A lot has been said about change. For example, it is widely recognised that the only constant is change (Heraclitus, 470 BC). As such, no sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be (Isaac Asimov). As regards this, a bulk of existing researches have been aimed at understanding the triggers for change and the extent or degree to which individuals, organisations, systems or entities have to change. Generally, results from such studies vary. With specific relations to organisations, organisations are advised of the need to develop added adaptive and dynamic capabilities. One of such added adaptive and dynamic capabilities is organisational resilience. In the literature, organisational resilience has been successful linked with organisations ability to maintain long term performance. Hence, the research is not about re-examining the relationship between organisational resilience and organisations ability to maintain long term performance. This research focuses on exploring the critical success factors required to maintain long term performance and building adequate resilience into systems undergoing changes. The investigation was conducted in three phases, namely: (a) the exploratory phase; (b) the descriptive phase; and the empirical phase.

The exploratory phase involved identifying the critical factors essential to maintain long term performance and at the same time build resilience into their systems after undergoing organisation-wide changes. In order to make out these critical, a pilot study was conducted. 21 persons occupying senior managerial positions in different organisations were interviewed. The interview data were transcribed, coded and analysed using coding and thematic analysis to identify five common themes, namely (a) employees readiness to support ongoing organisation-wide changes; (b) development of targeted organisational adaptive capacity; (c) the provision of individualised and social support; (d) the use of stress coping mechanisms; and (e) the existence of organisational resilience strategies. The second phase of the research entailed conducting case study research with the intention of describing the identified critical success factors. The final phase entailed conducting empirical analyses and cross case analysis. Results from the cross case study analyses indicated that both resilience building at the individual level and organisational level is needed for organisations to build in resilience into their systems especially after undergoing organisation-wide changes.

Three factors (i.e. employees readiness to support ongoing organisation-wide changes, the provision of individualised and social support and the use of stress coping mechanisms) were found to be more pronounced at the individual level. The remaining two factors namely development of targeted organisational adaptive capacity and the existence of organisational resilience strategies are essentially carried out at the organisational level. The research has contributed to the current body of knowledge on how organisations can strive to maintain long term performance, especially for a country like Nigeria where there still remains a dearth of such related studies. Each of the research hypotheses were either confirmed or non confirmed. This will give the practitioners, academicians and managers of Nigerian organisations the opportunity to understand how each of the sub factors of the five critical success factors can influence on attempts to build organisational resilience. In addition, specific actions that managers can follow over the life of an organisation-wide change project that will improve the resilience of systems undergoing change. In addition, differences in how varied control factors can influence resilience building in organisations were explored and validated based on the results of the Mann Whitney test results. At the end of the thesis, recommendations for future practice and research were made. One of such is that resilience building at both levels be done concurrently and given equal prominence.


Abstract Boys are doing worse in school than are girls, which has been dubbed "the Boy Crisis." An analysis of the latest data on educational outcomes among boys and girls reveals extensive disparities in grades, reading and writing test scores, and other measurable educational outcomes, and these disparities exist across family resources and race. Focusing on disadvantaged schoolchildren, I then examine whether time investments made by boys and girls related to computer use contribute to the gender gap in academic achievement. Data from several sources indicate that boys are less likely to use computers for schoolwork and are more likely to use computers for playing games, but are less likely to use computers for social networking and email than are girls. Using data from a large field experiment randomly providing free personal computers to schoolchildren for home use, I also test whether these differential patterns of computer use displace homework time and ultimately translate into worse educational outcomes among boys. No evidence is found indicating that personal computers crowd out homework time and effort for disadvantaged boys relative to girls. Home computers also do not have negative effects on educational outcomes such as grades, test scores, courses completed, and tardies for disadvantaged boys relative to girls.


Periodic arrays of elongated cobalt islands exchange coupled to continuous Permalloy thin films were fabricated using silicon nitride stencil masks and the magnetic spin configurations during magnetization reversal were studied with photoemission electron microscopy. The presence of cobalt islands results in a spatial modulation of the magnetic properties of the Permalloy films and domain walls positioned at the island boundaries. While magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements indicate differences depending on film thickness, the direct observations reveal two reversal mechanisms: formation of domains running between the islands and coherent rotation followed by propagation of a large domain.


Thermal activation of visual pigments involves the same chromophore-isomerization reaction as does light activation. Dim-light vision requires a visual system that has high sensitivity to light but a low probability of thermal activation. Nevertheless, thermal pigment noise does occur. Luo et al. used single-cell recordings to measure photoisomerization activation energies and noise rates for diverse rod and cone pigments. A quantitative relation was observed between a pigment's photoactivation energy and its peak absorption wavelength. A statistical-mechanical analysis using this relation and modeling thermal activation was able to predict pigment noise rates. D.-G. Luo, W. W. S. Yue, P. Ala-Laurila, K.-W. Yau, Activation of visual pigments by light and heat. Science 332, 1307–1312 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Phytoremediation of metals is being developed as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution for heavy-metal–contaminated sites. In recent years, major scientific strides have been taken in understanding the soil chemical and plant molecular-genetic mechanisms that drive metal hyperaccumulation in plants. Because hyperaccumulators are mostly low biomass and slow-growing plants, current research is focused mainly on designing transgenic plants that can overcome this deficiency. Added to the complexity of plant-metal interactions are influences of the environment, specific matrix factors that controls the chemical speciation of the metal, and interactions of other toxicants that may be present at the site. Extensive progress has been made in characterizing and modifying the soil chemistry of the contaminated sites to promote/accelerate metal phytoremediation. However, extensive field deployment of this technique on a large scale is still being hampered by a lack of specific understanding of the complex interactions between metal, soil, and plant systems that are instrumental in metal uptake, translocation, and storage in plants. A multidisciplinary research effort that integrates the work of plant biologists, soil chemists, microbiologists, and environmental engineers is essential for the success of phytoremediation as a viable soil cleanup technique in metal-contaminated sites.

Rupali Datta is a research assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Datta received her Ph.D. in life sciences from the University of Hyderabad in India and did her postdoctoral training in Niigata University, Japan, University of Florida, Gainesville, and University of Texas, San Antonio. Her research interest is in application of plant genetics and molecular biology to solve environmental remediation problems.Dibyendu Sarkar is an assistant professor and the director of the Environmental Geochemistry Laboratory at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Sarkar received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and did his postdoc toral training at the University of Florida. His areas of expertise include soil chemistry, environmental quality and remediation, and risk assessment. Sarkar is also an associate editor of Environmental Geosciences .


The accident data used in this paper are all collected from the traffic accident investigation team of Shanghai University of Engineering Science from 2008 to 2017. The analysis is based on full and detailed data. The conclusion can provide a reliable basis for the prevention of car accidents in domestic intersections. The content of this paper can be summarized as follows: The fault tree analysis method is used to analyze the traffic accident data collected and explore the deeper causes of interjunction accidents. The logical relationship between the occurrence of the intersection car accident and the factors such as human, car, road and environment is summarized from the top down to the fault tree model. Finally, the model is qualitatively analyzed and the mechanism of the accident is deduced systematically. Research shows: Drivers do not avoid or avoid effective collision for vehicles that are going to collide, which are the two basic events that cause the collision of cars at the crossroads.


In the pre-reionization Universe, the regions of the intergalactic medium (IGM) which are far from luminous sources are the last to undergo reionization. Until then, they should be scarcely affected by stellar radiation; instead, the X-ray emission from an early black hole (BH) population can have much larger influence. We investigate the effects of such emission, looking at a number of BH model populations (differing for the cosmological density evolution of BHs, the BH properties, and the spectral energy distribution of the BH emission). We find that BH radiation can easily heat the IGM to 10(3)-10(4) K, while achieving partial ionization. The most interesting consequence of this heating is that BHs are expected to induce a 21-cm signal (delta T(b) similar to 20-30mK at z less than or similar to 12) which should be observable with forthcoming experiments (e. g. LOFAR). We also find that at z less than or similar to 10 BH emission strongly increases the critical mass separating star-forming and non-star-forming haloes.


The purpose of this research is to determine the
influence of Total Ozone and Aerosols about variability of Ultraviolet
Radiation (UV) in the east coast of the Northeastern region of Brazil through
measures from multispectral sensor GUV (Ground-based Ultraviolet Radiometer).
The methodology consisted of descriptive study and cluster analyses using data
of UV in channels UVB (305 nm) and UVA (320 nm, 340 nm and 380 nm) and data of
UV index, Total Ozone, Aerosol, Global Solar Radiation, Cloudiness and Wind.
The results for city of Natal indicated that an annual event occurs in
September/October which stabilizes the UV or UV Index when Total Ozone levels
reach their annual maximum. This event is influenced by marine Aerosol that is
found on mainland at a higher concentration in September due to greater Wind
intensity and their southeasterly direction (sea for land). The cluster
analysis using the variables above allowed us to detect three different groups:
the first group is formed by Natal, Recife and Jo?o Pessoa and so determined
that this event occurs in these three cities; the second group is formed by
Maceio, Aracaju and Salvador and the third group includes only Fortaleza and
had different results.


: Taxation is central to the financing of most states, and monitoring that taxpayers comply with laws and regulations is a correspondingly important government activity. Governments have many ways to design tax systems, and no two national tax systems are the same. Hence, compliance strategies differ and so do outcomes. Complying with tax laws, beyond the fiscal aim of contributing revenue to a state, is multi faceted in a globalized world. Tax administrations struggle to control large multinational enterprises' (MNEs) tax planning, avoidance and general evasion, whereas MNEs grapple with the problem of having to comply with widely divergent national tax systems. As a response, tax administrations, through membership organisations such as the OECD, invent forms of collaboration between tax administrations and MNEs—all with the goal of increasing tax compliance. One way they do this is through the co-operative compliance model. Here, we compare two compliance projects, based on this model, in Norway and Sweden to shed more light on what tax compliance is in practice. We elaborate on Valerie Braithwaite's seminal concept of tax compliance as a 'dance' between tax administrations and taxpayers. In so doing we underline the significance of paying attention to conceptions of time and space as critical elements of creating compliance in practice between tax administrations and MNEs.


Summary Vertebrate immune systems are understood to be complex and dynamic, with trade-offs among different physiological components (e.g., innate and adaptive immunity) within individuals and among taxonomic lineages. Desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) immunised with ovalbumin (OVA) showed a clear trade-off between levels of natural antibodies (NAbs; innate immune function) and the production of acquired antibodies (adaptive immune function). Once initiated, acquired antibody responses included a long-term elevation in antibodies persisting for more than one year. The occurrence of either (a) high levels of NAbs or (b) long-term elevations of acquired antibodies in individual tortoises suggests that long-term humoral resistance to pathogens may be especially important in this species, as well as in other vertebrates with slow metabolic rates, concomitantly slow primary adaptive immune responses, and long life-spans.


Manganese-functionalized silica with interparticle mesoporosity and isolated Mn sites (Mn/Si = 0.01) is an excellent Fenton catalyst for water cleaning. However, there is a problem that needs to be solved, i.e., Mn leaching from the silica support during the reaction. The solution may lie in using aerogels as the silicate supports for the manganese. The goal of this master thesis is the synthesis and characterization of manganese-functionalized silica aerogels with different Mn/Si molar ratios and a determination of their structural properties. The emphasis is on the preparation of manganese-functionalized silica aerogels with isolated manganese sites.

Firstly, manganese-functionalized microporous and mesoporous silicates with a molar ratio Mn/Si = 0.005–0.02 were synthesized according to the literature and characterized as reference materials for manganese-functionalized aerogels. Manganese silicalite-1 (MnS-1) as a microporous zeolite-type silicate and manganese-functionalized silica (MnKIL-2) as a mesoporous silicate were prepared by the sol-gel process with a hydrothermal and solvothermal treatment, respectively. MnS-1 and MnKIL-2 with a molar ratio of Mn/Si ≤ 0.01 contain manganese as isolated sites in the silica framework and with a molar ratio of Mn/Si > 0.01 contain manganese as manganese oxides.

Secondly, manganese-functionalized aerogels (MnAEG) with a molar ratio Mn/Si = 0.005–0.02, were prepared according to the acid-base of the sol-gel polymerization of a tetraethylorthosilicate precursor, which is followed in combination with a supercritical drying using CO2. The prepared materials were characterized using the following techniques: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray elemental analysis (EDX), nitrogen physisorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The characterization results on manganese-functionalized aerogels (MnAEG) showed Mn oxide nanoparticles incorporated into the aerogel already at a low Mn concentration (Mn/Si = 0.005), which means that Mn aerogels are not promising silica supports for Mn catalysts applied for water cleaning, because they do not contain isolated Mn sites.


The focus of this paper is the relationship between the dispersal rate and the conditions for invasion of a rare allele that improves performance in a marginal sink habitat at the expense of reducing fitness in the main source habitat. Classic multiple–niche population–genetic models predict that the conditions for the invasion of such an allele always become more favourable as the dispersal rate decreases. Precisely the opposite prediction was reached in demographic fitness–sensitivity studies. This study reconciles those contradictory predictions and identifies the assumptions responsible for the discrepancy. I show that whether a lower dispersal rate makes the conditions for the invasion of the allele more or less stringent depends on the magnitude of the effects of the allele. If the effect is large relative to the degree of maladaptedness of the original genotype to the marginal habitat, the conditions become less stringent with decreasing dispersal rate. The opposite is the case for mutations with very small effects. For a broad range of mutations with intermediate effects the conditions are most stringent under an intermediate dispersal rate.


A computer-aided Clinical Decision SupportSystem (CDSS) for diagnosis and treatment often plays a vital role and brings essential benefits for clinicians. Such a CDSScould function as an expert for a less experienced clinician oras a second option/opinion of an experienced clinician to their decision making task. This paper presents 3 clinical DecisionSupport Systems as an overview of case-based reasoning (CBR) research and development. Two medical domains are used here for the case study 1) CDSS for stress diagnosis 2) CDSS for stress treatment and 3) CDSS for post-operative pain treatment.The observation shows the current developments, future direction and pros and cons of the CBR approach. Moreover,the paper shares the experiences of developing 3CDSS in medical domain.


The basic model for high-frequency data in finance is considered, where an efficient price process is observed under microstructure noise. It is shown that this nonparametric model is in Le Cam's sense asymptotically equivalent to a Gaussian shift experiment in terms of the square root of the volatility function $\sigma$. As an application, simple rate-optimal estimators of the volatility and efficient estimators of the integrated volatility are constructed.


To the student and practitioner of international law in the twenty-first century, the just war ethic is clearly part of Moral Theology–binding the consciences of ethical people everywhere –but it is not part of international law. Nevertheless, there is today a lingering flavor of the Just War Ethic in debates about issues that are partly moral and partly political, such as: 1. the testing and use of nuclear weapons; 2. combating terrorism; and 3. humanitarian intervention to save lives and the human environment. None of these activities is authorized expressly in the United Nations Charter. What is an unjust war in the twenty-first century? Use of military force in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by a sovereign Nation State. What is a just war in the twentyfirst century? Use of military force according to the decisions of the United Nations Security Council. All theories of international law agree on one thing: Pacta Sunt Servanda Treaties must be observed. The Charter of the United Nations is such a Treaty.This is the voice of the Just War Ethic in the era of the UN Charter. Only in the inherent right of self defense against armed attack can a Nation be justified in resorting to military force, without the approval of the Security Council. Returning to the basic question: Are there criteria of Just War in the twenty-first century? Yes. Use of military force as directed by the Security Council –or use of military force in self defense against an armed attack are such criteria. These are the just wars of our century and likely to remain so until the United Nations is replaced by a world government. This Article is neither a political endorsement of the 2003 Iraq War nor a political denunciation of decision-making at the highest level. The question is whether international law regulated the outbreak of war by the requirement that it be a just war. The concluding unresolved issue is whether the 2003 Iraq War conducted by the United States and its coalition was a just war in terms of the United Nations Charter.


Background and Purpose: To create a positive attitude towards communication skills training, experimental methods are preferred over theoretical approaches since they encourage the practical use of these skills among different health staff. This study aimed to compare the effects of role play and video feedback on the attitude and knowledge of midwives towards communication training skills. Methods: In this study, 47 midwives were randomly selected from educational hospitals of Mashhad, Iran and divided into two groups of role play (N=24) and video feedback (N=23). Intervention consisted of a two-day training workshop for each group. Role play and video feedback training were performed at four stages of acceptance, labor, delivery, and postpartum. Level of knowledge and attitude was evaluated in the subjects before and after the intervention using questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using independent and paired t-test, Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon test. Results: In this study, mean score of knowledge and attitude had a significant increase after the intervention in both groups (P=0.001) (P=0.03). Additionally, mean of difference in the scores of knowledge and attitude was not considered significant before and after the intervention (P≥0.05). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, video feedback and role play could be equally effective in raising the awareness and improving the attitude of midwives towards communication training skills.


In free viewpoint applications, the images are captured by an array of cameras that acquire a scene of interest from different perspectives. Any intermediate viewpoint not included in the camera array can be virtually synthesized by the decoder, at a quality that depends on the distance between the virtual view and the camera views available at decoder. Hence, it is beneficial for any user to receive camera views that are close to each other for synthesis. This is however not always feasible in bandwidth-limited overlay networks, where every node may ask for different camera views. In this work, we propose an optimized delivery strategy for free viewpoint streaming over overlay networks. We introduce the concept of layered quality-of-experience (QoE), which describes the level of interactivity offered to clients. Based on these levels of QoE, camera views are organized into layered subsets. These subsets are then delivered to clients through a prioritized network coding streaming scheme, which accommodates for the network and clients heterogeneity and effectively exploit the resources of the overlay network. Simulation results show that, in a scenario with limited bandwidth or channel reliability, the proposed method outperforms baseline network coding approaches, where the different levels of QoE are not taken into account in the delivery strategy optimization.


Zaki Chehab is one of the Arab world's leading journalists. He is political editor of the London-based "Al Hayat" and of the Arabic TV channel LBC. For over 25 years he has covered Middle Eastern conflicts for local and Western media, and has contributed to the "Guardian", CNN, Channel 4 and the BBC. He was the first journalist to broadcast interviews with the Iraqi resistance. Very few observers are able to travel outside the American controlled Green Zone in Iraq, let alone meet members of the resistance. Internationally renowned Arab journalist Zaki Chehab, however, is different. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Lebanon, he knows how to talk the language of people who consider themselves under foreign occupation. As a result, he is able to penetrate the inner structures of Saddam loyalists and Islamist radicals as well as reach out to ordinary people struggling to get by. Now, for the first time, we are able to see an authoritative picture of the Iraqi insurgency in all its complexity, ferocity, and passion. Chehab shows how the resistance fighters really view the post-Saddam regime, George W. Bush and the terrorist phenomenon now known as 'Al-Qaeda'. As well-connected in diplomatic circles as he is amongst the footsoldiers of Fallujah, he also reveals facets of the occupiers' strategy never discussed in the West. "Iraq Ablaze" is the book that everyone who wants to understand Iraq today, and where it is heading, has been waiting for.


Ytterbium (Yb3+)-doped materials have been widely used for high efficiency high energy laser sources at the 1 µm wavelength region because of their very low quantum defect and the unique simple energy level structure of Yb3+, resulting in no excited-state absorption and low occurrence probability of deleterious ion-ion interaction processes. It has been generally recognized that these ion-ion interaction processes have very little influence on the operation of Yb3+-doped fiber lasers at low and moderate power levels. However, our recent study shows that the performance of Yb3+-doped fiber amplifiers operating at low power levels is still influenced by the ion-ion interaction processes due to the large amount of population at the upper laser level 2F5/2. In this paper, experimental evidences of the ion-ion interaction effects in Yb3+-doped fiber amplifiers are presented and a new model including these effects is developed for the numerical simulation. Our experimental and numerical investigations on the 976 nm and 1030 nm Yb3+-doped silica and phosphate fiber amplifiers show that ion-ion interaction has non-negligible impact on the performance of Yb3+-doped fiber amplifiers indeed, and compared to Yb3+-doped silica fibers, Yb3+-doped phosphate fibers suffer much less from the ion-ion interaction effects due to the much less clustered ions.


The stability of a compositionally buoyant plume, of circular cross-section, rising in a rotating infinite fluid is investigated. Both plume and fluid have the same non-zero kinematic viscosity, ν, and thermal diffusivity, κ. The growth rate of the instability depends on the Taylor number, Ta (which is a dimensionless number measuring the effect of the Coriolis force relative to the viscous force) and on the thickness, s0, of the plume in addition to the Prandtl number, σ(=ν/κ) and the Reynolds number, R (which measures the strength of the forcing). The analysis is restricted to the case of small R. It is found that the presence of rotation enhances instability. A simple model of a single interface separating the two parts of an infinite fluid is investigated first in order to isolate the mechanism responsible for the increase in the growth rate with rotation. It is shown that the Coriolis force interacts with the zonal velocity component to produce a velocity component normal to the interface. For the right choice of wave vector components, this normal velocity component is in phase with the displacement of the interface and this leads to instability. The maximum growth rate is identified in the whole space of the parameters σ, Ta, s0 when R[Lt ]1. While the maximum growth rate is of order R2 in the absence of rotation, it is increased to order R in the presence of rotation. It is also found that the Prandtl number, σ, which has a strong influence on the growth rate in the absence of rotation, plays a subservient role when rotation is present.


The thesis is composed of three essays on auction theory. The focus is mainly on the English auction, which is probably the format most commonly used. In the English auction, a bidder can see his opponents' activity as the price is gradually raised starting from a very low price. When only one bidder is left, such bidder is declared the winner and pays the price at which the last but one bidder exited. The vast majority of the studies assume that the price is raised continuously and that a bidder cannot outbid the current winner by a discrete amount, or to use the terminology employed in the literature to place a jump bid. Such a restriction is often unrealistic and examples of jump bidding can be found in many relevant contexts. In the first two chapters, we analyze settings in which jump bidding is allowed. Previous studies suggest that the possibility of placing a jump bid can be used to signal one's strength and induce the opponents to quit (on average) earlier than they would have otherwise. In our first paper we follow this approach. In particular, as Fishman (1988), we assume that the purpose of signalling is to discourage the opponents from acquiring finer information regarding their valuations. As opposed to Fishman (1988), we look at an environment where bidders' valuations are determined not only by a private (as he does) but also a common value element. We show that the presence of a common element makes jump bidding harder. Secondly, we prove that when the bidder placing the jump knows his total value but not the relative importance of the common value part, a jump bidding equilibrium can be sustained more often and it yields higher profits than when the bidder knows exactly such value. In the second paper, we introduce a different and new rational for jump bidding, which involves no signalling or information costs. In an interdependent value setting, where a bidder's value depends on the valuation of the other bidders, it is crucial whether a bidder's exit price is known or not. Jump bidding offers the possibility of hiding the exit value of some opponent, thus affecting the expected value of the remaining bidders and ultimately their bidding behaviour. We illustrate when hiding such information might be profitable. We also show that its effect both on revenues and efficiency is in general ambiguous. Finally, in the last paper (joint work with Hernando-Veciana) we contribute to the important issue of determining which is the most efficient way to allocate an object among a set of potential buyers. Previous studies provide both conditions under which it is possible to allocate the object to the buyer with the highest willingness to pay (First Best), and mechanisms that can implement such an allocation. We characterize the most efficient allocation when the First Best cannot be implemented. Then, we study whether the English auction can implement it. While an equilibrium of the English Auction that implements the Second Best exists, it is in general not robust if there are more than two bidders.


In recent years, the number of publications that analyze the formation and stability of international environmental agreements (IEAs) using the method of game theory has sharply increased. This paper reports on some recent results that shall demonstrate the usefulness but also the limitation of game theory for the analysis of IEAs. It restricts attention to the class of non-cooperative membership models and focuses on the relation between different designs and the success of IEAs. Results are illustrated for the climate change problem with the empirical Stability of Coalitions (STACO) model developed by Dellink et al. (2004). Subsequently, some features of actual treaty-making not considered with this model are discussed with reference to the literature and their importance for future research is highlighted.


We prove that for every parity decision tree of depth d on n variables, the sum of absolute values of Fourier coefficients at level ℓ is at most dℓ/2 · O(ℓ · log(n))ℓ. Our result is nearly tight for small values of ℓ and extends a previous Fourier bound for standard decision trees by Sherstov, Storozhenko, and Wu (STOC, 2021). As an application of our Fourier bounds, using the results of Bansal and Sinha (STOC, 2021), we show that the k-fold Forrelation problem has (randomized) parity decision tree complexity ΩT(n1−1/k), while having quantum query complexity ⌈k/2⌉. Our proof follows a random-walk approach, analyzing the contribution of a random path in the decision tree to the level-ℓ Fourier expression. To carry the argument, we apply a careful cleanup procedure to the parity decision tree, ensuring that the value of the random walk is bounded with high probability. We observe that step sizes for the level-ℓ walks can be computed by the intermediate values of level ≤ ℓ - 1 walks, which calls for an inductive argument. Our approach differs from previous proofs of Tal (FOCS, 2020) and Sherstov, Storozhenko, and Wu (STOC, 2021) that relied on decompositions of the tree. In particular, for the special case of standard decision trees we view our proof as slightly simpler and more intuitive. In addition, we prove a similar bound for noisy decision trees of cost at most d - a model that was recently introduced by Ben-David and Blais (FOCS, 2020).


Over the past couple of months KAPSULA has sent subscribers two separate releases dealing with CRISIS. We've looked at crisis in art criticism, moments of individual or personal crisis, the crisis of (re)presentation and now, for our final crisis-themed iteration, we turn to focus on our chosen domain: the digital and technological. Considering that many of the most widely publicized and discussed crises have been based in this realm, it may seem surprising that we've taken this long. Over the last couple of years the digital realm, and surveillance thereof, has dominated news stories: the Snowden/NSA/PRISM trinity and the Assange/Wikileaks duo chief among them. We're not going to be investigating surveillance, though—after all, we've already infiltrated your inbox. Instead, the essays are more formal in their scope: exploring the shifting implications of the cyborg figure, and the ramifications of four D cinema.
In early (feminist) discussions the cyborg was presented, by Donna Haraway and other theorists, as a potential figure of resistance and resilience—a marker of difference and defiance. It offered, as Tyler Morgenstern notes, "a conception of the body as negotiable and assembled." Yet, while wearable technologies increasingly make the merging of human and machine an everyday reality, Morgenstern notes that the form of these prosthetic extensions overwhelming veers towards
the invisible and the seamless. This aesthetic sensibility (or, perhaps lack of a sensibility) extends
beyond wearable technologies and into broader conceptions of networks "of all sorts
(financial, military, activist, terrorist)." They aim for erasure. Morgenstern hones in on this
increasing reality, and seeks to understand its ramifications beyond the realm of the formal.
What does this erasure entail? How can it be resisted?
Similarly circling within the realm of recent expansions in corporate technology, Grant Leuning
delves into the topic of four D cinemas, which aim to enhance the movie-going experience
through 'augmented reality' a la moving viewers' chairs, spraying them with water, blasting
them with air and so on. With Leuning, as with Morgenstern, we are in Laura Mulvey's company.
But the association traced by Mulvey and other film theorists is threatened—we've cut
the cord and been expelled from the darkened womb-like state of the theatre. Our comfortable
association with the protagonist character has been disrupted, denied. Instead, our association
has fragmented into each and every element of the highly manufactured environment.
Leuning explains (with echoes of Oppenheimer): "I am become the punch, the robot, the seaspray,
the fight as such, the substance of the film itself." As with Morgenstern, Leuning searches
for sites of plurality and alterity, even at the centre of "gratuitous capitalist innovation."
Despite their contrasting topics both authors are congruent in an emphasis on making obvious
and, to a lesser extent, making physical (perhaps even material). In Leuning, the varied effects
of the four D cinema make countless environmental details obvious, thereby altering the
terms of the viewer's gaze and identification. In Morgenstern, this making obvious is found
in the work of the artists he champions. They use clunky, outdated technology that makes no
attempt at seamless integration, thus embracing incoherence, glitch and the in-between.
In this spirit, then, while reading the issue there should be a few things amiss with the document.
(No need to look hard, it will be obvious.) Text will be garbled, overlaid on top of itself
until it becomes incomprehensible. Be patient; we want your reading to be disrupted, your
attention to be redirected and diverted. Easily achieved, clear reading might not always be the
best reading. Perhaps, if you haven't already, you will gain some appetite for the imperfect, yet
impassioned.


Managing resources in grid computing system is complicated due to the distributed and heterogeneous nature of the resources. This research proposes an enhancement of the ant colony optimization algorithm that caters for dynamic scheduling and load balancing in the grid computing system. The proposed algorithm is known as the enhance ant colony optimization (EACO). The algorithm consists of three new mechanisms that organize the work of an ant colony i.e. initial pheromone value mechanism, resource selection mechanism and pheromone update mechanism. The resource allocation problem is modelled as a graph that can be used by the ant to deliver its pheromone.This graph consists of four types of vertices which are job, requirement, resource and capacity that are used in constructing the grid resource management element. The proposed EACO algorithm takes into consideration the capacity of resources and the characteristics of jobs in determining the best resource to process a job. EACO selects the resources based on the pheromone value on each resource which is recorded in a matrix form. The initial pheromone value of each resource for each job is calculated based on the estimated transmission time and execution time of a given job.Resources with high pheromone value are selected to process the submitted jobs. Global pheromone update is performed after the completion of processing the jobs in order to reduce the pheromone value of resources.A simulation environment was developed using Java programming to test the performance of the proposed EACO algorithm against other ant based algorithm, in terms of resource utilization. Experimental results show that EACO produced better grid resource management solution.


Infectious uveitis is a significant cause of blindness in South Africa, especially among HIV-infected individuals. The visual outcome of uveitis depends on early clinical and laboratory diagnosis to guide therapeutic intervention. Analyses of aqueous humor, obtained by anterior chamber paracentesis, directs the differential diagnosis in infectious uveitis. However, although safe and potentially cost-effective, diagnostic anterior chamber paracentesis is not common practice in ophthalmic care across Africa. We seek to draw attention to this important procedure that could improve the diagnosis and prognosis of infectious uveitis.


Infrared-to-visible photon upconversion has potential applications in photovoltaics, sensing, and bioimaging. We demonstrate a solid-state thin-film device that utilizes sensitized triplet-triplet exciton annihilation, converting infrared photons absorbed by colloidal lead sulfide nanocrystals (NCs) into visible photons emitted from a luminescent dopant in rubrene at low incident light intensities. A typical bilayer device consisting of a monolayer of NCs and a doped film of rubrene is limited by low infrared absorption in the thin NC film. Here, we augment the bilayer with an optical spacer layer and a silver-film back reflector, resulting in interference effects that enhance the optical field and thus the absorption in the NC film. The interference-enhanced device shows an order-of-magnitude increase in the upconverted emission at the wavelength of λ = 610 nm when excited at λ = 980 nm. At incident light intensities above 1.1 W/cm2, the device attains maximum efficiency, converting (1.6 ± 0.2)% of absor...


PURPOSE
Antiemetic effectiveness and safety of aprepitant in patients with hematologic malignancy receiving multiday chemotherapy were evaluated.

METHODS
All data were retrospectively collected from the Kyushu University Hospital's electronic medical record system. Patients age 20 years or older with hematologic malignancies who received multiday chemotherapy were included in the study. All patients received 3 mg of granisetron i.v. 30 minutes before chemotherapy administration. Patients in the aprepitant group received 125 mg of aprepitant orally 60-90 minutes before administration of the first moderately to highly emetogenic chemotherapy (day 1). On day 2 or thereafter, an 80-mg oral dose of aprepitant was administered in the morning for up to five days. The primary endpoint was the percentage of patients who achieved complete response (CR).

RESULTS
A total of 42 patients were treated with aprepitant and granisetron as antiemetic prophylaxis between April and December 2010 (aprepitant group), and 40 patients were treated with only granisetron between March 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010, before the introduction of aprepitant. The percentage of patients who achieved CR in the aprepitant group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p = 0.01). Factors that were significantly associated with non-CR included the prophylactic use of aprepitant and chemotherapies containing ≥4 g/m(2)/day of cytarabine. The rates of adverse drug events (ADEs) did not significantly differ between groups.

CONCLUSION
The addition of aprepitant to granisetron increased the antiemetic effect without influencing ADEs in patients treated with moderately to highly emetogenic multiday chemotherapy for hematologic malignancies.


OBJECTIVE
This study examined the effect of commonly used long and short styles of commercially produced wrist extension orthoses on the activity of the proximal muscles of the shoulder and elbow and on wrist flexor and extensor muscle activity.

METHOD
While 17 women between 22 and 40 years of age (M = 26.6) performed a specified movement wearing each of the two styles of orthosis and without an orthosis, their motor unit recruitment of five proximal joint muscle groups, wrist extensors, and wrist flexors was measured by surface electromyography.

RESULTS
Motor unit recruitment was significantly greater in both orthosis conditions for four of five proximal muscles and for wrist flexors. There were no significant differences between the short and long orthosis conditions for proximal muscle groups.

CONCLUSION
Wearing a wrist extension orthosis appears to place additional stress on the proximal joint musculature beyond that found without splint use. The study has implications for the prescription of wrist extension orthoses, especially for patients whose proximal joints are already compromised.


The construction of realistic characters has become increasingly important to the production of blockbuster films, TV series and computer games. The outfit of character plays an important role in the application of virtual characters. It is one of the key elements reflects the personality of character. Virtual clothing refers to the process that constructs outfits for virtual characters, and currently, it is widely used in mainly two areas, fashion industry and computer animation. In fashion industry, virtual clothing technology is an effective tool which creates, edits and pre-visualises cloth design patterns efficiently. However, using this method requires lots of tailoring expertises. In computer animation, geometric modelling methods are widely used for cloth modelling due to their simplicity and intuitiveness. However, because of the shortage of tailoring knowledge among animation artists, current existing cloth design patterns can not be used directly by animation artists, and the appearance of cloth depends heavily on the skill of artists. Moreover, geometric modelling methods requires lots of manual operations. This tediousness is worsen by modelling same style cloth for different characters with different body shapes and proportions. This thesis addresses this problem and presents a new virtual clothing method which includes automatic character measuring, automatic cloth pattern adjustment, and cloth patterns assembling. There are two main contributions in this research. Firstly, a geodesic curvature flow based geodesic computation scheme is presented for acquiring length measurements from character. Due to the fast growing demand on usage of high resolution character model in animation production, the increasing number of characters need to be handled simultaneously as well as improving the reusability of 3D model in film production, the efficiency of modelling cloth for multiple high resolution character is very important. In order to improve the efficiency of measuring character for cloth fitting, a fast geodesic algorithm that has linear time complexity with a small bounded error is also presented. Secondly, a cloth pattern adjusting genetic algorithm is developed for automatic cloth fitting and retargeting. For the reason that that body shapes and proportions vary largely in character design, fitting and transferring cloth to a different character is a challenging task. This thesis considers the cloth fitting process as an optimization procedure. It optimizes both the shape and size of each cloth pattern automatically, the integrity, design and size of each cloth pattern are evaluated in order to create 3D cloth for any character with different body shapes and proportions while preserve the original cloth design. By automating the cloth modelling process, it empowers the creativity of animation artists and improves their productivity by allowing them to use a large amount of existing cloth design patterns in fashion industry to create various clothes and to transfer same design cloth to characters with different body shapes and proportions with ease.


Background and Aim: A variety of nonneoplastic and neoplastic conditions involving the nasal cavity (NC), paranasal sinuses (PNSs), and nasopharynx are commonly encountered in clinical practice. Etiological factors for the development of sinonasal masses are human papillomavirus 6 and 11, allergens, air pollution, and industrial carcinogens, tobacco, alcohol, and occupational exposure to heavy metal particles. The aim was to explicate and corroborate the CT radiological features of sinonasal masses of benign versus sinister differential diagnosis. Materials and Methods: A total of 50 cases of sinonasal masses were included in this study. Written informed consent from the patients was obtained. Detailed clinical history and local and general examinations were done according to the pro forma attached with a special reference to the nose, PNSs, and oral cavity. These cases were subjected to after routine hematological and biochemical evaluation, nasal endoscopy, X-ray PNSs/computed tomography scan, fine-needle aspiration cytology, and, whenever required, biopsy. Results: On radiological assessment, of 50 patients, 45 patients were declared benign, while as 5 patients were diagnosed as having primary or secondary malignancy involving sino-NCs. Based on bone erosions along with internal hyperdense contents and enhancement pattern, there was some amount of discordance among radiological and histopathological diagnosis. One case which was diagnosed as malignancy (likely metastasis) was found to have invasive fungal sinusitis. Among the three radiologically diagnosed inverted papillomas (based on focal hyperostosis, subtle calcification, and cerebriform enhancement on postcontrast study), only 1 case correlated histopathologically. The rest were hemangioma and schwannoma (very rare). Radiological esthesioneuroblastoma, hemangioma, angiofibroma, and rhinolith correlated well with histopathology. Conclusion: Imaging plays an important role in the evaluation of sinonasal masses. Benign lesions are diagnosed very accurately. The distinction between sinonasal and invasive fungal sinusitis is still debatable, and hence, histopathological correlation is necessary. The presence of significant cervical lymphadenopathy can serve as a surrogate marker of malignancy.


Gold nanoparticles have been thoroughly used in designing thermal ablative therapies and in photoacoustic imaging in cancer treatment owing to their unique and tunable plasmonic properties. While the plasmonic properties highly depend on the size and structure, controllable aggregation of gold nanoparticles can trigger a plasmonic coupling of adjacent electronic clouds, henceforth leading to an increase of light absorption within the near-infrared (NIR) window. Polymer-engraftment of gold nanoparticles has been investigated to achieve the plasmonic coupling phenomenon, but complex chemical steps are often needed to accomplish a biomedically relevant product. An appealing and controllable manner of achieving polymer-based plasmon coupling is a template-assisted Au+3 reduction that ensures in situ gold reduction and coalescence. Among the polymers exploited as reducing agents are polyethyleneimines (PEI). In this study, we addressed the PEI-assisted synthesis of gold nanoparticles and their further aggregation to obtain fractal NIR-absorbent plasmonic nanoaggregates for photothermal therapy and photoacoustic imaging of colorectal cancer. PEI-assisted Au+3 reduction was followed up by UV-visible light absorption, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and photo-thermal conversion. The reaction kinetics, stability, and the photothermal plasmonic properties of the as-synthesized nanocomposites tightly depended on the PEI : Au ratio. We defined a PEI-Au ratio range (2.5-5) for the one-pot synthesis of gold nanoparticles that self-arrange into fractal nanoaggregates with demonstrated photo-thermal therapeutic and imaging efficiency both in vitro and in vivo in a colorectal carcinoma (CRC) animal model.


After the success and rejection of the first expert systems, we are now on the road to designing and developing real intelligent assistant systems, i.e. intelligent systems that use context explicitly. Such systems are called context-based intelligent assistant systems. With the accumulated experience gained from large projects (in our cases two 6-year applications), it is possible to learn from our past failures and the solutions adopted to fill the gaps. First, we developed a successful expert system for a French power company. However, its use in different locations was too strongly constrained by contextual cues. For solving these problems, we concluded that an intelligent system must have a configuration module and a simulation module in addition to the module developed for the main task (e.g. diagnosis or incident management). From a second application for a subway company in Paris (France), we first validate the initial hypothesis about the need of configuration and simulation modules, and then point out the absolute need to make context explicit. This constituted the input for the context-based intelligent assistant system paradigm and its related representation as contextual graphs. In this paper we present the lessons learned from our two applications as well as the main characteristics of context-based intelligent assistant systems with an emphasis on the need to make context explicit. We point out the role of incremental knowledge acquisition, learning and explanation in such context-based systems.


Does the mere presence of big banks affect macroeconomic outcomes? In this paper, we develop a theory of granularity (Gabaix, 2011) for the banking sector, introducing Bertrand competition and heterogeneous banks charging variable markups. Using this framework, we show conditions under which idiosyncratic shocks to bank lending can generate aggregate fluctuations in the credit supply when the banking sector is highly concentrated. We empirically assess the relevance of these granular effects in banking using a linked micro-macro dataset of more than 80 countries for the years 1995-2009. The banking sector for many countries is indeed granular, as the right tail of the bank size distribution follows a power law. We then demonstrate granular effects in the banking sector on macroeconomic outcomes. The presence of big banks measured by high market concentration is associated with a positive and significant relationship between bank-level credit growth and aggregate growth of credit or gross domestic product.


Recently, this laboratory has pursued laser photo-chemistry as a controllable and cost-effective alternative for production of high-priority materials of Army need. In the course of these investigations we routinely do gas-phase irradiations in stainless steel cells (5 × 10 cm) equipped with O-ring seals for securing windows (5-cm diameter) onto the cells. We use ZnSe windows, which take the thermal stress induced by an infrared laser beam, on those windows through which we wish to irradiate a sample. The other windows are KCl or quartz, as defined by our experimental design. We have adopted some modifications into this cell which we would like to share with other spectroscopists in hopes these will be as beneficial to them as they have been to us.


The prediction of the electric demand has become as one of the main investigation fields in the electric engineering. The electric industry needs to predict the load consumption with lead time in the range from the short term (hours or days ahead) to the long term (with several years ahead). The short-term prediction, in particular, has become increasingly important for various operations in power systems, such as economic scheduling of generating capacity, fuel purchase scheduling, security analysis, and planning activities. In addition, since many countries have recently privatized and deregulated their power systems, load forecasting play a crucial role in the final price of the energy. Small errors in the load forecasting have a significant economic impact. However, load forecasting is a difficult task because the load series is complex. First, the series exhibits several level of seasonality, and second, there are many exogenous variables that must be considered, specially weather-related variables. Thus, the relationships between hourly load and these factors are non-linear, so the forecasting problem requires a non-linear specification with a wide number of variables. Conventional load forecasting techniques, categorized into statistical methods, such as multiple regression and Box-Jenkins time series methods, present several limitations : complexity of modeling, lack of flexibility, low accuracy of results, mainly in special days, weekends and holidays, etc. In recent times, much research has been carried out on the application of artificial intelligence techniques to the load forecasting problem. Among these techniques, the models with the highest attention have been the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), mathematical tools originally inspired by the way the human brain processes information. ANNs are being applied to forecasting problems since they have a distributed architecture and their weights store interrelationships between variables without specifying them explicitly in advance. ANNs applications to the forecasting problem usually employ supervised learning in order to implement the non-linear mapping between historical data and future values of load. However, although the ANNs are being used by many utilities, there is certain skepticism among the researchers and the industries. And this, among another reasons, because the issues derived from the design of ANN-based forecasting system. In this conference we shall address the problem of designing a proper ANN attending to the main task to be performed, such as data pre-processing, the ANN design itself and its implementation, and the ANN validation.


Sixty years on from the end of the Pacific War, Japan on Display examines representations of the Meiji emperor, Mutsuhito (1852-1912) and his grandson the Showa emperor, Hirohito who was regarded as a symbol of the nation, in both war and peacetime. Much of this representation was aided by the phenomenon of photography. The introduction and development of photography in the nineteenth century coincided with the need to make Hirohito's grandfather, the young Meiji Emperor, more visible. Photo books and albums became a popular format for presenting seemingly objective images of the monarch, reminding the Japanese of their proximity to the Emperor, and the imperial family. In the twentieth century, these 'national albums' provided a visual record of wars fought in the name of the Emperor, while also documenting the reconstruction of Tokyo, scientific expeditions, and imperial tours. Drawing on archival documents, photographs, and sources in both Japanese and English, this book throws new light on the history of twentieth-century Japan and the central role of Hirohito. With Japan's defeat in the Pacific War, the Emperor was transformed from wartime leader to peace-loving scientist. Japan on Display seeks to understand this reinvention of a more 'human' Emperor and the role that photography played in the process.


This document describes a transport independent protocol for the
management of trust anchors and community identifiers stored in a
trust anchor store. The protocol makes use of the Cryptographic
Message Syntax (CMS), and a digital signature is used to provide
integrity protection and data origin authentication. The protocol can
be used to manage trust anchor stores containing trust anchors
represented as Certificate, TBSCertificate or TrustAnchorInfo objects.


This study tests Teece's conceptualization of dynamic capabilities in the context of small and medium-size firms competing in creative industries, in particular the European audiovisual production industry. This industry is characterized by immature and evolving markets where firms' dynamic capabilities are expected to lead to superior innovative performance. Using survey data from audiovisual producers in ten European countries we find that both sensing and seizing capabilities have a positive effect on firms' innovative performance. The effect, however, is curvilinear, and positive effects appear after when capabilities overcome a threshold level.


Non-professional sports event organisations share many of the characteristics of small businesses. Non-professional sports event organisations often find it difficult
to implement marketing theories and processes that would lead to improved strategic insight and organisational decision-making, which are characteristics associated in
the literature with small business. This study focuses on the measurement of return on marketing investment and in particular, if and how, non-professional sports event
organisations can apply this measurement process. It was expected that measuring return on marketing investment may be difficult to implement in the sports event context due to a number of barriers identified in this study and including a lack of resources, limited marketing skills, a multidimensional product, and the diverse goals
of government and corporations involved in the marketing of sports events.

To explore these potential barriers further, case studies were undertaken of twelve non-professional sports event organisations in Canada. The research initially
explored the context of non-professional sports event organisations and then tested a methodology for calculating return on marketing investment (ROMI). This research
identified that measures of return on marketing investment were not currently being used by the non-professional sports event organisations sampled in this study. The
research also confirmed that barriers existed to adopting strategic marketing concepts and marketing planning approaches including limited marketing skills, insufficient
time, and a lack of organisational will. Moreover, even after being presented with a simple methodology for incorporating a ROMI calculation in the marketing process,
the case organisations found more value in applying the process rather than in the results of the calculation. Consequently, a distinctive gap exists between the
theoretical justifications related to measuring return on marketing investment and the methods and understanding of this process being applied by non-professional sports
event practitioners.

The findings of this study provided some valuable insights for marketing academics and practitioners alike in relation to the need to consider the applicability and relevance of theoretical concepts for small business applications. Whilst the case organizations were able to identify and intuit the benefits of adopting a more strategic marketing approach, most were struggling to implement basic marketing concepts. However, through exposure to a simple model for calculating ROMI, two case organisations were willing to consider adopting simple methods for measuring return on marketing investment. Small business practitioners may not currently apply advanced marketing concepts, but the results of this study indicate it may be possible to reduce the gap between theory and application. To succeed, academics and policy makers must minimize barriers through the development of simplified processes and by explicating the value of undertaking strategic marketing planning and analysis.


When a foreign protein is reinjected one or more times into an animal, two phenomena can be observed. One of them relates to the changes in the reactivity of the animal and comprises the different aspects of anaphylaxis. The second phenomenon concerns the reinjected protein. The first of the two phenomena has been studied much more extensively and has attracted more attention than the second, although the problem of the latter was formulated and presented in clearcut experiments by Dehne and Hamburger 1 as early as 1904. The various phases of this problem in animals have since then been investigated by a number of authors. In spite of the controversies that are natural and unavoidable in the study of any subject, the results obtained by a large majority of the writers are sufficiently consistent to justify the statement that as far as the experimental animal is concerned the problem may


Article history: Received 4 September 2014 Received in revised form 24 November 2014 Accepted 8 December 2014 Available online 16 December 2014


Abstract A descriptive case study approach is employed using a content analysis of the blogs of 36 school leaders who took part in the 2016–2017 Shadow a Student Challenge project and follow up interviews of five of the school leaders. This research was used to explore and describe how an empathetic design approach provided a greater vantage point for school leaders. By viewing school through the eyes of students, school leaders gain a deeper insight into the school experience. School leaders play a key role in establishing the culture, climate, and educational outcomes within their school environments. An empathetic design approach to school reform provides a stronger point for initiating change than an atmosphere focused on evaluation and accountability. Taking a school-based approach, encouraging school leaders to immerse themselves in the school experience, provides an opportunity for school leaders to gain empathy and insights foundational in generating meaningful and innovative change leading to sustainable education. Three major themes emerged from the findings: 1) pace and structure of the school day, 2) student learning experience, and 3) reflective and innovative insights.


The Mountain West: Interpreting the Folk Landscape. By Terry G. Jordan, Jon T. Kilpinen, and Charles E Gritzner. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Pp. xii + 160, photographs, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $35.95 cloth) Terry G. Jordan's most recent cultural-geographical study of material culture in western North America will be of interest to folklorists specializing in vernacular architecture and to those interested in the West as a cultural region. In this book Jordan teams up with Jon T. Kilpinen and Charles F. Gritzner, cultural geographers, like Jordan, who have published previously about western log architecture. Reviewing this volume, I find myself liking the end but not the means: The authors' conclusions regarding the West's complexity ring true to me, but their methodology and rejection of theory are problematic. In their introduction Jordan, Kilpinen, and Gritzner argue for the interpretive superiority of cultural geography in addressing the "debate [between Turnerian and Webbian views] concerning the cultural roots of the region" (5). In answering the question of whether the West is continuous with the East or is a place of cultural innovations, they declare themselves unimpressed with the findings and methods of the New Western Historians, who "have added little to" this debate (5). Moreover, they claim also to "disdain social scientific theory, an opiate which only clouds the mind and distorts the observation" (8). These disclaimers call into question their declaration that they can make "a straightforward reading and interpretation" of the western landscape (9). Is any "reading" possible which is not guided by theory, whether or not that theory is articulated? There is no need to be coy: The authors clearly are using cultural-ecological theory when they point to "cultural preadaptation" to explain why many eastern artifacts did not make it West (126), and more familiar cultural geographic theories, such as diffusion and the doctrine of first effective settlement, permeate the book. The authors' method consists of sampling the "greater artifacts" still extant on the western landscape (9). These greater artifacts are log dwellings and outbuildings, wooden fences, and hay stackers, cribs, and shelters. The focus is not, then, on whole assemblages of artifacts, but rather on artifacts selected for their presumed ability to "mirror" the assemblages which may exist (131). Because the authors look for variation across geography rather than over time, their method lumps together artifacts dating from the mid-nineteenth century through the 1920s. …


Spoofing is one of the newest forms of cyber-attack, a technological methodology adapted to mask the identity of spammers who have faced hostile reaction in response to bulk, unsolicited, electronic mail messages.[1] Sending Spam, however, is no longer the only reason for deception, as crackers have taken pleasure in the challenge of manipulating computer systems and, additionally, find recreational enjoyment in doing so. In this legal Note, the author's intent is to show that criminal, rather than civil liability is the best way to effectively deter and punish the spoofer. The injury that results when a computer system's technological safety measures fail to adequately safeguard the system affects not only the owner of the hijacked e-mail address, but also the Internet Service Provider, and the Network as a whole. Current Anti-Spam Legislation is arguably ineffective at targeting these particular types of malicious attacks, and a different legal approach is suggested.


The provision of medical care typically involves a number of individuals, located in a number of different institutions, whose decisions and actions need to be coordinated if the care is to be effective and efficient. To facilitate this decision making and to ensure the coordination process runs smoothly, the use of software support is becoming increasingly widespread. To this end, this paper describes an agent-based system which was developed to help manage the care process in real world settings. The agents themselves are implemented using a layered architecture, called AADCare, which combines a number of AI and agent techniques: a symbolic decision procedure for decision making with incomplete and conflicting information, a concept of accountability for task allocation, the notions of commitments and conventions for managing coherent cooperation, and a set of communication primitives for interagent interaction. The utility of this approach is demonstrated through the development of an application prototype for the clinical process of cancer treatment.


The main purpose of this investigation was to explore the potential benefits of structural functional surfaces using facilities available within the University. The potential benefits were demonstrated by applying functional surfaces to a set of particular engineering applications. The thesis mainly concentrated on improving the frictional performance of a surface structure for hydrodynamic bearing application. This thesis has also included some preliminary investigation into drag-reducing riblet structures but this chapter mainly discusses the development of a novel experimental apparatus which is needed for precise boundary layer profile measurements and also to obtain the actual surface drag for each sample. To be able to assess these surfaces experimentally, they first, have to be manufactured. So, an extensive literature review of current manufacturing technologies was carried out. Each manufacturing method was ranked in its ability to cost-effectively produce surfaces with accuracy and repeatability also being considered. It was concluded that rolling, currently, has the best ability to structure large surface areas with the lowest costs associated. Other manufacturing methods, such as laser surface texturing, provide excellent repeatability and accuracy as well as the ability to create complex surface structures but is incredibly time-consuming for large surface areas. It was suggested that a hybrid of multiple manufacturing technologies would be incredibly useful for structuring surfaces. By combining rolling with more elaborate surface texturing methods (i.e. use a method such as LST to texture the roller surface), it is possible to amplify the productivity of less efficient methods, substantially. Before any journal components were textured, it was decided to test a batch of ground components. These components were finished with an abrasive tape process. The process parameters were varied for each sample and by doing this, a set of components with different roughness characteristics should have been obtained. The components were measured for 2D roughness parameters, 3D roughness parameters and surface energy. The components were tested on a tribometer apparatus in order to obtain a coefficient of friction (COF) for each sample. Correlation coefficients were then generated for the different surface measurements against COF, so that any strong correlations or trends could be identified. The idea was to try and obtain a reliable performance indicator (PI) so that frictional losses could be identified. It was found that the roughness parameters Sc (core void voume), Ssc (mean summit curvature) and Rku/Sku (profile/surface kurtosis) showed promise in the ability to predict the performance of a surface. The next stage was to texture the surface of the journal component. This would done by the application of the type III texturing grinding process, described by Stepien (Surface Engineering, 24: 219-225), to the cylindrical grinding process. Some initial components were manufactured and the textures generated were found to be of an ellipsoidal shape. In order to guarantee the benefits of such surfaces, the configuration of the surface pattern has to be optimised. A python script was developed during this investigation in order to automate a full modelling process. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling used a full 3D Navier-Stokes approximation. This script was used in conjunction with the Taguchi optimisation technique and a best surface configuration was found, resulting in a maximum surface drag reduction of 16.6% at a 3μm clearance. Further grinding trials were performed and the input parameters of the process were designed so that surface patterns were close to the recommendations of the optimisation process. The performance of the textured samples was impressive, with a maximum reduction in COF of 18.4% seen against a non-textured component with similar average roughness (Sa) value. Again, all components were measured for the aforementioned roughness parameters and surface energy. Sku continued to predict the best-performing component, showing promise as PI for both non-textured and textured samples.


Purpose: To compare different IMRT planning strategies for patients with metal hip prostheses and to determine the impact of increasing the number of beam directions. Methods: All plans were generated fully automated (i.e., no human trial‐and‐error interaction) using iCycle, our in‐house developed algorithm for multicriterial optimization of beam angles and fluence profiles, allowing objective comparisons of planning strategies. For 18 prostate cancer patients (eight with bilateral hip prostheses, ten with a right‐sided unilateral prosthesis), two planning strategies were evaluated: i) full exclusion of beams containing beamlets that would deliver dose to the target after passing through a prosthesis (IMRTremove, as recommended by AAPM taskgroup 63), and ii) exclusion of those beamlets plus a 5 mm margin only (IMRTcut). Plans with optimized coplanar and non‐coplanar beam arrangements were generated. Differences in PTV coverage and sparing of organs at risk (OARs) were quantified. The impact of beam number on plan quality was evaluated. Results: Especially for patients with bilateral hip prostheses, IMRTcut significantly improved rectum and bladder sparing compared to IMRTremove, while adequate PTV coverage was maintained. For 9‐beam coplanar plans, rectum V60Gy reduced by 17.5% ± 15.0% (maximum 37.4%, p=0.036) and rectum Dmean by 9.4% ± 7.8% (maximum 19.8%, p=0.036). Further improvements in OAR sparing were achievable by using non‐coplanar beam set‐ups, reducing rectum V60Gy by another 4.6% ± 4.9% (p=0.012) for non‐coplanar 9‐beam IMRTcut plans. Larger reductions in rectum V60Gy, by on average 13.5% ± 7.9% (p=0.012), were observed when comparing 7‐and 15‐beam coplanar plans. Conclusion: Excluding only beamlets that pass through a prosthesis prior to delivering dose to the PTV (IMRTcut strategy) significantly improved OAR sparing as opposed to full exclusion of beams containing such beamlets. Application of non‐coplanar beam arrangements and, to a larger extent, an increased number of beams further improved plan quality.


Viral evolution is revealed by giant viruses encoding multiple components of the protein translation machinery. The evolution of giant virus genomes Some giant viruses encode a genome larger than that of some bacteria, but their evolutionary history is a mystery. Examining the genomes within a sample from a wastewater treatment plant in Austria, Schulz et al. assembled a previously undiscovered giant virus genome, which they used to mine genetic databases for related viruses. The authors thus identified a group of giant viruses with more genes encoding components of the protein translation machinery, including aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases, than in other giant viruses. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that the genes were acquired in an evolutionarily recent time frame, likely from, and as an adaptation to, their hosts. Science, this issue p. 82 The discovery of giant viruses blurred the sharp division between viruses and cellular life. Giant virus genomes encode proteins considered as signatures of cellular organisms, particularly translation system components, prompting hypotheses that these viruses derived from a fourth domain of cellular life. Here we report the discovery of a group of giant viruses (Klosneuviruses) in metagenomic data. Compared with other giant viruses, the Klosneuviruses encode an expanded translation machinery, including aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases with specificities for all 20 amino acids. Notwithstanding the prevalence of translation system components, comprehensive phylogenomic analysis of these genes indicates that Klosneuviruses did not evolve from a cellular ancestor but rather are derived from a much smaller virus through extensive gain of host genes.


Abstract: I first examine new governance as the compound of multilevel and network governance. I structure its main claims around the principles of partnership and flexibility, which serve to demote the notions of stateness, publicity, legalism, and hierarchy. I use the Open Method of Coordination as case study. I end this part with a critique on several counts: over-comprehensiveness, concealment of the administrative state, dubious democratic credentials, and suppression of political contestation. A second narrative of new governance focuses on democracy and administrative law. I explain the dynamics of administrative interweaving in the EU, exposing the interplay of difference and commonality and the resilience of stateness, publicity, legalism and hierarchy. I use experimentalist governance as the basis for a further research agenda that would incorporate a notion of the public in administrative terms based on the premise of politics as managing differentiation.


With a monetary union in place, many European countries are now debating if and how to coordinate their tax policies. Of particular interest to EU ministers is taxation of mobile factors like capital. Mendoza and Tesar (MT) use a game-theoretic approach to address the question, What is the outcome of tax competition and tax coordination when countries choose the tax on capital income and adjust other tax rates to keep revenues constant? MT predict very large welfare gains (losses) to tax competition for European countries that had high (low) tax rates prior to financial integration. In particular they predict a large gain for the United Kingdom and a large loss for countries in continental Europe. A second finding is that the welfare gains of tax coordination relative to that of tax competition are small. I discuss these findings in light of current policy debates and possible future extensions of this work.


In the current paper, and for the first time, spectrophotometry coupled with a set of factorial designs was executed as a new tool for investigating the interaction between p-synephrine (p-SY) and p-chloranil (p-CHL). Two types of complexes were observed as a result of this interaction. The first complex, an intermolecular charge transfer complex, was measured at 452 nm, while the second, an intramolecular charge transfer complex, was measured at 536 nm. A chemometric assisted screening and optimization of the absorbance at the two wavelengths was scrutinized. As a screening procedure, a 2-level full factorial design (2k-FFD) was employed. Method variables, such as reaction temperature, heating time, reagent volume, and solvent type were considered and the response was measured at the individual wavelengths. With the help of Pareto analysis, and ANOVA testing (following a response transformation employing Box–Cox treatment), variables ascertained to be significant (p < 0.05) were selected. Significant factors were carefully adjusted, exploiting a response surface methodology (RSM) with a face-centered central composite design (FCCCD). Afterwards, and with the help of the overlaid contour plots, and Derringer's desirability function, the multiple responses (Y1 and Y2) were simultaneously optimized and consolidated into a unified performance characteristic. The proposed model denoted the efficacy of experimental designs in adjusting the reaction variables and maximizing the output. Scott's plot, and other models were used to determine the formation constant of a 1 : 1 complex. Validation of the proposed procedure was performed using ANOVA. Linearity, detection and quantification limits as well as accuracy, within-day and intermediate precisions have been assessed following ICH guidelines for evaluation of analytical procedures.


Bestselling military historian Richard Holmes delivers an expertly written and exhilarating account of the life of John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough and Britain's finest soldier, who rose from genteel poverty to lead his country to glory, cementing its position as a major player on the European stage and saviour of the Holy Roman Empire. John Churchill is, by any reasonable analysis, Britain's greatest-ever soldier. He mastered strategy, tactics and logistics. His big four battles, Blenheim (which saved the Holy Roman Empire), Ramilies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet were events at the very centre of the European stage. He captured Lille, France's second city, overran Bavaria and beat a succession of French marshals so badly that one, the squat and energetic Bofflers, was rewarded by Louis XIV for only losing moderately. A coalition manager long before the phrase was invented, he commanded a huge polyglot army with centrifugal political tendencies and bending it to his will by sheer force of personality. Yet John Churchill was also deeply controversial. He accepted a pension from one of Charles II's mistresses for services vigorously rendered. He owed his rise and his peerage to James II yet, determined to be on the winning side, he deserted him in his hour of need in 1688. He maintained regular correspondence with the Jacobites while serving William and Mary and with the French while fighting Louis XIV. He made money on a prodigious scale, but was notoriously tight-fisted, long regretting an annuity given to a secretary whose quick-wittedness saved him from capture. But in the age when commissions were bought and sold, and commanders often owed their position to the hue of their blood, he never lost his soldier's confidence.


Autonomous navigation in real-world industrial environments is a challenging task in many respects. One of the key open challenges is fast planning and execution of trajectories to reach arbitrary target positions and orientations with high accuracy and precision, while taking into account non-holonomic vehicle constraints. In recent years, lattice-based motion planners have been successfully used to generate kinematically and kinodynamically feasible motions for non-holonomic vehicles. However, the discretized nature of these algorithms induces discontinuities in both state and control space of the obtained trajectories, resulting in a mismatch between the achieved and the target end pose of the vehicle. As endpose accuracy is critical for the successful loading and unloading of cargo in typical industrial applications, automatically planned paths have not be widely adopted in commercial AGV systems. The main contribution of this paper addresses this shortcoming by introducing a path smoothing approach, which builds on the output of a lattice-based motion planner to generate smooth drivable trajectories for non-holonomic industrial vehicles. In real world tests presented in this paper we demonstrate that the proposed approach is fast enough for online use (it computes trajectories faster than they can be driven) and highly accurate. In 100 repetitions we achieve mean end-point pose errors below 0.01 meters in translation and 0.002 radians in orientation. Even the maximum errors are very small: only 0.02 meters in translation and 0.008 radians in orientation.


Background: Problem Based leammg (PBL) is increasingly becoming popular worldwide. The Department ofAnatomy at the College of Medicine University of Lagos recently introduced the problem based learning approach as the style of teaching physiotherapy students in their basic medical science year.
 Objective: This survey investigated the students' view of the programme, its impact on their learning as well as constraining factors.
 Methods: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted at the end of the basic science academic year. The sample was the whole of a group of physiotherapy student that went through the PBL programme of the Department for one year. Results were collated and data processed using computer Microsoft excel in windows office 2003 software.
 Results: Astatistically significantproportion ofthe group rated the programme favorably and indicated it was of benefit to their learning experience. Identified areas oftheir learning positively impacted on include; increase in amount of knowledge (81 %), better levels of interaction among colleagues (69%), improved literary research and problem solving skills (72%), higher level of confidence (81 %) and an increased eagerness for clinical school (95%).
 Conclusion: Problem Based Learning programme can be beneficial to pioneer physiotherapy students in basic medical science year even when it is administered newly by a Department that is still developing in the programme.
 Key Words: Problem Based Learning, Physiotherapy Students, Anatomy.


— Waste management has become a prominent topic as waste is a burning dispute in the modern world. There will be so many social and environmental issues if the generated waste is not managed properly. There are so many valuable compounds mixed with this waste that can be effectively used in a more beneficial and profitable way. The preparation of organic fertilizer by utilizing those valuable compounds will create a solution to reduce the harmful effects on waste and the effects occurred by using chemical fertilizers as well. Underused waste which are used to prepare this fertilizer contains the nutrients which plant required for their growth. In this research, paddy is focused as it is one of the major crops in Sri Lanka which has so many complain about being contaminated with heavy metals with the use of chemical fertilizers. Organic fertilizer is developed with cow bone, citrus peel, banana peel, eggshells as well as adding dried neem leaves. Neem is added to give pest repellent behavior to the fertilizer. The developed fertilizer is added to the paddy field to identify the impact of organic fertilizer. The paddy after three weeks of the fertilizer applied start fast-growing without any pest damages.


ABSTRACT

A three-stage collector was used to collect size-resolved cloud samples at the summit of Mt. Tai. Subsequently, analyses of pH values, water-soluble ions, and trace metals were performed and bacterial community were conducted using MiSeq amplicon sequencing. The pH values of the samples decreased as droplet sizes decreased. Sulfate (SO42–), nitrate (NO3–) and ammonium (NH4+) were the main secondary inorganic ions which their concentration distributed significantly different from size-resolved cloud water. The NH4+ concentration was higher in smaller droplets. The SO42– and NO3– concentrations were higher in larger droplets. The Ca2+ concentration increased as droplet size increased. Small droplet samples tended to have lower pH value, mainly because of the more acidic (SO42– and NO3–) and less acid-neutralizing (NH4+ and Ca2+) components. The bacterial community in size-resolved cloud samples were firstly recognized and dominated by the genera of Lactococcus (average abundance 34.9%) and Bacillus (average abundance 34.0%). Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) revealed differences of the bacterial community in size-resolved cloud water samples, which was probably caused by the bacterial size. Redundancy analysis suggested several minor correlations that the H2O2, NO2– concentrations, and trace metals exert effects on the bacterial community.


We propose to measure nonadiabaticity of molecular quantum dynamics rigorously with the quantum fidelity between the Born-Oppenheimer and fully nonadiabatic dynamics. It is shown that this measure of nonadiabaticity applies in situations where other criteria, such as the energy gap criterion or the extent of population transfer, fail. We further propose to estimate this quantum fidelity efficiently with a generalization of the dephasing representation to multiple surfaces. Two variants of the multiple-surface dephasing representation (MSDR) are introduced, in which the nuclei are propagated either with the fewest-switches surface hopping or with the locally mean field dynamics (LMFD). The LMFD can be interpreted as the Ehrenfest dynamics of an ensemble of nuclear trajectories, and has been used previously in the nonadiabatic semiclassical initial value representation. In addition to propagating an ensemble of classical trajectories, the MSDR requires evaluating nonadiabatic couplings and solving the Schrödinger (or more generally, the quantum Liouville-von Neumann) equation for a single discrete degree of freedom. The MSDR can be also used in the diabatic basis to measure the importance of the diabatic couplings. The method is tested on three model problems introduced by Tully and on a two-surface model of dissociation of NaI.


Just-in-time return-oriented programming (JIT-ROP) is a powerful memory corruption attack that bypasses various forms of code randomization. Execute-only memory (XOM) can potentially prevent these attacks, but requires source code. In contrast, destructive code reads (DCR) provide a trade-off between security and legacy compatibility. The common belief is that DCR provides strong protection if combined with a high-entropy code randomization. The contribution of this paper is twofold: first, we demonstrate that DCR can be bypassed regardless of the underlying code randomization scheme. To this end, we show novel, generic attacks that infer the code layout for highly randomized program code. Second, we present the design and implementation of BGDX (Byte-Granular DCR and XOM), a novel mitigation technique that protects legacy binaries against code inference attacks. BGDX enforces memory permissions on a byte-granular level allowing us to combine DCR and XOM for legacy, off-the-shelf binaries. Our evaluation shows that BGDX is not only effective, but highly efficient, imposing only a geometric mean performance overhead of 3.95 % on SPEC.


Mitochondria are essential to the process of cell respiration and steroidogenesis. Both of these processes impact the viability of the corpus luteum, which is required to maintain early pregnancy. In cattle and other species, progesterone supports gestation, regulates embryogenesis and works in concert with estrogen to maintain the reproductive tract. Many investigators have sought to understand the processes that control regression of the corpus luteum. Two prostaglandins, PGF2! and PGE2, have been implicated in the functioning of this transient gland. It is accepted by most researchers that the primary luteolysin responsible for functional and structural demise of the corpus luteum is PGF2!. However, there is ambiguity between reported effects of PGF2! and PGE2 on whole cells and on animals in vivo. Therefore, the specific effects of these prostaglandins on oxygen consumption and progesterone secretion in mitochondria isolated from bovine corpora lutea are the focus of this dissertation. A decrease in oxygen consumption and a concomitant decrease in ATP may contribute to luteolysis. These in vitro studies using isolated mitochondria may help to resolve these questions. The first objective was to determine the influence of PGF2! and PGE2 on the oxygen consumption of mitochondria isolated from bovine corpora lutea. The second objective was to determine the effect of both of these prostaglandins on mitochondrial progesterone production. This is the first time that the direct effects of PGF2! on mitochondrial cellular respiration and steroidogenesis have been studied in the corpora lutea of any species. These results will expand information in the area of ovarian physiology and may clarify the roles of PGF2! and PGE2 in corpus luteum function. PGF2! and PGE2 Their Effects on Cell Respiration and Steroidogenesis in the Bovine Corpus Luteum Charlotte Bidwell Bacon B.S., Denison University, 1957 M.A., Bowling Green State University, 1960


In cyber attack monitoring systems, various types of visualizations, such as geographical visualization, temporal visualization, logical visualization, are being used. Each visualization has its own advantages and disadvantages. Since it is important to analyze the information from different viewpoints and to make a right decision in practical cyber attack monitoring, these visualization should be highly integrated.This paper describes a visualization system for cyber threat monitoring named STARMINE, which integrates three different views, that is geographical, temporal, and logical views, of the cyber threat in 3-D space. Since three views are seen simultaneously and are synchronized, it is helpful for administrators to analyze the threats much more easily. As an example, the propagation of Sasser.D worm were shown.


The development of an intelligent image content-based search engine for the World-Wide Web is presented. This system will offer a new form of media representation and access of content available in the WWW. Information web crawlers continuously traverse the Internet and collect images that are subsequently indexed based on integrated feature vectors. As a basis for the indexing, the K-means algorithm is used, modified so as to take into account the coherence of the regions. Based on the extracted regions, characteristic features are extracted using color texture and shape/region boundary information. These features along with additional information such as the URL location and the date of index procedure are stored in a database. The user can access and search this indexed content through the Web with an advanced and user-friendly interface. The output of the system is a set of links to the content available in the WWW, ranked according to their similarity to the image submitted by the user. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the system.


We present the first ferromagnetically-coupled Er3+ complex with linked, high-anisotropy Er-COT (COT2- = cyclooctatetraene dianion) subunits. The dinuclear complex, [Er(μ2-Cl)(COT)(THF)]2, demonstrates single-molecule magnetism with a single, zero-field magnetization relaxation barrier of Ueff = 113 cm-1. This system offers evidence that anisotropy can be preserved in the presence of ferromagnetic linking of the Er-COT subunits, providing a rational means to build strong molecular magnets of tunable dimensionality.


Abstract The aim of the study was to determine the impact of increased forest management due to natural disasters on particular core unit costs. We analysed the direct costs for the Forest District of Węgierska Górka in the years 2004-2010 based on information from the State Forests lnformation System (SFIS) database compared with selected forest districts within the Regional Directorate of State Forests in Cracow (RDSF). The forest districts were divided into two groups with two and six forest districts and confidence intervals around the mean were determined and the significance of linear regressions of the considered characteristics was tested. Additionally, the growth rate (decrease) of the unit cost was calculated. Our studies showed that natural disasters affect only certain unit costs regardless of the intensity of the forest management. The increase in unit costs resulted in economic losses in forest management. A full long-term analysis of the economic impact of natural disasters should be done, taking into account the cost of reforestation of destroyed areas which may become apparent only some years later.


Introduction: Periodontal disease (PD) is the most common bone destructive chronic inflammatory disease in humans. Severe PD affects 8-15% of the population and impacts on the ability to chew and appearance, reduces quality of life, and is responsible for a substantial proportion of dental care costs. A dysbiotic oral biofilm is necessary but insufficient for development of PD. Rather, a dysregulated immune response to the disease-associated biofilm results in destruction of tooth supporting structures and eventual tooth loss. Despite the apparent involvement of the immune system in PD, clinical management focuses solely on the mechanical removal of the oral biofilm – with partial success and frequent recurrence. Therefore, a better understanding of the immune response in PD could highlight potential novel preventative and therapeutic strategies. T cells are present at sites of PD; however, there remains ambiguity regarding whether these T cells are protective or destructive in PD. The aim of these studies was to characterize CD4+ T cells in a P. gingivalis-induced murine model of PD.
Results: P. gingivalis-infected mice displayed subtle changes in their CD4+ T cell compartment, predominantly in the draining lymph nodes (dLNs). Such changes included a suggested increase in T follicular helper cells, a trend towards a decrease in regulatory T cells and a trend towards increased production of IFN-γ. Elevated levels of IFN-γ were also noted in gingival CD8+ T cells and splenocytes, with similar trends in CD8+ T cells from dLNs. The transcriptome of CD4+ T cells isolated from gingivae and dLNs of P. gingivalis–infected suggested minimal changes in gene expression following infection; however, identified a profile of the mucosal oral CD4+ T cell compared with CD4+ T cells of the dLN. To investigate the response of CD4+ T cells specific for P. gingivalis, the bacteria were genetically manipulated to express ovalubumin (OVA) peptide 323-339. However, these OVA peptide expressing P. gingivalis failed to induce a response in OVA-specific T cells, both in vitro and in vivo.
Conclusion: These data imply that CD4+ T cells do not substantially change upon P. gingivalis infection in a murine model. IFN-γ production, however, was elevated both locally and systemically. Together, the data presented in this thesis and data previously published warrant further investigations into the role of IFN-γ in PD and may point to IFN-γ as a biomarker or biological target for adjunctive PD therapy.