This paper describes the MPEG-4 standard, as defined in ISO/IEC 14496-2. The MPEG4 visual standard is developed to provide users a new level of interaction with visual contents. It provides technologies to view, access and manipulate objects rather than pixels, with great error robustness at a large range of bit rates. Application areas range from digital television, streaming video, to mobile multimedia and games. The MPEG-4 natural video standard consists of a collection of tools that support these application areas. The standard provides tools for shape coding, motion estimation and compensation, texture coding, error resilience, sprite coding and scalability. Conformance points in the form of object types, profiles and levels, provide the basis for interoperability. Shape coding can be performed in binary mode, where the shape of each object is described by a binary mask, or in gray scale mode, where the shape is described in a form similar to an alpha channel, allowing transparency, and reducing aliasing. Motion compensation is block based, with appropriate modifications for object boundaries. The block size can be 16x16, or 8x8, with half pixel resolution. MPEG-4 also provides a mode for overlapped motion compensation. Texture coding is based in 8x8 DCT, with appropriate modifications for object boundary blocks. Coefficient prediction is possible to improve coding efficiency. Static textures can be encoded using a wavelet transform. Error resilience is provided by resynchronization markers, data partitioning, header extension codes, and reversible variable length codes. Scalability is provided for both spatial and temporal resolution enhancement. MPEG-4 provides scalability on an object basis, with the restriction that the object shape has to be rectangular. MPEG-4 conformance points are defined at the Simple Profile, the Core Profile, and the Main Profile. Simple Profile and Core Profiles address typical scene sizes of QCIF and CIF size, with bit rates of 64 kbit/sec, 128 kbit/sec, 384 kbit/sec, and 2Mbit/sec. Main Profile addresses a typical scene sizes of CIF, ITU-R 601, and HD, with bit rates at 2 Mbit/sec, 15 Mbit/sec and 38.4 Mbit/sec.


Background: There is limited information available on the clinical profile of asthma patients reporting at teaching hospital. Objective: The objective was to evaluate clinical profile of bronchial asthma patients reporting at teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: A prospective study of bronchial asthma patients over 15 years of age was conducted at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Jaipur over a year (July 2010 to June 2011). Asthma was diagnosed on detailed history, clinical examination and spirometry having obstructive pattern with reversibility showing increase in forced expiratory volume in 1 st sec by 12% and 200 ml from prebronchodilator value. Besides demographic data, smoking habit, atopic symptoms, and family history suggestive of asthma also collected. Results: Total, 151 cases of bronchial asthma included. Maximum were male (80.8%) and urban (65%). Most cases (52.9%) were in age group of 16-30 years followed by 32.5% in 31-45 years. More than half (55.6%) belonged to the middle class in society. Majority (74.2%) were nonsmokers. Most common symptoms were cough, wheeze, and breathlessness 98.7%, 90.1%, and 88.1%, respectively. Nocturnal awakening was present in 2/3 rd cases. Rhinitis (65%) was most common associated condition. Almost equal number of cases had seasonal and perineal pattern of symptoms, with increased severity mainly in autumn (n = 53) and spring (n = 42). Family history of atopy was present in 1/3 rd patients. Nearly 3/4 th cases were newly diagnosed, and 1/4 th were previously diagnosed. More than 50% of these newly diagnosed asthma cases belonged to moderate severity grade. Among previously diagnosed cases (n = 40), spirometry was used in only 20% cases for diagnosis of asthma, and only 20% had their asthma under control at the time of reporting. Conclusion: Asthma is a disease of young age, with rhinitis as most common associated co-morbidity. Spirometry is poorly used by practitioners in diagnosing asthma with poor control of asthma among previously diagnosed cases. This reflects a lack of awareness of use of spirometry for diagnosis and inadequate advice of treatment.


Using administrative linked employer-employee data for Norway we estimate the impact of changes in tax subsidies for union membership on individuals' membership probabilities. Increased subsidisation of the union good increases union take-up, while increased union fees reduce the demand for membership. The price elasticity of demand for union membership is - 7 percent in 2012 (the last year for which we have data) though effects are heterogeneous across types of worker. In the absence of the hikes in tax subsidies and holding workforce composition constant aggregate private sector union membership density would have fallen by 5 percentage points between 2001 and 2012. Since membership fees are a substantial part of unions' total revenues the findings have important implications for unions' viability. They are also significant because union bargaining strength, which is often proxied by union density, affects a range of social, economic and political outcomes.


Knowledge of the hydraulic boundary conditions is a prerequisite for accurate estimates of the quench characteristics of superconducting magnets. A set of routines (Flower) has been designed and interfaced to the code Gandalf to provide a simplified model of the hydraulic connections to a cryogenic plant of a coil using cable-in-conduit conductors with central cooling channel. The validation against experimental data provided by the Quench Experiment on Long Length (QUELL) in the CRPP facility SULTAN have shown that Flower is able to simulate the hydraulic boundary conditions within engineering limits of accuracy.


This paper explores how private international law responds to corruption, with a focus on the assessment of international jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The question is what the possible private international law responses are in cases where a foreign court or a foreign judgment is tainted by corruption. The paper evaluates to what extent private international law provides adequate mechanisms to deal with corrupt conduct and how courts approach allegations of corruption in these cases. It considers rules and courts' approaches in the Netherlands, England and The United States. It is concluded that only in little cases courts actually consider corruption in deciding private international law questions since the courts approach these questions in a rather formal way. Some of the court decisions, or at least the argumentation in these cases, are to be regretted. It is stated that the problem of corruption also raises the question as to the position of private international law in today's world and in particular Von Savigny's paradigm of value-neutralism. Its particular strength may be that private international law is utilised as a neutral mediator in international disputes where law, culture, and values differ. In a rather formal way it regulates and coordinates issues of the applicable law and jurisdiction while leaving diversity intact. But whatever one thinks of the Savignian idea that private law stems from the people's mind (or Volksgeist), the reality today is that private law is an important instrument to effect policy objectives and to influence human behaviour. In an era of globalisation and in the face of the reality of corruption, not only criminal law and public international law can make a stand; private law and private international law can play a role as well. As the discussion in this paper shows, the private/public law divide is not always useful in the first place. This does not mean that the primary role of private international law should be that of a normative agent or a system of global governance. The point is that where necessary, such as in cases of serious corruption resulting in a real risk of injustice, private international law engagement is appropriate. Courts should not hide behind self-induced comity and formalism – instead, in these cases a guiding factor should be the international consensus on the repudiation of corruption. Only then can private international law contribute to the international fight against corruption.


Charles Darwin's On the Origins of Species had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In Coevolution, the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call cultures--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or modes in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But Coevolution predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioraldiversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.


The problem of the transferability, relevance and application of leadership training derived from North America (as the dominant producer) to East Asia is discussed. The universality and culture-boundedness of 'Western' approaches is critiqued. An alternative approach to leadership more in tune with the cultural traditions of East Asia is presented. This is formulated around an ideal model which extrapolates from the cultural values prevailing in East Asia to develop a cohesive framework for the enactment of 'leadership' in that region. The conceptualization draws upon a distinction between 'headship' and 'leadership' and heuristically takes the former as a more meaningful construct in the East Asian case. The approach is elaborated to take account of the value and behavioural conditions necessary to meet the interdependent twin requirements for order/ compliance and harmony characteristic of the leadership situation in East Asia. Finally, implications for leadership training, both for expatriate sojourne...


The aim of this paper was to estimate the effect of obesity on the employment probability for Italian men and women accounting for both observed and unobserved confounding. We use microdata collected by the Italian National Statistical Office for the year 2009 during a multi‐scope survey of Italian households. The employment–obesity relationship is estimated after controlling for observed confounding by using probit regression and a propensity score weighting approach. To control for both observed and unobserved confounding (endogeneity), a semiparametric recursive bivariate probit model is employed instead. Our findings suggest that obesity has a significant negative effect on the employment probability and that endogeneity might not be an important issue.


Abstract Semantic maps are a means of representing universal structure underlying semantic variation. However, no algorithm has existed for inferring a graph-based semantic map from cross-language data. Here, we note that this open problem is formally identical to the known problem of inferring a social network from disease outbreaks. From this identity it follows that semantic map inference is computationally intractable, but that an efficient approximation algorithm for it exists. We demonstrate that this algorithm produces sensible semantic maps from two existing bodies of data. We conclude that universal semantic graph structure can be automatically approximated from cross-language semantic data.


The quest for a viable manufacturing planning and control (MPQ system that supports
organizational strategy is a crucial issue in operations management. Previous studies on
MPC discipline have paid little attention on the basic performance differences that
associated with strategic and organization environmental issues. This thesis addresses these
issues by exploring the configurations in MPC systems in a macro perspective that
integrates several areas, namely: organizational environment, competitive strategy,
manufacturing strategy, supply chains, NIPC system and organizational performance.
This thesis attempts to shift the conventional research focus of NTC processes and
mechanisms to enviromnent-strategy-system-performance (E-S-S-P) paradigm. In this
respect, the configurational research in WC systems requires the study of a wider body of
knowledge (Chapters 2- 5) including: (1) a detailed assessmenot f the current state-of-the art
of MPC practices; (2) the review of the relations between strategies and MPC systems;
(3) a study of organization environmental variables and their influences; and (4) an
identification of methodological issues relating to configuration research.
Thirty hypothesized relationships are proposed (Chapter 6) and tested (Chapters 8 and
9). The research methodology has been concentrated in three distinctive areas. The first area
is in the design of instruments (Chapter 7) for the measurement of manufacturing
environments, competitive strategy, manufacturing strategy, and MPC systems in several
manufacturing industries. Five databases are gathered to test the hypotheses, i.e. trade
census and industrial production statistics, published business data, published survey data
(for content analysis), data from field visits, and questionnaire survey data. The second
area is the construction of a 3-dimensional organization environment (Chapter 7). Besides, a
reference model is proposed that takes into account of the theory of autopoiesis and enacted
environment, based on several field visits (Chapter 8). The third area is the study of
correlations between the organizational environment, competitive strategy, manufacturing
strategy, and NIPC systems (Chapter 9). The quantitative analyses are used such as Pearson
correlation, linear regression, and causal modeling. There are seven main contributions of this thesis: (1) It is the first study of the
configurations in NTC systems that will have significant theoretical implications for the
development of NTC practices. (2) It develops the network relationships of E-S-S-P
research paradigm. (3) It broadens the knowledge in operations management by exploring
the hypothesized relations between organizational environment, strategies, supply chains
and MPC systems. (4) It shows the adoption of new thinking, i. e. the theory of autopoiesis,
in the configuration study. (5) It develops a reference MPC model that adds to the body of
knowledge in this discipline. (6) It constructs the task environment classification framework
for the study related to manufacturing environment in Hong Kong. (7) It proposes path
modelling analysis to explore the causal relationships of WC system and other
organizational variables, which is rarely applied in this field.


Introduction: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) occurs as part of familial syndromes, including CDC73-related disorders caused by germline pathogenic variants of the CDC73 gene, particularly in early adulthood. Herein, we report a familial case of a whole germline CDC73 deletion discordant for PHPT. Case Description: A 15-year-old boy was admitted to our hospital because of persistent nausea and vomiting. Laboratory tests showed hypercalcemia (13.6 mg/dL), hypophosphatemia (2.4 mg/dL), and elevated intact PTH level (149 pg/mL). Imaging studies showed an enlarged single parathyroid gland. Thus, the diagnosis of PHPT was made. Microarray analysis of peripheral blood DNA showed a 3.4-Mb heterozygous deletion of 1q31 encompassing 11 genes, including CDC73. Total thyroidectomy/parathyroidectomy was performed; histology was compatible with parathyroid adenoma without any evidence of malignancy. DNA sequencing of the removed adenoma confirmed a hemizygous nonsense variant in the CDC73 gene in a mosaic manner, which was potentially involved in parathyroid tumorigenesis as the "second hit." Importantly, the same deletion was identified in his 52-year-old father who had an unremarkable medical history. Conclusions: These data clearly demonstrate the Knudson two-hit theory from a molecular viewpoint. Phenotypic variability and incomplete penetrance of CDC73-related disorders, even if caused by a gross deletion, should be noted in a clinical setting.


Assessing the trustworthiness of location data corresponding to individuals is essential in several applications, such as forensic science and epidemic control. To obtain accurate and trustworthy location data, analysts must often gather and correlate information from several independent sources, e.g., physical observation, witness testimony, surveillance footage, etc. However, such information may be fraudulent, its accuracy may be low, and its volume may be insufficient to ensure highly trustworthy data. On the other hand, recent advancements in mobile computing and positioning systems, e.g., GPS-enabled cell phones, highway sensors, etc., bring new and effective technological means to track the location of an individual. Nevertheless, collection and sharing of such data must be done in ways that do not violate an individual's right to personal privacy. Previous research efforts acknowledged the importance of assessing location data trustworthiness, but they assume that data is available to the analyst in direct, unperturbed form. However, such an assumption is not realistic, due to the fact that repositories of personal location data must conform to privacy regulations. In this paper, we study the challenging problem of refining trustworthiness of location data with the help of large repositories of anonymized information. We show how two important trustworthiness evaluation techniques, namely common pattern analysis and conflict/support analysis, can benefit from the use of anonymized location data. We have implemented a prototype of the proposed privacy-preserving trustworthiness evaluation techniques, and the experimental results demonstrate that using anonymized data can significantly help in improving the accuracy of location trustworthiness assessment.


ABSTRACT. Children in the United Kingdom watch more television and are exposed to more advertising than children in any other European country. This article investigates the extent to which preschool children (aged 4–5 years) prefer brands advertised on television. Seventy-five children were interviewed and given a choice task in which they had to select the product, from eight pairs each comprising a branded and nonbranded product, that children of their own age and gender preferred. Products included popular drinks, snacks, toys, breakfast cereals, and sportswear. Nonbranded control products were carefully selected as close perceptual matches for the branded advertised products. Yet, on 68% of occasions, children chose the branded, advertised product in preference to the nonbranded product. This preference was reliably higher for girls (78%) than boys (58%). Gender-linked differences are discussed in relation to socialization theory and to girls' greater verbal ability and emotional sensitivity.


The monitoring and detecting the vehicle, which is polluting our atmosphere is becoming a major problem in many countries. With the ever increasing number of vehicles on the road, the Traffic Monitoring Authority has to find new methods of overcoming such a problem. Considering that the transport sector is responsible for an increasingly important share of current environmental problems, we look at Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) as a feasible means of helping in solving this issue. In the system proposed, we detect the vehicle, which is polluting our atmosphere is identified through a compact circuitry comprising of PIC16f877a controller, CO2 sensor, GPS and GSM. The CO2 sensor is used to detect the how much gas released by the vehicle. In controller we fixed some threshold value from that controller identify the abnormality, then send the warning message to the user. If till abnormality is increase then controller track the location using GPS and send the information to the user and also engine (motor) is switch OFF. This system is a realistic concept and can be applied to automatic vehicles emission testing.


This paper presents the performance of a full-scale wall-slab joint in tunnel form system subjected to lateral cyclic loading. The objectives are to determine seismic behavior of the hysteresis loops, strength capacity, stiffness, ductility, damage states and modes of failure. Wall-slab joint was tested up to failure drift of 2.5%. Theoretical equations were developed to calculate ductility and moment resistance of wall section. From visual observation, a lot of cracks were occurred at joint and upper part of wall panel. Spalling of concrete was observed at the top part of the joints and fractured of longitudinal reinforcement bar when the wall is pushing under out-of-plane direction. Validation between the theoretical values and experimental results were compared. There was a good agreement between them. Therefore, the moment resistance and ductility of the joint were determined and designed accordingly.


In this paper, an index-based parallel scheduler for optical burst switching (OBS) networks, which can find feasible voids on different channels in parallel with O(1) time complexity, achieve the highest possible efficiency, and is suitable for efficient hardware implementation, is proposed. The channel scheduler proposed consists of two phases: searching the feasible voids on all data channels and selecting optimal void among feasible voids found. In the first phase, an index vector of voids for each channel is constructed by dividing the scheduling time window of the channel into N slots, and an index-based searching approach is applied in parallel to each channel to find the feasible voids by a few simple index based bit operations and once memory reading and comparing operations. A configurable optimal void selection approach, which selects optimal void according to the external configurable signal by using a configurable comparand translator and a general selection process, is designed to supported different scheduling algorithms such as LAUC-VF, Min-SV, Max-EV, and Best-Fit with full efficiency. Formulae for important design parameters are given. The hardware architecture of the index based parallel scheduler is designed, and a 16-channel scheduler with the full resource utilization of LAUC-VF is implemented in FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) with a scheduling time of 33.3 ns per burst request. The support to different scheduling algorithms is also validated experimentally.


The tumultuous changes of the past decade, including China's economic rise and the financial meltdown, were just the beginning. The next cataclysmic wave is surging relentlessly ahead, demanding leaders who can steer their companies through complexity and change. Drawn from original research conducted jointly with foresight company Z-Punkt and further analyzed by Hay Group, Leadership 2030 uncovers six megatrends that will dramatically impact organizations' markets, cultures, systems, and processes:

 1. Globalization 2.0: Asia dominates the global economy.

 2. Climate change: Sustainability becomes imperative.

 3. Individualism: Freedom of choice erodes loyalty.

 4. Digitization: Boundaries blur between private and working lives.

 5. Demographic changes: Aging populations intensify the talent war.

 6. Converging technologies: The sharpest tech shift in history is around the corner.

 Research findings and case studies provide compelling evidence of each megatrend and highlight the skills, capabilities, and attitudes leaders must cultivate, such as adaptability, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, strategic thinking, meaning creation, and more. In the rush to produce quarterly profits in chaotic conditions, the longer view is often obscured. This forward-thinking book helps businesses everywhere prepare for the seismic changes on the horizon.


Koszegi and Rabin (2005) propose a theory of reference dependent utility in which the ultimate choice also serves as the reference point. They analyze dynamic choice problems with uncertainty and interpret their model as a description of the individuals psychological process. We focus on static and deterministic choice problems and identify the revealed preference implications of their model.


Criminal law scholars regularly maintain that American prisons are overcrowded and that defendants in custody wait long periods of time before having their cases brought to trial. A similar refrain is made of the penal process in India – the world's largest democracy, an ally of the United States, and a country with a judiciary that has drawn upon American criminal procedure law. In fact, the situation in India is thought to be much worse. Accounts of prisoners languishing behind bars for several years – and sometimes decades – awaiting their day in court are not uncommon. And many Indian prisons are one hundred-to-two hundred percent over-capacity, where conditions are squalid and weaker inmates face serious physical harm. In this study, we examine the current state of the Indian criminal justice system. Beginning in 1979, the Indian Supreme Court, referencing the American Constitution's Sixth Amendment, held that defendants had a fundamental right to a speedy trial. We examine the evolution of the Indian jurisprudence on this matter, which has been quite favorable for defendants, but then move beyond this line of inquiry by empirically evaluating whether the positive court rulings have translated into tangible changes for the criminally-accused. As our findings suggest, there exists a major gap in India between these encouraging judicial pronouncements and how this right plays-out in reality, which we believe provides an important perspective for comparative and criminal law scholars.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To review the normal physiology of the blood capillary-interstitial-lymphatic vessel interface, describe the pathophysiology of lymphedema secondary to treatment for breast cancer, and summarize the physiologic bases of the current National Lymphedema Network (NLN) risk reduction guidelines.

DATA SOURCES
Journal articles, anatomy and physiology textbooks, published research data, and Web sites.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Lymphedema occurring after treatment for breast cancer significantly affects physical, psychological, and sexual functioning. About 28% of breast cancer survivors develop lymphedema. When arterial capillary filtration exceeds lymphatic transport capacity, lymphedema occurs. NLN risk reduction guidelines may decrease lymphedema risk.

CONCLUSION
Lymphedema is chronic and disfiguring. Most NLN risk reduction guidelines, although not evidence-based, are based on sound physiologic principles. Evidence-based research of the effectiveness of NLN risk reduction guidelines is indicated.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Until evidence-based research contradicts NLN's risk reduction guidelines, nurses should inform patients with breast cancer about their risk for lymphedema, guidelines to reduce that risk, and the physiologic rationale for the guidelines.


Most existing feature selection methods focus on ranking individual features based on a utility criterion, which neglecting the correlations among features. To overcome this problem, we develop a novel feature selection technique using the spectral data transformation and by using l1-norm regularized models for subset selection. Specifically, we propose a new two-step spectral regression technique for unsupervised feature selection. In the first step, we use kernel entropy component analysis (kECA) to transform the data into a lower-dimensional space so as to improve class separation. Second, we use l1-norm regularization to select the features that best align with the data embedding resulting from kECA. The advantage of kECA is that dimensionality reducing data transformation maximally preserves entropy estimates for the input data whilst also best preserving the cluster structure of the data. Using l1-norm regularization, we cast feature discriminant analysis into a regression framework which accommodates the correlations among features. As a result, we can evaluate joint feature combinations, rather than being confined to consider them individually. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our feature selection method on a number of standard face data-sets.


Having a sensible prior of human pose is a vital ingredient for many computer vision applications, including tracking and pose estimation. While the application of global non-parametric approaches and parametric models has led to some success, finding the right balance in terms of flexibility and tractability, as well as estimating model parameters from data has turned out to be challenging. In this work, we introduce a sparse Bayesian network model of human pose that is non-parametric with respect to the estimation of both its graph structure and its local distributions. We describe an efficient sampling scheme for our model and show its tractability for the computation of exact log-likelihoods. We empirically validate our approach on the Human 3.6M dataset and demonstrate superior performance to global models and parametric networks. We further illustrate our model's ability to represent and compose poses not present in the training set (compositionality) and describe a speed-accuracy trade-off that allows real-time scoring of poses.


In the quest for independence from traditional media constraints, open pedagogy — involving students in the creation of openly licensed materials — offers training in open culture practices alongside deeper learning. Our research builds upon an exploratory study by Hilton et al. (2019). We collected quantitative and qualitative data about the experiences of 85 students participating in an open pedagogy course project: creating content for the open textbook Humans R Social Media (HRSM). We asked students to compare their experiences working on HRSM with traditional learning activities (e.g., writing papers, taking quizzes). About 66% of students said the HRSM project had greater educational value than traditional learning activities. Most students (54.1%) also reported that HRSM helped them master more core academic content, and 51.8% said the project helped them become more collaborative learners. Although a small percentage preferred traditional learning activities, most students reported that open pedagogy's focus on agency and choice enabled them to share their individuality and creativity. We also found that students valued knowing their work could be shared beyond the classroom; and that publishing, in the words of one student, "gave me more incentive to make sure my assignments were my best product." This study tentatively reinforces the benefits of independent, hands-on learning as well as collaborative interdependence in an online environment. These findings suggest the active nature of open pedagogy holds rich possibilities for cultivating participatory learning activities, involving students in the creation of knowledge as they learn, and cultivating interdependent connection and community.


Within the discipline of sociolinguistics is a new area of study referred to as linguistic landscapes. The publicly displayed words and images that compose a linguistic landscape are able to tell us about a specific environment's demographics such as the languages spoken by its community members, the countries where the speakers have originated from, and how these immigrant groups identify themselves within wider English-speaking society. In a linguistic landscape where English is the dominant language, St. Paul, Minnesota's University Avenue presents numerous languages representative of the local immigrant groups. A survey of the avenue's linguistic landscape reveals public signs displayed in Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese, African languages, Somali, Spanish, Cambodian, and Arabic. Commentary provided on these signs offers insight as to how local immigrant groups have navigated the relationship between language, culture, and identity.


Phylogenetic relationships of sections and species within Corymbia (Myrtaceae), the bloodwood eucalypts, were evaluated by using combined analyses of nuclear rDNA (ETS + ITS) and morphological characters. Combining morphological characters with molecular data provided resolution of relationships within Corymbia. The analyses supported the monophyly of the genus and recognition of the following two major clades, treated here as new subgenera: subgenus Corymbia, including informal sections recognised by Hill and Johnson (1995), namely Rufaria (red bloodwoods), Apteria and Fundoria; and subgenus Blakella, including sections Politaria (spotted gums), Cadagaria, Blakearia (paper-fruited bloodwoods or ghost gums) and Ochraria (yellow bloodwoods). Hill and Johnson's section Rufaria is monophyletic if Apteria and Fundoria are included. It is evident that, among the red bloodwoods, series are not monophyletic and several morphological characters result from convergent evolution. There was strong morphological and molecular evidence that the three species of red bloodwoods that occur in south-western Western Australia (series Gummiferae: C. calophylla and C. haematoxylon, and series Ficifoliae: C. ficifolia) form a monophyletic group, separate from the eastern C. gummifera (series Gummiferae), which is probably sister to the clade of all other red bloodwoods. Phylogenetic results supported recognition of new taxonomic categories within Corymbia, and these are formalised here.


A stepped three-tone measurement technique based on digitally modulated baseband signals is used in characterizing radio-frequency power amplifiers (PAs). The bandwidths of the stepped measurement were 8.8 MHz for the input signal and 26.4 MHz for the output signal. A PA designed for third-generation mobile telecommunication system was analyzed. The amplitude and phase of the third-order Volterra kernel were determined from the identified intermodulation products. The properties of the Volterra kernel along certain paths in the 3-D frequency space were analyzed and compared to some box models for nonlinear systems. The main symmetry of the third-order Volterra kernel of this PA was found to be of the type given by the cascaded quadratic nonlinearities with a linear filter in between (a Hammerstein-Wiener system), and frequency dependence, i.e., memory effects, was found to be due to the effects at the baseband.


This thesis addresses the problem of setting the balance between exploration and exploitation in teams of learning robots who exchange information. Specifically it looks at groups of robots whose tasks include moving between salient points in the environment. To deal with unknown and dynamic environments, such robots need to be able to discover and learn the routes between these points themselves. A natural extension of this scenario is to allow the robots to exchange learned routes so that only one robot needs to learn a route for the whole tearn to use that route. One contribution of this thesis is to identify a dilemma created by this extension: that once one robot has learned a route between two points, all other robots will follow that route without looking for shorter versions. This trade-off will be labeled the Distributed Exploration vs. Exploitation Dilemma, since increasing distributed exploitation (allowing robots to exchange more routes) means decreasing distributed exploration (reducing robots ability to learn new versions of routes), and vice-versa. At different times, teams may be required with different balances of exploitation and exploration. The main contribution of this thesis is to present a system for setting the balance between exploration and exploitation in a group of robots. This system is demonstrated through experiments involving simulated robot teams. The experiments show that increasing and decreasing the value of a parameter of the novel system will lead to a significant increase and decrease respectively in average exploitation (and an equivalent decrease and increase in average exploration) over a series of team missions. A further set of experiments show that this holds true for a range of team sizes and numbers of goals.


We consider the problem of correlated data gathering by a network with a sink node and a tree communication structure, where the goal is to minimize the total transmission cost of transporting the information collected by the nodes, to the sink node. Two coding strategies are analyzed: a Slepian-Wolf model where optimal coding is complex and transmission optimization is simple, and a joint entropy coding model with explicit communication where coding is simple and transmission optimization is difficult. This problem requires a joint optimization of the rate allocation at the nodes and of the transmission structure. For the Slepian-Wolf setting, we derive a closed form solution and an efficient distributed approximation algorithm with a good performance. For the explicit communication case, we prove that building an optimal data gathering tree is NP-complete and we propose various distributed approximation algorithms.


After building a classifier with modern tools of machine learning we typically have a black box at hand that is able to predict well for unseen data. Thus, we get an answer to the question what is the most likely label of a given unseen data point. However, most methods will provide no answer why the model predicted a particular label for a single instance and what features were most influential for that particular instance. The only method that is currently able to provide such explanations are decision trees. This paper proposes a procedure which (based on a set of assumptions) allows to explain the decisions of any classification method.


Apatite fission track age data from the majority of the 14 samples studied indicate cooling below c. 110 degrees C beginning 60 to 90 Ma ago. Vitrinite reflectance modelling suggests temperatures prior to cooling reached > 160 degrees C in the north and 150 to 160 degrees C elsewhere. Temperatures from fluid inclusions in quartz cement from the Carboniferous Nordkapp Formation may have reached 139 to 151 degrees C. Zircon fission track data from the basement indicate that the maximum temperature during Hecla Hoek metamorphism was less than 290 degrees C. Circumstantial evidence suggests that temperatures prior to deposition of the Permian Miseryfjellet Formation were probably much lower than those during the Mesozoic. Maximum eroded overburden above the Miseryfjellet Formation can be estimated at 2900 to 4200 m using various different methods. The resulting geothermal gradients suggest palaeoheat flow conditions close to those of today.


The monitoring time interval (MTI) is the expected time in years necessary to identify a change between two measures that exceeds the measurement error. Our purpose was to determine MTI values for dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans in normal healthy children, according to age, sex, and skeletal site. 2014 children were enrolled in the Bone Mineral Density in Childhood Study and had DXA scans of the lumbar spine, total hip, nondominant forearm, and whole body. Measurements were obtained annually for seven visits from 2002 to 2010. Annualized rates of change were calculated by age and sex for all bone regions. A subgroup of 155 children ages 6 to 16 years (85 boys) had duplicate scans for calculation of scan precision. The bone mineral density (BMD) regions of interest included the spine, total body less head (TBLH), total hip, femoral neck, and one‐third radius. Bone mineral content (BMC) was also evaluated for the spine and TBLH. The percent coefficient of variation (%CV) and MTI were calculated for each measure as a function of age and sex. The MTI values were substantially less than 1 year for the TBLH and spine BMD and BMC for boys ≤ 17 years and girls ≤ 15 years. The hip and one‐third radius MTIs were generally 1 year in the same group. MTI values as low as 3 months were found during the peak growth years. However, the MTI values in late adolescence for all regions were substantially longer and became nonsensical as each region neared the age for peak bone density. All four DXA measurement sites had reasonable (< 1 year) MTI values for boys ≤ 17 years and girls ≤ 15 years. MTI was neither useful nor stable in late adolescence and young adulthood. Alternative criteria to determine scan intervals must be used in this age range. © 2011 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research


Effective Orthorhombic Anisotropic Models for Wavefield Extrapolation Wilson Ibanez Jacome Wavefield extrapolation in orthorhombic anisotropic media incorporates complicated but realistic models, to reproduce wave propagation phenomena in the Earth's subsurface. Compared with the representations used for simpler symmetries, such as transversely isotropic or isotropic, orthorhombic models require an extended and more elaborated formulation that also involves more expensive computational processes. The acoustic assumption yields more efficient description of the orthorhombic wave equation that also provides a simplified representation for the orthorhombic dispersion relation. However, such representation is hampered by the sixth-order nature of the acoustic wave equation, as it also encompasses the contribution of shear waves. To reduce the computational cost of wavefield extrapolation in such media, I generate effective isotropic inhomogeneous models that are capable of reproducing the first-arrival kinematic aspects of the orthorhombic wavefield. First, in order to compute traveltimes in vertical orthorhombic media, I develop a stable, efficient and accurate algorithm based on the fast marching method. The derived orthorhombic acoustic dispersion relation, unlike the isotropic or transversely isotropic one, is represented by a sixth order polynomial equation that includes the fastest solution corresponding to outgoing P-waves in acoustic media. The effective velocity models are then computed by evaluating the traveltime gradients of the orthorhombic traveltime solution, which is done by explicitly solving the isotropic eikonal equation for the corresponding inhomogeneous isotropic velocity field. The inverted effective velocity fields are source dependent and produce equivalent first-arrival kinematic descriptions of wave propagation in orthorhombic media. I extrapolate wavefields in these isotropic effective velocity models using the more efficient isotropic operator, and the results compare well, especially kinematically, with those obtained from the more expensive anisotropic extrapolator.


This project was supported by Grants #2004-WT-AX-K066 and #2008-TA-AX-K040 awarded to End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI) and Grant #97-WE-VX-K004, awarded to the National Center for Women and Policing (NCWP) by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women. End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI)


This study assessed the effects of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), a reciprocal classwide peer-tutoring strategy, on the reading performance of native Spanish-speaking students with learning disabilities (LD) and their low-, average-, and high-achieving classroom peers. Participants were 132 native Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELL) in Grades 3 through 6, along with their 12 reading teachers. Teachers were assigned randomly to PALS and contrast groups. PALS sessions were conducted 3 times a week for 15 weeks. Students were tested before and after treatment. PALS students outgrew contrast students on reading comprehension, and those effects were not mediated by student type.


In recent years the study of urban toponymy (place names) has been revitalized by the emergence of a 'critical toponymies' approach. This focuses on the cultural politics of place naming and the decisions involved in attributing names to the urban landscape. However, in contemporary cities place names have an economic role in addition to their political role. In particular, there have been recent calls for more attention to the commodification of place-naming rights and practices. This article seeks to respond to these calls by addressing the issue of urban place names as commodities. It begins by examining the naming of sports stadia by corporate sponsors. It then considers a range of ways in which private-sector interests are increasingly influencing the naming of the urban landscape, from buildings and neighbourhoods to individual streets. Even the material signage that identifies street names can be appropriated within branding and promotional strategies. Moreover, urban place names are increasingly incorporated into a range of commercially produced spatial datasets collated by private companies. The article ends by proposing a number of directions for future research into the economic role of urban place names and the commodification of toponymy more broadly.


The 1998–2002 droughts spanning the United States, southern Europe, and Southwest Asia were linked through a common oceanic influence. Cold sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern tropical Pacific and warm SSTs in the western tropical Pacific and Indian oceans were remarkably persistent during this period. Climate models show that the climate signals forced separately by these regions acted synergistically, each contributing to widespread mid-latitude drying: an ideal scenario for spatially expansive, synchronized drought. The warmth of the Indian and west Pacific oceans was unprecedented and consistent with greenhouse gas forcing. Some implications are drawn for future drought.


This paper is entitled "The Analysis of Ambiguous Structures through The Structural Ambiguity Concept". The purpose of the paper is to acquire a clear description of structural ambiguity. Structural ambiguity is a kind of ambiguities which occurs when a phrase, clause or sentence can be given two or more different interpretations as a result of the arrangement of words (the structure). The structural ambiguity can arise even though there is no word(s) are ambiguous in the structure. The result of the paper shows that the structural ambiguity can occur in some structures, namely: Noun Phrase, Prepositional Phrase, Relative Clause, Noun Clause, and also the combination of those with conjunction (coordinating).


Introduction: Radon 222 is a colorless and odorless natural radioactive element with high solubility in water with 3.825 days half-life. The presence of Radon 222 in drinking water can lead to lung or stomach cancers through inhalation or ingestion in the long term. Different age groups have different sensitivity to the risks of Radon 222. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effective dose of Radon 222 received by tap water in different age groups in Bandar Abbas city. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the concentration of Radon 222 of 8 regions of Bandar Abbas city in 48 samples of tap drinking water was measured by portable Radon meter RTM1688-2 in June 2015. The received effective dose by tap drinking water was also calculated in different age groups by UNSCEAR equation. Results: The range and mean concentration of Radon 222 is 87.6-384 Bq/m 3 and 234.4±70 Bq/m 3 , respectively. The mean of the received effective dose in the age groups of adult men, adult women and children and infants was 0.0024±0.0007, 0.0018±0.0005, 0.0007±0.0002 and 0.001±0.0003 mSv/y, respectively. The order of the received effective dose in different age groups was adult men>adult women>infants>children. Conclusion: The effective received dose of all age groups particularly adults is less than the standard limit (0.1 mSv/y), therefore there is no need for treatment of water for removal of Radon 222 in the Bandar Abbas city.


Much of the existing e-government research focuses on developed countries. Although a relatively small number of studies explored Arab e-government development, they did so in a single country context. This article provides an insight into the current state of Arab e-government developments. A cross-country comparative analysis of e-government Web sites and portals was conducted on 16 Arab countries to assess their development stages in e-government service delivery capability. Further comparative analysis was performed between the top Arab e-governments and the global top e-governments in developed countries with regard to "e-democracy," often the highest level e-government service delivery capability identified in the literature. The results confirm a wide digital divide that remains between the Arab countries and the leading developed countries. Importantly, however, the results also show a wide digital divide even among the Arab countries studied, particularly in the development of advanced e-government service delivery capabilities. These results have important implications for developing countries in managing both economic and non-economic resources effectively for successful e-government development. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The microplane model is a versatile constitutive model in which the stress-strain relations are dermed in tenns of vectors rather than tensors on planes of all possible orientations, called the microplanes, representative of the microstructure of the material. The microplane model with kinematic constraint has been successfully employed in the modeling of concrete, soils, ice, rocks, fiber composites and other quasibrittle materials. The microplane model provides a powerful and efficient numerical tool for the development and implementation of constitutive models for any kind of material. The paper presents a review of the background from which the microplane model stems, highlighting differences and similarities with other approaches. The basic structure of the microplane model is then presented, together with its extension to fmite strain defonnation. Three microplane models for metal plasticity are introduced and discussed. They are compared mutually and with the classical Jrflow theory for incremental plasticity by means of two examples. The first is the material response to a nonproportional loading path given by uniaxial compression into the plastic region followed by shear (typical of buckling and bifurcation problems). This example is considered in order to show the capability of the microplane model to represent a vertex on the yield surface. The second example is the 'tube-squash' test of a highly ductile steel tube: a finite element computation is run using two microplane models and the Jrflow theory. One of the microplane models appears to predict more accurately the final shape of the deformed tube, showing an improvement compared to the J2-flow theory even when the material is not SUbjected to abrupt changes in the loading path direction. This review article includes 114 references.


Recent world events have created a compelling need for new perspectives and realistic solutions to the problem of sovereign debt. The success of the Jubilee 2000 movement in raising public awareness of the devastating effects of debt, coupled with the highly publicized Bono/O'Neill tour of Africa, and the spectacular default and economic implosion of Argentina have helped spur a global debate over debt. A growing chorus of globalization critics, galvanized by the Catholic Church's demand for forgiveness and bolstered by recent defaults, has put debt near the top of the international agenda. Creditor governments and international financial institutions have belatedly recognized the need for more sustainable progress on debt as an inescapable step towards economic recovery in many parts of the world. This book is intended to advance the dialogue around these issues by providing a comprehensive overview of the problems raised by debt and describing new and practical approaches to overcoming them. It will be the first in more than a decade to bring together under one cover the voices of prominent members of the international debt community. It will include pieces from the most relevant constituencies: from creditors (the IMF/World Bank, government lenders, private investors) to critics (debtor representatives, activists, and academics) and analysis from economists, bankers, lawyers, social scientists, and politicians. As contributions come from such leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, this book will offer a timely guide for understanding and influencing the debt debate.


Under various names – education and conflict, education and fragility, education and insecurity, etc – the understanding of linkages between education and violent conflict has emerged as an important and pressing area of inquiry. Work and research by practitioners and scholars has clearly pointed to the negative potential of education to contribute to and entrench violent conflict. This work has highlighted the struggle for education during and following periods of instability and demonstrated the degree to which communities affected by conflict prioritize educational opportunities. It has also offered powerful normative arguments for the importance of quality education for peacebuilding, reconciliation, postconflict reconstruction and development.

In many instances, however, these important insights are derived less from rigorous research and scholarship in the social sciences than from the delivery and evaluation of educational programming in situations affected by conflict. This volume, therefore, seeks to broaden enquiry into education and conflict by exploring, through conceptual and empirical work, its linkages to broader theories and practices of development and peacebuilding.


In the first study dry matter (DM), organic matter, crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and soluble carbohydrate (SC) concentrations were determined in whole leaves and the upper and lower sections of whole leaves of the Agave salmiana (Otto ex. Salm-Dyck) plant. The pH and saponin concentration were measured in aqueous extracts from these leaves. The leaves were collected from plants at the young (ca. 12 years old), bud (ca. 14 years old) and mature (ca. 16 years old) stages of growth. The CP level of young Agave (48 g/kg DM) leaves was higher than in leaves from the bud (38 g/kg DM) and mature (43 g/kg DM) stages, and higher in the upper (51 g/kg DM) than in the lower (35 g/kg DM) leaf sections. The leaves at the bud stage contained lower NDF (189 g/kg DM) but higher SC (358 g/kg DM) levels than those of mature (272 g NDF, 247 g SC/kg DM) and young (273 g NDF, 189 g SC) plants. The saponin content of leaves was higher in the mature (11.1 g/kg DM) than in the bud stage (7.5 g/kg DM). In the second study the chemical composition of whole leaves from young, bud and mature micro-ensilaged (3.5 kg as fed) Agave was determined over a 36 weeks fermentation period. Agave silage had acceptable chemical characteristics. As time of fermentation increased, a linear decrease in DM and saponin concentration, a linear increase in NDF and lactic acid levels and a quadratic increase of pH values and ammonia-N concentrations were recorded. Both fresh and ensilaged leaves of the mature and the bud stages were the most desirable maturity stages of Agave to be utilised as feed for ruminants.


This thesis research focuses on a curated CRM collection of Late Period Chumash chert microdrills from CA-SLO-214. The main goal of this research is to compare the Chumash drill-making industry in Los Osos to the known industry on the Channel Islands. A literature review was conducted on both Chumash mainland and island microdrills. Laboratory analysis focused exclusively on the collection of microdrills from Los Osos in order to compare the less studied Northern Chumash microdrills to the documented Santa Cruz Island microdrills. This research shows that the Northern Chumash m~de and used chert microdrills. These tools have been found on the coast near Los Osos and inland in San Luis Obispo. These Northern Chumash microdrill types are very similar to each other, but dissimilar to microdrill types found further south near Gaviota, and very different than the microdrills on Santa Cruz Island. I show that the Northern Chumash had a microdrill production industry dissimilar in technology, intensity, and wear patterns to their southern counterparts, but have similar dimensions. The presence of these tools in this area may suggest a higher degree of social complexity than has been previously thought. MA ogram: Cultural Resources Management Sonoma State University Date: ~


Organisational change is a constant issue that is becoming increasingly more challenging, especially for employees. Past research identifies the importance of having an effective relationship with the supervisor so that employees can engage in bi-directional communication to clarify issues related to the changes. This research topic, 'The role of self-leadership coaching to enhance bi-directional communication for older Singaporean employees undergoing organisational change', is seeking to test the effectiveness of a strategy, namely coaching to improve the development of employee self-leadership so that they can better cope with organisational change. As a result, the research examines the effectiveness of using coaching to build individual attributes so as to promote self-leadership for older Asian Singaporean employees so that they can overcome personal and cultural factors negatively impacting bi-directional communication with supervisors within an Asian context.
This research which was conducted in Singapore, uses qualitative interviews along with coaching to solicit information from 10 Asian Singaporean employees aged 45 to 65 from seven organisations about their ability to communicate about the change process with their supervisor before and after coaching. The findings indicate that individual attributes, particularly psychological capital, was a major factor negatively impacting communication with supervisors during the change process. After the coaching sessions, all participants perceived higher levels of internal strength (probably because of their increased individual attributes), and were able to engage in greater bi-directional communication during the change process.
Hence, the evidence supports a role for coaching older Asian employees undergoing organisational change who struggle with bi-directional communication with their supervisors. The advantage for organisations is that, when employees have higher levels of individual attributes, they have greater confidence to discuss change issues with their supervisor and as a consequence their resistance to change is reduced.


Grammar is one of the most discussed part of language learning. Many studentshave problems understanding how to use the grammatical forms in their ownproduction and communication. The purpose of this work is to investigate theteachers´ attitudes towards grammar and what methods they use when they teachgrammar. The method used in this work is qualitative, with four interviews ofteachers working in the Swedish high school. In order to determine how the teacherswork, we have studied the course plans presented by Skolverket and we have alsostudied what the current research have to say about this. The result shows that theinterviewed teachers mostly vary their methods, using both inductive and deductiveapproaches in order to promote the communicative competence of the students. Theinterviews also show that the teachers have a positive attitude towards grammar,considering it an important part of language learning.


Title of Thesis: THERMOREVERSIBLE TRANSITIONS BETWEEN SELF-ASSEMBLED NANOSTRUCTURES IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION Degree Candidate: TANNER S. DAVIES Degree and Year: MASTER OF SCIENCE, 2005 Directed by: PROF. SRINIVASA R. RAGHAVAN, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING We study an unusual transition between two different types of self-assembled structures in aqueous solutions. Mixtures of a cationic surfactant, CTAB and the organic compound, 5-methyl salicylic acid (5mS) spontaneously self-assemble into unilamellar vesicles at room temperature. Upon heating, these vesicles undergo a thermoreversible transition to "wormlike" micelles, i.e., long, flexible micellar chains. This phase transition results in a 1000-fold increase in the solution viscosity with increasing temperature. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements show that the phase transition from vesicles to micelles is a continuous one, with the vesicles and micelles co-existing over a range of temperatures. The tunable vesicle-to-micelle transition and the concomitant viscosity increase upon heating may have utility in a range of areas including microfluidics, drug delivery, and enhanced oil recovery. THERMOREVERSIBLE TRANSITIONS BETWEEN SELF-ASSEMBLED NANOSTRUCTURES IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION


Particles can be classified as bosons or fermions. A defining characteristic of a boson is its ability to pile into a single quantum state with other bosons. Fermions are not allowed to do this. One broad impact of fermionic anti-social behavior is that it allows for carbon-based life forms, like us, to exist. If the universe were solely made from bosons, life would certainly not look like it does. Recently, JQI theorists have proposed an elegant method for achieving transmutation—that is, making bosons act like fermions. This work was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. [7]


Studies of territorial, highly stable groups of wild Eurasian badger, Meles meles, revealed that more than one adult of each sex may breed within a group, and that extra-territorial movements may occur within clusters of territories. Although there is some genetic structuring within a local population and a deficiency of heterozygotes, due probably to minimal juvenile dispersal, heterogeneity of gene frequencies is reduced by: (a) adults transferring between adjacent groups, and (b) matings between males of one group and females of another. Marked changes in gene frequencies between generations indicate that a minority of males have a strong influence on the genotypes of the offspring, being either polygynous or promiscuous. Within one generation, the young of a given group may be sired by two or more males, and these males may not necessarily be members of that group.


We present two neuroscience experiments that have major implications for HCI research: First, we discuss a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study by Sanfey et al. (2003) who investigated brain activities of players of the Ultimatum Game. It was found that participants had a stronger emotional reaction to unfair offers from humans than to the same offers from a computer. Second, we discuss a Positron Emission Topography (PET) study by Haier et al. (1992) who studied participants playing the computer game Tetris over a period of several weeks. It was found that learning may result in decreased use of extraneous or inefficient brain areas. Finally, we stress the importance of measuring theoretical constructs in HCI research (e.g. user satisfaction) by using neuroscience techniques. Since theoretical constructs are neither directly observable nor objectively measurable, we argue that recent achievements in neuroscience technology will allow for directly measuring feelings and thoughts (e.g. satisfaction) in the future.


Over the last few decades, the importance of ophthalmic examination in neurodegenerative diseases of the CNS has reportedly increased. The retina is an extension of the CNS and thus should not be surprising to find abnormal results in both the test exploring visual processing and those examining the retina of patients with CNS degeneration. Current in vivo imaging techniques are allowing ophthalmologists to detect and quantify data consistent with the histopathological findings described in the retinas of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and may help to reveal unsuspected retinal and optic‐nerve repercussions of other CNS diseases. In this chapter, we perform an analysis of the physiological changes in ocular and cerebral ageing. We analyse the ocular manifestations in CNS disorders such as stroke, AD and Parkinson's disease. In addition, the pathophysiology of both the eye and the visual pathway in AD are described. The value of the visual psychophysical tests in AD diagnosis is reviewed as well as the main findings of the optical coherence tomography as a contribution to the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease. Finally, we examine the association of two neurodegenerative diseases, AD and glaucoma, as mere coincidence or possible role in the progression of the neurodegeneration.


We evaluate an image-based multiangle bidirectional reflectance distribution function measurement setup by comparing it to measurements from two commercially available goniospectrophotometers. The image-based setup uses an RGB camera to perform bidirectional measurements of the sample material. We use a conversion matrix to calculate luminance from the captured data. The matrix is calculated using camera spectral sensitivities that are measured with a monochromator. Radiance factor of the sample material is measured using a commercially available tabletop goniospectrophotometer and compared to measurements made using the image-based setup in the colorimetric domain. Our measurement setup is validated by comparing the measurements performed using a goniospectrophotometer. Uncertainty and error propagation is calculated and taken into account for validation. The sample material measured is wax-based ink printed on packaging paper substrate commonly used in the print and packaging industry. Results obtained show that the image-based setup can perform bidirectional reflectance measurements with a known uncertainty. The goniospectrophotometer measurements lie within the uncertainty of the measurements performed by the image-based measurement setup. The setup can be used to perform bidirectional reflectance measurements on samples with properties similar to the samples used in this paper.


Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has replaced axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in early breast cancer patients as the first line surgical approach to axillary nodes. Further dissection is performed only when SLN is involved by tumor cells. However, in a significant proportion of patients, non-sentinel nodes are still not involved and axillary dissection has no additional therapeutic benefits. Selective axillary clearance has been considered to prevent unnecessary dissection. The purpose of this study was to define predictors of non-sentinel lymph node involvement in patients with positive SLNB.Methods: Patients with early stage breast cancer and positive SLNB who underwent ALNDin a referral hospital in Tehran, Iran between2010 and 2012 were recruited into the study. Relations between different clinico-pathological characteristics and involvement of non-sentinel nodes were investigated.Results: From 139 patients who had positive SLNB and underwent ALND, only in 71 cases (51%) positive non-sentinel lymph nodes (NSLNs) were detected. In univariate analysis, there was no association between tumor size, lymphovascular invasion, ER, PR and HER-2 expression and NSLN metastasis. In contrast, presence of more than one SLN (P = 0.016) and a sentinel node ratio (SNR) more than 0.5 showed a significant association (P< 0.001). Only the latter remained as the significant predictor of NSLN involvement in mutltivariate analysis (P < 0.001, OR = 3.706).Conclusions: Based on our results, patients with a SNR more than 0.5 were more commonly diagnosed with NSLN metastasis. Thus, it is recommended that surgeons think twice before skipping ALND in this subgroup of patients.


Dental caries is a chronic, transmissible disease of multifactorial etiology. There are a number of factors involved in the process of caries development. Xerostomia, resulting from medication use, may act synergistically with other known caries risk factors and indicators. We present a case report of a patient with high caries risk complicated by reduced salivary flow due to medications used in the treatment of glaucoma (Brimodin and Xalacom). A 36-year-old woman presented was referred to the Preventive Dentistry Clinic of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Nigeria, on account of a 3-week history of toothache in the upper right quadrant. She had a high caries risk and a decayed, missing, and filled teeth index of 19. Consumption of cariogenic meals, poor plaque control, and treatment of glaucoma since childhood, with xerogenic medication, including xalacom and brimodin were determined to be part of the multifactorial etiology in this case. After relief of pain through pulp extirpation, the patient motivation and counseling on caries process, the need for good oral hygiene, and proper diet were done. Scaling and polishing were also done in addition to fluoride therapy and chemical plaque control. Improvement of salivary flow with the use of sugar-free chewing gum, artificial saliva, and frequent sipping of small quantities of water was also prescribed while the patient was referred to the restorative and oral surgery units for extraction of retained roots, composite fillings, and denture fabrication. Patients that present to any dental clinic with multiple carious lesions must be reviewed by the preventive dentistry specialists and have their caries risk assessed. It is also imperative that ophthalmologists include a dental consultation in the overall management of their patients, especially when they prescribe medication that has known oral side effects.


By combining the band-transport equations with the coupled wave equations, we obtain a self-consistent set of equations governing the recording of photorefractive holograms. Using the results of this model leads to accurate predictions for the observed intensity coupling and holographic diffraction efficiency. The model also predicts complicated dynamics for long recording times. The origin of this prediction is discussed and is found to be due to a new effect, which is called transient fringe dislocation.


The top quark plays a special role in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. With its enormous mass of about 170 GeV it is as heavy as a gold atom and it is the only quark with a mass near the electroweak scale. Together with the W boson mass, the top quark mass allows indirect constraints on the mass of the hypothetical Higgs boson, which might hold the clue to the origin of mass.

Top pair production with a semileptonic decay is the "golden channel" for mass measurements, due to a large branching fraction and a relatively low background contamination compared to other decay channels. Top mass measurements based on this decay, performed with the matrix element method, have always been among the single best measurements in the world. In 2007, the top mass world average broke the 1% level of precision. Its measurement is no longer dominated by statistical but instead by systematic uncertainties. The reduction of systematic uncertainties has therefore become a key issue for further progress.

This thesis introduces two new developments in the treatment of b jets. The first improvement is an optimization in the way b identification information is used. It leads to an enhanced separation between signal and background processes and reduces the statistical uncertainty by about 16%. The second improvement determines differences in the detector response and thus the energy scales of light jets and b jets. Thereby, it addresses the major source of systematic uncertainty in the latest top mass measurements.


Our understanding of the pathophysiological and biochemical basis of a number of neurological disorders has increased enormously over the last three decades. Parallel with this growth of knowledge has been a clearer understanding of the mechanism by which a number of naturally occurring plant extracts, as well as whole plants, can affect these mechanisms so as to offer protection against injury and promote healing of neurological tissues. Curcumin, quercetin, green tea catechins, balcalein, and luteolin have been extensively studied, and they demonstrate important effects on cell signaling that go far beyond their antioxidant effects. Of particular interest is the effect of these compounds on immunoexcitotoxicity, which, the authors suggest, is a common mechanism in a number of neurological disorders. By suppressing or affecting microglial activation states as well as the excitotoxic cascade and inflammatory mediators, these compounds dramatically affect the pathophysiology of central nervous system disorders and promote the release and generation of neurotrophic factors essential for central nervous system healing. We discuss the various aspects of these processes and suggest future directions for study.


Abstract The Queer Indigenous body is a site of contention between worlds. When Queer embodiment and Indigenous identity collide the constituent ideological frameworks of each signifier are called into question. This axis has yet to be named and critically engaged beyond being characteristically 'queer' and 'indigenous'. Queer Aboriginal identities are yet to be, in detail, extrapolated for their conforming or irreconcilable qualities. I will discuss the ways in which the Australian Queer Indigenous absence in critical paradigms are due to abject marginalisation- as a product of unmarked performances of identity rendered invisible, powerless, contradictory, and meaningless on the social realms in which they exist. If you cannot see it, you cannot observe it. I ask: Do Queer Aboriginal people exist? Who is accountable for their existence? How are they concealed and diminished? And, how can we make these figures legible? To answer these complex questions I will compare and contrast frames of knowing with established roots in Aboriginal Studies and Queer Theory and utilise them to delineate, test, confront, and make sense of what can be said of Indigenous Queer identities in Australia. My inquiry is ultimately intersectional. Whatever frames I call into action I am reminded, to paraphrase Flavia Dzodan that my understanding of Queer Indigenous people will be intersectional or it will be bullshit!


The two essays by Roman Jakobson which are now presented in English translation for the first time were originally published in Russian, in one of the nine volumes (a tenth volume is under preparation, edited by Professor Linda Waugh) of Jakobson's Selected Writings. In keeping with a number of his other essays in various languages, it was published in Russian, in the English edition: Selected Writings, Vol 5, On Verse, Its Masters and Explorers (1979) The Hague, Mouton (pp382-412). The title details of the essays are: КПОЗДНЕЙ ЛИРИКЕ МАЯКОВСКОГО (pp382-405), translated as: 'About Mayakovsky's Later Lyrical Poems'; and ДОСТОЕВСКИЙ В ОТГОЛОСКАХ МАЯКОВСКОГО (pp406-412), translated as: 'Dostoyevsky Echoed In Mayakovsky's Work'. These essays were originally written as a commentary to previously unpublished texts by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky for an edition of his work Russkij literaturnyi arxiv (1956) New York, Harvard University Press.

Roman Jakobson wrote about Mayakovsky in his essay: 'On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets' in 1931. It was re-published in English in Language in Literature (1987) Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press (pp273-300). These two newly translated essays reveal insights, not only into Mayakovsky but into Roman Jakobson himself, both as a theoretician and as a person. Known for his commitment to, and exploration of Formalism, the essays also reveal the more personal biographical response of a close friend. However, Jakobson clearly states his Formalist analytical position in the opening sentence of the first essay: 'In Mayakovsky's literary works, love poems and lyrical cycles befittingly alternate with lyrical epic poems about world events'. As is indicated in the Colloquium essay to which these translations provide an addendum, this alternation of composition is also evident within individual poems. After providing details of Mayakovsky's personal life events, Jakobson returns to Formalist analysis, in the penultimate paragraph of the second essay, stating that Mayakovsky often made:
'declarations about the alternation of genres and their dramatic collisions; about the fight between the lyrical and anti-lyrical inspiration. This is not a fight that was imposed upon the poet. No one could have imposed anything upon such a stubborn poet'.

The English translation of these essays provides fresh knowledge of Roman Jakobson the theorist by revealing how he uses personal biographical details to provide material for his Formalist analysis.


Quantum mechanics and atomic, molecular, optical (AMO) physics have been
widely studied in the past century. This dissertation covers several topics in the
field of AMO physics that were the focus of my Ph.D. studies, both theoretical and
computational.The first topic is related to trapping of Rydberg atoms inside an optical trap. The
study focuses on the trapping energy and state mixing of Rydberg atoms based on
different angular momentum state and spin-orbit coupling of the Rydberg electron. The second topic is the two-electron correlations in an atom, especially double
Rydberg wave packets. We have focused on the rapid autoionization and angular
momentum exchanges between the double Rydberg wave packets. Then, the study of
two-electron correlation is extended to the post-collision interaction (PCI) in Auger
decay and a sequential ionization model. Quantum interference patterns can be found
in the final correlated distributions. In the PCI study, quantum calculations and semiclassical calculations are performed to interpret the interference patterns. The last topic is the ionization behavior of one-electron Rydberg atoms from
a terahertz single-cycle pulse. We investigate and compare the different ionization
probabilities of a Rydberg electron from an initial stationary state and a wave packet.
Also, studies of the ionization behavior are extended to scaled parameters, where all
physical parameters of the electron and field pulses are scaled.


The study investigates the effects of classroom composition (average ability, achievement, and socio-economic background, proportion of immigrant students) on the development in mathematics achievement, and reading literacy from grade 5 to 6. The study draws on a sample of N=1892 students in vocational track schools (Hauptschule) and intermediate track schools (Realschule) in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. After controlling for school type, and between-school differences in student intake characteristics, none of the compositional characteristics showed a statistically significant effect on achievement development. School track was associated with the development of reading literacy even after controlling for individual differences; however, this relationship lost its statistical significance after the composition of the student body was additionally taken into account.


Striated muscle shortens under various loads (i.e., performs work), which allows movement of the skeleton and pumping of blood throughout the circulatory system. The amount of work that a muscle can do is determined by the speed at which it shortens against a given load. One sarcomeric protein hypothesized to assist muscle shortening speed is the giant protein titin. Titin is a 3-4 MDa protein that spans the sarcomere from Z line to M line and is thought to both bind actin in the thin filament and proteins of the thick filament. Titin contains extensible regions that are thought to provide passive restoring forces, with the size of these extensible regions being the primary difference between titin isoforms. The larger the extensible regions, the lower the passive force for a given increase in muscle length. The extension of titin, and consequent increase in passive force, may assist in muscle shortening by bearing some of the load normally carried by cross-bridges. To test this hypothesis that titin assists shortening in an isoform dependent manner three muscle types were studied: slow-twitch skeletal muscle fibers (with the largest titin isoform), fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibers (intermediate-sized titin isoform), and cardiac myocytes (smallest titin isoform). Single permeabilized skeletal muscle fibers or cardiac myocyte preparations were attached between a force transducer and a position motor and changes in muscle length were monitored during shortening against varied loads during submaximal Ca activations. Force-velocity relationships were obtained before and after a mild trypsin treatment that has been shown to cleave titin with no apparent effects on other sarcomeric proteins. Although cleavage of titin did not affect isometric force or loaded shortening velocity in any of the three types of striated muscle, titin cleavage did alter the pattern of force re-development by markedly reducing the extent of a transient overshoot in isometric force that typically occurs after muscle re-stretch in all three muscle types. These results imply that titin strain has a negligible effect in determining striated muscle loaded shortening velocity but does appear to modulate the number of force-generating cross-bridges following muscle stretch.


Research and development efforts on chip and wafer-scale 3D integration for system miniaturization have been continuing for more than a decade. However, there are still only a handful of 3D integrated products available in the market due to the high cost and complexity of the integration processes. Another issue is the increased difficulty of integrating more than 2 layers due to the inherent limitations in most processes. It is thus evident that the development of alternative techniques which are simpler, more cost-effective and can go beyond the second level is needed to advance the field. The main objective of this thesis is to develop low-cost and simple copper TSV- based processes for homogeneous and heterogeneous integration platforms, presenting a new path to achieve system miniaturization for high performance, high bandwidth, and low power consumption. In the first part of this thesis, a process developed for multi-layer integration of CMOS flash memory chips is presented. Multi-layer integration has been achieved in a step-by-step manner where first a 2-layer integration process flow mostly compatible with iterative use has been developed and then improvements and modifications allowed it to be implemented for multi-layer integration. The technologies used can be summarized as: i) IBE and DRIE for TSV formation, ii) Adhesive thermo-compression bonding with Parylene-C, iii) Copper electroplating for TSV filling. The improved process protocol for multi-layer integration includes several enhancements such as a strengthened parylene layer, pseudo-tapered via structures and gradual electrodeposition. Successfully fabricated 4-layer stacks have been successfully packaged in SEC packages by the collaborator, which also shows the compatibility of the process with commercial packaging lines. Resistance characterizations produced a single TSV resistance of 180 m? for CMOS memory chips. Moreover, TDR measurements performed on packaged samples produced an average inductance value of 0.9 nH for 3D-integrated stacks whereas this value is 1.5 nH for wire-bonded stacks, showing the improved impedance characteristics after 3D integration, which in turn results in a higher signal integrity. The second part of the thesis presents the development of a chip-to-wafer heterogeneous integration process using Parylene-C with improved hydrophobicity. Chip-to-wafer integration provides much higher flexibility since it allows samples of different sizes and surface properties to be integrated while still having a much higher throughput than chip-to-chip integration. A novel method has been developed to use surface tension-driven self-alignment for integrating multiple chips on a wafer, where a modified parylene layer with enhanced hydrophobicity has been used to confine the top chips on target locations. Sample bottom wafers and top chips have been fabricated and successfully integrated using the developed technique. Wafer-level misalignment measurements produced a mean alignment error of 4.2 µm with a standard deviation of 1.5 µm, showing that the developed technique is suitable for applications which do not require high resolutions, while also allowing heterogeneous integration to be performed in non-CMOS-grade cleanrooms without using automated special tools.


In the past several years, studies have revealed an alarming increase in the number of obese patients, of diabetes, and also regarding the age at which women get pregnant. Family doctors – as they have a good knowledge about their patients, the risk factors and the consequences which diabetes has during pregnancy not only for the mother, but also for their children's health – play an important part in managing these affections. Moreover, a good collaboration between family doctors and other specific specialties responsible, has as main purpose the prevention of major complications involved in diabetes during pregnancy and also the decrease of available risks for the mother, while increasing the newborn's health in all its aspects.


Although Thomas More ' s description of the Utopians ' ' Epicurean ' position in philosophy nominally coincides with Erasmus ' s defence of the Philosophia Christi , More shows no concern for the arguments Erasmus gave in support of this view. Taking its starting point from Erasmus ' s depreciations of the body and More ' s intellectual as well as physical preoccupations with the bodily sphere, this article presents the theme of the human body and its moral and religious significance as a test case for comparing Erasmus and More. The treatises both men wrote on Christ ' s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane confirm that both authors dealt with the notion of the body in contrasting ways: Erasmus shows a tendency to address the moral-psychological question of mentally conquering the worldly self, whilst More highlights the way in which ordinary facts and physical things may carry spiritual and religious meaning. Paradoxically, Erasmus consistently applied his spiritualized ideal of man to this-worldly moral and social concerns, whereas More focused on the physical domain out of a religious interest in transcendent truths. In line with Giulia Sissa ' s thesis, our hypothesis is that More ostensibly appropriated an Erasmian type of idealism in Utopia , but, contrary to Erasmus himself, focused on the exterior form of a virtuous society, rather than on its moral and spiritual preconditions. While Erasmus advocated a mental transformation towards reason, More ' s Utopia envisioned what might come of this.


This paper investigates the determinants of inter-firm cooperation in research and development (R&D). We analyse the impact of structural and firm specific characteristics, market performance, access to resources and managerial techniques on different types of inter-firm R&D cooperation. Based on a survey of 886 enterprises in manufacturing and industry/business-related services located in Germany, we estimate several models with different types of R&D partnerships as a dependent variable to find out which types of enterprises are more or less likely to form or join either type of R&D partnership. The findings suggest that the availability and the quality of a firm's own R&D resources are common factors driving R&D cooperation in general. Differentiating between cooperation activities in R&D among enterprises on the same production level on the one hand and vertical cooperation between enterprises and suppliers/customers or cross-sector alliances between enterprises and public research institutes on the other hand, we find cooperation type specific determinants of entry. The size of a firm, its location, access to financial resources and network experience seem to be most important.


Background: A major contributor to the black-white mortality gap in endometrial cancer (EC) is late stage at diagnosis for black women, which may be driven by delays in diagnosis both prior to and after symptom disclosure. Methods: For phase 1, black women with EC were recruited through oncology clinics and a local cancer support group. In-depth interviews were conducted focused on experiences of menopause, postmenopausal bleeding (PMB), and symptom disclosure, and transcripts coded using directed content analysis. For phase 2, EC cases from 2001–2015 were identified in SEER-Medicare. Location, provider type, and dates of symptom report and diagnosis were defined by claims data. The diagnostic interval was then calculated and step-wise multivariate modeling used to determine factors associated with time to diagnosis. Results: Phase 1 included 11 black women from 4 states (WA, LA, GA, CA), ages 47–70, stages 1––3 at diagnosis, for a total of 147 pages of transcribed interviews. Most were insured, with access to routine medical care. Common themes were a lack of knowledge of normal vs abnormal menopausal symptoms and silencing about bleeding among friends and family. The predominant interpretation of PMB was a resumption of normal menstruation, leading to significant delay in symptom disclosure. Reporting to an MD was largely driven by increased severity of bleeding or the onset of pain. Phase 2 included 3,363 EC cases, with 293 (8%) black women. The median diagnostic interval was 28 days (IQR: 8–110 days). After adjusting for age, region, gynecologic history and other presenting symptoms, provider differences were noted with shorter time for ER MDs (84%; P<.01) and PCPs (16%; P=.05) vs OBGYN. Characterization of bleeding as 'abnormal' rather than 'postmenopausal' prolonged time to diagnosis by 60% (P<.001). Black race was associated with a 2.4-fold increased diagnostic time interval (P=.017). Step-wise modeling showed that this association was explained by differences in diagnostic work-up: Compared to those with a biopsy within 7 days of presentation, women who had an ultrasound or no procedures had longer intervals (42% and 99%, respectively) to diagnosis (P<.001 for all). Conclusion: Among black women with access to medical care, there are modifiable factors that contribute to delays in diagnosis of EC both prior to and after symptom disclosure to a physician. This is the first study to identify targets for intervention to reduce the mortality rate in this high-risk group.


Increasing incidences of fire from land conversion and residue burning in tropics is the major concern in global warming. Spatial and temporal monitoring of trends of fire incidences is, therefore, significant in order to determine contribution of carbon emissions from slash and burn agriculture. In this study, we analyzed time-series Terra / Aqua MODIS satellite hotspot products from 2001 to 2013 to derive intra- and inter-annual trends in fire incidences in Nagaland state, located in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. Time-series regression was applied to MODIS fire products at variable spatial scales in GIS. Significance of change in fire frequency at each grid level was tested using t statistic. Spatial clustering of higher or lower fire incidences across study area was determined using Getis-OrdGi statistic. Maximum fire incidences were encountered in moist mixed deciduous forests (46%) followed by secondary moist bamboo brakes (30%). In most parts of the study area fire incidences peaked during March while in warmer parts (e.g. Mon district dominated by indigenous people) fire activity starts as early as during November and peaks in January. Regression trend analysis captured noticeable areas with statistically significant positive (e.g. Mokokchung, Wokha, Mon, Tuensang and Kiphire districts) and negative (e.g. Kohima and north-western part of Mokokchung district) inter-annual fire frequency trends based on area-based aggregation of fire occurrences at different grid sizes. Localization of spatial clusters of high fire incidences was observed in Mokokchung, Wokha, Mon,Tuensang and Kiphire districts.


The widely believed notion that Taiwan will inevitably submit to rule by Beijing is not politically, economically, or strategically well grounded. Despite its economic influence and growing military might, China's ability to compel involuntary unification is far from certain if Taiwan's people are determined to maintain their autonomy.


Resource partitioning within a species, trophic polymorphism is hypothesized to evolve by disruptive selection when intraspecific competition for certain resources is severe. However, in this study, we reported the secondary partitioning of oviposition resources without resource competition in the damselfly Ischnura senegalensis. In this species, females show color polymorphism that has been evolved as counteradaptation against sexual conflict. One of the female morphs is a blue-green (andromorph, male-like morph), whereas the other morph is brown (gynomorph). These female morphs showed alternative preferences for oviposition resources (plant tissues); andromorphs used fresh (greenish) plant tissues, whereas gynomorphs used decaying (brownish) plants tissues, suggesting that they chose oviposition resources on which they are more cryptic. In addition, the two-color morphs had different egg morphologies. Andromorphs have smaller and more elongated eggs, which seemed to adapt to hard substrates compared with those of gynomorphs. The resource partitioning in this species is achieved by morphological and behavioral differences between the color morphs that allow them to effectively exploit different resources. Resource partitioning in this system may be a by-product of phenotypic integration with body color that has been sexually selected, suggesting an overlooked mechanism of the evolution of resource partitioning. Finally, we discuss the evolutionary and ecological consequences of such resource partitioning.


Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was a controversial social and cultural theorist known for his trenchant analyses of media and technological communication. Belonging to the generation of French thinkers that included Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Fran ois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, Baudrillard has at times been vilified by his detractors, but the influence of his work on critical thought and pop culture is impossible to deny (many might recognize his name from The Matrix movies, which claimed to be based on the French theorist's ideas). Steve Redhead takes a fresh look at Baudrillard in relation to the intellectual and political climates in which he wrote. Baudrillard sought to produce a theory of modernity, but the modern world of the 1950s was radically different from the reality of the early twenty-first century. Beginning with Baudrillard's initial publications in the 1960s and concluding with his writings on 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, Redhead guides the reader through Baudrillard's difficult texts and unorthodox views on current issues. He also proposes an original theory of Baudrillard's relation to postmodernism, presenting the theorist's work as "non-postmodernist," after Bruno Latour's concept of "non-modernity." Each section of the Reader includes an extract from one of Baudrillard's writings, prefaced by a short bibliographical introduction that places the piece in context and puts the debate surrounding the theorist into sharp perspective. The conflict over Baudrillard's legacy stems largely from the fact that a comprehensive selection of his writings has yet to be translated and collected into one volume. The Jean Baudrillard Reader provides an expansive and much-needed portrait of the critic's resonant work.


Resistance to insects was found in a recombinant inbred (RI) population of soybean derived from nonresistant parents, Minsoy' and Noir I' (MN) (240 RI). The objectives of this study were to determine quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with this resistance by linkage to either restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and to confirm these loci in a new population derived from Minsoy crossed with the elite cultivar Archer (MA) (233 RI). Corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea Boddie) larvae were reared on individual lines of the MN and MA RI and several larval traits were measured. Of the 20 linkage groups (LG) of the composite genetic soybean map, QTLs were found on five LGs in the MN and four in the MA population. The QTL on LG U2 is associated with major effects on larval development in both the MN (r 2 > 0.12) and the MA population (r 2 > 0.28). All other QTLs had lesser effects (r 2 < 0.10). The U2 QTL associated with resistance to insects is of major importance in that: (i) it has been identified in different genetic backgrounds; (ii) it is associated with several larval growth parameters; and (iii) it explains a large proportion of the phenotypic variation. All other QTLs were observed to segregate in only one population. Most of the resistance alleles were associated with the Minsoy parent. Consistent with this observation, Archer and Noir 1 were better corn earworm larval host plants than Minsoy.