The shopping mall is both the most visible and the most contentious symbol of American prosperity. Despite their convenience, malls are routinely criticized for representing much that is wrong in America-sprawl, conspicuous consumption, the loss of regional character, and the decline of Mom and Pop stores. So ubiquitous are malls that most people would be suprised to learn that they are the brainchild of a single person, architect Victor Gruen. An immigrant from Austria who fled the Nazis in 1938, Gruen based his idea for the mall on an idealized America: the dream of concentrated shops that would benefit the businessperson as well as the consumer and that would foster a sense of shared community. Modernist Philip Johnson applauded Gruen for creating a true civic art and architecture that enriched Americans' daily lives, and for decades he received praise from luminaries such as Lewis Mumford, Winthrop Rockefeller, and Lady Bird Johnson. Yet, in the end, Gruen returned to Europe, thoroughly disillusioned with his American dream. In Mall Maker, the first biography of this visionary spirit, M. Jeffrey Hardwick relates Gruen's successes and failures-his work at the 1939 World's Fair, his makeover of New York's Fifth Avenue boutiques, his rejected plans for reworking entire communities, such as Fort Worth, Texas, and his crowning achievement, the enclosed shopping mall. Throughout Hardwick illuminates the dramatic shifts in American culture during the mid-twentieth century, notably the rise of suburbia and automobiles, the death of downtown, and the effect these changes had on American life. Gruen championed the redesign of suburbs and cities through giant shopping malls, earnestly believing that he was promoting an American ideal, the ability to build a community. Yet, as malls began covering the landscape and downtowns became more depressed, Gruen became painfully aware that his dream of overcoming social problems through architecture and commerce was slipping away. By the tumultuous year of 1968, it had disappeared. Victor Gruen made America depend upon its shopping malls. While they did not provide an invigorated sense of community as he had hoped, they are enduring monuments to the lure of consumer culture.


The COVID-19 outbreak spurred unplanned closures and transitions to online classes. Physical environments that once fostered social interaction and community were rendered inactive. We conducted interviews and administered surveys to examine undergraduate STEM students' feelings of belonging and engagement while in physical isolation, and identified online teaching modes associated with these feelings. Surveys from a racially diverse group of 43 undergraduate students at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) revealed that interactive synchronous instruction was positively associated with feelings of interest and belonging, particularly for students of color, while noninteractive instruction reduced social belonging, but was related to more cognitive engagement. Small group and one-on-one interviews with 23 of these students suggest that students derived feelings of connectedness from their instructors, peers, and prior experiences and relied on their sense of competency to motivate themselves in the course and feel a sense of belonging. Two embedded cases of students in physics classrooms are compared to highlight the range of student feelings of connectedness and competency during the lockdown. Findings reaffirm that social interaction tends to support belonging and engagement, particularly for under-represented (Black or African American and Hispanic) racial groups in STEM. STEM instructors who aim to support feelings of belonging and engagement in virtual learning environments should consider increasing opportunities for student–student and student–teacher interactions, as well as taking a flexible approach that validates and integrates student voice into instruction. Future research is needed to further explore the themes of relatedness and competency that emerged as aspects of course belonging.


The first half of this thesis deals with an aspect of domination; more specifically, we investigate the vertex integrity of n-distance-domination in a graph, i.e., the extent to which n-distance-domination properties of a graph are preserved by the deletion of vertices, as well as the following: Let G be a connected graph of order p and let oiS s;:; V(G). An S-n-distance-dominating set in G is a set D s;:; V(G) such that each vertex in S is n-distance-dominated by a vertex in D. The size of a smallest S-n-dominating set in G is denoted by I'n(S, G). If S satisfies I'n(S, G) = I'n(G), then S is called an n-distance-domination-forcing set of G, and the cardinality of a smallest n-distance-domination-forcing set of G is denoted by On(G). We investigate the value of On(G) for various graphs G, and we characterize graphs G for which On(G) achieves its lowest value, namely, I'n(G), and, for n = 1, its highest value, namely, p(G). A corresponding parameter, 1](G), defined by replacing the concept of n-distance-domination of vertices (above) by the concept of the covering of edges is also investigated. For k E {a, 1, ... ,rad(G)}, the set S is said to be a k-radius-forcing set if, for each v E V(G), there exists Vi E S with dG(v, Vi) ~ k. The cardinality of a smallest k-radius-forcing set of G is called the k-radius-forcing number of G and is denoted by Pk(G). We investigate the value of Prad(G) for various classes of graphs G, and we characterize graphs G for which Prad(G) and Pk(G) achieve specified values. We show that the problem of determining Pk(G) is NP-complete, study the sequences (Po(G),Pl(G),P2(G), ... ,Prad(G)(G)), and we investigate the relationship between Prad(G)(G) and Prad(G)(G + e), and between Prad(G)(G + e) and the connectivity of G, for an edge e of the complement of G. Finally, we characterize integral triples representing realizable values of the triples b,i,p), b,l't,i), b,l'c,p), b,l't,p) and b,l't,l'c) for a graph.


Caveolin-1 (CAV1) acts as a growth suppressor in various human malignancies, but its expression is elevated in many advanced cancers, suggesting the oncogenic switch of its role during tumor progression. To understand the molecular basis for the growth-promoting function of CAV1, we characterized its expression status, differential roles for tumor growth, and effect on glucose metabolism in colorectal cancers. Abnormal elevation of CAV1 was detected in a substantial fraction of primary tumors and cell lines and tightly correlated with promoter CpG sites hypomethylation. Depletion of elevated CAV1 led to AMPK activation followed by a p53-dependent G1 cell-cycle arrest and autophagy, suggesting that elevated CAV1 may contribute to ATP generation. Furthermore, CAV1 depletion downregulated glucose uptake, lactate accumulation, and intracellular ATP level, supporting that aerobic glycolysis is enhanced by CAV1. Consistently, CAV1 was shown to stimulate GLUT3 transcription via an HMGA1-binding site within the GLUT3 promoter. HMGA1 was found to interact with and activate the GLUT3 promoter and CAV1 increased the HMGA1 activity by enhancing its nuclear localization. Ectopic expression of HMGA1 increased glucose uptake, whereas its knockdown caused AMPK activation. In addition, GLUT3 expression was strongly induced by cotransfection of CAV1 and HMGA1, and its overexpression was observed predominantly in tumors harboring high levels of CAV1 and HMGA1. Together, these data show that elevated CAV1 upregulates glucose uptake and ATP production through HMGA1-mediated GLUT3 transcription, suggesting that CAV1 may render tumor cells growth advantages by enhancing aerobic glycolysis.


Gene expression varies substantially from one cell to another and depending on the history of the cell, its interactions, the state of its regulatory machinery, and so on. Elowitz et al. (see the Perspective by Fedoroff and Fontana) have focused on the noise in gene expression that is left when all other regulatory influences are equal. To measure this "intrinsic noise," they used strains of Escherichia coli in which two alleles encoding distinguishable green fluorescent proteins were controlled by identical promoters. In these single bacterial cells, genes have essentially the same intracellular environment, so the variation in their expression is a measure of intrinsic noise. Intrinsic noise accounted for a substantial amount of the total variation in gene expression, and amount of noise varied with changes in other factors like transcription rate. M. B. Elowitz, A. J. Levine, E. D. Siggia, P. S. Swain, Stochastic gene expression in a single cell, Science 297, 1183-1186 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] N. Fedoroff, W. Fontana, Small numbers of big molecules, Science 297, 1129-1131 (2002). [Summary] [Full Text]


Blocking artifacts are significant problem in DCT-based image compression, which introduce the apparent distortion of visual quality. In this paper, an effective blocking artifacts deduction method is proposed. Firstly, the edges identification is done in compressed data, with hysteretic based edge linkage. Secondly, according to DCT coefficients distribution in the half-block-size shifted image block and also in the original target image blocks, an adaptively compound method is carried out to reduce the blocking effects. Since all the computation is performed in DCT domain, the compressibility of the original image is not affected. Furthermore, experiment results verified the effectiveness of our new method.


The functionality of a newly developed silicone oil-free (SOF) syringe system, of which the plunger stopper is coated by a novel coating technology (i-coating™), was assessed. By scanning electron microscopy observations and other analysis, it was confirmed that the plunger stopper surface was uniformly covered with the designed chemical composition. A microflow imaging analysis showed that the SOF system drastically reduced both silicone oil (SO) doplets and oil-induced aggregations in a model protein formulation, whereas a large number of subvisible particles and protein aggregations were formed when a SO system was used. Satisfactory container closure integrity (CCI) was confirmed by means of dye and microorganism penetration studies. Furthermore, no significant difference between the break loose and gliding forces was observed in the former, and stability studies revealed that the SOF system could perfectly show the aging independence in break loose force observed in the SO system. The results suggest that the introduced novel SOF system has a great potential and represents an alternative that can achieve very low subvisible particles, secure CCI, and the absence of a break loose force. In particular, no risk of SO-induced aggregation can bring additional value in the highly sensitive biotech drug market. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 103:1520–1528, 2014


Kidney transplant recipients require meticulous clinical and laboratory surveillance to monitor allograft health. Conventional biomarkers, including serum creatinine and proteinuria, are lagging indicators of allograft injury, often rising only after significant and potentially irreversible damage has occurred. Immunosuppressive medication levels can be followed, but their utility is largely limited to guiding dosing changes or assessing adherence. Kidney biopsy, the criterion standard for the diagnosis and characterization of injury, is invasive and thus poorly suited for frequent surveillance. Donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) is a sensitive, noninvasive, leading indicator of allograft injury, which offers the opportunity for expedited intervention and can improve long-term allograft outcomes. This article describes the clinical rationale for a routine testing schedule utilizing dd-cfDNA surveillance at months 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 12 during the first year following kidney transplantation and quarterly thereafter. These time points coincide with major immunologic transition points after transplantation and provide clinicians with molecular information to help inform decision making.


In this work, a sampled-data nonlinear observer is designed using a continuous-time design coupled with an inter-sample output predictor. The proposed sampled-data observer is a hybrid system. It is shown that under certain conditions, the robustness properties of the continuous-time design are inherited by the sampled-data design, as long as the sampling period is not too large. The approach is applied to triangular globally Lipschitz systems.


Abstract Objectives: Acanthosis nigricans refers to the velvety, black hyperpigmentation seen in the flexures. It is a cutaneous marker for insulin resistance (IR), some metabolic disorders and rarely malignancy. When secondary to IR, it is asymptomatic, except for the hyperpigmentation. The neck is the most accessible and easiest to grade. Our aim was to identify the predictive value of the grades of acanthosis nigricans in identifying IR, the predictive value of the textures of acanthosis nigricans in identifying IR, and the diagnostic utility of acanthosis nigricans grading in comparison to the laboratory tests. Settings and subjects: The institutional ethics committee of Sri Ramachandra University approved this study. Three hundred consecutively presenting adults (50 males) with acanthosis nigricans neck were enrolled. Design: History, physical parameters and acanthosis nigricans grades, location and textures were noted. An oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), fasting serum insulin and homeostasis model assessment of IR (HOMA IR)were carried out. The acanthosis nigricans grades were correlated to establish any association. Thirty obese controls without acanthosis nigricans were included. Outcome measures: OGTT, fasting serum insulin and HOMA IR were the outcome measures studied. Results: This cross-sectional study revealed that 94 subjects with acanthosis nigricans (31.34%) had IR. Grades III and IV, and textures II and III, were more predictive of IR. Acanthosis nigricans grading was insignificant in the non- insulin-resistant group. Acne (p-value 0.379), hirsutism (p-value 0.12) and acrochordons (p-value 0.415) were not significantly associated with IR. Conclusion: Severe grades and higher textures of acanthosis nigricans are reliable clinical diagnostic tools for IR. The absence of acanthosis nigricans was not associated with IR. Acanthosis nigricans grading is an inexpensive and non-invasive way of identifying pre-diabetes.


The road networks in many countries are not well designed which leads to many traffic problems, mainly traffic congestion. In order to avoid such traffic problems and have a smooth traffic flow properly designed networks should be adapted for both public and private vehicles for an ideal modal share between them. The network design problem is one of the most significant problems faced by traffic management official. This transportation problem belongs to the class of difficult combinatorial optimization problem, whose optimal solution cannot be found by available analytical method, but swarm intelligence could provide feasible solution. The swarm algorithm is a stochastic, random-search technique that belongs to multi-agent algorithms. Swarm intelligence, inspired by behavior of insects, is a name given to a new set of nature-inspired computing paradigms which are being successfully applied to optimization problems in a variety of field. Social insect colonics show that very simple organisms can form system capable to performing high complex tasks by dynamically interacting with each other. Swarm intelligence (SI) can be used to model complex traffic and transportation processes, which can be successfully analyzed by analytical models. The concept of agent-based modeling is applied to problems of complex behavioral pattern; this approach based on the idea that a system is composed of discrete individuals and each individual interacts with others according to localized knowledge and with the aggregation of the individual interactions, the overall image of the system emerges. The primary goal of this paper is to acquaint readers with the basic principles of Swarm Intelligence and its uses in network design problems of transportation. The paper also presents a various branches of Swarm Intelligence.


Inhibitors of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B/mammalian target of rapamycin (PI3K/AKT/mTOR) pathway hold promise for the treatment of breast cancer, but resistance to these treatments can arise via feedback loops that increase surface expression of the receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK) epidermal growth factor receptor 1 (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER3), leading to persistent growth pathway signaling. We developed PET probes that provide a method of imaging this response in vivo, determining which tumors may use this escape pathway while avoiding the need for repeated biopsies. Methods: Anti-EGFR-F(ab′)2 and anti-HER3-F(ab′)2 were generated from monoclonal antibodies by enzymatic digestion, conjugated to DOTA, and labeled with 64Cu. A panel of breast cancer cell lines was treated with increasing concentrations of the AKT inhibitor GDC-0068 or the PI3K inhibitor GDC-0941. Pre- and posttreatment expression of EGFR and HER3 was compared using Western blot and correlated to probe accumulation with binding studies. Nude mice xenografts of HCC-70 or MDA-MB-468 were treated with either AKT inhibitor or PI3K inhibitor and imaged with either EGFR or HER3 PET probe. Results: Changes in HER3 and EGFR PET probe accumulation correlate to RTK expression change as assessed by Western blot (R2 of 0.85–0.98). EGFR PET probe PET/CT imaging of HCC70 tumors shows an SUV of 0.32 ± 0.03 for vehicle-, 0.50 ± 0.01 for GDC-0941–, and 0.62 ± 0.01 for GDC-0068–treated tumors, respectively (P < 0.01 for both comparisons to vehicle). HER3 PET probe PET/CT imaging of MDAMB468 tumors shows an SUV of 0.35 ± 0.02 for vehicle- and 0.73 ± 0.05 for GDC-0068–treated tumors (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Our imaging studies, using PET probes specific to EGFR and HER3, show that changes in RTK expression indicative of resistance to PI3K and AKT inhibitors can be seen within days of therapy initiation and are of sufficient magnitude as to allow reliable clinical interpretation. Noninvasive PET monitoring of these RTK feedback loops should help to rapidly assess resistance to PI3K and AKT inhibitors and guide selection of an appropriate combinatorial therapeutic regimen on an individual patient basis.


Economic development always has been a moving target. Not surprisingly, there is growing evidence that the shape of economic policy and practice is changing significantly in many American states on the eve of the 21st century. This new approach has public officials addressing new issues, using new tools, and beginning to experience new types of results. It is called cluster-based economic analysis and strategy development. This article reviews key literature and events that point to a new phase emerging in state economic development. Then, using Arizona as a case study, it presents practical evidence of the benefits from this new approach. For example, Arizona uses clusters as a tool for better understanding the economy, getting key industry stakeholders together to address common problems, and providing high-value specialized services to key industries.


The notion that children from 'good' neighbourhoods are destined for success while those from 'bad' neighbourhoods are destined for failure has considerable popular appeal. Residential location is strongly linked to school quality, access to educated adults, exposure to violence, etc. There is, however, surprisingly little evidence on the link between the neighbourhood in which a child begins school and later schooling outcomes. Understanding early neighbourhood experiences is important for determining whether students are 'stuck' in neighbourhoods of disadvantage. It is also critical for determining the extent to which students who begin their schooling careers in disadvantaged neighbourhoods are destined for poor schooling outcomes, and conversely, whether changing neighbourhood context improves student performance. In this study, therefore, we document how students' early neighbourhood and schooling experiences are related to later success in school, and explore how changing neighbourhood and school contexts explain differences in academic outcomes. Using data from New York City (NYC), we construct a panel containing all students enrolled as first graders in NYC public schools in 1996–1997, following them through academic years 2007–2008, which would be their 12th grade year if they made standard academic progress (annual one-grade promotion). Far from supporting the simplistic story of 'dead-end' neighbourhoods, our analyses describe a situation where students from poor neighbourhoods actually move more often than their peers in less disadvantaged neighbourhoods and are more likely to experience changes in neighbourhood and school quality, with 45.7% of neighbourhood moves from the poorest neighbourhoods being made to significantly higher quality neighbourhoods.


Both the number and the powers of sub-state entities in the European Union (EU) have grown. These sub-state entities represent their European interests using both intra- and extra-state channels. The increasing use of the latter has encouraged scholarly literature to focus on the emerging 'paradiplomacy' of these entities. Sub-state paradiplomacy, however, can be both conducted in tandem with its member state or bypassing it. This article seeks to better understand such patterns of interaction between state and sub-state interest representation. Using original survey data, it tests five different hypotheses about the determinants of state bypassing and non-bypassing. It argues that devolution of powers and party politics are relevant factors explaining the frequency of bypassing and co-operative interest representation. Other factors, including size, financial resources and length of exposure to the integration process do not seem to play a role.


The emergence of mobile games has caused a paradigm shift in the video-game industry. Game developers now have at their disposal a plethora of information on their players, and thus can take advantage of reliable models that can accurately predict player behavior and scale to huge datasets. Churn prediction, a challenge common to a variety of sectors, is particularly relevant for the mobile game industry, as player retention is crucial for the successful monetization of a game. In this article, we present an approach to predicting game churn based on survival ensembles. Our method provides accurate predictions on both the level at which each player will leave the game and their accumulated playtime until that moment. Further, it is robust to different data distributions and applicable to a wide range of response variables, while also allowing for efficient parallelization of the algorithm. This makes our model well suited to perform real-time analyses of churners, even for games with millions of daily active users.


Lac Pavin is a meromictic maar lake for which the interpretation of sediment radiocarbon dates is complicated by the existence of a largely undefined reservoir effect resulting from degradation of carbon stored in the bottom layer of the water column. A data set of the contemporary 14C distribution of dissolved and particulate organic pools in the water column is presented to address this issue. Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and organic carbon (DOC), plankton, suspended particulate organic carbon (POCsusp), sinking POC (POCsink), and bottom sediment organic carbon (SOC) were analyzed. Present-day Δ14C values of DIC were measured ranging from −750′ in the monimolimnion to atmospheric values in lake surface waters and in spring inlet waters. A range of Δ14C values between −200 and −300′ was observed for superficial POCsusp, POCsink, SOC, and DOC. This relatively uniform 14C offset of the exported organic production from the surface waters to the bottom represents a contemporary reservoir effect of ∼2500 yr. Laminated buried sediment samples and terrestrial vegetal macro-remains were used to evaluate temporal reservoir effect variations since the formation of the crater lake (7 ka cal BP). Buried sediment layers presented a similar offset or showed larger differences between Δ14C values of bulk sediment and terrestrial plant remains (–400 to −500′). Furthermore, an almost 0-yr reservoir effect was inferred from the sediment layers deposited just above the volcanic bedrock at the early flooding of the crater, and increasing slightly within the first centuries of the lake's history. A second objective was to tentatively model a defined scenario of the cycling of carbon in the lake capable of predicting a modern reservoir effect. Alternative scenarios were then tested for which a larger contribution of deeper DIC would provide a model compatible with larger past reservoir effects. It is concluded that using Δ14C SOC variation in laminated lake sediments as a proxy of paleolimnological conditions may be valuable provided that more data on the dynamics of the 14C composition of plankton and more detailed sampling of laminated sediment layers are available.


The scleractinian family Lobophylliidae is undergoing a major taxonomic revision thanks to the combination of molecular and morphological data. In this study, we investigate the evolutionary relationships and the macro- and micromorphology of six nominal coral species belonging to two of the nine molecular clades of the Lobophylliidae, clades A and B, and of Symphyllia wilsoni, a lobophylliid species analyzed from a molecular point of view for the first time. Sequence data from mitochondrial DNA (COI and the intergenic spacer between COI and l-rRNA), and nuclear DNA (histone H3 and ITS region) are used to generate robust molecular phylogenies and a median-joining haplotype network. Molecular results are strongly in agreement with detailed observations of gross- and fine-scale morphology of skeletons, leading to the formal revision of the genera Micromussa and Homophyllia and the description of two newly discovered zooxanthellate shallow-water species, Micromussa pacifica sp. nov. Benzoni & Arrigoni and Micromussa indiana sp. nov. Benzoni & Arrigoni, and a new genus, Australophyllia gen. nov. Benzoni & Arrigoni. In particular, Acanthastrea lordhowensis and Montastraea multipunctata are moved into Micromussa, A. hillae is synonymized with A. bowerbanki and is transferred to Homophyllia, and a revised diagnosis for both genera is provided. Micromussa pacifica sp. nov. is described from the Gambier Islands with its distribution spanning New Caledonia and eastern Australia. Despite a superficial resemblance with Homophyllia australis, it has distinctive macroand micromorphological septal features. Micromussa indiana sp. nov., previously identified as M. amakusensis, is here described from the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea as a distinct species that is genetically separated from M. amakusensis and is morphologically distinct from the latter due to its smaller corallite size and lower number of septa. Finally, molecular trees show that S. wilsoni is closely related, but molecularly separated from clades A and B, and, also based on a unique 388 Arrigoni et al. – Phylogeny of Micromussa and Homophyllia combination of corallite and sub-corallite characters, the species is moved into Australophyllia gen. nov. These findings confirm the need for using both genetic and morphological datasets for the ongoing taxonomic revision of scleractinian corals.


The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is the most widely used index to characterize droughts that are related to precipitation deficiencies. However, the SPI does not always deliver the relevant information for hydrological drought management particularly in snow‐influenced catchments. If precipitation is temporarily stored as snow, then there is a significant difference between meteorological and hydrological drought because the delayed release of melt water to the stream. We introduce an extension to the SPI, the Standardized Snow Melt and Rain Index (SMRI), that accounts for rain and snow melt deficits, which effectively influence streamflow. The SMRI can be derived without snow data, using temperature and precipitation to model snow. The value of the new index is illustrated for seven Swiss catchments with different degrees of snow influence. In particular for catchments with a larger component of snowmelt in runoff generation, the SMRI was found to be a worthwhile complementary index to the SPI to characterize streamflow droughts.


An important moment in American literary history takes life in this stunning biography of Jean Stafford, one of the most successful, admired--and troubled--of the brilliant and influential midcentury circle of writers and critics that included Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, Peter Taylor, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, and Robert Lowell, Stafford's first husband. Ann Hulbert shows us how Stafford, raised in Colorado, the daughter of a failed writer of Westerns, came of literary age in the East, yet fiercely maintained her connection with her provincial background, forging the unique style that marked her highly acclaimed first novel, Boston Adventure; her Masterpiece, The Mountain Lion; her third novel, The Catherine Wheel; and the stories she published in The New Yorker and elsewhere, which were honored in 1970 with a Pulitzer Prize. We follow Stafford through the early experiences to which she returned again and again in her fiction, and which helped shape her disenchanted vision--her father's sudden loss of his fortune; her shame as an adolescent, living in a boardinghouse in Boulder run by her mother; her aesthetic experimentation as a member of the intellectually maverick "Barbarians" at the University of Colorado; her exciting but troubling Wanderjahr in Nazi Germany, where she watched civilization crumbling. We see her take her place as a forceful, attractive, witty, yet also insecure woman among a group of spirited young writers who were learning from and challenging their older mentors--the increasingly powerful Southern critics and the Partisan Review circle in New York. With her marriage to Lowell at twenty-four, she embarked on a feverishly creative but ill-fated coursethat held auguries of his and his fellow poets' tragic paths: she struggled with Catholicism, confronted domestic violence, battled with alcoholism and mental instability, and throughout it all wrote formally impeccable fiction. And we see her as she finds some happiness with her th


Most AI research into design has been based on or directed to the electrical circuit domain. This paper presents a mechanical engineer's view. Design of mechanical parts and products differs from design of electrical circuits in several fundamental ways: materials selection, sensitivity to manufacturing issues, non-modularity, high coupling of form and function, and especially the role of 3-D geometry. These differences, and the role of analysis in mechanical design, are discussed. A model for design is also presented based on the basically iterative nature of the design process. A brief summary of the related research at the University of Massachusetts into application of AI to mechanical design is included.


An adjoint approach for the shape design sensitivity analysis of plane elasticity problems with a direct boundary integral equation formulation is presented. The objective function or the constraint function is expressed in an integral form and augmented by incorporating the elasticity equations via adjoint functions. The variation of the augmented function is taken by performing its material derivative to obtain the sensitivity of the objective function or the constraint function. The adjoint functions are obtained through the solution of the adjoint problem resulting from setting the local variations of the displacement, velocity, and traction fields equal to zero. An approximate procedure for the application of concentrated adjoint load in the boundary element framework is suggested. This allows the computation of displacement, traction, and stress sensitivities at discrete nodal points. The requirement of choosing an averaging characteristic function in earlier formulations is obviated by this development. The present formulation includes the treatment of body forces in sensitivity calculations. A series of numerical examples is solved to demonstrate the validity of the present approach.


Wood modification (chemical, thermal, impregnation) represents an assortment of innovative processes continually being adopted in the wood protection sector. COST Action FP1407 "Understanding wood modification through an integrated scientific and environmental impact approach — ModWoodLife" was initiated in 2015, with its 4-year programme aiming to investigate modification processing and products design with emphasis on their environmental impacts. Among the final tasks within COST FP1407 was to re-evaluate the current status of wood modification across the member countries. However, it became clear that activities in other European countries needed to be addressed, and as a result, a more extensive evaluation of wood modification processes across Europe was undertaken, as well as determining the activities globally. This paper outlines some of the recent updates in wood modification, along with summarising data collected by the authors from international colleagues and online sources, so providing an evaluation of the overall global position. These figures suggest that wood modification is undergoing a significant increase in production due to demand, with levels of recent growth seemingly suggesting this will continue for the coming years. Based on data gathered, the global commercial production of modified wood is dominated by thermal modification processes, which produce 1,110,000 m3/year. Among the other commercialised processes, acetylation accounts for 120,000 m3/year and furfurylation 45,000 m3/year. A further global production of around 330,000 m3/year is estimated for other processes, predominantly based on resin-based systems (e.g., Impreg- and Compreg-based processes).


Aim/Purpose: Graduate students face immense pressures and challenges as part of the graduate school experience, with few avenues to express their frustrations. While the crisis of graduate student mental health is well-documented quantitatively, and the stresses of graduate school are explored on the institutional level, there are few qualitative studies of these issues.

Background: This study aims to explore graduate student attitudes and perceptions about graduate school and academia through the analysis of niche, graduate student-focused memes. Theories of emotional selection, emotional contagion, and collective coping predict that the creation and sharing of niche-interest memes reflect dominant attitudes and perceptions within niche communities under stress.

Methodology: This study utilizes content analysis to thematically categorize a sample of 208 meme images created by and posted to the social media account High-Impact PhD Memes. The data is additionally categorized to measure resonance – how well each image was received by the page audience – and visualized using bar codes.

Contribution: This study offers a new method for examining the attitudes and perceptions of niche groups online by proposing the measurement of emotional resonance, presents a novel visualization for the presentation of thematic coding and offers a new means to analyze internet memes for both content and emotional resonance.

Findings: Findings indicate that the most frequently occurring themes in niche memes are not necessarily the ones that most highly emotionally resonate with the niche community of interest. The population of current and recent graduate students following High-Impact PhD Memes most highly resonated with the issues of literature access, financial/employment stresses, and overwork.

Impact on Society: The findings of this study should encourage both researchers and higher education administrators to consider memes as reflections of the emotional states and perceptions of graduate students both collectively and individually, given how they comment on current, pressing issues. Based on the findings here, memes could feasibly be used as elicitation materials in well-being assessments or qualitative research studies to better understand and prompt reflections on the perspectives of graduate students, and ultimately improve programming and supports for the population.

Future Research: Future research could apply similar methods to study other niche groups under pressure that use memes as a means of collective coping in order to better understand their attitudes and perceptions. Groups such as LGBTQ+ people, those with niche political affiliations, and neurodivergent people could all be studied with a similar approach.


The hypothesis of this paper is that introduced species (aka non-indigenous species) could be used as a form of biological weapon (BW). The first step of this paper is a brief review of biological weapon concepts, and a review of the definition of an introduced species, as well as a brief survey of historical examples of introduced species. Previous evidence of the use of invasive species as a form of biological weapon is also discussed. The methods to predict a successful invasive species candidate is discussed, and examples of various theories and computer software models to analyze introduced species invasions are reviewed. The use of GARP (Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction) has found promise in predicting the range and effective invasiveness of an organism, prior to the actual invasion. This research discusses the approaches of invasive species by hostile actors (aggressor nation, crime syndicate, bioterrorists, or lone individual), as well as the various BW targets (public health, ecosystems, agricultural commodities, biofuel feed stocks). The vulnerability of nations to invasive species introduction, as well as the risk factors favoring invasive species BW would also be examined. Some of these risk factors favoring a BW attack using invasive species include poor communication between local population and government scientists and decision makers; monoculture of agricultural fields; disturbed or damaged ecosystems, and presence of favored niches in the targeted areas. The strategies to introduce BW invasive species are discussed, and range from human smuggling and delivery by vectors to biocruise-the technique of using cruise missile technology (aka unmanned aerial vehicles), to deliver and disperse BW agents (e.g. virus, fungal spores, bacteria, even insects), at precise targeted sites. Two models are presented to describe the process of invasive species BW by hostile actors-one, using a single invasive species and one leading to invasion meltdown of the targeted area. Four examples of potential BW using introduced species are discussed, with supportive evidence for their effectiveness and invasive potential on targets (Nipah virus, Striga plant parasite, Heartwater-Ehrlichia ruminantium, and Wheat Stem Rust-Puccinia graminis f. st. tritici). Finally, the data supports the hypothesis that introduced species could be used as a form of biological weapon. Citation: Roberge LF (2013) Analysis of Introduced Species as a Form of Biological Weapon: Part 1-Theory and Approaches. Biosafety 2:107. doi:10.4172/2167-0331.1000107


This study explores the nature of friendship and inter-ethnic relationship amongst pupils of different ethnic group in school. The sample consists of 1000 pupils from five secondary schools in Kedah and another five secondary schools in Perak. Structured interview was used to gather quantitative data from the pupils studied. The findings show that the formation of friendship among Malay, Chinese and Indian pupils are more prominent to intra-ethnic relationship rather than inter-ethnic relationship. However, the inter-ethnic friendship among Malay pupils is likely to be determined by cultural similarity identified in other cultures. For Chinese and Indian pupils, inter-ethnic friendship is likely to be determined by their previous inter-ethnic experiences.


This paper contrasts the United States (US) and European situations during the crisis and examines how much of the crisis has been imported by Europe from the US. The paper argues that Europe never had a chance to avoid contagion from the US. It also documents the relatively limited reaction of both monetary and fiscal authorities. Muted fiscal policy actions may well be a consequence of the Stability and Growth Pact despite its having been de facto suspended. While the European Central Bank (ECB) intervened promptly and massively to attempt to maintain liquidity in the money market, it has been slow in dealing with the upcoming recession. The concluding remarks consider the differences that the monetary union has made and their relevance.


"This paper reports results of incorporating fish into IMPACT, a global model of food supply and demand that estimates market-clearing prices to 2020 for 32 commodities in 36 regions. It summarizes results for production, consumption, net exports and real price changes for 10 economic categories of fisheries items, disaggregated into 15 geographic regions of the world. Under the medium-variant scenario for the uncertain capture fisheries sectors, global production of food fish is projected to rise by 1.5% annually through 2020, with two-thirds of this from aquaculture, whose share in total food fish production rises to 41%. Global per capita fish consumption is projected to be 17.1 kg in 2020, with sensitivity analysis indicating a margin of 2 kg/capita either way based on extreme scenarios for capture and aquaculture. Most growth will occur in developing countries, which will account for 79% of food fish production in 2020. China's share of world production will continue to expand, while that of Japan, the EU, and former USSR will continue to contract. Real fish prices will rise 4 to 16% by 2020, while meat prices will fall 3%. Fishmeal and oil prices will rise 18%; use of these commodities will increasingly be concentrated in carnivorous aquaculture. Growing domestic demand will dampen fish exports from developing countries. Sensitivity analysis incorporating a very pessimistic view of capture fisheries leads to escalating food fish prices (+69% for high-value finfish) and soaring fishmeal prices (+134%), whereas an optimistic view of increased investment in aquaculture lowers real prices of low value food fish (-12%), and raises fishmeal prices (+42%)." Authors' Abstract


A modeling notation is introduced which extends time Petri nets with an additional mechanism of resource assignment making the progress of timed transitions be dependent on the availability of a set of preemptable resources. The resulting notation, which we call preemptive time Petri nets, permits natural description of complex real-time systems running under preemptive scheduling, with periodic, sporadic, and one-shot processes, with nondeterministic execution times, with semaphore synchronizations and precedence relations deriving from internal task sequentialization and from interprocess communication, running on multiple processors. A state space analysis technique is presented which supports the validation of preemptive time Petri net models, combining tight schedulability analysis with exhaustive verification of the correctness of logical sequencing. The analysis technique partitions the state space in equivalence classes in which timing constraints are represented in the form of difference bounds matrixes. This permits it to maintain a polynomial complexity in the representation and derivation of state classes, but it does not tightly encompass the constraints deriving from preemptive behavior, thus producing an enlarged representation of the state space. False behaviors deriving from the approximation can be cleaned-up through an algorithm which provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the feasibility of a behavior along with a tight estimation of its timing profile.


The implementations of user assistance in most commercial computing applications deployed today have a number of well known difficulties and limitations. Speech technology can be used to complement traditional user assistance techniques and mitigate some of these problems. This paper describes the implementation of an auditory assistance system, and discusses some of the issues encountered in the design and development relevant to such systems.


The estimation of remaining useful life (RUL) of a faulty component is at the center of system prognostics and health management. It gives operators a potent tool in decision making by quantifying how much time is left until functionality is lost. This is especially true for aerospace systems, where unanticipated subsystem downtime may lead to catastrophic failures. RUL prediction needs to contend with multiple sources of error like modeling inconsistencies, system noise and degraded sensor fidelity. Bayesian theory of uncertainty management provides a way to contain these problems by integrating out the nuisance variables. We use the Relevance Vector Machine (RVM), for model development. RVM is a Bayesian treatment of the well known Support Vector Machine (SVM), a kernel-based regression/classification technique. This model is next used in a Particle Filter (PF) framework. Statistical estimates of the noise in the system and anticipated operational conditions are processed to provide estimates of RUL in the form of a probability density function (PDF). Validation of this approach on experimental data collected from Li-ion batteries is presented.


This paper builds on recent research utilizing real time datasets in order to assess the forecasting utility of consumer sentiment indexes in the United Kingdom. Academic researchers have consistently found that consumer confidence indexes accurately predict consumer spending in the near term. Few of these examinations, however, have utilized out of sample forecasting and only one has incorporated real time data. In an effort to recreate the exact dataset that is available to economic forecasters in real time, this paper utilizes the recently published Gross Domestic Product Real-Time Database from the Bank of England in order to produce forecasts of consumer spending growth. The results of the root mean forecasting error analysis indicate that the inclusion of a consumer sentiment index in a VAR forecast does not improve the accuracy of the model.


Childhood physical activity (PA) has declined in the western world recently. To combat child inactivity, government programs have been organized to promote PA within families. It is important for physiotherapists to understand the influence parents perceive to have on their child's PA habits in order to better encourage a positive parental influence. The purpose of this study is to explore how parents perceive their influence on their child/children's PA through an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach. This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach with semi-structured interviews conducted with five participants. The interviews were analyzed using elements of IPA. Master themes developed with their corresponding subthemes: creating an environment of opportunity—logistics, opportunities through encouragement and PA within the family, barriers to PA—barriers created by parents and barriers created by external factors, and parent and child interactions—children communicating interest and disinterest in PA and parent's attitudes toward children's disinterest. The findings suggest that parents perceive themselves to have a greater positive influence on their children rather than negative. The barriers that parents create are not perceived to prevent their child's PA but rather restrict it. Many participants reported enjoying doing PA with their children and used PA as an opportunity for family time, indicating a dual purpose for PA.


A total of nine families of Trichoptera were identified from material collected in Malaise and light traps in the western part of Nyungwe National Park, southwestern Rwanda, late October 2018. Included in the material was an undescribed species of Pisuliidae which is described herein as Silvatares laetae Ngirinshuti & Johanson sp. nov. The new species adds to the six Pisuliidae species previously recorded for the East African region, five endemic to Tanzania and one to Uganda. This study portrays the first results of an ongoing survey on the Trichoptera fauna of Rwanda.


Purpose - The purpose of this study is to explore how risks and costs can be reducedwhen working with incoterms in purchasing within the Asia-Pacific region. To fulfilthis purpose, the following two research questions have been developed:1. How does the case company currently work with incoterms when purchasingwithin the Asia-Pacific region?2. How can risks and costs be reduced when working with incoterms whenpurchasing within the Asia-Pacific region?Method - Theories relevant for the study's purpose were collected through a literaturestudy. To apply the theoretical framework to empirical data, a case study was conductedat a company. The empirical data was gathered through interviews and documentstudies.Findings - Use of the standard Incoterms 2010 is considered to be a good tool forreducing risks and costs when purchasing within the Asia-Pacific region, where riskmanagement is a necessary complement. It is required that all employees working withincoterms have the right knowledge about the incoterms in order to use them correctly.The knowledge can be disseminated through the organisation by using knowledgemanagement. It is also considered important to understand the differences betweencountries, in order to reduce the risk of misunderstanding.Contributions - The result of the study facilitates for companies who do not know howto work correctly with incoterms. The study contributes to decreasing the gap in theoryregarding working with incoterms in the APAC region. It also facilitates for companieswho do not know how to disseminate knowledge internally.Limitations - The case study was conducted at a company based in Thailand, whichlimited the ability to communicate, due to linguistic differences.Future research - It would be of interest to conduct an empirical study at other casecompanies of different sizes within the APAC region and in other trade regions. Inaddition, it would be interesting to study how internal courses about working withincoterms can be implemented in different types of organisations.Keywords - Incoterms 2010, APAC, Asia-Pacific, risk management, logistics costs inpurchasing, knowledge management, relationship between risks and costs.


This study was designed to evaluate the improved version of the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) using 6 yr (1992-1997) of field-measured data from a field within Walnut Creek watershed located in central Iowa. Measured data included subsurface drainage flows, NO3-N concentrations and loads in subsurface drainage water, and corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine mar (L.) Merr.] yields. The dominant soil within this field was Webster (fine-loamy, mixed, superactive, mesic Typic Endoaquolls) and cropping system was corn-soybean rotation. The model was calibrated with 1992 data and was validated with 1993 to 1997 data. Simulations of subsurface drainage flow closely matched observed data showing model efficiency of 99% (EF = 0.99), and difference (D) of 1% between measured and predicted data. The model simulated NO3-N losses with subsurface drainage water reasonably well with EF = 0.8 and D = 13%. The simulated corn grain yields were in close agreement with measured data with D < 10%. Nitrogen-scenario simulations demonstrated that corn yield response function reached a plateau when N-application rate exceeded 90 kg ha(-1). Fraction of applied N lost with subsurface drainage water varied from 7 to 16% when N-application rate varied from 30 to 180 kg ha(-1) after accounting for the nitrate loss with no-fertilizer application. These results indicate that the RZWQM has the potential to simulate the impact of N application rates on corn yields and NO3-N losses with subsurface drainage flows for agricultural fields in central Iowa.


This article considers the variety of theoretical justifications, or moral arguments, which have been put forward to support approaches that can be broadly described as 'rehabilitative'. The article takes an historical approach, tracing the development of ideas supportive of rehabilitation which begins with the origins of probation in England & Wales, and the Christian mission to 'save souls'. In the twentieth century context, we consider the emergence of a utilitarian emphasis on maximising decent and productive members of society, subsequently challenged by arguments which emphasised state-obligated or 'rights-based' rehabilitation. More recently, utilitarian arguments emphasising rehabilitation's contribution to public safety and 'risk reduction' have risen to the fore. However, we argue that justifications which emphasise offenders, victims and/or communities as beneficiaries of rehabilitation need not be in conflict; nor should probation services have to choose between the broad ranges of stakeholders they are potentially able to serve.


The possible aetiological role of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in Crohn's disease was investigated. The immunological response was studied using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western blotting, and immunocytochemistry. The antibody response to two protoplasmic antigen preparations of M paratuberculosis in the sera of patients with inflammatory bowel disease was measured by ELISA. IgG and IgM antibodies to these antigens were measured in serum samples from 52 patients with Crohn's disease, 15 patients with ulcerative colitis, and 41 control patients without inflammatory bowel disease. Although there was wide variation in the concentrations of antibody detected, patients with Crohn's disease had concentrations that were not significantly different from those of the other two groups. In addition, mycobacterial antigens were separated by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the immune response to each antigen was then examined separately and assayed for IgG and IgM in 10 patients from each of the three groups. An indirect peroxidase test was also used to detect M paratuberculosis in sections of tissue from 18 patients with Crohn's disease and 10 with ulcerative colitis. The results were negative in all cases. This study does not support a role for M paratuberculosis in Crohn's disease.


Wikipedia is defined by its founders as the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." This property, we argue, makes Wikipedia a public good and hence subject to under-provision. A puzzling feature of Wikipedia however is its enormous size, at roughly seven times that of its commercial counterparts. What is driving this growth? And how can we assess the reliability of this giant encyclopedia arising solely from free-editing? We model contribution to Wikipedia and its reliability. We demonstrate that Wikipedia is indeed subject to free-riding, and offer a novel explanation for the mitigation of under-provision under such circumstances. We also find that the public-good feature of Wikipedia and free-riding introduce a lower-bound in the quality of Wikipedia. This finding is consistent with a previous empirical study that established Wikipedia"s surprisingly high level of quality. We identify Wikipedia as part of a general Internet phenomenon that we call the Collaborative Net, and that includes features such as citizen journalism and online reviews.


Long delays and sparseness characterize impulse responses in telecommunication networks and a vast number of solutions for network echo cancellation have been proposed over the years. In this paper, an approach for detecting dispersive regions of a sparse impulse response and a proportionate normalized least mean square (PNLMS)-based selective updating approach are combined with an adaptive double-talk detector to form a complete solution for echo cancellation. The proposed solution has low computational complexity and is targeted for systems equipped with external memory.


In the midst of this kind of globalization era, business relations have no limits anymore. If an entrepreneur wants to be successful in business, mastering English is one of the paths to be taken. Therefore, Business English has finally become one of the English topics that is currently very hotly discussed. Especially for learners who are included in the EFL (English as Foreign Language) like most Indonesians. Unlike the general English topic, Business English is more specific to doing business only. The material that will be taught in business English classes is also devoted to business situations, for example for meetings, negotiations, sending emails, to presentations. In the business world or the world of work, having the ability to communicate well is very important. In order for our business or work to develop, of course we are required to be able to communicate more broadly. This will usually involve a foreign language, especially English. Here are some commonly used English vocabulary related to the workplace or office. Almost every employee earns for career improvement and of course an increase in income every month. However, to get these two things, of course, requires hard work, perseverance, and of course must be supported by qualified abilities and expertise. And, it is undeniable that in today's digital era and globalization, many companies make communication skills using English as a benchmark and a condition for improving the careers and income of their employees. Good communication skills and being able to speak fluent English, are the initial capital to lead to success in a career.


A synthesis of recent Cosmological and Biological Evidence concretely points to an Intelligence that created this universe that must be independent of this universe. The classical teleological and cosmological arguments have valid components but are not conclusive due to their segmented and non-integrated nature and also because of a logically invalid tactic/strategy used by atheists known as the fallacy of conflation. Also discussed by deconstruction, is the futile attempt at using cloaked language to hide the fact of teleological processes. Epistemologically, it is also shown why the Big Bang is a fact and not a theory. Herein, a complex yet integrated new proof that interweaves all these ideas, called the Teleogenical Proof, is presented that overcomes all the shortcomings of the latter two classical attempted proofs and connects with the Sesamatic proof on the question of infinite regress.


Patent law gives patent owners not just the right to prevent others from copying their ideas, but the power to control the use of their idea even by those who independently develop a technology with no knowledge of the patent or the patentee. In an important paper, Samson Vermont challenges this received wisdom, arguing that independent invention should be a defense to patent infringement, just as it would be in copyright or trade secret cases. Independent invention has much to recommend it. The most significant problem facing the patent system today is the rise of so-called "patent trolls" - entities who do not manufacture products or transfer technology, but wait and assert patents against successful companies who independently developed and manufactured the technology without knowledge of the patent. An independent invention defense would eliminate the troll problem in one fell swoop. Nonetheless, I have concerns. While I agree with Vermont that we can learn a great deal from the fact of independent invention, I am not yet persuaded that we can be sure that an independent invention defense will have no undue effect on incentives. Complicating this difficult empirical question is the likelihood that the effects of an independent invention defense would be different in different industries. Further, an independent invention defense will significantly change any market for patent rights that might exist or be developing today. In light of this, I suggest four steps we might take that take advantage of Vermont's insights without moving all the way to an independent invention system. First, we should change the definition of willful infringement to exclude independent inventors. Second, we should adopt some form of a prior user right. Third, we should give simultaneous invention greater credence in determining whether inventions are obvious. Finally, we might consider whether the defendant independently invented as a factor in deciding whether to grant injunctive relief and the conditions to impose on such relief.


This report examines the smuggling networks facilitating irregular migration from the Horn of Africa to countries in the Arabian Peninsula, also referred to as the Gulf. In addition to analysing the structure and modus operandi of migrant smuggling networks, the author considers the extent to which these networks are involved in other forms of organised criminal activity, such as arms and narcotics trafficking. The report concludes with recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders operating in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.


Gibberellins are a specific growth requirement of tissue cultures derived from the staminate cones of Cupressus funebris. The tissue originally required coconut milk for growth. However, a mixture of acid-hydrolyzed casein hydrolyzate and gibberellins replaces the coconut milk entirely and permits even better growth. It is tentatively suggested that coconut milk contains gibberellins or related substances and that these substances are involved in the nitrogen metabolism of the tissue.


Triplet networks are widely used models that are characterized by good performance in classification and retrieval tasks. In this work we propose to train a triplet network by putting it as the discriminator in Generative Adversarial Nets (GANs). We make use of the good capability of representation learning of the discriminator to increase the predictive quality of the model. We evaluated our approach on Cifar10 and MNIST datasets and observed significant improvement on the classification performance using the simple k-nn method.


An ensemble particle filter(EnPF) was recently developed as a fully nonlinear filter of Bayesian conditional probability estimation, along with the well known ensemble Kalman filter(EnKF). A Gaussian resampling method is proposed to generate the posterior analysis ensemble in an effective and efficient way. The Lorenz model is used to test the proposed method. With the posterior Gaussian resampling method the EnPF can approximate more accurately the Bayesian analysis. Moreover, it is applicable to systems with typical multimodal behavior, provided that certain prior knowledge is available about the general structure of posterior probability distribution. A simple scenario is considered to illustrate this point based on the Lorenz model attractors. The present work demonstrates that the proposed EnPF possesses good stability and accuracy and is potentially applicable to large-scale data assimilation problems.


Images of police in tactical gear, pointing automatic weapons at unarmed demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, represented a flashpoint in public awareness that American police are rapidly militarizing. Federal grants have been quietly arming police with tanks, drones, and uniforms more suited to waging war than patrolling the streets. As police have acquired more military gear, SWAT teams and deployments have proliferated. Even small towns receive surplus military materiel to fight the "wars" on drugs and terrorism. In addition, police training uses a military approach that threatens to transform the traditional police mandate of protecting and serving into one of engaging and defeating. This Article is the first in legal scholarship to analyze the causes of police militarization and the obstacles to curbing it.This Article analyzes the factors that drive police militarization, from a historical, legal and financial perspective. It examines the multiple federal grant programs that provide the funding for, and incentivize, militarization, like the Department of Defense Program that distributes military materiel with little oversight regarding its use, and the Department of Homeland Security grant program that dispenses billions in funds to buy weapons and equipment. It exposes defense industry efforts to ensure Congress keeps the gear flowing; as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wind down, the industry turns to the domestic market to fill the gap in sales. The Article analyzes the failure of the judicial system to address excessive force claims in the context of ever-increasing SWAT raids, and proposes more effective routes to reform.


Outsiders often have and seek to trade on a firm's material, nonpublic information. For example, lawyers have traded on advance information about the filing of a lawsuit, a social activist has announced a plan to trade on advance information of a boycott, and a hedge fund operator has engaged in a controversial trading maneuver in a control contest. Trading on nonpublic information is generally permitted if the information was not misappropriated or accompanied by fraud, manipulation, or other misconduct. However, recent public focus on the above transactions signals possible regulation in certain outsider trading situations. More generally, Professors Ian Ayres and Stephen Choi propose giving firms broad rights to decide whether outsider trading in their stocks will be regulated. We argue against broad regulation on the basis that outsider trading can provide incentives for socially beneficial conduct. In particular, outsider trading provides an important way to capitalize on investments in information that are not otherwise protected by the intellectual property laws. Understanding these benefits is a crucial element in determining appropriate regulation limits.


While much research exists on aspects or phenomena related to or depending on structuring of information in the healthcare context, most of this has been limited to the study of specific Electronic Health Record (EHR) implementation, or to certain capabilities or functionalities of EHRs such as decision support, the narrative, and clinical classifications and terminology. The phenomenon of information structuring in EHRs per se, has received little research attention. This article presents a review on the subject of information structuring in EHRs. While research shows that increasing structuring of health information may be favorable to healthcare, there are also caveats. This paper expos-es and discusses both salient drivers and barriers described by the literature, by examining the phenomenon through seven identified themes: clinical decision support; competence; continuity of care; management; secondary uses; patient safety and quality of care; and patient empowerment. Even though increased use of structured health data (depending on context) has the potential to cause major impacts to healthcare, a middle path represented by the synergistic co-existence of both structured data and unstructured information seems to be the most feasible to follow for healthcare at the time being based on the available literature.


Wave motion in acoustic and elastic media is highly influenced by the presence of outer boundaries and media interfaces. The solutions to the equations governing the wave motion at any point in the domain as a function of time can be sought either through analytical or numerical techniques.This thesis proposes provably stable finite difference schemes to accurately investigate wave interaction with boundaries and interfaces. Schemes for the acoustic wave equation in three spatial coordinates, general domains and heterogeneous media and the elastic wave equation in two spatial dimensions and layered media are presented. A study of the Rayleigh surface wave in almost incompressible media is carried through. Extensive numerical experiments designed to verify stability and accuracy as well as applicability to nontrivial boundary and interface phenomena are given.


The authors hypothesized that thinking about the absence of a positive event from one's life would improve affective states more than thinking about the presence of a positive event but that people would not predict this when making affective forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, college students wrote about the ways in which a positive event might never have happened and was surprising or how it became part of their life and was unsurprising. As predicted, people in the former condition reported more positive affective states. In Study 3, college student forecasters failed to anticipate this effect. In Study 4, Internet respondents and university staff members who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner were more satisfied with their relationship than were those who wrote about how they did meet their partner. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on gratitude induction and counterfactual reasoning.


Abstract We present a rank-free phylogenetic nomenclature for 25 well-established ancient clades of living turtles. This is the first attempt to document fully the nomenclatural history of a clade with the intent of proposing a coherent nomenclatural system to replace the traditional rank-based nomenclature. Because of the imperative to retain connectivity to the literature for information retrieval, due consideration is given to balancing the desire to develop a consistent system against the desire to conserve traditional associations between names, taxa (i.e., clades), and characters. Novel issues and problems that emerged during this review include: the unclear name/clade association of traditional names; the creation of synonymy lists from which to choose a name; difficulties associated with selecting a single criterion for choosing among multiple 'subjectively synonymous' names; identifying authorship for a converted traditional name; and the potential loss of nomenclatural information due to 'functional homonyms.' This work may provide a useful road map to those intent on converting their traditional rank-based nomenclatures to explicitly phylogenetic nomenclatures under the precepts of the PhyloCode.


In this paper, a source communicates to the destination with the cooperation of a relay, in the presence of an eavesdropper. All the links undergo Rayleigh fading and perfect decoding at the relays is not considered. The secrecy outage probability expression is evaluated for a decode-and-forward (DF) dual-hop cooperative relay network, both with and without the presence of direct source to eavesdropper transmission link. The performance of the maximal ratio combining (MRC) and selection combining (SC) diversity at the eavesdropper is investigated. Asymptotic and diversity gain analysis for both the single relay and multi-relay system is obtained, when average SNRs of source-relay and relay-destination links are balanced or unbalanced. We have shown that the increase in target secrecy rate and eavesdropper channel quality significantly affects the outage performance of the system. We have investigated the outage probability of optimal relay selection scheme, when either full instantaneous channel state information (ICSI) or statistical channel state information (SCSI) of all the links is available and have shown that there is improvement in the secrecy performance with the increase in the number of relays.


Network and spatial econometric models commonly embody a so-called W matrix which defines the connectivity between nodes of a network. The reason for the existence of W is that it facilitates parsimonious parametrization of inter-nodal interaction which would otherwise be very difficult to achieve from a practical modelling perspective. The problem considered in this paper is the effect of misspecifying W. The paper demonstrates the effect in the context of two types of model, the dynamic spatial autoregressive panel model and the multilevel spatial autoregressive panel model, both of which include W as part of the model specification and use W in estimation. Monte Carlo results are presented showing the impact on bias and RMSE of misspecification of W. The paper highlights the need for careful attention to the correct structure of W in spatial econometric and network modelling.


In 1017 A.D., Sultan Mahmud, ruler of a great empire in what is now Afghanistan and Iran, brought to his court at Ghazna many of the most brilliant scholars of the Islamic world. Among them was Alberuni (or Al Biruni), who was renowned as a mathematician, astronomer, and political philosopher. Alberuni's aim was to acquire an exact understanding of the Hindus' knowledge of the natural world, to make it possible for Muslims "to converse with the Hindus, and to discuss with them questions of religion, science, or literature, on the very basis of their own civilization." For thirteen years he traveled in North India, observing, questioning, and studying. The result was an account of Indian culture that is unique in its sympathetic understanding, shrewdness of observation, and probing analysis.


Purpose: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an important imaging tool assessing retinal architecture. In this article, we report a single centers experience of using handheld spectral domain (SD)-OCT in a pediatric population using the Envisu 2300 (Bioptigen Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC, USA). Methods: We studied SD-OCT images from 975 patients imaged from January 2011 to December 2014. The variety of cases that underwent an SD-OCT was analyzed. Cases examples from different case scenarios were selected to showcase unique examples of many diseases. Results: Three hundred and sixty-eight infants (37.7%) were imaged for retinopathy of prematurity, 362 children (37.1%) underwent the test for evaluation of suboptimal vision or an unexplained vision loss, 126 children (12.9%) for evaluation of nystagmus or night blindness, 54 children (5.5%) for an intraocular tumor or a mass lesion such as retinoblastoma, and 65 children (6.7%) for other diseases of the pediatric retina. The unique findings in the retinal morphology seen with some of these diseases are discussed. Conclusion: The handheld SD-OCT is useful in the evaluation of the pediatric retinal diseases. The test is useful in the assessment of vision development in premature children, evaluation of unexplained vision loss and amblyopia, nystagmus and night blindness, and intraocular tumors (including retinoblastoma).


Priscilla Maltby Mayden, AHIP, FMLA, director emerita of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah, died May 6, 2011, in Brockton, Massachusetts. In a career that extended from manual typewriters to supercomputers and the Internet, she led an academic health sciences library with modest resources to a position of national prominence.

Priscilla's career as a librarian began as an undergraduate at Simmons College in Boston. She did not enter Simmons with the intention of becoming a librarian; rather, she was hoping to become a writer or journalist. However, in the midst of the Great Depression, these careers did not hold much promise, and Priscilla took advantage of the strong library program at Simmons and graduated with a bachelor of science degree with an emphasis in library science.

Her first professional position was at the Business and Technical Branch of the Hartford, Connecticut, Public Library, where she was introduced to the world of special libraries. After two years, for both patriotic and financial reasons, she left the library for a job at the Bendix Aviation Corporation, where her starting salary was fifty-five cents an hour, a significant increase. She became a machinist, operating a Warner and Swasey turret lathe—a real-life Rosie the Riveter. In 1944, she left Bendix and joined the Women's Army Corps and served as a librarian in Santa Ana, California. While in Santa Ana, she decided she wanted to see more of California and San Francisco, in particular. So, over her December holiday, in pouring rain, she hitchhiked by herself up the California coast to San Francisco and arrived in San Francisco with a very wet greatcoat. Following the end of the war, she was about to become a stewardess when Priscilla's sister alerted her to a position in the Veterans' Administration (VA) Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, where she began her distinguished career in medical libraries.

In 1952, Priscilla was offered a position in the new VA Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, which she promptly accepted, not least because of her love of skiing. She started that library from scratch, building a facility, a collection, and services and gaining the expertise that would serve her well and would gain her a national reputation.

After fourteen years at the VA, Priscilla began looking for new challenges. At about the same time, the University of Utah library was searching for a replacement for their medical librarian. The medical school faculty members on the search committee were familiar with Priscilla's work at the VA and felt she would be an excellent candidate. However, a master's degree was required to be appointed to the library faculty. While this might have been viewed as an obstacle by some, Priscilla saw it as a career opportunity to attend what was then the most prestigious library school in the country at Columbia University, which also gave her a chance to live in New York City. She completed her degree in 1967 and was promptly hired by the University of Utah library.

This was the good news. The bad news was Priscilla was thrown into the middle of a battle between the school of medicine and the university library. Fundamentally, the school wanted its own library in or adjacent to the school. The medical library had been located in the Thomas Library Building on the circle at the university. The space was totally inadequate, and when the school of medicine moved a mile away, up the hill, to what is now the health sciences center, the library on the circle was no longer accessible to the medical community.

After a significant struggle, the medical library was moved to the B level of University Hospital/School of Medicine Building. While the space provided the proximity that the health sciences community needed, the facility was described as the worst in the United States. Since the university did not have funds to build a new library, Priscilla applied for a National Library of Medicine Resource Improvement Project Grant. Her proposal was the last building grant funded by the National Library of Medicine. The funding was received in January 1968, with a groundbreaking in the fall of that year. The building was completed without any direct state funding.

At the same time that Priscilla was working on the new building, she recognized the potential of automation for the future of libraries. The Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library was the first participating institution in PHILSOM, the computer network for medical libraries led by Estelle Brodman at Washington University in St. Louis. The decision to join PHILSOM established the Utah library's commitment to innovation, especially in the use of computers, resulting in a national reputation that continues to this day.

The new library was dedicated on October 4, 1971. It was a triumph; the ceremony was held out on the library plaza on a beautiful day. Priscilla's handling of the dedication was terrific, and it secured the continued support of the Eccles family, a crucial component in the success of the library. For everyone involved, it was a matter of going from the darkness of the lower level of the hospital to the bright daylight of the new building, with expansive views of the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding hillside. It is a tribute to Priscilla's skill and understanding of libraries that the building continues to be an attractive and functional facility forty years later and one that has been used as a model for a number of other health sciences libraries. Throughout her career, she was extremely proud of the building and of her efforts in designing it as a functional and beautiful building.

The challenges of adequate funding for the library were a constant for Priscilla. Recognizing the limits of state funding, Priscilla applied her grant expertise in crafting successful proposals to the National Library of Medicine and to local foundations. Following the completion of the building, Priscilla had three grants underway simultaneously. She had an outreach grant that promoted library services across the state, and she had an automation project that used computers to publish an index to US government publications in the health sciences. This index, known as MEDOC, was published for twenty-five years. Finally, she had a very large learning resources grant to enhance the curriculum in the health sciences, including the introduction of advanced technologies into the medical curriculum. The project built a large audiovisual collection and a computer-assisted instruction system. Her success with National Library of Medicine grants led to her appointment to the National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Library Review Committee, the committee that reviewed grant applications submitted to the library. Priscilla was one of the first librarians to be appointed to this committee.

Without question, her most successful proposal was the one she developed for National Library of Medicine initiative known as the Integrated Academic Information Management System (IAIMS). This proposal involved an unprecedented cooperation among the health sciences colleges of the university, the school of medicine, the university hospital, and the library. This initiative was highly competitive, and the University of Utah was one of only four projects funded at that time. The IAIMS vision that Priscilla developed recognized the intersection of the power of computer technologies, the importance of collaboration, and the central role of libraries in information management. This vision continues to guide the Eccles library today.

Finally, one of Priscilla's most exciting and gratifying experiences as a librarian was her appearance before the Health and Human Services Committee of the US Senate in 1981. She was asked to testify about competition between the National Library of Medicine and the Institute for Scientific Information. In response to a question from Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, she stated:

What I find puzzling is the idea of it being competitive because the services are different…Dr. Garfield himself, within the last year on the occasion of the 100[th] anniversary of the Index Medicus, stated that his service and the Index Medicus do not compete but compliment [sic] one another. I would not dream of trying to run my library without the services of the Institute for Scientific Information. [1]

Her testimony proved to be crucial in defending the National Library of Medicine.

The respect of her colleagues is reflected in her elected positions in the profession and the awards she received, including election to the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association, chair of the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association, president of the Utah Library Association, and Fellow of the Medical Library Association and winning of the Utah Library Association Distinguished Service Award. When elected as a Fellow of the Medical Library Association, Priscilla remarked that "she never felt… [that she] should have been in such distinguished company" [2].

When the news about Priscilla's death began to circulate in May of 2011, a flood of emails expressed how much Priscilla had meant to the profession and how much she meant to librarians across the country. She is survived by her niece, her three nephews, and twelve beloved grandnieces and grandnephews.


Signal processing and data interpretation in scanning acoustic microscopy is often challenging and based on the subjective decisions of the operator, making the defect classification results prone to human error. The aim of this work was to combine unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques for feature extraction and image segmentation that allows automated classification and predictive failure analysis on scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) data. In the first part, conspicuous signal components of the time-domain echo signals and their weighting matrices are extracted using independent component analysis. The applicability was shown by the assisted separation of signal patterns to intact and defective bumps from a dataset of a CPU-device manufactured in flip-chip technology. The high success-rate was verified by physical cross-sectioning and high-resolution imaging. In the second part, the before mentioned signal separation was employed to generate a labeled dataset for training and finetuning of a classification model based on a one-dimensional convolutional neural network. The learning model was sensitive to critical features of the given task without human intervention for classification between intact bumps, defective bumps and background. This approach was evaluated on two individual test samples that contained multiple defects in the solder bumps and has been verified by physical inspection. The verification of the classification model reached an accuracy of more than 97% and was successfully applied to an unknown sample which demonstrates the high potential of machine learning concepts for further developments in assisted failure analysis.


The roots of the conflict in Darfur have been characterized as an erosion of natural resources caused by climate change that have contributed to social strife and ethnic conflicts. One of the critical issues still requiring resolution is the long-standing conflict over land and grazing rights between non-Arab farmers and Arab pastoralists. The need to address Darfur resource and development issues were recognized, initially by the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in 2006, and more recently in the Government of Sudan's New Strategy for Darfur, 2010 and the Doha Darfur Peace Document (DDPD) signed in July 2011. The complexities involved in terms of interventions relating to natural resources - land in particular, must respond to the realities of the different livelihoods groups at the grassroots levels; failure to do so will perpetuate historic grievances linked to resource rights and sharing. This article describes the situation as regards land and natural resources in the Darfur region, the approach that FAO is taking, and preliminary results of the fieldwork undertaken by the project Strengthening Community-Based Institutions for Participatory Peace Building , Conflict Resolution and Recovery Planning in Darfur , funded by the Darfur Community Peace and Stability Fund. The aim of the project is to bring together different ethnic groups that were in conflict, to address the region's problems. In particular, the aim has been to find solutions to problems related to competition over and restricted access to common natural resources, using nonviolence means such as dialogue and other peaceful conflict resolution mechanisms.


Artist Georg Baselitz recently declared that women simply cannot paint, and we are told by influential art critics that women are incapable of aesthetic greatness. Artworld discrimination is rife, and a myriad of descending glass ceilings mean that today's female artists are even less likely to succeed now than they were in the nineties. This book cuts speculation and evidences that there are few aesthetic differences in the work of women and men, yet women's artwork can fetch up to 80 per cent less than men's. The brand of masculinity is so powerful that when work is signed by a male artist it goes up in value, yet work signed by a female artist goes down in value. Museums are complicit in collecting disproportionate and tokenist female artwork which impacts upon the artist's market values, yet our great institutions display work by the Guerrilla Girls to create the illusion of equality support. Older women artists especially are struggling for visibility as their appearance is often judged above the artwork itself, while younger female artists create their own eventual demise through promoting youth and sexualized selfies. A vicious cycle suggests the artworld is spinning out of control: women are failing to support one and other and the Queen Bee's sting is deadly. This artworld expose is a groundbreaking, controversial and provocative text, challenging many existing methodologies and theories, and introducing startling new ones. It evidences how the price of being a woman artist – the cost of one's gender - is shown to run deep through the ascribed values throughout all forms of artistic currency; the social, symbolic and economic. Women Can't Paint is certain to stir up the position for female artists and those who collect their work – or who may start doing so after reading this book.


Over the last 10 years, a number of new agents approved for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer have led to a significant improvement in overall survival. The addition of new agents to androgen deprivation therapy has also allowed a paradigmatic change in the treatment of metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer by improving overall survival in comparison with androgen deprivation therapy alone. Furthermore, recent data concerning the efficacy of three different androgen receptor-targeting agents in patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer have opened up new scenarios for future patients' management. Defining the best sequencing strategies for men with prostate cancer is a currently unmet medical need, and choosing treatment is often challenging for clinicians because of the lack of direct comparisons of the available agents. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature concerning current sequencing strategies for prostate cancer patients.


Abstract
Modern engineering requires detailed knowledge of forces, flow directions and velocities, when designing the vehicles of the future. In the ship building industry this is traditionally done in towing tank and wind tunnel experiments or by the long experience of skilled engineers. In the last years computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods developed to a stage, where they become interesting, not only from a financial but also from a performance point of view, for larger ship yards as an extra input and in long term thinking as a full alternative to the experiments.
The special branch of luxury yacht building yards is like every business in strong competition and needs to work economical. It can be very expensive to carry out both methods on the one hand. Since on the other hand these high technology yards have special requirements to fulfill that might change more frequently than for commercial ships, CFD is often a desirable method for the yards to master. The open source software (OSS) openFoam® offers here a possibility to include a modern CFD method without extensive investment costs into the design process and to gain "free" experience with a technology of the future.
The present thesis shows the strength and weaknesses of openFoam® in the ship building industry for and in close collaboration with the Friedrich Lurssen shipyard in Bremen. The yard has specialized in the construction of luxury yachts over 60m and naval vessels over 30m.
Due to openFoam®´s classical case folder structure, several tutorials were created to investigate this purpose. They reflect typical flow situations needed by the yard for future analysis, i.e. a wind tunnel setup, a towing tank setup, a sinkage and trim tutorial, a heat analysis tool and a particle injector. Besides the important resistance calculations the main focus lay on the analysis of the exhaust gas behavior. Mega yacht customers demand lowest possible air pollution on deck, so that extensive wind tunnel experiments are done during the early design stages. The aerodynamic tutorial was created as an alternative to these experiments. Satisfying results were achieved with openFoam® when compared to tests conducted by the Hamburgische Schiffbau- Versuchsanstalt (HSVA). To show the differences in performance to commercial software the hydrodynamic results of openFoam® solver were compared to StarCCM+ by CD-adapco.
The investigation now clearly showed that openFoam® has competitive performance abilities to experiments and commercial CFD software. When no expensive openFoam® training is paid for the time it takes to gather experience in openFoam® handling is long, but can be shortened immensely by the usage of formerly prepared tutorials. In ship design the most important simulations do not change very often, so that this structure can be a help for the yard. But the unusual structure and the unsatisfying product documentation set the limits quite high for the time restricted ship building business to risk the use of the academically developed tool.


Do we violate human rights when we cooperate with and impose a global institutional order that engenders extreme poverty? Thomas Pogge argues that by shaping and enforcing the social conditions that foreseeably and avoidably cause global poverty we are violating the negative duty not to cooperate in the imposition of a coercive institutional order that avoidably leaves human rights unfulfilled. This article argues that Pogge's argument fails to distinguish between harms caused by the global institutions themselves and harms caused by the domestic policies of particular states and collective action problems for which collective responsibility cannot be assigned. The article also argues that his position relies on questionable factual and theoretical claims about the impact of global institutions on poverty, and about the benefits and harms of certain features of these institutions. Participation in, and benefit from, global institutions is unlikely to constitute a violation of our negative duties towards the poor.


Background Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive stimulation, represents a potential intervention to enhance cognition across clinical populations including Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This randomized clinical trial in MCI investigated the effects of anodal tDCS (a-tDCS) delivered to left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) combined with gist-reasoning training (SMART) versus sham tDCS (s-tDCS) plus SMART on measures of cognitive and neural changes in resting cerebral blood flow (rCBF). We were also interested in SMART effects on cognitive performance regardless of the tDCS group. Methods Twenty-two MCI participants, who completed the baseline cognitive assessment (T1), were randomized into one of two groups: a-tDCS + SMART and s-tDCS + SMART. Of which, 20 participants completed resting pCASL MRI scan to measure rCBF. Eight SMART sessions were administered over 4 weeks with a-tDCS or s-tDCS stimulation for 20 min before each session. Participants were assessed immediately (T2) and 3-months after training (T3). Results Significant group × time interactions showed cognitive gains at T2 in executive function (EF) measure of inhibition [DKEFS- Color word (p = 0.047)], innovation [TOSL (p = 0.01)] and on episodic memory [TOSL (p = 0.048)] in s-tDCS + SMART but not in a-tDCS + SMART group. Nonetheless, the gains did not persist for 3 months (T3) after the training. A voxel-based analysis showed significant increase in regional rCBF in the right middle frontal cortex (MFC) (cluster-wise p = 0.05, k = 1,168 mm3) in a-tDCS + SMART compared to s-tDCS + SMART. No significant relationship was observed between the increased CBF with cognition. Irrespective of group, the combined MCI showed gains at T2 in EF of conceptual reasoning [DKEFS card sort (p = 0.033)] and category fluency [COWAT (p = 0.055)], along with gains at T3 in EF of verbal fluency [COWAT (p = 0.009)]. Conclusion One intriguing finding is a-tDCS to left IFG plus SMART increased blood flow to right MFC, however, the stimulation seemingly blocked cognitive benefits of SMART on EF (inhibition and innovation) and episodic memory compared to s-tDCS + SMART group. Although the sample size is small, this paper contributes to growing evidence that cognitive training provides a way to significantly enhance cognitive performance in adults showing memory loss, where the role of a-tDCS in augmenting these effects need further study.


Kernel exploits constitute a powerful attack class allowing attackers to gain full control over a system. Various kernel hardening solutions have been proposed or deployed in practice to protect the kernel against code injection (e.g., DEP) or code-reuse exploits (e.g., CFI). However, the security of all these hardening techniques relies heavily on the assumption that kernel page tables cannot be manipulated, e.g., by means of dataonly attacks. Ensuring kernel page tables integrity is not only essential for kernel security but also a challenging task in practice since existing solutions require hardware trust anchors, costly hypervisors, or inefficient integrity checks. In this paper, we first motivate the importance of protecting kernel page tables by presenting a data-only attack against page tables to bypass the recently released CFI-based (Linux) kernel hardening technique RAP. Thereafter, we present the design and implementation of PT-Rand, the first practical solution to protect kernel page tables that does not suffer from the mentioned deficiencies of previous proposals. PT-Rand randomizes the location of page tables and tackles a number of challenges to ensure that the location of page tables is not leaked. This effectively prevents the attacker from manipulating access permissions of code pages, thereby enabling secure enforcement of kernel exploit mitigation technologies such as CFI. We extensively evaluate our prototype implementation of PT-Rand for the current Linux kernel on the popular Linux distribution Debian and report a low overhead of 0.22% for common benchmarks. Moreover, we combine RAP with PT-Rand to protect RAP against data-only attacks on kernel page tables.