IntroductionBlonder-Tongue1 is a rough "one-way street" for a patent owner.2 If the patent owner loses a judgment on validity just one time, his patent becomes invalid against the world.3 Conversely, if he wins, absentee infringers can challenge the same patent's validity again and again in subsequent suits.4 At the core of this rule are the due process right and the "deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day in court."5 Although a oncevictorious patent owner already had his day in court, the absentee infringer did not. Thus, even though issues relevant to validity do not differ between infringers, the patentee must defend his patent anew against every subsequent infringer that arises.But does due process require that every infringer have a day in court to challenge patent validity?6 After all, an infringer that challenges patent validity stands not for an individual right, but for "the public's right to retain knowledge already in the public domain."7 Because patent validity challenges vindicate public rights, the same procedural entitlements that attach to individual rights may not attach for successive challenges of validity. 8 Moreover, the law's allowance of successive challenges to patent validity frustrates the notice function and valuation of patents, provides disincentives to actually litigate the validity of bad patents, and impairs judicial economy.9 Therefore, this Note contends that a vigorous challenge against a patent's validity fully vindicates the public right to access ideas in the public domain and should preclude successive challenges by future infringers.Part I looks at the foundational tools of group litigation-joinder and consolidation-as applied in patent law, including recently adopted restrictions in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA).10 Part II asks whether the Rule 23 class action allows certification of present and future infringers for validity determinations. Part III examines whether the "public law" nature of the validity inquiry reinvigorates the notion of "virtual representation" rejected in Taylor v. Sturgell.11 Part IV analyzes whether procedural rules that facilitate the establishment of patent validity further the substantive goals of patent law and the imperatives of wise judicial administration.I. Joinder and ConsolidationThe ordinary mechanism for binding a party to a judgment is joinder.12 However, for a patentee seeking to fortify his patent from validity challenges, simply suing all available infringers has several practical limitations. First, future infringers-at least, those not imminently near the act of infringement-cannot be precluded because they cannot be sued.13 Second, a patentee may not have the resources to identify and sue all current infringers.14 Third, a host of jurisdictional problems can arise.15 Finally, recently adopted provisions in the AIA restrict joinder and consolidation for trial of defendants simply on the basis of their alleged infringement of the same patent.16A. Mandatory JoinderAbsentee infringers are not necessary parties under any category of Rule 19. Rule 19 provides that parties must be joined if their presence in the litigation is necessary to provide complete relief between the parties, the litigation threatens to "impair or impede" their legal rights, or there is a risk that conflicting judgments will create inconsistent obligations for the opposing party in litigation.17 None of these apply to absentee infringers on the issue of validity. First, because the court can resolve patent disputes without the involvement of unrelated infringers, these additional parties are not necessary to provide complete relief.18 Second, because a prior judgment does not affect absentees' rights beyond the effect of mere negative legal precedent, a court's denial of an infringer's invalidity arguments does not "impair or impede" the rights of absentees.19 Finally, conflicting judgments do not create inconsistent obligations for the patent owner because the patent is presumed valid against all and becomes invalid against all if ever found invalid. …


Haraz dam under construction is located along Tehran-Amol road, 20 km upstream of the Amol city. A tunnel has been designed to detour the traffic temporarily around the dam site to avoid any closure of the main road. This tunnel will be integrated in the morning glory spillway of the dam. According to the road design constraints and the tunnel layout, the morning glory entrance is located next to the dam abutment. This is the main challenge in Haraz spillway in comparison with conventional morning glory spillway approach channel. A spillway hydraulic model was set up in Tehran Water Research Institute and the corresponding tests were performed on it subsequently. According to the test results and as expected, some disturbances in the stream lines were observed of the approach flow nearby the abutment which had some negative impacts on the spillway capacity and its performance. Several alternatives were studied to optimize the hydraulic conditions using the hydraulic model. Finally, taking advantage of piers in a specific position on the ogee crest was found to be the most promising solution for reducing flow disturbances. This method could be an innovative solution for morning glory spillways, which have to be located close to the abutments.


Global trends show that habitual omega-3 intakes are short of recommended guidelines, particularly amongst vegetarians. Subsequently, alternative dietary sources of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC3PUFA) from vegetarian sources are needed. Food technology methods are advancing and nanoemulsion technologies have improved the bioavailability of certain lipid-based nutrients. This study examined whether ingestion of an omega-3 algal oil nanoemulsion led to improved bioavailability compared to the bulk oil. Eleven subjects completed a single-blind, randomised crossover trial, with a 21-day washout between interventions. Results demonstrated LC3PUFA absorption from the nanoemulsion was significantly higher than the bulk oil. Percentage blood fatty acids were significantly increased for docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (P ≤ 0.05) while LC3PUFA: PUFA ratios increased (P ≤ 0.05) and omega-6:omega-3 ratios were reduced (P = 0.028). Larger and longer intervention studies are now needed, but these preliminary findings demonstrate that nanoemulsion technology may improve the absorption of omega-3 fatty acids.


This paper reports on the preliminary findings of an EU-funded project called Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching (iTILT). The project aims to produce a range of training materials and resources to support teachers using the interactive whiteboard (IWB) in foreign language (FL) teaching. The project involves 7 European countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Wales and Turkey) with teachers at differing levels of IWB implementation and proficiency, and encompasses a wide range of educational sectors from primary through to higher education. During the initial stages of data collection, teachers involved in the project completed a likert-scale questionnaire relating to their self-efficacy with both general ICT skills and using a range of IWB features/tools. Despite the differing educational sectors and IWB experience amongst the teachers within the project, there was very little variation in responses between the different countries. Overall, teachers reported high levels of general ICT self-efficacy but low levels of self-efficacy with particular features and tools of the IWB. Nevertheless teachers stated that they allowed pupils to use the IWB and remained positive about the potential benefit of using IWBs to increase pupil participation, engagement and motivation. The findings are considered in the context of existing IWB transitional frameworks and implications for teaching in a variety of classroom contexts are discussed.


In medieval Europe, falconry was perhaps the most popular form of hunting among the aristocracy. Owning a falcon, and the necessary falconer to go with it, was a status symbol throughout the middle ages. This book is the first broad history of English royal falconry in medieval times, a book that draws on forty years of research to provide a full description of the actual practice and conditions of the sport and of the role of falconers in the English royal household. Robin S. Oggins begins with a description of the birds of prey, their training, and the sport of falconry. He provides a short history of early falconry in western Europe and England, then explores in unprecedented detail royal falconry from the reign of William I to the death of Edward I in 1307. The author concludes with an overview of the place and importance of falconry in medieval life.


The availability of credit to entrepreneurs with good investment opportunities is an important facilitator of economic growth. Under normal economic conditions most entrepreneurs who requested loans receive them. In a global financial crisis, popular opinion is that banks are severely restricting lending to smaller businesses. This assumes that low levels of investment are caused by supply-side restrictions in the credit market. Little is said about potential changes in the demand for credit and how it is influenced by entrepreneurs' perceptions about supply-side restrictions. One particularly interesting, and under-researched, group of small businesses are those who have potentially good investment opportunities, but are discouraged from applying for external funding as they fear rejection. In this study, we question whether these entrepreneurs were correct in their assumptions. We find that levels of discouragement are quite low in general at 2.7% of the total smaller business population. Further analysis implies that 55.6% of discouraged borrowers would have got loans had they applied.


The pathology of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be present at mid-life and precede the prodromal and clinical dementia syndromes associated with the disorder by decades. Few successful therapeutic treatments exist and, as a result, attention is turning to the preclinical stages of the disease for the development of future intervention strategies. The success of such strategies will rely on well-defined biomarkers of preclinical disease to identify and monitor changes earlier in the disease course. Here, we consider whether immune function changes are potentially useful markers of preclinical disease. We have selected studies spanning epidemiological, animal, clinical and imaging research pertaining to the earliest stages of AD pathogenesis, as well as studies of non-demented adults at high AD risk. We examine changes in inflammatory markers, alongside changes in established biomarkers, to highlight their suitability as disease indicators across preclinical and prodromal stages. We conclude that further work surrounding this topic is required, calling for larger prospective epidemiological studies of preclinical disease that incorporate serial assessment designs with a wider range of inflammatory mediators. We anticipate that future benefits of work in this area include improved disease detection and modification, as well as diagnostic accuracy of trial participants, leading to more cost-effective observation and intervention studies.


Background: Argentina's population was heavily affected by the 2009 influenza pandemic, particularly children, in whom incidence of seasonal influenza is consistently high. Following the pandemic, Argentinean national recommendations for pediatric vaccination against A/H1N1 influenza were defined for all children aged up to five years, in line with programs implemented by national authorities elsewhere. Economic evaluations have found that vaccination programs for this population against seasonal influenza are cost-effective, if not cost-saving in many countries. Recently, Argentina decided to routinely vaccinate against influenza children aged 6–23 mo-old. But, the economic value of such strategies for the country has never been assessed. Methods: A model was developed to assess the value of four different vaccination strategies: (1) no pediatric vaccination; (2) vaccination of 6–23 mo-old children; (3) vaccination of 6–36 mo-old children; (4) vaccination of 6 mo−5 y-old children. We first estimated community health benefits of vaccination then we evaluated the economic and quality-of-life impact of these strategies on the population. Data used in the model come from surveillance networks, published literature, national databases and retrospective hospital-based data. Results: Pediatric influenza vaccination benefited not only children but also the overall community, due to decreased disease transmission. Our results showed that the recent decision by Argentina to vaccinate 6–23 mo-old children is cost-effective as would be the incremental vaccination of broader age groups. Conclusions: Results from this study are consistent with previous analyses in other countries confirming that implementing influenza pediatric vaccination programs can be highly cost-effective through individual- and community protection against the disease.


Rajko Ložar, the wartime director of the Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana and an archaeologist by education, was also active as an art historian, ethnologist and literary critic, and he was a prominent figure in the country's cultural life before the Second World War. The A. presents the period in which he was the museum's director, based on his autobiographic notes. In these notes Ložar sheds light on the beginnings of the ethnographic collections in the National Museum, the work of the museum's first director Niko Zupanic, and the staff who worked in the museum in the difficult wartime conditions after Zupanic became a university professor and his place was taken by Ložar, who until then had been a curator at the National Museum for 12 years. Beside collecting objects in the field, purchasing and taking over individual collections, the museum's activities centred around publishing Narodopisje Slovencev (The Ethnology of the Slovenes) and the journal Etnolog, and its co-operation in the project Obnova slovenske vasi (Renovation of the Slovene village). In 1945 Rajko Ložar was forced to withdraw into exile.


The "Internet Multicast Backbone," or MBone, has risen from a small, research curiosity to a large-scale and widely used communications infrastructure. A driving force behind this growth was the development of multipoint audio, video, and shared whiteboard conferencing applications. Because these real-time media are transmitted at a uniform rate to all of the receivers in the network, a source must either run at the bottleneck rate or overload portions of its multicast distribution tree. We overcome this limitation by moving the burden of rate adaptation from the source to the receivers with a scheme we call receiver-driven layered multicast, or RLM. In RLM, a source distributes a hierarchical signal by striping the different layers across multiple multicast groups, and receivers adjust their reception rate by simply joining and leaving multicast groups. We describe a layered video compression algorithm which, when combined with RLM, provides a comprehensive solution for scalable multicast video transmission in heterogeneous networks. In addition to a layered representation, our coder has low complexity (admitting an efficient software implementation) and high loss resilience (admitting robust operation in loosely controlled environments like the Internet). Even with these constraints, our hybrid DCT/wavelet-based coder exhibits good compression performance. It outperforms all publicly available Internet video codecs while maintaining comparable run-time performance. We have implemented our coder in a "real" application-the UCB/LBL videoconferencing tool vic. Unlike previous work on layered video compression and transmission, we have built a fully operational system that is currently being deployed on a very large scale over the MBone.


Title of Document: BIOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATIONS OF EXTRACELLULAR VESICLES SHED BY VEGETATIVE AND SPORULATING BACILLUS SUBTILIS Yeji Kim, Master of Science, 2015 Directed By: Professor Catherine Fenselau, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Sporulation of Bacilli is a developmental process that provides long-term viability in unfavorable environments. Recently, biogenesis of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from Bacilli has also been reported to participate in various physiological and pathogenic phenomena. In this study, EVs were isolated from vegetative and sporulating Bacillus subtilis cells and characterized using mass spectrometry (MS)based proteomics, microscopy, and fluorescence spectrophotometry. The microscopic approach demonstrated that both vegetative and sporulating cells produce EVs. In the proteomic analysis, 156 proteins were identified with statistical significance in EVs collected at the vegetative phase and 185 proteins in EVs shed during sporulation. The two EV cargos showed qualitatively and quantitatively different proteome patterns. Sporulation-associated proteins had greater abundances in EVs at the sporulation stage. Additionally, a fusion-like event of EVs with B. subtilis cells was observed by a fluorescence de-quenching assay. Based on these observations, B. subtilis EVs are proposed to support intercellular communication and sporulation. BIOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATIONS OF EXTRACELLULAR VESICLES SHED BY VEGETATIVE AND SPORULATING BACILLUS SUBTILIS


The author reflects on the state of macroeconomic theory, and more specifically on how monetary economics is being taught in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Whereas heterodox macroeconomic theory is very much alive due to the influx of a large number of contributions and contributors, the latter still have a hard time finding positions in the academic world, as journal and departmental ranking exercises have restricted so-called standards of excellence to the neoclassical approach. The crisis has not yet induced mainstream economists to open up to different approaches that put more emphasis on realistic features than on imaginary ones based on neoclassical micro-foundations. As an exemplar, the chapters on money and banking in two first-year textbooks are being examined, an orthodox one by Greg Mankiw and a heterodox one by Neva Goodwin et al. Unsurprisingly there is little to be learned about the crisis from Mankiw's book, while the book by Goodwin et al. devotes a large amount of space to the causes and consequences of the crisis. Still, Goodwin and her co-authors are not heterodox enough: they are less heterodox than a number of central bankers when it comes to a number of key features of monetary theory.


Inspection, monitoring and analysis techniques are the core techniques required for the performance evaluation and maintenance of railway system. Accelerometers, velocity meters, thermal couples, strain gauge, LVDT, optical FBG sensors and digital camera have been used to acquire the perform data of viaduct, track, train and power cable of railway system. Some techniques have been developed to interpret and understand the interaction behaviors among these objects for the concerns of safety, serviceability and life-cycle cost of the railway system. Application cases of the performance monitoring and the resonant vibration analysis of the viaduct of high speed rail system due to passage of rolling stock, track internal forces monitoring, on-line inspection of wheel flats, track deformation and defects inspection are presented. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/265


The fractal meandering approach to microstrip circuit miniaturization is limited by the need to maintain characteristic impedance. In this work we show that uniform and non-uniform shunt loading can be used yield a further level of miniaturization of Koch fractal meandered microstrips and is applied to the miniaturization of a 1 GHz bandstop filter. The miniaturized filter has an area 11% of the area of a filter using straight microstrips alone, and 57% of the area of a filter miniaturized by second order fractal meandering alone.


How can symbols have meaning for a subject? Foundations of Understanding argues that this is the key question to ask about intentionality, or meaningful thought. It thus offers an alternative to currently popular linguistic models of intentionality, whose inadequacies are examined: the goal should be to explain, not how symbols, mental or otherwise, can refer to or 'mean' states of affairs in the external world, but how they can mean something to us, the users. The essence of intentionality is shown to be conscious understanding, the roots of which lie in experiences of embodiment and goal-directed action. A developmental path is traced from a foundation of conscious understanding in the ability to perform basic actions, through the understanding of the concept of an objective, external world, to the understanding of language and abstract symbols. The work is interdisciplinary: data from the neurosciences and cognitive psychology, and the perspectives of phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty, are combined with traditional philosophical analysis. The book includes a chapter on the nature of conscious qualitative experience and its neural correlates. (Series A)


During the past several years fuzzy logic control (FLC) has emerged as one of the
most active and fiuitful areas for research in the application of intelligent system design.
Presently, fuzzy logic has found a variety of applications in various fields ranging from
industrial process control to medical diagnosis and securities trading. Most notably, a
fuzzy logic system has been applied to control nonlinear, time-varying, ill-defined
systems, to control systems whose dynamics are not exactly known, as servomotors
position control, and robot arm control, and to manage complex decision-making or
diagnostic systems.
This project has the objective of designing a fuzzy logic controller, which will be
used to control the navigation process of an autonomous mobile robot in a completely
unstructured environment. The navigation algorithm is proposed for static obstacles and
with no priori knowledge about the environment. In addition, an on-line path planning is used while navigation. The controller will have its inputs from the sensors that will be
mounted on the robot. The number of sensors used is five where, three of them will be on
the front side of the robot, whereas, one on the left side and one on the right side.
The FLC was designed using three different fuzzifiers (triangular, trapezoidal and
Gaussian) to represent the sensor readings values so that they can be interpreted by the
inference mechanism. Moreover, two different implication methods (Mamdani minimum
and Mamdani Product) implications are used in the interpretation of the IF-THEN rules
in the rule-base. Depending on the number of fuzzy sets used to represent the sensor
readings, the total number of control rules used in the design was 243 at the first stage
and then reduced to 1 08. In other words, if the number of fuzzy sets used to represent
each sensor reading is three (far, near, and very near) then the total number of rules is 243
which is (35). On the other hand, if the left and right sensors reading values were
represented using only two fuzzy sets (far and near) then the total number of rules is 1 08
i.e. (33 *22 ). In addition, two defuzzification strategies (center of gravity and center
average) were used to get the output of the FLC in a crisp value.
It was observed that the triangular fuzzifier, center average defuzzification
method, and the Mamdani minimum implication method with a total number of 108 rule
are the best choices for the design.


Over 50 recipes to create next-generation reports using JasperReports Overview of JasperReports 3.6.0 Development Cookbook Create, size, and position the titles, headers, footers, and body of your report using JasperReports and iReport Enhance the look and feel of your report using background images, watermarks, and other such features Create multi-page and multi-column reports using multiple types of data in the same report Generate reports from Java Swing applications or from your web application Part of Packt's Cookbook series: Each recipe is a carefully organized sequence of instructions to complete the task as efficiently as possible. In Detail JasperReports is the world's most popular embeddable Java open source reporting library, providing Java developers with the power to easily create rich print and web reports. While such reports are pivotal in managing business information more effectively, creating and customizing them can get tedious. This book will give you recipes to solve common JasperReports problems to make your life easier. It will take you through complex examples related to JasperReports with step-by-step instructions on how to solve them. The author's experience in creating reports enables him to share over 50 recipes to develop crystal-clear business reports using the capabilities of JasperReports and the amazing features provided by its visual report designer tool: iReport. This cookbook will arm you to develop user-friendly reports by using multiple types of data in the same report, thereby saving your time in sorting, arranging, or extracting data and making the whole process effortless. First you will learn to do basic things such as creating, sizing, positioning, and enhancing the titles, headers, footers of the report. You will move on to working with the body and footer of the report, including using parameters to filter records during report processing and implementing nested hierarchy. Second, you will learn to enhance the look and feel of your report by deploying and reusing styles, and by using designs, textual effects, background images, and watermarks. You will also learn to use mathematical and logical expressions such as counting the number of records with a particular field value, grouping records, applying styles on your data based on logical or mathematical conditions, and so on. Then you will be able to do advanced things such as working with a variety of data sources: relational data, XML data, model beans of Java applications, and also multiple relational databases at once. You will learn to build a cover page and table of contents for multi-page reports, display multi-dimensional page numbering, and much more. You will be able to design simple and multi-level summary reports, cross-tabs with dynamic rows and columns, create bar charts, and display data trend graphs in your reports. Lastly and very importantly, you will be able to generate reports from Java Swing applications after you learn how to use JavaWrappers for your JasperReport. Create and enhance your business reports using the various functionalities of JasperReports and iReport What you will learn from this book Create, position, and enhance the title, header, footer, and body of your report Use dynamic titles--those that can change during report processing Use mathematical and logical expressions to calculate sum, average, maximum, and to sort, arrange, and extract data making it easier for you to analyze, share, and manage business information more effectively Create a report from various data sources such as relational data, XML data, or model beans of Java applications Create multi-page reports, with a cover page and table of contents (TOC) and manage pagination of multiple types of data Use sub-reports to design a multi-column report Design simple or multi-level summary report, and cross-tabs Create bar charts and graphs to show data trends Generate reports from Java Swing applications or web applications Approach The entire book is a comprehensive collection of recipes meant to tutor you on making and enhancing reports. Each recipe provides you with easy step-by-step descriptions of the actions necessary to accomplish a specific task with explanations to help you to understand how and why each action was undertaken. Example values and code samples are used throughout the recipes, which makes adaptation for individual needs easy. Each recipe uses a concrete example for easy understanding. Who this book is written for This book is for Java developers who want to use JasperReports to create user-friendly business reports. It is for those who may be familiar with JasperReports but want to dive into advanced JasperReports activities. If you know how to use Microsoft Word you can also learn how to design business reports using iReport by following the recipes of this cookbook. Although the primary audience of this cookbook are report designers, however Java and XML developers will find this book useful in understanding how Jasper's XML code works and how to wrap JasperReports functionality in your Java Swing or Web applications.


Despite considerable success in the treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), therapy resistance counteracts improvement of long-term survival. The dual role of survivin as an apoptosis inhibitor and mitotic regulator has been associated with disease outcome. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in the deregulated expression in EOC of survivin need further investigation. Here, we show that high amounts of the nitric oxide (NO) donors, S-nitroso-N-acetyl-penicillamine (SNAP) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP) or strong overexpression of the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) suppressed survivin levels via the p38MAPK pathway and triggered apoptosis in ovarian cancer cell lines (OCC). Importantly, low NO concentrations conferred resistance against carboplatin/paclitaxel-induced apoptosis. Cytoprotection was mediated by survivin because we observed its up-regulation subsequent to low SNAP/SNP doses or ectopic expression of low amounts of iNOS. Also, RNAi-mediated depletion of survivin blocked the antiapoptotic effects of NO signaling. Induction of survivin involves activation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway, which was antagonized by the PI3K-inhibitor, LY294002. Interestingly, application of the iNOS-inhibitor 1400W together with RNAi-mediated survivin down-regulation cooperatively enhanced drug-induced apoptosis in OCCs. The iNOS/survivin interdependencies seem to be also of clinical relevance because immunohistochemistry revealed that low iNOS levels correlate with survivin expression (P < 0.01) in carboplatin/paclitaxel-treated EOC patients with minimal postoperative residual tumor (n = 54). Also, iNOS and survivin expression were associated with increased risk for disease progression. Our study uncovers a novel molecular mechanism of how NO signaling may contribute to therapy resistance in EOC by modulating survivin expression. Pharmacogenetic iNOS/survivin-targeting strategies may hence be pursued to complement current treatment modalities in EOC.


Over the last decade, advancements in optical devices have made it possible for new novel image acquisition technologies to appear. Angular information for each spatial point is acquired in addition to the spatial information of the scene that enables 3D scene reconstruction and various post-processing effects. Current generation of plenoptic cameras spatially multiplex the angular information, which implies an increase in image resolution to retain the level of spatial information gathered by conventional cameras. In this work, the resulting plenoptic image is interpreted as a multi-view sequence that is efficiently compressed using the multi-view extension of high efficiency video coding (MV-HEVC). A novel two-dimensional weighted prediction and rate allocation scheme is proposed to adopt the HEVC compression structure to the plenoptic image properties. The proposed coding approach is a response to ICIP 2017 Grand Challenge: Light field Image Coding. The proposed scheme outperforms all ICME-contestants, and improves on the JPEG-anchor of ICME with an average PSNR gain of 7.5 dB and the HEVC-anchor of ICIP 2017 Grand Challenge with an average PSNR gain of 2.4 dB.


In search and rescue missions, Micro Air Vehicles (MAV's) can assist rescuers to faster locate victims inside a large search area and to coordinate their efforts. Acoustic signals play an important role in outdoor rescue operations. Emergency whistles, as found on most aircraft life vests, are commonly carried by people engaging in outdoor activities, and are also used by rescue teams, as they allow to signal reliably over long distances and far beyond visibility. For a MAV involved in such missions, the ability to locate the source of a distress sound signal, such as an emergency whistle blown by a person in need of help, is therefore significantly important and would allow the localization of victims and rescuers during night time, through foliage and in adverse conditions such as dust, fog and smoke. In this paper we present a sound source localization system for a MAV to locate narrowband sound sources on the ground, such as the sound of a whistle or personal alarm siren. We propose a method based on a particle filter to combine information from the cross correlation between signals of four spatially separated microphones mounted on the MAV, the dynamics of the aerial platform, and the doppler shift in frequency of the sound due to the motion of the MAV. Furthermore, we evaluate our proposed method in a real world experiment where a flying micro air vehicle is used to locate and track the position of a narrowband sound source on the ground.


A number of cranial nerve disorders are known to result from viral infection or reactivation, including Bell's palsy, Ramsay Hunt syndrome and herpetic laryngitis. The consequences of these diseases are well established although the patient population at risk is not. Prevalence studies in the general population are an initial step toward defining individuals at risk. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of herpesvirus DNA in cranial nerve ganglia in a random population sample. Qualitative molecular biologic analysis using polymerase chain reaction assay of the trigeminal, geniculate, vestibular, spiral and vagal ganglia was used in 18 randomly selected fresh cadaver heads. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) DNA was detected in 42% of all ganglia surveyed. Varicella zoster virus (VZV) DNA was detected in 44% of all ganglia. The difference in the prevalence rate between viruses was not significant ( p = 0.63). At least 1 of the 2 viruses was found in 65% of all ganglia. Both HSV and VZV can commonly be recovered from cranial nerve ganglia. In order to confirm a viral etiology for various cranial nerve disorders, demonstration of a significant difference in prevalence of the viruses in specimens from afflicted individuals will be necessary.


Analysis of relationships between states and citizens has almost monopolised the Human Rights legal discourse. In my thesis, I start from the position that Human Rights is a philosophical and historical victory of humankind, whose application cannot be limited to dictating norms in traditional forms of governance; Human Rights primarily define the human being as an individual, as a group, as a societal entity. Therefore, when we discuss Human Rights we do not pursue what governing states 'ought' or 'ought not' to do, but how human beings 'should' endure their lives in a dignified manner; how they should be treated independently of who their acting opponent might be. The Internet, on the other hand, has evolved through the years into an uncharted virtual structure of uncounted online operations and services run by private commercial actors. Within this setting, where the online application platform performs as a land parallel and the private commercial host as the de facto ruler, online identity is mirrored into service accounts. Hence the human being's digital existence seems to be depending, to a large degree, on the private initiative – and will. Whilst exploring various relevant themes, the thesis revisits the issue of the application of Human Rights in private relationships through the lenses of online electronic communications and using the example of commercial online virtual worlds. According to my conclusions, a simple projection of the state/citizen model onto ISPs/users relationships does not give sufficient ground for contesting Human Rights within that context. What we need is to deconstruct predominant dogmas in modern Human Rights theory and legislation and to readjust our focus back on the human being and its universal manifestations.


The application of directional antennas in wireless ad hoc networks brings numerous benefits, such as increased spatial reuse and mitigated interferences. Most MAC protocols with directional antennas are based on the RTS/CTS mechanism which works well in wireless ad hoc networks using omnidirectional antennas. However, RTS/CTS frames cannot mitigate the interference completely. Besides, they also contribute a lot to the performance overhead. This paper studies the problem from a new perspective. We have found that the transmission success probability under directional transmission and directional reception is quite high when the antenna beamwidth is quite narrow. Motivated by the analytical results, we design a lightweight MAC protocol without RTS/CTS frames. The preliminary results demonstrate that this new protocol performs better than MAC protocols based on the RTS/CTS mechanism. The results also show that a collision-tolerant transmission is feasible under the narrow beam configuration.


Antimicrobial MIC data were obtained for 96 strains of Staphylococcus haemolyticus and the following 11 antimicrobial agents: methicillin, gentamicin, rifampin, fusidic acid, ciprofloxacin, vancomycin, teicoplanin; three experimental glycopeptides, MDL 62,873, MDL 62,208, and MDL 62,224; and an experimental lipoglycopeptide, ramoplanin. Resistance to methicillin and gentamicin was present in over 50% of the strains, although resistance to the other agents was present in less than 10%. It is shown how application of mathematical modeling techniques can add to the understanding of such MIC data. MICs of methicillin and gentamicin were highly correlated, suggesting that evolutionary pressures for development of resistance to these agents were similar. The structural relationships among the glycopeptides were accurately reflected in their spatial relationships within the model. MICs of ramoplanin were negatively correlated with MICs of some other antimicrobial agents, particularly gentamicin, suggesting that this agent is more active against gentamicin-resistant strains. Methicillin-resistant strains were more tightly clustered than were methicillin-susceptible strains, suggesting that methicillin-resistant strains were more closely related to each other than were methicillin-susceptible strains. Mathematical modeling techniques enable more detailed analysis of MIC data.


The aim of this contribution is to show the results of evaluations on 3D digitizations performed using different methodologies and technologies. In particular, for surveys conducted at the architectural and urban scale, the recent reduction of costs related to Time of Flight and phase shift laser scanners is actually enhancing the replacement of traditional topographic instruments (i.e. total stations) with range-based technologies for the acquisition of 3D data related to built heritage. If compared to surveys performed using traditional topographic technologies, range-based ones offer a wide range of advantages, but they also require different skills, procedures and times. The present contribution shows the results of a practical application of both approaches on the same case study. Another application was suggested by the recent developments in the photogrammetric field that enhance the improvement of software able to automatically orient uncalibrated cameras and derive dense and accurate 3D point clouds, with evident benefits in reduction of costs required for survey equipment. Therefore, the presented case study constituted the occasion to compare a rangebased survey with a fast 3D acquisition and modelling using a Structure from Motion solution. These survey procedures were adopted at an architectural scale, on a single building, that was surveyed both on the outside and on the inside. Assessments on the quality of the rebuilt information is reported, as far as metric accuracy and reliability is concerned, as well as on time consuming and on skills required during each step of the adopted pipelines. For all approaches, these analysis highlighted advantages and disadvantages that allow to conduct evaluations on the possible convenience of adopting range-based technologies instead of a traditional topographic approach or a photogrammetric one instead of a range based one in case of surveys conducted at an architectural/urban scale.


Abstract. Air quality is a major environmental concern in China, where premature deaths due to air pollution have exceeded 1 million people per year in recent years. Here, using a novel coupling of economic, physical and epidemiological models, we estimate the premature mortality related to anthropogenic outdoor PM2.5 air pollution in seven regions of China in 2010 and show for the first time how the distribution of these deaths in China is determined by a combination of economic activities and physical transport of pollution in the atmosphere. We find that 33 % (338 600 premature deaths) of China's PM2.5-related premature mortality in 2010 were caused by pollutants emitted in a different region of the country and transported in the atmosphere, especially from north to south and from east to west. Trade further extended the cross-regional impact; 56 % of (568 900 premature deaths) China's PM2.5-related premature mortality was related to consumption in another region, including 423 800 (42 % of total) and 145 100 (14 %) premature deaths from domestic consumption and international trade respectively. Our results indicate that multilateral and multi-stage cooperation under a regional sustainable development framework is in urgent need to mitigate air pollution and related health impacts, and efforts to reduce the health impacts of air pollution in China should be prioritized according to the source and location of emissions, the type and economic value of the emitting activities, and the related patterns of consumption.


This paper outlines our ongoing efforts at building an effective disaster relief system utilizing real-time, crowdsourced responses to disaster events. This system integrates three components: social media analysis, rescue demand prediction, and relief distribution optimization. We introduce the conceptual disaster relief system, database structure, and its integrated components. Finally, a summarization of the current research challenges we expect to address in the future is provided.


A high-flux, Late Cretaceous magmatic event in the western United States has been tested as a zircon source for high-resolution chronostratigraphic correlation in coeval sedimentary rocks in northwest Wyoming. Thirteen samples of Cenomanian–Coniacian sandstone in the Bighorn Basin yielded more than 1200 U/Th/Pb detrital zircon ages from the Mowry Shale, the Frontier Formation, and the Cody Shale. In addition, two individual clast ages were obtained from a conglomerate located near the top of the Frontier Formation. These formations are dominated by detrital zircon grains that yield paleontologically constrained depositional or near-depositional ages. Each sample has a minimum of 22 grains comprising the youngest age peak. Individual youngest peak ages range from 99.4 to 87.7 Ma, spanning Cenomanian through Middle Coniacian time (Gradstein et al., 2012). Three of four stratigraphic sections yield samples with minimum age peaks that young upward, are consistent with available paleontological control, and suggest an age resolution of one–two million years despite an estimated analytical error of 2 percent (+/− 2 Ma for 100 Ma samples). An age reversal at the top of the fourth section demonstrates that recycling of older sediments into younger beds can be an important control on the age of zircon populations, even during intervals of sediment accumulation dominated by first-cycle zircons from an active magmatic arc. The presence of nearly depositional age volcanic cobbles at the top of the Frontier Formation implies rapid erosion and transport of coarse material from a volcanic source eastward into the foreland basin. The new detrital zircon data, in conjunction with available paleontological constraints, provide a framework for detailed stratigraphic correlation.


Reducing the degrees of freedom (DOF) of modern finite element methods is investigated using a systematic hp-process. The elements are first agglomerated (h-coarsening) to form convex/concave hulls and then the polynomial degree of the hull basis, is increased (prefinement). Compared to the conventional continuous/discontinuous FEM, this mechanism yields more accurate solutions with smaller DOF. This methodology is validated throughout the dissertation using various methods including Fourier-Chebyshev collocation, Continuous Galerkin (CG), Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) and Discontinuous Least-Squares (DLS) on structured and/or arbitrary unstructured grids. The feasibility of such procedure is first investigated in time only by letting the spatial discretization to be fixed to an arbitrary spectral/finite element discretization. In this scenario, lower order time steps (elements) are agglomerated into a space-time hull. A general system of Volterra integral equation is then developed which is simultaneously applicable to ∂/∂t time dependency of the PDE. The reduction in DOF is demonstrated by validating a one-dimensional periodic convection test case and two-dimensional scattering from engineering geometries. Motivated by these results, the ideas are then generalized to space. This requires special grid generation and general polyhedral basis functions, called spectral hull basis, which are addressed in detail. In particular, a new set of basis functions are derived based on the SVD of the Vandermonde matrix which are proven to have small Lebesgue constant. Various iv theoretical results are presented including the derivation of a closed form relation for the Lebesgue constant on a polyhedron, derivation of a closed form relation for approximate Fekete points on a polyhedron and a new proof of Weierstrass approximation theorem in a polyhedral subset of d-dimensional space. One application of the proposed hull basis is to reduce the DOF of discontinuous FEM such that it can compete in practice with CG. The accuracy and efficiency of spectral hulls are demonstrated in a linear acoustics test case and a two-dimensional compressible vortex shedding problem.


The existence of CuF has been a matter of debate for the past century. A 1933 report of the synthesis of CuF in the sphalerite structure has never been reproduced, however, it consistently appears in textbooks and databases. We report the results from a computational study of CuF based on a hybrid density functional theory (DFT) approach and identify the cinnabar crystal structure as an energy minimum, which incorporates linear F–Cu–F chains that are characteristic of the Cu(I) ion. Assessment of the oxidation and disproportionation reactions reveals that while CuF is thermodynamically stable with respect to the standard state, it can be oxidised readily to form CuF2. Moreover, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the linear F–Cu–F chains have a low barrier to rotation, so that at moderate temperatures the material might not give rise to a clear diffraction pattern. The predicted ionization potential of 6.5 eV, with respect to the vacuum level, suggests that the material may be suitable for photochemical applications through the formation of a heterostructure with Cu2O and/or ZnO.


This study was conducted to take an in depth look at the newest APIs offered to graphics programmers. With the recent releases of Vulkan (2016) and DirectX 12 (2015) from industry giants like the Khronos Group and Microsoft, it's clear they are pushing for a much lower-level, closer-to-hardware approach for future graphics programming solutions. These changes can be credited to the drastic improvements we've seen in graphics processors over the last 5 years. It will take a significant amount of time for these API's to become industry standard. The goal of this research is to verify the value and benefits of developing with these API's as opposed to using the current industry standard OpenGL or DirectX 11. Several GPU & CPU benchmark performance tests have brought interesting results. Furthermore, many advanced computer graphical techniques and algorithms which are implemented using C++ and Vulkan, help to shine a spotlight on the glaring contrast between Vulkan and OpenGL. This research attempts to be one of the first validations for advantages or disadvantages the Vulkan API offers in comparison to its predecessors.


This paper addresses the problem of the classification of hyperspectral remote sensing images by support vector machines (SVMs). First, we propose a theoretical discussion and experimental analysis aimed at understanding and assessing the potentialities of SVM classifiers in hyperdimensional feature spaces. Then, we assess the effectiveness of SVMs with respect to conventional feature-reduction-based approaches and their performances in hypersubspaces of various dimensionalities. To sustain such an analysis, the performances of SVMs are compared with those of two other nonparametric classifiers (i.e., radial basis function neural networks and the K-nearest neighbor classifier). Finally, we study the potentially critical issue of applying binary SVMs to multiclass problems in hyperspectral data. In particular, four different multiclass strategies are analyzed and compared: the one-against-all, the one-against-one, and two hierarchical tree-based strategies. Different performance indicators have been used to support our experimental studies in a detailed and accurate way, i.e., the classification accuracy, the computational time, the stability to parameter setting, and the complexity of the multiclass architecture. The results obtained on a real Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectroradiometer hyperspectral dataset allow to conclude that, whatever the multiclass strategy adopted, SVMs are a valid and effective alternative to conventional pattern recognition approaches (feature-reduction procedures combined with a classification method) for the classification of hyperspectral remote sensing data.


In order to study extrathymic differentiation in vitro, CD7+CD3- lymphocytes were sorted from normal human bone marrow and cultured under conditions of limiting dilution together with irradiated pooled allogeneic peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) in the presence of 1000 U/ml of interleukin-2 (IL-2). One clone was obtained that failed to react with monoclonal antibody (mAb) TCRδ1 (TCRγ/δ-specific) or WT31 (TCR2, α/β-specific). From day 35 through day 74 in culture, the surface phenotype of this clone evolved into CD3+, CD4+, CD8-, TCR2+, TCR1-, and was further characterized as CD2+, CD45RO+, CD16-, and CD56-. The presence of mRNA for TCR α and γ but not ,and γ chains was confirmed by Northern blotting. Accessory cell-dependent autocrine proliferative responses to PHA (most likely driven by IL-2) were initially absent, but became measurable at the same time as the TCR was acquired. However, in the absence of PHA, the clone failed to respond to a panel of homozygous B-cell lines representing the majority of MHC class II alleles. Autoreactivity was also not demonstrable. Cytotoxicity was limited to MHC unrestricted "natural killer (NK)-like" lysis of K562 target cells, with no autocytotoxicity detected. Tle NK-like lysis diminished over time in parallel with the acquisition of surface TCR. The cloned cells were not suppressive for mature lymphocyte proliferation. After stimulation, the cells secreted tumor necrosis factor α and granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) detected by immunoassays, and T-cell growth factors, most likely IL-2, as detected by bioassays. Polymerase chain-reaction methods demonstrated the presence of mRNA for IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-9, interferon-δ, and GM-CSF in these cells after stimulation with PHA and B-LCL. These results suggest that cells with the phenotype and some functional characteristics of mature T lymphocytes can evolve extrathymically in vitro from T-cell precursors sorted from normal human bone marrow.


Biology Letters' special feature on Hamilton's legacy pays due tribute to a brilliant mind. Herbers [1] and the other contributors paint a compelling picture of how Hamilton's work on inclusive fitness anticipated much contemporary evolutionary thinking, although sometimes not acknowledged until much later.

A more recent, although equally cited work by Hamilton is the 'Geometry for the selfish herd' [2], an elegant mathematical description of why individuals aggregate in space. In the spirit of this special feature [1], I illustrate why Hamilton's herd model should be recognized as an early mathematical formalism applicable to unrelated, although crucial, biological phenomena. Notably, Hamilton's model of gregarious behaviour can be directly applied to the problem of context-dependent acoustic signalling as follows, with the potential to describe how interdependent individual calls combine into choruses.

Many animals communicate acoustically, often with an emphasis on signal timing, rather than other acoustic properties [3]. Synchrony and chorusing occur in insects, amphibians, birds and mammals. An overarching question is how individuals 'distribute' their calls over time and why different individuals' calls group together, leading to synchronous, alternating or phase-locked choruses [3]. Two hypotheses, suggested and tested in [4], predict clusters of calls: individuals could maximize overall sound intensity to attract females or, alternatively, individuals could call in quasi-synchrony to decrease the individual risk of predation. In both cases, individuals would tend to call close to each other, so to increase signal amplitude or alter individual conspicuousness (depending on the receiver), similarly to what happens in human applauding [5].

Suppose three frogs, A, B and C, call periodically in time, say every second, although with different relative phases (see figure 1). B and C occur within a short time interval (short silence). A precedes them by a long interval (long SILENCE). The resulting acoustic pattern is A-SILENCE-B-silence-C-SILENCE-A- … A can modify its conspicuousness by shortening its 'domain of silence', i.e. timing its signal so it co-occurs, on average, with others' calls. The most noise-robust, error-resistant strategy for A is to delay its call and signal exactly halfway between B and C; A calls, on average, in an 'acoustically dense' time period.

Figure 1.

Clocks showing, for each individual, signalling time in two contiguous periods. Individual A signalled at 00.00, B at 02.00 and C at 03.00 (a). As agents choose when to call simultaneously, in the next time period (b), A remains silent for longer than ...

Assume, after Hamilton, that individuals A, B and C are located on a circular lily pond [2]. Instead of delaying or anticipating their signal phase/timing, they try to hide in-between other individuals. For instance, A occupies an isolated position on the pond, making it vulnerable to predators. A therefore seeks to decrease its 'domain of danger': if B and C are closer to each other than A is to any of them, A will jump and land between B and C [2].

Once formulated in these terms, it is clear how the mechanics of Hamilton's spatial predation model map one-to-one onto the acoustic signalling mechanism sketched here (table 1). The original spatial model featured a closed, circular space. Circular metaphors (e.g. clocks) are also appropriate to represent periodic events, and the 'circular' feature in [2] enables its direct application to periodic signals over time, as required in models of chorusing.

Table 1.

Comparison between parameters from the one-dimensional model in [2] and the mathematically equivalent, context-dependent signalling framework sketched here.

In both cases, a general model is derived from applying the basic 'time shift' mechanism to all individuals (cf. figure 1, A delays its call and C anticipates its), and dynamically over time (figure 1a versus b). At every time period, most individuals will have either changed location or adapted their calls, making previous decisions suboptimal and spurring individuals to compensate by jumping to a better location, or shifting the phase of their upcoming call to an acoustically denser period of time. Computer simulations for the predation model showed formation of clusters of individuals [2]. By analogy, group signalling dynamics should begin with randomly occurring individual calls scattered over time and converge towards a few, high-intensity acoustic peaks (produced by several near-synchronous individuals).

An additional, deeper mathematical link connects Hamilton's model of space with dynamical processes in time. Hamilton noted that only one initial configuration, three evenly spaced frogs, will prevent aggregation [2]; decades later, the mathematical investigation of rhythm and timing in biological systems found that the same initial configuration will prevent synchronization of oscillators in time [6].

Herbers admits that one volume cannot do full justice to Hamilton's genius, anticipating how his ideas will 'influence the field over the coming 50 years' [1]. Hopefully, as I show here, Hamilton's mathematical insights will inform future research on both rhythmic processes in humans, such as language and music, and context-dependent acoustic signalling in other species.


We analyze the relationship between education and employment in Suriname, using data from a 2007 IDB household survey (representative nationally and at the level of three macro areas: Urban Coast, Rural Coast and Interior). We find that education brings returns in terms of both likelihood of employment (particularly for women) and higher earnings. Completed primary, junior secondary, senior secondary and tertiary education increase the probability of employment by 12%, 19%, 86% and 84% respectively, relative to the base category of no-schooling or incomplete primary. In addition, senior secondary and tertiary education lead to 46% and 81% higher earnings, relative to peer individuals with junior secondary education or less. These returns to education are relatively high in the context of the Caribbean. Nonetheless, higher educational achievements are associated with a transition towards public sector jobs, suggesting that the private sector is scarcely dynamic, and unable to attract skilled workers.


Directed containers make explicit the additional structure of those containers whose set functor interpretation carries a comonad structure. The data and laws of a directed container resemble those of a monoid, while the data and laws of a directed container morphism those of a monoid morphism in the reverse direction. With some reorganization, a directed container is the same as a small category, but a directed container morphism is opcleavage-like. We draw some conclusions for comonads from this observation, considering in particular basic constructions and concepts like the opposite category and a groupoid.


The Immense Ventriloquism is a solo exhibition by TC McCormack. The exhibition encompassed a diptych of films, displayed through digital projection, a platform assemblage which featured a collection of sculptures and drawings by eight artists, onto which a series of animated pattern-motifs are projected, and three large fabric prints suspended in an offset arrangement.

The film diptych is in a dialogue with the animated platform assemblage, the visual phrasing moves between and across the three time-based elements with a particular cadence and rhythmic structure. Each phrase or scene appears as a material configuration; their characteristics are distinctly different; in form, tone and pace.

The term Ventriloquism speaks to the immediacy of difference, and in the activation of the other. This exhibition questions the boundaries between video and sculpture, materiality and immateriality, by foregrounding the temporal as much as the spatial conditions of sculpture, and valuing the digital surface with equal regard.

As an unfolding act of dislocation, the animated pattern-motifs resist any temporal trajectory; in they appear to move in and out of time. This idea informs the project's visual language; from a divergent fragmentation of surfaces, to the dissembling patterns, and an ungraspable slippage of content.

As singularities within the assemblage, the selected sculptures have quite different characteristics, each piece is considered for how it effects and activates the others. These formal gestures are counterpoint to and within the aggregate, distinct and various positions on the platform.


This article examines how catchy sounds ("Why This Kolaveri" ["Why This Murderous Rage"]) can function as sonic cues for political participation. Exploring the sonic dimensions and aural imaginaries at play in mediated public spheres, we show how #Kolaveri became a sound bridge that enabled potent encounters among journalists, politicians, and citizens embroiled in heated debates about corruption in India. Tracing #Kolaveri's movement across media platforms, we analyze three dimensions of the sonic cue―its availability, performativity, and resonance―that gave it a catalytic charge. Suggesting that sound technologies and practices constitute vital cultural and material infrastructures on which a bridge between the popular and the political can be built, we argue that cases like #Kolaveri disclose new ways of listening for the political and new modes of participation―the expression of sonic citizenship―in a digital era.


Targeting lanosterol 14α-demethylase (LDM) with azole drugs provides prophylaxis and treatments for superficial and disseminated fungal infections, but cure rates are modest for immunocompromised patients and individuals with comorbidities. The efficacy of azole drugs has also been reduced due to the emergence of drug-resistant fungal pathogens. ABSTRACT Targeting lanosterol 14α-demethylase (LDM) with azole drugs provides prophylaxis and treatments for superficial and disseminated fungal infections, but cure rates are modest for immunocompromised patients and individuals with comorbidities. The efficacy of azole drugs has also been reduced due to the emergence of drug-resistant fungal pathogens. We have addressed these problems by expressing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae functional, hexahistidine-tagged, full-length Candida albicans LDM (CaLDM6×His) and Candida glabrata LDM (CgLDM6×His) for drug discovery purposes and determining their X-ray crystal structures. Compared with S. cerevisiae overexpressing LDM6×His (ScLDM6×His), the reduced susceptibility of CgLDM6×His to all azole drugs tested correlated with its level of overexpression. In contrast, the reduced susceptibility to short-tailed (fluconazole and voriconazole) but not medium-tailed (VT-1161) or long-tailed azoles (itraconazole and posaconazole) indicates CaLDM6×His works best when coexpressed with its cognate NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase (CaNcp1A) rather than the host reductase (ScNcp1). Overexpression of LDM or Ncp1 modified the ergosterol content of yeast and affected growth inhibition by the polyene antibiotic amphotericin B. Affinity-purified recombinant Candida LDMs bind carbon monoxide and show tight type II binding of a range of azole drugs, including itraconazole, posaconazole, fluconazole, and voriconazole. This study provides a practical basis for the phenotype-, biochemistry-, and structure-directed discovery of novel antifungals that target LDMs of fungal pathogens.


The danger of an oppressive majority faction is an obvious concern in a democracy, one that is frequently expressed by income tax opponents who argue that it "soaks the rich" by shifting most of the tax burden onto the wealthy few. In reality, however, the minority can exercise the same deleterious power. Shaping Public Opinion and the Law: How a "Common Man" Campaign Ended a Rich Man's Law, explores one example of the latter situation. Through extensive lobbying, media use, and rhetorical appeals to the common man a small organization of wealthy individuals achieved a surprising reversal of a newly passed provision that affected only the relatively rich — less than 10% of the population. Although this campaign occurred over 70 years ago, both its method and subject matter are still relevant and controversial. It provides perspective on the recurrent tension between the right to know and privacy still being played out in the income tax area, as evidenced by recent calls for publicity of tax returns. At the same time, it illuminates the power of a small, committed number of individuals to effect political change by harnessing the support of the common man, a technique still frequently used, as in the recent battle to repeal the estate tax.


The application of model-based performance assessment at the whole building level is explored. The information requirements for a simulation to predict the actual performance of a particular real building, as opposed to estimating the impact of design options, are addressed with particular attention to common sources of input error and important deficiencies in most simulation models. The role of calibrated simulations is discussed. The communication requirements for passive monitoring and active testing are identified and the possibilities for using control system communications protocols to link on-line simulation and energy management and control systems are discussed. The potential of simulation programs to act as "plug-andplay" components on building control networks is discussed.


Condition monitoring of critical machine tool components and machining processes is a key factor to increase the availability of the machine tool and achieving a more robust machining process. Failures in the machining process and machine tool components may also have negative effects on the final produced part. Instabilities in machining processes also shortens the life time of the cutting edges and machine tool. The condition monitoring system may utilise information from several sources to facilitate the detection of instabilities in the machining process. To avoid additional complexity to the machining system the use of internal sensors is considered. The focus in this thesis has been to investigate if information related to the machining process can be extracted directly from the internal sensors of the machine tool. The main contibutions of this work is a further understanding of the direct response from both linear and angular position encoders due the variations in the machining process. The analysis of the response from unbalance testing of turn tables and two types of milling processes, i.e. disc-milling and slot-milling, is presented. It is shown that operational frequencies, such as cutter frequency and tooth-passing frequency, can be extracted from both active and inactive machine axes, but the response from an active machine axis involves a more complex analysis. Various methods for the analysis of the responses in time domain, frequency domain and phase space are presented.


The healing effect of heat was already mentioned in the advanced cultures of the old Egypt (2400 B.C.), but only the medical professionals of the Greek Antique used this therapeutic approach consistently, acknowledged it and called it over-warming (in Greek: Hyperthermia). Oncothermia is a new paradigm which entails the generation of temperature gradient by self-selection absorption of electric field energy based on the bio-impedance selection and modulated radiofrequency electric current to produce lethal heat flow between the extra- and intracellular matrix of the tumor cell membrane. It provides synergies with other traditional treatment modalities. The spread of this technology worldwide is a strong evidence to support it, based on palliative pain control and prolongation of survival in many solid tumors e.g. liver, pancreas, brain, prostate and lung when other therapies fail.


Problems and questions originally raised by Robert Nozick in his famous thought experiment 'The Experience Machine' are frequently invoked in the current discourse concerning virtual worlds. Having conceptualized his Gedankenexperiment in the early seventies, Nozick could not fully anticipate the numerous and profound ways in which the diffusion of computer simulations and video games came to affect the Western world. This article does not articulate whether or not the virtual worlds of video games, digital simulations, and virtual technologies currently actualize (or will actualize) Nozick's thought experiment. Instead, it proposes a philosophical reflection that focuses on human experiences in the upcoming age of their 'technical reproducibility'. In pursuing that objective, this article integrates and supplements some of the interrogatives proposed in Robert Nozick's thought experiment. More specifically, through the lenses of existentialism and philosophy of technology, this article tackles the technical and cultural heritage of virtual reality, and unpacks its potential to function as a tool for self-discovery and self-construction. Ultimately, it provides an interpretation of virtual technologies as novel existential domains. Virtual worlds will not be understood as the contexts where human beings can find completion and satisfaction, but rather as instruments that enable us to embrace ourselves and negotiate with various aspects of our (individual as well as collective) existence in previously-unexperienced guises.


This paper examines the effect of expected inflation on stock prices and expected long-run returns. An ex ante estimates measure of expected long-run returns is derived by incorporating estimates of expected of future corporate cash flows into a variant of the Campbell-Shiller dividend-price ratio model. In this model, the log earnings-price ratio is expressed as a linear function of expected future returns, expected earnings growth rates, and the log of the current dividend-payout ratio. Expectations of earnings growth are inferred from equity analysts' earnings forecasts, while inflation expectations are drawn from surveys of professional forecasters. I find that the negative relation between equity valuations and expected inflation results from two effects: higher expected inflation coincides with (I) lower expected real earnings growth and (ii) higher required real returns. The earnings channel is not merely a reflection of inflation's recession-signalling properties; rather, much of the negative valuation effect results from a negative relation between expected inflation and expected longer-term real earnings growth. The effect of expected inflation on required (long-run) real stock returns is also substantial. A one percentage point increase in expected inflation raises required real stock returns about one percentage point, which on average implies a 20 percent decline in the level of stock prices. The inflation-related component of expected real stock returns is closely related to the component explained by real long-term bond yields.


Extracted from text ... 62 Management Today March 2006
Courage: catalyst for
successful leadership
Bill Price (left) and Armand Kruger are master executive business and life coaches.
They specialise in coaching CEOs, executive committee teams and board directors in
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Academia and the public media have emphasized the link between STEM majors and innovation, as well as the need for STEM graduates in the U.S. economy. Given the proclivity of international students to hold STEM degrees, immigration policy may be used to attract and retain high-skilled STEM workers in the United States. We examine if a 2008 policy extending the Optional Practical Training (OPT) period for STEM graduates affected international students' propensities to major in a STEM field. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates, we find that, relative to foreign-born U.S. college graduates who arrived on other visas allowing them to work, foreign-born students who first came to the United States on student visas became 18 percent more likely to major in STEM following the OPT policy change. We also find that the OPT policy change increased the likelihood of adding a STEM major among students who had listed a non-STEM major as their first major, as well as the propensity to pursue a master's degree in a STEM field among students whose bachelor's degree was in a non-STEM field.


OBJECTIVE
To identify criteria for the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and actinic keratosis (AK) by in vivo reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM).

DESIGN
Prospective RCM imaging of lesions suspected clinically and/or dermoscopically to be SCC or AK, followed by RCM assessment of the biopsy-proven SCCs and AKs.

SETTING
Private skin cancer clinic, Plantation, Florida. Patients A total of 38 lesions in 24 patients were assessed, including 7 AKs, 25 SCCs in situ, 3 invasive SCCs, and 3 keratoacanthomas. Interventions Prior to undergoing biopsy, all lesions were assessed by RCM.

RESULTS
Mosaic RCM images at the stratum corneum level revealed scale in 29 SCCs (95%) and in all 7 AKs. Polygonal nucleated cells at the stratum corneum were seen in 3 SCCs (10%) and 1 AK (14%). All 38 cases displayed an atypical honeycomb and/or a disarranged pattern of the spinous-granular layer of the epidermis; round nucleated cells were seen in the spinous-granular layer in 20 SCCs (65%) and 1 AK (14%). Round blood vessels in the superficial dermis were seen in 28 SCCs (90%) and 5 AKs (72%).

CONCLUSIONS
An increasing frequency of abnormal RCM features can be observed across the spectrum of keratinocytic neoplasias. The presence of an atypical honeycomb or a disarranged pattern of the spinous-granular layer, round nucleated cells at the spinous-granular layer, and round blood vessels traversing through the dermal papilla are the key RCM features of SCC.


Random numbers and random sequences are used to produce vital parts of cryptographic algorithms such as encryption keys and therefore the generation and evaluation of random sequences in terms of randomness are vital. Test suites consisting of a number of statistical randomness tests are used to detect the nonrandom characteristics of the sequences. Construction of a test suite is not an easy task. On one hand, the coverage of a suite should be wide; that is, it should compare the sequence under consideration from many different points of view with true random sequences. On the other hand, an overpopulated suite is expensive in terms of running time and computing power. Unfortunately, this trade-off is not addressed in detail in most of the suites in use. An efficient suite should avoid use of similar tests, while still containing sufficiently many. A single statistical test gives a measure for the randomness of the data. A collection of tests in a suite give a collection of measures. Obtaining a single value from this collection of measures is a difficult task and so far there is no conventional or strongly recommended method for this purpose. This work focuses on the evaluation of the randomness of data to give a unified result that considers all statistical information obtained from different tests in the suite. A natural starting point of research in this direction is to investigate correlations between test results and to study the independences of each from others. It is started with the concept of independence. As it is complicated enough to work even with one test function, theoretical investigation of dependence between many of them in terms of conditional probabilities is a much more difficult task. With this motivation, in this work it is tried to get some experimental results that may lead to theoretical results in future works. As experimental results may reflect properties of the data set under consideration, work is done on various types of large data sets hoping to get results that give clues about the theoretical results. For a collection of statistical randomness tests, the tests in the NIST test suite are considered. Tests in the NIST suite that can be applied to sequences shorter than 38,912 bits are analyzed. Based on the correlation of the tests at extreme values, the dependencies of the tests are found. Depending on the coverage of a test suite, a new concept, the coverage efficiency of a test suite, is defined, and using this concept, the most efficient, the least efficient, and the optimal subsuites of the NIST suite are determined. Moreover, the marginal benefit of each test, which also helps one to understand the contribution of each individual test to the coverage efficiency of the NIST suite, is found. Furthermore, an efficient subsuite that contains five statistical randomness tests is proposed.


Purpose: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) cause over 2200 American deaths daily and include coronary heart disease (CHD), the fifth leading cause of death in young adults. Those with diabetes mellitus are especially vulnerable to CHD, as heart disease death rates are two to four times higher in this population. Blood lipids and glucose can be used to estimate CVD risk, and include elevated plasma total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triacylglycerol (TAG), low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), physical inactivity, overweight and obesity, diabetes mellitus and impaired fasting plasma glucose. Prevalence of these risk factors is evident in college students across the country. Lifestyle interventions to reduce the development of type 2 diabetes and CVD are feasible and costeffective, and include improving nutrition and increasing physical activity. Design: Using a quasi-experimental design, the Health It Up Intervention included five 20-minute lessons embedded into a general nutrition course. Data were collected at the beginning and end of the semester to examine the effect of the intervention on diet, body composition and markers of chronic disease risk. Setting: The intervention was conducted at a mid-sized northeastern university during the spring semester in 2010. Subjects: Eighty-three students between the ages of 18 and 24 years, taking a general nutrition course, participated in the intervention. One student dropped the course during the intervention and did not finish the study. Intervention: The intervention was interactive and included food sampling, group activities, and presentations utilizing PowerPoint. The focus of the intervention was to teach students how to improve their diet and increase their physical activity to reduce chronic disease risk. Measures: Biochemical data were collected using a Cholestech LDX analyzer and dietary data were collected using food screeners. Body composition was analyzed using a handheld bioelectrical impedance device and weight was measured on a digital scale. Results: Mean age was 19.3±1.4 years, mean BMI was 23.5±3.6 kg/m2, and the sample consisted of 18% males and 82% females. A mixed betweenwithin subjects ANOVA assessed the impact of the intervention on body weight and composition, plasma lipids and glucose. The main effect for time was significant for TC, HDL-C and glucose, with a decrease in all three concentrations from baseline to post-intervention. Wilcoxin signed ranks tests were used to measure change in dietary variables, and total intake of fruits and vegetables increased from baseline to post-intervention. Conclusion: Diet and physical activity education embedded in a college class may be a way to decrease chronic disease risk factors in young adults. A strength of the study is that it could be easily replicated and utilized by other universities as the cost of the intervention itself was low. A limitation of the study is the inability to distinguish between the effect of the general nutrition course and the intervention. Future research should incorporate a similar intervention into a non-nutrition course to determine the effect of the intervention alone.


Background—Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after electrocardioversion. OSA is highly prevalent in patients who are male, obese, and/or hypertensive, but its prevalence in patients with AF is unknown. Methods and Results—We prospectively studied consecutive patients undergoing electrocardioversion for AF (n=151) and consecutive patients without past or current AF referred to a general cardiology practice (n=312). OSA was diagnosed with the Berlin questionnaire, which is validated to identify patients with OSA. We also assessed its accuracy compared with polysomnography in a sample of the study population. Groups were compared with the 2-tailed t, Wilcoxon, and &khgr;2 tests. Logistic regression modeled the association of AF and OSA after adjustment for relevant covariates. Patients in each group had similar age, gender, body mass index, and rates of diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. The questionnaire performed with 0.86 sensitivity, 0.89 specificity, and 0.97 positive predictive value in our sample. The proportion of patients with OSA was significantly higher in the AF group than in the general cardiology group (49% versus 32%, P=0.0004). The adjusted odds ratio for the association between AF and OSA was 2.19 (95% CI 1.40 to 3.42, P=0.0006). Conclusions—The novel finding of this study is that a strong association exists between OSA and AF, such that OSA is strikingly more prevalent in patients with AF than in high-risk patients with multiple other cardiovascular diseases. The coinciding epidemics of obesity and AF underscore the clinical importance of these results.


OBJECTIVES
To develop prototype rotary selective dentin caries excavators and to demonstrate their ability to remove only carious dentin in extracted teeth.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Milled polymer prototype and formed wire loop prototype burs were made. They were tested on normal dentin with standardized force application and compared to carbide burs for ability to cut by weighing three extracted teeth at pre- and postcutting for each prototype version. They were tested on carious dentin of three teeth for each prototype version. The resulting excavated surfaces were analyzed with dentin caries dye, the teeth were decalcified and examined histologically, and the used prototypes were examined in light and scanning electron microscopes.

RESULTS
For both prototypes, noncarious teeth did not lose weight from prototype instrumentation, but each lost 9 or 10 mg after instrumentation with the control carbide bur. Both prototypes quickly removed carious dentin in each of the carious teeth until a definitive cutting endpoint was reached. The excavated surfaces from the milled polymer prototypes did not stain with caries dye, but those from the wire loop prototypes stained lightly in some areas. In the light microscope, all sections of excavated carious teeth were bacteria-free. Light and scanning electron microscope images of the prototypes revealed scratch patterns on the wire loop prototypes and deformation of blades on the polymer prototypes.

CONCLUSION
Both prototypes removed carious dentin but did not remove normal dentin in the extracted teeth used in this study. Further development is indicated.


Lieberman and Phillips (2016; Journal of Econometrics; LP) introduced a multivariate stochastic unit root (STUR) model, which allows for random, time varying local departures from a unit root (UR) model, where nonlinear least squares (NLLS) may be used for estimation and inference on the STUR coefficient. In a structural version of this model where the driver variables of the STUR coefficient are endogenous, the NLLS estimate of the STUR parameter is inconsistent, as are the corresponding estimates of the associated covariance parameters. This paper develops a nonlinear instrumental variable (NLIV) as well as GMM estimators of the STUR parameter which conveniently addresses endogeneity. We derive the asymptotic distributions of the NLIV and GMM estimators and establish consistency under similar orthogonality and relevance conditions to those used in the linear model. An overidentification test and its asymptotic distribution are also developed. The results enable inference about structural STUR models and a mechanism for testing the local STUR model against a simple UR null, which complements usual UR tests. Simulations reveal that the asymptotic distributions of the the NLIV and GMM estimators of the STUR parameter as well as the test for overidentifying restrictions perform well in small samples and that the distribution of the NLIV estimator is heavily leptokurtic with a limit theory which has Cauchy-like tails. Comparisons of STUR coefficient and a standard UR coefficient test show that the one-sided UR test performs poorly against the one-sided STUR coefficient test both as the sample size and departures from the null rise.


The deployment of sensor networks in an aquatic environment has been severely limited because of the unpredictable nature of the underwater environment. Building a low-cost, energy and resource efficient Underwater Wireless Sensor Network (UWSN) will open new vistas in the areas of ocean, river and lake monitoring and exploration. In this paper we present a novel architecture for a hypothetical UWSN that could be deployed in the Bay-of-Bengal. This UWSN is an N-tier model with sensor nodes deployed at varying depths along the ocean column. The network can be re-configured based on the deployment scenario and the application. This paper also discusses various issues involved in developing a cross-layer protocol for the architecture proposed.


Wear of the Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) articulating against metal in joint replacements is one of the primary reasons for long-term failure of prosthesis due to implant loosening. Amount, size and morphology of wear debris are important factors that affect the clinical performance of a joint implant. Major developments in UHMWPE as an orthopaedic bearing material are radiation crosslinking and recent introduction of vitamin E as an antioxidant. This thesis aims to investigate the size and shape characteristics of UHMWPE wear debris produced by current state-of-the-art noncrosslinked and vitamin E containing highly crosslinked UHMWPE implants in artificial hip, knee and ankle joint articulations.
Current polyethylene wear debris isolation methods were assessed for isolating wear particles from serum based simulator lubricants. The limitations of current isolation methods were incomplete digestion, presence of impurities, bacterial contamination and low reproducibility. Consequently, a novel UHMWPE wear debris isolation method was developed to overcome these limitations. This method successfully isolated UHMWPE wear debris by digesting simulator lubricants using 5M potassium hydroxide and by purifying particles using a two-stage density gradient ultracentrifugation. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy was used to capture digital images of wear debris particles deposited on 15 nm pore size membrane filters.
Two current commercial size analysers Nanosight and Mastersizer were compared to SEM image analysis for characterising UHMWPE wear debris. Large size range and complex shape of wear debris made both Nanosight and Mastersizer unsuitable for complete characterisation of UHMWPE particles. Moreover, no shape analysis was available in both commercial particle analysers. Therefore, SEM image analysis was chosen for particle characterisation. Custom software was developed to automatically analyse SEM images and characterise particles using a range of size and shape descriptors.
The isolation and characterisation methods developed in this study were used to investigate the influence of crosslinking, addition of vitamin E and change in molecular architecture on size and morphology of wear debris. All wear particles analysed in this study were found to be predominantly submicron in size. Crosslinking reduced the size of UHMWPE wear debris for particles generated in knee and multidirectional pin-on-plate. Noncrosslinked direct compression moulded (DCM) ArCom UHMWPE generated more elongated and fibrillar wear particles. Higher chain mobility and higher elongation to break was believed to be the reason for this particle morphology. Alternatively, highly crosslinked UHMWPE generated less elongated and more compact shaped particles.
Addition of vitamin E by blending, followed by crosslinking and annealing in ECiMA UHMWPE generated more elongated and fibrillar particles in comparison to vitamin E diffused highly crosslinked (E1) UHMWPE in hip. Multidirectional pin-on-plate wear testing of DCM UHMWPE moulded at 175°C and at 145°C generated similar particle size distribution and shapes.
Influence of type of joint articulation on size and morphology of wear particles was investigated by isolating and characterising E1 UHMWPE wear debris produced by ankle, knee, hip and multistation pin-on-plate articulation. E1 wear particles generated by ankle and knee had similar particle size and morphology. Moreover, both ankle and knee generated submicron as well as large micron sized particles. Submicron sized particles were more round, while large particles were elongated and fibrillar. Alternatively, hip generated mostly submicron-sized particles with rounder morphology. Wear particles generated in multidirectional pin-on-plate tester were also mainly submicron in size. However, morphology of these particles was more fibrillar and elongated.
In conclusion: Crosslinking, method of addition of vitamin E, change in processing conditions and type of joint articulation could influence the size and shape characteristics of UHMWPE wear debris.


Oil palm are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. Many common products and foods are derived from oil palm, its making them one of the most economically important plants. On the other hand, declining supply of raw materials from natural resources has motivated researchers to find alterna - tives to produce new materials from sustainable resources like oil palm. Oil palm waste is possibly an ideal source for cellulose-based natural fibers and particles. Generally, oil palm waste such as oil palm empty fruit bunches, oil palm trunk, oil palm shell and oil palm ash are good source of biomaterials. Lack of sufficient documentation of existing scientific infor - mation about the utilization of oil palm waste raw materials for biomaterial production is the driving force behind the this chapter. Incorporation of various types of biomaterial derived from oil palm waste resources as reinforcement in polymer matrices lead to the development of biocomposites products and this can be used in wide range of potential applications. Properties and characterization of biomaterial from oil palm waste will not only help to promote further study on nanomaterials derived from non-wood materials but also emphasize the importance of commercially exploit oil palm waste for sustainable products.


In the good old days legal bargaining scholarship was based mostly on negotiator war stories exuberantly told. The social-scientific study of the subject did not begin in earnest until the nineteen-seventies. Since then, however, the literature of storytelling has gone into a pronounced eclipse and social-scientific study is now the principal scholarly game in town. This article questions the wisdom of this shift, almost seismic in its proportions, and argues that it is too soon to jump on the social science bandwagon. Discussion focuses on the uses made of the Prospect Theory of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and the Theory's central concept of Anchoring. Anchoring is the most thoroughly analyzed of the Prospect Theory concepts and difficulties encountered in incorporating it into legal bargaining theory will recur many times over in working with other parts of the Prospect Theory framework. It is an exemplary test case.


Interleukins 6 (IL-6) and 12 (IL-12), and the chemoattractant chemokine RANTES were studied in ethmoidal mucosa, using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. The 49 patients had chronic sinusitis or nasal/paranasal polyposis, and some also allergy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrates RANTES and IL-12 on mRNA level in human sinonasal mucosa in situ. mRNA for IL-6, IL-12 and RANTES were detected in 2, 8 and 6 patients with chronic sinusitis, respectively, and in mucosa from patients with polyposis a positive expression was observed in 4, 14 and 10 cases. There were no statistically significant differences. Analysing the entire group of 49 patients, disregarding type of mucosal disease, the number of patients with positive RANTES was significantly higher than that for IL-6. Similarly, IL-12 positivity was more frequently expressed than IL-6. mRNA for IL-6 was expressed in only 2 of the allergic patients. The cytokine production studied thus seems to be unrelated to the clinically defined entities. There is thus a local production in human diseased sinonasal mucosa of RANTES, as well as of IL-6 and IL-12. The local production of RANTES is an important prerequisite for recruitment and migration of inflammatory cells into the tissue. IL-12 is a co-stimulator of antigen-specific responses of established T helper 1 (Th1) clones, and regulates the responsiveness of the clones to a number of T cell growth factors. The study supports a shift towards Th1 cells in these disease entities.


This attempt at a different interpretation of the peasants' syncretic vision was largely the result of the discomfiture with the thesis that peasant rebellion is, for most of the time, restorative. The latter, for all its merits, still assumes heavy constraints on peasant abilities to reconstruct a lost order (if it ever existed) or a destroyed past, or to perceive their thoughts and actions as constricted actions to save the rustic village. Human history, it appears, is replete with instances of exactly the opposite. At the core of this paper is the thesis that peasant consciousness and moral vision are sufficiently variegated and disparate such that to look at rebellion as based on "restorativist" aspirations will only explain a certain--but nevertheless important--aspect of the peasant worldview. The rural world is as complex as any other society and it becomes more intricate as village becomes more and more subsumed within a larger and urban- or town-dominated society.


Membrane filtration is increasingly used for treatment in drinking water supply in Germany. MF and UF are applied processes to remove particles from raw waters of different origin. In the frame of a research project founded by the German Gas-and Waterworks Association (DVGW), a survey has been undertaken among a number of 83 plants that were put into operation until the end of 2006. The aim of the project was to gather technical data and practical experience in a database which should help in the design of future MF/UF plants. In the present paper the most important outcome of this project will be described.


Using two different metal (platinum and Tungsten) depositions on the individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes bridging the spacing between two gold electrodes, we segregate the contributions of change in nanotubes inherent properties and contact-improvement in total conductance enhancement caused by metal deposition. In these experiments, the metals were deposited precisely at the desired locations on the tubes using gas injection system available in the Raith150-Two direct write setup with 3 KeV electron beam induced deposition using organometallic precursor trimethylmethylcyclopentadienyl-platinum (for Pt) and tungsten hexacarbonyl (for W). Typical increment up to 140% to 540% in conductance has been observed after Pt and W metal depositions on the MWNTs. The change in conductance is explained in terms of change in the density of states at Fermi level, due to charge transfer between metal atoms and nanotube as well as by radial stress created on the tube. HRTEM investigation of the metal deposited tubes suggests that metal atoms diffuse within the deep shells of the tube causing increased intershell interactions and hence improved electrical conductance.