Gene expression changes are a hallmark of the neuropathology of Huntington's disease (HD), but the exact molecular mechanisms of this effect remain uncertain. Here, we report that in vitro models of disease comprised of primary striatal neurons expressing N-terminal fragments of mutant huntingtin (via lentiviral gene delivery) faithfully reproduce the gene expression changes seen in human HD. Neither viral infection nor unrelated (enhanced green fluorescent protein) transgene expression had a major effect on resultant RNA profiles. Expression of a wild-type fragment of huntingtin [htt171-18Q] also caused only a small number of RNA changes. The disease-related signal in htt171-82Q versus htt171-18Q comparisons was far greater, resulting in the differential detection of 20% of all mRNA probe sets. Transcriptomic effects of mutated htt171 are time- and polyglutamine-length dependent and occur in parallel with other manifestations of polyglutamine toxicity over 4–8 weeks. Specific RNA changes in htt171-82Q-expressing striatal cells accurately recapitulated those observed in human HD caudate and included decreases in PENK (proenkephalin), RGS4 (regulator of G-protein signaling 4), dopamine D1 receptor (DRD1), DRD2, CNR1 (cannabinoid CB1 receptor), and DARPP-32 (dopamine- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein-32; also known as PPP1R1B) mRNAs. HD-related transcriptomic changes were also observed in primary neurons expressing a longer fragment of mutant huntingtin (htt853-82Q). The gene expression changes observed in cultured striatal neurons are not secondary to abnormalities of neuronal firing or glutamatergic, dopaminergic, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor signaling, thereby demonstrating that HD-induced dysregulation of the striatal transcriptome might be attributed to intrinsic effects of mutant huntingtin.


Three methods for improving the image of phase-contrast microscopy are proposed. The first two methods subtract, from the ordinary phase-contrast image, the image obtained through an objective with different pupil functions from that of the ordinary objective. These methods can reduce the distortion due to nonlinearity to less than 1/10 of the ordinary phase-contrast image. The third method simply uses a brighter objective lens along with a television camera with offset adjustment. The brighter lens results in higher sensitivity and less distortion. Theory, computer simulation, and a few experimental results are presented.


ABSTRACT Research on the division of family work has focused on household work and child-care to the exclusion of other domains, whereas studies on care-giving for older people typically ignore spouses' support to care-givers. In this paper we apply an approach that is typical of research on spouses' division of family work in caring for parents, in that the theoretical model focuses on the 'cultural mandates' that guide spouses' division of care, namely gender ideologies about appropriate roles, kinship obligations, and taboos against cross-gender personal care. Other predictors of the spousal division of care drawn from economic and health-care utilisation models are also examined. The analyses use pooled data on 1,449 care occasions from the first five waves of the US Health and Retirement Study. It was found that most couples to some extent share parent care, and that the involvement of husbands depended on a complex interplay of cultural mandates and contexts. Husbands participated most in personal care for parents if the care was mandated by kinship obligations (they cared more for their own than their wife's parents), and by cross-gender care taboos (they cared more for fathers than mothers). Other cultural contexts (such as race), a spouse's other commitments, health-related ability, resources (including support from the parents' other children), and care-burden also played a role. The findings demonstrate that decisions to care for parents emerge from complex negotiations among spouses and their children and siblings or, in other words, that parental care is a family endeavour.


Oil shocks exert influence on macroeconomic activity through various channels, many of which imply a symmetric effect. However, the effect can also be asymmetric. In particular, sharp oil price changes-either increases or decreases-may reduce aggregate output temporarily because they delay business investment by raising uncertainty or induce costly sectoral resource reallocation. Consistent with these asymmetric-effect hypotheses, the authors find that a volatility measure constructed using daily crude oil futures prices has a negative and significant effect on future gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the period 1984-2004. Moreover, the effect becomes more significant after oil price changes are also included in the regression to control for the symmetric effect. The evidence here provides economic rationales for Hamilton's (2003) nonlinear oil shock measure: It captures overall effects, both symmetric and asymmetric, of oil price shocks on output.


There has been great interest in researching and implementing effective technologies for the capture, processing, and display of 3D images. This broad interest is evidenced by widespread international research and activities on 3D technologies. There is a large number of journal and conference papers on 3D systems, as well as research and development efforts in government, industry, and academia on this topic for broad applications including entertainment, manufacturing, security and defense, and biomedical applications. Among these technologies, integral imaging is a promising approach for its ability to work with polychromatic scenes and under incoherent or ambient light for scenarios from macroscales to microscales. Integral imaging systems and their variations, also known as plenoptics or light-field systems, are applicable in many fields, and they have been reported in many applications, such as entertainment (TV, video, movies), industrial inspection, security and defense, and biomedical imaging and displays. This tutorial is addressed to the students and researchers in different disciplines who are interested to learn about integral imaging and light-field systems and who may or may not have a strong background in optics. Our aim is to provide the readers with a tutorial that teaches fundamental principles as well as more advanced concepts to understand, analyze, and implement integral imaging and light-field-type capture and display systems. The tutorial is organized to begin with reviewing the fundamentals of imaging, and then it progresses to more advanced topics in 3D imaging and displays. More specifically, this tutorial begins by covering the fundamentals of geometrical optics and wave optics tools for understanding and analyzing optical imaging systems. Then, we proceed to use these tools to describe integral imaging, light-field, or plenoptics systems, the methods for implementing the 3D capture procedures and monitors, their properties, resolution, field of view, performance, and metrics to assess them. We have illustrated with simple laboratory setups and experiments the principles of integral imaging capture and display systems. Also, we have discussed 3D biomedical applications, such as integral microscopy.


The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires organizations with a turnover of at least £36m to make a public statement on steps they are taking to identify and prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chain. Oxfam GB advocated for this policy development, and this statement relates to steps taken in relation to our own operations and supply chain. Our first statement gave detailed information about our policies and processes in order to demonstrate transparency on this challenging issue and to encourage other companies to be transparent. This 2017 statement is an update on progress against the commitments made in our first statement and shares two case studies of how we work.


This paper examines the institution of jirga, its main forms, and the different social contexts in which each form operates as a mechanism of conflict resolution in Afghanistan. It is argued that jirga as a traditional Afghan institution is closely bound up with the social and economic realities of every day life in Afghanistan and is deeply rooted in the culture and history of the people of the country. The focus of analysis, in this paper, is the Pashtun model, which is more elaborate and emulated to varying degrees by non-Pashtun Afghans (Carter and Connor1989; Glatzer 1998). It is argued that jirga as a time-honoured institution does not only resolve many local, tribal, and national conflicts efficiently and in cost-effective ways, but also acts as a powerful channel of communication among the people of Afghanistan. It, therefore, plays a central role in strengthening social solidarity among Afghans and contributes significantly to the maintenance of social order in Afghan society. However, the extent of the effectiveness of jirga as a mechanism of conflict resolution depends on the extent to which it is perceived as legitimate by the various segments of the Afghan population. It is maintained that there is a continued need for jirga in resolving many contemporary local, tribal and national conflicts in post-war Afghanistan. But, at the same time, this traditional Afghan institution needs to adapt to the new global cultural milieu that is being created by the forces of globalisation; it needs to be a more inclusive institution that represents both men and women and to be more sensitive to the universally accepted principles of Human Rights. Both past and current experiences show that there is reason to believe that jirga has the capacity to bridge tradition with modernity and to face the challenges of the 21 century.


It hasn't taken Web developers long to discover that when it comes to creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites, MySQL and PHP provide a winning open source combination. Add this book to the mix, and there's no limit to the powerful, interactive Web sites that users can create. With step-by-step instructions, complete scripts, and expert tips to guide readers, veteran author and database designerLarry Ullman gets right down to business: After grounding readers with separate discussions of first the scripting language (PHP) and then the database program (MySQL), he goes on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. This guide is indispensable for Web designers who want to replace their static sites with something more dynamic. The companion Web site includes source code, support forums, and extra tutorials. In addition to being updated for the most recent releases of MySQL and PHP, this new edition offers 25% new material, including updated examples for improved clarity and comprehension and new installation instructions for PHP, MySQL, and other related technologies.


Creating a simple and direct definition of maritime piracy is something that states have struggled with for centuries. The contemporary division of maritime crime into maritime armed robbery in domestic waters, and maritime piracy in international waters may appear arbitrary. This is especially true as there are two competing definitions of maritime piracy. The first is from the United Nations which draws on centuries of legal precedent and concern regarding state sovereignty and the attempt to balance the independence of states with the shared responsibility of ensuring a global public good. In this case, that is the ability to conduct unhindered interstate maritime trade. The second, advanced by the International Chamber of Commerce, considers maritime theft in both domestic and international waters to be acts of maritime piracy. While the contemporary definitions of maritime crime advanced in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea may contain technical weaknesses and enforcement remains difficult, they should not be dismissed.


Lead and cadmium concentrations in marine and terrestrial ecosystems, in
surfaces of soils, and in the atmosphere have been highly elevated on a global scale due
to industrial pollution. In order to ascertain the natural (rock-derived) levels of lead and
cadmium in streams, pristine mountain watersheds in the Sierra Nevada, California were
studied for their lead and cadmium contents, and the transport of lead and cadmium was
related to metal relatively uninfluenced by pollution that share similar transport patterns.
In addition, rock and unpolluted water samples from granodiorite, basalt and carbonate
terrains were analyzed for the concentrations of lead, iron and other elements. Wholerock
samples as well as biotite and feldspar mineral separates were used for laboratory
leaching and adsorption-desorption experiments to investigate the relationship between
lead and iron chemistry under controlled conditions. The concentrations of lead and cadmium in the late-summer drainage are shown
to be close to the natural levels that are controlled by the weathering of bedrock and soil.
This is demonstrated by measurements of 1) lead isotopic composition, and Fe/Pb ratios
in stream water, ground water, soil and bedrock, and 2) the removal rate of excess
atmospheric lead and cadmium from the water as it flows downstream. After the spring snow-melt runoff, most of the lead in alpine streams originates
from ground water, and has isotopic ratios that are consistent with values expected from
bedrock and soil sources, indicating that this lead is not anthropogenic in origin. The
lead found in unpolluted ground waters is more radiogenic than the lead in the bedrock
drained by these waters. A preferential release of radiogenic lead into waters and
leached phases of rock and soil can be explained by the preferential weathering of
radiogenic accessory minerals and to a lesser extent by a preferential release of U and Th
decay products due to the recoil effect. The lead uptake mechanism is proposed to be adsorption on oxy-hydroxide
surfaces. In contrast, the uptake of cadmium in the stream water is erratic and cannot
be explained by the same mechanism. Adsorption-desorption experiments suggest that
lead coprecipitates and is adsorbed on particle surfaces, mainly ferric iron hydroxides.
Due to a similar transport mechanism and comparable rate of release from common rock
and soil minerals, the ratio between natural (rock-derived) lead and iron in rivers should
be similar to their average upper continental crustal molar ratio of 1:6,500. Experiments and speciation models indicate that complexation of lead by manmade
organic compounds decreases the fraction of lead bound to surface sites. Such an
indirect pollution effect mobilizes lead and decreases the Fe/Pb ratio in rivers regardless
of any direct addition of anthropogenic lead. Many trace metals maintain their average upper continental crustal ratio with iron
in unpolluted river water, river sediments and soils; However, large excesses of most
trace metals relative to iron are found in deep-ocean water. At the transition from fresh
water to saline ocean water, two processes take place: 1) rapid removal of iron (and
other particle-forming elements) from the water column due to coagulation and settling;
and 2) partial desorption of trace metals from particle surfaces. While more than 99% of
the riverborne iron settles to the sediment within the continental shelf, some of the trace
metals are released to solution as dissolved chloro-complexes and are further transported
to the open sea. In addition, some of the trace metals attached to airborne and recycled
sea-floor particles may desorb when these particles are in contact with sea water. The adsorption/desorption process in sea water account for the relative
abundances of many trace metals in deep-sea water (not including REE). Furthermore,
it is suggested that the observed concentrations of these trace metals in deep-ocean water
are relatively unaffected by pollution and are largely determined by natural processes.


BACKGROUND
Two areas of uncertainty about routine statistics for mortality after hospital admission for myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke are i) whether most deaths occur in the admission episode itself rather than after discharge, and ii) whether most deaths are certified on death certificates as, respectively, MI or stroke.

METHODS
Use of linked hospital and mortality statistics to analyse the time, place and certified cause of death in people aged 35-74 after admission for MI or stroke.

RESULTS
Of 7,964 deaths within a year of admission for MI, 5,686 (71.4%) occurred within 30 days of admission. Of these, 4,856 (85.4%) occurred during the initial hospital admission. Of 7,070 deaths within a year of admission for stroke, 4,905 (69.4%) were within 30 days, and 4,509 (91.9%) of these occurred during the initial admission. As expected, deaths at longer intervals than 30 days occurred mainly after discharge. Of deaths within 30 days of MI and stroke, 85.2% and 80.0%, respectively, were certified with MI or stroke as the underlying cause of death.

CONCLUSION
In-hospital death rates alone, calculated without record linkage to death certificates, would have identified most deaths that occurred within 30 days of admission. Nonetheless, linkage added to completeness of ascertainment even within this time period. Data without linkage are unreliable in identifying deaths at longer time intervals. Routine mortality statistics for MI and stroke, as the underlying cause, reliably included most deaths that occurred within 30 days of admission for each respective disease.


Trends & Controversies is a regular feature of IEEE Expert that focuses on current topics related to intelligent systems. This is the first issue in which I am acting as editor. Craig Knoblock, my predecessor, has given me an excellent example to follow. I have also been fortunate to inherit the aesthetically pleasing cartooning skills of Kevin Knight. Suggestions for future topics should be emailed to email@example.com trend which I will probably visit more than once is the increasingly important human aspect of intelligent systems design and use. In this issue, we examine one aspect this in the form of the relationship between art and technology. I have asked three researcher/artists to discuss the rather open-ended topic of the role of aesthetics in intelligent systems.All three authors make a point of contrasting aesthetics with beauty. Rich Gold, head of Xerox PARC's Creative Documents Research Group, notes that while the aesthetic feeling is universal, beauty itself is genre-specific.Gold makes a distinction between knowledge and information, and in an echo of Marshall McLuhan, asserts that information is characterized by the medium in which it is expressed. Given this framework, aesthetics can help determine the likelihood of successful transfer of knowledge from one person to another based on the emotional impact of its form of expression. He also posits the dawn of a new profession?the knowledge artist.Harold Cohen, an artist and AI researcher, is head of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at UC San Diego. He is best known for the development of Aaron, a program that creates visual artwork. For Cohen, aesthetics arises from the creative process, and the creative process is determined in large part by the medium or technologies that are used for the creating. Two properties that determine whether or not a medium can sustain the creative challenge are its difficulty of mastery and its malleability for changing purposes. Both oil paint and computer programming possess these properties. Cohen weaves together these ideas, along with a discussion of knowledge engineering, in the tale of how he taught Aaron to paint.Stephen Wilson creates computer-mediated artwork and is head of the Conceptual Design and Computer Art program at San Francisco State University. Wilson suggests using ideas from the aesthetics of contemporary art as a way to innovate in the design of intelligent systems. For example, parallels can be drawn between a current art-world trend to make use of outmoded or unpopular topics and adopting nonstandard views of intelligence. Examining the effects of an artwork on an audience can be related to viewing the behavior of an intelligent system as a performance.An interesting theme that arises in all three essays is the role of the medium in the expression of aesthetics. This is interesting to note, given the usually media-independent stance of computation.?Marti Hearst


The economic effects of environmental taxes depend on the market structure. Under imperfect competition with free entry and exit, environmental taxes have an impact on economies of scale by changing the number and size of firms. Whether economies of scale rise or fall in a particular industry depends on induced changes in the price elasticity of demand. Because export demand is more price elastic than domestic demand, the overall price elasticity rises (falls) as the industry gains (loses) in comparative advantage. We use a computable general equilibrium model for Germany to examine the effects of a unilaterally introduced carbon tax under both perfect and imperfect competition. Our key finding is that induced structural change in favor of the less energy intensive, more labor intensive industries is more pronounced under imperfect competition than under perfect competition. At the macroeconomic level, the total costs of environmental regulation under imperfect competition can be higher or lower than those under perfect competition depending on whether aggregate gains or losses in economies of scale across imperfectly competitive sectors prevail.


The demand of both the new telecom industry and digital broadcasters for cost-efficient provisioning of mobile multimedia services faces the reality of scarce radio resources. Various digital mobile and broadcast radio technologies have been developed and specifically been optimized. However, existing and emerging multimedia services exhibit challenging requirements in terms of asymmetry, interactivity, real time, and multicast communication. This article describes an evolution of an IP-based infrastructure from today's networks toward a future multi-radio infrastructure, taking into account the implications on the end-user terminal. This multi-radio infrastructure enables the cooperation of existing radio networks to combine their spectrum-efficient capabilities, whereby high-quality mobile multimedia services shall be provided. Furthermore, the need for dynamic allocation of spectrum to radio services is motivated. The basic functionality and architecture of a multi-radio system are outlined, with a special emphasis on cooperation between different radio systems. Also, an evolution path for the convergence of broadcast and new telecom is described, starting from today's systems and leading to a fully coordinated system.


American criminal law has never recognized a mistake-of-law defense. The principal rationale for rejecting it has been that the community knows what the criminal law prohibits. That may have been a reasonable rule when there were only a handful of crimes, and each one also violated the contemporary moral code, but that rule makes no sense today, given the use of the criminal law to enforce thousands of sometimes technical, arcane administrative regulations. Clemency, however, may be a perfect vehicle for the implementation of a mistake- or ignorance-of-the-law defense. Throughout Anglo-American legal history, kings, presidents, and governors have used their pardon power as a vehicle to remedy injustices in the criminal justice system. The conviction of a person for conduct that no reasonable person would have thought to be a crime certainly qualifies as a miscarriage of justice. Presidents and governors should consider using their clemency authority to pardon legitimate cases of mistake or ignorance, which might particularly arise in connection with strict criminal liability or regulatory crimes.


We present a measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the cross-correlation of quasars with the Lyα-forest flux transmission at a mean redshift of z = 2.40. The measurement uses the complete Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) data sample: 168 889 forests and 234 367 quasars from the SDSS data release DR12. In addition to the statistical improvement on our previous study using DR11, we have implemented numerous improvements at the analysis level enabling a more accurate measurement of this cross-correlation. We have also developed the first simulations of the cross-correlation that allow us to test different aspects of our data analysis and to search for potential systematic errors in the determination of the BAO peak position. We measure the two ratios DH(z = 2.40) /rd = 9.01 ± 0.36 and DM(z = 2.40) /rd = 35.7 ± 1.7, where the errors include marginalization over the non-linear velocity of quasars and the cross-correlation of metals and quasars, among other effects. These results are within 1.8σ of the prediction of the flat-ΛCDM model describing the observed cosmic microwave background anisotropies. We combine this study with the Lyα-forest auto-correlation function, yielding DH(z = 2.40) /rd = 8.94 ± 0.22 and DM(z = 2.40) /rd = 36.6 ± 1.2, within 2.3σ of the same flat-ΛCDM model. Key words: cosmological parameters / dark energy / large-scale structure of Universe


Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single search box on the library website. The article examines two semesters of real-world data, totaling nearly 1.4 million transactions. Findings include that unified library search is about more than the catalog and articles, though these predominate. Additionally, a small number of the most popular search queries accounts for a disproportionate amount of the overall queries. Also discussed are the merits of ongoing evaluation of library user search behavior.


Recently, neural architectures with all Multi-layer Perceptrons (MLPs) have attracted great research interest from the computer vision community. However, the inefficient mixing of spatial-channel information causes MLP-like Vision Models to demand tremendous pre-training on large-scale datasets. This work solves the problem from a novel knowledge distillation perspective. We propose a novel Spatial-channel Token Distillation ( STD ) method, which improves the information mixing in the two dimensions by introducing distillation tokens to each of them. A mutual information regularization is further introduced to let distillation tokens focus on their specific dimensions and maximize the performance gain. Extensive experiments on ImageNet for several MLP-like architectures demonstrate that the proposed token distillation mechanism can efficiently improve the accuracy. For example, the proposed STD boosts the top-1 accuracy of Mixer-S16 on ImageNet from 73.8% to 75.7% without any costly pre-training on JFT-300M. When applied to stronger architectures, e.g. CycleMLP-B1 and CycleMLP-B2, STD can still harvest about 1.1% and 0.5% accuracy gains, respectively.


In the context of growing urbanisation, urban poverty, and climate change impacts, the importance of urban food security and urban food systems is increasingly recognised by both local and national governments, as well as international actors. There is also a growing understanding that urban development and food systems cannot be decoupled from rural development given the multiple impacts that urban areas have on their surroundings. In recent years the concept of City Region Food Systems (CRFS) has emerged as a promising approach to support local governments, policy makers, and multi-stakeholder bodies in making informed decisions to improve urban and regional food system sustainability and resilience, while taking into account a more integrated approach to territorial development across urban and rural areas. This paper is based on an ongoing FAO and RUAF programme of assessing and planning City Region Food Systems, currently implemented in eight city regions in Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Senegal, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, and Zambia. The paper analyses the content, definition and delimitations of the concept of City Region Food Systems by presenting two case studies from Latin America (Quito and Medellin), and discusses first advances in policy uptake and territorial food planning.


On May 22, 2009, Massey University's Wellington campus hosted many speakers addressing the conference on war reporting jointly organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Media speakers included Television New Zealand's Sunday programme reporter Cameron Bennett; Radio NZ political editor Brent Edwards; Fairfax NZ reporter Michael Field; Fairfax Media editorial development manager Clive Lind; Pacific Media Centre director and AUT University associate professor Dr David Robie; freelance foreign correspondent Jon Stephenson; and Radio NZ International news editor Walter Zweifel. Commentaries, in some cases transcribed from recordings of proceedings, have been abridged. This transcript was compiled by Massey journalism programme lecturer Alan Samson.


People in Nepal generally hold fairly traditional views about sex and sexual health, whilst Western tourists often have a more liberal approach towards sex and relationships. There is evidence that significant sexual interaction occurs between male trekking guides and female travellers and/or local female sex workers in Nepal. This qualitative study explored trekking guides' sexual health knowledge, sexual relationships and condom use with female trekkers and local female sex workers. A total of 21 in-depth interviews were conducted with male trekking guides. Most reported having had sexual relationships with female trekkers and local female sex workers. Explanations for intercourse with female trekkers included: financial support; getting future trekkers through word-of-mouth advertising from the women they have had sex with; and opportunities for emigration. Interestingly, sexual intercourse is reported as more likely to be initiated by female trekkers than by guides, and more so by older women. In contrast, the main reasons for having sex with local female sex workers included: romantic love or sexual excitement and novelty. Awareness regarding sexual health was high among guides, but several factors discouraged the regular use of condoms. Further research with female tourists would help understand the motivations and reasons for their sexual behaviour.


The most important property in wireless systems, when it comes to increase the system capacity and spectrum efficiency, is eliminating interference. Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is considered interference-limited system. Spatial filtering using smart antenna has emerged as a promising technique to improve the performance of cellular communication systems; hence, Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) has recently received increasing interest in improving the performance of wireless systems. These interference-limited systems are susceptible to time of arrival (TOA) and angle of arrival (AOA) of individual user signals, thus, a non-uniform traffic can severely degrade the performance of CDMA and SDMA systems. In this thesis, new approach of the joint multiple access system arising from the combination of CDMA and SDMA systems is designed, and its system performances are then investigated.

An innovative approach to eliminate the existing interferences in this joint multiple access system is proposed. The spreading sequences of Large Area Synchronous Even Ternary (LAS-ET) which exhibited an interference free window (IFW) in their correlation are exploited here. The spatial signature from smart antenna narrower beam is exploited to drive all the multipath propagation signals to arrive within the IFW in reverse link transmission. The size of IFW is adaptable with the size of smart antenna beamwidth through dynamic space code (DSC) algorithm. Hence, this double signatures scheme forms a novel multiple access scheme called Dynamic Space Code Multiple Access (DSCMA) system. From the nature of spatial filtering of smart antenna systems, a dynamic sequence reuse assignment is possible in DSCMA to increase its spectrum efficiency. The non-zero pulse intervals and sequence length of LAS-ET are arranged in even numbers which has demonstrated some performance improvements in ternary phase shift keying (TPSK) signalling. On the other hand, the combined spreading sequence and spatial signature scheme also prompts a possibility of developing a novel Space Division Duplexing (SDD) scheme. The reverse and forward links are transmitted within a narrower beam of smart antenna, and both links are distinguished by different LAS-ET sequences.

The simulation results indicate that the reverse link system capacity in DSCMA using LAS-ET spreading sequences together with smart antenna system is increased dramatically compared to traditional binary spreading sequences. The results also showed that the spectrum efficiency of DSCMA is increased when the number of elements in smart antenna system is increased. Finally, it can be concluded that the system capacity and spectrum efficiency are increased significantly from DSCMA using smart antenna systems due to its perfect interference cancellation scheme.


Background & Objectives: Diabetes mellitus is recognized with severe metabolic complications. Many herbal medicines have been recommended for treatment of diabetes. In this study, the antidiabetic and analgesic effect of hexanic and alcohlic extract Trigonellafoenum graecum was investigated in normal and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Methods: Present study was carried out in 2011 at Guilan University of Medical Sciences, 48 male Sprague Dawley rats (230-300 gr) were divided into six groups: control, type 1 diabetic, and 4 treated groups that received intraperitonealy hexanic and alcoholic extract of fenugreek (100, 200 mg/kg body weight) for 28 days. Two experimental models were used (acetic acid, and hot-plate tests) in order to characterize the analgesic effect. Blood glucose was measured with glucometer. Data analyzed with spss software 16 and one way ANOVA and Tukey tests. P<0.05 was statistically significant. Results: Compared to control rats, both of the aqueous - alcoholic and Hexanic extract significantly reduced blood glucose level in all diabetics groups. This effect was stronger in groups that received Hexanic extract (p<0.05). All groups received the aqueous - alcoholic and Hexanic extract showed analgesic effect but this effect was more clear in the Hexanic 200 mg/kg group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Fenugreek extract possesses hypoglycemic, and analgesic effects.


In the modern competitive era, many communication channels to customers need to be developed through technology. Banking through use of Smartphone and apps is the latest advancement in the field of providing better customer services by banks and financial Institutions. After the beginning of such services in India, transactions relating to the use of mobile for banking have grown, however still there is a long passage to cover since large chunk of clients still believe in the age old ways of performing banking. Mobile banking is offering the customer a very quick, reliable and effective service usually 24X7 to aid transactions. Banks can take the assistance of these services to increase the output and efficiency of their staff members by creating benchmark to provide systematized customer service and enhancing linkage with their clients. This paper examines the benefits as well as the limitations of using the aid of mobile banking and the resulting issues which a customers have encountered.


PASARI, B. and M. Sh. YAKHCHALI, 2015. Study the effect of methanol foliage spraying on chickpea cultivars in rainfed condition. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 21: 93–99 In order to study the effects of methanol foliage spraying on some characters of chickpea cultivars in rainfed condition, an experiment was carried out as split plot experiment based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at Research Field of Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Islamic Azad University-Sanandaj branch during 2012 growing season. The first factor was Methanol foliage spraying in concentrations as: 0 (control), 10, 20 and 30 volumetric percentages as the main factor and second factor was four chickpea cultivars in clouded as: pirozand kaka (desi type) and jam and ILC-482 (kabuli type) that considered as subplot. The results showed that methanol has a significant effect on yield and yield components. Methanol spraying with a concentration of 30% was more effective than other treatments on yield and yield components, as it increased the number of pods, number of seeds per pod and 100 seed weight. In this study, the most and lowest seed yields were recorded in 30% and 0% (control) methanol treatments as: 899.67 and 538.95 kg/ha respectively. The yield of desi type cultivars were more than Kabuli type, also. As the most and lowest seed yield were achieved in kaka and jam cultivars as: 963.97 and 462.01 kg/ha respectively. In this study other characters as: chlorophyll content and canopy temperature in different growth stages and seed protein were affected significantly by methanol and cultivars. Finally seed yield increased as: 28.52% - 66.93% by methanol spraying at different concentration from 10% - 30%.


Sardana and Taurus form a Python software suite for Supervision, Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) conceived for scientific installations. Sardana and Taurus are open source and deliver a substantial reduction in both time and cost associated to the design, development and support of control and data acquisition systems. The project was initially developed at ALBA and later evolved to an international collaboration driven by a community of users and developers from ALBA, DESY, MAXIV and SOLARIS as well as other institutes and private companies. The advantages of Sardana for its adoption by other institutes are: free and open source code, comprehensive workflow for enhancement proposals, a powerful environment for building and executing macros, optimized access to the hardware and a generic Graphical User Interface (Taurus) that can be customized for every application. Sardana and Taurus are currently based on the TANGO Control System framework but also capable to inter-operate to some extend with other control systems like EPICS. The software suite scales from small laboratories to large scientific institutions, allowing users to use only some parts or employ it as a whole.


Adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness is examined on a high pressure turbine blade by varying three critical engine parameters, viz., coolant blowing ratio, coolant-to-mainstream density ratio and freestream turbulence intensity. Three average coolant blowing ratios (BR = 1.2, 1.7, and 2.2 on the pressure side and BR = 1.1, 1.4, and 1.8 on the suction side), three average coolant density ratios (DR = 1.0, 1.5, and 2.5), and two average freestream turbulence intensities (Tu = 4.2% and 10.5%) are considered. Conduction-free Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) technique is adopted to measure film-cooling effectiveness. Three foreign gases— N2 for low density, CO2 for medium density, and a mixture of SF6 and Argon for high density are selected to study the effect of coolant density. The test blade features 2 rows of cylindrical film-cooling holes on the suction side (45° compound), 4 rows on the pressure side (45° compound) and 3 around the leading edge (30° radial). The inlet and the exit Mach numbers are 0.24 and 0.44, respectively. Reynolds number of the mainstream flow is 7.5E105 based on the exit velocity and blade chord length. Results suggest that the PSP is a powerful technique capable of producing clear and detailed film effectiveness contours with diverse foreign gases. Large improvement on the pressure side and moderate improvement on the suction side effectiveness is witnessed when blowing ratio is raised from 1.2 to 1.7 and 1.1 to 1.4, respectively. No major improvement is seen thereafter with the downstream half of the suction side showing drop in effectiveness. The effect of increasing coolant density is to increase effectiveness everywhere on the pressure surface and suction surface except for the small region on the suction side, xss /Cx <0.2. Higher freestream turbulence causes effectiveness to drop everywhere except in the region downstream of the suction side where significant improvement in effectiveness is seen.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


2 ABSTRACT. Two sections have been measured within the Lower Cretaceous deposits from the northern part of Pădurea Craiului: Osoiu Hill section and Subpiatră section. Thin sections representing more than 180 samples allowed us to present some results on the biostratigraphy, facies succession and the role of microbial structures in the genesis of these limestones. The Osoiu Hill section is dominated by fenestral limestones formed in the intertidal or in the shallow subtidal zone. Their formation is dominantly related to microbial mats. Based on foraminiferal assemblages we attribute a Lower Barremian age to these limestones. The succession in the Subpiatra section is dominated by shallow facies with rudists, corals and Bacinella. These limestones contain Mesorbitolina texana a foraminifer which indicate Gargasian age. A more dense spectrum of microbial structures characterize this section: thrombolitic crusts, Bacinella-Lithocodium type structures, cryptic carbonate marine veneers and rivulariacean-like cyanobacteria. The microbial structures played an important role in the genesis of carbonate sediments and their lithification in the two sections.


SUMMARY

This paper focuses on new instrumental and methodological aspects of the acquisition, processing and interpretation of marine magnetic data. Between two Overhauser sensors towed as a longitudinal gradiometer, a new fluxgate vector magnetometer was employed. A second independent vector magnetometer system operated simultaneously. This equipment was used during research cruise SO-180 of R/V SONNE in the Central Pacific at about 120°W just south of the equator. The survey area on the Pacific Plate is the mirror image to the currently subducting Cocos plate off Central America. The oceanic crust was formed around 23 Ma at the East Pacific Rise when the Farallon plate broke up into the Cocos and Nazca plates. The magnetic seafloor anomalies in the survey area strike approximately north–south almost parallel to the main field, resulting in very low anomaly amplitudes which had hindered detailed anomaly identification so far. A new processing scheme was applied to the data which identifies the weak anomalies in the total field and those in the vertical component that, as a consequence of the source body geometry, have about doubled amplitude. The vertical component constrains 2-D modelling much better than the total field alone. Processed fluxgate total field data are practically identical to the Overhauser reference and even provide a reliable gradient when combined with one Overhauser. Although towed vector magnetometers typically provide no independent estimate of yaw, we illustrate that a numerical yaw (bandpass filtered magnetic heading) can provide reasonable estimates of the horizontal field components. These component data open additional analysis tools: the strike direction of magnetic lineations can be estimated from single profiles by either magnetic boundary strike ellipses in the space domain or by coherences between vertical and horizontal components in the wavenumber domain. Auto power spectra of the total field provide an approximate depth to the anomaly source or, if in obvious contradiction to the bathymetric depth, allow the detection of distortions, for example, by external temporal geomagnetic variations.


India has undergone a series of ups and downs in
agricultural production with the climatic conditions playing
havoc in the years of abnormality. We faced many droughts in
18th and 19th centuries without much know how to counterfeit
their impacts. With the launch of Green Revolution (GR) in the
late middle years of 20th century, India has improved its position
in food grain production with technological interventions. The
States of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh could
make use of GR technologies like high yielding varieties of rice
and wheat, use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation
facilities etc. and made enormous progress in food production.
Currently, agroecosystems are facing the problems of overexploitation
of natural resources, decline in soil fertility, ground
water level and agricultural productivity. Hence, ensuring
sustainable food security is the need of the hour.

As per the statement of Minister of State for Agriculture
and Food Processing Industries, Government of India (March,
2013), India's productivity of rice (3590 kg/ha) is lower than
China (6686 kg/ha), Bangladesh (4219 kg) and Myanmar (4081
kg). Whereas India's productivity of wheat (1661kg) is lower
than China (4838 kg) in 2011. China performed better in the
productivity of coarse grains (5470 kg) and pulses (1533 kg)
when compared to India which stood at 1591 kg and 699 kg
respectively. India's per hectare production of pulses is the
lowest when compared to its six neighbours - Bangladesh,
Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Besides all our
efforts to enhance agricultural productivity through a huge
network of institutions, we are still lagging behind due to
numerous problems that are inherent in our system. At present,
our aim should be to enhance the agricultural productivity
without causing much damage to the natural resources and
production environment. This calls for a stringent action to
evolve varieties and technologies/innovations which can
enhance the production/productivity of agricultural crops
under changing climatic scenarios. This is possible through
some innovative techniques like inducing C4ness in rice,
developing multiple resistant cultivars through MAGIC (multiparent advanced generation intercross), development of
super hybrids, application of GIS/Remote sensing technologies,
nanotechnology, crop modeling etc.. All the new generation
technologies require policy support for their development as
well as adoption for harnessing their full potential benefits. At
the same time, the institutions involved in research, extension
activities, development departments, banking, planning and
execution should all come together and work in coherence to
make this a successful venture.

This book contains lead papers from distinguished experts,
policy makers and dedicated researchers. Efforts are made to
compile the latest information on present agricultural scenario in
India in comparison with other developed and developing nations
and also the major problems faced by Indian agriculture, types
of innovations required in research, policy and institutional set
up to meet the ever increasing demands for food and nutritional
security. It also emphasizes the steps to be taken up by various
stakeholders involved in the agricultural production scenario to
make agriculture a profitable proposition, without causing much
damage to the natural environment. It also covers the important
measures to be adopted for creating interest among youth for
agriculture and to improve their livelihood security through
various interventions by public and private sectors.

We hope that this book would be of immense use to
researchers in planning their future line of research, for policy
makers to take rational decisions on Indian agriculture which
would benefit farmers as well as consumers by protecting the
soil and environmental quality, for students and general public
to have a wealth of information on agriculture in India. It must
be mentioned here that while the scholarly papers included
in this volume do help enrich the readers' understanding on
the issues related to the climate change and sustainable food
security, the views expressed by the authors in their respective
papers are their own and the editors do not necessarily
subscribe to them.
We thank all the contributors to this volume. Our special
thanks are due to Dr.V.S. Ramamurthy, Director, National
Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) Bangalore, Dr. Ajay Parida, Executive Director, M. S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation (MSSRF) Chennai, Dr. Parveen Arora, Adviser (Sc-
F), Department of Science & Technology, Government of India
(GOI), New Delhi, Dr. A. Arunachalam, Principal Scientific
Officer to Director General, ICAR, GOI, New Delhi for their
support and encouragement at every stage of its preparation.
We are very grateful to Ms. G. F. Aiyasha, Mrs. Mariyammal,
Mr.Thomas K.Varghese and Dr. K. Manorama for their kind
involvement and contribution.


As an art form, an academic discipline and an ideological instrument that finds a place in cultural studies and social sciences, film plays a significant role both in the creation and as a reflection of the culture in which it is produced and sustained. Within the relationship between religion and the cinema in the Turkish context, religion has ironically become an ideological discourse contrasting with the Islamic attitude prohibiting human depiction. This paper seeks to examine the transformation of both religious and secularist cliches and stereotypes in the Turkish cinema, by means of ideological and sociological critiques of some sample films.


Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine young care leavers' experiences of supportive and nonsupportive factors after leaving care. Telephone interviews were conducted with 65 young people, between 18 and 26 years old, who had left care in Sweden within the previous 3 months to 3 years. The care-leaving process was in many cases described by the young people as badly planned and compressed. Some interviewees received support from the formal network (social services, foster carers, residential homes, contact persons) for housing (37) and financial matters (36), but few received support from the formal network concerning employment (14) and education (11). Emotional support was mainly provided by partners and friends. Altogether, the results suggest that access to support is a helpful factor for young people leaving care, but also that many of our interviewees had no such access, from neither formal nor informal networks.


This review article summarizes some recent developments in psychiatry such as personalized medicine, employing biomarkers and endophenotypes, and developments collectively referred to as neuromodulation with a focus on ADHD. Several neurophysiological subtypes in ADHD and their relation to treatment outcome are reviewed. In older research the existence of an ''abnormal EEG'' or ''paroxysmal EEG'' was often reported, most likely explained by the high occurrence of this EEG subtype in autism, as the diagnosis of autism was not coined until 1980. This subgroup might respond best to anticonvulsant treatments, which requires more specific research. A second subgroup is a beta-excess or beta-spindling subgroup. This group responds well to stimulant medication, albeit several studies suggesting that neurophysiologically this might represent a different subgroup. The third subgroup consists of the ''impaired vigilance'' subgroup with the often-reported excess frontal theta or excess frontal alpha. This subgroup responds well to stimulant medication. Finally, it is proposed that a slow individual alpha peak frequency is an endophenotype related to treatment resistance in ADHD. Future studies should incorporate this endophenotype in clinical trials to further investigate new treatments for this substantial subgroup of patients, such as NIRSbiofeedback, transcranial Doppler sonography biofeedback, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or medications such as nicotine and piracetam.


Cassava is an important staple consumed in various forms by humans. The glycemic index and load of some Nigerian foods are well documented, but not much is documented on Vitamin A bio-fortified pruned cassava. The study determined blood glucose response in normal freeliving volunteer adults after consumption of vitamin A bio-fortified normally grown cassava (A), vitamin A bio-fortified pruned cassava (B) and non-bio-fortified normally grown cassava (C). The study employed single blind, randomized, cross-over investigation on 40 consenting apparently healthy adult volunteers with a documented normal fasting blood glucose level prior to recruitment. Fasting blood sugar level and post prandial of the participants were obtained on each day of the study after the consumption of 360 g of treatments (A, B&C eba) which was equivalent to 75 g anhydrous glucose using Accu-check glucometer. The treatments were served with vegetable soup prepared with fish and was administered to the subjects in a randomized manner. Oral glucose D was used as standard food. Post prandial glucose response (mg/dL) was obtained at 1 hour and 2 hours respectively. Data analyses were done using SPSS (version 22). Descriptive analysis was carried out and data were presented in percentages/proportions, means and standard deviations at 0.05% level of confidence. The 2 hours glucose post prandial (2 hrpp) for Treatment A, B and C in Mg/dL were 92.24, 94.74 and 98.91, while the glycemic loads were 308.0, 297.0 and 316.2 respectively. Treatment B had the lowest glycemic load. It was concluded that vitamin A bio-fortified cassava (especially when pruned before harvesting) had a lower post prandial glucose response, lower carbohydrate content and lowest glycemic load when compared to the non-bio-fortified conventional Garri. This variety of cassava may be better tolerated by people with metabolic disease/diabetes mellitus.


Globalization, economic necessity, and low civic engagement compound the urgency for students to develop the skills and knowledge they need for success. The interconnectedness of our global economy, ecosystem, and political networks require that students learn to communicate, collaborate, and problem solve with people worldwide. Employers demand fewer people with basic skill sets and more people with complex thinking and communication skills (Levy & Murnane, 2005). Low levels of civic engagement highlight the recognition that rote learning about government is not a sufficient way for students to learn how and why to be engaged citizens (Levine, 2012). But the movement toward 21st-century skills--as any movement--must define its objective, to wit, the skills that comprise the movement. Based on several hundred interviews with business, non-profit, and education leaders, Tony Wagner (2008) proposes that students need seven survival skills including: * Critical thinking and problem solving; * Collaboration and leadership; * Agility and adaptability; * Initiative and entrepreneurialism; * Effective oral and written communication; * Accessing and analyzing information; and * Curiosity and imagination The Assessment and Teaching of 21st-century Skills consortium (AT21CS), organizes skills, knowledge, and attitudes into four categories: ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and living in the world (2012). Regardless of the skills included or the terms used to describe them, all 21st-century skills definitions are relevant to aspects of contemporary life in a complex world. Most focus on similar types of complex thinking, learning, and communication skills, and all are more demanding to teach and learn than rote skills. These abilities are also commonly referred to as higher-order thinking skills, deeper learning outcomes, and complex thinking and communication skills. Why students aren't learning them The outdated, transmission model of education, through which teachers transmit factual knowledge to students via lectures and textbooks, remains the dominant approach to compulsory education in much of the world (OECD, 2009). Through the transmission model, students can learn information, but typically don't have much practice applying the knowledge to new contexts, communicating it in complex ways, using it to solve problems, or using it as a platform to develop creativity. Therefore, transmission is not the most effective way to teach 21st-century skills. Students are not developing them because they are not being explicitly taught (Schleicher, 2012) and because they are more difficult to assess than factual retention (AT21CS, 2012). Nine lessons Despite the challenges, we can educate students differently. Learning scientists have taught us nine lessons relative to teaching 21st-century skills. All of the lessons are about how students learn 21st-century skills and how pedagogy can address their needs. Many of the lessons--especially transfer, metacognition, teamwork, technology, and creativity--are also 21st-century skills in themselves. #1. MAKE IT RELEVANT. To be effective, curriculum must be relevant to students' lives. To make curriculum relevant, teachers must begin with generative topics or topics that have an important place in the disciplinary or interdisciplinary study at hand and that resonate with learners and teachers (Perkins, 2010). The relevance of a specific topic is clearer to students when they understand how it fits within the big picture. In his book Making Learning Whole (2010), teaching and learning expert David Perkins uses baseball as an analogy to explain that players must know how hitting, catching, and running bases contribute to the game. Similarly, students need to understand how statistics fit into the bigger picture of mathematical thinking, and they must have a sense of the value of mathematical thinking in the first place. …


Outsourcing is a major international phenomenon in business today. The areas of Information Technology and Management represent a unique case for outsourcing, both in terms of benefits and potential interorganizational problems. This completely revised edition presents the latest theory, research and practice in this fast changing field. With a range of case studies from outsourcing companies across the globe, the book offers a strong grounding in real-world industrial experience and keeps abreast of the most important developments in the field. The book provides expanded coverage of issues such as offshoring, multi-sourcing, business process outsourcing and the spread of offshoring to countries such as China and Russia. Uniquely, this book focuses on both sides of the outsourcing relationship, providing a balanced exploration of the ways in which these partnerships can be managed successfully. Accessible and cutting-edge, the second edition of Managing IT Outsourcing provides an in-depth, practical perspective on this important and far-reaching challenge in information management. It is an ideal text for students, academics and practitioners alike.


Polygonal models are widely used in computer animation. Static polygonal models are commonly animated using an underlying skeleton controlling the deformation of the mesh. This technique known as skeletal animation allows the artist to produce complex animation sequences in a relatively easy way. However, performing complex transitions between arbitrary animated meshes remains a challenging problem. There is a set of established techniques to perform metamorphosis (3D morphing) between static 3D meshes [Lazarus and Verroust 1998], but most of these can not be easily applied to animated meshes. The approach presented in this poster allows us to produce with great ease metamorphosing transitions between animated meshes of arbitrary topology using polygonal functional hybrids [Kravtsov et al. 2010].


Replicative helicases load onto DNA at the start of replication, and play a vital role by driving the replication fork forward. These helicases assemble into closed multimeric rings that need to encircle single-stranded (ss)DNA to be activated. Though helicase loading on substrates with accessible free ends has been well characterized for the T7 gp4 helicase, a model system for superfamily IV replicative helicases, the physiologically more relevant loading onto exposed ssDNA without free ends remains less well understood. Here, using a label-free assay that exploits changes in the DNA hairpin hopping dynamics to detect gp4 binding and activity, we characterize loading and activation of gp4 on exposed ssDNA without free ends, and find clear evidence of stepwise assembly of the helicase at the fork at physiologically relevant concentrations. The gradual loading onto ssDNA, rather than pre-forming in solution followed by spontaneous ring opening which appears favored at higher concentrations, suggests a new paradigm of stepwise assembly for the helicases in superfamily IV that do not require a separate loading enzyme.


Progress against cancer through prevention and treatment is often measured by survival statistics only instead of analyzing trends in incidence, survival and mortality simultaneously because of interactive influences. This study combines these parameters of major cancers to provide an overview of the progress achieved in the Netherlands since 1989 and to establish in which areas action is needed. The population‐based Netherlands Cancer Registry and Statistics Netherlands provided incidence, 5‐year relative survival and mortality of 23 major cancer types. Incidence, survival and mortality changes were calculated as the estimated annual percentage change. Optimal progress was defined as decreasing incidence and/or improving survival accompanied by declining mortality, and deterioration as increasing incidence and/or deteriorating survival accompanied by increasing mortality rates. Optimal progress was observed in 12 of 19 cancer types among males: laryngeal, lung, stomach, gallbladder, colon, rectal, bladder, prostate and thyroid cancer, leukemia, Hodgkin and non‐Hodgkin lymphoma. Among females, optimal progress was observed in 12 of 21 cancers: stomach, gallbladder, colon, rectal, breast, cervical, uterus, ovarian and thyroid cancer, leukemia, Hodgkin and non‐Hodgkin lymphoma. Deterioration occurred in three cancer types among males: skin melanoma, esophageal and kidney cancer, and among females six cancer types: skin melanoma, oral cavity, pharyngeal, esophageal, pancreatic and lung cancer. Our conceptual framework limits misinterpretations from separate trends and generates a more balanced discussion on progress.


One of the people involved in the 1999 Vera Institute of Justice research project The First Month Out—which explored and documented the reality of prisoners9 experiences in the days and weeks following release from prison or jail—discusses the ramifications of the report. The author describes everything from the project9s personal impact on her, to its positive effects on reentry practices, to the flaws in its design. The First Month Out details where opportunities to connect with family, find work, or enter treatment made a difference to individuals9 success. Furthermore, reentry providers and researchers have made the case that providing opportunities, particularly for work, during the reentry period can reduce recidivism. The author concludes that meeting the needs of returning community members is an important piece of a bigger agenda: investing in and growing human capital in the United States.


The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) add data origin
authentication and data integrity to the Domain Name System. This
document introduces these extensions and describes their capabilities
and limitations. This document also discusses the services that the
DNS security extensions do and do not provide. Last, this document
describes the interrelationships between the documents that
collectively describe DNSSEC. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


Microbial sulfur cycling in marine sediments often occurs in environments characterized by transient chemical gradients that affect both the availability of nutrients and the activity of microbes. High turnover rates of intermediate valence sulfur compounds and the intermittent availability of oxygen in these systems greatly impact the activity of sulfur‐oxidizing micro‐organisms in particular. In this study, the thiosulfate‐oxidizing hydrothermal vent bacterium Thiomicrospira thermophila strain EPR85 was grown in continuous culture at a range of dissolved oxygen concentrations (0.04–1.9 mM) and high pressure (5–10 MPa) in medium buffered at pH 8. Thiosulfate oxidation under these conditions produced tetrathionate, sulfate, and elemental sulfur, in contrast to previous closed‐system experiments at ambient pressure during which thiosulfate was quantitatively oxidized to sulfate. The maximum observed specific growth rate at 5 MPa pressure under unlimited O2 was 0.25 hr−1. This is comparable to the μmax (0.28 hr−1) observed at low pH (<6) at ambient pressure when T. thermophila produces the same mix of sulfur species. The half‐saturation constant for O2 ( KO2 ) estimated from this study was 0.2 mM (at a cell density of 105 cells/ml) and was robust at all pressures tested (0.4–10 MPa), consistent with piezotolerant behavior of this strain. The cell‐specific KO2 was determined to be 1.5 pmol O2/cell. The concentrations of products formed were correlated with oxygen availability, with tetrathionate production in excess of sulfate production at all pressure conditions tested. This study provides evidence for transient sulfur storage during times when substrate concentration exceeds cell‐specific KO2 and subsequent consumption when oxygen dropped below that threshold. These results may be common among sulfur oxidizers in a variety of environments (e.g., deep marine sediments to photosynthetic microbial mats).


Introduction1 This paper outlines a feminist reading of Michel de Certeau's work on urban space and narrative in The Practice of Everyday Life. De Certeau offers a persuasive, highly poetic theoretical framework for understanding the production of urban space and the way it is experienced - and 'written' - through the everyday practices of a city's inhabitants. The role of sexual difference in the production of this space is somewhat underdeveloped, however. In response to this gap, and with the help of Elizabeth Grosz's essay Cities-bodies, I develop a feminist analysis of the urban subjectivity implied in his work.Urban space and narrative2 Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life investigates the spatial logics of everyday life and cultural consumption. The particular essay on which my reading is focused - "Walking in the City" - explores the use of urban space as an example of the ways in which consumers, as bricoleurs, actively re-use culture and "reappropriate the space organised by techniques of sociocultural production" (de Certeau, xviii). These ways of operating are "ruses of other interests and desires" that are not determined or captured by the systems in which they develop (de Certeau, xviii).3 Everyday practices are enunciative for de Certeau (Collie). The physical act of walking realises the possibilities of space organised by the spatial order (the network of streets for example), in the same way that the act of speaking realises a language, its subject, and writes a text. This process "affirms, suspects, tries out, transgresses, respects etc., the trajectories it 'speaks'" (de Certeau 99). Walking is framed as an elementary and embodied form of experiencing urban space - a productive, yet relatively unconscious, speaking/writing of the city.4 Walking and other spatial practices are individual modes of appropriation as opposed to collective modes of administration (96). And they are tactical in nature, rather than strategic. Tactical ways of operating appropriate and divert spaces away from administrative strategies designed to create abstract place (29-30). This distinction between strategies and tactics is closely aligned with the distinction de Certeau makes between place and space in "Spatial Stories", another essay in The Practice. De Certeau's use of place refers to a stable ahistorical configuration of positions ruled by the law of the 'proper', that is, defined by the distribution of elements in relationships of coexistence (117). Place enables an institution to delineate itself and its others and to exercise strategies of power using this distinction. Space, in contrast, is a 'practiced place', taking vectors of direction, velocities and time variables into account: "thus the street geometrically defined by urban planning is transformed into a space by walkers. In the same way, an act of reading is the space produced by the practice of a particular place: a written text, i.e., a place constituted by a system of signs" (117). Space is actuated by "the ensemble of movements deployed within it" (117) and situated by the actions of historical subjects.5 Pedestrians, in effect, tell urban stories through their movements. A multitude of intertwined paths and detours weave the urban fabric. They give their shape to spaces and weave together places in ways that potentially transgress, from within, the abstract map imposed from above by the panoptic gaze and administrative strategies of corporate and government interests. Using speech act theory to think about walking and its relationship to the city thus enables a basic distinction to be made between the forms of a system (the organisation of the city, the city as a text or book) and the ways these forms can be used (the ephemeral, discrete and communicative trajectories of the walker, the walker as a user/reader/re-writer of the city-text).6 As a form of enunciation, walking has its own rhetoric. The trajectories, shortcuts, and detours taken by passers-by are turns of phrase and stylistic figures. …


In the last issue of without prejudice, in response to my article about the application of the legality clause in the Code of Advertising Practice, the editor raised the interesting issue of classified advertisements for prostitution, and asked, as many people do, why these advertisements are allowed to run. It is true that most newspapers have columns and columns of "adult entertainment" classified advertisements and most of us realise that the entertainment offered is, in fact, sexual in nature.


Nano-devices have great potential to play a vital role in future medical diagnostics and treatment technologies because of its non-invasive nature and ability to reach delicate body sites easily as compared with conventional devices. In this paper, a novel concept of cooperative communication for in vivo nano-network is presented to enhance the communication among these devices. The effect on the system outage probability performance is conducted for various parameters, including relay placement, number of relays, transmit power, bandwidth, and carrier frequency. Results show approximately a tenfold increase in the system outage performance whenever an additional relay is included in the cooperative network, and hence show a great potential of using cooperative communication to enhance the performance of nano-network at terahertz frequencies.


When an electronic equalizer is used to compensate the modal dispersion in a mode-division multiplexed system, receiver phase noise induces interference to the multi-input- multi-output (MIMO) receiver. Based on the statistics of the modal dispersion in the strong coupling regime, the interference variance is evaluated analytically based on an exact model, a semicircle asymptotic for large number of modes, and a first-order approximation.


A Wannienta basalt from Kuanyinshan, northern Taiwan, is studied using a high temperature furnace at atmospheric pressure. The purpose of this study is to investigate the crystallization sequence of the phenocrysts, to analyze the chemical compositions of the phenocrysts, and to estimate the evolution trend of the magma in the Kuanyinshan area. Fifteen runs are made to locate the liquidus temperature, the solidus temperature, and the melting interval of the Wannienta basaltic magma. The experimental temperatures range from 1087 °C to 1281 °C. The dura tion is from five hours to nineteen hours. Compositions of glasses and phe nocrysts are analyzed with an electron microprobe; The experimental results show that the liquidus temperature is located at 1270 °C and the solidus temperature is estimated to be close to 1080 °C. The melting interval is about 190 °C. The liquidus minerals are oxides with compositions in spinel series. The following crystallized phase is olivine at about 1217 °C. Plagioclase and clinopyroxene appear, respectively, at about 1178 °C and 1137 °C. The evolution of the residual magma shows the chemi cal trend as: enrichment in silicon, aluminum, and alkalis; and depletion in calcium, iron, and magnesium with the decreasing temperature. The frac tionation trend of the Kuanyinshan volcanic series is similar to the varia tion trend of the residual magmas. It implies that the depth for the frac tional crystallization of the Wannienta basaltic magma to produce andes ites could be modeled at low pressure. The fractionates to produce biotite hornblende andesitic magma could be oxides, olivine, plagioclase, and clinopyroxene. (


This presentation reviews the results of an investigation into a process for developing asymmetric tactics in support for small unit training. Some have argued that asymmetric tactics are something outside of our normal understanding. This work disagrees with that assertion. We postulated that any force would prefer to achieve their strategic objectives through quick, decisive operations. Forces resort to asymmetric warfare when they realize that they cannot successfully conduct decisive operations, usually because of a capability discrepancy with a more capable force such as the US. The presentation supports this supposition by historical examples of when Americans resorted to asymmetric tactics.


In the second half of the sixteenth century, most of the Christian states of Western Europe were on the defensive against a Muslim superpower - the Empire of the Ottoman sultans. There was violent conflict, from raiding and corsairing to large-scale warfare, but there were also many forms of peaceful interaction across the surprisingly porous frontiers of these opposing power-blocs. Agents of Empire describes the paths taken through the eastern Mediterranean and its European hinterland by members of a Venetian-Albanian family, almost all of them previously invisible to history. They include an archbishop in the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto, the power behind the throne in the Ottoman province of Moldavia, and a dragoman (interpreter) at the Venetian embassy in Istanbul. Through the life-stories of these adventurous individuals over three generations, Noel Malcolm casts the world between Venice, Rome and the Ottoman Empire in a fresh light, illuminating subjects as diverse as espionage, diplomacy, the grain trade, slave-ransoming and anti-Ottoman rebellion. He describes the conflicting strategies of the Christian powers, and the extraordinarily ambitious plans of the sultans and their viziers. Few works since Fernand Braudel's classic account of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, published more than sixty years ago, have ranged so widely through this vital period of Mediterranean and European history. A masterpiece of scholarship as well as story-telling, Agents of Empire builds up a panoramic picture, both of Western power-politics and of the interrelations between the Christian and Ottoman worlds.


In this paper we present an analysis of an AltaVista Search Engine query log consisting of approximately 1 billion entries for search requests over a period of six weeks. This represents almost 285 million user sessions, each an attempt to fill a single information need. We present an analysis of individual queries, query duplication, and query sessions. We also present results of a correlation analysis of the log entries, studying the interaction of terms within queries. Our data supports the conjecture that web users differ significantly from the user assumed in the standard information retrieval literature. Specifically, we show that web users type in short queries, mostly look at the first 10 results only, and seldom modify the query. This suggests that traditional information retrieval techniques may not work well for answering web search requests. The correlation analysis showed that the most highly correlated items are constituents of phrases. This result indicates it may be useful for search engines to consider search terms as parts of phrases even if the user did not explicitly specify them as such.


The typical product of the star formation process is a binary star. Binaries have provided the first dynamical measures of the masses of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars, providing support for the calibrations of PMS evolutionary tracks. Surprisingly, in some star-forming regions PMS binary frequencies are higher than among main-sequence solar-type stars. The difference in PMS and main-sequence binary frequencies is apparently not an evolutionary effect; recent attention has focussed on correlations between binary frequency and stellar density or cloud temperatures. Accretion disks are common among young binary stars. Binaries with separations between 1 AU and 100 AU have substantially less submillimeter emission than closer or wider binaries, suggesting that they have truncated their disks. Evidence of dynamical clearing has been seen in several binaries. Remarkably, PMS binaries of all separations show evidence of circumstellar disks and continued accretion. This suggests that the circumstellar disks are replenished from circumbinary disks or envelopes. The frequent presence of disks suggests that planet formation can occur in binary environments, and formation of planets in wide binaries is already established by their discovery. Circumbinary disk masses around very short period binaries are ample to form planetary systems such as our own. The nature of planetary systems among the most common binaries, with separations between 10 AU and 100 AU, is less clear given the observed reduction in disk mass, though they may have disk masses adequate for the formation of terrestrial-like planets.


With the nomination of Elena Kagan to be a justice of the United States Supreme Court, it is quite possible that eight of the nine justices will have graduated from only two law schools - Harvard and Yale. This article frames this development in the historical context of the legal education of those justices confirmed between 1902 and 2010. What this historical review makes clear is that the Ivy League dominance of the Supreme Court is a relatively recent occurrence whose beginnings can be traced to Antonin Scalia's 1986 confirmation. Prior to that time, although Harvard and Yale were consistently represented among the justices, they did not constitute a majority of sitting members. In addition to this strictly historical assessment of the justices' education, this article also attempts to ascertain why the Harvard-Yale trend has arisen, and whether this trend may have deleterious effects on the future of constitutional law. In concluding, it is the recommendation of this article that when the next vacancy arises, the President should look outside the confines of Harvard and Yale for a qualified nominee.


In South Africa, the term co-operative government is increasingly used in the context of environmental management whilst public participation is enshrined in the South African legal framework. Within the context of co-operative environmental management, concepts such as intergovernmental relations, partnerships, collaboration and co-management are brought into consideration; thus emphasising the importance of working together and soliciting public input to manage the environment in a sustainable manner.
The article argues that the notion of managing the environment on the basis of co-operative government principles and active stakeholder participation is currently a topical issue among the South African policy and development fraternity. In addition, various role-players argue that to promote sustainability, a multi-dimensional approach may be applicable as far as environmental management is concerned.
In South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, the fragmentation of public sector entities dealing with different elements of the environment, result in some measure of disjointed application of environmental policies and legislation. The article further contends that proper interaction and co-ordination among government departments in the management of the environment is crucial if individuals and institutions wish to honour the principles of co-operative government and intergovernmental relations as outlined in Chapter 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 and concomitant legislation.
The article examines and clarifies terminologies associated with co-operative environmental management as well as to provide an overview on the legal mechanisms for co-operative environmental management. It will circumvent and will further reiterate that the relevance of a multi-dimensional model for co-operative environmental management in South Africa is paramount to sustainable co-operative government in an era of new leadership and policy innovations.


Over two decades have passed since Wegner and his co-authors published the groundbreaking paper on transactive memory systems (TMS) in 1985. The concept attracted the interest of management, psychology, and communication scholars who have employed a variety of methods to examine the phenomenon. In this paper, we review 76 papers that examined transactive memory systems and summarize the findings in an integrative framework to show the antecedents and consequences of TMS. Our review also reveals important issues in the literature related to the measurement of TMS, its multidimensional nature, extending TMS from the team level to the organizational level, and the potential role of TMS in explaining the benefits of experience in existing organizations and new entrepreneurial ventures. We conclude by calling for future research to examine the dynamic evolution of TMS, TMS in virtual teams, TMS in entrepreneurial ventures, and TMS at the organizational level facilitated with information technologies.


Background and aims Microbiota alterations are linked with colorectal cancer (CRC) and notably higher abundance of putative oral bacteria on colonic tumours. However, it is not known if colonic mucosa-associated taxa are indeed orally derived, if such cases are a distinct subset of patients or if the oral microbiome is generally suitable for screening for CRC. Methods We profiled the microbiota in oral swabs, colonic mucosae and stool from individuals with CRC (99 subjects), colorectal polyps (32) or controls (103). Results Several oral taxa were differentially abundant in CRC compared with controls, for example, Streptococcus and Prevotellas pp. A classification model of oral swab microbiota distinguished individuals with CRC or polyps from controls (sensitivity: 53% (CRC)/67% (polyps); specificity: 96%). Combining the data from faecal microbiota and oral swab microbiota increased the sensitivity of this model to 76% (CRC)/88% (polyps). We detected similar bacterial networks in colonic microbiota and oral microbiota datasets comprising putative oral biofilm forming bacteria. While these taxa were more abundant in CRC, core networks between pathogenic, CRC-associated oral bacteria such as Peptostreptococcus, Parvimonas and Fusobacterium were also detected in healthy controls. High abundance of Lachnospiraceae was negatively associated with the colonisation of colonic tissue with oral-like bacterial networks suggesting a protective role for certain microbiota types against CRC, possibly by conferring colonisation resistance to CRC-associated oral taxa and possibly mediated through habitual diet. Conclusion The heterogeneity of CRC may relate to microbiota types that either predispose or provide resistance to the disease, and profiling the oral microbiome may offer an alternative screen for detecting CRC.


ABSTRACT Cyclophosphamide (Cy), a chemotherapeutic agent, is of great interest in the clinic due to its relatively high oncotoxic specificity. However, its usage is restricted due to its severe side effects, particularly hepatotoxicity. This study investigates the potential cytoprotective effect of Nigella sativa oil against the high toxic dose of Cy. 40 albino rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: control group, Cy group that received a single intraperitoneal dose of Cy (200 mg/kg), and Cy-treated groups with 50 and 200 mg/kg of Nigella sativa oil (NSO), for 15 days. Enzyme activities were investigated by monitoring levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CA) in serum. Liver function was monitored by measuring levels of alkaline phosphatase, glutamate pyruvate transaminase, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase, and glutathione. DNA damage and hepatocytes viability were determined by the comet and MTT assays. The marked depression in the antioxidants defense system may be the major mechanism of Cy-induced hepatocytes damage. NSO not only protects hepatocytes from the severe toxicity of Cy through enhancement of antioxidant enzymes activities, but also provides a DNA protection. The knowledge gained in this study might be of significant clinical importance for a large number of cancer patients.


Food security and supply continuity have become main concerns of food companies and societies nowadays. To address these concerns, Jinzhong Food Co. Ltd. (hereafter abbreviated to Jinzhong) was one of the first Chinese meat companies to establish and integrate a pig production cooperative in 2005. Over the last decade or so, Jinzhong has successfully developed the cooperative to stabilize and improve the quality of pig supply, by building relationships with pig producers (farmers) and achieving an exceptional financial performance in the process. The company-led cooperative represents an innovative supply chain governance mechanism in a Chinese context. However, the pork industry has evolved significantly and the time has come for the senior management team at Jinzhong to decide whether or not to keep the cooperative. This case study is aimed at senior undergraduate students and postgraduate students specializing in agricultural economics/ agribusiness and can also be used for executive training for the management of food companies.


Developing Semantic Web Services is "well-informed about work on WS [Web Services] and the SemWeb [Semantic Web], and in particular ...understand[s] OWL-S ...very well ...Also, the book ...fill[s] a need that, to my knowledge, hasn't been met at all." ---David Martin, editor OWL-S Coalition The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, is also the originator of the next generation Web architecture, the Semantic Web. Currently, his World Wide Web consortium (W3C) team works to develop, extend, and standardize the Web's markup languages and tools. The objective of the Semantic Web Architecture is to provide a knowledge representation of linked data in order to allow machine processing on a global scale. The W3C has developed a new generation of open standard markup languages which are now poised to unleash the power, flexibility, and above all---logic---of the next generation Web, as well as open the door to the next generation of Web Services. There are many ways in which the two areas of Web Services and the Semantic Web could interact to lead to the further development of Semantic Web Services. Berners-Lee has suggested that both of these technologies would benefit from integration that would combine the Semantic Web's meaningful content with Web Services' business logic. Areas such as UDDI and WSDL are ideally suited to be implemented using Semantic Web technology. In addition, SOAP could use RDF payloads, remote RDF query and updates, and interact with Semantic Web business rules engines, thereby laying the foundation for Semantic Web Services. This book presents the complete Language Pyramid of Web markup languages, including Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL) and OWL-Services (OWL-S) along with examples and software demos. The source code for the "Semantic Web Author," an Integrated Development Environment for Semantic Markup Languages is available on CD-ROM with the book.


The South African private news media industry represents a substantial portion of the overall media industry and the most successful in terms of profit acquired. It is critical however to assess the shareholders and private ownership of the news media industry in order to determine the likely success of investment in this industry. However, additional risk factors need to be considered along with the shareholders and ownership; macro factors such as, legislation and economic stability as well as micro factors such as the restructuring of ownership and transparency within the industry. It is also fundamental that the news media industry of South Africa is assessed through the lens of its historical landscape and transformation and its Fourth Estate responsibilities. Through this assessment it is possible to conclude three likely outcomes of investment in the news media industry. These outcomes are based on the measured growth and current stability of the industry and the South African economy. The most concerning risk for investment is the continued economic downturn of the South African economy and its effect on restructuring of media ownership and a declining profit. This can be coupled with the risk of legislative turnover and executive overreach within the news media industry.


Background: Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer affecting men today. Currently, 98% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer survive for 10 or more years after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. The prolonged course of the disease makes interventions aimed at improving quality of life an essential component of prostate cancer treatment. There is a significant body of literature that suggests that support groups can improve the quality of life of cancer patients. However, because the bulk of the studies regarding cancer support groups focused on women with breast cancer, it is unclear how applicable the results are to men with prostate cancer. Methods: A thorough search of the medical literature was conducted using, Medline (Ovid), CINAHL, Google Scholar, and Web of Science with the keywords: prostate cancer, prostate neoplasm, support group, peer group, and self-help group. Articles that reported primary data, included only men with prostate cancer, and measured changes in quality of life resulting from support group involvement were included. All articles were assessed for quality using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system and assigned a rating of high, medium, low, or very low. Results: Four studies met the criteria for inclusion in this review. Three of the papers were randomized control trials and one was a cohort study. Each of the studies used a different support group format and each of them found that support group participation resulted in statistically significant improvement in multiple areas related to quality of life. Conclusion: Participation in a prostate cancer support group is likely to result in improved quality of life for men with prostate cancer. At this time there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate the relative efficacy of one support group format over another; however, men are likely to receive some benefit regardless of format. Given the low cost of support group participation and the low risk involved, it is reasonable to recommend that men with prostate cancer participate in a support group. Degree Type Capstone Project Degree Name Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies


We estimated whether single collections of cord blood contained sufficient cells for hematopoietic engraftment of adults by evaluating numbers of cord blood and adult bone marrow myeloid progenitor cells (MPCs) as detected in vitro with steel factor (SLF) and hematopoietic colony-stimulating factors (CSFs). SLF plus granulocyte-macrophage (GM)-CSF detected 8- to 11-fold more cord blood GM progenitors [colony-forming units (CFU)-GM] than cells stimulated with GM-CSF or 5637 conditioned medium (CM), growth factors previously used to estimate cord blood CFU-GM numbers. SLF plus erythropoietin (Epo) plus interleukin 3 (IL-3) enhanced detection of cord blood multipotential (CFU-GEMM) progenitors 15-fold compared to stimulation with Epo plus IL-3. Under the same conditions, bone marrow CFU-GM and CFU-GEMM were only enhanced in detection 2- to 4- and 6- to 8-fold. Increased detection of cord blood CFU-GEMM correlated directly with decreased detection of cord blood erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E). In contrast, adult bone marrow CFU-GEMM and BFU-E numbers were both enhanced by SLF plus Epo plus IL-3. This suggests that most cord blood BFU-E may actually be CFU-GEMM. Cord blood collections (n = 17) contained numbers of MPCs (especially CFU-GM) similar to the number found in nine autologous bone marrow collections. To assess additional sources of MPCs, the peripheral blood of 1-day-old infants was assessed. However, average concentrations of MPCs circulating in these infants were only 30-46% that in their cord blood. Expansion of cord blood MPCs was also evaluated. Incubation of cord blood cells for 7 days with SLF resulted in 7.9-, 2.2-, and 2.7-fold increases in numbers of CFU-GM, BFU-E, and CFU-GEMM compared to starting numbers; addition of a CSF with SLF resulted in even greater expansion of MPCs. The results suggest that cord blood contains a larger number of early profile MPCs than previously recognized and that there are probably sufficient numbers of cells in a single cord blood collection to engraft an adult. Although the expansion data must be considered with caution, as human marrow repopulating cells cannot be assessed directly, in vitro expansion of cord blood stem and progenitor cells may be feasible for clinical transplantation.


Phosphoproteomic experiments are routinely conducted in laboratories worldwide, and because of the fast development of mass spectrometric techniques and efficient phosphopeptide enrichment methods, life-science researchers frequently end up having lists with tens of thousands of phosphorylation sites for further interrogation. To answer biologically relevant questions from these complex data sets, it becomes essential to apply computational, statistical, and predictive analytical methods. Recently we have provided an advanced bioinformatic platform termed "PhosphoSiteAnalyzer" to the scientific community to explore large phosphoproteomic data sets that have been subjected to kinase prediction using the previously published NetworKIN algorithm. NetworKIN applies sophisticated linear motif analysis and contextual network modeling to obtain kinase-substrate associations with high accuracy and sensitivity. PhosphoSiteAnalyzer provides an algorithm for retrieval of kinase predictions from the public NetworKIN webpage in a semi-automated way and applies hereafter advanced statistics to facilitate a user-tailored in-depth analysis of the phosphoproteomic data sets. The interface of the software provides a high degree of analytical flexibility and is designed to be intuitive for most users. Network biology and in particular kinase-substrate network biology provides an adequate conceptual framework to describe and understand diseases and for designing targeted biomedicine for personalized medicine. Hence network biology and network analysis are absolutely essential to translational medical research. PhosphoSiteAnalyzer is a versatile bioinformatics tool to decipher such complex networks and can be used in the fight against serious diseases such as psychological disorders, cancer and diabetes that arise as a result of dysfunctional cell signalling networks.


We demonstrate here an accounting of damage accrual under road loads for a filled natural rubber bushing. The accounting is useful to developers who wish to avoid the typical risks in development programs: either the risk of premature failure, or of costly overdesign. The accounting begins with characterization of the elastomer to quantify governing behaviors: stressstrain response, fatigue crack growth rate, crack precursor size, and strain crystallization. Finite Element Analysis is used to construct a nonlinear mapping between loads and strain components within each element. Multiaxial, variable amplitude strain histories are computed from road loads. Damage accrues in this reckoning via the growth of cracks. Crack growth is calculated via integration of a rate law from an initial size to a size marking end-of-life. Multiaxiality is addressed via Critical Plane Analysis, in which damage accrual is computed for all potential crack plane orientations, prior to selecting the most critical orientation and its associated life. Variable amplitudes in the energy release rate history are considered via the application of rainflow counting, which is applied on each potential plane during the critical plane search. The analysis produces estimates of life for each element in the finite element model. These are visualized to identify bushing life and failure mode. Also, the analysis produces a diagnostic database enabling damage sources to be identified with respect to time, space, and orientation, and giving various details of the micromechanics of damage accumulation. Citation: K. P. Barbash and W. V. Mars, "Critical Plane Analysis of Rubber Bushing Durability under Road Loads", No. 2016-01-0393, SAE Technical Paper, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4271/2016-01-0393