Assessment of disease incidence and severity at farm scale or in agronomic trials is frequently performed based on visual crop inspection, which is a labor intensive task prone to errors associated with its subjectivity. Therefore, alternative methods to relate disease incidence and severity with changes in crop traits are of great interest. Optical imagery in the visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) can potentially be used to detect changes in crop traits caused by pathogen development. Also, cameras on-board of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have flexible data collection capabilities allowing adjustments considering the trade-off between data throughput and its resolution. However, studies focusing on the use of UAV imagery to describe changes in crop traits related to disease infection are still lacking. More specifically, evaluation of late blight (Phytophthora infestans) incidence in potato concerning early discrimination of different disease severity levels has not been extensively reported. In this article, the description of spectral changes related to the development of potato late blight under low disease severity levels is performed using sub-decimeter UAV optical imagery. The main objective was to evaluate the sensitivity of the data acquired regarding early changes in crop traits related to disease incidence. For that, UAV images were acquired on four dates during the growing season (from 37 to 78 days after planting), before and after late blight was detected in the field. The spectral variability observed in each date was summarized using Simplex Volume Maximization (SiVM), and its relationship with experimental treatments (different crop systems) and disease severity levels (evaluated by visual assessment) was determined based on pixel-wise log-likelihood ratio (LLR) calculation. Using this analytical framework it was possible to identify considerable spectral changes related to late blight incidence in different treatments and also to disease severity level as low as between 2.5 and 5.0% of affected leaf area. Comparison of disease incidence and spectral information acquired using UAV (with 4-5 cm of spatial resolution) and ground-based imagery (with 0.1-0.2 cm of spatial resolution) indicate that UAV data allowed identification of patterns comparable to those described by ground-based images, despite some differences concerning the distribution of affected areas detected within the sampling units and an attenuation in the signal measured. Finally, although aggregated information at sampling unit level provided discriminative potential for higher levels of disease development, focusing on spectral information related to disease occurrence increased the discriminative potential of the data acquired.


Abstract During the final quarter of the nineteenth century, black members of the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church published a steady stream of anti-Mormonism in their weekly newspaper, the widely read and distributed Southwestern Christian Advocate. This anti-Mormonism functioned as way for black ME Church members to articulate their denomination's distinctive racial ideology. Black ME Church members believed that their racially mixed denomination, imperfect though it was, offered the best model for advancing black citizens toward equality in both the Christian church and the American nation. Mormons, as a religious group who separated themselves in both identity and practice and as a community experiencing persecution, were a useful negative example of the dangers of abandoning the ME quest for inclusion. Black ME Church members emphasized their Christian faithfulness and American patriotism, in contrast to Mormon religious heterodoxy and political insubordination, as arguments for acceptance as equals in both religious and political institutions. At the same time, anti-Mormon rhetoric also proved a useful tool for reflecting on the challenges of African American life, regardless of denominational affiliation. For example, anti-polygamy opened space to comment on the precarious position of black women and families in the post-bellum South. In addition, cataloguing Mormon intellectual, moral, and social deficiencies became a form of instruction in the larger project of black uplift, by which African Americans sought to enter the ranks and privileges of the American middle class. In the end, however, black ME Church members found themselves increasingly segregated within their denomination and in society at large, even as Mormons, once considered both racially and religiously inferior, were welcomed into the nation as citizens and equals.


Most contemporary work on public spheres tends to adopt, either explicitly or implicitly, Habermas's idea of a deliberative public sphere as a normative model. There are, however, a number of other normative models available that are rarely the subject of empirical scrutiny: republican, liberal and multicultural. This article poses the empirical question of whether actually existing public spheres more closely resemble one model rather than another. To answer this question, the authors develop ways to measure public spheres, at both national and transnational level. They ground this attempt to move comparative media analysis forward conceptually and empirically via a case study comparing media content about the EU Constitution in six countries.


Comparative studies of gate oxides on a N+ pre-implanted area (Ninterface ~1x1019cm-3) and on a virgin Si face 4H-SiC material (Ninterface ~1x1016cm-3) have been undertaken by means of Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) characteristics, performed at different temperatures and frequencies, and Thermal Dielectric Relaxation Current technique. In the non implanted samples, the stretch out of the C-V curves get larger as the temperature is lowered to 150K, while for lower temperatures the C-V characteristics become steeper and some discontinuities occur. These discontinuities are specific for the non-implanted sample and are associated with charging of the fast near interface states (NIToxfast) via a tunneling from the shallow interface states (Dit). The tunneling from the shallow Dit to NIToxfast supress the a.c. response of Dit, which is recovered only after most of the NIToxfast are charged with electrons.


Ultrafast laser-induced refractive index changes in a-SiO2 consist, depending on the irradiation conditions, of either positive variations, voids, or regular nanoscale patterns, each of these underlying specific structural transformations. These allow for obtaining a large palette of optical functions ranging from low loss guiding to anisotropic scattering. While briefly reviewing the excitation mechanisms, we spectroscopically interrogate local electronic and structural transformations of the glass in the isotropic index zones and in the regular self-organized nanostructures, indicating bond breaking and matrix oxygen deficiency. A spatial defect segregation marks the material transformation in the different photoinscription regimes. We equally propose a method of real time control of nanogratings formation under the action of ultrashort laser pulse with variable envelopes. Application as polarizing optical devices is discussed.


IfIf you were to pick up and dissect any living organism from anywhere around the globe, you would undoubtedly find at least one other species inside of it—a symbiont, often a parasite. This ubiquity makes it clear that the way these passengers interact with their living habitats is key to understanding many aspects of life, primarily, the health and the well-being of free-living host species [1]. Like most animals, humans are replete with a large variety of symbiotic species, including parasites, which have plagued them since their origins and across their evolutionary history. No less than 179 species of parasites (eukaryotes) have been shown to parasitize Homo sapiens sapiens. Most of these can also parasitize other animals, but 35 of these infect only humans [2].

Kaplan EH (2010) What's Eating You? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 320p. ISBN 978-0-691-14140-4 (hardback). US$26.95.

The vast majority of people are disgusted by parasites for obvious reasons. The idea that something is eating you is rather unpleasant. Beyond the purely psychological aversion, most infections are accompanied by a cortege of effects detrimental to your health. Some effects, like itchiness around the anus, are minor and disappear with the parasite on treatment, while others, from tuberculosis to elephantiasis, can cause great suffering and even death. Fully aware of such possible fates, people the world over naturally wonder about the parasites themselves: how do they cause infection? Are there risky behaviours that increase my chances of acquiring an infection? Which parasites do I need to be aware of whilst on holiday? What are my chances of recovery once infected and how a long will recovery take? Plenty of books, pamphlets, and websites address such questions, but Eugene Kaplan's book What's Eating You?, published earlier this year, gives us a unique and fresh perspective. And, as the title suggests, it's fun to read.

Kaplan is obviously fascinated by the world of parasites. Having spent much of his adult life travelling, encountering a wide variety of ecosystems, he has crossed paths with many different parasite species, and on more than one occasion has acquired infections himself! What's Eating You? is an easy-to-read book in which Kaplan recounts several of his adventures with parasites, titillating the curiosity of the reader with their "gross" vital statistics and often with subtle humour. Following a brief introduction defining symbiotic relationships (mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism), the book proceeds through a succession of 30 exciting true stories each with a focus on a different parasite, many devoted to human parasites. Kaplan also addresses extraordinary phenomena that capture the imagination, such as when parasites manipulate host behaviour leading to host suicide, or when brood parasites like cuckoos, force magpies to raise their chicks through a mafia-like strategy. Kaplan provides us with an elegant work combining instances of everyday life with a rich understanding of the natural history of symbiotic relationships that surround us or work within us.

Even those with "First World" lifestyles who consider parasites a distant problem, the book provides a reality check of their proximity plus many "tasty" and amusing anecdotes for conversations around (or best kept from) the dinner table. Among them we learn how Kaplan discovered that even men could give birth when he released an ascaris worm in the toilet. For those who already have a solid framework of knowledge of parasites, I believe that his informal approach will be well appreciated. Overall, I enjoyed this book considerably. For me it provides an excellent and comprehensive background that is both erudite and easily digestible.

For parasitologists, this book contains little new data per se, but the information concerning the biology of symbiotic organisms and their interactions with their hosts is relevant and accurate. Kaplan not only brings to view the importance and ubiquity of the parasitic world to a general audience, his text clearly invites curious readers to further explore each host–parasite relationship presented. Throughout he integrates evolutionary principles with those of parasitology, ecology, epidemiology, and behavioural ecology. The book contains neither photographs nor diagrams but is beautifully illustrated with drawings.

And so, to whom would I refer this book? To anyone, from students to travellers, as long as they have a passing interest in learning about the parasites that surround us, especially those that infect humans. This book is well adapted for an introductory parasitology course, as it presents a large spectrum of the most popular parasites (Leishmania, Trypanosoma, Plasmodium, Ascaris, Onchocerca, Anisakis, Schistosoma, etc.) and is easy to follow without specialized knowledge. It will serve as a useful anecdotal resource for teachers. In this context, however, the very short list of selected references provided is somewhat frustrating and certain references are very old and likely difficult to access.

The greatest strength of this book lies in its personal touch—it is a first-hand account of Kaplan's experience in the field. As biology students know, most textbooks on the biology of parasites are somewhat dry because they are encyclopaedically descriptive and emotionless. With Kaplan, the reader is being transported through real life experiences, evoking our morbid fascination with matters wormy and faecal. As expressed by Kaplan, "reality is the foundation of learning and students are currently starved for reality." I share this point of view. Through all manner of disgusting and even frightening details, Kaplan makes attractive and easy to follow what is usually soporific in other books.


A well preserved Cretaceous radiolarian fauna was recovered from the Sistan Suture zone (eastern Iran). This radiolarian fauna was obtained from the red argilaceous cherts and green-grey cherts that distributed in the ophiolite unit. It is regarded as representative of the Early Cretaceous assemblage in the oceanic basin created by the opening of the two blocks (Afghan and Lut) during the Cretaceous time. During the Early Cretaceous, an extensive sedimentation of radiolarian-rich facies occured in this region. Two radiolarian assemblages are determined: Assemblage I (composed of about 15 species which represent the early Aptian), and Assemblage II (characterized by the occurrence of about 32 species). The cryptothoracic Nassellaria correspond to Holocryptocanium barbui Dumitrica, 1970, Dorypyle communis (Squinabol, 1903), etc. The cryptocephalic Nasselaria is only confined to Diacanthocapsa cf. ovoidea Dumitrica, 1970. The spumellarian genera are Dactyliodiscus cf. lenticulatus (Jud, 1994), Pseudoaulophacus sp., etc. The study of the radiolarites provides new data for dating the primary opening between two blocks. It is proposed that the oceanic opening of the two blocks occurred prior to the early Aptian.


Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore how and when customers influence organizational climate and organizational health through their feedback. Based on affective events theory, the authors classify both positive and negative customer feedback (PCF and NCF) as affective work events. The authors expect that these events influence the positive affective climate of an organization and ultimately organizational health, and that the relationships are moderated by empowerment climate.

Design/methodology/approach

– Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze survey data obtained from a sample of 178 board members, 80 HR representatives, and 10,953 employees from 80 independent organizations.

Findings

– The findings support the expected indirect effects. Furthermore, empowerment climate strengthened the impact of PCF on organizational health but does not affect the relationship between NCF and organizational health.

Research limitations/implications

– The cross-sectional design is a potential limitation of the study.

Practical implications

– Managers should be aware that customer feedback influences an organization's emotional climate and organizational health. Based on the results organizations might actively disseminate PCF and establish an empowerment climate. With regard to NCF, managers might consider the potential affective and health-related consequences for employees and organizations.

Social implications

– Customers are able to contribute to an organization's positive affective climate and to organizational health if they provide positive feedback to organizations.

Originality/value

– By providing first insights into the consequences of both PCF and NCF on organizational health, this study opens a new avenue for scientific inquiry of customer influences on employees at the organizational level.


Between 1806 and 1814, around 60,000 Dutch troops traversed half of Europe in the name of Napoleon. At the time of the Kingdom of Holland (1806-1810), they did so as allies of France, and later, during the French annexation (1810-1814), as an integral part of the French army. In 1811, conscription was introduced on the orders of Napoleon, in a country which until then always had a volunteer army. Under the French flag, Dutch troops fought in Prussia, Spain, Poland and Russia, with varied success. Despite these impressive numbers, the military efforts of the Dutch in the 1806-1814 period have hardly been recognized today.The Dutch army during the Napoleonic era has been given relatively little attention in Dutch historiography over the last two centuries. Most of the military-historical studies about the Dutch army date back to the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century. These old publications give the impression that Napoleon was in full control and that the Dutch had no influence whatsoever. This view of the Dutch army as an extension of the French army is in line with the image of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era in the Netherlands that has been long-held by general historiography. According to this view, the Dutch showed very little initiative and slavishly danced to the tune of powerful France. However, in recent years this classic narrative has been seriously challenged.Various probing studies have demonstrated that the Dutch were much more rebellious than previously thought and did not simply allow the French to lay down the law when it came to culture, the legal system, politics and society in the 1795-1814 period. Building on this revisionist trend, this book investigates whether the old view of the Dutch army during this period is also due for review. Were the Dutch troops more independent and less submissive in military terms than the prominent military historians claimed over one hundred years ago, or is this too simple a conclusion? In Sous les armes, this main question is researched on three complementary levels. Firstly, research was conducted into the manner in which Dutch defense policy was established during this period and the extent to which Louis and his ministers and generals could take decisions regarding the organization of the army. Secondly, research was conducted into who had the final say when Dutch troops were actually deployed and whether there was a difference between military action at home and abroad with regard to control. Thirdly, efforts were made to gain insight into the attitudes of the officers and men in order to understand what motivated them and whether, following the French annexation in 1810, they felt Dutch, or perhaps more French after all.


The authors estimate inter-industry wage differentials using the Bureau of Labor Statistics's National Compensation Survey (NCS) dataset. The NCS dataset has a number of distinct advantages over household survey datasets typically used for this purpose, in part because its establishment data contain information on job content and more accurate measures of industry and occupation. The authors find that controlling for job functions substantially lowers inter-industry wage variation. To the extent that job function proxies for productivity, a substantial portion of inter-industry wage variation may be explained by worker sorting on (observed) ability.


We introduce the M-Modes problem for graphical models: predicting the M label configurations of highest probability that are at the same time local maxima of the probability landscape. M-Modes have multiple possible applications: because they are intrinsically diverse, they provide a principled alternative to non-maximum suppression techniques for structured prediction, they can act as codebook vectors for quantizing the configuration space, or they can form component centers for mixture model approximation. We present two algorithms for solving the MModes problem. The first algorithm solves the problem in polynomial time when the underlying graphical model is a simple chain. The second algorithm solves the problem for junction chains. In synthetic and real dataset, we demonstrate how M-Modes can improve the performance of prediction. We also use the generated modes as a tool to understand the topography of the probability distribution of configurations, for example with relation to the training set size and amount of noise in the data.


Recent studies of stratiform copper mineralization in the Redstone copperbelt of the NW Territories, Canada, indicate analogies with sediments of modern intertidal and supratidal environments. Textural analyses show that mineralization occurred in microbial-laminated carbonate units during diagenesis following initial enrichment of the carbonates in iron sulphides and evaporitic sulphates. Similar features have been described for the dolomitic beds hosting the well-known Kamoto ores of the Shaban copperbelt. The present work gives a brief comparison of the Redstone and Shaban host-rocks and their mineralization. Similarities include the interpreted shallow marine/red-bed sequence and the presence of stromatolitic and microbial-laminated structures in the carbonates. However, the Shaban host-rocks are more magnesian than those at Redstone, and silicification in Shaba surpasses the more normal diagenetic silification seen at Redstone. The copper, copper-iron and iron sulphides of Redstone and Shaba exhibit similar peneconcordant arrays across their respective basal carbonate horizons, but cobalt is important only in the Shaban mineralization. A more detailed comparison of host-rocks and mineralization in these two copperbelts is currently in progress.


Background Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is very common. Salivary pepsin detection has previously been considered as a method for GERD diagnosis. We performed a meta-analysis to investigate the utility of salivary pepsin assay as a diagnostic tool of GERD. Material/Methods PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochran Library, and EMBASE (from January 1980 to 23 October 2018) were searched for pepsin in saliva for GERD diagnosis. We summarized the retrieved specificity, sensitivity, negative likelihood ratio (NLR), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves data in the meta-analysis. Results In final analysis, a total of 5 studies were included. The summary sensitivity, specificity, NLR, and PLR were 0.60 (95% CI 0.41–0.76), 0.71 (95% CI 0.51–0.86), 0.56 (95% CI 0.34–0.93), and 2.1 (95% CI 1.1–4.1), respectively. The pooled DOR was 4 (95% CI 1.0–11.0) and area under the ROC was 0.70 (95% CI 0.66–0.74). Conclusions The meta-analysis showed that pepsin in saliva has moderate diagnostic value for GERD, and is not as helpful as previously thought.


Feature Issue on Optical Code Division Multiple AccessTwo-dimensional wavelength-hopping/time-spreading synchronous optical code-division multiplexing systems using a heterodyne detection receiver and pulse-position modulation (PPM) signaling are investigated. Prime sequences are used as signature code for both wavelength hopping and time spreading. Performance of the proposed systems is theoretically analyzed taking into account various kinds of noise and interference, including multiple access interference, optical beating interference, crosstalk, and receiver noise. We also compare the performance of the proposed systems with the conventional ones using ON-OFF keying signaling. Numerical results show the improvement in both number of users and optical power gain with a proper selection of PPM word length M.


The physical properties of galactic cirrus emission are not well characterized. BOOMERanG is a balloon-borne experiment designed to study the cosmic microwave background at high angular resolution in the millimeter range. The BOOMERanG 245 and 345 GHz channels are sensitive to interstellar signals, in a spectral range intermediate between FIR and microwave frequencies. We look for physical characteristics of cirrus structures in a region at high galactic latitudes (b ∼ −40°) where BOOMERanG performed its deepest integration, combining the BOOMERanG data with other available data sets at different wavelengths. We have detected eight emission patches in the 345 GHz map, consistent with cirrus dust in the Infrared Astronomical Satellite maps. The analysis technique we have developed allows us to identify the location and the shape of cirrus clouds, and to extract the flux from observations with different instruments at different wavelengths and angular resolutions. We study the integrated flux emitted from these cirrus clouds using data from Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), DIRBE, BOOMERanG and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe in the frequency range 23–3000 GHz (13 mm–100 μm wavelength). We fit the measured spectral energy distributions with a combination of a gray body and a power-law spectra considering two models for the thermal emission. The temperature of the thermal dust component varies in the 7–20 K range and its emissivity spectral index is in the 1–5 range. We identified a physical relation between temperature and spectral index as had been proposed in previous works. This technique can be proficiently used for the forthcoming Planck and Herschel missions data.


UNLABELLED
Conserved intron positions in eukaryotic genes can be used to reconstruct phylogenetic trees, to resolve ambiguous subfamily relationships in protein families and to infer the history of gene families. This version of GenePainter facilitates working with large datasets through options to select specific subsets for analysis and visualization, and through providing exhaustive statistics. GenePainter's application in phylogenetic analyses is considerably extended by the newly implemented integration of the exon-intron pattern conservation with phylogenetic trees.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
The software along with detailed documentation is available at http://www.motorprotein.de/genepainter and as Supplementary Material.

CONTACT
email@example.com

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Yoshiro thinks he might never die. A hundred years old and counting, he is one of Japan's many 'old-elderly'; men and women who remember a time before the air and the sea were poisoned, before terrible catastrophe promted Japan to shut itself off from the rest of the world. He may live for decades yet, but he knows his beloved great-grandson - born frail and prone to sickness - might not survive to adulthood. Day after day, it takes all of Yoshiro's sagacity to keep Mumei alive. As hopes for Japan's youngest generation fade, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure - might Yoshiro's great-grandson be the key to saving the last children of Tokyo?


When valuing risky prospects, people tend to overweight small probabilities and to underweight large probabilities. Nonlinear probability weighting has proven to be a robust empirical phenomenon and has been integrated in decision models, such as cumulative prospect theory. Based on a laboratory experiment with real monetary incentives, we show that incidental emotional states, such as preexisting good mood, have a significant effect on the shape of the probability weighting function, albeit only for women. Women in a better than normal mood tend to exhibit mood-congruent behavior, i.e. they weight probabilities of gains and losses relatively more optimistically. Meni?½s probability weights are not responsive to mood state. We find that the application of a mechanical decision criterion, such as the maximization of expected value, immunizes men against effects of incidental emotions. 40% of the male participants indeed report applying expected values as decision criterion. Only a negligible number of women do so.


This paper comments on lockouts in Australia and Briggs' (2004a) study of lockouts published in the Australian Bulletin of Labour June 2004. It seeks to look at Briggs findings in a broader historical context, by noting that recent past levels of disputes are a small fraction of the level of disputation during (say) the 1970s, and that lockouts, though more prevalent during the half-decade ended 2003, are an even smaller fraction of the disputation levels that prevailed on average during the 1970s. Briggs study focuses on the manufacturing sector, as this sector has, according to his research findings, been the most lockout-prone. As an addendum to Briggs focus on manufacturing, this paper draws attention to the non-manufacturing sector, which accounts for more than 85 per cent of Australian employees. It is noted that working days lost due to lockouts in this sector have decreased during the half-decade ended 2003 when compared to the preceding half-decade. Indeed, the decline in lockouts in the non-manufacturing sector during the half-decade ended 2003 exceeds the decline in strikes.


Purpose: RPE lysosomal dysfunction is a major contributor to AMD pathogenesis. Controlled activity of a major class of RPE proteinases, the cathepsins, is crucial in maintaining correct lysosomal function. Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) accumulate in the Bruch's membrane (BM) with age, impacting critical RPE functions and in turn, contributing to the development of AMD. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of AGEs on lysosomal function by analysing the expression, processing and activity of the cysteine proteinases cathepsins B, L and S, and the aspartic proteinase cathepsin D. Methods: ARPE-19 cells were cultured on AGE-containing BM mimics (matrigel) for 14 days and compared to untreated substrate. Expression levels and intracellular processing of cathepsins B, D, L and S, were assessed by qPCR and immunoblotting of cell lysates. Lysosomal activity was investigated using multiple activity assays specific to each of the analysed cathepsins. Statistical analysis was performed using the Student's independent T-test. Results: AGE exposure produced a 36% decrease in cathepsin L activity when compared to non-treated controls (p=0.02, n= 3) although no significant changes were observed in protein expression/processing under these conditions. Both the pro and active forms of cathepsin S decreased by 40% (p=0.04) and 74% (p=0.004), respectively (n=3). In contrast, the active form of the cathepsin D increased by 125% (p=0.005, n= 4). However, no changes were observed in the activity levels of both cathepsins S and D. In addition, cathepsin B expression, processing and activity also remained unaltered following AGE exposure. Conclusions: AGEs accumulation in the extracellular matrix, a phenomenon associated with the natural aging process of the BM, attenuates the expression, intracellular processing and activity of specific lysosomal effectors. Altered enzymatic function may impair important lysosomal processes such as endocytosis, autophagy and phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segments, each of which may influence the age-related dysfunction of the RPE and subsequently, AMD pathogenesis.


In a reverberant enclosure, acoustic speech signals are degraded by reflections from walls, ceilings, and objects. Restoring speech quality and intelligibility from reverberated speech has received increasing interest over the past few years. Although multiple channel dereverberation methods provide some improvements in speech quality/intelligibility, single-channel dereverberation remains an open challenge. Two types of advanced single-channel dereverberation methods, namely acoustic domain spectral subtraction and modulation domain filtering, provide small improvement in speech quality and intelligibility. In this thesis, we study single-channel dereverberation algorithms. Firstly, an upper bound of time-frequency masking (TFM) performance for dereverberation is obtained using ideal time-frequency masking (ITFM). ITFM has access to both the clean and reverberated speech signals in estimating the binary-mask matrix. ITFM implements binary masking in the short time Fourier transform (STFT) domain, preserving only those spectral components less corrupted by reverberation. The experiment results show that single-channel ITFM outperforms four existing multi-channel dereverberation methods and suggest that large potential improvements could be obtained using TFM for speech dereverberation. Secondly, a novel modulation domain spectral subtraction method is proposed i for dereverberation. This method estimates modulation domain long reverberation spectral variance (LRSV) from time domain LRSV using a statistical room impulse response (RIR) model and implements spectral subtraction in the modulation domain. On one hand, different from acoustic domain spectral subtraction, our method implements spectral subtraction in the modulation domain, which has been shown to play an important role in speech perception. On the other hand, different from modulation domain filtering which uses a time-invariant filter, our method takes the changes of reverberated speech spectral variance along time into account and implements spectral subtraction adaptively. Objective and informal subjective tests show that our proposed method outperforms two existing state-of-the-art single-channel dereverberation algorithms.


ABSTRACT This study investigated the influence of relationship adjustment on the association between police distress and police trauma disclosure to partners. One hundred and three Victorian police officers and their intimate partners completed measures assessing trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology (PCL), and relationship characteristics (FAM-III-Dyadic Relationships Scale). Partners also completed a 32-item instrument assessing characteristics of disclosure--inhibition, negative, and positive emotional disclosure, as well as causal, and insight disclosure--pertaining to the most upsetting event experienced by their police officer spouse at work. Results indicated that officers were more likely to disclose negative emotions when the level of traumatic stress was elevated, especially if their partners do not solve problems effectively or demonstrate resiliency, but nevertheless exhibit consistency, predictability and flexibility. In addition, officers were more likely to withhold information when their traumatic stress was pronounced, particularly they shared concordant values and norms with their partner. These findings reflect the complexity of traumatic stress, relationship functioning and disclosure and the heterogeneity of interactions between these phenomena. Future research warranted to clarify these associations. People speak to others about their emotional reactions to upsetting experiences, and this behaviour increases concomitantly with the degree of disruptiveness of the event (Luminet, Bouts, Delie, Manstead, & Rim e, 2000; Rim e, Philippot, Boca, & Mesquita, 1992), except when shame and guilt are involved (Finkenauer & Rime, 1998). Over the past two decades a considerable body of research has demonstrated a range of positive physical and psychological health benefits from induced written or verbal disclosure of traumatic experiences (see reviews by Frisina, Borod, & Lepore, 2004; Smyth, 1998) for healthy individuals (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988; Petrie, Booth, Pennebaker, Davison, & Thomas, 1995), patients with chronic illnesses (Petrie, Fontanilla, Thomas, Booth, & Pennebaker, 2004; Smyth, Stone, Hurewitz, & Kaell, 1999), as well as marginalized individuals (de Vicente, Munoz, Perez-Santos, & Santos-Olmo, 2004; Richards, Beal, Seagal, & Pennebaker, 2000). Certain characteristics of disclosure have been observed as relevant to positive outcomes. Emotional expression is necessary, but insufficient, for health benefits. Furthermore, use of cognitive words, indicative of reflection and insight, and enabling a coherent restructuring of the traumatic memories have been associated with greater health benefits (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986; Pennebaker & Francis, 1996). Several theories have been proposed to explain the health benefits of the expressive writing paradigm: inhibition-confrontation (Pennebaker, 1989), cognitive adaptation (Park & Blumberg, 2002; Smyth, True, & Souto, 2001), and exposure/ emotional processing (Sloan & Marx, 2004). Yet, none of these accounts has convincingly explained its utility in all circumstances, possibly because the technique operates on multiple levels: cognitive, emotional, social, and biological (Pennebaker, 2004). For example, although recent findings by Sloan, Marx, and Epstein (2005) support the exposure/emotional processing model, which posits that repeated exposure to traumatic memories--through disclosure--induces high emotional arousal that gradually habituates over subsequent sessions, the authors acknowledge that other mechanisms--such as cognitive restructuring--may operate simultaneously. However, testing more than one mechanism simultaneously is problematic, because the various manipulations might interact with one another and complicate interpretations. Fewer studies have examined naturalistic disclosure, and the findings have been equivocal. …


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the impact of prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) on the specific receptor LGR8 of insulin-like factor 3 (INSL3) in the mouse gubernaculum testis, and that of exoestrogens on descensus testis in mice.

METHODS
A total of 120 pregnant KM mice aged 8 to 10 weeks were assigned to a normal, a blank control and 4 DES groups of equal number, the blank controls injected subcutaneously with dimethyl sulfoxide plus normal saline, and the DES groups with DES at 0.1, 1, 10 and 100 microg/kg body weight, respectively, from embryonic day 9 (ED9) through ED17. Immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR were used to detect the expressions of LGR8 protein and mRNA in the gubernaculum testis of the ED18 fetuses and PND20 (postnatal day 20) offspring of the mice.

RESULTS
Histological analysis showed that the gubernaculum testis of the ED18 fetuses were well developed in both the normal and control groups, with an inner mesenchymal core and muscular outer layer. In contrast, the gubernaculum testis were poorly developed in the experimental groups, morphologically abnormal and without visible dividing line between the mesenchymal tissue and the muscular outer layer. No obvious differences were found in the gubernaculum testis development of the neonates between the normal and experimental groups. Positive immunostaining was seen in the mesenchymal core and muscular outer layer, but mainly in the latter. The expression of LGR8 was weaker in the experimental groups than in the normal group (P < 0.05), but that of LGR8 mRNA was increased in the high-dose (10 and 100 microg/kg) DES groups (P < 0.05). No obvious mutations were observed in the PCR products in any of the experimental groups.

CONCLUSION
Prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol affected the expression of LGR8 mRNA in the mouse gubernaculum testis, which suggests that diethylstilbestrol may induce cryptorchidism by interfering with the INSL3-LGR8 signaling system and consequently the development of the gubernaculum testis.


Two important questions concerning the coordination of development effort are which bugs to fix first and how long it takes to fix them. In this paper we investigate empirically the relationships between bug report attributes and the time to fix. The objective is to compute prediction models that can be used to recommend whether a new bug should and will be fixed fast or will take more time for resolution. We examine in detail if attributes of a bug report can be used to build such a recommender system. We use decision tree analysis to compute and 10-fold cross validation to test prediction models. We explore prediction models in a series of empirical studies with bug report data of six systems of the three open source projects Eclipse, Mozilla, and Gnome. Results show that our models perform significantly better than random classification. For example, fast fixed Eclipse Platform bugs were classified correctly with a precision of 0.654 and a recall of 0.692. We also show that the inclusion of postsubmission bug report data of up to one month can further improve prediction models.


Herding and kernel herding are deterministic methods of choosing samples which summarise a probability distribution. A related task is choosing samples for estimating integrals using Bayesian quadrature. We show that the criterion minimised when selecting samples in kernel herding is equivalent to the posterior variance in Bayesian quadrature. We then show that sequential Bayesian quadrature can be viewed as a weighted version of kernel herding which achieves performance superior to any other weighted herding method. We demonstrate empirically a rate of convergence faster than O(1/N). Our results also imply an upper bound on the empirical error of the Bayesian quadrature estimate.


This article reports the findings of a scientometric analysis of South Africa's research performance during the period 2000–2010. A multitude of government incentives were introduced during the period and their effects have appeared in the country's research outputs. In contrast to earlier investigations, it was found that South Africa's world share of publications is on the verge of reaching the highest contribution ever. South Africa improved its international ranking by two positions during 2000–2010 and was ranked 33rd in the world during 2010. It is argued that, provided the plan of the Minister of Science and Technology to increase the research and development expenditure in the country materialises, South Africa may be on the verge of a scientific renaissance.


Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a popular rhythm-based video game. Players perform steps on a dance platform in synchronization with music as directed by on-screen step charts. While many step charts are available in standardized packs, players may grow tired of existing charts, or wish to dance to a song for which no chart exists. We introduce the task of learning to choreograph. Given a raw audio track, the goal is to produce a new step chart. This task decomposes naturally into two subtasks: deciding when to place steps and deciding which steps to select. For the step placement task, we combine recurrent and convolutional neural networks to ingest spectrograms of low-level audio features to predict steps, conditioned on chart difficulty. For step selection, we present a conditional LSTM generative model that substantially outperforms n-gram and fixed-window approaches.


This document specifies the requirements and uses cases for some optional administrative operations for use with the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) version 1.0 and version 1.1. Some of these administrative operations operate on the IPP Job and Printer objects. The remaining operations operate on a new Device object that more closely models a single output device.


A `new' wave of immigration is challenging our assumptions and understanding of immigrant social integration, family organization and well-being, and mobility. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to the development of new conceptual models that are sensitive to the ecologies of today's immigrants who are predominantly people of color. This study extends current theorizing on immigrant adjustment and acculturation by focusing on a set of socio-structural factors that characterize the Mexican immigrant experience and their places of life. Specifically, the study tests an integrated conceptual model that examines the linkages among the neighborhood social environment, hardships associated with being an immigrant ethnic minority, parental distress, parenting practices, and adolescent internalizing and externalizing. The study further examines if the hypothesized associations vary by neighborhood ethnic concentration. Several important findings emerged from the study. Social cohesion was associated with financial hardship and difficulties with English, and in turn, financial hardship was associated with parental distress. Although perceived discrimination was not significantly associated with neighborhood social capital it was consistently associated with parental distress - and directly with adolescent externalizing behaviors. The study also found that parental distress was associated with parental supervision of adolescent children, and parental supervision was negatively associated with internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. An examination of the moderating effect of neighborhood ethnic concentration showed that the relative influence of neighborhood social capital and/or family on adolescent adjustment varied depending on whether families lived in predominantly Latino neighborhoods or non-Latino neighborhoods. Specifically, parenting practices were directly associated with adolescent adjustment and enforceable trust was associated with adolescent internalizing behaviors, but only in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. The results further suggest that social cohesion and enforceable trust serve different purposes or yield different benefits depending on neighborhood ethnic concentration and the challenges and constraints of each environment. The results of the study have implications for research, policy, and practice.


It is often desirable to be able to guarantee the integrity of historical data, ensuring that any subsequent modifications to the data can be detected. It would be especially convenient to extend such proofs of integrity to certain computations performed later using the historic data. We approach this question in the context of outsourced databases, where a data owner delegates the ability to answer users' queries to a service provider, and distrustful users may desire to verify the integrity of responses to their queries on the data. We present a solution for integrity verification of database aggregate queries, such as SUM and MAX. We design proofs of correctness and completeness of aggregate results. What makes the problem challenging is that individual data entries may be sensitive (e.g. as in medical databases), and should not be revealed to the user. We give cryptographic protocols to support verification of query results in a privacy-preserving fashion.


The curriculum activity initiated during the 1960s to define the structure of
knowledge in physical education (Austin, 1965; Brown, 1967; Brown & Cassidy,
1963; Mackenzie, 1969; Pye & Alexander, 1971; Stanley, 1969; Tillotson,
1969; Ulrich & Nixon, 1972; Vogel, 1969) synthesized the philosophical curriculum
positions of the previous 80 years and provided direction for the future.
In 1963 the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation
began a 4-year sponsorship of the Curriculum Commission, which was responsible
for developing a conceptual framework for physical education and the research
project required for its validation (Aldrich, 1967). Concepts developed in this
project were later modified and expanded by Jewett and her associates (Jewett
& Mullan, 1977).


Participatory governance programs, which institutionalize government—civil society interactions through the promotion of public deliberation and decision making, are being adopted by local governments to harness a wide range of outcomes believed to be positively associated with citizens' and civil society organizations' active involvement in public life. This article draws from an original survey administered to 833 individuals elected to leadership positions in Brazil's municipal-level participatory budgeting program. Analysis of these data using a series of outcome variables and a set of individual- and municipal-level variables demonstrates that civil society organization (CSO) leaders now engage in direct negotiations with other CSOs, form alliances with other CSOs and carry these practices into other institutional venues, which helps to undercut traditional clientelistic practices while also empowering citizens and enhancing the quality of democracy. Further, citizens living in communities that directly benefit from public works won through participatory budgeting are empowered by credible state commitment. Citizens not directly affiliated with a CSO continue to rely on their direct connections to government officials, thus demonstrating that individuals' type of involvement in civil society has a significant impact on how participatory governance arrangements can affect basic state—society relationships.


We investigate the approximation properties of general polynomial preserving operators that approximate a function into some scaled subspace of L 2 via an appropriate sequence of inner products. In particular, we consider integer shift-invariant approximations such as those provided by splines and wavelets, as well as finite elements and multi-wavelets which use multiple generators. We estimate the approximation error as a function of the scale parameter T when the function to approximate is sufficiently regular. We then present a generalized sampling theorem, a result that is rich enough to provide tight bounds as well as asymptotic expansions of the approximation error as a function of the sampling step T. Another more theoretical consequence is the proof of a conjecture by Strang and Fix, which states the equivalence between the order of a multi-wavelet space and the order of a particular subspace generated by a single function. Finally, we consider refinable generating functions and use the two-scale relation to obtain explicit formulae for the coefficients of the asymptotic development of the error. The leading constants are easily computable and can be the basis for the comparison of the approximation power of wavelet and multi-wavelet expansions of a given order L. © 1999 Academic Press


The economic history of Panama during the 19th century is generally unknown in Colombia and its financial accounts present a puzzle which is difficult to unravel. This investigation contributes to the elucidation of both problems; taking into account demography, geography and fiscal accounts as they appear in the budges of the State of Panama. The subsidiary hypothesis is that the federalist system that Colombia chose between 1855 and 1886 constituted an acceptable modus vivendi between the Panamanian elites and the Colombian political center. The strategic interests of Panama, however, were growingly compromised by the centralist political system that was put in place through the 1886 Constitution. The failure of the French initiative to build the Canal, the Colombian civil war of 1899-1902 won by the conservatives and the rejection of the Herran-Hey treaty (which would have allowed the U.S. to build the canal) all combined to convince the Panamanian elite to abandon Colombia at the hands of the American Empire.


Physical processes, such as mesoscale eddies, play an important role in ocean mixing and concentrating biological productivity, which provides great feeding opportunities for many marine top predators. This study describes the presumed foraging behaviour of southern elephant seals Mirounga leonina within an intense eddy field along the Polar Front in relation to the physical features of the eddies targeted by foraging seals, especially in the vertical dimension. Combining satellite measurements and data from tags deployed on elephant seals, we showed that some seals (10 of 38) preferentially selected the edge of cyclonic structures, generally associated with a high eddy kinetic energy, during intensive foraging phases. Moreover, we observed that elephant seals dived deeper within cyclonic eddies compared with anti-cyclonic structures. The behaviour of seals well illustrates the function of the spin-up of cyclonic eddies, where the upwelling of nutrients occurs at the centre, and high productivity and high concentration of prey occur at the edge. Productivity, aggregation of resources and accessibility of prey associated with cyclonic eddies probably act together to determine the selection of these structures by foraging elephant seals. However, eddies are not the only favourable foraging habitat within the Polar Frontal Zone, and the identification of oceanographic conditions associated with these other foraging zones requires further work.


In vivo, alpha-crystallin and other small heat-shock proteins (sHsps) act as molecular chaperones to prevent the precipitation of 'substrate' proteins under stress conditions through the formation of a soluble sHsp-substrate complex. Using a range of different salt conditions, the rate and extent of precipitation of reduced alpha-lactalbumin have been altered. The interaction of alpha-crystallin with reduced alpha-lactalbumin under these various salt conditions was then studied using a range of spectroscopic techniques. Under conditions of low salt, alpha-lactalbumin aggregates but does not precipitate. alpha-Crystallin is able to prevent this aggregation, initially by stabilization of a monomeric molten-globule species of alpha-lactalbumin. It is proposed that this stabilization occurs through weak transient interactions between alpha-crystallin and alpha-lactalbumin. Eventually a stable, soluble high-molecular-mass complex is formed between the two proteins. Thus it appears that a tendency for alpha-lactalbumin to aggregate (but not necessarily precipitate) is the essential requirement for alpha-crystallin-alpha-lactalbumin interaction. In other words, alpha-crystallin interacts with a non-aggregated form of the substrate to prevent aggregation. The rate of precipitation of alpha-lactalbumin is increased significantly in the presence of Na2SO4 compared with NaCl. However, in the former case, alpha-crystallin is unable to prevent this aggregation and precipitation except in the presence of a large excess of alpha-crystallin, i.e. at mass ratios more than 10 times greater than in the presence of NaCl. It is concluded that a kinetic competition exists between aggregation and interaction of unfolding proteins with alpha-crystallin.


The results of a research that involves production and evaluation of a hypermedia about concept development of Modern Physics and the nature of Science are presented. The didactic proposal was based in Ausubel's Learning Theory, on orientations for the implementation of educational hypermedia systems and also took into account results of research in Science Teaching, such as, Science-Technology-Society, reflections on the pedagogical importance of the History and Philosophy of Science and considerations about Modern Physics insertion in high school. The hypermedia was evaluated by a group of Physics Teaching researchers and in training (for Physics Teaching) undergraduate students. After some of the suggestions made in this study were introduced in the system, it was tested with a group of third-year students of a public high school. The information obtained shows that the use of the computer was a motivating factor for the students. The diversity of elements of the software helped them to maintain interest in the content and also contributed to the visualization and interpretation of phenomena, thus, facilitating their reasoning. The hypermedia, structured in accordance with ausubelian principles, contributed to their perception of concepts relationships and helped them to develop subsumers to support their subsequent learning. The results show that this type of instruction facilitates the evolution of the conceptions most of the student held before, related to: the concept of mass-energy equivalence and its implications; the relationships between Science, Technology and Society and their environmental and political implications; the role of Ethics in the development and application of scientific knowledge and the evolution of Science.


With an introduction by David Braadshaw, Anthony Beavis is a man inclined to recoil from life. His past is haunted by the death of his best friend Brian and by his entanglement with the cynical and manipulative Mary Amberley. Realising that his determined detachment from the world has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice, Anthony attempts to find a new way to live. Eyeless in Gaza is considered by many to be Huxley's definitive work of fiction.


Blinding (masking): in an experimental study, refers to whether patients, clinicians providing an intervention, people assessing outcomes, and/or data analysts were aware or unaware of the group to which patients were assigned. In the design section of Evidence-Based Nursing abstracts of treatment studies, the study is identified as blinded, with specification of who was blinded; unblinded, if all parties were aware of patients' group assignments; or blinded (unclear) if the authors did not report or provide us with an indication of who was aware or unaware of patients' group assignments. Cluster randomisation: randomisation of groups of people rather than individuals; this approach is often used to avoid ''contamination'' when the way in which people in one group are treated or assessed is likely to modify the treatment or assessment of people in other groups. Concealment of randomisation: concealment of randomisation is specified in the design section of Evidence-Based Nursing abstracts of treatment studies as follows: allocation concealed (deemed to have taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial [ie, central randomisation; sequentially numbered, opaque, sealed envelopes; sealed envelopes from a closed bag; numbered or coded bottles or containers; drugs prepared by the pharmacy; or other descriptions that contain elements convincing of concealment]); allocation not concealed (deemed to have not taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial [ie, no concealment procedure was undertaken, sealed envelopes that were not opaque or were not sequentially numbered, or other descriptions that contained elements not convincing of concealment]); unclear allocation concealment (the authors did not report or provide a description of an allocation concealment approach that allowed for the classification as concealed or not concealed). Confidence interval(CI): quantifies the uncertainty in measurement; usually reported as 95% CI, which is the range of values within which we can be 95% sure that the true value for the whole population lies. Diagnostic (gold or criterion) standard: the current best available measure of an outcome; used for assessing properties of a new diagnostic or screening test. The results from a new test are compared with the results from the diagnostic standard to assess the usefulness of the new test (ie, its sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios). Ethnography (ethnographic study): an approach to inquiry that focuses on the culture or subculture of a group of people, with an effort to understand the world view of those under study. Hazard ratio: the weighted relative risk over the entire study period; often reported in the context of survival analysis. Intention to treat analysis(ITT): all patients are analysed in the groups to which they were randomised, even if they failed to complete the intervention or received the wrong intervention. Likelihood ratio (for positive and negative results): a way of summarising the findings of a study of a diagnostic test for use in clinical situations where there may be differences in the prevalence of the disease. The likelihood ratio for a positive test is the likelihood that a positive test result comes from a person that really does have the disorder rather than one that does not have the disorder [sensitivity/ (12specificity)]. The likelihood ratio for a negative test is the likelihood that a negative test result comes from a person with the disorder rather than one without the disorder [(12sensitivity)/specificity]. Number needed to harm (NNH): number of patients who, if they received the experimental treatment, would lead to 1 additional person being harmed compared with patients who receive the control treatment; this is calculated as 1/absolute risk increase (rounded to the next whole number), accompanied by the 95% confidence interval. Number needed to treat(NNT): number of patients who need to be treated to prevent 1 additional negative event (or to promote 1 additional positive event); this is calculated as 1/absolute risk reduction (rounded to the next whole number), accompanied by the 95% confidence interval. Relative benefit increase(RBI): the proportional increase in the rates of good events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative risk increase (RRI): the proportional increase in bad outcomes between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative risk reduction(RRR): the proportional reduction in bad outcomes between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Sensitivity: a measure of a diagnostic test's ability to correctly detect a disorder when it is present in a sample of people. Specificity: a measure of a diagnostic test's ability to correctly identify the absence of a disorder in a sample of people who do not have the disorder. Standardised mean difference: in a systematic review, a way of combining the results of studies that may have measured the outcome (eg, pain) in different ways, using different scales; effects are expressed as a standard value, with no units (difference between 2 means / estimate of within-group standard deviation). Weighted mean difference: in a meta-analysis, used to combine outcomes measured on continuous scales (eg, height), assuming that all trials measured the outcome on the same scale; the mean, standard deviation, and sample size of each group are known, and weight given to each trial is determined by the precision of its estimate of effect.


This Note proposes that the Washington State Legislature amend its Public Records Act to exempt from public disclosure personal information legally required to be disclosed by signers of referendum petitions. This Note also proposes that the Washington State Legislature designate an electronic system, to be detailed in its election law, by which referendum petitions can be checked for fraud without violating the right to anonymous expression protected by the First Amendment. Part I describes Washington State's referendum process and the path of Doe v. Reed, the case animating the reform presented in this Note. Part II illustrates how the rise of the Internet complicated the interpretation of the PRA; this section further demonstrates that the PRA could not have been intended to apply to referendum petitions. Part III proposes a statutory reform to Washington's PRA. Finally, this Note concludes that such a reform simultaneously advances the ideals of transparent government and an election process imbued with integrity, while providing a shield of anonymity for petition signers wishing to maintain a degree of privacy when participating in an expressive, direct, democratic process.


Low temperature plasma (LTP) exerted beneficial effects on seed germination and crop growth. With application of LTP on seed germination of Platycodon grandiflorum, germination indexes and physiological parameters and transcriptome profile were investigated in this experiment. The results showed the seed germination rate and germinating potential of Platycodon grandiflorum in LTP increased by 24.7% and 30.7% comparing to CK respectively (p < 0.05). The SOD and CAT activity of the seed sprouts increased by 26.78% and 12.41% comparing to CK. Transcriptome results showed that 14342 up-regulated and 4366 down-regulated different expressing genes (DEGs) at LTP and CK. A considerable number of DEGs related to the plant hormone signal transduction, peroxisome, oxidative phosphorylation, starch and surose in response to low temperature plasma were identified in this study. The transcriptomic gene expression profiles present a valuable genomic tool to the molecular mechanisms of Platycodon grandiflorum seed germination underlying low temperature plasma. which can provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for cultivation and planting of Platycodon grandiflorum.


The facility layout problem is a well-known operations research problem that arises in multiple applications. This paper is concerned with the multi-row layout problem in which one-dimensional departments are to be placed on a given number of rows so that the sum of the weighted center-to-center distances is minimized. While the optimal solution for a single-row problem will normally have no spaces between departments, for multi-row layout problems it is necessary to allow for the presence of spaces of arbitrary lengths between departments. We consider the special case of equidistant row layout problems in which all departments have the same length, taken to be unity without loss of generality. For this class of problems we prove two theoretical results that facilitate the handling of spaces. First we show that although the lengths of the spaces are in general continuous quantities, every multi-row equidistant problem has an optimal solution on the grid. This implies that only spaces of unit length need to be used when modeling the problem, and hence that the problem can be formulated as a purely discrete optimization problem. Second we state and prove exact expressions for the minimum number of spaces that need to be added so as to preserve at least one optimal solution. One important consequence of these results is that multi-row equidistant layout problems can be modeled using only binary variables; this has a significant impact for a computational perspective. These results are used to formulate two new models for the equidistant problem, an integer linear optimization model and a semidefinite optimization model. Special attention is paid to the double-row layout case that has received much attention recently and is particularly important in practice. Our computational results with the new formulations as well as with a recent formulation by Amaral show that the semidefinite approach dominates for mediumto large-sized instances and that it is well-suited for providing high-quality lower bounds for large-scale instances in reasonable computation time. Specifically for double-row instances, we attain global optimality for some instances with up to 25 departments, and achieve optimality gaps smaller than 1% for instances with up to 50 departments. Acknowledgments: A short paper with a brief outline of the ideas as specialized to the double-row problem and without any technical details, was accepted for the proceedings of OR 2014. The authors thank A.R.S. Amaral for providing us with his instances and C. Helmberg for making us his bundle solver ConicBundle as well as his odd-cycle separator, an adapted version of the one by M. Jünger, available. The work of the first author was partially supported by a Discovery Grant from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. The second author was partially supported by the European Union and the Free State of Saxony funding the cluster eniPROD at Chemnitz University of Technology. Les Cahiers du GERAD G–2015–06 1


Different authors work in different ways. Bert van Stekelenburg would usually choose a new topic that interested him, do initial, sometimes fairly cursory, research on the subject, give one or more public lectures and/or read a fairly brief scholarly paper and then spend some years refining the topic by means of extensive research in both local and overseas libraries, carefully building up a scholarly argument in the manner of a sculptor in clay, whose work in the end would be cast in bronze — the scholarly publication that followed. This paper started as a public lecture to the Western Cape branch of the Classical Association of South Africa in March 2002. It had flowed from previous research done on an interesting Latinist who lived at the Cape, Jan Willem ("Johannes Guilielmus") Van Grevenbroek, on whose life Bert had been working since 1997. After a lecture series was initiated by a paper read at Avila in Spain in 1997, several more popular lectures followed. This research culminated in a scholarly publication, "Een intellectueel in de vroege Kaapkolonie. De nalatenschap van Jan Willem van Grevenbroek (1644-1726)" Tydskrif vir Nederlands en Afrikaans 8, 2001, 3-34. Bert was working on this present article just before he left for his last, fateful ornithological expedition, using the computers of various friends, including that of his present editor, but after his death we have been unable to find the diskette on which he had kept this article, which had seemed to be almost completed. Also, no printouts have been found. This version is the editor's attempt to make sense of the body of Bert's talk (of which several versions in his handwriting exist) as well as the copious scholarly notes in English, Afrikaans and Dutch (which he had been in the process of incorporating) and the texts of various poems and other citations that he had used at the March 2002 lecture. Every attempt has been made to keep to the author's style and contents as he envisaged them and not to allow the editor's personal opinion to intrude into the paper (Editor).


The Centro Virtual Cervantes (http://cvc.cervantes.es) is the Internet-based branch of the Instituto Cervantes, the official Spanish institution commissioned to disseminate the use and study of Spanish language and culture around the world. Since its creation in December 1997, the CVC has rapidly become one of the most important reference sites devoted to Spanish language and culture on the WWW, having reached an average of over 100,000 visitors a month. This increasing number of visitors is primarily due to the great variety of resources available at the CVC website, which attract both professionals and the public in general. These include announcements of cultural events under Actos Culturales, the four discussion forums, each of which focuses on a specific topic, and the language classroom, Aula de Lengua, designed for both teachers and learners of Spanish. The CVC front page enables direct access to the entire contents which are well structured, and organised in a very user-friendly manner. The central part is dedicated to current cultural events and is therefore constantly up-dated. The sections included are listed on the left and right hand side of the main menu page.


The presence of hydrogen containing compounds as surface contaminants is the main source of porosity or weld defects in the welding of aluminum. In this study on the relationship of surface contamination to weld quality, the objective was to obtain a value that was indicative of the level of contamination that contributed to weld bead porosity. Of the analytical techniques evaluated, a helium—argon shielded high-voltage spark technique using the H-6563-Å line was the most reliable. A special glass-walled, controlled-atmosphere chamber was designed. The upper 1/8 in. tungsten electrode was off center in order to use two lower electrodes. The lower electrodes, a 1/8 in. diam tungsten electrode and a 1 × 1 1/4 × 1/4 in. thick aluminum sample block, were mounted on a synchronous driven rotating stage. This arrangement permitted the sparking of a 225° arc of sample surface in a fixed time. Following cleanup and after loading, the procedure consisted of a 20-min purge, a 1-min W—W spark, a 1-min W—Al spark, and a second 1-min W—W spark. The W—W sparking periods establish chamber background with respect to hydrogen. The H-6563-Å line served as the analytical line and Ar-6752-Å served as the internal standard line. The average of the H/Ar blanks was compared to the sample ratio. There was good correlation between intensity ratio values and weld defect data.


Stevens began identifying and collecting colloquialisms in Tragedy in 1937, refined his definitions in 1945 and finished his work with the monograph upon Euripides of 1976. This revised and enlarged edition assesses the contribution to the field by subsequent scholars. It adds many expressions to Stevens's list, which is now divided into two categories: expressions that are confidently identified as colloquial, and almost as many that are probable or possible. An unexpected finding is that Sophocles used hardly fewer such expressions than Euripides. The e-book's chief aim is to broaden the evidential basis for colloquialisms in Tragedy, and to attempt a more useful evaluation of their usage: statistics are gathered on their distribution and location, and their frequent concentration in types of dramatic and stylistic context. Many individual passages, and the possible use of colloquialisms for characterization, are discussed. The e-book includes full indices locorum for expressions and usages.


Background: Many risk factors have been associated with cancer, such as age, family history, race, smoking, high-fat diet, and poor nutrition. It is important to reveal the molecular changes related to risk factors that could facilitate early detection, prevention, and overall control of cancer. Methods: We selected six cancer-specific methylated genes that have previously been reported in primary tumors and have also been detected in different bodily fluids of cancer patients. Here, we used quantitative fluorogenic real-time methylation-specific PCR in plasma DNA samples for the detection of methylation changes from an asymptomatic population who do not have any known cancer. Results: The promoter methylation frequencies of the studied genes were as follows: APC (7%), CCND2 (22%), GSTP1 (2%), MGMT (9%), RARβ2 (29%), and P16 (3%). Promoter methylation of at least one of the genes analyzed was observed in ∼46% (72 of 157) of the samples by binary dichotomization. Promoter hypermethylation of at least two genes was detected in 17% (26 of 157) of the samples. RARβ2 methylation was observed in 45% of subjects who had a high-fat diet in contrast with those who had a low-fat diet (23%; P = 0.007). Discussion: Our findings may help to elucidate early methylation changes that may lead to cancer development. These methylation changes could be due to exposure to risk factors and may be useful for cancer prevention measures such as changes in lifestyle. Longitudinal follow-up of a high-risk population is needed to understand the association of methylation of candidate genes in cancer development. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(11):2984–91)


We conducted a 12-month-long experiment in a financial services company to study how the availability of treadmill workstations affects employees' physical activity and work performance. We enlisted sedentary volunteers, half of whom received treadmill workstations during the first two months of the study and the rest in the seventh month of the study. Participants could operate the treadmills at speeds of 0–2 mph and could use a standard chair-desk arrangement at will. (a) Weekly online performance surveys were administered to participants and their supervisors, as well as to all other sedentary employees and their supervisors. Using within-person statistical analyses, we find that overall work performance, quality and quantity of performance, and interactions with coworkers improved as a result of adoption of treadmill workstations. (b) Participants were outfitted with accelerometers at the start of the study. We find that daily total physical activity increased as a result of the adoption of treadmill workstations.


In the realm of adults, name-calling is often a fact of life that one simply brushes off like water rolls off a duck's back. At some point, however, racial slurs and ethnic epithets hurled at employees constitute actionable discrimination rooted in palpable and entrenched stereotypes. In the case of Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks not only caused an upsurge in hatred, violence, and discrimination, but also entrenched preexisting negative stereotypes. Targeted law enforcement efforts and media images stereotyping dark-skinned, bearded males with Arabic-sounding names as representing the primary threat to the national security of the United States contribute to racial, national origin, and religious harassment in the workplace.In the years immediately following the September 11th terrorist attacks, hate crimes and other forms of discrimination against these communities were on the rise at a troubling rate. For the last months of 2001, the FBI reported a 1500% increase in hate crimes against "people of Middle Eastern descent, Muslims, and South Asian Sikhs, who are often mistaken for Muslim" from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001. The New York City Police Department received 117 reports of hate crimes against Arab- and Muslim-Americans in the first six months after the attacks, compared to an average of seven hate crime reports per year before 2001. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee ("ADC") reported over 700 violent incidents targeting Arab Americans, Muslims, and South Asians or those perceived as such in the first nine weeks following the September 11th terrorist attacks. ADC also documented several murders, 165 violent incidents from January 1, 2002 to October 11, 2002, over eighty cases of illegal and discriminatory removal of passengers from aircrafts based on the passenger's perceived ethnicity, and over 800 cases of employment discrimination against Arab Americans from September 11, 2001 to October 11, 2002. Similarly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported 1717 complaints of discrimination by Muslims in the first six months after September 11.Notwithstanding the passage of eight years, "post-9/11 discrimination" persists, most profoundly in the workplace. While the volume of cases has seemingly decreased, negative stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs have become entrenched into popular culture and consequently more prevalent in the workplace. One need only recall the 2008 presidential elections where allegations that Barack Obama was a Muslim or Arab were in effect racial slurs and ethnic epithets. Months after Barack Obama's inauguration, anti-Muslim sentiment continues in the form of the growing "Birther" movement challenging the validity of President Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate, and ultimately the legitimacy of his presidency, on grounds that he is a closeted Muslim born in a Muslim country. Despite the spuriousness of the allegations, the popularity of the Birther movement suggests that suspicion and distrust of Muslims in America will continue for years to come.Litigation of civil rights employment claims, both under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 et seq, offers an effective means of countering entrenched bias in the workplace. In addition to providing remedies to plaintiffs harmed by employment discrimination, such cases offer a powerful disincentive to employers who permit their workplace to become infested with insidious stereotypes against Muslims, Arabs, or South Asians.Accordingly, this Article provides the legal framework for pursuing such claims. Part I lays out the theoretical backdrop of how immigrants and racial minorities have historically been targeted as a result of a misguided Eurocentric definition of "American." Though Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians have historically experienced the adverse effects of such narrow and exclusive definitions of citizenship, the terrorist attacks directed long-standing nativist bias to these groups and permanently racialized them. Part II discusses how governmental racial profiling and targeted law enforcement action legitimizes private bias that is ultimately manifested as workplace harassment. To highlight the misconceptions and fallacies perpetuated by the racial slurs, Part III offers a general introduction to the Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, Sikh, and South Asian communities in the United States. Part IV discusses the availability of national origin and ethnic origin as a basis of liability under Title VII. Part V explains the theories of liability under which a plaintiff may pursue a hostile work environment claim on the basis of national origin or ethnic origin. Included is an analysis of the myriad of cases filed since September 11, 2001 that involve allegations of discrimination against Arabs, Muslims, Middle Easterners, Sikhs, or South Asians. Finally, the Article concludes by arguing that national or ethnic origin harassment expressed through accusations of being a terrorist, ethnic slurs about an employee's Arab heritage, and allegations of condoning violence based on a profession of the Islamic faith are all results of the racialization of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians as the "terrorist other" and the entrenchment of stereotypes that have surpassed being merely backlash.


Background Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging public health concern in high-income countries and can cause acute and chronic hepatitis. Reported numbers of indigenously acquired HEV infection have increased in the past decade in many European countries. Since 2010, the National Reference Centre (NRC) for Hepatitis Viruses has been testing samples of suspected hepatitis E cases in Belgium. Aim In this surveillance report, we present the epidemiological trends of symptomatic HEV infections in Belgium, from the distribution by age, sex and geography to the molecular characterisation of the viral strains. Method Serum samples of suspected cases sent to the NRC between 2010 and 2017 were analysed for the presence of HEV-specific IgM and RNA. Virus was sequenced for genotyping and phylogenetic analysis in all samples containing sufficient viral RNA. Results The NRC reported an increase in the number of samples from suspected cases (from 309 to 2,663 per year) and in the number of laboratory-confirmed hepatitis E cases (from 25 to 117 per year). Among 217 sequenced samples, 92.6% were genotype 3 (HEV-3), followed by 6.5% of genotype 1 and 0.9% of genotype 4. HEV-3 subtype viruses were mainly 3f, 3c and 3e. HEV-3f was the most common subtype until 2015, while HEV-3c became the most common subtype in 2016 and 2017. Conclusion The increasing trend of HEV diagnoses in Belgium may be largely explained by increased awareness and testing.


AIM
To investigate the lymph node metastasis patterns of gallbladder cancer (GBC) and evaluate the optimal categorization of nodal status as a critical prognostic factor.

METHODS
From May 1995 to December 2010, a total of 78 consecutive patients with GBC underwent a radical resection at Liaocheng People's Hospital. A radical resection was defined as removing both the primary tumor and the regional lymph nodes of the gallbladder. Demographic, operative and pathologic data were recorded. The lymph nodes retrieved were examined histologically for metastases routinely from each node. The positive lymph node count (PLNC) as well as the total lymph node count (TLNC) was recorded for each patient. Then the metastatic to examined lymph nodes ratio (LNR) was calculated. Disease-specific survival (DSS) and predictors of outcome were analyzed.

RESULTS
With a median follow-up time of 26.50 mo (range, 2-132 mo), median DSS was 29.00 ± 3.92 mo (5-year survival rate, 20.51%). Nodal disease was found in 37 patients (47.44%). DSS of node-negative patients was significantly better than that of node-positive patients (median DSS, 40 mo vs 17 mo, χ² = 14.814, P < 0.001), while there was no significant difference between N1 patients and N2 patients (median DSS, 18 mo vs 13 mo, χ² = 0.741, P = 0.389). Optimal TLNC was determined to be four. When node-negative patients were divided according to TLNC, there was no difference in DSS between TLNC < 4 subgroup and TLNC ≥ 4 subgroup (median DSS, 37 mo vs 54 mo, χ² = 0.715, P = 0.398). For node-positive patients, DSS of TLNC < 4 subgroup was worse than that of TLNC ≥ 4 subgroup (median DSS, 13 mo vs 21 mo, χ² = 11.035, P < 0.001). Moreover, for node-positive patients, a new cut-off value of six nodes was identified for the number of TLNC that clearly stratified them into 2 separate survival groups (< 6 or ≥ 6, respectively; median DSS, 15 mo vs 33 mo, χ² = 11.820, P < 0.001). DSS progressively worsened with increasing PLNC and LNR, but no definite cut-off value could be identified. Multivariate analysis revealed histological grade, tumor node metastasis staging, TNLC and LNR to be independent predictors of DSS. Neither location of positive lymph nodes nor PNLC were identified as an independent variable by multivariate analysis.

CONCLUSION
Both TLNC and LNR are strong predictors of outcome after curative resection for GBC. The retrieval and examination of at least 6 nodes can influence staging quality and DSS, especially in node-positive patients.


Public opinion is considered a major obstacle to changing the status quo of welfare state policies. Yet some far-reaching reforms and gradual changes of European welfare states prompt the reverse question: Have increased reform pressures and restructuring efforts led to changes in individual attitudes? In line with previous research, I found that the strong support for a public provision of healthcare remains unchanged. But what about the structure of attitudes? Testing core assumptions of the new politics theory and power resources theory, I looked at conflict lines within society and how they change in times of retrenchment. Analysing individual attitudes in 14 European countries between 1996 and 2002, I moved beyond static comparisons across countries to provide a dynamic account of trends over time. Observing stability, not change, I found no evidence that the relevance of old cleavages is in decline. Both old and new cleavages shape individual attitudes.


We study the effect of pure dephasing on a two-level system in strong coupling in the nonlinear regime with the single mode of a cavity. The photoluminescence spectrum of the cavity has a robust tendency to display triplet structures, instead of the expected Jaynes-Cummings pairs of doublets at the incommensurate frequencies +/- (square root n +/- square root (n-1)) for integer n. We discuss recent experimental works that may already manifest signatures of single photon nonlinearities.


The year 2012 marks an important halting point for many South Africans, as they reflect on the achievements of Africa's oldest surviving political party, the African National Congress (ANC), as part of its centenary celebrations. It should also be a time to reconsider what defines South Africans as a nation. In order for South Africans to move forward as a nation, it is important for them to realise that the heritage of the ANC is also the heritage of each and every South African, regardless of their party political affiliation. It is against this background that Heather Hughes's biography, First President: A Life of John L. Dube, Founding President of the ANC, should be evaluated.


The United Kingdom's export market share has declined steadily for a number of years, both in aggregate and in many industries within the manufacturing sector. A major determinant of demand for an industry's exports is the price of those exports relative to the prices of international competitors. This article shows that UK export prices tend to follow the prices set by foreign competitors quite closely, when expressed in a common currency. So, for many exporters, a dominant depressing influence on market share over the past decade was the significant appreciation of the sterling exchange rate in the late 1990s. But other factors also played a role. In particular, a number of high-tech UK industries have been able to increase their market shares, perhaps reflecting a greater ability to differentiate their products from those of their competitors.


This dissertation demonstrates the autonomous command and navigation of a trained canine to multiple waypoints. A system is described consisting of a canine that can be guided autonomously to a number of waypoints by an automatic software control algorithm. A hardware system has been developed in order to interface with GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and tone and vibration generators for the purpose of accurately commanding and dictating the motion, path, and commands given to a canine. A canine has been trained to effectively follow audio and vibration commands for guidance with a high degree of accuracy (71% mission success for simple paths and 63% mission success for complex paths). Both a Neural Networks approach and a State Machine Based approach to canine anomaly detection are presented, as well as strategies for anomaly correction. An operational control algorithm for autonomous guidance of the canine is described in detail. Finally, empirical results of an autonomously commanded canine are demonstrated with an 73% mission success rate for simple paths and a 62% mission success rate for complex paths.


In the paper the material model for metals and its numerical applications are presented. The material model is stated in terms of continuum mechanics, in the framework of the thermodynamical theory of viscoplasticity. The fundamental achievement is that the constitutive relation includes a description of anisotropy of metal microstructure. Such approach gives qualitatively and quantitatively new results compared with the existing models because it is possible to trace the directions of softening and predict a damage path in process time. Numerical examples comprise full spatial modelling for HSLA-65 steel in adiabatic conditions (the analysis of anisotropic bodies can be led only on 3D models) including: tension of sheet steel and twisting of thin walled tube. During analyses strain rates of order 10-10 s are observed and the process time up to full damage (loss of continuity in the localisation zone) is around 100-300 μs.


We applied a targeted sequencing approach to identify germline mutations conferring a moderately to highly increased risk of cutaneous and uveal melanoma. Ninety‐two high‐risk melanoma patients were screened for inherited variation in 120 melanoma candidate genes. Observed gene variants were filtered based on frequency in reference populations, cosegregation with melanoma in families and predicted functional effect. Several novel or rare genetic variants in genes involved in DNA damage response, cell‐cycle regulation and transcriptional control were identified in melanoma patients. Among identified genetic alterations was an extremely rare variant (minor allele frequency of 0.00008) in the BRIP1 gene that was found to cosegregate with the melanoma phenotype. We also found a rare nonsense variant in the BRCA2 gene (rs11571833), previously associated with cancer susceptibility but not with melanoma, which showed weak association with melanoma susceptibility in the Swedish population. Our results add to the growing knowledge about genetic factors associated with melanoma susceptibility and also emphasize the role of DNA damage response as an important factor in melanoma etiology. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Stackable file systems can provide extensible file system functionality with minimal performance overhead and development cost. However, previous approaches provide only limited functionality. In particular, they do not support size-changing algorithms (SCAs), which are important and useful for many applications such as compression and encryption. We propose fast indexing, a technique for efficient support of SCAs in stackable file systems. Fast indexing provides a page mapping between file system layers in a way that can be used with any SCA. We use index files to store this mapping. Index files are designed to be recoverable if lost and add less than 0.1% disk space overhead. We have implemented fast indexing using portable stackable templates, and we have used this system to build several example file systems with SCAs. We demonstrate that fast index files have low overhead for typical user workloads such as large compilations, only 2.3% over other stacked file systems and 4.7%over non-stackable file systems. Our system can deliver better performance with SCAs than userlevel applications, as much as five times faster.


Among the provisions of the Uniform Trust Code that have attracted the most attention are those of Article 5: Creditor's Claims; Spendthrift and Discretionary Trusts. Although much of the UTC is a codification of the common law of trusts, there are many differences among the states in their handling of various creditors' rights issues, and many jurisdictions have no law on some of those issues. As a result, there is no well-accepted, established common law on some of the issues addressed by Article 5. Further, while the UTC's approach to many creditors' rights issues is consistent with the common law in many states, in other respects the UTC's approach is innovative and differs from existing law in many states. In some ways, Article 5 enhances the asset protection planning traditionally afforded by trusts, while at least in the context of the right of a child, spouse, or former spouse of a beneficiary of a discretionary trust to compel distributions he or she can reach, in many states the UTC would enhance creditors' rights. This Article addresses spendthrift and discretionary trust issues under the UTC in a question and answer format that is intended to respond to concerns, issues, and claims that have been raised or made with respect to the UTC's creditors' rights provisions. As it demonstrates, much of the criticism the UTC has received over this subject is unwarranted. Some of the criticism, however, has been instrumental in recent revisions to creditors' rights provisions of the Code and its comments. While those revisions may not have satisfied all of the concerns of some of the UTC's critics, they clarify that the Code will not have the adverse effects on the protections trusts have traditionally provided that its critics predict.


Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental problems in the highlands of Ethiopia. The prevalence of traditional agricultural land use and the absence of appropriate resource management often result in the degradation of natural soil fertility in the country. Hence, this study assesses farm households" WTP for soil conservation practices through a CVM study. Double Bounded Dichotomous choice with an Open ended follow up format was used to elicit the households" willingness to pay. Based on data collected from 218 respondents, descriptive statistics indicated that most of the respondents have perceived the problem of soil erosion and are willing to pay for conservation practices. Probit model was employed to assess the determinants of willingness to pay. Results of the model shows that age of the household head, sex of the household head, education level of the household head, family size, perception, land tenure, Total Livestock Units and initial bid were the important variables in determining willingness to pay for soil conservation practices in the study area. The study also show that the mean willingness to pay estimated from the Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice and open ended formats was computed at 56.65 and 48.94 person days per annum, respectively. The respective total aggregate value of soil conservation in the study area (Adwa Woreda) was computed to be 1,373,592 (16,483,104 Birr) and 1,186,648.18 (14,239,778.16 Birr) per annum for five years, respectively. The results of the study have shown that socio economic characteristics of the household and other institutional factors are responsible for household"s WTP for soil conservation practices. Therefore, policy and program intervention designed to address soil erosion problems in the study area have needed to take in to account these characteristics.


The authors of this paper have undertaken various technical and chemical studies, mainly direct temperature-resolved mass spectrometry (DTMS), hand-held x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive x-ray (SEM/ EDX), on the softening and dripping paint in Composition (1952) by Jean-Paul Riopelle. This has provided an understanding of the chemical difference associated with variations in the condition of the paint. The authors have proposed the theory that a fraction of the oxidised oil binding medium phase separates from the paint due to a lack of anchoring points for the increasing amount of polar fatty acids resulting from the oil oxidation process. In the study, lead (II) acetate in water or ethanol solutions was introduced into paint samples from soft paint, drip material and the drip material in solution. The chemical reaction of the samples was investigated by polarization microscopy in visual and UV light, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and SEM/EDX. The results show that lead ions react with the acid groups in the binding medium thus fixing the acids as lead carboxylates. The success of this introduction depends on the degree of penetration of the lead ion solution into the paint. Ethanol appears to open the paint structure more effectively than water. Softening paint and drip formation in paintings by Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002): Improving their condition with metal coordinating ions


False friends are pairs of words in two languages that are perceived as similar but have different meanings. We present an improved algorithm for acquiring false friends from sentence-level aligned parallel corpus based on statistical observations of words occurrences and co-occurrences in the parallel sentences. The results are compared with an entirely semantic measure for cross-lingual similarity between words based on using the Web as a corpus through analyzing the words' local contexts extracted from the text snippets returned by searching in Google. The statistical and semantic measures are further combined into an improved algorithm for identification of false friends that achieves almost twice better results than previously known algorithms. The evaluation is performed for identifying cognates between Bulgarian and Russian but the proposed methods could be adopted for other language pairs for which parallel corpora and bilingual glossaries are available.