Optimal N fertilization in agricultural production is necessary to achieve both economical success and to minimize nitrate transport to surface and subsurface waters. The degree of uncertainty associated with economically optimum fertilizer rate (EOR) estimation is generally overlooked, and there are no standard procedures to calculate confidence intervals (CIs) ofEORs. In this paper, we present methodologies for the estimation of CIs around ex post EORs. We review four CI methods and illustrate the procedures with a sample dataset consisting of five sites, showing computations involved. Ranges in CIs about the EOR values for sites 1 through 5 (averaged across CI methods) were 15.8, 59.9, 41.7, 62.1, and 203.6 kg N ha -1 , respectively. Ranges in the 90% CI of EOR values at sites 2 to 5 were quite large relative to EOR values themselves, ranging from 29 to 106% of EOR values. Classical symmetrical CIs were not adequate for economical optima of fertilizer response curves. Wald CIs as compared with profile-likelihood based CIs tended to overestimate the lower bound and underestimate the upper bound of the EOR CI. Profile-likelihood based CIs provide a superior, computationally viable methodology for EOR uncertainty estimation in nonlinear fertilizer response models. The bootstrap CI methodologies showed great potential to evaluate the uncertainty ofEORs. When compared with the profile-likelihood based CIs in our experimental areas, both bootstrapped CIs were likely to give comparable estimates for the lower bound of the CIs. The upper bounds were similar to or lower than the likelihood-based CIs. In all locations these distribution-free CIs performed better than the classical symmetrical Wald CI.


Simplifying the task of resource management and scheduling for customers, while still delivering complex Quality-of-Service (QoS), is key to cloud computing. Many autoscaling policies have been proposed in the past decade to decide on behalf of cloud customers when and how to provision resources to a cloud application utilizing cloud elasticity features. However, in prior work, when a new policy is proposed, it is seldom compared to the state-of-the-art, and is often compared only to static provisioning using a predefined QoS target. This reduces the ability of cloud customers and of cloud operators to choose and deploy an autoscaling policy. In our work, we conduct an experimental performance evaluation of autoscaling policies, using as application model workflows, a commonly used formalism for automating resource management for applications with well-defined yet complex structure. We present a detailed comparative study of general state-of-the-art autoscaling policies, along with two new workflow-specific policies. To understand the performance differences between the 7 policies, we conduct various forms of pairwise and group comparisons. We report both individual and aggregated metrics. Our results highlight the trade-offs between the suggested policies, and thus enable a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art.


This paper presents a laboratory and statistical study on swell and undrained shear strength of cemented organic clays blended with eco-friendly (by-product) cementitious materials such as ground granulated blast slag (GGBS) and cement kiln dust (CKD). The presence of organic matter in soils can be very problematic especially during construction of infrastructures such as roads and foundations. Therefore, experimental and statistical investigations are crucial to further understand the effect of organic matter on swell and strength performance of soils treated with by-product materials (GGBS and CKD). Five artificially synthesised organic clays with 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% organic matters were mixed with 20% cement during the first phase of mixing. In the second phase, cement content was reduced to 4% and blended with 12% GGBS and 4% CKD respectively. All mixed samples were cured up to 56days and subjected to undrained triaxial test and one-dimensional oedometer swell test. The undrained shear strength of the untreated soils decreases from 22.47kPa to 15.6kPa upon increase in organic matter from 0-20%. While the swell increases from 1.17% to 3.83% for the same range of 0-20% organic matter. The results also show improvement on strength and swell upon addition of 20% cement for all investigated samples. For samples treated with 4% cement and inclusion of 12% GGBS and 4% CKD, the treated soils showed better performance in terms of swell potential due to reduction in plasticity compared to the plasticity of soils treated with 20% cement. Undrained shear strength increases from 632kPa to 804.9kPa and from 549.8kPa to 724.4kPa with reduction in organic matter upon addition of 20% CEM and 4% CEM: 12% GGBS: 4% CKD after 56days. The results obtained show that the inclusion of GGBS and CKD reduced swell and increases undrained shear strength irrespective of the percentage of organic materials due to cementation effect. However, results of the statistical studies show that the presence of organic matter influences the extent of performance of the cement, GGBS and CKD treated soils.


Data mining is a new technology, developing with database and artificial intelligence. It is a processing procedure of extracting credible, novel, effective and understandable patterns from database. Cluster analysis is an important data mining technique used to find data segmentation and pattern information. By clustering the data, people can obtain the data distribution, observe the character of each cluster, and make further study on particular clusters. In addition, cluster analysis usually acts as the preprocessing of other data mining operations. Therefore, cluster analysis has become a very active research topic in data mining. As the development of data mining, a number of clustering methods have been founded, The study of clustering technique from the perspective of statistics, based on the statistical theories, our paper make effort to combine statistical method with the computer algorithm technique, and introduce the existing excellent statistical methods, including factor analysis, correspondence analysis, and functional data analysis, into data mining.


Terrorism research has begun to focus on the issue of radicalization, or the acceptance of ideological belief systems that lead toward violence. There has been particular attention paid to the role of the Internet in the exposure to and promotion of radical ideas. There is, however, minimal work that attempts to model the ways that messages are spread or how individual participation in radical on-line communities operates. In this paper, we present a stochastic linear system to represent the evolution of contribution to a sample of 126 threads in an on-line forum where individuals discuss radical belief systems. To estimate or predict the time-varying contributions of agents for given online-forum data, each agent's contribution has been modeled as a state variable. We then use the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to identify the model parameters including the adjacency matrix of the graph constructed among participating agents along with measurement and system uncertainty levels in online-postings. Our approach reveals the identified dynamical influences among agents in the time-varying shaping of the contribution in a datadriven fashion. We use the real-world data from online-postings to demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, and its application toward on-line radicalization.


OBJECTIVES
To determine in vitro the effects of 2 commercially available microabrasion compounds (Prema [Premiere Dental Products] and Opalustre [Ultradent]) on human enamel under standardized conditions after treatment periods of 10, 20, 30, and 40 seconds. Nonacidified pumice served as an abrasive control compound.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Mean substance loss was determined by measuring dissolved Ca2+ using atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Differences in the mean surface roughness were profilometrically assessed. These findings were completed with micromorphologic observations using SEM. In addition, color changes after microabrasion were evaluated using the CIE L*a*b* system.

RESULTS
Opalustre caused the highest tooth substance loss, followed by the Prema compound and pumice, which showed a lesser substance-removal capacity. These findings were in concordance with the mean surface roughness difference measurements and micromorphologic analyses. Microabrasion did not cause any significant colorimetric changes.

CONCLUSION
Microabrasion should be considered a microinvasive method, and clinical application should be used with caution to avoid excessive substance removal. Subsequent polishing appears crucial to maintain optimal esthetics and avoid surface alterations.


In this work, we used 248-nm 20-nsec laser pulses to measure laser-damage thresholds for halfwave-thick single layers of fifteen potential UV coating materials, for highly reflective coatings made of thirteen combinations of these materials, and for antireflective coatings made using five combinations of the materials. Refractive index, absorption, position of the UV absorption edge, stress, and environmental stability were measured for the halfwave-thick single layers. The first three of these parameters are closely related and were generally correlated with damage thresholds of the single-layer coatings. Thresholds of HR coatings were correlated with absorption in the high-index materials used in the coatings and with refractive index of the low-index materials. Thresholds of AR films were not well correlated with properties of single-layer coatings.


As the Independent Expert on the question of Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, for the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, I visited the United States of America from 24th October to 4th November 2005 and held meetings with people living in poverty, civil society organizations working for and with people living in poverty, as well as government officials in New York City; Immokalee in Florida; New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana; Jackson and the Delta region in Mississippi; Appalachia in Kentucky; and Washington, D.C. On the basis of these discussions and the materials submitted to me by all the participants and many studies on the subject of poverty in the U.S., I submitted a report to the Human Rights Commission on 17th March, 2006. After that, I was invited to the National Truth Commission, organised by Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, where a large number of activist organizations from different parts of the United States, presented the current status of living conditions and the nature of abject poverty of the various sections of the poor, living in America. Later another group, actively engaged in research on poverty in the U.S. met me in New York. All this enables me to update my earlier report, which was considered at a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 27th and attended by all governments, a large number of NGO's and many international institutions, who participated vigorously in the discussion, calling for follow-up actions. As the international human rights community is increasingly engaged in discussions on issues of extreme poverty, centering around poverty in the US, it may be useful to put the arguments I raised in my earlier reports, up for wider consideration.


We investigate, both theoretically and numerically, light confinement in dielectric structures with a transverse refractive index distribution periodically modulated in the longitudinal coordinate. We demonstrate that light can be guided even in the balanced limit when the average refractive index contrast vanishes in the direction of propagation, a dynamic trapping phenomenon analogous to the Kapitza effect in quantum mechanics. Finally, with reference to segmented waveguides with an unbalanced index modulation, we address the interplay of dynamic and static confinements.


In 1961-62 I had spent a year in Haiti as a Yale undergraduate anthropologist near Leogane, living with a Vodun priest and his family. I was studying the relationship between child rearing practices, psychosocial development, and spirit possession, trying to understand the dynamics and content of Voodoo possession states.

When the earthquake struck, and I finally reached some of my still living friends, the devastation and death stunned me, my tears leading to determination to go to Haiti to help. I contacted the Washington Psychiatric Society, and they, in turn, put me in touch with the World Psychiatric Association efforts around Haiti. I sent a brief resume, including my past experience in Haiti and rusty Creole. Mario Maj responded quickly, asking for my full resume. I was then contacted by Drs. Lynne Jones and Peter Hughes of the International Medical Corp., who interviewed me and arranged my deployment.

We were one of the first commercial flights into Port-au-Prince, and I was one of the first outside child psychiatrists to set foot on Haiti soil. The chaos on the ground as we emerged from the airport was not so beautiful. The few working streetlights revealed collapsed buildings along both sides as far as the eye could see, with tent cities interspersed with makeshift lean-to's around standing structures for fear of aftershocks. The streets were thronged with people, some nursing, others hawking goods, many on crutches, several with amputations. We passed the collapsed nursing school where 200 souls had perished in seconds, and then the presidential palace, collapsed and lopsided.

After several days I was sent to Petit Goave, to form a mental health team. Like in military psychiatry, we focused on interrupting stress, anxiety, phobic and depression-based symptoms interfering with normal grieving and self-righting so essential after mass trauma. With scarce resources, limited personnel, little time, and often one chance to help people, we had to be practical, and to link and leverage the work through using and strengthening connection with family, friends and community. We also tried to institute and use brief follow-up techniques.

We also taught a basic psychiatric pharmacy. It had to be very basic, not just because of the experience level of the people we were teaching, but because of the very limited supplies we had. But it was adequate and had the virtue of simplifying the treatment options and teaching requirements. Keeping "stress psychophysiology" in mind, we taught patients portable self-help intervention techniques, like rebreathing in a sac for hyperventilation and palpitation, along with the Valsalva or the childbirth "bearing down" maneuver. We looked for cycles of stress symptoms, and emphasized intervening just as the cycle began, using the above maneuvers, or positive imaging or progressive relaxation techniques to break the cycle. We used behavior and cognitive-behavioral and desensitization techniques to interrupt anxiety and phobic avoidance states. We used journaling and assigned homework, including re-establishing family connections through assigned group discussions of loss, or things blocking grieving. If certain priests refused to give funerals because the loved one's body could not be found for burial, we recommended finding other more enlightened priests for this important family-unifying, arrested-grief unblocking ritual. And we used brief follow-up clinics to provide the continuity and support of the clinic itself, and its nurses, and doctors to reward and insure that these things were done and that medicines were taken. We only used a "short medication leash", doling meds out a week at a time to get people back, and to help the Haitian doctors see the value of continuity and supportive follow-up. This also allowed them to see if their diagnosis was correct, and to learn to adjust the medications and see if and how they worked.

During the first weeks, we saw more acute cases, and more cases having to do directly with the trauma of the earthquake. But as time went on, there were fewer of the acute cases, and more of the chronic or severe cases. Part of this was just a matter of the time course of such conditions as the earthquake receded into the past. Some of the change was just natural resolution of acute stress and trauma reactions, some reflected the good work of the clinic, both medical and psychosocial. In effect, possibly we were draining the acute cases from the "catchment area"; at the same time, the presence and reputation of the clinic were spreading into the mountains and surrounding sugar plains, drawing in more long-standing chronic cases. I'm sure there are other explanations also.

Once our mental health clinics began to function, we went from just a few cases at first, to the word spreading and lots of cases being referred. We were not primarily doing a service mission, since our aim was to train the doctors and the nurses to do more of the work, and to get them interested and comfortable with it. To this end, I gave all-day Saturday psychosocial seminars and workshops. I also succeeded in getting an initially reluctant hospital medical staff at the Notre Dame Hospital to begin to refer some cases, first by teaching some of their residents invited to our seminar, and then responding quickly to a pair of very psychotic patients that were quite upsetting to the staff. From this we developed a good mutual relationship. But rising expectations in a situation short of psychiatric manpower is always a problem, which is why it is important to emphasize training the front line Haitian personnel to do the work. They will be staying and we will eventually go home. Finally, though it may seem cost-efficient to centralize these kinds of mental health teaching clinics, and they seem to be a luxury with low patient yield, it is always extremely important to do this kind of work on the front line where the teacher as well as the doctors being taught can feel the same pressure and pain, see what the realities are, and where the most staff of all disciplines can see the work being done and the results happening. It supports everyone in the effort.


We studied the properties of visual cortical and lateral geniculate neurons in 5 macaque monkeys raised with the vision of one eye blurred by daily instillation of atropine. This rearing reduced the degree of binocular interaction in striate cortical neurons and caused a modest shift in eye dominance away from the atropine-treated eye. It also led to a difference in the spatial properties of neurons driven by the 2 eyes: neurons driven by the treated eye tended to have lower optimal spatial frequencies, poorer spatial resolution, and lower contrast sensitivity than neurons driven by the untreated eye. Some of the few binocularly driven neurons had receptive fields with sharply different spatial properties in the 2 eyes, with the treated eye's receptive field always having poorer spatial resolution. In striate cortex, the effects on neuronal spatial properties were less marked in layer 4 than in more superficial or deeper layers; there was no difference in the spatial properties of lateral geniculate neurons driven by the 2 eyes. A small sample of extrastriate cortical neurons from a single animal showed effects similar to those seen in striate cortex. The striate cortical changes varied consistently from animal to animal: The less affected animals had no discernible eye dominance shift and relatively small differences in spatial properties between the eyes; the more affected animals had substantial eye dominance shifts and larger interocular spatial differences. These variations were also reflected in, and consistent with, behavioral and anatomical measurements performed in the same monkeys.


This article ethnographically explores how Central and West African masculinities and femininities are shaped and reshaped at the Moroccan-Spanish border in the context of the increased securitisation and politicisation of migrations from the global South to the global North. Apart from the migration regime at the outer border of the European Union, it also examines the role of the humanitarian regime in policing black migrants' gender identities. It aims to address an important aspect of the mobility experiences and bordering effects that tends to go under-researched. Drawing on long-term fi eldwork, which was carried out between 2015 and 2017, it presents detailed ethnographic examples of the construction of masculinities and femininities at the border and asks how these work to help or prevent mobility. Analysis of the intersections of the gender regime and the racialised migratory regime reveals the coloniality of security migration policies.


Abstract Mindfulness based interventions (MBI) may be an effective treatment for sexual dysfunction among men and women. A literature review identified seven trials for sexual dysfunction and MBI. Of these, four trials were Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) including a control-group wait list and three studies used within-subjects design. A meta-analysis synthesized the results across these trials which demonstrated an overall low to moderate effect size (Cohen's d = 0.55). Moderate heterogeneity between studies was evident with possible publication bias. Sub-group analysis revealed differences between study weights, where overall higher effect sizes were found among RCTs (d = 0.65) than within subject design studies (d = 0.27). However, within subject design studies tended to include pre and post-physiological measurements (e.g. vaginal photoplethysmography), which may provide a more precise evaluation of the benefits of MBI, rather than studies based on self-report measures only. This review identified a gender inequality in which clinical trials predominated among women compared to men with a 6:1 ratio. Whilst MBI looks promising, significantly more research is needed, particularly among men, so that science, practice and policy can develop an understanding of the potential benefits of non-prescription intervention alternatives, or as a biopsychosocial adjunct, such as MBI, in support of those experiencing sexual dysfunction.


ABSTRACT Wide band gap materials such as SiC, AlN, GaN, ZnO, and diamond have excellent properties such as high operation temperature when used as field effect devices and a high resonating frequency of the substrate materials used in piezoelectric resonator devices. Integration of FET and resonating sensors on the same chip enables powerful miniaturized devices, which can deliver increased information about a gas mixture or complex liquid. Examples of sensor devices based on different wide band gap materials will be given.


This study aimed to investigate the effect of decocted turmeric on performance, haematological parameters and carcass traits of broilers. Broiler chicks at 11 days of age were allotted to five groups, including T0 (birds drinking 100% water), T1 (25% decocted turmeric + 75% water), T2 (50% decocted turmeric + 50% water), T3 (75% decocted turmeric + 25% water) and T4 (100% decocted turmeric). The study was arranged based on a completely randomized design (CRD), parameters investigated was performance and blood chemistry (leukocyte, total protein, albumin, globulin, uric acid, glucose). The data were subjected to analysis of variance at 5% probability. Decocted turmeric did not affect weight gain, feed and water consumption and feed conversion ratio of broilers. Lymphocytes proportion was higher (P<0.05) in T1, T2 and T4 than in T0 and T3 birds. The heterophils to lymphocytes ratio was lower (P<0.05) in birds receiving decocted turmeric than control. Globulin concentration and albumin to globulin ratio were higher and lower (P<0.05), respectively, in serum of T2, T3 and T4 than T0 and T1 birds. The proportion of heterophils and concentration of serum total protein, albumin, uric acid and glucose were not different among treatments. The weight of breast meat was higher and lower (P<0.05) in T3 and T4 birds, respectively, compared to the control. In conclusion, providing decocted turmeric through drinking water helped to improve stress responses and increased the weight of breast meat of broiler chickens.


Specialised adolescent substance abuse interventions are still relatively new to Aotearoa/New Zealand. While over the years adolescents have often experimented with substances and some have had to get help with their use of substances, the interventions used with youth have often been adult focussed techniques and programmes, or have come from overseas experiences. This thesis brings together literature on adolescent substance abuse from around Aotearoa/New Zealand and overseas, qualitative knowledge from interviews with alcohol and drug workers working with adolescents in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and adolescents' own perspectives of adolescent substance abuse interventions. The main objective of this thesis has been to synthesise this knowledge in order to make some clear recommendations about what constitutes effective interventions with substance abusing adolescents in Aotearoa/New Zealand, so that they might be a practical guide for those working with, or intending to work with adolescents in this country.


This article reports a facile synthetic method for preparing hollow magnetic porous zirconia fibers based on electrospinning and their application as a carrier for the Fenton reaction. First, we prepared uniform hollow porous ZrO2 nanofibers by employing the coaxial electrospinning technique, followed by heat treatment. By adding magnetic particles to the inner electrospinning precursor solution, magnetic nanoparticles were conveniently assembled into the hollow ZrO2 fibers. The hollow magnetic porous zirconia fibers have a BET specific surface area of 34.70 m2 g−1 and a pore volume of 0.18 cm3 g−1. At the same time, the catalyst functioned as an excellent carrier to load iron ions for the Fenton reaction. These iron-loaded fibers exhibited excellent catalytic performance towards the degradation of organic pollutants, such as methylene blue and phenol. Methylene blue with different initial concentrations (from 50 ppm to 300 ppm) can be effectively degraded (99% to 90%). More importantly, the fibers have unique magnetic properties and can be easily removed and reused, thus showing great potential for practical applications.


Summary 1. In 16 borderline and 18 sustained hypertensive patients, interventricular septal thicknesses (by echocardiography) were greater than those found in 18 healthy subjects. Values in borderline and sustained hypertensives did not differ significantly. 2. In healthy subjects and borderline hypertensive patients, posterior wall thicknesses were normal, whereas they were greater in sustained hypertensive patients than in the former two groups. 3. In borderline hypertension, interventricular septal thickness was positively correlated with resting supine (r = 0.89, P < 0401) as well as upright (r = 0.60, P < 0.01) plasma noradrenaline, but not with adrenaline, plasma renin activity and mean blood pressure. 4. In sustained hypertension, posterior wall thickness was positively correlated with mean blood pressure (r = 0.85, P < 0401), but not with noradrenaline, adrenaline and plasma renin activity. 5. In human hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy seems to involve only the interventricular septum in the borderline stage, extending to the posterior wall in the sustained stage. Adrenergic overactivity could play an important role in development of interventricular septal hypertrophy in borderline hypertension, whereas pressor factors could be mainly involved in the development of posterior wall hypertrophy in sustained hypertension.


Data-driven learning typically involves the use of dedicated concordancers to explore linguistic corpora, which may require significant training if the technology is not to be an obstacle for teacher and learner alike. One possibility is to begin not with corpus or concordancer, but to find parallels with what 'ordinary' users already do. This paper compares the web to a corpus, regular search engines to concordancers, and the techniques used in web searches to data-driven learning. It also examines previous studies which exploit web searches in ways not incompatible with a DDL approach.


The need to re-examine Rangea has been motivated by two factors: first, by the recent progress in the understanding of three-dimensional mouldic preservation of Vendian fossils, and second, by discoveries of this taxon outside Gondwana albeit in the same sedimentary environment as seen in Namibia. Several important features are revealed, including the in situ posture in the sediment, the double-layered quilted structure, the tripartite stemless body and the mucous-supported sheath in the sediment. It is suggested that Rangea represents an infaunal organism, and that the similarity with other members of the Nama-type biota reflects convergence in functional and fabricational constraints in relation to infaunal life habit.


This is a graduate textbook of advanced tutorials on the theory of cryptography and computational complexity. In particular, the chapters explain aspects of garbled circuits, public-key cryptography, pseudorandom functions, one-way functions, homomorphic encryption, the simulation proof technique, and the complexity of differential privacy. Most chapters progress methodically through motivations, foundations, definitions, major results, issues surrounding feasibility, surveys of recent developments, and suggestions for further study. This book honors Professor Oded Goldreich, a pioneering scientist, educator, and mentor. Oded was instrumental in laying down the foundations of cryptography, and he inspired the contributing authors, Benny Applebaum, Boaz Barak, Andrej Bogdanov, Iftach Haitner, Shai Halevi, Yehuda Lindell, Alon Rosen, and Salil Vadhan, themselves leading researchers on the theory of cryptography and computational complexity. The book is appropriate for graduate tutorials and seminars, and for self-study by experienced researchers, assuming prior knowledge of the theory of cryptography.


Using the case of the Rome-based media group ZaLab, this article examines the articulations that shape and define the multiple dynamics of connected activism in contemporary societies. The first section engages the existing literature on convergence, commodity activism, and connectivity as theoretical frameworks of my analysis of ZaLab. The second section provides some context on the Italian mainstream and activist mediascapes, both of which shape ZaLab's media practices. The last section examines a few specific examples of ZaLab's productions and the activist campaign created to promote them. I conclude with some reflections on the nature of contemporary media practices as part of what I call "matrix activism."


The literature on small business creation gives tremendous importance to the procedures' analysis and creation in order to determine the characteristics specific to small businesses.
The creation operation requires a support process based on a symbiotic relationship between the accompanist and the accompanied.
Most studies confirm that small businesses are better than great enterprises to achieve economic development, because they own flexibility and are able to combine economic development and provide jobs, as well as their capacity for innovation, creativity and development of new products. At the same time, small enterprises face a lot of problems, including marketing, financial and administrative problems, which threaten the survival of many of them, making solving them a priority within the various development programs and strategies in the most developing countries. This interest led to the emergence of many of the bodies associated with them, to ensure success and minimize failures.
In this paper, we explain the concept and various associated structures, we also offer an analysis of the reality of supporting small businesses in Algeria.


The glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) is a key therapeutic target in the management of type II diabetes mellitus, with actions including regulation of insulin biosynthesis and secretion, promotion of satiety, and preservation of β-cell mass. Like most class B G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), there is limited knowledge linking biological activity of the GLP-1R with the molecular structure of an intact, full-length, and functional receptor·ligand complex. In this study, we have utilized genetic code expansion to site-specifically incorporate the photoactive amino acid p-azido-l-phenylalanine (azF) into N-terminal residues of a full-length functional human GLP-1R in mammalian cells. UV-mediated photolysis of azF was then carried out to induce targeted photocross-linking to determine the proximity of the azido group in the mutant receptor with the peptide exendin-4. Cross-linking data were compared directly with the crystal structure of the isolated N-terminal extracellular domain of the GLP-1R in complex with exendin(9–39), revealing both similarities as well as distinct differences in the mode of interaction. Generation of a molecular model to accommodate the photocross-linking constraints highlights the potential influence of environmental conditions on the conformation of the receptor·peptide complex, including folding dynamics of the peptide and formation of dimeric and higher order oligomeric receptor multimers. These data demonstrate that crystal structures of isolated receptor regions may not give a complete reflection of peptide/receptor interactions and should be combined with additional experimental constraints to reveal peptide/receptor interactions occurring in the dynamic, native, and full-length receptor state.


This thesis contains the results of research projects broadly related to the pursuit of universal fault-tolerant quantum computation. We are interested in questions such as which resources are required to achieve a quantum computational advantage, how to utilize such resources in practice, and how to characterize and control noise throughout a computation. In part 1, we cover results pertaining to magic state distillation, one of the leading approaches to implementing universal fault-tolerant quantum computation. Early work in this area focused on determining the region of distillable states for qubit protocols, yet comparatively little is known about which states can be distilled and with what distillable region for d > 2. In the first project, we focus on d = 3 and present new four-qutrit distillation schemes that improve upon the known distillable region, and achieve distillation tight to the boundary of undistillable states for some classes of states. As a consequence of recent results, this implies that there is a family of quantum states that enable universality if and only if they exhibit contextuality with respect to stabilizer measurements. We also identify a new routine whose fixed point is a magic state with maximal sum-negativity i.e., it is maximally non-stabilizer in a specific sense. In the second project, we return to d = 2 and present a number of interesting new distillation routines based on small codes. Many of these distill noisy states right up to the boundary of the known undististillable region, while some distill toward non-stabilizer states that have not previously been considered. In part 2, we address the issue of noise characterization. The characterization of noise in a quantum system serves as a foundation towards meeting two important goals. Firstly, we may wish to know about specific sources of noise in order to adapt or correct errors as much as possible. Secondly, we would like a way to verify that noise is below some threshold value in order to meet the criteria of threshold theorems. We consider the case where noise is approximately known to coincide with the generalized damping channel (encompassing the common intrinsic processes of amplitude damping and dephasing), but may contain additional unknown noise sources. We provide methods to accurately obtain the noise parameters, and compare with the results of a randomized benchmarking experiment. Using this information, we show how to make meaningful statements about fault-tolerance threshold theorems by considering the diamond distance.


Improving timing resolution in positron emission tomography (PET), thus having fine time information of the detected pulses, is important to increase the reconstructed images signal to noise ratio (SNR) [1]. In the present work, an integrated circuit topology for time extraction of the incoming pulses is evaluated. An accurate simulation including the detector physics and the electronics with different configurations has been developed. The selected architecture is intended for a PET system based on a continuous scintillation crystal attached to a SiPM array. The integrated circuit extracts the time stamp from the first few photons generated when the gamma-ray interacts with the scintillator, thus obtaining the best time resolution. To get the time stamp from the detected pulses, a time to digital converter (TDC) array based architecture has been proposed as in [2] or [3]. The TDC input stage uses a current comparator to transform the analog signal into a digital signal. Individually configurable trigger levels allow us to avoid false triggers due to signal noise. Using a TDC per SiPM configuration results in a very area consuming integrated circuit. One solution to this problem is to join several SiPM outputs to one TDC. This reduces the number of TDCs but, on the other hand, the first photons will be more difficult to be detected. For this reason, it is important to simulate how the time resolution is degraded when the number of TDCs is reduced. Following this criteria, the best configuration will be selected considering the trade-off between achievable time resolution and the cost per chip. A simulation is presented that uses Geant4 for simulation of the physics process and, for the electronic blocks, spice and Matlab. The Geant4 stage simulates the gamma-ray interaction with the scintillator, the photon shower generation and the first stages of the SiPM. The electronics simulation includes an electrical model of the SiPM array and all the integrated circuitry that generates the time stamps. Time resolution results are analyzed using Matlab. The goal is to analyze the best resolution achievable with the SiPM and its degradation due to different circuitry configurations.


Suits against state and local officials under Section 1983 are classified either as official capacity or personal capacity suits. Official capacity suits are brought against government officials who are merely carrying out their duties under an unconstitutional statute or rule. Damages in such suits are collected from the government treasury. Official capacity suits are comparable to suits against the government itself. Damages may be assessed against local government officials acting in their official capacity, or against the local governments themselves. No damages may be awarded, however, in suits against state officials acting in their official capacity. Personal capacity suits are brought against government officials who exceed or abuse their authority under state or local law. Under Section 1983, officials who exceed or abuse their authority under state or local law can be held personally liable for damages. The damages are limited, however, by various immunities. Some officials, such as judges, legislators, and prosecutors, enjoy absolute immunity from damages. Most other officials and employees receive qualified, or limited, immunity from damages. Officials with qualified immunity may be held liable only for actions which violated the 'settled constitutional rights' of the plaintiff at the time of the action. This Article will examine the scope of the Maryland rulings in suits against state officials and will compare the results under Maryland law with the results under federal law. It can then be determined in what instances these differences might lead plaintiffs to file suit in Maryland state court rather than federal court. This Article will further explore some questions left unanswered by the Maryland opinions, including: possible unfairness to individual defendants, the role of the State Tort Claims Act, the effect of the rulings on the absolute immunity of certain officials, and the application of these principles in cases involving claims under both state and federal law.


A rapidly growing public policy concern facing the United States is whether future generations of retired Americans, particularly those in the Baby Boomer and Gen X cohorts, will have adequate retirement incomes. There have been several policy studies in recent years that suggest that the decreasing relevance of defined benefit (DB) plans relative to defined contribution plans (such as 401(k)s) since the 1980s will have a negative impact on the percentage of future retirees who will achieve a specified level of retirement income adequacy. This paper provides a direct comparison of the likely benefits under specific types of defined contribution (DC) and DB retirement plans. The DC plans modeled in this analysis represent voluntary enrollment (VE) 401(k) plans, while the DB plans are represented by two stylized plans: a high-three-year, final-average defined benefit plan and a cash balance plan. The results presented in this paper show that if historical rates of return are assumed as well as annuity purchase prices reflecting average bond rates over the last 27 years, the median pairwise comparisons result in a strong outcome advantage for VE 401(k) plans over both the stylized, final-average DB plan and the stylized cash balance plan. When the robustness of these findings are subjected to various "stress tests" by reducing the rate of return assumptions by 200 basis points and increasing the annuity purchase price to reflect today's bond rates, results show that in many cases the VE 401(k) plans lose their comparative advantage to the stylized, final-average DB plans (at least at the median) for lower-paid employees; however, VE 401(k) plans' median advantages over the stylized cash balance plans remain in force. When the simulation results are subjected to both stresses simultaneously, virtually all of the median differences between the VE 401(k) plans and the stylized, final-average DB plan are reversed, regardless of income quartile. However, even in this scenario, based on the median differences, virtually all of the participants will do better in the VE 401(k) plans than the stylized cash balance plan.


Introduction Modern strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arhythmias include besides non-invasive methods an increasing variety of invasive and curative therapeutic strategies. In order to define proper rhythmologic diagnosis and to develop an optimal treatment strategy for individual patients, a high degree of rhythmologic expertise is necessary. Adequate platforms for information exchange, where physicians can meet rhythmologic experts to allow proper handling of individual rhythmologic problems are desirable. Thus, the Heart Center Leipzig develops the Web- and Fax-based consultancy and information service "EcgConsult". Methods The service utilizes the network capabilities of the Internet and of the common telecommunication network. This way information input can be achieved either by using a browser/email-client or by using a fax machine. All input from both networks is collected on a centralised mail-server (SSL-POP3 protocol). User interaction on the Web site is achieved with dynamic HTML and a moderated List-Server. The List-Server and an additional discussion area on the Web site are moderated by the Consultants at the Heart Center Leipzig, adequate processing of the site-content and technical management of the site have been outsourced to the university Internet workgroup Elchsoft/Medkonsult. Results A prototype of the site and the communication architecture for fax/email have been established and successfully beta-tested. Any consulting physician can easily send ECGs and additional material to the server with any fax-machine, where they are automatically TIFF-file converted. A password-protected site is already in use with selected clinicians (http://www.ecgconsult.de). For mobile site management, a web-based Control-Center has been designed. Outlines of contract models for members, guidelines for security purposes of the web-based communication, a business/cost plan and models for the logistic request management as well as for member/patient identification have been developed. Discussion The platform "EcgConsult" provides a network with fast and easy access to a specific target group and thus allows easy information exchange between the Heart Center Leipzig and rhythmologic experts and non-experts. This exchange may generate synergy effects by offering both groups a variety of data and information. Due to the use of web- and fax-based technology, the access to the service is easy and does not require PC-equipment or a scanner. The requests can be answered by the Heart Center consultants from any remote location world-wide. For the future open-ended architecture allows the participation of further consultants from clinics all over the world. The knowledge gathered from this project may help setting up guidelines for the development of other web-based medical competence centers / information services.


Ballast is one of the main structures for the railway tracks. It can resist the lateral movement under dynamic loading transferred by the passing trains with repeatedly. Under some circumstances, ballast can suffer degradation or breakdown due to the repeated loading and maintenance. Ballast is easily exposed to the weather because it is laid on the track. Acid rain affects the performance of the railway track near the industrial and urban area. As a result, it starts to foul and the small chips from ballast filled the void, as well as reduce the shear strength of ballast particles. This situation can contribute into the increasing of maintenance frequency and costing. This paper examines the potential of rubber inclusions in increasing the shear resistance of rubber-ballast composites in simulated water and acid soaked conditions with several configuration. This lab-based exploratory work is only static load simulation in conventional shear box setup measuring 60 mm × 60 mm. The aggregates size is 10 times smaller than actual size of ballast. In order to identify the shear resistance deterioration of rubber-aggregates mixture under poor drainage conditions by soaked a batch of aggregates in water and acid solution for 2 weeks to simulate accelerated weathering effects. The shear resistance did not rise dramatically with the rubber reinforcement. This susceptible shear strain plots indicate ductile behaviour on the aggregates-rubber composites. This is evident by the linear rise of shear stress with strain up to approximately 10% for the control samples (CS) until it reaches a constant value. Note that all the specimens including CS are in a loose state during the testing because there were no tamping been applied on the samples. Overall the circular patch (CP) specimen was the most favourable than the other configurations. Both mechanisms contributed to the reduced overall subsistence, accompanied by an increase in the shear resistance. The inclusion of rubber elements apparently prevented the dilation of the granular material when approaching the shear failure and the reducing the settlement.


Despite recent political attacks, science is integral to environmental law and other regulatory regimes that are informed by new scientific research. It is inaccurate, however, to view the relationship between law and science as static. Traditionally, science is either seen as a servant of the legal system, responding to and supporting the applicable statutes and regulations; or we expect the legal system to respond or "catch up" to scientific advances. A more useful model, borrowed from evolutionary biology, is coevolution, an ongoing process in which law and science interact over time in an iterative process. A case study from the Clean Water Act ("CWA") biocriteria program illustrates this dynamic process and suggests ways in which law and science can interact more effectively in the CWA and other regulatory regimes. It also highlights the conceptual difference between "scientific knowledge" and "regulatory knowledge," and the importance of that distinction for separation of powers and democratic governance in the administration and enforcement of complex regulatory statutes.


Background: To assess the prevalence of essential hypertension and evaluate cardiovascular risk in patients in Pakistan.Methods:This cross-sectional, non-interventional study was conducted at multiple centres throughout Pakistan. Data was collected from patients of either gender, ≥18 years of age, seeking routine medical consultation. Diagnosis and staging of hypertension was carried out using guidelines laid by Seventh Report of Joint National Committee (JNC 7). GenderwiseFramingham scores were calculated based on non-laboratory and laboratory parameters.Results: Out of 2336 patients evaluated, prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension was 51.5% and 31.4% , respectively. A total of 501 patients had coprevalent diabetes and hypertension. Ten-yearFramingham scores calculated using non-laboratory parameters showed 56% (947/1693) patients aged ≥30 years were at medium-to-high risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). While Framingham scores based on laboratory or non-laboratory parameters were not significantly different for men, in women the nonlaboratory based score was higher. Angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors and calcium channel blockers were antihypertensive agents of choice.Conclusions: Since prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension in Pakistani adults continues to be on rise and substantial proportion of study population is at medium-to-high risk of developing CVD within the next 10 years, regular BP monitoring and risk scoring is mandated for identification of at-risk population and optimal management of CVD.


A nonlinear equation based on the hydrodynamic equations is solved analytically using perturbation expansions to calculate the flow field of a steady isothermal, compressible and laminar gas flow in either a circular or a planar microchannel. The solution takes into account slip-flow effects explicitly by utilizing the classical velocity-slip boundary condition, assuming the gas properties are known. Consistent expansions provide not only the cross-stream but also the streamwise evolution of the various flow parameters of interest, such as pressure, density and Mach number. The slip-flow effect enters the solution explicitly as a zero-order correction comparable to, though smaller than, the compressible effect. The theoretical calculations are verified in an experimental study of pressure-driven gas flow in a long microchannel of sub-micron height. Standard micromachining techniques were utilized to fabricate the microchannel, with integral pressure microsensors based on the piezoresistivity principle of operation. The integrated microsystem allows accurate measurements of mass flow rates and pressure distributions along the microchannel. Nitrogen, helium and argon were used as the working fluids forced through the microchannel. The experimental results support the theoretical calculations in finding that acceleration and non-parabolic velocity profile effects were found to be negligible. A detailed error analysis is also carried out in an attempt to expose the challenges in conducting accurate measurements in microsystems.


The outer hair cell (OHC) lateral wall is a unique trilaminate structure consisting of the plasma membrane, the cortical lattice, and subsurface cisternae. OHCs are capable of altering their length in response to transmembrane voltage change. This so-called electromotile response is presumed to result from conformational changes of membrane-bound protein molecules, named prestin. OHC motility is accompanied by axial stiffness changes when the membrane potential of the cell is altered. During length changes, intracellular anions (mainly Cl-) act as extrinsic voltage sensors. In this study, we inquired whether the motor proteins are responsible for the voltage-dependent axial stiffness of OHCs, and whether ACh, the neurotransmitter of efferent neurons, modulates the stiffness of the cortical lattice and/or the stiffness of the motor protein. The experiments were done on isolated guinea pig OHCs in the whole-cell voltage-clamp mode. Axial stiffness was determined by loading a fiber of known stiffness onto the apical surface of the cells. Voltage-dependent stiffness and cell motility disappeared, and the axial stiffness of the cells significantly decreased after removal of intracellular Cl-. The result suggests that the stiffness of the motor protein is a major contributor to the global axial stiffness of OHCs. ACh was found to affect both the motor protein and other lateral wall stiffness components.


A diaphragmatic hernia is defined as a communication between abdominal and thoracic cavity with or without abdominal contents in the thorax. The true incidence of Congenital diaphragmatic hernia is 1 in 5000 live births while right side diaphragmatic hernia (15%) is rare comparing to left side diaphragmatic hernia (85%) because liver plugs the opening. Congenital diaphragmatic hernia typically refers to Bochdalek form, other forms are rarer. Despite advances in neonatal intensive care, congenital diaphragmatic hernia is associated with high mortality and morbidity. The posterolateral right congenital DH is a rare diaphragmatic defect. Females are twice affected than that of males. The symptoms are non characteristic and patients with this disease maybe without symptoms for a long period. The main tool for diagnosis of congenital DH is radiography. Surgical correction is required.


A strategy is described for a fast all-atom molecular dynamics simulation of multimillion-atom biological systems on massively parallel supercomputers. The strategy is developed using benchmark systems of particular interest to bioenergy research, comprising models of cellulose and lignocellulosic biomass in an aqueous solution. The approach involves using the reaction field (RF) method for the computation of long-range electrostatic interactions, which permits efficient scaling on many thousands of cores. Although the range of applicability of the RF method for biomolecular systems remains to be demonstrated, for the benchmark systems the use of the RF produces molecular dipole moments, Kirkwood G factors, other structural properties, and mean-square fluctuations in excellent agreement with those obtained with the commonly used Particle Mesh Ewald method. With RF, three million- and five million-atom biological systems scale well up to ∼30k cores, producing ∼30 ns/day. Atomistic simulations of very large systems for time scales approaching the microsecond would, therefore, appear now to be within reach.


In the presence of iron(II) chloride (FeCl2 ; 20 mol%) and potassium tert-butoxide (t- BuOK; 4 equiv.) in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), aryl and heteroaryl iodides undergo stereoselective Mizoroki–Heck C—C cross-coupling reactions with styrenes at 60 8C giving the corresponding (E)-alkenes. The best yields are obtained upon adding a ligand (80 mol%) such as proline or picolinic acid. Aryl bromides and pyridinyl bromides are also coupled with styrenes but in lower yields.


The conducted research deals with factors of quality of tourism in relation to rural touristic initiatives, which conjointly market their tourism products. Several touristic initiatives were selected based on five criteria (e.g. a regional embeddedness and existence of a trademark) and their touristic offers were analysed. The study aimed to work out how these initiatives highlight their regional characteristics and which quality components contribute to a high quality of tourism experience. Based on the literature, four main components were identified that contribute to the quality of tourism, namely: hardware, environment/culture, software, and quality of experience. These components were combined with the seven instruments of quality of experience (e.g. the focus on a specific topic) by Muller and Scheurer (Tourismus-Destination als Erlebniswelt. Ein Leitfaden zur Angebots-Inszenierung, 2004) and tabulated. In the case study analysis, the quality requirements the touristic initiatives impose on their members, as well as existing offers, were gathered and assigned to the above-mentioned components of quality of tourism. The case study analysis revealed that all regional initiatives provide offers in all four main components. The initiatives also apply several aspects of the quality of experience, to highlight their regional characteristics. Several offers exist, in particular in the subcategories accommodation, culinary and regional products, events, information and internet presence as well as social media. In the field of quality of experience, the conveying of authenticity, the creation of atmosphere, and approaches of storytelling are used to generate attractions and to constitute positive guest experiences. This article provides first points of reference for an implementation of a universal guideline for regional touristic initiatives.


Using data from the contiguous US states from 1951 to 2008, this study examines the dynamics of the intertemporal budget constraint to better understand persistent budget deficits. The direction of causality between tax revenues and expenditures is of primary interest in answering the four hypotheses set forth in the literature: tax-spend, spend-tax, fiscal synchronization, and institutional separation. Overall, the results convey evidence in favor of the tax-spend hypothesis. The dynamics differ, however, in that states with relatively higher debt levels respond slower to fiscal imbalances and rely more on expanding debt levels. These results present a clear illustration of the fiscal adjustment mechanism and how states adapt under various institutional restraints.


The multi-scale nature and climate noise properties of teleconnection indices are examined by using the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) procedure. The EMD procedure allows for the analysis of non-stationary time series to extract physically meaningful intrinsic mode functions (IMF) and nonlinear trends. The climatologically relevant monthly mean teleconnection indices of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the North Pacific index (NP) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) are analyzed. The significance of IMFs and trends are tested against the null hypothesis of climate noise. The analysis of surrogate monthly mean time series from a red noise process shows that the EMD procedure is effectively a dyadic filter bank and the IMFs (except the first IMF) are nearly Gaussian distributed. The distribution of the variance contained in IMFs of an ensemble of AR(1) simulations is nearly χ2 distributed. To test the statistical significance of the IMFs of the teleconnection indices and their nonlinear trends we utilize an ensemble of corresponding monthly averaged AR(1) processes, which we refer to as climate noise. Our results indicate that most of the interannual and decadal variability of the analysed teleconnection indices cannot be distinguished from climate noise. The NP and SAM indices have significant nonlinear trends, while the NAO has no significant trend when tested against a climate noise hypothesis.


Enterprise modeling involves multiple domains of expertise: requirements engineering, business process modeling, IT development etc. Our experience has shown that hierarchical enterprise models, made of an assembly of system models, are effective. In these models, two hierarchies exist: an organizational level hierarchy (describing systems' construction) and a functional level hierarchy (describing systems' functionality). Using a uniform hierarchical modeling language, system models at different hierarchical levels can be aligned in the context of the enterprise model. Using an operational semantics, each system model can be translated into executable code for model simulation and testing. The possibility to simulate and test models leads to the alignment verification for all system models across both hierarchies. In this paper we propose a method and tool for functional alignment verification. We use the Abstract State Machine (ASM) and the ASM language (AsmL) to formalize our graphical models for simulation and testing. We illustrate this approach with an example.


We discuss chiral structures in self-organizing, artificial, and biological materials. A review of experimental studies and recent advances in the localization of light in chiral structures is given. The behavior of polarized resonant modes in such structures is examined using the example of a one-dimensional photonic crystal containing liquid crystal materials. The anomalous spectral shifts of transmission peaks are interpreted as the contribution of the geometric phase caused by the twisting of the layers of the liquid crystal. The optical Tamm state localized at the boundary between chiral and nonchiral mirrors in the form of a cholesteric layer and a polarization-preserving anisotropic mirror is analytically and numerically described. Considerable attention is paid to the presentation of the properties of localized optical modes in the cholesteric with a resonant metal-dielectric nanocomposite. New possibilities for controlling the properties of the photonic structure are noted, due to the combination of the dispersion of the resonant medium and the intrinsic dispersion of the cholesteric. Attention is focused on controlled hybrid modes in the cholesteric structure formed by the coupling of localized modes. Possible applications and further ways of developing the concept of chiral photonic structures are deliberated.


In this paper we introduce a four-parameter generalized Weibull distribution. This new distribution has a more general form of failure rate function. It is more general for modeling than six ageing classes of life dis- tributions with appropriate choices of parameter values, so it can display decreasing, increasing, bathtub shaped, unimodal, increasing-decreasing in- creasing and decreasing-increasing-decreasing failure rates. The new distri- bution has also a bimodal density function. The moments are obtained and the method of maximum likelihood is used to estimate the model parame- ters. Also, the observed information matrix is obtained. Two applications are presented to illustrate the advantage of the proposed distribution.


ne 1 Abstract. Global change, together with human activities, has resulted in increasing amounts of organic material (includ- ing nutrients) that water bodies receive. This input further attenuates the penetration of solar radiation, leading to the view that opaque lakes are more "protected" from solar ul- traviolet radiation (UVR) than clear ones. Vertical mixing, however, complicates this view as cells are exposed to fluc- tuating radiation regimes, for which the effects have, in gen- eral, been neglected. Furthermore, the combined impacts of mixing, together with those of UVR and nutrient inputs are virtually unknown. In this study, we carried out complex in situ experiments in three high mountain lakes of Spain (Lake Enol in the National Park Picos de Europa, Asturias, and lakes Las Yeguas and La Caldera in the National Park Sierra Nevada, Granada), used as model ecosystems to evaluate the joint impact of these climate change variables. The main goal of this study was to address the question of how short-term pulses of nutrient inputs, together with vertical mixing and increased UVR fluxes modify the photosynthetic responses of phytoplankton. The experimentation consisted in all pos- sible combinations of the following treatments: (a) solar radi- ation: UVR+ PAR (280-700 nm) versus PAR (photosynthet- ically active radiation) alone (400-700 nm); (b) nutrient ad- dition (phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N)): ambient versus ad- dition (P to reach to a final concentration of 30 µg P L 1 , and N to reach N:P molar ratio of 31); and (c) mixing: mixed (one rotation from surface to 3 m depth (speed of 1 m 4 min 1 , to- tal of 10 cycles)) versus static. Our findings suggest that un- der ambient nutrient conditions there is a synergistic effect between vertical mixing and UVR, increasing phytoplank- ton photosynthetic inhibition and excretion of organic carbon (EOC) from opaque lakes as compared to algae that received constant mean irradiance within the epilimnion. The opposite occurs in clear lakes where antagonistic effects were deter- mined, with mixing partially counteracting the negative ef- fects of UVR. Nutrient input, mimicking atmospheric pulses from Saharan dust, reversed this effect and clear lakes be- came more inhibited during mixing, while opaque lakes ben- efited from the fluctuating irradiance regime. These climate change related scenarios of nutrient input and increased mix- ing, would not only affect photosynthesis and production in lakes, but might also further influence the microbial loop and trophic interactions via enhanced EOC under fluctuat- ing UVR exposure.


This is the most sophisticated and up-to-date econometric analysis of business cycles now available. Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch have long been acknowledged as leading experts on business cycles. And here they present a highly integrative collection of their most important essays on the subject, along with a detailed introduction that draws together the book's principal themes and findings. Diebold and Rudebusch use the latest quantitative methods to address five principal questions about the measurement, modeling, and forecasting of business cycles. They ask whether business cycles have become more moderate in the postwar period, concluding that recessions have, in fact, been shorter and shallower. They consider whether economic expansions and contractions tend to die of "old age." Contrary to popular wisdom, they find little evidence that expansions become more fragile the longer they last, although they do find that contractions are increasingly likely to end as they age. The authors discuss the defining characteristics of business cycles, focusing on how economic variables move together and on the timing of the slow alternation between expansions and contractions. They explore the difficulties of distinguishing between long-term trends in the economy and cyclical fluctuations. And they examine how business cycles can be forecast, looking in particular at how to predict turning points in cycles, rather than merely the level of future economic activity. They show here that the index of leading economic indicators is a poor predictor of future economic activity, and consider what we can learn from other indicators, such as financial variables. Throughout, the authors make use of a variety of advanced econometric techniques, including nonparametric analysis, fractional integration, and regime-switching models. Business Cycles is crucial reading for policymakers, bankers, and business executives..


This study was designed to determine variables influencing fuelwood demand in rural areas of Kogi State. Eighty households were randomly sampled from all the Agricultural Zones of the state. A 2SLS method was then used for estimation of the coefficients of the simultaneous equation model. The most significant determinants of fuelwood demand in the study area are the price of fuelwood, kerosene's price, household size and personal incomes of the household heads. In light of this study's findings, recommendations included reduction of kerosene prices, investment in renewable energy, cooking gas and electricity and use of agricultural extension agents to educate farmers on sustainable farming. Author's Note


ABSTRACT Vocabulary learning is vital for second language development, and the use of technology has greatly changed how second language vocabulary can be acquired. Some adventure video games were found to be beneficial for vocabulary learning. These games offer engaging plots, rich input, and immersive learning context. Despite these advantages, many games often include difficult vocabulary items and fleeting subtitles. Researchers have suggested that games can be modified to provide a more supportive environment. The purpose of the present study aimed to examine the effect of an adventure game and the game plus L1 keyword glosses on second vocabulary acquisition. Two classes were recruited and took a pre-test, post-test, and two-week delayed post-test and filled out a survey. The results indicated that the control group (i.e. game only) has significantly improved, suggesting that the gaming context alone can assist the incidental vocabulary learning. The experimental group (i.e. game with L1 glosses in the subtitles) significantly performed better in the post-test and delayed post-test. The findings indicated that L1 glosses helped to enhance noticing and to learn new words. It was clear that adventure games have great potentials for vocabulary learning, and additional lexical supports in gaming can further enhance vocabulary learning.


This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of supplementation of vitamins C or E in the diet on performance, carcass characteristics and hematological parameters of broilers kept under high environmental temperature. Four hundred and fifty broilers were distributed in a completely randomized design with five treatments and nine replications, with 10 and 7 birds per experimental unit, respectively, according to the periods from 1 to 21 and 22 to 42 days old. Treatments consisted of a basal diet (RB) without supplementation of vitamins C and E; RB + 300 ppm of vitamin E; RB + 230 ppm of vitamin C; RB + 300 ppm of vitamin E + 230 of vitamin C, and RB + 150 ppm of vitamin E + 115 of vitamin C. Treatments did not influence performance of birds in the phase of 1 to 21 days of age. At 1 to 42 days of age, supplementation of vitamins C and E only influenced feed conversion. The best results for the absolute and relative weights of breast were observed in birds fed the basal diet supplemented with different combinations of vitamins C and E. Plasma concentration of triiodothyronine, percentage of blood cells, the heterophil/lymphocyte ratio and absolute and relative weights of the spleen at 21 and 42 days of age were not influenced by vitamin supplementation. Supplementation of vitamins C and/or E did not influence performance, weight of the spleen or blood parameters of chickens maintained until 42 days of age in a high temperature environment. The combination of vitamins C and E promotes improvement in absolute and relative weights of breast of broilers reared under high temperature


Interleaving is an increasingly popular technique for evaluating information retrieval systems based on implicit user feedback. While a number of isolated studies have analyzed how this technique agrees with conventional offline evaluation approaches and other online techniques, a complete picture of its efficiency and effectiveness is still lacking. In this paper we extend and combine the body of empirical evidence regarding interleaving, and provide a comprehensive analysis of interleaving using data from two major commercial search engines and a retrieval system for scientific literature. In particular, we analyze the agreement of interleaving with manual relevance judgments and observational implicit feedback measures, estimate the statistical efficiency of interleaving, and explore the relative performance of different interleaving variants. We also show how to learn improved credit-assignment functions for clicks that further increase the sensitivity of interleaving.


Olja Triaska Stefanovic (1978) was born in Novi Sad, Serbia, lives and works in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2007 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the Department of Photography and New Media in Bratislava, Slovakia.

In her art practise she is focused on the relationship between photography and space, historical and sociological memory space, the disappearance of space, but also changes of its functionality and space simulation.

For last four years she works at the Department of Photography and New Media and this year finishing her doctoral studies of photography at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. She was presenting her work at many group and solo exhibitions in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Spain, Germany.


Purpose: PCDGF (PC cell-derived growth factor), also called progranulin, is a Mr 88,000 glycoprotein precursor of granulin. It is a novel growth factor that stimulates cell proliferation, confers epithelial tumorigenesis, and promotes tumor invasion. Here we investigate the potential of PCDGF as a therapeutic target for prostate cancer. Experimental Design: We studied the expression of PCDGF in invasive prostate cancer, adjacent high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN), and benign prostate tissue from 99 human prostate specimens. The level of PCDGF expression was correlated with various clinicopathological characteristics. Results: Normal prostate tissue did not express (53/99), or expressed low levels (46/99) of PCDGF. In the 46 normal prostate specimens that expressed PCDGF, most of them had less than 10% of cells expressing PCDGF. PCDGF expression could be detected in more than 50% of cells in all specimens of PIN and invasive prostate cancer. The expression of PCDGF in normal prostate tissue was much less intense and in a smaller fraction of cells than in PIN and invasive adenocarcinoma (P < 0.0001). There was no correlation of PCDGF expression with age, Gleason score, pathological stage, status of lymph node metastasis, extraprostatic extension, perineural invasion, surgical margins, and vascular invasion. Conclusions: Our data suggest that the induction of PCDGF expression occurs during the development of PIN. PCDGF may be a new molecular target for the treatment and prevention of prostate cancer.


PREAMBLE Organ transplantation, one of the medical miracles of the twentieth century, has prolonged and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide. The many great scientific and clinical advances of dedicated health professionals, as well as countless acts of generosity by organ donors and their families, have made transplantation not only a life-saving therapy but a shining symbol of human solidarity. Yet, these accomplishments have been tarnished by numerous reports of trafficking in human beings who are used as sources of organs and of patient-tourists from rich countries who travel abroad to purchase organs from poor people. In 2004, the World Health Organization, called on member states "to take measures to protect the poorest and vulnerable groups from transplant tourism and the sale of tissues and organs, including attention to the wider problem of international trafficking in human tissues and organs" (1). To address the urgent and growing problems of organ sales, transplant tourism and trafficking in organ donors in the context of the global shortage of organs, a Summit Meeting of more than 150 representatives of scientific and medical bodies from around the world, government officials, social scientists, and ethicists, was held in Istanbul from April 30 to May 2, 2008. Preparatory work for the meeting was undertaken by a Steering Committee convened by The Transplantation Society (TTS) and the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) in Dubai in December 2007. That committee's draft declaration was widely circulated and then revised in light of the comments received. At the Summit, the revised draft was reviewed by working groups and finalized in plenary deliberations. This declaration represents the consensus of the Summit participants. All countries need a legal and a professional framework to govern organ donation and transplantation activities, as well as a transparent regulatory oversight system that ensures donor and recipient safety and the enforcement of standards and prohibitions on unethical practices. Unethical practices are, in part, an undesirable consequence of the global shortage of organs for transplantation. Thus, each country should strive both to ensure that programs to prevent organ failure are implemented and to provide organs to meet the transplant needs of its residents from donors within its own population or through regional cooperation. The therapeutic potential of deceased organ donation should be maximized not only for kidneys but also for other organs, appropriate to the transplantation needs of each country. Efforts to initiate or enhance deceased donor transplantation are essential to minimize the burden on living donors. Educational programs are useful in addressing the barriers, misconceptions, and mistrust that currently impede the development of sufficient deceased donor transplantation; successful transplant programs also depend on the existence of the relevant health system infrastructure. Access to healthcare is a human right but often not a reality. The provision of care for living donors before, during, and after surgery—as described in the reports of the international forums organized by TTS in Amsterdam and Vancouver (2– 4)—is no less essential than taking care of the transplant recipient. A positive outcome for a recipient can never justify harm to a live donor; on the contrary, for a transplant with a live donor to be regarded as a success means that both the recipient and the donor have done well. This declaration builds on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (5). The broad representation at the Istanbul Summit reflects the importance of international collaboration and global consensus to improve donation and transplantation practices. The declaration will be submitted to relevant professional organizations and to the health authorities of all countries for consideration. The legacy of transplantation must not be the impoverished victims of organ trafficking and transplant tourism but rather a celebration of the gift of health by one individual to another.


Based on analyzing to some previous research, this study is developed by using constructs to explain how the dimension of corporate culture impacts employees commitment. This study uses examination model based on the literature reviews of previous research and then the hypotheses were be expended as a methodology. The result of the study shows that the employee commitment to organization can be improved through corporate culture that consists of teamwork, communication, training development and reward-recognition. To maintain efficiency, effectivity and organization productivity could be conducted by optimizing employee commitment to organization by creating and implementing corporate culture consistently. The concept of employee commitment to organization is described with causal relation toward corporate culture which is decomposed into the dimension of teamwork, communication, training development and reward-recognition.


Seed germination in sedges: a short review Five patterns of seed germination in the sedges of the genus Carex are presented, based on the literature data and the results of the authors' own research. They include the pattern of C. acutiformis, C. arenaria, C. remota, C. flava and C. communis. These patterns were constructed on the basis of seed specific requirements for development, such as stratification, temperature, dormancy and time of germination. Majority of sedges follow the pattern of C. acutiformis or C. remota. In both cases, stratification and either high or low temperature are essential for seed germination. Seeds that start to germinate early (C. remota pattern) are characterized by the absence of the distinct peaks of germination, as opposed to the C. acutiformis pattern with the germination peak in March. Our long-term investigations, conducted on the group of individuals in controlled conditions, revealed significant differences in seed size and the ability of seeds to germinate depending on the age of mother plants. We postulate that mother plant age is a new factor that should be considered in the construction of seed germination patterns.


Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMMEs) form the majority of the enterprises in the South African economy. The South African government has identified the SMME sector as one of the potential enablers to achieve its objectives of improving job creation opportunities, reducing poverty and creating a more equitable distribution of wealth. The aim of this article was to provide a perspective on the success government support initiatives has had on the SMME sector. To achieve this, the study sought to analyse the perceived strengths and weaknesses of government's national strategy and its institutions tasked with creating an enabling environment for the sector. The study employed a survey research design methodology in which mixed methods were used. The national business strategy employed by government was critically analysed. Empirical data was collected from 282 respondents in order to answer the research question. The results show that the government's approach has favoured 'supply-side interventions' including, providing access to training, credit, mentoring and information to existing and new business. Furthermore, this study has identified the lack of awareness as the primary reason for the under-delivery of the government support initiatives in SMME development. Respondents indicated that they frequently made use of the services of business consultants and external specialists from which they perceived added more value to their respective businesses.


BizTalk 2013 Recipes provides ready-made solutions to BizTalk Server 2013 developers. The recipes in the book save you the effort of developing your own solutions to common problems that have been solved many times over. The solutions demonstrate sound practice, the result of hard-earned wisdom by those who have gone before. Presented in a step-by-step format with clear code examples and explanations, the solutions in BizTalk 2013 Recipes help you take advantage of new features and deeper capabilities in BizTalk Server 2013. Youll learn to integrate your solutions with the cloud, configure BizTalk on Azure, work with electronic data interchange (EDI), and deploy the growing range of adapters for integrating with the different systems and technologies that you will encounter. Youll find recipes covering all the core areas: schemas, maps, orchestrations, messaging and more. BizTalk Server 2013 is Microsofts market-leading platform for orchestrating process flow across disparate applications. BizTalk 2013 Recipes is your key to unlocking the full power of that platform. What youll learn Automate business processes across different systems in your enterprise. Build, test, and deploy complex maps and schemas. Implement the business rules engine (BRE). Develop business activity monitoring (BAM) solutions. Manage electronic data interchange (EDI) with trading partners. Monitor and troubleshoot automated processes. Deploy BizTalk to Azure and build cloud based solutions. Who this book is for BizTalk 2013 Recipes is aimed at developers working in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013. Experienced BizTalk developers will find great value in the information around new functionality in the 2013 release such as that for cloud based integrations. Those brand new to BizTalk will appreciate the clear examples of core functionality that help them understand how best to design and deploy BizTalk Server solutions.


Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a permanent neurological disorder that can be recognized at the early stage of the developmental period and are recently associated with movement disturbances. The aim of this study was to classify gait abnormalities in children with ASD based on their respective threedimensional (3D) kinematic data. The gait analysis of 30 ASD children and 30 normal healthy children was assessed using a state-of-the-art 3D motion analysis system during self-selected speed barefoot walking. Kinematic gait features from the sagittal, frontal and transverse joint angles waveforms at the pelvis, hip, knee, and ankle were extracted using time-series parameterization. Two statistical analysis techniques, namely the between-group tests (independent samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test) and stepwise discriminant analysis (SWDA) were adopted as feature selector to select the dominant gait features that were then used for the purpose of training and testing of the artificial neural networks (ANN). The results indicate that the selected gait features using SWDA technique are more reliable for ASD gait classification with 91.7% accuracy, 93.3% sensitivity, and 90.0% specificity. These promising findings suggest that the kinematic gait features with the combination of SWDA feature selector and ANN classifier are potentially effective for the diagnosis of ASD gait patterns. Early detection of gait abnormalities could ensure rapid quantitative clinical decision and further facilitate for appropriate treatments to the ASD patients needing therapies. Key-Words: artificial neural network, autism spectrum disorders, gait classification, gait feature, kinematic, statistical analysis, stepwise discriminant analysis


Purpose To investigate the efficacy of topical applied aloe vera (AV) and to facilitate the repair of the standardized alkaline corneal ulcer in normal and diabetic rats. Materials and methods The corneal alkali-burn injury model was established unilaterally in Wistar rats by filter paper saturated with 0.01 M NaOH contacting the eyes for 45 seconds. Rats were divided into four groups: normal control (NC), normal AV (NAV), diabetic control (DC), and diabetic AV (DAV). NAV and DAV groups were treated with AV gel eye drops four times daily, and NC and DC groups were treated with normal saline for 3 days. Corneal epithelial wound closure and degree of edema were recorded using slit lamp and optical coherence tomography at 0, 24, 48, and 72 hours postwounding. Histological examination was conducted to evaluate the degree of inflammation and the healing effect. Results Corneal epithelial wound healing was better in the NAV group than in the NC group, and it was significantly higher in the DAV group than in the DC group (P<0.05). In comparison to the DC group, DAV treated with AV demonstrated a marked reduction in edema at 48 and 72 hours. Histologically, corneal re-epithelialization was complete and higher in DAV group than that in DC group; moreover, the inflammatory cells were increased in DC group than DAV group (P<0.05). Conclusion This study demonstrated the efficacy of AV for enhanced corneal re-epithelialization, as well as reduced inflammatory response after alkali burn in rats; therefore, it could be useful as a therapy for diabetic keratopathy.


This paper reviews existing security mechanisms for aeronautical data link communication: current support and availability of such features are described. With an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model-driven analysis, each solution is classified and analyzed according to the layer where security is deployed and a relevant taxonomy is proposed. Moreover, advantages, drawbacks, and possible threats of every security mechanisms previously introduced are discussed. According to this security infrastructure overview, a proposal for an efficient security architecture adapted to the aeronautical context is made for future studies. Satellite communication-based system specific problematic is taken into account with a constraint bandwidth and the need of reduced overhead for any additional mechanisms.


Biophysics of the Senses connects fundamental properties of physics to biological systems, relating them directly to the human body. It includes discussions of the role of charges and free radicals in disease and homeostasis, how aspects of mechanics impact normal body functions, human bioelectricity and circuitry, forces within the body, and biophysical sensory mechanisms. This is an exciting view of how sensory aspects of biophysics are utilized in everyday life for students who are curious but struggle with the connection between biology and physics.


The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people's national liberation movement, anti-Zionism – as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions – means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known.


The rapid growth in the performance of graphics hardware, coupled with recent improvements in its programmability has lead to its adoption in many non-graphics applications, including a wide variety of scientific computing fields. At the same time, a number of important dynamic optimal policy problems in economics are athirst of computing power to help overcome dual curses of complexity and dimensionality. We investigate if computational economics may benefit from new tools on a case study of imperfect information dynamic programming problem with learning and experimentation trade-off, that is, a choice between controlling the policy target and learning system parameters. Specifically, we use a model of active learning and control of a linear autoregression with the unknown slope that appeared in a variety of macroeconomic policy and other contexts. The endogeneity of posterior beliefs makes the problem difficult in that the value function need not be convex and the policy function need not be continuous. This complication makes the problem a suitable target for massively-parallel computation using graphics processors (GPUs). Our findings are cautiously optimistic in that new tools let us easily achieve a factor of 15 performance gain relative to an implementation targeting single-core processors. Further gains up to a factor of 26 are also achievable but lie behind a learning and experimentation barrier of its own. Drawing upon experience with CUDA programming architecture and GPUs provides general lessons on how to best exploit future trends in parallel computation in economics.


This Hydrological Review, which also provides an overview of water resources status throughout 2005, is a reformatted version of the original commentary released as a web report in 2006. Some of the data featured in this report, particularly the more extreme flows, may have been subsequently revised.

The annual Hydrological Reviews are components in the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (NHMP) which was instigated in 1988 and is undertaken jointly by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) – both are component bodies of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The National River Flow Archive (maintained by CEH) and the National Groundwater Level Archive (maintained by BGS) provide the historical perspective within which to examine contemporary hydrological conditions.

A primary source of information for this review is the series of monthly UK Hydrological Summaries (for further
details please visit: http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/nhmp/nhmp.html). The river flow and groundwater level data featured in the Hydrological Summaries – and utilised by many NHMP activities – have been provided by the Environment Agency (EA), Natural Resources Wales - Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and their precursor organisations. For Northern Ireland, the hydrological data were sourced from the Rivers Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The great majority of the reservoir level information has been provided by the Water Service Companies, the EA, Scottish Water and Northern Ireland Water (formerly Water Service). The generality of meteorological data, including the modelled assessments of evaporation and soil moisture deficits featured in the report, has been provided by the Met Office. To allow better spatial differentiation the monthly rainfall data for Britain are presented for the regional divisions of the precursor organisations of the EA and SEPA. The Met Office monthly rainfall series are Crown Copyright and may not be passed on to, or published by, any unauthorised person or organisation. The provision of the basic data, which provides the foundation both of this report and the wider activities of the NHMP, is gratefully acknowledged.


CAKMAK, E. AYKAS, I. ONAL and E. CAKIR, 2010. The performance of developed rotary tiller fitted with pneumatic seeder. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 801-810 The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of new developed rotary tiller fitted with pneumatic seeder which can perform tillage and cereal seeding in one pass. The seeding performance of developed machine was examined at laboratory conditions then its performance was compared with conventional seeding machine in the field conditions. The developed machine performs the seeding by first tilling the soil with rotary tiller then placing the seeds with the help of seeding tubes over which soil is evenly distributed. And finally, the seeds are covered by tilled soil and straw. Developed machine enables the seeding by one pass in the field which will decrease the field traffic and prevent the hazardous effects of buried straw on the seeds. Thus, it provides lower energy inputs, increased work rates and timeliness. First the seeding uniformity of the developed machine was examined at laboratory conditions and then compared with conventional seeding machine in the field tests for forward speeds at 1, 1.5, and 2 ms -1 and slopes of the field at 5%-10% and 15%. According to the results, developed machine had similar seedling emergence rate with conventional (80 % and 82 %), while allowing reduced tillage for cereal seeding along with fuel saving when compared to conventional seeding system. Fuel consumption of the developed machine was 16.16 Lha -1 whereas this was 29.60 Lha -1 for conventional seeding system. Developed machine provided better fuel consumption with almost twice less specific power requirement while creating similar seeding conditions as conventional system. When we compare the developed machine with conventional seeding systems for plant emergence and yield parameters in the field, there was no statistical difference regarding plant emergence, shoots ratios, grain yield, stalk/grain ratio, and number of plants per 1 m 2 area.


Sandcracks, which are ubiquitous in Holocene eolian and beach backshore carbonate grainstone on Alligator Point, Cat Island, Bahamas, resemble polygonal mudcracks, but formed in ooid sand without muddy matrix. In experiments on Cat Island beach sand, sediment surfaces cracked polygonally in the absence of mud or biofilms while drying at room temperature due to contraction generated by capillary effects related to surface tension attraction of interstitial water. Gravitational collapse of irregular open pores and repacking of sand grains due to loss of cohesion between particles caused by evaporation of water enhance the cracking process and appearance of polygons by providing space for cracks to expand. The polygons are held together by any remaining capillary moisture and associated meniscus cement, which precipitates as the sand dries. Polygonal sandcracks can be preserved by rapid lithification of carbonate sand, but have been documented only rarely from other localities because their formation requires well-sorted, well-rounded spherical grains rather than those making up the more common, heterogeneous skeletal and peloidal sediment in carbonate settings. Interpretation of this primary sedimentary desiccation structure provides new insights into sedimentation and diagenesis of ooid-rich deposits and can aid in recognizing ancient subaerial exposure horizons.