This article describes the development, in an Irish context, of a three-factor, twenty-eight-item version of the Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation (SCORE) questionnaire for assessing progress in family therapy. The forty- item version of the SCORE was administered to over 700 Irish participants including non-clinical adolescents and young adults, families attending family therapy, and parents of young people with physical and intellectual disabilities and cystic fibrosis. For validation purposes, data were also collected using brief measures of family and personal adjustment. A twenty-eight-item version of the SCORE (the SCORE-28) containing three factor scales that assess family strengths, difficulties and communication was identified through exploratory principal components analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factor structure of the SCORE-28 was stable. The SCORE-28 and its three factor scales were shown to have excellent internal consistency reliability, satisfactory test-retest reliability and construct validity. The SCORE-28 scales correlated highly with the General Functioning Scale of the Family Assessment Device, and moderately with the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning Scale, the Kansas Marital and Parenting Satisfaction Scales, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Mental Health Inventory – 5, and the total problems scale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Correlational analyses also showed that the SCORE-28 scales were not strongly associated with demographic characteristics or social desirability response set. The SCORE-28 may routinely be administered to literate family members aged over 12 years before and after family therapy to evaluate therapy outcome.


In this paper, the e.ects of quantization on EDF (Earliest Deadline .rst) queues with a stochastic tra.c model are presented. In a quantized EDF queue, jobs have limited .delity in representing their relative deadlines. It is shown that most of the bene.ts of full EDF can be achieved with relative deadlines expressed in as little as three bits. The implications of this are that QoS networking technologies such as Di.Serv can be used to implement near EDF performance while still using no more than the standard set of bits in DS/TOS .eld.


As time and distance become conquerable in a global economy, understanding the future of supply chain management is the process of understanding how the world interacts. Innovations in Logistics and Supply Chain Management Technologies for Dynamic Economies disseminates supply chain management and applied logistic theories, technology development, innovation, and transformation in various economic sectors upon current, advancing technological opportunities and market imperatives. In a world where efficiency is crucial, applied research and developments in logistics and supply chain management included in this volume is paramount.


Under conditions of natural cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) spread, eight alternate host species found associated with Lupinus angustifolius (narrow-leafed lupin) and/or Trifolium subterraneum (subterranean clover) were infected commonly and another nine sporadically. Five of these were new records. Because seed of herbaceous plant hosts provides a possible route for virus persistence through dry summer conditions, CMV seed transmission was tested for in alternative hosts. Seed of seven species systemically infected following sap inoculation was tested, but CMV seed transmission was only detected in M. polymorpha (0.7%) and M. indica (0.1%). When seed of 14 potential alternative host species that became systemically infected through natural virus spread was tested, CMV seed transmission was found only in C. decumbens (0.5%). No CMV was detected in Citrullus lanatus growing as a deep-rooted, herbaceous summer weed following CMV-infected L. angustifolius crops, or in the perennial Acacia saligna growing adjacent to a previously CMV-infected L. angustifolius field. CMV persisted through seed transmission over summer for up to 5 years in grazed, self-regenerated T. subterraneum swards. It is concluded that under the conditions of broadacre agriculture, in the Mediterranean-type climate of Western Australia, weed hosts are unlikely to be an important means by which CMV persists over summer, but seed transmission in naturalized M. polymorpha and C. decumbens may occassionally play a minor role. Moreover, despite being seed-borne in T. subterraneum, CMV did not persist readily enough from year to year in grazed swards for T. subterraneum pastures to play more than a minor role as a CMV source for infection of L. angustifolius.


: Virtual Reality has been gaining popularity in recent years and has been applied in various fields. One of its uses is for Virtual Reality games and simulators, which targets a wider range of consumers. Flight simulator is one of the more well-known simulators on the market, which is used by both gamers and aspiring pilots. However, developing a simulator that is realistic enough to provide a life-like experience often requires space, suitable environment, and realistic controllers that are often expensive. Virtual Reality can help reduce the production cost of traditional flight simulator by replacing the function of some hardware in making a realistic simulation. In this paper, we present a VR Flight Simulator that runs on Android mobile devices with an external Bluetooth controller. We studied the degree of realism it provides and its effect on player's enjoyment. The preliminary results show that the flight simulator provide enough visual realism to make an enjoyable and immersive game experience.


We assess the strength of association between aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from the GOES Aerosol/Smoke Product (GASP) and ground-level fine particulate matter (PM2.5) to assess AOD as a proxy for PM2.5 in the United States. GASP AOD is retrieved from a geostationary platform and therefore provides dense temporal coverage with half-hourly observations every day, in contrast to once per day snapshots from polar-orbiting satellites. However, GASP AOD is based on a less-sophisticated instrument and retrieval algorithm. We find that correlations between GASP AOD and PM2.5 over time at fixed locations are reasonably high, except in the winter and in the western U.S. Correlations over space at fixed times are lower. Simple averaging over time actually reduces correlations over space dramatically, but statistical calibration allows averaging over time that produces strong correlations. These results and the data density of GASP AOD highlight its potential to help improve exposure estimates for epidemiological analyses. On average 40% of days in a month have a GASP AOD retrieval compared to 14% for MODIS and 4% for MISR. Furthermore, GASP AOD has been retrieved since November 1994, providing the possibility of a long-term record that pre-dates the availability of most PM2.5 monitoring data and other satellite instruments. Spatio-temporal associations between GOES aerosol optical depth retrievals and ground-level PM2.5


Background: Scrub typhus is a neglected life-threatening vector-borne disease mainly caused by the bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi, which is occasionally transmitted to humans during feeding of larval mites. It has been estimated that more than 1 billion persons potentially threatened and 1 million clinical cases occur annually across the world; however, it is unclear how this estimate was computed (and what the original source was) and much remains unknown regarding its global burden and risk factors. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the spatial-temporal distribution of scrub typhus, associated burden and risk factors at global, national and subnational resolutions, and to review the burden estimation models used at those different scales. Methods: A systematic search for literature on scrub typhus occurrence, risk factors and modelling methods will be conducted. PubMed and five other databases will be searched for published literature, and Google Scholar and nine other databases will be used to search for grey literatures. All titles/abstracts of the searched records will be separately assessed by two reviewers, who will then screen the full-text of potential records to decide eligibility. Two reviewers will independently perform corresponding data extraction and finally cross-check using designed standardized forms. Data will be tabulated, synthesized descriptively, and summarized narratively for each review question. Where appropriate, meta-analyses will be conducted. The risk of bias will be assessed, and potential publication bias will be detected. Discussion: This review will provide a comprehensive understanding of the current occurrence, spatial-temporal distribution, and burden of scrub typhus, identify associated risk factors from global to subnational resolutions, consolidate the best practice modeling framework(s) to estimate the burden of scrub typhus at various geographic/temporal resolutions, and decompose the relative contributions of various risk factors at scale. PROSPERO Registration: CRD42022315209


The future adequacy of Minnesota road funding is evaluated in a 27-year forecast of current law road taxes (motor vehicle registration tax, motor vehicle sales tax, and motor fuels excise tax). Revenue projections are compared with inflation-adjusted base costs in three economic growth scenarios (Trend, Optimistic, and Pessimistic), using two price deflators (core-CPI and state/local government costs). The Trend scenario predicts road tax revenues will lose purchasing power to inflation by 2020, but over the forecast period cumulative revenues and costs nearly balance out. According to this scenario, current tax policy can support 2003 service levels into the future, but not fund system improvements. The Optimistic scenario forecasts a surplus in purchasing power in all 27 years, providing the opportunity for significant new spending without changing current law. Under the Pessimistic scenario, tax revenues fall short of inflationary costs by 2012, with the annual loss in purchasing power reaching $1 billion by 2030. In this scenario, road tax policy changes are needed to avert significant declines in road service.


The rules by which neurons in neocortex choose their synaptic partners are not fully understood. In sensory cortex, intermingled neurons encode different attributes of sensory inputs and relay them to different long-range targets. While neurons with similar responses to sensory stimuli make connections preferentially, the relationship between synaptic connectivity within an area and long-range projection target remains unclear. We examined the local connectivity and visual responses of primary visual cortex neurons projecting to anterolateral (AL) and posteromedial (PM) higher visual areas in mice. Although the response properties of layer 2/3 neurons projecting to different targets were often similar, they avoided making connections with each other. Thus, projection target acts independently of response similarity to constrain local synaptic connectivity of cortical neurons. We propose that this segregated connectivity rule reduces the crosstalk between different populations of projection neurons, allowing top-down signal to modulate the activity of these output channels independently.


After the occupation of Moldavia between the Pruth and the Dniester, the Russian Empire imposed, through the Bucharest peace, to the estate owners to choose within 18 months the country side where they would live. For a while, the Romanians believed that the Russian army would retreat, like it happened beforehand, so they postponed making a decision until the fall of 1813, when they had to "separate" themselves from the estates to the left or to the right of the Pruth. Most of the great landowners chose to stay in Moldavia under Ottoman domination. Hence, proportionally, most of the estates sold were on the side of the country occupied by the Russian Empire. The way this process unfolded was reconstructed by Alexandru Lapedatu (1916), and the current paper brings a series of additions and clarifications, as well as a list, unpublished and unused in the Romanian historiography, with 387 villages and parts of villages, from Moldavia left from the Pruth, sold or changed in the last two months of the year 1813 and in the first days of the year 1814. At the same time, this paper suggests, at a general level, the way the separation of estates and families led to the separation of Moldavia, but, at the same time, secondarily, this multitude of names of settlements and masters may be used, sometime in the future, to the elaboration of a historical and toponymic study of the localities from the left of the Pruth, following the model of the one elaborated for the localities on the right bank of the Pruth by the toponymy collective with the "A. Philippide" Romanian Philology Institute, coordinated by Prof. Dragoș Moldovanu.


Abstract In industrial-type single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) systems, the use of relatively large detectors and collimators for effective detection of high-energy gammas significantly limits imaging performance, primarily because of insufficient measurement points. In the present study, a simple but very effective image-quality improvement method, the double-layer method, was tested. In this method, two layers of identical SPECT systems are employed in order to increase the number of measurement points and, thereby, improve the image quality. For experimentation, the two identical detector layers were arranged for 30 deg of rotation with respect to each other. The results showed that the double-layer method indeed significantly improves the image quality of the industrial SPECT system, substantially reducing errors in source size and location for both low-energy (99mTc) and high-energy (113mIn) gamma sources.


A convenient and unequivocal synthesis of the title compounds from isoselenocyanates, malononitrile or 2-cyanoacetate, and 1,2-dibromoethane or α-halogenated carboxylic acid derivatives is reported. The proposed reaction mechanism involves in situ cyclization of different halogenated compounds with an intermediate keten-N,Se-acetal, generated by the base promoted nucleophilic addition of the acidic cyanomethylenes to aliphatic and aromatic isoselenocyanates. Chemical and spectroscopic evidence for the structures of the new compounds is presented.


Abstract

Background:  Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is primarily secreted by the liver as an endocrine hormone, and circulating FGF21 levels are elevated in mice with diet-induced obesity and an insulin-resistant state. The aim of our study was to determine the role of serotonin (5-HT) in the regulation of hepatic FGF21 production and circulating FGF21 levels in relation to insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet.

Methods and Results: Treatment with p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA;500 mg/kg), a tryptophan hydroxylase inhibitor, for 3 days, which decreases brain-derived and peripheral serotonin (5-HT), significantly decreased food intake, body weight, and plasma insulin and FGF21 levels in mice fed a highfat diet for 9 weeks compared with controls, while having no statistically significant effect on blood glucose levels. PCPA treatment significantly decreased the expression of hepatic FGF21 and increased the expression of hepatic nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like2, while having no effects on the expression of hepatic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)α, PPARγ, and transcriptional factor 4. Moreover, PCPA treatment significantly increased the expression of hypothalamic 5-HT2C receptors and pro-opiomelanocortin in mice fed a high-fat diet.

Conclusions: A tryptophan hydroxylase inhibitor decreases hepatic FGF21 production and circulating FGF21 in relation to insulin resistance and increases the expression of hypothalamic 5-HT2C receptor receptors and POMC in mice fed a high-fat diet.


Nutritional needs and management of critically ill infants and children are complex and fundamentally different from adults. In addition to common physiologic issues of nutrition during acute illnesses, infants and children have nutritional needs related to growth and development of the whole child as well as individual organ systems. Critical care nurses play a key role in assuring that both physiologic and developmental needs related to nutrition are met, to prevent long-term complications.


Four principal stages can be distinguished in the development of civil liability in the course of time, in various countries - (a) classic tort law and contractual liability, securing an important place for the element of fault; (b) those same laws blended with private liability insurance, in which the element of fault (negligence) loses much of its importance; (c) the system of no-fault liability and insurance, in which, again, the fault, excluding criminal negligence and intentional fault, of the involved parties serves no role; (d) the system of social security, which has taken and is intended to take an additional step forward in that here - and only here - even criminal negligence and fault in the form of intent, as we have seen, do not, or should not, have any but the most limited effect. Due to the above characteristics of the last two systems, it should be pointed out that the system of no-fault liability and insurance, despite its name (no-fault) does not ignore fault, rather it ignores negligence, that is it in effect is a "no-negligence" system, while only social security aspires to ignore all fault, including intentional or criminal acts or omissions, this last system being therefore more no-fault than what is customarily called "no-fault".


The effect of diatoms of the genus Cocconeis on the sex reversal of the shrimp Hippolyte inermis Leach was examined in the laboratory. Randomised experiments were carried out to investigate the functional response of shrimps to various diets. The benthic diatom Cocconeis neothumensis was offered, alternatively, during the larval phase and during the postlarval phase, and the results obtained with shrimps produced by individual females were compared. Results demonstrated that diets based on green alga Enteromorpha sp. or dry commercial food did not influence the normal protandric development, as most shrimps at sexual maturation were males. Conversely, diets containing C. neothumensis did influence the protandric development, as most shrimps at sexual maturation were females and the sex ratio was significantly different from that obtained with diets not containing C. neothumensis. These results provide an explanation of the patterns observed in the field, and are in accordance with the seasonal abundances of diatoms in the leaf stratum of Posidonia oceanica.


In Chinese culture, certain digits are lucky and others unlucky. We test how such numerological superstition affects financial decision in the China IPO market. We find that the frequency of lucky numerical stock listing codes exceeds what would be expected by chance. Also consistent with superstition effects, newly listed firms with lucky listing codes are initially traded at a premium after controlling for known determinants of valuation multiples, the lucky number premium dissipates within three years after IPO, and lucky number firms experience inferior post-IPO abnormal returns.


Organic C, N, day, and carbonate content are basic soil properties, which are commonly assessed by different analytical methods. This study aimed at utilizing temperature-induced dynamics of weight losses to determine these parameters simultaneously without losing precision and accuracy. For this purpose, thermogravimetric profiles of 52 soil samples were recorded and compared with C, N, and textural data obtained from conventional analyses using dry combustion and pipette methods. The samples originated from different climatic regions, land-use systems and parent materials. The results showed that thermal weight losses correlated closely (P < 0.001) with the content of organic C (R 2 = 0.98), total N (R 2 = 0.94), clay (R 2 = 0.87) and CO 3 -C (R 2 = 0.99) for mineral soil samples, while no such relationships were found in organic soil horizons. For mineral soils, each soil property correlated with a specific interval of temperature-induced weight losses. Application of thermogravimetry to independent additional sets of 250 samples confirmed a reliable estimation of organic C, total N, clay and CO 3 -C of mineral soils. It is concluded that thermogravimetry allows a simultaneous, rapid and reliable screening of these four properties in mineral soils.


Foreword At the start of the new decade,the debate on economic policy centres on the consequence of the reforms implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last two decades.Trade and financial liberalization and the privatization of production activities have radically altered the rules of the game governing labour and business.The macroeconomic policy changes that accompanied or preceded the reforms sometimes strengthened the latter 's specific objectives, especially the growth of exports,but on other occasions they had the opposite effect.That combination of factors prompted the emergence of new market structures and transformations in microeconomic behaviour. Assessing the effects of the reforms on economic growth,employment and income distribution is of more than academic interest.Governments, political parties and social actors require a thorough evaluation of the results, so as to devise or propose policies that complement the reforms or counter their unwanted consequences.The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC);actively participates in this process. This book is part of a project carried out by ECLAC,in conjunction with researchers from nine countries,to study the impact of the reforms. Directed by Dr.Barbara Stallings,the project has produced 14 books and 70 working papers.The summary appears in the first volume,entitled Growth, Employment and Equity: The Impact of the Economic Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean It is complemented by four issue-specific volumes analysing investment,technological change,employment and equity.Additionally, another nine country volumes examine the particular characteristics of the reforms in Argentina,Bolivia,Brazil,Chile,Colombia,Costa Rica,Jamaica, Mexico and Peru.The working papers are available at ECLAC 's web site (www.cepal.cl);. One feature of the project that distinguishes it from other comparative studies of economic reform is that it specifically addresses the interaction between macroeconomic and microeconomic processes.To understand the impact of the reforms more fully,it is necessary to disaggregate the regional level and to study the differences between countries and in the microeconomic behaviour of firms according to sector,size and ownership.The globalization of the economy and government policies such as structural reform affect different countries and groups of firms in different ways.Some have been able to exploit the new opportunities,while the situation of others has deteriorated.The outcome of such developments gives rise to aggregate trends that others have observed and measured,but to design economic policy measures and improve future performance,it is essential to know what underlies those aggregates. This book by Samuel Morley,currently a visiting researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI);and formerly a consultant of ECLAC,deals with a topic of growing concern in Latin American and Caribbean countries:the distribution of income.Distribution in the region is the most unequal in the entire world,a situation that has been true for as long as the statistics have been kept.Since 1980,inequality has increased.No doubt some of that is due to the recessions of the 1980s,but recent studies indicate that the region 's economies saw very little improvement in the 1990s as they recovered from their earlier recessions.The consensus is that distribution has stayed about the same or even worsened slightly since 1990. Morley identifies three contributing factors that help explain Latin America 's high level of inequality.First,Latin America has a highly unequal distribution of education and the highest skill differentials for university graduates in the world.Second,the combination of a highly skewed distribution of land and an increase in the growth rate of the labour force in recent decades has driven down the relative wage of the unskilled.Third,the rich in Latin America are much richer relative to the remainder of the population than they are elsewhere. Unfortunately it does not appear that growth will improve the distribution very much,if at all.One reason is that growth is more skill intensive now than it used to be.This may be simply a Latin American phenomenon,but more likely it reflects changes in technology that are being felt all over the world.Skill-intensive growth has favoured university graduates.So far,this group contributes less to overall inequality than the rich do because many in the group are not rich.Unlike the rich,however, Morley shows that this group 's contribution to inequality rose sharply in the post-reform period.In the nine-countries examined in the book,inequality would have fallen in every case had it not been for the rising relative incomes and size of the university group. The evidence is mixed on the impact of the structural reforms on income distribution,because it is difficult to separate the effect of the reforms from all the other changes that were happening at the same time.In the aggregate,the reforms appear to have had a regressive effect on distribution,but the effect is small and only marginally significant.The reason is that reforms in different areas have offsetting effects on equity.Tax and trade reforms are unambiguously regressive though not highly significant,but opening the capital account is unambiguously progressive.Results for other reforms were not consistent enough to give a clear answer. ECLAC could not have carried out a project of this scale without the cooperation of many individuals and institutions.We wish to thank the researchers that participated in each of the nine countries,as well as the coordinators of the thematic and national volumes.We are also indebted to the members of the project 's External Advisory Committee:Nancy Birdsall, Director of Economic Programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;Rene Cortazar,Executive Director of Chilean National Television; Norman Hicks,senior economist at the World Bank;Juan Antonio Morales, President of the Central Bank of Bolivia; Pitou van Dijck, Professor of Economics at the University of Amsterdam;and Dorothea Werneck,Executive Director of the Brazilian Agency for Export Promotion. External financing came from a number of international donors.First, we wish to recognize the central role of the Netherlands Ministry for Development Cooperation,which provided the project 's basic donation.The International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC);also made a substantial contribution that allowed us to expand the scope of the project significantly.These two sources were supplemented with funds from the Ford Foundation and the Swedish International Development Agency.We offer our deepest thanks to all the donors,without whose support this project would not have been possible. Jose Antonio Ocampo Executive Secretary Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean


An assemblage of axiidean and brachyuran decapods is reported from the late Miocene pre-evaporitic (early-middle Messinian) limestone of Cò di Sasso, nearby Brisighella (Ravenna, Emilia- Romagna), located in Romagna Apennines (NE Italy). Except Monodaeus bortolottii Delle Cave, 1988 (Xanthidae MacLeay, 1838), which is reported here for the first time in Miocene, all the other specimens have been assigned to species previously known in the Italian Miocene (Messinian s.l.), but never reported in this area. The report of Galathea cf. G. weinfurteri Bachmayer, 1950 (Galatheidae Samouelle, 1819) and Medorippe ampla Garassino, De Angeli, Gallo and Pasini, 2004 (Dorippidae MacLeay, 1838) enlarges the stratigraphic range of these Miocene species. This report enlarges our limited knowledge on the composition and distribution of the axiidean, anomuran, and brachyuran decapods during the early-middle Messinian before the evaporitic event in the Mediterranean Basin.


In this paper we explain why markets in noncontingent debt securities might be a stable form of market organization for intermediation to households. Efficient-contract allocation might be supported by these markets because households' relationships with their intermediaries do not exactly parallel the explicit form of the noncontingent contracts that they explicitly sign with one another. Also we show that the efficient-contract model can be distinguished from alternative models within the time-series framework that has been widely used to study households' consumption patterns.


The purpose of this research work is to investigate the relationship between humidity and tone in musical instruments. A basic hypothesis that motivates this work is that normal seasonal variations in relative humidity are thought to alter the tone of instruments constructed from wood. These changes in tone are believed to be due to changes in the dimensions and material properties of an instrument that are a result of wooden components absorbing and adsorbing water in equilibrium with their ambient environmental conditions.

To investigate this hypothesis an experiment was conducted with a guitar acclimatized at different relative humidity levels. Sample sounds recorded at each humidity level were then evaluated by the test subjects using a three alternative forced choice listening test paradigm. Subjects were readily able to distinguish sounds recorded at different humidity levels, supporting the claim that changes in ambient humidity can create perceptible differences in instrument tone.

A finite difference model was then developed to produce simulated sounds as a function of moisture content (MC being the weight percentage of a piece of wood that is water). The model was validated and further listening tests were conducted to determine the perceptual limit of MC differences. The just-noticeable difference value for MC change was established to be 0.7% MC difference. To be considered imperceptibly stable with respect to tone, materials used to replace traditional soundboard woods would need to have less variability than the equivalent material property changes due to this 0.7% MC difference.

Testing of an acetylated plate in terms of its vibration and material properties followed. An increase in both stiffness and density was noted, yet even after modification the vibration properties of the plate were observed to remain within an acceptable range of material properties typical of soundboard grade woods. Instrument builders would likely welcome this new material, as long as its properties can be shown to not vary significantly from traditional choices.

A second component of this thesis concerns the application of wavelets in musical analysis. Psychoacoustical signal parameters (PSPs) are a tool used to quantify aspects of sounds, such as brightness or percussiveness. These PSPs are often calculated using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), an algorithm that has certain limitations. To address the deficiencies of the FFT a wavelet transform was em- ployed and conventional PSPs were reformulated in the wavelet domain to improve their accuracy. Tonal differences due to changes in MC were shown to be well suited to analysis by wavelet PSPs where improved sensitivity was observed in comparison to the conventional methods.

Finally, an acoustical study of the development of the piano from the clavichord to the modern grand piano was conducted. An improved bass response and the presence of more energy in the upper partials, particularly in these bass notes, were concluded to be due to an increase in soundboard…


A new (to the author's knowledge) approach to phase calibration is proposed. The corresponding theoretical framework calls on elementary concepts of algebraic graph theory (spanning trees, cycles) and computational algebraic number theory (reduced basis, closest node). The notion of phase closure is revisited in this context. One main result of this analysis is to provide all the elements for understanding the phase calibration instabilities that may occur. The phase unwrapping problem in question can be solved, directly, by minimizing the size of certain arcs. The corresponding direct methods are often quite efficient. The problem can also be solved in an indirect manner. The bulk of the work is then to minimize the length of certain chords. The pros and cons of the related methods are considered, and a link is made with the techniques developed so far. The problem of phase averaging, which is evidently much simpler, can be dealt with in a similar manner. As the corresponding results are intuitively obvious, one then has access to a more global understanding of the matter. In practice, the implications of this approach therefore concern all the methodologies in which the notions of phase closure and phase averaging prove to play an important role: self-calibration techniques in radio imaging and in optical interferometry, redundant spacing calibration in microwave imaging by aperture synthesis, etc.


The effect of soil pH and related acidity factors on yield and foliar composition of plantains (cv Maricongo) grown on Los Guineos clay, an Ultisol, has been determined in a plant crop and a first ratoon. In the former, only soil pH was correlated in a significant way with number of fruits per bunch, r = 0.47 with Y = 322.73 + 134.41 x - 12.32 x 2 , to predict this yield parameter at a particular pH in the range of 4.4 and 5.2. Leaf calcium content was related in a highly significant way ( r = 0.70) with number of fruits per bunch. In the first ratoon, no significant correlations were measured between soil acidity indices and the yield parameters, nor between nutrients in the leaves and plantain yields. Plantain cultivar Maricongo seems to be highly tolerant to low soil pH and correspondingly high ionic aluminum.


. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as an effective way for firms to create favorable attitudes among consumers. Although prior research has addressed the direct influence of proactive and reactive CSR on consumer responses, this research hypothesized that consumers' perceived organizational motives (i.e., attributions) will mediate this relationship. It was also hypothesized that the source of information and location of CSR initiative will affect the motives consumers assign to a firms' engagement in the initiative. Two experiments were conducted to test these hypotheses. The results of Study 1 indicate that the nature of a CSR initiative influences consumer attribution effects and that these attributions act as mediators in helping to explain consumers' responses to CSR. Study 2 suggests that the source of the CSR message moderates the effect of CSR on consumer attributions. The mediating influence of the attributions as well as the importance of information source suggests that proper communication of CSR can be a viable way to inculcate positive corporate associations and purchase intentions.


The European Court of Justice (ECJ) currently comprises twenty-seven judges and eight Advocates General who together make law affecting citizens of the European Union over a wide range of social and economic issues, including racial and ethnic equality. However, the ECJ's composition remains unreflective of the millions of black and migrant European Union citizens whom it serves. As the rulings of the Court reach into the everyday lives of an increasing number of people, the need for it to be legitimate in the eyes of all those it serves also rises. Courts derive their legitimacy from both inputs and outputs. A traditional input is independence; a more recent concern is diversity. This Article argues that the current procedure for appointments to the ECJ undermines both of these. The lack of transparency, coupled with the proximity to the national governments, undermines the independence of the members and precludes racial and ethnic minority representation at the Court. To address this problem, I suggest the development of objective eligibility criteria, the use of which, I argue, can promote both diversity and independence in the ECJ.


In this article, we provide an overview of recent progress in toughening and damage self-healing of polymer-matrix com- posites (PMCs) reinforced with electrospun or solution-blown nanofibers at interfaces with an emphasis on the innovative processing techniques and toughening and damage self-healing characterization. Because of their in-plane fiber architecture and layered struc- ture, high-performance laminated PMCs typically carry low interfacial strengths and interlaminar fracture toughnesses in contrast to their very high in-plane mechanical properties. Delamination is commonly observed in these composite structures. Continuous poly- mer and polymer-derived carbon nanofibers produced by electrospinning, solution blowing, and other recently developed techniques can be incorporated into the ultrathin resin-rich interlayers (with thicknesses of a few to dozens of micrometers) of these high-per- formance PMCs to form nanofiber-reinforced interlayers with enhanced interlaminar fracture toughnesses. When incorporated with core-shell healing-agent-loaded nanofibers, these nanofiber-richened interlayers can yield unique interfacial damage self-healing. Recent experimental investigations in these topics are reviewed and compared, and recently developed techniques for the scalable, continuous fabrication of advanced nanofibers for interfacial toughening and damage self-healing of PMCs are discussed. Develop- ments in the near future in this field are foreseen. V C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 130: 2225-2237, 2013


Multi-level governance entails transformations of statehood, including significant changes in both the public sphere of politics and the so-called private sphere of economic activity, and in their modes of interaction, especially law. The fragmentation of the public sphere and the decentring of the state have led to new types of formalized regulation and the emergence of global regulatory networks, intermingling the public and the private. The transition from government to governance means a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms, a blurring of distinctions between hard/soft and public/private law, and a fragmentation of public functions entailing a resurgence of technocracy. Renewed international legalisation (WTO adjudication, International Criminal Court etc) has been viewed by some in formalist terms, as helping to provide certainty and predictability, and this has been used to try to buttress the legitimacy of global governance. Viewed more closely and critically, however, it is the indeterminacy of law that provides the space for interpretative practices, which can both exploit and exacerbate the fragmentation of the public sphere, and mediate the complex interactions. Indeed, the increasingly important role for regulation in global governance undermines the formalist view of law's legitimacy as deriving from national state political structures, and requires new approaches to articulating normative interactions that are more conducive to democratic deliberation, in order to establish the public interest firmly as the prime concern in all forms of management of economic activity. The paper will explore these issues using examples from different areas of international economic regulation.


We show that the log-likelihood of several probabilistic graphical models is Lipschitz continuous with respect to the lp-norm of the parameters. We discuss several implications of Lipschitz parametrization. We present an upper bound of the Kullback-Leibler divergence that allows understanding methods that penalize the lp-norm of differences of parameters as the minimization of that upper bound. The expected log-likelihood is lower bounded by the negative lp-norm, which allows understanding the generalization ability of probabilistic models. The exponential of the negative lp-norm is involved in the lower bound of the Bayes error rate, which shows that it is reasonable to use parameters as features in algorithms that rely on metric spaces (e.g. classification, dimensionality reduction, clustering). Our results do not rely on specific algorithms for learning the structure or parameters. We show preliminary results for activity recognition and temporal segmentation.


There is something special about marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court, in striking down anti-miscegenation laws, restrictions on the right to marry for disadvantaged groups, and most recently, the Defense of Marriage Act, has long recognized the marital union to be "sacred" and "fundamental to…existence." Yet this analysis is dramatically different when courts consider asylum law, where a woman who is seeking refuge in the United States to protect her from a forced marriage abroad will likely be denied protection because the harm she fears is not considered to be a "persecutory" act. She may therefore be forced to spend a lifetime with someone she did not choose and does not love – and also unable to marry someone she does choose to love. Such a result in asylum jurisprudence is a grave error, as it fails to acknowledge the longstanding reverence for the institution of marriage in constitutional law and ignores widely-accepted prohibitions against marriages entered into without consent both in the U.S. and in international law.This article explores this disconnect between the treatment of marriage in U.S. constitutional law, international law, and U.S. asylum law and argues that courts considering asylum claims based on forced marriage have erred in denying women much-needed protection against non-consensual marriages. It expands upon existing scholarship that analyzes issues in the intersection of family and immigration law as well as the disparate treatment of gender-based asylum claims and posits that courts adjudicating forced-marriage based asylum cases should conform to existing legal standards and recognize forced marriage as a per se persecutory act.


Solving the "Candle Problem:" exploring the link between financial incentives and performance in individuals and groups. by Joachim Ramm, Master in Economics University of Bergen, 2012 Supervisors: Sigve Tjotta and Gaute Torsvik Sam Glucksberg demonstrated in an experiment that the use of financial incentives could reduce performance in solving an insight problem. I wish to conduct a modified version of this experiment to investigate if his results can be duplicated. In addition, I wish to examine if the results are the same when a group of participants attempt to solve the same problem as individual participants. The experiment was divided into two sessions. One session where pairs attempted to solve the problem, and one session where individual participants were asked to solve the same problem. Within each session the participants were either assigned to an incentivized or a nonincentivized condition. The results from the experiment indicate that the use of financial incentives created no difference in the mean solution time within each session of the experiment; the incentivized and the non-incentivized participants performed equally well in both sessions. The difference between the sessions was, however, significant with the participants in the group session performing significantly better than the individual participants. The results also indicate that males might have a lower mean solution times than females.


Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) surface waves on liquid gallium are studied theoretically and experimentally in the small magnetic Reynolds number limit. A linear dispersion relation is derived when a horizontal magnetic field and a horizontal electric current is imposed. No wave damping is found in the shallow liquid limit while waves always damp in the deep liquid limit with a magnetic field parallel to the propagation direction. When the magnetic field is weak, waves are weakly damped and the real part of the dispersion is unaffected, while in the opposite limit waves are strongly damped with shortened wavelengths. In a table-top experiment, planar MHD surface waves on liquid gallium are studied in detail in the regime of weak magnetic field and deep liquid. A non-invasive diagnostic accurately measures surface waves at multiple locations by reflecting an array of lasers off the surface onto a screen, which is recorded by an Intensified-CCD camera. The measured dispersion relation is consistent with the linear theory with a reduced surface tension likely due to surface oxidation. In excellent agreement with linear theory, it is observed that surface waves are damped only when a horizontal magnetic field is imposed parallel to the propagation direction. No damping is observed under a perpendicular magnetic field. The existence of strong wave damping even without magnetic field suggests the importance of the surface oxide layer. Implications to the liquid metal wall concept in fusion reactors, especially on the wave damping and a Rayleigh-Taylor instability when the Lorentz force is used to support liquid metal layer against gravity, are discussed.


OBJECT
Skiing and snowboarding injuries have increased with the popularity of these sports. Spinal cord injuries (SCIs) are a rare but serious event, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality for skiers and snowboarders. The purpose of this study is to characterize the patterns of SCI in skiers and snowboarders.

METHODS
The authors queried the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for the years 2000-2008 for all patients admitted with skiing or snowboarding as the mechanism of injury, yielding a total of 8634 patients. The injury patterns were characterized by the ICD-9 diagnostic and procedure codes. The codes were searched for those pertaining to vertebral and skull fracture; spinal cord, chest, abdominal, pelvic, and vessel injuries; and fractures and dislocations of the upper and lower extremity. Statistical analysis was performed with ANOVA and Student t-test.

RESULTS
Patients were predominantly male (71%) skiers (61%), with the average age of the skiers being older than that of snowboarders (39.5 vs 23.5 years). The average length of stay for patients suffering from spine trauma was 3.8 days and was increased to 8.9 days in those with SCI. Among hospitalized patients, SCI was seen in 0.98% of individuals and was equally likely to occur in snowboarders and skiers (1.07% vs 0.93%, p < 0.509). Cervical spine trauma was associated with the highest likelihood of SCI (19.6% vs. 10.9% of thoracic and 6% of lumbar injuries, p < 0.0001). Patients who were injured skiing were more likely to sustain a cervical spine injury, whereas those injured snowboarding had higher frequencies of injury to the lumbar spine. The most common injury seen in tandem with spine injury was closed head injury, and it was seen in 13.4% of patients. Conversely, a spine injury was seen in 12.9% of patients with a head injury. Isolated spine fractures were seen in 4.6% of patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Skiers and snowboarders evaluated at the hospital are equally likely to sustain spine injuries. Additionally, participants in both sports have an increased incidence of SCI with cervical spine trauma.


In this paper a low power and low area pulse triggered flip flop has been analyzed. The dominant part of this VLSI process design is power consumed by the clock. The flip flop is the basic element of memory element and clocked signal. The conventional TSPCFF is use to one extra NMOS transistor to shorten the delay and power. The conventional design removes the long discharging problem and reduces D to Q delay. Thus, the proposed design reduces the number of NMOS transistors stacked in the discharging path. The proposed design is compared with the some conventional design EP-DCO, CDFF, TSPCFF. The schematic and post-layout simulations have been done using tanner tool at 250nm VLSI technology. The proposed design has resulted in reduction of overall power consumption in comparison to some conventional technique EP-DCO, CDFF, TSPCFF respectively. The results also show some reduction in leakage power. The average power consumption of proposed pulse triggered flip flop using pass transistor logic is 16uw and the number of transistors used 18.


To the motoring public, potholes are one of the most visible and annoying forms of pavement distress. Most pothole repairs made during the winter months are short-lived. Potholes that must be filled repeatedly are expensive to repair. One reason for the short life of repairs done during the winter is that the commonly used repair mixtures cannot withstand the cold, wet weather. The overall objective of this project was to develop and test improved cold-mix, stockpiled patching mixtures. To satisfy this objective, the predominant failure mechanisms and concomitant performance requirements were established. Binder performance was identified as the most promising area of study. More than 40 experimental binders were evaluated in the laboratory, and five of these binders were chosen for field trials. It was found that current mix designs for cold-mix, stockpiled patching materials were inadequate, and, therefore, a new mix design procedure was adopted for use in the study. Field trials were conducted, in which 410 repairs were made, and were monitored over a 1-year period. Mixtures employing certain high-float medium-set binders performed demonstrably better than companion control mixtures. These binders, used in mixtures designed with the procedures described herein, are therefore recommended for trial installation by interested highway agencies.


STUDY DESIGN
A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of acupuncture for the management of nonspecific low back pain.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA
Acupuncture is one of the oldest forms of therapy, but little is known about the effectiveness of acupuncture for low back pain.

METHODS
Randomized controlled trials were done to assess the effectiveness of all types of acupuncture treatment, which involves needling for subjects with nonspecific low back pain. Two reviewers blinded with respect to authors, institution, and journal independently assessed the methodologic quality of the studies. Because data were statistically and clinically too heterogeneous, a qualitative review was performed. The evidence was classified into four levels: strong, moderate, limited, or no evidence.

RESULTS
Eleven randomized controlled trials were included. Overall, the methodologic quality was low. Only two studies met the preset "high quality" level for this review. No study clearly evaluated acupuncture for acute low back pain. The results indicate that there was no evidence showing acupuncture to be more effective than no treatment. There was moderate evidence indicating that acupuncture is not more effective than trigger-point injection or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and there was limited evidence that acupuncture is not more effective than placebo or sham acupuncture for the management of chronic low back pain.

CONCLUSIONS
Because this systematic review did not clearly indicate that acupuncture is effective in the management of back pain, the authors would not recommend acupuncture as a regular treatment for patients with low back pain. There clearly is a need for more high-quality randomized controlled trials.


We introduce ReDites, a system for realtime event detection, tracking, monitoring and visualisation. It is designed to assist Information Analysts in understanding and exploring complex events as they unfold in the world. Events are automatically detected from the Twitter stream. Then those that are categorised as being security-relevant are tracked, geolocated, summarised and visualised for the end-user. Furthermore, the system tracks changes in emotions over events, signalling possible flashpoints or abatement. We demonstrate the capabilities of ReDites using an extended use case from the September 2013 Westgate shooting incident. Through an evaluation of system latencies, we also show that enriched events are made available for users to explore within seconds of that event occurring.


Molecular dynamics simulations of dislocation/obstacle interactions are enhancing our physical understanding of plasticity. However, despite increasing computational power, the interaction between simulation cell boundaries and the long ranged fields of dislocations make spurious image effects inevitable. Here, these image effects are examined in detail, providing a general map of the spurious image stress as a function of simulation cell size, aspect ratio and bow-out for both nominally edge and screw dislocations. This is achieved using an approximate image solution of the resulting boundary value problem as well as an analytic model that captures most of the spurious image effects. A unique simulation cell shape is found to minimize spurious image effects for a fixed simulation volume (i.e. fixed total number of atoms) and specified initial dislocation line length. The results are used to estimate image stress effects in various literature studies involving dislocation bow-out. The image effects are non-negligible. Several case studies involving simulation cell dimensions are shown to converge due to a near-zero scaling of the image stress with respect to the simulation cell dimensions used. Finally, a direct comparison is made between a dislocation bow-out configuration under an applied load in a finite simulation cell and an image-free multiscale simulation of the same problem and the difference is shown to be consistent with our estimated image stresses. Overall, the results here provide guidance for both the development and interpretation of quantitative molecular dynamics studies involving curved dislocation structures.


With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, American decision makers have been forced to confront anew questions about the role of the United States in world affairs. What are the responsibilities of the United States toward other countries? What are the appropriate uses and limitation of American power? And what, from an American point of view, would be the ideal shape of the imagined New World Order?However U.S. policymakers may resolve such issues, their thinking will be influenced by assumptions deeply embedded in American culture. Some of those beliefs derive from the nation's distinctive history, geography, and resources. But others are rooted in what Susan M. Matarese calls the "national image" -- a set of emotionally charged, relatively coherent ideas about the special qualities of the United States and its place in the world.Building on a long tradition of scholarship that looks to works of literature for insights into national myths and symbols, Matarese examines a rich trove of utopian fiction written by Americans during the late nineteenth century. Such writings, she shows, provide a useful window into the popular imagination, revealing widely shared notions about the foreign policy of an idealized America -- notions that have proven remarkably resilient in the twentieth century as well. Indeed, even in the post-Cold War era, one can find striking similarities between the foreign policy goals of the Bush and Clinton administrations and the dreams of America's utopian architects a century earlier.The author concludes with an appeal for greater humility and realism in the formation of U.S. foreign policy, and a recognition of the limits ofAmerican power in what is likely to be an increasingly fluid, fragmented, and multipolar world.


This volume has been a long time in the making. The call for papers went out in late 1970 and papers were received in 1971 and 1972. Plans called for publication as University of New Mexico Publication in Geology No. 8. Tentative approval had been obtained before the call for papers was issued but by the time papers had been reviewed and edited, the great financial crunch of the 1970's had struck in academia. UNM Press has an established reputation and market in the humanities and social sciences but was uncertain about the physical sciences. In 1973 the plan for University of New Mexico Publication in Geology No. 8 had to be abandoned. Efforts to find an alternative publisher were successful in May 1975, when the Executive Committee of the New Mexico Geological Society voted to sponsor this volume. Rodney Rhodes' tragic death had occurred just two months before and it was decided to dedicate the volume to his memory. The technicalities of preparing manuscripts for the printer became less overwhelming when Stuart A. Northrop agreed to accept coeditorship. To save printing costs, all bibliographies were combined into one at the end of the volume. In the meantime, science had not stood still. All authors were given an opportunity to revise their manuscripts. In general, papers that describe particular areas had remained up to date. Papers that interpreted the data required extensive revision. Specifically, all papers of which I am author or coauthor were written or completely rewritten during 1975 and early 1976. All other papers are essentially as they were in 1973. One article that had been cited in the literature as being "in press" was withdrawn by the authors: Seager, W. R., and Clemons, R. E.,"Volcanic chronology and structure of the Blue Creek basin region between Clifton, Arizona and Cliff, New Mexico."


An iterative numerical approach to the approximate computation of the bistatic scattering width for weakly nonlinear dielectric infinite cylinders is proposed. The cylinders are assumed to be arbitrarily shaped and illuminated by a transverse-magnetic wave. The bistatic scattering width is calculated with an iterative numerical technique that can use both the classic first-order Born approximation and the distorted-wave Born approximation to provide the starting internal field distribution. Several numerical results are presented concerning Kerr-like nonlinearities. Circular and square cylinders are considered, as well as shells and scatterers with irregular cross sections. The effects of the nonlinearities, of the incident-field amplitude, and of the ratios between linear dimensions and wavelengths are analyzed, and the convergence of the iterative approach is evaluated in some significant cases.


Status of this Memo This RFC reproduces a memorandum issued on 2-JUL-87 from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASDC31) to the Director of the Defense Communications Agency (DCA). This memo is distributed for information only. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Memorandum There has been recent rapid progress in the specification and implementation of computer protocols based on the International Organization for Standardization model for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI). The Government OSI Profile (GOSIP), dated 22 April 1987, contains sufficient information to specify adequately and acquire interoperable vendor implementations of OSI message handling and file transfer capabilities. Therefore, the policy on standardization of host-to-host protocols for data communications, promulgated by USDR&E memo of 23 March 1982, is modified as follows. The OSI message handling and file transfer protocols, together with their underlying protocols as defined in GOSIP, are adopted as experimental co-standards to the DoD protocols which provide similar services (MIL-STDs 1777, 1778, 1780, and 1781). These OSI protocols may be specified in addition to, in lieu of, or as an optional alternative to DoD protocols, in cases where the current DoD protocol applicability statements apply. They are designated as experimental because of the limited operational experience currently available with the OSI protocols and the limited operational, testing, and security environment currently defined in GOSIP. Services and agencies choosing to implement OSI protocols at this time should carefully evaluate these factors and be prepared to deal with the complications which may accompany the introduction of new technology. It is intended to adopt the OSI protocols as a full co-standard with the DoD protocols when GOSIP is formally approved as a Federal Information Processing Standard. Two years thereafter, the OSI protocols would become the sole mandatory interoperable protocol suite; however, a capability for interoperation with DoD protocols would be provided for the expected life of systems supporting the DoD protocols. In order to extend the OSI protocol capabilities and provide Latham [Page 1]


A participatory action research study of anti-authoritarian activist media practices in Quebec, Canada was carried out by the Collectif de Recherche sur l'Autonomie Collective. Analysing interviews from 117 participants in nine activist groups and networks, we have found that grassroots anti-authoritarian and anarchist activists engage in a diversity of media tactics, choosing tools consistent with their desired goals and audiences. These goals can be grouped into four categories: developing affinity, creating social movement spaces, mass mobilizations and global solidarity. These communicative tactics in the activist 'repertoire of communication' are informed by several important commitments to alternative content and processes, including collective self-representation, prefigurative politics and accessibility. We conclude that grassroots autonomous activists sometimes limit the reach of their media to create safer spaces, or to deepen and extend their political analysis, and they sometimes produce media for wider audiences, for local mass mobilizations or to develop global relationships of solidarity. This deepens our understanding of the specific diversity of tactics developed by grassroots autonomous media activists in their repertories of communicative action, challenging received notions that anarchist or anti-authoritarian media only ever reach a limited audience.


How our current system of high and complicated taxes are damaging economic growth The features that should be found in a well-designed tax system and have been known since Adam Smith's maxims appeared in Volume 2 of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. A well-designed tax system should have the following features: taxes should be imposed at the lowest rate possible the tax system should be as simple as possible citizens should know the structure and the level of tax facing them taxes should not be discriminatory between citizens arbitrary windfall taxes and retrospective tax changes are economically damaging In Restructuring the UK Tax System: Some Dynamic Considerations, author David B. Smith shows how the current UK tax system is in violation of all these basic maxims, damaging economic growth and wasting valuable resource. The paper advocates the lowering and simplification of taxes, arguing that it would bring growth and restore liberty.


| The availability of low-cost hardware is enabling the development of wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs), i.e., networks of resource-constrained wireless devices that can retrieve multimedia content such as video and audio streams, still images, and scalar sensor data from the environment. In this paper, ongoing research on prototypes of multimedia sensors and their integration into testbeds for experimental evaluation of algorithms and protocols for WMSNs are described. Furthermore, open research issues and future research directions, both at the device level and at the testbed level, are discussed. This paper is intended to be a resource for researchers interested in advancing the state-of-the-art in experimental research on wireless multimedia sensor networks.


Mice with severe combined immunodeficiency reconstituted with human splenic tissue (SCID‐sp) taken from 22 patients with advanced gastric cancer and 8 with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) received subsequent implants of COLO 205 human colon cancer cells. A human immunoglobulin G (IgG) reactive against COLO 205 cells (COLO 205‐reactive human IgG) was produced by SCID‐sp mice reconstituted with splenic tissue from 8 of the 22 gastric cancer patients, but from none of the ITP patients. Tumor growth in SCID‐sp mice which produced the COLO 205‐reactive human IgG was greater (tumor weight range, 106–143%) than that in the control SCID mice, while that in SCID‐sp mice reconstituted with splenic tissue from 8 ITP patients and that in SCID‐sp mice reconstituted with splenic tissue from the other 14 gastric cancer patients which did not produce the COLO 205‐reactive IgG were considerably lower and slightly lower, respectively, than those in the control SCID mice (tumor weight range, 56.7–108% and 79.4–119%, respectively). When the COLO 205‐reactive human IgG liters in the sera of the SCID‐sp mice, expressed as a ratio of the titers in the corresponding patient's serum, were plotted against the tumor weight in each SCID‐sp mouse, significant correlations were observed in those that received splenic tissues from 6 of the 8 patients in which the COLO 205‐reactive human IgG was produced. Furthermore, the tumor growth rates increased in proportion to the increased COLO 205‐reactive human IgG titers in SCID‐sp mice. Therefore, the SCID‐sp model should be useful to study the paradoxical tumor growth possibly due to impaired immune reaction in patients with advanced gastric cancer.


Geologic carbon sequestration is the direct injection of CO2 into deep geologic formations for permanent disposal. Although numerous trapping mechanisms exist in the subsurface, it is possible that CO2 will leak from the primary sequestration target and seep out of the ground. The unsaturated zone has the potential to attenuate leaking CO2 and decrease seepage and near‐surface CO2 concentrations. Attenuation processes include permeability trapping, ponding as dense CO2 spreads out on the water table, solubility trapping by infiltrating or residual water, and dilution through mixing with ambient soil gas. Numerical simulations of CO2 flowing upward through a thick model unsaturated zone were performed to investigate the sensitivity of various unsaturated zone properties on CO2 seepage flux and near‐surface CO2 gas concentrations. These two quantities are considered drivers for health and environmental risk due to exposure to CO2 For the conceptual model considered, seepage flux and near‐surface CO2 gas concentrations are most strongly controlled by the leakage rate at the water table, followed by the source zone radius. Permeability and permeability anisotropy, as well as porosity and infiltration rate are also important, although to a lesser degree. Barometric pumping causes local maxima in seepage flux and near‐surface CO2 concentrations, but has negligible effect in a time‐averaged sense. When the leakage source is turned off, the CO2 plume attentuates through dissolution into infiltrating water. For the case of a constant leakage rate, the unsaturated zone can attenuate low leakage fluxes but should not be expected to attenuate large CO2 leakage fluxes.


The objective of this research is to design, and determine the feasibility of, a telecommunication system for the city of Erdenet, Mongolia. The Mongolian Telecommunication Company, Telecommunication Company of Erdenet city, and the National Statistical Office of Mongolia provided the data required for telecommunication forecasting of Erdenet. The literature review and analysis of the telecommunication forecasting indicate the need for a model of a new Telecommunication system in Erdenet, Mongolia. The model, as indicated, should become a useful example for planning and updating the telecommunication system in Mongolia. The design of a proposed telecommunication network involves the following considerations: analyzing and forecasting telephone traffic, calculating the required number of channels, determining exchange locations, traffic matrix, and establishing a basic hierarchical structure.


The software crisis has been around since 1968 when NATO first identified the problematic nature of software development. In recognition of the need to manage the process of software development many methodologies have been proposed over the years. A recent contribution to this rich set of rigorous software development methodologies is the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMi) methodology. While the minimal previous research on CMMi has extolled it, learning how to implement CMMi successfully requires leaning also from its failures. And yet, despite apparent anecdotes, little is known on this topic possibly because of the reluctance of many companies to wash their dirty linen in public. Based on a set of in-depth interviews accompanied with survey verification, this study examines the assessed effectiveness and efficiency of CMMi as implemented in several projects in a large high tech company in which only low levels of CMMi maturity were reached. In an exploratory manner this study shows the need to differentiate between the quality of the software product developed through CMMi and the quality of the process involved. The study also shows that whether the product is an off the shelf product or a customized one has a direct bearing of the quality of the product developed under CMMi methodology and the process itself. In particular, we discuss why some projects reach only a low maturity level of CMMi even though the organization as a whole might typically reach high maturity levels.


Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is a multifactorial disease of complex etiology characterized by the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta-cells. In addition to genetic susceptibility, it is generally accepted that environmental factors play important roles in triggering the disease, with virus infection having perhaps the strongest association. Multiple viral infections including cytomegalovirus, mumps, rubella, enteroviruses and parvovirus have all been associated with human T1D. Indeed, the effects of diverse viruses in triggering T1D may explain the heterogeneous nature of disease onset and kinetics in the general population. The recent availability of novel immunomodulatory therapies that may preserve residual beta-cell mass in new onset diabetics has generated a demand for non-invasive testable biomarkers that can identify the development of the autoreactive process before it becomes clinically apparent. In the work published on page 1328 of this issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Kruger and co-workers have utilized several well-established rat models of virus-induced T1D to search for serum biomarkers that occur early in disease development. Annie Kruger, working together with Rita Bortell and other colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, carried out the work. Dr Kruger, a recent MD/PhD graduate, investigated the viral induction of autoimmune diabetes as part of her PhD thesis. In a proteomics study of serum from rats treated with diabetogenic virus, the research team utilized two-dimensional gel analysis and mass spectrometry and found increased levels of serum haptoglobin very early in the time course of diabetes induction. This result was confirmed by Western blot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay analyses, and sustained elevations of serum haptoglobin were generally predictive of ensuing diabetes. 'Intriguingly,' Dr Bortell stated, 'mutations in the human haptoglobin gene are associated with increased risk of diabetic complications such as retinopathy, nephropathy and cardiovascular disease. In our rat studies, however, haptoglobin was identified very early following virus infection, well prior to the development of diabetes or its complications, and thus may represent a biomarker for the pathogenesis of autoimmune diabetes as well.' To the researchers' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates T1D serum biomarkers found specifically in response to virus infection. Dr Bortell said 'As virus infections have historically been associated with the development of T1D in children, these rat models have particular relevance to the human disease. Reliably identifying children in the earliest phases of diabetes (pre-diabetes) would provide clinicians with a window of opportunity when pharmacotherapy could be most effective in slowing or halting the disease.' Steven R Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, said 'Kruger et al. have identified haptoglobin as an early serum biomarker predictive of virus-induced T1D utilizing well-known rat models. This discovery, in conjunction with established markers of genetic susceptibility, should prove useful in identifying those children at risk for T1D.'


Nowadays, the reliability and performance of modern embedded multi-processor systems is threaten by the everincreasing power densities in integrated circuits, and a new additional goal of software synthesis is to reduce the peak temperature of the system. However, in order to perform thermal-aware mapping optimization, the timing and thermal characteristics of every candidate mapping have to be analyzed. While the task of analyzing timing characteristics of design alternatives has been extensively investigated in recent years, there is still a lack of methods for accurate and fast thermal analysis. In order to obtain desired evaluation times, the system has to be simulated at a high ab]ion level. This often results in a loss of accuracy, mainly due to missing knowledge of system's characteristics. This paper addresses this challenge and presents methods to automatically calibrate high-level thermal evaluation methods. Furthermore, the viability of the methods for automated model calibration is illustrated by means of a novel high-level thermal evaluation method.


The influence that grandparents have on the life history traits of their descendants has been studied extensively. However, no attention has been paid to the potential influence a grandparent's own reproductive history has on the investment they make in their grandchildren. We use data from 658 Swiss grandchildren and 591 of their grandparents to investigate whether grandparents' reproductive scheduling and family size influence the amount of investment grandparents make in a focal grandchild (shared contacts, occasions to meet, activities, discussions, interests, and important roles the grandparent plays). Grandparents who were younger when they had their first child had more children and grandchildren; this relationship strengthened after controlling for grandparental age, sex, lineage, and education (all P < 0.001). Generally, having more children or grandchildren was associated with reduced levels of grandparental investment. After adjustment for a wide range of factors known to influence investment, having more children or grandchildren and having a first child or grandchild at a younger age were associated with reduced investment in 14 of 24 analyses (all P < 0.09). The association between reproductive scheduling and investment was partially mediated by the grandparent's family size. Interestingly, these relationships were only present in data reported from the grandchild's point of view, not the grandparent's. This analysis provides preliminary evidence that grandparents' reproductive strategies have consequences for the amount of investment they make in their grandchildren. These results are examined in terms of the trade‐offs between current and future reproduction and offspring quality and quantity. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Background. Nausea and vomiting are among the most prevalent and disturbing side effects of chemotherapy. Therefore, there is a need for additional antiemetic agents that could effectively reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), whether alone or in combination with current standard therapies. Since clinical data on the effectiveness of ginger in patients with advanced breast cancer is lacking, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of ginger against both acute and delayed forms of CINV in a population with advanced breast cancer as the main malignancy. Methods. In this pilot, randomized, open-label clinical trial, 100 women (mean age = 51.83 ± 9.18 years) with advanced breast cancer who were initially assigned to standard chemotherapy protocol with docetaxel, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide (the TEC regimen) were randomized to receive ginger (1.5 g/d in 3 divided doses every 8 hours) plus standard antiemetic regimen (granisetron plus dexamethasone; the ginger group) or standard antiemetic regimen alone (control group). The duration of treatment with ginger was specified to 4 days from the initiation of chemotherapy. Prevalence, score, and severity of nausea, vomiting, and retching were assessed using a simplified form of Rhodes index in the first 6 hours, between 6 to 24 hours, and days 2, 3, and 4 postchemotherapy. Results. A significantly lower prevalence of nausea was observed in the ginger group during 6 to 24 hours postchemotherapy. Despite this effect, no other significant additional benefit from ginger (1.5 g/d) was observed against prevalence or severity of nausea, vomiting, and retching in any of the assessed periods. Conclusion. Addition of ginger (1.5 g/d) to standard antiemetic therapy (granisetron plus dexamethasone) in patients with advanced breast cancer effectively reduces the prevalence of nausea 6 to 24 hours postchemotherapy. However, there is no other additional advantage for ginger in reducing prevalence or severity of acute or delayed CINV.


Each day, millions of signal changes to the yellow phase occur at isolated high speed intersections, when erroneous driver decisions to stop or go may often lead to a crash. Dilemma zone protection systems are typically used to control these intersections in order to ensure the safe and efficient movement of vehicles. However, traditional dilemma zone protection systems show deterioration in performance during medium to heavy traffic volume conditions, jeopardizing both the safety and efficiency of intersections. The performance of these control systems for heavy vehicles is even more greatly affected, as traditional dilemma zone boundaries were developed for passenger vehicles. Research conducted by the authors found that to have the same level of protection as passenger vehicles, heavy vehicles needed to be protected for twice as long. The traditional surrogate measure of safety, the dilemma zone, marks the region of risk at high speed intersections, but does not quantify the level of risk, which is essential from an economic framework. In the current study, an improved surrogate measure of safety, the dilemma hazard function, was developed by expanding the existing measure of safety, utilizing the concept of traffic conflict. The probability of traffic conflict defined the dilemma hazard function, which was used to quantify safety benefits for high speed intersections. A behavioral model was used to develop the dilemma hazard function for passenger vehicles and heavy vehicles using data collected at a typical high speed intersection site in Noblesville, Indiana. The advent of advanced wide area detector technology made it feasible to assume that the dilemma hazard function could be developed for each site, hence, barring the need for a search for a universal dilemma hazard function.


Global governance in intellectual property (IP) has changed dramatically since the 1980s. What was once principally an instrument of national policy, where countries could tailor their IP regimes in accordance with national economic and social conditions, is now increasingly a policy area subject to international disciplines, where countries that fail to conform to new global standards risk retaliation in the form of losing trade privileges. The centerpiece of the new international regime is the inclusion of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) in the new World Trade Organization (WTO). Is TRIPs a "friend or a foe" of international development? Observers from across the ideological and methodological spectrum tend to criticize TRIPs, assail its implications for development, and regret the inclusion of IP in the WTO. The World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (organizations that are not frequently in agreement on development issues) express concern that full implementation of TRIPs will generate significant resource transfers from poorer countries that primarily use IP to wealthier countries where most IP owners are based. Development economists argue that TRIPs encourages poorer and middle-income countries to adopt IP systems that are inappropriate for their levels of scientific and technological development. Liberal trade economists complain that TRIPs introduces protectionism into an institution geared toward dismantling barriers to the flow of goods and services, and that contentious debates over IP clutter the multilateral negotiating agenda and the WTO's dispute settlement system. That scholars who disagree on so much agree on this issue suggests that trade and TRIPs and development are indeed foes, and it is difficult to argue otherwise. But in this brief essay, I explore the possibilities that TRIPs, for all its warts, may become a positive asset for the WTO, which in turn could benefit developing countries. I do so by emphasizing how conflicts over IP and TRIPs can have system-strengthening effects. Global conflicts over IP that occur outside the WTO can spark countries' enthusiasm for improving the multilateral trading regime. And rather than muddle the agenda and divert attention, difficulties with TRIPs can help developing and developed countries gain sharper focus on the workings of the WTO and potentially contribute to measures to improve the procedural mechanisms of the institution. Before discussing the contemporary politics of IP and the possibilities of system strengthening, a brief remark on the IP-trade relationship and the origins of TRIPs is in order. IP may be "trade related" in the sense that changes in trade flows correspond to changes in how countries regulate IP, (1) but the decision to embed IP in the international trade regime is separate and distinct from the technical, economic rationale for or against doing so. That is, it was the intense activism and immense power of the biotech, chemical, pharmaceutical, seed, software, and entertainment industries in the 1980s and 1990s that created the link between IP and trade, and thus made IP "trade related." (2) These sectors shared a common interest in fortifying the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) worldwide, because they depend for their profits on the economic rents that accrue from copyright and patent protection, and they had the political muscle to place IP prominently on the international trade agenda. Hence, IPRs are not part of the trade regime for the sake of trade (i.e., because weak IPRs were a fetter on global commerce), but, to the contrary, IPRs are part of the trade regime for the sake of IPRs. Making countries' ability to access export markets conditional on changing national practices in IPRs was regarded by key business constituents and policymakers as an effective mechanism for ratcheting up standards across the board. Indeed, the name of the subsequent agreement is misleading, for TRIPs does not limit itself to "trade related" aspects of countries' IP regimes, such as how state regulations affect importing or exporting firms, but rather is a broad-based agreement that affects virtually all aspects of how countries go about establishing and protecting IP. …


Background Systematic retinopathy (ROP) screening using dilated eye examination is currently performed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). In France atropine 0.3% eye drops are currently used as a mydriatic agent, but no systematic assessments of clinical tolerance and efficacy have been described in the literature. Purpose To assess the occurrence of clinical changes in infants at different time periods preceding and following atropine drops and eye examination, as well as the mydriatic efficacy of atropine in this context. Materials and Methods Prospective pilot study, in one NICU (June–September 2012). Atropine 0.3% eye drops (one per eye) were instilled in accordance with French good practise guidelines. Data collection was performed at 3 consecutive periods (P1: H-24 to H0 pre-atropine, P2: H0 to H24 post-atropine, and P3: H24 to H48 post-atropine), and included: abdominal distension, number of episodes of regurgitation or vomiting, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), somnolence, number of episodes of severe oxygen desaturation (<70%), bradycardia (<100 bpm) and tachycardia (>180 bpm). Assessment of efficacy was based on possibility for screening or not. McNemar's Exact Test and Wilcoxon-signed rank Test were used for the binary and continuous variables respectively. Significance was set at p < 0.05. Results 18 children were screened (median gestational age at birth 27.2 weeks (IQR: 25.6–28.7), median corrected age 33.3 weeks (IQR: 32.3–34.3)). None of the variables showed a statistically significant difference between P1 and P3. Occurrence of abdominal distension (P = 0.03), number of tachycardia (P = 0.05) and oxygen desaturation events (P = 0.03) were more frequent in P2 than in P1. No differences were found in thte occurrence of other variables between P1 and P2. No NEC was diagnosed. Effective pupillary dilatation was obtained in 78% of cases. Conclusions Our study suggests that atropine is an efficient mydriatic agent for ROP screening dilated eye exam in preterm neonates. Type and timing of the symptoms in our study suggest systemic muscarinic effects of atropine. A reduction in the concentration of the atropine eye drops could improve tolerance. No conflict of interest.


A fundamental problem in program verification concerns inferring loop invariants. The problem is undecidable and even practical instances are challenging. Inspired by how human experts construct loop invariants, we propose a reasoning framework Code2Inv that constructs the solution by multi-step decision making and querying an external program graph memory block. By training with reinforcement learning, Code2Inv captures rich program features and avoids the need for ground truth solutions as supervision. Compared to previous learning tasks in domains with graph-structured data, it addresses unique challenges, such as a binary objective function and an extremely sparse reward that is given by an automated theorem prover only after the complete loop invariant is proposed. We evaluate Code2Inv on a suite of 133 benchmark problems and compare it to three state-of-the-art systems. It solves 106 problems compared to 73 by a stochastic search-based system, 77 by a heuristic search-based system, and 100 by a decision tree learning-based system. Moreover, the strategy learned can be generalized to new programs: compared to solving new instances from scratch, the pre-trained agent is more sample efficient in finding solutions.


Bayesian learning in undirected graphical models---computing posterior distributions over parameters and predictive quantities---is exceptionally difficult. We conjecture that for general undirected models, there are no tractable MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) schemes giving the correct equilibrium distribution over parameters. While this intractability, due to the partition function, is familiar to those performing parameter optimisation, Bayesian learning of posterior distributions over undirected model parameters has been unexplored and poses novel challenges. We propose several approximate MCMC schemes and test on fully observed binary models (Boltzmann machines) for a small coronary heart disease data set and larger artificial systems. While approximations must perform well on the model, their interaction with the sampling scheme is also important. Samplers based on variational mean-field approximations generally performed poorly, more advanced methods using loopy propagation, brief sampling and stochastic dynamics lead to acceptable parameter posteriors. Finally, we demonstrate these techniques on a Markov random field with hidden variables.


A coach transported to the field in a hearse as he played dead. An English manager taken at gunpoint to an Argentinian jail after trying to sign that country's World Cup captain. The hero of 1966 who talked his team out of going on strike on the eve of a title decider. All are part of the British professionals' story of life in the North American Soccer League (NASL) in the 1970s and early '80s, when star turn and unsung journeyman alike had the chance to play alongside Pele, Cruyff, Beckenbauer and Eusebio in the greatest galaxy of world stars ever assembled in one league. Playing for Uncle Sam recalls the British players and coaches who were part of an organisation that changed the face of football with its shoot-outs, offside rule and wacky marketing methods. It began with Stoke City and Wolverhampton Wanderers spending a bizarre summer posing as the Cleveland Stokers and Los Angeles Wolves in 1967. The late '70s saw the NASL, run by a former Welsh international, reach its peak, drawing crowds of 70,000 and featuring names like Banks, Moore, Hurst and Ball. Rodney Marsh pitched his tent in America by declaring famously that English football had become a grey game, while George Best used the NASL as an escape from the fishbowl of his life in Britain. Typically, the pair delighted and exasperated teammates and coaches in equal measure. Through approximately 60 interviews with members of the British contingent who accepted the offer of the Yankee dollar, Playing for Uncle Sam recalls one of the most fascinating episodes in football history: the remarkable rise and chaotic collapse of the NASL.


Populism has become pervasive in political language and in the diagnosis of the malaise of contemporary politics. At the same time, more narrow definitions of populism have become shared in scholarship on the subject, nourishing more analytical approaches that put populism in historical and cross-regional perspective. The purpose of this introduction is to use the evidence assembled in this special issue to ask some fundamental questions concerning the study of populist mobilization. Most importantly, what do we gain and what do we lose from sight by focusing on the commonalities between parties based on their populist appeals, when populist parties differ dramatically in terms of the substantive ideologies they adhere to? Are there distinctive features in terms of voter attitudes that underlie populist mobilization? And if failures of political representation and populism are intimately related, can we expect populists to render party systems more responsive to voters' substantive policy preferences?


This paper presents the basis of the Agile Governance in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which is based on Agile Software Engineering Methodologies principles and values. Its development was done through a systematic review process, supported by Bibliometrics and Scientometrics methods and techniques, where the Critical Success Factors (CSF) of ICT Governance projects and the principles of the Agile Manifesto were analyzed. Next, through an inductive approach, focused on the convergence between the concepts involved, it was analyzed how agile principles could help to minimize the gap between ICT and business. Evidences of their occurrence were taken through a Conceptual Survey Research. As a result, the foundations and concepts of Agile Governance in ICT were defined and, finally, the development of a reference model was proposed as a future work.


ABSTRACT The second messenger cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) plays a critical role in the regulation of motility. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, c-di-GMP inversely controls biofilm formation and surface swarming motility, with high levels of this dinucleotide signal stimulating biofilm formation and repressing swarming. P. aeruginosa encodes two stator complexes, MotAB and MotCD, that participate in the function of its single polar flagellum. Here we show that the repression of swarming motility requires a functional MotAB stator complex. Mutating the motAB genes restores swarming motility to a strain with artificially elevated levels of c-di-GMP as well as stimulates swarming in the wild-type strain, while overexpression of MotA from a plasmid represses swarming motility. Using point mutations in MotA and the FliG rotor protein of the motor supports the conclusion that MotA-FliG interactions are critical for c-di-GMP-mediated swarming inhibition. Finally, we show that high c-di-GMP levels affect the localization of a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-MotD fusion, indicating a mechanism whereby this second messenger has an impact on MotCD function. We propose that when c-di-GMP level is high, the MotAB stator can displace MotCD from the motor, thereby affecting motor function. Our data suggest a newly identified means of c-di-GMP-mediated control of surface motility, perhaps conserved among Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas, and other organisms that encode two stator systems.


Aim: One of the important factors that cause stress today is aimlessness. Determining the meaning and purposes of life has an impact on both the mental and physical health of the individual. Two types of values are mentioned as tool values and purpose values. Measuring the life goals to include these values is seen as important for determining the life goal skills of individuals. Hence, it is aimed to measure meaning and purpose and to measure perceptions about it. Materials and Methods: This study aimed to carry out validity and reliability studies of the Uskudar Life Meaning and Goals Scale (USLIFE). The sample consisted of 1026 people from Turkey. Factor analysis revealed that the scale consists of seven factors. Results: The first factor "Abstract Meaning Skill" explains 14.59% of the variance, the second factor "Skill to Delay of Gratification" 10.31% of the variance, the third factor "Concrete Meaning Skill" 8.97% of the variance, the fourth factor "Internal Control Skill" 5.53% of the variance, the fifth factor "Medium- and Long-Term Planning Skill" 4.60% of the variance, the sixth factor "Belief in Death" 4.39% of the variance, and the seventh factor "Ego Ideal Perception" explains 3.87% of the variance. The seven-factor structure consisting of 28 items in total explained 52.28%. In addition, seven factors confirmed the USLIFE in the confirmatory factor analysis. Goodness-of-fit values were found to be acceptable. The Cronbach's alpha value of the scale was found to be 0.74. Conclusion: A valid and reliable scale, named "USLIFE," has emerged. This scale measures people's life goals skills and is graded in the five-point Likert type between "completely agree" and "never agree."


Abstract. A simple model to determine a turbulence effect in formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is suggested. The model is founded on the theory of rotationally anisotropic turbulence and is set up as a generalization of the geostrophic description of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). It predicts the turbulence effect as an additive correction to the flow velocity predicted by the geostrophic balance. The correction, calculated from the optimally analyzed hydrographic data in the Southern Ocean, results in an increased ACC total baroclinic volume transport and in a shift in the current velocity maximum to the south, if compared with the pure geostrophic estimate.


Abstract—In this paper, a lateral walking design force per person is proposed and compared with Imperial College test results. Numerical simulations considering the proposed walking design force which is incorporated into the neural-oscillator model are carried out placing much emphasis on the synchronization (the lock-in phenomenon) for a pedestrian bridge model with the span length of 50 m. Numerical analyses are also conducted for an existing pedestrian suspension bridge. As compared with full scale measurements for this suspension bridge, it is confirmed that the analytical method based on the neural-oscillator model might be one of the useful ways to explain the synchronization (the lock-in phenomenon) of pedestrians being on the bridge.


The notion of a sustainable society is a radical one, and therefore, the ideas presented in this paper are arguably novel. We have become complacent with the notion of sustainability in recent years, but it is a concept that needs to be managed, planned, and administered, and inevitably will require significant institutional and cultural changes in order to achieve. The ideas set forth in this paper attempt to redress this complacency and envision a new revolutionary approach utilising the principles within the multidisciplinary field of green economics in order to achieve sustainability. This paper proposes pragmatic solutions for the incorporation of humanitarian and environmental considerations beyond traditional economic mechanisms. These green economic alternatives are essential to achieving the significant institutional and cultural changes necessary in order to attain a sustainable society.


Networks-on-Chip have shown their scalability for future many-core systems on chip. In real world scenarios, where multiple applications are being executed over a shared NoC based platform, efficient utilization of Networks-on-Chip resources becomes challenging. Methodologies are required to ensure better utilization of NoC, especially in the scenarios, where the communication patterns of NoC traffic are difficult to predict before run-time. In this paper, we propose a self-optimization mechanism which detects frequent communication by monitoring communication patterns at run-time and uses this information to establish virtual connections autonomously. Communication monitoring and connection establishment are realized in hardware. Hardware managed virtual connections lead to better utilization of NoC resources and reduce the communication latencies suffered by applications. In addition, energy consumption by the communication infrastructure is reduced. The proposed concept is investigated through simulation of real world application scenarios. The simulation results highlight the performance improvement and synthesis results show the low area overhead of the proposed hardware implementation.