For the last three decades, global competition has dramatically changed. Formerly dominating firms from the Triad are facing competition from nearly all over the world. Due to an unprecedented exponential growth of global knowledge production and consumption, no longer do firms rely on go-it-alone strategies. Rather, firms have become proficient in sourcing technologies that are either state of the art or non-available inside their boundaries or they have intensified their activities regarding the external commercialisation of knowledge (mainly technological knowledge). This paper discusses the major drivers and challenges regarding the processes of knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation. And it introduces some of the instruments firms will have to master to compete in the global economy of the 21st century.


China is committed to a very ambitious infrastructure development project, referred to as the 'Belt and Road Initiative'. This involves the implementation of massive infrastructure investments that, among other things, will reduce transportation costs. This paper employs a structural gravity approach to analyze how the reduction in transportation costs between China and the EU would change trade flows and consumer welfare in China, EU and the rest of the World. We also look at how these welfare improvements compare to the gains from signing shallow and deep free trade agreements with the EU, as well as analyzing how the BRI interplays with the US-led mega trade deals: TTIP and TPP. Our results indicate substantial gains from the BRI for China and the EU. A 30 percent reduction in transportation costs between China and the EU would increase the welfare of a representative consumer in China by 1.51 percent and the EU by 0.97 percent. Combining the BRI with a deep FTA would increase welfare by 4.90 and 2.94 percent respectively. Furthermore, the potential negative effect of the TPP on China is more than compensated by the BRI initiative.


PURPOSE
PAX6 is a critical regulator of the developing lens, other ocular tissues, central nervous system, and pancreas. There are two alternatively spliced forms of the protein, PAX6 and PAX6(5a), that may have different regulatory functions. This study was designed to determine the amounts of PAX6 and PAX6(5a) transcripts present in adult human lens epithelium and fibers, human cornea and monkey retina.

METHODS
PAX6 and PAX6(5a) transcript levels were monitored in microdissected lens epithelia, lens fibers, whole lens, cornea, and retina by competitive RT-PCR. The levels of TBP/TFIID were examined in adult human lens epithelium and fibers as control.

RESULTS
PAX6 and PAX6(5a) were expressed at equal levels in lens epithelium and fibers. Ninety-five times more PAX6 transcripts were detected in the epithelial cells than in the fibers. Adult human cornea and monkey retina expressed less PAX6/PAX6(5a) than lens epithelium but more than lens fibers. Correspondingly, 40 fold higher levels of TBP transcripts were detected in lens epithelium than fibers, suggesting reduced overall expression of transcription factors in the adult lens fibers.

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of PAX6 and PAX6(5a) messages and proteins in adult lens epithelium suggest functions for both forms of PAX6 in the growth and maintenance of the adult human lens. The reduced levels of both forms of PAX6 in the lens fibers suggest down regulation of this gene during differentiation of epithelia into fibers. The lower level of TBP expression in lens fibers also suggests reduced transcriptional competence of adult lens fibers.


This paper presents snapshots of a qualitative study that investigated how Year 8 boys in an ethnocentric community school configured their constructions of masculinity. Fifteen boys participated in focus group discussions that extended over a sixweek period. For one focus group, the boys were invited to bring a 'totem', which was an embodiment of their masculinity. The findings from the focus groups revealed both collective and individual constructions and enactments of masculinities that were talked into existence and transmitted through hegemonic discourses. Yet the findings also revealed the boys' individual agency to engage with other ways of doing and being a boy. Key recommendations emerging from the study include the need for boys to have opportunities to talk more openly among themselves about their gendered identities and for access to the thinking and experiences of how masculinity might be conceived within a wider community of practice.


Abstract The relationship between the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) and its cavity-nesting hosts has received little attention because of the assumption that cowbirds rarely parasitize these hosts. We tested the Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis), a host that is sometimes heavily parasitized by cowbirds, for egg ejection behavior. Bluebirds ejected 65% of experimentally added cowbird eggs (n  =  20), but ejected no experimentally added conspecific eggs (n  =  66). This suggests that cowbird parasitism, not conspecific brood parasitism, is the selective pressure responsible for egg ejection in this species. This level of rejection may be conservative because bluebirds nest in dark cavities, which may make cowbird eggs difficult to detect by bluebirds.


Objectives Multimorbidity, defined as the presence of 2 or more chronic medical conditions in an individual, is associated with poorer health outcomes. Several multimorbidity measures exist, and the challenge is to decide which to use preferentially in predicting health outcomes. The study objective was to compare the performance of 5 count-based multimorbidity measures in predicting emergency hospital admission and functional decline in older community-dwelling adults attending primary care. Setting 15 general practices (GPs) in Ireland. Participants n=862, ≥70 years, community-dwellers followed-up for 2 years (2010–2012). Exposure at baseline: Five multimorbidity measures (disease counts, selected conditions counts, Charlson comorbidity index, RxRisk-V, medication counts) calculated using GP medical record and linked national pharmacy claims data. Primary outcomes (1) Emergency admission and ambulatory care sensitive (ACS) admission (GP medical record) and (2) functional decline (postal questionnaire). Statistical analysis Descriptive statistics and measure discrimination (c-statistic, 95% CIs), adjusted for confounders. Results Median age was 77 years and 53% were women. Prevalent rates ranged from 37% to 91% depending on which measure was used to define multimorbidity. All measures demonstrated poor discrimination for the outcome of emergency admission (c-statistic range: 0.62, 0.65), ACS admission (c-statistic range: 0.63, 0.68) and functional decline (c-statistic range: 0.55, 0.61). Medication-based measures were equivalent to diagnosis-based measures. Conclusions The choice of measure may have a significant impact on prevalent rates. Five multimorbidity measures demonstrated poor discrimination in predicting emergency admission and functional decline, with medication-based measures equivalent to diagnosis-based measures. Consideration of multimorbidity in isolation is insufficient for predicting these outcomes in community settings.


Persistent homology has been widely used to study the topology of point clouds in $\mathbb{R}^n$. Standard approaches are very sensitive to outliers, and their computational complexity depends badly on the number of data points. In this paper we introduce a novel persistence module for a point cloud using the theory of Christoffel-Darboux kernels. This module is robust to (statistical) outliers in the data, and can be computed in time linear in the number of data points. We illustrate the benefits and limitations of our new module with various numerical examples in $\mathbb{R}^n$, for $n=1, 2, 3$. Our work expands upon recent applications of Christoffel-Darboux kernels in the context of statistical data analysis and geometric inference (Lasserre, Pauwels and Putinar, 2022). There, these kernels are used to construct a polynomial whose level sets capture the geometry of a point cloud in a precise sense. We show that the persistent homology associated to the sublevel set filtration of this polynomial is stable with respect to the Wasserstein distance. Moreover, we show that the persistent homology of this filtration can be computed in singly exponential time in the ambient dimension $n$, using a recent algorithm of Basu&Karisani (2022).


In April 2008 the European Commission published a "White Paper on Damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules" (COM2008 (165) final). This article focuses mainly on two issues: the passing-on defence and standing of indirect purchasers and the compatibility of efforts to enhance the effectiveness of private actions for damages with leniency programmes offered by the EC Commission and national competition authorities. As regards the passing-on defence and the standing of indirect purchasers, it is argued that the EC Commission's approach in the white paper is in theory the best solution. Yet, due to practical reasons it is suggested that in principle the passing-on defence should not be accepted and that indirect purchasers should not be encouraged to sue. In order to avoid a conflict with the ECJ's decisions in Courage und Manfredi, indirect purchasers should however not be categorically denied standing but only be discouraged from claiming damages by, for example, not alleviating their burden of proof. Regarding the compatibility of the efforts to promote private enforcement with the leniency programmes, the EC Commission's suggestion to limit "the civil liability of the immunity recipient to claims by his direct and indirect contractual partners" is not considered a viable solution. In this paper it is argued that the best way to avoid a conflict of aims is to modify the way liability is apportioned between the cartel members, i.e. between the infringers of EC competition law who are jointly and severally liable towards the victims. German law apportions liability equally between joint tortfeasors, unless otherwise provided (section 426 I 1 BGB). This paper shows that for the apportionment of liability between joint tortfeasors, German law can take into account both the cartel member's market share (thus incorporating the EC Commission's approach because the damages suffered by direct and indirect purchasers reflect the cartel member's market share) and the cartel member's contribution to uncovering the cartel. The latter aspect leads to the suggestion that a reduction in the fine imposed on a cartel member should lead to a parallel reduction in the cartel member's share of liability as compared to the other members of the cartel. The joint and several liability of all tortfeasors, including the successful leniency applicants', towards the victims remains unchanged. De lege ferenda, however, it also seems justified to reduce the successful leniency applicants' liability towards the victims of the cartel accordingly. This conclusion is based upon the fact that the leniency applicants give the victims something in return: the victims receive the information necessary for them to recover their damages. This approach, that was developed using German law as an example, should also work in other jurisdictions. It is a common legal principle that joint tortfeasors are jointly and severally liable towards their victims and that the liability as between the tortfeasors is apportioned according to the circumstances of the case.


This study considers the critique of American exceptionalism in Toni Morrison's Paradise and Beloved. While much African American fiction, particularly classic slave narratives, employ critiques of exceptionalism, most of these critiques appeal to the nation's failure to live up to its claims of greatness. These critiques focus on the hypocrisy of a nation that makes claims to American greatness despite the nation's racial exclusions and inequalities. Morrison's critical and creative work, on the other hand, suggests the interlocking racial, gender, and economic oppression of African Americans is absolutely crucial to the development and maintenance of America's exceptionalist ethos. Defining themselves against its black population, European America, Morrison argues, was able to develop a powerful exceptionalist self-image. From this perspective American racial, imperialist, and sexual domination is not a contradiction of but is instead inevitably implicated in American exceptionalism. Using Morrison's critical work as a starting point and methodological framework I investigate the various ways exceptionalism is registered in the two novels. Chapter 1 outlines the history of exceptionalism drawing out the key points of its development from the Puritans through the twentieth century, particularly as this mythology was employed in the field of literary studies. Outlining Morrison's critical work on the nation and the "Africanist presence" alongside her self-professed use of paradoxically pregnant silences, I lay the groundwork for an investigation into the two novels' unwillingness to use exceptionalist rhetoric to advance the cause of social justice. Chapter 2 discusses Beloved's historical context and the resurgence of the exceptionalist mythology in the Reagan years when the achievements of Civil Rights were being undermined by neo-conservatism. This context, along with a discussion of the generic codes of the slave narrative, frame a consideration of Beloved's lack of overt appeal to the mythology, a pregnant silence that strategically undermines the idea that America, because it abolished slavery and granted Civil Rights, is a model of freedom and democracy, an exceptional nation on the world stage. Chapter 3 reflects upon Paradise as a critique of exceptionalism as a misogynist mythology that both justifies and produces war and imperialism. The chapter draws out the links Paradise makes between domestic racism and imperialist wars abroad by way of Morrison's consideration of exceptionalism. Ultimately, Morrison's work offers an imaginative, critical contextualization for the contemporary American wars of aggression and the current resurgence of the exceptionalist mythology.


With the passage of the 1996 welfare reform, not only welfare, but poverty and inequality have disappeared from the political discourse. The decline in the welfare rolls has been hailed as a success. This book challenges that assumption. It argues that while many single mothers left welfare, they have joined the working poor, and fail to make a decent living. The book examines the persistent demonization of poor single-mother families; the impact of the low-wage market on perpetuating poverty and inequality; and the role of the welfare bureaucracy in defining deserving and undeserving poor. It argues that the emphasis on family values - marriage promotion, sex education and abstinence - is misguided and diverts attention from the economic hardships low-income families face. The book proposes an alternative approach to reducing poverty and inequality that centers on a children's allowance as basic income support coupled with jobs and universal child care.


It is March, 2006. At a sit-in for the "Disappeared" in downtown Beirut, an old woman describes the abduction of her teenage son by the Syrians in 1978. She is still waiting to learn his fate. For such a woman - and there are many such women - the trauma of the Lebanese civil war has not yet ended. In this unusual and poignant book, author Teresa Thornhill explores Beirut and its hinterland. In conversations with housewives, intellectuals, fishermen, and taxi drivers, Thornhill attempts to understand how the Lebanese - from various sects which make up this small country, including Druze, Christian, Shi'a, and Sunni - live with their memories of the war, how they feel about each other, and how they view the Palestinian refugees who live among them.


OBJECTIVE: To examine circumstances of allergic reactions to foods in a cohort of preschool-aged children. METHODS: We conducted a prospective, 5-site observational study of 512 infants aged 3 to 15 months with documented or likely allergy to milk or egg, and collected data prospectively examining allergic reactions. RESULTS: Over a median follow-up of 36 months (range: 0–48.4), the annualized reaction rate was 0.81 per year (367/512 subjects reporting 1171 reactions [95% confidence interval: 0.76–0.85]). Overall, 269/512 (52.5%) reported >1 reaction. The majority of reactions (71.2%) were triggered by milk (495 [42.3%]), egg (246 [21.0%]), and peanut (93 [7.9%]), with accidental exposures attributed to unintentional ingestion, label-reading errors, and cross-contact. Foods were provided by persons other than parents in 50.6% of reactions. Of 834 reactions to milk, egg, or peanut, 93 (11.2%) were attributed to purposeful exposures to these avoided foods. A higher number of food allergies (P < .0001) and higher food-specific immunoglobulin E (P < .0001) were associated with reactions. Of the 11.4% of reactions (n = 134) that were severe, 29.9% were treated with epinephrine. Factors resulting in undertreatment included lack of recognition of severity, epinephrine being unavailable, and fears about epinephrine administration. CONCLUSIONS: There was a high frequency of reactions caused by accidental and nonaccidental exposures. Undertreatment of severe reactions with epinephrine was a substantial problem. Areas for improved education include the need for constant vigilance, accurate label reading, avoidance of nonaccidental exposure, prevention of cross-contamination, appropriate epinephrine administration, and education of all caretakers.


How does one turn a cinematic passion into an academic thesis? This is the question that runs through my work, which is both a labour of love and a series of love letters. Does one, can one, tell the truth about one's love object? Written in solitude about the darkened passions of
the cinema, and the commodified reenactment via DVD and video, it seeks to locate this body of work, organized under the signifier David Lynch, within a broader cultural history of film and art, rather than, as so many chronologically based studies have done, to assess the
individual films and then collectively to remark upon the auteur's signature. Instead, it seeks to experience again, or anew, the ontological strangeness of film within the saturated market place, and observe how, in this body of work, the normative framework of the North American film industry is disturbed from inside by a practice which explores and critically examines the creative potential of the medium within the constraints of the capitalist mode of
production and consumption.
Taking Roland Barthes' neologism of the theory of the text as a hyphology as its means of organization, the thesis presents a series of chapters which consider separate
concepts or ideas about these films which, although appearing freestanding, come together in the final chapter in this web of engagement with Lynch's cinema and critical theory.
In the final analysis, the work reflects upon a range of approaches to its subject to conclude that the solitary, or seemingly isolated, experience of film is itself socially, culturally and politically important and tells us a great deal about contemporary subjectivity.


A variable pinhole (VP) collimator is formed by stacking several tungsten plates with different apertures. The configuration of the VP can be optimized for target region-of-interests at different rotation angles. Hence, both the resolution and sensitivity of the system can be improved. However, it is difficult to analytically implement the exact system model that simulates the step shapes between adjacent layers. In this study, we compared the conventional keel-edge and knife-edge pinhole models with the VP model using simulations. The keel-edge and knife-edge models were evaluated based on various specifications to identify the optimum system model. The simulation results showed that the keel-edge model with 80% channel length (keel-edge 80%) elicits the best performance with a fixed acceptance angle and pinhole plate thickness. The results in this study are expected to be applied to full-scale SPECT with a VP collimator which is currently under development.


The mangrove forest is one of the unique and distinctive tropical forest ecosystems because it is a meeting between land and ocean ecosystems. Area of mangrove ecosystems in Bengkalis districtis in Teluk Pambang Village. Reduced width of mangrove forest located in Teluk Pambang Village, Bantan Subdistrict, Bengkalis districtis caused by changes in land use and land functions through a variety of activities of mangrove land conversion. Steps to anticipate the decline in value of mangrove forest ecosystems is by developing ecotourism activities. This study aims to determine the feasibility of the mangrove ecosystem in the Teluk Pambang village, as the object of ecotourism and determine public perceptions of the mangrove ecotourism in Teluk Pambang Village. The method used in analyzing the feasibility of the mangrove ecosystem as an object of ecotourism is based on the analysis of suitability for Yulianda (2007) tour mangrove ecosystems with the results obtained in the natural potential of the field then tabulated. Then, to determine the index of feasibility can be use dequation: IKW =  [Ni/Nmaks] x 100%, for the public perception of ecotourism analyzed descriptively qualitative. The results of this study indicated that the mangrove forest ecosystems in the Teluk Pambang Village included in the category of very decent (SI) for the mangrove ecotourism development. At Station I a value of IKW was 81.57%, Station II the value IKW 94.73%, while the Station III the value IKW 90.78%. The public perception of the ecotourism of mangrove forest in Teluk Pambang village was quite good, so it becomes a the main attraction to be developed as ecotourism and the community a greed that this location is used as a ecotourism of mangrove. Keywords : Feasibility , Mangrove Ecosystems , Ecotourism.


Mobility is an important part of life for those who practice a variety of economic strategies including foraging, pastoralism, craft production, service provision, and performance. Studies of mobility can contribute to broader understandings of social networks, community formation, and social identity in South Asia during the first few millennia b.c ., a time of early social complexity. Previous ethnographic and archaeological research in the region shows a range of ways that mobile people form relationships with those who are more settled. In contrast to research that studies mobile people through the lens of sedentism, this study examines mobility directly, by focusing on the direction, range, and patterns of movement of the people who inhabited the site of Bagor (c. 5500 b.c. –a.d . 200) in Rajasthan, India. For much of its occupation, Bagor was used as a temporary camp by people with a high degree of mobility and a broad range of subsistence strategies. Although the links between Bagor and nearby permanent settlements have been clearly demonstrated, the direction, extent, and range of their movements during different time periods was previously unknown. This study examines the lithic raw materials from the 2001 re-excavations conducted by Deccan College (Pune) and pairs those results with a new survey of stone material sources in the region. Visual raw material analysis of the Bagor lithics indicate that local materials outnumber non-local materials and that approximately one-third of the Bagor chert artifacts may have come from regions to the south and southeast. In later time periods the use of non-local materials declines, which may reflect corresponding shifts in mobility. A comparison of the raw material distribution with the artifacts from Gilund, a contemporary sedentary settlement, shows a difference between their uses of raw material. Gilund utilized more local materials, and fewer non-local materials than Bagor.


Prior to the collapse of communism, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese migrants arrived in various localities throughout COMECON countries by way of programs of mutual cooperation and "socialist solidarity," including East Germany. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, many former contract workers have become entrepreneurs mostly engaged in wholesaling and retailing. Local markets, increasingly comprised of diverse peoples, play key roles in postsocialist economic development while transnationally linking a variety of geographical and sociocultural spaces. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in bazaars in Berlin, Prague, and Warsaw, this paper addresses questions of spatial continuities between the socialist past and the postsocialist present, mobility and transnational social and economic practices, and bazaars as sites of power and conflict. In English, extended summary in Russian .


The aim of this study was to investigate the lived experience of forgiveness or unforgiveness in individuals who had been victims of violent crime. 6 participants who had experienced violent crime underwent an in-depth interview (Silverman, 2000) aimed at gathering descriptions of their life world with respect to their experience of forgiveness/unforgiveness. The method used to analyse the transcriptions was Giorgi's ( 1 985) phenomenological method adapted slightly by Wertz ( 1 985 as cited in Giorgi, 1 985). Findings indicated that the capacity to forgive is associated with the way in which individuals see themselves, others, their world and their perpetrators. Results were discussed with reference to the literature reviewed and an Object Relations Theoretical framework was introduced in order to explain and illuminate some of the findings. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future research.


The Midrash on Proverbs, a ninth-century collection of rabbinical commentary on the Book of Proverbs, is now available to English-speaking audiences for the first time. Burton L. Visotzky here provides a lucid translation of the work from his annotated critical edition of the Hebrew text, Midrash Mishle. Midrash Mishle is a watershed in midrashic literature, for it marks the point at which broader forms of classical midrash on the Scriptures gave way to verse-by-verse commentary. It is unlike most earlier midrash in that it regularly pays attention to context, relates verses to each other, provides comments on apparently simple meanings of verses, and philologically considers the meaning of specific terms. At the same time, it resembles earlier midrash by considering narrative legends--offering, for example, fanciful versions of Solomon's meeting with the Queen of Sheba, the death of Moses, and Joseph's encounter with his brothers. It also alludes to medieval Jewish law and custom, anti-Karaite polemic, and rabbinic mysticism (with its esoteric speculations on such subjects as the measurements of God's body). Visotzky's volume illuminates all these subjects for the scholar and non-specialist alike in a prose translation that mirrors the style of the original Midrash Mishle text. His introduction to the volume sets it in the wider context of Jewish hermeneutics of the Bible.


A goal of evidence-based software engineering is to provide a means by which industry practitioners can make rational decisions about technology adoption. When a technology is mature enough for potential widespread use, practitioners find empirical evidence most compelling when the study has taken place in a live, industrial situation in an environment comparable to their own. However, empirical software engineering is in need of guidelines and standards to direct industrial case studies so that the results of this research are valuable and can be combined into an evidentiary base. In this paper, we present a high-level view of a measurement framework that has been used with multiple agile software development industrial case studies. We propose that this technology-dependent framework can be used as a strawman for a guideline of data collection, analysis, and reporting of industrial case studies. Our goal in offering the framework as a strawman is to solicit input from the community on a guideline for the essential components of a technology-dependent framework for industrial case study research.


DNA hypermethylation of promoter CpG islands is associated with epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs). We used a methyl-CpG-binding domain protein capture method coupled with next-generation sequencing (MBDCap-seq) to survey global DNA methylation patterns in OSCCs with and without nodal metastasis and normal mucosa (total n = 58). Of 1462 differentially methylated CpG islands identified in OSCCs relative to normal controls, MBDCap-seq profiling uncovered 359 loci linked to lymph node metastasis. Interactive network analysis revealed a subset of these loci (n = 23), including the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene, are potential regulators and effectors of invasiveness and metastatic progression. Promoter methylation of ALK was preferentially observed in OSCCs without node metastasis, whereas relatively lower methylation levels were present in metastatic tumors, implicating an active state of ALK transcription in the latter group. The OSCC cell line, SCC4, displayed reduced ALK expression that corresponded to extensive promoter CpG island methylation. SCC4 treatment with demethylating agents induced ALK expression and increased invasion and migration characteristics. Inhibition of ALK activity in OSCC cells with high ALK expression (CAL27, HSC3 and SCC25), decreased cell growth and resulted in changes in invasive potential and mesenchymal marker expression that were cell-line dependent. Although ALK is susceptible to epigenetic silencing during oral tumorigenesis, overwriting this default state may be necessary for modulating invasive processes involved in nodal metastases. Given the complex response of OSCC cells to ALK inhibition, future studies are required to assess the feasibility of targeting ALK to treat invasive OSCCs.


Through a Multiple Marginality Framework, this exploratory case study highlights how African American male youth in an urban high school setting perceive the opportunity structure during the historic election of the first African American President. Youth optimism generated by Obama's election gives students a sense of hope despite the persistent inequality they face in inner-city communities and schools. Findings suggest that the pervasive influence of both structural and cultural factors—such as poverty, racial ideology, racial tracking in schools, and street socialization—help explain students' aspirations and constrained expectations to pursue professional athletics. The implications of this study call for a reemphasis on the relevancy of school and community factors and influences in improving the perceptions of opportunity for African American males.


Foundational changes at the intersection of technology, society, law, and behavior are disrupting and energizing large institutions, impacting the educational technologies and student privacy landscape at lightning speed. Greater levels of connectivity and participation are raising questions about how best to navigate new types of learning environments, how best to engage in data-driven decision-making, and how best to ensure channels for positive collaboration in decision-making. This research briefing builds upon student privacy research and activities, and aims to translate these into practical take-aways. The briefing provides a map of the current digital learning ecosystem in the U.S. primary and secondary space, surveys at a high-level critical issues in the ed tech and student privacy space, and outlines key tools and opportunities for decision-makers.


The generic debate surrounding Gravity's Rainbow can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, there are critics such as Palmeri, Weisenburger ( Fables ), Seidel, Morgan, and Kharpertian, who have argued that Pynchon's novel fits in with the tradition of the Menippean satire. Drawing attention to the subtle and intricate ways in which Pynchon's third novel parodies and aggrandizes the discourse of the power elites, these critics see Gravity's Rainbow as the latest exponent of a long and particularly illuminating tradition of the literary gadfly, which runs from Petronius, over Francois Rabelais and Jonathan Swift, to Pynchon. The defining characteristic of Gravity's Rainbow for these critics, is, as Kharpertian puts it, "the critical exposure of official cultural institutions and demystification of power [as well as] the focus on the ugly, the painful and the ridiculous" (108-9). A second group of scholars, while hardly oblivious to Gravity's Rainbow's satirical dimension, defines Pynchon's generic affiliation instead in terms of the encyclopedic narrative. In the wake of Edward Mendelson's influential essay "Gravity's Encyclopedia," these critics, including LeClair and Hite, have pointed out that what is central to Pynchon's novel is the broadly conceived vision of the world that it offers. Like the original eighteenth-century Encyclopedie of Diderot and D'Alembert, Pynchon's novel bespeaks a summative gesture that tries to envelop all the variety and richness of the world between the covers of one book, complete with mathematical formulas, foreign alphabets, and explanatory illustrations. As Mendelson himself put it, "[e]ncyclopedic narratives attempt to render the full range of knowledge and beliefs of a national culture, while identifying the ideological perspectives from which that culture shapes and interprets its knowledge" (30). Whether or not this encyclopedic vision mirrors the summations fostered by the works of Dante and Shakespeare, as Mendelson originally argued, or whether Gravity's Rainbow should instead be read as a postmodern deconstruction of the very idea of summation and order, remains a topic of critical debate. Yet, what is clear to both groups, as well as to those who locate Gravity's Rainbow in the satirical tradition of Gargantua and Pantagruel, is that, when trying to define Pynchon's novel generically, size matters.


The rapid proliferation of wireless sensor networks has stimulated enormous research efforts that aim to maximize the lifetime of battery-powered sensor nodes and, by extension, the overall network lifetime. Most work in this field can be divided into two equally important threads, namely (i) energy-efficient routing that balances traffic load across the network according to energy-related metrics and (ii) sleep scheduling that reduces energy cost due to idle listening by providing periodic sleep cycles for sensor nodes. To date, these two threads are pursued separately in the literature, leading to designs that optimize one component assuming the other is pre-determined. Such designs give rise to practical difficulty in determining the appropriate routing and sleep scheduling schemes in the real deployment of sensor networks, as neither component can be optimized without pre-fixing the other one. This paper endeavors to address the lack of a joint routing-and-sleep-scheduling scheme in the literature by incorporating the design of the two components into one optimization framework. Notably, joint routing-and-sleep-scheduling by itself is a non-convex optimization problem, which is difficult to solve. We tackle the problem by transforming it into an equivalent Signomial Program (SP) through relaxing the flow conservation constraints. The SP problem is then solved by an iterative Geometric Programming (IGP) method, yielding an near optimal routing-and-sleep-scheduling scheme that maximizes network lifetime. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to obtain the optimal joint routing-and-sleep-scheduling strategy for wireless sensor networks. The near optimal solution provided by this work opens up new possibilities for designing practical and heuristic schemes targeting the same problem, for now the performance of any new heuristics can be easily evaluated by using the proposed near optimal scheme as a benchmark.


There are numerous text documents available in electronic form. More and more are becoming available every day. Such documents represent a massive amount of information that is easily accessible. Seeking value in this huge collection requires organization; much of the work of organizing documents can be automated through text classification. The accuracy and our understanding of such systems greatly influences their usefulness. In this paper, we seek 1) to advance the understanding of commonly used text classification techniques, and 2) through that understanding, improve the tools that are available for text classification. We begin by clarifying the assumptions made in the derivation of Naive Bayes, noting basic properties and proposing ways for its extension and improvement. Next, we investigate the quality of Naive Bayes parameter estimates and their impact on classification. Our analysis leads to a theorem which gives an explanation for the improvements that can be found in multiclass classification with Naive Bayes using Error-Correcting Output Codes. We use experimental evidence on two commonly-used data sets to exhibit an application of the theorem. Finally, we show fundamental flaws in a commonly-used feature selection algorithm and develop a statistics-based framework for text feature selection. Greater understanding of Naive Bayes and the properties of text allows us to make better use of it in text classification. Thesis Supervisor: Tommi Jaakkola Title: Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science


The pseudo-periodicity of voiced speech can be exploited in several speech processing applications. This requires however that the precise locations of the glottal closure instants (GCIs) are available. The focus of this paper is the evaluation of automatic methods for the detection of GCIs directly from the speech waveform. Five state-of-the-art GCI detection algorithms are compared using six different databases with contemporaneous electroglottographic recordings as ground truth, and containing many hours of speech by multiple speakers. The five techniques compared are the Hilbert Envelope-based detection (HE), the Zero Frequency Resonator-based method (ZFR), the Dynamic Programming Phase Slope Algorithm (DYPSA), the Speech Event Detection using the Residual Excitation And a Mean-based Signal (SEDREAMS) and the Yet Another GCI Algorithm (YAGA). The efficacy of these methods is first evaluated on clean speech, both in terms of reliabililty and accuracy. Their robustness to additive noise and to reverberation is also assessed. A further contribution of the paper is the evaluation of their performance on a concrete application of speech processing: the causal-anticausal decomposition of speech. It is shown that for clean speech, SEDREAMS and YAGA are the best performing techniques, both in terms of identification rate and accuracy. ZFR and SEDREAMS also show a superior robustness to additive noise and reverberation.


Riparian vegetation plays a crucial role in riverine ecosystems, providing many types of benefits to nature and humanity. However, a high vegetation density can reduce the conveyance capacity of a watercourse, particularly in the case of shrubs, which are very common within riverbeds and widely used in river and channel restoration works. In this paper, we study the influence of three species of shrubs (white and goat willows and black alder) on the hydraulic resistance factor of a real-scale channel under controlled flow conditions. A system for the anchorage of shrubs to the channel bed allowed us to carry out repeated experiments with the three plant species and with varying plant densities and flow rates. The experimental results provided a range of values for the additional contribution of the vegetation to the hydraulic resistance factor from 0.004 to 0.071 m–1/3s, in terms of Manning's coefficient. This variability is related to the vegetation setup (plant species and density) but also to the increasingly hydrodynamic configuration assumed by plants at higher flow velocities and submergence ratios. We found that these factors can be summarised quite effectively by the product of elasticity (E), plant density (M), and plant area index (PAI). At small (E∙M∙PAI) values (<108) the resistance coefficient is less than 0.01, while it increases of up to one order of magnitude when (E∙M∙PAI) exceeds 1010. Furthermore, our results show a distinct two-stage trend of the value of the additional contribution to the n coefficient of a given vegetation setup at varying velocities and submergence levels, with values decreasing when a threshold of velocity and submergence ratio is exceeded. The position of this threshold point appears to be related to the geometrical and mechanical characteristics of the plants. Although our experiments do not provide enough data to identify a functional relationship between n and specific characteristics of the plants and of the flow, they show that the effect of shrubs on hydraulic resistance is highly variable with the flow conditions and that the conveyance capacity may be significantly larger than expected.


The objective set by the IPPC of limiting the increase in average global temperature to +2°C compared to the preindustrial era is now accepted by all concerned. This ambitious objective was recognised at the Copenhagen Conference in 2009 and confirmed at Cancun in 2010. There are still no restrictive measures, but to achieve this objective, the main countries contributing to the emissions have already announced their commitment to reducing their emissions by 2020. The aim of this Newsletter is firstly to gain a better understanding of what this objective involves in terms of reducing global emissions over the next ten years. It will be then go on to assess whether the measures taken by the various countries are sufficient.


CD4 cells fight infections in the body. When someone contacts Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), their CD4 cells are taken over by HIV which turns them into manufacturers of many copies of the virus. The Viral Load (VL) measures the amount of virus in the blood. When HIV takes over the CD4 cells, the VL increases while the number of necessary CD4 cells decreases. When patients maintain stable treatment, their CD4 counts rise, and VLs may become undetectable, indicating the virus is too little to be detected in their blood. Knowing this, is frequent CD4 counts necessary for those with undetectable viral loads? We hypothesized that a lot of money can be saved by not performing CD4 counts in HIV patients that have undetectable VLs. In Rhode Island, of the 2,000-3,000 people with HIV/AIDS, 1,500-2,000 are being treated. About 69% (average: 1,208) have undetectable VLs. Health organizations recommend CD4 counts be administered every 3-6 months. With the cost of CD4 tests averaging $53, the frequency of testing can be costly. If undetectable patients get tested quarterly, the average cost would be $256,096. If tested every 6 months, the average cost would be $128,048. Based on these calculations, if these tests were eliminated, Rhode Island could save substantial amounts of money over time. Eliminating tests for undetectable patients (abiding by the recommended 6 month checkup) would save an average of $128,048 annually, an average of $640,240 over 5 years, and an average of $1,280,480 over 10 years.


INTRODUCTION Data management is becoming increasingly important to researchers in all fields. The E-Science Working Group designed a survey to investigate how researchers at Northwestern University currently manage data and to help determine their future needs regarding data management. METHODS A 21-question survey was distributed to approximately 12,940 faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral candidates, and selected research-affiliated staff at Northwestern's Evanston and Chicago Campuses. Survey questions solicited information regarding types and size of data, current and future needs for data storage, data retention and data sharing, what researchers are doing (or not doing) regarding data management planning, and types of training or assistance needed. There were 831 responses and 788 respondents completed the survey, for a response rate of approximately 6.4%. RESULTS Survey results indicate investigators need both short and long term storage and preservation solutions. However, 31% of respondents did not know how much storage they will require. This means that establishing a correctly sized research storage service will be difficult. Additionally, research data is stored on local hard drives, departmental servers or equipment hard drives. These types of storage solutions limit data sharing and long term preservation. Data sharing tends to occur within a research group or with collaborators prior to publication, expanding to more public availability after publication. Survey responses also indicate a need to provide increased consulting and support services, most notably for data management planning, awareness of regulatory requirements, and use of research software. External Data or Supplements: Buys, Cunera M.; Shaw, Pamela, L., 2015, "Northwestern University Data Management Survey", http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZMZ5RD , Harvard Dataverse.


Soft Pneumatic Actuator skin (SPA-skin) is a novel concept of ultra-thin (<; 1 mm) sensor embedded actuators with distributed actuation points that could cover soft bodies. This highly customizable and flexible SPA-skin is ideal for providing proprioceptive sensing by covering pre-existing structures and robots bodies. Having few limitation of the surface quality, dynamics, or shape, these mechanical attributes allow potential applications in autonomous flexible braille, active surface pattern reconfiguration, distributed actuation and sensing for tactile interface improvements. In this paper, the authors present a proof-of-concept SPA-skin. The mechanical parameters, design criteria, sensor selection, and actuator construction process are illustrated. Two control schemes, actuation mode and force sensing mode, are also demonstrated with the latest prototype.


Maintenance of genome stability in the face of DNA damage is essential for cellular homeostasis and prevention of cancer and brain degeneration. The DNA damage response (DDR) is a complex response that is rapidly activated when a DNA lesion occurs in chromosomal DNA. Mutations affecting the proteins involved in the DDR can lead to genomic instability syndromes that involve tissue degeneration, cancer predisposition, premature aging, and brain mal-development and degeneration. Mutation of the kinase ATM leads to a prototype genomic instability syndrome, ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). A-T is characterized by progressive cerebellar degeneration, immunodeficiency, genome instability, premature aging, gonadal dysgenesis, extreme radiosensitivity, and high incidence of lymphoreticular malignancies. One of the most devastating symptoms of A-T — cerebellar ataxia — develops progressively into general motor dysfunction. Based on our previous studies we hypothesized that the neurological deficits in genomic instability disorders stem (at least in part) from significant reduction in functionality of glial cells. We further hypothesized that impaired vascularization affects the environment in which the neurons and glial cells function, thereby reducing neuronal cell functionality. We found that ATM deficiency led to aberrant astrocytic morphology and alterations of vasculature both in cerebellum and the visual system. Moreover, we found reduced myelin basic protein immunoreactivity and signs of inflammation in ATM-deficient cerebella and optic nerve. Interestingly, similar findings have been reported in patients with other genomic instability disorders. These observations bolster the notion that astrocyte-specific pathologies and hampered vascularization and astrocyte-neuron interactions in the CNS play crucial roles in the etiology of genome instability brain disorders and underlie brain degeneration at specific sites.


Israel's recent release of a large number of convicted terrorists in return for a single Israeli soldier has struck many as odd. The great value that the country's leaders ascribe to protecting its soldiers from enemy captivity also finds reflections in military policies disclosed by its conduct during the 2008-09 operation Cast Lead in Gaza. In failing to understand the defensible rationale for such policies, critics have charged Israel with causing disproportionate civilian harm, in violation of international criminal and humanitarian law. This Article explains and justifies how Israel came to place such priority on safeguarding its soldiers. We then show that its priorities in this regard are both consistent with such law and more widely shared by other democratic states than generally acknowledged.


The authors survey high-level approaches to test generation for VLSI circuits, which can significantly reduce test generation time while still providing good fault coverage. High-level approaches view the circuit with less structural detail, that is, from a more abstract viewpoint and often hierarchically. The authors first review some basic circuit and fault models and the two most widely known test-generation algorithms as a basis for comparison between high-level and low-level techniques. The authors then examine the more important high-level approaches, which fall into two broad classes, namely algorithmic and heuristic.<<ETX>>


Temperature, pressure, and time have been thought to control the smectite-to-illite (S-I) reaction, an important diagenetic process used for petroleum exploration. We demonstrated that microorganisms can promote the S-I reaction by dissolving smectite through reduction of structural Fe(III) at room temperature and 1atmosphere within 14 days. This reaction typically requires conditions of 300° to 350°C, 100 megapascals, and 4 to 5 months in the absence of microbial activity. These results challenge the conventional concept of the S-I reaction and of reaction kinetic models.


This Article argues that the failure of anti-discrimination law to address the problems of subordination reflects the hegemonic perspective in legal narratives. For the lawyer concerned with social change, it is imperative to identify these narratives and the ways in which they not only inhibit deep social change, but may perpetuate the conditions of subordination. Yet, law school polices against the consciousness necessary for the lawyer to identify the hegemonic narrative in the law, and often instills attitudes which are antithetical to the project of social change. In this context, Street Law - a practical law course taught by law students to high school students in inner city neighborhoods and juvenile facilities - is an arena for the development of counter-hegemonic consciousness in the lawyer and in subordinated communities.Literature on narrative from the legal and social science communities informs this analysis. Part I is the Introduction. Part II conceptualizes the classroom as a narrative moment in which legal text, interpretation and experience come together, and then establishes a framework for analyzing these elements. First, the Castlemont community in Oakland, California where the author taught Street Law is characterized as illustrating conditions of social marginalization and subordination. Next, the concept of narrative is defined in greater detail, and Ewick and Silbey's theory of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic narrative is introduced. Lastly, this Part analyzes the narrative of discrimination offered by anti-discrimination law as hegemonic.Part III explores how legal education thwarts development of the consciousness and skills a lawyer needs to work for social change. First, the conditions associated with counter-hegemonic consciousness are discussed. Next, this Part argues that the objective viewpoint of the law is hegemonic in nature. The manifestation of this viewpoint in law school hinders the development of counter-hegemonic consciousness in persons of the law, instills attitudes which thwart the project of social change, and leads to widespread alienation - particularly among students with viewpoints that are marginalized within law school.Finally, Part IV returns to the Street Law classroom, and the nature of the opportunity Street Law presents for a person of the law and her students. This Part suggests that Street Law is an opportunity to develop the consciousness and other qualities necessary for social justice lawyering. This Part also suggests that subjectivity is an appropriate methodology to employ in developing a pedagogy which encourages counter-hegemonic consciousness in the Street Law classroom.


Respiratory epithelial cells are actively involved in the host defence and inflammatory reactions of the airways. Nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) is a transcription factor that plays a pivotal role in many cellular responses to environmental changes. The inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) isoform has been implicated in airway inflammation as well as in normal airway function. In this study, the hypothesis that NF-kappaB may be associated with iNOS expression in airway epithelium, not only in inflammatory processes but also under physiological conditions was examined. NF-kappaB deoxyribonucleic acid-binding activity was assayed by means of electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and iNOS expression examined using immunohistochemical techniques in healthy nasal mucosa and chronically inflamed nasal polyps. Further NF-kappaB activity was assayed; by means of EMSA, in nasal epithelial cells isolated from both tissues. NF-kappaB was activated in nasal polyps, but also to the same extent in healthy nasal mucosa. Uniform iNOS expression was localized within the airway epithelium in both inflamed and noninflamed tissues. Along with iNOS expression, concomitant NF-kappaB activation was found in nasal epithelial cells obtained from both tissues and no differences were observed when nasal mucosa and nasal polyp were compared. These results suggest that constitutive nuclear factor-kappaB and concurrent inducible nitric oxide synthase expression in epithelial cells may play a physiological role in airway function.


We analyze a sequential decision making model in which decision makers (or, players) take their decisions based on their own private information as well as the actions of previous decision makers. Such decision making processes often lead to what is known as the \emph{information cascade} or \emph{herding} phenomenon. Specifically, a cascade develops when it seems rational for some players to abandon their own private information and imitate the actions of earlier players. The risk, however, is that if the initial decisions were wrong, then the whole cascade will be wrong. Nonetheless, information cascade are known to be fragile: there exists a sequence of \emph{revealing} probabilities $\{p_{\ell}\}_{\ell\geq1}$, such that if with probability $p_{\ell}$ player $\ell$ ignores the decisions of previous players, and rely on his private information only, then wrong cascades can be avoided. Previous related papers which study the fragility of information cascades always assume that the revealing probabilities are known to all players perfectly, which might be unrealistic in practice. Accordingly, in this paper we study a mismatch model where players believe that the revealing probabilities are $\{q_\ell\}_{\ell\in\mathbb{N}}$ when they truly are $\{p_\ell\}_{\ell\in\mathbb{N}}$, and study the effect of this mismatch on information cascades. We consider both adversarial and probabilistic sequential decision making models, and derive closed-form expressions for the optimal learning rates at which the error probability associated with a certain decision maker goes to zero. We prove several novel phase transitions in the behaviour of the asymptotic learning rate.


The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was established by the UN Security Council on 25 October 1999 to administer the territory of East Timor towards independence in the wake of its violent separation from Indonesia. UNTAET largely fulfilled the elements of the security and governance mandate conferred on it by the Security Council, but this was not sufficient to create the conditions for lasting stability in the territory in the absence of a positive internal political settlement. In the process of constructing the machinery for the new state, UNTAET influenced the character of the political settlement that was taking shape across Timor's elites and the wider society in unintended ways. To demonstrate this, this article considers three areas: the political space that opened up under UNTAET; the organization of the transitional government; and constitution-making for the future state of Timor-Leste. The article concludes that UNTAET misread the local context, leading it to pay insufficient attention to the complex political dynamic playing out around it and to the profound institutional consequences of its policy choices.


Authors launch into a polemic with an accusation that humanists are responsible for unemployment as a result of education of an overabundant number of students on humanistic faculties, who are left without any job after their studies. However, the graduates in humanities are not worse than the graduates in sciences; they are just as good as them, or sometimes even better in handling with the contemporary reality. Humanists are not responsible for the too low number of high school graduates choosing studies in the field of mathematics or chemistry. The problem arose in result of the precipitant decision taken after 1989 to close vocational schools, technical schools, professional high schools and to direct the youth to academic studies in order to postpone, at least for few years, a problem of the unemployment. It was also allowed to establish a few hundred of private academic schools which educated on a low level but for the time being brought multiple profits to their owners. The authors refer as well to the system of the counted in points appraisal of academic results which does not take into account their scientific level. There are no doubts that the appraisal is needed, however, the specificity of humanities and social studies with a long-lasting process of introducing publications for scholarly usage makes it pointless to use PIF index in their case. It is also crucial to accept calls to take into account a demand to recognize rank of the Polish language for journals from the area of these humanistic disciplines, for which national language is the fundamental one (philology but also history, history of art, law etc.). Decisions on financing humanistic disciplines should be made with respect to the need for preservation of national culture and scientific level of staff. The authors are convinced that universities have to educate people who not only will know where electricity comes from, but will also understand why they use the specific language and have more sentiment to place of their birth, why they should be more tolerant for others, who will also become conscious citizens in the self-governing society, aware of needs of other people. Universities have always been and should be responsible for providing students with the widely understood knowledge, but not with profession, as that is what vocational schools are for.


Automatic analyzing humans in photographs or videos has great potential applications in computer vision containing medical diagnosis, sports, entertainment, movie editing and surveillance, just to name a few. Body, face and hand are the most studied components of humans. Body has many variabilities in shape and clothing along with high degrees of freedom in pose. Face has many muscles causing many visible deformity, beside variable shape and hair style. Hand is a small object, moving fast and has high degrees of freedom. Adding human characteristics to all aforementioned variabilities makes human analysis quite a challenging task.
In this thesis, we developed human segmentation in different modalities. In a first scenario, we segmented human body and hand in depth images using example-based shape warping. We developed a shape descriptor based on shape context and class probabilities of shape regions to extract nearest neighbors. We then considered rigid affine alignment vs. non-rigid iterative shape warping. In a second scenario, we segmented face in RGB images using convolutional neural networks (CNN). We modeled conditional random field with recurrent neural networks. In our model pair-wise kernels are not fixed and learned during training. We trained the network end-to-end using adversarial networks which improved hair segmentation by a high margin.
We also worked on 3D hand pose estimation in depth images. In a generative approach, we fitted a finger model separately for each finger based on our example-based rigid hand segmentation. We minimized an energy function based on overlapping area, depth discrepancy and finger collisions. We also applied linear models in joint trajectory space to refine occluded joints based on visible joints error and invisible joints trajectory smoothness. In a CNN-based approach, we developed a tree-structure network to train specific features for each finger and fused them for global pose consistency. We also formulated physical and appearance constraints as loss functions.
Finally, we developed a number of applications consisting of human soft biometrics measurement and garment retexturing. We also generated some datasets in this thesis consisting of human segmentation, synthetic hand pose, garment retexturing and Italian gestures.


SUMMARY Mucormycosis is a life-threatening fungal infection that occurs in immunocompromised patients. These infections are becoming increasingly common, yet survival remains very poor. A greater understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease may lead to future therapies. For example, it is now clear that iron metabolism plays a central role in regulating mucormycosis infections and that deferoxamine predisposes patients to mucormycosis by inappropriately supplying the fungus with iron. These findings raise the possibility that iron chelator therapy may be useful to treat the infection as long as the chelator does not inappropriately supply the fungus with iron. Recent data support the concept that high-dose liposomal amphotericin is the preferred monotherapy for mucormycosis. However, several novel therapeutic strategies are available. These options include combination therapy using lipid-based amphotericin with an echinocandin or with an azole (largely itraconazole or posaconazole) or with all three. The underlying principles of therapy for this disease remain rapid diagnosis, reversal of underlying predisposition, and urgent surgical debridement.


The carbon-isotope record of three sections of shallow-water carbonates from the Upper Cretaceous sequences of the southern Apennines (Italy) shows a pronounced positive excursion of about 4–5‰. Using the upper Cenomanian Cisalveolina fraasi level as a biostratigraphic tie-point we correlate this excursion to the OAE-2 isotopic event. Comparison with the standard reference δ13C curve of Eastbourne (England) shows that the overall character of the excursion is clearly reproduced in the shallow-water curves. Chemostratigraphic correlation allows definition of the age of some important shallow-water biostratigraphic events to the precision of an ammonite zone, using the well-established bio-chronostratigraphic framework defined in the Eastbourne section. The onset of the Cenomanian–Turonian isotopic excursion coincides with a transgressive trend, recorded by the occurrence of more open-marine facies and culminating with an incipient drowning in one of the sections studied. Our data suggest that the open-ocean isotopic signal is most faithfully recorded and preserved in shallow-water platform carbonates during transgressive periods, when the effects of meteoric diagenesis and seawater ageing are less severe.


Ordinary residential buildings dating from late nineteenth century and early twentieth century are an essential part of the European urban built environment. Today, it is important to address the comfort of residents through renovations improving the buildings' energy performance. Nevertheless, strategies aiming for a drastic reduction of energy consumption – such as outside insulation currently applied to new buildings – are often incompatible with their original architectural character. Considering the absence of systematic protection measures, that could sometimes be too restrictive, ordinary buildings are often at risk of being completely disfigured, namely through interventions concerning the windows. This contribution examines the original features and renovation strategies for windows of ordinary residential buildings in French-speaking Switzerland. The aim is to compare the energy performance of different interventions, as well as assessing their architectural impact. We first identify four types of windows. The joinery techniques used are examined by looking at building manuals of the time and by conducting metric surveys in situ. Secondly, three types of intervention strategies are compared: adapting windows with single glazing to insulated glazing; replacing existing windows for some types of new windows; adding a second window with insulated glazing in front or behind the original window. The interventions are examined in collaboration with joiners to observe the construction processes. For each type of intervention, the architectural and thermal insulation impact are compared using the same criteria, drawings at the same scale and by calculating heat transfer coefficients. The aim is to show that an apparently simple procedure such as window renovation can induce important changes to buildings. Not only are the aspects to consider often contradictory, but the multiple intervention strategies are often little known. It is therefore essential to contribute to research concerning historic windows and to make public alternative solutions to their replacement.


Medical Management is not the only choice for managing emergency endodontic pain. Numerous studies indicate that various clinical treatments provide substantial benefit for relief of odontogenic pain. The goal of emergency treatment in case of pulpal inflammation and infection is to achieve drainage and to relieve pressure from the tissue spaces. This case series describes the emergency treatment of symptomatic periapical abscess with a defined swelling in the anterior hard palate and cellulitis of orofacial region with pulpectomy and incision and drainage. This article focuses on procedures used to treat endodontic emergencies with local application of triple antibiotic paste as intracanal medicament. Although systemic analgesics and antibiotics appear to be clinically effective as an adjunct in certain emergency surgical and nonsurgical endodontic procedures, removal of the cause for pain and local application of Triple Antibiotic Paste as medicaments within the root canal system may be a more effective mode for drug delivery in endodontics.Key message is incision and Drainage is the treatment of choice in case of acute endodontic abscess. However local application of antibiotic as an intracanal medicament is a better option than systemic intake.


Objective To examine the association between neuroimaging features in a predominantly middle-aged cohort and risk of late-life dementia. Methods Cerebral MRI was performed on 1,881 individuals with no history of stroke from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study cohort in 1993 to 1995. White matter hyperintensities (WMH), ventricular size, and sulcal size were graded on a semiquantitative scale, and presence of silent cerebral infarcts was identified. In 2011 to 2013, dementia was determined from neuropsychological testing, informant interview, hospital ICD-9 codes, and death certificate dementia codes. Cox regression was used to evaluate associations between MRI findings and dementia. Results Over 20 years of follow-up, dementia developed in 279 participants (14.8%). High-grade WMH and high-grade ventricular size were independently associated with increased dementia risk (hazard ratio [HR] for WMH 1.62, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14–2.30; HR for ventricular size 1.46, 95% CI 1.06–2.03). There was an increased risk of dementia for diabetic participants with silent infarcts (HR 2.56, 95% CI 1.23–5.31) but not among nondiabetic participants (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.56–1.37). Each 1-unit increase in the total number of high-grade cerebral abnormalities at baseline (count values range 0–4) showed increased dementia risk, with a considerably higher risk among diabetic participants (HR for diabetes mellitus 1.97, 95% CI 1.44–2.69; HR for no diabetes mellitus 1.20, 95% CI 1.03–1.39). Conclusion In adults without evidence of clinical stroke, MRI-detected WMH and ventricular enlargement in midlife may represent markers of brain injury that increase risk for later-life cognitive impairment. The presence of diabetes mellitus may modify the association between silent infarcts and dementia.


Description: Cost reductions for offshore wind turbines are a substantial requirement in order to make offshore wind energy more competitive compared to other energy supply methods. During the 20 – 25 years of wind turbines useful life, Operation & Maintenance costs are typically estimated to be a quarter to one third of the total cost of energy. Reduction of Operation & Maintenance costs will result in significant cost savings and result in cheaper electricity production. Operation & Maintenance processes mainly involve actions related to replacements or repair. Identifying the right times when the actions should be made and the type of actions requires knowledge on the accumulated damage or degradation state of the wind turbine components. For offshore wind turbines, the action times could be extended due to weather restrictions and result in damage or degradation increase of the remaining components. Thus, models of reliability should be developed and applied in order to quantify the residual life of the components. Damage models based on physics of failure combined with stochastic models describing the uncertain parameters are imperative for development of cost-optimal decision tools for Operation & Maintenance planning. Concentrating efforts on development of such models, this research is focused on reliability modeling of Wind Turbine critical subsystems (especially the power converter system). For reliability assessment of these components, structural reliability methods are applied and uncertainties are quantified. Further, estimation of annual failure probability for structural components taking into account possible faults in electrical or mechanical systems is considered. For a representative structural failure mode, a probabilistic model is developed that incorporates grid loss failures. Further, reliability modeling of load sharing systems is considered and a theoretical model is proposed based on sequential order statistics and structural systems reliability methods. Procedures for reliability estimation are detailed and presented in a collection of research papers.


The distribution of aerially deposited metals, As, Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb and Zn, was studied using passive collection moss monitoring in the vicinity of the smelter in Trail, British Columbia, Canada. The concentrations of metals/metalloids were measured in moss bags exposed to atmospheric deposition for periods of three months. The results show the greatest deposition of metals proximal to the smelter, and a decrease in deposition with increasing distance from the smelter. The pattern of deposition varies with the season, the element under study, and the location of the monitoring station. The depositional pattern around the Trail smelter is controlled mainly by the physiography of the region as related to shape and orientation of the Columbia river valley and direction of the prevailing wind. The results show that the annual aerial deposition of metals is directly related to the quantity of stack-emitted metals and Pb–Zn production levels. The distribution of Pb, Zn and Cd in surface soils around the Trail smelter shows a similar pattern to their deposition at moss-monitoring stations. These soils are characterized by an elevated concentration of metals in the proximity of the smelter, indicating the effect of airborne materials on the geochemistry of the soils in the study area. Such similarity was not found for Hg, Cu and As, indicating that the variation of these elements in soil samples is more likely related to soil chemistry rather than to atmospheric deposition.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Poor prognosis diffuse large cell lymphoma (DLCL) responds poorly to standard chemotherapy. Randomized studies comparing high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT) against standard chemotherapy have produced conflicting results. Dose-dense chemotherapy with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) support seems to hold promise. The purpose of this multicenter, randomized trial was to compare failure-free and overall survival in patients with poor prognosis DLCL treated with high-dose sequential (HDS) chemotherapy followed by ASCT or an outpatient dose-dense chemotherapy regimen (MegaCEOP).

DESIGN AND METHODS
Between 1996 and 2001, 130 DLCL patients, aged < or = 60 years, with intermediate-high or high-risk disease, according to the International Prognostic Index score, and/or bone marrow involvement were enrolled. Sixty were randomized to HDS chemotherapy plus high-dose mitoxantrone and melphalan with ASCT (arm A) and 66 to the MegaCEOP regimen (6-8 courses of an escalated dose of cyclophosphamide and epirubicin plus vincristine and prednisone with G-CSF every 2-weeks) (arm B); 4 patients were considered ineligible.

RESULTS
The complete remission rate was 59% in arm A and 70% in arm B (p = 0.18). After a median follow-up of 78 months, the 6-year failure-free survival was 45% in arm A and 48% in arm B (hazard ratio = 1.15, 95% confidence intervals = 0.72-1.84, p = 0.56). The 5-year overall survival was 49% in arm A and 63% in arm B (hazard ratio = 1.67, 95% confidence interval = 0.98-2.85, p = 0.06). Two cases of secondary acute myeloid leukemia were observed after treatment in group A.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
HDS and ASCT as initial therapy for patients with poor-prognosis DLCL does not provide a benefit over that of outpatient dose-dense MegaCEOP chemotherapy.


The overall purpose of this thesis was to contribute to the understanding of teachers' endeavours to their own professionalization in connection with developmental work at school. The main purpose was to analyse how well these endeavours could be interpreted and understood in terms of the action-altematives of closure and alliance.This thesis comprises empirical investigations of three developmental activities involving various categories of teachers. The first study concerned nursing instructors in the upper secondary school and the college of higher learning in an experimental activity dealing with nursing practice, the second study concerned a pre-school teacher, a recreation instructor and junior level teachers in an experiment with school start for six-year-olds, and the third study concerned immigrant language teachers of Finnish in a developmental acivity, whose purpose was to improve the quality of bilingual teaching.A qualitative approach was chosen with interviews as the principal method for the collection of data for the descriptions of teachers' endeavours to professionalize in practice. These descriptions were later analysed and interpreted in the light of concepts adopted from the neo-Weberian perspective in combination with the more liberal attitudes characteristic of the perspective of "the Third Path". Inclusion, dual closure, and demarcation, and, in addition the opening alternative of vertical alliance were the activity options included in the analysis.The results showed that teachers' endeavours to professionalize occur through interwoven efforts aiming at competence and position, seeing position and improvement of position as decisive for the possibilities of the development of competence. Furthermore the results showed that teachers put into practice closure as well as alliance with a purpose to maintain or improve their own position. The conditions of the individual case decided the choice of action-alternative and the result of the endeavours. With a single exception, where the teachers chose an alliance which was primarily horizontally directed, the teachers' endeavours to professionalize were inconsiderable. The differences noticeable in teachers' endeavours to professionalize have been discussed in the light of their different conditions as to their positional starting point, the present impendent scenario, the existence of real activity options and how well the chosen strategy was manifest in official documentary guidelines. Furthermore the various conditions for the initiation of the developmental activities have been discussed and also to what extent the intentions behind the change-over to the goal-related and decentralized educational system has won legitimacy on various levels of the educational system.


The Røstvangen mine occurs in a sequence of regionally metamorphosed sedimentary rocks and volcanic greenstones belonging to the Caledonides of central Norway. It is presumed to be of Carnbrian age. The dose spatia! relationship between the greenstone and sulphide deposits in the Kvikne district in general suggests that the ore material was originally brought into the geological milieu from depth during the period of submarine volcanic activity. The structural control of the Røstvangen ore bodies indicates that a later remobilization, transport and subsequent redeposition of the sulphides in the present fold hinge position took place during Caledonian metamor phism and foldings.


Publix Super Markets, Inc. is a Florida-based grocery chain which has around 190,000 employees going into the 2017 fiscal year. Furthermore, Publix serves over one million customers every day in the United States, and there are no immediate international expansion plans at this time. Publix, named after a chain of motion picture theaters, is the seventh-largest private company in the U.S. with about $34 billion in sales. It was the first supermarket chain to install electric-eye doors, Muzak, fluorescent lighting, and air conditioning in its stores. Publix was also one of the first companies to have water fountains, self-service shopping, shopping carts, and computerized scanning technology. Since 1997, Publix has been rated as one of the best companies to work for in America as reported by Fortune magazine. At Publix, everything they do revolves around pleasing the customer; this is why they have enjoyed the kind of success they have had over the past eight decades. Publix's goal is to make every customer feel personally valued in such a way that they see themselves as one in a million. This profile focuses on the company's customer intimacy philosophy and how Publix satisfies and delights its customers daily to help them become the "premier quality food retailer in the world." The best practices can serve as a benchmark for firms that are aspiring to become leaders of their industries.


This report is a terminal evaluation of a UN Environment-GEF project implemented between 2012 and 2017.The project's overall development goal was to assist Cook Islands, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu with the implementation of their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans and in doing so, their contribution to the implementation of the Islands Biodiversity Programme of Work of the Convention on Biodiversity. The evaluation sought to assess project performance (in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency), and determine outcomes and impacts (actual and potential) stemming from the project, including their sustainability. The evaluation has two primary purposes: (i) to provide evidence of results to meet accountability requirements, and (ii) to promote learning, feedback, and knowledge sharing through results and lessons learned among UN Environment, the GEF and their executing partner Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SREP) and the relevant agencies of the project participating countries.


In mid-February 2009, amid the global financial crisis, the news was grim. The U.S. economy had been in recession since December 2007. If the downturn lasted into early spring, it would become America's longest postwar recession. The economy had shed 3.5 million jobs over the previous 12 months, the worst 12-month period on record. Bank lending was plummeting; the few banks with funds available were holding onto them. With this massive shift into liquid assets (cash and cash equivalents) and away from lending of any sort (even for productive uses or, in many cases, the working capital firms needed to survive), the economy would likely grind to a halt. On this brisk mid-February day in Washington, Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke rolled up their sleeves and reevaluated their plans to address the nearly impossible task of righting the ship. In terms of monetary and fiscal policy, were they doing all they could to halt this epic slide? Were they doing too much?


This paper uses the response of investment to identified structural shocks to investigate some key issues, including the nature of adjustment costs and investment's responsiveness to user cost. In the estimation, the model parameters are chosen to match as closely as possible the impulse responses from an identified VAR. In the preferred results, both investment- and capital-stock adjustment costs are important; the size of the capital-stock adjustment costs is in line with estimates from firm-level studies; the investment-adjustment costs suggest rapid adjustment of investment to its desired level; and the estimated elasticity of substitution between capital and other inputs is considerably smaller than one. There is, however, an important sensitivity: The VAR's identified aggregate demand shock leads to a large crowding out effect - when output expands, investment falls. When this shock is included among those matched, the elasticity of substitution is near one and only investment adjustment costs are important.


Early Professional Development has recently been recognized throughout the UK as a key area for improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools. All teachers need support to move from novice to expert. Set out here is a range of articles to help them achieve that goal. Included are practical strategies for investigating classrooms, ideas about teaching and learning, and key debates concerning professional development, all selected with the aim of moving classroom practice forward. This book offers teachers the opportunity to explore the latest debates on professional development as well as providing practical tips for use in the classroom, and is a rich resource for those teachers committed to developing their teaching for the benefit of their pupils.


White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) and Taura syndrome virus (TSV) are highly pathogenic to penaeid shrimp and have caused significant economic losses in the shrimp culture industry around the world. During 2010 and 2011, both WSSV and TSV were found in Saudi Arabia, where they caused severe mortalities in cultured Indian white shrimp Penaeus indicus. Most outbreaks of shrimp viruses in production facilities can be traced to the importation of infected stocks or commodity shrimp. In an attempt to determine the origins of these viral outbreaks in Saudi Arabia, we performed variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) analyses for WSSV isolates and a phylogenetic analysis for TSV isolates. From the WSSV genome, the VNTR in open reading frames (ORFs) 125 and 94 were investigated with PCR followed by DNA sequence analysis. The genotypes were categorized as {N125, N94} where N is the number of repeat units in a specific ORF, and the subscript indicates the ORF (i.e. ORFs 125 and 94 in this case). From 15 Saudi Arabia WSSV isolates, we detected 3 genotypes: {6125, 794}, {7125, del94}, and {8125, 1394}. The WSSV genotype of {7125, del94} appears to be a new variant with a 1522 bp deletion encompassing complete coding regions of ORF 94 and ORF 95 and the first 82 bp of ORF 93. For TSV genotyping, we used a phylogenetic analysis based on the amino acid sequence of TSV capsid protein 2 (CP2). We analyzed 8 Saudi Arabian isolates in addition to 36 isolates from other areas: SE Asia, Mexico, Venezuela and Belize. The Saudi Arabian TSV clustered into a new, distinct group. Based on these genotyping analyses, new WSSV and TSV genotypes were found in Saudi Arabia. The data suggest that they have come from wild shrimp Penaeus indicus from the Red Sea that are used for broodstock.


Filamento® is an original engine, currently under patent procedure on behalf of the inventors of ThePrimate®, devoted to link and reference the places of cultural heritage, through a logic- physical lattice of points traced both in the real world and virtual, self-transmitting position and poly-dimensional open data through the Internet, thus building a "talking-" or "smart- objects" grid.


Our analysis of data on married couples from the 1988-2003 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys demonstrates men's influence in childbearing decisions increased during a time when women's education was on the rise. This time period marked the beginning of a rapid fertility decline in Ghana, but while women's education remained a significant predictor of contraceptive use, education became significantly less important while men's fertility preferences became significantly more important. The findings suggest that traditional cultures of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa that endorse men's authority in reproductive decision-making will probably not be easily overcome by higher levels of women's education. Laurie F. DEROSE, Research Assistant Professor, Maryland Population Research Center, University of Maryland, 0124N Cole Student Activities Building (#162), College Park, MD 20742-1315, USA. E-mail: email@example.com . Lijuan WU, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com .. F. Nii-Amoo DODOO, College of Liberal Arts Research Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802, USA and Professor and Director, Regional Institute for Population Studies University of Ghana P. O. Box LG 96, Legon, Ghana Africa. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com . DOI: 10.4402/genus-211


We present an algorithm to spatially register two volumetric datasets related via a rigid-body transform and degraded by an anisotropic point-spread-function (PSF). Registration is necessary, for example, when fusing data in multi-view microscopy. Automatic algorithms that only rely on maximizing pixel similarity, without accounting for the anisotropic image formation process, provide poor results in such applications. We propose to solve this problem by re-blurring the reference and test data with transformed forms of the PSF, in order to make them comparable, before minimizing the mean squared intensity difference between them. Our approach extends the pyramid-based sub-pixel registration algorithm proposed by Thévenaz et al., 1998, that employs an improved form of the Marquardt-Levenberg algorithm. We show, via simulations, that our method is more accurate than the conventional approach that does not account for the PSF. We demonstrate our algorithm in practice by registering multi-view volumes of a zebrafish larva acquired using a wide-field microscope.


WNV is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that poses a threat to human health across large discontinuous areas throughout the world. Infection with WNV results in febrile illness, which can progress to severe neurological disease. Currently, there are no approved treatment options to control WNV infection. Understanding the cellular immune responses that regulate viral replication is important in diversifying the resources available to control WNV. Here, we show that the elimination of TRIM6 in human cells results in an increase in WNV replication and alters the expression and function of other components of the IFN-I pathway through VAMP8. Dissecting the interactions between WNV and host defenses both informs basic molecular virology and promotes the development of host- and virus-targeted antiviral strategies. ABSTRACT Several members of the tripartite motif (TRIM) family of E3 ubiquitin ligases regulate immune pathways, including the antiviral type I interferon (IFN-I) system. Previously, we demonstrated that TRIM6 is involved in IFN-I induction and signaling. In the absence of TRIM6, optimal IFN-I signaling is reduced, allowing increased replication of interferon-sensitive viruses. Despite having evolved numerous mechanisms to restrict the vertebrate host's IFN-I response, West Nile virus (WNV) replication is sensitive to pretreatment with IFN-I. However, the regulators and products of the IFN-I pathway that are important in regulating WNV replication are incompletely defined. Consistent with WNV's sensitivity to IFN-I, we found that in TRIM6 knockout (TRIM6-KO) A549 cells, WNV replication is significantly increased and IFN-I induction and signaling are impaired compared to wild-type (wt) cells. IFN-β pretreatment was more effective in protecting against subsequent WNV infection in wt cells than TRIM6-KO, indicating that TRIM6 contributes to the establishment of an IFN-induced antiviral response against WNV. Using next-generation sequencing, we identified VAMP8 as a potential factor involved in this TRIM6-mediated antiviral response. VAMP8 knockdown resulted in reduced JAK1 and STAT1 phosphorylation and impaired induction of several interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) following WNV infection or IFN-β treatment. Furthermore, VAMP8-mediated STAT1 phosphorylation required the presence of TRIM6. Therefore, the VAMP8 protein is a novel regulator of IFN-I signaling, and its expression and function are dependent on TRIM6 activity. Overall, these results provide evidence that TRIM6 contributes to the antiviral response against WNV and identify VAMP8 as a novel regulator of the IFN-I system. IMPORTANCE WNV is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that poses a threat to human health across large discontinuous areas throughout the world. Infection with WNV results in febrile illness, which can progress to severe neurological disease. Currently, there are no approved treatment options to control WNV infection. Understanding the cellular immune responses that regulate viral replication is important in diversifying the resources available to control WNV. Here, we show that the elimination of TRIM6 in human cells results in an increase in WNV replication and alters the expression and function of other components of the IFN-I pathway through VAMP8. Dissecting the interactions between WNV and host defenses both informs basic molecular virology and promotes the development of host- and virus-targeted antiviral strategies.


ABSTRACT Cellulosomes and noncellulosomal (hemi)cellulolytic enzymes are produced by Clostridium cellulovorans to degrade plant cell walls. To understand their synergistic relationship, changes in mRNA and protein expression in cellulosomes and noncellulosomal (hemi)cellulolytic enzymes (hereafter called noncellulosomal enzymes) of cultures grown on cellobiose, cellulose, pectin, xylan, and corn fiber or mixtures thereof were examined. Cellulase expression, favored particularly by the presence of Avicel, was found with all substrates. Comparison of cellulosome and noncellulosomal enzymes showed that expression profiles were strongly affected by the carbon source. High xylanase or pectate lyase expression was observed when C. cellulovorans was grown on xylan or pectin, respectively. Mixed carbon substrates (cellulose-pectin-xylan mixture or corn fiber) induced a wider variety of enzymes than a single carbon source, such as cellobiose, pectin, or xylan. Cellulosomal proteome profiles were more affected by the carbon source than the noncellulosomal enzymes. Transcription and protein analyses revealed that cellulosomes and noncellulosomal enzymes were expressed simultaneously on mixed carbon sources, but their degree of inducibility varied when the substrate was either cellulose or cellobiose. Cellulosomes and noncellulosomal enzymes had synergistic activity on various carbon substrates. These results indicated that expression of plant cell wall-degrading enzymes is highly influenced by the available carbon source and that synergy between cellulosomes and noncellulosomal enzymes contribute to plant cell wall degradation.


We report the growth conditions necessary for highly oriented wurtzite GaN films on (111) GaAs, and single crystal GaN films on (111) GaAs using AlN buffer layers. The GaN films and AlN buffers are grown using rf reactive magnetron sputter deposition. Oriented basal plane wurtzite GaN is obtained on (111) GaAs at temperatures between 550 and 620 °C. However, using a high temperature 200 Å AlN buffer layer epitaxial GaN is produced. Crystal structure and quality are measured using x-ray diffraction (XRD), reflection electron diffraction (RED), and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). This is the first report of single crystal wurtzite GaN on (111) GaAs using AlN buffer layers by any growth technique. Simple AlN/GaN heterostructures grown by rf reactive sputter deposition on (111) GaAs are also demonstrated.


Moving objects database systems are the most challenging sub-category among Spatio-Temporal database systems. A database system that updates in real-time the location information of GPS-equipped moving vehicles has to meet even stricter requirements. Currently existing data storage models and indexing mechanisms work well only when the number of moving objects in the system is relatively small. This dissertation research aimed at the real-time tracking and history retrieval of massive numbers of vehicles moving on road networks. A total solution has been provided for the real-time update of the vehicles' location and motion information, range queries on current and history data, and prediction of vehicles' movement in the near future.
To achieve these goals, a new approach called Segmented Time Associated to Partitioned Space (STAPS) was first proposed in this dissertation for building and manipulating the indexing structures for moving objects databases.
Applying the STAPS approach, an indexing structure of associating a time interval tree to each road segment was developed for real-time database systems of vehicles moving on road networks. The indexing structure uses affordable storage to support real-time data updates and efficient query processing. The data update and query processing performance it provides is consistent without restrictions such as a time window or assuming linear moving trajectories.
An application system design based on distributed system architecture with centralized organization was developed to maximally support the proposed data and indexing structures. The suggested system architecture is highly scalable and flexible. Finally, based on a real-world application model of vehicles moving in region-wide, main issues on the implementation of such a system were addressed.


An optical approach is an alternative method to give insight into the oxide-ion motion in oxide-ion conductors. Herein, we illustrate the correlation between upconversion (UC) luminescence in Yb3+–Er3+ and oxide-ion motion in a β-La2(Mo,W)2O9 series. The break points at ∼150 °C in the logarithmic UC emission intensity ratio of I525/I660 or I660/I550 (the three emission peaks of Er3+) versus temperature imply oxide-ion jumps, whereas the slopes of these plots above 150 °C suggest the capacity of oxide-ion motion. Specifically, the larger the absolute slope values, the higher the oxide-ion conduction capacity. Due to the pinning feature of the Fermi level contributed by the Mo–O bonds in β-La2Mo2O9 both with and without anion-Frenkel defects or W dopants, as revealed by density functional theory calculations, β-La2Mo2O9 remains electronically insulating. Thus, the increase in activation energy and decline in conductivity with an increase in W contents at low temperature (<400 °C) are likely attributed to the higher barrier for the formation of new anion-Frenkel defects. This research gives another perspective on oxide-ion conductors via an optical probe.


Implementation fidelity refers to the degree to which core elements of an intervention are delivered as intended by the protocols(Gearing et al., 2011). EnhanceFitness(EF) is a group exercise program with research-proven health benefits for older adults. The purposes of this study are to:1) summarize data from EF Instructor Review forms to determine implementation fidelity in the delivery of EF classes in King County, Washington, and2) make recommendations on strategies to improve quality delivery of EF program. We analyzed 133 EF Instructor Review forms representing fidelity checks of 73 instructors. Results show EF instructors provide adequate quality in adhering to EF fidelity, yet most had difficulty with delivering strength training and stretching. No statistically significant correlation is found between monitoring interval and instructor performance. In conclusion, EF program should require additional instructor training, practice and booster sessions in strength training and stretching, and carefully plan allocation of resources for instructor reviews. Evaluation of Implementation Fidelity in the Delivery of EnhanceFitness Classes in King County, Washington 1