We propose a novel approach to proving the termination of heap-manipulating programs, which combines separation logic with cyclic proof within a Hoare-style proof system.Judgements in this system express (guaranteed) termination of the program when started from a given line in the program and in a state satisfying a given precondition, which is expressed as a formula of separation logic. The proof rules of our system are of two types: logical rules that operate on preconditions; and symbolic execution rules that capture the effect of executing program commands.
 Our logical preconditions employ inductively defined predicates to describe heap properties, and proofs in our system are cyclic proofs: cyclic derivations in which some inductive predicate is unfolded infinitely often along every infinite path, thus allowing us to discard all infinite paths in the proof by an infinite descent argument. Moreover, the use of this soundness condition enables us to avoid the explicit construction and use of ranking functions for termination. We also give a completeness result for our system, which is relative in that it relies upon completeness of a proof system for logical implications in separation logic. We give examples illustrating our approach, including one example for which thecorresponding ranking function is non-obvious: termination of the classical algorithm for in-place reversal of a (possibly cyclic) linked list.


This study aims at showing the application of transfer technology based on computerized video analysis in the improvement of learning the elements in women's artistic gymnastics. This scientific approach led to an experimental study organized during the period 2012 – 2014 with 14 female athletes of 12 to 15 years old, members of junior national team of Romania. Methods of research: computerized video analysis, using the specialized programs -"Kinovea" and "Physics ToolKit"; method of movement postural orientation for the analysis of sports technique key elements; statistical method (KyPlot) and the method of results graphical representation. During the study there were analyzed, in terms of biomechanics, a number of 125 technical elements executed in three national competitions, namely: 36 Yurchenko-type handspring vaults; 32 dismounts off uneven bars by double back salto; 22 dismounts off balance beam by layout salto with 360°-1080° turn and double back salto and 35 acrobatic elements on the floor with double back salto. The computerized video analysis, made according to the specific character of each apparatus, highlighted the key elements of sports technique regarding the preparatory phase – the launching posture, the basic phase – multiplication of body posture / position (tucked, pike or layout) and the final phase – concluding posture – landing. The study results point out the efficient application of transfer technology (vertical, horizontal and mixed one) and its influence on the improvement of learning the elements on each apparatus of women's artistic gymnastics. The development of long-term programs by means of didactical technologies within the macro-methods for elements learning contributed to the improvement and increase of difficulty and also to the possibility to use them on other apparatus of women's artistic gymnastic in order to achieve better performances in competitions.


The utilization of coal in Indonesia is in a running of improvement to become the biggest energy source. In 2025, 30% of total energy used is targeted as stated in Indonesian Government Regulation No. 79 of 2016. In Indonesia, the potential coal is mostly found in low and moderate calorific coal, it is classified as brown coal. Commonly, brown coal has high moisture content. Upgrading Brown Coal (UBC) process is a method for reducing the moisture content of brown coal by up to 80%. This study provides an overview of the UBC product competitiveness compared with brown coal. It will generate some technical recommendations on the current energy policies. Business as Usual (BAU) scenario and UBC product scenario were applied to show the difference in the amount of coal needed to generate electricity with the same capacity and the total of green house gas emission potential (GEP). The calculation was performed using the LEAP program (Long-range Energy Alternative Planning system). The use of UBC product was potentially reduce the feed consumption by 50% compared to usual brown coal. Furthermore, the GEP calculated between the two scenarios was 1.141 billion kg CO 2 -eq/year as net saving. UBC process can be developed to improve the quality of brown coal, so that the UBC product will be much more competitive.


Downward total solar fluxes measured at Dungsha coral island (20°42'N, 116°43'E) during the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (May-June 1998) have been calibrated and compared with radiative transfer calculations for three clear-sky days. Model calculations use water vapor and temperature profiles from radiosonde measurements, and the aerosol optical thickness is derived from sunphotometric radiance measurements. Results show that the difference between observed and model-calculated downward surface fluxes is < 3 % of the daily mean. Averaged over the three clear days, the difference reduces to 1 %. The averaged downward surface fluxes from observations and calculations for the three selected dates are 314 and 317 W/m2, respectively. This result is consistent with a previous study using TOGA CO ARE measurements, which found good agreement between observations and model calculations. This study provides an extra piece of useful information for the modeling of radiative transfer, which helps to fill in the puzzle of the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere.


• A great deal of confusion surrounds the diagnosis, clinical phenomenology, and treatment of Lyme borreliosis. Most diagnostic methods currently in use are indirect and do not differentiate between prior exposure and current infection. A critical review of the literature permits the characterization of a distinct set of neurologic disorders that are almost certainly caused by this infection and their differentiation from the plethora of syndromes that have been anecdotally linked to infection, but in which causality has never been established. This article describes the range of clinical disorders associated with Lyme borreliosis, provides an overview of current approaches to diagnosis, and reviews current treatment protocols.


Team formation, i.e., allocating agents to roles within a team or subteams of a team, and the reorganization of a team upon team member failure or arrival of new tasks are critical aspects of teamwork. We focus in particular on a technique called "Team Formation for Reformation", i.e., teams formed with lookahead to minimize costs of reformation. Despite significant progress, research in multiagent team formation and reorganization has failed to provide a rigorous analysis of the computational complexities of the approaches proposed or their degree of optimality. This shortcoming has hindered quantitative comparisons of approaches or their complexity-optimality tradeoffs, e.g., is the team reorganization approach in practical teamwork models such as STEAM optimal in most cases or only as an exception? To alleviate these difficulties, this paper presents R-COM-MTDP ,a formal model based on decentralized communicating POMDPs, where agents explicitly take on and change roles to (re)form teams. R-COMMTDP significantly extends an earlier COM-MTDP model, by analyzing how agents' roles, local states and reward decompositions gradually reduce the complexity of its policy generation from NEXP-complete to PSPACE-complete to P-complete. We also encode key role reorganization approaches (e.g., STEAM) as RCOM-MTDP policies, and compare them with a locally optimal policy derivable in R-COM-MTDP, thus, theoretically and empirically illustrating the complexityoptimality tradeoffs.


Principles of Asynchronous Circuit Design - A Systems Perspective addresses the need for an introductory text on asynchronous circuit design. Part I is an 8-chapter tutorial which addresses the most important issues for the beginner, including how to think about asynchronous systems. Part II is a 4-chapter introduction to Balsa, a freely-available synthesis system for asynchronous circuits which will enable the reader to get hands-on experience of designing high-level asynchronous systems. Part III offers a number of examples of state-of-the-art asynchronous systems to illustrate what can be built using asynchronous techniques. The examples range from a complete commercial smart card chip to complex microprocessors. The objective in writing this book has been to enable industrial designers with a background in conventional (clocked) design to be able to understand asynchronous design sufficiently to assess what it has to offer and whether it might be advantageous in their next design task.


Context. Manganese is an iron-peak element and although the nucleosynthesis path that leads to its formation is fairly well understood, it remains unclear which objects, SN II and/or SN Ia, that contribute the majority of Mn to the interstellar medium. It also remains unclear to which extent the supernovae Mn yields depend on the metallicity of the progenitor star or not. Aims. By using a well studied and well defined sample of 95 dwarf stars we aim at further constraining the formation site(s) of Mn. Methods. We derive Mn abundances through spectral synthesis of four Mn I lines at 539.4, 549.2, 601.3, and 601.6 nm. Stellar parameters and data for oxygen are taken from Bensby et al. (2003, 2004, 2005). Results. When comparing our Mn abundances with O abundances for the same stars we find that the abundance trends in the stars with kinematics typical of the thick disk can be explained by metallicity dependent yields from SN II. We go on and combine our data for dwarf stars in the disks with data for dwarf and giant stars in the metal-poor thick disk and halo from the literature. We find that dwarf and giant stars show the same trends, which indicates that neither non-LTE nor evolutionary effects are a major concern for Mn. Furthermore, the [Mn/O] vs. [O/H] trend in the halo is flat. Conclusions. We conclude that the simplest interpretation of our data is that Mn is most likely produced in SN II and that the Mn yields for such SNae must be metallicity dependent. Contribution from SN Ia in the metal-rich thin disk can not, however, be excluded.


Abstract : Today, there are several concepts that are threatening Billy Mitchell's vision of airmen. New technology and operational concepts are threatening the existence of the human aircraft operator. Looming on the horizon are unmanned aerial vehicles, spaced based weapons, and information architectures. This research effort is limited in scope. It focuses specifically on the UAV issue and explores the possibility that airmen will be replaced by unmanned vehicles in the next twenty years. On the one hand, UAVs offer distinct advantages over manned aircraft. UAVs will save lives and money. UAVs are not constrained by the physiological limits of the human operator. In addition, they eliminate tough political situations that arise when airmen are shot down over unfriendly territory. On the other hand, even with advanced unmanned technology, airmen still provide the Air Force with the indispensable qualities of flexibility and adaptability. These qualities, fueled by initiative and experience, are absolutely necessary to deal with the friction inherent in war. Rapid advances in technology will produce man-in-the-loop and autonomous UAVs that will serve as force multipliers. Man-in-the-loop systems are vulnerable to communications jamming while autonomous systems do not provide the flexibility required or present a moral dilemma. Manned combat aircraft will be required to deal with uncertainty and chaos. UAVs will increase the requirements for highly trained airmen. The Air Force must exploit the advantages offered by the UAV. UAVs will play a significant role in future operations. However, as a warfighting institution, the Air Force must not forget the significant contribution of the human operator. The UAV is a force multiplier and nothing more. This technology will augment, not replace, the human operator. Airmen are critical to the functioning of the Air Force and they will continue to be well into the next century.


Metaphor is the most important linguistic phenomenon which has been noted by the scientists, philosophers, writers and recent linguists. The purpose of this research is to study the metaphors in the speaking of Persian language students in Islamic Azad University of Ahvaz. To do so, the author has randomly selected fifty Persian speaker students and recorded thirty hours of their speech, presented in three different linguistic contexts. Writing out the linguistic data, 1,000 sentences were collected. Then, the data was analyzed on the base of the theoretical research and 122 metaphorical expressions were extracted. It was found that a significant part of the student's speech is metaphorical, and a variety of conceptual metaphors were seen. The structural metaphor had the highest frequency of occurrence and the orientational metaphor had the lowest frequency. Besides, whenever the linguistic context was formal, using the metaphor in language was less and whenever the linguistic context was informal, using metaphor in language was more. Accordingly, the metaphorical structures were higher in the third linguistic context while they were lower in the second linguistic context.


This research explores the development of seamless pneumatically actuated systems whose motion is controlled by the combination of differentially knitted textiles and standardized thin-walled
silicone tubing. This work proposes a fundamental material strategy that addresses challenges ranging from soft robotics to pneumatic architecture. Research in soft robotics seeks to achieve
complex motions through non-mechanical monolithic systems, comprised of highly articulated shapes molded with a combination of elastic and inelastic materials. Inflatables in architecture focus largely on the active structuring of static forms, as facade systems or as structured envelopes. An emerging use of pneumatic architecture proposes morphable, adaptive systems accomplished through differentiated mechanically interconnected components. In the research described in this paper, a wide array of capabilities in motion and geometric articulation are accomplished through the design of knitted sleeves that generate a series of actuated "elbows." As opposed to molding silicone bladders, differentiation in motion is generated through the more facile ability of changing stitch structure, and shaping of the knitted textile sleeve, which constrains the standard silicone tubing. The relationship between knit differentiation, pneumatic pressure, and the resultant motion profile is studied initially with individual actuators, and ultimately in propositions for larger seamless assemblies. As opposed to a cellular study of individual components, this research proposes structures with multi-scalar articulation, from fiber and stitch to overall form, composed into seamless, massively deformable architectures.


Abstract A taxonomic revision of Stenosiphonium Nees is provided. Morphological variation within the genus is documented, the relationship between Stenosiphonium and Strobilanthes Blume is discussed, and problems of species delimitation are resolved. Three species are recognized. Stenosiphonium cordifolium (Vahl) Alston is morphologically variable and is widespread throughout peninsular India and Sri Lanka. S. setosum T. Anderson and S. wightii Bremek. are restricted endemics from the southern Western Ghats, each known from very few herbarium collections. Both S. setosum and S. wightii are recognized as rare in accordance with IUCN criteria. There is evidence to suggest that all three species of Stenosiphonium are plietesial which may explain the paucity of herbarium collections of both S. setosum and S. wightii. The implications of a plietesial life history strategy for the assessment of the conservation status of these species is considered.


BACKGROUND
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major worldwide public health problem and is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death.

AIM
To assess CKD prevalence in urban Primary Care Services (PCS) of Concepcion, Chile.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The clinical records of 27.894 adults aged 55 ± 18 years (66% females), consulting in outpatient clinics and in whom serum creatinine was measured, with or without assessment of urine albumin levels, were reviewed. The glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was estimated using the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD)-4 equation. CKD was defined as an eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 and classified according to the National Kidney Foundation Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (NFK-KDOQI) guidelines.

RESULTS
Mean eGFR was 77.1 ± 16.3 ml/min/1.73 m2. Twelve percent of subjects had CKD (women, 14.5% and men 7,4%, p < 0,05). The prevalence of stages 3, 4 and 5 of CKD were 11.6, 0.3 and 0.2 % respectively. eGFR was negatively correlated with age ( r = -0,54, p < 0,05). Among patients with an eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73 m2, 96.3% had eGFR 30-59, 2.3% 15-29 and 1.4 % < of 15. Seventy nine percent were women. 75.1% were aged 65 years or more, 26.8% had a serum creatinine equal or less than 1.0 mg/dL and 40.5% had microalbuminuria. Only 1% of outpatients ascribed to Cardiovascular or Diabetes Programs had the diagnosis of CKD registered. Independent risk predictors of CKD were age > 60 years, female sex and microalbuminuria.

CONCLUSIONS
This study showed a high prevalence of CKD in ambulatory patients, mainly among women and older people. The low level of diagnosis of CKD in cardiovascular and diabetes programs is of concern.


The "Twelve Labours" of Hercules are among the topics most often associated with the illustrious half-god of Graeco-Roman
 mythology. This series of heroic deeds includes the defeat of a monstrous lion that ravaged the countryside of Nemea in southern Greece, an
 episode from the life of ancient Hercules that was handed down to medieval Europe through the works of classical authors, such as Virgil,
 Ovid and Statius, and their commentators. As is often the case, this process of textual transmission gave rise to variation and multiple
 interpretations: the sole Nemean lion is, in some instances, replaced by a pair of two felines or even a leonine trio, a phenomenon that can
 be observed both in text and iconography. The present contribution aims to elucidate the history of a particular variational pattern
 involving three Nemean lions, as seen in Raoul Lefèvre's 15th century Recoeil des Histoires de Troyes. By tracing the
 evolution of this particular version of the episode, we will consider commentaries, mythographic treatises and historiographical
 compilations.


Abstract Objective: To compare the effects of oral ferrous bisglycinate 25 mg iron/day vs. ferrous sulfate 50 mg iron/day in the prevention of iron deficiency (ID) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in pregnant women. Design: Randomized, double-blind, intention-to-treat study. Setting: Antenatal care clinic. Sample: 80 healthy ethnic Danish pregnant women. Methods: Women were allocated to ferrous bisglycinate 25 mg elemental iron (Aminojern®) (n=40) or ferrous sulfate 50 mg elemental iron (n=40) from 15 to 19 weeks of gestation to delivery. Hematological status (hemoglobin, red blood cell indices) and iron status (plasma iron, plasma transferrin, plasma transferrin saturation, plasma ferritin) were measured at 15–19 weeks (baseline), 27–28 weeks and 36–37 weeks of gestation. Main outcome measures: Occurrence of ID (ferritin <15 μg/L) and IDA (ferritin <12 μg/L and hemoglobin <110 g/L). Results: At inclusion, there were no significant differences between the bisglycinate and sulfate group concerning hematological status and iron status. The frequencies of ID and IDA were low and not significantly different in the two iron groups. The frequency of gastrointestinal complaints was lower in the bisglycinate than in the sulfate group (P=0.001). Newborns weight was slightly higher in the bisglycinate vs. the sulfate group (3601±517 g vs. 3395±426 g, P=0.09). Conclusions: In the prevention of ID and IDA, ferrous bisglycinate was not inferior to ferrous sulfate. Ferrous bisglycinate in a low dose of 25 mg iron/day appears to be adequate to prevent IDA in more than 95% of Danish women during pregnancy and postpartum.


I. INTRODUCTION The Environmental Protection Agency is in many respects a unique agency in the overall structure of United States governance. (1) Created in 1970 by presidential initiative rather than congressional legislation, it was given a sweeping new series of statutory mandates and powers that both nationalized the core functions of pollution and toxic chemicals control, and defined them overwhelmingly as regulatory functions--augmented in some cases by federal subsidies--rather than broader and more integrated management responsibilities. Paradoxically, it was given these mandates in response to massive bipartisan popular demand for federal leadership in solving the pollution problem at a time when the public was otherwise increasingly skeptical of and even hostile to the federal government. Liberals were opposed to the government's Vietnam War policies; conservatives resisted the government's civil rights policies; and the growing environmental movement itself questioned the government's policies of multipurpose dam-building and stream channelization, clear-cutting of the national forests, promotion and subsidization of nuclear power, and more generally promoting the use of the natural environment primarily for industrial resource extraction and economic development. In the academic literature of the 1960s and early 1970s, political scientists were writing scathingly about the capture of agencies by the businesses they were supposed to be regulating, and about the control of policymaking by "iron triangles" of favored interests, congressional subcommittees beholden to them, and the agencies they oversaw. Economists were becoming increasingly vocal against these traits in economic regulatory agencies responsible for regulating the airline, trucking and railroad, and telecommunications industries. In short, the Progressive ideal that had justified the discretionary powers of the federal agencies for two-thirds of a century since Theodore Roosevelt--the ideal of good government through scientific management by politically neutral, technocratic administrators--was becoming increasingly discredited from the left as well as the right. (2) Yet in the midst of all these criticisms of government, both academic and popular, a conservative Republican president, Richard Nixon, created the Environmental Protection Agency. And in the Congress, solidly bipartisan majorities vested this new agency with sweeping new powers to regulate pollution and toxic chemicals, to impose federal mandates on state and local governments both to implement and comply with these regulations, and to subsidize both state regulatory agencies and local wastewater treatment facilities on an unprecedented scale. By the end of its first decade, EPA had begun to achieve significant results in reducing pollution from the sources it was empowered to regulate, although the limitations and costs of those successes were also becoming evident. A more serious problem was developing, however: a fracturing of the bipartisan support that EPA had initially enjoyed. While environmental protection remained a widely supported and largely nonpartisan value for the general public, among elected politicians and interest groups it became a surrogate for an increasingly ideological and partisan conflict over the role of government regulation in achieving it. This refraining of the issue pitted liberal Democrats, and a dwindling minority of moderate Republicans, against an increasingly vocal anti-government core of the Republican Party which was augmented on individual issues by Democrats from districts whose businesses were burdened by environmental regulations. As a result, the EPA has become confined to incomplete and variable implementation of a set of laws and policies that, with few exceptions, were put in place more than thirty years ago. It has been chronically underfunded and subjected to increasing burdens of proof, oversight, and litigation; and with changes in presidential administrations, its priorities have repeatedly been subjected to radical swings and even attempts at fundamental reversal. …


While neural architecture search (NAS) has enabled automated machine learning (AutoML) for well-researched areas, its application to tasks beyond computer vision is still under-explored. As less-studied domains are precisely those where we expect AutoML to have the greatest impact, in this work we study NAS for efficiently solving diverse problems. Seeking an approach that is fast, simple, and broadly applicable, we fix a standard convolutional network (CNN) topology and propose to search for the right kernel sizes and dilations its operations should take on. This dramatically expands the model's capacity to extract features at multiple resolutions for different types of data while only requiring search over the operation space. To overcome the efficiency challenges of naive weight-sharing in this search space, we introduce DASH, a differentiable NAS algorithm that computes the mixture-of-operations using the Fourier diagonalization of convolution, achieving both a better asymptotic complexity and an up-to-10x search time speedup in practice. We evaluate DASH on ten tasks spanning a variety of application domains such as PDE solving, protein folding, and heart disease detection. DASH outperforms state-of-the-art AutoML methods in aggregate, attaining the best-known automated performance on seven tasks. Meanwhile, on six of the ten tasks, the combined search and retraining time is less than 2x slower than simply training a CNN backbone that is far less accurate.


Three lungfish specimens from the late Famennian of East Greenland are described. One forms the holotype of a new genus and species, Celsiodon ahlbergi gen. et sp. nov., which, in cladistic analyses, is placed close to the Carboniferous genus Ctenodus. The analyses reveal some Late Devonian lungfishes clustering with Early Carboniferous taxa, suggesting that Late Devonian lungfishes included more crownward taxa than previously appreciated, and that the Devonian–Carboniferous boundary was more fluid for lungfish taxa than supposed. Further study of other specimens shows a range of tooth plate morphologies and tooth crown morphologies, suggesting that the Late Devonian lungfishes were even more diverse and occupied a wider range of feeding strategies than previously suspected.


Department heads from 134 institutions (mainly universities) indicated the weight they generally give to various criteria for evaluating individual faculty members. The questionnaire they responded to included: (a) the criteria used for evaluating overall faculty performance; (b) the sources of information for evaluating teaching; and (c) the kinds of information used for judging scholarship or research performance. Although teaching, research, and service are generally acknowledged as the major functions of most universities, responses by the 453 department heads indicated that public or university service is usually given little importance in evaluating faculty members for decisions regarding tenure, salary, and promotion. The Research Universities emphasize research and scholarship, as might be expected. The so-called Doctoral-Granting Universities and the Comprehensive Universities and Colleges said that teaching was ranked first in importance, followed closely by research. The results of the study also suggest an increase in the use of some of the more systematic and tangible kinds of evidence for evaluating teaching performance (e.g., student ratings), though the use of such evidence falls far short of what department heads think is needed. In general, the evaluation of research and scholarship depends very much on the level of the institution and the type of department. For example, peer judgments of research and the number of articles in quality journals are much more important in social science departments in the Research Universities than in the same departments in the Comprehensive Universities and Colleges. Additional from: copies of this report, at $1.50 per copy, may be ordered Graduate Record Examinations Program Educational Testing Service Princeton, NJ 08540 Copyright @ 1977 by Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. How Universities Evaluate Faculty Performance: A Survey of Department Heads


Many who have questioned the use of conservation easements as a land protection tool view such easements primarily through the prism of real property law and as "private" arrangements. This perspective is perhaps understandable given that conservation easements are partial interests in real property and the land protected by conservation easements continues to be owned by private persons. But conservation easements are not simply interests in real property, nor are they accurately described as private. Rather, they are public or charitable assets and their status as such has important legal and policy implications that are often misunderstood or overlooked by critics and would-be reformers. This article discusses five misconceptions that tend to pervade the criticism of conservation easements and result in proposals for reform that would be contrary to the public interest. This article also discusses three of the primary reforms suggested by Professor Korngold in his article, "Solving the Contentious Issues of Private Conservation Easements: Promoting Flexibility for the Future and Engaging the Public Land Use Process," 2007 Utah L. Rev. 1039, and why those reforms would be both unnecessary and inadvisable.


Efficient querying over streaming data is a critical technology which requires the ability to handle numerous and possibly similar queries in real time dynamic environments such as the stock market and medical devices. Existing DBMS technology is not well suited for this domain since it was developed for static historical data. Queries over streams often contain relative window predicates such as in the query: "Heart rate decreased to fifty-two beats per second within four seconds after the patient's temperature started rising." Relative window predicates are a specific type of join between streams that is based on the tuple's timestamp. In our operator, called Juggler, predicates are classified into three types: attribute, join, and window. Attribute predicates are stream values compared to a constant. Join predicates are stream values compared to another stream's values. Window predicates are join predicates where the streams' timestamp values are compared. Juggler's composite operator incorporates the processing of similar though not identical, query functionalities as one complex computation process. This execution strategy handles multi-way joins for multiple selection and join predicates. It adaptively orders the execution of predicates by their selectivity to efficiently process multiple continuous queries based on stream characteristics. In Juggler, all similar predicates are grouped into lists. These indices are represented by a collection of bits. Every tuple contains the bit structure representation of the predicate lists which encodes tuple predicate evaluation history. Every query also contains a similar bit structure to encode the predicate's relationship to the registered queries. The tuple's and query's bit structures are compared to assess if the tuple has satisfied a query. Juggler is designed and implemented in Java. Experiments were conducted to verify correctness and to assess the performance of Juggler's three features. Its adaptivity of reordering the evaluation of predicate types performed as well as the most selective predicate ordering. Its ability to exploit similar predicates in multiple queries showed reduction in number of comparisons. Its effectiveness when multiple queries are combined in a single Juggler operator indicated potential performance improvements after optimization of Juggler's data structures.


There is a picture by Klee called Angelus Novus. It shows an angel who seems about to move away from something he stares at. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look. His face is turned toward the past. Where a chain of events appears before us, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm.


I present a multitemporal algorithm with an improved filtering scheme compared with earlier works that combines and inverts a large set of unwrapped interferograms to generate an accurate time series of the surface motion. This method statistically analyzes the interferometric phase noise to identify stable pixels. Then, it applies an iterative 2-D sparse phase unwrapping operator and low-pass filter to each interferogram to obtain reliable absolute phase changes. Moreover, it uses a re-weighted least squares approach to robustly estimate the time series of the surface motion, which is followed by a temporal low-pass filter that reduces the effects of atmospheric delay. During various stages of the analysis, this approach applies a variety of sophisticated wavelet-based filters to estimate the interferometric phase noise and to reduce the effects of systematic and random artefacts, such as spatially correlated and temporally uncorrelated components of the atmospheric delay, and the digital elevation model and orbital errors. To demonstrate the capability of this method for accurately measuring nonlinear surface motions, I analyze a large set of SAR data acquired by the ENVISAT satellite from 2003 through 2010 over the south flank of the Kilauea volcano, Hawaii. The validation test shows that my approach is able to retrieve the surface displacement with an average accuracy of 6.5 mm.


At the end of this month I'll be in Dusseldorf for a preview of what will be on show at Drupa. The international media conference will be addressed by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Heidelberg, Canon, Oce, EFI, Ricoh, Epson and Komori, to name but a few. Consensus appears to be that the show will highlight multi-channel communication and cloud computing, as well as a wide array of solutions for packaging. I can't wait to get my first glimpse of what Drupa has in store!


Let Us Dance is a collaboration between the artist and young female street dancers in their teens or 20s, selected individually and directly from Le Centquatre, Paris.

The artist offers space and time for the girls to dance, the girls are given the opportunity to create the artwork on their own. Here the completion of the work is entirely left in the girls' hands. Hierarchy and the authorship of the artist as well as the artwork and the role of art in the current socio-political climate are questioned through a vibrant piece of dance.

Let Us Dance was first introduced in PLATEAU, Seoul in 2014, and is revived by a different group of participants in Paris as part of South Korea Guest of Honour, Art Paris Art Fair 2016. Let Us Dance was kindly supported by NAVER.

Young In Hong
In collaboration with Charlie Boogie, Janice Bieleu, Kenza Amara, Scarnik & Sarahi Guaman

31 March - 2 April 2016, Grand Palais, Main Alley.


In the tumor microenvironment, TGF-β induces transdifferentiation of quiescent pericytes and related stromal cells into myofibroblasts that promote tumor growth and metastasis. The mechanisms governing myofibroblastic activation remain poorly understood, and its role in the tumor microenvironment has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that IQ motif containing GTPase activating protein 1 (IQGAP1) binds to TGF-β receptor II (TβRII) and suppresses TβRII-mediated signaling in pericytes to prevent myofibroblastic differentiation in the tumor microenvironment. We found that TGF-β1 recruited IQGAP1 to TβRII in hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), the resident liver pericytes. Iqgap1 knockdown inhibited the targeting of the E3 ubiquitin ligase SMAD ubiquitination regulatory factor 1 (SMURF1) to the plasma membrane and TβRII ubiquitination and degradation. Thus, Iqgap1 knockdown stabilized TβRII and potentiated TGF-β1 transdifferentiation of pericytes into myofibroblasts in vitro. Iqgap1 deficiency in HSCs promoted myofibroblast activation, tumor implantation, and metastatic growth in mice via upregulation of paracrine signaling molecules. Additionally, we found that IQGAP1 expression was downregulated in myofibroblasts associated with human colorectal liver metastases. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that IQGAP1 in the tumor microenvironment suppresses TβRII and TGF-β dependent myofibroblastic differentiation to constrain tumor growth.


Adverse and anomalous (A&A) events are a serious concern in medical robots. We describe a system that can rapidly detect such events and predict their occurrence. As part of this system, we describe simulation, data collection and user interface tools we build for a robot for small animal biopsies. The data we collect consists of both the hardware state of the robot and variables in the software controller. We use this data to train dynamic Bayesian network models of the joint hardware-software state-space dynamics of the robot. Our empirical evaluation shows that (i) our models can accurately model normal behavior of the robot, (ii) they can rapidly detect anomalous behavior once it starts, (iii) they can accurately predict a future A&A event within a time window of it starting and (iv) the use of additional software variables beyond the hardware state of the robot is important in being able to detect and predict certain kinds of events.


This review gives examples of emerging cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) techniques and applications that have the potential to transition from research to clinical application in the near future. Four-dimensional flow CMR (4D-flow CMR) allows time-resolved three-directional, three-dimensional (3D) velocity-encoded phase-contrast imaging for 3D visualisation and quantification of valvular or intracavity flow. Acquisition times of under 10 min are achievable for a whole heart multidirectional data set and commercial software packages are now available for data analysis, making 4D-flow CMR feasible for inclusion in clinical imaging protocols. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is based on the measurement of molecular water diffusion and uses contrasting behaviour in the presence and absence of boundaries to infer tissue structure. Cardiac DTI is capable of non-invasively phenotyping the 3D micro-architecture within a few minutes, facilitating transition of the method to clinical protocols. Hybrid positron emission tomography-magnetic resonance (PET-MR) provides quantitative PET measures of biological and pathological processes of the heart combined with anatomical, morphological and functional CMR imaging. Cardiac PET-MR offers opportunities in ischaemic, inflammatory and infiltrative heart disease.


This publication summarizes the first IIASA Policy Seminar, held in Laxenburg from 18-21 June 1979. The Seminar focussed on an approach to adaptive environmental assessment and management developed at IIASA and the University of British Columbia, Canada. During the past several years, the approach has been tested, implemented, and evaluated by a variety of government and industrial groups. The Seminar drew together senior administrators involved in these implementation experiments, with the goal of analyzing successes and failures of the approach, and determining priorities for its future improvement and promulgation. This publication consists of the short summary report prepared by the Seminar, and unedited copies of the background papers which individual participants had been asked to prepare.


Instance segmentation of biological images is essential for studying object behaviors and properties. The challenges, such as clustering, occlusion, and adhesion problems of the objects, make instance segmentation a non-trivial task. Current box-free instance segmentation methods typically rely on local pixel-level information. Due to a lack of global object view, these methods are prone to over- or under-segmentation. On the contrary, the box-based instance segmentation methods incorporate object detection into the segmentation, performing better in identifying the individual instances. In this paper, we propose a new box-based instance segmentation method. Mainly, we locate the object bounding boxes from their center points. The object features are subsequently reused in the segmentation branch as a guide to separate the clustered instances within an RoI patch. Along with the instance normalization, the model is able to recover the target object distribution and suppress the distribution of neighboring attached objects. Consequently, the proposed model performs excellently in segmenting the clustered objects while retaining the target object details. The proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performances on three biological datasets: cell nuclei, plant phenotyping dataset, and neural cells.


Background— Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and central sleep apnea are common in patients with heart failure. We hypothesized that in such patients, severity of OSA is related to overnight rostral leg fluid displacement and increase in neck circumference, severity of central sleep apnea is related to overnight rostral fluid displacement and to sleep Pco2, and continuous positive airway pressure alleviates OSA in association with prevention of fluid accumulation in the neck. Methods and Results— In 57 patients with heart failure (ejection fraction ≤45%), we measured change in leg fluid volume and neck circumference before and after polysomnography, and we measured transcutaneous Pco2 during polysomnography. Patients were divided into an obstructive-dominant group (≥50% of apneas and hypopneas obstructive) and a central-dominant group (>50% of events central). Patients with OSA received continuous positive airway pressure. In obstructive-dominant patients, there were inverse relationships between overnight change in leg fluid volume and both the overnight change in neck circumference (r=−0.780, P<0.001) and the apnea-hypopnea index (r=−0.881, P<0.001) but not transcutaneous Pco2. In central-dominant patients, the overnight reduction in leg fluid volume correlated inversely with the apnea-hypopnea index (r=−0.919, P<0.001) and the overnight change in neck circumference (r=−0.568, P=0.013) and directly with transcutaneous Pco2 (r=0.569, P=0.009). Continuous positive airway pressure alleviated OSA in association with prevention of the overnight increase in neck circumference (P<0.001). Conclusions— Our findings suggest that nocturnal rostral fluid shift is a unifying concept contributing to the pathogenesis of both OSA and central sleep apnea in patients with heart failure.


The Foundation Phase (introduced in 2008) provides a developmentally appropriate experiential curriculum for children aged 3-7 in Wales. The Welsh Government commissioned independent evaluation (led by WISERD) aims to evaluate how well it is being implemented, what impact it has had, and ways in which it can be improved. The three-year evaluation utilises a range of mixed methods at a national and local scale. This is one of four papers focused on implementation. It draws on 239 classroom/setting observations, 341 practitioner interviews, 604 school/setting and 671 Year 2 survey responses, 1,008 parent/carer survey responses, 37 Local Authority interviews, four nonmaintained organisation interviews and direct work with children.


The broad theme of the paper is one of concern over the apparently simplistic application of Anglophone valuation techniques into European markets. It will seek to examine this concern, and draw conclusions about its relevance with some suggestions for further research and discussion.

The paper has two broad areas of study, those of culture in general, and language in particular.

An investigation of the language used within the production of valuations produces an interesting diversity of meanings for the same words from different English sources. This leads to a variety of confusions within published works which too often seem to assume meanings that are far from clear. When these terms are then translated into foreign languages, real problems are encountered. Even when a single English meaning can be agreed upon, there is frequently no direct comparison in European languages [the paper tends to focus on German], which leads to severe problems of application. There seems to be genuine cause for concern in the application of English [British] valuation techniques under these circumstances.

Valuation terminology is clearly the product of the 250 years of development of economic thought since Adam Smith. The concepts of value clearly fall within those ideas developed by the neo /classical schools. There is thus a worry over the application of these techniques into economies that are not the product of Smith and his descendants, whose cultures are different. Here rules, norms and social perceptions make English valuation techniques an alien invader of traditional values. The resulting conflict may follow many routes, but is clearly a fundamental problem. Thus, language differences tend to signify major cultural ones that may provide major obstacles to the application of valuation techniques.

The paper then attempts to unify these two concerns into a valuation model. It draws from philosophy the notions of the private and public spheres of existence, and uses these to argue that there is a value fraction to all valuations that can only be seen in terms of a personal non-market value. These personal values can be literally personal, or seen as national (cultural) norms on value. Valuation techniques fail to recognise the

importance of these non-market values which are the result of utility and pleasure rather than price, cost or profitability. Serious consequences may flow from this inability or oversight.

The paper does not present clear-cut answers, but expresses doubts over the universal application across cultural boundaries of valuation techniques, and indeed, both the overwhelming desire and the practical ability to seek such values.


Introduction: In planning of radiosurgical therapy is crucial the precision in drawing target bearing and in demarcation to the risk structures. Shape and location of the tumor before the procedure can be previewed via 3D printing. 3D printing helps in deciding which modality of irradiation is the safest therapy for patient. It helps the surgeon to decide the way of radiotherapy (e.g. Linac treatment, Gamma knife, Cyberknife or proton beam irradiation). Material and Methods: Planning of stereotactic radiosurgery operation was performed by CT and MRI images. Files CT slices have, after the merger of CT and MRI images transferred to the virtual planning system. Subjectivity of manual plotting that makes neurosurgeon using a 3D model helps to visualize and optimize treatment. Specifically, 3D visualizations and 3D printing was performed by the software to segment data. We have created a 3D model of the tumor with visible anatomical structures of the brain. 3D printing technology we used software TomoCon from TatraMed and corresponding 3D printer. Conclusion: 3D printing increases the exactness of focusing on the planning procedure, determine the effective therapeutic dose, it affects the calculation of the lowest dose in risk structure and effectiveness of radiation treatment in order to preserve the highest quality of life after surgery.


This study discusses from the theoretical standpoint the analyses of heterosis and combining ability from the partial diallel. Aiming at to investigate the information provided by the genetic parameters, simulation studies were realized. The genetic model adjusted considered one gene, groups of six populations, three degrees of dominance (|d/a| equal to 0.5, 1 and 2, representing partial, complete and overdominance) and random allelic frequencies. For each degree of dominance 50 replications were performed. The model for heterosis analysis does not need to be restricted. The unrestricted model gives the same information as the restricted one. The model for combining ability is restricted. The restrictions of the partial-G2 model of GERALDI and MIRANDA-FILHO do not satisfy the parametric values of the specific combining ability effects. As in the complete diallel analysis, from the theoretical point of view there is no differences between the analysis of heterosis and combining ability. The analysis of differences in gene frequencies among the populations of the two groups is more efficient when it considers the heterosis and not the specific heterosis - or the specific heterosis effects or the effects of specific combining ability - mainly for genes whose frequencies are contrasting in the groups.


It has long been assumed that Octactis and Stephanocha (previously known as Distephanus) are closely related. Both have apical rings, but with Octactis possessing an apical ring of larger diameter relative to the basal ring and made of thinner elements. However, closer examination of the basal rings and double skeletons (doublets) shows other differences that have received little attention. The location of the struts and pikes on each side of the Neogene Stephanocha basal ring are consistently rotated towards the basal corners. This establishes a distinct basal element between the struts and pikes that is tilted to form a zig-zag basal design that creates an interlocking of the doublet skeletons. The pikes project into the region of the paired skeleton and the apical ring is also rotated with respect to the basal ring. In contrast, Octactis has a flatter basal ring without pikes, and possesses strut attachments located midway between the corners with the doublet held together only by organic material. Recent examination of living Octactis from the Seto Inland Sea of southern Japan provides a better understanding about the variability and structure of Octactis skeletons than previously available. Among these are double skeletons that have an incompletely formed daughter that consists only of the basal ring. The older literature includes line drawings that illustrate similar double skeletons, but these have not been previously photographed or adequately understood. Such skeletons are also found singly after disarticulation, and have a strong resemblance to those of fossil Bachmannocena (formerly known as Mesocena), which also has a flat basal ring lacking apical structures and pikes. The hypothesis that Octactis evolved from Bachmannocena rather than from Stephanocha is presented, with the possible evolution of an apical ring in Bachmannocena accounting for the differences between the skeletal morphologies of Octactis and Stephanocha.


Social and environmental issues are more important than ever and consumers are committed to supporting change. 'Doing good' is no longer a peripheral activity but fundamental to every aspect of how we do business, every day, for everyone.

 People, Planet, Profit is the first book to truly address business growth in the context of social and environmental concerns. It's a practical guide to new business opportunity, operational improvement and competitive advantage. Full of inspiring case studies, it looks at the challenges faced by key players such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Nike, Amazon, M&S and Walmart. With plenty of comments from industry insiders, it's essential reading for CEOs and business managers who are searching for new ways to create value, to make sense of business in a rapidly shifting landscape, and to deliver profitable growth whilst also doing 'the right thing'.


We describe a system for robustly estimating synthetic depth maps in unconstrained images and videos, for semi-automatic conversion into stereoscopic 3D. Currently, this process is automatic or done manually by rotoscopers. Automatic is the least labor intensive, but makes user intervention or error correction difficult. Manual is the most accurate, but time consuming and costly. Noting the merits of both, a semi-automatic method blends them together, allowing for faster and accurate conversion. This requires user-defined strokes on the image, or over several keyframes for video, corresponding to a rough estimate of the depths. After, the rest of the depths are determined, creating depth maps to generate stereoscopic 3D content, with Depth Image Based Rendering to generate the artificial views. Depth map estimation can be considered as a multi-label segmentation problem: each class is a depth. For video, we allow the user to label only the first frame, and we propagate the strokes using computer vision techniques. We combine the merits of two well-respected segmentation algorithms: Graph Cuts and Random Walks. The diffusion from Random Walks, with the edge preserving of Graph Cuts should give good results. We generate good quality content, more suitable for perception, compared to a similar framework.


There is an ongoing challenge in defining African theology because of two important reasons: (1) the quest for a definitive African theology is a fairly recent pursuit and (2) the vastness and diversity of the African continent. Given this, this article presents the complexity of defining African theology and its methodological approaches through a background sketch of the development of African theology. Regardless of many definitions of African theology and its purposes, the article acknowledges African Christian theology as theology that should be derived from the interplay between Scripture, Christian tradition and African cosmology. In deriving theology from the aforementioned aspects, African theology should also seek to develop contextual African theologies with global relevance. In this way, African theology can claim its space in the universal church. Although we are conscious of the values and challenges associated with the task of doing African theology, we argue for its necessity. We further argue that if the centrality of Scripture is maintained in the African theological endeavour, it will cause African theologies to have some shared reference point with other Christian theologies and hence engaging globally, while contributing unique African perspectives to global theological discourse.


Kicks from the penalty mark (official term for the "penalty shootout") are regularly featured in major soccer tournaments to determine the outcome of tied games. Based on the contingency-competence-control (CCC) model (Weisz & Stipek, 1982), this study provides an examination of the control beliefs and anxiety experienced by 10 elite soccer players in the context of a major tournament penalty shootout. Measures included interview questions and CSAI-2R (Cox, Martens, & Russell 2003) with direction instructions (Jones & Swain, 1992). The results gave some support to the model's predictions. The quantitative analyses demonstrated that perceived contingency and competence correlated with anxiety. For example, believing that outcome is based on luck was associated with debilitative interpretation Of somatic anxiety symptoms. Most findings were supported by the qualitative analyses. The CCC-model can be useful for researchers endeavouring to learn more about perceived control in competitive sport.


FAS is a speech disorder characterized by changes to the normal speech patterns of the native language. This speech impairment is usually due to stroke or brain injury. Segmental, suprasegmental and prosodic features are altered. FAS speakers' speech is perceived as foreign rather than disordered. It may be because the speech remains highly accurate and the impairments are generally within the permissible boundaries of the phonological and phonetic variants of the language. In terms of perceptual impression, FAS patients' speech is placed between speakers with a really foreign accent and the native speaker. Some researchers propose that the impression of foreignness in FAS speakers' accent may be caused by the listeners misinterpretation of speech markers. Lesions leading to FAS are still not completely understood; some hypothesize that the lesion is small or even down to the size of a single gyrus. New evidence suggests that FAS may be a disorder of the articulate velocity and position maps. The syndrome can be life changing to those affected. Patients report that they are no longer able to recognize themselves speaking a new accent. A whole new persona is born when the accent emerges. This paper presents a review of the syndrome's features, including its neuropsychological/neuroanatomic aspects, its relationship with AoS and dysarthria, and the syndrome's psychological implications.


Terrorist groups have yet to attract the same level of academic interest as other social movement organizations (SMOs), although they are well suited to the analytical approach pioneered by Ted Gurr, Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Social constructivism offers a valuable frame with which to assess state responses to terrorism. Carlos Marighela argued that one of the principal goals of the urban guerrilla was to goad the state into a spasm of overreaction that would undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the public. This article takes Marighela's concept one step further, arguing that by adopting repressive counterterrorism policies, democratic states "socially construct" more resilient, more aggressive terrorist organizations. Like Hercules' antagonist Antaeas in Greek mythology, terrorist groups draw their strength from their surrounding environment. Successful counterterrorism strategies erode popular support for terrorism and unsuccessful ones contribute to it. This paper examines the experiences of five democratic states—the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Israel—from this perspective and concludes that when confronting terrorism, the greatest challenge of all is to adopt and maintain a measured response to terrorist outrages.


Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable malignant disease of the terminal developmental stage of B-lymphocytes. While genetic heterogeneity of MM is widely described, little is known about its genetic basis as well as primary damage during plasma cells (PC) development. In this study, we focused on genome-wide screening of DNA copy number changes using oligonucleotide-based array-CGH together with I-FISH of the IgH locus rearrangements in pair samples of bone marrow B-cells (CD19+) and CD138+ PC from newly diagnosed MM patients. The IgH disruption was found in 8.9% (4/45) of CD19+ samples and in 57.8% (26/45) of CD138+ samples. The genomic profiling using array-CGH identified copy number alterations (CNAs) in 10% (2/20) of CD19+ samples in regions known to be important for MM pathogenesis. In contrast, we found CNAs in 100% (16/16) of CD138+ samples. Most common chromosomal abnormalities were trisomies of odd-numbered chromosomes (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 15, 19 and 21), gain 1q, gain Xq and monosomy of chromosome 13. We did not find any correlation between incidence of CNAs in CD19+ and CD138+ cells. In conclusion, effective utilization of FISH and array-CGH can identify genetic lesions in premalignant stages leading to better understanding and characterization of MM.


OBJECTIVE
The authors compared the effectiveness of cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy as second-step strategies for outpatients with major depressive disorder who had received inadequate benefit from an initial trial of citalopram. Cognitive therapy was compared with medication augmentation and switch strategies.

METHOD
An equipoise-stratified randomization strategy was used to assign participants to either augmentation of citalopram with cognitive therapy (N=65) or medication (N=117; either sustained-release bupropion [N=56] or buspirone [N=61]) or switch to cognitive therapy (N=36) or another antidepressant (N=86; sertraline [N=27], sustained-release bupropion [N=28], or extended-release venlafaxine [N=31]). Treatment outcomes and the frequency of adverse events were compared.

RESULTS
Less than one-third of participants consented to randomization strata that permitted comparison of cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy. Among participants who were assigned to second-step treatment, those who received cognitive therapy (either alone or in combination with citalopram) had similar response and remission rates to those assigned to medication strategies. For those who continued on citalopram, medication augmentation resulted in significantly more rapid remission than augmentation with cognitive therapy. Among those who discontinued citalopram, there were no significant differences in outcome, although those who switched to a different antidepressant reported significantly more side effects than those who received cognitive therapy alone.

CONCLUSIONS
After an unsatisfactory response to citalopram, patients who consented to random assignment to either cognitive therapy or alternative pharmacologic strategies had generally comparable outcomes. Pharmacologic augmentation was more rapidly effective than cognitive therapy augmentation of citalopram, whereas switching to cognitive therapy was better tolerated than switching to a different antidepressant.


The link between alcohol use and poor pregnancy outcome may have been observed for thousands of years, as described in a contribution to this issue of the journal by Brown et al. Although scientific evidence of the teratogenic effects of alcohol was published 45 years ago, and the awareness about this has increased since then, little has been achieved to effectively prevent the harms of alcohol use during pregnancy. Moreover, as is shown in another article in this issue by the same authors, there is still no universally accepted diagnostic tool available for the range of syndromes named fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The slow pace of actions in the field is blamed on the relative scarcity of research on FASD, which may have serious implications for appropriate planning, policy, and practices in the field. There are probably few if any diseases or disabilities with such broad and appalling consequences in humanitarian, social, and economic terms as FASD. It can affect the whole body including a range of deficiencies from lifelong brain trauma and from disabling physical conditions. Its burden not only is seen in health care but also stretches into many other sectors of the society, such as the educational, social, and legal systems for which the economic implications are huge. In Canada, there are an estimated 350,000 people living with FASD and about 4000 babies born with FASD annually based on a conservative prevalence rate of 1% at the population level. The total annual cost of FASD in Canada has recently been estimated at about $9.4 billion, most of which falls within criminal justice: the police, the courts, the correctional, and victim services. The reason for FASD is known and preventable. It is caused by alcohol exposure to the embryo/fetus during pregnancy. Alcohol easily crosses the placenta and may cause cell damage and interfere with developing organs, for example, the brain and the spinal cord. Several organs are sensitive to alcohol exposure during all stages of pregnancy. However, a spectrum indicates varying degrees of severity. The most severe alcohol-induced birth defects, which may shorten the average life expectancy to about 34 years, are a result of very heavy prenatal exposure. However, the volume of alcohol consumed during pregnancy does not seem to be the only factor determining whether trauma is caused to the developing child. As stated by a prominent researcher in FASD cell biology and physiology, the "variability from individual to individual with respect to genetic background, as well as in exposure to other predisposing or protective environmental factors makes it difficult, if not impossible, to define a universally safe maternal dose of alcohol. . . . With much of embryogenesis occurring prior to the time that pregnancy is typically recognized, unintended alcohol exposure is common" (p. 38). A developing child who has been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy may experience neurological disorders including cognitive deficiencies such as problems with memory, learning, attention, and social communication. FASD is in general not visible; however, for a fraction of the disorders (fetal alcohol syndrome [FAS] accounting for between 10% and 30% of all FASDs in most studies), there are often specific signs, such as malformations of the face and growth retardations. People born with FASD may also experience several physical diseases and impairments during the life span, such as, for example, heart defects, kidney failure, hearing loss, gastroenteritis, pneumonia, bronchitis, epilepsy, sleeplessness, and bone and joint problems. FASD is also related to a higher risk of secondary disabilities such as dropping out of school, disrupting family and placement, becoming unemployed or homeless, abusing alcohol and drugs, and, not least, being involved with the criminal justice system. Without appropriate support for people with FASD, it can be devastating for the individual, the family,


Solids handling can contribute to a significant portion of the operational costs of a wastewater treatment plant, contributing up to 50% of the total expenses in certain instances. Sludge dewatering and drying therefore become necessary not only from the operational perspective, but also from the economical viewpoint. The J-Vap process combines the above-mentioned processes, by pressure filtration of sludge followed by application of vacuum and heat. However, when cationic polymer conditioned sludge is dewatered in the J-Vap, the polymer is suspected to interact with the filter media at high temperatures, resulting in the formation of a skin layer that hinders efficient dewatering. The first part of the study has looked at various digestion processes and how they affect the skin formation phenomenon. The results showed that temperature played a significant role in determining the amount of polymer that adhered to the filter media. The second part of the study focused on different kinds of digestion processes and their effects on extracellular polymeric substances, bound water content and dewatering. Bound water tests were used to determine the maximum achievable solids concentration on dewatering. Bound water content of solids obtained from field centrifuges run at different torques and g values were evaluated and fitted on a standard graph obtained from lab pressed sludge with different solids concentration. The bound water was seen to decrease with increasing solids content till 20%, after which a nearly constant 1.0 g of bound water was present for every gram of dry solids seen. The results indicate that nearly 50% solids concentration could be achieved on mechanical dewatering. In reality, only 30 to 35% solids concentration was attained both in the lab and on the field. It was determined that dilatometry attributed the increase in cake solids to the decrease in bound water. However, the use of bound water as a predictive tool for determining cake solids was not practical since the bound water calculations use the solids content in the calculations.


The basal ganglia are a dynamic neural network of telencephalic subcortical nuclei, involved in adaptive control of behaviour. There has been much experimental evidence on the anatomy and physiology of the basal ganglia published over the last 25 years showing that the basal ganglia are involved in the learning of many adaptive behaviours, including motor planning, working memory and cognitive functions. Current qualitative basal ganglia models of the box and arrow type, whilst explaining much of the anatomical data, do not give enough insight into the mechanisms involved in basal ganglia function either in health or in disease states. The striatum is the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia, integrating widespread cortical and thalamic inputs to perform behaviour selection. Convergent data from control theory learning models and experimental data have shown that the phasic dopamine signal in the striatum could be performing a similar function to a scalar teaching signal in reinforcement learning models, both signals indicating the occurrence of reward. Similarly, both models and electrophysiological data have shown how the timing of this reward signal can be changed during learning so as to occur at the point in time of the earliest predictor of forthcoming reward. These models do not, however, show how this teaching signal is used in the striatum to learn to select the action most likely to lead to reward. Computational models have been produced to investigate the circuitry involved in striatal action selection. These models have tended to be of winner-takes-all networks, using a mechanism of recurrent lateral inhibition between the medium spiny cells of the striatum to select the winner and thus releasing the behavioural action judged to be correct in the current environmental context. However, the necessary biological circuitry to implement a winner-takes-all network is absent in the striatum. This leads to a requirement for new models of striatal function incorporating current biological data to provide a more realistic mechanism for behavioural selection. This thesis develops a biophysically inspired, minimal current model of a striatal medium spiny neuron which utilises transitions between two membrane potential states, both below firing threshold, to filter excitatory input. The behaviour of the model is first validated against experimental electrophysiological data and then used to demonstrate how the striatum could perform two of the tasks required for behaviour selection; accurately timed release of behaviours and learning a sequence of action selections to obtain reward. In the first series of simulations timed release of behaviours is demonstrated to be linearly related to the timing of firing of feedforward inhibitory interneurons. In a second set of simulations learned sequences of action selection, using a simulated dopamine reward signal, are shown in a reward location task performed by a small network of model medium spiny striatal neurons. Taken together these studies show that this simple model of a striatal medium spiny neuron is capable of simulating the basic functionality required for behaviour selection in a manner which has greater biological plausibility than previously published models.


The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between decision-making, values, and leadership. The study argues that the values of individual leaders can shape the processes of decision-making. Participant observation, content analysis of institutional archives, and structured interview methods are utilized in nine American nonprofit institutions that represent three major faiths in the country, namely Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. The study indicates there are four major organizational values that can characterize decision-making, namely emphasis on learning, balancing human and organizational interests, mutuality, and self-criticism. The study reports that these values create an organizational culture that dominates the decision-making process, and makes it a cultural phenomenon within the institution. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and their relationship with organizational change. INTRODUCTION1 One of the major responsibilities that board members in nonprofit institutions perform is decision-making, which is a daily function. However, making decisions is not a mechanic matter, rather, it is a human activity in which people's values are involved. The dynamics between decision-making and decision makers' values gains special importance in nonprofit institutions (or faith-based, interchangeably). This is because the constituents of the institution give a mandate of decision-making to elected officers who make the management board. These officers perform their unpaid, volunteering jobs as leaders. Their leadership stems from their legal status as representatives of their community abiding by the institution's bylaws, as well as from their efficacy and ability to dedicate their time and energy to serve the institution voluntarily and devotedly (see, Yaghi, 2007). American nonprofit organizations that perform faith-based services, such as Islamic centers (mosques), Hindu temples, and churches represent a major element of the American communitybased institutions. Since the early 1900s, American faith-based institutions continue to serve a growing clientele (constituency) in all states (Zogby, 2000; ISNA, 2004; Eck, 2001). Since the clientele is diverse as well as the scope of services the institutions provide is also diverse, there is a need to understand how things are decided about and who can influence these decisions. Therefore, decision-making becomes a central organizational function, which may influence planning, staffing, budgeting, as well as other organizational aspects. Decisions also affect members of the organization because they are either the ones who make decisions or the ones who are subjected to them. Due to this role of decision-making, some researchers argue that decision-making processes or outcomes can be different when the content of decisions is different. Decisionmaking, however, can also be influenced by other factors, such as organizational culture. The present study explores the organizational culture within nine nonprofit or faith-based institutions and they include: three Islamic mosques, three Hindu temples, and three Christian protestant churches. All these institutions are in the southeastern region of the US In particular, the study examines the relationship between decision-making and the values carried by board members (including institutions head or chairpersons). In doing so, the present study attempts to explain how the values of leaders can be essential in shaping decision-making processes and outcomes. The study utilizes Bozeman and Pandey's model of decision content as a general framework within which the dynamics of organizational culture-decision making are examined (see, Bozeman and Pandey, 2004). This paper also builds on the findings of a case study by Yaghi (2007), who asserts that organizational culture in Islamic centers in the US is a major determinant of decision-making, in addition to other factors. …


Inflammatory demyelinating lesions of the central nervous system are a common feature of both neuromyelitis optica and multiple sclerosis. Despite this similarity, it is evident clinically that the accumulation of disability in patients with neuromyelitis optica is relapse related and that a progressive phase is very uncommon. This poses the question whether there is any pathological evidence of disease activity or neurodegeneration in neuromyelitis optica between relapses. To investigate this we conducted a longitudinal advanced MRI study of the brain and spinal cord in neuromyelitis optica patients, comparing to patients with multiple sclerosis and controls. We found both cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence of diffusely distributed neurodegenerative surrogates in the multiple sclerosis group (including thalamic atrophy, cervical cord atrophy and progressive widespread diffusion and myelin water imaging abnormalities in the normal appearing white matter) but not in those with neuromyelitis optica, where localised abnormalities in the optic radiations of those with severe visual impairment were noted. In addition, between relapses, there were no new silent brain lesions in the neuromyelitis optica group. These findings indicate that global central nervous system neurodegeneration is not a feature of neuromyelitis optica. The work also questions the theory that neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis is a chronic sequela to prior inflammatory and demyelinating pathology, as this has not been found to be the case in neuromyelitis optica where the lesions are often more destructive.


In this work, role of nonadiabatic untrapped electrons in the context of a global ion temperature gradient driven mode has been investigated. In past studies, untrapped electrons have been assumed to be able to respond "instantaneously" to a disturbance. It is proposed that such adiabatic electron models should be reexamined for two important reasons: (i) It is known that global modes with n in the range of 3 <= n <= 15 (n is the toroidal mode number) have eigenmode widths spanning several mode-rational surfaces. It is being argued that close to these mode-rational surfaces, adiabatic electron models fail and a consistent treatment of nonadiabatic electrons is crucial for global modes. (ii) Electromagnetic effects depend on passing nonadiabatic electron dynamics. A minimal nontrivial model for the benchmarking of global linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic codes in the future becomes necessary, which can treat both passing ions and electrons on the same physics footing. As a first step, a study of the effect of nonadiabatic passing electrons in global electrostatic ion temperature gradients is presented. Interesting results include a demonstration of multiscale structure, downshift in critical eta(i) with increasing eta(e), and a reduction in mixing-length based transport. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.


When the economy is in such bad shape, any of us who has a job is fortunate. Human resource managers and practitioners are concerned with whether employees are contributing to the organization's Strategy, goals, and priorities or not, as well as how to proceed with the recruiting and selection process, employee engagement, and training and development programs, as a consequence of the pandemic of Covid-19. Organizations all over the world are in a difficult situation; for the first time in history, the value of a barrel of oil dropped to less than zero on April 20, 2020; the only explanation for this is the ongoing global lockdown. The actual workplace has been transformed into a virtual workplace, and HR managers are now pondering how to effectively involve workers. The aim of this paper was to clarify how employee engagement affects organizational efficiency within Covid-19 pandemic and shed the light on all the factors and provide a set of managerial implications to the professionals.


During the grid synchronization of distributed generation (DG) units, phase-locked loop (PLL) is well accepted as an efficient approach to detect grid phase angle. Conventional PLL schemes used in DG controller have to compromise between steady-state accuracy and transient dynamics when grid voltage is polluted by unbalance and harmonics. To simultaneously realize good steady-state and transient performances, this paper proposes a general delayed signal cancellation (DSC) operator, which can be tailored to eliminate any specified harmonic. The proposed DSC operator can be further cascaded to stepwise reject all undesired harmonics. Then the conditioned voltage signal can be used in PLL loop to achieve fast transient response at high control bandwidth without suffering from the steady-state error caused by harmonics. Based on differently configured DSC operators, two PLL designs are then developed, namely CDSC-PLL1 and CDSC-PLL2. Specifically, CDSC-PLL1 is aimed for grid voltage with unbalance and odd/even harmonics, while CDSC-PLL2 further addresses asymmetrical harmonics, i.e., harmonics arising from asymmetrically distorted three-phase voltages. By introducing a frequency feedback loop, the proposed PLL can operate properly during considerable frequency variations, even when a phase jump or severe harmonics are also present. All proposed PLL designs have very simple structure and can be easily implemented. The superior performance is confirmed by experimental results.


In her reflections on cultural memory, which "is based on communication through media," Astrid Erll uses the term "remediation" in order to "refer to the fact that memorable events are usually represented again and again, over decades and centuries, in different media: in newspaper articles, photography, diaries, historiography, novels, films, etc." Some of these events may even become sites of memory. In my article, in relation to cultural memory studies, I contemplate the genocide of the Yezidis in the Sinǧār district, which was committed by ISIS militants in August 2014 and in the following months, as reflected in four Iraqi novels written in the Arabic language. They are: Raqṣat al-ǧadīla wa-an-nahr ("The Dance of the Braid and the River", 2015) by Wafā' 'Abd ar-Razzāq, 'Aḏrā' Sinǧār ("Sinǧār's Virgin", 2016) by Wārid Badr as-Sālim, Šamdīn ("Šamdīn", 2016) by Rāsim Qāsim, and Šaẓāyā Fayrūz ("The Shattered Fragments of Fayrūz", 2017) by Nawzat Šamdīn. By analysing the ways in which these writers depict ISIS persecution of the Yezidis, I aim to answer, among others, the following questions: What are their reasons for a literary documentation of these events? Is the iconic image of the genocide which emerges in the four novels similar to that outlined in the West media coverage? Therefore, the first part of the article concentrates on attitudes of the above-mentioned Iraqi writers to the Sinǧār tragedy. In the second part, the plots of their novels are briefly described with the focus on how the reality intermingles with fiction. In the third and in the fourth parts, literary modes of expression, which serve to create a symbolic resistance of Yezidi victims against their oppressors, by giving them voice and showing alternative realities and fantastic events, are examined.


Background Latino children are at increased risk for mirconutrient deficiencies and problems of overweight and obesity. Exposures in pregnancy and early postpartum may impact future growth trajectories. Objectives To evaluate the relationship between prenatal and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms experienced in pregnancy and infant growth from birth to 2 years of age in a cohort of Latino infants. Methods We recruited pregnant Latina mothers at two San Francisco hospitals and followed their healthy infants to 24 months of age. At 6, 12 and 24 months of age, infants were weighed and measured. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed prenatally and at 4-6 weeks postpartum. Women who had high depressive symptoms at both time periods were defined as having chronic depression. Logistic mixed models were applied to compare growth curves and risk for overweight and underweight based on exposure to maternal depression. Results We followed 181 infants to 24 months. At 12 and 24 months, respectively, 27.4% and 40.5% were overweight, and 5.6% and 2.2% were underweight. Exposure to chronic maternal depression was associated with underweight (OR = 12.12, 95%CI 1.86-78.78) and with reduced weight gain in the first 2 years of life (Coef = -0.48, 95% CI -0.94—0.01) compared with unexposed infants or infants exposed to episodic depression (depression at one time point). Exposure to chronic depression was also associated with reduced risk for overweight in the first 2 years of life (OR 0.28, 95%CI 0.03-0.92). Conclusions Exposure to chronic maternal depression in the pre- and postnatal period was associated with reduced weight gain in the first two years of life and greater risk for failure to thrive, in comparison with unexposed infants or those exposed episodically. The infants of mothers with chronic depression may need additional nutritional monitoring and intervention.


The modal and group birefringence of a hybrid photonic crystal fiber (hybrid PCF) and the sensitivities of modal birefringence of hybrid PCF to strain and temperature are investigated. The hybrid PCF composes of air-holes and Ge-doped silica rods surrounding a silica core region and light is confined to the core by hybrid index-guiding and photonic bandgap effects. A theoretical model was established and used to calculate these birefringence properties as functions of Ge concentration and diameter of the Ge-doped region. In experiments, the birefringence properties of a hybrid PCF made by University of Bath were measured by using a Sagnac interferometer. The experimental results show that the sensitivities of fringe minimum of this Sagnac interferometer to strain and temperature, at the wavelength of 1550 nm, were 2.01 nm/m and 0.334 nm/°C, respectively, which agree well with the theoretical predictions. The model may be used to design hybrid PCFs with desired birefringence properties.


Agricultural management practices geared towards reducing nutrient leaching are in focus for the research presented in this thesis. Critical measures for reducing diffuse pollution from the agricultural sector depend on decisions of individual farmers. It is useful to take stock of what different stakeholders are actually doing to reduce nutrient leaching and analyze their reasoning before defining a new administrative process. Stakeholder perceptions about potentials and problems concerning management of agricultural practices are analyzed with a systems approach using various analytical methods, and put in relation to the implementation of EC Water Framework Directive in Sweden. The methods used include surveys, focus group interviews, model comparison, sensitivity analyses and analyses of climate change implications.The results indicate a general positive attitude among stakeholders towards the main characteristics of the newly introduced directive. They also reveal that a move towards a pro-active process was perceived as an additional positive factor for the improvement of water quality, where specific activities and measures are carried out according to planning based on local assessments. The respondents pointed out that a national approach would put necessary pressure on local politicians to define environmental objectives and provide resources to fulfil them. The current findings indicate that decision making for farmers is a complex procedure and that the different factors need to be addressed in order to obtain a change in agricultural practices.Consistent legislation that is clear about power and rights is fundamental for cooperation to function when volunteerism and enthusiasm are absent. Environmental and socio-economic conditions change constantly, and administration has to be flexible to be able to adapt. Having access to and being able to use relevant data is only one important factor for stakeholder involvement. To give farmers the opportunity to further develop production towards reduced nutrient losses, appropriate information provided in all the right arenas is crucial.


This study explores the impact of a particular low marginal-cost employee benefit on employees' intended retention and performance. By utilizing a unique data set constructed by surveying full-time faculty and staff members at a public university in the United States, we study the impact of this employee benefit on faculty and staff performance and retention. We focus on the impact of reduction in dependent college tuition at various levels on employees' intentions to work harder and stay at their current job by using both OLS and Ordered Probit models. We also simulate the direct opportunity cost (reduction in revenue) in dollars and as a percent of total budgeted revenue to facilitate administrative decision making. The results provide evidence that for institutions where employee retention and productivity are a priority, maximizing or offering dependent college tuition waiver may be a relatively low-cost benefit to increase intended retention and productivity. In addition, the amount of the tuition waiver, number of dependents and annual salary are statistically significant predictors of intended increased productivity and intent to stay employed at the current institution. Employee retention and productivity is a challenge for all organizations. Although pay, benefits, and organizational culture tend to be key indicators of job satisfaction, little attention is given to specific types of benefits. This study is the first comprehensive attempt to explore the relationship between the impact of this low-cost employee benefit and employee performance and retention in a higher education institution in the United States.


Mutant forms of the kinase LRRK2 contribute to neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease by phosphorylating amyloid precursor protein. The amyloid connection in Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder marked by motor control impairments and, eventually, dementia due to the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain. Activating mutations in the kinase LRRK2 are among the most common genetic associations with the disease. Chen et al. discovered why activating LRRK2 mutations are toxic to neurons. Mutant LRRK2 phosphorylated amyloid precursor protein (APP) at a residue within a cleaved region called the APP intracellular domain (AICD). Analysis of a mouse model, patient-derived neurons, and postmortem brain tissue suggests that phosphorylation of APP increases its nuclear translocation and transcriptional activity, leading to the loss of dopaminergic neurons. Inhibiting LRRK2 or blocking APP cleavage might be therapeutic in patients. The findings also connect the pathologies of PD and Alzheimer's disease, in which dementia is commonly associated with the production of another cleavage product of APP, amyloid-β. Mutations in LRRK2, which encodes leucine-rich repeat kinase 2, are the most common genetic cause of familial and sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD), a degenerative disease of the central nervous system that causes impaired motor function and, in advanced stages, dementia. Dementia is a common symptom of another neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's disease, and research suggests that there may be pathophysiological and genetic links between the two diseases. Aggregates of β amyloid [a protein produced through cleavage of amyloid precursor protein (APP)] are seen in both diseases and in PD patients carrying G2019S-mutant LRRK2. Using patient-derived cells, brain tissue, and PD model mice, we found that LRRK2 interacted with and phosphorylated APP at Thr668 within its intracellular domain (AICD). Phosphorylation of APP at Thr668 promoted AICD transcriptional activity and correlated with increased nuclear abundance of AICD and decreased abundance of a dopaminergic neuron marker in cultures and brain tissue. The AICD regulates the transcription of genes involved in cytoskeletal dynamics and apoptosis. Overexpression of AICD, but not a phosphodeficient mutant (AICDT668A), increased the loss of dopaminergic neurons in older mice expressing LRRK2G2019S. Moreover, the amount of Thr668-phosphorylated APP was substantially greater in postmortem brain tissue and dopaminergic neurons (generated by reprogramming skin cells) from LRRK2G2019S patients than in those from healthy individuals. LRRK2 inhibitors reduced the phosphorylation of APP at Thr668 in the patient-derived dopaminergic neurons and in the midbrains of LRRK2G2019S mice. Thus, APP is a substrate of LRRK2, and its phosphorylation promotes AICD function and neurotoxicity in PD.


A 3-D boundary integral method (3-D BIM) capable of analyzing eddy currents in thin shields is presented. This novel approach is formulated in terms of loop currents in order to implicitly fulfill the div-free condition for quasi-magnetostatic problems. Using nonorthogonal dual grids unknowns are defined on nodes, resulting in a very efficient formulation with limited memory requirements. The proposed method is tested on an axisymmetric model showing a good agreement with the analytical solution. 3-D BIM is then applied to analyze a real case of low-frequency magnetic shielding


This thesis presents a novel approach to automatically mark programming assignments. We hypothesize that correct student solution ASTs will be more similar to reference solution ASTs than incorrect student solutions and that their similarities can be quantitatively measured. Our approach first preprocesses the ASTs before computing their tree edit distances. We then aggregate the student's set of edit distances from every reference solution into a final mark for the student. We have implemented our approach in our ClangAutoMarker tool. Our experiments demonstrate promising potential for reducing a human marker's workload but further refinements are needed before its accuracy can be suitable for a live classroom.


Consumer bankruptcy filings hit another record high in 1998, with nearly 1.4 million consumers filing for bankruptcy relief. This trend sparked a debate in Congress about means-testing chapter 7 bankruptcy filings. Proponents of reform argued that it would curtail fraud and abuse. Opponents believed that consumer debt was swamping income growth, and that the deregulation of the consumer credit market had led to overgenerous lending and hence to more bankruptcies. This is an empirical study of whether filers for chapter 13 bankruptcy cases are abusing the system, or whether debtors are truly being swamped by debt in excess of their incomes. It finds that a large percentage of chapter 13 filers had previously filed for bankruptcy, indicating the potential for abuse of the system's provision of an automatic stay of collections. It also finds, however, that the vast majority of debtors were in desperate need of debt relief, and that most had most incomes or lived in poverty. This study also challenges the basic premises of the Bankruptcy Code by concluding that unsecured creditors are collecting a small percentage of their claims in chapter 13, so that chapter 13 may not be an effective procedure for the collection of unsecured debt as contemplated by the Code. Most debtors are using chapter 13 to deal with secured creditors, who collected 90% of all chapter 13 payments in the study. Perhaps the most striking finding is that successful debtors owed more secured debt than "failed" debtors.


Abstract Many signaling events induced by ovarian steroid hormones, cytokines, and growth factors are involved in the process of decidualization of human and rodent endometrium. We have reported previously that tyrosine kinase activation of SRC functionally participates in decidualization of human endometrial stromal cells. To address its essential role in decidualization, we examined, using wild-type and Src knockout mice, whether the process of decidualization was impaired in the absence of SRC. Immunohistochemistry using an antibody specific for the active form of SRC revealed that the active SRC was expressed prominently in the decidualizing stromal cells of the pregnant wild-type mouse. Moreover, the active SRC was upregulated in the uterine horn with artificially stimulated decidual reaction. In comparison with wild-type and Src heterozygous mice, the uterus of Src null mice showed no apparent decidual response following artificial stimulation. Ovarian steroid-induced decidualization in vitro, as determined by morphological changes and expression of decidual/trophoblast prolactin-related protein and prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (also known as Cox2), both of which are decidualization markers, did not occur in a timely fashion in endometrial stromal cells isolated from the uteri of SRC-deficient mice compared to those from wild-type and Src heterozygous mice. Our results collectively suggest that SRC is an indispensable signaling component for maximal decidualization in mice.


The literature on innovation management underlines the necessity to separate the exploratory unit that builds new businesses on the basis of radical innovation from the exploitation unit that emphasizes continuous improvement. However, little research focuses on the exploratory unit in itself: the very nature of its activity, its composition, etc. The aim of this article is to analyse the exploratory unit in mobilizing results highlighted by research on organizational creativity. It is argued that in order to enhance discontinuous innovation, knowledge combination should occur and be facilitated in the exploratory unit. Hence, the research question is what organizational design at a fine-grained level and creativity processes are likely to enhance knowledge combination and thus discontinuous innovation? Based on an in-depth study of an exploratory unit created in an established multidivisional firm pursuing the development of discontinuous innovation and which generated several actual breakthroughs, we highlighted four key factors that enhanced knowledge combination: (i) the definition of the scope of the unit, (ii) the composition of the unit and the dual roles of its members, (iii) the boundary objects that supported the interactions between these members during the creativity process, and (iv) the arenas where new knowledge was further created.


Abstract—Agile development methodologies have been gaining acceptance in the mainstream software development community for more than 50 years. There are several software development methodologies in use today. Some companies have their own customized methodology for developing their software but the majority speaks about two kinds of methodologies. On one side, we have heavyweight methodologies, which certify their support to comprehensive planning, thorough documentation, and expansive design. On the other side, we have agile methodologies which subsume individuals over processes, working software over documentation, collaboration over negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan .There has been little detailed reporting of the usage, penetration and success of these methodologies in traditional, professional software development organizations.