The engineers in Technical, Humanitarian Opportunities of Service-learning (ETHOS) program at the University of Dayton is founded on the belief that engineers are more apt and capable to serve our world more appropriately when they have experienced opportunities that increase their understanding of technology's global linkage with values, culture, society, politics and economy. ETHOS seeks to provide these opportunities by means of curriculum integrated service-learning program. These opportunities include international technical immersion volunteer internships, student organization activities, collaborative research and classroom projects, which support appropriate technologies for the developing world, locally and globally. Over the course of three years, 27 students have participated in service-learning internships, working with development organizations and communities throughout Central and South America. Students live in the community which they volunteer and together, with the community, work to appropriately and creatively solve technical challenges. Such experiences expose students to alternative, nontraditional technologies that are based on fundamental science and engineering principles, thus allowing higher comprehension of curriculum material in a hands-on, practical and humanitarian manner. Furthermore, such exposure allows students to recognize the far-reaching effects, positive and negative, of engineering and technology and thus the responsibilities of being an engineer in our ever-increasing global society. Students are awarded credit via a multidisciplinary engineering elective, coordinated by the ETHOS program, for preparing for and participating in an international service-learning internship. The preparation, prior to the six to sixteen week international technical immersion, includes a semester-long technical, cultural, language and travel instructional class. Student development and progress is monitored through technical reporting and reflection before, during and after travels. This paper examines in detail, one student's experience in his international service-learning internship and how this experience has affected his educational objectives


Determination of the amount of ruthenium in surface catalysts was important in predicting catalyst activity and projecting catalyst consumption rates. In order to develop a nondestructive analytical method for ruthenium, conventional and portable x-ray fluorescence equipment was used to analyze ruthenium in catalytic surfaces. The portable unit performed comparably to the conventional wavelength dispersive instrument, allowed larger samples to be measured, and provided linear calibration over a sufficiently large range to be useful for quality control. Calibration standards were prepared in matched pairs to allow analysis of one sample of each pair by atomic spectroscopy methods.


In this paper I attempt a reading of Heidegger's interpretations of St. Paul's Epistles in light of the distinction between Eastern and Western thought. To this end, I suggest that Heidegger's recourse to the Paulinic texts represents his endeavor to gain access to the original structures of life by circumventing the metaphysical framework of Greek (Plato's and Aristotle's) thought. Thus, I argue that by doing this, Heidegger actually approaches the Eastern way of thinking, i.e. a non-metaphysical alternative. In order to better understand what defines Eastern thought, I discuss in some detail Zizioulas's interpretations of temporality in Eastern Christianity. Along the lines of this different understanding of temporality, the proximity of Heideggerian thought can be seen. Finally, I show that the importance of my argument lies in that it can open a possible research path for what Heidegger in his latter works calls "the other beginning."


The circumstances surrounding cases that challenge accepted conventions, practices, and values, in particular those involving the conception of the family and how those families come into existence, is understandably, highly charged. In particular, those cases which operate at the intersection of medicine, biology, technology, social expectation, and religion, and which could not occur in 'nature', cause the most apprehension. They can only come about because of biotechnological and medical intervention. As Dwyer observes, 'these techniques may be desired by the subject, but may cause wider public concern. Bioethics is therefore increasingly concerned with protecting the interests of society from the individual as well as the individual from society'. Brownsword suggests that there has been a loss of moral compass guiding individuals (blaming postmodernism and social dislocation among other things), which never occurred in more than the cohesive social structures of pre-modern society. Thus, the State must intrude in problematic cases, overriding choices of individuals where necessary.


Soft errors are radiation-induced ionization events (induced by energetic particles like alpha particles, cosmic neutron, etc.) that cause transient errors in integrated circuits. The circuit can always recover from such errors as the underlying semiconductor material is not damaged and hence, they are called soft errors. In nanometer technologies, the reduced node capacitance and supply voltage coupled with high packing density and lack of masking mechanisms are primarily responsible for the increased susceptibility of SRAMs towards soft errors. Coupled with these are the process variations (effective length, width, and threshold voltage), which are prominent in scaled-down technologies. Typically, SRAM constitutes up to 90% of the die in microprocessors and SoCs (System-on-Chip). Hence, the soft errors in SRAMs pose a potential threat to the reliable operation of the system. In this work, a soft-error-robust eight-transistor SRAM cell (8T) is proposed to establish a balance between low power consumption and soft error robustness. Using metrics like access time, leakage power, and sensitivity to single event transients (SET), the proposed approach is evaluated. For the purpose of analysis and comparisons the results of 8T cell are compared with a standard 6T SRAM cell and the state-of-the-art soft-error-robust SRAM cells. Based on simulation results in a 65-nm commercial CMOS process, the 8T cell demonstrates higher immunity to SETs along with smaller area and comparable leakage power. A 32-kb array of 8T cells was fabricated in silicon. After functional verification of the test chip, a radiation test was conducted to evaluate the soft error robustness. As SRAM cells are scaled aggressively to increase the overall packing density, the smaller transistors exhibit higher degrees of process variation and mismatch, leading to larger offset voltages. For SRAM sense amplifiers, higher offset voltages lead to an increased likelihood of an incorrect decision. To address this issue, a sense amplifier capable of cancelling the input offset voltage is presented. The simulated and measured results in 180-nm technology show that the sense amplifier is capable of detecting a 4 mV differential input signal under dc and transient conditions. The proposed sense amplifier, when compared with a conventional sense amplifier, has a similar die area and a greatly reduced offset voltage. Additionally, a dual-input sense amplifier architecture is proposed with corroborating silicon results to show that it requires smaller differential input to evaluate correctly.


Conductance fluctuations associated with transport through quantum-dot systems are currently understood to depend on the nature of the corresponding classical dynamics, i.e., integrable or chaotic. However, we find that in graphene quantum-dot systems, when a magnetic field is present, signatures of classical dynamics can disappear and universal scaling behaviors emerge. In particular, as the Fermi energy or the magnetic flux is varied, both regular oscillations and random fluctuations in the conductance can occur, with alternating transitions between the two. By carrying out a detailed analysis of two types of integrable (hexagonal and square) and one type of chaotic (stadium) graphene dot system, we uncover a universal scaling law among the critical Fermi energy, the critical magnetic flux, and the dot size. We develop a physical theory based on the emergence of edge states and the evolution of Landau levels (as in quantum Hall effect) to understand these experimentally testable behaviors.


Scalable parallel systems are increasingly being used today to address existing and emerging application areas that require performance levels significantly beyond what symmetric multiprocessors are capable of providing. These areas include traditional technical computing applications, commercial computing applications such as decision support and transaction processing, and emerging areas such as "grand challenge" applications, digital libraries, and video production and distribution. The IBM SP2™ is a general-purpose scalable parallel system designed to address a wide range of these applications. This paper gives an overview of the architecture and structure of SP2, discusses the rationale for the significant system design decisions that were made, indicates the extent to which key objectives were met, and identifies future system challenges and advanced technology development areas.


Modern jury selection is pulled in two directions. Equal protection prohibits racial discrimination, but the traditional peremptory strike permits exclusion of a juror without explanation. To reconcile this tension, the Court developed the Batson framework, requiring lawyers to articulate ex post race-neutral justifications for suspicious strikes. But many doubt Batson's efficacy at uncovering latent discrimination. Last term, while recognizing a Batson violation in Foster v. Chatman, the Supreme Court counter-intuitively reinforced this concern. Foster is the rare case in which prosecutors documented in writing their reliance on race. A framework that depends on such transparency is weak and ineffective. And the systemic persistence of discrimination, three decades after Batson was decided, has convinced many that the only solution is to eliminate peremptory strikes in their entirety.In this article, I offer an alternative strategy. I introduce a new mechanism to reform – but not entirely eliminate – the system of peremptory challenges: the "hybrid jury strike." Hybrid strikes would fall in between traditional peremptory challenges, which may be exercised at the party's discretion, and challenges for cause, which may be granted only upon an adequate showing of the juror's bias or other basis for disqualification. Hybrid strikes would require ex ante justification but not a conclusive showing of bias; they could be used to exclude a set number of jurors who survived non-pretextual and meaningful cause challenges. Hybrid strikes could replace traditional peremptories wholesale or could be leveraged asymmetrically – such as by preserving traditional peremptories for the defense while permitting only hybrid strikes for the prosecution.Hybrid strikes offer an intermediate approach between the status quo and complete abolition of peremptory challenges. They would meaningfully curtail discrimination while preserving the most legitimate function of peremptory challenges: to foster jury impartiality by providing a buffer zone for cause challenges when evidence of bias is credible but insufficient or when judges erroneously reject them.


(No paper) The U.S. Army disposed chemical agents, laboratory materials, and unexploded ordnance at the O-Field landfill from before World War II until at least the 1950s. Soil, ground water, surface water, and wetland sediments in the O-Field area were contaminated from the disposal activity. The site is located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and is underlain by a complex series of Pleistocene and Holocene age sediments formed in various fluvial, estuarine and marginal marine hydrogeologic environments. A transient finite-difference ground-water-flow model was used to simulate flow as well as the effects of a pump-and-treat remediation system designed to capture contaminated ground water from the water-table aquifer before it reaches an adjacent estuary, a tributary to the Chesapeake Bay. The remediation system consists of 14 extraction wells located downgradient of the landfill and upgradient of the estuary. Linear programming techniques were applied to the ground-water-flow model in order to determine optimal pumping scenarios for the well field. The objective function involves varying pumping rates and frequencies to maximize capture of ground water from the water-table aquifer. At the same time, the amount of water extracted and needing treatment is minimized. The constraints placed on the system insure that only ground water from the landfill is extracted and treated. To do this, a downward gradient from the disposal area toward the extraction wells must be maintained. Similarly, the wells can not be pumped to the extent that they cause a downward gradient from the estuary to the well field. The total volume of water extracted must not exceed the treatment plants maximum capacity, nor can any well be pumped beyond its recharge capacity. Finally, a well can not be pumped so that the water level is drawn down below the midpoint of the well screen. Initial efforts using generalized constraints indicate that the objective function can be met by pumping all the wells at rates between 1.9 and 5.5 gallons per minute.


PETROV, P., 2006. Mycelium waste in the compound feeds for growing pigs. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 12: 587-595 Two experiments, comprising 54 pigs from the Shumen 1 hybrid were carried out at the Agricultural Institute - Shumen. The pigs were divided into three groups consisting of 9 castrated males. The experiments began immediately after weaning at 34-29 days of age and finished at 97 and 93 days of age for the first and the second experiment respectively. The animals of the control and the experimental groups were fed compound feeds with equal level of energy, protein, amino acids and trace minerals. The difference in feeding consisted of the following: 10% dry matter of the basic compound feed (group I) were substituted by the same amount of dry matter of moist tylosine mycelium (group II) and the same percentage dry matter was substituted by dry tylosine mycelium (group III). It was established that including moist or dry non-inactivated mycelium in the feeds for the experimental groups led to the same results in relation to growth rate and feed conversion which decreased by 5-10%. No morphological changes were found out in the digestive organs and endocrinal glands in pigs fed non-inactivated mycelium. Tylosine was found out in the bile secretion in the pigs received moist non-inactivated mycelium and in the pigs received dry noninactivated mycelium, tylosine was found in the urine.


This thesis project involves the translation of a selection of short stories by Camille Deslauriers, a Québécois writer, from French into English, as well as the translation of a selection of short stories by Angie Abdou, a Western English-Canadian writer, from English into French. The thesis is divided into four chapters into which the translations have been inserted. The chapters provide an introduction and commentary to the translations. I begin by giving a brief overview of the importance of literary translation in Canada as well as a short description of Québécois and English-Canadian short fiction. This section introduces the two authors that have been chosen for this thesis, Camille Deslauriers and Angie Abdou, as well as their collections of short stories, Femme-Boa and Anything Boys Can Do respectively. I discuss various approaches to translation, literary translation, linguistic issues, the translation process, and the issue of mother tongue and directionality. Following the two introductory chapters are the translations. I have translated nine of Camille Deslauriers' short stories from Femme-Boa from French into English, and three of Angie Abdou's short stories from Anything Boys Can Do from English into French. In both cases, these are the first translations to be done of these authors' works. I then go on to describe certain challenges posed by the translations, giving examples of strategies adopted to resolve the problems. In the final chapter, I reflect upon the translation process as a whole, in light of the revisions done by both of my thesis advisors, in terms of vocabulary, syntax, bilingualism, and biculturalism. This reflection enables me to synthesize the knowledge that I acquired through the whole translation experience. Comparative literature, Quebec literature, English-Canadian literature, translation, Camille Deslauriers, Angie Abdou, short fiction.


This article presents an overview of the interdisciplinary study of skeletal remains from Late Mesolithic and Middle Neolithic sites in the Lower Rhine Basin. The combination of archaeological, physical anthropological and chemical analysis has led to a better understanding of the treatment of the dead, demographic parameters and diet of the populations during the transition from forager to farmer in this area. Burial ritual was variable during this whole period, with an above-ground treatment of corpses alongside the burial of deceased. The physical anthropological study has revealed that the sites were inhabited by family groups. Stable isotope analyses have indicated that immigrants were sometimes present and that diet varied per population. Intersite variation in diet is explained by the exploitation of the local habitat. Intrasite variability in diet can be influenced by cultural and social factors as attested by the burial traditions and the isotope study of provenance. It is posited here that the Neolithisation process was not as unambiguous as in some other parts of Europe, but diverse with small-scale variations at the site level.


Multi-period decisions are decisions which determine an individual's payoffs in several periods in the future. This paper examines the theoretical foundations of the prevalent weighted average assumption. More specifically, we use a multi-period interpretation of the famous Ellsberg paradox in decision under uncertainty to show that in many cases of interest additively-separable functionals (in general) and weighted average ones (in particular) do not seem appropriate for the representation of the decision maker's preferences. We then suggest replacing the sure-thing principle, which may be used to axiomatize a weighted average functional, by a weaker version of it. Using the weakened axiom in Schmeidler's nonadditive measure model (reinterpreted for the multi-period context) yields an axiomatization of a larger class of decision rules which are representable by a weighted average of the utility in each period und the utility variation between each two consecutive periods. The weighted average assumption is a special case of the generalized model, a case in which the decision maker is variation neutral. Similarly, we define and characterize variation aversion and variation liking, and show an example of the economic implications of these properties.


Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a C-19 adrenal steroid and the most abundant circulating hormone in humans. Since circulating levels decline in late adulthood, treatment of humans with DHEA has been suggested to have beneficial health effects. Although the mechanism of action is unknown, DHEA may be metabolized to active metabolites that exert their physiological effects by receptor-mediated processes and cell signaling pathways. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanistic processes of DHEA action. Since DHEA may exert its pleotropic effects by being metabolized to biologically active species, a GC/MS method was developed to quantify the liver microsomal metabolism of DHEA of various species and identify the P450 enzymes responsible for metabolism. 16alpha-hydroxy-DHEA and 7alpha-hydroxy-DHEA were formed in rat, hamster, pig and human. CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 formed 7alpha-hydroxy-DHEA, 16alpha-hydroxy-DHEA, and the unique human metabolite, 7beta-hydroxy-DHEA, while the fetal enzyme CYP3A7 formed only 16alpha-hydroxy and 7beta-hydroxy-DHEA. By using this method to examine the metabolite profiles of various P450s, the developmental expression patterns of the human cytochrome P4503A forms could be classified and therefore have significant clinical relevance. Nuclear receptors transduce the effects of hormones into transcriptional responses. DHEA and metabolites were screened in a cell-based assay to determine the interaction with estrogen receptors alpha and beta (ERalpha and ERbeta). DHEA, DHEA-S, and androstendiol activated ERalpha, while DHEA, 7-oxo-DHEA, androstenedione and androstenediol activated ERbeta demonstrating ER is activated directly by DHEA and some metabolites. These and other studies from our laboratory demonstrate that DHEA is metabolized into various monohydroxylated metabolites. DHEA and metabolites directly activate ER as well as the pregnane X receptor (PXR). Additionally, DHEA has been shown to activate another nuclear receptor, peroxisome proliferator activated receptor alpha (PPARalpha) "in vivo." This research suggests that DHEA action is mediated by multiple receptors and metabolites with various biological activities, comprising of a complex mode of action of DHEA.


At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations. The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive -- a masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists.


A previous study had established that anaerobic continuous-flow (CF) cultures of conventional mouse cecal flora were able to maintain the in vivo ecological balance among the indigenous bacterial species tested. This paper describes experiments designed to determine the mechanisms which control the population sizes of these species in such CF cultures. One strain each of Escherichia coli, Fusobacterium sp., and Eubacterium sp. were studied. Growth of these strains in filtrates of CF cultures was considerably more rapid than in the CF cultures themselves, indicating that the inhibitory activity had been lost in the process of filtration. Growth rates to match those in CF cultures could be obtained, however, by restoring the original levels of H2S in the culture filtrates. The inhibitory effect of H2S in filtrates and in dialysates of CF cultures could be abolished by adding glucose or pyruvate, but not formate or lactate. The fatty acids present in CF cultures matched those in the cecum of conventional mice in both quality and concentration. These acids could not account for the slow rates of growth of the tested strains in CF cultures, but they did cause a marked increase in the initial lag phase of E. coli growth. The results obtained are compatible with the hypothesis that the populations of most indigenous intestinal bacteria are controlled by one or a few nutritional substrates which a given strain can utilize most efficiently in the presence of H2S and at the prevailing conditions of pH and anaerobiosis. This hypothesis consequently implies that the populations of enterobacteria, such as the E. coli strain tested, and those of the predominant anaerobes are controlled by analogous mechanisms.


Influenza virus penetrates cells by fusion of viral and endosomal membranes catalyzed by the viral hemagglutinin (HA). Structures of the initial and final states of the HA trimer define the fusion endpoints, but do not specify intermediates. We have characterized these transitions by analyzing low-pH-induced fusion kinetics of individual virions and validated the analysis by computer simulation. We detect initial engagement with the target membrane of fusion peptides from independently triggered HAs within the larger virus-target contact patch; fusion then requires engagement of three or four neighboring HA trimers. Effects of mutations in HA indicate that withdrawal of the fusion peptide from a pocket in the pre-fusion trimer is rate-limiting for both events, but the requirement for cooperative action of several HAs to bring the fusing membranes together leads to a long-lived intermediate state for single, extended HA trimers. This intermediate is thus a fundamental aspect of the fusion mechanism. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00333.001.


We describe a method to enable the selection of specific text regions with a hand-held camera by means of projecting a structured light pointer on the document. The user indicates the text required by dragging the laser pointer over it while a sequence of images is captured. By tracking the motion of the camera over the document and matching the trajectory to the actual text, the system is able to precisely determine the text portion the user intended to capture. By using this selection method along with a text-processing pipeline and OCR, a general purpose hand-held device (such as a PDA or mobile phone) with a camera could be used as effectively as single-purpose pen scanning devices. We present our results showing successful capture and extraction of text.


In this study, the 1/20 reduced-scale experiments using Froude scaling are conducted to investigate the effect of longitudinal ventilation velocity on the burning rate in tunnel fires. The methanol pool fires, acetone pool fires, and n-heptane pool fires with a heat release rate ranging from 2.02 to ~6.15 kW, 2.76 to ~11.04 kW, and 2.23 to ~15.6 kW, respectively, are used. A load cell is used to measure the mass loss rate of the burning fuel and the temperature distributions are measured by K-type thermocouples in order to investigate smoke movement. The ventilation velocity in the reduced-scale tunnel is controlled by the wind tunnel through an inverter. In the case of a methanol pool fire, the increase in ventilation velocity reduces the burning rate. On the contrary, for acetone and n-heptane pool fires, the increase in ventilation velocity leads to the enhanced burning rate of fuels. The reason is that, for acetone and n-heptane pool fires, the oxygen supply effect prevails rather than the cooling effects as the ventilation velocity increases. However, for a methanol pool fire the cooling effect outweighs the effects of oxygen supply. The relationship between the critical velocity (Vc, m/s) and the heat release rate (Q, MW), for a full tunnel, has been found to be:[ILLEGIBLE].


The basis of this thesis is an investigation of Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) administrative and criminal enforcement files, relating to UK detentions and prosecutions. It would appear that this is the first time that such an analysis has been made. The thesis is divided into four parts of which Part B and C form the heart of the work. These two consider administrative (Part B) and criminal (Part C) enforcement measures and discusses their legal basis. But before these subjects are dealt with in more detail, enforcement personnel and their roles are analysed (Part A), and their role is compared to inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). Human rights and their impact on both enforcement process and inspectors of MCA and MAIB are addressed within the context of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and Regulations issued under the Act. The thesis identifies inconsistencies of UK legislation when compared with European law and apparent lack of clarification within UK law. The analysis of administrative enforcement measures focuses on detentions of merchant ships whereas the discussion of criminal enforcement measures concentrates on the areas which the files suggested were the most affected by investigations and prosecutions, namely groundings, violations of the Collision Regulations and pollution incidents. It becomes clear from the research that detentions by far outweigh prosecutions, that MCA policy supports this approach and that enforcement personnel indicate a preference for such administrative enforcement measures. However, a large number of Detention Notices were found non-compliant with legal requirements. Still only one case was identified, documented and discussed where the MCA was taken to arbitration by the owner affected by a detention. The thesis offers suggestions as to how the work of MCA enforcement personnel can be improved and (Part D) what measures would seem to be appropriate for the lawmakers to take in the future. It is suggested that the approach taken in recent European oil pollution legislation to focus on serious negligence rather than on strict criminal liability could offer a suitable way forward. Throughout this work I have endeavoured to state the law as at 31 October 2008. In a number of cases it has been possible to take account of developments since that date as my viva voce only took place in June 2009. I have made reference to new European and UK pollution legislation (see Chapter 13, fn 1) which came into force or will come into force in the course of 2009. I also used the decision in TS Lines Ltd v. Delphis NV (The TS Singapore), [2009] EWHC B4 (Comm) in Chapter 8.6.2. to help clarify the discussion about the quantum of compensation in an arbitration over a detention. But I did not carry out a detailed analysis of the new legislation and that case. The decision in Club Cruise Entertainment and Travelling Services Europe BV v. The Department For Transport [2008] EWHC 2794 (Comm) of 18 November 2008, however, was fully analysed and relevant aspects found their way into the discussion in the thesis.


Distributed Multiple Access for OFDMA Femtocells Abdulmohsen Almutairi Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Sumit Roy Electrical Engineering Demand for data services in cellular networks is growing exponentially, due to the proliferation of high-end, multimedia-enabled mobile devices. To meet this challenge, cellular operators are moving toward a heterogeneous network architecture consisting of macrocells for wide-area coverage and smaller cells such as femtocells for capacity boost in local hotspots. The primary problem in such heterogeneous networks is mitigating inter-cell interference especially in dense deployments of residential femtocells. Traditionally, interference in wide-area cellular networks has been studied from a multi-cell resource allocation perspective, where radio resources, e.g. power, bandwidth, are allocated to different cells to reduce interference. This approach generally assumes a fully loaded network (i.e. many simultaneous active users in a cell) where the system performance is insensitive to the activity of a single user. This assumption is not suitable for femtocells which are designed to serve very few users and thus lacks the presumed traffic aggregation. In this thesis, we first discuss the infeasibility of applying the classical multi-cell resource allocation framework to the femtocell case. Then, we motivate the case of using distributed, random access protocols as apposed to centralized interference mitigation techniques in the context of LTE femtocells. For this, we employ queuing analysis to compare the performance of centralized resource allocation schemes represented by an ideal power control to the performance of a simple random access protocols. The results show that, with a high probability, a simple un-optimized random access protocol such as Aloha would perform much better than an optimized power controlled network in most of the unsaturated traffic scenarios. This result serves as a strong motivation for the design of OFDMA-aware random access protocols that utilize the inherent frequency diversity of OFDMA to improve the MAC performance. Next, we analyze OFDMA-Aloha which is the simplest protocol that utilize the frequencydimension in OFDMA to improve random access performance. The protocol attempts to reduce the packet retransmission time using collision resolution over the frequency domain by switching subchannels randomly after each collision. However, this comes at the expense of expanded time scale, or larger slot size due to lower channel rates. We showed that when the network is lightly loaded, the reduction in the collision rate outweighs the effect of expanded slot size thus in these situations OFDMA-Aloha enjoys smaller packet delays than the single channel Aloha. Then, we propose the Exponential Backoff in Frequency (EBF) algorithm to address the case when multiple packets need to be transmitted over multiple subchannels simultaneously. Instead of spreading the packets uniformly over K subchannels as would be done in a multichannel variant of Aloha (K-Aloha), the EBF algorithm keeps packet transmissions clustered at few frequency branches using a synchronized binary tree branching process over the K subchannels. Collisions are handled by reducing the accessed bandwidth exponentially and using an access probability that is inversely proportional to the accessed bandwidth. Analysis of a lightly loaded network, shows that EBF enjoys considerably less packet delay compared to the basic K-Aloha protocol. Finally, we propose the OFDM-based Reservation Random access (OFDM-RR) protocol that utilizes the frequency-dimension in a different way. In this protocol, reservation requests are transmitted on randomly selected subchannels and the indices of these subchannels are then used to create an implicit ordering among competing nodes for conflict resolution. Our analysis shows that beyond some critical value of the network load, OFDM-RR significantly improves the system throughput compared to the canonical Reservation-Aloha (R-Aloha) protocol.


Brazil is the world's sixth-largest economy, and for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century was one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. While the country underwent two decades of unrelenting decline from 1975 to 1994, the economy has rebounded dramatically. How did this nation become an emerging power? Brazil in Transition looks at the factors behind why this particular country has successfully progressed up the economic development ladder. The authors examine the roles of beliefs, leadership, and institutions in the elusive, critical transition to sustainable development. Analyzing the last fifty years of Brazil's history, the authors explain how the nation's beliefs, centered on social inclusion yet bound by orthodox economic policies, led to institutions that altered economic, political, and social outcomes. Brazil's growth and inflation became less variable, the rule of law strengthened, politics became more open and competitive, and poverty and inequality declined. While these changes have led to a remarkable economic transformation, there have also been economic distortions and inefficiencies that the authors argue are part of the development process. Brazil in Transition demonstrates how a dynamic nation seized windows of opportunity to become a more equal, prosperous, and rules-based society.


Memory Store (Austins Department Store, Derry~Londonderry, November 2013) is an evolving performance-as-research methodology that attempts to deep-map multiple connections between memory and place in particular locations. In this case we explore the symbolic intersections of memory and place in a culturally significant location in Derry~Londonderry, Austins Department Store, in a short and intense period of activity. The Memory Store was a day-long series of participatory live events, installations and encounters staged in Austins, where we invited staff, customers, and anyone else interested to come to the store and share their memories with us. The day was divided into a five-part structure: a co-curated pop-up exhibition called "Goods"; a "Writer's Kitchen" event with playwright and novelist Dave Duggan; several "Children's Play Area" activities; an afternoon "Tea and Memories" exchange; and "You Askin'", a community dance event.


When grown anaerobically on L-rhamnose, Salmonella typhimurium excreted 1,2-propanediol as a fermentation product. Upon exhaustion of the methyl pentose, 1,2-propanediol was recaptured and further metabolized, provided the culture was kept under anaerobic conditions. n-Propanol and propionate were found in the medium as end products of this process at concentrations one-half that of 1,2-propanediol. As in Klebsiella pneumoniae (T. Toraya, S. Honda, and S. Fukui, J. Bacteriol. 139:39-47, 1979), a diol dehydratase which transforms 1,2-propanediol to propionaldehyde and the enzymes involved in a dismutation that converts propionaldehyde to n-propanol and propionate were induced in S. typhimurium cultures able to transform 1,2-propanediol anaerobically.


One way to design a drug is to attempt to phenocopy a genetic variant that is known to have the desired effect. In general, drugs that are supported by genetic associations progress further in the development pipeline. However, the number of associations that are candidates for development into drugs is limited because many associations are in noncoding regions or difficult to target genes. Approaches that overlay information from pathway databases or biological networks can expand the potential target list. In cases where the initial variant is not targetable or there is no variant with the desired effect, this may reveal new means to target a disease. In this review we discuss recent examples in the domain of pathway and network-based drug repositioning from genetic associations. We highlight important caveats and challenges for the field, and we discuss opportunities for further development.


Fe–N co-decorated hierarchically porous graphene (FeN/G) was prepared by a facile one-step pyrolysis method. In the pyrolysis synthesis process, dicyandiamide was introduced as a nitrogen precursor and sacrificial templating agent, together with ferric nitrate utilized as an iron precursor, to aid in the formation of graphene nanosheets and their self-assembly into an interconnected porous framework. Consequently, the resultant FeN/G framework shows a relatively large specific surface area (401.1 m2 g−1), hierarchically porous structure and abundant meso-/macropores. Such highly desired FeNC structures not only possess sufficient catalytically active sites for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) but also guarantee fast transfer of reactants and ions, which provides excellent catalytic activity with positive onset and half-wave potentials, large kinetic-limiting current density, and remarkable durability that is obviously better than the commercial Pt/C in alkaline medium.


Improving transmission reliability is a crucial challenge for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) because of the instability of channel conditions and the stringent Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) requirement for many WBANs applications. On the other hand, limited by the size of WBAN nodes, the energy consumption of WBAN nodes should be minimized. In this paper, we jointly consider transmission power control, dynamic slot scheduling and two-hop cooperative mechanism and propose an Autocorrelation-based Adaptive Transmission (AAT) scheme that achieves a better trade-off between transmission reliability and energy consumption for WBAN systems. The new scheme is designed to be compatible with IEEE 802.15.6. We evaluated the performance of the newly proposed scheme by importing the real channel datasets into our simulation model. Simulation results demonstrate that the AAT method can effectively improve the transmission reliability while reducing the energy consumption. We also provide the performance evaluation from three perspectives, namely packet error ratio, energy consumption and energy efficiency, and provide recommendations on the application of the two-hop cooperative mechanism associated with the proposed AAT in the contexts of WBANs.


INTRODUCTION: This work looked for data that described the use of the physical exercise, don't like preventive method, but, as modality therapeutic adjuvante in the coping of the cancer (CA) and its treatment from the diagnosis to the recovery. Because they are many the damages and side effects lived by the patients that can be modified through the practice of physical exercises. OBJECTIVE: To identify and select references to demonstrate necessary parameters for prescription of programs physical exercise for patient oncologics. METHOD: The systematic model of research was used in the bases of data Medline, Liliacs and Pubmed, using the descriptors: cancer, physical exercise, physical activity, exercise, being considered articles published between 1997 and 2008, in the portuguese languages, english, spanish and german. They were selected the articles that presented data to base the use of the physical exercise as therapeutic method, as well as modulation, indication, contraindication and interaction with other treatments. RESULTS: In the revised literature, they were found subsidies that base the use of the physical exercise as adjuvante in the coping of CA and its treatment, as well as, benefits, indications, contraindications and precaution in the use of the physical exercise. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of being a wide field, where there is very still the researches, if respected the contraindications and precautions the exercise becomes safe, viable and effective for patients and survivors, giving to them support to face the treatment and accelerating the recovery.


Over the years microRNA have been shown to play a role in the regulation of genes involved in regeneration of zebrafish (Danio rerio) tissues. However, recent research suggest that there may be other types of small RNA that play a regulatory role in these regenerative processes. For the most part these other small RNA (sRNA), such as transfer RNA (tRNA) derived fragments, ribosomal RNA (rRNA) derived fragments, and small nucleolar RNA, are disregarded. Here I analyzed the expression pattern of these sRNA during the regeneration of the zebrafish caudal fin. High-throughput sequencing was used to characterize the expression of small RNAs during zebrafish caudal fin regeneration at zero and four days post amputation using biological triplicate samples. Sequence data for each sample were processed to generate a set of 100,170 unique sequence tags that were present in all samples. The abundance of each tag in each sample was recorded as the number of reads that exactly matched the tag. Tags were annotated to various sRNA classes through sequence alignment to small RNA and genome databases in a hierarchical fashion. The observed abundance and the differential expression of the various types of sRNA were analyzed. This analyses showed that microRNA and tRNA derived fragments were the most abundant sRNA types. These included miR-21, tRNA412-LysCTT, and a novel small RNA, Tag_41941 5'GGGATGAGTCCCTATCACGGCACAGGAGTGTGACTTT-3'. The differential expression of these tRNA derived fragments and previous research into gene silencing by sRNA suggest that these other sRNA have the potential to play a regulatory role in zebrafish caudal fin regeneration.


We describe polynomial--time algorithms that produce approximate solutions with guaranteed accuracy for a class of QP problems that are used in the design of support vector machine classifiers. These algorithms employ a two--stage process where the first stage produces an approximate solution to a dual QP problem and the second stage maps this approximate dual solution to an approximate primal solution. For the second stage we describe an O(n log n) algorithm that maps an approximate dual solution with accuracy (2(2Km)1/2+8(λ)1/2)-2 λ ep2 to an approximate primal solution with accuracy ep where n is the number of data samples, Kn is the maximum kernel value over the data and λ > 0 is the SVM regularization parameter. For the first stage we present new results for decomposition algorithms and describe new decomposition algorithms with guaranteed accuracy and run time. In particular, for τ-rate certifying decomposition algorithms we establish the optimality of τ = 1/(n-1). In addition we extend the recent τ = 1/(n-1) algorithm of Simon (2004) to form two new composite algorithms that also achieve the τ = 1/(n-1) iteration bound of List and Simon (2005), but yield faster run times in practice. We also exploit the τ-rate certifying property of these algorithms to produce new stopping rules that are computationally efficient and that guarantee a specified accuracy for the approximate dual solution. Furthermore, for the dual QP problem corresponding to the standard classification problem we describe operational conditions for which the Simon and composite algorithms possess an upper bound of O(n) on the number of iterations. For this same problem we also describe general conditions for which a matching lower bound exists for any decomposition algorithm that uses working sets of size 2. For the Simon and composite algorithms we also establish an O(n2) bound on the overall run time for the first stage. Combining the first and second stages gives an overall run time of O(n2(ck + 1)) where ck is an upper bound on the computation to perform a kernel evaluation. Pseudocode is presented for a complete algorithm that inputs an accuracy ep and produces an approximate solution that satisfies this accuracy in low order polynomial time. Experiments are included to illustrate the new stopping rules and to compare the Simon and composite decomposition algorithms.


Robots are envisioned to work alongside humans in applications ranging from in-home assistance to collaborative manufacturing. Research on human-robot collaboration (HRC) has helped develop various aspects of social intelligence necessary for robots to participate in effective, fluid collaborations with humans. However, HRC research has focused on dyadic, structured, and minimal collaborations between humans and robots that may not fully represent the large scale and emergent nature of more complex, unstructured collaborative activities. Thus, there remains a need for shared testbeds, datasets, and evaluation metrics that researchers can use to better model natural, ad-hoc human collaborative behaviors and develop robot capabilities intended for large scale emergent collaborations. We present one such shared resource - FACT (Full-body Ad-hoc Collaboration Testbed), an openly accessible testbed for researchers to obtain an expansive view of the individual and team-based behaviors involved in complex, co-located teamwork. We detail observations from a preliminary exploration with teams of various sizes and discuss potential research questions that may be investigated using the testbed. Our goal is for FACT to be an initial resource that supports a more holistic investigation of human-robot collaboration.


The ability to conduct logical reasoning is a fundamental aspect of intelligent human behavior, and thus an important problem along the way to human-level artificial intelligence. Traditionally, logic-based symbolic methods from the field of knowledge representation and reasoning have been used to equip agents with capabilities that resemble human logical reasoning qualities. More recently, however, there has been an increasing interest in using machine learning rather than logic-based symbolic formalisms to tackle these tasks. In this paper, we employ state-of-the-art methods for training deep neural networks to devise a novel model that is able to learn how to effectively perform logical reasoning in the form of basic ontology reasoning.


Many SIGCSE attendees are committed to inclusive teaching practices and creating an inclusive culture within their classrooms; yet, advocating for and sustaining these initiatives may require having difficult conversations with our colleagues and students. Understandably, many faculty are unsure about how to talk about sensitive topics such as race and gender with their colleagues and students. Research suggests that practicing some of these difficult conversations is essential to achieve the goals of inclusive teaching and culture. Most SIGCSE attendees probably use active learning throughout their teaching, but we rarely see active learning at SIGCSE - let's try it! In this interactive session, attendees will learn strategies for responding to bias in academic settings. Attendees will then practice those strategies in small groups. This will be facilitated by playing two rounds of a research-based game learning approach developed by the NSF project CSTeachingTips.org (#1339404), which has been tested in group of 200 teaching assistants. This is the fifth iteration of the game-learning approach and all attendees will receive a printed copy of the game and a link to download and print more copies.


Commodities, such as oil and wheat, are important inputs into the real economy. They have a significant influence on the welfare of individuals through their role as consumption goods and as inputs into other goods. As such, it is important to understand how commodity prices are set and whether there are any distortions to these prices. One component of commodity futures prices is the risk premium, which reflects the return investors demand to take on producers' and consumers' natural exposures to commodity prices. Therefore, to better understand the determination of commodity futures prices this paper examines commodity risk premiums and their determinants. We find evidence that commodity risk premiums vary across futures contract maturities, and that the shape of the commodity risk premium 'curve' differs across commodities and over time. This suggests information could be contained in the shape of the risk premium curve. We also find strong evidence of a relationship between the net of producers' (short) and consumers' (long) hedging positions – the net hedging position – and risk premiums, as would be suggested by the net hedging pressure theory. The evidence is generally more significant for longer-dated futures contracts. In addition, we consider whether the large increase in the size of commodity-related financial markets over the 2000s – commodity market financialisation – has affected commodity risk premiums. We find little statistical evidence that financialisation has had a significant effect on the 'residual' or idiosyncratic portion of commodity risk premiums for a broad basket of commodities. But we do find some evidence of smaller residual risk premiums for wheat, particularly for short-maturity contracts. This could reflect either decreased market segmentation or a secular increase in demand for long positions. We also find evidence that financialisation increased the systematic portion of commodity risk premiums by increasing the correlation between returns on commodity futures and returns on the 'market' portfolio. This was more evident for longer-maturity contracts of 6–18 months.


Heat stress is one of the most important physiological factors challenging poultry production throughout the world especially in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Oxidative stress induced by heat stress not only compromises productivity and performance but also results in morbidity and mortality losses leading to the economic burden for poultry producers. It reduces the shelf life of poultry product in addition to poor meat and egg quality. Recently, a trend towards using phytochemicals derived from natural sources with potential antioxidant activities has increased. Lycopene is a predominant carotenoid pigment which is universally found in fruits and vegetables, with tomatoes and their products being key sources. Several in vivo and in vitro studies have suggested that lycopene is a powerful antioxidant compared to other carotenoids. Supplementation of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) derived lycopene revealed numerous health promoting activities in poultry birds, such as anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulation, improved performance and better meat as well as egg quality. Lycopene maintains oxidative balance in birds through various ways including serving as a free radical scavenger, inhibiting signalling pathways and activating host antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and catalase (CAT). The aims of this current review are to summarise mechanisms of action through which lycopene quench reactive species and maintain oxidative balance, highlight the potential role of lycopene as a natural antioxidant agent for poultry industry and examine the benefits to poultry producers when using this natural antioxidant on commercial basis in poultry diets to alleviate the adverse effects of heat stress.


Two musical trends of the 1930s—the development of a practice for scoring sound films, and the increasing concertization of the spiritual in both solo and choral form—help shape the soundscape of films based in the South and/or on Civil War themes in early sound-era Hollywood. The tremendous success of the Broadway musical Show Boat (1927), which was made into films twice within seven years (1929, 1936), provided a model of chorus and solo singing, and films like the 1929 Mary Pickford vehicle Coquette and the 1930 musical Dixiana blend this theatrical practice with a nuanced syntax that logically carries the voices from outdoors to indoors to the interior life of a character, usually a white woman. Director D. W. Griffith expands this use of diegetic singing in ways that will later be the province of nondiegetic underscore in his first sound film, Abraham Lincoln (1930). Shirley Temple9s Civil War–set films ( The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel [both 1935] and Dimples [1936]) strongly replicate the use of the voices of enslaved characters—most of whom are onscreen only to provide justification for the source of the music—to mourn for white women. Jezebel , the 1938 antebellum melodrama, expands musicodramatic syntax that had been developed in single scenes or sequences over the entire second act and a white woman9s fall and attempted redemption. Gone with the Wind (1939) both plays on convention and offers a moment of transgression for Prissy, who takes her voice for her own pleasure in defiance of Scarlett O9Hara. The detachment of the spiritual from the everyday experience of African Americans led to a recognition of the artistry of the music and the singers on the concert stage. In film, however, the bodies of black singers are marginalized and set in service of white characters and white audiences.


Background: As three new Consultant nurses joined two established consultants on the staff of one District General Hospital in the south of England, it was believed that an action learning set (ALS) would offer peer support to enable them to succeed. The aim is to evaluate the lessons learned from the ALS focusing on their leadership. Methodology: Co-operative inquiry is a way of researching with rather than on people, of working with those who have similar interests and who wish to collectively understand their world and create new ways of exploring it. This approach helps also to learn how to change and enhance our working practices. With all active subjects fully involved as co-researchers in all research decisions, three cycles were completed of four phases of discussion, reflection, analysis and action. The process is planned to last for 18 months. Data were analysed thematically. Findings: Four themes began to emerge from the data: development of scholarship, responding to changing need, extending networks and empowerment in role. Whilst they had grown considerably in confidence in their leadership role, they did not feel that collectively they fully embraced the four dimensions prescribed by the Department of Health for the role. Nevertheless, the co-operative inquiry helped them realise how much they had gained from their collective learning in the group (ALS) and how, from the group they feel empowered to lead. Their reflections helped them value the importance of the role for the organisation, their credibility within the organisation and were keen to retain their peer support to ensure its sustainability. Conclusion: The outcomes of the co-operative inquiry included an enhanced understanding of the importance of openness and trust of each other and a willingness to share and learn from each other in a respectful and confidential environment with a receptiveness to change. References: Department of Health (1999) Making a Difference. Strengthening the Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting Contribution to Health and Healthcare. Department of Health, London. Drennan V. and Goodman C. (2011) Sustaining innovation in the healthcare workforce: A case study of community nurse consultant posts in England. BMC Health Services Research, 11:200 accessed from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/11/200 on 23.1.15 Heron J. and Reason P. (2001) The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry: Research 'with' rather than 'on' People. In: Reason P. & Bradbury H. (2001) (Editors) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry & Practice. Chapter 16, Sage Publications, London Learning objectives: The learner will be able to : Understand the importance of action learning sets in supporting and empowering self and others in their clinical leadership. Recognise the value of a co-operative inquiry methodology to learn collaboratively from peers as clinical leaders to enhance their practice. Purpose of the presentation; The purpose of the presentation is to share the lessons learned from using a co-operative inquiry methodology to understand collaboratively and more fully the lessons learned from a year's Action Learning Set focused on the leadership development for five non-medical consultants and nursing professor. Target audience for the presentation: The target audience is anticipated to be educationalists, senior nurses and nurse researchers. Key Words: Nurse leadership, co-operative inquiry, nurse consultants


The main purpose of this technical brief is to investigate the comparability between two early childhood education and care indicators currently used by the European Commission – namely the Barcelona target and the ET 2020 ECEC benchmark – and to identify methodological differences and common traits that may have implications in their use for policy-making. Results show that, despite being potentially similar measures of participation of children in early childhood education and care in the different countries, they are essentially different in their nature as they cover different groups of individuals. Additionally, the fact that they use different datasets, namely administrative data from UOE and survey data from EU-SILC, implies that they follow diverse data collection protocols; in particular, the use of EU-SILC survey data brings the risk of not having a fully representative sample of the children population; and exposes data to respondent and interviewer's biases, which further contributes to the existing differences between them. Notwithstanding, results provided in the brief suggest that the different age composition of the two indicators could explain a consistent part of the difference in the overall shares; in the majority of countries, for age groups 4 and 5, numbers are quite similar. Thus, while still taking into account all the caveats explained in this document, we could conclude that for these age groups results could be equally used for policy support. Some suggestions for the improvement of the Barcelona target sub-indicator for the ET 2020 ECEC benchmark within the Joint Assessment Framework are also proposed.


We study the mechanisms of CH3NH3PbI3 degradation and its transformation to PbI2 by means of X-ray diffraction and the density functional theory. The experimental analysis shows that the material can degrade in both air and vacuum conditions, with humidity and temperature-annealing strongly accelerating such process. Based on ab initio calculations, we argue that even in the absence of humidity, a decomposition of the perovskite structure can take place through the statistical formation of molecular defects with a non-ionic character, whose volatility at surfaces should break the thermodynamic defect equilibria. We finally discuss the strategies that can limit such phenomenon and subsequently prolong the lifetime of the material.


During World War II, Chester Himes was one of more than 70,000 African Americans who moved to Los Angeles and one of the many transcontinental migrants who would double the existing black population in southern California (Sides 252). Much like Bob Jones, the semi-autobiographical main character of his first published novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes hoped to benefit from relaxed racial restrictions on hiring due to the massive labor shortage in the defense plants. In his 1971 autobiography The Quality of Hurt: The Early Years, Himes accounts for his four years in Los Angeles in a scant three pages. He details his personal "hurts," including his history of tough breaks, rough childhood, underworld existence, and a seven-and-one-half-year sentence served in an Ohio prison, and describes how these events are transformed into racial anguish: Los Angeles hurt me racially as much as any city I have ever known -- much more than any city I remember from the South. It was the lying hypocrisy that hurt me. Black people were treated much the same as they were in an industrial city of the South. They were Jim-Crowed in housing, in employment, in public accommodations, such as hotels and restaurants.... The difference was that the white people of Los Angeles seemed to be saying, "Nigger, ain't we good to you?" (73-74) (1) In response to this hypocrisy, Himes depicts himself as unable to reconcile the cruel contradictions of Californian dreams and the State's racism, the economic promise that masks deeply rooted racial violence and hatred. Similarly, Himes's character Bob becomes enmeshed in and almost paralyzed by the racial conditions caused by wartime hysteria and nativism against the enemy nation of Japan. (2) The historical context of wartime Los Angeles is crucial to understanding the novel. (3) Bob details his experiences both in its segregated neighborhoods and in his encounters with the growing local African American community that is finding increasing political and economic opportunities in the wartime boom economy. Historians are beginning to analyze the labor organizing and racial consciousness in the 1940s in order to trace the roots of the Civil Rights and Third World Movements of the 1950s and 1960s. (4) From this developing historical tradition, scholars are examining the unique "black popular front" emerging in Los Angeles during World War II. (5) With these developments, it is important to reassess Himes's literary and historical achievement in if He Hollers Let Him Go and examine his fictional response to the events of the early 1940s -- the Japanese American internment and the Zoot Suit Riots -- and their relationship to the African American community. (6) This reassessment also correlates to what literary scholars have begun to isolate about the "Los Angeles novel" in terms of noir, detective, and science fiction. (7) Because of its spatial evocation of minority communities and historical racism particular to Los Angeles itself, Himes's novel merits substantial consideration in any formulation of this regional sub-genre. (8) In this essay, I will discuss how wartime racism and classism become coded onto both the spatial geography of Los Angeles and the racialized body of Bob himself. Set in early 1944, If He Hollers Let Him Go recreates a Los Angeles demographically changed by the forced removal of 94,000 Japanese Americans from California two years earlier and by the widespread violence against Mexican American youth in the Zoot Suit Riots in June 1943. Both events reverberate in Bob's psyche, feeding his fear of a personal racial apocalypse: "Every time I stepped outside I saw a challenge I had to accept or ignore. Every day I had to make one decision a thousand times: Is it now? Is now the time?" (4). Bob's first-person narrative begins by relating a mysterious dream about a dog with a "heavy stiff wire twisted about its neck" (1) that foreshadows his increasing fear of his own death, his own lynching, real and metaphoric. …


BACKGROUND
Gentle compression of mouse oocytes during meiosis-1 prevented the usual extrusion of a small polar body and resulted in the symmetrical division of the ooplasm into two cells of similar size within the zona pellucida. The purpose of our study was to determine whether such cells, equivalent to two small oocytes, were capable of embryonic development and would result in birth following transfer to the uterus.

METHODS
IVF of the 2-celled oocytes was performed and the twin intra-zonal embryos were observed. In each case, the two embryos that originated from fertilized cells with two pronuclei were observed to amalgamate and form a single morula and subsequent blastocyst that was transferred to the uterus of a recipient of a different mouse strain. FISH analysis was performed on sectioned paraffin-embedded tissue of the offspring.

RESULTS
In symmetrically divided oocytes each cell contained a metaphase II spindle. Both cells were fertilizable and cleaved to form twin embryos within the same zona pellucida. Most twin embryos amalgamated to form a single compacted morula, which progressed to hatched blastocysts that contained a single inner cell mass. In total, 104 of these blastocysts were transferred to 19 mice, two of which became pregnant, resulting in the birth of three offspring. FISH analysis showed that one newborn contained both XX and XY cells.

CONCLUSIONS
We found that two small oocytes fertilized within the same zona pellucida to form twin embryos that amalgamate to establish a single chimeric embryo. This may be one mechanism that leads to the formation of a chimeric hermaphrodite when an embryo containing XX cells mixes with its intra-zonal twin containing XY cells.


Accelerated carbonation involves exposing a material to a concentrated atmosphere of carbon dioxide, and can be used to treat hazardous wastes and soils and create new construction materials. The present work examines the use of accelerated carbonation to reduce the hazardous properties of wastes as a means of reducing the costs of disposal to landfill, and then develops the process to manufacture aggregate from the waste removing it from landfill disposal completely.

A range of thermal wastes, including those from cement, metallurgical and paper processes, were found to be reactive with carbon dioxide. Many of these wastes are hazardous on account of their alkaline pH, which carbonation partially neutralizes, effectively allowing reclassification of the materials as stable non-reactive hazardous wastes under the Landfill Regulations. Cement and paper wastes were highly reactive with carbon dioxide, and were considered for use as cement substitutes to reconstitute non-reactive wastes into aggregate.

Previous work had suggested that carbonation and pelletising were not compatible due to differing optimum conditions. This issue was investigated by considering the effects of the mix formulations and machinery parameters. The pelletising and carbonation processes require widely different moisture contents. The disparity is due to the need for total saturation of the material to form bonds between grains during pelletising, and an open pore network for carbon dioxide to penetrate. To achieve the two simultaneously, several methods were investigated. Chemical catalysts including sodium hypochlorite and sodium sulfite increased carbonation in a saturated material. However, curing the formed aggregates in carbon dioxide was found to be the most economic solution.

A pilot scale process was developed based upon the laboratory results. A bespoke rotary carbonation reactor was developed to produce aggregate in bulk for commercial testing. Aggregate which was subjected to accelerated carbonation, has enhanced strength and durability compared to aggregate exposed to natural carbonation. The aggregate was successfully used to produce lightweight concrete with comparable strength to concrete made from commercial lightweight aggregate. Aggregate was also supplied for a research project to investigate the use of recycled materials as a horticultural growing medium.


This paper presents a comparative analysis of the budgets of acoustic energy and Myers' second-order 'disturbance energy' in a simple inhomogeneous flow with heat communication. The flow considered is non-diffusive and one-dimensional, with excitation by downstream-travelling acoustic and entropic disturbances. Two forms of heat communication are examined: a case with only steady heat communication and another in which unsteady heat addition cancels the generation of entropy disturbances throughout the inhomogeneous region. It is shown that significant entropic disturbances are usually generated at low frequency when a flow with steady heat communication is excited either acoustically or entropically. However, for acoustic excitation and regardless of the form of heat communication, entropic disturbances are not created at high frequency, inferring that all source terms create mainly sound in this limit. A general method is therefore proposed for determining an approximate frequency beyond which the generation of entropy disturbances can be ignored, and the disturbance energy flux then approximates the acoustic energy flux. This frequency is shown to depend strongly on the problem under investigation, which is expected to have practical significance when studying sound generation and propagation in combusting flows in particular. Further, sound is shown to be generated by fluid motion experiencing only steady heat communication, which is consistent with the known mechanism of sound generation by the acceleration of density disturbances.


The UpDown scheme is a recursive scheme used to compute the stiffness matrix on a special form of sparse grids. Usually, when discretizing a Euclidean space of dimension d we need O(n) points, for n points along each dimension. Sparse grids are a hierarchical representation where the number of points is reduced to O(n · log(n)). One disadvantage of such sparse grids is that the algorithm now operate recursively in the dimensions and levels of the sparse grid. The UpDown scheme allows us to compute the stiffness matrix on such a sparse grid. The stiffness matrix represents the influence of each representation function on the L scalar product. For a detailed description see Pflüger's PhD thesis [2]. This formalization was developed as an interdisciplinary project (IDP) at the TU München [1].


Overexpression of the ErbB2 receptor tyrosine kinase is prevalent in ∼30% of human breast cancers and confers Taxol resistance. Our previous work has shown that ErbB2 inhibits Taxol-induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells by transcriptionally up-regulating p21Cip1. However, the mechanism of ErbB2-mediated p21Cip1 up-regulation is unclear. Here, we show that ErbB2 up-regulates p21Cip1 transcription through increased Src activity in ErbB2-overexpressing cells. Src activation further activated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) that recognizes a SIE binding site on the p21Cip1 promoter required for ErbB2-mediated p21Cip1 transcriptional up-regulation. Both Src and STAT3 inhibitors restored Taxol sensitivity in resistant ErbB2-overexpressing breast cancer cells. Our data suggest that ErbB2 overexpression can activate STAT3 through Src leading to transcriptional up-regulation of p21Cip1 that confers Taxol resistance of breast cancer cells. Our study suggests a potential clinical application of Src and STAT3 inhibitors in Taxol sensitization of ErbB2-overexpressing breast cancers. (Mol Cancer Res 2009;7(4):592–600)


Load sharing among distributed generation systems (DGS) is one of the most important topics in wireless-enabled smart microgrids, where a set of power inverters at different geographical locations work coordinately and collaboratively through wireless networks to meet the load requirement. Parallel power inverters operated in distributed generation systems rely on the underlying wireless communication channels to exchange power information among them for load sharing control. However, existing work in the area of load sharing has largely ignored the effect of wireless communication delay. Study has shown that the time-varying wireless communication delay may have a significant impact on the performance of power inverters. In this work, we aim to fill this gap and study the performance of distributed power inverters under the scenario of wireless-enabled smart microgrids. We first study the power inverter performance by taking into account the time-varying wireless communication delay. Then, we propose an optimal controller to overcome the delay problem and to provide a smooth load sharing performance. Both theoretical and simulation results show the effectiveness and responsiveness of the proposed controller design. IMPACT OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DELAY ON LOAD SHARING AMONG DISTRIBUTED GENERATION SYSTEMS THROUGH SMART MICROGRIDS RE C E N T AD VA N C E S I N WI R E L E S S TE C H N O L O G I E S F O R SMART GR I D


Currently, an important fundamental problem of practical importance is the production of high-quality solid-phase compounds of various metals. This paper presents a theoretical model that allows one to study the diffusion process in nickel-base refractory alloys. As an example, a two-dimensional model of ternary alloy is considered to model diffusion bonding of the alloys with different compositions. The main idea is to divide the alloy components into three groups: (i) the base element Ni, (ii) the intermetallic forming elements Al and Ti and (iii) the alloying elements. This approach allows one to consider multi-component alloys as ternary alloys, which greatly simplifies the analysis. The calculations are carried out within the framework of the hard sphere model when describing interatomic interactions by pair potentials. The energy of any configuration of a given system is written in terms of order parameters and ordering energies. A vacancy diffusion model is described, which takes into account the gain/loss of potential energy due to a vacancy jump and temperature. Diffusion bonding of two dissimilar refractory alloys is modeled. The concentration profiles of the components and order parameters are analyzed at different times. The results obtained indicate that the ternary alloy model is efficient in modeling the diffusion bonding of dissimilar Ni-base refractory alloys.


The rich information available in hyperspectral imagery has provided significant opportunities for material classification and identification. Due to the problem of the "curse of dimensionality" (called Hughes phenomenon) posed by the high number of spectral channels along with small amounts of labeled training samples, dimensionality reduction is a necessary preprocessing step for hyperspectral data. Generally, in order to improve the classification accuracy, noise bands generated by various sources (primarily the sensor and the atmosphere) are often manually removed in advance. However, the removal of these bands may discard some important discriminative information, eventually degrading the classification accuracy. In this paper, we propose a new strategy to automatically select bands without manual band removal. Firstly, wavelet shrinkage is applied to denoise the spatial images of the whole data cube. Then affinity propagation, which is a recently proposed feature selection approach, is used to choose representative bands from the noise-reduced data. Experimental results on three real hyperspectral data collected by two different sensors demonstrate that the bands selected by our approach on the whole data (containing noise bands) could achieve higher overall classification accuracies than those by other state-of-the-art feature selection techniques on the manual-band-removal (MBR) data, even better than the bands identified by the proposed approach on the MBR data, indicating that the removed "noise" bands are valuable for hyperspectral classification, which should not be eliminated.


Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d'etre is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article's departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as 'the soul of warfare'. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy.

The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy-makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied.

Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch's six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.


Objective: Inflammatory reaction, which causes tissue damage in Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS), leads to deterioration. White Blood Cell (WBC), Neutrophil (N), Lymphocyte (L) and Neutrophil/ Lymphocyte (N/L) ratios were used to refer to the inflammation. High neutrophil levels show us acute inflammatory situation and low lymphocyte levels show us physiological stress. That is why N/L ratio is a valuable parameter which enables us to guess patient prognosis in Emergency Department (ED). In this study, white cell and NLR relations with ACS in patients with chest pain is evaluated.
Material and Method: Patients referring to ED with chest pain within 3 months were investigated retrospectively. 100 patients were included in the study. Patients' WBC count, NLR and WBC values, gender, Troponin-I and CK-MB positivity, history of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and additional diseases were examined according to the final diagnoses. All the patients were divided into three groups according to ACS: Unstable Angina Pectoris (USAP), Non-ST Elevated Myocardial Infarction (NSTEMI), and ST-Elevated Myocardial Infarction (STEMI). Mortality and morbidity levels in hospital and after discharge were also examined in the study.
Findings: WBC values in patients with positive Troponin-I were found statistically higher than patients with negative Troponin-I (p<0.05). In STEMI group, WBC values were statistically higher than USAP group (p<0.0083). When patients' N/L ratio average distribution was examined; Troponin-I and CK-MB positive patients' NLR was found to be statistically higher than Troponin-I and CK-MB negative ones (p<0.05).
Conclusion: N/L ratio, which is a marker of inflammatory process in the myocardial vascular bed, may be considered as a risk marker. For this reason, N/L ratio at admission can be used as an auxiliary parameter for predicting the diagnosis of ACS.


BACKGROUND
Mesothelioma is a lung cancer that kills thousands of people worldwide annually, especially those with exposure to asbestos. Diagnosis of mesothelioma in patients often requires time-consuming imaging techniques and biopsies. Machine learning can provide for a more effective, cheaper, and faster patient diagnosis and feature selection from clinical data in patient records.

METHODS AND FINDINGS
We analyzed a dataset of health records of 324 patients having mesothelioma symptoms from Turkey. The patients had prior asbestos exposure and displayed symptoms consistent with mesothelioma. We compared probabilistic neural network, perceptron-based neural network, random forest, one rule, and decision tree classifiers to predict diagnosis of the patient records. We measured classifiers' performance through standard confusion matrix scores such as Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC). Random forest outperformed all models tried, obtaining MCC = +0.37 on the complete imbalanced dataset and MCC = +0.64 on the under-sampled balanced dataset. We then employed random forest feature selection to identify the two most relevant dataset traits associated with mesothelioma: lung side and platelet count. These two risk factors resulted so predictive, that decision tree focusing on them achieved the second top accuracy on the complete dataset diagnosis prediction (MCC = +0.28), outperforming all other methods and even decision tree itself applied to all features.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results show that machine learning can predict diagnoses of patients having mesothelioma symptoms with high accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, in few minutes. Additionally, random forest can efficiently select the most important features of this clinical dataset (lung side and platelet count) in few seconds. The importance of pleural plaques in lung sides and blood platelets in mesothelioma diagnosis indicates that physicians should focus on these two features when reading records of patients with mesothelioma symptoms. Moreover, doctors can exploit our machinery to predict patient diagnosis when only lung side and platelet data are available.


We present a distributed amplified hybrid dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) and time division multiplexing (TDM) array architecture for large scale interferometric fiber-optic sensor array systems. This architecture employs a distributed Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) scheme to decrease the distribution loss among multiplexed wavelengths, and employs TDM at each wavelength to increase the total number of sensors that can be supported. The first experimental demonstration of this system is reported including results which show the potential for multiplexing and interrogating up to 4096 sensors using a single telemetry fiber pair with good system performance. The number of interrogation sensors could be further increased by increasing the number of wavelength channels. These architectures would be of great importance in the application of systems requiring very large number of sensors with limited telemetry cabling.


Gibbs sampling is a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method often used in Bayesian learning. MCMC methods can be difficult to deploy on parallel and distributed systems due to their inherently sequential nature. We study asynchronous Gibbs sampling, which achieves parallelism by simply ignoring sequential requirements. This method has been shown to produce good empirical results for some hierarchical models, and is popular in the topic modeling community, but was also shown to diverge for other targets. We introduce a theoretical framework for analyzing asynchronous Gibbs sampling and other extensions of MCMC that do not possess the Markov property. We prove that asynchronous Gibbs can be modified so that it converges under appropriate regularity conditions -- we call this the exact asynchronous Gibbs algorithm. We study asynchronous Gibbs on a set of examples by comparing the exact and approximate algorithms, including two where it works well, and one where it fails dramatically. We conclude with a set of heuristics to describe settings where the algorithm can be effectively used.


The performance of two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relay networks is presented. In particular, we derive exact closed-form expressions for symbol error rate (SER), average sum-rate, and outage probability of two-way AF relay systems in independent but not identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. Our analysis is validated by a comparison against the results of Monte-Carlo simulations.


Priming has been shown to have a powerful effect upon the mind of voters. Previous scholarship has demonstrated that something as simple as the location and surroundings of voters can modify their choices to a significant degree. Polling places in America typically decorate their sites with patriotic imagery. This paper is the result of an investigation into whether or not such patriotic imagery primes voters' minds to favor one political party or philosophy over another. I hypothesize that patriotic priming would boost tendencies to identify and support conservative/Republican policies and preferences. A simple experimental design in which some participants were primed with patriotic symbols (e.g., the American flag) while completing a survey about their political preferences revealed mixed results. There were several significant results in political preferences that followed the predictions of the hypothesis, though these results were not a majority of the policy preferences tested. Furthermore, some unexpected anomalies occurred. Technical issues clouded some of the results, however, and rendered many of the responses suspect. Results suggest further investigation into this subject is warranted, under tighter conditions and with a larger and more diverse participant pool from which to draw.


Among the drivers and constraints on the evolution of complex hominin culture that have been proposed throughout the years, demographic factors have been particularly persistent, and they have recently again come to gain traction in the literature in the shape of the so-called treadmill model. The treadmill model connects cultural complexity to group size via a need to constantly "outrun a treadmill of cultural loss," whose backward motion is caused by errors in culture transmission. The entrenchment of the treadmill explanation of cultural complexity, however, takes place against a background of critiques of the model and the presence of other explanatory propositions. This creates a need for deentrenchment: wider integration, elaboration, and critique of the premises of the treadmill model and the evidence advanced to validate it. We begin by reviewing the treadmill model, making an assessment of its current status, and then moving on to a more synthetic proposition by placing the model into the context of other models addressing the elaboration of cultural complexity. We end by considering the broader implications for the study of the evolution of culture and of human behavior to be gained from more integrated modeling of the various factors affecting cultural complexity.


We welcome letters to the Editor concerning articles which have recently been published. Such letters will be subject to the usual stages of selection and editing; where appropriate the authors of the original article will be offered the opportunity to reply. Letters should normally be under 300 words in length, double-spaced throughout, signed by all authors and fully referenced. The edited version will be returned for approval before publication.


The healthy large intestinal mucosa contains a vast pool of macrophages (mφ) that are close to the local bacterial flora and have several unique phenotypic and functional properties compared with other mφ populations. Although human colonic mφ retain some of the hallmark functions of mφ, such as the ability to phagocytose particulate material and exert bactericidal activity, they are unable to produce pro-inflammatory mediators. Thus it has been suggested that intestinal mφ are functionally adapted to the microbe-rich, immunostimulatory environment of the gut, where strong inflammatory responses to harmless commensal bacteria would lead to continuous inflammation and ultimately tissue pathology. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that mφ play an essential role in maintaining homeostasis and epithelial renewal in the normal intestine. In contrast, mφ from the intestine of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) differ markedly from those present physiologically, exhibiting heightened inflammatory and bactericidal activities, and contributing to the tissue damage. How these differing properties of colonic mφ are controlled and how this potentially dangerous population is kept quiescent under physiological conditions are important questions. Most existing information comes from either simple, observational studies of human tissue, or from work on cell culture systems which aim to reproduce the unusual phenotype of resident intestinal mφ in vitro. Importantly analogous experiments of resident and inflammatory mφ have not been carried out in murine systems, where it would be possible to characterise the cells fully and explore their origin, function and role in inflammatory processes.

Therefore, the aims of this thesis were first to characterise mφ in the resting murine colon both functionally and phenotypically, focussing particularly on their expression of toll-like receptors (TLR) and responsiveness to TLR ligation and on their population dynamics in vivo. By comparing colonic mφ with other tissue mφ populations, I hoped to gain an understanding of how resident gut mφ might have adapted to their local environment. In the second part of my work, I examined how the properties of colonic mφ altered in inflammation, employing a well-established experimental model of colitis, with the aim of determining how resident and inflammatory mφ might relate to each other. Lastly, I explored the effects of the ES-62 parasite product, known to have potent anti-inflammatory effects on mφ, on experimental colitis in vivo.

Experiments detailing my initial characterisation of the myeloid cells expressing the F4/80 mφ marker in the colon of normal mice are described in Chapter 3. These revealed that the F4/80+ population in the gut is extremely heterogeneous compared with other mφ populations in the body. Virtually all in vitro-differentiated BM mφ (BMM) and mφ from the resting peritoneum (PEC mφ) exhibited the conventional F4/80+CD11b+CD11c- phenotype of classical mφ and upregulated costimulatory molecules in response to TLR ligation. In stark contrast, the colon contained three F4/80+ subsets, one F4/80+CD11b+CD11cint, one F4/80+CD11b+CD11c- and a smaller population of F4/80+CD11b-CD11c- cells. None of these subsets expressed co-stimulatory molecules, even after LPS stimulation, but unlike other mφ, the majority of colonic mφ expressed high levels of class II MHC without stimulation. BMM and PEC mφ also produced several pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines following stimulation, whereas colonic mφ showed no mediator production under these conditions. Nevertheless, colonic mφ did retain avid endocytic and phagocytic activities, indicating that colonic mφ may engulf bacteria without initiating inflammation.

In Chapter 4, I explored the unresponsiveness of resting colonic mφ to microbial stimuli in more detail and found that the TLR refractoriness is associated with reduced expression of TLR2, 3, 4 and 9. Apart from a small proportion of mφ that retained TLR2 expression, TLR expression was downregulated both at the protein level and to some extent also at the mRNA level; TLRs were not re-expressed following ex vivo culture of purified mφ. This global downregulation of TLRs could not be reproduced in BMM by treatment with TLR ligands, and was also present in colonic mφ taken from mice unable to signal via TLR2 or TLR4, suggesting it was not simply a form of endotoxin "tolerance". However, the mechanism seemed to involve IL-10, as colonic mφ from IL-10-deficient animals displayed a heightened level of TLR expression and responsiveness, even prior to the onset of intestinal inflammation.

In Chapter 5, I examined the phenotype and function of mφ during the experimental colitis induced by feeding dextran sodium sulphate (DSS). During inflammation, the absolute number of F4/80+ mφ increased 6-fold, the majority of which now expressed TLR, CD11b and low levels of CD11c. This new population of colitic mφ also expressed class II MHC, low levels of co-stimulatory molecules and produced large amounts of TNFα. In Chapter 6, I went on to examine the population dynamics of colonic mφ under resting conditions and during inflammation, showing that the overall turnover rate of the total mφ population was increased during colitis, as assessed by uptake of BrdU in vivo. The increased turnover was mainly due to the TLR-expressing, TNFα+ population of mφ and more detailed analysis showed that the small number of these cells present in resting colon had identical turnover rates to those found in colitis. In contrast, the TLR negative mφ had much lower turnover rates in resting and inflamed colon, suggesting that the TLR+ and TLR- subsets may represent distinct mφ populations with different population dynamics, and that during intestinal inflammation, the TLR+ subset may display a preferential recruitment into the gut. Indeed, proliferation in situ was minimal, indicating that the recently divided, TLR-expressing mφ proliferated outside the intestine before being recruited into the gut. My subsequent experiments suggested that this recruitment may involve the CCR2 chemokine receptor, which was expressed at high levels specifically by the TLR+ subset of mφ both in resting and inflamed colon.

Finally in Chapter 7, I treated colitic mice with ES-62, a phosphorylcholine (PC)-containing glycoprotein secreted by the filarial nematode, Acanthocheilonema viteae, which has been shown to modulate pro-inflammatory cytokine production by mφ in vitro. ES-62 treatment had no significant effect on weight loss or pro-inflammatory cytokine production in the colon of mice with DSS colitis, although it slightly delayed the onset of the clinical signs of disease. Thus further studies of ES-62 as a modulator of mφ-dependent intestinal inflammation may be warranted.

Taken together, my data suggest that under resting conditions, intestinal mφ are heterogeneous and adapt to their microenvironment by being non-inflammatory via active downregulation of TLR expression and function, which may be partly dependent on IL-10. During inflammation, large numbers of TLR expressing, fully responsive mφ appear, probably via CCR2-dependent recruitment of recently divided blood-derived monocytes. Interestingly, small numbers of these TLR-expressing, rapidly turning over mφ are also present in normal colon and my data suggest that these pro-inflammatory mφ may be quite distinct from the more sessile mφ which are the dominant "resident" population in normal gut. A delicate balance between these two mφ populations must ensure homeostasis and appropriate responses to inflammation.


Protected crops in the Mediterranean area has reached advanced production systems, but they should solve environmental, energy and money problems. The greenhouse, in fact, is a system characterized by high energy inputs with a reduced environmental sustainability compared to extensive farming and intensive open field. In Sicily, the area dedicated to annual greenhouse cultivation is 8,200 ha with a total number of farms greater than 6,000; although the sector is of great importance in the Sicilian economy, issues as workplace, food and environmental safety are often overlooked. A survey was carried out with the aim of identifying the possibilities to improve environmental, work and food safety inside the greenhouses in Sicily. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of farms to identify the critical points in the management of the above mentioned aspects. The survey to evaluate environmental safety was realized through a checklist considering various environmental aspects: energy resources, waste management, hazardous substances, water resources, impact of the roads, interactions with landscape and raw materials. The survey to evaluate work and food safety aimed at identifying the steps with major risk factors and the measures taken by the farms to mitigate or nullify the critical aspects. The results showed that the most critical issues in environmental safety concern the management of hazardous substances; with regard to work safety some critical points were found in risks assessment for workers' health and staff training; with regard to food safety critical points are those related both to staff training and products tracking and tracing.


Electric drives are growing in importance in automotive applications, especially in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and in the vehicle dynamics area (steering systems, etc.). The challenges of real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and testing of electric drives are addressed in this paper. In general, three different interface levels between the electric drive and the hardware-inthe-loop system can be distinguished: the signal level (1), the electrical level (2) and the mechanical level (3). These interface levels, as well as modeling and I/Orelated aspects of electric drives and power electronics devices, are discussed in detail in the paper. Finally, different solutions based on dSPACE simulator technology are presented, for both hybrid vehicle and steering applications.