A novel configuration of photovoltaic-thermoelectric generator hybrid system (PV-TEG) device is proposed. This device integrates the system with a beam spectral splitter. This beam is called a hot mirror in which a shorter wavelength will be transmitted to PV module, while the longer one is for the TEG module. A mini USB Thereminospectrometer software is used to measure the wavelength connecting to laptop webcam. The heat radiation for the PV-TEG will be enhanced by sidewalls covered with a black painted plastic acrylic material leading to high conversion efficiency. This is because the material minimises heat losses of the light. The hybrid device uses artificial suns, namely light bulbs as an irradiation source located at the top of the system. Xenon, halogen and incandescent lights are chosen as light bulbs. These choices are based on some of the hybrid researchers. No experimental scenarios for those lamps are in laboratory scale. From the test, it has been showed that incandescent light bulb contributes the highest heat radiation of 54.76 W.nm and the lowest heat radiation is 25.65 W.nm by halogen before the hot mirror. After passing through the hot mirror, xenon light emits the highest visible light spectrum of about 479 nm, while halogen in range of 800 nm releases near-infrared, which is more needed by TEG.


This research analyzes the effects that eco-labels have on the demand for organic (Bio) and Fairtrade (FT) food products. The thesis also discusses the individual determinants and motivations behind those effects. The analysis builds on data obtained from a self-programmed and self-conducted survey, with a sample of 869 students from different universities of Cologne, Germany. The Bio/FT preference is measured experimentally by randomly assigning individuals to treatment and control groups. The experiment simulates life decisions using actual pictures and prices of four products: packed and processed spaghetti, fresh tomatoes, packed raw meat, and packed orange juice. The existence, size, and direction of statistically significant eco-label effects were obtained with two sample tests of proportions. The results prove that the FT label has a positive differential effect on consumer's demand. The presence of the FT label makes the purchase of this juice 9.1% higher than other juices not labeled as FT. This finding confirms the hypothesis that eco-labels have a positive effect on sustainable consumption. A surprising finding is that the presence of the Bio label lowers the purchase of organic pasta and tomatoes 7.7% and 9.4% respectively. This finding is interesting because it suggests that Bio labels are not driving the demand for sustainable tomatoes or pasta for this population. Regional and cheaper alternatives are preferred by consumers in this cases. The motivations behind consumer choices of different options were thoroughly analyzed. Binomial logistic regressions and qualitative text analysis show that the variance in the intention to consume eco-labeled food is explained mainly by price concerns and attitudes about value for money, but also by the influence of life partners as shopping referents, and the perceived behavioral controls of time and ability to monitor compliance of label standards, thus trust them. The final remarks support the use of the Fairtrade eco-label as a market-based instrument to guide sustainable food consumption among young adults in this context, and propose changes that could make the Bio label more attractive for the targeted population. The thesis demonstrates which individual factors should be inevitably considered when implementing labeling to foster sustainable consumption. Hence, it is useful for evaluations of public and private certification schemes, and for companies that support sustainable food markets. Projects looking to understand and drive sustainable production and consumption decisions should consider this reading.


This article examines how women visiting an alternative, politicized community interact with the construction of womanhood presented in that context. The concept of collective gender identity is suggested as a tool for considering how ideas about what it means to be a woman (or a man) can be communicated and negotiated in microlevel interactions within social movements. The case examined here, immersion courses on midwifery in an alternative community, illustrates the use of environmental, instrumental, and social technologies to transmit a particular construction of womanhood. Findings point to ways women enrolled in these intensive courses respond to the particular meaning of gender embraced by the community. This research raises questions about the place of shared gender identity in a group context and the possible ties between that identity and larger movement dynamics.


Taking the limited control authority and guidance information of a gun-launched guided projectile into account, a novel three-dimensional terminal guidance law based on the combination of the correction of the velocity direction via impact point prediction and continuous distribution of acceleration command is proposed. The deviations between the impact point of the projectile and the target are predicted based on the series solutions of the nonlinear ballistic equations. According to the deviations, a nonlinear method to calculate the direction angles corrections of the current speed is addressed. Design the remaining flight time as the correction time. The acceleration correction formulas are established through sharing the direction angles corrections of the current speed into the whole remaining guided flight to reduce the possibility of command saturation. By predicting the impact point and distributing acceleration corrections continuously to shape the trajectory in real time. The simulation results show that the proposed guidance law is feasible and effective, and provides the performances of higher precision and less requirements of control authority and greater damage effects on account of the larger impact angle, compared with the proportional navigation law, which provides a reference for the application of the guided projectile.


In recent years, the phenomenon of nationalism has evoked much attention when negotiating the institutional design of India's universities. Justifiably rejecting the political project of naturalizing or essentializing the concepts of nation and nationhood, critical public and scientific discourse, however, often reduces nationalism to its symbolic or idealistic dimension. On the contrary, material structures of public institutional spaces have received little geographical attention when approaching national ideals, aspirations, conflicts, and controversies. This is despite the fact that constructed environments and spatial designs form a substantial link between the nation state of India and its public higher education institutions. Arguing that space makes a difference, the paper in hand raises nationalism as a problem of simultaneous positioning. By tracking India's higher education development through the example of Jawaharlal Nehru University campus space, I will not only focus on nationalism as a matter of symbol and categories of consciousness but also on the material dimensions of institutional design, namely building distribution, constructional aesthetics, and spatial accessibility. Thus, this work offers perspectives that extend beyond the idealization or demonization of the various notions of the Indian nation.


Radiative and Auger decay data have been calculated for modeling the K lines in ions of the nickel isonuclear sequence, from Ni+ up to Ni27+. Level energies, transition wavelengths, radiative transition probabilities, and radiative and Auger widths have been determined using Cowan's Hartree-Fock with relativistic corrections (HFR) method. Auger widths for the third-row ions (Ni+-Ni10+) have been computed using single-configuration average (SCA) compact formulae. Results are compared with data sets computed with the AUTOSTRUCTURE and MCDF atomic structure codes and with available experimental and theoretical values, mainly in highly ionized ions and in the solid state.


Book synopsis: This collection focuses attention on an important but academically neglected area of contemporary operational policing: the regulation of consensual sexual practices. Despite the high-level public visibility of, and debate about, policing in relation to violent and abusive sexual crimes (from child sexual abuse to adult rape) very little public or scholarly attention is paid to the policing of consensual sexual practices in contemporary societies. Whilst 'sexual life' is commonly understood to be a matter of 'private life' that is beyond formal social control, this book shows that policing is implicated in the regulation of a wide range of consensual sexual practices. This book brings together a well known and respected group of academics, from a range of disciplines, to explore the role of the police in shaping the boundaries of that aspect of our lives that we imagine to be most intimate and most our own. The volume presents a 'snap shot' of policing in respect of a number of diverse areas – such as public sex, pornography, and sex work – and considers how sexual orientation structures police responses to them. The authors critically examine how policing is implicated in the social, moral and political landscape of sex and, contrary to the established rhetoric of politicians and criminal justice practitioners, continues to intervene in the private lives of citizens.


Surface realisation is a subtask of natural language generation. It may be viewed as the inverse of parsing, that is, given a grammar and a representation of meaning, the surface realiser produces a natural language string that is associated by the grammar to the input meaning. This thesis presents three extensions to GenI, a realisation algorithm for Feature-Based Tree Adjoining Grammar (FB-LTAG). The first extension improves the efficiency of the realiser with respect to lexical ambiguity. It is an adaptation from parsing of the "electrostatic tagging" optimisation, in which lexical items are associated with a set of polarities, and combinations of those items with non-neutral polarities are filtered out. The second extension deals with the number of outputs returned by the realiser. Normally, the GenI algorithm returns all of the sentences associated with the input logical form. Whilst these inputs can be seen as having the same core meaning, they often convey subtle distinctions in emphasis or style. It is important for generation systems to be able to control these extra factors. Here, we show how the input specification can be augmented with annotations that provide for the fine-grained control that is required. The extension builds off the fact that the FB-LTAG grammar used by the generator was constructed from a "metagrammar", explicitly putting to use the linguistic generalisations that are encoded within. The final extension provides a means for the realiser to act as a metagrammar-debugging environment. Mistakes in the metagrammar can have widespread consequences for the grammar. Since the realiser can output all strings associated with a semantic input, it can be used to find out what these mistakes are, and crucially, their precise location in the metagrammar.


Oligodendrocytes wrap around the axons and form the myelin. Myelin facilitates rapid neural signal transmission. Any damage to myelin disrupts neuronal communication leading to neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). There is no cure for MS. This is, in part, due to lack of an efficient method for myelin quantification during drug screening. In this study, an image analysis based myelin sheath detection method, DeepMQ, is developed. The method consists of a feature extraction step followed by a deep learning based binary classification module. The images, which were acquired on a confocal microscope contain three channels and multiple z-sections. Each channel represents either oligodendroyctes, neurons, or nuclei. During feature extraction, 26-neighbours of each voxel is mapped onto a 2D feature image. This image is, then, fed to the deep learning classifier, in order to detect myelin. Results indicate that 93.38% accuracy is achieved in a set of fluorescence microscope images of mouse stem cell-derived oligodendroyctes and neurons. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study utilizing image analysis along with machine learning techniques to quantify myelination.


Exercise is a safe and efficacious way to gain many physical and mental health benefits (Fell, Joseph, Armson, & Dodds, 2008). However, the majority of women stay sedentary during pregnancy (Evenson & Well, 2010). In order to promote exercise among pregnant women, Hausenblas, Symons Downs, and their colleagues conducted a series of studies to explore psychosocial determinants that impact middle-to-upper class women's physical activity during pregnancy (Hausenblas & Symons Downs, 2004; Hausenblas, Symons Downs, Giacobbi, & Cook, 2008; Symons Downs & Hausenblas, 2003, 2007). However, research indicates socio-economic status (SES) as a significant predictor of different physical activity levels during pregnancy (Domingues & Barros, 2007; Cheng et al., 2011). Thus low SES pregnant women may have different psychosocial determinants of exercise. This study is designed to replicate the previous study of Hausenblas and Symons Downs (2004) to examine low SES pregnant women's exercise intention and behavior. Participants were 50 low-socioeconomic status women who were in their first trimester of pregnancy. They were recruited from a local social program which provides financial assistance for obstetric check-ups during pregnancy. All participants completed a questionnaire packet which was designed to measure psychosocial determinants of exercise (TPB) and physical activity. Demographic information was also collected. Results from multiple regression analysis indicated that the TPB constructs; attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, did not predict exercise intention. Discriminant analysis results revealed that exercise intention and perceived behavioral control significantly discriminated the exercise and non-exercise group. A follow-up (step-wise discriminant analysis) indicated that only perceived behavioral control, but not intention, significantly discriminated the two groups. The results only partially supported the previous study of Hausenblas and Symons Downs (2004), and suggest that different variables may have moderated the relationship between the TPB measure and exercise behavior.


'Systems thinking' is an important feature of the emerging 'patient safety' agenda. As a key component of a 'safety culture', it encourages clinicians to look past individual error to recognize the latent factors that threaten safety. This article investigates whether current medical thinking is commensurate with the idea of 'systems thinking' together with its implications for policy. The findings are based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with specialist physicians working within one NHS District General Hospital in the English Midlands. It is shown that, rather then favouring an individualized or 'person-centred' perspective, doctors readily identify 'the system' as a threat to patient safety. This is not necessarily a reflection of the prevailing safety discourse or knowledge of policy, but reflects a tacit understanding of how services are (dis)organized. This line of thinking serves to mitigate individual wrongdoing and protect professional credibility by encouraging doctors to accept and accommodate the shortcomings of the system, rather than participate in new forms of organizational learning.


Limited data are available concerning left ventricular contractility and contractile reserve in the chronically denervated, transplanted human heart. This is primarily because of the inability of traditional tests of left ventricular performance to distinguish changes in contractility from alterations in ventricular loading conditions. In this study, load-independent end-systolic indexes of left ventricular contractility were measured by echocardiography and calibrated carotid pulse tracings in 10 patients who had undergone orthotopic cardiac transplant (age 48 +/- 4 years; interval from operation to study 1.2 +/- 0.8 years) and in 10 normal control subjects (age 25 +/- 4 years) matched for donor heart age (25 +/- 6 years). None of the transplant patients had evidence of rejection as determined by endomyocardial biopsy. Baseline left ventricular contractility was assessed over a wide range of afterload generated by infusion of methoxamine. Contractile reserve was measured as the response to an infusion of dobutamine plus methoxamine. Before afterload challenge, baseline left ventricular percent fractional shortening was higher for the transplant patients than for the control subjects (36.5 +/- 5.7% vs 32.1 +/- 2.1%; p less than .05). These differences occurred at a time that end-systolic wall stress (a measure of afterload) was significantly lower for the transplant patients (38 +/- 16 vs 50 +/- 9 g/cm2; p less than .05). When the left ventricular end-systolic pressure-dimension and stress-shortening relationships were determined for the transplant and control subjects, no differences in contractility or contractile reserve were noted. Thus the chronically denervated, transplanted, nonrejecting human left ventricle demonstrates normal contractile characteristics and reserve.


paper examines the performance of fund managers responsible for managing the investment decisions of UK pension funds. The paper examines both individual fund manager performance of pension funds under management, and also the persistence of this performance over time. Previous work on UK pension funds has found little evidence of fund manager persistence, but we suggest that this might be due to survivorship bias which may disguise true persistence. Using a large sample of pension funds over the period 1983-97 we find evidence of positive and negative individual fund manager abnormal performance. Further we find strong evidence of persistence in abnormal returns over one year time horizons.


The thesis is concerned with the dynamics of inflation and their effect on production, using the example of the Polish reconstruction process after World War I. In 1918, Poland had to be re-established as a state after 123 years of foreign rule as well as reconstructed due to severe destruction experienced during the war. Nevertheless, the reconstruction process was extremely rapid, and the thesis argues that it was inflation which provided the means to build up the state. Inflation redistributed wealth within the society and imposed a high savings quota on the economy. The printing press inflation carried the economy through to hyperinflation. The positive effects of the process already explain in part why inflation could last so long and why the economy went all the way through to hyperinflation. The thesis then argues that stabilisation was a political problem and was only achieved once the inflationary process ceased to create winners and losers. The positive business climate began to deteriorate when traders no longer used past inflation as an indicator for price setting, but instead used changes in the exchange rate. However, inflation reappeared shortly after fiscal reform, due to the inevitable credit requirements of Polish industry. Inflation had eroded savings and distorted the economy: this was the major short-coming of this peculiar way of mobilising the country's resources. Consequently, a credit inflation emerged still in 1924 as industry tried to adjust to market requirements in the post-inflationary crisis. Stabilisation was only finally achieved when the economy moved out of recession in 1926. Lastly, the thesis sheds new light on the generalisation about the European inflationary experiences of the 1920s. It introduces a distinction between exogenously and endogenously imposed inflation, which suggests a more specific definition of the transition into hyperinflation as well as of the exact requirements for stabilisation. It also reduces these exceptional economic occurrences to reparations, on the one hand, and reconstruction, on the other.


Marine primary productivity is iron (Fe)-limited in vast regions of the contemporary oceans, most notably the high nutrient low chlorophyll (HNLC) regions. Diatoms often form large blooms upon the relief of Fe limitation in HNLC regions despite their prebloom low cell density. Although Fe plays an important role in controlling diatom distribution, the mechanisms of Fe uptake and adaptation to low iron availability are largely unknown. Through a combination of nontargeted transcriptomic and metabolomic approaches, we have explored the biochemical strategies preferred by Phaeo dactylum tricornutum at growth-limiting levels of dissolved Fe. Processes carried out by components rich in Fe, such as photosynthesis, mitochondrial electron transport, and nitrate assimilation, were down-regulated. Our results show that this retrenchment is compensated by nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) reallocation from protein and carbohydrate degradation, adaptations to chlorophyll biosynthesis and pigment metabolism, removal of excess electrons by mitochondrial alternative oxidase (AOX) and non-photochemical quenching (NPQ), and augmented Fe-independent oxidative stress responses. Iron limitation leads to the elevated expression of at least three gene clusters absent from the Thalassiosira pseudonana genome that encode for components of iron capture and uptake mechanisms.


We present the first protocol allowing a classical computer to interactively verify the result of an efficient quantum computation. We achieve this by constructing a measurement protocol, which enables a classical verifier to use a quantum prover as a trusted measurement device. The protocol forces the prover to behave as follows: the prover must construct an n qubit state of his choice, measure each qubit in the Hadamard or standard basis as directed by the verifier, and report the measurement results to the verifier. The soundness of this protocol is enforced based on the assumption that the learning with errors problem is computationally intractable for efficient quantum machines.


Australia should introduce a tax on sugary drinks to recoup some of the costs of obesity to the community. The best option is an excise tax of 40 cents per 100 grams of sugar, on all non-alcoholic, water-based drinks that contain added sugar. Such a tax would increase the price of a two-litre bottle of soft drink by about 80 cents, raise about $500 million a year, and generate a fall of about 15 per cent in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, as consumers switched to water and other drinks not subject to the new tax. Obesity costs Australian taxpayers more than $5.3 billion a year. Obese people are more likely to go to doctors and be admitted to hospital more often than other people. They are also more likely to be unemployed and therefore paying less tax than the rest of the population. These costs – more taxpayer dollars spent on healthcare and welfare, and less tax raised – are caused by obesity but borne by the entire community. The new tax would help redress that imbalance. Obesity is rising dramatically in Australia: one in four adults are classified as obese, up from one in ten in the early 1980s, and about 7 per cent of children are obese. A new tax is not a "silver bullet" solution to Australia's obesity epidemic – that would require a suite of new policies and programs. But the proposed tax would encourage healthier lifestyles. Consumption of sugary drinks needs to be reduced because most of them contain no nutritional benefit. The many countries that already have or are planning to introduce a tax on soft drinks include France, Belgium, Hungary, Finland, Chile, the UK, Ireland, South Africa and parts of the United States. The Australian government could use the $500 million a year raised by the proposed tax to reduce the budget deficit or boost healthcare funding, or the money could be spent on programs designed to treat obesity and promote healthy eating. How the money is allocated is a debate for later. But Australia should introduce the tax now because it would reduce the number of people who become obese and ensure fewer taxpayer dollars have to be spent on the damage done by obesity.


The pea pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. pisi is able to detoxify pisatin produced as a defense response by pea, and the gene encoding this detoxification mechanism, FoPDA1, was 82% identical to the cytochrome P450 pisatin demethylase PDA1 gene in Nectria haematococca. A survey of F. oxysporum f. sp. pisi isolates demonstrated that, as in N. haematococca, the PDA gene of F. oxysporum f. sp. pisi is generally located on a small chromosome. In N. haematococca, PDA1 is in a cluster of pea pathogenicity (PEP) genes. Homologs of these PEP genes also were found in the F. oxysporum f. sp. pisi isolates, and PEP1 and PEP5 were sometimes located on the same small chromosomes as the FoPDA1 homologs. Transforming FoPDA1 into a pda(?) F. oxysporum f. sp. lini isolate conferred pda activity and promoted pathogenicity on pea to some transformants. Different hybridization patterns of FoPDA1 were found in F. oxysporum f. sp. pisi but these did not correlate with the races of the fungus, suggesting that races within this forma specialis arose independently of FoPDA1. FoPDA1 also was present in the formae speciales lini, glycines, and dianthi of F. oxysporum but they had mutations resulting in nonfunctional proteins. However, an active FoPDA1 was present in F. oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli and it was virulent on pea. Despite their evolutionary distance, the amino acid sequences of FoPDA1 of F. oxysporum f. sp. pisi and F. oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli revealed only six amino acid differences, consistent with a horizontal gene transfer event accounting for the origin of these genes.


Angle-resolved photoemission experiments reveal evidence of an energy gap in the normal state excitation spectrum of the cuprate superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. This gap exists only in underdoped samples and closes around the doping level at which the superconducting transition temperature Tc is a maximum. The momentum dependence and magnitude of the gap closely resemble those of the dx2−y2 gap observed in the superconducting state. This observation is consistent with results from several other experimental techniques, which also indicate the presence of a gap in the normal state. Some possible theoretical explanations for this effect are reviewed.


This article examines the Australian Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd. (APPM) dispute which took place in Burnie, Tasmania between March 3 and June 10, 1992. The dispute is placed within the context of major changes in Australian industrial relations, which have been in process since 1986. Management and unions throughout Australia are still experimenting with a variety of industrial weapons to achieve their aims and goals within the parameters of the "Structural Efficiency Principle" and "enterprise bargaining", constructed in Accords III through VI, from 1986 to the present. It is argued that the crucial change during the past six years has been the ability of companies to re-establish managerial prerogative through litigation. This has provided management with the power to confront secondary issues and agents of change such as the Accord, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Structural Efficiency, Enterprise Bargaining and Restructuring with a new vigour, toughness and effectuality. Increasingly docile, debilitated and legally disabled union officials and workers seem to be coming to the view that a union victory occurs if the company agrees to abide by the law while directing its workforce, and recognises the workers' right to be represented by a "third party".


In the recent years, a lot of research has been done in the field of software testing. But, there exist few empirical studies which analyze, if results of software testing research are actually practiced in real software projects, why they are (not) practiced, and how this influences the quality of the project. Our proposed research project tries to close this gap by analyzing open-source software projects. We focus our work on a concept, which is well accepted and known in our community for a longer period of time: test levels. Hence, we propose a two step approach to tackle the problem. First, we want to determine if the concept of a unit is still up-to-date and propose alternatives otherwise. Furthermore, we aim to investigate, why developers think that the concept of a unit is (not) current. In the second step we intend to check, based on the unit definition determined in the ?rst step, how many tests on the different levels exist for the investigated projects. Additionally, based on the results, we want to examine, why developers are (not) developing tests for a certain test level and how this influences the software quality of the project. Our initial study showed, that very few projects have unit tests, using the unit definition of the IEEE and ISTQB. Furthermore, it revealed that developers intend to write unit tests, but they fail to do so.


Modern machine learning algorithms can extract useful information from text, images and videos. All these applications involve solving NP-hard problems in average case using heuristics. What properties of the input allow it to be solved efficiently? Theoretically analyzing the heuristics is often very challenging. Few results were known. This thesis takes a different approach: we identify natural properties of the input, then design new algorithms that provably works assuming the input has these properties. We are able to give new, provable and sometimes practical algorithms for learning tasks related to text corpus, images and social networks. The first part of the thesis presents new algorithms for learning thematic structure in documents. We show under a reasonable assumption, it is possible to provably learn many topic models, including the famous Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Our algorithm is the first provable algorithms for topic modeling. An implementation runs 50 times faster than latest MCMC implementation and produces comparable results. The second part of the thesis provides ideas for provably learning deep, sparse representations. We start with sparse linear representations, and give the first algorithm for dictionary learning problem with provable guarantees. Then we apply similar ideas to deep learning: under reasonable assumptions our algorithms can learn a deep network built by denoising autoencoders. The final part of the thesis develops a framework for learning latent variable models. We demonstrate how various latent variable models can be reduced to orthogonal tensor decomposition, and then be solved using tensor power method. We give a tight perturbation analysis for tensor power method, which reduces the number of samples required to learn many latent variable models. In theory, the assumptions in this thesis help us understand why intractable problems in machine learning can often be solved; in practice, the results suggest inherently new approaches for machine learning. We hope the assumptions and algorithms inspire new research problems and learning algorithms.


A detailed study of a novel electroporation (EP) microchip for in vitro gene transfection has been conducted. Electroporation is a technique with which DNA molecules can be delivered into cells in a chamber using high electric field pulses. Compared to a commercial electroporator, the EP microchip can attain the necessary electric field for the electroporation process but takes advantage of a much lower required voltage. The EP microchip overcomes the potential risk of using a high voltage, which is the drawback of current electroporation technology. Furthermore, the advantages of this EP microchip are the use of a very small amount of cells and genes, a very low applied voltage, a simple power supply and a much simpler cell preparation process. Any of these advantages are better than, or cannot be found in, a commercial electroporator. The EP microchip, consisting of a defined cell culture cavity region with thin-film electrodes made of titanium and gold, was fabricated on a glass slide using microfabrication technologies, which include evaporation, photolithography and wet-etching methods. Two different cell lines, Huh-7 and 293T, were used to demonstrate the transfection. The experimental results show that the EP microchip can successfully deliver green fluorescent protein genes into both cell lines. This work demonstrates that this EP microchip can provide in vitro gene transfection with a very small amount of cells and plasmids, requiring a much lower applied voltage and a simpler process than current commercial equipment. This EP microchip will have many useful applications in gene therapy.


Pollen analysis of a 15.0 m core covering the past 3500 years from the Ilan Plain, northeastern Taiwan, displays a record of environmental changes and climate trends for the late Holocene. At about 3500 yr B.P., brackish water-tolerant elements, such as Bruguiera and Acrostichum, dominated the vegetation, reflecting that the environment was influenced by marine excursions. Following this period, wetland elements Poaceae and Cyperaceae were abundant between ca. 3350 and ca. 3100 yr B.P. Then pioneer taxon Alnus increased at the expense of those herbs in the later part of the interval ca. 3100 and ca. 2000 yr B.P. This suggests a shift from a primarily coastal (ca. 3500 yr B.P.) to wetland (ca. 3350 yr B.P.) and then finally terrestrial (ca. 2000 yr B.P.) environment at the coring site. Since then, the present fluvial plain has existed. Humidity conditions which were interpreted from the amount and variations of fern spore probably indicate a strengthening of the monsoon at ca. 3200, ca. 2000, and ca. 900 yr B.P., respectively. The Medieval Warm Period is also apparent indicated by the amount of arboreal elements based on pollen concentrations ca. 1300 to ca. 900 yr B.P. Significant human-induced vegetation changes occurred between ca. 1300 and ca. 900 yr B.P. and over the last 400 years.


Abstract : This report examines the general problem of high speed autonomous navigation from range image data as it applies to both stereo and lidar sensing systems. In order to intelligently guarantee its own safety, a high speed vehicle must be able to resolve the smallest obstacle that can present a hazard, process sensory data at a rate commensurate with its speed, respond fast enough to avoid obstacles, and maintain a sufficiently accurate model of the world to enable it to make correct decisions. These dimensions of the problem are analysed in a nondimensional manner and the implications of satisfying all requirements simultaneously are investigated. In this analysis, it is shown that to adopt a policy of guaranteed vehicle safety is to adopt a computational complexity of O (TV)N) for range image processing where T is the vehicle reaction time and V is the velocity. This result implies that increased vehicle speed will require nonlinear growth in computational bandwidth. Further, it identifies the fundamental tradeoff of finite computing resources as one of speed for either resolution or reliability. The conclusions of this report are the theoretical justification for the adaptive, real-time controller design of the RANGER cross country navigator


Airy beams are self-accelerating beams with a parabolic trajectory. In this study, we investigate the properties of two Airy beams propagating simultaneously and their behaviour when an added acceleration constant is changed. We do this by analyzing the spatial profiles of the superposition of two Airy beams with different acceleration constants and measuring their deflection distance. We observed that increasing the acceleration constant resulted in a beam that deflected in a more severe manner. We also observed that the two Airy beams with different acceleration constants propagate along different paths with minimal interference effects. This study is significant in the fields of optical trapping and micromanipulation, where control of these beams is vital.


In composite processing, a compressible dry fiber preform is in many cases impregnated by a molten polymeric matrix. The impregnated part is sometimes used as produced, but most often it requires a reheating step before stamping, flow molding or even painting of the part. This latter step may lead to the release of locked-in stresses, a phenomenon often called lofting or deconsolidation. The aim of the present thesis is to analyze the mechanisms and provide tools for predicting the kinetics of consolidation and deconsolidation in order to produce cost-effective and sound composite materials. To achieve this, the two fundamental stages of composite processing, consolidation and deconsolidation, have been studied. The influence of both processing parameters and materials systems have been quantified. A Glass Mat reinforced Thermoplastic (GMT) was selected and characterized for the case study. The first part of this work concerns the consolidation stage, emphasizing the influence of processing parameters such as applied pressure or processing temperature on the final microstructure of the composite products. Experimental impregnation processes were carried out and were completed by parallel theoretical simulations. A model accounting for the saturated infiltration of compressible preform was used to predict the residual fiber content gradient in a part, and its influence on the mechanical properties. It was observed that a gradient of the reinforcement in a GMT part, if controlled by impregnation times, can improve the bending modulus by 50%. Furthermore, a new infiltration model accounting for multi-phase flow in compressible preforms showing a dual-scale porosity was elaborated. The aim was to take into account the porosity by considering not only the solid and liquid phases, but also air as a third phase. The local fiber and void content can then be precisely predicted as a function of the infiltration time and position. The radial micro-impregnation of the fiber bundles was also taken into account by adding a sink term of micro-impregnation to the macro-impregnation. The predictions have shown that the time required to provide full micro-infiltration is about four times longer than the time to provide full macro-infiltration. Special care therefore has to be taken when infiltrating a dual-scale porosity system: residual voids may remain even if time to provide macro-infiltration is attained. Once the consolidation state of the part was well defined in terms of void content, fiber content profile and stress state, a study of the post-processing steps was carried out. To achieve this, model experiments of compression and unloading of a stack of mats embedded in a model matrix were carried out. This springback experiment enabled the unloading behavior of the fiber preform to be studied; for instance, the influence of the matrix viscosity on the kinetics of the process. Deconsolidation experiments were also carried out for GMT parts: the consolidated samples were reheated at processing temperatures for different times. Comparing these different experimental results with theory has shown that the deconsolidation phenomenon is mainly governed by the stress/strain behavior of the preform upon unloading. However, the kinetics of deconsolidation are also influenced by the void formation and growth that appear during reheating. Moreover, it was found that the springback effect of the preform leads to tensile forces in the matrix, which enhance void growth. A correlation between the elastic behavior of the fiber and the growth of air bubbles in the matrix was then demonstrated. Since it was observed that the mechanical behavior of the preform plays a major role in the deconsolidation phenomenon, the study on the springback effect was completed by a comparison between two different glass fiber and polypropylene systems. The classic GMT studied previously was compared with a new type of commingled glass and polypropylene fibers. Compressive tests on both dry preforms, as well as consolidation and deconsolidation experiments showed that the commingled system presents a higher void content after deconsolidation than the classic GMT. A porosity of respectively 72% and 55% was measured. It was demonstrated that differences in glass fiber arrangement are at the origin of the result. Finally, the deconsolidation of a GMT part in the solid sate was investigated. The role of the matrix which often exhibits a viscoelastic behavior and which may lead to distorsion of the part, was emphasized. After, for instance, 3 months at 100°C, the part showed no significant void content increase whereas, it was observed that thermal effects may affect the adhesion between the matrix and the fibers, thereby leading to decohesion of the part. This study demonstrated that a combination of numerical approach and experimental observations leads to a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms governing consolidation and deconsolidation and then opens the path for an optimization of processing parameters and choice of materials.


A fully updated edition of the acclaimed and bestselling Broadway Musicals, now featuring an expanded off-Broadway section Broadway Musicals is a richly illustrated, and information-packed celebration of the most popular and enduring Broadway shows of all time. Each show is featured in a detailed, photo-filled chapter that includes expert commentary, special features on the creators and performers, plot synopses, cast and song lists, production details, and backstage anecdotes. Also included are sidebars on Broadway flops, advertising posters, the greatest scores, and more. This edition includes several shows not in the original hardcover edition such as Avenue Q, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Wicked. An expanded off-Broadway section showcases beloved shows such as I Love You, You're Perfect, NowChange and Little Mary Sunshine. Praise for Broadway Musicals: 'This book is a joy from cover to cover.' ?Dallas Morning News'This book is a must for fans of musical theater.' ?Hartford Courant 'A nostalgic treasure trove.' ?Seattle Times'For any theater fan or musical buff it is a perfect abridged education.' ?Minneapolis Star Tribune'Broadway Musicals is a visual delight.' ?Palm Beach Post


The legend of El Q'anil, the "Man of Lightning," stands alongside such classic Maya literary artifacts as Popol Vuh and Chilam Balam but has been preserved only through the oral tradition of the Jakaltek Maya. In this tale, the young man Xhuwan Q'anil brings lightning to his people in order to save them from destruction. He undertakes a journey of adventure, participates in a great war, and is subsequently immortalized. It is a story that all Jakaltek children learn, one that reinforces their identity by showing that their people have a hero who lives in each Jakaltek Maya today. V ctor Montejo, who was raised in Maya culture and knows its lore intimately, compiled several versions of the legend in Guatemala during the height of paramilitary operations in that country in the 1980s. His contemporary reconstruction lovingly preserves this legend and reflects concern for the survival of Maya culture in the face of oppression. Just as the Maya people of western Guatemala continue to pray for peace at the sanctuary of Q'anil, the legend of the Man of Lightning affirms a culture's enduring traditions. In this edition, the text is presented in English, Spanish, and Jakaltek Maya to secure its deserved place in world literature.


Background: Urbanization often results in profound environmental alterations that may promote the transmission of malaria. Though, land-use practices in urban areas have been linked with proliferations of suitable larval breeding habitats of malaria vectors, no attempt has been made to systematically investigate the influence of land-use practices on malaria transmission in Nigeria. Objectives: To elucidate the influence of land-use practices on larval development and adult body size of Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) mosquitoes in Minna, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Newly-hatched larvae of An. gmbiae mosquitoes were reared in semi-natural habitats stationed in five different sites, each representing the major land-use types in the area. The larvae were monitored daily for Duration of Immature Development (DID) and Immature Survival Rate (ISR); while Wing Length (WL) was used as an index of adult body size. Results: DID, ISR and WL varied significantly (P < 0.05) among the land-use categories; with lager numbers of bigger mosquitoes produced at a faster rate in the artificial than natural land-use sites. Water temperature for larval development was best in the Refuse Dump (RD) site (mean = 28.11 ± 2.50oC) and consequently the shortest DID (mean = 9.70 ± 0.74 days), as well as, the largest mosquitoes (mean WL = 3.10 ± 0.90 mm), were recorded in this land-use category. However, while ISR was highest (mean = 96.30 ± 2.78%) in Farm Land (FL), the mosquitoes that emerged from this site were the smallest (mean WL = 1.96 ± 0.51mm). The Natural Vegetation (NV) land-use category was the least productive, as the larvae took the longest time (13.29 ± 1.69 days) to develop, and survived least (42.94 ± 7.50%) in this site. Conclusion: The land-use practices in Minna enhanced the fitness of An. gambiae, and may increase the vectorial capacity of the species for malaria transmission in the area. Targeted larviciding interventions will greatly contribute to malaria control efforts in Minna, Nigeria.


As all of us are conscious that mind has continually been above brawn. Most of the time, I mean
brain plays an important and a chief position in survival of a species (exceedingly evolved). It's
only the brain that makes a creature. If a creature is able to continue to exist tactically and
intellectually and is able to modify itself to the outside surroundings that adjustments daily and
other creatures or other brains I say. A body is not anything without a mind. We have substitutes
for the whole thing like, A pacemaker for Heart, Prosthetic limbs, Dialysis for kidneys. Eye
transplantation's, Liver Transplants and many others. And humans now days are seeking
to programme the baby. Which approach they could design their fetus the way they choice.
Through Gene Editing tech. But, the brain can neither be replaced nor transplanted. According
to me Brain is lifestyles. It shops the attention, the reminiscences and the most vital aspect is the
sub-conscious part of the mind. Without which it's hard to do even a minute challenge or work.
In this text I'd want to proportion my views on brain transplantation.


The phosphorylated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) initiates intracellular signaling processes that regulate cell growth, survival, and migration, and disregulated EGFR-mediated signaling occurs in many cancers. While the processes that lead to EGFR activation and phosphorylation have been studied in detail, quantitative aspects of the spatiotemporal regulation of EGFR by protein tyrosines phosphatases (PTPs) are not well understood. To begin to address this, we developed a new compartmentalized mechanistic model of EGFR phosphorylation dynamics and used it to interpret quantitative biochemical measurements to show that EGFR is dephosphorylated at the plasma membrane and in the cell interior with a time scale that is small compared to the time scales for EGFR internalization. By expanding our computational model and experimental data set, we went on to demonstrate that EGFR dephosphorylation at the plasma membrane surprisingly does not affect phosphorylation-dependent EGFR internalization because a separation of phospho-dependent time scales enables EGFR to enter clathrin-coated pits prior to being acted upon by PTPs. This same separation of time scales does, however, allow PTPs to control EGFR association with adapter proteins that regulate downstream signaling. Thus, our model provides new quantitative understanding of how EGFR participates in a number of simultaneous processes that compete for EGFR Cterminal phosphotyrosines. We went on to apply this new quantitative understanding of EGFR regulation by PTPs by developing predictive models to understand how such regulation might differentially impact the efficacy of antibodies and kinase inhibitors targeting EGFR. We also developed new computational models to quantitatively predict how receptor dephosphorylation kinetics as rapid as we found for EGFR might differentially control signaling initiated by receptor tyrosine kinases that dimerize in structurally distinct ways observed naturally among the family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). Ultimately, the new quantitative understanding of EGFR regulation by PTPs developed in this thesis significantly refines our understanding of the dynamics of EGFR-mediated signaling, provides a number of additional testable predictions related to fundamental aspects of EGFR signaling complex nucleation and efficacy of EGFR-targeted therapeutics, and offers a basic quantitative framework for exploring the regulation of other receptor tyrosine kinases by PTPs. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering First Advisor Matthew J. Lazzara


Attitude development and identity formation in educational leadership are the goals of non-traditional, and in the 21st century also of neo-traditional, development initiatives. Ethics education emerges as one of the linchpins in neo-traditional and non-traditional development initiatives. Yet, despite considerable interest in ethics education in educational leadership development, ethics education has not been examined systematically, and empirical research on its effects is scarce. The present paper aims to address this lacuna by exploring the effects of ethics education based on extended multiple ethical paradigms in the context of an educational leadership programme. Moreover, the study follows a systematic longitudinal design, based on pre- and post-course measurements that used the Ethical Perspectives Instrument in six Israeli cohorts of educational administration graduate students (n = 73). The findings indicate that ethics education has a limited effect on the student body as a whole, but when students were separated into those who did and did not change their dominant ethics, differences emerged. The results suggest that school leadership development focusing on attitude development and identity formation in general and on ethics education in particular lead to different outcomes.


Home-based intervention programs should not only offer all those qualities that are required for every intervention program for youngsters, but also have to take care that they can be used by low-educated, sometimes illiterate parents. A fact that must also be taken into account is that parent-child interaction in many families of ethnic minorities take place in other languages than the dominant language of education at school. For these reasons, the Dutch home-based program Opstap Opnieuw (Step-up Anew) has tried to combine rich contents with simple procedures and has been developed in four different languages, Dutch, Turkish, Arabic, and Papiamentu. The focus in this article is on the criteria behind the combined requirements of high-quality interaction, suitability for low-educated parents, and versions in four different languages, especially for language development and emergent literacy. In addition, some outcomes of the first evaluations are presented.


Background/Context This work contributes to the growing body of scholarly and popular literature on middle-class parental anxiety and competition to ensure their children's academic success. Specifically, this study provides a better understanding of the measures parents will take to obtain high status gifted and talented (G&T) placements that advantage their own children at the expense of others, which is somewhat contradictory given the growing uneasiness they feel about putting their children through the testing process—and paying for test prep—that the system ultimately rewards. By analyzing the different ways in which White parents and parents of color conceive of good parenting in the era of high-stakes testing, I demonstrate the processes in our current educational system that help to produce inequities related to race, class, and G&T identification. Purpose/Objective This paper examines White parents' beliefs about parenting as it relates to their school choice preferences in the segregated and stratified New York City school system. It also compares the parenting styles and school choices of lower income general education (Gen Ed) parents of color. It explores how parents' social constructions of where their children belong in school are tied to their beliefs about parenting and doing what is best for their children in a highly competitive society and city. Research Design A qualitative case study was utilized to examine how a diverse group of 52 New York City parents make sense of and interact with an elementary school that offers both a segregated G&T and a Gen Ed program. The semistructured parent interview data was triangulated with school observations, a professional school-choice consultant interview, and an observation of a public school choice workshop for incoming kindergarten parents led by the consultant. Findings/Results The data show that White parents believe that paying for test prep, going through the "hassle of getting your child tested for G&T," and receiving a high test score are symbolic of being a good parent in the system. In comparison, parents of color had different conceptions of good parenting that did not include prepping for the G&T test or getting into the G&T program, where their children would be in the minority. White parents had social networks of like-minded parents pressuring them to get into the G&T program. Black and Latino parents did not have the same G&T pressure from friends or family, nor did they view a G&T placement as giving their children extra advantages in terms of test scores or future schooling opportunities. Conclusions/Recommendations The findings suggest that the pressure for children to succeed on a single test feeds into parental anxiety and competition regarding getting their children into the high-status G&T program. Instead of trying to avoid an overly anxious parenting culture, the White advantaged parents in this setting get swept up in the test-prepping fad because everyone else is doing it and because of the competitive nature of obtaining a G&T seat. If policy officials want to attack the root of the G&T segregation problem, the city should consider phasing out district G&T programs altogether and instituting school-wide G&T magnets instead.


Although grassroots social movements are an important force of social and political change, they quite often fail to achieve their lofty goals. Similarly, the inability of research to systematically explain the impact of such movements stands in sharp contrast to their emotional appeal. "Protest and Opportunities" attempts to rejuvenate current scholarship by developing a comprehensive theory of social movements and political change. In addition to reviewing the existing literature on the political outcomes of social movements, this volume analyzes the examples of the American civil rights movement and anti-nuclear energy efforts in eighteen countries to forge a new understanding of their momentous impact.


A tensegrity is a lightweight space reticulated structure consisting of compression members — struts — surrounded by a network of tension members — cables — that provide rigidity and stability. They can be easily dismantled and therefore, they provide innovative possibilities for reusable and modular structures. To date, tensegrity construction has been limited to sculptures. The number of full-scale prototypes built is increasing though few have been tested experimentally statically. Tensegrities are flexible structures and are thus often governed by serviceability criteria. They are able to adapt their shape by changing their selfstress, and when equipped with sensors and actuators, they can actively adapt to changing environments. In this way, they have the potential to become a part of an exhibition rather than merely provide shelter for one. Until now, most structural control research in civil engineering has focused on active control of structures in order to enhance safety under extreme loading. While maintaining serviceability was mentioned in early work as a goal of structural control, there has been little investigation in this area. Improving tensegrity performance througth active control needs to meet the following challenges: construction and design, structural analysis, finding and applying control commands. Full-scale prototypes of three-module, five-module and unique active fivemodule, modular and reusable tensegrity structures have been built and successfully tested. Shape is adapted through changing the length of a limited number of bars. Each module contains six struts and twenty-four cables of three different lengths. Good joint design is a priority for this type of structure. The thesis gives a detailed description of an assembly process, pin-joint design, elements and control set-up. Polyester reinforced fiber glass bars lighten the structure. Tensegrities are non-linear, highly coupled structures, that are sensitive to asymmetric loads and small environmental changes. Numerical and experimental tests show that active control satisfy serviceability criteria with a limited number of actuators. Tests show that the structure behaves linearly when subjected to vertical loads applied to a single joint. Non-linearities are detected for small displacements for loads applied to several joints and for adjusting combinations of telescoping compression members. Therefore, simplifications such as load superposition are not possible. Simulation of the nonlinear behavior using dynamic relaxation, an explicit analysis method, proved successful for predicting the response. Behavior and the control objectives, such as maintaining a constant roof slope, do not have closed loop form solutions. Therefore, stochastic search algorithms are required to find control commands. Simulated annealing search and PGSL proved successful for determining control commands. Storing good control commands improves control efficiency. Quasi-static control, through elongating active struts one by one, is effective and safe for maintaining the slope. The present work contributes to developing structures that, through computational control and recording previous good adjustments, improve their performance during service life. Finally, an extended active control concept is suggested for self repair.


Customer care and warranty options have become one of critical components of marketing. However, the warranty is known as an indication of quality, but Warranty in its basic assumptions is a procedure to handle the product cost tradeoff on its life cycle between producer, retailer and customer. Time – cost trade off from customer point of view versus reliability-cost tradeoff, as a producer/retailer concern on single component has been the main subject of most researches in this field. We have elaborated this problem to sophisticated products with more than one component with serial design basis. The model suggested in this paper redefines the existing approach of cost management to a revenue-based model. However, the optimal warranty period for a general demand distribution is considered in our paper, we have shown the result on case studies with exponential reliability function.


The combination of tomographic imaging and deep learning, or machine learning in general, promises to empower not only image analysis but also image reconstruction. The latter aspect is considered in this perspective article with an emphasis on medical imaging to develop a new generation of image reconstruction theories and techniques. This direction might lead to intelligent utilization of domain knowledge from big data, innovative approaches for image reconstruction, and superior performance in clinical and preclinical applications. To realize the full impact of machine learning for tomographic imaging, major theoretical, technical and translational efforts are immediately needed.


Architeuthis caught in South African waters Four specimens of Architeuthis caught in South African waters are described. This is a contribution to the knowledge of the biology and taxonomy of the genus, which is still in the stage of collection and description. In the stomach of one specimen, cephalopod remains were found, which confirms previous findings of the authors.


The emergence of New Media has stimulated debate about the power of the visual to dethrone the cultural prominence of textuality and print. Some scholars celebrate the proliferation of digital images, arguing that it suggests a return to a pictorial age when knowledge was communicated through images as well as through words. Others argue that the inherent conflict between texts and images creates a battleground between the feminized, seductive power of images and the masculine rationality of the printed word. Eloquent Images suggests that these debates misunderstand the dynamic interplay that has always existed between word and image.Arguing that the complex relationship between text and image in New Media does not represent a radical rupture from the past, the book examines rhetorical and cultural uses of word and image both historically and currently. It shows that complex, interpenetrating relationships between verbal and visual communication systems were already evident in hieroglyphic writing and in ancient rhetoric and persist in the work of classical rhetoricians, in cultural studies of technology, even in the binary code distinctions of digital environments. The essays blend theory, critique, and design practice to explore the often contradictory relations of word and image. All of them call for theoretically grounded approaches to hypermedia design.


Humanism has never been able to establish a firm place in technical education, which remains predominantly pragmatist in response to industry needs, certification requirements and educational standardisation. However, after a period of decline, humanism has made somewhat of a comeback as part of the movement toward student-centred education. Research conducted at a technical college showed that although . This research indicated that including humanistic elements in educational practice will enable instructors to be more effective in helping students to develop skills in relation to team work, problem-solving, systems improvement, lifelong learning and other areas that are becoming increasingly necessary for success in the workplace. The include a constructivist approach with a focus on contextual teaching and learning using situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeships, anchored instruction and authentic assessment. At the same time, some suggestions for improving professional development for teachers by using a Gestalt approach along with self-study in the context of learning communities have been discussed.


Several association studies focusing on FTO gene polymorphisms have been published in the past years; however, the association between FTO -related conditions and FTO gene variants remains unexplained. Population genetics and association studies of different populations provide a valuable tool for further research. Thus, the aim of this systematic review is to summarize current knowledge on the FTO SNP rs9939609, and its association with presumably related conditions. The study included original research articles collected from PubMed and ResearchGate databases that were published in the period between 2007 and November 2017, and that provide information on rs9939609 mutant allele frequency and its probable association with any condition suspected of being related to the mutant allele. Genotype data was extracted and analyzed, and missing data was obtained from secondary sources. Short summaries of relevant studies from primary sources are organized in an overview table. The results of the systematic review suggest that mutant allele A is the most prevalent in European populations and least frequent on the Far East. In addition, it has been concluded that allele A is a good tool for the prediction of an increased risk of higher-than-normal BMI in a person carrying it, as well as that allele A should be further analyzed as a possible risk marker for type 2 diabetes mellitus and polycystic ovary syndrome development.


Presents a theoretically very simple, yet efficient, multiresolution approach to gray-scale and rotation invariant texture classification based on local binary patterns and nonparametric discrimination of sample and prototype distributions. The method is based on recognizing that certain local binary patterns, termed "uniform," are fundamental properties of local image texture and their occurrence histogram is proven to be a very powerful texture feature. We derive a generalized gray-scale and rotation invariant operator presentation that allows for detecting the "uniform" patterns for any quantization of the angular space and for any spatial resolution and presents a method for combining multiple operators for multiresolution analysis. The proposed approach is very robust in terms of gray-scale variations since the operator is, by definition, invariant against any monotonic transformation of the gray scale. Another advantage is computational simplicity as the operator can be realized with a few operations in a small neighborhood and a lookup table. Experimental results demonstrate that good discrimination can be achieved with the occurrence statistics of simple rotation invariant local binary patterns.


Recent progress in deep generative models has been fueled by two paradigms -- autoregressive and adversarial models. We propose a combination of both approaches with the goal of learning generative models of text. Our method first produces a high-level sentence outline and then generates words sequentially, conditioning on both the outline and the previous outputs. We generate outlines with an adversarial model trained to approximate the distribution of sentences in a latent space induced by general-purpose sentence encoders. This provides strong, informative conditioning for the autoregressive stage. Our quantitative evaluations suggests that conditioning information from generated outlines is able to guide the autoregressive model to produce realistic samples, comparable to maximum-likelihood trained language models, even at high temperatures with multinomial sampling. Qualitative results also demonstrate that this generative procedure yields natural-looking sentences and interpolations.


Abstract. The mesospheric OH Meinel emissions are subject of many theoretical and observational studies devoted to this part of the atmosphere. Depending on the initial vibrational level of excitation the altitude of the considered OH Meinel emission is systematically shifted, which has important implications for the intercomparison of different studies considering different transition bands. Previous model studies suggest that these vertical shifts are essentially caused by the process of collisional quenching with atomic oxygen. Following this hypothesis, a recent study found experimental evidence of a coherent seasonality at tropical latitudes between vertical shifts of different OH Meinel bands and changes in atomic oxygen concentrations. Despite the consistent finding of the above mentioned hypothesis, it cannot be excluded that the actual temporal variability of the vertical shifts between different OH Meinel bands may in addition be controlled or even dominated by other processes. It remains an open question whether the observed temporal evolution is indeed mainly controlled by the modulation of the collisional quenching process with atomic oxygen. By means of a sensitivity study which employs a quenching model to simulations made with the SD-WACCM4 chemistry climate model, we aim at assessing this question. From this study we find that the observed seasonality of vertical OH Meinel shifts is only partially controlled by temporal changes in atomic oxygen concentrations, while molecular oxygen has another noticeable impact on the vertical OH Meinel shifts. This in particular becomes evident for the diurnal variability of vertical OH Meinel shifts, which reveal only a poor correlation with the atomic oxygen species. Furthermore, changes in the H + O3 source gases provide another mechanism that can potentially affect the diurnal variability in addition. By comparison with limb radiance observations from the SABER/TIMED satellite this provides an explanation for the less evident diurnal response between changes in O concentrations and vertical OH Meinel shifts. On the other hand, at seasonal timescales the coherency between both quantities is again evident in SABER/TIMED but less pronounced compared to our model simulations.


What is it that makes a website stand out from the crowd? What makes it memorable and meaningful? To approach these questions we had put together this eBook. It's in no means a step-by-step guide to follow, but rather a collection of thoughts to give you some general impulses and perspectives on creating meaningful websites. Starting with a comprehensive website planning guide to the question, "Which role does emotion play within the emotionless Web system?", our authors explored a variety of different aspects that all contribute to aesthetically beautiful and thoroughly thought-out user experience. Last but not least, this eBook also features an overview of innovative Web design solutions for you to dig in. We hope that some of the ideas presented here will come in handy in your daily workflow and, most of all, that they add to the development of your own, meaningful, style.


By using a two-component approach to the one-dimensional effective mass Dirac equation, bound states are investigated under the effect of two new non-PT-symmetric and non-Hermitian exponential type potentials. It is observed that the Dirac equation can be mapped into a Schrodinger-like equation by rescaling one of the two Dirac wave functions in the case of the position-dependent mass. The energy levels and the corresponding Dirac eigenfunctions are found analytically.


Abstract Background Tuberculosis is a major health problem in developing countries. The distinction between tuberculous lymphadenitis, non-specific lymphadenitis and malignant lymph node enlargement has to be made at primary health care levels using easy, simple and cheap methods. Objective To develop a reliable clinical algorithm for primary care settings to triage cases of non-specific, tuberculous and malignant lymphadenopathies. Methods Calculation of the odd ratios (OR) of the chosen predictor variables was carried out using logistic regression. The numerical score values of the predictor variables were weighed against their respective OR. The performance of the score was evaluated by the ROC (Receiver Operator Characteristic) curve. Results Four predictor variables; Mantoux reading, erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR), nocturnal fever and discharging sinuses correlated significantly with TB diagnosis and were included in the reduced model to establish score A. For score B, the reduced model included Mantoux reading, ESR, lymph-node size and lymph-node number as predictor variables for malignant lymph nodes. Score A ranged 0 to 12 and a cut-off point of 6 gave a best sensitivity and specificity of 91% and 90% respectively, whilst score B ranged -3 to 8 and a cut-off point of 3 gave a best sensitivity and specificity of 83% and 76% respectively. The calculated area under the ROC curve was 0.964 (95% CI, 0.949 – 0.980) and -0.856 (95% CI, 0.787 - 0.925) for scores A and B respectively, indicating good performance. Conclusion The developed algorithm can efficiently triage cases with tuberculous and malignant lymphadenopathies for treatment or referral to specialised centres for further work-up.


Based on a panCommonwealth training workshop held in 1992 at the University of the South Pacific, this volume explores the skills required of the consultant and the ways in which institutions within small states can develop their consultancy capacity. It is presented as a useful manual for those with responsibility for managing educational consultancies.


The rural credit , analyzed as a policy for the development of family farming , is an important tool for strengthening and encouraging the production , but also a risk to producers unaccustomed to modernization and market fluctuations and the financial system. This research aims to analyze the performance of rural credit facilities that can be accessed by family farmers in the State of Amapa , as well as impacts of policies and limits for the field. The methodology consisted of gathering information and collecting data in the institutions responsible for managing programs of credits/loans for family farms in Amapa and the literature review on the topic . Was analyzed in this study the performance of three sources of credit / financing including family farmers may have access, FRAP, FNO and PRONAF. It was demonstrated in the study that the rural credit lines for family farming in Amapa not yet reached satisfactory resourcefulness and access to rural credit is dependent on the ability to articulate the different social actors involved and committed to their growth and development. Keywords: Family farming; Rural credit; State of Amapa; Policies for the field; Rural development.


Inducible gene targeting based on the Cre/loxP system is a novel technique allowing conditional gene modification in mice. Precondition of this method is the regulation of Cre activity by inducible genetic switches. This study aimed at improving inducible systems for the regulation of Cre activity at both the transcriptional and the posttranslational level, which should be tested first in vitro and subsequently in newly generated transgenic mice. In order to detect Cre activity, a special double indicator consisting of DsRed and eGFP was constructed and targeted into the ROSA26 locus of HM-1 ES cells. This indicator should constitutively express the DsRed gene flanked by loxP sites. Cre-mediated recombination excises the DsRed gene and turns on the eGFP gene, as evidenced by a change in fluorescence from red to green. Though the double indicator worked properly in transiently transfected fibroblasts, the targeting strategy used for the integration of the indicator into the ROSA26 locus presumably disrupted a putative stem loop motif of the 5�UTR resulting in a silencing of the indicator at the protein level. However, the ES cell line with the integrated double indicator is suited for targetings of inducible Cre constructs into the HPRT locus, since inducibilities are detectable by Southern Blot analysis. The Cre*PR system was one inducible system I have established. In contrast to the classical CrePR1 system, the background activity of Cre*PR was almost abolished by introducing a point mutation into the 3�end of the Cre part, thus preventing aberrant splicing of the Cre*PR encoding mRNA. Also, the PR-LBD of the Cre*PR system was improved, compared to the CrePR1, to obtain a higher affinity towards the inducer RU486. The Cre*PR system, driven by either the EF1£\ promoter or the CAGGS promoter, was then targeted into the HPRT locus. The CAGGS Cre*PR worked in ES cells as expected. These targeted ES cells were subsequently used to generate transgenic mice. In these mice, high protein levels of Cre*PR have to be obtained in order to achieve inducible Cre-mediated excision of loxP-flanked gene segments. In addition, I generated a novel B cell specific Cre*PR mouse strain by targeting Cre*PR into the mCD19 locus. In another approach to inducibly regulate Cre, a tet-on system was established consisting of the rtTA-M2 transactivator and the tetresponsive Cre cassette, which was targeted into the HPRT locus of the double indicator ES cell line. This system revealed a tight regulation of Cre expression in a doxycycline dependent manner.


Students and scholars of the Italian Renaissance easily fall under the spell of its achievements: its self-confident humanism, its groundbreaking scientific innovations, its ravishing artistic production. Yet many of the developments in Italian ceramics and glass were made possible by Italy's proximity to the Islamic world. The Arts of Fire underscores how central the Islamic influence was on this luxury art of the Italian Renaissance. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum on view from May 4 to August 5, 2004, The Arts of Fire demonstrates how many of the techniques of glass and ceramic production and ornamentation were first developed in the Islamic East between the eighth and twelfth centuries. These techniques - enamel and gilding on glass and tin-glaze and lustre on ceramics - produced brilliant and colourful decoration that was a source of awe and admiration, transforming these crafts, for the first time, into works of art and true luxury commodities. Essays by Catherine Hess, George Saliba, and Linda Komaroff demonstrate early modern Europe's debts to the Islamic world and help us better understand the interrelationships of cultures over time.


Charles Green and Basil Wilson, The Struggle for Black Empowerment in New York City: Beyond the Politics of PigmentationNew York City politics have always been byzantine. African American politics in the nation's most populous city have been even more complicated. Throughout the city's history, black people have been consistently discriminated against and excluded. Current events notwithstanding, violence has been inflicted on the Black community in an alarmingly consistent pattern throughout the course of the city's existence. The most difficult task for Afro-Americans in New York City has been the attainment of political power: either to redress past discriminations or improve their community. Kept under the control of various paternalistic coalitions of white ethnic groups, few African Americans were able to capture any positions of real power. Those matters changed somewhat in the 1930s and even more dramatically in the 1950s and 60s especially in the presence of Adam Clayton Powell. But the institutionalization of racism of those times was deeply embedded, even more so than in the overtly segregationist South. While the Civil Rights Movement destroyed "jim crow" and led to legislation that transformed the South, in New York City African American politics remained under the supervision of ethnic coalitions formed in the Thirties and Forties. Part of the problem has been the inability of Blacks to form coalitions with other disenfranchised groups such as the large and diverse Hispanic population. Then too there has been tensions within the Black community between Afro-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.Much of that appears to have changed now that the city has elected its first Black mayor, David Dinkins. Charles Green and Basil Wilson's book came out before the election took place but much of the foregoing comments are covered by them in a readable and informative way. The strength of this book lies in its timeliness. Unfortunately it is also a weakness. The perspective and ground on which this volume stands is one of current affairs and, given the rapid changes taking place today in the Black community, a book such as this can quickly become dated. Nonetheless, there are two areas that deserve serious attention: the first being the analytic framework within which the authors dissect the political history of New York City. Green and Wilson see three periods of white ethnic hegemony: Irish Hegemony (1880-1932), Ethnic Symmetry (Irish, Jews and Italians, 1933-76), and White Backlash (1977-1989). With the election of David Dinkins, one could say that a Period of Coalition is under way but that remains to be seen. The typology that Green and Wilson present is very useful for understanding the labyrinthine politics of the city. Indeed one wishes for more description and depth but the authors were apparently aiming for timeliness rather than thoroughness. That unfortunately prevented them from making some useful and pertinent analyses of why the state of Afro-America in New York City is where it is presently. For example, the authors in their historically organized second chapter note that in the Thirties "the black working class responded more enthusiastically to black nationalist appeals than to the class analysis of the CPUSA. …


Over the last few decades there has been a renewed interest in St Paul by continental philosophers, many of them from Lacanian traditions. This has arisen independent of the revolutionary developments in Pauline theology over the same period. This thesis bridges the gap between them, as a Lacanian study of Paul that is faithfully Lacanian and faithfully Pauline. Lacan's thesis that the unconscious is structured like a language, and some of the accompanying structures he discovered, are found in Paul's theology.
Finding Lacan in Paul poses new solutions to many of the dilemmas facing both Lacanian readings of Paul and Pauline scholarship itself. A more faithfully Lacanian (and less Hegelian) version of Slavoj Žižek's Paul loses none of his political usefulness, without requiring atheism. The Pauline 'event' as Alain Badiou describes it is described again through Lacan, in a way that fits better with Pauline scholarship, allowing equal importance to both the death and resurrection of Christ. Refusing to sacrifice an authentically Lacanian understanding of 'alienation' forces a more nuanced reading of Paul than some other similar attempts; but it also reframes what some Paul scholars mean when they claim that in Christ the believer undergoes an ontological transformation.
Inserting a Lacanian Paul into the modern philosophical discourse reveals a Paul who can be politically meaningful beyond his relation to 'Empire.' Interwoven in this is a reading of Paul opposed to Stoicism, revealed by qualifying Stoic ethics as obsessional neurotic in structure. This reading of Paul against Stoicism helps to demonstrate Paul's relation to the 'master signifiers' of his time, which also helps to clarify what happened in Pauline Christian 'conversions,' and provides another way to theorise about what Paul might mean for today. This thesis demonstrates that Lacan's concepts are helpful to Pauline scholarship, and that they are not irreconcilable with the historical critical method, in the hope that many more Lacanian Pauls might emerge in the future.


In an effort to eliminate a long history of racial discrimination in jury selection, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), that jurors cannot be excluded on the basis of race through a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges. Despite that ruling, racial discrimination in jury selection has remained a persistent problem. In May 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided yet another case, Foster v. Chatman, finding that prosecutors' use of peremptory challenges to exclude all eligible potential African American jurors to achieve an all-white jury in Georgia violated Batson. That jury sentenced 18-year-old Timothy Foster, an African American man, to death for the murder of an elderly white woman. Nearly 30 years later, the Court concluded that the prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race when they struck two potential jurors from the jury. Emphasizing the seriousness of racial discrimination in jury selection, the Court admonished: "Two peremptory strikes on the basis of race are two more than the Constitution allows." The Supreme Court may have granted Foster a new trial based on Batson, but that is unlikely to stop racial discrimination in jury selection. Since the Court decided Batson 40 years ago, issues of racially motivated use of peremptory challenges frequently arise. In that time, several cases have reached the Court, and countless more have gone to state and federal courts of appeals. In view of the intractable problem presented by the use of peremptory challenges, commentators have recommended a variety of solutions to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection and achieve more inclusive and representative juries. In this ethics column, we explore the problems with Batson as a constitutional rule as well as the legal ethics of racial discrimination in jury selection. We also consider alternatives to peremptory challenges, and conclude by endorsing alternatives to the current system of peremptory challenges as the best alternatives to curb racial discrimination in jury selection.


Recent research has demonstrated considerable potential for artificial soils to be designed for carbon capture. The incorporation of quarry fines enables the accumulation of atmospheric CO2 in newly formed carbonate minerals. However, the rate and trajectory of carbon accumulation has been little studied. The relative contribution of biotic (e.g. vegetation, micro-organisms) and abiotic (water, light, temperature) factors to the carbonation process is also unknown. This article presents a sustainability framework which aims to determine the multi-functionality of soils to which fines have been added not only in their role as carbon sinks but also in their role of providing additional opportunities for improvement to ecosystem services. Such frameworks are required specifically where land designed for CO2 capture must also provide other ecosystem services, such as flood mitigation and biodiversity conservation. land within linear transport infrastructure provides a case study, focusing on 238,000 ha of vegetated land associated with roadside verges in the UK. Hypothetically this area could remove 2.5 t CO2 per year from the atmosphere, equivalent to 1% 2011 total UK emissions or 2% of current transport emissions and saving an equivalent of £1.1 billion in non-traded mitigation values. roadside verges should be designed to minimize flooding onto the highway and perform other important functions such as removal of dust and suspended solids from surface waters. Vegetation on 30,000 ha of railway land also provides opportunities for carbon sequestration, but management of this vegetation is subject to similar constraints to protect the rail tracks from debris extending from autumn leaves to fallen trees.


This article addresses the management of agricultural indigenous knowledge (IK) in developing countries, with a specific focus on Tanzania. It provides background details on IK and its importance for agricultural development. It introduces various knowledge management (KM) concepts and discusses their application in managing IK in the developing world by placing Nonaka's knowledge creation theory (Nonaka 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995; Nonaka, Toyama & Konno 2000) in the context of the local communities. Data from focus groups were used to triangulate with data from interviews in order to validate, confirm and corroborate quantitative results with qualitative findings. The study findings showed that knowledge creation theory can be used to manage IK in the local communities, however, adequate and appropriate resources need to be allocated for capturing and preserving IK before it disappears altogether. For sustainable agricultural development, the communities have to be placed within a knowledge-creating setting that continuously creates, distributes and shares knowledge within and beyond the communities' boundaries and integrates it with new agricultural technologies, innovations and knowledge.


The adhesion of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes to vascular endothelium and to uninfected red blood cells (RBCs) plays a key role in the pathology of severe malaria. Adhesion is known to be mediated in part by the antigenically-variant erythrocyte membrane protein-1 (PfEMP-1), which is encoded by the var-gene family of P. falciparum. It has recently been reported that in vitro a single parasite simultaneously transcribes multiple var-genes but that, through a developmentally regulated process, the parasite selects only one PfEMP-1 that will to reach the surface of the host RBC. Were this to be true in vivo, one would expect a correlation between the type of var/PfEMP-1 that is expressed on the parasite-infected RBC and the severity of clinical disease. In order to test this assumption, we determined the sequence of the var-gene that was expressed by the parasites in patients' blood samples. Seven blood samples were collected from patients with or without severe clinical symptoms (cerebral malaria): two samples were from patients diagnosed as having imported falciparum malaria at the International Medical Center of Japan (IMCJ); the five others were from patients of the Davao Regional Hospital in Davao, the Philippines. The parasites (ring stage) in the blood samples were cultured for 24 hours; the matured trophozoites, in which the var-gene selection had taken place, served as material for mRNA isolation. The cDNA corresponding to the Duffy-binding-like (DBL)-1 domain of the var-gene was amplified by RT-PCR, using a region-specific primer set. The amplified cDNAs were cloned into the plasmid vector; the resultant clones (32) were sequenced on both strands. The results indicated that there was considerable diversity in the sequence of the DBL-1 domain among the clones, even among those from a single patient. In conclusion, it was difficult to demonstrate the correlation between the type of var-gene transcripts found in the RBCs of malaria patients and the severity of their symptoms.


Hybrid hydrogels are a new class of composite materials. Polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels are mainly produced by free radical crosslinking copolymerization (FCC) of AAm in the presence of N, N′-methylene bis (acrylamide) (BIS) as the crosslinker. Pyranine doped PAAm-poly (N-vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) composite were prepared with different amounts of PVP varying in the range between 0.0015 and 0.1 gr. It was observed that pyranine molecules as a fluoroprobe bind to AAm and PVP chains upon the initiation of the polymerization, causing the fluorescence spectra of the bonded pyranines shift to the shorter wavelengths. The sol–gel phase transition and its universality were monitored and tested as a function of PVP contents. Observations around the critical point show that the gel fraction exponent, β, agreed with the percolation result for below 0.025 gr PVP contents. However, classical result was observed above 0.0125 gr PVP content.


The design, construction, and operation of civil infrastructure that is more environmentally, socially, and economically responsible over its life cycle from extraction of raw materials to end of life is increasingly desirable worldwide. This paper presents a probabilistic framework for the design of civil infrastructure that achieves targeted improvements in quantitative sustainability indicators. The framework consists of two models: (i) probabilistic service life prediction models for determining the time to repair, and (ii) probabilistic life cycle assessment (LCA) models for measuring the impact of a repair. Specifically, this paper introduces a new mathematical approach, SIPmathTM, to simplify this design framework and potentially accelerate adoption by civil infrastructure designers. A reinforced concrete bridge repair in Norway is used as a case study to demonstrate SIPmath implementation. The case study shows that SIPmath allows designers to engage in sustainable design using probabilistic methods using the native, user-friendly Microsoft Excel interface. Methods are developed through this case study to determine the probability of failure of a more sustainable design compared to a baseline design, and these methods are then verified using alternative software and approach.


Pharmacy informatics is demonstrated to have a positive effect on pharmacy practice. The incorporation of pharmacy informatics in academic programs is a common feature in the pharmacy curriculum. This work aims to provide an overview of the current and potential role of mobile applications (apps) in pharmacy education and practice. Mobile apps are the most common informatics tools used by medical and pharmacy practitioners as well as students. Both students and practitioners have overall positive perceptions toward using mobile apps in their daily clinical training and practice although the fact that the number of pharmacy apps is still small relatively in comparison with other medical-related apps. There are many potential roles for mobile apps in pharmacy practice and education. The future efforts of educational uses of mobile apps in pharmacy should target playing a role in the provision of customized tools for clinical pharmacy education.


The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate factors that contribute to fermentation problems in Chardonnay, since this variety is reported to have frequent problems. Analytical methods included gas chromatography mass spectrometry, as well as atomic absorption spectroscopy and FT-MIR spectroscopy. Chardonnay, Pinot blanc, Pinot noir and Pinot noir precoce were screened to relate observations to specific varietal properties. The results show a significant distinction in the amino acid profile of Chardonnay, which can be correlated with sluggish fermentation. A comparison between the fatty acid profile of Chardonnay and Pinot blanc reveals that Chardonnay contains more toxic compounds, which inhibit yeast metabolism. Mineral supply and potential metal toxicity were also analysed. The concentrations of iron, copper, magnesium, zinc and manganese show significant variations among the grape varieties. In conclusion, the possible causes for stuck fermentation in Chardonnay could be more related more to variety than to oenological decisions.


This article analyses experiences of crafstmanship within a group of women weavers. It looks at the process of mastering the art of textile-making amidst the tensions of a creative act, living on the margins and striving for recognition. The research methodology aims at closing the gap between researchers and the researched. The theoretical-methodological arguments are based on participatory research combined with the feminist perspective of giving visibility to the women ́s history, which involves an act of research done as (self-)formation. Participant observation, discussion groups and talking circles allowed the collection of material for the analysis of the experiences. We came to the conclusion that the researchers and the women weavers (the researched) produce an aesthetics at a point of interface between their art studio and education environments, whereby women artisans were inspired to see their work from another perspective and recognise their craftwork, and they were challenged, along with the students as well as the professor, to think about teaching and learning in youth and adult education through handcrafted work. In this process, we come to elaborate a feminist hermeneutics.