Three experimental environments traditionally support network and distributed systems research: network emu-lators, network simulators, and live networks. The continued use of multiple approaches highlights both the value and inadequacy of each. Netbed, a descendant of Emulab, provides an experimentation facility that integrates these approaches, allowing researchers to configure and access networks composed of emulated, simulated , and wide-area nodes and links. Netbed's primary goals are ease of use, control, and realism, achieved through consistent use of virtualization and abstraction. By providing operating system-like services, such as resource allocation and scheduling, and by virtualizing heterogeneous resources, Netbed acts as a virtual machine for network experimentation. This paper presents Netbed's overall design and implementation and demonstrates its ability to improve experimental automation and efficiency. These, in turn, lead to new methods of experimentation, including automated parameter-space studies within emulation and straightforward comparisons of simulated, emulated, and wide-area scenarios.


Import substitution in the energy sector requires development in Russia of a group of new industries and modernization of existing capacities. That calls for integrating the structures of fundamental and applied science, education, power engineering production, energy generation and electricity transport in the framework of a complete innovation cycle. The key to the problem solution is forming an integrated mechanism for planning and management of scientific-research, power engineering and electric power segments as parts of a single technological chain of work and procurement from basic research to equipment disposal. The R&D result should be a package sectoral order for equipment and technologies — a new planning and coordination tool in the market environment of Russian energy and power engineering. It is proposed to build a new information control loop in the energy sector of Russia to form the basis of a package order within the industry in order to establish medium- and long-term scientific and technical planning for replacing retiring equipment, tracking contracts and monitoring results of their implementation.


Background Asunaprevir is a selective NS3 protease inhibitor with in vitro activity against HCV genotypes 1 and 4. Methods In this Phase IIa double-blind study, treatment-naive HCV genotype-1-infected patients in the United States and France were randomly assigned 1:1:1:1 to placebo or asunaprevir 200 mg twice daily, 600 mg twice daily or 600 mg once daily in combination with pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN)-α2a and ribavirin for 48 weeks. The primary efficacy end point was undetectable HCV RNA at weeks 4 and 12 (extended rapid virological response [eRVR]). Other end points included safety and undetectable HCV RNA at 24 weeks post-treatment (24-week sustained virological response [SVR24]). Results A total of 47 patients were randomized and treated. eRVR was achieved by 75% (9/12), 75% (9/12) and 92% (11/12) of patients in the asunaprevir 200 mg twice-daily, 600 mg twice-daily and 600 mg once-daily groups, respectively, versus 0% (0/11) in the placebo group. Corresponding SVR24 rates were 83% (10/12), 83% (10/12) and 92% (11/12) in the asunaprevir groups and 46% (5/11) in the placebo group. There was no virological breakthrough in any asunaprevir group. Following the 12-week analysis, the 600 mg doses were reduced to 200 mg twice daily because of a greater frequency of transaminase elevations at the 600 mg dose. The most common grade 3–4 laboratory abnormalities were consistent with those reported for PEG-IFN and ribavirin. Conclusions Asunaprevir plus PEG-IFN and ribavirin achieved higher response rates than placebo plus PEG-IFN and ribavirin, with a tolerable adverse event profile at the 200 mg twice-daily dose. This dose is being evaluated in the Phase IIb and Phase III studies.


Crawford v. Washington changed how the Confrontation Clause is interpreted. Crawford has drawn commentary primarily about the meaning of "testimonial statements," its key, but undefined, concept and its historical analysis, which formed a foundation for the decision. This article, however, focuses on another part of Crawford's analysis and on analyses Crawford did not do but should have. Justice Scalia's opinion for the Court undertook a textual analysis and, relying on Webster's early dictionary, concluded that "witnesses" in the Clause meant those who bear testimony. From this the Court concluded that the Confrontation Clause applies to those who make "testimonial statements." While the Court did not define "testimonial statements," the opinion indicates that the term refers to declarations that are akin to ex parte affidavits and depositions of the eighteenth century. This textual analysis was incomplete and misleading. The article shows that Webster's also supports much broader definitions of "witnesses" that would include all those who have personally perceived a relevant event or who give evidence or proof. These broader meanings supported by the text would include all hearsay declarants. The Court did not examine how its selected meaning comported with other uses of "witness" in the Constitution, which are in the Treason, Self-Incrimination, and Compulsory Process Clauses. The article discusses how all those other uses employ the broader meanings of "witness." The Court interpreted confrontation without mention of its Sixth Amendment context and, most notably, without mention of confrontation's companion provision, the Compulsory Process Clause. The article explains how Crawford's method of confrontation interpretation is fundamentally at odds with Sixth Amendment history and interpretation. If Crawford's method is correct, much Sixth Amendment doctrine is at stake, and if that Sixth Amendment doctrine is right, then Crawford's approach to confrontation is wrong.


Bone multicellular units (BMUs) maintain the viability of the skeletal tissue by coordinating locally the sequence of bone resorption and bone formation performed by cells of the osteoclastic and osteoblastic lineage. Understanding the emergence and the net bone balance of such structured microsystems out of the complex network of biochemical interactions between bone cells is fundamental for many bone-related diseases and the evaluation of fracture risk. Based on current experimental knowledge, we propose a spatio-temporal continuum model describing the interactions of osteoblastic and osteoclastic cells. We show that this model admits travelling-wave-like solutions with well-confined cell profiles upon specifying external conditions mimicking the environment encountered in cortical bone remodelling. The shapes of the various cell concentration profiles within this travelling structure are intrinsically linked to the parameters of the model such as differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis rates of bone cells. The internal structure of BMUs is reproduced, allowing for experimental calibration. The spatial distribution of the key regulatory factors can also be exhibited, which in diseased states could give hints as to the biochemical agent most accountable for the disorder.


Metaphorical interpretation and affect detection using context profiles from open-ended text input are challenging in affective language processing field. In this paper, we explore recognition of a few typical affective metaphorical phenomena and context-based affect sensing using the modeling of speakers' improvisational mood and other participants' emotional influence to the speaking character under the improvisation of loose scenarios. The overall updated affect detection module is embedded in an AI agent. The new developments have enabled the AI agent to perform generally better in affect sensing tasks. The work emphasizes the conference themes on affective dialogue processing, human-agent interaction and intelligent user interfaces.


Aim:- How can relevant education research reach in-service primary teachers? This paper evaluates the effectiveness
of online and face-to-face dissemination modes for a key
resource developed during the Teacher Assessment in Primary Science project, using King's (2003) three levels of dissemination for education research.
Content:- King (2003) suggests there are three levels of dissemination for the outputs of educational research. The first, dissemination for awareness, is considered least likely to result in long-term changes to practice, but yields the greatest potential audience. Online dissemination is an example of this. The second level, dissemination for understanding, results in more changes to practice but requires time and human resources to implement. The third level, dissemination for action, involves practitioners using the resource to change their practice in some way and requires the greatest investment of time and energy. The TAPS pyramid is a resource for primary teachers and school leaders to evaluate and improve their assessment practice (Earle et al., 2016). It was disseminated via an online
downloadand face-to-face dissemination events. Dissemination for awareness is analysed through total downloads data for the resource, and also at country, county and local level. Dissemination for understanding is analysed by plotting known dissemination eventsagainst location download data. A strong relationship is demonstrated at a national level and county level. An online survey for teachers attempting to use the resource closes in March 2017. Inferential statistics generated from non-parametric analyses of this data will demonstrate the relationship between dissemination mode and subsequent use in more detail. Contextual
factors enabling or obstructing a teacher's intention to use the resource are also presented in the context of dissemination for action, King's third level of dissemination. The implications of the analysis for colleagues' research dissemination strategies are summarised at the end.
Thinking deeply about teacher education:- What dissemination strategies should be considered when disseminating education research on a limited budget to in-service teachers? What contextual factors might obstruct or enable in-service teachers to act upon research outputs, and to what extent can these be mitigated?
The country/ies to which the presentation relates:- The data for this paper come from a mixed methods study of primary schools mainly based in England. However, the internet is
an internationally available resource, and effective dissemination of research findings is a perennial issue faced by researchers from all countries.


Northern Mao (Afroasiatic-Omotic) employs a set of non-final (medial/converb) verbs and aspectual morphology to distinguish events on the main storyline from background comment in narrative discourse. These verb-forms include same-subject (ss) and different-subject (ds) (medial verb-like) and temporally-integrated (ti) (converb-like) constructions in clause chains. While the ss and ds verbs move the storyline forward by marking sequences of main events, the ti verbs do not move the storyline forward; rather, they provide backgrounded commentary on main events. The ss and ds non-final verbs can take Perfect or Progressive aspect, which correlates with discourse function: Perfect divides discourse into major temporal sections and Progressive results in the possibility of temporal overlap (i.e. not part of the main storyline).


Free tail skin grafts or suspensions of viable epidermal cells have been placed in the atraumatized uterus of isologous rat hosts and allowed to "implant" of their own accord to study the possible uniqueness of this site for other than nature's transplants, i.e. conceptuses, and its response to unnatural grafts. Despite the presence of an intact endometrial epithelium, free skin grafts heal-in rapidly, provided that a state of estrogen excess is established at the time of transplantation. In the absence of estrogen most of the grafts failed to implant. Once established, the grafts survive indefinitely without further estrogen. However, if at any stage a state of continual estrus is established, skin epidermis migrates centrifugally from the graft perimeter invasively replacing the native uterine epithelium. The results of an analysis of the modus operandi of this estrogen-facilitated epidermal migration in utero sustain the view that the hormone acts upon the uterine stroma rather than upon the epidermal cells. When grafts of lingual mucosa or vaginal "skin" were placed in the uteri of rats maintained in chronic estrus, migration of epidermis took place even more vigorously than from tail skin. These epithelia conserved their distinctive histologic specificities indefinitely when growing as heterotypic recombinants on the alien mesenchymal stroma of the uterus. Monodisperse suspensions of epidermal cells appear to "implant" and establish small epidermal plaques in the uterus only at sites predestined to accept conceptuses. That the endocrinologic parameters for the establishment of skin grafts in the uterus are similar to those for blastocysts is suggested by the finding that both kinds of graft can become established in the same uterine horn in the absence of exogenous hormones.


The author traces three critical periods of transition in the history of the university. The first is the crisis and rebirth of the idea of the university at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and second, the emergence of the modern university in the late nineteenth century. Since that time the research oriented university becomes dominant, as one of the core institutions of modernity. The third transition is the reappraisal of the idea of the university in the wake of the experiences of planning euphoria on the one hand and rapidly growing streams of demand from government, industry and the educational system at large.  The author focuses on the last stage, its challenges, dillemmas and accompanying experience of malaise. He believes the current issues may be creatively faced moving the universities to the next phase of the continuous process of development.


Although Ethiopia's economy has grown rapidly over the past decade and urbanization is increasing, the country's economic and spatial transformation has only just begun. Ethiopia's share of agriculture in GDP in 2006 (48 percent) was the highest in the world, and more than double the average for low income countries (20 percent). Likewise, Ethiopia remains one of the least urbanized countries in the world (16 percent), compared to the Sub-Sahara Africa average of 30 percent. Nonetheless, massive changes are underway. Agricultural growth accelerated in the second half of the first decade of the 2000s so that real agricultural GDP growth averaged 6.2 percent from 1998/99 to 2007/08. At the same time, Inflows of foreign aid, workers' remittances and private transfers that funded a surge in investment and boom in the construction sector. Measuring urbanization in terms of spatial agglomerations of people in and near cities of 50,000 or more, shows that urbanization growth rates between the population census years 1984 and 2007 are much higher (between 8 and 9 percent) than estimates based on official definitions of urban (4.2 percent). A surge in public investment has also helped bring about a new era for economic development. Road investments, particular those in transportation corridors in the highlands, have greatly increased connectivity, so that the number of people residing in or within three hours of a city of 50,000 or more, rose from 6.24 million in 1984 (15.5 percent of the population) to 38.7 million in 2007 (48.5 percent of the population). Moreover, massive investments in hydro-electric power have revolutionized Ethiopia's economy and opened up the potential for significant increases in productivity and output. Electricity per capita is expected to soon reach a level nearly 9 times the level of the 1960s, though it still remains far below the sub-Saharan Africa average. Similarly, fixed telephone line infrastructure more than doubled from 2003 to 2008; and cell phone subscription catapulted to 3.16 million subscribers in 2008 from only 50,000 in 2003. Finally, improvements in education and health are making significant impacts on the country's wellbeing and productivity. As Ethiopia moves forward, it faces key development policy decisions. Since the late 1990s, the country has followed an Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) policy emphasizing investments to increase agricultural productivity and spur growth linkages with the rest of the economy. At the same time, government policy has effectively slowed rural-urban migration through regulations prohibiting sale of land, loss of land rights for those who leave rural areas, and registration requirements for new migrants. Allocation of public investments across sectors and across rural-urban space, together with land policies and various regulations on labor mobility, will be major determinants of the growth path of Ethiopia's economy and the extent of poverty reduction in the coming decade.


The recently developed paradigm of cognitive radio wireless devices has been developed with the goal of achieving more customizable and efficient spectrum utilization of commonly used wireless frequency bands. The primary focus of such spectrum utilization approaches has been to discern occupancies and vacancies over portions of the wireless spectrum without necessarily identifying how specific radio frequency (RF) devices contribute to the temporal dynamics of these occupancy patterns within the spectrum. The aim of this thesis is to utilize a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM) statistical analysis to infer the individual occupancy patterns of specific users from wireless RF observation traces. It is proposed that the HSMM approach for RF device characterization over time may act as a first step towards performing a more complete characterization of the RF spectrum in which the inferred traffic patterns may demonstrate the coexistence of multiple networks, the specific devices comprising each distinct network, and the level of mutual interference between the component networks resultant from such coexistence. The first main portion of this thesis is the development of a Bayesian learning framework for HSMM characterization of the wireless RF observations, with occupancy periods and each individual RF device being classified as distinct states in the HSMM. The traditional HSMM approach is supplemented with the concept of the hierarchical Dirichlet random process to achieve a minimal number of states needed to effectively capture each distinct device, without the need for strong a priori assumptions regarding the number of devices seen in the RF trace prior to computational analysis. The second portion of the thesis utilizes user-programmed cognitive radios to construct a real-time software-defined RF network environment emulation testbed to assess the accuracy of the HSMM characterization. Finally, the HSMM algorithm is tested on wireless devices operating under an actual implementation of the ubiquitous IEEE 802.11 wireless standard.


Chitinolytic bacteria are bacteria that have chitinolytic activity, which is able to hydrolysis the composition of chitin which composes many fungal cell walls. Chitinolytic bacteria are currently more widely used because of their ability as a biological control agent to the pathogenic fungi especially in horticultural and plantation crops. This research was conducted with the aim of obtaining isolates of chitinolytic bacteria that were able to inhibit the growth of plant pathogenic fungi in Vitro on chitin agar media. Fusarium oxysporum, Sclerotium rolfsii, and Rhizoctonia solanii are used in the inhibition test of chitinolytic bacteria. Bacteria were isolated and screened from the soil of Bukit Dua Belas National Park and Oil Palm Plantations in Jambi using 0.3% chitin agar media. The results showed that two of 10 bacterial isolates were able to produce inhibition zones to the growth of hyphae of pathogenic fungi on potato dextrose agar (PDA) media. TB04-13 isolate was able to produce the largest inhibition in F. oxysporum and R. solanii about 42% and 42.05% respectively, while TB04-15 isolate produced the biggest inhibition in S. Rolfsii ranged to 25.50%. Based on the chitinolytic index (CI) values, isolates TB04-13 and TB04-15 produced CI values of 1.60 and 0.63, respectively. The morphological characteristics and Gram staining of both TB04-13 and TB04-15 chitinolytic isolates are included in rod-shaped and Gram-positive bacteria. Both of these isolates can be used as antifungal-producing candidates for plant pathogenic fungi in Indonesia.


The synthesis, kinetic, and spectral characterization of (7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole)aminoethyl and (7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole)aminopentyl methylphosphonofluoridate are described. These homologous organophosphorous agents contain the environmentally sensitive 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole chromophore. They inhibit acetylcholinesterase from Torpedo at rates exceeding 10(7) M-1 min-1 to form long-lived conjugates with one chromophore/80-kilodalton subunit. The intensity, position, and line width of the absorption spectra of the conjugates and reactivation kinetics in the presence and absence of the bisquaternary oxime 1,1'-trimethylene-bis(4-formylpyridinium bromide) dioxime indicate that these agents form conjugates in which the NBD-aminoalkyl moieties experience distinctive microscopic environments within the active center. NBD-aminoethyl methylphosphono-acetylcholinesterase undergoes oxime-induced as well as spontaneous reactivation at rates that are 3.6 and 35 times faster, respectively, than the corresponding rates measured for the NBD-aminopentyl conjugate. Hence, reactivation exhibits a marked dependence on structure of the methylphosphonate. Fluorescence emission at wavelengths greater than 520 nm is highly quenched and exhibits quantum efficiencies of less than 5%. Absorption maxima for the covalent NBD-aminoethyl methylphosphono-acetylcholinesterase appear at 475-480 nm while those for the corresponding NBD-aminopentyl methylphosphono-acetylcholinesterase appear at 485-490 nm. Bandwidths of the absorption maxima are substantially broader for the acetylcholinesterase adduct with NBD-aminoethyl methylphosphonofluoridate (3870 cm-1) than for the enzyme adduct with NBD-aminopentyl methylphosphonofluoridate (2870 cm-1). The CD spectrum of NBD-aminopentyl methylphosphono-acetylcholinesterase shows optical activity coincident with the shape and position of the absorption spectrum. In contrast, in addition to optically active transitions at the absorption maxima, the CD spectrum of NBD-aminoethyl methylphosphono-acetylcholinesterase shows intense optical activity at 430 nm, a wavelength region coincident with the region of spectral broadening. The spectral properties of alpha-chymotrypsin conjugates formed by reaction with the two probes are different, and the respective spectra differ also from those observed for the acetylcholinesterase conjugates. These results indicate that there is a reciprocal relationship between the structure of the probe and the structure of the active center.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


This article examines the detention and deportation of time-served foreign national prisoners in England and Wales. Drawing on penal policy and interviews with staff and detainees in prisons and immigration removal centres, it critically assesses the growing interdependence of the UK Border Agency and HM Prison Service. Whereas the removal of failed asylum seekers has generated widespread concern and activism, the deportation of foreign ex-prisoners is rarely noted. The foreign offender, it seems, has few advocates. For anyone interested in immigration control, however, the treatment of foreign national prisoners, both during and after their sentence, is compelling. On the one hand, they reveal a wider and deeper border, one that includes penal institutions located within the nation state. Along these lines, the absence of citizenship enables harsher and longer punishments, as ex-prisoners may be held for considerable periods of time post-sentence due to their complex immigration cases. On the other hand, however, the treatment of foreign ex-prisoners is not uncontested – prison employees and staff within the immigration estate express concern at their treatment under Immigration Act powers. In short, this article suggests that the detention and deportation of foreign ex-prisoners raise a number of troubling questions about both the nature of governance and the limits of the liberal project of inclusion in late modern Britain.


This paper points out that a major shift of paradigm is currently going on in the study of the human face and it seeks to articulate and to develop the fundamental assumptions underlying this shift. The main theses of the paper are: 1) Facial expressions can convey meanings comparable to the meanings of verbal utterances. 2) Semantic analysis (whether of verbal utterances or of facial expressions) must distinguish between the context-independent invariant and its contextual interpretations. 3) Certain components of facial behavior (?facial gestures?) do have constant context-independent meanings. 4) The meanings of facial components and configurations of components have an inherent first-person and present tense orientation. 5) The basis for the interpretation of facial gestures is, above all, experiential. 6) The meanings of some facial expressions are universally intelligible and can be interpreted without reference to any local conventions. 7) To be fruitful, the semantic analysis of facial expressions needs a methodology. This can be derived from the methodological experience of linguistic semantics. The author illustrates and supports these theses by analyzing a range of universally interpretable facial expressions such as the following ones: ?brow furrowed? (i.e. eyebrows drawn together); eyebrows raised; eyes wide open; corners of the mouth raised; corners of the mouth lowered; mouth open (while not speaking); lips pressed together; upper lip and nose ?raised? (and, consequently, nose wrinkled).


Commercial logging, by opening up remote tropical forest areas, stimulating a commercial trade, and bringing in people from other areas, has hugely increased the harvest of wildlife. This loss of wildlife threatens the ability of forest-dwelling people to feed themselves, the survival of harvested species, and the sustainability of tropical forestry itself. As commercial forestry has created the conditions for the increased wildlife harvest, regulatory mechanisms should focus on forestry operations. While progress has been slight to date, there is some openness within the industry to the idea of sustaining all elements of the rain forest ecosystem, including wildlife, when forests are logged.


Abstract Background: Migraine-associated vertigo (MV) remains a developing entity because accepted diagnostic criteria are unavailable. Patients present with debilitating dizziness without experiencing headache, and are often misdiagnosed as anxious. The condition is manageable in primary care without the need for neurological referral. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of MV and migraine-associated dizziness (MD) as presenting complaints. Methods: Patients presented with dizziness probably or definitely associated with migraine history based on the criteria of the International Headache Society. Patients with other vestibulopathies and medical conditions were excluded. Patients were evaluated over a period of nine months. Seven hundred and seventeen patients were examined. The numbers of patients were recorded as a percentage of the population visiting a general practitioner. Response to migraine prophylactic medications was regarded as supporting evidence of the diagnosis. Response was regarded as a complete resolution of symptoms. Results: Of the 717 patients seen, 12 were identified as having probable or definite MV. Five patients were treated with migraine prophylactic medications, namely amitriptyline 25 mg nocte and/or sodium valproate CR 300 mg bd, and all showed a response to the treatment. Conclusions: We conclude that the prevalence of MV as presenting complaint may be as high as 1.67%. This figure does however not reflect the total patient population that suffers from the condition—this figure may be much higher. Of those patients treated for MV the response was 100%, further supporting the diagnosis. MV is a relevant complaint that is often misdiagnosed as psychogenic in origin.


Computer role playing games engage players through interleaved story and open-ended game play. We present an approach to procedurally generating, rendering, and making playable novel games based on a priori unknown story structures. These stories may be authored by humans or by computational story generation systems. Our approach couples player, designer, and algorithm to generate a novel game using preferences for game play style, general design aesthetics, and a novel story structure. Our approach is implemented in Game Forge, a system that uses search-based optimization to find and render a novel game world configuration that supports a sequence of plot points plus play style preferences. Additionally, Game Forge supports execution of the game through reactive control of game world logic and non-player character behavior.


The modelling and implementation of human behaviour into artificial systems have attracted the interest of several people from different disciplines given the natural complexity and multidisciplinary of this phenomenon. This type of models offers a great potential in a large set of domains including military applications, training and learning, e-health, and the representation of crisis and emergency situations among others. A particular interesting application is the modelling of human behaviour within groups. More specifically, the model of human behaviour in a work team would be used to analyse the specific dynamics behind individual and work team performance. The analysis of these dynamics then can be used as additional and useful information that supports the decision-making in the formation and configuration of real work teams in companies.
The work described in this thesis presents a novel agent-based simulation model that aims to support this decision-making process. This global objective is achieved through the modelling of the team candidates as software agents forming a virtual team. The configured virtual team then can be used to experiment with the internal and contextual factors that produce and direct the individual and work team performance. The real team candidates are modelled through a set of selected human characteristics that have been proved to influence human behaviour when making work activities in a work team. These characteristics include cognitive capabilities, emotional state, personality styles and social-related skills. Using the values in these attributes in combination with values represented in the attributes of project's tasks, the model produces statistical information that represents the possible performance of the teammembers over the assigned project. The theoretical background of the model is presented through a deep review of existing (mainly psychological, sociological and organisational) theories focused in the study of human behaviour within the particular context of teams.
The work presented in this thesis uses the findings from this theoretical research to implement the main characteristics of the proposed agent-based model and to further develop a usable software simulation tool. This tool has been used to validate the proposed model through the comparison of the work team's performance results generated by the simulation tool against the performance evaluation results of a real work team from a large company. The validation results and the identified open issues to improve the model are also presented in the final part of this thesis document.


Motivation: Cell fate specification plays a key role to generate distinct cell types during metazoan development. However, most of the underlying signaling networks at cellular level are not well understood. Availability of time lapse single‐cell gene expression data collected throughout Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis provides an excellent opportunity for investigating signaling networks underlying cell fate specification at systems, cellular and molecular levels. Results: We propose a framework to infer signaling networks at cellular level by exploring the single‐cell gene expression data. Through analyzing the expression data of nhr‐25, a hypodermis‐specific transcription factor, in every cells of both wild‐type and mutant C.elegans embryos through RNAi against 55 genes, we have inferred a total of 23 genes that regulate (activate or inhibit) nhr‐25 expression in cell‐specific fashion. We also infer the signaling pathways consisting of each of these genes and nhr‐25 based on a probabilistic graphical model for the selected five founder cells, 'ABarp', 'ABpla', 'ABpra', 'Caa' and 'Cpa', which express nhr‐25 and mostly develop into hypodermis. By integrating the inferred pathways, we reconstruct five signaling networks with one each for the five founder cells. Using RNAi gene knockdown as a validation method, the inferred networks are able to predict the effects of the knockdown genes. These signaling networks in the five founder cells are likely to ensure faithful hypodermis cell fate specification in C.elegans at cellular level. Availability and Implementation: All source codes and data are available at the github repository https://github.com/xthuang226/Worm_Single_Cell_Data_and_Codes.git. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Here, we evaluate the COVID-19 associated challenges and opportunities surrounding the water, air, agriculture and energy sectors, the four major elements to sustain life on earth with strong implications on food security and the environment. During this pandemic, significant improvements in the quality of air and water resources have been noted. The tracking of SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of COVID-19, in wastewater allowed wastewater-based epidemiology for this disease. However, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and the increased use of antimicrobials for personal hygiene and environmental disinfection can have serious consequences on the environment and public health. Air pollutants and greenhouse gases have been significantly reduced except for ozone that increased due to the decline in NOx. Tackling air pollution is important due to its role in spreading and worsening the COVID-19. Similarly, this pandemic has a strong impact on crop production systems, livestock industry, food supply chain and global food security. The zoonotic nature of this disease could change human interactions with wildlife and companion animals, but clear strategies are needed to safeguard both human health and biodiversity throughout the COVID-19 recovery. Owing to the advantages of renewable energy highlighted during COVID-19, suitable investments should be dedicated to cleaner and sustainable energy infrastructure in revival plans. © 2021 Friends Science Publishers


The usual treatment for phenylketonuria (PKU) is a phenylalanine-restricted diet. Following this diet is challenging, and long-term adherence (and hence metabolic control) is commonly poor. Patients with PKU (usually, but not exclusively, with a relatively mild form of the disorder) who are responsive to treatment with pharmacological doses of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) have either lower concentrations of blood phenylalanine or improved dietary phenylalanine tolerance. The availability of a registered formulation of BH4 (sapropterin dihydrochloride, Kuvan®) has raised many practical issues and new questions in the dietary management of these patients. Initially, patients and carers must understand clearly the likely benefits (and limitations) of sapropterin therapy. A minority of patients who respond to sapropterin are able to discontinue the phenylalanine-restricted diet completely, while others are able to relax the diet to some extent. Care is required when altering the phenylalanine-restricted diet, as this may have unintended nutritional consequences and must be undertaken with caution. New clinical protocols are required for managing any dietary change while maintaining control of blood phenylalanine, ensuring adequate nutrition and preventing nutritional deficiencies, overweight or obesity. An accurate initial evaluation of pre-sapropterin phenylalanine tolerance is essential, and the desired outcome from treatment with sapropterin (e.g. reduction in blood phenylalanine or relaxation in diet) must also be understood by the patient and carers from the outset. Continuing education and support will be required thereafter, with further adjustment of diet and sapropterin dosage as a young patient grows.


Up until 2004, the burning regime applied in the Bontebok National Park was aimed at maintaining grazing conditions suitable for bontebok ( Damaliscus pygargus pygargus ). It was, however, not suitable for maintaining plant species diversity, an increasingly urgent conservation priority for the park. Accordingly, the burning regime was changed in 2004 to increase the interval between fires. A possible unintended outcome of the new burning regime is the spread of grazing lawns which is likely to be deleterious for maintaining the diversity of rare plants. Red grass, Themeda triandra , a species often locally abundant in areas preferred by bontebok, is potentially a good indicator of the anticipated change because, although it persists with moderate grazing, it is sensitive to localised intense grazing and will decrease on grazing lawns. To gauge the potential of this indicator, the canopy spread cover, degree of defoliation and inflorescence production of T. triandra was determined at 13 permanently marked sites in November 2005. The results are compared with a survey conducted 20 years previously (October–November 1984 and October–November 1985) using similar methodology. The results suggest that T. triandra remained abundant over the previous 20 years' application of the prior burning regime. In 1984–1985, defoliation of T. triandra was high within 1 year after a fire but declined quickly thereafter. In 2005, the tendency for the defoliation level to decline with increasing time after a fire was still apparent, but it was much less marked than in the previous survey period. A likely cause of this was the fact that Cape mountain zebra ( Equus zebra zebra ) and red hartebeest ( Alcelaphus buselaphus caama ) were present in 2005 but absent in 1984–1985 and these taller-grass grazers would have contributed to the use of the older veld. Provided it is interpreted together with other monitoring programmes, the use of T. triandra cover and defoliation intensity appears promising as an efficient indicator of some of the potentially deleterious outcomes of the interactions between herbivory and the new burning regime. Conservation implications: The conservation objectives of maintaining (1) large mammal herbivory as an ecological process and (2) plant species diversity may be difficult to reconcile with each other in the highly fragmented renosterveld and lowland fynbos ecosystems. This paper explores a rapid approach to monitoring impacts of bontebok and other grazing ungulates.


We model the widespread failure of contracts to share risk using available indices. A borrower and lender can share risk by conditioning repayments on an index. The lender has private information about the ability of this index to measure the true state the borrower would like to hedge. The lender is risk averse, and thus requires a premium to insure the borrower. The borrower, however, might be paying something for nothing, if the index is a poor measure of the true state. We provide sufficient conditions for this effect to cause the borrower to choose a non-indexed contract instead.


The left-lateral Ecemiş Fault Zone, with a newly estimated displacement c. 60 km, records important strike-slip deformation within Anatolia, prior to and during the Plio-Quaternary tectonic escape of the Anatolian 'microplate' along the well recognized right-lateral North Anatolian and the left-lateral East Anatolian Fault Zones. Mesozoic shallow-water carbonate deposition on the northern passive margin of a Tauride microcontinent was followed by southward ophiolite emplacement in latest Cretaceous time. Late Eocene final closure of one, or several, ocean basins within Central Anatolia further north caused further deformation, including large-scale north-vergent thrusting. Regional orogenic exhumation in the Oligocene to Mid-Miocene was accompanied by deposition of non-marine red-beds adjacent to the future Ecemiş Fault Zone and adjacent basins. Through-going left-lateral strike slip was initiated by the Mid-Miocene (or slightly earlier) and became become more transtensional/extensional during Pliocene–Quaternary time. Minor continuing left-lateral strike-slip is documented by stream offsets on major Plio-Quaternary alluvial fans shed from master fault scarps. The Ecemiş Fault Zone is, thus, identified as a regionally important strike-slip fault zone that was initially (Mid–Late Miocene) dominated by strike-slip and later (Pliocene–Quaternary) by extension.


Experts play an important role in the European Union ("EU") regulatory apparatus. They assist the EU Commission in multiple functions ranging from designing policies to the implementation of regulatory schemes. Experts work closely with various EU agencies such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) or the European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Bureau (EIPPCB). Critiques have focused in this context on the problem of experts' conflict of interests (COI) which, due to misaligned incentives, can generate opinions that do not serve the public interest. This paper focuses on a different type of epistemic failure that could hinder the work of experts: their susceptibility to cognitive biases. This cognitive fallibility can generate mistaken policy advice even when incentives are not misaligned. The influence of experts on regulatory output creates a dilemma: how far can experts be trusted and what kind of mechanisms can be used to improve the epistemic credibility of their advice? The literature on cognitive biases suggests that the regulatory indifference to this problem is a cause for concern. There is broad evidence demonstrating that expert judgment is subject to various biases, such as the hindsight bias, confirmation bias or quantification bias. The paper considers the implications of this phenomenon to the regulatory project. It starts by examining those cognitive biases which are more critical to the work of experts in the regulatory context. It then moves to examine the question of de-biasing. Are there institutional mechanisms that can be used in order to de-bias experts' judgment? This question is particularly important because conventional control mechanisms such as judicial review or tort liability have generally failed to fulfill this task. The paper examines to what extent the psychological literature on de-biasing could provide insights to the regulatory context, noting the linkages between potential de-biasing mechanisms and the current regulatory framework governing experts' behavior. It concludes with a reflection on the challenges and prospects of the de-biasing project. It argues that the de-biasing project faces some difficult challenges, which need to be taken into account as we delineate its objectives. These challenges reflect, primarily, the broad range of cognitive biases underlying human reasoning (which calls for a differential, context-dependent de-biasing strategy) and the intrinsic limitations of self-reflexive, introspective de-biasing strategies. The scale and scope of these challenges mean also that attaining a bias-free decision-making environment is not achievable and our expectations from the de-biasing project should be formed with this understanding in mind.


Introduction to Rural Planning provides a critical analysis of the key challenges facing rural places and the various ways that public policy and community action can shape outcomes, structured around three major themes: economies, communities and landscapes. Its thematic chapters examine key ideas influencing various forms of intervention before considering 'rural planning' processes and outcomes in Britain. The second edition of this student text book has been extensively re-written to provide far greater coverage of key policy areas and questions. New features include:
• A re-examination of the mixed nature of rural planning, concluding that it is an amalgam of public land-use planning, spatial or territorial planning, community action, countryside management and the projects and programmes of national and supra-national agencies and organisations. Together, these components of 'composite' rural planning have a transformative influence on rural places;
• A broader analysis of entrepreneurial social action as a shaper of outcomes, particularly in the fields of rural development, service provision, transport and housing. A far greater emphasis is placed on planning at a community scale, with particular coverage of the localism agenda and Neighbourhood Planning in England;
• A focus on accessibility and rural transport provision, examining the governance arrangements needed to deliver integrated solutions spanning urban and rural places. Accessibility is re-presented as a major dilemma facing the countryside, leading to questions of rural sustainability and critical challenges around service access and delivery;
• An examination of the ecosystem approach to environmental planning, linking the procurement of ecosystem services to the global challenges of habitat degradation and loss, climate change and resource scarcity and management. Important links are made between this approach and the re-emergence of food security questions; and
• An evaluation of the currency of the 'rural' label in the context of global urbanisation, concluding that rural spaces are relational spaces characterised by critical production and consumption tensions.

This book aims to make sense of current rural challenges and planning approaches. It will be a valuable resource for students on planning, rural development and rural geography courses.

Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning and Head of the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL. Iqbal Hamiduddin is Lecturer in Transport and Housing at the Bartlett. Meri Juntti is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance and Rural Development in the Department of Law and Politics at Middlesex University. Sue Kidd and Dave Shaw are both in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool, where Sue is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Planning and Dave is a Professor of Planning.


Recently, more and more traditional services are being migrated into a cloud computing environment that makes the quality of service (QoS) becomes an important factor for service selection and optimal service composition while forming cross-cloud service applications. Considering the nonlinear and dynamic property of QoS data, it is so difficult to achieve dynamic prediction while designing a QoS prediction method with unsatisfactory prediction accuracy. It is thus desirable to explore how to design an effective approach by incorporating some intelligent techniques into the QoS prediction method to improve prediction performance. In this paper, motivated by the adaptive critic design and Q-learning technique, we propose a novel QoS prediction approach to serve this purpose through the combination of fuzzy neural networks and adaptive dynamic programming (ADP), i.e., an online learning scheme. This approach extracts fuzzy rules from QoS data and employs the ADP method to parameter learning of the fuzzy rules. Moreover, we provide a convergence boundedness result for our proposed approach to guarantee the stability. Experimental results on a large-scale QoS service data set verify the prediction accuracy of our proposed approach.


Myllymäki, Mikko Development and evaluation study of a video-based blended education model Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2018, 110 p. (+included articles) (JYU Dissertations ISSN 2489-9003; 2) ISBN 978-951-39-7496-1 (PDF) Finnish summary Diss. The basis for this dissertation has been the need to create a new education model to be used in master studies in mathematical information technology at Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius. This education model has been created as the result of the design science research. The solution heavily utilizes educational technologies, especially streamed lecture videos and associated practices. The primary goal of the education model has been to make education more accessible by offering students more flexible participation opportunities. The essential goal of this dissertation is to describe and evaluate the achieved education model. The purpose of evaluating the model was to determine the functionality of the model and its impacts from the viewpoints of the model's various participants, including students, lecturers, and the educational organization. The evaluation is applied to both the functionality of the technological solutions of the education model, as well as the practices formed around these. Evaluation is carried out in various case studies reported in publications that form parts of this dissertation. The introduction section of the dissertation provides a synthesis based on these publications and presents an overall evaluation of the education model. The evaluation of the education model's functionality was performed by examining its cost efficiency, operational reliability and transparency. According to the results, the education model is highly functional in these respects. The goals set for the education solution with regard to its impacts were also achieved very successfully and were even above expectations. Accessibility was also increased to a highly favorable level. Improvements to accessibility also had positive impacts on learning outcomes. The research results indicate that, from a learning standpoint, studying with videos is at least equally effective as studying via contact teaching. In summary, it can be stated that it is possible to form an education solution based on both contact teaching and the use of videos that is meaningful for students, lecturers and the organizer of education alike.


Problem: Sudan is currently facing a serious problem of disposal and reuse of waste water from different sources. In the oil industry, refinery waste water was estimated to be 20 million m3/annum. Evaporation ponds were established in order to treat the waste water for further use, mainly irrigating trees as shelter belts and wind breaks around the refinery area. Objective: The ongoing tree planting efforts, using the refinery waste water for irrigation, seemed to be based on inadequate information regarding the use of the most suitable tree species in terms of both site adaptability and tolerance to the waste water quality. In addition, there were hazardous effects of waste water on the environment, mainly on soil characteristics. Methodology: Six tree species (Acacia tortili, Eucalyptus camadulensis, Azadrichta indica, Grewia tennax, Eugenia jambolana, and Conocarpus erectus) were selected and used in a completely randomized block design in a field trial using refinery waste water for irrigation. Data were collected concerning plant growth parameters and performance throughout the experimentation period of 15 months. Soil samples were analysed after the application of waste water for quality assessment. Findings: The results of the experiment revealed a significant difference between all six tree species in their tolerance to waste water. These differences included number of leaves, number of branches, plant height and stem diameter. The most suitable tree species found were Conocarpus erecta and Acacia tortilis, while the least tolerant tree was Grewia tenax. Soil analysis results revealed a remarkable change in some soil characteristics after waste water application, mainly electric conductivity, pH and minerals concentrations. Value: Refinery waste water could be used for irrigation purposes, but only under certain circumstances. Proper treatment measures should be introduced before the use of waste water. Soil quality was also important and certain precautions should be implemented before irrigation.


Traditional automatic fuzzy clustering methods can obtain the optimal number of clusters by maximizing or minimizing one single-objective function using validity indexes. However, the effectiveness of these methods depends on the selection of the validity indexes, and one single-objective function may not provide satisfactory results because of the complexity of remote sensing images. For instance, the same land types may have different spectral curves, and different land types can have similar curves. To avoid this problem, this paper proposes a novel automatic fuzzy clustering method based on adaptive multi-objective differential evolution (AFCMDE) for remote sensing imagery. In AFCMDE, the automatic clustering problem is transformed into a multi-objective problem using two objective functions: Jm and the Xie-Beni index. AFCMDE is designed as a two-layer system comprising an optimization layer and a classification layer. In the optimization layer, AFCMDE searches for a feasible number of clusters by minimizing the Jm value and the Xie-Beni index. Based on the obtained number of clusters, AFCMDE utilizes non-dominated and crowd-distance sorting to obtain the optimal clustering centers and output the clustering results. In addition, a self-adaptive strategy without user-defined parameters is also used to improve the differential evolution. Experimental results using three different types of remote sensing image show that the AFCMDE algorithm consistently outperforms the other traditional clustering algorithms and the previous single-objective automatic fuzzy clustering algorithms.


Abstract Dactylonectria and Campylocarpon are two related genera of Hypocreales sharing a cylindrocarpon-like asexual morph, mostly known as soil-borne pathogens. During a study of the fungal communities of roots (endophyte) and rhizoplanes of plants growing in a layer of compost-like vegetal materials covering crude oil ponds in rain forest areas of the Amazonian Ecuador, a set of isolates with a cylindrocarpon-like asexual morph were studied. Multilocus phylogenetic inferences (based on partial DNA sequences from nuclear ribosomal DNA genes (ITS, 28S) and the housekeeping genes b-tubulin, translation elongation factor 1-α and Histone 3) and morphological studies revealed the occurrence of five undescribed species, of which four belong to Dactylonectria and one to Campylocarpon. They are described as Dactylonectria amazonica, D. ecuadoriense, D. polyphaga, D. palmicola and Campylocarpon amazonense.


Over 9 million dairy cows generate an estimated 226 billion kg of wet manure annually in the USA. To help mitigate dairy greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the degradation of this organic‐rich waste, manure can be processed via anaerobic digestion (AD) to methane and ultimately electricity. This potential value of AD has generated high‐level dairy‐industry support for broad‐scale technology deployment; however, on‐the‐ground AD realization has been impeded by process stability/reliability concerns and poor economics. Considering these challenges but recognizing that AD represents a fundamentally sound manure‐management approach, an interdisciplinary research team has completed proof‐of‐concept investigations on an integrated process that will concurrently improve manure management economics and reduce dairy GHG emissions. The integrated processes center on a two‐stage fermentation/AD system that can generate methane quantity/quality comparable to conventional single‐stage AD. Molecular level investigations confirm that the AD is highly enriched with a unique and synergistic microbial population which yielded a more resilient and stable process. Beyond AD, algae grown on nitrogen/phosphorus‐rich AD supernatant in a photobioreactor yielded biomass concentrations approaching 1.0 g L–1; despite an apparent growth lag/inhibition associated with excess organic acids and ammonia, algae growth was significant. Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) demonstrated that the two‐stage AD configuration coupled with algae production can reduce GHG emissions by approximately 60% as compared with a traditional anaerobic lagoon. The end result is a manure‐management platform that can increase US dairy viability and sustainability. Ongoing investigations are aimed at process refinement with an ultimate commercialization goal. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


Background Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (CBVDs) and cancer are leading causes of death. Short sleep is a potential contributor to health; however, its role in predicting mortality associated with cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRs) and CBVD remains poorly understood. We tested whether objective short sleep duration increases the risk of mortality associated with CMRs and CBVD. Methods and Results A total of 1654 adults (aged 20–74 years) from the Penn State Adult Cohort (47.5 years, 52.5% women, and 89.8% white) whose cause of death was determined after 19.2 years (5.2 years). CMR was defined as stage 2 hypertension and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus on the basis of blood pressure and glucose levels or a report of diagnosis or treatment for these conditions. CBVD was defined as a report of diagnosis or treatment for heart disease and/or stroke. Objective short sleep duration was defined as polysomnographic total sleep time <6 hours. Cox proportional hazard models estimated multivariable‐adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. Risk of all‐cause mortality associated with CMR or CBVD was significantly modified by objective sleep duration (P<0.05), and it was significantly higher in subjects who slept <6 hours (HR, 2.14 [95% CI, 1.52–3.02] and HR, 3.17 [95% CI=2.16–4.65], respectively). In subjects who slept <6 hours, CMR was associated with a 1.83 higher (95% CI, 1.07–3.13) risk of CBVD mortality and CBVD with a 2.92 higher (95% CI, 1.28–6.65) risk of cancer mortality. In subjects who slept ≥6 hours, CMR was not significantly associated with CBVD mortality (HR, 1.35; 95% CI, 0.70–2.63) nor was CBVD significantly associated with cancer mortality (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.18–1.64). Conclusions Objective short sleep duration predicts the all‐cause mortality prognosis of middle‐aged adults with CMR and the cancer‐specific mortality prognosis of those with CBVD.


Collaborative law is a relatively recent development within family law practice. This new process is claimed to build on the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of both family mediation and conventional solicitor negotiation. Drawing on data from a small scale qualitative study, this article considers how this new mode of family law practice might change the role of the family lawyer and highlights some of the tensions which may arise as practitioners adapt to it when resolving the financial and property disputes arising on divorce/separation.


Factors That Influence HIV Testing Among African American College Women by Brandi J. Sampson MSW, University of Southern Mississippi, 2006 BSW, University of Southern Mississippi, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Community Health Education Walden University December 2015 Abstract Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has become one of the world's most serious health and development challenges. It is important for African American female students who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to engage in routine HIV testing and know their HIV status based on the high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among African American women and the risk of engaging in risky sexual behavior in a college. This qualitative study was developed to help gain a better understanding of how African American female students who attend HBCUs make the decision to engage in HIV testing and their attitudes toward HIV testing. Face-to-face individual interviews were conducted to collect data from African American female students who attend a HBCU. By using the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior (TRA/TPB), behaviors, intentions, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were explored by addressing questions and topics related to attitudes and decision making toward HIV testing. The women interviewed in this study had accepting and positive attitudes toward HIV testing. Perceived risk level was the leading a factor in making the decision to be tested for HIV among participating women. Understanding how these factors affect communities will help public health professionals, educators, community leaders,Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has become one of the world's most serious health and development challenges. It is important for African American female students who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to engage in routine HIV testing and know their HIV status based on the high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among African American women and the risk of engaging in risky sexual behavior in a college. This qualitative study was developed to help gain a better understanding of how African American female students who attend HBCUs make the decision to engage in HIV testing and their attitudes toward HIV testing. Face-to-face individual interviews were conducted to collect data from African American female students who attend a HBCU. By using the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior (TRA/TPB), behaviors, intentions, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were explored by addressing questions and topics related to attitudes and decision making toward HIV testing. The women interviewed in this study had accepting and positive attitudes toward HIV testing. Perceived risk level was the leading a factor in making the decision to be tested for HIV among participating women. Understanding how these factors affect communities will help public health professionals, educators, community leaders, university personnel, policy makers, community organizations, and researchers develop the most effective strategies for the development and delivery of HIV testing messages that target African American female students who attend HBCUs. Factors That Influence HIV Testing Among African American College Women by Brandi J. Sampson MSW, University of Southern Mississippi, 2006 BSW, University of Southern Mississippi, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Community Health Education


Abstract Changes in molluscan diversity across the 3rd order sequence boundary from the Lower to the Middle Miocene of the Paratethys were evaluated in the context of environmental bias. Taken at face value, quantitative data from nearshore and sublittoral shell beds suggest a transition from low-diversity Karpatian (Upper Burdigalian) to highly diverse Badenian (Langhian and Lower Serravallian) assemblages, but environmental affiliation of samples reveals a strong facies shift across the sequence boundary. Ordination methods show that benthic assemblages of the two stages, including 4 biozones and four 3rd order depositional sequences over less than four million years, are developed along the same depth-related environmental gradient. Almost all samples are from highstand systems tracts, but Karpatian faunas are mostly from nearshore settings, and Badenian faunas are strongly dominated by sublittoral assemblages. This study emphasizes the importance of highly resolved stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental frameworks for deciphering palaeodiversity patterns at regional scales and highlights the effort required to reach the asymptote of the collector's curve. Abundance data facilitate the recognition of ecological changes in regional biota and it is suggested that in second and higher order sequences the facies covered within systems tracts will drive observed diversity patterns.


Knowledge about the effects of the rise in atmospheric CO $\_2$ concentration on trees and forest is assessed and, the converse, the possible impact of forests on the atmospheric CO $\_2$ concentration is discussed. At the cellular scale, much is known about the role of CO $\_2$ as a substrate in photosynthesis, but only little about its role as an activator and regulator. At the leaf scale, the response of $CO\_2$ assimilation to $CO\_2$ concentration has been described often and is well represented by biochemically based models, but there is inadequate information to parametrize the models of $CO\_2$ -acclimated leaves. Growth and partitioning to the roots of seedlings and young trees generally increases in response to a doubling in atmospheric $CO\_2$ concentration. Experimental results are very variable, because of the differing length of the experiments, the artificial conditions and the artefactual constraints. At larger scales, direct measurements of responses to increase in atmospheric CO $\_2$ are impractical but models of canopy processes suggest that significant increases in CO2 assimilation will result from the rise in atmospheric concentration. Inferences from the increase in amplitude of the seasonal oscillation in the global atmospheric CO2 concentration at different latitudes suggest that forest is having a significant impact on the global atmospheric concentration, but it seems unlikely that expansion of the forest resource could effectively reduce the increase in atmospheric CO $_2$ .


This paper reviews the pathways that large volume utility wastes can take which can cause environmental effects. Potential interactions of the environment with land-disposed utility wastes include: (1) effects on local air quality, (2) efforts on soils and vegetation, (3) phytotoxicity, (4) groundwater effeccts, (5) effects on surface waters, and (6) disposal site washout. Both natural and engineered mitigating mechanisms are reviewed.


In a context of precariousness of Modern Foreign Languages and promotion of e-learning at national level, often referred to as "technology-enhanced learning", the targeted institution, a "new" university in the United Kingdom, offers an Institution-Wide Language Programme where language classes are presented as a blended learning package of face-to-face classes coupled with the use of the Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Operating within a hermeneutical phenomenological approach and constructionist epistemological principles, this thesis seeks to investigate the students' experience of a VLE among beginners and post-beginners of French and in particular whether their level (beginners or post-beginners), status (undergraduates, post-graduates or external students) or the lecturers in charge of the various groups for the face-to-face component of the module, have any significance on their experience.

At a time when the students' feedback and the quality of their learning experience are considered with care by institutions of Higher Education, this thesis contributes to an enhanced knowledge of the students' experience in connection with a VLE, obtained through a mixed-method approach based on the completion of 96 questionnaires and six follow-up interviews, in association with socio-constructivist principles.

This research differentiates itself by being conducted specifically about students' experience of the institutional VLE in a context of blended learning, with students based primarily on site, and study of languages. Although they may be considered as digitally literate, students' response regarding their own experiences indicates that digital skills do not appear as readily transferable to formal learning contexts. Therefore, lecturers need to guide students in a structured and progressive manner in order to maximise their engagement with the VLE. In addition, it contributes further to knowledge by highlighting implications for pedagogical practices.


Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) have developed in many European countries at both national and regional levels to assist in the support of local industry, often around specific industrial technologies or sectors. With a core responsibility for technological upgrading they play a key role in regional and national innovation systems. Yet there is great variety in the form and mission of such RTOs, especially in terms of the degree of regional alignment, and whilst some regions are relatively well endowed with multiple RTOs, others are reliant on national RTOs in other regions or even other countries. These geographical challenges are also compounded by changes in the funding of RTOs with a shift to greater reliance on non-government funding and the search for funds from international sources such as global firms or Horizon 2020 projects. So whilst regions may see RTOs as critical regional assets, the RTOs may have a more nuanced attitude as their client base extends beyond national boundaries and they search for new sources of revenue. RTOs have an important role to play in smart specialisation (S3) though and three specific roles have been identified here. First, many RTOs have a policy role and have capabilities to identify industry needs and technological opportunities as a key input into the entrepreneurial discovery process. Second, RTOs, as increasingly international organisations, can facilitate the access to global knowledge for regional firms through their networks and research collaborations. Third RTOs often have a central role in the development of particular cluster groupings through their specialisation around core technologies, and as such can be a central player in the development of such clusters. But all three of these roles involve potential challenges and difficulties as the interests of the RTOs do not necessarily align with the needs of the region. The case studies in this report on RTOs in Spain, Finland, Italy, and the UK illustrate the variety of RTOs and the complexities of their relationships with regional hosts, but also some of the initiatives that are developing to support smart specialisation.


Context. In the deeply embedded stage of star formation, protostars start to heat and disperse their surrounding cloud cores. The evolution of these sources has traditionally been traced through dust continuum spectral energy distributions (SEDs), but the use of CO excitation as an evolutionary probe has not yet been explored due to the lack of high-J CO observations.
 Aims: The aim is to constrain the physical characteristics (excitation, kinematics, column density) of the warm gas in low-mass protostellar envelopes using spectrally resolved Herschel data of CO and compare those with the colder gas traced by lower excitation lines.
 Methods: Herschel-HIFI observations of high-J lines of $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O (up to J$_u$ = 10, E$_u$ up to 300 K) are presented toward 26 deeply embedded low-mass Class 0 and Class I young stellar objects, obtained as part of the Water In Star-forming regions with Herschel (WISH) key program. This is the first large spectrally resolved high-J CO survey conducted for these types of sources. Complementary lower J CO maps were observed using ground-based telescopes, such as the JCMT and APEX and convolved to matching beam sizes.
 Results: The $^{12}$CO 10-9 line is detected for all objects and can generally be decomposed into a narrow and a broad component owing to the quiescent envelope and entrained outflow material, respectively. The $^{12}$CO excitation temperature increases with velocity from ~{}60 K up to ~{}130 K. The median excitation temperatures for $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O derived from single-temperature fits to the J$_u$ = 2-10 integrated intensities are ~{}70 K, 48 K and 37 K, respectively, with no significant difference between Class 0 and Class I sources and no trend with M$_{env}$ or L$_{bol}$. Thus, in contrast to the continuum SEDs, the spectral line energy distributions (SLEDs) do not show any evolution during the embedded stage. In contrast, the integrated line intensities of all CO isotopologs show a clear decrease with evolutionary stage as the envelope is dispersed. Models of the collapse and evolution of protostellar envelopes reproduce the C$^{18}$O results well, but underproduce the $^{13}$CO and $^{12}$CO excitation temperatures, due to lack of UV heating and outflow components in those models. The H$_{2}$O 1$_{10}$ - 1$_{01}$/CO 10-9 intensity ratio does not change significantly with velocity, in contrast to the H$_{2}$O/CO 3-2 ratio, indicating that CO 10-9 is the lowest transition for which the line wings probe the same warm shocked gas as H$_{2}$O. Modeling of the full suite of C$^{18}$O lines indicates an abundance profile for Class 0 sources that is consistent with a freeze-out zone below 25 K and evaporation at higher temperatures, but with some fraction of the CO transformed into other species in the cold phase. In contrast, the observations for two Class I sources in Ophiuchus are consistent with a constant high CO abundance profile.
 Conclusions: The velocity resolved line profiles trace the evolution from the Class 0 to the Class I phase through decreasing line intensities, less prominent outflow wings, and increasing average CO abundances. However, the CO excitation temperature stays nearly constant. The multiple components found here indicate that the analysis of spectrally unresolved data, such as provided by SPIRE and PACS, must be done with caution. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.Appendices C and D are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org


Self-immolative polymers are a recently developed class of degradable polymers capable of undergoing end-to-end depolymerization following the reaction of their endcaps with appropriate stimuli. Self-immolative materials originated in the field of prodrug chemistry, and evolved into self-immolative oligomers, dendrimers, and most recently, linear polymers. Many stimuli-responsive endcaps have been developed, but typically can only respond to one stimulus. Azobenzenes are a well-known class of stimuli-responsive molecules most commonly used as photoswitches, due to their facile trans-cis isomerization. In addition to their photochemistry, azobenzenes have recently been found to be selectively reductionsensitive, and are therefore of interest as endcaps in self-immolative polymers. The two fields of azobenzenes and self-immolative polymers have not previously been combined, and it is the work described herein that is the first to do so. This thesis demonstrates that azobenzenes can be useful as multistimuli-responsive units in self-immolative polymers. First, the reduction-sensitivity of azobenzene was demonstrated in the context of two self-immolative polymer backbones. The synthesis and depolymerization of these materials showed that azobenzene endcaps could be successfully incorporated into – and used to trigger – self-immolative polymers. In the next study, a library of reduction-sensitive azobenzenes was prepared to determine which azobenzene compounds were most suited for use as reduction-sensitive endcaps. A 2-Cl azobenzene derivative was reduced most quickly, and this compound was incorporated as pendant units in an amphiphilic chain-shattering graft copolymer based on a poly(ester amide) backbone. It was found that these azobenzenes imparted both photoand reduction-sensitivity to aqueous polymer assemblies, and could respond synergistically to both stimuli. In the final study, two distinct linear self-immolative polymer backbones, a polycarbamate and a polyglyoxylate, were synthesized with an azobenzene linker, and conjugated to poly(ethylene oxide) using click chemistry. The synthesized amphiphilic block copolymers were reduction-sensitive, and their aqueous assemblies were shown to encapsulate and release a hydrophobic cargo under reducing conditions. The multifaceted applicability of azobenzene was highlighted in these studies, first as a reduction-sensitive endcap, then as a dual-responsive trigger for chain-shattering poly(ester amide)s, and finally as a reduction-sensitive linker in diblock copolymers.


This document specifies three sets of new ciphersuites for the
Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to support authentication
based on pre-shared keys. These pre-shared keys are symmetric keys,
shared in advance among the communicating parties. The first set of
ciphersuites uses only symmetric key operations for authentication.
The second set uses a Diffie-Hellman exchange authenticated with a
pre-shared key; and the third set combines public key authentication
of the server with pre-shared key authentication of the client.


We report the observation of superconductivity in the CuIr${}_{2}$Se${}_{4}$ spinel induced by partial substitution of Pt for Ir. The optimal doping level for superconductivity in Cu(Ir${}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$Pt${}_{x}$)${}_{2}$Se${}_{4}$ is $x$ $=$ 0.2, where ${T}_{c}$ is 1.76 K. A superconducting ${T}_{c}$ vs composition dome is established between the metallic, normal conductor CuIr${}_{2}$Se${}_{4}$ and semiconducting CuIrPtSe${}_{4}$. Electronic structure calculations show that the optimal ${T}_{c}$ occurs near the electron count of a large peak in the calculated electronic density of states and that CuIrPtSe${}_{4}$ is a band-filled insulator. Characterization of the superconducting state in this heavy metal spinel through determination of $\ensuremath{\Delta}C/\ensuremath{\gamma}{T}_{c}$ indicates that it is BCS-like. The relatively high upper critical field at the optimal superconducting composition [${H}_{c}$${}_{2}$(0) $=$ 3.2 T] is much larger than that reported for analogous rhodium spinels and is comparable to or exceeds the Pauli field (${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{0}{H}_{P}$), suggesting that strong spin-orbit coupling may influence the superconducting state. Further, comparison to doped CuIr${}_{2}$S${}_{4}$ suggests that superconductivity in iridium spinels is not necessarily associated with the destabilization of a charge-ordered spin-paired state through doping.


The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is an innovative large telescope of 9.2 meter aperture, located in West Texas at the McDonald Observatory (MDO). The HET operates with a fixed segmented primary and has a tracker which moves the four-mirror corrector and prime focus instrument package to track the sidereal and non-sidereal motions of objects. A major upgrade of the HET is in progress that will increase the pupil size to 10 meters and the field of view to 22′ by replacing the corrector, tracker and prime focus instrument package. In addition to supporting the existing suite of instruments, this wide field upgrade will feed a revolutionary new integral field spectrograph called VIRUS, in support of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEXχ). This paper discusses the current status of this upgrade.


Refrigerators are one of the main devices used in our daily lives, and they play important roles in storing food and maintaining its freshness. Refrigerator manufacturing is improving day by day and it is important for the appliance to present a diverse array of functions to its users, since usage requirements vary from region to region. For this purpose, refrigerators must pass through various performance tests like an energy efficiency test while they are produced in factories. Factories have designated testing rooms for these performance tests. After the products' release, technical services and customers do not have such a luxury of pretesting the machines.In this study, a portable performance-testing device was designed specifically for household refrigerators. Experimental analyses were based on the TS EN 15 502 standards, which are compatible with the IEC 62552 standards. The test series consisted of temperature, current, voltage, and humidity measurements. The control results were indicated by an Arduino-based microprocessor. The tests could be controlled by the users in real time via an LCD panel on top of the indicated testing device. The monitor showed the relevant interface programs written in C# and a web interface. Moreover, the developed setup could determine the energy efficiency class of refrigerators, among their other qualities.


This study investigated the role of recollected school-based motivation on university students' willingness to use new learning opportunities. Following Eccles' expectancy-value theory, willingness to learn was conceptualized as task value, which has been found to predict task choice in previous empirical studies. Based on three motivational theories, we suggest two broad motivational dimensions for an economic description of motivational orientations, inward and outward , that should differentially predict the formation of task value. German university students ( N = 1580) were asked about their task value for receiving their instructions in English as a foreign language at university and, retrospectively, their motivation in English language class at secondary school. Principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analyses of motivational variables yielded a two-factor solution supporting the differentiation between inward and outward motivational orientation. Inward motivational orientation at school was positively linked to students' task value in adulthood, even if the individual's self-concept of ability was controlled. The effects of outward motivation were rather small and tended to be counterproductive. Our findings suggest a complex interplay between past and present motivation and self-concept of ability underlying one's willingness to learn and to participate in education.


With recent headlines of school shootings and vehicular homicide dominating the news, social concern about the prevention of violent crimes and violent behavior only continues to increase. It seems logical that the issue of violent crimeshould also be a concern for campus police depart-ments and administrators of college campuses. However, despite recent advances in identifying risk factors related to violent criminal behavior and in the development of theories and methods of perpetrator identification, there is no published data regarding how or if these advances are be-ing put to use in settings such as college campuses. This paper presents a preliminary survey of campus police officers' perceptions of their training, their concerns about areas of additional training and their level of current understanding of mental illness, and risk for violence. The officers' perceptions were obtained by a brief three-page survey that asks the officers basic questions about their length of service, their position, and then asks questions related to events that have occurred during their duties. Data was collected from four regional universities in Michigan and analyzed at GVSU by the investigators. ABSTRACT With recent of school shootings and vehicular homicide dominating the news, social concern about the of violent crimes and violent behavior only continues to increase. It seems logical that the issue of violent crimeshould also be a concern for campus and administrators of college campuses. However, despite recent related to violent criminal behaviorand in the development of theories and methods of identification, there is no published how or if advances are put to use in settings such paper a preliminary surveyof campus police officers' training, their concerns aboutareas of additional trainingand their level of currentunderstanding mental illness, and riskfor violence. The officers' perceptions were obtained by a brief three-page survey that asks the officers basic questions about their length of service, their position, and then asks questions related to events that have occurred during their duties. Data was collected from four regional universities in Michigan and analyzed at GVSU by the investigators.


A constraint model for scheduling train trips on a network of tracks used in both directions, using a headway abstraction is described. We argue that a generalisation of a straightforward job-shop scheduling formulation using sequence dependent task extensions can decrease the required resolution of network representation and hence problem size. A geometric interpretation of the model of the constraints that can be used to visualise schedules is presented. Preliminary ideas on search heuristics are presented with performance results and a set of examples.


Distributed computing systems, including those that utilize space-based middleware, present significant challenges when attempting to reason formally about their behaviors and properties. In particular, two or more computational events may occur in parallel. We introduce View-Centric Reasoning (VCR)—a set of abstractions that comprises a general framework for reasoning about parallel and distributed computation. First we extend the CSP metaphor to support traces of parallel events, rather than the traditional random interleaving of individual events. Next we introduce the concept of views to represent explicitly the multiple possible perspectives of the same parallel computation. Finally, we consider an instance of VCR for reasoning about Gelernter's Linda language and tuple space computation, the basis for much of today's space-based middleware.


Acute cholecystitis is a common cause of abdominal pain in the Western world. Unless treated promptly, patients with acute cholecystitis may develop complications such as gangrenous, perforated, or emphysematous cholecystitis. Because of the increased morbidity and mortality of complicated cholecystitis, early diagnosis and treatment are essential for optimal patient care. Nevertheless, complicated cholecystitis may pose significant challenges with cross-sectional imaging, including sonography and computed tomography (CT). Interpreting radiologists should be familiar with the spectrum of sonographic findings seen with complicated cholecystitis and as well as understand the complementary role of CT. Worrisome imaging findings for complicated cholecystitis include intraluminal findings (sloughed mucosa, hemorrhage, abnormal gas), gallbladder wall abnormalities (striations, asymmetric wall thickening, abnormal gas, loss of sonoreflectivity and contrast enhancement), and pericholecystic changes (echogenic fat, pericholecystic fluid, abscess formation). Finally, diagnosis of complicated cholecystitis by sonography and CT can guide alternative treatments including minimally invasive percutaneous and endoscopic options.


This article examines the incentives for banks to hold various assets on their balance sheets for use as collateral when the opportunity cost of doing so can be high. Focusing on the five-year period (2002-07) that preceded the financial crisis, it examines the choices made by financial institutions among the assets that are pledged as collateral in Canada's Large Value Transfer System. This serves as a baseline for collateral-management practices during relatively normal times. The results of this study are important for policy-makers, especially the Bank of Canada, which is concerned both about the efficient functioning of fixed-income markets and about the credit risk it ultimately bears in insuring LVTS settlement. The results suggest that relative market liquidity and market-making capacity are important factors in the choice of securities pledged as collateral in the LVTS.


People react differently to stress. According to the Cognitive Motivational Relational Theory by Lazarus and Folkman, the appraisal of stress and the emotions related to it determine whether people cope with stress by focussing on altering the situation (problem focussed) or on changing the emotional consequences of the events (emotion focussed). These different coping strategies have different effects on the long term. The coping process can be described in a formal dynamic model. Simulations using this model show that problem focussed coping leads to better coping skills and higher decrease of long-term stress than emotion focussed coping. These results also follow from a mathematical analysis of the model. The presented model can form the basis of an intelligent support system that uses a simulation of cognitive processes in humans in stressful conditions.


ABSTRACT This article explores the representation of buildings in Wim Wenders' anthology film Cathedrals of Culture [2014. Directors: Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olith, Karim Anouiz]. In this, six landmarks of public architecture, reflecting a commitment to diverse social practices are presented in response to the film's unifying brief of capturing the 'soul of buildings'. The article centres on a selection of three films, The Berlin Philharmonic by Wenders himself, The National Library of Russia by Michael Glawogger and Michael Madsen's contribution about Halden Prison. The analysis of the different filmic approaches taken to the representation of architecture focuses in particular, on how these draw in very different ways on a first person voice-over and the use of 3D. Overall, these films construct different epistemic positions on how public architecture may be known and they challenge traditional notions of buildings as static and material. Instead they mobilise filmic resources to show how social practices and meanings become manifest in the physical features of buildings and how, in turn, such practices are shaped by the architecture. They transform these material structures into 'building-events' [Jacobs, J. 2006. "A Geography of Big Things." Cultural Geographies 13: 1–27].


In the past few decades, an area of skeletal research focusing on shape analyses has gained popularity in the field of physical anthropology, and subsequently forensic anthropology. Known as geometric morphometrics, this type of analysis allows the researcher to place the morphological shape of bones into a statistical framework to answer questions on a variety of topics, including sexual dimorphism. Sex assessment from the long bones has been traditionally conducted using traditional morphometric methods (Iscan and Miller-Shaivitz 1984; Steyn and Iscan 1997), and as a result, relies mainly on size differences and has not considered how joint morphology and shape affect sex. For this project, a geometric morphometric analysis of the proximal tibia in a modern Caucasian American population was conducted using a sample of 100 male and 100 female tibiae from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The proximal tibia's effectiveness as an indicator of sex in a modern American population was evaluated via generalized Procrustes, principal components, and discriminant function analyses. Principal components revealed a lack of separation between males and females in terms of proximal tibia shape. The discriminant function analysis was successful at discriminating males from females, but cross-validation yielded a low total accuracy rate of 58%. The shape of the proximal


Bitcoin provides only pseudo-anonymous transactions, which can be exploited to link payers and payees -- defeating the goal of anonymous payments. To thwart such attacks, several Bitcoin mixers have been proposed, with the objective of providing unlinkability between payers and payees. However, existing Bitcoin mixers can be regarded as either insecure or inefficient. We present Obscuro, a highly efficient and secure Bitcoin mixer that utilizes trusted execution environments (TEEs). With the TEE's confidentiality and integrity guarantees for code and data, our mixer design ensures the correct mixing operations and the protection of sensitive data (i.e., private keys and mixing logs), ruling out coin theft and address linking attacks by a malicious service provider. Yet, the TEE-based implementation does not prevent the manipulation of inputs (e.g., deposit submissions, blockchain feeds) to the mixer, hence Obscuro is designed to overcome such limitations: it (1) offers an indirect deposit mechanism to prevent a malicious service provider from rejecting benign user deposits; and (2) scrutinizes blockchain feeds to prevent deposits from being mixed more than once (thus degrading anonymity) while being eclipsed from the main blockchain branch. In addition, Obscuro provides several unique anonymity features (e.g., minimum mixing set size guarantee, resistant to dropping user deposits) that are not available in existing centralized and decentralized mixers. Our prototype of Obscuro is built using Intel SGX and we demonstrate its effectiveness in Bitcoin Testnet. Our implementation mixes 1000 inputs in just 6.49 seconds, which vastly outperforms all of the existing decentralized mixers.


Technology as it finds its wide range of application in every field not exception even the Mobile technology. One of the technologies which aid the blind person to call in android mobile is Virtual Reality. Even though virtual reality is employed to carry out operations the blind person attention is one of the most important parameter. If they commit any mistakes to use apps it leads to a wrong call. So, one may think of a technology that reduces the burdens of a blind person by using apps. Now dream came be reality by means of a technology called "HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY". Haptic is the "science of apply tactile sensation to human interaction with computers. In the document we have discussed the basic concept behind haptic along with haptic device and how those devices are interacted to produce sense of touch also force feedback mechanism. Also the implementation of this mechanism means of haptic rendering and contact detection were discussed. We mainly focus on the 'Application of Haptic Technology in Surgical Simulation and Medical Training'. Further we explain a storage and retrieval haptic data while working with haptic devices. Also the necessity of haptic data compression is illustrated.


A proven bestseller time and time again, "Robert Frost's Poems" contains all of Robert Frost's best-known poems-and dozens more-in a portable anthology. Here are "Birches," "Mending Wall," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Two Tramps at Mudtime," "Choose Something Like a Star," and "The Gift Outright," which Frost read at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy." An essential addition to every home library, "Robert Frost's Poems" is a celebration of the New England countryside, Frost's appreciation of common folk, and his wonderful understanding of the human condition. These classic verses touch our hearts and leave behind a lasting impression.* Over 100 poems* All Frost's best known verses from throughout his life


Combined experimental und numerical investigations of the turbulent wake of a generic space launcher at transonic free stream conditions (Ma∞ = 0.7 and ReD = 1.0 · 106 ) are performed to gain a better understanding of intricate phenomena of the wake flow physics and to validate new methods for its analysis. The experiments are conducted at the Bundeswehr University Munich using a high-repetition-rate particle image velocimetry (PIV) system, while the numerical investigation is performed by the Institute of Aerodynamics of RWTH Aachen University using a zonal Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) / large-eddy simulation (LES) approach. After a characterization of the wake flow topology, two applied methodologies are compared to each other with respect to the spatial and temporal resolution stressing their strengths and shortcomings. It is shown that both methods are well suitable for the prediction of the mean and instantaneous values of the turbulent velocity field, whereas for a reliable statistical analysis of the velocity fluctuations, the PIV approach is more appropriate due to the computational time limitations of the LES. On the other hand, the high spatial and temporal resolution of the LES allows for an accurate detection of relevant coherent structures as well as tracking their motion in time without any significant artificial vortex agglomeration that can be critical in the case of PIV. Furthermore, the influence of different model assumptions, e. g., the level of incoming turbulence and model vibrations, is discussed in order to emphasize the importance of a side-by-side combination of both investigation techniques.