The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of Turmeric (Curcuma Longa) and Black cumin seed (Nigella Sativa) mixture on selected biochemical parameters of streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats. Therefore, twenty one healthy adult albino rats divided into three groups (7 rats in each). Rats of first and second groups were non diabetic and diabetic respectively. Rats of the third group were diabetic and received a mixture of Turmeric (0.5 g/kg b .wt.) and Black cumin seed (1 g/kg b.wt.). All treatments were orally administered by intragastric intubations once a day for six weeks. The changes in blood glucose level, body weight and water and food intake were measured. In addition, selected biochemical parameters were also determined. The present study revealed that, dietary supplementation of plant mixture of Turmeric and Black cumin seed to diabetic rats significantly (P


We address the issue of generating texts in the style of an existing author, that also satisfy structural constraints imposed by the genre of the text. We focus on song lyrics, for which structural constraints are well-defined: rhyme and meter. Although Markov processes are known to be suitable for representing style, they are difficult to control in order to satisfy non-local properties, such as structural constraints, that require long distance modeling. We show that the framework of Constrained Markov Processes allows us to precisely generate texts that are consistent with a corpus, while being controllable in terms of rhymes and meter, a result that no other technique, to our knowledge, could achieve to date. Controlled Markov processes consist in reformulating Markov processes in the context of constraint satisfaction. We describe how to represent stylistic and structural properties in terms of constraints in this framework and we provide an evaluation of our method by comparing it to both pure Markov and pure constraint-based approaches. We show how this approach can be used for the semi-automatic generation of lyrics in the style of a popular author that has the same structure as an existing song.


The bullwhip effect is an amplification of the variability of the orders placed by companies in a supply chain. This variability reduces the efficiency of supply chains, since it incurs costs due to higher inventory levels and supply chain agility reduction. Eliminating the bullwhip effect is surely simple; every company just has to order following the market demand, i.e., each company should use a lot-for-lot type of ordering policy. However, many reasons, such as inventory management, lot-sizing, and market, supply, or operation uncertainties, motivate companies not to use this strategy. Therefore, the bullwhip effect cannot be totally eliminated. However, it can be reduced by information sharing, which is the form of collaboration considered in this paper. More precisely, we study how to separate demand into original demand and adjustments. We describe two principles explaining how to use the shared information to reduce the amplification of order variability induced by lead times, which we propose as a cause of the effect. Simulations confirm the value of these two principles with regard to costs and customer service levels


Moral egalitarianism will depend on one of two basic ideas. The first is the idea of equality itself. We might believe that it is a good thing if different people have equal shares of resources, or if their lives score equally well in terms of whatever makes lives valuable, at least if there is no reason based on some other moral value for one person to do better than the other. Equality is a relationship between the lives of different people. This version of egalitarianism (I will call it the 'equality view') claims that the existence of the relationship makes an outcome better. It attributes value to relations between lives rather than to the content of lives.


As social scientists have investigated the political and social factors influencing public opinion in science-related policy debates, there has been growing interest in the implications of this research for public communication and outreach. Given the level of political polarization in the United States, much of the focus has been on partisan differences in public opinion, the strategies employed by political leaders and advocates that promote those differences, and the counter-strategies for overcoming them. Yet this focus on partisan differences tends to overlook the processes by which core beliefs about science and society impact public opinion and how these schema are often activated by specific frames of reference embedded in media coverage and popular discourse. In this study, analyzing cross-sectional, nationally representative survey data collected between 2002 and 2010, we investigate the relative influence of political partisanship and science-related schema on Americans' support for embryonic stem cell research. In comparison to the influence of partisan identity, our findings suggest that generalized beliefs about science and society were more chronically accessible, less volatile in relation to media attention and focusing events, and an overall stronger influence on public opinion. Classifying respondents into four unique audience groups based on their beliefs about science and society, we additionally find that individuals within each of these groups split relatively evenly by partisanship but differ on other important dimensions. The implications for public engagement and future research on controversies related to biomedical science are discussed.


Abstract This article can be read as an Editorial for the first issue of the Journal of Catalan Intellectual History (JOCIH) in its new stage at de Gruyter Open. It offers, first, a methodical review of the concept, roles, and trends of intellectual history in the 20th century. Next, it looks into the particular Catalan tradition, historiography, and cultural analysis to position the aim and the role of the Journal with regard to similar initiatives. It tries to give an answer to the crisis of intellectual history as a discipline, at the end of the past century. The third part of the article describes some of the available resources. The fourth section introduces the contents of the present issue, focussing on the construction of a collective identity and the literary engagement of Catalan writers between 1920 and 1980, either in their country or in exile. The Notes of the present issue highlight the importance of technology, natural language processing, and Semantic Web developments in carrying out contemporary research in this field.


This study aims to better understand the effect of practice schedule and feedback providing types. In two separate experiments the contextual interference effect in bandwidth and self-control feedback conditions on relative and absolute timing learning was examined. In experiment I, the effect of contextual interference using bandwidth and self-control feedback on absolute timing learning (parameters) was studied. Results in the acquisition test showed the performance of blocked self-control and bandwidth groups were significantly better than other groups (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in retention and transfer tests (P>0.05). In experiment II, the effects of contextual interference with using a bandwidth and self-control feedback on relative timing learning (GMP) were studied. . In retention and transfer tests, the performance of random self-control and bandwidth groups was significantly different to the other groups (P<0.05). The performance of self-control feedback groups in both experiments was better than bandwidth feedback groups (P<0.05) in all stages. The results of this study reveal the beneficial effect of self-control feedback on relative timing (GMP) rather than absolute timing (parameter) learning and supported the theoretical separation of this processes.


The ongoing democratic movements and civil wars in the Middle East have challenged the stability of regimes across the region. On the other hand, the commercial exploitation of large reserves of unconventional oil and gas in the United States is poised to significantly change the current equilibrium in energy markets. What are the implications of these developments on Saudi Arabia's energy policy? Will the long-standing U.S.-Saudi alliance remain the cornerstone of the kingdom's relationship with the outside world? We study these questions using a game-theoretic approach. Specifically, we investigate whether the new political and economic trends may warm the Saudi regime to a workable energy cartel with Russia. We analyze the outcomes from different coalitions that could form among major energy suppliers and show that this is indeed a possibility. We discuss the implications of our results for U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia.


Various high power applications require power converters with large voltage step ratios, easily achieved by inclusion of a single or multiple transformers, which provide galvanic isolation at the same time. This paper presents, in a systematic manner, the necessary steps for the integration of a Low Frequency Transformer (LFT) into the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC). Unlike the classical MMC that requires an external transformer for galvanic isolation, this work considers a transformer integration at the arm level resulting in a complete replacement of the arm inductors. Such galvanically isolated modular converters can be realized either in interleaved or stacked arrangements. The properties of each variant are discussed and compared with the classical MMC with external LFT, on the system design level but also from the control point of view.


Nuclear actin-related proteins (Arps) are subunits of several chromatin remodelers, but their molecular functions within these complexes are unclear. We report the crystal structure of the INO80 complex subunit Arp8 in its ATP-bound form. Human Arp8 has several insertions in the conserved actin fold that explain its inability to polymerize. Most remarkably, one insertion wraps over the active site cleft and appears to rigidify the domain architecture, while active site features shared with actin suggest an allosterically controlled ATPase activity. Quantitative binding studies with nucleosomes and histone complexes reveal that Arp8 and the Arp8–Arp4–actin-HSA sub-complex of INO80 strongly prefer nucleosomes and H3–H4 tetramers over H2A–H2B dimers, suggesting that Arp8 functions as a nucleosome recognition module. In contrast, Arp4 prefers free (H3–H4)2 over nucleosomes and may serve remodelers through binding to (dis)assembly intermediates in the remodeling reaction.


This book explores learning outcomes for low-income rural and township youth at five South African universities. The book is framed as a contribution to southern and Africa-centred scholarship, adapting Amartya Sen's capability approach and a framework of key concepts: capabilities, functionings, context, conversion factors, poverty and agency to investigate opportunities and obstacles to achieved student outcomes. This approach allows a reimagining of 'inclusive learning outcomes' to encompass the multi-dimensional value of a university education and a plurality of valued cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes for students from low-income backgrounds whose experiences are strongly shaped by hardship.
 Based on capability theorising and student voices, the book proposes for policy and practice a set of contextual higher education capability domains and corresponding functionings orientated to more justice and more equality for each person to have the opportunities to be and to do what they have reason to value. The book concludes that sufficient material resources are necessary to get into university and flourish while there; the benefits of a university education should be rich and multi-dimensional so that they can result in functionings in all areas of life as well as work and future study; the inequalities and exclusion of the labour market and pathways to further study must be addressed by wider economic and social policies for 'inclusive learning outcomes' to be meaningful; and that universities ought to be doing more to enable black working-class students to participate and succeed.
 Low-Income Students, Human Development and Higher Education in South Africamakes an original contribution to capabilitarian scholarship: conceptually in theorising a South-based multi-dimensional student well-being higher education matrix and a rich reconceptualisation of learning outcomes, as well as empirically by conducting rigorous, longitudinal in-depth mixed-methods research on students' lives and experiences in higher education in South Africa. The audience for the book includes higher education researchers, international capabilitarian scholars, practitioners and policy-makers.


We consider a class of convex approximations for totally unimodular (TU) integer recourse models and derive a uniform error bound by exploiting properties of the total variation of the probability density functions involved. For simple integer recourse models this error bound is tight and improves the existing one by a factor 2, whereas for TU integer recourse models this is the first nontrivial error bound available. The bound ensures that the performance of the approximations is good as long as the total variations of the densities of all random variables in the model are small enough.


PURPOSE: The sodium/iodide symporter (NIS) gene is currently explored in several trials to eradicate experimental cancer with radiodine ((131)I) by its beta-emission. We recently characterized NIS-specific cellular uptake of an alternative halide, radioastatine ((211)At), which emits high-energy alpha-particles. The aim of this study was to investigate in vivo effects of the high linear energy transfer (LET) emitter (211)At on tumor growth and outcome in nude mice. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We administered radioastatide in a fractionated therapy scheme to NMRI nude mice harboring rapidly growing solid tumors established from a papillary thyroid carcinoma cell line genetically modified to express NIS (K1-NIS). Animals were observed over 1 year. Tumor growth, body weight, blood counts, survival, and side effects were measured compared with control groups without therapy and/or lack of NIS expression. RESULTS: Within 3 months, radioastatide caused complete primary tumor eradication in all cases of K1-NIS tumor-bearing nude mice (n = 25) with no tumor recurrence during 1 year follow-up. Survival rates of the K1-NIS/(211)At group were 96% after 6 months and 60% after 1 year, in contrast to those of control groups (maximum survival 40 days). CONCLUSION: Our study indicates that (211)At represents a promising substrate for NIS-mediated therapy of various cancers either with endogenous or gene transfer-mediated NIS expression.


Diffusion functions in term-structure models are measures of uncertainty about future price movements and are directly related to the risk associated with holding financial securities. Correct specification of diffusion functions is crucial in pricing options and other derivative securities. In contrast to the standard parametric two-factor models, we propose a non-parametric two-factor term-structure model that imposes no restrictions on the functional forms of the diffusion functions. Hence, this model allows for maximum flexibility when fitting diffusion functions into data. A non-parametric procedure is developed for estimating the diffusion functions, based on the discretely sampled observations. The convergence properties and the asymptotic distributions of the proposed non-parametric estimators of the diffusion functions with multivariate dimensions are also obtained. Based on U.S. data, the non-parametric prices of the bonds and bond options are computed and compared with those calculated under an alternative parametric model. The empirical results show that the non-parametric model generates significantly different prices for the derivative securities.


There has been a lot of public concern around the low rate of punishment for the offence of rape. It is a well-established fact that most know rapes do not result in the conviction of an offender. A central issue for this talk is whether we can conclude from this that the criminal justice system is failing women who have suffered a sexual assault. Obviously this depends on how we construe failure. Would a low prosecution rate or a low conviction rate necessarily mean failure if it is an outcome of a system in which everybody involved strives to convict the guilty while observing current understandings of best practice in terms of protecting the rights of both victims and accused persons? That would obviously be a very different sort of failure from systems in which efforts are routinely half hearted or which is less able to honour current understandings of good practice. It can be observed at the outset, that whatever sort of failure a low conviction rate for serious sexual offences is in Scotland, this is not just a Scottish problem as low rates of conviction for rape are also found elsewhere. I want to consider what the research that I have been involved in offers by way of evidence concerning the treatment of women as victims of sexual assault in the criminal justice system. This is not to suggest that this research provides anything like a full story but it does offer some insights.


INTRODUCTION Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with a high likelihood of progression to chronic infection, which in turn may lead to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and death. It is estimated that acute infection may lead to persistent infection in up to 85% of cases. Unfortunately, a majority of cases of acute hepatitis C (AHC) infection are asymptomatic and detection of the virus may go unnoticed for years until complications develop. Early detection of AHC, although clinically challenging, is ideal as response to therapy is maximized (1). The best approach to AHC patients continues to be controversial in most cases. AHC typically follows a mild clinical course, or is usually completely asymptomatic. The minority will present with typical clinical symptoms of hepatitis, including jaundice. Fulminant hepatic failure is a rare event. In Italy, the 1995–2000 case fatality rate for AHC was 0.1%, which is higher than hepatitis A (0.01%), but lower than acute hepatitis B (0.4%) (2). Coinfection with other hepatitis viruses may have contributed to the cases of severe acute hepatitis C infections (3). Risk factors for acquiring AHC include blood transfusion, injection drug use (IDU), medical procedures, nosocomial exposure, vertical transmission from mother to fetus, and possibly sexual transmission. Acquiring HCV through blood transfusion is now highly unlikely with the introduction of serological screening assays in 1991 (4). Sexual transmission is a controversial mode of transmission as there is still no convincing evidence of the presence of HCV RNA in biological fluids (5). It is speculated that risky behaviors and sharing sharp utensils between couples may account for suspected cases of sexual transmission(6).


If we are to understand why psychoanalysis extends ordinary psychology in the precise ways that it does, we must take account of the existence of, and the interplay between, two distinct kinds of explanatory concern: functional and idiographic. The form and content of psychoanalytic explanation and its unusual methodology can, at least in part, be viewed as emerging out of Freud's attempt to reconcile these two types of explanatory concern. We must also acknowledge the role of the background theoretical context that shapes Freud's functional thinking about the mind. A neglect of the role of the background theory in shaping the extension of ordinary psychology leaves us with puzzles about the nature and direction of the psychoanalytic extension and gives rise to an unbelievable history of psychoanalysis.


This document describes the panel of publicly traded United States manufacturing firms which was created and updated at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1978 through 1990 within the Productivity Program. The panel consists of 2726 large manufacturing firms with one to twenty-nine years of data each; the period covered by the sampling frame was 1976 through 1987, with data back to 1959 where possible. There are about 90 variable for each firm-year of data: the variables give the complete income statement, balance sheet, statement of changes, and data on the market value f the common stock. The firms on the file are identified both by their CUSIP number and by name, making it feasible to match this data to other sources. A special feature of this data file is that all exits from the file between 1976 and 1987 have been identified and the reasons for exit have been tabulated in a diskette file. This file is described in Appendix A of this document.


AIMS
More than half of infants exposed to opioids in utero develop neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) of severity to require pharmacological therapy. Current treatments are associated with prolonged hospitalization. We sought to optimize the dose of sublingual buprenorphine in the treatment of NAS.

DESIGN
Randomized, Phase 1, open-label, active-control clinical trial comparing sublingual buprenorphine to oral morphine.

SETTING
Large, urban, tertiary care hospital.

PARTICIPANTS
Twenty-four term infants requiring pharmacological treatment for NAS.

MEASUREMENTS
Outcomes were neonatal safety, length of treatment and length of hospitalization.

FINDINGS
Sublingual buprenorphine was safe and effective. Infants treated with buprenorphine had a 23-day length of treatment compared to 38 days for those treated with morphine (P = 0.01), representing a 40% reduction. Length of hospital stay in the buprenorphine group was reduced 24%, from 42 to 32 days (P = 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Sublingual buprenorphine was safe in NAS, with a substantial efficacy advantage over standard of care therapy with oral morphine.


Moments as projections of an images intensity onto a proper polynomial basis can be applied to many different aspects of image processing. These include invariant pattern recognition, image normalization, image registration, focus/ defocus measurement, and watermarking. This book presents a survey of both recent and traditional image analysis and pattern recognition methods, based on image moments, and offers new concepts of invariants to linear filtering and implicit invariants. In addition to the theory, attention is paid to efficient algorithms for moment computation in a discrete domain, and to computational aspects of orthogonal moments. The authors also illustrate the theory through practical examples, demonstrating moment invariants in real applications across computer vision, remote sensing and medical imaging. Key features: Presents a systematic review of the basic definitions and properties of moments covering geometric moments and complex moments. Considers invariants to traditional transforms translation, rotation, scaling, and affine transform - from a new point of view, which offers new possibilities of designing optimal sets of invariants. Reviews and extends a recent field of invariants with respect to convolution/blurring. Introduces implicit moment invariants as a tool for recognizing elastically deformed objects. Compares various classes of orthogonal moments (Legendre, Zernike, Fourier-Mellin, Chebyshev, among others) and demonstrates their application to image reconstruction from moments. Offers comprehensive advice on the construction of various invariants illustrated with practical examples. Includes an accompanying website providing efficient numerical algorithms for moment computation and for constructing invariants of various kinds, with about 250 slides suitable for a graduate university course. Moments and Moment Invariants in Pattern Recognition is ideal for researchers and engineers involved in pattern recognition in medical imaging, remote sensing, robotics and computer vision. Post graduate students in image processing and pattern recognition will also find the book of interest.


Design techniques for low noise and high speed A/D converters (December 2006) Amit Kumar Gupta Chair of Advisory Committee: Edgar Sanchez-Sinencio Analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion is a process that bridges the real analog world to digital signal processing. It takes a continuous-time, continuous amplitude signal as its input and outputs a discrete-time, discrete-amplitude signal. The resolution and sampling rate of an A/D converter vary depending on the application. Recently, there has been a growing demand for broadband (>1 MHz), high-resolution (>14bits) A/D converters. Applications that demand such converters include asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) modems, cellular systems, high accuracy instrumentation, and medical imaging systems. This thesis suggests some design techniques for such high resolution and high sampling rate A/D converters. As the A/D converter performance keeps on increasing it becomes increasingly difficult for the input driver to settle to required accuracy within the sampling time. This is because of the use of larger sampling capacitor (increased resolution) and a decrease in sampling time (higher speed). So there is an increasing trend to have a driver integrated onchip along with A/D converter. The first contribution of this thesis is to present a new precharge scheme which enables integrating the input buffer with A/D converter in standard CMOS process. The buffer also uses a novel multi-path common mode feedback scheme to stabilize the common mode loop at high speeds. Another major problem in achieving very high Signal to Noise and Distortion Ratio (SNDR) is the capacitor mismatch in Digital to Analog Converters (DAC) inherent in the A/D converters. The mismatch between the capacitor causes harmonic distortion, which may not be acceptable. The analysis of Dynamic Element Matching (DEM) technique as applicable to broadband data-converters is presented and a novel second order notch-DEM is introduced. In this thesis we present a method to calibrate the DAC. We also show that a combination of digital error correction and dynamic element matching is optimal in terms of test time or calibration time. Even if we are using dynamic element matching techniques, it is still critical to get the best matching of unit elements possible in a given technology. The matching obtained may be limited either by random variations in the unit capacitor or by gradient effects. In this thesis we present layout techniques for capacitor arrays, and the matching results obtained in measurement from a test-chip are presented. Thus we present various design techniques for high speed and low noise A/D converters in this thesis. The techniques described are quite general and can be applied to most of the types of A/D converters.


The effect of spectral variations on the maximal achievable efficiency of multi-junction solar cells is investigated in this paper. The energy yield rather than power rating are considered here. With the optimized band gaps under STC the average and annual efficiency for spectral irradiances measured at CREST in a wavelength range from 310-1710nm is calculated. The material band gap optimised for the measured average annual spectrum and for STC spectrum are compared. The annual efficiency and the annual yield of multi-junction solar cells are calculated. It shows that optimum material band gaps shift for a spectrum deviates from AM1.5 which indicates that the spectral effects should be taken into account to optimize multi-junction solar cell structure and system design. The energy generated in Loughborough is calculated for one year and it is shown that the performance ratio of multi-junction solar cells optimized under realistic condition is significantly reduced.


This paper exploits the properties of the commute time between nodes of a graph for the purposes of clustering and embedding and explores its applications to image segmentation and multibody motion tracking. Our starting point is the lazy random walk on the graph, which is determined by the heat kernel of the graph and can be computed from the spectrum of the graph Laplacian. We characterize the random walk using the commute time (that is, the expected time taken for a random walk to travel between two nodes and return) and show how this quantity may be computed from the Laplacian spectrum using the discrete Green's function. Our motivation is that the commute time can be anticipated to be a more robust measure of the proximity of data than the raw proximity matrix. In this paper, we explore two applications of the commute time. The first is to develop a method for image segmentation using the eigenvector corresponding to the smallest eigenvalue of the commute time matrix. We show that our commute time segmentation method has the property of enhancing the intragroup coherence while weakening intergroup coherence and is superior to the normalized cut. The second application is to develop a robust multibody motion tracking method using an embedding based on the commute time. Our embedding procedure preserves commute time and is closely akin to kernel PCA, the Laplacian eigenmap, and the diffusion map. We illustrate the results on both synthetic image sequences and real-world video sequences and compare our results with several alternative methods.


One of the most significant drivers in satellite design is the minimization of mass to reduce the large costs involved in the launch. With technological advances across many fields, it is now widely known that very low-mass satellites can perform a wide variety of missions. However, the satellite power requirement does not reduce linearly with mass, creating the need for efficient and reliable small satellite deployable structures. One possible structural solution for this application is tape springs. Tape springs have been previously studied in many countries for space applications focusing on two-dimensional systems. This work studies the possible impact of using tape springs folded in three dimensions. By first analytically determining the static moments created, simple deployment models can be constructed for tape springs in free space. Then, determining the impact of these moments about an array fold line allows the creation of a dynamic model of an array that is directly comparable to the two-dimensional system. The impact of the three-dimensional fold can then be determined.


A possibility to estimate the water particle velocity of breaking wave on beaches by giving only the values of the beach slope i and the deep-water wave steepness H0/Lo is investigated. The data of the water particle velocity and profile of breaking wave on the beaches measured by Iwagaki, Sakai, Tsukioka and Sawai(1974) are used for this purpose. A method of using empirical curves relating the coefficients of Dean's stream function to i and H0/L0 does not give good results. The relations between the asymmetric breaking wave profile, i and Ho/L0 are examined. As well as the front face of the profile, the slope behind the crest above some level is found to become steep when H0/L0 becomes small. The breaking wave profiles are reproduced by using the empirical curves relating the parameters characterizing the breaking wave profile to i and Ho/L0. The velocity of Dean's stream function calculated from the reproduced profile explains the measured velocity better than that of Stokes waves. It is therefore possible to estimate the water particle velocity of breaking wave on beaches by giving only the values of i and Ho/Lo•


Introduction: Sleep deprivation is a major cause of motor vehicle accidents, and can impair the human brain as much as alcohol. It has been estimated that between 16% and 60% of all motor vehicle accidents are caused by sleep related problems. Adolescents and young adults frequently complain of sleep disorder symptoms and suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. There is an absence of evidence in existing literature regarding the impact of sleep disturbances on the driving function in young, novice drivers compared to that in young adults.
Materials and Methods: This study is a prospective cohort study of two subject groups: young adults with driving experience of less than 36 months, and young adults with driving experience of greater than 36 months). Each subject served as its own control. The enrolled subjects are 16 – 26 years old, right-handed, with normalor corrected vision. Participants with a chronic or acute ongoing health condition which might affect the study results were excluded. Study procedures utilized were: polysomnography, multiple sleep latency test and driving simulator testing.
Results: Repeated-measures MANCOVA revealed that driving experience, objective sleepiness (as measured by the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT)), interaction between driving experience and depressive symptoms (as measured by The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Revised (CESD-R)), and interaction between depressive symptoms and objective sleepiness had statistically significant effects on driving performance.
Conclusion: Unexpectedly, more experienced drivers made more driving errors and were responsible for a greater number of accidents. Mood and ongoing sleep deprivation emerged as two key factors that impacted driving performance more than level of experience. This may represent the impact of a less-regulated post high school lifestyle, as compared to more structured high school schedule. The study findings aid in confirming that functional impairments related to sleepiness previously observed in adult study populations are also replicated in adolescents and young adults.


Ammonite-bearing Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary successions are well developed in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Magallanes Basin of Patagonia. Faunas of middle Jurassic-late Cretaceous age are present in Antarctica but those of Patagonia range no earlier than late Jurassic. Although the late Jurassic perisphinctid-dominated faunas of the Antarctic Peninsula show wide-ranging Gondwana affinities, it is not yet possible to effect a close comparison with faunas of similar age in Patagonia because of the latter's poor preservation and our scant knowledge of them. In both regions the Neocomian is not well represented in the ammonite record, although uninterrupted sedimentary successions appear to be present. Lack of correspondence between the Aptian and Albian faunas of Alexander I. and Patagonia may be due to major differences in palaeogeographical setting. Cenomanian-Coniacian ammonite faunas are known only from Patagonia, although bivalve faunas indicate that rocks of this age are present in Antarctica. Kossmaticeratid faunas mark the late Cretaceous in both regions. In Antarctica these have been classified as Campanian, whereas in Patagonia it is generally accepted, perhaps incorrectly, that these also range into the Maestrichtian.


PURPOSE
To compare the photochemical properties of UV filter molecules present in the human lens (kynurenine, KN; 3-hydroxykynurenine, 3OHKN; 3-hydroxykynurenine O-β-D-glucoside, 3OHKG; 4-(2-aminophenyl)-4-oxobutanoic acid, AHA; and glutathionyl-kynurenine, GSH-KN) with the use of the following parameters: excited singlet lifetime τ(S), fluorescence quantum yield Φ(fl), triplet quantum yield Φ(T), and photodecomposition quantum yield Φ(dec).

METHODS
The excited singlet lifetimes were measured with the use of fluorescence upconversion (time resolution, 210 fs) and pump-probe transient absorption (time resolution, 200 fs) methods. The fluorescence quantum yields were determined relative to an aqueous solution of quinine bisulfate. The triplet quantum yields were measured with the use of nanosecond laser flash photolysis. The photodecomposition quantum yields were determined by steady state photolysis followed by the high-performance liquid chromatography analysis.

RESULTS
The secondary UV filters--AHA and GSH-KN are better photosensitizers than the primary ones--KN, 3OHKN and 3OHKG: the singlet state lifetimes of the secondary UV filters are longer, and the quantum yields of fluorescence and triplet state formation are higher.

CONCLUSIONS
With aging, the ratio primary/secondary UV filters in the human lens decreases from approximately 10:1 to 2:1. The obtained results demonstrate that the quality of the secondary UV filters is inferior compared to the primary ones, which may result in a higher susceptibility of old lenses to UV light. That might be an important factor for the development of the age-related cataract.


The paper focuses upon the contribution which adequate use of the latest development in Information and Communication Technologies can make to the enhancement, development and improvement of professional expertise in the Construction domain. The paper is based on the e-COGNOS project, which aims at specifying and developing an open model-based infrastructure and a set of tools that promote consistent knowledge management within collaborative construction environments. The specified solution emerged from a comprehensive analysis of the business and information / knowledge management practices of the project endusers, and makes use of a Construction specific ontology that is used as a basis for specifying adaptive mechanisms that can organise documents according to their contents and interdependencies, while maintaining their overall consistency. The e-Cognos web-based infrastructure will include services, which allow the creation, capture, indexing, retrieval and dissemination of knowledge. It also promotes the integration of third-party services, including proprietary tools. The e-COGNOS approach will be tested and evaluated through a series of field trials. This will be followed by the delivery of business recommendations regarding the deployment of eCOGNOS in the construction sector. The research is ongoing and supported by the European Commission under the IST programme – Key Action II.


ABSTRACT Background: There are high growing prevalence rates of hypertension in South Africa. Consequently, there is a need to assess knowledge and management among hypertensive patients receiving chronic medication from primary health care (PHC) facilities in South Africa as a basis for improving future management. This is important as South Africa seeks to improve its management of chronic diseases. Methods: Descriptive, quantitative study amongst chronic hypertensive patients in the chronic disease programme. Patients were interviewed face-to-face by trained pharmacists using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Half (53.7%) of the patients had uncontrolled blood pressure (BP). Less than a third of patients (27.7%) knew what hypertension is, the meaning of recorded BP numbers (4.5%), and what normal BP should be (19.9%). All patients who knew the meaning of BP numbers had formal education (p = 0.047). Only 15.6% of the 56.0% patients, who received hypertension information, received it on antihypertensive medicines specifically. Conclusions: The majority of the patients lacked hypertension specific knowledge and only half had controlled BP. Interventions to improve the control of high BP should be targeted at closing knowledge gaps as part of the current chronic treatment initiatives in South Africa to ensure the benefits of increased access to care are realized.


1974 Virginia Visitor Travel Survey. Department of Highways and Transportation, Commonwealth of Virginia, 1221 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219. 1975. 97p. Sixth survey of out-of-statc visitor travel in Virginia conducted seasonally throughout the calendar year 1974. The data derived from this survey and presented in this report includes intormation on vehicle and visitor volumes, vehicle iegistration, trip purpose, vehicle occupancy, length of stay, expendtures, and comparisons of travel habits with the previous five surveys. This survey was expanded to include camper vehicle categories, which had not been interviewed in the previous surveys.


User accounts at Internet services contain a multitude of personal data such as messages, documents, pictures, and payment information. Passwords are used to protect these data from unauthorized access. User authentication based on passwords has many advantages for both users and service providers. Users can use passwords across many platforms, devices, and applications and do not need to carry an additional device. Service providers can implement password-based user authentication with little effort and operate it with low cost per user.

However, passwords have a key problem: the conflict between security and ease of use. For security reasons, passwords must be attack-resistant, individual for each account, and changed on a regular basis. But, these security requirements make passwords very difficult to use. They require users to create and manage a large portfolio of passwords. This poses three problems: First, the generation of attack-resistant passwords is very difficult. Second, the memorization of many passwords is practically impossible. Third, the regular change of passwords is very time-consuming. These problems are aggravated by the different password requirements, interfaces, and procedures of services. The preservation of passwords for users such as storing passwords on user devices mitigates the memorization problem, but it raises new problems: the confidentiality, availability, recoverability, and accessibility of the preserved passwords. Despite decades of research, the problems of passwords are not solved yet. Consequently, secure passwords are not usable in practice. As a result, users select weak passwords, use them across accounts, and barely change them.

In this thesis, we introduce the Password Assistance System (PAS). It makes secure passwords usable for users. This is achieved by automation and comprehensive support. PAS covers all aspects of passwords. It generates, preserves, and changes passwords for users as well as ensures the confidentiality, availability, recoverability, and accessibility of the preserved passwords. This reduces the efforts and activities of users to deal with passwords to a minimum and thus enables users to practically realize secure passwords for their online accounts for the first time.

PAS is the first solution that is capable of handling the different password implementations of services. This is achieved by a standardized description of password requirements, interfaces, and procedures. Moreover, PAS is solely realized on the user-side and requires no changes on the service-side. Both features ensure the practicability of PAS and make it ready to be used.

PAS solves the password generation problem by creating attack-resistant, individual, and valid passwords for users automatically. Users just need to provide the URL of a service to generate an optimal password for an account. Our uniform description of password requirements provides the information to generate passwords in accordance with the individual password requirements of services. PAS is able to generate the requirements descriptions automatically by extracting the password requirements of services from their websites. So far, this was done for 185,696 services. Moreover, PAS is equipped with an optimal password-composition rule set for the event that services do not explicitly state their password requirements, which is the usual case. By means of the optimal rule set, PAS also generates attack-resistant passwords with the best possible acceptance rate in case of unknown password requirements.

PAS solves the password memorization problem by preserving passwords for users. This releases users from memorizing their passwords and facilitates to use individual passwords for accounts. PAS makes users' password portfolios available on all their devices as well as automatically synchronizes changes. PAS achieves this without storing passwords at servers so that an attacker cannot steal them from servers. Moreover, PAS provides a backup solution to recover the preserved passwords in case of loss. Users need to create backups only once and do not have to update them even when their password portfolios change. Consequently, users can keep backups completely offline at secure, different, and physically isolated locations. This minimizes the risk of compromise and loss as well as enables an emergency access to the passwords for trusted persons. Moreover, PAS has a built-in revocation mechanism. It allows users to completely invalidate devices and backups in case they lose control over them. This guarantees that no passwords can be stolen from lost user devices and backups once revoked. Users always have full control of their passwords.

PAS solves the password change problem by changing passwords automatically for users. Users neither need to create new passwords nor manually log in to their accounts. Our uniform description of password interfaces and procedures provides the information to change passwords at arbitrary services. Moreover, PAS is the first solution that provides autonomous password changes. It changes passwords on a regular basis with respect to the security level of passwords as well as immediately after PAS detects a compromise of users' passwords.

The practicability of PAS is demonstrated by an implementation. The individual components of PAS can be used independently, integrated into other applications, and combined to a single user application, called a password assistant.

In summary, this thesis presents a solution that makes secure passwords usable. This is done by automation and comprehensive support in the generation and management of passwords.


The research was generally motivated by a dearth of studies on joy, and particularly inspired by a book of joy celebrating the inter-spiritual dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. Its aim was to investigate whether the direct contemplation of joy would be associated with improvements in psychophysiological coherence, spirituality and various positive emotions and feelings. Integrative quantitative and qualitative findings emerging from a small pilot study, including a convenience sample of six participants with a mean age of 42 years and age range of 25–69 years, supported the research hypothesis. Significant quantitative increases in psychophysiological coherence, spirituality and positive feelings were coherently and consistently supported by participants' individual and collective experiences. Integrative discussion amplified the paradoxical theme of joy through suffering in human emotional and spiritual life.


Models of hybrid zones differ in their assumptions about the relative fitnesses of hybrids and the parental species. These fitness relationships determine the form of selection across the hybrid zone and, along with gene flow, the evolutionary dynamics and eventual outcome of natural hybridization. We measured a component of fitness, export and receipt of pollen in single pollinator visits, for hybrids between the herbaceous plants Ipomopsis aggregata and I. tenuituba and for both parental species. In aviary experiments with captive hummingbirds, hybrid flowers outperformed flowers of both parental species by receiving more pollen on the stigma. Although hummingbirds were more effective at removing pollen from anthers of I. aggregata, hybrid flowers matched both parental species in the amount of pollen exported to stigmas of other flowers. These patterns of pollen transfer led to phenotypic stabilizing selection, during that stage of the life cycle, for a stigma position intermediate between that of the two species and to directional selection for exserted anthers. Pollen transfer between the species was high, with flowers of I. aggregata exporting pollen equally successfully to conspecific and I. tenuituba flowers. Although this study showed that natural hybrids enjoy the highest quality of pollinator visits, a previous study found that I. aggregata receives the highest quantity of pollinator visits. Thus, the relative fitness of hybrids changes over the life cycle. By combining the results of both studies, pollinator‐mediated selection in this hybrid zone is predicted to be strong and directional, with hybrid fitness intermediate between that of the parental species.


A person-centered approach to teaching multicultural counseling resulted in a broad array of significant learning experiences. This article describes the instructor's nondirective attitudes, the class-chosen content and process topics, and outcome data. This article also compares and contrasts this approach with conventional and other humanistic multicultural teaching methods. ********** Experts have suggested many approaches to teaching multicultural counseling, especially in the past 5 years (Abreu & Atkinson, 2000; Aoki, 2001; Arredondo & Arcinega, 2001; Constantine, 2001a; Diaz-Lazaro & Cohen, 2001; Evans & Foster, 2000; Manese, Wu, & Nepomuceno, 2001; McCreary & Walker, 2001; Ponterotto, 1998; Sevig & Etzkorn, 2001; Tomlinson-Clarke, 2000; Torres-Rivera, Phan, Maddux, Wilbur, & Garrett, 2001; Tyler & Guth, 1999). Perhaps the most influential contributions concern the presentation (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992), operationalization (Arredondo et al., 1996), and, to a lesser extent, the researching of multicultural competencies (Weinrach & Thomas, 2002). Despite the fact that the multicultural competencies have clearly moved issues of multicultural counseling therapy (MCT) to the forefront of mainstream counseling (Abreu & Atkinson, 2000), there have been convincing arguments for further investigation, enhancement, or rebuttal of the ideas in the competencies rather than their complete acceptance (Glausser & Bozarth, 2001; Hanna, Bemak, & Chung, 1999; Patterson, 1996; Torres-Rivera et al., 2001; Weinrach & Thomas, 2002). In addition, some experts are critical of the emphasis that mainstream multicultural teaching methods place on appropriateness over honesty, wisdom, awareness, empathy, and compassion (Glausser & Bozarth, 2001; Hanna et al., 1999; Tomlinson-Clarke, 2000; Torres-Rivera et al., 2001) and the focus of these methods on racial groups over other cultural differences (Cornelius-White, 2003; Weinrach & Thomas, 2002). Although appropriateness and racism clearly are major themes of multiculturalism, a broader focus that foremost acknowledges, understands, and accepts human differences may enhance multicultural training. Conventional methods of teaching MCT have appeared to affect knowledge more than skills, and skills more than awareness (Hoffman, 2001; Tomlinson-Clarke, 2000; Torres-Rivera et al., 2001), despite the finding that changes in awareness may be the most predictive of multicultural and general competence (Ottavi, Pope-Davis, & Dings, 1994; Torres-Rivera et al., 2001; Vinson & Neimeyer, 2000). Similarly, one follow-up study after students had taken multicultural counseling course work showed that "specifically, students felt the need for additional training experiences within a supportive climate that developed professional and personal cultural self-awareness and self-knowledge" (Tomlinson-Clarke, 2000, p. 221). Suggestions to improve multicultural teaching have included "more emphasis on experiential (affective) training (McRae & Johnson, 1991; Merta, Stringham, & Ponteretto, 1998; Pope-Davis & Coleman, 1997; Ridley, Mendoza, & Kanitz, 1994; Sue & Sue, 1990)" (Tyler & Guth, 1999, p. 153), moral reasoning (Evans & Foster, 2000), discussion (Evans & Foster, 2000; Sevig & Etzkorn, 2001), use of media (Tyler & Guth, 1999), (cultural) empathy (Chung & Bemak, 2002; Constantine, 2001a, 2001b; Constantine & Gainor, 2001; Glausser & Bozarth, 2001; Hanna et al., 1999), methods to reduce student "resistance" (Abreu & Atkinson, 2000), cross-cultural exposure (Diaz-Lazaro & Cohen, 2001), and more "information detailing the training philosophy" used (Tomlinson-Clarke, 2000, p. 222). Although the person-centered approach (PCA) is often misunderstood and criticized without emic appraisal (Bozarth, 1999, 2002; Merry & Brodley, 2002), particularly concerning MCT (Cornelius-White, 2002, 2003; Cornelius-White & Godfrey, 2004), it can provide fundamental contributions to multicultural training. …


Following to an implantation of an artificial knee joint, patients have to perform rehabilitation exercises at home. The motivation to exercise can be low and if the exercises are not executed, an extended rehabilitation time or a follow-up operation is possibly required. Moreover, incorrect exercise executions over a long period can lead to injuries. Therefore, we present two Programming by Demonstration (PbD) algorithms, a NearestNeighbour (NN) model and the Alpha Algorithm (AlpAl), for measuring the quality of exercise executions, which can be used in order to give feedback in exergames. The models can locate an ideal posture depending on a patient's posture in a dynamic movement. Furthermore, they work in real time and independent of the execution speed, in order to suggest the correct exercise movement. To validate the functionality of the algorithms, four correct and incorrect test movements of four persons were analyzed from the monitoring algorithms. Each localized ideal movement from the algorithms as well as each ground truth movement were compared with an imitated test movement by a Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm. Since we expect a linear dependency between the DTW-distances, we calculated the linear correlation, which was significant high. Hence, we think that the proposed algorithms are appropriate to monitor physiotherapeutic exercises while playing an exergame.


Abstract. Seagrass is expected to benefit from increased carbon availability under future ocean acidification. This hypothesis has been little tested by in situ manipulation. To test for ocean acidification effects on seagrass meadows under controlled CO2/pH conditions, we used a Free Ocean Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FOCE) system which allows for the manipulation of pH as continuous offset from ambient. It was deployed in a Posidonia oceanica meadow at 11 m depth in the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea. It consisted of two benthic enclosures, an experimental and a control unit both 1.7 m3, and an additional reference plot in the ambient environment (2 m2) to account for structural artifacts. The meadow was monitored from April to November 2014. The pH of the experimental enclosure was lowered by 0.26 pH units for the second half of the 8-month study. The greatest magnitude of change in P. oceanica leaf biometrics, photosynthesis, and leaf growth accompanied seasonal changes recorded in the environment and values were similar between the two enclosures. Leaf thickness may change in response to lower pH but this requires further testing. Results are congruent with other short-term and natural studies that have investigated the response of P. oceanica over a wide range of pH. They suggest any benefit from ocean acidification, over the next century (at a pH of  ∼ 7.7 on the total scale), on Posidonia physiology and growth may be minimal and difficult to detect without increased replication or longer experimental duration. The limited stimulation, which did not surpass any enclosure or seasonal effect, casts doubts on speculations that elevated CO2 would confer resistance to thermal stress and increase the buffering capacity of meadows.


There are many common spreadsheet errors that traditional spreadsheet systems do not help users find. This paper presents a statically-typed spreadsheet language that adds additional information about the objects that the spreadsheet values represent. By annotating values with both units and labels, users denote both the system of measurement in which the values are expressed as well as the properties of the objects to which the values refer. This information is used during computation to detect some invalid computations and allow users to identify properties of the resulting values.


This book describes the concepts and application of model-based development (MBD), model transformations, and Agile MBD to a wide range of software systems. It covers systems requirements engineering, system specification and design, verification, reuse, and system composition in the context of Agile MBD. Examples of applications in finance, system migration, internet systems and software refactoring are given. An established open-source MBD technology, UML-RSDS, is used throughout to illustrate the concepts. The book is suitable for industrial practitioners who need training in Agile MBD, and those who need to understand the issues to be considered when introducing MBD in an industrial context. It is also suitable for academic researchers, and for use as text for undergraduate or postgraduate courses in MBD. Examples for educational use of UML-RSDS are included in the book.


Climate change has the potential to alter streamflow regimes, having ecological, economic, and societal implications. In the northeastern United States, it is unclear how climate change may affect surface water supply, which is of critical importance in this densely populated region. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of climate change on the timing and quantity of streamflow at small watersheds at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. The site is ideal for this analysis because of the availability of long‐term hydroclimatological records for analyzing past trends and ample data to parameterize and test hydrological models used to predict future trends. In this study, future streamflow projections were developed with the forest watershed model PnET‐BGC, driven by climate change scenarios from statistically downscaled outputs of atmospheric‐ocean general circulation models. Results indicated that earlier snowmelt and the diminishing snowpack is advancing the timing and reducing the magnitude of peak discharge associated with snowmelt. Past increases in precipitation have caused annual water yield to increase significantly, a trend that is expected to continue under future climate change. Significant declines in evapotranspiration have been observed over the long‐term record, although the cause has not been identified. In the future, evapotranspiration is expected to increase in response to a warmer and wetter environment. These increases in evapotranspiration largely offset increases in precipitation, resulting in relatively little change in streamflow. Future work should aim to decrease uncertainty in the climate projections, particularly for precipitation, obtain a better understanding of the effect of CO2 on vegetation, determine if climate‐induced changes in tree species composition will influence discharge, and assess the impacts of changing hydrology on downstream water supplies.


BACKGROUND
In this study, we used functional proteomics to determine the molecular characteristics of residual triple receptor-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients after neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy (NCT) and their relationship with patient outcomes in order to identify potential targets for therapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Protein was extracted from 54 residual TNBCs, and 76 proteins related to breast cancer signaling were measured by reverse phase protein arrays (RPPAs). Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were fitted for each protein. Survival outcomes were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier product limit method. Training and cross validation were carried out. The coefficients estimated from the multivariable Cox model were used to calculate a risk score (RS) for each sample.

RESULTS
Multivariable analysis using the top 25 proteins from univariable analysis at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 0.3 showed that AKT, IGFBP2, LKB1, S6 and Stathmin were predictors of recurrence-free survival (RFS). The cross-validation model was reproducible. The RS model calculated based on the multivariable analysis was -1.1086 × AKT + 0.2501 × IGFBP2 - 0.6745 × LKB1+1.0692 × S6 + 1.4086 × stathmin with a corresponding area under the curve, AUC = 0.856. The RS was an independent predictor of RFS (HR = 3.28, 95%CI = 2.07-5.20, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
We found a five-protein model that independently predicted RFS risk in patients with residual TNBC disease. The PI3 K pathway may represent potential therapeutic targets in this resistant disease.


Objective: To explore the mediating effect of physical activity on association between sedentary leisure-time and obesity indexes among hypertensive individuals. Methods: After excluding of those with a prior history of heart disease, stroke and cancer, a total of 20 178 hypertensive participants in the China Kadooire Biobank (CKB) study from Wuzhong district of Suzhou city were included. Mediating effect analysis was used to analyze the mediating effect of physical activity (PA) on correlation between sedentary leisure-time and body fat percentage (BFP), waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI). Results: After adjusted for age, gender, smoking status, alcohol consumption, education levels, intake frequencies of meat and intake frequencies of fresh fruit, sedentary leisure-time (SLT) was negatively correlated with PA (β=-0.246, P<0.001), but positively associated with BFP (β=0.061, P<0.001), WC (β=0.087, P<0.001) and BMI (β=0.071, P<0.001). After including the mediator variable PA, the direct effect of SLT on obesity index was still significant. PA was negatively correlated with BFP, WC and BMI (β=-0.052, -0.083 and -0.028, respectively, P<0.001). Analysis of mediating effect indicated that the association of SLT with BFP, WC and BMI were partly mediated by PA, the proportion of mediating effect was 20.820%, 23.421% and 9.915%. Stratified by gender, PA had mediating effect on SLT and all obesity indexes in women, while only on SLT and BFP and WC in men. Conclusions: There is a significant mediating effect of PA on correlation between SLT and obesity indexes among hypertensive individuals. Hypertensive patients should increase the level of physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior to achieve a profounder healthy effect.


Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is an emerging visible-light-responsive photocatalyst that has been explored since 2009. This photocatalyst has highly tailorable structures and properties that enable potential utilization of a large portion of solar energy. This material is also synthesized from earth-abundant precursors, is chemically and thermally stable, and is biocompatible with no reported toxicity to date. The merits and pioneering performance evaluation of g-C3N4 indicate that this photocatalyst holds promise for the degradation of persistent and emerging contaminants, including chemicals and pathogens, for sustainable water purification with reduced energy and chemical footprint. In this perspective, we propose and answer five questions that are most relevant to the development and application of g-C3N4 for photocatalytic water purification, including both benefits and current barriers, from molecular-scale mechanistic understanding of g-C3N4 properties and photocatalytic performance to industrial-scale photoreactor design for g-C3N4 implementation in practice.


The angular light scattering profile of microscopic particles significantly depends on their morphological parameters, such as size and shape. This dependency is widely used in state-of-the-art flow cytometry methods for particle classification. We introduce a new spectrally encoded angular light scattering method, with potential application in scanning flow cytometry. We show that a one-to-one wavelength-to-angle mapping enables the measurement of the angular dependence of scattered light from microscopic particles over a wide dynamic range. Improvement in dynamic range is obtained by equalizing the angular dependence of scattering via wavelength equalization. Continuous angular spectrum is obtained without mechanical scanning enabling single-shot measurement. Using this information, particle morphology can be determined with improved accuracy. We derive and experimentally verify an analytic wavelength-to-angle mapping model, facilitating rapid data processing. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the method's capability of distinguishing differently sized polystyrene beads. The combination of this technique with time-stretch dispersive Fourier transform offers real-time and high-throughput (high frame rate) measurements and renders the method suitable for integration in standard flow cytometers.


Concave Utility Reinforcement Learning (CURL) extends RL from linear to concave utilities in the occupancy measure induced by the agent's policy. This encompasses not only RL but also imitation learning and exploration, among others. Yet, this more general paradigm invalidates the classical Bellman equations, and calls for new algorithms. Mean-field Games (MFGs) are a continuous approximation of many-agent RL. They consider the limit case of a continuous distribution of identical agents, anonymous with symmetric interests, and reduce the problem to the study of a single representative agent in interaction with the full population. Our core contribution consists in showing that CURL is a subclass of MFGs. We think this important to bridge together both communities. It also allows to shed light on aspects of both fields: we show the equivalence between concavity in CURL and monotonicity in the associated MFG, between optimality conditions in CURL and Nash equilibrium in MFG, or that Fictitious Play (FP) for this class of MFGs is simply Frank-Wolfe, bringing the first convergence rate for discrete-time FP for MFGs. We also experimentally demonstrate that, using algorithms recently introduced for solving MFGs, we can address the CURL problem more efficiently.


In this paper a novel form of online users, the "Online Crowds," is described. "Online Crowds" gather virtually, behave and act collectively and produce effects and phenomena which would not be possible without the Internet [Hof 05]. A remarkable example is "The Million Dollar Homepage" where a clever student made more than £100.000 only by offering a simple but unique online idea. He used the dynamics between online users and companies to make money with almost no effort.To understand these "social contagion" processes, an interdisciplinary conceptual and psychological model of "Online Crowds" is introduced. The model is based on the principles of "Other directedness," "Critical mass," "Positive feedback loops" and the accelerating impact of network effects on the Internet. Some recommendations are sketched how such "Online Crowds" can be actively formed for promising online business models. If the behavior and the characteristicsof "Online Crowds" are better understood, decision makers and providers will be better capable to predict and promote successful online communities and services. Moreover a look at the positive and negative effects of these phenomena is taken and their challenges, as well as the implications for the affected society are analyzed. Especially the domain of New Media Technology (NMT) and the particular area of online recommender - and personalization technology are facing a potential forexploiting these Internet phenomena. Finally, a list of related work in the field and an outlook on further improvements in the discussed approach are given.


The ability to reason about temporal and causal events from videos lies at the core of human intelligence. Most video reasoning benchmarks, however, focus on pattern recognition from complex visual and language input, instead of on causal structure. We study the complementary problem, exploring the temporal and causal structures behind videos of objects with simple visual appearance. To this end, we introduce the CoLlision Events for Video REpresentation and Reasoning (CLEVRER), a diagnostic video dataset for systematic evaluation of computational models on a wide range of reasoning tasks. Motivated by the theory of human casual judgment, CLEVRER includes four types of questions: descriptive (e.g., "what color"), explanatory ("what is responsible for"), predictive ("what will happen next"), and counterfactual ("what if"). We evaluate various state-of-the-art models for visual reasoning on our benchmark. While these models thrive on the perception-based task (descriptive), they perform poorly on the causal tasks (explanatory, predictive and counterfactual), suggesting that a principled approach for causal reasoning should incorporate the capability of both perceiving complex visual and language inputs, and understanding the underlying dynamics and causal relations. We also study an oracle model that explicitly combines these components via symbolic representations.


Canonical quantum mechanics postulates Hermitian Hamiltonians to ensure real eigenvalues. Counterintuitively, a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, satisfying combined parity-time (PT) symmetry, could display entirely real spectra above some phase-transition threshold. This stems from the existence of a parameter in the Hamiltonian governing characteristics features of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. Varying this parameter causes real eigenvalues to coalesce and become complex conjugate pairs, signaling the occurrence of a nontrivial phase transition and the breakdown of PT symmetry. Such an appealing discovery has aroused extensive theoretical interest in extending canonical quantum theory by including non-Hermitian but PT-symmetric operators in the last two decades. Despite much fundamental theoretical success in the development of PT-symmetric quantum mechanics, an experimental observation of pseudo-Hermiticity remains elusive as these systems with complex potential seem absent in Nature. But nevertheless, the notion of PT symmetry has survived in many other branches of physics including optics, photonics, AMO physics, acoustics, electronic circuits, and material science over the past ten years, where a judicious balance of gain and loss constitutes ingeniously a PT-symmetric system. Here, although we concentrate upon reviewing recent progress on PT symmetry in optical microcavity systems, we also wish to present some new results that may help to accelerate the research in the area. These compound photonic structures with gain and loss provide a powerful platform for testing various theoretical proposals on PT symmetry, and initiate new possibilities for shaping optical beams and pulses beyond conservative structures. Throughout this article there is an effort to clearly present the physical aspects of PT-symmetry in optical microcavity systems, but mathematical formulations are reduced to the indispensable ones. Readers who prefer strict mathematical treatments should resort to the extensive list of references. Despite the rapid progress on the subject, new ideas and applications of PT symmetry using optical microcavities are still expected in the future.


This study was conducted to examine the response of broiler breeder hens to feeds supplemented with synthetic lysine and methionine when fed once or twice daily during peak production. Replacing intact protein with increasing amounts of free lysine and methionine, up to 2.3 g/kg feed, had no effect on feed intake, bodyweight gain, egg weight or efficiency of lysine utilisation, but reduced the crude protein content in the diet up to 3.3 percentage units and improved the efficiency of protein utilisation by 22.3%. However, for each extra gram of dietary free amino acid content/kg diet, the rate of lay and egg output decreased by 3.0% and 2.5 g per day, respectively, and the efficiency of methionine utilisation decreased by 4.3%. There was no interaction between frequency of feeding and amino acid supplementation. These results suggest that free amino acids are not utilised by broiler breeders.


Adversarial training is an effective methodology for training deep neural networks that are robust against adversarial, norm-bounded perturbations. However, the computational cost of adversarial training grows prohibitively as the size of the model and number of input dimensions increase. Further, training against less expensive and therefore weaker adversaries produces models that are robust against weak attacks but break down under attacks that are stronger. This is often attributed to the phenomenon of gradient obfuscation; such models have a highly non-linear loss surface in the vicinity of training examples, making it hard for gradient-based attacks to succeed even though adversarial examples still exist. In this work, we introduce a novel regularizer that encourages the loss to behave linearly in the vicinity of the training data, thereby penalizing gradient obfuscation while encouraging robustness. We show via extensive experiments on CIFAR-10 and ImageNet, that models trained with our regularizer avoid gradient obfuscation and can be trained significantly faster than adversarial training. Using this regularizer, we exceed current state of the art and achieve 47% adversarial accuracy for ImageNet with l-infinity adversarial perturbations of radius 4/255 under an untargeted, strong, white-box attack. Additionally, we match state of the art results for CIFAR-10 at 8/255.


Abstract Effects of herd, year, age, season, and their interactions on milk yield, lactation length, and reproductive efficiency for purebred and high grade Holsteins were determined by analysis of variance of 17,255 lactation records from 48 herds in Mexico. Herds differed in all traits. Herd average milk yield ranged from 2620 to 7670kg. Years, ages, and seasons were important for milk yield, but these variables had little influence on lactation length, days open, days dry, and calving interval. Most two-, three-, and four-way interactions for milk yield and days in milk were of importance. Main effects and interactions accounted for 37% of total variance in milk yield. Total variance for milk was 1,344,364kg 2 . From variance component analysis, percentages of total variance in milk yield attributed to herd, sire, cow, and error effects were 23.8, 2.2, 33.9, and 40.0. Phenotypic correlations among milk yield, days dry, days open, lactation length, and calving interval were positive but significant only for milk and lactation length. Lactation length accounted for about 34% of the variation in milk while days dry, days open, and calving interval contributed less than 4%. For milk yield the estimate of heritability within herd was 11.9% and repeatability 45.1%. Effects of herd, year, age, and season on the performance of Holsteins in Mexico do not differ markedly from temperate areas.


Compliance with sharī'ah - rules is compulsory for all Islamic banks; and such compliance is monitored by sharī'ah scholars. Therefore, the paper examines and gauges the level of understanding of Nigerian sharī'ah scholars (the custodians of sharī'ah rules in the country) and their perceptions of the Islamic banking and its rules particularly interest ( ribā ). Survey method involving the use of purposive sampling was adopted to administer 1,040 copies of a questionnaire on the Nigerian Sharī'ah scholars though some key people were also interviewed. The questionnaire which contains 19 items was designed to elicit information from them on issues such as their understanding of ribā , its uses in the Qur'an, Islamic banking products, collateral security and promotion (promos). Our findings revealed that the respondents (917) who considered usury to be forbidden were more than those who considered (871) interest to be forbidden. A large number of Sharī'ah scholars (93.6%) confused interest with usury which suggests that both interest and usury refer to ribā. Some believed that only usury refers to ribā (48.6%) while most of the respondents (74.1%) opined that all forms of interest are prohibited. About 73.7%, 86.3% and 27.6% of the respondents believed r ahn (collateral security), innovating interest-free financial products and patronising conventional banks respectively were allowed. banking and finance. Keywords: Islamic banking, sharī'ah scholars, ribā (interest/usury), Nigeria, collateral


DESCRIPTION Hepatitis B Immune Globulin (Human) — BayHep B® treated with solvent/detergent is a sterile solution of hepatitis B hyperimmune immune globulin for intramuscular administration; it contains no preservative. BayHep B is prepared by cold ethanol fractionation from the plasma of donors with high titers of antibody to the hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs). The immune globulin is isolated from solubilized Cohn Fraction II. The Fraction II solution is adjusted to a final concentration of 0.3% tri-n-butyl phosphate (TNBP) and 0.2% sodium cholate. After the addition of solvent (TNBP) and detergent (sodium cholate), the solution is heated to 30°C and maintained at that temperature for not less than 6 hours. After the viral inactivation step, the reactants are removed by precipitation, filtration and finally ultrafiltration and diafiltration. BayHep B is formulated as a 15–18% protein solution at a pH of 6.4–7.2 in 0.21–0.32 M glycine. BayHep B is then incubated in the final container for 21–28 days at 20–27°C. Each vial contains anti-HBs antibody equivalent to or exceeding the potency of anti-HBs in a U.S. reference hepatitis B immune globulin (Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA). The U.S. reference has been tested against the World Health Organization standard Hepatitis B Immune Globulin and found to be equal to 217 international units (IU) per mL. The removal and inactivation of spiked model enveloped and non-enveloped viruses during the manufacturing process for BayHep B has been validated in laboratory studies. Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Type 1 (HIV-1), was chosen as the relevant virus for blood products; Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) was chosen to model Hepatitis C virus; Pseudorabies virus (PRV) was chosen to model Hepatitis B virus and the Herpes viruses; and Reo virus type 3 (Reo) was chosen to model nonenveloped viruses and for its resistance to physical and chemical inactivation. Significant removal of model enveloped and non-enveloped viruses is achieved at two steps in the Cohn fractionation process leading to the collection of Cohn Fraction II: the precipitation and removal of Fraction III in the processing of Fraction II + IIIW suspension to Effluent III and the filtration step in the processing of Effluent III to Filtrate III. Significant inactivation of enveloped viruses is achieved at the time of treatment of solubilized Cohn Fraction II with TNBP/sodium cholate.


The Cotonou Agreement, successor to the Lome Convention, offers African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries preferential access to EU markets by establishing economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and blocks of ACP countries that are members of regional trading arrangements. ACP countries entering such arrangements could retain preferential access to the EU market, but on a reciprocal basis. This paper presents a relatively simple method (with moderate data requirements) to measure the likely short-run welfare consequences, static effects on trade flows and tariff revenue, of such an arrangement for ACP countries. The partial equilibrium method is illustrated for the case of the East African Cooperation (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda). The analysis suggests that the welfare effects (excluding revenue effects) from a reciprocal agreement with the EU will be small, whether positive or negative, but ACP countries will experience short-run adjustment costs, especially in the form of revenue losses.


Consumers' interest in quality aspects of food products has significantly increased. The objective of this study is to examine the influence that Maltese consumers' lifestyles have on their attitudes towards quality features of fruit and vegetables. To achieve our objective we used the Food-Related Lifestyle approach and carried out a telephone survey during February 2010 in Malta. Consumer profiles were identified through segmentation analysis, taking into account five aspects: (i) subjectivity of quality; (ii) consumer difference; (iii) intangible dimensions; (iv) in-formation environment; (v) and price.


In this essay, we review the basic economics of housing supply and the functioning of US housing markets to better understand the distribution of home prices, household wealth and the spatial distribution of people across markets. We employ a cost-based approach to gauge whether a housing market is delivering appropriately priced units. Specifically, we investigate whether market prices (roughly) equal the costs of producing the housing unit. If so, the market is well-functioning in the sense that it efficiently delivers housing units at their production cost. Of course, poorer households still may have very high housing cost burdens that society may wish to address via transfers. But if housing prices are above this cost in a given area, then the housing market is not functioning well— and housing is too expensive for all households in the market, not just for poorer ones. The gap between price and production cost can be understood as a regulatory tax, which might be efficiently incorporating the negative externalities of new production, but typical estimates find that the implicit tax is far higher than most reasonable estimates of those externalities.


Transition metals represent some of the first catalysts used in industrial processes and are still used today to produce many of the most needed chemicals. Adopting from ancient metallurgical techniques, it followed that the performance of these basic transition metals can be refined by adding multiple components. Since that time, improvements to these alloy catalysts has been mostly incremental due to the difficulty of producing new catalysts experimentally and a lack of fundamental understanding of the underlying physics. More recently, computational chemistry has proven itself an increasingly effective means for identifying these underlying physics. Through the use of d-band interactions of adsorbates with the surface, basic adsorption characteristics can be predicted across transition metals with limited initial information. However, although these models function well as high-level screening tools, much work is yet to be done before optimal catalysts can be comfortably designed from properties which experimentalists can directly control. This remains particularly challenging for alloy modeling, primarily due to the large number of possible atomic configurations, even for two metal systems. This work focuses on developing the methods for modeling optimal reaction properties at the surface of a transition metal alloy. Based on thermodynamic equilibrium between the surface, bulk, and gas reservoir, a model for the prediction of segregation under vacuum and adsorbate conditions can be predicted. Furthermore, by relating strain in the bulk lattice constant to the adsorption energies of varying local active sites, the optimal surface compositions can be related to bulk composition; a feature which can easily be selected for. Although useful for identifying trends across bulk composition space, these methods are limited to a small subset of active site configurations. To capture the complexity of more sophisticated processes, such as segregation, higher-timescale methods are required. Traditional computational tools are often too expensive to implement for these methods, and as such, they are usually completed with less-accurate potentials. In this work, we demonstrate that machine learning techniques have improved accuracy compared to physical potentials. We then go on to demonstrate how this improved accuracy can lead to experimentally accurate predictions of segregation.


Abstract The Ordovician to Middle Devonian Prague Basin, Bohemian Massif, represents the shallowest crust of the Variscan orogen corresponding to c. 1–4 km palaeodepth. The basin was inverted and multiply deformed during the Late Devonian to early Carboniferous Variscan orogeny, and its structural inventory provides an intriguing record of complex geodynamic processes that led to growth and collapse of a Tibetan-type orogenic plateau. The northeastern part of the Prague Basin is a simple syncline cross-cut by reverse/thrust faults and represents a doubly vergent compressional fan accommodating c. 10–19 % ~NW–SE shortening, only minor syncline axis-parallel extension and significant crustal thickening. The compressional structures were locally overprinted by vertical shortening, kinematically compatible with ductile normal shear zones that exhumed deep crust in the orogen's interior at c. 346–337 Ma. On a larger scale, the deformation history of the Prague Syncline is consistent with building significant palaeoelevation during Variscan plate convergence. Based on a synthesis of finite deformation parameters observed across the upper crust in the centre of the Bohemian Massif, we argue for a differentiated within-plateau palaeotopography consisting of domains of local thickening alternating with topographic depressions over lateral extrusion zones. The plateau growth, involving such complex three-dimensional internal deformations, was terminated by its collapse driven by multiple interlinked processes including gravity, voluminous magma emplacement and thermal softening in the hinterland, and far-field plate-boundary forces resulting from the relative dextral motion of Gondwana and Laurussia.


Abstract Experiments were undertaken to determine the toxicity in the lung of dust generated by opencast coal mining. Since it was impractical to collect the large mass of actual opencast respirable dust required for the toxicity experiment, a surrogate dust with the same size distribution was manufactured (PSW). This surrogate dust had the same basic mineralogical composition as mineralogically characterized airborne dust collected from the welsh coal opencast pit at Park Slip West. Diesel exhaust particles (DEP), generated from mining vehicular and mechanical activity, contribute towards opencast particulate matter. Therefore, a second dust comprising of a 50/50 by weight mixture of the surrogate mineral dust and diesel soot was also examined (PSW + DEP). These dusts and DEP (weak biological reactivity) and α-quartz (high biological reactivity) were instilled into the lungs of healthy rats. The animals were sacrificed at 1, 6 and 11 weeks. Assessments of potential toxicity included lung to body weight ratios, acellular protein in lung lavage (markers of lung permeability) and total free cells(marker of inflammation). The surrogate opencast dust with or without DEP caused no significant increases in any of the parameters studied and as such was very similar to the weak biological effects of DEP alone. These effects contrasted sharply with those observed for the bioreactive mineral, quartz that induced rapid increases in permeability and a progressive inflammation. The use of a surrogate is less desirable then the real opencast mine dust, however, if as believed, the surrogate material is a representative mixture of the actual airborne dust around this opencast site, then these particles should show little or no short-term lung toxicity following inhalation.


The last few years have seen a surge in the awareness of energy efficiency in many fields, including the networking community. As an answer towards such demands the IEEE has just released the 802.3az norm that provides a way for Ethernet physical interfaces to enter a low power mode when there is no traffic to send. At the same time there are starting to appear proposals for how to govern the physical interface state between active and low power modes. Among them, the burst transmission method stands out for its simplicity and good performance in several simulation studies. In this paper we provide an accurate analytical model for this method that helps to gain insight in its configuration parameters.


The inhibition effect of 3-methyl-4-(3-methylisoxazol-5-yl)isoxazol-5(2H)-one monohydrate (P1) on the corrosion of carbon steel in 1 M HCl was studied by weight loss, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques and potentiodynamic polarization methods. The results showed that isoxazole P1 was a good inhibitor in 1 M HCl and inhibition efficiency increases with isoxazole P1 concentration to attain 93% at 10-3M at 308 K. E(%) values obtained from various methods used are reasonably good agreement. The adsorption of isoxazole P1 obeyed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Polarization curves showed that isoxazole P1 acted as a mixed-type inhibitor in HCl. The effect of the temperature on the corrosion behavior with addition of 10-3M of the inhibitor was studied in the temperature range 313-343 K, and the thermodynamic parameters were determined and discussed. In addition, a quantum chemical study suggests isoxazole P1 inhibitor is structurally essential for the protection of metal surface


Marketing is an inevitable part of today's modern lifestyle. The role that marketing plays is so big that it has become the most important part of business. Due to crisis that is still affecting publishers in Croatia, this paper emphasizes the power of advertising as a key ingredient in how to overcome this situation and upgrade the system of publishing in Croatia. The framework of the paper is based on marketing as a tool that leads to popularization of books and sales increase. Beside the experimental part which gives an insight into public's opinion about books, publishing and marketing, the first chapter gives the literature review and analysis conducted on the whole process of book publishing in Croatia with pointing out mistakes that Croatian publishers make. Also, benefits of foreign publishing will be mentioned and used for comparison and projection on to the problems of the native market. The aim of this analysis and this viewpoint paper is to contribute the comprehension of marketing strategies and activities and its use and gains in Croatian publishing.


Abstract : Architecture documentation has emerged as an important architecture-related practice. In 2002, researchers at the Carnegie Mellon (trademark) Software Engineering Institute completed "Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond" (V&B), an approach that holds that documenting a software architecture is a matter of choosing a set of relevant views of the architecture, documenting each of those views, and then documenting information that applies to more than one view or to the set of views as a whole. Details of the approach include a method for choosing the most relevant views, standard templates for documenting views and the information beyond them, and definitions of the templates' content. At about the same time, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was developing a recommended best practice for describing architectures for software-intensive systems -- ANSI/IEEE Std. 1471-2000. Like V&B, that standard takes a multi-view approach to the task of architecture documentation, and it establishes a conceptual framework for architectural description and defines the content of an architectural description. This technical note summarizes the two approaches and shows how a software architecture document prepared using the V&B approach can be made compliant with Std. 1471-2000.


Face image matching is an essential step for face recognition and face verification. It is difficult to achieve robust face matching under various image acquisition conditions. In this paper, a novel face image matching algorithm robust against illumination variations is proposed. The proposed image matching algorithm is motivated by the characteristics of high image gradient along the face contours. We define a new consistency measure as the inner product between two normalized gradient vectors at the corresponding locations in two images. The normalized gradient is obtained by dividing the computed gradient vector by the corresponding locally maximal gradient magnitude. Then we compute the average consistency measures for all pairs of the corresponding face contour pixels to be the robust matching measure between two face images. To alleviate the problem due to shadow and intensity saturation, we introduce an intensity weighting function for each individual consistency measure to form a weighted average of the consistency measure. This robust consistency measure is further extended to integrate multiple face images of the same person captured under different illumination conditions, thus making our robust face matching algorithm. Experimental results of applying the proposed face image matching algorithm on some well-known face datasets are given in comparison with some existing face recognition methods. The results show that the proposed algorithm consistently outperforms other methods and achieves higher than 93% recognition rate with three reference images for different datasets under different lighting conditions.


ABSTRACT Two measures of firm investment behaviour used in the empirical research are Tobin´s q (average q) and marginal q. The marginal q is a more recently introduced measure than Tobin´s q and is not as well known. This article aims to demonstrate the advantages of using marginal q as a performance measure and is a response to an earlier critical article (Berglund, 2011) claiming an elusiveness bias. The pro arguments made in response are that the claimed elusiveness is not a problem. Furthermore, many of the evaluation problems inherent in the empirical use of Tobin´s q, like estimation of replacement cost of assets, can be avoided. From a pure theoretical standpoint, it has long been recognized that marginal q is superior to an average measure of investment behaviour such as Tobin´s q.


Mounting evidence suggests the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease (CD) involves an
impaired acute inflammatory response. Monocyte-derived macrophages from CD
patients release deficient levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in response to
Escherichia coli, arising from post-translational trafficking abnormalities. In this thesis,
the macrophage responses to microbial stimuli were further characterised, and the
underlying molecular lesions investigated.
Macrophage TNF release was attenuated in response to Escherichia coli,
Candida albicans and Toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation in CD. This deficit was
unrelated to use of medication, age, gender and smoking status. Patients with stricturing
and colonic disease demonstrated the most profound defects in response to TLR2 and
TLR4 stimulation respectively. Genotyping for 34 known CD susceptibility
polymorphisms revealed no detectable association between any individual variant and
impaired TNF release. However in CD, TNF secretion in response to Escherichia coli
was weakly correlated with overall genetic risk score.
Macrophage sphingolipid and phospholipid compositions were subsequently
investigated, given the prominent role of these molecules in vesicle trafficking. Mass
spectrometric analysis revealed no gross abnormalities in CD macrophages, although a
reduced percentage of phosphatidylinositol 16:0/18:1 was synthesised over 3 hours; the
same species was also present at reduced levels in ileal biopsies.
Given the heterogeneity of CD, a microarray outlier analysis strategy was
developed to identify specific gene expression abnormalities in individual patients. A
subset of patients had deficient expression of optineurin, a molecule implicated in
vesicle trafficking and autophagy. These individuals shared a number of allelic variants, which were associated with optineurin expression levels. Macrophages from these
patients had attenuated TNF secretion downstream of TLR2. Concordantly, depletion of
optineurin in THP-1 cells impaired TNF release after TLR2 activation.
This study supports a role for immune deficiency in the pathogenesis of CD and
identifies abnormal optineurin expression as a relevant molecular abnormality in a
subset of patients.


This thesis examines how companies deal with risk in business networks. Drawing on empirical evidence from German food retailer-manufacturer networks and existent research conducted at the intersection of business network and institutional research, this thesis examines two under-researched questions: What constitutes risk in business networks? And how do companies deal with risk in business networks? In answering these questions, this research refines our understanding of risk in business networks by proposing an uncertainty-based conceptualisation of risk and developing an institution-based explanation of how companies deal with risk in business networks. While network research provides a relevant ontological understanding of business interactions, this thesis draws on institutional research to explain how companies use institutional devices, including industry standards, General Terms and Conditions and framework contracts, for dealing with risk at three interdependent levels of interaction: Network, focal, and dyadic interaction. In this way, the thesis offers one of the first ventures developing an institution-based explanation of how companies deal with risk in business networks. The institution-based explanation of how companies deal with risk is captured in the development of an integrative framework. This framework conceptually crystallizes the synthesis of network and institution-based research by mapping companies' use of institutional devices onto the three levels of network interaction. The institution-based explanation illuminates how institutional devices facilitate dealing with risk interactively across direct and indirect interactions, because their manifestation in business artefacts enables transcending time and space. This contribution is informed by empirical analysis of business artefacts-in-use and is conceptually captured in extending the Actor-Resources-Activities model. Methodologically, this thesis employs a critical realist epistemology and network ontology to underpin qualitative case study research in German food retailer-manufacturer networks. The empirical evidence involves data triangulation from 42 in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation and analysis of business artefacts-in-use, including documentation of the International Featured Standard, eleven General Terms and Conditions and six framework contracts.