The main purpose of structural health monitoring (SHM) is to obtain information about the state of a structure in order to guide bridge management decisions. Nevertheless, in practice, once a rigorous estimate of the structural state is available, decisions are usually made based on the decision-maker's intuition or experience. In this paper, we present the implementation of expected utility theory (EUT) in those civil engineering decision problems in which decision-makers have to act based on the output of SHM. EUT is an analytical quantitative framework that allows the identification of the financially most convenient decisions, based on the possible outcomes of each action and on the probabilities of each structural state occurring. The advantage of the presented implementation is the optimization of decision strategies in SHM. In the paper, we first formalize the solution of single-stage decision processes, in which the decision-maker has to take only one action. Then, we formalize the solution of multistage decision processes, in which multiple actions may be taken over time. Finally, using an example based on a case study, we describe the variables involved in the analysis of SHM decision problems, discuss the possible results, and address the issues that may arise in the application of EUT in real-life settings.


tion. The Fourth Industrial Revolution can be summarized as the increase in productivity due to artificial intelligence (AI) and hyper-connectivity [1]. Diverse new technologies are being proposed that integrate the physical, biological, and digital worlds, and new technology will be embedded, even in the human body. For example, a technology like the smart watch combines human body information with the digital world. Many people have hopeful expectations for the future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Among other things, medical and life sciences are being discussed as key areas of this revolution, unlike previous Industrial Revolutions. AI, such as IBM's Watson, is expected to be able to make a more accurate diagnoses than current specialists in some areas [2]. Wearable Internet technology will monitor our health in everyday life. By 2022, 10% of the world's population is expected to wear apparel connected to the Internet [3]. Even now, smart watches are on the market. Furthermore, due to the development of implantable technologies, the first implantable mobile phone is expected to be commercialized in 2023 [3]. Ultimately, devices with communication and motion/health monitoring functions are expected to be implanted in the body. These changes are expected to help people manage their health more closely. Under such circumstances, it is necessary to examine whether our medical society is ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The core of this revolution is the creation of new knowledge and values based on connections to various types of information. Because most health data are concentrated in hospitals, how well the current medical society stores information will be key for progression to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Are hospitals prepared for this kind of environment? The author recently reported on the current state of information technology in all general and tertiary teaching hospitals in Korea in 2015 [4]. All hospitals were surveyed to estimate the level of adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems according to 24 core functions on documentation, results, order entry, and decision support. An interesting point is that the EHR adoption rate was higher in Korean hospitals (37.2%) than in US hospitals (15.1%) in 2010, but the opposite result was observed in 2015 (58.1% vs. 75.2%). The level of financial and political support provided to US hospitals by the HITECH Act may have influenced this result. Although this survey was only conducted in Korea, the situations of most countries that do not fully support hospital informatization might be similar. In addition to basic medical records, diverse types of valuable data are being generated in hospitals, but they are not collected properly. A representative example is that of biosignals (electrocardiogram [ECG], electroencephalogram [EEG], respiratory data, SpO2, etc.). Previous studies have suggested that these data are useful for predicting major clinical events [5,6]. They could also constitute core data for developing prediction algorithms for wearable devices. However, most hospitals do not store these types of data, or they store them in a form abbreviated every few minutes rather What We Need to Prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution


Understanding numerical magnitudes is a foundational skill that significantly impacts later learning of mathematics concepts. The current study tested the idea that encoding of "10ness" is crucial to improving children's estimation of two-digit number magnitudes. We used commercially available base-10 blocks for this purpose. The children in the experimental condition were asked to construct two-digit numbers by laying down the precise combinations of 10- and 1-blocks horizontally (e.g., three 10-blocks and seven 1-blocks for 37). Two control conditions were also included. In one control condition, children used 1-blocks only. In another control condition, children used one 10-block and as many 1-blocks as necessary. After working with the experimenter for only 15 minutes twice, the children in the experimental condition were significantly more accurate on the estimation task than those in the control conditions. The findings confirmed the importance of encoding 10ness as a unit in making accurate estimates of two-digit number magnitudes. The importance of encoding other units in the base-10 system is discussed.


Replication factor C (RFC) loads the clamp protein PCNA onto DNA structures. Ctf18-RFC, which consists of the chromosome cohesion factors Ctf18, Dcc1, and Ctf8 and four small RFC subunits, functions as a second proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) loader. To identify potential targets of Ctf18-RFC, human cell extracts were assayed for DNA polymerase activity specifically stimulated by Ctf18-RFC in conjunction with PCNA. After several chromatography steps, an activity stimulated by Ctf18-RFC but not by RFC was identified. Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) analysis revealed the presence of two DNA polymerases, η and λ, in the most purified fraction, but experiments with purified recombinant proteins demonstrated that only polymerase (pol) η was responsible for activity. Ctf18-RFC alone stimulated pol η, and the addition of PCNA cooperatively increased stimulation. Furthermore, Ctf18-RFC interacted physically with pol η, as indicated by co-precipitation in human cells. We propose that this novel loader-DNA polymerase interaction allows DNA replication forks to overcome interference by various template structures, including damaged DNA and DNA-protein complexes that maintain chromosome cohesion.


432 TULSA, Oklahoma—When the fi rst Europeans made their way to the Great Plains in the center of the North American continent, they found vast prairies extending to the horizon, with the waves of grass hardly broken by trees. But a visitor to those same prairies today—from Texas up to South Dakota—is likely to fi nd an army of shrubby junipers overtaking the grass. Far more than an aesthetic change, the shifting ecology places both wildlife and humans at risk: The trees crowd into grazing land and consume water that might otherwise nourish the prairie or provide supplies for local towns and cities. They discharge clouds of highly allergenic pollen and harbor mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus. And they usurp habitat crucial to species such as the lesser prairie chicken and the prairie mole cricket. "Juniper invasion has emerged as a dominant threat to some of the most threatened ecosystems of North America," says Samuel Fuhlendorf, a professor in the Natural Resource Ecology and Management program at Oklahoma State University (OSU). At the recent meeting here of the AAAS Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division, Fuhlendorf and others detailed how human activity over the past 150 years has upset a natural balance that endured on the prairies for millennia. The question now— for farmers and ranchers, hunters, conservationists, consumers, policy-makers, and scientists—is whether humans can help restore the balance and the prairie's health. The 86th Annual Meeting of the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division convened 31 March to 4 April at the University of Tulsa (TU) to explore regional issues with global resonance—cybersecurity, new digital tools for archaeology, research ethics, and the relationship between science and religion, among others. The meeting was held in conjunction with the 15th Annual TU Research Colloquium and the 10th Annual University of Oklahoma-Tulsa Research Day. Symposia on the juniper invasion and Oklahoma's endangered species explored the health of the Great Plains, but the lessons apply to grasslands worldwide. Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and mountain cedar (Juniperus ashei) are native to the region, but for millions of years a natural cycle of wildfi res held them in check. Then, in the 19th century, European pioneers brought intensive cattle-grazing. The sodbusters soon followed, turning up millions of acres of native grass to plant wheat. After the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s, thousands of Eastern redcedar were planted as windbreaks to hold the soil in place. Wildfi res were suppressed as a threat to human communities. Not until it was too late did people realize that the disrupted soil and lack of fi res create favorable conditions for the juniper. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 8 million acres in Oklahoma alone were "infested" with 50-plus junipers per acre. The conquest was growing by 762 acres a day, doubling every 18 years. New birds follow the trees into the prairie; they eat the juniper berries and expel the seeds, aiding the invasion with each meal. Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, associated with climate change, may also be fueling the advance, researchers told the AAAS division audience. Researchers see the lesser prairie chicken as symptomatic of the plains' stressed condition. Agriculture, overgrazing, and energy development have helped reduce its population by 90% since 1900. Fuhlendorf says that junipers and wind turbines pose similar threats: The bird "tolerates basically no vertical structures," he said, because it perceives them as haven for predators. The impact of juniper proliferation is felt even in urban centers. Estelle Levetin, a TU aerobiologist, reported that eastern redcedars around Tulsa appear to be driving "a signifi cant increase" in airborne juniper pollen. Early results in a study covering 25 years suggest a 110% increase in the city's springtime pollen, she said. Other research indicates that the junipers disrupt the prairie water cycle. Mature trees may consume up to 35 liters of water a day. Don Turton, a forest hydrologist at OSU, said that preliminary research results attribute a 20% average net loss of water to redcedar canopies. That leaves soil drier and reduces the fl ow of surface streams. In heavily infested watershed areas along the Canadian River, that may reduce water supplies for Oklahoma City. In an arid state like Oklahoma, water is a rallying point for diverse interests, from ranchers and farmers to hunters, anglers, and environmentalists. Over the past decade, campaigns to control the junipers have intensifi ed in many parts of the Great Plains. Some are working to conserve blocks of native grassland and reintroducing herds of buffalo. Others have established cooperatives to manage controlled burns, using new science to help bring an ancient balance back to the prairie. On Great Plains, Juniper Invasion Signals Prairies in Distress March of the junipers. The trees' aggressive spread "has emerged as a dominant threat to some of the most threatened ecosystems of North America," says one researcher.


The National Development Plan (NDP) of South Africa describes a 2030 vision for the country. The NDP proposes an observatory as one of the measures to develop capabilities for effective spatial decision-making and implementation. This article presents results of a review of observatories with the aim to unpack the details for setting up the proposed observatory. A review of mainly South African observatories was conducted in order to clarify the focus of the observatory (i.e. its purpose and main operations) and how it should be set up (i.e. stakeholders to be involved and hosting options). The review draws on interviews, questionnaires and a workshop with stakeholders, experts and key players. A review of relevant scientific literature and observatory websites was also done. Results underline the importance of drawing on existing data collection, integration and analysis initiatives, as well as the coordinating role such an observatory will have to play.


The paper attempts an evaluation of China-Africa cooperation in the 21 st century. This engagement cannot be ignored for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it gives Africa leverage in its relations with the North. Secondly, China's emergence onto the global stage compels African government and their counterparts in the South to reflect on and adopt initiatives that address the challenges of globalization. Thirdly, for African policy-makers, a more nuanced understanding regarding the varied impacts that China can have on their economies and on Africa's development path is needed. For pessimists China represents a terrifying threat while for optimists it is a tantalizing opportunity. The key question is whether China's engagements in Africa are purely extractive or have a developmental impact. The paper looks in some detail at these real and possible impacts. It concludes that there are complexity of interactions between Chinese and African trade, investment and aid.


In light of the increase in the number and rigor of studies on adult friendship and the tendency of kin and neighbor relationships to have become more structurally similar to friendship, this is a crucial juncture at which to pause and assess what we know and do not know about adult friendship, to begin a needed theoretical synthesis, to identify gaps in the literature and to produce guidelines for future research. The purpose of this article is to present an integrative conceptual framework, incorporating both sociological and psychological perspectives, for use in these endeavors. The framework posits that the social structural and psychological aspects of individual characteristics operate together to shape behavioral motifs which, in turn, influence friendship patterns (dyadic and network structure and phases). Furthermore, dyadic and network structure and phases affect one another through interactive friendship processes. The elements of this integrative framework and the relationships among them vary by structural and cultural context.


Significance The multifunctional ability of CTLs is downregulated by interaction between immune-checkpoint molecules expressed on CTLs and their ligands expressed on cancer cells, referred to as immune exhaustion. The antibody-mediated, immune-checkpoint blockade turned out to a promising method for immunotherapy against advanced melanoma. Metformin, a drug prescribed for patients with type 2 diabetes, has been recognized to have anti-cancer effect. We found that CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is a target of metformin. CD8+ TILs inevitably undergo immune exhaustion, characterized by diminished production of multiple cytokines such as IL-2, TNFα, and IFNγ, followed by elimination with apoptosis. Metformin is able to counter the state. Along with conventional therapy, treatment of cancer patients with metformin may have a great advantage for cancer therapy. Metformin, a prescribed drug for type 2 diabetes, has been reported to have anti-cancer effects; however, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here we show that this mechanism may be immune-mediated. Metformin enabled normal but not T-cell–deficient SCID mice to reject solid tumors. In addition, it increased the number of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and protected them from apoptosis and exhaustion characterized by decreased production of IL-2, TNFα, and IFNγ. CD8+ TILs capable of producing multiple cytokines were mainly PD-1−Tim-3+, an effector memory subset responsible for tumor rejection. Combined use of metformin and cancer vaccine improved CD8+ TIL multifunctionality. The adoptive transfer of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells treated with metformin concentrations as low as 10 μM showed efficient migration into tumors while maintaining multifunctionality in a manner sensitive to the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) inhibitor compound C. Therefore, a direct effect of metformin on CD8+ T cells is critical for protection against the inevitable functional exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment.


The dormant Commerce Clause, though a longstanding feature of American constitutional law, is of dubious legitimacy. Or so some argue (and many have come to believe). The Clause is the target of frequent attack by justices and commentators, usually of an originalist bent. They claim the Clause is without textual support, has "no basis" in Founding - era history, and is the platform for an unjustified intrusion of the federal judiciary into the affairs of the states. But they're wrong. This Article provides a comprehensive response to the dormant Commerce Clause Skeptics from an historical and originalist perspective. Far from lacking legitimacy, the Clause has deep roots in Founding history. It addresses one of the central problems that drew the Framers to the Philadelphia Convention, and it employs the very device for reviewing state legislation the Framers preferred, judicial review. From a historical perspective, the Court's modern dormant Commerce Clause doctrine is actually far more respectful of state authority than the understanding of the Clause likely held at the time of the Framing. But looking with presentist eyes, the Skeptics miss this entirely. The story of the dormant Commerce Clause is one of many twists and turns, nearly inscrutable doctrine, and political manipulations. But no matter what other problems the doctrine may suffer, its fundamental legitimacy is not among them.


The problem of ranking arises ubiquitously in almost every aspect of life, and in particular in Machine Learning/Information Retrieval. A statistical model for ranking predicts how humans rank subsets V of some universe U . In this work we define a statistical model for ranking that satisfies certain desirable properties. The model automatically gives rise to a logistic regression based approach to learning how to rank, for which the score and comparison based approaches are dual views. This offers a new generative approach to ranking which can be used for IR. There are two main contexts for this work. The first is the theory of econometrics and study of statistical models explaining human choice of alternatives. In this context, we will compare our model with other well known models. The second context is the problem of ranking in machine learning, usually arising in the context of information retrieval. Here, much work has been done in the discriminative setting, where different heuristics are used to define ranking risk functions. Our model is built rigorously and axiomatically based on very simple desirable properties defined locally for comparisons, and automatically implies the existence of a global score function serving as a natural model parameter which can be efficiently fitted to pairwise comparison judgment data by solving a convex optimization problem.


The legislation and Rules creating the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (the "Fund") constitute a new entry in the "jurisprudence of injury." The Fund presents challenges that cut across traditional tort and compensation law, economic theory, philosophy, psychology and political science. This article combines analysis of the statute and the Rules with suggestions about their political significance, including brief summaries of heated public discussion about the Fund and a couple of personalized anecdotes, selected for their symbolic power. Trying to "broker the politics of injury," Congress in establishing the Fund created a "unique form of public choice," with "something for everyone, in response to a most tragic set of circumstances." It provides victims of the attacks and their survivors an option to take advantage of a federal compensation fund or to sue air carriers. The Fund combines features of no-fault compensation systems like workers' compensation and of tort damages law, although departing from traditional American damages law by requiring the deduction of collateral sources. It also provides direct subsidies to the air carriers whose passengers and planes were lost in the attacks, as well as limiting their liability and offering them a potential immunity - a highly specialized immunity that depends on choices made by victims and survivors. By contrast with the traditional statutory compensation systems, the Fund "carves out a narrow wedge of misfortune." Reaching beyond "the graphs of microeconomic theory," it appeals to the communitarian instinct, responding to "our continuing horror at the events" of September 11th, "our collective compassion for the victims, and our increased sense of vulnerability." At the same time, the Fund has provoked a nationwide community conversation about the limits of compassion, the sharing of burdens, and even the vices of greed and envy.


Personal safety at the University of Texas is an increasingly popular topic of conversation between students, staff, faculty, and University administration. Concerns stemming from the recently passed "Campus Carry" legislation and the on-campus murder of an undergraduate student that occurred in the spring of 2016 spark debate over the utility of various safety resources currently available on-campus. However, the accessibility of said resources is hardly addressed. Per the 2010 U.S. Census, over 15% of U.S. adults identify as having any physical functioning difficulty. As the University of Texas campus hosts tens of thousands of adults each day, this thesis was conducted to address the flowing overarching question: How does the physical infrastructure of current safety resources on the University of Texas at Austin campus impact the safety of students, faculty, and staff with physical disabilities?

To address this question, a survey was developed based on 2 semi-structured interviews gauging safety concerns with individuals from the disabled community, news articles documenting the use of campus safety resources, and University published documents. The survey underwent content review by 4 subject matter experts in areas such as civil engineering, campus diversity and community engagement, and the Americans with Disabilities act of 1990. Social media platforms such as Facebook and email list serves for various groups at the University of Texas were used to distribute the survey. It is expected that the results of the survey will indicate the perceptions of current and former students, faculty, and staff will underestimate the prevalence and use and overestimate the accessibility of certain safety resources mentioned in the survey. This poster is a summarized presentation of the findings from the survey.


Functionality-based recognition systems recognize objects at the category level by reasoning about how well the objects support the expected function. Such systems naturally associate a "measure of goodness" or "membership value" with a recognized object. This measure of goodness is the result of combining individual measures, or membership values, from potentially many primitive evaluations of diffierent properties of the object's shape. A membership function is used to compute the membership value when evaluating a primitive of a particular physical property of an object. In previous versions of a recognition system known as GRUFF, the membership function for each of the primitive evaluations was hand-crafted by the system designer. In this paper, we provide a learning component for the GRUFF system, called OMLET, that automatically learns membership functions given a set of example objects labeled with their desired category measure. The learning algorithm is generally applicable to any problem in which low-level membership values are combined through an and-or tree structure to give a final overall membership value.


This paper examines the financial consequences that inventory leanness has on firm performance. We conduct an econometric analysis using 4324 publicly traded US manufacturing companies for the period 1980–2008. Using an instrumental variable fixed effects estimator we find a nonlinear relationship between inventory leanness and financial performance. However, we note that the maximum point of this inverted U-shaped relationship often lies at the extreme end of the investigated sample – suggesting a decreasing return from leanness rather than an optimal level. We show that the strength of this relationship is highly dependent on both the industry and inventory component (raw materials, work in process and finished goods) studied. The main novelty and direct implication of our findings is that most firms still have much potential to increase profitability by becoming leaner and they are unlikely to cross a threshold where profitability decreases with increased leanness. We display how much the average firm could gain by becoming leaner and show how this sensitivity changes by inventory component and industry. Finally, we highlight several new econometric aspects that we believe must be addressed when empirically investigating the inventory-performance link.


Thank you for reading a late picking poems 1965 1974. As you may know, people have look hundreds times for their favorite readings like this a late picking poems 1965 1974, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious bugs inside their computer. a late picking poems 1965 1974 is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can get it instantly. Our digital library hosts in multiple locations, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the a late picking poems 1965 1974 is universally compatible with any devices to read.


British secondary schools moved from a system of extensive and early selection and tracking in secondary schools to one with comprehensive schools during the 1960s and 70s. Before the reform, students would take an exam at age eleven, which determined whether they would attend an academically oriented grammar school or a lower level secondary school. The reform proceeded at an uneven pace in different areas, so that both secondary school systems coexist during the 1960s and 70s. The British transition therefore provides an excellent laboratory for the study of the impact of a comprehensive versus a selective school system on student achievement. Previous studies analyzing this transition have typically used a value-added methodology: they compare outcomes for students passing through either type of school controlling for achievement levels at the time of entering secondary education. While this seems like a reasonable research design, we demonstrate that it is unlikely to successfully eliminate selection effects in who attends what type of school. Very similar results are obtained by looking at the effect of secondary school environment on achievement at age 11 and controlling for age 7 achievement. Since children only enter secondary school at age 11, these effects are likely due to selection bias. Careful choice of treatment and control areas, and using political control of the county as an instrument for early implementation of the comprehensive regime do not solve this problem.


Hunting camps play an essential role for investigating changing hunter-gatherer behavior during the Late Glacial. In the south-eastern Pyrenees, sites located in mountainous contexts, often interpreted as hunting camps, represent adaptations to demanding environments. These sites form part of emergent strategies associated with specialized systems and are characterized by the presence of a hunting toolkit, monospecific faunal assemblages and the seasonal exploitation of mountain ecosystems. Taken together, these various aspects suggest profound transformations in subsistence practices and social organization. Here we test the validity of such a scenario for the site of Balma Guilanyà in the western Catalonian Pyrenees. Comparisons of techno-typological trends and faunal assemblages are placed within their chrono-environmental context allowing the question of possible changes in systems developed by the Late Glacial hunter-gatherers who occupied the southern slopes of the Pyrenees to be addressed.


We developed and tested a rating scale aimed to capture the essential features of dyskinesia in Parkinson's disease (PD). Although several scales assess selected attributes of PD‐dyskinesias, no comprehensive rating tool exists. Available rating scales were evaluated by the investigators and patient focus groups. Modifications were finalized into the Unified Dyskinesia Rating Scale (UDysRS). The UDysRS has four parts: I: Historical Disability (patient perceptions) of On‐Dyskinesia impact (maximum 44 points); II: Historical Disability (patient perceptions) of Off‐Dystonia impact (maximum 16 points); III: Objective Impairment (dyskinesia severity, anatomical distribution over seven body regions, and type (choreic or dystonic) based on four activities observed or video‐recorded (28 points); IV: Objective Disability based on Part III activities (maximum 16 points). For clinimetric testing, 70 PD patients with all severities of dyskinesia were interviewed and videotaped. Twenty movement disorder experts rated the videotapes with the UDysRS. Internal consistency was examined with Cronbach's alpha. Inter‐ and intra‐rater reliability was evaluated with generalized weighted and nonweighted Kappa coefficients, and intraclass correlation coefficients. Both subjective (Sections I and II) and objective (Sections III and IV) demonstrated high internal consistency (alpha: 0.915, 0.971). Interrater reliability for the objective sections was acceptable for all items and likewise for intrarater reliability except for right leg. Reliable factor structures were found for both subjective (six factors) and objective sections (five factors). The UDysRS is a clinimetrically sound rating scale for dyskinesia in PD, demonstrating acceptable levels of internal consistency and inter‐ and intra‐rater reliability. Testing scale responsivity to treatment interventions is planned. © 2008 Movement Disorder Society


In work-zone configurations where lane drops are present, merging of traffic at the taper presents an operational concern. In addition, as flow through the work zone is reduced, the relative traffic safety of the work zone is also reduced. Improving workzone flow-through merge points depends on the behavior of individual drivers. By better understanding driver behavior, traffic control plans, work zone policies, and countermeasures can be better targeted to reinforce desirable lane closure merging behavior, leading to both improved safety and work-zone capacity. The researchers collected data for two work-zone scenarios that included lane drops with one scenario on the Interstate and the other on an urban arterial roadway. The researchers then modeled and calibrated these scenarios in VISSIM using real-world speeds, travel times, queue lengths, and merging behaviors (percentage of vehicles merging upstream and near the merge point). Once built and calibrated, the researchers modeled strategies for various countermeasures in the two work zones. The models were then used to test and evaluate how various merging strategies affect safety and operations at the merge areas in these two work zones.


There is considerable variability in the timing of early life history transitions within and among species of marine fishes. Variability in the ages and sizes at which fish undergo metamorphosis, from larvae to juveniles, may be particularly important in determining survival because metamorphosis represents the culmination of a period of high mortality and corresponds to a stage by which recruitment levels begin to be established. Using a combination of empirical multi-species literature reviews, experiments, and simple analytical modelling, I show that variability in size and age at metamorphosis results from the integration of the variability occurring throughout early development. -- Analysis of several published studies indicates that average metamorphic length is relatively constant within species and mean metamorphic age is the time that it takes to grow to that length. Results from the empirical literature review and from experiments with yellowtail flounder (Pleuronectes ferrugineus) demonstrate that differences in the growth trajectories of individual larvae result in considerable variability in metamorphic age, and to a lesser extent length, within populations. Furthermore results from a growth reconstruction study using otolith growth diameters suggest that the metamorphic age of individuals may be predicted by the size that larvae have achieved two weeks after hatch. Sources of such variance in initial body length were considered in a second experiment, which demonstrated that the hatching length of yellowtail flounder larvae is determined by interactions between rearing temperatures, maternally derived differences in egg diameter and individual differences in development time. These interacting variables result in considerable, environment- dependent scope for variability in initial larval lengths. -- I conclude by making empirical (multi-species) comparisons of individual-level variability in stage duration and length of larvae at hatching and metamorphosis. In doing so I argue that differences among individuals are generated in a fairly consistent manner for developing embryos and larvae. As a consequence, individual developmental trajectories may begin to diverge soon after fertilization, resulting in considerable variability in the timing of metamorphosis. These results are corroborated by a simple analytical model for autocorrelated individual growth. Overall, the results presented in this thesis suggest that small differences in body size or development rate among individuals occurring early during ontogeny can affect events that occur months later, and may determine eventual chances for survival.


Content hosted on the Internet must appear robust and reliable to clients relying on such content. As more clients come to rely on content from a source, that source can be subjected to high levels of load. There are a number of solutions, collectively called load balancers, which try to solve the load problem through various means. All of these solutions are workarounds for dealing with problems inherent in the medium by which content is served thereby limiting their effectiveness. HTTP, or Hypertext Transport Protocol, is the dominant mechanism behind hosting content on the Internet through websites. The entirety of the Internet has changed drastically over its history, with the invention of new protocols, distribution methods, and technological improvements. However, HTTP has undergone only three versions since its inception in 1991, and all three versions serve content as a text stream that cannot be interrupted to allow for load balancing decisions. We propose a solution that takes existing portions of HTTP, augments them, and includes some new features in order to increase usability and management of serving content over the Internet by allowing redirection of content in-stream. This in-stream redirection introduces a new step into the client-server connection where servers can make decisions while continuing to serve content to the client. Load balancing methods can then use the new version of HTTP to make better decisions when applied to multi-server systems making load balancing more robust, with more control over the client-server interaction.


Professional and technical communication courses often feature instructional documents as a genre. Instructions are one of the more frequently composed documents by practicing professional writers and as such, writing effective instructions can be a key learning objective for the professional and technical communication classroom. However, to better engage today's students, many of whom are seasoned video game players, the typical instructional document in professional/technical communication can be modified to include written walkthroughs of video games. This paper offers a sample assignment that asks undergraduate students to compose written walkthroughs of a video game, conduct usability studies of those walkthroughs, and then revise the walkthroughs based on the results of the usability studies.


This dissertation examines the problems of coordination and adaptation in integrated relief operations responding to complex humanitarian emergencies (CHE). It is an exploratory case study of the relief operation in Southern Sudan where a CHE has been ongoing since the mid-1980s. The study spans the 20 year-period from 1989 to 2009 with a focus on three points in time - 1989, 1998 and 2009 - when violence and acute food shortage threatened the lives of thousands of people. The study draws on the literature on CHE and coordination during relief operations while its theoretical framework is based on the literature on Organization Theory, Interorganizational Coordination Theory, Complex Adaptive Systems Theory, the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework, Lewin's Force Field Theory and the Science of Networks. The study applies the theoretical framework and uses both descriptive analysis and social network analysis to study the relief operation within its dynamic environment. The descriptive analysis explains the background to the relief operation and enables me to account for the constellation of especial circumstances that led to the emergence of the operation at that specific time. The network analysis enables me to map the structure of the operation and the relationships among the actors and to understand how coordination takes place. Studying the relief operation at three points in time allows me to understand how the process of adaptation took place and how the operation evolved in response to the changes in its environment.

The findings of the study reveal that the structure of the operation is a horizontal hierarchy characterized by interdependency and strong local connections between the actors which enable them to join their efforts when needed but also to have the ability to act independently. They also reveal that the environment in which a relief operation takes place have a strong impact on the operation while the operation itself impacts that environment. Over the period of 20 years, the structure of the relief operation changed little but its members changed and its scope and focus has also changed in response to changes in its environment.


In our work we have focused on the incorporation of magnetite nanoparticles (NPs) into poly(allylamine hydrochloride)/poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs). The main goal of presented studies was to control the two-dimentional ordering of NPs within polyelectrolyte films. The ordering of NPs depended on the treatment of the underlying polyelectrolyte films. The NPs were uniformly distributed in freshly prepared samples leading to an interfacial mixture of polyelectrolytes and particles, while a highly concentrated layer of NP was formed only when the PEMs were exposed to elevated temperature after their preparation. The observed effect was correlated to glass-melt phase transitions of the PEMs. Such ordering of functionalized species in a polymer matrix may enhance the response from the studied nanocomposites.


Images of the indigenous other have always been used in accord with the imperialistic movements of the Western world. Filmmakers continue to use the basic model of depicting people of indigenous cultures as exotic and more primitive than people of Western cultures with the effect of validating Western values and reinforcing the perceived superiority/authority of Western values over other value systems. This form is readily apparent in the treatment of the indigenous people of Africa in natural history films from the inception of the medium to present day. I will examine films from the 1920s through the present day. If filmmakers are to create successful natural history films that incorporate people of indigenous cultures, they must critically study the histories and mythologies that inform these films in order to avoid making the same mistakes.


Awsaj (Lycium barbarum) is a plant belong to family Solanaceae serves as a good source of bioactive compounds like phytosterols which have many important biological activity. Literature survey available so far revealed that there was no studies about Iraqi wild Awsaj phytosterols especially B-sitosterol, there for the objective of this study was to examine the efficiency of ultrasound assisted extraction (probe and bath) as compared to the conventional (Soxhlet) extraction method for extraction of phytosterols especially B-sitosterol from fruits, leaves, stems and roots of Iraqi wild Awsaj plant. This goal was achieved by comparing the extraction mass yield, also by a quick and easy approach for identification and quantification of bioactive B-sitosterol in four parts of Awsaj using high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) which confirm the presence of B-sitosterol in four parts of Iraqi Awsaj plant and the results clarify that the root part of Iraqi Awsaj plant extracted by probe UAE give the highest concentration (0.610 mg/ml) of B-sitosterol followed by fruits (0.465mg/ml), leaves(0.405mg/ml) and the least was stems(0.275mg/ml); according to these; isolation and purification of B-sitosterol from petroleum ether fraction of Awsaj roots was done by preparative HPLC. The isolated compound (B-sitosterol) was identified by measuring melting point, FT-IR, TLC and preparative HPLC.
Key words: Awsaj, ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE), B-sitosterol, high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC), preparative high performance liquid chromatography (PHPLC).


Detecting and explicating interactions in categorical data analyses using cross tabulation and the [chi]2 statistic can provide salient tests of hypotheses concerning the relationship between two variables measured at the nominal or ordinal levels. For example, researchers usually employ categorical analysis when they are interested in whether members of one group (e.g., males vs. females) differ in the proportion falling into two or more levels of a dependent variable (e.g., in favor of or opposed to sex education in public schools). In this case, the data can be expressed as a two-way table and hypotheses tested with the [chi]2 statistic. Interpretation of this simplest of two-way tables is straightforward. However, research questions are often more complex than this simple example both in the number of predictor variables and the number of levels of each variable. Researchers typically include other predictor variables (e.g., race, academic status, marital status) to gain a better understanding of more complex relationships among predictors and outcomes. In addition, researchers often employ measures that have more than two levels (e.g., income, race, treatment type, academic status), and they often choose to combine levels in one or more variables to simplify the analyses, meet assumptions, or clarify the results.


Background and Hypothesis: The pathogenesis of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) is multifactorial leading to inflammation. In BPD, Endothelial-Monocyte Activating Polypeptide II (EMAP II, encoded by Aimp1), a moonlighting pro-inflammatory cytokine, is initially found in bronchiolar club cells followed by intra-alveolar GAL-3+ macrophages. Sustained EMAP II mimics BPD, invoking inflammation, alveolar simplification, and macrophage recruitment. Targeted ablation of EMAP II in the recruited macrophages may dampen innate immune response.
Experimental Design: Gender-matched, aged-matched littermate mice with myeloid-cell specific ablation of Aimp1 (Lyz2-Cre;Aimp1flox/flox, denoted as Aimp1Δ/Δ) or without (control) were subjected to lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-endotoxemia. Survival rates of co-housed or singly housed mice were measured over 72 hours following a lethal dose (15 mg/kg). Clinical scores (0-6) based on the integrity of their locomotion, fur, and eyes were assigned every 2 hours. Blood and bone marrow smears, average bodyweights, spleen-weights to bodyweights and liver-weights to bodyweights were analyzed.
Results: There were no baseline differences in bodyweight, spleen weight:bodyweight, liver weight:bodyweight (p-val = 0.42, 0.46, 0.64). Representative bone marrow and blood smears showed no notable difference. Aimp1[Symbol]/[Symbol] male mice co-housed (dose 15 mg/kg) but not singly housed survived longer than their littermates (median survival: hours); Aimp1[Symbol]/[Symbol] female mice showed a survival advantage (median survival: hours) with lower clinical scores than their littermates. The kinetics of NFKBIA/I[Symbol]B degradation was similar between Aimp1[Symbol]/[Symbol] and control peritoneal macrophages in response to LPS, although there was a higher basal amount in Aimp1[Symbol]/[Symbol].
Conclusion and Potential Impact: Aimp1/EMAP II does play a positive feedback role in innate immunity, potentially in a metabolically and gender-specific role of Aimp1 which remain to be explored.


We present a pressured mediated tunable optofluidic dye laser with novel cavity. The dye laser chip was fabricated with Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) via replica molding and has none nano-features. It comprises a liquid waveguide and micro-scale air-gap chambers which function as mirrors to provide feedback. The lasing wavelength was determined by the interference of the reflected beams from the two PDMS-air interfaces of the air-gap chamber acting as Fabry-Perot etalon, while the tuning was realized by varying the width of the air-gap by applying air pressure. The lasing with linewidth of 3 nm and tuning range of 14 nm was demonstrated.


Macroporous silicon samples of differing topological porous properties were manufactured by way of electrochemical etching. Different etching parameters (etching current, time, electrolyte concentration) were used on four different (in terms of crystal orientation and resistivity) types of samples in order to obtain a series of samples of differing pore topology. It is known that macroporous silicon acts as a high-wavelength pass filter in the infrared regime. FTIR spectroscopy was performed on each of these samples in order to obtain an optical cutoff wavenumber for each sample. Furthermore, SEM analysis was performed in order to determine the number of pores per unit area on the surface as well as the percentage of the surface that was covered in pores for each sample. Furthermore, the average linear dimension per pore was determined using these values. Finally, the average pore-to-pore distance was also estimated on each sample. These four sets of measurements were performed in order to find a relationship between the optical and topological properties of macroporous silicon. It was found that there is a relationship between pore number density and cutoff; the cutoff wavenumber increases as the pore number density is increased. Additionally, a correlation between the pore spacing and the cutoff was also determined; the cutoff wavelength increases as the pore spacing increases. It was expected that there would be a correlation between the average linear dimension per scattering element as is seen in other types of scattering filters; however such a trend was only observed for one of the sample types. This suggests that the scattering mechanism by which porous


Abstract. Over the past several decades, jellyfish blooms have intensified spatially and temporally, affecting functions and services of ecosystems worldwide. At the demise of a bloom, an enormous amount of jellyfish biomass sinks to the seabed and decomposes. This process entails reciprocal microbial and biogeochemical changes, typically enriching the water column and seabed with large amounts of organic and inorganic nutrients. Jellyfish decomposition was hypothesized to be particularly important in nutrient-impoverished ecosystems, such as the Eastern Mediterranean Sea – one of the most oligotrophic marine regions in the world. Since the 1970s, this region is experiencing the proliferation of a notorious invasive scyphozoan jellyfish, Rhopilema nomadica. In this study, we estimated the short-term decomposition effects of R. nomadica on nutrient dynamics at the sediment-water interface. Our results show that the degradation of R. nomadica has led to increased oxygen demand and acidification of overlying water as well as high rates of dissolved organic nitrogen and phosphate production. These conditions favored heterotrophic microbial activity, bacterial biomass accumulation, and triggered a shift towards heterotrophic bio-degrading bacterial communities, whereas autotrophic pico-phytoplankton abundance was moderately affected or reduced. This shift may further decrease primary production in the water column of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Deoxygenation, acidification, nutrient enrichment and microbial community shifts at the sediment-water interface may have a detrimental impact on macrobenthic communities. Based on these findings we suggest that jelly-falls and their decay may facilitate an additional decline in ecosystem functions and services.


The school to prison pipeline (STPP) is a conceptual framework reflecting the injustice that bleeds at the intersection of the educational and criminal justice systems. By drawing on research from a variety of disciplines – including education, psychology, and law – the review of literature examined the contextual factors, including zero tolerance policy and practice, impacting the STPP. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of six men of color and their ability to evade the STPP. More specifically, this dissertation investigated to what capacity the leadership in the home, community, and school contributed to the six men's ability to evade the grip of the STPP. Constructionism and critical inquiry framed this research that adopted a phenomenological approach. Using their voice and perspectives, the research portrays the men's lived experience. It is hoped that these narratives can provide educational leaders and the larger society insight into how the six men successfully navigated the K-12 educational system. The key findings pinpoint the structures of support within the context of the home, community, and school that champion justice, success, and equity for boys and young men of color. This study reveals that there is a need for: policy and practice reformation, a closer investigation of restorative justice, demonstration of culturally relevant leadership, and a call for


Breams (Abramis brama) and zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) from freshwater, and common mussels (Mytilus edulis) from marine ecosystems, archived in the German Environmental Specimen Bankwere analyzed for the presence of 4-nonylphenol (NP), 4-tert-octylphenol (OP), nonylphenol monoethoxylate (NP1EO), and octylphenol monoethoxylate (OP1EO). The samples were collected in the German rivers Elbe, Rhine, and Saar, and in Lake Belau between 1992 and 2001, as well as in the North Sea and Baltic Sea between 1985 and 2001. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of imposed reduction measures regarding the use of alkylphenol ethoxylates. NP1EO and OP were detected in all breams. NP was predominantly above the limit of quantification (LOQ, 2 ng/g; all data on a wet weight basis), and OP1EO was mostly below the LOQ (0.2 ng/g). Maximal concentrations of 112 ng/g NP, 259 ng/g NP1EO, 5.5 ng/g OP, and 2.6 ng/g OP1EO were found in Saar breams from 1994. NP was detected in all zebra mussels from the river Elbe (up to 41 ng/g), whereas in rather few samples OP and NP1EO were found at low levels. OP1EO was not detected in any sample. Concentrations in mussels and breams from the reference site Lake Belau were below the LOQ for all compounds. In marine biota NP was found until 1997 with maximum concentrations up to 9.7 ng/g, whereas NP1EO was detected at levels between 1.7 and 12.9 ng/g in very few samples collected at the end of the 1980s. A tendency of the concentrations to decrease was obvious for all sampling sites; it was most pronounced for NP1EO and NP after 1996/1997. The effectiveness of the reduction measures is most evident at the Saar sampling site Güdingen and the North Sea sampling site Eckwarderhörne.


The purposes of writing this paper are to determine: (1) the working principle of vibration sensors can detect impending earthquakes, (2) the sensitivity or the sensitivity of the tool when used in detecting the vibration of an earthquake, (3) demonstration tool Earthquake Detection and Warning with vibration sensor has good meets criteria for use students learn. The method of this research is an a demonstration tool in learning. The basic principle of work and warning earthquake detector with a vibration sensor this is when an earthquake occurs or when the dynamo (earthquake simulator) is started, the resulting vibrations cause movement of the pendulum. This pendulum movement is what will trigger the sound of the bell. When the pendulum movement causes the pendulum in contact with the copper wire ring, then the electricity will flow toward the bell. When electricity flows into the bell will arise in the membrane vibration in the bell. A vibrating membrane will produce resonance which then led to a wave. This wave is what produces the sound on the buzzer. Pendulum vibration frequency is closely related to the magnitude of the voltage / potential difference given input on the dynamo that causes the rotor to rotate. Increasing the voltage will increase the rotational speed of the rotor on a large dynamo. The faster the rotor rotation, the vibration of the pendulum will be even greater. This resulted in the pendulum will be faster and more frequent touching circle copper wire which is connected electricity and bell. Thus the buzzer will sound increasingly rapid and dynamic. The results of the experiment are the greater the number of loops and the greater the voltage will cause a greater rotational speed of the rotor is generated, so that the greater the pendulum vibrations and buzzer / alarm to sound more dynamic. Detector and earthquake warning with vibration sensor has a sensitivity to the number of loops starting from 2 pieces with a 3V input voltage and is capable of detecting an earthquake of ≥3,6 SR. Based on the results of the assessment of a demonstration tool detection and warning of earthquakes with vibration sensor was found that the maximum value that is filled by a validator is 39. It can be concluded that the demonstration tool detection and warning of earthquakes with vibration sensor is included in good criteria for the use of students in learning.


White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease caused by Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) that affects bats during hibernation. Although millions of bats have died from WNS in North America, mass mortality has not been observed among European bats infected by the fungus, leading to the suggestion that bats in Europe are immune. We tested the hypothesis that an antibody-mediated immune response can provide protection against WNS by quantifying antibodies reactive to Pd in blood samples from seven species of free-ranging bats in North America and two free-ranging species in Europe. We also quantified antibodies in blood samples from little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) that were part of a captive colony that we injected with live Pd spores mixed with adjuvant, as well as individuals surviving a captive Pd infection trial. Seroprevalence of antibodies against Pd, as well as antibody titers, was greater among little brown myotis than among four other species of cave-hibernating bats in North America, including species with markedly lower WNS mortality rates. Among little brown myotis, the greatest titers occurred in populations occupying regions with longer histories of WNS, where bats lacked secondary symptoms of WNS. We detected antibodies cross-reactive with Pd among little brown myotis naïve to the fungus. We observed high titers among captive little brown myotis injected with Pd. We did not detect antibodies against Pd in Pd-infected European bats during winter, and titers during the active season were lower than among little brown myotis. These results show that antibody-mediated immunity cannot explain survival of European bats infected with Pd and that little brown myotis respond differently to Pd than species with higher WNS survival rates. Although it appears that some species of bats in North America may be developing resistance to WNS, an antibody-mediated immune response does not provide an explanation for these remnant populations.


Need to solve problems quickly to develop creative projects to time and to budget? Want to hone your Flash skills so you can concentrate on your animation? Then How to Cheat in Flash is for you! Chris Georgenes shows how to work from the problem to the solution - from the viewpoint of an animator who has been commissioned to create a job and is working to a deadline and to a budget. With his in-depth knowledge of the little-known secrets used by the pros to produce creative, professional animations, Chris isthe go-to guru for designers and animators who want to create great animation, applications or motion design with Flash.Fully updated for CS5, How to Cheat in Flash CS5,is a goldmine of artistic inspiration, timesaving practical tips, tricks and step-by-step workthroughs that you'll wonder how you survived without it. Each techniquesis designed as a double-page spread so you can prop the book up behind your keyboard or next to your monitor as a visual reference while working alongside it. Many of these workthroughs are real-world client projects, with the source files supplied for you to open and explore. With these real-life professional projects you'll discover how to:bring objects to life with cool motion effects, make it rain, snow or set your world ablaze, develop flash mobile applications and many more tips and tricks not found anywhere else! * Work over the shoulder of Chris Georgenes, renowned Flash expert,and apply thepractical techniques, tips and tricks to yourown projectswith downloadable Flash source files, examples andtutorials, available at www.howtocheatinflash.com. * Bestselling How to Cheat coverage of Flash CS5 - proven format for successful learning * Learn a myriad of tips and tricks based on real-life working methods to help you work faster and more efficiently and to budget! * Work from the problem to the solution, to gain the best possible results from Flash CS5!


Foreign critics sometimes accuse Americans of taking a hypocritical stance on international law. They say we preach an ethical international law to others, but practice a selfishly utilitarian international law ourselves. Here is the remarkable opinion, given just last year, of a leading European international lawyer. Martti Koskenniemi, a distinguished Finnish scholar, is Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and a Global Professor of Law at New York University. Koskenniemi believes that the Europeans speak "the language of universal international law," but: How differently the Americans see the world! Legalization, is just a policy choice, a matter of costs and benefits - with no a priori reason to believe that the latter would outweigh the former. And no real obligation to obey international law, just a weak maxim of prudence. The international law professor is an almost extinct species at United States law schools. And why not? In his widely read pamphlet, Robert D. Kaplan called for leadership with a pagan ethos. "The moral basis of our foreign policy will depend upon the character of our nation and its leaders, not upon the absolutes of international law." Nur der, der Kann, darf auch wrote Erich Kaufmann in 1911 from within another Empire. U.S. attitudes to law read like the imperial authoritarianism of early twentieth-century Germany.This lecture is a response to answer such foreign critiques. My thesis is that Americans have long been inclined to both morality and utility in international law and that both inclinations are equally genuine. We are not inherently hypocritical. The truth is more complex. Americans hold and promote both moral and practical values, albeit we sometimes delude ourselves that what is useful in international law is good, and what is good in international law is useful.


This work consists of two parts: the theoretical and the experimental. In the theoretical part, some general and some language specific theories of tense, aspect and aktionsart are presented, and the temporal systems of Swedish and Polish are compared. The theoretical part is not a mere review of the literature on the subject. The comparison of the descriptions of aspect and aktionsart by Slavic researchers with the universal theory of Smith (1991) and (1977) and with description of aktionsart in Swedish in Teleman et al. (1999) has allowed me for some important observations as to the nature of the long-lasting dispute about the differences between aspect and aktionsart.The experimental part is a cross-sectional study on the role of the linguistic context on the acquisition of the pluperfect by Polish learners Swedish as a foreign language. The informants are university students studying Swedish as a foreign language. The language samples were collected by means of two types of tests: gap-filling and translation from Polish. Twelve linguistic factors, each divided into two subgroups, were hypothesised to have affected the correct use of the pluperfect. All those hypotheses as to which of the subgroups may inhibit and which may facilitate the correct use of the pluperfect are grounded in linguistic theories, i.e. presented in the form of linguistically-based discussions as to what kind of effect, facilitative or inhibiting, each of the linguistic factors may have had, and why. The effect of those factors upon the correct use of the pluperfect has been tested by means of a step-wise multiple regression which measured the simultaneous effect of each factor upon the correct use of the pluperfect. This method has confirmed the facilitative effect of the following six linguistic factors: intrasentential indication of topic time (subordinate clause), unbounded verb indicating topic time, agentive meaning of the target verb, specifying subordinate clause, statal pluperfect and location of the time of action of pluperfect clause outside the temporal frame of narrative plot.


Small particle light scattering can produce light with polarization characteristics different from those of the incident beam. An analytical solution to the scattering by a spheroid with inclusion for an on-axis polarized Gaussian beam incidence is provided within the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory framework. The shapes of the inclusion can be spherical, confocal spheroid, or non-confocal spheroid. The Muller scattering matrix elements are computed for plane wave incidence or Gaussian light beam incidence. The effect of the size and shape of the inclusion or the coating on the polarized Gaussian light scattering characteristics by a spheroidal water coating aerosol particle are computed and analyzed.


CI 400. Anthropology & Education. 3 or 4 hours. This course uses an anthropological approach in the study of formal and informal educational processes to understand the relationship between education, culture and society as represented in ethnographic texts. Course Information: 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite(s): Consent of the instructor. Recommended background: ED 100, and ED 135, and ED 205; and ANTH 100 or ANTH 101.


This paper is about the perception of time by air travellers on business trips. Time is becoming a more relevant factor at airports due to all security checks. Furthermore, punctuality of airlines becomes an increasingly relevant factor due to overfilled airspaces around mega hubs. The question which arises is what level of delay is still accepted by air passengers on business trips without creating dissatisfaction with the delayed airline and if the accepted delay changes with frequency of air travels by business passengers. The sample includes 2834 air travellers which were interviewed before they were entering their flights at gates or in business lounges. The results reveal that a delay up to 30 minutes is acceptable in air travel. The more a passenger travels by plane the lower is the level of acceptance towards delays or the more punctuality becomes a basic factor and a power factor.


Twice in the winter of 1999-2000, citizens of the Russian Federation flocked to their neighborhood voting stations and scratched their ballots in an atmosphere of uncertainty, rancor, and fear. This book is a tale of these two elections --one for the 450-seat Duma, the other for President. Despite financial crisis, a national security emergency in Chechnya, and cabinet instability, Russian voters unexpectedly supported the status quo. The elected lawmakers prepared to cooperate with the executive branch, a gift that had eluded President Boris Yeltsin since he imposed a post-Soviet constitution by referendum in 1993. When Yeltsin retired six months in advance of schedule, the presidential mantle went to Vladimir Putin --a career KGB officer who fused new and old ways of doing politics. Putin was easily elected President in his own right. This book demonstrates key trends in an extinct superpower, a troubled country in whose stability, modernization, and openness to the international community the West still has a huge stake.


The dynamics of decaying strictly axisymmetric, incompressible turbulence is investigated using direct numerical simulations. It is found that the angular momentum is a robust invariant of the system. It is further shown that long-lived coherent structures are generated by the flow, associated with stationary solutions of the Euler equations. The structures obey relations in agreement with predictions from selective decay principles, compatible with the decay laws of the system. Two different types of decay scenarios are highlighted. The first case results in a quasi-two-dimensional flow with a dynamical behaviour in the poloidal plane similar to freely decaying two-dimensional turbulence. In a second regime, the long-time dynamics is dominated by a single three-dimensional mode.


Despite expenditures of more than 1 billion dollars annually, there is little information available about project motivations, actions, and results for the vast majority of river restoration efforts. We performed confidential telephone interviews with 317 restoration project managers from across the United States with the goals of (1) assessing project motivations and the metrics of project evaluation and (2) estimating the proportion of projects that set and meet criteria for ecologically successful river restoration projects. According to project managers, ecological degradation typically motivated restoration projects, but post‐project appearance and positive public opinion were the most commonly used metrics of success. Less than half of all projects set measurable objectives for their projects, but nearly two‐thirds of all interviewees felt that their projects had been "completely successful." Projects that we classified as highly effective were distinct from the full database in that most had significant community involvement and an advisory committee. Interviews revealed that many restoration practitioners are frustrated by the lack of funding for and emphasis on project monitoring. To remedy this, we recommend a national program of strategic monitoring focused on a subset of future projects. Our interviews also suggest that merely conducting and publishing more scientific studies will not lead to significant improvements in restoration practice; direct, collaborative involvement between scientists, managers, and practitioners is required for forward progress in the science and application of river restoration.


Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of seventeen groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance-which, in turn, can result in great historical shifts. With lively prose and an eye for colorful and unusual details, Le Couteur and Burreson offer a novel way to understand the shaping of civilization and the workings of our contemporary world. (Publisher's Description)


The potential of stem cell to change the face of medical treatment has brought it to the forefront of medical science in recent years. The present study analyzes the stem cell research output of India during 1990-2014 collected from the Scopus database. Some of the parameters used for analysis are publication output, publication share, growth rate, h-index, impact per paper, citation analysis, international collaboration and degree of collaboration, etc. The increasing significance of stem cell research was analyzed by ranking countries, institutions, authors, journals, etc. concerning total publication, their citation, and h-index. It is exciting to note that there has been notable growth in stem cell research publication from India. A total of 3964 papers were contributed by Indian authors during the study period, out of which 71.24% have been cited at least once and has a citation average of 9.27 citations per paper. Given the interdisciplinary and complex nature of the field, most of the research output is multiple authored and out of which more than one-third have internationally collaborated. The United States, which is the top most producing country, also the largest collaborative partner of India in stem cell research. The AIIMS and PlosOne are the most productive institution and journal respectively in this field.


The Enemy Release Hypothesis (ERH) predicts that successful recruitment of an introduced species in the recipient region results from escaping co-evolved enemies. The success to cope with previously non-encountered grazer species represents one critical aspect for introduced seaweeds in this context. In laboratory experiments, the ability of the introduced red alga Mastocarpus stellatus to induce anti-herbivore defences against two grazer species at two seasons (spring and fall) was compared to that of the indigenous red alga Chondrus crispus. Grazers were selected by living either allopatrically (Littorina littorea) and sympatrically (Idotea granulosa) with Mastocarpus on Iceland, i.e. the donor region of the Mastocarpus population on Helgoland. Algae were exposed to each grazer species separately or left ungrazed during the induction phase and subsequently cultivated without herbivores (reduction phase). Bioassays at the end of both phases using fresh algae and reconstituted food assessed changes in algal palatability. Preference of control over grazed algae indicates an induction of anti-herbivory defences. Direct comparisons revealed that Littorina prefers Chondrus over Mastocarpus, while Idotea shows no preference between both algae. Irrespective of season, Idotea but not Littorina induced defences in fresh and reconstituted Mastocarpus feed originating from Helgoland and Iceland. In contrast, both grazer species induced anti-herbivory defences in fresh and reconstituted feed of the indigenous seaweed Chondrus in spring, but not in autumn. The differential anti-herbivory responses of the introduced Mastocarpus to allopathic and sympatric grazers represent a trait optimization, minimizing the impact of each type of herbivore, relative to their impact on the indigenous algae.


Context. Water is present during all stages of star formation: as ice in the cold outer parts of protostellar envelopes and dense inner regions of circumstellar disks, and as gas in the envelopes close to the protostars, in the upper layers of circumstellar disks and in regions of powerful outflows and shocks. Because of its key importance in the understanding of its origin in our own solar system, following the evolution of water all the way to the planet-forming disk is a fundamental task in research in star formation and astro- chemistry. Aims. In this paper we probe the mechanism regulating the warm gas-phase water abundance in the innermost hundred AU of deeply embedded (Class 0) low-mass protostars, and investigate its chemical relationship to other molecular species during these stages. Methods. Millimeter wavelength thermal emission from the para-H 18 O3 1,3−22,0 (Eu = 203.7 K) line was imaged at high angu- lar resolution (0. �� 75; 190 AU) with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer toward the deeply embedded low-mass protostars NGC 1333-IRAS2A and NGC 1333-IRAS4A. Results. Compact H 18 O emission is detected toward IRAS2A and one of the components in the IRAS4A binary; in addition CH3OCH3 ,C 2H5CN, and SO2 are detected. Extended water emission is seen toward IRAS2A, possibly associated with the out- flow. Conclusions. The results complement a previous detection of the same transition toward NGC 1333-IRAS4B. The detections in all systems suggests that the presence of water on 100 AU scales is a common phenomenon in embedded protostars and that the non- detections of hot water with Spitzer toward the two systems studied in this paper are likely due to geometry and high extinction at mid-infrared wavelengths. We present a scenario in which the origin of the emission from warm water is in a flattened disk-like struc- ture dominated by inward motions rather than rotation. The gas-phase water abundance varies between the sources, but is generally much lower than a canonical abundance of 10 −4 , suggesting that most water (>96%) is frozen out on dust grains at these scales. The derived abundances of CH3OCH3 and SO2 relative to H 18 O are comparable for all sources pointing toward similar chemical processes at work. In contrast, the C2H5CN abundance relative to H 18 O is significantly lower in IRAS2A, which could be due to different chemistry in the sources.


Background The ability to measure activity and physiology through wrist-worn devices provides an opportunity for cardiovascular medicine. However, the accuracy of commercial devices is largely unknown. Objective To assess the accuracy of seven commercially available wrist-worn devices in estimating heart rate (HR) and energy expenditure (EE) and to propose a wearable sensor evaluation framework. Methods We evaluated the Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn, and Samsung Gear S2. Participants wore devices while being simultaneously assessed with continuous telemetry and indirect calorimetry while sitting, walking, running, and cycling. Sixty volunteers (29 male, 31 female, age 38 ± 11 years) of diverse age, height, weight, skin tone, and fitness level were selected. Error in HR and EE was computed for each subject/device/activity combination. Results Devices reported the lowest error for cycling and the highest for walking. Device error was higher for males,greater body mass index, darker skin tone, and walking. Six of the devices achieved a median error for HR below 5% during cycling. No device achieved an error in EE below 20 percent. The Apple Watch achieved the lowest overall error in both HR and EE, while the Samsung Gear S2 reported the highest. Conclusions Most wrist-worn devices adequately measure HR in laboratory-based activities, but poorly estimate EE, suggesting caution in the use of EE measurements as part of health improvement programs. We propose reference standards for the validation of consumer health devices (http://precision.stanford.edu/). Abbreviations (EE) Energy expenditure (HR) Heart rate (GEE) General estimating equation


Rules for applying the Kyoto Protocol and national cap-and-trade laws contain a major, but fixable, carbon accounting flaw in assessing bioenergy. The accounting now used for assessing compliance with carbon limits in the Kyoto Protocol and in climate legislation contains a far-reaching but fixable flaw that will severely undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals (1). It does not count CO2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used, but it also does not count changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown. This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass, which may cause large differences in net emissions. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.


Within the cultural and literary context of contemporary Portugal and Western literature, 1998 was unquestionably the year that Portuguese writing gained international recognition as JosU Saramago became the first Portuguese writer ever to receive the Nobel Prize in literature. Readers who had never thought about Portuguese letters began to consume his books and, most importantly, opted for expanding their reading lists to include other important writers not only from Portugal, but from Portuguese-speaking well beyond the borders of Portugal. Global Impact of the Portuguese Language is a collection of Portuguese writing that is as rich in content and broad in scope as the diversity of its topics and writing modes of its contributors. The book is divided into three major parts. Part 1, "Different Cultural Perspectives of Portuguese Writing," contains thirteen chapters in which the first and opening one, "Portugal: The New Frontier" ably sets the stage for the book by examining from a cultural perspective how Portugal, a peripheral country in the new world system, serves as a microcosm of the problems of cultural intercommunication in today's world. Subsequent chapters are grouped in three categories: "The Voices of the Writers," "Critical Approaches to Cames," and "Fictionalizing the Nation." Part 2, "Portuguese Language and Literature Outside Portugal," comprises one section devoted to the Portuguese language in Africa, followed by studies about Portuguese discoveries as part of the historical process of remembering and forging one's identity, and finally a comprehensive historical development of Portuguese writing, both in Portuguese and English, in the United States. Part 3, "Portuguese Literature and Criticism Available in English: Suggested Readings" details the recent literary happenings which point to a possible renaissance in Portuguese literary production. The concluding part of this volume offers a short, comprehensive listing of anthologies, general studies, and the most popular translations of the best of Portuguese writing from Portugal and Africa. This lively volume constitutes a first pioneering effort to contribute to a deepening appreciation and understanding of Portuguese writing. Anyone interested in ethnic writing will find this book an invaluable education resource with which to begin an exploration of Portuguese writing in the United States. Asela Rodriguez de Laguna is associate professor of Spanish and director of the Hispanic Civilization & Language Studies Program. She is the author of Notes on Puerto Rican Literature: Images and Identities: An Introduction, and editor of Images and Identities: The Puerto Rican in Two World Contexts.


The Walton Peak lavas erupted directly onto c. 1.8 Ga basement and were interbedded with subaerial sediments. Four new K-Ar dates for the lavas average 22.8 ± 0.3 Ma, associating them unambiguously with the earliest large-scale extension-related magmatism in NW Colorado. The lavas are basalts, trachybasalts and shoshonites. There is also one 100 m thick composite flow of trachydacite containing pillow-like basic masses (up to tens of metres in size) with chilled margins. Elemental data and Sr and Nd isotopic ratios suggest that the trachydacite evolved from the basalt type forming most of the pillows, by a combination of fractional crystallization and crustal assimilation. Nevertheless, post-evolution magma mixing, during and immediately before extrusion of the flow, has obscured the details of this process. A proportion of the pillow-like basic masses in the composite flow are shoshonites that did not take part in the magma mixing. They are relatively rich in incompatible minor and trace elements; e.g. Nb = 41–46 ppm in the shoshonites and 20–25 ppm in all other Walton Peak basic lavas. The Sr and Nd isotopic ratios of the Nb-rich and Nb-poor compositions overlap. Open-system processes in a long-lived pre-existing magma chamber are considered unlikely to be the main cause of the diverse basic magmas because the Walton Peak lavas directly overlie Precambrian basement. Likewise, crustal contamination models using either upper or lower crustal rock types of this region do not give satisfactory mechanisms to relate the Nb-rich and Nb-poor mafic liquids. A genetic model invoking variable degrees of partial melting of lithospheric mantle containing hydrous minerals does not explain why the Nb-rich and Nb-poor compositions are bimodal and not a range. A variety of sparse ultrapotassic magmas (minettes to lamproites) accompanied the basalt-dominated Neogene volcanism of NW Colorado and surrounding area. Their elemental and isotopic compositions support the view that the ultrapotassic liquids originated by fusion of hydrous and halogen-rich metasomatized zones within the subcontinental lithospheric mantle. Addition of about 15% of lamproitic melt to the low-Nb Walton Peak basic magmas reproduces the main geochemical and isotopic characteristics of the high-Nb magmas. Such a process seems to have been widespread throughout NW Colorado Neogene igneous activity. Although wholly lithospheric mantle sources for all the mafic magmas cannot be ruled out, there is evidence that both subduction-related calcalkaline and ocean-island basanitic melts of asthenospheric origin formed the dominant components of the NW Colorado volcanics. Addition of as little as 10% of lamproitic melt, during their uprise through the subcontinental lithospheric mantle, was sufficient to imprint on them 'continental' incompatible element and radiogenic isotope characteristics.


Multilayers of fullerenes with and without endohedral Ar units, Ar@C60 and C60, were investigated by photoemission and density-functional theory. The stoichiometry and the endohedral nature of Ar were checked by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron diffraction. Valence-band ultraviolet photoemission spectra showed a strong hybridization of the Ar 3p valence shell with the 6T1u molecular orbital of C60 .A hybridization gap of 1.6 ± 0.2 eV was found. This is in agreement with density-functional theory, which predicts 1.47 eV and indicates that Ar@C60 is a noble gas compound with a strong coupling between Ar and the C60 cage. No giant Ar photoemission cross section as previously predicted for the gas phase in Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 243003 (2007) was found.


One of the main reasons for the difficulty of providing a treatment of a huge number of disorders of the brain is the lack of deeper insight on how it works. Even after centuries of research, there are no efficient tools at hand to create this deeper insight. Recently, an increasing attention is focused on organic bioelectronics, aimed at engineering, fabrication and characterization of improved biocompatible, conformable and low cost processing devices that enable stimulation and recording of neural cells to provide an unprecedented insight into the brain's physiology and pathophysiology. These new devices are hot candidates in order to create efficient tools for research and diagnosis and to establish a working 'machine-to-brain' communication. Still there is room for improvement in the used materials, for example in the biocompatibility. To this aim, a novel quaterthiophene (T4) semiconductor, covalently modified with lysine- ends (T4Lys), was fabricated and characterized. The material was then tested as interface for DRG primary neurons. By whole-cell patch-clamp, it was examined if the biofunctionality of neurons cultured on T4Lys was preserved and if this organic interface enabled functional differentiation of DRG primary neurons. Not only neurons but also astrocytes, their ion channels and calcium signaling play a crucial role in the physiology and pathophysiology of the central nervous system. In this context novel tools are needed to also monitor and/or modulate the astrocytic biochemical and bioelectrical activity. To this end, an organic field effect transistor device (O-CST), was interfaced with astroglial cells. In this context the biocompatibility of the organic material P13 and its preservation of the astrocytic electrophysiological properties in vitro was investigated, and the impact of a P13-based organic field effect transistor on the astrocytic ionic conductance studied. The evoked response to device stimulation was characterized and the necessity of device integrity investigated.


In this paper a novel wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot, the OmniKity-III (OK-III), is developed and its kinematic model and control laws are derived. A special gear train with omnidirectional mechanism was developed using conventional tire wheels. Several control laws are provided by considering the robot as a redundantly actuated wheeled mobile robot on the plane. Since the robot has three degrees of freedom in motion, failure in any one of the motor can be compensated by the other two motors in posture control although the omnidirectional mobility is lost. Simulations and experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed omnidirectional mechanism.


During the Second World War, the American Pacific Coast experienced a tremendous economic boom fueled by disproportionately large flows of military spending. Even before the conflict's end, fears spread that the region's postwar economy would not provide sufficient jobs for its greatly enlarged labor force. Responsible authorities predicted one million workers one-quarter of the labor force would be unemployed one year after demobilization. But the conversion experience over the 1945-49 period proved far easily than anticipated, a finding which this paper attributes to strong home market effects' highlighted in the new Economic Geography literature. Based on an empirical investigation of the long-run relationship between manufacturing production and the size of the Pacific region's market, this study finds support for the views that the region's economic structure could support multiple equilibria and that the transitory shock of military spending during World War II helped push the Pacific Coast economy from a low-level' equilibrium to a higher-level' equilibrium consistent with the same fundamentals.


Past studies have indicated that if project managers are able to perceive project risks accurately, they may be less likely to continue failing IT projects. A computer simulation based experiment was carried out to investigate the influence of individual self-efficacy and project risk factors on the perception of risk in failing IT projects. Results indicated that project managers with higher self-efficacy are likely to perceive the risks of a failing project to be lower compared to those with lower self-efficacy even though same information about project progess was provided in both conditions. Further, the results suggested that project managers are likely to underestimate the risks of a project with endogenous risk factors as compared to a project with exogenous risk factors.


The paper discusses the copyright issues in the Norwegian ATL service, and looks at ways to circumvent the legal pitfalls. The similar services in Denmark (Biblioteksvagten) and Sweden (Fraga biblioteket) are compared. The significance of the ambitious digitization program of The National Library of Norway is considered. Professional librarians working in the service have been interviewed and different approaches to legal questions in the Scandinavian countries are discussed. The complexity of legal issues in the Scandinavian ATL services is not widely recognized and the literature on the topic is sparse.


Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) found in prokaryotes are non-contiguous direct repeats with a length of 24-48 nt. The sequence repeats are weakly palindromic at the 5'- and 3'-termini and separated by variable spacer sequences of similar size (Jansen et al., 2002). CRISPR loci are flanked on one side by an AT-rich leader sequence of 200-350 bp length. CRISPR sequences are widespread in the two prokaryotic domains; they were identifed in most archaeal genomes, in 40 % of the bacterial genomes and on some plasmids (Grissa et al., 2007). Similarity searches of spacer sequences of CRISPR showed that some spacer match to phages and other extrachromosomal elements, such as plasmids or transposons, but also to chromosomal DNA (Mojica et al., 2005; Bolotin et al., 2005). A group of cas genes is always located near to a CRISPR locus and the encoded proteins are assumed to be the essential actors for function and assembly of CRISPR (Haft et al., 2005). Recently, it was demonstrated that, in response to phage infection, Bacteria integrate new spacers into their CRISPR arrays, which results in CRISPR-mediated phage resistance. The new integrated spacers were derived from the genome of the challenging phage, due to 100 % identity of spacers and phage sequences (Barrangou et al., 2007). However, the role of CRISPR arrays in microbial genomes and the mechanisms that underlie CRISPR function are mostly uncharacterized, especially in Archaea. Also, whether different CRISPR systems contain different functionalities is still puzzling (Sorek et al., 2008). Therefore, the function of the archaeal CRISPR/Cas system is studied in more detail using the hyperthermophilic organism Thermoproteus tenax as an example.
In the course of this work seven CRISPR loci could be identified in the genome of T. tenax. The spacer sequences showed significant similarity not only to archaeal phages, but also to genes of the T. tenax genome. Northern blot analyses of small RNA species prepared from T. tenax cells with spacer probes from all seven CRISPR arrays, revealed transcript length of ~130 nt, ~110 nt, ~70 nt and ~50 nt, suggesting that large CRISPR RNA transcripts are stepwise endo- and exonucleolytically processed. The repeat sequence within the transcript has probably two functions: i) stabilising the CRISPR transcript by the formation of hairpin-structures and ii) binding motif for nuclease reaction. The transcription start site is located in front of the first repeat within the leader sequence distinguished by typical BRE-sites and TATA-boxes.
Over 20 cas genes were identified in the genome of T. tenax and their organisation is similar to other crenarchaeal organisms. The core cas genes are organised in two operon structures, named casa1 (cas4, cas1/2 and csa1) and casa2 (csa5, csa2, cas5a, cas3, cas3hd and csa4). In front of both operons TATA-boxes and BRE-sites could be identified and the functional genes within the operons showed overlapping start and stop codons. Furthermore, the polycistronic transcripts of both operons could be identified by RT-PCR analyses. The polycistronic transcripts of casa1 and casa2 are clearly leaderless, whereas for all genes within the operons consensus SD motifs could be identified. Abiotic stress parameters, such as UV-light or high ionic strength, modulate the transcription of cas genes. The cas3 gene showed a more than threefold increased and the cas4 gene a twofold increased transcript level in cells treated 2 min with UV-light in comparison to the control cells. Furthermore, cas3 mRNA levels of cells treated with 100 mM NaCl were more than tenfold increased in comparison to the control.
The protein Csa3 can be considered as a good candidate for a transcription regulator, whose coding gene is located in between the two cas operons. This protein is structurally characterised by a typical HTH-motif and possesses high affinity to DNA. However, the conditions for a required specific binding (e.g. addition of trehalose, metal ions or cAMP) to the promoter regions of casa1 and casa2 has still to be found.
The functional characterisation of single Cas proteins encoded by the operons casa1 and casa2 was complicated by the formation of inclusion bodies of the recombinant proteins in E. coli. For casa1, reconstitution experiments revealed that the three proteins encoded by the operon strongly interacted in the refolding process. The resulting tripartite CasA1 protein complex showed ribonuclease activity with ssRNA CRISPR transcripts as a target. Also four of the six proteins encoded by the operon casa2 could be expressed only in an insoluble form. For the other two proteins (Csa5 and Csa2) "normal" purification protocols could be established. Also in that case, the reconstitution of the multipartite complex ("CasA2") is favoured in the presence of all proteins encoded by the cas gene operon. Remarkably, addition of T. tenax RNA supports the reconstitution of the CasA2 complex significantly. The RNA binding capacity could also be documented in EMSA studies. The studies of the CRISPR/Cas system of T. tenax clearly showed that the processing of CRISPR transcripts is an enzymatically catalysed reaction. A relevant component in T. tenax is certainly the CasA1 complex due to its ribonuclease activity. The CasA2 complex may be a candidate for accomplishing interference reactions, due to its strong interaction with RNA, detected in the reconstituion assays and supported by the presence of defined RNA and DNA binding domains of components.
The present data confirm the common hypothesis that the CRISPR/Cas system of prokaryotic cells represent a defense system against mobile genetic elements, considering the observation that some spacer sequences show clear sequence similarity to known viruses. But there are also hints to additional functions: i) Regulatory functions may also be possible, since spacers of the T. tenax CRISPR are not only similar to foreign genetic sequences, but also to the organism's own chromosomomal sequences. ii) Moreover, functions of the CRISPR/Cas systems for stabilising the genome structure or nucleic acids are also likely, as the number of CRISPR loci and cas genes correlates with an increased optimal growth temperature and cas genes are modulated by environmental factors.


We consider the problem of binary hypothesis testing using a distributed wireless sensor network. Identical binary quantizers are used on the sensor's observations and the outputs are encrypted using a probabilistic cipher. The third party (enemy) fusion centers are unaware of the presence of the probabilistic encipher. We find the optimal (minimum-probability-of-error) fusion rule for the ally (friendly) fusion center subject to a lower bound on the the probability of error for the third-party fusion centers. To obtain the minimum probability of error, we first prove the quasi-convexity of error probability with respect to the sensor's threshold for a given cipher and show the existence of a unique positive minimum for error probability of the ally fusion center. The threshold corresponding to the minimum error-probability is evaluated numerically and the appropriate cipher that deteriorates the performance of the third-party fusion center below the required limits is obtained. Our results show that, by adjusting the sensor threshold and the encryption parameters, it is possible to achieve acceptable performance for the ally fusion center while causing significant degradation to the performance of the third party fusion center.


The Bahloul Formation of Central Tunisia was deposited on the proximal part of the southern Tethyan platform. It recorded the global oceanic anoxic event (OAE 2) that occurred at the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary. The type section of the Wadi Bahloul comprises 29 m of sediment showing a regular repetition of an elementary depositional sequence including black, thinly-bedded limestones and bioturbated gray marls. These sedimentological fluctuations define two trophic states of the palaeoenvironment. The laminated black limestones are associated with eutrophic conditions in the water column above an anoxic basin, while oligotrophic and at least temporarily oxic conditions at the sediment/water interface prevailed during the deposition of the bioturbated grey marls. Each lithological cycle reflects short-term climatic fluctuations: arid conditions are associated with the deposition of the black laminated limestones, whereas the grey marls correspond to sub-humid conditions. These environmental changes are interpreted as being related to precession cycles of 20 ky. According to the number of precession cycles identified in the section of the type locality, the Bahloul Formation probably was deposited during one eccentricity cycle of 400 ky. This cyclostratigraphic interpretation, calibrated by biostratigraphy, constrains the duration of the anoxic event more precisely than radiometric ages which suggest a duration of 500+ or -400 ky.