In order to study the inferences of structure for mechanism, the collective motions of the retroviral reverse transcriptase HIV-1 RT (RT) are examined using the Gaussian network model (GNM) of proteins. This model is particularly suitable for elucidating the global dynamic characteristics of large proteins such as the presently investigated heterodimeric RT comprising a total of 982 residues. Local packing density and coordination order of amino acid residues is inspected by the GNM to determine the type and range of motions, both at the residue level and on a global scale, such as the correlated movements of entire subdomains. Of the two subunits, p66 and p51, forming the RT, only p66 has a DNA-binding cleft and a functional polymerase active site. This difference in the structure of the two subunits is shown here to be reflected in their dynamic characteristics: only p66 has the potential to undergo large-scale cooperative motions in the heterodimer, while p51 is essentially rigid. Taken together, the global motion of the RT heterodimer is comprised of movements of the p66 thumb subdomain perpendicular to those of the p66 fingers, accompanied by anticorrelated fluctuations of the RNase H domain and p51 thumb, thus providing information about the details of one processivity mechanism. A few clusters of residues, generally distant in sequence but close in space, are identified in the p66 palm and connection subdomains, which form the hinge-bending regions that control the highly concerted motion of the subdomains. These regions include the catalytically active site and the non-nucleoside inhibitor binding pocket of p66 polymerase, as well as sites whose mutations have been shown to impair enzyme activity. It is easily conceivable that this hinge region, indicated by GNM analysis to play a critical role in modulating the global motion, is locked into an inactive conformation upon binding of an inhibitor. Comparative analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the unliganded and liganded dimers indicates severe repression of the mobility of the p66 thumb in RT's global mode, upon binding of non-nucleoside inhibitors.


Coronary angiography is the standard study in the anatomical diagnosis of the coronary arteries and it´s introduced by Mason Sones in 1958, who proposed the technique for the brachial artery requiring experience for the manipulation of a single catheter and needed a surgical training to perform arteriotomia. At the same time, Dr. Melvin Judkins designs preformed catheters, which bear his name, for coronary angiography by using the femoral artery approach simplifying the procedure so it had a rapid adoption, a method that was Extends to the present day [1,2]. Only in the 90 Dr. Campeau looking for alternatives to previous methods for complications such as bleeding, begins with the approach through the radial artery, which has increased in recent years. Many of the interventional cardiologists around the world who use the radial approach prefer the use of the traditional preformed catheters, Judkins being the most used, because the learning curve was performed with this type of catheter as in daily practice. Remember that they were designed for the femoral approach; Pathway different than radial due to its technique of approaching and anatomy of the artery [3]. Coronary angiography through the radial artery has increased its popularity due to patient comfort, early ambulation and decreased risk of bleeding in the Access. So much so, that although before in the catheterization rooms when the nurse prepared the patient for the procedure, she asked "a Femoral or Radial approach? Today when the patient is prepared for coronary angiography, it is almost only question Radial? "[4-6].


Geothermal exploration and subsequent characterization of potential resources typically employ a variety of geophysical, geologic and geochemical techniques. However, since the data collected by each technique provide information directly on only one or a very limited set of the many physical parameters that characterize a geothermal system, no single method can be used to describe the system in its entirety. Presently, the usual approach to analyzing disparate data streams for geothermal applications is to invert (or forward model) each data set separately and then combine or compare the resulting models, for the most part in a more or less ad hoc manner. However, while each inversion may yield a model that fits the individual data set, the models are usually inconsistent with each other to some degree. This reflects uncertainties arising from the inevitable fact that geophysical and other exploration data in general are to some extent noisy, incomplete, and of limited sensitivity and resolution, and so yield non-unique results. The purpose of the project described here is to integrate the different model constraints provided by disparate geophysical, geological and geochemical data in a rigorous and consistent manner by formal joint inversion. The objective is to improve the fidelity ofmore » exploration results and reservoir characterization, thus addressing the goal of the DOE Geothermal Program to improve success in exploration for economically viable resources by better defining drilling targets, reducing risk, and improving exploration/drilling success rates.« less


This Article examines the inherent tension between the collegial court philosophy embraced by Justice Ginsburg, and her own position on gender discrimination. This tension is likely exaggerated in light of the divisiveness of the Court and the frequent five-to-four voting on the issue of gender discrimination. Within the framework of her Supreme Court dissents and concurring opinions on gender discrimination, this Article explores whether Justice Ginsburg has been able to maintain dual fidelity to the bulwark of collegiality, i.e., restraint in separate opinion writing, and to her gender postulate. Or, in the alternative, has Justice Ginsburg abandoned the possibly gender-based goal of collegiality in the highly politicized and contentious arena of gender discrimination, particularly as her colleagues have increasingly engaged in individual opinion writing? Consequently, the Article examines not only whether and when Justice Ginsburg has chosen to dissent or concur but also the style and substance of her separate opinions. Part I of the Article examines Justice Ginsburg's career as a litigator and her deep commitment to the eradication of gender discrimination. Part II considers her thirteen-year tenure as a circuit court judge for the District of Columbia and her reputation as a pragmatic, centrist judge concerned with consensus-building and collegiality. Part III culminates the survey of her career with a study of her voting patterns as a Supreme Court justice in cases involving gender discrimination. Specifically, this Part explores whether her collegiality philosophy has led her to adopt a more moderate approach to gender issues, overlooking relatively minor differences with her more conservative colleagues. The Article ultimately concludes that the dual objectives of gender equality and collegiality need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, as evidenced by Justice Ginsburg's separate opinions, these two goals can coexist as a substantial force in advancing the law.


Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA) tasks that in-volve complex reasoning are emerging as an important re-search direction. However, most KBQA systems struggle withgeneralizability, particularly on two dimensions: (a) acrossmultiple reasoning types where both datasets and systems haveprimarily focused on multi-hop reasoning, and (b) across mul-tiple knowledge bases, where KBQA approaches are specif-ically tuned to a single knowledge base. In this paper, wepresent SYGMA, a modular approach facilitating general-izability across multiple knowledge bases and multiple rea-soning types. Specifically, SYGMA contains three high levelmodules: 1) KB-agnostic question understanding module thatis common across KBs 2) Rules to support additional reason-ing types and 3) KB-specific question mapping and answeringmodule to address the KB-specific aspects of the answer ex-traction. We demonstrate effectiveness of our system by evalu-ating on datasets belonging to two distinct knowledge bases,DBpedia and Wikidata. In addition, to demonstrate extensi-bility to additional reasoning types we evaluate on multi-hopreasoning datasets and a new Temporal KBQA benchmarkdataset on Wikidata, namedTempQA-WD1, introduced in thispaper. We show that our generalizable approach has bettercompetetive performance on multiple datasets on DBpediaand Wikidata that requires both multi-hop and temporal rea-soning


Presolar graphite grains have been extensively studied, but are limited in carbonaceous chondrites, particularly in Murchison (CM2) and Orgueil (CI1), which sampled materials from the oxidizing regions in the solar nebula. Here, we report the first discovery of presolar graphite grains from the Qingzhen (EH3) enstatite chondrite which formed under a highly reducing condition. Eighteen presolar graphite grains were identified by C-isotope mapping of the low-density fraction (1.75–1.85 g cm−3) from Qingzhen acid residue. Another 58 graphite spherules were found in different areas of the same sample mount using a scanning electron microscope and were classified into three morphologies, including cauliflower, onion, and cauliflower–onion. The Raman spectra of these spherules vary from ordered, disordered, and glassy to kerogen-like, suggestive of a wide range of thermal metamorphisms. NanoSIMS analysis of the C- and Si-isotopes of these graphite spherules confirmed 23 presolar grains. The other 35 graphite spherules have no significant isotopic anomalies, but they share similar morphologies and Raman spectra with the presolar ones. Another three grains were identified during NanoSIMS analysis. Of all the 44 presolar graphite grains identified, six grains show 28Si-excesses, suggestive of supernovae origins, and four grains are 12C- and 29,30Si-rich, consistent with low-metallicity asymptotic giant branch star origins. Another two graphite spherules have extremely low 12C/13C ratios with marginal solar Si-isotopes. The morphologies, Raman spectra, and C- and Si-isotopic distributions of the presolar graphite grains from the Qingzhen enstatite chondrite are similar to those of the low-density fractions from Murchison carbonaceous chondrites. This study suggests a homogeneous distribution of presolar graphite grains in the solar nebula.


In the investigation by the analysis possible variants of correlation between means and the aim, violence and non-violence, among which specially Machiavelli's ( only the virtue political aim justifies any means ), Machiavellianism ( the aim justifies any means ), humanistic ( the virtue aim can be achieved only by virtue methods) and pacifists (nonresistance to evil by force ) defines special features of humanistic understanding. It is asserted that the decision of modern global both international, and internal problems can be reached only on the basis of a humanistic policy of non-violence, ( nonresistance to evil by violence, that doesn't except, but sometimes need resistance to evil by force) which principles are opened in «axial time» by world religions and philosophy, and which were advanced by I. Kant, F. Dostoevsky, M. Gandy, M.L. King, etc.


In this thesis, I study polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs). PAHs are by-products of burning and therefore have important anthropogenic sources in the combustion of fuels, biomass, etc. PFCAs and their atmospheric precursors are used in making firefighting foams, non-stick coatings, and other surfactant applications. I quantitatively examine the relative importance of uncertainty in emissions and physicochemical properties (including reaction rate constants) to Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Arctic PAH concentrations. NH average concentrations are more sensitive to uncertainty in the atmospheric lifetime than to emissions rate. The largest uncertainty reductions would come from precise experimental determination of PHE, PYR and BaP rate constants for the reaction with OH. I calculate long-chain PFCA formation theoretical maximum yields for the degradation of precursor species at a representative sample of atmospheric conditions from a three dimensional chemical transport model, finding that atmospheric conditions farther from pollution sources have both higher capacities to form long chain PFCAs and higher uncertainties in those capacities. I present results from newly developed simulations of atmospheric PFCA formation and fate using the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem, simulating the degradation of fluorotelomer precursors, as well as deposition and transport of the precursors, intermediates and end-products of the PFCA formation chemistry. I compare the model results to remote deposition measurements and find that it reproduces Arctic deposition of PFOA effectively. Given the most recent precursor emission inventory, the atmospheric indirect source of PFOA and PFNA is 10-45 t/yr globally and 0.2-0.7 t/yr to the Arctic. Thesis Supervisor: Noelle Eckley Selin Title: Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor


In January 2004 the first European interplanetary spacecraft, Mars Express, was inserted successfully into a Martian orbit. The multiline scanner HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) on board of Mars Express will image most of the surface of Mars in colour and stereoscopically in high resolution. The Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation (IPI), University of Hannover, has created software for the automatic extraction of homologous image primitives from HRSC image data. With the obtained tie points a bundle block adjustment will be carried out with software developed at the Chair for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (LPF) of the Technische Universität München which will result in an improved exterior orientation of the camera. With these results high level products such as digital terrain models (DTMs), ortho photos and shaded reliefs can be derived from the imagery. This paper describes the used approach for the tie point matching. On the basis of some selected Mars Express orbits the results of the matching, the distribution of the tie points in the images and the achieved accuracy are presented and evaluated.


When birds are attacked by predators the initial take–off is crucial for survival. The strategy in the initial phase of predator evasion is probably affected by factors such as body mass and presence of cover and conspecifics, but it may also be a response to the character of the predator's attack. In choosing an angle of flight, birds face a trade–off between climbing from the ground and accelerating across the ground. This is, to our knowledge, the first study investigating whether the attack trajectory of a raptor affects the take–off strategy of the prey bird. First–year male great tits (Parus major) adjusted take–off angle to a model predator's angle of attack. Birds attacked from a steep angle took off at a lower angle than birds attacked from a low angle. We also compared take–offs at dawn and dusk but could not find any measurable effect of the diurnal body mass gain (on average 7.9%) in the great tits on either flight velocity or angle of ascent.


In the 1960s, rock and pop music recording questioned the convention that recordings should recreate the illusion of a concert hall setting. The Wall of Sound that Phil Spector built behind various artists and the intricate eclecticism of George Martin's recordings of the Beatles did not resemble live performances -- in the Albert Hall or elsewhere -- but instead created a new sonic world. The role of the record producer, writes Virgil Moorefield in The Producer as Composer, was evolving from that of organizer to auteur; band members became actors in what Frank Zappa called a "movie for your ears." In rock and pop, in the absence of a notated score, the recorded version of a song -- created by the producer in collaboration with the musicians -- became the definitive version. Moorefield, a musician and producer himself, traces this evolution with detailed discussions of works by producers and producer-musicians including Spector and Martin, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Trent Reznor, Quincy Jones, and the Chemical Brothers. Underlying the transformation, Moorefield writes, is technological development: new techniques -- tape editing, overdubbing, compression -- and, in the last ten years, inexpensive digital recording equipment that allows artists to become their own producers. What began when rock and pop producers reinvented themselves in the 1960s has continued; Moorefield describes the importance of disco, hip-hop, remixing, and other forms of electronic music production in shaping the sound of contemporary pop. He discusses the making of Pet Sounds and the production of tracks by Public Enemy with equal discernment, drawing on his own years of studio experience. Much has been written about rock and pop in the last 35 years, but hardly any of it deals with what is actually heard in a given pop song. The Producer as Composer tries to unravel the mystery of good pop: why does it sound the way it does?


In this paper, we propose a method which uniquely determines a set of single curves, each as an estimate of a component spectrum. No reference spectrum from a library is necessary; the spectrum set of mixtures of unknown components with various concentrations is used for the estimation of component spectral curves. The method is based on entropy minimization. In comparison with an earlier method [
Appl. Opt.22,
3599 (
1983)], which gives the bands of the possible component spectra, this method has the advantage of providing a unique estimation of the component spectra, which helps chemists with quantitative analysis and further mathematical processing. Two experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method: for infrared absorption spectra of xylene isomers and visible absorption spectra of dyes.


In the present study, the green Biocellulose Nanofibers (BC), a vitally emerging biomaterial, was produced by fermentation of wheat straw (WS), as a widely available agricultural waste, using. Two different fermentation methods were used; Separate Hydrolysis and Fermentation (SHF), and Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF). Different acidic and enzymatic WS pretreatment conditions were used to understand the effect of pretreatment conditions on BC production. Afterward, sugar hydrolsates were simultaneously or separately inoculated with Gluconacetobacter Xylinum bacterium (i.e., for SSF and SHF, respectively), at optimum production conditions in shake flasks for 7 days to produce the biocellulose nanofibers. BC productions of 9.7 g/L in SHF and 10.8 g/L in SSF were achieved when WS was pretreated with dilute acids. Enzymatic treatment of WS after acidic pretreatment increased sugars' concentrations from the hydrolysis, which increased BC production in SHF to 10.6 g/L. However, enzymes in SSF broke cellulose I alpha linkage in BC and decreased its production compared to no enzymatic treatment. Results show that glucose extracted from WS (~55% of total sugars) was found essential for the cellular metabolism, while xylose (~28% of total sugars) was highly consumed during cells growth phase. Generally, increasing thermal treatment, time and temperature, resulted in increasing furfural concentration. This observed to inhibits bacterial cells growth and leads to lower nanofibers yield when exists at concentration higher than 1 g/L threshold.

In general, results obtained in the present study demonstrate the ability of utilizing agricultural wastes in the fermentation production of BC. Such a step is expected to eliminate cost of expensive pure sugars as a carbon source in the fermentation. Also the study shows an improved production yield by using effective fermentation techniques as SSF compared to classical methods used in literature.


Teachers' attitudes toward family intervention are of great import on ways of increasing student achievement and cooperative interactions between teachers and family. Despite expanding school growth, there is very little research in China that examines teachers' attitudes toward family intervention. In this study, 159 kindergarten teachers in China demonstrated their attitudes towards family intervention by completing a research survey which included 35 items. The results showed that Chinese kindergarten teachers had positive attitudes towards both school-based and home-based family intervention but their attitudes towards school-based family intervention were less positive. Suggestions were made to help Chinese teachers to view school-based family intervention in a more positive way. ********** The relationship between family and school, as addressed by Swap (1993), can be summarized into four models: (1) protective model, (2) school to home transition model, (3) curriculum enrichment model, and (4) partnership model. Briefly, protective model is defined as the separation of parents' and educators' functions to reduce conflict between parents and educators. School to home transition model is viewed as to enlist parents in supporting objectives of the school. In the curriculum enrichment model, school's curriculum is expanded by incorporating families' contributions. Finally, in the partnership model, parents and educators work together to accomplish a common mission. Decker and Decker (2003) pointed out that Swap's four models of parent-school relationships reflect a continuum of increasing parent involvement. By following these four models, families can demonstrate different types of intervention and involvement in child education: that is, school-based intervention and home-based intervention. According to Muller and Kerbow (1993), school-based intervention refers to family's participation in children's education within school settings or through interaction with school personnel, such as parent-teacher conference, communicating with school personnel during home visits, and volunteering at school. Swap (1993)'s curriculum enrichment model and partnership model may fit in this school-based perspective. In contrast, home-based intervention means family's participation in children's education within home settings. This includes, but is not limited to: conversation about school between parents and child, parents' reading to child, parents' helping with homework and parents' engagement in children's extra curricular. Swap (1993)'s protective model and school to home transition model may fit in this home-based perspective. Research (e.g., Fantuzzo & McWayne, 2002; Scribner, Young, & Pedroza, 1999; McNeal 1999) shows a clear and positive relationship between the outcomes for children and family intervention, both school-based and home-based intervention. Meanwhile, as Swap (1993) suggested, the more families get involved in school, the better teachers and families can work together to accomplish a common mission, generally, for all children in school to achieve success. Research (e.g., Hoover-Dempsey & Sandier, 1997) also demonstrates that teachers' attitudes toward family intervention play a key role in family's willingness and extent of participation in child education. Teachers' positive attitudes toward family intervention are potentially very influential in family's decision about involvement in their children's education (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandier, 1997). Meanwhile, teachers' negative perceptions about family intervention may inhibit home-school linkage (Lazar & Slostad, 1999). Lazar and Slostad (1999) also argued that teachers' attitudes toward family intervention could be shaped by culture and history. As Gu (2006) summarized, family intervention in China has distinctive characteristics due to certain culture and historical background. …


We introduce a variant of (sparse) PCA in which the set of feasible support sets is determined by a graph. In particular, we consider the following setting: given a directed acyclic graph $G$ on $p$ vertices corresponding to variables, the non-zero entries of the extracted principal component must coincide with vertices lying along a path in $G$.
From a statistical perspective, information on the underlying network may potentially reduce the number of observations required to recover the population principal component. We consider the canonical estimator which optimally exploits the prior knowledge by solving a non-convex quadratic maximization on the empirical covariance. We introduce a simple network and analyze the estimator under the spiked covariance model. We show that side information potentially improves the statistical complexity.
We propose two algorithms to approximate the solution of the constrained quadratic maximization, and recover a component with the desired properties. We empirically evaluate our schemes on synthetic and real datasets.


Extracted from text ... 34 THE QUALITY EDGE September 2006
Leadership in quality is attainable
leadership
Managing for quality grew enormously in importance
during the 20th century. That growth has already
impacted our economies considerably. Managing for quality
has become a major element of competition, nationally
and internationally.
We know that leadership in quality is attainable because
some companies have already attained it. In Japan,
enough companies have done so to bring that country to a
state of world leadership in quality. Yet this was a country
whose pre-World War II reputation was as a producer of
shoddy exports.
In the US we also ..


Soil microbial communities probably are the most complex of natural communities, and one study estimated that there may be as many as 1,000,000 "distinct genomes" per g of soil. This chapter is divided into two sections, the first covering approaches that require laboratory cultivation or incubation and the second addressing those based on analysis of indicator molecules that have been extracted directly from soil communities. A commonly used approach for identification of environmental isolates is based on growth on specific substrates and fermentative abilities. A more precise method of determining the phylogenetic affiliation of an isolate is by characterization of its rRNA. The technique is based on the concept that rRNA molecules, particularly the 16S and 23S rRNA molecules of prokaryotes, are highly conserved throughout evolution and are therefore useful as specific indicators of the phylogenetic affiliations of environmental isolates. A variety of DNA fingerprinting techniques can be used to rapidly differentiate closely related environmental strains. Regardless of the specific technique, the data obtained are DNA fragments that, when separated on agarose or polyacrylamide gels, yield a banding pattern specific to the genome under investigation. Rapid screening methods are of three categories that include: denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE), and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis. The chapter talks about automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA). An alternative approach to soil microbial community analysis is cloning of the soil "metagenome," defined as the genomes of the total microbiota found in soils.


In this study, we use child language data in order to test the phonological status of the beginning of the word. Working within a strict CV framework, we predict an association between mastery of obstruent clusters word initially and accurate repetition of non-native consonant clusters in the same position. Using a non-word repetition task, we examine the production of native and nonnative consonant clusters in twenty Greek-speaking children aged 4-5 years. Results support our hypothesis and the strict CV view of the beginning of the word.


Recent decreases in rainfall and the accompanying decreases in groundwater levels since 1999 indicate heightened vulnerability to drought in Nebraska and the surrounding Great Plains. Precipitation across Nebraska during 2000-2005 ranged from 72% to 108% of the 30-year normal value, with fully 90% of 150 stations reporting below-normal precipitation. Simultaneously, groundwater levels declined more than 9 m in the most heavily impacted areas, most of which were already experiencing declines due to extensive irrigation development and low recharge rates. Thus, recovery from the drought and long-term intensive land use will be particularly challenging in densely irrigated areas of Nebraska. In contrast, contemporaneous groundwater-level changes in areas with little groundwater irrigation were comparatively modest. These observations demonstrate that drought mitigation efforts in the central and northern Great Plains must consider the combined effects of area-specific reduced recharge, local geohydrology (especially as it affects recharge), and increased groundwater withdrawals.


The no-slip boundary condition widely used in the macroscopic fluid mechanics has not been explained from the molecular level. This letter describes all atom molecular dynamics simulation to study boundary slip of hydrocarbon oil film under shear of a submicron thickness confined between solid walls. The large time-space scale simulation under the realistic interactions of fluid atoms, solid-fluid interaction and sliding speed has shown the no-slip of the oil film. The difference between the nanoscale film and the submicron thick film is explained from the viewpoint of the anisotropic viscosity rise in the vicinity of the solid wall and the correlation length of the momentum up to several tenths of nanometers. The results of the present simulation coincide with the experiments of fluid flow through nanometer-scale channels.


Over the past 30 years there have been three unanticipated shifts in metropolitannonmetropolitan population change and migration: the nonmetropolitan turnaround of the 1970s, with a migration balance favoring nonmetropolitan areas; the downturn of the early 1980s when nonmetropolitan areas lost net migrants as they did in the 1960s, and a more recent post-1990 recovery, with nonmetropolitan net migration rates once again above those of metropolitan areas. We have examined these changes since 1970 using annual estimates of net migration, considering the changing metropolitan-nonmetropolitan differential, and differences across geographic and functional county types in nonmetropolitan areas. Some geographic and functional differences stand out across the 24-year period, for example, slower growth or outright loss in the farm belt and faster growth in retirement counties. Yet the most notable finding is the widespread nature of the turnaround, the reversal, and the current recovery. There are differences between the present and the 1970s, but a trend toward greater retention and/or acquisition of people in rural and small town areas is clear.


In Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism, Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith provide a useful framework for interpreting the contours of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). As Bradley and Goldsmith point out, the AUMF is a broad, general authorization to wage war against certain states, organizations, and individuals. And because the AUMF authorizes the President to wage war, it also implicitly authorizes the President to exercise any powers incident to waging war. The most obvious feature of the AUMF, though, is its non-obvious boundaries. What powers are incident to waging war? When, where, and against whom may they be exercised? The central question is how best to interpret the AUMF and, more specifically, how best to define the outer limits, if any, of what Congress authorized the President to do. Bradley and Goldsmith argue that the law of armed conflict (LOAC) informs the proper interpretation of the AUMF. In other words, the AUMF arguably authorizes the President to do what LOAC permits - because, in part, this well established, widely endorsed body of law defines the rights and obligations of belligerents. Despite the substantial virtues of the Article, however, Bradley and Goldsmith systematically understate the interpretive significance of LOAC - and, thereby blunt the sharp edge of several important law-of-war constraints on executive power. In this short essay, we identify two important deficiencies in their framework. First, Bradley and Goldsmith overstate the ambiguity of several relevant principles of LOAC. This ostensible ambiguity threatens to unravel many of the would-be constraints they identify because, as they also point out, the President enjoys substantial discretion to interpret international law. Second, they misspecify the range of LOAC rules that are conditions of the exercise of core war powers (such as the power to detain enemy combatants and the power to prosecute war criminals). We conclude that LOAC should assume a more central role in the interpretation of the AUMF. This body of law, properly understood, suggests several meaningful, strategically viable constraints on executive action in the Global War on Terrorism.


This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, "Population in History" represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.


Nowadays, almost everyone uses the World Wide Web (WWW) to search for information of any kind. In education, students frequently use the WWW for selecting information to accomplish assignments such as writing an essay or preparing a presentation. The evaluation of sources and information is an important sub-skill in this process. But many students have not yet optimally developed this skill. On the basis of verbal reports, eye-tracking data and navigation logs, this study investigated how novices in the domain of psychology evaluate Internet sources as compared to domain experts. In addition, two different verbal reporting techniques, namely thinking aloud and cued retrospective reporting, were compared in order to examine students' evaluation behaviour. Results revealed that domain expertise has an impact on individuals' evaluation behaviour during Web search, such that domain experts showed a more sophisticated use of evaluation criteria to judge the reliability of sources and information and selected more reliable information than domain novices. Furthermore, the different verbal reporting techniques did not lead to different conclusions on criteria use in relation to domain expertise, although in general more utterances concerning evaluation of sources and information were expressed during cued retrospective reporting. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: When searching the Web, students assess the reliability of information and sources in a spontaneous manner. Students tend to use superficial criteria when judging the trustworthiness of web-based information and sources. Little is known about the differences between domain experts and novices in terms of the ways they spontaneously evaluate web-based information and sources. What this paper adds: Domain knowledge influences evaluation behaviour, with greater domain knowledge leading to more reliable selection of sources. A comparison of techniques for measuring evaluation behaviour when searching the Web for information reveals that different techniques, such as thinking aloud and cued retrospective reporting, have different pros and cons whose implications depend on the research questions being addressed. Implications for practice and/or policy: In formal education, more attention should be paid to equipping students with the requisite skills in searching for and evaluating web-based information. Embedded process-oriented instructional designs are needed that foster the appropriate evaluation behaviours.


Ovarian cancers usually spread in four different ways: Trans peritoneal spread, direct invasion, lymphatic, and hematogenous. The primary way of metastasis of ovarian carcinoma is considered to be direct peritoneal dissemination in the abdominal cavity and serosa of bowel. Conversely, hematogenous dissemination is rare, and seldom leads to gastrointestinal metastasis. We report a case of a patient who was operated for an epithelial ovarian cancer and presented with small intestinal metastasis 8 months later. Vascular cancer emboli could be detected by microscopy. Immunohistochemistry tests proved the small intestinal metastasis originated from primary ovarian cancer.


Soil represents an important environmental compartment that can be regarded as a final sink for metal nanoparticles including silver particles (Ag-NPs). Assessing realistic exposure scenarios, including the bioavailability of Ag-NPs for soil organisms, requires taking into account that Ag-NPs can undergo physico-chemical transformations, such as sulphidisation, before interacting with organisms. However, differentiating between uptake of true metal NPs and that of released ions is essential to assess the actual role of these two metal forms in toxicity over time. The present study quantified the toxicokinetic rate constants of particulate and ionic Ag in Eisenia fetida exposed to soil treated with pristine Ag-NPs (50 nm), Ag2S-NPs (20 nm) as an environmentally relevant form, and AgNO3 as an ionic control. Results showed that the uptake and elimination rate constants of Ag in earthworms exposed to Ag-NPs and AgNO3 were not significantly different from each other, whereas the uptake of Ag2S-NPs was significantly lower. Interestingly, the biogenic formation of particulate Ag (∼10% of the total Ag accumulated over time) in earthworms exposed to AgNO3 led to a kinetic pattern of particulate Ag similar to that of pristine Ag-NPs. SEM-EDX analysis confirmed the presence of particulate Ag in earthworms exposed to both Ag-NPs and AgNO3, showing that these particles were different from those to which earthworms were exposed. We demonstrated that around 85% of the Ag accumulated in the worms after exposure to Ag-NPs and AgNO3 was present as ions or as particles with size <20 nm. Additionally, the low accumulation of the non-soluble, sulphidised form of nano-Ag, reflecting aged particles in the environment, confirms the importance of ionic uptake of Ag. This study clearly shows that the main form of Ag taken up in earthworms is the ionic species, which stresses the fundamental need to use environmentally relevant forms of metal NPs in performing ecotoxicological tests, because pristine NPs may behave completely differently.


The Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) is a selfdescribed National American Indian Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico. SIPI is operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the U.S. government that has overseen and managed the relationship between the government and American Indian tribes for almost two hundred years. Students at SIPI are registered members of federally recognized American Indian tribes from throughout the contiguous United States and Alaska. A fascinatingly hybridized institution, SIPI attempts to meld two conflicting institutional models a tribally controlled college or university and a Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian school with their unique corporate cultures, rules, and philosophies. Students attempt to cope with the institution and successfully make their way through it by using (consciously or not) an array of metaphorical representations of the school. Students who used discourses of discipline and control compared SIPI to a BIA boarding school, a high school, or a prison, and focused on the school s restrictive policies drawn from the BIA model. Those who used discourses of family and haven emphasized the emotional connection built between students and other members of the SIPI community following the TCU model. Speakers who used discourses of agency and selfreliance asserted that students can define their own experiences at SIPI. Through a series of interviews, this volume examines the ways in which students attempt to accommodate this variety of conflicts and presents an innovative and enlightening look into the contemporary state of American Indian educational institutions."


Temporal reasoning is central to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and many of its applications. However, the existing algorithmic frameworks for temporal reasoning are not expressive enough to be applicable to robots with complex kinodynamic constraints typically described using differential equations. For example, while minimum and maximum velocity constraints can be encoded in Simple Temporal Networks (STNs), higher-order kinodynamic constraints cannot be represented in existing frameworks. In this paper, we present a novel framework for temporal reasoning called Kinodynamic Networks (KDNs). KDNs combine elements of existing temporal reasoning frameworks with the idea of Bernstein polynomials. The velocity profiles of robots are represented using Bernstein polynomials; and dynamic constraints on these velocity profiles can be converted to linear constraints on the to-be-determined coefficients of their Bernstein polynomials. We study KDNs for their attractive theoretical properties and apply them to the Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) problem with higher-order kinodynamic constraints. We show that our approach is not only scalable but also yields smooth velocity profiles for all robots that can be executed by their controllers.


Recent advances in cloud technologies and on-demand network circuits have created an unprecedented opportunity to enable complex data-intensive scientific applications to run on dynamic, networked cloud infrastructure. However, there is a lack of tools for supporting high-level applications like scientific workflows on dynamically provisioned, virtualized, networked IaaS (NIaaS) systems. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end system consisting of application-aware and application-independent controllers that provision and adapt complex scientific workflows on NIaaS systems. The application-independent controller enhances the utility of NIaaS systems for higher-level applications by closing the gap between application abstractions and resource provisioning constructs. We also present our approach to predicting dynamic resource requirements for workflows using an application-aware controller that proactively evaluates alternative candidate resource allotments using workflow introspection. We show how these high-level resource requirements can be automatically transformed to low-level NIaaS operations to actuate infrastructure adaptation. The results of our evaluations show that we can make fairly accurate predictions, and the interplay of prediction and adaptation can balance performance and utilization for a representative data-intensive workflow.


ATP has been shown to modulate progesterone production in human granulosa-luteal cells (hGLCs) in vitro. After binding to a G protein-coupled P2 purinergic receptor, ATP stimulates phospholipase C. The resultant production of diacylglycerol and inositol triphosphate activates protein kinase C (PKC) and intracellular calcium [Ca(2+)](i) mobilization, respectively. In the present study, we examined the potential cross-talk between the PKC and Ca(2+) pathway in ATP signal transduction. Specifically, the effect of PKC on regulating ATP-evoked [Ca(2+)](i) oscillations were examined in hGLCs. Using microspectrofluorimetry, [Ca(2+)](i) oscillations were detected in Fura-2 loaded hGLCs in primary culture. The amplitudes of the ATP-triggered [Ca(2+)](i) oscillations were reduced in a dose-dependent manner by pretreating the cells with various concentrations (1 nM to 10 microM) of the PKC activator, phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA). A 10 microM concentration of PMA completely suppressed 10 microM ATP-induced oscillations. The inhibitory effect occurred even when PMA was given during the plateau phase of ATP evoked [Ca(2+)](i) oscillations, suggesting that extracellular calcium influx was inhibited. The role of PKC was further substantiated by the observation that, in the presence of a PKC inhibitor, bisindolylmaleimide I, ATP-induced [Ca(2+)](i) oscillations were not completely suppressed by PMA. Furthermore, homologous desensitization of ATP-induced calcium oscillations was partially reversed by bisindolylmaleimide I, suggesting that activated PKC may be involved in the mechanism of desensitization. These results demonstrate that PKC negatively regulates the ATP-evoked [Ca(2+)](i) mobilization from both intracellular stores and extracellular influx in hGLCs and further support a modulatory role of ATP and P2 purinoceptor in ovarian steroidogenesis.


One of the most urgent problems with the US patent system is that there are too many patents of poor quality. Most blame the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – its mistakes, overly generous grant rate, and lack of consistency. But, the quality and quantity of patents in force is the product of three sets of decisions: to submit an application of certain quality (by the applicant), to grant the patent (by the patent office), and to renew a patent and keep it in force (by the applicant/patentee). Startling, there is no consensus way to measure patent quality. This article addresses these shortcomings by developing new, comparative ways to measure patent quality, using the benchmark of the European Patent Office (EPO), viewed as the "gold standard" for patent quality. Tracking the progress of patent submissions, grants, and renewals, including of close to 100,000 applications filed at both the EPO and USPTO, it reveals subtle and thus far overlooked differences with implications for how the US should implement and prioritize improvements to patent quality.


The German economy has been outperforming other member countries of the European Union during the recent Great Recession and the still ongoing European debt crisis. What are the determinants of this outcome? This paper sets out to empirically analyze the trade and technology specialization and the price/cost performance of the German economy over the period 1990 - 2011. Furthermore, we apply the unit value approach to determine whether the competitiveness of German manufacturing products is related to price or quality advantage. Also, we estimate the degree of vertical specialization characterizing the German export sector in order to assess the role global value chains play in strengthening Germany's position in manufacturing. All indicators are calculated for Germany, the Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China, Japan and the United States. Our results confirm that Germany is specialized in medium-range technology products and show that quality is the main driver of Germany's international success, that price and cost advantage determines competitiveness in some product groups and that R&D efforts have contributed to develop and maintain German competitiveness in manufactured products.


The purpose of this Travel Guide is to make your voyage through Federation space and beyond as comfortable and enjoyable as possible, regardless of your physical and cultural orientations. We, the editors, attempt to accomplish this by providing reliable information regarding attractions, lodgings, and restaurants on various planets and facilities . . . by pointing you in the direction of what we consider the galaxy's "BEST BETS" . . . and by advising you of the dangers and pitfalls a sentient being may encounter along the way To use this book effectively, you should be conversant with the Travel Guide's rating system, which employs a variety of symbols. Please familiarize yourself with the chart below and its explanations of those symbols before reading further. Be aware that no attraction, lodging, or restaurant pays for its rating. Each one is evaluated on the basis of merit alone. Evaluations are updated every Federation-standard year. Please read on.


Modern infrastructures such as energy, transport or information and communication technologies are complex and highly interdependent systems. Modern society and economy place growing expectations and reliance on them. Failures in infrastructure systems can affect large parts of the everyday life and inflict significant losses. This thesis is concerned with reasoning about the dependability of national infrastructures. It takes a holistic view of national infrastructure systems and treats them as an interconnected system-of-systems. The thesis focuses on describing and analysing failure in such systems-of-systems, especially how it propagates between systems via infrastructure interdependencies. The aim is to improve the ability to reason about interdependent infrastructure systems by reviewing notions and techniques from dependable computing and assessing how they can be applied to national infrastructure systems analysis. The thesis proposes a framework to describe and reason about complex infrastructure systems. The framework employs fault-error-failure concepts; emphasises the roles of assumptions, boundaries and structure in systems description; uses top-down system view supplemented with formal techniques. The framework is extended to include the planning process and humans as systems within the same analysis umbrella.


From 2002 international and national policies transformed the availability of antiretroviral medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. By the end of 2008 an estimated 42 percent of people requiring such treatment were accessing medication and anti-retroviral treatment (ART) programmes had been rolled out in many countries (UNAIDS and WHO 2009). However, this expansion was implemented unevenly across and within different countries raising questions about the gap between policy intention and execution.
This thesis addresses this gap. It examines the processes of implementation, comparing rapid ART roll-out in Zambia with South Africa where implementation was initially much slower. It draws on both top-down and bottom-up perspectives to better understand factors hindering and enabling implementation. The focus is on actors and their networks and how they were able to exert power on the implementation of policy. It is a qualitative study that relies on document review and over 150 interviews conducted with actors in the policy processes in both countries, during field work in 2007 and 2008.
Findings confirmed the importance of communication, resources and structures in determining implementation, but the comparative analysis indicated their influence varied considerably according to context. The findings also offer new insights into how contrasting networks of actors affected implementation. A broad range of actors made it possible to roll-out ART in South Africa despite a hostile policy environment, by drawing on diverse sets of skills and ties that dated back to the anti-apartheid struggle.
In Zambia the network which most influenced ART roll-out was an epistemic community of clinicians, which, by forging alliances with PEPFAR implementing agencies was able to rapidly scale up access to treatment in spite of health systems constraints. The economic capital of donors allowed them to shape policy and blur boundaries between state and non-state actors in Zambia while social capital of networks was important in South Africa. Findings suggest that focusing on the sources of power of networks in implementation enriches the understanding of health policy processes.


The preparation of scaffolds represents a huge challenge for meniscus tissue engineering, as there are particular biomechanical and biodegradability requirements. Here, an amphiphilic polymer was prepared by grafting hydrophobic poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) with short chains onto hydrophilic biodegradable poly(l-glutamic acid) (PLGA). PLGA-g-PCL was then crosslinked with triethylene glycol (TEG) to form a chemically crosslinked network (CCN), followed by the in situ formation of stable hydrophobic PCL clusters inside the preformed CCN to increase the strength and elasticity of the hydrogel. The spindle-like PCL clusters in the hydrogel were observed to possess a mean size of 5-10 μm on the long axis and 3-4 μm on the minor axis, with no crystallization according to WAXS. Owing to the hydrophobic association of PCL, the swollen CCN was secondarily crosslinked and stiffened. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) demonstrated excellent rebound resilience, and the maximum compressive strength of all the PLGA-g-PCL hydrogels was greater than 0.60 MPa with a maximum strain of about 70%, which represented significant increases in comparison with a PLGA hydrogel. Owing to the short chains of PCL, degradation of the PLGA-g-PCL hydrogel was accelerated within 3 months in vivo. A hydrogel carrying adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) effectively regenerated meniscus-like tissue in vivo and preserved the corresponding articular cartilage from degeneration over a 16 week period.


A new method is proposed for recovering an unknown source signal, which is observed through two unknown channels characterized by finite impulse response filters. Unlike conventional blind deconvolution methods, this method can recover not only the spectrum of the signal but also the phase characteristics. This method is based on a cost function that comes from a filter arrangement with a double‐layer structure. The cost function is minimized when the common zeros of the z transforms of the two observed signals are extracted. If there are no common zeros between the system transfer functions of the two unknown channels, the common zeros of the observed signals represent the source signal and the noncommon zeros represent the characteristics of the two channels. Therefore, the source signal can be recovered by separating the common zeros from the other zeros, that is, by minimizing the cost function. Adaptive filters are used for this procedure. Computer simulations using room transfer functions as the two...


This paper describes and evaluates the boundary case methodology for the simultaneous consideration of variance for a number of selected anthropometric variables. The methodology includes the calculation of key dimension values for extreme but likely anthropometric measurement combinations. This data can be applied when utilising digital human modelling (DHM) tools for proactive design work and entered as input data when representative manikins are defined. The mathematical procedure is clearly described and exemplified to demonstrate how to use the methodology in design work. The outcome of the method is illustrated and compared using several different cases where the number of measurements is varied and where principal component analysis (PCA) is used to reduce the number of dimensions in one case. The paper demonstrates that the proposed boundary case method is advantageous compared to approaches based on the use of univariate percentile data in design.


Performance characteristics are obtained for various optimum and suboptimum photocounting array receiver structures obtained in the preceding paper (Part 1). Probability of error curves are presented for the case of lognormal fading and for a variety of receiver configurations including the BPCM single-detector and array-detector processors and the BPOLM and BPIM single-detector processor. In addition to these approximate optimum processors, the suboptimum aperture integration and MAP receivers are evaluated in order to examine degradation of performance with increasing suboptimality. An optimum amount of diversity is shown to exist for the aperture integration receiver, with a fixed signal energy constraint. In a related paper (Part 3), we examine a bound to the error probability for M-ary signaling.


The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has made major changes in the way mental illness is conceptualized, assessed, and diagnosed in its new diagnostic manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), published in 2013, and has far reaching implications for health care organizations and mental health policy. This paper reviews the four new principles in DSM-5: 1) A spectrum (also called "dimensional") approach to the definition of mental illness; 2) recognition of the role played by environmental risk factors related to stress and trauma in predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating mental illness; 3) cultural relativism in diagnosis and treatment of mental illness; and 4) recognizing the adverse effects of psychiatric medications on patients. Each of these four principles will be addressed in detail. In addition, four major implications for health care organizations and mental health policy are identified as: 1) prevention; 2) client-centered psychiatry; 3) mental health workers retraining; and 4) medical insurance reform. We conclude that DSM- 5's new approach to diagnosis and treatment of mental illness will have profound implications for health care organizations and mental health policy, indicating a greater emphasis on prevention and cure rather than long-term management of symptoms.


Despite recognising like the performance's base of the majority of sports abilities, few trainers recognise that visual function is a learned ability that can be improved. The main aim of this study tries to measure efficacy in goals and individual tactic of high-skill penalty-kickers in soccer using a new automatic system of emission visual stimulus applied in the habitual situation field. Penalty-kickers (n = 9) made a pre-treatment test of 24 trails in real situation opposite the goalkeepers (n = 3). Later, they completed a training of 10 sessions using the automatic system without goalkeepers. Finally, they again repeated the same initial test, then they got more goals in post-treatment test. Furthermore, tactic differences were found based on throwing direction due to the goalkeeper action. Scores suggested that the penalty-kick in soccer may be planned like an open motor ability, depending on the goalkeeper's action, reducing the information processing time and decision-making. KEY WORDS: Visual training, penalty-kicker, soccer, high-skill, decision-making, motor control.


Due to the multicultural nature of society and the failure of some of the educational models adopted to respond to cultural diversity, there is a need to pay greater attention to teachers' training. This study examines Teacher Education students' beliefs about cultural diversity and their relationship with pre-service teacher training as key aspects in designing intercultural teacher training proposals and improving educational practice. This quantitative, descriptive study was carried out with 1464 participants enrolled in teacher training programs. The results show that future teachers have positive beliefs about cultural diversity in general terms, but their positions diverge when dealing with specific aspects and transferring them to professional practice. These beliefs vary depending on the year group, with students who are finishing their training process having more intercultural beliefs.


Apache Camel is a Java framework that lets you implement the standard enterprise integration patterns in a few lines of code. With a concise but sophisticated DSL you snap integration logic into your app, Lego-style, using Java, XML, or Scala. Camel supports over 80 common transports such as HTTP, REST, JMS, and Web Services. Camel in Action is a Camel tutorial full of small examples showing how to work with the integration patterns. It starts with core concepts like sending, receiving, routing, and transforming data. It then shows you the entire lifecycle and goes in depth on how to test, deal with errors, scale, deploy, and even monitor your app details you can find only in the Camel code itself. Written by the developers of Camel, this book distills their experience and practical insights so that you can tackle integration tasks like a pro. Whats Inside Valuable examples in Java and XML Explanations of complex patterns Error handling, testing, deploying, managing, and running Camel Accessible to beginners, useful to experts


Summary Sandstone reservoir quality prediction has moved from a reliance on simple empirical trends (e.g., porosity vs. depth) to include process-oriented forward models. Process-oriented models are more accurate than empirical trends because they simulate compaction and the kinetics geochemical reactions while accounting for composition, texture, and burial history. Additionally, they incorporate models of other rock properties such as permeability and seismic velocities. Although process-oriented models have had considerable success, they do not depict the geometry of sandstones at the pore and grain scale. "Digital sedimentary petrology" models, now under development, consider the 3D geometrical evolution of solids and pores in response to composition, texture, and burial history. These models simulate diagenetic processes with greater rigor compared to existing process-oriented models and provide input for "digital rock physics" simulations that until now have relied upon scanned physical samples. The hope is that coupling these simulation methods will make it possible to accurately predict properties of interest in geomechanics, structural deformation, seismic interpretation, petrophysical analysis, and reservoir simulation for areas away from well control.


This article surveys Galileo's contribution to the conceptualisation of the problem of isochronism, as his most important input in the study of the oscillation of heavy bodies. We will deal essentially with the mathematical aspects of his various attempts to discover mathematical proofs for his theorems of isochronism, in his early manuscripts (1600-1609), bound in Volume 72 of the Galilean Manuscripts, and in his later two major publications, the Dialogo and the Discorsi. The experimental procedures he implemented in his research will be dealt with as far as they shed light on different aspects of properly mathematical issues of the Galilean analysis of iscohronism. Alternating between the analysis of Galileo's private manuscripts and the relevant passages in his mature works, we follow the emergence and evolution of Galileo's theory of the pendulum within his physics of motion, and we witness how his investigation was faced with serious challenges, mathematical and experimental, that he could never overcome completely.


In 1917, Von Economo described a disease named "Encephalitis Lethargica" which affected a large number of patients across the world in an epidemic between 1916 and 1927. It's spread paralleled with the spread of the pandemic influenza, but Von Economo and the contemporary authors did not believe it to be a post-influenzal sequela. Now parkinsonism is a well-known complication of acute infectious encephalitis. There are many potential infectious causes of parkinsonism reported in literature. In India, postencephalitic parkinsonism is commonly due to Japanese Encephalitis. Neurologic manifestations reported in Mumps include meningitis, encephalitis, deafness, facial neuritis, cerebellar ataxia, hydrocephalus, transverse myelitis and polyradiculitis. We describe a case of young girl who had Mumps parotitis and encephalitis and then subsequently developed parkinsonism as a sequela. Mumps was confirmed by positive serology and basal ganglia lesions were demonstrated by magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of postencephalitic parkinsonism following Mumps infection from India.


The increasing availability of information about earth surface elevation (Digital Elevation Models DEM) generated from different sources (remote sensing, Aerial Images, Lidar) poses the question about how to integrate and make available to the most than possible audience this huge amount of data. In order to exploit the potential of 3D elevation representation the quality of data management plays a fundamental role. Due to the high acquisition costs and the huge amount of generated data, highresolution terrain surveys tend to be small or medium sized and available on limited portion of earth. Here comes the need to merge large-scale height maps that typically are made available for free at worldwide level, with very specific high resolute datasets. One the other hand, the third dimension increases the user experience and the data representation quality, unlocking new possibilities in data analysis for civil protection, real estate, urban planning, environment monitoring, etc. The open-source 3D virtual globes, which are trending topics in Geovisual Analytics, aim at improving the visualization of geographical data provided by standard web services or with proprietary formats. Typically, 3D Virtual globes like do not offer an open-source tool that allows the generation of a terrain elevation data structure starting from heterogeneous-resolution terrain datasets. This paper describes a technological solution aimed to set up a so-called "Terrain Builder". This tool is able to merge heterogeneous-resolution datasets, and to provide a multi-resolution worldwide terrain services fully compatible with CesiumJS and therefore accessible via web using traditional browser without any additional plug-in. Keywords—Terrain builder, WebGL, virtual globe, CesiumJS, tiled map service, TMS, height-map, regular grid, Geovisual analytics, DTM.


This paper deals with new analytical and experimental aspects of a channel's capacity in the presence of excess nonwhite Gaussian noise with long-range dependencies described by the Hurst parameter H. Shannon's theory of information based on the assumptions given by the Boltzmann|Gibbs extensive thermodynamical basis, does not allow description of many different phenomena directly connected with the ideas of a complex systems approach. This theory is also a basis of many considerations in communication, but a new approach to transmission channels is needed. The transmission channels are no longer simple systems built with only one wire connection, but consist of many different transmission media. For each type of partial connection in such channels there are many various interferences that influence some parts of the channel in different ways. We suggest that in many cases the real capacity of the whole channel can no longer be determined by Shannon's equation without taking into account the problem of excess 1 ë f noise, which appears as an intrinsic feature of dynamically packet switched networks. The ideas presented in this paper show how the complex system approach can provide a good perspective for analyzing the whole transmission channel.


For different hydrogenated metal intercalated fullerides (Na10C60-H, Li12C60-H, and Li28C60-H) the activation energies for hydrogen desorption were determined by DSC. The Vyazovkin advanced method (VA) was used for the calculation of the reaction model free activation energy as a function of the extent of conversion a. Activation energies are highest for low a and decrease for increasing alpha, between around 200-145 and 245-175 kJ/mol for the Na and Li compounds, respectively. The decrease of activation energy as a function of the extent of conversion can be explained by an increasing charge transfer to the C60H36+y cage during desorption. Na intercalation leads to a significant thermodynamic destabilization for hydrogen desorption. Dehydrogenation enthalpies of 52 (Na10C60-H), 66 (Li12C60-H), and 69 kJ/mol H-2 (Li28C60-H) were determined. These values are lower compared to literature values for desorption of pure C60H36 (74 kJ/mol H-2). The onsets of hydrogen desorption are 185 degrees C (Na10C60-H), 260 degrees C (Li12C60-H), and 250 degrees C (Li28C60-H) compared to >400 degrees C for pure C60H36.


Abstract & Contents

The idea for this book came slowly following a gradual collection of blog posts on the CCRI website in recent years. The posts centred around the general theme of how we manage shared assets and what alternative approaches there might be, informed by research and practice in the governance of commons resources.

The whole area of commons and management of common pool resources has become more topical over the last 6 years following the award of the Nobel Prize for Economics to Elinor Ostrom, for her work on commons. Commons has long been an element of research within CCRI, particularly in relation to Common Land and Town and village Greens in England and Wales. Chris Short organised annual conferences on common land management from 1999-2010 which attracted over 1,500 delegates and sponsorship from the Countryside Agency, Defra, Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales.

This book is no more than a set of 'musings' or collected thoughts about a range of issues which we have addressed in our professional activities. It does not claim to address all aspects of an issue, or to present a balanced view of research findings. The aim is simply to present some of our ideas about management and governance of a range of resources that can be perceived in some way as 'shared assets'. The resources addressed range from the local to the global, and encompass what have been termed traditional commons (such as fisheries, pasture, water) and 'new' commons such as the internet and urban areas. Our purpose in producing this book is to raise awareness of the principles of commons governance. Our aim is to encourage thinking about the ways in which application of these principles might open up alternative solutions to achieving long-term and sustainable management of the many assets that we share in common.

Contents
• COP21 - 'Gentlemen's Agreement' or new approach?
• Cities and the concept of 'urban commons'
• Designing the urban commons
• Urban commons - the view from beneath
• What value street art?
• Marine fisheries
• What future for Lowland commons?
• Peatlands
• Climbing the wall
• The Internet is not a commons?
• Final thoughts


TIrroughout the debate over re-authorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), it has been clear that members of both Houses of Congress are keenly aware of the financial burden facing the owners of small water systems in their efforts to comply with the 1986 and future amendments to the SDWA. The most reliable source of funds for drinking water and wastewater improvements for small systems has been the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program administered through the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the USDA's Rural Development mission area. This report provides some background of the RUS loan and grant program. Specific attention is directed towards New York's Rural Development efforts where we develop small system cost models related to treatment and distribution improvements. Over the past 50 years, RUS has been the primary source of low-cost financing to rural water and waste disposal systems, providing over 35,000 loan and grant funding packages totaling nearly $18 billion. Despite the recent increases in obligations in nominal terms, the real purchasing power of these funds has yet to rebound to pre-1980 levels. Due to EPA's efforts to enforce the 1986 and later amendments to the SDWA, combined with the aging of water system infrastructure, the demand for these funds consistently outweighs available obligation levels. Data from nearly 150 small water system improvement projects in New York State receiving RUS funding are evaluated to determine the extent of improvements related to SDWA regulations. Operating revenues and expenses are relatively similar across the state; however residual funds for future capital improvements after reducing net incomes by principle and interest payments are nonexistent. While public water systems should not accumulate large surplus funds, the small residuals remaining are surely insufficient to support any major capital improvements in the future. The costs of treatment varied widely by treatment technology and system size. An indirect cost function was specified regressing annualized treatment and operating costs on system population, water source, and treatment variables. While the economies are substantial for very small systems, for some technologies, they are nearly exhausted at service populations of around 3,300. An indirect cost function for distribution and transmission improvements was specified. These models are useful in comparing the tradeoff between economies of size of treatment to the associated diseconomies of distribution and transmission.


The self-response rate is a key driver of the cost and quality of a census. The addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census could affect the self-response rate. We predict the effect of the addition of a citizenship question on self-response by comparing mail response rates in the 2010 Census, which did not have a citizenship question, and the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS), which included a citizenship question for the same housing units. To distinguish a citizenship question effect from other factors, we compare the actual ACS-Census difference in response rates for households that may contain noncitizens to the ACS-Census difference for all-U.S. citizen households. We estimate the addition of a citizenship question will have a 5.8 percentage point (ppt) larger effect on self-response rates in households that may have noncitizens relative to all-U.S. citizen households. Noncitizens are also 36.2 ppts less likely to report citizenship status that is consistent with administrative records compared to citizens. Only 6.2 ppts of this difference is explained by observed characteristics.


Objective: To assess the importance of using the new system Quick Sleeper for local anesthesia, to highlight benefits of quick and comfortable anesthesia. Material and Methods. The examination of effectiveness, convenience of this kind of anesthesia has been carried out. Results. All patients, taking part in this examination, confirmed more comfortable condition after this anesthesia than conductor and infiltration methods of anesthesia. The effect of anesthesia is better than after conductor anesthesia. Conclusion. This technology guarantees equal introduction and spread of anesthetic, independently of tissue density, eliminating the risk of carpule breakage.


In an 1855 treaty at Point Elliot (bǝka'ltiu or Mukilteo, WA) the United States promised Coast Salish nations that they could continue to hunt and fish in their usual and accustomed places in perpetuity; yet logging, stream realignments, military installations, pollution, and railroad and road infrastructure over the following century disrupted and impeded salmon access to local streams. A railroad spur built in the 1960s to connect to a Boeing plant above Japanese Gulch introduced additional barriers and by this time, if not sooner, humans had entirely blocked salmon access to the stream in the very shadows of the historic treaty.
Students from Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Washington, joined a collaborative effort in 2012 led by the City of Mukilteo and Snohomish County Airport, in consultation with Tulalip Tribes and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, to remove four major barriers to salmon migration in Japanese Gulch. As its name suggests this stream is not only important to the First Peoples of this land, but also to descendants of immigrants from Japan who lived in lumber company housing in the gulch during the early twentieth century. Urban streams and their associated riparian zones in western Washington contain important fish and wildlife habitat in the midst of intense human activities. Community college students are enhancing their own learning while assisting cities, counties, and tribes with monitoring of plants and animals in these urban ecosystems.
This report summarizes the results of an in-stream salmon spawning survey in two streams in the heart and edges of Mukilteo conducted from October 23, 2017 through December 20, 2017. It also reports on wildlife surveys using tracking and camera traps and on monthly water quality sampling from January to December 2017. Additionally, this report draws comparisons and contrasts with previous wildlife surveys that began as early as January 2012 and expanded in scope later in that year to include salmon and in more recent years in water quality. Students, faculty, and staff from Edmonds CC, along with community volunteers, have conducted these surveys in Japanese and Big Gulches in response to requests from the City of Mukilteo and Snohomish County Airport. The data collected help these municipalities preserve and sustain places and species of significant cultural importance to local Coast Salish tribes, Japanese-American communities, and the larger mainstream culture.
The surveys demonstrate that small numbers of adult coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) continue to return to Japanese Gulch for the sixth year in a row. For the first time in six years of monitoring, college students have also observed adult chum (Oncorhynchus keta) spawning in Japanese Gulch. Chum have made their first documented appearance since the removal of barriers that had excluded salmon from the stream for approximately fifty years. The viability of coho and chum runs in Japanese Gulch, though, is under threat from an invasive species, bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamera), that has overrun prime spawning habitat in restored sections of the stream. For the third out of five years, coho have returned again to Big Gulch, a neighboring stream that like Japanese Gulch, begins at what is now Paine Field Airport. For the fourth out of five years of monitoring in this second stream, chum have again returned to Big Gulch, this year in the highest numbers yet recorded.


An aerosol albedometer was combined with laser-induced incandescence (LII) to achieve simultaneous measurements of aerosol scattering, extinction coefficient, and soot mass concentration. Frequency doubling of a Nd:YAG laser line resulted in a colinear beam of both λ = 532 and 1064 nm. The green beam was used to perform cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), with simultaneous measurements of scattering coefficient made through use of a reciprocal sphere nephelometer. The 1064 nm beam was selected and directed into a second integrating sphere and used for LII of light-absorbing kerosene lamp soot. Thermal denuder experiments showed the LII signals were not affected by the particle mixing state when laser peak power was 1.5-2.5 MW. The combined measurements of optical properties and soot mass concentration allowed determination of mass absorption cross section (M.A.C., m(2)/g) with 1 min time resolution when soot concentrations were in the low microgram per cubic meter range. Fresh kerosene nanosphere soot (ns-soot) exhibited a mean M.A.C and standard deviation of 9.3 ± 2.7 m(2)/g while limited measurements on dry ambient aerosol yielded an average of 8.2 ± 5.9 m(2)/g when soot was >0.25 μg/m(3). The method also detected increases in M.A.C. values associated with enhanced light absorption when polydisperse, laboratory-generated ns-soot particles were embedded within or coated with ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, and glycerol. Glycerol coatings produced the largest fractional increase in M.A.C. (1.41-fold increase), while solid coatings of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate produced increases of 1.10 and 1.06, respectively. Fresh, ns-soot did not exhibit increased M.A.C. at high relative humidity (RH); however, lab-generated soot coated with ammonium nitrate and held at 85% RH exhibited M.A.C. values nearly double the low-humidity case. The hybrid instrument for simultaneously tracking soot mass concentration and aerosol optical properties in real time is a valuable tool for probing enhanced absorption by soot at atmospherically relevant concentrations.


Mountain ridges in the western Yakutat microplate are riddled with swarms of antislope scarps and troughs. These landforms were previously interpreted as gravity failures (sackungen), but if partly or wholly tectonic (flexural slip or bending moment faults), they represent part of the strain budget from ongoing plate collision. To determine scarp origin, we mapped landforms, bedrock structure, and trenched scarps at Kushtaka Mountain and south of Martin Lake. The Kushtaka scarps paralleled west-dipping coal and sandstone beds in the Tertiary Kultieth Formation, and were spaced 35–60 m apart with heights of 1–4 m. Structural and paleosol relationships in a 6-m-long, 1.3-m-deep trench indicate the scarp was produced by Holocene creep on a normal fault underlying the scarp. The Kushtaka scarps thus represent toppling-style slip on bedding-plane faults in the eastern limb of a syncline, as the fold "unfolds" due to gravitational spreading. The Martin Lake scarps are more complex and include downslope-facing landslide scarps, upslope-facing flexural toppling scarps, and an oblique-slip tectonic scarp. A 2-m-deep trench across the WNW-trending tectonic scarp exposed the underlying bedrock fault plane with slickensides raking only 17°–20°, indicating mainly left-lateral slip on a sinistral-normal fault. In contrast, swarms of ENE-trending antislope scarps showed normal-oblique (dextral) slip. The two scarp sets may form a conjugate pair that simultaneously accommodates left-lateral tectonic slip and NNE-directed gravitational spreading. Our results, plus those recently published by [Li et al. (2010)][1], show that most antislope scarps in the western Yakutat microplate are formed by normal slip on bedding-plane faults that dip into the mountain, and represent gravitational spreading expressed as toppling-style failure or "unfolding" of strata on fold limbs. Conversely, the sinistral-oblique slip fault at Martin Lake is one in a family of east-trending faults accommodating accretion of the Yakutat microplate into the cuspate syntaxis of the Alaskan plate margin.

 [1]: #ref-14


Multilayer structures of cobalt and silicon have been deposited as an ohmic contact on n-type 4H-SiC substrates in order to obtain lower contact resistance and higher thermal stability. The metal structures were prepared by using electron beam evaporation on top of the silicon face of the 4H-SiC substrates, and were annealed in an atmosphere of argon with 10% hydrogen. The metal film thickness was monitored during the film deposition, and the ratio of the cobalt and silicon was fixed at 0.5 for the formation of the silicon-rich silicide structure (CoSi2). The electrical property of the ohmic contact has been significantly improved by the reduction of the oxide content in the metal contact layer. A two-step annealing process was employed to reduce oxidation problems that may occur in the heat treatment at high temperatures. The specific contact resistance of the contact structure prepared by the two-step annealing process was measured to decrease by more than one order of magnitude compared to that prepared by one-step annealing. The best result has been obtained as 1.8 × 10−6 Ω cm2 for Co/Si/Co/Si/Co metal structures after two-step annealing, at 500 °C for 600 s and 800 °C for 120 s. In the field emission scanning electron microscopy, the interface of the contact structure and SiC substrate was observed to have smooth surface morphology with CoSi2 grains.


Teachers and students will experience difficulties implementing a block schedule, the authors point out, but the positive outcomes make the initial struggles worthwhile. As the mania for school reform continues to sweep the nation, educators enter the waters of change with a degree of trepidation. Change always sparks feelings of concern, but the fear of stagnation can be far greater. One innovation currently being instituted successfully in schools across the nation is block scheduling, which is revolutionizing the opportunities afforded high school students. The positive changes in the climate of schools on a block schedule stem in part from an increased ability to meet the needs of individual students. Smaller classes, a wider variety of subjects offered, and the opportunity for in-depth, hands-on study are all concrete outcomes of the use of extended class periods. As the diversity of the student population increases, the flexibility of block scheduling becomes ever more desirable. Participating in the development of a block schedule and surviving its first year of implementation require an open mind, a flexible spirit, and a dedication to the success of the chosen schedule. Schools that reform their schedules can take comfort in the collective experience of educators who have already made such a change. Schools that have used block schedules are seeing their students become motivated toward exploration and discovery in their classes. But making a change of this magnitude requires the establishment of achievable goals or steps. The following points should help administrators and teachers consider the intricacies of the models and understand the plans that they must make in order to adopt a new schedule successfully. Basics of Block Scheduling A number of models of block scheduling exist, but they all share the goal of allowing schools to adopt flexible programs in a variety of ways, depending on the school and students' needs. The 4 x 4 model takes the format of two semesters of four classes, each 90 minutes in length. Modifications can be made to the schedule, such as an additional abbreviated period for remediation or for yearlong courses. The A/B schedule is different in that students will take periods 1 through 4 on A days and then switch to periods 5 through 8 on B days. Another difference is that studies in specific subject areas continue over an entire school year, rather than lasting for just one semester. But there are possibilities for modification here as well. Yet another option is microcourses, which make longer blocks of time available for certain classes. These classes last for several weeks or months and are paired with courses that follow a traditional yearlong schedule. The choice of a particular model of block scheduling requires close analysis of the school, its teachers, and its students. Involving the school community in choosing a model and molding the schedule to meet the needs of the students helps to build a sense of ownership of the model. Curriculum Alignment After a school community has chosen a specific model of block scheduling, the curriculum must be modified by expanding course offerings, apprenticeship opportunities, postsecondary classes, and graduation requirements. Block scheduling allows for the addition of numerous electives in such areas as astronomy, mythology, technical writing, computer programming, and advanced foreign languages. On surveys, students have responded favorably to such proposed elective courses, and their subsequent enrollment in these classes has borne out their interest. The opportunity to take a wider range of vocational, art, and higher-level core classes energizes students and enables them to see positive possibilities for the future. A new block schedule also creates opportunities for programs that take place off the school grounds. Apprenticeships, mentoring programs, and postsecondary study in a university or community college are all possibilities. …


Many materials, including leaves, water, plastic, and chrome exhibit specular reflections. It seems reasonable that the visual system can somehow exploit specular reflections to recover three-dimensional (3D) shape. Previous studies (e.g., J. T. Todd & E. Mingolla, 1983; J. F. Norman, J. T. Todd, & G. A. Orban, 2004) have shown that specular reflections aid shape estimation, but the relevant image information has not yet been isolated. Here we explain how specular reflections can provide reliable and accurate constraints on 3D shape. We argue that the visual system can treat specularities somewhat like textures, by using the systematic patterns of distortion across the image of a specular surface to recover 3D shape. However, there is a crucial difference between textures and specularities: In the case of textures, the image compressions depend on the first derivative of the surface depth (i.e., surface orientation), whereas in the case of specularities, the image compressions depend on the second derivative (i.e., surfaces curvatures). We suggest that this difference provides a cue that can help the visual system distinguish between textures and specularities, even when present simultaneously. More importantly, we show that the dependency of specular distortions on the second derivative of the surface leads to distinctive fields of image orientation as the reflected world is warped across the surface. We find that these "orientation fields" are (i) diagnostic of 3D shape, (ii) remain surprisingly stable when the world reflected in the surface is changed, and (iii) can be extracted from the image by populations of simple oriented filters. Thus the use of specular reflections for 3D shape perception is both easier and more reliable than previous computational work would suggest.


The response of kraft pulp of Melocanna baccifera (Muli bamboo) to different conditions of oxygen delignification and subsequent bleaching using CEHH sequence was studied. Oxygen delignification caused the kappa number of the pulp to drop between 40 and 75% over the range of temperature 70-100 °C, oxygen pressure 2-7 bar, alkali charge 2-4%, and reaction time 5-60 min. The oxygen-delignified pulp could be bleached to a brightness level of 86%. The conditions that favored greater kappa reduction also caused a greater reduction in the pulp viscosity, which called for an economic balance between the environmental benefits and the degradation of the pulp. Reaction temperature during oxygen delignification had an effect on the fiber curl and kink, while other variables such as oxygen pressure, alkali dose, and the reaction time had no significant effect on fiber deformation.


BACKGROUND
Reproductive hormones are likely to be involved in thermoregulation through body fluid dynamics. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effect of the menstrual cycle and water consumption on physiological responses to prolonged exercise at moderate intensity in hot conditions.

METHODS
Eight healthy young women with regular menstrual cycles performed cycling exercise for 90 minutes at 50% V̇O2peak intensity during the low progesterone (LP) level phase and high progesterone (HP) level phase, with or without water consumption, under hot conditions (30°C, 50% relative humidity). For the water consumption trials, subjects ingested water equivalent to the loss in body weight that occurred in the earlier non-consumption trial. For all four trials, rectal temperature, cardiorespiratory responses, and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured.

RESULTS
Throughout the 90-minute exercise period, rectal temperatures during HP were higher than during LP by an average of 0.4 °C in the non-consumption trial (P<0.01) and 0.2 °C in the water consumption trial (P<0.05). During exercise, water consumption affected the changes in rectal temperature and heat rate (HR) during HP, but it did not exert these effects during LP. Furthermore, we found a negative correlation between estradiol levels and rectal temperature during LP.

CONCLUSIONS
During prolonged exercise at moderate intensity under hot conditions, water consumption is likely to be useful for suppressing the associated increase in body temperature and HR, particularly during HP, whereas estradiol appears to be useful for suppressing the increase in rectal temperature during LP.


Nearly half of the world's eight million Palestinians are registered refugees, having faced partition and exile. Landscape of Hope and Despair examines this refugee experience in Lebanon through the medium of spatial practices and identity, set against the backdrop of prolonged violence. Julie Peteet explores how Palestinians have dealt with their experience as refugees by focusing attention on how a distinctive Palestinian identity has emerged from and been informed by fifty years of refugee history. Concentrating ethnographic scrutiny on a site-specific experience allows the author to shed light on the mutually constitutive character of place and cultural identification. Palestinian refugee camps are contradictory places: sites of grim despair but also of hope and creativity. Within these cramped spaces, refugees have crafted new worlds of meaning and visions of the possible in politics. In the process, their historical predicament was a point of departure for social action and thus became radically transformed. Beginning with the calamity of 1948, Landscape of Hope and Despair traces the dialectic of place and cultural identification through the initial despair of the 1950s and early 1960s to the tumultuous days of the resistance and the violence of the Lebanese civil war and its aftermath. Most significantly, this study invokes space, place, and identity to construct an alternative to the received national narratives of Palestinian society and history. The moving stories told here form a larger picture of these refugees as a people struggling to recreate their sense of place and identity and add meaning to their surroundings through the use of culture and memory.


Repair of CNS injury is hindered by the glial scar that forms around implanted graft devices. The glial scar is composed of a 3-dimensional (3D) unaligned meshwork of reactive astrocytes that form a physical and physiological barrier, so whilst axons readily enter and traverse the bridging graft, they rarely exit the graft and re-integrate with the host parenchyma. Previous studies have shown that alignment of astrocytes growing in monolayer directs and enhances the growth of neurites over their surface. The aim of this work was to develop a 3D culture system in which the effect of astrocyte alignment on neurite growth could be modelled in a more spatially relevant environment. 3D cell alignment was achieved by co-culturing primary rat astrocytes, neural fibroblasts and DRGs for 3 days in rectangular tethered collagen gels. In this system the cells generate forces that contract the restrained gels, forming a central region in which cells align with the
axis of principal strain. The gels also contain well-defined unaligned areas used as controls. Gels were fixed and stained for GFAP, bIII-tubulin and Hoechst. Astrocyte alignment (aspect ratio) and neurite length were measured and mapped. Astrocyte alignment was significantly greater in the central region of the gels when compared to the control areas (P<0.01). Additionally, neurites in aligned regions grew in an orientated manner following the direction of astrocyte processes, compared to the random orientation of neurite growth in unaligned regions. Furthermore, neurites in aligned regions were significantly longer than those in unaligned areas (P<0.01). Expression of GFAP and neurocan mRNA did not differ between aligned and non-aligned gel regions. In control gels without astrocytes neurites were of similar lengths in both
aligned and unaligned regions. In conclusion, alignment of astrocytes was sufficient to enhance the length and orientation of neurites in a 3D environment, a more clinically relevant model than conventional 2D culture for many investigations of glial-neuronal interaction. This suggests that manipulation of reactive astrocyte alignment in vivo should create a more permissive environment for regenerating axons, and that implantation of bioengineered
devices containing aligned astrocytes may be a promising strategy to promote CNS repair.


One of the key inputs of a hydrologic budget is the potential evapotranspiration (PET), which represents the hypothetical upper limit to evapotranspirative water losses. However, different mathematical formulas proposed for defining PET often produce inconsistent results and challenge hydrological estimation. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of the Priestley–Taylor (P–T), Hargreaves, and Penman–Monteith methods on daily streamflow simulation using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for the southeastern United States. PET models are compared in terms of their sensitivity to the SWAT parameters and their ability to simulate daily streamflow over a five-year simulation period. The SWAT model forced by these three PET methods and by gauged climatic dataset showed more deficiency during low and peak flow estimates. Sensitive parameters vary in magnitudes with more skew and bias in saturated soil hydraulic conductivity and shallow aquifer properties. The results indicated that streamflow simulation using the P–T method performed well especially during extreme events' simulation.


We define an invariant, which we call surface-complexity, of closed 3manifolds by means of Dehn surfaces. The surface-complexity of a manifold is a natural number measuring how much the manifold is complicated. We prove that it fulfils interesting properties: it is subadditive under connected sum and finite-to-one on P-irreducible manifolds. Moreover, for P-irreducible manifolds, it equals the minimal number of cubes in a cubulation of the manifold, except for the sphere S, the projective space RP and the lens space L4,1, which have surface-complexity zero. We will also give estimations of the surface-complexity by means of triangulations, Heegaard splittings, surgery presentations and Matveev complexity.