Advances in additive manufacturing enable the fabrication of complex structures with intricate geometric details. It also escalates the potential for high-resolution structure design. However, the increasingly finer design brings computational challenges for structural optimization approaches such as topology optimization (TO) since the number of variables to optimize increases with the resolutions. To address this issue, two-scale TO paves an avenue for high-resolution structural design. The design domain is first discretized to a coarse scale, and the material property distribution is optimized, then using micro-structures to fill each property field. In this paper, instead of finding optimal properties of two scales separately, we reformulate the two-scale TO problem and optimize the design variables concurrently in both scales. By introducing parameterized periodic cellular structures, the minimal surface level-parameter is defined as the material design parameter and is implemented directly in the optimization problem. A numerical homogenization method is employed to calculate the elasticity tensor of the cellular materials. The stiffness matrices of the cellular structures derived as a function of the level parameters, using the homogenization results. An additional constraint on the level parameter is introduced in the structural optimization framework to enhance adjacent cellulars interfaces' compatibility. Based on the parameterized micro-structure, the optimization problem is solved concurrently with an iterative solver. The reliability of the proposed approach has been validated with different engineering design cases. Numerical results show a noticeable increase in structure stiffness using the level parameter directly in the optimization problem than the state-of-art mapping technique.


Designers consider the future as an intrinsic aspect of the design process yet, there has been limited academic investigation of the approaches designers employ to create next-next generation products and services. The central aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of futures thinking in design. It draws upon the field of future studies to provide a theoretical base for the research. The research answers three questions: How do designers engage with the future within the design process? What futures thinking methods are employed in the design process? What futures thinking methods do designers employ? Data was collected via semi-structured interviews in the UK and USA with 40+ designers, researchers, and design managers. Six research propositions provide a framework for qualitative data analysis through which a series of theoretical categories and associated substantive factors are identified. Analysis of the research findings supported the development of a design futures framework that communicates a representative picture of the role of future thinking in design, and contributes to understanding the ways in which designers consider the future in the design process. The study identifies the growing need for organisations to engage designers to consider the future within an increasingly complex and competitive product and service developmental landscape.


The purpose of this study was to determine the mechanisms by which organic calcium channel blockers inhibit cerebral vasoconstriction. Isolated bovine middle cerebral arteries were cut into rings to measure contractility or into strips to measure radioactive calcium (45Ca) influx and efflux. Calcium channel blockers (10(-5) M verapamil or 3.3 X 10(-7) M nifedipine) and calcium-deficient solutions all produced near-maximal inhibition of both potassium- and serotonin-induced constriction. In calcium-deficient solutions containing potassium or serotonin, verapamil and nifedipine each blocked subsequent calcium-induced constriction in a competitive manner. Potassium and serotonin significantly increased 45Ca uptake into cerebral artery strips during 5 minutes of 45Ca loading; for potassium 45Ca uptake increased from 62 to 188 nmol/g, and for serotonin from 65 to 102 nmol/g. Verapamil or nifedipine had no effect on basal 45Ca uptake but significantly blocked the increase in 45Ca uptake induced by potassium or serotonin. Potassium, and to a lesser extent serotonin, each induced a brief increase in the rate of 45Ca efflux into calcium-deficient solutions. Verapamil or nifedipine had no effect on basal or potassium-stimulated 45Ca efflux. The results demonstrate that verapamil and nifedipine block 45Ca uptake through both potential-operated (potassium) and receptor-operated (serotonin) channels in bovine middle cerebral arteries.


A Monte Carlo quantum mechanical-molecular mechanical (QM-MM) simulation method was used to determine the contributions of the solvent polarization effect to the total interaction energies between solute and solvent for amino acid side chains and nucleotide bases in aqueous solution. In the present AM1-TIP3P approach, the solute molecule is characterized by valence electrons and nucleus cores with Hartree-Fock theory incorporating explicit solvent effects into the total Hamiltonian, while the solvent is approximated by the three-point charge TIP3P model. The polarization energy contributes 10 to 20 percent of the total electrostatic energy in these systems. The performance of the hybrid AM1-TIP3P model was further validated by consideration of bimolecular complexes with water and by computation of the free energies of solvation of organic molecules using statistical perturbation theory. Excellent agreement with ab initio 6-31G(d) results and experimental solvation free energies was obtained.


In this paper we propose an accurate clustering algorithm as the necessary step of the Single Channel Independent Component Analysis (SCICA) in the context of the fast extraction of protein profiles from the mass spectra (MALDI-TOF) data. In general K-means clustering is employed for clustering of the basis vectors. However given its iterative and statistical nature, convergence to the same clusters for the same data sets is not always guaranteed making it inaccurate, especially in protein-profiling where reliability of the bio-marker based disease detection and diagnosis depend immensely on the reliability of the clustering algorithm. Furthermore the proposed algorithm does not involve any arithmetic computations helping expedite the entire SCICA process.


Empirical media effects research involves associating two things: measures of media content or experience and measures of audience outcomes. Any quantitative evidence of correlation between media supply and audience response—combined with assumptions about temporal ordering and an absence of spuriousness—is taken as evidence of media effects. This seemingly straightforward exercise is burdened by three challenges: the measurement of the outcomes, the measurement of the media and individuals' exposure to it, and the tools and techniques for associating the two.
 While measuring the outcomes potentially affected by media is in many ways trivial (surveys, election outcomes, and online behavior provide numerous measurement devices), the other two aspects of studying the effects of media present nearly insurmountable difficulties short of ambitious experimentation. Rather than find solutions to these challenges, much of collective body of media effects research has focused on the effort to develop and apply survey-based measures of individual media exposure to use as the empirical basis for studying media effects. This effort to use survey-based media exposure measures to generate causal insight has ultimately distracted from the design of both causally credible methods and thicker descriptive research on the content and experience of media. Outside the laboratory, we understand media effects too little despite this considerable effort to measure exposure through survey questionnaires.
 The canonical approach for assessing such effects: namely, using survey questions about individual media experiences to measure the putatively causal variable and correlating those measures with other measured outcomes suffers from substantial limitations. Experimental—and sometimes quasi-experimental—methods provide definitely superior causal inference about media effects and a uniquely fruitful path forward for insight into media and their effects. Simultaneous to this, however, thicker forms of description than what is available from close-ended survey questions holds promise to give richer understanding of changing media landscape and changing audience experiences. Better causal inference and better description are co-equal paths forward in the search for real-world media effects.


Calcium (Ca) homeostasis is the maintenance of a stable plasma Ca concentration in the human body in the presence of Ca variability in the physiological environment (e.g. by ingestion and/or excretion). For normal physiological function, the total plasma Ca concentration must be maintained within a very narrow range (2.2-2.4mM). Meeting such stringent requirements is the task of a regulatory system that employs parathyroid hormone (PTH) and calcitriol (CTL) to regulate Ca flux between the plasma and the kidneys, intestines and bones. On the other hand, plasma phosphate control is less tightly, but simultaneously, regulated via the same hormonal actions. Chronic imbalances in plasma Ca levels are associated with disorders of the regulatory organs, which cause abnormal hormonal secretion and activity. These changes in hormonal activity may lead to long-term problems, such as, osteoporosis (increased loss of bone mineral density), which arises from primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) – hyper secretion of PTH. Existing in silico models of Ca homeostasis in humans are often cast in the form of a single monolithic system of differential equations and are not easily amenable to the sort of tractable quantitative analysis from which one can acquire useful fundamental insight. In this research, the regulatory systems of plasma Ca and plasma phosphate are represented as an engineering control system where the physiological sub-processes are mapped onto corresponding block components (sensor, controller, actuator and process) and underlying mechanisms are represented by differential equations. Following validation of the overall model, Ca-related pathologies are successfully simulated through induced defects in the control system components. A systematic approach is used to differentiate PHPT from other diseases with similar pathophysiologies based on the unique hormone/ion responses to short-term Ca disturbance in each pathology model. Additionally, based on the changes in intrinsic parameters associated with PTG behavior, the extent of PHPT progression can be predicted and the enlarged gland size estimated a priori. Finally, process systems engineering methods are used to explore therapeutic intervention in two Ca-related pathologies: Primary (PHPT) and Secondary (SHPT) Hyperparathyroidism. Through parametric sensitivity analysis and parameter space exploration, the calcium-sensing receptor (sensor) is identified as a target site in both diseases and the extent of potential improvement is determined across the spectrum of severity of PHPT. The findings are validated against existing drug therapy, leading to a method of predicting drug dosage for a given stage of PHPT. Model Predictive Control is used in drug therapy in SHPT to customize the drug dosage for individual patients given the desired PTH outcome, and drug administration constraints.


Limitations on the sensitivity for detecting a weak classical force acting on a harmonic oscillator are im posed by the quantum mechanical properties associated with a "standard" amplitude-and~phase measurement and, classically, by the back reaction noise associated with the finite noise temperature of the amplifier used to process the measurement. These are known as the "standard quantum limit" and the "standard amplifier limit", respectively. We present the theoretical motivation behind the quest to circumvent these limits, and examine a single transducer back-action evading measurement scheme designed to perform a phase-sensitive coupling to the oscillator, with the concomitant circumvention of the standard ampli fier limit via the "squeezing" of amplifier back reaction noise. The applicability of squeezing in the detection of gravitational radiation is explored via the dependence of detection sensitivity on the physical temperature and quality factor of the resonant-bar gravitational radiation antenna, on the noise temperature of the amplifier, and on the squeezing factor of the back-action evading measure ment; the success of back-action evasion in improving upon the optimum amplitude-and-phase detection sensi tivities depends critically upon these parameters. Using the LSU superconducting dual-cavity accelero meter as a test platform, we present direct evidence for the establishment of a phase-sensitive coupling to an oscillator, along with a variety of indirect corroborating evidence. This data indicates that our phase-sensitive measurement scheme is indeed more sensitive to one com ponent of the oscillator than to the other component. We also present the first evidence for the existence of back-action evasion of amplifier back reaction noise. We show theoretical expectations and experimental results for the dependence of squeezing on: input signal phases, amplitudes, and frequencies; amplifier back reaction levels; background noise; mechanical oscillator frequency; and coherent carrier contribution at the cavity resonance frequency. Squeezing factors of up to fifteen were achieved by our back-action evading measurement scheme. CHAPTER


Background: Traumatic cerebral hemorrhage is a common type of traumatic brain injury. This medical condition exists in two phases: primary, which occurs at the time of trauma, and secondary, which occurs later as a result of multiple biochemical, metabolic, and inflammatory changes that develop over time. The secondary injury is mainly irreversible and worsens the primary injury. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in RETN gene − 420 C/G is involved in the secondary injury by enhancing the inflammatory process. This study aims to find out the association of − 420 C/G RETN genotypes with C-reactive protein (CRP), brain edema, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), and Glasgow Outcome Score (GOS) among traumatic cerebral hemorrhagic contusions. Methods: Ninety patients with traumatic cerebral hemorrhagic contusion were enrolled in this study. Patients with hemorrhagic contusion associated with other types of brain bleeding and those with chronic diseases were excluded. GCS score was assessed upon admission and GOS was assessed upon discharge. CRP level was measured in serum by a Nyco-Card Reader II system. RETN genotypes were defined by using PCR-RFLP. Results: Ninety patients were included, 93.3% were males, and 78.9% of the patients were below 44 years old. The most common mechanism of trauma was RTA constituting 68.9%. The RETN genotypes were 25.6%, 41.1%, and 33.3% for CC, GG, and CG, respectively. G mutant allele was significantly associated with brain edema (P = 0.019) but not significantly associated with CRP, GCS, and GOS. Conclusions: SNP in RETN − 420 C/G gene was significantly associated with brain edema (P = 0.019).


OBJECTIVES
The aim of the present study was to define the effect of masking on the estimation of circadian adjustment of and interindividual differences between nurses on a rapidly rotating shift schedule.

METHODS
The phase shift of the circadian rhythm of rectal temperature was studied in 17 subjects. The following three different methods for estimating the circadian phase shift were compared: (i) cosinor analysis, (ii) a method using normative endogenous data in which the masking effects are removed ("purification"), and (iii) a method using normative endogenous data in which the masking effects are not removed.

RESULTS
The mean phase delay during the second night shift (compared with the morning shift) was 6.3 h according to the cosinor analyses of the raw data and 6.2 h according to the cross-correlation method of the raw data. When the masking effects were removed ("purification"), the phase shift was only 1.7 h. Diurnal type did not significantly explain the differences between individuals in the amount of phase shift of the raw data but was the only significant factor, explaining 32% of the variation between individuals in the phase shift of the purified data.

CONCLUSIONS
Masking effects on body temperature should be taken into account before any definite conclusions can be drawn about the relation between individual factors and the adjustment of the circadian rhythm of body temperature.


Through rhetorical analysis of Glenn Beck's keynote at the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Summit in Washington, D.C., and his subsequent "Restoring Courage" rally in Israel, this article examines the construction of a gendered and militarized "state of emergency" in which Israel and the United States stand together as brothers against their enemies in the modern era. In this discursive and political formation, Israel is constructed as a site of perpetual persecution, while anxieties about US global dominance are (mis)placed within its borders. This constructed emergency generalizes the nuances of Palestinian and Israeli experiences, while homogenizing Palestinians into a gendered and racialized terrorist Other. Offering a theorization of masculine assemblages, the authors analyze how, in the post-9/11 security state, the unification of US-Israeli interests is articulated through multiple interlocking discourses of masculinity. Through careful deconstruction of the masculine assemblages that bind together this epistemological and geo-political formation, this analysis contributes to postcolonial and transnational feminist theorizing by exploring how men embody and construct the nation-state, how discourses of race, religion, and nation assemble together through the concept of masculinity, and how these assemblages provoke states of emergency and impetuses for action.


The delivery of exogenous nucleic acids into mammalian cells is a valuable technique for basic research studies on the expression, regulation and function of genes and proteins. At the same time, gene delivery to cultivated mammalian cells has become fundamentally important as a technology for the production of therapeutic proteins for preclinical and clinical applications. Alongside with the applications of gene delivery in biotechnology, gene transfer emerged in the early 1990s as a potential therapeutical method in which a functional copy of the defective gene is introduced to provide the missing function. Polymeric cations are widely used as nonviral transfection agents. The efficiency of these vectors, however, is lower than that of viral vectors and has until now precluded their extensive use in applications where stable and high level gene expression is required. Therefore a better understanding of the parameters that govern transfection efficiency of polycationic vectors is crucial for rational design of novel gene carriers. Thus, the main motivation behind this research was to investigate the role of the architecture and molecular weight of the polycation on the efficiency of transfection. The efficiency of transfection is determined by the cytotoxicity of the gene carrier, its reversible complexation with DNA, and proper intracellular trafficking of the resulting complex. For this purpose the 17 member library was synthesized, containing linear (LPL), hyperbranched (HBPL) and dendritic polylysine (DPL) analogues covering a broad range of molecular weights. HBPL, a new class of cationic polymers prepared by polycondensation of L-lysine, was developed to explore the influence of very high molecular weights and randomly branched structures on cytotoxicity, transfection efficiency, and internalization. The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the current state-of-the-art on gene carriers and the future prospects of the field. Additionally, the current use of polycationic gene carriers for the production of recombinant proteins (r-proteins) via a large-scale transient gene expression (TGE) is discussed. The main goal of the Chapter 2 was to determine the influence of the architecture and molecular weight of the polycations on their in vitro biocompatibility. The extent of acute cell death after short exposure was found to be molecular weight dependent. The acute cytotoxicity of high molecular weight polycations was triggered by the permeabilization of the cell membrane. At high concentrations of small molecular weight polycations, membrane destabilization was caused by increased osmotic pressure. In contrast, delayed cell death was correlated to the collapse of mitochondrial transmembrane potential, triggering caspase-dependent apoptosis after intracellular accumulation of the polycation. The onset and extent of the delayed mode of cell death was shown to be dependent on the molecular weight and degree of branching of the polylysine analogues. Based on these results, the differential long term cytotoxicity reflects the resistance of branched polylysine analogues to proteolytic degradation. Thus the degradability and cumulative cytotoxicty can be predetermined by fine-tuning the frequency of branching points in the architecture of peptidic polycation. Chapter 3 demonstrates the evolution of transfection activity with the molecular weight and degree of branching of polylysine analogues. In summary, the results show that under identical cell culture and transfection conditions, the most critical parameter for high gene expression is the structure of the gene carrier. HBPL is the most efficient gene carrier in comparison to LPL and DPL and results in gene expression levels comparable to polyethyleneimine (PEI). Physico-chemical characterization of complexes revealed that those derived from plasmid DNA and HBPL contained a high quantity of the free polycation in comparison to those formed by LPL and DPL. The presence of the free polycation in the course of endocytosis of the complex may provide an explanation for the high transfection efficiency of HBPL. Chapter 4 describes a feasibility study aimed at proving whether HBPL is potentially applicable to large-scale r-protein production via TGE. Gene delivery efficiency and yield of r-protein were evaluated in serum-free, suspension-adapted CHO-DG44 cells under conditions mimicking the industrial manufacture of r-protein by TGE. High molecular weight HBPL mediates transfection and r-protein expression at levels comparable to the ones obtained with PEI. The main advantage of HBPL is its partial enzymatic degradability, potentially decreasing its cumulative cytotoxicity in the course of TGE. Also, HBPL efficiently transfects cell lines and primary cells in the presence of serum, thus broadening the potential applications of HBPL as a novel gene carrier for basic research applications in molecular and cellular biology. In conclusion, it is possible to obtain an efficient gene carrier by simple rearrangement of the topology of poly-L-lysine.


The virus-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (VDEPT) anti-cancer 'gene therapy' strategy relies on the use of viral vectors for the efficient delivery to tumour cells of a 'suicide gene' encoding an enzyme which converts a non-toxic prodrug to a cytotoxic agent. The prodrug 5-(aziridin-1-yl)-2,4 dinitrobenzamide, CB1954, has been proposed for use in enzyme-prodrug gene therapy systems with the Escherichia coli enzyme nitroreductase (Ntr). Ntr converts CB1954 to 2- and 4-hydroxylamino derivatives, whereupon the non-enzymatic reaction of the 4-hydroxylamino derivative with cellular thio- esters generates a potent cytotoxic bifunctional alkylating agent capable of cross-linking DNA. Ntr delivery has been achieved in vitro using retroviral and adenoviral vectors and confirmed by immunocytochemical demonstration of Ntr expression. The Ntr-expressing cells have been shown to be sensitized to CB1954 by up to 2000-fold. The Ntr-CB1954 system shows effective bystander killing in mixed populations of Ntr-expressing and non-expressing cells treated with CB1954. The efficacy of this enzyme-prodrug approach in model systems compared with other VDEPT approaches demonstrates the feasibility and future promise of this gene therapy strategy.


Distributed service-oriented traffic control mechanisms, operating with minimum impact on network performance, assume a crucial role as regards controlling services quality and network resources transparent and efficiently. In this way, we describe and specify a lightweight distributed admission control (AC) model which provides an uniform solution for managing QoS and SLSs in multiclass and multidomain environments. Taking advantage of the consensual need of on-line service monitoring and traffic control at the network edges, AC decisions are driven by feedback from systematic edge-to-edge measurements of relevant QoS parameters for each service type and SLS utilization. This allows self-adaptive service and resource management, while abstracting from network core complexity and heterogeneity. In this paper, introducing an expressive notation, we specify the high-level entities for multiservice provisioning in a domain and formalize service-dependent AC equations to assure both intra and interdomain model operation. A proof-of-concept of the AC criteria effectiveness in satisfying each service class commitments while achieving high network utilization is provided through simulation.


We generalize the concept of coherent states, traditionally defined as special families of vectors on Hilbert spaces, to Hilbert modules. We show that Hilbert modules over C*-algebras are the natural settings for a generalization of coherent states defined on Hilbert spaces. We consider those Hilbert C*-modules which have a natural left action from another C*-algebra, say . The coherent states are well defined in this case and they behave well with respect to the left action by . Certain classical objects like the Cuntz algebra are related to specific examples of coherent states. Finally we show that coherent states on modules give rise to a completely positive definite kernel between two C*-algebras, in complete analogy to the Hilbert space situation. Related to this, there is a dilation result for positive operator-valued measures, in the sense of Naimark. A number of examples are worked out to illustrate the theory. Some possible physical applications are also mentioned.


Every day, judges are faced with making decisions about a defendant's potential risk as it relates to setting bail, sentencing, and a variety of other contexts. In making these decisions, judges must balance issues of fairness and protection of the individual rights of the accused with protection of society from dangerous predators who may commit future acts of physical or sexual violence. As professionals who are not specifically trained in violence assessment, judges must rely on others, including probation agents, attorneys, and expert witnesses, for information to assist in their decision-making. Through expert witnesses and up-to-date training of criminal justice professionals, judges should have access to a significant body of knowledge regarding the risk factors that are known to be related to future violence, particularly risk factors such as psychopathy which has been found to be the single best predictor of future violence in a wide variety of populations. A preliminary study was carried out in western Michigan counties using transcripts from sentencing hearings of violent offenders convicted of rape, felonius assault, or homicide/attempted homicide to determine whether known risk factors influenced judges' decisions regarding sentencing and whether such information impacted a judge's decision to depart from the Michigan sentencing guidelines. Results suggest that risk factors are often not mentioned during the sentencing hearings and that when they are, they rarely appear to influence judicial decisions. In particular, no mention of the term psychopathy or of expert testimony related to risk or of the names of scien-tifically validated instruments for assessing violence risk was found in all transcripts reviewed. Implications of these results for professional training and improvement in judicial sentencing are discussed. ABSTRACT Every day, judges are faced with making decisions about a defendant's potential risk as it relates to setting bail, sentencing, and a variety of other contexts. In making these decisions, judges must balance issues of fairness and protection of the individual rights of the accused with protection of society from dangerous predators who may commit future acts of physical or sexual violence. As professionals who are not specifically trained in violence assessment, judges must rely on others, including probation agents, attorneys, and expert witnesses, for information to assist in their decision-making. Through expert witnesses and up-to-date training of criminal justice professionals, judges should have access to a significant body of knowledge regarding the risk factors that are known to be related to future violence, particularly risk factors such as psychopathy which has been found to be the single best predictor of future violence in a wide variety of populations. A preliminary study was carried out in western Michigan counties using transcripts from sentencing hearings of violent offenders convicted of rape, felonius assault, or homicide/attempted homicide to determine whether known risk factors influenced judges' decisions regarding sentencing and whether such information impacted a judge's decision to depart from the Michigan sentencing guidelines. Results suggest that risk factors are often not mentioned during the sentencing hearings and that when they are, they rarely appear to influence judicial decisions. In particular, no mention of the term psychopathy or of expert testimony related to risk or of the names of scientifically validated instruments for assessing violence risk was found in all transcripts reviewed. Implications of these results for professional training and improvement in judicial sentencing are discussed.


"It is not only in Japan that traditional employment systems are being called into question. It has become conventional wisdom on the OECD conference circuit that we are entering a new era of intensified global competition in which only the most and quot;flexible" firms can survive. ''Flexibility'' and the elimination of rigidities, particularly labour market rigidities, became, in the mid-1980s, the keynote of prescriptions both for lack of competitiveness and for rising unemployment. Even earlier reservations about the desirability of preserving a "core" of stable, long-serving, committed workers, differentiated from a flexible "periphery" have given way to prescriptions for wholesale ''down-sizing.'' There is a flexibility trade off. Concern with labour market flexibility -- especially managers'' ability to hire and fire at will -- is strengthened in the Anglo-Saxon economies by the inflexibility of the financial markets they face. Japanese firms, being more insulated from the short-term demands of shareholders, have hitherto been able to afford more ''rigid'' employment systems from which they gain the advantage of employee commitment and cooperative and flexible attitudes to work. But today the competitiveness/flexibility concern grows in Japan too. The lifetime employment/seniority-constrained pay and promotion system is under attack. Advocacy of change is common; assertions that wholesale change has already taken place almost equally common. The reasons are to be found partly in the objective situations of many firms after four years of recession, partly in a loss of self-confidence and a ''resurgence of the American model.'' Actual change seems in fact to be marginal, but there are a number of grounds for expecting change in the future: value change -- greater affluence, diminished work ethic, and diminished egalitarianism; the possible resurgence of shareholder power; the declining influence of unions; the declining ''intellectual quality'' of blue-collar and routine white-collar workers; increased inter-firm competition and the reduction of industry cartel understandings; slower growth; low wage competition, particularly in future from China, and the "hollowing-out" response thereto. Those who have a stake in Japan''s "employee sovereignty" jimponshugi, and would be reluctant to see it slide into just another version of "shareholder sovereignty" Anglo-Saxon capitalism, might be expected to be proposing legislation to bring company law in line with current Japanese reality. No one seems to be doing so."


I calibrate a Multi-Risk SIR model on the covid pandemic to analyze the impact of the age-specific confinement and PCR testing policies on incomes and mortality. Two polar strategies emerge as potentially optimal. The suppression policy would crush the curve by confining 90% of the population for 4 months to eradicate the virus. The flattenthe-curve policy would reduce the confinement to 30% of the population for 5 months, followed by almost one year of free circulation of the virus to attain herd immunity without overwhelming hospitals. Both strategies yield a total cost of around 15% of annual GDP when combining the economic cost of confinement with the value of lives lost. I show that hesitating between the two strategies can have a huge societal cost, in particular if the suppression policy is stopped too early. Because seniors are much more vulnerable, a simple recommendation emerges to shelter them as one deconfines young and middleaged people in order to build our collective herd immunity. By doing so, one reduces the death toll of the pandemic together with the economic cost of the confinement, and the total cost is divided by a factor 2. I also show that expanding the mass testing capacity to screen people sent back to work has a large benefit under various scenarios. This analysis is highly dependent upon deeply uncertain epidemiologic, sociological, economic and ethical parameters.


Having means to detect and avoid potential predators is a necessity for prey species. Most mammalian prey species are able to detect odours emitted by predators and to adapt their behaviour accordingly. These odour cues are therefore considered to act as semiochemicals. Predator odours consist of several dozen different odourants. In order to assess if single odourants elicit aversive behavioural reactions, predator-naive CD-1 mice were presented with six odourants which are part of body-borne odours of different mammalian predator species. A two-compartment chamber was used in order to assess place-preference, motor activity and faecal excretions when the animals were simultaneously presented with a predator odourant and a blank control. Further trials were performed to assess whether the odourant concentrations had an influence on the behaviours. The only odourant that elicited a significant aversion was 3-methyl-1-butanethiol, a compound found in the anal gland secretion of skunks, when presented at a factor of 100 above the olfactory detection threshold of mice. Two other concentrations of 3-methyl-1-butanethiol did not elicit significant behavioural changes. Based on the present study, only one out of six selected predator odourants elicited a significant aversive response in CD-1 mice. This suggests that more than one odour component, or perhaps even the full mixture of odourants, may be necessary for CD-1 mice to respond to a predator odour with aversive behaviour.


Trades in foreign exchange markets are initiated around the world and around the clock. This study illustrates that trades are more informative when initiated in a local country or in major foreign exchange centers like London and New York. Evidence suggests that informational asymmetries based on geography arise from the market making capacity of dealers and the customer order flow that dealers capture during regional business hours. Findings also show that market orders initiated in price-correlated FX markets are not informative. Transparency in quotes on electronic trading platforms may prevent informed participants from exploiting information across FX markets. Overall, these results are robust across different market conditions.


Sera from Brucella abortus-infected and -vaccinated bovines recognized four lipopolysaccharide (LPS) determinants: two in the O-polysaccharide (A and C), one in the core oligosaccharide from rough Brucella LPS (R), and one in lipid A (LA). From 46 different hybridomas secreting monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against various LPS moieties, 9 different specificities were identified. Two epitopes, A and C/Y, were present in the O-polysaccharide. Two epitopes were found in the core oligosaccharide (RI and R2) of rough Brucella LPS. MAbs against Rl and R2 epitopes reacted against LPS from different rough Brucella species; however, MAbs directed to the R2 epitope also reacted against enterobacterial LPS from deep rough mutants. Three epitopes (LAI, LA2, and LA3) were located in the lipid A backbone. Different sets of MAbs recognized two epitopes in the lipid A-associated outer membrane protein (LAOmp3-1 and LAOmp3-2). LPS preparations from smooth brucellae had small amounts of rough-type LPS. Although LPS from rough brucellae did not show smooth-type LPS in Western blots (immunoblots), two hybridomas generated from mice immunized with rough B. abortus produced antibodies against smooth B. abortus LPS. Results are discussed in relation to the structure and function of B. abortus LPS and to previous findings on the epitopic density of the molecule.


The generalized angular spectrum of plane waves yields scalar Helmholtz-equation solutions that satisfy prescribed boundary values on an infinite plane boundary when the boundary values are described by ultradistributions [generalized functions in the space denoted ( z′)]. These solutions are ultradistributions that satisfy the Helmholtz equation in all space. The generalized angular spectrum permits the treatment of boundary values that cannot be treated by classical diffraction formulas. The utility of the generalized angular spectrum is demonstrated by treatment of (1) boundary values described by absolutely integrable or square-integrable functions, (2) examples of boundary values described by functions that do not have Fourier transforms in the classical sense, and (3) examples of boundary values described by ultradistributions that are not expressible as functions. The generalized angular spectrum is used to develop, within the framework of established generalized-function theory, the transform formulation of diffraction of Sherman and the inverse-diffraction problem of Wolf and Shewell. A concise summary is given in the Appendix of the basic concepts and formulas of generalized-function theory that are useful in applied analysis.


This article will analyse the most important conclusions of recent historiography of fascist social policies. The focus of historians on the fascist social policy that was deve352 loped in the course of the 1920s and, above all, the 1930s, has grown since the turn of the century thanks to contributions that have enabled us to consider more profoundly the effects of the regime on national social policy in the long term. In the Italian context, political objectives have been recognised as the dominant ones in the management of health and social security, for the principal purpose of social control, since the start of fascism. In particular, the debate on «consent», the great theme of public services and the effects of the role of the PNF, have driven the most important studies on this subject. Through these contributions we have thus managed to contextualise and understand the Italian Social State setting out from the fascist experience


This paper proposes a constrained clustering method that is based on a graph-cut problem formalized by SDP (Semi-Definite Programming). Our SDP approach has the advantage of convenient constraint utilization compared with conventional spectral clustering methods. The algorithm starts from a single cluster of a complete dataset and repeatedly selects the largest cluster, which it then divides into two clusters by swapping rows and columns of a relational label matrix obtained by solving the maximum graph-cut problem. This swapping procedure is effective because we can create clusters without any computationally heavy matrix decomposition process to obtain a cluster label for each data. The results of experiments using a Web document dataset demonstrated that our method outperformed other conventional and the state of the art clustering methods in many cases. Hence we consider our clustering provides a promising basic method to interactive Web clustering.


Image of part of an art installation at the Salt Lake Art Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. This portion of the installation includes a figure pierced with arrows and knives. The artist refers to him as the "wound" man. In the foreground, are two leg splints with suspended latex tubing.


Many problems in computational linguistics are well suited for bootstrapping (semisupervised learning) techniques. The Yarowsky algorithm is a well-known bootstrapping algorithm, but it is not mathematically well understood. This article analyzes it as optimizing an objective function. More specifically, a number of variants of the Yarowsky algorithm (though not the original algorithm itself) are shown to optimize either likelihood or a closely related objective function K.


ABSTRACT A popular hypothesis in international studies states that a "youth bulge"––an age pyramid dominated by large cohorts between 15 and 29 years of age––increases the risk of political violence. However, empirical evidence on this link remains inconclusive to date. In this article, we systematically assess the youth effect using new data from 183 countries between 1996 and 2015. We find that within countries, a decrease in the youth ratio is generally associated with a decrease in the number of violent deaths from terrorism or other internal conflicts, and vice versa. This is also confirmed in out-of-sample predictions. However, the association is not evident in all constellations and sensitive to modeling issues. In particular, large cohorts of young males can become a disruptive power in countries that increase enrollment in post-primary education. Although this is usually followed by fertility decline, youth bulges often remain at record levels for quite some time due to high birth rates in the past. Strong labor markets can in general suppress the detrimental consequences of youth bulges. However, the combination of growing youth cohorts and educational expansion often leads to increased political violence even in the presence of low youth unemployment.


OBJECTIVES
We used nationally representative data to examine racial/ethnic disparities in smoking behaviors, smoking cessation, and factors associated with cessation among US adults.

METHODS
We analyzed data on adults aged 20 to 64 years from the 2003 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, and we examined associations by fitting adjusted logistic regression models to the data.

RESULTS
Compared with non-Hispanic Whites, smaller proportions of African Americans, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics/Latinos had ever smoked. Significantly fewer African Americans reported long-term quitting. Racial/ethnic minorities were more likely to be light and intermittent smokers and less likely to smoke within 30 minutes of waking. Adjusted models revealed that racial/ethnic minorities were not less likely to receive advice from health professionals to quit smoking, but they were less likely to use nicotine replacement therapy.

CONCLUSIONS
Specific needs and ideal program focuses for cessation may vary across racial/ethnic groups, such that approaches tailored by race/ethnicity might be optimal. Traditional conceptualizations of cigarette addiction and the quitting process may need to be revised for racial/ethnic minority smokers.


The policy context is the pressure of demand on resources in home care at a time when the policy aim is to achieve the a switch in the balance from residential-based to home-based care.

 The research context is the authors' set of papers estimating the implications of how resources of the community-based social services were used in relation the needs of users during the mid- and late 1980's, and the implications of variations in actual behaviour and hypothetical strategies for resource distributions and demands. (The topics of other papers and books include charging behaviour and its effects on demand, the 'marginal costs' and 'marginal productivities' of services in the production of outcomes of value in their own right given the need-related circumstances of users, the predictors of variations in the lifetime costs of services, the sensitivity of numbers who require subsidised CBSS to variations in the stringency of targeting criteria with respect to physical disabilities, cognitive impairment and associated behavioral disabilities and income eligibility criteria.)

 The aim of the paper is to quantify the resource effects over five years of (a) targeting and service review in a hypothetical whose behaviour reflected the average over 12 areas in England and Wales; (b) targeting and service review in the two of these areas which respectively targeted most at the least dependent and the most dependent; (c) the pattern of allocation of the hypothetical authority but excluding those which were not disabled with respect to the main tasks performed by standard home help or meals services; and (d) the same pattern as (c) but also excluding those whose conditions had improved by the time of successive six-month reviews to a level at which they were not disabled with respect to those tasks.

 The results suggest the quantitative importance of accompanying changes in initial targeting with the allocation of service for set periods, with renewal of service made dependent on rigorous six-monthly reviews.


Abstract. Optimal spatial assessment of short-time step precipitation for hydrological modelling is still an important research question considering the poor observation networks for high time resolution data. The main objective of this paper is to present a new approach for rainfall observation. The idea is to consider motorcars as moving rain gauges with windscreen wipers as sensors to detect precipitation. This idea is easily technically feasible if the cars are provided with GPS and a small memory chip for recording the coordinates, car speed and wiper frequency. This study explores theoretically the benefits of such an approach. For that a valid relationship between wiper speed and rainfall rate considering uncertainty was assumed here. A simple traffic model is applied to generate motorcars on roads in a river basin. Radar data are used as reference rainfall fields. Rainfall from these fields is sampled with a conventional rain gauge network and with several dynamic networks consisting of moving motorcars, using different assumptions such as accuracy levels for measurements and sensor equipment rates for the car networks. Those observed point rainfall data from the different networks are then used to calculate areal rainfall for different scales. Ordinary kriging and indicator kriging are applied for interpolation of the point data with the latter considering uncertain rainfall observation by cars e.g. according to a discrete number of windscreen wiper operation classes. The results are compared with the values from the radar observations. The study is carried out for the 3300 km2 Bode river basin located in the Harz Mountains in Northern Germany. The results show, that the idea is theoretically feasible and motivate practical experiments. Only a small portion of the cars needed to be equipped with sensors for sufficient areal rainfall estimation. Regarding the required sensitivity of the potential rain sensors in cars it could be shown, that often a few classes for rainfall observation are enough for satisfactory areal rainfall estimation. The findings of the study suggest also a revisiting of the rain gauge network optimisation problem.


Artist: John Cameron (signature on image).
Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonne / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, c1983, no. 6693


The credit risk market is the fastest growing financial market in the world, attracting everyone from hedge funds to banks and insurance companies. Increasingly, professionals in corporate finance need to understand the workings of the credit risk market in order to successfully manage risk in their own organizations; in addition, some wish to move into the field on a full-time basis. Most books in the field, however, are either too academic for working professionals, or written for those who already possess extensive experience in the area. Credit Derivatives fills the gap, explaining the credit risk market clearly and simply, in language any working financial professional can understand. Harvard Business School faculty member George C. Chacko and his colleagues begin by explaining the underlying principles surrounding credit risk. Next, they systematically present today's leading methods and instruments for managing it. The authors introduce total return swaps, credit spread options, credit linked notes, and other instruments, demonstrating how each of them can be used to isolate risk and sell it to someone willing to accept it.


This paper investigates the effect of feedback error on the performance of the joint adaptive modulation and diversity combining (AMDC) scheme which was previously studied with an assumption of error-free feedback channels. We also propose to utilize adaptive diversity to compensate for the performance degradation due to feedback error. We accurately quantify the performance of the joint AMDC scheme in the presence of feedback error, in terms of the average number of combined paths, the average spectral efficiency, and the average bit error rate. Selected numerical examples are presented and discussed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed feedback error compensation strategy with adaptive combining. It is observed that the proposed compensation strategy can offer considerable error performance improvement with little loss in processing power and spectral efficiency in comparison with the no compensation case.


In this study we report on our investigation of the microstructure of nickel oxide films produced by e-beam evaporation, sol-gel deposition and, sputtering techniques. We give characteristic cyclic voltammetry, current-voltage relationships, and optical transmission data for films made by each technique. Data is shown for electrodes both uncycled and cycled for 17-20 hrs. We found all samples have at least one phase corresponding to cubic nickel oxide (NaCl structure). Other phases, such as nickel hydroxide, may exist but are not immediately identifiable. The stucture of the films ranges from fine polycrystalline to amorphous. and varies over the surface of the sample. Films that were cycled for 17-20 hours all tended to have improved transmittance, as high as a 20% change. The highest transmission range from bleached to colored was for the evaporated films, which showed ΔT=60%. The sol-gel films showed a large residual coloration in the bleached state after cycling, about a 40% decline was noted. Overall, after cycling the films appeared to be slightly more crystalline. In all films after cycling there were increases in the coloration and bleaching current. Also peak shifts were noted after cycling, the coloration peak tended to shift to higher and the bleaching peak shifted to lower potentials. The overall coloration efficiency (550 nm) for these films ranged from 26-36 cm2/C.


Abstract Employees in Hong Kong, like those in many other industrialized societies, face the competing demands of work and family. Long working hours and the associated problem of work–family conflict is a serious problem for the workforce. Although a number of family-friendly policies, such as the five-day working week, paternal leave and so on, have been introduced, they are not necessarily used to their fullest extent. This paper examines the utilization of family-friendly incentives using a telephone survey of 661 employees in Hong Kong with access to such measures. Its major strength is the use of a well-established model of health care utilization, the Andersen model, to conceptualize the factors associated with the uptake of family-friendly policies. The results indicate that the Andersen model works very well in this context, and further demonstrate that access to family-friendly policies in Hong Kong is not equitable. The study makes a number of significant contributions to the literature on work–life balance and the uptake of supportive measures, and shows that enabling (such as perceived effectiveness) rather than need factors explain most of the variance in such use.


Redshift is not a shift, it is defined as a fractional change in wavelength. Nevertheless, it is a fairly common misconception that Delta-z c represents a velocity where Delta-z is the redshift separation between two galaxies. When evaluating large changes in a quantity, it is often more useful to consider logarithmic differences. Defining zeta = ln lambda_obs - ln lambda_em results in a more accurate approximation for line-of-sight velocity and, more importantly, this means that the cosmological and peculiar velocity terms become additive: Delta-zeta c can represent a velocity at any cosmological distance. Logarithmic shift zeta, or equivalently ln(1+z), should arguably be used for photometric redshift evaluation. For a comparative non-accelerating universe, used in cosmology, comoving distance is proportional to zeta. This means that galaxy population distributions in zeta, rather than z, are close to being evenly distributed in comoving distance, and they have a more aesthetic spacing when considering galaxy evolution. Some pedagogic notes on these quantities are presented.


Previous research looking into youth sport coaching indicates that a majority of coaches may also be a parent to an athlete on their team. While previous studies have also sought to understand how being a parent–coach might affect parents' relationships with their own child(ren), little work appears to explore how occupying this role might affect an individual's ability to remain effective as a coach. As such, 14 parent–coaches were interviewed to examine how they perceived their dual role to influence their coaching effectiveness and to hear what strategies they used to remain effective. Interviews were analyzed thematically, and findings indicated that parent–coaches have few formalized resources to aid them in navigating the issues associated with their challenging dual-role position. More support would be welcomed by this population to improve their effectiveness and to ensure that all developing athletes in their care continue to have positive experiences within the youth sport environment.


A simple and valid method has been developed for printing thin-film transistors (TFTs) with inks made from poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(1,4-benzo-2,1-3thiadiazole)] (PFO-BT) sorted semiconducting carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Sorted sc-SWCNT inks were directly printed on SiO2/Si substrates with pre-patterned gold electrode arrays by an aerosol jet printer. Printed bottom-gate TFTs with mobility up to 55.5 cmVs and on/off ratio up to 10 have been achieved with short printing cycles. Interestingly, printed top-gate TFTs also showed excellent electrical properties with high on/off ratio and high mobility using atomic layer deposition of Al2O3 as the dielectric layer and printed silver electrodes as top-gate electrodes. As a demonstrator, printed inverters based on the top-gate TFTs have been constructed and a maximum voltage gain of 11 at Vdd of 2 V have been obtained.


In one of his first speeches soon after being sworn in as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael Powell bemoaned the lack of an angel's visit to give him a clearer understanding of the guiding standard in broadcast regulation - the public interest. Without a clear message as to the public interest, he declared the standard too vague. Five years later, and now serving as Chairman, Powell leads the charge for even further deregulation of the already deregulated broadcast industry. The most recent FCC decision relaxed a wide range of media ownership regulations remaining on the books and poses the latest threat to the public interest standard and its longstanding goals of localism and diversity.But amidst this backdrop, there may be some signs that Powell's public interest angel is growing restless and may be preparing to deliver a much needed message about the true potential and importance of the public interest standard by giving Chairman Powell and all of us a glimpse of what the world of broadcasting might be like without it. Why should we care about the latest FCC rulings allowing growing consolidation of our mass media? Why should we care about the public outcry over these efforts? Why should we care about a seventy-five year old public interest requirement or its goals of diversity and localism? And why should we care if there may be signs that Powell's FCC is starting to take more of an interest in these goals and may potentially come to the realization that life in this nation is far better as a result of them? We should care because of the unique role that mass media plays in our democracy.


The osmolality was determined of fluid collected by micropuncture from proximal and distal convolutions, loops of Henle, collecting ducts and vasa recta of kidneys of various rodents with and without osmotic diuresis. Proximal tubular fluid was isosmotic; in the presence of antidiuretic hormone, early distal fluid was hypo-osmotic due to the prior reabsorption of sodium chloride, and late distal fluid again isosmotic. The hyperosmotic concentration of the urine is established in the collecting ducts, apparently as a consequence, in part at least, of the hyperosmotic reabsorption of sodium chloride in the loops of Henle. Fluid from the bends of loops of Henle, and from collecting ducts and vasa recta at the same level were equally hyperosmotic, consistent with the hypothesis that the mammalian nephron functions as a countercurrent multiplier system. The vasa recta are believed to play an important role in the concentration of the urine by functioning as countercurrent diffusion exchangers.


The interest of social scientists on the arctic has increased steadily in recent years, because of the climate change and its impacts on resources. Scientists have predicted some environmental and social change in the arctic. The focus of this paper will be on the north Atlantic region and possible impacts of global changes. The possible impacts of climate change on Greenland and Iceland is shift in commercial species, especially on cod and shrimp. The main interest of social scientists on the Arctic is to track and monitoring human development in the Arctic thru these global changes. In this paper, Arctic Social Indicator project is being reviewed but one of the main purposes of the ASI project is to construct indicators to monitor and track human development in the Arctic. The ASI project has six domains, but in this paper only one domain, material well being is reviewed and the income indicator, subsistence indicator and net-migration indicator was analyzed with a brief preliminary look at measuring these indicators for the case of Greenland and Iceland. When these three indicators were tested for the case of Greenland and Iceland, some data challenges came up. To be able to make valid comparison between Iceland and Greenland in the income indicator, household income needs to be adjusted for purchasing power parity. Another challenge of using the income indicator is the difference in the categorizing of income by statistical offices. Some statistical bureaus only have individual income, or only average income. The data on the subsistence was out of date, it only measured four regions and it only takes indigenous people into account. There were some known data challenges on net-migration. The cost of moving can by different between countries and even within the same country. The indicators which was tested in this paper did not tell us much about the impacts of global changes on the North Atlantic region, because longer time period is needed to see the change thru the time To improve future research in this area, a couple of things need to be done. First of all, statistical bureaus need to coordinate how they categorize various data, including designing common data protocols. Of critical importance is the need for data collection on subsistence harvest. To enable us to track and monitor changes in material well-being in the Arctic, more accurate data on subsistence harvest and the size of transfers to households need to be collected and be made more readily available. If these improvements can be done, it would help us to provide a more accurate picture of the extent of material well-being in the Arctic thru these changes.


Introduction: Peer assisted learning (PAL) is the expansion of knowledge and abilities through active assistance and guidance among groups of people who are not trained teachers, but still assist and support one another's learning. The aim of this study was evaluation of PAL in teaching skills and learning limb anatomy for medical students.
Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, students entering Yasuj University of Medical Sciences (YUMS) in academic year 2012-13 were allocated to two equal groups of 28 participants, with PAL as the intervention group and conventional teaching methods as the comparison group at the beginning of the fourth week of the course. The course content for the PAL group was divided into seven roughly equal parts, the duties of students were determined and the time table was the same for two groups. Formative exams from each topic and summative exams about upper and lower limb anatomy were given. Abilities and skills of peer teachers were assessed by a researcher-made questionnaire through peer assessment. Data was analyzed using a paired t-test.
Results: The mean scores of the PAL intervention group showed a significant statistical increase on seven out of ninth formative exams in relation to the comparison group (P<0.05). The mean differences (confidence interval) of the nine formative exams were (-.25, -1.98, 1.48), (-.59, -1.66, 1.43), (-1.75, -3.46, -.04), (-1.99, -3.14, -.86), (-1.61, -1.98, -1.48), (-2.04, -3.66, -.43), (-1.75, -3.46, -.039), (-1.89, -3.14, -.93) and (-1.62, -2.84, -.41), respectively. Scores on both summative exams in the PAL group indicated statistically significant differences compared to those of the comparison group (P<0.05). Mean differences and CI of multiple choice, naming pictures and short answer questions of the midterm exam were (-1.46, -2.52, -.4), (-1.52, -2.2, -.01) and (-1.1, -2.57, -.42), respectively, and for the final exam they were (-1.21, -2.59, -.4), (-1.68, -2.65, -.47) and (-1.09, -2.2, -.01), respectively. Descriptive statistics showed that the abilities and skills of peer teachers in gradually improved in the majority of areas improved.
Conclusion: The mean scores of PAL group were higher than those of the comparison group. Since learning in this method occurs through debate and discussion and acquisition of skills and communication grew in students, it could be an accountable approach.


Over the past decade, light vehicle fleet safety has become an increasingly popular focus for road safety researchers and consultants. However, those fleets who have taken a best practice approach to managing fleet safety are in the minority. This means that the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of Australians who drive for work purposes are still put at unnecessary risk. This paper outlines some of the reasons why fleets have failed, or have been unable, to implement satisfactory safe driving programs within their organisations. These include practical, organisational and economic barriers, which are often misunderstood and underestimated by researchers and consultants. A collaborative approach is outlined which includes strengthening the national approach to fleet safety, greater efforts to broaden the scope of stakeholder engagement, improving national road fatality data, and introducing legislative measures to compel organisations to address the issue appropriately. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E216178.


BACKGROUND
The aromatase inhibitor letrozole is a more effective treatment for metastatic breast cancer and more effective in the neoadjuvant setting than tamoxifen. We compared letrozole with tamoxifen as adjuvant treatment for steroid-hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

METHODS
The Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 study is a randomized, phase 3, double-blind trial that compared five years of treatment with various adjuvant endocrine therapy regimens in postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer: letrozole, letrozole followed by tamoxifen, tamoxifen, and tamoxifen followed by letrozole. This analysis compares the two groups assigned to receive letrozole initially with the two groups assigned to receive tamoxifen initially; events and follow-up in the sequential-treatment groups were included up to the time that treatments were switched.

RESULTS
A total of 8010 women with data that could be assessed were enrolled, 4003 in the letrozole group and 4007 in the tamoxifen group. After a median follow-up of 25.8 months, 351 events had occurred in the letrozole group and 428 events in the tamoxifen group, with five-year disease-free survival estimates of 84.0 percent and 81.4 percent, respectively. As compared with tamoxifen, letrozole significantly reduced the risk of an event ending a period of disease-free survival (hazard ratio, 0.81; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.70 to 0.93; P=0.003), especially the risk of distant recurrence (hazard ratio, 0.73; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.60 to 0.88; P=0.001). Thromboembolism, endometrial cancer, and vaginal bleeding were more common in the tamoxifen group. Women given letrozole had a higher incidence of skeletal and cardiac events and of hypercholesterolemia.

CONCLUSIONS
In postmenopausal women with endocrine-responsive breast cancer, adjuvant treatment with letrozole, as compared with tamoxifen, reduced the risk of recurrent disease, especially at distant sites. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00004205.)


(ABSTRACT) This dissertation explores the modular learning in artificial neural networks that mainly driven by the inspiration from the neurobiological basis of the human learning. The presented modu-larization approaches to the neural network design and learning are inspired by the engineering, complexity, psychological and neurobiological aspects. The main theme of this dissertation is to explore the organization and functioning of the brain to discover new structural and learning inspirations that can be subsequently utilized to design artificial neural network. The artificial neural networks are touted to be a neurobiologicaly inspired paradigm that emulate the functioning of the vertebrate brain. The brain is a highly structured entity with localized regions of neurons specialized in performing specific tasks. On the other hand, the mainstream monolithic feed-forward neural networks are generally unstructured black boxes which is their major performance limiting characteristic. The non explicit structure and monolithic nature of the current mainstream artificial neural networks results in lack of the capability of systematic incorporation of functional or task-specific a priori knowledge in the artificial neural network design process. The problem caused by these limitations are discussed in detail in this disserta-tion and remedial solutions are presented that are driven by the functioning of the brain and its structural organization. Also, this dissertation presents an in depth study of the currently available modular neural network architectures along with highlighting their shortcomings and investigates new modular artificial neural network models in order to overcome pointed out shortcomings. The resulting proposed modular neural network models have greater accuracy, generalization, comprehensi-ble simplified neural structure, ease of training and more user confidence. These benefits are readily obvious for certain problems, depending upon availability and usage of available a priori knowledge about the problems. The modular neural network models presented in this dissertation exploit the capabilities of the principle of divide and conquer in the design and learning of the modular artificial neural networks. The strategy of divide and conquer solves a complex computational problem by dividing it into simpler sub-problems and then combining the individual solutions to the sub-problems into a solution to the original problem. The divisions of a task considered in this dissertation are the automatic decomposition of the mappings to be learned, decompositions of the artificial neural networks to minimize harmful interaction during the learning process, and explicit decomposition of the application task into sub-tasks that are learned separately. The versatility and capabilities of the …


Public enterprises never disappeared in spite of several privatization waves in the last three decades. This paper offers some trends and possible rationales for their resilience. In a sample of the Forbes 2000 top corporations, as reviewed by OECD economists (Kowalski et al. 2013), we show that the around ten per cent of state-owned enterprises perform better in financial terms than their private counterparts. The Great Recession has also shown that governments had to take over failing major private enterprises, including particularly banks. In several countries, particularly in Western Europe, there is municipalization of electricity and water distribution. In the EU/15, there is also evidence that in electricity and gas, government owned incumbents offer fairer prices to households than private competitors. Recent research on mergers and acquisitions confirms that in the last ten years there has been an increase of publicization relative to privatization, including through trans-border deals.


Since the Bulletin of the United Nations and the Department of State Bulletin are standard sources in the field of international organization, references in these two periodicals have for the most part been omitted from the following compilation. For a more comprehensive listing of documentary materials, see United Nations Documents Index (New York, United Nations, monthly. $7.50 per year). Unless otherwise noted all documents are mimeographed.


Options are important instruments in modern nance. In this paper, we investigate reinforcement learning (RL) methods| in particular, least-squares policy iteration (LSPI)|for the problem of learning exercise policies for American options. We develop nite-time bounds on the performance of the policy obtained with LSPI and compare LSPI and the tted Q-iteration algorithm (FQI) with the Longsta-Sc hwartz method (LSM), the standard least-squares Monte Carlo algorithm from the nance community. Our empirical results show that the exercise policies discovered by LSPI and FQI gain larger payos than those discovered by LSM, on both real and synthetic data. Furthermore, we nd that for all methods the policies learned from real data generally gain similar payos to the policies learned from simulated data. Our work shows that solution methods developed in machine learning can advance the state-of-the-art in an important and challenging application area, while demonstrating that computational nance remains a promising area for future applications of machine learning methods.


Semilinearity is widely held to be a linguistic invariant but, controversially, some linguistic phenomena in languages like Old Georgian and Yoruba seem to violate this constraint. In this paper we extend distributional learning to the class of parallel multiple context-free grammars, a class which as far as is known includes all attested natural languages, even taking an extreme view on these examples. These grammars may have a copying operation that can recursively copy constituents, allowing them to generate non-semilinear languages. We generalise the notion of a context to a class of functions that include copying operations. The congruential approach is ineective at this level of the hierarchy; accordingly we extend this using dual approaches, dening nonterminals using sets of these generalised contexts. As a corollary we also extend the multiple context free grammars using the lattice based approaches.


Objectives: data on pregnancy long-term effects on multiple sclerosis (MS) course are still controversial; whether experiencing more than one pregnancy exposes one to risk of the disability's accrual is still unknown. We investigated differences existing in terms of disability progression among women with MS (wwMS) who had one or more children after their MS onset. Methods: Monoparous and multiparous wwMS were enrolled from the Catania MS Center, Italy, in a monocenter retrospective study. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to examine the effect of the number of parities on time from MS disease onset to EDSS 4.0 and 6.0. The study protocol was approved by the local Ethical Committee. Results: during the seven years of observation, 32.1% and 23.2% of the monoparous group reached expanded disability disease status (EDSS) 4.0 and 6.0 respectively, compared to 13.3% and 3.3% of the multiparous group (p = 0.057 and p = 0.017; respectively). The Kaplan–Meier curve analysis showed no statistically-significant differences between the two groups in reaching the two milestones. The multiparous group showed a longer time to reach the EDSS 4.0 (3.5 vs. 2.6 years, log-rank 0.57, p = 0.45). The Cox regression analysis showed that the EDSS at the time of first pregnancy (Exp(B) 9.4, CI 4.5–19.7, p < 0.001) and the time from MS onset to first pregnancy (Exp(B) 0.96, CI = 0.93–0.98, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of reaching the EDSS 4.0, whereas a model including only the EDSS one year after the first pregnancy significantly predicted (Exp(B) value of 6.4, CI 2.6–15.4, p < 0.001) the reaching of EDSS 6.0. Conclusions: Our results suggest that experiencing more than one pregnancy could not convey a different clinical outcome in wwMS. Further research is needed to confirm our results.


THE TEMPORAL STABILITY OF A NORMAL HETEROSEXUAL FEMALE RESPONSE TO AFFINITY 2.0 Kara Harmon Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education Doctor of Philosophy The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the temporal stability of a normal heterosexual female response to the Affinity 2.0, a newly standardized viewing time (VT) instrument that purports to measure sexual interest. Participants were 120 female undergraduate and graduate students from a private university (mean age = 21.67 years) who met inclusion criteria of non-pedophilic interest/history, identified as "Exclusively Heterosexual" on the Kinsey Scale, and who took the Affinity 2.0 both at test and at retest (approximately two weeks later). Participants also filled out a questionnaire following the retest composed of demographic questions, a shortened version of the Marlowe-Crowne Desirability Scale-10 [M-C 2(10)], and declared their sexual interest on the Kinsey Scale. Pearson correlation coefficients (PPMCC), Spearman's Rho correlation coefficients, and a Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test were all utilized to assess the temporal stability of the sample's response to Affinity 2.0. All PPMCC and Spearman's Rho correlations for VT were statistically significant at the p < .01 level; while practical significance for PPMCC could only be considered moderate as best (range of r =.28 .63), Spearman's Rho correlations (range of r =.41 .65) were stronger and approached practical significance. The existence of an overall distinct and discernable VT response pattern was apparent as the sample demonstrated identical categorical VT preferences both test and retest. These results were consistent with results from previous VT studies (Quinsey, Rice, Grant & Reid, 1993; Wright & Adams, 1994; Quinsey, Ketsetzis, Earls, & Karamanoukian, 1996). In addition, this VT pattern was found to be stable from test to retest as assessed by a Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test. An unexpected finding was the presence of elevated VT for adult and juvenile female images. Implications, limitations, and future studies are discussed.


IPBES' conceptual framework, and the related debates prior to its adoption, provided an interesting opportunity to witness an old and ongoing tension between two value systems, namely an "economic" and utility-based value system, and a "cultural" and comprehensive value system. Arguments for and against both value systems relate, at least partly, to criteria such as practicality, democracy, comprehensiveness and respect for various forms of worldviews. However, disputes regarding the legitimacy of these value systems mostly rest on theoretical ground since they generally focus on the potential threats and future promises of approaches related to these value systems, rather than on their actual impacts and performance. This article aims to contribute to filling this gap. Typical instruments of the "economic" value system are cost-benefit analysis and its correlate, ecosystem services valuation. The key selling point of these instruments is their ability to support efficient, transparent and democratic policy-making processes. On the other hand, their most often denounced threat lies in paving the way to the commodification of nature. In this paper, these promises and threats are put to test in the context of Official Development Assistance and the decision-making processes of five Official Development Agencies (ODAs) such as the World Bank, the European Investment Banks and three bilateral ODAs. The paper provides for an analysis of the role of cost-benefit analysis and ecosystem services valuation for supporting decision-making in the fields related to the local environment in these ODAs. Results suggest that, however favourable the context of ODA appears for economic valuation instruments, the "economic" value system has failed to deliver both in terms of its most commonly boasted promises and its most often denounced threats. This suggests renewing our views on the tension between the value systems. All value systems give birth to languages, concepts and representations that can be used as complementary rather than conflicting resources as long as the economic analysis is no longer considered as a proxy for decision-making, but rather as a useful language to speak of material interests and of distribution, and to bring these concerns into deliberation processes.


The Quality Management Earthwork (QM-E) special provision was implemented on a pilot project to evaluate quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) testing in predominately unsuitable soils. Control limits implemented on this pilot project included the following: 95% relative compaction, moisture content not exceeding +/- 2% of optimum moisture content, soil strength not exceeding a dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) index of 70 mm/blow, vertical uniformity not exceeding a variation in DCP index of 40 mm/blow, and lift thickness not exceeding depth determined through construction of control strips. Four-point moving averages were used to allow for some variability in the measured parameter values. Management of the QC/QA data proved to be one of the most challenging aspects of the pilot project. Implementing use of the G-RAD data collection system has considerable potential to reduce the time required to develop and maintain QC/QA records for projects using the QM-E special provision. In many cases, results of a single Proctor test were used to establish control limits that were used for several months without retesting. While the data collected for the pilot project indicated that the DCP index control limits could be set more tightly, there is not enough evidence to support making a change. In situ borings, sampling, and testing in natural unsuitable cut material and compacted fill material revealed that the compacted fill had similar strength characteristics to that of the natural cut material after less than three months from the start of construction.


A pattern found in many marketing systems, "male breadwinning," is contingent upon overlapping and shared ideologies, which influence the economic organization and thus the type and number of relationships in those systems. Implementing a mixed-methods research methodology, this article continues and extends previous work in macromarketing on the interplay of markets, ideology, socio-economic organization, and family. A qualitative study illuminated the main ideologies behind male breadwinning and a model was developed to advance the theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of male breadwinning. An experiment in the form of a vignette study was subsequently designed and administered. The qualitative study and the vignette study both show ideologies interact in the way individuals make sense of them or allow them to influence their decisions. The results have implications for the way families and markets are organized, such as the supply of labor of men and women and the offerings of care-related public and private services in a broader marketing system.


We theoretically investigate waveguide power splitters with parallel output ports by the time-domain coupled-mode theory. Conditions for perfect transmission and zero reflection are obtained that are different from the idea of a structure with a perfect T-type branch and two perfect bends. Using theoretical analysis, waveguide power splitters in two-dimensional square-lattice photonic crystals are modeled and optimized. Their transmission properties are simulated by using the finite-difference time-domain method, and an excellent agreement has been found with the present analysis.


In 2008 the University of Hull, Stanford University and University of Virginia decided to collaborate with Fedora Commons (now DuraSpace) on the Hydra project. This project has sought to define and develop repository-enabled solutions for the management of multiple digital content management needs that are multi-purpose and multi-functional in such a way as to allow their use across multiple institutions. This article describes the evolution of Hydra as a project, but most importantly as a community that can sustain the outcomes from Hydra and develop them further. The data modelling and technical implementation are touched on in this context, and examples of the Hydra heads in development or production are highlighted. Finally, the benefits of working together, and having worked together, are explored as a key element in establishing a sustainable open source solution.


The housing prices in Norway and the ratio of Norwegian household debt to disposable income have reached unprecedentedly high levels in recent years, raising concerns about whether we are in a serious housing bubble. This attracts much attention and initiates debates among politicians, researchers as well as the entire society. Contributing to the debates, the present thesis studies "cash-out" refinancing in the Norwegian housing market and has two main findings. First, along with the soaring housing prices in the past ten years, mortgage borrowers significantly extended their debt levels through home equitybased refinancing. This "cash-out" effect substantially contributed to the high ratio of Norwegian household debt to disposable income. Second, borrowers with larger "cash-out" refinancing are more likely to face payment diffculties with unexpected expenditures, indicating a potential coming danger in the Norwegian housing market. As "cashout" refinancing is blamed to be one of the key drivers of the subprime crisis in the United States (Atif Mian and Amir Su, 2011 AER), our findings call for more regulations in the Norwegian mortgage market.


Why do many athletes risk their careers by taking performance enhancing drugs? Do the highly competitive pressures elite sports teach athletes to win at any cost?

In order to understand the complex relationships between sport and other aspects of society, it is necessary to strip away our preconceptions of what sport is, and to examine, in as detached a manner as possible, the way in which the world of sport actually functions. This fully updated edition of Ivan Waddington's classic introduction to drugs in sport examines the key terms and key issues in sport, drugs and performance and is designed to help new students explore these controversial subjects, now so central to the study of modern sport. The book addresses topics such as:

- the emergence of drugs in sport and changing patterns of use
- the development of an objective, sociological understanding
- sports law, policy and administration
- WADA, NGB's and the sporting federations
- case studies of football and cycling
- the case of sports medicine.

An Introduction to Drugs in Sport: Addicted to Winning is a landmark work in sports studies. Using interview transcripts, case studies and press cuttings to ground theory in reality, students and lecturers alike will find this an immensely readable and enriching resource.


Just forty years ago, Jim Hines ran the 100 metres in under 10 seconds. Now Usain Bolt is inching close to the 9.50 second mark, begging the question: exactly how fast can a human go? Utilizing cutting edge science to examine incredible physical feats in the most elite sports, John Brenkus uncovers what it takes to reach the 'perfection point' - that measurement of speed, distance or force that supreme athletes can inch closer to but never exceed. Shining a light on the crucial balance between physical stamina and emotional drive, this is the ultimate guide to the further limits of human performance. 'Lively and engaging...this stuff is catnip to sports fans' Wall Street Journal


The promotion of wellbeing in schools using evidence-based interventions from the field of positive psychology is a growing area of interest. These interventions are based on the principle that sustainable changes in wellbeing can be achieved through regularly engaging in simple and intentional activities. This study examines the effectiveness of a school-based gratitude diary intervention to promote school belonging for primary school aged pupils (age range 7 to 11 years).The intervention took place in a one-form entry primary school for four weeks and involved participants writing a diary about things that they were either grateful for in school that day or about neutral school events.Participants who completed the gratitude intervention demonstrated enhanced school belonging and gratitude relative to the control group, although this was moderated by gender with the gratitude diary showing clearer benefits for males. Increases in gratitude were positively correlated with increases in school belonging.The lack of a follow-up measure meant that it was not determined whether positive outcomes were maintained. Participants' diary entries were not analysed for content.The findings extend the evidence base concerning the use of gratitude diaries with children and indicate that this intervention can be beneficial for children younger than research has previously demonstrated. This study also illustrates how a gratitude diary intervention can be used to build social resources and makes a novel connection between gratitude and sense of belonging. Implications for how this simple intervention has the potential to have a systemic impact on the wellbeing of pupils and staff are discussed.


A sample of 1,114 households in three countries located in the Limpopo River Basin was surveyed to investigate willingness to use (WTU) and willingness to pay (WTP) for different quality attributes of recycled water. The results indicate that 36% of the households are willing to use recycled water for potable uses and only 70% are willing to use it for non-potable use such as gardening. WTU recycled water was found to be associated with gender, age, education, occupation and perception of quality of water from the main source. Households are willing to pay 76% of the price of standard water for improved quality in recycled water with no colour.


A series of anthracene-capped, hyperbranched poly(ether amine)s (hPEA-AN) with varying hydrophilicity were designed and synthesized. Their fluorescence emission intensity in aqueous solution increases after carbon dioxide (CO2) bubbling as a result of the protonation of the tertiary amino groups in the polymer. On the one hand, the increase is more prominent when the polymer is more hydrophobic, and the increase upon CO2 bubbling is faster at a lower polymer concentration. On the other hand, the amino groups in the polymer can be partially deprotonated after N2 bubbling, which is accompanied by a weakening of the fluorescence intensity. However, this process is very slow, which may be ascribed to the diffusion restriction of N2 molecules inside the core of the micellar aggregates of hPEA-AN. The peculiar fluorescence switching behavior upon alternating CO2/N2 bubbling seems to be related to the particular architecture of hyperbranched polymers.


ABSTRACT The research was based on the strong position of a group of elite in a village in Karo Tribe called "Simantek kuta". Position is Obtained through elite role when Reconstructing a culture called "Ingot-ingot" meaning returning the favor. The purpose of this research was to know and describe the role of the elite in the reconstruction of the local culture  Ingot-ingot in the village of Panribuan, Simalungun Regency. The theory used is the elite theory and the theory of cultural studies. The methods used by qualitative research. The technique of collecting data through observation, interviews, literature and documentation. This study yields findings where the reconstruction is done by doing a social approach, cultural hegemony and build relations of power in society. The culture of Ingot-ingot is a culture that is very sacred because when a debt of gratitude to appear then this debt is not just a personal debt but also debt into spirit, family debt, and debt of the ancestors, so that if not paid or dibalaskan then it can be a catastrophe. This definition is used by the elite through the power of capital in the form of material wealth and knowledge of the cultural aspects to revive culture of ingot-Ingot in an attempt to menghegemoni the community. Social approach undertaken to understand culture in a diverse community in the Batak tribe. This approach then yields the reconstruction of Ingot-ingots that was built through the existing cultural concept that already exist namely the awarding of "Jabatan" as the Organization of indigenous institutions, the granting of "Marga" as a form of tribal identity and "Perkawinan" in the concept formation of kinship. Elite calculations appear on each value from the third awarding it. On the other hand, the concept of marriage even produce power relations in the system of kinship. Keywords: Role Of The Elites, The Reconstruction Of The Local Culture, Strengthening Power.


Stable attachment of external epithelia to the basement membrane and underlying stroma is mediated by transmembrane proteins such as the integrin alpha6beta4 and bullous pemphigoid antigen 2 within the hemidesmosomes along the basolateral surface of the epithelial cell and their ligands that include a specialized subfamily of laminins. The laminin 5 molecule (previously termed kalinin/nicein/epiligrin) is a member of this epithelial-specific subfamily. Laminin 5 chains are not only considerably truncated within domains III-VI, but are also extensively proteolytically processed in vitro and in vivo. As a result, the domains expected to be required for the association of laminins with other basement membrane components are lacking in the mature laminin 5 molecule. Therefore, the tight binding of laminin 5 to the basement membrane may occur by a unique mechanism. To examine laminin 5 in tissue, we chose human amnion as the source, because of its availability and the similarity of the amniotic epithelial basement membrane with that of skin. We isolated the laminin 5 contained within the basement membrane of human amnion. In addition to monomeric laminin 5, we find that much of the laminin 5 isolated is covalently adducted with laminin 6 (alpha3beta1gamma1) and a novel laminin isotype we have termed laminin 7 (alpha3beta2gamma1). We propose that the association between laminin 5 and laminins 6 and 7 is a mechanism used in amnion to allow stable association of laminin 5 with the basement membrane. The beta2 chain is seen at the human amniotic epithelial-stromal interface and at the dermal-epidermal junction of fetal and adult bovine skin by immunofluorescence, but is not present, or only weakly present, in neonatal human skin.


Infants' ability to distinguish between forms of phonetic variation in speech that are relevant to meaning is essential for their language development. Little is known about the developmental course of infants' perception of pitch contrasts, particularly in the presence of segmental variability which entails the ability to extract and generalize the contrastive patterns. Using single-bisyllabic utterances, in Experiment 1 we examined native discrimination of the statement (falling)/yes-no question (falling-rising) intonation contrast by European Portuguese (EP)-learning infants, and demonstrated that both 5-6 and 8-9 month-old infants were able to discriminate the contrast. Experiment 2 addressed the question whether the contrast between falling vs. falling-rising contours would also be perceived in segmentally varied non-native input. EP-learning infants' perception of the lexical distinction between Mandarin Chinese Tone 1+Tone 4 and Tone 1+Tone 2, with overall similar contour shapes but different implementation of the falling/rising patterns throughout the segmental string, was examined. Infants failed to discriminate the non-native pitch contrast, both at 5-6 months and 8-9 months, suggesting that language-specific perception for pitch, and for the tone/intonation distinction, emerges as early as 5 months of age.


The article contains the first edition of a small 13th cent. collection of Akkadian medical prescriptions found in the Hittite capital Hattusa. The fragmentary text, published as KBo 36, 27, offers a number of prescriptions for therapeutic potions and one unusual, short incantation ritual. The ritual instructions of this incantation ritual leave no doubt that it was used for curing sexual impotency. The patient's loins are treated and he is touched (?) with several items bearing phallic connotations (a scorpion's sting, the posterior part of a wasp's and a bee's body, the head of a red ant). The incantation to be recited within this ritual, however, is untypical for Babylonian potency rituals. It addresses Nanaya-Kilili as goddess of erotic love, and in doing so the speaker puts himself in the position of Nanaya's lover. Similar Akkadian texts are known from Babylonia and are usually referred to as 'Divine Love Lyrics', but their usage within a therapeutic ritual against impotency or within love magic is otherwise unknown. The incantation had been overlooked in previous studies of the goddess Nanaya, and so was her close association with Kilili, clearly attested in the present text. The implications of this equation of two goddesses of Istar's circle are examined on pp. 72–75; the influential association of Kilili with the iconographic motif of the 'Woman in the window' as the (divine) harlot leaning out of the window (Th. Jacobsen) is discussed and rejected on philological grounds. Texts like KBo 36, 27 are part of Babylonian scribal tradition and scholarship. The question of how such texts were transmitted in and to scribal centres of the periphery like Hattusa is addressed on pp. 75–79, discussing especially how cuneiform palaeography can contribute to the elucidation of the processes involved.


A phytosociological study on the Brachypodium rupestre grasslands in Sicily is presented. These grasslands form discontinuous secondary stands dynamically linked to the deciduous oak woods, which are widespread within the upper-colline, submontane and lower montane belts (800-1400 m) of the Tyrrhenian side of the northern Sicily and in the Sicani mountains. In the study area B. rupestre grasslands were mainly found in colluvial plains or drainage lines where relatively deep and mesic soils occur. In this paper 42 phytosociological relevés were performed and statistically analysed. Two new associations were described and classified in the alliance Polygalo mediterraneae-Bromion erecti (Brometalia erecti, FestucoBrometea): Lolio pluriflori-Brachypodietum rupestris and Tanaceto siculi-Brachypodietum rupestris. The Lolio pluriflori-Brachypodietum is typical of the limestone substrates of Nebrodi, Madonie and Sicani mountains and of the mounts surrounding Palermo and Trapani. Two subassociations (typicum and violetosum ucrianae) and an impoverished variant rich in therophytes have also been identified. The Tanaceto siculi-Brachypodietum is restricted to the metamorphic substrates of the Peloritani mountains on the north-eastern side of the island. Finally the association Polygalo mediterraneae-Brachypodietum rupestris, which was only provisionally described in 2014 for the Lucanian Apennines (Peninsular Italy), has been validated here.


A method for computer aided noise analysis is presented which is based on a description of noise by means of correlation matrices. The method is a two-port analysis and it is, therefore, applicable to circuits which are composed of simple two-ports with known noise performance. The correlation matrix concept holds two main advantages over other methods of noise analysis. Partially correlated noise sources can be treated without any loss of efficiency and information concerning minimum noise figure and noise matching conditions is obtained.