Many organisms naturally defend themselves against microbial attachment and biofoul- ing in the marine environment. In this study, we investigated microbial fouling on 2 molluscan egg capsules using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), two-photon laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM) with bacterial viability staining and bacterial attachment experiments with the biofilm-forming Pseudoalteromonas sp. S91 in flow chambers. Results indicated that early stage egg capsules of Dicathais orbita (Neogastropoda) are relatively free of surface microorganisms. Egg capsules during the trocophore stage had a regularly ridged microtexture, but as capsules matured, shedding of the outer wall was observed, followed by the extrusion of unidentified droplets, which then accumulated on the capsule surface in association with bacteria. By comparison, the egg capsules of Sepioteuthis australis (Cephalopoda) were found to have an irregular surface with many hills and valleys that accommodate colonization by a variety of microorganisms. At the later stages of development these squid egg capsules become heavily colonized by algal spores. Cross sections of egg capsules revealed that S. australis capsule walls were about 12 times thicker than D. orbita egg capsules. Staining the egg capsules with BacLight™ also revealed a significantly thicker biofilm, with more live and dead bacteria on S. australis capsules than on those of D. orbita (p < 0.05). Flow chamber exper- iments indicated that the surface of S. australis capsules provided a suitable substrate for colonization by Pseudoalteromonas sp. S91, whereas colonization was significantly less on D. orbita egg capsules after 24 and 72 h (p < 0.01). These experiments indicated that D. orbita egg capsules are better defended against fouling microbes than are the eggs of S. australis. D. orbita appears to use a combi- nation of physical, mechanical and possibly chemical defense mechanisms to reduce fouling on their egg capsules.


ABSTRACT Numerical modeling studies are carried out to deter-mine the wind and current effects on oil spill distribution. The study is performed by using a simulation software named OILMAP for estimating oil spill distribution to-gether with AQUASEA for obtaining the current pattern in the marine environment. For this purpose, various simula-tion scenarios are created for the Gulf of Izmit, which is an important industrial coastal zone in the north-west of Tur-key. In simulation scenarios, constant and variable wind directions and speeds are used to understand the effect of these parameters on oil spill distribution. Obtained results showed that the wind speed was the dominant factor in oil spill distribution compared to the current effect regarding the closed areas representing insignificant tide heights. Also, simulation scenarios executed for continuously changing wind directions showed that wind direction variation during oil spill time span significantly affects the area of oil slicks on the water surface and onshore. It is concluded that the emergency action plans should include proper oil spill simu-lations by considering real time wind speed and direction data to take immediate precautions to provide sufficient and satisfactory marine protection.


Minimizing the costs that others impose upon oneself and upon those in whom one has a fitness stake, such as kin and allies, is a key adaptive problem for many organisms. Our ancestors regularly faced such adaptive problems (including homicide, bodily harm, theft, mate poaching, cuckoldry, reputational damage, sexual aggression, and the infliction of these costs on one's offspring, mates, coalition partners, or friends). One solution to this problem is to impose retaliatory costs on an aggressor so that the aggressor and other observers will lower their estimates of the net benefits to be gained from exploiting the retaliator in the future. We posit that humans have an evolved cognitive system that implements this strategy – deterrence – which we conceptualize as a revenge system. The revenge system produces a second adaptive problem: losing downstream gains from the individual on whom retaliatory costs have been imposed. We posit, consequently, a subsidiary computational system designed to restore particular relationships after cost-imposing interactions by inhibiting revenge and motivating behaviors that signal benevolence for the harmdoer. The operation of these systems depends on estimating the risk of future exploitation by the harmdoer and the expected future value of the relationship with the harmdoer. We review empirical evidence regarding the operation of these systems, discuss the causes of cultural and individual differences in their outputs, and sketch their computational architecture.


Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) are the largest real life application of ad-hoc networks where nodes are represented via fast moving vehicles. This paper introduces the future emerging technology, i.e., Vehicular Cloud Networking (VCN) where vehicles and adjacent infrastructure merge with traditional internet clouds to offer different applications ranging from low sized applications to very complex applications. VCN is composed of three types of clouds: Vehicular cloud, Infrastructure cloud and traditional Back-End (IT) cloud. We introduced these clouds via a three tier architecture along with their operations and characteristics. We have proposed use cases of each cloud tier that explain how it is practically created and utilised while taking the vehicular mobility in consideration. Moreover, it is critical to ensure security, privacy and trust of VCN network and its assets. Therefore, to describe the security of VCN, we have provided an in-depth analysis of different threats related to each tier of VCN. The threats related to vehicular cloud and infrastructure cloud are categorized according to their assets, i.e., vehicles, adjacent infrastructure, wireless communication, vehicular messages, and vehicular cloud threats. Similarly, the Back-End cloud threats are categorized into data and network threats. The possible implications of these threats and their effects on various components of VCN are also explained in detail.


Previous work analyzing social networks has mainly focused on binary friendship relations. However, in online social networks the low cost of link formation can lead to networks with heterogeneous relationship strengths (e.g., acquaintances and best friends mixed together). In this case, the binary friendship indicator provides only a coarse representation of relationship information. In this work, we develop an unsupervised model to estimate relationship strength from interaction activity (e.g., communication, tagging) and user similarity. More specifically, we formulate a link-based latent variable model, along with a coordinate ascent optimization procedure for the inference. We evaluate our approach on real-world data from Facebook and LinkedIn, showing that the estimated link weights result in higher autocorrelation and lead to improved classification accuracy.


PURPOSE
To genetically characterize a subphenotype of geographic atrophy (GA) in AMD associated with rapid progression and a diffuse-trickling appearance on fundus autofluorescence imaging.

METHODS
Patients from the Fundus Autofluorescence in Age-Related Macular Degeneration Study were phenotyped for diffuse-trickling GA (dt-GA; n = 44). DNA was analyzed for 10 known AMD-associated genetic variants. A genetic risk score (GRS) was calculated and compared with patients with nondiffuse-trickling GA (ndt-GA; n = 311) and individuals from the 1000 genomes project (1000G; n = 267). Given the phenotypic overlap between diffuse-trickling and late-onset retinal degeneration (LORD), all C1QTNF5 exons and their exon/intron boundaries were sequenced.

RESULTS
A statistically significant difference in allele frequencies between dt-GA and ndt-GA were found for CFH:rs1061170 and CFH:rs800292 (Pcorrected = 0.03). The ARMS2 variant rs10490924 was significantly more frequent in dt-GA than in 1000G individuals (Pcorrected < 0.01). The GRS of dt-GA patients was in-between the score of the 1000G individuals and that of patients with ndt-GA, significantly differing from both (Pcorrected <0.01). Sequencing of C1QTNF5 revealed 28 unique variants although none showed a statistically significant association with dt-GA when compared with 1000G individuals.

CONCLUSIONS
The dt-GA phenotype shows a remarkably different genetic risk profile from other GA phenotypes secondary to AMD. Disease-associated C1QTNF5 mutations were not identified. Together, these results suggest that the dt-GA phenotype is associated with a genetic background substantially different from other GA phenotypes and underlines the necessity to refine the clinical phenotyping, specifically when aiming for individualized therapies in AMD.


STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) is to educate the people who take convergent thinking and divergent creativity. The current society is the knowledge network society. It requires these people. The alternative educational policy is focused on the learner centered based on learners" interests or concerns. The educational game is one of the best teaching and learning strategies. With taking notice of this point, this paper has studied about how amount the educational game was able to support the possibilities of STEAM support. Ten teachers who were evaluators for three educational games which were different genre"s game evaluated them using a sheet for evaluating the possibilities of STEAM support using the educational game. Based on the results of this evaluation, we leaded 5 conclusions as follows: the educational game is able to support STEAM"s goals, the step for presenting the situations, the step for the creative design, the step for taking an emotional experiences, and it has STEAM"s elements in itself.


Over the past 35 years, scientists have made several curious discoveries about Huntington's disease. First, individuals with the neurological disorder are less likely than others to suffer from cancer; second, they tend to have more children than average—about 1.24 children for every one child born to unaffected siblings. Although no one yet knows what is behind these seemingly unconnected findings, a group at Tufts University has proposed that they are linked—and that one of the proteins implicated in Huntington's may, ironically, provide patients with subtle health benefits. Huntington's destroys neurons in the neostriatum, a region of the brain associated with motor control and cognition. As a result, patients have difficulty controlling their movements and experience a range of cognitive and emotional problems. The disease is caused by a mutation that substantially lengthens a gene known as huntingtin, increasing the number of repeated sequences it contains. The length of the gene varies within the general population and becomes problematic only when it exceeds a certain extent. The gene's length also affects the severity of symptoms. Although scientists do not know exactly why the mutation causes neurons to die, studies suggest that a protein called p53 plays a role. The protein has many diverse functions: it helps to regulate when cells divide and die and when new blood vessels form. In Huntington's, levels of p53 in the blood are higher than normal; p53 has also been shown to bind to the protein created from the mutant huntingtin gene. In addition, animals with the mutation seem to develop the disease only if their bodies can make p53. "The link between p53 and Huntington's disease is very important," says Akira Sawa, director of the Program in Molecular Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. Given the diversity of p53's functions, Philip Starks, a biologist at Tufts, and two of his students, Ben Eskenazi and Noah Wilson-Rich, recently speculated that increased p53 could be responsible for the disease's link to reduced cancer incidence and increased family size. "When Ben located published information on elevated p53 and relatively low cancer levels in Huntington's disease–positive individuals, it was a minor eureka moment for us," Starks explains. Because p53 regulates cell division, the protein helps to ward off cancer, so it is not ridiculous to think that higher levels might lower cancer risk, Starks says. P53 also appears to play a part in immunity, leading Starks and his students to wonder whether Huntington's patients might also have heightened immune function during their childbearing years—a characteristic that could explain their increased family size. "We expect that the immune system should be positively related with reproductive success," explains Kenneth Fedorka, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Central Florida. Fedorka emphasizes, however, that the relation between immunity and reproductive success is complex; more research would be needed to tease out whether p53-triggered immune changes would actually lead patients to have more children. In any case, that Huntington's patients have more kids may explain why some studies suggest that the prevalence of the disease is slowly increasing. (Others maintain that doctors are simply making better diagnoses.) Starks and his students believe that Huntington's is an example of antagonistic pleiotropy—a situation in which a gene has opposing effects on an organism. "The same pathological protein aggregates that debilitate Huntington's sufferers later in life may actually make them stronger and [more] reproductively successful in their prime," Eskenazi says. Such a mutation can survive, generation after generation, assuming that the deleterious effects do not appear until after childbearing years. But that is a big assumption. Many people acquire Huntington's before or during their reproductive years, says Jane Paulsen, director of the Huntington's Disease Center at the University of Iowa. Although the average age of diagnosis is 39, it ranges from age two to 82, depending on mutation severity. "You're talking about such a small subsample of the population that really would have their presymptomatic years be commensurate with their reproductive years," Paulsen says. And even if the disease does not fully develop until later in life, people with the gene often experience psychological changes such as depression and cognitive deficits many years before diagnosis, says David Rubinsztein, a molecular neurogeneticist at the University of Cambridge; these changes might influence their decision or ability to have children. "I'm not entirely convinced that patients who have Huntington's disease are necessarily more NATURALLY SELECTED? Mutation for Huntington's disease may be adaptive.


We present a method for 3D object recognition in 2D images which uses 3D models as the only source of the training data. Our method is particularly useful when a 3D CAD object or a scan needs to be identified in a catalogue form a given query image; where we significantly cut down the overhead of manual labeling. We take virtual snapshots of the available 3D models by a computer graphics pipeline and fine-tune existing pretrained CNN models for our object categories. Experiments show that our method performs better than the existing local-feature based recognition system in terms of recognition recall.


This article focuses on international students studying in an English-mediated nursing degree program in Finland. From sociocognitive and ecological perspectives, this study examines the development of the students' professional Finnish language skills and agency during their practical training. In addition, this article explores how students are positioned as capable workers. To shed light on the students' professional language skills, agency, and positionings, interviews with vocational teachers, head nurses, and two international nursing students are examined using narrative analysis. The findings suggest that due to their lack of Finnish language skills, international students are positioned differently than their local peers. Hence, they are given fewer responsibilities and fewer opportunities to perform work tasks independently. Although international students are expected to know the language needed before they start work as a nurse, neither the educational institution nor workplaces are willing to take responsibility for language skills training. Therefore, language learning seems to be students' own responsibility. Consequently, international students may be set in unequal positions regarding their access to the labor market in Finland. Nonetheless, during their practical training, the students are positioned as active agents and scaffolded in many ways so that they can potentially exercise their agency and promote their professional language skills more independently. In this study, it was found that positionings are interconnected with the development of agency and professional Finnish language skills.


Abstract This paper provides a microeconometric analysis of the distinctive characteristics of springboard subsidiaries that have a positive impact on the subsidiaries' performance. Based on panel data estimations for subsidiaries of European multinational companies with a presence in Spain, the authors found that if the subsidiary is located in the springboard country, then the performance improvement (increase in profit margin) of the subsidiary is about 49 percentage points. When the Spanish subsidiary is considered a springboard subsidiary, its performance is 7.7 percentage points higher than the performance of other subsidiaries that are not springboard subsidiaries. If the subsidiary has a technological relationship with another subsidiary, its performance is 6.7 percentage points higher than the performance of other subsidiaries that do not have a technological relationship. Finally, when the firm has low autonomy, the performance of the subsidiary is 6.2 percentage points lower than that of firms that are independent or have a high level of autonomy.


Southwest of Gunnison, Colorado, within the Wildcat Gulch study area, syenitoid plutons
intrude the Proterozoic Dubois Greenstone. Limited work has been done to document their
lithologic character, ascertain their origin, or place them within the regional geology of central
Colorado.
These syenitoid intrusions may be related to the igneous rocks of the ~1700 Ma Routt
Plutonic Suite that formed during the Colorado orogeny that included episodes of arc collision
and accretion during the Early Proterozoic. Alternatively, these syenitoid intrusions may be
related to the rocks of the ~1400 Ma Berthoud Plutonic Suite that formed during the Berthoud
orogeny in an episode of crustal thickening and shortening during the Middle Proterozoic. It is
also possible that the syenitoid intrusions in the Wildcat Gulch study area are related to the
syenite intrusions of the Iron Hill complex (570 Ma) that formed in an extensional continental
environment.
This study provides a petrological and geochemical characterization and assessment of
the informally named Wildcat Gulch syenite to aid the placement of these syenitoid intrusions
within the regional geology of Colorado.
Through petrologic and geochemical analyses this study finds that the Wildcat Gulch
syenite can be classified as quartz syenite and quartz monzonite. Although these rocks vary in
terms of their mineralogy, they are geochemically very similar. The geochemical data suggest
that the syenitoid varieties may have evolved from a single, possibly basaltic parent magma,
through fractional crystallization. Additionally, it is suggested that the Wildcat Gulch syenite
intrusions formed between 1390 - 1330 Ma as part of the Berthoud orogeny.


The NBDlDirichlet is a stochastic model of purchase incidence and brand choice which parsimoniously integrates a wide range of well-established empirical regularities in fast moving consumer goods markets. More recently this work has been extended into other areas such as the prescribing of pharmaceuticals, (Stem 1 994) ; airline aviation fuel contracts, (Uncles and Ehrenberg 1 990a); and the visiting of retail store chains, (Uncles and Ehrenberg 1 990b). By combining the stochastic assumptions of the model, namely Poisson purchasing of products, with mean rate distributed gamm a across the population, and brand choice represented by multinornial probabilities distributed Dirichlet across consumers; a number of aspects of the aggregate behaviour of consumers can be successfully predicted successfully. This thesis examines the estimation issues in the Dirichlet model, specifically, the central Dirichlet parameter S used to represent heterogenity in brand choice.


The article analyzes the quality and consistency of a semi-structured interview script, adapted for the study on suicide among elderly people, and presents the psychological and psychosocial autopsy method, which is the result of application of this instrument. The objective is to demonstrate how the in-depth interview and subsequent data organization and analyses were tested and improved by a network of researchers from eight regions in Brazil. Evaluation of the method was conducted before and after the application of the instruments to collect, systematize and analyze the data. This methodology was applied in 51 cases of elderly people who committed suicide in ten Brazilian municipalities. The study did more than just collect data with scientific rigor, since it also verified the consistency of the instrument used and the applicability of the method. The improved script and the instructions of how to apply and analyze it are thus presented here. The results reveal the rigor and credibility of this methodological approach tested and qualified by a multidisciplinary and inter-institutional procedure.


Sixteen years ago, two of us published the first detailed empirical look at patent litigation. In this Article, we update and expand the earlier study with a new hand-coded data set. We evaluate all substantive decisions rendered by any court in every patent case filed in 2008 and 2009—decisions made between 2009 and 2013. We consider not just patent validity but also infringement and unenforceability. Moreover, we relate the outcomes of those cases to a host of variables, including variables related to the parties, the patents, and the courts in which those cases were litigated. The result is a comprehensive picture of the outcomes of modern patent litigation, one that confirms conventional wisdom in some respects but upends it in others. In particular, we find a surprising amount of continuity in the basic outcomes of patent lawsuits over the past twenty years, despite rather dramatic changes in who brought patent suits during that time.


Naruto finds that his new jutsu is harder to handle than he thought. Meanwhile, Sasuke seems to be falling even more under Orochimaru's spell. Despite all Naruto's efforts, he may have finally lost his best friend forever. But he'll use all his skills as a ninja to keep that from happening!


Just like the chicken and egg situation, the relationship between land use and transportation and its influences on each other is challenging to justify, especially in developing countries. One of the main reasons was because developing countries strive hard in economy improvement, thus land use and the future of transportation planning becomes unclear. The enthusiasm to increase economy growth and to move forward to become a highly developed country affecting developing countries to be biased over the importance of ensuring proper land use and transportation planning. However, achievement in economy is not a golden ticket to ensure the success of land use and transportation planning in developing countries. Although this theory seems generic, the difficulty to solving land use and transportation problems is not clear as there are diverse characteristics of a developing country within itself. In this research, we found that the economy factor is not the only factor in determining the success of land use and transportation planning but there are more factors involved. This can be caused by diverse reasons such as the independence period. The independence period of a developing country contribute to the diverse historical background of a developing country and it also has determined factors of achievement in land use and transportation planning. Based on the analysis result, we found that the independence period provides differences in the relations between factors in developing country land use and transportation planning.


Nineteenth-century presses delighted in reporting on the "spectacle" of the Amana Society, playing up the contrast between this pious communistic community of German immigrants and its "ambitious" individualistic American counterparts. These accounts employed a rhetoric of containment, a form of rhetorical imagining that contains the threat of a non-normative community. Three characteristics of this rhetoric are evident in the Amana descriptions: (1) a particular gaze that views the community as a picture; (2) a degree of praise that is simultaneously undermined by a nostalgic attitude toward the community; and (3) an assertion that the benefits of this lifestyle require an unthinkable sacrifice incompatible with the imagining audience's nature or values. Containment rhetoric neutralizes the threat of the imagined group—often by circulating its tropes and images to more public, powerful venues—and implicitly defines the group as peripheral to the larger public.


The adaptive gain integrating pixel detector (AGIPD) is a development of a collaboration between Deustsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), the Paul-Scherrer-Institute (PSI), the University of Hamburg and the University of Bonn. The detector is designed to cope with the demanding challenges of the European XFEL. Therefore it comes along with an adaptive gain stage allowing a high dynamic range, spanning from single photon sensitivity to 104 × 12.4 keV photons and 352 analogue memory cells per pixel. The aim of this report is to briefly explain the concepts of the AGIPD electronics and mechanics and then present recent experiments demonstrating the functionality of its key features.


Against a background in which the United States is increasingly drawing into question its commitments to free trade and the global commons, the challenge for the EU and China is to deal with a global governance system that is evolving from a multilateral system centred around the US into a more diffuse system resting on the three strong trading poles: China, the EU and the US.


The stable isotope of carbon, 13C, has been used in several studies for source characterization of carbonaceous aerosol since there are specific signatures for different sources. In rural areas, the influence of different sources is complex and the application of δ13C for source characterization of the total carbonaceous aerosol (TC) can therefore be difficult, especially the separation between biomass burning and biogenic sources. We measured δ13C from 25 filter samples collected during one year at a rural background site in southern Sweden. Throughout the year, the measured δ13C showed low variability (–26.73 to –25.64‰). We found that the measured δ13C did not correlate with other commonly used source apportionment tracers (14C, levoglucosan). δ13C values showed lower variability during the cold months compared to the summer, and this narrowing of the δ13C values together with elevated levoglucosan concentrations may indicate contribution from sources with lower δ13C variation, such as biomass or fossil fuel combustion. Comparison of two Monte Carlo based source apportionment models showed no significant difference in results when δ13C was incorporated in the model. The insignificant change of redistributed fraction of carbon between the sources was mainly a consequence of relatively narrow range of δ13C values and was complicated by an unaccounted kinetic isotopic effect and overlapping δ13C end-member values for biomass burning and biogenic sources. (Less)


We discuss the properties of a class of latent variable models that assumes each labeled sample is associated with a set of different features, with no prior knowledge of which feature is the most relevant feature to be used. Deformable-Part Models (DPM) can be seen as good examples of such models. These models are usually considered to be expensive to train and very sensitive to the initialization. In this paper, we focus on the learning of such models by introducing a topological framework and show how it is possible to both reduce the learning complexity and produce more robust decision boundaries. We will also argue how our framework can be used for producing robust decision boundaries without exploiting the dataset bias or relying on accurate annotations. To experimentally evaluate our method and compare with previously published frameworks, we focus on the problem of image classification with object localization. In this problem, the correct location of the objects is unknown, during both training and testing stages, and is considered as a latent variable.


Supercapacitive swing adsorption (SSA) is a recently discovered electrochemically driven CO2 capture technology that promises significant efficiency improvements over traditional methods. A limitation of this approach is the relatively low CO2 adsorption capacity, and the underlying molecular mechanisms of SSA remain poorly understood, hindering optimization. Here we present a new device architecture for simultaneous electrochemical and gas-adsorption measurements, and use it to investigate the effects of charging protocols on SSA performance. We show that altering the voltage applied to charge the SSA device can significantly improve performance. Charging the gas-exposed electrode positively rather than negatively increases CO2 adsorption capacity and causes CO2 desorption rather than adsorption with charging. We also show that switching the voltage between positive and negative values further increases CO2 capacity. Previously proposed mechanisms of the SSA effect fail to explain these phenomena, so we present a new mechanism based on movement of CO2-derived species into and out of electrode micropores. Overall, this work advances our knowledge of electrochemical CO2 adsorption by supercapacitors, potentially leading to devices with increased uptake capacity and efficiency.


Vedic Mathematics is the ancient methodology of Indian mathematics which has a unique technique of calculations based on 16 Sutras (Formulae). A high speed complex multiplier design (ASIC) using Vedic Mathematics is presented in this paper. The idea for designing the multiplier and adder/sub-tractor unit is adopted from ancient Indian mathematics "Vedas". On account of those formulas, the partial products and sums are generated in one step which reduces the carry propagation from LSB to MSB. The implementation of the Vedic mathematics and their application to the complex multiplier ensure substantial reduction of propagation delay in comparison with DA based architecture and parallel adder based implementation which are most commonly used architectures. The functionality of these circuits was checked and performance parameters like propagation delay and dynamic power consumption were calculated by spice spectre using standard 90nm CMOS technology. The propagation delay of the resulting (16, 16)×(16, 16) complex multiplier is only 4ns and consume 6.5 mW power. We achieved almost 25% improvement in speed from earlier reported complex multipliers, e.g. parallel adder and DA based architectures.


A classic finding in the memory literature is that participants remember items that are isolated, distinctive, or salient compared to items lacking in these characteristics. This finding is usually attributed to von Restorff (1933) which is when an item is isolated against a homogenous background; the learning of that isolated item is enhanced or facilitated. Block (2009) found that intent to remember a specific type of picture also enhances the subsequent recognition of it, and he suggested that increased attention to target stimuli is implicated. The three experiments reported here clarify the possible link between the attentional processes involving both of these effects. Participants saw a series of various types of pictures, with some participants being instructed to remember targets, such as human faces. The intentional memory effect was replicated. Other findings clarify the relationship between the von Restorff and intent-to-remember effects. Table


This paper describes laboratory and field experiments which were conducted to study the dynamics of trichloroethylene (TCE) as it volatilized from contaminated groundwater and diffused in the presence of infiltrating water through the unsaturated soil zone to the land surface. The field experiments were conducted at the Picatinny Arsenal, which is part of the United States Geological Survey Toxic Substances Hydrology Program. In both laboratory and field settings the gas and water phase concentrations of TCE were not in equilibrium during infiltration. Gas-water mass transfer rate constants were calibrated to the experimental data using a model in which the water phase was treated as two phases: a mobile water phase and an immobile water phase. The mass transfer limitations of a volatile organic compound between the gas and liquid phases were described explicitly in the model. In the laboratory experiment the porous medium was nonsorbing, and water infiltration rates ranged from 0.076 to 0.28 cm h−1. In the field experiment the water infiltration rate was 0.34 cm h−1, and sorption onto the soil matrix was significant. The laboratory-calibrated gas-water mass transfer rate constant is 3.3×10−4 h−1 for an infiltration rate of 0.076 cm h−1 and 1.4×10−3 h−1 for an infiltration rate of 0.28 cm h−1. The overall mass transfer rate coefficients, incorporating the contribution of mass transfer between mobile and immobile water phases and the variation of interfacial area with moisture content, range from 3×10−4 h−1 to 1×10−2 h−1. A power law model relates the gas-water mass transfer rate constant to the infiltration rate and the fraction of the water phase which is mobile. It was found that the results from the laboratory experiments could not be extrapolated to the field. In order to simulate the field experiment the very slow desorption of TCE from the soil matrix was incorporated into the mathematical model. When desorption from the soil matrix was added to the model, the calibrated gas-water mass transfer rate constant is 2 orders of magnitude lower than that predicted using the power law model developed for the nonsorbing laboratory soil.


This thesis investigates, theoretically and empirically, the impact of financial (FL) and trade liberalisation (TL) on the rate of economic growth in Bangladesh using annual data from 1975-1995. This thesis also explores the determinants of unofficial market (UM) exchange rates in Bangladesh using quarterly data from 1976q2-1995q2. The literature survey in chapter two argues that both FL and TL raise the rate of economic growth. After reviewing financial and trade policies in Bangladesh in chapter three, a theoretical model has been developed and applied to Bangladesh in chapter four in order to examine the effect of FL on the rate of economic growth. This model incorporates per capita real income, investment in both physical and human capital, financial deepening and real interest rates. The theoretical and empirical models reveal that investment in human capital, financial deepening and interest rate liberalisation positively affect the rate of economic growth. However, the impact of interest rates is very low. The simultaneous impact of financial development and TL on the rate of economic growth in Bangladesh is also explored theoretically and empirically in chapter six. Results reveal that both FL and TL jointly raise the rate of economic growth. Finally, the determinants of UM exchange rates are identified in chapter eight in order to examine the causes of distortions in the foreign exchange markets and to explore the roles of both FL and TL policies in removing these distortions. It is observed that trade restrictions with overvalued exchange rates and an increase in money supply generate UMs for foreign exchange in Bangladesh.


Åberg, E. 2018. Evolution of Interactions Involving Intrinsically Disordered Proteins. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1424. 44 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0226-3. This thesis describes the evolution of intrinsically disordered proteins and their interaction partners. The work presented is a combination of phylogenetic analysis, ancestral reconstruction and biophysical characterization in order to examine the evolutionary trajectory of proteinprotein interactions involving disorder. The intrinsically disordered domains, NCBD and CID are both part of transcriptional co-regulating proteins. In evolution, NCBD existed before the emergence of CID and the most ancient domains display a low affinity complex with many weak contacts and high degree of conformational heterogeneity. Later in evolution, when NCBD and CID co-exists, a few mutations have altered the interaction in a way that the affinity is increased 25-fold and the conformational heterogeneity is decreased. In the same manner, the interaction is further optimized in extant species, resulting in a high affinity complex with less contacts of higher strength and less conformational heterogeneity. The intrinsically disordered transactivation domain of the tumour suppressing protein p53 and its negative regulator MDM2 date back to the beginning of animal life. The interacting domains are either lost or conserved in distinct phyla indicating a tight co-evolution. Phylogenetic trees produced by only including phyla with a conserved interaction domain follow the species evolution. Resurrection of p53 and MDM2 in the vertebrate lineage display an evolution of a high affinity complex in the ancestor of fish and tetrapods to a slightly improved affinity in modern tetrapods but a substantially lower affinity in zebrafish. The p53 protein family, which also includes p63 and p73, diverged from a common ancestor. The individual proteins display altered affinities to MDM2 which is a result of the high sequence divergence between them. The ionic dependence for the interactions is small, and not in line with other studies of disordered proteins. In conclusion, the work in this thesis have contributed with evolutionary analysis and experimental data of interactions involving intrinsically disordered proteins.


Problem statement: Molecular genetics selection on individual genes is a promising method to genetically improve economically important traits in chickens. The Insulin like Growth Factor-I (IGF1) gene may play important roles in growth of multiple tissues, including muscle cells, cartilage and bone. Approach: In the present study polymorphism of the promoter and 5' untranslated region of IGF-1 gene of Mazandaran native fowls was investigated. In order to evaluate the IGF-1 gene polymorphism we have used a Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) method. Blood samples were collected from randomly chosen 100 Mazandaran native fowls. Genomic DNA was extracted using modified salting-out method and used amplified polymerase chain reaction technique. The promoter and 5' untranslated region of the fowl IGF-1 gene was amplified to produce a 621 bp fragment. The PCR products were electrophoresed on 2.5% agarose gel and stained by etidium bromide. Results: Then, they were digested of amplicon with PstI and revealed two alleles A and B. Data were analyzed using Pop Gene 32 package. In this population, AA, AB, BB genotype have been identified with the 25.88, 50.23, 23.89% frequencies. A and B alleles frequencies were 0.51, 0.49, respectively. The Chi-square (χ2) test was significant and the population was in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p<0.05). Conclusion: The PCR technique amplified a DNA fragment of IGF-1 with 621 bp. The results of the RFLP analysis showed two fragment 257 and 354bp after restriction with enzyme with PstI that identify changes in 5' untranslated region. In according to action modes and importance of IGF-1, its polymorphisms can be related to economical traits such as body weight, muscle cells and bone.


Social stress can act through glucocorticoids on discrete dopamine-controlled neuronal pathways in the rodent brain to influence behavior. Understanding how individuals control emotions and cope with stressful events is a major clinical concern and of importance for the treatment of psychiatric illnesses (see the Perspective by McEwen). Barik et al. discovered that aggressive defeat stress in mice caused glucocortioid release and increased activity in the dopamine system. Deleting the glucocorticoid receptors in dopaminoceptive neurons completely prevented the social avoidance that usually follows aggressive defeat. How the combination of genetic factors and environmental stressors during adolescence determines adult behavior and how their disturbance results in neuropsychiatric disorders is poorly understood. Niwa et al. found that isolation stress during adolescence, which does not cause any long-lasting changes in wild-type mice, induced significant neurochemical and behavioral alterations in mutant mice expressing a dominant-negative variant of the Disrupted in schizophrenia 1 gene under the control of the prion protein promoter. These deficits could be reversed by a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist. J. Barik, F. Marti, C. Morel, S. P. Fernandez, C. Lanteri, G. Godeheu, J.-P. Tassin, C. Mombereau, P. Faure, F. Tronche, Chronic stress triggers social aversion via glucocorticoid receptor in dopaminoceptive neurons. Science 339, 332–335 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text] M. Niwa, H. Jaaro-Peled, S. Tankou, S. Seshadri, T. Hikida, Y. Matsumoto, N. G. Cascella, S.-i. Kano, N. Ozaki, T. Nabeshima, A. Sawa, Adolescent stress–induced epigenetic control of dopaminergic neurons via glucocorticoids. Science 339, 335–339 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text] B. S. McEwen, Hormones and the social brain. Science 339, 279–280 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Multilayer nanostructure analysis has been carried out for core-shell PbS/EuS nanocrystals by the combination of the synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) method and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). SAXS patterns of a dilute hexane solution of the PbS/EuS nanocrystals were measured at a high signal-to-noise ratio by using synchrotron radiation. Initial structure models used for SAXS data analyses were obtained from EDS images of the particle where Eu and O atoms are localized only in the shell part of a quasi-cubic particle and, on the other hand, Pb and S atoms in the core. By simulating the intensity of SAXS using multilayer-cubic models with various core-shell electron density distributions, it was found that the particle structure was explained approximately as a trilayer-cubic model having the PbS core and the EuS/Eu2O3 shell. The diagonal length of the cubic particle was ca. 9.4 nm and the estimated thicknesses of EuS and Eu2O3 layers in the shell were ca. 1.9 and 2.9 nm at maximum, respectively.


Underwater environment is the new frontier for major future discovery for the benefits of the world at large. The vastness of the oceans mirrored the vast potentials that lie beneath it. In order for scientist and researchers to explore these vast resources, newer and better sensing technology is pertinent. Of course, any sensor module would not be of any use if there are no reliable platforms to take them to the bottom of the oceans or any water column. Currently, there are underwater robotic platforms that can navigate down to more than 6000 meters. But, there are limitations which need to be addressed. In general, the advancement of sensing technology has always preceded most, if not all, major discoveries in the field of science and technology. The efforts into developing sensors must take into consideration the inherent environmental limitations for underwater applications such as the corrosive nature of sea-water, bio-fouling, limited energy resource module, pressure resistant enclosure, data transfer reliability and the dynamic nature of the ocean itself. The research into producing acceptable sensor system/modules will require close international collaborations. The whole range of potential measurement and sensing requirements also may disrupt the proper development of a robust and reliable sensing system/module. Underwater sensor technology can be divided into the acoustic or non-acoustic based sensing. The major problem of acoustic-based sensors is that they are very prone to noise. Because acoustic signal are mechanically-actuated signal, the dynamic nature of the underwater medium disrupts the signal quality. On the other hand, the non-acoustic sensors are very application-specific, and must be tailored made for specific applications. The utilizations of MEMs-based underwater sensor system are a major future scope of research. MEMs-based sensor will optimize the cost of material and energy, particularly. One other potential dimension of underwater sensor development is the bio-inspired system approach. The existing biological system around us, especially in the oceans, is a rich depository for ideas and solutions to the man-made problems. Bio-inspired sensor system is not just about trying to imitate the living system, but synergize the current available technology with what nature is showing.


In this paper we propose a general approach based on Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to evolve Hidden Markov Models (HMM). The problem appears when experts assign probability values for HMM, they use only some limited inputs. The assigned probability values might not be accurate to serve in other cases related to the same domain. We introduce an approach based on GAs to find out the suitable probability values for the HMM to be mostly correct in more cases than what have been used to assign the probability values.


Abstract Background Latin America ranks among the regions with the highest level of intake of sugary beverages in the world. Innovative strategies to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks are necessary. Purpose Evaluate the effect of a one-off priest-led intervention on the choice and preference of soda beverages. Methods We conducted a pragmatic cluster-randomized trial in Catholic parishes, paired by number of attendees, in Chimbote, Peru between March and June of 2017. The priest-led intervention, a short message about the importance of protecting one's health, was delivered during the mass. The primary outcome was the proportion of individuals that choose a bottle of soda instead of a bottle of water immediately after the service. Cluster-level estimates were used to compare primary and secondary outcomes between intervention and control groups utilizing nonparametric tests. Results Six parishes were allocated to control and six to the intervention group. The proportion of soda selection at baseline was ~60% in the intervention and control groups, and ranged from 56.3% to 63.8% in Week 1, and from 62.7% to 68.2% in Week 3. The proportion of mass attendees choosing water over soda was better in the priest-led intervention group: 8.2% higher at Week 1 (95% confidence interval 1.7%–14.6%, p = .03), and 6.2% higher at 3 weeks after baseline (p = .15). Conclusions This study supports the proof-of-concept that a brief priest-led intervention can decrease sugary drink choice. Clinical Trial information ISRCTN, ISRCTN24676734. Registered 25 April 2017, https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN24676734


In Washington D.C., recent legislation authorizes citizens to test if products are properly represented and, if they are not, to bring a lawsuit for the benefit of the general public. Recent studies revealing the widespread phenomenon of seafood substitution across the United States make it a fertile area for consumer protection testing. DNA barcoding provides an accurate and cost-effective way to perform these tests, especially when tissue alone is available making species identification based on morphology impossible. In this study, we sequenced the 5′ barcoding region of the Cytochrome Oxidase I gene for 12 samples of vertebrate and invertebrate food items across six restaurants in Washington, D.C. and used multiple analytical methods to make identifications. These samples included several ambiguous menu listings, sequences with little genetic variation among closely related species and one sequence with no available reference sequence. Despite these challenges, we were able to make identifications for all samples and found that 33% were potentially mislabeled. While we found a high degree of mislabeling, the errors involved closely related species and we did not identify egregious substitutions as have been found in other cities. This study highlights the efficacy of DNA barcoding and robust analyses in identifying seafood items for consumer protection.


Sub-Saharan Africans infected with HIV-1C make up the largest AIDS patient population in the world and exhibit large heterogeneity in disease progression before initiating antiretroviral therapy. To identify host variants associated with HIV disease progression, we performed genome-wide association studies on a total of 556 treatment-naive HIV-infected individuals in Botswana. We characterized the pattern of HIV disease progression using a novel functional principal component analysis, which can better capture longitudinal CD4 and viral load (VL) trajectories. Two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near HCG22 (chr6, peak variant rs2535307, combined p = 3.72 × 10-7, minor allele as risky allele) and CCNG1 (chr5, peak variant kgp22385164, combined p = 1.88 × 10-6, minor allele as risky allele) were significantly associated with CD4 and VL dynamics. Inspection of SNPs in these gene regions in a third Botswana cohort (using GWATCH) also revealed a strong association of HCG22 with HIV-1C acquisition, suggesting that this region is associated with infection as well as disease progression. Our study uncovered two genetic regions that are significant and have specific effects on HIV-1C acquisition or progression in sub-Saharan Africans, and the result suggested new potential targets for AIDS prevention and treatment. In addition, our results also indicate the possibility of using genetic markers as HIV disease progression indicators in sub-Saharan Africans to prioritize fast progressors for antiretroviral treatment.


The popularity of Bayesian statistical methods has increased dramatically in recent years across many research areas and industrial applications. This is the result of a variety of methodological advances with faster and cheaper hardware as well as the development of new software tools. Here we introduce an open source Python package named Bambi (BAyesian Model Building Interface) that is built on top of the PyMC probabilistic programming framework and the ArviZ package for exploratory analysis of Bayesian models. Bambi makes it easy to specify complex generalized linear hierarchical models using a formula notation similar to those found in R. We demonstrate Bambi's versatility and ease of use with a few examples spanning a range of common statistical models including multiple regression, logistic regression, and mixed-effects modeling with crossed group specific effects. Additionally we discuss how automatic priors are constructed. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of our plans for the future development of Bambi.


Lyophilization process is widely used in pharmaceutical industries, preparing stable dried medications and important biopreparations, so they remain stable and easier to store at room temperature. Since a lyophilization cycle involves high energy demands, an improved control strategy has to be used in order to minimize the operating costs. This paper deals with the design methodology of nonlinear model predictive controllers for lyophilization plant. The controllers are based on fuzzy-neural predictive models and simplified gradient optimization algorithm. As predictive models, fuzzy-neural implementations of Hammerstein and Wiener-Hammerstein systems are used. Such structures provide fast and reliable system identification using small number of parameters which reduces the computational burden during the optimization procedure. The potential benefits of the proposed approaches are demonstrated by simulation experiments.


This paper sets out to compare public spaces at two locations with different identities and characteristics, one located at the urban waterfront and the other located in the peri-urban suburban land of Malmo city. The purpose is to manifest what constitute the urban planning strategy of Malmo in the first decade of 21st century and how the guidelines of detail plannings embody and characterize the planning strategy. So far, the focus of the urban planning strategy of Malmo has undergone several changes since the comprehensive plan in the 1950s. After entering into the new millennium, the attention of Malmo's urban planning strategy was paid to the attractiveness of the city, integration of social life, regional center development as well as sustainable issues, and the pace of Malmo 's change has once again picked up speed after several 'silent' decades. Different detail plannings which follow this vision are still on the way. But how do the design guidelines differ when applied to varied sites within Malmo city? The study focuses on public space and the social life there. It is acknowledged that life in public space is influenced by the use of buildings and the interface between public and private. A comparative study on two developing sites in Malmo is conducted as the strategy to analyze how the public space and social life consequently are characterized by the specified contexts, by the means of observation as well as comparing maps and plans of each site. The two selected sites are respectively Vastra Hamnen representing urban waterfront and Hyllie which represents the suburb of Malmo. By comparing the two cases from different aspects, it is suggested that, even though developed within the same period of of Malmo's development and with similar strategies like sustainable approach and improving inhabitants' living environment, urban waterfront and suburb express different appearances at most aspects. The comparison shows that Vastra Hamnen has the characters of combining various activities in its public spaces attractive to a range of people, with higher priority to pedestrians and cyclers and with the vicinity to the city center, etc. Meanwhile, the longer distance from the city center does not cut Hyllie away because of its good tunnel connection and car friendly planning. But the public spaces express more efficiency than enjoyment as Vastra Hamnen provides and the attraction is associated to the events organized from time to time.


Plagioclase and spinel lherzolite thermometry and barometry are applied to an extensive geochemical dataset of young (<10.5 Ma) primitive basaltic lavas from across Oregon's High Lava Plains, California's Modoc Plateau, and the central‐southern Cascades volcanic arc to calculate the depths and temperatures of mantle melting. This study focuses on basalts with low pre‐eruptive H2O contents that are little fractionated near‐primary melts of mantle peridotite (i.e., basalts thought to be products of anhydrous decompression mantle melting). Calculated minimum depths of nominally anhydrous melt extraction are 40–58 km below Oregon's High Lava Plains, 41–51 km below the Modoc Plateau, and 37–60 km below the central and southern Cascades arc. The calculated depths are very close to Moho depths as determined from a number of regional geophysical studies and suggest that the geophysical Moho and lithosphere‐asthenosphere boundary in this region are located in very close proximity to one another (within 5–10 km). The basalts originated at 1185–1383°C and point to a generally warm mantle beneath this area but not one hot enough to obviously require a plume contribution. Our results, combined with a range of other geologic, geophysical, and geochemical constraints, are consistent with a regional model whereby anhydrous mantle melting over the last 10.5 Ma in a modern convergent margin and back arc was driven by subduction‐induced corner flow in the mantle wedge, and to a lesser extent, toroidal flow around the southern edge of the subducting Juan de Fuca and Gorda plates, and crustal extension‐related upwelling of the shallow mantle.


The existing regulatory structure for nuclear power plants impacts both the design and the operation of the facility [1]. The current structure has been known to be overly conservative in several instances. This overly conservative approach results in operational costs to the facility that decrease the profit margin for nuclear power companies. The current design and build process also results in expensive retrofitting and contributes excess costs to the operations of the facility [1]. The current fleet of nuclear reactors is composed mainly of large light water reactors (LWRs) that can, to some extent, counteract these operational costs by the sheer volume of energy produced. However, the deliberately small size of small modular reactors (SMRs) prevents them from benefitting from this economy of scale. In order to be built and operated economically, SMR vendors must find ways to bring the life cycle costs in line with the economic requirements of nuclear power companies.Sandia National Laboratories has developed a framework that allows vendors and operators to address many of the operational costs during the design and manufacture stages of the SMR life cycle. The framework allows certain operational costs to be addressed in the design stages, thereby decreasing the operational costs, especially those costs associated with staffing and retrofitting. The framework pulls together best practices that have been applied successfully in other industries.Concurrent Engineering (CE) frames the procedural stages, from defining the expectations of the facility deployment, through the identification of regulatory requirements, to the pre-conceptual, conceptual and detailed design stages. A Project Management Organization is critical to the time management and success of implementing CE. The use of Integrated Safety, Operations, Security, and Safeguards (ISOSS) will lead to achieve a more efficient, cost-effective, and reliable plant. The Balance Model is introduced as a tool to document conflicts between functional areas and identify balancing strategies for conflict resolution in the requirements. Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is proposed as a variable for decision making. Facility Lifecycle Management with Building Information Modeling (BIM) is encouraged to support the Build, Activation, Continued Operations and Decommissioning of the facility [1].To ensure that the deployment of SMR is effective and cost efficient, the ideal time to implement the framework is now, before SMR designs reach the detailed stage. SMRs hold a lot of potential and this framework can help the nuclear industry realize that potential.© 2014 ASME


The recent huge gas discovery in Early Miocene siliciclastics, offshore Israel, highlighted a new world-class gas province, and has subsequently sparked great interest in the Oligocene–Miocene deep-water sediments of the Levant Basin. Based on a dense network of seismic data, we present two fundamental observations. First, more than half of its sedimentary column accumulated within a mere ∼15% of the basin9s life span, i.e. an ∼6-km-thick section accumulated within 37 m.y. (post–Middle Eocene). Second, this young section first accumulated in the deep basin and only then did large amounts of sediments amass along the eastern Levant continental margin. These fundamental observations allude to two feasible source-to-sink scenarios: (1) the thick late Tertiary section is composed of large amounts of terrigenous material that originated in Arabia and was transported via the Israeli margin, and (2) the terrigenous material originated in Africa and was transported northward via the region that eventually evolved into the Nile River cone. Our data emphasize the difficulties of the first scenario and suggest that Africa was the dominant sediment source. This suggestion requires the submarine transport of sediments from offshore North Africa to have been northeastward, and thus raises new questions regarding ocean circulation at a time in which the neo-Tethys was closing and the marine connection to the Mesopotamian Basin gradually ceased.


american mix the minority experience in america is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection hosts in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Kindly say, the american mix the minority experience in america is universally compatible with any devices to read.


The proliferation of Web-based objects designed for learning, makes finding and evaluating online resources a considerable hurdle for learners to overcome (Eisenberg, 2008). While established Learning Analytics methods use Web interaction data as proxies for learner engagement (Siemens et al., 2011), the adequacy of these metrics for revealing how learning is being accomplished and making it visible in a meaningful manner is uncertain (Duval, 2011). Data visualisation 'dashboards' can provide useful feedback mechanisms for learners and educators which can aid their evaluation of learning resources (Verbert et al., 2014), which may lead to improved discovery of content that is better suited to their needs. This presentation explores the authors' recent research into meaningful measures of pedagogic activity in online discussions. Learner and instructor participation in a MOOC-based comment forum was evaluated using the DiAL-e pedagogical framework (Burden & Atkinson, 2008). Results from this study indicate that measuring pedagogic activity is distinct from typical interactional measures; there are negative or insignificant correlations with established Learning Analytics methods, but strong correlations with linguistic indicators of pedagogical activity. This suggests that pedagogical and linguistic analysis, rather than interaction analysis, has the potential to automatically identify learning behaviour, and may be more useful in visualising pedagogic activity. Further, the validity of DiAL-e as a coding method has been reviewed and compared with established Computer Mediated Communication content analysis methods, including SOLO (Holmes, 2005) and Community of Inquiry (CoI – Joksimovic et al., 2014), and with Learning Analytics and Language Analysis methods. Findings suggest that different measures of cognitive activity (Dial-e's engagement with pedagogic activities, SOLO's increased complexity of understanding, and CoI's development of reflective discourse) are closely correlated. Because engagement with e-learning is different from other Web activity, establishing relevant measures of pedagogic engagement within short informal comments is important, and it is useful to develop automated analysis and visualization systems that have meaning in this field that are distinct from general news and social measures. In addition to the authors' work, an overview of recent research in this area will be presented including an activity and discussion to establish audience attitudes towards relevant content analysis and visualisation methods. Burden, K. & Atkinson, S., 2008. Beyond Content: Developing Transferable Learning Designs with Digital Video Archives. Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telcommunications, pp.4041–4050. Duval, E., 2011. Attention please!: Learning analytics for visualization and recommendation. LAK '11 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, pp.9–17. Available at: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2090118. Eisenberg, M.B., 2008. Information literacy: Essential skills for the information age. Journal of Library & Information Technology, 28(2), pp.39–47. Available at: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=ED491879. Holmes, K., 2005. Analysis of asynchronous online discussion using the SOLO taxonomy. Australian Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 5, pp.117–127. Joksimovic, S. et al., 2014. Psychological characteristics in cognitive presence of communities of inquiry: A linguistic analysis of online discussions. The Internet and Higher Education, 22, pp.1–10. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1096751614000189. Siemens, G. et al., 2011. Open Learning Analytics?: an integrated & modularized platform Proposal to design , implement and evaluate an open platform to integrate heterogeneous learning analytics techniques. Knowledge Creation Diffusion Utilization. Verbert, K. et al., 2014. Learning dashboards: An overview and future research opportunities. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 18, pp.1499–1514.


Text summarization is usually taken to mean producing a shorter version of an original document by retaining the most salient parts of the original text. Two approaches have been favored: selecting high contentbearing sentences influenced by positional constraints, and performing domain-dependent information extraction which fills a template from which a summary can be glossed. This paper presents a third approach to text reduction, producing shortened telegraphic versions of all input sentences. This approach shares the domain-independence advantage of the sentence selection and the one-pass advantage of information extraction template filling. We argue that this type of text reduction has some practical applications, and present the case of creating an audio scanner for the blind.


Childbirth is a memorable experience for a woman. There are 2 mode of delivery or type of delivery that has general we know that natural childbirth and cesarean. Both can give happiness to the mother, but can also cause depression in mothers experiencing post-delivery. The factors
that allegedly can cause depression pasa delivery of biological factors (hormones), psychological factors (traumatic experience of childbirth) and stress (surgery), characteristics, and social problems. Especially with regard to psychological factors as a reference for understanding the differences in postpartum depression. This research was conducted using descriptive quantitative method comparatif. The subjects of this study were women who gave birth in a natural way and women who gave birth by cesarean section, each of which amounted to 30 women. Instrument scale study using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), which can reveal differences in levels of depression on 4 criteria: none, mild, moderate and severe. The results obtained are in natural childbirth, 18 women did not experience depression, mild depression, 5 women, 7 women are depressed, and do not get women who menglami severe depression. While the cesarean obtained 5 women do not experience depression, 10 women in light of criteria, 9 women and 6 for criteria of women experiencing severe depression. Then, from the data analysis also shows that there are differences in rates of depression are significant labor pasaca (Chi: 15 264, P: 0.002) between women and women natural childbirth cesarean delivery. In women who gave birth by cesarean delivery more didaptkan majority of the sample experienced mild depression after delivery (10 women / 16.7%), then women who gave birth to a natural childbirth by a majority of the sample is obtained not more depressed at birth Paca (18 women / 30.0%). Results of other studies that can be revealed by this study is post-natal depression (DPP) is more common in women who have aged 18-29 years compared with women aged 30-50 years, female education D3-S1 has the DPP more than female high school education , women who work more than women experiencing DPP housewives, and primiparous women experienced more DPP than multiparous women.


As the world continues to reel from the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic, health experts around the world are trying to identify a potential vaccine that can combat the international threat before a second wave of the virus inevitably hits. This process traditionally requires years or even decades to not only develop the drug but also move it through the clinical trial phases necessary to ensure it is safe and effective. However, the pharmaceutical industry is facing unprecedented expectations to accelerate the delivery of a vaccine for COVID-19 in the face of a death toll that is rising daily. Can mRNA Disrupt The Biopharma Industry? One technology some companies were investigating even before COVID-19 is mRNA (messenger RNA)-based vaccines. Due to several benefits, including the ability to quickly scale up in the case of a large disease outbreak, mRNA has the potential to revolutionize the field of vaccine development. Going from a niche corner of the market to an innovative disruption, though, requires a better understanding of how the manufacturing process for mRNA vaccines differs from traditional vaccines, what challenges exist, and any other factors that could impact the successful entry of mRNA vaccines into today's market.


In her recent book Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century, Hilary Fraser observes that Nathaniel Hawthorne's account of Hilda's womanly sensibility in The Marble Faun subsumes her visual agency into the vision of the master painter. Hilda is widely regarded as being modelled on his wife, the painter and illustrator Sophia Peabody Hawthorne. Hawthorne's reference to a 'woman's sympathy' prompts a wider consideration of the gendering of aesthetic response. Indeed, The Marble Faun is one of numerous texts, most famously Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, which set out artistic roles for women in the Victorian period. How were women visitors to art museums and exhibitions represented visually? There are in fact numerous images of women in museums and galleries from this period. I begin with an exploration of some examples of these, and with recent scholarship that addresses how women 'looked' in museums, as a way of thinking about women 'feeling through a picture', whether by 'intellectual effort' or otherwise. How did these images relate to the association of the female viewer with a 'woman's sympathy'? Some of the women featured in museum spaces were at work copying the paintings visible on the walls. These women copyists echoed Hilda's transformation at the end of Hawthorne's chapter: 'All that she would henceforth attempt — and that, most reverentially, not to say, religiously — was to catch and reflect some of the glory which had been shed upon canvas from the immortal pencils of old. So Hilda became a copyist.' Were the women artists and viewers depicted in museum spaces similarly intent on utilizing their feminine 'sympathy' to admire the glory of Old Master paintings? The first section of this article argues that, on the contrary, it is possible to locate examples of a more engaged visual agency in female viewers. The second section asks how notions of Victorian temperament intersected with the modern revival of tempera painting. I pursue the question of female temperament through case studies of three women viewers who were writers and artists. Here, I examine the writings of Alice Meynell alongside the work of the artist Marianne Stokes, before moving on to briefly consider the artist and writer Christiana Herringham, who also published at the fin de siecle. For these women artists, copying and studying early Renaissance paintings was crucial to their artistic practice. Did these artists then fulfil, like Hilda, the role of the woman copyist? Stokes was, like Hilda, intent on studying canvases 'of old', but, as Meynell argued, this careful study was undertaken in order to produce her own reverential paintings through tempera, rather than to reflect on the 'glory' of Renaissance artists. Herringham similarly took up tempera painting, but as a method of examining and authentically reproducing 'old' paintings. The work of Meynell, Stokes, and Herringham can be mapped onto a point where contemporary and historical fine art collide or even collude. Will the revival of tempera instigate revival of 'feeling' in art? What will become clear is that their engagement with 'feeling' and 'sentiment' was not straightforward. Nor were they necessarily unified in their approach. While alert to the new possibilities the medium may offer, they were engaging with it in relation to spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual judgement. In short, these women art critics felt ambivalent about feeling.


Ground water is the most extracted natural resource in the world. It provides more than half of humanity's freshwater for everyday uses such as drinking, cooking, and hygiene, as well as twenty percent of irrigated agriculture. Despite our increasing reliance, ground water resources have long been the neglected stepchild of international water law; regulation and management of and information about ground water resources are sorely lacking, especially in the international context. Presently, there is no international agreement squarely addressing ground water resources that traverse an international boundary. Moreover, there is only one treaty in the entire world pertaining to the management of a transboundary aquifer, and few nations possess the relevant technical information necessary to enter into such agreements. The result is overexploitation and degradation of many of the world's transboundary aquifers, and considerable harmful impacts on border communities, economies, and ecosystems dependent on transboundary ground water resources. Recently, the United Nations International Law Commission embarked on an effort to address this shortcoming and to consider the international law applicable to transboundary aquifers. This undertaking follows and builds on the Commission's prior work on international watercourses, which culminated in the 1997 U.N. Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. It also builds on the work of other organizations, including that of the International Law Association and its Helsinki, Seoul, and Berlin Rules. This paper reviews the work of the Commission in its current effort to codify and progressively develop the international law applicable to transboundary ground water resources. It critically assesses the nineteen Draft Articles formulated by the Commission and considers the various legal, scientific, social, and related implications of those articles. Moreover, it assesses the applicability and soundness of the Draft Articles in relation to the science of ground water resources. Ultimately, the challenge before the Commission is to formulate international legal principles and doctrines that will allow States to overcome the unique problems associated with the utilization, management, allocation, and protection of the world's transboundary aquifers. The goal of this study is to generate discussion on this critically important topic and to spur additional commentaries that may aid the Commission in its effort.


BACKGROUND
Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) medications have been inconsistently shown to be associated with osteoporotic fractures. We examined the association of PPI use with bone outcomes (fracture, bone mineral density [BMD]).

METHODS
This prospective analysis included 161 806 postmenopausal women 50 to 79 years old, without history of hip fracture, enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Observational Study and Clinical Trials with a mean (SD) follow-up of 7.8 (1.6) years. Analyses were conducted for 130 487 women with complete information. Medication information was taken directly from drug containers during in-person interviews (baseline, year 3). The main outcome measures were self-reported fractures (hip [adjudicated], clinical spine, forearm or wrist, and total fractures) and for a subsample (3 densitometry sites), 3-year change in BMD.

RESULTS
During 1 005 126 person-years of follow-up, 1500 hip fractures, 4881 forearm or wrist fractures, 2315 clinical spine fractures, and 21 247 total fractures occurred. The multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios for current PPI use were 1.00 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-1.40) for hip fracture, 1.47 (95% CI, 1.18-1.82) for clinical spine fracture, 1.26 (95% CI, 1.05-1.51) for forearm or wrist fracture, and 1.25 (95% CI, 1.15-1.36) for total fractures. The BMD measurements did not vary between PPI users and nonusers at baseline. Use of PPIs was associated with only a marginal effect on 3-year BMD change at the hip (P = .05) but not at other sites.

CONCLUSION
Use of PPIs was not associated with hip fractures but was modestly associated with clinical spine, forearm or wrist, and total fractures.


The hapuku wreckfish Polyprion oxygeneios is recorded for the first time in Argentinian waters. Four specimens were caught off Mar del Plata (38°S, Argentina) in depths between 60 and 260 m during austral summer (three by sport fishers and one in a research cruise). Up to the present, this species was consistently misidentified with its congener, the common wreckfish P. americanus, off Argentina. These records represent a connection between previous records from Brazil and the more austral circumglobal distribution of the species.


College honors courses provide an opportunity to tackle controversial topics in an atmosphere that encourages active learning, critical thinking, and open discussion. This venue is particularly appropriate for examining the debate about teaching intelligent design (ID) in public school science classes. A one-credit honors enrichment seminar taught at the University of North Carolina Wilmington provides a model, with associated successes and challenges, for addressing the controversy. This interdisciplinary course consisted primarily of discussions based on a set of weekly readings that presented contrasting viewpoints on evolution and naturalism, ID, theology, and educational issues. In preparation for each class, students constructed charts contrasting the views of each writer on key points presented in the readings and summarizing their own responses. Discussion focused on a set of questions arising from the readings and designed to provoke debate. The Kitzmiller v. Dover decision served as a final case study; each student prepared a final paper defending or criticizing Judge Jones' decision in the Dover court case. Prior to the course, some students had not heard of ID and many had limited knowledge of evolution. The course improved student knowledge of evolution, ID, and the issues involved in the controversy, preparing them to make informed political decisions. Challenges included the uneven level of knowledge about evolution among students in this non-science course and the time constraints of a 1-credit course. In addition, because I had decided to serve as a facilitator and not press my opinions, misconceptions were more difficult to correct, although the variety of disciplines represented by the students allowed them to correct one another.


The Paradise Generation Station Unit 3 is a supercritical fossil plant with a 1,078 MW rated capacity. The #3B feedwater heater (FWH) is a two-zone (condensing and subcooling) horizontal FWH and is the second of four high pressure (HP) FWHs after the boiler feed pump in the "B" string, one of two HP FWH strings (See Figure A2 at the end of this paper for an outline drawing of the heater. The heater has 1447 SA-556-C2 Carbon Steel tubes, 3/4" OD × 0.085 min wall. The heater was built in late 2006/early 2007 and was installed in summer 2007.After just a few years of operation, the #3B FWH experienced several failures at the entrance to the drain cooler (DC) zone. The #3A FWH, of identical construction and built and installed at the same time, did not show the same level of damage.In order to determine the failure mechanisms involved, a post-mortem of the heater was performed. This paper shall discuss the post-mortem inspection conducted as well as the suspected and confirmed causes of failure in the heater.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


This working paper describes those determinants of intrasectoral change within the sector of non-ferrous metal production in the Ruhr Area, Northrhine-Westfalia, which contributed to the reduction of atmospheric heavy metal emissions since the mid-sixties, as well as the driving forces behind these intrasectoral changes. It constitutes part of the Rhine/Black Triangle Policy Comparison Study at IIASA.

Intrasectoral changes pertaining to the emission of atmospheric heavy metals are shown to have consisted, in the first place, of process changes whose main characteristic was increased processing of production residues, i.e. a closing of economic (material) cycles, thus increasing recycling and decreasing waste. The second most important development was the application of gradually improved off-gas collection and cleaning technologies (end-of-pipe technologies).

Closures of old plants also have contributed to the decrease in heavy metal emissions. Although capacities were increased during the period of the investigation (1955 to 1988), these capacity increases were brought about with modernized technologies, which are less emission intensive than those used in the older plants.

Three major factors were the driving forces behind the intrasectoral change: developments in legal requirements (air pollution control); economic motivations of the enterprises; and financial support from public institutions. An open question is whether various residues resulting from the more modern processing technologies are, from an environmental point of view, more hazardous than heavy metal emissions.


Breaking down graphene degeneracy Bilayer graphene has two layers of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms stacked on top of each other in a staggered configuration. This spatial arrangement results in degenerate electronic states: distinct states that have the same energy. Interaction between electrons can cause the states to separate in energy, and so can external fields (see the Perspective by LeRoy and Yankowitz). Kou et al., Lee et al., and Maher et al. used three distinct experimental setups that clarify different parameter regimes of bilayer graphene. Science, this issue p. 55, p. 58, p. 61; see also p. 31 An unusual sequence of electron-interaction–driven states is observed by using a single-electron transistor. [Also see Perspective by LeRoy and Yankowitz] The nature of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states is determined by the interplay between the Coulomb interaction and the symmetries of the system. The distinct combination of spin, valley, and orbital degeneracies in bilayer graphene is predicted to produce an unusual and tunable sequence of FQH states. Here, we present local electronic compressibility measurements of the FQH effect in the lowest Landau level of bilayer graphene. We observe incompressible FQH states at filling factors ν = 2p + 2/3, with hints of additional states appearing at ν = 2p + 3/5, where p = –2, –1, 0, and 1. This sequence breaks particle-hole symmetry and obeys a ν → ν + 2 symmetry, which highlights the importance of the orbital degeneracy for many-body states in bilayer graphene.


Internationally, chronic disease represents a major healthcare challenge for the 21st century. Prognostic tools that streamline and target care have been developed for cardiovascular disease. This study illustrates how routine data can be used to develop tools for other chronic diseases; using chronic kidney disease (a precursor of renal replacement therapy (RRT: dialysis or transplantation) requirement) as a model. Routine clinical data—serum creatinine (a measure of kidney function), RRT initiation and death registration were used to identify a CKD cohort, and follow them over 6 years. Mortality was compared to the general population. 3426 persons were identified with CKD (median age 79 years, 56% female). RRT initiation rates decreased with age from 14.3 to 0.7 per 100 person-years among those aged 15–25 and 75–85 years at baseline respectively (absolute numbers 6 and 34). Mortality rates increased with age from 1.9 to 33.8 per 100 person-years for those aged 15–45 and over 85 years at baseline—a 19 and 2 fold increase in mortality risk compared to the general population respectively (2 and 17 excess deaths per 100 person-years). CKD has been labelled a public health concern, and provides a typical pattern for chronic disease. Personal risk is low for the majority, but they represent a high societal cost; whereas those with high personal risk are few, with lower societal cost. Exploitation of routinely collected data are an efficient way of following up health outcome, and informing the development of prognostic tools for a chronic disease cohort.


The private provision of penal services is just one aspect of a wider movement to roll back the state's involvement in the criminal justice system. In the prison system, privatization - or contracting out - is manifested in several ways, including prison escort services, prison work programmes, electronic monitoring of offenders released from prison and the financing of prison construction. The most contentious form of contracting out, however, has proved to be the management and operation of prisons by private investors. This chapter seeks to situate the private management of prisons in modern penal systems in a historical context and to prvide an overview of the questions, opportunities and risks that this trend in policy brings about. The debates surrounding privatization are discussed in terms of cost and efficiency, the quality of service provided, the legitimacy of private prisons and the expansion of what has been termed the penal-industrial complex (Garland 2001; Coyle et al. 2006).


A combination of hypertension and diabetes mellitus is known to be accompanied by higher oxidative stress than that observed in the individual disorder alone. The aim of this study is to measure the antioxidant vitamins vitamin C, vitamin E levels and lipid peroxidation status in hypertensive patients and diabetic hypertensive patients receiving vitamin supplements, insulin and lipid lowering drugs. The parameters where correlated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the patients. Lipid peroxidation was determined by measurement of Thiobarbituric reactive substance (TBARS) in the serum of patients. The antioxidant status was estimated by determining the levels of vitamin C and vitamin E in serum. A significant (p<0.05) increase in TBARS-MDA level was noticed in the hypertensive patients compared with the normotensive patients. Vitamin E status in hypertensive and diabetic patients were also significantly (p<0.05) lower than that of normotensive patients. However, a significant (p<0.05) decrease in TBARS-MDA levels was observed in the diabetic hypertensive patients compared with the hypertensive patients as well as normotensive patients while the vitamin C level significantly (p<0.05) increased in hypertensive and diabetic hypertensive patients. The present study showed that lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress are altered in hypertension and diabetic hypertension; there are reports that vitamin supplementation and lipid lowering drugs can reverse the effects of these alterations, however, there is no evidence to show that the reactive oxygen species initiated the alterations.


SUPER is an exploratory project into the next generation of user-DBMS interfaces. Its main objective is to demonstrate that a visual paradigm can lead to powerful and user-friendly interfaces supporting all phases of the database life cycle (i.e. creation, manipulation and evolution). Visual interaction in SUPER is based on direct manipulation of objects and functions, with a special focus on providing users with maximum flexibility and independence from database technicalities. The set of tools offers facilities to meet the varied demands from categories of users with different levels of skill. Diagrammatic representations and a basic set of functions are better suited for novice and occasional users, while menus and dialog boxes speed up the dialog for expert users. At the same times a consistent interaction style over the various functions and tools has been emphasized. SUPER has been designed as a front end to a relational or an object-oriented DBMS, i.e. the persistence of data, consistency and concurrency problems are delegated to an off-the-shelf database management system. The current prototype supports schema definition, query formulation and browsing using a powerful data model based on objects and relationships.


TO THE EDITOR: Atypical antipsychotics have been associated with neuroleptic malignant syndrome, rhabdomyolysis, pan-creatitis, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (1–3). We describe what we believe to be the first report of these complications attributed to the newer atypical antipsychotic agent ziprasidone. Ms. A, a middle-aged woman with schizoaffective disorder , had been treated for many years with clozapine, ris-peridone, and lithium. She had no history of diabetes mel-litus, renal disease, pancreatitis, or substance abuse. Two weeks before admission, her risperidone therapy was discontinued , and ziprasidone treatment, 40 mg/day, was initiated. Ms. A was admitted for an altered mental status with a decreased level of consciousness, agitation, and disorientation. Her body temperature was 38.5°C (her maximum temperature was 41.3°C on hospital day 3), her blood pressure was 160/100 mm Hg, and her pulse was 112 bpm. She had no muscle rigidity at admission or during her hospital course. Results of a physical examination were otherwise unre-markable. Results of laboratory studies included a negative toxicology screen and alcohol level; a low lithium level; an elevated WBC count (15,000 cells/µl); negative urine, blood, and CSF cultures; an elevated creatinine level (1.8 mg/dl, which peaked at more than 7 mg/dl on hospital day 7); an elevated glucose level (250 mg/dl, which increased to 980 mg/dl a day later); a creatinine ki-nase level of more than 64,000 U/liter during the first week in the hospital; and a sevenfold increase in pancre-atic amylase with pancreatic inflammation found on an abdominal computerized tomography scan. Ms. A's ziprasidone and lithium treatments were discontinued. Clozapine was initially discontinued but was later restarted for severe psychosis. Ms. A's mental status returned to its baseline level, and her pancreatitis resolved. Hemodialysis was required for 1 week, after which renal function gradually returned. Severe hyperglycemia without ketoacidosis was managed with intravenous insulin, initially requiring up to 200 units over 24 hours. Over 3 weeks the hyperglycemia gradually improved until diabetes medication was no longer required. The patient's rhabdomyolysis, hypertension, and fever associated with the initiation of ziprasidone treatment suggest neuroleptic malignant syndrome, although the patient never had muscle rigidity. An absence of muscle rigidity with neuro-leptic malignant syndrome has been reported (4, 5). This case illustrates the possibility of adverse reactions to ziprasidone, which are similar to those associated with other atypical neu-roleptics. TO THE EDITOR: The side effect of weight gain with atypical an-tipsychotics has drawn much attention to ziprasidone …


While many have been focussed on methodological issues of documenting endangered languages, others have asked 'How will this current focus on documenting endangered languages influence language description, and language typology?' In this paper I will discuss how language endangerment may lead to biases in the data linguists collect for analytical and descriptive purposes, and the consequences of this for language description and language typology. Elicitation tools offer insight into language paradigms which may be difficult to document when relying on purely naturalistic data. They have a long history of use in descriptive linguistic fieldwork. Sometimes the use of such tools is the only way to collect data about specific domains and paradigms of severely endangered languages, where there is minimal opportunity to observe naturalistic language use. The endangered language context may also present a different set of challenges when it comes to using guided elicitations. Some elicitations require 'controlled experiment' conditions, which are unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable for elderly speakers. In such situations, there may be a preference to work with (younger) speakers who are more comfortable with elicitation tasks. The end result of this will be a bias in the data set towards their data, or their variety of the language. In this paper, I will discuss my own experiences with 'bias' when using the MPI demonstrative questionnaire (Wilkins 1999), with Dalabon speakers. Dalabon (Gunwinyguan, Australia) is a severely endangered language of south-western Arnhem Land. I will argue for the value of these tools for the insight they offer into linguistic systems, and discuss the resultant issues for analysis, description and typology which arose from relying heavily on data from younger semi-speakers. Working with younger semi-speakers produced a hypothesis I was able to test against data from the older fluent speakers, but at the same time, increased the possibility of recording language features which are inauthentic, or the product of interference from another code. For example, the younger semi-speaker's data contained a particular syntactic construction not seen previously in the data from older speakers. Bias is inherent in the collection of linguistic data, and I argue that the linguist must exercise extra care when using elicitations when documenting endangered languages. Wilkins, David P. 1999. The 1999 Demonstrative Questionnaire: "THIS" and "THAT" in comparative perspective. In "Manual" for the 1999 field season, edited by Stephen C. Levinson and N. J. Enfield. Nijmegen: Language and Cognition Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.


The Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) will be a 4 m aperture off‐axis telescope with advanced high‐resolution and low scattered light capabilities for the observation of the solar photosphere and corona. The site characteristics that are critical to the success of the ATST coronal observations are the sky brightness, the precipitable water vapor content, and the number and size distributions of the dust particles. Therefore, part of the ATST site survey effort is to obtain measurements of these atmospheric properties at all the potential ATST sites. The ATST site survey Sky Brightness Monitor (SBM) is a new instrument specifically developed for this task. The SBM is a modified externally occulted coronagraph capable of imaging the solar disk and sky simultaneously. The ability to image the Sun and the sky simultaneously greatly simplifies the calibration of the sky‐brightness measurements. The SBM has a very simple optical configuration that makes it a compact and low‐maintenance instrument. The SBM is sensitive to sky brightness below 1 × 10-6 disk center intensity, with a field of view extending from 4 to 8 R⊙. It measures the solar disk and sky brightness at three continuum bandpasses located at 450, 530, and 890 nm. A fourth bandpass is centered at the 940 nm water vapor absorption band. With measurements of disk and sky brightness at these four wavelengths, site characteristics such as extinctions, aerosol content, and precipitable water vapor content can be derived. This paper documents the design, specifications, calibration procedures, and performance of the SBM.


Looking for more health information? Contact your local public library for books, videos, magazine articles and online health information. For a list of public libraries in Nova Scotia go to HTTP://publiclibraries.ns.ca Capital Health promotes a smoke-free and scent-free environment. Please do not use perfumed products. Thank you!


The fundamental challenge faced by any visual system within natural environments is the ambiguity caused by the fact that light that falls on the system's sensors conflates multiple attributes of the physical world. Understanding the computational principles by which natural systems overcome this challenge and generate useful behaviour remains the key objective in neuroscience and machine vision research. In this paper we introduce Mosaic World, an artificial life model that maintains the essential characteristics of natural visual ecologies, and which is populated by virtual agents that - through 'natural' selection - come to resolve stimulus ambiguity by adapting the functional structure of their visual networks according to the statistical structure of their ecological experience. Mosaic World therefore presents us with an important tool for exploring the computational principles by which vision can overcome stimulus ambiguity and usefully guide behaviour.


Youth in South Africa are persons of the ages 14 to 35 and constitute a large part of the potential labour supply and economically active population. The youth are also one of the central focus areas of government and receive priority in national development policies. Very little is known about the role of youth in the economy. The purpose of this article is therefore to explore the position of youth in the South African economy. The survey below will indicate that one of the major problems faced by youth in Africa is the inability to establish a sustainable livelihood. Youth constitute 40 to 65 per cent of the unemployed in African countries, and this figure is rising. This requires alternative policies, in addition to the economic growth policies within the Growth, Employment and Redistribution framework. It has become essential that the scope be broadened for a larger range of solutions.