Nowadays in the globalization era countries are forced to pay considerable attention to the integration aspects of development, regionalization processes ensuring their own competitiveness in order to enhance the competitive position in the market, which increases the scientific interest in the study of these issues. The purpose of the article is to consider competitiveness as the basis of EU regional policy and to determine the possibilities of applying such experience in Ukraine. A number of scientific research methods have been used: the method of deduction and induction, analysis, synthesis and comparison, a graphic method. Globalization contributes to the creation of new conditions of the world economic development, which forces economic actors to reconsider their role in the economy. Competitiveness provides them with a reliable competitive positions today and in the future. The high competitiveness of the region testifies to the effective organization and optimization of economic processes. EU regional policy takes into account that the competitiveness of the region is formed in the conditions of competitive relations at the national and international levels. The EU regional policy experience can be implemented in the Ukrainian regional policy. The competitiveness of the region allows to respond in time to market changes. EU regional policy takes this into account, so the category of regional competitiveness is paid much attention on as confirmed by the RCI calculation. The possibilities of increasing the competitiveness and sustainability of regions through the development of smart specialization and implementation of smart projects are outlined. The advantages of implementing European experience in the development of competitiveness of regions on the basis of smart specialization in Ukraine are proved.


This document defines the specific data sources, formats and corrections used for the GAPS (Global Altimeter Processing Scheme) v1 data.

Content Overview
Section 1: Introduces the conventions used in this document and the GAPS data, briefly describes the altimeter missions included in the GAPS and defines the sources for the altimeter data.
Section 2: Defines the GAPS data files formats.
Section 3: Defines the GAPS fields.
Section 4: Explains the Quality Control Procedures and Corrections applied to the data.
Section 5: Provides comments and advice on the use of the GAPS data.
Section 6: References.

Notes on problems or changes to the standard GAPS for specific satellites and cycles and be found in the "GAPS Data Cycle Information" web pages (http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/ALTIMETER/cycles.html).


HARD HATTED WOMEN is a Cleveland-based group dedicated to promoting equal opportunity for women in the skilled trades; the organization's most visible work has been in the field of construction. Hard Hatted Women was founded in 1979 as a support group by three tradeswomen and was modeled after a Pittsburgh group with the same name. This nonprofit, membership-based organization is governed by a board of directors. Originally it was staffed by volunteers and shared space with other organizations. Since 1989 there has been a permanent office, and since 1990 the office has been staffed. Hard Hatted Women has undertaken three major projects since about 1990, as it evolved from an all-volunteer support group to an advocate for women in non-traditional job positions. One is a Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program, which prepares women to enter a skilled-trades program. Their "See Jane Build" project, in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, involved the construction of a house in the inner city. It was the first Habitat for Humanity House built entirely by women. Hard-Hatted Women is credited, through their Equal Employment Opportunity Monitoring Project, with helping the Gateway construction project achieve a national record in female participation. In 1999-2000 Hard Hatted Women was contracted by the U.S. General Services Administration to provide assistance and support in meeting Affirmative Action goals for gender diversity at the construction site of Cleveland's new federal courthouse.In addition to offering educational services and job referrals, Hard Hatted Women holds monthly meetings and issues a bimonthly newsletter (since 1980) called "Riveting News." In September 2003, the organization moved from its Lorain Avenue office to a space at 3043 Superior Avenue.That same year, after a dispute over the role of the organization as an advocate for blue-collar working women, several members split off from Hard Hatted Women and formed Allied Cleveland Tradeswomen, which works to support female apprentices and to prevent tradeswomen from leaving their fields before they reach retirement age. The two organizations continue to work together on joint projects.At the end of 2005, the organization eliminated several positions, leading a group of members to file suit in order to force an election of officers and board members. After several legal delays, the suit was eventually dropped.In 2007, under executive director Debbi Perkul, Hard Hatted Women served 400 members and worked toward the inclusion of more women on construction sites and to helping women gain access to the sustainable-energy production and micro-electro-mechanical systems fields.


The effects of the gliding properties of ski waxes are often discussed and many speculations and assumptions are made. However there are not many studies and documented results in this field. This project is carried out in cooperation with Olympiatoppen and the Norwegian ski team to research and document the effects and benefits of gliding waxes. Ski base material consists of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) in semicrystalline state. The focus will be on the material changes caused by the waxing process. This project examines two different types of ski base material with three different gliding waxes. Essential factors of the friction and the effects of gliding wax on skis were studied. The Fluor content, both in the base material and in the wax, and the Gallium content in one of the gliding waxes, was, given special attention. Experiments on the ski base materials, with and without waxes, were conducted. Material characterisation has been evaluated by using XPS, ICP and contact angle measurement of water droplets on the ski base materials. The friction properties have been tested with outdoor gliding field tests where the two ski bases have been compared with each other and also a reference ski. A tribometer was used in the lab to measure the coefficient of friction. The content of the ski base material were unknown, there is found that both type of bases tested contains Fluor. It was also found that the Fluor content on the top surface is not directly comparable with the surface energy and the contact angle.


Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) potently induces deregulation of Th2 responses, a hallmark feature of allergic inflammatory diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis, and allergic rhinitis. However, direct downstream in vivo mediators in the TSLP-induced atopic immune cascade have not been identified. In our current study, we have shown that OX40 ligand (OX40L) is a critical in vivo mediator of TSLP-mediated Th2 responses. Treating mice with OX40L-blocking antibodies substantially inhibited immune responses induced by TSLP in the lung and skin, including Th2 inflammatory cell infiltration, cytokine secretion, and IgE production. OX40L-blocking antibodies also inhibited antigen-driven Th2 inflammation in mouse and nonhuman primate models of asthma. This treatment resulted in both blockade of the OX40-OX40L receptor-ligand interaction and depletion of OX40L-positive cells. The use of a blocking, OX40L-specific mAb thus presents a promising strategy for the treatment of allergic diseases associated with pathologic Th2 immune responses.


The capacity for victim-derogating stereotypes and attributions to justify social inequality and maintain the status quo is well known among social scientists and other observers. Research conducted from the perspective of system justification theory suggests that an alternative to derogation is to justify inequality through the use of complementary stereotypes that ascribe compensating benefits and burdens to disadvantaged and advantaged groups, respectively. In two experimental studies conducted in Poland we investigated the hypothesis that preferences for these two routes to system justification would depend upon one's political orientation. That is, we predicted that the system-justifying potential of complementary versus noncomplementary stereotype exemplars would be moderated by individual differences in left–right ideology, such that left-wingers would exhibit stronger support for the societal status quo following exposure to complementary (e.g., "poor but happy," "rich but miserable") representations, whereas right-wingers would exhibit stronger support for the status quo following exposure to noncomplementary (e.g., "poor and dishonest," "rich and honest") representations. Results were supportive of these predictions. Implications for theory and practice concerning stereotyping, ideology, and system justification are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Learning SQL is a common problem for many Computer Science (CS) students, the steps involved are quite different to those mastered when learning procedural or object-oriented programming languages. The introduction of commercial products that include shortcuts into the learning environment can initially appear to benefit the student, however, transferring these skills to a textual environment can be difficult for many students. Computer Science students are required to build textual SQL queries because the demands of complex queries can quickly out grow the capabilities of graphical query builders available in many software packages. SQL in Steps (SiS) is a graphical user interface centred around the textual translation of a query; this combination of a GUI and a clear representation of its textual meaning has the potential to improve the way in which users gain an understanding of SQL. SiS allows for an incremental and evolutionary development of queries by enabling students to build queries step by step until their goal is reached. A planned evaluation of SiS hopes to quantify the extent to which the introduction of such a user interface into the learning environment can improve the students' understanding of the language.


Second hand storage devices can be treasure troves of confidential data. This study investigated the remnant data on second hand memory cards that were purchased through Australian second hand auction websites throughout 2013. Memory cards continue to increase in capacity and are used in both smart phones and tablet computers as persistent storage. During this study a total of 140 second hand memory cards were purchased throughout 2013. Each memory card had its data recovered and subsequently analysed. The results show that sellers are sending memory cards with no evidence of erasure; poor attempts to erase data; or simply asking the buyer to erase the data prior to use. The data recovered is not only of a personal nature, but also appears to originate from Australian government departments and business. It is evident that actions must be taken by second hand auction sites, and the media to raise awareness and educate end users on how to dispose of data in an appropriate manner.


Fully customized hardware based technology provides high performance and low power consumption by specializing the tasks in hardware but lacks design flexibility since any kind of changes require re-design and re-fabrication. Software based solutions operate with software instructions due to which a great flexibility is achieved from the easy development and maintenance of the software code. But this execution of instructions introduces a high overhead in performance and area consumption. In past few decades the reconfigurable computing domain has been introduced which overcomes the traditional trades-off between flexibility and performance and is able to achieve high performance while maintaining a good flexibility. The dramatic gains in terms of chip performance and design flexibility achieved through the reconfigurable computing systems are greatly dependent on the design of their computational units being integrated with reconfigurable logic resources. The computational unit of any reconfigurable system plays vital role in defining its strength. In this research paper an RFU based computational unit design has been presented using the tightly coupled, multi-threaded reconfigurable cores. The proposed design has been simulated for VLIW based architectures and a high gain in performance has been observed as compared to the conventional computing systems.


This paper draws together two bodies of literature (regional geography and innovation studies) in order to fundamentally question our conceptualisation of innovation and economic development at the regional level. First, it justifies why the regional level of analysis is useful and appropriate, and then problematises the Regional Innovation System (RIS) both as an analytical framework and a best-practice tool for policymakers. This paper will argue that the RIS approach is no longer suitable for territories such as Wales, which correspond to neither our traditional understandings of a region nor of a nation. It argues that the contested nature of "the region" and the problems in its definition and recognition undermine the validity of the RIS approach. The connotations of the term "region" render it untenable as a tool for policymakers in contested territories. It may seen contradictory to firstly defend and justify a regional approach only to tear it apart and fundamentally question its relevance but the premise of this paper is that the regional approach to understanding innovation and economic development is the best framework we have for improving the fates of the poorest parts of Europe, but in order for policymakers to implement and appreciate the RIS framework some serious strengthening and re-packaging of the concept is required. The academic study of innovation should not be conducted in a vacuum, isolated from the political contexts and sensitivities within which innovation policy is practiced and implemented.


Tracking applications provide real time on-site information that can be used to detect travel path conflicts, calculate crew productivity and eliminate unnecessary processes at the site. This paper presents the validation of a novel vision based tracking methodology at the Egnatia Odos Motorway in Thessaloniki, Greece. Egnatia Odos is a motorway that connects Turkey with Italy through Greece. Its multiple open construction sites serves as an ideal multi-site test bed for validating construction site tracking methods. The vision based tracking methodology uses video cameras and computer algorithms to calculate the 3D position of project related entities (e.g. personnel, materials and equipment) in construction sites. The approach provides an unobtrusive, inexpensive way of effectively identifying and tracking the 3D location of entities. The process followed in this study starts by acquiring video data from multiple synchronous cameras at several large scale project sites of Egnatia Odos, such as tunnels, interchanges and bridges under construction. Subsequent steps include the evaluation of the collected data and finally, performing the 3D tracking operations on selected entities (heavy equipment and personnel). The accuracy and precision of the method's results is evaluated by comparing it with the actual 3D position of the object, thus assessing the 3D tracking method's effectiveness.


The authors report the results of an empirical research project on the consistency and limitations of the number of function points as an a priori measure of system size rather than the traditional lines-of-code measure. They conclude that function points are a more consistent a priori measure of system size. The results also indicate that the function-point estimate of size is lower for analysts experienced both in software development and in function-point estimation. >


This research explores the ways in which Dennis Potter (1935-1994) is made inheritable to audiences through a rural Heritage Lottery Funded project. With the sale of the written Potter Archive to the Dean Heritage Centre, Gloucestershire, in 2010, this study explores in great detail the processes enacted to interpret the Potter Archive as cultural (television) heritage. Through a creative and innovative research design which utilises autoethnography, inventive qualitative methods and a level of quantitative analysis, this study examines the ways in which Potter is made intelligible to past television audiences, project members and collaborators, local people, and the casual tourist within the heritage environment.
A unique and irreproducible study, this interdisciplinary research sits as a contribution to an emerging field that is located at the interface between Memory studies and Museum Studies and explores the way various forms of mediation are connected to these fields. Inherently at stake in this research is the valorisation of television as heritage, as Potter remains well within living memory. Through proximate and intimate connections to this multifaceted heritage project this work represents one of the first interventions to explore turning television into heritage at a local level drawing together the macro level of cultural policy with the micro level of enacting that policy.
In asking how Dennis Potter's legacy is managed in the Forest of Dean heritage environment, this thesis explores the ways Potter's legacy is mediated, how television heritage is consumed and made meaningful (or struggles for meaning) in the museum space, how a writer's legacy is interpreted by heritage professionals, volunteers, past television audiences and museum visitors, and how television as heritage is consumed online. This thesis makes visible the underlying mechanisms by which the Dennis Potter Archive is (or might yet become) articulated as television heritage, through examining the core managerial, interpretive and memorial processes involved in this high stakes, multi-partner project.


The economic situation in German establishments improved even further in 2017. The development of wages, however, reflects this economic growth only partly. Compared to 1997, the wage differential between large and small establishments increased considerably - with substantially lower wages paid in East Germany in general. The wage differential of about 19 percent between East and West Germany can to some extent be explained in a multivariate analysis (Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition) showing that the main cause for the wage gap is the productivity gap between East German and West German establishments; other structural heterogeneities like sector composition, industrial relations and size structure seem not to contribute to an explanation of this gap. The overall positive economic development in Germany is associated with a further growth in total employment and with increased labor market dynamics, especially regarding employee turnover. Turnover rates, however, are very heterogeneous among sectors, ranging from 23 percent in the accommodation and food service sector and less than five percent in public administration. Also the demand for skilled personnel continued to grow. Yet for the first time, not even two thirds of the posted job vacancies could be filled in 2017. With over fifty percent, this non-occupancy quota is particularly high in the construction industry. Also small and very small establishments face serious recruitment problems. The structure of formal occupational skill requirements did not change very much over recent years, but the increasing use of digital technologies changes everyday job requirements and may lead to a rising workload for employees. Looking at the personnel structure in the German economy, a growing share of atypical employment becomes apparent, especially in form of part-time jobs. The proportion of marginal employment remains relatively stable and is comparatively high in sectors with less specific knowledge requirements and strong cyclical and/or seasonal fluctuations like is the case in accommodation and food service sector or personal services sector. Since 2010, the proportion of establishments authorized to provide in-company vocational training has declined constantly and now accounts for 53 percent of the establishments in Germany. About one half of these establishments do actually train apprentices. The share of vacant apprenticeships further increased in 2017 to about one quarter of all apprenticeships offered, in East Germany even to more than one third. As in recent years, the share of establishments supporting further training of their employees remained stable at about fifty percent and the proportion of employees participating in training is still about one third. In East Germany these figures prove to be slightly higher.


The transformation in science education warrants integration of project-based learning and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) for promoting creativity among students. This study aimed to determine the validity and reliability of an integrated project-based learning and STEM teaching and learning module (Pro-STEM) and evaluate its effects on scientific creativity of Fifth Graders. The module consisted of six lessons and six project activities regarding Life Science, Physical Science and Material Science. Evaluation was conducted to determine the reliability, content validity, and students' perception on the learning module, which involved seven subject matter experts and 30 fifth graders. Data were captured through students' responses to two five-point Likert scale questionnaires, open ended questions and self-developed scientific creativity test. Finally, a single group pre- and post-test research design was employed to determine the effects of the Pro-STEM module. A total of 30 fifth graders from one primary school were randomly assigned to Pro-STEM group. The results of module evaluation indicated a good content validity and an acceptable reliability with alpha Cronbach's value of 0.65 to 0.87. Majority of the students were of moderately high positive perception (m=4.37) that the activities in the Pro-STEM module enable them to a) generate many ideas, b) generate unique ideas, c) expand ideas, d) think of a special topic, and e) use information from multiple sources to complement sketches. The positive written responses of students indicated the appropriateness of the module. The results of Paired Sample T-test established the effects of the Pro-STEM module in all trait dimensions of scientific creativity. These findings show that Pro-STEM module would represent a reliable and valid learning module for fostering scientific creativity of fifth graders.


BACKGROUND
Cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract remain a substantial cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the oxyntic glands of the stomach, and under conditions of chronic inflammation and atrophy, serum ghrelin concentrations decrease. However, the relationship between ghrelin and the risk of gastric and esophagogastric junctional cancers has not been investigated.

METHODS
We conducted a nested case-control study within the Finnish Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study to examine the relationship between serum ghrelin concentration and the risk of gastric noncardia adenocarcinoma (GNCA) and esophagogastric junctional adenocarcinoma (EGJA). Data from 261 GNCA patients, 98 EGJA patients, and 441 control subjects were analyzed. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated using logistic regression with adjustment for potential confounders. Lag analysis was also performed to investigate the temporal nature of the associations between baseline serum pepsinogen I and ghrelin in GNCA and EGJA patients. All statistical tests were two-sided.

RESULTS
Lower concentrations of serum ghrelin were statistically significantly associated with an increased risk of both GNCA (adjusted OR = 1.75, 95% CI = 1.49 to 2.04; P < .001) and EGJA (adjusted OR = 1.56, 95% CI = 1.28 to 1.89, P < .001). A multivariable model found that the risk of both GNCA and EGJA were statistically significantly increased for those individuals in the lowest quartile of serum ghrelin levels compared with those in the highest quartile (OR of GNCA = 5.63, 95% CI = 3.16 to 10.03; OR of EGJA = 4.90, 95% CI = 2.11 to 11.35). The statistical significance of these associations remained even after restricting the analysis to those patients who developed cancer more than 10 years after baseline serum ghrelin measurements.

CONCLUSION
Low baseline concentrations of serum ghrelin were associated with a statistically significant increase in the risk of GNCA and EGJA, suggesting a potential role for gastric hormones in carcinogenesis.


The quest for the Vampaneze Lord continues for the hunters of the dusk. Darren gets an unwelcome taste of reality when he is forced to go back to school and his past catches up with him. Maturing at one fifth the rate of a normal human, Darren has the looks of a fifteen year old, even though he is very much older. Vampire Prince and vampaneze killer he may be, but someone has shopped him to the authorities and it's time for Darren to go back to school. But school is not the only thing Darren has to come to terms with: faces from the past, the death of a clan member, a clash with a vampire hunter and blood-thirsty vampaneze mean Darren's past is catching up with him - fast. It's time for the allies of the night to join forces. The hunt is on...


The rapid development and integration of computer and communication technology have made the Internet one of the major media for communication. Nowadays, the Internet and world-wide-web (WWW) are used in every facet of modern society. This research proposes to develop a link analysis method based on Web page co-occurrence mining. The Google Internet search engine is used to gather Web pages relevant to a certain search subject. The proper nouns on each relevant page are then extracted using the Chinese Word Segmentation System, developed by Academia Sinica, Taiwan. The co-occurrence data of proper nouns is then analyzed and used for constructing link charts for visualization and further analysis.


Social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace have witnessed a rapid growth in their membership. Some of these businesses have tried an advertising-based model with very limited success. However, these businesses have not fully explored the power of their members to influence each other's behavior. This potential viral or social effect can have significant impact on the success of these companies as well as provide a unique new marketing opportunity for traditional companies. However, this potential is predicated on the assumption that friends influence user's behavior. In this study we empirically examine this issue. Specifically we address three questions - do friends influence purchases of users in an online social network; which users are more influenced by this social pressure; and can we quantify this social influence in terms of increase in sales and revenue. To address these questions we use data from Cyworld, an online social networking site in Korea. Cyworld users create mini-homepages to interact with their friends. These mini-homepages, which become a way of self-expression for members, are decorated with items (e.g., wallpaper, music), many of which are sold by Cyworld. Using 10 weeks of purchase and non-purchase data from 208 users, we build an individual level model of choice (buy - no-buy) and quantity (how much money to spend). We estimate this model using Bayesian approach and MCMC method. Our results show that there are three distinct groups of users with very different behavior. The low-status group (48% of users) are not well connected, show limited interaction with other members and are unaffected by social pressure. The middle-status group (40% users) is moderately connected, show reasonable non-purchase activity on the site and have a strong and positive effect due to friends' purchases. In other words, this group exhibits "keeping up with the Joneses" behavior. On average, their revenue increases by 5% due to this social influence. The high-status group (12% users) is well connected and very active on the site, and shows a significant negative effect due to friends' purchases. In other words, this group differentiates itself from others by lowering their purchase and strongly pursuing non-purchase related activities. This social influence leads to almost 14% drop in the revenue of this group. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our results.


The fifth Nordic symposium of dialectologists was attended by about 85 participants. Forty-one lectures, including two plenary lectures (by Oskar Bandle, Zurich, and Lars Hulden, Helsinki) were presented, 36 of which are published in these proceedings. They clearly display the breadth of current Nordic dialectology. The volume thus includes both articles of traditional character and of more modern direction. The contributions treat dialects and the history of language, studies of word geography, semantics, lexicography, word formation, prosody, urban speech, language contact, dialect syntax, dialect as written language, etc. The differences between dialectological and sociolinguistic spoken language research are gradually diminishing. Connections with other disciplines, such as history of science, pedagogy, and ethnology are also evident.From a geographic point of view, both general and more limited regional material is presented. All of the Nordic languages except Icelandic are represented, from the Faroe Islands in the west to Nyland in the east, from Fyn in the south to the northem Finnmark.


Abstract. In recent years model-data interaction has improved through use of probabilistic techniques to inform and reduce the uncertainty of model parameters, while also taking into account observational uncertainty. This study builds on previous work, through access to a richer representation of the plant-soil ecosystem at multiple European forest sites, than was previously available. Given this rich dataset, we asked which observational datasets were most effective in reducing uncertainty in model predictions and model-data differences. Also, since there is a lack of consensus about whether it is more beneficial to calibrate forest sites separately or together we revisited this question with a particular emphasis on which is most effective in reducing model-data differences and uncertainty. We performed single dataset Bayesian calibrations (BC) and compared the results with a calibration with all the observations included. We also compared calibrations where each pine forest site was calibrated separately with a calibration where all the pine sites were calibrated together. While measurements of plant and soil carbon stocks were more sparse, their inclusion in the BC were more important for reducing model-data differences and uncertainty in the above and belowground carbon pools than the greater numbers of carbon and water flux data. Our results suggest that use of calibration data representing just a few aspects of the ecosystem could be problematic, since improved model-data fits for the parts of the system represented by the data could be at the expense of other part of the system, where the model-data fit worsened. The single dataset calibrations helped to diagnose where there may be inconsistencies between different datasets or between the model and data or both. These inconsistencies hampered the reduction in model-data differences in the calibration with all the observations present. As expected, we found a strong relationship between the quantity of data included in the calibration and the uncertainty reduction after BC, finding the largest reduction in uncertainty when all the observations were included. For some ecosystem variables uncertainty reduced after calibration but model-data differences increased. This would suggest that there were deficiencies in the model or systematic errors in the data or both. These results advocate the use of calibration datasets which represent the rich diversity of the ecosystem under investigation but where model discrepancies and data systematic errors are explicitly represented in the BC. While separate calibrations at each forest site generally reduced model-data differences more than calibrating at all the sites together, parts of the ecosystem that were sparsely observed benefited more from the multi-site calibration. Multi-site calibration led to larger and more consistent reductions in uncertainty than separate calibrations at each site, especially for ecosystem variables with fewer observations. These results support the use of Bayesian hierarchical calibration which allows variation in model parameters between different sites while allowing information to be shared across sites for sparsely observed ecosystem variables.


In a gripping story of international power and deception, Jeffrey Engel reveals the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain in a new and far more competitive light. As allies, they fought communism. As rivals, they locked horns over which would lead the Cold War fight. In the quest for sovereignty and hegemony, one important key was airpower, which created jobs, forged ties with the developing world, and, perhaps most importantly in a nuclear world, ensured military superiority. Only the United States and Britain were capable of supplying the post-war world's ravenous appetite for aircraft. The Americans hoped to use this dominance as a bludgeon not only against the Soviets and Chinese, but also against any ally that deviated from Washington's rigid brand of anticommunism. Eager to repair an economy shattered by war and never as committed to unflinching anticommunism as their American allies, the British hoped to sell planes even beyond the Iron Curtain, reaping profits, improving East-West relations, and garnering the strength to withstand American hegemony. Engel traces the bitter fights between these intimate allies from Europe to Latin America to Asia as each sought control over the sale of aircraft and technology throughout the world. The Anglo-American competition for aviation supremacy affected the global balance of power and the fates of developing nations such as India, Pakistan, and China. But without aviation, Engel argues, Britain would never have had the strength to function as a brake upon American power, the way trusted allies should.


In-flight demonstration of close-range formation flying modes is discussed with emphasis on low cost, based on spacecraft design simplicity and minimum size, and hence minimum launch cost. Piggy-back launch of three identical demonstration spacecraft is the preferred option. This demonstration includes comprehensive collection and analysis, on the ground, of relative motion data derived from GPS signals that are received by the participating satellites. In addition to realistically reflecting the known Keplerian and non-Keplerian characteristics as part of the flight dynamics analysis, an important concern is to demonstrate the less well-known effects of differential drag perturbations. These can be deliberately induced by small aerodynamic cross section variations on the satellites. Results of the demonstration mission will benefit currently projected and other future missions that require close-formation flying, e.g., radar and visual observation missions, by proving feasibility, assisting detailed and comprehensive operations planning, and helping diminish their potential risks. 1 Copyright  1999, Microcosm, Inc.


With an eye toward the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Region, this case study provides a practical guide to fiscal instruments that can promote climate change agendas, focusing on lessons learned from country experiences implementing these mechanisms. As most countries have historically relied on regulatory instruments to meet environmental goals, there are few documented studies of green fiscal policies in developing countries. This case study aims to add to that literature. The paper is divided into the following sections. It first discusses the role of fiscal policy in national climate change programming. It then analyzes the fiscal mechanisms used to promote climate change agendas, drawing on developing country cases. It continues to discuss the challenges that the Latin American context poses for green fiscal policy. Finally, it concludes with lessons learned and recommendations from country experiences implementing these mechanisms.


This paper proposes an interactive particle-swarm metaheuristic for multiobjective optimization (MOO) that seeks to encapsulate the positive aspects of the widely used approaches, namely, Pareto dominance and interactive decision making in its solution mechanism. Pareto dominance is adopted as the criterion to evaluate the particles found along the search process. Nondominated particles are stored in an external repository which updates continuously through the adaptive-grid mechanism proposed. The approach is further strengthened by the incorporation of a self-adaptive mutation operator. A decision maker (DM) is provided with the knowledge of an approximate Pareto optimal front, and his/her preference articulations are used to derive a utility function intended to calculate the utility of the existing and upcoming solutions. The incubation of particle-swarm mechanism for the MOO by incorporating an adaptive-grid mechanism, a self-adaptive mutation operator, and a novel decision-making strategy makes it a novel and efficient approach. Simulation results on various test functions indicate that the proposed metaheuristic identifies not only the best preferred solution with a greater accuracy but also presents a uniformly diverse high utility Pareto front without putting excessive cognitive load on the DM. The practical relevance of the proposed strategy is very high in the cases that involve the simultaneous use of decision making and availability of highly favored alternatives.


Predictable sources of food underpin lifetime reproductive output in long lived animals. The most important foraging areas of top marine predators are therefore likely to be related to environmental features that enhance productivity in predictable spatial and temporal patterns. Even so, although productive areas within the marine environment are distributed patchily in space and time, most studies assess the relationships between feeding activity and proximate, not long term, environmental characteristics. In addition, individuals within a population may exploit different prey types, and these are often associated with different hydrographic features. Until now, models attempting to associate core foraging areas (CFAs) of marine predators with the environmental characteristics of those areas have not considered the diet of individual animals, despite the influence this could have on these relationships. We used bathymetry and multi-year (n=24) mean sea surface temperature and variability as predictors of CFAs of lactating Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus gazella at Heard Island. The effect of prey types on the predictability of these models was explored by matching diet and foraging trip data of individual seals (n=40 seals, n=1 trip each). Differences in diet between seals were mirrored by their spatial behaviour. Foraging strategies differed both between and within groups of seals consuming different diets. Long-term environmental parameters were useful for predicting the foraging activity of seals that consumed a single prey type with relatively specific habitat preferences, but not for those that consumed single or multiple prey types associated with more varied habitats. Ignoring individual variation in predator diet probably contributes to the poor performance of foraging habitat models. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating individual specialization in foraging behaviour into ecological models and management of predator populations.


The utopian sixties inspired revolutionary and alternative ways to live, love, and entertain--and equally radical spaces to do it in. Stimulated by the psychedelic drug culture, rebel designers and architects distorted space to create womblike coves and isolation chambers, forging a spatial vocabulary that still reverberates today. At the same time, the tune-in-turn-on-drop-out message lured youths into far-flung communes, often under the roofs of brightly painted geodesic domes draped and tie-dyed fabric. Idealistic and anarchic enclaves with names like Drop City and Morning Star redefined the concept of community, inventing a wildly spontaneous way of building and dwelling. For the first time, these ephemeral spaces are brought together in Spaced Out. The many never-before-published photographs and an inventive text by acclaimed author Alastair Gordon show in detail the spirit and ideas of this radical period.


Abstract : This thesaurus is a presentation of terms to be used for the indexing and retrieval of documents dealing with the subject area of Low Intensity Conflict (LIC). A wide range of documents and reports relevant to LIC were selected, catalogued and indexed from open literature as part of a feasibility study on an Information Analysis Centre (IAC). The Thesaurus of Engineering and Scientific Terms (TEST) was used initially for indexing terms but it became apparent that the subject matter required a broader range of terms in areas not covered comprehensively by TEST. Catalogers added terms as needed and gradually a 'working vocabulary' of something less than one thousand descriptors emerged. This original word list was edited following the rules and conventions adopted for the construction of TEST. Undesirable terms were removed, new ones were added and all hierarchical relationships and cross-references were entered and checked. The present thesaurus contains 950 descriptors and 225 USE references in the Thesaurus of Terms. A more detailed discussion of the process of construction of the LIC Thesaurus (LICT) is available in a separate report. LICT borrows heavily from TEST in format, rules and conventions followed and in many of the descriptors listed. The instructions and explanations about the use of LICT have been patterned after those in TEST.


This study deals with the lenition of voiceless fricatives in two varieties of southern Italian. In the first part, we recall not only different ways in which the very notion of 'lenition' has been used in the traditional literature and in recent theoretical proposals, but we will also discuss the fortis vs. lenis distinction (as well as the related feature [±tense]), finally adhering to a rather narrow interpretation of the two concepts. A review of the available descriptions of southern varieties of Italian shows that an allophonic rule of lenition is widely reported as regards plosives, but only partially acknowledged for fricatives. The basic claim of our study is that this variable rule is best stated in terms of the feature [±tense] and thus applied to the class of obstruents as a whole, the acoustic correlates of this feature being mainly duration and eventually intensity. The empirical part of our study examines the occurrences of /s/ and /f/ produced by six male students (three from Naples and three from Palermo); the dialogues were recorded within the CLIPS project (Corpora e Lessici dell'Italiano Parlato e Scritto) according to the Map Task procedure. The results essentially confirm our hypothesis that lenition does indeed apply – even if to a variable degree – to fricatives as well; as to the phonetic implementation of the process, intensity seems not to be at stake at all, duration being its main acoustic correlate.


Teachers who are doing their homework in the way of professional reading are meeting with increased frequency the word, psycholinguistics, especially as it relates to reading. One might assume that the very appearance of the word connotes some abstract body of knowledge having meaning only to language theoreticians. On the other hand it is possible that once understood, the word may be a label for a developing body of knowledge that has far-reaching implications for reading teachers. In fact, one might discover that for the most part psycholinguistic thinking puts into a new context much that has been accepted and applied by reading teachers. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS APPLIED TO READING INSTRUCTION


Objectives The peripheral muscle pump is key in promoting cardiac filling during exercise, especially in subjects who lack a subpulmonary ventricle (the Fontan circulation). A muscle-wasting syndrome exists in acquired heart failure but has not been assessed in Fontan subjects. We sought to investigate whether adults with the Fontan circulation exhibit reduced skeletal muscle mass and/or metabolic abnormalities. Design and patients Sixteen New York Heart Association Class I/II Fontan adults (30±2 years) underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing and lean mass quantification with dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA); eight had calf muscle 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy as did eight healthy age-matched and sex-matched controls. DXA results were compared with Australian reference data. Setting Single tertiary referral centre. Results Peak VO2 was 1.9±0.1 L/min (66±3% of predicted values). Skeletal muscle mass assessed by relative appendicular lean mass index was significantly reduced compared with age-matched and sex-matched reference values (Z-score −1.46±0.22, p<0.0001). Low skeletal muscle mass correlated with poorer VO2 max (r=0.67, p=0.004). Overall, skeletal muscle mass T-score (derived from comparison with young normal reference mean) was −1.47±0.21; 4/16 Fontan subjects had sarcopenic range muscle wasting (T-score <−2.0) and 9/16 had less marked, but clinically significant wasting (T-score <−1.0 but ≥−2.0). Muscle aerobic capacity, measured by the rate constant (k) of postexercise phosphocreatine resynthesis, was significantly impaired in Fontan adults versus controls (1.48±0.13 vs 2.40±0.33 min−1, p=0.02). Conclusions Fontan adults have reduced skeletal muscle mass and intrinsic muscle metabolic abnormalities.


Despite the growing demand for software implementations of ECDSA secure against attackers with full control of the execution environment, scientific literature on ECDSA white-box design is scarce. The CHES 2021 WhibOx contest was thus held to assess the state-of-the-art and encourage relevant practical research, inviting developers to submit ECDSA white-box implementations and attackers to break the corresponding submissions.In this work, attackers (team TheRealIdefix) and designers (team zerokey) join to describe several attack techniques and designs used during this contest. We explain the methods used by the team TheRealIdefix, which broke the most challenges, and we show the efficiency of each of these methods against all the submitted implementations. Moreover, we describe the designs of the two winning challenges submitted by the team zerokey; these designs represent the ECDSA signature algorithm by a sequence of systems of low-degree equations, which are obfuscated with affine encodings and extra random variables and equations.The WhibOx contest has shown that securing ECDSA in the white-box model is an open and challenging problem, as no implementation survived more than two days. In this context, our designs provide a starting methodology for further research, and our attacks highlight the weak points future work should address.


It is considered that physical education (PE) teachers' level of assertiveness greatly impact the duration of their tenure, their attitudes towards other individuals and the way they cope with the challenges they face in life. Therefore, it is of significance to determine the factors that affect PE teachers' assertiveness level.The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of sporting in accordance with different variables on assertiveness of PE teachers. A total of 135 PE teachers, 36 female and 99 male, in the city of Erzurum in Turkey,participated in the study. Rathus Assertiveness Scale developed by Rathus was employed in the analysis of data. Frequency distribution, t-test and ANOVA were utilized to process the data. The differences amongst the groups choices were evaluated based on 0.05 significance level.Based on the findings, no difference was observed among Rathus Assertiveness averages with respect to marital status. On the other hand, a significant difference was observed with respect to gender, educational background, sporting habits, type of sports performed and age. It was noticed that PE teachers with sporting habits tend to have higher assertiveness level than those with no sporting habit. As a proposition, the significant of elements that could be effective on encouraging PE teachers for sporting habits hence increasing their assertiveness levels as they have constant interaction with students and peers in many educational and social settings.


Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliche. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. In a new preface, Wolin describes how the Obama administration, despite promises of change, has left the underlying dynamics of managed democracy intact.


Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK) modulation format has been shown as a robust solution for next-generation optical transmission systems. One key device enabling such systems is a delay interferometer, converting the phase modulation signal into the intensity modulation signal to be detected by the photodiodes. Usually, a standard Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is used for demodulating a DPSK signal. In this paper, we develop an MZI which is based on all-fiber Multimode Interference (MI) structure: a multimode fiber (MMF) with a central dip, located between two single-mode fibers (SMFs) without any transition zones. The MI based MZI (MI-MZI) is more stable than the standard MZI as the two arms share the same MMF, reducing the impact of the external effects, such as temperature and others. Performance of this MI-MZI is analyzed theoretically and experimentally from transmission spectrum. Experimental results shows that high interference extinction ratio is obtained, which is far higher than that obtained from a normal graded-index based MI-MZI. Finally, by software simulation, we demonstrate that our proposed MI-MZI can be used for demodulating a 40 Gbps DPSK signal. The performance of the MI-MZI based DPSK receiver is analyzed from the sensitivity. Simulation results show that sensitivity of the proposed receiver is about -22.3 dBm for a BER of 10-15 and about -23.8 dBm for a BER of 10-9.


There has been abundant speculation, but very little research, concerning the role of television in the lives of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study compared the use of television and other media in samples of children with ADHD and nonreferred children. Children with ADHD were reported to watch more television, a difference partially accounted for by demographic and environmental characteristics. Children with ADHD were also reported to enjoy television more and have greater involvement in television-related activities, and to enjoy reading less and be less involved in reading-related activities. However, there were no diagnostic group differences in reports of weekly reading, and weekly reading was unrelated to television viewing in children with ADHD. Results suggest a complex relation between television viewing and ADHD not recognized in previous research and popular commentary, and suggest that research on children with ADHD's television use should consider environmental and developmental contexts.


Much of the research sampling for age composition in commercial fish species is stratified on the basis of length, with a fixed number of samples taken from each length class. For most fish species, a given age can straddle several length classes. Further, the probability of being mature at a given age is influenced by length at that age. Often, the proportion mature at a given age is estimated from the observed fish at that age without taking into account the size frequency distribution from which the specimens are drawn. This can result in biases of unpredictable magnitude and sign in the estimation of proportion mature-at-age. This study presents a method to estimate proportion mature-at-age from a length stratified sampling scheme. The method accounts for the size distribution at age by weighting observations by the abundances of the size groups. The method is applied to cod (Gadus morhua) and American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) in the Northwest Atlantic and the results compared to those obtained from the unweighted (traditional) method. In general, the differences between the weighted and unweighted estimates are small, but some comparisons show substantial differences.


Women & Men in the Prehispanic Southwest takes a groundbreaking look at gendered activities in prehistory and the differential access that women and men had to sources and symbols of power and prestige. The authors-including some of the most prominent archaeologists working in the Southwest today-present invaluable methodological and theoretical case studies that take a great step forward in researchers' ability to "read" gender in the evidence left behind by ancient societies. Archaeological interpretation is enhanced and critiqued in a summary discussion by a prominent Southwestern ethnologist and feminist anthropologist. The authors' probe the time period during which Southwestern populations shifted from migratory gatherer-hunters to sedentary agriculturalists and from living in small bands to settling in large aggregated communities. The chapters address the organization of space; ritual activities; mortuary goods and burial facilities; food gathering and agricultural production; hunting and domesticated animals; food processing and preparation; health, nutrition, disease, and violence; craft production; and exchange and interaction.


Coordinated precoding based on interference alignment is a promising technique for improving the throughputs in future wireless multicell networks. In small networks, all base stations can typically jointly coordinate their precoding. In large networks, however, base station clustering is necessary due to the otherwise overwhelmingly high channel state information (CSI) acquisition overhead. In this work, we provide a branch and bound algorithm for finding the globally optimal base station clustering. The algorithm is mainly intended for benchmarking existing suboptimal clustering schemes. We propose a general model for the user throughputs, which only depends on the long-term CSI statistics. The model assumes intracluster interference alignment and is able to account for the CSI acquisition overhead. By enumerating a search tree using a best-first search and pruning sub-trees in which the optimal solution provably cannot be, the proposed method converges to the optimal solution. The pruning is done using specifically derived bounds, which exploit some assumed structure in the throughput model. It is empirically shown that the proposed method has an average complexity that is orders of magnitude lower than that of exhaustive search.


In the mammalian ovary, oocytes are contained within follicles, specialized structures that facilitate oocyte growth and development. During the reproductive cycle, several follicles are recruited into growth, and through a process of selection, one (human, cow) or several (mouse, pig) of these follicles eventually become dominant and obtain the ability to ovulate. The oocytes inside growing and developing follicles are arrested at prophase of meiosis I, until the follicle reaches the preovulatory stage and the oocyte resumes meiosis in response to the luteinizing hormone surge. The subsequent oocyte maturation process is characterized by progression of meiosis from prophase I to metaphase II and completion of this process is required for the oocyte to be fertilized and for the development of the resulting embryo. Oocyte maturation comprises intricately interweaved molecular events and structural changes, but it has become clear that current knowledge on this process constitutes merely the tip of the iceberg. The research presented in this thesis provides a substantial contribution to a better understanding of mammalian oocyte maturation using pig oocytes as a model system. The potential benefits of this research include improvements in fertility treatments, in vitro fertilization, prevention of genetic disorders, and production of embryonic stem cells. The protein kinase CDC2 plays a pivotal role in several key maturation events, in part through controlled changes in CDC2 localization. Research presented in this thesis shows that CDC2 transiently associates with a single domain that is composed of a cluster of endoplasmic reticulum exit sites in the cortex of maturing porcine oocytes. The results of this study further suggest that this specialized domain is involved in regulating membrane traffic, including redistribution of Golgi components, during the highly asymmetrical meiotic divisions. Unraveling the intricacies of intracellular events that govern oocyte maturation can be facilitated by manipulating the underlying processes at the molecular level. In order to achieve such delicate molecular interference, a novel method using pressure-based microinjection of fluorescent molecules and analysis of injected oocytes by epifluorescence microscopy was developed. Validation of this method is described in a second study presented in this thesis, and shows that it is an efficient means of manipulating oocytes using consistent concentrations of injected substances, without resulting in adverse effects on oocyte maturation. In a final experimental chapter, this method was applied to manipulate the functions of a ubiquitously expressed cytosolic protein, clathrin, which has originally been defined for its role in intracellular membrane traffic, but was recently shown to have a second independent function, involving the stabilization of kinetochore fibers in mitotic spindles of dividing somatic cells. To study whether clathrin also functions at meiotic spindles in oocytes we microinjected green fluorescent protein-tagged C-terminal and N-terminal clathrin protein constructs into isolated porcine oocytes prior to in vitro maturation. In oocytes, both constructs associated with meiotic spindles similar to endogenous clathrin, but induced severe meiotic defects, demonstrating a crucial role for clathrin at the first and second meiotic spindle in maturing oocytes.


Abstract. Some benthic foraminifera have the ability to incorporate functional chloroplasts from diatoms (kleptoplasty). Our objective was to investigate chloroplast functionality of two benthic foraminifera (Haynesina germanica and Ammonia tepida) exposed to different irradiance levels (0, 25, 70 µmol photon m−2 s−1) using spectral reflectance, epifluorescence observations, oxygen evolution and pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometry (maximum photosystem II quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm) and rapid light curves (RLC)). Our results clearly showed that H. germanica was capable of using its kleptoplasts for more than 1 week while A. tepida showed very limited kleptoplastic ability with maximum photosystem II quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm  =  0.4), much lower than H. germanica and decreasing to zero in only 1 day. Only H. germanica showed net oxygen production with a compensation point at 24 µmol photon m−2 s−1 and a production up to 1000 pmol O2 cell−1 day−1 at 300 µmol photon m−2 s−1. Haynesina germanica Fv/Fm slowly decreased from 0.65 to 0.55 in 7 days when kept in darkness; however, it quickly decreased to 0.2 under high light. Kleptoplast functional time was thus estimated between 11 and 21 days in darkness and between 7 and 8 days at high light. These results emphasize that studies about foraminifera kleptoplasty must take into account light history. Additionally, this study showed that the kleptoplasts are unlikely to be completely functional, thus requiring continuous chloroplast resupply from foraminifera food source. The advantages of keeping functional chloroplasts are discussed but more information is needed to better understand foraminifera feeding strategies.


In secular Europe the veracity of modern science is almost always taken for granted. Whether they think of the evolutionary proofs of Darwin or of spectacular investigation into the boundaries of physics conducted by CERN's Large Hadron Collider, most people assume that scientific enquiry goes to the heart of fundamental truths about the universe. Yet elsewhere, science is under siege. In the USA, Christian fundamentalists contest whether evolution should be taught in schools at all. And in Muslim countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan and Malaysia, a mere 15 per cent of those recently surveyed believed Darwin's theory to be 'true' or 'probably true'. This thoughtful and passionately argued book contends absolutely to the contrary: not only that evolutionary theory does not contradict core Muslim beliefs, but that many scholars, from Islam's golden age to the present, adopted a worldview that accepted evolution as a given. Guessoum suggests that the Islamic world, just like the Christian, needs to take scientific questions - 'quantum questions' - with the utmost seriousness if it is to recover its true heritage and integrity. In its application of a specifically Muslim perspective to important topics like cosmology, divine action and evolution, the book makes a vital contribution to debate in the disputed field of 'science and religion'.


This study was motivated by the necessity to recycle sludge water resulting from washing out concrete mixing trucks - a problem of both environmental and economic importance for the ready-mixed concrete industry. Sludge water from ready-mixed concrete plants as well as dry sludge, which is derived from the settling of the water, are hazardous for disposal due to their high pH value (pH>11.5). In this work, cement mortars were composed using either sludge water after various treatment, or dry sludge in several ratios. The cement mortars were tested for their workability and strength development. The purpose of this experimental design was to prove that sludge water, as well as sludge in a wet or dry form, can be used in the production of mortars without degrading any of their properties.


Pre-modern Central Asia saw a lot of violence and wars that had religious underpinnings or originated from genealogical claims. The colonial and Soviet reforms brought about reconsideration of cultural diversity in the logic of ethnic division. In the 20th century, reference to ethnicity became the main language of spontaneous violence escalation and explanation. With the weakening of Soviet rule, the region saw a series of heated conflicts. The most massive of them were the 1989 pogroms against Meskhi Turks in Uzbekistan and the 1990 clashes in Kyrgyzstan that took the shape of ethnic confrontation between the Kyrgyz majority and the Uzbek minority. Lesser disturbances also emerged in the borderlands and in mixed-ethnicity villages.
 After the collapse of the USSR, the 1990s saw an increase in social and religious violence in Central Asia. However, despite the violence being different in character, Central Asia had already gained a reputation of a very conflict-ridden region precisely in the ethnic sense. Many experts and politicians listed manifold potential ethnic conflicts about to break out in the region. In 2010, one of these predictions came true in the south of Kyrgyzstan, where a clash erupted between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. These expert assessments were also borne out by occasional conflicts over land and water arising between communities that live in the border areas.
 Nevertheless, the label of ethnic conflict does not always explain the reasons for violence. The conflicts in Central Asia arise and develop as a variety of local actions, which have different sequences, logic, and motivation. These actions are performed by very different agents—people, groups, and institutes that have their own interests and dispositions. Social and political slogans sound during the events, while the line of confrontation lies between local communities and particular groups of people, not between "nations" or "ethnic groups." The label of ethnic conflict simplifies all these entanglements; there is usually a political interest or a certain intellectual tradition behind it, which essentializes and historicizes the reasons for aggression.


Coeliac disease (CD) is a permanent inflammatory disease of the small intestine characterized by the destruction of the mucous membrane of this intestinal tract. Coeliac disease represents the most frequent food intolerance and affects about 1% of the population, but it is severely underdiagnosed. Currently available guidelines require CD-specific serology and atrophic histology in duodenal biopsy samples to diagnose CD in adults. In paediatric CD, but recently in adults also, non-invasive diagnostic strategies have become increasingly popular. In order to increase the rates of correct diagnosis of the disease without the use of biopsy, researchers have recently been using approaches based on artificial intelligence techniques. In this work, we present a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS)system for supporting CD diagnosis, developed in the context of the Italy-Malta cross-border project ITAMA. The implemented CDSS has been based on a neural-network-based fuzzy classifier. The system was developed and tested using a Virtual Database and a Real Database acquired during the ITAMA project. Analysis on 10,000 virtual patients shows that the system achieved an accuracy of 99% and a sensitivity of 99%. On 19,415 real patients, of which 109 with a confirmed diagnosis of coeliac disease, the system achieved 99.6% accuracy, 85.7% sensitivity, 99.6% specificity and 96% precision. Such results show that the developed system can be used effectively to support the diagnosis of the CD by reducing the appeal to invasive techniques such as biopsy.


Weekly sales of creative goods—like music records, movies, or books—usually peak shortly after release and then decline quickly. In many cases, however, they follow a hump-shaped pattern where sales increase for some time. A popular explanation for this phenomenon is word of mouth among a population of heterogeneous buyers, but previous studies typically assume buyer homogeneity or neglect word of mouth altogether. In this paper, I study a model of new-product diffusion with heterogeneous buyers that allows for a quantification of the sales effect of word of mouth. The model includes Christmas sales as a special case. All parameters have an intuitive interpretation. Simulation results suggest that the parameters are estimable for data that are not too volatile and that cover a sufficiently large part of a title's life cycle. I estimate the model for four exemplary novels using scanner data on weekly sales.


The goal of this work is to provide robust and accurate speech detection for automatic speech recognition (ASR) in meeting room settings. The solution is based on computing long-term modulation spectrum, and examining specific frequency range for dominant speech components to classify speech and non-speech signals for a given audio signal. Manually segmented speech segments, short-term energy, short-term energy and zero-crossing based segmentation techniques, and a recently proposed multi layer perceptron (MLP) classifier system are tested for comparison purposes. Speech recognition evaluations of the segmentation methods are performed on a standard database and tested in conditions where the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) varies considerably, as in the cases of close-talking headset, lapel, distant microphone array output, and distant microphone. The results reveal that the proposed method is more reliable and less sensitive to mode of signal acquisition and unforeseen conditions.


This paper considers the reconstruction of forest development
in industrial landscape of the town of Novaky and its
hinterland in the southern part of the Prievidzska Basin, which
is being reconstructed through profiles of cultural-landscape
layers (CLL). The main objective of the article is modelling
development of forest on the choric model of local country
within specific time horizons from the Young and Late Bronze
Age (ca 1,200 – 800 BC) until 2025/30. A secondary objective is
to present the method of profiles CLL as an alternative way of
evaluating the forest transformations in the landscape.
Historical development of the forest on the CLL profiles of
Novaky and its hinterland was elaborated according to the
large-scale maps from years 1782/84, 1845, 1882, 1900, 1938,
1956 and 1994 transformed into a uniform scale (1: 25 000).
Profiles with models of prehistoric (Young and Late Bronze
Age), respectively historical development of forest communities
in the land use of investigated area from the 13th to 16th
century and from years 2011 and 2025/30 were constructed using
the above mentioned base maps, literature and the field
research results. Method of CLL profiles has the potential to
become one of the alternative ways for studying the development
of forest and its anthropogenic exploitation It also allows
representation of horizontal and vertical dependencies and
relationships between natural components of the landscape.


Cyclodextrin polymers have high applicability in pharmaceutical formulations due to better biocompatibility, solubility enhancement, loading capacity and controlled drug release than their parent, cyclodextrins. The cytotoxicity and cell uptake of new cationic beta-cyclodextrin monomers and polymers were evaluated as suitable materials for nasal formulations and their protective effects on cells exposed to hydrogen peroxide were studied. PC12 and CACO-2 cells were selected as the neuronal- and epithelial-type cells, respectively, to mimic the structure of respiratory and olfactory epithelia of the nasal cavity. All cationic beta-cyclodextrin polymers tested showed dose- and time-dependent toxicity; nevertheless, at 5 µM concentration and 60 min of exposure, the quaternary-ammonium-beta-cyclodextrin soluble polymer could be recognized as nontoxic. Based on these results, a fluorescently labelled quaternary-ammonium-beta-cyclodextrin monomer and polymer were selected for uptake studies in CACO-2 cells. The monomeric and polymeric beta-cyclodextrins were internalized in the cytoplasm of CACO-2 cells; the cationic monomer showed higher permeability than the hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin, employed as comparison. Therefore, these cationic beta-cyclodextrins showed potential as excipients able to improve the nasal absorption of drugs. Furthermore, amino-beta-cyclodextrin and beta-cyclodextrin soluble polymers were able to reduce oxidative damage in PC12 and CACO-2 cells and thus could be studied as bioactive carriers or potential drugs for cell protection against oxidative stress.


A web-based module is developed as a learning tool for pharmacokinetic parameter estimation based on non-linear regression analysis and Bayesian principles. After entering the data related to dosage regimen, plasma concentration-time course, and the population kinetics, the online program estimates the individualized pharmacokinetic parameters. The module was used when dealing with the concept of Bayesian analysis in a clinical pharmacokinetics course taught in a PharmD program. Students used the module outside the class to estimate kinetic parameters in simulated scenarios comprising different extents of variability in the plasma concentration and/or the population data. Additionally, the module was used during the class time by the instructor for simulation purposes. Performance data indicated that the use of the module by both students (outside the class) and the instructor (during the class) significantly improved learning of the concepts behind the Bayesian forecasting of the kinetic parameters. Further, students believed that the use of module was easy, improved their learning, and should be continued in the future.


Transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana expressing the minor coat protein P74 of the phloem-limited Beet western yellows virus (BWYV) exhibited an unusual spatial pattern of post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) when infected with BWYV or related viruses. Following infection, transgenic P74 and its mRNA accumulated to only low levels, 21 to 23 nucleotide RNAs homologous to the transgene appeared, and the transgene DNA underwent methylation. The infecting viral RNA, however, was not subject to significant silencing but multiplied readily and produced P74 in the phloem tissues, although the P74 encoded by the transgene disappeared from the phloem as well as the nonvascular tissues.


The study focused on an issue of knowledge transfer across Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The overall goal was to identify current practices for knowledge transfer (i.e. both tacit and explicit) between two SMEs (as manufacturers/buyers and suppliers/providers. This study responded to the concern on outsourcing and supplier development for sustainable SMEs competitiveness. This study represented an initial phase of the research on the term external knowledge. This study involved ten SMEs considered to be of high performance. The results also incorporated the opinions of invited practitioners on the level of practicality of identified practices. There were many knowledge-transfer practices found to be useful for explicit knowledge such as formal meetings, site visits/audits and assignment of contact persons. For tacit knowledge, they included story telling, social interactions and employment of former staffs. The study's limitations were recognised. Finally, future studies were suggested.


Background and Objectives:The BNP concentration varies considerably after the onset of AMI, and this makes it difficult to determine the right time to measure the BNP as a valid prognostic marker. The aim of this study was to examine the early changing patterns of BNP and to decide on the suitable time for measuring the BNP as a prognostic marker after the onset of AMI. Subjects and Methods:From Feb 2002 to May 2005, we analyzed the changing patterns of BNP in 321 AMI patients. BNP (Triage) was measured at the acute phase (≤24 hr), the early phase (2 to 6 day), the late phase (1 to 4 week) & the long-term phase (>4 week) after the onset of AMI. The end points were major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and cardiovascular death (CVD). Results:The mean BNP was 306.2±802.8 at the acute phase (mean: 9.5 hours), 251.9±592.8 at the early phase (mean: 5.1 days), 103.1±172.9 at the late phase (mean: 26.8 days) and 179.7±353.3 pg/mL at the long-term phase (mean: 45.9 days). There were no significant differences of the demographic factors between the MACE and Non-MACE group. Multivariative analysis showed that early phase BNP (p=0.007) and male gender (p=0.009) were significant risk factors for MACE. The early phase BNP (p=0.037) and age (p=0.022) were the significant risk factors of CVD. On the ROC curve, the early phase BNP for predicting the CVD risk was 186 pg/mL (AUC=0.87, p<0.001). The Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the survival rate was higher for the patients with an early phase BNP<186 pg/mL than it was for those patients with a BNP≥186 pg/mL (p=0.000). Conclusion:The early levels or changing patterns of the BNP concentrations following AMI showed different patterns of change depending on several prognostic factors. The early phase (2 to 6 day) BNP concentration after the onset of AMI could be used as a significant prognostic marker. (Korean Circulation J 2006;36:526-534)


High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy is an ethnography of globalization positioned at the intersection between political economy and cultural studies. Carla Freeman's fieldwork in Barbados grounds the processes of transnational capitalism—production, consumption, and the crafting of modern identities—in the lives of Afro-Caribbean women working in a new high-tech industry called "informatics." It places gender at the center of transnational analysis, and local Caribbean culture and history at the center of global studies.

Freeman examines the expansion of the global assembly line into the realm of computer-based work, and focuses specifically on the incorporation of young Barbadian women into these high-tech informatics jobs. As such, Caribbean women are seen as integral not simply to the workings of globalization but as helping to shape its very form. Through the enactment of "professionalism" in both appearances and labor practices, and by insisting that motherhood and work go hand in hand, they re-define the companies' profile of "ideal" workers and create their own "pink-collar" identities. Through new modes of dress and imagemaking, the informatics workers seek to distinguish themselves from factory workers, and to achieve these new modes of consumption, they engage in a wide array of extra income earning activities. Freeman argues that for the new Barbadian pink-collar workers, the globalization of production cannot be viewed apart from the globalization of consumption. In doing so, she shows the connections between formal and informal economies, and challenges long-standing oppositions between first world consumers and third world producers, as well as white-collar and blue-collar labor.

Written in a style that allows the voices of the pink-collar workers to demonstrate the simultaneous burdens and pleasures of their work, High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy will appeal to scholars and students in a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, women's studies, political economy, and Caribbean studies, as well as labor and postcolonial studies.


Purpose: Enterprise management, including, or perhaps above all, the area related to information, in conditions of globalization and the speed of market changes, is a great challenge for managers. The main aim of this study is to investigate the importance of information management in Polish enterprises and cities. Design/Methodology/Approach: The first part of the paper contains a literature analysis of the issues raised. The second, practical part contains the results of the conducted research. Findings: In such reality, it should be recognized that the company's ability to integrated and unified information management, covering all areas and aspects of functioning, is a prerequisite for market success. Practical Implications: The study covered professionally active people and those who had no employment and was targeted at people of all ages. The logical structure of the publication is related to the verification of the main research hypothesis, according to which improvement in the area of information flows in the information space of an enterprise affects the improvement of management processes. Originality Value: It is s first attempt of its kind trying to verify the importance of information management in enterprises and cities.


European Union banking industry is subject to numerous changes in the daily activities performed, having
to adapt the business to a wide range of impacting factors. Among these, the blockchain technology has a
significant potential in updating the current context, aspect highlighted by academic environment,
researchers and innovation specialists.
Current research paper has the intent to identify the areas where the blockchain technology could impact
the EU banking industry, analyse the scenarios and make possible praises for the evolution of business in
banking.


Nicole Marthe Le Douarin [5] was one of the first progressive female pioneers of developmental and embryological research. Some of her most notable and ground-breaking work involves grafting [6] quail and chicken [7] embryos together in order to study the developmental fate of each contributing embryo. Le Douarin was born in Brittany, France, on 20 August 1930. As an only child she was inspired by her mother, a school teacher at the time, to develop a passion for learning. According to Le Douarin her father was an open-minded businessman who, likely because she was an only child, raised her much like a boy. In 1944 Le Douarin was forced to move out of her hometown of Lorient and attend a boarding school in Nantes, France, to escape the invasion of German forces during World War II. After the war, she returned to her high school in Lorient, where she received her baccalaureate in 1949. During her last year in Lorient, when she was only seventeen, Douarin met her fiancé. After graduating, and against the wishes of her mother, she moved with him to Paris where they attended the Sorbonne. In 1951, after three years of courtship and university classes together, the couple was married. Le Douarin graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in the natural sciences in 1954. Instead of immediately continuing to graduate school, she chose to teach science at a local high school and raise a family.


ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study aims to validate the Parent Satisfaction with Education Experiences Scale (PSEE) and to explore parental satisfaction with early childhood education service in urban China. Altogether 27,515 Chinese parents who were randomly sampled from 12 cities of China completed the survey. First, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded the three-factor construct that was identical to the original American one, indicating a satisfactory construct validity, and the internal consistency is also satisfactory. Second, descriptive statistics found that Chinese parents had the highest satisfaction with the classroom contact experience, followed by teacher contact experience, and school contact experience, and the MANOVA analysis revealed a significant difference for kindergarten type. Third, two-step clustering analysis generated three parental profiles: (1) Low Satisfaction Parents; (2) Medium Satisfaction Parents; and (3) High satisfaction Parents. Practice or Policy: The findings of Chinese parent satisfaction towards different types of kindergartens indicated that more efforts should be made to promote equity, equality, and social justice in the field of early childhood education. And the 'universal and low-cost private' kindergartens policy should be reviewed and improved accordingly.


We present a higher-order module discipline with separate compilation and concurrent dynamic linking. Based on first-order modules one can program security policies for systems that link modules from untrusted locations (e.g., Java). We introduce a pickling operation that writes persistent clones of volatile, possibly higher-order data structures on the file system. Our pickling operation respects lexical binding. Our module discipline is based on functors, which are annotated functions that are applied to modules and return modules. Pickled computed functors can be used interchangeably with compiled functors. In contrast to compiled functors, pickled computed functors can carry computed data structures with them, which has significant practical applications.


The transferred-intent doctrine is a fiction that is no longer needed by American tort law, because of the replacement of contributory negligence with comparative negligence and development in the law of negligence since the creation of the transferred-intent doctrine. In the midst of decades of tort reform, the transferred-intent fiction has survived. Though total abolition is unlikely, its use and applicability should be greatly restricted given the existence of non-fictitious avenues for equal recovery.The transferred-intent doctrine developed when no avenue for recovery existed for plaintiffs who were contributory negligent. Since the advent of comparative negligence, however, the need for the transferred-intent fiction to ensure deserving plaintiffs are awarded relief is no longer present. Thusly, the law of negligence effectively eclipses the applicability of the transferred-intent doctrine and affords an equal measure of relief. Though transferred intent is no longer necessary within the context of tort law, the fiction remains vital in criminal law which, unlike tort law, relies exclusively on mental culpability and not tort law's principles of negligence.It is unlikely that legislative tort reform will ever address the obsolescence of the transferred-intent diction, requiring the courts to decide the future of the doctrine. As it is not likely that the doctrine will be abolished in its entirety, the doctrine's application should be greatly restricted.


English Language Teaching (ELT) has undergone immense changes over the years in terms of using different methods, but none of the methods till this date have proved what they had proclaimed. The paper believes in the hypothesis that learning is understanding the linguistic components of a language, whereas mastering is the part of using them in a well structured way with perfection and ease. Viewing this dichotomy between learning and mastering, the paper examines a problematic discourse: English in Eastern Ethiopia is often learnt; but not mastered. The broad concern of the paper is to draw the attention of the local and global ELT practitioners towards the dismal state of English in Eastern Ethiopia. In this pursuit, the paper set three prime objectives: (i) exploring global and local uses of ELT methods, (ii) exploring major linguistic and non-linguistic impediments in mastering English, and (iii) proposing an empirical approach to overcome the impediments from remedial perspective. Participant observation, unstructured Interview, and document analysis were employed to gather the data, whereas analytic induction was used to analyze the data. Under findings, seventeen linguistic and non-linguistic impediments were found as serious deterrents in mastering English. From remedial perspective, the paper proposes an empirical Integrated Iconic Approach to overcome the linguistic impediments followed by seventeen apposite recommendations to pave the path of quality English education in Eastern Ethiopia.


Giorgio Scarpa (1938–2012) was an Italian designer, artist and teacher who worked in bionics, topology and rotational geometry. This article describes Scarpa's bionic model of "Aristotle's lantern"—the mouth of the sea urchin. The technical literature on Echinoidea lacks a detailed study of its remarkable mouth mechanism. Scarpa's model is the only known analysis and physical analogue of the mechanism. It is a striking example of geometrical analysis and craftsmanship, bridging science and art. Built in the early 1970s and described in 1985 in Modelli di Bionica, his model has inspired designs for a biopsy harvester and for a mini-rover to collect soil samples on Mars.


Background: Accurate information on causes of death (CoD) is essential to estimate burden of disease, track global progress, prioritize cost-effective interventions, and inform policies to reduce mortality. In low-income settings, where a significant proportion of deaths take place at home or in poorly-resourced peripheral health facilities, data on CoD often relies on verbal autopsies (VAs). Validations of VAs have been performed against clinical diagnosis, but never before against an acceptable gold standard: the complete diagnostic autopsy (CDA). Methods: We have validated a computer-coded verbal autopsy method -the InterVA- using individual and population metrics to determine CoD against the CDA, in 316 deceased patients of different age groups who died in a tertiary-level hospital in Maputo, Mozambique between 2013 and 2015.   Results: We found a low agreement of the model across all age groups at the individual (kappa statistic ranging from -0.030 to 0.232, lowest in stillbirths and highest in adults) and population levels (chance-corrected cause-specific mortality fraction accuracy ranging from -1.00 to 0.62, lowest in stillbirths, highest in children). The sensitivity in identifying infectious diseases was low (0% for tuberculosis, diarrhea, and disseminated infections, 32% for HIV-related infections, 33% for malaria and 36% for pneumonia). Of maternal deaths, 26 were assigned to eclampsia but only four patients actually died of eclampsia. Conclusions: These findings do not lead to building confidence in current estimates of CoD. They also call to the need to implement autopsy methods where they may be feasible, and to improve the quality and performance of current VA techniques.


The long-term wholesale electricity market is becoming increasingly competitive. Bidding for power contracts has become a dominant form of competition in this sector. The prices which emerge from this process have not been documented and compared in a systematic framework. This paper introduces a method to make such comparisons and illustrates it on a small sample of projects. This results show a wide range of prices for what is essentially the same technology, gas-fired combined cycle generation. The price range seems greater than what could be explained by transmission cost differences between high and low cost regions. For the smaller sample of coal-fired projects, price variation is substantially less. Further data collection and analysis should be able to help isolate more clearly what market or cost factors are responsible for the observed variation.


Economies in Transition Asia Foundation Center for Asian Pacific 1997 In 1994, the Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs began a twoyear project to compare the transitions of selected East European and Asian economies from centrally-planned communist systems to market economies. The goal was to shed light on the transition process through an understanding of the underlying economic and institutional dynamics. This volume is the culmination of that project.The volume is divided into three parts. In the first part, an overview, the editors review the authors' findings and highlight major themes. The second part looks closely at the transition process in seven Asian and East European economies: China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The third part contains six comparative studies that explore key elements of the transition process. The papers incorporate feedback obtained from meetings with cabinet members and high government officials, conferences, and seminars in Prague, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Beijing, Ulan Bator, and Washington, D.C. Contributors Leszek Balcerowicz, Barbara Blaszczyk, Peter Boone, Yuan Zheng Cao, Bruce Comer, Marek Dabrowski, Georges de Menil, Daniel C. Esty, Gang Fan, Boris Federov, Roman Frydman, Carol Graham, Stephen Parker, Andrzej Rapaczynski, James Riedel, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Baavaa Tarvaa, Vinod Thomas, Gavin Tritt, Adiya Tsend, Enkhbold Tsendjav, Joel Turkewitz, Narantsetseg Unenburen, Yan Wang, Wing Thye Woo Economies in Transition Asia Foundation Center for Asian Pacific 1997 In 1994, the Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs began a twoyear project to compare the transitions of selected East European and Asian economies from centrally-planned communist systems to market economies. The goal was to shed light on the transition process through an understanding of the underlying economic and institutional dynamics. This volume is the culmination of that project.The volume is divided into three parts. In the first part, an overview, the editors review the authors' findings and highlight major themes. The second part looks closely at the transition process in seven Asian and East European economies: China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The third part contains six comparative studies that explore key elements of the transition process. The papers incorporate feedback obtained from meetings with cabinet members and high government officials, conferences, and seminars in Prague, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Beijing, Ulan Bator, and Washington, D.C. Contributors Leszek Balcerowicz, Barbara Blaszczyk, Peter Boone, Yuan Zheng Cao, Bruce Comer, Marek Dabrowski, Georges de Menil, Daniel C. Esty, Gang Fan, Boris Federov, Roman Frydman, Carol Graham, Stephen Parker, Andrzej Rapaczynski, James Riedel, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Baavaa Tarvaa, Vinod Thomas, Gavin Tritt, Adiya Tsend, Enkhbold Tsendjav, Joel Turkewitz, Narantsetseg Unenburen, Yan Wang, Wing Thye Woo


How signaling molecules function is not only a matter of when but also a matter of where. Kraynov et al. demonstrate that activation of the small guanosine triphosphate-binding protein Rac1 can be visualized in real time in living cells. Activation of Rac1, known to induce actin-based morphological changes, was restricted to sites of actin polymerization, independent of overall intracellular Rac distribution. Thus, cells can produce distinct behaviors through specific distributions of activated Rac1. Kraynov, V.S., Chamberlain, C., Bokoch, G.M., Schwartz, M.A., Slabaugh, S., and Hahn, K.M. (2000) Localized Rac activation dynamics visualized in living cells. Science 290: 333-337. [Full Text] [Abstract]


Background Educational attainment is associated with a plethora of positive economic and social implications for individuals, institutions, and the broader society. One factor that has been identified as an important predictor of students' educational attainment is their educational expectations. Thus, understanding how educational expectations are shaped is important to comprehending how success can be fostered among students from diverse racial backgrounds. Purpose of the Study This quantitative study is aimed at understanding the process by which students from various racial backgrounds cultivate and reformulate their educational expectations during the high school years. Three research questions were explored in this study: (1) How do various academic and interpersonal factors directly affect students' educational expectations? (2) How do academic and interpersonal factors indirectly affect students' educational expectations via their self-perceptions? and (3) How do those effects vary across different racial groups? Populations and Participants The National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) survey was first administered to students in the spring of eighth grade, and the first two follow-up surveys were administered in the spring of those students' 10th- and 12th-grade years. Students who participated in the NELS surveys from the base year to the second follow-up (88:92) were included in the omnibus analysis, resulting in an overall sample size of 12,144. That sample was divided into Asian (n = 764), Black (n = 1,041), Latina/o (n =1,444), Native American (n= 399), and White (n = 7,626) subsamples, and a parallel analysis was conducted to allow for the comparison of effects across various racial subpop-ulations. Research Design Using a pretest-posttest design and structural equation modeling techniques, we created a structural model and examined how academic and interpersonal factors directly and indirectly, via self-efficacy and locus of control, influence students' educational expectations. Particular attention is given to how those effects vary across racial subpopulations. Conclusions and Recommendations Relationships between the results of this inquiry and earlier studies are complex, with some of our findings confirming and some contradicting those of other researchers. The results of this analysis indicate that the process by which students formulate and reformulate their educational expectations during the high school years varies across racial groups. Recommendations for future research involve considering racial, gender, socioeconomic, and other differences in examining students' educational expectations and outcomes. We also recommend that future research focus on understanding the reasons why such racial differences exist.


We propose StyleBank, which is composed of multiple convolution filter banks and each filter bank explicitly represents one style, for neural image style transfer. To transfer an image to a specific style, the corresponding filter bank is operated on top of the intermediate feature embedding produced by a single auto-encoder. The StyleBank and the auto-encoder are jointly learnt, where the learning is conducted in such a way that the auto-encoder does not encode any style information thanks to the flexibility introduced by the explicit filter bank representation. It also enables us to conduct incremental learning to add a new image style by learning a new filter bank while holding the auto-encoder fixed. The explicit style representation along with the flexible network design enables us to fuse styles at not only the image level, but also the region level. Our method is the first style transfer network that links back to traditional texton mapping methods, and hence provides new understanding on neural style transfer. Our method is easy to train, runs in real-time, and produces results that qualitatively better or at least comparable to existing methods.