Recent work in sensor network energy optimization has shown that batch-and-send networks can significantly reduce network energy consumption. Batch-and-send networks rely on effective batch data transport protocols, but the throughput of state-of-the-art protocols is low. We present conditional immediate transmission, a novel packet forwarding mechanism, with which we achieve a 109 kbit/s raw data throughput over a 6-hop multi-channel 250 kbit/s 802.15.4 network; 97% of the theoretical upper bound. We show that packet copying is the bottleneck in high-throughput packet forwarding and that by moving packet copying off the critical path, we nearly double the end-to-end throughput. Our results can be seen as an upper bound on the achievable throughput over a single-route, multi-channel, multi-hop 802.15.4 network. While it might be possible to slightly improve our performance, we are sufficiently close to the theoretical upper bound for such work to be of limited value. Rather, our results suggests that other mechanisms, such as multi-route forwarding, may be fruitful way to further improve multi-hop throughput.


We have previously reported on the fabrication and displacement output of electroactive polymer (EAP) microactuators less than 1 mm in length. The main limiting factor hindering their further miniaturization and their displacement output was the thickness of the commercially available polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane used (~ 110 μm). In this study, we have reduced the thickness of the PVDF layer using a spin-coating technique and then electrochemically deposited polypyrrole layers on both sides of this thin film to make ultrathin-film EAP substrates with a thickness of 48 μm. We then employed a laser ablation technique to fabricate microsized EAP actuators as small as 200 μm in length and 50 μm in width that can operate in both dry and aqueous media. This is the minimum-size EAP microactuator to be reported in the literature. Based on the operation principle of these actuators, we model them as a microcantilever beam under a uniformly distributed load. We then establish bending displacement and blocking force models to perform the following: (1) to estimate the actuation force, actuation moment, tip deflection, flexural rigidity, and strain energies per unit volume and mass for a set of microactuators as big as 850 μm × 250 μm × 126 μm and as small as 200 μm × 50 μm × 48 μm and (2) to evaluate their performance metrics.


Early amniote development is a highly regulative and self-organized process, capable to adapt to interference through cell-cell interactions, which are widely believed to be mediated by molecules. Analyzing intact and mechanically perturbed avian embryos, we show that the mechanical forces that drive embryogenesis self-organize in an analog of Turing's molecular reaction-diffusion model, with contractility locally self-activating and the ensuing tension acting as a long-range inhibitor. This mechanical feedback governs the persistent pattern of tissue flows that shape the embryo and steers the concomitant emergence of embryonic territories by modulating gene expression, ensuring the formation of a single embryo under normal conditions, yet allowing the emergence of multiple, well-proportioned embryos upon perturbations. Thus, mechanical forces are a central signal in embryonic self-organization, feeding back onto gene expression to canalize both patterning and morphogenesis.


Lithuanian lawyers allot more and more attention to the analysis of the constitutional status of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania. Those examinations reveal the problems of formation of the doctrines of constitutional justice as well as the perspectives of improvement of the activities of the Constitutional Court. And it is not accidental that scientists' attention towards the Constitutional Court increases. While studying urgent problems regarding implementation of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania one may reveal not only the development of constitutional justice but also more general laws of the Lithuanian constitutional system. However, one cannot leave unmentioned that not enough attention is paid to legal phenomena of the Lithuania between two World Wars, and, to be more precise, to development of the doctrine of constitutional review. Politically and legally acknowledging the continuity of the Republic of Lithuania, it is impossible not to look back at the past and not to appreciate those phenomena which influenced the concept of the now functioning Constitutional Court. One of those phenomena was the Statutory Court of Klaipėda region. The Law on the establishment of that institution was promulgated on 13 March 1935. True, while evaluating the legal status of the Statutory Court, one cannot avoid confronting a more general problem, i.e. the urgent issues of the interaction between the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and the Statute of Klaipėda region. In this context one may consider differently the legal origin of the Statutory Court, however, in all cases one has to underline that for the first time in the history of Lithuania a possibility was created to examine the lawfulness of a legal act. The Statutory Court had to determine if legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania and those of the institutions of Klaipėda region were in conformity with the Statute of Klaipėda region. The author assents to the conclusion made by Lithuanian scientists between two World Wars that the Statute of Klaipėda region was a constituent part of the Lithuanian constitutional system. With regard to this there are preconditions to assert that the assessment of legal acts concerning their compliance with the Statute was the constitutional problem of these acts as well. Thus, when examining the urgent problems of constitutionality, one has to take into account that already in the Lithuania between two World Wars there were legal phenomena which were approaching the conception of traditional constitutional justice. Due to political reasons the Statutory Court did not really start functioning. However, passing of the Law on the Statutory Court and the conception of the Court formulated therein meant that in Lithuania of that time the question of constitutionality of legal acts was already urgent.


This is the most culturally sophisticated history of the Internet yet written. We cant make sense of what the Internet means in our lives without reading Schultes elegant account of what the Internet has meant at various points in the past 30 years.Siva Vaidhyanathan, Chair of the Department of Media Studies at The University of VirginiaIn the 1980s and 1990s, the internet became a major player in the global economy and a revolutionary component of everyday life for much of the United States and the world. It offered users new ways to relate to one another, to share their lives, and to spend their timeshopping, working, learning, and even taking political or social action. Policymakers and news media attemptedand often struggledto make sense of the emergence and expansion of this new technology. They imagined the internet in conflicting terms: as a toy for teenagers, a national security threat, a new democratic frontier, an information superhighway, a virtual reality, and a framework for promoting globalization and revolution.Schulte maintains that contested concepts had material consequences and helped shape not just our sense of the internet, but the development of the technology itself.Cachedfocuses on how people imagine and relate to technology, delving into the political and cultural debates that produced the internet as a core technology able to revise economics, politics, and culture, as well as to alter lived experience. Schulte illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.Stephanie Ricker Schulteis an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Arkansas.In theCritical Cultural Communicationseries


We test whether financial incentives have an effect on weight reduction in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups. While two treatment groups obtain €150 and €300, respectively, for achieving an individually assigned target weight within four months, a control group receives no such premium. The results indicate that the weight losses for the treatment groups are 2.6 and 2.9 percentage points higher than that achieved by the control group, raising the average total weight loss for the incentivized groups to 5 percent of the initial weight. This percentage is typically regarded as a threshold to improve the health status of the obese. Further evidence indeed indicates some health improvements. The higher reward causes only the group of obese women to lose more weight. Overall, the results suggest that financial incentives can motivate people to lose weight significantly.


DOI: 10.21276/sjeat.2018.3.8.5 Abstract: Over the past two decades in Qatar, designers and planners focused on design merits of high-rise buildings and the impact on the skyline and the city image, discarding the integration of the buildings with the ground level. This research study investigates the sustainability and livability of the public realm within high-rise districts, focusing on the business district of West Bay, Doha, State of Qatar, as a case study. In West Bay, tall buildings have security gates and parking spaces on the ground level that weaken the livability and vitality of the street. Therefore, to enhance livability, the built environment should provide a vibrant social urban ground level. Insufficient parking spaces along with the lack of public transportation choices frustrate people and intensify the traffic congestion in West Bay. The lack of services and amenities within the residential towers accompanied with poor pedestrian circulation make it hard to perform everyday activities. The spatial segregation in West Bay translates into a distinct functional spatialisation. Also, most buildings in West Bay are single-use occupancy, with clusters of retail, services and catering activities, their spatialisation does not provide for an overlap of movement between the working occupants and the recreational ones. The research study aims to study the relationship between built environment and livability on the street level of the existing spatial environments on the micro urban scale of West Bay. Therefore, this research project aims to fill the gap in the literature regarding design-based research that provides solutions to existing limitations in the physical environment. The strategy includes a summary of the literature, site analyses and resultant design vision for a sustainable livable development concept for the study area, the business district of West Bay


INTRODUCTION: Mobile phones have become indispensable in the daily lives of men and women around the globe. As cell phone use has become more widespread, concerns have mounted regarding the potentially harmful effects of RF-EMR from these devices. OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to evaluate the effects of RF-EMR from mobile phones on free radical metabolism and sperm quality. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Male albino Wistar rats (10–12 weeks old) were exposed to RF-EMR from an active GSM (0.9/1.8 GHz) mobile phone for 1 hour continuously per day for 28 days. Controls were exposed to a mobile phone without a battery for the same period. The phone was kept in a cage with a wooden bottom in order to address concerns that the effects of exposure to the phone could be due to heat emitted by the phone rather than to RF-EMR alone. Animals were sacrificed 24 hours after the last exposure and tissues of interest were harvested. RESULTS: One hour of exposure to the phone did not significantly change facial temperature in either group of rats. No significant difference was observed in total sperm count between controls and RF-EMR exposed groups. However, rats exposed to RF-EMR exhibited a significantly reduced percentage of motile sperm. Moreover, RF-EMR exposure resulted in a significant increase in lipid peroxidation and low GSH content in the testis and epididymis. CONCLUSION: Given the results of the present study, we speculate that RF-EMR from mobile phones negatively affects semen quality and may impair male fertility.


The prevalence of smoking is much higher among the poor, marginalised and disenfranchised. Those who are dependent on alcohol and other drugs, suffering mental illness, and Indigenous people are among the heaviest smokers and are least likely to quit. This article describes a smallscale evaluation of a smoking cessation program, which used tailored nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) aimed at these groups, between 2004 to 2006. A mixed methodology approach to data collection was employed. The quantitative data indicated that a low level of success was achieved by program participants. The qualitative data provided rich accounts of peoples' experiences in the program. These could be used to develop more effective programs that take a full account of the complex issues that shape participants' responses to smoking cessation and provide greater levels of sustained motivation. Several issues related to the conduct of rigorous evaluation studies in this context are highlighted.


This thesis investigates the potential of computer graphics in providing for a graphics driven specification system that gives sufficient structure and content to form the simulation model itself. The nature of discrete event simulation modelling, the diagramming method of activity cycle diagrams which underpinned this research, the three phase simulation model structure, and the trend of visual simulation modelling are discussed as the basis for the research. Some current existing simulation languages and packages are reviewed, which gives insight into the essential features of an ideal computer simulation environment. The basic research method adopted was to build systems that exemplified the state of thinking at the time. The purpose of this method was to enable ideas to be developed, discarded and enhanced, and for new ideas to emerge. The research has undergone a series of application developments on the Apple Macintosh to examine the advantages and limitations of such systems. The first system developed during the research, MacACD, provides the basis for proposals concerning the enhancement of the ACD diagramming method in a computer-aided environment. However, MacACD demonstrated the limitations of an ACD interface and the need for a more flexible specification system. HyperSim, a simulation system developed using HyperCard, has all the power of interconnectivity demonstrated as a need by MacACD, but has severe limitations both in terms of security of system development, and an inability to provide a running model directly due to lack of speed. However, the power of an icon-based interconnected textual and diagrammatic based system were demonstrated by the construction of this system during this research, and led to the development of the final system described in this thesis : MacGraSE. The development of this system during this research incorporates many innovations. The main input device is a picture representing the problem, including a background display. This system allows for dynamic icon based visual model running, as well as code generation for complete model embellishments, interactive report writing, and representational graphics outputs.


One of the merits of anti-Semitism research is it's sensibility for the various way, how anti-Semitism may manifest itself beyond traditional prejudice hostile to Jews. This has lead to the distinction of various facets of modern Anti-Semitism that range from traditional prejudice (manifest anti-Semitism) via secondary anti-Semitism and latent anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism and anti-Semitic criticism of Israel. One of the shortcomings of anti-Semitism research, however, is its neglecting of alternative motivations that may lead to utterances that are suspected of having an anti-Semitic content. This is particularly problematic in the investigation of the relation between anti-Semitism and the criticism of Israel. Mere correlation studies – and even experimental studies that demonstrate an increase of attitudes critical of Israel when antiSemitism is stimulated – cannot give a satisfying answer to this problem. Participants who unconditionally support Israeli policy will certainly not harbor long-held anti-Semitic attitudes, and dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites will not sympathize with Israeli policy. Factor analysis, which as is often applied in order to study the relation between the various facets of anti-Semitism cannot give a satisfying answer either. The farewell lecture reflects on the methodological deficits of these approaches and introduces Latent-Class-Analysis as an alternative methodology. An application to data from a recent survey in Germany indicates that manifest, secondary and latent anti-Semitism are different expressions of one and the same anti-Semitic attitude plain and simple. Criticism of Israel and antiZionism, on the other hand, may be motivated by other factors like pacifism and/or human rights considerations as well. Unlike correlation studies, Latent-Class-Analysis does not only demonstrate this fact but distinguishes between different groups of participants and thus allows discriminating between those who criticise Israel out of anti-Semitic attitudes and those who do not.


The purpose of this volume is to present a clear and systematic account of the mathematical methods of wave phenomena in solids, gases, and water that will be readily accessible to physicists and engineers. The emphasis is on developing the necessary mathematical techniques, and on showing how these mathematical concepts can be effective in unifying the physics of wave propagation in a variety of physical settings: sound and shock waves in gases, water waves, and stress waves in solids. Nonlinear effects and asymptotic phenomena will be discussed. Wave propagation in continuous media (solid, liquid, or gas) has as its foundation the three basic conservation laws of physics: conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, which will be described in various sections of the book in their proper physical setting. These conservation laws are expressed either in the Lagrangian or the Eulerian representation depending on whether the boundaries are relatively fixed or moving. In any case, these laws of physics allow us to derive the "field equations" which are expressed as systems of partial differential equations. For wave propagation phenomena these equations are said to be "hyperbolic" and, in general, nonlinear in the sense of being "quasi linear" . We therefore attempt to determine the properties of a system of "quasi linear hyperbolic" partial differential equations which will allow us to calculate the displacement, velocity fields, etc.


This article promotes the reading of the novel No coracao dos boatos (1984), writtenby the Brazilian writer Uilcon Pereira, which remains almost totally ignored three decadesafter its publication, despite (or maybe exactly for) being the most radical experimentin Brazilian contemporary fiction. The intention is to stimulate discussion about this literarywork, whose composition consists in a rollercoaster of intertextual operation, from a visionthat transcends the interest of Brazilian literary critics in the last years of the military government,mostly concentrated on what Antonio Candido defined as «literatura do contra».


Introduction.
Ti-6Al-4V is used in biomedical engineering due to its excellent properties: high strength to weight ratio, low density, high corrosion resistance and good biocompatibility. However, the use of the alloy under severe friction conditions is restricted due to poor tribological properties such as high coefficient of friction and low hardness [1, 2]. Laser surface modification is known for its improved mechanical and tribological properties for biomedical titanium alloys. The treatment produces minimal contamination and increases osseointegration [3-5]. The present study evaluated the effects of high speed, laser processing parameters on surface roughness, hardness, chemical composition and biocompatibility.

Materials and Methods
A 1.5KW CO2 laser in continuous mode was irradiated on flat Ti-6Al-4V samples at three levels of irradiance 15.72, 20.43 and 26.72 KW/cm2 and three levels of residence time 1.08, 1.44 and 2.16 ms. Evaluation of the surface was carried out by scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination and mechanical profilometry in accordance to ISO 4287/4288. SEM analysis of the surface topography resulting from the various laser treatments was carried out. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) analysis was used to determine the chemical composition of the treated areas. The effect of surface topography on cellular attachment was investigated in vitro using MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblast cells. Cell attachment was determined using the Hoechst DNA assay and cell morphology was examined using SEM analysis.

Results and Discussion
An increase in residence time resulted in improved depth of processing. An increase in irradiance did not always produce an increase in depth of processing; however higher irradiance levels were found to provide for a more uniform depth of processing which reached a maximum of 80 µm. Irradiation with the scanning beam produced a single phase microstructure, see Figure 1. This single phase occurred when various constituents in the alloy have dissolved with rapid solidification thwarting segregation of the various alloying elements into high and low concentration [6]. Improved homogenous chemical composition of the laser modified region was verified by the EDS analysis. Microhardness examination revealed an increase in hardness of up to 67% after laser treatment. A relationship between irradiance and roughness was observed, roughness decreasing with increase in irradiance.


There is an expectation that women will be nurturers and carers. Women who have been judged violent, destructive and criminal and who are detained in the criminal justice system can find themselves perceived through a distorted lens as unwomanly. This book explains how they become hypervisible in their difference, while the histories of trauma and suffering that are communicated through their offending and other risk behaviour remain hidden, and so are unseen.

Bringing together authors uniquely placed as experts in their fields, Invisible Trauma argues that it is essential to trace the traumatic roots of women's violence and criminality. Powerful intergenerational factors perpetuate the cycles of offending and trauma re-enactment that current sentencing practice overlooks. The authors present a psychoanalytically informed account of the development of violence and other offending, identifying pathways for change to address trauma within the lives of these women and their children, and also to create a responsive, effective and sensitive workforce.

Invisible Trauma highlights the role of emotional, social and cultural forces in traumatising women who come into contact with the criminal justice system and uncovers areas of their lives that are all too often hidden from view. It will be invaluable to those working in clinical and forensic psychology, mental health nursing, psychotherapy, social work, medical practice and women's health, as well as frontline practitioners in the criminal justice system, the health service and third sector organisations and for anyone with an interest in racism, equality and social justice.


Phyllis Lyon met the love of her life in 1953. Her name was Del Martin. When they fell in love, homosexuality was an illness that needed to be cured, a sin to be confessed and an illegal act that should be punished. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon are legendary in the lesbian community for originating the Daughters of Bilitis--an underground lesbian social club in San Francisco formed in the 1950s. They spent the next 55 years together confronting society and policy about the inequity of gays, lesbians, and women. In each of these social movements, however, they were the minority inside the minority because they were lesbians. Despite the availability of lesbian and gay history, relatively little has been written exclusively about lesbian history. The depth and evolution of Lyon and Martin's relationship and a depth of the relationship with the cause they were fighting for is missing from the current research. The articles that have been written about lesbian history and about Martin and Lyon, in particular, all report the same facts and tell the same stories. The attempt of this thesis is to frame the life of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon with the personal stories of their lives together and the challenges of their relationship. In addition, the social context, lesbian history and culture will be thoroughly researched to serve as the setting in which their story takes place. Personally and professionally, it is an attempt to understand the founding history of the Lesbian Rights Movement while learning about the NASW values of service, social justice, integrity, dignity and worth of a person and the importance of human relationships.


This text argues that the Supreme Court performs two functions. The first is to identify the Constitution's idealized "meaning". The second is to develop tests and doctrines to realize that meaning in practice. Bridging the gap between the two - implementing the Constitution - requires moral vision, but also practical wisdom and common sense, ingenuity, and occasionally a willingness to make compromises. In emphasizing the Court's responsibility to make practical judgments, "Implementing the Constitution" takes issue with the two positions that have dominated recent debates about the Court's proper role. Constitutional "originalists" maintain that the Court's essential function is to identify the "original understanding" of constitutional language and then apply it deductively to current problems. This position is both unwise and unworkable, the book argues. It also critiques well-known accounts according to which the Court is concerned almost exclusively with matters of moral and constitutional principle. The book bridges the worlds of constitutional theory, political theory, and constitutional practice. It illuminates the Supreme Court's decision of actual cases and its development of well-known doctrines. It is a doctrinal study that yields jurisprudential insights and a contribution to constitutional theory that is closely tied to actual judicial practice.


Farmer, Waggoner, and Zha (2009) show that a new Keynesian model with a regime-switching monetary policy rule can support multiple solutions that depend only on the fundamental shocks in the model. Their note appears to find solutions in regions of the parameter space where there should be no bounded solutions, according to conditions in Davig and Leeper (2007). This puzzling finding is straightforward to explain: Farmer, Waggoner, and Zha (FWZ) derive solutions using a model that differs from the one to which the Davig and Leeper (DL) conditions apply. FWZ's multiple solutions rely on special assumptions about the correlation structure between fundamental shocks and policy regimes, blurring the distinction between "deep" parameters that govern behavior and the parameters that govern the exogenous shock processes, and making it difficult to ascribe any economic interpretation to FWZ's solutions.


The assembly behavior of narrowly dispersed poly(sodium acrylate) (PAAS) of different molecular weights with Gd(III)-containing cationic metallosurfactants (MS) was investigated by DLS, TEM and relaxivity plotting. The formed polyelectrolyte–surfactant complexes (PSCs) showed different structural patterns as the charge ratio increased from micellar to vesicular structures. SEM element mapping showed the presence of the gadolinium element in these complexes. An ICP-AES analysis further quantified the contents of Gd(III) in the PSCs. T1 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that these Gd(III)-loading complexes exhibited a relaxivity of up to 21.89 mM−1 s−1, much higher than that of Omniscan® (4.64 mM−1 s−1). A higher relaxivity was achieved with PAAS of higher molecular weight at the same charge ratio. The cytotoxicity test in vitro demonstrated the excellent biocompatibility of these PSCs, which is essential for clinical application.


What place do new communication technologies have in analytic protocol? Is it possible to carry out analytic work, conduct a "session" digitally, when this work is by nature apart from classic social relations and the usual forms of pressure and domination? The analytic stage-setting guarantees a stopping of panoptical ways of seeing. What are the "digital" possibilities of analytic treatment?


Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason. By Bill Maurer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. xix+217. $55.00 cloth;, $19.95 paper. Mark Twain's short story "The Million Pound Banknote" ([1893] 1996) concerns a bet that a person will be unable to live for one month with only a million-pound banknote. The main character discovers that he has a problem: how can he spend such a large note when it is not possible to get change? Artist J. S. G. Boggs (Weschler 1999) draws replicas of currency (with slight changes) and offers to exchange these original works of art for goods and services at their face value (and wants to get change in the actual currency in the process). On the one hand, there is a fictitious story about a real bank note whose value cannot be realized, as it cannot be exchanged. On the other, there is a factual story about fake money whose value comes about because it is an authentic, original work of art that can be exchanged. While Bill Maurer's Mutual Life, Limited references neither of these stories, their juxtaposition provides a good hint at the substance of the book, based on a comparison of Islamic finance and Ithaca HOURS, an alternative currency in the upstate New York city. Both Islamic banking, with its principle of lariba (attempting to avoid interest), and HOURS, ostensibly based on an hour's worth of work, seem at first glance to be alternatives to dominant capitalist finance. But beneath the immediate surface, these "alternatives"-and the dominant currency-may not be so distinct. Islamic banking and HOURS are inherently bound together with the prevailing capitalist global economy. Yet Maurer is hardly out simply to unmask these alternatives as mere shadows of the dominant economy. Rather, he argues, these alternatives restage the underlying forms of the economy, bound up with questions of equivalence as a moral form and the difficulty of a distinguishing test of truth when there are multiple worlds and uses of money. In short, both the alternatives-and the dominant economy-work and are enacted by agents despite (and perhaps because of) their impurities. Mutual Life, Limited also speaks to debates in anthropology and other social sciences about the scholarly enterprise. Maurer finds that his research subjects have debated the purity, truth, and status of Islamic finance and HOURS as alternatives. His research subjects have already made some of the comparisons that he set out to make and recommended reading lists to him before their interviews. Reflecting this experience and connecting the substantive discussion about alternative economies, Maurer aims for "lateralizations," rather than descriptions or explanations, reflecting the ways in which his field experience seems largely prefigured and anticipated. As a strategy of lateralization, Maurer holds the book out as performance, attempting to re-create a sense of field experience: The point here is the achievement of a homology of form and ... a ramping up of the kinds of textual achievements of my interlocutors. …


This work presents our results in application of watersoluble polymers in immunology-related areas: design of antigenic erythrocytic diagnosticums and adjuvants for production of hyperimmune serums. We found that longchain polymeric acids (polymerization degree >6000) can give composite particles with erythrocytes and antigens. The resulting product works as diagnosticum in the reaction of passive haemagglutination. Introduction of hydrophobic or weakly basic imidazole units into polymer chain allows to decrease working concentration of the polymer to 0.01 mg/mL. New test-systems are more sensitive, reproducible and stable than the known analogs. Tetrazole- and imidazole-containing polymers are active as immunologic adjuvants. Their complexes with antigens stimulate production of antibodies to diphtheria, encephalitis, hepatitis and chicken Marek's disease. The polymeric adjuvants provides 2-10 times higher antibody titers comparing with standard (complete Freund's adjuvant). Low polymer concentration (0.03-0.6 mg/mL) in adjuvant solutions gives rise to cheapness and high usability of the new adjuvants. The distinguishing feature of the used polymers is their ability to give target products without covalent bonding with antigens. Formation of the polymer-antigen complexes and their self-organization proceeds by multiple cooperative hydrogen/ionic bonds.


Actually, large database is not simply considered as a stream database because of streaming data is not only containing huge data volumes, but distributed, continuous, rapid, time varying. Therefore, the general techniques may not suit for streams exactly. Accuracy responses required of approximated answers is more important in stream processing for the similarity search. Therefore, we perform data reduction across synopsis data structure and to batch processing in a particular relevance way on the data stream computation model over sliding windows. Focus on similarity search in streaming environment, D-skyline method proposed in this paper concern useful aggregate as a preprocessing phase instead of original dataset repeatedly processing manner, in order to efficiently optimize both in space usage and error control. Our experimental evaluation would show the detailed effect on approximated analysis by using different kinds of skyline methods, then effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.


The technique of latent class analysis relies on a number of model assumptions which might be violated by the underlying process being investigated. This study is to determine the reliability of the analysis done on four stage Markov Latent Class models containing the classification of individuals in one of two indicator categories. The estimation is done using the EM algorithm on simulated data under specified model assumptions where those assumptions are violated to varying degrees.


NASA's Aeronautical Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) has developed the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) that describes its research plan for advancing aeronautics research to meet the aviation industry's demands over the next 25 years and beyond. One element of the plan focuses on developing ultra-efficient commercial vehicles. Improved vehicle efficiency will be achieved by reducing fuel burn and emissions.  Active flow control (AFC) is a technology that has the potential to aid in achieving the efficiency goals of the next two generations of commercial vehicles. Active flow control is the on-demand addition of energy into a boundary layer for maintaining, recovering, or improving vehicle performance. AFC actuation methods have included steady mass transfer via suction or blowing, and unsteady perturbations created by zero net mass flux actuators, pulsed jets, and fluidic oscillators. Previous wind tunnel and flight tests demonstrated that this technology is capable of improving vehicle performance by reducing and/or eliminating separation and increasing circulation. When integrated into a transport aircraft, therefore, AFC would result in smaller control surfaces creating less drag and thereby less fuel consumption during flight. Widespread application of the technology on commercial transports, however, requires that AFC actuation systems be energy-efficient, reliant, and robust. Another challenging aspect of the design of the actuation system involves understanding how and where to integrate the actuator into the vehicle. Computational tool development is needed, in parallel with actuator development, to enable a more synergistic approach to active flow control system design thus maximizing the potential benefits of an AFC system.Â


The extraction of underground resources induces subsidence on the surface. Those deformations often create disorders in structures and infrastructures. In the case of coal mining, the major part of subsidence occurs during active mine, and the residual subsidence can cover a long period about 5 years after the end of the exploitation. The amplitude of this residual subsidence is usually very small compared to the total subsidence. Charbonnages de France is in charge of the monitoring of the area of Nord/Pas-de-Calais (France), known for its important mining resources at depth. The exploitation of mine in this area is completed since 1992. Charbonnages de France continues to use high precision levelling comparison for surveying the surface. This traditional method present many disadvantages and the interferometry technique could presents a serious help for quantify the residual subsidence. In this study, both differential SAR Interferometry (DINSAR) and Persistent Scaterrers Interferometry (PSI) are used to estimate deformation during a 12 years period (1992 to 2004) after the end of exploitation. 88 ERS scenes, distributed on two adjacent tracks, are processed, using DIAPASON software for DINSAR and GAMMA-IPTA for PSI. The area undergoes high temporal decorrelation due to the high amount of vegetation. The evaluation of atmospheric artefacts is also difficult in this area because of rapid climatic changes. Nevertheless, deformations are well detected; they present low amplitude with a maximum rate of only 1 cm/y during 5 to 7 years after the end of the exploitation. The results obtains by interferometry are then compared to traditional measurements for (n points). They show a good agreement with the traditional methods of levelling. A robust methodology can be developed to use Interferometry for surveying surface above deep abandoned coalmines.


We investigated whether thrombospondin plays a role in the binding of Plasmodium falciparum parasitized erythrocytes to C32 melanoma cells. Twelve patient isolates bound variably to melanoma cells, with good correlation between the degree of binding to cells and binding to thrombospondin. With a synchronous preparation of asexual parasites, acquisition of the capacity to bind to thrombospondin occurred at the same parasite stage as binding to melanoma cells. Development of parasites to trophozoites and schizonts correlated with binding of parasitized erythrocytes to thrombospondin and melanoma cells. The infected erythrocyte receptor for thrombospondin was destroyed by mild trypsinization, as was the receptor for melanoma cells. Although these results suggest similarity in the melanoma cell receptor and thrombospondin receptor for infected cells, other results showed that thrombospondin cannot alone be the melanoma cell receptor. Binding to other melanoma cell lines did not correlate with thrombospondin secretion: the RPMI 8252 and G361 cell lines bound few or no infected cells, yet secreted 50-100% as much thrombospondin as C32 cells. Iodinated thrombospondin bound in similar amounts to C32 cells and to noncytoadherent C361 melanoma cells. Binding and nonbinding melanoma cells did not differ in quantity of surface thrombospondin by radioimmunoassay. Thus, although purified, immobilized, thrombospondin binds parasitized erythrocytes, expression of thrombospondin alone on melanoma cells is not sufficient to mediate adherence.


OF THESIS THE STUDY OF TRUNK MECHANICAL AND NEUROMUSCULAR BEHAVIORS Low back pain (LBP) is a common ailment in the United States, affecting up to 80% of adults at least once in their lifetime. Although 90% of LBP cases are considered nonspecific, recent studies show that abnormal mechanics of the lower back can be a major factor. One method of assessing the lower back mechanical environment is through perturbation experiments. An intensive literature review of perturbation systems was used to select and develop a system for the Human Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Lab (HMBL). Following construction, individuals with high/low exposure to day-long physical activity were assessed to quantify daily changes in their lower back mechanics and determine whether complete recovery occurs during overnight rest. Despite significant decrease in maximum voluntary contractions (MVC), intrinsic stiffness of the high exposure group remained constant following day-long physical activity. The final component of this Master's project is devoted to the design of a wobble chair system for study of trunk stability. Development of the perturbation system and wobble chair are hoped to facilitate future research aimed at a better understanding of trunk mechanical and neuromuscular behaviors to prevent and treat LBP in the future.


Recent years have witnessed substantial civil society mobilisation on questions of global governance. This paper considers the implications of this development for democracy. After specifying concepts of 'civil society', 'democracy', 'globality' and 'governance', the paper identifies deep democratic deficits that have emerged as a consequence of contemporary globalisation. The discussion then outlines various ways that civil society can either enhance or undermine democracy in the governance of global relations.


A follow-up of the CorpAfroAs project, this paper presents a typologically-oriented study of the intonation of Topic and Focus in four Afroasiatic languages (Zaar, Tamasheq, Juba Arabic and Tripoli Arabic), in relation to their phonological and information structures. The different prosodic systems represented in the study — i.e. the demarcative accent system of Berber, the lexical stress system of Tripoli Arabic; the pitch accent system of Juba Arabic; and the tone system of Zaar — give ground to the study of the correlation between these prosodic systems and their intonation structures; and more particularly, how declination, wich seems to be a universal of the intonation of declarative sentences, interacts with other sentence types, such as Yes/No-Questions, WH-Questions, Exclamations, etc. Likewise, the paper explores the correlation between the prosodic systems and the intonational exponents of Topic and Focus. The paper starts by setting up the concepts and typological frame used for the study. Then, it presents a case study of the four languages, examining their prosodic systems, and the prosodic exponents of topic and focus. Finally, the paper compares the four systems, drawing conclusions from a typoligical point of view. A general rule seems to emerge from the study: lack of a specific intonation pattern for a specific intonation structure is supplemented by morpho-syntactic marking. In other words, the more a structure relies on morpho-syntax, the less it relies on intonation.


Since propolis and phenolic compounds, such as cinnamic and coumaric acids, have several biological properties, their immunomodulatory effect on cytokine production (IL‐1β, IL‐6 and IL‐10) was investigated. Peritoneal macrophages from BALB/c mice were incubated with propolis, coumaric and cinnamic acids in different concentrations and the concentrations that inhibited cytokine production were tested before or after macrophage challenge with LPS, to evaluate a possible immunomodulatory action. Propolis and the acids stimulated IL‐1β production, while IL‐6 production was significantly inhibited after incubation with propolis (5, 50 and 100 µg/well), coumaric and cinnamic acids (50 and 100 µg/well). In LPS‐challenge protocols, inhibitory concentrations of cinnamic and coumaric acids after LPS incubation prevented efficiently its effects on IL‐6 production, whereas propolis inhibited LPS effects both before and after its addition. Propolis, coumaric and cinnamic acids (50 and 100 µg/well) inhibited IL‐10 production as well. Both acids showed a similar inhibitory activity on IL‐10 production when added after LPS challenge, while propolis counteracted LPS action when added before and after LPS incubation. Propolis modulated the immune/inflammatory response, depending on the concentration. Its efficiency may occur due to the synergistic effect of its compounds, and cinnamic and coumaric acids may be involved in the action of propolis on cytokine production. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Late onset depression has recently emerged as a serious mental health issue in the geriatric population with significant public health implications. It is often challenging to diagnose and treat this entity. Various theories have been postulated to elucidate the etiology of late onset depression, but a unifying hypothesis is lacking. Although the vascular hypothesis is most researched; a complex interaction of multiple vulnerability factors is the current focus of attention. Numerous psychosocial variables have been implicated to play a significant role in predicting the onset and severity of late-life depression. Phenomenological differences have been delineated from depression occurring at a younger age, but the findings are equivocal. A better understanding of the natural trajectory of depression in the elderly is required for early diagnosis and effective treatment. This review attempts to summarize the current status of evidence regarding epidemiology, etiology, clinical features, and treatment options available for late-onset depression.


Serpentine soils show high contents of Cr and Ni. Acidification may convert the metals bound in silicate structures into bioavailable forms. The effects of mineral acids on a serpentine-derived Typic Hapludoll were examined in column studies. Cadmium and Pb were also examined. One end of the soft-packed column was placed in 1 mM HCl solution and constant pH was maintained by pumping the acid through a H-saturated cation-exchange resin. The experiment was conducted for 100 d, after which the soil column was vertically sectioned. Chemical and mineralogical analyses showed steep vertical gradients in the sectioned columns. Base saturation decreased by about 60% at the contact of the column with the acid ; exchangeable Fe, Cr, Pb, and Al increased while Ni decreased. Cadmium exhibited a differential behavior in that it increased in concentration in the middle of the column. Extracts using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) gave similar results. X-ray diffraction indicated chlorite dissolution by acid loading. The resin-based pH-stat technique is a useful method in simulating soil weathering.


The aim of this study was to prepare a landslide susceptibility level (LSL) map for the Kota Kinabalu area in Sabah, Malaysia. For this purpose, a statistical approach based on factor analysis model (FAM) integrated with a GIS environment, was applied to assess the LSL of the area. FAM is a data reduction technique used to reduce a large number of variables into a smaller set of underlying factors that summarizes the essential information contained in the variables. This model consists of a statistical comparison between landslide distribution as the dependant variable and a number of separate instability factors (input parameters). Specific attribute data are attributed to the grid cells, resulting in specific raster data layers for each input parameter. Ratings of different spatial factors from the best models calculated with the FAM were then derived. The results showed that the slope angle (β) (29% variance), lithology (17% variance), soil types (14% variance), rainfall (12% variance), effective cohesion (c') (11% variance), compressive strength value (9% of variance) and land use (8% of variance) play important roles. The data layers, in which each factor was subdivided into a convenient number of classes, were separately overlain and statistically compared with the landslide distribution map (LDM). Subsequently, the landslide density was calculated and the weighted value/rating as determined for each individual class. The final LSL was expressed as the sum of all parameter classes ranked according to the calculated landslide density for each class. In conclusion, the FAM results showed that two factors were extracted as the causative factors causing landslides; triggering factors (TF) and physical factors (PF). In addition, about 39.65% of the areas have stable conditions, 59.57% was basically unstable and 0.78% was strictly not recommended to be developed. This FAM had higher prediction accuracy of 83.90%. The resulting LSL map can be used by local administrator or developers to locate areas prone to landslides, determine the land use suitability area as well as to organize more detailed analysis of the identified "hot spot" areas.


Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a multifaceted condition, not an event. Traumatic brain injury is broadly defined as an alteration in brain function or other evidence of brain pathology caused by an external force that can occur in traffic, at home, at work, during sports activities, and on the battlefield. Traumatic brain injury is an important cause of death and disability for children and an exponentially increasing source of morbidity and mortality in older adults. Each year in the United States, at least 1.7 million people seek medical attention for TBI; it is a contributing factor in a third of all injury-related deaths. Many more persons, particularly those with mild TBI, are never seen by a clinician. These injuries (at times considered to be "concussions") are often dismissed by the medical community as mild with few or no consequences. Although no single definition of concussion is widely accepted, it typically affects orientation, memory, and may involve loss of consciousness. Often, patients are not carefully followed up over time, despite the increasing appreciation that TBI can affect long-term physical, cognitive, emotional, and social domains of function. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2% of the US population lives with disabilities directly attributable to TBI,2 with annual direct and indirect costs estimated at more than $76.5 billion.1


The easy-to-fabricate, phosphate-based laser glass LFS5 has been developed, with parameters at the level of the phosphate glasses of the leading producer countries. A process has been adopted for producing LFS5 glass of high optical quality for large active elements in the form of rods up to 1000 mm long from a glass melt in a platinum crucible of moderate volume. © 2004 Optical Society of America


In this paper, we define a new research problem for mining approximate repeating patterns (ARP) with gap constraints, where the appearance of a pattern is subject to an approximate matching, which is very common in biological sciences. To solve the problem, we propose an ArpGap (Approximate repeating pattern mining with Gap constraints) algorithm with three major components for approximate repeating pattern mining: (1) a data-driven pattern generation approach to avoid generating unnecessary patterns; (2) a back-tracking pattern search process to discover approximate occurrences of a pattern under gap constraints; and (3) an Apriori-like deterministic pruning approach to progressively prune patterns and cease the search process if necessary. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world protein sequences assert that ArpGap is efficient in terms of memory consumption and computational cost.


India has witnessed high economic growth since the 1980s, and a reduction in the share of income poor, though the measured extent of this reduction varies, has been confirmed by different methods. Poverty, however, has multiple dimensions, hence this paper explores the improvement in other social deprivations. An analysis of poverty from a multidimensional perspective shows the prevalence of multiple overlapping deprivations among the poor. This paper analyses the change in multidimensional poverty in India between 1999 and 2006 using National Family and Health Surveys. We find a strong reduction in national poverty driven relatively more by some of the standard of living indicators, such as electricity, housing condition, access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities, than other social indicators. The reduction, however, has not been uniform across different population subgroups and the pattern of reduction across states has been less pro-poor that of income poverty. In addition, the poorer subgroups have shown slower progress, widening the inter-group disparity in multidimensional poverty. In order to examine trends among the poorest of the poor, we define two additional subgroups of the poor and find that multidimensional poverty reduction has been accompanied by even stronger reductions in the share of the poorest of the poor by both definitions. The in-depth analysis pursued in this paper can also be conducted for other developing countries.


Somatostatin receptor concentrations were measured in patients with Alzheimer's disease and controls. In the frontal cortex (Brodmann areas 6, 9, and 10) and temporal cortex (Brodmann area 21), the concentrations of somatostatin in receptors in the patients were reduced to approximately 50 percent of control values. A 40 percent reduction was seen in the hippocampus, while no significant changes were found in the cingulate cortex, postcentral gyrus, temporal pole, and superior temporal gyrus. Scatchard analysis showed a reduction in receptor number rather than a change in affinity. Somatostatin-like immunoreactivity was significantly reduced in both the frontal and temporal cortex. Somatostatin-like immunoreactivity was linearly related to somatostatin-receptor binding in the cortices of Alzheimer's patients. These findings may reflect degeneration of postsynaptic neurons or cortical afferents in the patients' cerebral cortices. Alternatively, decreased somatostatin-like immunoreactivity in Alzheimer's disease might indicate increased release of somatostatin and down regulation of postsynaptic receptors.


Abstract. The damage caused by snow avalanches to property and human lives is underestimated in many regions around the world, especially where this natural hazard remains poorly documented. One such region is the Argentinean Andes, where numerous settlements are threatened almost every winter by large snow avalanches. On 1 September 2002, the largest tragedy in the history of Argentinean mountaineering took place at Cerro Ventana, Northern Patagonia: nine persons were killed and seven others injured by a snow avalanche. In this paper, we combine both numerical modeling and dendrochronological investigations to reconstruct this event. Using information released by local governmental authorities and compiled in the field, the avalanche event was numerically simulated using the avalanche dynamics programs AVAL-1D and RAMMS. Avalanche characteristics, such as extent and date were determined using dendrochronological techniques. Model simulation results were compared with documentary and tree-ring evidences for the 2002 event. Our results show a good agreement between the simulated projection of the avalanche and its reconstructed extent using tree-ring records. Differences between the observed and the simulated avalanche, principally related to the snow height deposition in the run-out zone, are mostly attributed to the low resolution of the digital elevation model used to represent the valley topography. The main contributions of this study are (1) to provide the first calibration of numerical avalanche models for the Patagonian Andes and (2) to highlight the potential of Nothofagus pumilio tree-ring records to reconstruct past snow-avalanche events in time and space. Future research should focus on testing this combined approach in other forested regions of the Andes.


The planktonic foraminifera are a highly abundant and diverse group of marine pelagic protists that are ubiquitously distributed throughout the worlds' oceans. These unicellular eukaryotes are encased in a calcareous (CaCO3) shell or 'test', the morphology of which is used to identify individual 'morphospecies'. The foraminifera have an exceptional fossil record, spanning over 180 million years, and as microfossils provide a highly successful paleoproxy for dating sedimentary rocks and archiving past climate. Molecular studies, using the small subunit (SSU) ribosomal (r) RNA gene are used here to investigate the biogeographical distributions and phylogenetic relationships of the planktonic foraminifera. Biogeographical surveys of two markedly different areas of the global ocean, the tropical Arabian Sea, and the transitional/sub-polar North Atlantic Ocean, revealed significant genotypic variation within the planktonic foraminifera, with some genetic types being sequenced here for the first time. The foraminiferal genotypes displayed non-random geographical distributions, suggestive of distinct ecologies, giving insight into the possible mechanisms of diversification in these marine organisms. The ecological segregation of genetically divergent but morphologically cryptic genetic types could, however, have serious repercussions on their use as paleoproxies of past climate change. Phylogenetic analyses of the foraminifera based firstly on a partial ~1,000 bp terminal 3´ fragment of the SSU rRNA gene, and secondly on the ~3,000 bp almost complete gene supported the hypothesis of the polyphyletic origins of the planktonic foraminifera, which appear to be derived from up to 5 separate benthic ancestral lineages. The almost complete gene is sequenced here in the planktonic taxa for the first time, though amplification was problematic. In a first step to addressing a pressing need for new genetic markers to support data gained from the SSU rRNA gene, a culture system was established for the benthic foraminifera, in order to provide a reliable source of DNA for EST library construction or full genome sequencing. Finally, to overcome difficulties associated with the PCR amplification of the foraminifera, a new lysis buffer and DNA extraction procedure was developed. A highly successful buffer was created, allowing high quality DNA to be extracted from foraminiferal specimens, whilst leaving the delicate calcitic shell intact for morphological reference.


A sensor network is composed of vast number of tiny sensor in a limited area. Each sensor is defined with some energy parameters and the energy based constraints. According to these constraints, as the communication is performed, each participating node loses some amount of energy.  Multicast and Broadcast communication are the basic communication requirements of a sensor network. But such kind of communication increases the network traffic extensively as well as gives large amount of energy loss. Data aggregation provides the solution to this problem by combining the multiple communications in single communication path. Data aggregation is one of the major communication approach in which multiple sources are sending data to single sink. In this present work, an agent based approach is defined to generate the effective aggregative path so that the network life and communication will be improved. Wireless Sensor network is an ad hoc network of tiny sensors. Each sensor is defined with some energy and floating nature. As the data is transferred over the network each sensor spends some energy in receiving data, sending data and forwarding data. Because of this network life depends on how much energy spend in each transmission. Due to the energy constraints, wireless sensors usually have a limited transmission range, making multi hop data routing towards the PN (processing node) more energy efficient than direct transmission (one hop). A primary design goal for wireless sensor networks is to use the energy efficiently. The proposed system will improve the network communication. The presented work is implemented in NS2 environment and obtained results shows that the presented work has improved the network throughput extensively and reduced the network delay and the data loss.


The question whether Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) can be based on the Decisional DiffieHellman (DDH) assumption is one of the most prominent questions in Cryptography related to DDH. We study limitations on the use of the DDH assumption in cryptographic constructions, and show that it is impossible to construct a secure Identity-Based Encryption system using, in a black box way, only the DDH (or similar) assumption about a group. Our impossibility result is set in the generic groups model, where we describe an attack on any IBE construction that relies on oracle access to the group operation of randomly labelled group elements – a model that formalizes naturally DDH hardness. The vast majority of existing separation results typically give separation from general primitives, whereas we separate a primitive from a class of number theoretic hardness assumptions. Accordingly, we face challenges in creating an attack algorithm that will work against constructions which leverage the underlying algebraic structure of the group. In fact, we know that this algebraic structure is powerful enough to provide generic constructions for several powerful primitives including oblivious transfer and chosen ciphertext secure public-key cryptosystems (note that an IBE generalizes such systems). Technically, we explore statistical properties of the group algebra associated with a DDH oracle, which can be of independent interest.


The light (lt) gene is located in the centromeric heterochromatin of chromosome 2 of Drosophila melanogaster. This gene is necessary for normal levels of pigmentation in a number of adult and larval tissues and is required for viability. Hybrid dysgenic and X-ray induced mutations have been used to identify the gene and compare its organization to that of euchromatic genes. Molecular mapping of lt mutations and its major transcripts has shown that the lt gene is at least 17 kb. By injecting cosmid clones that include this region into lt mutant embryos, we have defined a 30-kb region that can transiently rescue the pigmentation defect in the Malpighian tubules. The major transcription unit of this gene is comprised of exons that are single copy. It is unusual in its organization in having a heterogeneous array of middle repetitive DNA sequences within its intronic and flanking regions.


In this volume, the editor and contributors describe the use of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) for a range of key materials systems that are of interest for both technological and fundamental reasons. Prior books on MBE have provided an introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of MBE and emphasize growth and characterization of GaAs-based structures. The aim in this book is somewhat different; it is to demonstrate the versatility of the technique by showing how it can be utilized to prepare and explore a range of distinct and diverse materials. For each of these materials systems MBE has played a key role both in their development and application to devices.


We have investigated the expression pattern of the Flk-1 receptor tyrosine kinase in mouse embryonic and fetal hematopoietic tissues as well as on hematopoietic precursor cells derived from these tissues. RNA analysis indicated that flk-1 was expressed in the yolk sac at day 10 of gestation, in the whole embryo at day 10 and 12 of gestation, in the liver throughout fetal life and in embryoid bodies (EBs) generated from ES cells differentiated in culture. Flk-1 message was also detected in erythroid and macrophage colonies generated from precursors of yolk sac, fetal liver, adult marrow and EB origin. Using an antibody directed against the extracellular portion of the molecule we have found that up to 50% of cells from EBs differentiated for 4 days express Flk-1. Following the development of this early Flk-1+ population the number of receptor-positive cells declines progressively to represent less than 5% of the EBs by day 12 of differentiation. Kinetic analysis revealed that the establishment of the EB Flk-1+ population precedes the development of cells which express CD34, Ly6A (Sca-1) and AA4.1. Cell sorting experiments demonstrated that all day-4 EB-derived hematopoietic precursors are Flk-1+ whereas greater than 95% of those found within the day-12 EBs are Flk-1-, suggesting that the precursor population which expresses this receptor represents an early but transient wave of hematopoietic development. Analysis of yolk sac and whole embryos at day 8.5 of gestation revealed a small but distinct Flk-1+ population that contained hematopoietic precursors. Day-12.5 fetal liver contained few Flk-1+ cells that showed little hematopoietic potential. Together these findings indicate that Flk-1 is expressed on an early population of hematopoietic precursors that may represent the onset of embryonic hematopoiesis.


Psycholinguists grapple with an ever-increasing list of control variables, in addition to any that are of theoretical interest. Some variables are subjective constructs like familiarity, concreteness, and semantic or affective connotations. Historically researchers approached these by having participants come to a laboratory and provide ratings for each stimulus, but the use of the Internet in data collection has increased in recent years and is likely to continue doing so. In the context of stimulus norms, the equivalence of lab-based and Internet methodologies has not been extensively examined. We discuss some of the pros and cons of online stimulus norming and touch on several issues to consider. We also highlight some important differences between norms obtained online and those obtained in-person.


approved: _____________________________________________________________________ Vicki Tolar Burton Rebecca R. Olson My thesis is comprised of two articles, titled "Interpreting Britomart's Encounters with Art: The Cyclic Nature of Ekphrasis in Spenser's Faerie Queene III," and "Picture This, Imagine That: Teaching Visual Literacy in the Disciplines." The purpose of my first article is to argue that Edmund Spenser uses ekphrasis in his epic poem The Faerie Queene to draw comparisons between the regenerative natures of both art and life. I support my argument by examining three ekphrastic instances experienced by Britomart, the central knight figure of Book III of the poem: a magic mirror forged by Merlin, a tapestry telling the story of Venus and Adonis, and a statue of Hermaphrodite recollected by the narrator. Through close reading and the assistance of Murrary Krieger's ekphrastic principle of "stillness," I support that all three visual art objects underline and associate with the themes of cyclic regeneration in Britomart's quest, and ultimately reveal Britomart to be an exemplary reader of art for readers to emulate. The purpose of my second article is to develop an economically, technologically, and theoretically accessible framework for teaching visual literacy in the disciplines. To accomplish my goal, I extrapolate from Classical rhetoric's pedagogic use of ekphrasis as the first systematized method for teaching visual conceptualization, and adapt and extend it to suit the present needs of students in the 21 st -Century classroom. To communicate the urgency of the need for students to enrich proficiency at visual literacy, I provide a literature review that narrates the growing need expressed by visual literacy scholars, composition theorists, visualization theorists and specialists, and the library community for an overarching visual literacy framework that provides scaffolding and common language for students. To demonstrate the framework's usability, I apply it to three disciplinary visuals: a World War 1-era poster by the American Red Cross, a museum installation exhibit for communicating marine science to the public, and the Alpha Helix model created by Linus Pauling. I also offer suggestions for classroom practices and activities for using the framework across K-12 through university-level teaching. © Copyright by Zachary E. Pajak September 10, 2012 All Rights Reserved Picture This, Imagine That: The Literary and Pedagogic Force of Ekphrastic Principles


We introduce the framework of {\em blind regression} motivated by {\em matrix completion} for recommendation systems: given $m$ users, $n$ movies, and a subset of user-movie ratings, the goal is to predict the unobserved user-movie ratings given the data, i.e., to complete the partially observed matrix. Following the framework of non-parametric statistics, we posit that user $u$ and movie $i$ have features $x_1(u)$ and $x_2(i)$ respectively, and their corresponding rating $y(u,i)$ is a noisy measurement of $f(x_1(u), x_2(i))$ for some unknown function $f$. In contrast with classical regression, the features $x = (x_1(u), x_2(i))$ are not observed, making it challenging to apply standard regression methods to predict the unobserved ratings. Inspired by the classical Taylor's expansion for differentiable functions, we provide a prediction algorithm that is consistent for all Lipschitz functions. In fact, the analysis through our framework naturally leads to a variant of collaborative filtering, shedding insight into the widespread success of collaborative filtering in practice. Assuming each entry is sampled independently with probability at least $\max(m^{-1+\delta},n^{-1/2+\delta})$ with $\delta > 0$, we prove that the expected fraction of our estimates with error greater than $\epsilon$ is less than $\gamma^2 / \epsilon^2$ plus a polynomially decaying term, where $\gamma^2$ is the variance of the additive entry-wise noise term. Experiments with the MovieLens and Netflix datasets suggest that our algorithm provides principled improvements over basic collaborative filtering and is competitive with matrix factorization methods.


The purpose of this note is two-fold: (1) to study when quasi-Euclidean rings, regular rings and regular separative rings have the property (∗) that each right (left) singular element is a product of idempotents, and (2) to consider the question: "when is a singular nonnegative square matrix a product of nonnegative idempotent matrices?" The importance of the class of quasi- Euclidean rings in connection with the property (∗) is given by the first three authors and T.Y. Lam [Journal of Algebra, 406:154–170, 2014], where it is shown that every singular matrix over a right and left quasi-Euclidean domain is a product of idempotents, generalizing the results of J. A Erdos [Glasgow Mathematical Journal, 8: 118–122, 1967] for matrices over fields and that of T. J. Laffey [Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 14:309–314, 1983] for matrices over commutative Euclidean domains. We have shown in this paper that quasi-Euclidean rings appear among many interesting classes of rings and hence they are in abundance. We analyze the properties of triangular matrix rings and upper triangular matrices with respect to the decomposition into product of idempotents and show, in particular, that nonnegative nilpotent matrices are products of nonnegative idempotent matrices. We study as to when each singular matrix is a product of idempotents in special classes of rings. Regarding the second question for nonnegative matrices, bounds are obtained for a rank one nonnegative matrix to be a product of two idempotent matrices. It is shown that every nonnegative matrix of rank one is a product of three nonnegative idempotent matrices. For matrices of higher orders, we show that some power of a group monotone matrix is a product of idempotent matrices.


REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, "plus" afforestration) is a tool that supports forest carbon-enhancing approaches in the developing world in order to mitigate and hopefully reverse climate change. A key issue within REDD+ is to appropriately bring in the almost 25% of developing country forests that are effectively controlled by communities. Many authors have discussed the social aspects of appropriateness, but there is limited analysis of the actual carbon sequestration potential of better-managed community controlled forests (CCFs). Drawing on an analytical framework that relies heavily on the common property and social capital literatures, our paper contributes to closing this research gap and sheds light on whether community forest management structures should be given serious consideration as REDD+ partners in the battle to mitigate climate change. Using household and community level data from four regional states in Ethiopia, we examine whether CCFs with design features known to be associated with better management appear to sequester more carbon than community systems with lower levels of these characteristics. The empirical analysis suggests that the quality of local level institutions may be important determinants of carbon sequestration. Developing country CCFs may therefore play a positive role within the context of REDD+ and other carbon sequestration initiatives. However, because of the nature of our data, results should be considered indicative. Better and smarter data combined with innovative techniques are needed to conclusively evaluate linkages between CCFs, carbon sequestration and REDD+.


:This paper contributes to the analysis of governance structures within clusters. Focus is on power relations shaping the evolution of clusters, and especially relations between multinational corporations (MNCs), local companies and local universities. The ultimate aim of the paper is to facilitate internationally comparative studies of cluster architectures and the main factors behind cluster evolution. A considerable amount of confusion is surrounding the definition and use of the term cluster. There are on the other hand only a rather limited amount of contributions to more systematic studies of typologies of clusters in the literature. Among these, power relations usually play only a minor or an implicit role. We start by giving a short overview of the literature on definitions and typologies of clusters. While there is a lack of focus on power in the literature on clusters and industrial districts, the literature dealing with global production networks (GPNs) has discussed power in relation to regional development. We therefore integrate the literature on GPNs in the discussion of cluster categories. A categorization of clusters is thereby developed focusing on the presence of MNC headquarters, MNC affiliates and local companies. We elaborate on this categorization by presenting a more systematic discussion of the role of power within clusters inspired from political science and sociology. This discussion builds on theoretical considerations and findings from case studies, which is presented in final part of the paper.


Projections of future climate conditions are carried out by many research institutions, each with their own general circulation model to do so. The projections are additionally subjected to distinct anthropogenic forcings, specified by future greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. These two factors, together with their temporal effects and interaction, create several potential sources of variation in final climate projection output. Multilevel statistical models, and specifically multilevel ANOVA, have come to be widely used for many reasons, not least of which is their ability to comprehensively assess many different sources of variation. In this article, a Bayesian multilevel ANOVA approach is applied to climate projections to assess each of these sources of variation, estimate the uncertainty regarding the assessment, and to allow comparison across all sources. The data originate from phase three of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3), consisting of 11 circulation models and three emissions scenarios over nine decadal time periods for boreal summer and winter. Data from the next phase, CMIP5, is now becoming available. As this approach towards ANOVA is relatively novel, and particularly so for spatial data, a short discussion of conventional ANOVA and the new methodology is provided.


This article focuses on migrant women's diverse experiences in the Greek labour market. Since the early 1980s all four Southern European countries of the EU, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy, have been transformed from emigration into immigration countries. The new immigrants, mostly undocumented and illegal, join the informal labour market under highly exploitative conditions. Starting from migrant women's own perspectives, we analyze their experiences (1) in the framework of the unfolding «Mediterranean immigration model»; (2) in the midst of increasing migratory flows to Greece in particular; (3) in the context of the legal and policy framework for migrants in Greece; and (4) in the framework of women's citizenship in society. Our qualitative study of immigrant women in Greece fleshes out the general trends of women's participation in informal labour markets, documents the multi-layered nature of their economic and social exclusion, and highlights the intersecting racialization and sexist practices shaping their experiences


Tourists and new comers arriving to Doha city, the capital of Qatar, need always to know about specific locations (i.e., tourist sites, hotels, schools, universities, shopping centers, hospitals, health centres, mosques, sporting clubs, etc.) and the possible routes leading to them. They are generally using static sources (i.e., Doha maps, brochures, diverse websites, etc) to get information about theses locations or they may ask others (i.e., residents, colleagues, passer-by). Even these information seem useful, they are however imprecise and will not fully satisfy the people requests and fulfill their incremental needs. An intelligent system helping these people to find quickly a location in Doha city is needed. Such a system will give detailed information about a specific location and determine the possible paths to reach it. People are always looking to save on time and resource (i.e., gas consumption, distances, time), therefore the system will be able to find the shortest routes leading to a specific location. In addition, it will help the potential users to plan a trip and visit a set of different locations within a limited period of time. Our system proposes routes leading to the user's destination and avoid passing thru locations with high accidents rates or heavy traffic. Doha city is divided into 71 different regions which are modeled by a weighted and connected graph. Each vertex of this graph represents a specific region, which, in turn, can be a sub-graph to allow internal search within the region. Dijkestra's algorithm is used to find the shortest paths between the regions. Information's about the regions are stored in a database for possible retrieval. The weight of the edge connecting two vertices represents the distance in KM between two regions.


Worldwide, wild birds are frequently suspected to be involved in the occurrence of outbreaks in captive-bred birds although proofs are lacking and most of the dedicated studies are insufficiently conclusive to confirm or characterize the roles of wild birds in such outbreaks. The aim of this study was to assess and compare, for the most prevalent peridomestic wild birds, the different exposure routes for Avian Influenza and Newcastle disease viruses in conservation breeding sites of Houbara bustards in the United Arab Emirates. To do so, we considered all of the potential pathways by which captive bustards could be exposed to Avian Influenza and Newcastle disease viruses by wild birds, and ran a comparative study of the likelihood of exposure via each of the pathways considered. We merged data from an ecological study dedicated to local wild bird communities with an analysis of the contacts between wild birds and captive bustards and with a prevalence survey of AIV and NDV in wild bird populations. We also extracted data from an extensive review of the scientific literature and by the elicitation of expert opinion. Overall, this analysis highlighted that captive bustards had a high risk of being exposed to pathogens by wild birds. This risk was higher for Newcastle disease virus than Avian influenza virus, and House sparrows represented the riskiest species for the transmission of both viruses through indirect exposure from consumption of water contaminated from the faeces of an infectious bird that got inside the aviary. Thus, this analysis reveals that wild peridomestic birds may play a role in the transmission of avian pathogens to captive bred birds. These results also reaffirm the need to implement sanitary measures to limit contacts between wild and captive birds and highlight priority targets for a thoughtful and efficient sanitary management strategy.


HISTORY The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) was established in 1985 as one of the "Centers of Excellence" in Tennessee's public university system. The aim of the Centers program was to create institutes that would foster advanced research and scholarship in fields in which the various schools had existing strengths. MTSU's location in Murfreesboro, thirty-five miles from Nashville, makes it a logical choice for a center related to popular-music scholarship. The university's Department of Recording Industry offers a successful music-business training program; in fall 1997, the department had an enrollment of approximately thirteen hundred majors. The MTSU Department of Music offers a bachelor's degree with emphasis in the music industry, and several members of the MTSU faculty - notably Charles Wolfe in the English Department - engage in scholarship related to popular music. Another important factor is the prominent role that Tennessee has played in the history and development of virtually all genres of popular music in the twentieth century, making the state a marvelous laboratory in which to study popular music. An interdisciplinary committee drawn from the departments of Recording Industry, English, Music, History, and Speech and Theater, and headed by the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, drew up the proposal for a "Center of Excellence in Music Archives and Research" in 1985. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission approved the proposal in April 1985, and the Center officially came into being on 1 July 1985. The committee that created the proposal served as the search committee for the Center's first director. I was offered the position in September 1985 and began work in November.(1) When I first learned about the plans to create a new research center for popular music, I realized that this represented an extraordinary opportunity for someone to build an archive and program from the ground up. Just how true this was became abundantly clear when I reported for work to an empty office. The first several months were devoted to such essential tasks as establishing an administrative office, hiring a secretary, and laying the foundations for the Center's physical and intellectual development. The committee that first drafted the proposal and then conducted the search for a director assumed a final incarnation as a faculty advisory board. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the Center is not part of any of the five undergraduate colleges at MTSU, and the director of the Center reports directly to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The board functions as a peer advisory panel that includes representation from various campus factions. I met with them frequently in the early days, and the members provided sound guidance, especially in matters of university policy. They did not dictate details of the Center's day-to-day operations, but rather allowed me considerable flexibility in shaping all aspects of the collections and programs. Their one clear mandate was that the Center should establish a large archive to serve as a major resource for the region. The board also agreed to my suggested name for the new enterprise: the Center for Popular Music. The first home of the Center was in MTSU's Learning Resources Center (LRC). The collection was assigned space in what was originally the Environmental Simulation Laboratory, a large cylindrical structure - approximately thirty feet in diameter by thirty feet in height - attached to one end of the LRC; Center staff referred to it, with mock affection, as "the silo." The laboratory was a type of multimedia theater in which various environmental conditions supposedly could be replicated, but the capability of the facility had never been fully utilized. Plans for converting this space to an archive and library were drawn up with the help of Michael Sniderman, the set designer for the Speech and Theater Department. …


Selenium has received considerable attention as a cancer preventive agent. But the puzzling, disquieting results of the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) have called into question how much is really understood about the biology behind selenium and cancer risk. This predicament should provide researchers with a renewed stimulus for exploring mechanisms of selenium anti-carcinogenesis. One such line of inquiry is homeostatic housecleaning — that selenium can preferentially eliminate DNA-damaged cell populations through apoptosis, consistent with the decreased DNA damage and increased apoptosis observed in the prostate of selenium-replete dogs after receiving additional dietary selenium supplementation. Because growing experimental evidence suggests the anti-carcinogenic effects of selenium on prostatic cells are form-dependent and apoptosis is a DNA damage response, the aim of this research was to determine whether selenite, a form of selenium that induces DNA damage, possesses potent homeostatic housecleaning activity. To test this hypothesis, we exposed human and canine prostate cancer cells to non-cytotoxic concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to create cell populations with higher levels of oxidant-induced DNA damage, and then evaluated the extent to which oxidant damage sensitizes prostate cancer cell populations to selenite-triggered apoptosis compared to apoptosis triggered by methylseleninic acid (MSA), a non-DNA damaging methylselenol precursor we previously showed to have strong homeostatic housecleaning activity. In this brief communication, we report that non-cytotoxic oxidant-induced damage does not sensitize prostate cancer cell populations to selenite-triggered apoptosis. Intensity of apoptosis triggered by MSA in H2O2-damaged prostate cancer cells was 3 times higher than undamaged cell populations not exposed to H2O2 (P ≤ 0.01). In contrast, neither human nor canine prostate cancer cells with oxidant-induced damage had a significant increase in intensity of selenite-triggered apoptosis compared to undamaged cells. The divergent results between MSA and selenite in our experiments contribute to a growing catalogue of observations that suggest there are important form-dependent differences in the extent to which selenium can impact the emergence of prostate cancer. By carefully documenting the form-dependent biological effects of selenium and other nutrients, we commit ourselves to more precisely qualifying the implications of laboratory results and to more carefully designing and interpreting the results of large-scale human trials.


Automatic navigation of aircraft may be accomplished in a number of ways. Where radiative contact with the ground is satisfactory, systems such as the conventional radio ranges and the more recently developed hyperbolic grid techniques are economical and normally reliable. However, in some regions of the earth and under certain atmospheric conditions, these types of radio aids may not be reliable. Other systems that involve radiative contact with the ground include radio mapping techniques and Doppler navigation; these generally require more expensive airborne equipment, although they are less subject to atmospheric disturbances. But since in military applications radiation from an aircraft furnishes a potential means of enemy detection, such techniques are relatively undesirable. At the present time, Doppler systems are the least subject to this objection. Inertial navigation makes use of acceleration detection and integration for obtaining information on the progress of the aircraft over the surface of the earth. It is independent of radiative contacts, and therefore free from such detection. On the other hand, it is subject to errors resulting from instrumental imperfections. In particular, drift of the essential gyroscopes leads to cumulative errors in indicated position; consequently, pure inertial autonavigators are limited in the flight time over which their indications are satisfactorily accurate. Use of photoelectric telescopes (star trackers) in combination with an inertial system provides a tie to basic inertial space, such as to minimize or eliminate the cumulative effect of gyro drift. Such a combination is known as a stellar inertial autonavigator.


Abstract. The early Eocene (~55 to 50 Ma) is a time period which has been explored in a large number of modelling and data studies. Here, using an ensemble of previously published model results, making up "EoMIP" – the Eocene Modelling Intercomparison Project – and syntheses of early Eocene terrestrial and sea surface temperature data, we present a self-consistent inter-model and model–data comparison. This shows that the previous modelling studies exhibit a very wide inter-model variability, but that at high CO2, there is good agreement between models and data for this period, particularly if possible seasonal biases in some of the proxies are considered. An energy balance analysis explores the reasons for the differences between the model results, and suggests that differences in surface albedo feedbacks, water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks, and prescribed aerosol loading are the dominant cause for the different results seen in the models, rather than inconsistencies in other prescribed boundary conditions or differences in cloud feedbacks. The CO2 level which would give optimal early Eocene model–data agreement, based on those models which have carried out simulations with more than one CO2 level, is in the range of 2500 ppmv to 6500 ppmv. Given the spread of model results, tighter bounds on proxy estimates of atmospheric CO2 and temperature during this time period will allow a quantitative assessment of the skill of the models at simulating warm climates. If it is the case that a model which gives a good simulation of the Eocene will also give a good simulation of the future, then such an assessment could be used to produce metrics for weighting future climate predictions.


Introduction As the institution of higher education repositions to move forward in the e-learning paradigm, quality issues that directly impact student performance are of paramount importance (Husson & Waterman, 2002; Sweat-Guy & Buzzetto-More; 2007b). The most recent Sloan Consortium report confirms that enrollment in online courses have increased to an estimated 2.4 million (Simonson, 2006). Arbaugh (2000) asserts that this online trend is due to a variety of factors such as "technological advances in both course software and computing capacity, competitive pressures from external stakeholders and alternative sources of education, and more flexibility for students". This widespread increase of online courses in colleges and universities across the globe has sparked continuous debate among educators and researchers alike. Regardless of whether a course is hybrid or fully online, there is much debate about what makes these courses effective learning experiences for students. Proponents of online education argue that this mode of instruction provides flexibility and convenience as well as increased student learning and satisfaction (Brunner, 2006; Buzzetto-More & Sweat-Guy, 2006; Kuo, 2005; Yip, 2004). In contrast, critics emphasize high dropout rates, absence of nonverbal cues, insufficient levels of interaction, and decreased student achievement as reasons to censure the online format (Hirschheim, 2005; Kock, Vervile, & Garza, 2007). Despite the popularity of online learning, relatively little research has examined the influence of teaching styles and methodology on objective measures of student learning (DeNeui & Dodge, 2006). Accordingly, this study was designed to examine the effects of instructional strategies, described by Sweat-Guy and Buzzetto-More (2007c) as methods or approaches used to achieve learning objectives, on student performance in two upper-level business courses developed in traditional and e-learning environments. The following research questions were postulated for this study: * Are there performance differences based on delivery method? * Are there performance differences based on course? * Are there performance differences based on instructional strategies? Literature Review Johnson and Aragon (2003) argue that student performance is directly impacted by the quality of instructional design. When developing online courses, Johnson and Aragon recommend a conceptual framework that represents a holistic perspective which includes instructional strategies that look beyond the traditional paradigm of instruction. Chen (2007) suggests that instructional design strategies should be modified in order to preserve the quality of learning. Accordingly, she used a blended approach combining objectivist and constructivist instructional strategies in her design of an intensive summer online course and found that students had positive learning experiences and were highly satisfied with their learning outcomes. Chang (2007) investigated the effects of a self-monitoring strategy on student performance in a web-based language learning course and found similar results. Students who applied the self-monitoring strategy outperformed students who did not apply the strategy. In contrast, the study conducted by Sweat-Guy and Buzzetto-More (2007a) examined the impact of instructor-centered versus learner-centered instructional strategy on student learning in two online courses. The results revealed no significant difference across treatment groups. A review of literature reports on a number of primary research studies that have provided comparable data on student performance between traditional and e-learning environments, citing the latter with more promising results. Connolly, MacArthur, Stansfield, and McLellan (2007) conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate student performance in 3 masters-level computer courses that were developed and delivered in online and traditional formats. …


Abstract. We investigated the effects of temperature and CO2 variation on the growth and elemental composition of cultures of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia subcurvata and the prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis antarctica, two ecologically dominant phytoplankton species isolated from the Ross Sea, Antarctica. To obtain thermal functional response curves, cultures were grown across a range of temperatures from 0 to 14 °C. In addition, a co-culturing experiment examined the relative abundance of both species at 0 and 6 °C. CO2 functional response curves were conducted from 100 to 1730 ppm at 2 and 8 °C to test for interactive effects between the two variables. The growth of both phytoplankton was significantly affected by temperature increase, but with different trends. Growth rates of P. subcurvata increased with temperature from 0 °C to maximum levels at 8 °C, while the growth rates of P. antarctica only increased from 0 to 2 °C. The maximum thermal limits of P. subcurvata and P. antarctica where growth stopped completely were 14 and 10 °C, respectively. Although P. subcurvata outgrew P. antarctica at both temperatures in the co-incubation experiment, this happened much faster at 6 than at 0 °C. For P. subcurvata, there was a significant interactive effect in which the warmer temperature decreased the CO2 half-saturation constant for growth, but this was not the case for P. antarctica. The growth rates of both species increased with CO2 increases up to 425 ppm, and in contrast to significant effects of temperature, the effects of CO2 increase on their elemental composition were minimal. Our results suggest that future warming may be more favorable to the diatom than to the prymnesiophyte, while CO2 increases may not be a major factor in future competitive interactions between Pseudo-nitzschia subcurvata and Phaeocystis antarctica in the Ross Sea.