This thesis deals with the study of so-called mutating data paths and their utilization as a countermeasure against power analysis attacks on implementations of cryptographic algorithms.
Mutating data paths are conceptually data paths of a circuit, which can change their architecture during runtime without compromising the correctness of the implemented algorithm.
The concept of mutating data paths is investigated in this work theoretically and tested on the application examples for use in practice.
A FPGA is used as basis platform for the practical implementation, because the platform-specific properties support the core concept of mutating data paths quite well.

Power analysis attacks belong to the class of passive, non-invasive implementation attacks.
This type of attack uses the power consumption of an implementation during runtime to extract secret parameters of the cryptographic implementation by exploiting their physical behavior.
For these kind of attacks, the device is operated with the implementation of the cryptographic algorithm in normal mode, so that no traces of the attack can be found after the analysis.
Essential for this attack is that the adversary knows, which cryptographic algorithm is implemented on the device and that in addition he has access to the power consumption as well as access to the input and output values.
It is also essential that the unit with the implementation behaves deterministically, so that the circuit performs the same operations with different input values for every execution in normal operation mode.
Exactly at this spot the concept of mutating data paths tries to increase the costs for such an implementation attack in order to make it unattractive for the adversary.
Thus, the additional effort to extract the specific parameters of the circuit, being too much or infeasible.

Unlike previous hiding based countermeasures or masking countermeasures the concept of the mutating data paths scramble the circuit of the architecture of the data path, so as to randomize the physical characteristics of the circuit in terms of power consumption and execution time.
Instead of randomizing the data for the internal operations, as it is done in case of masking based procedures, the physical properties of the circuit are manipulated.
The manipulation of the physical behavior in case of applying mutant data paths is not static but changes continuously, compared to other hiding techniques that also alter the physical behavior of the circuit, for instance dual-rail logic.

Conservatively, various hiding concepts, such as shuffling and noise generation, are used to create such a mutating data path.
By the skillful integration of the various processes in the data path, the different hiding techniques are effectively embedded as a countermeasure in an implementation of a cryptographic algorithm.
To this end, a design flow for the creation of mutant data paths is proposed and discussed.


: The work is devoted to the development of the technology of composition and the study of the chemical composition of the liquid extract based on bitter wormwood - Artemisia Absinitum L. grown in the territory of Uzbekistan. The addition of tansy and pumpkin seeds to the composition of wormwood makes it possible to obtain liquid dosage forms with an enhanced anthelmintic effect. The study used methods of spectrophotometry, thin layer chromatography, qualitative chemical analysis, ionization plasma analysis, etc. The liquid extract was standardized by quantitative determination of flavonoids. A number of factors have been identified that influence the optimal technology for obtaining a liquid extract from plant materials. A method has been developed for the quantitative determination of the amount of flavonoids using spectrophotometry in the wavelength range of 350-450 nm. The content of the sum of flavonoids in extracts varies in terms of a standard sample of rutin in the range from 1.2860 to 1.5871% (mg / ml). For elemental analysis, the method of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used, on the basis of which important macro- and microelements were found in the composition of the liquid extract. The studied indicators of the microbiological purity of the extract comply with the requirements of the State Pharmacopoeia XI issue 2.


Can court decisions affect electoral behavior? Can they enhance electoral accountability by signaling to voters that integrity considerations are important? In this paper we utilize a unique political-legal situation that emerged in 2013 shortly before the municipal elections in Israel. Then, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the immediate removal of three mayors from their office after they had been indicted for charges of corruption. We take advantage of this unique setting to estimate the effect of anti-corruption judicial activity on electoral sanctioning of low-integrity incumbents. Relying on actual voting data from 65 Israeli cities for the 2008 and 2013 municipal elections, we apply a difference-in-difference estimation to test this effect. The results indicate that the electoral effect of judicial anti-corruption activity on the vote-share of low-integrity incumbents is negative and substantively significant. We further demonstrate that this effect is not the result of a change in turnout. These findings suggest that the integrity salience cue created by the court's actions caused the biggest recorded effect on electoral sanctioning of corruption, suggesting that these judicial bodies carry the capacity to influence electoral behavior.


In this thesis we study linkages between the volatilities of energy prices and agricultural commodity prices in Germany. We investigate whether linkages exist and how they behave over time. To achieve this, weekly prices of biodiesel, crude oil and rapeseed are analyzed over a period from 2002 to 2012. Crude oil and rapeseed prices are first generic future prices traded at ICE futures Europe and LIFFE-Paris respectively. Biodiesel prices are German consumer prices at the pump. We apply a vector error correction model (VECM) in order to filter the data from long run comovement in the level of prices. Volatility and volatility linkages are analyzed using a dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) GARCH model as well as a multiplicative volatility model. We find that in the long run biodiesel prices adjust to crude oil and rapeseed prices. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that the volatility of biodiesel is only weakly linked to the volatility of crude oil and rapeseed. The linkage between the volatility of rapeseed and crude oil is increasing in recent years.


The study in hand was an attempt to investigate the Female Lectures of Physical Education (FLPE) Attitude towards profession. For the purpose a substantial sample from the population was selected using available sampling technique. A five point Likert-type Attitude Scale of Lectures in Physical Education towards Profession (ASLPEP) was developed, ranging from completely agree (CA = 5 points) to completely disagree (CDA = 1 point). Main objectives of the study were To investigate the Attitudes of FLPE towards Profession, to investigate the Professional Background of FLPE, to know the awareness level of FLPE regarding Physical Education profession, and to know the level of interest for achieving the goals set for physical education in the curriculum. The study investigated that FLPE who are working in the colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan have no professional background, which means that the teachers have no sports background; neither have they had any interest in sports related areas. Their attitudes towards the profession were also found negative. The study also find out that FLPE did not feel comfortable as a physical education teacher. The majority of respondent did not aware of the goals set for physical education curriculum in the colleges. They came to the field by chance to get a job easily, and not by choice. Key Words: - Attitude, Female Lecturers, Physical Education, Profession


PURPOSE
Evaluate inter-country variability in the reimbursement of publically funded cancer drugs, and identify factors such as cost containment measures that may contribute to variability.

METHODS
As of February 28, 2010, licensed indications for 10 cancer drugs (bevacizumab, bortezomib, cetuximab, erlotinib, imatinib, pemetrexed, rituximab, sorafenib, sunitinib, and trastuzumab) were obtained from the drug registries of 6 licensing authorities corresponding to 13 countries or regions: Australia, Canada (Ontario), England, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States (Medicare Parts B and D). Number of licensed indications reimbursed by public payers and the use of cost containment measures were obtained by survey of health authorities involved in reimbursement and through public documents.

RESULTS
The 48 identified licensed indications varied between agencies (range: 36-44 indications). Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States reimbursed the highest percentage of indications (range: 90%-100%). Canada (54%), Australia (46%), Scotland (40%), England (38%), and New Zealand (25%) reimbursed the least. All 5 countries with the lowest rate of reimbursement incorporated a cost-effectiveness analysis into reimbursement decisions and rejected submissions for reimbursement mainly because of lack of cost effectiveness; in New Zealand, lack of cost effectiveness was the second leading cause of rejection after excessive cost. In 9 countries, risk-sharing agreements were used to contain costs. Indications initially not recommended for reimbursement (9 in Australia, 5 in Canada, and 3 in England, New Zealand, and Scotland) were subsequently approved with risk-sharing agreements or special pricing arrangements.

CONCLUSIONS
Reimbursement of publically funded cancer drugs varies globally. The cause is multifactorial.


A simple experiment was conducted at 2012-2013 growth season to study the addition effect of chicken and cattle manure, granular humus alone or with foliar application of humic acid or seaweed extraction as well as control and chemical treatments on yield of broad bean. The results were summarized as follow: Most of treatments caused a significant increase on all parameters studied. Chicken manure + humic acid was superior to most of other transactions in pods number.plant -1 , seeds number.pod -1 and seed yield, and it gave an increase percentage of 62.3%, 49.5% and 150% respectively, compared to control. Cattle manure + seaweed extraction caused higher proportion of protein in the seeds and it gave an increase percentage of 92.2% compared to control treatment.


The Jodie Bender Site, 41HS11, is a prehistoric Caddoan settlement on Little Cypress Bayou in Harrison County, Texas. Personnel from the Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT) tested the site in March and September 1989 as part of a bridge replacement project. The site is on a high terrace away from the bridge location, but the project includes cutting the terrace in order to meet current roadway specifications and will have a direct impact on site 41HS11. Previous descriptions of the site indicate that there is an Early Caddo component as well as a Middle Caddo (Whelan Phase) component. A great quantity of prehistoric material was found at the site when it was first reported by E. O. Miller and Jack Hughes in 1951, but during the course of testing, very little cultural material was found within the right-ofway. Most of the material recovered during testing appears to date to the Whelan Phase. Because of the small amount of cultural material recovered and overall lack of features, the project area is considered to probably be in an area of low prehistoric activity. Further excavation within the proposed highway right-of -way would probably not produce significant information about the site and it is recommended that the bridge project continue as planned.


Autobiography, a genre seemingly one-dimensional and privileged concerning personal historical truth—though always viewed to some degree as selective—becomes plural and unstable when placed under close scrutiny and contextualized within the political stress of the historical moment of writing and the writer's personal pragmatic motives generated by the creation of the text. On 23 August 1550, George Buchanan, after having been held captive and interrogated for over a year by the Portuguese Inquisition, placed before the inquisitors his confession and defense. This article analyzes Buchanan's eloquent letter alongside The Life of George Buchanan, written by himself (1580), the other major primary source of historical detail and facts concerning Buchanan's life, as well as the poems written by Buchanan when he was at the court of James V, to explore the pragmatic adoption of particular rhetorical strategies concerning his own personal history by the writer during different periods of his lifetime.


Abstract This thesis investigates the effects of the nation-building agenda carried out by the Malaysian state on the sense of collective belonging of the Kadazan people of the
Bornean State of Sabah. The thesis includes a reconstruction of the formation of the two most
important forms of collective identification, the nation and the ethnic group, and the analysis
of the way in which Kadazan villagers identify themselves in relation to discourses
circulating in various media and the practices in which they get involved in their everyday
life. Kadazan villagers consistently show a rejection of the state propaganda and a general
unwillingness to identify themselves as members of the Malaysian nation, which I attribute to
their marginal position within the Malaysian state. They more often identify themselves as
members of their ethnic group or village, collective forms of identification that seem to allow
for a higher degree of participation in their definition than the national one.
The empirical analysis of the everyday self-identification in relation to practices and
discourses shows a complex picture, as Kadazan villagers differently situate themselves as
Malaysian, Kadazan, Sabahan and members of their village in different occasions and
contexts. One of the explanations of this fact lies in the ambiguous character of Malaysian
nation-building, promoting unity while at the same time treating citizens differently
depending on their ethnic and religious background. The official discourse and practice of
ethnic and religious differentiation has been deeply internalised by the Kadazan and has
become a primary reason for their opposition to the state, as they feel treated as second-class
citizens. Another explanation for the development of a sense of belonging to various
collective forms of identification among the Kadazan rests in the fact that their recent history
has made these significant as expression of different sets of shared lived experiences,
providing the basis for the development of senses of commonality with members of the
national, sub-national, ethnic and village communities at the same time.


This research is empirical research with the title " Perception Of Taxpayers About Modernization Taxation (A Study of Sunset Policy Implementation in Batu Small Tax Office). This study aims to find out how the perception of Personal Taxpayers and Corporate Taxpayers (Batu Small Tax Office) on the implementation of the Sunset Policy as one of tax modernization in Indonesia. In this research, researcher use 6 aspect in measuring perception of Taxpayers. These aspects are increasing compliance, improving service, increasing state revenues, facilitate communication with the government, security, and transparency. The six aspects are also used in research conducted Wiyanto (2007) for the perception of Taxpayers about System Monitoring, Reporting, Payment of Tax (MP3). Research design is survey research using questionnaire as instrument. Then to find out the perception Taxpayer of Batu Small Tax Office, then made a test Paired Samples T-Test to test the average difference between expectations and reality experienced of Taxpayer. With the 5% significance level, the obtained results indicate that there are differences on average in all aspects examined. In other words, perception Taxpayers of Batu Small Tax Office is negative. Keyword : Persepsi, Wajib Pajak, Modernisasi Perpajakan, Sunset Policy


In the interest of updating the input-output data of Paraguay in the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database to support economic analysis in this country, the Inter-American Development Bank commissioned the update of these data using the data from a 2009 social accounting matrix (SAM) developed by Cicowiez and Santander (2015). The document describes the process of transforming the 2009 SAM of Paraguay into the GTAP format. Further details on the GTAP database may be found at www.gtap.org.


Have you ever wondered how to grow your own rainforest trees? Is there a beautiful tree that you have always wanted to collect and propagate the seed from? Are you in the business of ecological restoration, rainforest propagation or environmental education?

This long-awaited guide to rainforest seed propagation unlocks the secrets to growing 300 rainforest species. Providing specific information on how to sustainably collect, process and germinate seeds, this user-friendly book aims to support a growing movement of rainforest restoration.

With invaluable information based on 30 years of research in northern New South Wales, users will find even difficult rainforest species delightfully easy to grow. Seeing a seed germinate, caring for the seedling and eventually planting the tree is deeply satisfying. And, in this time of widespread deforestation, millions of trees are needed for restoration and every tree counts. Whether you are growing one or one hundred thousand, why not start today?


The decisions of judges, lenders, journal editors, and other gatekeepers often lead to significant disparities across affected groups. An important question is whether, and to what extent, these group-level disparities are driven by relevant differences in underlying individual characteristics, or by biased decision makers. Becker (1957, 1993) proposed an outcome test of bias based on differences in post-decision outcomes across groups, inspiring a large and growing empirical literature. The goal of our paper is to offer a methodological blueprint for empirical work that seeks to use outcome tests to detect bias. We show that models of decision making underpinning outcome tests can be usefully recast as Roy models, since heterogeneous potential outcomes enter directly into the decision maker's choice equation. Different members of the Roy model family, however, are distinguished by the tightness of the link between potential outcomes and decisions. We show that these distinctions have important implications for defining bias, deriving logically valid outcome tests of such bias, and identifying the marginal outcomes that the test requires.


BACKGROUND
Efficacy of an intervention is commonly evaluated using P values, in addition to effect size measures such as absolute risk reduction, relative risk reduction, and numbers needed to treat. However, these measures are not always intuitive to clinicians. The fragility index (FI) is a more intuitive number that can facilitate interpretation but can only be used with binary outcomes. FI is the minimum number of patients who must be moved from the nonevent group to the event group to turn a significant result nonsignificant. In this retrospective analysis, we assessed the robustness of cardiovascular randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which report a positive (statistically significant) primary outcome by using the FI.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We searched Medline from 2007 to 2017 to identify cardiovascular RCTs published in 6 high impact journals (The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and European Heart Journal). Only RCTs with sample sizes >500 and a 2-by-2 factorial design or dichotomous primary outcomes were selected. FI was calculated using a defined approach. Among the cohort of 123 RCTs that met inclusion criteria, median FI was 13 (interquartile range, 5-26). In 28 trials (22.8%), FI ranged between 1 and 4. In 37 trials (30.1%), number of patients lost to follow-up was higher than the FI. Pharmaceutical interventions had higher FI compared with other interventions, FI=19 (7-52; P=0.002). Median FI varied according to subspecialty (electrophysiology=2; heart failure=11; interventional cardiology=8; P=0.020) and multiregional RCTs had higher FI=22 (12-53.25; P=0.023). FI did not differ based on risk of bias indicators, funding, or publication year.

CONCLUSIONS
Considerable variations in FI were observed among cardiovascular trials, suggesting the need for careful interpretation of results, particularly when number of patients lost to follow-up exceeds FI.


On January 15, 2003, the United States Supreme Court released its much anticipated opinion upholding the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The Act extended the term of existing copyrights by 20 years, and also provided for longer terms for future copyrights, at least 70 years and in some cases well over 120 years.The Supreme Court's decision, like the underlying Act, has been seen as a major victory for large-scale commercial copyright holders such as Disney and Time Warner, who's creations like Mickey Mouse and the great movies and compositions of the 1920's and early 30's, are now protected until the year 2020 and beyond. Whether or not these commercial enterprises should be entitled to this victory will continue to be debated. However, there remain serious concerns that lesser works that have limited availability and commercial value will be the victims of the Act.


The scaling behavior of the elastic properties of colloidal gels that are well above the gelation threshold is studied both theoretically and experimentally. A scaling theory was developed by considering the structure of the gel network as a collection of flocs, which are fractal objects closely packed throughout the sample. Two regimes are found based on the relative value of the elastic constant of the interfloc links to that of the flocs. In the strong-link (interfloc) regime, the elastic constant of the gels increases but the limit of linearity decreases with increasing particle concentration, whereas in the weak-link regime both the elastic constant and the limit of linearity increase with increasing particle concentration. Rheological studies on the elastic behavior of two types of boehmite alumina gels, Catapal and Dispal powders, were performed. Both types of gels in the concentration range studied showed the strong-link behavior and the results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The value of the fractal dimension of the flocs D\ensuremath{\simeq}1.95, deduced from the rheological measurements, is in agreement with the value D\ensuremath{\simeq}2.04 deduced from the static light-scattering measurements on dilute suspensions. Therefore the scaling theory we developed also enables us to extract structural information from the rheological measurements.


In this paper, two novel image filters are presented. These filters, named as Far Distance Filter (FDF) and Near Distance Filter (NDF), are actually based on calculating the distance between image pixels and their neighbors in order to construct arbitrary values used to enhance abnormal pixels values. FDF and NDF use (5 x 5) kernel instead of the usual (3 x 3) kernel to produce better image results. The performance of proposed filters and the well-known mean filters is investigated through the measurement of PSNR and MSE. This performance shows clearly the efficiency of the proposed filters.


THE LEADERSHIP of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice has, over the past two years, emphasized that the department's 1984 merger guidelines are a sound prescription for horizontal merger enforcement, that as a matter of policy they are being applied in enforcement decisionmaking, and that there may be a need for "clarification and fine-tuning" of the guidelines.1 This paper examines some facets of the antitrust analysis of horizontal mergers in the light shed by industrial organization (10) theory, in order to stimulate discussion of some possible directions for fine-tuning and clarification of the guidelines. I focus on the possible anticompetitive effects of horizontal mergers and the role of potential entry in merger analysis. However, to set the context for these subjects, it will be helpful first to sketch the nature of the merger guidelines.


Digital Watermarking is used to embed copyright marks into the digital contents to check copyright violation. In this paper a novel robust watermarking technique is presented. The watermark is embedded robustly either in Discrete Hartley transform (DHT) domain or in discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain depending upon the number of edges in the blocks of the original image. The watermark is embedded invisibly block by block into the blocks of the original image. For this, the threshold number of edges in the original image acts as a key. To extract the watermark, the steps performed in the embedding process are executed in reverse sequence. This technique is demonstrated to be robust against various attacks like salt & pepper, JPEG compression etc. even with severe degradation to the watermarked image.


While the commercialization and diversification of agricultural and livestock systems have been identified as key global strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, less is known as to the large-scale gendered impacts that are implicated in these transformations among smallholder crop and livestock farmers. This study explores these gender impacts across different farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies using data from the Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) in 2,859 households in three East African countries – Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Female control scores over incomes or foodstuffs produced through both on and off farm activities were highest in farming systems that had more land and more livestock. However, increasing commercialization – defined herein as the increasing importance of crop and livestock sales to farm households – resulted in an overall decline in female control across all farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies. In contrast, crop and livestock diversification were positively associated with female control across gender-respondent-household typologies. Analysis of specific crops and livestock products across farming systems and respondent typologies revealed women have far greater control over decisions related to consumption than decisions related to sales, although the gap between the two were less pronounced in lesser-valued livestock products (chickens, eggs). However, the analyses suggest that as sale of crops and livestock increase, female control over these areas could likely diminish, regardless of specific activity. The authors conclude that approaches to adapt to or mitigate climate change that rely on increasing market orientation of smallholder production will likely intensify men's control over benefits from production, whereas diversification will likely have a more positive impact on female control. Thus, climate adaptation strategies promoting increased diversification will likely have a more positive impact on women smallholders than commercialization alone. The authors recommend that when commercialization is the target intervention, it must be accompanied by a gender differentiated analysis of trade-offs and risks to mitigate the potential negative consequences shown in this study.


Direct impact excitation by precipitating electrons is believed to be the main source of 630.0 nm emissions in the cusp ionosphere. However, this paper investigates a different source, 630.0 emissions caused by thermally excited atomic oxygen O(1D) when high electron temperature prevail in the cusp. On 22 January 2012 and 14 January 2013, the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) radar on Svalbard measured electron temperature enhancements exceeding 3000 K near magnetic noon in the cusp ionosphere over Svalbard. The electron temperature enhancements corresponded to electron density enhancements exceeding 1011 m−3 accompanied by intense 630.0 nm emissions in a field of view common to both the EISCAT Svalbard radar and a meridian scanning photometer. This offered an excellent opportunity to investigate the role of thermally excited O(1D) 630.0 nm emissions in the cusp ionosphere. The thermal component was derived from the EISCAT Radar measurements and compared with optical data. For both events the calculated thermal component had a correlation coefficient greater than 0.8 to the total observed 630.0 nm intensity which contains both thermal and particle impact components. Despite fairly constant solar wind, the calculated thermal component intensity fluctuated possibly due to dayside transients in the aurora.


I first encountered Ai Weiwei's Law of the Journey as an amalgam of Instagram tiles (see photos on following page). The imposing sixty-meter-long rubber lifeboat—filled with faceless rubber bodies—was reduced to a scrollable algorithm. Posted across multiple time zones and geotagged in places like the Prague National Gallery to the most recent incarnation on Cockatoo Island (a decommissioned shipyard on Sydney harbor), Law of the Journey enjoyed much better travel rights and Visa entitlements than the actual refugees it depicted. While beyond the control of the artist or exhibiting venues, the mobility of images of Law of the Journey nonetheless made me think about the representations of refugees and border violence within the global art circuit.


An artificial wetland system (H-02) was constructed on the Savannah River Site (SRS), South Carolina, to treat process and storm water discharge from an industrial facility. The ability of natural wetlands to improve many aspects of water quality is well known. One aspect of natural wetland function that is capitalized on at the H-02 wetlands is the ability to sequester trace metals such as copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) from the effluent discharged into this wetland system. Constructed wetlands can provide new habitat for local wildlife, but if poor water quality limits recruitment, these wetlands could become "population sinks." The H-02 wetlands provide permanent water that doesn't have any fish, potentially providing ideal habitat for amphibians. However, amphibians are also highly susceptible to environmental contaminants. Thus, the potential for the constructed wetlands to become population sinks is of concern. We have been monitoring amphibian colonization of the H-02 wetlands and evaluating the effects of elevated levels of trace metals on amphibian success. Amphibians are ideally suited for studying the effects of contaminants because they are important components of aquatic and terrestrial communities and represent a large proportion of the standing biomass in some systems. In many communities amphibians are the most abundant vertebrates. Because of their high biomass and conversion efficiencies, they are responsible for substantial transfer of energy through food webs, and may also serve as a critical link in trophic transfer of contaminants. Consequently, if environmental contaminants negatively affect amphibian populations then the whole ecosystem can be impacted. A majority of studies examining the effects of contaminants on amphibians focus on acute toxicity studies of model organisms. Although these studies have contributed to the field of amphibian ecotoxicology they lack applicability to natural settings. Most toxicology studies only expose amphibians for the first 96 hours to two weeks of development. This approach is not biologically representative since most amphibians will be exposed for their entire larval development. In addition, different species develop at substantially different rates such that a two-week time period covers different ontogenetic exposure periods for different species. To truly understand the effects of contaminant exposure on amphibians it is important to expose them for the entire larval period and then assess the effects across multiple life stages. Amphibian species may differ in their sensitivities to contaminants, so it is also important to examine effects across a range of native species. The model organism typically studied is the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. Xenopus is unlike most amphibians in that it is entirely aquatic and it is also phylogenetically very distinct from most. Thirteen species of amphibians have colonized the H02 wetland complex since its construction. Those species differ in their feeding habits and larval duration. To incorporate these species differences we examined the effects of Cu exposure on three species of amphibians: southern leopard frogs (Rana sphenocephala), southern toads (Bufo terrestris), and eastern narrowmouthed toads (Gastrophryne carolinensis). For all three species we used an exposure period that extends from fertilization to metamorphosis. We conducted all studies in both a controlled laboratory setting with precise biologically relevant Cu treatments and in the wetlands where larvae were exposed to a water chemistry gradient under ambient field conditions. The H-02 treatment complex consists of a retention pond, which receives the process water, and two constructed wetland cells. Water in the retention pond has the highest levels of Cu, Zn, and pH, and after a residence time of several days water exiting the wetland cells has lower levels of these variables. For field studies we reared amphibians in the retention pond, and at both the influent and effluent ends of the treatment cells. We observed substantial species-level variation in sensitivity to contaminants at both the egg and larval stages. To accurately assess the impacts of contaminants on pond-breeding amphibians it is necessary to study native species throughout their aquatic life stages.


We present a separation logic specification and verification of linked lists with views, a data structure from the C5 collection library for C#. A view is a generalization of the well-known concept of an iterator. Linked lists with views form an interesting case study for verification since they allow mutation of multiple possibly-overlapping views of the same underlying list. For modularity, we present our specification in a fragment of higher-order separation logic and use abstract predicates to give a specification with respect to which clients can be proved correct. We introduce a novel mathematical model of lists with views, and formulate succinct modular abstract specifications of the operations on the data structure. To show that the concrete implementation realizes the specification, we use fractional permissions in a novel way to capture the sharing of data between views and their underlying list.
 We conclude by suggesting directions for future research that arose from conducting this case study.


Hemodynamic forces, specifically fluid shear stress, play an important role in the focal nature of arterial plaque formation known as atherosclerosis. We hereby developed biocompatible and flexible intravascular microelectromechanical systems sensor to measure real-time shear stress in the aortas of New Zealand white (NZW) rabbits. Titanium (Ti) and platinum (Pt) were deposited on silicon wafers and patterned to form the sensing elements. The polymer, parylene C, provided insulation to the electrode leads and flexibility to the sensors. Based on heat transfer principle, the heat dissipation from the sensors to the blood flow altered the resistance of the sensing elements, from which shear stress was calibrated. The resistance of the sensing element was measured at approximately 1.0 kOmega , and the temperature coefficient of resistance was at approximately 0.16%/degC. The individual sensors were packaged to the catheter for intravascular deployment in the aortas of NZW rabbits (n = 5) . The sensor was capable of resolving spatial- and time-varying components of shear stress in the abdominal aorta. Computational fluid dynamic code based on non-Newtonian fluid properties showed comparable results within an acceptable range of experimental errors ( plusmn9%) for the maximal and minimal values in shear stress during one cardiac cycle. Therefore, we demonstrated the capability of biocompatible sensors for real-time shear stress measurement in vivo with a potential to advance the understanding between the blood flow and vascular disease.


In today's world, traffic safety is a major problem. Traffic accidents result in more than half a million casualties each year and are associated with serious injuries and extensive material losses. Therefore, special attention is given to those technologies that can reduce the number and severity of road events. Inter-vehicle communication (IVC) and vehicle to road communication (VRC) are considered to have extensive potential for the development of efficient safety systems installed in vehicles. This paper proposes a novel, safety-oriented communication platform dedicated to supporting the exchange of safety-relevant information between traffic participants. The vehicular communication platform (VCP) aims to support a specific vehicular communication mechanism previously designed by the authors and briefly presented in the paper.


Many remarkable properties related to chaos have been found in the dynamics of nonlinear physical systems. These properties are often seen in detailed computer studies, but it is almost always impossible to establish these properties rigorously for specific physical systems. This article presents some strange properties about basins of attraction. In particular, a basin of attraction is a "Wada basin" if every point on the common boundary of that basin and another basin is also on the boundary of a third basin. The occurrence of this strange property can be established precisely because of the concept of a basin cell.


Males in lek mating systems tend to exhibit high fidelity to breeding leks despite substantial evidence of skewed mating success among males. Although movements between leks are often reported to be rare, such movements provide a mechanism for an individual to improve lifetime fitness in response to heterogeneity in reproductive conditions. Additionally, estimates of apparent movements among leks are potentially biased due to unaccounted variation in detection probability across time and space. We monitored breeding male Greater Sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus on 13 leks in eastern Nevada over a 10-year period, and estimated movement rates among leks using capture-mark-recapture methods. We expected that male movement rates among leks would be low, despite predictions of low breeding success for most males, and that detection rates would be highly variable among leks and years. We used a robust design multistate analysis in Program mark to estimate probability of movements among leks, while accounting for imperfect detection of males. Male Sage-grouse were extremely faithful to their leks; the annual probability of a male moving away from its original lek of capture was approximately 3% (se = 0.01). Detection probabilities varied substantially among leks (range = 0.21–0.95), and among years (range = 0.30–0.76), but remained relatively constant within years at each lek. These results suggest that male Sage-grouse dispersal is either rare, or consists primarily of dispersal of sub-adults from their natal areas prior to the breeding season. The study highlights the benefits of robust design multistate models over standard 'live-encounter' analyses, as they not only permit estimation of additional parameters, such as movement rates, but also allow for more precise parameter estimates that are less sensitive to heterogeneity in detection rates. Additionally, as these data were collected using capture-mark-recapture methods, our approach to estimating movement rates would be beneficial in systems where radiotagging is detrimental to the study organism.


Model interchange approaches support the analysis of software architecture and design by enabling a variety of tools to automatically exchange performance models using a common schema. This paper builds on one of those interchange formats, the Software Performance Model Interchange Format (S-PMIF), and extends it to support the performance analysis of real-time systems. Specifically, it addresses real-time system designs expressed in the Construction and Composition Language (CCL) and their transformation into the S-PMIF for additional performance analyses. This paper defines extensions and changes to the S-PMIF meta-model and schema required for real-time systems. It describes transformations for both simple, best-case models and more detailed models of concurrency and synchronization. A case study demonstrates the techniques and compares performance results from several analyses.


Background and Objective: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy with involvement of median nerve. Patients with this syndrome refer for pain and paresthesia in hand that leads to thenar muscles atrophy. Diagnosis of CTS is made by history, physical examination and electrophysiological study. Recently, Volar Hot Dog (VHD) sign has been proposed for diagnosis of this disease. Thus, we studied VHD as a diagnostic tool in CTS patients according to evidence based medicine. Materials and Methods: In 50 patients referred for pain and paresthesia in median nerve area in hand, a diagnosis of CTS was made by NIOSH criteria and 50 control subjects were also examined for this sign. Results: The sensitivity of VHD was 0.84, the specificity of VHD was 0.32, the accuracy of the test was 0.58 and pretest probability of the disease was 0.5 and post-test probability of the disease with a positive result was 0.55 and post-test probability of the disease with a negative result was 0.35. Meanwhile, positive likely ratio (LR+) was 1.23 and negative likely ratio (LR-) was 0.5. Conclusion: VHD sign (test) had a higher sensitivity than Hoffman-Tinel and Phalen tests with a lower specificity of the test with LR+ 1.2 and LR0.5 and this test is a poor to fair test for diagnosis of CTS and will be mainly valuable for screening of the syndrome.


We model competition between risk-neutral principals who hire weakly risk-averse agents to produce a good of variable quality. The agent can increase the likelihood of producing a high-quality good by providing costly effort. We demonstrate that, when the agent is strictly risk-averse, the cost of providing incentives increases in the number of other firms in the industry. We characterize conditions under which the first-best outcome involves each firm inducing high effort. We then consider firms in competition, and identify parameter conditions under which (i) each firm induces high effort in the short run and low effort in the long run (ii) the first-best outcome has each firm inducing high effort, but long-run equilibrium results in each firm inducing low effort. Thus, in the long run, the average quality in the industry deteriorates, and increased competition leads to a "race to the bottom" in quality.


Analog circuit and system design today is more essential than ever before. With the growth of digital systems, wireless communications, complex industrial and automotive systems, designers are being challenged to develop sophisticated analog solutions. This comprehensive source book of circuit design solutions aids engineers with elegant and practical design techniques that focus on common analog challenges. The book's in-depth application examples provide insight into circuit design and application solutions that you can apply in today's demanding designs. This is the companion volume to the successful "Analog Circuit Design: A Tutorial Guide to Applications and Solutions" (October 2011), which has sold over 5000 copies in its the first 6 months of since publication. It extends the Linear Technology collection of application notes, which provides analog experts with a full collection of reference designs and problem solving insights to apply to their own engineering challenges. Features: full support package including online resources (LTSpice); and contents include more application notes on power management, and data conversion and signal conditioning circuit solutions, plus an invaluable circuit collection of reference designs.


Research on how the poor "make ends meet" typically shows that they are able to do so by relying on dense support networks of family and close friends. Recent research suggests, however, that these networks play a limited role. This article examines the role of informal networks in how sixty-one households in Barcelona, Spain, cope with poverty. We use a mixed-methods design that combines structured network delineation with semistructured interviews about the processes of support mobilization. Findings show a great variation in network size and resource capacity among households and in the kinds of ties that offer support. Social support was regarded as essential among members of poor households, but mobilized networks were often insufficient for covering even the most basic needs, and prolonged network mobilization could cause strain and long-term conflict. This analysis suggests that support networks may help people to cope with income volatility while simultaneously increasing the potential for social exclusion and isolation.


Section 208(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that asylum may be granted to an applicant who meets the definition of a refugee-that is, someone who has been persecuted or has a well-founded fear of future persecution in her own country on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Asylum is a discretionary form of relief which means that the United States government is not required to grant asylum to every refugee within the United States but instead may decide whether or not to do so. This Article sets out in Part I the history and current application of discretion as an element of asylum adjudications, including several case studies to illustrate when and how adjudicators deny asylum in an exercise of discretion and the serious impact of those decisions. Part II then argues that the fact that asylum is discretionary is highly problematic. First, discretion is unnecessary to achieve the purported goals of such a policy, namely, screening individuals for their suitability to become permanent members of the United States community. Second, the fact that asylum is discretionary results in inadequate protection for those fleeing persecution. Finally, the meaning of the term "discretion" is so inherently vague and confused as to make its use inappropriate, at least in the asylum context. This Article concludes that asylum should be a mandatory, not a discretionary, form of immigration relief. An adjudicator's exercise of discretion in asylum claims should be eliminated, or at least substantially limited with an eye towards the problems discussed herein.


We report the effects of framing and default settings in annuity demand after conducting a survey-based experiment with over 3,000 members of a Dutch occupational pension plan. The participants were asked to allocate their real projected pension accrual between a life annuity and a partial lump sum. In particular, we investigated the joint effects of consumption and investment frames and gain and loss frames. We present strong evidence for framing and default setting effects in annuity demand. We also find robust evidence of individual characteristics of influence annuity demand, highlighting the importance of heterogeneity among participants. Framing and default effects remain significant when we control for individual characteristics. We conclude Dutch plan members generally welcome the partial lump sum option over full annuitization. Framing and default settings are generally capable of predictively steering annuity demand. The precise effect framing may have also depends on the institutional environment, which predefines the perspective through which individuals filter annuities.


Interaction of lamins with chromatin and transcription factors regulate transcription. Oct-1 has previously been shown to colocalize partly with B-type lamins and is essential for transcriptional regulation of oxidative stress response genes. Using sequential extraction, co-immunoprecipitation (IP), fluorescence loss in photobleaching, and fluorescence resonance energy transfer, we confirm Oct-1–lamin B1 association at the nuclear periphery and show that this association is lost in Lmnb1Δ/Δ cells. We show that several Oct-1–dependent genes, including a subset involved in oxidative stress response, are dysregulated in Lmnb1Δ/Δ cells. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay and chromatin IP reveal that Oct-1 binds to the putative octamer-binding sequences of the dysregulated genes and that this activity is increased in cells lacking functional lamin B1. Like Oct1−/− cells, Lmnb1Δ/Δ cells have elevated levels of reactive oxygen species and are more susceptible to oxidative stress. Sequestration of Oct-1 at the nuclear periphery by lamin B1 may be a mechanism by which the nuclear envelope can regulate gene expression and contribute to the cellular response to stress, development, and aging.


Follow the leader (FTL) is a simple online learning algorithm that is known to perform well when the loss functions are convex and positively curved. In this paper we ask whether there are other settings when FTL achieves low regret. In particular, we study the fundamental problem of linear prediction over a convex, compact domain with non-empty interior. Amongst other results, we prove that the curvature of the boundary of the domain can act as if the losses were curved: In this case, we prove that as long as the mean of the loss vectors have positive lengths bounded away from zero, FTL enjoys logarithmic regret, while for polytope domains and stochastic data it enjoys finite expected regret. The former result is also extended to strongly convex domains by establishing an equivalence between the strong convexity of sets and the minimum curvature of their boundary, which may be of independent interest. Building on a previously known meta-algorithm, we also get an algorithm that simultaneously enjoys the worst-case guarantees and the smaller regret of FTL when the data is 'easy'. Finally, we show that such guarantees are achievable directly (e.g., by the follow the regularized leader algorithm or by a shrinkage-based variant of FTL) when the constraint set is an ellipsoid.


This paper presents my living theory, developed as I sought to improve my practice as a mental health professional, and as I answered my research question: "How can I design a recovery-oriented e-learning website for people with mental health difficulties?"
Information technology has the potential to increase learning opportunities, promote inclusion and improve the quality of life for people with mental health difficulties. However, this group currently experience significant inequalities in accessing and maximising the potential of online learning interventions, due to lack of consideration by designers of their specific learning, usability and accessibility needs.
In the course of my research, I attempted to use technology to enhance and support the learning of people with mental health difficulties in a day service in south Dublin, and to encourage a recovery-oriented mental health service delivery, which has hope, inclusion, learning by doing and group support as its guiding principles. This enquiry involved the design and evaluation of an e-learning website for this group of service users.


Sensitivity to illumination conditions poses a challenge when utilizing visual odometry (VO) in various applications. To make VO robust with respect to illumination conditions, they need to be considered explicitly. In this paper, we propose a direct visual odometry method which can handle illumination changes by considering an affine illumination model to compensate abrupt, local light variations during direct motion estimation process. The core of our proposed method is to estimate the relative camera pose and the parameters of the illumination changes by minimizing the sum of squared photometric error with efficient second-order minimization. We evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm on synthetic and real RGB-D datasets with ground-truth. Our result implies that the proposed method successfully estimates 6-DoF pose under significant illumination changes whereas existing direct visual odometry methods either fail or lose accuracy.


Telescope enclosure design is based on an increasingly standard set of criteria. Enclosures must provide failsafe protection in a harsh environment for an irreplaceable piece of equipment; must allow effective air flushing to minimize local seeing while still attenuating wind-induced vibration of the telescope; must reliably operate so that the dome is never the reason for observatory down time; must provide access to utilities, lifting devices and support facilities; and they must be affordable within the overall project budget. The enclosure for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) has to satisfy all these challenging requirements plus one more. To eliminate so-called external dome seeing, the exterior surfaces of the enclosure must be maintained at or just below ambient air temperature while being subjected to the full solar loading of an observing day. Further complicating the design of the ATST enclosure and support facilities are the environmental sensitivities and high construction costs at the selected site - the summit of Haleakala on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Previous development work has determined an appropriate enclosure shape to minimize solar exposure while allowing effective interior flushing, and has demonstrated the feasibility of controlling the exterior skin temperature with an active cooling system. This paper presents the evolution of the design since site selection and how the enclosure and associated thermal systems have been tailored to the particular climatic and terrain conditions of the site. Also discussed are load-reduction strategies that have been identified through thermal modeling, CFD modeling, and other analyses to refine and economize the thermal control systems.


As a result of the neoliberal ideological turn the past few decades have seen a vast liberalization of markets for capital and commodities. Paradoxically, the liberalization of international borders for capital has occurred alongside a restriction of mobility for human beings. Scholarship surrounding migration generally focuses on formulating recommendations for improving the immigration system. Few scholars have focused their attention on questioning the foundational premises of this system. This paper engages with the literature on open borders. It examines the ways in which international borders simultaneously produce and maintain global inequality. It will argue that discussions of liberalizing borders can only take place in the context of a discussion about how to remove those factors that prompt migration in the first place. Studies of migration must be embedded within the broader debates surrounding the political economy of globalization and its impacts on international development.


The ability to manipulate and sense biological molecules is important in many life science domains, such as single-molecule biophysics, the development of new drugs and cancer detection. Although the manipulation of biological matter at the nanoscale continues to be a challenge, several types of nanotweezers based on different technologies have recently been demonstrated to address this challenge. In particular, photonic and plasmonic nanotweezers are attracting a strong research effort especially because they are efficient and stable, they offer fast response time, and avoid any direct physical contact with the target object to be trapped, thus preventing its disruption or damage. In this paper, we critically review photonic and plasmonic resonant technologies for biomolecule trapping, manipulation, and sensing at the nanoscale, with a special emphasis on hybrid photonic/plasmonic nanodevices allowing a very strong light–matter interaction. The state-of-the-art of competing technologies, e.g., electronic, magnetic, acoustic and carbon nanotube-based nanotweezers, and a description of their applications are also included.


The long wavelength sensitive (L) and middle wavelength sensitive (M) photopigments are encoded in a tandem array on the X chromosome. Due to their close proximity and high sequence homology, this locus is prone to unequal homologous recombination resulting in intermixing of the L and M opsin genes. This thesis explores the enormous variability in both L and M gene sequence and in total opsin gene copy number that results from this process. In a sample of 1022 normal trichromatic males, there were 89 unique L sequences and 31 unique M sequences. A majority of opsin gene arrays contained extra M opsin genes (55%) and a small number (5%) contained extra L opsin genes. Array structure was found to vary by race: African Americans were more likely to have extra L genes (10%); Caucasians to have extra M genes (64%); and Asians to have arrays without extra genes (54%). A second study of 335 women unselected for color vision phenotype was used to explore the frequency of extra cone types in the retina. Between 42% and 60% had opsin gene arrays indicative of having four cone types and between 2.4% and 11% had arrays indicative of five. The ability of the visual system to make use of these extra cone types to create a new chromatic channel is exceedingly rare though there may be a possibility of training women who have a fourth cone type to use it by creating artificial stimuli that specifically activate the extra cone in isolation of the other three. In a second project, knowledge of the gene mutations and rearrangements that lead to color vision deficiencies underpinned the creation of a genetic assay to find and classify color defects. That assay was tested on 1872 human subjects and its potential for use in clinical diagnosis was evaluated. Our results indicate that information about the underlying pathology of color blindness derived from genetic analyses can be extremely valuable in accurate diagnosis, and that a test incorporating gene analyses supplemented with behavioral testing approaches the ideal color vision test. While most opsin variants lead to normally functioning photopigments, certain variants that encode "toxic" sequences in exon three lead to serious eye diseases with symptoms that include cone dystrophy, diminished ERGs, color blindness, and pathologically high myopia. A virally-mediated gene therapy treatment aimed at curing these diseases was designed using the modified AAV2 capsid 7M8 that has enhanced tropism toward photoreceptors and an optimized expression cassette to drive high expression in cone cells. Initial work in a mouse model shows that this construct is capable of driving high and highly specific expression in cones following minimally invasive intravitreal injections. Further examination of the construct in mice using immunohistochemistry, spectral ERG, and behavioral testing will determine whether this is a viable approach to curing these diseases of the cones in human patients.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to analyze the market segments of students enrolled in undergraduate online business courses at a regional state university. By understanding the defining characteristics of these students, universities may be able to more effectively recruit and retain students in these market segments. A survey of undergraduate online students was conducted and analyzed to determine the various market segments being served, and a predictive model was prepared that incorporates key independent student variables that can forecast student demand for courses and degree programs online. INTRODUCTION With the concept of distance education, a paradigm shift has occurred with the university now traveling to the student instead of the student traveling to the campus. This paradigm, however, requires more flexibility and decentralization (Sherry, 1996). The concept of strategy development for the university and the individual colleges is to provide educational services for their students. Some authors believe that a first mover advantage in online course development will provide them with new or expanded markets in the product life cycle curve (see for example Burnside, 2001; Clayton, 2000; Schofield, 1999; and Willis, 2000), while others view it as a necessity in order to maintain market share (Willis, 2000). The current state of affairs in online education can be summarized as follows: "if you do not develop online courses, then someone else will". Therefore, many universities believe they are being swept along with this tide of events (Clayton, 2001; Kidwell, Mattie & Sousa, 2000 and Oblinger, 2000) One universal question is to determine if strategy follows product development, or if product development follows strategy (Farrington & Bornak, 2001 and Hezel & Dominguez, 1999). The rationale for this question is at the heart of online course development. If one selects to construct the strategy first, then determining the target market segmentation is critical as well as the demographics and characteristics of the market segment. The reverse would be to construct the online courses over a period of time and then ascertain the market(s) that is/are purchasing the online courses, and evolve a strategy. Market segment identification is critical for the college in crafting a strategy and to design a business model that allows for successful implementation and execution of the strategy (Kidwell, Mattie & Sousa, 2000; Morrison & Rossman, 2003; and Oblinger, 2000). The business model presents information to the administrators on the economic viability of their strategy. Therefore, it is imperative to select the type of segment that the college plans to service. Alternate educational strategies will vary based on the segment identified by the college that it wishes to serve, and the demographics as well as the behavioral characteristics will vary according to the market segment strata selected (Oblinger, 2000). The demographic profiles of online students and traditional students have begun to be reported in literature in determining market segments for strategy formulation. Demographics allow investigators to compare and contrast traditional classroom student data to distance education student data. Although the results of such descriptions vary, the stereotype of an older part-time student has gained widespread acceptance, and persists for consumers of distance education (Clayton, 2001). Preston and Booth (2002) and Szulc (1999) claim that distance education demographics have become clearer and a detailed portrait is emerging. Moreover, some would argue that the distance education market is becoming homogeneous, while others would counter that it is very heterogeneous (Morrison & Rossman, 2003 and Oblinger, 2000). Does a "typical learner" exist in the traditional and online consumer market? At best, the data collected on demographics and behavioral characteristics is ambiguous (Peters, 2001). …


The objectives of this research: 1) to analyze the contribution of tuna, tuna and skipjack to gross regional domestic income, 2) to estimate the development of tuna, tuna and skipjack tuna production. The method used in this study is quantitative and secondary data types sourced from BPS and DKP with data collection techniques documentation. Quantitative data analysis in this research is contribution analysis and quadratic trend. The average contribution of TCT fish to PDRB of Tulungagung Regency is 0.0006%. Estimated production from 2017-2026 tuna has an average production increase of 32%, skipjack tuna has an average production increase of 31% and tuna has an average production increase of 43%.The increased production of TCT fish expected sees the sustainability of ecology by the use of the think that environmentally friendly and considers value optimal the use of commodities TCT fish.


This book is for any manager or team leader that has the green light to implement a data governance program. The problem of managing data continues to grow with issues surrounding cost of storage, exponential growth, as well as administrative, management and security concerns - the solution to being able to scale all of these issues up is data governance which provides better services to users and saves money. What you will find in this book is an overview of why data governance is needed, how to design, initiate, and execute a program and how to keep the program sustainable. With the provided framework and case studies you will be enabled and educated in launching your very own successful and money saving data governance program.Provides a complete overview of the data governance lifecycle, that can help you discern technology and staff needs Specifically aimed at managers who need to implement a data governance program at their companyIncludes case studies to detail 'do's' and 'don'ts' in real-world situations


As a crucial step in the N-cycle, denitrification not only provides an important pathway for nitrogen losses from cultivated land, but also helps to prevent excess of nitrate (and nitrite) reaching groundwater. Furthermore, denitrification is often considered to be a major source of N(2)O, which contributes-to global warm and the destruction of stratospheric ozone. Denitrification potential and nitrification potential of soils at different depths beneath four plots, including three differently fertilized plots cultivating celeries and one uncultivated plot (control plot) in Dayu, Kunming City, were studied in the laboratory, and N(2)O emissions from each plot were in-situ monitored, in our study. The application of fertilizers is the dominant factor controlling nitrification potential of soils at a depth of 30 cm below soil surface, which resulted in the highest nitrification potential of the soils of the plot applied by the largest amount of fertilizers. O(2) available and the soil moisture content are the important limiting factors for nitrification of soils in. the profiles. However, not fertilizer application, but the soil moisture content is the dominant factor controlling denitrification rate in soils at a depth of 30 cm below soil surface. Denitrification potential decreased in the soils at depths between 30 and 100 cm below soil surface and increased at depths greater than 100 cm below soil surface with an increase of the soil depth. This decrease is affected by a decrease in the size of the denitrification community with depth rather than solely a limitation of substrate. The increase Was probably caused by groundwater, which would favor the propagation of the denitrification community. Chemical fertilizer application also stimulated N(2)O emission. In addition to N(2)O, N(2) was produced by denitrification.


Throughout North America there are many crude oil storage tank facilities — also called terminals — serving as hubs, transfer points and storage. Safety precautions such as pre-service integrity testing, cathodic protection, primary and secondary containment measures, and grounding techniques have been utilized to assure safety as a top priority. These tanks undergo an in-service API 653 external inspection at least every 5 years, and are taken out of service to undergo an API 653 internal/external inspection at least every 30 years [1], [2], [3]. For these aboveground storage tanks, the bottom plate is the most vulnerable area to corrosion [4] and is also the most challenge area to inspect visually. Both sides (product-side and soil-side) of the tank bottom plate are prone to high rates of corrosion in comparison to other components such as the roof and shell [5]. Corrosion generally starts with coating defects such as air or water ingress to underling layers and exposing the steel to uncontrolled environmental factors.
 Internal inspection can be performed using ultrasonic measures to calculate the sheet thickness, however, external inspection is impossible without having access to the tank bottom. This paper will introduce a novel inspection method for external monitoring of the surface of the tank bottom plate in real-time. The proposed technique proactively approaches the problem by predicting the corrosion before it occurs. In this technique an array of microwave-based sensors operating at ISM band (2.57 GHz) are introduced for defect prediction. The array is composed of equally-distant and identical microwave spiral ring resonators (SRR) [6] that are electromagnetically coupled to a transmission line. All resonances created by the array elements merge in one band-stop frequency response with very high isolation. Once the sensors' environment is altered by any defects such as an air breach, liquid ingress [7] or corrosion initiated, a resonance shift will occur indicating coating risks. To prove the concept, an initial prototype for small tanks of 3–5 ft. diameter is investigated. Two-port system data illustrates that in case of a coating defect, the frequency profile accordingly changes and provides a signature. The obtained data is used to predict possible corrosion in timely manner. The proposed sensor array enables external monitoring of tank bottoms surface where visual inspection is impossible while the tank is in-service.


This study sought to find out the different types of care given to children with disabilities (CwDs), 3-5 years and the capacity of parents in providing for their needs. Attitudes and perceptions of parents towards CwDs were also explored in the study. The study was conducted in the context of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (1989) and the first Education for All (EFA) goal (UNESCO, 2007). Parents, teachers and district level administrators participated in the study. Five rural districts were selected. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Findings revealed that parents face challenges in providingfor CwDs under their care. Challenges included stigma, myths attached to disability, coming to terms with having a child with a disability, and lack of resources. It was also noted that there were some appropriate care practices which parents were employing despite the limitingfactors in the communities they existed. The conclusion of the study was that although parents strive to provide good care for their CwDs, they have limited capacity in terms of knowledge and resources. Consequently, they require professional assistance to enhance their knowledge and skills on basic care of such children, as well as environmental resources and referral services. It was also observed that there was need for financial and material support to enable parents to access both education and health services for their CwDs. .


Traditionally, actuaries have used run-off triangles to estimate reserve ("macro" models, on agregated data). But it is possible to model payments related to individual claims. If those models provide similar estimations, we investigate uncertainty related to reserves, with "macro" and "micro" models. We study theoretical properties of econometric models (Gaussian, Poisson and quasi-Poisson) on individual data, and clustered data. Finally, application on claims reserving are considered.


On 13 April 1204 the western or Latin armies participating in the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. The approaching 800th anniversary of that event has generated renewed interest in the background, context and impact of that crusade, expressed in several new studies and in conferences. The initial goal of the Fourth Crusade was the re-establishment of Christian rule over Jerusalem, lost to Sultan Saladin of Egypt in 1187. Instead, it ended with the capture of the capital of a Christian state that had withstood all previous sieges and assaults.


Introduction: Congenital hypothyroidism remains one of the most common preventable causes of mental retardation in the pediatric age group. Screening for congenital hypothyroidism is one of the most cost-effective tools to prevent mental retardation among the general population. Umbilical cord blood thyroid-stimulating hormone (CB TSH) estimation remains an easily available option for screening for congenital hypothyroidism. Aim: The aim of this study was to find normative values of CB TSH for the study group and to use CB TSH levels as a screening tool for congenital hypothyroidism. Design: This study was a cross-sectional study. Setting: This study was conducted in a private medical college. Materials and Methods: CB TSH levels were measured in 2916 neonates using chemiluminescence immunoassay. All neonates who had an umbilical CB TSH level >20 mIU/ml were called back on day 7 for a repeat thyroid profile testing. Results: CB samples of 3102 neonates were tested for TSH; of them, 186 samples were hemolyzed, and hence, 2916 neonates formed the study group. Male-to-female ratio was 1544:1378, i.e., 1.2.1. The birth weights of the study group ranged between 0.8 kg and 4.76 kg, with the average birth weight being 2.9 kg. The cohort was divided into two groups: Group 1 (n = 1983) comprised of neonates who were born term and Group 2 (n = 933) comprised of neonates who were born before term gestation. TSH values ranged between 1.2 and 100 mIU/ml. The mean TSH value of the cohort was 7.17 mIU/ml. The mean TSH value in Group 1 was 6.89 mIU/ml, whereas in the Group 2, it was 7.57 mIU/ml. TSH values corresponding to the 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, and 97th percentile were 2.3, 2.9, 3.48, 5.4, 7.1, 10.67, 13.4, and 21.4, respectively, in Group 1, whereas TSH values corresponding to the 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, and 97th percentile in Group 2 were 2.32, 3.12, 4.12, 5.63, 7.65, 10.67, 13.4, and 22, respectively. Seventy neonates (2.4%) had a CB TSH value >20 mIU/ml and had to be recalled for a repeat workup. Of the 70 babies recalled for repeat testing, 59 turned up and eventually two turned out to be hypothyroid on repeat testing. The incidence of congenital hypothyroidism in our study was 1 in 1458. To conclude, we can safely use a cutoff of CB TSH >20 mIU/ml for screening for congenital hypothyroidism. Conclusion: A cut off Cord Blood TSH value > 20 IU/ml can be used for screening purpose.


A block is described, which is exposed in the antigorite serpentinite of Vallone Bule, belonging to the Basal Serpentinite Unit of the Monviso massif (Piemonte Zone of calcschists with meta-ophiolites). The block consists of a quartz-jadeite rock core and a jadeitite rim, very similar to the rocks used by prehistoric men to make stone axeheads. In spite of their different bulk-rock compositions, both core and rim show the same trace and rare earth elements patterns, suggesting the same protolith. The quartz-jadeite rock exhibits a major, trace and rare earth elements composition consistent with that of oceanic plagiogranite, most likely a dyke cutting across upper mantle peridotites, later hydrated to serpentinites. Conversely, the jadeitite, which consists mainly of zoned jadeite crystals progressively enriched in the diopside component from core to rim, is significantly depleted in Si but enriched in Mg and Ca with respect to the quartz-jadeite rock. The trace and rare earth elements similarities and the ubiquitous presence of small zircons suggest that the jadeitite and the quartz-jadeite rock both derive from a plagiogranite; however, jadeitite would have undergone a metasomatic process involving a significant desilication and Mg- and Ca-enrichment, connected to the host peridotite serpentinization. The process, responsible for the transformation of the plagiogranite into a jadeitite, should have occurred during prograde Alpine high-pressure (eclogite-facies) metamorphism, since the first Na-pyroxene formed is jadeite, corroded and partly replaced during the metasomatic process by a progressively more omphacitic pyroxene. Because similar rocks – mostly jadeitites, but even their plagiogranite protoliths – are reported from other localities from the Western and Maritime Alps, it is likely that the raw materials of most jadeitites used to make stone axeheads, which are spread all over the Western Europe, have a similar origin and derive from the western Alps as long suggested.


Climate change theorists have projected striking changes in local weather on earth due to increases in temperature. These predicted changes may cause melting glaciers and ice caps, rising sea levels, increasing desertification and other environmental changes which seem likely to affect presumed indicator species as harbingers of more significant changes. Wild sheep, even though they are one of the more successful mammalian taxa since Pleistocene times, exhibit a suite of adaptations to glacier driven environments which may be presumed to render them sensitive to environmental changes. The authors began investigation with these assumptions by comparing changes, as determined by satellite imagery, in glacier extent in our study areas in Denali National Park, Alaska, during the last 30 years. Our findings showed the extent of glacial retreat in Alaska during this time period was approximately 40-50 percent as measured by ablation zone and retreat of terminal moraines. During the first half of this 30-year period, Dall sheep (Ovis dalli dalli) populations were stable at historically recorded highs. In the early to mid-1990s, Dall sheep populations in Alaska declined from an historical estimated high of 75,000 sheep to the presently estimated 40-50,000. The declines seemed to be weather related, on the basis of the presumption that lamb survival rates are primarily weather-mediated in Alaska. Changes in local weather appear, at this point, to be correlated with oscillation in the Pacific Current in the Northern Pacific ocean. Of course, changes in local weather affect forage abundance and quality seasonally. In investigating a possible linkage of weather to seasonal forage abundance and quality, we also investigated changes in snow and ice extent and distribution, as well as increased water runoff associated with permafrost and depleted glaciers. Databases were assembled from a wide variety of remotely sensed satellite data, ground-based observations, and historical data bases relating to Dall sheep habitats in selected study areas. Alaska's sheep habitats are typified by long, narrow bands of mountainous uplifts generally arrayed west-to-east, and perpendicular to prevailing south-to-north weather-front movements. Classic Dall sheep habitat occurs on snow-shadowed slopes within these narrow mountainous habitats. On the basis of these data, we offer an explanatory hypothesis relating Dall sheep welfare to weather and climate-influenced nutrition and a monitoring scheme, which should produce data sufficient to test the robustness of this hypothesis. If correlated with population changes, the methods used in our comparative observations may provide long-term monitoring tools for wildlife managers and be applicable in other widely-dispersed wild sheep habitats. If no significant correlations emerge from our modeling exercises, the notion that wild sheep are a sufficiently sensitive species to be seen as an indicator species will have to be reexamined.


The book all semiconductor device engineers must read to gain a practical feel for latchup-induced failure to produce lower-cost and higher-density chips. Transient-Induced Latchup in CMOS Integrated Circuits equips the practicing engineer with all the tools needed to address this regularly occurring problem while becoming more proficient at IC layout. Ker and Hsu introduce the phenomenon and basic physical mechanism of latchup, explaining the critical issues that have resurfaced for CMOS technologies. Once readers can gain an understanding of the standard practices for TLU, Ker and Hsu discuss the physical mechanism of TLU under a system-level ESD test, while introducing an efficient component-level TLU measurement setup. The authors then present experimental methodologies to extract safe and area-efficient compact layout rules for latchup prevention, including layout rules for I/O cells, internal circuits, and between I/O and internal circuits. The book concludes with an appendix giving a practical example of extracting layout rules and guidelines for latchup prevention in a 0.18-micrometer 1.8V/3.3V silicided CMOS process. Presents real cases and solutions that occur in commercial CMOS IC chips Equips engineers with the skills to conserve chip layout area and decrease time-to-market Written by experts with real-world experience in circuit design and failure analysis Distilled from numerous courses taught by the authors in IC design houses worldwide The only book to introduce TLU under system-level ESD and EFT tests This book is essential for practicing engineers involved in IC design, IC design management, system and application design, reliability, and failure analysis. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, specializing in CMOS circuit design and layout, will find this book to be a valuable introduction to real-world industry problems and a key reference during the course of their careers.


There are board members in the schools' districts who want to take out the arts because of several reasons such as the cost and the lack of support. The arts in schools are not only beneficial to students with special needs, but all students as well. For instance, I am a student with ADHD and severe dyslexia and teachers always gave up on me until the arts were introduced. If the arts are kept in schools, all students will develop learning techniques to help them now and in the future. With the arts, teachers and parents will see their students being motivated and confident in whatever they want to do. Through many surveys, interviews, observations, and research I wanted to see how the arts were being incorporated in the classroom. The results that I discovered were that the teachers did not understand the importance of the arts. Also, some did not make time to include the arts in their classroom. Throughout this project I have opened the eyes to a few teachers to see what the arts can do for all students.


In the years following Cuba's independence, nationalists aimed to transcend racial categories in order to create a unified polity, yet racial and cultural heterogeneity posed continual challenges to these liberal notions of citizenship. Alejandra Bronfman traces the formation of Cuba's multiracial legal and political order in the early Republic by exploring the responses of social scientists, such as Fernando Ortiz and Israel Castellanos, and black and mulatto activists, including Gustavo Urrutia and Nicolas Guillen, to the paradoxes of modern nationhood. Law, science, and the social sciences - which, during this era, enjoyed growing status in Cuba as well as in many other countries - played central roles in producing knowledge and shaping social categories in postindependence Cuba. Anthropologists, criminologists, and eugenicists embarked on projects intended to employ the tools of science to rid Cuba of the last vestiges of a colonial past. Meanwhile, the legal arena created both new freedoms and new modes of repression. Black and mulatto intellectuals and activists, working to ensure that citizenship offered concrete advantages rather than empty promises, appropriated changing social scientific and legal categories and turned them to their own uses. In the midst of several decades of intermittent racial violence and expanding social and political mobilization by Cubans of African descent, debates among intellectuals and activists, state officials, and legislators transformed not only understandings of race, but also the terms of citizenship for all Cubans.


Schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) are an increasingly popular framework for school improvement practices, but many high schools are still lagging behind their elementary counterparts. High school leadership teams can struggle with merging the SWPBIS framework with current operations, and there are limited examples of how schools have overcome the challenges. Implementation does not happen all at once but in stages marked by specific activities. Through a series of case examples, this article details the stages, challenges, and corresponding strategies that eight high schools used to improve implementation of the SWPBIS framework.


We report the first successful extraction of oyster DNA from a pearl and use it to identify the source oyster species for the three major pearl-producing oyster species Pinctada margaritifera, P. maxima and P. radiata. Both mitochondrial and nuclear gene fragments could be PCR-amplified and sequenced. A polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay in the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was developed and used to identify 18 pearls of unknown origin. A micro-drilling technique was developed to obtain small amounts of DNA while maintaining the commercial value of the pearls. This DNA fingerprinting method could be used to document the source of historic pearls and will provide more transparency for traders and consumers within the pearl industry.


Water management in the southeast, and particularly in Georgia, has become increasingly more complex due to rapid population growth, dwindling water supplies, water quality and instream flow concerns, and allocation disputes with neighboring states. The Georgia state legislature responded with two key initiatives: SB 130, passed in 2001, which formed the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD), and HB 237, passed in 2004, which requires the development of a Comprehensive Statewide Water Plan (CSWP). In 2003, the MNGWPD adopted wastewater management, watershed protection, and water supply and conservation plans that will guide water resources in metropolitan Atlanta for the next 30 years. Implementation costs of the MNGWPD water and wastewater plans through 2030 has been estimated to total $60B. To conserve financial resources and encourage a sustainable development pattern, it is necessary to prioritize these investments, i.e., focus investments upon areas have the ability to increase population density due to the proximity of existing services. Currently, growth management policies in some jurisdictions encourage septic system development, increasing overall wastewater treatment costs and interfering with water management goals.


This paper investigates cross-linguistic variation in embedded imperatives in terms of syntactic environments in which they can(not) appear, focusing on the availability of embedded imperatives in the clausal complement of verbs and nouns, and relative clauses. I demonstrate that there are four distinct types of languages regarding the possibility of embedded imperatives. I also suggest that there is an implicational relation among these types, which is captured through a parameter hierarchy. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/ vol23/iss1/24 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 23.1, 2017 Toward the Parameter Hierarchy of Embedded Imperatives


Abstract Coastal communities, indigenous peoples, and small-scale fishers rely on the ocean for livelihoods, for subsistence, for wellbeing and for cultural continuity. Thus, understanding the human dimensions of the world's peopled seas and coasts is fundamental to evidence-based decision-making across marine policy realms, including marine conservation, marine spatial planning, fisheries management, the blue economy and climate adaptation. This perspective article contends that the marine social sciences must inform the pursuit of sustainable oceans. To this end, the article introduces this burgeoning field and briefly reviews the insights that social science can offer to guide ocean and coastal policy and management. The upcoming United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) provides a tremendous opportunity to build on the current interest, need for and momentum in the marine social sciences. We will be missing the boat if the marine social sciences do not form an integral and substantial part of the mandate and investments of this global ocean science for sustainability initiative.


The major aim of this study was to develop a conceptual model representing the implementation process of a curriculum change occurring in a State Education Department region. This development had its genesis in the now extensive body of literature related to the organizational phenomenon of planned change.

Since its early development in the 1960s, the study of planned change occurring in organizations has grown in sophistication, encompassing a steadily evolving number of theoretical constructs. Such a construct, of recent origin, was that of perceiving implementation of the innovation as a discrete process within the total planned change process. Although still in its infancy, this concept has attracted a steadily growing body of research, the present study co-ordinated some of these findings to form the basis for a four-stage model representing the implementation process under a special set of circumstances.

The application of the model was tested under field conditions. A longitudinal case study design was adopted because this was ideally suited to test the assumption of implementation as a process. The design was divided in to four sections : concepts related to the decision to change; concepts related to the effect the rationale for implementation had on teachers' behaviour; concepts related to the sequence of involvement of implementers; and finally, concepts related to the measurement of the degree of implementation for teachers and pupils.

Field work was applied in a rural educational region of the State of Western Australia. This region was established in 1979 as part of an Australia-wide trend. It is well documented that at the commencement of the 1970s, Australian government control led education systems were highly centralized. By the beginning of the 1980s, all were facing major change, each incorporating some form of decentralization. In Western Australia, a shift in power from central authorities to Regional Superintendents occurred. With the increase i n power, the Regions received more duties and became more complex organizations.

To meet the demand of testing a complex theoretical model in the intricate field setting of a State Education Department region, a wide range of data-gathering techniques was used. Questionnaires were employed, some specifically designed to suit this study and some selected from other research. The breadth and depth of the data collected was extended by the use of interviews, both focused and unstructured. Information from a wide variety of perspectives was gathered by using direct observation. This was applied to the testing of the theoretical model and also used to validate data drawn from other sources. Content analysis techniques were also used to triangulate the findings from questionnaire and interview techniques.

The findings of the analysis of the data, within a matrix of hypotheses and sub-hypotheses, provided powerful statistical evidence indicating that the innovation was judged as being implemented by the teachers and the pupils. Data collected were also analysed as part of the research plan incorporating four major hypotheses and twenty six sub-sections. Each sub-section has been investigated empirically. This strategy was used to test the applicability of the conceptual model as a technique to represent the process of implementation followed by an innovation in Oral English introduced into a rural region of a State Education Department.

The model proved to be a very effective device, aiding in the comprehension of an implementation process that occurred under the particular conditions described in the thesis.


The Covid-19 pandemic has plunged the world into turmoil and uncertainty. The academic world is no exception. In South Africa, due to a nationwide lockdown imposed by government, universities had to suspend all academic activities, but very quickly explored online teaching and learning options in order to ensure continued education to students. As far as Clinical Legal Education, or CLE, is concerned, such online options of teaching and learning could present problems to university law faculties, university law clinics and law students in general, as CLE is a practical methodology, usually following a live-client or simulation model, depending on the particular university and law clinic. This article provides insight into the online methodology followed by the Nelson Mandela University, or NMU. The NMU presents CLE as part of its Legal Practice-module and conventionally follows the live-client model. As the national lockdown in South Africa required inter alia social distancing, the live-client model had been temporarily suspended by the NMU Law Faculty Management Committee and replaced with an online methodology. The aim of this was an attempt to complete the first semester of the academic year in 2020. This online methodology is structured so as to provide practical-oriented training to students relating to a wide variety of topics, including the drafting of legal documents, divorce matters, medico-legal practice, labour legal practice, criminal legal practice, and professional ethics. The online training took place in two staggered teaching and learning pathways in line with the strategy of the NMU, underpinned by the principle of "no student will be left behind." In this way, provision had been made for students with online connectivity and access to electronic devices, students with online connectivity only after return to campus or another venue where connectivity is possible and electronic devices are available, and for students who do not have access to online connectivity and electronic devices at all. The reworked CLE-programme of the NMU, planned for the second semester of the 2020-academic year, will also be discussed in this article. The online methodology followed by the NMU should however not be viewed as definitive or cast in stone in any way. There might be – and there surely are – alternative methodologies, both online and otherwise, that may provide equally good or even better training to CLE students during a global pandemic. Alternative suggestions in this regard will also be discussed in this article. It is hoped that this article will provide inspiration and assistance to university law  faculties and law clinics that are struggling to engage with continued practical legal education during the testing and uncertain times brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is further hoped that this article may provide guidance in other difficult and unforeseen future instances that may await CLE. In this regard, it is important to remember that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is rapidly increasing its grip on the world and that CLE will have to adapt to the demands thereof. © 2020, North-West Unversity. All rights reserved.


OBJECTIVE
To our knowledge, there is no study exploring specifically the diagnostic performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in patients with previous canal wall down (CWD) surgery when combined with appropriate clinical evaluation. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of DWI in the detection of residual or recurrent disease in patients who have had a previous CWD mastoidectomy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We identified 13 patients with a CWD mastoidectomy subsequently having at least one further DWI prior to further mastoid exploration that generated a total of 20 patient episodes. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on a 1.5 T superconductive unit using a standard head matrix coil. Coronal 2 mm thick TSE T2-weighted images (TR: 4640 ms; TE: 103 ms; matrix: 245,384; field of view: 150×200 mm) were performed. Operative findings were reviewed for all 20 patient episodes to compare DWI findings with intraoperative findings. Based on this, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy were calculated.

RESULTS
DWI had a sensitivity of 93%, specificity of 60%, PPV of 87%, NPV of 75%, and accuracy of 80%.

CONCLUSION
Given the high sensitivity of DWI in the detection of residual or recurrent disease, the present study supports DWI as a useful tool in the detection of residual or recurrent cholesteatoma in cases following CWD surgery, where clinical acumen suggests an ongoing disease process despite no overt cholesteatoma being visible.