We propose a model-free deep reinforcement learning method that leverages a small amount of demonstration data to assist a reinforcement learning agent. We apply this approach to robotic manipulation tasks and train end-to-end visuomotor policies that map directly from RGB camera inputs to joint velocities. We demonstrate that our approach can solve a wide variety of visuomotor tasks, for which engineering a scripted controller would be laborious. In experiments, our reinforcement and imitation agent achieves significantly better performances than agents trained with reinforcement learning or imitation learning alone. We also illustrate that these policies, trained with large visual and dynamics variations, can achieve preliminary successes in zero-shot sim2real transfer. A brief visual description of this work can be viewed in this https URL


We investigate the effects of a time-periodic, non-hermitian, PT-symmetric perturbation on a system with two (or few) levels, and obtain its phase diagram as a function of the perturbation strength and frequency. We demonstrate that when the perturbation frequency is close to one of the system resonances, even a vanishingly small perturbation leads to PT symmetry breaking. We also find a restored PT-symmetric phase at high frequencies, and at moderate perturbation strengths, we find multiple frequency windows where PT-symmetry is broken and restored. Our results imply that the PT-symmetric Rabi problem shows surprisingly rich phenomena absent in its hermitian or static counterparts.


Higher education is viewed by many as central to the creation of opportunities and
prosperity in all modern economies. The place of global change requires a continued
evolution of teaching, learning and research – with the emergence of more responsive
and focused activities to meet the demands of tomorrow's marketplace. For this reason
it is vital for all universities to continuously improve their departments, moving further
towards 'Excellence' by recognising, anticipating and understanding the needs of their
students and enhancing their whole student experience.
This Master's Thesis focuses on the determinants of student satisfaction in the Industrial
Department and Management of Faculty of Technology (University of Oulu) that are
assumed to impact the business student department experience. Studies that examine
student satisfaction in higher educational institutions from a more customer-oriented
perspective add additional dimension to the educational planning activities of the
department. Therefore, the key project development objective is to improve the quality
and relevance of the teaching and research environment in the department.
The contribution to knowledge of this study is based in the European Foundation for
Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, which incorporates a comprehensive
set of independent variables and self-reported experiential assessments to predict
experience, which in return is related to student satisfaction. The research is divided into
three stages. The first stage contains the testing and validating the actual student
satisfaction via the survey method. The aim of the second stage is the analysis of the
survey results. Finally, the third stage is the core of the research: the elaboration of an
improvement plan of teaching.
This study could serve two purposes in the future: first, a more comprehensive tool for
improving the marketing department by enhancing the student learning experience, and
second, adjusting and adapting education department to a changing and tougher
economic reality.


ABSTRACT This article analyses the assistance that is offered to workers on labour-related problems by South African community advice offices. A telephone survey of 129 community advice offices was conducted under the supervision of the author by two interns of the Chris Hani Institute (CHI), followed by five more detailed follow-up interviews with offices where more than 90% of the cases were labour-related. The article presents the findings of the telephone survey on questions, such as: most common workplace-related issues that offices deal with; other types of work beyond offering legal advice (other types of services, advocacy, organising); building workers' power through more long-term engagement; and relationship with trade unions. The literature review, combined with the survey findings, led the author to conclude that today South Africa's community advice offices are only at the beginning stages of realising the need for assisting workers, with a focus primarily on offering advice, thus neglecting the advocacy and organising components, that is widespread in worker advice centres in North America and that was common in South Africa's past.


In a world where there are increasing concerns about graduate underemployment and likely career trajectories, it is not surprising that there is a significant body of literature examining graduate careers in post-industrial societies. However, it has become increasingly evident in recent years that there is a stark disconnect between academics who research employment and education, and careers and employability professionals. Graduate Careers in Context brings these two separate groups together for the first time in order to provide a better understanding of graduate careers.
The book addresses the problems surrounding the graduate labour market and its relationship to higher education and public policy. Drawing on varied perspectives, the contributors provide a comprehensive examination of issues such as geography, mobility and employability, before presenting and discussing the benefits of future collaboration between practitioners and academic researchers.
The interdisciplinary focus of this book will make it of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the areas of education, sociology, social policy, business studies and career guidance and coaching. It should also be essential reading for practitioners who wish to consider their role and responsibilities within the changing higher education market.


In 2006, we, the authors, and David Waldman wrote an article for the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion describing a theoretical model of how we thought virtuous leadership might manifest and perpetuate itself in modern organizations, particularly in relation to organizational learning. The article was inspired because of two things. First, we witnessed many dramatic cases of executive malfeasance and lack of virtue in organizations, which was a bit dispiriting, as we were and still are executive educators. Second, we had a lot of hope for the future and all worked in the areas of positive organizational behavior and positive psychology. Thus, we desired to articulate a more positive model for organizations. Today, we revisit that model and test it, if you will, using the case of the self-made billionaire and richest man in Turkey – Hüsnü Özyeğin – who is also a well-known philanthropist and social entrepreneur.


The prominent theory of politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) suggests that the choice of politeness strategies is determined by power, social distance and rank of the imposition. To account for differences, it is suggested that cultural agreement on which factor is most important impacts the choices made. This study argues that there are factors beyond culturally agreed norms which affect the choice of politeness strategy used. Anxiety impacts millions of people around the world and can influence every aspect of a person's life, including their behaviour. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that it may also impact how a person uses language including how they perform politeness.

This study consists of a corpus analysis of face-to-face interviews with sufferers of anxiety and an online survey taken by anxious and non-anxious participants. Results from this study show that the anxious interviewees were far more prone to using positive politeness strategies than negative politeness and that, when asked to choose politeness strategies they would use, they were more likely to avoid face threatening acts or enact them off-record than their non-anxious counterparts. The results of the corpus analysis, in particular, show a strong preference for seeking agreement with the Hearer and appealing to the Hearer's positive face as opposed to reducing the imposition. The survey suggests that, when evaluating their behaviour, anxious people were more prone to avoidance than non-anxious people. While some answers were similar, it became clear that there were notable differences in choice of politeness strategy.

By annotating the corpus with politeness strategies, this study was able to provide numerical evidence for politeness theory where the research is usually discursive. This method proved a useful tool in enumerating data that would otherwise have been intuitive in nature. The results of this study suggest that corpus analysis could be implemented in other politeness studies to provide empirical data as evidence.


The complete post-embryonic development of Nitocra affinis was studied on specimens cultured under normal laboratory conditions (30oC and 12:12hours L:D cycle). Egg sac is produced 1-2 days (0.95±0.08 days) following a successful insemination. Female produced an average of 7.0±0.0 broods, minimum of 6.0±0.0 and a maximum of 8.0±0.0. The average number of eggs per sac was 18.3±0.25 (ranges from 12-25 eggs per sac). The egg sacs were carried for 18-29 hours or 22.8±2.0 hours on average. Development of nauplii (stages NI through NVI) is completed within 4-5 days (4.66±0.06 days) while copepodid development (stages CI through CVI) occurred within 5-7 days (6.21±0.15 days). The total generation time (egg to adult) was 9-12 days (10.91±0.18 days). Body length of nauplii ranged from 65.4±0.6 µm (NI) to 214.1±2.8 µm (NVI) while copepodid ranged from 235.2±2.9 µm (CI) to 389.6±7.2 µm (CVI or adult). 0Usin0g different food items (three different algal species; Chaetoceros calcitrans, Nannochloropsis oculata and Tetraselmis tetrathele and their combinations; and three artificial food; baker's yeast, shrimp feed and rice bran) and feeding densities (104, 105, 106 and 107 cells/ml for algal food and 0.02, 0.04 and 0.06 mg/ml for artificial food), the growth and development of N. affinis were studied. In both single and combined algal food, the highest (p<0.05) egg and copepod production/female was achieved using the density 106 cells/ml whereas 0.06 mg/ml was the best (p<0.05) feeding for artificial diet. The highest (p<0.05) fecundity was achieved with copepod fed with mixed algal diet with an average of 18.3±0.3 eggs/sac. The highest (p<0.05) offspring production was achieved with N. affinis fed C. calcitrans (with mean total production reaching a maximum of 132.0±3.8 offspring/female), followed by those fed with mixed (124.8±1.7 offspring/female) and combination of C. calcitrans:T. tetrathele (113.0±1.3 offspring/female). Likewise the highest (p<0.05) survival from nauplii to adult (97-98%) and highest (p<0.05) maximum specific growth rate (K=0.43±0.0) was achieved by copepod fed algal food C. calcitrans, and all its combinations. The shortest (p<0.05) time for egg maturation and time interval between egg sac was found in the T. tetrathele fed copepod. Likewise the shortest (p<0.05) development time from nauplii to copepodid and copepodid to adult resulted from feeding with T. tetrathele.

The effects of some environmental parameters (salinity, temperature, and light conditions) on the reproduction and development of harpacticoid copepod, N. affinis under controlled laboratory conditions were determined. Seven different salinity levels (5-35 ppt) four different temperatures (20-35˚C) three light intensities (25-130 µmol/m2/s) and three different photoperiods were employed in this study. The highest (p<0.05) reproduction and fastest development time were achieved by copepods reared under 30-35 ppt salinity and lowest light intensity (25 µmol/m2/s). The optimum temperature for the maximum reproduction was 30oC while development time was shortest (p<0.05) and maximum length achieved by adult copepods was longest (p<0.05) under 30oC and 35oC compared to other temperature levels. Continuous light (24h:0h LD) inhibited the egg production while continuous darkness (1h:23h LD) and 12h:12h LD significantly favoured the overall reproductive activity of the female. Photoperiods 1h:23h and 12h:12h LD yielded highest total (p<0.05) offspring/female coupled with highest (p<0.05) survival percentage and longest (p<0.05) total body length of copepods.

A study to describe a relatively simple and reliable small scale mass production and the nutritional composition of N. affinis was undertaken. The result confirmed the feasibility of maintaining N. affinis on a small scale for a long period. Within six weeks (42 days) operations a minimum harvest of 87.2 x 103 copepods/2L and maximum of 89.0 x 103 copepods/2L was obtained. Using several numbers of basins for mass production it was feasible to harvest 30 x 103 copepods/2L daily after two weeks of inoculation. Nitocra affinis has a great potential as live food because they contain high protein (39-52%), lipid (13-23%) and carbohydrates (8-11%). It also contains high level of n-3 HUFA (up to 44%) and n-6 HUFA (up to 14%). In addition it contains high amount of DHA (up to 19%) and EPA (up to 25%). Moreover, levels and ratios of fatty acids closely match both the requirements of marine finish larvae and of marine shrimp.

Survival and specific growth rate of Penaeus monodon larvae (postlarvae stage 1-15) fed with different live feeds (Artemia nauplii and N. affinis) and artificial diet were evaluated. The highest (p<0.05) survival was achieved by shrimp larvae fed with N. affinis (60.6%), followed by those fed with artificial diet (43.0%) and a combination of Artemia nauplii and N. affinis (4.1%). The larvae fed with Artemia nauplii suffered high mortality probably due to the abrupt change from algal diet to a diet of relatively large Artemia nauplii. Likewise, highest (p<0.05) specific growth rate was achieved by shrimp fed with N. affinis followed by shrimp fed artificial diet.


Since the beginning of the 20th century air power has been seen as an offensive instrument in warfare. During the Cold War, Sweden had one of the largest air forces in the world despite a clearly defensive strategy. Today's Swedish Air Force has been reformed since the Cold War and there are uncertainties about how this has changed the use of air power.The purpose of this study is to investigate what changes occurred in the Swedish Air Force related to offensive and defensive use of air power. This is illustrated by examining and comparing the use of air power in the Air Force during the Cold War and today. The study is based on the theories of air power and illustrates the use of air power from multiple perspectives in order to provide as broad picture of the Air Force as possible.The results demonstrate that a change has occurred where air forces moved more towards working together with other forces over a broader range of applications than during the Cold War.


Mongolian sheep survive well on the Mongolian plateau during tremendously cold winters, but their cold response mechanisms are not well understood. By comparing with Dorper sheep originating from South Africa, we expected to reveal the cold tolerance mechanisms of Mongolian sheep on the basis of transcriptome data, further providing molecular evidence for the targeted breeding of sheep. Based on the mRNA data of RNA-seq, we selected candidate genes among the differentially expressed genes; 7 from adipose tissue, 33 from skeletal muscle, and 10 from the liver. According to enriched KEGG pathways and previous research results, the effects of the above candidate genes mainly involved weakening the synthesis of long-chain fatty acids, raising the adaptive thermogenesis and browning adipogenesis in fat, reducing glucose 6-phosphate, stimulating citrulline generation and enhancing lipid metabolism in skeletal muscle, and postponing cell senescence in the liver. The findings also demonstrate the regulation mechanisms of cold tolerance in different tissues of Mongolian sheep.


The main aim of this paper is to propose a solution to improve the life time of the network by reducing the no of active nodes that participate in communication. Life time of a WSN is improved through optimizing communication and minimizing energy usage. One way of optimizing communication is through cluster head selection. In this paper active nodes at an instance are identified using hit set. One among the active nodes is elected as cluster head by considering the degree of the node. Finally depending on the no of sleep nodes in the cluster the percentage of prolongation of the lifetime of the network is calculated


Abstract. As part of an interdisciplinary research project, funded by the European Research Council and addressing the mechanics of weak faults, we drilled three 200–250 m-deep boreholes and installed an array of seismometers. The array augments TABOO (The AltotiBerina near fault ObservatOry), a scientific infrastructure managed by the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. The observatory, which consists of a geophysical network equipped with multi-sensor stations, is located in the northern Apennines (Italy) and monitors a large and active low-angle normal fault. The drilling operations started at the end of 2011 and were completed by July 2012. We instrumented the boreholes with three-component short-period (2 Hz) passive instruments at different depths. The seismometers are now fully operational and collecting waveforms characterised by a very high signal to noise ratio that is ideal for studying microearthquakes. The resulting increase in the detection capability of the seismic network will allow for a broader range of transients to be identified.


Central Asia presents a mosaic of cultures and religions which, due to its fertile land and energy resources, has attracted many invaders since the 19th century and even before. The struggle between the UK and erstwhile Russia, former Soviet Union, to capture land started the 'Great Game.' The involvement of the regional and extra-regional countries transformed it into the competiting ground over oil and gas; adding geo-political sensitivities to the region. The Central Asian Republics (CARs) are finding it difficult to stay out of the Russian influence. Due to geo-economic strategies of various powers involved in Afghanistan and Iran, the land-locked CARs are finding it hard to export oil and gas through the Arabian Sea. Gwadar port, linking to China and the Wakhan Corridor, emerges to be the most suitable option for the CARs and Russia to export their energy resources.


Does wealth accumulation impact subjective well-being? Within a country, household wealth has been shown to improve individual well-being by providing a safety net of protection against negative income shocks, by allowing current and expected consumption flows, and by its potential use as a collateral. At the aggregate level, direct evidence about the relationship between national wealth and happiness is almost non-existent, owing to data limitations and statistical identification problems. However, aggregate wealth impacts well-being indirectly, via positive channels, such as institutional quality and improvement in health, life expectancy, and education. Wealth also brings about negative environmental degradations and other damages. The stock of accumulated wealth is also likely to affect happiness indirectly, via its influence on the rate of GDP growth, because both the level of income flows and the rate of income growth have been shown to be factors of higher well-being.


The industrial revolution has driven the need for ecotoxicology and shaped its evolution. Indeed, the increased use and transformation of (non)renewable resources for over a century to benefit mankind have had a downside and created a plethora of contaminants harmful to the receiving environments. With time, we have gone from an age of darkness in the 1950s (i.e., diagnostic ignorance in terms of recognizing and dealing with contamination) to one of enlightenment as the 21 st century unfolds (i.e., use of tools and strategies to identify and correct environmental pollutions). Effects measurements, reflected by toxicity testing conducted at different levels of biological organization, have proven especially useful to achieve proper hazard/risk assessments of contaminants. Knowing why toxicity testing has been conducted over the past decades to protect and conserve freshwater environments is also essential to grasp the importance and breadth of this field. For this purpose, we have recently reviewed a substantial number of articles describing numerous bioanalytical endeavours undertaken to comprehend toxic effects associated with the discharge of xenobiotics to aquatic environments. Scrutiny of publications identified in our literature search has enabled us to uncover the various ways in which laboratory toxicity tests have been applied, many of which are small-scale in nature. In essence, freshwater toxicity testing has significantly focussed on liquid (complex environmental samples, chemical and biological contaminants) and solid media (sediments) assessment. For both media, miscellaneous studies/initiatives linked to toxicity testing applications have again promoted the development, validation, refinement and use of toxicity testing procedures. Bioassays are clearly an essential component of environmental management programs and several small-scale tests (microbiotests) can be employed to generate cost-effective toxicity data that assist decision-making.


This research examined whether rats can use idiothetic cues to form spatial memories in the radial‐arm maze (RM) and whether the hippocampus is involved in such ability. A possible contribution of the vestibular system to RM performance was also investigated. Rats with excitotoxic hippocampal lesions and sham‐operated controls were trained on two versions of the RM task. In the Light condition, a unique visual insert was apposed on each arm floor and rats could choose which arm to enter next by relying on visual and/or idiothetic stimuli. In the Dark condition, the task was administered in darkness and success required processing of idiothetic cues to remember visited locations on the maze. In experiment 1, the performance of lesioned rats was impaired in the Light condition, but both control and lesioned rats learned to avoid already visited arms. In the Dark condition, the performance of controls improved over time whereas a severe deficit was observed in rats with hippocampal lesions. Thus, control rats, but not hippocampal lesioned rats, can form spatial memories by processing idiothetic inputs. Experiment 2 showed that vestibular lesions disrupt performance in both the Light and the Dark conditions and confirmed that rats use idiothetic information, especially vestibular cues, while navigating in the RM. Therefore, cues generated during locomotion play an important role in hippocampal‐dependent spatial memory. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The geotechnical parameters and permeability of the Bazoft dam site were investigated. The bedrock of the Bazoft dam site belongs to the Asmari and Jahrum (Eocene, Oligocene and Miocene) formations. Rock mass rating (RMR) and geological strength index (GSI) classification systems were used to evaluate the dam site. Physical, mechanical and dynamic tests were performed on samples in a rock mechanics laboratory. Shear strength parameters and geotechnical parameters of the rock mass were determined. The results of Lugeon tests for determining rock mass permeability were in the range of 10–30. Based on the RMR, the dam site is located in the 'good' category. Finally, the relationship between Lugeon, the number of joints and rock quality designation (RQD) of the rock mass was evaluated using statistical analysis for 24 exploratory boreholes with a total length of 3400 m. The values of these parameters were determined and analysed using equations, tables and reports in sections of 5 m along the borehole. The results showed that the relationship between Lugeon with RQD and the joint number is an exponential equation with a good correlation coefficient. Multiple linear analysis also showed high accuracy of the estimated Lugeon based on RQD and joint number.


An increasing range of services are now offered via online applications and e-commerce websites. However, problems with online services still occur at times, even for the best service providers due to the technical failures, informational failures, or lack of required website functionalities. Also, the widespread and increasing implementation of web services means that service failures are both more likely to occur, and more likely to have serious consequences. In this paper we first develop a digital service value chain framework based on existing service delivery models adapted for digital services. We then review current literature on service failure prevention, and provide a typology of technolo- gies and approaches that can be used to prevent failures of different types (functional, informational, system), that can occur at different stages in the web service delivery. This makes a contribution to theory by relating specific technologies and technological approaches to the point in the value chain framework where they will have the maximum impact. Our typology can also be used to guide the planning, justification and design of robust, reliable web services.


An issue of debate has befallen many public schools in Tennessee. The teaching of Islam in curriculum standards has upset many teachers and parents, while many believe that Islam education is vital in modern American culture. This tension has created much controversy between the idea of the separation of church and state and religious education. In my research, I have weighed both sides, concluding that Islam should indeed be taught in public schools. Both sides have valid arguments, but it is ultimately the school's job to educate, especially impressionable youth who are the future of our nation. It is imperative that they know the history of Islam and its influence on America in order to properly function in political, cultural, and social affairs. My paper takes this stance while addressing common stereotypes of Muslim culture. It seeks to absolve these misunderstandings, such as the role of violence and jihad. I address the First Amendment, the Constitution, and religion's role in education. My research results in a positive view of Islam in schools with respect to religious boundaries and encourages informed Americans to live at peace with different cultures.


The most puzzling and striking feature of Social Theory lies in the impossibility to control its leaning toward self-fulfilling statements. In Sociology, the epistemic explanation become part of explained world and the Theory is at risk to become either futile or subjective along with the dialectic evolution of social understanding. As major mature sciences, it has solid instruments and methods for acquiring useful knowledge, self-regulatory rules for assuring the accuracy of its affirmations and errors refutation. More than any other sciences, it achieved the level of meta-theoretical thinking about its own practice and sets up its limits and expertise. However this is not enough. The understanding brought by sociological the most evolved concept of reflexivity is overwhelmed complexity of social reality, because it fails to cover the self-reference supposed by itself. The Scientific discourse of third person should be transcended toward the level of dialectical co-constructed consciousness-reality awareness, that the subjective "I", is the condition of possibility for objective knowledge (of Science), which, in turn, represents the categorical conditions of possibility for (self-)understanding. A self-reflexive level of understanding instead, would illuminate many concealed suppositions, conundrums and inconsistencies of social discourse and reasoning. This enhancement is also required to put the present uncontrolled collective intelligent development of Mankind on a safety and desirable path.


This study proposes a novel methodology that employs fuzzified binary real coded artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for solving multi-objective unit commitment problem. On solving unit commitment problem, the proposed binary coded ABC algorithm finds the ON/OFF status of the generating units whereas the economic dispatch is solved using the real coded ABC. Here, three conflicting functions such as fuel cost, emission and reliability level of the system are considered. These functions are formulated as a single objective optimisation problem using the fuzzy set theory. Also, the fuzzy membership design variables are tuned using real coded ABC thereby requirement of expertise for setting these variables are eliminated. The proposed method is validated on six unit system, IEEE 30 bus system, ten unit system, 40 unit system and IEEE RTS 24 bus system. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated by comparing its performance with other methods reported in the literature.


We investigate whether the male marital and parenthood premia arise due to differential pay by employers or from differential sorting of employees on occupations and establishments. We investigate these premia in Norway using matched employee-employer data in the period 1980–97, a country where public policy has made it easier to combine family and career, with the clearest first-order impact on women, but with possibly attendant increased pressures on men to be more active in the family sphere. We find that the effect of marriage, and to a lesser extent of children, occurs mostly through sorting on occupations and occupation-establishment units. The role of differential pay from employers is marginal in explaining the marital and parenthood premia. We also find that about 50–75% of the martial premium is due to selection. The men who eventually marry and/or have children sort into the higher paying occupations and occupation-establishment units even prior to marriage and parenthood. There are no marital premia on wage growth within establishments, but marital premia on promotions. Part of the marital wage premium is thus due to higher promotion rates for married men.


CONTEXT
Good sleep is an important recovery method for prevention and treatment of overtraining in sport practice. Whether sleep is regulated by melatonin after red-light irradiation in athletes is unknown.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of red light on sleep quality and endurance performance of Chinese female basketball players.

DESIGN
Cohort study.

SETTING
Athletic training facility of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and research laboratory of the China Institute of Sport Science. Patients or Other Participants: Twenty athletes of the Chinese People's Liberation Army team (age = 18.60 6 3.60 years) took part in the study. Participants were divided into red-light treatment (n = 10) and placebo (n = 10) groups.

INTERVENTION(S)
The red-light treatment participants received 30 minutes of irradiation from a red-light therapy instrument every night for 14 days. The placebo group did not receive light illumination.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire was completed, serum melatonin was assessed, and 12-minute run was performed at preintervention (baseline) and postintervention (14 days).

RESULTS
The 14-day whole-body irradiation with red-light treatment improved the sleep, serum melatonin level, and endurance performance of the elite female basketball players (P < .05). We found a correlation between changes in global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and serum melatonin levels (r = -0.695, P = .006).

CONCLUSIONS
Our study confirmed the effectiveness of body irradiation with red light in improving the quality of sleep of elite female basketball players and offered a nonpharmacologic and noninvasive therapy to prevent sleep disorders after training.


A new approach to inhomogeneous layer synthesis is proposed that differs from the classical Fourier transform methods. This approach, based on the wave-number discretization of the continuous Q function, is described together with the relationship between the smoothness of the inhomogeneous layer's refractive-index profile, the complexity of the target reflectance specification, and the total optical thickness of the layer. An iterative procedure is introduced to overcome the inaccuracy connected with the approximate Q-function representation. Some control features of the Q-function phase are studied, and numerical examples are given.


Background: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infections in developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of nosocomial catheter- associated UTI and its related factors in hospitalized patients in intensive care units of hospitals affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, in 2014. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on patients who were admitted in hospitals and urinary catheterization was performed for them. Beds of intensive care units were followed-up for the occurrence of catheter-associated UTI for 14 months. Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 16. Results: Our results showed that of the 1409 patients (11648 catheter - days), the incidence of catheter-related UTI was 18.2% (among 256 individuals) equals to 21.987 per 1,000 catheter - days. E. coli was the most important cause of UTI. The results show that the history of the underlying disease, duration of catheterization and perineal washing were significantly associated with the incidence of UTIs. Conclusion: The findings of this study show a high incidence of UTIs caused by catheters in ICU. The incidence of this infection increased hospital length of stay and hospital cost. It seems that the necessary use of urinary catheters and its reduced duration use can be effective in decreasing this incidence.


The gain enhancement properties of a fiber optical parametric amplifier (FOPA) are investigated by inserting a phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) between two highly nonlinear dispersion shift fibers (HNL-DSFs). The PS-FBG is adopted to reduce the power and change the phase of the idler wave, and thus to change the phase mismatch parameter and relative phase difference among the four involved waves in four-wave mixing (FWM). The influence of reflectivity and phase shift of the PS-FBG on the gain properties of FOPA is focused on. It is shown that, with the introduction of PS-FBG, the gain of FOPA is enhanced significantly. With the increase of reflectivity of PS-FBG, the gain increases first and reaches its maximum at the optimal reflectivity. Besides, the π-phase shift contributes to the highest gain of FOPA. The effect of insertion loss is also considered. The FOPA with PS-FBG provides a new tool to obtain gain enhancement, which is extremely useful for the optical communication system.


Abstract The extent and geographic patterns of molecular genetic diversity of the largest remaining free-ranging cheetah population were described in a survey of 313 individuals from throughout Namibia. Levels of relatedness, including paternity/maternity (parentage), were assessed across all individuals using 19 polymorphic microsatellite loci, and unrelated cheetahs (n = 89) from 7 regions were genotyped at 38 loci to document broad geographical patterns. There was limited differentiation among regions, evidence that this is a generally panmictic population. Measures of genetic variation were similar among all regions and were comparable with Eastern African cheetah populations. Parentage analyses confirmed several observations based on field studies, including 21 of 23 previously hypothesized family groups, 40 probable parent/offspring pairs, and 8 sibling groups. These results also verified the successful integration and reproduction of several cheetahs following natural dispersal or translocation. Animals within social groups (family groups, male coalitions, or sibling groups) were generally related. Within the main study area, radio-collared female cheetahs were more closely interrelated than similarly compared males, a pattern consistent with greater male dispersal. The long-term maintenance of current patterns of genetic variation in Namibia depends on retaining habitat characteristics that promote natural dispersal and gene flow of cheetahs.


Abstract. After the bubble economy collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, the government's deregulation policies accelerated urban development in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. This resulted in increased trade in real estate and accelerated population growth in downtown Tokyo. However, that trend was not observed in all areas: instead, it exacerbated the spatial differentiation that was already apparent in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Hirayama (2005, 2006, 2011) found that government policy to promote housing supply and increase urban redevelopment split urban space into hot spots, with new investments, and redeveloped districts and cold spots, with stagnant and depopulated districts. However, the precise locations of such spots are not obvious, as those studies did not map them.This study identified and mapped hot and cold spots in Tokyo with the use of spatial analysis with GIS. To this end, we employed grid square population statistics for 1985, 1995, and 2005, which encompasses the entire period of the bubble economy and its aftermath. The analysis of hot spots using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic was performed on data for population change in 23 wards of Tokyo in this period. Then, we explored the detailed composition of the population and the background of the changes in a consideration of the socio-economic shift of Tokyo during this period.The results of the analysis indicated that hot and cold spots coexisted in central Tokyo, and their spatial distribution changed drastically following the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s. Between 1985 and 1995, populations show a concentric pattern of change: cold spots are observed in areas close to the city center and hot spots appear on the outskirts of the study area. This pattern is a result of population outflows due to soaring land prices during the period of the bubble economy.However, population changes between 1995 and 2005 indicated a different pattern and the resulting distribution of hot and cold spots was dispersed. Specifically, hot spots appeared in the south and east parts of central Tokyo, where highrise condominiums were being built on the sites of former factories or warehouses in the coastal areas of Tokyo Bay. In these districts, a marked increase of white-collar workers was observed, an indicator of gentrification. By contrast, cold spots are noted on the northern side of central Tokyo, where large public housing estates are located and their population has declined and aged. The contrast between the north and the south of Tokyo became obvious after the bubble economy collapsed.


This paper describes a new baseline system for automatic speech recognition (ASR) in the CHiME-4 challenge to promote the development of noisy ASR in speech processing communities by providing 1) state-of-the-art system with a simplified single system comparable to the complicated top systems in the challenge, 2) publicly available and reproducible recipe through the main repository in the Kaldi speech recognition toolkit. The proposed system adopts generalized eigenvalue beamforming with bidirectional long short-term memory (LSTM) mask estimation. We also propose to use a time delay neural network (TDNN) based on the lattice-free version of the maximum mutual information (LF-MMI) trained with augmented all six microphones plus the enhanced data after beamforming. Finally, we use a LSTM language model for lattice and n-best re-scoring. The final system achieved 2.74\% WER for the real test set in the 6-channel track, which corresponds to the 2nd place in the challenge. In addition, the proposed baseline recipe includes four different speech enhancement measures, short-time objective intelligibility measure (STOI), extended STOI (eSTOI), perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) and speech distortion ratio (SDR) for the simulation test set. Thus, the recipe also provides an experimental platform for speech enhancement studies with these performance measures.


We present a suite of analytical and semianalytical solutions for the displacements, strains, and stress due to distributed anelastic deformation of finite strain volumes in a half‐space for cuboid sources. We provide the solutions in the cases of antiplane strain, plane strain, and 3D deformation. These expressions represent powerful tools for the analysis of deformation data to image distributed strain in the Earth's interior and for the dynamic modeling of distributed deformation off faults, including thermoelasticity, poroelasticity, and viscoelasticity. We include computer programs that evaluate these expressions free of major singular points. Combined with formulas that describe the deformation around faults, these solutions represent a comprehensive description of quasi‐static deformation throughout the earthquake cycle within the lithosphere–asthenosphere system.

[Electronic Supplement:][1]Animations of displacement and stress.

 [1]: http://www.bssaonline.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1785/0120160237/-/DC1


DIRAC is a 64 channel mixed-signal readout integrated circuit designed for Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors (MICROMEGAS, Gas Electron Multiplier) or Resistive Plate Chambers. These detectors are foreseen as the active part of a hadronic calorimeter for a high energy physics experiment at the International Linear Collider. Physics requirements lead to a highly granular hadronic calorimeter with up to thirty million channels, and probably only one or two bits channel readout (so-called digital calorimeter). The DIRAC ASIC has been especially designed for these constraints. Each channel of the DIRAC chip is made of a 4 gains charge preamplifier, a DC-servo loop, 3 switched comparators and a digital memory, thus providing additional energy information for a hit. A bulk MICROMEGAS detector with embedded DIRAC ASIC has been build. The tests of this assembly, both in laboratory with X-Rays and in a beam at CERN are presented, demonstrating the feasibility of a bulk MICROMEGAS detector with embedded electronics. The second version of the ASIC, with improved noise and additional functionalities, has just been received and preliminary results are reported in details.


This book provides edited selections of primary source material in the intellectual history of competition policy from Adam Smith to the present day. Chapters include classical theories of competition, the U.S. founding era, classicism and neoclassicism, progressivism, the New Deal, structuralism, the Chicago School, and post-Chicago theories. Although the focus is largely on Anglo-American sources, there is also a chapter on European Ordoliberalism, an influential school of thought in post-War Europe. Each chapter begins with a brief essay by one of the editors pulling together the important themes from the period under consideration. Available in OSO:


In the past several decades, scores of books about mentoring and librarianship have been published. There are academic articles, webinars, and workshops that librarians can use to learn more about why mentoring is important and how to be a good mentor. However, in my own experience, most of these resources explore mentoring from the perspective of the mentor, not the mentee. When I graduated from library school, my colleague Andrew Walsh and I began researching mentoring in academic libraries for an article that was eventually published in College & Research Libraries. As part of the research process, I decided to join as many mentoring programs as I could find to see what I could learn from the experience. In the intervening six years, I have continued to participate in mentoring programs at the national, state, and local level, and have even started one at my own library. In total, I have participated in seven formal mentoring programs.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to consider how Big Four and mid-tier accountancy firms in the UK are responding to political concerns about social mobility and Fair Access to the accountancy profession. Design/methodology/approach - Interviews were undertaken with 18 public accountancy firms, ranked in the Top 30 by fee income, operating in the UK to identify how they are recruiting staff in the light of the Fair Access to the Professions' agenda. Bourdieusian sociology is used to inform the findings. Findings - The Big Four firms employ a discourse of hiring "the brightest and the best" to satisfy perceived client demand, where symbolic capital is instantiated by reputational capital, reflecting prestige and specialisation, supported by a workforce with elite credentials. For mid-tier firms, reputational capital is interpreted as the need for individuals to service a diverse client portfolio. In general, most interviewees demonstrated relatively limited awareness of the issues surrounding the Fair Access agenda. Research limitations/implications - The interviews with accountancy firms are both exploratory and cross-sectional. Furthermore, the study was undertaken at an embryonic point (2010) in the emerging Fair Access discourse. Future work considering the accountancy profession could usefully examine if, and how, matters have progressed. Social implications - The investigation finds that accountancy firms remain relatively socially exclusive, largely due to the requirement for high educational entry standards, and interviewees' responses generally indicate only limited attempts at engagement with political agendas of promoting Fair Access to the profession. Originality/value - This paper is the first to empirically evaluate how the accountancy profession is responding to the Fair Access agenda; documents changing patterns of recruitment in accountancy employment, including the hiring of non-graduates to undertake professional work; and augments the literature considering social class and accounting.


The ability to efficiently discover information using partial knowledge (for example keywords, attributes or ranges) is important in large, decentralized, resource sharing distributed environments such as computational grids and peer-to-peer (P2P) storage and retrieval systems. This paper presents a P2P information discovery system that supports flexible queries using partial keywords and wildcards, and range queries. It guarantees that all existing data elements that match a query are found with bounded costs in terms of number of messages and number of peers involved. The key innovation is a dimension reducing indexing scheme that effectively maps the multidimensional information space to physical peers. The design, implementation and experimental evaluation of the system are presented.


United States soldiers face the most heinous dangers on a daily basis while serving our country. Despite knowing the risks, they are courageous and willing warriors. They are equipped with training, knowledge, and equipment to combat these dangers. However, despite all the training, despite the equipment, and despite their courage, there is a danger that lurks beyond those associated with military service and it is tobacco smoking. Tobacco smoking is associated with life threatening and life limiting disease. The effects of tobacco smoking may take years to present which can provide a false sense of invincibility to the Veteran. Tobacco smoking has declined among the general population. However, the same is not true among the military Veteran population. Reported estimates suggest that smoking is 40% higher among Veterans compared to the general population. The literature also suggests that smoking-related illnesses have been higher among patients in the Veterans Health Administration compared to the general population. Smoking tobacco presents a major risk factor for heart disease as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Smoking cessation is associated with reduction in prevalence of these diseases, decreased exacerbations, and reduced mortality. This capstone report presents an evidenced based intervention that is focused on providers in a Primary Care setting. With the inclusion of the Transtheoretical Model as a framework for understanding patient readiness, providers were provided with education related to strategies of brief motivational interviewing. The goal of this process improvement was to increase the confidence and skill level of providers to work with ambivalent patients relative to tobacco smoking habits. Tobacco Smoking Cessation Process Improvement Proposal 3


We reassess the effects of natural resources on economic development and conflict, applying a causal forest estimator and data from 3,800 Sub-Saharan African districts. We find that, on average, mining activities and higher world market prices of locally mined minerals both increase economic development and conflict. Consistent with the previous literature, mining activities have more positive effects on economic development and weaker effects on conflict in places with low ethnic diversity and high institutional quality. In contrast, the effects of changes in mineral prices vary little in ethnic diversity and institutional quality, but are non-linear and largest at relatively high prices.


In response to challenges brought by population ageing, Hong Kong has adopted an active ageing policy framework and built age-friendly neighbourhoods to encourage the participation of older people. This article distinguishes between the civic and political participation and emphasizes active involvement in community and neighbourhood activities as a way to encourage the civic engagement of older adults. The promotion of age-friendliness is set at two levels: concerning policy and practical/operational issues, both of which are interrelated with the purpose of offering civic engagement opportunities for older people. The experiences of Hong Kong reflect both top-down and bottom-up approaches, where civic participation is promoted by encouraging life-long learning and developing caring communities, as well as carrying out a variety of neighourhood programmes. It is suggested that different stakeholders, such as older adults, NGOs and other social organizations, shall all be included and play important roles in promoting civic participation of the elderly through creating a conducive environment. The initiatives, whether these are in policy or at operational levels, should be integrated into actions that are aimed to enhance quality of life for all residents and create a more age-friendly neighbourhood.


Abstract
 Cantharellus section Tenues was originally created for four new, very small, redorange-yellow Central African chanterelles with a more or less fistulose stipe, short basidia and an omphaloid habit. The type species, C. tenuis, is here considered unrelated to the other three species as it is the only species having clamp connections. All four species remain poorly known and need to be recollected and epitypified with recently collected, sequenced specimens that comply to the original description. In this paper, C. alboroseus is epitypified, and an equally small species, C. minutissimus, is introduced. Both species are systematically placed using a multigene phylogeny.


While the subprime mortgage boom was in full swing, its benefits to American society were widely touted. Subprime mortgages were said to have increased homeownership. The subprime effect was supposed to have been especially strong for low-income and minority families previously unable to buy homes. The democratization of credit was also attributed to subprime mortgages.The empirical data do not support these welfare claims. The U.S. homeownership rate increased somewhat between 1994 and 2007. Subprime mortgages, however, were mostly made to existing homeowners to refinance debt; very few were made to first-time home buyers. The number of homes lost due to subprime foreclosures significantly exceeded the new homeowners added by subprime mortgages. Subprime mortgages also displaced the safer and lower-cost FHA loans that would otherwise have been made. Conventional prime mortgages for purchases fully accounted for the observed increase in homeownership.The welfare harms caused by subprime mortgage lending are readily measurable. They include the direct impact of more than two million foreclosures on families, the resulting property value losses, the social and fiscal impact on cities where subprime mortgages were concentrated, the price discrimination resulting in black and Latino homeowners paying unnecessarily high rates, and the broader impacts on the credit markets and the economy. The disastrous consequences of subprime mortgage lending were in part the result of deregulating mortgage interest rates. Similar harms can be prevented in the future by re-imposing reasonable interest rate limits on first-lien mortgages. FHA should be restored to its role as the primary provider of mortgages to first-time, low- and moderate-income home buyers.


The development of phonological memory, a subdivision of short term memory, is crucial to learning and analyzing sequences of sounds to form words and phrases. This process utilizes short term representation and rehearsal to allow for the eventual long term representation of language. Individuals learning more than one language must acquire even more of these language sequences than monolinguals. Previous research agrees that early Spanish-English bilinguals have superior phonological memory to monolinguals, however the impact of second language acquisition on phonological memory remains unknown. This study examined three groups of undergraduate participants studying Spanish as a second language including study abroad students (SA), students currently enrolled in a Spanish course at or above the 300-level (CE), and students not currently enrolled in a Spanish course (NE). Participants completed tests of phonological memory including digit span and sentence repetition at the beginning and culmination of an academic semester. Participants also provided demographic data, L2 acquisition information, and their frequency of language use so that changes could be calculated. Results revealed that CE students were superior during pretest, but during posttest SA and CE demonstrated comparable results. The NE students demonstrated consistently lower scores. These findings suggest that foreign language instruction may benefit phonological memory development, even in late acquisition of the second language. The possible role of years of formal language instruction will be discussed.


Using approaches drawn from critical theory this paper explores the idea of electoral studies from historical and contemporary perspectives. It argues that the techniques used in electoral studies - in Southern African and elsewhere - have been corroded by neo-liberal economics and therefore by the rote and routine of management studies. Electoral studies might secure individual security and so promote governance by becoming more relevant to the lives and everyday struggles of the region's citizens.


Leadership theories often include a contingency effect where the relationship between two or more variables is normally theorized to be monotonic, i.e., that it has a generally accepted direction—positive or negative—across the full range of the contingency variable. Most examinations of contingencies estimate how the monotonic relationship changes at mean, or near mean, levels of the moderator variable. We push the logic of moderation further to explore whether, for extra-ordinary values of the moderator, the effect may actually become non-monotonic, e.g., invert by moving from positive to negative in slope (or vice versa). Discovering such inversion effects in models of leadership would provide a deeper understanding of the operation and boundaries of theories, thereby calling for refinements of underlying theoretical assumptions. Using an innovative inductive approach, we search the leadership literature and find studies where extra-ordinary moderator values signal a potential inversion effect. We narrow onto two example leader-member exchange (LMX) studies to inductively theorize the mechanisms creating the inversion. We then generalize the logic of this mechanism to propose new theory for why such inversions might be occurring in a wider range of phenomenon beyond LMX, and discuss the associated implications for leadership and organizational theory.


Abstract The aim of this paper is to introduce the innovative technology created within the framework of PRE-FOREST project, funded by the European Commission under the CRAFT 6th Framework Research Programme. PRE-FOREST was an innovative research project in the field of forest planting stock material, enhancing co-operation between research foundations and small and medium-sized enterprises. Among the project's objectives were the introduction of a new technology based on precultivation (in mini-plugs) of forest regeneration material in a cost-efficient and environmental friendly production unit, not affected by outdoor climate; the development of a new, adapted to mini-plugs, grading technology and replug robot; the integration of these technologies into a functional prototype unit capable of large-scale forest regeneration material production; and the introduction of this production system at strategic locations in Europe. The system has been developed for year-round production and function in the same way, independently of climatic variations in different parts of Europe. To obtain these objectives the study focused on the interaction among production technology, mini-plug container design and rooting media, to develop cultivation protocols for forest reproductive materials of special economic and ecological importance for each participating country. One of the main benefits of the new technology was the environmentally friendly production of a large number of seedlings per square metre, leading to a cost-efficient result.


In this paper we describe the use of a high-level augmented reality
(AR) interface for the construction of collaborative educational applications
that can be used in practice to enhance current teaching
methods. A combination of multimedia information including spatial
three-dimensional models, images, textual information, video,
animations and sound, can be superimposed in a student-friendly
manner into the learning environment. In several case studies different
learning scenarios have been carefully designed based on
human-computer interaction principles so that meaningful virtual
information is presented in an interactive and compelling way. Collaboration
between the participants is achieved through use of a
tangible AR interface that uses marker cards as well as an immersive
AR environment which is based on software user interfaces
(UIs) and hardware devices. The interactive AR interface has been
piloted in the classroom at two UK universities in departments of
Informatics and Information Science.


Background: Studies have examined whether tumor expression of PTGS2 (also known as COX-2), an enzyme inhibited by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin, is associated with prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer. However, results to date have been mixed. Methods:Using terms for PTGS2 and colorectal cancer, theMedline, Embase, andWeb of Science databases were systematically searched for studies published, in any language, until December 2011. Random effects meta-analyses were used to calculate pooled HRs [95% confidence intervals (CI)] for the association between PTGS2 expression and tumor recurrence, colorectal cancer–specific survival, and overall survival. Results: In total, 29 studies, which had prognostic data on 5,648 patients, met the inclusion criteria. PTGS2positive patients were at an increased risk of tumor recurrence (n 1⁄4 9 studies; HR, 2.79; 95% CI, 1.76–4.41; P < 0.001) and had poorer colorectal cancer–specific survival (n 1⁄4 7; HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.02–1.82; P 1⁄4 0.04). However, there was funnel plot asymmetry, possibly due to publication bias, for the association with cancerspecific survival but less so for recurrence. PTGS2 expressionwas not associatedwith overall survival [(n1⁄4 16; pooledunadjustedHR, 1.30; 95%CI, 0.94–1.79;P1⁄4 0.11) and (n1⁄4 9; pooled adjustedHR, 1.02; 95%CI, 0.72–1.45; P 1⁄4 0.91)]. Conclusions: PTGS2 expression was associated with an increased risk of tumor recurrence and poorer colorectal cancer–specific survival but not overall survival among patients with colorectal cancer. However, confounding by tumor characteristics such as tumor stage seems likely. Impact: There is insufficient evidence to recommend PTGS2 expression as a prognostic marker in patients with colorectal cancer. Furthermore, studies providing adjusted results are required. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(9); 1490–7. 2013 AACR.


from the Lower Cretaceous of the United Kingdom and Morocco. The analysis of several mammalian teeth exhibiting peramurid characters and recently obtained from the Early Cretaceous localities of Durlston Bay (England) and Anoual (Morocco) led to the identification of three new taxa (Minimus richardfoxi n.g., n.sp., Magnimus ensomi n.g., n.sp. and Afriquiamus nessovi n.g., n.sp.) and to the reexamination of Peramura McKenna, 1975 (definition, contents, validity). It appears that this group of therian mammals, whose molars establish a morphological link between those of primitive Symmetrodonta and those of tribosphenic mammals, does not in fact show any exclusive synapomorphy, at least in our present state of knowledge; we are confronted, rather, with a few representatives of an evolutionary grade whose vast distribution in space and time suggests an even wider diversification, as well as an early origin for the pretribosphenid line. Moreover it is shown that Amphitherium is closer to tribosphenids than to dryolestoids, while Vincelestes does not qualify as a pretribosphenic mammal. We also discuss the question of the metacone, the stylocone and of the lingual cingulum on the upper molars of Peramus, to conclude that the ancestors of this genus did not go through a dryolestoid stage: the metacone is considered homologous to that of tinodontids, so that its lingual situation is in fact a primitive character. Finally it is concluded that it was the individualization of a hypoconid and a distal metacristid on the lower molars, hence the introduction of a different masticatory mode, that created, early in the pretribosphenid line, the conditions favorable to the later elaboration of a protocone on the upper molars; but the primitive stage of this cusp remains unknown.


Face recognition is a complex behavioral skill and requires a distributed neural network. There are limited findings linking individual differences in activation within distinct nodes of this network (e.g., FFA) and recognition behavior, which may be related to the notion that complex behavior likely emerges from activation across distributed networks and less from individual regions within networks. Importantly, there is no work investigating whether variations in face recognition behavior are related to variations in the patterns of functional connections within the face-processing network. To address this issue, we developed a battery of face recognition tasks that are highly sensitive to individual differences in face recognition behavior in typically developing young adults. We identified 40 individuals who varied in face recognition behavior on a continuum that spanned ± 1 SD around the mean of a sample of more than 200 individuals tested in this battery. These participants were scanned in an fMRI task in which they passively viewed blocks of dynamic movies of faces, objects, and navigational scenes. Regions in the face-processing network were functional defined at the group level and then fit to each participant's individual activation. For connectivity, the best-fit model for 13 regions was assessed using unified structural equation modeling separately for high (> 1 SD), average (within 1SD), and low (< 1 SD) performers. Low performers had networks with more edges, higher global efficiency, and shorter path lengths compared to average and high performers. Furthermore, each of these network properties negatively correlated with behavioral performance on the face recognition tasks across the entire sample. In sum, people with weaker face recognition abilities have vastly over-connected and redundant network topologies. In contrast, relatively stronger recognizers have more sparsely connected networks. These results suggest that distributed, but not overly redundant, functional organization is required for proficient behavior. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Inverse problems have only been known in spatial audio for a very short time; their only solution, called "inverse coding" in literature, is essentially based on time-level modeling. Inverse problems, however, unlike parametric coding, require only an initial transmission of spatial side information, and thus can achieve much lower bitrates than could be achieved with parametric coding. For instance, inversely coded NHK 22.2 multichannel signals in combination with USAC may be delivered at bitrates as low as 48kb/s and optimum performance can be achieved in combination with commercially available HE-AAC v2 at 256kb/s - without any scaling of output channel order, and with moderate complexity in the decoder. A new way to perceptually eliminate redundant information makes use of invariant theory inside the encoder. Invariants with Gaussian processes were unknown until 2010 and have represented one major problem in non-applied mathematics for more than a century: David Hilbert's proof that these coefficient functions form a field then insinuated that their existence in random processes was very likely. As will be shown, when applied to spatial audio coding, invariants represent a numerically efficient and perceptually powerful algebraic tool. We likewise present a 3D audio codec design for signals up to NHK 22.2 with two profiles: one profile, based on co-incidence, is able to code and synthesize a full Higher Order Ambisonics soundfield, up to order 6, at 48kb/s, 64kb/s, 96kb/s, 128kb/s, and above. The second profile, which optimizes de-correlation for phantom source imaging, codes channel-based or object-based signals at the same bitrates. The technology has been specified as the world's first international 3D audio standard ECMA-407 and may be further extended with static models in frequency domain. A preliminary version of this technology, based on a downmix in frequency domain, was submitted to MPEG's "Phase 2" selection of low-bitrate 3D coding technologies and made use of an USAC binary, which unfortunately offered no tuning options.


Sodium Cobaltate (NaxCoO2) has emerged as a material of exceptional scientific and technological interest since it is among the best P-type thermoelectric materials. The superstructures in pure NaxCoO2 templates the Coulomb landscape on the Co layers and is found to control the physical properties. The combination of the high electrical conductivity in the Co layers with the low thermal conductivity due to the rattling of sodium ions in cages, are the precise conditions for thermoelectric materials with high figures of merit. Replacing Na by divalent ions was reported to lead to a dramatic improvement in thermoelectric performance. The superstructures of NaxCayCoO2 and NaxSryCoO2 have been determined by Laue diffraction using neutrons on SXD at ISIS and x-rays at Royal Holloway. Reverse Monte-Carlo methods were used to determine Na ion patterning including the locations of the divalent ions. Co and O displacements were also determined that show buckling following the Na structure. In the doped systems we find completely new multi-vacancy clusters. Di-vacancies form in Ca doped systems where the divalent ion sits at the central site. In the Sr doped systems two new superlattices are observed, explained by the clustering of separated Sr ions with associated vacancies. Multiple valence states have been detected by NMR, which is a local probe, but spatial charge ordering in the cobalt layer has not previously been observed. We report new measurements using Resonant X-ray Scattering on the Materials and Magnetism beamline I16 at Diamond. We find resonant x-ray scattering with the same periodicity as the sodium superstructure, directly demonstrating that the electronic ordering in these cobalt layers is controlled by the sodium ordering. We are able to reproduce the energy, polarisation and azimuthal dependencies of the resonant x-ray scattering in calculations using the FDMNES code.


The study of lucid dreams is a very sophisticated method to explore the ongoing dream from a first person perspective. The present study explores the ability of lucid dreamers to recall previously learned words in their dreams. For this field study 12 lucid dreamers finished the experimental protocol in a home setting. The results indicate that lucid dreamers are able to recall about 5 out of 7 previously memorised words in their dreams. The recall rate showed a high variation from none to all words. Taking into account that four of the participants couldn't finish the task within the dream the recall rate in the lucid dream seems to be rather high. To control for confounding factors it is suggested to conduct in the future sleep laboratory studies. It also will be promising to study the impact of a lucid dream rehearsal in order to find out if this might be a new method for active learning during the night.


Using biological traits, such as fingerprints, iris patterns and voice print, in identification and authentication has gained increasing attention due to the demand for a more secure environment. The potential of human walking as a biometric has only attracted interest in the computer vision community since the last decade. Nevertheless, the potential of human running gait as a biometric remains largely unexplored. Here, we propose an approach for an automated non-invasive/markerless person identification system by not only the walking, but also the running gait to explore the potential of these two biomechanically distinct gaits. Two motion models both invariant to walking and running, have been developed based on the concept of harmonic motion. The first is a bilateral symmetric model made up of an upper and a lower pendulum, representing the thigh and the lower leg, joined at the knee. The upper pendulum is simple harmonic motion whilst the lower pendulum uses an empirical model requiring parameter selection for the different gait mode and lacks analytical attributes. The second model has a forced coupled oscillator to describe the knee rotation as legs are considered to be imperfect pendula with energy loss. The rhythm and pattern of gaits are automatically extracted by a temporal evidence gathering technique with the motion models as the underlying temporal templates. The spatio-temporal characteristics of the gait patterns are described by a Fourier representation, which are in turn used to create unique gait signatures for the purpose of identification. Performance analysis demonstrates the potential of gait as a biometric, with running being more potent. This technique not only performs well in discriminating individuals, but also appears capable of distinguishing the gender and gait mode. Moreover, analysis shows that the knee rotation contributes significantly to discrimination capability. Based on the hypothesis that human walking and running gaits are intimately related by the musculo-skeletal structure and that the walking pattern is the phase-modulated version of running (or vice versa), a unique mapping/transform between individuals' walking and running gait is developed, making the signature invariant to gait mode. Furthermore, this mapping can be used alone as a compressed signature or to buttress the original signature to further improve the recognition capability. Then, a generic relationship between walking and running has been investigated via a neural network. Due to the current size of the experimental dataset, the structure of the two signature spaces could not be drawn, at least not by this approach. However, results do suggest its possible existence. The effect of different camera views is an important application issue. The gait pattern perceived by machine vision at different viewpoints has been investigated. The frequency description of the gait pattern is linearly dependent on the camera sagittal view angle. The changes of both the magnitude and the phase component are symmetric about the fronto-parallel view. This linearity offers a convenient way to map the angular motion obtained from various camera sagittal views to the true motion, for the convenience of gait analysis. More importantly, this linearity can be exploited to develop view invariant gait signatures. The new and interesting findings of this work not only benefit biometrics research, but may also draw attention from other communities such as biomechanics and graphics applications.


The overall objective of this study is to address questions concerning the longterm
mechanical strength of the lithosphere across the equatorial margin of Brazil. The
approach used in this study consists of calculating the frequency response function
estimates, also called admittance, using gravity and bathymetry data. These
experimental estimates are then compared to theoretical admittance curves for Airy and
thin elastic plate models for which estimates on the flexural rigidity or, equivalently,
effective elastic thickness may be made.

Twelve profiles, each 256 km long, were extracted from gridded gravity and
bathymetry data (data sources: project EQUANT, Defense Mapping Agency, National
Geophysical Data Center files and GEOS 3/SEASAT altimeter data). Three profiles
were specifically used for testing truncation errors introduced by four different data
treatment procedures (before Fourier transforming the data) : detrending, applying 10%
cosine tapering, mirror imaging and the use of the first derivatives. The method I
adopted is similar to the one used by McNutt (1983) and consists of testing how
reliably a given admittance estimate can be recovered as a function of the data treatment
procedure. A "predicted" gravity anomaly was obtained by convolving each
bathymetric profile with a theoretical admittance filter. The edges of this anomaly are
then submitted to the same treatment as the corresponding bathymetric profile before
Fourier transforming both profiles and calculating admittance. The stability of the
long-wavelength admittance estimates, in the presence of noise, was also investigated
by introducing Gaussian noise, in the range of -50 to +50 mGals, in the "predicted"
gravity signal. The results indicate that relatively unbiased long-wavelength admittance
estimates can be obtained by using the first derivative of the data sets. In addition, it is
shown that the mirroring technique, used in previous admittance studies across
Atlantic-type margins, leads to overestimated admittance values and, therefore,
overestimated flexural rigidities.

Neither the theoretical curves for the Airy model nor the plate flexure model can
explain the experimental admittance estimates. Not only are the experimental
admittance estimates higher than the predicted values but they also have a narrower
peak than the theoretical curves. This raises the question of the applicability of highly
simplified isostatic models for tectonic provinces such as Atlantic-type continental
margins. The following reasons may explain the discrepancies between the
experimental and theoretical admittance estimates
(1) The abrupt nature of the transition between oceanic and continental crust
controlled by the Romanche Fracture Zone - Unlike the eastern North American
continental margin which was formed as a result of extensive rifling and pulling apart,
the obliquely-rifled equatorial margin of Brazil has undergone a complex tectonic
evolutionary process, where additional components such as shear and right-lateral
wrenching were present. Therefore, representing the margin as a thin homogeneous
elastic plate might be reasonable when the transition is gradual (for which the uniform
flexural rigidity assumption seems reasonable) but is probably not a good
approximation when it is as abrupt as the equatorial margin of Brazil
(2) Presence of subsurface loads - Previous studies have shown that estimates
of the average flexural rigidity of continental lithosphere using the admittance approach
are biased when subsurface loads are present. In principle, the proximity of the
Romanche Fracture Zone and associated volcanism suggest that shalow buried loads,
caused by intrusive bodies, might be present in the area. This could partially account
for the mismatch between theoretical curves and experimental admittance estimates.
(3) "Masked" estimates - The admittance estimates presented here are likely to
reflect the combination of two different signals: one related to the compensation of the
Barreirinhas/Piaui-Camocim sub-basin which has no topographic/bathymetric expression
and the other one related to the topography/bathymetry and its compensation which is of
interest in the admittance studies. Since the wavelengths of these signals do not differ by
much (around 80-100 km for the basin) it is possible that in the averaging process some
overlaping occurs. The combination of these signals could yield anomalous results
masking the admittance estimates in the diagnostic waveband.

In addition, I present a two-dimensional cross section obtained by forward
modelling the gravity anomaly along a profile using the line integral method. The uniform
sedimentary infill of the Barreirinhas/Piaui-Camocim basin basin is enough to account for
the gravity low over the inner shelf and no Moho topography is required. A plausible
explanation for this "rootless" basin structure is that the lithosphere is capable of
supporting the sediment infill load, and thus, has finite flexural rigidity (basin is locally
uncompensated).


The interplay between clouds and aerosols and their contribution to the radiation budget is one of the largest uncertainties of climate change. Most work to date has separated cloudy and cloud-free areas in order to evaluate the individual radiative forcing of aerosols, clouds, and aerosol effects on clouds. Here we examine the size distribution and the optical properties of small, sparse cumulus clouds and the associated optical properties of what is considered a cloud-free atmosphere within the cloud field. We show that any separation between clouds and cloud free atmosphere will incur errors in the calculated radiative forcing. The nature of small cumulus cloud size distributions suggests that at any resolution, a significant fraction of the clouds are missed, and their optical properties are relegated to the apparent cloud-free optical properties. At the same time, the cloudy portion incorporates significant contribution from non-cloudy pixels. We show that the largest contribution to the total cloud reflectance comes from the smallest clouds and that the spatial resolution changes the apparent energy flux of a broken cloudy scene. When changing the resolution from 30 m to 1 km (Landsat to MODIS) the average "cloud-free" reflectance at 1.65 μm increases from 0.0095 to 0.0115 (>20%), the cloud reflectance decreases from 0.13 to 0.066 (~50%), and the cloud coverage doubles, resulting in an important impact on climate forcing estimations. The apparent aerosol forcing is on the order of 0.5 to 1 Wm −2 per cloud field.


Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of the indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". Steven Weisenburger takes the reader page by page, often line by line, through the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story. Weisenburger fully annotates Pynchon's use of languages ranging from Russian and Hebrew to such subdialects of English as 1940s street talk, drug lingo, and military slang as well as the more obscure terminology of black magic, Rosicrucianism, and Pavlovian psychology. The Companion also reveals the underlying organization of "Gravity's Rainbow" - how the book's myriad references form patterns of meaning and structure that have eluded both admirers and critics of the novel. The Companion is keyed to the pages of the principal American editions of "Gravity's Rainbow": Viking/Penguin (1973), Bantam (1974), and the special, repaginated Penguin paperback (2000) honoring the novel as one of twenty "Great Books of the Twentieth Century."


The expression of fitness-related traits, such as egg and gonad size, often varies among habitats and exhibits clinal variation along climatic and latitudinal gradients. However, the mechanisms allowing such variations are obscure and have been ascribed to both phenotypic plas- ticity and genetic adaptation. We experimentally tested whether variation in egg and gonad size of a poikilotherm vertebrate is influenced by the temperature individuals experienced during embryogenesis, possibly as an epigenetic effect. Atlantic salmon Salmo salar eggs were incubated under 3 embryonic thermal regimes: cold, mixed and warm treatments. The cold group received ambient river water (mean ± SD: 2.6 ± 0.4°C) and the warm group received water at 4.6°C above ambient temperature, the expected temperature in the river towards the end of this century, from fertilization until exogenous feeding commenced. The mixed group received ambient river water until hatching, whereupon the larvae received heated water until exogenous feeding commenced. When exogenous feeding was initiated, all fish were reared under identical, natural thermal condi- tions. At adulthood, fish that developed from warm-incubated eggs were largest, had the highest masslength relationship and developed larger eggs and higher gonad mass relative to their own body size. There was no similar effect of thermal environment during larval development. The treatment did not affect age of maturity or fecundity. Thus, thermal conditions during embryo - genesis affected the expression of adult life-history traits, a mechanism by which fish may rapidly change the size of their propagules to the anticipated thermal offspring environment. This is a novel result explaining variation in these core life-history traits.


Slow sand filters (SSF) are widely used to treat water for potable use. The process is dependent on the activities of complex microbial communities in the biofilm (schmutzdecke) layer. In this study, we generated a comprehensive view of three-domain microbiological complexity within a model SSF. DNA was analysed using a high-density microarray (PhyloChip) and rRNA library analysis. The Eukaryotic community was dominated by Cercozoa (Ebridd-type protists); these are likely to be involved in predation of other organisms in the schmutzdecke layer, thus proving opportunity for successional development. Ciliate protozoa, green microalgae, stramenopiles, amoeboid protozoa and fungi in the Phylum Ascomycota and the deep-branching Chytridiomycota were also detected. The Archaeal community was dominated by Euryarchaeota, and most were Halobacteriales. These organisms may contribute to filter function through removal of dissolved organic carbon, a primary treatment goal of these filters. Given that the Eukaryotic and Archaeal communities were examined using clone libraries, the expected richness of taxa present is expected to be greater than detected here and dependent on sampling effort (library size). The bacterial community was rich in taxa (21 Phyla) but was not dominated by any phylogenetic group. The successful function of SSF's relies on interactions between taxa (e.g. grazing of Cercozoa protists on bacteria), and removal of dissolved organic matter from the influent. Understanding the taxa and functions in these systems will aid in monitoring and managing SSF for optimal water quality.


Energy efficiency is a concern for any software running on mobile devices. As such software employs machine-learned models to make predictions, this motivates research on efficiently executable models. In this paper, we propose a variant of the widely used Naive Bayes (NB) learner that yields a more efficient predictive model. In contrast to standard NB, where the learned model inspects all features to come to a decision, or NB with feature selection, where the model uses a fixed subset of the features, our model dynamically determines, on a case-by-case basis, when to stop inspecting features. We show that our approach is often much more efficient than the current state of the art, without loss of accuracy.


AIM
To examine the longer term impact on the social network of participating nurses in the Global Nursing Leadership Institute (GNLI2013) through using differing frequencies of follow-up to assess impact on maintenance of network cohesion.

BACKGROUND
Social network analysis is increasingly been used by nurse researchers, however, studies tend to use single point-in-time descriptive methods.

METHOD
This study utilizes a repeated measures, block group, control-intervention, quasi-experimental design. Twenty-eight nurse leaders, competitively selected through a double-blind peer review process, were allocated to five action learning-based learning groups. Network architecture, measures of cohesion and node degree frequency were all used to assess programme impact.

RESULTS
The programme initiated and sustained connections between nurse leaders drawn from a geographically dispersed heterogeneous group. Modest inputs of two to three e-mails over a 6-month period seem sufficient to maintain connectivity as indicated by measures of network density, diameter and path length.

LIMITATIONS
Due to the teaching methodology used, the study sample was relatively small and the follow-up data collection took place after a relatively short time. Replication and further cohort data collection would be advantageous.

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
In an era where many policy solutions are being debated and initiated at the global level, action learning leadership development that utilizes new technology follow-up appears to show significant impact and is worthy of wider application. The approach warrants further inquiry and testing as to its longer term effects on nursing's influence on policy formulation and implementation.


Nearly three years after litigation over patents and designs associated with big-ticket mobile technology started in the US, the first salvo in the patent wars was fired in India. Sweden-based Ericsson, a provider of communications infrastructure and services, sued home-grown budget smartphone manufacturer Micromax in early 2013. Patent litigation in the arena of mobile phone technology has steadily risen since. Lei Jun, the chairman of China's largest smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi once said that facing a patent lawsuit "can be considered a rite of passage for a company that is coming of age". The first part of this paper, "Compilation of lawsuits" is an attempt to chronicle the significant developments in big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. The second part, "Commonalities and differences in the lawsuits" is an attempt to join the dots between the developments that were either remarkably common or notably different. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources and is up-to-date till the time of writing (October 31, 2017). This paper has been published as a part of the Pervasive Technologies project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). Invaluable research assistance was provided by Nayana Dasgupta, Sampada Nayak and Suchisubhra Sarkar (in alphabetical order).


Protein phosphorylation plays an important role in transmitting cellular signals. Phosphorylation has been mostly characterized by hypothesis-driven and low-throughput approaches in the past. However, novel phosphorylation sites on not yet identified signaling effectors involved in cellular responses can only be investigated in an unbiased and large-scale manner. The global investigation of phosphorylation processes in a cellular system can help to understand signaling that drives malignant transformation of cells. Moreover, phosphorylation patterns might hint towards potential therapeutic targets e.g. activated kinases. The generation and analysis of large-scale PTM datasets was made feasible by improved enrichment protocols in combination with the fast evolution of high resolution, quantitative mass spectrometry, computational approaches, and functional databases. The data presented in this thesis comprises three large-scale phosphoproteomics projects.
The main project represents the investigation of antigen-dependent and tonic BCR signaling in Burkitt's lymphoma (BL). As antigen-dependent BCR signaling in BL has not yet been described, phosphorylation changes were investigated in a time-resolved manner in DG75 cells and additionally in two other BL models including one primary BL cell culture. Overall, the MS-based antigen-dependent signaling analyses lead to the identification of thousands of altered phosphorylation sites upon BCR engagement in DG75. Based on this data, a higher order organization structure was extracted, complemented with database information and mapped to datasets derived from RNAseq, kinobead and kinase inhibition analyses. Signaling in BL cells was found to be highly individual in different cell lines. Tonic BCR signaling was investigated upon knockdown of the BCR signaling molecule CD79A and by inhibition of the receptor-proximal tyrosine kinase SYK. Comparison of the antigen-independent and -dependent BCR signaling phosphoproteomes revealed substantial differences as well as certain similarities of both processes. The second project focused on the analysis of global phosphorylation dynamics in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after BTK inhibition. As BTK was identified as an activated kinase in AML, the mechanism of its activation and the influence of BTK ablation were investigated in two AML cell lines with different genetic backgrounds. Phosphoproteomic changes observed upon BTK inhibition highlighted individual differences and similarities of BTK action and identified relevant upstream activators of BTK as well as downstream effector proteins in AML cells. The third project was aimed at profiling the phosphorylation site dynamics of the TCR adapter proteins LCP2 (SLP76) and GADS (GRAP2) in time-resolved TCR stimulation. The dynamics of several phosphorylation sites could be captured over a time course, and provide a basis for further functional characterization by e.g. mutation of p-sites. In summary, this work globally characterized phosphorylation changes upon different cellular conditions by quantitative mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics and provides a basis for the identification of druggable proteins or yet unknown signaling effectors.


Organic agriculture requires farmers with the ability to develop profitable agro-enterprises on their own. By drawing on four years of experiences with the Enabling Rural Innovation approach in Uganda, we outline how smallholder farmers transition to organic agriculture and, at the same time, increase their entrepreneurial skills and competences through learning. In order to document this learning we operationalised the Kirkpatrick learning evaluation model, which subsequently informed the collection of qualitative data in two study sites. Our analysis suggests that the Enabling Rural Innovation approach helps farmers to develop essential capabilities for identifying organic markets and new organic commodities, for testing these organic commodities under varying organic farm management scenarios, and for negotiating contracts with organic traders. We also observed several obstacles that confront farmers' transition to organic agriculture when using the Enabling Rural Innovation approach. These include the long duration of agronomic experimentation and seed multiplication, expensive organic certification procedures and the absence of adequate mechanism for farmers to access crop finance services. Despite prevailing obstacles we conclude that the Enabling Rural Innovation approach provides a starting point for farmers to develop entrepreneurial competences and profitable agro-enterprises on their own.


Email:email@example.com Abstract: In humans, protoplasmic astrocytes are found with high density in the cortex and hippocampus (both parts responsible for memory and cognition) and each astrocyte is in contact with two million of synapses. Astrocytes are responsible for the synaptogenesis and the removal of synapses, which is the basis of learning and memory. The synaptogenesis increases sevenfold with the addition of astrocytes to the neuronal culture media. Astrocytes divide the brain and spinal cord into separate domains, including neurons, synaptic terminals and blood vessels and are integrated by protoplasmic astrocytic appendages. Astrocytes are also responsible for the formation of a single, wide lattice called the syncytium, which can store and process a high volume of information and transmit voluminous messages through intracellular gap junctions. It is relatively slow and is in turn a reason for thinking and gradual use of the information stored in memory. Astrocytes are mainly involved in the intercellular diffusion of calcium signals and the tripartite synapses of neurons and astrocytes are more in the gray matter; in most cases, the astrocyte membrane completely covers the pre-synaptic and postsynaptic ends. Similar to neurons, astrocytes also exhibit cellular memory and connect and integrate with neurons both homocellularly and heterocellularly. New circuits are formed far from the damaged site with the degeneration of brain tissues, the brain adaptation process and replacement of astrocytes and long-term memory is preserved with the cooperation of astrocytes close to the lesion site. Cognitive decline is evident in aging and research shows that there is no obvious neuronal death while the death of astrocytes is evident in aging. The volume of astroglia cells decreases in schizophrenia, which is accompanied by impaired limen and cognition and radiotherapy of glioma causes disorders and reduces cognition and memory. In Alzheimer's, the hippocampus is destroyed together with thinning the site of contact with the anterior cortex of the forehead (brain scans).


Agricultural education and training in the former Czechoslovakia has traditionally focused on fostering the position of cooperatives and state farms. The destruction of socialist agriculture and the reduction of commuting opportunities in the urban space during the transition have resulted in the handicapped socio-economic position of the Slovak countryside and its population. The role of education and training in fostering agribusiness growth and rural development could therefore become a crucial strategy. The aim of this article is to analyse the current state of education and training for agribusiness and for rural development in Slovakia using the methods of literature research and document analysis. The article interprets general trends in the development of adult education in Slovakia during the transition period. The main priorities and perspectives formulated in the national strategy for education in agriculture (for the period 2007-2013) are discussed in the mentioned context. With a focus on the leading role of the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, the paper assesses the current status of formal and further agricultural education and training offered in academic and other educational institutions. The paper concludes by discussing implications, recommendations and challenges for developing education and training initiatives for agribusiness and rural development.


Our central objective consisted in making a global analysis of the motor vehicles sales, on brands and categories. In order to reach this objective, our paper includes the presentation of the sale activity in a rationalistic approach, starting from the opinions of certain renowned authors of this field, a brief analysis of the international automotive industry and the analysis of the motor vehicle sales in Romania in the period 2010-2012. The importance of the paper consists in the identification of the main coordinates of the motor vehicle sales in Romania by means of the SPSS program.


Four Crotalaria species were found attacked by the lima bean pod borer Etiella zinckenella (Treit.) in Puerto Rico: C. pallida , C. anagyroides , C. zanzibarica and C. incana . Non-susceptible species were C. retusa , C. stipularia and C. lanceolata . Early literature observations on the effect of soil characteristics (pH, soil penetrability, and organic matter) on attack rates of this borer to C. pallida could not be confirmed on the basis of field observations. Only plant patch size seemed to be positively correlated with attack rates. Female oviposition patterns are discussed. Oviposition on C. pallida field collected pods was restricted to green pods larger than 3.2 cm. No eggs were found on senescent pods.


We consider a stream outsourcing setting, where a data owner delegates the management of a set of disjoint data streams to an untrusted server. The owner authenticates his streams via signatures. The server processes continuous queries on the union of the streams for clients trusted by the owner. Along with the results, the server sends proofs of result correctness derived from the owner's signatures, which are easily verifiable by the clients. We design novel constructions for a collection of fundamental problems over streams represented as linear algebraic queries. In particular, our basic schemes authenticate dynamic vector sums and dot products, as well as dynamic matrix products. These techniques can be adapted for authenticating a wide range of important operations in streaming environments, including group by queries, joins, in-network aggregation, similarity matching, and event processing. All our schemes are very lightweight, and offer strong cryptographic guarantees derived from formal definitions and proofs. We experimentally confirm the practicality of our schemes.