Abstract Optimizing culture conditions lead to the improvement of oocyte developmental competence and additives with anti-oxidative activity in culture media improved embryonic development. Royal jelly (RJ) is a product from the cephalic glands of nurse bees that has considerable health effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different concentrations of RJ on the maturation, cleavage, and blastocyst rates and gene expression in the oocyte and cumulus cells during in vitro maturation (IVM) of sheep oocyte. IVM of oocyte was performed in the presence of control (RJ0), 2.5 (RJ2.5), 5 (RJ5), 10 (RJ10), 20 (RJ20), and 40 (RJ40) mg/mL of RJ. Following the maturation period, parthenogenetic activation was carried out in two treatment groups (RJ0 and RJ10) and embryonic development was examined three and eight days thereafter. Moreover, the relative expression of BCL2 and BAX in oocyte as well as BCL2, BAX, HAS2, PTGS2, and STAR in cumulus cells were assessed. The results indicated that the addition of 10 mg/mL of RJ (90 ± 4.51%) to the maturation medium linearly increased the oocyte maturation rate compared to the control group (57 ± 2.42%), then it remained constant to the RJ40 (93 ± 3.10%) group. The higher RJ concentrations were associated with increased (p < 0.01) cleavage (53.3 ± 1.55% to 82.3 ± 2.82%) and blastocyst rate (15.5 ± 1.16% to 33.8 ± 3.09%) from the RJ0 to the RJ10 group. The relative mRNA expression of BCL2 and BAX in the oocyte was higher at RJ10. In cumulus cells, the expression of BCL2 was not affected, but that of BAX decreased, and expression of HAS2, PTGS2, and STAR were increased following the addition of RJ to the maturation media. In conclusion, the addition of 10 mg/mL of RJ to maturation medium improved blastocyst formation and decreased the apoptotic incidence in sheep cumulus cells and the oocyte during the in vitro development.


First language learners are "morphology machines," but second language learners are not. This phenomenon is at the heart of those cases of exaptation (in the sense of Lass 1990) where a loss in morphology due to language contact (second language acquisition) triggers new interpretations of morphological relics in a new generation of speakers (first language acquisition). Exaptation is, however, not restricted to morphology. This paper presents two case studies, one from phonology to morphology and syntax (the Celtic mutations), and one from syntax to discourse (verb-second in Early Modern English). The paper argues that a central notion in exaptation, and possibly the key fact that distinguishes it from the notion of reanalysis, is breakdown in transmission. Breakdown makes it more challenging for learners to recover the interpretation of a feature. They will often succeed nevertheless by fine-tuning hypotheses until they have a reasonable fit. Exaptation, then, is an accidental by-product of the (first and second language) acquisition toolkit: learners' hypotheses may occasionally differ spectacularly from their "model". It is then that we see how powerful the toolkit really is.


A magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami on 11 March 2011 pulverized numerous coastal villages in the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan, killing nearly 24,000 people and initially displacing more than one half million from their homes. This natural disaster was compounded by the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. The horrific scenes of devastation and personal loss sear a place in memory usually reserved for nightmares. This photo essay features encounters with survivors, glimpses of tsunami-flattened villages, and reflections on Fukushima and the future of nuclear energy in Japan.


Over the past 25 years, India's economy grew at an average real rate of close to 6 percent, with growth rates in recent years accelerating to 9 percent. Yet by 2005-06, the general government debt-to-GDP ratio was 34 percentage points higher than in the 1980s. The authors examine the links between public finances and growth in the post-1991 period. They argue that the main factor in the deterioration of government debt dynamics after the mid-1990s was a reform-induced loss in trade, customs, and financial repression taxes. Over time, these very factors plus lower entry barriers have contributed to stronger microfoundations for growth by increasing competition and hardening budget constraints for firms and financial sector institutions. The authors suggest that the impressive growth acceleration of the past few years, which is now lowering government indebtedness, can be attributed to the lagged effects of these factors, which have taken time to attain a critical mass in view of India's gradual reforms. Similarly, the worsening of public finances during the late 1990s can be attributed to the cumulative effects of tax losses, the negative growth effects of cuts in capital expenditure that were made to offset the tax losses, and a pullback in private investment (hence, growth and taxes), a situation which is now turning around. Insufficient capital expenditures have contributed to the infrastructure gap, which is seen as a constraint especially for rapid growth in manufacturing. The authors discuss ongoing reforms in revenue mobilization and fiscal adjustment at the state level, which if successfully implemented, will result in a better alignment of public finances with growth by generating further fiscal space for infrastructure and other development spending.


A longitudinal study was carried out on renal transplant recipients with a healthy kidney functioning in Lahore, Pakistan, to find out how recipients' life orientation influences their perceptions of physical health status. Perceived Health Status (PHS) was measured by a self-developed questionnaire that reflected the symptom severity and frequency measured by the common immune-suppressant side effects. Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R; Scheier, Carver, and Bridges, 1994) was used to measure optimism. Statistical analysis involved linear regression and cross lagged correlation analysis (CLC). It was found that most recipients tend to have an optimistic attitude and a positive perception of their health status. Although both PHS and optimism were found to be significant predictors of each other, however, it was clarified that recipients' with a better PHS, that is, healthy graft functioning tend to be more optimistic because of their improved health status. Socio-demographic factors including age, education level, time since transplant, and financial condition reflected by monthly family income were also analysed for their effect. Age was found to be the only factor affecting PHS and optimism across three times. Younger recipients reported better PHS and tend to be more optimistic. Work status (working vs. nonworking recipients) was found to be significant predictor of optimism at Time 1 and of PHS at Time2 and 3 only, not showing a consistent pattern across 15 months.


Amphiphilic molecules spontaneously self-assemble into a variety of structures in solution. The term amphiphilic indicates that one part of the molecule is attracted to the solvent, while the other is not. Interactions such as between solute-solvent and solute-solute thus determine the organization. Understanding the self-assembly means understanding those interactions and their driving forces. In the first chapter an overview of the self-organization of amphiphilic molecules into supermolecuar aggregates of different morphologies is provided, with a focus on purely peptidic amphiphiles, i.e. amphiphiles which consist solely of a different amino acid sequence. In the second chapter the self-assembly of amphiphilic peptides with a specific amino acid sequence into micelles and spherical peptide nanoparticles is described. The undecamer peptide that was used features a repetitive L-tryptophan and D-leucine [LW-DL] motif, representing the hydrophobic block – which is a truncated version of gramicidin A (gA), named gT. The N-terminally attached hydrophilic section was either lysine (K) or acetylated lysine (X) and was optionally terminated with cysteine for post-functionalization of the thiol-group. The uncharged peptide AcC-X3-gT was demonstrated to assemble into micelles and subsequently into peptide particles, termed 'peptide beads'. We hypothesize that the peptide beads consisted of micelles – a structure described as multicompartment micelles. Peptide beads using AcC-X3-gT and its analogues – including Ac-X3-gT-C, a new peptide with the cysteine residue on the C instead of the N-terminus – are further investigated in Chapter Three. We succeeded in creating highly ordered Ac-X3-gT-C – Au-NP composites, which allowed us to visualize the inner structure of the nanoparticles. The presented composite materials are expected to exhibit exceptional electrical and optical properties. In Chapter Four these amphiphilic peptides are studied with regard to the interaction within a lipid layer but also in pure peptide layers at the air-water interface. Results indicate the formation of a unimolecular, flat film. Peptide layers were successfully transferred onto a solid support or self-assembled peptide monolayers (SAMs) were created equally well via immersion and spin-coating. Preliminary mineralization experiments confirmed the successful creation of calcium phosphate crystals. The topic of the following chapter focuses on a peptide library that has been synthesized to correlate the primary sequence, its secondary structure and the resulting self-assembly. The peptide design includes three parts: (a) a charged lysine part, (b) an acetylated lysine part and (c) a constant hydrophobic rod-like helix, based on gramicidin A (gA). By stepwise replacement of free lysine (K) with acetylated lysine (X) we generated a library of a total of ten peptides Ac-X8-gA and KmX8-m-gA (m ranging from 0 to 8). By using point mutations, we adjusted the degree of acetylation (DA) and thus the overall amphiphilicity of the peptides, which led to a change in the secondary structure in the aqueous environment from a Beta-sheet to an Alpha-helix. This transition generated a significant change in the morphology of the self-assembled structures from fibers to micelles. The study is important precisely because it presents a first step towards molecular switches based on acetylation of a peptide, inspired by the example of phosphorylation of proteins or enzymes, which converts them into the active or inactive state by structural changes. Chapter Sseven focuses on essential parameters to successfully manage membrane formation from a purely peptidic system. A crucial step in the formation of peptide membranes appears to be dimerization, which originates from the introduction of intermolecular interactions, such as H-bonds or Pi-Pi stacking of aromatic rings. The formation of a stabilized membrane subunit, i.e. dimers in the lateral or perpendicular directions (relative to the membrane) produced stable, purely peptidic vesicles and may well apply to other peptidic systems. These novel peptidic systems offer hydrophilic and hydrophobic compartments to encapsulate and integrate different drugs or payloads and could be used for gene delivery, since the design includes charged moieties. In the last chapter, the achievements of the presented work are discussed and summarized. Furthermore, lines of research are suggested, which, from the present point of view, appear to be the most promising and should be the focus of subsequent experiments.


Many scientists long for a place for unfettered discussion about published papers, and PubPeer is one of the latest websites trying to fill that gap. These sites can help to clarify experiments, suggest avenues for follow-up work, and catch errors. But PubPeer9s founders and most of its commenters choose to remain anonymous, which may foster free discussion but doesn9t always elevate it.


The School Years Developmental Journal is designed to help parents, young people, teachers and other practitioners record, celebrate and support learning and development. It also helps everyone to share information, supporting a key working approach.

Young people may like to make the Journal their own when they reach an age where this is appropriate.

The Journal is particularly useful if a child or young person has an additional need or disability. The School Years Developmental Journal follows on from the Early Years Developmental Journal and includes behaviours that most typically developing children and young people show during their time at school and beyond, i.e. from when they are aged five to 18 years and above.


High and low responding opossums (Monodelphis domestica) differ in their plasma very low density lipoprotein and low density lipoprotein (VLDL+LDL) cholesterol concentrations when they consume a high cholesterol diet, which is due in part to absorption of a higher percentage of dietary cholesterol in high responders. We compared the expression of a set of genes that influence cholesterol absorption in high and low responders fed a basal or a high cholesterol and low fat (HCLF) diet. Up-regulation of the ABCG5, ABCG8, and IBABP genes by the HCLF diet in high and low responders may reduce cholesterol absorption to maintain cholesterol homeostasis. Differences in expression of the phospholipase genes (PLA2 and PLB) and phospholipase activity were associated with differences in cholesterol absorption when opossums were fed cholesterol-enriched diets. Higher PLA2 and PLB mRNA levels and higher phospholipase activity may increase cholesterol absorption in high responders by enhancing the release of cholesterol from bile salt micelles for uptake by intestinal cells.


Background and Aim: Management of patients with outpatient diseases is the most important part of general practitioners working environment in future. The present study aimed at evaluating medicalinterns and graduates' self-assessment regarding their attitude about children outpatients in pediatric ward. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional and descriptive study 40 medical interns. and 20 medical graduates were selected as samples in 2013 and their attitude about quality and effectiveness of pediatric ward education was evaluated through their self-assessment by means of a researcher-designed questionnaire based on Likert scale. Mean attitude points of the subjects in three domains of diagnosis, treatment, and prescription of drugs regarding four groups of diseases including microbial diseases, parasitic diseases, neonatal diseases, and malnutrition were accounted. Finally, the obtained data was fed into SPSS (V :11.5) software and and was analyzed using independent T-test at the significant level of α =0.05. Results: The medical graduates' attitude scores in the three domains of diagnosis, treatment, and prescription were 3.2.±0.27 , 3.21±0.30, and 3.06±0.37; and those of medical interns were 3.44±0.58 ,3.21±0.55 , and 2.97±0.59, respectively. The highest and lowest attitude mean scores of both groups in all of the three domains belonged to neonatal disorders and parasitic diseases. Mean attitude scores of the two groups in the three mentioned domains were not significantly different. Conclusion: The intern' self-assessment scores of attitude about children outpatients were not at a high level; and they did not increase parallel to working experience. Thus, improving clinical education is the main solution of the problem.


This study examined implementation strategies, approaches, constraints and revenue generation potentials of hybrid plantain/banana enterprise expansion progamme in Rivers State – a community werment programme funded by USAID in Southern Nigeria. Forty contact farmers directly involved in the project were selected. Primary and secondary data were used. Data analyses involved qualitative techniques, descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Simirov test and gross margin analysis. Results showed that implementation strategies and approaches were tailored towards overcoming constraints to the success of the project. Forty-five and thirty two percent gains in income were made by processing hybrid plantain fruits into flour and chips instead of local cultivars. Farmers preferred workshops and services of extension agents to other channels of communication with respect to transfer of innovations. It was recommended among other things that community development programmes should work in line with established and prevalent cultural patterns to avoid lack of interest or poor acceptance and minimal support for the project.


Decision procedures are widely used in software development and verification. The goal of this dissertation is to increase the scope of properties that can be verified using decision procedures. To achieve this goal, we identify three improvements over the state of the art in decision procedures, and their use in software reliability tools. First, we observe that developing new decision procedures increases the range of properties and programs that are amenable to automated verification. In this thesis, we are particularly interested in the verification of container data structures. Existing verification tools use set abstractions to reason about the contents of data structures. However, set abstraction loses any information about duplicate occurrences of elements in a container. We therefore propose a new logic for reasoning about multisets with cardinality constraints. This logic subsumes reasoning about sets and enables reasoning about duplicate elements in containers. Cardinality constraints are useful for reasoning about the number of elements stored in a data structure. Based on an extension of linear arithmetic (which we call LIA*), we describe a decision procedure for the logic ofmultisets with cardinalities. By investigating properties of LIA*, we prove that the satisfiability of multisets with cardinality constraints is an NP-complete problem. Second, we notice that verification conditions expressing properties of data structures often can be decomposed into several well-understood logics. If the signatures of the component theories are not disjoint (i.e., they sharemore than equality) then it is often unclear whether such a reduction is possible, even if individual decision procedures for all component theories are known to exist. We investigate how to combine non-disjoint theories that share set symbols and operators. We state and prove a new combination theorem for such theories. Our theorem states that the combination is possible if each component theory can be reduced to the common theory, the theory of sets with cardinality constraints. We prove that many theories satisfy this property. The resulting combined logic enables reasoning about complex properties of data structure implementations that could not be expressed in any previously known decidable logic. Finally, we identify new applications of decision procedures in software reliability tools. We describe how a model-producing decision procedure can be generalized into a predictable and complete synthesis procedure. Given a specification, a synthesis procedure is an algorithm that outputs the code that meets this specification. We demonstrate this approach in detail for the concrete case of linear integer arithmetic. We further develop an orthogonal approach to use decision procedure for program synthesis: we show how to reconstruct code snippets that satisfy given type constraints from a proof of unsatisfiability that was computed by a theorem prover. The programmer then interactively selects the desired code snippet from a choice of code snippets generated by the synthesis engine. Together, our results provide the foundations of sound and predictable verification and synthesis tools for integer arithmetic and container data structures.


Surface gradients are materials that exhibit a variation in properties such as chemical composition, topography etc., in a continuous and/or discrete fashion. They are broadly classified as chemical and physical gradients depending upon the properties that gradient exhibits. Among those, chemical gradients on various surfaces have been a great interest in materials research for the last two decades. This is due to the applications of gradients in various fields such as biological sciences, separation science, etc. There have been several different approaches developed for the preparation of chemical gradients. Silane-based approaches are among those that are widely used because of the straightforwardness of the chemistry involved and also the availability of silanes with various chemical functionalities. A few of these silane based approaches such as the vapor-diffusion method and liquid diffusion method have been used for various applications so far. Most of these methods were only able to prepare surface chemical gradients for a specific application mainly because of their limitations in terms of gradient-length scale and chemistry involved. Hence, there is a need to develop additional procedures for the preparation of chemical gradients that can be adaptable to different substrates and use them to form gradients at various length-scales such as few hundred microns to tens of centimeters. Using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTEOS) as the precursor, a simple method was developed to prepare surface amine gradients termed 'controlled-rate infusion (CRI). The CRI method involves the infusion of an organoalkoxysilane solution into a container with a substrate mounted vertically so that time-based exposure along the substrate forms a xxiv gradient in chemical functionality. The most important attribute of this method is that the local steepness of the gradient can be systematically controlled by simply changing the rate of infusion. The steepness of the gradient can also be changed at predefined positions along its length by programming the rate of infusion. The ability to manipulate the gradient profile is particularly important for applications that rely on mass transport and/or those that require spatial control of gradient properties. CRI can also be used to study the reactivity of aminoalkoxysilanes that contain mono, di and tri amino groups and also amines with various substitutions (secondary and tertiary amines). The gradient profiles in each case were different and correlated to their reactivity with surface silanols. Among those aminoalkoxysilanes, ethylenediamine and diethlenetriamine were found to be very good chelating agents to bind with metal ions. Thus, gradients prepared with diamine and triamine were used as ligand density gradients for the investigation of metal-amine complex formation using two different metal ions (Cu and Zn). The above mentioned work formed the first part of this dissertation (up to Chapter 5). The latter part concentrates on fabrication and application of surface gradients for stationary phases for chromatographic separation. For the demonstration of proof-of-principle of the application of gradient stationary phases, the CRI approach was employed to prepare continuous stationary phase gradients on HPTLC plates for planar chromatography. The SiOH groups on the activated HP-TLC plates were reacted with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTEOS) in a time dependent fashion by using a programmable syringe pump to control the rate of APTEOS infusion into the deposition reservoir. The shape (profile) of the gradient was controlled by the rate of infusion and the gradients were visualized by utilizing a concentration-dependent color formation reaction between amine groups and ninhydrin. The advantages of such gradients in optimizing the xxv retention and separation of various components in different mixtures was illustrated using mixtures of (i) four weak acids and bases and (ii) three widely-used over-the-counter drugs. Thus, the gradient stationary phase was successfully fabricated and applied as a planar chromatographic support. The next step of this research was to prepare continuous amine gradients on silica capillaries as these would be useful in open-tubular capillary electrochromatography for separation of complex mixtures and also to study the retention behavior of various components. This was achieved by carefully infusing micro-volumes of APTEOS solution into the activated silica capillaries. To characterize these gradients, a unique set-up was developed to measure streaming potential and zeta potential along the gradient capillary. Since surface amine groups exist as positively charged groups at acidic and neutral pHs, the measured zeta potential increased from the low amine end to the high amine end of the


DHT is a widely used building block for scalable P2P systems. However, as uniform hashing employed in DHTs destroys data locality, it is not a trivial task to support complex queries (e.g., range queries and k-nearest-neighbor queries) in DHT-based P2P systems. In order to support efficient processing of such complex queries, a popular solution is to build indexes on top of the DHT. Unfortunately, existing over-DHT indexing schemes suffer from either query inefficiency or high maintenance cost. In this paper, we propose LIGhtweight Hash Tree (LIGHT)-a query-efficient yet low-maintenance indexing scheme. LIGHT employs a novel naming mechanism and a tree summarization strategy for graceful distribution of its index structure. We show through analysis that it can support various complex queries with near-optimal performance. Extensive experimental results also demonstrate that, compared with state of the art over-DHT indexing schemes, LIGHT saves 50-75 percent of index maintenance cost and substantially improves query performance in terms of both response time and bandwidth consumption. In addition, LIGHT is designed over generic DHTs and hence can be easily implemented and deployed in any DHT-based P2P system.


ARCGIS LYR File - ACS_B19101G_AREA_FAMILYINCOME2RACES: 2010 Census Tracts joined to B19101G business table. Business table is US Census American Community Survey (2013-2017) data table for: INCOME subject area. Provides information about: FAMILY INCOME IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS (IN INFLATION-ADJUSTED DOLLARS) (TWO OR MORE RACES HOUSEHOLDER) for the universe of: FAMILIES WITH A HOUSEHOLDER WHO IS TWO OR MORE RACES. These data are extrapolated estimates only, based on sampling; they are not actual complete counts. This Layer File contains both the Estimate value in the E item for the census topic and an adjacent M item which defines the Margin of Error for the value. The Margin of Error is the plus/minus range for the item estimate value, where the range between the Estimate minus the Margin of Error and the Estimate plus the Margin of Error defines the 90% confidence interval of the item value. Many of the Margin of Error values are significant relative to the size of the Estimate value. This table contains 17 item(s) extracted from a larger sequence table. This extracted subset represents that portion of the sequence that is considered high priority. Other portions of this sequence that are not included can be identified in the data dictionary information provided via the link in the Supplemental Information section. This table information is also provided as a stand-alone table named: ACS_B19101G_FAMILYINCOME2RACES. Both the table and customized layer file name do not contain the year descriptor (i.e. 2013-2017) for the current ACS series. This is intentional in order to maintain the same table\layer file name in each successive ACS update. The alias of each item's (E)stimate and (M)easure of Error value stores the vintage information as beginning YY and ending YY, i.e., 'E1317' and 'M1317' followed by the rest of the alias name. In this way users of the data tables or layer files that support field aliases can determine which ACS series is being represented by the current table contents. The next 5-year sample of ACS, representing the current year minus 1, becomes available in December of each year. For example, the next series - 2014 through 2018 - will become available at the end of 2019. The new 2017 data will be posted to the Spatial Data Warehouse, and hosted on the Open Data site by January 2019. The previous series of data is retired to the Historical Data Library geodatabase (according to the ACS series end date) from where it can be accessed if needed. The description of the attributes that are in the business table joined to TRACTS10_AREA are not repeated here in this layer file metadata. The table metadata, accessible from the link in the Supplemental information section, can be viewed to review the item descriptions.


Fundamental differences in the anatomy and function of the corticospinal tract support enhanced recovery of leg and hand function after lateralized spinal cord injury in primates compared to rodents, emphasizing the importance of primate models for spinal cord repair therapies. Species-specific recovery Despite decades of research and success in rodent models, there are no therapies that repair the human spinal cord. Friedli et al. looked at the reorganization and function of the corticospinal tract after spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats, monkeys, and humans. In humans with lateralized SCI (affecting only one side of the spinal cord), there was greater recovery in motor function than those with more symmetric injuries; this recovery was mirrored in monkeys with a similar SCI, but not in rats. The authors looked into why such a species divergence exists, and revealed that monkeys had a greater number of bilateral axonal projections that sprouted into denervated spinal segments below the injury, whereas rats had interrupted projections and near-complete depletion of corticospinal fibers. Thus, monkeys and humans have the potential for synaptic reorganization above and below the lesion, and this corticospinal tract reorganization correlates with functional recovery. The authors suggest that primate models should be considered more frequently for research aimed at SCI repair and therapeutics, but acknowledge the importance of rodent models in the field. Furthermore, because the degree of laterality correlates with a positive outcome, the authors suggest that it be factored into clinical trial design. Experimental and clinical studies suggest that primate species exhibit greater recovery after lateralized compared to symmetrical spinal cord injuries. Although this observation has major implications for designing clinical trials and translational therapies, advantages in recovery of nonhuman primates over other species have not been shown statistically to date, nor have the associated repair mechanisms been identified. We monitored recovery in more than 400 quadriplegic patients and found that functional gains increased with the laterality of spinal cord damage. Electrophysiological analyses suggested that corticospinal tract reorganization contributes to the greater recovery after lateralized compared with symmetrical injuries. To investigate underlying mechanisms, we modeled lateralized injuries in rats and monkeys using a lateral hemisection, and compared anatomical and functional outcomes with patients who suffered similar lesions. Standardized assessments revealed that monkeys and humans showed greater recovery of locomotion and hand function than did rats. Recovery correlated with the formation of corticospinal detour circuits below the injury, which were extensive in monkeys but nearly absent in rats. Our results uncover pronounced interspecies differences in the nature and extent of spinal cord repair mechanisms, likely resulting from fundamental differences in the anatomical and functional characteristics of the motor systems in primates versus rodents. Although rodents remain essential for advancing regenerative therapies, the unique response of the primate corticospinal tract after injury reemphasizes the importance of primate models for designing clinically relevant treatments.


This chapter describes and explains in detail the electronic noses (e-noses) as devices composed of an array of sensors that measure chemical volatile compounds and apply classification or regression algorithms. Then, it reviews the most significant applications of such devices in beer technology, with examples about defect detection, hop classification, or beer classification, among others. After the review, the chapter illustrates two applications from the authors, one about beer classification and another about beer defect detection. Finally, after a comparison with other analytical techniques, the chapter ends with a summary, conclusions, and the compelling future of the e-noses applied to beer technology.


Background and aims Hiatus hernia (HH) is a key mediator of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease but little is known about its significance in the general population. We studied the structure and function of the gastro-oesophageal junction in healthy volunteers with and without HH. Methods We compared 15 volunteers with HH, detected by endoscopy or MRI scan, but without gastro-oesophageal reflux disease with 15 controls matched for age, gender and body weight. Jumbo biopsies were taken across the squamocolumnar junction (SCJ). High-resolution pH metry (12 sensors) and manometry (36 sensors) were performed upright and supine, before and after a meal. The SCJ was marked with an endoscopically placed clip and visualised fluoroscopically. Results Cardiac mucosa was longer in volunteers with HH (3.5 vs 2.5 mm, p=0.01). There was no excessive acid reflux 5 cm above the upper border of the lower oesophageal sphincter (LOS) in either group but those with HH had short segment reflux 11 mm above the pH transition point after the meal when supine (pH<4 for 5.5% vs 0.3% of time, p=0.01). The SCJ and pH transition point were proximally displaced within the gastro-oesophageal junction in those with HH versus controls (p<0.05). The pH transition point was proximal to the peak LOS pressure point in HH subjects but distal to it in controls after the meal (p<0.05). When supine, the postprandial pH transition point crossed the SCJ in those with HH (p=0.03). Conclusions Healthy volunteers with HH have increased intrasphincteric reflux and lengthening of cardiac mucosa in the absence of traditional transsphincteric reflux.


ABSTRACT Migration has been dominating media and political discourses in Europe in recent years. Previous studies have mainly mapped migration discourses in traditional media or conventional channels of party communication, often in a single country. Migration-related party communication on social network sites has been largely neglected. This study analyses migration discourses in the Facebook accounts of political actors (n = 1702) across six European countries (Spain, UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Poland). On the basis of automated content analyses, we present new insights into the visibility of migration as a topic and sentiment about migration, revealing country- and party-specific patterns. Migration is a more prominent topic in countries with positive net migration ('receiving countries') than in countries where net migration is neutral or negative. Although we did not find support for the assumption that right-leaning parties talk more, and more negatively, about migration, our results do suggest a distinct pattern that applies to parties of both the extreme left and the extreme right. Political actors from parties of the extreme left and the extreme right of the political spectrum address migration more frequently and more negatively than more moderate political players.


Upper Ordovician–Lower Devonian strata of the Meguma terrane in the Canadian Appalachians contain zircon populations, including an important Mesoproterozoic zircon population (1.0–1.4 Ga), similar to those in coeval strata of Avalonia, and strongly suggest contiguous rather than discrete histories for these terranes throughout the Paleozoic. That these terranes were juxtaposed throughout the early Paleozoic is indicated by the absence of a Cambrian–Ordovician accretionary event, the lack of intervening suture-zone ophio litic units, and the similarity of Avalonian and Meguma basement Nd isotope signatures in early Paleozoic igneous suites. As Avalonia had accreted to Laurentia-Baltica by the Early Silurian, these data suggest that the Meguma terrane, like Avalonia, resided along the same (northern) margin of the Rheic Ocean at that time. These conclusions have implications for reconstructions of the northern Gondwanan margin in the early Paleozoic and imply that the Silurian–Devonian Acadian orogeny in Maritime Canada occurred in an Andean-type setting and was not related to collision of the Meguma terrane with the Laurentian margin.


Around the world, people who are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and turned to political extremes. Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds--from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens. Hobbled by short-term thinking and ideological dogma, democracies risk falling prey to nationalism and protectionism that will deliver declining living standards. In Edge of Chaos, Dambisa Moyo shows why economic growth is essential to global stability, and why liberal democracies are failing to produce it today. Rather than turning away from democracy, she argues, we must fundamentally reform it. Edge of Chaos presents a radical blueprint for change in order to galvanize growth and ensure the survival of democracy in the twenty-first century.


Ethnicity is an important social construct mobilised in the discourses of multicultural education. At present, little research exists on the way ethnicity impacts on the schooling experiences of students with former Yugoslav background (SFYB) in Australia.

This qualitative study looks at the daily realities of twelve SFYB at a Western Australian government secondary school. Particular attention is paid to the management of their ethnic identities to achieve their educational, social and other goals.

Data gathered from the twelve in-depth, guided interviews with SFYB is analysed through the lens of critical multiculturalism, posited as one of several notions of multiculturalism and one with a specific social justice agenda. Theories of hybridity developed by Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall are translated into the critical multiculturalist framework and provide a further development of the analysis of the data in which hybridity is seen as both experiences and enactments.

The study findings suggest that these SFYB embody the principles of critical multiculturalism as skilful managers of contingencies of ethnic identities, aspirations and challenges they encounter at the school. The study also proposes that the notion of critical, power conscious hybridity could be useful as a conceptual tool in the future work of critical multiculturalists.


Support for multicast services is crucial for mobile ad-hoe networks (MANETs) to become a viable alternative to infrastructured networks. Efficient multicasting in MANETs faces challenges not encountered in other types of networks such as the mobility of nodes, the tenuous status of communication links, limited resources, and indefinite knowledge of the network topology. This thesis addresses these challenges by providing a framework and architecture with proactive and reactive components to support multicasting in MANETs emphasizing reliability and efficiency of end-to-end packet delivery. The architecture includes the Robust Multicast Routing protocol (RoMR) to provide multicast services to multicast applications. RoMR's proactive component calculates multiple multicast trees based on the prediction of future availability of the links and the assumption that the trees will become disconnected over time. The reactive components respond to changes in the network topology due to the mobility of the nodes and to changes in the multicast group's membership.
Sending redundant data packets over multiple paths further enhances the reliability at the cost of an increase in the use of network resources. RoMR uses approximations to Steiner trees during tree formation and forward error correction encoding techniques during packet transmission in order to counteract this increase. To avoid additional network traffic, trees are distributed only when the existing trees cannot be easily patched to accommodate changes in topology or group membership.
The novelty of the proposed protocol stems from integrating techniques that have not previously been combined into a multicasting protocol and a unique method to calculate the relative weights of the links.
In addition to the specifications of the protocol, a simulation framework was developed to test different implementations of the various components of RoMR. Simulations compared the performance of the basic version of RoMR to a version that ignored link weights, and to a link-state multicast protocol currently being considered by the Internet Engineering Task Force. A statistical analysis of the results showed that RoMR performed better, overall, than the other two protocols.


This paper uses Statistics Canada's Social Policy Simulation Database and Model to provide estimates of the cumulative magnitude and distributional impact in 1993 of the tax increases introduced by the NDP government in Ontario in their three budgets after coming to office in 1990. It finds that the Ontario NDP tax changes have increased the tax burden on the Ontario household sector by almost $3 billion and have raised the average taxes paid by an Ontario family by $663. The tax increases are progressive up the income scale. Upper income families earning over $150,000 bear the heaviest tax increases of $6,811 per family. The vast majority of Ontarions,including even low and particularly middle income earners,face substantial tax increases. The only group sheltered is the low-income group who benefit from the greater targeting of property and sales tax assistance for seniors.


Hydrological modelling is an important tool for research, policy, and management, but uncertainty remains about parameters transferability from field observations made at small scale to models at the catchment scale and larger. This uncertainty compels the need to develop parameter relationships that are translatable across scale. In this study, we compare the changes to modelled processes as resolution is coarsened from 100‐m to 1‐km in a topographically complex, 255‐km2 Colorado River headwater catchment. We conducted a sensitivity analysis for hydraulic conductivity (K) and Manning's n parameters across four orders of magnitude. Results showed that K acts as a moderator between surface and subsurface contributions to streamflow, whereas n moderates the duration of high intensity, infiltration‐excess flow. The parametric sensitivity analysis informed development of a new method to scale effective hydraulic conductivity across modelling resolutions in order to compensate for the loss of topographic gradients as resolution is coarsened. A similar mathematical relationship between n and lateral resolution changes was not found, possibly because n is also sensitive to time discretization. This research provides an approach to translate hydraulic conductivity parameters from a calibrated coarse model to higher resolutions where the number of simulations are limited by computational demand.


The description of the short-range part of the nucleon-nucleon forces in terms of quark degrees of freedom is tested against experimental observables. We consider, for this purpose, a model where the short-range part of the forces is given by the quark cluster model and the long- and medium-range forces by well established meson exchanges. The investigation is performed using different quark cluster models coming from different sets of quark-quark interactions. The predictions of this model are compared not only with the phase shifts but also directly with the experimental observables. Agreement with the existing $\mathrm{pp}$ and $\mathrm{np}$ world set of data is poor. This suggests that the current description of the nucleon-nucleon interaction, at short distances, in the framework of the nonrelativistic quark models, is at present only qualitative.


We outline the use of sentiment analysis as a tool for demand planning in sales and operations planning (S&OP). First, we explain how S&OP functions and the reliance on cooperation or collaboration with other firms to gain information. We introduce sentiment analysis and show its value in determining marketplace-changes which feed into supply chains. We show how sentiment analysis supports data acquisition independent of other firms in the supply chain; incorporated into S&OP, these data can support preparation for changing requirements. While demonstrated in marketing, this concept remains unproven in supply chain research. We believe this is the first assertion and examination of how sentiment analysis can support effective S&OP but further empirical research is required to validate this concept.


Estimating fishery impacts on commercially unimportant species is often hindered by limited and possibly biased data for landed and discarded catch, and poor information on discard mortality. The three skate (family Rajidae) species occurring in southern Gulf of St Lawrence (Canada) exemplify this problem. Assessing the contribution of fishing to important declines in their adult abundance has been complicated by catch data that are not disaggregated by species, concerns about the reliability of discard amounts estimated from fisheries observer surveys, and unknown discard mortality rates. An approach is presented for producing annual estimates of landed and discarded catch, as well as discard mortality rates, for the three species for the period 1991–2011. The approach used data from landing statistics and from observer surveys, and models for disaggregating mixed fishery catches into their constituent species and for estimating minimum discard mortalities. Bootstrapping was used to propagate errors associated with different components of the estimation process. The estimation was partly validated by comparing recorded landings with landings estimated from fisheries observer surveys. This paper demonstrates how multiple sources of uncertainty in discard loss estimation can be addressed by dividing the estimation process into linked components that can be individually addressed and ideally validated.


We investigate atomic mechanisms of grain boundary ~GB! diffusion by combining molecular dynamics ~MD!, molecular statics, the harmonic approximation to atomic vibrations, and kinetic Monte Carlo ~KMC! simulations. The most important aspects of this approach are the basin-constrained implementation of MD and an automated location of transition states using the nudged elastic band method. We study two S55 @001# symmetric tilt GB's in Cu, with atomic interactions described by an embedded-atom potential. Our simulations demonstrate that GB's support both vacancies and interstitials, and that vacancies can show interesting effects such as delocalization and instability at certain GB sites. Besides simple vacancy-atom exchanges, vacancies move by ''long jumps'' involving a concerted motion of two atoms. Interstitials move through concerted displacements of two or more atoms. More complex mechanisms ~such as ring processes! involving larger groups of atoms have also been found. The obtained point defect formation energies and entropies, as well as their migration rate constants calculated within harmonic transition state theory, are used as input to KMC simulations of GB diffusion. The simulations show that GB diffusion can be dominated by either vacancy or interstitial-related mechanisms depending on the GB structure. The KMC simulations also reveal interesting effects such as temperature-dependent correlation factors and the trapping effect. Using the same simulation approach we study mechanisms of point defect generation in GB's and show that such mechanisms also involve collective transitions.


From 2011–2014, the United States Department of Homeland Security recorded an extraordinary increase in the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the southern border from Central America's "Northern Triangle"—the area made up of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In fact, in fiscal year 2014, United States Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 50,000 unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle. That is thirteen times more than just three years earlier. This Article examines the intersecting humanitarian and legal crises facing these children and offers an administrative solution to the problem. The children are fleeing a genuine humanitarian crisis—a region overrun by violent gangs that regularly target young people for recruitment. Once in the United States, these children face their own legal crisis. Indeed, they must confront numerous procedural and substantive hurdles, trying to avoid removal. As a result, many of the children are at serious risk of being deported and subsequently killed by the very gangs that they fled. Given this situation, the Article argues that President Obama's administration should provide temporary humanitarian protection to these migrants by exercising its congressionally delegated power to designate El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as new "temporary protected status" countries. Under this proposal, the United States would provide a temporary safe haven to nationals of these three countries until the horrific gang violence in the Northern Triangle subsides.


Indium oxychalcogenides would be attractive semiconductors considering the practical use of indium oxides and sulfides such as indium–tin oxides (ITO) and copper–indium–gallium diselenides (CIGS). In this work, a novel layered indium oxysulfide, LaOInS2, was synthesized by a metathesis reaction between LaOCl and NaInS2. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction showed that LaOInS2 consisted of alternately stacked rocksalt-type In–S and PbO-type La–O layers. The InS6 octahedron had split In sites with abnormally large anisotropic atomic displacement factors. LaOInS2 was found to be a direct semiconductor. Density functional theory calculations exhibited well-dispersed bands composed of In 5s/5p and S 3p/O 2p orbitals with a band gap of ∼2.4 eV, which was close to the experimental value estimated by optical absorption (2.64 eV). Under visible light irradiation this visible-light absorption, LaOInS2 exhibited photocatalytic activity for H2 and O2 evolution from water with the aid of Pt and IrO2 cocatalysts, respectively.


Score sheets are an essential tool of animal welfare. They allow transparent assessments to be made of animal health and behavior during animal experiments and they define interventions when deviations from normal status are detected. As such, score sheets help to refine animal experiments as part of the 3R (replacement, reduction and refinement) concept. This mini review aims at summarizing the scarce literature available on score sheet design.


We have developed a high performance hybridized parallel finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm featuring both OpenMP shared memory programming and MPl message passing. Our goal is to effectively model the optical characteristics of a novel light source created by utilizing a new class of materials known as photonic band-gap crystals. Our method is based on the solution of the second order discretized Maxwell's equations in space and time. This novel hybrid parallelization scheme allows us to take advantage of the new generation parallel machines possessing connected SMP nodes. By using parallel computations, we are able to complete a calculation on 24 processors in less than a day, where a serial version would have taken over three weeks. We present a detailed study of this hybrid scheme on an SGI origin 2000 distributed shared memory ccNUMA system along with a complete investigation of the advantages versus drawbacks of this method.


The present paper examines psych-verbs in the history of English. As is well-known, object experiencers are reanalyzed as subject experiencers in many of the modern European languages. I discuss one such change in detail, namely the change in the verb fear from meaning 'to frighten, cause to fear' to meaning 'to fear'. The reason for the change may be the loss of the morphologically overt causative and a change in the set of light verbs. Object experiencers are constantly lost but I show there is also a continual renewal through external borrowing and internal change from physical to mental impact. A last change I discuss is the one where Subject Experiencers are reanalyzed as Agents in a V(oice)P.


E-LIS is an open access archive for library and information science. With over 5,800 documents as of June 2007 (over 5,000 in February 2007 when the archive was investigated in-depth), E-LIS is the world's largest archive for LIS. Over half the documents in ELIS are peer-reviewed. E-LIS is particularly strong in English and Spanish language documents, but supports over 22 languages. With this multilingual support and a global team of volunteer editors, E-LIS has significant diversity in content, an advantage over traditional, english-based LIS resources. Not surprising, this tool designed by and for librarians features robust and userfriendly search options. Lack of phrase searching, and pointing to a cross-archiving searching tool no longer supported when much better options are available, are identified as areas for improvement.


Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) defines a new Mobility header that is used by
mobile nodes, correspondent nodes, and home agents in all messaging
related to the creation and management of bindings. Mobile IPv6 nodes
need the capability to identify themselves using an identity other
than the default home IP address. Some examples of identifiers include
Network Access Identifier (NAI), Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN),
International Mobile Station Identifier (IMSI), and Mobile Subscriber
Number (MSISDN). This document defines a new mobility option that can
be used by Mobile IPv6 entities to identify themselves in messages
containing a mobility header. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


This title contains the proceedings of a biology seminar held in February 1994. Ireland has less forest than any other country in the European Union. The 1994 seminar of the Irish National Committee for Biology set out to put this fact in historical context and then to examine current forest policy in the island, north and south. The final session of the seminar examined new uses of woody plants and the contribution of biotechnology to the production of elite trees for future forestry.


In a time of renewed interest in insurrectionary movements, urban protest, and anti-austerity indignation, the idea of resistance is regaining its relevance in social theory. De-Pathologizing Resistance re-examines resistance as a concept that can aid social analysis, highlighting the dangers of pathologising resistance as illogical and abnormal, or exoticising it in romanticised but patronising terms. Taking a de-pathologising and de-exoticising perspective, this book brings together insights from older and newer studies, the intellectual biographies of its contributing authors, and case studies of resistance in diverse settings, such as Egypt, Greece, Israel, and Mexico. From feminist studies to plaza occupations and anti-systemic uprisings, there is an emerging need to connect the analysis of contemporary protest movements under a broader theoretical re-examination. The idea of resistance?with all of its contradictions and its dynamism?provides such a challenging opportunity. This book was originally published as a special issue of History and Anthropology.


Nitric oxide (NO) can induce cell death; however, NO-induced cell death may be dependent/conditional on factors other than NO itself. Whether NO kills a particular cell depends on the amount of NO, source of NO, time of exposure to NO, cell type and the levels of other factors including, particularly oxygen, superoxide, H2O2, antioxidants, thiols and glycolysis.


Founded in 1983, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) Summer Music Camp (SMC) is an annual residential summer youth program consisting of two, one-week sessions. Approximately 1,800 students participate in large and small ensembles, musicianship classes, recreational time, and evening activities. Instructors have included UNCG music faculty members, area band, orchestra, and chorus directors, and private piano faculty, in addition to pre-service teachers. Although unintentional, the SMC has become an effective field experience for pre-service teachers. Field experience is beneficial to the growth of future educators (Branyon, 2008). McGlamery and Harrington (2007) reported field experiences are critical components in the teacher education program. Pre-service music teachers who participate in the SMC teach within a controlled environment along with experienced master teachers who serve as mentors. Complete instructional responsibility is afforded to the pre-service teachers through situations that include teaching in individualized sessions, small group instruction, rehearsing large ensembles, monitoring student behavior, and various administrative tasks. Furthermore, the pre-service teachers collaborate with a master teacher and peers to develop teaching strategies and learning goals. These duties and responsibilities are similar, if not identical, to classroom situations. The SMC allows pre-service teachers to connect theories and practices learned and discussed in the teacher education program with actual teaching situations. Moreover, pre-service teachers have the opportunity to teach students in grades 5-12 rather than peers as often seen in the collegiate classroom. The SMC provides a microcosm of a school semester in a controlled, two-week long environment. To date, no document has been published formally on the SMC's history, success, and benefits to pre-service teachers. This project will examine the benefits of summer youth programs for pre-service teachers through an analysis of the UNCG Summer Music Camp, its history, success, and current organizational structure. Scheduling, curriculum design, and experiences of pre-service teachers will be discussed.


Hairy cell leukemia has been shown to be strongly associated with the BRAF V600E mutation. We screened 59 unenriched archived bone marrow aspirate and peripheral blood samples from 51 patients with hairy cell leukemia using high resolution melting analysis and confirmatory Sanger sequencing. The BRAF V600E mutation was detected in 38 samples (from 36 patients). The BRAF V600E mutation was detected in all samples with disease involvement above the limit of sensitivity of the techniques used. Thirty-three of 34 samples from other hematologic malignancies were negative for BRAF mutations. A BRAF K601E mutation was detected in a patient with splenic marginal zone lymphoma. Our data support the recent finding of a disease defining point mutation in hairy cell leukemia. Furthermore, high resolution melting with confirmatory Sanger sequencing are useful methods that can be employed in routine diagnostic laboratories to detect BRAF mutations in patients with hairy cell leukemia and related lymphoproliferative disorders.


With the growth of the Semantic Web, the availability of RDF datasets from multiple domains
as Linked Data has taken the corpora of this web to a terabyte-scale, and challenges
modern knowledge storage and discovery techniques. Research and engineering on RDF
data management systems is a very active area with many standalone systems being introduced.
However, as the size of RDF data increases, such single-machine approaches meet
performance bottlenecks, in terms of both data loading and querying, due to the limited
parallelism inherent to symmetric multi-threaded systems and the limited available system
I/O and system memory. Although several approaches for distributed RDF data processing
have been proposed, along with clustered versions of more traditional approaches, their
techniques are limited by the trade-off they exploit between loading complexity and query
efficiency in the presence of big RDF data. This thesis then, introduces a scalable analysis
framework for processing large-scale RDF data, which focuses on various techniques to
reduce inter-machine communication, computation and load-imbalancing so as to achieve
fast data loading and querying on distributed infrastructures.
The first part of this thesis focuses on the study of RDF store implementation and parallel
hashing on big data processing. (1) A system-level investigation of RDF store implementation
has been conducted on the basis of a comparative analysis of runtime characteristics
of a representative set of RDF stores. The detailed time cost and system consumption is
measured for data loading and querying so as to provide insight into different triple store
implementation as well as an understanding of performance differences between different
platforms. (2) A high-level structured parallel hashing approach over distributed memory is
proposed and theoretically analyzed. The detailed performance of hashing implementations
using different lock-free strategies has been characterized through extensive experiments,
thereby allowing system developers to make a more informed choice for the implementation
of their high-performance analytical data processing systems.
The second part of this thesis proposes three main techniques for fast processing of large
RDF data within the proposed framework. (1) A very efficient parallel dictionary encoding
algorithm, to avoid unnecessary disk-space consumption and reduce computational complexity of query execution. The presented implementation has achieved notable speedups
compared to the state-of-art method and also has achieved excellent scalability. (2) Several
novel parallel join algorithms, to efficiently handle skew over large data during query processing.
The approaches have achieved good load balancing and have been demonstrated
to be faster than the state-of-art techniques in both theoretical and experimental comparisons.
(3) A two-tier dynamic indexing approach for processing SPARQL queries has been
devised which keeps loading times low and decreases or in some instances removes intermachine
data movement for subsequent queries that contain the same graph patterns. The
results demonstrate that this design can load data at least an order of magnitude faster than
a clustered store operating in RAM while remaining within an interactive range for query
processing and even outperforms current systems for various queries.


The purpose of the project was to gain understanding of clinical possibilities and applicability of non-surgical periodontal therapy. A clinical study was designed to compare a full-mouth ultrasonic debridement approach with the traditional approach of consecutive sessions of quadrant-wise scaling/root planing with respect to the clinical outcome and long term stability. A second study evaluated the outcome of locally delivered doxycycline as an adjunct to initial subgingival instrumentation in smokers and non-smokers. A third study was designed to evaluate the clinical outcome of mechanical re-treatment of non-responding pockets, with or without the use of adjunctive locally delivered doxycycline. Furthermore, a multilevel analysis was performed to investigate factors affecting the clinical outcome of pocket debridement at initial as well at re-treatment phase. In patients with moderate to advanced periodontitis an initial, 1-hour session of full-mouth ultrasonic debridement resulted in clinical improvements that were not significantly different from those following the traditional treatment approach. No significant difference with regard to the risk for recurrence of diseased periodontal pockets between the two treatment approaches was found, which lends support to the concept that the full-mouth ultrasonic approach to pocket/root debridement is as effective as quadrant-wise SRP in the initial treatment phase. Locally applied, controlled-release doxycycline gel partly counteracted the negative effect of smoking on periodontal healing following initial non-surgical therapy. However, when used as an adjunct to mechanical debridement in the re-treatment of periodontal pockets, locally delivered doxycycline did not significantly improve the treatment outcome compared to mechanical debridement alone. The multilevel analysis demonstrated that smoking habits, presence of supra-gingival plaque at the tooth site and location of the pocket at a molar were significant factors for an inferior outcome of initial non-surgical periodontal treatment. Molars, furcation sites, presence of plaque and presence of angular bony defects were associated with an inferior clinical result after re-treatment. The findings show that a full-mouth debridement approach is justified as an initial treatment modality. Furthermore, the results point to the importance of considering factors associated with the individual tooth site in the decision-making process regarding the selection of treatment procedures, particularly for sites showing poor healing response following initial pocket/root debridement. Locally applied controlled-release doxycycline gel may partly counteract the negative effect of smoking on periodontal healing following initial non-surgical therapy, but showed no significant benefit when applied in conjunction with re-treatment of remaining diseased sites.


This paper examines the post-migration investments in schooling and job search of immigrant families using new longitudinal data for Australia. Higher education levels at time of arrival are associated with a greater probability of enrolling in school after migration. In households where the visa category would suggest that post-migration investments may be important, we find higher rates of school enrollment and job search. Traditional gender roles appear to dictate which partner makes the investments in formal schooling. However, comparative labor market advantage, captured by principal applicant status appears to dictate which partner makes greater investments in job search.


In addition to pathology in the gray matter, there are also abnormalities in the white matter in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Sulfatide species are a class of myelin‐specific sphingolipids and are involved in certain diseases of the central nervous system. To assess whether sulfatide content in gray and white matter in human subjects is associated with both the presence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology as well as the stage of dementia, we analyzed the sulfatide content of brain tissue lipid extracts by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry from 22 subjects whose cognitive status at time of death varied from no dementia to very severe dementia. All subjects with dementia had AD pathology. The results demonstrate that: (i) sulfatides were depleted up to 93% in gray matter and up to 58% in white matter from all examined brain regions from AD subjects with very mild dementia, whereas all other major classes of lipid (except plasmalogen) in these subjects were not altered in comparison to those from age‐matched subjects with no dementia; (ii) there was no apparent deficiency in the biosynthesis of sulfatides in very mild AD subjects as characterized by the examination of galactocerebroside sulfotransferase activities in post‐mortem brain tissues; (iii) the content of ceramides (a class of potential degradation products of sulfatides) was elevated more than three‐fold in white matter and peaked at the stage of very mild dementia. The findings demonstrate that a marked decrease in sulfatides is associated with AD pathology even in subjects with very mild dementia and that these changes may be linked with early events in the pathological process of AD.


Title: STATING A CLAIM UPON WHICH RELIEF CAN BE GRANTED: EXAMINING HOW THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS OF CARE AND CHANGES IN PUBLIC POLICY SURROUNDING PUBLIC EDUCATION POTENTIALLY VALIDATE CONDITIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE Jeff VanCollins, Ph.D., 2008 Directed By: Associate Professor Sharon Fries-Britt, Department of Education Leadership, Higher Education and International Education What if a student spent his or her entire primary and secondary education in the same public school system and that school system failed to assess the student's reading, writing and mathematic capabilities, allowed the student to pass from grade to grade and advance course levels with the knowledge that the student had not achieved either its completion or the necessary skills; assigned the student to classes in which the teachers were unqualified; and allowed the student to graduate from high school although the student could not read above the eighth grade level. These are the facts of Peter W. v. San Francisco Unified School District, 60 Cal. App. 3d 817 (1976), the case that sets the context for instructional educational malpractice as explained in this study. For over 30 years, public policy factors have hindered the courts from acknowledging an educator's legal duty towards students to provide an adequate education. Utilizing legal negligence as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this study is to use pre-existing document data to address the question of how the development of standards of care and changes in public policy surrounding public education have evolved since the 1976 Peter W. case potentially validating a negligence cause of action claiming instructional educational malpractice. An analytical research style of qualitative inquiry was used to identity and analyze key court cases to determine the extent to which educational malpractice has been pleaded before and rejected by the courts. From this process, public policy factors and arguments used by the courts to deny recognition of instructional educational malpractice were extracted. Literature and research in the field of education as it related to the public policy considerations identified by the courts and legal scholars was then examined to review the changes in education and the practice of teaching in public primary and secondary educational institutions. In addition to potentially identifying the legal duty of the classroom teacher, the study's findings places a spotlight on the K-20 partnership, access to higher education and the role of higher education in producing classroom teachers and ensuring the existence of an educated society. STATING A CLAIM UPON WHICH RELIEF CAN BE GRANTED: EXAMINING HOW THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS OF CARE AND CHANGES IN PUBLIC POLICY SURROUNDING PUBLIC EDUCATION POTENTIALLY VALIDATE CONDITIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE


This thesis presents the results of an investigation of Cr keV bombardment of a crystalline Fe surface by molecular dynamics simulations. Different parameters of the bombardment were considered in particular those that pertain to surface pretreatment prior to PVD hard coatings.Molecular dynamics simulations of 200 eV to 5 keV Cr bombardment of a-Fe at normal incidence have been performed at crystal temperatures of 0 K, 300 K and 700 K using many body potentials which were modified to properly represent the energetic interaction range. The sputtering yield increases with energy showing an enhancement at crystal temperature 700 K, the same as for adatom formation. Defect production, such as vacancies and interstitials, increase in general with energy, and their distribution profiles change with the crystal temperature.The directional effect on the bombardment of Fe(100) surface at temperature 700 K, with 2.4 keV Cr shows a factor of two enhancement in the sputtering yield at low oblique angles with the initiation of reflection of Cr ions at high oblique incidence. Bombardment with noble gas ions has shown to be efficient and to produce a positive mass effect on sputtering compared to using a metal ion. Non linear enhancement of the total and cluster sputtering yield has been observed under diatomic Cr[2] projectile bombardment of Fe at 2.4 keV and 4.8 keV per dimer. The depth of origin of the sputtered particles seems to be insensitive to the bombardment parameters, but the sputtering rate of the surface does depend on the incidence parameters. The increase of sputtering yield at different bombardment conditions is the result of high yield events.


At the level of the capillaries, the systemic circulation loses about 2-4 liters of fluid and about 100g of protein into the interstitium daily. This ultrafiltrate of the systemic capillaries is returned to the circulatory system by the lymphatics. The lymphatic vasculature is highly specialized to perform this service, beginning with the blind-ended lymphatic capillaries. These vessels are highly permeable to protein, fluid and even cells, due to fenestrations in their basement membrane, and discontinuous button-like junctions rather than tight intercellular junctions as observed in the systemic capillaries1. The lymphatic capillaries merge into collectors and larger lymphatic conduits that are invested with vascular smooth muscle (capable of contracting and propelling lymph forward) and valves for unidirectional flow. These conduits merge at lymph nodes, delivering antigens to the immune cells and serving as an early warning system of pathogen invasion. The lymph nodes drain into conduits that ultimately merge into the thoracic duct which empties into the left subclavian vein. (SELECT FULL TEXT TO CONTINUE)


We report a new composite of black phosphorus and multiwall carbon nanotubes (BP–CNT) prepared via a surface oxidation-assisted chemical bonding procedure. The controlled air exposure successfully changed the naturally hydrophobic BP powder to the desired hydrophilicity, which was found indispensable to stable bond formation between the BP and the functionalized CNTs during ball milling. The BP–CNT composites were further fabricated into anodes for both Liand Na-ion batteries, using a sodium carboxyl methyl cellulose–poly(acrylic acid) (NaCMC–PAA) binary polymeric binder. The hydrophilicity of BP also played a very important role in forming strong bonds with the hydroxyl groups of NaCMC and the carboxylic acid groups of PAA. The plausible mechanisms of stable bond formation were comprehensively examined, and the results revealed two types of strong connections: P–O–C bonds and dehydration cross links. Consequently, the material delivered outstanding electrochemical performance in the anode, with a high discharge capacity of 1681 mA h g 1 after 400 cycles at a current density of 0.2C (1C 1⁄4 2596 mA g ) for Li-ion batteries. It also successfully delivered a first discharge capacity of 2073 and 850 mA h g 1 at 0.2C and 2C for Na-ion batteries, respectively, with excellent capacity retentions at both rates after 200 cycles. These salient results, which originated from the modified hydrophilic BP, will give further impetus to explore BP-based composites for use as highperformance materials for advanced energy storage applications.


On April 1st, 2009 a bitterly divided United States Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, turned the world of labor arbitration on its head. The Court's opinion in 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett overturned 35 years of jurisprudence, grounded in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co. dictum, by establishing that collectively bargained clauses expressly authorizing the arbitration of statutory claims are enforceable, either compelling arbitration or precluding the grant of an award in a judicial action. Grounding their decision, in part, on the prominent "Steelworkers Trilogy" case United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel, the Court in Pyett narrowed the Gardner-Denver Court's view on whether a union can waive a member's right to seek judicial determination of a statutory right.


This article presents an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP)-based multi-step approach for identifying car-sharing stations in medium size agglomerations. Each agglomeration consists of several communities (also called communities). The first step consists of identifying communities that contain enough population that would be interested in using car-sharing. In the second step, we identify the potential locations for car-sharing stations inside the communities. In the third step, experts rate the stations using several criteria. AHP is used to compute the criteria and station weights. The individual weightings of the criteria and the stations are used to compute overall weights of the stations with respect to all the criteria. These weighted stations are then subjected to a predefined threshold. All those stations whose overall weight exceeds the threshold limit are considered as final stations for car-sharing implementation. We validate our approach by application on various communities of Poitou-Charentes region.


Abstract Economic models routinely assume firms maximize shareholder wealth; however common law legal systems only require that officers and directors pursue the interests of the corporation, leaving this ill-defined. Economic arguments for shareholder wealth maximization derived from shareholders' status as residual claimants are vulnerable on several fronts. Share valuations fluctuate as sentiment shifts. Introductory finance casts firms as maximizing expected net present values, which are quasirents, expected earnings beyond expected costs of capital from investors, to which shareholders have no obvious claim. Other stakeholders – entrepreneurial founders or CEOs, employees, customers, suppliers, communities or governments, having made firm-specific investments, may exert stronger claims than atomistic public shareholders have to shares of their firms' quasirents. Consistent with this, their contractual claims are often augmented by residual claims and liabilities. Still, shareholder value maximization constitutes something of a bright line; whereas stakeholder welfare maximization is an ill-defined charge to assign boards that gives self-interested insiders broader scope for private benefits extraction. The common law concept of "the interests of the corporation" captures this ambiguity.


Extraction Transformation Load plays an important phase in development of data warehouse due its complexity of selecting data from different location and having different structures. The recent industry of data warehouse is driven by Privacy Preserving Data Mining which ensures privacy of sensitive information during Mining and is a requirement of most Data Bases. Current approaches to modelling extraction transformation load do not include privacy representation in Conceptual Modelling. This paper proposes object-oriented approach to model Extraction Transformation Load embedding privacy preservation. The major components of extraction include Data Source, Source Identifier, Retrieval, Join, Privacy Preserving Area and Data Staging Area. All the above mentioned components have been modelled using Unified Modelling Language.


Objective: Paracetamol overdose is the most common cause of drug-related poisoning and death worldwide. Although N -acetylcysteine is the widely accepted antidote for paracetamol poisoning, much debate persist regarding the appropriate route and duration of early N -acetylcysteine therapy. There is a paucity of studies comparing the effectiveness of oral and intravenous (IV) acetylcysteine for paracetamol poisoning. Methods : A literature search was performed using the keywords [paracetamol OR acetaminophen] AND [acetylcysteine OR n-acetylcysteine] on the PubMed and Ovid database. The literature search was limited to human exposure studies published in English between 1-Jan-1966 and 1-May-2015. The proportion of patients who developed hepatotoxicity (defined as serum transaminase greater than 1000 IU/L) for each route of administration was determined using multiple regression and the studies were further stratified by early (less than 10 hours from ingestion) and late treatment (longer than 10 hours from ingestion). Results: 3,981 full studies were reviewed for data. Studies with fewer than 20 subjects were excluded. Meta-analysis revealed that the overall proportion of patients who developed hepatotoxicity was 12.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.6% to 17.2%). The percentages were similar when studies were stratified by route of administration; the proportion for IV treated patients was 12.6% (95% CI: 8.7% to 19.4%) while the proportion for oral treated patients was 12.0% (95% CI: 8.2% to 18.8%). However, there was a marked difference in the percentage of patients who developed hepatotoxicity with early as compared to late N -acetylcysteine treatment. There was a statistically significant effect due to time (p < 0.001) but no significant effect due to route of administration (p = 0.716). Conclusion : Pooled analysis of studies did not find any significant difference in outcome between oral and IV N -acetylcysteine therapy, but these findings require confirmation by randomized controlled trials. However, overall hepatotoxicity was significantly worse if treatment was delayed beyond 8 to 10 hours. ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 17 (2): July – December 2016: XX XX.


As NAND flash memory continues to scale down to smaller process technology nodes, its reliability and endurance are degrading. One important source of reduced reliability is the phenomenon of program interference: when a flash cell is programmed to a value, the programming operation affects the threshold voltage of not only that cell, but also the other cells surrounding it. This interference potentially causes a surrounding cell to move to a logical state (i.e., a threshold voltage range) that is different from its original state, leading to an error when the cell is read. Understanding, characterizing, and modeling of program interference, i.e., how much the threshold voltage of a cell shifts when another cell is programmed, can enable the design of mechanisms that can effectively and efficiently predict and/or tolerate such errors. In this paper, we provide the first experimental characterization of and a realistic model for program interference in modern MLC NAND flash memory. To this end, we utilize the read-retry mechanism present in some state-of-the-art 2Y-nm (i.e., 20-24nm) flash chips to measure the changes in threshold voltage distributions of cells when a particular cell is programmed. Our results show that the amount of program interference received by a cell depends on 1) the location of the programmed cells, 2) the order in which cells are programmed, and 3) the data values of the cell that is being programmed as well as the cells surrounding it. Based on our experimental characterization, we develop a new model that predicts the amount of program interference as a function of threshold voltage values and changes in neighboring cells. We devise and evaluate one application of this model that adjusts the read reference voltage to the predicted threshold voltage distribution with the goal of minimizing erroneous reads. Our analysis shows that this new technique can reduce the raw flash bit error rate by 64% and thereby improve flash lifetime by 30%. We hope that the understanding and models developed in this paper lead to other error tolerance mechanisms for future flash memories.


Abstract Nonlinear stratified spindown of an along-isobath current over an insulated slope is shown to develop asymmetries in the vertical circulation and vertical relative vorticity field. During spindown, cyclonic vorticity is weakened to a greater extent than anticyclonic vorticity near the boundary because of buoyancy advection. As a consequence, Ekman pumping is weakened over Ekman suction. Momentum advection can weaken Ekman pumping and strengthen Ekman suction. Time-dependent feedback between the geostrophic flow and the frictional secondary circulation induces asymmetry in cyclonic and anticyclonic vorticity away from the boundary. Buoyancy advection over a slope can modify the secondary circulation such that anticyclonic vorticity decays faster than cyclonic vorticity outside the boundary layer. In contrast, momentum advection can cause cyclonic vorticity to spin down faster than anticyclonic vorticity. A scaling and analytical solutions are derived for when buoyancy advection over a slope can have a more significant impact than momentum advection on these asymmetries. In order to test this scaling and analytical solutions, numerical experiments are run in which both buoyancy and momentum advection are active. These solutions are contrasted with homogeneous or stratified spindown over a flat bottom, in which momentum advection controls the asymmetries. These results are applied to ocean currents over continental shelves and slopes.


Introduction Sacral insufficiency fractures are an important cause of lower back pain in the elderly. Clinically and radiologically, they must be distinguished from osseous metastases, which frequently coexist. To date, no case report has comprehensively explored the full range of diagnostic hurdles and potential pitfalls. Case presentation We report the case of a 70-year-old Caucasian female who presented to our services with a short history of progressive back pain without any history of trauma. A prior history of breast cancer was noted. Bone scintigraphy was initially reported as consistent with metastatic sacral deposits. Further characterization with magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography revealed bilateral insufficiency fractures of the sacral alar. The patient responded well to conservative management. Conclusion To avoid misdiagnosis, particularly in those who are also at risk of osseous metastases, sacral insufficiency fractures must always be considered as a cause of lower back pain.


Oracle Fusion Financials: General Ledger 2014 Essentials The questions in this book are similar to the ones asked in the actual Test. How should we know? We know, because although we have been working as Fusion Consultants for many years, We have recently certified with the latest version of the test. Before you start here are some Key features of the GL Exam. - This certificate builds on the basic knowledge gained by a consultant and preferably refined by practical experience within a project team and the consultant can implement this knowledge of the specialist areas practically in projects. - The Questions are multiple choice type and there is NO penalty for an incorrect answer. - You are not allowed to use any reference materials during the certification test (no access to online documentation or to any Oracle system). Clearing the Certification will not automatically lead you to a job. However a Certification with some project experience will certainly open a lot of doors for you. So if you have little or no experience, you should get yourself certified, get some project experience, and then the whole of the Oracle ConsultingWorld open for you to explore. Helping you with the first step on you ladder to success is this book! Some UNIQUE features of this Book: - There is NO Other material in the market for the Oracle Fusion Financials: General Ledger 2014 Essentials Test. - The authors have themselves cleared the exam. - All questions are multiple choice format, similar to the questions you will get in the actual exam. - Over 180 authentic questions, testing the exact same concepts that will be tested in Your exam!


In a trio of recent cases, Padilla v. Kentucky, Missouri v. Frye, and Lafler v. Cooper, the U.S. Supreme Court has focused its attention on defense counsel's pivotal role during the plea bargaining process . At the same time that the Court has signaled its willingness to consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims at the plea stage, prosecutors are increasingly requiring defendants to sign waivers that include waiving all constitutional and procedural errors, even unknown ineffective assistance of counsel claims such as those that proved successful in Padilla and Frye. Had Jose Padilla and Galin Frye been forced to sign a waiver of any ineffective assistance of counsel claim as a condition of entering their pleas, and if the Supreme Court approved of such waivers, then neither Padilla nor Frye would have secured the relief the Court held that they deserved. Waivers of ineffective assistance of counsel claims pose both legal and ethical issues. Legally, the waivers serve to undermine a defendant's due process rights — recognized by the Court in Gideon v. Wainwright — by requiring the defendant not only to waive what is unknown to them at the time of waiver, but to do so even when based upon bad advice of ineffective counsel. Ethically, a defense lawyer counseling a defendant to waive ineffective assistance of counsel claims has a personal conflict of interest with the client, because the lawyer has reputational and other interests in not having the lawyer's representation of the client determined to be ineffective.Whether the Supreme Court would approve a waiver of an ineffective assistance claim that would negate the due process right to effective assistance of counsel is not yet resolved. Such a decision, however, would immunize much incompetent lawyering from any judicial scrutiny altogether.This article begins by examining the systemic barriers defense counsel face to provide meaningful advice to criminal defendants contemplating a guilty plea These barriers include the underfunding of defense services in many jurisdictions and the coerciveness of the plea bargaining process. Next, the article analyzes the law and ethics of waivers of ineffective assistance of counsel claims and whether such waivers should be permissible. We contend that such waivers should not be enforceable for both legal and ethical reasons. Permitting waivers of ineffective assistance of counsel claims not only constitutes judicial acceptance of a prosecutorial veto of the Court's recent decisions regarding plea bargaining, but also ensures that more defendants never receive the effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining.


Many economists foresee another half-century of cheap oil, but a growing contingent of geologists warns that oil will begin to run out much sooner--perhaps in only 10 years. The optimists are mainly those who put their faith in new technology for finding and extracting oil and expect that production will meet rise in demand until about 50 years from now--plenty of time for the development of alternatives. But the pessimists say that even taking into account the best efforts of the explorationists and the discovery of new fields in frontier areas like the Caspian Sea (see sidebar on
 p. 1130), sometime between 2010 and 2020 the gush of oil from wells around the world will peak at 80 million barrels per day, then begin a steady, inevitable decline.


While larger banks began to recover in 2011, community banks overall still faced a number of obstacles. Deposits continued to grow, but loan growth was sluggish and revenue growth was weak. Increased regulatory and compliance costs continued to eat away at profitability. Credit quality, while improving, remained an issue for many. As a result, pressure to consolidate weighed on large and small community banks. Despite all this, many community banks were profitable. As demonstrated in this year's analysis, plenty developed strong niches and lines of business to bolster performance despite the sluggish business environment. Part Three of our annual bank-performance rankings provides highlights of the strategies used by top-performing banks, thrifts, and bank holding companies with total assets of $1 billion or less. At www. ababj.com, we also provide an in-depth look at four of 2012's top performers--Bank 7 of Oklahoma City, Okla. (No. 1 among large subchapter S corporations); the Federal Savings Bank, Overland Park, Kans. (No. 1 among small non-subchapter-S corporations); Oxford Bank Corp., Oxford, Mich. (No. 1 among large non-subchapter-S corporations); and Bank of Montgomery of Montgomery, La. (No. 4 among large subchapter S corporations). The online report also shows a larger list of consolidated (and charter-level) rankings and additional summary statistics to lend more color to what separated the top community banks from the rest in 2011. Ranking methodology changed This year we have defined community banks as those with less than $1 billion in total assets, versus less than $3 billion as in years past. We have re-run last year's rankings as if this new classification had been applied in 2010 to facilitate direct comparisons to prior-year performance. As explained in Part One, the reclassification was prompted, in large measure, by the Dodd-Frank Act and its asset-size-based requirements. Our ranking assesses performance of four groups of community financial institutions, defined by size and corporate structure: non-subchapter S commercial banks, thrifts, and bank holding companies with consolidated total assets less than $100 million, and those with assets between $100 million and $1 billion; and subchapter S commercial banks, thrifts, and bank holding companies with consolidated total assets less than $100 million, and those with assets between $100 million and $1 billion. Within those four groups, institutions were ranked on their return on average equity (ROAE) for 2011. The 100 institutions with the highest ROAE in each category were selected as the top performers. (The Top 25 are shown on these pages. The Top 100 can be seen online.) All rankings are based on consolidated statistics for the highest regulatory reporting level available for each institution (further detail on this is in the online report). Where consolidated statistics were not available but data was reported for a subsidiary that accounted for at least 90% of a holding company's assets, we used subsidiary data. The rankings focused on institutions that offered traditional banking services; as a result, we have excluded bankers' banks, special-purpose industrial loan companies and nondepository trusts, and institutions with less than 10% of their assets in loans, less than 10% of their liabilities in deposits, or more than 70% of their loans in credit card receivables. Also excluded: companies that were not in operation for the full year or had a tax benefit that was greater than 70% of net income in 2011. Even with that exclusion, tax benefits played a substantial role in 2011 performance for non-S-corp banks. We excluded from our analysis institutions where this benefit represented the majority of net income earned during the year. How the top performers did it As in years past, there were several broad strategies that top-performing community banks executed during 2011. …


The growing literature on transit countries places much emphasis on the policy interventions of destination countries. In the case of Southeast Asia, Australian policies have disproportionate effects across borders into the region, including those of Indonesia and Malaysia. However, so-called transit countries also counterweigh foreign policy incursions with domestic politics, their own policies of externalizing their borders, and negotiations with destination countries to fund their domestic capacity. While Malaysia and Indonesia share many characteristics as transit countries, they are also noteworthy cases of how they negotiate their own interests in making difficult decisions regarding irregular migration in the region and how responsibility and burdens should be shared.


In the midst of the Great Depression, America's World's Fairs of the 1930s gave hope to millions, sustaining the assembled with visions of future progress. These grand expositions in Chicago, San Diego, Dallas, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco showcased an optimistic, consumerist future society and symbolized the Modernist message of progress through design. Designing Tomorrow celebrates the influence and impact of these international expositions. Offering an overview of the fairs and detailed discussions of individual works, distinguished authors examine how designers reconciled radical "European" Modern style with American tradition. Works by Edward H. Bennet, Gilbert Rohde, George Keck, Richard Neutra, and others illuminate the ways in which Modernism became an integral component of the vocabulary of American design. Additional essays highlight the visual power of these expositions, featuring rare artifacts and photographs of objects including models and plans for "the houses and cities of tomorrow," streamlined trains, modern furnishings, and the first televisions.


Severe haze episodes have hit Beijing many times in the past few years, especially the "crazy bad" pollution described by the US Embassy in Beijing. The publication of numerous multimedia reports on the severe haze has increased awareness among the people in China regarding air pollution and PM2.5. It is assumed that the severe haze occurred suddenly for unclear reasons. In this context, long-term evaluation of the air pollution in Beijing is necessary. Through hourly and daily PM2.5 concentration records, meteorological datasets from August 2004 onward, and the Kolmogorov–Zurbenko (KZ) filter approach, the evolutions of the long-term components (or background values) of PM2.5 concentrations at an urban and a rural station in Beijing were statistically analyzed, and the possible causes of variation in the trends of these components were evaluated in this study. The long-term components of PM2.5 concentrations decreased significantly at both the urban (–3.40 µg m–3 y–1) and rural (–1.16 µg m–3 y–1) stations. The most serious pollution predominantly occurred in an earlier period than recent years, when little attention was being paid. The decrease in PM2.5 concentration was mainly attributed to the reduction in pollutant emission, despite the distinct increase in total energy consumption and motor vehicle use. However, the unfavorable climate changes (i.e., a reduction in wind speed and an increase in relative humidity) reduced the efficiency of atmospheric environmental governance. Because of the unfavorable climate or meteorological changes, the trends of PM2.5 reduction derived from the pollutant emission controls have been offset by up to approximately 15% in both urban and rural areas of Beijing during the last decade.


Target dynamics are assumed to be known in measuring digital speckle displacement. Use is made of a simple measurement equation, where measurement noise represents the effect of disturbances introduced in measurement process. From these assumptions, Kalman filter can be designed to reduce variance of measurement noise. An optical and analysis system was set up, by which object motion with constant displacement and constant velocity is experimented with to verify validity of Kalman filtering techniques for reduction of measurement noise variance.