We compare two approaches for synthesizing visual speech using active appearance models (AAMs): one that utilizes acoustic features as input, and one that utilizes a phonetic transcription as input. Both synthesizers are trained using the same data and the performance is measured using both objective and subjective testing. We investigate the impact of likely sources of error in the synthesized visual speech by introducing typical errors into real visual speech sequences and subjectively measuring the perceived degradation. When only a small region (e.g., a single syllable) of ground-truth visual speech is incorrect we find that the subjective score for the entire sequence is subjectively lower than sequences generated by our synthesizers. This observation motivates further consideration of an often ignored issue, which is to what extent are subjective measures correlated with objective measures of performance? Significantly, we find that the most commonly used objective measures of performance are not necessarily the best indicator of viewer perception of quality. We empirically evaluate alternatives and show that the cost of a dynamic time warp of synthesized visual speech parameters to the respective ground-truth parameters is a better indicator of subjective quality.


Bellows is an art installation and cinema project that uses a new animation process. I have combined the concept of the zoetrope, a pre-cinema optical toy, with rapid-prototype 3-D printing and fast-shutter digital video to tell a story suggesting the destructive and expressive potential of humans. In Bellows, anthropomorphized concertinas take the place of people. Concertinas serve as the metaphor for humans because both breathe and both have great expressive potential.


Information quality has become a critical concern to the success of organisations. Numerous business initiatives have been delayed or even cancelled, citing poor-quality information as the main reason. Previous research indicated that under-standing the effects of information quality is critical to the success of organisations. However, little research has been done to analyse the effects of information quality in an organisational context.

In order to address this drawback, the objective of this thesis is to systematically analyse the effects of information quality on decision-making. In order to achieve this objective, we propose a practical assessment framework that allows us to measure information quality dimensions and categories. This framework was validated using a real-world database. With the help of this assessment framework we gained in-depth insights into the effects of information quality on decision quality. Our results showed that the categories of intrinsic and contextual information quality are positively related to decision quality. However decision quality is not significantly affected by representational information quality. It is also found that in contrast to consistency, increasing information accuracy and completeness can significantly improve decision quality.

From our results we concluded that not all the aspects of information quality are equally effective for the improvement of decision quality. Decision-makers could decide to pay little or no attention to the improvement of representational information quality and information consistency. This finding will directly reduce the cost of information quality improvement. For practical implementations, our results concluded a validated framework that allows software engineers to implement assessment. Comparing our framework with other common frameworks that require soft-ware engineers to understand information quality theory, our framework helps soft-ware engineers to follow a step-by-step procedure to build an application of information quality assessment. It will directly increase software engineers' work efficiency.


A design modification of Rotor 67 is carried out with a full 3D inverse method. The blade camber surface is modified to produce a prescribed pressure loading distribution, with the blade tangential thickness distribution and the blade stacking line at midchord kept the same as the original Rotor 67 design. Because of the inviscid-flow assumption used in the current version of the method, Rotor 67 geometry is modified for use at a design point different from the original design value. In the subsonic section, smooth pressure loading shapes generally produce blades with well-behaved blade surface pressure distributions. In the supersonic section, this study shows that the strength and position of the passage shock correlate with the characteristics of the blade pressure loading shape. In general, "smooth" prescribed blade pressure loading distributions generate blade designs with reverse cambers which have the effect of weakening the passage shock.Copyright © 1997 by ASME


In this paper, we introduce the iterative subspace identification (ISI) algorithm for learning subspaces in which the data may live. Our subspace identification method differs from currently available method in its ability to infer the dimension of the subspaces from the data without prior knowledge. The learned subspaces can be combined to produce a data driven overcomplete dictionary with good sparseness and generalizability qualities, or can be directly exploited in applications where block sparseness is needed. We describe the ISI algorithm and a complementary optimization method. We demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to produce sparse representations comparable to those achieved with the K-SVD algorithm, but with less than one eighth the training time. Furthermore, the computation savings allows us to develop a shift-tolerant training procedure. We also illustrate its benefits in underdetermined blind source separation of audio, where performance is directly impacted by the sparseness of the representation.


La Malinche is one of the most controversial figures in Mexican and Chicano literature. The historical facts about her life before and after the Spanish Conquest are largely speculative. What is reliably known is that she had a significant role as translator, which developed into something of mythic proportions. The ideological appropriation of her image by three authors, Octavio Paz, Laura Esquivel and Cherrie Moraga, are explored in this thesis. The full extent of the proposed rendition of La Malinche by Octavio Paz is the basis of the second chapter. The conclusion drawn by Paz, in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) is that La Malinche is what he calls la chingada [the raped/violated one] and proposes that all women are always open to conquest, sexually and otherwise. Laura Esquivel's novel Malinche (2006) is a re-interpretation that focuses on the tongue as the source of power and language as the ultimate source of autonomy for La Malinche. This aspect of La Malinche and the contrast of Paz's understanding are the basis of the third chapter of this thesis. Cherrie Moraga, in Loving in the War Years (1983), proposes that if women are to be traitors, it is not each other that they should betray but their cultural roles as mothers and wives. She writes that in order to avoid being the one who is passively colonized, women often times become el chingon. However, ultimately women are free of these limiting dichotomous roles are able to autonomously define themselves in a way that goes beyond these labels. This is only possible when La Malinche is re-interpreted by these by different authors.


New sulfonamide derivatives comprising azide, 1,2,3-triazole, azo, chalcone, and Schiff base moieties are proved. The structures of the compounds have been confirmed by FT-IR and ¹H-NMR spectra and element analysis. The synthesized derivatives have been screened for antimicrobial and in vitro antioxidant properties. The results of this investigation revealed that the newly synthesized compounds are potent antimicrobial and antioxidant agent.


The SystemC AMS extensions support heterogeneous modeling and make use of several Models of Computation (MoCs) that operate on different time scales in the Discrete Event (DE), Discrete Time (DT), and Continuous Time (CT) domains. The simulation of such heterogeneous models may raise synchronization problems that are hard to diagnose and to fix, especially when considering multi-rate data flow parts. In this paper, we show how to formally analyze the execution of Timed Data Flow (TDF) models including their interaction with the DE domain by converting the synchronization mechanics into a Coloured Petri Net (CPN) equivalent. The developed symbolic execution algorithm for the CPN allows to detect all DE-TDF synchronization issues before simulation and to propose appropriate sample delay settings for the TDF converter ports to make the system schedulable. The presented technique is validated with a case study including a vibration sensor model and its digital front end.


Webbings are used in parachute assemblies as reinforcing units for the strength they provide. The strength of these seams is an important characteristic which has a substantial influence on the mechanical property of the parachute assemblies. It is well established that factors such as fabric width, folding length of joint, seam design and seam type will all have an impact on seam strength. In this work, the effect of these factors on seam strength was studied using both Taguchi's design of experiment (TDOE) as well as an artificial neural network (ANN). In TDOE, two levels were chosen for the factors mentioned above. An L8 design was adopted and an orthogonal array was generated. The contribution of each factor to seam strength was analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and signal to noise ratio methods. From the analysis it was found that the fabric width, folding length of joint and interaction between the folding length of joint and the seam design affected seam strength significantly. Further, using TDOE, an optimal configuration of levels of factors was found. In order to contrast and compare the results from TDOE, an ANN was also used to predict seam strength using the above mentioned factors as inputs. The prediction from TDOE and ANN methodologies were compared with physical seam strength. It was established from these comparisons, in which the root mean square error was used as an accuracy measure, that the predictions by ANN were better in accuracy than those predicted by TDOE.


Primary sources of naturally occurring antioxidants are whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Most of the antioxidant compounds in a typical diet are derived from plant sources and different variety of physical and chemical properties. Butea monosperma is silviculturally important, as it is one of the commonest on the plains of India and capable of thriving where most species will not grow. The leaves of Butea monosperma plant are credited with astringent, tonic, diuretic, and aphrodisiac properties. They are used to cure boils, pimples and tumerous hemorrhoids and are internally given in flatulent colic, worms and piles. The leaves are reported to contain alkaloids, protein, fiber and minerals. In the present study fresh leaves of Butea monosperma plant were isolated for various ingredients i.e., terpenoids and phenolics, fats and waxes, alkaloids, quaternary alkaloids and N-oxides and screened for their antioxidant activity.


The recent appeal case of The President of RSA v Reinecke (the Reinecke judgment) dealt with many issues about the employment of magistrates under the Magistrates Court Act (90 of 1993) but the most important issue for purposes of this note is how the judgment grappled with, on the one hand, the relationship between the common law rights and those rights conferred by statute in the labour sphere and; on the other hand, the notion of constructive dismissal in a complex working environment. The case calls for comment purely on the possible precedent it sets for the relationship between the common law and statutory rights in matters concerning employment as well as the impact it makes into the doctrine of constructive dismissal. The findings made by the court could potentially escalate and begin to constitute new defences to common law remedies where these intersect with other statutes that regulate employment and to claims of constructive dismissals.


Background : Setting up Geographical Information Systems (GIS) on the existing health infrastructure and ongoing and planned interventions in public health in Tanzania is still in its infancy. While there are several activities on gathering information and attempts of documentation there does not exist an overall systematic approach of generally capturing all health related facts and bringing them together into a unique information system yet. In order to strengthen the information system in the health sector in general, and to assist Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW) in better receiving an overview of health related infrastructure and intervention data for management purpose, a first-pilot GIS was built up in the Mbeya Region in cooperation with Tanzanian German Programme to Support Health (TGPSH)/Gesellschaft fur technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Methods : The Health-GIS contains information on all health facilities (HF) in the region and their infrastructure. Therefore, personal interviews were conducted in selected HF based on a comprehensive questionnaire. The spatial coordinates of the HF were taken with a Global Positioning System (GPS). In a relational database, the newly coded HF are linked to the gathered information pertaining to them and in a second step are analysed and visualised with help of GIS. Results: First results show newly collected geometry and attribute data for a considerable number of HFs in Mbeya Region, which are then supplemented by information on the street network lately surveyed during the fieldtrip. With the help of a database management system (DBMS) all information are stored and maintained within one health database. By their spatial relation, data may be analysed and mapped with a Health-GIS. Because of the targeted cooperation with people and institutions from the local health sector, the way for integrating the Health-GIS into the health planning infrastructure is open. Also, the funding of an IT group comprised of members from national and international institutions is another step to gaining local acceptance for the system. Conclusions : First steps have been taken to introduce the Health-GIS as a pilot project in the Mbeya Region. It has proved to be useful in order to collect the essential attributes of the HFs. Further development of the GIS will have to be taken into account simplicity of use. Hence this requires that the GIS needs to be integrated into the planning process.


Developing Employability and Enterprise shows how to help others develop the behaviours and attributes needed to thrive in the modern workplace. It offers coaches, career advisors and educators a complete guide to what employability looks like in the 21st century, both for new entrants to the world of work and those finding themselves in situations where they need to secure a new job or even career. The book shows how employability can be measured and how skills and attributes such as resilience, confidence, motivation, dealing with others, overcoming challenges and entrepreneurship can be developed through coaching and mentoring. Supported by the latest research from academia, government bodies, and practitioners, Developing Employability and Enterprise brings together some of the most influential thinkers around the world to offer a new approach to career management that looks beyond simply offering advice on resumes and CVs, job applications, job searches and interviews. It offers practical guidance on what attributes to develop and tools for how to do this including assessment options, sample exercises, notes on how to use the concepts in practice and global case studies.


In 2010, large deposits of oil and natural gas were found in the Bakken shale formation, much of which is encompassed by the Fort Berthold Indian reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation ("MHA Nation" or "Three Affiliated Tribes" or "the Tribe"). However, rapid oil and gas development has brought an unprecedented rise of violent crime on and near the Fort Berthold reservation. Specifically, the influx of well-paid male oil and gas workers, living in temporary housing often referred to as "man camps," has coincided with a disturbing increase in sex trafficking of Native women. The social risks of oil development on American Indian reservations like Fort Berthold are distinct from development in other areas in the United States. The complex and shifting nature of federal Indian law presents legal and practical challenges to law enforcement in civil and criminal contexts. Further, the historical exploitation of Indian lands and people informs current social and economic conditions that contribute to increased sex trafficking of Native women and children. This paper begins by describing the intersection of sex trafficking and oil and gas development on the Fort Berthold reservation. Next, the paper describes the jurisdictional regime within federal Indian law and other barriers to law enforcement that have created a situation ripe for trafficking and other crime on the Fort Berthold reservation. Third, the paper will examine strategies to address this complex issue including: corporate engagement of relevant companies; tribal capacity and coalition building; and remedies contained in the Violence Against Women Act of 2014. This paper asserts that all of the stakeholders involved in oil development on the Fort Berthold reservation – federal, state, tribal, and public and private companies – must work cooperatively to decisively eliminate sex trafficking of Native women and children.


In this study, an asymptotic tracking controller is developed for an aircraft model subject to additive, state-dependent, non-linear disturbance-like terms. Dynamic inversion technique in conjunction with robust integral of the sign of the error term is utilised in the controller design. Compared to the previous studies, the need of acceleration measurements of the aircraft have been removed. In addition, the proposed controller design utilises only the output of aircraft dynamics. Lyapunov based analysis is applied to prove global asymptotic convergence of the tracking error signal. Numerical simulation results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed robust controller.


Wind effects on long span bridges are a major concern for bridge design. Wind acts as a dynamic load on the bridge deck causing the bridge to react in ways not accounted for in static load design. Attention to these effects increased tremendously after famous bridge collapses, such as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. Due to this collapse and others, engineers were made painfully aware that wind phenomena, such as flutter and vortex shedding, can cause major structural damage if not considered in the design process. The solution for many years since has been to conduct wind tunnel tests on small scale models of bridges, which are both time consuming and expensive. In the last few decades, the capabilities of computers have increased exponentially to a point where it is feasible for engineers to develop a computer process that will produce the same values that could be found in a wind tunnel test. This thesis begins to explore the time efficiency and viability of using a computer model based on the finite difference model (FDM) for solving the governing equations. The most typical computing method is the finite element method which has been thoroughly tested and produces reasonably comparable data to the wind tunnel tests that have also been performed. The Great Belt East Bridge (GBEB) is the subject of all the modeling done in both the wind tunnel and the computer simulations. The time required to run a finite difference method program is less than that required for the finite element method. The Strouhal number and coefficient of drag are observed to ascertain whether the FDM analysis results are sufficiently close to wind tunnel numbers for the GBEB. The results of this study indicate that FDM does not appear to generate reasonable values for Cd and St at the grid refinements simulated in this work. This thesis is approved for Recommendation to the Honors Council


Educational innovation is a field that has been greatly enriched by using technology in its processes, resulting in a learning model where information comes from numerous sources and collaboration takes place among multiple students. One attractive challenge within educational innovation is the design of collaborative learning activities from the social computing point of view, where collaboration is not limited to student-to-student relationships, but includes student-to-machine interactions. At the same time, there is a great lack of tools that give support to the whole learning process and are not restricted to specific aspects of the educational task. In this paper, we present and evaluate context-aware framework for collaborative learning applications (CAFCLA) as a solution to these problems. CAFCLA is a flexible framework that covers the entire process of developing collaborative learning activities, taking advantage of contextual information and social interactions. Its application in the experimental case study of a collaborative WebQuest within a museum has shown that, among other benefits, the use of social computing improves the learning process, fosters collaboration, enhances relationships, and increases engagement.


The relationship between migration and development is a topic of growing interest among international organizations. To varying degrees, those organizations see remittances as an essential tool in the development of migrant-sending, underdeveloped countries. We argue that this view, on which most pertinent public policies are based, misrepresents the notion of development and obscures the root causes of current labor migration. This limited and distorted perspective should be discarded, and the phenomenon should be analyzed in a comprehensive manner that includes strategic/structural, multi-dimensional, and multi-spatial approaches based on the political economy of development. This type of analysis should take into account the following interrelated dimensions: social agents, global context, regional integration, national environment, and local levels.


When social media propagate a complaint about poor customer service, an international media event ensues. How do viral videos spread and what can firms do about them? This case dissects an incident in which a disgruntled customer used YouTube and Twitter to spread a music video detailing United's mishandling of his $3500 guitar and the company's subsequent refusal to compensate him. The song was called "United Breaks Guitars." Within one week it received 3 million views and mainstream news coverage followed, with CNN, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, the CBS Morning Show, and many other print and electronic outlets picking up on the story. The mechanics of viral propagation are uncovered and the limited opportunities for response by the firm are revealed. The case supports the notion of the Internet as an insurgent medium, better at attack than at defense.


The dynamic formation of groups of neurons—neuronal assemblies—is believed to mediate cognitive phenomena at many levels, but their detailed operation and mechanisms of interaction are still to be uncovered. One hypothesis suggests that synchronized oscillations underpin their formation and functioning, with a focus on the temporal structure of neuronal signals. In this context, we investigate neuronal assembly dynamics in two complementary scenarios: the first, a supervised spike pattern classification task, in which noisy variations of a collection of spikes have to be correctly labeled; the second, an unsupervised, minimally cognitive evolutionary robotics tasks, in which an evolved agent has to cope with multiple, possibly conflicting, objectives. In both cases, the more traditional dynamical analysis of the system's variables is paired with information-theoretic techniques in order to get a broader picture of the ongoing interactions with and within the network. The neural network model is inspired by the Kuramoto model of coupled phase oscillators and allows one to fine-tune the network synchronization dynamics and assembly configuration. The experiments explore the computational power, redundancy, and generalization capability of neuronal circuits, demonstrating that performance depends nonlinearly on the number of assemblies and neurons in the network and showing that the framework can be exploited to generate minimally cognitive behaviors, with dynamic assembly formation accounting for varying degrees of stimuli modulation of the sensorimotor interactions.


Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), one of the most outrageous and controversial figures of twentieth-century American literature, was so prolific that many important pieces were never collected during his lifetime. Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook is a substantial selection of these wide-ranging works, most of which have been unavailable since their original appearance in underground newspapers, literary journals, and even porn magazines. Among the highlights are Bukowski's first published short story, "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip"; his last short story, "The Other"; his first and last essays; and the first installment of his famous "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" column. The book contains meditations on his familiar themes (drinking, horse-racing, etc.) as well as singular discussions of such figures as Artaud, Pound, and the Rolling Stones. Other significant works include the experimental title piece; a fictionalized account of meeting his hero, John Fante ("I Meet the Master"); an unflinching review of Hemingway ("An Old Drunk Who Ran Out of Luck"); the intense, autobiographical "Dirty Old Man Confesses"; and several discussions of his aesthetics ("A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While Drinking a Six-Pack [Tall]," "In Defense of a Certain Type of Poetry, a Certain Type of Life, a Certain Type of Blood-Filled Creature Who Will Someday Die," and "Upon the Mathematics of the Breath and the Way"). What is ultimately revealed is an unexpectedly learned mind behind his seemingly off hand productions. Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook is essential reading for Bukowski fans, as well as a good introduction for new readers of this innovative, unconventional writer.


I AM HERE features 98 pieces of studio jewellery by the most significant European makers from the last five decades. Starting with pieces from the most radical era of making in the 1970's, I AM HERE tells a story of jewellery through the work held in the collections of Crafts Council, mima, Galerie Marzee, Gallery S O and Pangolin London.

The New Jewellery movement of the 1970s saw jewellers using non-precious materials and experimental design to highlight contemporary social and political issues. This shifted our idea of what jewellery could be and had a profound impact on future making both in the UK and beyond.

The exhibition includes work by Susanna Heron, one of the first jewellers to use Perspex in the early 1970s, a film of an arm piece made of ice by Naomi Filmer and a bejewelled fur-coated emperor penguin brooch by Dutch jeweller Felieke van der Leest.

Other jewellers include Gijs Bakker, David Bielander, Caroline Broadhead, Peter Chang, Gerda Flockinger, Karl Fritsch, Rudolf Kocea, Otto Kunzli, Roger Morris, Ted Noten, Lina Peterson, Dorothea Pruhl, Mah Rana, Hans Stofer, Emmy van Leersum and David Watkins.

The exhibition also features a new piece from Tatty Devine's most recent collection. The Crafts Council have commissioned Tatty Devine to produce two new special jewellery editions that will be sold exclusively by the Crafts Council to celebrate I AM HERE.


South Africa is over-exploiting its freshwater resources and water could be a large constraint on the implementation of the National Development Plan. Using the International Futures forecasting system, this paper models and forecasts water demand and supply until 2035, the period covered by the National Water Resource Strategy 2013. The authors' research finds that the gap between demand and supply increases and that the solutions proposed by the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation will not close the gap without additional, aggressive measures. The authors propose such measures for each sector of demand and each source of water supply.


A paper presented at the April 2001 conference "Financial Innovation and Monetary Transmission," sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.


In current talk of text typology, the term "genre "has superseded most other formerly popular terms, such as "text type" and "register". We speak of genres not only in genre theory, but also in the rapidly expanding domain of corpus studies. However, as often is the case, terms which are widely used become polysemous and vague in meaning. Using the same term helps conceal the fact that the sociocognitive approach which characterises much current genre theory (e.g., Swales 1990; Bhatia 1993; Kamberelis 1995; Berkenkotter--Huckin 1995) is widely different if not downright incompatible with the notions of genre entertained among those linguists who amass large corpora for empirical research. The former approach sees genres as social, dynamic, interactive processes, which get realised in verbal interaction, while the latter treats genre as a label for many, often vaguely defined, kinds of variation in discourse types, the main use of which seems to be to ensure wide coverage for corpora. To illustrate the difference in the approaches, I shall show an influential formulation from both sides; one by Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), and one by Biber (1988). After that, I shall take up some issues which I find problematic in one or both of these approaches. Most of them centre around the issue of external vs. internal criteria in defining genres. After discussing the issues briefly, I shall then consider the possibilities of a convergent future. 1. Two conceptions of genre Recent genre theory generally favours conceptions of language which emphasise its nature as social action. The following characterisation of genre is presented by Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), which sums up the sociocognitive view in its current understanding, and has been widely adopted by many scholars working in the framework of genre analysis: 1. Dynamism. Genres are dynamic rhetorical forms that are developed from actors' responses to recurrent situations and that serve to stabilize experience and give it coherence and meaning. Genres change over time in response to their users' sociocognitive needs. 2. Situatedness. Our knowledge of genres is derived from and embedded in our participation in the communicative activities of daily and professional life. As such, genre knowledge is a form of "situated cognition" that continues to develop as we participate in the activities of the ambient culture. 3. Duality of Structure. As we draw on genre rules to engage in professional activities, we constitute social structures (in professional, institutional, and organizational contexts) and simultaneously reproduce these structures. 4. Community Ownership. Genre conventions signal a discourse community's norms, epistemology, ideology, and social ontology. 5. Form and Content. Genre knowledge embraces both form and content, including a sense of what content is appropriate to a particular purpose in a particular situation at a particular point in time. By looking at this list, could we identify a genre? If we already have a particular genre in mind, like a scientific article or a dinner conversation, the list might assist us in seeing it as genre, and assessing its "genericity". But without such a starting-point, there is little to guide us in construing an entity that in real life might pass as a genre, or orienting us to the size or level of unit to look for. For instance would research reports and review articles be variants of the same genre, or two genres, and are scientific journals one genre and popular science journals another, and how do popular science journals relate generically to popular science books? Or how stable must a conversation type be to merit the status of genre? And is all language use covered by genres? Secondly, as an example from the corpus camp, let us look at what Douglas Biber (1988: 67) took as his point of departure in his famous study of variation in speech and writing. …


Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator Technology Hands-on Cody Bunch Unleash the Power of vCenter Orchestrator to Automate Tasks and Improve Efficiency Today, VMware administrators are responsible for far more infrastructure, servers, and services than ever before. To succeed, they must take full advantage of opportunities to automate and orchestrate their vSphere environments. In Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator, three-time vExpert Cody Bunch shows how to utilize VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) 4.2 to achieve far higher levels of operational efficiency and effectiveness. Bunch reveals what vCO can do, walks through each step of installation and configuration, explains how its moving parts work together, and thoroughly introduces both plug-ins and workflows. Building on this core knowledge, he presents several start-to-finish case studies showing how to use vCO to address real-world challenges ranging from provisioning to snapshots, cluster management to decommissioning. Whatever your VMware virtualization environment, this book will help you do more with less, save time, eliminate errors, and improve both performance and reliability. Coverage includes Understanding how vCO fits into your environment and identifying your best opportunities to use it Choosing the right installation scenario and efficiently managing the vCO installation process Configuring vCO: services, passwords, networking, LDAP, databases, SSL, licensing, plug-ins, backup, and more Interacting with vCO through actions, packages, plug-ins, web views, resources, and workflows Automating manual tasks with vCOs extensive workflow library Creating sophisticated workflows with drag-and-drop components and JavaScript Using plug-ins to control infrastructure within and around your vSphere environment Bringing consistency to VM provisioning, overcoming VM sprawl and resource contention, and simplifying support Optimizing VM lifecycle management, all the way through decommissioning Automating all snapshot monitoring processes and components Exporting logs, finding/deleting orphaned files, and performing other day-to-day tasks Efficiently conducting mass VM migrations Quickly adding vCenter hosts and clusters, configuring shared storage, and adding hosts to new clusters Using vCO and third-party plug-ins to gain private cloud benefits and flexibility Networking/Virtualization vmware.com/go/vmwarepress


Digital curation is the global concept that includes all aspects of work on digitized and born digital cultural objects: from document entry to data description or indexing, storage, dissemination, and long-term preservation. It is an expanding activity, whose rules and best practices are not globally defined yet. The BnF has chosen to rely on observations on the ground to understand how its staff, faced with the urgent need to collect and preserve a fast-growing digital heritage, is developing new tasks and skills. A dedicated group called ORHION, a French acronym for Observatory of Organizations and Human Resources under Digital Influence, has launched a series of studies on professional identities that are particularly affected by the increasing shift to digital activities. It has so far completed its analysis of two subjects: metadata curation and digital entries. In order to assess the BnF's practices, ORHION also relies on other institutions' experiences. It has for instance organized a workshop on web archive curation during this year's general assembly of the International Internet Preservation Consortium, in May 2014. This paper focuses on the findings of these three use case analyses: the switch from cataloguing to metadata management for description and access; the processes and agents involved in digital entries; and the organization, skills and training of web curating teams. Based on these three experiences, this paper seeks to identify some key trends in digital curation: the notion of digital collection itself is not obvious and needs to be rethought; professional identities are challenged by the apparition of new tasks and the emergence of new actors; stakeholders struggle to understand their own roles and responsibilities in more complex treatment channels. Training staff and sharing the workload between the first pioneers and the rest of the teams are necessary to involve all professionals in digital curation.


Disposal of water treatment plant (WTP) residuals has always been an important consideration for the water industry. Stringent water quality standards, environmental regulations, and unavailability of land for ultimate disposal affect disposal of large amounts of this residual. The search for alternate economical disposal options and beneficial use are probably the next most logical and economical step to take. This study was performed to explore the possibility of stabilization of water treatment plant (WTP) residuals using additives. Three water treatment plant (WTP) residuals from treatment plants in New Jersey were used for the analysis. The objective of this research is to, if possible, present an acceptable application such as engineering fill for this stabilized product. The investigation was divided into three phases: 1. Study the geotechnical characteristics of the WTP residuals 2. Review possible disposal options of WTP residuals and investigate use of WTP residuals in brickmaking 3. Develop and test of Sorbond® stabilized WTP residuals. In the first phase of this study, the WTP residuals were characterized and the geotechnical properties evaluated. This was done to understand and differentiate between the types of WTP residuals being tested. In the second phase, attempts were made to replicate and formulate a procedure to successfully manufacture quality residualamended bricks. WTP residuals were mixed with various additives such as fly ash, kiln dust, shale etc to manufacture bricks. This effort failed to produce promising results, as the author was unable to develop a proper manufacturing process under the laboratory setup. The residual amended brick molds from the kiln were soft and showed numerous cracks throughout the body. Thus further testing on the brick molds could not be carried out. The third phase dealt with mixing different types of Sorbond® with WTP residuals. Unconfined compressive strength, compaction tests and durability tests were conducted on the final cured samples. The results were compared with the properties of WTP residuals to illuminate the change, if any, in the properties. The results indicate that the residual-sorbond® mix showed better strength values as compared to the WTP residuals. Also the freeze-thaw and wet-dry durability characteristics of the residual-sorbond • mix was greatly enhanced to qualify the product for engineering applications. A proportion of sorbond®, as low as 10% by dry weight, mixed with WTP residual can be compacted in the field provided the mix was allowed to


This article is a polemic with the eminent psychologists whose articles are published in the present edition of this journal. These articles present their views on the introductory article of the same volume titled "Is psychology still a science of behaviour?" The author of this article concurs with his polemicists that the fundamental task of psychology should be to explain behaviour, not merely to predict it. That said, he argues that in order for this to occur, psychology must, by necessity, study real human behaviours (which, in the opinion of some of the polemicists, is not an imperative). At the same time, he admits that an understanding of behaviour also requires studying what people think and feel.


The rapid growth in the use of learning technologies, particularly the use of the web based technologies and communications have offered educators with many more opportunities to investigate the most suitable learning environments for their students' learning styles. The purpose of the present study was to examine the students' learning styles and their views on blended learning. The study was conducted with thirty-four students at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. The two instruments were the questionnaire designed to identify students' views on blended learning and Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI) to measure students' learning styles. Additional data were gathered from achievement scores of students; and records demonstrate students' participation to e - learning environment. Results revealed that students' views on blended learning process, such as ease of use of the web environment, evaluation, face to face environment etc., differ according to their learning styles. Results also revealed that the highest mean score corresponds to face to face aspect of the process when students' evaluation concerning the implementation is taken to consideration. The overall findings showed no significant differences between students' achievement level according to their learning styles.


Edward Willis Scripps revolutionized the newspaper industry by applying modern business practices to his chain of more than forty newspapers and creating a telegraphic news service and illustrated news features syndicate. Convinced that big business was corrupting the American press, Scripps actively resisted supporting his newspapers through advertising. He also aimed them at the working class, an audience virtually ignored by most newspaper publishers of his era. Maintaining that the press should support the democratic endeavor by informing its largest constituency, Scripps succeeded in creating a string of small, cheap newspapers that were advocates for the common people: crusading for lower streetcar fares, free textbooks for public school children, municipal ownership of utilities, and pure food legislation, among many other causes. Gerald Baldasty's portrait of this long-neglected entrepreneurial giant is the first major academic study to draw on Scripps' business correspondence. "The Theodore Psalter" is one of the most valuable illuminated manuscripts to survive from the Byzantine Empire. One of only a few "fixed points" guiding the historian's understanding of Byzantine art and society, the "Theodore Psalter's" illumination is a uniquely rich source of insight into monastic organization, spirituality, book production, and a host of other aspects of Byzantine life. This facsimile CD-ROM version of the Psalter, produced from the original text held in the British Library Rare Books collection, offers unprecedented, virtual hands-on access to this precious volume. The innovative electronic format provides a complete display of all 416 pages, with magnified views of every illustration as well as a fully searchable text in the original Greek and in English translation. Complete with hyperlinked descriptions and full identifications of figures on every page, the facsimile is accompanied by three scholarly essays, by Charles Barber and by John Lowden of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Combining cutting-edge technology with first-rate scholarship, "The Theodore Psalter" (electronic facsimile) serves as an indispensable tool for art historians and affords a fascinating opportunity for other adventurous readers to interact with a rare treasure.


Background: Resistin is a hormone that is linked to the development of insulin resistance (IR), but information on the direct relationship of resistin levels in humans with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and their effect on the histological severity of NAFLD, is lacking.
Objective: The aim of the current study is to determine the circulating resistin levels obtained from patients with NAFLD and to correlate them with insulin resistance and hepatic histological features.
Methods: Blood samples were collected from 30 consecutive patients with liver-biopsy-proven NAFLD and 30 subjects as controls. Serum resistin levels were measured. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated for all subjects, and serum insulin, C-peptide, and lipoprotein levels were also measured.
Results: Mean serum resistin level and BMI in the NAFLD group were significantly higher than in the controls (both P < 0.001). Both men and women in the NAFLD group had higher mean serum resistin levels than did the men and women in the control group (all P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that the percentage of hepatic steatosis, sex, BMI, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance [HOMA(IR)] were related to serum resistin levels.
Conclusion: These data suggest increased resistin levels in NAFLD patients which are related to histological severity of the disease. These findings support the link between resistin, insulin resistance and BMI in these patients.


Entity resolution in settings with rich relational structure often introduces complex dependencies between co-references. Exploiting these dependencies is challenging - it requires seamlessly combining statistical, relational, and logical dependencies. One task of particular interest is entity resolution in familial networks. In this setting, multiple partial representations of a family tree are provided, from the perspective of different family members, and the challenge is to reconstruct a family tree from these multiple, noisy, partial views. This reconstruction is crucial for applications such as understanding genetic inheritance, tracking disease contagion, and performing census surveys. Here, we design a model that incorporates statistical signals, such as name similarity, relational information, such as sibling overlap, and logical constraints, such as transitivity and bijective matching, in a collective model. We show how to integrate these features using probabilistic soft logic, a scalable probabilistic programming framework. In experiments on real-world data, our model significantly outperforms state-of-the-art classifiers that use relational features but are incapable of collective reasoning.


A common thread that ties together many prior works in scene understanding is their focus on the aspects directly present in a scene such as its categorical classification or the set of objects. In this work, we propose to look beyond the visible elements of a scene; we demonstrate that a scene is not just a collection of objects and their configuration or the labels assigned to its pixels - it is so much more. From a simple observation of a scene, we can tell a lot about the environment surrounding the scene such as the potential establishments near it, the potential crime rate in the area, or even the economic climate. Here, we explore several of these aspects from both the human perception and computer vision perspective. Specifically, we show that it is possible to predict the distance of surrounding establishments such as McDonald's or hospitals even by using scenes located far from them. We go a step further to show that both humans and computers perform well at navigating the environment based only on visual cues from scenes. Lastly, we show that it is possible to predict the crime rates in an area simply by looking at a scene without any real-time criminal activity. Simply put, here, we illustrate that it is possible to look beyond the visible scene.


This paper presents a novel approach for human-machine interface using visual-based communication. Scene analysis, object recognition and tracking, together with gesture detection and classification, are employed to design and implement a system for real time interaction. A new paradigm is proposed for efficient selection of hand gestures that can be used in other gesturebased environments aiming at interactive multimedia. An inexpensive web camera and readily available tools (such as an ordinary pen) have been used in this approach to render the system cost effective and suitable for general and home-based multimedia applications. Focus is placed on real time applications with a fast decision function for gesture classification, and a model-based approach for orientation detection. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach when tested using different performance criteria. Keywords– Interactive multimedia, visual-based interface, scene analysis, gesture recognition, object tracking


When synthesis of the 25-kDa vaccinia virus core protein VP8 is repressed, mature virus particles of normal appearance are produced to approximately 80% of wild-type levels but these particles are over 100-fold less infectious than wild-type particles (D. Wilcock and G. L. Smith, Virology 202:294-304, 1994). Here we show that virions which lack VP8 can bind to and enter cells but the levels of steady-state RNA are greatly reduced in comparison with those for wild-type infections. In vitro assays using permeabilized virions demonstrated that VP8-deficient virions had drastically reduced rates of transcription (RNA synthesis was decreased by 80 to 96%) and that the extrusion of RNA transcripts from these virions was also decreased. Low concentrations of sodium deoxycholate extracted proteins more efficiently from VP8-deficient virions than from wild-type virions. The increased fragility of VP8-deficient virions and their slower RNA extrusion rates suggest that VP8 may be required for the correct formation of the core. Virions which lack VP8 were shown to contain a full complement of transcription enzymes, and soluble extracts from these virions were active in transcription assays using either single-stranded M13 DNA or exogenous plasmid template containing a vaccinia virus early promoter. Thus, the defect in transcription is due not to a lack of specific transcriptional enzymes within virions but rather to the inability of these enzymes to efficiently transcribe the DNA genome packaged within VP8-deficient virions. These results suggest that VP8 is required for the correct packaging of the viral DNA genome and/or for the efficient transcription of packaged virion DNA, which has a higher degree of structural complexity than plasmid templates. Possible roles for VP8 in these processes are discussed.


The landscapes of mammalian genomes are characterized by complex patterns of intersecting and overlapping sense and antisense transcription, giving rise to large numbers of coding and non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). A recent report by Kapranov and colleagues(1) describes three potentially novel classes of RNAs located at the very edges of protein-coding genes. The presence of RNAs from one of these classes appears to be correlated with the expression levels of their associated genes. These results suggest that a proportion of these RNAs might have roles in the cis-regulation of neighbouring protein-coding genes' expression.


Image retrieval in realistic scenarios targets large dynamic datasets of unlabeled images. In these cases, training or fine-tuning a model every time new images are added to the database is neither efficient nor scalable. Convolutional Neural Networks trained for image classification over large datasets have been proven effective feature extractors when transferred to the task of image retrieval. The most successful approaches are based in encoding the activations of convolutional layers as they convey the image spatial information. Our proposal goes beyond and aims at a local-aware encoding of these features depending on the predicted image semantics, with the advantage of using only of the knowledge contained inside the network. In particular, we employ Class Activation Maps (CAMs) to obtain the most discriminative regions of the image from a semantic perspective. Additionally, CAMs are also used to generate object proposals during an unsupervised re-ranking stage after a first fast search. Our experiments on two public available datasets for instance retrieval, Oxford5k and Paris6k, demonstrate that our system is competitive and even outperforms the current state-of-the-art when using off-the-shelf models trained on the object classes of ImageNet.


This paper studies what causes (small-scale) farmers to leave their farms and typically move to urban areas. A data set is constructed by linking survey results with financial data, and the data set is analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. Our results indicate that, while existence and size of future farm production is important, there is also a difference between farmers who primarily have financial objectives for their farming, and those who have more lifestyle oriented objectives. The latter group is, everything else being equal, more likely to stay on the farm. This could imply that, if preventing migration from rural to urban areas is a policy objective, production support schemes will be effective for some groups, but will be less effective for the group with lifestyle objectives. If this group is to be encouraged to stay on the countryside, policies directed at improving the general living conditions in the local community are likely to be more effective than specific support schemes related to agricultural production.


Today's building industry not only demands more and more reduced construction time on building site, but also an advanced and mostly construction attendant design phase. Even though there is software available to support design processes in distributed environments, most applications only support simple document based exchange of information. In this paper a knowledge based system is presented to support cooperative, comprehensive design processes in distributed environments. The presented research project is financially supported by the German Research Community (DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).


Release of insulin from pancreatic βcells in response to glucose is thought to be signaled by generation of ATP and consequent influx of calcium into the cell. However, evidence indicates that a factor besides ATP is released from mitochondria that is necessary for secretion. Maechler and Wollheim provide evidence that this messenger is glutamate. Glutamate is shown to be generated by mitochondria in response to glucose and directly stimulates exocytosis in permeabilized cells in which the concentration of calcium is held constant. Uptake of glutamate by secretory granules appears to be required for its effects. Thus, glutamate, well known as an intercellular messenger in the nervous system, appears to also function as an intracellular messenger that controls insulin secretion. Maechler, P., and Wollheim, C.B. (1999) Mitochondial glutamate acts as a messenger in glucose-induced insulin exocytosis. Nature 402: 685-689. [Online Journal]


We study infinite limits of graphs generated by the duplication model for biological networks. We prove that with probability 1, the sole nontrivial connected component of the limits is unique up to isomorphism. We describe certain infinite deterministic graphs which arise naturally from the model. We characterize the isomorphism type and induced subgraph structure of these infinite graphs using the notion of dismantlability from the theory of vertex pursuit games, and graph homomorphisms.


Presenting a range of evidence for these diverse styles, from Roman art to early medieval bracteate amulets, and from classical texts to Beowulf, the Edda and Icelandic sagas, Professor Speidel here details seventeen different Germanic warriors styles, including berserks, wolf-warriors, club-wielders, long-hairs, ghost warriors and horse-stabbers, and how they indicate an unbroken continuity of customs, beliefs and battle-field tactics. Ancient Germanic warriors played a decisive role in historical events from 200 BC, when Germanic culture first became identifiable, to AD 1000 when Christianity swept through the Nordic countries. Arising from beliefs and states of mind, a variety of warrior styles manifested themselves in differences of dress, weaponry and fighting technique. Fully illustrated with over fifty photographs, this vivid and fascinating survey adds a colourful new dimension to our understanding of the history of Europe.


1. Plasma renin concentration (PRC) has been measured in 212 hypertensive patients. In fourteen patients with essential hypertension and in seventeen patients with renovascular hypertension, plasma volume (PV) and extracellular fluid volume (ECFV) were measured. 2. The results obtained have been discussed in three ways: (a)PRC in relation to the aetiology of hypertension; (b)PRC in relation to the effect on blood pressure of surgery for unilateral renal diseases; (c)PRC, PV and ECFV in 'essential' and renovascular hypertension. 3. Excluding patients with ophthalmoscopic signs of malignant hypertension, PRC is significantly higher in renovascular hypertension than in normal subjects and patients suffering from 'essential' hypertension and hypertension associated with bilateral renal disease; but the overlapping of the single values of the patients with these diseases is marked. Thus a normal PRC has no diagnostic value, while a high PRC without sodium deficiency or retinopathy might favour a diagnosis of renovascular disease. 4. In twenty-seven out of thirty-three patients submitted to surgery for unilateral renal disease and followed up for 12 months or longer, blood pressure has been significantly reduced. This group includes twelve patients with a normal preoperative PRC and fifteen patients with a high PRC. These results clearly demonstrate that unilateral renal disease may maintain a high blood pressure without increasing PRC and that PRC has no prognostic value. 5. Concurrent estimations of PRC, PV and ECFV in patients with renovascular or essential hypertension revealed the following differences. In cases of renovascular hypertension with normal PRC, PV and ECFV were significantly increased while in those with raised PRC, PV did not differ and ECFV was barely raised with respect to values obtained in patients with essential hypertension. PV of renovascular patients with normal renin was significantly higher than that of renovascular patients with high renin. The analysis of these results with quadratic discriminant functions demonstrated that an integrated evaluation of blood pressure, PV, ECFV and PRC allows a separation between the two types of hypertension. In other words these factors, taken together, in some way seem to reflect a difference between the two diseases. These results may indicate a new type of approach to the diagnosis and prognosis of renovascular hypertension.


When security and arms control analysts list what has helped keep nuclear weapons technologies from spreading further than they already have, energy economics is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Yet large civilian nuclear energy programs can--and have--brought states quite a way towards developing nuclear weapons, and it has been market economics, more than any other force, that has kept most states from completing the original plans. Since the early 1950s, every major government in the Western Hemisphere, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe has been drawn to atomic power's allure only to have market realities prevent most of their nuclear investment plans from being fully realized. Adam Smith's "invisible hand," then, could well determine just how far civilian nuclear energy expands, and how much attention its attendant security risks deserve. Certainly, if nuclear power's economics remain negative, diplomats and policy makers could leverage this point, working to limit legitimate nuclear commerce to what is economically competitive and so gain a powerful tool to help limit nuclear proliferation. If nuclear power finally breaks from its past and becomes the cheapest of clean technologies, though, it is unlikely that diplomats and policymakers will be anywhere near as able or willing to prevent insecure or hostile states from developing nuclear energy programs even if they help them to make atomic weapons. Nuclear's past, present, and projected future IN the early 1950s, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss trumpeted the prospect of nuclear electricity "too cheap to meter." An international competition to develop commercial reactors, orchestrated under President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program, ensued between the U.S., Russia, India, Japan, and much of Western Europe. Several reactors and nuclear fuel plants were designed and built, endless amounts of technology declassified and shared worldwide with thousands of technicians, and numerous research reactors exported in the 1950s. Yet, ultimately, the relative cheapness and abundance of oil and coal assured that only a handful of large nuclear power plants were actually built. The next drive for nuclear power came in the late 1960s, just before the energy "crisis" of the early 1970s. President Richard Nixon, in announcing his Project Independence, insisted that expanding commercial nuclear energy was crucial to reducing U.S. and allied dependence on Middle Eastern oil. France, Japan, and Germany, meanwhile, expanded their nuclear power construction programs in a similar push to establish energy independence. The U.S., Russia, Germany, and France also promoted nuclear power exports at the same time. Four thousand nuclear power plants were to be brought on line worldwide by the year 2000. But, market forces--coupled with adverse nuclear power plant operating experience--pushed back. As nuclear power plant operations went awry (e.g., fuel cladding failures, cracking pipes, fires, and ultimately Three Mile Island), spiraling nuclear construction costs and delays, as well as the disastrous accident at Chernobyl, killed the dream. More than half the nuclear plant orders in the U.S. and almost 90 percent of the projected plants globally were canceled--including a surprisingly large number of proposed projects in the Middle East. Today, however, a third wave of nuclear power promotion is underway, buoyed by international interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and national concerns in enhancing energy security, at least as measured in terms of reliance on oil. The nuclear industry in the U.S. has been lobbying Congress to finance the construction of more than $100 billion in reactors with federal loan guarantees. President Obama has responded by proposing $36 billion in new federal loan guarantees for nuclear power. Other governments have renewed their plans for reactor construction as well. Even Europe is reconsidering its post-Chernobyl ambivalence over nuclear power: Finland, France, Italy, and Eastern Europe are again either building or planning to build power reactor projects of their own. …


In the current context of climate change and its accompanying adverse effects on natural, human and social systems, the imperative of transitioning to low- and preferably post-carbon societies has become a non-negotiable reality if we want to avoid reaching the point of no return in terms of environmental and climate catastrophe. Such a transition requires that the interests and needs of workers and their communities be taken into consideration to make sure they do not bear the heaviest part of the burden in terms of loss of jobs and means of survival, and that they are prepared to face the new, post-carbon labour environment. The concept of Just Transition was coined to describe both the socio-political project put forward by trade unions in response to climate change, and the recognition by climate activists that the livelihoods and security of workers and their communities must be ensured during the transition to a post-carbon society. However, just transition movements are divided between two quite different orientations, which are labelled "affirmative" and "transformative." On the one hand, affirmative just transition advocates envisage a transition within the current political-economic system. Transformative just transition activists, on the other hand, envisage a post-capitalist transition. This article, drawing upon an extensive case study of the Portuguese climate jobs campaign, goes beyond showing how these orientations shape the positions taken by union and climate activists. The article also analyses how the conflicts and cooperation between these key actors can shed light on the possibilities and/or limitations of just transition as a framework for the collective action needed to achieve rapid, deep decarbonisation of economies in the Global North context.
KEY WORDS: climate change; just transition; labour environmentalism; climate jobs; climate justice; climate activism


This thesis advances the conceptual understanding of contemporary expressions of family migration, drawing upon the case study of Old Town, Hastings, in the South East of England. Based on rich, empirical findings from semi-structured interviews, content analyses of media sources, and household surveys, it is shown that flows of family migrants into Old Town are re-focusing attention on previously under-stated motives for migration. Furthermore, it is contended that findings signal the growing importance of emerging appeals, such as more family-friendly employment practices, enhanced qualities-of-life, and alternative lifestyles 'by the sea'. It is argued that the findings disrupt conventional conceptualisations of family migration, and illuminate more complex and complicated forms of mobility.


This September, voters in Scotland will decide whether to break away from the United Kingdom. If supporters of independence carry the day, pivotal choices that affect the scope of Scotland's economic sovereignty and its future relationship to the UK will need to be made, particularly with respect to the question of its currency. As the disaster in the eurozone makes clear, it is essential to get these arrangements right. In this policy brief, Philip Pilkington outlines a monetary framework designed to meet the macroeconomic challenges that would be faced by a newly separate Scotland. His conclusion: while it would be in Scotland's best interests to continue using the sterling in the short run, making the transition to issuing its own, freely floating currency would place the country on a more stable economic footing.


Stem cell therapy has been proposed as a strategy to regenerate the damaged myocardium after myocardial infarction. The differentiation capacity of many different stem cells to cardiomyocytes and blood vessels and their effect on cardiac function has been studied. Despite low retention and engraftment of transplanted cells, small improvements in cardiac function and the formation of new vessels and cardiomyocytes, originating from transplanted and endogenous cells, could be observed. The activation of endogenous cells by cell transplantation instigated the formulation of the paracrine hypothesis. Stem cells conditioned medium diminished cardiac injury after myocardial infarction and stimulated regeneration. Exosomes being part of the conditioned medium were suggested to be involved. Exosomes are small membrane vesicles produced via the endosomal pathway involved in inter cellular communication. Cardiomyocyte progenitor cell (CMPC) and mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) exosomes are characterized and their role in angiogenesis and immune modulation is determined. Within the conditioned medium different types of vesicles could be detected of which the majority of the vesicles are in the exosomal range (30-100 nm). Analysis of sucrose gradient purified exosomes demonstrated that these vesicles express exosome specific proteins at a density of 1.10 – 1.12 g/ml. Incubation of endothelial cells with fluorescently labeled exosomes demonstrated the uptake of exosomes by endothelial cells. In different cell-based assays, the pre-requisites of angiogenesis were enhanced. In vivo, CMPC and MSC exosomes enhanced the infiltration of angiogenic cells into a matrigel plug, demonstrating the pro-angiogenic potential of these exosomes. Endothelial cells stimulated with strategically manipulated CMPC exosomes, via overexpression of miR-1 in CMPCs led to the horizontal transfer of miR-1 from CMPC exosomes to endothelial cells. Additionally the migration of these endothelial cells in a scratch wound migration assay was enhanced. CMPCs and MSCs were also found to be involved in the suppression of activated T-cell proliferation. The expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines of activated T-cells is suppressed upon co-culture with both types of stem cells. However, CMPCs and MSCs mode of action is not dependent on cell-cell contact as trans-well experiments and exosomes also suppressed T-cell proliferation. Immune suppression of the inflammatory response specifically for T-cells is important to persevere cardiac function and reduce negative cardiac remodeling in long-term heart failure. The effect on other immune cells, which are involved in the acute response after myocardial infarction still need to be investigated. Finally this thesis describes the release of exosomes and other vesicles upon cardiac injury and their role in the activation of endothelial cells. Upon ischemia reperfusion injury, more vesicles are released into the circulation, suggesting that they could play a role as biomarkers. Exosomes released upon ischemia/reperfusion injury enhance the migration of endothelial cells, which could indicate that these vesicles stimulate endogenous repair. Taken together the amount of exosomes released upon cardiac injury to the circulation is increased. These vesicles activate endothelial cells, suggestive of the intrinsic regenerative capacity of these vesicles released upon cardiac injury. Additionally, exosomes from CMPCs and MSCs are a new and promising therapeutic strategy to reduce cardiac injury and enhance cardiac regeneration.


We report the synthesis, characterization and application of highly water-soluble fluorescein-polyethyleneimine (PEI) coated gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and cell labeling (CL). The average particle diameter and average hydrodynamic diameter were estimated to be 3.92 and 7.5 nm, respectively. Fluorescein-PEI was prepared from EDC/NHS coupling method. The surface coating was characterized by the FT-IR absorption spectrum and the surface coating amount was estimated to be 22.42 wt% from a TGA analysis, corresponding to 0.65 nm−2 grafting density. The fluorescein-PEI coated gadolinium oxide nanoparticles showed r1 and r2 of 6.76 and 20.27 s−1mM−1, respectively, and a strong fluorescence at ∼527 nm. A pronounced positive contrast enhancement was clearly observed in 3 tesla T1 MR images of a rat with a liver tumor after injection of an aqueous sample solution into a rat tail vein. After treatment of DU145 cells with a sample solution, a strong fluorescence in confocal images was also observed. These two results together confirm the excellent MRI-CL dual functionality of fluorescein-PEI coated gadolinium oxide nanoparticles.


Fathers' support is an essential component in ensuring success in improving the infant feeding practices. A nutrition education intervention strategy was employed targeting the fathers in the intervention group with information on breastfeeding and complementary feeding over the one year research period. A total of 290 father-and-mothers to be paired were recruited. Study participants were randomized into either intervention group (n=145 pairs) or control group (n=145 pairs). The fathers completed a pre-tested structured questionnaire that explored their knowledge of breastfeeding pre and post-intervention. Kisumu County was selected because of the high infant mortality rate (105 deaths per 1,000 live births) in the region. Our results did not show any statistically significant differences in the knowledge level on breastfeeding of fathers in the intervention and control group pre-intervention based on odds ratio test of the following indicators: initiation of breastfeeding within an hour of birth (p=0.44), exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months (p=0.79) and breastfeeding for 2 years and beyond (p=0.90). However, statistically, significant differences were observed post-intervention as follows: initiation of breastfeeding within an hour of birth (p=0.02), exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months (p=<0.01) and breastfeeding for 2 years and beyond (p=0.01). A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed a statistically significant change in knowledge of the fathers in the intervention group after receiving the nutrition education sessions (Z=-10.181, p=0.000). Therefore, we conclude from our study that nutrition education targeting the fathers increases their knowledge on breastfeeding and this presents a good opportunity to enhance their support towards the mother, ultimately contributing to improved infants feeding practices.


As acoustic ecology and soundscape studies have developed alongside an ever
-evident
climate crisis, it has become imperative to reclaim the environmental aspects of soundscape
recording and to use acoustic ecology as a way of confronting our current ecolog
ical
condition. Ecological thinking challenges acoustic ecology to contend with the idea that
sounds are critically connected to broader questions about environmental matters and urges
soundscape artists to move beyond reflective or ecomimetic recordings towards active and
exploratory ones. Soundscape researchers and artists, including Chris Watson, have been key
to investigating the environment through sound and documenting ecological degradation
and the concurrent silencing of the natural world. This a
rticle synthesizes work done in
acoustic ecology and contemporary thinking about the Anthropocene to elaborate a "dark
acoustic ecology" that listens in on the sonic conditions and effects of accelerated climate
change. I examine Chris Watson's 18 minute soundscape recording of the 10,000-
year
-old
Icelandic glacier "Vatnajokull" from his 2003 album
Weather Report
 to pose questions about
what it means to think darkly about our ecological interconnections in relation to flows of
space, place, time, silence, and movement.


Understanding sedimentary transport mechanisms in shale-prone basins can be difficult, but anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) has the sensitivity and ease of use to be widely applicable. Three distinct shale basins were selected, the turbidite Ainsa Basin, the shelfedge of the Welsh Borderlands and the hemiplegic Marcellus Shales within the Appalachian Basin. These were chosen to assess the strengths and limitation of AMS as a palaeoflow indicator, focusing mainly on the Ainsa Basin as it has a well characterised palaeoflow and geographically confined depositional model that spans a very short period. This project explored the viability of using Baas et al., (2007) description of the petrofabric's AMS as a means to establish delivery mechanism. The Ainsa System showed two modes of AMS, one that was aligned with the flow direction and a transverse fabric normal to flow direction. Each site was examined for its minerology; hysteresis tests were performed to observe if the source of magnetic susceptibility was from ferrimagnetic or paramagnetic minerals and to infer if the AMS reflected a grain or crystalline fabric. In the Ainsa case study, the samples had a greater percentage of ferrimagnetic contribution so isothermal remanent magnetism (IRM) and anhysteretic remanent magnetisation (ARM) acquisition was used to determine the ferrimagnetic minerology. The sites were examined for the tectonic impact on the AMS which was largely minimal.


In 1884, the distinguished German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber suffered the first of a series of mental collapses that would afflict him for the rest of his life. In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. It became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a "crisis in God's realm," one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of fantasms. There was only one remedy; as his doctor noted: Schreber "considered himself chosen to redeem the world, and to restore to it the lost state of Blessedness. This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman..."


Supercontinuum generation is investigated experimentally and numerically in a highly nonlinear index-guiding photonic crystal optical fiber in a regime in which self-phase modulation of the pump wave makes a negligible contribution to spectral broadening. An ultrabroadband octave-spanning white-light continuum is generated with 60-ps pump pulses of subkilowatt peak power. The primary mechanism of spectral broadening is identified as the combined action of stimulated Raman scattering and parametric four-wave mixing. The observation of a strong anti-Stokes Raman component reveals the importance of the coupling between stimulated Raman scattering and parametric four-wave mixing in highly nonlinear photonic crystal fibers and also indicates that non-phase-matched processes contribute to the continuum. Additionally, the pump input polarization affects the generated continuum through the influence of polarization modulational instability. The experimental results are in good agreement with detailed numerical simulations. These findings demonstrate the importance of index-guiding photonic crystal fibers for the design of picosecond and nanosecond supercontinuum light sources.


Abstract This paper focuses on the role of large technology companies' entry and expansion to the data-intensive market areas via their technological development and strategic acquisitions of companies. We analyze the evolvement of personal data related innovation in various data-intensive domains. We find that the ideas related to personal data are increasingly protected by patents. The growth in the numbers of personal data related patents was relatively modest from 2005 to the early 2010s, but it has intensified since 2011. Large technology companies' entry to various new market areas is reflected in an exponential increase in patent applications particularly in the artificial intelligence domain. Furthermore, we find that the number of artificial intelligence/data analytics companies acquired by the data giants has escalated during the 2010s. Patent and acquisition data further echo technology giants' intentions to expand their activities into the financial and personal health services. Overall, the data show the data giants' buyouts are frequently targeted to companies active in the markets outside their core business. Our analysis illustrates how the divergencies in the data giants' innovation activities and strategic acquisitions have led them to each conquer their specific areas of dominance in the global markets for data.


Abstract The paper presents the problem domain related to data safety management in the face of the threats that organisations of all types encounter in this scope. The Author's particular concern are personal data management issues, which are of key importance for contemporary enterprises as they frequently determine wining the market advantage and growth in their competitiveness. Yet, incidents of personal data breaches, aimed at economic organisations have been on the increase in the recent years, leading not only to substantial financial losses, but what is worse, frequently resulting in damage to their reputation. Therefore, a vital issue for all enterprises is to make their employees acquainted with threats to data security and their potential harmful effects on the operations and financial results of organisations. The paper presents an analysis of breaches to personal data in organisations in a global dimension as well as analyses of their negative effects to their image and trust of their customers.


The Association between Maternal HIV status and Low Birth Weight Offspring, Malawi DHS 2010 By Sterner Moses Msamila INTRODUCTION: Low birth weight (LBW) is a public health problem in developing countries including Malawi. It is an intermediate endpoint of maternal lifestyles and health status, and a powerful predictor of newborn's survival. Over 30 risk factors have been associated with LBW, but the role of maternal HIV infection as an underlying factor for LBW is not yet well established. Understanding whether or not maternal HIV status is a risk factor for LBW is key in the prevention of LBW and its life time health effects. AIM: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between maternal HIV status and LBW in Malawi using DHS 2010 data. METHODS: This study analyzed 7716 mother-child pairs from the 2010 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data using SAS 9.4 program. Student's t-test and Chi-square test were applied, for continuous and categorical variables respectively, to compare maternal and child characteristics by HIV status and LBW status separately. Bivariate logistic regression was performed and crude odds ratios were determined to ascertain the relative measure of effect of maternal and fetal characteristics on outcome variable (LBW). Then, multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association between maternal HIV infection and LBW adjusting for covariates. Statistical assessment of interaction between HIV infection and covariates on LBW was made. A p-value of <0 .05 or 95% confidence intervals were used to determine statistical significance throughout all the analyses performed. RESULTS: The proportion of LBW infants was 9.45% in total, with 13.60% among HIV positive women and 9.26% among HIV negative women (p 0.0337). A multivariable logistic regression model showed that HIV positive mother was 77% more likely [odds ratio (OR) 1.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.17-2.67] than HIV negative mother to give birth to LBW infant. The odds of LBW also increased among teenage women (OR = 1.86; 95% CI = 1.47, 2.35), women without education (OR = 1.66; 95% CI = 1.13, 2.43), low income (OR = 1.37; 95% CI = 1.05, 1.78), and Chewa ethnicity (OR = 1.92; 95% CI = 1.39, 2.66). However, LBW was not associated with child sex, marital status, or prenatal care. Though not statistically significant, the association between HIV infection and LBW was modified by increase in age, unmarried marital status, and inadequate prenatal care. DISCUSSION: These findings are consistent with other previous studies that showed that maternal HIV status is a significant risk factor for LBW. CONCLUSION: The study has substantiated the need to recognize HIV-positive pregnant mothers as high risk obstetric patients who need extra support and care during pregnancy and delivery, and the need to intervene with supplemental nutritional interventions during antenatal clinics and strengthen HIV prevention among women of child bearing age to reduce LBW infants.


Liatris helleri Porter is a perennial herb endemic to high elevation rock outcrop communities in northwest North Carolina that has been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1987. The degree of relation between Liatris helleri Porter and its conger Liatris turgida Gaiser has become a point of taxonomic contention. Previous morphological and genetic studies have suggested the possibility that these taxa do not fall discretely into separate taxonomic treatments, which has led to unclear species boundaries. The current solution for this taxonomic issue has been to subsume L. turgida populations under the L. helleri epithet, with a possibility that these taxa are separable at a varietal level. This has brought L. helleri's status of federal protection into question and resolution of this issue is needed to provide land managers and conservationists with accurate delineations of these taxa. This study provides high-resolution microsatellite data to address the degree of relation between L. helleri and L. turgida. The results of this study identify a genetically distinct metapopulation of L. helleri, areas of admixture, and genetic diversity estimates for both species. Based on these findings we argue for the continued protected status of L. helleri (with a reduced range) and for a reevaluation of the protected status of L. turgida in North Carolina.


The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) that came into operation on 31 March 2011 introduced strict liability on producers, importers, distributors and retailers for damage occasioned by defective goods. The authors of this first South African textbook dealing with this intriguing field of law set themselves the goal of explaining "some" of the theoretical problems besetting strict liability for products on the basis of an analysis of both local and foreign sources and of providing guidance in respect of practical problems created by the application of the act (v). It would therefore appear that the work is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on consumer protection law in South Africa, but rather as a pioneering attempt to highlight some topics within this broad applied field of law which spans fields such as the law of delict and contract where no more than cursory reflections on products liability as such, or as a subdivision of consumer protection, appear in the standard textbooks on these branches of the law, or in works of a more general kind (see eg Neethling and Potgieter Neethling-Potgieter-Visser The Law of Delict (2010) 317-320; 373-375; Loubser, Midgley et al The Law of Delict in South Africa (2010) 243-251; Hutchison, Pretorius et al The Law of Contract in South Africa (2012) 431 et seq; Du Bois et al Wille's Principles of South African Law (2007) 1104-1105).


Gabriel Josipovici is a major contemporary writer, critic, and thinker. Monika Fludernik's study of his fiction and drama is the first monograph to be published on any aspect of his work. Since its completion, Josipovici has published several very significant literary works. Many other aspects of his multifaceted output deserve attention as well, most notably his literary criticism. Monika Fludernik. Echoes and Mirrorings: Gabriel Josipovici's Creative Oeuvre. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000. xvi + 264 pp. No price, paper. Monika Fludernik, Professor of English Literature at the University of Freiburg, has produced the first monograph on the work of the British literary critic, novelist, and playwright Gabriel Josipovici. To date (November 2002), Josipovici has published sixteen works of fiction, and more than thirty plays for radio and the stage. He has also published ten nonfiction works. In 2001 his very moving memoir, A Life, focusing on his late mother, Sasha Rabinovitch, was published. Josipovici is also a frequent reviewer for the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and other publications. Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940, and educated in Egypt in a French-English school, then in England. He read English at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, taking a first in his final examinations in 1961. In 1963 he joined the faculty at the University of Sussex where he was a Lecturer (1963-1974), then a Reader (1974-1980), part-time Reader ( 1980-1984), and subsequently Professor of English in the School of European Studies. Much of his time since the early 1980s has been spent writing, and he taught largely on a part-time basis. In 1998 he retired to devote all his energies to writing. Fludernik's monograph appeared too early to include A Life. Her approach is formalist and factual, and her aim is "to provide a long-overdue critical appreciation of the writings of this sophisticated author. Josipovici's intelligence and depth of insight deserve a wider audience" (vi-vii). The introduction describes Fludernik's initial encounter with Josipovici's work, when she was working "on fiction written in the second person" (1), and her meeting with the author. She then summarizes information about his life, providing basic facts about him and the extent of his work. She treats, too briefly, an important element in his life, his "Jewishness" and its impact "on the themes and form of his texts" (6). Following "The Silence that Calls Out to You: An Interview with Gabriel Josipovici," the first chapter is an analysis of her subject's short stories, or "Metaphorical Mirrorings." The second chapter deals with the novels and the third chapter is an analysis of Josipovici's "superb handling of dialogue both in his fiction and in his drama" (6). The fourth chapter is the first detailed discussion of Josipovici's dramatic productivity and draws upon typescripts available from the dramatist or his agent. Only seven of Josipovici' s eighteen plays and only one of his fifteen radio plays are in print. (He has also written four television plays and a film script, none of which is in print.) Chapter Five contextualizes Josipovici within contemporary British writing and compares him with other fiction writers and dramatists. Fludernik's book concludes with the first "complete" bibliography of Josipovici. With sparse, sometimes one-word, annotations, this consists of biographical sources of information, followed by a section called "Poetological Statements by the Author"-in other words, six titles by him ranging from his "Getting it Right: True Confessions of an Experimentalist" (1982) to "Writing, Reading, and the Study of Literature" (1989). Three interviews are listed, as are Awards. There then follows the main bibliography with Section A, "The Writings of Gabriel Josipovici," is divided into eight subsections: Novels, Non-Fiction, Short Stories, Plays, Radio Plays, Television Plays and Films, German Radio Broadcasts (seven are listed), and Criticism. …


When the Soviet Union collapsed, most Russians had lived their entire lives in a quintessentially authoritarian culture. Having been socialized in this environment, how could citizens acquire the attitudes and behaviors necessary to support a new, more pluralistic regime? Cultural theories of political learning emphasize the primacy of childhood socialization and hold that altering initial attitudes is a decades-long process that depends on generational replacement. Institutional theories emphasize adult relearning in response to changing circumstances regardless of socialization. Lifetime learning integrates the competing perspectives. Multilevel models using New Russia Barometer data from 1992 to 2005 confirm the persistence of some generational differences in Russian political attitudes but demonstrate even larger effects resulting from adult relearning. Lifetime learning provides the most comprehensive account and suggests that Russians would quickly acquire the attitudes and behaviors appropriate to democracy—if Russian elites supply more authentic democratic institutions.


Bivalve molluscs, such as oysters, are threatened by shifts in seawater chemistry
 resulting from climate change. However, a few species and populations within a species
 stand out for their capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change‐associated
 stressors. Understanding the intracellular basis of such differential responses can
 contribute to the development of strategies to minimise the pervasive effects of a
 changing ocean on marine organisms. In this study, we explored the intracellular responses
 to ocean acidification in two genetically distinct populations of Sydney rock oysters
 (Saccostrea glomerata). Selectively bred and wild type oysters exhibited markedly different mitochondrial
 integrities (mitochondrial membrane potential) and levels of reactive oxygen species
 (ROS) in their hemocytes under CO2 stress. Analysis of these cellular parameters after 4 and 15 days of exposure to
 elevated CO2 indicated that the onset of intracellular responses occurred earlier in the selectively
 bred oysters when compared to the wild type population. This may be due to an inherent
 capacity for increased intracellular energy production or adaptive energy reallocation
 in the selectively bred population. The differences observed in mitochondrial integrity
 and in ROS formation between oyster breeding lines reveal candidate biological processes that
 may underlie resilience or susceptibility to ocean acidification. Such processes can
 be targeted in breeding programs aiming to mitigate the impacts of climate change
 on threatened species.


SUMMARY Decentralization of forest management has become a common policy globally which has allowed communities to regain rights removed through colonization and central state management of forests. However, socioeconomic and environmental outcomes of such community-based forest management schemes have been mixed. Studies have shown the importance of institutions in influencing the success of these new governance arrangements. Based on an extensive literature review supplemented by qualitative research, using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, conducted in nine villages in the humid forest zone comprising three community forests, this research investigated the successes and challenges from decentralization of forest management in Cameroon. A key constraint on success was the inappropriate institutional structure at the local level with responsibility to manage community forests. Community forest management committees with no internally recognized legitimacy and dominated by local elites had replaced roles once played by traditional authorities. Qualitative research showed that in the humid forest zone of Cameroon, the system of accountability for forest resources, prior to the enactment of community forest legislation, included those with historical traditional cultural authority, in the form of clan or lineage heads, as well as the village chief, a legacy of colonial power. Village chiefs or other members of the village council are also selected on the basis of their good moral character. Community forest management committees that are a hybrid of customary authorities and other representatives of the population chosen following the criteria for local legitimacy may capture the best of historical social regulation and build on it so that the local committee may be seen as being accountable to the local population. Since such hybrid institutions are not without their risks, it is important that these institutions be accountable to a local democratic government to further increase their transparency and accountability. Models of community-based natural resource management that incorporate culturally appropriate requirements of legitimacy and accountability in crafting local institutions may have more success in accomplishing both socioeconomic and environmental goals.


The development of distributed computing systems, with the associated focus on the interconnecting network, and mobile computing platforms has generated much interest in mobile data network access. Wide-area wireless communication systems are particularly of interest. This paper attempts to describe some of the challenges and potential solutions to providing wireless network access for mobile computing users. We present a set of characteristics and requirements for practical wireless access, many of which are not addressed well, if at all, by current wireless data systems. The paper then describes a new Internet technology, Mobile IP, which provides a foundation for addressing many of the cited requirements. The paper concludes with a description of how this technology is being applied in the development of advanced new data services for the integrated dispatch enhanced network (iDEN).


Understanding the nature and dimensions of the world food problem and the policies available to alleviate it has been the focal point of the IIASA Food and Agriculture Program since it began in 1977.

National food systems are highly interdependent, and yet the major policy options exist at the national level. Therefore, to explore these options, it is necessary both to develop policy models for national economies and to link them together by trade and capital transfers. For greater realism the models in this scheme are being kept descriptive, rather than normative. In the end it is proposed to link models to twenty countries, which together account for nearly 80 per cent of such important agricultural attributes as area, production, population, exports, and imports.

A model for Kenya is being developed at IIASA. This model will provide a prototype for African developing countries with growing populations and emerging development problems.

The present report describes the analysis and modeling of expenditure systems for Kenya. For the evaluation of alternative agricultural policies, one needs a demand system that reflects the expenditure and consumption patterns in the country. In the context of Kenya the rural-urban dimension as well as the respective income distributions have to be explicitly considered. The study is the second in a set of studies which analyze the food consumption system in Kenya.