The literature on China's regional rise reveals divergent understandings of why China changed its regional strategy and when such a transformation occurred. There are also different understandings of the extent of China's power in the region—or more often, the extent to which US power in East Asia is already challenged by China's regional rise. Nevertheless, there is a consensus of sorts over how Chinese policy has changed with an emphasis on a combination of proactive diplomatic initiatives and ever increasing economic interactions. After providing a brief overview of the existing literature, the main part of this article considers the role of China's 'soft power' in reconfiguring power relationships in East Asia. It suggests that while the US might have lost some of its ideational appeal, it is through working within existing frameworks and 'norms' (rather than establishing new revisionist alternatives) that China has had most success in assuaging fears of the consequences of its rise. However, the way in which others conceive of China's rise and Chinese power (and subsequently act) does provide a form of 'non-hard' power that might help China's leaders attain their regional objectives particularly in light of the continuing global economic crisis.


We used two independent approaches, biometry and micrometeorology, to determine the net ecosystem production (NEP) of an old growth forest in Para, Brazil. Biometric inventories indicated that the forest was either a source or, at most, a modest sink of carbon from 1984 to 2000 (+0.8 ± 2 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1; a positive flux indicates carbon loss by the forest, a negative flux indicates carbon gain). Eddy covariance measurements of CO2 exchange were made from July 2000 to July 2001 using both open- and closed-path gas analyzers. The annual eddy covariance flux calculated without correcting for the underestimation of flux on calm nights indicated that the forest was a large carbon sink (−3.9 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1). This annual uptake is comparable to past reports from other Amazonian forests, which also were calculated without correcting for calm nights. The magnitude of the annual integral was relatively insensitive to the selection of open- versus closed-path gas analyzer, averaging time, detrending, and high-frequency correction. In contrast, the magnitude of the annual integral was highly sensitive to the treatment of calm nights, changing by over 4 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1 when a filter was used to replace the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) during nocturnal periods with u* < 0.2 m/s. Analyses of the relationship between nocturnal NEE and u* confirmed that the annual sum needs to be corrected for the effect of calm nights, which resulted in our best estimate of the annual flux (+0.4 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1). The observed sensitivity of the annual sum to theu* filter is far greater than has been previously reported for temperate and boreal forests. The annual carbon balance determined by eddy covariance is therefore less certain for tropical than temperate forests. Nonetheless, the biometric and micrometeorological measurements in tandem provide strong evidence that the forest was not a strong, persistent carbon sink during the study interval.


This paper utilizes panel data from rural India on a daily rated labour market to examine how workers deal with the uncertainty which arises from the existence of involuntary unemployment. In particular, it measures the relative explanatory power of the three models which the literature suggests should better fit the conditions prevailing in this market: the Expected Utility Model (EUM) with linear objective probabilities, the EUM with linear subjective probabilities and the EUM with non-linear subjective probabilities. The econometric analysis indicates that the EUM with linear has to be preferred to that with non-linear probabilities. Moreover, it supports the hypothesis that the decision making model is under uncertainty and that people work out their subjective probabilities through their past experiences. Finally, agents in the sample turn out to be risk-averse and not to have a positive reservation wage.


ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic urges us to rethink the analytical relations between China, Asia and other parts of the world. Many of what had appeared to be "Chinese characteristics" at the early stage of the outbreak turned out to be common phenomena worldwide. Apparently minor differences, such as the penetration rate of e-commerce, matter a great deal. This essay contributes to this intellectual remapping by proposing two arguments. First, the essay aims to explain the similar governmental reactions in China and other parts of the world—the initial reluctance followed by drastic lockdown—by pointing to the "gyroscope-economy" model that dominates many societies. The economy is structurally imbalanced and has thus become exceedingly dependent on the movements of people, goods and capital, much like a gyroscope, which cannot balance unless spun fast. Second, the essay examines several Chinese-specific characteristics of the gyroscope-like economy, namely the broad-based participation and the high growth rate coupled with low welfare provisions, competitiveness and precariousness. These features are attributable to a combination of hypermobility and authoritarianism. The pandemic may intertwine the two more deeply, in China and beyond.


In this paper, I propose that the Arabic-based migrant pidgin Gulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA) is shaped by the initial work
 environment of its speakers. My data consist of recordings of conversations with 16 GPA speakers living in Oman and the
 United Arab Emirates, who have learned the language working either as shopkeepers or as maids in private homes. By looking at the
 use of verb forms, I find that the maids use significantly more verbs derived from imperatives than the shopkeepers, and argue
 that this is the result of the social context in which they work. I then compare the speech of the maids to the speakers of Pidgin
 Madam (PM) in Lebanon, who work in a similar environment, and show that while these two varieties share the preponderance
 of imperative verbs, the feminine-derived forms which make up most of the verbal inventory of PM are comparatively rare
 in maids' GPA. I attribute this to the existence of similar yet distinct foreigner talk norms in the Gulf and in Lebanon,
 each of them reflecting the composition of the migrant population in their respective regions.


Jefferson Lab experiment E03-008 aimed to measure the J/ψ photoproduction cross section at energies sub-threshold to a free nucleon. Prior data extended only to just above threshold; the closest-to-threshold measurements come from Cornell and SLAC and provide data in the 9.3 to 21 GeV region. For E03-008, a mixed real and quasi-real bremsstrahlung photon beam with an endpoint energy of 5.76 GeV incident on a solid carbon target was used, allowing measurement for the first time in the sub-threshold region. The sub-threshold energy of the beam required momentum contributions from the nucleon target to bring the energy of the reaction up to threshold, thus providing an opportunity to probe higher order nucleon correlations within the nucleus as well as exotic mechanisms that may enhance the cross section. The aim of the analysis was to study the parametrization of the cross section near threshold and comment on the predictions made by theoretical models of the J/ψ photoproduction reaction mechanism. No J/ψ events were observed, a result which is consistent with predictions under the assumption of quasi-free photoproduction, and places restictions on exotic mechanisms that would strongly enhance quasi-free production.


We present a case study of the use of simulation modelling to develop and test strategies for managing populations under uncertainty. Strategies that meet a stock conservation criterion under a base case scenario are subjected to a set of robustness trials, including biased and highly variable abundance estimates and poaching. Strategy performance is assessed with respect to a conservation criterion, the revenues achieved and their variability. Strategies that harvest heavily, even when the population is apparently very large, perform badly in the robustness trials. Setting a threshold below which harvesting does not take place, and above which all individuals are harvested, does not provide effective protection against over‐harvesting. Strategies that rely on population growth rates rather than estimates of population size are more robust to biased estimates. The strategies that are most robust to uncertainty are simple, involving harvesting a relatively small proportion of the population each year. The simulation modelling approach to exploring harvesting strategies is suggested as a useful tool for the assessment of the performance of competing strategies under uncertainty.


Multiple-breath washout (MBW)-derived lung clearance index (LCI) is a sensitive measure of ventilation inhomogeneity in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), but LCI measurement is time consuming. We systematically assessed ways to shorten LCI measurements. In 68 school-aged children (44 with mild CF lung disease) three standard nitrogen (N2) MBWs were applied. We assessed repeatability and diagnostic performance of (1) LCI measured earlier from three MBW runs and (2) LCI measured at complete MBW (1/40th of starting N2 concentration) from two runs only. Compared with the standard LCI from three complete MBW runs, the new LCI based on three N2MBW runs until 1/20th, or two complete runs until 1/40th, provided similar or better repeatability as well as sensitivity and specificity for CF lung disease. Alternative ways to measure LCI reduced test duration in children with CF by 30% and 41%, respectively. LCI measurements can be reliably shortened in children. These new MBW protocols may advance the transition of LCI from research into clinical settings.


Editor's note: SEQURE is a trademark of The National Energy Technology Laboratory.

A critical component of the National Energy Technology Laboratory's Sequestration Program is the development of tools that can reliably monitor and quantify the amount of CO2 that leaks to the surface. One major requirement for the commercial application of geologic sequestration is accurate leak detection; i.e., leak monitoring and accurate estimation of leak volumes through continued monitoring. This is essential to assure that long-term sequestration is achieved. Significant leakage from the sequestration reservoir defeats the purpose of sequestration, which is to stabilize and then reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO2 for several hundreds to thousands of years. Multiple investigators have attempted to estimate the amount of leakage that is acceptable (e.g., Pacala, 2002; Hepple and Benson, 2002; Dooley and Wise, 2002; Herzog, 2002). Their estimates vary considerably, and range from 1% to 0.01% per annum which leads to leakage of 50% of the injected CO2 volume in 70 to 7000 years, respectively.


An Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to Nova Southeastern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Individualized Instruction as a Faculty Training Strategy for Technology Integration by Jennifer L. Merritt July 2017 It is inevitable that campus-based higher education will adopt some form of a hybrid learning approach. For schools and their faculty members, this means the acknowledgment and acceptance of these changes are required. Campus-based higher education faculty members wish to change how they teach courses due to societal demands to better suit the next generation of students. Initially, schools began offering new technology to faculty that wished to use the technology; however, over the years, due to the demands of competition with other schools and next generation, tech-savvy students entering academia, schools are starting to require the use of technology that was once only an option for faculty members. This implementation of incorporating technology into the classroom has faced several roadblocks because what was once considered a simple transition has become more complex due to faculty resistance to new technology, which stems from various limitations, barriers, and perceptions, such as low computer self-efficacy, high computer anxiety, and time to learn new technology. The purpose of this study was to understand how in-service faculty experience individualized training as a method of teaching faculty how to use the technology and integrate it into their courses. The lived experiences and perceptions of in-service faculty regarding individualized training were specifically focused on to determine how individualized instruction was perceived to help or hinder integrating technology into their courses. The focus was the experience Harper College and McLennan Community College's in-service faculty, who experienced training through the group training currently offered by the schools, as well as the proposed individualized training. Higher education faculty from general study areas, such as English, math, and science were invited to participate. The study consisted of a 6-week individualized training program for 12 in-service faculty members (seven completed the study) who previously participated in a group training program about Blackboard. The study was a phenomenological approach in that used interviews to gather information regarding the lived experiences as the basis of analysis. The data for this study were gathered, horizonalized, and analyzed through a 7step data processing method for phenomenology studies. After the data were analyzed, the findings show how developing a good individualized training program can help in-service faculty members not only integrate technology into their course designs but address any of the limitations or barriers the faculty faced. These findings coincide with the recommendations that training programs need to be developed into a phased approach in which the existing group training should continue but a secondary training program should be developed that incorporates andragogy-based principles and the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework.


Most of Doppler Radar systems are expensive to build and hard to take out for the testing.Therefore a portable and easy building Doppler Radar system has been implemented in recent years.For this thesis two Doppler radar systems which working in different frequency ranges (24 GHz and 2.4 GHz) shall be implemented with evaluating the possibilities regarding proximity sensing based on radar technology. There are two designs including. One is based on an 'all-in-one' chip from RF-beam Microwave and the other is based on components from Mini-Circuits.Those Radar kit were developed by using a frequency modulated continuous wave(FMCW) architecture.The radar works in three different modes:Doppler Time Intensity testing,Range Time Intensity and Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging.The whole system work with Matlab by recording the data.Doppler time intensity (DTI) plots with Doppler spectrum of passing vehicles and range-time intensity(RTI) plots with measuring the moving target versus time will be discussed.Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) image of urban terrain is acquired.


Some consultations make you think. Not infrequently in the sexual health clinic we see patients with recurrent genital herpes (herpes simplex virus (HSV)) or protracted anogenital human papilloma virus (HPV) infections who declare that their sexual lives are at an end or at least on indefinite hold. The emotional impact for such individuals is often devastating. In a culture that is risk averse, uncomfortable with the vagaries of chance, people still commonly blame those who pass on STIs. While many cope well emotionally, some carriers will choose celibacy rather than risk being a further link in this chain. It is possible that many more patients than we realise opt for sexual exile rather than be exposed to such moral censure. Compassion may move clinicians to challenge this decision. But should we? And how does one do so when to argue for any reduction in their sexual restraint is surely an argument for greater risk-taking with the health of others and a higher chance of ensuing harm?

In sexual health, we get used to telling people not to have sex. In fact, we get so used to it that we fail to notice the moral audacity, the scale of the presumption involved. Of course, we reassure ourselves that we do so because of our commitment to public health. Unlike most medical practitioners, we are charged not simply with the care of our patients but with an explicit concern for the protection of others who may be harmed through the passage of STD. The WHO has stated that "sexual rights protect all …


In his article "Positions of Sinophone Representation in Jin's (金庸) Chivalric Topography" Weijie Song examines Yong Jin's post-1949 Hong Kong chivalric imagination of imperial Beijing and beyond during the Ming-Qing Dynastic transition and the dialects of inclusive exclusion and exclusive inclusion. In Cold War Hong Kong, Jin charted a wide range of chivalric activities: intruding into the political center embodied by the Forbidden City (the "Great Within") and fleeing to peripheral regions such as Xinjiang's Islamic community, the overseas kingdom in Brunei in Southeast Asia, and an unknown place somewhere inside Yangzhou. Song argues that Jin's literary topography suggests a frustrated yet flexible identity and a supplementary yet self-sufficient "republic of letters" in his remapping of China's past for the possible positions of contemporary Sinophone representations. Weijie Song, "Positions of Sinophone Representation in Jin's (金庸) Chivalric Topography " page 2 of 8 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 17.1 (2015): <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol17/iss1/11> Thematic Issue The Study of Chinese Literature in the Anglophone World. Ed. Shunqing Cao


Most sectors of industry, commerce, and government have reported variation in the performance payoff from electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In this paper we build on surprisingly sparse literature regarding the importance of managerial discretion to show that the heterogeneity of beliefs held by managers about e-CRM execution matter when explaining e-CRM success. Drawing on a data sample comprising 50 interviews and 293 survey responses we utilise segmentation techniques to identify significant differences in managerial beliefs and then associate these belief segments with e-CRM performance. Results indicate that (1) three distinct types of managers can be identified based on the heterogeneity of their e-CRM beliefs: mindfully optimistic, mindfully realistic, and mindfully pessimistic; (2) that there is far less homogeneity at the individual firm level than is normally assumed in the literature; (3) that het-erogeneity in managerial beliefs is systematically associated with organisational performance; and (4) these results serve to remind practitioners that e-CRM performance is dependent upon the right balance between managerial optimism and realism.


Health care chaplaincy positions in Canada are significantly threatened due to widespread health care cutbacks. Yet the current time also presents a significant opportunity for spiritual care providers. This article argues that religion and spirituality in Canada are undergoing significant changes. The question for Canadian health care chaplains is, then: how well equipped are they to understand these changes in health care settings and to engage them? This article attempts to go part way toward an answer.


MOTIVATION
Alignment-free distance and similarity functions (AF functions, for short) are a well established alternative to pairwise and multiple sequence alignments for many genomic, metagenomic and epigenomic tasks. Due to data-intensive applications, the computation of AF functions is a Big Data problem, with the recent literature indicating that the development of fast and scalable algorithms computing AF functions is a high-priority task. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the increasing popularity of Big Data technologies in computational biology, the development of a Big Data platform for those tasks has not been pursued, possibly due to its complexity.

RESULTS
We fill this important gap by introducing FADE, the first extensible, efficient and scalable Spark platform for alignment-free genomic analysis. It supports natively eighteen of the best performing AF functions coming out of a recent hallmark benchmarking study. FADE development and potential impact comprises novel aspects of interest. Namely, (a) a considerable effort of distributed algorithms, the most tangible result being a much faster execution time of reference methods like MASH and FSWM; (b) a software design that makes FADE user-friendly and easily extendable by Spark non-specialists; (c) its ability to support data- and compute-intensive tasks. About this, we provide a novel and much needed analysis of how informative and robust AF functions are, in terms of the statistical significance of their output. Our findings naturally extend the ones of the highly regarded benchmarking study, since the functions that can really be used are reduced to a handful of the eighteen included in FADE.

AVAILABILITY
The software and the datasets are available at https://github.com/fpalini/fade.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Charter schools emerged in the early 1990's as a new idea for public school reform. Charter schools were presented as an alternative school choice option that can circumvent state and national bureaucratic controls that were perceived as hindering public schools reform efforts. The thinking behind the charter school idea is that the more autonomous a school is, the more the school will become an effective organization that is free to innovate and more attuned to the needs of the students (Chubb and Moe, 1990). In essence, charter schools have more independence and can allow parents and teachers to have greater say in how they are run. The "charter" establishing each such school is a performance contract detailing the school's goals. The charter may be granted by a local school board, a state board of education, or a public institution of higher education, depending upon the state. Within three to five years time, if the school's goals (fiscal and academic) are not met, then the school is at risk of losing its charter and can be forced to shut down. The charter school initiative emerged as part of the school choice movement that gained momentum after the publication of a study by The National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) in 1983 called "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform" that underlined key weaknesses in the American public schooling system (NCEE, 1983). By the mid 1980's, an increased number of parents began to take their children out of public schools and enroll them in alternative schools. Among the alternatives were magnet and charter schools. More controversial alternatives also emerged such as voucher based education and home schooling (Van Galen and Pittman, 1991). Minnesota passed the nation's first charter school law in 1991. Between 1991 and 2003 forty other states and the District of Columbia passed charter school laws. As of January 2007, 3,600 charter schools, enrolling more than 1 million students, were operating across the United States (Center for Education Reform, 2007). The diffusion of charter school laws across the United States happened rapidly. The speed of diffusion of innovation was calculated based on the average rate of diffusion (53 years) of 12 innovations examined by Gray (1973). Besides autonomy and choice, proponents of charter schools legislation note that charter schools are also designed to increase opportunities for learning and provide access to quality education for students, provide a system of accountability for results in public education, encourage innovative teaching practices, create new professional opportunities for teachers, and encourage community and parent involvement in public education (Chen, 2006). In order to avoid a situation where charter schools become segregated schools, the majority of states that passed charter school legislation also have provisions in the legislation that calls for racial integration. The legislation calls for either the state or a local education agencies to enforce the regulations (Frankenberg and Lee, 2003). It appears that charter schools, in general, are doing a good job in meeting many of their goals. A majority of studies on charter school reviewed by the Center for Education Reform (CER) between the mid 1990's and the Fall of 2000 show that "charters are doing the job they were designed to do, with 88 major reports now showing that charter schools are improving education for American kids" (CER 2003, 1). There are dissenting voices, however, that claim that although it is difficult to compare charter schools to public schools due to different educational approaches and enrollment mechanisms, careful analysis shows that there is no evidence that charter schools perform better than public schools (Frankenberg and Lee, 2003). On average, because many charter schools accept a higher percentage of low achieving public school students, charter schools students are not performing as well as public schools students on state and national tests (Collins, 2001; Toppo, 2002). …


Background Early RA diagnosis and timely treatment can improve patient outcomes. Markers are needed to identify patients with early disease who are at high-risk of joint damage progression. Current clinical and serological variables only explain approximately 32% of the risk1, underscoring the need for new disease specific markers that add to the rheumatologist's prognostic armamentarium. 14-3-3η is a mechanistic, joint-derived, serological marker that potently induces cytokines and joint damage factors, directly implicating it in RA disease pathophysiology. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine whether 14-3-3η serum levels are predictive of joint damage progression in this recent-onset polyarthritis cohort. Methods Serum 14-3-3η levels were measured at baseline in 33 patients with recent-onset polyarthritis (EPA) from the Sherbrooke EUPA cohort. Patients were rapidly treated with conventional DMARDs to achieve clinical remission; 3 also received biologic agents. Radiographic progression was defined as a change in Sharp/van der Heijde score (ΔSHS) ≥1 at 30 months. Differences in median 14-3-3η between progressors and non-progressors were analyzed by 2-tailed Mann-Whitney U-test. The relationship between serum 14-3-3η and radiographic progression was investigated by univariate analysis using 14-3-3η cut-offs selected as follows: the manufacturer's (Augurex 14-3-3η ELISA) reported diagnostic cut-off ≥0.19 ng/ml and 2X that,0.40 ng/ml. Stepwise multivariate analyses were performed to determine 14-3-3η's contribution to predicting joint damage progression amongst other clinical and serological variables, including titres of 14-3-3η, RF, CCP, CRP, ESR, together with age, gender and disease duration. Results Median age was 51 years and 70% were female. Twenty of the 33 (61%) patients progressed after 30 months while 13 did not. Progressors had a median (IQR) ΔSHS of 7.0 (3.3-12.8). 14-3-3η and RF median (IQR) levels at baseline were significantly higher in progressors than non-progressors [2.7ng/ml (0.1-15.9) vs. 0.1ng/ml (0.1–0.2), p=0.006] and [160 IU/ml (40-320) vs. 0 IU/ml (0–160), p=0.006]. Univariate analyses revealed that RF positivity was associated with radiographic progression; relative risk (RR) of 2.8 (95%CI: 1.1-7.6), p=0.035. 14-3-3η, at both cut-offs, was also associated with radiographic progression; ≥0.19 ng/ml, RR=2.0 (1.1-3.7), p=0.02; ≥0.40 ng/ml, and RR=2.2 (1.2-4.1), p=0.006, respectively. 14-3-3η titres were associated with joint damage progression, LR of 5.2, p=0.02. Stepwise multivariate analysis returned 14-3-3η titres (LR=5.6, p=0.02), ESR (LR=6.4, p=0.01), CRP (LR=4.6, p=0.03) and gender (LR=4.4, p=0.04) as independent predictors of radiographic progression, together informing 29.4% of the total variance (R2) in radiographic progression. When 14-3-3η titres were excluded, the R2 for ESR, CRP and gender was 16.8%, indicating that of the 4 significant variables, 14-3-3η accounted for 43% (12.6%/29.4%) of the model's predictive power. Conclusions Serum 14-3-3η in recent-onset polyarthritis was associated with an increased risk of joint damage progression at 30 months. When added to current prognostic markers, is 14-3-3η an independent predictor of radiographic progression adding 43% to their prognostic predictive power. References de Rooy DPC et al. Rheum. 2011. 50:93. Disclosure of Interest G. Boire: None declared, N. Carrier: None declared, A. de Brum-Fernandes: None declared, P. Liang: None declared, A. Masetto: None declared, Y. Gui Employee of: Augurex Life Sciences Corp, M. Murphy Employee of: Augurex Life Sciences Corp, W. Maksymowych Consultant for: Augurex Life Sciences Corp, A. Marotta Employee of: Augurex Life Sciences Corp DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3299


We have increased the precision of frequency-resolved hyper-Rayleigh scattering by measuring the full Fourier transform of the time-dependent hyper-Rayleigh scattering signal. We show that adding the measurement of the phase shift between the immediate hyper-Rayleigh scattering and time-delayed fluorescence to the measurement of the demodulation of the fluorescence increases the precision of the setup with up to one order of magnitude. We have used this increased precision to determine the impact of f-orbital filling on the first hyperpolarizability of four lanthanate complexes containing the hemicyanine 1 -hexadecyl-4- {2- [4- (dimethylamino)phenyl] ethenyl} pyridinium chromophore. A detailed analysis of the fitting equations is also given.


We investigate the ground-state properties of the highly degenerate noncoplanar phase of the classical bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice with Monte Carlo simulations. For that purpose, we introduce an Ising pseudospin representation of the ground states, and we use a simple Metropolis algorithm with local updates, as well as a powerful cluster algorithm. At sizes that can be sampled with local updates, the presence of long-range order is surprisingly combined with an algebraic decay of correlations and the complete disordering of the chirality. It is only thanks to the investigation of unusually large systems (containing similar to 10(8) spins) with cluster updates that the true asymptotic regime can be reached and that the system can be proven to consist of equivalent (i.e., equally ordered) sublattices. These large-scale simulations also demonstrate that the scalar chirality exhibits long-range order at zero temperature, implying that the system has to undergo a finite-temperature phase transition. Finally, we show that the average distance in the order parameter space, which has the structure of an infinite Cayley tree, remains remarkably small between any pair of points, even in the limit when the real space distance between them tends to infinity.


The Internet has become an essential part of our daily life, and companies realize that the Internet can be a shopping channel to reach existing and potential consumers. An online shopping system that permits a customer to submit online orders for items and/or services from a store that serves both walk-in customers and online customers. The online shopping system presents an online display of an order cutoff time and an associated delivery window for items selected by the customer. With this consensus Online Shopping as a whole has rapidly grown. The biggest surprise is that clothing is one of the top categories purchased online.
In this project with the better interactive features in clothing websites will boom sales over the internet? Here, the customer will be provided with an additional facility of determining the actual view by making him upload his photos in various angles and then matching the photos with cloths available, sorted as per his choices. Customer can also choose different range of wrist watches, glasses and caps and see that it match them perfectly on their uploaded photo or not.
In this project, the main aim is to demonstrate that with better interaction features in clothing web sites could improve sales over the net. With the help of the our project the customer will be able to view his choices on screen according to him and thereby can make better decisions


The United States Sentencing Guidelines treat convictions from tribal courts with little respect in determining a defendant's criminal history for purposes of federal sentencing. Unlike state and federal sentences, tribal court convictions are not routinely counted in evaluating criminal history. Because a tribal conviction reflects the normative judgment of the defendant's own community, such a conviction ought to be considered far more legitimate as a normative matter than a federal or state conviction. Therefore, it ought to be treated with at least as much status as a state and federal conviction. The Guidelines currently treat tribal courts like foreign courts. While this may seem, at first glance, to reflect respect for the unique sovereign status of Indian tribes, it actually seems to mask discrimination against tribal courts and it fails to appreciate the important place of tribal courts in American justice. Tribal courts have federally recognized criminal jurisdiction on American soil and they work hand-in-hand with federal and sometimes state authorities to exercise this authority. Tribes are simply more similar to state and federal courts than to foreign courts. True, the Constitution's Bill of Rights does not apply directly to Indian tribes, as the Supreme Court has held, because tribes predate the Constitution and are not parties to the constitutional compact. Nevertheless, other federal laws require tribal courts to function in a manner nearly identical to state and federal courts and require tribal courts to incorporate most of the individual rights protections found in the Bill of Rights. Given the inherent clash between American-style individual rights and traditional tribal communal values, the federally mandated respect for individual rights no doubt comes at great cost to tribal sovereignty and prevents tribal courts from acting as they might wish in certain cases. But since tribal courts must bear the burdens of behaving like other American courts, they are entitled to the same recognition and respect for their work that these other courts receive. The United States Sentencing Commission should take a lesson from the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the federal government and even from other independent federal regulatory agencies. Most of these actors have embraced policies favoring tribal self-determination that show great respect for tribal governments and their courts. The Commission should amend the guidelines to grant appropriate respect to tribal courts. This article is followed in the Federal Sentencing Reporter with brief comments by a federal court of appeals judge, two federal district court judges, and a federal public defender.


The civil-military interface in peace support operations is changing due to increasingly overlapping tasks, increased military involvement in humanitarian activities, and increased integration of all involved actors, not least through various current strategic concepts. This article not only describes these trends, but also, more importantly, analyses certain consequences in terms of mission effectiveness. The focus of the analysis is the ideas of 'militarisation of humanitarian aid' and the reverse 'humanitarianisation of the military'. The main arguments of this contribution are that the assumptions of increased effectiveness stemming from civil-military integration cannot be taken for granted and that there are harmful consequences stemming from blurring the lines between civilian, humanitarian and military actors. There is, in other words, a need to better specify and explain the causal mechanisms that lead to effectiveness in complex peace support operations.


Currently, it remains a great challenge to achieve all-solid-state supercapacitors with both high electrochemical performance and excellent stretchability because of the limitations of stretchable electrodes and solid-state electrolytes. Here, we developed all-solid-state supercapacitors by using aligned carbon nanotube/conducting polymer (Ag-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)–poly(styrenesulfonate)) composites as electrodes and polyvinyl alcohol-based electrolytes. The obtained all-solid-state supercapacitors not only exhibited a high specific capacitance of 64 mF cm−2 (corresponding to 85.3 F g−1), but could also maintain 98% of their original capacitance even under a tensile strain as high as 480%, which represents the highest value for thin-film all-solid-state supercapacitors using the same electrolyte to date, to the best of our knowledge. The newly developed thin-film supercapacitor maintained 90% of its original capacitance after 100 stretching cycles to a tensile strain of 400% and maintained 93% after stretching to 200% for 2000 cycles, indicating excellent stretching stability. The present work provides an efficient strategy to achieve highly stretchable energy storage devices with high performance.


Marine fish cage culture is a new emerging aquaculture
enterprise in Malaysia. Recently, it has been selected as one of the culture methods to be promoted in the Malaysian Aqua cultural
Development Programme. However, the present productivity of this
culture system seems low compared to its potential. Therefore.the objective of this studs to find ways to increase.
productivity of marine cage culture which could reduce per unit
cost of production, leading to improved profit.
This study explores the issue of relative economic
efficiency (which includes technical and price efficiency )
between the family unit and commercial farms, and the issue of
farmers' production behavior. The profit function approach is
used to achieve the objectives. The normalized restricted translog profit function is specified as a function of three
normalized prices of variable inputs (ie. fingerlings, feed and
labour), two fixed inputs ( ie. cage volume and experience ) and a
dummy variable to distinguish the family-unit and commercial farm
groups.
The result indicates that all sampled farms are not able to
maximise their short-term profit. This is because there is a
significant difference in relative economic efficiency between
family-unit and commercial farm groups. It is also revealed that
the family-unit farmers are not able to maximise their short-term
profit. This result reflects that they are not price efficient
because the ir efficiency in utilizing their feed resources. As a
result, they are not able to equate marginal product value of the
feed to its price. The reason is that they are not able to adopt
fully t h e new culture technology. On the other hand, the
commercial farmers maximize their profit and use their resources
efficiently. It is also found that the commercial farms possess a
superior technical efficiency as compared to the family-unit
farms. Besides, the commercial marine cage culture production
does not follow constant return stocale . In addition, the
translog functional form is found out to be more appropriate
than Cobb-Douglas form for data analysed.
The productivity and profitability of the family-unit marine
cage culture can be increased through improving price and
technical efficiency. While, the productivity and prof it can only be increased through enhancing technical efficiency for the
commercial farming. As such, it is recommended that marine cage
farming within the commercial size should be encouraged in
Peninsular Malaysia.


Leporids have long been known to reingest soft faeces. However, it was recently found that they regularly reingest hard faeces, too. During the daytime, both soft and hard faeces are defecated and all of the faeces are reingested. Excreted at night are the hard faeces, which are normally discarded but reingested in starvation. The separation mechanism in the proximal colon, which diverts fine particles into the caecum and thus only passes large food particles, produces hard faeces. When the mechanism ceases acting, fermented caecal materials are excreted as soft faeces. The reingestion of soft faeces, rich in vitamins and microbial proteins, is physiologically imperative. Hard faeces are basically a refuse, but their thorough mastication at reingestion reduces poorly digestible large particles to fine ones good for fermentation. The regular reingestion of daytime hard faeces thus promotes food digestibility. The temporary use of night-time hard faeces allows leporids to do without food for some time. It thus gives leporids behavioural flexibility and thereby an ecological advantage. Reingestion is also known in other small- to medium-sized herbivores, which are all caecal fermenters. Morphological differentiation between faeces is reported only in larger species, but all ingested faeces are found to be richer in nutrients than discarded ones. Thus a separation mechanism is probably present in all reingesting species. Reingestion activity is deeply related to other behavioural and physiological traits of small mammalian herbivores, hence its study is important to understanding of their ecology and biology. Leporids are the largest of the reingesting species except for the semi-aquatic Coypu, and reingestion by leporids is certainly the most sophisticated. This development of a reingestion-involved digestive system has probably brought them to their present niche, as terrestrial medium-sized generalist mammalian herbivores, and consequently made their characteristic hide-and-run lifeforms by exposing them to a strong predation pressure.


This paper serves to show the correlation between the habit of sniffing gum and the influences of the surrounding factors.The surrounding factors can be divided into two; parental influence and pressure as well as peer pressure. In order to attain the objective of this research, a cross-sectional survey was conducted on 30 male hostel occupants from Pokok Sena, Gajah Mati, Kedah.The respondents were between the ages of 10 to 18 year olds.Questionnaires were used to derive valuable information pertaining to the respondents' demographic details as well as their relationships with their family and friends.A pre-test was held to evaluate the trustworthiness of the questionnaires. The analysis indicated that 70% of the respondents lived with their parents, 16.7% lived with their mothers whereas
13.3% lived with their guardians.The analysis also revealed that 56.7% of its respondents were urban dwellers and were currently in primary schools.It also indicated that the respondents were given ample freedom by the parents and this
indirectly has become a contributing factor towards the gum sniffing habit among youngsters.As far as peers were concerned, this study found that many of the respondents were interested in sniffing gum if their friends introduced it to them.Besides that, many felt that there was no harm in trying out this habit.This study found that youngsters, who felt the pressure of staying at home, were more prone to loneliness and hence, found comfort in being with their friends and engaging themselves in anti-social activities. This study also revealed that adequate information and explanation has to be given to the youngsters and their families regarding the gum sniffing habit so that this problem can be handled and subsequently be reduced.


OBJECTIVES
To identify the ways in which fruits and vegetables are consumed by children, to provide estimates of their intakes compared with recommendations, and to estimate the percentage of children meeting those recommendations.

DESIGN
We examined 3 days of dietary data from respondents in the US Department of Agriculture's 1989-1991 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals. All foods reported in the survey were disaggregated into their component ingredients; all fruit and vegetable ingredients were assigned specific weights to correspond with a serving as defined by current dietary guidance materials; and the number of servings of each fruit and vegetable was tallied.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 3148 children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 years in the 48 conterminous United States.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Percentages of fruit and vegetable servings consumed in various forms, mean number of servings consumed per day, and percentage of persons meeting various recommendations by sex/age, race/ethnicity, and household income.

RESULTS
Nearly one quarter of all vegetables consumed by children and adolescents were french fries. Their intakes of all fruits and of dark green and/or deep yellow vegetables were very low compared with recommendations. Only one in five children consumed five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

CONCLUSION
Pediatricians should encourage the consumption of fruits and vegetables, especially dark green and deep yellow vegetables, by children.


Background: Although changes to gait are an important clinical feature of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), systematic analyses have not been well examined, especially in comparison to Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: The characteristics of gait in 20 PSP patients (14 males and 6 females) were evaluated in comparison to 124 PD patients (64 males and 60 females) and 24 controls, that is, healthy age-matched adults (5 males and 19 females). Gait in patients was recorded in a 10-m walking test at a self-selected speed. During this time, patients felt most comfortable while wearing a new portable triaxial accelerometer rhythmogram device. Gait variables among the 3 groups were compared. Results: Both PSP and PD patients shared the following similar hypokinetic gait characteristics: decreased velocity, step length, cadence and mean acceleration. Step time and variability in step time were mutually related. However, among the 3 groups, PSP patients showed characteristically low vertical displacement and a higher acceleration than PD patients at the same cadence. Conclusion: Although PSP and PD patients showed similar hypokinetic gait, a reduced vertical displacement characterized walking in PSP patients, differing substantially from the characteristics of walking displayed by PD patients.


Should bias crime perpetrators who, for personal gain, intentionally select victims from social groups that they perceive to be more vulnerable be punished similarly to typical bias crime perpetrators who are motivated by group hatred? In this Comment, I apply unfair advantage theory to argue that enhancing the punishment of opportunistic bias crimes is proper because of the perpetrators' motivations and the crimes' harmful effects. In its most basic form, unfair advantage theory justifies punishment based on the unfair advantage that criminals obtain over law-abiding members of society by violating the law. I contend that the enhanced punishment of opportunistic bias crimes is justified because the advantages that perpetrators obtain by committing them are greater than the advantages obtained from parallel crimes. In terms of motivation, I argue that opportunistic bias crimes warrant additional punishment because perpetrators unfairly and deliberately capitalize upon perceived disadvantages stemming from their victims' group membership. In terms of harmful effects, I argue that opportunistic bias crimes warrant additional punishment because such crimes perpetrate the belief that certain victims are easier crime targets because of disadvantages stemming from victims' group membership. Perpetuating this belief enables potential offenders to continue to profit unfairly from exploiting the perceived disadvantages tied to group membership by committing opportunistic bias crimes in the future. I also posit that the application of unfair advantage theory to defend the enhanced punishment of opportunistic bias crimes is supported by all three fundamental theories of punishment: retribution, utilitarianism, and denunciation.


The natural influx of leaf litter from a hardwood forest to sections of two spring seeps and a spring brook was excluded for two years and replaced with equivalent amounts of leaves from speeific tree species. Larval growth, mortality, and productivity, as well as the timing of emergence and the size of adults, were assessed in the naturally occurring populations of Soyedina carolinesis, and the differences related to differences in available food and in temperature among study sites. During the first experimental year, larvae fed only on sugar maple or chestnut oak leaves exhibited the same rate and magnitude of growth as larvae fed the natural mix of leaves collected from the surrounding forest. Larval growth rates and adult size seemed lower on monospecific diets of hickory, American beech, and red oak leaves relative to the natural, mixed leaf diets. Adult emergence occurred on or about the same date for most diets. Larval production ranged from 1382 to 5500 mgm_2yr-1; there was no correlation between larval growth rate and productivity on a given diet. During the second experimental year, most sites that had been supplied with single-species leaf diets during the first experimental year were provided with sugar maple leaves only. This was an attempt to evaluate site-to-site differences in habitat quality (other than diet) that might affect the growth performance of larvae. The amount of variation in larval growth rate and adult size among sites having a common diet was equal to or greater than among-site variation during the previous year, when each site differed in leaf diet. In the spring brook experiment, both diet and location within the brook exerted significant effects on larval growth rate and adult size. The results of the two-year experiment suggest that diet exerts some influence on the seasonal pattern and magnitude of larval growth. However, site-to-site differences in the seasonal pattern and magnitude of temperatures (especially during the December-February period) exhibited the best cor? relation with observed differences in larval growth and adult size.


Steel structural design is an integral part of the building construction process. So far, various methods of design have been applied in practice to satisfy the design requirements. This paper attempts to acquire the Differential Evolution Algorithms in automatization of specific synthesis and rationalization of design process. The capacity of the Differential Evolution Algorithms to deal with continuous and/or discrete optimization of steel structures is also demonstrated. The goal of this study is to propose an optimal design of steel frame structures using built-up I-sections and/or a combination of standard hot-rolled profiles. All optimized steel frame structures in this paper generated optimization solutions better than the original solution designed by the manufacturer. Taking the criteria regarding the quality and efficiency of the practical design into consideration, the produced optimal design with the Differential Evolution Algorithms can completely replace conventional design because of its excellent performance.


Summary A randomized controlled study of rituximab demonstrated that the drug protects pancreatic function in patients with acute-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus (AOT1DM). However, the mechanism of this protective effect is poorly understood. We examined the effects of rituximab in two patients with AOT1DM in the honeymoon period and the mechanism of these effects. Case 1 was a 40-year-old man and Case 2 was a 45-year-old man, both diagnosed with AOT1DM. Various tests indicated intact capacity for endogenous insulin secretion and that they were in the honeymoon phase of AOT1DM. Treatment with rituximab protected against pancreatic β-cell damage and maintained somewhat the endogenous insulin secretion. In Case 2, HbA1c level was maintained below 6.5% up to 24 months after treatment. However, in Case 1, the patient showed a gradual increase in HbA1c level starting around 9 months but fell at 12 months to >9.0% and required an insulin dose about twice greater than that of Case 2. High spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk) levels were recorded in the two patients before rituximab administration and after the treatment, the levels were further increased in Case 1, but decreased in Case 2. Both patients require continuous careful follow-up for glycemic control, insulin secretion capacity, and adverse reactions in the future. Although the clinical relevance of high Syk levels in AOT1DM patients remains unclear, the difference in the change in Syk level between the two patients may explain the different clinical courses. Learning points We described the pancreas-protective effect of rituximab in two patients with acute-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus in the honeymoon period and investigated the possible mechanism of action. The present study demonstrated that treatment with rituximab maintained endogenous insulin secretion capacity for 2 years in the two patients. The phosphorylated-spleen tyrosine kinase (p-Syk) data suggest that the differences in HbA1c level and the required insulin dose between the two patients could be due to reactivation or nonreactivation of β-cells.


The subsurface biosphere represents one of the final frontiers on Earth and may provide a model for how life can survive on other planets. While focusing on subsurface life in the Kaapvaal Craton (South Africa) to depths of over 3, 000 meters underground, we present and apply a variety of computational tools and techniques for exploring the deep biosphere. Life at this depth is scarce and nutrients are often limited to hydrogen, sulfate, and single carbon compounds such as methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Metagenomics and other sequencing techniques shed light onto how subsurface microorganisms transform these limited nutrients into energy and survive underground. When appropriate, such methods are combined with geochemical measurements and thermodynamic predictions to provide the most accurate picture of life underground. In that direction, we find that the South African subsurface fluids exhibit a spectrum of redox conditions (influenced by the origin and age of the subsurface fluids) that directly affect the microbial community composition and function. Although these large-scale community shifts are believed to occur over long periods underground, we also present evidence for an adaptive methane oxidizing community that responds to changes in geochemistry over relatively short periods. Combined, these results provide a picture of how microbial communities function in the terrestrial subsurface as well as a theoretical framework for understanding the selective pressures these organisms face.


Spatial data are important for interpretation of water-quality information on a regional or national scale. Geographic information systems (GIS) facilitate interpretation and integration of spatial data. The geographic information and data compiled for the conterminous United States during the National Highway Runoff Water-Quality Data and Methodology Synthesis project is described in this document, which also includes information on the structure, file types, and the geographic information in the data files. This "geodata" directory contains two subdirectories, labeled "gisdata" and "gisimage." The "gisdata" directory contains ArcInfo coverages, ArcInfo export files, shapefiles (used in ArcView), Spatial Data Transfer Standard Topological Vector Profile format files, and meta files in subdirectories organized by file type. The "gisimage" directory contains the GIS data in common image-file formats. The spatial geodata includes two rain-zone region maps and a map of national ecosystems originally published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; regional estimates of mean annual streamflow, and water hardness published by the Federal Highway Administration; and mean monthly temperature, mean annual precipitation, and mean monthly snowfall modified from data published by the National Climatic Data Center and made available to the public by the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University. These GIS files were compiled for qualitative spatial analysis of available data on a national and (or) regional scale and therefore should be considered as qualitative representations, not precise geographic location information.


This paper is the first of a series of four GMD papers on the PMIP4-CMIP6 experiments. Part 2 (OttoBliesner et al., 2017) gives details about the two PMIP4CMIP6 interglacial experiments, Part 3 (Jungclaus et al., 2017) about the last millennium experiment, and Part 4 (Kageyama et al., 2017) about the Last Glacial Maximum experiment. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period experiment is part of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) – Phase 2, detailed in Haywood et al. (2016). The goal of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) is to understand the response of the climate system to different climate forcings for documented climatic states very different from the present and historical climates. Through comparison with observations of the environmental impact of these climate changes, or with climate reconstructions based on physical, chemical, or biological records, PMIP also addresses the issue of how well state-of-the-art numerical models simulate climate change. Climate models are usually developed using the present and historical climates as references, but climate projections show that future climates will lie well outside these conditions. Palaeoclimates very different from these reference states therefore provide stringent tests for state-of-the-art models and a way to assess whether their sensitivity to forcings is compatible with palaeoclimatic evidence. Simulations of five different periods have been designed to address the objectives of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6): the millennium prior to the industrial epoch (CMIP6 name: past1000); the mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago (midHolocene); the Last Glacial Maximum, 21 000 years ago (lgm); the Last Interglacial, 127 000 years ago (lig127k); and the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, 3.2 million years ago (midPliocene-eoi400). These climatic periods are well documented by palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records, with climate and environmental changes relevant for the study and projection of future climate changes. This paper describes the motivation for the choice of these periods and the design of the numerical experiments and database requests, with a focus on their novel features compared to the experiments performed in previous phases of PMIP and CMIP. It also outlines the analysis plan that takes advantage of the comparisons of the results across periods and across CMIP6 in collaboration with other MIPs.


Today, most American workers do not have constitutional rights on the job. As The Workplace Constitution shows, this outcome was far from inevitable. Instead, American workers have a long history of fighting for such rights. Beginning in the 1930s, civil rights advocates sought constitutional protections against racial discrimination by employers and unions. At the same time, a conservative right-to-work movement argued that the Constitution protected workers from having to join or support unions. Those two movements, with their shared aim of extending constitutional protections to American workers, were a potentially powerful combination. But they sought to use those protections to quite different ends: African Americans wanted access to unions, while right-to-work litigants wanted to be free of them. Although the civil rights movement went on to dismantle Jim Crow laws, and the right-to-work movement had the support of some of the nation's most prominent politicians and opinion makers, their conflicting purposes sapped support for the workplace Constitution and ultimately led to its collapse. The Workplace Constitution tells for the first time the story of anti-New Deal conservatives' legal campaigns, recovers overlooked civil rights and labor advocacy, and moves constitutional history into little-explored venues such as administrative agencies. In recounting the civil rights and right-to-work movements' surprising successes and explaining their ultimate failure, the book provides a fresh perspective on postwar conservatism and liberalism, emphasizing how law intertwined their fates and how that entanglement in turn shaped the law. Those interested in the history of the United States' conservative, labor, and civil rights movements; its Constitution and political institutions; and the legal rights of its workers will find much of interest here. In the twenty-first century, the workplace Constitution has all but vanished. This book illuminates what has been gained and lost in its demise, both in the workplace and beyond.


The Fifth Annual AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition was held in Portland, Oregon, in conjunction with the Thirteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The competition consisted of two events: (1) Office Navigation and (2) Clean Up the Tennis Court. The first event stressed navigation and planning. The second event stressed vision sensing and manipulation. In addition to the competition, there was a mobile robot exhibition in which teams demonstrated robot behaviors that did not fit into the competition tasks. The competition and exhibition were unqualified successes, with nearly 20 teams competing. The robot competition raised the standard for autonomous mobile robotics, demonstrating the intelligent integration of perception, deliberation, and action.


In recent years, several US states have introduced college admission policies that reward local rather than global relative performance by guaranteeing admission to students graduating in the top N-percent of their high school. This column examines how these policies affected socioeconomic and ethnic segregation at both the university and high school levels in the state of Texas. While the policies did not replicate the level of diversity in universities seen under earlier affirmative action policies, they did lead to a reduction in the overall level of ethnic segregation in high schools.


This study seeks to examine the portrayal of student characters and their behaviour patterns in a Kenyan Television Drama, Tahidi High. Main characters from both genders were selected and studied. The study strived to find out the relationship between the behaviour patterns of the characters and their psychology. In the modem day age, it was also one of the intents of this study to incisively analyse the conduct of the student characters as seen in Tahidi High vis-a-vis the modem value system arising from emerging technological advancements. Since the student characters in the Tahidi High are not portrayed independent of other characters, this study also examines the resultant main student characters' image in their interaction with other characters in the TV drama. This is because the student characters in Tahidi High do not operate independent .' of other character. Besides, while noting that content is expressed in form, the research invested in analyzing the elements of style and how they enhance the realization of the characters under study. To facilitate the fulfillment of the objectives set in this study, watching of the videos of the TV drama, library research and use of the Internet were important components of this study. The internet provided insights into what scholars, both local and from other parts of the world, have said about the study of Television Drama. Theoretically, the study was informed by the stylistics literary theory and the theory of Discourse Analysis. The stylistic appreciation helped in revealing how the artistes) (creators of Tahidi High,) employ language, setting and characterization among other techniques to facilitate entertainment as well as communication of social issues. Discourse Analysis, as perspective of literary criticism, was used to explain the communicative significance of the utterances by the characters under study. This was done with viii K"ENVATTA UNIVERSITY LIBRAI« the objective of seeing to what extent the discourse of the characters is reflective of their mental processes, and personality. It is the conviction of the researcher that this study is a contribution to scholarship, especially considering that this field is yet to be fully explored by scholars. Besides, the researcher believes that this study provides a fair critique on the realistic presentation of the main characters in the Television Drama. Finally, it is the view of the researcher that this study paves the way for the study of such productions as Tahidi High by both students and teachers of literature.


Since the release by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of a bandwidth of 7.5GHz (from 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz) for ultra wideband (UWB) wireless communications, UWB is rapidly advancing as a high data rate wireless communication technology. As is the case in conventional wireless communication systems, an antenna also plays a very crucial role in UWB systems. However, there are more challenges in designing a UWB antenna than a narrow band one. A suitable UWB antenna should be capable of operating over an ultra wide bandwidth as allocated by the FCC. At the same time, satisfactory radiation properties over the entire frequency range are also necessary. Another primary requirement of the UWB antenna is a good time domain performance, i.e. a good impulse response with minimal distortion. This thesis focuses on UWB antenna design and analysis. Studies have been undertaken covering the areas of UWB fundamentals and antenna theory. Extensive investigations were also carried out on two different types of UWB antennas. The first type of antenna studied in this thesis is circular disc monopole antenna. The vertical disc monopole originates from conventional straight wire monopole by replacing the wire element with a disc plate to enhance the operating bandwidth substantially. Based on the understanding of vertical disc monopole, two more compact versions featuring low-profile and compatibility to printed circuit board are proposed and studied. Both of them are printed circular disc monopoles, one fed by a micro-strip line, while the other fed by a co-planar waveguide (CPW). The second type of UWB antenna is elliptical/circular slot antenna, which can also be fed by either micro-strip line or CPW. The performances and characteristics of UWB disc monopole and elliptical/circular slot i antenna are investigated in both frequency domain and time domain. The design parameters for achieving optimal operation of the antennas are also analyzed extensively in order to understand the antenna operations. It has been demonstrated numerically and experimentally that both types of antennas are suitable for UWB applications.


Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, this study examines the relationship between several outcomes in early adulthood (e.g., education, inactivity, earnings, and health) and being born to a teenage mother. Besides standard cross-sectional multivariate regression estimates, we also present evidence from nonparametric estimates and from estimates that account for unmeasured family background heterogeneity by comparing siblings born to the same mother who timed their births at different ages. Regardless of the econometric technique, being born to a teenage mother is usually associated with worse outcomes. An important channel of transmission of this adverse effect is childhood family structure, which plays a more powerful role than childhood family poverty. Albeit smaller, some of the detrimental effects are also found for children of mothers who gave birth in their early twenties.


The World Bank's Food Price Watch reached a new historic peak in August 2012. High and volatile food prices spell real hardship for the world's poor, and supply problems due to volatile climatic conditions have exacerbated the surge in global food prices. Investment in agriculture is handicapped by the lack of reliable, accurate data. In many developing countries, the methods of collecting agricultural statistics have hardly advanced in 50 years. This article analyses these flaws and omissions and reviews initiatives to resolve current shortcomings. Plantation agriculture offers one of the most effective means of producing sufficient food to meet global demand. The scope for enhancing production is considerable, particularly in certain countries such as Nigeria which are faced with a substantial food import bill. This article reviews a dozen key staple commodities and explores the opportunities to expand output with a particular reference to Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent research reveals the opportunities to improve production through planting more appropriate seeds and the use of fertiliser. Any step change in production hinges on the adoption of larger scale commercial production, for which private capital will be required. In the case of palm oil, the last few years has seen significant investment in Africa by global agri-business groups keen to complement production from the two major exporting countries: Malaysia and Indonesia. The potential for large scale agriculture has never been so bright as it is today in Africa.


The historical trajectory of the Maipo River basin offers critical insights into current and future challenges in Chile9s internationally famous model of water management. We highlight the legal dimensions of the trajectory, looking beyond the 1981 Water Code and water market debates to some of the underlying principles of Chilean water law that shape river management. In particular, we focus on a legal-administrative rule that splits rivers into multiple, independently managed 'sections' – a policy that has received little attention despite posing a prima facie contradiction to the goal of integrated water resources management. We demonstrate that, despite government officials' insistence that this policy is merely an 'artificial' administrative tool, river sectioning has significant material, discursive, and socio-political consequences for water governance. We highlight three emerging issues: (1) tensions over section boundaries, (2) the institutionalisation of a 'right to leave the river dry', and (3) ongoing struggles to establish formal vigilance committees in the lower sections. Far from functioning as a legal simplification, river sectioning is complicated and contentious and demands more attention in policy and research. We conclude by considering possible solutions aligned with efforts to move toward more coordinated and equitable water management in this crucial basin.


Introduction: This paper proposes a reliable and efficient technique to recognize different epilepsy states, including healthy, interictal, and ictal states, using Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Methods: The proposed approach consists of pre-processing, feature extraction by higher order spectra, feature normalization, feature selection by genetic algorithm and ranking method, and classification by support vector machine with Gaussian and polynomial radial basis function kernels. The proposed approach is validated on a public benchmark dataset to compare it with previous studies. Results: The results indicate that the combined use of above elements can effectively decipher the cognitive process of epilepsy and seizure recognition. There are several bispectrum and bicoherence peaks at every bi-frequency plane, which reveal the location of the quadratic phase coupling. The proposed approach can reach, in almost all of the experiments, up to 100% performance in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Conclusion: Comparing between the obtained results and previous approaches approves the effectiveness of the proposed approach for seizure and epilepsy recognition.


Herein, we report near-infrared-to-visible up-conversion (UC) in SrF2:Yb3+,Er3+ sub-micron crystals prepared via a facile route in an aqueous solution. Subsequent calcination at 600 °C allows us to achieve good UC quantum yields, reaching 2.8% at an excitation power density of 10 W cm−2 for a sample doped with 2 mol% of Yb3+ and 2 mol% of Er3+. This UC quantum yield of SrF2:Yb3+,Er3+ is in the range of record UC quantum yields reported in the literature for standard host systems such as La2O2S, BaY2ZnO5 and NaYF4 phosphors. Interestingly, the 2 mol% of Yb3+ required to achieve optimal UC in the SrF2 host is much lower than the amount of Yb3+ required in the other host systems. Furthermore, we studied the population and depopulation kinetics of the Er3+:2H9/2, Er3+:2H11/2,4S3/2 and Er3+:4F9/2 states using time-resolved photoluminescence measurements in order to provide insight into the UC mechanism. The facile preparation method combined with high UC quantum yield makes SrF2:Yb3+,Er3+ materials attractive candidates for solar energy harvesting, sensors, solid state lasers, and luminescent markers.


Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is the thirteenth leading cause of death and occurs in 5% of men between the ages of 65 and 74 years. Currently, patients at risk for AAA are offered ultrasound screening and surveillance, and when appropriate (size >55 mm or expansion rate >10 mm/year), elective AAA repair. Despite this surveillance, prediction of patients likely to have AAA rupture is difficult, with many AAAs rupturing before reaching 55 mm or having unpredictable expansion rates. A serum biomarker that could predict AAA events would be extremely valuable. Desmosine is an amino acid cross-link that is released into the bloodstream when there is elastin breakdown. We hypothesised that plasma desmosine (pDES) might be associated with events in patients with AAA. Methods We evaluated pDES levels in 239 patients with AAA recruited to the MA3RS study (NCT01749280). Patients had 6 monthly visits with abdominal ultrasound performed at each visit. A panel of biomarkers related to vascular integrity was also obtained. Patients were followed up for clinical events including AAA rupture, repair and mortality. Results The cohort was predominantly male (87.4%). Mean AAA diameter was 50.6±8.0 mm. pDES was significantly correlated with ultrasound AAA diameter (r=0.27, p<0.0001). In total 13 patients had an emergency AAA event and 20 had MACE (AAA event +CV mortality). pDES was a major predictor of both AAA events (HR 4.97, 95% CI 1.05–23.64, p=0.044) and MACE (HR 5.92, 95% CI 1.73–20.26, p=0.005) independent of AAA diameter, with patients with the highest tertiles of pDES having the worst outcome. pDES was significantly more associated with AAA events than the next best biomarker, MMP-9 (AUC 0.70 vs 0.60, p<0.001). pDES was associated with improvement in risk prediction when added to AAA diameter with a significant improvement in both net reclassification index (p=0.013) and integrative discrimination increment (p<0.001). Conclusion pDES was an independent predictor of adverse outcome in patients with AAA and may be the first non-invasive serum biomarker to predict events in this group of patients. Abstract 65 Figure 1


Design decisions for TAC SCM agents are usually evaluated empirically by running complete agents against each other. While this approach is sufficient for many purposes, it be difficult to use it for running large-scale, controlled experiments to evaluate particular aspects of an agent's design. This is true both for technical reasons (availability of other agent code, the trouble of setting up a TAC server, etc.) and especially because results can depend heavily on the experimenter's choice of opponent agents. This paper introduces a novel model of the TAC SCM scheduling problem for use in such empirical evaluations. The model aims to reduce the experimental variability caused by the experimenter's choice of opponent agents, replacing markets with stochastic processes that simulate them. These stochastic processes are designed by using machine learning to distill typical agent behaviors from real game logs taken from the TAC SCM finals. After describing the operation of our model, we validate it by showing that its predictions of opponent behavior are highly consistent with further game logs that were not used for building the model. Finally, we apply our model to investigate the performance of several integer/linear programming approaches for solving the delivery and scheduling subproblems in TAC SCM.


Introduction : Regarding the numerous benefits of e-learning, an investigation of its barrier and potential solutions to resolve them will be helpful. This will enable universities to implement this method and convert their traditional teaching-learning methods and approaches to e-learning. Methods: In this descriptive study a total of 242 faculty members at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences were selected randomly. A questionnaire was used to collect data on their attitudes towards barriers of e-Learning. The data were analyzed using SPSS15. Results: The barriers were classified into six categories and twenty-four cases. The average score of the administrative category was 13.18±1.96, electronic categories was 11.66±2.32, educational category was 13.39±2.22, economical category was 9.62±2.09, cultural and psychological categories was 20.43±2.53, and finally, social and cooperative category was 10.09±1.97. The cultural and psychological categories were found as the most important barrier and the electronic category the least important one. Conclusion: The academics believed that they did not have enough time or skills for compiling and evaluating e-learning materials and that there was no proper culture for this. Not only the academics should learn how to compile, use and to take rapid feedback, but also it is essential that they recognize their new roles (as learning facilitators) in realizing and expanding their mode of education by their innovations.


On July 27, 1934, Harry James Tompkins lost his arm, supposedly when an unsecured refrigerator car door on a train operated by the Erie Railroad Company hit him in the head. Tompkins won in a $30,000 judgment in federal court, but in Erie v. Tompkins (1938), the United States Supreme Court famously reversed, holding that federal courts sitting in diversity must apply state substantive law, not federal "general common law." While many scholars have studied Erie v. Tompkins, few have studied the facts of the case, and none have questioned Tompkins's account. This article argues that Tompkins and his witnesses were not telling the truth.


Kinematic data from two segments of the Coast Range fault are used to test the hypothesis that the Franciscan subduction complex was exhumed by extensional faulting. The data reveal a consistent geometry for the principal directions of brittle strain. The maximum extension direction has an east-west orientation and lies subperpendicular to the present attitude of the Coast Range fault, which dips steeply to the east. The maximum shortening direction is subvertical and lies at a low angle to the present down-dip direction of the fault. Given that the Coast Range fault probably formed with a gentle dip, our results indicate subhorizontal crustal shortening in a northeast direction, which is at variance with interpretations that invoke regional-scale extension between the Franciscan subduction complex and the overlying Coast Range ophiolite and Great Valley Group. We favor a model involving out-of-sequence thrust faults. Such a model is consistent with fault-parallel contraction and the pronounced discontinuity in metamorphic grade across the Coast Range fault, as well as substantial thinning of the Coast Range ophiolite. This interpretation implies that erosion, not extensional faulting, was the major process that exhumed the Franciscan subduction wedge during the Late Cretaceous.


In this paper, we present a compact, field-portable smartphone chiral molecule concentration estimation system based on the principle of multi-sensor computational polarimetry. The presented system was designed as an attachment for a smartphone, thus leveraging the computational power to achieve full autonomy and small form factor, while greatly reducing the cost of the system. In addition, by leveraging Maul's Law, the size and complexity of the presented system can be greatly reduced, consisting of just four static components: i) a diode laser source, ii) a linear polariser, iii) a cell for chiral solution, and iv) a linear analyser. Finally, the high megapixel count of the smartphone camera is leveraged via multisensor computational polarimetry, where a multitude of measurements by different sensors are made in a single acquisition to enhance the estimation of the angle of linear polarisation, and thereby enhance the estimation of the concentration of chiral molecules in solution. Such a system can have potential for enabling low-cost, mobile chiral molecule concentration analysis, which would be wellsuited for a wide range of industrial and clinical applications where field testing or on-site testing is required.


Background: Infertility is a common problem as it is observed in 10 - 15% of couples to whom developing approaches for treatment is an issue of utmost importance. The aim of the current study was to determine the accuracy of diagnostic transvaginal ultrasongraphy (TVS) for the investigation of uterin pathologies in women before the application of assisted reproductive technique (ART). Methods: In this observational, cross-sectional study, TVS and diagnostic hysteroscopy were performed consecutively on 100 infertile women, who were candidates for ART. All the findings of TVS were compared with hysteroscopic appearance of uterine cavity. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios were also calculated for diagnostic polyp and uterine anomalies. Results: Polyp was detected through diagnosis hysteroscopy in 6 cases (6.0%), out of whom 4 were diagnosed by TVS. The sensitivity and specificity ratios with TVS, diagnosed for polyp, were 50.00% and 98.94%, respectively. In addition, the sensitivity and specificity ratios with TVS, diagnosed for uterine abnormalities were 27.78 % and 98.78%, respectively. Conclusion: The researchers concluded that TVS allows for the diagnosis of polyp uterine in the most cases, but its sensitivity for diagnosis of uterine anomalies is low. Therefore, TVS is not useful technique, compared with hysteroscopy, in patients who are candidates for ART. Thus,


The goal of this project is to teach a computer-robot system to understand human speech through natural human-computer interaction. To achieve this goal, we develop an interactive and incremental learning algorithm based on entropy-guided learning vector quantisation (LVQ) and memory association. Supported by this algorithm, the robot has the potential to learn unlimited sounds progressively. Experimental results of a multilingual short-speech learning task are given after the presentation of the learning system. Further investigation of this learning system will include human-computer interactions that involve more modalities, and applications that use the proposed idea to train home appliances.


Choice impulsivity is an important subcomponent of the broader construct of impulsivity and is a key feature of many psychiatric disorders. Choice impulsivity is typically quantified as temporal discounting, a well-documented phenomenon in which a reward's subjective value diminishes as the delay to its delivery is increased. However, an individual's proclivity to—or more commonly aversion to—risk can influence nearly all of the standard experimental tools available for measuring temporal discounting. Despite this interaction, risk preference is a behaviourally and neurobiologically distinct construct that relates to the economic notion of utility or subjective value. In this opinion piece, we discuss the mathematical relationship between risk preferences and time preferences, their neural implementation, and propose ways that research in psychiatry could, and perhaps should, aim to account for this relationship experimentally to better understand choice impulsivity and its clinical implications. This article is part of the theme issue 'Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications'.


BACKGROUND
Unplanned pregnancies among college/tertiary female students pose a serious public health concern in South Africa (SA) and are associated with adverse health and social outcomes that impact negatively on educational progress and future career prospects.

OBJECTIVES
To examine the potential predictors of unplanned pregnancy among female students at Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in SA.

METHODS
This analysis used data drawn from the 2014 Higher Education and Training HIV and AIDS survey, which was a nationally representative survey of TVET college students in SA. Associations between unplanned pregnancy and the explanatory variables were assessed using bivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the effect of several independent predictors of unplanned pregnancy.

RESULTS
Of 1 002 female students who responded to the question on unplanned pregnancy, 74.6% reported having had an unplanned pregnancy. Predictors significantly associated with a reduced likelihood of unplanned pregnancy among female TVET students included living with a husband (odds ratio (OR) 0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.13 - 0.62; p=0.002), having two (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.23 - 0.88; p=0.003) or three (OR 0.07, 95% CI 0.01 - 0.39; p=0.003) previous pregnancies, and not having had an abortion (OR 0.16, 95% CI 0.04 - 0.62; p=0.008).

CONCLUSIONS
The high level of unplanned pregnancies is indicative of the state of women's reproductive health services at SA TVET colleges. The findings suggest that certain groups of female students are at increased risk of unplanned pregnancy and would benefit from targeted family planning interventions tailored to their needs.


Much of the current literature on innovation tends to cover methods of generating new ideas or the listing of the steps required to develop and implement new product or service ideas. This paper seeks to examine a more general experience of innovation beginning with a simple definition of the term itself. The idea at the heart of an innovation is then be examined using Scruton's description of the aesthetic experience of architecture as a model. With this, distinct elements of the idea event can be identified. Insights drawn from innovation and creativity literature can then be seen to illustrate the way these elements of the idea experience are manipulated. Ultimately the new idea must be introduced and the process of industrial design provides an insightful model for exploring this experience of introducing new ideas to achieve innovation.


In previous work, it has been shown that ultrasonic speckle velocimetry can be used to measure local particle velocities in flows. So far the technique has been applied to monitor stationary processes. In this paper, we show how ultrasonic speckle velocimetry can be used to dynamically map the two-dimensional velocity profiles of vortices caused by an obstacle within a flow. Thanks to the great versatility of our multi-channel system, it is possible to capture as much as 5000 images per second, thus enabling us to monitor very fast moving processes. To date, two transducer arrays are used to estimate the 2D motion vector of local particles. We also discuss possible modifications and improvements of the system that could lead to the use of a single array of transducers to dynamically map the vectorial velocity fields of flows.


In large scale learning problems it is often easy to collect simple statistics of the data, but hard or impractical to store all the original data. A key question in this setting is how to construct classifiers based on such partial information. One traditional approach to the problem has been to use maximum entropy arguments to induce a complete distribution on variables from statistics. However, this approach essentially makes conditional independence assumptions about the distribution, and furthermore does not optimize prediction loss. Here we present a framework for discriminative learning given a set of statistics. Specifically, we address the case where all variables are discrete and we have access to various marginals. Our approach minimizes the worst case hinge loss in this case, which upper bounds the generalization error. We show that for certain sets of statistics the problem is tractable, and in the general case can be approximated using MAP LP relaxations. Empirical results show that the method is competitive with other approaches that use the same input.


New Zealand's poor long-run productivity performance has puzzled domestic economists and international observers for decades. To provide answers, this article sketches out the broad reasons why lifting productivity has proven so difficult. Against the background of ongoing changes in technology and in the global trading environment, the article also puts forward a number of high-level policy suggestions aimed at countering the economic forces that have constrained productivity, including opening the economy to new opportunities for international connection, and encouraging capital deepening, greater competition and more effective innovation. Getting this right requires a deep understanding of New Zealand's productivity track record and potential in the 21st century global economy and presents a major challenge for the New Zealand public sector.


Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada's Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults posted on the Bank of Canada's website that now is updated in partnership with the Bank of England. Our database draws on previously published data sets compiled by various public and private sector sources. It combines elements of these, together with new information, to develop estimates of stocks of government obligations in default, including bonds and other marketable securities, bank loans, and official loans in default, valued in US dollars, for the years 1960 to 2017 on both a country-by-country and a global basis. This update of CRAG's database, and future updates, will be useful to researchers analyzing the economic and financial effects of individual sovereign defaults and, importantly, the impact on global financial stability of episodes involving multiple sovereign defaults.


Abstract : PHOENIX is a computer program for segmenting images into homogeneous closed regions. It uses histogram analysis, thresholding and connected-components analysis to produce a partial segmentation, then resegments each region until various stopping criteria are satisfied. Its major contributions over other recursive segmenters are a sophisticated control interface, optional use of more than one histogram-dependent intensity threshold during tentative segmentation of each region. and spatial analysis of resulting subregions as a form of "look-ahead" for choosing between promising spectral features at each step. PHOENIX was contributed to the DARPA Image Understanding Testbed at SRI by Carnegie-Mellon University. This report summarizes application for which PHOENIX is suited, the history and nature of the algorithm, details of the Testbed implementation, the manner in which PHOENIX is invoked and controlled, the type of results that can be expected, and suggestions for further development. Baseline parameter sets are given for producing reasonable segmentations of typical imagery.


The molecular motor dynein and its associated regulatory subunit dynactin have been implicated in several neurodegenerative conditions of the basal ganglia, such as Huntington's disease (HD) and Perry syndrome, an atypical Parkinson-like disease. This pathogenic role has been largely postulated from the existence of mutations in the dynactin subunit p150(Glued). However, dynactin is also able to act independently of dynein, and there is currently no direct evidence linking dynein to basal ganglia degeneration. To provide such evidence, we used here a mouse strain carrying a point mutation in the dynein heavy chain gene that impairs retrograde axonal transport. These mice exhibited motor and behavioural abnormalities including hindlimb clasping, early muscle weakness, incoordination and hyperactivity. In vivo brain imaging using magnetic resonance imaging showed striatal atrophy and lateral ventricle enlargement. In the striatum, altered dopamine signalling, decreased dopamine D1 and D2 receptor binding in positron emission tomography SCAN and prominent astrocytosis were observed, although there was no neuronal loss either in the striatum or substantia nigra. In vitro, dynein mutant striatal neurons displayed strongly impaired neuritic morphology. Altogether, these findings provide a direct genetic evidence for the requirement of dynein for the morphology and function of striatal neurons. Our study supports a role for dynein dysfunction in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders of the basal ganglia, such as Perry syndrome and HD.


It's a Wrap performance Tate Modern, 1st June 2015 It's a Wrap collaborative performance was created and performed by Alice Fox (director choreographic framework), Jonathan Taylor (live sound) Jo Offer and the learning disabled Rocket Artists, Louella Forrest, Kelvin Burke, Tina Jenner and Joseph Gregory. The performance introduces the importance of daring to be vulnerable together. Of an unpredictable microtopia filled with harmony and antagonism where people with and without learning disabilities are literally being bound together. It also visually references the artwork of Judith Scott, arguably the most famous artist with Downs Syndrome and is a play on words for the launch of the collaboratively developed Inclusive Arts Practice and Research book throughout the collaborative, inclusive creation of the performance Fox employed her research on practices for working inclusively with vulnerable people with learning disabilities through performance.


This paper adopts a panel error-correction model to explore dynamic impact of manager's shareholding on bank efficiencies by utilizing the pooled mean group. The sample comprises unbalanced panel data of 30 Taiwanese listed domestic commercial banks over the period 1998 to 2009. Empirical results show divergence of long- and short-run effects of manager's shareholding on bank efficiencies. The effect of manager's shareholding exerts a significantly positive effect on technical efficiency in the long run while coexisting with a negative short-run relationship. Conversely, increase in manager's shareholding leads to a reduction of scale efficiency in the long run whereas its short-run effect on scale efficiency is positive.


Abstract. Debris flows triggered by glacier lake outbursts have repeatedly caused disasters in various high-mountain regions of the world. Accelerated change of glacial and periglacial environments due to atmospheric warming and increased anthropogenic development in most of these areas raise the need for an adequate hazard assessment and corresponding modelling. The purpose of this paper is to pro-vide a modelling approach which takes into account the current evolution of the glacial environment and satisfies a robust first-order assessment of hazards from glacier-lake outbursts. Two topography-based GIS-models simulating debris flows related to outbursts from glacier lakes are presented and applied for two lake outburst events in the southern Swiss Alps. The models are based on information about glacier lakes derived from remote sensing data, and on digital elevation models (DEM). Hydrological flow routing is used to simulate the debris flow resulting from the lake outburst. Thereby, a multiple- and a single-flow-direction approach are applied. Debris-flow propagation is given in probability-related values indicating the hazard potential of a certain location. The debris flow runout distance is calculated on the basis of empirical data on average slope trajectory. The results show that the multiple-flow-direction approach generally yields a more detailed propagation. The single-flow-direction approach, however, is more robust against DEM artifacts and, hence, more suited for process automation. The model is tested with three differently generated DEMs (including aero-photogrammetry- and satellite image-derived). Potential application of the respective DEMs is discussed with a special focus on satellite-derived DEMs for use in remote high-mountain areas.


The solution of many engineering and scientific problems requires the exploration of a huge n-dimensional design space. Typical approaches rely on an abstract problem model consisting of a system model (description of the problem's variable couplings) and an optimization specification defining the objectives as well as the constraints bounding the design space. Advances in solver technologies enabled to efficiently search the solution space, however the diversity of the approaches led to problem descriptions that are difficult to reuse, as well as to solutions that are hard to compare. Our Exploration Meta-Model (EMM) addresses this issue by providing a unified language for optimization specifications that is a well-defined basis for model-based implementations of solver-independent design-space exploration (DSE) tool-chains. The EMM is a light-weight framework that allows to a) describe optimization specifications independent of particular optimization methods and solvers, b) relate solutions and optimization specifications, and c) define domain profiles that provide high-level optimization specifications that ease the adoption of automated DSE by domain experts. The applicability of our framework to different optimization methods is demonstrated by applying it to the generic vector optimization problem and to single-objective linear programs. The EMM's support to relate optimization results to input specifications is exercised for the Opt4J framework. Finally, a profile for real-time embedded systems demonstrates how the EMM can be tailored to specific domains.