This paper describes ongoing research by Georgia Tech into the challenges of tasking and controlling heterogonous teams of unmanned vehicles in mixed indoor/outdoor reconnaissance scenarios. We outline the tools and techniques necessary for an operator to specify, execute, and monitor such missions. The mission specification framework used for the purposes of intelligence gathering during mission execution are first demonstrated in simulations involving a team of a single autonomous rotorcraft and three ground-based robotic platforms. Preliminary results including robotic hardware in the loop are also provided.


This paper describes the collaborative effort between privacy and security researchers at nine different institutions along with researchers at the Naval Information Warfare Center to deploy, test, and demonstrate privacy-preserving technologies in creating sensor-based awareness using the Internet of Things (IoT) aboard naval vessels in the context of the US Navy's Trident Warrior 2019 exercise. Funded by DARPA through the Brandeis program, the team built an integrated IoT data management middleware, entitled TIPPERS, that supports privacy by design and integrates a variety of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), including differential privacy, computation on encrypted data, and fine-grained policies. We describe the architecture of TIPPERS and its use in creating a smart ship that offers IoT-enabled services such as occupancy analysis, fall detection, detection of unauthorized access to spaces, and other situational awareness scenarios. We describe the privacy implications of creating IoT spaces that collect data that might include individuals' data (e.g., location) and analyze the tradeoff between privacy and utility of the supported PETs in this context.


In this paper, we analyze the time allocation decisions of teleworkers, and compare them with their commuter counterparts. Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003 to 2015, we analyze the time spent working, the timing of work, and the instant enjoyment experienced while working, of teleworkers and commuters. Results show that teleworkers devote 40% less time to market work activities than do commuters, and less than 60% of both male and female teleworkers work at 'regular hours', vs around 80% of similar commuters. A higher percentage of teleworkers than commuters are engaged in leisure and non-market work at the central hours of the day. Using additional information from the Well-being Module for the years 2012 and 2013, we find that male teleworkers experience higher levels of satisfaction while working than do commuters, net of differences in socio-demographic and job characteristics. Our results point towards male telecommuters being happier in their job tasks than commuters, which may lead to a higher productivity of the former, and explains why teleworkers are able to work fewer hours per day.


The SAIL-Thermique model was developed to simulate land surface emissivity. It is adapted from the original SAIL model. A specific experiment was set-up over a soybean canopy for evaluating spectral emissivity simulations. Multispectral data were obtained thanks to a CIMEL CE 312-2 radiometer and emissivities calculated using the TES method. Comparison of multispectral emissivity simulations and measurements at various leaf area index levels were comparable in terms of emissivity values and spectral behavior.


The cultural power of Black British literature and the Arts resides as much in the exploration of pressing cultural concerns, as in its innovative material aesthetics and textual practices. The 2008 landmark conference 'On Whose Terms?: Critical Negotiations in Black British Literature and the Arts focused upon local, international and transnational engagements with Black British literature and the Arts, to trace the multiple – real and imaginary – routes through its production, reception and cultural politics.

This 2018 return conference, 'On Whose Terms?: Ten Years On… aims to chart what has happened throughout the past the decade, and once again to provide a vibrant meeting opportunity for prominent and emerging scholars, writers and practitioners, young people and the general public to explore and celebrate the continued impact of this field, both at home and abroad.


A novel method for solving wave equations with spatial dispersion is presented, suitable for applications to ion cyclotron resonance heating. The method splits the wave operator into a dispersive and a non-dispersive part. The latter can be inverted with e.g. finite element methods. The spatial dispersion is evaluated using a wavelet representation of the dielectric kernel and added by means of iteration. The method has been successfully tested on a low frequency kinetic Alfven wave with second order Larmor radius effects in a nonuniform plasma slab.


The aim of this study is to investigate university students' opinions in relation to Open University students. The subjects (n=69) of this study were students of Abant Izzet Baysal University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, in BoluTurkey. The data concerning the university students' opinions in relation to Open University students were collected through interviews held by the researcher during the spring semester of 2005-2006 academic years. The results of this study indicated that they believed Open University to be a good opportunity for people who work and who have no chance to receive university education, they believed there to be no difference between them and the Open University students and graduates in terms of the subject knowledge as they took mostly the same courses during instruction. On the other hand, they added that it was not possible to acquire the professional knowledge, skills and behaviors given by Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. In addition to this, they believed that although there was no difference between themselves and Open University graduates in the public sector where job opportunities are concerned, they added that they would prefer Open University graduates if they were employers.


Statute and practice relating to s.31 part IV of The Children Act 1989 allow children subject to care orders to be placed at home with their parent(s). It is not uncommon for the courts to accept a plan for children to return home at the final hearing of care proceedings at which full care orders are granted. In such instances, children retain looked-after status but, in terms of their day-to-day care, are looked after by parent(s). Whilst there are a small number of studies conducted in the 1990s relating to children 'home on trial', there is a much more limited recent literature. It is important to revisit this population of children, given current concerns about the burgeoning costs of child care proceedings and the looked-after children system (LAC). This paper reports on a small-scale exploratory study in one north-west local authority area. Consisting of a file study and interviews with parents and professionals, the study examines the factors that contributed to initial removal of children to public care, the impact of the LAC system for children 'home on trial', stability of placements at home, as well as issues to do with the discharge of care orders. Particular attention is drawn to lone father headed households, a social group over-represented in our sample. The study aims to inform further multi-location studies.


Polymers have a wide diversity of applications, ranging from therapeutics delivery to tissue engineering. While advances in polymer chemistry have facilitated synthesis and development of new polymers, increasing efforts have also been directed to engineer properties of existing polymers. One of the common approaches to modify polymer properties is cold drawing, which can align polymer chains and orient the chains in a crystalline manner. Regarding the industrial significance of cold drawing in polymer engineering, this study used semi-crystalline high density polyethylene (HDPE) as a model to examine the effect of cold drawing on the anisotropic mechanical properties of polymers. During cold drawing, the yield strength of the polymer was shown to be in a positive relationship with the strain rate, and the hardness of the cold-drawn region was demonstrated to be significantly enhanced. Our results confirmed the feasibility of engineering the properties of polymers by applying tension for plastic deformation, and highlighted the importance of precise control of the strain rate in the treatment.


Changes in the diameter of the nucleolus of the dorsal pharyngeal gland (DPGN) in unhatched second-stage juveniles (J2) of potato cyst nematodes, Globodera spp., were monitored for cysts recovered during two field experiments in the Bolivian Central Andes. In the first experiment, cysts were extracted from soil left fallow or supporting crops of potato, barley, lupin, or quinoa. The highest mean DPGN diameter for unhatched J2 occurred shortly after planting in January. The values were similar for individuals recovered from cysts associated with all cultivations. For cysts from potato plots, the lowest mean DPGN diameter of 2.26 +/- 0.05 mum occurred in March, but the value increased again by May to 2.53 +/- 0.05 mum. Similar seasonal changes were found for J2 under both nonhost crops and fallow with the smallest diameters recorded in May of 2.48 +/- 0.02 mum and 2.34 +/- 0.05 mum, respectively. Two possible factors might cause this significant seasonal change. First, some J2 may hatch early in the growing season, even in the absence of the host. This would enhance the proportion of dormant, unhatched J2 remaining in the cyst samples. Secondly, a seasonal change in the DPGN diameter may occur for most individuals with a transient fall value between January and March/May. A model defined by this study provides a good description of the observed effect, providing both factors are assumed to occur. The second experiment studied if changes in size of DPGN in response to a hatching stimulus are influenced by the cyst population age. The DPGN in unhatched J2 was measured for cysts recovered from soils that had supported potatoes that growing season or 2 or 4 years earlier. The unhatched J2 from the freshly cropped potato site showed the largest mean DPGN diameter of 3.66 +/- 0.05 mum after 7 days in potato root diffusate, whereas those from the 4-year sample had the smallest value of 3.20 +/- 0.05 mum. This significant difference may indicate a delayed response to the hatching stimulus with more prolonged J2 dormancy.


Abstract. The first joint common volume measurements by the Digisonde Portable Sounder (DPS-4) and a new Doppler type system has been run at the Pruhonice ionospheric observatory (49.99° N, 14.54° E) since January 2004. The measurement of the Doppler shift is carried out continuously on a frequency of 3.6 MHz, thus the radio wave is reflected predominantly from the ionospheric F layer. To compare digisonde measurements with the Doppler data, a phase path was calculated from both Doppler and digisonde records. Under stormy conditions and in the case where a sporadic E layer was present, a significant disagreement between both measurements has been found. The discrepancies could be related to the uncertainties of the observational inputs and to the interpretation of the digisonde data. The comparison of the phase paths shows that during geomagnetically quiet days, in the absence of the sporadic E layer, and when high quality ionograms are available and correctly scaled, the electron density N(h) profiles, calculated by the Automatic Real Time Ionogram Scaler with True height algorithm (ARTIST), can be considered reliable.


Cherso (Cres in Croatian) is the largest island in the Adriatic. Placed in the northern part of this sea, namely in the Kvarner Gulf and lying off the east coast of the Istrian peninsula, Cherso today belongs to the Republic of Croatia, but for centuries this island had been a faithful and flourishing member of the Venetian Commonwealth. Luigi Tomaz, born in Cherso in 1931 and settled in Chioggia, near Venice, as refugee in 1947, at the moment when this island, according to Peace Treaty of Paris, was surrendered by Italy to Yugoslavia, is the author of a number of books and articles. These publications are the outcome of researches on various topics all related to the Adriatic civilization; most of them deals with his birthplace's history, culture and architecture. This foreword introduces a book by Luigi Tomaz on the Community of Cherso/Cres that encompasses the history of this island from old ages up to the end of XVIII century when the Republic of Venice lost its independence and the Venetian Commonwealth ineluctably collapsed. The book analyses some relevant institutional, economic and social aspects of the daily life of the island of Cherso. In fact, this island was an important stop on the maritime trade route connecting Venice with its Eastern Mediterranean merchant bases and the research enlightens main problems and salient features common to most Adriatic harbour-towns and strongholds (insular and peninsular) belonging to the Venetian Commonwealth disseminated along this sailing route. In particular the study, mainly based on records personally collected by the Author in the archives of the Cherso's commune, focuses on the daily working of local autonomous public administration and its relations with Venice, discusses the statute and regulations of the commune and describes the social structure of population. It deals also with the welfare of the community, the administration of justice, the role of the church, the economic life (involving agriculture, sheep rising, fishing, manufacturing, trade and shipping, finance and banking) as well as with not less important issues connected with the defence and public health organizations, addressed respectively to protect the islanders against evils from overseas such as invasions, piracy raids and epidemic diseases.


Governments the world over are developing policy and implementing broadband infrastructure for the purpose of improving access to and availability of broadband for businesses and citizenry based on assumptions that broadband infrastructure will return economic and social benefits. However, little research has been done that evaluates the impact of implementations of broadband infrastructure and/or the community benefit in access to broadband or indeed the potential disadvantage to communities that do not have adequate access to broadband. The Australian government has recently announced that Tasmania will be the first State to deploy the national broadband network (NBN) initiative. Consequently now is an ideal time to establish a baseline against which the economic and social impacts of the implementation in the state might be usefully measured and interpreted. This paper reviews academic and practitioner literature examining the social and economic impact of broadband and presents a proposed research framework for evaluating this important area within the Tasmanian and Australian context.


Researchers are increasingly calling upon educators to broaden the focus on teaching non-cognitive skills, especially self-regulation, so that all students— with or without disabilities—experience success in school and beyond (Gabrieli, Ansel & Krachman, 2015). Seeing that a majority of students with disabilities receive their education in the general education classroom, general education teachers need to be prepared to teach students with disabilities non-cognitive skills. Typically, teacher preparation programs provide general educators with pedagogical knowledge and skills and the opportunities to apply skills within their clinical experiences. Although teacher preparation programs can serve as arenas in which teachers build the knowledge needed to teach non-cognitive skills to their students and instruction in non-cognitive skills, such as self-regulated learning (SRL), this instruction is currently not provided in most teacher preparation programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate how general educators learn how to teach non-cognitive SRL skills to students with disabilities to help them improve their learning and academic outcomes to examine the effects of online SRL module + SRL eCoaching on teachers' SRL instruction during teaching and their students' SRL during learning. The researcher conducted a single-subject multiple baseline design across behaviors. One pre-service general education teacher and her student with a disability participated. Results of the study indicate a functional relationship between the intervention and the teacher's SRL instruction and student's SRL strategy use. The limitations of this study, implications, and future directions for SRL researchers and teachers are described.


This study examines the dynamic relationship between stock market performance and the CBN monetary policy rate between the period of 1973-2012. We utilized the "all share price index†in the Nigerian stock exchange as a measure of stock market performance and the official rate of interest at which the CBN lends money to money deposit banks in the country as a measure of the monetary policy rate. The author estimated the SVAR model. The major finding in the study is that stock market performance is negatively associated with the CBN monetary policy rate in Nigeria. In effect, if the CBN monetary policy rate was high, investors would move from high risk stock market to invest in low risk bank deposits while, if the CBN policy rate is low, investors may prefer to invest in the stock exchange market. Given the peculiarities of Nigerian economy, hikes in the short term CBN monetary policy rate might be counter-productive. The soaring rate of the CBN is amplifying fears in some quarters of the country that the reform measures currently being implemented by the CBN may soon run into a hold-up since bank loans are gradually being priced out of the reach of most economic operators in the economy. Therefore, additional practical measures to enhance the performance of the Nigerian Stock Exchange should be implemented.


Renal physiology and physiopathology have been the object of studies aimed at developing exams that can assist in the early diagnosis of the base disease. Chronic kidney disease consists of the progressive, irreversible loss of kidney function. Early detection and appropriate treatment can minimize the progression of the disease, lower the inherent costs, and improve the quality of life of affected individuals. Kidney biopsy is the key method in this evaluation, as it enables the histological and immunohistochemical analysis of specimens in a fast, safe, and economical manner. The main indications for kidney biopsy are nephrotic syndrome, acute kidney failure of unknown etiology, persistent hematuria and proteinuria, chronic kidney disease with conserved kidney dimensions, and transplanted kidneys (to evaluate stages of rejection, infection, and/or sclerosis). However, as an invasive method, kidney biopsy is not without complications. Post-biopsy complication rates range from 5 to 15%, with 6.6% considered minor (macrohematuria with no need for blood transfusion) and another 7.7% considered major (hemorrhage requiring blood transfusion or other approaches). In this chapter, we address the main aspects of kidney biopsy, the technical procedures for its execution, and the management of the main complications stemming from this procedure.


The new millennium has seen the rise and rapid global spread of what can fairly be called a new democratic institution, the independent political fact-checker. The first organisations dedicated to publicly evaluating the truth of political claims appeared in the United States in the early 2000s, anchoring what would become a staple of political reporting practised by nearly every major US news outlet. Over the past decade, meanwhile, independent fact-checkers have emerged in more than 50 countries spanning every continent. According to the most reliable global count, 113 such groups are active today. More than 90% were established since 2010; about 50 launched in the past two years alone. This report surveys the landscape of fact-checking outlets in Europe, a landscape which is remarkably diverse and fast-changing. The first regular source of political fact-checking appears to have been a blog launched by the United Kingdom's Channel 4 News in 2005, to cover a parliamentary election. In 2008 similar efforts appeared in France and the Netherlands, and by the end of 2010 fact-checkers were active in ten countries. In all, more than 50 dedicated fact-checking outlets have launched across Europe over the past decade, though roughly a third of those have closed their doors or operate only occasionally.


This article is about how Amartya Sen seeks to reconcile the individual-collective problem of social choice through an aggregation, not an individuation, of preferences. Sen seeks an optimistic way out of Kenneth Arrow's social choice "pessimism," yet he is in a logical paradox, for truly broadening the informational basis of social choice will only serve to affirm Arrow's theorem. The problem is that a restriction of information, that is, the dividing of universal from particular information results in higher overall costs in the social order. Authors discuss how this process implicates the individual and his freedom. Jacob Rodriguez and Steven Loomis, "The Violence of Aggregation: Amartya Sen's Possibility of Social Choice," Journal of Markets & Morality 12, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 35-49


A key function for an autonomous robot is recognition and tracking of pertinent objects observed through a camera. Real-time interpretation of camera images is critical to a robot's interaction with the physical world. This paper presents preliminary results in using artificial neural networks (ANN) to examine the pixels of an image. While processing all pixels through ANNs would jeopardize the real-time processing requirements, the accuracy gained facilitates use of algorithms that only need to examine a fraction of the pixels composing an image in order to recognize and track the objects of interest. Presented herein is a test environment and problem statement, description of a methodology that employed ANNs to address the problem, and details of the algorithms that interpret images. The results show a high degree of success within the domain of the test environment.


After receiving negative feedback from students and tutors about their group work experiences in a health subject, strategies to resolve these collaborative learning issues were considered. The objectives were to facilitate student ability to resolve group work issues, highlight group work as an important graduate attribute and to improve perceptions of the benefits of group work. A literature review assisted in identifying several strategies that had been used elsewhere to resolve issues similar to those raised by the students in this study. Consequently a number of support resources were designed for the revised delivery of the subject to the next cohort of students. These included a structured introduction to elements of group work and several strategies to improve the group work experience. At the conclusion of the subject students indicated that the group work experience was of value. The overall response suggested that active tuition in the elements of group work contributes positively to student understanding of both the process and group dynamics.


The biological brain is a highly plastic system within which the efficacy and structure of synaptic connections are constantly changing in response to internal and external stimuli. While numerous models of this plastic behavior exist at various levels of abstraction, how these mechanisms allow the brain to learn meaningful values is unclear. The Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) is a hypothesis about how large-scale neural systems represent values using populations of spiking neurons, and transform them using functions implemented by the synaptic weights between populations. By exploiting the fact that these connection weight matrices are factorable, we have recently shown that static NEF models can be simulated very efficiently using the SpiNNaker neuromorphic architecture. In this paper, we demonstrate how this approach can be extended to efficiently support both supervised and unsupervised learning rules designed to operate on these factored matrices. We then present a heteroassociative memory architecture built using these learning rules and prove that it is capable of learning a human-scale semantic network. Finally we demonstrate a 100 000 neuron version of this architecture running on the SpiNNaker simulator with a speed-up exceeding 150x when compared to the Nengo reference simulator.


OER1131 Symposium Thursday 12 May 13.30

This project, funded by HEFCE's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of the Enriching Digital Resources programme has taken a large textual resource which was originally made available (and still is available via the National Archive) as part of the legal, public inquiry process and re-presented it in ways that make it useable in both research projects and in undergraduate and professional training. The data provide good examples and evidence of social work, health and other professional practice in the child protection field. The project has coded and categorised the data from the Victoria Climbie public inquiry and made the data and coding available to users via the Internet. This consists of transcriptions of the 68 days of oral evidence which was made available to the project by the Department of Education and Skills and they have agreed to our making the data freely available to teachers, students and researchers on the Internet. There is testimony from 168 witnesses, which produced over 5,200, single-spaced, A4 pages of evidence (approx. 2 million words). This data set is too large to be used in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and what the project did was create a mechanism for extracting thematic and limited subsets of the data that could be used in student project and class work. The web pages offer a means of identifying criteria for selection of subsets along with a series of exemplars of how this might be done and what learning activities might be undertaken with the data. The resource thus lies somewhere between a straightforward archived data set and a traditional OER. What was originally a legal and political record of events has now been transformed into a resource that can be used in teaching and training sessions. The coded data set has been used by researchers in the UK and USA and the launch event was attended by teachers from several UK universities as well as trainers from social work departments. (The project always envisaged that there would be scope for the resources use in professional development.) It has also been evaluated in use with students undertaking project work at Huddersfield. This paper will report on these evaluations and in particular the recognition that this kind of resource needs a very well-defined teacher input so that students are made aware of what they have learned on completion of the sessions based on its use.


Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films, is the definitive account of every film that the iconic actor made. This lavishly illustrated book devotes nearly 500 pages to Steve McQueen's career and tracks his journey from juvenile delinquent, to Marine, to an aspiring actor breaking into Hollywood, until he became a global superstar and the highest-paid actor of his era. Included are numerous behind the scenes tales of events that occurred leading up to and during filming, and fascinating insights into McQueen's acting techniques and motivations. Each film is allocated one chapter. The chapters begin with a precis of the particular movie. Then events surrounding its making are described, uncovering new facts and insights. This is followed by an analysis of its success, and finally a significant scene is discussed in detail. Steve McQueen: The Actor and his Films is extensively illustrated with over 1,000 color and black and white images, including posters from around the world, lobby cards, memorabilia, many never-before seen candid stills and rare vintage advertising materials.


This study investigates the effects of social and political change on primary teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The study considers the literature relating to educational developments in post-communist countries in political and economic transition. From the literature key themes were developed as a basis from which the data could be interrogated. The themes relate to how: (i) in times of transition or conflict, schools become arenas for competing forces; (ii) educational reform follows a series of stages and successful implementation requires supporting factors; (iii) micro-level change takes longer to implement than macro-level change; (iv) transition affects teachers' remuneration and status, and (v) international organisations' involvement in mediating conflict resolution agreements can have consequences for education.

Analysis of the data illustrates the influence of various ideologies on primary education in Bosnia. In particular, religion and nationalism constantly challenge other forces for control of education. The study suggests that many models of educational reform do not take account of multi-dimensional contexts, where political and economic transition is accompanied by civil war and the transition to a new nation state. The analysis demonstrates that micro-level change in education does not always take time to implement, particularly in highly-centralised systems, and that micro-level change can occur prior to macro-level change. Economic transition is shown to impact on teachers' remuneration. This has a negative effect on teachers' status, exacerbated when the political and social context reduces the value accorded teachers. This has consequences for teacher recruitment and quality. The study also suggests that international organisations' mediation in conflict resolution can impact on education. In Bosnia the evidence indicates that the political structure created has hindered decision-making and contributed to the ethnic division of the country.

This study contributes to knowledge on educational developments in central and eastern Europe by providing an analysis of the Bosnian experience. It also contributes to literature on educational reform and questions existing models. The study also adds to literature on the role of international organisations in the globalisation of educational provision.


This Working Paper builds on the scientific discourse on valuation of SSH research as well as SSH-integration in EU framework programmes and aims at summarizing the key findings from the November 2018 Austrian EU Presidency Conference "Impact of Social Sciences and Humanities for a European Research Agenda – Valuation of SSH in mission-oriented research". It deals with the topic in three instalments. First, it will discuss recent trends in research funding. Second, it provides a brief historical overview of the efforts of integrating SSH into the EU Research Framework Programme. It then adds some observations about continued challenges in SSH. Finally, it will conclude with some suggestions for SSH scholars, based on the discussions from the conference. In that regard the Working Paper is also a document for further reading for those who have read earlier, shorter texts that were published in preparation of that conference.


We use remote sensing and GIS to map changes in land cover and to identify systematic land-cover transitions in Southwestern Ghana. Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite imagery of 1990 and 2000 is used to create two land-cover classifications, and the two maps are then compared to produce transition matrices both for protected and for unprotected areas. These matrices are analyzed according to their various components to identify systematic landscape transitions based on deviations between the transitions observed and the transitions expected owing to random processes of change. The results show that closed forest regions inside the protected area transition systematically to bare ground or bush fire, but closed forest outside the protected area transitions systematically to open cultivated woodland. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that logging is the main cause of the loss of closed forest inside the protected areas whereas farming is the main cause of the loss of closed forest outside the protected areas. The research highlights the need for the implementation of this methodological approach to landscape change. Identification of strong signals of forest transformation is particularly important in the light of efforts by policy makers to curb deforestation in Ghana.


High external deficits in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are widely regarded as culprits of the post-2008 financial crises in the eurozone. This paper examines the main drivers of those imbalances and discusses how the mix of macroeconomic adjustment and structural reforms implemented in the last few years has affected the evolution of those countries' external positions. The analysis combines modern theories of the current account and of the real exchange rate with panel data regressions to shed light on the standing of those economies' external "competitiveness" broadly defined.


Porous coating production, e.g. for medical implant, involves depositing first mono-layer(s) of temporary particles on surface, depositing coating(s) on particles, eliminating temporary particles forming pores, and coating fixation step NOVELTY - Producing porous coating comprises providing support with surface, depositing first mono-layer(s) of temporary particles on surface, depositing coating(s) on temporary particles, eliminating the temporary particles forming pores to obtain structure with a porosity with anisotropic pore size distribution, and coating fixation step. The porous coating has anisotropic pore size distribution in the micro or nano-size domain and has surface with thickness 10 nm-10 mm. USE - The method is useful for producing porous coating for use in object, e.g. medical implant, stent, or orthopedic implant. ADVANTAGE - The method provides coating with controlled structure in micro- and nano-size domain; and reduces the temperature for obtaining crystalline coatings. DETAILED DESCRIPTION - The median value of pore size distribution in the coating varies from the surface of the object to the free surface of the coating. The mean value of pore size distribution at the free surface of the coating is less than 1 microns. The coating is made of distinct sub-layers with distinct porosity size distributions. The two porosity mean pore diameters differ by factor of greater than or equal to100. The substance is drug, anticoagulant substance, anti-proliferative substance, antibiotic substance, bacteriostatic substance or growth factor. The pores are used to receive cells. An INDEPENDENT CLAIM is included for manufacturing anisotropic porous coating with pore size distribution in micro or nano-size domain on support of object.


There has been an increase in research using new 'omic' technologies1 (those allowing the study of a large biological data set) designed to define and describe the microorganisms we carry, and their impact on health and disease. Omic technologies generate enormous quantities of complex data, so a major challenge is interstudy and intrastudy comparisons. This article provides an overview of terminology and data generation, and uses one of our study data sets to demonstrate different presentations of those data.

Bacteria are important in a range of physiological processes in humans2: nutrient assimilation, vitamin production, modification of the nervous system (the gut-brain axis) and development of the immune system.3 Pathological changes in gut microbial communities (dysbiosis) have been associated with a wide range of diseases including skin and psychiatric disorders,4 5 as well as diseases with high mortality in preterm infants such as infection and necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). NEC, for example, has been associated with reduced microbial diversity and increase in specific classes of bacteria, such as Gammaproteobacteria.6–8

Identified by culture, bacteria were traditionally classified by physical characteristics into taxonomic ranks—phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Sequencing-based technologies rely on similarity in DNA sequences to determine organisms' phylogenetic relatedness to other species.

DNA sequencing is a method for assessing microbial communities which works either through identification of all genomes within a community (metagenomics), or using specific marker genes such as the 16S rRNA gene.9 The bacterial 16S rRNA gene can be used to group sequences by percentage similarity to each other, typically 'binning' (collecting together) all sequences with more than 97% similarity as a single operational taxonomic unit (OTU), which is then cross-referenced with databases to identify bacterial genus (or higher taxonomic levels if genus is unavailable). The relatively short read length of 16S rRNA gene …


Using an energy-resolved mass spectrometer and a time-resolved Langmuir probe, the distribution of bombarding ion energies, their fluxes and energy fluxes at a substrate in an asymmetric bi-polar pulsed DC magnetron have been determined. The discharge was operated in Ar at a pressure of 0.53 Pa with a Ti target and pulsed DC frequencies of 100 and 350 kHz with a range of duty cycles (from 50 to 96%). At 100 kHz, the Ar+and Ti+ time-averaged ion energy distribution functions (IEDFs) reveal three peaks, which are at low energy (<10 eV), in a mid-range (20-50 eV) and at high energy (60-100 eV). We correlate these peaks with distinct phases of the discharge voltage. At 350 kHz the IEDFs show four peaks reflecting a more complex voltage waveform. The low-energy ions are generated in the `on' phase when the plasma potential is typically a few volts above ground. The Ti+ energy spectra show a remnant of the original sputter-neutral energy distribution function. The mid-range ions are produced in the quiescent region of the voltage reverse phase, when the plasma potential is raised globally a few volts above the cathode potential, typically 10-30 V. The high-energy ions are generated in a period of ~0.3 µs, during the discharge voltage overshoot, when the target potential rises to typically over +140 V. However, given the time resolution of the Langmuir probe (0.5 µs), it is not possible to determine if plasma potential is lifted globally to this high potential or only close to the cathode. At 350 kHz, these `fast' ions make up to about a quarter of the total ion flux at the substrate and an upper bound transient power flux of about 2.5 times the maximum delivered in the `on' phase. The total power flux to a substrate in the sustained phase of the discharge is found to increase with frequency and reverse time.


Deficit irrigation (DI) is an agricultural practice in which the volume of irrigation water applied during the crop cycle is below the irrigation requirements for maximum production, the aim of which is to increase irrigation water productivity. Most research on this technique has focused on agronomic strategies while the economic and environmental consequences have received little attention. This study aims to shed some light on this matter and presents preliminary results regarding the implications of DI with respect to the sustainable use of water resources. The analysis is based on the DPSIR analytical framework (Driving force/Pressure/State/Impact/Response) and the microeconomics of DI. The case study focuses on intensive olive groves in the Guadalquivir river basin in Southern Spain (where olive cultivation accounts for 50% of the total irrigated area). The analysis shows that the widespread use of DI practices, which is the farmers' response to a decreasing net water supply and falling farm incomes (driving force) in the context of a mature water economy, may help to break the DPSIR chain of causality, provided that there are restrictions on any expansion in irrigated area. They can, thus, play a role in achieving sustainable water use. Conversely, demand and supply (regulator) responses involving raising the price of water would lead to higher pressures on the resource and represent a negative driving force in our DPSIR model.


Objective: To evaluate the impact of psoriasis on pregnancy outcomes.Study Design: Data of pregnant women with chronic plaque psoriasis who were followed up at Hacettepe University Hospital between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2017 were evaluated. Pregnant women with singleton pregnancies who had chronic plaque psoriasis were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups based on the clinical course of psoriasis: group 1 (improvement/disease-stable), and group 2 (deterioration). Median maternal age, gravida, parity, gestational week at birth, birthweight, 5th minute APGAR score together with the rates of cesarean section, neonatal intensive care unit admission and pregnancy complications (spontaneous abortion, preterm delivery, fetal growth restriction and preeclampsia) were compared between the groups.Results: There were 29 (61.7%) patients in group 1 and 18 (38.3%) patients in group 2. Mean values for maternal age, gravida and parity were comparable between the groups (p values were 0.32, 0.09 and 0.17, respectively). Median values for gestational week at birth (39.2 vs 36.1, p =0.002), birthweight (3200 vs 2310, p =0.002) and 5th minute APGAR score (9 vs 7, p <0.001) were statistically significantly lower in group 2. Cesarean section (33.3% vs 71.4%, p =0.02), neonatal intensive care unit admission (11.1% vs 64.3%, p <0.001) and pregnancy complication rates (p =0.003) were statistically significantly higher in group 2. Frequencies of spontaneous abortion, preterm delivery, fetal growth restriction and preeclampsia were 6.9%, 10.3%, 3.4% and 3.4% in group 1, and 22.2%, 27.8%, 16.7% and 16.7% in group 2, respectively.Conclusion: Deterioration of psoriasis in pregnancy was associated with adverse obstetric outcome.


Integration or segmentation of markets determines whether substantial advantages in risk reduction can be attained through portfolio diversification in foreign securities. In an integrated market, investors face risk from country-specific factors and factors, which are common to all countries, but price only the later, as country-specific risk is diversifiable. The aim of this study is two-fold, firstly, investigating the superiority of the Fama-French three-factor model over Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and later using the superior model to test for integration of Indian and US equity mar- kets (a proxy for global markets). Based on a sample of Bombay Stock Exchange 500 non-financial companies for the period 2003–2019, the data suggest the superiority of Fama-French three-factor model over CAPM. Using the Non-Linear Seemingly Unrelated Regression technique, the first half of the sample period (2003–2010) shows evidence of market segmentation; however, the second sub-period (2011–2019) shows weak signs of market integration, which is supported by the Johansen test of cointegra- tion, suggesting that Indian market is gradually getting integrated with global markets.


Wireless phone services acceptance may be fundamentally different from traditional systems acceptance or online purchase adoption, partly because it includes acceptance of both technology products and services, and partly because the characteristics of wireless service providers also have roles to play. To understand these differences we study antecedents to Technology Acceptance Model's (TAM) perceived usefulness and ease of use in wireless phone services context. Two characteristics of wireless service providers are identified: company affect and perceived company helpfulness. We collected data from 1,667 U.S. citizens. Results reveal that both company affect and company helpfulness are significant antecedents to user acceptance of wireless phone services. Moreover, our study of these antecedents has practical applicability as it deepens the understanding of the phenomenon and can provide advices for wireless service providers.


This research explores different representations of youth crime in Canada from a feminist criminological and social constructionist perspective. Using a mixed-methods approach that draws upon historical scholarly works, official governmental crime and court statistics, and national Canadian newspapers, I investigate statistical and media representations of youth crime in Canada. Official crime and court statistics were analyzed to identify trends in youth crime and how they vary by gender and legislative changes. I provide an historical overview of changing definitions of youth, crime and delinquency, and consider how these combined with changing norms regarding morality to shape youth crime legislation in Canada from the late 18 century to the current era. I also determined if violence among female youth has been increasing between 1991/92 and 2011/12. Previous research has been divided. This analysis finds that youth crime is not increasing, and that boys' crime continues to outpace girls' crime. Neither girls' violence, nor the severity of their crimes, are increasing, with the exception of criminal harassment and uttering threats. These increases possibly reflect changing attitudes towards bullying that have resulted in changes in charging and conviction patterns. These findings highlight how crime trends have shaped legislative outcomes, and how legislative change, in turn, shapes crime trends. Next, I explore whether news reports on youth crime closely follow crime and court rates, or if they reflect a moral panic about youth crime, as the literature suggests. Unexpectedly, media accounts do correlate with violent crime trends, numerically, although the content of these articles often runs counter to these trends. Media accounts of boys' and girls' criminal activity is strongly shaped by gender, as well as by class, race, and age, and there is evidence of moral panics in news reporting. Moral panics pertaining to girls' involvement in crime reflect societal tension regarding changing gender norms, reflecting a 'feminist backlash.'


Big river basins are complex systems of people and nature. This article explores the resilience of nine case studies of big river basins. A system description and generic conceptual model suggests that resilience to changes in water quantity is critical. When water becomes limiting, the social-ecological system must adapt rapidly if key elements (for example, communities, biodiversity) are to be maintained. Water limitation imposes a water economy and alters political and institutional links between actors. Pro-active management for resilience demands politically acceptable participatory processes that use the best possible science and incorporate social, ecological and economic elements in problem definition and solution.


Given a full rank matrix $X$ with more columns than rows, consider the task of estimating the pseudo inverse $X^+$ based on the pseudo inverse of a sampled subset of columns (of size at least the number of rows). We show that this is possible if the subset of columns is chosen proportional to the squared volume spanned by the rows of the chosen submatrix (ie, volume sampling). The resulting estimator is unbiased and surprisingly the covariance of the estimator also has a closed form: It equals a specific factor times $X^{+\top}X^+$. Pseudo inverse plays an important part in solving the linear least squares problem, where we try to predict a label for each column of $X$. We assume labels are expensive and we are only given the labels for the small subset of columns we sample from $X$. Using our methods we show that the weight vector of the solution for the sub problem is an unbiased estimator of the optimal solution for the whole problem based on all column labels. We believe that these new formulas establish a fundamental connection between linear least squares and volume sampling. We use our methods to obtain an algorithm for volume sampling that is faster than state-of-the-art and for obtaining bounds for the total loss of the estimated least-squares solution on all labeled columns.


ABSTRACT In the midst of a wave of market expansion, carbon markets have been proposed as the best way to address global climate change. While some argue that carbon markets represent a modern example of a Polanyian counter-movement to the environmental crisis, we adopt a structural interpretation of Polanyi to refute this claim. Carbon markets represent a further expansion of markets that fails to address the underlying contradictions related to the commodification of nature. In addition, they increase risks to society and the domination of economic elites. While carbon markets further subject social and ecological relations to market mechanisms, we examine degrowth as a possible response to climate change that prioritises social and environmental goals over economic growth. While degrowth continues to be dismissed as impractical or impossible, a growing number of scholars, scientists and activists argue it is the only way to address global climate change. In contrast to carbon markets, we argue degrowth could represent a genuine Polanyian counter-movement in response to climate change. In addition, degrowth could help all those disenfranchised by market fundamentalism by addressing the triple crises related to the commodification of land, labour and money.


"In this paper we present the findings of a qualitative investigation into some dimensions and implications of policy volatility in the realms of natural resource (NR) governance and devolution in contemporary Sudan, with particular reference to Greater Kordofan. Our goal is to map out some aspects of the interplay between volatility, disempowerment processes affecting both state agents and the rural population, and certain problems of governance that are characteristic but not unique to Sudan. In particular, we argue that volatility is a dimension of poor governance worthy of investigation in its own right, as it is a primary ingredient of what we may call a "self-disempowering state," where adaptive learning in policy processes is impeded and successful devolution faces particularly complex obstacles. The policy domain that we consider for analysis includes laws, regulations and policies enacted under the label of "Decentralization, Land Allocation and Land Use," as well as large development projects supporting the decentralization or devolution of NR management to local communities in the region." from Authors' Abstract


The hepatitis B virus (HBV) core protein has been found in the nucleus, the cytoplasm, or both of HBV-infected hepatocytes. However, the mechanism that regulates the subcellular localization of the HBV core protein is still unclear. In this report, we demonstrate that nuclear localization of the HBV core protein is cell cycle-regulated in two different cell lines. The amount of the core protein in the nucleus was increased during the G1 phase, reduced to an undetectable level during the S phase, and increased again when the cells were confluent and ceased to grow. Thus, the nuclear localization of the core protein during HBV infection can be at least partially attributed to liver injury and regeneration, which cause the hepatocytes to enter cell cycles. Based on the observation that the cytoplasmic core protein was phosphorylated and the nuclear core protein was not, we speculate that nuclear localization of the HBV core protein is negatively regulated by phosphorylation during the cell cycle.


The disorder is frequently unrecognized, misdiagnosed, and not optimally managed. Moreover, no agent has been specifically developed on the basis of an understanding of the pathophysiology of the illness or mechanism of action of effective treatments. The current gold standard treatment for BP is lithium, whose mood-stabilizing effects are believed to occur via distinct cellular signaling pathways/targets, such as glycogen synthase kinase 3 inhibition (considered to regulate cellular apoptosis), and other potential downstream cellular mechanisms. In addition to lithium, valproate, and carbamazepine, several atypical antipsychotics (including asenapine) are FDA-approved for the treatment of acute bipolar mania (Table). While these drugs have certainly provided relief for many individuals with BP, significant issues with tolerability and efficacy remain. For instance, clinicians may find themselves in situations in which better-tolerated agents are less effective, and vice versa. In addition, balancing efficacy with adverse effects that affect adherence, such as sedation and weight gain, underscore the urgent need to develop novel and more effective treatments. Recent clinical findings Findings from a meta-analysis indicate that the following agents were more effective than placebo for mania: aripiprazole, asenapine, carbamazepine, cariprazine, haloperidol, lithium, olanzapine, paliperidone, quetiapine, risperidone, tamoxifen, valproate, and ziprasidone).4 Limited data suggest large effect sizes for carbamazepine, cariprazine, haloperidol, risperidone, and tamoxifen. Another large meta-analysis evaluated the comparative efficacy of aripiprazole, asenapine, carbamazepine, valproate, gabapentin, haloperidol, lamotrigine, lithium, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, topiramate, and ziprasidone at therapeutic doses for treatment of acute mania.5 The study concluded that antipsychotic drugs were significantly more effective than mood stabilizers; olanzapine, risperidone, and quetiapine were better tolerated than haloperidol. Risperidone, olanzapine, and haloperidol were particularly efficacious. Most of the trials were short (typically 3 weeks),


The 'Metals in Soil Gas' (MSG) survey has proven to be a useful tool for mineral exploration under exotic overburden. Tracing the source of these metals with Pb isotopes is helpful to understand the formation of MSG. Lead isotope ratios in MSG samples were determined by ICP-MS (Model HP4500); the Pb isotope ratios in loess, red soil, wall rocks and ores were measured following decomposition and separation using a VG-354 thermal ionization mass spectrometer (TIMS) for comparison. The results of the study of samples collected over the Jiaolongzhang base metal deposit show that the Pb isotope ratios of MSG background samples are markedly distinct from those ratios of any medium (loess, red soil layer, wall-rocks and ores) in the vicinity of the deposit. The Pb isotope ratios in the MSG anomalous samples (206Pb/204Pb = 18.34–18.56, 207Pb/204Pb = 15.622–15.809 and 208Pb/204Pb = 38.184–38.691) are totally different from those in the samples of background areas (206Pb/204Pb = 16.46–17.68, 207Pb/204Pb = 13.985–14.945 and 208Pb/204Pb = 34.199–36.884). The Pb isotope ratios of MSG anomalous samples scatter near the ratios of the mineralized wall-rocks (206Pb/204Pb = 18.554–18.874, 207Pb/204Pb = 15.618–15.755 and 208Pb/204Pb = 38.629–39.126) and sulphides (206Pb/204Pb = 18.130–18.251, 207Pb/204Pb = 15.671–15.767 and 208Pb/204Pb = 38.350–38.582). It can be concluded that some of the Pb in MSG anomalous samples originates from deep sulphide mineralization and Pb isotope ratios of MSG anomalous samples indicate that an MSG survey can detect the deeply concealed mineral deposits under exotic cover.


This article outlines a theory of language logic and law. First, it presents a theory of truth as a correspondence between a material fact and a description of that fact. Binary logic is then examined and determined inadequate to represent legal decision making because not all statements are true or false, only. Some statements are unknown or unknowable. The paper develops the basic functors for a ternary logic in order to resolve the paradox of material implication, to give legal theory adequate representational tools for exact modelling and critique of the law. That is a truly innovative and unique contribution of this article to the science of logic. The paper then looks to normative inferencing and argues that normative inferencing is possible using ordinary logical methods: implication, analogy, etc. After developing these theories of truth and logic, a theory of language is developed. Language is not inevitably indeterminate because statements are ultimately reflections of and refractions from material facts. All three inquiries lead to the conclusion that the radical critique of legal reasoning (the 'death of reason critique') is not well founded. Legal science is possible because language is not inevitably indeterminate and truth exists and is knowable. Legal science in turn can be used to shape substantive justice. Critical jurists can and should take up scientificity as a key to effective legal reform.


Here we report Airy beams coupled with waveguide modes. These waveguide Airy (WAiry) beams propagate through layered planar structures inheriting the characteristics of waveguide modes as well as those of Airy beams, such as diffraction-free and accelerating features. In particular, we focus on the WAiry beams associated with backward waveguide modes, showing that the backward feature can alter the trajectories of the WAiry beams significantly. Based on this, we propose a new scheme of waveguide-type polarization/power beam splitters.


We are able to detect the details of spatial optical collisionless wave breaking through the high aperture imaging of a beam suffering shock in a fluorescent nonlinear nonlocal thermal medium. This allows us to directly measure how nonlocality and nonlinearity affect the point of shock formation and compare results with numerical simulations.


The Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (Bicep) experiment was designed specifically to search for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Using a novel small-aperture refractor and 49 pairs of polarization-sensitive bolometers, Bicep has completed three years of successful observations at the South Pole beginning in 2006 February. To constrain the amplitude of the inflationary B-mode polarization, which is expected to be at least 7 orders of magnitude fainter than the 3 K CMB intensity, precise control of systematic effects is essential. This paper describes the characterization of potential systematic errors for the Bicep experiment, supplementing a companion paper on the initial cosmological results. Using the analysis pipelines for the experiment, we have simulated the impact of systematic errors on the B-mode polarization measurement. Guided by these simulations, we have established benchmarks for the characterization of critical instrumental properties including bolometer relative gains, beam mismatch, polarization orientation, telescope pointing, sidelobes, thermal stability, and timestream noise model. A comparison of the benchmarks with the measured values shows that we have characterized the instrument adequately to ensure that systematic errors do not limit Bicep's two-year results, and identifies which future refinements are likely necessary to probe inflationary B-mode polarization down to levels below a tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.1.


Neuroeconomics - the study of brain activity in people engaged in tasks of reasoning and choice - looks set to be the next behavioral economics: a set of findings about how people make decisions that casts both light and doubt on widely accepted premises about rationality and social life. This essay explains what is most exciting about the new field and lays out some specific research tasks for it. By enabling researchers to view the mind at work, neuroeconomics calls into question the value of a methodological premise of twentieth-century empiricism, sometimes called positivism or behaviorism: that people are black boxes to one another, and scientific social inquiry must observe only their objective behavior, what they say and do. This premise came to the center of neoclassical economic method via the 1930s work of the economist Lionel Robbins, and it occasioned a methodological split in social inquiry. Positivists (most importantly, economists) follow the strictures of studying observable behavior, while interpretivists insist that we cannot understand social life without interpreting the minds and intentions of others, even though we cannot view them directly. The limits of these two methods have restricted progress in understanding three critical issues for legal scholarship: 1) how people solve collective-action problems, 2) why some people are more susceptible than others to extremist political appeals, and 3) whether "commodification" creates a conflict between economic rationality and other values. I show how the progress already made in neuroeconomics could make each of these questions more tractable than it has recently seemed, with potentially significant payoffs.


Metamorphism and deformation of the Tobifera Formation in the Cordillera Riesco, Region of Magallanes, Chile: Evidences for its tectonic evolution. The Tobífera Formation (150 Ma) was in part deposited contemporaneously with the Sarmiento Ophiolitic Complex during the rifting stage of the Rocas Verdes Basin. Later, the Cretaceous Zapata, Punta Barrosa and Cerro Toro Formations were deposited conformably on top of the Tobìfera. In Cordillera Riesco, it is composed of siliceous tuffs, siliceous welded tuffs, quartzose black shales and siltstones. It is affected by a mylonitic deformation that developed different ductile reverse kinematic indicators, with a minor dextral component which suggest a reversedextral movement of the fault zone. The metamorphic mineralogy indicates that the greenschist facies conditions were reached for the matrix forming minerals, and prehnite-actinolite facies in mineral associations in retrograde cross-cutting veinlets. Geothermobarometric calculations indicate that this mylonite zone reached 6.3 ± 1.1 kb and 399 ± 64oC. These values suggest that these rocks reached a depth between 19 and 26 km, maybe during a reverse subduction episode in the area. Deformed clasts of Tobífera Formation in conglomerates of Cerro Toro Formation indicate the exhumation of the Tobífera Formation before or during the Late Cretaceous. The present configuration of the structures in Cordillera Riesco is possibly determined by westward rotations occurred in the Magallanes fold and thrust belt.


The possibility that adenosine and ATP-sensitive potassium channels (KATP) might be involved in the mechanisms of the increases in cerebral blood flow (CBF) that occur in insulin-induced hypoglycemia was examined. Cerebral blood flow was measured by the [14C]iodoantipyrine method in conscious rats during insulin-induced, moderate hypoglycemia (2 to 3 mmol/L glucose in arterial plasma) after intravenous injections of 10 to 20 mg/kg of caffeine, an adenosine receptor antagonist, or intracisternal infusion of 1 to 2 μmol/L glibenclamide, a KATP channel inhibitor. Cerebral blood flow was also measured in corresponding normoglycemic and drug-free control groups. Cerebral blood flow was 51% higher in untreated hypoglycemic than in untreated normoglycemic rats (P < 0.01). Caffeine had a small, statistically insignificant effect on CBF in normoglycemic rats, but reduced the CBF response to hypoglycemia in a dose-dependent manner, i.e., 27% increase with 10 mg/kg and complete elimination with 20 mg/kg. Chemical determinations by HPLC in extracts of freeze-blown brains showed significant increases in the levels of adenosine and its degradation products, inosine and hypoxanthine, during hypoglycemia (P < 0.05). Intracisternal glibenclamide had little effect on CBF in normoglycemia, but, like caffeine, produced dose-dependent reductions in the magnitude of the increases in CBF during hypoglycemia, i.e., +66% with glibenclamide-free artificial CSF administration, +25% with 1 μmol/L glibenclamide, and almost complete blockade (+5%) with 2 μmol/L glibenclamide. These results suggest that adenosine and KATP channels may play a role in the increases in CBF during hypoglycemia.


In the U. S. approximately 795,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke yearly. Stroke survival has increased with advances in medical technology. The impact of stroke on a patient's neurological status poses critical challenges for nurses. Communication is one area impacted by stroke. Strokes affecting the brain's right hemisphere (RHS) have been described in the literature as negatively impacting communication behaviors of patients, often in a subtle manner. The purpose of this exploratory descriptive study was to examine the knowledge that RNs in North Carolina possess about communication impairments associated with RHS and how these nurses anticipate using knowledge gained about these impairments in the care of these patients. The study also explored perceived barriers and facilitators to participating in continuing education about RHS associated communication impairments. The RHS Communication Impairment Knowledge Assessment tool assessed demographic variables, knowledge of RHS associated communication impairments, perceived barriers and facilitators to participating in continuing education about communication clusters associated with RHS, as well as how nurses anticipate using education about these impairments in caring for patients following RHS. The study setting was North Carolina. A purposive sample of North Carolina RNs was contacted through email; and a sample size of 2495 was recruited. The study was guided conceptually by Ajzen's theory of planned behavior. Results indicated that a large percentage (78.2%) had received education about RHS associated communication impairments in their undergraduate nursing programs. The mean score on the 12-item knowledge assessment was 6.15 with less than 50% answering 3 specific application of knowledge questions correctly. The KR-20 for these 12 items was 0.532 which is an acceptable KR-20 for short tests (10 – 15 items). Cost of continuing education courses (23.5%), work responsibilities (32.9%), and family responsibilities (23.7%) were infrequently reported as barriers to participating in continuing education about these communication impairments while identified education need (87.1%), interest in learning (72.2%), providing better patient care (89.3%), improved decision making (87%), and increased competency (71.4%) were all frequently reported as facilitators to participating in RHS communication cluster continuing education. Three themes emerged regarding how RNs would use knowledge gained to change their patient care. These themes were: awareness of the need for education, improved nursing management of patients, including patient teaching and critical thinking, and better communication with survivors of RHS. The research contributed to the current body of nursing science by identifying knowledge gaps of NC RNs on RHS associated communication impairments, barriers and facilitators to participation in RHS continuing education, and intended changes in care based on continuing education.


A dual-imaging modality is demonstrated for high-resolution quantitative imaging of local cerebral blood flow in the rat cortex by combining simultaneous spectral-domain Doppler optical coherence tomography (SDOCT) and full-field laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI). Preliminary studies in tissue flow phantom and cocaine-induced cerebral blood flow changes indicated that by correlating coregistered cortical arterial blood flow, the relative measurement of flow changes by LSCI could be accurately calibrated by the absolute flow imaging provided by SDOCT (least square fit, r(2) approximately 0.96). Quantitative LSCI of cerebral blood flow is crucial to the quantitative analyses of the spatiotemporal hemodynamics of functional brain activations and thus improved understanding of neural process.


The square root operation is hard to implement on FPGAs because of the complexity of the algorithms. In this paper, we present a non-restoring square root algorithm and two very simple single precision floating point square root implementations based on the algorithm on FPGAs. One is low-cost iterative implementation that uses a traditional adder/subtracter. The operation latency is 25 clock cycles and the issue rate is 24 clock cycles. The other is high-throughput pipelined implementation that uses multiple adder/subtracters. The operation latency is 15 clock cycles and the issue rate is one clock cycle. It means that the pipelined implementation is capable of accepting a square root instruction on every clock cycle.


In recent years, feminists have worked hard to pressure society and the criminal justice system into taking domestic violence seriously. These efforts have resulted in more government funding and increased services to victims. In addition, there have also been legal and policy reforms which have affected the way cases are handled in the criminal justice system. This article reports on research on the reactions to those reforms by those most directly affected by them, the victims themselves and those who provide services to them. Introduction In recent decades, one of the central goals of feminism has been to pressure society and the criminal justice system into taking domestic violence seriously (Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Schechter, 1982). Feminists were concerned about statistics which indicated how widespread the problem was and the secrecy in which it was held. They hoped that using the court would provide protection to women and reduce the incidence of domestic violence. These efforts have been successful on several levels. Criminal justice personnel no longer treat domestic violence as a family matter, out of the reach of the legal system. The police no longer take the perpetrator for a walk to discuss "keeping the little woman in line" and then return him home without further action. Instead, they make efforts to arrest and prosecute offenders. There have been legislative reforms which attempt to increase the arrest and conviction rate in domestic violence cases. The government has allocated a significant amount of money for research and the provision of services within the criminal justice system, as well as to provide services for the victims of domestic violence in the non-profit sector (Crowell and Burgess, 1996). At the same time, feminist legal scholars have exposed the legal system as one which is patriarchal on several levels (e.g. Smart, 1992; Mackinnon, 1987; Rhode, 1990). Smart argues that the law is sexist in that it generally treats men better than women. There is widespread support for this disparity which exists in both the civil and criminal areas (Sugarman and Kay, 1990; Schafran, 1989). On another level, it is patriarchal in that "ideals of objectivity and neutrality which are celebrated in law are actually masculine values which have come to be taken as universal values" (Smart, 1992: 32). Feminists argue that the legal system in general does not represent women's interests or their ways of thinking and functioning. It is also insensitive to the social realities of women's lives. Scholars of legal language support this view when they point out that the language itself is gendered, emphasizing "rule-oriented" language (more "male") rather than "relational" language (more "female") (e.g. Cameron, 1998; Conley and O'Barr, 1998). Thus the power and the benefit of the law is more accessible to those who frame their claims in certain legally acceptable ways. Not surprisingly, then, the effect of the increased seriousness with which domestic violence is treated by the criminal justice system has placed more women within the reach of the patriarchal legal system described by feminist legal scholars. Thus, the "success" of feminists in having the criminal justice system take domestic violence seriously comes at a price. There have been several legal reforms which specifically address the ways in which domestic violence is to be handled by the police and the courts, limiting the autonomy of victims themselves. Since the changes come within the framework of the patriarchal legal system, it means that punishment and prosecution are the goal for all domestic violence cases. This "one size fits all" approach leaves little room for a victim to make her own decisions about the best way to solve her problem. She is not asked for her assessment of her situation or encouraged to take control of her life; to the contrary, her wishes are often superseded by the new policies. …


This report aims to provide an overview of food technologies that could support the wider adoption and application of Re-Distributed Manufacturing (RDM) in the food sector, and has been developed as part of a series of feasibility studies under the umbrella of the 'Food, Energy and Water Local Nexus Network' (LNN) for RDM. The technologies include both traditional food processing technologies that could be reconfigured to be used in smaller scale and also a number of new emerging food technologies that currently may have limited commercial applications, but could provide significant potential in the context of RDM. These technologies are assessed against fourteen specifically defined criteria in order to identify their benefits and drawbacks for future applications of RDM. One of the main findings of this study has been that RDM, as an innovative production structure, necessitates further research, innovation and development (RID) in order to enable successful applications by food businesses. These RID activities could be categorised under three areas of process level, product level and system level innovations. In this context, a number of key research questions regarding future development of food technologies for small scale production systems are presented. Based on these, the report also presents a number of specific research challenges that need to be addressed in order to develop a viable and sustainable approach to the production of food products on smaller scales (redistributed) and closer to the source of consumption (localised), whilst preserving the safety and maintaining the quality of manufactured food. Finally, one of the main conclusions of this study is that increasing productivity, improving resilience and reducing waste are important considerations upon which the future of the UK food sector must be founded, and distributed manufacturing of our food products will play a vital role in the achievement of these goals.


Most groundwater flow models are not sufficiently detailed to allow an explicit representation of all dynamical scales. Instead, most models are constructed at such a coarse scale of resolution that unresolved subgrid variability often exists. It is therefore important to understand the interaction between unresolved dynamics and explicitly resolved dynamics. The concept of universality is central to this interaction and is here related to the problem of rescaling models of groundwater flow. We examine when it is possible to construct an accurate model for the explicitly resolved large scales, without an explicit description of the subgrid scale dynamics. We demonstrate how unresolved subgrid scale dynamics interact with resolved scale dynamics. We show that a universally valid resolved scale model can be constructed if the resolved dynamics are sufficiently independent of the details of the subgrid scale dynamics. In that event, a resolved scale model is composed of a universal structure and accompanying model parameters. The model parameters represent the effect of unresolved dynamics upon resolved dynamics. We examine two possible model structures for groundwater flow. We show theoretically, and numerically, that a local Darcy law is a universally valid resolved scale model if the resolved and subgrid scales of the hydraulic conductivity are separated in scale by a so-called spectral gap. If, however, the hydraulic conductivity possesses many scales of variability, then a more general nonlocal Darcy law is a more appropriate model structure. When the nonlocal Darcy's law is more appropriate, numerical experiments suggest that errors using a local Darcy's law with effective parameters are most significant at the smallest resolving scale of the model, and are minimal at scales between 8 and 16 times the resolving scale.


Manufacturing managers need to understand the interrelated links between advanced manufacturing technology, primary and alternative energy choices, energy output values and costs, and energy conservation over the life of a project. Through an overview of these topics and the manager's energy conservation processing optimization model developed in this paper, manufacturing managers, engineering technologists, and academics gain greater insight to the impacts of energy technologies upon manufacturing activities.


PyOD is an open-source Python toolbox for performing scalable outlier detection on multivariate data. Uniquely, it provides access to a wide range of outlier detection algorithms, including established outlier ensembles and more recent neural network-based approaches, under a single, well-documented API designed for use by both practitioners and researchers. With robustness and scalability in mind, best practices such as unit testing, continuous integration, code coverage, maintainability checks, interactive examples and parallelization are emphasized as core components in the toolbox's development. PyOD is compatible with both Python 2 and 3 and can be installed through Python Package Index (PyPI) or this https URL.


Plato's "Politicus" (Statesman) stands, both in date and in political thought, between the "Republic" and the "Laws". It presents his thought at the point when he was chastened by disappointment with his attempts to put theory into practice at Syracuse. The dialogue reflects contemporary controversies on the method of definition; but its logical exercises and the impressive 'myth' of the two cosmic eras serve to bring out its essential political teaching. This volume contains the text in translation. In this second edition, Skemp made corrections to his extensive introduction and running commentary, and added a new appendix taking into account scholarship since the first (1952) edition.


The study assessed the veterinary extension services rendered by the Kwara State Agricultural Development Project (KWADP) to poultry farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria. A two stage sampling procedure produced the sample size of 110 from five villages in the study area. A well structured interview schedule was administered to the respondents to produce data which was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The study revealed that majority of the poultry farmers in the study area were male (73.3%), aged between 31 and 50 (70.9%) and had over 10 years experience in poultry farming (74.5%). Only 17.3% of the farmers had secondary school education. Almost all the respondents (97.35%) were aware of the veterinary services of the (KWADP). The frequency of extension contact was monthly for 59.1% of the respondents. The t-test at 1% level of significance revealed significant differences in the means of meat yield and egg yield before and after extension contact. The study concluded that though there was strong level of awareness of the veterinary services of the KWADP and there was evidence of positive impact of the extension contact on productivity, the extension service was not meeting the needs of the farmers in some aspects of poultry production such as facilitating credit facilities for expansion. The study recommended that the frequency of extension contact be improved upon. Lastly, the study suggested that farmers should be encouraged to form or join cooperative societies to brighten their chances of securing rural credit.


This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamics to analyze the aerodynamic properties of multiple heavy vehicle groups in leader-follower configurations, referred to as platoons. The primary metric of interest is the resistive aerodynamic force experienced in the freestream direction, commonly known as drag. The computational model first was validated using a simplified car body for both single and multiple body simulations. After validation, three platooning topics were examined: two vehicle platoons, three vehicle platoons, and multiple geometry two vehicle platoons. It was discovered that at close distances the follower vehicle interferes with the formation of the leader vehicle wake, offering significant drag reduction for both vehicles. At larger distances, it was found that the follower vehicle experiences near constant benefit until the end of the lead vehicle slipstream, at which point the drag rapidly transitions to the single vehicle value. Upon analysis of three vehicle platoons, it was observed that the interior vehicle drag could be reduced below that of the outer vehicles at small spacings and thus larger platoons can offer more benefit per vehicle than their smaller counterparts. Upon investigation of platoons with multiple geometries, it was discovered that placing the least aerodynamic vehicle follow position offers the most potential for overall platoon drag reduction.


This work describes the techniques of assembling colloidal gold on flexible polymeric substrates from solution. The process takes advantage of the strong affinity of gold to thiol and amino groups. Polymeric substrates were modified with silanes having these functional groups prior to Au attachment or in the case of poly(urethane urea) (PUU), no surface functionalization was required. This polymer has terminal amine and N-H groups on the polymer chain, which can act as coordination points for gold. Immersion in the colloidal gold solution led to the formation of a monolayer. Increased coverage was obtained by two methods. The first was a reduction or "seeding" process, where Au was reduced onto the attached particles on the surface. The second was using different linker molecules and creating a multilayered film by a layer-by-layer assembly. Three linker molecules of different lengths were used. Films fabricated using the smallest molecule had the least resistance whereas films fabricated with the longest molecule were not conductive. The resistance of these films may be varied easily by heating. Heating the films at temperatures as low as 120 °C caused a dramatic decrease in the resistance of over six orders in magnitude. Successful attachment of gold to PUU with very good adhesion properties was also demonstrated. The attachment of gold was stable in different solvents. Upon stretching the PUU-Au films, it was observed that there is a reversible resistance increase with strain and at a certain strain, the film becomes nonconductive. This sharp transition from conductive to insulating has potential applications in flexible switches and sensors. A hysteresis in the strain-resistance curves, analogous to the hysteresis in the stress-strain curves of the polymer was also observed. Using PUU as an adhesive agent, gold electrodes were successfully assembled on Nafion-based polymer transducers. These materials showed comparable actuation behavior to the electrodes made by the Pt-reduction method, with the added advantage of the ability to form patterned electrodes for distributed transducers. Patterning techniques were developed to form colloid-polymer multilayers for use in photonic crystal materials using selective deposition on patterned silane monolayers. Patterns of gold electrodes were also made on flexible polymers using a photoresist-based method.


The health effects of increased physical activity in the prevention or treatment of any disease can only be meaningfully assessed if compliance to the exercise regimen is maintained. The current research examined compliance in a clinical trial investigating the effect of walking on bone loss in 229 postmenopausal women, randomized into either a walking or a control group. Although at baseline there was no difference in physical activity between the two groups, after a period of 2 yr, the walking group reported significantly greater physical activity as measured by reported mean blocks walked daily and objective activity monitor day readings. Closer examination of the walking group revealed that compliers (average 7+ miles walked/wk over the 2 yr), when compared to non-compliers, tended at baseline to be more active, lighter weight, and non-smokers. However, the variable that best differentiated between the two compliance groups was the frequency of reported illness over the 2-yr period, with compliers claiming significantly less illness.


Two MK5 (45CaO-45P2O5-5MgO-5K2O, in mol%) and MT13 (45CaO-37P2O5-5MgO-13TiO2, in mol%) glasses are prepared in the meta- and pyrophosphate regions and crystallized to obtain MK5B and MT13B, respectively. MK5B was obtained by controlled crystallization, and MT13B by powder sintering. As a result of these heat treatment processes, the crystalline phases precipitated in the glassy matrix are KCa(PO3)3, β-Ca(PO3)2, β-Ca2P2O7 and Ca4P6O19 phases for MK5B and CaTi4(PO4)6, TiP2O7, α- and β-Ca2P2O7 phases for MT13B. To assess the in vivo biological behavior of these glass ceramics, a mixed granulometry in the range 250-355 μm and 355-425 μm with a ratio of 1/1 was implanted for 2, 4, and 12 weeks in the tibiae of Japanese white rabbits. The results showed that the in vivo behavior was strongly affected by their solubility. All implanted materials, MK5B and MT13B, and β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) as control material, showed signs of degradation in vivo. However, the levels of degradation were quite different throughout the implantation periods. The highest degradation was observed for MK5B glass ceramic and the lowest for MT13B with β-TCP in-between. All implanted materials allow for new bone formation in the bone defect area. At the longest implantation period (12 weeks), the MT13B and β-TCP materials were almost completely surrounded by new bone tissue, whereas MK5B showed some unfilled spaces. This behavior is discussed in terms of the high degradation observed in previous studies.


Estimating the probability of rare events is an extremely challenging task. For example, estimating the probability of leakage of CO2 from a saline aquifer using a direct Monte-Carlo approach would in general require a number of simulations proportional to the inverse of the rare event probability. Since it is likely that any action will require a probability of failure of less than $10^{-6}$, requiring $10^7$ to $10^8$ simulations, it is understandable that few such studies have been published. In this paper, we propose a means of simulating such rare events using a multilevel splitting algorithm called subset simulation (SS)[Au and Beck, 2001]. SS is an iterative algorithm that introduces intermediate events which are easier to sample from, and then iteratively samples within each constrained region in the probability space until the rare event threshold is reached. We show results for a standard benchmark for CO2 leakage through a leaky well [Class et al., 2009]. In this test case, CO2 is injected into a deep aquifer, then spreads within the aquifer and, upon reaching an abandoned well, it rises to a shallower aquifer. We show that subset simulation is an effective algorithm for estimating the probability of rare events with significant computational advantages over a direct Monte-Carlo approach. The SS algorithm relies on two parameters that have to be adjusted at the start of the simulation; we show the effect of these parameters on the quality of estimated rare event probabilities and propose guidelines on how to select these parameters. References: Siu-Kui Au and James L. Beck. Estimation of small failure probabilities in high dimensions by subset simulation. Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics, 16(4):263 – 277, 2001. ISSN 0266-8920. doi: http://dx. doi.org/10.1016/S0266-8920(01)00019-4. URL http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ pii/S0266892001000194. Holger Class, Anozie Ebigbo, Rainer Helmig, Helge K. Dahle, Jan M. Nordbotten, Michael A. Celia, Pascal Audigane, Melanie Darcis, Jonathan Ennis-King, Yaqing Fan, Bernd Flemisch, Sarah E. Gasda, Min Jin, Stefanie Krug, Diane Labregere, Ali Naderi Beni, Rajesh J. Pawar, Adil Sbai, Sunil G. Thomas, Laurent Trenty, and Ling li Wei. A benchmark study on problems related to CO2 storage in geologic formations. Comput. Geosci., 13(4):409–434, 2009. ISSN 1420-0597. doi: 10.1007/s10596-009-9146-x. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10596-009-9146-x.


Twin-screw extrusion pulping is a new approach to the manufacture of pulp for paper production, designed for non-wood feedstocks. In this research, the production of pulp from rice stem with a newly fabricated twin-screw extruder was investigated. Extrusion pulping of rice stem was conducted following a central composite design using a two-level factorial plan involving three process variables (pretreatment NaOH concentration: 0.4, 0.8, 1.2%; extrusion temperature: 40, 60, 80 o C; and extruder rotational speed: 55, 70, 85 rpm). Responses of pulp and handsheets properties to the process variables were analyzed using statistical software (MINITAB 15). As the results show, pulping of rice stem fiber can be done at a relatively short pretreatment time about 4 hours and a low NaOH concentration about 0.8% by twin-screw extruder with limit extrusion temperature of about 80 o C and extruder rotational speed about 85 rpm. The effect of pretreatment solvent, NaOH, is greatly enhanced by increases in the extrusion temperature. Analysis of the results revealed that this process has suitable potential to be used to obtain a pulp with yields approximately equivalent to neutral sulfite semichemical pulping at fixed kappa number, which is applicable for fluting paper and linerboard production.


As defined initially, chromosome instability syndromes (CIS) are a group of inherited conditions transmitted in autosomal recessive pattern characterised with both mental and physical development delay generally. They are also with other medical complications in individuals with CIS commonly including different degree of dysmorphics, organs/systems dys-function and high risk of cancer predisposition. Chromosomal breakage from CIS can be seen either in spontaneous breakage around 10-15% observed in Fanconi anemia or induced by clastogenic agents such as mitomycin (MMC), diepoxybutane (DEB). The spontaneous chromosome breakage is less common but it correlates with patient clinical severity. Relative high rates of some types of CIS can occur in certain ethnic groups. Individuals with CIS are commonly in childhood and these disorders are often lethal. Diagnosis is complicated usually because the symptoms presented from individuals with CIS may be varied and complex. Advances in molecular level have identified genes responsible for such group diseases/disorders demonstrated that CIS are characterized by the genome instability, defect in DNA repair mechanisms. Latest advances in high-throughput technologies have been increasing sequencing capabilities to facilitate more accurate data for such syndrome researches. CIS are the typical rare diseases and becoming more challenges in pediatrics clinic. In the last two decades, there were no many articles to review and analysis CIS together to comparing their phenotypes and genotypes. In this article, the similarity and differences of the phenotypes and genotypes of CIS were reviewed to understanding the whole profiles of CIS to assist laboratory genetic diagnostic services in CIS and for the confirmation from the clinical referrals.


In this report the JPMorgan Chase Institute assembled one of the largest samples of participants in the Online Platform Economy to date: over 240,000 de-identified individuals who earned income between October 2012 and June 2016 from one or more of 42 different platforms. Our findings point to several dimensions of how the growth in online platform participation has slowed. First, growth in participation in the Online Platform Economy peaked in 2014 and has slowed since then. Second, while monthly earnings on capital platforms increased by 34 percent between June 2014 and June 2016, they decreased on labor platforms by 6 percent. Third, turnover in the Online Platform Economy is high: one in six participants in any given month is new, and more than half of participants exit within 12 months. Fourth, employed, higher-income, and younger participants are more likely to exit the Online Platform Economy within a year. Finally, non-employed individuals are more likely than the employed to participate in labor platforms but represent a decreasing share of participants as the unemployment rate drops. In sum, growth in online platform participation is highly dependent on attracting new participants or increasing attachment of existing participants. As outside options improve, recruiting and retaining platform workers might become increasingly difficult.


Permissibility of electoral systems, and in particular the conversion of voices in the electorate to the legislature, is broadly considered to depend on the number of seats per district (district magnitude) in a country. Yet the most prevalent electoral system in the democratic world, proportional representation with districts, is often characterized by an almost entirely overlooked variation: within the same country districts vary in their magnitude, sometimes by a factor of 20. How does such variation affect permissibility of electoral systems? Drawing on a broad cross-section of democracies, we demonstrate that contrary to what the literature implicitly assumes, other things equal, a combination of large and small districts results in greater permissibility than a set of districts of similar magnitude. We find that where districts are of similar (different) magnitude the degree of permissibility is lower (higher) than that found by current literature.


Abstract In this study novel transversal pneumatic artificial muscles (TPAM), made from composite – poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) matrix membrane and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) satin reinforcement, are presented. Miniature TPAM consists of a flexible internal braid (IB) reinforcing the membrane and the external braid (EB). EB, with fibers arranged transversely to the IB, is placed laterally. Differently prepared TPAMs were tested for their effectiveness as actuators for robot drive and the PDMS/PET composite suitability was evaluated for applications in human gastrointestinal tract (chemical resistance, thermal characteristic). FT-IR spectra of the composite were compared for study PDMS impregnation process of PET satin and effect of immersion in selected solution. The composite shows outstanding biocompatibility and the muscles have competitive static load characteristics in comparison with other pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM). These results lead to believe, that in the near future painless examination of the gastrointestinal tract using a secure robot will be possible.


Tape drawing is the art of creating sketches on large scale upright surfaces using black photographic tape. Typically used in the automotive industry, it is an important part of the automotive design process that is currently not computerized. We analyze and describe the unique aspects of tape drawing, and use this knowledge to design and implement a digital tape drawing system. Our system retains the fundamental interaction and visual affordances of the traditional media while leveraging the power of the digital media. Aside from the practical aspect of our work, the interaction techniques developed have interesting implications for current theories of human bimanual interaction.


Abstract. A green light sensor has been developed at KNMI to measure actinic flux profiles using an ozonesonde balloon. In total, 63 launches with ascending and descending profiles were performed between 2006 and 2010. The measured uncalibrated actinic flux profiles are analysed using the Doubling–Adding KNMI (DAK) radiative transfer model. Values of the cloud optical thickness (COT) along the flight track were taken from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) Cloud Physical Properties (CPP) product. The impact of clouds on the actinic flux profile is evaluated on the basis of the cloud modification factor (CMF) at the cloud top and cloud base, which is the ratio between the actinic fluxes for cloudy and clear-sky scenes. The impact of clouds on the actinic flux is clearly detected: the largest enhancement occurs at the cloud top due to multiple scattering. The actinic flux decreases almost linearly from cloud top to cloud base. Above the cloud top the actinic flux also increases compared to clear-sky scenes. We find that clouds can increase the actinic flux to 2.3 times the clear-sky value at cloud top and decrease it to about 0.05 at cloud base. The relationship between CMF and COT agrees well with DAK simulations, except for a few outliers. Good agreement is found between the DAK-simulated actinic flux profiles and the observations for single-layer clouds in fully overcast scenes. The instrument is suitable for operational balloon measurements because of its simplicity and low cost. It is worth further developing the instrument and launching it together with atmospheric chemistry composition sensors.


As part of the prototyping effort for the preparedness module (PM) of the Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system that IBM developed for five U.S. federal agencies, we designed and implemented an optimization model for determining budgets necessary for managing wildland fires during the initial response period. For a given budget, the model uses a mixed-integer linear optimization approach to maximize the number of acres managed ('i.e., land protected from fire damage as a result of the initial response). The model is solved iteratively to establish a function that maps best achievable effectiveness, in terms of acres managed, at different budget levels. To handle the computationally prohibitive size of the resulting model instances, we devised a heuristic-based solution approach, and we reformulated the client's original model by switching to a continuous time domain and introducing piecewise-linearized functions. As a result, we not only built a tractable model, but also succeeded in delivering a performance speedup of more than 150 fold. We also conducted validation experiments for certain assumptions in the model to assess their impact on the solution quality.