The concept of sharing practice and knowledge through the development of effective Communities of Practice (CoP) is gaining ground in the HE arena, focusing on the ability of a community to "cultivate organisational knowledge" (Puspitasari and Numao, 2012: no page cited). Initial observations noted the development of informal organisational communities (Tremblay, 2007), however more recently, the cultivation of more formal developments is gaining momentum (McDermott, 2000, 1999, Swan et al, 2012, Wenger et al, 2002, as cited in Tremblay, 2007). CoPs are described as groups who "don't necessarily work together every day, but they typically meet because they find value in their interactions. As they spend time together, they typically share information, insight and advice……They become a community of practice" (Wenger et el., 2002:4-5). It has become apparent in recent years that such an informal community exists in the UBS and even throughout the University, in relation to the uptake and adoption of technology facilitated learning (TFL). Hence this project seeks to galvanise that progress and further develop this community for the benefit of staff and students alike. In this informal CoP there is growing evidence of best practice in relation to how TFL can support teaching, learning, assessment and feedback and the implementation of the Ulster Principles of Assessment and Feedback. Numerous case studies and exemplars have been disseminated across the University through CHEP events, TFL workshops and seminars and externally at HEA and subject specific events and conferences, evidencing this growth. However, there is an on-going need to encourage wider dissemination and adoption of TFL and ultimately to share that effective practice. This project aims to share elements of good practice between colleagues and to encourage the wider embedding of such across courses through the development of a more formal CoP, building on the existing informal activity. This CoP focuses on the development of guides, case studies and wikis on the implementation of particular aspects of TFL. The initial focus of this project will be on the use of Wimba voice authoring/email, Turning Point, Grademark/Turnitin and e-portfolios. Additionally, the aim is to pilot a mentor system to help staff who may be less familiar and/or more resistant to the use of the technology, allowing them to learn more about its functionality and key benefits in order to make informed decisions about its utilisation in their modules/courses. In addition, the intention is that the case studies will cross-fertilise each other with project staff embracing new technologies for assessment and feedback, acting as mentors and mentees to one another.Such a CoP or Faculty Learning Community (FLC) (Nugent et al, 2008) could help address and alleviate barriers to the uptake of technology such as a resistance to embrace new technologies, and a lack of knowledge about how the technology might enhance aspects of assessment and feedback practice. FLCs have been used to good effect elsewhere, in particular for enhancing the use of technology for teaching and learning (Nugent et al, 2008). In particular, Nugent et al (2008) found that such communities can help support "the exploration of digital technologies and their integration into teaching and learning" (2008: 56): this project would aspire to just such an outcome.


Challenging monolithic modern narratives about 'Chinese science', Daniel Patrick Morgan examines the astral sciences in China c .221 BCE–750 CE as a study in the disunities of scientific cultures and the narratives by which ancients and moderns alike have fought to instil them with a sense of unity. The book focuses on four unifying 'legends' recounted by contemporary subjects: the first two, redolent of antiquity, are the 'observing of signs' and 'granting of seasons' by ancient sage kings; and the other two, redolent of modernity, involve the pursuit of 'accuracy' and historical 'accumulation' to this end. Juxtaposing legend with the messy realities of practice, Morgan reveals how such narratives were told, imagined, and re-imagined in response to evolving tensions. He argues that, whether or not 'empiricism' and 'progress' are real, we must consider the real effects of such narratives as believed in and acted upon in the history of astronomy in China.


This thesis is comprised of three articles in which we prove explicit estimates for different number theoretical problems. In the first article we derive an explicit Riemann-von Mangoldt formula for the Selberg class functions. Even though this kind results were already known for some functions in the Selberg class, this is the first explicit estimate which covers the whole Selberg class. Then, in the second article, we study the t-Li coefficients for a quite general set of functions and their connections to zero-free regions. We prove that non-negativity of certain t-Li coefficients lead to certain zerofree regions. Moreover, we also show that negativity of certain t-Li coefficients leads to existence of certain zeros. This is a continuation of F. C. Brown's and A. D. Droll's work with similar type of problems. Lastly, in the third article, we prove an explicit estimate for the number of primes in arithmetic progressions assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis. This sharpens and generalizes earlier results proved without assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis or which apply only to some arithmetic progressions.


Research on common and differential factors in the therapeutic process is impeded by the lack of instruments suitable for assessing common change mechanisms. This study presents the psychometric properties of a newly developed time-economic instrument (WIFA-k), which was designed to assess common factors of psychotherapy as designed by Grawe. Within a multi-center study comparing the efficacy of cognitive therapy and psychodynamic therapy in the treatment of social phobia, 6 raters assessed 25 randomly selected, videotaped therapy sessions of each treatment approach, and evaluated common factors using the Wifa-k. Interrater-reliability was found to be high for the items "resource activation", "motivational clarification" and "mastery" and low for the items "therapeutic relationship" and "problem activation". Ways to increase reliability and validity of the scale are discussed.


Investors have increasingly understood the importance of engineering portfolios to represent their views effectively, and the transfer coefficient provides an explicit measure of that portfolio efficiency. The transfer coefficient has shown that long-short portfolios reflect manager views more accurately than long-only portfolios. Gearing is another important dimension on which to consider efficiency. In products that use leverage, investors typically set gearing independent of risk, despite the high cost of risk and gearing incompatibility. This efficiency loss is asymmetric; undergearing is ultimately more costly than overgearing. Overgeared portfolios tend to hold few assets at zero weight, while undergeared portfolios hold many assets at zero weight. This analysis is an example of a more general issue—setting compatible portfolio parameters, including risk, gearing, and shorting.


This paper considers the statistical analysis of large panel data sets where even after conditioning on common observed effects the cross section units might remain dependently distributed. This could arise when the cross section units are subject to unobserved common effects and/or if there are spill over effects due to spatial or other forms of local dependencies. The paper provides an overview of the literature on cross section dependence, introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence and shows that the commonly used spatial models are examples of weak cross section dependence. It is then established that the Common Correlated Effects (CCE) estimator of panel data model with a multifactor error structure, recently advanced by Pesaran (2006), continues to provide consistent estimates of the slope coefficient, even in the presence of spatial error processes. Small sample properties of the CCE estimator under various patterns of cross section dependence, including spatial forms, are investigated by Monte Carlo experiments. Results show that the CCE approach works well in the presence of weak and/or strong cross sectionally correlated errors. We also explore the role of certain characteristics of spatial processes in determining the performance of CCE estimators, such as the form and intensity of spatial dependence, and the sparseness of the spatial weight matrix.


As it becomes increasingly apparent that 4G will not be able to meet the emerging demands of future mobile communication systems, the question what could make up a 5G system, what are the crucial challenges, and what are the key drivers is part of intensive, ongoing discussions. Partly due to the advent of compressive sensing, methods that can optimally exploit sparsity in signals have received tremendous attention in recent years. In this paper, we will describe a variety of scenarios in which signal sparsity arises naturally in 5G wireless systems. Signal sparsity and the associated rich collection of tools and algorithms will thus be a viable source for innovation in 5G wireless system design. We will also describe applications of this sparse signal processing paradigm in Multiple Input Multiple Output random access, cloud radio access networks, compressive channel-source network coding, and embedded security. We will also emphasize an important open problem that may arise in 5G system design, for which sparsity will potentially play a key role in their solution.


Recent work suggests that the subregular complexity of syntax might be comparable to that of phonology and morphology. More specifically, whereas phonological and morphological dependencies are tier-based strictly local over strings, syntactic dependencies are tierbased strictly local over derivation trees. However, a broader range of empirical phenomena must be considered in order to solidify this claim. This paper investigates various phenomena related to morphological case, and we argue that they, too, are tier-based strictly local. Not only do our findings provide empirical support for a kind of computational parallelism across language modules, they also offer a new, computationally unified perspective of structural and lexical case. We hope that this paper will enable other researchers to fruitfully study syntactic phenomena from a subregular perspective.


In 1962, I began my first year of teaching history and social studies in the Chicago suburban area. I had five classes of world history. When I walked into my classroom, there were several stacks of textbooks. The primary text was Across the Ages, written by Louise Capen. Our copies were at least 9 to 12 years old. (Illinois is one of the states that does not have statewide textbook adoption; there was no requirement at that time to regularly replace textbooks.) I took the book home and browsed through it, when I noticed an interesting point. In discussing early humans, it included a lengthy description of Piltdown Man. You may have heard of the Piltdown Man Hoax. In 1912, Piltdown Man was considered the "missing link" between apes and humans. A fragment of an orangutan jawbone and a human skull were found in a gravel pit in the small village of Piltdown, England. Before the finding was exposed as fraud in 1953, it led scientists down a blind alley, was used by Clarence Darrow as evidence in the Scopes Trial, and was even included as a major ancestor of humans in L. Ron Hubbard's book on Scientology. (Unfortunately for L. Ron, the fraud came to light just a few months after the book's publication.) There were more recent textbooks in my classroom in which Piltdown Man was discredited as a hoax. An idea hit me ... and my first lesson plan for historical thinking was created. I gave half of my students copies of Across the Ages and the other half copies of the more recent books. On the second day of classes, I asked the students to find the section on Piltdown Man in the index, read it, and write a paragraph about him. Next, I asked several Across the Ages students to read their paragraphs. Students with the newer texts looked at each other quizzically. Then, I asked several of the students with newer textbooks to read their paragraphs. This time, the Across the Ages students were confused. I then told them that the Piltdown Man hoax had been discovered in 1953, and I asked the students to check their books' publication date. Finally, I asked the students why I had used that lesson. After some discussion, the students understood the message of seeking multiple sources of historical information and checking the publication dates on books. The lesson worked. Even after we bought new textbooks, I kept 15 to 20 Across the Ages books and used that same lesson for several more years. A few years later, a graduating valedictorian mentioned that lesson as an important event in her life. She later was elected to the Georgia legislature. In 2001, Samuel Wineburg published his book Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts. It made an immediate impact on the way the study of history is viewed by historians, history professors, social studies methods instructors, and, hopefully, history teaching in the schools. Groups such as the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians adopted the concept, held conferences for classroom teachers, and published lesson plans that incorporate aspects of historical thinking. Fred Drake and his colleagues at Illinois State University received grants to provide professional development workshops on Wineburg's philosophy. Today, historical thinking and historical analysis are significant themes within the ranks of social studies educators. While looking through the NCSS annual conference Preview, I counted more than a dozen sessions or workshops related to these concepts. I've received a lot of e-mail regarding my recent "Aligning Elections" column. So, I thought another "concept-based" column might be in order. An article, "Revisiting the Idea of Progress in History," by Wilfred McClay in the September/October issue of Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society, emphasized the importance of historical analysis and historical thinking. This column is based on these twin concepts. I've selected websites that both explain the concepts and also provide lesson plans, activities, and other resources for classroom teachers, supervisors, and social studies methods instructors. …


The paper analyses the changes in tax policy, tax/GDP ratios, tax incidence and income inequality which have taken place in Latin America during the last decade against the background of the changes observed in these variables during the liberal years of the 1980s and 1990s. The paper argues that the recent tax policy changes and a favourable external environment led to an increase of about three points in the regional tax/GDP ratio, that such increase in taxation took place in a slightly or substantially more progressive way than in the past, that the Gini coefficient of the distribution of household income improved on average by 0.4-0.8 points, and that, as a result, redistribution via taxation improved (especially in the Southern Cone) in relation to the 1990s thanks to greater reliance on direct taxes and a reduction in excises. However, in the mid-late 2000s taxation remains unequalizing in about a third of the countries of the region, especially in Central America. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how the new fiscal pact evolving in the region can be strengthened to improve the redistributive effect of taxation in the years ahead.


The theory of nonlinear dynamieal systems deals with deterministie systems that exhibit a eomplieated and random-Iooking behavioL Life seienees have been one of the most applieable areas for the ideas of ehaos beeause of the eomplexity of biologieal systems. it is widely appreeiated that ehaotie behavior dominates physiologieal systems. However, as an extension of this trend, a new hypothesis is proposed that the existenee of embedded nonlinear systems suggest a new rationale fundamentally whieh is different from the classic approaeh. A biologieal system can be eonsidered as a simple explanation of transitions breaking up generic orbits onto higher dimensions with eovering maps by preventing ehaos. We seek to diseuss and understand how a biologieal system can deerease its vulnerability to sensitivity at system transitions what we define those transitions as injeetive immersions of differentiable smooth manifolds with eaeh eorresponding to a transition to different state Iike synehronization, anti-synehronization and oseillator-death when network strueture varies abruptly and asynehronously. We can then eonsider a biologieal system if an existenee of such a unique immersed smooth submanifoJd into higher dimensional space can be shown that there is no ehaotie dynamies assoeiated with a map from one manifold to another one when the system is perturbed. We then will introduee an open problem whether Melnikov funetion is a eontinuously deereasing funetion for smail perturbations which this distanee funetion serves as a diseriminate funetion for implieations of the ehaos transitions.


We present a detailed formalism allowing analytical calculations of the radiative properties of nanoantennas. This formalism does not rely on dipole approximations and utilizes multipolar multiple-scattering theory. The improvement in both accuracy and calculation speeds offered by this formulation provides significant advantages that are used in this work to study Yagi-Uda-type nanoantennas. We provide a study that questions the necessity of the reflector particle in nanoantennas.


Labor migration from the less to the more affluent cities and regions is a defining trait of the patterns of population redistribution in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in the former Soviet Union, where international disparities in income and living standards are particularly manifest. While these macro-trends are well portrayed in the literature, their outcome at the household level seldom figures in the literature. In Ukraine, labor out-migration to Russia is a frequently chosen strategy, not least because of the Russophone background of eastern Ukraine and of many of the major cities, including Kiev and Odessa. This out-migration contributes to urban decline. Using multivariate methods, we analyze the characteristics of population subgroups with and without the experience of working abroad. We also use descriptive statistics to assess the impact of migration events within households on the standard of living of the latter. Our data source is the city of Stakhanov Health Interview Survey 2009 (n = 3,000).


Introduced by Naomi Mitchison. Set over two thousand years ago on the calm and fertile shores of the Black Sea, Naomi Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen tells of ancient civilisations where tenderness, beauty and love vie with brutality and dark magic. Erif Der, a young witch, is compelled by her father to marry his powerful rival, Tarrik the Corn King, so becoming the Spring Queen. Forced by her father, she uses her magic spells to try and break Tarrik's power. But one night Tarrik rescues Sphaeros, an Hellenic philosopher, from a shipwreck. Sphaeros in turn rescues Tarrik from near death and so breaks the enchantment that has bound him. And so begins for Tarrik a Quest - a fabulous voyage of discovery which will bring him new knowledge and which will reunite him with his beautiful Spring Queen.


Expressive writing has been shown to improve health outcomes in a variety of populations, from healthy college students to people with rheumatoid arthritis. A number of hypotheses have been suggested to account for these beneficial effects, but the precise mechanism of action underlying expressive writing has yet to be established. Positive outcomes obtained in studies with clinical populations, have led to the question of whether expressive writing could be helpful for people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). This study aimed to pilot an expressive writing intervention for people with CFS and to explore their experience of the intervention. It aimed to investigate the feasibility, acceptability and perceived helpfulness of the intervention, and attempted to shed light on its possible mechanism of action. Nine patients were recruited from a specialist CFS clinic. They were asked to write about an emotionally upsetting or traumatic experience, for twenty minutes, once a week, for four consecutive weeks. Following the expressive writing intervention, they participated in a semi-structured interview to explore their experience. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the transcribed interviews. Expressive writing was found to be both feasible and acceptable to the people with CFS in this study. Participants reported that overall the home-based writing intervention had been helpful and had provided them with a possible coping strategy for the future. They articulated how they thought the writing had made a difference and from this three possible mechanisms of action were proposed, including emotional expression, behavioural activation and cognitive organisation. These findings lend support to the notion that there may be more than one mechanism of action underlying the beneficial effects of writing.


We present the results of a search for small to intermediate scale anisotropies in the distribution of arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The data set, gathered in ten years of operation, includes arrival directions with zenith angles up to 80◦, and is about three times larger than that used in earlier studies. We update the test based on correlations with active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from the Véron-Cetty and Véron catalog, which does not yield a significant indication of anisotropy with the present data set. We perform a blind search for localized excess fluxes and for self-clustering of arrival directions at angular scales up to 30◦ and for different energy thresholds between 40 EeV and 80 EeV. We also examine the correlation of arrival directions with relatively nearby galaxies in the 2MRS catalog, AGNs detected by Swift-BAT,and a sample of radio galaxies with jets and with the Centaurus A galaxy. None of the searches shows a statistically significant evidence of anisotropy. The two largest departures from isotropy that were found have a post-trial probability ≈ 1.4%. One is for cosmic rays with energy above 58 EeV that arrive within 15◦ of the direction toward Centaurus A. The other is for arrival directions within 18◦ of Swift-BAT AGNs closer than 130 Mpc and brighter than 1044 erg/s, with the same energy threshold.


Abstract Generations, their values and preferences, generational gap, generational conflicts are among the most urgent topics in modern society. They are studied by marketers, sociologists, philosophers, and psychologists as generational differences affect the purchasing ability and consumer behaviour, communication in the workplace, involve the issues of ageism and appropriate and fair treatment of various age groups. However, the phenomenon of verbal interaction of representatives of different generations as represented in written texts has not deserved proper attention and, therefore, has not been studied thoroughly. The study of intergenerational discourse may serve this purpose and fill in the existing gaps determining the scope of this research.


Studies on post-mortem interval (PMI or time since death estimations) in reptiles and amphibians have been sparse. Some limited information exists but this has usually emanated from the work of veterinarians and biologists and is often restricted to individual case reports or small samples. As a result, there is little that can be used reliably in forensic cases and investigators often have to depend on data from mammalian and avian studies. Work on fish, mainly directed towards promoting food hygiene, may or may not be relevant. Reptiles and amphibians present a range of challenges in terms of accurately assessing changes due to autolysis and decomposition, owing to their high variability in morphology and lifestyle. In particular, there are effects due to ectothermy, the different anatomical features of these two groups of vertebrates, the marked variation in body size of diverse taxa of reptiles and amphibians, and seasonal fluctuations in subcutaneous and internal fat content. Eggs, embryos and fetuses present particular challenges and the presence of a larval stage in amphibians is a further complication. Many basic questions remain unanswered. Specific research is needed, and this should involve both amateur and professional herpetologists. Ways in which useful information may be collated include the keeping of properly recorded accounts of changes in dead reptiles and amphibians, especially those kept in captivity or which can be carefully monitored, such as road-kills. Experimental studies are also needed, carried out in collaboration with for example pathologists.


Geology and climate are the principal influences affecting the hydrology of Middle Canyon, Tooele County, Utah. Reconnaissance in the canyon indicated that the geologic influences on the hydrology may be localized; water may be leaking through fault and fracture zones or joints in sandstone and through solution openings in limestone of the Oquirrh formation of Pennsylvanian and Permian age. Surficial deposits of Quaternary age serve as the main storage material for ground water in the canyon and transmit water from the upper canyon to springs and drains at the canyon mouth. The upper canyon is a more important storage area than the lower canyon because the surficial deposits are thicker, and any zones of leakage in the underlying bedrock of the upper canyon probably would result in greater leakage than would similar outlets in the lower canyon. The total annual discharge from Middle Canyon, per unit of precipitation, decreased between 1910 and 1939. Similar decreases occurred in Parleys Canyon in the nearby Wasatch Range and in other drainage basins in Utah, and it is likely that most of the decrease in discharge from Middle Canyon and other canyons in Utah is due to a change in climate. Chemical analyses of water showed that the high content of sulfate and other constituents in the water from the Utah Metals tunnel, which drains into Middle Canyon, does not have a significant effect on water quality at the canyon mouth. This suggests that much of the tunnel water is lost from the channel by leakage, probably in the upper canyon, during the dry part of the year. Comparison of the 150 acre-feet of water per square mile of drainage area discharged by Middle Canyon in 1947 with the 623 and 543 acre-feet per square mile discharged in 1948 by City Creek and Mill Creek Canyons, two comparable drainage basins in the nearby Wasatch Range, also suggests that there is leakage in Middle Canyon. A hydrologic budget of the drainage basin results in an estimate that about 3,000 acre-feet of water was unaccounted for in the 1947 water year. This may represent a reasonable estimate of annual leakage from Middle Canyon. The future development of Middle Canyon water can best be planned after additional information is obtained on movement of water through the channel fill. Much of this information could be supplied by test drilling in the channel fill.


General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is a recent technique that allows the parallel graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate calculations performed sequentially by the central processing unit (CPU). To introduce GPGPU to radiative transfer, the Gauss-Seidel solution of the well-known expressions for 1-D and 3-D homogeneous, isotropic media is selected as a test case. Different algorithms are introduced to balance memory and GPU-CPU communication, critical aspects of GPGPU. Results show that speed-ups of one to two orders of magnitude are obtained when compared to sequential solutions. The underlying value of GPGPU is its potential extension in radiative solvers (e.g., Monte Carlo, discrete ordinates) at a minimal learning curve.


L-arginine is a conditionally essential amino acid, which is the cellular regulator of many vital functions of the body. He is involved in the regulation of the tone of the smooth muscle component of the blood vessels wall, bronchi, and intestines. L-arginine is a substrate for the nitric oxide synthase (NOS), which produces nitric oxide (NO). NO, produced in the vascular endothelium of endothelial NOS, is responsible for the relaxation of smooth muscles and is necessaryto lower blood pressure. L-arginine has a high functional priority in the production of NO and, therefore, in the physiology of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems. L-arginine can reduce obesity, lower blood pressure, suppress oxidative processes and normalize endothelial dysfunction, contributing to remission in type 2 diabetes. Larginine is also used by cells of the immune system, can reduce the level of infection, especially in case of impaired immune function. L-arginine slows down aging, inhibits platelet aggregation, and regulates multiple metabolic pathways associated with the metabolism of fatty acids, glucose, amino acids and proteins. Therefore, one should take into account the great therapeutic potential of L-arginine and continue to study the possibilities of its use as a promising drug against the progression of vascular dysfunction associated with aging, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.


of the original article: Several hundred thousand intellectually talented 12to 13-year-olds have been tested nationwide over the past 16 years with the mathematics and verbal sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Although no sex differences in verbal ability have been found, there have been consistent sex differences favoring males in mathematical reasoning ability, as measured by the mathematics section of the SAT (SAT-M). These differences are most pronounced at the highest levels of mathematical reasoning, they are stable over time, and they are observed in other countries as well. The sex difference in mathematical reasoning ability can predict subsequent sex differences in achievement in mathematics and science and is therefore of practical importance. To date a primarily environmental explanation for the difference in ability has not received support from the numerous studies conducted over many years by the staff of Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and others. We have studied some of the classical environmental hypotheses: attitudes toward mathematics, perceived usefulness of mathematics, confidence, expectations/encouragement from parents and others, sex-typing, and differential course-taking. In addition, several physiological correlates of extremely high mathematical reasoning ability have been identified (left-handedness, allergies, myopia, and perhaps bilateral representation of cognitive functions and prenatal hormonal exposure). It is therefore proposed that the sex difference in SAT-M scores among intellectually talented students, which may be related to greater male variability, results from both environmental and biological factors.


The purpose of this study is to analyze the motivational beliefs of preparatory class students to learn English. The research was carried out utilizing a mixed method where quantitative and qualitative data were used together. The sample chosen purposively consists of 211 students attending the School of Foreign Languages at Yildiz Technical University. As a quantitative data collection tool, the motivational beliefs dimension of "Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)" was used. Qualitative data were collected via two open-ended questions which were asked to have an insight about motivational beliefs of the students. Quantative data were analyzed via t-test and ANOVA statistics while qualitative data were analyzed through descriptive analysis. For quantitative results, the findings initially indicated that there was a significant difference in motivational beliefs between male and female students in favour of female students. Secondly, there was a significant difference in motivational beliefs associated with self-efficacy and test anxiety depending on English proficiency level of the students. Thirdly, the resource of motivation did not constitute a significant difference in motivational beliefs. Finally, qualitative findings revealed that an enjoyable learning atmosphere motivated the students to learn English.


Purpose
Most recent developments in the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can boost the efficacy of business process management (BPM) to improve process performance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for redesigning bank branch (BB) protection systems contributing to make BBs "smarter."

Design/methodology/approach
Based upon a multiple case study approach, the paper deployed a four-step business process reengineering design from an information system development perspective. To overcome limitations of information scarcity required for modeling activities, a multimethod approach to data gathering and results validation was adopted. The approach was based on a comprehensive literature review and an in-depth qualitative survey involving a sample of six security managers of primary Italian banking groups.

Findings
The intelligent protection system resulting from the application of the methodology to the Italian BB sector was able to improve the security management process. Lead time and actors' workload were reduced; running costs decreased; quality of information improved as well as the overall effectiveness of the protection system against criminal attacks.

Originality/value
The specific IoT technologies proposed are new. Additionally, to date, their application to BB security management has not been analyzed in the BPM literature. The value resides in the highly applicable results of the methodology to the BB network of a banking group both inside and outside of Italy.


Background The Greenlandic Healthcare Reform (2010) required improved quality of services for health promotion, prevention of infectious and lifestyle diseases, family nursing and evidence-based clinical nursing. Aim To investigate current nursing practice in Greenland and to identify whether it meets the requirements of healthcare reform. Design This ethnographic study utilised documentary analysis, participant observation and qualitative interviewing carried out in remote areas of Greenland during 2011–2012. Eight registered nurses, four women and four men, aged between 35 and 55, participated in this study. Four were working at healthcare centres in towns and four were working at nursing stations in villages. The nurses were educated in Greenland or a Nordic country and had been practicing nursing for at least 2 years in an Arctic region. They were observed for 1–5 days, and subsequently interviewed. Interviews included in-depth questioning, based on emerging outcomes from observation. Interviews were recorded and transcribed; they were analysed within a phenomenological–hermeneutic approach. Results Nurses in rural and remote areas navigate their health promotion and preventive work with conflict between health strategies and everyday realities, where unpredictable tasks often lead to prioritisation of urgent, acute work. There is interaction between personal and professional skills. Everyday life is characterised by opportunities and challenges in the grey areas, namely nursing, medical and social work. Conclusion The nature of nursing practice in rural and remote Greenland is characterised by a high degree of variability and complexity, with a requirement for a wide range of knowledge and skills. Nurses need to be better prepared with regard to acute medical care, preventive care, social work, humanistic approaches and information technology to implement the ideology of health strategies.


The Republic of St. Peter seeks to reclaim for central Italy an important part of its own history. Noble's thesis is at once original and controversial: that the Republic, an independent political entity, was in existence by the 730s and was not a creation of the Franks in the 750s. Noble examines the political, economic, and religious problems that impelled the central Italians--and a succession of resolute popes--to seek emancipation from the Byzantine Empire. He delineates the social structures and historical traditions that produced a distinctive political society, describes the complete governmental apparatus of the Republic, and provides a comprehensive assessment of the Franco-papal alliance.


Background Children's role in SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology remains unclear. We investigated an initially unnoticed SARS-CoV-2 outbreak linked to schools in northern France, beginning as early as mid-January 2020. Aims This retrospective observational study documents the extent of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, linked to an affected high school (n = 664 participants) and primary schools (n = 1,340 study participants), in the context of unsuspected SARS-CoV-2 circulation and limited control measures. Methods Between 30 March and 30 April 2020, all school staff, as well as pupils and their parents and relatives were invited for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and to complete a questionnaire covering symptom history since 13 January 2020. Results In the high school, infection attack rates were 38.1% (91/239), 43.4% (23/53), and 59.3% (16/27), in pupils, teachers, and non-teaching staff respectively vs 10.1% (23/228) and 12.0% (14/117) in the pupils' parents and relatives (p < 0.001). Among the six primary schools, three children attending separate schools at the outbreak start, while symptomatic, might have introduced SARS-CoV-2 there, but symptomatic secondary cases related to them could not be definitely identified. In the primary schools overall, antibody prevalence in pupils sharing classes with symptomatic cases was higher than in pupils from other classes: 15/65 (23.1%) vs 30/445 (6.7%) (p < 0.001). Among 46 SARS-CoV-2 seropositive pupils < 12 years old, 20 were asymptomatic. Whether past HKU1 and OC43 seasonal coronavirus infection protected against SARS-CoV-2 infection in 6–11 year olds could not be inferred. Conclusions Viral circulation can occur in high and primary schools so keeping them open requires consideration of appropriate control measures and enhanced surveillance.


Survey, documentation, and excavation projects carried out at Aphrodisias between 2002 and 2005 concentrated on the study of the North Agora, the Bouleuterion, the Sebasterion, the Civil Basilica, the Stadium, and the City Wall. Research outside the city consisted of limited excavation northeast of the City Wall. Site conservation focused on the Bouleuterion, the Temple of Aphrodite, the South Agora, and the Stadium. Sculpture conservation projects included continued work on the reliefs from the Sebasteion and the reconservation and reinstallation of a portrait statue from the Theater formerly (and wrongly) identified as Demos. Important new sculptural discoveries include a statue of Livia assembled from fragments in depots. Newly excavated finds include sarcophagi, a high-quality portrait of Tiberius, and a remarkable portrait of a bearded young man of the Late Antonine period.


This article analyzes North Korea's image transformation in 2018 through the concept of charm offensive. A charm offensive is a diplomatic strategy in which countries aim to shift a problematic international image by harnessing their national leader's personal magnetism to the task. We examine North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's charm offensive in the American and South Korean press from his 2018 New Year Day's Address until his meeting with the U.S. President on June 12, 2018. During these six months, Kim used various methods to charm his audience, from enlisting family members to crossing the demilitarized zone to even participating in a selfie. In return, in President Trump's communication he was miraculously transformed from a "little rocket man" to an "honorable" leader. Through thematic analysis of the press coverage, we demonstrate that both American and South Korean journalists were transfixed by Kim's conciliatory gestures, but "charm offensive" was a term and mindset favored only by American journalists.


Self-assembly of proteins into amyloid aggregates displays a broad diversity of morphologies, both at the protofibrillar and final fibrillar species. These polymorphic species can coexist at fixed experimental conditions, and their relative abundance can be controlled by changing the solvent composition, or stirring the solution. However, the extent to which external conditions regulate the equilibrium of morphologically distinct species is still unknown. Here we investigate the nucleation of distinct fibril morphologies using computer simulations of a simplified model of an amyloid polypeptide. Counterintuitively, the energetically less favorable fibril morphologies nucleate more frequently than the morphologies of higher stability for models with low aggregation propensity. The free-energy profiles of the aggregation process indicate that the nucleation barrier determines the population fractions of different fibril morphologies, i.e., amyloid polymorphism is under kinetic control.


Wavelet transforms, central to multiresolution signal analysis and important in the JPEG2000 image compression standard, are quite susceptible to computer-induced errors because of their pipelined structure and multirate processing requirements. Such errors emanate from computer hardware, software bugs, or radiation effects from the surrounding environment. Implementations use lifting schemes, which employ update and prediction estimation stages, and can spread a single numerical error caused by failures to many output transform coefficients without any features to warn data users. This paper proposes an efficient method to detect the arithmetic errors using weighted sums of the wavelet coefficients at the output compared with an equivalent parity value derived from the input data. Two parity values may straddle a complete multistage transform or several values may be used, each pair covering a single stage. There is greater error-detecting capability at only a slight increase in complexity when parity pairs are interspersed between stages. With the parity weighting design scheme, a single error introduced at a lifting section can be detected. The parity computation operation is properly viewed as an inner product between weighting values and the data, motivating the use of dual space functionals related to the error gain matrices. The parity weighting values are generated by a combination of dual space functionals. An iterative procedure for evaluating the design of the parity weights has been incorporated in Matlab code and simulation results are presented.


Previous research with English-learning infants has shown that stress cues can have a powerful influence on early word segmentation. Early sensitivity to the predominant lexical stress pattern (trochaic) in the native language has been observed in English and German, two stress-timed languages (Jusczyk, Cutler & Redanz 1993; Hohle 2002). In this paper, we offer data from two syllable-timed languages: Catalan and Spanish. We report experiments aimed at studying infants' preferential patterns and discrimination abilities for trochaic vs iambic word forms. Results indicate that neither six-month-old nor nine-month-old Catalan- and Spanish-learning infants show a preference for either stress pattern, although they are able to discriminate between them. It is argued that failure to observe a trochaic preference can be attributed to frequency factors of specific lexical stress patterns in these languages. Stress cues alone would not be sufficient for early lexical segmentation in this case.


We seek to find the robust policy that maximizes the expected cumulative reward for the worst case when a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) has uncertain parameters whose values are only known to be in a given region. We prove that the robust value function, which represents the expected cumulative reward that can be obtained with the robust policy, is convex with respect to the belief state. Based on the convexity, we design a value-iteration algorithm for finding the robust policy. We prove that our value iteration converges for an infinite horizon. We also design point-based value iteration for fining the robust policy more efficiency possibly with approximation. Numerical experiments show that our point-based value iteration can adequately find robust policies.


Using a longitudinal population-based sample (n = 4,234), this study explored the association of intimate partner violence (IPV) with material hardship. We found that women who experienced IPV are substantially more likely to experience material hardship, even after controlling for a comprehensive set of static and time-varying characteristics, including material hardship at the prior wave and individual fixed effects. Associations were strongest for experiences of physical abuse (the least prevalent type of IPV) and controlling abuse (the most prevalent type of IPV) but were weaker for emotional abuse. Results suggest that IPV increases the probability of material hardship by 10-25%.


Thousands of Central American children have migrated to the United States by themselves in the last two years. More are on the way as their governments continue to expose them to violence, neglect, poverty and exploitation, compelling them to flee to the border between Mexico and the United States. Humanitarian and pragmatic concerns raise questions of how best to deal with their migration, questions that have been asked with similar migrations of unaccompanied children to the United States in the past. This paper focuses on how politicians and government officials have consistently responded to those concerns with fear-based rhetoric. I argue that fear has colored legal developments regarding unaccompanied minors in a way that has made them uniquely vulnerable to systemic abuse, impeded due process and subordinated them in the legal order. However, there is a floor of Constitutional protections afforded to these children that has been slowly built in recent years, largely through public law litigation filed to correct these injustices. This article contextualizes recent developments to secure rights for unaccompanied immigrant children at our southern border, rooting these efforts in the racism, exclusion and militarization of the border itself and marking potential judicial points of departure in securing more rights for children and forcing immigration authorities to safeguard children's dependencies, rather than exploit them.


This thesis focuses on the development and analysis of general methods for the design of optimal discrete PID control strategies for multivariable glass furnace processes, where standard genetic algorithms (SGAs) are applied to optimise specially formulated objective functions. Furthermore, a strong emphasis is given on the realistic model parameters identi cation method, which is illustrated to be applicable to a wide range of higher order model parameters identi cation problems. A complete, realistic and continuous excess oxygen model with nonlinearity effect was developed and the model parameters were identified. The developed excess oxygen model consisted of three sub-models to characterise the real plant response. The developed excess oxygen model was evaluated and compared with real plant dynamic response data, which illustrated the high degree of accuracy of the developed model. A new technique named predetermined time constant approximation was proposed to make an assumption on the initial value of a predetermined time constant, whose motive is to facilitate the SGAs to explore and exploit an optimal value for higher order of continuous model's parameters identi cation. Also, the proposed predetermined time constant approximation technique demonstrated that the population diversity is well sustained while exploring the feasible search region and exploiting to an optimal value. In general, the proposed method improves the SGAs convergence rate towards the global optimum and illustrated the effectiveness. An automatic tuning of decentralised discrete PID controllers for multivariable processes, based on SGAs, was proposed. The main improvement of the proposed technique is the ability to enhance the control robustness and to optimise discrete PID parameters by compensating the loop interaction of a multivariable process. This is attained by adding the individually optimised objective function of glass temperature and excess oxygen processes as one objective function, to include the total effect of the loop interaction by applying step inputs on both set points, temperature and excess oxygen, at two different time periods in one simulation. The effectiveness of the proposed tuning technique was supported by a number of simulation results using two other SGAs conventional tuning techniques with 1st and 2nd order control oriented models. It was illustrated that, in all cases, the resulting discrete PID control parameters completely satisfied all performance specifications. A new technique to minimise the fuel consumption for glass furnace processes while sustaining the glass temperature is proposed. This proposed technique is achieved by reducing the excess oxygen within the optimum thermal efficiency region within 1.7% to 3.2%, which is approximately equal to about 10% to 20% of excess air. Therefore, by reducing the excess oxygen set point within the optimum region, 2.45% to 2%, the fuel consumption is minimised from 0:002942kg/sec to 0:002868kg/sec while the thermal efficiency of the glass temperature is sustained at the desired set point (1550K). In addition, a reduction in excess oxygen within methane combustion guidelines will assure that undesirable emissions are in control throughout the combustion process. The efficiencies of the proposed technique were supported by a number of simulation results applying the three SGAs controller tuning techniques. It was illustrated that, in all cases, the fraction of excess oxygen reduction results in a great minimisation of fuel consumption over long plant operating periods.


Since 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the proliferation of attempts to build national identities, and nation-focused collective memories in Central and Eastern Europe has left ethnic minorities and "borderland" residents in a situation of "identity crisis". This thesis explores and unpicks the identity shifts in Sillamae, a Russophone former closed town town in North-East Estonian region of Ida-Virumaa, and makes claim for its ambiguous nature as a site of conflicting memories in the Post-Socialist context. The notion of identity is complex and multi-layered, and here the focus lies in its interrelation with memory and space. This thesis discusses the spatial and experiential nature of identity construction in Sillamae, interpreted through unheard oral histories, original photographs and controversial history of the region. The memory aspect is understood through analysing the narratives of oral history, consisting from transcriptions of personal memories from Sillamae Museum, interviews conducted by the author and their family history, and the contrasting nation-focused Estonian collective memory narrative and the tendency of exclusion of the so-called Estonian Russians from it. Furthermore, it is claimed that Sillamae town, its architecture, planning and public spaces remain strongly informed by the Soviet past and Soviet urge for constructing homogenised identities; despite the attempts for its cultural transformation after the Singing Revolution its symbolism retains some of its ideological message for the inhabitants until today. Finally, emphasis is made on the town's location with close proximity to the border with Russia and Russian-language media field, which endure the residents' predisposition to non-Estonian influences on their identity construction.


The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the 3-Day Physical Activity Recall (3DPAR) self-report instrument in a sample of eighth and ninth grade girls (n = 70, 54.3% white, 37.1% African American). Criterion measures of physical activity were derived using the CSA 7164 accelerometer. Participants wore a CSA monitor for 7 consecutive days and completed the self-report physical activity recall for the last 3 of those days. Self-reported total METs, 30-min blocks of MVPA, and 30-min blocks of VPA were all significantly correlated with analogous CSA variables for 7 days (r = 0.35–0.51; P < 0.01) and 3 days (r = 0.27–0.46; P < 0.05) of monitoring. The results indicate that the 3DPAR is a valid instrument for assessing overall, vigorous, and moderate to vigorous physical activity in adolescent girls


Abstract: Confidence in all European institutions is now at a record low, with levels of trust having dropped by ten percentage points on average since 2009. What explains the current lack of trust in European institutions, and how can that trust be restored? Four key reasons for the difficulties facing the EU and the eurozone today stand out: 1) Lack of a long-term solution for the euro crisis; 2) Unbalanced decision making in the EU; 3) Not enough choice for the European electorate; and 4) A need for realistic agendas. The Eurozone needs a workable long-term solution based on three main elements: a European Redemption Fund, selective federalism, and a banking union. In addition, the EU as a whole must come to terms with the reality of a two-speed integration process.


This thesis studies the role of intermediate input goods in explaining international trade patterns and determining gains from trade based on heterogenous firms models. The first chapter provides a preview and literature review. In the second chapter, I extend two workhorse heterogenous firms trade models to incorporate intermediate inputs and value-added productivity differences across firms. This set-up yields a positive relationship between the international trade elasticity and the share of intermediate goods used in production. I test this relationship using trade and inputoutput data from the 1980s and 2000s, finding evidence which is consistent with the model's predictions. I then quantify the gains from trade based on this modified framework, finding values which are significantly higher than those from the standard models. In the third chapter, I extend a standard heterogeneous firms trade model by including sector-level productivity differences across production stages (intermediate and final). I then use input-output data from 2005 to explore the degree of cross-stage production specialization across countries. Based on the model and data, I find that the welfare gains from this margin are, on average, modest. For emerging economies, however, the gains are significantly higher than the average. In the fourth chapter, I explore the implications of the rising share of non-tradable services and rising share of intermediate inputs on the gains from trade based on a standard heterogeneous i firms trade model. I use data from 1995 and 2011 to document and quantify these trends. Based on the model and data, I find that the negative impact of the rise of services and the positive impact of intermediate inputs growth roughly offset one another. I emphasize the role of intermediate inputs sectoral linkages in moderating these trends.


This work was written and compiled by the then Secretary of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association in 1913. It shows just how much the conception of the garden city had been broadened from Howard's original texts. Indeed the Association's own name had been broadened to add the newly emergent practice and theory of town planning to the original focus.
Alongside the garden city, recognition is now given to the burgeoning numbers of garden suburbs and garden villages. Many examples of these are identified and briefly described, including many which are small and now little known, greatly adding to the interest of the publication. Even the underlying arguments for such developments differ. Alongside the more altruistic arguments in favour of reform, there are now those which explicitly emphasise the need to ensure a healthy race to maintain the Empire.


It has been shown before that the combined use of Sr and Nd isotopes allows the geographical origin of Roman primary glass production to be traced. Nd isotopes are characteristic of the mineral fraction other than quartz in the silica sand used for the glass, while Sr isotopes are in most cases characteristic of the lime component, either attributed to the sand or as a separate constituent in the form of shell. In this study, the relationship between a sand raw material and the resulting ancient glass in terms of their trace element and Sr-Nd isotopic compositions is investigated. Especially the relevance of REE versus the use of isotopic techniques in the provenance determination of glass production is evaluated. The REE content of Roman glass is shown to be dependent on the clay fraction of the sand, and is identical for most possible provenance areas in the Mediterranean. Conversely, elements such as Zr, Hf, Ti, Sn are controlled by heavy mineral concentrations in sand and offer great potential as indicators of glass provenance.


We evaluated five commercial enzymic kit methods (methods A-E) for the determination of triglyceride concentrations in plasma, by comparing each with the auto-mated fluorometric procedure of the Lipid Research Clinics Program. Aliquots of 91 to 97 samples were analyzed with each kit and with the comparison method. The results obtained with all five kits were highly correlated with those of the comparison method (r = 0.97-0.99). Group mean triglyceride concentrations as determined with kits A and D did not differ significantly from those assayed with the comparison method. The other three kits gave values 6.5-7.5% higher than those by the comparison method (p <0.001). The relative biases between the kit and ref-erence methods did not vary with triglyceride concentration for kits B, D, and E; kits A and C had concentration-de-pendent biases. Kits D and E were the most nearly precise and had coefficients of variation (CVs) of 3.1 % or less. Kit B had CVs of 3.8-4.4%; the remaining two kits had CVs of 5.4-6.7%. On the basis of these results, we judged kits B, D, and E to perform most satisfactorily, from the standpoint of their precision and their concentration-in-dependent relationships to the comparison method. AdditionalKeyphrases: determined by measuring glycerol released during the hydrolysis of the fatty acyl glycerol ester bonds. In the past, the procedures tedious and required:


: Platelets are well-known for their critical role in hemostasis, that is, the prevention of blood loss at sites of mechanical vessel injury. Inappropriate platelet activation and adhesion, however, can lead to thrombotic complications, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. To fulfill its role in hemostasis, the platelet is equipped with various G protein–coupled receptors that mediate the response to soluble agonists such as thrombin, ADP, and thromboxane A2. In addition to G protein–coupled receptors, platelets express 3 glycoproteins that belong to the family of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors: Fc receptor γ chain, which is noncovalently associated with the glycoprotein VI collagen receptor, C-type lectin 2, the receptor for podoplanin, and Fc receptor γ II A, a low-affinity receptor for immune complexes. Although both genetic and chemical approaches have documented a critical role for platelet G protein–coupled receptors in hemostasis, the contribution of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif receptors to this process is less defined. Studies performed during the past decade, however, have identified new roles for platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling in vascular integrity in utero and at sites of inflammation. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent findings on how platelet immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling controls vascular integrity, both in the presence and absence of mechanical injury. ( Circ Res . 2014;114:1174-1184.) Platelet Immunoreceptor Tyrosine-Based Activation Motif (ITAM) Signaling and Vascular Integrity Platelet Lipidomics: Modern Day Perspective Lipid and Characterization in Platelets and their respective G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed on the platelet surface. Engagement of GPCRs leads to the rapid activation of phospholipase C β 2 (PLC β 2) and phosphatidyl inositol-3 kinase (PI3K), events that are critical for the activation of the small GTPase Rap1, affinity regulation in platelet integrins, and platelet aggregate formation. The contribution of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM)–coupled receptors to platelet activation at sites of vascular injury is weak when compared with GPCRs. In contrast, hemostasis at sites of inflammation depends primarily on platelet ITAM signaling and is independent of major platelet adhesion receptors. These findings suggest a model in which platelets get activated under low-/no-flow conditions in the extravascular space, leading to the release of soluble factors that secure vascular integrity. Both the signaling response downstream of PLC γ 2 and the platelet-derived mediator(s) critical for vascular integrity in inflammation are currently unknown. CLEC2 indicates C-type lectin 2; ECM, extracellular matrix; FcR γ , Fc receptor γ chain; GPVI, glycoprotein VI; LAT, linker for activation of T cells; PAR, protease activated receptor; PDPN, podoplanin; SLP-76, SH2 containing leukocyte protein of 76 kDa; TP, TxA 2 receptor; and TxA 2 , thromboxane A 2 . on


ABSTRACT The Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) is a part of China's experiment in scaling up economic corridors across vast swathes of diverse economic geographies. China's involvement in a large number of ongoing transport corridor projects has encouraged it to embark on the most ambitious of them all till date. The heterogeneity among the economic capacities and integrations of various regions constituting the MSRI, particularly in efficiency of infrastructure and ability to trade, is noticeable. This article underscores these variations as important determinants of competitiveness of the constituent regions and countries. India's perceptions of the MSRI are significantly shaped by its lack of quality maritime infrastructure capacities that make it relatively uncompetitive vis-à-vis China, Europe and most of Southeast Asia; and the impression of the MSRI's "China-centrality" emanating from lack of mention of non-China regional forums in the Chinese government's vision statement; and absence of proactive measures from the Chinese leadership in establishing the MSRI's multi-country character. The article argues that it is important for India to appreciate the geopolitical character of this unprecedented infrastructure initiative, which, while emphasizing Chinese interests, might not be inimical to India's economic ambitions, provided India is able to address its domestic infrastructure imperatives.


A-PET is a quad-head PET scanner developed for use in small-animal imaging. The dimensions of its volumetric field of view (FOV) are 46.1 × 46.1 × 46.1 mm3 and the gap between the detector modules has been minimized in order to provide a highly sensitive system. However, such a small FOV together with the quad-head geometry causes image quality degradation. The main factor related to image degradation for the quad-head PET is the mispositioning of events caused by the penetration effect in the detector. In this paper, we propose a precise method for modelling the system at the high spatial resolution of the A-PET using a LOR (line of response) based ML-EM (maximum likelihood expectation maximization) that allows for penetration effects. The proposed system model provides the detection probability of every possible ray-path via crystal sampling methods. For the ray-path sampling, the sub-LORs are defined by connecting the sampling points of the crystal pair. We incorporate the detection probability of each sub-LOR into the model by calculating the penetration effect. For comparison, we used a standard LOR-based model and a Monte Carlo-based modeling approach, and evaluated the reconstructed images using both the National Electrical Manufacturers Association NU 4–2008 standards and the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission simulation toolkit (GATE). An average full width at half maximum (FWHM) at different locations of 1.77 mm and 1.79 mm are obtained using the proposed system model and standard LOR system model, which does not include penetration effects, respectively. The standard deviation of the uniform region in the NEMA image quality phantom is 2.14% for the proposed method and 14.3% for the LOR system model, indicating that the proposed model out-performs the standard LOR-based model.


Archaeological interpretation of the Levantine Bronze Age depends on a regional chronology based on material culture and settlement dynamics with presumed linkages to Egyptian political history. We discuss current radiocarbon sequences from Tell Abu en-Ni'aj and Tell el-Hayyat in the northern Jordan Valley, Jordan that expand the traditional time range of the Early Bronze IV Period, contract the range of the Middle Bronze Age, and thereby call into question the chronological correlations and explanatory value of previously assumed linkages to the dynastic history of Egypt.


Information about price changes during a home's marketing period is typically missing from data used to investigate the listing price, selling price, and selling time relationship. This paper incorporates price revision information into the study of this relationship. Using a maximum‐likelihood probit model, we examine the determinants of list price changes and find evidence consistent with the theory of pricing behavior under demand uncertainty. Homes most likely to undergo list price changes are those with high initial markups and vacant homes, while homes with unusual features are the least likely to experience a price revision. We also explore the impact of missing price change information on estimating a representative model of house price and market time. Our results suggest that mispricing the home in the initial listing is costly to the seller in both time and money. Homes with large percentage changes in list price take longer to sell and ultimately sell at lower prices.


An on-line version of a recently proposed frequency-estimation algorithm based on structured autoregressive (AR) modeling of data is derived for the special case of a single cisoid in noise. The adaptive notch filter utilizes a weighted sum-of-squares of the AR prediction error that is recursively minimized with respect to the frequency of the cisoid. The steady-state performance of the algorithm is characterized by aid of a linear filter-approximation technique, and design rules for the tuning variables are given. An excellent agreement is demonstrated between the results predicted by theory and the measured performance based on numerical simulations. The tracking ability and noise rejection is compared both with the performance of alternative algorithms and with the appropriate Cramer-Rao bound. It is shown that the algorithm is close to being statistically efficient.


Controlled traffic has been identified as the most practical method of reducing compaction-related soil structural degradation in the Australian sugarcane industry. GPS auto-steer systems are required to maximize this potential. Unfortunately there is a perception that little economic gain will result from investing in this technology. Regardless, a number of growers have made the investment and are reaping substantial economic and lifestyle rewards. In this paper we assess the cost effectiveness of installing GPS guidance and using it to implement Precision Controlled Traffic Farming (PCTF) based on the experience of an early adopter. The Farm Economic Analysis Tool (FEAT) model was used with data provided by the grower to demonstrate the benefits of implementing PCTF. The results clearly show that a farming system based on PCTF and the minimum tillage improved farm gross margin by 11.8% and reduced fuel usage by 58%, compared to producers' traditional practice. PCTF and minimum tillage provide sugar producers with a tool to manage the price cost squeeze at a time of low sugar prices. These data provide producers with the evidence that investment in PCTF is economically prudent.


IKKα is a protein kinase best known and named for its participation in the activation of the transcription factor NF-κB as a subunit of the inhibitor of κB (IκB) kinase (IKK). IKKα activity can be replaced by protein kinase IKKβ in IKK for the purposes of activation of the NF-κB pathway. Mice in which the IKKα gene has been disrupted (Ikkα-/-) show defects in epidermal differentiation. However, primary keratinocyte cultures from these mice exhibit enhanced NF-κB activity in response to activators of this pathway such as tumor necrosis factor-α or interleukin-1, suggesting that the differentiation defect is not the result of impaired NF-κB signaling. By transfecting cultured keratinocytes with various IKKα mutants and monitoring differentiation potential, Hu et al. showed that the IKKα kinase activity is dispensible for restoring normal differentiation to the Ikkα-/- cells; however, the NH2 terminus, the helix-loop-helix domain, and the leucine zipper were important for inducing differentiation. Ikkα-/- keratinocytes transplanted into normal mice differentiated normally, suggesting that the Ikkα-/- cells lacked a secreted differentiation factor. Analysis of conditioned medium from cultured wild-type and Ikkα-/- cells demonstrated the lack of a soluble factor in the medium of the mutant cells, which Hu et al. have named keratinocyte differentiation-inducing factor (kDIF). Thus, IKKα participates in the transcriptional regulation of kDIF in a manner that is independent of its function in IκB kinase and NF-κB activation. Y. Hu, V. Baud, T. Oga, K. I. Kim, K. Yoshida, M. Karin, IKKα controls formation of the epidermis independently of NF-κB. Nature 410, 710-714 (2001). [Online Journal]


The use of complex simulation systems has become common practice when physical experiments are not feasible or when too few are feasible. The statistical modelling of numerical experiments with kriging models yields a probabilistic decision framework to assess the probability of failure of the system. Combining fast low-fidelity simulations with costly high-fidelity simulations has proved an efficient method to decrease the burden of costly simulations when predicting the output of a system. In addition, sequential design is commonly used to estimate the probability of failure of a system modelled by kriging. In this work, a methodology is derived to benefit from sequential design in a multi-fidelity framework to predict the probability of failure of a computationally expensive system and its uncertainty. The methodology is applied to a fire safety engineering case study to assess the probability of non-conformity of a smoke control system from complex numerical fire tools.


Anhua Gao's parents were hailed as revolutionary heroes. In her early years she knew love and support and grew up in a privileged world. But when they both tragically died, all they were left with was their parent's fading reputation to guide them through the horrors of 20th century China. This is the story of how Anhua first struggled with and then against the ideological machine of Red China. It is a story of pain and horror, turmoil and tragedy. But most of all it is the story of a woman who found courage, hope and humour and who, against unbelievable odds, survived.


Abstract. Northern India (23–31° N, 68–90° E) is one of the most densely populated and polluted regions in world. Accurately modeling pollution in the region is difficult due to the extreme conditions with respect to emissions, meteorology, and topography, but it is paramount in order to understand how future changes in emissions and climate may alter the region's pollution regime. We evaluate the ability of a developmental version of the new-generation NOAA GFDL Atmospheric Model, version 4 (AM4) to simulate observed wintertime fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and its relationship to meteorology over Northern India. We compare two simulations of GFDL-AM4 nudged to observed meteorology for the period 1980–2016 driven by pollutant emissions from two global inventories developed in support of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases 5 (CMIP5) and 6 (CMIP6), and compare results with ground-based observations from India's Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for the period 1 October 2015–31 March 2016. Overall, our results indicate that the simulation with CMIP6 emissions produces improved concentrations of pollutants over the region relative to the CMIP5-driven simulation. While the particulate concentrations simulated by AM4 are biased low overall, the model generally simulates the magnitude and daily variability of observed total PM2.5. Nitrate and organic matter are the primary components of PM2.5 over Northern India in the model. On the basis of correlations of the individual model components with total observed PM2.5 and correlations between the two simulations, meteorology is the primary driver of daily variability. The model correctly reproduces the shape and magnitude of the seasonal cycle of PM2.5, but the simulated diurnal cycle misses the early evening rise and secondary maximum found in the observations. Observed PM2.5 abundances are by far the highest within the densely populated Indo-Gangetic Plain, where they are closely related to boundary layer meteorology, specifically relative humidity, wind speed, boundary layer height, and inversion strength. The GFDL AM4 model reproduces the overall observed pollution gradient over Northern India as well as the strength of the meteorology–PM2.5 relationship in most locations.


PURPOSE
To determine the protective role of thioredoxin (TRX), an endogenous redox (reduction and oxidation) regulator, against retinal photic injury in mice.

METHODS
Four-week-old BALB/c mice were exposed to white fluorescent light (8000 lux) for 2 hours. The number of both the photoreceptor cell nuclei and the TUNEL-positive photoreceptor cell nuclei were counted to determine the severity of damage. Expression of endogenous TRX was analyzed in the retinal samples by immunohistochemistry and Western blot. Recombinant (r)TRX or mutant rTRX, in which cysteines in the active site are replaced with serines, was injected intravitreously into BALB/c mice before light exposure. Oxidized and tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins were analyzed in retinal samples to examine the antioxidative effect of TRX. The number of photoreceptor cell nuclei and the DNA ladder in the retinal samples were analyzed.

RESULTS
A significant reduction was observed in the number of photoreceptor cells and induction of TUNEL-positive nuclei after light exposure. TRX expression was enhanced in both the neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium after light exposure. The amounts of oxidized and tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins decreased in the neural retinas of the rTRX-treated mice compared with the vehicle- or mutant rTRX-treated mice. The reduction of photoreceptor cells and formation of a DNA ladder were suppressed by rTRX pretreatment but not with mutant rTRX.

CONCLUSIONS
TRX is induced in the retinal tissue after light exposure. Intraocular injection of rTRX suppresses photo-oxidative stress. TRX intensification may be a useful therapeutic strategy to prevent retinal photic injury.


Localizing user interfaces has been proven beneficial for both user satisfaction and work efficiency; however, current localization methods disregard the many facets in the cultural background of today's typical user by simply adapting to a certain country. The chapter proposes a new approach to localization by modeling the user's culture according to its understanding in cultural anthropology. Contrasting this view with cultural influences on user interface perception and preferences, the authors obtain an intersection of aspects that need to be included in a cultural user model, and deduce which user interface aspects have to be adaptable. With this, the chapter turns towards the application of their approach with the help of adaptive user interfaces, which allow the flexible composition of different user interface elements. The authors describe one possibility for implementing such culturally adaptive systems, and exemplify the design of different gradations of user interface aspects with the help of their MOCCA system.


RULE 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contains the noble goal that the civil rules should foster the "just, speedy, and inexpensive" determination of every action. When Rule 1 was drafted, personal computers were the vision of sci-fi flick directors. E-discovery was absent from the lexicon of litigators. Today, personal computers are ubiquitous; metadata are metastasizing; and in a growing number of cases, e-discovery is eviscerating Rule 1. (1) In response, the Civil Rules Advisory Committee of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the U.S. Judicial Conference has proposed changes to a number of the civil procedure discovery rules. The proposals have been promulgated for public comment until February 15, 2005. Any changes made to the civil rules would not go into effect until December 2006 at the earliest. (2) The changes are modestly ameliorative, will not eliminate cost-shifting debates, and will not provide sanctions protection to litigants who do not develop rigorous electronic document preservation programs. THE PLACE TO START In recognition of the importance of early attention to e-discovery issues, changes are proposed in Rules 26(f) and 16, the latter governing scheduling orders. Rule 26(f) requires parties to confer to consider the nature and basis of their claims and defenses, consider settlement, make or arrange for disclosures required by Rule 26(a)(1), and develop a discovery plan. The proposed amendment would add one more item to the litany of subjects to be considered during this conference: "to discuss any issues relating to preserving discoverable information." Parties should recognize that the duty to preserve may arise long before the Rule 26(f) conference, as is illustrated by Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC. (3) It also should be obvious that counsel must comprehend their clients' electronic information systems beforehand to participate meaningfully in the Rule 26(f) conference. If the amendments are adopted, the discovery plan contemplated by Rule 26(f) also will contain new paragraphs (3) and (4), which provide that the parties will state their views for the district court on e-discovery and privilege issues. New paragraph (3) would include: (3) any issues relating to disclosure or discovery of electronically stored information, (4) including the form in which it should be produced. The form of production can be expected to be an issue as software and hardware change. For instance, in Byers v. Illinois State Police, (5) the producing party no longer had software to read backup tapes. New paragraph (4) would provide: (4) whether, on agreement of the parties, the court should enter an order protecting the right to assert privilege after production of privileged information. In Rowe Entertainment Inc. v. William Morris Agency Inc., (6) the magistrate judge proposed a "clawback" so that the privilege could be asserted by the responding party after production and review of electronic documents by the requesting party. Proceeding sequentially to the Rule 16 scheduling order, the proposed amendments would add new paragraphs (b)(5) and (b)(6) that would permit the order to include: "(5) provisions for disclosure or discovery of electronically stored information"; and "(6) adoption of the parties' agreement for protection against waiving privilege." Lawyers that are not tackling the issue of electronic discovery when suit is reasonably anticipated run the risk of meaningful and potentially costly discovery conflicts when litigation is filed. Lawyers who have properly addressed e-discovery concerns immediately after filing, and pre-filing where necessary, will find these proposed changes welcome and advantageous. ACCESSIBILITY AND COST SHIFTING Cost shifting is not specifically addressed by the proposed rules, but Rule 26(b)(2), the focal point of the cost-shifting case law, would incorporates the "accessibility" concept from Zubulake I in establishing guidance for the district courts] The district court in that case held that data that are (1) "online" or archived on current computer systems, such as hard drives; (2) "near-line," such as that stored on optical disks or magnetic tape stored in a robotic storage library from which records can be retrieved in two minutes or less, or (3) "off-line" but in storage or archives, such as removable optical disk or magnetic tape media, are readily accessible using standard search engines because the data are retained in machine readable format. …


Labels are often expensive to get, and this motivates active learning which chooses the most informative samples for label acquisition. In this paper we study active sensing in a multi-view setting, motivated from many problems where grouped features are also expensive to obtain and need to be acquired (or sensed) actively (e.g., in cancer diagnosis each patient might go through many tests such as CT, Ultrasound and MRI to get valuable features). The strength of this model is that one actively sensed (sample, view) pair would improve the joint multi-view classification on all the samples. For this purpose we extend the Bayesian co-training framework such that it can handle missing views in a principled way, and introduce two criteria for view acquisition. Experiments on one toy data and two real-world medical problems show the effectiveness of this model.


abstract: this book reports on the state of the art in application of deterministic network optimization to public systems. after general remarks on problems of applying mathematical methods to decision problems in public systems in chapter 1, the fundamental definitions for graphs and networks are presented in chapter 2. in chapter 3 the network flow problems are discussed: after presenting algorithms for the well known shortest path and maximum flow problem, the traffic assignment problem is discussed. in case of constant arc costs a minimum cost flow algorithm is presented. for the general case of arc costs, depending on the arc flow together with multiple origin-destination flow, a new algorithmic approach is presented that is based onklein's minimum cost flow algorithm. the relationships between descriptive and normative assignment are shown. chapter 4 deals with algorithms to find optimal subnetwork on a given network for the following problems: optimal waste water canal systemand optimal filter plant location to minimize construction and operating costs optimal location of emergency service facilities to minimize number of locations; optimal routes for airplanes to maximize number of people who fly non-stop from their origin to their destination; optimal spanning tree for an offshore oil-pipeline system to minimize construction and operating costs; optimal investment into a rail network to maximize transportation time reduction and optimal investment into a road network. knowing the optimal network, it might also be of interest how this network should be constructed sequentially. in chapter 5 an algorithm for finding the optimal construction sequence of a waste water canal network is presented which maximizes the amount of purified water during construction period. the similar problem in case of a railway network is treated too. chapter 6 deals with the problem of finding routes with minimum length that either pass through all arcs (chinese postman problem) or pass through all vertices (travelling salesman problem). in case the routes may not exceed a given length different heuristic algorithms are proposed. the applications to street cleaning, garbage collection as well as school bus routing are discussed. in the final chapter 7 the problem of computing optimal routes for an urban public transportation system is discussed in detail, stating a new algorithm for solving it . to most of the presented algorithms computer programs are listed which are able to solve small up to medium sized problems.;


Testicular protein Tpx-1, also known as CRISP-2, is a cysteine-rich secretory protein specifically expressed in the male reproductive tract. Since the information available on the human protein is limited to the identification and expression of its gene, in this work we have studied the presence and localization of human Tpx-1 (TPX1) in sperm, its fate after capacitation and acrosome reaction (AR), and its possible involvement in gamete interaction. Indirect immunofluorescence studies revealed the absence of significant staining in live or fixed non-permeabilized sperm, in contrast to a clear labelling in the acrosomal region of permeabilized sperm. These results, together with complementary evidence from protein extraction procedures strongly support that TPX1 would be mainly an intra-acrosomal protein in fresh sperm. After in vitro capacitation and ionophore-induced AR, TPX1 remained associated with the equatorial segment of the acrosome. The lack of differences in the electrophoretic mobility of TPX1 before and after capacitation and AR indicates that the protein would not undergo proteolytical modifications during these processes. The possible involvement of TPX1 in gamete interaction was evaluated by the hamster oocyte penetration test. The presence of anti-TPX1 during gamete co-incubation produced a significant and dose-dependent inhibition in the percentage of penetrated zona-free hamster oocytes without affecting sperm motility, the AR or sperm binding to the oolema. Together, these results indicate that human TPX1 would be a component of the sperm acrosome that remains associated with sperm after capacitation and AR, and is relevant for sperm-oocyte interaction.


In this study, urinary catheter utilization rates, the causative agents for catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and their antimicrobial susceptibilities in intensive care units (ICUs) in 2009 were investigated at Gazi university hospital. We aimed to determine the causative agents and risk factors for CAUTIs, and antimicrobial susceptibilities of the pathogens; and also sensitivities of Candida spp. to antifungal agents with Microdilution and E-test. The most common etiological agents of CAUTIs were Candida spp. (34.7%). The most frequently isolated Candida spp. was C.albicans (52.4%). All C. albicans spp. were sensitive to fluconazole. Microdilution, used as a reference method to determine the sensitivity to antifungal agents, was compared with E test. E test was found to be sufficient to analyze sensitivity to amphotericin B, caspofungin, fluconazole and voriconazole, but inappropriate for itraconazole. E.coli and Klebsiella spp. were found to be causative agents for CAUTI in 20.6% and 9.9% of cases respectively. Pseudomonas spp. and Acinetobacter spp. were isolated in 14% and 8.2% of the cases, respectively. All E.coli and Klebsiella strains were found sensitive to carbapenems. Carbapenem sensitivity was found in 47.1% and 30% of the cases infected with Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter strains, respectively. According to our results, fluconazole therapy seems to be an appropriate choice for the treatment of CAUTIs caused by C.albicans. Third and fourth generation cephalosporins should not be used for empirical treatment because of the high prevalence of extended spectrum beta-lactamase production among E.coli and Klebsiella isolates.


Secure processors have been recently introduced, which enable new applications involving software anti-piracy, program execution certification, and secure mobile agents. Secure processors have built-in hardware support for cryptographic mechanisms and can prevent both software attacks and physical attacks. Several recent papers have shown how to construct a secure processor to protect the confidentiality [1][2][3]and integrity[4][3] of a program. The proposed designs are immune from spoofing, splicing and replay attacks. However, none of the previous work is able to address the attacks due to information leakage on the address bus. Dangers due to information leakage on the address bus have been acknowledged to be an important as well as a difficult problem[1]. In fact, in [4]this problem is actually the trigger of the replay attack described. In this paper, we show that several attacks are possible by monitoring the instruction access sequence on the address bus. Such attacks could emanate from identifying the core algorithms by pattern matching the control flow graph or from finding out or narrowing down critical variables that decide outcomes of conditional branches. We analyze the causes behind such information leakage and then determine the primary requirement that must be met to prevent it. Based on this requirement, we propose HIDE, a hardware-based approach to hide the instruction access sequence. The main goal of HIDE is to construct a fixed instruction access sequence issued to the memory to achieve zero leakage of control flow information, giving a security guarantee. Our base approach involves constructing a fixed instruction access sequence covering the whole program (called base access ring) to hide the actual instruction fetch. This might however lead to severe performance degradation due to tremendous stalls making the framework infeasible. Therefore, we propose two approaches to overcome this problem. In our scheme, the architecture dynamically tracks a hot function set. Based on the hot function set, the first approach involves prefetching blocks accordingly into an on-chip prefetch buffer. The second approach establishes a secondary access ring, which is smaller and faster than the base access ring. The instruction blocks are prefetched from the base ring into the secondary ring instead. We observe considerable elimination of degradation due to our architectural improvements. For 512K L2 cache, the degradation is reduced from 73% to 38%; for 1M L2, it is cut from 65% to 34% with a reasonable amount of hardware resource.


With the advent of protein engineering, the determination of a protein's 3D structure has taken on a whole new importance. This has prompted some to call for the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] to break with tradition and allow patents on the three-dimensional structural information of proteins. This iBrief will discuss whether such information would constitute patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and how much protection patents on this information could actually confer.


This study compared women's roles, expectations and experiences in two comparable, male dominated industrial manufacturing companies in Australia. Both organisations are subject to legislated equal opportunity program and reporting requirements. The research was conducted to examinee the differences between what is submitted in their EEO reports and the experience of women workers in the organisations. Good jobs and poor jobs existed in the same legislative and industrial framework and in the same local labour market. The differences are located in a combination of organisational and cultural conditions. Key words: Equal Employment Opportunity, Job Quality, Human Resources Management, Workplace Culture Introduction A slow decline in gender segregation over the last twenty years has been demonstrated in the USA and Australia (as elsewhere) but women still predominate in sales and service occupations, and men in skilled trades. The growth of women's overall representation in management and professional occupations has increased, especially in female dominated organisations, but segregation at the workplace level remained almost unchanged, despite nearly two decades of equal opportunity legislation (Watts 2002). Officially, equal employment opportunity for women is enshrined in Australiawide legislation and is reflected in industrial awards and agreements. The original EEO legislation (Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunity for Women) Act 1986) emphasised the need for positive programs to redress disadvantage, later legislation (Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999) is more general in its statements about what should be done within organisations. The Equal Opportunity for Women Agency (EOWA) that is responsible for administering the Act provides guidelines for the preparation of programs and reports, and collects and publishes reports from larger non-government employers annually. The EOWA requires that each organisation with over 100 employees prepare a workplace profile and address each of six equity areas in an annual report unless waived from doing by submitting a series of satisfactory reports. The equity areas are sexual harassment, pay equity, training and career development, work/life balance, recruitment/promotion/separation, and occupational segregation. Penalties for non-compliance are weak. Employers may also apply to be named as an Employee of Choice for Women and can use this accolade in recruiting or marketing. EOWA has adopted a pragmatic approach towards implementing EEO principles that privileges the business case for EEO but also recognises fair and equal treatment for the individual as an ideal. The legislation is supported by anti-discrimination legislation operating in both the Federal and State jurisdictions. The EEO legislation and mandatory reports require that, at a minimum, employees suffer no discrimination on the grounds of their sex. Further, the EOWA emphasises the business case for improving women's working lives: 'Employers are reaping the benefits of their equal opportunity for women in the workplace programs through increased employee effectiveness, attracting and retaining the best talent, improved morale and increased consumer and market responsiveness. (EOWA 2005). Thus, good jobs for women are also promoted as good for the bottom line of business. This paper investigates the way in which legislation and reporting promote EEO for women and how this is corroborated by women's reported workplace experience. In this research two organisations (Cl and C2) in a traditional male employment sector (manufacturing), demonstrated dramatic differences with respect to the conditions and quality of work available to women employees. The most marked of these was the relative number of women in management roles and the availability of flexible employment conditions for women workers. Both organisations are strongly dominated by male employees at all roles and levels except as office workers, but in Cl a much greater proportion of the female workforce was in management. …


Crowdsourcing is a new computing paradigm that harnesses human effort to solve computer-hard problems. Budget and quality are two fundamental factors in crowdsourcing, but they are antagonistic and their balance is crucially important. Induction and inference are principled ways for humans to acquire knowledge. Transfer learning can also enable induction and inference processes. When a new task comes, we may not know how to go about approaching it. On the other hand, we may have easy access to relevant knowledge that can help us with the new task. As such, via appropriate knowledge transfer, for example, an improved annotation can be achieved for the task at a small cost. To make this idea concrete, we introduce the Crowdsourcing with Multiple-source Knowledge Transfer (CrowdMKT)approach to transfer knowledge from multiple, similar, but different domains for a new task, and to reduce the negative impact of irrelevant sources. CrwodMKT first learns a set of concentrated high-level feature vectors of tasks using knowledge transfer from multiple sources, and then introduces a probabilistic graphical model to jointly model the tasks with high-level features, workers, and their annotations. Finally, it adopts an EM algorithm to estimatethe workers strengths and consensus. Experimental results on real-world image and text datasets prove the effectiveness of CrowdMKT in improving quality and reducing the budget.


We consider the problem of Bayesian discriminant analysis using a high dimensional predictor. In this setting, the underlying precision matrices can be estimated with reasonable accuracy only if some appropriate additional structure like sparsity is assumed. We induce a prior on the precision matrix through a sparse prior on its Cholesky decomposition. For computational ease, we use shrinkage priors to induce sparsity on the off-diagonal entries of the Cholesky decomposition matrix and exploit certain conditional conjugacy structure. We obtain the contraction rate of the posterior distribution for the mean and the precision matrix respectively using the Euclidean and the Frobenius distance, and show that under some milder restriction on the growth of the dimension, the misclassification probability of the Bayesian classification procedure converges to that of the oracle classifier for both linear and quadratic discriminant analysis. Extensive simulations show that the proposed Bayesian methods perform very well. An application to identify cancerous breast tumor based on image data obtained using find needle aspirate is considered.