Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an irreversible and progressive disease of the lungs, which is characterized by aberrant tissue remodeling and massive deposition of extracellular matrix proteins. This process is mainly conducted by myofibroblasts, an activated fibroblast phenotype. During the pathogenesis of IPF, the fine alveolar structure is destroyed and gas exchange declines, finally resulting in organ failure. So far, pharmacological treatment options are very limited and lung transplantation still remains the only curative therapy.
Pathologic tissue remodeling in IPF is closely connected to altered cell and protein homeostasis. The ubiquitin-proteasome system is critical for degradation of polyubiquitinated proteins in a spatially and timely controlled manner, thereby regulating protein levels. The proteasome is a multicatalytic enzyme complex consisting of a barrel shaped 20S catalytic core particle (CP) and one or two 19S regulatory particles (RP), thus forming active 26S/30S proteasomes. Dysregulation of the proteasome has been reported for several chronic diseases of the heart, brain, and also lung. Furthermore, inhibition of the proteasome has been shown to provide antifibrotic effects in different organs, including the lung.
As nothing is known about proteasome function in the pathogenesis of IPF, the first aim of the present study was to analyze proteasomal regulation during tissue remodeling and myofibroblast differentiation.
For that, lung fibroblasts were treated with transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and proteasome activity as well as composition was examined. For in vivo testing, the bleomycin mouse model of lung fibrosis was used and human lung tissue of IPF patients was analyzed. It was found that induction of myofibroblast differentiation by TGF-β mediated assembly of 19S RPs with 20S CPs, thereby forming 26S/30S complexes, which was critically dependent on the regulatory particle non ATPase 6 subunit (Rpn6). In addition, silencing of Rpn6 in primary human lung fibroblasts counteracted TGF β induced myofibroblast differentiation. During bleomycin-induced fibrotic remodeling of mouse lungs, increased formation of 26S/30S proteasomes was accompanied by augmented expression of Rpn6 in fibrotic lungs. Here, Rpn6 was highly expressed in hyperplastic alveolar epithelial cells and Clara cells. Overexpression of Rpn6 was also observed in myofibroblasts and hyperplastic bronchiolar basal cells of fibrotic lung tissue of IPF patients and accompanied by enhanced polyubiquitination of proteins.
As therapeutic application of proteasome inhibitors in pulmonary fibrosis showed controversial results including beneficial antifibrotic effects but also toxicity, the second aim of this study was to test whether site specific inhibition of the proteasome, using the novel second generation inhibitor oprozomib, provides antifibrotic effects in the absence of systemic side effects after local pulmonary application.
Oprozomib was compared to the FDA-approved proteasome inhibitor bortezomib and tested on the human alveolar epithelial cancer cell line A549 and on primary mouse alveolar epithelial type II cells regarding its cytotoxic effects. Oprozomib was less toxic than bortezomib and provided high selectivity for the chymotrypsin-like active site of the proteasome. In primary mouse lung fibroblasts, oprozomib showed significant antifibrotic effects like reduction of collagen I and α-smooth muscle actin expression at non-toxic doses. When applied locally into the lungs of healthy mice via instillation, oprozomib was well tolerated and effectively reduced pulmonary proteasome activity. In bleomycin-challenged mice, however, locally applied oprozomib resulted in accelerated weight loss and increased mortality. Furthermore, oprozomib failed to reduce fibrosis in these mice, but rather augmented fibrotic lung remodeling in bleomycin-challenged animals.
To conclude, this study identified a novel mechanism for fibrotic remodeling of the lungs involving 26S/30S proteasome activation via Rpn6 upon TGF-β-mediated myofibroblast differentiation. Increased levels of Rpn6 and polyubiquitinated proteins in IPF lungs further suggest an important contribution of the ubiquitin-proteasome system to the pathogenesis of this disease. Inhibition of the proteasome with the novel site-specific proteasome inhibitor oprozomib provided low toxicity and antifibrotic effects in alveolar epithelial cells and pulmonary fibroblasts. These results could not be confirmed in pulmonary fibrosis of bleomycin-treated mice, as oprozomib treatment showed high toxicity in fibrotic animals.
In light of these data, current proteasome inhibitors, which block the catalytic core, might be too toxic as therapeutic agents for the treatment of fibrotic lung diseases. However, interference with the formation of 26S/30S proteasomes, as shown by Rpn6 knockdown, might provide a novel concept for therapeutic regulation of proteasome activity in lung fibrosis.


Our long-term ambitious goal is to construct molecular assemblies or machines of unprecedented complexity leading to unique function. Porphyrins and phthalocyanines have been selected as the building blocks for the construction of the targeted molecular machines. The synthesis of different porphyrin/phthalocyanine building blocks is introduced with particular emphasis on the introduction of central metal/metalloid elements such as ruthenium, indium and lanthanides.
The linking of porphyrins to give covalent assemblies suitable for elaboration into machine-like arrays is then described. The synthesis of an array in which four porphyrin units surround a central porphyrin core is described, alongside modifications to the strategy that permits differential metal substitution.
Strategies for face-to-face elaboration of machine-like structures from the previously described covalent multiporhyrin array are discussed. Although unsuccessful, a separate reaction pathway is described that leads to controlled formation of triple-decker structures. Model diporphyrins, linked through flexible spacers, are smoothly metallated with lanthanum. Complementary phthalocyanine macrocycles are then easily inserted, giving high yields of triple decker molecules. The synthesis and materials are discussed, and the novel structures are characterised by absorption spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy and crystallography. The versatility and generality of the strategy are demonstrated by synthesis of analogues that incorporate more heavily functionalised central (phthalocyanine) macrocycles. Rotation is hindered (NMR) in these cases.
Finally, preliminary assessment of extension of this approach towards higher-order stacks is described, alongside variation of the linking lanthanides to include magnetic elements such as dysprosium.


The divine promises to Abraham have long been recognized as a key to the book of Genesis as a whole. But their variety, often noted, also raises literary and theological problems. Why do they differ each time, and how are they related to each other and to the story of Abraham? Williamson focuses on the promises in Genesis 15 and 17, and concludes that they are concerned with two distinct but related issues. Genesis 15 guarantees God's promise to make Abraham into a great nation, while Genesis 17 focuses chiefly on God's promise to mediate blessing (through Abraham) to the nations. The two chapters are connected, however, by the theme of an individual, royal descendant who will come from the nation (Israel) and mediate blessing to all the nations of the earth.


A Global Company is not just a Multinational Company, but on top it has developed an organizational structure, an overall governance and a set of operational decision making processes which allow running a significant percentage of business processes as a unique body across borders. Successful Global Companies have a clear setup and governance of local versus centralized decision making processes, as well as budget ownership. Corporations focused on global opportunities need to re-think their customer approach, namely in terms of set up of their sales force, and more specifically planning, a transformation from national based to international managed sales organization for those specific customers.


Recently there has been a lot of focus on gateways between different simulation standards, like HLA, DIS and TENA, for example as part of the LVC-AR work and several SISO working groups. Bridging between different HLA federations has received little attention. Still, this is a highly useful technique for solving many interoperability issues. It is currently in use in several large federations. We argue that there are two categories of HLA-to-HLA bridging: quick fixes and long-term architectures. A sample quick fix is when an HLA federation with a large number of objects is partitioned so that one of the partitions includes a subset of the objects. This prevents federates with limited capacity from being overloaded or crash. Another case is when federates that use a slightly different FOM or use a slightly different data format are joined to a separate federation, that connect to the main federation using an HLA-to-HLA bridge. In some federations different federates may also use different RTI implementations. In these cases the long-term solution is to correctly adapt all of the federates to the same federation agreement and FOM or to use more HLA services, like DDM. This may not always be possible, for example because of time constraints, which makes HLA-to-HLA bridging the only viable solution. One long-term architectural use case is when a federation is partitioned into two federations with different security levels. The HLA-to-HLA bridge filters and modifies data before sending it from the higher to the lower security domain. Another case is hierarchical federations, where a number of sub-federations connect to a super-federation. This is useful where the FOM in the super-federation is on a more aggregated level than in the sub-federations. It is also useful for fault-tolerance in highly distributed federations where local sub-federations can keep running even when the super-federation is unavailable. This paper presents and discusses a number of use cases, including experiences from real life federations and implementations of HLA-to-HLA bridges.


Given the qualitative, exploratory and comparative nature of the investigation, this study has employed a mixed-methods approach. According to the conceptual framework of this research, the emphasis of the study is on mechanisms and interrelationships that affect the process and product of urban sustainability assessment. Accordingly, this study has concentrated on the identification of the urban sustainability indicators, data sources and assessment methods and their strategies and interests within the environmental, socio-cultural and economic contexts in which they operated. To this end, the study has enjoyed the insights from 64 participants including experts, scholars, practitioners as well as high-ranking officials across the ministries, municipalities and local authorities, through carrying out a questionnaire survey and conducting a series of semi-structured interviews in Iran. Due to a lack of established and well-documented data, it was initially required to find out what kinds of sustainability assessment methods have officially been used in Iran. This led the researcher to conduct a survey of Iranian local authorities and government departments. The findings of this survey were reviewed, discussed and compared to the UK sustainability assessment methods. As a result, the study suggests a detailed proposal for developing an urban sustainability assessment model in Iran including a comprehensive urban sustainability indicator set. The research also concludes that there is an urgent need for establishing a bottomup organisational structure in Iran to pursue the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability assessment within the public and private sector. The unique contribution of this study is that it has done a systematic research on the principles and frameworks of developing an urban sustainability assessment mechanism in Iran based on the UK experience and achievement in this area. It has also explored various weaknesses and barriers in the current Iranian urban planning and development system. Examining these barriers and weaknesses may form the demand and objectives of reforms in the current Iranian planning and development systems. Furthermore, the findings of this study provide insights into the issues that policymakers and practitioners need to consider in developing programs and efforts dealing with the problems of urban sustainability assessment. It will enhance the theory and literature within the knowledge bases of evaluation of urban sustainability in Iran tackling the existing issues and making suggestions which will depict the most appropriate way for the development of Iranian urban sustainability assessment mechanisms considering the three substantial pillars of sustainability: environment; society; and economy.


This volume contains a collection of papers which were presented at the Inversion Tectonics Meeting held at the Royal Society in March, 1987. The book provides a very broad spectrum of examples of Inversion Tectonics which goes beyond the traditional usage of the term. Divided into four sections: Modelling and theoretical concepts; Inversion in the Alps and Alpine Foreland; Inversion on the European Continental Shelf; and Inversion in other geological environments, the contents of the volume reflect the wide range of research on Inversion problems and, whilst this generates some controversy, the editorial consideration is that there is considerable value in illustrating the whole spectrum of current usage.


Objective: Research suggests that social supports are associated with housing retention among adults who have experienced homelessness. Yet, we know very little about the social support context in consumers find and retain housing. We examined the ways and identified the junctures in which consumers' skills and deficits in accessing and mobilizing social supports influenced their longitudinal housing status. Method: We performed semi-structured qualitative interviews with VA Greater Los Angeles consumers (n = 19) with serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and a history of homelessness; interviews explored associations between longitudinal housing status (categorized as: stable, independent housing; sheltered housing, continually engaged in structured housing programs; and unstable housing) and social supports. We compared data from consumers in these 3 mutually exclusive categories. Results: All participants described social support as important for finding and maintaining housing. However, participants used formal (provider/case managers) and informal (family/friends) supports in different ways. Participants in stable housing relied on formal and informal supports to obtain/maintain housing. Participants in sheltered housing primarily used formal supports, for example, case management staff. Unstably housed participants used formal and informal supports, but some of these relationships were superficial or of negative valence. Interpersonal problems were prevalent across longitudinal housing status categories. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: Social context, including patterns of formal and informal support, was associated with participants' longitudinal housing status. Within interventions to end homelessness, these findings suggest the value of future research to identify, tailor, and implement practices that can help consumers improve their social resources.


Large-eddy simulations (LES) and Reynolds-averaged numerical simulations (RANS) are performed for the flow and scalar dispersion through a strongly curved open-channel bend. The aim of the study is to investigate the performance of both LES and RANS as regards the reproduction of the key bend flow features and the associated prediction of scalar spreading along the flume. In this respect, three different issues are addressed. Firstly, the influence of the water depth on the flow behavior as computed by LES and RANS is considered. Secondly, the plume statistics of the case with a continuous vertical line source is investigated. And thirdly, the dispersion behavior of a scalar tracer is studied by means of the case in which a blob of the scalar tracer is instantaneously injected. It is found that the LES computations fairly well reproduce the main flow features, whereas RANS computations experience severe difficulties in predicting the flow field. Moreover, it was found that the gradient-hypothesis of diffusion is only limitedly valid; even counter-gradient diffusion is observed. In addition, the residence time characteristics of the instantaneously injected blob of the scalar tracer in the bend are addressed as well.


This article confronts some general methodological issues involved when analyzing 'euroscepticism,' ie., opposition to European integration. Reviewing the literature on party-based & public euroscepticism, the article proceeds with a presentation & critical examination of conceptual frameworks & models suggested in previous research on public attitudes towards the EU. Drawing on eg., the Eurobarometer surveys, the strengths & weaknesses of different analytical frameworks arc demonstrated. The article concludes with a discussion about measurement issues related to empirical analyses of public opposition to European integration. Adapted from the source document.


Aiming to augment generative models with external memory, we interpret the output of a memory module with stochastic addressing as a conditional mixture distribution, where a read operation corresponds to sampling a discrete memory address and retrieving the corresponding content from memory. This perspective allows us to apply variational inference to memory addressing, which enables effective training of the memory module by using the target information to guide memory lookups. Stochastic addressing is particularly well-suited for generative models as it naturally encourages multimodality which is a prominent aspect of most high-dimensional datasets. Treating the chosen address as a latent variable also allows us to quantify the amount of information gained with a memory lookup and measure the contribution of the memory module to the generative process. To illustrate the advantages of this approach we incorporate it into a variational autoencoder and apply the resulting model to the task of generative few-shot learning. The intuition behind this architecture is that the memory module can pick a relevant template from memory and the continuous part of the model can concentrate on modeling remaining variations. We demonstrate empirically that our model is able to identify and access the relevant memory contents even with hundreds of unseen Omniglot characters in memory


Foreign-owned banks play an important role in New Zealand's financial system. This article discusses the Reserve Bank's local-incorporation policy, which is one of the key elements in the policy framework to minimise the risks and maximise the benefits of hosting foreign-owned banks. The article identifies some of the benefits and risks of hosting foreign-owned banks; it discusses the local-incorporation policy rules and how the policy fits into the wider set of rules affecting banks; and discusses how the policy promotes the soundness and efficiency of New Zealand's financial system, and avoids the damage to the financial system that could arise from the failure of a foreign-owned bank.


Automated Teller Machine (ATM) packages of banks in Ghana have operated for a very long time without full exploration of all essential functions of the facility and this has baffled the minds of the public and other decision makers about the effect of ATM operations on customer demand for it. It is in line with this view that this study was conducted to assess the operational features of the ATM and the factors that account for customers" willingness to use ATM. The study modelled the operational features of ATM using queuing modelling and a probity model was estimated to determine the factors affecting customer usage of ATM. Data was collected from 160 customers of banks with ATM facilities in the Wa Municipality. It was realized that there is high traffic intensity for ATMs use for most banks in the Municipality. Also, higher educational attainment, number of ATMs per bank, convenience, and security features, efficiency and low transaction charges have significant effect on influencing the usage of ATM services. It is recommended that management of these banks need to upsurge the number and quality of ATM services in order to increase access and usage of ATM.


Abstract The causes of hypoxaemia in children include the commonest causes of childhood illness: pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections, and neonatal illness, particularly sepsis, low birthweight, birth asphyxia and aspiration syndromes. The systematic use of pulse oximetry to monitor and treat children in resource-poor developing countries, when coupled with a reliable oxygen supply, improves quality of care and reduces mortality. Oximetry also has a well established role in surgery and anaesthesia, but in many countries children undergo surgery without the safety of oximetry monitoring. This article reviews pulse oximetry, its technical basis and its application to the medical management of childhood illness to reduce mortality in developing countries. We propose that, as a part of the work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal 4, there should be a concerted global effort to make pulse oximetry and a reliable oxygen source available in all health facilities where seriously ill children are managed.


Abstract:Since the 1960s, the most common rule used for electing presidents worldwide has shifted from plurality (first-past-the-post) to majority runoff (a requirement for a second round between the top two candidates if no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote). Between 1990 and 2016 in Latin America, levels of democracy improved in most countries under runoff but plummeted in most countries under plurality. Runoff lowered barriers to entry for new parties. It also ensured that the president had majority support and enticed candidates toward the political center. While the concerns many scholars have expressed about the proliferation of political parties under runoff is not unwarranted, this issue can be mitigated through additional institutional innovations.


Objective To explore the acceptability of implementing an online tool for the assessment and management of childhood obesity (Computer-Assisted Treatment of CHildren, CATCH) in primary care. Design and setting An uncontrolled pilot study with integral process evaluation conducted at three general practices in northwest London, UK (November 2012–April 2013). Participants Families with concerns about excess weight in a child aged 5–18 years (n=14 children). Intervention Families had a consultation with a doctor or nurse using CATCH, which assessed child weight status, cardiometabolic risk and risk of emotional and behavioural difficulties and provided personalised lifestyle advice. Families and practitioners completed questionnaires to assess the acceptability and usefulness of the consultation, and participated in semistructured interviews which explored user experiences. Outcome measures The primary outcome was family satisfaction with the tool-assisted consultation. Secondary outcomes were practitioners' satisfaction, and acceptability and usefulness of the intervention to families and practitioners. Results The majority of families (86%, n=12) and all practitioners (n=4) were satisfied with the consultation. Participants reported that the tool was easy to use, the personalised lifestyle advice useful and the use of visual aids beneficial. Families and practitioners identified a need for practical, structured support for weight management following the consultation. Conclusions The results of this pilot study indicate that an online tool for assessment and management of childhood obesity can be implemented in primary care, and is acceptable to patients, families and practitioners. Further development and evaluation of the tool is warranted.


Data is becoming an important source of information these days. According to the recent Forbes survey, there are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day at our current pace. While getting these amounts of data, it is necessary to process them in order to extract information. These data can be accessed in many ways in order to get meaningful information. This paper only deals with the query plans model through multi-objective optimization process using anytime algorithm. Query plans is an ordered stairway used for accessing data in SQL relational database systems. Query plans provides diverse tradeoff between conflicting cost matrices. The cost matrices are execution time, energy consumption and execution fees in multi-objective aspects. When SQL database run the queries by choosing an optimum query execution plan then it minimizes the query cost, which is very crucial for the query optimizer. Multiobjective query optimization and anytime algorithm possess very specific properties in order to support an interactive process which dynamically add various constraints and then finally select the best plan based on the continuously refined visualization of optimal cost tradeoffs. First, the anytime algorithms generate the multiple result plan sets which increase the quality with low latency rate between consecutive results. Second, the consecutive results will be incremented to avoid regenerating query plans when being invoked several times for the same query but with different user constraints. This paper deals with the advantages of anytime algorithm for the multi objective query optimization to analyze the complexity which offers an attractive tradeoff between the results. It can be used to update frequency, single invocation time complexity and multiple time over invocations. These properties make anytime algorithm suitable to be used within an interactive query optimization process.


The Supreme Court's 1950 Feres v. United States decision held that when it enacted the Federal Tort Claims Act Congress did not intend to waive sovereign immunity for injuries to members of the military arising out of activity incident to their service. The Court's decision was influenced by the long history of efforts to enact a general tort claims bill that would free Congress from the burden of processing claims against the government, as well as the case law, statutes, and procedures pertaining to service-members' injuries prior to enactment of the Federal Tort Claims Act. This Article examines those influences and the early cases that analyzed the incident to service issue under the Act, including the Court's Brooks decision that allowed service-member suits for injuries that did not arise incident to service. The Article reviews the lower courts' decisions in the three cases that were consolidated in Feres and the parties' briefing in the Supreme Court. The Article addresses arguments that have been raised against Feres' reasoning, arguments that independently attack its holding, and various characterizations of the opinion. Because of the language of the Federal Tort Claims Act, the historical backdrop to the Court's decision, and the absence of any indication that Congress intended to waive sovereign immunity for injuries suffered incident to service, Feres correctly decided that the Federal Tort Claims Act did not encompass such injuries.


Dramatically increased international agricultural commodity prices from 2007 to mid-2008 brought food inflation and greater incidence of poverty and malnutrition to developing countries. Higher food prices in 2011 threaten to repeat that crisis. The international community responded strongly to these concerns in 2008 and 2009, promising greater financial support for food aid, safety nets, and agricultural development. The focus of international dialogue differed somewhat from the priorities of national governments, and the objectives of national governments mostly targeting short-run responses to both food security and agriculture prevailed. But a long-run trend of declining foreign assistance to agriculture appears to have reversed. Nevertheless, foreign assistance was small relative to promises made by donors, increased grain and fertilizer import costs, budgetary costs of mitigating policy responses, an investment costs needed to accelerate agricultural production. Both food aid and agricultural development projects have in the past come under the criticisms found in the aid effectiveness debate. Issues to be addressed if renewed efforts toward agricultural development and food aid are to be effective are explored here. High returns to agricultural research require that enabling institutions are developed. National ownership and governance of initiatives that share donor objectives focusing on poverty and long-run development are critical to success.


This article focuses on Kelly v. Johnson, in which the Supreme Court upheld restrictions on hair length and facial hair for policemen against claims that such restrictions violated their substantive due process rights. The decision implicitly accepted the view that the Supreme Court, and other federal courts, cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily functioning of state governments under the guise of substantive due process. It rejected the notion that federal decisions are to be made on the basis of subjective judgments by judges as to what constitutes a denial of due process. It rejected, too, any claim that misguided or ill-conceived motives or justifications will suffice to strike down state regulation as violative of due process. In short, Kelley evinced unwillingness on the part of the modern Court to invalidate state regulation on the ground of substantive due process. This article explores the Kelly case and its rationale, relationship to substantive due process precedents, and what it forebodes for the future.


Lipophrys pholis has been shown to be responsive to a variety of environmental contaminants, some of them able to impair reproduction. Description of the normal cycle of oogenesis of this newly proposed sentinel species is important since this data may function as a baseline for comparison in ecotoxicological studies, among other applications. Based on histological observations, L. pholis ovarian development in adult is asynchronous, and 7 ovarian germ cells can be described (oogonia, early and late perinuclear oocytes, cortical-alveolar oocytes, early vitellogenic oocytes, vitellogenic oocytes and spawning oocytes). Using a stereological approach together with the morphologic characteristics of ovarian cells, the ovarian cycle of L. pholis was divided into 3 maturation stages: early oogenesis (May); mid-oogenesis (September), and spawning (November to January). Ovarian cell proportions and gonadosomatic index confirmed that the reproductive period of L. pholis near the southern limit of distribution of the species occurs during cold-water periods, between November and May. The collected data will help to fill some of the gaps in information that still exist on L. pholis oogenesis, thus allowing a better integration of this species as a sentinel for the detection of contaminants in European coastal waters.


Dengue is a viral fever characterized by rashes and renal complication. Nimesulide is an analgesic and antipyretic drug. This case is an unusual combination of dengue and drug induced damage of liver in a 6 month old female baby with a history of flu like symptoms with chills, rigors and drowsiness. She was administered a syrup of two drugs namely nimesulide and paracetamol. Serology of dengue confirmed primary infection. All the symptoms and signs returned to normal after termination of the nimesulide and supportive treatment. This case differs from the other cases based on the time of onset and indicates that nimesulide may induce hepatomegaly in the first few days of administration. Hence, patients receiving nimesulide should be regularly monitored with serial serum transaminases beginning from the first week of intake or the prescription of nimesulide should be banned all over the world. BIO CHEMISTRY


In this elegantly written book, Jerome Kagan melds the history of the field of psychology during the past 50 years with the story of his own research efforts of the same period and an analysis of what he terms "the currently rocky romance between psychology and biology." As Kagan unwinds his own history, he reveals the seminal events that have shaped his career and discusses how his assumptions have changed. With full appreciation for the contributions to psychology of history, philosophy, literature, and neuroscience, he approaches a wide range of fascinating topics, including: * the abandonment of orthodox forms of behaviorism and psychoanalysis * the forces that inspired later-twentieth-century curiosity about young children * why B. F. Skinner chose to study psychology * why the study of science less often ignites imaginations today * our society's obsession with erotic love * the resurgence of religious fanaticism and the religious Right Embedded in Kagan's discussions is a rejection of the current notion that a mature neuroscience will eventually replace psychology. He argues that a complete understanding of brain is not synonymous with a full explanation of mind, and he concludes with a brief prediction of the next five decades in the field of psychology.


In this paper, we focus on subspace-based learning problems, where data elements are linear subspaces instead of vectors. To handle this kind of data, Grassmann kernels were proposed to measure the space structure and used with classifiers, e.g., Support Vector Machines (SVMs). However, the existing discriminative algorithms mostly ignore the instability of subspaces, which would cause the classifiers to be misled by disturbed instances. Thus we propose considering all potential disturbances of subspaces in learning processes to obtain more robust classifiers. Firstly, we derive the dual optimization of linear classifiers with disturbances subject to a known distribution, resulting in a new kernel, Disturbance Grassmann (DG) kernel. Secondly, we research into two kinds of disturbance, relevant to the subspace matrix and singular values of bases, with which we extend the Projection kernel on Grassmann manifolds to two new kernels. Experiments on action data indicate that the proposed kernels perform better compared to state-of-the-art subspace-based methods, even in a worse environment.


Abstract This paper investigates the nature of model error in complex deterministic nonlinear systems such as weather forecasting models. Forecasting systems incorporate two components, a forecast model and a data assimilation method. The latter projects a collection of observations of reality into a model state. Key features of model error can be understood in terms of geometric properties of the data projection and a model attracting manifold. Model error can be resolved into two components: a projection error, which can be understood as the model's attractor being in the wrong location given the data projection, and direction error, which can be understood as the trajectories of the model moving in the wrong direction compared to the projection of reality into model space. This investigation introduces some new tools and concepts, including the shadowing filter, causal and noncausal shadow analyses, and various geometric diagnostics. Various properties of forecast errors and model errors are described ...


The purpose of our study is to verify the usefulness of gamma irradiation treatment at low doses (0.25, 0.5 and 1 kGy) combined to vacuum packaging on commercial teas of Thymus satureioides deliberately contaminated with Escherichia coli. The efficiency and the influence of the process on contamination level and the shelf life of the product were studied. The phenolic composition and concentration were identified in the unirradiated and irradiated thyme. The total phenolic content (TPC) was assayed by the Folin-Ciocalteu method, the individual phenolic compounds were determined by high liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the essential oil was characterized by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). The plant was observed by scanning electrons microscopy and the radioactivity effect was analyzed. The results show a complete decontamination of thyme depending to the dose and the storage time. Privileged hygienic quality was found in the irradiated thyme with the highest concentrations of polyphenols. The process showed the conservation of thyme quality without any alteration of its characteristics or radioactivity effect.


Monitoring coral reef benthos with satellites has typically followed a "sensor-down" approach, with the classification algorithm driven by statistics derived from the imagery. I adopt a "reef-up" method, drawing on statistics derived from hyperspectral optical field measurements of substrate reflectance to train image classification. In order to calibrate the satellite data with direct physical measurements of reflectivity, it is necessary to process both the imagery and in situ data to common units of albedo. Building upon a proof-of-concept study conducted by the author in the Red Sea, the link is made by correcting the remote sensing data for the effect of varying bathymetry using in situ measurement of water column optical properties and a digital elevation model constructed from a vessel-based acoustic survey, thereby yielding units of substrate reflectance. Extensive ground verification of the predictive benthic habitat map resulting from image classification showed that eight substrate classes were resolved with an overall accuracy of 69% down to a depth of 6 m, including live and dead coral framework. As compared to conventional from-image classification techniques, the reef-up method offers the potential for higher thematic accuracy while maintaining a greater degree of flexibility for repeat survey using platforms of higher spectral and spatial resolution, expected to come online in the near future. The fact that image acquisition and optical ground-truthing did not occur concurrently, is of particular relevance in confirming that in situ measurements can be made independent of image acquisition and retrospectively linked to appropriate substrate classes. Considering the wealth of hyperspectral data already acquired for shallow reef facies, the work highlights the potential of the reef-up approach for quantifying substrate distribution in coral environments using both air- and spaceborne platforms.


In the twenty-first century, as throughout human history, anger has played a pivotal role in governance and international affairs. This essay contributes to the substantial scholarly literature on public emotion by summarizing an integrative analysis of public anger built both on multi-disciplinary literatures theorizing emotion and upon three case studies surrounding the attacks now commonly labelled "9/11." Examples from the rhetorics of Osama bin Laden, President George W. Bush, and Susan Sontag illustrate the predispositional complex of anger well, because the elements of that complex are evident among all three rhetorics, despite the dramatic differences in culture, ideology, and positionality of the rhetors from whom they emanate. The essay concludes by urging the development of conditions and rhetorical practices that would enable global anger to serve its valuable adjudicatory functions rather than to reprise endlessly its function of rallying peoples to attack each other


the summer school. To our delight, they were happy to listen in during the lectures. We hope we also stirred their interest in HCI. The program had several highlights. On the first lecture day, all participants took a leap of faith and rode a zipline across Manufaktura's square. This helped lighten the mood in the group. We also hosted a public event where students tested the prototypes they developed during the summer school. They invited local residents to participate and rewarded them with food and drink. Despite a downpour that made the testing extra difficult, many participants enjoyed using the new devices and learning about HCI. It also provided an exercise in popular science for both students and faculty. The school ended with a momentous dinner featuring abundant quantities of local food. P oland's first major HCI education event took place in July 2017. The SIGCHI-sponsored Łódź Summer School on Methods in HCI invited students from around the globe for an exciting week full of activities. We were lucky to be the organizers of the event. Our plan was simple. We wanted to bring world-class HCI faculty and international HCI students and involve them with local students and communities to foster interest in HCI. The response we got was overwhelming. We were happy to receive support from the Łódź University of Technology (TUL) as well as local businesses. Most important, we got a very high number of applicants. But we were sad to have to turn down more than half. As we wanted the event to be meaningful for our region in particular, we gave priority to students from Central and Eastern Europe. On July 7, the event kicked off with 32 students and 14 lecturers. We began with an opening talk and a dinner to break the ice. The remaining days of the summer school were action-packed! Each morning began with a keynote by an expert on a hot HCI topic. The rest of the days were spent in handson classes focusing on a particular method. On most days we would visit Manufaktura, a former cotton mill turned entertainment center and Łódź's prime tourist attraction, to engage local users. This "one method a day" program was quite intensive, but it enabled students to get an overview of a variety of methods and pick the ones to study further. We invited local undergraduate students to help with the logistics of We were very glad to see local and international students extend their networks with peers and professors. We have already received reports of research work conducted based on ideas developed during the summer school. Most important, we managed to put HCI on the map in Poland and show its relevance to academics and the public. What's more, the activities included in the summer school contributed to other initiatives: Shortly after, an HCI student club was established. The school also led to an extended international network, which now supports the process of establishing Poland's first HCI master's program. We are grateful to SIGCHI, the organizing universities, our lecturers, and the students for their commitment and support. We believe that the summer school is only the first step toward establishing a strong research and education agenda in Poland and Eastern Europe. The school will have its second edition in the summer of 2019.


Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" speaks about the problems in common resources and this applies highly in the community forestry in Nepal. Annapurna Conservation Area and Community forestry have already shown the proven record of success in community participation. However, the willingness of getting high share in the common property and taking least care has been the major problem. This can be properly addressed through the proper community participation. This article speaks about the ways of addressing the tragedy of commons through community innovation and already being practiced model. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/init.v4i0.5540 The Initiation Vol.4 2011 92-95


Crowdsourcing complex creative tasks remains difficult, in part because these tasks require skilled workers. Most crowdsourcing platforms do not help workers acquire the skills necessary to accomplish complex creative tasks. In this paper, we describe a platform that combines learning and crowdsourcing to benefit both the workers and the requesters. Workers gain new skills through interactive step-by-step tutorials and test their knowledge by improving real-world images submitted by requesters. In a series of three deployments spanning two years, we varied the design of our platform to enhance the learning experience and improve the quality of the crowd work. We tested our approach in the context of LevelUp for Photoshop, which teaches people how to do basic photograph improvement tasks using Adobe Photoshop. We found that by using our system workers gained new skills and produced high-quality edits for requested images, even if they had little prior experience editing images.


The present work focuses the attention on the Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) of the Titanium (Ti) alloy Ti-6Al-4V. Tensile tests were carried out using the optical strain measurement system Aramis3D, in order to determine the mechanical behaviour of the alloy and to investigate the anisotropy of such alloy. Finite Element (FE) simulations of the SPIF process (using ABAQUS/explicit) were performed using a simple but non-axialsymmetric shape (truncated pyramid) with the aim of investigating the effect of both the tool/pitch ratio (D/p) and the draw angle (α), taking into account the anisotropic behaviour. The analysis of plastic strains and thinning maps, together with the evaluation of shape errors originated by the forming process, highlighted that the parameter D/p plays a key role in the SPIF. Results from the preliminary FE analysis were used for investigating the production by SPIF of an automotive component (car door shell). A specific subroutine was created by the authors for automatically generating the tool path to be used in both the FE simulations and the manufacturing of parts by SPIF on a CNC milling machine.


To explore the relationship between form of municipal government and deployment of social media tools for civic engagement, the authors conduct an analysis of a random set of purposively selected cities for content analysis of their social media tools. The authors use the seven forms of government identified by Nelson and Svara (2012) as the basis by which to select the sample cities. Across forms of government, there is no apparent pattern on deployment of social media tools for civic engagement. Municipalities of every form are using the tools, primarily Facebook and Twitter, and most, regardless of form, are not using the tools in a social manner. This finding is consistent with previous work by the authors and others. Important areas for future research are identified in a closing discussion.


Issue addressed: Decreasing the risk of heat-stress is an imperative in health promotion, and is widely accepted as necessary for successful adaptation to climate change. Less well understood are the vulnerabilities that air-conditioning use exacerbates, and conversely, the need for the promotion of alternative strategies for coping with heat wave conditions. This paper considers these issues with a focus on the role of air-conditioning in the everyday life of elderly public housing tenants living alone, a sector of the population that has been identified as being at high risk of suffering heat stress. Methods: A vulnerability analysis of domestic air-conditioning use, drawing on literature and policy on air-conditioning practices and ethnographic research with households. Results: Residential air-conditioning exacerbated existing inequities. Case studies of two specifically selected low-income elderly single person households revealed that such households were unlikely to be able to afford this ?solution? to increasing exposure to heat waves in the absence of energy subsidies. Residential air-conditioning use during heat waves caused unintended side-effects, such as system-wide blackouts, which, in turn, led to escalating electricity costs as power companies responded by upgrading infrastructure to cope with periods of excess demand. Air-conditioning also contributed to emissions that cause climate change. Conclusions: Residential air-conditioning is a potentially maladaptive technology for reducing the risk of heat stress. Key words: air-conditioning, vulnerability, heat stress, climate change adaptation


BACKGROUND
General internists commonly provide medical care for older adults and geriatric education to trainees, but lack the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill these tasks.

OBJECTIVE
Assess the geriatric training needs of academic general internists in 3 hospital systems in Portland, OR.

DESIGN
Ten focus groups and 1 semi-structured interview. Interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis, a well-recognized qualitative technique.

PARTICIPANTS
A convenience sample of 22 academic general internists and 8 geriatricians from 3 different teaching hospitals.

MEASUREMENTS
We elicited stories of frustration and success in caring for elderly patients and in teaching about their care. We asked geriatricians to recount their experiences as consultants to general internists and to comment on the training of Internists in geriatrics.

RESULTS
In addition to deficits in their medical knowledge and skills, our Internists reported frustration with the process of delivering care to older adults. In particular, they felt ill prepared to guide care transitions for patients, use multidisciplinary teams effectively, and were frustrated with health care system issues. Additionally, general internists' approach to medical care, which largely relies on the medical model, is different from that of geriatricians, which focuses more on social and functional issues.

CONCLUSIONS
Although our findings may not be broadly representative, improving our general internists' abilities to care for the elderly and to teach learners how to do the same should address deficits in medical knowledge and skills, barriers to the processes of delivering care, and philosophical approaches to care. Prioritizing and quantifying these needs and measuring the effectiveness of curricula to address them are areas for future research.


We report our recent progress made with the NRC 88Sr+ single-ion optical frequency standard. The long-term operation of the standard was improved by actively stabilizing the cooling, repump and clearout laser sources, and by using a femtosecond fiber laser frequency comb to link the probe laser frequency to the microwave time standards. With the femtosecond fiber comb, we have demonstrated continuous operation for a period of eight days and continuous measurement of the probe laser source for three days. Micromotion shifts have been the dominant source of uncertainty in our rf Paul trap because laser beam access is only possible along one axis in the current design. With the aim of reducing to a minimum these shifts, we have constructed an endcap trap designed for minimization of micromotion along three orthogonal axes. We report on the successful trapping of single ions with this endcap trap. Since electrode contamination during trap loading can also induce micromotion shifts as a result of evolving patch potentials, we have increased the trap loading efficiency with photo-ionization.


Systems for symbolic event recognition accept as input a stream of time-stamped events from sensors and other computational devices, and seek to identify high-level composite events, collections of events that satisfy some pattern. RTEC is an Event Calculus dialect with novel implementation and `windowing' techniques that allow for efficient event recognition, scalable to large data streams. RTEC supports the expression of rather complex events, such as `two people are fighting', using simple primitives. It can operate in the absence of filtering modules, as it is only slightly affected by data that are irrelevant to the events we want to recognise. Furthermore, RTEC can deal with applications where event data arrive with a (variable) delay from, and are revised by, the underlying sources. RTEC can update already recognised events and recognise new events when data arrive with a delay or following data revision. We evaluate RTEC both theoretically, presenting a complexity analysis, and experimentally, using two real-world applications. The evaluation shows that RTEC can support real-time event recognition and is capable of meeting the performance requirements identified in a survey of event processing use cases.


Metabolic syndrome is describes as a clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, such as, abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, hyperglycaemia and hypertension. There are so many risk factors are common in Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and many of these risk factors are highly correlated with one another. The risk factors of the metabolic syndrome are of metabolic origin and composed of atherogenic dyslipidemia, high plasma glucose level, elevated blood pressure, a prothrombotic state, and a pro inflammatory state. The management of persons with metabolic syndrome should have to focus not only on blood glucose control but also includes approaches for reduction of other cardiovascular disease risk factors. The present study aims to understand the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its association with type 2 diabetes. The study group included 150 type 2 diabetes patients in the age group ranging between 20-80 years. Waist and hip circumference, BMI, Blood pressure, fasting blood glucose and Cholesterol tests like HDL and Triglycerides was determined. Prevalence of individual risk factor for metabolic syndrome was determined out of 150 patients and 97 patients were observed with high blood pressure, 85 patients were observed with low levels of HDL, 60 patients were observed with central obesity, 45 patients were observed with high triglycerides and all 150 patients were observed with diabetes.


Depleting resources of fossil fuel, climate change impacts, high oil prices, and strict emission requirements are leading to the research on efficient, environmentally friendly, and lowered fossil fuel dependent solutions in the transportation field. While a number of studies used computer modeling and simulation tools to investigate hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), very few attempted to model and simulate a dual-engine hybrid vehicle. Designing a vehicle engine to meet energy needs in the fully loaded condition is not an optimal solution for manufacturers and customers. The larger the engine, the higher the manufacturing costs for companies, and higher fuel consumption for customers. The integration of dual-engine hybrid technology can help to solve this problem. The objective of this study was to design and simulate a dual-engine hybrid electric vehicle (DE-HEV) model to investigate whether it can be a fuel efficient and environmentally friendly solution without sacrificing vehicle performance. The simulated DE-HEV uses two small engines instead of one large engine. In the simulated design, a smaller single engine supplies the power if the energy need is not more than a single engine can provide. The second engine turns on when the power demand is greater than the single engine can supply. Working models for the DE-HEV components, such as an electric motor, • • TM generator, battery, and the controller have been developed using the Matlab/Simulink simulation package. Each model was validated with test data from the literature. Appropriate power management strategy has been developed to accommodate the dual engine design. Fuel-efficiency, overall performance, and manufacturing cost for the simulated DE-HEV model have been compared against current commercial models. Simulation results showed that DE-HEV has between a 2% to 6% higher efficiency than comparable HEVs. Cost analysis results showed that the manufacturing cost of DE-HEV is 11% higher. Performance of the vehicle was tested with standard drive cycles. Test results are satisfactory; although there was significant increase in fuelefficiency, because of its higher initial manufacturing cost, maintenance, and complexity, DE-HEVs may have challenges in the short term. However, with expected decreases in manufacturing costs of battery storage and power electronics technology, the implementation of DE-HEVs can be feasible transportation options in the near future. DEVELOPMENT OF A MODULAR DUAL ENGINE HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLE SIMULATION MODEL A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Technology Approved: Dr. Recayi "Reg" Pecen, Chair Dr. Hong "Jeffrey" Nie, Co-Chair Dr. Nilmani Pramanik, Committee Member Dr. William M. Stigliani, Committee Member Dr. Otto H. MacLin, Committee Member Dr. Ayhan Zora, Committee Member


Obesity and insulin resistance are serious health concerns in children and adolescents (young people). Interventions to increase the potential for fat oxidation and improve insulin sensitivity could have widespread clinical relevance. Although exercise is often advocated for health, the factors implicated in the relationship between exercise, fat oxidation and insulin resistance are not well understood in young people. This thesis has investigated the effect of manipulations in exercise and breakfast on metabolism in young people, focusing on fat oxidation and postprandial blood glucose control. The first experimental study, Chapter 4, compared two different exercise protocols for estimating the intensity corresponding to maximal fat oxidation (Fatmax) in non-overweight prepubertal children. A 3 min incremental protocol was recommended to provide an estimation of Fatmax using a wide range of intensities in this population. Using this protocol, Chapter 5 demonstrated that Fatmax was higher for treadmill compared with cycling exercise in pre- to early pubertal children. Furthermore, treadmill exercise resulted in higher rates of fat oxidation over a range of absolute and relative intensities and fat oxidation remained high over a wider range of intensities. Therefore, treadmill exercise (walking or slow running) is clearly preferential for promoting fat oxidation in this population. Subsequently, Chapter 6 examined the effect of mixed breakfast meals containing high (HGI) and low (LGI) glycaemic index carbohydrates on blood glucose, plasma insulin and fat oxidation in overweight and non-overweight girls. Breakfast GI did not affect fat oxidation during the postprandial rest period or subsequent exercise. However, the main finding of this study related to blood glucose; the higher blood glucose response following the HGI compared with LGI breakfast was more pronounced in the overweight girls. This suggested a reduced ability to cope with the metabolic demands of HGI breakfast consumption in overweight girls and highlighted that strategies to reduce insulin resistance in this population are required. Consequently, Chapter 7 investigated the effect of treadmill exercise at Fatmax performed 16 h prior to HGI breakfast consumption on blood glucose, plasma insulin and fat oxidation in overweight and non-overweight girls. Fatmax exercise reduced the postprandial insulin response in the non-overweight, but not the overweight, girls while blood glucose was unchanged in both groups. More encouragingly, fat oxidation was increased after exercise in both the overweight and non-overweight girls. Collectively, the four experimental studies within this thesis have demonstrated that treadmill exercise at Fatmax is an effective means of elevating fat oxidation both during and up to 16 h after exercise. When considering postprandial glucose and insulin responses to HGI breakfast consumption, LGI breakfasts should be recommended for overweight girls, whilst acute treadmill exercise at Fatmax can reduce postprandial insulin concentrations in non-overweight girls. Walking or slow running (Fatmax treadmill exercise) and LGI breakfast consumption may be best advocated in combination for promoting fat oxidation and improving postprandial blood glucose control in young people. These two simple lifestyle-related strategies may provide an effective, safe and attractive means for preventing and treating obesity, insulin resistance and related disorders.

Key words: exercise, metabolism, substrate oxidation, fat oxidation, glucose, insulin, glycaemic index, overweight, children, adolescents.


In this entertaining and engaging memoir, former ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles lifts the lid on embassy life throughout the world. In 1977 fresh-faced Oxford graduate Sherard Cowper-Coles entered the hallowed portals of the Foreign Office. Over the next thirty years he was invariably to be found at the frontline of international diplomacy, either striding the corridors of power at Westminster or jetting from one exotic location to the next. His tasks ranged from the challenging to the bizarre - from speech writing for Margaret Thatcher (who scrawled an emphatic 'NO!' over his first effort), to hiding an embarrassing bobble hat from Robin Cook . With recollections from the last three decades in international politics, taking us right up to Cowper-Coles's posting to Afghanistan, 'Ever the Diplomat' is a revealing and witty account of a unique period in our history. Cowper-Coles reveals what went on behind-the-scenes of Whitehall as we encounter a swindler impersonating Liberian President Charles Taylor, the young, idealistic leader of Syria Bashar al-Assad and Tony Blair in his boxer shorts.


To the Editor: Baylisascaris procyonis (Ascaridoidea: Ascarididae) parasites are facultatively heteroxenous nematodes that are widely distributed in the United States and Canada, where prevalence rates reach 70%–90%. They colonize the small intestine of their final host, the northern raccoon (Procyon lotor), whose feces can contain up to 25 × 103 eggs/g. Under ideal environmental conditions (100% humidity and 24°C), eggs become infective in soil (1,2). When ingested by other mammalian hosts, third-stage larvae can produce pathologic changes called larva migrans, which can lead to chronic neurologic disorders and even death (1,3). B. procyonis parasite infection of humans occurs by the fecal–oral route (ingestion of eggs in contaminated food) (1). Small children are particularly vulnerable through accidental geophagia. Public health concerns arise where raccoon and human populations overlap.


Extrusion-based bioprinting of hydrogel scaffolds is challenging due to printing-related issues, such as the lack of capability to precisely print or deposit hydrogels onto three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds as designed. Printability is an index to measure the difference between the designed and fabricated scaffold in the printing process, which, however, is still under-explored. While studies have been reported on printing hydrogel scaffolds from one or more hydrogels, there is limited knowledge on the printability of hydrogels and their printing processes. This paper presented our study on the printability of 3D printed hydrogel scaffolds, with a focus on identifying the influence of hydrogel composition and printing parameters/conditions on printability. Using the hydrogels synthesized from pure alginate or alginate with gelatin and methyl-cellulose, we examined their flow behavior and mechanical properties, as well as their influence on printability. To characterize the printability, we examined the pore size, strand diameter, and other dimensions of the printed scaffolds. We then evaluated the printability in terms of pore/strand/angular/printability and irregularity. Our results revealed that the printability could be affected by a number of factors and among them, the most important were those related to the hydrogel composition and printing parameters. This study also presented a framework to evaluate alginate hydrogel printability in a systematic manner, which can be adopted and used in the studies of other hydrogels for bioprinting.


Many rural communities are adopting entrepreneurship and small business development services as components of their economic development programs. As rural communities face declining tax bases (due to out-migration) and recession-related fiscal stress, knowing which of these programs best utilizes scarce funds is critical. A partial answer to this question comes by understanding which services small business owners utilize and which contributed to their success. Using data collected from a random sample of 1,200 Oklahoma households via a telephone survey, we identify which locally provided services (mentoring, small business management training, locally-provided funds – including state and federal subsidized loans, incubator) small business owners in Oklahoma used, and we assess the correlation between the use of services and the business owners' perceived success across three measures: overall business success, employment growth, and financial success.


Territory selection can greatly affect a species' ecology, from density to interactions
among individuals. Previously, habitat quality was found to be one of the driving forces
in territory selection. However, the use of social information received from other
individuals in a population has shown to also play a role in territory selection, especially
when habitat is consistent. In a study of black-throated blue warblers, Betts et al. (2008)
were able to influence territory selection by playing song in empty potential territories
during the post-breeding season when juveniles and males were prospecting for
territories. The following year, more males set up territories in the places where song had
been played than in places where it had not. I looked to see if a similar effect could be
observed in a partially migratory population of song sparrows. Song sparrows have a
much longer breeding season than black-throated blue warblers, remaining territorial
from early in the spring into the autumn, and many male song sparrows remain yearround
residents. Empty territories in suitable habitat were found across the campus of
Western Carolina University and song was played in half of them for ten hours a day for
ten days during August of 2009. Point counts were done in every territory until April of
2010, and playbacks were done in every territory in May and June of 2010 to test for
territoriality. While there was initially a strong presence of birds in the experimental
territories compared to the control, ultimately there was no difference in occupancy
between experimental and control territories. This could be partially due to densitydependent
habitat selection since the population at the field site was very dense. Song
sparrows also display a wide variety of territorial behavior, which could result in less emphasis on social information in territory selection when compared to black-throated
blue warblers.


Many XML filtering systems have emerged in recent years identifying XML data that structurally match XPath queries in an efficient way. However, apart from structural matching, it is considered equally important to deal with value-based predicates. In this paper, we propose methods to combine both structural and value XML filtering in a distributed environment based on distributed hash tables. Structural matching is performed using automata, while we study different methods for evaluating value-based predicates. As a result, our algorithms scale in both the size of the query set and the number of the predicates per query. We perform an experimental evaluation and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed methods in both a controlled environment of a cluster and on a real testbed provided by the PlanetLab network.


Lisa Niles, "Owning 9the dreadful truth9; Or, Is Thirty-Five Too Old?: Age and the Marriageable Body in Wilkie Collins9s Armadale " (pp. 65––92) Wilkie Collins9s Armadale (1864––66) offers a sensational critique of the increasing popularity of cosmetics usage in 1860s London and its relationship to perceptions of aging and the marriage market. Looking younger than her thirty-five years, Collins9s antiheroine Lydia Gwilt challenges the terms upon which Victorian society constructed a middle-class, marriageable female identity. In Lydia, Collins produces a character that succeeds in a competitive marriage market by performing a simulacrum of youth. And the narrative suggests that her beauty depends not merely upon Nature but also upon her knowledge of the arts of its preservation, particularly as Gwilt is associated with Mother Oldershaw, a fictive double for Madame Rachel, the infamous London cosmetics purveyor who stood trial for fraud in 1868. By examining the novel alongside Punch cartoons, trial transcripts, beauty manuals, and reviews, I claim that Lydia Gwilt9s character resists a simplistic cosmetics-as-fraud reading and exposes a public whose desires are predicated upon the fraudulent practices it critiques. The artificial threat that cosmetics serve functions as a site through which to explore the real threat——the criminality of a body that successfully passes as younger in a marriage market dependent upon regularizing youth and demarcating age. To be thirty-five and look it is unremarkable, perhaps pitiable; to be thirty-five and not look it is a crime.


As both the amount of data to be stored and the rate of data production grows, data center designers and operators face the challenge of planning and managing systems whose characteristics, workloads, and performance, availability, and reliability goals change rapidly. As we move towards software-defined data centers (SDDCs) the ability to reconfigure and adapt our solutions is increasing, but to take full advantage of that increase we must design smarter, more intelligent systems that are aware of how they are being used and able to deliver accurate predictions of their characteristics, workloads, and goals. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm for use in an intelligent, user-aware SDDC which performs run-time analysis of user storage system activity in a manner that has a minimal impact on performance and provides accurate estimations of future user activity.
 Our algorithm can produce both generalized models, and specific models, depending on the parameters used. Our algorithms are efficient, and have low overhead, making them ideal to use to add intelligence to SDDCs and build intelligent storage systems. We use our algorithm to analyze actual data from two real systems, monitoring user activity two and three times a day for each system respectively, over a period of roughly two years, for almost 500 distinct users.


The Y-chromosome haplogroup N-M231 (Hg N) is distributed widely in eastern and central Asia, Siberia, as well as in eastern and northern Europe. Previous studies suggested a counterclockwise prehistoric migration of Hg N from eastern Asia to eastern and northern Europe. However, the root of this Y chromosome lineage and its detailed dispersal pattern across eastern Asia are still unclear. We analyzed haplogroup profiles and phylogeographic patterns of 1,570 Hg N individuals from 20,826 males in 359 populations across Eurasia. We first genotyped 6,371 males from 169 populations in China and Cambodia, and generated data of 360 Hg N individuals, and then combined published data on 1,210 Hg N individuals from Japanese, Southeast Asian, Siberian, European and Central Asian populations. The results showed that the sub-haplogroups of Hg N have a distinct geographical distribution. The highest Y-STR diversity of the ancestral Hg N sub-haplogroups was observed in the southern part of mainland East Asia, and further phylogeographic analyses supports an origin of Hg N in southern China. Combined with previous data, we propose that the early northward dispersal of Hg N started from southern China about 21 thousand years ago (kya), expanding into northern China 12–18 kya, and reaching further north to Siberia about 12–14 kya before a population expansion and westward migration into Central Asia and eastern/northern Europe around 8.0–10.0 kya. This northward migration of Hg N likewise coincides with retreating ice sheets after the Last Glacial Maximum (22–18 kya) in mainland East Asia.


Object detection is a basic skill for a robot to perform tasks in human environments. In order to build a good object classifier, a large training set of labeled images is required; this is typically collected and labeled (often painstakingly) by a human. This method is not scalable and therefore limits the robot's detection performance.

We propose an algorithm for a robot to collect more data in the environment during its training phase so that in the future it could detect objects more reliably. The first step is to plan a path for collecting additional training images, which is hard because a previously visited location affects the decision for the future locations. One key component of our work is path planning by building a sparse graph that captures these dependencies. The other key component is our learning algorithm that weighs the errors made in robot's data collection process while updating the classifier. In our experiments, we show that our algorithms enable the robot to improve its object classifiers significantly.


The paper presents the case of ongoing efforts to develop and test generalizable user interfaces that provide interactive overviews for large-scale Web sites, portals, and other partitions of Web space. The interfaces are called Relation Browsers (RB) because they help people explore the relationships across different attribute sets, thus enabling understanding the scope and extent of the corpus through active exploration of different "slices" defined by different attribute value juxtapositions. The RB concept is illustrated through discussion of six iterations over a five year period that included laboratory usability studies, a field test, and implementations with a variety of data management problems. The current application to design concepts in a digital government setting is discussed, and the concept of the RB as the basis for an interface server is presented.


With the increasing availability of large amounts of data in the livestock domain, we face the challenge to store, combine and analyse these data efficiently. With this study, we explored the use of a data lake for storing and analysing data to improve scalability and interoperability. Data originated from a 2-day animal experiment in which the gait score of approximately 200 turkeys was determined through visual inspection by an expert. Additionally, inertial measurement units (IMUs), a 3D-video camera and a force plate (FP) were installed to explore the effectiveness of these sensors in automating the visual gait scoring. We deployed a data lake using the IMU and FP data of a single day of that animal experiment. This encompasses data from 84 turkeys for which we preprocessed by performing an 'extract, transform and load' (ETL-) procedure. To test scalability of the ETL-procedure, we simulated increasing volumes of the available data from this animal experiment and computed the 'wall time' (elapsed real time) for converting FP data into comma-separated files and storing these files. With a simulated data set of 30 000 turkeys, the wall time reduced from 1 h to less than 15 min, when 12 cores were used compared to 1 core. This demonstrated the ETL-procedure to be scalable. Subsequently, a machine learning (ML) pipeline was developed to test the potential of a data lake to automatically distinguish between two classses, that is, very bad gait scores v. other scores. In conclusion, we have set up a dedicated customized data lake, loaded data and developed a prediction model via the creation of an ML pipeline. A data lake appears to be a useful tool to face the challenge of storing, combining and analysing increasing volumes of data of varying nature in an effective manner.


Commitment is said to be one of the most widely researched topic in the area of Organizational Behavior. Various desirable consequences come to pass as results of commitment. Commitment has also been linked to performance but this has been found to be one of the most under-researched variables linked to it. Another variable that has not been researched vis –a- vis commitment is competence. This article addresses these gaps and has tried to relate both performance and competence to commitment. Specifically, this article has focused on continuance commitment. This article has been divided into various sections. The first section is a literature review on commitment. The second section discusses competency, what it means, and a resource based view of competencies has been discussed. Finally a link between competency and commitment and between commitment and performance has been established. Two propositions have been put forward to this end. The article concludes with a brief discussion on implications for research and practice.


Organic semiconductor materials composed of π–π stacking aromatic compounds have been under intense investigation for their potential uses in flexible electronics and other advanced technologies. Herein we report a new family of seven π–π stacking compounds of silver(I) bis-N-(4-pyridyl) benzamide with varying counterions, namely [Ag(NPBA)2]X, where NPBA is N-(4-pyridyl) benzamine, X = NO3− (1), ClO4− (2), CF3SO3− (3), PF6− (4), BF4− (5), CH3PhSO3− (6), and PhSO3− (7), which form extended π−π stacking networks in one-dimensional (1D), 2D and 3D directions in the crystalline solid-state via the phenyl moiety, with average inter-ring distances of 3.823 Å. Interestingly, the counterions that contain π–π stacking-capable groups, such as in 6 and 7, can induce the formation of mesomorphic phases at 130 °C in dimethylformamide (DMF), and can generate highly branched networks at the mesoscale. Atomic force microscopy studies showed that 2D interconnected fibers form right after nucleation, and they extend from ~30 nm in diameter grow to reach the micron scale, which suggests that it may be possible to stop the process in order to obtain nanofibers. Differential scanning calorimetry studies showed no remarkable thermal behavior in the complexes in the solid state, which suggests that the mesomorphic phases originate from the mechanisms that occur in the DMF solution at high temperatures. An all-electron level simulation of the band gaps using NRLMOL (Naval Research Laboratory Molecular Research Library) on the crystals gave 3.25 eV for (1), 3.68 eV for (2), 1.48 eV for (3), 5.08 eV for (4), 1.53 eV for (5), and 3.55 eV for (6). Mesomorphic behavior in materials containing π–π stacking aromatic interactions that also exhibit low-band gap properties may pave the way to a new generation of highly branched organic semiconductors.


The insider threat has assumed increasing importance as our dependence on critical cyber information infrastructure has increased. In this paper we describe an approach for thwarting and attributing insider attacks. The Sense, Prepare, Detect, and React (SPDR) approach utilizes both a highly intelligent software reasoning system to anticipate, recognize, respond to, and attribute attacks as well as a widely distributed set of hardware-based sensor-effectors to provide alerts used by the reasoning system and to implement responses as directed by it. Using hardware sensor-effectors greatly reduces the risk that a savvy malicious insider can bypass or cripple the system's monitoring and control capabilities. In this paper we describe the prototype SPDR system and the results of its successful evaluation by an independent, DARPA-sponsored Red Team. We conclude with thoughts on possible SPDR enhancements and further research.


Two significant changes are occurring within the forest industry in British Columbia, both of which will necessitate a greater reliance on species and habitat monitoring and inventories. First, as British Columbia moves towards adopting the "New Era" principles of the provincial government, the Forest Practices Code will change from regulatory-based to "results-based." This means that forest companies will have to be monitored to ensure they meet the desired results outlined by the provincial government. Second, market pressures increasingly demand that forest companies be certified as "sustainable" under one of several certification schemes. All certification regimes require that companies be monitored to ensure biodiversity objectives within their sustainable forest management (SFM) plans are achieved. To meet these monitoring requirements, forest companies and the provincial government will need representative, feasible, reliable, and applicable indicators of wildlife and habitat values. Fortunately, British Columbia has several species and habitat inventories that can be used to develop indicators for both certification regimes and the results-based code implementation.This paper reviews the available inventories in British Columbia and provides an overview of the usefulness of these inventories for monitoring within SFM planning and the results-based code. In general, criteria and indicators developed from the province�s habitat inventories can be used immediately to monitor forest management practices; however, these habitat inventories need refined species-habitat models to be most useful. Although direct monitoring of wildlife is important for rare and endangered species and to determine the effects of forest management practices, species inventories are generally less useful for this purpose. Recommendations are provided to ensure the usefulness of inventories in monitoring compliance with the results-based code and meeting the needs of SFM planning.


Conventional wisdom holds that the polygynous family system is as sexually and emotionally satisfying as a monogamous one. Ethnographic accounts of 69 polygynous systems, however, provide compelling evidence that the majority of co-wives in a polygynous family prefer pragmatic co-operation with one another while maintaining a respectful distance. Moreover, there often is a deep-seated feeling of angst that arises over competing for access to their mutual husband. Co-wife conflict in the early years of marriage is pervasive, and often marked by outbursts of verbal or physical violence. Co-wife conflict may be mitigated by social institutions, such as sororal polygyny and some form of "social security" or health care. Material wealth may be divided more or less equally, but as a husband's sexual attention (a primary source for increased fertility) and affection cannot always be equitably distributed, there is ongoing and contentious rivalry among co-wives. (Co-wife conflict, jealousy, co-operation, pair bond) ********** Cultural anthropologists generally assume that humans are highly adaptable to a wide range of life circumstances. Less accepted is the qualification that "cultural models can have significant psychic costs for individuals" (Shore 1996:49). The assumption of enormous adaptability has also been challenged by many anthropologists (see Brown 1990 for overview) concerned with the topics of reproduction and family intimacy. For example, some (Ekvall 1968; Levine and Silk 1997) find that the fraternal polyandrous marriage system is unstable largely due to sexual and emotional factors, rather than economic considerations. Research on co-wife relationships in polygynous families find them to be emotionally unsatisfactory for the majority of participants (Al-Krenawi 1999; Al-Krenawi and Graham 1999; Chisholm and Burbank 1991; Hill and Hurtado 1996; Jankowiak 2001 ; Meekers and Franklin 1995; Strassman 1997; Ware 1980). However, other researchers (Borgerhoff-Mulder 1992; Kilbride 1994; Madhavan 2002; Mason 1982) report that under certain circumstances, women living in a polygynous family system enjoy material and emotional satisfaction. This article examines the effect of structural and psychological factors on co-wife conflict and co-operation. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether a pair-bond impulse is present in every culture, and if so, whether it undermines co-wife co-operation. Unlike previous studies of co-wife conflict and co-operation that focus only on one culture or a single geographical region, we have expanded the scope to include co-wife interactions in cultures from all over the world. We also identify the material, social, and emotional factors that can undermine or strengthen co-wife bonds. Examining how individuals respond to the polygynous family allows for a more thorough exploration of the polygynous family's divisiveness. To this end, we use the reasons for co-wife conflict as a means to identify anxieties within the polygynous family. EXPLANATIONS FOR CO-WIFE CONFLICT AND CO-OPERATION The conceptual frameworks of behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology are two of the more predominant explanatory schemes used to account for variation and continuities in polygynous family life. Although the two frameworks can form a unified theory, most researchers emphasize either the cultural variations or the continuity in their data. The behavioral ecologist Monique Borgerhoff-Mulder (1988, 1989, 1992) argues that material and related structural factors exert an enormous impact on shaping the quality of co-wife interaction, and that the degree to which a woman is materially dependent on her husband determines her willingness to co-operate or compete with a co-wife over material resources and reproductive considerations. From this it follows that the greater a wife's material dependence on her husband, the more frequent and Intense will be her conflicts with a co-wife. …


The origins of crop diseases are linked to domestication of plants. Most crops were domesticated centuries – even millennia – ago, thus limiting opportunity to understand the concomitant emergence of disease. Kiwifruit (Actinidia spp.) is an exception: domestication began in the 1930s with outbreaks of canker disease caused by P. syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) first recorded in the 1980s. Based on SNP analyses of two circularized and 34 draft genomes, we show that Psa is comprised of distinct clades exhibiting negligible within-clade diversity, consistent with disease arising by independent samplings from a source population. Three clades correspond to their geographical source of isolation; a fourth, encompassing the Psa-V lineage responsible for the 2008 outbreak, is now globally distributed. Psa has an overall clonal population structure, however, genomes carry a marked signature of within-pathovar recombination. SNP analysis of Psa-V reveals hundreds of polymorphisms; however, most reside within PPHGI-1-like conjugative elements whose evolution is unlinked to the core genome. Removal of SNPs due to recombination yields an uninformative (star-like) phylogeny consistent with diversification of Psa-V from a single clone within the last ten years. Growth assays provide evidence of cultivar specificity, with rapid systemic movement of Psa-V in Actinidia chinensis. Genomic comparisons show a dynamic genome with evidence of positive selection on type III effectors and other candidate virulence genes. Each clade has highly varied complements of accessory genes encoding effectors and toxins with evidence of gain and loss via multiple genetic routes. Genes with orthologs in vascular pathogens were found exclusively within Psa-V. Our analyses capture a pathogen in the early stages of emergence from a predicted source population associated with wild Actinidia species. In addition to candidate genes as targets for resistance breeding programs, our findings highlight the importance of the source population as a reservoir of new disease.


A quat-silicone micro-emulsion (particle size <40 nm), an amino-silicone macro-emulsion (110 nm), and an alkyl modified silicone macro-emulsion (740 nm) were used to modify Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) sapwood. Treated and uncoated boards were exposed to natural weathering for one year along with water treated controls according to EN 927-3. The treatment with silicone emulsions did not enhance the color stability, which was assessed at three months intervals using a spectrophotometer and classified according to the CIE-Lab system. Treatment with amino-silicone emulsions gave a more yellowish appearance of the wood surface before weathering than the other silicones and the control. Boards treated with quat- and amino-silicone were less overgrown by staining fungi and displayed reduced surface roughness than those treated with alkyl-modified silicone and the control samples.


The gibberellins are one of the major groups of growth promoting hormones which play an essential role in regulation of growth and development of angiospermic plants. Gibberellins are secondary metabolites of the fungus, Gibberella fujiluroi with its imperfect state of Fusarium moniliforme. F. moniliforme gives higher yields of GA3 on a variety of media and is associated with bakane diseases of rice. The performance of immobilized growing cells of Gibbrella fujikuroi-52 was affected by the immobilization agent used, nature and age of cells, mycelial cell density and size of beads. The beads, prepared by using standardized procedures, could be used for 7 cycles without affecting productivity in semi-continuous culture. The rate of production of gibberellic acid was 0.33-65 mg/l/h. In immobilized cells, GF-52 produced highest GA3 i.e. 0.99 g/l as compared to 0.77 g from in un-immobilized cells. Immobilized cells produced 0.74 g/l as compared to 0.57 g/l in un-immobilized cells.


Following the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central |Europe in 1989, many commentators saw the democratic traditions, political stability and relatively successful economic programme Czechoslovakia - and latterly the Czech Republic – as making the country a prime candidate for membership of the European Union. These expectations were largely confirmed by the Czech Republic's inclusion amongst those Central and East European states invited to begin accession negotiations in 1998 and after the successful conclusion of these negotiations in December 2002 to join the EU itself in 2004. However, despite consistent majorities in favour of accession to the EU among both public and political parties, levels of euroscepticism in the Czech Republic are significantly higher than in most other applicant states in the region. This was puzzling given that Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Revolution' in 1989 seemed to mark a clear reaffirmation of the traditional Czech orientation towards Western Europe. The chapter traces the development of Czech party debates on European integration and EU membership after 1989 and the role of party-based euroscepticism within them. After briefly outlining the historical background, it traces how the question of'Europe' evolved from a widely shared symbolic affirmation of a break with the communist past to a contentious set of issues concerning membership of the European Union, dividing both mainstream and radical parties. The chapter then analyzes in more detail the positions of the three most significant eurosceptic groupings in the Czech Republic: the Communists, the Republicans and other groups on the far right, and the centre-right Civic Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus. It concludes with assessments of the evolution of the Czech debate on Europe and the underlying causes of the party-based euroscepticism in the Czech Republic. Here it argues that Czech eurosceptic parties' discourse has increasingly converged around an updated version of the traditional nationalist paradigm of the Czechs as a 'small nation' overshadowed by Germany.


High strength, high modulus carbon fibres are becoming increasingly important as high performance engineering materials. This thesis describes how they may be prepared by heat treatment from filaments spun from polyacrylonitrile and its copolymers. The chemistry of the first stages of heat treatment is very important in controlling the mechanical properties of the carbonised product. A cyclisation reaction has been found to be responsible for the relatively high thermal stability of pyrolysed polyacrylonitrile, but without oxidation the fibres degrade and fuse. An initial oxidation stage is, therefore, essential to the preparation of fibre of high orientation. The cyclised product of pyrolysis is probably a poly 1,4 dihydropiridine and oxidation converts this to aromatic structures, and cyclised structures containing carbonyl and other oxygenated groups. Oxidation is found to assist the carbon fibre preparation process, by producing a product which condenses at an earlier stage of heat treatment, before fusion can occur. Carbon fibre strength and modulus are dependent upon producing a highly oriented crystal structure. While oxidation of the polymer stabilises the fibre so as to prevent disorientation, further large increases in orientation, with a commensurate improvement in strength and modulus, can be obtained by stretching at temperatures above 1,700 °C. This process is analogous to the way fibre orientation is increased by the stretching of the precursor. A lamellar graphite structure can be created in high temperature fibre, by carefully controlling the degree of oxidation. This type of graphite can produce very high values of Young's modulus. More often, however, graphite fibre has a fibrillar fine structure, which is explicable in terms of continuous graphite ribbons. A ribbon model is the most satisfactory representation of the structure of carbon fibre, as it explains the mechanism of the development of long range order and the variation of Young's modulus with crystalline preferred orientation.


This special issue is dedicated to forest and tree product value chains. Forest and tree products enter people's lives as goods and services, fulfilling basic subsistence needs for food, shelter, energy and health, amongst others. They may be traded near and far from their place of origin. They may be used for everyday activities, as exotic luxury items, or hold great cultural or symbolic value for worship. The activities and processes arising when such products enter new environments can have local as well as far-reaching ecological, social and economic consequences. Money is made and lost. Livelihoods and ecosystems are impacted, both positively and negatively. Landscapes change. Organisations and institutions arise and fall around products, and cultures are both influenced and shaped by the value chains that arise from the movement of products harvested from forests and farms, transported - processed and transformed into other products - marketed, sold, consumed and discarded.


Organization theory is a theory without a protagonist. Organizations are typically portrayed in organizational scholarship as aggregations of individuals, as instantiations of the environment, as nodes in a social network, as members of a population, or as a bundle of organizing processes. This paper hopes to highlight the need for understanding, explicating, and researching the enduring, noun-like qualities of the organization. We situate the organization in a broader social landscape by examining what is unique about the organization as a social actor. We propose two assumptions that underlie our conceptualization of organizations as social actors: external attribution and intentionality. We then highlight important questions and implications forming the core of a distinctively organizational analytical perspective.


Src is a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase involved in the cross-talk and mediation of many signaling pathways that promote cell proliferation, adhesion, invasion, migration, and tumorigenesis. Increased Src activity has been reported in many types of human cancer, including gastric cancer. Therefore, this factor has been identified as a promising therapeutic target for cancer treatments, and targeting Src in gastric cancer is predicted to have potent effects. We evaluated the antitumor effect of a c-Src/Abl kinase inhibitor, saracatinib (AZD0530), alone or combined with chemotherapeutic agents in gastric cancer cell lines and a NCI-N87 xenograft model. Among 10 gastric cancer cell lines, saracatinib specifically inhibited the growth and migration/invasion of SNU216 and NCI-N87 cells. Saracatinib blocked the Src/FAK, HER family, and oncogenic signaling pathways, and it induced G1 arrest and apoptosis in SNU216 and NCI-N87 cells. Apoptosis required induction of the proapoptotic BCL2 family member Bim. Knockdown of Bim using siRNA decreased apoptosis induced by treatment with saracatinib, suggesting that Bim has an important role in saracatinib-induced apoptosis. Saracatinib enhanced the effects of lapatinib, an EGFR/HER2 dual inhibitor, in SNU216 and NCI-N87 cells. Furthermore, combined treatment with saracatinib and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or cisplatin exerted synergistic effects in both saracatinib-sensitive and saracatinib-resistant cells. Consistent with our in vitro findings, cotreatment with saracatinib and 5-FU resulted in enhanced antitumor activity in the NCI-N87 xenografts. These data indicate that the inhibition of Src kinase activity by saracatinib alone or in combination with other agents can be a strategy to target gastric cancer. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(1); 16–26. ©2013 AACR.


Certain sparse signal reconstruction problems have been shown to have unique solutions when the signal is known to have an exact sparse representation. This result is extended to provide bounds on the reconstruction error when the signal has been corrupted by noise or is not exactly sparse for some other reason. Uniqueness is found to be extremely unstable for a number of common dictionaries.


This paper presents an energy-efficient scheduling algorithm for the data-communications of soft real-time periodic tasks on multi-radio embedded devices. To cope with the dynamic fluctuation of channel conditions, a feedback mechanism that monitors radio throughput is introduced to guarantee real-time behaviors. The paper also provides a formal analysis on the scheduling, exploring the relationship between tardiness bounds and energy savings and that between network stability and (m, k)-firm deadline guarantees. This approach is applicable to real-time communication scheduling problems in which background interference and other environmental factors are not known a priori. The algorithm is evaluated in the QualNet simulator, using data measured from radio hardware.


The paper conceptualizes chronic poverty by using the spaces of income and nutrition and estimates its incidence among states and social groups. It also aims to improve our understanding of the determinant of chronic poverty by considering economic, demographic and social factors. It attempts to answer the following questions : How important a determinant of chronic poverty is household income? What factors inhibit escape from chronic poverty? How different are the other poor from chronic poor? The analysis uses the unit level NSS and NFHS data.