Deciding which career path is right for undergraduate students can be challenging and positive outcomes are linked to early work placements. The aim of the current study was to explore the student experience following the introduction of early career-based awareness-raising and reflective learning opportunities in first-year sport and exercise science-based students. Students met with the first-year coordinator to discuss career progression and career aspirations. From this meeting, students were allocated a placement. Following the placement visit, students submitted a reflection piece addressing their experiences at the placement site with six themes identified including: 1) positive experience; 2) degree selection; 3) exposure and reinforcement of practices; 4) career awareness; 5) supervisor impact; and 6) negative experience. The provision of early placement for students in an observational capacity appears to be beneficial to first year experience to assist in consolidating their choice of degree.


Published in 1996* but not widely read, this article argues that space and information are so deeply related that the universe at every moment is exactly and only as large as it needs to be to "contain" the information it in fact is. Using three thought experiments—one about data visualization, one about cellular automata and consciousness, and one about the analysis of architectural space using isovists, each experiment blurring (or rather, uniting) the phenomena of psychological and physical space, the article argues that what we experience as "space" is that set of dimensions which provides the largest capacity for the world's other qualities, objects, and events to express their variety most fully. The natural universe is incompressible, expanding only as, and because, it becomes richer in information (i.e. cools and evolves). Imaginary and virtual worlds obey the same rule: they are "naturally" as big as they are rich in information. But the possibility exists in cyberspace—as it does not in nature—to choose which dimensions will serve as the spatial framework, and which will become/appear as properties of the things themselves. Data visualizers know this well. One wonders why virtual worlds to this day look so similar to ours, then, rather than to the one envisaged by William Gibson in 1984 and 1986 and which he called "cyberspace." A failure of architectural nerve? A constraint upon computation? Or has cyberspace proper yet to evolve?


[Executive Summary]:
The research that provides the basis for this report derives from the implementation in Victorian schools of the IDEAS Project, a school revitalisation initiative that was developed initially by the Leadership Research Institute (LRI), University of Southern Queensland, and Education Queensland across the period 1997-2004. The IDEAS Project has subsequently been implemented in five Australian education systems, including the Victorian State system, and refined with each new iteration.

The research problem that guided the research was as follows:

What key lessons for enhanced educational achievement can be learned from the implementation of the IDEAS Project in a selection of Victorian schools, 2004-8?

The research was concerned with the implementation of the IDEAS Project in 22 schools in three Victorian regions in 2004-8. Nineteen of the 22 schools completed the formal requirements of the Project, encompassing the period 2004-6, and agreed to participate in the research. Seventeen of the schools had been identified prior to the commencement of IDEAS as 'targeted' or 'underperforming' in matters of organisational health and/or school performance, thus necessitating an emphasis that had not previously been required of the IDEAS Project team.

The official implementation of the first Victorian IDEAS Project cohort extended from November 2004 to December 2006. Unofficially, the implementation process continued into 2007 and 2008, and, indeed, continues in a number of schools today. The implementation process involved participating schools in a wide range of professional learning and school development activities, encompassing the five ideas phases of Initiating, Discovering, Envisioning, Actioning and Sustaining. Central to implementation were the four core IDEAS Project constructs of organisational alignment, parallel leadership, 3-dimensional pedagogy and the ideas process itself. In these regards, IDEAS is thought to differ substantially from other school improvement initiatives in place throughout the world.

The research approach was both 'mutualistic' and 'evolutionary' in nature, encompassing the five stages of: Agreement to participate; Development of co-researcher functions; Preliminary conceptual development; Field study and data analysis; and Refinement of conceptual frameworks. Major databases were constituted of two forms:

 Department of Education and Early Childhood Development quantitative data relating to teacher opinions of their schools (SOS data) and student attitudes toward their schools (SAS data) during the years of the implementation of IDEAS;
 Five case studies. Data collection in the case study schools encompassed both quantitative and qualitative data forms.

The research team was constituted of 12 active researchers, led by Associate Professor Dorothy Andrews, as well as a research validation authority (Professor Bill Mulford) and a research mentor and synthesiser (Emeritus Professor Frank Crowther). Professor Crowther was involved in all aspects of the research, from initial design to data collection and analysis to preparation of the research report.

The findings of the research are believed to have international significance, given the longitudinal nature of the research in combination with the availability of authoritative statistical data relating to important aspects of school operations. Six conclusions are particularly pertinent in the light of current global research into sustained school improvement. These are as follows.

1. Based on validated statements of 2004-8 school outcomes, located in the context of systemic improvements in Victorian teachers' professional perceptions regarding their schools' operations, the following definition of 'school success' is proposed:
'School success' is defined as enhanced school achievements in agreed high priority goal areas, based on documented evidence of those achievements and teachers' expressed confidence in their school's capacity to sustain and extend those achievements into the future.

2. Six particular factors appear integral to the successes enjoyed by the 2004-8 IDEAS schools. The six factors are:

The Readiness factor - The availability of a highly credible process of school revitalisation (The IDEAS Project) at a point in time and in a structured form that suits the circumstances of a cluster of like-minded school professionals.
The Longitudinal factor – Access to a structured process of revitalisation (ideas) that enables schools to undertake highly complex developmental processes with relative ease over an extended period of time.
The Coherence factor – The availability of an explanatory framework for effective school organisation (the RBF) that provides school leaders and teaching professionals with a sense that they work in organisations that are in important ways intelligible and manageable.
The Leadership factor – Emphasis on leadership forms (parallelism and its derivatives) that recognise teachers' professionalism and principals' futuristic strategic functions.
The Mature Engagement factor – Systematic use of principles of interaction (The IDEAS Principles of Practice) that encourage mutual respect and dignity in professional relationships and creative problem-solving.
The Supportive Systems factor – Ready availability of reliable information, quality materials and expert personnel to facilitate futuristic school development and to link within-school goals to systemic priorities and resources.

3. A framework for successful school capacity-building, comprising six basic 'dynamics', emerged from the IDEAS-Victoria, 2004-8, research. The framework is contained in Figure 5.1.


Risk assessment is meaningful to quantitatively define adverse effects on human health and natural environment and it is possible to choose the most effective action related to groundwater contamination. In this paper, parameter uncertainties in risk assessment in geo-environmental system are examined through a probabilistic application of deterministic contaminant transport model using Latin hypercube sampling. One of the agricultural chemicals, 1,3-dichloropropene, is of concern to simulate its fate released from a line source in a two-dimensional homogeneous aquifer. The results indicate that the degree of the effect of parameter uncertainty is spatially different at exposure points and the dispersivity and the retardation factor are influential parameters to risk values while the water ingestion rate and the reduction factor of contaminant source play small roles in predicting the risk. Furthermore, it is found that the parameter uncertainty should be addressed in risk assessment procedures for groundwater contamination associated with agricultural chemicals.


OBJECTIVE
The effects of hypercortisolism on hippocampal volume have not been studied in heavy drinkers. Prior work suggested increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity in relation to lowered total hippocampus volume (THV) in heavy-drinking alcohol-dependent (AD) subjects. The present study hypothesized the following: (1) that chronic heavy-drinking subjects would demonstrate significantly higher salivary cortisol concentrations than light-drinking control subjects and (2) that data from the whole sample group would present an inverse relationship between cortisol concentration and THV.

METHOD
In carefully selected test and control subject groups matched for age, gender, and ethnicity, we measured salivary cortisol samples at waking, waking + 30 minutes, noon, and 4 PM on the day of magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. We next compared mean cortisol concentrations between groups and assessed the statistical association between cortisol concentration and hippocampus volume measures.

RESULTS
Comparison of AD test subjects (n = 8) and non-AD control subjects (n = 8) found significantly higher cortisol concentrations at both morning sampling times (mean [SD] at waking: 0.49 [0.23] vs 0.24 [0.14] microg/dl, p = .012; at waking + 30 minutes: 0.57 [0.37] vs 0.28 [0.11] microg/dl, p = 0.043). Controlling for intracranial volume, there was a significant inverse correlation between waking cortisol concentration and THV (p = .007) in the total sample group (N = 16). However, when analyzed separately, only the control group maintained a strong, inverse association (p = .025). There was no association among the heavy drinking subjects.

CONCLUSIONS
These early data in a small sample support the view that chronic heavy drinking results in high salivary cortisol concentrations. What remains unclear is whether hypercortisolism exerts a selectively injurious effect that results in observed hippocampus volume loss. Further research in larger groups using more frequent, monitored sampling must address the following: (1) whether this finding can be replicated and (2) if replicated, whether the lack of an association between low hippocampal volumes and high cortisol levels may indicate an extent of injury beyond which a normal association of the two may be lost.


What is the future of the BRICS (Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa) group? BRICS has transformed in record time from a global non‐entity into an informal institution that pursues global policy leadership, features extensive policy coordination among five powerful countries, and creates its own organizations. While BRICS momentum seemed unstoppable, a militarized dispute between India and China in 2020 raised questions about the group's future. This contribution concludes the Special Section by arguing that the BRICS group is not broken. Instead, it faces a range of strategic, geopolitical and operational challenges: how it addresses them will define its future trajectory and its impact on global governance. This essay analyses the situation from a conflict resolution perspective while bringing together insights from the five BRICS countries. It conceptualizes new directions for the BRICS group. Two possible internal conflict management scenarios are outlined: circumventing conflict and making institutional adjustments. Yet the real test of the group's resilience is its ability to exert collective leadership and improve global governance. BRICS' response to COVID‐19 and to the challenge of sustainable development offers insights into the group's ability to advance community goals.


Quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs) play an important role in theoretical computer science. QBF extends propositional logic in such a way that many advanced forms of reasoning can be easily formulated and evaluated. In this dissertation we present our ZQSAT, which is an algorithm for evaluating quantified Boolean formulas. ZQSAT is based on ZBDD: Zero-Suppressed Binary Decision Diagram , which is a variant of BDD, and an adopted version of the DPLL algorithm. It has been implemented in C using the CUDD: Colorado University Decision Diagram package. The capability of ZBDDs in storing sets of subsets efficiently enabled us to store the clauses of a QBF very compactly and let us to embed the notion of memoization to the DPLL algorithm. These points led us to implement the search algorithm in such a way that we could store and reuse the results of all previously solved subformulas with a little overheads. ZQSAT can solve some sets of standard QBF benchmark problems (known to be hard for DPLL based algorithms) faster than the best existing solvers. In addition to prenex-CNF, ZQSAT accepts prenex-NNF formulas. We show and prove how this capability can be exponentially beneficial.


Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) is one of the most widely planted tree species globally. As the reliability of estimating forest characteristics such as volume, biomass and carbon becomes more important, the necessary resources available for assessment are often insufficient to meet desired confidence levels. Small area estimation (SAE) methods were investigated for their potential to improve the precision of volume estimates in loblolly pine plantations aged 9–43. Area-level SAE models that included lidar height percentiles and stand thinning status as auxiliary information were developed to test whether precision gains could be achieved. Models that utilized both forms of auxiliary data provided larger gains in precision compared to using lidar alone. Unit-level SAE models were found to offer additional gains compared with area-level models in some cases; however, area-level models that incorporated both lidar and thinning status performed nearly as well or better. Despite their potential gains in precision, unit-level models are more difficult to apply in practice due to the need for highly accurate, spatially defined sample units and the inability to incorporate certain area-level covariates. The results of this study are of interest to those looking to reduce the uncertainty of stand parameter estimates. With improved estimate precision, managers, stakeholders and policy makers can have more confidence in resource assessments for informed decisions.


A pass-move and a $#$-move are local moves on oriented links defined by L.H. Kauffman and H. Murakami respectively. Two links are self pass-equivalent (resp. self $#$-equivalent) if one can be deformed into the other by pass-moves (resp. $#$-moves), where non of them can occur between distinct components of the link. These relations are equivalence relations on ordered oriented links and stronger than link-homotopy defined by J. Milnor. We give two complete classifications of links with arbitrarily many components up to self pass-equivalence and up to self $#$-equivalence respectively. So our classifications give subdivisions of link-homotopy classes.


PRINCIPLES
Reimbursement systems have difficulties depicting the actual cost of burn treatment, leaving care providers with a significant financial burden. Our aim was to establish a simple and accurate reimbursement model compatible with prospective payment systems.

METHODS
A total of 370 966 electronic medical records of patients discharged in 2012 to 2013 from Swiss university hospitals were reviewed. A total of 828 cases of burns including 109 cases of severe burns were retained. Costs, revenues and earnings for severe and nonsevere burns were analysed and a linear regression model predicting total inpatient treatment costs was established.

RESULTS
The median total costs per case for severe burns was tenfold higher than for nonsevere burns (179 949 CHF [167 353 EUR] vs 11 312 CHF [10 520 EUR], interquartile ranges 96 782-328 618 CHF vs 4 874-27 783 CHF, p <0.001). The median of earnings per case for nonsevere burns was 588 CHF (547 EUR) (interquartile range -6 720 - 5 354 CHF) whereas severe burns incurred a large financial loss to care providers, with median earnings of -33 178 CHF (30 856 EUR) (interquartile range -95 533 - 23 662 CHF). Differences were highly significant (p <0.001). Our linear regression model predicting total costs per case with length of stay (LOS) as independent variable had an adjusted R2 of 0.67 (p <0.001 for LOS).

CONCLUSIONS
Severe burns are systematically underfunded within the Swiss reimbursement system. Flat-rate DRG-based refunds poorly reflect the actual treatment costs. In conclusion, we suggest a reimbursement model based on a per diem rate for treatment of severe burns.


Abstract. Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is intrinsically sensitive to blood oxygen saturation (sO2) in vivo. However, making accurate sO2 measurements without knowledge of tissue- and instrumentation-related correction factors is extremely challenging. We have developed a low-cost flow phantom to facilitate validation of PAT systems. The phantom is composed of a flow circuit of tubing partially embedded within a tissue-mimicking material, with independent sensors providing online monitoring of the optical absorption spectrum and partial pressure of oxygen in the tube. We first test the flow phantom using two small molecule dyes that are frequently used for photoacoustic imaging: methylene blue and indocyanine green. We then demonstrate the potential of the phantom for evaluating sO2 using chemical oxygenation and deoxygenation of blood in the circuit. Using this dynamic assessment of the photoacoustic sO2 measurement in phantoms in relation to a ground truth, we explore the influence of multispectral processing and spectral coloring on accurate assessment of sO2. Future studies could exploit this low-cost dynamic flow phantom to validate fluence correction algorithms and explore additional blood parameters such as pH and also absorptive and other properties of different fluids.


The cognitive processing involved in the decoding of emotional expressions vs. attitudes in speech, as well as the modeling of emotional prosody as contours vs. gradual cues are debated questions. This work aims at measuring the anticipated perception of emotions on minimal linguistic units, to evaluate if the underlying processing is compatible with the hypothesis of gradient contours processing. Monosyllabic speech stimuli extracted from an expressive corpus and expressing anxiety, disappointment, disgust, disquiet, joy, resignation, sadness and satisfaction, were gradually presented in a gating experiment. Results show that identification along gates of most of expressions follow a linear pattern typical of a contour-like processing, while expressions of satisfaction present distinct gradient values that make possible an early identification of affective values.


The paper presents the criteria that affect the performance of network lifetime in Wireless Sensor Networks. In sensor networks the nodes can be organized into clusters for one hop energy-efficient data routing. This work focuses on adaptive clustering of sensor nodes where the role of cluster head changes among nodes. The nodes take turn to become cluster head based on one or several parameters such as random selection, nodes residual energy, nodes ID, node proximity to other nodes or nodes with different energy levels (advanced nodes). Ideally, the number of elected cluster heads must match the optimal number of cluster heads which is determined a priori or via simulation for energy-efficient routing. Achieving the optimal number of cluster heads is crucial as this will ensure the minimum energy consumption for data transmission to base station. This paper presents simulation results of existing adaptive clustering algorithms. The simulation results show how the election criteria for cluster heads election such as node residual energy, node proximity to other nodes, random election and nodes with different energy level affect the number of cluster heads elected, their distribution in the network and the network lifetime. Simulation results are provided to show the comparative effectiveness of different clustering algorithm on network lifetime, cluster head selection and their distribution in the network. Modifications on the cluster head election criteria are done that combined the node residual energy and nodes proximity to other nodes and simulation shows that the network lifetime is improved.


For the past quarter-century, mainstream architecture has proceeded on the underlying belief that we have the resources to build whatever and as much as we want and that technology can overcome any problems we create for ourselves through our building activities. The serious shortages that now confront us demand a thorough reevaluation of this premise. Carl Stein, nationally recognized for his contributions to the field of sustainable design, connects the impact of individual building design decisions to the global energy and environmental crises. He sets out the argument for sustainability inherent in Modern design, identifying tenets that are intrinsic to contemporary ecological thinking, and he provides the nuts-and-bolts information to assist practitioners and students of architecture, engineering, planning, and environmentalism in specific building-upgrade projects. While not a how-to handbook, Greening Modernism provides quantitative data and describes the environmental benefits from the continued use of the vast inventory of modern buildings, including reduced demand for energy and other finite resources and reduced need for waste processing. Greening Modernism explains the relationships between design and technology in the pre-petroleum, early-petroleum, and late-petroleum eras and goes on to suggest opportunities for architecture in a post-petroleum world.


Although the incidence of brain metastasis in gastric cancer is relatively low, its prevalence may increase with improved therapy and longer survival tumors. The molecular mechanisms underlying brain metastases are not well understood. To gain insight into the mechanism of brain metastasis, we studied differences in microRNA (miRNA) expression levels in 8 cases of matched primary gastric adenocarcinoma and brain metastatic adenocarcinoma using the Illumina microRNA microarray chip. We identified 6 upregulated and 2 downregulated miRNAs in all 8 cases simultaneously. Interestingly, 2 out of 8 miRNAs (hsa-miR‑141-3p and hsa-miR-200b-3p) belonged to the miR-200 family. Online microRNA database searching revealed that ZEB2 is the top-ranked target gene for hsa-miR141-3p and hsa-miR-200b-3p, prompting us to focus ZEB2 expression in brain metastatic adenocarcinoma. We confirmed that ZEB2 expression was markedly downregulated in some brain metastatic samples. In addition, decreased ZEB2 expression was noted by western blot analysis of 2 metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma cell types that were derived by in vivo selection following intracardiac injection of gastric cancer cell lines. In conclusion, we demonstrate that expression of miRNA-200 family members and ZEB2 are associated with brain metastases of gastric adenocarcinoma, not only in matched patient samples, but also in metastatic cell lines that were derived by in vivo selection.


Hong Kong has only had cross-sector competition law since 2015, but the city's telecommunications markets have been subject to sector-specific antitrust provisions for over two decades. The importance of nurturing an efficient, innovative, and competitive telecoms industry for Hong Kong's economic prosperity was acknowledged already at the time the sector was liberalized in the 1990s. Yet until the late 2000s, the government vehemently opposed the adoption of competition law in virtually all other sectors of the economy. This paper examines the effectiveness of the regulatory framework set up to guarantee the protection of competition in the telecommunications sector in Hong Kong. The results of the liberalization process are certainly remarkable, and the city boasts very competitive telecoms markets. However, it is argued that the enthusiasm over the results of the liberalization process may have eclipsed important competition issues in local markets which could have been tackled through the development of a robust antitrust policy, but which were sadly left unheeded. On the basis of the analysis of the history of (sector-specific) competition law in the telecoms sector, the paper assesses the potential of the new Competition Ordinance to address the principal threats to competition in these markets. In doing so, the paper finds that while the new regulatory framework may be generally suitable to combat collusion, it is less clear that it will effectively combat the problems associated with the creation of market power through mergers, or the abuse of that power.


The nutritive components of breast milk are well studied including the macronutrients, protein, lipid, and carbohydrates, as well as micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Recently, greater research attention has turned to other bioactive molecules found in milk that may play a significant non-nutritive role in normal infant development. Long chain-polyunsaturated fatty acids, complex oligosaccharides, bacteria, nucleotides, growth factors, and hormones are a few of these bioactive molecules found in breast milk. This mini-review examines research literature to determine if the growth and health promoting effects of bioactive proteins found in human breast milk are a result of intact, active molecules moving across the gut into infant circulation or the localized effect within the intestine. This topic has significant implications for both premature and failure to thrive infants as well as the opposite side of the spectrum with rapid, excess infant growth leading to childhood obesity.


The current research topic inquires: "Should we treat aging as a disease?" Yet, in this inquiry, the question "Can aging be considered a disease?" is secondary, while the more primary question really must be "Is aging treatable?" Paradoxically, the answer given to the second question largely determines the answer to the first. The perceived unchangeable, and hence untreatable, nature of aging is the root cause for many subsequent rationalizations, even to the point of claiming the desirability of aging-derived suffering and death. This is a well recognized psychological phenomenon sometimes referred to as "apologism" (Gruman, 1966) or even "deathism," a ramification of the "sour grapes syndrome," vilifying something that we think we cannot attain, while accepting as "good" or "healthy" something that we believe is inevitable for us (such as degenerative aging). Yet, I argue that, historically, medical tradition has always recognized the morbid character of aging and endeavored to fight it. The rationalizations of aging as "natural," "justified," or "healthy" could never entirely prevail.


Electronic health records (EHR) promise to improve communication between health care providers, thus leading to better quality of patients' treatment and reduced costs. As highly sensitive patient information provides a promising goal for attackers and is also demanded by insurance companies and employers, there is an increasing social and political pressure regarding the prevention of health data misuse. This paper presents a detailed description of the new system PIPE (pseudonymization of information for privacy in e-health) which differs from existing approaches in its ability to securely integrate primary and secondary usage of health data. Therefore, PIPE provides a solution to shortcomings of existing approaches. Our approach may be used as a basis for implementing secure EHR architectures or as an extension to existing systems.


In rare earth intermetallics with weakly bound f-electrons and a Kondo energy scale much larger than magnetic exchange interactions or crystal field splittings, the screening of local moments may result in a non-magnetic Fermi liquid ground state [1]. At low temperatures, the quantum fluctuations between magnetic and non-magnetic valence configurations can then acquire a cooperative (lattice) character. On a phenomenological basis, a sound understanding of this Anderson Lattice phenomenon has been achieved. On the other hand, the microscopic description of the coherent coupling between Kondo-screened sites remains an outstanding theoretical challenge [2]. In experiment, the cooperative character of Anderson Lattices has only recently become directly accessible. Momentum-resolved spectroscopies, such as angle-resolved photoemission and inelastic neutron scattering, reveal the emergence of characteristic low-energy quasiparticle dynamics at low temperatures [3]. These methods probe single-particle excitations in the charge and magnetic channels, respectively. By contrast, high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments couple to both charge and spin degrees of freedom in a non-trivial way and thus provide a more subtle point of view. If calculations of the underlying Kramers-Heisenberg term on a basis of strongly correlated f-electronic bands are achieved, RIXS may unlock unprecedented microscopic insights into the entanglement of local and itinerant charge and magnetic degrees of freedom. This would address a fundamental mechanism of quantum matter, with relevance far beyond lanthanides and actinides. I will review previous spectroscopic investigations of intermediate valence materials, present our recent RIXS results on the archetypal Anderson Lattice compound CePd3, and highlight some ideas for future x-ray scattering studies at 3rd and 4th generation light sources. [1] P. Riseborough and J. Lawrence, Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 084501 (2016) [2] Y.-F. Yang et al., Nature Letters 454, 611 (2008) [3] E. Goremychkin et al., Science 359, 186 (2018)


It is well documented that people with Asperger Syndrome show a propensity to mental health problems (e.g. Tantam, 1988); one contributor possibly being difficulties with social interaction (Frith, 2004). People with Asperger Syndrome and mental health problems may therefore require support, one form being psychotherapy (e.g. Schopler & Mesibov, 1983). However, despite the possible need of this population and the recent drives towards improving access to psychological therapies to the wider population (Department of Health, 2010) there is relatively little literature on psychotherapeutic interventions for people with Asperger Syndrome (Weiss & Lunsky, 2010), which might possibly impact on the client and therapist. Furthermore, the author postulated that when people with Asperger Syndrome do access psychological therapy, the difficulties that contributed to them seeking therapy such as interpersonal difficulties may also impact on basic therapeutic assumptions and therapist preferences as outlined in the literature. Thus the overall premise of this current study derives from the way Asperger Syndrome is defined (however, provisionally) as a disorder of interpersonal functioning, this would lead to an expectation that doing therapy (an intrinsically interpersonally process) with those with Asperger Syndrome might negatively impact on basic therapeutic assumptions and therapist attitudes in some way.

In this study, therapists' attitudes to working psychotherapeutically with clients with Asperger Syndrome were explored. Following preliminary discussions with colleagues, interviews with five trainee psychologists and 129 completed questionnaires from therapists, a number of areas were revealed as potentially important to psychotherapists working with people with Asperger Syndrome. These areas were the quality of supervision, therapist satisfaction, the quality of the working alliance, therapist knowledge and experience, the model(s) used and co-morbid psychopathology and other co-morbid concerns.

Despite people with Asperger Syndrome being viewed from the dominate discourse as not necessarily contributing to the fulfilment of a number of therapist preferences and therapeutic assumptions as described within the literature, interviews and questionnaire, overall the sample in this study viewed clients with Asperger Syndrome as satisfying to work with and the therapists viewed the working alliance as good, supervision effective and satisfaction was not contingent on the use of the dominant cognitive behavioural therapy model.


A revised and updated edition of the essential working manual for all those involved in geotechnical laboratory testing.

 This volume, the first in a set of three, is a vital working manual which covers the basic tests for the classification and compaction characteristics of engineering soils. It will therefore be an essential practical handbook for all engaged on the testing of soils in a laboratory for building and civil engineering purposes.

 Based on the author's experience over many years managing large soil testing laboratories, particular emphasis has been placed on ensuring that procedures are fully understood. Each test procedure has therefore been broken down into simple stages with each step being clearly described. The use of flow diagrams and the setting out of test data and calculations will be of great benefit, especially for the newcomer to soil testing.

 The book is complemented with many numerical examples which illustrate the methods of calculation and graphical presentations of typical results. The reporting of test data is also explained. Vital information on good techniques, laboratory safety, the calibration of measuring instruments, essential checks on equipment, and laboratory accreditation are all included.

 A basic knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry is assumed but some of the fundamental principles that are essential in soil testing are explained where appropriate.


Only one Western writer has ever been able to capture fully the spirit of the delightful inhabitants of Burma. Whether describing the childbirth rates, the function of the astrologers in Burmese society, or the Buddhist precepts by which the good Burman lives, "Shway Yoe" -the pseudonym of Sir J. George Scott, K.C.I.E., a British civil servant who spent more than thirty years in Burma-fills his book of observations with affection, keen insight and a broad sympathy for the Burmese society he knew. The Burman, His Life and Notions is an extraordinarily warm and human book, the validity and usefulness of which remains amazingly high even eighty years after its first appearance in 1882.


Soil moisture is an essential climate variable influencing land-atmosphere interactions, an essential hydrologic variable impacting rainfall-runoff processes, an essential ecological variable regulating net ecosystem exchange, and an essential agricultural variable constraining food security. Large-scale soil moisture monitoring has advanced in recent years, creating opportunities to transform scientific understanding of soil moisture and related processes. These advances are being driven by researchers from a broad range of disciplines, but this complicates collaboration and communication; and, for some applications, the science required to utilize large-scale soil moisture data is poorly developed. In this review, we describe the state of the art in large-scale soil moisture monitoring and identify some critical needs for research to optimize the use of increasingly available soil moisture data. We review representative examples of (i) emerging in situ and proximal sensing techniques, (ii) dedicated soil moisture remote sensing missions, (iii) soil moisture monitoring networks, and (iv) applications of large-scale soil moisture measurements. Significant near-term progress seems possible in the use of large-scale soil moisture data for drought monitoring. Assimilation of soil moisture data for meteorological or hydrologic forecasting also shows promise, but significant challenges related to spatial variability and model structures remain. Little progress has been made in the use of large-scale soil moisture observations within the context of ecological or agricultural modeling. Opportunities abound to advance the science and practice of large-scale soil moisture monitoring for the sake of improved Earth system monitoring, modeling, and forecasting.


This paper proposes AV-FUZZER, a testing framework, to find the safety violations of an autonomous vehicle (AV) in the presence of an evolving traffic environment. We perturb the driving maneuvers of traffic participants to create situations in which an AV can run into safety violations. To optimally search for the perturbations to be introduced, we leverage domain knowledge of vehicle dynamics and genetic algorithm to minimize the safety potential of an AV over its projected trajectory. The values of the perturbation determined by this process provide parameters that define participants' trajectories. To improve the efficiency of the search, we design a local fuzzer that increases the exploitation of local optima in the areas where highly likely safety-hazardous situations are observed. By repeating the optimization with significantly different starting points in the search space, AV-FUZZER determines several diverse AV safety violations. We demonstrate AV-FUZZER on an industrial-grade AV platform, Baidu Apollo, and find five distinct types of safety violations in a short period of time. In comparison, other existing techniques can find at most two. We analyze the safety violations found in Apollo and discuss their overarching causes.


Objectives: China's health care system is bifurcated in nature between rural and urban areas. In addition, there is a huge gap in socioeconomic status between rural and urban residents. The purpose of the study was to examine the factors related to dental visits among elders in rural and urban areas of Shanghai, China. Methods: Using a stratified random sampling method, a cross-sectional, face-to-face survey was conducted among elders aged 60 years and above in Shanghai during 2003-04. A total of 1,044 older respondents were included in the sample. Results: There was a significant urban and rural difference in dental visit rates over the 12-month period of the study. Results from the logistic regression analysis suggested that residing in urban areas was a significant positive factor related to dental visits. In addition, being younger, being able to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses, having had regular medical checkups, having a higher number of limitations because of chronic conditions, and being more concerned about eating a healthy diet were associated with increased odds of dental visits. Conclusions: Results suggest that urban–rural differences, as reflected in the socioeconomic status gap, disparity in medical insurance coverage, and access to dental care, have a significant impact on the use of dental services by Chinese elders. Individual sociodemographic characteristics, health status, and health attitude are important explanatory variables.


Coset Diagrams are a graphical representation of the permutation action of the groups. Studying groups through their actions on different sets and algebraic structure has become a useful technique to know about the structure of the groups. The graphs have played a vital role in studying these actions.

The main object of this work is to examine the actions of infinite groups G = , H = and M = on real quadratic fields Q(âˆsn) and to find the subsets of Q(âˆsn) invariant under the action of each of these groups. Certain proper subsets of Q(âˆsn) invariant under the actions of each of these groups G, H and M, Have also been discussed in this dissertation.

In this dissertation, a type of graphs, called coset diagrams, is employed to investigate the orbits of certain subsets Q*(âˆsp), Q//(âˆsp) and Q///(âˆsp) of Q(âˆsp), p a rational prime, under the actions of the groups G, H and M respectively.

This dissertation is concerned with the determination of number of ambiguous numbers, ambiguous integers, ambiguous units and ambiguous primes in certain subsets Q*(âˆsn), Q//(âˆsn) and Q///(âˆsn) of Q(âˆsn) which are invariant under the action of the groups G, H an M respectively. One of the principal results of this dissertation is that we have determined, for each non square positive rational integer n, the actual number of ambiguous numbers in Q*/(âˆsn), as a function of n.


Recent evidence has suggested that multiple disorders may share transdiagnostic factors. Transdiagnostic means a factor that may account for the comorbidity of symptoms between certain psychopathologies. Recently, researchers have posited that rumination, the tendency to dwell on thoughts and feelings, may be a transdiagnostic factor in several psychological disorders. It is also possible that rumination may exacerbate other psychological constructs or physical concerns (e.g., experiential avoidance, health anxiety, premenstrual distress). Previous research found that rumination partially mediated the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and premenstrual distress. In addition to the research on correlates of premenstrual distress, recently researchers have begun to look at gender-specific stressors that may predispose women to report more psychological and physical distress. Given that women engage in rumination in response to distress more than men, it is important to examine this construct in relation to other constructs (e.g., health anxiety). The purpose of the present study was to extend the research on the relationships between rumination and premenstrual distress to include health anxiety, experiential avoidance, and anxiety sensitivity. Undergraduate females (N = 715) completed measures of rumination (RSQ), premenstrual distress (MDQ), anxiety sensitivity (ASI), and experiential avoidance (AAQ). The average age was 19.47 (SD = 3.59) and the majority were Caucasian (92.9%). A stepwise multiple regression with premenstrual distress as the dependent variable and the other variables entered as predictors revealed that rumination and health anxiety significantly predicted 20% of the variance in premenstrual distress. Given the earlier research that found that rumination mediated the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and premenstrual distress, we conducted a multiple mediation analysis. Results indicated that rumination partially mediated the relationship between health anxiety and premenstrual distress. This study provides more support for the mediating influence of rumination and also identifies another gender-specific stressor that may impact women's mental and physical health.


This article considers the task of automatically inducing role-semantic annotations in the FrameNet paradigm for new languages. We propose a general framework that is based on annotation projection, phrased as a graph optimization problem. It is relatively inexpensive and has the potential to reduce the human effort involved in creating role-semantic resources. Within this framework, we present projection models that exploit lexical and syntactic information. We provide an experimental evaluation on an English-German parallel corpus which demonstrates the feasibility of inducing high-precision German semantic role annotation both for manually and automatically annotated English data.


Dreamweaver has been the tool of choice for professional Web site designers for years. And since it became part of the Adobe Creative Suite, even more users, including beginning Web designers, have turned to it to start creating Web sites. This book is for those beginnersall the people who are itching to design their very first Web site but dont want to learn every last Dreamweaver feature to do so. This full-color guide offers them the quickest way to create a well-designed, user-friendly Web site! Each short chapter uses big, bold screen shots and step-by-step instructions to illuminate one aspect of this process. By the end of the book, users will create a simple Web site, fill it with text, graphics and tables, use style sheets, create image maps, add navigation and links, and test and publish the final product. Timely tips and sidebars detailing good design practices round out the book. Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is available in several Adobe Creative Suite CS4 packages or it can be purchased separately. For customers who already own Dreamweaver CS3, Dreamweaver 8, or Dreamweaver MX 2004, there is special upgrade pricing.


Studies of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) commonly describe the nonfunctional p53-p21 axis of the G1/ S checkpoint pathway with subsequent relevance for cell cycle regulation and the DNA damage response (DDR). Importantly, p21 mRNA is clearly present and upregulated after the DDR in hESCs, but p21 protein is not detectable. In this article, we provide evidence that expression of p21 protein is directly regulated by the microRNA (miRNA) pathway under standard culture conditions and after DNA damage. The DDR in hESCs leads to upregulation of tens of miRNAs, including hESCspecific miRNAs such as those of the miR-302 family, miR-371-372 family, or C19MC miRNA cluster. Most importantly, we show that the hESC-enriched miRNA family miR-302 (miR-302a, miR-302b, miR-302c, and miR-302d) directly contributes to regulation of p21 expression in hESCs and, thus, demonstrate a novel function for miR-302s in hESCS. The described mechanism elucidates the role of miRNAs in regulation of important molecular pathway governing the G1/S transition checkpoint before as well as after DNA damage. STEM CELLS 2012;30:1362–1372 Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.


Using a substantial set of vagrancy removal records for Middlesex (1777–86) giving details of the place of origin of some 11,500 individuals, and analysing these records using a five-variable gravity model of migration, this article addresses a simple question: from which parts of England did London draw its lower-class migrants in the late eighteenth century? It concludes, first, that industrializing areas of the north emerged as a competitor for potential migrants—contributing relatively fewer migrants than predicted by the model. Rising wage rates in these areas appear to explain this phenomenon. Second, it argues that migration from urban centres in the west midlands and parts of the West Country, including Bristol, Birmingham, and Worcester, was substantially higher than predicted, and that this is largely explained by falling wage rates and the evolution of an increasingly efficient travel network. Third, for the counties within about 130 kilometres of the capital, this article suggests that migration followed the pattern described in the current literature, with London drawing large numbers of local women in particular. It also argues that these short-distance migrants came from a uniquely wide number of parishes, suggesting a direct rural-to-urban path.


Subnational governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are becoming increasingly important in the provision of public goods and services. In fact, their participation in the public expenditure increased from 13 to 25 percent between 1985 and 2015. This document presents the main lines of action that the IDB proposes for decentralization to generate the benefits attributed to it. These lines include: (i) defining the expenditure and service responsibilities of each level of government; (ii) guaranteeing the assignment of own sources of income for subnational governments to fulfill their obligations; (iii) closing the gap between expenditure and own income, and compensating less developed subnational governments; (iv) developing management capacities; and (v) creating mechanisms that facilitate transparency and accountability. In addition, it is proposed that decentralization be carried out in a framework of fiscal responsibility to promote fiscal sustainability among subnational governments. In summary, this document is a reference for any development professional interested in how decentralization is progressing in the region and where it is more suitable to invest limited resources to generate a greater impact.


The report is informed by a collaboration between ULI and the city of Rotterdam, which is seeking to foster an innovation ecosystem as part of the modernisation of its economy and the re-development of its central station area and the port lands. It partnered with ULI to organise a one-day workshop that brought together an international group of practitioners working on urban innovation districts to help devise a longer-term strategy for the city to build its innovation capacity. It also draws on the different approaches taken in three cities (Munich, San Diego and Tel Aviv), which are featured—along with Rotterdam—as separate case studies. The report builds on ULI's growing body of work on technology and the impact of the innovation economy on real estate.


Online-to-offline (OTO) is a new commercial model with enormous market potential. Online customer orders are forwarded to the offline brick-and-mortar store to fulfil, which is a combination of dual-channel supply chain. OTO overcomes many disadvantages of the traditional dual-channel supply chain, but still faces uncertain market demand. To reduce the inventory risk caused by demand uncertainty, lateral inventory transshipment is employed in this paper to pool inventory risk in OTO supply chain. We model centralised OTO and decentralised OTO with/without transshipment, and then analyse different scenarios. Our results demonstrate that there exists a unique Nash equilibrium of inventory order levels in dual channels and an optimal transshipment price to maximise the profit of the entire supply chain. Finally, we provide a numerical example of uniform demand distribution. Our analyses offer many managerial insights and show that transshipment always benefits the OTO supply chain.


In 1987, the Du Pont Company entered the market for barrier resins, which are used in the fabrication of plastic food containers. The company was experiencing difficulty establishing a position against incmnbent competitors. A new and technically superior product was about o be introduced, and a way was needed to induce customers to invest in qualifying the new material. The solution was Packaging Advisor TM, an expert system for rigid food container design. Deployed in February of 1988, Packaging Advisor automates the design process, providing our customer, the package designer, with information on alternative materials, the quantities of these materials needed to meet performance specifications, and estimates of material costs. Packaging Advisor was used in place of traditional marketing communications techniques to inform our customers and field sales staff about our new and existing products. Customer response, expressed in both words and orders, has been enthusiastic.


BACKGROUND
Revision hip arthroplasty (RHA) is associated with high rates of allogeneic blood transfusion (ABT). We aimed to determine factors associated with ABT in patients undergoing RHA in Scottish hospitals, with particular focus on perioperative cell salvage (PCS).

METHODS
A prospective observational cohort study of RHA procedures performed in 11 hospitals over 7 months was performed. We recorded predefined patient, surgery-related, and blood conservation factors that may influence perioperative ABT, together with postoperative haemoglobin (Hb) data and ABTs to day 7. We explored factors with strongest independent association with ABT during the perioperative period using multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS
Two hundred and ten cases were studied, of whom 58% received ABTs (mean 1.8 units), most of which (52%) occurred on the day of surgery. Eighty-eight (42%) patients received PCS, of whom 68 had red cells re-infused [mean re-infusion volume 312 ml (1st, 3rd quartile: 260, 363 ml)]. In unadjusted comparisons, patients receiving PCS had lower intraoperative (9% vs 40%) and total (55% vs 63%) exposure to ABTs. The mean (95% confidence interval) theatre blood loss was 1013 (899-1128) ml and was higher for combined femoral/acetabular revision and femoral revision than other categories. The mean postoperative Hb transfusion trigger was 80 g litre(-1). In multivariable models, preoperative Hb [odds ratio (OR) 0.35; P<0.001], patient weight (OR 0.96; P=0.004), operating theatre blood loss (OR 1.002; P<0.001), and re-infusion of PCS blood (OR 0.31; P=0.02) were independent predictors of ABT exposure.

CONCLUSIONS
PCS is an effective blood conservation strategy for RHA, especially for patients with preoperative anaemia, low body weight, or both.


The Grolier Codex has been a controversial document ever since its late discovery in 1965. Because of its rare iconographical content and its unknown origin, specialists are not keen to assure its authenticity that would set it amongst the other three known Maya codes in the world (Dresden, Paris Codex and Madrid Codex). The document that has been kept in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City, after its exposure in 1971 at the Grolier Club of New York, has been analyzed by a set of non-destructive techniques in order to characterize its materials including paper fibers, preparation layer and color compositions. The methodology included UV imaging, IR reflectography and optic microscopy examinations as well as Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) using an external beam setup for elemental analysis. All the measurements were carried out at 3MV Pelletron Accelerator of the Instituto de Fisica, UNAM. The aim of this work is to verify if the materials in the Grolier Codex match those found in other pre-Hispanic documents. From the elemental composition we concluded that the preparation layer shows the presence of gypsum (CaSO4), color red is due to red hematite (Fe2O3) and black is a carbon-based ink. These results agree with previous analyses carried out by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM-EDX) on few samples. However, the presence of Maya Blue in the blue pigment cannot be assured. The examination using UV and IR lights shows homogeneity in the inks and red color but dark areas that contain higher amounts of K in the preparation layer. This paper discusses the results obtained for the UV-IR examinations and the elemental analysis. A comparison with other studies on pre-Hispanic and early colonial codex is presented.


Secondary leukemias are usually forms of leukemias which are developed due to therapy administered for a previous malignancy. Radiotherapy or chemotherapy induced leukemia is a complication which follows treatment of a different primary malignancy. A case of acute monoblastic leukemia following treatment of the invasive carcinoma cervix (treated by radiotherapy and chemotherapy) is reported. This secondary leukemia developed one year after treatment. This case is being presented due to its rarity.


The oxidation behaviour of TiAlN based hard coatings with the addition of Cr and/or Y was investigated using scanning electron microscopy, scanning/transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, thermogravimetry and X-ray diffraction. The coatings were deposited using the combined cathodic arc/unbalanced magnetron deposition technique. The main practical application of these films is dry high speed cutting in difficult to cut materials such as AISI A2 steel. Especially in the case of TiAlCrYN coating with an oxynitride and Cr-enriched overcoat, extensive research on the oxidation behaviour was performed and described here. Heat treatments in air between 600-1000°C for different duration were carried out. The Ti[0.44]Al[0.54]Cr[0.02]N coating was used as the starting point for the investigations. The effect of heat on the composition of the interface region was investigated. This region is of utmost importance for the adhesion of the film. In the case of TiAICrN the interface stability was not guaranteed because of diffusion of the substrate elements Cr and Fe to the coating surface after annealing for 1h at 900°C. In comparison, the diffusion of substrate elements Cr and Fe in a ~2.3 mum thick coating of Ti[0.43]Al[0.52]Cr[0.03]Y[0.02]N and of Ti[0.34]Al[0.62]Cr[0.03]Y[0.01]N with overcoat, reached only a distance of ~600nm into the coating. This was achieved by the diffusion of Y to the grain boundaries. Y probably reacted at the same time with inward diffusing O. The diffusion of Y to the boundaries was observed after heat treatment for 1h at 900°C or 10h at 800°C.Ti[0.26]Al[0.26]N/Cr[0.48]N was the coating with the least oxide layer growth after oxidation for 1h at 900°C. An oxide layer thickness of only ~100nm was measured. For the TiAICrYN coating with overcoat an oxide layer of 230nm and for TiAICrYN of 430nm formed after 1h at 900°C. TiAlCrN in comparison formed an oxide layer of ~800nm after 1 h at 900°C.The oxide layers formed after 1h at 900°C consisted mainly of an Al[2]O[3] and TiO[2] bi-layer in the case of TiAlCrN and TiAlCrYN. The addition of a Cr-rich oxynitride overcoat led to the formation of a mixture out of Al[2]O[3], Cr[2]O[3] and TiO[2] in the oxide layer. In the case of TiAlN/CrN, a solid solution consisting of Cr[2]O[3] and Al[2]O[3] was observed. In general a stress relief after heat treatment was observed. At the same time the formation of voids along the column boundaries was identified. This was explained with the relaxation and diffusion of defects created during the deposition process. The effect of different substrate materials on the oxidation behaviour was also investigated. It was found that the formation of substrate oxides on the coating surface is very much dependent on the onset point of oxidation of the substrate material itself. The oxidation of substrate material occurred mainly through growth defects and pinholes. In cases where cracks formed during heat treatment of the coating, the formation of oxides out of substrate elements were observed in cracks connecting the substrate with the coating surface. Changing the bias voltage altered the formation of cracks.This research emphasises the importance of Y in the oxidation mechanism of TiAlN based hard coatings. Y blocks the diffusion path along the column boundaries and thus stowed down the diffusion and oxidation process. At the same time the addition of Cr can increase the oxidation resistance considerably, which was observed in the TiAlCrYN coating with and without overcoat.


This study attempts to tackle the inequality and globalization issue by departing from the usual convention and studying the effect of globalization on another distribution, which is the distribution of human capital. We would like to investigate whether globalization helps to alleviate or worsen inequality in education and benefit everyone in the observed population in the same way in terms of education. Moreover, we would also like to analyze whether the benefit or loss experienced by countries differ across the level of development. Our focus is on the impact of the composite index of globalization as well as its three different dimensions on education inequality. The study shows that the developing countries (low and middle-income countries) do not necessarily benefit from globalization, which clearly contradicts the standard trade theory. This is because we observe the existence of variation of effects within the developing countries itself. Globalization narrows the education gap in low-income countries but it widens the gap in middle-income countries. Additionally, the study also show the importance of social and political globalization, which is often ignored in existing literature. The results are robust to different measures of globalization, exclusion of countries from different regions and inclusion of several control variables.Keywords: Globalization; Human Capital Inequality; System GMM.


My dissertation consists of three essays that examine the effects of processes that take place in the pre-decision stage of decision-making on subsequent self-regulation. In my first essay I examine a new construct dealing with individuals' tendency to elaborate on potential future outcomes and develop a scale to measure it. Elaboration on potential outcomes captures the degree to which individuals generate positive and negative consequences of their behaviors, as well as the degree to which they evaluate the likelihood and importance of these consequences. I first develop the Elaboration on Potential Outcomes (EPO) scale and establish its factor structure, reliability and validity. I then investigate its relationships with conceptually related yet distinct consumer traits. Third, I examine its association with various consumer behaviors such as exercise of self-control, procrastination behaviors, compulsive buying, credit card debt, retirement investing, healthy lifestyle, and obesity. Finally, I show that peoples' tendency to think about potential outcomes predicts the type of information processing they engage in when making an important consumer decision, as well as the choices they make.In my second essay I examine consumers' tendency to elaborate in potential outcomes in the context of investment behavior. In three studies I show that investors with a stronger chronic tendency to engage in pre-decision outcome elaboration are less likely to be affected by different types of descriptive variance effects, which emerge when individuals make different decisions as a function of how information is presented to them. Furthermore, I find that encouraging pre-decision elaboration on the pros and cons of investing helps investors who tend not to engage in such elaboration to become less influenced by peripheral cues such as information framing and presentation mode.Finally, in my third essay I examine a different pre-decision process - goal activation at different levels of abstraction. The main question I look at is whether activating high- vs. low-level goals by asking consumers to consider why they should achieve a goal rather than how they can achieve it might differentially affect their pursuit of this goal. In two studies I examine the interactive effects of decisional status (pre- or post-decisional) and goal hierarchy (high- vs. low-level goal activation) on several self-regulatory domains: goal commitment, anticipated effortful goal pursuit, and choice.


The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily of active transporters involves a large number of function-ally diverse transmembrane proteins. They transport a variety of compounds through membranes against steep concentration gradients at the cost of ATP hydrolysis. These substrates include amino acids, lipids, inorganic ions, peptides, saccharides, peptides for antigen presentation, metals, drugs, and proteins. The ABC transporters not only move a variety of substrates into and out of the cell, but are also involved in intracellular compartmental transport. Energy derived from the hydrolysis of ATP is used to transport the substrate across the membrane against a concentration gradient. Human genome contains 48 ABC genes; 16 of these have a known function and 14 are associated with a defined human disease (Dean


Although the essential theoretical knowledge of marketing concepts is not enough for a person involved in the management and marketing planning. To be competitive in the labor market in the area of marketing interest must possess specific information analysis tools in order to capture those aspects of the marketing environment necessary for development decision making. Using the analytical capabilities resulting from technological boom of the last decades, especially those pertaining to information technology is vital for the competitiveness of the marketing activities of a modern organization.


Title of dissertation: STATISTICAL METHODS FOR ANALYZING TIME SERIES DATA DRAWN FROM COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS David Darmon, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Dissertation directed by: Professor Michelle Girvan Department of Physics Professor William Rand Smith School of Business The rise of human interaction in digital environments has lead to an abundance of behavioral traces. These traces allow for model-based investigation of human-human and human-machine interaction 'in the wild.' Stochastic models allow us to both predict and understand human behavior. In this thesis, we present statistical procedures for learning such models from the behavioral traces left in digital environments. First, we develop a non-parametric method for smoothing time series data corrupted by serially correlated noise. The method determines the simplest smoothing of the data that simultaneously gives the simplest residuals, where simplicity of the residuals is measured by their statistical complexity. We find that complexity regularized regression outperforms generalized cross validation in the presence of serially correlated noise. Next, we cast the task of modeling individual-level user behavior on social media into a predictive framework. We demonstrate the performance of two contrasting approaches, computational mechanics and echo state networks, on a heterogeneous data set drawn from user behavior on Twitter. We demonstrate that the behavior of users can be well-modeled as processes with self-feedback. We find that the two modeling approaches perform very similarly for most users, but that users where the two methods di↵er in performance highlight the challenges faced in applying predictive models to dynamic social data. We then expand the predictive problem of the previous work to modeling the aggregate behavior of large collections of users. We use three models, corresponding to seasonal, aggregate autoregressive, and aggregation-of-individual approaches, and find that the performance of the methods at predicting times of high activity depends strongly on the tradeo↵ between true and false positives, with no method dominating. Our results highlight the challenges and opportunities involved in modeling complex social systems, and demonstrate how influencers interested in forecasting potential user engagement can use complexity modeling to make better decisions. Finally, we turn from a predictive to a descriptive framework, and investigate how well user behavior can be attributed to time of day, self-memory, and social inputs. The models allow us to describe how a user processes their past behavior and their social inputs. We find that despite the diversity of observed user behavior, most models inferred fall into a small subclass of all possible finitary processes. Thus, our work demonstrates that user behavior, while quite complex, belies simple underlying computational structures. STATISTICAL METHODS FOR ANALYZING TIME SERIES DATA DRAWN FROM COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS by David Darmon Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Advisory Committee: Professor Michelle Girvan, Chair/Advisor Professor William Rand, Co-Advisor Professor Hector Bravo Professor Radu Balan Professor James Reggia c Copyright by David Darmon 2015 Dedication To my parents, for always believing in me, and to my brother and sister, for showing me how to become a scientist.


Most studies suggest that home numeracy is correlated with preschool children's current mathematical performance, and also predicts their mathematical performance longitudinally. However, this finding is not universal, and some studies do not suggest a close relationship between home numeracy and preschoolers' mathematical development. There are several possible reasons for the discrepant findings, including the exact nature of numeracy activities provided, and possible unreliability of parental reports of home numeracy. However, parental attitudes might also lead to differing results: because attitudes might influence actual home numeracy provision or the ways in which it is reported; because parental attitudes and beliefs might be transmitted intergenerationally; and because parental mathematics anxiety may interact with home numeracy activities to create early negative emotional associations about mathematics, as some research suggests to be the case with regard to school-age children. There has been a significant amount of research in the first two of these areas, but very little in the third area with regard to preschoolers. It should be seen as an important area for further research.


Measurements of long period disturbances associated with wave groups are compared with theoretical predictions. The experiments were carried out in a wave flume with an absorbing beach at one end. Tests were carried out using both regular wave groups (made up of two wave frequencies so that groups occur at a single beat frequency) and a random sea. The theoretical predictions are based on a Stokes expansion of the basic wave equations up to second order. The results are consistent with having three components in the long period disturbance at wave group periods. The first is set-down beneath wave groups, a disturbance that is tied to the wave groups travelling towards the beach. The second is a surf beat, a free long wave propagating back from the beach that is generated by reflection of the set-down from the beach. The third component is a secondary wave, a free long wave propagating towards the beach, that is generated by the wave-maker when it is only programmed to produce the primary wave system without its associated set-down beneath wave groups. The experimental results show that this third component can be minimised for both regular wave groups and a random sea by adding an appropriate long period movement of the wave-maker. Also, results are presented that indicate that long cycles of truly random waves, lasting many hours in model terms, are required to obtain reliable estimates of the effect of wave grouping on marine structures.


Year to year variation in yield is an inherent risk associated with crop production and many growers rely on intensive mechanical or chemical inputs to preserve crop yield in the face of fluctuating environmental conditions. However, as interest grows in alternative crop management systems which depend less on external inputs, determining the degree to which management systems can impact the temporal yield variability will help the development of sustainable agroecosystems. This study assessed average crop yields and temporal yield variability over a 12-yr period in four agricultural management systems that are part of a long-term cropping systems experiment at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in southwestern Michigan. The four systems follow a corn (Zea mays L.), soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) 3-yr rotation under conventional (CT), no-till (NT), low-input (LI), or organic (ORG) management, and each crop phase was present in the rotation four times from 1993 to 2004. Yields were measured each year and crop yield variability was estimated using the coefficient of variation calculated separately for each crop phase. Averaged over the study period, yields in the CT and NT systems were similar across all crop phases of the rotation and of higher magnitude than the LI system only in the winter wheat phase of the rotation. Compared to the other three management systems, yields in the ORG system were lower in the corn and winter wheat phases of the rotation. Yields in the soybean phase were similar across the four management systems. Temporal yield variability differed among management systems and rotation phases and was highest in the ORG system during the soybean (CV = 48%) and winter wheat (CV = 33%) phases of the rotation. Compared to the CT system, yield variability was 40% lower in the LI (corn phase), 33% lower in the NT (soybean phase) and similar in the NT (corn and winter wheat phases) systems. Results of this study suggest that yield and temporal yield variability under alternative management systems such as no-till and low-input can be comparable to that in conventional systems. However, temporal yield variability can be as high or higher in organic cropping systems without external inputs of manure or compost.


In this thesis, the optimisation of a near field scanning system is discussed. This
system, which consists of a stationary transmitter and a movable receiver, is in
use in the Experimental Physics Department at NUI Maynooth. The position of
the receiver is controlled by a two axis mechanical actuator.
The function of the near field scanning system is to characterise and verify
different optical components in the W-Band (75i110 GHz). The measurements
are generally used as a comparison with optical set-ups that have been modelled
in commercial optical packages such as CST, GRASP and ZEEMAX.
Primarily this project is concerned with improving the overall efficiency of the
scanning system. At first the original set-up will be introduced along with the
reasoning behind subsequent upgrades. In Chapter 3 these upgrades to the
system will be outlined along with the problems that arose as a result. In particular,
a study of the mechanical vibration caused by the driving of the actuator is
discussed. This vibrational study is split into two parts; displacement analysis
and spectral analysis. Both methods are used in an attempt to understand the
source of these new excitations. The implications that these vibrations have on
the quality of measurements being made by the near field scanner will also be
outlined.
Finally, the development of a new computational tool for alignment will be discussed.
The purpose behind this work is to develop a robust alignment tool that
will be the centrepiece of a standardised alignment method. The construction of
this tool along with its step by step testing will be outlined in Chapter 4.


The mechanical response of post-tensioned glass beams is explored in this paper. This is done through bending experiments on post-tensioned glass beam specimens with either mechanically anchored or adhesively bonded steel tendons by which a beneficial pre-stress is inflicted on the glass beams. In addition, reference beams with identical geometry but without tendons are tested. From the results of the bending experiments it can be seen that the post-tensioned glass beams reach higher initial fracture loads than the reference glass beams. Furthermore, the post-tensioned glass beams develop a significant post-fracture reserve. From this it is concluded that post-tensioning a glass beam is a feasible concept, which provides increased initial fracture strength and enhanced post-fracture performance.


Abstract Aridlands offer unique opportunities to compare effects of history, evolution, and local geography on assemblage and dynamics of small mammal communities that have severe environmental constraints. Pioneering work in Northern Hemispheric aridlands resulted in paradigms that were assumed to be general. Because the evolutionary history and biogeography of Southern Hemispheric aridlands have been distinct, they offer unusual opportunities to test this assumption. We present 6 papers in this Special Feature that show that Southern Hemispheric aridlands have developed and evolved in many unique directions.


The dispersion diagrams of surface plasmon polaritons have been calculated for rectangular gratings, with very narrow wires, of varying depths. For gratings with a moderate height a family of vertical-standing-wave resonances may be excited, which consist of surface plasmons, oscillating on either vertical surface, coupling together through the metal wires. These modes evolve similarly to the manner in which shallow-grating surface-plasmon dispersion curves evolve into cavity modes in the grooves of the structure. However, on further increase in grating height these vertical standing waves evolve into a second resonant feature, which is independent of yet further increases in height. This new mode is shown to be equivalent to the resonances found on infinite multilayer metal/dielectric structures illuminated at normal incidence.


When junior high school students study their course of "Science", it is very important for each of them to personally contact and experience with each of natural behaviers. There are, however, many behaviers that couldn t be experienced by a student because they are micro or, on the country, super macro. In such cases, it is possible and is important for him to get a quasi-experience using such an audio-visual aid as a computer or a VTR.The sound is a kind of wave, but it is difficult to see directly the moving of air whitch is the medium of the wave. The newly developed method for visualizing the sound is to apply Laser light sheet to smoke line generated in a very low speed wind tunnel. Through this method, the transmission behavier of sound became clear vizualized.


OBJECTIVES
To introduce a simple method of dosing over-the-counter medication in a home setting using a color-coding concept and to compare dosing deviation from recommended dosage using the color-coded method with dosing deviation using conventional package labeling.

DESIGN
Randomized controlled clinical trial.

SETTING
Pediatric emergency center at a tertiary care medical center.

PARTICIPANTS
A sample of 101 caregivers of children with nonemergent complaints separated into 2 groups. One group used a conventional dosing method and the other group used a color-coded method to determine and measure a dose of acetaminophen for their child.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
For both dose determination and dose measuring, percentage of deviation from recommended acetaminophen dosage was calculated and compared between the 2 groups.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference in sociodemographic characteristics between the 2 groups. How-ever, for dose determination, the average deviation (25.8% vs 1.7%) and median deviation (1% vs 0%) from recommended dosage were both higher for the group using conventional methods compared with the group using the color-coded method. The Wilcoxon rank sum test indicated that the median deviation was significantly different between the 2 groups (P<.001). Similar results were obtained for dose measuring. The average deviation (29% vs 0.5%) and the median deviation (17.2% vs 0%) from recommended dosage were higher for the group using conventional methods compared with the group using the color-coded method. The median deviation was also significantly different between the 2 groups (P<.001).

CONCLUSION
This study suggests a marked improvement in caregivers' ability to correctly determine and measure an over-the-counter medication for their child using a color-coded method compared with conventional methods.


LIM-homeobox containing (Lhx) genes encode trascriptional regulators which play critical roles in a variety of developmental processes. We have identified two genes belonging to a novel subfamily of mammalian Lhx genes, designated Lhx6 and Lhx7. Whole-mount in situ hybridisation showed that Lhx6 and Lhx7 were expressed during mouse embryogenesis in overlapping domains of the first branchial arch and the basal forebrain. More specifically, expression of Lhx6 and Lhx7 was detected prior to initiation of tooth formation in the presumptive oral and odontogenic mesenchyme of the maxillary and mandibular processes. During tooth formation, expression was restricted to the mesenchyme of individual teeth. Using explant cultures, we have shown that expression of Lhx6 and Lhx7 in mandibular mesenchyme was under the control of signals derived from the overlying epithelium; such signals were absent from the epithelium of the non-odontogenic second branchial arch. Furthermore, expression studies and bead implantation experiments in vitro have provided strong evidence that Fgf8 is primarily responsible for the restricted expression of Lhx6 and Lhx7 in the oral aspect of the maxillary and mandibular processes. In the telencephalon, expression of both genes was predominantly localised in the developing medial ganglionic eminences, flanking a Fgf8-positive midline region. We suggest that Fgf8 and Lhx6 and Lhx7 are key components of signalling cascades which determine morphogenesis and differentiation in the first branchial arch and the basal forebrain.


The legal profession is in the midst of a disruption: a monumental, transformative shift in shape and focus that will change the practice of law forever. Some lament this phenomenon. Some worry that it signals the end of Big Law, and that it will have ripple effects throughout the legal industry. Many assess the impact of these disruptions on the delivery of services to wealthier clients and corporations, who, in many instances, are the only ones able to afford lawyers in the U.S. legal market in the first place. Clayton Christensen has coined the term the "Innovator's Dilemma" for the phenomenon of business disruption, through which high-end producers of goods and services are "disrupted" by those entering the market on the lower end. Those disruptors are first ignored by incumbents and then those entrants find ways to serve a larger and larger segment of the market, eventually displacing the incumbents. If this theory is to be believed, true change in the market for the provision of legal services will not come from those serving wealthier clients, where many today look for the impacts of disruptive techniques and technologies. Instead, true disruption is likely to come from those serving the "lower end" of the market: the solo practitioners, legal services lawyers, and "low bono" providers of legal services. It is innovation in these corners of the market where pathbreaking disruption will take place, mostly out of necessity. What's more, it is the low end of the market that is actually quite robust: i.e., there is a desperate need for legal services, just an inability to pay for them. Disruption of the legal services industry has the potential for bringing real benefits to low- and moderate-income consumers of legal services. What this Article attempts to do is identify ways that disruption can occur in the provision of legal services to improve access to justice, particularly for low- and moderate-income individuals and families. While many recent entrants into the market for legal services risk running afoul of charges of unauthorized practice of law, those who are providing free services through the internet appear to be acting in compliance with lawyer rules of professional responsibility. This Article will review both the for-profit and non-profit models of technology-enabled legal assistance and assess the extent to which each may comply, or not comply, with unauthorized practice of law requirements. It will then review current efforts of non-profits to deliver technology-enabled services, and describe one initiative in detail that involved the creation of a web-based application to assist homeowners facing foreclosure in New York State. Given the need in low- and moderate-income communities for affordable legal services, perhaps disruption in this market has its benefits: at a minimum, it offers a way to improve access to justice for communities and individuals underserved by the present — and expensive — modes of delivering legal services in the United States. This article explores those benefits, but also highlights some of the concerns that arise when technology is used to improve access to justice.


THREE ESSAYS ON QUANTILE REGRESSION by Liang Wang The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2013 Under the Supervision of Professor Antonio F. Galvao The first chapter studies identification, estimation, and inference of general unconditional treatment effects models with continuous treatment under the ignorability assumption. We show identification of dose-response functions under the assumption that selection to treatment is based on observables. We consider estimation of dose-response functions through moment restriction models with generalized residual functions which are possibly non-smooth, and propose a semiparametric two-step estimator. This general formulation includes average and quantile treatment effects as special cases. The asymptotic properties of the estimator are derived. We also develop statistical inference procedures and show the validity of a bootstrap approach to implement these methods in practice. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the test statistics have good finite sample properties. Finally, we apply the proposed methods to estimate unconditional average and quantile effects of mothers' weight gain and age on birthweight. The second chapter develops a new minimum distance quantile regression (MDQR) estimator for panel data models with fixed effects. We establish consistency and derive the limiting distribution of the MD-QR estimator for panels with a large number of cross-sections and time-series. The limit theory allows for both sequential and joint limits. The proposed estimator is efficient in the class of minimum distance estimators. In addition, the MD-QR estimator is computationally fast, especially ii for large cross-sections. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to evaluate finite sample performance. Finally, we illustrate the use of the estimator with a simple application to the investment equation model. The third chapter proposes tests for slope homogeneity across individuals in quantile regression fixed effects panel data models. The tests are based on the Swamy statistic. We establish the asymptotic null distribution of the tests under large panel data, with sequential and joint limits. Monte Carlo experiments show good performance of the proposed tests in finite samples in terms of size and power. Finally, we test and reject the hypothesis of homogeneous speed of capital structure adjustment across firms using a panel dataset.


Due to widely used DC characterized loads and more distributed power generation sources, the DC Nano-grid becomes more and more popular and seen as an alternative to the AC-grid in future. For the safety considerations, the DC Nano-grid should provide reliable grounding for the residential loads like the low voltage AC power system. In this paper, a dual Buck-Boost AC/DC converter for use in the united grounding configuration based DC Nano-grid with three terminal outputs is proposed. It will be much easy to construct an efficient DC Nano-grid based on the existing low AC power system by using the proposed converter. The working principle of this converter and the system modeling are presented in detail. Simulations are carried out to verify the theoretical analysis.


Adolescence is a trying developmental stage and the high levels of violence that many adolescents are exposed to in South Africa could negatively influence their well-being. Self-efficacy is reported to be an important protective factor for adolescent well-being. Hence, the first aim of this study was to determine the nature of the relationship between perceived self-efficacy and self-reported aggression in an adolescent sample. The second aim was to explore whether there are differences in perceived self-efficacy and selfreported aggression pertaining to gender, age and residential area respectively. Three high schools in the peri-urban area of Worcester from mid to low socio-economic communities were selected and 344 (13 – 19 years) Afrikaans speaking high school learners were randomly sampled. The Self-efficacy Questionnaire for Children and the Aggression Questionnaire were used to measure self-efficacy and aggression. The findings from this research indicate that there was a significant negative relationship between self-efficacy and aggression. However, a positive correlation was found between emotional self-efficacy, verbal aggression and hostility for the total group. Females and peri-urban adolescents scored significantly higher in the total self-efficacy scale and subscales, namely, academic, social and emotional self-efficacy than the males and rural adolescents. Males also reported significantly higher physical aggression scores than females, whereas females reported significantly higher hostility scores.


In spring 2006, Massachusetts enacted legislation to ensure universal health insurance coverage to all residents. The legislation was a hybrid of ideas from across the political spectrum, promoted by a moderately conservative Republican governor with national political aspirations, and passed by a liberal Democratic state House and Senate. Groups from across the political spectrum supported the plan, from the Heritage Foundation on the right to Families USA on the left, although the plan had detractors from across the political spectrum as well.This study briefly describes the basic structure of the Massachusetts plan and identifies the good, the bad, and the ugly. Although the legislation, as Stuart Altman put it, is not a typical Massachusetts-Taxachusetts, oh-just-crazy-liberal plan, there is enough bad and ugly in the mix to raise serious concerns, particularly when the desire to overregulate the health insurance market appears to be hard-wired into Massachusetts policymakers' DNA.If we want to make health insurance more affordable and avoid the bad and the ugly of the Massachusetts plan, Congress - or, barring that, individual states - should consider a regulatory federalism approach. Under such an approach, insurers and insurance purchasers would be required to subject themselves to the laws and regulations of a single state but allowed to select the state. As with corporate charters, this system would allow employers and insurers to select the regulatory regime that most efficiently and cost-effectively matches the needs of their risk pools. The ability of purchasers and insurers to exit from the state's regulatory oversight (taking their premium taxes with them) would temper opportunistic behavior by legislators and regulators, including the temptation to impose inefficient mandates and otherwise overregulate.


Large earthquakes commonly trigger widespread and destructive landsliding. However, current approaches to modeling regional-scale landslide activity do not account for the temporal evolution of progressive failure in brittle hillslope materials. Progressive failure allows hillslopes to possess a memory of previous earthquakes, which has the potential to influence landslide activity in future earthquakes. The original contribution of this thesis is to address the influence of hillslope memory on spatial and temporal patterns of earthquake-triggered landslide activity, through a combination of landslide inventory analysis and numerical modeling.
An understanding of spatial distributions of earthquake-triggered landslides is first established, through analysis of inventories of landslides triggered by five large (M_w > 6.7) earthquakes. The results show how current landscape conditions at the time of earthquakes influence hillslope failure probability. By identifying factors exhibiting a common influence on landslides triggered by all five earthquakes, general spatial models of landslide probability are developed, which are transferrable between different earthquakes and regions. Analysis of model performance for landslide distributions triggered by two sequential earthquakes is then used to establish where this spatial approach breaks down. Errors in the landslide distribution predicted for the second earthquake suggest that the legacy of damage to hillslope materials accrued from the first earthquake is an important control on landslide occurrence.
Given the infrequent recurrence of large earthquakes and limited temporal coverage of landslide data, a new modelling approach is developed to understand how hillslope memory influences long-term patterns of earthquake-triggered landslide activity. The model integrates the site-scale evolution of hillslope progressive failure into modeling regional-scale earthquake-triggered landslide activity, in response to sequences of earthquakes. The model results suggest that the sensitivity of landscapes to landslide-triggering increases following large earthquakes, due to damage accumulated in hillslopes that do not reach the point of failure, and decays as these hillslopes fail in response to subsequent, lower-magnitude events. Prolonged elevated levels of rainfall-triggered landslide activity observed following large earthquakes appear to reflect this result. Using the model outputs, a methodology is proposed for predicting temporal variability in landslide activity using records of seismic data. The model results also suggest that, when hillslopes undergo progressive failure, relationships between seismic forcing and landslides are influenced by the magnitude-frequency distribution of earthquakes. As a result, current approaches that use these relationships to predict levels of long-term landslide hazard and erosion rates, but do not account for regional differences in earthquake distributions, may suffer from systematic under- or over-prediction. These significant implications for predicting the geomorphological and human impact of landslides highlight the need for detailed multi-temporal datasets recording the evolution of landslide activity following major earthquakes, in order to quantitatively investigate the influence of hillslope memory in real landscape settings.


This thesis investigates the quantum properties of T-duality invariant formalisms of String Theory. We introduce and review duality invariant formalisms of String Theory including the Doubled Formalism. We calculate the background field equations for the Doubled Formalism of Abelian T-duality and show how they are consistent with those of a conventional String Theory description of a toroidal compactification. We generalise these considerations to the case of Poisson–Lie T-duality and show that the system of renormalisation group equations obtained from the duality invariant parent theory are equivalent to those of either of the T-dual pair of sigma-models. In duality invariant formalisms it is quite common to loose manifest Lorentz invariance at the level of the Lagrangian. The lack of manifest invariance means that at the quantum level one might anticipate Lorentz anomalies and we show that such anomalies cancel non-trivially. These represent important and non-trivial consistency checks of the duality invariant approach to String Theory.


In this paper we review our research of light effects on tomato production. It was demonstrated that, during the production of greenhouse tomatoes, the total fruit yield, as well as time of harvest, was related to light. The date of harvest was inversely correlated with the amount of light the crop received during the seedling phase of growth, while fruit weight was positively correlated with light during the production phase. Additionally, we present information that shows that light was most effective in promoting fruit development between 15 and 45 days after flowering. Some of these relationships were quantified and used to develop a predictive model to help a grower plan a tomato crop to meet market demand. The concept of the Single-cluster Tomato Production System was developed, and the rewards of using our understanding of plantenvironment interactions to control plant growth and, therefore maxim& profits were shown. Furthermore, the need to create a more dynamic model and the methods for doing so were discussed.


A multi-country, multi-site comparative research study has documented the feasibility of recruiting drug-dependent individuals receiving treatment as an alternative to imprisonment ('quasi-compulsory' treatment, in the setting of an experimental group), while comparing them with those receiving treatment in the same therapeutic institutions, on a voluntary basis (control group). The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods in describing the evolution and outcome of each case after 6, 12 and 18 months in treatment. 845 probands were recruited from 9 sites in 5 countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, UK, Switzerland), 429 in the experimental and 416 in the comparison group. Data were collected using a standardized instrument set and following a joint protocol that allowed for the testing of a number of pre-established hypotheses. Significant reductions in drug use and delinquent behaviour, together with improvements in social integration and health, were found in both groups. Higher rates of perceived external pressure to stay in treatment in the experimental group did not affect motivation of these patients as regards
improvement and retention in the study. It can be concluded that the availability of treatment alternatives to imprisonment for drug dependence are a valuable policy option, under various different conditions, but that this option is open to further improvement.