Due to the increasing density of borehole heat exchanger (BHE) systems in Switzerland, their mutual influence needs to be investigated. Depending on the number of systems involved, it may take from several tens up to several hundred of years for typical BHE lengths of ~100m before they start influencing each other. There is however a need to account for their long term influence since this situation is supposed to occur more often in future, as the number of ground coupled heat pump systems (GCHP system) steadily increases with time. Since it is difficult to collect measurements of thermally interacting BHE's in these conditions, only simulation programs will provide a solution to this problem. This topic needs also to be stud-ied to discuss themes such as "neighbour rights" or sustainability related to GCHP system.

 The first phase of the project is to check the often-used "g-function" calculation. Therefore, the programs SBM being used in g-function mode and the fully numerical finite element pro-gram FRACTure are tested. The comparison between the two programs is performed for a three-borehole configuration of an equilateral triangle. Under the assumption of steady-state conditions and a homogeneous, purely diffusive subsurface, a good agreement of the pro-grams could be established. In these conditions the g-function analysis provides fast and suf-ficiently accurate results. Further calculations, performed with FRACTure, investigated the possible effect of a subsurface aquifer. Depending on the aquifer thickness and flow rate, the results indicated a performance increase of up to 70%. Although a time constant was roughly considered, further calculations need to be performed. Especially, the transient behaviour, ef-fects of heterogeneous subsurface or temperature-dependant material behaviour should be in-vestigated in further steps. This first comparison has demonstrated that both programs SBM and FRACTure working with completely different algorithms can reliably be used for simula-tions of BHE systems.

In the second phase of the project, the g-function concept is used to calculate the long term influence of the two borehole configurations (two-boreholes and three-boreholes forming an equilateral triangle). The results are presented in a graphical form in order to quickly assess a particular problem. The ground thermal conductivity may vary between 1 and 4 Wm-1K-1, the borehole length between 50 and 200 m, the borehole spacing between 5 and 100 m and the time horizon between 5 and 200 years. The long term influence is estimated for any mean an-nual heat extraction rate, which includes an eventual thermal recharge of the ground. The in-fluence of a regional ground water flow is not taken into account. As calculated with FRAC-Ture, such an influence may significantly improve the situation by decreasing the long term temperature drop at the borehole wall.


Introduction Fast food consumption and skipping breakfast has been increasingly prevalent among high school adolescents in recent years. These unhealthy food habits are considered as risk factors of chronic diseases among adolescents and adults. Aim To determine the consumption amount of fast food, breakfast, and some associated factors in adolescents. Methods In this cross-sectional study in 2015, 553 adolescent students aged 14–18 years were randomly selected among high schools of Sanandaj, Iran. Demographic data and also consumption amount of fast food and breakfast in adolescents in addition to the related factors were studied. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire which its reliability and validity were measured by five experts and analyzed with SPSS-16 by Chi-square test and ANOVA. Results The results show that 69.8 % of subjects consume fast food at least once a week. Fast food and breakfast consumption is related significantly to subjects' fathers' occupation respectively (p=0.005), (p=0.006). Eating breakfast is significantly higher among boys than girls (p<0.001). There is also a significant relationship between adolescents' age and parents' education level, and adolescents' breakfast consumption respectively (p=0.003), (p<0.001). The studied factors affecting adolescents' fast food consumption are: their own and their families and friends' interest and accompaniment, advertisement, close proximity of school and home to fast food stores. Conclusion The consumption of fast food is high among Iranian adolescents. It correlates significantly with variables including father's occupation and all of the associated factors. Breakfast consumption correlates significantly with adolescents' age and gender, as well as parents' occupation and educational level.


We show that Skeletonema marinoi suppresses chain formation in response to copepod cues. The presence of three different copepod species (Acartia tonsa, Centropages hamatus, or Temora longicornis) significantly reduced chain length. Furthermore, chain length was significantly reduced when S. marinoi was exposed to chemical cues from caged A. tonsa without physical contact with the responding cells. The reductions in chain length significantly reduced copepod grazing; grazing rates on chains (four cells or more) were several times higher compared to that of single cells. This suggests that chain length plasticity is a means for S. marinoi to reduce copepod grazing. In contrast, chain length was not suppressed in cultures exposed to the microzooplankton grazer Gyrodinium dominans. Size‐selective predation may have played a key role in the evolution of chain formation and chain length plasticity in diatoms.


This book presents a comprehensive behavioral theory of market interactions and proposes an approach to policy management based on the use of microanalytic computer simulation. The author describes how simulation-based computer systems can provide realistic artificial environments in which managers evaluate historical strategies and examine the implications of proposed future marketing programs under various assumed competitive conditions. Management use of microanalytic simulations to assess the appropriateness of alternative solutions for a wide range of consumer and industrial marketing problems is also discussed. While other books have presented simulations of limited aspects of the marketing environment, Computer Simulation of Competitive Market Response presents complete models of consumer, distributor, retailer, and salesman behavior. Validated representations of key action and response processes including purchase decisions, response to media and word-of-mouth communication, brand image formation, and trade acceptance of new products are described. While adopting a managerial perspective, the author develops an interdisciplinary approach to problem formulation, synthetic and analytic procedures, and hypotheses regarding human behavior and interactions. His carefully structured approach to the fundamental problem of developing, testing, and validating complex models of human actions and responses makes this volume both comprehensible and valuable to researchers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines.


Domestic regulatory decisions involving matters of human health or the environment are increasingly coming under scrutiny by international courts and tribunals. One of the latest examples concerns an Australian law that mandates the plain packaging of cigarettes and which is being challenged in international investment law and international trade law. Both of these fields are closely related, yet despite the use of similar rules differ in important respects. This article analyzes the extent of the regulatory space that is afforded to states and WTO members in the international investment and international trade regimes. It does so by comparing the jurisprudence of investment tribunals regarding regulatory expropriations and the jurisprudence of the WTO dispute settlement organs in cases concerning human, animal and plant life or health as well as international standards. The article suggests that international investment law and international trade law offer insights for one another. But it also finds that international trade law has been more adept at incorporating concerns such as human health or the environment as a countervailing force to the prevailing paradigm of trade liberalization. International investment law is currently undergoing a similar discourse that has shaped international trade law shortly after the inception of the WTO in 1995. That discussion is carried out on the basis of different text and context, a different set of institutions and different epistemic communities. Despite these differences, there are growing signs of convergence of how much regulatory space is afforded in international trade and investment law, respectively.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of biomimetic zinc-containing tricalcium phosphate (ZnTCP) produced by hydrothermally converting calcium carbonate exoskeletons from foraminifera, in the treatment of osteoporotic mice. X-Ray powder diffraction showed crystallographic structures matching JCPDS profile for tricalcium phosphate. Mass spectroscopy used to calculate total composition amount showed similar amount of calcium (5×104 µg/g) and phosphate (4×104 ppm) after conversion and the presence of zinc (5.18×103 µg/g). In vitro zinc release showed no release in PBS buffer and <1% zinc release in 7 days. In vivo evaluation was done in ovariectomized mice by implanting the ZnTCP samples in the soft tissues near the right femur bone for four weeks. Thirty ddY mice (5 weeks old, average weight of 21 g) were divided into six experimental groups (normal, sham, OVX, β-TCP, ZnTCP and direct injection of zinc). CT images were taken every two weeks where the bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) were calculated by software based on CT images. The ZnTCP group exhibits cortical and cancellous bone growth of 45% and 20% respectively. While sham, OVX and β-TCP suffered from bone loss. A correlation was made between the significant body weight increase in ZnTCP with the significant increase in plasma zinc level compared with OVX. The presented results indicate that biomimetic ZnTCP were effective in preventing and treating bone loss in osteoporotic mice model.


The response of 70 cutaneous, low-threshold mechanoreceptors in the human median, radial and inferior alveolar nerves to well controlled brush stimuli moving across the receptive field was quantitatively studied. Microneurography was used to obtain the response of each to multiple velocities from 0.5 to 32 cm/sec in at least two opposing directions. A high degree of response consistency was observed from the slowly adapting receptors to replication of the same stimulus and to a lesser, but significant degree from the fast adapting receptors. The evoked discharge reflected up to three partially overlapping phases of the moving stimulus: skin compression, indentation, and stretch. Although the overall discharge rate increased with both stimulus velocity and force, the spatial discharge pattern was preserved to a high degrees. In contrast, the discharge patterns differed for opposing and orthogonal directions. Reducing the area of skin surrounding the receptive field that was contacted by the moving stimuli had little effect on the evoked response. Individual mechanoreceptors display highly reliable differences to brush stimuli moving at different velocities. to brush stimuli moving at different velocities. Moreover, different directions of movement evoke differences in the discharge that are consistently observed upon replication of the same stimuli. Despite the richness and consistency in the spatial discharge pattern displayed by individual receptors, it is argued that the details of the patterns are not likely used by the CNS to infer information about direction and velocity of movement across the skin. Rather, the intensity of discharge is proposed as a plausible information-bearing attribute of the stimulus-evoked response.


This Article focuses on what the American theologian and Jesuit John Courtney Murray called a Great Idea, whose entrance into history marked the beginning of a new civilizational era. That idea was libertas ecclesiae, or the freedom of the Church. It served, according to Harold Berman, as the catalyst for the first major turning point in European history and as the foundation for nearly a millennium of political theory. And, this Article suggests, it remains a crucial component of any plausible and attractive account of religious freedom under and through constitutionally limited government. It is tempting to assume or expect that such a great idea must be deeply rooted and comfortably well established in our Constitution's text, history, structure, and doctrine. However, this Article suggests that there might not be, in American constitutional law, a commitment to - or even room for - the libertas ecclesiae principle, richly understood. Instead, it could be that we are living off the capital of this idea - that is, we enjoy, embrace, and depend upon its freedom-enabling effects - without a real appreciation for or even a memory of what it is, implies, and presumes. In our religious-freedom doctrines and conversations, it is more likely that the independence and autonomy of churches, or of religious institutions and associations generally, are framed as deriving from, or existing in the service of, the free-exercise or conscience rights of individual persons than as providing the basis or foundation for those rights. Accordingly, this Article considers Murray's warning that the individual conscience is not equal to the burden of being the keystone of the modern experiment in freedom.


"The Encyclopedia of the U.S. Census, Second Edition" updates and expands a critically-acclaimed resource for the history, politics, content, procedures and uses of the decennial census of the American population. The new edition highlights changes in the Census Bureau's data collection and dissemination practices for the 2010 enumeration, including the use of a short-form questionnaire for the actual population count, and the release in late 2010 of the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year data set based on rolling samples of the U.S. population and gathered using the long-form questionnaire. The second edition also comprehensively covers the fallout from the 2000 census and recent issues affecting the administration of the 2010 count.


Recently, learning Chinese as foreign language (CFL) is becoming more and more popular around the world. However, promoting Mandarin among tens of millions of overseas Chinese has not been given enough attention. Research shows that language shift happens within three generations with minority immigrants (Fishman, 1991). Yet, less attention has been paid to how this process has actually happened. Based on the observation and monthly recorded data from eight families in Auckland, it has been found that, within 28 months after their arrival, the amount of Mandarin Chinese used at home is decreasing sharply; In terms of daily communication function, English is taking over Mandarin Chinese to express negation, greeting and gratitude; Parental interactive strategy also tends to be moving towards bilingual or even English. These are important signs of language shifting. Actions need to be taken for mother tongue maintenance.


We propose a novel method to simulate image noise caused by gamma-ray irradiation. Monte Carlo simulation is utilized to calculate the interaction between the gamma-ray and the image sensor, and the energy deposit in each pixel is estimated. A converter module is proposed for generating image noise from the energy deposit. The conversion is designed so that the converted energy deposit has a similar image histogram to the real gamma-ray image noise. The real gamma-ray image noise is obtained by using circular fisheye cameras in gamma-ray irradiation tests. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in experiments. We believe that this study would be beneficial for the development of methods for decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant by the research community. Our source code is available at https://github.com/matsuren/pixel_noise_sim_geant4.


Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China is a comprehensive introduction to the daybook manuscripts found in Warring States, Qin, and Han tombs (453 BCE–220 CE) and intended for use in daily life.


Established in 1968, the Wheaton Literary Series provides insightful books for the thoughtful reader, inspiring imagination, and reflection. These beautifully produced volumes feature prose and poetry of high literary, academic, and artistic merit, written by and about Christian artists of significant stature.


In sensor networks, data aggregation is a vital primitive enabling efficient data queries. An on-site aggregator device collects data from sensor nodes and produces a condensed summary which is forwarded to the off-site querier, thus reducing the communication cost of the query. Since the aggregator is on-site, it is vulnerable to physical compromise attacks. A compromised aggregator may report false aggregation results. Hence, it is essential that techniques are available to allow the querier to verify the integrity of the result returned by the aggregator node.

We propose a novel framework for secure information aggregation in sensor networks. By constructing efficient random sampling mechanisms and interactive proofs, we enable the querier to verify that the answer given by the aggregator is a good approximation of the true value, even when the aggregator and a fraction of the sensor nodes are corrupted. In particular, we present efficient protocols for secure computation of the median and average of the measurements, for the estimation of the network size, for finding the minimum and maximum sensor reading, and for random sampling and leader election. Our protocols require only sublinear communication between the aggregator and the user.


This study describes the remarkable radiation of Modisimus on Hispaniola. During two short trips to the island, more species have been collected than are known from any comparable area on the mainland. We redescribe three of the four previously known Hispaniolan species, and describe 22 new species. Most Haitian species are local endemics, either of the severely threatened forests in one of the two national parks (La Visite National Park and Macaya Biosphere Reserve) or of their surrounding areas. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that most of these species together represent a species group that is restricted to the paleogeographically distinct southern 'paleoisland', and that is otherwise known neither from Hispaniola nor from any other island. Two mitochondrial markers, 16S and cytochrome oxidase I (COI), were sequenced in 21 species to test for their performance as barcoding genes within this group of partly closely related species. Both markers unambiguously corroborated the morphospecies, with small but distinct gaps between the intra- and interspecific genetic distances. The absence of Modisimus in South America argues against colonization of the West Indies over a 'landspan' connecting South America to the Greater Antilles. Overwater dispersal is supported by two lines of evidence (unusual radiation and reduced higher-level diversity), but further data (especially time estimates for the separation of mainland and island taxa) are needed to evaluate the third major model, continent–island vicariance as a result of plate tectonics. The species diversity of the genus, combined with the presence of habitat specialists, suggests that this system may have the potential to complement the classic studies on adaptive radiation in Caribbean Anolis lizards.


The purpose of this research was to produce the enriched eggs, but low in cholesterol content. Forty eight layer chickens aged 72 weeks (strain Dekalb Warren) were distributed into six treatment groups. One group of laying hens was fed diets without Sauropus androgynus leaf extract (SALE) as the control, and another five groups were fed diet supplemented to 9 g SALE, 18 g SALE, 27 g SALE, 36 g SALE, and 45 g SALE/kg diet, respectively. Completely randomized design was used in the present study. The experimental results showed that SALE supplementation had no effect on egg production, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, yolk weight, albumen weight, shell egg, egg index, eggshell thickness, and yolk index (P>0.05), but significantly affected Haugh Unit, albumen index, yolk color, egg odor, egg taste, and yolk color (P<0.05). The protein, fat, calsium, phosphor, kalium and iron contents of eggs did not change (P>0.05), but the cholesterol content of egg was significantly reduced (P<0.05). In conclusion, the supplementation of SALE did not enhance performance, but it improve egg quality and its chemical composition.


Bet3 is a component of the transport protein particle complex involved in vesicular trafficking to and through the Golgi complex. X-ray structural analysis of human and mouse Bet3 revealed a hydrophobic tunnel inside the protein, which is occupied by a fatty acid linked to cysteine-68. We show here that Bet3 has strong self-palmitoylating activity. Incubation of purified Bet3 with [3H]palmitoyl-CoA (Pal-CoA) leads to a rapid and stoichiometric attachment of fatty acids to cysteine-68. Bet3 has an intrinsic affinity for Pal-CoA, and the palmitoylation reaction occurs at physiological pH values and Pal-CoA concentrations. Moreover, Bet3 is also efficiently palmitoylated at cysteine-68 inside vertebrate cells. Palmitoylation can occur late after Bet3 synthesis, but once the fatty acids are bound they are not removed, not even by disassembly of the Golgi complex. Narrowing the hydrophobic tunnel by exchange of alanine-82 with bulkier amino acids inhibits palmitoylation, both in vitro and inside cells, indicating that the fatty acid must insert into the tunnel for stable attachment. Finally, we show that palmitoylation of Bet3 plays a structural role. CD spectroscopy reveals that chemically deacylated Bet3 has a reduced melting temperature. As a consequence of its structural defect nonacylated Bet3 does not bind to TPC6, a further subunit of the transport protein particle complex, and is degraded inside cells.


Mid Sweden University and Kalmar University have organised surveys on reading skills in a number of Swedish municipalities. All students in grade 8 in these municipalities have participated in the surveys, in total 16 287 students. These surveys have included a reading test and information collected from the teachers about the students, including participation in instruction in Swedish as a second language and in their mother tongues. Students of immigrant origin in Sweden are offered the possibility to participate in instruction in Swedish as a second language and in their mother tongue. Collected data from the municipalities are used to see whether the percentage of students of immigrant origin participating in these types of instruction is increasing or decreasing. The data are also used to look at differences between those students of immigrant origin who participate and not participate in these types of instruction. Are there differences in the results on the reading tests? Are different language groups participating to the same extent in these types of instruction? Are there gender differences related to the participation in these types of instruction? The results will be further discussed and related to findings from other surveys, both national and international.


Background/Context In an age of test-driven accountability, many schools are returning to banking pedagogies in which students passively take in content. Inquiry-based instruction offers one approach for actively involving students in meaningful learning activity, however, research on inquiry pedagogies often focuses on academic accomplishments. Our study examines how inquiry-based dialogue not only supports academic learning but also supports social learning as students and teachers negotiate, share ideas, collaborate, and problem-solve together. Purpose This longitudinal study builds on conceptualizations of dialogic inquiry to examine how teachers and students coconstructed a discourse of inquiry in a public magnet school. We examine the processes and practices that make up this discourse of inquiry and study the function of teacher talk in supporting academic and social learning and agency among students. Setting The Center for Inquiry is a public magnet elementary school located in an ethnically diverse suburban community that was formed in partnership with the University of South Carolina. Participants Participants included teachers and 135 students (65% European American, 30% African American) studied during a 5-year period. Research Design The two authors worked collaboratively with school members to collect two related ethnographic data sets. Data Set 1 captured classroom practices across all six classrooms, and Data Set 2 followed one cohort during the same 5-year period. Findings Findings are presented in two sections. The first section presents a discourse of inquiry made up of six interacting practices of inquiry constructed by teachers and students across classrooms. This discourse of inquiry integrates academic and social practices that position inquiry as (1) dynamic and dialogic, (2) attentive, probing, and thoughtful, (3) agentive and socially responsible, (4) relational and compassionate, (5) reflective and reflexive, and (6) valuing multiple and interdisciplinary perspectives. The second section makes visible how these practices of inquiry were coconstructed through transcripts of classroom discourse drawn from both data sets that centered on discussions of life science. Conclusions/Recommendations This discourse of inquiry supports students as active, thoughtful, engaged learners and community members and underscores the critical role of classroom talk, collaboration, and deliberation in meaningful learning engagements. Although teachers and students alike took multiple roles and responsibilities through inquiry, the teacher's discourse was critical in supporting and extending student learning. We recommend professional development opportunities that equip preservice and in-service teachers with resources, skills, and dispositions to become active inquirers of their own classroom and school practices and who recognize the power of classroom talk to shape and limit possibilities.


During the 1998 El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event, mass coral bleaching in French Polynesia was patchy at a scale of 100s of km. Bleaching was extensive in parts of the Tuamotu archipelago (creating up to 99% coral mortality) but extremely mild in the Society Islands (Tahiti, Moorea), ca 350 km to the south-west, despite sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies being of similar magnitude to previous years in which mass bleaching occurred. We examine whether envi- ronmental variables account for this unexpected paucity of bleaching using a 50 yr record of SST, a 17 yr record of daily wind and cloud cover, and a 17 yr record of monthly sun hours. Records from Tahiti reveal that exceptionally high cloud cover significantly reduced the number of sun hours dur- ing the summer of 1998. Quadratic discriminant analyses of annual bleaching occurrence based on up to 3 predictors (cumulative degree heating months, wind speed, and cloud cover during periods of elevated summer SST) only predicted the correct bleaching scenario for 1998 when cloud cover was added to the function. The results demonstrate that the interactive effect of cloud cover can reverse the bleaching predictions of such statistical models. We suggest that reduced radiative stress, result- ing from high cloud cover, may have prevented large-scale coral bleaching in 1998.


Background The current treatment for rheumatic disease (RD) includes biological drugs such as infliximab (IFX), etanercept (ETT), adalimumab (ADM), golimumab (GLM) rituximab (RTX), abatacept (ABT) and tocilizumab (TCZ). The treatment algorithm (clinical guidelines) includes IFX, ADM, ETT and GLM as first line, RTX as second line and ABT and TCZ as third line of choice. Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of, and evaluate the reasons for, switching biological drugs in a RD population, as well as to analyse the reasons for each biological drug separately. Materials and methods Cross-sectional study (June 2011), which took a sample of 166 patients (30% of the complete population) with 257 drug-patient records, with RDs such as psoriatic arthritis (PA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), psoriatic spondyloarthropathy (PS), Behçe syndrome (BS) and others, treated with biological drugs and who were being followed up in our centre. The indication (confirmed RD), clinical records of treatment with biological drugs and reasons for switching, were collected and analysed. Results 35% (97/257) of biological drug treatments evaluated were switched for all reasons combined. 68.1% of switching of the biological drug was due to lack of efficacy, 29.7% was due to adverse effects, while a 1.1% was due to remission and 1.1% was due to unknown reasons. The table shows the reasons for switch in %, analysing biological drugs separately: Conclusions The main reason for switching biological drugs was the lack of efficacy (68.1%) while the appearance of adverse effects represents 29.7%. The pattern for each biological drug shows than more than 50% of changes were due to lack of efficacy in treatments with IFX, ADM, ETT and RTX.


Despite the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy, entrepreneurial activity rates in South Africa are low in comparison to those of other countries. In an attempt to understand the underlying factors contributing to these low levels of entrepreneurial activity, this study focuses on the extent to which South African business science students have the entrepreneurial attributes generally associated with entrepreneurial behaviour, and whether having these attributes is associated with their entrepreneurial intentions.
The sample consisted of undergraduate business science students conveniently selected from three South African universities. A measuring instrument was distributed and 447 usable questionnaires were returned. The validity of the measuring instrument was assessed by means of a factor analysis, and its reliability by calculating Cronbach alpha coefficients. Inferential statistics were used to assess whether the mean scores for the entrepreneurial attributes under investigation reported by students with entrepreneurial intentions differed significantly from those reported by other students.
The findings show that the attributes more likely to be found in students exhibiting entrepreneurial intentions are: knowledge-seeking*, continuous learning*, business knowledge, planning and perseverance, communication ability*, initiative and responsibility*, creativity and flexibility, high energy level, financial proficiency* and persuasion and networking. Several of these attributes (marked with an asterisk) were, however, ranked as 'least developed' by students both with and without entrepreneurial intentions.


In their effort to enforce a regulation system on the internet, several countries introduced the graduated response system (otherwise known as "three strikes and you're disconnected"). Since then, it started gaining popularity all over the world whether in a legislated form or in a form of private agreements between major copyright holders and internet service providers. On an international level, the final version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was published on 3 December 2010. Although it does not directly suggest the application of a graduated response system, it establishes a legal ground on which member states can justify the instauration of such a system. This paper will discuss the role of the internet service providers in regulating the internet as it is designated by the graduated response system. The tasks entrusted to the providers will then be examined for their accordance with the principle of proportionality. The article will not focus in a particular national legislation, but it will rather provide an analysis of the problematic aspects of the graduated response system using examples of national legislations or accords. The central question is whether fundamental rights are respected by these enforcement measures. Since illegal file sharing has turned from a mere habit to an ideology, the paper will ultimately propose that it would be wise to take a step back not only from the incessant legislation process but also from the war declared against internet.


ABSTRACT
ObjectivesTo assess the feasibility of using linked administrative data to deliver a quantitative component to the evaluation of the national homelessness prevention programme in Wales, Supporting People. Specifically, to establish whether any impact of Supporting People on the use of health services could be demonstrated. Approach: Data on the Supporting People programme was acquired from two pathfinder Local Authorities in Wales and anonymously linked to the routine health records held in the SAIL Databank at Swansea University. Any bias in linking rates was examined and health events analysed for the period 12 months before and 12 months after the point when homelessness prevention support began (the 'crisis point'). The study evaluated a range of possible control groups that could be created using administrative data and undertook some preliminary comparative analysis. ResultsThe results of the study are due to be published on 10th March 2016 so detailed results will be available for August. We will briefly explore the unique contribution of data linking to researching the hard-to-reach and/or vulnerable groups supported by the intervention (e.g. people with substance misuse problems, women experiencing domestic violence and people with a criminal offending history) and the challenges of delivering a quantitative evaluation using linked administrative data. Findings will be reported on linking rates including any potential areas where particular service groups were relatively less well represented. Patterns of the following health events will be reported around the 'crisis point': i) number of days when GP events occurred; ii) number of A&E visits and iii) number of emergency hospital admissions. Interpretations are made of consistent patterns of health events across different service user subgroups. The GP diagnosis codes, GP prescribing codes, reasons for visiting A&E and reasons for emergency hospital admissions that showed the greatest decrease after the intervention will be reported. A brief discussion will be presented of the suitability of different control groups and the findings of the preliminary comparative analysis. ConclusionsUsing primary research methods, demonstrating the impact of a homelessness prevention programme on outcomes like health service use represents an insuperable challenge. The use of data linking data delivers a challenging but potentially robust method to demonstrate impact and the feasibility study was able to take the first steps towards demonstrating improved health outcomes for individuals.


This research investigates the dynamic effects that the creation and implementation of business solutions have on the supplier's network position and identity. The study is based on publicly available data from websites and industry reports, as well as interviews with key decision makers in industrial firms and their networks. It contributes to business marketing literature by modelling the dynamic changes that organisational networks experience when organisational actors interact to create and implement business solutions. It focuses on the concepts of network position and network identity.Previous research on the creation and implementation of business solutions find that this is a highly interactive process that reshapes markets, introduces new actors, and makes redundant other actors to the focal company network. Overall, the wider business environment where organisational actors operate is affected. Dynamic changes on the network level occur despite the parties' intentions and are also difficult to predict. Nevertheless, the effects on the shape of the network become quite apparent, and affect the parties' rights and obligations as perceived by other organizations; that is, the changes on the network shape affect organizations' network position. As the process of creation of business solutions evolves, both customer and supplier find themselves interacting with new companies and organisations. This change requires the learning of new norms and rules, and creates opportunities to develop new skills. The introduction of new parties onto the network changes the set of resources and capabilities that the supplier can access and thus make available to their customers. Customers, then, construe the supplier's network identity differently, eventually more capable than the network identity of competitors, which may create and lead to sustained competitive advantage of the supplier. To conclude, this paper portrays how the network identity changes as a consequence of the parties' interaction in creating and developing business solutions.


This paper aims to investigate the combined effort of the HR Department and the Marketing and Communication Department to define and implement employer-branding strategies. To obtain the aim, qualitative research was designed to establish the relationship between employer attractiveness, organizational attractiveness and company culture, and to identify to what extent company culture can be communicated through employer branding. Therefore, firstly, the study clarifies the links between employer branding, employer attractiveness, company culture, and the boundaries of these concepts. It then examines how employer branding works concerning company culture attributes, and, finally, the paper draws some conclusions that will address practical implications in the form of employer brand management. The research design was based on qualitative research methods (in-depth interviews and focus groups) applied to stakeholders, employees from the IT industry, and IT companies' representatives. Subsequently, the qualitative data were processed with Atlas.ti 8 that generated the results and the points under discussion. The data show that when recruiting strategies, respectively, employer-branding strategies are thought separately, as happens most of the time, their efficiency diminishes considerably, and the employer image does not have consistency and attractiveness. To conclude, this study highlights the following practical ideas: a)management teams must have a holistic approach of employer branding, organizational attractiveness, and company culture; b)employer branding, in order to become a useful tool for employees' retention and recruitment, must be managed by both the HR Department and the Marketing and Communication Department within a coordinated and coherent strategy and c) for employer branding to be efficient, there is a need to leverage HR as a strategic partner and, as a result, employees will be developed into strategic assets of the company.


The transition to multicore and heterogeneous architectures has shaped the High Performance Computing (HPC) landscape over the past decades. With the increase in scale, complexity, and heterogeneity of modern HPC platforms, one of the grim challenges for traditional programming models is to sustain the expected performance at scale. By contrast, dataflow programming models have been growing in popularity as a means to deliver a good balance between performance and portability in the post-petascale era. This work introduces dataflow programming models for computational chemistry methods, and compares different dataflow executions in terms of programmability, resource utilization, and scalability. This effort is driven by computational chemistry applications, considering that they comprise one of the driving forces of HPC. In particular, many-body methods, such as Coupled Cluster methods (CC), which are the "gold standard" to compute energies in quantum chemistry, are of particular interest for the applied chemistry community. On that account, the latest development for CC methods is used as the primary vehicle for this research, but our effort is not limited to CC and can be applied across other application domains. Two programming paradigms for expressing CC methods into a dataflow form, in order to make them capable of utilizing task scheduling systems, are presented. Explicit dataflow, is the programming model where the dataflow is explicitly specified by the developer, is contrasted with implicit dataflow, where a task scheduling runtime derives the dataflow. An abstract model is derived to explore the limits of the different dataflow programming paradigms.


Introduction The need to teach basic grammar never has been greater as journalism programs expand their focus to match the workforce skills needed in this era of modern media. Today's journalism graduates may be expected to know how to edit stories, photographs, audio and video, as well as lay out pages by computer and output stories for the World Wide Web or for a Personal Digital Assistant. They may need to know how to write different versions of a story for print, broadcast or the Web. Journalism schools are adjusting their course offerings to match these and other diverse demands. Is good grammar a casualty in this shift? Seamon cited five studies decrying error-filled reporting - including grammar -and its negative effect on media credibility: It's not that J-schools haven't been looking at ways to improve curricula. They have, but much of the discussion and debate has centered on multicultural awareness, minority or race issues, balancing graduate and undergraduate students, and keeping up with the technology of new media. These are valid concerns, but in the rush to engage new issues, J-schools may be neglecting a much older objective - grammatical precision.1 Hanson cited three surveys where employers were disappointed about the lack of basic grammar, punctuation, and writing skills.2 She said that "journalism and mass communication schools must find a way to help students improve their skills without reducing the time students and faculty members have available for other instruction." She then argues that computer-assisted instruction offers a possible solution. Reviewing studies of grammar checkers, which are a form of computer-assisted writing, Alex Vernon noted the checkers are imperfect, but he called for a renewed interest in using them for instruction: I suggest that we revisit the pedagogical possibilities of grammar checkers not because they are any more accurate, but because they are more functional and - with their incorporation into wordprocessing programs - they are as ubiquitous as any software program can hope to be.3 While grammar checkers are seamlessly integrated into word processors, the surveys of employers and the public suggest that grammar checkers either are being misused or are not being used at all. The pedagogical possibilities of grammar checkers should be revisited. But the usefulness of grammar checkers in their current, mature form also should be reconsidered. They may have grown too bulky and, correctly or incorrectly, may highlight too many possible problems to be useful or to be used at all. A more focused option for grammar checkers, one that parallels the way instructors teach by targeting common errors, might be more useful for teaching and learning. A Targeted Approach to Grammar System (TAGS), one that uses a World Wide Web submission form to instantly tag student writing with comments and/or questions about the twenty most common grammar errors, is a development and research effort in this direction. A review of computer-- assisted writing literature Computers have successfully assisted writers in ways beyond simple word processing for more than thirty years. Grammar checkers have been integrated into word processors for a decade. Computer analysis of student writing can be broken into three parts: text analyzers, which provide feedback about readability, sentence length, and other quantitative dimensions; prewriting computer programs, which question the writer about the topic and subject matter in an attempt to assist with organization of the writing; and grammar checkers, which offer information about grammar and punctuation usage. Richard Atkinson described three modes of computer-assisted instruction.4 They are "drill and practice" software, where students are presented with a linear set of lessons, followed immediately by tests of the concept, "but no real-time decisions are made for modifying the flow of instructional material as a function of the student's response history. …


The purpose of this study is the influence of problem solving education pattern on thinking styles of Isfahan high school girl students. This research is semi-experimental with scheming pretest-posttest and follow-up control. The studied statistical population was all of the high school students of Isfahan which among them 30 people were chosen by random cluster multistage method and randomly took part in two experimental groups and control equally. Thinking styles test were applied as pretest, posttest and follow-up. Problem solving teaching performed in 8 weeks for experimental group and evidence group did not take any teaching. Data were analyzed by variance analyzing method and repeating measurements. Average points of thinking styles in experimental group triables improved in the moment and two month after interference in comparison to evident group. Regarding to this educational pattern's effect and stableness, using problem solving education in several education and research categories of students is recommended.


The proliferation of online auctions has attracted significant research interest in understanding real-life bidding behavior. However, most of the empirical work has focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) auctions. A natural question is whether the findings obtained from B2C auctions are applicable to business-to-business (B2B) auctions, which often involve much higher stakes. In this paper, we examine how professional bidders choose their bidding strategies in multichannel, sequential B2B auctions. Using an extensive data set from the world's largest B2B market for cut flowers, we find a stable taxonomy of bidding behavior and identify five distinctive bidding strategies. In addition, we demonstrate that bidders' choice of strategies is associated with their demand, budget constraint, and transaction cost. These findings challenge the conventional view that bidders' bidding strategies will converge as they gain experience. We also analyze the economic impacts of different strategies. Our results provide useful implications for practical design of B2B auctions.


Nowadays there is an increasing need for a general paradigm that can simplify network management and further enable network innovations. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an efficient way to make the network programmable and reduce management complexity, however it is plagued with limitations inherited from the legacy Internet (TCP/IP) architecture. On the other hand, service overlay networks and virtual networks are widely used to overcome deficiencies of the Internet. However, most overlay/virtual networks are singlelayered and lack dynamic scope management. Furthermore, how to solve the joint problem of designing and mapping the overlay/virtual network requests for better application and network performance remains an understudied area. In this thesis, in response to limitations of current SDN management solutions and of the traditional single-layer overlay/virtual network design, we propose a recursive approach to enterprise network management, where network management is done through managing various Virtual Transport Networks (VTNs) over different scopes (i.e., regions of operation). Different from the traditional overlay/virtual network model which mainly focuses on routing/tunneling, our VTN approach provides communication service with explicit Quality-of-Service (QoS) support for applications via transport flows, i.e., it involves all mechanisms (e.g., addressing, routing, error and flow control, resource allocation) needed to meet application requirements. Our approach inherently provides a multi-layer solution for overlay/virtual network design. The contributions of this thesis are threefold: (1) we propose a novel VTN-based man-


As education reformers push for improved teacher quality, the two major teacher unions made startling announcements this summer. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), in a manifesto released jointly with its longtime adversary, the American Association of School Administrators, called for rigorous teacher evaluations linked to student learning and quicker dismissals of underperformers. Then the National Education Association's delegates signed off on a similar policy at that union's annual convention. The steps break sharply with teacher unions' longstanding focus on job protection. They follow the passage of teacher union-backed legislation in Illinois that requires factoring performance into teacher staffing, tenure, and dismissals, and the launch of tougher evaluation systems with union blessing in Pittsburgh, Tampa, and other big districts. At the center of the ferment is Randi Weingarten, who has emerged as the nation's most influential teacher leader since becoming the 1.5 million-member AFT's top executive three years ago. Weingarten, 53, announced a new stance on evaluations, tenure, and performance pay in early 2010, including the hiring of Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, to create a streamlined teacher dismissal model. She hammered out the joint declaration with the school administrators' group. And at an AFT conference in Washington this summer she told her membership that "standing for [teacher] quality is the only path forward for ... our union." What's behind Weingarten's recent moves? Is she leading the AFT and teachers away from collectivist policies that have long undergirded teacher unionism? Has she embraced a new role for teacher unions? Or is she maneuvering to minimize the depth and breadth of reforms in traditional industrial-style teacher unionism in the face of withering criticism of education unions in recent years? Moving to leadership Weingarten was exposed to the muscular side of teacher trade unionism early. Her mother, an elementary teacher, walked picket lines in the 1970s outside of New York City. Weingarten went to public schools and studied labor relations at Cornell University and law at Yeshiva University. In the 1980s, she joined a New York labor law firm. One of its clients was the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), led by Albert Shanker. Before long, she was UFT's general counsel, a job she held for a dozen years. As the union's lead contract negotiator with New York City public schools, she fought for greater public education funding and battled the city over wages, hours, and working conditions. In 1997, then-UFT president Sandra Feldman succeeded Shanker as president of the AFT, the UFT's parent union, and Weingarten moved into the UFT leadership. She took over the national union in 2008 after Feldman was stricken with cancer. Along the way, she taught U.S. History, A.P. Government and other courses for several years as a part-timer at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn. Although the NEA has twice the AFT's membership, Weingarten has assumed the leading role among teacher unionists. Four factors help explain why: Shanker's legacy as the father of teacher unionism; AFT's top-down governance structure and its strong presence in major cities; and Weingarten's force of personality (she's autocratic, say some staffers). Moving up the ranks in the UFT, Weingarten saw the difficulties that Shanker faced, despite his influence, in navigating between reforms in the teaching profession--he backed teacher testing, faster dismissals of failing teachers, and other steps--and the reluctance of many members to depart from traditional industrial union policies and practices. Ultimately, Shanker couldn't get members to embrace his teacher reforms. Today, Weingarten's under far more pressure to shift union stances than Shanker faced. He sought to move his union to the vanguard of reform in the wake of A Nation at Risk and other influential reform manifestos in the 1980s that focused on teacher quality as a key to greater student achievement. …


This classic work on acting is one of the very few that stands beside Stanislavsky as a must-have for all acting students and professionals. Richard Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons is a treasure-box of wise observation about the art of acting, all wrapped up in six charming dialogues between a teacher and a student. Generations of actors have been enriched by Boleslavsky's witty and acute picture of the actor's craft. These six "lessons" -- miniature dramas about concentration, memory of emotion, dramatic action, characterization, observation, and rhythm -- distill the challenge facing every actor. For this reissue the text has been entirely reset and the book jacketed in a contemporary design. An essential work on the short shelf of any acting student.


Covering: up to the end of 2017 C-C bond formations are frequently the key steps in cofactor and natural product biosynthesis. Historically, C-C bond formations were thought to proceed by two electron mechanisms, represented by Claisen condensation in fatty acids and polyketide biosynthesis. These types of mechanisms require activated substrates to create a nucleophile and an electrophile. More recently, increasing number of C-C bond formations catalyzed by radical SAM enzymes are being identified. These free radical mediated reactions can proceed between almost any sp3 and sp2 carbon centers, allowing introduction of C-C bonds at unconventional positions in metabolites. Therefore, free radical mediated C-C bond formations are frequently found in the construction of structurally unique and complex metabolites. This review discusses our current understanding of the functions and mechanisms of C-C bond forming radical SAM enzymes and highlights their important roles in the biosynthesis of structurally complex, naturally occurring organic molecules. Mechanistic consideration of C-C bond formation by radical SAM enzymes identifies the significance of three key mechanistic factors: radical initiation, acceptor substrate activation and radical quenching. Understanding the functions and mechanisms of these characteristic enzymes will be important not only in promoting our understanding of radical SAM enzymes, but also for understanding natural product and cofactor biosynthesis.


[1] We present a compressional seismic velocity profile of the crust of the eastern margin of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada. This velocity model was obtained by a tomographic inversion of wide-angle data recorded on a linear array of 24 ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs). At the landward side, we imaged a crustal thickness of 27 km in Flemish Pass and beneath Beothuk Knoll, which is thinner than the 35-km-thick crust of the central Grand Banks. We therefore assume that the eastern rim of the Grand Banks stretched uniformly by 25%. Farther seaward, the continental crust tapers rapidly beneath the continental slope to ∼6 km thickness. In the distal margin we find a 60-km-wide zone with seismic velocities between 5.0 and 6.5 km s−1 that thins to the southeast from 6 to 2 km, which we interpret as highly extended continental crust. Contrary to other seismic studies of the margins of the Grand Banks, we find seismic velocities of 8 km s−1 and higher beneath this thin crustal layer in the continent-ocean transition. We conclude that mantle was locally emplaced at shallow levels without significant hydration from seawater or serpentinized mantle was removed along a decollement in the final stages of continental rifting. The outer edge of highly extended continental crust borders a 25-km-wide zone where seismic velocities increase gradually from 6.3 km s−1 just below the top of acoustic basement to 7.7 km s−1 at 5 km below basement. We interpret this area as a relatively narrow zone of exhumed and serpentinized continental mantle. Seaward, we imaged a thin and laterally heterogeneous layer with a seismic velocity that increases sharply from 5.0 km s−1 in basement ridges to 7.0 km s−1 at its base, overlying mantle velocities between 7.8 and 8.2 km s−1. We interpret this area as unroofed mantle and very thin oceanic crust that formed at an incipient, magma-starved, ultraslow spreading ridge. A comparison of the conjugate rifted margins of the eastern Grand Banks and the Iberia Abyssal Plain show that they exhibit a similar seaward progression from continental crust to mantle to oceanic crust. This indicates that before continental breakup, rifting exhumed progressively deeper sections of the continental lithosphere on both conjugate margins. A comparison between the continent-ocean transition of the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap shows that the final phase of continental rifting and the formation of the first oceanic crust required more time at the Grand Banks margin than at the southeastern margin of Flemish Cap.


This thesis explores the power/knowledge of consultants and the project management
office (PMO) in the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system and its subsequent development. The research followed a qualitative approach
involving an interpretive in-depth case study. The study was conducted at a Saudi
Arabian university and explored the power of consultants and the PMO in the
implementation of enterprise systems in order to better understand the interaction of
power and knowledge in the implementation and development process. A theoretical
framework was developed by applying Clegg's (1989) Circuits of Power, Absorptive
Capacity, Agency theory, Structuration theory, and Neo-institutional theory. This
theoretical framework was used to guide data collection and analysis. A total of 34
interviews with senior management, consultants, technical staff, project managers,
and end users were conducted. Data were analysed following Creswell's (2013)
approach, and the principles of interpretive research in information systems (IS)
proposed by Klein and Myers (1999) were applied. This study found that PMO and
associated consultants have become powerful in ERP implementation and can
mobilize power/knowledge by speaking for both the technology and the organization.
This study contributes to research addressing ERP by investigating the
power/knowledge of highly influential actors (consultants and PMOs) in the adoption
and implementation of ERP. It also contributes to the literature on ERP and power,
which has not extensively explored the context of developing nations such as Saudi
Arabia.


Abstract The aquatic sloth Thalassocnus is represented by five species that lived along the coast of Peru from the late Miocene through the late Pliocene. A detailed comparison of the cranial and mandibular anatomy of these species indicates different feeding adaptations. The three older species of Thalassocnus (T. antiquus, T. natans, and T. littoralis) were probably partial grazers (intermediate or mixed feeders) and the transverse component of mandibular movement was very minor, if any. They were probably feeding partially on stranded sea weeds or sea grasses, or in very shallow waters (less than 1 m) as indicated by the abundant dental striae of their molariform teeth created by ingestion of sand. The two younger species (T. carolomartini and T. yaucensis) were more specialized grazers than the three older species and had a distinct transverse component in their mandibular movement. Their teeth almost totally lack dental striae. These two species were probably feeding exclusively in the water at a greater depth than the older species.


The peroxymonocarbonate mono-anion (HCO4─) is generated in solutions containing bicarbonate anions (HCO3─) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The mono-anion is believed to have a pKa value of ca. 10 and as such would start dissociating to the di-anion (CO42─) at pH ca. 8. The mono-anion should demonstrate electrophilic properties, while the di-anion should be a nucleophile. Results that appear to be due to electrophilic reactions of HCO4─ were presented in Part 1 of this series for lignin model compounds (LMCs) and chemical pulps. Some evidence was also observed for nucleophilic reactions with LMCs in the pH range of 8.8 to 9.5. Results are now being presented for mechanical pulp brightening, where nucleophilic reactions were observed. Hydrogen peroxide decomposition in the HCO3─ solutions was significant on some occasions, and Fe catalyzed decomposition was the most significant contributor in both pulp slurries and pulp-free solutions.


Background: In March 2020, New York City encountered its first official case of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). This novel coronavirus, referred to as SARS-COV 2, originated in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Within a short amount of time, hundreds of thousands of cases were diagnosed around the world and the United States, causing the World Health Organization to announce it as an official infectious disease pandemic on January 30, 2020. COVID-19 is spread by respiratory droplets, and healthcare professionals are mandated to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) for a prolonged period of time when caring for COVID-19 patients. Objective: Healthcare professionals report side effects of prolonged use of PPE when caring for COVID-19 patients. This study delves into various adverse effects of prolonged mask use and provides recommendations to ease the burden on healthcare professionals. Methods: This is a cross sectional study among healthcare professionals, primarily located in New York City, who worked in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. All respondents completed an anonymous survey consisting of twenty one questions regarding adverse effects of PPE, medical history, and demographics. Results: A total of 343 healthcare professionals on the COVID-19 front lines participated in this study. The majority were female (n = 315) and 227 were located in New York City. 225 respondents identified as White, 34 as Hispanic, 23 as African American, and 61 as "other" ethnicity. 314 respondents reported adverse effects from prolonged mask use with headaches being the most common complaint (n = 245). Skin breakdown was experienced by 175 respondents, and acne was reported in 182 respondents. Impaired cognition was reported in 81 respondents. Previous history of headaches (n = 98), skin sensitivity (n = 164), and acne (n = 121) were found in some respondents. Some respondents experienced resolved side effects once masks were removed, while others required physical or medical intervention. Conclusion: Prolonged use of N95 and surgical masks by healthcare professionals during COVID-19 has caused adverse effects such as headaches, rash, acne, skin breakdown, and impaired cognition in the majority of those surveyed. As a second wave of COVID-19 is expected, and in preparation for future pandemics, it is imperative to identify solutions to manage these adverse effects. Frequent breaks, improved hydration and rest, skin care, and potentially newly designed comfortable masks are recommendations for future management of adverse effects related to prolonged mask use.


Three-year-old Pinot noir vines growing in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia (BC) were subjected over four years to three canopy treatments (10 shoots/m row, 20 shoots/m row, Scott Henry with 10 shoots/m canopy) in combination with two crop levels (full crop, half crop) in a factorialized treatment arrangement. Scott Henry-trained vines had lowest weight of cane prunings and highest crop loads. The 20 shoots/m row and Scott Henry vines had higher yields and clusters per vine along with lower cane weights and berry weights, than the 10 shoots/m row treatments. Reducing crop level led to slightly less yield per vine, but higher cluster weights, berries per cluster, and berry weights. The 20 shoots/m row and Scott Henry treatments had lowest soluble solids, pH, anthocyanins, and juice color (OD 420 , OD 520 , intensity; 20 shoots/m only), but Scott Henry had lowest berry and juice titratable acidity (TA). Reducing crop level increased soluble solids, pH, and juice color (OD 420 , hue, intensity). Both the 10 shoots/m row and Scott Henry treatments contained the least dense canopies with the least percentage of shaded clusters. Since Scott Henry training produced relatively high yields, good canopy density, and acceptable fruit composition, this training system is recommended for low to moderately-vigorous Pinot noir vines.


Microbial electrochemical reduction of CO2 was carried out under two different applied potentials, −0.36 V and −0.66 V vs. SHE, using a biological sludge as the inoculum. Both potentials were thermodynamically appropriate for converting CO2 to acetate but only −0.66 V enabled hydrogen evolution. No acetate production was observed at −0.36 V, while up to 244 ± 20 mg L−1 acetate was produced at −0.66 V vs. SHE. The same microbial inoculum implemented in gas–liquid contactors with H2 and CO2 gas supply led to acetate production of 2500 mg L−1. When a salt marsh sediment was used as the inoculum, no reduction was observed in the electrochemical reactors, while supplying H2 + CO2 gas led to formate and then acetate production. Finally, pure cultures of Sporomusa ovata grown under H2 and CO2 gas feeding showed acetate production of up to 2904 mg L−1, higher than those reported so far in the literature for S. ovata implemented in bioelectrochemical processes. Unexpected ethanol production of up to 1411 mg L−1 was also observed. All these experimental data confirm that hydrogen produced on the cathode by water electrolysis is an essential mediator in the microbial electrochemical reduction of CO2. Implementing homoacetogenic microbial species in purposely designed gas–liquid biocontactors should now be considered as a relevant strategy for developing CO2 conversion.


Abstract Objectives. Medication-overuse headache (MOH) is associated with psychiatric comorbidities. Neurobiological similarities to substance dependence have been suggested. This study investigated grey matter changes, focussing on pain and reward systems. Methods. Using voxel-based morphometry, structural MRIs were compared between 29 patients with both, MOH and migraine, according to International Headache Society criteria, and healthy controls. The Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) score was used. Anxiety and depression were screened for with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and confirmed by a psychiatrist, using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Results. Nineteen patients (66%) had a present or past psychiatric disorder, mainly affective (N = 11) and anxiety disorders (N = 8). In all patients a significant increase of grey matter volume (GMV) was found in the periaqueductal grey matter of the midbrain, which correlated positively with the MIDAS and the HADS-anxiety subscale. A GMV increase was found bilaterally in the thalamus, and the ventral striatum. A significant GMV decrease was detected in frontal regions including orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, the left and right insula, and the precuneus. Conclusion. These findings are consistent with dysfunction of antinociceptive systems in MOH, which is influenced by anxiety. Dysfunction of the reward system may be a neurobiological basis for dependence in a subgroup of MOH patients.


Due to agricultural practices and urbanization, tallgrass prairie ecosystems have become threatened as < 5% of its historical coverage exists today. The small remainder of praire that does exist is further threatened by the encroachment of woody plant species. Woody plant encroachment may not only alter prairie ecosystem function, but also prairie microbial communities responsible for these functional processes. Further, prairies are high disturbance ecosystems, especially prairie streams which are hydrologically harsh. They support communities that frequently undergo succession due to recurring flood and drought conditions, yet little is known about the response of microbial communities to these disturbances. In my dissertation, I first address the degree of woody vegetation expansion in riparian corridors (parallel to streams) in watersheds with variable fire frequency and grazing. I found that the rate of riparian woody expansion declines with higher fire intervals and is not affected by grazing, but even annual burns may not prevent woody plant expansion in riparian zones from occurring. Second, I quantified the effect of using restorations of riparian corridors, through removal of woody plants, on physical, chemical, and microbial community (bacteria and fungi) dynamics across stream to upslope soils. Removal restoration causes a decrease in NH4 + and soil water content, and causes streams and upslope soils to become similar in fungal community richness unlike forested landscapes. Bacterial communities were minimally impacted by removals, but were highly structured among stream to upslope soils due to multiple environmental gradients (i.e., pH, NO3 , soil moisture). Lastly, I examined the successional development of biofilmassociated microbial communities in a prairie stream from both a functional and structural perspective. I found that biofilm microbes exhibited strong successional trajectories, with communities developing towards net autotrophy and therefore becoming reliant upon in-stream derived carbon. Further, bacterial communities displayed spatial differences, but much stronger temporal patterns in community composition were detected. These studies highlight how woody plant encroachment may influence stream ecosystems in addition to spatiotemporal trends in microbial community assembly. DYNAMICS OF MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN A TALLGRASS PRAIRIE ECOSYSTEM


Lolliguncula brevis Blainville is a small euryhaline squid found at temperatures between 11 and 31 °C. Changes in VO2, heartbeat and ventilation frequencies were observed throughout this temperature range and under a variety of conditions, including acute hypoxia and swimming by jet propulsion in a tunnel respirometer. Resting VO2 showed a Q10 of 1.47, and heart rate and ventilation rate Q10 values of 1.92 and 1.73, respectively; oxygen uptake could exceed 1.01kg−1h−1 at 30°C even at rest. The squids regulated their oxygen uptake at all temperatures. Oxygen extraction rates were in the region of 5–10% in saturated water, increasing to 15–20% in hypoxic water or after exercise. One effect of this variability is that ventilation stroke volume can remain constant throughout the range of temperatures and oxygen concentrations that the animal is likely to encounter, a necessary condition since the ventilation stream is also the principal mode of locomotion by jet propulsion. Blood oxygen-carrying capacity (from the copper concentration) was 4.6 ± 1.8vols%. Cardiac output and stroke volume were estimated from the observed VO2 values and heartbeat frequencies. Resting at 25°C, the output was close to 11.51kg−1 body mass h−1. The systemic heart of Lolliguncula weighed only 2.06 ± 0.62 g kg−1. In exercise the cardiac output must exceed 14×103 1kg−1 heart mass h−1, pumping more than the heart's own mass of blood at each stroke.


Personalized recommendation is crucial to help users find pertinent information. It often relies on a large collection of user data, in particular users' online activity (e.g., tagging/rating/checking-in) on social media, to mine user preference. However, releasing such user activity data makes users vulnerable to inference attacks, as private data (e.g., gender) can often be inferred from the users' activity data. In this paper, we proposed PrivRank, a customizable and continuous privacy-preserving social media data publishing framework protecting users against inference attacks while enabling personalized ranking-based recommendations. Its key idea is to continuously obfuscate user activity data such that the privacy leakage of user-specified private data is minimized under a given data distortion budget, which bounds the ranking loss incurred from the data obfuscation process in order to preserve the utility of the data for enabling recommendations. An empirical evaluation on both synthetic and real-world datasets shows that our framework can efficiently provide effective and continuous protection of user-specified private data, while still preserving the utility of the obfuscated data for personalized ranking-based recommendation. Compared to state-of-the-art approaches, PrivRank achieves both a better privacy protection and a higher utility in all the ranking-based recommendation use cases we tested.


Unable to secure passage of a federal constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College, several opponents of the Electoral College have sought to establish the direct, popular election of the President via an interstate compact according to which individual signatory states agree to appoint their presidential electors in accordance with the nationwide popular vote. Ostensibly designed to prevent elections, such as the one in 2000, in which the Electoral College "misfired" and chose the candidate who received fewer popular votes, the National Popular Vote Compact has been adopted by several states, including California. In this Article, I argue that the National Popular Vote Compact violates the Presidential Elections Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Although the text of the Clause seem to give states unlimited power to select the manner in which each state's presidential electors are chosen, a close reading of U.S. history suggests the need and propriety of limiting the scope of state authority under the Clause. Not only did the Framers of the Constitution expressly reject the idea of a direct, popular election for President, but not one state either in the wake of ratification or at any time thereafter has ever sought to appoint its presidential electors on the basis of votes cast outside the state, as the NPVC requires. In the same way that similar historical considerations led the U.S. Supreme Court to limit the scope of state authority with respect to federal legislative elections, this history regarding the Presidential Elections Clause likewise counsels in favor of a more limited understanding of state authority under Article II. As such, if opponents wish to abolish the Electoral College, the sole constitutionally proper mechanism for doing so is a federal constitutional amendment, not an interstate compact negotiated by a handful of states.


Auditory speech perception can be altered by concurrent visual information. The superior temporal cortex is an important combining site for this integration process. This area was previously found to be sensitive to audiovisual congruency. However, the direction of this congruency effect (i.e., stronger or weaker activity for congruent compared to incongruent stimulation) has been more equivocal. Here, we used fMRI to look at the neural responses of human participants during the McGurk illusion—in which auditory /aba/ and visual /aga/ inputs are fused to perceived /ada/—in a large homogenous sample of participants who consistently experienced this illusion. This enabled us to compare the neuronal responses during congruent audiovisual stimulation with incongruent audiovisual stimulation leading to the McGurk illusion while avoiding the possible confounding factor of sensory surprise that can occur when McGurk stimuli are only occasionally perceived. We found larger activity for congruent audiovisual stimuli than for incongruent (McGurk) stimuli in bilateral superior temporal cortex, extending into the primary auditory cortex. This finding suggests that superior temporal cortex prefers when auditory and visual input support the same representation.


Flocking behavior is very common in nature, and there have been ongoing research efforts to simulate such behavior in computer animations and robotics applications. Generally, such work considers behaviors that can be determined independently by each flock member solely by observing its local environment, e.g., the speed and direction of its neighboring flock members. Since flock members are not assumed to have global information about the environment, only very simple navigation and planning techniques have been considered for such flocks. In this paper, we investigate how the addition of global information in the form of a roadmap of the environment enables more sophisticated flocking behaviors. In particular, we study and propose new techniques for three distinct group behaviors: homing, exploring and shepherding. These behaviors exploit global knowledge of the environment and utilize knowledge gathered by all flock members. This knowledge is communicated by allowing individual flock members to dynamically update the shared roadmap to reflect (un)desirable routes or regions. We present experimental results showing how the judicious use of simple roadmaps of the environment enables more complex behaviors to be obtained at minimal cost.


We analyze the relation between patents and the different business models available to firms in the software industry. The paper builds on Cusumano's work defining the differences among firms that sell products, those that provide services, and the hybrid firms that fall between those polar categories. Combining data from five years of Software Magazine's Software 500 with data about the patenting practices of those software firms, we analyze the relation between the share of revenues derived from product sales and the firm's patenting practices. Accounting for size, R&D intensity, and sector-specific effects, the paper finds a robust positive correlation between product-based business models and patenting rates. We also present in this draft preliminary results suggesting that there is no significant relation between patenting practices and the extent to which the firm's revenues are derived from software products and services, as opposed to hardware or other lines of business.


Abstract. Current commercially available Doppler lidars provide an economical and robust solution for measuring vertical and horizontal wind velocities, together with the ability to provide co- and cross-polarised backscatter profiles. The high temporal resolution of these instruments allows turbulent properties to be obtained from studying the variation in radial velocities. However, the instrument specifications mean that certain characteristics, especially the background noise behaviour, become a limiting factor for the instrument sensitivity in regions where the aerosol load is low. Turbulent calculations require an accurate estimate of the contribution from velocity uncertainty estimates, which are directly related to the signal-to-noise ratio. Any bias in the signal-to-noise ratio will propagate through as a bias in turbulent properties. In this paper we present a method to correct for artefacts in the background noise behaviour of commercially available Doppler lidars and reduce the signal-to-noise ratio threshold used to discriminate between noise, and cloud or aerosol signals. We show that, for Doppler lidars operating continuously at a number of locations in Finland, the data availability can be increased by as much as 50 % after performing this background correction and subsequent reduction in the threshold. The reduction in bias also greatly improves subsequent calculations of turbulent properties in weak signal regimes.


Addressing the history of the production and reception of the great medieval poem, Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner reveals the many ways in which scholars, editors, and critics over the centuries created their own speculative narratives about the poem, which gradually came to be regarded as factually true. Warner begins by considering the possibility that Langland wrote a romance about a werewolf and bear-suited lovers, and goes on to explore the methods of the poem's localization, and medieval readers' particular interest in its Latinity. Warner shows that the "Protestant Piers" was a reaction against the poem's oral mode of transmission, reveals the extensive eighteenth-century textual scholarship on the poem by figures including the maligned Chaucer editor John Urry, and contextualizes its first modernization by a literary forger inspired by the 1790s Shakespeare controversies. This lively account of Piers Plowman challenges the way the poem has traditionally been read and understood.


Water-soluble, cationic conjugated polymer binds single-stranded DNA with higher affinity than it binds double-stranded or otherwise "folded" DNA. This stronger binding results from the greater hydrophobicity of single-stranded DNA. Upon reducing the strength of the hydrophobic interactions, the electrostatic attraction becomes the important interaction that regulates the binding between the water-soluble conjugated polymer and DNA. The different affinities between the cationic conjugated polymer and various forms of DNA (molecular beacons and its open state; single-stranded DNA and double-stranded DNA and single-stranded DNA and complex DNA folds) can be used to design a variety of biosensors.


We will summarize theoretical approaches used to describe the motion of an avalanching mass down a steep slope. Focus is given to Newtonian and viscoplastic fluids. The governing equation can be obtained by assuming that the flow-depth to length ratio is small, which allows to simplifying a great deal the Navier-Stokes equations. Self-similar solutions to the governing equation can be worked out for early and late times. We compare our experimental data with these solutions.


There is widespread agreement that monetary policy matters,but there is disagreement about how it should be conducted. Behind this disagreement lie differences in theoretical understandings. The paper contrasts the New Classical, Neo-Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian frameworks, there by surfacing the differences. The New Classical model has policy only affecting long run inflation. The Neo-Keynesian has policy impacting inflation, unemployment and real wages. The Post-Keynesian model also impacts growth, so policy implicitly picks a quadruple. Inflation targeting is a sub-optimal policy frame because it biases decisions toward low inflation by obscuring the fact that policy also affects unemployment, real wages, and growth.


Aim/Purpose: This study identifies the scale types and measurement units used in the measurement of enterprise architecture (EA) and analyzes the admissibility of the mathematical operations used.

Background: The majority of measurement solutions proposed in the EA literature are based on researchers' opinions and many with limited empirical validation and weak metrological properties. This means that the results generated by these solutions may not be reliable, trustworthy, or comparable, and may even lead to wrong investment decisions. While the literature proposes a number of EA measurement solutions, the designs of the mathematical operations used to measure EA have not yet been independently analyzed. It is imperative that the EA community works towards developing robust, reliable, and widely accepted measurement solutions. Only then can senior management make informed decisions about the allocation of resources for EA initiatives and ensure that their investment yields optimal results.

Methodology: In previous research, we identified, through a systematic literature review, the EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature and classified them by EA entity types. In a subsequent study, we evaluated their metrology coverage from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The metrology coverage was designed using a combination of the evaluation theory, best practices from the software measurement literature including the measurement context model, and representational theory of measurement to evaluate whether EA measurement solutions satisfy the metrology criteria. The research study reported here presents a more in-depth analysis of the mathematical operations within the proposed EA measurement solutions, and for each EA entity type, each mathematical operation used to measure EA was examined in terms of the scale types and measurement units of the inputs, their transformations through mathematical operations, the impact in terms of scale types, and measurement units of the proposed outputs.

Contribution: This study adds to the body of knowledge on EA measurement by offering a metrology-based approach to analyze and design better EA measurement solutions that satisfy the validity of scale type transformations in mathematical operations and the use of explicit measurement units to allow measurement consistency for their usage in decision-making models.

Findings: The findings from this study reveal that some important metrology and quantification issues have been overlooked in the design of EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature: a number of proposed EA mathematical operations produce numbers with unknown units and scale types, often the result of an aggregation of undetermined assumptions rather than explicit quantitative knowledge. The significance of such aggregation is uncertain, leading to numbers that have suffered information loss and lack clear meaning. It is also unclear if it is appropriate to add or multiply these numbers together. Such EA numbers are deemed to have low metrological quality and could potentially lead to incorrect decisions with serious and costly consequences.

Recommendations for Practitioners: The results of the study provide valuable insights for professionals in the field of EA. Identifying the metrology limitations and weaknesses of existing EA measurement solutions may indicate, for instance, that practitioners should wait before using them until their design has been strengthened. In addition, practitioners can make informed choices and select solutions with a more robust metrology design. This, in turn, will benefit enterprise architects, software engineers, and other EA professionals in decision making, by enabling them to take into consideration factors more adequately such as cost, quality, risk, and value when assessing EA features. The study's findings thus contribute to the development of more reliable and effective EA measurement solutions.

Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can use with greater confidence the EA measurement solutions with admissible mathematical operations and measurement units to develop new decision-making models. Other researchers can carry on research to address the weaknesses identified in this study and propose improved ones.

Impact on Society: Developers, architects, and managers may be making inappropriate decisions based on seriously flawed EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature and providing undue confidence and a waste of resources when based on bad measurement design. Better quantitative tools will ultimately lead to better decision making in the EA domain, as in domains with a long history of rigor in the design of the measurement tools. Such advancements will benefit enterprise architects, software engineers, and other practitioners, by providing them with more meaningful measurements for informed decision making.

Future Research: While the analysis described in this study has been explicitly applied to evaluating EA measurement solutions, researchers and practitioners in other domains can also examine measurement solutions proposed in their respective domains and design new ones.


of Reviews: Should be divided into the following subsections: Background, Summary and Key Messages. The Background should provide a brief clinical context for the review and is followed by the Summary, which should include a concise description of the main topics covered in the text. The Key Messages encapsulate the main conclusions of the review. Abstract of Original Papers or Short Communications: Each paper needs an abstract of up to 10 lines.of Original Papers or Short Communications: Each paper needs an abstract of up to 10 lines. Drug names: Authors are requested to use International non-proprietary names definitely recommended or, if no final recommendation has been made, proposed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The use of laboratory code numbers necessitates prior explanation by chemical name or structural formula. Footnotes: Avoid footnotes. Tables and illustrations: Tables and illustrations (both numbered in Arabic numerals) should be prepared on separate pages. Tables require a heading and figures a legend, also prepared on a separate page. Due to technical reasons, figures with a screen background should not be submitted. When possible, group several illustrations in one block for reproduction (max. size 180  223 mm) or provide crop marks. Each illustration must be labeled with its number and the first author's name. The final resolution for b/w half-tone and color illustrations must be 300 dpi after scaling. Line drawings require 800–1,200 dpi. Figure files must not be embedded in a document file but submitted separately (for detailed instructions, see http://www.karger.com/pha). Color illustrations Online edition: Color illustrations are reproduced free of charge. In the print version, the illustrations are reproduced in black and white. Please avoid referring to the colors in the text and figure legends. Print edition: Up to 6 color illustrations per page can be integrated within the text at CHF 960.00 per page. References: In the text identify references by Arabic numerals [in square brackets]. Material submitted for publication but not yet accepted should be noted as [unpublished data]and not be included in the reference list. The list of references should include only those publications which are cited in the text. Do not alphabetize; number references in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The surnames of the authors followed by initials should be given. There should be no punctuation other than a comma to separate the authors. Preferably, please cite all authors. Abbreviate journal names according to the Index Medicus system. Also see International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (www.icmje.org). Examples (a) Papers published in periodicals: Sun J, Koto H, Chung KF: Interaction of ozone and allergen challenges on bronchial responsiveness and inflammation in sensitised guinea pigs. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 1997;112:191–195. (b) Papers published only with DOI numbers: Theoharides TC, Boucher W, Spear K: Serum interleukin-6 reflects disease severity and osteoporosis in mastocytosis patients. Int Arch Allergy Immunol DOI: 10.1159/000063858. (c) Monographs: Matthews DE, Farewell VT: Using and Understanding Medical Statistics, ed 3, revised. Basel, Karger, 1996. (d) Edited books: Parren PWHI, Burton DR: Antibodies against HIV-1 from phage display libraries: Mapping of an immune response and progress towards antiviral immunotherapy; in Capra JD (ed): Antibody Engineering. Chem Immunol. Basel, Karger, 1997, vol 65, pp 18–56. Reference Management Software: Use of EndNote is recommended for easy management and formatting of citations and reference lists. Digital Object Identifier (DOI) S. Karger Publishers supports DOIs as unique identifiers for articles. A DOI number will be printed on the title page of each article. DOIs can be useful in the future for identifying and citing articles published online without volume or issue information. More information can be found at www.doi.org.


We propose a new postprocessing technique developed specifically for the reduction of color bleeding in DCT-coded color images. The proposed algorithm, based on a complete analysis of this particular kind of distortion, is used to identify and reduce color bleeding artifacts while attempting to preserve the sharpness of the reconstructed images. Simulation results show that the method successfully reduces color bleeding in reconstructed images and improves the visual quality, both objectively and subjectively.


Decision makers can often improve the accuracy of their judgments on factual matters by consulting "crowds" of others for their respective opinions. In this article, we investigate whether decision makers could similarly draw on crowds to improve the accuracy of their judgments about their own tastes and hedonic experiences. We present a theoretical model that states that accuracy gains from consulting a crowd's judgments of taste depend on the interplay among taste discrimination, crowd diversity, and the similarity between the crowd's preferences and those of the decision maker. The model also delineates the boundary conditions for such "crowd wisdom." Evidence supporting our hypotheses was found in two laboratory studies in which decision makers made judgments about their own enjoyment of musical pieces and short films. Our findings suggest that although different people may have different preferences and inclinations, their judgments of taste can benefit from the wisdom of crowds. Data are available a...


The optimal site for pancreatic islet cell transplantation is presently unclear, although the liver has been the most commonly used. However, glucagon secretion from islets that have been autotransplanted in liver has been reported to be unresponsive to hypoglycemia yet responsive to arginine. To determine whether this selective glucagon secretory defect is related to the intrahepatic site of islet implantation or to the process of transplantation per se, we studied counterregulatory responses to hypoglycemia in dogs with pancreatic islet autotransplantation in the hepatic parenchyma (the intrahepatic [IH] group, n = 9) or the peritoneal cavity (the intraperitoneal [IP] group, n = 9), following total pancreatectomy, and compared them with the responses in normal controls (n = 10). Dogs were subjected to a hypoglycemic hyperinsulinemic (5 mU · kg−1 min−1) clamp for 90 min under general anesthesia. Arterial glucose concentrations were clamped at 2.7 mmol/l for the final 45 min of the clamp. Immediately following the clamp, glucagon responses to IV arginine (5 g) were also assessed. During hypoglycemia, glucagon responses in the IH group (maximal incremental glucagon = 33 ± 21 ng/l; glucagon area under curve [AUC] = 713 ± 1,022 ng · 1−1 · min−1) were significantly lower than either the IP (maximal incremental glucagon = 92 ± 32 ng/l; glucagon AUC = 4,090 ± 1,600 ng · 1−1 · min−1) or control (maximal incremental glucagon = 154 ± 71 ng/l; glucagon AUC = 6,943 ± 2,842 ng · 1−1 · min−1) group (IH vs. IP group, P < 0.05; control vs. IH group, P < 0.01). Glucagon responses in the IP group did not differ significantly from the control group. Epinephrine responses to hypoglycemia were similar in all groups, whereas neither of the transplanted groups (IH and IP) had pancreatic polypeptide responses. There was a prompt rise in plasma glucagon after intravenous arginine in all groups. These data indicate that glucagon unresponsiveness to hypoglycemia is specific to intrahepatically transplanted islets, rendering the liver a disadvantageous site for optimal α-cell function.


We present a tutorial description of the CAP Computer-Aided Parallelization tool. CAP has been designed with the goal of letting the parallel application programmer have the complete control about how his application is parallelized, and at the same time freeing him from the burden of managing explicitly a large number of threads and associated synchronization and communication primitives. The CAP tool, a precompiler generating C++ source code, enables application programmers to specify at a high level of abstraction the set of threads present in the application, the processing operations offered by these threads, and the parallel constructs specifying the flow of data and parameters between operations. A configuration map specifies the mapping between CAP threads and operating system processes, possibly located on different computers. The generated program may run on various parallel configurations without recompilation. We discuss the issues of flow control and load balancing and show the solutions offered by CAP. We also show how CAP can be used to generate relatively complex parallel programs incorporating neighborhood dependent operations. Finally, we briefly describe a real 3D image processing application: the Visible Human Slice Server, its implementation according to the previously defined concepts and its performance.


A brief historical and descriptive account of solid injection is followed by a detailed review of the available theoretical and experimental data that seem to throw light on the mechanism of this form of atomization. It is concluded that this evidence indicates that (1) the atomization accompanying solid injection occurs at the surface of the liquid after it issues as a solid stream from the orifice; and (2) that such atomization has a mechanism physically identical with the atomization which takes place in an air stream, both being due merely to the formation, at the gas-liquid interface, of fine ligaments under the influence of the relative motion of gas and liquid, and to their collapse, under the influence of surface tension, to form the drops in the spray.


Virtual private network design deals with the reservation of capacities in a network, such that the nodes can share communication. Each node in the network has associated upper bounds on the amount of flow that it can send to the network and receive from the network respectively. The problem then is to reserve capacities at minimum cost and to compute paths between every pair of nodes such that all valid traffic-matrices can be routed along the corresponding paths.In this paper we present a simple 4.74-approximation algorithm for virtual private network design. The previous best approximation algorithm for this problem achieves a ratio of 5.55 (Gupta, Kumar, and Roughgarden STOC'03).