In this paper, we deal with a simple embedded electronic system for an industrial pneumatic–hydraulic system, based on a low-cost programmable logic controller (PLC) and industrial electronic parts with 24 V logic. The developed system is a hydraulic pulse system and generates a series of high-pressure hydraulic pulses with up to a max. 200 bar output pressure level and with up to a max. 2 Hz output hydraulic pulses frequency. In this paper we are describing requirements, the concept of the embedded control system in a diagram, security features and its industrial network connectivity (CAN bus, MODBUS). In description of the software solution we describe the implementation of the program threads approach in this low-cost PLC. The PLC programming with threads generate two layers of services—physical and application layer, and as a result, the threads create the main control state machine. In conclusion, we describe the calibration method of the system and the calibration curves. For further study we offer readers the full programming code written in sequential function charts to be used as PLC language. The cost of the described industrial networked control system with industry standard optoelectronic insulated interfaces and certified industrial safety relay does not exceed €1000 Euros.


Effective collaboration is fundamental in fast changing environments such as emergencies. Emergency management (EM) requires timely and accurate information from a range of stakeholders to ensure adequate response. Problems arising from poor communication and lack of information sharing between disaster management groups can have a negative impact on response. For remote EM practitioners, a lack of resources combined with the large geographic areas affected by disasters can make effective EM response even more challenging. Modern technologies and advances in networking can provide new methods for sharing real-time information about a disaster with stakeholders regardless of their location. Thus, research should investigate methods for making this technology available for remote EM practitioners.

This thesis aims to develop a research artefact that meets the needs of remote EM practitioners for collaborative report writing tasks. The research methodology employed throughout the thesis to achieve this aim is Design Science. First, a survey of EM practitioners from remote Northwest Queensland (QLD) investigated their current information sharing and report writing practices. Limitations of current practices were identified, including the duplication of effort and the difficulty in sharing information with diverse stakeholders. It was also demonstrated that EM practitioners in remote Northwest QLD are interested in utilising collaborative technologies to improve information sharing both within and between organisations. The results of the survey derive several key features that should be supported in such systems, including support for real-time synchronisation, automatic convergence of information, flexible locking, user attribution, maintaining report history, as well as support for collaboration with users in the field.

Based on the findings of the survey of remote EM practitioners, an artefact was developed iteratively following the principles of Design Science. A comparison of text synchronisation algorithms demonstrated that the Differential Synchronisation technique (diffsync) was most suited for supporting synchronisation in remote EM, due to its natural convergence and robustness to poor network environments. However diffsync lacked support for several of the features suggested by the EM community. Thus, the development of the artefact focused on new techniques and frameworks for achieving flexible locking, user attribution, multi-synchronous editing and crowdsourcing within the diffsync technique. These features combined with diffsync provided a toolkit for developing collaborative EM report writing tools.

To determine whether the artefact met the needs of the remote EM practitioners, it was subjected to several Design Science evaluation methods. These methods included benchmarking, a static analysis based on groupware heuristics, and the instantiation of a prototype. This instantiation was subject to additional evaluations with the target EM community, including a comparison study, a technology acceptance study, and an enhanced cognitive walkthrough. The results of these evaluations determined that the artefact meets the needs specified by the remote EM practitioners surveyed earlier in the study.

The outcome of this thesis has many contributions and implications. First, the artefact developed provides a framework on which collaborative EM report writing tools can be developed, for example the prototype developed for evaluation. This framework is based on the needs of remote EM practitioners and assists with sharing timely and accurate information between EM responders. This framework could be utilised for further research in EM or other similar fields that require sharing of timely and accurate information. Finally, there were also several technical contributions to the diffsync technique including flexible locking and user attribution which provide a toolkit for emerging work paradigms such as multisynchronous editing and crowdsourcing.


This paper develops the argument that framing participatory activities as design rituals, with the facilitator as ritual leader, researchers and practitioners can plan and analyze activities in relation to the reorganization of symbols of meaning and social relationships, and the work these reorganizations perform. This contribution arises in the search for analytic tools that help increase the effectiveness and relevance of participatory practices in a variety of activities and settings throughout the span of design projects (i.e. meetings, presentations, workshops). The paper analyzes the role of the facilitator during a boardroom role-play activity in a company setting, through the lens of structure and anti-structure during the three stages of the ritual process: separation, liminality, and re-incorporation. The dual framework (ritual frame and play frame) of the example illuminates how symbols of power are leveraged to make available certain possibilities, while discouraging other possibilities, as well as the central role the facilitator plays in the production of the process.


Investment treaty arbitration is a relatively recent innovation designed to allow foreign investors to bring claims against host States without having to seek redress in the host State's own courts. Yet a trend has emerged that some have characterized as inconsistent with this purpose: several tribunals have rejected treaty claims based on their impression that the claimants had not adequately pursued local remedies prior to initiating arbitration. Moreover, some of these tribunals have suggested that if an investor does pursue local remedies, it may be effectively prevented from later rearguing issues addressed by national courts. The combined effect of these holdings is to place investors in a Catch-22, encouraging them to pursue local remedies, while warning them that doing so may foreclose success at the international level. This Article highlights the tension between these distinct aspects of this line of authority and evaluates each by reference to treaty language, principles of international law, domestic analogs under U.S. constitutional law and policy considerations. This analysis reveals that there is a sound basis for treating local remedies as relevant to the merits of certain treaty claims, but that tribunals should give more limited deference to national court decisions. The modified approach outlined in this Article promises to strike a better balance between investor protections and national sovereignty, and thereby promote the long-term viability of investment treaty arbitration.


Strategic information is valuable either by remaining private (for instance if it is sensitive) or, on the other hand, by being used publicly to increase some utility. These two objectives are antagonistic and leaking this information might be more rewarding than concealing it. Unlike classical solutions that focus on the first point, we consider instead agents that optimize a natural trade-off between both objectives. We formalize this as an optimization problem where the objective mapping is regularized by the amount of information revealed to the adversary (measured as a divergence between the prior and posterior on the private knowledge). Quite surprisingly, when combined with the entropic regularization, the Sinkhorn loss naturally emerges in the optimization objective, making it efficiently solvable. We apply these techniques to preserve some privacy in online repeated auctions.


The system of equations simulating the processes of nonstationary stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) with the excitation of polar optical phonons is obtained. This system is found by applying such standard methods as the nonstationary theory of perturbations, which resulted in the equations for the amplitudes of probabilities to find the discrete system in certain state, and slowly-varying amplitudes for the electromagnetic waves. It has been shown that the obtained system includes, as extremes, the case of classical interaction between electromagnetic field and resonant medium (including the "area theorem"), and the one related with SRS on optical phonons. We have conducted both theoretical and numerical investigation of simplified system assuming that the amplitudes of all electromagnetic waves (laser, Stokes, and polariton) were real (there was no destructive spatial-temporal phase modulation). Only low-order nonlinear processes are considered. It is shown that this system can be reduced to Sine-Gordon equation. This system can also be simplified to the equation that simulates the motion of physical pendulum from upper equilibrium position. The numerical study of nonstationary SRS when the electromagnetic field of laser radiation and Stokes excite both polariton emission and the continuum of dipole-active phonons has been carried out. The evolution of the intensity of the polariton wave as function of the length of nonlinear medium has been numerically analyzed.


As members of a profession committed to the dissemination of rigorous research pertaining to agricultural education, authors publishing in the Journal of Agricultural Education (JAE) must seek methods to evaluate and, when necessary, improve their research methods. The purpose of this study was to describe how authors of manuscripts published in JAE between 2006 and 2015 tested for nonresponse error. Results indicated that none of the studies' tests had acceptable power to detect small effect sizes, 14.3% had acceptable power to detect medium effect sizes, and 43% of the studies' tests did not have acceptable power to detect large effect sizes. These findings suggest that while authors frequently find no difference between respondents and others, the tests used to detect these differences are often not powerful enough to do so, leading to higher than acceptable risk for Type II error. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework, we highlight these findings to spur change within the profession's expectations of reporting statistical power when testing for nonresponse error and offer a primer to improve researchers' perceived behavioral control over reporting power. We also offer specific suggestions for conducting and reporting the results of tests for nonresponse bias.


To apply decision level fusion to hyperspectral remote sensing (HRS) image classification, three decision level fusion strategies are experimented on and compared, namely, linear consensus algorithm, improved evidence theory, and the proposed support vector machine (SVM) combiner. To evaluate the effects of the input features on classification performance, four schemes are used to organize input features for member classifiers. In the experiment, by using the operational modular imaging spectrometer (OMIS) II HRS image, the decision level fusion is shown as an effective way for improving the classification accuracy of the HRS image, and the proposed SVM combiner is especially suitable for decision level fusion. The results also indicate that the optimization of input features can improve the classification performance.


From image processing work, we know that the phase information is significantly more important than amplitude information in preserving the features of a visual scene. Is the same true in the case of a matched filter? From previous work [

 J. L.
 Horner

 ,
Appl. Opt.21,
4511(
1982)], we know that a pure phase correlation filter can have an optical efficiency of 100% in an optical correlation system. We examine this relationship between phase and amplitude in the case of alphanumeric characters, with and without noise, using a computer simulation. We compare the phase-only and amplitude-only filters to the classical matched filter using the criteria of discrimination, correlation peak, and optical efficiency. Three-dimensional plots of the autocorrelation and cross-correlation functions are presented and discussed.


Occidental Petroleum Corporation's (Oxy's) US business is focused on the Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeast
New Mexico. With nearly 2.5 million net acres, Oxy produces hydrocarbons from every producible formation in the Permian
Basin. To efficiently unlock value from this extensive acreage and operating position, Oxy has developed an unconventional
resource play appraisal and development workflow within which geophysics plays an integral role. This is notable given that just a couple of years ago geophysical data and analysis played a very minor role in our industry's unconventional resource play business decision-making process in this basin.
Our Permian Basin appraisal and development workflow starts with a regional basin overview to identify the most likely
rich source rocks and production analogs. We then develop an understanding of the geochemistry of the source rocks by means of cuttings and core analyses. Next, individual benches are appraised using pilot holes and state-of-the-art 3D pre-stack seismic data, conditioned in-house to meet the requirements for quantitative interpretation. All available data are integrated through multi-disciplinary studies to yield a thorough understanding of the petrophysical, geophysical, and geomechanical properties that impact well performance. Pre-stack depth-migrated 3D seismic attributes, including estimated pore-pressure and geomechanical flow units, are used extensively for planning the well's landing zone and trajectory, and also during operations to steer the well through the target zone. Microseismic data are used with tracer and pressure data to confirm our hydraulic fracture models. Recently, production data have confirmed the value of our interpreted seismic attributes, confirming the guidance that interpreted seismic data need to be an integral part of new well planning in the basin.


Aluminum (Al) toxicity is the major limiting factor of crop production on acid soils, but some plant species have evolved ways of detoxifying Al. Here, we report a C2H2-type zinc finger transcription factor ART1 (for Al resistance transcription factor 1), which specifically regulates the expression of genes related to Al tolerance in rice (Oryza sativa). ART1 is constitutively expressed in the root, and the expression level is not affected by Al treatment. ART1 is localized in the nucleus of all root cells. A yeast one-hybrid assay showed that ART1 has a transcriptional activation potential and interacts with the promoter region of STAR1, an important factor in rice Al tolerance. Microarray analysis revealed 31 downstream transcripts regulated by ART1, including STAR1 and 2 and a couple of homologs of Al tolerance genes in other plants. Some of these genes were implicated in both internal and external detoxification of Al at different cellular levels. Our findings shed light on comprehensively understanding how plants detoxify aluminum to survive in an acidic environment.


The self-consistent band structure calculations of the ordered and disordered intermetallic titanium-based alloys were performed using full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method and Korringa-Khon-Rostoker -coherent potential approximation (KKR-CPA) The electronic structure of the (001) surfaces are also calculated. The alteration of the electronic properties in the three TiMe series (Me=Fe, Co, Ni, Ru, Rh, Pd, Os, Ir, Pt) are discussed in the dependence of a number of valence electrons. The changes of the electronic structure during martensitic transformation, with disordering and alloying are analyzed. The calculated emission, absorption, electron energy loss spectra and optical properties are found to be in good agreement with experiment.


Background— Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is the treatment of choice in Kawasaki disease (KD). IVIG is used to prevent cardiovascular complications related to KD. However, a proportion of KD patients have persistent fever after IVIG treatment and are defined as IVIG resistant. Methods and Results— To develop a risk scoring system based on genetic markers to predict IVIG responsiveness in KD patients, a total of 150 KD patients (126 IVIG responders and 24 IVIG nonresponders) were recruited for this study. A genome-wide association analysis was performed to compare the 2 groups and identified risk alleles for IVIG resistance. A weighted genetic risk score was calculated by the natural log of the odds ratio multiplied by the number of risk alleles. Eleven single-nucleotide polymorphisms were identified by genome-wide association study. The KD patients were categorized into 3 groups based on their calculated weighted genetic risk score. Results indicated a significant association between weighted genetic risk score (groups 3 and 4 versus group 1) and the response to IVIG (Fisher's exact P value 4.518×10−03 and 8.224×10−10, respectively). Conclusions— This is the first weighted genetic risk score study based on a genome-wide association study in KD. The predictive model integrated the additive effects of all 11 single-nucleotide polymorphisms to provide a prediction of the responsiveness to IVIG.


IN THE 10-year period 1941-1950 inclusive, there were 164 cases of admission for acute pancreatitis to the Cincinnati General Hospital. In each case the diagnosis was based on at least one of the following criteria: (1) a consistent clinical history in conjunction with increased serum amylase; (2) surgical observation, and (3) postmortem examination. In each case acute pancreatitis was the major factor in the illness. The disease acute pancreatitis falls into three general clinicopathological subtypes, as indicated in a previous report: 1 1. Acute interstitial (edematous) pancreatitis, usually self-limiting and rarely fatal, is identified at operation or at necropsy by induration and swelling of the pancreas without softening or hemorrhage. In the absence of anatomical verification, a patient with acute pancreatitis is arbitrarily placed in this group if the clinical course is benign and if there is no evidence of hemorrhage, necrosis, or suppuration in and about the pancreas. One


Three theoretical hypotheses can explain the motives behind familial transfers given to the elders : altruism, exchange, and the demonstration effect theory where adults have to set an example by helping their elders if they want to be helped in turn by their children. This paper focuses on a theoretical model of demonstration transfers where the anticipation of future difficulties increases the provision of ups-tream transfers. Predictions of the model are tested using a cross-sectional survey on private transfers within trigenerational families. Econometric results for time-related upstream transfers are compatible with the demonstration motive. Classification JEL : D19, D64, J14


In this paper a range of reduced-rank adaptive multiuser detectors (MUDs) are proposed and investigated for the hybrid direct-sequence time-hopping ultrawide bandwidth (DS-TH UWB) systems. The adaptive MUDs are operated based on the recursive least square (RLS) principles. Three types of reduced-rank techniques are investigated, which are the principal component (PC), cross-spectral metric (CSM) and Taylor polynomial approximation (TPA). These reduced-rank adaptive techniques are beneficial to achieving low-complexity, high spectral-efficiency and robust detection in hybrid DSTH UWB systems. In this contribution bit error rate (BER) performance of the hybrid DS-TH UWB systems using proposed reduced-rank adaptive MUDs is investigated by simulations, when communicating over UWB channels modelled by the Saleh-Valenzuela (S-V) channel model. Our simulation results show that, given a sufficiently high rank of the detection subspace, the reduced-rank adaptive MUDs are capable of achieving a similar BER performance as that of the full-rank ideal minimum mean-square error MUD (MMSE-MUD) but with significantly lower detection complexity. Furthermore, the TPA-based reduced-rank adaptive MUD is capable of yielding a better BER performance than the PC- or CSM-based reduced-rank adaptive MUD, when the same but relatively low rank detection subspace is assumed.


Dance is an artform using the human body. These works were made to reflect various dances. I think dance is the most beautiful when the movement of clothes and dancers match. My aim in presenting this work was to achieve rhythmical movement and varied beauty. The works submitted are images of ballet, flamenco, and a tango. Ballet is expressed as an exquisite movement in a solemn atmosphere, flamenco is expressed as passion, and tango as a bending and twisting of the body. The visual narrative is important to me - I try to create works which tell a story that delight and intrigue. There are a lot of mathematical forms in my works. The mathematical form is natural and integral to computational art. There are many strategies in computational work: some involve repeating simple designs or mathematical concepts, or a set number of iterations. I always feel that image making is all about a balance in proportion. I have found that the more I inform myself of these proportions the more they enter my intuitive creative process.


The Care Group (CG) approach a specific type of peer support group model has proven instrumental in addressing issues of food insecurity and nutrition within many development contexts. International Medical Corps along with other implementing partners including members of the CORE Social and Behavior Change (SBC) working group have modified the model for use in emergency contexts finding that variations of the CG approach could lead to successful behavior change. The project gathered evidence about the use of Care Groups (CGs) and other types of peer support groups in emergency settings in order to analyze the use of CGs in emergencies and develop recommendations to ensure their effective use in these contexts. Consequently this report discusses experiences with Implementing Care Groups Cascade Groups and Mother-to-Mother Support Groups (MtMSG) in emergency settings. It also defines emergencies in terms of type stage and setting. The recommendations are based on the available evidence gathered during this study from current or past programs implementing peer support groups in emergency settings and stakeholder input. Two sets of recommendations emerged; one set is overall recommendations based on the stage of emergency -- acute transitional and protracted. The second is specific recommendations based on the adaptations challenges and benefits of using CGs in emergency settings.


In a reverse electro dialysis (RED) installation, power is produced from the chemical potential difference between salt- and freshwater using ion-selective membranes. In order to make a RED plant commercially feasible, large amounts of salt- and freshwater are needed. At the Afsluitdijk, salt water can be extracted from the Wadden Sea and freshwater from Lake IJssel. The water from the Wadden Sea, however, contains high concentrations of suspended particles (on average ca 50 mg l-1). These particles adversely affect the efficiency of the plant and need to be removed from the water before it enters the membrane stacks. Shellfish are efficient filterfeeders that are capable to filter large amounts of suspended solids from the water. Therefore, it has been suggested that shellfish can be used to pre-filter the water from the Wadden Sea, before it enters the reverse electro dialysis power plant. In a previous model study, it has been shown that, depending on residence times and amount of shellfish, mussels are capable to remove 50% of the suspended particles from the water. In this report, the results of a large-scale experimental study, that was executed to test if shellfish can be used as pre-filter for marine intake water, are presented. Two consecutive experiments (in spring and in summer) were run at the test facility at the Afsluitdijk using the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis). Filtration efficiency of marine intake water by shellfish was measured in a flow-through system containing mussels and compared to a control flow-through system without shellfish. The flow-through system was designed to create low flow velocities allowing the larger suspended particles (faeces and pseudofaeces) to sink and accumulate at the cone-shaped bottom of the tank. The accumulated deposits can be quantified and removed from the tank. The results of the large-scale experiments showed that depending on the set-up, the mussels were able to remove 6-11% of the incoming sediment over a period of 2 to 3 months. Within this period, moments occurred where more than 50% of the suspended particles were removed by the mussels. During the experiment in spring, the deposition rate in the tank with mussels (average 95 kg fresh weight) was on average 2.9 kg day-1 while the deposition rate in the control tank, without mussels, was 1.2 kg day-1. During the experiment in summer, the deposition rates in the mussel (average 35 kg fresh weight) and control tanks were 2.4 and 0.4 kg day-1, respectively. At a flow rate of 5 m3 per hour 11% of the incoming suspended matter was filtered by on average 35 kg of mussels. A powerplant with a capacity of 10 MW needs 10 m3 s-1 sea water (36 000 m3 per hour). To pre-filter the water with an efficiency of 11%, a total of 252 000 kg of mussels are needed, producing a total of about 16 tons of biodeposits per day. For upscaling purposes the design of the shellfish filtration system should be optimised to increase filtration efficiency of the mussels, minimize resuspension of (pseudo)faeces and increase the efficiency to remove the produced (pseudo)faeces from the systems. During the experiments, the mussels survived and even increased in weight. In the spring experiment the mussels grew on average 5 mm in length, increased their fresh weight (shell + tissue) by 62% and increased their flesh percentage on average from 12.7% to 20.6% over the course of the experiment executed between March and May. Approximately 57% of the mussels survived the experiment. Over the course of the experiment executed in summer (June – September), mussels grew on average 3 mm in length and increased their fresh weight (shell + tissue) by 15%. Percentage flesh decreased from 12.7% to 8.0% over the course of the experiment. The survival of the mussels during the second experiment was lower (38%) than in the first experiment. It is expected that modifications in the design of the set-up will increase the efficiency of the sediment removal from the water and the survival of the mussels.


We propose Dirichlet-Bernoulli Alignment (DBA), a generative model for corpora in which each pattern (e.g., a document) contains a set of instances (e.g., paragraphs in the document) and belongs to multiple classes. By casting predefined classes as latent Dirichlet variables (i.e., instance level labels), and modeling the multi-label of each pattern as Bernoulli variables conditioned on the weighted empirical average of topic assignments, DBA automatically aligns the latent topics discovered from data to human-defined classes. DBA is useful for both pattern classification and instance disambiguation, which are tested on text classification and named entity disambiguation in web search queries respectively.


A Language Model (LM) is a helpful component of a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems today. For speech recognition, machine translation, information retrieval, word sense disambiguation etc., the contribution of an LM is to provide features and indications on the probability of word sequences, their grammaticality and semantical meaningfulness. What makes language modeling a challenge for Machine Learning algorithms is the sheer amount of possible word sequences: the curse of dimensionality is especially encountered when modeling natural language. The survey will summarize and group literature that has addressed this problem and we will examine promising recent research on Neural Network techniques applied to language modeling in order to overcome the mentioned curse and to achieve better generalizations over word sequences.


Learning on graphs has attracted significant attention in the learning community due to numerous real-world applications. In particular, graph neural networks (GNNs), which take numerical node features and graph structure as inputs, have been shown to achieve state-of-the-art performance on various graph-related learning tasks. Recent works exploring the correlation between numerical node features and graph structure via self-supervised learning have paved the way for further performance improvements of GNNs. However, methods used for extracting numerical node features from raw data are still graph-agnostic within standard GNN pipelines. This practice is sub-optimal as it prevents one from fully utilizing potential correlations between graph topology and node attributes. To mitigate this issue, we propose a new self-supervised learning framework, Graph Information Aided Node feature exTraction (GIANT). GIANT makes use of the eXtreme Multi-label Classification (XMC) formalism, which is crucial for fine-tuning the language model based on graph information, and scales to large datasets. We also provide a theoretical analysis that justifies the use of XMC over link prediction and motivates integrating XR-Transformers, a powerful method for solving XMC problems, into the GIANT framework. We demonstrate the superior performance of GIANT over the standard GNN pipeline on Open Graph Benchmark datasets: For example, we improve the accuracy of the top-ranked method GAMLP from $68.25\%$ to $69.67\%$, SGC from $63.29\%$ to $66.10\%$ and MLP from $47.24\%$ to $61.10\%$ on the ogbn-papers100M dataset by leveraging GIANT.


Taapaca Volcanic Complex is a large dacitic volcano (35 km3) located in the western border of the active zone of the Central Andes of Northern Chile. Apart from early poorly preserved silicic andesites, Taapaca Volcanic Complex has generated remarkably similar porphyritic hornblende–biotite dacites with distinctive sanidine megacrysts for at least 1.5 Ma. The main products of the volcano are dacite lavas and domes with associated block-and-ash flow deposits. There have also been several sector collapses to generate debris avalanches, which are closely associated with volcanic blasts and episodes of dome growth. Four stages of evolution are recognized with volcanism occurring in short bursts between much longer periods of dormancy. Volcanism has built a substantial stratovolcano and has migrated 4–5 km towards the SW with time. Late Pleistocene to Holocene activity has involved at least three sector collapses of the hydrothermally altered flanks and domes. Volcanic blasts, block-and-ash flows, debris avalanches and lahars have been distributed down the southwestern flanks. These areas are the main populated part of the Chilean Altiplano and the location of the main road between Bolivia and the Pacific Ocean coast. A future eruption will threaten these areas and the regional economy.


How are soldiers made? Why do they fight? Re-imagining the study of armed forces and society, Barkawi examines the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War, especially the British Indian army in the Burma campaign. Going beyond conventional narratives, Barkawi studies soldiers in transnational context, from recruitment and training to combat and memory. Drawing on history, sociology and anthropology, the book critiques the 'Western way of war' from a postcolonial perspective. Barkawi reconceives soldiers as cosmopolitan, their battles irreducible to the national histories that monopolise them. This book will appeal to those interested in the Second World War, armed forces and the British Empire, and students and scholars of military sociology and history, South Asian studies and international relations.


Determination of the ability to leverage of plants from nutrients found in the soil in irrigation and dry conditions contributes to the work done. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of drought stress on macro and micro plant nutrients of the leaves of three sunflower genotypes (Tarsan, Sanbro and TR-3080) at 30% (drought stress) and 60% (well-watered) irrigation from soil water capacity. Stress treatment where starting with emergence until R1 stage (bud visible) in pods under controlled conditions of greenhouse. Drought stress significantly affected by changing P, K, Mg, Ca, Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn, Na contents of sunflower leaves. The results of our study under conditions of drought stress indicating that there were significantly differences among the all sunflower cultivars in terms of plant nutrients concentrations response to drought stress. Leaf P, Mg and Cu contents tend to decrease in the leaves of all sunflower genotypes under drought stress. Overall, on the basis of percent reduction consistently in accumulation plant nutrients in leaves, Sanbro cv. showed minimum reduction of percentage among the others under drought stress condition. However, differences in macro and micro nutrients used among all sunflower cultivars may also be related to differences in photosynthetic capacity under drought stress condition. It could also be confirmed that measuring macro and micro nutrients of leaves can be used to selection criterion for developing sunflower drought tolerance genotypes.


This book offers a unified treatment of mobile middleware technology Mobile Middleware: Architecture, Patterns and Practiceprovides a comprehensive overview of mobile middleware technology. The focus is on understanding the key design and architectural patterns, middleware layering, data presentation, specific technological solutions, and standardization. The author addresses current state of the art systems including Symbian, Java 2 Micro Edition, W3C technologies and many others, and features a chapter on widely deployed middleware systems. Additionally, the book includes a summary of relevant mobile middleware technologies, giving the reader an insight into middleware architecture design and well-known, useful design patterns. Several case studies are included in order to demonstrate how the presented patterns, solutions, and architectures are applied in practice. The case studies pertain to mobile service platforms, mobile XML processing, thin clients, rich clients, and mobile servers. Chapters on Architectures and Platforms, Mobile Messaging, Publish/Subscribe, Data Synchronization and Security are also included. Key Features: Provides a comprehensive overview of mobile middleware technology Unified treatment of three core topical areas: messaging, publish/subscribe, and data synchronization Discusses the role of middleware in the protocol stack Focus on both standards and research systems including current state- of-the-art systems such as Symbian, Java 2 Micro Edition, W3C technologies Contains concrete examples showing the presented architectures and solutions in practice Includes an accompanying website with links to open source software, and other resources This book serves as an invaluable guide to systems architects, researchers, and developers. It will also be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students studying computer science (distributed systems, computer networks).


This paper analyzes information and modern information technologies as applied in different organizational environment and considers the content and peculiarities of conflict management process based on implementation of communicative scenarios. Currently, the need for escalated organizational transformations has become imminent, taking into account the intensifying development of the differentiated information society, which requires properly interactive and transparent policy-making. Correct understanding of information and effective implementation of information technologies is a rational attempt to harmonize the modern organizational environment reducing the level of conflict and improving efficiency indexes.


Development of nuclear pumped lasers (NPL) in the CFBR-II reactor is briefly reviewed. The results of the two NPL experiments in CFBR-II reactor are described. The first one focused on the principle of nuclear pumped laser, and 4-mW laser output power achieved. The second NPL experiment focused on the small signal gain and the efficiency of the nuclear pumped He-Ar-Xe gas mixture at 1.73 ?m. The maximum laser power measured to be 45 mW when thermal neutron flux rate is 6.9 * 1014 cm^(-2)·s^(-1). The small signal gain at 1.73 ?m by the Rigrod analysis method is to be 0.24%·cm^(-1), and the saturation intensity is fitted to be 36 W/cm^(2).


One hundred and seventy four taxa belonging to 28 genera of desmids have been included in this work. Most of them are new records for Pakistan. Diagnostic characters of the families and the genera have been given. Keys are provided for all the taxes included in this study. Camera lucida drawings and photomicrographs of most of the taxes are given alongwith the diagnoses. The genera along with the number of taxes are Cosmarium (43), Closterium (24), Euastrum (22), Micrasterias (19), Staurastrum (13), Pleurotaenium (9), Xanthidium (7), Arthrodesmus (5), Staurodesmue (4), Desmidium (3), Tetmemorus (2), Cylindrocystis (2), Netrium, (2), Penium (2), Ryalotheca (2), Sphaerozosma (2), Spondylosium (2), Cocardium (1), Docidium (1), Triploceras (1), Spirotaenia (1), Mesotaenium (1), Bambusina (1), Phymatodocis (1), Gonatozygon (1), Streptonema (1), Cosmocladium (1), and Onychonema (1). In all,400 samples containing desmids were collected from all over the country. The more widely distributed taxes are Desmidium ewartzii collected from 5 localities, Bambusina brebissonii from 4, Tetmemorue brebissonii from 4, Hyalotheca dissiliens from 3, Cosmarium botrytis from 3, Euastrum Oblongum from 3, Penium margari¬taceum from 3, and Netrium digitus from 3. The more common genera are Cosmarium and Closterium.The nomenclature of all the tare is according to the Rules of International Botanical Nomenclature. Riddles of nomenclature have also been solved whenever found necessary. Some extremely rare desmids have also bean collected and included in this work.This study is primarily based on field collections. Some taxa, however, had to be cultured in the laboratory to determine the exact identity. These taxa are mostly from basic waters.


Luminescence Ages of Feldspar Contaminated Quartz from Fluvial Terrace Sediments This study focuses on obtaining luminescence ages in feldspar contaminated quartz from well-developed fluvial terraces of the Yesilirmak (Iris) river located inside the eastern North Anatolian Fault Shear Zone (NAFZ). We applied a technique based on conventional single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) protocol, modified with an IR pre-treatment to reduce the OSL contribution from feldspar for accurately measuring the dose in quartz. All investigated samples showed an ability to measure a beta dose given in the laboratory, a so called dose recovery test. The dependence of the equivalent dose on thermal treatment was also examined. Dose rate calculations were based on spectral analysis of gamma measurements by a field spectrometer on site. The efforts to establish a chronology using the IR modified SAR technique produced reliable dose results in stratigraphic order. Results were reproducible and grouped broadly between 35-109 ka for Bektemur, 32-36 ka for Kizilca, 19-47 ka for Aksalur and 35-44 ka for Sahinkaya. Obtained results show that the studied area was controlled by tectonic activities within the last 50 ka and the sample Aksalur 2 was the loess deposit formed by aeolian activity.


The purpose of this study was to examine the evaluating the potential of seed priming techniques in improving germination and early seedling growth of Aeluropus Macrostachys under salinity stress condition. This study was performed at the Islamic Azad University in Baft city which is located in southeast of kerman province (2250 meters above the sea level, 92o 17 N latitude and 56o 36 E longitude, and 220 mm annual rainfall). This experiment was conducted a completely randomized design. The factors examined include four levels of seed priming, control (without priming) with NaCl and CaCl2 KCl and five salinity levels (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 Desysimenz/m), respectively.In this experiment traits such as germination percentage, speed of germination, radicle length and shoot length were measured. Data were analyzed by using General Linear Models procedure of SAS software. In addition, Means were compared using Duncan's multiple range test. Results of this study showed that different seed priming treatments improved shoot and radicle length, germination percentage and speed of germination of Aeluropus Macrostachys specie


Policy makers, parents, and the public are concerned with perceived declines in parents' time with children. Data from two national surveys (N = 1,159 and N = 821) used in this study show that nearly half of parents report feeling too little time with children. Work hours are strongly related to these feelings, even controlling for time spent with children, and explain why fathers more than mothers feel time strain. For fathers, those whose youngest child is an adolescent feel more strain than similarly situated mothers. Controlling for work hours, single parents are not more likely than married parents to feel that they spend insufficient time with children.


Background: Barber's shop is a source of infections agents both blood borne and other infestation and the sure way to prevent this is through instrument sterilization after each customer. Aim: The study was to determine the level of knowledge and the practice of instrument sterilization amongst barbers in Presco campus, Ebonyi State University Abakaliki. Materials and Method: Cross-sectional design was used in the study. The sample of 40 barbers was drawn using simple sampling technique. Data was collected using questionnaire and analyzed using frequency and percentage, and ANOVA. Result: Majority (87.5%) were trained by other barbers as apprentice, very many (75%) were licensed to practice barbing, only 10 (25%) had accurate knowledge and aware of the need to sterilize instrument after use on each customer, personal characteristics have no significant influence on participant's knowledge of instrument sterilization at p=0.05. Conclusion: Barbers need proper education on the appropriate instrument sterilization to limit the spread of deadly infectious diseases.


Understanding the connections between culture, race, politics, and disease This groundbreaking book chronicles the history of sickle cell anemia in the United States, tracing its transformation from an "invisible" malady to a powerful, yet contested, cultural symbol of African American pain and suffering. Set in Memphis, where one of the nation's first sickle cell clinics was founded in the 1950s, Dying in the City of the Blues reveals how the recognition, treatment, social understanding, and symbolism of the disease evolved in the twentieth century, shaped by the politics of race, region, health care, and biomedicine. Using medical journals, patients' accounts, black newspapers, blues lyrics, and many other sources, Keith Wailoo follows the disease and its sufferers from the early days of obscurity before sickle cell's "discovery" by Western medicine; through its rise to clinical, scientific, and social prominence in the 1950s; to its politicization in the 1970s and 1980s. Looking forward, he considers the consequences of managed care on the politics of disease in the twenty-first century. A rich and multilayered narrative, Dying in the City of the Blues offers valuable new insight into the African American experience, the impact of race relations and ideologies on health care, and the politics of science, medicine, and disease.


Hoofdstuk in Frontiers in Gaming Simulation.
Design thinking, design methodology and design science gain much attention in the domain of gaming and simulation and their theories offer parallels to knowledge exchange in youth care services. Design science research covers context independent engineering and constructionist creativity in pursuit of general values and is built on the synthesis of what already exits and of what might be. Design thinking and design methodology address questions that show similarities to youth care problem solving and future scenario development. The core business of youth care workers is to support positive change and to develop beneficial opportunities for child-rearing. Effective knowledge exchange in networks is the key to successful intervention and simulation gaming might help to study its processes and outcomes, however, we need appropriate validation tools and methods. The author argues that the design and analytical sciences complement each other in research of network exchange. Analytical approaches might develop and test theories about knowledge acquisition and transfer, while design approaches could enhance the exchange of situational, interactional, and interventional expertise. This proposition is explored in a multiple case study in which an analysis tool has been used to structure and study knowledge exchange in youth care networks through simulation gaming.


Abstract. A machine learning algorithm in remote sensing often fails in the inference of a data set which has a different geographic location than the training data. This is because data of different locations have different underlying distributions caused by complicated reasons, such as the climate and the culture. For a large scale or a global scale task, this issue becomes relevant since it is extremely expensive to collect training data over all regions of interest. Unsupervised domain adaptation is a potential solution for this issue. Its goal is to train an algorithm in a source domain and generalize it to a target domain without using any label from the target domain. Those domains can be associated to geographic locations in remote sensing. In this paper, we attempt to adapt the unsupervised domain adaptation strategy by using a teacher-student network, mean teacher model, to investigate a cross-city classification problem in remote sensing. The mean teacher model consists of two identical networks, a teacher network and a student network. The objective function is a combination of a classification loss and a consistent loss. The classification loss works within the source domain (a city) and aims at accomplishing the goal of classification. The consistent loss works within the target domain (another city) and aims at transferring the knowledge learned from the source to the target. In this paper, two cross-city scenarios are set up. First, we train the model with the data of the city Munich, Germany, and test it on the data of the city Moscow, Russia. The second one is carried out by switching the training and testing data. For comparison, the baseline algorithm is a ResNet-18 which is also chosen as the backbone for the teacher and student networks in the mean teacher model. With 10 independent runs, in the first scenario, the mean teacher model has a mean overall accuracy of 53.38% which is slightly higher than the mean overall accuracy of the baseline, 52.21%. However, in the second scenario, the mean teacher model has a mean overall accuracy of 62.71% which is 5% higher than the mean overall accuracy of the baseline, 57.76%. This work demonstrates that it is worthy to explore the potential of the mean teacher model to solve the domain adaptation issues in remote sensing.


Over the past 15 years, the Geoprofessional Business Association's (GBA) Emerging Issues and Trends Committee has held a series of Crystal Ball Workshops (Workshops) to identify long-term emerging issues and business trends, and their potential impacts on the organization's member firms. Like other forecasts, some predictions come to pass, while others never materialize. Recent Workshops have accurately foreseen consolidation trends in our industry, as well as many of the impacts from demographic and economic shifts that geoprofesisonals have experienced.


Abstract The Bayesian Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) methodology, previously used in rainfall-runoff modelling, is applied to the distributed problem of predicting the space and time varying probabilities of inundation of all points on a flood plain. Probability estimates are based on conditioning predictions of Monte Carlo realizations of a distributed quasi-two-dimensional flood routing model using known levels at sites along the reach. The methodology can be applied in the flood forecasting context for which the N-step ahead inundation probability estimates can be updated in real time using telemetered information on water levels. It is also shown that it is possible to condition the Nstep ahead forecasts in real time using the (uncertain) on-line predictions of the downstream water levels at the end of the reach obtained from an adaptive transfer function model calibrated on reach scale inflow and outflow data.


'Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater Had a wife and couldn't keep her...' In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Armitage is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. Strange, unsettling and shot through with black comedy, this is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.


Leading up to the 200th commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade and the 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence, Pambazuka News carried a series of four special issues during 2006 and 2007 that included articles designed to raise awareness and debate on issues of trade and justice. These and other articles from Pambazuka News have been gathered in this book. We have chosen a deliberately provocative subtitle for this book: 'How trade undermines democracy and justice'. Two years ago saw large mobilisations around the world, calling for 'trade justice'. The campaigners were lobbying for the introduction and implementation of new world trade rules, ones that would work for all people, instead of benefiting those who already have the most. They argued that the global trading system should be rebalanced, taking into account the needs of the poor, human rights and the environment. But, can trade in the era of globalisation be 'fair' or 'just'? Drawing on lessons from the slave trade, studies of the international finance institutions and the struggles of many African people to make a living, these essays provide insights into how free trade policies have a profoundly negative impact on democracy and justice in Africa. Whether it is the effects of trade policies on informal street traders, who in Africa are often women, the decimation of a country's health system as a result of the World Bank's obsession with low inflation, or the sacrificing of community rights in the interests of multinational corporations, it is clear that 'free' trade policies impose a profit first and people last regime in Africa.


Self-concept theory was used as a theoretical basis to investigate the utility of social norms alcohol prevention programs for college athletes. The predictive relationship among alcohol use and athletic identity, competitiveness, drinking game participation, and level of sport participation was investigated. Drinking game participation was found to be a significant predictor of total weekly alcohol use above and beyond the other predictors. In addition, organized recreational sport participation was a significant predictor of total binge-drinking episodes. It was demonstrated that individuals not currently participating in sports with an athletic identity in the same range as current athletes consumed alcohol at similar rates to current athletes, thus supporting athletic identity as an alternative way of classifying athlete status when studying alcohol consumption patterns. These results highlight the importance of drinking game participation in the alcohol use of college athletes and the validity of app...


The scientific and technological upheavals of the 20th Century and the questions and difficulties that went along with them (climate change, nuclear energy, GMO, etc.) have increased the necessity of thinking about and formalizing technoscientific progress and its consequences. Expert evaluations and ethics committees today cannot be the only legitimate sources for understanding the social acceptability and desirability of this progress. Responsibility must be shared out on a wider scale, as much in society as in the process of research and innovation projects.

This book presents the main works of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) from a moral responsibility point of view, for which it calls upon no fewer than 10 understandings to bring out those which are positive and to support an interpretive and combinatory pluralism. In this sense, it demonstrates moral innovation. It analyzes numerous cases and proposes perspectives that are rarely discussed in this emerging field (current practices of ethical evaluation, concerns of the integrity of research, means for participatory technological evaluation, etc.). It contributes to the pledges of RRI, which largely remains theoretically undetermined even though it reorganizes the relationships between science, innovation and society.

To see more: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1848219156.html


This essay introduces the first edition of a new annual review of privacy law. The Privacy Year in Review series is published by I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, published in partnership by the Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University and the Heinz School of Carnegie Mellon University. The Privacy Year in Review has been adopted by the International Association of Privacy Professionals for distribution to all of its over 2,000 members. The essay describes the main themes of five chapters that we expect to produce each year, on medical privacy, financial privacy, Internet privacy, government data collection, and international (non-U.S.) topics. Each year we also have special topics, which in this edition cover VoIP and Privacy, biometrics, RFIDs, and the privacy torts. This year's volume is about 450 pages, and subscriptions are now available. Our goal has been to develop a trustworthy, non-ideological, and clearly written annual review of developments in privacy law. The format seeks to serve both experts in each sub-field and people who are looking at a topic for the first time. Each article has a clear table of contents. Each article introduces the key legal materials, such as HIPAA or the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, so that persons who are inexperienced in that area can get a basic orientation. The article also provides more detailed analysis and citations for recent developments. The essay, by the Faculty Editor, describes the growing professionalization of privacy law in the United States in recent years. Chief privacy officers and privacy compliance have spread through many public and private institutions, and few persons are able to stay current on the multiple sub-fields that have developed. A goal of Privacy Year in Review is to create an annual volume that will serve as a handy reference for all those wishing to understand developments in privacy law.


We're off! Over the last three weekends we've welcomed over 40 teachers to Lumb Bank, the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre in Yorkshire. The project, which is a partnership between Arvon, the Open University, and the University of Exeter is exploring how the opportunity for teachers to work with professional writers might change their understanding of being a writer, how they teach writing, and improve both children's outcomes and attitudes to writing. The project, (which is funded by EEF and the RSA as part of the Learning About Culture fund), is a randomised control trial with a comparison group of Year 5 teachers who are not involved in the intervention. The work is being evaluated by University College London and the Behavioural Insights Team for EEF/RSA.


This is a four-part review of the new book Ecotherapy: Healing With Nature in Mind edited by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist and published by Sierra Club Books. Bringing together four different perspectives offers an opportunity for a dimensional review that is representative of the many practices this book is intended to inform. Lisa Lynch and Thomas Doherty, as teachers of ecopsychology, review the text at both the undergraduate and graduate psychology level. They look at the book as an important representation of the ever-evolving fi eld of ecopsychology and suggest ways the text could be stronger, and emphasize the ways in which it makes a necessary contribution to their teaching. Martin Jordan reviews the book from across the Atlantic in England and suggests that the book could have attended to a more inclusive perspective. As a scholar and practitioner he is able to emphasize certain essays and how they make a contribution to the work he is doing. Sandra Newes reviews Ecotherapy from the point of view as a professionally trained Clinical Psychologist who is grateful to have found these many techniques that serve to support in incorporating a relationship and connection to nature into her psychotherapeutic practice. We chose this format in order to provide a round table of voices that each contribute a unique and important perspective. It is intended to give the reader a beginning at which to evaluate the text on their own, glean what is useful, and perhaps contribute in some way to the ever-evolving form of ecopsychology and ecotherapy.


The material characterization of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC), which is required for its implementation in design codes, should be based on nominal properties that describe its post-cracking strength in tension. In the case of brittle and quasi-brittle materials, such as concrete, the tensile parameters are often derived indirectly; however, for materials with more ductility, such as SFRC, there is conjecture whether or not an indirect measure may be used to establish the stress versus crack opening displacement relationship, such as use of three- or four-point prism test. In this paper we compare the results obtained from prism tests back analysed using the methodology of the 2010 fib Model Code with data from direct tension tests. The results suggest that the tension predictions of the Model Code can be improved by adopting the rigid plastic model with the stress determined at the point corresponding on the CMOD4


Many taxonomically diverse plant species are attacked by Erwinia chrysanthemi, a member of the causal agents of soft-rotting diseases. Symptom development is due to the collective action of pectin-degrading enzymes secreted by the bacterium through a type II secretion system (T2SS). Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a susceptible host, we show that plants respond to E. chrysanthemi 3937 by expressing cell-wall reactions, production of an oxidative burst, and activation of salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) or ethylene (ET) signaling pathways. We found that the oxidative burst is mainly generated via the expression of the AtrbohD gene, constitutes a barrier of resistance to bacterial attack, and acts independently of the SA-mediated response. To determine the importance of T2SS-secreted proteins in elicitation of these defenses, we used a T2SS deficient mutant and purified enzymatic preparations of representative members of strain 3937 pectate lyase activity. The T2SS-secreted proteins were responsible only partially for the activation of SA and JA or ET signaling pathways observed after infection with the wild-type bacterium and were not involved in the expression of other identified defense reactions. Our study shows the differential role played by pectate lyases isoenzymes in this process and highlights the complexity of the host immune network, which is finely controlled by the bacterium.


Iceland has been slow in developing a national security concept, for reasons that include a long period of reliance on US protection post-World War Two, and divided internal views over this defence solution. Since the withdrawal of all US stationed forces in 2006, Iceland's security partnerships have diversified and attempts have been made to frame security in more multi-functional terms. The Risk Assessment Report of 2009 made important progress in itemizing non-military threats and risks. On this basis, a cross-party parliamentary committee was invited to start work in 2012 on guidelines for a security strategy. Its report, published in March 2014, establishes a large area of consensus on 'softer' security issues and on remaining in NATO, with a few dissenting voices on the latter. Its main omission is a proper treatment of economic and financial security, still tied to the divisive issue of EU membership. Meanwhile, Iceland's recent security experience in 2014 has helped to highlight the reality of both harder and softer security challenges. The government can now proceed to draft a full official security strategy, to be laid before parliament possibly in 2015.


We find that the new generalized radiance function that was derived from Walther's first generalized radiance function by the present authors for a polychromatic field [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A14, 3379 (1997)] cannot generally be identified with Walther's first original function, even if the field is stationary in time. The identification of the new generalized radiance function with Walther's first original function requires an additional condition of quasi-homogeneity of the field. In contrast, the new complex radiance function for a polychromatic field that was also derived in our previous paper can be derived from the complex version of Walther's second generalized radiance function, regardless of the state of coherence of the field.


Between 1350 and 1803, eleven cases were decided that shaped the trade fixtures doctrine for jurisprudence in the English Commonwealth and its admirers. Prior to 1350, rights to things attached to real property were settled solely considering its attachment to the realty. However, between 1350 and 1803 dramatic shifts in the doctrine occurred. Interestingly, each of those shifts were paralleled by significant social seismic events. Instead, this essay considers not a particular moment in time, but rather a subset of doctrinal decisions that occur across a variety of moments. In short, this essay argues that the dates of the decisions deciding early trade fixture cases point to courts ruling out strict attachment as an all-encompassing fixtures definition, in favor of a more pliable and flexible doctrinal rule that could account for social unevenness between landlords and tenants. This essay attempts to contextualize in a very small subset of cases the slow turn away from attachment. This essay, considers the development of the trade fixtures doctrine in three movements: the early trade fixtures cases; the formative trade fixtures cases; and the refining trade fixtures cases.


Software testing is a very crucial approach for assuring the quality of the software applications. In this century, software is in use in every sphere of life. Hence, it is very essential to guarantee the correctness of the software functionality to a certain degree. Absence of proper methods to assure the correctness of the software can lead to disasters. Many testing methods have been proposed to select test inputs such that faults in the program can be detected effectively. However, several programs are non-testable due to the so-called "oracle problem". The oracle problem means that either there does not exist a mechanism (called "oracle") to verify the test output given any possible program input, or it is very expensive, if not impossible, to apply the oracle. Detecting faults in a program without the oracle is one of the major challenges of software testing. Metamorphic testing is an innovative approach to alleviating the oracle problem. In metamorphic testing, metamorphic relations are derived from the necessary characteristics of the system under test. These relations can help to generate test inputs and verify the correctness of the test outputs without the need of an oracle. Their effectiveness has a significant role in metamorphic testing. Hence, it is important to select effective metamorphic relations in metamorphic testing. Different metamorphic relations can generate test inputs with different code coverage. Thus, code coverage of generated test inputs can be considered as a characteristic of the corresponding metamorphic relation. This study aims to find out whether the fault-detection effectiveness of a metamorphic relation can be determined by its code coverage. Some case studies have been conducted to analyze the relationship between the code coverage and the fault-detection effectiveness of metamorphic relations. The systems for these studies were selected from different domains that require diverse ranges of metamorphic relations being derived. Moreover, efforts have been given to conduct the research in a platform independent way by choosing the systems from different platforms. Automated mutant generator tools have been used to generate mutants (faulty versions of the system under test) for ensuring non-biased mutants in the experiments. Fault-detection effectiveness of metamorphic relations is calculated by applying metamorphic testing on these mutants. Two basic coverage criteria namely line and branch coverage is taken into considerations. Automated code coverage tools are used to collect coverage data achieved by different metamorphic relations. A certain degree of correlation between the code coverage and fault-detection effectiveness of a metamorphic relation was observed. Code coverage attained by metamorphic relations was found to be a good indicator of the fault-detection effectiveness of these relations. Thus, the selection of metamorphic relations with higher code coverage can help metamorphic testing to become more efficient.


Summary The thesis is a response to the fact that the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority questions the learning ability of the petroleum companies that are operating on the Norwegian continental shelf, despite that this is something that has been focused on for decades. The issue of learning has recently become increasingly important because of the increasingly number of oil & gas companies operating on the Norwegian continental shelf. The thesis aims at study factors of importance for the learning ability of companies (the thesis is not necessarily just aimed at oil companies) with regards to internal/external experience. The terms internal/external experience is explained more in detail in the introduction chapter. In order to reveal inhibitors/promoters towards a learning organization it where created following research questions: ? What characterizes a learning organization? ? What inhibitors to learn from safety experience exist? ? What promoters to learn from safety experience exist? ? What general and specific advices can be given to promote learning from internal/external experience? In order to answer these questions, it where chosen a qualitative research approach based on a semi-qualitative interview guide which aimed at reveal the experience of nine employees within three different oil companies with regards to learn from unwanted incidents/conditions, as well as systems to assure learning within their current employer. The interview results provided the basis for the empirical part of the thesis by using grounded theory to code the results in order to find out which issues that were repeatedly mentioned, in order to reveal patterns and also to see what issues that were not given so much thought. The empirical results where then compared to prewritten theory, which was developed by study known literature within organizational learning. It where on the basis of this comparison developed recommendations for how to learn from internal/external experience. The recommendations are applicable for the oil industry as a whole, and could probably also be used by companies in other industries. The main findings in the thesis can be summarized to the following content: ? Cooperate across internal/external boundaries in order to learn from each other and ensure that everyone/as many as possible are able to participate/express their concerns and take signals from different actors seriously ? Be open for criticism even of established systems ? Ensure clarity regarding information, expectations, responsibilities, connections with following measures, distinguishing of incidents and different types of knowledge ? Make things easy to follow/summarize ? Ensure that investigations performed and procedures developed are backed by existing ground rules ? Map inabilities, long time issues and take into account conflicting interests as well as different assumptions ? Ensure enthusiasm to new solutions and avoid giving blame ? Important with a proactive management which do not back down from problems but instead engages in issues ? Develop arenas where the aim is to study improvements


An approach for modeling the stall/spin regime of single engine aircraft is presented. A three-pronged approach is taken that involves the following components: flight testing, the development of a new analytical model for calculating the forces on a stalled spinning wing, and validation of that model through wind tunnel tests. Significantly, these results are combined to form a new code, SpinSim, which assists with the six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) simulation of the aerodynamics and flight dynamics of an aircraft. This code places particular emphasis on the simulation of the stall/spin regime. The flight-testing phase of this research was conducted using a radio-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was flown into a wide variety of different stall/spin configurations. This UAV was equipped with onboard instrumentation and fitted with a data acquisition system specifically configured for this spin research. A large number of spins were flown, and the data were used in the development of the analytical model and 6DOF simulations. Four proposed ventral fin configurations were implemented, and their beneficial effects on the spin and recovery characteristics were demonstrated and explained. The SpinSim analytical model considers the normal force on a stalled spinning wing as a function of the aircraft pitch, the spin parameter, and the wing aspect ratio. The proposed first-principles-based approach allows for a standard flight model to be corrected for the three-dimensional flow effects and structures inherent in the spin regime. This approach demonstrates a significant improvement to the current state of the art. Notably, this model is based on the following: (1) the centrifugal pumping of the fluid in the elliptical trapped wing wake and (2) its eventual ejection at the wing tip. Also, wind tunnel tests were conducted to validate the analytical model, which revealed that the aspect ratio causes an increased effect on the wing normal force as the pitch angle is decreased. It is also concluded that the normal force coefficient is proportional to the spin parameter squared and that no Reynolds number effects exist within the range of Reynolds numbers tested. At values of the spin parameter in excess of unity, a maximum wing normal force coefficient limit appears to exist. This normal force coefficient limit increases in value for higher aspect ratio wings. The 6DOF simulations maintain a low computational cost in order to serve as a useful design tool for stall/spin studies. Such simulations incorporate the results of the flight and wind tunnel tests as well as the new analytical ii model. Simulations of the UAV in stall/spin situations showed strong agreement with the flight test data, especially in regard to the angular rates, spin radii, and aerodynamic angles. By using the proposed analytical model, SpinSim extends the range of the modelable parameter space that would otherwise require hazardous piloted testing or expensive dynamically-scaled model testing. Also, SpinSim functions as a tool to aid in the design-for-spin of airplanes and successfully captures the first-order effects attributable to the yawing motion of a stalled spinning wing.


This study examined the behavioral characteristics of 49 children in preschool special education programs in New York City. Twenty-nine of these children had been prenatally exposed to drugs, whereas 20 had no record of such exposure. The study employed three methods of data collection: participant observation, time sampling, and interviews with teaching staff. The observations and interviews focused on seven behavioral categories frequently referred to in literature on young children with prenatal drug exposure: mood, attachment (relationships), aggression, attention, movement (activity) level, organization and level of play, and language usage. The study found that the two groups differed in the hypothesized direction on total number of stereotypic characteristics. The drug-exposed group also displayed more anger, aggression, and unoccupied behavior. The most striking finding was the great variability within the drug-exposed group, with about half that sample bearing little or no resemblance to the stereotypic image and about one quarter strongly resembling it. This study was not designed to directly address the effects of prenatal drug exposure per se; much more information and control over the conditions of early care would have been necessary for that purpose. It did show that a subgroup within this population exhibits behavioral characteristics presenting a serious challenge that needs to be addressed by educators.


Background The major concern of using a large animal model to study rotator cuff repair is the high rate of repair retears. The purpose of this study was to test a non-weight-bearing (NWB) canine model for rotator cuff repair research. Methods First, in the in vitro study, 18 shoulders were randomized to 3 groups. 1) Full-width transections repaired with modified Mason-Allen sutures using 3-0 polyglactin suture, 2) Group 1 repaired using number 2 (#2) polyester braid and long-chain polyethylene suture, and 3) Partial-width transections leaving the superior 2 mm infraspinatus tendon intact without repair. In the in vivo study of 6 dogs, the infraspinatus tendon was partially transected as the same as the in vitro group 3. A radial neurectomy was performed to prevent weight bearing. The operated limb was slung in a custom-made jacket for 6 weeks. Results In the in vitro study, mean ultimate tensile load and stiffness in Group 2 were significantly higher than Group 1 and 3 (p<0.05). In the in vivo study, gross inspection and histology showed that the preserved superior 2-mm portion of the infraspinatus tendon remained intact with normal structure. Conclusions Based on the biomechanical and histological findings, this canine NWB model may be an appropriate and useful model for studies of rotator cuff repair.


Over the past several months, you began to give me, and many of the world's peoples, great hope. It appeared that you were helping to open a new era of cultural protections and reversal of colonial legacies across the globe, as a beacon of light from the developed world. Unlike other countries who have continued to view development spending as a way to promote their own national economic greed, Spain seemed genuinely committ ed to protecting the cultures and heritage of the planet in a way that would protect our common future and refl ect the best of humankind's joint hopes. It is urgent that you step in now to fulfi l your promise and to save the cultural diversity and heritage that you are now inadvertently destroying.


This study was performed to investigate the protective and therapeutic effects of resveratrol (RES) against CdCl2-induced toxicity in rat testes. Seven experimental groups of adult male rats were formulated as follows: A) controls+NS, B) control+vehicle (saline solution of hydroxypropyl cyclodextrin), C) RES treated, D) CdCl2+NS, E) CdCl2+vehicle, F) RES followed by CdCl2 and M) CdCl2 followed by RES. At the end of the protocol, serum levels of FSH, LH and testosterone were measured in all groups, and testicular levels of TBARS and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity were measured. Epididymal semen analysis was performed, and testicular expression of Bcl-2, p53 and Bax was assessed by RT-PCR. Also, histopathological changes of the testes were examined microscopically. Administration of RES before or after cadmium chloride in rats improved semen parameters including count, motility, daily sperm production and morphology, increased serum concentrations of gonadotropins and testosterone, decreased testicular lipid peroxidation and increased SOD activity. RES not only attenuated cadmium chloride-induced testicular histopathology but was also able to protect against the onset of cadmium chloride testicular toxicity. Cadmium chloride downregulated the anti-apoptotic gene Bcl2 and upregulated the expression of pro-apoptotic genes p53 and Bax. Resveratrol protected against and partially reversed cadmium chloride testicular toxicity via upregulation of Bcl2 and downregulation of p53 and Bax gene expression. The antioxidant activity of RES protects against cadmium chloride testicular toxicity and partially reverses its effect via upregulation of BCl2 and downregulation of p53 and Bax expression.


Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) with low porosity are obtained in one cycle via the well established liquid silicon infiltration (LSI) process, which is characterised by short processing times and fairly low manufacturing costs. Apart from aerospace applications, such as hot structures for re-entry vehicles, more and more applications beyond this classic field of CMCs are of increasing interest, eg brake discs, zero-expansion materials, high-temperature heat exchangers, heat-sink materials, etc. By applying special process parameters the microstructure as well as the physical properties can be tailor-designed to match specific requirements. The thermophysical properties of C/C-SiC, especially specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity as well as total and spectral emissivity were investigated in order to find out how the selection of fibres and pretreatment of the material affect them. Thermal conductivity of carbon fibres and therefore also of the composite considerably increases with increasing pyrolysis and graphitisation temperature.


This article describes the implementation of the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB). The BCVTB is a software environment that allows connecting different simulation programs to exchange data during the time integration, and that allows conducting hardware in the loop simulation. The software architecture is a modular design based on Ptolemy II, a software environment for design and analysis of heterogeneous systems. Ptolemy II provides a graphical model building environment, synchronizes the exchanged data and visualizes the system evolution during run-time. The BCVTB provides additions to Ptolemy II that allow the run-time coupling of different simulation programs for data exchange, including EnergyPlus, MATLAB, Simulink and the Modelica modelling and simulation environment Dymola. The additions also allow executing system commands, such as a script that executes a Radiance simulation. In this article, the software architecture is presented and the mathematical model used to implement the co-simulation is discussed. The simulation program interface that the BCVTB provides is explained. The article concludes by presenting applications in which different state of the art simulation programs are linked for run-time data exchange. This link allows the use of the simulation program that is best suited for the particular problem to model building heat transfer, HVAC system dynamics and control algorithms, and to compute a solution to the coupled problem using co-simulation.


Abstract. A new detailed pollen and oxygen isotope record of the penultimate interglacial–glacial cycle, corresponding to the marine isotope stage (MIS) 7–6, has been generated from the Ahlat Ridge (AR) sediment core at Lake Van, Turkey. The presented Lake Van pollen record (ca. 250.2–128.8 ka) displays the highest temporal resolution in this region with a mean sampling interval of  ∼  540 years. The integration of all available proxies shows three temperate intervals of high effective soil moisture availability. This is evidenced by the predominance of steppe-forested landscapes (oak steppe-forest) similar to the present interglacial vegetation in this sensitive semiarid region between the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The wettest and warmest stage, as indicated by highest temperate tree percentages, can be broadly correlated with MIS 7c, while the amplitude of the tree population maximum during the oldest penultimate interglacial (MIS 7e) appears to be reduced due to warm but drier climatic conditions. The detailed comparison of the penultimate interglacial complex (MIS 7) to the last interglacial (Eemian, MIS 5e) and the current interglacial (Holocene, MIS 1) provides a vivid illustration of possible differences in the successive climatic cycles. Intervening periods of treeless vegetation can be correlated with MIS 7d and 7a, in which open landscapes favor local erosion and detrital sedimentation. The predominance of steppe elements (e.g., Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae) during MIS 7d indicates very dry and cold climatic conditions. In contrast, the occurrence of higher temperate tree percentages (mainly deciduous Quercus) throughout MIS 7b points to relatively humid and mild conditions, which is in agreement with other pollen sequences in southern Europe. Despite the general dominance of dry and cold desert-steppe vegetation during the penultimate glacial (broadly equivalent to MIS 6), this period can be divided into two parts: an early stage (ca. 193–157 ka) with higher oscillations in tree percentages and a later stage (ca. 157–131 ka) with lower tree percentages and subdued oscillations. This subdivision of the penultimate glacial is also seen in other pollen records from southern Europe (e.g., MD01-2444 and I-284; Margari et al., 2010; Roucoux et al., 2011). The occurring vegetation pattern is analogous to the division of MIS 3 and MIS 2 during the last glacial in the same sediment sequence. Furthermore, we are able to identify the MIS 6e event (ca. 179–159 ka) as described in marine pollen records, which reveals clear climate variability due to rapid alternation in the vegetation cover. In comparison with long European pollen archives, speleothem isotope records from the Near East, and global climate parameters (e.g., insolation, atmospheric CO2 content), the new high-resolution Lake Van record presents an improved insight into regional vegetation dynamics and climate variability in the eastern Mediterranean region.


REA ... Real review, Real practice, Real results. Get the college credits you deserve. AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION with TESTware Includes CD with timed practice tests, instant scoring, and more. Completely aligned with today's AP exam Are you prepared to excel on the AP exam? * Set up a study schedule by following our results-driven timeline * Take the first practice test to discover what you know and what you should know * Use REA's advice to ready yourself for proper study and success Practice for real * Create the closest experience to test-day conditions with 3 of the book's 6 full-length practice tests on REA's TESTware CD, featuring test-taking against the clock, instant scoring by topic, handy mark-and-return function, pause function, and more. * OR choose paper-and-pencil testing at your own pace * Chart your progress with full and detailed explanations of all answers * Boost your confidence with testtaking strategies and experienced advice Sharpen your knowledge and skills * The book's full subject review features coverage of all AP English Literature and Composition areas: prose, poetry, drama and theater, verse and meter, types of poetry, plot structure, writing essays, and more * Smart and friendly lessons reinforce necessary skills * Key tutorials enhance specific abilities needed on the test * Targeted drills increase comprehension and help organize study Ideal for Classroom or Solo Test Preparation! REA has provided advanced preparation for generations of advanced students who have excelled on important tests and in life. REA's AP study guides are teacher-recommended and written by experts who have mastered the course and the test.


Introduction: Given the importance of using e-learning in medical education, this study aimed to Anticipate the e-learning acceptance according to nursing students enthusiasm scale at Gonabad University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This cross sectional study conducted on all undergraduate students of nursing and midwifery who were enrolled at Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 2015. 172 students were recruited and enthusiasm and e-learning questionnaire were filled for them. SPSS V.16 package and the independent t-test, Pearson correlation and multiple regression model were used to analyse data. Results: The results showed there is no significant difference (cid:3)ه the relation between male and female students' enthusiasm(P>0.05). There is a significant relationship between academic enthusiasm component with e-learning acceptance (p<0.01), and components of the behavioral, emotional and cognitive enthusiasm, with acceptance of e-learning. Conclusion: The findings showed that the components of academic enthusiasm is predicting acceptance of e-learning by students. Workshops and training courses may enhance students' enthusiasm. Stakeholders should also be organized by universities to enhance acceptance of e-learning.


Valikuvoimalus (Option to Choose) is a 1978 novel by the prolific Estonian writer Aimee Beekman. The novel tells the story of Regina, a schoolteacher approaching her thirtieth birthday who feels the need to start a family. Not able to find a suitable husband, she marries the village drunkard but, to ensure her children will be healthy, she decides to procreate with other men, alpha-males with clean medical records. This article tries to map the tumultuous dynamics of the reception of the novel and to explain it in terms of the rhetorical ethics developed by James Phelan. The first part of the article, "A story of a freakish unwoman", describes the first wave of reception. Reviewers were almost unanimously hostile and the novel was declared a failure. This can be explained by the unavoidable intertwining of the ethical and aesthetic aspects of any given literary work. Largely due to the social conventions in Estonia in the 1970s, the scheming protagonist was considered cold and almost inhuman. Thus the outraged reviewers were more inclined to judge the entire book negatively. This is contrasted by the more open-minded German reception (the translation was published in 1983), where Regina was often described as a pleasant and adventurous young woman. The second part of the article, "A model novel full of spirit", describes a change in the reception. At the end of the decade, a boom in "everyday novels" emerged in Estonia. Due to thematic similarities, Option to Choose was often compared to them: many of these books featured young women who faced problems with weak, uneducated men, often alcoholics, and tried different strategies to deal with the situation. However, the everyday novels were generally considered simplistic and vulgar. Against that background, the model-like, conceptual nature of Option to Choose became evident and appreciated. Using Phelan's terms, the novel was now rightly perceived as a didactic rather than mimetic piece of work; the contrast highlighted the different – and strong – ethical implications. The new basis of comparison worked in favour of the book. The third part, "A feminist manifesto (?)", describes how Beekman's novel has lately been included in textbooks and literary histories. In a way, the understanding of the book has now been turned upside down: the feminist or emancipatory aspect is highlighted and glorified. However, this is a problematic notion since it is doubtful whether Regina is either an emancipated woman or a positive character. The novel's relation to the emancipation discourse is complicated and ambivalent; the (implied) author's ethical stance is difficult to pin down. According to Phelan, this is a big risk for the author: the reader expects to be able to detect an authorial position; otherwise, the message will be unclear and the work might be considered a failure. At the same time, the author shouldn't be too judgemental or pedagogical because this, too, will discourage readers. Paradoxically, from the perspective of the current reader, Beekman seems to have made both mistakes at the same time: her style is moralistic, but the moral itself is unclear. The story of Option to Choose and its reception thus vividly illustrate the interaction of ethics and aesthetics in the reception of a literary work. Different social and literary situations produce fundamentally different readings and also fundamentally different opinions on the quality of a book. An unclear authorial stance only enhances the variety of differences.


Abstract We observe substantial amplitude anomalies of Pn waveforms that propagated through the southeastern Tarim basin and western Tien Shan along the two profiles, which are from an earthquake that occurred on the southeastern margin of Tarim basin. Although there is only a 5° difference in azimuth from the epicenter for the two profiles, the Pn amplitude differences along them are significant. The synthetic seismograms in the band of 0.5–1.5 Hz for different models along the two profiles are simulated to interpret the observed anomalies. The simulation results indicate that the Pn anomalies along the two profiles may not result from the earthquake focal mechanism or the average‐layered mantle lid structure. The Moho topography along the R–A profile may mainly account for the drastic variation of Pn amplitudes in 0.5–1.5 Hz as the epicentral distance increases from 850 to 1100 km, whereas the Moho topography and the velocity heterogeneity may together account for the observed Pn anomalies in the band of 0.5–1.5 Hz along the R–B profile.


John "Jack" Fowler has been a busy radiation biology researcher and teacher. He has written 581 papers over the last 65 plus years. He has also received nearly every honor the medical physics field can bestow. But Jack is not done. He says it is time he wrote a book. Jack's new book, Optimum overall treatment time in radiation oncology, sums up the key concepts relating to optimum fractionation in radiation therapy that have interested him all these years.


Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is the causative agent of the Newcastle disease (ND). The virus has been used as vaccines in veterinary medicine to protect poultry against pathogenic NDV strains which causes respiratory disease but NDV in humans has interesting anti-neoplastic and immune stimulating properties. NDV can be oncolytic and activate host immune cells to produce cytokines and to become cytotoxic against tumour cells via unknown mechanism. The recombinant haemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) protein was obtained from Malaysian viserotropic-velogenic NDV strain AF2240 through reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and cloned into the mammalian expression vector pEGFP-N2. The constructed recombinant plasmid which was named pEGFP-N2/HN was used to transform into Escherichia coli Top 10 for amplification. The extracted plasmid from E. coli Top 10 was then used for transfection and apoptosis studies. The constructed plasmid, pEGFP-N2/HN, was transfected into HT-29 (human colon cancer) cell line and HeLa (human cervical cancer) cell line for protein expression and apoptosis studies, the 3T3 (normal mouse fibroblast) cell line was selected as control cell lines. At 72 h post-transfection, protein expression of constructed pEGFP-N2/HN was analysed using SDS-PAGE, Western Blot and fluorescence microscope. It was shown that the recombinant HN gene was expressed in HT-29 cell as well as HeLa cells and 3T3 cells. The cytotoxic effects of NDV strain AF2240 was determined by MTT assay. Results from MTT assay showed that 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) value in HT-29 cells obtained by 384 HA titer unit after 24 h while this amount decrease to 80 HA titer unit in HeLa cells during the same period. However after 48 h treatment IC50 in HT-29 cells obtained by 380 HA titer unit and in HeLa cells this amount decreased to 64 HA titer unit. At 72 h treatment IC50 of HT-29 cells was obtained by 300 HA titer unit, in HeLa cells this amount was only 4 HA titer unit. In 3T3 cells no inhibition effect was observed after infection with NDV strain AF2240. The apoptosis effects of NDV strain AF2240 infection and pEGFP-N2/HN expression on HT-29, HeLa and 3T3 cell were analysed by Flow cytometry in which Propidium Iodide was used for cell staining, the untreated cells were considered as control. Infection studies were carried out with NDV strain AF2240 at its IC50 HA titer unit for 24, 48 and 72 h. Transfection studies were performed with 4 μg of constructed plasmid, pEGFP-N2/HN, for 72 h. Flow cytometry results from pEGFP-N2/HN transfection studies showed the involvement of HN gene expression of NDV strain AF2240 in inducing apoptosis in tumour cells but not normal cells. Flow cytometry result from transfection studies showed that the apoptosis induction of pEGFP-N2/HN transfection in HeLa cells was higher than apoptosis induction in HT-29 cells. Early apoptosis effect of NDV strain AF2240 infection and pEGFP-N2/HN transfection on HT-29, HeLa and 3T3 cell were analysed by Flow cytometry in which Annexin V staining was used, in all experiments untreated cells were considered as control. The Flow cytometry results showed that NDV strain AF2240 infection was able to trigger early apoptosis in tumour cell line after 12 h while transfection of tumour cells with pEGFP-N2/HN induced early apoptosis after 24 h, no early apoptosis induction has been observed in normal cells. In conclusions the recombinant HN gene of NDV strain AF2240 expressed in human colon cancer cells (HT-29) and human cervical cancer cells (HeLa) as well as mouse normal fibroblast cells (3T3). The expressed recombinant HN protein of NDV strain AF2240 induced apoptosis in human tumor cells (HT-29 and HeLa) without any cytotoxic effects on normal fibroblast cells.


Women comprise the fastest growing segment of the veteran population. Among the 1.8 million female veterans, more than 230,000 women have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. More than 750 women have been wounded in action; 137 have been killed. By the military's own estimates, almost 20 percent of female veterans are returning home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD"). Research suggests that women veterans returning from Iraq are more likely to report mental health concerns – including PTSD, depression and suicidal thoughts -- than their male counterparts. The prevalence of PTSD among women in the United States Armed Forces is exacerbated by the unique status that women hold in modern-day military. Despite the federal policy that bans women from units engaged in ground combat, women have served in record numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Surprisingly, the paper-only combat restrictions contribute to new cases of PTSD and preclude women from getting meaningful treatment for PTSD. Though new regulations passed in 2010 promised to liberalize the standards for veterans who seek treatment for PTSD, these treatment guidelines cannot reduce the new reported cases of PTSD. The military must achieve full gender integration, an essential element of alleviating some of the isolation that contributes to PTSD among women. A Congressionally-mandated report issued in March 2011 calls for the elimination of the "combat exclusion policies." Congress' embrace of sex-neutral military policies will serve several important policies. It would bring outmoded military polices that ban women in combat into alignment with the current military practices. It would also reflect recognition by the government that sex-role stereotyping in inconsistent with Constitutional guarantees. Finally, lifting the combat ban on women in the military would contribute in significant ways to efforts to minimize PTSD among women in the military. It would speed and improve screening practices for military women suffering from PTSD, help build better treatment models for women and, hopefully, reduce new cases. By liberating female military members from the assigned sex roles that contribute to their isolation, the government can integrate them fully into the military, and reduce their marginalization.