OBJECTIVE
To determine the relationships between conventional and segmentation-derived optical coherence tomography (OCT) retinal layer thickness measures with intracranial volume (a surrogate of head size) and brain substructure volumes in multiple sclerosis (MS).

DESIGN
Cross-sectional study.

SETTING
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 84 patients with MS and 24 healthy control subjects.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
High-definition spectral-domain OCT conventional and automated segmentation-derived discrete retinal layer thicknesses and 3-T magnetic resonance imaging brain substructure volumes.

RESULTS
Peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer as well as composite ganglion cell layer+inner plexiform layer thicknesses in the eyes of patients with MS without a history of optic neuritis were associated with cortical gray matter (P=.01 and P=.04, respectively) and caudate (P=.04 and P=.03, respectively) volumes. Inner nuclear layer thickness, also in eyes without a history of optic neuritis, was associated with fluid-attenuated inversion recovery lesion volume (P=.007) and inversely associated with normal-appearing white matter volume (P=.005) in relapsing-remitting MS. As intracranial volume was found to be related with several of the OCT measures in patients with MS and healthy control subjects and is already known to be associated with brain substructure volumes, all OCT-brain substructure relationships were adjusted for intracranial volume. CONCLUSIONS Retinal measures reflect global central nervous system pathology in multiple sclerosis, with thicknesses of discrete retinal layers each appearing to be associated with distinct central nervous system processes. Moreover, OCT measures appear to correlate with intracranial volume in patients with MS and healthy control subjects, an important unexpected factor unaccounted for in prior studies examining the relationships between peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and brain substructure volumes.


We developed a model to calculate food intake by Oystercatchers from their weight gain between two incubation spells and correcting for the amount of excreta voided before the bird returned to its nest. The model predictions agreed well with estimated food consumption based on direct observations in the field, regardless of the type of prey consumed. The model was used to calculate food consumption of free-living Oystercatchers under circumstances when this could not be measured by direct observation; (1) when feeding downshore outside their territory and (2) while feeding during night-time low water periods. The rate of food intake outside the territory did net differ from the rate within the territory and averaged 0.9 g min(-1) fresh weight. Food intake rate in darkness did not differ from that during daylight (p = 0.96). The total amount of food consumed per low water period et night was higher in the male and lower in the female as compared to food consumed in daylight. The difference was probably induced by our activities which made the female very reluctant to incubate during the daylight hours. The average amount of food consumed differed hardly between day and night-time low water periods. Total food consumption over a 24 hour day was 162 +/- 88 g for the male and 196 +/- 13 g for the female. Accounting for the weight loss of the male over the observation period, the estimated energy expenditure is 535 and 565 kJ day(-1) for male and female, respectively. This is equivalent to 2.2 x BMR and strongly suggests that the incubation stage is a period when energy is conserved, rather than expended. Although the amount of food consumed per low water period varied greatly from one tidal cycle to the other, the birds appeared to balance intake with expenditure on a 24 hour basis. In the discussion we address the possible repercussions for the birds when they fail to keep this balance in the short run.


Thermophoresis of axially symmetric bodies is investigated to first order in the Knudsen-number Kn. The study is made in the limit where the typical length of the immersed body is small compared to the mean free path. It is shown that in this case, in contrast to what is the case for spherical bodies, the arising thermal force on the body is not in general antiparallel to the temperature gradient. It is also shown that the gas excerts a torque on the body, which in magnitude and direction depends on the body geometry. Equations of motion describing the body movement are derived. Asymptotic solutions are studied.


It is increasingly implausible to speak of a purely domestic abortion law, as the legal debates around the world draw on precedents and influences of different national and regional contexts. While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the twentieth century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the twenty-first century, as are particular countries in Africa and Asia. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective offers a fresh look at significant transnational legal developments in recent years, examining key judicial decisions, constitutional texts, and regulatory reforms of abortion law in order to envision ways ahead. The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through different legal procedures and regimes. They address the promises and risks of using legal procedure to achieve reproductive justice from different national, regional, and international vantage points; how public and courtroom debates are framed within medical, religious, and human rights arguments; the meaning of different narratives that recur in abortion litigation and language; and how respect for women and prenatal life is expressed in various legal regimes. By exploring how legal actors advocate, regulate, and adjudicate the issue of abortion, this timely volume seeks to build on existing developments to bring about change of a larger order. Contributors: Luis Roberto Barroso, Paola Bergallo, Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, Joanna N. Erdman, Lisa M. Kelly, Adriana Lamackova, Julieta Lemaitre, Alejandro Madrazo, Charles G. Ngwena, Rachel Rebouche, Ruth Rubio-Marin, Sally Sheldon, Reva B. Siegel, Veronica Undurraga, Melissa Upreti.


OBJECTIVES: To measure the levels of exposure to nitrogen trichloride (NCl3) in the atmosphere of indoor swimming pools and to examine how they relate to irritant and chronic respiratory symptoms, indices of pulmonary function, and bronchial hyperresponsiveness to methacholine in lifeguards working in the pools. METHOD: 334 lifeguards (256 men; 78 women) recruited from 46 public swimming pools (n = 228) and 17 leisure centre swimming pools (n = 106) were examined. Concentrations of NCl3 were measured with area samplers. Symptoms were assessed by questionnaire and methacholine bronchial challenge (MBC) test by an abbreviated method. Subjects were labelled MBC+ if forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) fell by > or = 20%. The linear dose-response slope was calculated as the percentage fall in FEV1 at the last dose divided by the total dose given. RESULTS: 1262 samples were taken in the 63 pools. Mean NCl3 concentrations were greater in leisure than in public pools. A significant concentration-response relation was found between irritant eye, nasal, and throat symptoms-but not chronic respiratory symptoms-and exposure concentrations. Among women, the prevalence of MBC+ was twice as great as in men. Overall, no relation was found between bronchial hyperresponsiveness and exposure. CONCLUSIONS: The data show that lifeguards exposed to NCl3 in indoor swimming pools are at risk of developing irritant eye, nasal, and throat symptoms. Exposure to NCl3 does not seem to carry the risk of developing permanent bronchial hyperresponsiveness, but this association might have been influenced by self selection. The possibility that subjects exposed to NCl3 are at risk of developing transient bronchial hyperresponsiveness cannot be confidently ruled out.


Adolescents and young adults with Down syndrome (DS) can present a rapid regression with loss of independence and daily skills. Causes of regression are unknown and treatment is most of the time symptomatic. We did a retrospective cohort study of regression cases: patients were born between 1959 and 2000, and were followed from 1984 to now. We found 30 DS patients aged 11 to 30 years old with history of regression. Regression occurred regardless of the cognitive level (severe, moderate, or mild intellectual disability (ID)). Patients presented psychiatric symptoms (catatonia, depression, delusions, stereotypies, etc.), partial or total loss of independence in activities of daily living (dressing, toilet, meals, and continence), language impairment (silence, whispered voice, etc.), and loss of academic skills. All patients experienced severe emotional stress prior to regression, which may be considered the trigger. Partial or total recovery was observed for about 50% of them. In our cohort, girls were more frequently affected than boys (64%). Neurobiological hypotheses are discussed as well as preventative and therapeutic approaches.


This study employed a qualitative case study method to compare learner-learner interaction on wiki and face-to-face collaborative writing in completing an argumentative essay. Face-to-face collaborative writing refers to in-class meeting of students to write essays collaboratively. Thirty ESL tertiary students from an intact class participated in the study. They were randomly divided into Group 1 and Group 2. Each of the two groups was further sub-divided into five smaller groups comprising three members. Group 1 discussed and wrote the essay on the wiki platform while Group 2 did the same task face-to-face in the classroom. One sub-group from both modes of writing was selected for in-depth comparison. Data were collected from the collaborative writing processes on the wiki platform and audio-recordings of face-to-face interactions, and also from semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that the participants of both modes of writing were able to evaluate different viewpoints, and understand shortcomings and strengths through interaction in either of the collaborative learning contexts. The collaboration through both modes of writing showed that the participants not only displayed similar understanding, but also learned from each other through developing and sharing different perspectives on the same issues. Of the differences found between the two modes of collaborative writing, Wiki is a more effective platform for drafting and revising, while planning is easier done through face-to-face interaction. The study implies that either mode of collaborative writing can be adopted by ESL language instructors who aspire to practice the social-constructivist approach to writing instruction especially in a blended learning environment.


Chemical results from four samples of martian fines delivered to Viking landers 1 and 2 are remarkably similar in that they all have high iron; moderate magnesium, calcium, and sulfur; low aluminum; and apparently very low alkalies and trace elements. This composition is best interpreted as representing the weathering products of mafic igneous rocks. A mineralogic model, derived from computer mixing studies and laboratory analog preparations, suggests that Mars fines could be an intimate mixture of about 80 percent iron-rich clay, about 10 percent magnesium sulfate (kieserite?), about 5 percent carbonate (calcite), and about 5 percent iron oxides (hematite, magnetite, maghemite, goethite?). The mafic nature of the present fines (distributed globally) and their probable source rocks seems to preclude large-scale planetary differentiation of a terrestrial nature.


The Roma population has become a policy issue highly debated in the European Union (EU). The EU acknowledges that this ethnic minority faces extreme poverty and complex social and economic problems. 52% of the Roma population live in extreme poverty, 75% in poverty (Soros Foundation, 2007, p. 8), with a life expectancy at birth of about ten years less than the majority population. As a result, Romania has received a great deal of policy attention and EU funding, being eligible for 19.7 billion Euros from the EU for 2007-2013. Yet progress is slow; it is debated whether Romania's government and companies were capable to use these funds (EurActiv.ro, 2012). Analysing three case studies, this research looks at policy implementation in relation to the role of Roma networks in different geographical regions of Romania. It gives insights about how to get things done in complex settings and it explains responses to the Roma problem as a "wicked" policy issue. This longitudinal research was conducted between 2008 and 2011, comprising 86 semi-structured interviews, 15 observations, and documentary sources and using a purposive sample focused on institutions responsible for implementing social policies for Roma: Public Health Departments, School Inspectorates, City Halls, Prefectures, and NGOs. Respondents included: governmental workers, academics, Roma school mediators, Roma health mediators, Roma experts, Roma Councillors, NGOs workers, and Roma service users. By triangulating the data collected with various methods and applied to various categories of respondents, a comprehensive and precise representation of Roma network practices was created. The provisions of the 2001 "Governmental Strategy to Improve the Situation of the Roma Population" facilitated forming a Roma network by introducing special jobs in local and central administration. In different counties, resources, people, their skills, and practices varied. As opposed to the communist period, a new Roma elite emerged: social entrepreneurs set the pace of change by creating either closed cliques or open alliances and by using more or less transparent practices. This research deploys the concept of social/institutional entrepreneurs to analyse how key actors influence clique and alliance formation and functioning. Significantly, by contrasting three case studies, it shows that both closed cliques and open alliances help to achieve public policy network objectives, but that closed cliques can also lead to failure to improve the health and education of Roma people in a certain region.


In recent decades, Malaysia has been known as one of the world's leading producers and exporters of palm oil products. Every year, the number of palm oil mills increases rap-idly, thus increasing the capacity of fresh fruit bunch waste or effluent discharge. Based on the data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board in 2012, Malaysia produced 99.85 million tons of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) per year. However, about 5–5.7 tons of water was required in order to sterilize the palm fruit bunches and clarify the extracted oil to produce 1 ton of crude palm oil resulting in 50% of the water turning into palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME is one of the major environmental pollutants in Malaysia. The characteristics of POME and its behavior, if discharged directly, in water are described in this chapter. The suspended solid and nutrient content in POME could be able to support the growth of algae. This chapter aims to demonstrate that POME could be used as a main source for algae production, and this effluent is one of the main environmental problems in the tropical region especially in Malaysia.


Abstract Group signature schemes enable anonymous-yet-accountable communications. Such a capability is extremely useful for applications, such as smartphone-based crowdsensing and citizen science. However, the performance of modern group signature schemes is still inadequate to manage large dynamic groups. In this paper, we design the first provably secure verifier-local revocation (VLR) - based group signature scheme that supports sublinear revocation, named Sublinear Revocation with Backward unlinkability and Exculpability (SRBE). To achieve this performance gain, SRBE introduces time bound pseudonyms for the signer. By introducing low-cost short-lived pseudonyms with sublinear revocation checking, SRBE drastically improves the efficiency of the group-signature primitive. The backward-unlinkable anonymity of SRBE guarantees that even after the revocation of a signer, her previously generated signatures remain unlinkable across epochs. This behavior favors the dynamic nature of real-world crowdsensing settings. We prove its security and discuss parameters that influence its scalability. Using SRBE, we also implement a prototype named GroupSense for anonymous-yet-accountable crowdsensing, where our experimental findings confirm GroupSense's scalability. We point out the open problems remaining in this space.


Student evaluation surveys provide instructors with feedback regarding development opportunities and they form the basis of promotion and tenure decisions. Student evaluations have been extensively studied, but one dimension hitherto neglected is the actual measurement aspect: which questions to ask, how to ask them, and what answer options to offer to students to get the most valid results. This study investigates whether cross-cultural response styles affect the validity of student evaluations. If they do, then the student mix in a class can affect an instructor's evaluation, potentially producing biased feedback and prompting inappropriate decisions by university committees. This article discusses two main response styles, demonstrates the nature of the bias they can cause in student evaluation surveys using simulated artificial data, and illustrates three cases based on real student evaluation data in which marketing instructors' teaching quality assessments may be heavily biased because of response styles. The authors propose a simple method to check for response style contamination in student evaluation data and they discuss some practical implications.


Wikis are websites to develop content collaboratively. The question arises to what extent the reputation of participants influences the quality of wiki sites. We analyze the impact of author reputation using the example of Wikipedia. We extend previous research by considering a set of different reputation metrics and a new model for aggregating reputation values. Since anonymous authors tend to have a lower reputation, we also quantify the level of participation of anonymous authors as an indicator for the reputation of the crowd. Our analysis finds out that reputation matters, but strongly depends on the used reputation metric and therefore on the corresponding author characteristics. The study shows that the experience of authors in the development of high-quality articles is highly relevant whereas the number of edits and the quality of contributions are of lower importance. Finally, our investigation proves the open editing model and the self-healing mechanism of wikis.


The role of inheritance of susceptibility in lichen planus was studied by genetic analysis of data from 71 families of probands with lichen planus. 12 families were multiplex and the other 59 were simplex. The incidence of the disease among relatives of probands was significantly higher than that in the general population and the frequency diminished with the descend in the degree of relationship between relatives and probands. Pedigrees of the families of probands did not consist of any single-gene inheritance. The results shown by the curve of liability of the relatives, the frequency in the first degree relatives and the relative frequency points to a polygenic-environmental interaction. The heritability of liability for lichen planus which measures the relative contribution of genetic factors in etiology was found to be 56 percent for first-degree relatives. The etiology of lichen planus is still not properly known. Several pathogenetic theories have been proposed despite limited supportive evidences. The main theories are: infective, autoimmune, psychogenic and genetic. The aim of this work is to throw a beam of light on the genetic role in the pathogenesis of lichen planus.


In line with the dynamics of society and the advancement of science, various contemporary legal issues occur. This issues need solution from Islamic law. This study indicated that Islam law still based on Al-Quran and Hadith  and it still relevan tgroughout the ages, and it will always correspond to the society and technology.  It convenients with the rule: "Islam is appropriate and relevant to every condition, state, time, and place". DOI:  10.15408/ajis.v15i2.2868


ABSTRACT While the oil currency property is clearly established from a theoretical viewpoint, its existence is less clear-cut in the empirical literature. We investigate the reasons for this apparent puzzle by studying the time-varying nature of the relationship between real effective exchange rates of five oil exporters and the real price of oil in the aftermath of the oil price shocks of the last two decades. Accordingly, we rely on a time-varying parameter VAR specification, which allows the responses of real exchange rates to different oil price shocks to evolve over time. We find that the reason of the mixed results obtained in the empirical literature is that oil currencies follow different hybrid models in the sense that oil countries' real exchange rates may be driven by one or several sources of oil price shocks that furthermore can vary over time. In addition to structural changes affecting oil countries, structural changes arising from the oil market itself through the various, time-varying sources of oil price shocks are found to be crucial.


Neural stem/progenitor cells (NSCs) proliferate vigorously as neurospheres in medium containing basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2), but start differentiating into neurons, astrocytes or oligodendrocytes in FGF-2-free medium. An extract of royal jelly (RJ) significantly increased the percentage in the total cell population of not only neurons immunoreactive for class III beta-tubulin (Tuj1) but also astrocytes immunoreactive for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and oligodendrocytes immunoreactive for 2',3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase (CNPase) generated from NSCs, but decreased that of nestin-positive NSCs. These results highlight a novel and outstanding property of the RJ, i.e., that it facilitates the differentiation of all types of brain cells (neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes). On the other hand, 10-hydroxy-trans-2-decenoic acid (HDEA), an unsaturated fatty acid characteristic of RJ, increased the generation of neurons and decreased that of astrocytes from NSCs. These observations suggest that RJ contains plural components that differently influence neuronal and/or glial lineages and that HDEA is one of such components of RJ that facilitates neurogenesis by NSCs.


This study examines research on some species of the genus Artemisia. The use of medicinal plants is as old as the intellectual life and development of human consciousness. Because diseases are born with human origins and the documents of several thousand years in the history of medicine and pharmacy contain valuable experiences and information of herbal medicine. One of our goals in this research has been to better identify medicinal plants and their correct use and, of course, to increase the ability to identify and use native plants. , Medicinal uses have been varied and many and of course are still used. One of the most widely used artichokes in traditional medicine has been its use as an anti-parasitic drug. Artemisia is a genus of chicory (Compositae) Asteraceae and has 34 species in Iran and has the widest distribution after Astragalus. This genus has useful and valuable properties in various aspects (medicinal, forage, soil protection, botany, ecology, etc.). The species of this genus have special anatomical features that are certainly widely distributed and Adaptation of these species to difficult environments is effective.


Purpose: Cumulating evidence indicates that germline variants in the Wnt, Notch, and Hedgehog pathways are involved in colon carcinoma progression and metastasis. We investigated germline polymorphisms in a comprehensive panel of Wnt, Notch, and Hedgehog pathway genes to predict time to recurrence (TTR) and overall survival in patients with stage II and III colon carcinoma. Experimental Design: A total of 742 consecutively collected patients with stage II and III colon carcinoma were included in this retrospective study. Genomic DNA was analyzed for 18 germline polymorphisms in Wnt, Notch, and Hedgehog pathway genes (SFRP, DKK 2 and 3, AXIN2, APC, MYC, TCF7L2, NOTCH2, and GLI1) by TaqMan 5′-exonuclease assays. Results: In univariate analysis, the homozygous mutant variant of GLI1 rs2228226 G>C was significantly associated with decreased TTR in a recessive genetic model after adjustment for multiple testing [HR = 2.35; confidence interval (95% CI), 1.48–3.74; P < 0.001] and remained significant in multivariate analysis including clinical stage, lymphovascular-, vascular-, and perineural-invasion (HR = 2.43; CI 95%, 1.52–3.87; P < 0.001). In subanalyses, the association was limited to patients with surgery alone (HR = 3.21; CI 95%, 1.59–6.49; P = 0.001), in contrast with patients with adjuvant chemotherapy (HR = 0.82; CI 95%, 0.35–1.95; P = 0.657). When the subgroup of patients with "high-risk" GLI1 rs2228226 C/C genotype was analyzed, no benefit of adjuvant 5-fluorouracil–based chemotherapy could be found. Conclusion: This is the first study identifying GLI1 rs2228226 G>C as an independent prognostic marker in patients with stage II and III colon carcinoma. Prospective studies are warranted to validate our findings. Clin Cancer Res; 20(6); 1687–97. ©2014 AACR.


The results in this dissertation comprise a contribution to the developing theory of linear/polynomial algorithms for graph theoretical problems. Further, a new class of graph theoretical problems is defined, and both theoretical and computational considerations are discussed.
Much algorithmic work has been done (and is currently being done) on the classes of partial k-trees, and here the focus is on partial 2-trees, better known as series-parallel graphs. An algorithmic template, which is one algorithm that can be used to solve several different parameters on a specific class of graphs, is introduced for the class of series-parallel graphs.
The new class of problems defined here is the class of multiset/single property problems. In addition to practical applications associated with specific problems in this class, the problem type per se has theoretical and computational interest.
Both the study of templates and the study of multiset problems are intended to increase our understanding of the nature of the problems for which linear/polynomial algorithms can be developed for appropriate classes of graphs.


The words fj0lmennr (here rendered 'many-manned') and famennr ('meagremanned'), as well as related forms, have attracted little attention from philologists: they seem too self-evident to be worth the bother. Close examination, however, shows them to be unevenly distributed across the corpus, and reveals significant patterns in their usage. I focus in particular on a small number of interrelated phrases in the Family Sagas and Sturlunga saga, which communicate specific attitudes and thus serve as surprisingly rich sources for a cultural history of medieval Iceland. Beyond their surface meaning, questions like 'how many-manned will you ride?' allude to images of idealized masculinity, express speakers' opinion of the persons addressed, and seek – often belligerently – to motivate addressees to definite courses of action.


ABSTRACT The prevalence of engineered metallic nanoparticles within electronic products has evoked a need to assess their occurrence and fate within environmental systems upon potential release of these nanoparticles. Quantum dots (QDs) are mixed-metal nanocrystals with the smallest of particle sizes (2–10 nm) that readily leach heavy metal cations in water, potentially creating a co-occurrence of nanoparticulate and dissolved metal pollutants. In this report, we develop a size exclusion chromatography–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry method (SEC-ICP-MS) for the rapid separation and quantification of ~5-nm-sized CdSe/ZnS QDs and dissolved Cd2+ and Zn2+ cations in water. The SEC-ICP-MS method provided a wide chromatographic separation of CdSe/ZnS QDs and dissolved Cd2+ and Zn2+ cations only when using the smallest SEC column pore size available and an eluent composition that prevented loss of metals to column polymer surfaces by using a surfactant to ensure elution of QDs (ammonium lauryl sulfate) and a complexing ligand to ensure elution of metal cations (ethylenediaminetetraacetate). Detection limits were between 0.2 and 2 µg L–1 for Cd2+ and Zn2+ among dissolved cation and QD phases, and ranges of linearity covered two to three orders of magnitude. Gold nanoparticles of sizes 5, 10, 20 and 50 nm were also effectively separated from dissolved Au3+ cations, illustrating the method applicability to a wide range of nanoparticle sizes and compositions. QD and dissolved metal concentrations measured by SEC-ICP-MS were comparable to those measured using the more conventional method of centrifuge ultrafiltration on split samples for dissolved and total metals. The applicability of the SEC-ICP-MS method to environmental systems was verified by measuring QDs and dissolved metals added to samples of natural waters. The method was also applied to monitoring CdSe/ZnS dissolution kinetics in an urban river water. The SEC-ICP-MS developed here may offer improved automation for characterising heterogeneous suspensions containing >1 µg L–1 heavy metals.


Short time-to-market is an important requirement for developing web-based systems. Software architecture plays a critical role for time-to-market objective to be satisfied since it forms a blueprint for the system structure, indicating the principle loci of later activities such as detailed design and implementation. In particular, we need a novel way for system decomposition to achieve reduced complexity, encapsulated change, and maximized reuse possibility. In this paper we address these problems by separation of concerns, applying patterns, and forming components. We firstly present a component-based reference model for web-based systems. The main interest here is to capture early design decisions associated with short time-to-market concern and provide guidelines for system decomposition and architecture construction. We then discuss issues concerning component development within the reference model. Three component patterns are identified to achieve flexible and efficient reuse.


This study investigated female students' practices and experiences of using mobile
technology for learning in Saudi higher education during the period of 2014-2017,
and built a theoretical framework for mobile learning in this context.
The rapid expansion of higher education in Saudi Arabia, coupled with the rapid
increase in student numbers, is raising the need to find more effective ways to teach,
reach and communicate with such a large student body. Mobile technology has been
widely used in the context of Saudi higher education by both students and university
teachers, but little is known about female students' experiences of using mobile
technology to support their learning. A better understanding of the context of mobile
use in higher education in Saudi Arabia might help in exploiting the affordances of
mobile technology for learning purposes and uses.
As a contribution to innovations in Saudi higher education, this study explored mobile
learning experiences of Saudi female students at one of the universities in Saudi
Arabia, King Saud University. The study implemented a case study methodology and
used a qualitative-led mixed methods design. A large-scale online survey of 7,865
female students provided information about the ownership and practices of mobile
technology among higher education students; the extent of Internet access via mobile
technology, as well as times, locations, and purposes of the use. The study also
investigated the opportunities provided by mobile technology that enhance and foster
learning experiences for higher education students through an in-depth investigation
of 52 participants through personal diaries, group interviews and in-depth, semistructured
interviews.
The contribution to knowledge lays in the development of a theoretical framework for
mobile learning to describe contemporary practices and experiences in Saudi higher
education. Themes of mobile learners' ubiquitous use, mobile learners' movement,
and mobile learners' strategies for achieving learning goals emerged through the
analysis. One major conclusion of the research is that, as a country with a gender
segregated education system and very strong cultural demands on women, mobile
learning enables Saudi females to negotiate their way through the different
constraints, restrictions and boundaries that prevent or hinder them in their learning
process, while maintaining their own cultural values, principles and traditions. The
research concluded that the mobile learning framework, in the context of Saudi
females in higher education, is about active learners showing their agency through
appropriating tools and resources, crossing boundaries of contexts, and personalizing
their learning with and through the use of their mobile technology as a cultural
resource and boundary-crossing tool to accomplish learning tasks, purposes and goals.


In this paper, we present a steady-state theoretical and experimental analysis of the noise resulting from spontaneous and stimulated Brillouin scattering in an optical fiber. Wave equations are derived and solved that describe the evolution of the pump and Stokes waves along the fiber. Experiments and numerical results demonstrate the validity of the theory, either when a Stokes wave is launched at the end of the fiber or when the noise in the Stokes wave is spontaneously generated


Ethical and evidence-based medical communications are gaining increasing importance in emerging pharmaceutical markets, outside of North America and Western Europe. In large pharmaceutical companies resources are limited, and small and mid-sized companies may lack the infrastructure and technical knowhow to provide these services for emerging markets. Required skills and competencies include scientific knowledge, communication skills, analytical skills, and awareness of global as well as regional legal and ethical requirements for pharmaceutical product information. India is already a preferred destination for outsourcing medical writing for regulatory documents and has the potential to become a 'hub' for medical communications services. Skilled medical writers in India can help global pharmaceutical companies to reach out to healthcare professionals and patients in the emerging markets with evidence-based information related to their products.


The no‐miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much‐discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent 'wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists and anti‐realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science.


Background In settings in which diseases wax and wane, there is a need to measure disease dynamics in longitudinal studies. Traditional measures of disease occurrence (eg, cumulative incidence) do not address change or stability or are limited to stable cohorts (eg, incidence) and may thus lead to erroneous conclusions. To illustrate how different measures can be used to detect disease dynamics, we investigated sex differences in the occurrence of asthma and wheezing, using a population-based study cohort that covered the first 18 years of life. Methods In the Isle of Wight birth cohort (n = 1456), prevalence, incidence, cumulative incidence, positive and negative transitions, and remission were determined at ages 1 or 2, 4, 10, and 18 years. Latent transition analysis was used to simultaneously identify classes of asthma and wheezing (related phenotypes) and characterize transition probabilities over time. Trajectory analysis was used to characterize the natural history of asthma and wheezing. Results Regarding time-specific changes, positive and negative transition probabilities were more informative than other measures of associations because they revealed a sex switchover in asthma prevalence (P < 0.05). Transition probabilities were able to identify the origin of a sex-specific dynamic; in particular, prior wheezing transitioned to asthma at age 18 years among girls but not among boys. In comparison with latent transition analysis, trajectory analysis did not directly identify a switchover in prevalence among boys and girls. Conclusions In longitudinal analyses, transition analyses that impose minimal restrictions on data are needed in order to produce appropriate information on disease dynamics.


This research reviews the study of issue non-uniformity estimation of rate land tax and land premium in Perlis and Penang. The aim of this study to model the land tax and land premium in Perlis and Penang using AutoCad 2013 software. This study focuses on the Perlis and Penang as researchers want to know the extent of these differences for developed and developing states. The results of data obtained by government agencies involved such as the Land and Mines Office (PTG), the Department of Valuation and Service of Property (JPPH) and city planning units in these two states have been collected and analyzed according to the proposed methodology. In addition, to make a map of the study area, researchers need to take sample maps at the urban planning unit and need to be digitized again for the purpose of differentiating the land tax rate in these two states. This research also want to identify the formula that has been using by State Authorities to determine the rate land tax and land premium in Perlis and Penang in term of type of land (agricultural, building and industry), location, and size of the land. Both state authorities in Perlis and Penang have difference in land administrative and rate of land premium charge for the purpose of conversion the land. Hence, there have some factor that need to be consider to determine the rate of land tax and land premium. All related to land is the state's jurisdiction. The state government have a power to determine tax land and land premium of the local population in their respective states in term of type of land, location (city, town and village), and size of the land. The result of this study is to show the difference between two states in Perlis and Penang based on the land tax rate. Different colors on the map show different rates.


Current imaging experiments at synchrotron beam lines often lack a real-time data assessment. X-ray imaging cameras installed at synchrotron facilities like ANKA provide millions of pixels, each with a resolution of 12 bits or more, and take up to several thousand frames per second. A given experiment can produce data sets of multiple gigabytes in a few seconds. Up to now the data is stored in local memory, transferred to mass storage, and then processed and analyzed off-line. The data quality and thus the success of the experiment, can, therefore, only be judged with a substantial delay, which makes an immediate monitoring of the results impossible. To optimize the usage of the micro-tomography beam-line at ANKA we have ported the reconstruction software to modern graphic adapters which offer an enormous amount of calculation power. We were able to reduce the reconstruction time from multiple hours to just a few minutes with a sample dataset of 20 GB. Using the new reconstruction software it is possible to provide a near real-time visualization and significantly reduce the time needed for the first evaluation of the reconstructed sample. The main paradigm of our approach is 100% utilization of all system resources. The compute intensive parts are offloaded to the GPU. While the GPU is reconstructing one slice, the CPUs are used to prepare the next one. A special attention is devoted to minimize data transfers between the host and GPU memory and to execute I/O operations in parallel with the computations. It could be shown that for our application not the computational part but the data transfers are now limiting the speed of the reconstruction. Several changes in the architecture of the DAQ system are proposed to overcome this second bottleneck. The article will introduce the system architecture, describe the hardware platform in details, and analyze performance gains during the first half year of operation.


Abstract This study investigated individual differences in the integration of social (i.e., direction of social interest) and physical (i.e., apparent health) cues in a face preference test. While low-anxiety individuals demonstrated preferences for social engagement from healthy-looking faces, but not from unhealthy-looking faces, high-anxiety individuals preferred social engagement from both healthy and unhealthy individuals. Importantly, anxious individuals were not simply less discriminating in their face preferences generally: anxiety levels were positively related to the strength of overall preferences for positive social interest. Collectively, our findings show that perceptions of gaze and expression can be modulated by aspects of facial appearance and that systematic variation among individuals exists in the extent to which this modulation occurs. Furthermore, since previous studies have demonstrated hypersensitive amygdala responses among anxious individuals when viewing faces, our findings suggest that the amygdala may play an important role in determining how different facial cues are integrated in person perception.


Oral cancer can involve the lip, tongue, mouth and pharynx. It is the sixth most prevalent cancer worldwide. One of the leading causes of Oral Cancerin the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is chewing betel nut with tobacco and other additives. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) linked areca nut, betel quid with tobacco and betel quid without tobacco as carcinogenic to humans. Areca nut, also known as betel nut comes from the areca palm tree. The use of areca nut is common throughout the Pacific, and is widespread in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, CNMI and the Marshall Islands. The objective of this review is to gather published data related to oral cancer in adolescents as a result of chewing betel nut, using tobacco and other additives; and whether these studies address prevalence in adolescents in Saipan, CNMI. The literature searches were done electronically on World Health Organization, Journal of Dental Research, Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai'i, IARC websites and Google search using keywords. A cross-sectional survey study (Oakley at el 2005) of 169 students shows 63.4% use areca nut regularly. It was more prevalent among male (73%) than females (54%). The mean age in starting to chew areca nut was 12.0, while some starting at age 10 or younger. The betel quid mixture included powdered lime and pepper betel leaf. Tobacco use was also widely prevalent among schoolchildren. Oral pathological lesions were noted during screening examinations. Areca (betel) nut chewing with the use of tobacco and other additives is increasingly observed among adolescents in Saipan. Further studies are needed on the prevalence of oral cancer in adolescents related to areca nut chewing, using tobacco and other additives and how to decrease oral cancer risk in this age group.


Motivated by the addition of gyroscopes to a large number of new smart phones, we study the effects of combining accelerometer and gyroscope data on the recognition rate of motion gesture recognizers with dimensionality constraints. Using a large data set of motion gestures we analyze results for the following algorithms: Protractor3D, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and Regularized Logistic Regression (LR). We chose to study these algorithms because they are relatively easy to implement, thus well suited for rapid prototyping or early deployment during prototyping stages. For use in our analysis, we contribute a method to extend Protractor3D to work with the 6D data obtained by combining accelerometer and gyroscope data. Our results show that combining accelerometer and gyroscope data is beneficial also for algorithms with dimensionality constraints and improves the gesture recognition rate on our data set by up to 4%.


This is a book about politics and banks and history. Yet politicians who read it will see that the author is not a politician, bankers who read it will see that he is not a banker, and historians that he is not an historian. Economists will see that he is not an economist and lawyers that he is not a lawyer. With this rather cryptic and exhaustive disclaimer, Bray Hammond began his classic investigation into the role of banking in the formation of American society. Hammond, who was assistant secretary of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1944 to 1950, presented in this 771-page book the definitive account of how banking evolved in the United States in the context of the nation's political and social development. Hammond combined political with financial analysis, highlighting not only the in.uence politicians exercised over banking but also how banking drove political interests and created political coalitions. He captured the entrepreneurial, expansive, risk-taking spirit of the United States from earliest days and then showed how that spirit sometimes undermined sound banking institutions. In Hammond's view, we need central banks to keep the economy on an even keel. Historian Richard Sylla judged the work to be "a wry and urbane study of early U.S. financial history, but also a timeless essay on how Americans became what they are." Banks and Politics in America won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1958.


In 2009, the Supreme Court overturned thirty years of precedent with a decision that purported to dramatically cut back on the ability of law enforcement officers to conduct warrantless vehicle searches incident to the arrest of a vehicle occupant. Scholars and commentators celebrated Arizona v. Gant's constraint of police, and subsequent scholarship has focused exclusively on peripheral concerns such as alternative justifications for warrantless searches and Gant's effect on non-vehicle searches. This Note challenges the core assumption that Gant will substantially limit vehicle searches incident to arrest, contending that Gant is far more permissive than it appears. In most cases, Gant will do nothing to limit warrantless vehicle searches incident to arrest. Decisions that, like Gant, have far less effect than intended result largely from an informational deficit about how law enforcement officers go about making arrests and conducting searches. Existing Fourth Amendment scholarship discusses law enforcement practices in cursory or conceptual fashion at best, and academic attempts to describe police practices have thus far been frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining detailed information. This Note addresses that deficiency by providing a descriptive analysis of common law enforcement arrest and search procedures. The information on arrests and searches in this Note can both guide future scholarship and reconcile the disconnect between judicial intention and the practical effect of a decision.


Purpose: Homozygous deletions play important roles in carcinogenesis. The genome-wide screening for homozygously deleted genes in many different cancer types with a large number of patient specimens representing the tumor heterogeneity has not been done. Experimental Design: We performed integrative analyses of the copy-number profiles of 10,759 patients across 31 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas project. Results: We found that the type-I interferon, α-, and β-defensin genes were homozygously deleted in 19 cancer types with high frequencies (7%–31%, median = 12%; interquartile range = 10%–16.5%). Patients with homozygous deletion of interferons exhibited significantly shortened overall or disease-free survival time in a number of cancer types, whereas patients with homozygous deletion of defensins did not significantly associate with worse overall or disease-free survival. Gene expression analyses suggested that homozygous deletion of interferon and defensin genes could activate genes involved in oncogenic and cell-cycle pathways but repress other genes involved in immune response pathways, suggesting their roles in promoting tumorigenesis and helping cancer cells evade immune surveillance. Further analysis of the whole exomes of 109 patients with melanoma demonstrated that the homozygous deletion of interferon (P = 0.0029, OR = 11.8) and defensin (P = 0.06, OR = 2.79) genes are significantly associated with resistance to anti-CTLA4 immunotherapy. Conclusions: Our analysis reveals that the homozygous deletion of interferon and defensin genes is prevalent in human cancers, and importantly this feature can be used as a novel prognostic biomarker for immunotherapy resistance. Clin Cancer Res; 24(14); 3299–308. ©2018 AACR.


Teleseismic shear-wave splitting and magnetotelluric experiments across the Grenville front, between the Archean craton and the Proterozoic Grenville province in the regions of the Pontiac subprovince and northwestern Grenville province (Canada), show a consistent obliquity between the polarization direction of the fast split shear wave Φ and the most electrically conductive direction (ΦMT) in the upper mantle transcurrent shear zones. At all well-recorded stations, Φ is nearly N103°E, and ΦMT is approximately N80°E. The obliquity may be considered a potential kinematic indicator, because the seismic and electrical anisotropies are thought to be controlled by lattice-preferred and shape-preferred orientations of mantle minerals (mainly olivine), respectively. The dextral movement sense of the transcurrent shear zones in the mantle, inferred from the observed obliquity, is consistent with that inferred from surface geology of the crustal shear zones. This consistency implies that deformation of the crust and the subcrustal upper mantle in the lithosphere was largely coherent in the study region.


The symposium was held at Kazan, Russia from 4 – 10 September 2016. EXON-2016 was dedicated to the problems of producing and investigating nuclei far from the line of stability. The main goal of the symposium was to discuss the latest results on the production and study of the properties of the lightest to the heaviest nuclei, as well as the plans for future joint investigations in the field of exotic nuclei. The talks were presented by leading scientists in the field. Among the topics of the symposium were the following: production and study of properties of nuclei in extreme states, strongly deformed nuclei, highly excited and nuclei far from the line of stability as well as nuclei having large angular momenta. New results of the investigations are presented in this book. In particular, the latest results on the synthesis of new superheavy elements are also presented. There were also talks devoted to existing detecting devices and accelerators of exotic nuclei as well as to the future projects for the creation of similar set-ups. Sample Chapter(s) Delayed Multi-Neutron Emission in Very Neutron-Rich Nuclei (259 KB)


Distribution of 6-h accumulated typhoon rainfall over Taiwan area is investigated through empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The data set used includes the rainfall of 20 Central Weather Bureau surface stations when typhoons were inside the domain between 18°N and 28°N, 116°E and 126°E, from 1961 to 1996. Analysis results show that the first three EOF modes are well separated from the other modes. Those three modes contain about 66% of the total rainfall variances. At some stations, only those three modes can effectively represent the station rainfall. The first EOF mode not only reveals the in-phase increasing or decreasing rainfall at all stations of Taiwan but also shows that larger rainfall occurs at stations with higher elevation and larger slope. The enhancement of rainfall in mountainous areas is an indication of topography effect on redistributing rainfall. The second mode and the third mode both show out-of-phase distribution of rainfall over Taiwan when typhoons are nearby. The rainfalls are enhanced on the up-wind sides of the mountain, and the rainfalls are suppressed on the down-wind sides. Those distributions again reveal the effects of redistributing rainfall by Central Mountain Range of Taiwan. To demonstrate how the EOF modes may be used on typhoon rainfall forecasting, several forecasting methods are evaluated. Those methods include four basic methods and four ensemble forecasts. The basic methods are: Climatology Average Method, Deviation Persistence Method, regression equation forecast based on station rainfall, and regression equation forecast based on the amplitude of the first three EOF modes. The ensemble forecasts are the simple averages taken from the last three basic methods. The results show those basic methods are compatible with each other, except the Climatology Average Method that underestimates all heavier rains and is outperformed by the others. Since the amplitudes of EOF modes depend on how the rainfall is distributed spatially over all stations of Taiwan, a forecast method based on EOF modes is capable of providing different information from other methods that based on factors only related to a single station. The study also shows that the ensemble forecasts outperform their corresponding member forecasts.


Received: April 2014, Accepted: April 2015 Background: We are living in an era in which different branches of science are growing very rapidly. Therefore, retrieving and summarizing all new valid findings on a specific subject is one of the most important priorities of scientists. The aim of the present article is to categorize different review studies within the health domain based on their approach to retrieving and summarizing original findings. Methods: The most relevant articles have been selected and summarized in order to accomplish the aim of the study. Results: Narrative reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses from published data, and individual participant data meta-analyses are different types of review studies. More recently, prospectively planned pooled analyses have also been introduced. Conclusions: Diverse types of review studies have been developed one by one over the course of time based on their approaches to retrieving and summarizing original findings. Therefore, they have their own especial applications and scientists of different disciplines need to know their advantages and disadvantages.


Quinoa cultivation in Chile presents an ancient and active complex of geographic, climatic, social and cultural interactions that has determined its current biodiversity in the three main growing zones (north, centre and south). These interactions consider a central issue viz. the participation of farmers, whose activities are at the base of seed exchanges networks due to their knowledge and in situ conservation of genetic diversity. In this study we report antecedents that contribute to a better understanding of seed exchanges through the analysis of field works assessing the key roles of farmers involved in the biodiversity dynamics and characterization of 20 microsatellites genetic markers in a multi-origin set of 34 representative quinoa accessions of Chile and South American region. The phenetic analysis of germplasm (UPGMA) was consistent with the current classification of quinoa ecotypes present in Chile and Andean zone. This allowed the identification of five population, which were represented by quinoa of Salares (northern Chile), Coastal/Lowlands (central and southern Chile), Highlands (Peru, Bolivia and Argentina) and Inter-Andean Valleys (Ecuador and Colombia). The good informative quality of the markers used revealed a wide genetic diversity among main growing areas in Chile, which correlates well with natural geographical-edaphic-climatic and social-linguistic context to the expansion of quinoa biodiversity. Additionally, the ancient seed exchanges reveals this process is still governed by an array of diverse agricultural practices of Andean farmers. Genetic erosion is considered a imminent risk due to small scale farming, where the increased migration of people to urban systems and exportation-driven influence can further reduce the cultivated diversity. (Resume d'auteur)


In the past decades, health promotion has been undertaken in the linear process between health and disease. Healthcare education has been advocated "multi-professional" for most undergraduate medical students to build "the skills necessary for the priority health problems of individuals and communities that are known to be particularly amenable to team-work" (The World Health Organization, 1988). Nowadays, medical education and clinical practice have become increasingly important approaches to deal with human disease problems. They have yet paid adequate attention to the prevention care which focuses on the core value and knowledge of maintaining a healthy life rather than searching the best treatments of disease. In Taiwan, the many thorny problems challenging the governmental health system, such as the burnout medical staff, excessive medical treatment, unevenly distributed medical resource, food products with contaminated by plasticizer etc. It is time that we collectively counteract these intertwined social, economic and biological problems with a systemic approach applicable to health promotion education and daily clinical practice. Indeed, neither health nor disease is an absolute or static state. In this paper, the author intends to re-conceptualize the linear model of disease and health by reframing health promotion from the systemic perspectives with simplicity and transformability of ϕ [fi] for both the professional and the public. The author will first explicate the essence of (1) Theory U and Golden ratio, (2) fundamentals of applying action learning, and (3) health promotion theory and practice. Then, she would inquire s three main research questions in order to explore the simplicity and transformability of ϕ [fi] to enact systemic change in health promotion. The three research questions are as below: (1)What approaches or viewpoints have been repeatedly used for health promotion? (2) How divergent or convergent are these approaches, and what is the fundamental approach needed? (3)How could health promotion arguments and modles be re-conceptualized for systemic practice? In this study, the author will use discourse well as reflexive method, including collecting, comparing, reorganizing and representing images and icons. The presumption of this study is that health promotion should not be approached in a linear process, but a spiral process (Figure 1.& Figure 2.). The primary findings of this study include: (1)The smallest unit for enacting systemic change (the spiral process) is ϕ (Figure 1.) which originates from the concept "Golden ratio (Figure 4.&Figure 5.)"by Leonardo diser Piero da Vinci. (2)The spiral process integrates the essence of the U-process manifested in Theory U by Otto Scharmer (2007), Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell (1949, 2008), Mythic Structure by Christopher Vogler (2007), and double helix model of DNA structure by Watson and Crick (1953). (3)The ϕ [fi] is a prototype signifying one to infinity and infinity to another one through a series of process: (A) shaping into U or V, (B) inverting and conjunctive, (C)replication and convergence, (D)separation and divergence, (E)reshaping the prototype, and (F) overlapping prototypes with the same or the different (Figure 6.). The ϕ [fi] is Φ[fi] of lower case, pronounced as /ˈfaɪ/ in English, and it is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet, and it is a unit in many kinds of disciplines ( Wikipedia, 2013) . It could be the ideal prototype of the spiral of action research and action learning in the practice communities: (1) plan, (2)act, (3)observe, (4)reflect, and (5) back to zero or re-contemplative (Figure 7.). It is expected that with thoughtful application of the simplicity and transformability of ϕ , we can bring great benefit to healthcare education and clinical practice in the future.


The total internal reflection (TIR) grating is an integrated optical diffraction grating designed to achieve high efficiency for the retrodiffracted order by use of total internal reflection twice within a groove of the grating rather than by use of metalized grooves. Numerical calculations are presented for both TE and TM polarizations of incident light. When the TIR grating was used in the -mth-order Littrow mount with m > 13, the diffraction efficiency was found to decrease linearly with 1/m. The polarization dependence of the retrodiffraction efficiency exceeds 3 dB for TIR gratings formed in silica glass (n = 1.5) but is very small for gratings with InP-based technology (n = 3.2).


This document discusses the nature of signals seen by on-path elements
examining transport protocols, contrasting implicit and explicit
signals. For example, TCP's state mechanics uses a series of well-
known messages that are exchanged in the clear. Because these are
visible to network elements on the path between the two nodes setting
up the transport connection, they are often used as signals by those
network elements. In transports that do not exchange these messages in
the clear, on-path network elements lack those signals. Often, the
removal of those signals is intended by those moving the messages to
confidential channels. Where the endpoints desire that network
elements along the path receive these signals, this document
recommends explicit signals be used.


Although the participation rates of females in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or STEM) education is poor in most Western countries, considerable differences across countries exist as well. This may be due to differences in the so-called gender achievement gaps, that is, delays of one sex with respect to the other. The variation in gender gaps in mathematics, science, and reading literacy, both across countries and across schools within countries, is explored in the present study using the PISA data. The results of multilevel analyses show the participation of women in tertiary STEM education to increase as the relative achievements of girls with respect to boys in secondary education improve. When the characteristics of schools and countries are examined in relation to the size of the gender achievement gaps, integrated educational systems are found to be more favourable to the achievement of girls than differentiated educational systems.


In this paper, based on ATM transaction status analysis and anomaly detection problem, by analyzing the transaction statistics of a bank ATM application system, the characteristic parameters of ATM transaction status are extracted and analyzed, then a set of targets are designed. An abnormal monitoring scheme that can promptly and accurately alarm the four abnormal situations in which the trading volume is steep, the transaction failure rate is increased, the transaction processing is slow, and the transaction response time is too long. Firstly, the transaction data is divided to distinguish between working days, non-working days, trading volume troughs, and normal trading periods, to avoid data interference between different time periods and to take into account the data discontinuity. The characteristics of the anomaly data were identified by K-Means Clustering Analysis. Then the data is analyzed by B-P Neural Network method, the change rule of ATM transaction status with time is obtained. According to this rule, the ATM transaction status is judged, and the abnormal situation is alarmed in time. Finally, this paper increases the amount and type of data collected, then increases the influencing factors such as ATM popularity, holidays, transaction types into the model, uses the existing transaction data before and after the Spring Festival to verify, in order to obtain a more realistic monitoring and early warning program. The transaction status anomaly monitoring scheme designed in this paper not only can correctly judge but also timely alarm the financial aid equipment failure scenarios, so that the security of the financial self-service equipment trading system is guaranteed.


Herein, the particle size distributions (PSDs) and shape analysis of in vivo bioproduced particles from aqueous Au3+ and Eu3+ solutions by the cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. are examined in detail at the nanoscale. Generally, biosynthesis is affected by numerous parameters. Therefore, it is challenging to find the key set points for generating tailored nanoparticles (NPs). PSDs and shape analysis of the Au and Eu-NPs were performed with ImageJ using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) images. As the HR-TEM image analysis reflects only a fraction of the detected NPs within the cells, additional PSDs of the complete cell were performed to determine the NP count and to evaluate the different accuracies. Furthermore, local PSDs were carried out at five randomly selected locations within a single cell to identify local hotspots or agglomerations. The PSDs show that particle size depends mainly on contact time, while the particle shape is hardly affected. The particles formed are distributed quite evenly within the cells. HR-PSDs for Au-NPs show an average equivalent circular diameter (ECD) of 8.4 nm (24 h) and 7.2 nm (51 h). In contrast, Eu-NPs preferably exhibit an average ECD of 10.6 nm (10 h) and 12.3 nm (244 h). Au-NPs are classified predominantly as "very round" with an average reciprocal aspect ratio (RAR) of ~0.9 and a Feret major axis ratio (FMR) of ~1.17. Eu-NPs mainly belong to the "rounded" class with a smaller RAR of ~0.6 and a FMR of ~1.3. These results show that an increase in contact time is not accompanied by an average particle growth for Au-NPs, but by a doubling of the particle number. Anabaena sp. is capable of biosorbing and bioreducing dissolved Au3+ and Eu3+ ions from aqueous solutions, generating nano-sized Au and Eu particles, respectively. Therefore, it is a low-cost, non-toxic and effective candidate for a rapid recovery of these sought-after metals via the bioproduction of NPs with defined sizes and shapes, providing a high potential for scale-up.


We consider stationary hidden Markov models with finite state space and nonparametric modeling of the emission distributions. It has remained unknown until very recently that such models are identifiable. In this paper, we propose a new penalized least-squares estimator for the emission distributions which is statistically optimal and practically tractable. We prove a non asymptotic oracle inequality for our nonparametric estimator of the emission distributions. A consequence is that this new estimator is rate minimax adaptive up to a logarithmic term. Our methodology is based on projections of the emission distributions onto nested subspaces of increasing complexity. The popular spectral estimators are unable to achieve the optimal rate but may be used as initial points in our procedure. Simulations are given that show the improvement obtained when applying the least-squares minimization consecutively to the spectral estimation.


HYPOTHESIS
Radiofrequency (RF) energy applied to breast cancers will result in cancer cell death.

DESIGN
Prospective nonrandomized interventional trial.

SETTING
A university hospital tertiary care center.

PATIENTS
Five women with locally advanced invasive breast cancer, aged 38 to 66 years, who were undergoing surgical resection of their tumor. One patient underwent preoperative chemotherapy and radiation therapy, 3 patients received preoperative chemotherapy, and 1 had no preoperative therapy. All patients completed the study.

INTERVENTIONS
While patients were under general anesthesia and just before surgical resection, a 15-gauge insulated multiple-needle electrode was inserted into the tumor under sonographic guidance. Radiofrequency energy was applied at a low power by a preset protocol for a period of up to 30 minutes. Only a portion of the tumor was treated to evaluate the zone of RF ablation and the margin between ablated and nonablated tissue. Immediately after RF ablation, the tumor was surgically resected (4 mastectomies, 1 lumpectomy). Pathologic analysis included hematoxylin-eosin staining and enzyme histochemical analysis of cell viability with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-diaphorase (NADH-diaphorase) staining of snap-frozen tissue to assess immediate cell death.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Cancer cell death as visualized on hematoxylin-eosin-stained paraffin section and NADH-diaphorase cell viability stains.

RESULTS
There was evidence of cell death in all patients. Hematoxylin-eosin staining showed complete cell death in 2 patients. In 3 patients there was a heterogeneous pattern of necrotic and normal-appearing cells within the ablated tissue. The ablated zone extended around the RF electrode for a diameter of 0.8 to 1.8 cm. NADH-diaphorase cell viability stains of the ablated tissue showed complete cell death in 4 patients. The fifth patient had a single focus of viable cells (<1 mm) partially lining a cyst. There were no perioperative complications related to RF ablation.

CONCLUSIONS
Intraoperative RF ablation results in invasive breast cancer cell death. Based on this initial report of the use of RF ablation in breast cancer, this technique merits further investigation as a percutaneous minimally invasive modality for the local treatment of breast cancer.


Solid waste management is a major problem in most areas of coastal Ghana, where waste is dumped into drains that discharge into the sea or is dumped directly onto beaches. This is as a result of inadequate waste management infrastructure, low patronage of the few infrastructure available, and poor management. The consequence is an increase in vulnerability to sanitation related diseases such as malaria, typhoid and cholera as well as threatened coastal ecosystems' health. Improper solid waste disposal practices are usually counter-productive to the many benefits and uses of the coast and directly impact the livelihoods and businesses that are dependent on the coast and the sea. For coastal management purposes, there is a need to gather knowledge about household waste disposal methods, quantify the amount of waste generated within the selected community, and identify opportunities for proper waste management. To gather this information, both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used to find answers to the research questions. Households (44) were sampled using convenience the sampling method. All the 44 households were interviewed to get more knowledge about waste management in the community but only 34 households took part in the waste quantification and characterization part of the study. Households were provided with dustbins for waste storage, separating waste into degradables other than paper (organics) and non-biodegradables (plastics, paper, leather, textile, glass, metal, miscellaneous and inert (sand/stones/dust)). Over a period of five weeks, each household was visited two times a week and each category of waste was weighed. Preliminary findings indicate that organics were present in the highest quantity (48.07%), followed by inert (22.25%) and then plastics (14.92%). Analysis of the interviews shows that waste management in the community is generally poor, as a majority of the respondents dump their waste on a wetland. Respondents have enough knowledge about the effects of waste and are not happy about the current waste management situation in the community, but this is not reflected in their behavior. There is a window of opportunity to institute Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) because respondents recognize they have roles to play in waste management and are willing to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.


Large fires have an effect of suppressing Very or Ultra High Frequency
(VHF/UHF) radio wave signals strength which consequently impact negatively on
the efficiency of radio communications at the frequency ranges. Mobile
hand-held radio operating at the frequency ranges is a major communication tool
during fire suppression; therefore inefficient radio communication systems put
lives of fire fighters at risk. One of the causes of signal attenuation in fire
environment is plume ionization. Plume species which include graphitic carbon,
alkalis and thermally excited radicals such as methyl are responsible for
ionization. As atmospheric pressure ionized medium (combustion plasma),
sugarcane fire has momentum transfer electron-neutral collision frequency much
higher than plasma frequency, hence propagation of VHF/UHF radio waves through
such a medium is predicted to suffer a significant attenuation and phase shift.
Radiowave propagation measurements were carried out in a moderate intensity
prescribed sugarcane fire at 151 MHz frequency over a 590 m path using a
radiowave interferometer. The radio wave interferometer measured signal
attenuation of 0.43 dB through the fire with maximum temperature and flame depth
of 1154 K and 8.7 m, respectively.


Large metallic losses and short propagation lengths associated with surface plasmons (SPs) have long been considered as the obstacles which severely limit the practical applications of surface plasmonic waveguides. In this paper, we introduce the concept of dielectric spoof SPs (SSPs) and show that subwavelength high-contrast gratings (HCGs) offer a route to effectively suppress the losses and hence dramatically increase the propagation length of surface electromagnetic waves. We experimentally realized a wideband ultra-low-loss high-confinement plasmonic waveguide constructed by a high refractive-index dielectric array with deep-subwavelength periodicity on a metal substrate. Simulation and measurement results on the near-field distributions and S-parameters at microwave frequencies provide explicit evidences of strong field localization and show excellent transmission efficiency of HCGs-based SSPs across a broad frequency band. More importantly, the propagation length of the HCGs-based SSPs is proved to be at least more than one order of magnitude larger than that of metallic gratings-based SSPs at the same or even higher level of field confinement. Thus, the SSPs as experimentally realized in this paper hold great promise for numerous practical applications in ultra-low-loss and long-range transmission SP devices and circuits and may open up new vistas in SP optics.


Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are ongoing in many East Asian countries; however, their influences on future drought remain unknown. We analyzed future changes in drought intensity over East Asia using the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 and the new two limiting local greenhouse gas emission scenarios in East Asia: National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER)-H scenario for high emission and NIER-L scenario for low emission. The two scenarios were made by a fully coupled global climate model with prescribed gas boundaries of high and low greenhouse gas emissions from an atmospheric chemistry model reflecting the up-to-date environmental policies of South Korea, China, and Japan. The application of a clustering analysis to the calculated drought index time series identified four zonally distributed drought regions in the present-day period (1951 2016). Among these regions, higher latitude regions showed a more rapidly increasing trend in drought intensity than other regions for the present-day period. All future scenarios projected the continuation of this meridional intensification trend of drought until 2100; however, the intensification rates in the NIER-L were much smaller than those in the RCP8.5 and NIER-H scenarios. Our results suggest that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical for East Asian countries to alleviate the potential damages of future droughts. Article history: Received 11 March 2019


This paper explores the efficiency of tradable permit markets for stock pollutants. With uncertainty about the future stock level or damages, a market with banking and borrowing is inferior, in terms of efficiency, compared to a market without banking and borrowing if the regulator commits to an initial allocation of permits. This result occurs because, with banking and borrowing and commitment, the regulator needs to specify the total allowable amount of emission over time at the initial time period before the uncertainty with the pollution stock is resolved. An alternative banking and borrowing scheme is proposed, where the regulator can update the allocation of permits to firms over time and achieve the efficient pollution accumulation.


Aceh,  as  the  province  that  became  the  pioneer  of  the  implementation  of  Islamic  Sharia  in Indonesia. The need for Muslim dress or muslimah is an absolutely necessary thing. The need for  Muslim  clothing  for  the  community  encourages  entrepreneurs  to  sell  their  best  products are  no  exception  with  boutique  entrepreneurs,  especially  in  the  city  directly.  Universally, goods sold in boutiques are very rare or even never found in ordinary stores. All that can not be separated because the boutique has a philosophy on the clothing items are exclusive, elite, fashionable and sophisticated fashion and complete with accessories. As  for the problems  in this  study  are  (1)  how  the  business  boutique  Muslim  Langsa  City.  (2)  how  is  the implementation  of  marketing  mix  in  the  effort  of  progress  of  Muslim  clothing  boutique  in Langsa City ?. Based on these problems, this study aims to determine the implementation of marketing  mix  in  the  effort  of  Muslim  clothing  business  boutique  in  Langsa  City.  The research method that the writer use in this research are: qualitative descriptive ie presentation of  research  result  through  description  of  observation  result,  interview  and  documentation  to see  the  implementation  of  marketing  mix  in  effort  of  progress  of  boutique  clothing  fashion Muslim  in  Langsa  City.  Based  on  the  results  of  research  that:  Muslim  Boutique  in  Langsa City specialize marketing its products in some market segment especially for society which is Moslem, which 70% target is teenagers, the rest is public. In the implementation of marketing mix in the effort of progress of Muslim fashion boutique in Langsa City apply four elements, that is: products at Muslim  Boutique  in Langsa  City  focus on quality according to customer requirement that  put  forward  kesyar'iannya.  The  pricing  strategy  determined  by  the  Muslim Boutique  in  Langsa  City  is  adjusted  to  total  raw  materials,  production  materials,  all manufacturing  costs  are  totaled  and  profitability  of  each  product  is  taken  at  40%.  In  the distribution  strategy  set  the  business  near  the  city  center,  universities,  companies,  and government  buildings  city  of  Langsa  City  is  not  far  from  the  crowd.  Boutique  Muslimah  in Langsa  City  in  the  selection  of  promotion  strategies  Muslim  Boutique  in  Langsa  City  has made  various  promotions  including,  personal  selling,  advertising,  sale  promotion  and publicity.


The semi-arid west Sahelian plains of northern Ghana have experienced some of the most drastic climate changes on the planet. For many rural northern Ghanaians, internal seasonal migration is an important and long established autonomous strategy to adapt to these changes. The creation of new opportunities, supported by a planned adaptation intervention, is beginning to change patterns of mobility in one rural community in northern Ghana. The primary objective of this research is to explore how these changing patterns of seasonal migration affect household capacities to adapt to climate change. To achieve this, an analysis of the adaptive and maladaptive impacts of mobility on households is presented alongside an investigation into the shifts in patterns of seasonal migration in the selected case study community in the last ten years. In the context of new income generating opportunities, this research identifies a number of key ways that mobility weakens and strengthens household adaptive capacities and offers interpretations of these findings to determine the impact of changes in mobility on household adaptive capacity. This thesis finds that seasonal migration has declined in the last ten years and that the key reason for these changes is the uptake of dry season farming which is supported by a community based adaptation intervention. Despite the maladaptive impacts, it is argued that the loss of the adaptive benefits of mobility has a damaging effect on adaptive capacity, most notably for households that have stopped migrating altogether, and particularly in the long term. This thesis recommends that greater attention and importance be afforded to mobility and other autonomous adaptation strategies by intervening agencies. Firstly, in order to identify adaptive outcomes of autonomous behaviour that can be facilitated and maladaptive outcomes that should be prevented or mitigated. Secondly, to identify gaps in the adaptive benefits that autonomous strategies offer as target areas for interventions. Thirdly, to provide a more comprehensive and complete basis upon which adaptation interventions and their net impact on adaptive capacity can be analysed and assessed. Fourth and finally, to increase our collective knowledge and understanding of what adaptation is. At this pivotal moment when adaptation is rising up the international climate change agenda to sit alongside mitigation; acknowledging, understanding and learning from autonomous adaptation strategies will enrich the way we know and do adaptation, and could be decisive in enabling the world's most climate vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change.


Compared with other developed nations, New Zealand's use of information technology (IT) in health care is among the highest in the world. All of the country's 1,100 general practices use an electronic medical record system with comprehensive functionality to manage patient's problem lists, enter clinical progress notes, perform electronic prescribing, and order laboratory tests and x-rays, among other tasks. Physicians are also increasingly using information technology to communicate with patients and allow them to schedule appoint - ments. New Zealand also stands out in terms of interoperability, with primary care providers, hospitals, radiology providers, and pathology laboratories, as well as most specialists able to use standard messaging to communicate with each other. This issue brief describes New Zealand's primary health care system, discusses its successes and challenges in adopting and promoting health IT, and draws lessons for the United States.


This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding plasma turbulence in astrophysical plasmas. It is motivated by observations of electromagnetic and density fluctuations in the solar wind, interstellar medium and galaxy clusters, as well as by models of particle heating in accretion disks. All of these plasmas and many others have turbulent motions at weakly collisional and collisionless scales. The paper focuses on turbulence in a strong mean magnetic field. The key assumptions are that the turbulent fluctuations are small compared to the mean field, spatially anisotropic with respect to it and that their frequency is low compared to the ion cyclotron frequency. The turbulence is assumed to be forced at some system-specific outer scale. The energy injected at this scale has to be dissipated into heat, which ultimately cannot be accomplished without collisions. A kinetic cascade develops that brings the energy to collisional scales both in space and velocity. The nature of the kinetic cascade in various scale ranges depends on the physics of plasma fluctuations that exist there. There are four special scales that separate physically distinct regimes: the electron and ion gyroscales, the mean free path and the electron diffusion scale. In each of the scale ranges separated by these scales, the fully kinetic problem is systematically reduced to a more physically transparent and computationally tractable system of equations, which are derived in a rigorous way. In the "inertial range" above the ion gyroscale, the kinetic cascade separates into two parts: a cascade of Alfvénic fluctuations and a passive cascade of density and magnetic-field-strength fluctuations. The former are governed by the reduced magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) equations at both the collisional and collisionless scales; the latter obey a linear kinetic equation along the (moving) field lines associated with the Alfvénic component (in the collisional limit, these compressive fluctuations become the slow and entropy modes of the conventional MHD). In the "dissipation range" below ion gyroscale, there are again two cascades: the kinetic-Alfvén-wave (KAW) cascade governed by two fluid-like electron reduced magnetohydrodynamic (ERMHD) equations and a passive cascade of ion entropy fluctuations both in space and velocity. The latter cascade brings the energy of the inertial-range fluctuations that was Landau-damped at the ion gyroscale to collisional scales in the phase space and leads to ion heating. The KAW energy is similarly damped at the electron gyroscale and converted into electron heat. Kolmogorov-style scaling relations are derived for all of these cascades. The relationship between the theoretical models proposed in this paper and astrophysical applications and observations is discussed in detail.


Apart from the Phyllopod Bed of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) polychaete annelids are practically unknown from any of the Cambrian Lagerstätten. This is surprising both because their diversity in the Burgess Shale is considerable, while to date the Chengjiang Lagerstätte which is equally impressive in terms of faunal diversity has no reliable records of any annelids. Here we describe, on the basis of about 40 specimens, Phragmochaeta canicularis gen. et sp. nov. from the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte of Peary Land, North Greenland. This makes it by far the oldest known polychaete, with a likely age of lower to middle Atdabanian, The body consists of approximately 20 segments, each bearing notochaetae and neurochaetae. The former appeared to have formed a felt-like covering on the dorsum, whilst the neurochaetae projected obliquely to the longitudinal axis. Apart from minor differences in chaetal size at either end there is no other tagmosis. Details of the head are obscure, and presence of palps, tentacles and eyes are conjectural. Jaws appear to have been absent. The gut was straight, and flanked by massive longitudinal musculature. P. canicularis was evidently benthic, propelling itself on the neurochaetae, with the dorsal neurochaetae conferring protection. Its stratigraphic position and generalized appearance are consistent with P. canicularis being primitive, but the phylogenetic relationships within the polychaetes remain problematic, principally because of paucity of relevant morphological information.


The 14th general election (GE14) in Malaysia saw a democratic breakthrough as the Barisan Nasional's uninterrupted rule since independence finally came to an end. This article seeks to analyse the role and impact of the Bersih movement in GE14 by examining the political context of GE14 via three key political opportunities: the 1MDB scandal; electoral fraud and manipulation; and the re-delineation of electoral boundaries. Bersih's core campaigns, actions, and strategies in response to these political opportunities will be analysed based on information and insights generated from the author's involvement as a member of Bersih's secretariat. The political opportunity resulting from the 1MDB scandal gave room for civil society and the opposition to go on the offensive; Bersih took the lead and continued the tradition of coalition-building between civil society and opposition forces, and brought focus to cross-ethnic issues. At the same time, Bersih held firm in its agenda for electoral reform by continuing to consistently monitor and mobilise against electoral fraud and manipulation leading up to GE14. Via the re-delineation exercise, it mobilised and coordinated resistance by increasing civic participation in the constitutional process and created new areas of contestation via the judiciary. In parallel, Bersih's efforts and strategies towards these political opportunities had created conditions that contributed towards Pakatan Harapan's victory in GE14.


This paper is based upon an empirical study conducted to explore the ethical orientation of managers of insurance industry in India. The ethical position of insurance managers has been judged on the basis of 'relativism' and 'idealism' dimensions determining ethical ideologies as suggested by Forsyth (1980). The study tests the validity and reliability of Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) in the Indian context. For the purpose of questionnaire based survey, a sample of 200 insurance managers (100 each from public and private insurance companies) has been taken from Doaba region of Punjab, which includes districts of Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Phagwara, Kartarpur, Nawanshehr and Hoshiarpur. According to the taxonomy of Forsyth, 26% of the insurance managers have been found to be 'absolutists' and 74% managers are found to be 'situationists.' Out of 200 managers, no manager has been found to be 'subjectivist' or 'exceptionist.' Eighty four percent of the insurance mangers in the Private sector are 'situationists' in comparison with 64% in Public sector insurance companies. Similarly, the percentage of 'situationist' managers in case of Life Insurance (84.3%) is much higher as compared to General Insurance (57.7%) managers. It has been found that as managers grow older, they place less emphasis on self interest and exhibit a greater concern for the welfare of others. It implies that ethical behaviour of insurance managers improves with age and maturity. Postgraduate managers are comparatively more 'situationists' and they are also relatively high on 'relativism' as compared to graduate managers. Managers in very low-income category and very high-income category need special attention as they have been found to be highly 'relativistic'. Another interesting finding of the study is that women insurance managers are having better ethical standards than their male counterparts. In the light of the findings, the study makes suggestions for insurance industry and public policy makers for improving the ethical standards in the insurance industry in India.


It has been known for decades that DNA is extremely flexible and polymorphic, but our knowledge of its accessible conformational space remains limited. Structural data, primarily from X-ray diffraction studies, is sparse in comparison to the manifold configurations possible, and direct experimental examinations of DNA's flexibility still suffer from many limitations. In the face of these shortcomings, molecular dynamics (MD) is now an essential tool in the study of DNA. It affords detailed structural and dynamical insights, which explains its recent transition from a small number of highly specialized laboratories to a large variety of groups dealing with challenging biological problems. MD is now making an irreversible journey to the mainstream of research in biology, with the attendant opportunities and challenges. But given the speed with which MD studies of DNA have spread, the roots remain somewhat shallow: in many cases, there is a lack of deep knowledge about the foundations, strengths, and limits of the technique. In this Account, we discuss how MD has become the most important source of structural and flexibility data on DNA, focusing on advances since 2007 of atomistic MD in the description of DNA under near-physiological conditions and highlighting the possibilities and shortcomings of the technique. The evolution in the field over the past four years is a prelude to the ongoing revolution. The technique has gained in robustness and predictive power, which when coupled with the spectacular improvements in software and hardware has enabled the tackling of systems of increasing complexity. Simulation times of microseconds have now been achieved, with even longer times when specialized hardware is used. As a result, we have seen the first real-time simulation of large conformational transitions, including folding and unfolding of short DNA duplexes. Noteworthy advances have also been made in the study of DNA-ligand interactions, and we predict that a global thermodynamic and kinetic picture of the binding landscape of DNA will become available in a few years. MD will become a crucial tool in areas such as biomolecular engineering and synthetic biology. MD has also been shown to be an excellent source of parameters for mesoscopic models of DNA flexibility. Such models can be refined through atomistic MD simulations on small duplexes and then applied to the study of entire chromosomes. Recent evidence suggests that MD-derived elastic models can successfully predict the position of regulatory regions in DNA and can help advance our understanding of nucleosome positioning and chromatin plasticity. If these results are confirmed, MD simulations can become the ultimate tool to decipher a physical code that can contribute to gene regulation. We are entering the golden age of MD simulations of DNA. Undoubtedly, the expectations are high, but the challenges are also enormous. These include the need for more accurate potential energy functionals and for longer and more complex simulations in more realistic systems. The joint research effort of several groups will be crucial for adapting the technique to the requirements of the coming decade.


Aerodynamic drag in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is affected by the structure and density of obstacles (surface roughness) and nature of the terrain (topography). In building codes and standards, average roughness is usually determined somewhat subjectively by examination of aerial photographs. For detailed wind mapping, boundary layer wind tunnel (BLWT) testing is usually recommended. This may not be cost effective for many projects, in which case numerical studies become good alternatives. This thesis examines Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for evaluation of aerodynamic roughness of the built environment and complex terrain.
The present study started from development of an in-house CFD software tailored for ABL simulations. A three-dimensional finite-volume code was developed using flexible polyhedral elements as building blocks. The program is parallelized using MPI to run on clusters of processors so that micro-scale simulations can be conducted quickly. The program can also utilize the power of latest technology in high performance computing, namely GPUs. Various turbulence models including mixing-length, RANS, and LES models are implemented, and their suitability for ABL simulations assessed.
Then the effect of surface roughness alone on wind profiles is assessed using CFD. Cases with various levels of complexity are considered including simplified models with roughness blocks of different arrangement, multiple roughness patches, semi-idealized urban model, and real built environment. Comparison with BLWT data for the first three cases showed good agreement thereby justifying explicit three-dimensional numerical approach. Due to lack of validation data, the real built environment case served only to demonstrate use of CFD for such purposes.
Finally, the effect of topographic features on wind profiles was investigated using CFD. This work extends prior work done by the research team on multiple idealized two-dimensional topographic features to more elaborate three-dimensional simulations. It is found that two-dimensional simulations overestimate speed up over crests of hills and also show larger recirculation zones. The current study also emphasized turbulence characterization behind hills. Finally a real complex terrain case of the well-known Askervein hill was simulated and the results validated against published field observations. In general the results obtained from the current simulations compared well with those reported in literature.