Evidence indicates that the hospital environment plays a role in hospital acquired infections (HAI). Previous studies have focused on outbreaks and the role of specific culturable pathogens. There is still considerable debate about the role of the environment and the importance of cleaning, therefore more comprehensive culture-independent microbial ecology studies are required.This study aimed to utilise culture-independent methods to characterise the microbial communities in an orthopaedic ward and theatre environment under normal operating conditions, to determine the distribution of different microorganisms, their viability and persistence following routine cleaning. Culture was used to quantify culturable bacteria present and select bacterial populations of interest. Antibiotic-resistance gene specific PCRs were used to investigate the presence of resistance determinants. PCR-DGGE was used to resolve fragments of the 16S rRNA gene from total DNA extractions and the resulting sequence data was used to identify microorganisms present. Cell viability was assessed using RNA as the template for reverse transcriptase PCR-DGGE. Quantification of bacteria on environmental surfaces using culture indicated that near patient surfaces rarely exceeded the recommended 2.5 CFU/cm2 limit, providing evidence that current cleaning regimes employed on these wards are sufficient to keep microbial contamination low. PCR-DGGE showed that sequences similar to Staphylococci dominated the environment, particularly S. hominis, and S. haemolyticus, which were retrieved from the floor before and immediately after cleaning. Antibiotic gene specific PCRs were used to demonstrate the presence of the mecA gene, aminoglycoside modifying enzyme genes and qac genes in isolated environmental non-aureus Staphylococci. This data has highlighted the potential role of this environment as a reservoir of pathogenic Staphylococci.Using PCR-DGGE the orthopaedic wards yielded sequences from DNA and RNA templates similar to species associated with human skin and large intestine. While Staphylococci were shown to dominate most environmental sites, Kocuria and Corynebacterium species were found to be specifically associated with the bed rails. Few Gram negative species were detected by molecular methods or selective culture in the ward environment. Sequences similar to Cupriavidus and Chryseobacterium species were detected in the operating theatre environment using PCR-DGGE, in contrast using culture; Staphylococci were readily isolated from the theatre environment. PCR-DGGE was also used to investigate the presence of fungi in sink drains on an orthopaedic and intensive care ward. While Fusarium species were widely distributed on both wards, sequences similar to Candida were only detected in samples from the ICU wards using PCR-DGGE. When culture was used Candida species were readily grown from both environments. The differences between the species detected using culture and PCR-DGGE suggest that the two techniques should be used together to provide complementary data. Overall PCR-DGGE has been used for direct identification of the dominant viable bacteria and fungi in the hospital environment, to provide an estimate the relative abundance of species, and give an overview of the effect of routine ward cleaning on the bacterial community.


OBJECTIVE
Many people with chronic health conditions fail to take their medications as prescribed, resulting in declines in health and function. The purpose of this study was to perform a Phase I feasibility study to understand whether an integrated occupational therapy intervention could help people with chronic health conditions improve their adherence to medications.

METHOD
Using a small-N design, we report single-subject analyses of the medication adherence of 11 participants before and after either an occupational therapy intervention or a standard care intervention. We used a multiple baseline approach with intersubject replication and blinding.

RESULTS
The occupational therapy intervention was found to decrease performance variability and to increase medication adherence rates in some people with chronic conditions.

CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that an occupational therapy intervention can improve medication adherence in people with chronic health conditions. The intervention tested in this study is feasible and would benefit from further research.


Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are useful for text generation since they can generate outputs in the context of previous ones. Baroque music and language are similar, as every word or note exists in context with others, and they both follow strict rules. We hypothesized that if we represent music in a text format, an RNN designed to generate language could train on it and create music structurally similar to Bach's. We used an RNN designed for text generation and trained it on 107 Bach pieces. Unlike previously implemented algorithms, such as Bachbot, this algorithm trained on all types of Bach's music-both his instrumental/orchestral pieces and chorales. Since the dataset used in this study is more diverse than that of previous algorithms, we predicted that the present algorithm's output will have a structure that is more reflective of all of Bach's music. We compared the Attacks/Spaces and the Spaces/ (Attacks+Spaces) ratios of both Bachbot's and this experiment's outputs and found that Bachbot's Attacks/Spaces ratios were significantly lower than this experiment's outputs (p < 0.001), and their Spaces/ (Attacks+Spaces) ratios were significantly higher (p < 0.001). Overall, we found that the music generated by our RNN shared a similar structure with Bach's music in the input dataset, while Bachbot's outputs are significantly different from this experiment's outputs and thus are less similar to Bach's repertoire compared to our algorithm. Therefore, it is plausible that an RNN designed for text generation could create Baroque music.


The current OSPFv2 cryptographic authentication mechanism as defined
in RFCs 2328 and 5709 is vulnerable to both inter-session and intra-
session replay attacks when using manual keying. Additionally, the
existing cryptographic authentication mechanism does not cover the IP
header. This omission can be exploited to carry out various types of
attacks. This document defines changes to the authentication sequence
number mechanism that will protect OSPFv2 from both inter-session and
intra- session replay attacks when using manual keys for securing
OSPFv2 protocol packets. Additionally, we also describe some changes
in the cryptographic hash computation that will eliminate attacks
resulting from OSPFv2 not protecting the IP header.


David Ingersoll's essay "Karl Llewellyn, American Legal Realism and Contemporary Legal Behavioralism" is a significant, but neglected contribution to our understanding of legal realism in the United States. This article argues that it first anticipates the shape of legal realism's revival today and shows that Ingersoll was ahead of his time. The once dominant school of legal realism had become a much maligned theory of law when this essay was first published. Ingersoll identifies two varieties of legal realism and most critics focus on only one of them. He argues that legal realism should be revived if it develops its second variety often overlooked which accepts rule skepticism and recognizes the importance of social psychology to predicting legal outcomes more reliably.


The mass of a protoplanetary disk limits the formation and future growth of any planet. Masses of protoplanetary disks are usually calculated from measurements of the dust continuum emission by assuming an interstellar gas-to-dust ratio. To investigate the utility of CO as an alternate probe of disk mass, we use ALMA to survey 13CO and C18O J = 3–2 line emission from a sample of 93 protoplanetary disks around stars and brown dwarfs with masses from in the nearby Chamaeleon I star-forming region. We detect 13CO emission from 17 sources and C18O from only one source. Gas masses for disks are then estimated by comparing the CO line luminosities to results from published disk models that include CO freeze-out and isotope-selective photodissociation. Under the assumption of a typical interstellar medium CO-to-H2 ratio of 10−4, the resulting gas masses are implausibly low, with an average gas mass of ∼0.05 MJup as inferred from the average flux of stacked 13CO lines. The low gas masses and gas-to-dust ratios for Cha I disks are both consistent with similar results from disks in the Lupus star-forming region. The faint CO line emission may instead be explained if disks have much higher gas masses, but freeze-out of CO or complex C-bearing molecules is underestimated in disk models. The conversion of CO flux to CO gas mass also suffers from uncertainties in disk structures, which could affect gas temperatures. CO emission lines will only be a good tracer of the disk mass when models for C and CO depletion are confirmed to be accurate.


A high-quality reference genome is an essential tool for applied and basic research on arthropods. Long-read sequencing technologies may be used to generate more complete and contiguous genome assemblies than alternate technologies, however, long-read methods have historically had greater input DNA requirements and higher costs than next generation sequencing, which are barriers to their use on many samples. Here, we present a 2.3 Gb de novo genome assembly of a field-collected adult female Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) using a single PacBio SMRT Cell. The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species recently discovered in the northeastern United States, threatening to damage economically important crop plants in the region. The DNA from one individual was used to make one standard, size-selected library with an average DNA fragment size of ~20 kb. The library was run on one Sequel II SMRT Cell 8M, generating a total of 132 Gb of long-read sequences, of which 82 Gb were from unique library molecules, representing approximately 36-fold coverage of the genome. The assembly had high contiguity (contig N50 length = 1.5 Mb), completeness, and sequence level accuracy as estimated by conserved gene set analysis (96.8% of conserved genes both complete and without frame shift errors). Further, it was possible to segregate more than half of the diploid genome into the two separate haplotypes. The assembly also recovered two microbial symbiont genomes known to be associated with L. delicatula, each microbial genome being assembled into a single contig. We demonstrate that field-collected arthropods can be used for the rapid generation of high-quality genome assemblies, an attractive approach for projects on emerging invasive species, disease vectors, or conservation efforts of endangered species.


As one of the fairly new fields of research in linguistics, the study of linguistic landscapes (LL) is concerned with language as a medium of communication in its written form. This includes virtually all displays of written language such as shop signs, billboards, placards and other formal and informal displays of written language visible to us in publicly accessible places. Apart from a purely discursive dimension, this approach also serves as a useful tool to study language use in multilingual urban settings where the linguistic landscape often is a highly contested and politicized space. In this paper we explore the linguistic landscape of such a multilingual agglomeration, Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova. Based on a corpus of digital pictures displays of written language this paper explores the status, various functions and quantitative distribution of the country's two main languages, Romanian and Russian. Keeping historical as well as political aspects in mind, assumptions on language preferences and functional domains of the languages displayed will be made, allowing for an insight into patterns of language use in a post‐Soviet republic.


In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) a given tissue may have quite different intensities depending on its location in the image volume. Such intensity inhomogeneities often arise from what is usually called the bias field, and are due to radio frequency inhomogeneities, variations in the static magnetic field and the distance of the tissue to the receiving coil. We present an efficient approach to determine such inhomogeneities from a series of calibration scans, which take less than 40 seconds to acquire. This enables us to efficiently correct both T1 and T2 weighted images. We present the theoretical background, as well as typical results for phantom, liver, pelvic and spine images.


In this paper, we explore why there are no examples of societies with low state capacity and high economic development. We argue that such an outcome is unlikely because of the nature of investments in state capacity. Societies that become rich in the absence of a strong state invite predation by societies that develop such states. Thus societies invest in state capacity, in part, to plunder other societies' wealth. Those investments are a form of rent-seeking. Potentially preyed-upon societies are forced to invest in state capacity in turn so as to deter potential attackers. This entails that as soon as a rent seeker enters the game, the likelihood of a low-capacity, high-development society surviving falls. This explains the historical lack of such societies. We thus interpret state capacity not as a causal condition for widespread economic prosperity, but a survivability condition for enjoying this prosperity.


The biological immune system is a robust, complex, adaptive system that defends the body from foreign pathogens. It is able to categorize all cells (or molecules) within the body as self-cells or non-self cells. It does this with the help of a distributed task force that has the intelligence to take action from a local and also a global perspective using its network of chemical messengers for communication. There are two major branches of the immune system. The innate immune system is an unchanging mechanism that detects and destroys certain invading organisms, whilst the adaptive immune system responds to previously unknown foreign cells and builds a response to them that can remain in the body over a long period of time. This remarkable information processing biological system has caught the attention of computer science in recent years. A novel computational intelligence technique, inspired by immunology, has emerged, called Artificial Immune Systems. Several concepts from the immune have been extracted and applied for solution to real world science and engineering problems. In this tutorial, we briefly describe the immune system metaphors that are relevant to existing Artificial Immune Systems methods. We will then show illustrative real-world problems suitable for Artificial Immune Systems and give a step-by-step algorithm walkthrough for one such problem. A comparison of the Artificial Immune Systems to other well-known algorithms, areas for future work, tips & tricks and a list of resources will round this tutorial off. It should be noted that as Artificial Immune Systems is still a young and evolving field, there is not yet a fixed algorithm template and hence actual implementations might differ somewhat from time to time and from those examples given here.


The industrial potential of plasma technology is well known and excellent demonstrated in several processes of microwave technology, which incorporate some use of an ionized medium. In vast majority of approaches, the plasma, or ionized volume, simply replaced a solid conductor. Highly ionized plasma is essentially a good conductor, and therefore plasma filaments can serve as transmission line elements for guiding waves, or antenna surfaces for radiation. Plasma antenna is a kind of antenna that radiate electromagnetic wave (EM) energy based on ionized gas instead of metallic conductor in antenna design. In this research work, the development using plasma medium as a conductor element instead of metal medium is investigated. Three new design antenna by using plasma concepts were proposed; namely cylindrical monopole plasma antenna using electrode-less discharge tube, monopole plasma antenna using fluorescent tube and reconfigurable plasma antenna array. The research described in this project introduces the analysis of cylindrical monopole plasma antenna. Three types of gases with three different pressure which are Argon gas, Neon gas and Hg-Ar gas (mixture of Argon gas and mercury vapor) with pressure at 0.5 Torr, 5 Torr and 15 Torr respectively is used in this research to observe the interaction between plasma medium and radio frequency (RF) signal. The containers that use to fill the gas are namely electrode-less discharge tube. The technique that used in this experiment to generate plasma is using Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD). The monopole plasma antenna using fluorescent tube is designed at frequency 2.4 GHz which is aim in wireless application. The commercially fluorescent lamp is used as a plasma antenna. Coupling technique was used in this design. In the reconfigurable plasma antenna array, the behavior of the reconfigurable antenna array system using plasma medium has been investigated and discuss with respect to the beam shaping characteristics. The reconfigurable plasma antenna array is capable of scanning the radiation pattern over 360°. These results confirm that the main beam directions can be directed in the following directions depending on the states of switches which are 0°, 30°, 60°, 90°, 120°, 150°, 180°, 210°, 240°, 270°, 300° and 330°. The simulated and measured results are presented and compared, to demonstrate the performance of the proposed antennas.


Six new CuL1 (L1 = 4-bromo-2-(1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline-2-yl)phenol), CoL1, NiL1, CuL2 (L2 = 2-(1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline-2-yl)-5-methoxyphenol), CoL2and NiL2 complexes were synthesized. L1 and L2 ligands were prepared by the condensation of 1,10-phenanthroline-5,6-dione with 5-bromosalicylaldehyde and 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde, respectively. The structures of the compounds were determined by elemental analyses, IR,UV-visible, 1H-NMR, TGA, magnetic susceptibilities and molar conductance measurements. It is observed that the synthesized complexes have tetragonal and distorted square pyramidal geometrical structures. Antibacterial activity of the ligands and their metal complexes were tested against selected bacteria by disc diffusion method.


In the generalized Russian cards problem, we have a card deck $X$ of $n$ cards and three participants, Alice, Bob, and Cathy, dealt $a$, $b$, and $c$ cards, respectively. Once the cards are dealt, Alice and Bob wish to privately communicate their hands to each other via public announcements, without the advantage of a shared secret or public key infrastructure. Cathy should remain ignorant of all but her own cards after Alice and Bob have made their announcements. Notions for Cathy's ignorance in the literature range from Cathy not learning the fate of any individual card with certainty (weak $1$-security) to not gaining any probabilistic advantage in guessing the fate of some set of $\delta$ cards (perfect $\delta$-security). As we demonstrate, the generalized Russian cards problem has close ties to the field of combinatorial designs, on which we rely heavily, particularly for perfect security notions. Our main result establishes an equivalence between perfectly $\delta$-secure strategies and $(c+\delta)$-designs on $n$ points with block size $a$, when announcements are chosen uniformly at random from the set of possible announcements. We also provide construction methods and example solutions, including a construction that yields perfect $1$-security against Cathy when $c=2$. We leverage a known combinatorial design to construct a strategy with $a=8$, $b=13$, and $c=3$ that is perfectly $2$-secure. Finally, we consider a variant of the problem that yields solutions that are easy to construct and optimal with respect to both the number of announcements and level of security achieved. Moreover, this is the first method obtaining weak $\delta$-security that allows Alice to hold an arbitrary number of cards and Cathy to hold a set of $c = \lfloor \frac{a-\delta}{2} \rfloor$ cards. Alternatively, the construction yields solutions for arbitrary $\delta$, $c$ and any $a \geq \delta + 2c$.


The septal and temporal poles of the hippocampus differ markedly in their anatomical and neurochemical organization. Although it is well established that the internal representation of space is a fundamental function of hippocampal neurons, most of what is known about spatial coding in the hippocampus of freely moving animals has come from recordings from the dorsal one-third (largely for technical convenience). The present study therefore compared the spatial selectivity of CA1 neurons in the dorsal and ventral hippocampi of rats during performance of a food reinforced, random search task in a square chamber containing simple visual landmarks. Neural activity was recorded in the dorsal and ventral hippocampi of opposite hemispheres in the same rats, in many cases simultaneously. As in dorsal hippocampus, ventral CA1 units could be classified as "complex spike" (pyramidal) cells or "theta" interneurons. Both dorsal and ventral theta cells fired at relatively high rates and with low spatial selectivity in the apparatus. Of the population of complex spike cells in the ventral hippocampus, a significantly smaller number had "place fields" than in the dorsal hippocampus, and the average spatial selectivity was of significantly lower resolution than that found among dorsal hippocampal complex spike cells. Thus, a septotemporal difference of spatial selectivity was found in the CA1 field of the rat hippocampus, complementing many other anatomical and neuropharmacological studies. A number of possible functional interpretations can be suggested from these results, including a computational advantage of representing space at different scales or a preeminence of essentially nonspatial information processing in the ventral hippocampus.


Objective: To determine the aetiology of genital ulcers and discharges in rural south western Uganda and to assess response to syndromic treatment. Method: A longitudinal, prospective study using laboratory testing and questionnaires to evaluate 561 adult men and women presenting with clinically verified genital ulcers, urethral, or vaginal discharge at a general outpatient clinic and two health centres between December 1999 and July 2001. Results: One third of patients had genital ulcers and two thirds discharges. There was good response to treatment in 461/508 patients (90.7%). Herpes simplex virus type 2 was found in 95/217 (43.8%) genital ulcers. In 24.1% of ulcer cases there was also a genital discharge. HIV seropositivity was high in ulcer cases (63.2%), with significantly more HSV2 and secondary bacterial infection than in seronegative cases. Neisseria gonorrhoeae was found in 135/204 (66.2%) male genital discharges. Female genital discharges were mostly associated with bacterial vaginosis (36.1%), Trichomonas vaginalis (18.9%), and candidiasis (18.6%). Conclusions: The aetiological pattern of STI syndromes reported will help inform revision of national STI guidelines. The importance of herpes simplex virus type 2, the variation in causes of genital ulcers according to HIV serostatus, the high frequency of multiple infections and secondary bacterial contamination of genital ulcers are notable. These results help explain the lack of effect of an STI intervention on HIV incidence in a recent trial in this area.


A pollen stratigraphy from late Miocene lacustrine strata (Teewinot Formation) in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, permits analysis of vegetation and climate history over a time interval of less than 300,000 years with better temporal resolution of data than has been reported from terrestrial Tertiary deposits. The flora was essentially modern, and six successive pollen assemblages indicate alternating dry and wet conditions. The frequency of climatic change in this record is similar to that inferred from marine isotope records for both late Tertiary and Quaternary time.


The Silurian biostratigraphy of the Girvan area is reviewed. Of the 23 Silurian formations, 7 have abundant shells and 14 have common graptolites. The Silurian is nearly 3000 m thick and was chiefly deposited in a turbidite environment. All the Llandovery zones from cyphus to crenulata inclusive are represented by graptolite faunas. In the Rhuddanian (prior to the cyphus Zone) the Lady Burn Conglomerate, Mulloch Hill Formation and Woodland Formation are shelly facies laid down by a marine transgression. There are two stratigraphical breaks, the unconformity at the base of the Silurian sequence and in the Fronian, where there is a paraconformity underneath the Lower Camregan Grits, both breaks with a transgressive sequence of animal communities above them. At the top of the succession Lower Wenlock turbidites, bearing shells at their bases, are followed by a sparse ostracodbivalve assemblage representing brackish or even fresh water conditions, culminating in 'Old Red Sandstone' facies beds of presumably Wenlock age, all representing the marine regression seen in other inliers in the Midland Valley of Scotland. Remarkable fossil finds from the Llandovery include Stomatograptus grandis girvanensis subsp, nov., Monodimacis crenulata itself, and the only chonetid brachiopod known anywhere from the Rhuddanian or Idwlan.


The presented paper describes the impact resistance of lattice structure samples made by Selective Laser Melting with the use of AlSi10Mg powder material. The samples with five types of different unit cells of lattice structure were used in this study. The topology of the unit cells structure was changed to describe various impact resistance behavior while the relative density of lattice structure was kept constant. The samples were tested by drop-weight impact testing device with spherical shape of indenter. During the test the maximum reaction force, deceleration and position of load element (indenter) were measured. The results showed, that samples with the same relative density, but with a different shape of unit cell had a different impact resistance. It is because the mechanical properties are significantly influenced by the cell topology which determined the type of failure under loading – bending or buckling. The FBCCZ had the highest impact resistance, but the energy was absorbed with very high reaction force during absorption.


We accept as the natural way that some must lose if others are to win; that some must go hungry, while others eat fully. But, Jesus taught that there is a third way that can arrest the cycle of violence and domination. A way that strikes a chord at the core of beings so that we may fully hear and see the other person we are dealing with. This is what is sometimes called nonviolent resistance. It springs from a conversation with another – beyond just talking – but a dialogue of being with another on a one to one basis. As General Counsel of an investment bank, the author of this Essay finds that he holds certain beliefs that sometimes appear to be, and sometimes actually are, opposed to the role that he is playing in society. The has led the author to a conversation about living with the truth. The answer he keeps finding is that he must start where he is, and follow where the conversation leads him.


Was the American Federation of Labor's (AFL) embrace of "voluntarism" a decisive turning point in American labor and political history? Voluntarism was the belief that trade unions should focus on "pure and simple" gains in wages and working conditions, rather than independent labor politics and industrial unionism. This belief dominated AFL strategy by 1900, and the results seem self-evident. By rejecting public health insurance, unemployment insurance, and inclusive labor regulations, the Progressive era AFL helped delay the emergence of American social welfare protections and contributed to their limited reach. By rejecting an alliance with a social democratic political party and by unionizing on the basis of broad industries rather than narrow crafts, the AFL circumscribed the scope and ambition of American labor organization. Today American trade unions provide far less inclusive representation of the workforce than is true in comparable nations,Franz Traxler, "Collective Bargaining and Industrial Change: A Case of Disorganization? A Comparative Analysis of Eighteen OECD Countries," European Sociological Review 12 (1996):271–87; Bruce Western, Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionism in the Capitalist Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). and labor is not allied with an explicitly social democratic party as is true in virtually all other capitalist democracies.Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (1951; London: Methuen, Ltd., 1964, 20–22; Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Paty Systems: A Framework for Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 1:192; Frances Fox Piven, ed., Labor Parties in Postindustrial Societies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 77–109.


Between the pigment epithelium and the outer limiting membrane of the retina is an extracellular compartment filled with the interphotoreceptor matrix (IPM). A prominent component of the IPM is a glycoprotein known as interstitial retinol-binding protein (IRBP). Using in vitro techniques, we compared the ability of the cells that border this compartment to internalize colloidal gold (CG) coated with either IRBP or ovalbumin, a glycoprotein not found in the IPM. Neither IRBP-CG nor ovalbumin-CG was internalized by the Muller's cells. Both rod and cone photoreceptors take up IRBP-CG, which is observed in small vesicles and multivesicular bodies. Neither photoreceptor type takes up ovalbumin-CG. Acid phosphatase cytochemistry indicates that acid phosphatase reaction product in the multivesicular bodies co-localizes with IRBP-CG, which suggests that this molecule is degraded by rod and cone photoreceptors and is not recycled. The pigment epithelium internalizes IRBP-CG and ovalbumin-CG, both of which remain in small cytoplasmic vesicles near the apical plasma membrane. There is no indication that vesicles that contain either IRBP-CG or ovalbumin-CG fuse with the lysosomal system in the pigment epithelial cells during the incubation.


Abstract A new species of Gesneriaceae (tribe Gloxinieae) is described from Ecuador and Peru in South America. Pearcea pileifolia J. L. Clark & L. E. Skog is vegetatively distinctive from all other species of Pearcea Regel by its oblong leaf blades with crenate to serrate margins and markedly anisophyllous, opposite leaves with the smaller leaf in a pair reduced to a scalelike appendage. Observations of the bivalved fruit dehiscence and the resulting appearance of winged appendages in P. pileifolia and other congeners are discussed.


We find that across a wide range of robot policy learning scenarios, treating supervised policy learning with an implicit model generally performs better, on average, than commonly used explicit models. We present extensive experiments on this finding, and we provide both intuitive insight and theoretical arguments distinguishing the properties of implicit models compared to their explicit counterparts, particularly with respect to approximating complex, potentially discontinuous and multi-valued (set-valued) functions. On robotic policy learning tasks we show that implicit behavioral cloning policies with energy-based models (EBM) often outperform common explicit (Mean Square Error, or Mixture Density) behavioral cloning policies, including on tasks with high-dimensional action spaces and visual image inputs. We find these policies provide competitive results or outperform state-of-the-art offline reinforcement learning methods on the challenging human-expert tasks from the D4RL benchmark suite, despite using no reward information. In the real world, robots with implicit policies can learn complex and remarkably subtle behaviors on contact-rich tasks from human demonstrations, including tasks with high combinatorial complexity and tasks requiring 1mm precision.


Much work has been done in the area of qualitative spatial reasoning over the past years, with application in various domains. However, existing models only capture particular aspects of the spatial relations between objects and therefore are unable to represent these relations accurately. In this paper, we draw together two existing approaches to provide a calculus taking into account topology, orientation and distances, while keeping in mind cognitive considerations. Provided that some constraints are imposed on the spatial objects and the frame of references, our model has been successfully tested to infer implicit constraints from a knowledge base. With further improvements, it has applications to GISs and robot navigation.


Grid modernization holds the alluring promise of rationalizing electricity pricing, saving consumers money, and improving environmental quality all at the same time. Yet, we have seen only limited and patchwork regulatory initiatives towards significant grid modernization in the United States. Outside of a few leading states, state energy regulators appear loath to embrace full-throated versions of the project. This article argues that the under-discussed problem of energy poverty in the United States is a critical contributing factor in the gap between grid modernization's possibilities and our regulatory reality. Only by explicitly understanding how the issues of grid modernization and energy poverty intersect, and by coming up with creative ways to address the challenges created, can regulators gain the comfort they need to move forward with grid modernization reforms in the face of rising inequality and substantial energy poverty. To get at these connections, this Article utilizes a case study of New York State's grid modernization efforts. As part of these efforts, regulators there have pursued an inclusive inquiry into how best to manage the ways in which grid modernization might have disparate impacts on lower-income consumers, producing some important early-stage lessons for emerging modernization efforts in other states.


The 1994 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award goes to successful implementation of an elegantly simple idea: aerate sluggish water by letting it fall through man-made waterfalls. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago calls its project SEPA--Sidestream Elevated Pool Aeration. The project placed the waterfalls off-stream in small parks that serve the people in five south side neighborhoods, leaving the Cal-Sag waterway open to shipping and pleasure craft. Each day, the SEPA waterfall project pumps up to 1.3 billion gallons through five stations, adding up to 25 tons of oxygen to the sluggish waterway. Built for $40 million, the system eliminated the need for some $300 million worth of advanced secondary and tertiary treatment installations at two plants, saving taxpayers at least $260 million. The project also eliminated the navigation hazards and high maintenance and operations costs of instream aeration that had been tried in the 1970s. The water is lifted by screw pumps into pools where reinforced concrete weirs with hydraulically sharp crests and 5 ft wide teeth break the falls at intervals. The 2 ft/sec flow reduces sedimentation in the pools, which remain filled during non-pumping warm weather periods but must be drained to prevent ice damage during the winter. The exception to this is the wetland pool at Station 1.


Hydrological models are developed for different purposes including flood forecasting, design flood estimation, water resources assessment, and impact study of climate change and land use change, etc. In this study, applicability and uncertainty of two deterministic lumped models, the Xinanjiang (XAJ) model and the Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) model, in design flood estimation are evaluated in a data rich catchment in southern China. Uncertainties of the estimated design flood caused by model equifinality and calibration data period are then assessed using the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) framework. The results show that: (1) the XAJ model is likely to overestimate the design flood while HBV model underestimates the design flood; (2) the model parameter equifinality has significant impact on the design flood estimation results; (3) with the same length of calibration period, the results of design flood estimation are significantly influenced by which period of the data is used for model calibration; and (4) 15–20 years of calibration data are suggested to be necessary and sufficient for calibrating the two models in the study area.


BACKGROUND
Major depressive disorder with psychotic features (psychotic depression), though occurring relatively frequently in the general population, is a commonly missed psychiatric diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE
To ascertain accuracy of diagnosis of psychotic depression among inpatients at 4 academic medical centers and explore whether presenting symptoms, treatment setting, and physician's level of training affect the accuracy of diagnosis.

METHOD
The medical records of 65 patients who met DSM-IV criteria for psychotic depression following systematic assessment were analyzed to ascertain the concordance between chart diagnoses and research diagnoses arrived at using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. The patients were participants in the National Institute of Mental Health Study of Pharmacotherapy of Psychotic Depression, conducted from December 28, 2002, through June 18, 2004, at 4 academic medical centers. For each patient's hospital visit, separate standardized data forms were completed on the basis of each physician's assessment of the patient prior to screening for the study. Hospital records from the emergency room and from admission to psychiatric units were reviewed. Among these 65 patients, 130 chart diagnoses had been made.

RESULTS
Psychotic depression had not been diagnosed prior to research assessments for 27% of the 130 diagnoses in our sample. The 3 most common diagnoses assigned to patients meeting research criteria for psychotic depression were major depressive disorder without psychotic features, depression not otherwise specified, and mood disorder not otherwise specified. Failure to identify psychotic depression was more likely when symptoms of depressed mood, hallucinations, or delusions were not noted in the medical record (all p < .005). The accuracy of diagnoses was greater on inpatient units than in emergency rooms (chi(2) = 7.64, p < .01).

CONCLUSION
The diagnosis of psychotic depression is frequently missed in emergency room and inpatient settings. The findings of this study are sobering given the serious morbidity and mortality of psychotic depression and the implications for treatment if an inaccurate diagnosis is made.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00056472.


Phosphor converted LEDs (pc-LEDs), which employ yellow phosphor deposited on blue LEDs to generate white light illumination have been widely used in solid-state lighting (SSL). Currently most LEDs are packaged on an individual component basis. Such a conventional packaging process typically may have a relatively low throughput and poor uniformity. In this paper, a new structure for 3D wafer level LED packaging is introduced. The package consists of three parts: a silicon submount wafer with pre-mounted LEDs, a silicon cap wafer, and a layer of phosphor film. Each part was independently fabricated and subsequently assembled at the wafer level. The optical performance of singulated prototypes was characterized using an integrating sphere. Comparison and discussion of samples with various phosphor-silicone mixing ratios are given in detail.


The paper investigates whether multi-party coalition government is better for the protection of socially backward classes, i.e. Scheduled Castes, in India. We have looked at the impact of types of government on the reduction of the gap between Scheduled Castes and Upper Castes in terms of various socio-economic indicators. Our analysis suggests that single-party majoritarian government is better at reducing the gap in terms of poverty and school drop-out rates, improves the employment scenario, and reduces the distressed migration. Nevertheless, neither single-party majoritarian government nor coalition government is able to reduce the gap in relation to institutional delivery, inequality, and land holding.


The vast amount of clinical data in electronic health records constitutes a great potential for secondary use. However, most of this content consists of unstructured or semi-structured texts, which is difficult to process. Several challenges are still pending: medical language idiosyncrasies in different natural languages, and the large variety of medical terminology systems. In this paper we present SEMCARE, a European initiative designed to minimize these problems by providing a multi-lingual platform (English, German, and Dutch) that allows users to express complex queries and obtain relevant search results from clinical texts. SEMCARE is based on a selection of adapted biomedical terminologies, together with Apache UIMA and Apache Solr as open source state-of-the-art natural language pipeline and indexing technologies. SEMCARE has been deployed and is currently being tested at three medical institutions in the UK, Austria, and the Netherlands, showing promising results in a cardiology use case.


Article "Elements of Life" offers a hypothesis about the relationship of the phenomenon of traditional Chinese medicine with the physical laws. It shows the principle of forming a sequence of daily activity of the acupuncture meridians as a consequence of the Doppler effect in the process of flowing around the planet Earth by cosmic wind (by Ether). In accordance with this specification the daily structure of meridians had been built. It is suggested that the essence of the Chinese Qi (Chi) are vibrations of a certain range in the medium. Consequently, it became possible to set the interrelation of frequencies of the visible spectrum with certain meridians. It is shown that the topological relationship of ancient (barrier) points of the Five Elements (Wu-Shu points) are associated with the wave lengths of the so-called Qi. It is shown also that the essence of the Wu-Xing law is based on daily circulation patterns of meridians. The examples of the surrounding world, including pulses processes in the human body, are confirming the above mentioned theses. A correlation diagram between the main elements by Dr. Samohotsky A.S. (dissertation "The experience of the definition of medical laws", 1946) and the Five Elements of traditional Chinese philosophy is established. The above represented hypotheses are yet introduced in practice in form of pulse spectral


In the last decade, the values of the traditional economy have been strongly challenged, considering the concept of development of the last century as the main cause of many environmental issues that we are facing today. Recently, new strategies have been introduced to provide a renewed concept of development, including the creation new business models in the context of the circular economy, a greater importance of intangible value, the merging of products and services (de Arruda Torresa, 2017) as successful strategies to oppose the classical economy. Nevertheless, both designers and companies still consider projects as 'finished' at some point. In the same way in which, before the introduction of waste regulation, manufacturers paid scant attention to their products' end-of-life, today many companies seem no longer interested in their products after the sale once they have been sold and the warranty has been expired, i.e. while the product is in use. However, the usage phase impact more in products such as the refrigerator, which is characterised by a long lifespan (according to Bakker at al., 2014 the 'optimal lifespan' of new purchases is now estimated around 20 years) and a continuous use (400-1100 KWh/y according to the related energy class).

In this paper, instead, we take into consideration how products could continuously evolve after their implementation (Hansen et al., 2008) and how companies could benefit from them throughout their life cycle, delivering new services while changing their business model completely. This approach leaves room for addressing every step of the traditional life-cycle in a more circular way, shifting the focus on a more complex vision about the product. This scenario could radically change by introducing new business strategies such as reducing product ownership through sharing, remanufacturing activities and so forth, while extending the product lifespan, without the need to rely on outdated strategies such as planned obsolescence or the push on the purchase of more goods.

We adapted some of the strategies of the circular economy listed by Kirchherr et al. (2017) within the standard life cycle of the product, by facing the gap of a certain lack of circular strategies related to the use phase (Figure 1). Hence five strategies have emerged, three of which are suitable for exploring new scenarios based on the concept of flexibility and two strategies based on the idea of predictive maintenance.

Product flexibility

This section provides three non-inclusive examples of exploring new scenarios based on flexibility, empower the user to personalise the object and develop new behaviours of use and consumption.

− Reduce ownership: A first scenario could be the integration of a pay-per-use and sharing strategies that leads the user to reduce the ownership of goods, by paying for the actual product use, saving money when the product is used in a virtuous way. In this paper, an in-depth analysis of scenario is carried out, based on the literature which considers ownership and planned obsolescence as two obsolete strategies.

− Product evolution: Software update is just an example of a product that evolves over time, changing and adapting to technological changes. What if the same concept would be extended to every part of the product and every step of the lifecycle? In this scenario, the user purchases/rent a product and then he/she could transform and shape it according to his/her needs with components and functions that can be integrated.

− Product adaptability: What if the product would change its behaviour according to contextual factors, usage information and the habits of those who use it? In this scenario, the user purchases/rents a product, he/she starts using it and after a while his/her expectations will be delivered, because the product evolves to meet user's requirements. Equipping products with intelligence makes them adapt and respond to change and remain fit-for-purpose over longer time periods (McAloone and Pigosso, 2017; Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015). IoT data can be used to improve current products, but also for developing virtual services and sharing economy platforms to support the technical lifetime.

Predictive maintenance

The second part of the paper investigates how to combine IoT data with the design of new products, suitable for addressing other parts of the lifecycle. McAloone and Pigosso (2016) suggested that combining IoT data with participatory tools IoT could be one driver for the success of the circular economy, together with sustainable design/eco-design and Business model innovation. The circular economy can benefit from this intelligence for up-cycling processes, monitoring the condition of individual components or whole product systems. Data about the real use of a product can be collected for a short time, with an object instrumented ad hoc for the experiment or alternatively on the marketable products.

Monitoring experimental products: in the first case, the product or its components can be monitored with experiments, to make their recovery suitable for a second valuable use. The R&D or design team, indeed, could study a prototype and then make projections over time of the expected use to determine when the object should be replaced or updated to obtain the maximum value from it. This could be the case of the following three examples, considering:

• Functional groups of components, i.e. a system of parts grouped by a specific function;

• Essential components, whose breakup will compromise the whole product functioning, eventually leading to replace it;

• Wearing parts, which can be easily replaced. Some relevant indicators should be defined and verified by measuring them through ad hoc experiments on these components, providing a more precise knowledge of the system.

Monitoring the final product: monitoring some parameters of the refrigerator as a form of predictive maintenance could also be performed on real products, to provide added value services throughout the lifecycle. It could be done by introducing a few sensors on the final product that will be delivered to the user, to allow continuous data transmission of the most important indicators. Among the possible outcome, detect failures in advance, notify, inform, communicate are only a few possibilities and it raises the need for learning systems able to recognise patterns, together with a platform on which to share and communicate directly with the user.

These two scenarios have different purposes.
The first deal with instrumented objects used for testing and monitoring objects to intercept the product to the suitable time in which it could be fully exploited, before it reaches its end of life, avoiding the product disassembly by preserving its integrity. The second aims to reconfigure the product to obtain real-time data and intervene promptly, shaping the object behaviour on the user habits and behaviour (i.e. by interacting with the user, facilitating the predictive maintenance, upgrading or replacing parts, improving the product or eventually allowing the product to adapt to changed conditions and learn from users' usage).

Both scenarios would require analytics to measure and combine data inputs over time (Henne, 2015). The proposed strategies are suitable for both current product-centred economy and a future service-centred one, providing directions for future studies that want to address the extension of the product life cycle, while promoting an efficient use of products. IoT data open a variety of possibilities in monitoring, accessing more precise knowledge of goods and households, useful for design purposes.


In this article we describe a new species of the annual fish genusAustrolebiasfrom the lower Uruguay river basin. The fusion of the urogenital papilla to the first anal fin ray in males and the pigmentation pattern, indicates a close relationship with the clade formed byA.bellottii,A.melanoorus, andA.univentripinnis. The new species can be differentiated from those by the following combination of characters: presence of well-defined light bands contrasting with the sides of the body, the distal portion of the anal fin dark gray, pelvic fins dark bluish green and bases united at about 50–80% on their medial margins, pectoral fins with iridescent blue sub-marginal band, and general coloration of body bluish green. The new species can only be found in wetlands of the Queguay river, an area included in the Uruguayan protected areas system and represents so far the only annual fish species endemic to the lower Uruguay river basin.


We present the case of a 77-year-old woman who initially presented with pyrexia of unknown origin, anaemia and mild renal impairment. When her omeprazole was stopped she improved rapidly. When omeprazole was re-started she developed fever and acute renal failure, which again settled quickly on discontinuation of omeprazole. This case demonstrates how drugs can cause severe multisystem disorders that may appear to be infective or inflammatory.


In this work we explore a new approach for robots to teach themselves about the world simply by observing it. In particular we investigate the effectiveness of learning task-agnostic representations for continuous control tasks. We extend Time-Contrastive Networks (TCN) that learn from visual observations by embedding multiple frames jointly in the embedding space as opposed to a single frame. We show that by doing so, we are now able to encode both position and velocity attributes significantly more accurately. We test the usefulness of this self-supervised approach in a reinforcement learning setting. We show that the representations learned by agents observing themselves take random actions, or other agents perform tasks successfully, can enable the learning of continuous control policies using algorithms like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) using only the learned embeddings as input. We also demonstrate significant improvements on the real-world Pouring dataset with a relative error reduction of 39.4% for motion attributes and 11.1% for static attributes compared to the single-frame baseline. Video results are available at https://sites.google.com/view/actionablerepresentations


We determine the 2-adic K-localizations for a large class of H-spaces and related spaces. As in the odd primary case, these localizations are expressed as fibers of maps between specified infinite loop spaces, allowing us to approach the 2-primary v1-periodic homotopy groups of our spaces. The present v1-periodic results have been applied very successfully to simply-connected compact Lie groups by Davis, using knowledge of the complex, real, and quaternionic representations of the groups. We also functorially determine the united 2-adic K-cohomology algebras (including the 2-adic KO-cohomology algebras) for all simply-connected compact Lie groups in terms of their representation theories, and we show the existence of spaces realizing a wide class of united 2-adic K-cohomology algebras with specified operations.


Today's web services are dominated by TCP flows so short that they terminate a few round trips after handshaking; this handshake is a significant source of latency for such flows. In this paper we describe the design, implementation, and deployment of the TCP Fast Open protocol, a new mechanism that enables data exchange during TCP's initial handshake. In doing so, TCP Fast Open decreases application network latency by one full round-trip time, decreasing the delay experienced by such short TCP transfers.
 We address the security issues inherent in allowing data exchange during the three-way handshake, which we mitigate using a security token that verifies IP address ownership. We detail other fall-back defense mechanisms and address issues we faced with middleboxes, backwards compatibility for existing network stacks, and incremental deployment. Based on traffic analysis and network emulation, we show that TCP Fast Open would decrease HTTP transaction network latency by 15% and whole-page load time over 10% on average, and in some cases up to 40%.


Eighty-four patients with cerebrovascular disease were studied by cerebral angiography and a prototype Doppler device, ultrasonic quantitative flow measurement (UQFM), that provides data from which absolute common carotid flow can be determined. The UQFM showed significantly lower flows in 23 patients who had complete occlusion of the internal carotid artery on the affected side (p less than 0.001). In 11 patients with occlusion of hte middle cerebral artery at its origin and in 5 with branch occlusions, the blood flow in the ipsilateral common carotid artery was also significantly lower (p less than 0.01). There was no significant difference between blood flow on the 2 sides in 9 patients with stenosis of middle cerebral artery and in 7 with stenosis of internal carotid artery. Due to the small number of patients no definite conclusion can be drawn. The UQFM is thought to be useful not only in screening for occlusive cerebrovascular disease but also to help understand better the mechanisms of ischemia in the presence of carotid lesions.


Early reflections play a large role in our perception of sound and as such, have been
subject to various treatments over the years due to changing tastes and room
requirements. Whilst there is research into these early reflections, arriving both
vertically and horizontally in small rooms regarding critical listening, little research
has been conducted regarding the beneficial or detrimental impact of early vertical
reflections on listener preference, in the context of listening for entertainment.
Two experiments were conducted through subjective testing in a semi-anechoic
chamber and listening room in order to assess subjects' preference of playback of a
direct sound against playback with the addition of the first geometrical vertical
reflection. Program material remained constant in both experiments, employing five
musical and one speech stimuli.
Experiment one used a paired comparison method assessing a subjects' preference,
and perceived magnitude of timbral and spatial difference provided by a frequency
independent ceiling reflection. Each comparison was followed by a free
verbalisation task for subjects to describe the perceived change(s). Experiment two
investigated this further by focusing specifically on subjects' preference with a
frequency dependent reflection. A more controlled verbalisation task provided a list
of descriptive terms which the subject's used to describe which attribute(s)
influenced their preference.
The results show that preference for playback with the inclusion of a vertical
reflection was highly varied across both subjects and samples. However both
experiments suggest that the main perceptual attribute with which subject's based
their preference was timbre, common spatial attributes (image shift/spread) cannot
be used to predict preference. Experiment two suggests that the alteration of the
frequency content of a vertical reflection, may also provide a more consistent level
of preference for certain stimuli. It is also shown that while certain attributes occur
frequently (brilliance/fullness) for describing preference, others less frequently used
(nasal/boxy), may influence preference to a greater extent


The patterns of use for the address term dude are outlined, as are its functions and meanings in interaction. Explanations are provided for its rise in use, particularly among young men, in the early 1980s, and for its continued popularity since then. Dude is used mostly by young men to address other young men; however, its use has expanded so that it is now used as a general address term for a group (same or mixed gender), and by and to women. Dude is developing into a discourse marker that need not identify an addressee, and more generally encodes the speaker's stance to his or her current addressee(s). Dude indexes a stance of cool solidarity, a stance which is especially valuable for young men as they navigate cultural Discourses of young masculinity, which simultaneously demand masculine solidarity, strict heterosexuality, and nonconformity.


As the blurred boundaries between documentary, memory and 're‐imaginings' of personal experience have become more intensively theorised, creative writing is re‐emerging as an important resource in social science, following the extensive debates surrounding the sociology of literature in the 1960s and 1970s. This is especially true with regard to the type of mobility entailed by migration. This essay advances a methodology for incorporating creative fiction into mobilities research. It argues that certain types of literary text offer fresh perspectives on the overlapping layers of experience which characterise the mental condition resulting from cultural displacement, bringing together the historical, the global and the local within a single, multiply constituted, 'imagined space'. Literary accounts of this kind can be characterised as a data source in their own right, complementing social science research methodologies grounded in 'real‐life' observation and offering hypotheses for subsequent ethnographic verification. Through the narrative processes of metaphorical transfer and space‐time compression, Joe Pemberton's autobiographical novel Forever and Ever Amen (2000) demonstrates the potential of narratives informed by the experience of migration to present 'alternative cartographies of social space' (Rouse, 1991). The social relevance of such narrative representations is further demonstrated by their 'envelopment' within mainstream discourses, thereby illustrating how they 'articulate' with existing social norms.


Hydro power plants located at rivers where the content of abrasive materials reaches an extremely high level during the seasons, e.g. in the Himalaya region, the European Alps, the Andes or the Yellow River in China, have to deal with the severe situation of hydro abrasive erosion. Silt erosion is still a major obstacle to the economical utilization of hydro power resources. During the last years, Voith Siemens Hydro – together with partners from all over the world, did different examinations and developments to overcome this problem. Especially the San Men Xia power plant in Henan Province, PR China which had been chosen for a joint research and rehabilitation project, shows the different aspects of the selected protection mechanism. The aim of the research project had been a comprehensive program to develop up-to-date measures against silt erosion. Apart from CAT – treatment (catchment area treatment) and other measures to reduce the amount of sand and silt going through a hydraulic unit (which are not discussed in this paper), suitable solutions had been found to fulfill the requirements of reducing damages on hydraulic components and thus also reducing cost for maintenance of hydro power turbine. A process was developed to modify the hydraulic shape of turbines to reduce hydro abrasive erosion significantly. This is done by optimizing the hydraulic design in a way that "hot spots" of hydro abrasive wear are determined by further developed CFD – tools (Computational Fluid Dynamics). These measures can only reduce the erosion but not completely prevent it. As the protection of existing units can not be done by design changes without doing a rehab, a materialbased solution to protect the surface of hydraulic components was also examined. Material tests had been done to examine available base materials and coatings to obtain a rating about wear related properties. The material examinations lead to two different solutions which now have already shown their potential on pilot projects as well as on commercial projects. The paper will describe the different approaches and their background. Finally the measures are summarized in a strategy for reducing hydro abrasive wear on hydro power components, based on the results of the research project as well as pilot and commercial applications.


X-ray computed microtomography (microCT) that allows to extract quantitative 3D information about various objects is already
a well-established and widely used industrial technique for non-destructive testing, materials characterization and dimensional
metrology. On the other hand, modern developmental biology requires both qualitative and quantitative three-dimensional
information about the studied objects, which is not provided by conventional 2D imaging methods. In addition, the complexity
of biological structures often requires a more comprehensive methodology to compare shapes and sizes. Our approach is to
connect these two worlds, i.e. to apply procedures and analysis routinely used or developed for industrial computed tomography
to address scientific questions in developmental biology. This approach, which is based on the long-term experience of the
CEITEC BUT Brno micro/nanoCT research team on both, industrial and scientific application of X-ray microCT, brings new
possibilities in imaging, data processing and evaluation of 3D biological models. Here we present 3D structures that were
analysed by different approaches on the selected examples from developmental biology. In addition, quantitative analysis usually
used in industry were applied to segmented 3D models e.g. wall thickness analysis of facial cartilage, shape comparisons of nasal
capsules, automatic quantification of the cells in the salamander limb etc. A complete procedure consisting of staining, microCT
measurement and subsequent data processing is discussed.


Meetings International & Food Microbiology 2020 offer several awards given to recognize outstanding scholarly contributions to the field of international studies. These awards have different committees, nominating procedures and submission deadlines. They recognize 1. Best Organising Committee Member Award; 2. Excellent Keynote talk Award; 3. Outstanding Speaker Award; 4. Outstanding Young Researchers' Forum Award; 5. Best Poster Award.


There are no easy solutions to the problem of improving the quality of care. Research has shown how difficult it can be, but has failed to provide reliable and effective ways to change services and professional performance for the better. Much depends on the perspectives of users and the attitudes and behaviours of professionals in the context of their organisations and healthcare teams. Qualitative research offers a variety of methods for identifying what really matters to patients and carers, detecting obstacles to changing performance, and explaining why improvement does or does not occur. The use of such methods in future studies could lead to a better understanding of how to improve quality.


Delirium is a common presentation of deteriorating health in older people. It is potentially deleterious in terms of patient experience and clinical outcomes. Much of what is known about delirium is through positivist research, which forms the evidence base for disease-based classification systems and clinical guidelines. There is little systematic study of nurses' day-to-day practice of nursing patients with delirium. The aim was to uncover the kinds of knowledge that informs nurses' care and to explicate the basis of that knowledge. Critical Discourse Analysis is underpinned by the premise that powerful interests within society mediate how social practices are constructed. Links were made between the grammatical and lexical features of nurses' language about care in interviews and naturalistic settings, and the healthcare context. Care focused on the continuous surveillance of patients with delirium by nurses themselves or vicariously through other patients, and containment. Nurses influenced by major discourses of risk reduction and safety, constructed patients with delirium as risk objects. The philosophy of person-centred and dignified care advocated in nursing literature and government policy is an emerging discourse, though little evident in the data. The current dominant discourses on safety must give space to discourses of dignity and compassion.


The shells of large benthic foraminifers (LBF) are key contributors to the development and maintenance of coastal landforms in the Pacific as well as to Paleogene and Miocene carbonates deposited along the Neotethys Seaway and tropical Pacific islands. The current study assessed growth and fecundity of two species, Marginopora vertebralis and Amphistegina lobifera, collected from sites in Viti Levu, Fiji, based on shell diameter, shell weight, fecundity, and survival. Specimens were cultured without supplemental nutrients or food for 15 months under controlled laboratory conditions. Physicochemical parameters, including salinity, alkalinity, pH, and temperature, varied by <5% throughout the experiment. Asexual reproduction by M. vertebralis produced ∼270 offspring per brood, while A. lobifera produced ∼500 offspring per brood. The minimum size at reproduction for M. vertebralis was 15 mm, and A. lobifera reproduction occurred at diameters ≥0.9 mm. These observations were consistent with those of previous studies that predicted asexual fecundity related to parent size. Four non-linear mathematical functions (exponential, Gompertz, logistic, and von Bertalanffy) were compared to describe the age-weight relationship for each species. Results revealed that the logistic model best fits M. vertebralis growth, and von Bertalanffy model best fits A. lobifera growth. The growth model for A. lobifera predicted trends in juvenile growth and maximum size consistent with a previously published von Bertalanffy model based on cultures in which the foraminifers were provided nutrient sources and grew much faster than those observed in this study. These observations support published hypotheses that many LBF are exceptionally well-adapted to extreme oligotrophy, a characteristic that accounted for their dominance as carbonate producers in the Paleogene and Miocene of the Neotethys and Pacific islands.


Highway Surveillance and Control System (HSCS) is the critical system to improving the traffic safety and efficiency of highway. In this paper, the fault diagnosis model of HSCS based on Petri Net Model is provided in line with the composition, fault types and features of HSCS, and subsequently the fault diagnostic algorithm is given. In the end of this paper, the fault diagnosis of Microwave Vehicle Detector (MVD) in HSCS is presented to verifying the proposed fault diagnosis model and algorithm.


Background Discharge planning involves a range of health care professionals supporting the increasingly complex, specialised and person centred needs of patients. Successful discharge planning involves being able to work with patients, families and the wider multidisciplinary team (MDT) to identify discharge needs and priorities, of which, communication and an awareness of the different roles within the MDT are vitally important (Epstein, 2014). Student nurse education must reflect the needs of patients being cared for in complex health care systems, where care is often fragmented and involves the input of several different professionals. Whilst this can be delivered in didactic teaching; simulation, through forum theatre, has the potential to develop students declarative knowledge into functioning knowledge (Arveklev et al., 2015) in situations that they might have only limited exposure to, during their training. Project description We have developed a simulated discharge planning meeting by adapting forum theatre methodology. To provide context, a short video (filmed previously in the simulation flat) of the simulated patient (SP) prior to admission, struggling in his home environment, is shown. The meeting then centres around discharge planning after a hospital stay. Student nurses play various roles within the MDT engaging with the SP and their simulated relative. Integral to the session is a skilled facilitated debrief, involving the SPs, where the students focus on three aspects of the activity; what went well, what (if anything) they would change if they were to undertake the discharge planning activity again and thirdly how they will apply what they have learnt when they are undertaking their next clinical placements. Summary of results The ASPiH standards for simulation-based education have provided a quality assurance framework for the design of this session, furthermore, it has been aligned to the curriculum and reflects the NMC standards. Already apparent in the design, is the importance of consulting with multi-disciplines and critically to involve patients and their families. It is only then that the simulation becomes meaningful for the undergraduate student nurses. Discussion This session is taking place in July 2018, when over 100 student nurses will participate. It will operate as a proof of concept, with future work planned to test 'participatory forum theatre' empirically. If discharge planning is to be successful, for the patient and their family, simulating a MDT meeting in nurse training has the potential to assist greatly in identifying discharge needs and priorities and understanding the MDT roles. References Epstein NE. Multidisciplinary in-hospital teams improve patient outcomes: A review. Surgical Neurology International2014;5(Suppl 7):S295–303. Arveklev SH, Wigert H, Berg L, Burton B, Lepp M. The use and application of drama in nursing education. An integrative review of the literature. Nurse Education Today2015;35(7):e12–17.


The Cosmic Ray Exposure Sequencing Science (CRESS) payload system is a proof of concept experiment to assess the genomic impact of space radiation on seeds. CRESS was designed as a secondary payload for the December 2016 high-altitude, high-latitude, and long-duration balloon flight carrying the Boron And Carbon Cosmic Rays in the Upper Stratosphere (BACCUS) experimental hardware. Investigation of the biological effects of Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR), particularly those of ions with High-Z and Energy (HZE), is of interest due to the genomic damage this type of radiation inflicts. The biological effects of upper-stratospheric mixed radiation above Antarctica (ANT) were sampled using Arabidopsis thaliana seeds and were compared to those resulting from a controlled simulation of GCR at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and to laboratory control seed. The payload developed for Antarctica exposure was broadly designed to 1U CubeSat specifications (10cmx10cmx10cm, ≤1.33kg), maintained 1 atm internal pressure, and carried an internal cargo of four seed trays (about 580,000 seeds) and twelve CR-39 Solid-State Nuclear Track Detectors (SSNTDs). The irradiated seeds were recovered, sterilized and grown on Petri plates for phenotypic screening. BNL and ANT M0 seeds showed significantly reduced germination rates and elevated somatic mutation rates when compared to non-irradiated controls, with the BNL mutation rate also being significantly higher than that of ANT. Genomic DNA from mutants of interest was evaluated with whole-genome sequencing using PacBio SMRT technology. Sequence data revealed the presence of an array of genome structural variants in the genomes of M0 and M1 mutant plants.


Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are gaining visibility due to several sophisticated applications in which they play a key role, such as in pervasive computing and context-aware systems. However, the evolution of WSN capabilities, especially regarding their ability to provide information, brings complexity to their development, in particular for those application developers that are not familiar with the technology underlying and needed to support WSNs. In order to address this issue and allow the use of the full potential of the sensor network capabilities, the use of a middleware that raises the abstraction level and hides much of the WSN complexity is a promising proposal. However, the development of a middleware for WSNs is not an easy task. Systems based on WSNs have several issues that make them quite different from conventional networked computer systems, thus requiring specific approaches that largely differ from the current solutions. The proposal of this chapter is to address the complexity of middleware made for sensor networks, presenting a taxonomy that characterizes the main issues in the field. An overview of the state-of-the-art is also provided, as well as a critical assessment of existing approaches.


Abstract The article describes the federal statistics on Victim-Offender-Mediation (VOM) cases in Germany. The statistics exist from 1993 and contain information on more than 30,000 VOM-cases, victims and offenders. The article describes the history of the statistics, philosophy, aims, and methodology with detailed information about the kind of information collected. The structure of the data and the technical realization of data collection and analysis procedures are also discussed. Additional paragraphs introduce the reader to the relationships between the organisers of the statistics and the practitioners, the dissemination of the results, and the costs of the statistics. Finally the relevance for developments at a European level is considered. Key Words: Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) in Germany, Evaluation of Victim Offender Mediation (VOM), Victim Offender Mediation statistics, Evaluative research, Restorative Justice in Germany, Evaluation of Restorative Justice programmes Introduction The article describes the Federal Statistics of Victim-Offender-Mediation (VOM) in Germany (Taeter-Opfer-Ausgleich-Statistik). Widi these statistics we can answer questions like: who are the victims that are ready to take part in a mediation session with the offender; who are the offenders that are offered mediation instead of a criminal sanction; are VOM cases successful with violent offences; what is the type of settlements and compensations victims and offenders agree on? Data from more than 30,000 cases have been collected and analysed within this scheme. Some results can be found in Hartmann/Kerner (2002 )1. This essay deals with the history, the philosophy, some methodological and technical aspects of this statistics and ends with suggestions for a European Joint Data Recording System. History Forming the Idea The practical implementation of Victim-Offender-Mediation (VOM) in Germany commenced in the year 1985. The first projects were evaluated over a period of about four years. In 1990 the evaluated model phase came to an end in almost all projects. The results of the evaluations were consistent in many aspects but there were also clear differences (see the reports of Kuhn (1989), Schreckling (1990), and Hartmann (1995)). Unfortunately the data collected for the evaluation of the model projects were too different to analyse them in comparison to each other, giving rise to the idea of a standardised and comparable evaluation. Forming the "VOM Research-Group in Germany" The idea became more practical during a workshop on VOM in II Ciocco, Italy, in 1991 when some participants met in a pizzeria in Pisa. Back in Germany these researchers were able to convince the chairs at the institutes where they were working of the value of the planned project, starting the ongoing scholarly collaborative efforts of the VOM Research Group in Germany [=Forschungsgruppe Taeter-Opfer- Ausgleich]. Core members of this group are, in alphabetical order: Britta Bannenberg, University of Bielefeld; Dieter Doelling, University of Heidelberg; Arthur Hartmann, University of Applied Sciences in Public Administration Bremen; Wolfgang Heinz, University of Konstanz; Hans-Juergen Kerner, University of Tuebingen; Dieter Roessner, University of Marburg; Elmar G. M. Weitekamp, University of Tuebingen). Data collection and analysis of the Federal VOM statistics has been done for several years almost completely at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Tuebingen (e-mail: email@example.com). The project also had the support of the then newly formed Service Bureau of VOM (email: firstname.lastname@example.com), because its manager then M.Wandrey sat at the table in Pisa. The starting year was 1993 with 43 projects taking part. All German VOM-projects were and still are invited to join. Funding by "Volkswagen Stiftung" and The "Federal Ministry of Justice" The research group was able to win the support and necessary funding of the "Volkswagen Stiftung" (The Volkswagen Foundation). …


The paper outlines a methodology for analyzing daily stock returns that relinquishes the assumption of global stationarity. Giving up this common working hypothesis reflects our belief that fundamental features of the financial markets are continuously and significantly changing. Our approach approximates the nonstationary data locally by stationary models. The methodology is applied to the S&P 500 series of returns covering a period of over seventy years of market activity. We find most of the dynamics of this time series to be concentrated in shifts of the unconditional variance. The forecasts based on our nonstationary unconditional modeling were found to be superior to those obtained in a stationary long-memory framework and to those based on a stationary Garch(1, 1) data-generating process.


ABSTRACT The genus Bertorsonidra n. gen. is here proposed for Tremopora prenanti Gautier, 1955, a cheilostome bryozoan species from the Mediterranean area. The new description and first SEM illustration is mostly based on living material collected from infralittoral (17–19 m) bottoms off W Sicily and fossil specimens from lower Pleistocene, and possibly Pliocene, associations from three different localities in Sicily. The genus and species are characterized by a pseudoporous lepraliomorph frontal shield bordered by marginal areolae, with a prominent suboral umbo; a subcircular primary orifice with a shallow large sinus flanked by condyles, usually protected by oral spines; a prominent ovicell with an entirely exposed calcified entooecium sculptured by tubercles and pseudopores; a lateral suboral, hooked avicularium; and basal calcified pillar-like prominences for adhering to the substratum. The affinities of the genus with Robertsonidra Osburn, 1952, characterized by a frontal shield only perforated by peripheral areolae, are discussed. The erection of the new family Robertsonidridae n. fam. within the Lepraliomorpha is suggested for accommodating both Robertsonidra and Bertorsonidra n. gen. Information is given about ecological requirements of the species, persisting during time, and its morphological adaptation for colonising algal substrata, which Bertorsonidra prenanti n. comb, shares with some species of the genus Robertsonidra and other ones belonging to systematically unrelated genera.


This paper presents an application of Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) in the separately excited Direct Current (DC) motor drive (SEDM) system; the controller designed according to Fuzzy Logic rules. Such that the system is fundamentally robust. These rules have capability learning, can learn and tune rapidly, even if the motor parameters are varied. The most commonly used method for the speed control of dc motor is Proportional- Integral-Derivative (PID) controller. Simulation results demonstrate that, the control algorithms Neuro-Fuzzy logic and PID, the dynamic characteristics of the SEDM (speed, torque, as well as currents) are easily observed and analyzed by the developed model. In comparison between the Neuro-fuzzy logic controller and PID controller, the FLC controller obtains better dynamic behavior and superior performance of the DC motor as well as perfect speed tracking with no overshoot, and the proposed controller provides high performance dynamic characteristics and is robust with regard to change of motor speed and external load disturbance. This paper also discusses and compares the speed control systems of SEDM using PID-controller conventional and Fuzzy Logic-controller. The entire system has been modeled using MATLAB 10a/SIMULINK toolbox .


Accident black spot programs have played a major role in creating and sustaining safer roads through significant investments in safer road infrastructure. Black spot programs target sites of relatively high crash concentrations over a defined period of time. The most recent such program in Victoria, the Statewide Accident Black Spot Program, involved an expenditure of $240M (AUD) over the four-year period from 2000/01-2003/04 and included treatments for intersection crashes, as well as off-path and pedestrian crashes. Following a comprehensive evaluation of this program, this paper presents findings on the effectiveness of the overall program in reducing casualty and serious casualty crashes and the effectiveness of the intersection treatments, presented in terms of crash reduction, benefit-cost ratio and cost-effectiveness, at both category and individual treatment type levels. Determining the effects of infrastructure investments, and in particular effects of specific treatment types, ensures more effective investments in the future. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E216178.


Does higher educational attainment lead to greater participation in self-employment? Available studies agree and disagree on this subject through various explanations. We invoke an empirical example from the experiences of immigrants moving from poor countries to rich countries. Further, we focus exclusively on the self-employment participation among south Asian immigration in the United States (using IPUMS Data), which the related literature has clearly neglected thus far despite long traditions of successful business ventures. We establish that higher educational attainment for immigrants from south Asia reduces the likelihood of being self-employed. In fact, a South Asian immigrant with higher educational attainment has 10% less chance of being self-employed than one without. In addition, we show that factors such as longer stay in USA and being a male, affect the likelihood of being self-employed positively. However, another interesting finding of our paper is that being a 'citizen immigrant' affects the probability of being self-employed positively. Though citizen immigrants with higher education attainment are less likely to choose self-employment, the probability is relatively higher in comparison to the non-citizen immigrant group with similar levels of education. This trend lends itself to a more than proportionate participation in self-employment by the citizen immigrants and the difference with immigrant non-citizen group becomes statistically significant. These results have various static and dynamic implications for the native labor market in host countries.


Many practical routing algorithms are heuristic, adhoc and centralized, rendering generic and optimal path configurations difficult to obtain. Here we study a scenario whereby selected nodes in a given network communicate with fixed routers and employ statistical physics methods to obtain optimal routing solutions subject to a generic cost. A distributive message-passing algorithm capable of optimizing the path configuration in real instances is devised, based on the analytical derivation, and is greatly simplified by expanding the cost function around the optimized flow. Good algorithmic convergence is observed in most of the parameter regimes. By applying the algorithm, we study and compare the pros and cons of balanced traffic configurations to that of consolidated traffic, which provides important implications to practical communication and transportation networks. Interesting macroscopic phenomena are observed from the optimized states as an interplay between the communication density and the cost functions used.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the temporal relationship between accumulating data from randomized control trials of treatments for myocardial infarction and the recommendations of clinical experts writing review articles and textbook chapters.

DATA SOURCES
(1) MEDLINE search from 1966 to present; search terms used were myocardial infarction, clinical trials, multicenter studies, double-blind method, meta-analysis, and the text word "random:"; (2) references from pertinent articles and books; and (3) all editions of English-language general medical texts and manuals and review articles on treatment of myocardial infarction.

STUDY SELECTION
Randomized control trials of therapies for reducing the risk of total mortality in myocardial infarction (acute and secondary prevention). Review articles and textbook chapters dealing with the general clinical management of patients with myocardial infarction.

DATA EXTRACTION
Two authors read the material and recorded the results; disagreements were resolved by conference.

DATA SYNTHESIS
We used the technique of cumulative meta-analysis (performing a new meta-analysis when the results of a new clinical trial are published) and compared the results with the recommendations of the experts for various treatments for myocardial infarction. Discrepancies were detected between the meta-analytic patterns of effectiveness in the randomized trials and the recommendations of reviewers. Review articles often failed to mention important advances or exhibited delays in recommending effective preventive measures. In some cases, treatments that have no effect on mortality or are potentially harmful continued to be recommended by several clinical experts.

CONCLUSIONS
Finding and analyzing all therapeutic trials in a given field has become such a difficult and specialized task that the clinical experts called on to summarize the evidence in a timely fashion need access to better databases and new statistical techniques to assist them in this important task.


The neutrino mechanism of core-collapse supernova is investigated via non-relativistic, two-dimensional (2D), neutrino radiation–hydrodynamic simulations. For the transport of electron flavor neutrinos, we use the interaction rates defined by Bruenn and the isotropic diffusion source approximation (IDSA) scheme, which decomposes the transported particles into trapped-particle and streaming-particle components. Heavy neutrinos are described by a leakage scheme. Unlike the "ray-by-ray" approach in some other multidimensional supernova models, we use cylindrical coordinates and solve the trapped-particle component in multiple dimensions, improving the proto-neutron star resolution and the neutrino transport in angular and temporal directions. We provide an IDSA verification by performing one-dimensional (1D) and 2D simulations with 15 and 20 M⊙ progenitors from Woosley et al. and discuss the difference between our IDSA results and those existing in the literature. Additionally, we perform Newtonian 1D and 2D simulations from prebounce core collapse to several hundred milliseconds postbounce with 11, 15, 21, and 27 M⊙ progenitors from Woosley et al. with the HS(DD2) equation of state. General-relativistic effects are neglected. We obtain robust explosions with diagnostic energies Edia ≳ 0.1–0.5 B (1 B ≡ 1051 erg) for all considered 2D models within approximately 100–300 ms after bounce and find that explosions are mostly dominated by the neutrino-driven convection, although standing accretion shock instabilities are observed as well. We also find that the level of electron deleptonization during collapse dramatically affects the postbounce evolution, e.g., the neglect of neutrino–electron scattering during collapse will lead to a stronger explosion.


[1] The crustal structure across the Tonga-Lau arc-back arc system from the Lau Ridge to the Pacific Plate (178°–170°W, 18°19°S) is modeled, using data from an 840-km-long air gun refraction line over 19 ocean bottom seismometers and one land station. The data reveal that the Pacific Plate crust is 5.5 km thick, with a velocity structure similar to that found at the present-day East Pacific Rise (EPR). Beneath Tonga Ridge, an intermediate velocity layer (6–7 km/s) is up to 7.5 km thick and has a velocity-depth distribution similar to andesitic rocks found in continental crust. The crust is abnormally thin (4 km) at the boundary between the Tonga Ridge and the Lau Basin. At the east end of Lau Basin, the crust is 5.5–6.5 km thick and resembles crust formed at the EPR except for a thicker sheeted-dike section (2–3 km) and thinner lower crust (2 km). The Lau Basin crust thickens to 7–8 km near the Central Lau Spreading Center (CLSC), mostly through thickening of the lower crust. The crust thickens again to 8.5–9.5 km at 50 km west of the CLSC, mostly through thickening of the midcrust. In the thick westernmost section, the crustal structure is uniform even though one part of this section formed through extension of arc-type crust while the rest was created at an oceanic spreading center. The relative homogeneity of these rocks suggests that their petrology may be dominated by postemplacement magmatic infilling from a mantle source west of the spreading center.


The motive of palmprint image enhancement is to highlight the fine details of palm lines. In this paper, a fuzzy unsharp masking algorithm is presented to enhance the contrast of a palmprint image. This method introduces the fuzzy set theory into the unsharp masking scheme. Unsharp masking (UM) approaches are simple and effective for contrast enhancement of high-frequency components. Most of UM algorithms can effectively improve the contrast of principal lines, but insensitive to wrinkles. In order to further enhance the contrast of wrinkles, a half open membership function is used to transform the output of the filters into fuzzy domain. The palmprint image is enhanced in fuzzy field. The proposed method is compared with other techniques in the paper and the experimental result demonstrates that the proposed approach can enhance the fine details of palmprint image effectively


Abstract Organic agricultural systems increase the complexity of weed management, leading organic farmers to cite weeds as one of the greatest barriers to organic production. Integrated Weed Management (IWM) systems have been developed to address the ecological implications of weeds and weed management in cropping systems, but adoption is minimal. Organic agriculture offers a favorable context for application of IWM, as both approaches are motivated by concern for environmental quality and agricultural sustainability. However, adoption of IWM on organic farms is poorly understood due to limited data on weed management practices used, absence of an IWM adoption metric, and insufficient consideration given to the unique farming contexts within which weed management decisions are made. Therefore, this study aimed to (1) characterize organic weed management systems; (2) identify motivations for, and barriers to, selection of weed management practices; and (3) generate guiding principles for effective targeting of weed management outreach. We surveyed Midwestern organic growers to determine how specified psychosocial, demographic, and farm structure factors influence selection of weed management practices. Cluster analysis of the data detected three disparate, yet scaled, approaches to organic weed management. Clusters were distinguished by perspective regarding weeds and the number of weed management practices used. Categorization of individual farms within the identified approaches was influenced by primary farm products as well as farmer education, years farming, and information-seeking behavior. The proposed conceptual model allows weed management educators to target outreach for enhanced compatibility of farming contexts and weed management technologies.


The twelve stories in "Under the Red Flag" take place during China's Cultural Revolution. Ha Jin, who was raised in China and emigrated to the United States after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, writes about loss and moral deterioration with the keen sense of a survivor. His stories examine life in the bleak rural town of Dismount Fort, where the men and women are full of passion and certainty but blinded by their limited vision as they grapple with honor and shame, manhood and death, infidelity and repression.In "A Man-to-Be," a militiaman engaged to be married participates in a gang rape, but finds himself impotent when he looks into the eyes of the victim. His fiancee's family breaks off the engagement, not because of the rape, but because they doubt his virility. In "Winds and Clouds over a Funeral," a Communist leader disobeys his mother's last wish for burial to keep his good standing in the party, but his enemies bring him down for being a bad son. "In Broad Daylight" is the story of the public humiliation of a woman accused of being a whore. Her dignified defiance is gradually stripped away as she is dragged through the streets, cursed and spat upon by strangers and family alike.In "Under the Red Flag," privacy is nonexistent and paranoia rules as neighbor turns against neighbor, husband turns against wife, state turns against individual, history turns against humanity. These stories dis


An international open competition. Shortlisted for publication and exhibition. Competition Judged by Sir Peter Cook. A proposal for the Grand Egyptian Museum to house an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts adjacent to the pyramids at Giza. This global museum allows worldwide access through interactive webcams. Each visit of the virtual visitor is recorded to video. During the daytime opening hours of the museum these nocturnal videoed virtual visits are played back. They are projected on huge screens at the entrance of each gallery zone. The multitudes of moving images are a trace of the virtual visitor and give their fellow real visitor both a glimpse of the contents of each gallery and a sense of the activities of the distant virtual visitor. For Ancient Egypt solar monotheism was at the core of its belief system. The Grand Egyptian Museum uses a series of mirrors to track the path of the sun (heliostats) to capture light and reflect it through the Grand Foyer and down onto the lower reservoir of the water park sited on the north facade of the museum. This water is shaded on the north side by the building and is punctuated by shafts of light. As cars and buses arrive they pass along the facade of the museum and through this park.