The heterogeneity of spatial planning data is a well known problem that admittedly limits its use and provokes numerous difficulties to planners, investors as well as decision makers. Spatial planning is confronted with a huge problem concerning the diversity in data collection, storing, processing and provision. These challenges constitute the main concern of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community Directive (INSPIRE). Spatial infrastructure processes can be supported by increasing transparency and developing shared methodologies. This on-going research presents the current situation in Greece and the EU Initiative on spatial data interoperability and its design effects on GIS. It identifies the problems that need to be encountered and recommends information and communication (ICT) approaches and tools suitable to overcome them.


This study aimed to investigate the impact of teaching developmental grammatical errors on translator trainees' L2 paragraph writing ability. After the administration of Oxford Placement Test (OPT), 40 out of 100 undergraduate translator trainees were selected from the Islamic Azad University of Tonekabon branch. Further, the participants were divided into an experimental and a control groups. A pre-test of paragraph writing ability was administered to both groups and the participants were asked to write a paragraph about the selected topic. Then, the experimental group received 5 sessions of treatments on teaching developmental grammatical errors extracted from their previous writing performance while the control group received a placebo. After five sessions of the treatments, the post-test of paragraph writing ability was administered in which the participants in both groups were asked to write a paragraph about a selected topic. Three raters corrected the paragraphs. The scores were analyzed using the SPSS software by applying Independent sample t-test and Pearson correlation. The findings indicated that subjects in the experimental group showed significant improvement in their writing performance.


Asthma prevalence in children and adolescents in Spain is 10-17%. It is the most common chronic illness during childhood. Prevalence has been increasing over the last 40 years and there is considerable evidence that, among other factors, continued exposure to cigarette smoke results in asthma in children. No statistical or simulation model exist to forecast the evolution of childhood asthma in Europe. Such a model needs to incorporate the main risk factors that can be managed by medical authorities, such as tobacco (OR = 1.44), to establish how they affect the present generation of children. A simulation model using conditional probability and discrete event simulation for childhood asthma was developed and validated by simulating realistic scenario. The parameters used for the model (input data) were those found in the bibliography, especially those related to the incidence of smoking in Spain. We also used data from a panel of experts from the Hospital del Mar (Barcelona) related to actual evolution and asthma phenotypes. The results obtained from the simulation established a threshold of a 15-20% smoking population for a reduction in the prevalence of asthma. This is still far from the current level in Spain, where 24% of people smoke. We conclude that more effort must be made to combat smoking and other childhood asthma risk factors, in order to significantly reduce the number of cases. Once completed, this simulation methodology can realistically be used to forecast the evolution of childhood asthma as a function of variation in different risk factors.


Although the overall mass balance of Antarctica (and its impact on sea level change) is unknown, recent investigations show a pattern of high spatial and temporal variability. This is partly due to the variability in the flow behaviour of outlet glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Peninsula. Mass Outflow and bottom melting directly seaward of the grounding line was derived by Rignot (2002) for several Antarctic catchment basins using SAR interferometry .In the framework of mass balance investigations of selected drainage basins in Dronning Maud Land, we analyse the ice mass transfer of several ice streams on the continental side of the grounding line by means of ERS SAR interferometry and airborne radio echo sounding (RES). Outlet glaciers investigated in this study drain a total area of about 350.000 km2 between 20°W and 0°W.RES campaigns were conducted mainly in the frame of the pre-site survey to locate a drilling location for the EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) program. The drill site Kohnen (75°S, 0°E, 2850m) is located at the ice divide between the catchment basins of Jutulstraumen and Stancomb Wills ice stream. These surveys have been supplemented by several flights especially designed to fullfill the needs of mass balance investigations.


The ability of daylight-following lighting systems to provide a minimum specified light level at the task surface is influenced by (1) the control algorithm used, (2) the spatial response of the ceiling-mounted control photosensor, and (3) the location of the photosensor relative to task and window. Best performance was obtained with a closed-loop proportional control system controlled by a photosensor, with a large field of view but shielded from direct light from the window. A minimum specified illuminance level could be maintained at specific points on the task surface regardless of daylight condition or room geometry provided that the system gain was properly calibrated to account for the local luminous environment. Open-loop proportional control also performed adequately but offered less precise control than closed-loop systems due to the necessity of using a photosensor that was not shielded from direct window light. Integral-reset systems that were tested performed poorly, but performance could be improved slightly by completely shielding the photocell from direct window light. 8 refs., 45 figs., 4 tabs.


Due to the natural working mechanism of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), potential energy stored by elastic materials may not be effectively converted into electric power, post mechanical triggering. Here, we report a practical bionic-jellyfish triboelectric nanogenerator (bjTENG) with polymeric thin film as the triboelectric material, which is shape-adaptive, with a hermetic package and a unique elastic resilience structure, similar to the behavior of a jellyfish. The charge separation in the elastic resilience of this bionic-structure is based on the liquid pressure-induced contact-separation of the triboelectric layers. On the basis of the conjunction of the triboelectrification and the electrostatic induction, a sustainable and enhanced output performance of 143 V, 11.8 mA/m and 22.1 lC/m under a low frequency of 0.75 Hz and at a water depth of 60 cm is produced, which can be used to supply power for dozens of green LEDs or a temperature sensor directly. More significantly, bjTENG is believed to be a priority technology which is attributable to its highly sensitivity, portability, and suitability for continuous detection of water level and fluctuation. Furthermore, a wireless self-powered fluctuation sensor early-warning system, which provides exact and wireless monitoring of fluctuation of a liquid surface, is also successfully developed.


Background Double-row arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs were developed to improve initial biomechanical strength of repairs to improve healing rates. Despite biomechanical improvements, failure of healing remains a clinical problem. Purpose To evaluate the anatomical results after double-row arthroscopic rotator cuff repair with ultrasound to determine postoperative repair integrity and the effect of various factors on tendon healing. Study Design Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods Forty-eight patients (49 shoulders) who had a complete arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (double-row technique) were evaluated with ultrasound at a minimum of 6 months after surgery. Outcome was evaluated at a minimum of 1-year follow-up with standardized history and physical examination, visual analog scale for pain, active forward elevation, and preoperative and postoperative shoulder scores according to the system of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons and the Simple Shoulder Test. Quantitative strength was measured postoperatively. Results Ultrasound and physical examinations were performed at a minimum of 6 months after surgery (mean, 16 months; range, 6 to 36 months) and outcome questionnaire evaluations at a minimum of 12 months after surgery (mean, 29 months; range, 12 to 55 months). Of 49 repairs, 25 (51%) were healed. Healing rates were 67% in single-tendon tears (16 of 24 shoulders) and 36% in multitendon tears (9 of 25 shoulders). Older age and longer duration of follow-up were correlated with poorer tendon healing (P < .03). Visual analog scale for pain, active forward elevation, American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons scores, and Simple Shoulder Test scores all had significant improvement from baseline after repair (P < .0001). Conclusion Increased age and longer duration of follow-up were associated with lower healing rates after double-row rotator cuff repair. The biological limitation at the repair site, as reflected by the effects of age on healing, appears to be the most important factor influencing tendon healing, even after maximizing repair biomechanical strength with a double-row construct.


This paper proposes a simple two-stage mechanism to establish positive contributions to public goods in the absence of powerful institutions to provide the public good and to sanction free-riders. In this mechanism players commit to the public good by paying a deposit prior to the contribution stage. If there is universal commitment, deposits are immediately refunded whenever a player contributes her specified share to the public good. If there is no universal commitment, all deposits are refunded and the standard game is played. For suitable deposits, prior commitment and full ex post contributions are supported as a strict subgame perfect Nash equilibrium for the resulting game. As the mechanism obviates the need for any ex post prosecution of free-riders, it is particularly suited for situations where players do not submit to a common authority as in the case of international agreements.


This study describes a patient diagnosed as a case of bipolar affective disorder complaining of bothersome incidence of pedal edema 1 month after the initiation of atypical antipsychotic regimen with risperidone and quetiapine. All hematological and biochemical profiles were found to be normal. On discontinuation of risperidone, the condition remained unresolved even after 2 weeks, and the edema progressed reaching her calves. On tapering the dose of quetiapine, she started showing gradual improvement in edematous condition. Quetiapine was slowly discontinued. No further recurrence of edema occurred, and hence, no further medication changes were implemented. Pedal edema was found to be resolved within weeks of dechallenge of the regimen. Naranjo adverse drug reaction probability scale gave a score of 7 which denotes "probable" adverse drug reaction with quetiapine.


Between 2014 and 2017, almost 200 new seismic stations were installed in Alaska and northwestern Canada as part of the EarthScope USArray Transportable Array. These stations currently provide an unprecedented capability for the detection and location of seismic events in regions with otherwise relatively sparse station coverage. Two interesting earthquake sequences in 2018 and 2019 in the northeastern Brooks Range were exceptionally well recorded because of this deployment. First is the aftershock sequence of the Mw 6.4 and Mw 6.0 Kaktovik earthquakes of 12 August 2018, the largest earthquakes recorded to date in the region. The second is the Niviak swarm, southwest of the Kaktovik sequence. Since July 2018, >4000 earthquakes between magnitudes 1 and 4.3 have been recorded across a region exceeding 5000  km2. We explore how the Bayesloc probabilistic multiple seismic-event location algorithm can better resolve features of these two sequences, exploiting the large numbers of readings that the improved station coverage provides from events down to magnitudes below 2. The Bayesloc calculations consistently move events in the Kaktovik sequence a few kilometers to the northeast, providing an almost linear east-southeast-striking southern limit to the aftershock zone. Analysis of the Bayesloc joint probability distribution of corrections to travel-time predictions indicate that anomalously fast wave propagation to the southwest is likely the most significant contribution to the seismic-event mislocation. The joint relocations are more consistent with Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar–inferred coseismic displacement than the network location estimates. The Bayesloc relocation of the Niviak events confirms that the earthquakes are distributed between many distinct clusters of seismicity that have clearer spatial separation following the relocation. The probabilistic relocations motivate both double-difference studies to better resolve clustered seismicity at the smallest spatial scales and systematic multiple event relocation studies to calculate structure and travel-time corrections over larger scales.


In this paper, we present a low-cost receive algorithm for massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system, which exploits 2-dimensional superimposed pilots in time and frequency domain. By introducing the well designed superimposed pilots, the pilot contamination can be systematically suppressed. Even within a small time-frequency allocation, transforming the 2-dimensional superimposed pilots to an equivalent one-dimensional orthogonal pattern, the provided processing gain can be adequate to achieve precise channel estimation on the basis of linear operations. In this paper, we provide the proof-of-concept with link layer simulation for multicarrier system. Additionally, the 2-dimensional trellis-based channel estimation, as a high-cost solution, will be compared to the proposed solution, in order to quantify the reasonability of the trade-off.


To assess the accuracy of hybrid functional and many-body GW methods, we study the band offsets for a set of lattice-matched semiconductor heterojunctions, including AlAs/GaAs(100), AlP/GaP(100), Si/GaP(110), Ge/GaAs(110), Ge/AlAs(110), Ge/ZnSe(110), and ZnSe/GaAs(110). The band-edge positions are first obtained for the bulk semiconductors and then aligned through the lineup of a local reference potential at the interface. The band-edge positions critically depend on the electronic-structure method, while the interface dipole is already well accounted for with semilocal density functionals. The two advanced electronic-structure schemes yield consistent valence-band offsets in close agreement with experiment, slightly improving upon semilocal functionals. At variance, conduction-band offsets are subject to larger deviations and improve with the accuracy of the calculated band gaps. In case one is willing to take band gaps from experiment, the best description of the band alignment for the present heterojunctions is achieved by relying on the calculated valence band offsets rather than on hybrid functionals in which the exchange mixing parameter is adjusted.


Following Rivers of Gold and The Golden Age, World Without End is the conclusion of a magisterial three-volume history of the Spanish Empire by Hugh Thomas, its foremost worldwide authority World Without End is the climax of Hugh Thomas's great history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. It describes the conquest of Paraguay and the River Plate, of the Yucatan in Mexico, the only partial conquest of Chile, and battles with the French over Florida, and then, in the 1580s, the extraordinary projection of Spanish power across the Pacific to conquer the Philippines. More significantly, it describes how the Spanish ran the greatest empire the world had seen since Rome - as well as conquistadores, the book is people with viceroys, judges, nobles, bishops, inquisitors and administrators of many different kinds, often in conflict with one another, seeking to organise the native populations into towns, to build cathedrals, hospitals and universities. Behind them - sometimes ahead of them - came the religious orders, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and finally the Jesuits, builders of convents and monasteries, many of them of astonishing beauty, and reminders of the pervasiveness of religion and the self-confidence of the age. Towering above them all, though moving rarely from the palace of the Escorial outside Madrid, is the figure of King Philip II, the central figure in the book. The Venetian ambassador thought him 'the arbiter of the world'. Once the Philippines had been consolidated, Philip's advisors contemplated an invasion of China: the Jesuit Father Sanchez called it 'the greatest enterprise which has ever been proposed to any monarch in the world'. It was an enterprise never undertaken, but never explicitly abandoned. Was it a great or a terrible empire? In contrast to other empire builders, the Spaniards entered upon arguments with each other about their right to rule other peoples, and their ruthlessness was often tempered by humanity. Hugh Thomas's conclusion is unequivocal: 'The speed with which the sixteenth-century conquistadores conquered such large territories on two vast continents, and the comparable success of missionaries with large populations of Indians, stands as one of the supreme epics of both valour and imagination by Europeans.'


Power consumption of computing systems has become a primary criterion impacting their design and deployment in the field. Power is important not just for the untethered battery based mobile devices, but also in high end servers where the power envelope has begun to dictate their maximum performance. Such high end servers are also the building blocks of large multi-megawatt datacenters which house hundreds of thousands of these servers, leading to serious concerns about their cost, scalability and ecological footprint. These concerns are a consequence of not just how much total energy is expended, but also when and how this energy is expended. The hardware and software community has developed several computing knobs for power modulation to deal with these issues. However, energy storage has, until recently, been outside the purview of the computer systems community. In this talk, I will emphasize the need for treating power as a primary resource for explicit allocation and control, and the importance of bringing energy storage into the purview of computer systems management. I will specifically talk about provisioning energy storage in the datacenter to answer the "what", "where" and "how much" questions, and mechanisms for managing the power draw by leveraging this resource. I will also highlight some of the unique opportunities and challenges that make power management different from that for managing other resources, thus providing a rich and challenging set of hardware and software issues to drive future research. Biography: Anand Sivasubramaniam is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Penn State. He received his B.Tech from IIT Madras, and the MS and Ph.D. degrees, all in computer science, from Georgia Tech. He has been at Penn State since 1995, where he has spearheaded several research projects in high performance computing, energy-efficient computer systems design, sustainable data centers, and using computing for tackling sustainability issues on a broader scale including building energy management, renewable energy integration and efficient water distribution for utilities. He has worked with industry on many of these issues. Apart from an NSF Career award, he has received 3 Google Research Awards, 3 IBM Faculty Awards, and a HP Innovation award. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. Anand Sivasubramaniam Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering The Pennsylvania State University Friday, February 10, 2017 3:00 pm Lindley Hall, Rm. 102 Provisioning and Harnessing Energy Storage for Datacenters


We aimed to characterize differences between sheep farms in wolf habitat in Slovenia that either suffered from wolf attacks (n = 30) or not (n = 30) during the pasture seasons 2008-2010. Main pasture season was from April until November. Median fenced pastures were 2.7 ha and herd size was 93 sheep. The three-year period contained 288 attacks, mostly occurring in May (36), and secondly peaking in October (23). 78% of all attacks occurred at night. Significantly fewer non-attacked than attacked farms had mixed herds (17% versus 40%). Wolves killed a median of 4 sheep per attack. If herds included goats, 2 goats could be killed in addition. Sheep were driven to a night facility before dusk by 43% of non-attacked farmers, and significantly fewer attacked farms (10%). Significantly fewer attacked than non-attacked farms kept sheep in closed night barns or a separately fenced night-area (20% versus 50%). Guarding dogs (usually 2 per herd) were kept by 53% attacked and 43% nonattacked farms. Average fence height was 115 cm and did not differ between attacked or non-attacked farms. 87% non-attacked farms had wire-mesh fences (either electric or not) instead of fences with horizontal single wires, which was significantly more than at attacked farms (61%). Significantly more attacked (89%) than non-attacked farms (60%) had electric fences (mobile or fixed, fixed ones could be combined with physical fences). In spite of farmers using electric fences, annual attack number was significantly higher at farms with a history of wolf attacks than at new farms (4 versus 1). Electric fences or guarding dogs as used in the study area proved ineffective: they did not prevent wolf attacks or reduce killing rates. Adoption of mesh instead of single wires, polarity alternation of live with ground wires in electric fences, and fences higher than 145 cm seem improvements. However, potentially, improved fencing could also prevent sheep from breaking out, if wolves have found ways to enter the fenced area, and might result in surplus killing. Alternative strategies are: (1) to keep sheep in closed night barns and to move sheep there before dusk and (2) to research (a) wolf attack rates and feasibility of separating sheep and goat herds; (b) sheep and goat responses to predator attacks and methods that assist sheep and goats to avoid being attacked; (c) wolf deterring methods focused on systematic negative reinforcement of chasing and consumption of livestock.


The objective of this thesis has been to develop a framework to support the evaluation of information strategies of UK higher education institutions (REIs). For this study the theoretical and empirical literature was extensively reviewed and four substantial pieces of empirical research were conducted. These included action research CAR), two pieces of ethnographic research, and a case study. The AR analysed problems encountered with a Student Records System at a UK university and identified both immediate and deeper causes for these problems. Ethnography I involved the researcher's participation in the information strategy development process at the same university: This included consideration of the development processes adopted and also the way that decisions were taken. Ethnography II consisted of participant observation at a range of workshops and conferences organised by the Joint Information Systems Committee on information strategy development at UK REIs. These provided a broad picture of information strategy development procedures being adopted across these HEls. The case study investigated in detail the implementation of an information strategy at a university different from that examined in AR and Ethnography I. These empirical investigations all included in-depth interviews. In total 117 people of various levels and backgrounds involved in information strategies and associated information systems within UK HEIs were interviewed. Key findings from the empirical research were: (1) Many HErs in the process of developing an information strate!:,,),, or about to do so, were not fully sure how this should be achieved nor the extent of the likely benefits. (2) Most HEIs implementing information strategies were using top-down directed system approaches, leaving little room for more inclusive bottom-up emergent planning. (3) Information strategies need to be developed and evaluated using strongly human-centred methods, primarily because it became apparent that the successful functioning of such a strategy is dependent on the motivation and competencies of the people who create and use the information. (4) Investigations into aspects of information strategy development and implementation need to focus on people's perceptions of the situation rather than seeking an objective truth independent of the participants. This reflects a Kantian perspective of knowledge. Overall, the empirical findings supported the use of a Critical Systems Thinking approach in the evaluation of information strategies at higher education institutions. The development of the evaluative framework, the main objective of the thesis, took place in two phases: developing the framework based on the literature review and revising the framework from the empirical research investigations involving a process of critical iteration. The first phase identified a range of elements associated with an HErs information strategy, and for each element highlighted the relevant theoretical andlor empirical literature that bears on the issues being addressed. In particular, the framework is strongly influenced by insights drawn from the work of three key social theorists: Kant, Habermas and Foucault. In addition, the framework includes 'guidelines for evaluation', where these are more practical questions to ask and areas to investigate when evaluating a given element of the strategy. The second phase took the framework through a series of reflections and revisions based on the findings from the empirical investigations. In each case, insights were gained that related to the use or applicability ofthe framework. By combining the findings from the theoretical and empirical literature with those from the empirical research, the final framework, which is believed to have filled a gap in the theoretical literature, aims to encompass the complexity of information strategy development and implementation within HEIs. The framework reflects a human-centred and Critical Systems Thinking approach, and is designed to allow potential evaluators to identify underlying causes for the success or failure of an information strategy that is implemented at an HEI.


In nowadays' informational society, both the rapid pace development of technology and Internet's heavy influence on everyday's life brought along new characteristics to the 21 century consumer. Accordingly, in this little e-s dominated world, it comes as no surprise that the booming business on the new virtual market, the Internet, triggered the appearance of a new consumer, the online consumer, by far more informed, open to progress and selective. Along with the shifts of the traditional consumer' traits, this aim of this article is to emphasize, on a theoretical basis, the rising importance of the online consumer in the 21 century, and point out its main hallmarks and consumer behavior habits. With Generation Y, not only thriving in the digital era but also prevailing as the most active online shopper, the profile of the 21 century consumer is defined by a clearly new and enhanced perspective.


Traditional execution environments deploy Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) to defend against memory corruption attacks. However, Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX), a new trusted execution environment designed to serve security-critical applications on the cloud, lacks such an effective, well-studied feature. In fact, we find that applying ASLR to SGX programs raises non-trivial issues beyond simple engineering for a number of reasons: 1) SGX is designed to defeat a stronger adversary than the traditional model, which requires the address space layout to be hidden from the kernel; 2) the limited memory uses in SGX programs present a new challenge in providing a sufficient degree of entropy; 3) remote attestation conflicts with the dynamic relocation required for ASLR; and 4) the SGX specification relies on known and fixed addresses for key data structures that cannot be randomized. This paper presents SGX-Shield, a new ASLR scheme designed for SGX environments. SGX-Shield is built on a secure in-enclave loader to secretly bootstrap the memory space layout with a finer-grained randomization. To be compatible with SGX hardware (e.g., remote attestation, fixed addresses), SGX-Shield is designed with a software-based data execution protection mechanism through an LLVM-based compiler. We implement SGX-Shield and thoroughly evaluate it on real SGX hardware. It shows a high degree of randomness in memory layouts and stops memory corruption attacks with a high probability. SGX-Shield shows 7.61% performance overhead in running common microbenchmarks and 2.25% overhead in running a more realistic workload of an HTTPS server.


The use of social networking services has rapidly increased in recent years, especially by university students. Some authors assert that they have educational potential in terms of promoting collaborative learning practices among undergraduate students which enhance engagement and understanding. This possibility is particularly relevant to mathematics learning, because university communities are frequently experienced as isolating and performance-oriented. This case study reports on the use of Facebook to support mathematical communication and more participative learning identities within a UK university mathematics department. It describes how the reactive formation of a student-led Facebook community became a source of conflict within the wider academic social community and how this conflict was eventually resolved. While it raises questions about the extent to which Facebook can encourage open collaborative learning within the wider context of student aspirations in a competitive climate, it notes its potential for fostering cross-cohort student support in a subject which frequently induces anxiety in its students.


Abstract. Polarimetric observations of snow surfaces, obtained in the 410–2264 nm range with the Research Scanning Polarimeter onboard the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft, are analyzed and presented. These novel measurements are of interest to the remote sensing community because the overwhelming brightness of snow plagues aerosol and cloud retrievals based on airborne and spaceborne total reflection measurements. The spectral signatures of the polarized reflectance of snow are therefore worthwhile investigating in order to provide guidance for the adaptation of algorithms currently employed for the retrieval of aerosol properties over soil and vegetated surfaces. At the same time, the increased information content of polarimetric measurements allows for a meaningful characterization of the snow medium. In our case, the grains are modeled as hexagonal prisms of variable aspect ratios and microscale roughness, yielding retrievals of the grains' scattering asymmetry parameter, shape and size. The results agree with our previous findings based on a more limited data set, with the majority of retrievals leading to moderately rough crystals of extreme aspect ratios, for each scene corresponding to a single value of the asymmetry parameter.


This paper studies the interactions between an individual's self-esteem and his social environment - in the workplace, at school, and in personal relationships. Because a person generally has only imperfect knowledge of his own abilities, people who derive benefits from his performance (parent, spouse, friend, teacher, manager, etc.) have incentives to manipulate his self--confidence. We first study situations where an informed principal chooses an incentive structure, such as offering payments or rewards, delegating a task, or giving encouragement. We show that extrinsic rewards may have hidden costs - as stressed by psychologists - in that they undermine intrinsic motivation. As a result, they may be only weak reinforcers in the short run, and become negative reinforcers once withdrawn. Similarly, empowerment is likely to increase motivation, while offers of help may create a dependence. More generally, we identify when the hidden costs of rewards are a myth or a reality. We next consider situations where people criticize or downplay the performance of their spouse, child, colleague, or subordinate. We formalize ego-bashing as reflecting battles for dominance or authority within the relationship. Finally, we turn to the self-presentation strategies of privately informed agents. We study in particular how depressed individuals may engage in self-deprecation as a way of seeking leniency (a lowering of expectancies) or a 'helping hand' on various obligations.


This book is an integrated approach towards the applications of coal (organic) petrology and discusses the role of this science in the field of coal and coal-related topics. Coal petrology needs to be seen as a continuum of organic (macerals) and inorganic (minerals and trace elements) contributions to the total coal structure, with the overprint of coal rank. All this influences the behavior of coal in utilization, the coal by-products, the properties of coal as a reservoir for methane or a sequestration site for carbon dioxide, and the relationships of coal utilization with health and environmental issues. The interaction of coal properties and coal utilization begins at the mine face. The breakage of the coal in mining influences its subsequent beneficiation. Beneficiation is fundamental to the proper combustion of coal and is vital to the preparation of the feedstock for the production of metallurgical coke.An understanding of basic coal properties is important for achieving reductions in trace element emissions and improving the efficiency of combustion and combined-cycle gasification. The production of methane from coal beds is related to the properties of the in situ coal. Similarly, coal bed sequestration of carbon dioxide produced from combustion is dependent on the reservoir properties. Environmental problems accompany coal on its way from the mine to the point of utilization and beyond. Health aspects related with coal mining and coal utilization are also included because, in planning for coal use, it is impossible to separate environmental and health issues from the discussion of coal utilization.The book is aimed at a wide audience, ranging from researchers, lecturers and students to professionals in industry and discusses issues (such as the environmental, and health) that are of concern to the general public as a whole. This book focuses on the applications of coal (organic) petrology to our modern society. It is an integrated approach to help the reader appreciate the importance of coal quality and coal utilization. Coal composition (macerals, mineral, trace elements) and the overprint of coal rank are treated together. This book synthesises all the possibilities of the organic petrology as a tool for coal utilization in conventional applications (mining and beneficiation, coal combustion, gasification, liquefaction, carbonization), as a precursor of carbon materials and as a petroleum source and reservoir rock.The role of applied petrology in the characterization of solid by-products from coal utilization is also discussed. In addition, this book describes the present status of environmental and health problems linked to coal utilization and the ways in which such problems might be overcome in the future.


We demonstrate that numerical relativity codes based on the moving punctures formalism are capable of evolving nearly maximally spinning black hole binaries. We compare a new evolution of an equal-mass, aligned-spin binary with dimensionless spin chi=0.99 using puncture-based data with recent simulations of the SXS Collaboration. We find that the overlap of our new waveform with the published results of the SXS Collaboration is larger than 0.999. To generate our new waveform, we use the recently introduced HiSpID puncture data, the CCZ4 evolution system, and a modified lapse condition that helps keep the horizon radii reasonably large.


Economic Determinants of Rural-urban Labor Migration: The Case of Kor ea by Hong Youl Park, Doctor of Philosophy Utah State University, 1975 Major Professor: Dr. Herbert H. Fullerton Department: Economics vi Though it is conceded that the major stream of migration in developing countries flows from rural to urban areas, research on identifying the principle determinants of rural-urban migration are quite scarce. This is especially so in quantitative terms. Therefore, hypotheses concerning the economic determinants of rural-urban migration are investigated and economic impact of rural-urban migration is also examined in this dissertation. }tlgration can be viewed from many different perspectives -selectivities, pull and push, human investment approaches, etc . However, this study follows economic tradition and views migration in a general equilibrium context. In the economic opportunity hypothesis, discrepancies of factor payments among regions is postulated. The significance of selected econom:!.c deternd.nants such as the magnitude of capital investment and relative prices of rural and urban goods is then tested along with the economic opportunity hypothesis. The migration model in this study is specified as a system of interrelated equations. The simultaneous equations model which is employed, enables us to examine the effectiveness of key variables on migration , and the impacts of these variables on rural and urban labor markets. The model is tested with Korean labor force data. Rural wage rates were found to have a negative relationship with migration, whereas urban wage rates showed a positive relationship. The changes in relative prices of rural and urban goods were found to exert a significant impact on rural-urban migration. A decrease in prices of rural goods may induce an increase in out-migration and an increase in prices of urban goods may be a pulling factor of ruralurban migration such that rural-urban migration increases. Thus, vii the net out-migration may be reduced when agricultural prices increase . An increase in capital investment in rural areas was found to reduce rural-urban migration, and an increase in capital investment in urban areas was found to encourage rural-urban migration. Investment was found to be the most significant variable in determining wage rates, however, it was less significant than the prices of rural and urban goods in determining rural-urban migration. It is concluded that changing relative economic opportunities, changing output prices, and capital investments between rural and urban areas are important factors providing impetus for rural-urban migration and they are major economic determinants of rural-urban migration in Korea. Thus, government is faced with alternative policies for the reduction of rural-urban migration. For instance, the government may give wage subsidies to the rural employment sector, it may increase large-scale public investments, or it may allow a rise in agricultural prices. Each of these policies would tend to reduce the flow of resources from the agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector. viii A redistribution of resources may not facilitate efficient resource allocation and the optimal growth of the national economy. Therefore, the efficiency aspects of stimulating a resource flow should be examined carefully before these policy variables are implemented for achieving population redistribution. (120 pages) CHAPTER


While the HPC community is working towards the development of the first Exaflop computer (expected around 2020), after reaching the Petaflop milestone in 2008 still only few HPC applications are able to fully exploit the capabilities of Petaflop systems. In this paper we argue that efforts for preparing HPC applications for Exascale should start before such systems become available. We identify challenges that need to be addressed and recommend solutions in key areas of interest, including formal modeling, static analysis and optimization, runtime analysis and optimization, and autonomic computing. Furthermore, we outline a conceptual framework for porting HPC applications to future Exascale computing systems and propose steps for its implementation.


Since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won the majority of seats in the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) in 2013, the party has received widespread acclamation for improving public education within the province. However, there is weak evidence to support whether these policies have had an immediate effect on educational outcomes. Using difference-in-differences estimation, this study attempts to assess the extent to which investment in primary public schools has affected enrollment rates and educational attainment in rural KPK. Surprisingly, cities that received high rates of investment following the PTI's election did not experience a statistically significant change in enrollment rates or educational attainment.


This paper considers some of the issues involved in building a crowdbased system for learning music socially in communities. The effective implementation of building such systems provides several fascinating challenges if they are to be sufficiently flexible and personal for effective social learning to take place when they are large number of users. Based on our experiences of building the infrastructure for a crowd-based music learning system in Goldsmiths called MusicCircle we address several some of the challenges using an agent based approach, employing formal specifications to articulate the agent design which can later be used for software development. The challenges addressed are: 1) How can a learner be provided with a personalised learning experience? 2) How can a learner make best use of the heterogenous community of humans and agents who co-habit the virtual learning environment? We present formal specifications for an open learner model, a learning environment, learning plans and a personal learning agent. The open learner model represents the learner as having current and desired skills and knowledge and past and present learning plans. The learning environment is an online platform affording learning tasks which can be carried out by individuals or communities of users and agents. Tasks are connected together into learning plans, with pre and post conditions. We demonstrate how the personal learning agent can find learning plans and propose social connections for its user within a system which affords a dynamic set of learning plans and a range of human/ agent social relationships, such as learner-teacher, learner-learner and producer-commentator.


This book questions what enduring lessons have been learnt about the interdependence of international trade and economic development during the last 50 years. Since the end of the Cold War and the advent of the WTO, developing countries have been forced to face the choice of whether, and to what extent, to integrate economically with the rest of the world. The key issue of international political economy is emphasized.


On April 28, 1896, baseball fans traveled in horse-drawn buggies to watch the Detroit Tigers play their first baseball game at the site on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. Starting out as Bennett Park, a wooden facility with trees growing in the outfield, Tiger Stadium has played a central role in the lives of millions of Detroiters and their families for more than a century. During the last century, millions of fans have come to Michigan and Trumbull to watch the Tigers' 7,800 home games, as well as to attend numerous other sporting, social, and civic events, including high school, collegiate, and professional football games, prep and Negro league baseball contests, political rallies, concerts, and boxing and soccer matches. A companion to the narrative history, almost two hundred rare photographs capture the spirit of 140 years of baseball in Detroit. A Place for Summer furnishes a sense of the relationship between the community, its teams, and the various fields, parks, and stadiums that have served as common ground for generations of Detroiters.


Lipomas are benign, mesenchymal neoplasms occurring in areas of abundant adipose tissue. They can be found anywhere in the body with approximately 15-20 % located in head and neck region and the majority of rest in the shoulder and back. They are uncommon in hand and even rare in fingers. We report a case of lipoma in 22 year old female who presented to us with a painless swelling. Surgical excision was done. Lipoma should always be kept in the list of differential diagnosis. Complete resection should be done to prevent recurrence.


Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a ubiquitous herpes virus that infects 90% of humans by adulthood, is linked to the development of various cancers, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma, gastric cancer, Burkitt lymphoma, nonHodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and Hodgkin lymphoma. We reviewed the literature published since 1980 regarding an association between antibodies against EBV proteins and the risk of EBV-associated malignancies. Immunoglobulin A antibody levels that are elevated before diagnosis have consistently been associated with the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and patients with Hodgkin lymphoma have significantly higher immunoglobulin G antibody levels than disease-free controls. However, the link between the immune response to EBVand other EBV-associated malignancies was less clear. Although evidence of an association between the risk of Burkitt lymphoma and immunoglobulin G antibodies was consistent for available studies, the sample sizes were limited. Evidence for a link between antibodies against EBV and risk of either gastric cancer or NHL was inconsistent. Future investigations should account for tumor EBV status because only 7%–10% of gastric tumors and select NHL subtypes are related to EBV infection. Comparing differences in the associations between the humoral immune response to EBV and disease risk across cancers may help elucidate how this ubiquitous virus contributes to distinct tumors globally.


In this thesis, based on the indoor channel measurements and ray-tracing modeling for the indoor mm-wave wireless communications, the challenges of the design of the radio in this band is studied. Considering the recently developed standards such as IEEE 802.15.3c, ECMA and WiGig at 60 GHz, the link budget of the system design for different classes of operation is done and the requirement for the antenna and other RF sections are extracted. Based on radiation characteristics of mm-wave and the fundamental limits of low-cost Silicon technology, it is shown that phased-array is the ultimate solution for the radio and physical layer of the mobile millimeter wave multi-Gb/s wireless networks. Different phased-array configurations are studied and a low-cost single-receiver array architecture with RF phase-shifting is proposed. A systematic approach to the analysis of the overall noise-figure of the proposed architecture is presented and the component technical requirements are derived for the system level specifications. The proposed on-chip antennas and antenna-in-packages for various applications are designed and verified by the measurement results. The design of patch antennas on the low-cost RT/Duroid substrate and the slot antennas on the IPD technologies as well as the compact on-chip slot DRA antenna are explained in the antenna design section. The design of reflective-type phase shifters in CMOS and MEMS technologies is explained. Finally, the design details of two developed 60 GHz integrated phased-arrays in CMOS technology are discussed. Front-end circuit blocks such as LNA, continuous passive reflective-type phase shifters, power combiner and variable gain amplifiers are investigated, designed and developed for a 60 GHz phased-array radio in CMOS technology. In the first design, the two-element CMOS phased-array front-ends based on passive phase shifting architecture is proposed and developed. In the second phased-array, the recently developed on-chip dielectric resonator antenna in our group in lower frequency is scaled and integrated with the front-end.


The Southern Hemisphere continents and India are believed to be fragments of a former supercontinent, Gondwanaland, which broke apart in later Mesozoic times. Inevitably, those working in these regions have many problems of common interest, but there are few opportunities for Gondwana geologists to meet for discussion and exchange of information. To remedy this a series of Symposia was proposed, with meetings in each of the major fragments of Gondwanaland. The proposal was made in 1964, at a meeting of the I.U.G.S. Subcommission of Gondwana Stratigraphy held at the International Geological Congress in New Delhi. The First Symposium on Gondwana Stratigraphy and Palaeontology was held in Argentina in 1967, and was so successful that the future of these meetings was assured. The papers given at the First Symposium have been published, the majority in a single large volume published by U.N.E.S.C.O.1 A smaller number of papers, reviews of the geology of the major regions of Gondwanaland by invited authors, was published by the I.U.G.S. Committee for the study of Geological Documentation.2 The Second Symposium was held in South Africa in July 1970 by kind invitation of the South African Government, and was organized by the South African C.S.I.R. Scientific papers were given at two sessions, one held in Cape Town, the other in Johannesburg. Plenary papers covered various topics of general interest: Glaciations of Gondwanaland (L. A. Frakes), Palaeomagnetic data from Gondwanaland (K. M. Creer), Continental drift and palaeo-current analysis (J. J. Bigarella), Marine fossil invertebrates of the Gondwana region


Gerard Delanty provides a comprehensive assessment of the idea of cosmopolitanism in social and political thought which links cosmopolitan theory with critical social theory. He argues that cosmopolitanism has a critical dimension which offers a solution to one of the weaknesses in the critical theory tradition: failure to respond to the challenges of globalization and intercultural communication. Critical cosmopolitanism, he proposes, is an approach that is not only relevant to social scientific analysis but also normatively grounded in a critical attitude. Delanty's argument for a critical, sociologically oriented cosmopolitanism aims to avoid, on the one hand, purely normative conceptions of cosmopolitanism and, on the other, approaches that reduce cosmopolitanism to the empirical expression of diversity. He attempts to take cosmopolitan theory beyond the largely Western context with which it has generally been associated, claiming that cosmopolitan analysis must now take into account non-Western expressions of cosmopolitanism.


Title of Thesis: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AERODYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION OF A COAXIAL ROTOR SYSTEM Degree Candidate: Monica Syal Degree and Year: Masters of Science, 2008 Thesis directed by: Professor J. Gordon Leishman Department of Aerospace Engineering The present work analyses the aerodynamic complexities involved in the design of a coaxial rotor system in an attempt to maximize its performance in hover and forward flight. The aerodynamic methodologies of the simple momentum theory (SMT), the blade element momentum theory (BEMT), and a free vortex wake method (FVM) are used to help study this problem. It is shown that because of the inter-rotor aerodynamic interference effects, as well as the requirement of a torque balanced operating condition, the two rotors of the coaxial system generally operate at different thrust and different aerodynamic loadings. Therefore, for an optimally performing coaxial system, the geometric designs of the two rotors can expected to be different. To this end, parametric studies were performed to understand the effects of changes in inter-rotor spacings, blade twist, and blade planforms on both the upper and lower rotors. A more formal optimization was attempted by coupling FVM with an optimizer to find the best rotor geometry (if any) to maximize the figure of merit in hover or to minimize the total power required in forward flight. It was shown that the performance of the coaxial rotor system can, indeed, be improved significantly by having different blade geometries on the upper and lower rotors. However, it was also shown that the blade twist distribution has more significant effects on the rotor performance as compared to the blade planform shapes. The baseline geometry for all the optimization analyses had untwisted blades on both rotors. It was shown that a higher inter-rotor spacing is desired to reduce the interference effects between the two rotors in hovering flight. However, the spacing distance can be limited by the increased rotor weight and increased parasitic drag in forward flight. The results also show that a high blade twist is desired on the upper rotor to reduce the induced losses of the coaxial system, whereas a high blade twist on the bottom rotor increases the induced losses of the coaxial system. In forward flight, the results showed that at high advance ratios the aerodynamic interactions between the two rotors become smaller, and both rotors behave almost as isolated rotors. Parametric studies were also performed to study the effects of changing linear twist rates on both the rotors of the coaxial system in forward flight. The results showed that the total power required at an advance ratio of 0.25 is insensitive to the changes in the blade twist on upper and lower rotors. This outcome also showed that the optimum blade shapes obtained for hovering flight also offered better performance in forward flight. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AERODYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION OF A COAXIAL ROTOR SYSTEM


Through their transcript products genes regulate the rates at which an immense variety of transcripts and subsequent proteins occur. Understanding the mechanisms that determine which genes are expressed, and when they are expressed, is one of the keys to genetic manipulation for many purposes, including the development of new treatments for disease.

Viewing each gene in a genome as a distinct variable that is either on (expresses) or off (does not express), or more realistically as a continuous variable (the rate of expression), the values of some of these variables influence the values of others through the regulatory proteins they express, including, of course, the possibility that the rate of expression of a gene at one time may, in various circumstances, influence the rate of expression of that same gene at a later time. If we imagine an arrow drawn from each gene expression variable at a given time to a gene variable whose expression it influences a short while after, the result is a network, technically a directed acyclic graph (DAG). For example, the DAG in Figure 1 is a representation of a system in which the expression level of gene G1 at time 1 (denoted as G1(1)) causes the expression level of G2(2), which in turn causes the expression level of G3(3). The arrows in Figure 1 which do not have a variable at their tails are "error terms" which represent all of the causes of a variable other than the ones explicitly represented in the DAG. The DAG describes more than associations—it describes causal connections among gene expression rates. A shock to a cell—by mutation, heating, chemical treatment, etc. may alter the DAG describing the relations among gene expressions, for example by activating a gene that was otherwise not expressed, producing a cascade of new expression effects.

Although "knockout" experiments (which lower a gene's expression level) can reveal some of the underlying causal network of gene expression levels, unless guided by information from other sources, such experiments are limited in how much of the network structure they can reveal, due to the sheer number of possible combinations of experimental manipulations of genes necessary to reveal the complete causal network.

Recent developments have made it possible to compare quantitatively the expression of tens of thousands of genes in cells from different sources in a single experiment, and to trace gene expression over time in thousands of genes simultaneously. cDNA microarrays are already producing extensive data, much of it available on the web. Thus there are calls for analytic software that can be applied to microarray and other data to help infer regulatory networks (Weinzierl, 1999). In this paper we will review current techniques that are available for searching for the causal relations between variables, describe algorithmic and data gathering obstacles to applying these techniques to gene expression levels, and describe the prospects for overcoming these obstacles.


Integration of a third component into a single-junction polymer solar cell (PSC) is regarded as an attractive strategy to enhance the performance of PSCs. Although binary all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) have recently emerged with compelling power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), the PCEs of ternary all-PSCs still lag behind those of the state-of-the-art binary all-PSCs, and the advantages of ternary systems are not fully exploited. In this work, we realize high-performance ternary all-PSCs with record-breaking PCEs of 9% and high fill factors (FF) of over 0.7 for both conventional and inverted devices. The improved photovoltaic performance benefits from the synergistic effects of extended absorption, more efficient charge generation, optimal polymer orientations and suppressed recombination losses compared to the binary all-PSCs, as evidenced by a set of experimental techniques. The results provide new insights for developing high-performance ternary all-PSCs by choosing appropriate donor and acceptor polymers to overcome limitations in absorption, by affording good miscibility, and by benefiting from charge and energy transfer mechanisms for efficient charge generation.


Objectives To determine how Injury Severity Score (ISS) and mortality relate to height fallen, and to determine other predictors of mortality including intent and body region injured. Methods A pre-hospital retrospective, observational database study was conducted. Injured or deceased patients following a fall from height (FFH), aged 16 or over, attended to by London Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS), between Jan 2008 to July 2009 were included in the study. In addition to the database, HEMS mission 'run sheets' provided further information. Results 117 (91 males and 26 females) patients met the inclusion criteria. The mean age was 37 years (range 16 - 85). 34/117 (29%) died. The mean ISS was 28.6 (median 17) and the mean height fallen 9.9m (3rd floor). In the group that died the mean height was 16.7m (5th floor). Height fallen was found to be a significant predictor of mortality (p<0.001), as were injuries to the chest and/or head (p<0.05). In patients with head and chest injuries, a 50% mortality rate was estimated to occur at falls from 10.5m, compared to 22.4m in those without injuries to head or chest. Deliberate falls were more common amongst females than males (chi-squared test, p=0.001), were associated with greater ISS (Mann Whitney test, p<0.001) and were more likely to result in death (chi-squared test, p<0.001). Conclusions Height fallen correlates with ISS and is a significant predictor of death. Chest and/or head injuries significantly increased the likelihood of death following a FFH. This information may enhance triage criteria applied to tasking of emergency response vehicles, and strategies in injury prevention. Other potential predictors of mortality were not found to be significant.


Congress and many state legislatures are considering expanding access to telemedicine. To inform this debate, we analyzed Medicare fee-for-service claims for the period 2004-14 to understand trends in and recent use of telemedicine for mental health care, also known as telemental health. The study population consisted of rural beneficiaries with a diagnosis of any mental illness or serious mental illness. The number of telemental health visits grew on average 45.1 percent annually, and by 2014 there were 5.3 and 11.8 telemental health visits per 100 rural beneficiaries with any mental illness or serious mental illness, respectively. There was notable variation across states: In 2014 nine had more than twenty-five visits per 100 beneficiaries with serious mental illness, while four states and the District of Columbia had none. Compared to other beneficiaries with mental illness, beneficiaries who received a telemental health visit were more likely to be younger than sixty-five, be eligible for Medicare because of disability, and live in a relatively poor community. States with a telemedicine parity law and a pro-telemental health regulatory environment had significantly higher rates of telemental health use than those that did not.


Coronavirus (COVID-19) is one of the defining policy challenges of an era. In this article, we sketch some possible ways in which the public policy and administration community can make an enduring contribution about how to cope with this terrible crisis. We do so by offering some elements that delineate a tentative research agenda for public policy and administration scholars, to be pursued with epistemic humility. We outline the contours of seven analytical themes that are central to the challenges presented by COVID-19: policy design and instruments, policy learning, public service and its publics, organisational capacity, public governance, administrative traditions and public sector reforms in multi-level governance (MLG). The list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive to COVID-19. The knowledge we can generate must speak not only to the daunting challenge of COVID-19 itself but also to policymakers, and indeed humankind, trying to cope with future unexpected but high impact threats, by leveraging better public policies and building administrative capacities to enable more resilient, equitable and effective public services.


Abstract. Disturbed landscapes can provide habitat for a variety of species; however, for fauna, a strong understanding of their habitat affiliations is critical both to detect species and to develop management prescriptions to maintain their populations. We assessed habitat affiliations of common, uncommon and rare reptile species in a multiple-use landscape, the northern jarrah forest of south-western Australia. To identify predictors of reptile occurrence, we related reptile presence/absence, or relative abundance, to habitat, climatic and seasonal variables. Because the reptiles studied have cryptic behaviours and low numbers of detections, we used a combination of analyses including non-metric multi-dimensional scaling, occupancy and regression models. We identified specific habitat affiliations for the most common species and potential linkages with vegetation structure for most uncommon species. There were insufficient detections to determine habitat affiliations accurately for most rare species. Often species were detected too infrequently to determine specific habitat variables that influence occupancy and detection, and altering survey time and scale may increase detections so that habitat affiliations can be determined. However, in highly speciose landscapes, like our study area, we may not be able to wait until we have enough detections to define the habitat affiliations of all reptiles before we make management decisions. Therefore management activities that maintain habitat heterogeneity and complexity is likely to be the best strategy to conserve the most reptile species.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the expression of receptors for luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) in human specimens of triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC). In addition, we used in vitro and in vivo models of TNBC to investigate if these receptors are suitable targets for the treatment with the LHRH antagonist cetrorelix. Receptors for LHRH were expressed in all tumor samples and in the TNBC cell lines HCC1806 and HCC1937. The proliferation of both TNBC cell lines was significantly inhibited in vitro by 1 microM cetrorelix. Injections of 3 mg cetrorelix on day 1 and 21 resulted in a significant growth inhibition of HCC1806 tumors xenografted into nude mice. Tumors of mice treated with cetrorelix expressed less mRNA for EGFR and HER3 receptors than untreated tumors. After treatment of cells with Cetrorelix a flow cytometric analysis of the cell cycle revealed a decrease in S-phase. Given the low toxicity and clinical availability of cetrorelix, this peptide antagonist should be considered for phase II studies in patients with advanced TNBC.


This paper uses a simple, graphical approach to analyze what happens to commodity prices and economic welfare when futures markets are introduced into an economy. It concludes that these markets do not necessarily make prices more or less stable. It also concludes that, contrary to common belief, whatever happens to commodity prices is not necessarily related to what happens to the economic welfare of market participants: even when futures markets reduce the volatility of prices, some people can be made worse off. These conclusions come from a series of models that differ in their assumptions about the primary function of futures markets, the structure of the industries involved, and the tastes and technologies of the market participants.


The lobbying of government by various interests is regarded as central to the democratic process. Deliberative democratic theorists tell us that the regulation of lobbying has a positive effect on political systems, and the behaviour of those within them. Yet, only four democratic systems (Canada, USA, EU and Germany) have legislation regulating lobbyists' activities, and even this regulation is not all pervasive. Here we examine the attitudes of actors in states, provinces, and institutions in the above democracies, where no regulations exist. This ensures that the actors we deal with have knowledge of lobbying regulations, what these regulations entail, as well as the consequences of the absence of any such regulations. Our objective is to discover if these actors see benefits in the introduction of lobbying legislation, as is suggested by deliberative democratic theory.


Abstract. The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the short- and long-run relationships between the short-term interest rate, London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) and macroeconomic policy objectives, such as price stability, economic growth, and stability of the exchange rate market. For this purpose, we deploy quarterly frequency data from the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2015 and adopt a multiple regression model. Furthermore, this study uses the Johansen, Stock-Watson cointegration test and the Granger Causality test in order to examine the dynamic short- and long-run relationships among LIBOR, the consumer price index as a proxy of price stability, the real gross domestic product as a proxy of economic growth, and the exchange rate as a proxy of exchange rate market stability. The results showed that all variables have the same order of integration and long-run equilibrium relationships exist between them. The results show evidence of long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables with strong evidence of unidirectional granger causality flow from GDP, CPI and exchange rates to LIBOR. The recommendations proposed in this study have important policy implications for the U.K. government. It is therefore recommended that policy makers and government authorities together with the Bank of England develop and pursue sensible fiscal and monetary policies that would aim at stabilizing both the micro- and macroeconomic indicators such as the inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate, and money supply, to enhance the growth of the economy, especially for the period after the BREXIT decision. Keywords. Macroeconomics, Interest rate, Monetary policy, London interbank offered rate, United Kingdom. JEL. E43, E51, E58.


The presence of women in the law has changed the law's substance, practice, and process. Carrie Menkel-Meadow, whose scholarship centers on this theme, is one such revolutionary woman.

Professor Menkel-Meadow, who I am proud to call my colleague, co-author, and friend (hereinafter referred to as Carrie), began her career in 1977 with a series of simple questions that sparked a breathtaking body of work. Carrie probed the depth of male domination in the realm of law and wondered what changes female representation might engender. In particular, she focused her inquiry on the value orientation each respective gender might bring to the law: "To what extent are the legal institutions we deal with male-dominated, both in the values they reflect and the manner or means used to express those values? To what extent might the expression of feminine or female values, principles and qualities both in the ends desired and the means used to express those ends alter our legal institutions? How does the increased participation of women in these legal institutions move us toward or away from the realization of feminine values in the law?"

Over 40 years, Carrie elaborated on these questions to develop a thorough and wide-ranging feminist jurisprudence. This Essay attempts to do justice to her work. Part II recapitulates her account of the feminization of the law: the way that feminine values affect the substance of the law; the way that we practice and learn law; and the process of law, especially in the area of Carrie's other love—dispute resolution. In particular, Carrie used a key narrative to illustrate competing approaches to problem-solving. Spurred by Carol Gilligan's reanalysis of psychology studies, Carrie dove into the moral dilemmas used in psychology and recast the story of Amy and Jake (where they wrestle over the dilemma of whether to steal drugs to save a life) as a lesson in problem-solving. Throughout her writings, Carrie advocated for a feminine ethic of care to have equal footing with the more traditional (masculine) ethic of justice that has been hallowed in law.

Part III of this Essay uses a different narrative from Carrie's scholarship to illustrate the application of the feminization of the law. In the case of Ziba—a hypothetical mediation between an underage bride and her controlling husband, Ahmed—we see how Carrie's own passions for feminism and dispute resolution collide in the mediation process she typically champions. Ultimately, Carrie's treatment of the case puts into practice the ethic of care developed within her feminist jurisprudence.


Mobile computing is becoming one of the most widely adopted technologies. There are 1.3 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, and the current generation of phones offers substantial computing ability. Furthermore, mobile devices are increasingly becoming integrated into everyday life. With the huge popularity in mobile computing, it is critical that we examine the human-computer interaction issues for these devices and explicitly explore supporting everyday activities. In particular, one very common and important activity of daily life I am interested in supporting is conversation. Depending on job type, office works can spend up to 85% of their time in interpersonal communication.
In this work, I present two methods that improve a user's ability to enter information into a mobile computer in conversational situations. First I examine the Twiddler, a keyboard that has been adopted by the wearable computing community. The Twiddler is a mobile one-handed chording keyboard with a keypad similar to a mobile phone. The second input method is dual-purpose speech, a technique designed to leverage a user's conversational speech. A dual-purpose speech interaction is one where speech serves two roles; it is socially appropriate and meaningful in the context of a human-to-human conversation and provides useful input to a computer. A dual-purpose speech application listens to one side of a conversation and provides beneficial services to the user. Together these input methods provide a user the ability to enter information while engaged in conversation in a mobile setting.


Bladder cancer is one of the most common malignancies in developed countries while
transitional cell carcinomas (Tee) are the origin of more than 90% of diagnosed
bladder cancers. Patients diagnosed with bladder cancer basically belong to two
clinically distinct groups, namely non-muscle invasive (which are papillary pattern) and
muscle invasive (which are solid). These carcinomas pose the greatest clinical problems
due to the high recurrence of non-muscle invasive tumors even after transurethral
resection of the tumors. At present, there are no clinically useful markers available for
identifying bladder cancer patients with a high risk of disease recurrence or
progressIon.
Multiple molecular events take place when normal epithelial cells are transformed into
tumor tissues. These can now be monitored simultaneously, by using oligonucleotide
rnicroarrays and the expression patterns of three different grades of Tee namely Tee
WHO Grade I, Tee WHO Grade II and Tee WHO Grade III (according to WHO
classification) can be established. In this study, individual cell suspensions were prepared from bladder tumor biopsies. Pools of cells were also prepared from noncancerous
tissues. Total RNA was isolated and reverse transcribed into eDNA. In vitro
transcription into cRNA was carried out with the incorporation of Cy3 and Cy5 dyes.
Labeled cRNA probes were co-hybridized to the microarray slide containing 1,853
cancer related genes. Following hybridization procedure, scanning of the array slides
was carried out to identify the gene expression levels in each of the sample
investigated.
To determine the co-expression patterns displayed between different stages of the
bladder cancer, hierarchical clustering analysis that group tumors according to
similarity in their expression profile was used. Hierarchical clustering demonstrated an
unambiguous separation of TCC WHO Grade I from Grades II and III of these
urothelial tumors. In addition, based on the gene function, nine clusters of genes were
identified. These genes are associated with cell adhesion molecules, protein synthesis,
oncogenes, apoptosis markers, growth factors, immunology, cell cycle regulators,
transcription factors and angiogenesis. Fold-change analysis of gene expression
revealed 106, 49 and 51 genes that are over-expressed and 13, 186 and 132 that are
suppressed in TCC Grades I, II and III, respectively. A gene is considered differentially
expressed if its relative expression is two-fold or greater.
Because of the inherent limitations in the reliability of microarray, genes identified as
differentially expressed were validated with a PCR-based method. Real-Time peR was
able to confirmed 75% of the microarray data. These results were in concordance to
that previously reported. This study indicates that gene expression patterns can be
identified in bladder cancer by combining oligonucleotide arrays and Real-Time PCR analysis. These data combined with other data from similar research, could provide
insights into the extent of expression differences underlying malignancy of the bladder
cancer and reveal genes that may prove useful as diagnostic or prognostic markers.


The dielectric response and conductivity have been measured in (Bi1−xNdx)FeO3 (x = 0.0 and 0.05) ceramics as functions of temperature and frequency. A one-dimensional across-barrier model with intrinsic barriers, B (in temperature units), every lattice constant, a, and extrinsic barriers, B + Δ, every distance, d, is introduced to describe the dielectric response and conductivity. The across-barrier hopping is responsible for the high-temperature conductivity and step-like dielectric relaxation in the region of 500–800 K. Good qualitative fits of dielectric dispersion and conductivity are obtained with d = 20–30 nm, B = 8400–8700 K (∼0.72–0.75 eV), and Δ = 2500 K (∼0.215 eV). The resistivity plot of scaled ρ" versus ρ' indicates a contribution of grain boundaries or internal defects to the conductivity.


To study the effect of Asparagus officinalis polysaccharide on the number and activity of erythrocyte complement receptor 1(CD35) in S180 mice. Red blood cells from mice venous blood are labeled by rat anti-mouse CD35 monoclonal antibody and FITC-conjugated goat anti-mouse antibody. Using flow cytometry, we determined the number of CR1. Using microscope, we studied the adherence between erythrocyte immunity and C3b receptor or tumor-cell by RBC-C3bRR and DTER. Comparing the mean value of the number of CR1 on erythrocyte of high and middle groups with control groups, the mean value of the number of CR1, RBC-C3bRR and DTER of Asparagus officinalis polysaccharide groups are increased significantly. Asparagus officinalis polysaccharide can improve the erythrocyte function of S180 mice, which may be one of antitumor mechanisms.


This book presents an economic survey of international capital mobility from the late nineteenth century to the present. The authors examine the theory and empirical evidence surrounding the fall and rise of integration in the world market. A discussion of institutional developments focuses on capital controls and the pursuit of macroeconomic policy objectives in shifting monetary regimes. The Great Depression emerges as the key turning point in recent history of international capital markets, and offers important insights for contemporary policy debates. Its principal legacy is that the return to a world of global capital is marked by great unevenness in outcomes regarding both risks and rewards of capital market integration. More than in the past, foreign investment flows largely from rich countries to other rich countries. Yet most financial crises afflict developing countries, with costs for everyone.


Commercial Law The International Academy of Estate and Trust Laws (IAETL) meets each May to spend a week of intensive engagement with issues of direct and immediate concern to estate and trusts lawyers. More than merely an assembly of commentators and interpreters, the IAETL is a prestigious body that affects real change in courts, law reform commissions, and governmental agencies. Its membership - including solicitors, barristers, notaires, judges, and scholars, all experts in trusts, estates, and inheritance law, and/or tax law - highlight the contrasts and comparisons between the pertinent laws of civil and common law jurisdictions. This volume records the May 2002 conference in Rome, which featured four distinct areas of discussion and debate: how trusts in the civilian context (specifically Italy) are subjected to taxation; the delicate balance between inter vivos and postmortem taxation; a lively debate on the nature and rationale of the inheritance tax; and how best to serve the client at the same time as meeting one's ethical obligations. As always, this outstanding annual (the fourth in this series published by Kluwer Law International) continues to offer perspectives that open on ideas in themselves, apart from the demands and responsibilities of knowing and applying the law in busy demanding professional and scholarly environments. For this reason especially it is sure to engage the deep interest of researchers, academics, practitioners, law reform bodies, governmental groups and their advisers working in this complex and varied field of law.


Existing convergence analyses of Q-learning mostly focus on the vanilla stochastic gradient descent (SGD) type of updates. Despite the Adaptive Moment Estimation (Adam) has been commonly used for practical Q-learning algorithms, there has not been any convergence guarantee provided for Q-learning with such type of updates. In this paper, we first characterize the convergence rate for Q-AMSGrad, which is the Q-learning algorithm with AMSGrad update (a commonly adopted alternative of Adam for theoretical analysis). To further improve the performance, we propose to incorporate the momentum restart scheme to Q-AMSGrad, resulting in the so-called Q-AMSGradR algorithm. The convergence rate of Q-AMSGradR is also established. Our experiments on a linear quadratic regulator problem demonstrate that the two proposed Q-learning algorithms outperform the vanilla Q-learning with SGD updates. The two algorithms also exhibit significantly better performance than the DQN learning method over a batch of Atari 2600 games.


Abstract 888 The marrow microenvironment enhances both tumor growth and bone destruction in multiple myeloma (MM) through MM cell-induced activation of multiple signaling pathways in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) by TNFα. We reported that sequestosome-1 (p62) acts as a signaling hub for NF-kB, MAPK and PI3K activation in BMSC of MM patients and enhances MM growth and osteoclast (OCL) formation. p62 is composed of 5 domains that are involved in protein–protein interactions required for formation of these signaling complexes, but which domain of p62 mediates increase MM growth and OCL formation is unclear. Therefore, deletion constructs of p62 that lacked each of the 5 domains (PB1, ZZ, p38, TBS or UBA) were transfected into a p62−/− stromal cell line. We found that the ZZ domains mediated BMSC enhancement of MM cell growth, IL-6 production, VCAM-1 expression and OCL formation. Using virtual modeling of the ZZ domain, we identified 6 candidate p62-ZZ inhibitory molecules and tested them for their capacity to block enhanced MM cell growth, OCL formation, IL-6 production, and VCAM-1 expression on BMSC induced by TNFα. When MM1.S, RPMI8266, ANBL6 MM cell-lines or CD138+ primary MM cells were cultured in the absence of BMSC with p62-ZZ inhibitor #3 (10mM), this inhibitor directly induced cell death. The p62-ZZ inhibitor-induced cell death was characterized by an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by inhibiting NF-kB activation, and apoptotic cell death by triggering the activation of caspases 3, 7, and 9. This inhibitor had an IC50 of 4.6mM for MM1.S survival. In contrast, CFU-Blast formation by human CD34+ cells was not inhibited by p62-ZZ inhibitor #3 (10mM). p62-ZZ inhibitor #3 (10mM) treatment of human OCL precursors derived from CFU-GM, inhibited OCL formation by blocking precursor proliferation. To examine the specificity of the p62-ZZ inhibitor #3, we tested its effects on OCL formation by CD11b+ mononuclear cells from wild type (WT) and p62−/− mice cultured with TNFα for 7 days. p62-ZZ inhibitor #3 blocked WT OCL formation but did not block p62−/− OCL formation. The p62-ZZ inhibitor also blocked VCAM-1 expression and IL-6 production by normal and MM patient stromal cells induced by TNFα compared to vehicle. Importantly, the inhibitor (10mM) did not block stromal cell proliferation. Further, the inhibitor blocked TNFα induced PKCζ phosphorylation in stromal cells and MM1.S when the cells were pretreated with the p62-ZZ inhibitor for 3 hours. These results demonstrate that p62-ZZ inhibitor #3 specifically blocks both stromal cells independent and dependent MM cell growth and OCL formation but does not affect hematopoietic or stromal cell growth. These results support p62 as a potential novel therapeutic target for MM. Disclosures: Roodman:Amgen: Consultancy; Millennium: Consultancy.


Understanding long-term patterns of microbial evolution is critical to advancing our knowledge of past and present role microbial life in driving global biogeochemical cycles. Historically, it has been challenging to study the evolution of environmental microbes due to difficulties in obtaining genome sequences from lineages that could not be cultivated, but recent advances in metagenomics and single-cell genomics have begun to obviate many of these hurdles. Here we present an evolutionary genomic analysis of the Marinimicrobia, a diverse bacterial group that is abundant in the global ocean. We demonstrate that distantly related Marinimicrobia species that reside in similar habitats have converged to assume similar genome architectures and cellular bioenergetics, suggesting that common factors shape the evolution of a broad array of marine lineages. These findings broaden our understanding of the evolutionary forces that have given rise to microbial life in the contemporary ocean. ABSTRACT Diverse bacterial and archaeal lineages drive biogeochemical cycles in the global ocean, but the evolutionary processes that have shaped their genomic properties and physiological capabilities remain obscure. Here we track the genome evolution of the globally abundant marine bacterial phylum Marinimicrobia across its diversification into modern marine environments and demonstrate that extant lineages are partitioned between epipelagic and mesopelagic habitats. Moreover, we show that these habitat preferences are associated with fundamental differences in genomic organization, cellular bioenergetics, and metabolic modalities. Multiple lineages present in epipelagic niches independently acquired genes necessary for phototrophy and environmental stress mitigation, and their genomes convergently evolved key features associated with genome streamlining. In contrast, lineages residing in mesopelagic waters independently acquired nitrate respiratory machinery and a variety of cytochromes, consistent with the use of alternative terminal electron acceptors in oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). Further, while epipelagic clades have retained an ancestral Na+-pumping respiratory complex, mesopelagic lineages have largely replaced this complex with canonical H+-pumping respiratory complex I, potentially due to the increased efficiency of the latter together with the presence of the more energy-limiting environments deep in the ocean's interior. These parallel evolutionary trends indicate that key features of genomic streamlining and cellular bioenergetics have occurred repeatedly and congruently in disparate clades and underscore the importance of environmental conditions and nutrient dynamics in driving the evolution of diverse bacterioplankton lineages in similar ways throughout the global ocean. IMPORTANCE Understanding long-term patterns of microbial evolution is critical to advancing our knowledge of past and present role microbial life in driving global biogeochemical cycles. Historically, it has been challenging to study the evolution of environmental microbes due to difficulties in obtaining genome sequences from lineages that could not be cultivated, but recent advances in metagenomics and single-cell genomics have begun to obviate many of these hurdles. Here we present an evolutionary genomic analysis of the Marinimicrobia, a diverse bacterial group that is abundant in the global ocean. We demonstrate that distantly related Marinimicrobia species that reside in similar habitats have converged to assume similar genome architectures and cellular bioenergetics, suggesting that common factors shape the evolution of a broad array of marine lineages. These findings broaden our understanding of the evolutionary forces that have given rise to microbial life in the contemporary ocean.


The amount of digital text available for analysis by consumer researchers has risen dramatically. Consumer discussions on the internet, product reviews, and digital archives of news articles and press releases are just a few potential sources for insights about consumer attitudes, interaction, and culture. Drawing from linguistic theory and methods, this article presents an overview of automated text analysis, providing integration of linguistic theory with constructs commonly used in consumer research, guidance for choosing amongst methods, and advice for resolving sampling and statistical issues unique to text analysis. We argue that although automated text analysis cannot be used to study all phenomena, it is a useful tool for examining patterns in text that neither researchers nor consumers can detect unaided. Text analysis can be used to examine psychological and sociological constructs in consumer-produced digital text by enabling discovery or by providing ecological validity.


Following the path-breaking work of Coase (1960), economists have recognised the complex issues of managing jointly owned and utilised properties, so-called commons. Increasingly we see this as a problem of externalities, as with public goods. We recognise the wide range of occurrences, ranging from small public sites – visualise an overcrowded public park – to worldwide issues, like global warming, and we observe the diverse ways in which these resources are being managed or mismanaged. This article suggests that the global economy is also a commons, one whose management poses special challenges. The current world situation suggests the urgent need to recognise this fact and to devise ways to reconcile the interests of various participants in an increasingly integrated global economy.


The paper depicts an application of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) for predicting selected parameters in turning of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy using polycrystalline diamond tool. Response surface plots that are generated by the model helps in determining the optimum combination of input factors (cutting speed vc and feed rate f) for best possible surface roughness (Sa), cutting force (Fc)and temperature (T) for dry and cooling turning. The methodology of multi-criteria optimization was used to establish the interaction between input parameters and given responses


This study was undertaken to provide information about U.S. Foreign Service spouse reentry adjustment in the published social work literature. The purpose is to inform social workers and others working with spouses and repatriates regarding the reentry phenomenon and to inform the development of intervention strategies in working with repatriates and their families in other occupations requiring extended overseas stays. One hundred fifty-eight Foreign Service spouses who are members of the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW), a Foreign Service spouse organization, responded to a mixed method questionnaire covering a range of reentry issues. These issues included demographic characteristics and traits of the spouses" last overseas assignment and last reentry experience. There were three clusters of quantitative findings: primary were the family systems factors, with greater reentry adjustment difficulties for younger spouses with fewer and younger children; overseas adjustment factors, with more reentry difficulties for spouses who participated in fewer activities overseas; and reentry factors, with greater readjustment distress for spouses whose reentry experience was more difficult than anticipated, those with less job satisfaction, and who had been in the U.S. for a shorter period of time. Qualitative results found: the return to familiar surroundings makes subsequent reentries easier, and more reentry information before reentry and the availability of counseling to those at risk would be helpful. AN EXPLORATION OF FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH REENTRY ADJUSTMENT OF U. S. FOREIGN SERVICE SPOUSES A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work. Sharon M. Maybarduk Smith College School for Social Work Northampton, Massachusetts 01063


The paper argues the need to provide novel methods and tools to support software developers aiming to optimise energy efficiency and minimise the carbon footprint resulting from designing, developing, deploying and running software in Clouds, while maintaining other quality aspects of software to adequate and agreed levels. A cloud architecture to support energy efficiency at service construction, deployment, and operation is discussed, as well as its implementation and evaluation plans.


How to exchange information between parties in a mega-scale disaster management system is one of the fundamental challenges to support timely and efficient disaster response and relief. Specifically, the timeliness, scalability, and availability are three desirable features for information exchange. We call the framework to support information exchange with the three features an open information gateway, OIGY in short. In this paper, we present the challenges of information gateway, and the design of the communication protocols and the fundamental components and algorithms to support the aforementioned features. The efforts of this work will be divided into two major components: one is the distributed Truthful Real-time Information Publishing and Subscribing (TRIPS), and the other one is Heterogeneous And Plug-n-PlaY networks (HAPPY). The two components in OIGY collaborate to provide reliable and timely information publish and subscription service. TRIPS is responsible for logical information exchange management. Compared to modern real-time publish and subscription services, TRIPS is aimed at information responsiveness and distributed content-based filtering in an un-reliable network. To achieve better responsiveness, TRIPS will take advantage of the run-time service composition of SOA framework to select information sources. To enhance the success rate, TRIPS relies the information routing information provided by HAPPY. HAPPY will integrate heterogeneous communication networks including 3G/WiMAX telecommunication network and mesh mobile network into a coherent communication network and discovers the routes with probabilistic bandwidth guarantee.


4,4'-Methylenediphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) is the most important isocyanate used in the chemical industry. Lung sensitization and asthma are the main types of damage after exposure to MDI. Albumin adducts of MDI might be involved in the etiology of sensitization reactions. It is therefore necessary to have sensitive and specific biomarkers such as blood protein adducts to monitor people exposed to isocyanates. For the discovery of new isocyanate adducts with blood proteins present in vivo, new synthetic standards are needed. To achieve this, we developed five methods to obtain amino acid adducts of MDI. We synthesized and isolated MDI adducts of aspartic acid, glutamic acid, cysteine, and valine. The new adducts were characterized by LC-MS/MS and NMR. We synthesized the corresponding isotope-labeled MDI adducts to develop analytical methods using LC-MS/MS. Glutathione adducts of isocyanates are an important way of transportation of the reactive isocyanates to distant sites from the original site of exposure. Therefore, we used N-acetyl-cysteine adducts of MDI as reactants: N-acetyl-S-[[4-(4-aminobenzyl)phenyl]carbamoyl]-cysteine (MDI-AcCys) and N-acetyl-S-[[4-(4-acetylaminobenzyl)phenyl]carbamoyl]-cysteine (AcMDI-AcCys). MDI-AcCys or AcMDI-AcCys formed adducts with albumin, N(α)-acetyl lysine, and valine. Isotope-labeled albumin adducts (= d(4)-MDI-albumin) were synthesized from d(4)-MDI-AcCys and albumin. d(4)-MDI-albumin can be used as an internal standard to analyze biological samples. Such an internal standard will not correct only for the extraction recovery of the adducts but also for the potential variation of the enzymatic digestions used in the procedure to analyze albumin adducts of MDI. The synthetic procedures described in this manuscript will be applicable to the synthesis of amino acid adducts from other isocyanates.


The current interest in energy saving asphalt production techniques is great and several new processes have been developed to reduce the mixing and compaction temperatures for hot mix asphalt. In particular, mastic asphalt products (Gussasphalt) require high working temperatures, and harder requirements concerning bitumen fumes and carbon dioxide emissions have been introduced for such products. Consequently, the need of a new means of producing and placing mastic asphalt at lower temperatures is particularly large. One way of reducing asphalt mixture temperature is by using special flow improving additives like wax. This technique has successively been tried in several studies for polymer modified mastic asphalt used for bridge decks and parking areas in Sweden. However, there still are uncertainties about possible negative impact on crack susceptibility at lower temperatures due to the addition of wax. In this study, 4% montan wax (Asphaltan A) was used for one particular polymer modified mastic asphalt product. Type and amount of wax additive was selected based on results from earlier studies. The impact on binder, binder/filler mixtures and mastic asphalt from production was tested in the laboratory, focusing on low temperature performance. The bending beam rheometer (BBR) was used for determining low temperature creep compliance and the tensile stress restrained specimen test (TSRST) for determining fracture temperatures. Binder properties were determined using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and conventional tests (softening point, penetration, elastic recovery, Fraass breaking point, viscosity and storage stability). Aging was performed using the rolling thin film oven test (RTFOT) at 200°C. As expected, the addition of wax to the polymer modified binder showed a viscosity reduction at higher temperatures, corresponding to a similar positive effect of more than 10°C on production and laying temperature for the mastic asphalt. DMA and BBR results showed some increase in stiffness and a more elastic response of the wax modified binder at medium and low temperatures. The TSRST fracture temperature was 5 °C higher for the mastic asphalt containing 4% wax, indicating however no dramatic negative impact on crack susceptibility.