This article addresses an underexplored but critical aspect of the presumption against extraterritoriality. The presumption against extraterritoriality - which the United States Supreme Court has increasingly invoked in recent years - calls for courts to presume that Congress does not intend United States statutes to govern events outside the United States. The most difficult issue presented by the presumption arises when relevant events occur both inside and outside the United States, as in the classic example, if a shooter on one side of the border kills a victim on the other, or if, as in the leading case, false statements originating inside the United States impact the price paid in purchasing stock outside the United States. How should a court decide whether such cases involve extraterritoriality and trigger the presumption? In a world in which both the carrying out and impact of regulated activities increasingly occur within more than one nation, the need for courts to resolve this sort of question is likely to arise with increasing frequency. In Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the Supreme Court established the court's test for resolving this question. This is to determine extraterritoriality based upon the location of the event that constitutes the "focus" of the statute at issue. Yet, if the focus of the statute determines extraterritoriality, what is the test for determining the focus of the statute? The court's answer was to evaluate the language and purpose of the statute in order to see whether Congress intended it to reach the events in question when they take place outside the United States. The result is entirely circular, since it required the court to determine whether Congress intended the statute to reach the situation in order to invoke the presumption to determine whether Congress intended the statute to reach the situation. This article argues that a better approach determines extraterritoriality in light of the purposes for the presumption against extraterritoriality: specifically whether applying the statute to the situation before the court will trigger international relations concerns. This article explores the parameters and implications of this approach. This includes considering approaches to determine when applying U.S. law to situations involving events both inside and outside the United States triggers international relations concerns, and noting some of the unusual implications of this approach - for example, that international relations concerns may sometimes call for a presumption in favor of applying U.S. law to a situation involving events both inside and outside the United States.


Aims. Lunar soil and rocks are not protected by a magnetic field or an atmosphere and are continuously irradiated by energetic particles that can produce cosmogenic radioisotopes directly inside rocks at different depths depending on the particle's energy. This allows the mean fluxes of solar and galactic cosmic rays to be assessed on the very long timescales of millions of years.
Methods. Here we show that lunar rocks can serve as a very good particle integral spectrometer in the energy range 20–80 MeV. We have developed a new method based on precise modeling, that is applied to measurements of 26Al (half-life ≈0.7 megayears) in lunar samples from the Apollo mission, and present the first direct reconstruction (i.e., without any a priori assumptions) of the mean energy spectrum of solar and galactic energetic particles over a million of years.
Results. We show that the reconstructed spectrum of solar energetic particles is totally consistent with that over the last decades, despite the very different levels of solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays (ϕ = 496 ± 40 MV over a million years versus (ϕ = 660 ± 20 MV for the modern epoch). We also estimated the occurrence probability of extreme solar events and argue that no events with the F(>30 MeV) fluence exceeding 5×1010 and 1011 cm−2 are expected on timescales of a thousand and million years, respectively.
Conclusions. We conclude that the mean flux of solar energetic particles hardly depends on the level of solar activity, in contrast to the solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays. This puts new observational constraints on solar physics and becomes important for assessing radiation hazards for the planned space missions.


This pioneering collection of essays brings together a description and analysis of women workers and the socio-economic systems of plantations world-wide. The plantation remains a formidable force in many areas of the world and new trends towards tree farming call for further examination of its agriculture. Women have, in the past, constituted a considerable precentage of the work force in this milieu, and continue to do so.Using specific case studies of historical and contemporary plantations, an account is given of the history of female labour, focusing on the colonial and post-colonial eras. The essays examine reasons for women's degraded status and emphasize, in particular, issues relating to migrant workers.The gradual move away from traditional family roles is, to some extent, reflected in variations in the position of the female plantation worker. However, where inequalities in class and status continue to characterize plantation life, capitalist and patriarchal control prevails.Both chilling and bracing, the sufferings of plantation labourers may seem remote to most of us, but they are still very much part of the contemporary world. Providing a close insight into the lives of the female protagonists, these essays have given an opportunity for their stories to be heard.


Component-resolved diagnosis (CRD) has improved in the last years due to the production of standardized testing materials such as purified natural allergens and recombinant proteins, produced by techniques of genetic engineering. CRD has several advantages, such as the ability to identify markers of genuine, primary sensitization, but also to indicate cross-reactivity, an improved analytical sensitivity of the assay when the allergen molecules are of low abundance or missing in the extract, avoidance of exposure to risk- or severity-associated molecules, and also the evaluation of allergen-specific immunotherapy indications. The main disadvantage or limitation of this method is the fact that the vast information provided by molecular allergy needs a structured approach in order to be adequately interpreted. The article below presents the utility of component-resolved diagnosis in food allergies, as well as the molecular allergens from the main food allergen sources.


Crack formation during the laser surface treatment of materials with low coefficients of thermal conductivity values, such as ceramics, is one of the most intractable problems encountered in the field of laser materials processing. Likewise, porosity formation during the laser surface treatment of ceramics presents a problematic subject. Any analysis, therefore, of these issues would be most informative. It is widely accepted that to prevent cracking in ceramics during laser surface treatment some form of pre- and post-treatment heating must take place. This study examines the formation of cracks and porosities during the CO2 laser surface treatment of a magnesia partially stabilized zirconia (MgO-PSZ) ceramic when pre-treatment heating was applied externally and post treatment heating was achieved using firstly a plain diverging beam, and secondly using a diffractive optical element (DOE) to produce a "tailored" laser beam profile. The results of this study revealed that the pre-treatment heating regime and the laser beam profile played a vital role in determining the occurrence, number and scale of microcracks and porosities in the CO2 laser surface treated MgO-PSZ.Crack formation during the laser surface treatment of materials with low coefficients of thermal conductivity values, such as ceramics, is one of the most intractable problems encountered in the field of laser materials processing. Likewise, porosity formation during the laser surface treatment of ceramics presents a problematic subject. Any analysis, therefore, of these issues would be most informative. It is widely accepted that to prevent cracking in ceramics during laser surface treatment some form of pre- and post-treatment heating must take place. This study examines the formation of cracks and porosities during the CO2 laser surface treatment of a magnesia partially stabilized zirconia (MgO-PSZ) ceramic when pre-treatment heating was applied externally and post treatment heating was achieved using firstly a plain diverging beam, and secondly using a diffractive optical element (DOE) to produce a "tailored" laser beam profile. The results of this study revealed that the pre-treatment heating regime ...


This paper describes an approach for establishing overhaul repair schedules for clear water pump stations that balance the goal of minimizing the total life-cycle cost of the pumps with the goal of minimizing the CO2 emissions associated with the generation of the electricity used to operate the pumps. The specific focus of this study is on pump stations with a parallel pump configuration in which clear water is pumped from a clear water tank at a groundwater treatment plant (GWTP) to a service reservoir. The approach uses models for the operation and deterioration of such pumps, and forms the basis for a model-based decision support tool (DSS) that has been developed to assist in budgeting and planning decisions associated with pump overhaul repairs.


In this paper, I introduce the importance of interprofessional education and the need to establish effective interprofessional curricula at institutions educating healthcare professional students. This is followed by the evidence that while national and international organizations recommend interprofessional education, change at the local level can be difficult. For this reason, using Kern's framework for curriculum development (1), we undertook a needs assessment to understand better our own local context as a preliminary step for curriculum design and implementation. Using qualitative methods, we identified predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors important to recognize and to address in order to achieve our goal of institutionalizing an effective interprofessional curriculum. In the discussion, I suggest that these factors might most effectively be addressed using a framework for change, such as the eight steps proposed by Kotter.


A bubble meta-screen, i.e. a single layer of gas inclusions in a soft solid, can be modeled as an acoustic open resonator, whose behavior is well captured by a simple analytical expression. We show that by tuning the parameters of the meta-screen, acoustic super-absorption can be achieved over a broad frequency range, which is confirmed by finite element simulations and experiments. Bubble meta-screens can thus be used as ultra thin coatings for turning acoustic reflectors into perfect absorbers.


A class of symmetric rearrangeable nonblocking networks has been considered in this thesis. A particular focus of this thesis is on Benes networks built with 2 x 2 switching elements. Symmetric rearrangeable networks built with larger switching elements have also being considered. New applications of these networks are found in the areas of System on Chip (SoC) and Network on Chip (NoC). Deterministic routing algorithms used in NoC applications suffer low scalability and slow execution time. On the other hand, faster algorithms are blocking and thus limit throughput. This will be an acceptable trade-off for many applications where achieving "wire speed" on the on-chip network would require extensive optimisation of the attached devices. In this thesis I designed an algorithm that has much lower blocking probabilities than other suboptimal algorithms but a much faster execution time than deterministic routing algorithms. The suboptimal method uses the looping algorithm in its outermost stages and then in the two distinct subnetworks deeper in the switch uses a fast but suboptimal path search method to find available paths. The worst case time complexity of this new routing method is O(NlogN) using a single processor, which matches the best known results reported in the literature.

Disruption of the ongoing communications in this class of networks during rearrangements is an open issue. In this thesis I explored a modification of the topology of these networks which gives rise to what is termed as repackable networks. A repackable topology allows rearrangements of paths without intermittently losing connectivity by breaking the existing communication paths momentarily. The repackable network structure proposed in this thesis is efficient in its use of hardware when compared to other proposals in the literature.

As most of the deterministic algorithms designed for Benes networks implement a permutation of all inputs to find the routing tags for the requested inputoutput pairs, I proposed a new algorithm that can work for partial permutations. If the network load is defined as ρ, the mean number of active inputs in a partial permutation is, m = ρN, where N is the network size. This new method is based on mapping the network stages into a set of sub-matrices and then determines the routing tags for each pair of requests by populating the cells of the sub-matrices without creating a blocking state. Overall the serial time complexity of this method is O(NlogN) and O(mlogN) where all N inputs are active and with m < N active inputs respectively. With minor modification to the serial algorithm this method can be made to work in the parallel domain. The time complexity of this routing algorithm in a parallel machine with N completely connected processors is O(log^2 N). With m active requests the time complexity goes down to (logmlogN), which is better than the O(log^2 m + logN), reported in the literature for 2^0.5((log^2 -4logN)^0.5-logN)<= ρ <= 1. I also designed multistage symmetric rearrangeable networks using larger switching elements and implement a new routing algorithm for these classes of networks.

The network topology and routing algorithms presented in this thesis should allow large scale networks of modest cost, with low setup times and moderate blocking rates, to be constructed. Such switching networks will be required to meet the bandwidth requirements of future communication networks.


Advancements in the nanotechnology industry promise to offer improvements in capabilities across a spectrum of applications. This is of immense strategic importance to the high performance sector which has historically leveraged technological advances. The polymer nanocomposites are widely used in marine, aerospace, automotive and construction industries due to light weight with high strength. In this present research work, synthesis of hybrid S-glass fiber reinforced with epoxy/TiO2 nanoparticles were carried out and characterized by tensile and impact tests. Glass fibers of woven roving mat (WRM) and chopped stranded mat (CSM) were used as reinforcements. The composite laminates were prepared by hand layup technique with varying weight percentages of TiO2 nanoparticles such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 wt. % respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) is employed to investigate the structural morphology and distribution of TiO2 nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. The mechanical properties of the prepared nanocomposites laminates were characterized in terms of tensile and impact (Izod) tests as per ASTM standards. At addition of 3 wt. % of TiO2 nanoparticles the tensile strength was improved by 44% and impact strength by 64.7% when compared with neat polymer nanocomposites. The reason for the enhancement was good interfacial bonding with fiber and polymer matrix.The fractured surfaces of the nanocomposites were examined by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) to characterize the damage progressions.


SUMMARY: A study has been made of conditions affecting the production of antibiotics in three soils by a number of unidentified Streptomyces spp. capable of inhibiting a variety of test organisms in vitro. In actinomycete-inoculated soils, antibiotic production was demonstrated only in sterile soils supplemented with a suitable organic source. The greatest accumulations of antibiotics were found in a neutral soil with added glucose (2·5%) while under similar conditions, no antibioties, or only traces were recovered from acid and alkaline soils. Antibiotics, however, could be recovered from inoculated acid soil, following neutralization and the addition of glucose. Fresh grass (3%), clover (3%) and soybean meal (2%) were also suitable supplements for antibiotic production by the majority of the actinomycetes, though the amounts of antibiotics were considerably less than in glucose-treated soils.In greenhouse experiments the assessment of root damage to wheat seedlings in sterile soil demonstrated that all the actinomycetes tested significantly reduced the degree of root-rot caused by Helminthosporium sativum. In the neutral and alkaline soils a relationship was evident between disease incidence and degree of antagonism exhibited by actinomycetes in vitro, suggesting that antibiotics were responsible. No such relationship was observed between disease control and the antibiotic-producing abilities of the actinomycetes in soil as determined by standard assay procedures.


A direct injection gas chromatography (GC) instrument equipped with an intermediate polar column (CP-SIL 8CB, 30 m ×× 0.53 mm) was used to determine nine preservatives (including sorbic acid, dehydroacetic acid, benzoic acid, methyl paraben, ethyl paraben, isopropyl paraben, propyl paraben, isobutyl paraben and butyl paraben) in vinegar, soy sauce, pickle condiment liquid and fish sauce. A water soluble compound 1,4-dihydroxybenzene (DHB) was used as an internal standard. The detection limits of the above preservatives were found to be lower than 0.5 ppm. A recovery study was performed by spiking 200 µg target compounds into 1 ml of vinegar or soy sauce and then analyzed by GC. Results showed the recoveries of the above nine preservatives were in the range of 95-106% with coefficients of variation less than 7.2%. These results indicate that the direct injection GC method is an accu-rate, simple and rapid method to simultaneously screen and quantify sorbic acid, dehydroacetic acid, benzoic acid and six parabens in liquid foods without further sample preparation. Thirty-seven liquid food samples of vinegar, soy sauce, pickle condiment liquid and fish sauce were analyzed using the developed method. The contents of sorbic acid, benzoic acid, dehydroacetic acid, and 6 parabens in vinegar samples were found to be 0-407, 0-519, 0 and 0-102 µg/mL; in soy sauce samples were 0-311, 0-266, 0 and 0-243 µg/mL; in pickle condiment liquid samples were 0-462, 0-3, 0 and 0-209 µg/mL; and in fish sauce samples were 0-1044, 0-266, 0 and 0-163 µg/mL, respectively. Results also showed most of the test samples were forti-fied with two or more preservatives. Thirteen out of 14 samples labeled "preservative-free" were detected to be preservative containing products. The total preservative contents in some test samples were over the regulation levels of 100 µg/mL in vinegar and 500 µg/mL in soy sauce or fish sauce.


Gait impairment is a core feature of Parkinson's disease (PD) which has been linked to cognitive and visual deficits, but interactions between these features are poorly understood. Monitoring saccades allows investigation of real‐time cognitive and visual processes and their impact on gait when walking. This study explored: (i) saccade frequency when walking under different attentional manipulations of turning and dual‐task; and (ii) direct and indirect relationships between saccades, gait impairment, vision and attention. Saccade frequency (number of fast eye movements per‐second) was measured during gait in 60 PD and 40 age‐matched control participants using a mobile eye‐tracker. Saccade frequency was significantly reduced in PD compared to controls during all conditions. However, saccade frequency increased with a turn and decreased under dual‐task for both groups. Poorer attention directly related to saccade frequency, visual function and gait impairment in PD, but not controls. Saccade frequency did not directly relate to gait in PD, but did in controls. Instead, saccade frequency and visual function deficit indirectly impacted gait impairment in PD, which was underpinned by their relationship with attention. In conclusion, our results suggest a vital role for attention with direct and indirect influences on gait impairment in PD. Attention directly impacted saccade frequency, visual function and gait impairment in PD, with connotations for falls. It also underpinned indirect impact of visual and saccadic impairment on gait. Attention therefore represents a key therapeutic target that should be considered in future research.


Bayesian approach is becoming increasingly important as it provides many advantages in dealing with complex data. However, there is no well-defined model selection criterion or index in a Bayesian context. To address the challenges, new indices are needed. The goal of this study is to propose new model selection indices and to investigate their performances in the framework of latent growth mixture models with missing data and outliers in a Bayesian context. We consider latent growth models because they are very flexible in modeling complex data and becoming increasingly popular in statistical, psychological, behavioral, and educational areas. Specifically, this study conducted five simulation studies to cover different cases, including latent growth curve models with missing data, latent growth curve models with missing data and outliers, growth mixture models with missing data and outliers, extended growth mixture models with missing data and outliers, and latent growth models with different classes. Simulation results show that almost all proposed indices can effectively identify the true model. This study also illustrated the application of these model selection indices in real data analysis.


Abstract
 In recent years, sections of the paraphyletic genus Batrachospermum have been investigated using DNA sequence data, as well as morphology and some have been raised to genera in order to resolve this paraphylly. The species of Batrachospermum section Virescentia form a well-supported clade and we propose the raising of this section to the genus Virescentia stat. nov. In addition, we re-evaluated the characters used to circumscribe species by reexamination of type specimens and new collections in historically important areas. Of the eleven previously accepted species, we recognize five species and a new species is proposed as follows: V. crispata, V. gulbenkiana (synomyms V. azeredoi and V. ferreri), V. helminthosa (type species), V. viride-americana sp. nov., V. viride-brasiliensis and V. vogesiaca. The species are circumscribed on the basis of morphological characteristics (shape of fascicles, occurrence of secondary fascicles, disposition of carpogonial branches and size of carpogonia), geographic distribution, and DNA sequence data (rbcL and COI-5P). Descriptions, identification key and photomicrographs are presented for each recognized species. Two potential species from Japan based on DNA sequence data remained undescribed due to lack of voucher specimens for morphological observation. Other species previously assigned to the section Virescentia are referred to other genera of Batrachospermales based on morphology (disposition of carpogonial branches, shape of trichogynes, types of gonimoblast filaments and arrangement of carposporophytes).


The car of the future will be autonomous, connected and full of innovative information technology features. We may drive it or let it drive us. We know it will be a computer network on wheels. What we do not know how open the car of the future will be? Will it be like a desktop PC upon which we can select either Windows or Linux and choose a video card that meets our specific needs, or as closed as a DVD player with region control? In our article, we examine facts and arguments regarding how open the car can, should and potentially will be, as a matter of technology, economics, public policy and law. To make our points, we will tell a tale of two cars: It may be open, it may be closed. It may be the best of cars, it may be the worst of cars. We do not aim for an exact prediction or recommendation regarding the degree of openness for future cars. Rather, we intend to start or contribute to the public discussion, and contribute to the strategic planning of companies, by highlighting the economic and policy interests as well as legal rules regarding the opening or closing of automotive designs. To qualify as an open car, an automotive product must be sufficiently accessible to enable technology upgrades, aftermarket products and testing by security researchers. It must have open interfaces and openly disclosed software and hardware. It will thrive if it is associated with open developer platforms. The open car does not, however, need to run on open data, but can instead protect data privacy and security as well as or better than proprietary automotive products do today. Nor does the open car require that manufacturers install open source software. Compared to the closed, fully-proprietary car, the open car comes out ahead based on technology, competition, sustainability and environmental policy considerations. Its enemies are citing concerns regarding cybersecurity, safety and data privacy; but upon closer review, risks in these areas do not truly justify roadblocks for open cars and rather support increased openness.


Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are poten - tially highly dangerous events and have contributed to numerous disasters in history. Today, computer models are standard tools to estimate the magnitude of hazard- ous events in the future and to support risk mitigation. The present paper explores the potentials and limitations of modelling for predicting the motion of potential fu- ture GLOF events, based on examples from the Pamir (Tajikistan). Since the flow behaviour of GLOFs is in between debris flows and floods, different model ap - proaches come into consideration, though none of them is perfectly suitable for GLOFs. RAMMS as a mass movement model and FLO-2D as a river hydraulics model were employed comparatively for the same ar- eas. The friction parameters for RAMMS and rheologic parameters for FLO-2D were first calibrated by back- calculation with the well-documented Dasht event from summer 2002, and then applied to other areas. However, the applicability of such parameters to GLOFs of dif- ferent volume and over a different topography remains questionable. The results may nevertheless be a valuable input for risk mitigation efforts, but due to the complex nature of GLOFs and the connected uncertainties, par- ticular care is required when interpreting the model re- sults. The critical points and potential approaches to deal with the limitations are discussed in the paper.


Sprays and droplets are involved in numerous industrial processes and in nature, e.g. fuel injection in combustion chambers, painting, spray cooling, spray coating, chemical engineering, cloud physics, etc. The understanding of the light scattering features from the droplets, or particles in general, lays the foundation for extending existing techniques or devising novel techniques for particle characterization. The optical techniques are clearly advantageous over sampling, because of their non-intrusiveness and immediacy of results. Typical particle characteristics of interest include refractive index, size, velocity, and especially for non-spherical particles, some information regarding shape or form and orientation. However, most of existing optical techniques are only available for the measurement of spherical particles. In this thesis, the light scattering from a spheroid is studied and the generalized rainbow technique is proposed for droplet non-sphericity measurement.
First, the vector ray tracing (VRT) model is employed to simulate the optical caustic structures in the primary rainbow region of oblate spheroidal droplets, which includes the rainbow and hyperbolic umbilic (HU) fringes. The location of cusp caustic is calculated by use of the VRT simulation and compared with that calculated by using analytic solution, exhibiting excellent agreement. Furthermore, the evolution process of the optical caustic structures is consistent with the experimental observation. It reveals that the optical caustic structures in the primary rainbow region can be used to measure the non-sphericity of oblate droplets. The VRT model can also be used to simulate and predict the optical caustic structures observed in higher-order rainbows. As a further validation, the cusp location and optical caustic structures in the secondary rainbow region also have been studied using the VRT method. The secondary rainbow fringe, as well as the location and opening rate of the cusp caustic provide a further avenue for non-sphericity measurement of oblate droplets.
Then the character of the generalized rainbow pattern from a spheroidal water droplet is investigated experimentally. In the experiment, light scattering from spheroidal water droplets in the vicinity of the primary rainbow region has been observed to contain a variety of characteristic interference patterns which are the generalization of the rainbow from a sphere. These patterns start from being a fold rainbow, change to transverse cusp caustics and then to hyperbolic umbilic catastrophe as the aspect ratio of the droplet increases. A comparison of the intensity distribution of the observed rainbow patterns in the horizontal equatorial plane with those of Airy simulation reveals that these patterns can be used for characterizing droplets, in particular for determining the refractive index and the diameter of the spheroidal droplet in the equatorial plane.
According to the generalized rainbow patterns and Airy approximation, the refractive index and equatorial diameter of water droplets can be inverted from the corresponding generalized rainbow patterns. A comparison of the refractive indices inverted from the corresponding generalized rainbow patterns with that of pure water shows good agreement with absolute errors less than 0.5x10-4. The water droplet diameters in the horizontal equatorial plane are calculated from the generalized rainbow patterns and compared to that measured by direct imaging. It is shown that the relative errors of droplet diameters associated with the generalized rainbow patterns lie between -5% and 5%; hence reliable diameter estimations of droplets can be obtained from the generalized rainbow patterns. The curvatures of simulated rainbow fringes are compared with observed ones from the generalized rainbow patterns, in which good agreement is also shown. Since for a given type of droplet, the curvatures of the rainbow fringes are only a function of the aspect ratios, the non-sphericity (in terms of aspect ratio) of water droplets are inferred from the relevant generalized rainbow patterns. The relative errors of aspect ratios calculated from the generalized rainbow pattern lie between -1% and 1%. Accordingly, the complete informations of a spheroidal water droplet in terms of geometric and optical properties are obtained.
Then, the evolution of the optical caustic structures for tilted spheroidal droplets is investigated. The rainbow fringes are tilted counterclockwise as the spheroidal droplet is tilted counterclockwise and vice versa. The changes of the fringes depend on the aspect ratio and tilt angle. A preliminary experiment for tilted spheroidal droplet is shown.
Furthermore, Mobius's approximation is modified to calculate the deviation between the geometrical rainbow angle for an ellipse and that for a sphere. And the vector ray tracing model is also used to compute the rainbow angle deviation for an ellipse, which agrees with modified Mobius equation for small eccentricity. Moreover, the application range of Mobius's approximation is also investigated. It is demonstrated that, for small eccentricity (0.95≤a/c ≤1.05), the Mobius approximation can predict the rainbow angle difference of ellipse.


This study was aimed to study the protective effects of Adenovirus-mediated overexpression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in rat liver cells against oxidative stress. Cultured Buffalo Rat Liver cells (BRL-3A) cells were divided into six groups. Groups SH and CH were transfected with Ad-CMV-HSP70, groups SN and CN were transfected with Ad-CMV-Null, and groups SC and CC were treated under the same conditions without adenovirus for 48 h. Groups SH, SN and SC were treated with 500 μM H2O2 for 3 h, and groups CH, CN and CC were treated under the same conditions without H2O2. The following parameters were determined for cells of each group: proliferation rate, lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage rate, catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme activities, and glutathione (GSH) and protein carbonyl contents. In addition, the HSP70 mRNA abundance and HSP70 protein expression levels were examined using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and western blotting, respectively. The result shows that compared with cells of group SC, cells of group SH had a higher proliferation rate (P<0.01), CAT activity (P<0.01), GSH content (P>0.05), SOD activity (P>0.05), and protein carbonyl content (P<0.01), a lower LDH leakage rate (P<0.01) and GSH-Px activity (P≤0.05), and higher HSP70 mRNA abundance (P<0.01) and HSP70 protein expression level (P<0.01). In summary, Adenovirus-mediated overexpression of HSP70 has certain protective effects on rat liver cells against H2O2-induced oxidative stress.


Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression Douglas A. Irwin Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011, 244 pp. Let me preface this review with a confession: As an advocate of free trade, I love to link the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff bill with the Great Depression at every opportunity. More than 80 years after its passage, the bill still evokes negative feelings about protectionism. After reading Douglas Irwin's Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression, I can see I need to curb my enthusiasm. Irwin does not defend the bill, far from it. He concludes that it failed to achieve its objectives and that it did, in an incremental way, make the Great Depression worse. But in the careful language of the professional economist and historian that he is, Irwin documents in rich and often colorful detail that the most infamous trade bill in American history had less impact than either its advocates or its opponents understood at the time or understand today. Even so, the story of Smoot-Hawley offers valuable lessons for today as our politicians seek to craft U.S. trade policy in the 21st century. Irwin is superbly qualified to write the definitive history of what was officially the Trade Act of 1930. A professor of economics at Dartmouth College, he has authored Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (1996), and Free Trade under Fire (3rd ed., 2009). Peddling Protectionism is a gem of a book, both concise and thorough. It offers telling and frequently amusing details and sound economic analysis, yet it is readable and accessible for the noneconomist. It contains one simple formula and dozens of helpful and illuminating charts, cartoons, and photos. The author tackles the subject in four chapters: on the domestic politics of Smoot-Hawley, on its economic impact, on foreign reaction to it, and finally on its aftermath and legacy. Many misunderstand the origins of the law. It was not a response to an economic downturn or to lobbying by U.S. industry. It was first proposed in 1928 as an election-year plan by Republicans to appease farmers, who were suffering through years of low commodity prices despite the otherwise booming economy. In a perennial lesson for modern-day lawmakers, the process quickly became a special-interest feeding frenzy. American manufacturers soon joined farmers to plead for tariff protection no matter how dominant their domestic market share. Vote trading and vote buying were rampant. One of the chief ringleaders was Senator Joseph Grundy (R-Pa.), former president of his state's Manufacturers' Association. As Irwin coolly observes, "Without apology or embarrassment, Grundy implied that any organization that made campaign contributions was entitled to get its money back in the form of a higher tariff on their products" (p. 64). Throughout 199.9 and into the spring of 1930, the bill moved first through the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Representative Willis Hawley (R-Ore.), and then through the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah). The Finance Committee heard from more than 1,000 witnesses, resulting in 8,618 pages of testimony published in 18 volumes. The full Senate alone cast 257 roll call votes on different tariffs, sometimes readjusting the same tariff multiple times. Senator Smoot even targeted the importation of books deemed to be obscene, such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, which resulted in the newspaper headline "Smoot Smites Smut." The final bill, signed by President Hoover in June 1930, was more than 200 pages and set specific rates, almost all of them far higher than before, for more than 3,300 tariffs. The bill's final passage brought, not cheers, but sighs of relief and resignation from exhausted lawmakers. What emerged was one of the ugliest, most unwieldy pieces of legislation in American history. As contradictory as it sounds, Smoot-Hawley caused a steep hike in tariff rates with but a modest impact on the U. …


This paper demonstrates a design-based-research (DBR) framework that provides the basis for refining agile practices and artefacts for school projects. It takes into account the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers by combining theory with practice. Based on qualitative analysis of material of the initial iteration of the DBR process, the findings provide an empirical basis demonstrating difficulties of teachers and students with sequential models. In addition, the preliminary findings substantiate the assumption that agile practices reduce teachers' effort in design and use of project-based-learning modules.


Coaching log notes for 15 participants from a 24-week blended online and telehealth randomized controlled trial were analyzed using thematic analysis and analyst triangulation to determine the factors that facilitated participant adherence to weight loss strategies, use of technology, and motivational interviewing. Several participants reported that restricting processed carbohydrates, limiting portion size, and maintaining healthy substitutions were effective nutritional strategies. Participants were less successful with adherence to their exercise goals, often due to time constraints and a lack of support. Results suggested consistent caregiver support improved participants' adherence to weight loss strategies and use of technology. Future programs should address obesity among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by offering a range of interventions that are customized to their specific weight loss needs.


The problem of the dominant TE guided-mode scattering from an abruptly terminated asymmetrical slab waveguide is examined by both the integral equation method and the variational technique. The reflection coefficient of the guided mode, the far-field radiation pattern, and the field distribution on the terminal plane are computed. Numerical results are presented for several cases of abruptly ended waveguides, including the three-layer guide and the structure with variable profile of the refractive index.


Developmental dyslexia is associated with deficits in the processing of visual motion stimuli, and some evidence suggests that these motion processing deficits are related to various reading subskills deficits. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying such associations. This study lays a richer groundwork for exploration of such mechanisms by more comprehensively and rigorously characterizing the relationship between motion processing deficits and reading subskills deficits. Thirty-six adult participants, 19 of whom had a history of developmental dyslexia, completed a battery of visual, cognitive, and reading tests. This battery combined motion processing and reading subskills measures used across previous studies and added carefully matched visual processing control tasks. Results suggest that there are in fact two distinct motion processing deficits in developmental dyslexia, rather than one as assumed by previous research, and that each of these deficits is associated with a different type of reading subskills deficit. A deficit in detecting coherent motion is selectively associated with low accuracy on reading subskills tests, and a deficit in discriminating velocities is selectively associated with slow performance on these same tests. In addition, evidence from visual processing control tasks as well as self-reports of ADHD symptoms suggests that these motion processing deficits are specific to the domain of visual motion, and result neither from a broader visual deficit, nor from the sort of generalized attention deficit commonly comorbid with developmental dyslexia. Finally, dissociation between these two motion processing deficits suggests that they may have distinct neural and functional underpinnings. The two distinct patterns of motion processing and reading deficits demonstrated by this study may reflect separable underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of developmental dyslexia.


Reliable crustal shortening estimates for the central Andes (South America) are a critical component in validating models of Cordilleran processes. In southern Bolivia, insight into crustal shortening and the kinematic development of the Andean thrust belt are limited by the lack of a unified structural evaluation across the entire width of the retroarc region. To address these shortcomings, we (1) estimate crustal shortening by integrating new geologic mapping with published geophysical data to construct a balanced cross section across the Subandean zone (SAZ), Interandean zone (IAZ), and Eastern Cordillera (EC) at 21°S; (2) develop a kinematic model for the retroarc thrust belt; and (3) estimate crustal budgets and average crustal thicknesses over the region. We estimate 337 ± 69 km (36% ± 7%) of total shortening (SAZ, 82 km; IAZ, 70 km; EC, 120 km; Altiplano, 65 km). The thrust belt developed from late Eocene time to the present by tectonic wedging and eastward emplacement of two ∼10–12-km-thick basement thrust sheets that distribute slip into overlying sedimentary rocks. Our range of crustal shortening values can account for 90%–118% of the current retroarc crustal area. Assuming an initial crustal thickness of 35 km, the EC and Altiplano did not achieve modern crustal thicknesses (∼65 km) until the present. However, assuming a 40-km-thick initial crust, the EC and Altiplano attained the critical thickness for either eclogitic phase changes or lower crustal flow (>45–50 km) by ca. 27–25 Ma, modern thicknesses by ca. 10 Ma, and currently exceed geophysically observed thicknesses by ∼2.5–14.5 km; this suggests crustal losses significant enough to have affected hinterland surface elevation.


The Frank-Wolfe optimization algorithm has recently regained popularity for machine learning applications due to its projection-free property and its ability to handle structured constraints. However, in the stochastic learning setting, it is still relatively understudied compared to the gradient descent counterpart. In this work, leveraging a recent variance reduction technique, we propose two stochastic Frank-Wolfe variants which substantially improve previous results in terms of the number of stochastic gradient evaluations needed to achieve 1 - e accuracy. For example, we improve from O(1/e) to O(ln 1/e) if the objective function is smooth and strongly convex, and from O(1/e2) to O(1/e1.5) if the objective function is smooth and Lipschitz. The theoretical improvement is also observed in experiments on real-world datasets for a multiclass classification application.


We introduce a collaborative PAC learning model, in which k players attempt to learn the same underlying concept. We ask how much more information is required to learn an accurate classifier for all players simultaneously. We refer to the ratio between the sample complexity of collaborative PAC learning and its non-collaborative (single-player) counterpart as the overhead. We design learning algorithms with O(ln(k)) and O(ln^2(k)) overhead in the personalized and centralized variants our model. This gives an exponential improvement upon the naive algorithm that does not share information among players. We complement our upper bounds with an Omega(ln(k)) overhead lower bound, showing that our results are tight up to a logarithmic factor.


Targeting DLL3 with an antibody-drug conjugate eliminates tumor-initiating cells in high-grade pulmonary neuroendocrine cancers. Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors, such as small cell lung cancer, are among the most difficult cancers to treat. Although standard chemotherapy regimens are available for this type of cancer, the tumors typically acquire resistance to the drugs. Saunders et al. discovered that DLL3, a ligand in the Notch signaling pathway, is associated with the neuroendocrine cancer phenotype. The authors targeted DLL3 with an antibody conjugated to a cytotoxic drug, which was more effective than standard chemotherapy for treating patient-derived tumor xenografts in mice. Unlike chemotherapy, the anti-DLL3 treatment appeared particularly effective against tumor-initiating cells, which may account for its efficacy. L. R. Saunders, A. J. Bankovich, W. C. Anderson, M. A. Aujay, S. Bheddah, K. Black, R. Desai, P. A. Escarpe, J. Hampl, A. Laysang, D. Liu, J. Lopez-Molina, M. Milton, A. Park, M. A. Pysz, H. Shao, B. Slingerland, M. Torgov, S. A. Williams, O. Foord, P. Howard, J. Jassem, A. Badzio, P. Czapiewski, D. H. Harpole, A. Dowlati, P. P. Massion, W. D. Travis, M. C. Pietanza, J. T. Poirier, C. M. Rudin, R. A. Stull, S. J. Dylla, A DLL3-targeted antibody-drug conjugate eradicates high-grade pulmonary neuroendocrine tumor-initiating cells in vivo. Sci. Transl. Med. 7, 302ra136 (2015). [Abstract]


Judgment-aggregation theory has always focused on the attainment of rational collective judgments. But so far, rationality has been understood in static terms: as "coherence" of judgments at a given time, understood as consistency, completeness, and/or deductive closure. By contrast, this paper discusses whether collective judgments can be dynamically rational, so that they change rationally in response to new information. Formally, a judgment aggregation rule is dynamically rational with respect to a given revision operator if, whenever all individuals revise their judgments in light of some information (a learnt proposition), then the new aggregate judgments are the old ones revised in light of this information, i.e., aggregation and revision commute. We prove a general impossibility theorem: if the propositions on the agenda are sufficiently interconnected, no judgment aggregation rule with standard properties is dynamically rational with respect to any revision operator satisfying some mild conditions (familiar from belief revision theory). Our theorem is the dynamic-rationality analogue of some well-known impossibility theorems for static rationality. We also explore how dynamic rationality might be achieved by relaxing some of the conditions on the aggregation rule and/or the revision operator.


The 107TH OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT, 1862-65, was composed largely of immigrant Germans from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. It was organized at Camp Taylor (see CIVIL WAR CAMPS IN CLEVELAND) in the summer of 1862 and mustered into federal service on 9 Sept. The regiment was transferred to Covington, KY, serving there until October. After a short period of duty at Delaware, OH, it was sent to Washington, DC, and assigned to the 2d Brigade, 3d Div., 11th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, in October. It served with this unit until December. The 107th was then assigned to the following units: 2d Brigade, 1st Div., 11th Army Corps (Dec. 1862-July 1863); 1st Brigade, 1st Div., 11th Army Corps (July-Aug. 1863); 1st Brigade, Gordon's Div., 10th Army Corps, Dept. of the South (Aug. 1863-Jan. 1864); 2d Brigade, Gordon's Div., 10th Army Corps (Jan.-Feb. 1864); 1st Brigade, Ames' Div., District of Florida, Dept. of the South (Feb.-Apr. 1864); District of Florida (Apr.-Oct. 1864); 4th Separate Brigade, District of Florida, Dept. of the South (Oct. 1864); 1st Brigade, Coast Div., Dept. of the South (Nov. 1864); 4th Separate Brigade, Dept. of the South (Dec. 1864-Jan. 1865); 1st Separate Brigade, Northern District, Dept. of the South (Jan.-Mar. 1865); and 1st Separate Brigade, District of Charleston, Dept. of the South (Mar.-July 1865). The regiment participated in the Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg campaigns of the CIVIL WAR and assisted in the destruction of the Charleston & Savannah Railroad. The 107th was mustered out at Charleston, SC, on 10 July 1865 and its men discharged and paid off at Camp Cleveland shortly thereafter. The unit lost 57 men to hostile causes and 76 to disease. Smith, Jacob. Camps and Campaigns of the 107th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry from August 1862 to July 1865 (ca. 1910).


Privacy preservation is important for machine learning and data mining, but measures designed to protect private information often result in a trade-off: reduced utility of training samples. This paper introduces a privacy preserving approach that can be applied to decision tree learning, without concomitant loss of accuracy. It describes an approach to the preservation of the privacy of collected data samples in cases where information from the sample database has been partially lost. This approach converts the original sample data sets into a group of unreal data sets, from which the original samples cannot be reconstructed without the entire group of unreal data sets. Meanwhile, an accurate decision tree can be built directly from those unreal data sets. This novel approach can be applied directly to the data storage as soon as the first sample is collected. The approach is compatible with other privacy preserving approaches, such as cryptography, for extra protection.


I. INTRODUCTION The twentieth century witnessed two periods of dramatic regulatory and structural change in the U.S. banking industry--the Great Depression and the events of the 1980s and 1990s. While many important regulations were enacted during the Great Depression, the 1980s and 1990s experienced the repeal or reversal of most Depression-era financial regulations. The 1980s and early 1990s experienced severe financial turbulence the savings and loan crisis followed by another crisis in the commercial banking industry. Those crises led to failure rates among financial institutions not seen since the Great Depression. As a consequence, the 1980s and 1990s saw deregulation that transformed the banking industry from one with much geographic limitation on banking and branching to one now characterized by interstate banking and branching. (1) The theory of industrial organization addresses several stylized facts or empirical regularities of industry dynamics: (1) entry is common, (2) entry is small scale, (3) survival is low-probability, and (4) entry and exit are highly correlated. Dunne et al. (1988) and Pepall et al. (2002, chap. 6) provide more details. Moreover, the fourth empirical regularity contradicts standard microeconomic theory where entry associates with high-performing, profitable, expanding industries and exit associates with low-performing, unprofitable, contracting industries. The empirical evidence implies that the process resembles a lottery where many firms buy tickets (i.e., enter the market), most firms eventually lose (i.e., exit the market), and only a few firms win (i.e., stay in the market). In other words, long-term, permanent penetration into an existing market presents significant barriers, and thus few new firms succeed, because incumbent firms possess significant advantages. Urban et al. (1984) and Pepall et al. (2002, chap. 6) provide additional discussion. The commercial banking industry during the recent two-decade period of deregulation experienced those standard empirical regularities with some variations. That is, entry occurred frequently and involved small banks generally. Only a minority of those banks survived. The number of entries and exits both increased dramatically during the past two decades, although exits typically exceeded entries as the number of banks traversed a downward trend. In addition, exits in the regulated banking industry mostly involve mergers, even for failing banks. (2) The U.S. commercial banking industry possessed institutional characteristics that affect how the industry dynamics corresponded to and differed from those empirical regularities. First, the founding fathers exhibited much concern about preventing concentrations of power. They adopted rules and regulations, in an attempt to prevent such concentrations of power from emerging. That concern bore fruit in the banking industry in the peculiar pattern of bank charters a dual banking system and the regulation of banking activity on a geographic basis. Thus, as we entered the last two decades of the twentieth century, the United States possessed many more banks per capita than most other countries in the world. (3) The deregulation of geographic restrictions on banking activity expectedly led to a decline in the number of banks. Thus, although both entries and exits played a significant role over the past two decades, exits exceeded entries so that the total number of banks fell, as noted. Second, the banking industry plays a critical role in any nation's economy. The loss of confidence in the banking industry that led to subsequent bank panics and runs provided the typical scenario for recession and depression throughout the nineteenth century. (4) Consequently, the banking industry in the twentieth century exhibited significant control on entry and exit by the various banking regulators. That is, the number of bank entries and exits fell below those that would have naturally occurred in an unregulated banking industry. …


Despite over a century of research, malaria parasites (Plasmodium) still remain a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. In recent years, the application of theoretical principles from ecology and evolutionary biology to the study of these parasites has started to provide insight into variety of fundamental subjects from the evolution of virulence to the facultative strategies (i.e. phenotypic plasticity) that parasites use to maximize their transmission. It is now becoming increasingly clear that to understand and predict population level patterns of virulence and transmission, the processes that occur at the between-host level must be studied in light of the interactions that happen within hosts (between parasites and between parasites and hosts). In this thesis I combine concepts from evolutionary biology and ecology with tools from molecular and cellular biology and evolutionary genetics, which allow me to study rodent malaria parasites at both evolutionary and ecological timescales. The work I present in this thesis has the following four components: 1. Phylogenetics (chapter 2): I applied recently developed phylogenetic methods to a large DNA sequence dataset that I generated, to provide a better understanding of the phylogeny of rodent malaria parasites and investigate how selection has shaped their genomes. I show that all rodent malaria subspecies can be considered species, provide the first time line for the evolution of this group of parasites and demonstrate that most loci are under purifying selection. 2. Hybridization and reproductive isolation (chapter 3): I show that hybridization between two rodent malaria parasites (P. berghei and P. yoelii) can occur, but only occurs at high levels when one of two proteins (P230 or P48/45) is absent from the surface of female gametes, which indicates that these proteins are involved in gamete recognition. I find that P230, P48/45 and P47 (a possible interaction partner) are evolving under positive selection, a feature often observed in gamete recognition proteins of other taxa. Finally, I show that the fertilization success of P. berghei is reduced in the presence of P. yoelii, but not vice-versa, which indicates asymmetric reproductive interference. 3. Sex allocation (chapter 4): I carry the first test of sex allocation's assumption that immunity impacts on the fertility of Plasmodium male gametocytes/gametes more than on the fertility of females. I show that while the fertility of both males and females is equally affected, males are affected during gametogenesis and females are mostly affected through gamete dysfunction (i.e. gametes can mate but zygotes fail to develop), which is in agreement with the assumptions of theory. In collaboration, I incorporate these effects into sex allocation theory and predict that malaria parasites can minimize the effects of factors that kill gametocytes/gametes by adjusting their sex ratios. On the other hand sex ratio adjustment cannot compensate for gamete dysfunction or zygote death. These results have applied implications for transmission-blocking vaccines. 4. Infection dynamics of mixed-species infections (chapter 5): I develop a series of experiments to test how a focal parasite species (P. yoelii) is affected by competition with heterospecifics (P. chabaudi) and how the interaction between the two species is mediated by immunity and resource availability. I show that P. chabaudi can boost P. yoelii above its single species level (i.e. facilitation) and that this is mediated by resource availability. On the other hand, P. yoelii's performance can also be hindered in mice that were exposed to a P. chabaudi infection. My results also reveal that host mortality is exacerbated in mixed-species infections of naïve mice, which may be due to an inability of the host to achieve the right balance between the production and the destruction of red blood cells, when dealing with a mixed-species infection. The work I present here tackles fundamental questions concerning the transmission biology and the within-host interactions of malaria parasites The results presented demonstrate the importance of interactions between hosts and parasites and between different parasite species (at the molecular and the whole organism levels) for determining the outcome of transmission, virulence and within-host parasite performance.


Background: Eradication of poverty and starvation is still an agenda of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015 due to the serious impact of poverty and starvation to human beings. Poverty and starvation are worsened by smoking habit of the Indonesian population. Expenditures used for cigarettes may bring bad impact to the health of toddlers, including lack of nutrient intake. However, until today it is not yet precisely known how much lack of nutrient intake in toddlers caused by cigarette consumption. Objective: To identify difference in nutrient intake of energy and protein of toddlers based on the amount of cigarettes consumed in poor household at Yogyakarta Municipality. Method: The study used cross sectional design. Subject consisted of 86 toddlers of two-five years living in poor household at Yogyakarta Municipality. Cigarette consumption, mother of toddlers and all members of the family were obtained from interview. Method to assess intake was multiple 24 hours food recall within four days, whereas interview was used to assess cigarette consumption. Statistical analysis was performed by using Two Sample Independent t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, regression, and Chi-Square. Results: As much as 77.9% of poor household had at least one smoker. There was no significant difference in intake of energy and protein of toddlers living with smokers and non smokers, though percentage of expenditure for food was significantly lower in the household with smokers. This might be due to high consumption of food with high energy density at affordable price and protein at low price. Snacks were the third most consumed by toddlers and 40% of animal protein consumed were eggs. Conclusion: There was no significant difference in intake of energy and protein of toddlers living in the poor household with smokers and those living with non smokers, but percentage of expenditure for food significantly lower in household with smokers.


The pollen beetle is one of the most important pests of the rape fields in Hungary. Profound knowledge in the biology and ecology of it is required to make the plant protection treatments more effi cient. A study was carried out in 2002 with an objective to explore the possible differences among the various species of genus Meligethes in their overwintering customs. During my research of overwintering I studied places with different conditions. Leaf samples which fell to the ground were collected to establish the most preferable type of wintering layer. Then the samples were placed in separator bags, which made it possible to observe the emergence of the beetles in early spring. My results show that four species were found in the samples: Meligethes aeneus Fabricius, 1775, Meligethes coracinus Sturm, 1845, Meligethes viridescens Fabricius, 1787 and Meligethes picipes Sturm, 1845. I did not fi nd decisive differences on how these species +select their wintering places, yet there was a main divergence in the period of time in their emergence. It was discovered that Meligethes aeneus preceded the three other related species.


n
contrast
to
most
blood
sucking
flies,
the
structure
of
the
spermathecae
in
phlebotomine
sandflies
exhibits
extraordinary
diversity.
The
objective
of
this
study
was
to
investigate
the
fine
structure
of
the
spermathecae
in
relation
to
mating
of
phlebotomine
sandflies.
Light
microscopy
and
electron
(scanning
and
transmission)
microscopy
were
used
to
examine
species
of
four
representative
subgenera
from
the
Old
World
Sergentomyia
(Parrotomyia)
babu,
Phlebotomus
(Euphlebotomus)
argentipes,
P.
(Phlebotomus)
papatasi
and
P.
(Larroussius)
langeroni.
The
spermathecae
of
P.
papatasi
is
composed
of
a
pair
long
spermathecal
ducts,
a
cylindrical
spermatheca
surrounded
by
a
visceral
muscle
and
a
spherical
gland
attached
by
an
epithelial
layer.
The
internal
histology
of
the
spermathecae
in
all
the
four
species
includes:
a
simple
epithelial
layer
of
class
1
epidermal
cells,
elaborate
glandular
cells
(class
3
epidermal
cells)
each
having
receiving
and
conducting
ductules
("end
apparatus")
and
a
cytological
apodeme,
which
is
a
new
finding
for
the
insect
epidermis.
The
glandular
cells
are
connected
to
the
lumen
of
the
spermatheca
by
cuticular
ductules
passing
through
a
cuticular
block
which
has
a
high
resilin
content.
The
spermathecal
complex
is
enveloped
in
a
supercontracting
visceral
muscular
system
and
has
a
myoneural
junction.
Based
on
this
study
a
new
terminology
for
the
spermathecal
morphology
is
proposed.
The
spermathecae
undergo
substantial
physiological
changes
during
the
female
gonotrophic
cycle
based
on
studies
with
Phlebotomus
papatasi
and
P.
argentipes.
A
histochemical
study
revealed
a
mucopolysaccharide
secretory-mass
in
the
newly
emerged
fly.
During
insemination,
spermatophores
are
deposited
in
the
spermathecal
ducts.
Previous
reports
of
mating
plugs
in
sandflies
appear
to
be
artifacts.
The
histology
of
the
spermatophore
is
described
and
the
anatomical
evidence
for
sperm
competition
and
and
II
displacement
presented.
Blood-feeding
stimulates
the
release
of
sperm
from
spermatophoroand
then
they
migrate
to
the
lumen
of
the
spermatheca.
The
fine
structure
of
spermatozoa
in
P.
papatasi
and
P.
argentipes
during
their
morphological
change,
such
i~
as
acrosomal
membrane
casting
off(described.
Physical
evidence
suggests
that
P
.papatasi
is
inseminated
more
than
once
in
each
gonotrophic
cycle,
and
that
further
insemination
is
necessary
for
subsequent
cycles.
The
lock-and-key
hypothesis
has
been
suggested
as
an
important
mechanism
for
species
evolution.
To
test
this,
the
length
of
the
spermathecal
duct
and
aedeagal
filament
were
examined
from
28
species
of
13
subgenera
of
the
Old
World
phelebotomine
sandflies.
In
general,
there
was
a
positive
correlation
between
these
variables
but
in
most
taxa
the
aedeagal
filaments
were
long
for
direct
insemination
of
the
spermathecal
proper.
that
These
findings
indicate.sperm
competition
takes
place.
Given
the
structural
diversity
of
the
spermathecae
and
its
significance
in
mating
strategies,
and
the
importance
of
spermathecae
in
phlebotomine
systematics,
a
comparative
morphological
study
of
spermathecal
variation
with
male
genitalic
variation
d·
was
made
to
classify
the
Old
World
phlebotomines.
Twenty
nine
taxa
representative.all
the
Old
World
subgenera
were
analyzed
by
cladistic
methods.
The
phylogenetic
groupings
based
on
these
characters
generally
confirmed
the
presently
accepted
system,
and
that
all
the
vectors
of
human
leishmaniasis
are
in
recent
terminal
taxa


The lattice for the present design of the TESLA Linear Collider with integrated X-Ray Laser Facility is basically a FODO structure with constant beta-function. There are more than 800 individually powered superconducting quadrupoles to focus the beam in the two main linear accelerators (each with a length of 15 km). For the availability of the beams it is important that a power supply failure or even a magnet failure does not cause a significant down time of the linac. It is demonstrated that the beta-function can be matched with a quadrupole "missing". One part of the main linac (up-to 50 GeV) will be used to accelerate the High Energy Physics beam and the Free Electron Laser drive beam with different accelerating gradients. Therefore the betatron phase advance will be 60 or 90 depending on the beam energy. It is shown that even in that case it is possible to match the lattice simultaneously for both beams with a quadrupole missing.


Introduction: The molecular mechanisms involved in the development and progression of breast cancer have yet to be determined. In the present study, the proteome of cancerous beast and adjacent normal tissues were compared. Materials & Methods: In a cohort study, the cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues were obtained from 5 female patients with ductal carcinoma in stage 3. The total protein contents of cancer and adjacent normal tissues were extracted. The protein expression levels were examined by Image Master 2D Platinum software following two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. MALDI-TOF MS/MS mass spectrometry was used for proteins identification. Findings: The constant region of Ig gamma-1 chain and beta subunit of hemoglobin were exclusively detected in the cancer and adjacent normal tissues, respectively. The expression of serum albumin and collagen VI alpha chain in the cancer tissue was significantly lower than the normal tissue (P less-than 0.05). In contrast, the expression of a single peptide matching to cytoskeletal type I and II keratin significantly increased in the cancer tissue compared to the normal tissues (P less-than 0.05). Discussion & Conclusion: As the output of our investigation, it seems that proteome of cancerous tissue is extensively different from the adjacent one. Therefore, proteomic approach might be a promising tool for monitoring breast tumorigenesis. However, this needs to be confirmed in future.


Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of and the efficacy, safety, and cost effectiveness of treatment for endogenous and exogenous cesarean scar pregnancies (CSP). CSPs result from the amniotic sac implanting into the CS; endogenous CSPs grow toward the uterine cavity, while exogenous CSPs infiltrate the uterine myometrium.
Methods: Sixty nine (69) endogenous and exogenous CSP patients were retrospectively reviewed. The former group included two subgroups: dilation and curettage (D&C) alone, and combined D&C with uterine artery embolization (UAE). Treatment type, complications, and treatment costs were recorded. Means and standard deviations were calculated for all variables for each group and sub-group. Independent t-tests were conducted to compare all variables between the groups and subgroups.
Results: Sixty nine (69) patients were reviewed: 47 endogenous and 22 exogenous CSPs. 41 endogenous CSPs underwent ultrasound-guided D&C. Two had complications and underwent surgical resections. The 6 remaining endogenous CSPs successfully underwent UAE and hysteroscopy-guided D&C. Patients receiving the combined treatment did have significantly higher expenses (P<0.05). All 22 exogenous CSPs successfully underwent surgical resections. The exogenous CSPs had significantly higher hospitalization expenses than the endogenous CSPs (P<0.05).
Conclusion: It is safe and cost effective to use ultrasound-guided D&C for endogenous CSPs and surgical resections for exogenous CSPs.


Automatically generating coherent and semantically meaningful text has many applications in machine translation, dialogue systems, image captioning, etc. Recently, by combining with policy gradient, Generative Adversarial Nets(GAN) that use a discriminative model to guide the training of the generative model as a reinforcement learning policy has shown promising results in text generation. However, the scalar guiding signal is only available after the entire text has been generated and lacks intermediate information about text structure during the generative process. As such, it limits its success when the length of the generated text samples is long (more than 20 words). In this paper, we propose a new framework, called LeakGAN, to address the problem for long text generation. We allow the discriminative net to leak its own high-level extracted features to the generative net to further help the guidance. The generator incorporates such informative signals into all generation steps through an additional MANAGER module, which takes the extracted features of current generated words and outputs a latent vector to guide the WORKER module for next-word generation.Our extensive experiments on synthetic data and various real-world tasks with Turing test demonstrate that LeakGAN is highly effective in long text generation and also improves the performance in short text generation scenarios. More importantly, without any supervision, LeakGAN would be able to implicitly learn sentence structures only through the interaction between MANAGER and WORKER.


The EU-Turkey deal on the return of refugees is one of the most controversial policy steps taken by the EU in recent years. The EU General Court chose to sidestep the difficult legal questions raised by the deal by dismissing these cases, ruling it had no jurisdiction to review the deal on the ground that the Statement was not an act of Union institutions, but that of Member States. Will the CJEU use this opportunity to set the record straight by establishing who had the competence to conclude the EU-Turkey deal?


Historically telecommunications companies have measured voice and data traffic for reasons related to service dimensioning and engineering management. Today, personalised devices make it possible to understand not only requirements for the capacity needed in a network environment, but household and individual usage patterns. This has changed the way that companies now market their products and services and sell direct to individual or groups of consumers. Beyond marketing is the intimate knowledge gathered of why people do things, inferred by pattern-of-life data and metadata. This is precise knowledge of customer behaviours, traits, habits and characteristics. Of the most pervasive devices is the smart phone which is carried by most consumers, young and old, everywhere they go. Coupled with additional self-disclosed data in social media, corporations now know a great deal more about people than prior to the mobile Internet revolution. Digital chronicles automatically generated using rich onboard sensors on smartphones gather streams of historical user-based data every single day. The end result is that time-based digital chronicles are now being used to proactively profile individuals and households for more than just telecommunications engineering. The Internet of Things promises even greater connectedness as individual items begin to come alive on a global network each with their respective IP address. Big data will soon be able to reveal patterns and trends that were previously incalculable. Humans in actual fact have become akin to mobile network access nodes, as they move around going about their business, quantified with a variety of measures. We will seek even greater levels of scrutiny in the not-too-distant future heralding in an age of uberveillance. We now know much more about consumers than traditional call holding times and the location of an individual user in a mobile network. Through evidence we know what consumers are thinking, how they are feeling, and even what they will do next with a high degree of accuracy. Embedded surveillance devices will likely replace clunky mobile and wearable handsets and headsets which will introduce an ability to transcend physical boundaries. This paper will define uberveillance and discuss the limits of connectedness when convenience overrides efficiency. What are the social implications to consumers when companies can exploit the intimate knowledge they collect for more than just service availability?


We numerically investigated the impact of long-pitch (>800 nm) metallic gratings on the absorption enhancement in thin-film photovoltaic devices. We found that gratings with such a long pitch can simultaneously enhance the absorption of TM- and TE-polarized sunlight by inducing lateral Fabry–Perot resonances of surface plasmon-polaritons and guided modes at the same time. The grating duty cycle turned out to be the most important factor in realizing the two enhancement effects in the same spectral regime. Especially for the TM light, the combined effect of long grating pitch and duty-cycle adjustment led to the formation of three plasmonic resonances that simultaneously cover the ridge and groove surfaces. All of these produced a polarization-diverse absorption enhancement corresponding to a factor of 1.17–1.18 increase in the photocurrent over a wide range of the grating pitch.


The competitiveness of EU regions This paper results from the project financed by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GA CR). The project was carried out by the research team consisting of both The Centre of Regional and Administrative Studies and The Regional Studies Department´s members in 2009 -2011. The introductory part of the paper is focused on the theoretical background with a special emphasis on the concept definition and determination of factors of the regional competitiveness. The concept of competitiveness is relatively new in the economics and the economic geography. In fact, there are no general definitions, the concept is mostly related to a specific issue. Micro-oriented definitions consider the competitiveness as a success in selling products or services on open markets. The macro-economic view is much more variable. It is often associated with an economic development of a sustainable character. The social and environmental aspect is also closely observed as well as the impact of the regional economic growth on other regions, in the sense of whether or not the economic growth is realized at the expense of other regions. The following part of the paper, based on the methodology and index defined for this purpose, assesses the competitiveness of EU regions on the NUTS II level. The regional competitiveness index was compiled on the basis of available Eurostat data. Next part of the paper presents the key factors of the regional competitiveness. Factors are classified as universal and specific. Concerning universal factors, regions with a high level of competitiveness mostly have an important economic centre; these are often metropolitan regions of member states (London, Stockholm, Paris, Prague) with a significant share of services and existence of both public and private decision-making headquarters. In non-metropolitan regions with a high level of competitiveness, there is an economic centre- city with a share of services, R&D and innovation sector. Competitive regions (or their centres) are mostly well connected with the transport infrastructure, especially TEN-T, national highways and international airports. Such regions are important air, rail, road or water transport junctions. One of the key aspects of the regional competitiveness is the concentration of scientific, R&D and innovative institutions often linked to tertiary educational institutions. In general, the educational structure with a high proportion of tertiary or higher secondary educated population (corresponding to the Czech system of secondary education with the school-leaving examination-maturita) is another aspect of a competitive region. The institutional conditions also determine the regional competitiveness and development. Specific factors of the regional competitiveness are the tourism potential, natural sources and the technical infrastructure. Keywords: region, competitiveness, factors, European Union, NUTS II JEL code: R11


The impact of bad programming practices, such as code smells, in production code has been the focus of numerous studies in software engineering. Like production code, unit tests are also affected by bad programming practices which can have a negative impact on the quality and maintenance of a software system. While several studies addressed code and test smells in desktop applications, there is little knowledge of test smells in the context of mobile applications. In this study, we extend the existing catalog of test smells by identifying and defining new smells and survey over 40 developers who confirm that our proposed smells are bad programming practices in test suites. Additionally, we perform an empirical study on the occurrences and distribution of the proposed smells on 656 open-source Android applications (apps). Our findings show a widespread occurrence of test smells in apps. We also show that apps tend to exhibit test smells early in their lifetime with different degrees of co-occurrences on different smell types. This empirical study demonstrates that test smells can be used as an indicator for necessary preventive software maintenance for test suites.


Hundreds of memoirs, novels, plays, and movies have been devoted to the American war in Vietnam. In spite of the great variety of media, political perspectives and the degrees of seriousness with which the war has been treated, Katherine Kinney argues that the vast majority of these works share a single story: that of Americans killing Americans in Vietnam. Friendly Fire, in this instance, refers not merely to a tragic error of war, it also refers to America's war with itself during the Vietnam years. Starting from this point, this book considers the concept of "friendly fire" from multiple vantage points, and portrays the Vietnam age as a crucible where America's cohesive image of itself is shattered-pitting soldiers against superiors, doves against hawks, feminism against patriarchy, racial fear against racial tolerance. Through the use of extensive evidence from the film and popular fiction of Vietnam (e.g. Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, Didion's Democracy, O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, Rabe's Sticks and Bones and Streamers), Kinney draws a powerful picture of a nation politically, culturally, and socially divided, and a war that has been memorialized as a contested site of art, media, politics, and ideology.


WLAN systems based on the IEEE 802.11 could contain hundreds even up to thousands of wireless access points nowadays. However, IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols, including DCF, PCF and EDCA mechanisms, are unable to meet the challenges to provide collision freedom, especially in distributed large scale WLAN systems. We propose a channel access scheduling protocol based on Latin squares, called DCLASS (Distributed Coordination based on Latin SquareS), that provides collision-free CSMA based channel access coordination functions in large scale wireless networks with stringent performance demands. The performance of DCLASS is evaluated using an IEEE standards compliant simulation toolkit, QualNet 4.5, in distributed WLAN systems. The simulation results show the superior performance of DCLASS in contrast to IEEE 802.11 DCF under various scenarios.


Phase compensation instability (PCI) is a runaway process associated with the operation of a closed-loop phase-only adaptive-optics system transmitting through the atmosphere a large-diameter laser beam with a high power density. Under most conditions such an operation introduces positive feedback;  if the laser power density is sufficiently high, there is the possibility of PCI-type runaway of the adaptive-optics servo. It is now known that the occurrence of PCI is inhibited by wind shear (wind-shear induced stabilization of PCI, or WISP) because at every different position along the propagation path the turbulent wind has a (slightly) different component of velocity in the plane transverse to the laser beam's propagation direction. We develop a set of equations from which the conditions for the onset of PCI can be determined. Sample results are presented for propagation through an atmosphere with a negative exponential absorption profile—which nominally corresponds to ground-to-space propagation. The results indicate that for typical conditions (as a consequence of wind shear) one can transmit a rather substantial laser power density without encountering PCI. As an example of the application of our theory, the expected Strehl ratio for a HV5/7 turbulence model is evaluated for the parameters of a nominal ground-to-space high-energy laser beam propagation system.


Previous studies have correlated interannual streamflow fluctuations with changes in the climate. We note that decadal shifts in climate forcing can impart a stronger signal on streamflow than does the long-term climatic trend. In north-western North America, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which is strong in the cold season, may exert influence on interannual variations in spring high flows. In the 20th century, several major shifts in the PDO have been recognized. However, the rivers of Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alberta have variable response to such climate signals. An analysis of the flow of rivers in this region indicates that a number of rivers draining the Pacific coast are positively correlated with PDO and some rivers in the interior correlate negatively. Not all river flows correlate with the PDO because factors such as location, topography and storage can overwhelm the climatic influence. Given these considerations, the interpretation of long-term trends in streamflow should take account of the interdecadal climatic shifts and basin characteristics that affect flow generation.


accompanying the view that music training leads to improved mathematical performance is the view that that there is an overlap between the kinds of skills needed for music and mathematics. We examined the popular conception that mathematicians have better music abilities than nonmathematicians. We administered a self-report questionnaire via the internet to assess musicality (music perception and music memory) and musicianship (music performance and music creation). Respondents were doctoral-level members of the American Mathematical Association or the Modern Language Association (i.e., literature and language scholars). The mathematics group did not exhibit higher levels of either musicality or musicianship. Among those reporting high music-performance ability (facility in playing an instrument and/or sight-reading ability), mathematicians did not report significantly greater musicality than did the literature/language scholars. These findings do not lend support to the hypothesis that mathematicians are more musical than people with nonquantitative backgrounds.


Objectives: To present key findings from the Quebec Incidence Study of reported child maltreatment in terms of their incidence rates, characteristics and recurrence. Method: A survey conducted in 16 of the 18 service areas across Quebec tracked 86% of child maltreatment investigations conducted during the months of October to December 1998, which produced a sample of 4,934 investigated reports of child maltreatment. Information was collected directly from case workers who investigated the children's and family's background, the perpetrator characteristics, severity and types of maltreatment. Results: The highest incidence rates of both investigated and substantiated reports (7.3 and 5.1 per 1000 children respectively) were found for neglect. Differences were found in incidence rates according to age and gender. Girls were more often sexually abused than boys who were in turn slightly more often physically abused and neglected than girls. Twenty-nine percent (29%) of children reported more than one type of maltreatment and at least 28% of children had recurrent investigated reports during the survey period. Mothers were the most frequently reported perpetrators for all types of maltreatment except for sexual abuse, where the perpetrators were predominantly the fathers and stepfathers. Results also revealed that between 15% and 33% of the children were living with a parent who was also abused as a child. The percentage varies according to the type of maltreatment. Conclusions: The QIS provides much needed information for developing a better understanding of the profiles and needs of children and families investigated by child welfare authorities in Quebec. Results highlight the importance of neglect among maltreated children as well as the recurrence of reports. Quebec incidence study 3


In the UK, a number of policy documents have sought to outline and clarify the role of the community nurse in the past 10 years. Furthermore, the increasing specialisation of community nursing has been the topic of much debate in the UK and Ireland. The present study aimed to investigate the perceptions of community nurses, general practitioners (GPs), members of the public, and senior strategists and policy-makers in relation to specialist and generalist nursing roles within community nursing in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Focus groups were undertaken with community nurses (n = 38), GPs (n = 14) and public representatives (n = 8). This was followed by a two-stage Delphi investigation using self-report questionnaires with the same samples. In addition, data were collected from 34 senior policy-makers using a semi-structured interview schedule. The results uncovered a mix of views. While there was much negativity about specialisation, the participants felt that the move away from generalism was unavoidable. There was concern that specialisation, whilst welcome in some areas, would lead to role conflict, role overlap and role confusion. Findings from this study have the potential to inform the specialisation-generalism debate within and outside the UK and Ireland. Recommendations are suggested for future policy and practice.


MAGP1 is an extracellular matrix protein that, in vertebrates, is a ubiquitous component of fibrillin-rich microfibrils. We previously reported that aged MAGP1-deficient mice (MAGP1Δ) develop lesions that are the consequence of spontaneous bone fracture. We now present a more defined bone phenotype found in MAGP1Δ mice. A longitudinal DEXA study demonstrated age-associated osteopenia in MAGP1Δ animals and μCT confirmed reduced bone mineral density in the trabecular and cortical bone. Further, MAGP1Δ mice have significantly less trabecular bone, the trabecular microarchitecture is more fragmented, and the diaphyseal cross-sectional area is significantly reduced. The remodeling defect seen in MAGP1Δ mice is likely not due to an osteoblast defect, because MAGP1Δ bone marrow stromal cells undergo osteoblastogenesis and form mineralized nodules. In vivo, MAGP1Δ mice exhibit normal osteoblast number, mineralized bone surface, and bone formation rate. Instead, our findings suggest increased bone resorption is responsible for the osteopenia. The number of osteoclasts derived from MAGP1Δ bone marrow macrophage cells is increased relative to the wild type, and osteoclast differentiation markers are expressed at earlier time points in MAGP1Δ cells. In vivo, MAGP1Δ mice have more osteoclasts lining the bone surface. RANKL (receptor activator of NF-κB ligand) expression is significantly higher in MAGP1Δ bone, and likely contributes to enhanced osteoclastogenesis. However, bone marrow macrophage cells from MAGP1Δ mice show a higher propensity than do wild-type cells to differentiate to osteoclasts in response to RANKL, suggesting that they are also primed to respond to osteoclast-promoting signals. Together, our findings suggest that MAGP1 is a regulator of bone remodeling, and its absence results in osteopenia associated with an increase in osteoclast number.


This study discusses the importance of collection development in libraries. Various factors have to be taken into consideration while developing a qualitative collection for the benefit of the users. These factors include policies, principles, techniques and procedures, problems associated with collection/ development and weeding out as well. It is equally important to evaluate the collections to assess its use and moreover the usefulness of collection development in electronic environment. Authors conclude that, library professionals need to take utmost care in developing a balanced collection, which enhances the quality of the library. The study is attempted on the basis of experience.

 Key words: Collection development, policy, techniques, academic, libraries


The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the procedures of urban brownfield solutions, with a focus on the environmental and cultural-historical aspects. The paper explores the dilemmas of brownfield regeneration and redevelopment. These processes are placed in the wider perspective of multi transformation processes of post-communist cities. We compared two former industrial zones Karolina and the Lower Area of Vítkovice in the city of Ostrava where we illustrated the key factors influencing their transformation. These case studies point to a unique example of urban industrial brownfields concentrated within the area around the city centre, surrounded by residential zones. These brownfields also reveal the scope of the problem, as they are connected not only with the urban structure, but also with environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects. To research the issue in depth, we mostly used a qualitative approach to examine perceptions and to frame the brownfield issue. We partly applied frame analysis, a narrative approach and we also used research techniques such as document content analysis, and in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders who are involved in the remediation of brownfields and their subsequent re-use (N=15). We researched how stakeholders perceive and frame the problem and which solutions they prefer. Moreover, having made a comparison of the state of affairs between 2001 and 2012, we presented a deeper insight into the topic. We found quite a wide range of opinions toward the brownfields issue and its solutions. The main issues were related to people striving to find the identity of the city and the tension between the old and the new: looking for the direction of future development and the face of the city of Ostrava. We identified location, level of environmental degradation and social-economic conditions as the main factors that influence the brownfield issue.


Environmental awareness among public authorities and governmental institutions has been a priority initiative for countries in the EU over the last years. The public sector is a major consumer of products and services, while their environmental policies are also at a top. Many EU Member Countries have already implemented EU legislation for greener purchasing in the public sector, while others are now preparing their National Action Plan. However, conscious acceptance of National Policy objectives and adoption of green environmental behavior in all scales of the public sector is a challenge. Researchers are concerned that public authorities and especially those of a small size are still focused on the lowest price as a leading factor in public tenders. Many studies have shown that lack of knowledge is a key determinant for the scarce environmental requirements in public procurements. Under this framework, this thesis explores the determinants that affect the implementation of environmental requirements in public procurements and consequently the environmental awareness of small sized public organizations. This thesis is based on a review of policy documents and a single case study investigation. The single case study was conducted on the Technical Department of a municipality in North Greece and the data sources were engineering projects' public procurements and interviews from the local authority's officers.


The tool created here is an instructional video that demonstrates how to create models of the heavy and light chains of an antibody using pipe cleaners, and how the process of V, D, and J gene recombination functions, using the model as a visual aide. The video was created by undergraduate students, with the intended audience being other undergraduates. This type of direct peer teaching aids in education because the "teachers" in this situation greatly enhance their own knowledge through instruction, and their imparting of knowledge is often more helpful to that of another student because they are more aware of comprehension gaps within their peer groups. As such, the supplementary goal of the model is to have students follow along with the video by creating and using their own models, thereby gaining a deeper knowledge of the process with a more thorough interaction.


Superior Mirage is a body of work that speaks of my deep connection to place of origin and how it has shaped the way I see, think, and create art in object or written (spoken word) forms. The Great lakes area has inspired my muse for its rugged beauty and hardy souls who live, work, and, play amongst the dichotomy of nature and industry. This rugged aesthetic carries over to both the industrial giant that built this nation and the natural world of a fragile ecosystem that is in constant flux with invasive species and climate change. The balance between the economic and the environmental is very delicate because we as humans need to find viable solutions for our future generations to prosper. This dichotomy is the catalyst for the methods of how and why I create with materials/objects of both the natural and the manufactured as I believe that they need to live in harmony with each other. This body of work is a representation of what I have experienced as a rural lake dweller that appreciates the breathtaking beauty of the natural and the power of industry. Figure 1 Laker (Study)


In this paper, we solve the problem of estimating dense and accurate depth maps from a single moving camera. A probabilistic depth measurement is carried out in real time on a per-pixel basis and the computed uncertainty is used to reject erroneous estimations and provide live feedback on the reconstruction progress. Our contribution is a novel approach to depth map computation that combines Bayesian estimation and recent development on convex optimization for image processing. We demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art techniques in terms of accuracy, while exhibiting high efficiency in memory usage and computing power. We call our approach REMODE (REgularized MOnocular Depth Estimation). Our CUDA-based implementation runs at 30Hz on a laptop computer and is released as open-source software.


Motivated by the ongoing discussion concerning the nature of the scalar resonances f0(980) and a0(980), the COSY-11 collaboration has taken exclusive data on the pp->ppK+K- reaction near the production threshold. A first total cross section sigma=(1.80+-0.27+0.28-0.35)nb for the excess energy Q=17 MeV has been determined. In contrary to the eta, omega and eta' single meson production studies which clearly show the strong pp final state interaction (FSI), the cross section values obtained at COSY-11 and DISTO can be both described by a fit with a four-body phase space including the proton-proton final state interaction as well as with one-meson exchange calculations neglecting FSI effects. Therefore, one might think about a compensation of the strong pp interaction through a pK- FSI effect or an additional degree of freedom caused by the four-body final state. In the latter case, strong FSI effects can be expected at Q-values very close to the K+K- production threshold. Such a motivation triggered -- in combination with the investigation of the kaon-Antikaon interaction being relevant to the structure of the f0(980) -- further measurements at the excess energies Q=10 and Q=28 MeV at COSY-11.


Despite a well-established research tradition, the field of Decision Support Systems (DSS) suffers from
a lack of practitioner relevance. DSS researchers have comprehended the emergence of Design
Science Research (DSR) for the issue as it provides support to improve the behavioral aspect of
design. However, conceptualizations for DSR as the common approach to conducting DSS research
have not been materialized to address the relevance issues.
In the paper extending an existing conceptualization, we introduce a new DSR view for DSS
development. The view incorporates design dimensions related to DSS design, such as professional
value, interaction, intentions, practices, and problem-solving. We developed the DSR view from an
action design research approach conducted through a well-defined framework for developing a
generic DSS solution. The view represents the importance of practitioner's centric DSR to better
address practitioner's relevance issues in DSS design.