time and expertise to consider the clauses' potential ramifications, administrative agencies use these clauses with more care. This Article proposes a Chevron-style deference framework for administrative severability clauses. Under this framework, after a reviewing court has set aside a challenged regulatory provision, the court should defer to a promulgating agency's opinion on severability as expressed through a severability clause, unless the remainder of the rule itself would suffer from legal defects resulting from the court's invalidation of the challenged provisions. This framework would better promote the overarching goals of administrative law than do current judicial doctrine and agency practice.


This paper uses a firm-specific method for measuring monopsonistic behavior developed by Brummund (2012) using data for Chilean manufacturing plants for the period 2001-2006. We find that there is significant heterogeneity in labor market power across plants and that nearly a quarter of the plants have a significant level of labor market power. It is also shown that individual plant characteristics explain more of the variation in monopsonistic behavior than do the characteristics of the accompanying labor market. These results are relevant for labor market policy since and suggest that a binding minimum wage could have ambiguous effects on welfare.


Background:One of the most frequent chronic disorders is hypothyroidism. It affects various organs including the salivary glands. It causes pathophysiological changes including xerostomia. Alpha lipoic acid (ALA) can provide health benefits through its role as a potent antioxidant, metal chelator and reducing agent of the oxidized forms of other antioxidants such as vitamins C and E. Aim: To estimate the influence of hypothyroidism on rat's parotid gland and to illuminate the possible curative role of alpha lipoic acid(ALA). Methodology: Thirty-six adult male rats were haphazardlyarranged into four groups; nine animals in each as follows: Group 1 (control group): 4 rats were givenpurified water (vehicle of carbimazole) for threeweeks, the other 5 rats were given a daily oral dose of 2ml /kg corn oil only (vehicle of ALA) for four weeks after initiation of hypothyroidism. Group 2 (ALA group): were given a daily oral dose of 60 mg /kg ALA dissolved in its vehicle for 4 weeks. Group 3 (hypothyroidinduced group): were givena daily oral dose of 1.35 mg/kg of carbimazole liquified in its vehicle for 3 weeks to induce hypothyroidism. Group 4 (hypothyroidALA group): were givena daily oral dose of 1.35 mg/kg of carbimazole for 3 weeks followed by a daily oral dose of 60 mg /kg ALA treatment for the consecutive 4 weeks.The animals were anaesthetized and slaughtered at the end of the experiment. Parotid glands were collected, and the specimens were prepared for light microscopic examination using Hematoxylin and Eosin and Masson's trichrome stains were used, Morphometric analysis using ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc testswas performed.Results: Hypothyroidism caused histopathological changes in the form of general cellular distortion, cytoplasmic vacuolations, cellular infiltration, blood vessels congestion and fibrosis and morphometric changes in the form of a significant increase of collagen fibres in hypothyroid group. Alpha lipoic acid succeeded to improve those changes. Conclusion: Hypothyroidism has destructive effects on the Parotid gland structure. Fortunately, it is recommended to take Alpha Lipoic Acid in hypothyroid cases to help in decreasingsuch effects.


The rapid growth of both the mobile and cloud computing industries heralds a trend towards the convergence of embedded and web technologies. While the client-side of today's mobile ecosystem is dominated by rich operating systems and relatively heavyweight application stacks, this trend raises the possibility of utilizing only web technologies on the client. Palm's WebOS and Google's Chrome OS are proof of the viability of such an approach. However, this approach has major security implications; the web is inherently a hostile environment. Recent advances in secure browser architectures have relied on operating system fundamentals and mechanisms, such as the separation of each web application into its own process and the creation of centralized "browser kernels ". Such techniques, in practice, still depend on an underlying rich OS for their implementation, with the resultant impact on security posture: the architecture is only as secure as the OS. An alternative approach is to implement the browser architecture on a microkernel, which has the potential to provide two advantages: the minimization of the trusted computing base (TCB), and the ability to strongly isolate components of the browser architecture by utilizing underlying security primitives (such as capabilities) in the implementation. This thesis provides the fundamental basis for the investigation of this concept. We port the WebKit browser architecture to OKL4 4.0, a third-generation microkernel that provides a capability-based security architecture, strong isolation between subsystems, and a minimal footprint. We prove the viability of the approach by displaying basic web pages on the implementation, using the Beagle Board development platform.


The influence of GaAs substrate on the transmission performance of a multi-film Fabry-Peerot filter (FPF), fabricated by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition epitaxial growth on GaAs substrate, is investigated using the transfer matrix method. On the basis of the theoretical simulation, we determine that the quality of the resonant transmission peak of this epitaxially grown FPF (EG-FPF) deteriorates through splitting when the substrate is taken into account. Rapid periodic oscillation of peak-transmittivity along with the alteration of substrate thickness is also observed in the simulation results. Finally, a remarkably improved transmission performance of the EG-FPF is obtained by thinning the substrate down to a suitable thickness range through well-controlled grinding and polishing.


We study the sources of racial disparities in income using anonymized longitudinal data covering nearly the entire U.S. population from 1989-2015. We document three results. First, black Americans and American Indians have much lower rates of upward mobility and higher rates of downward mobility than whites, leading to persistent disparities across generations. Conditional on parent income, the black-white income gap is driven by differences in wages and employment rates between black and white men; there are no such differences between black and white women. Hispanic Americans have rates of intergenerational mobility more similar to whites than blacks, leading the Hispanic-white income gap to shrink across generations. Second, differences in parental marital status, education, and wealth explain little of the black-white income gap conditional on parent income. Third, the black-white gap persists even among boys who grow up in the same neighborhood. Controlling for parental income, black boys have lower incomes in adulthood than white boys in 99% of Census tracts. The few areas with small black-white gaps tend to be low-poverty neighborhoods with low levels of racial bias among whites and high rates of father presence among blacks. Black males who move to such neighborhoods earlier in childhood have significantly better outcomes. However, fewer than 5% of black children grow up in such areas. Our findings suggest that reducing the black-white income gap will require efforts whose impacts cross neighborhood and class lines and increase upward mobility specifically for black men.