Global Positioning System (GPS) based vehicle tracking over General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) had been widely used in many places. This system was a combination of GPS in a vehicle to indicate its position on the geographic coordinate and a GPRS to send the data of position and other important data into a computer connected via the Internet. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a data service part of a Global System for Mobile Communications GSM cellular phone with speed from 56 kilobit per second (kbps) up to 114 kbps. Coordinate data obtained from the GPS receiver onboard the vehicle was processed fully inside the receiver unit and the output of the unit was serial data communication using TTL logic level using NMEA-0183 protocol which was connected to the first serial port of a microcontroller. Before the coordinate system of the GPS passed to the GPRS unit, the microcontroller also checked the other conditions such as emergency button, power supply, internal battery and speed of vehicle. The unit had internal Lithium battery to selfsufficient its power consumption up to 10 hours. The battery could be recharged automatically from the vehicle battery with its own power management module. The lithium battery was important when the vehicle was stolen and the main battery was disconnected from the vehicle, the system could still track the vehicle. This unit was also equipped with vehicle security alert system in which when there were security breaches, the driver of the vehicle could push a hidden button and the operator would notice it almost immediately via the web page. The command for the GPRS modem and the GPS receiver modules were AT+ commands. The data received by the web server was then stored in a database on the server which contain the GPS coordinate and the time data was received. The sequence of coordinate and time were displayed on a web page in an overlay on Google Map which was freely available together with markers to indicate the location of the vehicle. The device with all the featured mentioned above has been built and shown to be working with all the conditioned mentioned above. The web page with different fleet management has been developed and shown to be working properly as indicated.


The study examines the first forty years of a humanities journal, Libraries & Culture (hereafter Journal). Founded in 1966 as The Journal of Library History, its contributors shaped and reshaped the Journal according to the values, habits, and competencies that they brought to changing circumstances. Over a period of forty years marked by administrative, managerial, financial, editorial, and technical challenges, the editors transformed the Journal into an interdisciplinary and erudite publication distant from its earliest beginnings as a compendium of entertaining vignettes and didactic notes on the writing and uses of library history. This study considers salient points of transformation during the life of the Journal, highlighting issues associated with various crises in scholarly communications. Key issues confronted by the Journal include the now familiar dilemmas over journal pricing structures, subscription cancellations, bibliographic control, prestige surveys and citation rankings, pressures on authors to publish, peer-review, and modes of dissemination. Historical and sociological contexts frame the resolutions of these dilemmas that are treated chronologically as they erupted in the trajectory of the Journal. The historical investigation draws on archival sources, secondary sources, interviews, participant observation, and close reading of the publication to construct a narrative about the Journal in the context of 1) changing priorities in higher education; 2) challenges faced by university presses and scholarly publication in general; and 3) professional and disciplinary developments in librarianship. The characters, actions, and settings of the history are interpreted through a sociological lens, crafted from a beginner's understanding of the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu's concepts of social field, multiple forms of capital, capital conversion, and habitus form the interpretive frame for the narrative. The choice of Bourdieu's heuristic approach implies a broader interest in framing scholarly communications as value negotiations among sets of players in interdependent social fields. The players struggle not just to preserve their positions in the production and dissemination of scholarship, but also contend with others in powerful social fields--state governments, university hierarchies, and markets--about the creation of cultural capital and the power to define what is legitimate knowledge. Department Information


BACKGROUND
Mild parkinsonian signs (MPS) are a marker of incident dementia. They have been linked with cerebrovascular disease, which can be evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Also, if MPS are a marker for developing Alzheimer-type changes, hippocampal volume on MRI might be diminished in individuals with MPS.

OBJECTIVE
To examine white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume and total hippocampal volume in elderly individuals with and without MPS.

METHODS
Community-dwelling elderly persons in northern Manhattan (New York), New York, underwent neurologic examination and brain MRI. The WMH volume (derived from fluid-attenuated inversion recovery-weighted MRIs using a semiautomated thresholding approach) and total hippocampal volume (derived manually) were expressed relative to total cranial volume.

RESULTS
Mild parkinsonian signs were present in 111 of 666 participants (16.7%). Mean (SD) relative WMH volume was larger in participants with MPS vs those without MPS (1.70 [1.28] vs 1.17 [1.18]; P<.001). In a multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, years of educational achievement, and depression, relative WMH volume was associated with MPS (odds ratio, 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-1.47; P=.004). In both unadjusted and adjusted analyses, total relative hippocampal volume was similar in participants with MPS vs those without MPS regardless of cognitive status.

CONCLUSIONS
In this MRI study of community-dwelling elderly persons, WMH volume was associated with MPS and total relative hippocampal volume was not. These data raise the possibility that vascular disease could have a role in the development of MPS.


A simple technique permits fluorescent proteins to be imaged in resin-embedded plant material. Fluorescent proteins (FPs) were developed for live-cell imaging and have revolutionized cell biology. However, not all plant tissues are accessible to live imaging using confocal microscopy, necessitating alternative approaches for protein localization. An example is the phloem, a tissue embedded deep within plant organs and sensitive to damage. To facilitate accurate localization of FPs within recalcitrant tissues, we developed a simple method for retaining FPs after resin embedding. This method is based on low-temperature fixation and dehydration, followed by embedding in London Resin White, and avoids the need for cryosections. We show that a palette of FPs can be localized in plant tissues while retaining good structural cell preservation, and that the polymerized block face can be counterstained with cell wall probes. Using this method we have been able to image green fluorescent protein-labeled plasmodesmata to a depth of more than 40 μm beneath the resin surface. Using correlative light and electron microscopy of the phloem, we were able to locate the same FP-labeled sieve elements in semithin and ultrathin sections. Sections were amenable to antibody labeling, and allowed a combination of confocal and superresolution imaging (three-dimensional-structured illumination microscopy) on the same cells. These correlative imaging methods should find several uses in plant cell biology.


In a recent work (Ghazi et al., SODA 2016), the authors with Komargodski and Kothari initiated the study of communication with contextual uncertainty, a setup aiming to understand how efficient communication is possible when the communicating parties imperfectly share a huge context. In this setting, Alice is given a function $f$ and an input string $x$, and Bob is given a function $g$ and an input string $y$. The pair $(x,y)$ comes from a known distribution $\mu$ and $f$ and $g$ are guaranteed to be close under this distribution. Alice and Bob wish to compute $g(x,y)$ with high probability. The previous work showed that any problem with one-way communication complexity $k$ in the standard model has public-coin communication $O(k(1+I))$ bits in the uncertain case, where $I$ is the mutual information between $x$ and $y$. A lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{I})$ bits on the public-coin uncertain communication was also shown. An important question that was left open is the power that public randomness brings to uncertain communication. Can Alice and Bob achieve efficient communication amid uncertainty without using public randomness? How powerful are public-coin protocols in overcoming uncertainty? Motivated by these two questions:
- We prove the first separation between private-coin uncertain communication and public-coin uncertain communication. We exhibit a function class for which the communication in the standard model and the public-coin uncertain communication are $O(1)$ while the private-coin uncertain communication is a growing function of the length $n$ of the inputs.
- We improve the lower-bound of the previous work on public-coin uncertain communication. We exhibit a function class and a distribution (with $I \approx n$) for which the one-way certain communication is $k$ bits but the one-way public-coin uncertain communication is at least $\Omega(\sqrt{k} \cdot \sqrt{I})$ bits.


In recent years methods from optimal linear experimental design have been leveraged to obtain state of the art results for linear bandits. A design returned from an objective such as $G$-optimal design is actually a probability distribution over a pool of potential measurement vectors. Consequently, one nuisance of the approach is the task of converting this continuous probability distribution into a discrete assignment of $N$ measurements. While sophisticated rounding techniques have been proposed, in $d$ dimensions they require $N$ to be at least $d$, $d \log(\log(d))$, or $d^2$ based on the sub-optimality of the solution. In this paper we are interested in settings where $N$ may be much less than $d$, such as in experimental design in an RKHS where $d$ may be effectively infinite. In this work, we propose a rounding procedure that frees $N$ of any dependence on the dimension $d$, while achieving nearly the same performance guarantees of existing rounding procedures. We evaluate the procedure against a baseline that projects the problem to a lower dimensional space and performs rounding which requires $N$ to just be at least a notion of the effective dimension. We also leverage our new approach in a new algorithm for kernelized bandits to obtain state of the art results for regret minimization and pure exploration. An advantage of our approach over existing UCB-like approaches is that our kernel bandit algorithms are also robust to model misspecification.


The temporal relationship between Chicago corn and soybean cash prices, nearby futures prices, and interest rates is examined using daily 1980-1989 data. Johansen cointegration tests suggest joint movement of the three series over the data period considered. In addition, analyses of individual crop years, which is consistent with previous work, shows co-movement between cash, futures, and interest rates in years when bivariate cointegration between cash and futures prices was not found. The results provide initial empirical evidence that a potential limitation of previous research in the study of cash- futures simple efficiency has been the exclusion of the interest rate as a common stochastic factor explaining equilibrium in models of cash and futures prices. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


We investigated the effect of the thalassinid mud shrimp Upogebia pugettensis on organic matter and nutrient cycling on Idaho Flat, an intertidal flat in the Yaquina River estuary, Oregon. Field studies were conducted to measure carbon and nitrogen remineralization rates and benthic fluxes relative to shrimp population density. Organic carbon remineralization rates estimated from incubations increased with burrow density. Similarly, benthic oxygen uptake increased linearly with burrow density. Shrimp bioirrigation enhanced carbon remineralization up to 2.9 times; its effects on nitrogen cycling were even more dramatic, enhancing ammonification rates up to 7 times, nitrification rates between 3 and 9 times, and estimated denitrification up to 4 times relative to portions of the tide flat lacking shrimp. Bioirrigation by shrimp also reduced pore‐water inventories of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), resulting in DIN fluxes that increased exponentially with burrow density up to 15‐fold relative to No‐shrimp plots. For both C and N fluxes, the strongest density‐dependent relationships occurred with burrow hole density rather than shrimp population density or biomass. Combined with population mapping of mud shrimp populations on Idaho Flat, we estimate that total areal C and DIN effluxes on the tide flat were enhanced 1.9 and 3.7 times, respectively, relative to areal fluxes expected if no shrimp were present. Mud shrimp thus perform as geochemical ecosystem engineers that strongly affect the flux and fate of C and N in Pacific estuaries.


Introduction: We aimed in the present study to investigate the effects of pulmonary rehabilitation on the respiratory parameters and effort capacity, quality of life (QoL), anxiety, depression, and sleepiness in the patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods: The study included 34 mobilized patients with PD. Patients underwent a 12-week pulmonary physiotherapy (PPT). Pulmonary function tests (PFT), six-minute walk test (6mWT), Hoehn and Yahr Scale (HYS), Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), QoL, Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) scores were evaluated before and after PPT.
Results: PPT improved parameters of PFT significantly, and caused an increase of about 35 m in the 6mWT (p<0.001). HYS (p=0.002), UPDRS, QoL, PDQ, BAI, BDI and ESS scores were found to improve significantly after the PPT (p<0.001 for all).
Conclusion: Results of our study indicated that PPT is effective significantly and positively especially on the non-motor complications, by increasing effort capacity and walking distance in the patients with PD.


This thesis covers a comprehensive study on the estuarine set bag net (ESBN) fishery in Bangladesh using existing methods for fisheries management, sustainable livelihoods approach and local indigenous knowledge to explore the recommendations for the development of a better management plan. The study was carried out in the four coastal villages of Bangladesh, namely Charpara and Moheskhali villages in the Cox's Bazar district and Kattoli and Kumira villages in the Chittagong district. Total 64 types of species were found in the present investigation among which 48 were fishes, 10 were shrimps and the rest 6 were others aquatic
organisms. No significant differences were observed when fish, shrimp and others were compared with the month to month group wise distribution for the villages within the same districts while the differences were significant between villages from different districts. Two groups of months were identified through cluster analysis with
ward-linkage and correlation coefficient distances where one group consisted of the months from June to September while the other group included the months from October to May. The biodiversity indices also showed two distinct groups of months for fishes. However, the fish biodiversity indices showed significant differences between the villages Charpara and Moheskhali while no significant difference was observed between the villages Kattoli and Kumira. The shrimp biodiversity indices showed significant differences in the district wise village comparison. This findings conclude that the species assemblage of the ESBN fishery do not follow the same temporal and spatial distribution. High fishing mortality rates for the selected fish species were observed during the present study except for Bregmaceros mcclellandi which has a very few commercial value. Average fishing mortality (F) rate was found to be 4.28 y�¹ with an average exploitation rate (E) 0.65. The virtual population
analysis showed that all the investigated fishes were being caught in their juvenile and pre adult stage. The relative yield per recruit and biomass per recruit analysis
suggested that the maximum exploitation rate for ESBN fishery ( Emax ) should be 0.42 with an average fishing mortality (Fmax) 2.42 y�¹, which needs 60% reduction of the
present fishing pressure. The average catch per boat (CPB) per trip ranged between 15.32kg and 51.06kg indicating the variation in the CPB due to the location of the fishing area. A considerable difference in catch per net per trip was observed between the two investigated districts that were due to the size variation in the net as well as the distance in fishing area. Significant difference was also observed between the catch per person in different villages that pointed towards the absence of any fishing quota within the ESBN fishery. The range of CPB values indicated high level of over-fishing is occurring in the ESBN fishery of Bangladesh, as according to the Schaefer's model the maximum sustainable yield was found to be 4.58kg per boat per trip. The attributes for vulnerability study were selected through participatory methods in a 5-point likert scale and means of these attributes ranged between 4.15 and 4.54 indicating significant vulnerable situation is prevailing in the ESBN fishing community due to seasonality, shocks and trends. The headcount ratio ranged between 43% and 74% with an average 52%, which was higher compared to the national poverty line (37.4%) of Bangladesh. Livelihoods assets profiling showed that high level of poverty is prevailing in all the capital assets of the sustainable livelihoods approach. Poverty levels were quantified using fuzzy method and poverty values were found to be 0.64, 0.29, 0.66 and 0.55 for human poverty index, physical poverty
index, social poverty index and financial poverty index respectively. Among the four capital assets investigated, social and human poverty levels were found very much
acute in the fishermen community of Bangladesh. Fishermen's perception about their fishery was investigated through participatory methods and the means of the selected
attributes ranged between 3.61 and 4.79, which indicated that fishermen have a significant perception about their fishery. About 78.67% of the fishermen wanted to change their present occupation that reflected the extreme disappointing attitude of the fishermen regarding their fishery. The principle component analysis justified about
the grouping of the micro-variables into the composite attributes as well as the study of the participatory methods used in the present study. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test
for sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity also significantly justified about the use of principle component analysis. Depending on the present findings, the possible management recommendations for development of a management plan of the ESBN fishery of Bangladesh has been adopted which are both multidisciplinary and integrated.


This study focuses on the diversification benefits of the most developed equity markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). To evaluate these benefits of diversification we use so-called spanning tests based on a stochastic discount factor approach and estimated by General Methods of Moments (GMM). Spanning tests investigate whether the returns of test assets (in our case the returns of CEE equity markets) can be mimicked by the returns of some benchmark assets. If this is possible adding the test assets to the set of the benchmark assets does not improve the mean-variance efficient frontier. In recent studies as for example DeSantis (1994), Harvey (1995) or Bekaert/Urias (1996) spanning tests have been successfully applied to emerging equity markets but these studies do not cover the emerging equity markets of Central and Eastern Europe. In addition our study addresses the diversification benefits not only for U.S. investors, as is the usual case in these empirical studies, but extends the analysis on British and German investors, too. A third feature that distinguishes our investigation from most other studies on this topic is the analysis of the effects of currency hedging on diversification benefits. At a quick glance the CEE equity markets seem to offer significant and high diversification benefits. But this picture becomes cloudy after a thorough analysis. Only the equity markets of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia contribute significantly to the diversification benefits. But a realisation of these benefits would imply to have not only long but also short positions in CEE equities. Taken into account transaction costs and limited access to futures and options markets it seems to be very doubtful that the theoretical diversification benefits can actually be realised. This result is in correspondence with recent studies on other emerging markets such as DeRoon/Nijman/Werker (2000). The results of the study also show that the home currency of the investor is of some importance for the results of the spanning tests. The outcomes for British, German and U.S. investors are similar but not identical. Therefore it seems to be useful to analyse benefits of diversification not only from the point of view of U.S. investors but to take explicitly into account the currency of the investor. Another interesting result is that currency hedging clearly improves the possible performance of an investment in CEE equity markets. What is now the consequence for investors that consider an investment in CEE equity markets? Our study comes to the result that a buy-and-hold investor could hardly benefit from such an investment. Only investors that have superior timing capabilities could profit from the remarkably strong swings in the levels of CEE equity indices in the past.


The financial system provides three key services: payment services, intermediation between savers and borrowers, and insurance against risk. These services support the allocation of capital, and the production and exchange of goods and services, all of which are essential to a well-functioning economy. While the basic financial services are relatively timeless, the characteristics of the system providing them change continuously, in response to both economic and regulatory developments. This article tracks the evolution of a core component of the financial system in the United Kingdom, the banking sector, describing how technology has transformed the economics of banking, and how deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s freed banks to take advantage of new opportunities through globalisation and financial innovation. The result has been the emergence of large, functionally and geographically diverse banking groups. Post-crisis, public-policy attention has been focused on the costs of a banking sector dominated by large and complex institutions that are seen as too important to fail.


Vulnerability is the capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of natural disasters. Floods add to the distressed conditions of the poor and vulnerable people in Bihar. Floods have a different impact on households depending on differences in their livelihood choices. Therefore, in order to identify the variability in vulnerability of affected households, the livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) of Hahn, Riederer and Foster was modified according to the context of the study area. The LVI aims to identify sources and forms of vulnerability that are specific to the context in order to design context-specific resilience measures. However, vulnerability and resilience are not interdependent but discrete entities. The study was conducted in the seven blocks of Bhagalpur district in the state of Bihar. Naugachia was found to be the least vulnerable because of better access to basic amenities and livelihood strategies, whilst Kharik was found to be highly vulnerable in respect to other blocks because of high sensitivity and less adaptive strategy. The study also revealed that better access to resources does not necessarily mean that households are adopting resilience measures because of apathetic or indifferent attitudes.


Electronic Fee Collection (EFC) is a system for collecting fee from cars electronically. EFC contains two main components, an On-board Unit (OBU) and a Roadside Equipment (RSE). Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) is used as a communication protocol, which is a wireless protocol operating on frequencies around 5.8 GHz. As more and more systems take use of EFC and DSRC, it is important to keep security in mind. Money transactions are involved in EFC, making it a wanted target for attackers. In this thesis, the possibilities of conducting an attack on Message Authentication Codes (MACs) in EFC are explored. By stealing a valid key used in the calculation of a MAC, it can be possible to get authenticated as another user and hence do not have to pay any fee. This thesis shows that with a customizable RSE, it is possible to obtain MACs from OBUs. A customizable RSE is built using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral and GNU Radio. Unfortunately, the customizable RSE is not able to communicate with an OBU. Some errors are known, and suggestions on how to solve them are presented. A desktop DSRC transceiver was bought from Q-Free and is used as an RSE in the second part of this thesis. MACs are obtained from a test-OBU using the DSRC transceiver, and it is shown that OBUs can be used as encryption oracles. Before obtaining MACs, access credentials have to be given by the OBU. A test-OBU is used to get access credentials. However, access credentials is not used in every country, making this attack relevant. Possible attacks for obtaining access credentials are also presented. Additionally, the use of Data Encryption Standard (DES) for calculating MACs is studied. The biggest weakness of DES is the 56-bit key, making it feasible to brute-force the entire keyspace. This thesis shows how a rainbow table can be used to find the key in an OBU. Rainbow tables are a time-memory trade-off method for finding keys in a chosen-plaintext attack. A simple rainbow table is implemented in Python, together with suggestions on how improve the rainbow table generation.


The study of the synthesis, exotic properties, assembly/packaging and potential commercial application of nanomaterials is an extremely important topic of research that is expected to have far-reaching global impact. The focus of my talk will be on an emerging branch of nanotechnology that derives its inspiration from biology. Recognizing that some of the most exquisites and highly functional nanomaterials are grown by biological systems (examples include silica by diatoms and magnetic nanoparticles by magnetotactic bacteria [1]). Many researchers have focused attention on understanding how inorganic materials are made biological systems and attempting to replicate such processes in the lab. In my laboratory, we investigated the use of plant organisms such as fungi in the synthesis of nanomaterials over a range of chemical compositions that include materials [2], metal sulfides [3], and oxides [4]. An exciting development is the use of plant extracts in nanoparticle synthesis [5] wherein large concentrations of gold nanotriangles have been obtained that have potential application in cancer hyperthermia. Organisms such as fungi are not normally exposed to metal precursor stresses such that they should be capable of a broad range of biochemical transformations to negate these stresses is useful in materials chemistry, and throws up exciting possibilities. Recently, we have also shown that bacteria may be "trained" to synthesize magnetite when challenged with suitable iron complexes under aerobic conditions [6].


The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of maternal depressive symptoms on adolescent alcohol use among a sample of Latino/Latina youth aged 10 to 16 years from a high-risk community. Direct and mediating effects of youth depressive symptoms, controlling for levels of concurrent emotion dysregulation, on alcohol use were examined. Participants consisted of 525 children and their mothers randomly sampled from low-income schools with high rates of substance use. The panel design included four waves, and we used structural equation modeling with a longitudinal mediational framework. Results indicated that the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent alcohol use was mediated by adolescents' symptoms of depression for girls only. Findings are discussed in the context of the development of skills to cope with negative affect and the influence parental depressive symptoms may have on this process.


Background and Objectives: Reduction of spasticity is helpful for improving the functional activities and this can be achieved by various techniques. Biceps spasticity is the most common disability in upper limb of a hemiplegic patient, which hinders the ROM at elbow and thus affecting the function of the upper limb as a whole. Biceps spasticity can be reduced effectively by crossed reciprocal inhibition technique. The purpose of this study is to find out the efficacy of crossed reciprocal inhibition in reducing the spasticity in biceps brachi. Methods: Thirty hemiplegic patients were randomly assigned into experimental group that received crossed reciprocal inhibition (n=15) and the control group that received conventional therapy (n=15). Both groups received 30 minutes of either one of the training for 15 days. Treatment outcomes were assessed and compared by measuring the spasticity reduction with the help of Modified Ashworth scale and Goniometry for ROM at Elbow. Results: After 15 days of treatment period, the experimental group patients scored significantly higher improvements than the conventional group for spasticity reduction as per the statistical analysis (P=0.05), and ROM at elbow has also showed considerable improvement. Conclusion: Crossed reciprocal inhibition technique is comparatively more efficient in reducing biceps spasticity in hemiplegics over conventional techniques.


Digital hologram sequences have great potential for the recording of 3D scenes of moving macroscopic objects as their numerical reconstruction can yield a range of perspective views of the scene. Digital holograms inherently have large information content and lossless coding of holographic data is rather inefficient due to the speckled nature of the interference fringes they contain. Lossy coding of still holograms and hologram sequences has shown promising results. By definition, lossy compression introduces errors in the reconstruction. In all of the previous studies, numerical metrics were used to measure the compression error and through it, the coding quality. Digital hologram reconstructions are highly speckled and the speckle pattern is very sensitive to data changes. Hence, numerical quality metrics can be misleading. For example, for low compression ratios, a numerically significant coding error can have visually negligible effects. Yet, in several cases, it is of high interest to know how much lossy compression can be achieved, while maintaining the reconstruction quality at visually lossless levels. Using an experimental threshold estimation method, the staircase algorithm, we determined the highest compression ratio that was not perceptible to human observers for objects compressed with Dirac and MPEG-4 compression methods. This level of compression can be regarded as the point below which compression is perceptually lossless although physically the compression is lossy. It was found that up to 4 to 7.5 fold compression can be obtained with the above methods without any perceptible change in the appearance of video sequences.


Our daily interactions with objects can not only leave traces of use on the objects but also leave memories in our minds. These human traces on objects are potential cues that can trigger our autobiographical memories and connect us to social networks. The first aim of this paper is to demonstrate what might be a suitable method of inquiry into the way materials can enrich dialogues about remembered experiences derived from human traces left on cherished possessions. The second aim is to investigate how the accumulation of human traces on objects influences people's remembering and usage. The design of our research artifacts, Memory Probes, was situated in relation to three spectra of paired values: (1) the familiarity and strangeness of tool use, (2) the definiteness and ambiguity of data capture, and (3) the objective and subjective reality of interpretation. Our field study revealed a transactive nature between traces of interaction with possessions and memories in the owners' minds. It also informed us of how gradual and curiosity-driven understanding could become a methodological nuance when we are empathetically engaged in a collaborative way of knowing with other participants. To conclude, several implications for designing products that can participate in our everyday reminiscing and meaning-making are proposed.


The process of morphological development of a differentiated gonad from an undifferentiated primordium is a very important step of gonadogenesis. Studies on sexually dimorphic gene expression are important to increase our understanding of this process and to investigate how environmental factors such as temperature can regulate gonadal development. The aim of this study was to identify putative genes involved in sex differentiation in pejerrey (Odontesthes bonariensis) reared at male- and female-producing temperatures (MPT and FPT, respectively) using a microarray heterologous from the medaka (Oryzias latipes) , a closely phylogenetic species. Genes related to numerous processes presented higher expression at MPT, including those involved in muscular contraction, metabolic pathways, developmental processes, and reproduction. Genes induced by FPT were classified under the gene ontology terms of response to stimulus, transport and proteolysis. From genes selected for validation, at MPT ndrg3 expression was observed in the somatic cells, whereas pen-2 was detected in germ cells in the caudal portion of the gonads, where no apoptotic signals were observed. Finally, hsp90 was highly expressed in somatic cells of the gonads at the FPT. The results suggest that the interplay of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic genes is important during the masculinization process and for the prevention of sterility following exposure to warm temperatures.


Recent years have witnessed substantial advances in the precision and availability of digital infrastructure data, remote sensing data, and microscale socioeconomic data for urban areas in many parts of the world. However, these data still remain deficient in detail especially with respect to the fine-grained property-level structural attributes that form the basis of housing-market models and simulations. This lack of detail is hindering the development of house-price models, the validation of housing-market theories, and restricting the quality of empirical input into urban planning. A methodology is developed for deriving estimates of floor area for individual properties from the integration of Ordnance Survey Mastermap data and Environment Agency LiDAR data for an area in the city of Cardiff, Wales. Floor area is an important determinant of house price and a fundamental variable in housing-market models. The estimates are validated against measures of floor area obtained from an estate-agent survey of a large sample of properties. The research investigates the reasons for the differences in the estimates and the implications for the methodology. The paper concludes with a discussion about how the methodology can be developed and some future research applications.


The sparse regression problem, also known as best subset selection problem, can be cast as follows: Given a set $S$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, a point $y\in \mathbb{R}^d$, and an integer $2 \leq k \leq d$, find an affine combination of at most $k$ points of $S$ that is nearest to $y$. We describe a $O(n^{k-1} \log^{d-k+2} n)$-time randomized $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm for this problem with \(d\) and \(\varepsilon\) constant. This is the first algorithm for this problem running in time $o(n^k)$. Its running time is similar to the query time of a data structure recently proposed by Har-Peled, Indyk, and Mahabadi (ICALP'18), while not requiring any preprocessing. Up to polylogarithmic factors, it matches a conditional lower bound relying on a conjecture about affine degeneracy testing. In the special case where $k = d = O(1)$, we also provide a simple $O_\delta(n^{d-1+\delta})$-time deterministic exact algorithm, for any \(\delta > 0\). Finally, we show how to adapt the approximation algorithm for the sparse linear regression and sparse convex regression problems with the same running time, up to polylogarithmic factors.


"A Dark-Adapted Eye" - a prize-winning crime classic by bestselling author Barbara Vine. This is the winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. "A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel". (P.D. James). "Compulsively readable ...a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it". ("Sunday Times"). Like most families they had their secrets...And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder. "Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease". ("Daily Telegraph"). "Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel". ("Washington Post"). "A Dark-Adapted Eye" is modern classic. If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including "A Fatal Inversion" and "King Solomon's Carpet" which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: "A Dark Adapted Eye"; "The House of Stairs"; "Gallowglass"; "Asta's Book"; "No Night Is Too Long"; "In the Time of His Prosperity"; "The Brimstone Wedding"; "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy"; "Grasshopper"; "The Blood Doctor"; "The Minotaur"; "The Birthday Present" and "The Child's Child".


40 states and the District of Columbia have laws that authorize public charter schools to provide public education with public funds, in competition with regular public schools. However, many of these laws contain provisions that have hardly any rationale except to restrain competition, especially: (a) explicit caps on the number of charter schools, (b) exclusive reliance on local school districts as authorizers of charter schools, and (c) impediments to multi-school charter systems. Removal of these anticompetitive constraints should have both short- and long-term benefits. However, the evidence to date suggests that the principal benefits are likely to be long-term and evolutionary, as the result of competitive pressures that encourage good schools to grow, bad schools to exit, and new schools to imitate good schools rather than bad.


This dissertation develops an innovative approach towards less-constrained iris biometrics. Two major contributions are made in this research endeavor: (1) Designed an award-winning segmentation algorithm in the less-constrained environment where image acquisition is made of subjects on the move and taken under visible lighting conditions, and (2) Developed a pioneering iris biometrics method coupling segmentation and recognition of the iris based on video of moving persons under different acquisitions scenarios.
The first part of the dissertation introduces a robust and fast segmentation approach using still images contained in the UBIRIS (version 2) noisy iris database. The results show accuracy estimated at 98% when using 500 randomly selected images from the UBIRIS.v2 partial database, and estimated at 97% in a Noisy Iris Challenge Evaluation (NICE.I) in an international competition that involved 97 participants worldwide involving 35 countries, ranking this research group in sixth position. This accuracy is achieved with a processing speed nearing real time.
The second part of this dissertation presents an innovative segmentation and recognition approach using video-based iris images. Following the segmentation stage which delineates the iris region through a novel segmentation strategy, some pioneering experiments on the recognition stage of the less-constrained video iris biometrics have been accomplished. In the video-based and less-constrained iris recognition, the test or subject iris videos/images and the enrolled iris images are acquired with different acquisition systems. In the matching step, the verification/identification result was accomplished by comparing the similarity distance of encoded signature from test images with each of the signature dataset from the enrolled iris images. With the improvements gained, the results proved to be highly accurate under the unconstrained environment which is more challenging. This has led to a false acceptance rate (FAR) of 0% and a false rejection rate (FRR) of 17.64% for 85 tested users with 305 test images from the video, which shows great promise and high practical implications for iris biometrics research and system design.


A coastal geomorphological analysis was conducted at the mouth of the Forth River and Turners Beach to assist the Turners Beach Coastcare Group in understanding recent morphological changes occurring in this area. These changes include erosion of the backshore dunes at the eastern end of Turners Beach, extending to the BBQ hut in the mouth of the Forth estuary, and sediment deposition inside the mouth, both as a shore attached spit and as mid-channel banks. The aims of this study are to establish the sources of the sand deposition at the mouth of the Forth River, and to determine if it derives from Turners Beach, the eroding dunes, or catchment sources.
Two sites were selected for survey, one at the shore attached spit inside the mouth of the Forth, known as the "neck" of the river, and the second at the eroding dune front on the eastern end of Turners Beach. Two transects were surveyed at each location. The purpose of beach profile measurement was to examine beach cross section morphology and beach slope, for comparison with sediment grain size, shape, and mineraology characteristics. Surveys were conducted in a manner to allow future resurvey and evaluation of change. Historical air photographs of the area were analysed to show changes over the last few decades, and compared with an 1882 map.
The paired sand spits in the mouth of the Leven Estuary were not present on the 1882 map, but air photographs from 1946 and 2000 show that they existed throughout this later period. These sand spits moved southward between 1976 and 1984, were smoothed north by a river flood between 1984 and 1989, and developed southwards again more recently. There were limited mid channel sand banks in 1976, but by 1984 deposits extended as far south as the Highway bridge. A river flood cleared the channel between 1984 and 1989, and by 2000 mid-channel sand banks were again well developed. Air photos showed erosion of the foreshore reserve from 1976 to 2000.
There is good evidence that sediment being eroded from the dune face scarps on the eastern end of Turners Beach is being deposited at the spit inside the Forth mouth at the neck. Sediment analysis showed very similar grain size characteristics and distributions, sediment mineralogy and particle shape. This study repeated a previous profile measurement from 1990, showing an 8.3 meter retreat of the seaward scarp of the dune. The dune deposits consist of shingle rich Pleistocene glaciofluvial outwash deposits, hence dune erosion increases shingle deposits on the beach.
Erosion of the backshore dunes at Turners Beach is at too rapid a rate to be explained by sea-level rise in the last few decades. Erosion has been exacerbated by a combination of onshore storm action and human disturbance. At the mouth of the Forth, the southerly development of the neck sand spit and the mid-channel sediment are caused by strong flood (incoming) tidal currents, and reduced effective floods from the Forth catchment. With continued flow characteristics of the Forth river, relocation of the boat ramp upstream towards the highway bridge is recommended. It should be noted that increased beach erosion and estuary mouth widening are expected to occur with future sea-level rise, and any major foreshore construction may in future require expensive maintenance.


Milling characteristics of dental alloys have been investigated and compared. The four differently configured tools used were made of cemented tungsten carbide. Most were uncoated but one was coated with a diamond-like carbon layer. The dental alloys studied were cobalt-chrome (Co-Cr) and cobalt-chrome-titanium (Co-Cr-Ti) alloys, fairly strong alloys. There is a requirement for a reliable test to evaluate the properties of dental tools by measuring the cutting forces during milling. A full characterization of dental mills is a difficult task, because the geometry of the mills is complex, with conical multi-cutting surfaces. In this study a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of cutting rate on cutting forces was achieved by varying the cutting tool rotation speed and measuring the force on the workpiece as it was driven into the rotating tool at a fixed feed velocity. It was observed that the cutting forces were changed by varying cutting speeds. Side milling required lower forces than central slot milling. After milling the surfaces of the dental tools and dental alloy specimen were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy.


The risk of a major marine fuel spill in Antarctic waters is increasing, yet there are currently no adequate response methods to deal with such an event. Chemical fuel dispersants have not previously been used in Antarctica, but may offer an alternative solution for spill management. Very few data on the toxicity of physically and chemically dispersed fuels and fuel dispersants to Antarctic marine species are available, thus preventing informed management decisions. This research investigated the toxicity of three fuels commonly used in Antarctica (Special Antarctic Blend diesel, marine gas oil and an intermediate fuel oil) and of three dispersants approved for use in Australian waters (Ardrox 6120, Slickgone LTSW and Slickgone NS). Experiments were conducted on common Antarctic nearshore invertebrates including sea urchins (Sterechinus neumayeri), polychaetes (Ophryotrocha orensanzi), nemerteans (Antarctonemertes sp.) and amphipods (Paramoera walkeri).
Chemically dispersed fuel treatments contained greater proportions of higher molecular weight hydrocarbon compounds than did physically dispersed fuel treatments. Toxicity was highly correlated with dispersant type. Ardrox 6120 was the most toxic dispersant with and without fuel, followed by Slickgone LTSW. Slickgone NS was by far the least toxic and appeared to be the most effective at dispersing fuels in cold water. Dispersant type dictated toxicity relationships between physically and chemically dispersed fuel to S. neumayeri, O. orensanzi and Antarctonemertes sp., and results showed that chemically dispersed fuels were consistently more toxic when created using Ardrox 6120 or Slickgone LTSW in comparison to physically dispersed fuels. In contrast, physically dispersed fuels were more toxic compared to chemically dispersed fuels created using Slickgone NS.
Differences in toxicity were apparent between P. walkeri and the other species tested. Physically dispersed fuels were consistently more lethally toxic to P. walkeri than chemically dispersed fuels and toxicity appeared to be largely influenced by the hydrocarbon composition of water accommodated fractions. Paramoera walkeri appeared to be more sensitive to lighter hydrocarbon fractions, specifically those encompassing known toxicants including naphthalenes, hence further research is needed to identify toxicity responses to different hydrocarbon compounds. Larval and juvenile life stages of S. neumayeri and P. walkeri were more sensitive to hydrocarbons than early embryonic and adult life stages respectively.
This work represents the first study assessing the toxicity of physically and chemically dispersed fuels and fuel dispersants to a range of Antarctic marine invertebrates. These data provide valuable information for decision making to minimise impacts to marine species following a marine fuel spill event in Antarctica.


Stable high-order linear interpolation schemes are well suited for the accurate approximation of antiderivatives and the construction of efficient quadrature rules. In this paper we utilize for this purpose the family of linear barycentric rational interpolants by Floater and Hormann, which are particularly useful for interpolation with equispaced nodes. We analyze the convergence of integrals of these interpolants to those of analytic functions as well as functions with a finite number of continuous derivatives. As a by-product, our convergence analysis leads to an extrapolation scheme for rational quadrature at equispaced nodes. Furthermore, as a main application of our analysis, we present and investigate a new iterated deferred correction method for the solution of initial value problems, which allows to work efficiently even with large numbers of equispaced data. This so-called rational deferred correction (RDC) method turns out to be highly competitive with other methods relying on more involved implementations or non-equispaced node distributions. Extensive numerical experiments are carried out, comparing the RDC method to the well established spectral deferred correction (SDC) method by Dutt, Greengard and Rokhlin.


Introduction: Serum C-reactive protein (CRP) is believed to be increased in metastatic urothelial cancer of the bladder. However, the changes depend on the stage and grade of the upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). This study aimed to compare low-range and high-range serum CRP and haptoglobin in new cases of UTUC. Materials and methods: Blood was collected from newly diagnosed patients with UTUC (n=43 patients; 39 male/4 female) and normal individuals (n=26; 24 male and 2 female) with no sign of infection or cancer. All the patients showed clinical symptoms of bladder cancer. Serum CRP and haptoglobin were estimated based on conventional methods. Results: Haematuria and polyuria were common symptoms in 65.12% of the patients suffering from UTUC. The serum level of HAPT in control and UTUC patients was 126±13 and 181±14.5 mg/dl respectively. No significant difference was observed in HAPT level in patients and controls. The HAPT was in the high-range level in 27% of controls and 30% of the patients. The average serum CRP level in patients and controls was 11.87±3.5 mg/l and 11.45±4.2 mg/l, respectively. Serum CRP was above 3.5 mg/l (>3.5 mg/l) in 46% of patients (20/43). The CRP level was significantly higher (P=0.023) in patients having CRP above 3.5 mg/l compared to respective controls. The UTUC patients were separated into two groups based on low-range (<3.5mg/l) and high-range CRP (>3.5 mg/l).Serum CRP was <3.5 mg/l in 69% of the controls, whereas 31% of controls had CRP >3.5 mg/l. However, 46% of UTUC patients had serum CRP > 3.5 mg/l and 54% of UTUC patients had serum CRP < 3.5 mg/l. Conclusion: Although there was no difference in haptoglobin levels in patients and controls, but serum CRP was significantly increased in patients and it was associated with clinical symptoms of UTUC, suggesting that serum CRP can be considered as a complementary test for detection of low-grade UTUC.


Candida albicans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that can cause a potentially lethal systemic infection in immunocompromised patients. Increasing drug resistance of Candida species to anti-fungal treatments makes the study of this pathogen ever more important. Study of the C. albicans cell wall provides insight into its importance in pathogenesis, immune recognition, and anti-fungal action. It has been shown that βglucan, a masked component of the fungal cell wall and ligand for the immune receptor Dectin-1, becomes available for immune recognition in the mouse model of systemic candidiasis. To develop a mechanistic model to explain this unmasking, we investigated the interaction between the C. albicans cell wall and the innate immune system in vitro. Our research suggests that neutrophils can wrap around fungal filaments and release components of their lysosomes, including proteases, onto the cell wall. This interaction can result in damage to cell wall-associated proteins and the subsequent unmasking of βglucan. Our research also suggests that proteases can mediate this unmasking. We speculate these neutrophil-damaged fungal filaments may elicit a greater proinflammatory response from innate immune cells through increased recognition by Dectin-1. Our research sheds light on the interactions between the fungal cell wall and the innate immune system, which could lead to more efficacious treatments for those suffering from systemic candidiasis.


As part of a program of work on low-frequency oscillations and fluctuations in mercury-vapor discharges at a pressure of about 1 μ Hg, observations have been made of the light output from a number of discharge tubes. Qualitative considerations suggested that the fixed or moving striations commonly encountered at rather higher pressures should not be present in our range of discharge parameters. Some independent experimental evidence, however, had indicated the presence of a series of moving striations. Under similar conditions we have been unable to observe this phenomenon which we ascribe to the unsuspected presence of impurities. These are known to have a profound influence on the production of striations. Some strong low-frequency fluctuation components were found to be excited, but these can be explained as electrostatic sound-wave modes. Further evidence on the unlikelihood of striations being present is adduced by observations of the decay of non-Maxwellian electron velocity groups generated at points in the discharge.


The involvement of vertical customers in the ongoing deployment of 5G networks increases the need for performing tests and measurements, considering the stringent requirements of the vertical applications and the introduction of new business models. The exploitation of network and computing resource virtualization and sharing, such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the different technology domains employed at the infrastructure substrate (i.e. radio, cloud, transport) are making the 5G network increasingly complex to manage, monitor and test. In case a vertical customer determines a Service Level Agreement (SLA) breach, the process of troubleshooting and conflict resolution includes cross-layer coordination of testing and monitoring. These are the main causes for a very broad and heterogeneous scenario that includes:

-- Roles and expectation of the vertical customers

-- Definition of testing and monitoring approaches and testing levels (from access network to service)

-- The need for, and role of Test as a Service (TaaS) within the Zero-touch philosophy

-- The need of clearly defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to support the validation of the 5G technology

-- The need of a clearly defined KPI Testing and Validation methodology, including KPI monitoring, analysis, verification, and performance diagnosis.

-- The need for a common formalization process for standardizing tests representing different levels of the 5G network.

This White Paper tries to be a first step into providing a more clear and homogeneous view over these topics, that will be briefly introduced and clarified. The idea is to establish a unified vision on the Test and Measurement topics for 5G, allowing for common procedures and terminology on how to solve some of these challenging problems. This is considered beneficial not only the 5G PPP infrastructure owners, but the entire 5G ecosystem. The technical direction is mainly the most predominant one, providing best practices, methodologies and applied solutions, focusing primarily on the actual testing and evaluation of 5G technologies. Nevertheless, the vision is providing substantiated answers to more high-level relevant questions such as "does slicing help fulfilling vertical requirements?".


An empirical forecast accuracy comparison of the non-parametric method, known as multivariate Nearest Neighbor method, with parametric VAR modelling is conducted on the euro area GDP. Using both methods for nowcasting and forecasting the GDP, through the estimation of economic indicators plugged in the bridge equations, we get more accurate forecasts when using nearest neighbor method. We prove also the asymptotic normality of the multivariate k-nearest neighbor regression estimator for dependent time series, providing confidence intervals for point forecast in time series.


Anaerococcus prevotii (Foubert and Douglas 1948) Ezaki et al. 2001 is the type species of the genus, and is of phylogenetic interest because of its arguable assignment to the provisionally arranged family 'Peptostreptococcaceae'. A. prevotii is an obligate anaerobic coccus, usually arranged in clumps or tetrads. The strain, whose genome is described here, was originally isolated from human plasma; other strains of the species were also isolated from clinical specimen. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. This is the first completed genome sequence of a member of the genus. Next to Finegoldia magna, A. prevotii is only the second species from the family 'Peptostreptococcaceae' for which a complete genome sequence is described. The 1,998,633 bp long genome (chromosome and one plasmid) with its 1852 protein-coding and 61 RNA genes is a part of the GenomicEncyclopedia ofBacteria andArchaea project.


Mathematics as a Science of Patterns is the definitive exposition of a system of ideas about the nature of mathematics which Michael Resnik has been elaborating for a number of years. In calling mathematics a science he implies that it has a factual subject-matter and that mathematical knowledge is on a par with other scientific knowledge; in calling it a science of patterns he expresses his commitment to a structuralist philosophy of mathematics. He links this to a defence of realism about the metaphysics of mathematics-the view that mathematics is about things that really exist. Resnik's distinctive philosophy of mathematics is here presented in an accessible and systematic form: it will be of value not only to specialists in this area, but to philosophers, mathematicians, and logicians interested in the relationship between these three disciplines, or in truth, realism, and epistemology.


Background Protection of the gastric mucosa from acute lesions induced by various irritants is a pertinent issue in the field of critical care medicine. In this study, we investigated the gastroprotective effects of astragaloside IV on acute gastric lesions in rats under stressful conditions. Methods Rats were randomized into six groups. Group 1 and 2 received 10% Tween 80 (vehicle). Group 3 received 20 mg/kg of omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor. Groups 4, 5 and 6 received astragaloside IV at concentration of 1, 10, and 50 mg/kg, respectively. As a means to induce gastric lesions, Groups 2–6 were subjected to water immersion and restraint stress for 12 hours after treatment. Results Our present studies show that compared to rats in group 2, treatment with 1 to 50 mg/kg astragaloside IV significantly decreased the size of gastric lesions, MDA, TNFα and MCP1 levels, in addition to normalizing gastric pH, gastric mucus and SOD levels (P<0.05). Histomorphological examination confirmed that treatment with astragaloside IV elicited a dosage-dependent protective effect on the gastric mucosa. Furthermore, pretreatment with astragaloside IV resulted in significant elevations in HSP70 and reduction in Bax, along with over-expression of PLCγ response level, which was further confirmed via immunohistochemical analysis. Conclusions The acute gastric lesions induced are attenuated by pretreatment with astragaloside IV which is possibly due to the enhancing of the expression of HSP70 with concomitant antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic capacity.


We provide a theory of trade policy determination that incorporates the protectionist bias inherent in majoritarian systems, suggested by Grossman and Helpman (2005). The prediction that emerges is that in majoritarian systems, the majority party favors industries located disproportionately in majority districts. We test this prediction using U.S. tariff data from 1993, and House campaign contribution data from two electoral cycles. We find evidence of a protectionist bias due to majoritarian system politics that is comparable in magnitude to the payoff from being an organized industry.


The ac characteristics of GaN : Mg and undoped GaN layers, grown by MOVPE on sapphire substrates, are measured for a wide range of temperature and bias conditions, in order to investigate the effect of the magnesium-related level on the transport properties. Two peaks, whose height and position depend on the measurement temperature, are observed in the admittance curves (G/ω versus frequency) of the Mg-doped samples, whereas only one peak appears in undoped samples. The study of the frequency dependence of the impedance, with a model including the two metallic Au/GaN junctions, the GaN layer itself, shows that, besides the effect of the differential resistance of the layer which plays a role in both sample types, the presence of a Mgrelated deep level contributes to the observed variations of the peaks in the admittance curves of the p-doped samples. Results of a theoretical steady-state and small-signal analysis based on numerical modelling of the Au/ GaN/Au heterostructure complete our analysis.


Continuing advancements in commercial on-orbit servicing and operationally responsive space capabilities will soon allow new degrees of latitude in how satellites are interacted with and perceived. Now seen primarily as increasingly hazardous debris, non-operational artifacts in orbit can be re-envisioned as repairable or refuelable, as raw material, and also in some cases, as historic objects worthy of preserving into the future. The same robotic servicing platforms that will allow such a potential sorting of use, also make possible the relocation and clustering of certain satellites into specific orbital sequestration refuges that would be similar in function to museums. In addi tion to the ethical and cultural dimensions of preserving representative examples of such historical material, practical and economic rationales for doing so exist in the form of long-term material science research potential, and in supplying future space tourism and cultural resource management related fields. The advent of both fractionated and miniaturized satellite architectures, partly achieved already, will likely accelerate the already rapid rate at which the current generation of monolithic satellites will become obsolete and potential candidates for new on-orbit technology applications.


We examine experimentally the consequence of frequency detuning an actively mode-locked external-cavity semiconductor laser from resonance. We observe a transition of the laser system from a periodic oscillation to a nonperiodic state with broadened spectral tones. By estimating the fractal dimension of the corresponding phase-space attractors, we show the presence of low-dimensional chaos. The route to chaos is a well-defined regime of three-frequency quasi-periodicity preceded by a two-frequency quasi-periodicity.


The paper deals with the analysis of the personal safety system' transformation in the quickly developed societal environment, which objectively causes reforms of the existing tradition-based institutional systems, obligated to maintain the public order. The hypothesis about the interdependence of the changes both the internal structure of the society, which define the safety needs of inhabitants and the needs of them for certain forms of the officially obligated institutions is checked. Stratification of the society into the groups, which are provided with the different financial abilities, is discussed in context of different needs for the public police. The paper include the following sentences: Lack of trust in law enforcement agencies, especially in police, is identified by various surveys. Research of this proposition in Lithuania shows the existence of the stereotypic criterions in the process of the environment security assessments. Then, described tends to reform the police organization in accordance to modern requirements could be wrong. Or, special measures for the changing of public opinion have to be implemented. The phenomenon of the police (or policing) has to be newly discussed and new philosophy of the policing has to be disseminated among the society. On the practical level the following recommendations are formulated: Responsibility for the condition of the public safety has to be divided in equal parts among the State and Society. State has to stipulate the establishments of the communities for the maintenance of safe environment. Government has to delegate part of the obligations to the self-governments.


Abstract: This commentary emphasizes Broom's (2014) attack on "the widely stated human prejudices" that prevent modern humans from understanding and communicating with animals of other species. As a student and scholar of what is now referred to as literary animal studies, I find one of these biases — anthropocentrism (human exceptionalism) — of particular concern because much of the literature I study is valued only for its concern with animals presented as so remarkably similar to human beings that they are read as symbols or allegorical representations of the human rather than real animals: when some of these animal characters speak what seems to be human language, they are commonly belittled as anthropomorphic! Broom mentions that humans tend to find the ability to use language as humans do "particularly impressive" but not if it is used by a being who happens to be nonhuman. I suggest that such use in literature is often a device used to translate animals' real methods of communication into language that human readers can understand. The hope is that this will lead to a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the animals in question: what animals are really like, how they see and respond to their Umwelt or surround, and what would really be involved in meeting the needs they have. In other words, what would constitute welfare from that animal's perspective?


Polycrystalline silver bismuth iodide (SBI) powders of various compositions (Ag : Bi = 2 : 1–1 : 1 in atomic ratio) were synthesized via a solid-state reaction in an evacuated Pyrex tube. Regardless of the composition of Ag and Bi, Ag2BiI5 in the hexagonal phase was preferentially formed and BiI3 impurity in the rhombohedral phase was formed with the increase of the Bi component. The synthesized SBI powders of various compositions were applied as light absorbers for hybrid solar cells (HSCs), which employ mesoporous TiO2 as the electron transporting layer and pristine spiro-OMeTAD as the hole transporting layer. To deposit light absorber layers, the coating solutions were prepared by dissolving the synthesized SBI powders in DMSO/DMF/HI and spin-coated over the mesoporous TiO2 layer. For the solar cell employing pure Ag2BiI5, a photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.74% was achieved, whereas the inclusion of the BiI3 impurities in the Ag2BiI5 phase significantly increased the device performance. The highest PCE of 2.31% was achieved with the SBI of Ag : Bi = 55 : 45. Furthermore, the SBI solar cells show no hysteresis in the J–V curve measurements and are highly stable under ambient conditions, exhibiting excellent long-term stability at a relative humidity of 50%.


Town defenses are central elements of townscapes. The defensive purpose of their construction was as important as their significance as a town symbol. The purpose of the current article is to summarize the material gathered from the excavations of the medieval town walls from the Estonian towns of Viljandi, Haapsalu, and Narva, to discuss when they were erected, and to analyze what their place was in Old Livonian and Baltic contexts. Although fortifying the towns seemed to have been quite widespread in Old Livonia, the similar trend was not followed in adjacent areas such as in Scandinavia. According to the information discussed in this article, it might be concluded that the average development from rudimentary urban settlement to walled medieval town in the Estonian territory took around 50–100 years. The town walls were erected in the Estonian territory probably in the fourteenth century. The tendency to dispense the towns into typologies on the basis of the landlord does not seem to find much support. It might be suggested, that walling the towns in the Old Livonian area was a phenomenon of Western European culture represented by German settlers, rather than a widespread tendency around the Baltic.

Keywords: urban archaeology, town walls, medieval fortifications, medieval Estonia

Rivo Bernotas (b. 1982) is a PhD student at the University of Turku.
Correspondence: University of Turku, 2 Henrikinkatu, FI-20014 Turku, Finland; E-mail: email@example.com


This text explores the photographic career of Man Ray whose fertile artistic impulse has made him equally celebrated as a painter, sculptor, writer and film-maker. Taking up photography in 1915 for the purpose of reproducing his paintings, he earned money doing the same for others when he went to live and work in Paris in 1921. This led to a career in photography ranging from portraits of celebrated artists, musicians and writers such as Andre breton, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg, T.S. Elliot and Gertrude Stein, to the pictures using light effects outside the camera for which he is famous: cliche-verres, rayographs and solarizations. Alongside many of Man-Ray's classic images, this collection presents a huge number of less familiar photographs, including portraits of Virginia Woolf and of Antonin Artaud and a large selection of erotic pictures. Most of these are from the collection of Lucien Treillard, a personal friend who worked with the artist over many years cataloguing and archiving his photographs.


As the increasing complains of the electric passenger car owners about the lower pure electric mileage under real-road driving condition than the regulation standard test result, the annual real-road energy consumption characteristics of 20 MPV electric passenger cars in Chinese city, Shenzhen, have been investigated to analyse the effect factors causing the energy consumption difference between these two results. Results showed that the annual variations of real-road energy consumption rate of each month were agreed with the variations of air conditioning using duration. The highest and lowest energy consumption rates were obtained in July and March, which increased the energy consumption rate of whole vehicle about 24% in the maximum extent. The difference of the energy consumption between real-road and regulation standard test was attributed to the effects of air conditioning using and driving condition (driving velocity and acceleration distribution), which have been qualified in this paper.


The transient and static behavior of an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) are analyzed through finite elements simulations and physically based equations. The standard model using a bipolar transistor driven by a MOSFET is abandoned for three partial voltage drops in series, each with its specific static and dynamic behavior. One voltage drop on the internal MOSFET, one on the base and one on the collector-base junction. It is found that the dynamic model can be drastically simplified by focusing on the equivalent electron density. This takes into account the most important phenomena related to the carrier mobilities, necessary for an accurate transient modeling. The specific behavior of the gate-collector capacitance in soft switching conditions is discussed. An equation set based on semiconductor physics is developed to determine the static operating points for each contribution. The importance of the minority carriers transit time in soft switching conditions is then shown. The similarity observed between the waveforms obtained through a finite element simulation and the waveforms obtained using the developed IGBT model within various external structures validates the proposed approach.


In The Ends of Harm, Victor Tadros claims that the general justifying aim of the criminal law should be general deterrence. He also takes seriously that we cannot use people as a means, and thus he argues that we may only punish people in the name of general deterrence who have a "duty" to suffer. Tadros claims that this duty arises as follows: An offender initially has a duty not to harm the victim. If the offender violates that duty, the offender still has a duty to stop the harm from occurring (so that, for example, an offender would have to jump in front of his own bullet). And if the harm does occur, then the offender has a duty to rectify that harm. This duty to rectify, argues Tadros, requires the defendant not only to compensate the victim but also to protect the victim to the extent that he would have been able to have been harmed to prevent the threat from occurring. Tadros further advances intricate arguments for why the state may therefore punish the offender to protect other potential victims to the extent of the offender's duty to rectify. This symposium contribution seeks to explore three problems with Tadros' analysis, ultimately arguing that Tadros' theory fails on its own terms. First, attempts present a substantial problem for Tadros' regime because attempts do not give rise to duties to prevent harm because there is no harm to be prevented. Tadros' attempt to account for attempts, as completed offenses of diversions of security resources, ultimately leads to punishments that bear little resemblance to the crime attempted. Such a wildly counterintuitive result creates problems for a regime premised on general deterrence, which must be understood and respected. Second, Tadros' regime will often exempt the rich from suffering criminal punishment. Tadros claims that duties to prevent harms from occurring (by jumping in front of bullets) are only enforceable when compensation will be inadequate. However, affluent offenders may be able to fully compensate. Moreover, since the scope of the duty to suffer will be determined by what remains of the duty after the victim is compensated, affluent offenders will be able to compensate more and thereby suffer less. Again, the actual sentences will thereby bear little resemblance to the rationale for criminalization, thus threatening the deterrent message of the law. Moreover, a system that exacerbates distributive inequalities will not achieve public respect. Third, Tadros cannot justify taking the duty that the defendant owes to the victim and forcing the victim to transfer this asset to the state. In his quest to articulate a theory that does not impermissibly use defendants, he ultimately endorses a theory that impermissibly uses their victims. He thus fails to achieve the very goal he sets for himself, which is to achieve general deterrence without impermissibly using anyone.


Despite rapid advancements in automated driving systems (ADS), current HMI research tends to focus more on the safety driver in lower level vehicles. That said, the future of automated driving lies in higher level systems that do not always require a safety driver to be present. However, passengers might not fully trust the capability of the ADS in the absence of a safety driver. Furthermore, while an ADS might have a specific set of parameters for its driving profile, passengers might have different driving preferences, some more defensive than others. Taking these preferences into consideration is, therefore, an important issue which can only be accomplished by understanding what makes a passenger uncomfortable or anxious. In order to tackle this issue, we ran a human study in a real-world autonomous vehicle. Various driving profile parameters were manipulated and tested in a scenario consisting of four different events. Physiological measurements were also collected along with selfreport scores, and the combined data was analyzed using Linear Mixed-Effects Models. The magnitude of a response was found to be situation dependent: the presence and proximity of a lead vehicle significantly moderated the effect of other parameters. Stopping events also generated a higher level of response than non-stopping events. Finally, a statistically significant association between physiological responses and self-reported scores showed that such responses could potentially be used to indicate comfort or anxiety in future adaptive systems.


Key-words: Dinosaur trackways; Lower Cretaceous; Aptian! Albian; Olhos de Agua; Obidos; Portugal.

A new Lower Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) dinosaur tracksite at the Olhos de Agua beach is described. It is the first vertebrate fossil finding ever found in the concerned unit, and yielded 128 tracks in 17 trackways within an area ofca. 80 square metres. Three tridactyl footprint morphotypes have been recognized: - Type 1 ("Iguanodontipus-like") - trackways D, F, K, J and P; - Type 2 (large theropod), although larger in size, typically from a Grallator-like theropod footprint, i.e. A, B, G, H and 0 trackways; - Type 3 (medium size theropod); M is the only track ofthis type. There are other, poorly preserved, unidentified trackways. The theropod, swinging trackway B was produced by an animal that was limping. The theropod track M starts eastwards but drastically changes westwards, speeding up at the same time; this dinosaur decided to turn around and run in the opposite direction.
This site shows three main trackway directions: to the South, to the East, and westwards. Except for the trackway 0, large theropods A, B, G and H walked southwards. Perpendicularly to these, ornithopods, small theropods and unidentified trackmakers walked towards East (5) and West (7). The segregation oftrackmakers and directions, with large theropod trackways southwards and other dinosaurs' west or eastwards, may mean that large theropods patrolled a walkway area to an important resource, most probably water, often frequented by ornithopods and smaller theropods. There is no evidence of social behavior or gregarism: footprints' overposition shows that the large, southwards walking theropods passed on different occasions. Three trackway sequences can be established by chronologic order.


Business process compliance management is a field of study involving the co-ordination of business process management and compliance systems. A compliance system is an organisation wide tool that links legislative and business rules to organization policies and processes. The objective of such a system is to promote a self sustaining level of operations that minimizes the losses caused to the business through breaches of laws or internal misappropriations. We view a compliance system in a similar fashion to that of an accounting system where each process is treated as a transaction. Each process may be monitored and valuations of costing and benefits associated to each task. Both high order policy creation as well as low order transactional histories of single processes must be considered to obtain a complete picture of current operations. In this paper we discuss benefits and shortcomings in some of the currently implemented compliance schemes and present a method for measuring the degree of compliance that each business process may achieve.


TRANSFORMING YOUTH JUSTICE: OCCUPATIONAL IDENTITY AND CULTURAL CHANGE Souhami, A. (2007), Willan pp22l £35.70 hdbk ISBN 978-1-84392-193-6 In the introduction to this book, Anna Souhami notes the extensive literature on the occupational cultures of criminal jus tice agencies such as the police, but the relative lack of attention that the culture of the youth justice system has attracted. This is at odds with the attention that youth justice has received in terms of policy changes and reform. The author, therefore, sets out to redress that deficit and also to explore a further neglected area, the nature of occupational culture itself. Souhami's task is to analyse professional identities and occupational culture in the midst of organisational change. Her ethnographic study was undertaken as multi-disciplinary Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) were created by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, replacing the previous arrangements largely based upon local authority social services departments. In order to do this, she observed and interacted with one Midlands youth justice team over 14 months from May 1999. This covers the 12 month period before YOTs officially took up their responsibilities in April 2000 and the period immediately after during which a range of new powers and court orders became available. Inherent in this research is the question of ambiguity in the culture of the youth justice social work team that existed before creation of the YOT and that formed the basis on which the YOT was built. The identity of the original team was constructed around a sense of difference and separation from the rest of social services rather than a consistent internal consensus about the values and purpose of social work with young offenders. This lack of clarity about the special 'functional territory' of social work and its particular expertise had made the predominance of social work intervention in youth j ustice so open to challenge from the New Labour administration. In addition, Souhami identifies the difficulties that social workers found in defending their previous youth justice practices, which were certainly less interventionist and less bureaucratic than the practices being introduced under YOTs but also - and critically - less easily evidenced and justified. Souhami analyses this Midlands team using a framework developed by Martin and Meyerson (1988; 1987), which suggests that organisations have three perspectives that tend to dominate their thinking and self-concepts. These are 'integration' based on a sense of consensus and sharing, 'differentiation' emphasising diversity and overlapping subcultures, and 'fragmentation', prioritising areas that are unclear, inconsistent or dichotomous. These are not mutually exclusive, but may be present at the same time, although one perspective - the 'home perspective' - may be dominant at any given point. Using this framework, Souhami charts the stages through which the team progresses, from its original strong 'integration' stance to a different type of team organisation and team culture, as the team encompasses different professionals and moves to a new dedicated office space. What emerges is a sense of the fragility of the occupational identity as seen through the reflections, the anxieties and the pains of this group of practitioners. …


Over the past decade and a half sport-for-development (SfD) has gathered momentum on a global scale. Under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) it has gained the official label "sport-for-development and peace (SDP)". Eminent international relations and sport development scholars (Levermore, 2015, 2011a, 2011b, 2008; Coalter, 2013, 2010, 2007) have attempted to unpack, explain, analyse, and offer conclusions about distinct possibilities and limitations which commonly accompany SfD. This essay offers a comprehensive review of the extensive literature that has and continues to be devoted to the SfD. Coverage of theoretical and practical perspectives aims to advance our understanding of and interest in SfD and the dynamic, nuanced, and complex geopolitical spaces within which it is used. Notably, promotion of critical reading, understanding, and explanation of SfD is by no means intended to disregard the deep social, educational, and medical injustices that SfD movements have a mission to reduce and ultimately solve.


Of the eleven countries most affected by terrorism globally, seven currently host UN peace operations. In countries affected by terrorism and violent extremism, peace operations will increasingly be called upon to adapt their approaches without compromising UN doctrine. But to date, there has been little exploration of the broader political and practical challenges, opportunities, and risks facing UN peace operations in complex security environments. This has created a gap between the policy debate in New York and the realities confronting UN staff on the ground.
This policy paper aims to bridge this gap by examining the recent drive to integrate counterterrorism (CT) and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) into relevant activities of UN peace operations, as well as the associated challenges and opportunities. It seeks to expand the scope of discussions beyond whether peace operations can "do CT" to how they can better support national governments and local communities in preventing terrorism and violent extremism.
Based on extensive conversations with UN officials, member state representatives, and practitioners, the paper offers a number of recommendations. At the level of headquarters, the UN should:
- Improve its capacity to analyze and respond to the factors and grievances leading to radicalization and violence; - Enhance system-wide dialogue, coherence, and policy guidance; and - Prioritize objectives and capacities related to CT and P/CVE in mission mandates.
To make field missions more effective, the UN should:
- Preserve and expand the space for dialogue with all parties; - Enhance capacity for early warning and response; - Integrate CT and P/CVE into compacts with host governments where relevant; - Enhance mission engagement with civil society, women, and youth; - Design integrated strategies to prevent terrorism and violent extremism; - Promote partnerships between missions, country teams, and NGOs; - Improve capacity to monitor, evaluate, manage risk, and learn; - Employ caution in labeling programs as "P/CVE"; and - Improve training and raise the awareness of mission staff.


Translation Studies is an academic discipline that has managed to establish itself as such thanks to the research and theoretical reflection on its main object of study, i.e. translation. Yet, given the applied nature of this field, there is some disagreement as to whether translation theory is relevant in the practice of translation. The never-ending battle between these two dimensions of the discipline has given rise to a series of myths and prejudices concerning Translation Studies that extend into both the sphere of translation as a profession and the academic context. Although a number of authors have highlighted the contributions that translation theory has to offer in the training of translators (Gile 1995, 2010; Chesterman and Wagner 2002; Munday 2012), Translation theory usually plays a secondary role in the curricula of Spanish universities. At the same time, students' attitude towards the more theoretical subjects seems to be one of rejection. Here we conduct an empirical study to analyse the preconceptions that Translation and Interpreting (T&I) undergraduate and post-graduate students have concerning the usefulness and benefits of translation theory in their training.


Drug safety and quality is an essential assumption of clinical medicine, but there is growing concern that this assumption is not always correct. Poor manufacturing and deliberate fraud occasionally compromises the drug supply in the United States, and the problem is far more common and serious in low- and middle-income countries with weak drug regulatory systems. An Institute of Medicine consensus committee report identified the causes and possible solutions to the problem of falsified and substandard drugs around the world.The vocabulary people use to discuss the problem is itself a concern. The word counterfeit is often used innocuously to describe any drug that is not what it seems, but some NGOs and emerging manufacturing nations object to this term. These groups see hostility to generic pharmaceuticals in a discussion of counterfeit medicines. These groups see hostility to generic pharmaceuticals in a discussion of counterfeit medicines. Precisely speaking, a counterfeit drug infringes on a registered trademark, and trademark infringement in not necessarily a problem of public health consequence. Instead of talking broadly about counterfeit drugs, the WHO and other stakeholders should consider two main categories of drug quality problems. Falsified medicines misrepresent the product's identity or source or both. Substandard drugs fail to meet the national specifications given in an accepted pharmacopeia or the manufacturer's dossier. In practice, there is often considerable overlap between categories.There is considerable uncertainty about the size of the falsified and substandard drug market. Improved pharmacovigilance, especially in developing countries, give a better picture of the scope of the problem. In the United States, tighter regulatory controls on the wholesale market and a mandatory drug tracking system would improve drug safety. In developing countries, development finance organizations should invest in small- and medium-sized pharmaceutical manufacturers, and governments should use tools such as franchising, accreditation, low-interest loans, and task shifting to encourage private sector investment in drug retail. Finally, the WHO should work with stakeholders such as the UNODC and the WCO to develop an international code of practice on falsified and substandard drugs.


This article examines the admissibility of forensic science and medicine in criminal proceedings. In Part II, we explain how reliability-based admissibility standards in the United States have been unevenly applied to expert evidence in civil and criminal cases and have not prevented wrongful convictions. In Part III, we review a recent Consultation Paper (and report) issued by the Law Commission of England and Wales. Though focused on the need for 'sufficiently reliable' expert opinion evidence, we challenge its contemplation of easier admissibility for experience-based forensic sciences and techniques traditionally admitted. In Part IV we examine the evolving law on the admissibility of expert evidence in Canada. In response, we argue that while front-end reforms to the organization and practice of forensic science and medicine, advocated by the Goudge Inquiry and the American National Academy of Sciences, appear more promising than reliance on the adversary system, the gate-keeping role of trial judges should be strengthened. In the concluding section, we contend that threshold reliability standards should be grounded in criminal-justice system values, emerging empirical insights about the weakness of the adversarial trial and be sensitive to the particular evidence and its use, rather than applied mechanically using simplistic models of science and expertise.


In 1791 when the Constitutional Act created a legislative assembly for Upper Canada, the colonists and their British rulers decreed that the operating criminal justice system in the area be adopted from England, to avoid any undue influence from the nearby United States. In this new study of early Canadian law, David Murray has delved into the court records of the Niagara District, one of the richest sets of criminal court records surviving from Upper Canada, to analyze the criminal justice system in the district during the first half of the nineteenth century. Murray explores how far local characteristics affected the operation of a criminal justice system transplanted from England; his analysis includes how legal processes affected Upper Canadian morality, the treatment of the insane, welfare cases, crimes committed in the district, and an examination of the roles of the Niagara magistrates, constables, and juries. Murray concludes by arguing that while the principles and culture of British justice were firmly implanted in the Niagara district, this did not prevent justice from being unequal, especially for women and visible minorities. Integrating the stories of the individuals caught up in the legal system, Murray explores law from a local perspective, and illuminates how the Niagara region's criminal justice system operated under hybrid influences from both Britain and the United States.


Short answer: It helps a lot when other important variables are excluded from the information set. Longer answer: We revisit claims in the literature that money growth is Granger-causal for inflation at low frequencies. Applying frequency-specific tests in a comprehensive system setup for euro-area data we consider various theoretical predictors of inflation. A general-to-specific testing strategy reveals a recursive structure where only the unemployment rate and long-term interest rates are directly Granger-causal for low-frequency inflation movements, and all variables affect money growth. We therefore interpret opposite results from bivariate inflation/money growth systems as spurious due to omittedvariable biases. We also analyze the resulting four-dimensional system in a cointegration framework and find structural changes in the long-run adjustment behavior, which do not affect the main conclusions, however.


Drawing on accounts from India to Africa and California to Tennessee, and on research in neuroscience, psychology, and animal behavior, G. A. Bradshaw explores the minds, emotions, and lives of elephants. Wars, starvation, mass culls, poaching, and habitat loss have reduced elephant numbers from more than ten million to a few hundred thousand, leaving orphans bereft of the elders who would normally mentor them. As a consequence, traumatized elephants have become aggressive against people, other animals, and even one another; their behavior is comparable to that of humans who have experienced genocide, other types of violence, and social collapse. By exploring the elephant mind and experience in the wild and in captivity, Bradshaw bears witness to the breakdown of ancient elephant cultures. All is not lost. People are working to save elephants by rescuing orphaned infants and rehabilitating adult zoo and circus elephants, using the same principles psychologists apply in treating humans who have survived trauma. Bradshaw urges us to support these and other models of elephant recovery and to solve pressing social and environmental crises affecting all animals, human or not.


The European Union is a security actor in Central Asia, although with less influence than other players. Russia and China have a much larger impact on Central Asian regimes' security strategies. These limitations do not dispense with the need for the EU to provide a better security narrative, especially in light of its growing emphasis on human security, and to incorporate this into the current review of its strategy for the region. This policy brief will centre on the EU's contribution to human security in Central Asia.


Most collisions between vehicles and pedestrians occur at night. This experiment quantified the ability of drivers to detect pedestrians at night. Ten younger (M=27.8 yrs) and ten older (M=67.9 yrs) participants drove an instrumented car ten laps around an unilluminated 1.1 mile test track. Drivers pressed a dash-mounted touchpad when they recognized the presence of a pedestrian. A computer-based system measured recognition distances by interpreting the parallax provided by two synchronized digital video cameras mounted on the car's roof. Two pedestrians walked in place at different positions on the far shoulder. One pedestrian was in darkness and one was positioned just beyond a stationary pair of headlights that was a source of glare for the approaching driver. Across laps, drivers used both low and high beams and pedestrians wore four different clothing configurations. The effects of age, glare, clothing, and beam all significantly influenced both pedestrian identification (all p < .01) and recognition distance (all p < .001). With and without glare, older drivers identified only 48% and 59% of the pedestrians, respectively. Younger drivers identified significantly more pedestrians (75% with glare, 94% without glare). Recognition was worst for pedestrians wearing black (34% identified). Only 5% of drivers identified the black-clad pedestrian when the driver used low beams and faced glare. Recognition was best (94% identified) for pedestrians wearing retroreflective markings configured to depict biological motion. Analysis of the recognition distances revealed that when identification occurs it is often at a distance insufficient to allow a successful avoidance maneuver. Taken together, these data confirm that even alerted drivers can have great difficulty recognizing the presence of pedestrians at night. The problem is greatest for older drivers, when drivers rely on low beams, when pedestrians wear low reflectance clothing, and when glare is present.