This essay discusses Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men as a text devoted to the meticulous representation of the migrant and immigrant subject before the law, taking seriously the idea, articulated by the narrative's mother figure, that migrant or immigrant life in the United States involves existing in a constant "state of emergency," and offering a closer look at border space as a realm of enforced law. At the exact centre of Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men, the reader finds a section entitled "The Laws." It takes the form of a terse catalogue, an enumeration of anti-Chinese rules and regulations that is particularly shocking in its unrelenting portrayal of progressive disenfranchisement during the so-called "Exclusion Era," which lasted from 1882 until 1943, when China became an ally to the United States on the Pacific war front during World War II (Ngai 201-06). In its almost litaneutical insistence, "The Laws" section sheds light on the act of border crossing as an undertaking vexed by a continually unstable threshold between legality and illegality, as delineated by shifting territories of juridico-political decision making with often brutal consequences. Accordingly, China Men as a whole is precisely not content with representing the difficult, and for a long time all but impossible, emigration of Chinese Americans in terms of biographically inspired, "authentic" portraits; instead, it insists on migrancy (1) as firmly entrenched on, and defined by, a globe that, far from being passive, empty space, is continuously redefining itself in terms of changing politics, economic relations, culture, and law. Moreover, Kingston's text shows the work of alien law in the moment of its application: as practically enforced and often bureaucratically administered "justice" in the sites of border crossing, whether these borders are construed as material or phenomenal. Due to this meticulously attuned representation of the migrant subject before the law, China Men strikes me as an astoundingly contemporary, singularly alert text for our own global moment. Its potential materializes poignantly when the text is placed in the context of recent theorizations of power and state sovereignty, in particular--and perhaps at first sight surprisingly--Giorgio Agamben's work on the "state of exception." In narrating the biopolitical work of restrictionist immigration policies, China Men, I will argue, develops its own sense of the "exceptional" at the precise dividing line between admission to and exclusion from the United States polity. Scholars have already commented upon the significance of law and thus "The Laws" section in China Men. As a general tendency, they understand this segment by way of Kingston's experimentation with genre boundaries (Shan 237-38 and 253-54; Shih 67-68; Grice 50-53), ultimately in terms of a critical "counter-remembering" (Cheung, "Talk" 23-26) that undermines the historically oblivious United States master narrative (Nishime 267; Wang 18; Goellnicht 241, to cite but a few). Though indebted to their work, my reading seeks to unmoor China Men from the purported telos of "re-claiming America," essentially a project lodged within the framework of the nation-state, as Pirjo Ahokas, following Lisa Lowe and others, has pointed out (107), and to reposition it as a text that "prefigures" (Spivak 49) fundamental concerns with the use and abuse of state power vis-a-vis the human rights of immigrants and migrants. China Men engages the idea of genealogical linkages; rather than placing genealogy in the service of the nation-state, however, the text disperses it into an assemblage of limit zones, in which the question of membership as posed by United States alien legislation is actively negotiated. In this, I take my cue from Yoon Sun Lee, who has drawn attention to Kingston's highly ironic and utterly self-conscious "tropes of territory and deterritorialization" (482-83), one of which I identify as the tropology of concealment. …


Indoor positioning and navigation is an active area of research due to the widespread use of devices equipped with micro-machined electromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers. The MEMS inertial sensors and other popular technologies can provide information to determine the position and orientation of a person relative to a known initial location. A system that is able to produce accurate location data may find multiple applications in location-based services (LBS), safe wayfinding, and other related fields. For instance, a guidance system could be used to provide travel-related information to passengers as they use public transportation, or provide safe navigational directions to people who find themselves in unfamiliar environments. The research presented in this dissertation focuses on building robust systems that provide real-time and reliable travel-related information to help blind or visually impaired travelers reach a destination safely.In this dissertation, I present two novel navigation systems and an openly accessible and annotated data set of inertial sensor time series data collected from blind people. The first system conveys travel-related information to blind passengers when using public transportation. The system makes use of pre-configured Wi-Fi access points placed in public transit vehicles and at bus stops to convey real-time, multi-modal travel-related information to any passenger, directly on his or her own smart device. The second more complex system helps blind people retrace the path taken inside a building and walk safely back to an initial location. This is ideal for situations in which a blind person is able to reach a certain location, for example with the assistance of a sighted guide, and needs to find his or her way back to the initial location. This robust path back-tracing guidance system is comprised of a turn detector based on a hidden Markov model (HMM) to robustly detect turns even in the presence of drift in the inertial measurements and noticeable body sway during gait, a step counter that uses filtered inertial sensor data to determine the number of steps walked along a path, and a path matching algorithm to track the user's location. The step counter and turn detection models were trained on sensor data from WeAllWalk, an openly accessible and annotated data set of inertial sensor time series data created from blind walkers using a long cane or a guide dog. This system runs on a smart device and provides the guidance necessary to help a blind person retrace a path. A robust guidance system that supports safe blind wayfinding opens the doors to many blind travelers who would like to travel and move independently as they explore unfamiliar environments.


Transportation of Dangerous Goods represents a sensitive problem due its congenital high potential risk of causing disaster if an accident occurs. Transportation of Dangerous Goods Risk Management systems reduce the possibility of both accidental disasters and terrorist attacks detecting unusual events and blocking possible threats.

Cloud computing can facilitate the development of such kinds of systems thanks to new emerging paradigms and technologies. In this paper, we discuss the design of a new Message-Oriented Cloud Middleware for Cloud, that can be used to develop a Cloud-based Transportation of Dangerous Goods Risk Management system. More specifically, we investigate issues on Transportation of Dangerous Goods, in order to focus the attention on the requirements of the Risk Management system. Then, we describe how to use the Message-Oriented Cloud Middleware for Cloud architecture and the necessary utilities in particular here for supporting Transportation of Dangerous Goods.


A mechanism for enhancement in the mass transfer rates of solutes in flowing, concentrated suspensions that is often cited in the literature is the self-diffusion of particles arising from shear-induced interparticle interactions. Recently, it was demonstrated by Zrehen and Ramachandran (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2013, 110, 018306) that the pressure-driven flow of suspensions through non-axisymmetric geometries is not unidirectional; the main flow is accompanied by secondary currents within the cross-section of the conduit, driven by second normal stress differences. This secondary convection represents a new and heretofore unexplored, advective mechanism for the mass transfer of solutes normal to the primary streamlines in flowing suspensions, and is investigated in this paper via simulations. For small particle sizes, the enhancement of solute diffusivity by shear-induced self-diffusion is weak. However, the magnitude of the secondary currents is unaffected by particle size. Thus, for suspensions with particles much smaller than the conduit size, secondary convection, and not shear-induced self-diffusion, can be the dominant mechanism for shear-induced enhancement of mass transfer. In the limit where shear-induced self-diffusion is the dominant diffusive mode of mass transfer, secondary convection can, for some geometries and conditions, double the augmentation of mass transfer over that expected from self-diffusion alone. The relevance of this new mechanism of mass transfer is in the improved modeling of the transport of solutes for which the dominant mass transfer resistance is in the suspension phase. This mechanism also suggests the possibility of exploiting conduit geometry to improve the mass transfer rate of solutes.


Metal–organic frameworks have been widely studied as a template to nanoporous or well-structured carbon materials; however, utilizing the catalytic properties of MOFs to grow graphitic one dimensional nanostructures has been rarely reported. We have studied the evolution of carbon structures produced by transition metal doping (Ni in our case) in a Zn-based MOF and subjecting the MOF to a typical chemical vapour deposition process. Structures ranging from fine to thick graphitized carbon nanofibers are produced systematically at a relatively low temperature of 650 °C by increasing the Ni concentration in the MOF. A general trend of an increase in the nanofiber diameter with an increase in the Ni concentration and the formation of plate-like graphitic structures suggest that the catalyst particles undergo coalescence and impact the morphology of carbon structures produced. Without any further modification, the carbon nanofibers show modest electrical double layer (18 F g−1) behaviour in 1 M Na2SO4, but quite interestingly, the finely divided Ni particles undergo faradaic redox reactions in 1 M KOH and boost the capacitance to 348 F g−1. Our work suggests that our approach of utilizing catalytic MOFs for the growth of well-defined carbon nanostructures can serve more than one purpose towards the synthesis of hybrid materials for energy storage.


Although massive flank failure is fairly common in the evolution of volcanoes, measurements of flank movement indicative of instability are rare. Here 3‐D displacements from airborne radar amplitude images derived using an amplitude image pixel offset tracking technique show that the west and southwest flanks of Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala experienced large (~4 m), discrete landsliding that was ultimately aborted. Pixel offset tracking improved measurement recovery by nearly 50% over classic interferometric synthetic aperture radar techniques, providing unique measurements at the event. The 3‐D displacement field shows that the flank moved coherently downslope along a complex failure surface involving both rotational and along‐slope movement. Notably, the lack of continuous movement of the slide in the years leading up to the event emphasizes that active movement should not always be expected at volcanoes for which triggering factors (e.g., magmatic intrusions and eruptions) could precipitate sudden major flank instability.


An accurate radio altimeter with a dual-channel (quadrature) homodyne receiver is presented in this article. This new design improves the accuracy while operating in the standard 4.3 GHz radio-altimeter allocation. The new radio altimeter is intended as a landing aid for small general-aviation aircraft, experimental aircraft and UAVs and is equipped with a simple synthesized-voice human interface


Increasing the usability of software by integrating usability engineering into the development cycle has become common practice. Although usability engineering is effective, it can be expensive, and organizations want to receive the best possible returns on their investments. Oftentimes, however, organizations spend large sums of money collecting usability problem data through activities such as usability testing, but do not receive acceptable returns on those investments during redesign. The primary reason is that there is an almost complete lack of methods and tools for usability problem data analysis to transform raw usability data into effective inputs for developers. In this thesis, we develop an infrastructure for usability problem data analysis to address the need for better returns on usability engineering investments. The infrastructure consists of four main components: a framework, a process, tools, and semantic analysis technology. Embedded within the infrastructure is the User Action Framework, a conceptual framework of usability concepts, which is used to organize usability data. The process addresses extraction of usability problems from raw usability data, diagnosis of problems according to usability concepts, and reporting of problems in a form that is usable by developers. The tools leverage the framework and guide practitioners through the process, while the semantic analysis technology supplements the capabilities of the tools to automate parts of the process.


Abstract:One of the most distinctive elements of Burundi's transition is the extent to which national leaders have embraced the importance of leadership training as a key to reconciliation and good governance. Indeed, Burundi may be the first case of a country just emerging from conflict in which key leaders have integrated into their peace process a national training program explicitly designed to rebuild their capacity to work effectively together in advancing their country's postwar reconstruction. This essay examines the goals and methods of the Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP).


The supermarket industry has been developing customer relationship marketing (CRM) programs and strategies for over 15 years. At this point the impacts of CRM on the supermarket industry are mixed at best. Despite the potential to radically change the way supermarket business is conducted, there is also the possibility that CRM could be marginalized by supermarket companies as just another management fad. This study employed a combination of literature review, retailer surveys, interviews with supermarket and manufacturer executives, and consumer focus groups to examine CRM in the U.S. supermarket industry. Our research focused on identifying the current status of CRM programs, on the role of CPGs in those programs, and the industry-specific issues constraining the realization of full CRM benefits. This report also presents an overview of the future direction of CRM theory with perspectives on the supermarket industry. Despite over 15 years of development in the supermarket industry, and more than three-quarters of sales transacted with loyalty cards, and several hundred million dollars invested in technology and programs, customer loyalty has not been significantly increased because most consumers belong to multiple programs that offer mostly undifferentiated benefits. Even though the underlying premise of CRM is that loyal customers are less price sensitive, contributing to their potential higher profitability, the major benefit offered by retailers and perceived by consumers in frequent shopper programs is price discounts. While retailers surveyed reported very positive results from their CRM Programs (e.g. increased transactions, shopping frequency, transaction size, overall sales, gross margin, net profit, and return on marketing investment), some of these trends are counterintuitive, perhaps reflecting the misuse of price discounts and other tactics that undermine CRM's foundation. Fast-paced lifestyles limit the appetite of most consumers for targeted marketing activities, generally, and, the efforts of supermarket and CPG companies, specifically, are perceived as intrusive for most consumers. The importance of customer service cannot be overemphasized in determining the success or failure of retailer CRM programs. All the technology and analytical skills in the world will not prevent poor customer service from driving customers to competitors. At the same time, the critical role of store employee turnover in the success or failure of customer service cannot be overemphasized. For most retailers, the customer service issue will not be resolved until employee turnover is controlled. As manufacturers continue to scrutinize the efficiency of their trade spending and retailers increase their dependence on trade promotion dollars, CRM initiatives could be limited by the internal retailer tug of war over how trade funds will be spent. At the same time, manufacturers and retailers must work closely together to meet the needs of their shared customers. By sharing information, learning and resources, the seemingly divergent goals of building both store loyalty and brand loyalty perhaps can be met simultaneously. While funding and technology are the most pervasive barriers to CRM realization, relieving those constraints will be meaningless if the cultural issues that plague most retailers are not resolved. Organizational and cultural issues will prevent the attraction and retention of sufficient people with the technical, analytical, and customer service skills needed at all levels of the organization to make CRM succeed. According to leading academics and business visionaries, the future of CRM involves a dramatic shift in the identification and valuation of assets. Given the similarities in the physical assets such as locations, stores, products, and services across most retailers today, visionary retailers will realize that assets that will give them competitive advantage in the future are their customer relationships or customer equity. Now is the time to begin transforming retail companies into customer-centric organizations driven by the realization that customers are the only truly valuable assets.


Counting the Tiger's Teeth examines a crucial turning point in Nigerian history, the Agbekoya rebellion ("Peasants Reject Poverty") of 1968-70, as chronicled by Toyin Falola, reflecting on his firsthand experiences as a teenage witness to history. Falola, the foremost scholar of Africa of this generation, illuminates the complex factors that led to this armed conflict and details the unfolding of major events and maneuvers. The narrative provides unprecedented, even poetic, access to the social fabric and dynamic cosmology of the farming communities in rebellion as they confronted the modernizing state. The postcolonial government exercised new modes of power that corrupted or neglected traditional forms of authority, ignoring urgent pleas for justice and fairness of the citizenry. What emerges, as the rural communities organized for and executed the war, is a profound story of traditional culture's ingenuity and strength in this epic struggle over the direction of a nation. Falola reveals the rebellion's ambivalent legacy, the uncertainties of which inform even the present historical moment. Like Falola's prizewinning previous memoir, A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt, this engagingly written book performs the essential service of providing a way of walking with ancestors, remembering the dead, reminding the living, and converting orality into a permanent text.


BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to investigate the benefits of a low-volume out-patient whole-body vibration training (WBVT) program on exercise capacity in comparison with a calisthenics training program in subjects with COPD. METHODS: In this single-center randomized controlled trial, 29 subjects with mild to severe COPD were randomized to WBVT or to calisthenics training, including relaxation and breathing retraining in combination with calisthenics exercises. Both groups equally exercised for a duration of 3 months with 2 sessions of 30 min/week. Outcome parameters were 6-min walk distance (6MWD, primary outcome), 5-repetition sit-to-stand test, leg press peak force, Berg balance scale, St George Respiratory Questionnaire, and COPD assessment test. RESULTS: Twenty-seven subjects completed the study (WBVT, n = 14; calisthenics training program, n = 13). Baseline characteristics between groups were comparable. Subjects in the WBVT group significantly improved median (interquartile range) 6MWD (+105 [45.5–133.5] m, P = .001), sit-to-stand test (−2.3 [−3.1 to −1.3] s, P = .001), peak force (28.7 [16.7–33.3] kg, P = .001), and Berg balance scale (1.5 [0.0–4.0] points, P = .055). Changes in 6MWD, sit-to-stand test, and leg press peak force were also found to be significantly different between groups in favor of the WBVT group. Only the between-group difference of the COPD assessment test score was in favor of the calisthenics training group (P = .02). CONCLUSIONS: A low-volume WBVT program resulted in significantly and clinically relevant larger improvements in exercise capacity compared with calisthenics exercises in subjects with mild to severe COPD. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration DRKS9706.)


The removal of two hydropower dams announced by the French government in November 2009 would have been an unprecedented operation at European scale due to their dimensions (36 and 16 m high). But this project has been strongly criticized at local level by elected officials and users. The Actor Network Theory is used to reconstitute the successive stages of the consultation process, from the first discussions about the future of the dams (2005) to the downgrading of the project (2016), finally leading to a simple draining of the lake and inspection of the dam. The ANT approach and the methodology based on stakeholder interviews and participant observation are fruitful to identify the actors – humans and non-humans like salmon or lakes – and to analyse their position in sociotechnical networks pro or against dam removal. This method aims to reconstruct the whole process of setting up the campaign groups and their trajectory and to understand the shaping of representations and values. It shows the opposite visions developed by the opponents and defenders of the dam concerning salmon and running/standing water. The way the dialogue process was conducted also plays a crucial role. Interrupted and characterized by many uncertainties, it failed in allowing a translation between expertise and local knowledge.


Parental mood when staying overnight at hospital with their sick childObjectiveto describe mood in parents, staying with their sick children overnight at the hospital.MethodologyA descriptive design, including 75 parents staying overnight at hospital with their sick child, was used. The parents filled out Mood-scale the morning after staying overnight at the hospital. The Mood-scale is a validated and reliable self-administered instrument measuring six dimensions of mood; control, calmness, social orientation, pleasantness, activation, and extraversion (Sjoberg L, 1979). The study is a part of a larger project, with focus on mood, stress and sleep in parents staying with their sick children overnight at the hospital.ResultsThe result will describe how parents report their total mood and how they report the different dimensions when they stay with their sick children overnight at the hospital. A comparison will be made between the parent´s mood and gender and the child´s age. Data is under analysis and will be presented as preliminary data. ConclusionAccording to UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child, children in hospital have the right to have their parents with them at all times and parents should be offered accommodation and be encouraged to stay. However, the hospital environment, in combination with having a sick child, might affect the parent´s mood, which in turn might affect the ability to handle the situation and the child´s care. Therefore it is of importance to study parental mood and find ways to help the families during their hospital stay.


An analytical model to estimate the performance of an adaptive optics system is presented, together with a review of the subject from a contemporary perspective. The power spectral density and the point spread function of the compensated wavefront are obtained analytically for a Shack-Hartmann based adaptive optics system under von Karman turbulence. While existing numerical models of high accuracy and realism are slow due to massive computation demands, the method presented in this report allows a very fast estimation of the system performance, at a cost of a marginal loss in accuracy due to simplified modeling. An IDL program to compute this numerically provides the possibility of fast on-line system performance evaluation and PSF estimation. This Master's diploma work was done for the Adaptive Optics Team at the European Southern Observatory ESO in Munich, Germany.


Not long ago, marijuana policy was almost exclusively the domain of criminal law and public health specialists; now it touches on nearly every area of the law. The federal ban on marijuana means that state-legal businesses face unique challenges on a host of issues, from trademarks to taxes. The state-federal conflict also continues to raise tricky constitutional problems. Even as business and federalism-based marijuana law issues have multiplied, however, marijuana policy remains primarily a criminal justice concern for now. In 2014, there were 620,000 arrests for marijuana possession alone — well off the high-water mark of approximately 775,000 arrests in 2007, but still a little under half of all drug possession arrests nationwide. One of the main arguments in favor of marijuana legalization, of course, is that arresting so many marijuana offenders is a poor use of law enforcement resources. Not surprisingly, in the states that have legalized marijuana, marijuana arrests have plummeted. The immediate impact of this is clear: criminal justice resources previously devoted to catching and processing marijuana offenders can be put to different uses. But is it possible that removing marijuana from the criminal justice system will also affect policing tactics? The impact of the drug war on Fourth Amendment doctrine has been well documented. The war on drugs led to the proliferation of drug-sniffing dogs and the rise of "pretextual stops," in which the police stop someone ostensibly to issue a traffic ticket but with the ulterior motive of fishing for drugs. This paper asks how marijuana legalization might influence search and seizure doctrine and practice. If the drug war gave rise to a new era of invasive policing, is it possible that marijuana legalization will have the opposite effect? Specifically, could legalization take away some of the legal tools and policing incentives that fuel pretextual stops? To date, the relationship between state marijuana legalization and the Fourth Amendment has received little attention in comparison to issues like federalism or taxes. This essay begins to help fill this gap by examining the how marijuana legalization laws might impact pretextual stops.


Delamination is one of the most common defects occur during drilling of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites. It is an inter-ply failure phenomenon and it has to be minimized to have better quality of drilled holes for structural applications. The current study is conducted to investigate the effect of machining parameters (spindle speed, drill diameter, feed rate and point angle) on delamination while drilling of 60-40 weight % and 55-45 weight % of bi-directional carbon fiber reinforced polymer (BD CFRP) composites with titanium nitride (TiN) coated solid carbide drills. Taguchi L27 orthogonal array is used for determining the experimental results of delamination and the Taguchi methodology is also employed for determining the predicted results of delamination of both BD CFRP composite laminates. The investigation reveals that there is a good concurrence between the experimental and the predicted results of delamination. The main effect plot shows that the drill diameter has a significant effect on delamination as compared to the effect of spindle speed and feed rate. The point angle has an insignificant influence on delamination in drilling of BD CFRP composites. It is evident from the investigation that 45 weight % of resin content of BD CFRP composite gives lesser delamination as compared to the composite containing 40% of resin. Hence, 45-55 weight % of BD CFRP composite laminate can be a better choice for structural applications in industries.


This is a symposium essay dedicated to the late Richard Nagareda and written in response to Adam S. Zimmerman's piece, The Corrective Justice State.As Professor Zimmerman recognizes, the debate over governments acting as plaintiffs and "regulating by deal" has shifted from initial questions over whether litigation produces the best public policy and whether executive officials are acting within the scope of their authority to how government actors should pursue and allocate settlements. Yet, as this first wave of controversy suggests, the slate upon which executive officials currently write is neither clean nor uncontroversial. Instead, this new debate is playing out in an unsettled landscape where those first-order questions about legitimacy remain unresolved.When layered atop the existing controversy over the intermingling of government functions, executive officials' relatively new allocative role may put their actions even further at odds with their traditional regulatory and proprietary functions, particularly when the action yielding the compensation is a public substitute for a private right of action. What principles should guide officials in this new role: traditional tort law, social welfare, or political equality principles such as one person one vote? More specifically, should executive officials look to tort law precepts to govern the allocation and retain concepts such as economic loss and the collateral source rule, or employ a governmental aid aspect, which would suggest a principal of equality that would not vary based on one's income but would consider collateral sources of compensation?Zimmerman suggests that officials have attempted to justify both their regulatory and allocative decisions with ill-suited corrective justice principles that translate poorly from the private to the public sphere. Despite reservations about whether regulation through litigation results in the best policies or offers democratic checks, he seems more willing to accept executive officials' increased litigation role in the wake of Congressional failings and the difficulty of certifying a private class action. He thus tailors his reform proposals to target the government's allocative function, suggesting ways to improve legitimacy and transparency in distributing recoveries, whatever the guiding principle might be. Still, certain concerns and questions linger. First, Zimmerman narrows his focus to the second generation question of allocation, even though he raises and dismisses first-generation concerns over whether executive officials are properly acting within the scope of their authority and whether the regulatory solutions they generate through litigation are legitimate and optimal. Shoring up back-end allocation procedures, however, does not alleviate first-generation legitimacy questions or regulatory concerns. Second, Zimmerman opts not to iron out overarching systemic problems like legislative stalemates or mounting difficulty in certifying class actions, preferring instead (or perhaps more realistically) to work within the circumstances that prompt executive action. Yet, truly legitimizing process and adhering to corrective justice principles would require resolving systemic concerns about who should litigate and who should regulate. Finally, given concerns that judges already "rubber stamp" class-action settlements and that parties tend to find innovative ways to gerrymander votes and stakeholder input in areas like bankruptcy, one might question the effectiveness of Zimmerman's proposals for enhancing due process when allocating state recovery to affected citizens.


A low-background germanium spectrometer has been installed and is being operated in an ultra-low background shield (the Gator facility) at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy (LNGS). With an integrated rate of ~ 0.16 events/min in the energy range between 100-2700 keV, the background is comparable to those of the world's most sensitive germanium detectors. After a detailed description of the facility, its background sources as well as the calibration and efficiency measurements are introduced. Two independent analysis methods are described and compared using examples from selected sample measurements. The Gator facility is used to screen materials for XENON, GERDA, and in the context of next-generation astroparticle physics facilities such as DARWIN.


This paper presents the popular backup/archival service developed and operated in Poland by members of the PIONIER network consortium and its example application for outsourcing of the archival of the network traffic in the national academic network. The service is built upon the National Data Storage (NDS) system architecture deployed in the redundant, high-end, geographically distributed infrastructure of servers, network and data storage systems built within the confines of the PLATON project. The details of the NDS architecture and its features are discussed in the paper including the system components, their functionality and the system scalability aspects. The paper also presents how the NDS architecture is deployed in the data storage infrastructure of the PLATON project, with an extensive usage of servers and storage virtualization technologies. We discuss how the NDS system instantiation allows for flexible set up of the multiple instances of the popular backup/archival service, which can address various, often contradictory requirements of the service users, while sharing a common pool of physical resources. As an example the system set up for outsourcing the archival of the PIONIER network traffic is presented.


This thesis describes the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and the evaluation of them as tips of atomic force microscope (AFM) probes. Both arc-discharge and CVD grown nanotubes were investigated as AFM tips. Two methods were used to produce nanotube tipped AFM probes: (i) nanotubes were directly grown on the apex of AFM probes by CVD and (ii) pre-grown nanotubes were mechanically attached onto the apex of AFM probes. The first part of the thesis describes experiments that sought to control the growth of carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition. The effects of various parameters e.g. catalyst, the carbon source, the addition of hydrogen and the growth temperature, on carbon nanotube growth were investigated. Ethylene was found to lead to better quality nanotubes than the acetylene. Grown nanotubes' quality was found to improve upon flow of hydrogen during the synthesis. Nanotubes synthesized on 3 nm iron film at 840°C using ethylene and hydrogen led to utilizable carbon nanotube tipped AFM probes. The second part of the thesis focuses on the mechanical production of nanotube tipped AFM probes in high resolution electron microscopes using nanomanipulators. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was found to be more convenient than transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to carry out the nanomanipulation process. Both arc-discharge and CVD grown nanotubes were successfully attached onto the AFM probes using a custom made nanomanipulator. Nanotubes were glued onto the probes by focused electron beam (FEB) induced amorphous carbon deposits. FEB irradiation deposited amorphous carbon performed more reliable attachment on CVD nanotubes than the arc-discharge nanotubes. The last part of the thesis describes tapping mode AFM measurements done using nanotube tipped AFM probes. Different nanotube tipped probes were investigated as AFM tips for scanning colloidal gold particles with different diameters and gratings from Digital Instruments™ AFMs. High resolution AFM images were obtained by arc-discharge nanotube tips. CVD grown nanotubes were shown to be more resilient to tip crashes than the arc-discharge grown nanotubes. However, all the AFM images acquired from the scans by CVD nanotubes had the same kind of ringing artifact, in good agreement with a previously reported data about the artifacts of the CVD nanotube tipped AFM probes. Open ends of the CVD nanotubes, lack of crystallinity and the defects in their structure are suggested to be the reason for these artifacts.


From Roman burial rites to the horrors of the plague, from the founding of the great Victorian cemeteries to the development of cremation and the current approach of metropolitan society towards death and bereavement -- including more recent trends to displays of collective grief and the cult of mourning, such as that surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales -- NECROPOLIS: LONDON AND ITS DEAD offers a vivid historical narrative of this great city's attitude to going the way of all flesh. As layer upon layer of London soil reveals burials from pre-historic and medieval times, the city is revealed as one giant grave, filled with the remains of previous eras -- pagan, Roman, medieval, Victorian. This fascinating blend of archaeology, architecture and anecdote includes such phenomena as the rise of the undertaking trade and the pageantry of state funerals; public executions and bodysnatching. Ghoulishly entertaining and full of fascinating nuggets of information, Necropolis leaves no headstone unturned in its exploration of our changing attitudes to the deceased among us. Both anecdotal history and cultural commentary, Necropolis will take its place alongside classics of the city such as Peter Ackroyd's LONDON.


Geologists, physicists and ecologists currently promote the idea of a post-Holocene epoch – the Anthropocene. As a result of constant innovation and modernisation in the fields of engineering, natural science, management studies and environmental studies there has been a growing awareness of the intrinsic interaction between humankind and the environment. Humankind has become part of the environmental dynamics, to the extent that they are literally able to change ecosystems. Nowhere is the impact more evident than in the anthropogenic engagement with the hydrosphere – from the smallest pool of water to the earth's atmosphere. Comprehensive infrastructure development in water and sanitation, the growing trend to seek additional resources in the form of groundwater, desalinated seawater, and recycled wastewater, as well as special attention being given to capturing and preserving rainwater, bear evidence of a timely response to climate change, population growth and rapid development in many water-stressed regions of the world. The purpose of the book is to provide a historical overview of the manner in which South Africa's water resources have been governed from a time when the Union of South Africa was formed, in 1910, up to 2008, a time of a growing global awareness of the potential impact that climate change may have on water resources in a key region of southern Africa, notable for increasing levels of aridity and more erratic rainfall patterns. This focus on the history of water affairs in South Africa makes it possible for scholars to comprehend the contemporary transitions made in the country's water governance system since the establishment in 2014 of the Department of Water and Sanitation. The focus is on the Water–Energy–Food nexus, a strategy which holistically contemplates the governance and use of water from the perspective of the interconnection between water, energy and food as resources.


A weaving drawdown is a rectangular grid of black and white squares with at least one black and one white square in each row and column. A pattern results from vertical and horizontal translations of the defining grid. Any such grid defines a tiling pattern. However, from a weaving point of view, some of these grids define actual fabrics while others correspond to collections of threads that fall apart. This article addresses that issue, along with a discussion of binary representations of fabric structures. The article also catalogs all weaving (or tiling) patterns defined by grids having three distinct columns and three to six distinct rows, and groups these patterns into design families based on weaving symmetries.


Abstract Liability for causing or failing to mitigate climate change has long been proposed as an alternative, or backstop, to lagging international cooperation. Thus far, there has been very limited success in holding governments or individuals responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are considered the primary cause of anthropogenic climate change. The recent landmark decision in Urgenda Foundation v. Government of the Netherlands (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment) breaks with this tradition. In June 2015, the Dutch District Court (The Hague) held that the current climate policies of the government are not sufficiently ambitious for it to fulfil its duty of care towards Dutch society. The judgment, and the accompanying order for the government to adopt stricter GHG reduction policies, raises important questions about the future of climate change liability litigation, the separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature, and the effect of litigation on international climate change negotiation and cooperation.


Decreasing turnaround time is a paramount objective in clinical diagnosis. We evaluated the discrimination power of Raman spectroscopy when analyzing microcolonies from nine bacterial and one yeast species directly on solid culture medium after a shortened incubation time of 6 h (compared to 24 hour for macrocolonies). This approach, that minimizes sample preparation and culture time, would allow resuming culture after identification to perform downstream antibiotic susceptibility testing.


This book presents a new paradigm of natural language grammar analysis, based on adposition as the key concept, considered a general connection between two morphemes - or group of morphemes. The adpositional paradigm considers the morpheme as the basic unit to represent morphosyntax, taken as a whole, in terms of constructions, while semantics and pragmatics are treated accordingly. All linguistic observations within the book can be described through the methods and tools of Constructive Mathematics, so that the modelling becomes formally feasible. A full description in category-theoretic terms of the formal model is provided in the Appendix. A lot of examples taken from natural languages belonging to different typological areas are offered throughout the volume, in order to explain and validate the modeling - with special attention given to ergativity. Finally, a first real-world application of the paradigm is given, i.e., conversational analysis of the transcript of therapeutic settings in terms of constructive speech acts. The main goal of this book is to broaden the scope of Linguistics by including Constructive Mathematics in order to deal with known topics such as grammaticalization, children's speech, language comparison, dependency and valency from a different perspective. It primarily concerns advanced students and researchers in the field of Theoretical and Mathematical Linguistics but the audience can also include scholars interested in applications of Topos Theory in Linguistics.


This paper examines the impact of the movements in the real exchange rate on employment and output in U.S. manufacturing industries. We use a simple model of supply and demand to estimate the elasticity of manufacturing employment and output with respect to the real exchange rate, at different levels of aggregation. The data are quarterly, covering two time periods -- 1963:1 to 1985:1 and 1972:1 to 1985:1. The employment estimates include 20 manufacturing sectors at the 2-digit SIC level, 125 sectors at the 3-digit SIC level, 176 sectors at the 4-digit SIC level. In addition, we disaggregate manufacturing employment regionally by the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. The output estimates include 80 sectors of industrial production at different levels of aggregation. We check for consistency by considering the impact of aggregation among the 2-,3-, and 4-digit employment estimates, and by comparing the estimates for employment to those for output. We find that exchange rate movements have had important effects on the manufacturing sector, and in particular, the durable goods sector, including primary metals, fabricated metal products, and non-electrical machinery. Other sectors that suffer large employment loses when the dollar appreciates are stone, clay and glass products, transportation, instruments, textiles and apparel, chemicals, rubber and leather goods.


The resource model of ego-depletion is unable to account for the results of several ego-depletion studies, whereas a recent mechanistic revision by Inzlicht and Schmeichel (2012) has focused on the role of attention and motivation in an effort to explain the phenomenon. Assessment of attention's role in restrained and unrestrained eaters may provide evidence that motivation and attention work in tandem to affect one's ability to exert self-control. In this experiment, collegeaged females participated in two studies to examine the role of attention in ego-depletion effects. Study 1 evaluated the effect of ego depletion on attention via a dot probe task, while Study 2 assessed the effect of attentional bias on self-regulatory ability during an eating task. No egodepletion effect was observed to affect attention toward reward cues or away from self-control cues in the first study, with ancillary evidence suggesting that the ego-depletion induction task was unable to induce a depletive effect which may have driven the observed results. The results of the second study indicate that orienting individuals toward reward cues impacted only the restrained eaters, thus implicating both attention and motivation in guiding eating behavior which is consistent with the components of the mechanistic revision of ego-depletion.


This thesis set out to describe how electronic portfolios support the social construction of
knowledge by healthcare students. It will do this by drawing on the various forms and functions of the students' electronic portfolios', their associated socially constructive processes and artefacts, and healthcare students' views on how electronic portfolios are used on their courses. These factors are also considered alongside the impact of the sociohistorical and socio technical developments of electronic portfolios and healthcare course requirements.

A broad grounded theory approach was used to generate substantive theory grounded in data gathered from a sample of UK and North American students (n=82). Data was gathered through an analysis of electronic portfolios (n=25), an online questionnaire (n=52), and in-depth interviews with students (n=16).

The research found a limited number of socially constructive processes and artefacts that
are used within healthcare courses. These processes and artefacts supported the social
construction of knowledge within the students' electronic portfolios.
Even though healthcare students were not at ease with the limitations of their electronic
portfolios they found that the pedagogical use of the electronic portfolio defined the range
and extent of the learning they were required to demonstrate.
A range of factors, internal and external to the electronic portfolio, determined the use of
the electronic portfolios. This included the student's confidence with using technology, the
requirements of the professional bodies and the healthcare courses that incorporated them,
and the skills of academics in using the electronic portfolios.
The students found the electronic portfolios format allowed them to use a wider range of
digital artefacts (i.e. images, video and audio) that were not available in paper portfolios.
They also thought the integration of the Internet into their electronic portfolios meant that
their portfolio was safe in a digital cloud based repository.
The research found that despite the widespread use of Web 2.0 by most of the students in
their personal lives, this was not incorporated into students' electronic portfolios. This
appears to be because of the lack of Web 2.0 functionality in the electronic portfolio
software, and the lack of Web 2.0 knowledge in those implementing the electronic portfolios
in the healthcare courses.
This impact of limited processes and artefacts, and failure to use the potential of the
Internet and Web 2.0 has a negative impact on the students' abilities to socially construct
their knowledge within electronic portfolios.

Recommendations are made that future research identifies additional developments in
software and hardware that can increase the socially constructive processes and artefacts
that are incorporated into electronic portfolios. These developments must be done by
consulting student users, software developers, educational technicians and academics.
Finally, recommendations are made that the theory generated in the research is applied to
larger samples across a wider range of healthcare student professions. The ongoing
research will ensure that the theory continues to respond to ongoing hardware and software
developments within the socio-historical and socio-technical student environment.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effects of artesunate on organ injury and dysfunction associated with hemorrhagic shock (HS) in the rat.

BACKGROUND
HS is still a common cause of death in severely injured patients and is characterized by impairment of organ perfusion, systemic inflammatory response, and multiple organ failure. There is no specific therapy that reduces organ injury/dysfunction. Artesunate exhibits pharmacological actions beyond its antimalarial activity, such as anticancer, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory effects.

METHODS
Rats were submitted to HS. Mean arterial pressure was reduced to 30 mm Hg for 90 minutes, followed by resuscitation. Rats were randomly treated with artesunate (2.4 or 4.8 mg/kg i.v.) or vehicle upon resuscitation. Four hours later, parameters of organ injury and dysfunction were assessed.

RESULTS
Artesunate attenuated the multiple organ injury and dysfunction caused by HS. Pathway analysis of RNA sequencing provided good evidence to support an effect of artesunate on the Akt-survival pathway, leading to downregulation of interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase 1. Using Western blot analysis, we confirmed that treatment of HS rats with artesunate enhanced the phosphorylation (activation) of Protein kinase B (Akt) and endothelial nitric oxide synthase and the phosphorylation (inhibition) of glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β). Moreover, artesunate attenuated the HS-induced activation of nuclear factor kappa B and reduced the expression of proinflammatory proteins (inducible nitric oxide synthase, tumor necrosis factor-α, and interleukin 6).

CONCLUSIONS
Artesunate attenuated the organ injury/dysfunction associated with HS by a mechanism that involves the activation of the Akt-endothelial nitric oxide synthase survival pathway, and the inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3β and nuclear factor kappa B. A phase II clinical trial evaluating the effects of good manufacturing practice-artesunate in patients with trauma and severe hemorrhage is planned.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 License, where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0.


The application of Internet technology to the banking industry has transformed the traditional practice into a new era of convenient banking at your home or office with a touch of a button! This concept is new and practical to people who have the knowledge and means to accept this convenient and safe mode of operation. The objective is to survey all the local banks in Malaysia and observe what products and services they wish to offer to the community. A simple online survey of their available websites allowed one to view all the available transactions and activities connected to electronic banking or internet banking. The 10 local banks reviewed indicated that the most popular services and products available online are Current Account, Fixed Deposit, Saving Account, Home Loans and Credit Cards. Perhaps, the survey has proved that these facilities are the bread and butter for all local banks. Interestingly, all local banks have more than 80 types of transaction items stated on their websites. Not all of them can be practically done through the wireless technology; only a handful of them are acceptable to those who prefer the push of a button on the keyboard of the personal computer (PC). Nonetheless, the Internet or Web technology will pave the new wave of banking to the consumer who is knowledgeable in the area of the Information and Communicative Technology (ICT) in the local environment.


Le Corbusier's Pavilion for Zurich uses numerous handwritten documents, drawings, and papers to trace the history of Le Corbusier's last built work. This dwelling, which is also a museum, was initiated by Zurich gallery owner Heidi Weber. With its abstract forms and colors, it represents an intellectual legacy of the famous architect in which the further development of architecture as envisaged by Le Corbusier is clearly legible. From the first ideas and sketches from and beyond, the genesis of this exceptional building - the completion of which the architect did not live to see - is presented with lavish use of illustrations and documents. This book explains for the first time the significance of the pavilion, which differs strongly from the beton brut of Le Corbusier's late work, in terms of its position as one of the architect's central and forward-looking works.


In spite of evidence for positive diversity-productivity relationships increasing plant diversity has highly variable effects on the performance of individual plant species, but the mechanisms behind these differential responses are far from being understood. To gain deeper insights into the physiological responses of individual plant species to increasing plant diversity we performed systematic untargeted metabolite profiling on a number of herbs derived from a grassland biodiversity experiment (Jena Experiment). The Jena Experiment comprises plots of varying species number (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 60) and number and composition of functional groups (1 to 4; grasses, legumes, tall herbs, small herbs). In this study the metabolomes of two tall-growing herbs (legume: Medicago x varia; non-legume: Knautia arvensis) and three small-growing herbs (legume: Lotus corniculatus; non-legumes: Bellis perennis, Leontodon autumnalis) in plant communities of increasing diversity were analyzed. For metabolite profiling we combined gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS) and UPLC coupled to FT-ICR-MS (LC-FT-MS) analyses from the same sample. This resulted in several thousands of detected m/z-features. ANOVA and multivariate statistical analysis revealed 139 significantly changed metabolites (30 by GC-TOF-MS and 109 by LC-FT-MS). The small-statured plants L. autumnalis, B. perennis and L. corniculatus showed metabolic response signatures to increasing plant diversity and species richness in contrast to tall-statured plants. Key-metabolites indicated C- and N-limitation for the non-leguminous small-statured species B. perennis and L. autumnalis, while the metabolic signature of the small-statured legume L. corniculatus indicated facilitation by other legumes. Thus, metabolomic analysis provided evidence for negative effects of resource competition on the investigated small-statured herbs that might mechanistically explain their decreasing performance with increasing plant diversity. In contrast, taller species often becoming dominant in mixed plant communities did not show modified metabolite profiles in response to altered resource availability with increasing plant diversity. Taken together, our study demonstrates that metabolite profiling is a strong diagnostic tool to assess individual metabolic phenotypes in response to plant diversity and ecophysiological adjustment.


Where do library directors, and the librarians who perform various management functions as part of their work, receive their management training? A review of the curricula of 48 graduate library school programs accredited by the American Library Association revealed that, for the most part, library managers are trained on the job. This paper presents the results of a two-part exploratory study focused on the research question: Do ALA-accredited graduate library education programs offer their students the knowledge they will need to enter leadership and management positions within the library profession? Of the 48 programs reviewed, 43.8% did not require management-related courses. A review of 24 program syllabi revealed that 58.3% of the management courses included human resource management concepts and 54.2% included strategy, planning and process. The results suggest that the library profession has yet to agree on the requirements for preparing future librarians for managerial positions and leadership roles. Keywords: management education, library education, library directors, library management, qualitative research Introduction: Librarianship and the Discipline of Management The library director position is the prevalent managerial position within the library profession. Library directors must deal with all the personnel decisions related to full-time, hourly and student employees. Depending on the organizational structure of the institution, library directors interact with union and/or non-union employees. They must be aware of various human resource related topics, such as reasonable accommodation, sexual harassment, fair labor standards, equal employment opportunity provisions, and more. Library directors must provide training and supervision of the professional librarians, non-professional staff, and student assistants in their organizations. Library directors must make personnel decisions involving recruiting, hiring, training, evaluating and terminating staff. They must also make recommendations for the implementation of various personnel policy decisions. In addition, other members of the professional library staff work in a broad range of institutions and perform a range of functions. In the performance of these multitudinous functions, there exist facets of management tasks and roles. This study seeks to answer the question: Do ALA-accredited graduate library education programs offer their students the knowledge they will need to enter leadership and management positions within the library profession? Literature Review A review of the literature suggests that the library profession has been debating the need to increase the professional and management-related preparation for its library school graduates. An increase in the level of research focused on leadership is noted. Hernon and Schwartz (2008) set out to "stimulate the amount and type of research on the topic appearing in the literature of library and information science" (p. 243). Hansen (2004) suggested that the debate over what is needed in library education has been ongoing for many years. In the past, prior to the shift to master's level training for librarians, prominent library directors had developed their own in-house library education programs. The transition to master's level training also documents the steps toward professionalization for individuals working in the library field (Hansen, 2004). Elgohary (2003) described the debate on the effectiveness of library programs in preparing individuals for professional careers. Specific focus was placed on whether the job market demands are being met by the curriculum offered in graduate library programs. Chandler (1994) sought to understand what competences were expected from the individuals earning a graduate library degree who intended to work within a law library. Chandler's study revealed a consensus among librarians and professional experts. …


This paper addresses the problem of segmenting a time-series with respect to changes in the mean value or in the variance. The first case is when the time data is modeled as a sequence of independent and normal distributed random variables with unknown, possibly changing, mean value but fixed variance. The main assumption is that the mean value is piecewise constant in time, and the task is to estimate the change times and the mean values within the segments. The second case is when the mean value is constant, but the variance can change. The assumption is that the variance is piecewise constant in time, and we want to estimate change times and the variance values within the segments. To find solutions to these problems, we will study an l1 regularized maximum likelihood method, related to the fused lasso method and l1 trend filtering, where the parameters to be estimated are free to vary at each sample. To penalize variations in the estimated parameters, the l1-norm of the time difference of the parameters is used as a regularization term. This idea is closely related to total variation denoising. The main contribution is that a convex formulation of this variance estimation problem, where the parametrization is based on the inverse of the variance, can be formulated as a certain l1 mean estimation problem. This implies that results and methods for mean estimation can be applied to the challenging problem of variance segmentation/estimation.


We show that ripples observed in free-standing graphene sheets can be explained as a consequence of adsorbed OH molecules sitting on random sites. The adsorbates cause the bonds between carbon atoms to lengthen slightly. Static buckles then result from a mechanism like the one that leads to buckling of leaves. Buckles caused by roughly 20% coverage of adsorbates are consistent with experimental observations.


It is virtually a truism in American politics that a focus on some issue areas during election campaigns, like national security or traditional values, redounds to the benefit of Republicans, while emphasis on other areas, like education or social security, benefits Democrats. Political scientists refer to this phenomenon as "issue ownership" (Petrocik 1996, Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994). To the extent that one or the other party benefits disproportionately from media emphasis on particular issues during election campaigns, it is possible that, whether intended or not, media coverage may disproportionately benefit one or the other party. If so, this would appear to be an important potential form of bias. Baum and Gussin (2004) find that typical individuals use media outlet labels as a heuristic, to assess the validity of information presented by different outlets. Liberals tended to "find" a conservative bias in outlets they believed, ex ante, have a conservative slant, even if the content was actually from an outlet that they believed to have a liberal slant. The opposite was true for conservatives. We extend that research by investigating how issue ownership and the Hostile Media Outlet Phenomenon mediate, separately and in interaction, voter perceptions of media campaign coverage. We look at the effects of story selection on individuals' perceptions concerning which party benefits more from media issue coverage. To do so, we conducted an experimental content analysis in which we asked subjects to code transcripts and articles, from eight major network and cable news broadcasts and newspapers, about the 2000 presidential campaign. We modified the transcripts and articles to create three distinct sets of treatment stimuli. One set correctly identified the source of the material. The second incorrectly identified the source and, in the third, all identifying elements were removed. We investigate whether individuals with differing political preferences are more or less likely to view certain issues as favorable to one or the other party, as well as the extent to which their propensity to do so is mediated by media outlets' "brand names," independent of the true sources of news coverage. We find that, except when they have strong prior beliefs about the ideological orientation of a media outlet, our subjects rely far more on issue ownership as a heuristic than on the hostile media heuristic. However, when they do have strong prior beliefs regarding outlet ideology, the opposite pattern prevails, with subjects relying on the hostile media heuristic to evaluate news content.


Literature dealing with civil-military coordination (CIMIC) has mostly been concerned with the relationship between humanitarian actors and their military counterparts. In the United Nations (UN) peace operations context, however, the humanitarian-military interface is only one of several civil-military relationships. This paper is concerned with the question whether a different set of principles and guidelines is required for civil-military coordination in UN peace operations. The question is relevant because almost all the UN principles and guidelines for civil-military coordination have been drafted for the humanitarian-military interface, and most have been generated by the humanitarian community from a humanitarian perspective. In contrast, most contemporary UN peace operations are mandated to manage post-conflict peacebuilding transitions that occur in several phases and that involve many different civilian actors, including but not limited to the humanitarian emergency phase and the humanitarian community. The paper argues that UN CIMIC actions can make a positive contribution to the overall peacebuilding process if the military components' resources, energy and goodwill can be positively channelled in support of the overall mission objectives.


This paper presents a game theory analysis of the SEC's June 2013 proposals for reform of Money Market Funds (MMFs). Game theory is relevant to this policy debate as regulators have depicted investor behavior using terminology of shareholder runs and first mover advantage – a framework classically employed in game models of bank runs. The paper demonstrates that when implemented properly, the Fee and/or Gate alternative would effectively halt and even prevent runs from taking place. However, the alternative of moving to a fluctuating net asset value would neither halt nor prevent a run.


Dot-in-well (DWELL) quantum-dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) [DWELL-QDIPs] are subjects of research as potentially superior alternatives to prior QDIPs. Heretofore, there has not existed a reliable method for fabricating quantum dots (QDs) having precise, repeatable dimensions. This lack has constituted an obstacle to the development of uniform, high-performance, wavelength-tailorable QDIPs and of focal-plane arrays (FPAs) of such QDIPs. However, techniques for fabricating quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) having multiple-quantum- well (MQW) structures are now well established. In the present research on DWELL-QDIPs, the arts of fabrication of QDs and QWIPs are combined with a view toward overcoming the deficiencies of prior QDIPs. The longer-term goal is to develop focal-plane arrays of radiationhard, highly uniform arrays of QDIPs that would exhibit high performance at wavelengths from 8 to 15 m when operated at temperatures between 150 and 200 K. Increasing quantum efficiency is the key to the development of competitive QDIP-based FPAs. Quantum efficiency can be increased by increasing the density of QDs and by enhancing infrared absorption in QD-containing material. QDIPs demonstrated thus far have consisted, variously, of InAs islands on GaAs or InAs islands in InGaAs/GaAs wells. These QDIPs have exhibited low quantum efficiencies because the numbers of QD layers (and, hence, the areal densities of QDs) have been small typically five layers in each QDIP. The number of QD layers in such a device must be thus limited to prevent the aggregation of strain in the InAs/InGaAs/GaAs non-lattice- matched material system. The approach being followed in the DWELL-QDIP research is to embed In- GaAs QDs in GaAs/AlGaAs multi-quantum- well (MQW) structures (see figure). This material system can accommodate a large number of QD layers without excessive lattice-mismatch strain and the associated degradation of photodetection properties. Hence, this material system is expected to enable achievement of greater densities of QDs and correspondingly greater quantum efficiencies. The host GaAs/AlGaAs MQW structures are highly compatible with mature fabrication processes that are now used routinely in making QWIP FPAs. The hybrid InGaAs-dot/GaAs/AlGaAs-well system also offers design advantages in that the effects of variability of dot size can be partly compensated by engineering quantum-well sizes, which can be controlled precisely.


Wheat head blight (Fusarium graminearum Schwab) can dramatically reduce grain yield and quality. Breeding for resistance is an effective measure of disease control. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars with various levels of Type II resistance have been reported worldwide; however, the genetic relationships among the cultivars with different origins are not well characterized. Sixty-five wheat cultivars from eight countries varying in head blight resistance levels were evaluated for Type II resistance and for genetic diversity on the basis of 322 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and 19 simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker alleles. Cluster analysis using AFLP and SSR markers indicated that two Japanese landraces and most of the cultivars that relate to 'Ning 7840' aarry the Ning 7840 marker alleles that are tightly linked to the major quantitative trait locus (QTL) on chromosome 3BS. However, banding patterns of the markers linked to the major QTL in Ning 7840 were different from most of the Chinese landraces and those that originated from countries other than China and Japan. DNA fingerprinting data suggested that Chinese landrace Taiwan Wheat may be the donor of the QTL on chromosome 3BS. Combining the major QTL from Ning 7840 and other sources may facilitate pyramiding of different QTL. Cluster analysis and principal coordinate analysis (PCA) based on AFLPs and SSRs provided the best estimate of genetic relationships among wheat accessions studied. The result indicates that U.S. cultivars are more closely related to cultivars from Europe and Argentina than cultivars from Asia; therefore, integrating head blight resistance QTL from Asian sources into US wheat may increase the genetic diversity in U.S. wheat.


In this study, lysozyme-based magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (Lyz-MMIPs) for selective recognition and magnetic separation of lysozyme in human urine were prepared via surface imprinting technology. The morphology and structural properties of the resultant Lyz-MMIPs were characterized by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermogravimetry (TG), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The results showed that the Lyz-MMIPs exhibited a uniform core-shell structure and favorable magnetic properties with a saturation magnetization of 14.8 emu g-1. To obtain the best selectivity and binding performance, the pH value of adsorption solution was investigated in detail. Under the optimized conditions, the Lyz-MMIPs possessed high binding and specific recognition capacity, as well as fast binding kinetics and phase separation rates. Moreover, the saturation binding capacity of Lyz-MMIPs reached 124.3 mg g-1, which was nearly 3.2 times that of lysozyme-based magnetic non-imprinted polymers (Lyz-MNIPs). In addition, the selectivity and reusability experiments showed that the Lyz-MMIPs displayed significant selectivity and favorable reusability. Furthermore, the Lyz-MMIPs were successfully applied for the determination and separation of lysozyme in human urine with satisfactory recovery rates. Above all, the synthetic process was quite simple and this strategy may provide a versatile approach for the fabrication of well-defined molecularly imprinted polymers on magnetic nanoparticles for the analysis of complicated matrixes.


The notion of sustainable consumption has gained significant traction in recent decades, in parallel with unprecedented growth in global consumption and recognition of its catastrophic environmental impacts. In this context, there is a predominant generational narrative of frugality versus excess, with younger generations often negatively stereotyped as increasingly consumer-driven and environmentally destructive. We argue that it is important to develop a more nuanced understanding of generational difference, drawing on findings from a cross-generational study in Sheffield, UK, involving participants from the ages of 16–96. The aim of this research was to explore how citizens relate to the idea of sustainable consumption across generations, acknowledging but also seeking to look beyond the common tropes of thrift and the throwaway society. We draw on theories of intergenerational value change and consider how insights from the Common Cause framework, which encourages pro-environmental campaigners to make broad appeals to engage a range of intrinsic values, may be applied to sustainable consumption. In doing so, we reflect on the merits of adopting an expansive definition of sustainable consumption that encompasses the three pillars of sustainability – economic stability, environmental protection and human wellbeing – and identify insights from our research for campaigners and policy makers interested in working with intrinsic values to build common cause across generations.


Some specific designs on the electron blocking layer (EBL) of blue InGaN LEDs are investigated numerically in order to improve the hole injection efficiency without losing the blocking capability of electrons. Simulation results show that polarization-induced downward band bending is mitigated in these redesigned EBLs and, hence, the hole injection efficiency increases markedly. The optical performance and efficiency droop are also improved, especially under the situation of high current injection.


ABSTRACT Purwanitasari, Lili. 2010. Using Comic Strips to Improve the Ability of Students of SMP Negeri 2 Malang in Writing Recount Text. Thesis, English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: Anik N.Wulyani, S.Pd, M.Pd. Key words: comic strips, recount text, writing ability Writing may be considered as the most difficult and complicated skill among the four language skills. Nevertheless, it is should be mastered by Junior High School (JHS) students. According to the questionnaires given to the students in the preliminary study, it was found that the major problems they faced were how to develop ideas, how to choose appropriate words, and how to write sentence grammatically and to write spelling correctly. The teacher also never gave model of how to write recount because writing activities in class were dominated by arranging jumble sentences and jumble words. To solve the problems, comic strips was introduced to be applied in teaching writing. The media was chosen because it was easy to apply. Based on previous studies, it was found that the media that using picture such as comic strips was effective to help students to develop and organize ideas in writing composition. The objective of this study was to improve students' ability in writing recount, which was focused on the improvement of the content, language use and spelling. This study used collaborative classroom action research. The researcher together with the help of classroom English teacher designed the lesson plans and set the criteria of success. The classroom English teacher acted as the observer during the teaching and learning process while the researcher taught in the class. The research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of two meetings which covered: planning an action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting on the observation. The subjects were 38 students of VIII-E in SMP Negeri 2 Malang in 2009/ 2010 academic year. The instruments used to collect the data were interview guides, questionnaires, observation checklist, field notes, and students' final product. The researcher introduced comic strips during the implementation of the action. It was followed by modeling how to make outlines from comic strips before starting writing, how to write the draft, how to revise the draft, and how to write the final product. In addition, the students are also asked to produce a recount composition through the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising and final version. The result of the research showed that comic strips successfully improved the students' ability in writing recount text especially in terms of content, language use, and spelling. The scores of the students' writing products improve significantly from preliminary study to Cycle I and from Cycle I to Cycle II on content, language use, and spelling. The students' mean scores on content improved from 2.4 in preliminary study to 2.7 in Cycle I and it could reach 3.3 in Cycle II. In addition, the students' mean scores on language use improved from 2.2 in preliminary study to 2.7 in Cycle I and 3.3 in Cycle II. On spelling, the Click to buy NOW! PDF-XCHANGE www.docu-track.com Click to buy NOW! PDF-XCHANGE www.docu-track.comvi students' mean scores also improved from 2.4 in preliminary study to 2.7 in Cycle I and 3.1 in Cycle II. Based on the result of this study, it is suggested that the English teachers to use comic strips in teaching recount writing and other kinds of text types. For the students, it is suggested that they write outline before writing using comic strips especially in generating and developing ideas in writing recount composition. Moreover, further researchers are suggested to conduct research using comic strips for different text types and on different grades and levels of education to see whether this media was effective to solve the problems of writing or not . Click to buy NOW!


Launch of Neurospine, the journal for ASIA SPINE, the tripartite confederation of spine neurosurgical societies in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, is to be commemorated as a truly mile-stone event. The unity and history of friendship of the 3 organizations, the Neurospinal Society of Japan (NSJ), the Korean Spinal Neurosurgery Society (KSNS), and Taiwan Neurosurgical Spine Society (TNSS), are the basis for the historical undertaking. The federation started first as the biennial friendship meeting for spine neurosurgeons in Korea and Japan, created with the initiative of Prof. Hiroshi Nakagawa and Prof. Young Soo Kim and Prof. Jung Keun Suh. The first Korea-Japan Conference on Spinal Surgery was held in 1997 (Nagoya, President: Prof. Hiroshi Nakagawa). Since then the conference has been meeting biennially in Japan and Korea until the 7th one in Nikko Japan in 2007 (President: Phyo Kim). On that occasion, a delegate from Taiwan Neurosurgical Spine Society was officially invited. The executive board held in Nikko decided to make the meeting to be reorganized as a tripartite union including the TNSS. The conference became to meet annually, with rotation among the three countries, and it became to be held in conjunction with annual assembly of each society. The intention was to fixate the union meeting as a strong routine and to improve the attendance. First of such assembly took place in Incheon (2010, President; Prof. Seung Chul Rhim). Enthusiasm among the participants in the meeting was memorable. Some board members, passionate with the prospects of international expansion, discussed for extending recruitments to the countries in the continent and subcontinents. However, prudent and constructive opinions prevailed. An agreement was reached in the board as to the strategy in making firm confederation of the three national societies as priority. To make it a gathering of wider international participation was included as a later secondary scope. Since then, the union, soon renamed ASIA SPINE, has been held following the scheme for 8 years. On the occasion of the board meeting last year in Osaka, an official agenda was raised for creating a common English publication platform for the 3 societies. The idea had been discussed preliminarily between the Presidents and Editors of the Societies in Japan and Korea over the previous years. The primary aim is to make a platform which would archive and publish works of the members of our regional societies and to promote their global transmission. When considering practical means for the aim, the most feasible solution was to enhance and restructure a pre-existing English-language periodical, and that of KSNS appeared to be the foremost candidate. Professor Yong-Eun Cho, then President of KSNS, and Phyo Kim as the President of the Board of Directors of NSJ, had ongoing discussions and brought the issue back to their Societies. Subsequently, after thorough discussions including that for the title, basic consensus for the communal endeavor was reached in the two Societies, as well as in the TNSS. We Neurospine 2018;15(1):5-6. https://doi.org/10.14245/ns.18add.002 Neurospine


In the nucleus, modification of N-terminal arginine residues of glycogen synthase kinase-3β to citrulline prevents the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Citrullination is a posttranslational modification by which arginine is converted to citrulline by members of the family of peptidylarginine deiminases (PADs). PAD4 is the only PAD enzyme with a nuclear localization sequence (NLS), and it is implicated in the citrullination of various histone proteins. Noting that PAD4 is found in breast cancer cells, Stadler et al. investigated the effect of using short hairpin RNA (shRNA) to knock down PAD4 in a human noninvasive breast cancer cell line, MCF7 cells. Knockdown of PAD4 resulted in loss of epithelial markers and epithelial morphology, and an increase in the abundance of the protein vimentin, evidence of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). A search of the proteome for motifs similar to those of histone proteins that undergo citrullination identified glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) as a potential target of PAD4, and experiments with recombinant proteins and transfected cells showed that PAD4 citrullinated GSK-3β at N-terminal arginines. Blocking citrullination of GSK-3β, by expressing a catalytically inactive PAD4 in PAD4-knockdown cells or by mutating the N-terminal arginines of GSK-3β, decreased the nuclear abundance of GSK-3β. Expression of a GSK-3β–NLS construct in PAD4-knockdown cells partially restored their epithelial characteristics. Transforming growth factor–β (TGF-β) signaling, a mediator of EMT, was enhanced in PAD4-knockdown cells compared with that in controls cells, which was partially reversed by expression of GSK-3β–NLS. Injection of PAD4-knockdown cells into nude mice resulted in the formation of tumors that were more invasive than those formed by injection of control MCF7 cells, and the tumors from PAD4-knockdown cells had decreased GSK-3β abundance and increased TGF-β signaling. Histological analysis showed that human invasive breast cancer tissue had decreased PAD4 staining (and decreased GSK-3β abundance) compared with that of normal human breast tissue or tissue from ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Together, these data suggest that citrullination of GSK-3β is required to maintain its nuclear abundance and prevent EMT. S. C. Stadler, C. T. Vincent, V. D. Fedorov, A. Patsialou, B. D. Cherrington, J. J. Wakshlag, S. Mohanan, B. M. Zee, X. Zhang, B. A. Garcia, J. S. Condeelis, A. M. C. Brown, S. A. Coonrod, C. D. Allis, Dysregulation of PAD4-mediated citrullination of nuclear GSK3β activates TGF-β signaling and induces epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 11851–11856 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have exposed the European agricultural sector to a new set of constraints and challenges. The decoupling of direct payments from production is expected to make production decisions more market-oriented as farmers move from mainly subsidy revenue maximization objectives toward profit maximizing behaviour. However, ex-post analyses of the productivity of farms have yet to uncover any evidence of a positive effect of the decoupling policy on farm productivity. Using the Irish, Danish and Dutch farm level data, we identify the extent to which both system and product switching after the introduction of decoupling has occurred and to what extent these changes have contributed to productivity growth in the agriculture. We find some evidence that the decoupling policy had positive significant effects on farm productivity but the product switching behaviour associated with the changes in farm decoupling rates have not led to productivity improvements.


We examined long-term variability of the biological traits of benthic macroinvertebrate communities using data collected annually (20-, 7-, and 8-years in duration, respectively) from three study regions in northern California's mediterranean-climate region. We related temporal variability to several climatic and physical variables representing precipitation and hydrologic conditions, and assessed the stability of biological-trait composition using time-lag regression analysis. We also examined the temporal variability of trait diversity metrics and their relationship to taxa richness. Trait modalities exhibited high temporal variability (∼ 20 % of all trait modalities had a CV > 50 %) and biological-trait composition varied along a gradient from dry (extreme drought) to wet (above average) years. Traits conferring resistance or resilience to drying (e.g. desiccation resistance, aerial respiration) were more common in drought years, whereas traits conferring resistance or resilience to floods (e.g. flattened body shape, drift dispersal) were more common in wet years. Furthermore, prolonged drought and the patterns of increasing or decreasing precipitation over time in the study regions resulted in patterns of directional change in biological-trait composition. Although biological traits had high temporal variation within each region, between-region variation was higher than temporal variation in a single region. As found in other studies, trait diversity and richness metrics were relatively invariable over time despite high taxonomic turnover. However, there was considerable regional variation in trait diversity metrics along a gradient of increasing taxonomic diversity. The four functional metrics studied showed high redundancy. Taxa richness was positively correlated with three functional metrics (trait richness and two trait diversity measures), and trait richness and diversity became saturated taxa richness increased (∼50 taxa). In communities largely controlled by abiotic factors, such as stream invertebrates in mediterranean-climate, high redundancy may be the result of strong filtering of traits at larger spatial scales.


The aim of the current study was to investigate effects of temperature and a mixture of herbicides on the physiological status of the bivalve Mya arenaria. Bivalves acclimated to two temperatures (7 and 18°C) were exposed for 28 d to 0.01 mg/L of a pesticide formulation containing dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4‐D), 2‐(2‐methyl‐4‐chlorophenoxy) propionic acid (mecoprop), and 3,6‐dichloro‐2‐methoxybenzoic acid (dicamba). At days 7, 14, and 28, mortality, immune parameters (hemocyte number, phagocytic activity, and efficiency), biomarkers of oxidative stress (catalase [CAT] and superoxide dismutase [SOD] activities and malondialdehyde [MDA] content), the metabolic enzyme cytochrome C oxidase (CCO), a biomarker of pesticide exposure (acetylcholinesterase [AChE]), and the activity of an enzyme related to gametogenesis (aspartate transcarbamylase [ATCase]) were monitored in clam tissues. Gonadosomatic index (GSI), condition factor (CF), and sex were also assessed. In clams acclimated to 7°C, exposure to pesticide enhanced CCO activity and CF and decreased MDA content, hemocyte number, CAT, and SOD activities. In clams kept at 18°C, pesticide effects appeared minor compared with samples kept at 7°C. In bivalves acclimated to 18°C, CCO, SOD, and ATCase activity and MDA content were enhanced, and hemocyte number, CAT, and AchE activities and phagocytosis were suppressed. In samples exposed to pesticides, increased temperature enhanced MDA content and CCO and SOD activity and suppressed hemocyte number and CAT and AchE activity. A gradual sexual maturation was observed in both sexes through experimental time, but females had a higher sensitivity to temperature and pesticides compared to males. Increased temperature altered the ability of the sentinel species Mya arenaria to respond to pesticide exposures. Further work is needed to understand the impacts of increasing temperature on the whole St. Lawrence estuary ecosystem. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2011;30:132–141. © 2010 SETAC


With Tests and one-day internationals now joined by Twenty20 games, there is more international cricket than ever before. These games captivate a television audience of tens of millions throughout the year and throughout the world. But how do you keep track of all the players? The ESPN Cricinfo Guide to International Cricket is the answer. The 2010 edition of this already popular annual paperback will contain crisply-written profiles of everyone expected to appear in a Test match in 2010. Published in November 2009, at the beginning of international cricket's busiest time of year, this is the only guide that tells you HOW they play as well as what they've achieved. The 200 players featured in the book all get full-page treatment, with a photograph alongside a career summary in words, facts and figures. And to back up the profiles, there are quick-fire records for every country, and up-to-date statistics from www.cricinfo.com, the world's biggest cricket website. The ESPN Cricinfo Guide to International Cricket is the essential companion for every cricket lover, and the ideal complement to the long-standing Spring bestsellers Wisden and Playfair.


In an occupational choice framework individuals can either become entrepreneurs (risky income) or employed workers (safe income). Their choice is affected by the design of the pension system which discriminates between entrepreneurs and workers. We explore the comparative statics of several pension parameters on the occupational equilibrium, assess the normative properties of the equilibrium, and discuss some policy issues. We find that seemingly identical pension provisions may have quite different effects, depending on whether applied to entrepreneurs or to workers. Entrepreneurs and workers should be treated differently in social security schemes. No general rule that entrepreneurs need insurance for old-age income less (or more) urgently than workers can be established. Splitting wage-related social security contributions between workers and entrepreneurs is not welfare-neutral.


This document provides background information regarding large-scale
Kerberos deployments in the industrial sector, with the aim of
identifying issues in the current Kerberos cross-realm authentication
model as defined in RFC 4120. This document describes some examples
of actual large-scale industrial systems, and lists requirements and
restrictions regarding authentication operations in such environments.
It also identifies a number of requirements derived from the
industrial automation field. Although they are found in the field of
industrial automation, these requirements are general enough and are
applicable to the problem of Kerberos cross-realm operations. This
document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.


The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 public libraries in Sweden. The response was analyzed using quantitative data analysis, qualitative data analysis and content analysis. The analysis show that public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and it is included to a great extent in book talks. An increase in the acquisition of easy-to-read books has been experienced as well as in the extent to which they are recommended to readers.


With the advances in optical technology, the span of a broadband access network using passive optical network (PON) technology can be increased from today's standard of 20 km to 100 km or higher and thereby serve many more users. Such an extended-reach PON is known as a SuperPON in the literature, and we call it a long-reach PON (LR-PON). A major challenge in LR-PON is how to utilize the network resources (e.g., wavelengths, lasers, etc.) effectively to meet the increased bandwidth requests from the expanding base of users. We propose a new and efficient protocol to achieve a high utilization of tunable lasers across different user groups in LR-PON. To accommodate downstream bursty traffic and provide quality of service in the user-specified service-level agreements (SLAs), the protocol integrates our proposed SLA-aware bandwidth allocation scheme based on flow scheduling. Illustrative numerical results demonstrate the protocol's advantage to support incremental upgrade of bandwidth with increasing user bandwidth requests and to provide a user with an SLA that guarantees a number of streaming flows with average bandwidth and maximum delay guarantee (i.e., 5 ms), as well as data flows with average bandwidth specifications.


Few figures from history evoke such vivid Orientalist associations as Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer whose accounts of the "Far East" sparked literary and cultural imaginations. The essays in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West challenge what many scholars perceived to be an opposition of "East" and "West" in Polo's writings. These writers argue that Marco Polo's experiences along the Silk Road should instead be considered a fertile interaction of cultural exchange. The volume begins with detailed studies of Marco Polo's narrative in its many medieval forms (including French, Italian, and Latin versions). They place the text in its material and generic contexts, and situate Marco Polo's account within the conventions of travel literature and manuscript illumination. Other essays consider the appropriation of Marco Polo's narrative in adaptations, translation, and cinematic art. The concluding section presents historiographic and poetic accounts of the place of Marco Polo in the context of a global world literature. By considering the production and reception of The Travels, this collection lays the groundwork for new histories of world literature written from the perspective of cultural, economic, and linguistic exchange, rather than conquest and conflict.


Recently, there has been great interest in the integration of distributed generation units at the distribution level. This requires new analysis tools for understanding system performance. Installing Distribution Generation (DG) in the distribution level has positive impacts on the system voltage profile as well on the substation' s capacity. However the extent of such benefits depends greatly of the DG size and location. In this work, investigation of adding diesel units regarded as distributed generators at the distribution voltage levels were done. These investigations dealt with the impact of the units addition on the Iraqi grid power flow and short circuit levels . This work is done by using PSS/E program (Power System Simulation for Engineering), A sample from substations (with fuel and space availability ) of the Baghdad area were considered for the diesel units addition , in order to find recommendations for the voltage level to connect these units to it. The extension in mind was to develop a quick rule of thumb in order to decide where to add the DG units. This of course with no regard to the unit size as it is limited by the Short Circuit Level (SCL) and economic considerations. IEEEstandard systems were considered here with the development of Matlab routines for the simulation and calculations required. A novel quick criterion as where to add the distributed generation to minimize loss was proved. This state's "add the units at the lowest short circuit level bus, i.e., at the bus of highest Thevenin impedance ".


The cost of cyber-attacks on the global economy is estimated to exceed $6 trillion by 2021, averaging $4 million per company per attack. With such a high price tag, the risks that accompany smart operations may seem to outweigh the benefits.

This could