In two subsequent years, an early maturing potato cultivar with low leaf area index (LAI) and a late cultivar with high LAI were grown at concentrations of 350 and 700 μL CO2 L–1 in open-top chambers. The average increase of tuber dry matter yield by elevated CO2 was 27% in 1995 and 49% in 1996. During the first weeks after planting, elevated CO2 stimulated the light-saturated rate of photosynthesis (Amax) of both cultivars by 80%. However, Amax under elevated CO2 declined to the level of the low-CO2 treatment in the course of the growing season. In 1995 this convergence due to acclimation of photosynthesis was completed within 6 weeks, but in 1996, acclimation proceeded until the end of the growing season. Photosynthetic acclimation was accompanied by a reduced Rubisco content, and was correlated more closely with accumulation of sucrose than of starch. From fluorescence measurements it was concluded that, in contrast to the carboxylation efficiency, the efficiency of photosynthetic reactions centers was not affected by acclimation to elevated CO2. The faster photosynthetic acclimation in 1995 coincided with overall lower values of Amax, crop growth rate and growth response to elevated CO2. It is shown that the indeterminate growth pattern of potato with its large sink capacity does not preclude acclimation. The effect of acclimation on yield was quantified by computer simulations. The simulated results indicated that photosynthetic acclimation reduced the positive effect of elevated CO2 on tuber yield by 50%.


We present variable negative stiffness actuation (VnSA), an alternative method of achieving variable stiffness actuation based on the nonlinear deflection characteristics of buckling beams. The approach exploits transverse stiffness variations of axially loaded beams around their critical buckling load to achieve an actuator with adjustable stiffness. In particular, transverse stiffness of buckled beams are positive under tensile loading and for compressive loading below their first critical buckling load, while they display negative stiffness above this critical value. Furthermore, for small deflections transverse stiffness of buckled beams depends linearly on the amount of axial loading. Consequently, the stiffness of a variable stiffness actuator can be modulated (i) by decreasing the transverse stiffness through an increase of the axial compressive loading on a beam, up to values above the first critical buckling load where the overall stiffness of the actuator approaches its lowest negative value, and (ii) by increasing the transverse stiffness through application of tensile axial loading. Capitalizing on the concept of negative stiffness, the lowest stiffness of VnSA can be set arbitrarily close to zero or even to negative values (when counterbalanced), while very high stiffness values are also achievable by tensile loading of the beam. As a result, VnSA can modulate its stiffness over a uniquely large range that includes zero and negative stiffness values. Furthermore, thanks to the negative stiffness characteristics, the stiffness of VnSA can be kept very low without sacrificing the mechanical integrity and load bearing capacity of the actuator. We introduce the design of VnSA, theoretically analyze its stiffness modulation response, and provide implementation details of a prototype. We also provide experimental results detailing range of stiffness modulation and force tracking performance achieved with this prototype and discuss its correspondence with the theory.


Gas hydrate-bearing layers are normally identified by a basement simulating reflector (BSR) or well logging because of their high acoustic- and electric impedance compared to surrounding formations. These gas hydrate characteristics can also result in contrasting in-situ formation strengths. Here, we describe gas hydrate-bearing layers based on equivalent strength (EST) in the exploration borehole of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 02. For Site NGHP-02-23, a representative site, the EST shows a constant trend of ~2 MPa, with some strong peaks in the 0–271.4 meter-below-seafloor (mbsf) interval, and a sudden increase up to 4 MPa above the BSR depth (271.4–290.0 mbsf). Below the BSR, the EST stays at ~2 MPa to the bottom of the hole (378 mbsf). Comparing the EST with logging data and a core sample description suggests that the EST depth profiles reflect the formation lithology and gas hydrate content. The EST increases in the sand-rich layer and gas hydrate-bearing zone. In the lower gas hydrate zone in particular, the EST curve shows the same approximate trend with that of P-wave velocity and resistivity measured during downhole logging. These results suggest that the EST, as a proxy for in-situ formation strength, can indicate the location and extent of the gas hydrate layer as well as borehole logging. Although the EST was calculated after drilling, utilizing the recorded surface drilling parameter in this study, the EST can be acquired during drilling using real-time drilling parameters. In addition, the EST only requires drilling performance parameters without any additional tools or measurements, making it a simplified and economical tool for the exploration for gas hydrates.


This paper reflects on a two-year project which used an integrated mixed-method design. The project investigated variations in teachers' classroom practice, and relationships with professional life phase, professional identity and school context which builds on and extends a previous four-year, longitudinal research study (Day et al, 2006). The study sought to identify key factors that contribute to effective teaching and pupil outcomes in elementary and secondary phases of schooling in a sample of 83 effective teachers (45 elementary and 38 secondary), 39 school leaders and approximately 3000 pupils.

The project had three broad objectives: (1) to describe, analyse and explain the variation in elementary and secondary school teachers' classroom behaviours and practice using two observational instruments, detailed fieldnotes, and pupil and teachers' perceptions, focusing on English and mathematics teaching; (2) to explore 'typical' and 'more effective' classroom practice of teachers across different school contexts, professional life phases and ages in relation to observation of practice and professional, situated and/or personal factors which are perceived to affect observed practice over time; and, (3) to draw out implications from the findings of (1) and (2) for policymakers concerned with raising standards, and for school and teacher development.

Having examined the relevant literature, a set of guiding questions was developed which formed the basis of an initial conceptualisation for the development of a research design. However, the concepts were kept sufficiently broad in order that, as the research advanced, a process of progressive focusing could be applied (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The questions the study sought to address were:
1. What are the factors which influence typical and more effective teachers' classroom practices?
2. What are the relationships between typical and more effective teachers' perceived effectiveness and their classroom practice and organisation?
3. What are the similarities and differences in the factors that influence classroom practice in different school phases and subjects?
4. What are the relationships between observed classroom practice and policy, school context, teacher professional life phase, and professional identity?
5. What are the implications of this for key stakeholders who are involved in raising standards in schools?

In order to examine the complexities of effective classroom practice, the research developed an holistic design which enabled a research-informed account and explanation of the relationships between teachers' histories, contexts, conditions, and interactions, and their effectiveness in terms of pupils' classroom learning and attainments.

Although the strength of this study was in its mixed-method design (semi-structured interviews repertory grid interviews, focus groups, questionnaire surveys, fieldnotes), the central method of data collection was classroom observation. Two observational schedules were used:

i) the International System for Teacher Observation and Feedback (ISTOF), developed as part of a cross-national research initiative by the Methodology of Research in Effectiveness (MORE) group involving 21 countries was used after the first round of lesson observations (Teddlie et al, 2006);
ii) the Quality of Teaching (QoT) schedule (van de Grift et al, 2004), used after the second round of observations, was developed in collaboration between different inspection systems.

The project design was innovative in that it linked together both descriptive, interpretative accounts and statistical summaries. It also allowed collaborative and participatory methods to be used in shaping these accounts, working with individual teachers and headteachers to share interpretations of the data generated.

This project explored the practices of 'typical' and 'more effective' teachers, a classification derived from an examination of school value added data over the past three years combined with overall scores for teachers from the pupil survey. Although many of the aspects of effective classroom practice were utilised by both typical and more effective teachers, the more effective teachers seemed to possess and combine a greater range of teaching and learning strategies in addressing a number of areas in consistently positive and more reflective, complex and contextually-responsive ways.

This paper addresses the main differences between effective and more effective teachers through the use of teacher cameos. Data will be presented from two primary teachers and two secondary teachers, and will describe their observed classroom practice, the main influences on their classroom practice and effectiveness, and what pupils said about their teaching.


DOM-Sortze is a framework for Semi-Automatic development of Domain Modules, i.e., the pedagogical representation of the domain to be learnt. DOM-Sortze generates Domain Modules for Technology Supported Learning Systems using Natural Language Processing Techniques, Ontologies and Heuristic Reasoning. The framework has been already used over textbooks in Basque language. This work presents the extension that adds English support to the framework, which is achieved with the modification of ErauzOnt. This is the tool that enables the acquisition of learning resources, definitions, examples, exercises, etc. used in the learning process. Moreover, some tests have been made to evaluate the performance of the tool with this new language. Principles of Object-Oriented Programming textbook for Object-Oriented Programming university subject is used for evaluation purposes. The results of this tests show that DOM-Sortze is not tight to a particular domain neither language.


Compartment models are a frequently used tool for imaging data gained with medical and biological imaging techniques. The solutions of the differential equations derived from a compartment model provide nonlinear parametric functions, based on which the behavior of a concentration of interest over time can be described.
Often, the number of compartments in a compartment model is unknown. As the model complexity itself, which is, the number of compartments, is certainly an important information, it is desirable to estimate it from the observed data. Additionally, the unknown parameters have to be estimated. Therefore, methods dealing with both the parameter estimation and model selection in compartment models are needed. The methods proposed in this thesis are motivated by two applications from the field of medical and biological imaging.
In the first application, the quantitative analysis of Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) data, compartment models are used in order to gain insight into the binding behavior of molecules in living cells. As a first approach, we developed a Bayesian nonlinear mixed-effects model for the analysis of a series of FRAP images. Mixed-effect priors are defined on the parameters of the nonlinear model, which is a novel approach. With the proposed model, we get parameter estimates and additionally gain information about the variability between nuclei, which has not been studied so far. The proposed method was evaluated on half-nucleus FRAP data, also in comparison with different kinds of fixed-effects models. As a second approach, a pixelwise analysis of FRAP data is proposed, where information from the neighboring pixels is included into the nonlinear model for each pixel. This is innovative as the existing models are suitable for the analysis of FRAP data for some regions of interest only.
For the second application, the quantitative analysis of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) of the breast, we use a compartment model which describes the exchange of blood between different, well-mixed compartments. In the analysis of such data, the number of compartments allows conclusions about the heterogeneity of cancerous tissue. Therefore, an estimation and model selection approach based on boosting, with which the number of compartments and the unknown parameters can be estimated at the voxel level, is proposed. In contrast to boosting for additive regression, where smoothing approaches are used, boosting in nonlinear parametric regression as described in this thesis is a novel approach. In an extension of this approach, the spatial structure of an image is taken into account by penalizing the differences in the parameter estimates of neighboring voxels. The evaluation of the method was done in simulation studies, as well as in the application to data from a breast cancer study.
The majority of the program code used in the three approaches was newly developed in the programming languages R and C. Based on that code, two R packages were built.


This paper estimates the dynamics of price cost margins in UK manufacturing over the period 1989-1997 and links it to the implementation of the Single Market Program. Using the Hall-Roeger methodology, we find a dramatic decline in price cost margins by 25% after 1990. This suggests that firms anticipated the competitive shock induced by the Single Market Program, which created a more competitive environment. JEL Classification: F1, L1, L6.


This work concentrates on the selection and improvement of differential equation based models of the penicillin G fermentation. Published penicillin fermentation models have been reviewed and compared with regard to their abilities to predict fermentation behaviour, genetic algorithms have been applied to the design of optimal experiments for model parameter estimation, and a new approach to assessing the theoretical identifiability of model structures has been proposed. When applied to the best penicillin fermentation model yet found, this new approach suggests that the model's parameters are uniquely identifiable. The best performing model was shown to be a morphologically structured model for which measurement data related to the various morphologically distinct regions were obtained using image analysis. This model was modified to increase its speed of execution, and extended to describe fermentations where lactose was present in the inoculum. Design criteria from the field of optimal experiment design were combined with genetic algorithms as a technique for searching through the range of possible input combinations, subject to constraints on the fermenter operation, to develop experimental feed profiles. The theoretical identifiability of the fermentation model has been assessed for the first time, using a novel approach to identifiability testing which uses a symbolic mathematics package, along with subsequent post-processing, to determine almost at a glance whether or not a fermentation model should be uniquely identifiable.


The problems with inactive and sedentary lifestyles are widely recognised. People believe that activity tracking systems, such as the Fitbit, may aid them in meeting recommended levels of physical activity. Similar systems have been the subject of previous research, but many of these studies were conducted over a short-term and some results may be attributable to reactivity or novelty effects. We ran a longitudinal mixed-methods effectiveness study using the Fitbit Zip activity tracker with 50 participants. In this paper we present two main challenges experienced during this study: the unreliability of the device and a lack of engagement by some of the participants. The issues we experienced can help inform the design of future studies.


Purpose: Immunotherapy targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway has changed the treatment landscape of non–small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). We demonstrated that HHLA2, a newly identified immune inhibitory molecule, was widely expressed in NSCLC. We now compared the expression and function of PD-L1 with alternative immune checkpoints, B7x and HHLA2. Experimental Design: Expression was examined in tissue microarrays consisting of 392 resected NSCLC tumors. Effects of PD-L1, B7x, and HHLA2 on human T-cell proliferation and cytokine production were investigated. Results: PD-L1 expression was identified in 25% and 31% of tumors in the discovery and validation cohorts and was associated with higher stage and lymph node involvement. The multivariate analysis showed that stage, TIL status, and lymph node involvement were independently associated with PD-L1 expression. B7x was expressed in 69% and 68%, whereas HHLA2 was positive in 61% and 64% of tumors in the two sets. The coexpression of PD-L1 with B7x or HHLA2 was infrequent, 6% and 3%. The majority (78%) of PD-L1–negative cases expressed B7x, HHLA2, or both. The triple-positive group had more TIL infiltration than the triple-negative group. B7x-Ig and HHLA2-Ig inhibited TCR-mediated proliferation of CD4 and CD8 T cells more robustly than PD-L1-Ig. All three significantly suppressed cytokine productions by T cells. Conclusions: The majority of PD-L1–negative lung cancers express alternative immune checkpoints. The roles of the B7x and HHLA2 pathway in mediating immune evasion in PD-L1–negative tumors deserve to be explored to provide the rationale for an effective immunotherapy strategy in these tumors. Clin Cancer Res; 24(8); 1954–64. ©2018 AACR.


Book synopsis: On the brightly-lit street corners of Piccadilly and in the dark alleyways of Stepney, in public parks and private flats, in nightclubs and cafes, prostitution was intertwined with London's society, culture, and landscape. As public and political attitudes toward commercial sex hardened, uneven and imperfect attempts to repress prostitution dramatically shaped London's commercial sex industry. Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens examines how laws, policies and attitudes toward prostitution were translated into street-level reality, explores how women who sold sex navigated a climate of repression, and charts the complex dimensions of the underground sexual economy in the metropolis. Laite puts forward the controversial argument that laws directed against prostitution tended to do more harm than good; they encouraged the growth of vice syndicates, promoted illicit real estate and came down the hardest upon the women who worked as prostitutes. By examining the administration of the law and its consequences and by uncovering the lives and experiences of prostitutes, this book offers a compelling new look at the history of commercial sex in modern London.


Variation in animal personality, in other words, behavioural responses consistent within individuals over time and/or across contexts, is predicted to be related to life-history traits, such as growth rate and investment in reproduction. How this translates into relationships between personality and milk production in dairy cows is however scarcely investigated and previous studies are showing contradicting results. To further investigate this relationship, individual consistencies in behaviour were related to milk production in two breeds of dairy cows (Swedish red and white cattle, SRB, and Holstein). Variation was found among the breeds in consistency of behaviours and both SRB and Holstein cows were highly consistent over time in stepping behaviour during milking and frequency of performed abnormal behaviours in home pen. Overall were Holstein cows consistent in more observed behaviours than SRB. Variation in neophobia and responses to social separation were more flexible, both among breeds and over time. Nevertheless, behaviour showed limited relationship with milk production. To conclude, the tests here carried out are useful in describing personality in cows; however, personality showed no relationship with milk production, encouraging future studies to explore this expected relationship further in other breeds and species.


Multiple fields including sociology, anthropology, and business are interested in understanding group behavior. Applying data mining techniques to social media can help provide insights into group behavior and divulge a group's characteristics by identifying a group, developing a profile for a group, revealing the sentiment of a group, and detailing a group's composition. The ability to accomplish these tasks has practical business and scientific applications such as understanding customers better and providing new insights into influence propagation, as well as the ability to accurately categorize groups over time. This paper highlights some ongoing research efforts aiming at understanding groups through social media. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2011 1 330–338 DOI: 10.1002/widm.37


In an age when the practice of traditional and sacred arts has fallen almost entirely out of fashion, we should ask what relevance these forms of expression have now when so much of art is driven by the notion of modernity. Relevance being a concept centered around what is normal, this article looks at an example of traditional Islamic architecture built in our contemporary age, seeking to re-establish what was once considered normal. The example cited is the shrine of Baba Hassan Din, designed by the architect Kamil Khan Mumtaz and built by the engineers Rizwan Qadeer and Shahid Niaz.


Abstract. Riverbank erosion affects river morphology and local habitat, and results in riparian land loss, property and infrastructure damage, and ultimately flood defence weakening. An important issue concerning riverbank erosion is the identification of the vulnerable areas in order to predict river changes and assist stream management/restoration. An approach to predict areas vulnerable to erosion is to quantify the erosion probability by identifying the underlying relations between riverbank erosion and geomorphological or hydrological variables that prevent or stimulate erosion. In the present work, a statistical methodology is proposed to predict the probability of the presence or absence of erosion in a river section. A physically based model determines the locations vulnerable to erosion by quantifying the potential eroded area. The derived results are used to determine validation locations for the evaluation of the statistical tool performance. The statistical tool is based on a series of independent local variables and employs the logistic regression methodology. It is developed in two forms, logistic regression and locally weighted logistic regression, which both deliver useful and accurate results. The second form, though, provides the most accurate results as it validates the presence or absence of erosion at all validation locations. The proposed tool is easy to use and accurate and can be applied to any region and river.


BACKGROUND: Cold-induced thermogenesis is known to improve insulin sensitivity, which may become increasingly relevant in the face of global warming. The aim of this study was to examine the relation between outdoor air temperature and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus. METHODS: We identified all births in the Greater Toronto Area from 2002 to 2014 using administrative health databases. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relation between the mean 30-day outdoor air temperature before the time of gestational diabetes mellitus screening and the likelihood of diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus based on a validated algorithm using hospital records and physician service claims. RESULTS: Over the 12-year period, there were 555 911 births among 396 828 women. Prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus was 4.6% among women exposed to extremely cold mean outdoor air temperatures (≤ −10°C) in the 30-day period before screening and increased to 7.7% among those exposed to hot mean 30-day temperatures (≥ 24°C). Each 10°C increase in mean 30-day temperature was associated with a 1.06 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04–1.07) times higher odds of gestational diabetes mellitus, after adjusting for maternal age, parity, neighbourhood income quintile, world region and year. A similar effect was seen for each 10°C rise in outdoor air temperature difference between 2 consecutive pregnancies for the same woman (adjusted odds ratio 1.06, 95% CI 1.03–1.08). INTERPRETATION: In our setting, there was a direct relation between outdoor air temperature and the likelihood of gestational diabetes mellitus. Future climate patterns may substantially affect global variations in the prevalence of diabetes, which also has important implications for the prevention and treatment of gestational diabetes mellitus.


Though urban sprawl is often discussed without a specific definition, the term generally, connotes development patterns that are undesirable. In developed countries, this phenomenon of urban sprawl has a significant attention with regard to how it is described as well as its impacts. However, the nature of this phenomenon in developing countries still requires attention and traction in literature. Therefore, this study sought to highlight some of the characteristics of urban sprawl from the perspective of a developing country by juxtaposing the Ghanaian and the U.S. versions of urban sprawl as way of also stimulating further discussions in this direction. The study found out that though there are similarities in the causes and impacts of urban sprawl in both Ghana and the U.S., the socio-economic conditions as well as cultural systems in both countries play significant roles in the evolution and perception of the phenomenon in both countries.


A hybrid surface plasmonic waveguide with nanometric confinement is proposed. With interactions between high-index-contrast dielectric waveguide modes and surface plasmon modes of a very thin metal film, nanometric hybrid surface plasmon modes with high optical intensities can be formed. Characteristics of the symmetric and asymmetric hybrid surface plasmon modes, including the effective mode indices, propagation lengths, mode sizes, and power intensities at telecom wavelength (1550 nm), are investigated in detail. Simulation results show that nanometric mode confinement and a long propagation length can be realized simultaneously. The high optical power intensity and long propagation length of the nanometric hybrid surface plasmon modes are very promising for high-density photonic integration and nonlinear waveguide applications.


A multimedia planetarium show, "Gray Matters: The Brain Movie," was created to teach fundamental scientific concepts about the human brain. During the show, the planetarium dome represents a giant brain enclosing the audience. Audience members play the role of neurons in various simulations and representations of brain function. This leads to new ways of thinking about audience interactivity in theaters, with many applications to art and entertainment. Some of the problems of large art/science collaborations are also discussed.


Fine-scale information on the occurrence of coastal cetaceans is required to support regulation of offshore energy developments and marine spatial planning. In particular, the EU Habitats Directive requires an understanding of the extent to which animals from Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) use adjacent waters, where survey effort is often sparse. Designing survey regimes that can be used to support these assessments is especially challenging because visual sightings are expected to be rare in peripheral parts of a population's range. Consequently, even intensive visual line-transect surveys can result in few encounters. Static passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) provides new opportunities to extend survey effort by using echolocation click detections to quantify levels of occurrence of coastal dolphins, but this does not provide information on species identity. In NE Scotland, assessments of proposed offshore energy developments required information on spatial patterns of occurrence of bottlenose dolphins in waters in and next to the Moray Firth SAC. Here, we illustrate how this can be achieved by integrating data from broad-scale PAM arrays with presence-only data from visual surveys. Generalized estimating equations were used with PAM data to model the occurrence of dolphins in relation to depth, distance to coast, slope, and sediment, and to predict the spatial variation in the cumulative occurrence of all dolphin species across a 4 A� 4 km grid of the study area. Classification tree analysis was then applied to available visual sightings data to estimate the likely species identity of dolphins sighted in each grid cell in relation to local habitat. By multiplying these probabilities, it was possible to provide advice on spatial variation in the probability of encountering bottlenose dolphins from this protected population at a regional scale, complementing data from surveys that estimate average density or overall abundance within a region.


Abstract This paper sets out an alternative formulation for transmission planning in liberalised electricity markets. The formulation follows the concept of the leader-follower game in applied mathematics. In this new formulation, the transmission network service provider acts as the leader of the game and the electricity market operator acts as the follower of the game. Using this new formulation, the transmission network service provider can measure the impact of additional transmission capacity on nodal (or regional) market prices. This allows the transmission network service provider to implicitly model the competitive effect of additional transmission capacity in its investment decisions. A metric termed L-Shape Area is developed to measure the deviation of market prices from the competitive ones. The alternative formulation is a bi-level optimisation problem. To solve this problem, the inner optimisation problem is replaced by its equivalent Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions. The result is a non-linear programming problem that is solved using a gradient search method. IEEE 14-bus example system is used for numerical studies.


Globalization is rapidly becoming an integral part of people's lives and this forces people to be confronted by different cultures, societies and living environments. This study aims to reveal the implications of this situation people traveling abroad are challenged by multiple aspects. This study aims at answering: How do Chinese students adapt to life & study in Kuopio in Finland? The purpose of the research is to find out the outstanding challenges and coping strategies of Chinese students study in a new cultural environment. To achieve this goal, this study is undertaken within the context of Savonia University of Applied Sciences at Kuopio in Finland. It attempts to investigate the unique academic and cultural experiences of the Chinese students, the perception of their own abilities, as well as their adaptation processes to a new environment. A qualitative research method is used in this study whilst the data-collecting techniques include questionnaires and individual interviews tracked both the common and unique experiences of with Chinese students. Data analysis has indicated several factors which have influenced their immersion into the Finnish campus life. While coping with the stress of culture shock and the ongoing challenge of living in Finland, the Chinese students select coping strategies, use of social support, and shifting views of self.


Holistic face processing is often referred to as the inability to selectively attend to part of faces without interference from irrelevant facial parts. While extensive research seeks for the origin of holistic face processing in perceiver-based properties (e.g., expertise), the present study aimed to pinpoint face-based visual information that may support this hallmark indicator of face processing. Specifically, we used the composite face task, a standard task of holistic processing, to investigate whether facial surface information (e.g., texture) or facial shape information underlies holistic face processing, since both sources of information have been shown to support face recognition. In Experiment 1, participants performed two composite face tasks, one for normal faces (i.e., shape + surface information) and one for shape-only faces (i.e., without facial surface information). We found that facial shape information alone is as sufficient to elicit holistic processing as normal faces, indicating that facial surface information is not necessary for holistic processing. In Experiment 2, we tested whether facial surface information alone is sufficient to observe holistic face processing. We chose to control facial shape information instead of removing it by having all test faces to share exactly the same facial shape, while exhibiting different facial surface information. Participants performed two composite face tasks, one for normal faces and one for same-shape faces. We found a composite face effect in normal faces but not in same-shape faces, indicating that holistic processing is mediated predominantly by facial shape rather than surface information. Together, these results indicate that facial shape, but not surface information, underlies holistic face processing. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Developmental Biology's excellent reputation in Freiburg goes back to the days of the Hans Spemann who received the Nobel prize for his groundbreaking discovery of an "organizer center" in early amphibian embryos that controls the behavior and fate of surrounding cells. Today the University of Freiburg is one of the few universities in Germany that offers a full curriculum in Developmental Biology.


Most standard algorithms for prediction with expert advice depend on a parameter called the learning rate. This learning rate needs to be large enough to fit the data well, but small enough to prevent overfitting. For the exponential weights algorithm, a sequence of prior work has established theoretical guarantees for higher and higher data-dependent tunings of the learning rate, which allow for increasingly aggressive learning. But in practice such theoretical tunings often still perform worse (as measured by their regret) than ad hoc tuning with an even higher learning rate. To close the gap between theory and practice we introduce an approach to learn the learning rate. Up to a factor that is at most (poly)logarithmic in the number of experts and the inverse of the learning rate, our method performs as well as if we would know the empirically best learning rate from a large range that includes both conservative small values and values that are much higher than those for which formal guarantees were previously available. Our method employs a grid of learning rates, yet runs in linear time regardless of the size of the grid.


Body size is a key parameter influencing demographic characteristics of fish populations as well as market value of landed catch. Yet in bioeconomic modelling, body size is often an overlooked biological and economic parameter. Here we evaluate how size-dependent pricing influences optimal harvest strategies in a model parameterized for two pelagic fisheries, those targeting Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), in Norway. In our model, positively size-dependent pricing clearly shifts optimal harvest strategies towards lower harvest rates and higher mean body size of caught fish. The results are relatively insensitive to biological (e.g., natural mortality) and economic details of the model (e.g., discount rate or demand function). These findings show that size-dependent pricing influences optimal harvest strategies aiming at maximum economic yield and, hence, requires more attention in resource economics and in fisheries management.


Offshore financial centers are criticized for everything from facilitating money laundering to lax regulation. Yet these jurisdictions play an important positive role in the international legal system that is rarely recognized by providing a different type of competitor in the market for law. Offshore financial centers like the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man exert an important discipline on democratically-constrained onshore jurisdictions by allowing firms and individuals to route around rent-seeking legislation and by innovating in the creation of legal rules to lower transactions costs. The paper discusses examples of this including captive insurance entities and foreign finance subsidiaries. Even more importantly, offshore financial centers are well-positioned to discipline autocratic regimes, by undermining autocrats' efforts to prevent alternative centers of power from arising. Fully understanding how offshore finance centers affect the global competition among states for economic activity is crucial for addressing current policy debates over measures like the European Union's Savings Directive and the proposed U.S. Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.


One of the major goals in metagenomics is to identify organisms present in the microbial community from a huge set of unknown DNA sequences. This profiling has valuable applications in multiple important areas of medical research such as disease diagnostics. Nevertheless, it is not a simple task, and many approaches that have been developed are slow and depend on the read length of the DNA sequences. Here we introduce an innovative and agile approach which k-mer and Monte Carlo simulation to profile and report abundant organisms present in metagenomic samples and their relative abundance without sequence length dependencies. The program was tested with a simulated metagenomes, and the results show that our approach predicts the organisms in microbial communities and their relative abundance.


Past research has shown that a majority of peopleexhibit robust linear thinking for nonlinear changes in theirdecision environment. We argue that linear thinkingcould be particularly problematic in the case of interpreting carbon-dioxide's (CO2) lifetime in the earth's atmosphere. Participants from policy and non-policy backgrounds were asked to rank five ranges of CO2 percentages to be removed from the atmosphere according to their impact on CO2's lifetime in two separate conditions: Aid and no-Aid. In the Aid condition, participants were provided with a descriptive decision aid through instructions that might enable them to answer the problem correct, while this aid was absent in the no-Aid condition. Two problems were presented to each participant in random order: Linear, where a ranking based upon linear thinking yielded a correct rank order; and Nonlinear, where a ranking based upon linear thinking yielded an incorrect rank order. Results reveal that a majority of participants from both backgrounds responded linearly on both problems and although the decision aid had no effect on participants' correct responses, it enabled policy backgrounds to move away from responding according to linear thinking. We discuss implications of these findings on policymaking about climate change.


The electroacoustic measurement model (EAM model) is a model that combines models and measurements for all the electrical and electromechanical components and the acoustic/elastic wave propagation and scattering processes present in an ultrasonic measurement system to predict the measured output voltage. A new approach for implementing the EAM model is described. This approach uses a recently developed model-based pulse–echo method for determining the transducer electrical impedance and sensitivity. This method greatly simplifies the determination of the transducer sensitivity and as a consequence makes the entire EAM model more practical to implement. The experimental protocols needed to implement this simplified EAM model are described, and examples of experimentally determined characteristics of all the different system components are presented. These measured/modeled parameters of the system components are combined to predict the output signal in an ultrasonic immersion measurement system. It is shown that output signals obtained in this fashion agree well with the directly measured signals.


This paper presents a model in which price setting firms optimally decide what to pay attention to, subject to a constraint on information flow. When idiosyncratic conditions are more variable or more important than aggregate conditions, firms pay more attention to idiosyncratic conditions than to aggregate conditions. When we calibrate the model to match the large average absolute size of price changes observed in micro data, prices react fast and by large amounts to idiosyncratic shocks, but prices react only slowly and by small amounts to nominal shocks. Nominal shocks have strong and persistent real effects. We use the model to investigate how the optimal allocation of attention and the dynamics of prices depend on the firms' environment.


The extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples in various jurisdictions will generate economic gains for the businesses in those jurisdictions due to increased spending on weddings. A 2004 Forbes magazine article projected that if same-sex marriage rights were granted nation-wide, same-sex weddings would generate $16.8 billion dollars in expenditures, adding significantly to America's annual $70 billion wedding industry. For over twenty years, various other commentators have argued or found that the first state or states to offer marriage equality would experience a wave of increased tourism from out-of-state couples that would bring millions of additional dollars in revenue to state businesses. This memorandum estimates the total spending by resident and out-of-state couples on their weddings in states that recognize marriage equality for same-sex couples, in the first year after equal marriage rights were introduced.


The design of hybrid metaheuristics with ideas taken from the simulated annealing and evolutionary algorithms fields is a fruitful research line. In this paper, we first present an overview of the hybrid metaheuristics based on simulated annealing and evolutionary algorithms presented in the literature and classify them according to two well-known taxonomies of hybrid methods. Second, we perform an empirical study comparing the behavior of a representative set of the hybrid approaches based on evolutionary algorithms and simulated annealing found in the literature. In addition, a study of the synergy relationships provided by these hybrid approaches is presented. Finally, we analyze the behavior of the best performing hybrid metaheuristic with regard to several state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms for binary combinatorial problems. The experimental studies presented provide useful conclusions about the schemes for combining ideas from simulated annealing and evolutionary algorithms that may improve the performance of these kinds of approaches and suggest that these hybrids metaheuristics represent a competitive alternative for binary combinatorial problems.


Let W be a sum of Bernoulli random variables and U λ a Poisson random variable having the same mean λ = EW. Using the Stein-Chen method and suitable couplings, general upper bounds for the variational distance between W and U λ are given. These bounds are applied to problems of occupancy, using sampling with and without replacement and Pólya sampling, of capture-recapture, of spacings and of matching and ménage.


Research in sub-Saharan Africa investigating the effect of mother tongue (MT) literacy instruction at medium scale is limited. A randomized controlled trial of MT literacy instruction was implemented in 2013 and 2014 as part of the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative in Kenya. We compare the effect of two treatment groups—the base PRIMR program teaching literacy in English and Kiswahili and the PRIMR-MT program, which taught literacy in English, Kiswahili, and mother tongue—in two different language environments. Implementation of the MT program faced challenges because many educators were not speakers of the languages, some communities resisted mother tongue instruction, and some areas were more language heterogeneous. Effect sizes on MT literacy averaged between 0.3 and 0.6 standard deviations. The base PRIMR program also increased MT learning outcomes in some measures but had smaller effects than the PRIMR-MT program in oral reading fluency and comprehension.


Vehicle dynamics estimation has been the subject of study for some years now. If on-board vehicle control systems can be provided with information such as side slip angle, lateral force etc. then stability of the vehicle can be improved. To estimate these dynamic variables different observers have been used e.g., sliding mode, fuzzy logic, neural networks etc. In this article the authors propose an extended Kalman lter to estimate vehicle side slip angle. Roll angle is estimated using vertical loads as input. First, a linear Kalman lter is used to lter out the vertical forces and estimate roll angle. This information is then used to estimate the vehicle side slip angle. To take into account the nonlinearities concerning lateral vehicle dynamics, Pacejka magic formula is used to model lateral forces. Estimated results are then compared with simulations, showing good accuracy.


Sustainability is defined as the operation of a steady-state economy in which natural resource inputs and waste-product outputs are held constant. Key issues in attaining sustainability are addressing the problems of overconsumption of resource-intensive reinforcers, underconsumption of resource-light reinforcers, and lack of consumption skills that yield an enduring source of intrinsically reinforcing challenges and pleasures. Behavioral impediments to a sustainable society are described together with opportunities to achieve it. Opportunities emphasize sustainable futures people will find appealing rather than austere. These opportunities include a replacement of consumer culture with alternative value systems, embodied in John Stuart Mill's art of living, Tibor Scitovsky's cultural reawakening, B. F. Skinner's arts-based utopia, voluntary simplifiers, and the aesthetically-based values of Bohemian communities.


Dynamic assessment (DA) has been proposed as an alternative or complementary means for assessing children's language development. This study investigates the use of a DA methodology alongside a static assessment in order to obtain information on the receptive vocabulary skills of young children with suspected language impairments. A DA procedure was piloted with a group of 14 children for whom there were no concerns about speech and language development and 40 children who had been referred to speech and language therapy (age 3;05 to 5 years). Twelve of the referred children had English as an additional language (EAL) and 28 were monolingual English. The static assessment from which the DA was developed was the British Picture Vocabulary Scales. The DA incorporated measures of children's ability to match a word to a referent and to retain the words for expressive and receptive purposes. Results indicated that monolingual children and those with EAL had comparable DA scores even though their static vocabulary scores were significantly different. Children with normally developing language and children referred to speech and language therapy performed significantly differently on these dynamic measures. In addition, there was greater variability in performance on the dynamic measures within the delayed language group than in the language normal group. The DA appears to capture additional information above and beyond that captured by the BPVS especially in the group of children with the lowest language skills.


Amoxycillin trihydrate, a broad spectrum antibiotic, is a poorly water-soluble drug and has low bioavailability on oral administration. Solubility parameter of the drug (I´2) was evaluated in blends of ethyl acetate-propylene glycol and water-propylene glycol in the ratios 100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100. The results obtained were compared with the I´2, values obtained using Molar Volume method and Fedor's group substitution method. Ethyl acetate-propylene glycol (75:25) was found to give maximum solubility with an experimental value of 13.32 H in comparison to the theoretical values of 13.25 H by molar volume method and 15.46 H from Fedor's group substitution method. In vitro drug release studies and antibacterial effect were evaluated with an intention to study the effect of the solvent blends on the drug release and its activity. In the in vitro studies, the water-propylene glycol (100:0) and the ethyl acetate-propylene glycol (50:50) ratios gave maximum release of the drug in their respective blends. The results of the in vitro studies correlated with the antibiotic Study conducted on both binary blends.


The realization of women's land rights often tends to get no further than the level of action plans and policies that are rarely implemented, due to a lack of real political commitment and the patriarchal values that still predominate in Africa. To realize full gender equality (Goal 17), the implementation plan of the African Union (AU)'s Agenda 2063 recommends that 20% of rural women have access to and control of land by 2023. This paper documents how policy commitments are translated into national legislation. A consortium comprising Oxfam, the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), and the Plateforme Regionale des Organisations Paysannes d'Afrique Centrale (PROPAC) has developed a women's land rights scorecard as a quantifiable tool to measure country performance on implementing the provisions of women's land rights instruments such as the AU's Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa. The study found that while statutory laws to protect women's land rights are in place, there are loopholes and gaps in adherence to these laws at the community level.


When effects due to refractoriness (reduction of sensitivity following a nerve impulse) are taken into account, the Poisson process provides the basis for a model which accounts for all of the first-order statistical properties of the maintained discharge in-the retinal ganglion cell of the cat. The theoretical pulse-number distribution (PND) and pulse-interval distribution (PID) provide good fits to the experimental data reported by Barlow and Levick for on-center, off-center, and luminance units. The model correctly predicts changes in the shape of the empirical PND with adapting luminance and duration of the interval in which impulses are counted (counting interval). It also requires that a decrease in sensitivity to stimulation by light with increasing adapting luminance occur prior to the ganglion cell and is thus consistent with other data. Under the assumptions of the model, both on-center and off-center units appear to exhibit increasing refractoriness as the adapting luminance increases. Relationships are presented between the PND and PID for Poisson counting processes without refractoriness, with a fixed refractory period, and with a stochastically varying refractory period. It is assumed that events unable to produce impulses during the refractory period do not prolong the duration of the period (nonparalyzable counting). A short refractory period (e.g., 2% of the counting interval) drastically alters both the PND and PID, producing marked decreases in the mean and variance of the PND along with an increase in the ratio of mean to variance. In all cases of interest, a small amount of variability in refractory-period duration distinctly alters the PID from that obtainable with a fixed refractory period but has virtually no effect on the fixed-refractory period PND. Other two-parameter models that invoke scaling of a Poisson input and paralyzable counting yield predictions that do not match the data.


Reasoning about molecular interactions and signaling pathways is important from various perspectives such as predicting side effects of drugs, explaining unusual cellular behavior and drug and therapy design. Because of the vast size of these interactions a typical biologist can only focus on a very small part of the network. Thus there is a great need to develop knowledge representation and reasoning formalisms and their implementations for modelling and reasoning about molecular interactions in cells of organisms. An important component of these interactions is the action of one molecule interacting with or binding to another, or one molecule separating into multiple other molecules. Thus, action theories and action languages are good candidates to model these interactions. One major lacking of most existing action languages is the notion of triggered actions, which is a common phenomena in the cellular domain. In this paper, we introduce a language for representing and reasoning about triggered actions, and show how to model reasoning about side effects, explaining observations, and designing drugs in our language through implementations using AnsProlog.


The haptophyte genus Pseudohaptolina (formerly Chrysochromulina clade B1-3) currently harbors two species: Pseudohaptolina arctica and Pseudohap-tolina sorokinii. In addition, Chrysochromulina birgeri is expected to belong to this genus due to its morphological similarity to P. sorokinii, but has not yet been genetically characterized. A strain belonging to Pseudohaptolina was brought into culture from Arctic waters, characterized by 18S and 28S rRNA gene sequencing as well as optical and transmission electron microscopy, and deposited in the Roscoff Culture Collection with the code RCC5270. Molecular and morphological data from RCC5270 were compared with those from previously described Pseudohaptolina and Pseudohaptolina-like species. Strain RCC5270 showed strong phylogenetic affinity to P. sorokinii, but TEM observations showed that RCC5270 possesses three types of organic body scale, rather than two as originally described in P. sorokinii. We found that the occurrence of three scale types is likely to have been overlooked in the original descriptions of both P. sorokinii and C. birgeri. We also found that environmental metabarcodes identical to the sequence of RCC5270 were abundant in the location from which C. birgeri was initially described (Gulf of Finland). We conclude that P. sorokinii and C. birgeri are conspecific and P. sorokinii is therefore synonymous with C. birgeri. Based on its phylogenetic placement and nomenclatural priority we propose the new combination Pseudohaptolina birgeri and emend the description of this species.


. Dramatic shifts in community composition occur between vertical and horizontal rocky surfaces in subtidal environments worldwide, yet the forces mediating this transition are poorly understood. Vertical rock walls are often covered by lush, diverse communities of sessile suspension-feeding invertebrates, while adjacent horizontal substrates are dominated by algae, or corals in the tropics. Multiple factors, including light, sedimentation, water flow, and predation have been proposed to explain this pattern, but experimental tests of these hypotheses are lacking. We manipulated light level and predation to test whether variation in these mechanisms could be responsible for the shift in composition of sessile communities between vertical and horizontal surfaces in the rocky subtidal Gulf of Maine. Shaded horizontally oriented granite plots were dominated by invertebrates (e.g., ascidians, barnacles, bryozoans) after 25 months. Unshaded plots were dominated by macroalgae, which was virtually absent in shaded plots. Exclusion of grazers with cages had no effect on percent cover of invertebrates or algae. Preferential settlement of invertebrate larvae to shaded plots, due to larval behaviors such as negative phototaxis, did not seem to play a role. Shading likely affects post-settlement mortality of invertebrates by alleviating competition for space with algae, although greater abundance of micropredators in algal-dominated communities could also be important. Communities on shaded plots lacked many taxa present on natural wall communities, likely due to greater disturbance on horizontal substrates and/or lack of sufficient time for colonization of these taxa. These results suggest that light plays a key role in controlling the structure, composition, and function of shallow subtidal communities.


In "The Dignity of Commerce", Nathan Oman sets out an ambitious market theory of contract, which he argues is a superior normative foundation for contract law than either the moralist or economic justifications that currently dominate contract theory. In doing so, he sets out a robust defense of commerce and the marketplace as contributing to human flourishing that is a refreshing and welcome contribution in an era of market alarmism. But the market theory ultimately falls short as either a normative or prescriptive theory of contract. The extent to which law, public policy, and theory should account for values other than economic efficiency is a longstanding debate. Whatever the merits of that debate, we conclude that contract law does not need morality as envisioned by Oman — a fluid, subjective, and seemingly instinctual approach to the morality of markets.


Introduction Studies show that journals are the most valued information communication channel for researchers. Their production dates back to the seventeenth century, and their importance has not diminished. With the advent of the Internet and electronic publishing, they have become more easily accessible. Print books may be around for a long time, but print journals are rapidly being supplanted by e-journals. It is important to study the use of electronic journals, scholars' attitudes, and future patterns of use, for library development, and because of the central role journals play in scientific communication (Kortelainen, 2004). Academics in developing countries are fast adapting to the Internet as a source of information for teaching and research. Some research reveals use of the Internet for things like email (Ojedokun and Owolabi, 2003; Badu and Markwei 2005). Many studies have also been conducted to determine use of e-journals and other e-resources. Manda (2005) studied the use of electronic resources in Tanzania by academics. He found that use was low, due to inadequate end-user training, slow connectivity, limited access to PCs, poor search skills, and budget cuts. Smith (2007) looked at South Africa, finding that lack of bandwidth was a major problem, and the range of electronic journals in the respondents' field of interest fairly limited. Ehikhamenon (2003) states even though 77.5 percent of Nigerian scientists rated electronic journals as "important" or "very important," their rating was based on expectation rather than actual use. Gbaje (2007), writing on Nigerian academic libraries, found that only 20 percent of those surveyed provide access to electronic resources. Azubogu and Madu (2007) observe that academic staff of the Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria, have resorted to the use of computer and Internet technologies to search for information because the university library lacks funds to subscribe to scholarly and research journals. These constraints and more have hindered libraries in developing countries from fully enjoying the benefits of the Internet and electronic publishing. Many academics in Africa rely on their university and research institute libraries to satisfy their information needs. The libraries also rely on government funding, which has been dwindling. The situation could have been more serious, but for some interventions from non-governmental organizations and agencies. These interventions include the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) initiative, through the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI); African Journals Online (AJOL) initiative; AGORA, JSTOR, Journal Donation Project (JDP), HINARI, and others, which provide access to electronic journals by academics in developing countries. The scholarly Journal Archive (JSTOR) is a non-profit organization with a dual mission to create and maintain a trusted archive of important scholarly journals and to provide access to these journals as widely as possible. The archive spans many disciplines. Teaching staff in developing countries have access to these journals if their university libraries are beneficiaries. (Ejimofo and Ohaji, 2008). It is an online initiative. The Journal Donation Project (JDP) is another initiative. It builds archives of scholarly journals in developing countries. It began in 1990, and Nigeria amongst other countries is a beneficiary. It offers subscriptions to more than 2,000 journals from 238 publishers. The project sends donated journals from publishers to libraries, purchases journals for libraries at a discount (usually 50 percent) using grant funds, or passes on the discounts to libraries that can purchase journals through JDP. This initiative deals with print journals. Background Information Obafemi Awolowo University was founded in 1960. It was connected to the Internet in 1995, and since then has created Internet connections for all departments. …


A substantial body of literature has been produced in the twentieth century by religious and philosophical writers on the ethics of belief. Discussion of this topic has generally focused on the processes leading up to belief within the individual, so that it would not be inaccurate to say that for most of these writers 'the ethics of belief' means 'the ethics of coming–to–believe'. There has been little attention among these writers, however, to the moral questions which surround the production or inducement of beliefs in others, to the ethics of persuasion. An extension of the ethics of belief to cover moral issues which arise in connection with persuasion seems reasonable; the ethics of belief, widely construed, might be said to encompass questions about both the production of beliefs within oneself and the inducement of beliefs in others.


Within-child associations between family income and child externalizing and internalizing problems were examined using longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1,132). Variations in income effects were estimated as a function of whether families were poor, whether mothers were partnered or not, and the number of hours mothers and their partners were employed. For all study children, increases in family income were associated with decreases in externalizing problems, although the estimated benefits of gains in income were greatest for children who were chronically poor. For both externalizing and internalizing problems, income gains were most strongly associated with problem decreases when chronically poor children's mothers were partnered and employed.


Sexual abuse of adults and children has profound long-term consequences, including serious emotional, mental health and interpersonal relationship problems for the victims. Assessment, treatment and management of sex offenders are important in order to reduce sexual violence. The treatment, parole and sentencing policy should be influenced by both theoretical consideration and the risk that sex offenders pose to society (Shechory, Ben-David, 2005). Sex offenders constitute a heterogeneous group of individuals who begin abusing for a myriad of reasons. One core distinction in the research is between rapists and child molesters (Robertiello, Terry, 2007). Research showed some level of criminal specialization and distinctive criminal risk factors between rapists and child molesters (Wanklyn et al, 2012). The main goal of the present study was to determine and compare criminal risk factors between two sex offender groups in Lithuania. The sample of the study (n = 119) was drawn from five correctional institutions. Child molesters (n = 39) and rapists (n = 80) voluntarily took part in the present study. Two risk assessment tools were used in order to determine risk factors: Sexual Violence Risk –20 (SVR-20; Boer et al., 1997) and Static-99 (Hanson, Thornton, 2000). SVR-20 is one of the widely used structured professional judgment risk assessment tools. The studies show good psychometric characteristics and predictive validity of this risk assessment instrument (Rettenberger, Boer, Eher, 2011). Study in Lithuania showed criterion validity of the SVR-20 and interface between total scores and static risk factors for sexual recidivism (Mitrauskas, Cėsnienė, 2011). A structured questionnaire of psychosocial data was used for the purposes of the present study. The results of the study showed some differences between the criminal risk factors of rapists and child molesters. Rapists have committed more past violent nonsexual offenses than child molesters. They tend to be more criminally versatile as well as choosing different kinds of victims and cause more physical harm. The results also revealed that rapists are younger that child molesters and have less experience living with a life partner. However, child molesters exhibited more psychosocial adjustment problems, i.e. sexual deviance, victimization in childhood, major mental illness, substance abuse problems and relationship problems. Results of the study showed that sexual offenders against children exhibit a high density of sex offenses and an escalation in the frequency and severity of sex offenses. In order to establish prognostic validity of the sex offenders' risk factors related to criminal recidivism in Lithuanian sex offenders sample, prospective research should be performed.


The aim of the paper is, firstly, to identify a number of strategies Swiss firms pursue by performing foreign R&D, expecting that firms, in many instances, are driven by a combination of several motives ("mixed strategies"). Secondly, we ask whether foreign and domestic R&D are substitutes or complements. Thirdly, we draw some policy conclusions based on results for direct and indirect home-country effects of foreign R&D. By applying cluster analysis, we identified four specific patterns of motives of foreign R&D. In a second step, we investigated whether these clusters effectively may be interpreted as specific types of R&D strategies. To this end, the clusters were characterised in terms of a large number of variables, which, according to the OLI paradigm of FDI, determine foreign R&D. We found that the patterns of the four clusters systematically differ with respect to these theory-related variables. Some clusters represent, in terms of motives, broad-based mixed strategies, whereas others are strongly focused. It turns out that foreign R&D strategies that primarily aim at exploiting capabilities of the domestic headquarters dominate, whereas cost-reducing strategies are of very minor importance. In case of the other two strategies knowledge sourcing is a constituent element, in the first one, knowledge sourcing is at the core, in the second case it is an important element in the frame of a broad-based strategy. The relative importance of the four strategies implies that, on balance, foreign and domestic R&D are complements. Notwithstanding this positive result, it is sensible to take policy actions supporting the economy to capitalise even more on outward FDI in R&D. Policy basically should aim at securing the attractiveness of Switzerland as a location for R&D-intensive headquarters of firms performing foreign R&D, and at enhancing knowledge spill-overs from headquarter companies to other domestic firms. The five categories of measures we recommend are part of a framework-oriented policy design rather than of a more interventionist concept.


The effects of repeated swim stress on brain benzodiazepine receptors were examined in the mouse using both an in vivo and in vitro binding method. Specific in vivo binding of [3H]Ro15-1788 to benzodiazepine receptors was decreased in the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, hypothalamus, midbrain and striatum after repeated swim stress (7 consecutive days of daily swim stress) when compared to nonstressed mice. In vivo benzodiazepine receptor binding was unaltered after repeated swim stress in the cerebellum and pons medulla. The stress-induced reduction in in vivo benzodiazepine receptor binding did not appear to be due to altered cerebral blood flow or to an alteration in benzodiazepine metabolism or biodistribution because there was no difference in [14C]iodoantipyrine distribution or whole brain concentrations of clonazepam after repeated swim stress. Saturation binding experiments revealed a change in both apparent maximal binding capacity and affinity after repeated swim stress. Moreover, a reduction in clonazepam's anticonvulsant potency was also observed after repeated swim stress [an increase in the ED50 dose for protection against pentylenetetrazol-induced seizures], although there was no difference in pentylenetetrazol-induced seizure threshold between the two groups. In contrast to the results obtained in vivo, no change in benzodiazepine receptor binding kinetics was observed using the in vitro binding method. These data suggest that environmental stress can alter the binding parameters of the benzodiazepine receptor and that the in vivo and in vitro binding methods can yield substantially different results.


This article offers empirically based analytical scrutiny of what deskilling looks like and means for migrant nurses. We draw on 30 interviews with Filipino and Polish nurse migrants in Oslo, Norway, which we analyze comparatively. Through empirical attention to nurse migrants' professional experiences, we address the analytically oriented question of what constitutes deskilling in their experience. Concerns over deskilling, in relation to nurse migration and beyond, prompt attention to instances of human capital not being employed in meaningful and productive ways. We argue that attention to migrants' professional identities provides analytical opportunity to better unpack what deskilling entails. Borrowing from theorization of identities, deskilling as linked to migrants' professional identities is understood as dynamic, processual, and situated. We propose that deskilling should be understood as part of the multi-dimensional and interacting processes of de-, re-, and upskilling. We find cases of obvious and wasteful deskilling related to authorization procedures for non-EU-trained nurses, but also instances where it may be disputable whether human resources are used well, or not, and cases of upskilling and reskilling over time. Our findings uncover three core insights. First, our approach to deskilling reveals both the scope for and the salience of migrants' agency, despite structural constraints. Second, the importance of time and of capturing change over time in migration research becomes apparent. Third, we argue that improved conceptualizations of deskilling, linked to migrants' professional identities, could inform policies that make better use of migrants' human capital, and through this also contribute to migrants' well-being.


Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most critical articular diseases with synovial hyperplasia followed by impairment of quality of life. However, the mechanism(s) that regulates synovial cell outgrowth is not fully understood. To clarify its mechanism(s), we carried out immunoscreening by using antirheumatoid synovial cell antibody and identified and cloned "Synoviolin/Hrd1", an E3 ubiquitin ligase. Synoviolin/Hrd1 was highly expressed in the rheumatoid synovium, and mice overexpressing this enzyme developed spontaneous arthropathy. Conversely, synoviolin/hrd1(+/-) mice were resistant to collagen-induced arthritis by enhanced apoptosis of synovial cells. We conclude that Synoviolin/Hrd1 is a novel causative factor for arthropathy by triggering synovial cell outgrowth through its antiapoptotic effects. Our findings provide a new pathogenetic model of RA and suggest that Synoviolin/Hrd1 could be targeted as a therapeutic strategy for RA.


This publication is part of the implementation of the Government Plan for Analysis, Assessment and Research. (tietokayttoon.fi) The content is the responsibility of the producers of the information and does not necessarily represent the view of the Government.


This paper describes an investigation into how an employee using a virtual environment can circumvent any or all of the security, policies and procedures within an organization. The paper discusses the fundamental issues that organizations must address to be able to detect such an attack. Attacks of this nature may be malicious with intent to cause disruption by flooding the network or disabling specific equipment, or non-malicious by quietly gathering critical information such as user names and passwords or a colleague's internet banking details. Identification of potential residual evidence following an attack is presented. Such evidence may be used to speculate or verify an attack incident occurrence. Additionally, the forensic extraction of any such evidence is discussed. Finally, the paper raises the possibility of a virtual machine being used as an anti-forensic tool to destroy incriminating evidence in such circumstances.


We present Spectral Registration with Multilayer Resampling (SRMR) as a 6 Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) registration method for noisy 3D data with partial overlap. The algorithm is based on decoupling 3D rotation from 3D translation by a corresponding resampling process of the spectral magnitude of a 3D Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) calculation on discretized 3D range data. The registration of all 6DOF is then subsequently carried out with spectral registrations using Phase Only Matched Filtering (POMF). There are two main aspects for the fast and robust registration of Euler angles from spherical information in SRMR. First of all, there is the permanent use of phase matching. Second, based on the FFT on a discrete Cartesian grid, not only one spherical layer but also a complete stack of layers are processed in one step. Experiments are presented with challenging datasets with respect to interference and overlap. The results include the fast and robust registration of artificially transformed data for ground-truth comparison, scans from the Stanford Bunny dataset, high end 3D laser range finder (LRF) scans of a city center, and range data from a low-cost actuated LRF in a disaster response scenario.


Receptivity implies an openness to emotions, ideas, people, and counsel. For Christian leaders receptivity is a key component which allows God to work more fully through the leader to accomplish His purposes. Leaders inevitably make decisions. Within the realm of Christian leadership, decision making should be undergirded by Biblical foundations. Within this gap there is need for increased discussion that highlights the biblical principles from which to operate as well as development of context and potential antecedents. This contribution to the discussion addresses the importance of establishing a Biblical perspective for facilitating greater understanding for self and others with regard to decision making and its inclusion within an integrated context of Scripture, Christian leadership theology, and leadership theory. The influence of leader character with regard to embodiment of humility or hubris is proposed and vulnerabilities of decision making identified and discussed within this context. The Biblical theme of receptivity is then explored through the lived experiences and decisions of two Biblical leaders, Pharaoh and Saul/Paul.


Rhinosporidiosis is a chronic granulomatous inflammatory disease inducing polyps of the affected mucous membrane and is caused by Rhinosporidium seeberi. Seldom mimicking other more malignant and vigorous pathologies of the involved part. As rhinosporidiosis primarily affects orofacial and sino-nasal region, it is of great value to the oral physician, oral radiologist and oral surgeon and a necessary differential diagnosis to be kept in mind for sino-nasal masses. As the causative organism is an aquatic protistan parasite and cannot be cultured in vitro, the diagnosis depends on clinical and histopathological findings. Treatment is complete surgical excision but recurrence is quite common at 10% to 30%. Use of cryosurgery and electrocautery reduce the recurrence. Also, systemic dapsone therapy is used as an adjunct to surgical intervention and helps in preventing recurrences. In this case report, the clinical, radiological and pathological features of a case presenting in a 55-year old male has been described. The involvement, erosion and destruction of the various walls of maxillary sinus and maxillary osteomyelitis as in this case is very rare and only a few cases have been recorded in the literature. The surgical and pharmacologic management along with 18 months follow up has been discussed and a short review of literature has been made.


Purpose: This work presents an improved algorithm for the generation of 3D breast software phantoms and its evaluation for mammography. Methods: The improved methodology has evolved from a previously presented 3D noncompressed breast modeling method used for the creation of breast models of different size, shape, and com-position. The breast phantom is composed of breast surface, duct system and terminal ductal lobular units, Cooper's ligaments, lymphatic and blood vessel systems, pectoral muscle, skin, 3D mammographic background texture, and breast abnormalities. The key improvement is the development of a new algorithm for 3D mammographic texture generation. Simulated images of the enhanced 3D breast model without lesions were produced by simulating mammographic image acquisition and were evaluated subjectively and quantitatively. For evaluation purposes, a database with regions of interest taken from simulated and real mammograms was created. Four experienced radiologists participated in a visual subjective evaluation trial, as they judged the quality of the simulated mammograms, using the new algorithm compared to mammograms, obtained with the old modeling approach. In addition, extensive quantitative evaluation included power spectral analysis and calculation of fractal dimension, skewness, and kurtosis of simulated and real mammograms from the database. Results: The results from the subjective evaluation strongly suggest that the new methodology for mammographic breast texture creates improved breast models compared to the old approach. Calculated parameters on simulated images such as (cid:1) exponent deducted from the power law spectral analysis and fractal dimension are similar to those calculated on real mammograms. The results for the kurtosis and skewness are also in good coincidence with those calculated from clinical images. Comparison with similar calculations published in the literature showed good agreement in the majority of cases. Conclusions: The improved methodology generated breast models with increased realism compared to the older model as shown in evaluations of simulated images by experienced radiologists. It is anticipated that the realism will be further improved using an advanced image simulator so that simulated images may be used in feasibility studies in mammography. © 2010 American Associa-tion of Physicists in Medicine . (cid:3) DOI: 10.1118/1.3491812 (cid:4)


Recent findings by the NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers and ESA's Mars Express indicate that during an earlier era in the planets' evolution, evaporation of surface water may have left behind vast evaporite deposits1,2,3. This makes the possibility of finding biological material preserved in halite inclusions most intriguing4. The retrieval and characterization of microorganisms from ancient halite crystals5,6 suggests that it might be possible to locate their remains as biomarkers or even living cells from evaporites sampled from extraterrestrial environments. However, before this is possible, techniques for the detection of bacterial cells or biomolecules in halite and other evaporite crystals need further refining. Specifically, contamination must be minimized and quantified during the microbial analysis of such crystals. Aseptic techniques that allow for the direct extraction of fluid brines from micron to millimeter size inclusions significantly reduce the possibility for contamination. However, even with extreme precautions, the possibility for contamination cannot be entirely eliminated, particularly when culture-based methods are employed. We have elicited native fluorescence from a variety of biomolecules, including the aromatic amino acids and nucleic acids, by laser excitation at 248 and 224 nm from haloarchaea and haloarchaea residues trapped in halite. Energy to each sample, (positive control crystals with Halobacteria salinarum and bacteria-free negative control crystals), was 80 microwatts at 224 nm and 25 microwatts at 248 nm. A 30 s exposure of the inclusions within the positive control elicited easily detectable fluorescence while there was no response from the negative control crystals during the same exposure. Analysis of halite crystals sampled from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico yielded similar results. To minimize microbial damage from the high-energy 224-248 nm beams and to make the technique more widely available to the scientific community, we have examined the possibility of using a standard epi-fluorescent microscope for similar purposes. We have elicited a native fluorescence response from microscopic eukaryotes in rapid scanning, low magnification mode employing 365 nm excitation and are optimizing the visualization of prokaryotes with this system. Aseptic identification of epifluorescent biosignatures in evaporite inclusions would be of significant utility for planetary protection and preliminary screening protocols during a Mars sample return mission.


Earthquakes along convergent plate boundaries commonly occur in sequences that are complete within 1 yr, and may include 8–10 events strong enough to generate sand blows. Dune crossbeds within the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone of Utah (western United States) enclose intact and truncated sand blows, and the intrusive structures that fed them. We mapped the distribution of more than 800 soft-sediment dikes and pipes at two small sites. All water-escape structures intersect a single paleo-surface, and are limited to the upper portion of the underlying set of cross-strata and the lower portion of the overlying set. A small portion of one set of crossbeds that represents ∼1 yr of dune migration encloses eight generations of eruptive events. We interpret these superimposed depositional and deformational structures as the record of a single shock-aftershock earthquake sequence. The completeness and temporal detail of this paleoseismic record are unique, and were made possible when sand blows repeatedly erupted onto lee slopes of migrating dunes. Similar records should be sought in modern dunefields with shallow water tables.


A material mixing method to obtain an optimal topology for a structure in a thermal environment was suggested. This method is based on Evolutionary Structural Optimization (ESO). The proposed material mixing method extends the ESO method to a mixing several materials for a structure in the multicriteria optimization of thermal flux and thermal stress. To do this, the multiobjective optimization technique was implemented. The overall efficiency of material usage was measured in terms of the combination of thermal stress levels and heat flux densities by using a combination strategy with weighting factors. Optimal topologies having multiple thermal criteria for a printed circuit board (PCB) substrate were presented to illustrate validity of the suggested material mixing method. It was found that the suggested method works very well for the multicriteria topology optimization.


Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been declared 'a life sentence' based on evidence that the disorder leads to a host of physical health problems. Some of the strongest empirical research – in terms of methodology and findings – has shown that PTSD predicts higher risk of cardiometabolic diseases, specifically cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Despite mounting evidence, PTSD is not currently acknowledged as a risk factor by cardiovascular or endocrinological medicine. This view is unlikely to change absent compelling evidence that PTSD causally contributes to cardiometabolic disease. This review suggests that with developments in methods for epidemiological research and the rapidly expanding knowledge of the behavioral and biological effects of PTSD the field is poised to provide more definitive answers to questions of causality. First, we discuss methods to improve causal inference using the observational data most often used in studies of PTSD and health, with particular reference to issues of temporality and confounding. Second, we consider recent work linking PTSD with specific behaviors and biological processes, and evaluate whether these may plausibly serve as mechanisms by which PTSD leads to cardiometabolic disease. Third, we evaluate how looking more comprehensively into the PTSD phenotype provides insight into whether specific aspects of PTSD phenomenology are particularly relevant to cardiometabolic disease. Finally, we discuss new areas of research that are feasible and could enhance understanding of the PTSD–cardiometabolic relationship, such as testing whether treatment of PTSD can halt or even reverse the cardiometabolic risk factors causally related to CVD and T2D.


Existing user performance models of navigation for very large documents describe trends in movement time over the entire navigation task. However, these navigation tasks are in fact a combination of many sub-tasks, the details of which are lost when aggregated. Thus, existing models do not provide insight into the navigation choices implicit in a navigation task, nor into how strategy ultimately affects user performance. Focusing on the domain of data visualizations, the very large documents we investigate are very large data views. We present an algorithmic decision process and descriptive performance model of zooming and panning navigation strategy, parameterized to account for speed-accuracy trade-offs, using common mouse-based interaction techniques. Our model is fitted and validated against empirical data, and used to evaluate proposed optimal strategies. Further, we use our model to provide support for interaction design considerations for achieving performant interaction techniques for navigation of very large data views.


Objective To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence on the effects of β-alanine supplementation on exercise capacity and performance. Design This study was designed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. A 3-level mixed effects model was employed to model effect sizes and account for dependencies within data. Data sources 3 databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science) were searched using a number of terms ('β-alanine' and 'Beta-alanine' combined with 'supplementation', 'exercise', 'training', 'athlete', 'performance' and 'carnosine'). Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Inclusion/exclusion criteria limited articles to double-blinded, placebo-controlled studies investigating the effects of β-alanine supplementation on an exercise measure. All healthy participant populations were considered, while supplementation protocols were restricted to chronic ingestion. Cross-over designs were excluded due to the long washout period for skeletal muscle carnosine following supplementation. A single outcome measure was extracted for each exercise protocol and converted to effect sizes for meta-analyses. Results 40 individual studies employing 65 different exercise protocols and totalling 70 exercise measures in 1461 participants were included in the analyses. A significant overall effect size of 0.18 (95% CI 0.08 to 0.28) was shown. Meta-regression demonstrated that exercise duration significantly (p=0.004) moderated effect sizes. Subgroup analyses also identified the type of exercise as a significant (p=0.013) moderator of effect sizes within an exercise time frame of 0.5–10 min with greater effect sizes for exercise capacity (0.4998 (95% CI 0.246 to 0.753)) versus performance (0.1078 (95% CI −0.201 to 0.416)). There was no moderating effect of training status (p=0.559), intermittent or continuous exercise (p=0.436) or total amount of β-alanine ingested (p=0.438). Co-supplementation with sodium bicarbonate resulted in the largest effect size when compared with placebo (0.43 (95% CI 0.22 to 0.64)). Summary/conclusions β-alanine had a significant overall effect while subgroup analyses revealed a number of modifying factors. These data allow individuals to make informed decisions as to the likelihood of an ergogenic effect with β-alanine supplementation based on their chosen exercise modality.


Algal biofuels around the world represent a sustainable pathway to meet increasing demand for fuel and clean energy with reduced environmental impact. More than half of that mass consists of lipids or triacylglycerides which are also found in vegetable oils and are used to produce such advanced biofuels as biodiesel, green diesel, green gasoline and green jet fuel. Algal remediation technology helps in pH correction of acidic mine water and effluent and complete reduction of sludge formation, the use of algae for the removal of pollutants from wastewater and CO2 from air. Algae use sunlight, water with carbon dioxide to produce fuel through photosynthesis which is a potential future energy source. The objective of this paper is to utilise algae-based technology to mitigate water pollution by cleaning and absorbing the pollutants, reduce carbon emissions in coal mining polluted areas, eradicate malnutrition by adding more nutrients to the soil to increase soil fertility and food production, with minimisation of the energy crisis in and around coal mining areas where availability of water, fertility of soil, cooking fuel, environment are very poor. Besides this, algae which is left over can be used as biofertiliser, cattle, fish and poultry feeds which will help in creating employment.


This chapter provides an up-to-date review of the state of knowledge relating to the source of sediment and nutrients as well as pesticides and other pollutants delivered to the Great Barrier Reef from adjacent catchments. The strengths and limitations of the various datasets are also discussed. Collectively, sediment, nutrients, pesticides and other pollutants (e.g. petroleum hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals) are described as 'pollutants'. This chapter is focused on defining the major source areas of these pollutants across the Great Barrier Reef, how these sources have varied in space and time, the major processes (e.g. hillslope, gully and streambank erosion) delivering these pollutants, their relative loads to the Great Barrier Reef and a summary of the main drivers in terms of land use, land condition and agricultural practices. Plot- and paddock-scale studies, including the effectiveness of remediation approaches, are summarised in Chapter 4.
Acknowledging that all forms of data used to estimate pollutant loads to the Great Barrier Reef have constraints and limitations, this review uses a 'multiple lines of evidence' approach and draws on data from three main sources. These include the Queensland Government load monitoring data, the latest Queensland Government whole of Great Barrier Reef Source Catchments modelling results (which underpin the Report Card 2015) as well as a summary of the numerous individual research projects and synthesis reports published over the last four years. Data and information are included that was published, publicly available and that had undergone a peer review process. In a few cases, grey literature (e.g. consulting reports) and journal publications currently in review are included.
A synthesis of the broad findings of this chapter are outlined below and in Table 1. A detailed description of what has changed since the last Scientific Consensus Statement is provided in Table 20.


The basic information for designers of lightning protection of MV and LV networks is given in Part I of the present publication. This Part II gives an application of this basic information to the lightning protection of MV networks containing overhead lines. As the overvoltages due to lightning reach important values, an economical and safe network design calls for extensive lightning protection. This general statement applies to high voltage as well as medium and low voltage networks. Overvoltage protection can be basically achieved in two ways: - reducing the amplitude and rate of occurrence of lightning overvoltages at the point of origin (e.g. through shielding the line conductors or improving the footing resistance of towers); - limiting the overvoltage at the equipment location (e.g. through surge arresters). In high voltage networks, both methods of protection are common. In MV networks shielding the conductors is generally not very effective. Due to the small clearance between the earth wire and the conductors, a direct lightning stroke will usually hit the conductors as well. In addition, induced overvoltages can be reduced only to a low extent by shield wires, as reported in [1]. For these reasons, the most effective protection against overvoltages in such networks is the use of surge arresters or spark gaps in the vicinity of the equipment. The paper gives guidance in the selection of rating and position of such protective devices and gives some indication on the effect of their use on the quality of the supply.


The study investigates whether electricity consumption could be a valuable data supplement in analysing house value variations within the city. Electricity consumption is a proxy for economic and citizen activity, wealth, population size, density, and to a certain extent habits of the residents. In general, electricity could substitute many factors that are essential in real estate markets. The study investigates real estate market in London by employing a panel of electricity consumption and house price data of 32 boroughs from 2003 to 2014. The data enables to examine cross-sectional and temporal links using several panel models. Additionally, robustness of outcomes are tested. The findings indicate that there is a negative correlation between domestic electricity consumption and average house values, suggesting that owners of more expensive houses consumes less electricity. On the other hand, boroughs that consume more non domestic electricity are positively related with the average house values in the area, suggesting that homes are more expensive in more active areas. Electricity consumption could supplement data used in real estate market analysis. The electricity consumption data is precise, rapidly obtained, and could be gathered frequently without high cost, contrary to population and economic activity statistics. At the same time electricity consumption may help analyse the characteristics of an area that are difficult to quantify and expensive to collect. To the authors' knowledge, there is no other study that investigates interconnection between electricity consumption and real estate market. By using the electricity consumption, house price trends could be quantified more precisely, thus producing a city profile that paints a more realistic picture for the market participants.


Australia's Wedge-tailed Eagle belongs to the family of eagles, which together span the world. Eagles are powerful predators, with exceptional powers of flight and sight. They may kill to survive, but they also sleep, play, enjoy a bath, make tender parents, and form lasting relationships.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of Australia's largest true eagle and one of the country's few large predators and scavengers. First appearing in Aboriginal rock-paintings more than 5000 years ago, the Wedge-tailed Eagle was little more than a curiosity to the early European settlers. The book traces the subsequent changes in perception—from its branding as a vicious sheep killer to an iconic species worthy of conservation—and covers distribution, habitat, hunting, relationships, reproduction and chick development. A final section deals with threats to the existence of this magnificent bird.

Winner of the 2006 Whitley Award for Best Natural History of an Iconic Species.