Background: Cancer-screening programs are effective in reducing cancer prevalence and mortality; however, cancer remains the leading cause of death in elderly people in Korea. The aim of this study was to identify the factors associated with elders' participation in the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) and differences in screening rates by gender. Methods: Original data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition and Examination Survey were analyzed by logistic regression analysis. The sample consisted of 5,505 elderly individuals over age 60. Selected demographic variables, cancer screening participation, physical and psychological health status, and lifestyle were examined. Results: The NCSP participation rates decreased in both men and women as age increased. Private medical insurance (OR 95% CI: 1.04–1.78), one or more chronic disease (OR 95% CI: 1.07–1.71), and current smoker (OR 95% CI: 0.52–0.94) had the strongest associations with cancer screening participation among men after multivariate adjustment. In contrast, cancer screening participation among women was significantly associated only with living place (OR 95% CI: 1.06–2.203) after multivariate adjustment. Conclusions: Effective health promoting interventions for elders require individualized programs that address gender-related factors associated with elders' participation in cancer screening programs.


Vision-based place recognition is a desirable feature for an autonomous mobile system. In order to work in realistic scenarios, visual recognition algorithms should be adaptive, i.e. should be able to learn from experience and adapt continuously to changes in the environment. This paper presents a discriminative incremental learning approach to place recognition. We use a recently introduced version of the incremental SVM, which allows to control the memory requirements as the system updates its internal representation. At the same time, it preserves the recognition performance of the batch algorithm. In order to assess the method, we acquired a database capturing the intrinsic variability of places over time. Extensive experiments show the power and the potential of the approach.


Thrombomodulin (TM) is expressed on the surface of monocyte, which is important in the regulation of cell migration, proliferation, and inflammatory responses. In a previous study, we demonstrated that TM on monocyte is negatively associated with cell migration. However, the mechanisms involved in this process are unclear, therefore, we explored the mechanisms in this study. Chemotactic assays and immunofluorescence showed that TM siRNA increased the Chemotaxis of the IL-6-activated THP-1, and aggravated actin assembly relative to the IL-6-treated control. In contrast, cells overexpressing plasmids containing full-length or domain 5 of TM followed by IL-6 treatment displayed lower Chemotaxis and less actin assembly. Western blot analysis showed that TM knockdown markedly increased cytoskeleton components cofilin and LIMK1 phosphorylation in IL-6-treated THP-1, whereas, transfected cells with HA-TM FL or HA-TM D5, but not HA-TM Dl-3 plasmids, reversed the effects. Activation of ERK1/2 and JNK/SAPK, upstream regulators of cytoskeleton components, were also inhibited in overexpressed group. Immunoprecipitation assay demonstrated that actin interacts with TM and intersectin1 in THP-1. Decreased interaction between intersectin1 and actin in TM knockdowns suggested that the interaction is mediated by TM. Our findings indicate that TM domain 5 is a negative regulator and seems to have the ability to inhibit paxillin, cofilin, LIMK1, and actin activation. The mechanisms for the repression effect of domain 5 may be mediated by inhibition of the ERK1/2 and JNK/SAPK activation. Expression of domain 5 of TM may represent a promising approach for controlling monocyte migration, and TM may have potential applications in treatment of inflammatory diseases.


The Society of Housing Managers. formed from the women trained by Octavia Hill, is not well known, though it played a prominent part in housing management from the 1930s onwards.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the hypothesis that the Society of Housing Managers played a substantial role in encouraging the employment of trained women in housing from 1912 to the post- war period. It is further suggested that the ending of an all female Society and its subsequent amalgamation with the Institute of Housing in 1965 was one factor in weakening the position of women in housing employment, although other factors contributed.

A major source of evidence used is depth interviews carried out with members of the committee who dealt with unification between the Society and the Institute, as well as interviews with other women managers. Some of these informants supplied early, often unique, documents. The Minute Books of the Society and other records not hitherto documented were also important as were Public Record Office papers, contemporary journals and secondary historical sources.

Statistical data centres around a detailed analysis by gender of the Institute of Housing membership records and two major surveys carried out by the City University and the NFHA using unpublished as well as the published data. An additional small survey was done of women's employment in allied professional organisations.

It is concluded that the Society of Housing Managers played a crucial role in drawing women into housing employment in the 1930s and thus opened up opportunities for women in the; expansion of public housing during the second world war and after. However some disadvantages may have been incurred by separate organisation. In comparison. women in the 1980s have had some success in combining separate women's networks with membership of a mixed Institute.


We compared two methods for sampling the littoral zone fish community, short-term gillnetting and underwater visual transects, across six habitats classified by water depth and aquatic macrophyte cover. Analyses were performed on species and species life stage data at three numerical scales. The prediction that visual transects would sample more species was supported, as 12 species were observed by visual transects and only nine were captured by gillnets. However, the difference between methods in sampling efficiency was not consistent across habitats. Visual transects sampled more species and life stages in moderate and high cover, whereas gillnets sampled more life stages where cover was minimal. There was a significant correlation between the relative abundance of species determined from visual transects and their relative abundance as assessed by gillnetting across habitats. However, when relative abundance was examined within habitats, only one of the six showed a significant correlation. The ranked abundance of species assessed by visual transects was not significantly correlated with that assessed by gillnetting, either across or within habitats; nor were any of these correlations significant at the life stage level. Overall, our results showed that the two techniques produced a different assessment of the littoral zone fish community, and that underwater visual transects provided broader community coverage.


Sensitive and quick clays are typically found in Norway, Sweden and Canada, and are characterised by a remoulded undrained shear strength considerably lower than the undisturbed shear strength. In geotechnical engineering, the presence of sensitive clays poses a major challenge. The landslides at Rissa in 1978, and more recently at the Skjeggestad bridge in Norway, are devastating reminders of the potential threats related to such soils. In a construction project it is hence important to 1) determine if there is sensitive clay present and 2) clarify the extent of the quick clay deposit. This is currently done based on interpretation of soundings and to some extent geophysical methods such as electrical resistivity measurements. However, for verification of quick clay, sampling and laboratory testing must be performed. Here, a set of updated and new guidelines for classification of sensitive clays from in-situ measurements are presented. The aim is to provide the geotechnical engineer with a practical classification tools where all available information is utilized and combined efficiently. The classification tools are based on results from methods such as conventional soundings, CPTU with measurement of total force, electrical field vane testing in combination with geophysical methods such as R-CPTU, 2D resistivity profiles (ERT) and airborne electromagnetic measurements (AEM). The methods, and how they are utilized in investigation strategies for detection of quick and sensitive clays, have been described in another paper to this conference. An extensive database of Norwegian test sites forms the basis for the work. The results from this study show that the above mentioned site investigation methods holds information that complements each other, to form a solid basis for detection of sensitive clays. In turn, this opens for more efficient site investigations where all available data are interpreted in a systematic manner to produce a reliable map of sensitive clay deposits.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Drug-eluting stents (DES) are still the standard of care in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) since the fall of bioresorbable scaffolds with respect to safety. The unbeatable advantage of a metallic stent when compared with a scaffold is a stronger mechanical property and more sustainable vascular support. Recent development of contemporary metallic stent has focused on the reduction of strut thickness. However, there will always be a trade-off between improvement in deliverability, flexibility, and radial strength. Areas covered: This review aims to discuss the designs of metallic stent platform and mechanical properties as well as mechanical performance of contemporary DES from bench studies and clinical trials. Expert opinion: Mechanical properties of stents affect short- and long-term clinical outcomes. Ultrathin-strut DES have become popular and clinical trials have shown impressive results. Thinner struts may improve device flexibility and deliverability but the radial strength and longitudinal integrity might have been compromised as well. Ultrathin-strut cobalt chromium or platinum chromium DES will become standard of care in PCI practice in the near future. Information on the stent design, stent material and mechanical properties of the stent are essential for a rational selection of the appropriate stent in selected lesions and patients.


Root diseases, namely take-all caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis (Sacc.) Arx & D. Olivier var. tritici J. Walker, Rhizoctonia root rot caused by R. solani Kuhn AG8, and Pythium root rot caused by several Pythium Pringsh. species, become yield-limiting to wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in the Inland Pacific Northwest when these crops are grown without adequate rotation, especially in direct-seed (no-till) systems. We tested whether yields of wheat could be increased by (i) pairing the rows rather than spacing them uniformly, so as to keep the crop canopy open longer into the growing season, and (ii) placing fertilizer within rather than between the rows, so as to make nutrients more accessible to diseased roots. All experiments were done in fields with a recent history of intensive wheat. Direct seeding was used to further intensify pressure from root diseases, and soil fumigation and/or stubble burning were used in some experiments to reduce pressure from root diseases. Mixed effect models were used to analyze the yield results, with location (observation) treated as the random effect. When all yield data for four winter wheat experiments were used, and spacing, fumigation, and their interaction were the fixed effects in the model, spacing and fumigation but not their interaction were significant. When the yield data were limited to fertilizer placed within each row (directly beneath the seed), spacing, fumigation, and their interaction all were significant. However, when the yield data were limited to fertilizer placed between the rows, or to yields from plots without straw on the soil surface, neither spacing, fumigation, nor their interaction were significant. Similar results were obtained in a spring wheat experiment where fumigation, row spacing, and fertilizer placement were tested in all combinations. Moreover, the amount of Rhizoctonia root rot, take-all, or both were less in response to paired-row spacing in two winter wheat experiments. The higher yields can be explained by the microenvironmental benefits of a more open canopy with paired rows together with the concentration of soil disturbance and row cleaning with paired shanks (presumably resulting in more warming and drying of the top soil where the pathogens are most active), and placement of fertilizer directly beneath each seed row, all of which have the potential to reduce the effects of root diseases.


Current conditions of cities and territories in the MENA region pose serious design questions in terms of possible future reconstruction strategies. The tabula rasa conditions offer many chances but the ownership structure represents a major obstacle towards a sustainable reconstruction. Urban borders in Syrian cities before, during and after the civil war are undergoing processes of urban metamorphosis dictated by economic, social and historical causes. The comprehension of the complex concurrent factors that shaped current conditions is a starting point for the development of future strategies capable of acting as an alternative to current reconstruction laws that tend to intensify rather than diminish conflict.


Ever since the landmark article by Constantinides (1979), the academic literature has been decrying the inefficiency of the investment strategy known as dollar-cost averaging (DCA). In fact, despite more than twenty years of damning evidence, DCA remains as popular as ever amongst the press and individual investors. The purpose of this article is to re-examine DCA, but using tools from continuous-time option pricing. We believe that this framework yields additional and previously undocumented insights into the nature of DCA. Our main results are as follows: (1) We show that the end-of-period stochastic payoff induced by DCA--although neither normal nor lognormal--is identical in distribution to the stochastic payoff of a derivative security known as a zero strike (zepo) arithmetic Asian option. (2) Standard results in continuous-time finance theory dictate that--given the inefficiency of DCA--one can always construct a constant proportions continuously rebalanced portfolio that will stochastically dominate DCA, in a mean variance framework. We add to this by showing that for typical volatility and drift rates, one can construct a static buy-and-hold portfolio that will stochastically dominate DCA, in a mean variance framework. By typical conditions, we mean that the underlying assets volatility is lower than some--relatively large but known--critical threshold that depends on the drift rate. This enables us to quantify and display the inefficiency of DCA by 'moment matching' to a static buy-and-hold strategy. In other words, we 'moment match' the variance and then solve for the implicit loss in expected return, and vice versa, we 'moment match' the expected return and then solve for the excess variance. Furthermore, we confirm--to a first order of approximation--that the nominal Sharpe ratio from DCA is reduced by 13%, compared to any buy-and-hold strategy. However, if the volatility and drift rates are not typical, we show that the Sharpe ratio of DCA is higher than the Sharpe ratio of any buy-and-hold strategy. (3) Finally, using techniques from the theory of Brownian bridges, we compute the expected payoff induced by DCA, conditional on knowing the final value of the underlying security. We are thus able to prove--among other properties--that when the underlying security ends-up exactly where it started, the expected payoff from DCA is uniformly better than lump-sum investing. The magnitude of this conditional benefit to DCA, increases with higher volatility of the underlying security.


We compute the ground-state energy of atoms and quantum dots with a large number N of electrons. Both systems are described by a nonrelativistic Hamiltonian of electrons in a d-dimensional space. The electrons interact via the Coulomb potential. In the case of atoms (d = 3), the electrons are attracted by the nucleus via the Coulomb potential. In the case of quantum dots (d = 2), the electrons are confined by an external potential, whose shape can be varied. We show that the dominant terms of the ground-state energy are those given by a semiclassical Hartree-exchange energy, whose N -> infinity limit corresponds to Thomas-Fermi theory. This semiclassical Hartree-exchange theory creates oscillations in the ground-state energy as a function of N. These oscillations reflect the dynamics of a classical particle moving in the presence of the Thomas-Fermi potential. The dynamics is regular for atoms and some dots, but in general in the case of dots, the motion contains a chaotic component. We compute the correlation effects. They appear at the order N ln N for atoms, in agreement with available data. For dots, they appear at the order N.


To analyze gene regulatory networks active during embryonic development and organogenesis it is essential to precisely define how the different genes are expressed in spatial relation to each other in situ. Multi-target chromogenic whole-mount in situ hybridization (MC-WISH) greatly facilitates the instant comparison of gene expression patterns, as it allows distinctive visualization of different mRNA species in contrasting colors in the same sample specimen. This provides the possibility to relate gene expression domains topographically to each other with high accuracy and to define unique and overlapping expression sites. In the presented protocol, we describe a MC-WISH procedure for comparing mRNA expression patterns of different genes in Drosophila embryos. Up to three RNA probes, each specific for another gene and labeled by a different hapten, are simultaneously hybridized to the embryo samples and subsequently detected by alkaline phosphatase-based colorimetric immunohistochemistry. The described procedure is detailed here for Drosophila, but works equally well with zebrafish embryos.


Nowadays, Health Care Training-based System
(HCTS) is a vital component in the education and training of health care in 3D
Virtual Environment (VE). The practice of HCTS continues to grow at rapid pace
throughout all of the healthcare disciplines, however research in this field is
still in its early stage. Increasingly, decision makers and developers look
forward to offer more sophisticated, much larger, and more complex HCTS to
serve the desired outcome and improve the quality and safety of patient care. Due
to the rapidly increasing usage of personal mobile devices and the need of
executing HCTS applications in environments that have no previous network
infrastructure available, Mobile Health Care Training-based System (MHCTS) is
an expected future trend. In such systems, medical staff will share and
collaborate in a 3D virtual environment through their mobile devices in an
ad-hoc network (MANET) in order to accomplish specific missions' typically
surgical emergency room. Users are organized into various groups (Radiologists,
Maternity departments, and General surgery etc...), and need to be managed by a
multicast scheme to save network bandwidth and offer immersive sense. MHCTS is
sensitive to networking issues, since interactive 3D graphics requires additional
load due to the use of mobile devices. Therefore, we need to emphasize on the
importance and the improvement of multicast techniques for the effectiveness of
MHCTS and the management of collaborative group interaction. Research so far
has devoted little attention to the network communication protocols design of
such systems which is crucial to preserve the sense of immersion for
participating users. In this paper, we investigate the effect of multicast
routing protocol in advancing the field of Health care Training-based System to
the benefit of patient's safety, and health care professional. Also, we address
the issue of selecting a multicast protocol to provide the best performance for
a particular e-health system at any time. Previous work has demonstrated that
multicast operates at least as efficiently as traditional MAODV. A
comprehensive analysis about various ad-hoc multicast routing protocols is
proposed. The selection key factors for the right protocol for MHCTS
applications were safety and robustness. To the best of our knowledge, this
work will be the first initiative involving systematic literature reviews to
identify a research gate for the use of multicast protocol in health care
simulation learning community.


Much of studies on neural computation are based on network models of static neurons that produce analog output, despite the fact that information processing in the brain is predominantly carried out by dynamic neurons that produce discrete pulses called spikes. Research in spike-based computation has been impeded by the lack of efficient supervised learning algorithm for spiking networks. Here, we present a gradient descent method for optimizing spiking network models by introducing a differentiable formulation of spiking networks and deriving the exact gradient calculation. For demonstration, we trained recurrent spiking networks on two dynamic tasks: one that requires optimizing fast (~millisecond) spike-based interactions for efficient encoding of information, and a delayed memory XOR task over extended duration (~second). The results show that our method indeed optimizes the spiking network dynamics on the time scale of individual spikes as well as behavioral time scales. In conclusion, our result offers a general purpose supervised learning algorithm for spiking neural networks, thus advancing further investigations on spike-based computation.


A series of monometallic and bimetallic metal catalysts (Pd, Cu, Fe, PdCu, PdFe) supported on ZrO2 (6-8 nm) were synthesized and tested for the hydrogenation of bio-oil model compounds (furfural, vanillin, glucose) under 50 bar H2 at 100 °C. The catalysts were fully characterized and their properties related to their catalytic activity. The bimetallic PdFe and PdCu displayed enhanced catalytic performance compared to the monometallic catalysts for aldehyde hydrogenation (furfural, vanillin, glucose). For the best catalyst, 98% vanillin alcohol (VA) and 65.5% furfuryl alcohol (FA) conversion was obtained for 80 min batch-time. PdFe showed high selectivity toward sorbitol (74%) from glucose, though at low conversion (20%). Overall, we have demonstrated that bimetallic Fe- A nd Cu-based catalysts promoted by Pd show significantly better performance for the partial hydrogenation of bio-oil model compounds than the corresponding monometallic ones. The better performance of the Pd-doped Fe/Cu catalysts is linked to the presence of smaller and better dispersed Pd nanoparticles (STEM) and their lower acidity (∼90 μmol/g cat) than corresponding monometallic ones (∼167 μmol/g cat).


PMN leukocytes are the most abundant leukocytes in the circulation and play an important role in host defense. PMN leukocyte recruitment and inflammatory responses at sites of infection are critical components in innate immunity. Although inflammation and coagulation are known to have bidirectional relationships, little is known about the interaction between PMN leukocytes and coagulation factors. Coagulation FXI participates in the intrinsic coagulation pathway upon its activation, contributing to hemostasis and thrombosis. We have shown previously that FXI‐deficient mice have an increased survival and less leukocyte accumulation into the peritoneum in severe polymicrobial peritonitis. This result suggests a role for FXI in leukocyte trafficking and/or function. In this study, we characterized the functional consequences of FXIa binding to PMN leukocytes. FXIa reduced PMN leukocyte chemotaxis triggered by the chemokine, IL‐8, or the bacterial‐derived peptide, fMLP, perhaps as a result of the loss of directed migration. In summary, our data suggest that FXIa modulates the inflammatory response of PMN leukocytes by altering migration. These studies highlight the interplay between inflammation and coagulation and suggest that FXIa may play a role in innate immunity.


Abstract Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomal recessive inborn error of metabolism due to deficiency in the phenylalanine hydroxylase gene (PAH). This study describes the distribution of PAH mutations in nine probands from Libya with the diagnosis of phenylketonuria and hyperphenylalaninemia. Molecular genetics screening was done at the Shafallah Medical Genetics Center laboratory by resequencing and analysis of the entire coding sequences, exon flanking regions and splice sites of PAH. Genomic DNA was isolated from dry blood spots (n=9) by organic extraction technique and purified using centrifugal column filter device. The 13 exons , exon-intron boundaries and splice sites of the PAH were amplified by polymerase chain reaction using in-house designed primers and optimized conditions. The DNA sequencing reactions were carried out by automated sequencer using BigDye Terminator chemistry. Two homologous PAH mutations were found in 7/9 probands and were c.838G>A/p.E280K (missense) and c.1055delG (frame shift). The frame shift mutation produces a truncated protein of 399 amino acid length. Two Probands were homozygous for the missense mutation, three were homozygous for the frame shift mutation and two were compound heterozygous for both mutations. This initial study should be followed by an analysis of phenotype – genotype correlation pattern to better understand the disease process.


Disaggregation of resources in the data center, especially at the rack-scale, offers the opportunity to use valuable resources more efficiently. It is common that mass storage racks in large-scale clouds are filled with servers with Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) attached directly to each of them, either using SATA or SAS depending on the number of HDDs. What does disaggregated storage mean for these racks? We define four categories of in-rack disaggregation: complete, dynamic elastic, failure, and configuration disaggregation. We explore the benefits and impact of these design points by building a highly flexible research storage fabric, that allows us to build example systems that embody the four designs.


BACKGROUND
Classic Fabry disease, an X-linked recessive lysosomal storage disease due to the deficient activity of alpha-galactosidase A, typically presents in early childhood with acroparesthesias, angiokeratomas, hypohidrosis, and corneal dystrophy. The neuropathic pain presumably results from glycosphingolipid accumulation in the vascular endothelium and in small-caliber nerve fibers, and is treatable by enzyme replacement therapy. Later-onset variants with residual alpha-galactosidase A activity lack vascular endothelial involvement and classic symptoms, which lead to the development of cardiac and/or renal disease after the fourth decade of life.

OBJECTIVE
To expand the later-onset Fabry phenotype to include cramp-fasciculation syndrome without small-fiber neuropathy.

METHODS
A 34-year-old man who presented with chronic exercise-induced pain, fasciculations, and cramps of the feet and legs, and his similarly affected mother, were evaluated. Clinical, biochemical, and molecular studies were performed.

RESULTS
Clinical evaluation suggested the diagnosis of Fabry disease, which was confirmed by reduced plasma and leukocyte alpha-galactosidase A activities (8.8% and 13.4% of normal, respectively) due to a missense A143T mutation. His mother was heterozygous for the A143T mutation.

CONCLUSION
The presentation of cramps and fasciculations without apparent small-fiber neuropathy expands the phenotype of later-onset Fabry disease.


Objective Assess interrater agreement of endoscopic assessment of velopharyngeal (VP) function before and after viewing the video instruction tool (VIT). We hypothesized improvement in interrater agreement using the Golding-Kushner scale (GKS) after viewing the VIT. Study Design Prospective study. Setting Multi-institutional. Methods Sixteen fellowship-trained pediatric otolaryngologists who treat velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) rated 50 video segments using the GKS before and after watching the VIT. Raters assessed gap size percentage and lateral pharyngeal wall (LPW), soft palate (SP), and posterior pharyngeal wall (PPW) movement. Intraclass correlation coefficient was estimated for these continuous measures. Raters also indicated the presence of a palatal notch, Passavant's ridge, and aberrant pulsations (categorical variables). Fleiss κ coefficient was used for categorical variables. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed on the difference between the pre/post individual video ratings. Results Reliability improved for all continuous variables after watching the instructional video. The improvement was significant for PPW (0.22-0.30, P < .001), SP (left: 0.63-0.68, P < .001 and right: 0.64-0.68, P = .001), and LPW (left: 0.49-0.54, P = .01 and right: 0.49-0.54, P = .09) but not significant for gap size (0.65-0.69, P = .36). Among categorical variables, agreement on Passavant's ridge significantly improved (0.30-0.36, P = .03). Conclusion Exposure to a video instruction tool improves interrater agreement of endoscopic assessment of VP function. Significant improvement was observed in our primary end points, specifically posterior pharyngeal wall movement, soft palate movement, and lateral pharyngeal wall movement. There was less impact of the VIT on the interrater agreement of the categorical variables, palatal notch, Passavant's ridge, and aberrant pulsations.


Recovery of hydrocarbon gas in micro-Darcy rock is now becoming more common-place for gas producers. As part of the reservoir characterization associated with these systems, it is required to understand parameters such as the total porosity and permeability of the system, but also the initial water saturation and the effective gas permeability at this connate water saturation. This is still under the realm of what is termed "routine core analysis", but in these tight formations it is imperative to understand that these tests are actually very non-routine by nature. Current work presents a case study of core analysis that was run on plugs from a tight gas producing formation, and illustrates some of the pitfalls and corrections associated with measurements of this low permeability rock. The case study combines low field NMR measurements with core flooding measurements of porosity and permeability. Cores are initially tested at their connate water saturations: NMR measures the initial water present in each core, and effective porosity and permeability to gas are measured through different core analysis techniques. By considering the time scales required for pressure to propagate within the cores, it is shown that "routine" measurement of permeability through multi-rate Darcy flow of gas is simply not adequate to properly characterize the core. Instead, core properties are measured through analysis of transient pressure data. Cores are then run through a DeanStark cleaning process, and NMR measurements are used to verify the ability of DeanStark to remove all water out of the cores. In this manner, post-cleaning measurements of porosity and permeability can be understood as effective values rather than their assumed absolute properties. This case study illustrates the challenges in making accurate measurements in micro-Darcy rock systems, and helps end-users to understand the dangers in using routine data without knowing how the data was collected.


Environmental stresses arising from temperature and moisture changes, and/or other aggressive fluid ingressions can degrade the mechanical properties of the adhesive, as well as the integrity of an adhesive interface with a substrate. Therefore such disruptions can significantly reduce the lifetime and durability of an adhesive joint. In this research, the durability of certain epoxy adhesive joints and coatings were characterized using a fracture mechanics approach and also by constant frequency impedance spectroscopy. The shaft-loaded blister test (SLBT) was utilized to measure the strain energy release rate (G) or adhesive fracture energy of a pressure sensitive adhesive tape. In this study, support for the value of the SLBT fracture mechanics approach was obtained. The SLBT was then used to investigate the effects of relative humidity on a model epoxy bonded to silicon oxide. Lastly, the effects of water and temperature on the adhesion of a commercial filled epoxy bonded to silicon oxide was characterized and interpreted. A novel impedance sensor for investigating adhesion was developed in a collaborative effort between Virginia Tech and Hewlett-Packard. Utilizing the technique of constant frequency impedance spectroscopy, the distribution and transport of fluids at the interface of adhesive joints was measured. A broad spectrum of adhesives was tested. In addition, the effects of hygroscopic cycling on the durability of adhesive coatings were measured for the commercial filled epoxy using the device. Lastly, recommended modifications of the experimental set-up with the new sensor are proposed to improve the technique.


Aim MicroRNA-146a (miR-146a) is involved in certain immune-mediated diseases. Transcription factor Ets-1 strongly affects miR-146a promoter activity and directly regulates miR-146a expression. This study was performed to investigate the association of miR-146a and Ets-1 gene polymorphisms with Behçet's disease (BD) and Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada (VKH) disease in a Chinese Han population. Methods A total of 809 patients with BD, 613 patients with VKH and 1132 normal controls were genotyped for miR-146a/rs2910164, rs57095329 and rs6864584, Ets-1/rs1128334 and rs10893872 using a PCR restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. miR-146a expression was examined in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by real-time PCR. Cytokine production by PBMCs was measured by ELISA. Results A significantly decreased frequency of the homozygous rs2910164 CC genotype and C allele was observed in patients with BD compared with controls (pca=1.24×10−5, OR 0.61; pca=1.33×10−4, OR 0.75, respectively). MiR-146a expression in GG cases was 2.45-fold and 1.99-fold higher, respectively, than that in CC cases and GC cases. There was no association of the other four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with BD. There was also no association of these five SNPs with its main clinical features. No associations were found with the five SNPs tested or with its clinical manifestations in VKH disease. Interleukin (IL)-17, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)α and IL-1β production from rs2910164 CC cases was markedly lower than that in GG cases. No effect of genotype was observed on IL-6 and monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 production and IL-8 expression was slightly higher in CC cases. Conclusions Our study identified a strong association of rs2910164 of miR-146a with BD in a Chinese population and decreased expression of miR-146a and certain proinflammatory cytokines in individuals carrying the CC genotype.


The debate concerning the use of violence by the police force is an endless one. Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 serves as a framework for the use of violence by police officers during arrests in South Africa. While some hold the opinion that the powers of the police in this respect should be restricted, others see the 2003 redefined section 49 as a legislative guarantee of a suspect's right to flee. Against this background this article has as its focus a critical discussion of the historical development of section 49 as well as the recent amendments of the same. The current legal position in South Africa is also compared with that in the United States of America as well as in the United Kingdom. Finally, certain conclusions and recommendations are made in order to enhance more favorable regulation of the employment of force in effecting arrests.


This is a corpus-based study of three areas of the grammar of standard spoken and written British English negation where variation and on-going change are presumed to exist. The negative constructions considered in this study are: (i) the increasing use of DO-support for main verb HAVE and the (semi-)modals NEED (TO), DARE (TO), HAVE TO and USED TO ("I don't have the time to do that") instead of the older pattern with NOT after the verb ("I haven't the time to do that"); (ii) the shift in writing towards the contraction of the operator and "not", i.e. "not-contraction" ("I don't know her") instead of the full form of the operator and not ("I do not know her"), and the variability in speech and writing between the contraction of the operator and the subject, with full "not", i.e. operator contraction ("He's not in his room"), "not-contraction" ("He isn't in his room") and the full form of the operator and "not" ("He is not in his room"); and (iii) the spread of "NOT-negation" ("She doesn't have any money"), a construction that involves the use of verbal negation and a post-verbal non-negative indefinite and that is slowly replacing "NO-negation" ("She has no money"), the use of a post-verbal negative indefinite. These developments must be set against the background of a long-term reorganization of the English verbal morphology in negative sentences as well as functional and typological pressures. In this respect, this dissertation recognizes that the choice of negative constructions is determined by a complex network of language-internal and language-external factors. Although the study focuses on grammatical change in progress in British English, part of the analysis of the data is extended to include data from 19th and early 20th British English as well corpora of present-day American English.


Western Yunnan Province covers an area of about 220 000 km2 in Southwestern China, and is located at the boundary between the Indian Plate and the Yangtze Plate. It is an important part of the Eastern Tethyan ore-forming belt. The region contains numerous base and precious metal deposits, including a few super-large ore deposits, such as the Pulang porphyry Cu deposit, the Beiya and the Laowangzhai hydrothermal Au deposits, and the Jinding MVT Pb-Zn deposit. It is difficult to decompose anomalies related to mineralization from the geochemical data with multi-patterns using conventional statistical methods, such as multi-variate statistical analysis. In this study, the spectrum-area (S-A) fractal method based on a multi-fractal model is adopted to separate anomalies from Cu, Zn and Au stream sediment data. The model results are as follows. Using the S-A method, both Cu and Au local anomalies can be effectively decomposed from the high geochemical backgrounds that arise from the Permian basalt, while the local geochemical anomalies of Zn are identified along a North-Northeast trend. The distribution patterns of local Cu, Au and Zn geochemical anomalies are useful for indicating areas where new deposits may exist. Regional and local anomaly maps of Cu were depicted based on different thresholds obtained from the log–log plot. We showed that multi-fractal methods effectively and efficiently decompose geochemical data with complicated patterns into different, meaningful indictor components compared to conventional statistical methods.


Access to high-speed Internet service has become an essential component to the nation's economy, education, and healthcare. However, federal data continues to show tribal lands are the least connected areas of the country. AIPI launched a survey to collect information from residents of tribal reservations to determine what levels of Internet access they had and what types of devices they using to access it. The study also identified potential barriers to access, such as the lack of availability or its unaffordability for residents to purchase.

Our survey found that residents on tribal lands are predominantly using smart phones to access the internet, while many are also accessing it through public Wi-Fi or at a friend/relative's house. However, the data should not be interpreted or used to defend "mobile only" as the singular solution to providing internet service. In this study 50% of respondents stated that their internet use was limited because they did not have enough data in their cell phone plan. Further research is needed to ascertain if there are specific limitations of mobile use in certain situations, such as the reliability or preference of using mobile over hardline connections for certain activities.


The inner plexiform layer (IPL) of the Vertebrate retina is a highly organized synaptic region amassed with a myriad of processes from different cell types, like ganglion cells (GCs), amacrine cells (ACs) and bipolar cells (BCs). Their dendrites stratify at different levels within this cell-free zone, e.g. so-called subbands. Further, Muller glial cells (MCs) span radially through all retinal layers. In this study, I have focused on cholinergic ACs and MCs, and their possible roles in the formation of the IPL in the embryonic chicken retina. In the first chapter I have analysed the in vivo development and differentiation of starburst amacrine cells (SACs) and their role in cholinergic stratification. Type-I and type-II SACs are mirror-symmetrically arranged ACs on both sides of the IPL, which send their processes into the latter, where they stratify as subbands 'a' and 'd'. Acetylcholine is the predominant neurotransmitter of these cells, e.g. they are cholinergic. Using the cholinergic markers choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE), I show here immunohistochemically that an early postmitotic pool of cells in the inner half retina expresses first AChE, and then also ChAT. SACs and GCs are derived from this pool. By embryonic stage E6, two narrow rows of ChAT+ cells appeared in the future IPL, separated by a narrow band of AChE. Thus, AChE might be playing a guiding role for ChAT+ processes. Type-I SACs retained their high ChAT+, but not AChE expression, which was less pronounced in type-II SACs. Remarkably, type-I SACs in the INL were neighbored by strongly AChE-reactive cells which were ChAT-, a finding whose functional implications needs further attention. In chapter II, I show that the earliest ChAT+ cells also co-expressed the ganglion cell-specific marker Brn3a and CRABP. By E6, one set of cells down-regulated both ChAT and CRABP, but up-regulated Brn3a, marking the specification of GCs, while another set of cells reacted to the contrary, marking the specification of the two future types of SACs. By E8, type-I cells at the IPL/INL border lost their expression of CRABP, while type-II SACs in the IPL retained this protein. A co-localization of the early GC marker Brn3a with ChAT+ cells revealed that early GCs transiently express ChAT. Throughout these developmental stages, both the GCs and the ACs expressed AChE. Now following, I have performed in vitro experiments to analyze the role of SACs and Muller glial cells during IPL development, using both 3D retinal spheroids and retinal explants. In chapter III, I describe the establishment of a novel explant culture system, presenting the development of all retinal layers of an in vivo retina, except the GCL. Although being used here for studies of the inner retina, it is worthwhile to mention that with these explants the initial formation of photoreceptor outer segments can be followed. In continuation to the above mentioned in vivo studies, in chapter IV, I have similarly analyzed IPL formation by using both in vitro systems. Since type-II SACs are closely associated with GCs, I postulated that GCs could influence their differentiation, and in turn the development of the IPL as well. To test this hypothesis, I investigated the development of the IPL in explants, in which GCs are completely lost due to the absence of an optic nerve. In addition, 3D retinospheroids were used, where cells are completely dissociated and allowed to form histotypical structures, but again mostly in absence of GCs. Interestingly, in both in vitro culture models the IPL still developed, including both cholinergic subbands and migration of type-II SACs. This is strong evidence that major parts of the IPL develop in absence of GCs. Besides SACs, early Muller glial cells (MCs) have been suggested to provide guiding cues to establish the neuritic plexus of the IPL. Therefore, in the last chapter V, I have used the specific gliotoxin DL-alpha aminoadipate (AAA) in retinal spheroids to target MCs and thereby analyze the role of MCs during IPL development. At a sub-toxic concentration of 0.4 mM AAA, though the IPL was developed, the cholinergic stratification was severely disturbed, indeed suggesting an organizing role of MCs during IPL development. Moreover, thereby the numbers of inner retinal cells increased, while photoreceptor differentiation was inhibited, indicating further roles of MCs in cell lineage regulation.


This paper deals with how Digital Journalism has risen against all odds on social media from the stand point of various people and their positions in the society. There was once a belief that Digital Journalism would change the minds and ideas of audience interaction through social media in unusual ways and it has almost become a reality. The use of Digital Journalism is to convey valuable news and information to increase consumption of news. The rise of social media over a decade has strongly influenced and set minds thinking on how news was previously reported and digested. Social media has drastically altered Digital Journalism. It asserts through the aid of e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, online newspapers, twitter etc. and has strongly fascinated the audience minds and made them almost glued to their seats. Currently Digital Journalism has spread all over the world and plays a vital role in day to day life and also grabs the attention of young and old alike especially students to educate them about the world happenings. In Digital Journalism, the way of exposing the news was to totally influence the minds of audience and to make them think creatively and with wit. This paper communicates in length on how Digital Journalism through social media communicates with audience and helps them to be updated with day to day incidence.


Neurotrophins regulate a variety of neuronal processes including differentiation, survival, and plasticity. Neurotrophins facilitate the induction of long-term potentiation in hippocampal slices. Schinder et al. analyzed changes in synaptic strength of glutamatergic synapses in response to treatment with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) or neurotrophin-3 (NT-3). Excitatory synapses (glutamatergic to glutamatergic) were strengthened by application of BDNF or NT-3, however, inhibitory synapses (glutamatergic to GABAergic) were unaffected by the neurotrophins. The specificity of the neurotrophin-induced potentiation was maintained even if a single presynaptic neuron diverged to create synapses with an excitatory postsynaptic neuron and an inhibitory postsynaptic neuron. The data are consistent with a presynaptic mechanism of potentiation for BDNF-treated cells and show that individual nerve terminals from the same neuron can be regulated independently by neurotrophins. Schinder, A.F., Berninger,B., and Poo, M.-M. (2000) Postsynaptic target specificity of neurotrophin-induced presynaptic potentiation. Neuron 25: 151-163. [Online Journal]


Measuring gravimetric soil water content is a relatively elementary laboratory procedure; however, the inaccessibility of a laboratory oven makes this activity impractical for K–12 students. The Soil Moisture Campaign (SMC) Project of the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program was developed to use gravimetric water content measurement as an introduction to earth science research for K–12 students. We have designed and tested a low‐budget, low‐technology "light‐bulb oven" that is affordable enough for use in a classroom. The light‐bulb oven was tested by drying replicate samples of four different soil types in the light‐bulb oven and in a traditional laboratory oven. The results show that the performance of the light‐bulb oven was comparable to that of a traditional laboratory oven.


In the design of recently constructed steel-concrete composite bridges using hollow section trusses for the main load carrying structure, the fatigue verification of the tubular truss joints has been a main issue. Recent research on the fatigue behaviour of such joints has focussed on circular hollow section (CHS) K-joints with low diameter-to-thickness ratios - a geometric characteristic typical to tubular bridge trusses. Analytical and experimental research was carried out and joints with both directly welded tubes and cast steel nodes were studied. This paper presents the main results of these studies and shows comparisons between welded and cast steel solutions. The key issues for the design and fabrication of both types of nodes are reviewed and recommendations for the design and fabrication of tubular bridge structures are made.


Plant tissues are complex composite structures of organic and inorganic components whose function relies on molecular heterogeneity at the nanometer scale. Scattering-type near field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) in the mid-infrared (IR) region is used here to collect IR nanospectra from plant samples of different preparations. We compared structures of chemically extracted silica bodies (phytoliths) to silicified and non-silicified cell walls prepared as flat block of epoxy embedded awns of wheat (Triticum turgidum), thin sections of native epidermis cells from sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) comprising silica phy-toliths, and isolated cells from awns of oats (Avena sterilis). The correlation of the scanning-probe IR images and the me-chanical phase image enables a combined probing of mechanical material properties together with the chemical composi-tion and structure of both the cell walls and the phytolith structures. The data reveal a structural heterogeneity of the differ-ent silica bodies in situ, as well as different composition and crystallinity of cell wall components. In conclusion, IR nano-spectroscopy is suggested as ideal tool for studies of native plant materials of varied origins and preparations, which could be applied to other inorganic-organic hybrid materials.


Aquaponics combines the culture of aquatic animals and the cultivation of plants in recirculating systems, integrating aquaculture and hydroponics in a soil-less system (Racocy et al., 2004). Toxic ammonia produced by unutilised feed, fish faeces and excreted urea is oxidized by nitrifying bacteria (microbial breakdown) (mainly by Νitrosomonas and Nitrobacter spp.) into vital and usable nitrate for plants (Cebron and Garnier, 2005). Plants absorb nitrate and other nutrients, permitting purified water recirculate back to fish tanks. Aquaponics promotes an innovating system as a solution to possible environmental impacts of aquaculture (Tyson et al., 2011), shortage of drinking water, climate change, loss of soil fertility and biodiversity. Aquaponic system vitality and prosperity is based on fish, plant and bacterial interactions and welfare. The interrelatedness between these are highly complex and are in direct association with water quality (Yildiz et al., 2017). Aquaponics food products are chemical-free (no use of hormones, pesticides/fungicides or antibiotics).


Na and Shin (1998) showed that the veil of uncertainty can be conducive to the success of self-enforcing international environmental agreements. Later papers confirmed this negative conclusion about the role of learning. In the light of intensified research efforts worldwide to reduce uncertainty about the environmental impact of emissions and the cost of reducing them, this conclusion is intriguing. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we analyze whether the result carries over to a more general setting without restriction on the number of players and which considers not only no and full learning but also partial learning. Second, we test whether the conclusion also holds if there is uncertainty about abatement costs instead of uncertainty about the benefits from global abatement. Third, we propose a transfer scheme that mitigates the possible negative effect of learning and which may even transform it into a positive effect.


The escalation of fatal attacks by insurgent groups follows a common pattern. In military planning, it is important to be able to estimate not only the number of fatalities but how often attacks that result in fatalities will take place. We uncovered a simple dynamical pattern that may be used to estimate the escalation rate and timing of fatal attacks. The time difference between fatal attacks by insurgent groups within individual provinces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and by terrorist groups operating worldwide, gives a potent indicator of the later pace of lethal activity.


Psychological factors, market sentiments, and shifts in beliefs are believed by many to play a nontrivial role in inducing and amplifying economic fluctuations. Yet, these forces are rarely considered in macroeconomic models. This paper provides an attempt to evaluate the empirical role of expectational shocks on business cycle fluctuations. The paper relaxes the conventional assumption of rational expectations to exploit observed data on survey and market expectations in the estimation of a benchmark New Keynesian model. The observed expectations are modeled as formed from a near-rational expectation formation mechanism, which assumes that economic agents use a linear perceived law of motion for economic variables that has the same structural form as the model solution under rational expectations and that they need to learn model coefficients over time. In addition to the typical structural demand, supply, and policy disturbances, the model incorporates expectation shocks, which affect the formation of expectations by the private sector. Both the best-fitting learning process and the expectations shocks are identified from the expectations data and from the interaction between expectations and realized data. The expectations shocks capture waves of optimism and pessimism that lead agents to form forecasts that deviate from those implied by their learning model and by the state of the economy. The empirical results uncover a crucial role for these novel expectations shocks as a major driving force of the U.S. business cycle. Expectation shocks regarding future real activity are the main source of economic fluctuations, since they can account for roughly half of business cycle fluctuations.


In the last days of the Scandinavian journey that would become the basis of her great post-Revolutionary travel book, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, 'I am weary of travelling - yet seem to have no home - no resting place to look to - I am strangely cast off'. From this starting point, Ingrid Horrocks reveals the significance of representations of women wanderers in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, particularly in the work of women writers. She follows gendered, frequently reluctant wanderers beyond travel narratives into poetry, gothic romances, and sentimental novels, and places them within a long history of uses of the more traditional literary figure of the male wanderer. Drawing out the relationship between mobility and affect, and illuminating textual forms of wandering, Horrocks shows how paying attention to the figure of the woman wanderer sheds new light on women and travel, and alters assumptions about mobility's connection with freedom.


The resurgence of tuberculosis cases world-wide over the last two decades has led to one third of the population being infected and an ever increasing number of deaths (World Health Organisation, 2006). Little is known about the pathogenicity of the infectious agent, Tubercule bacillus, and resistance to the key chemotherapeutic drugs is widespread. Increasing research effort aiming to curtail the spread of this disease has been aided by the work of Cole et al. (1998 and 2002), which provided genomic annotations of the H37Rv strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Subsequent structural genomics projects have identified hundreds of potential targets for structure-based drug design. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the expression and characterisation of targets from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome. Cell-free expression trials of 36 unique targets were performed. Initial screening resulted in soluble expression for 30 % of the targets and inclusion of additives, such as molecular chaperones or detergents, increased this to 67 %. Milligram quantities of protein were obtained for eleven targets. As a comparison, four targets were chosen for expression trials using an E. coli in vivo system. Similar results were obtained for three of the targets using the cell-free or in vivo expression systems. However, significant quantities of soluble Rv3545c, a cytochrome P450 125, were only produced using the in vivo method. Proteins that were expressed in sufficient quantities were progressed into crystallisation trials, one of which yielded crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction. The crystal structure of Rv3628, an inorganic pyrophosphatase (Mtb-PPase), was refined to 2.7 A resolution in space group P3221. Inorganic pyrophosphatases (PPases) are ubiquitous metalloenzymes which belong to the phosphatase superfarnily, and play an essential role in biosynthetic reactions (Teplyakov et aL, 1994). 'ne refined crystal structure of Mtb- PPase was found to exhibit a similar overall fold and oligomeric form to existing type I PPase structures. Comparison with two recent Mtb-PPase structures, both in space group P6322 (Tammenkoski et al., 2005 and Benini and Wilson, to be published), highlighted a possible pH-dependent role of His93 within the active site. The characterisation of Rv3545c, a predicted cytochrome P450 125 (Mtb-CYP125), is also described in this thesis. Cytochrome P450s are a superfamily of haern-thiolate proteins (50 to 60 kDa) which monooxygenate hydrophobic substrates as part of electron transport chains (Nebert and Gonzalez, 1987 and Chapple, 1998). P450s have recently been implicated as novel antimycobacterial targets (Munro et al., 2003). Spectroscopy was used to confirm the cytochrome P450 annotation of Rv3545c, with the ferrous enzyme exhibiting a Soret peak at 450 nm in the presence of CO. A high-to-low spin-shift was observed by UV/visible and EPR spectroscopy, upon imidazole-inhibition of ferric Mtb-CYP125. Secondary structural elements were determined by circular dichroism (CD) to be - 33 % a-helix and - 14 % P-sheet. Finally, dark brown/red crystals of Mtb-CYP125 were obtained, but it was not possible to collect a full data set. This was primarily due to the crystals forming clusters which were impossible to separate. Despite this, weak diffraction data to 3 A resolution were measured, and further optimisation of the crystallisation conditions may prove successful.


This paper presents the results of an investigation into the use of a waveform lidar system from a ground based vehicle. Data was collected using a Riegl LMS Q560 laser scanner mounted on the roof of a Landrover driven along a 7 km stretch of coastline at Filey Bay, North Yorkshire, UK. An IMU and differential GPS unit, part of IGI's AeroControl system, were used to provide measurement of sensor orientation and position. Data with an average spatial resolution of 20 cm was collected. The coastline and intertidal zone are notoriously difficult to monitor given the limitations on activity imposed by the tide, extent of coastline, and the limited availability of reliable permanent control. Despite this, the coastal environment is an important asset, the condition of which often needs to be carefully monitored so as to improve the understanding of coastal processes and mechanisms which ultimately leads to improved management decisions and policies. Importantly, not only does the changing topography of coastal cliffs need to be monitored, but so does the profile of the beach and extent and type of vegetation. In many cases, the use of scattered, periodic measurements of coastal change has, therefore, been replaced with airborne survey using photography and/or airborne lidar which provide higher density geometric data. However, despite this, access to data with a high spatial and temporal resolution is still limited. A ground based rapid mapping survey solution may provide a more responsive solution and given the highly dynamic nature of the coastal environment, help to improve the understanding of coastal zone dynamics. Data collection took around 15 minutes, emphasising the appropriateness of the technique to the survey of the coastal zone. This is substantially quicker than the time that would be required to collect comparable data from multiple scans using a conventional static terrestrial laser scanner. The acquired data was quantifiably compared against ground truth data collected within one day of the lidar survey, and also against existing airborne lidar and photogrammetric datasets from previous survey campaigns. The project also considered the potential advantages of using the full laser waveform to improve analysis, in particular in dealing with vegetation along the soft rock cliffs. While the Filey Bay coastline was relatively well suited to the application of such a mobile mapping system, it is recognised that not all coastal sites would be the same. However, there are many other applications where the use of a ground based waveform lidar may be more useful than regular lidar alone, such as in the survey of vegetation along transport routes. This paper, therefore, contributes to the discussion on new methodologies for the rapid survey of linear features, helping to provide managers and engineers with a clearer view of dynamic environments in which it has previously been very difficult to survey using ground based surveying technology.


There had been several international accounting principles about the accounting treatment for business combinations, over the past years. Last June 2016, the International Accounting Standards Board proposed to amend IFRS 3 Business Combinations with the aim of clarifying the definition of a business. The motivation that pushed the Board to propose the Exposure Draft was to inform that there is a diversity in practice in accounting for previously held interests in the assets and liabilities of a joint operation in two kinds of transaction, those in which an entity obtains control of a business that is a joint operation and those in which it obtains joint control of a business that is a join operation. The purpose of the following review is to identify whether the board has reached the desired objective, and leads through the historical analysis of the accounting standards concerning business combinations, the analysis of the Exposure Draft and especially the analysis of the comments letters.


In the real world concepts are often not stable but change with time. A typical example of this in the medical context is antibiotic resistance, where pathogen sensitivity may change over time as new pathogen strains develop resistance to antibiotics which were previously effective. This problem, known as concept drift, complicates the task of learning a model from medical data and requires special approaches, different from commonly used techniques, which treat arriving instances as equally important contributors to the final concept. The underlying data distribution may change as well, making previously built models useless, which is known as virtual concept drift. These changes make regular updates of the model necessary. Among the most popular and effective approaches to handle concept drift is ensemble learning, where a set of models built over different time periods is maintained and the best model is selected or the predictions of models are combined according to their expertise level regarding the current concept. In this paper we propose a new ensemble integration technique that helps to better track concept drift at the instance level. Our experiments with the antibiotic resistance data show that dynamic integration of classifiers built over small time intervals can be more effective than the best single learning algorithm applied in combination with feature selection, which gives the best known accuracy for the considered problem domain. Besides, dynamic integration is significantly better than weighted voting which is currently the most commonly used integration approach for tracking concept drift with ensembles.


ABSTRACT Increased maturity in modeling human musicianship leads to many interesting artistic achievements and challenges. This article takes the opportunity to reflect on future situations in which virtual musicians are traded like baseball cards, associated content-creator and autonomous musical agent rights, and the musical and moral conundrums that may result. Although many scenarios presented here may seem far-fetched with respect to the current level of artificial intelligence, it remains prudent and artistically stimulating to consider them. Accepting basic human curiosity and research teleology, it is salutary to consider the more distant consequences of our actions with respect to aesthetics and ethics.


Abstract The coarse-mesh finite difference (CMFD) formulation is applied as an efficient means of acceleration of the heterogeneous whole-core transport calculation. The CMFD formulation enables dynamic homogenization of the cells during the iterative solution process such that the heterogeneous transport solution can be preserved. Dynamic group condensation is also possible with a two-level CMFD formulation involving alternate multigroup and two-group calculations. The two-dimensional discrete ordinates (SN) method is used as the kernel to generate the heterogeneous solution; the CMFD solution provides the SN kernel with much faster convergence of fission and scattering source distributions. In this paper, the two-level CMFD acceleration has been tested using the VENUS-2 two-dimensional whole-core model; it is shown that the number of SN transport sweeps can be reduced by a factor of about 10 while exactly reproducing the original transport solution. The second level of CMFD acceleration is also significant in reducing the computation time. The application of the CMFD formulation in arbitrary geometry demonstrates that CMFD also works well for irregular geometries.


Industry 4.0 is an emerging business paradigm that is reaping the benefits of enabling technologies driving intelligent systems and environments. By acquiring, processing and acting upon various kinds of relevant context information, smart automated manufacturing systems can make well-informed decisions to adapt and optimize their production processes at runtime. To manage this complexity, the manufacturing world is proposing the 'Digital Twin' model to represent physical products in the real space and their virtual counterparts in the virtual space, with data connections to tie the virtual and real products together for an augmented view of the manufacturing workflow. The benefits of such representations are simplified process simulations and efficiency optimizations, predictions, early warnings, etc. However, the robustness and fidelity of digital twins are a critical concern, especially when independently developed production systems and corresponding digital twins interfere with one another in a manufacturing workflow and jeopardize the proper behavior of production systems. We therefore evaluate the addition of safeguards to digital twins for smart cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) in an Industry 4.0 manufacturing workflow in the form of feature toggles that are managed at runtime by software circuit breakers. Our evaluation shows how these improvements can increase the robustness of interacting digital twins by avoiding local errors from cascading through the distributed production or manufacturing workflow.


The kinetics of the polymerization of styrene iniated by 1-chloro-1-phenyltehane/tin (IV) chloride in the presence of tetrabutylammonium chloride have been studied. Dilatometry studies at 25 °C were conducted and the orders of reaction were established. Molecular weight studies were conducted for these experiments using size exclusion chromatography. These studies indicated that transfer/termination reactions were present. The observed kinetics may be explained by a polymerization mechanism involving a single propagating species which is present in low concentrations. Reactions at 0 °C and -15 °C have shown that a "living" polymerization could be obtained at low temperatures. A method was derived to study the kinetics of a "living" polymerization by following the increase in degree of polymerization with time. Polymerizations of styrene were conducted using 1,4-bis(bromomethyl)benzene as a difunctional co-catalyst. These reactions produced polymers with broad or bimodal molecular weight distributions. These observations may be explained by the rate of initiation being slower than the rate of propagation or the presence of transfer/termination reactions. Reactions were conducted using a co-catalyst using a co-catalyst produced by the addition of 1,1-diphenylethane to 1,4-bis(bromomethyl)benzene. Size exclusion chromatography studies showed that the polymers produced had a narrower molecular weight distribution than those produced by polymerizations initiated by 1,4-bis(bromomethyl)benzene alone. However the polydispersity was still observed to increase with reaction time. This may also be explained by slow initiation compared to the rate of propagation. Polymerizations initiated by both bifunctional initiators were examined using the method of studying reaction kinetics by following the change in number average degree of polymerization. The results indicated that a straight line relationship could also be obtained with a non-living polymerization.


Delay model has a great impact on asynchronous circuits. The scalable-delay-insensitive (SDI) model is based on the variation factor K that represents the degree of variation in an approximately scalable delay distribution. If the scaling variation is expected to be large, larger K value is used in the SDI model based synthesis and layout. K value is decided by the technology and the operating environment. We show some evaluation results for the scaling ratio of circuit components and scaling variation between any two components in the circuit using SPICE simulation. Then we present how to decide K value and show some evaluation results of the variation factor K for different technologies. Finally, as a case study we show how to design a delay line for the SDI model based bundled-data circuits.


'His contribution to the art and enjoyment of TV criticism over the past ten years has been immense. His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable' Thus the judges of the British Press Awards, in naming Clive James Critic of the Year for 1981. The Crystal Bucket offers a further selection of his inimitable 'visions before midnight ...' 'C.J. didn't get where he is today just by being funny. He is humane, liberal and compassionate ...What he writes is always pertinent and always witty . . We own him a deep debt of gratitude' Gavin Ewart, Listener 'Few critics have a more unerring ear for woolliness and doubletalk or a more scathing and entertaining way of dealing with it' Lesley Garner, Good Housekeeping 'He is one of the most remarkable figures in British cultural life at the moment: a poet and gifted literary critic who is also genuinely liked by the mass audience' Michael Mason, London Review of Books 'One of the few columnists who make you laugh aloud ...if there were angels he would be on their side: and that would certainly include Charlie's Angels' Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times


We developed a method based on field measurements by portable XRF to distinguish anthropogenic anomalies resulting from mining activities, and other anthropogenic anomalies, from geogenic anomalies. It is derived from the traditional exploration strategy, based on soil and stream sediment. Instead of starting from a large and weak anomaly and focusing towards a target orebody, we start from a known mine and we observe its outwards decreasing anomaly, which includes the natural geochemical anomaly and the anthropogenic impacts. This method was applied to determine the environmental legacy of abandoned metal mines in France. Most of the differences in geochemical baselines are due to the dissimilarities in basic geology. Metals and metalloids in soils are derived from the soil parent material (lithogenic source) and from various anthropogenic sources. Transport mechanisms comprise waste erosion, airborne particles, soil creep, solifluction and surface water transport. Flood plain deposition of contaminated stream sediment and mine waste was observed and identified as one of the most extensive anomalies of anthropogenic origin. Natural and anthropogenic anomalies can be distinguished on the basis of elemental signatures, speciation and grain size patterns. Soil anomalies need to be related with background element ranges determined for each lithofacies. Large extension anomalies are usually geogenic or related with large mines. Determination of geochemical signatures of mineralisation and of mining waste allows recognition of these signatures in soil. Anthropogenic elemental anomalies are observed in stream sediments much further away than in soils, except in flood plains. Environmental geochemical baselines taking into account lithofacies are needed to assess the present state of the surface environment and distinguish the " natural part " from the " anthropogenic part " (mine, smelter…), to follow the extent and impact of a contamination, and to define remediation objectives.


The first edition of this highly acclaimed publication received a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize in 2009. Explaining how to create and sustain a Lean business, it followed Cogent Power's first two Lean Roadmaps along their journey.

Since then, much has changed. Several members of Cogent Power's senior management have moved on, steel prices have declined, and the credit crisis has sparked an unstable global economy. Set against these developments, Staying Lean: Thriving, Not Just Surviving, Second Edition reports on Cogent Power's response to these issues—detailing how they worked through their third Lean Roadmap. It also:

 * Guides readers with readily reproducible advice and an easy-to-follow model for sustaining Lean improvements
 * Presents a case study of a successful multinational Lean implementation
 * Covers a six-year Lean transformation from start to finish, illustrating the application of three distinct roadmaps

Focusing on how to sustain change, the new edition of this bestselling reference, illustrates the experience of a multi-national company that successfully implemented Lean in its manufacturing and commercial operations. Based on a model of sustainable change, the text defines by example the elements of successful Lean management that are often difficult to emulate as well as the more visible features of process management.


The relative impact on macrofaunal diversity of 7 naturally co-occurring bioturbators has been examined in a benthic mesocosm experiment. The bioturbators chosen were selected because of their potential vulnerability to the disturbances associated with demersal trawling. The experiment was conducted at the Solbergstrand mesocosm (Norwegian Institute for Water Research) using subtidal sediment collected from Bjornehodebukta, a small sheltered bay in the Oslofjord. For 3 of the bioturbating species (Brissopsis lyrifera, Aphrodita aculeata and Amphiura chiajei) a positive, linear relationship was demonstrated between bioturbator abundance and measures of species rich- ness (number of species and Margalef species richness). It was suggested that the presence of these bioturbating species increased oxygen penetration into the sediment, leading to an enhancement in the ability of benthic systems to process organic material. This had a beneficial effect on the associ- ated fauna in terms of maintaining levels of diversity. For Nephtys caeca, highest species diversity was seen in the low abundance treatments. Predation by N. caeca on small polychaetes is proposed as a possible explanation of the lower diversity in high-density treatments. It is concluded that B. lyrifera, A. aculeata, A. chiajei and N. caeca are functionally similar with respect to setting the diversity of the associated macrobenthic community and may therefore fulfill the same role within the benthic ecosystem. The presence of Calocaris macandreae, Nuculana minuta and Astarte sulcata had no detectable effect on diversity. Trawling has been shown to reduce the abundance of bioturbating species, and the current study demonstrates important implications of this loss on the maintenance of diversity. In addition, the interactions between bioturbation, diversity and organic enrichment high- light the need for management of anthropogenic impacts within the coastal environment in a holistic way rather than by isolation.


Objective: To expand the diagnostic armamentarium for medullary sponge kidney (MSK), we evaluate the use of high-resolution multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) for MSK diagnosis and compare to the standard intravenous urography (IVU). Despite a significant prevalence amongst stone formers, diagnosis of this well described condition has declined. IVU, the gold standard in MSK diagnosis, has largely been replaced by CT, which has previously been shown unable to demonstrate signs of MSK. Methods and Materials: Patients with known history of MSK based on IVU underwent limited MDCT urogram. Control group patients, without MSK, also had MDCT urograms performed for other clinically indicated conditions. Studies were scored by board-certified radiologists on a 0-2 scale based on the likelihood of MSK. IVU studies, when available, were similarly graded. Results: MDCT was diagnostic of MSK in 9 out of the 10 patients with known history of MSK. No false positives were present in our series. The one case of MSK not detected on MDCT was graded as a "1" on its respective IVU. Sensitivity and specificity were 90 and 100%, respectively, when compared with IVU. Conclusion: Concordance with IVU findings, despite a small reduction in sensitivity, indicates MDCT to be a suitable, and more readily available replacement for IVU in the diagnosis of MSK.


Control of chromatic aberration through purely optical means is well known. We present a novel, to our knowledge, optical-digital method of controlling chromatic aberration. The optical-digital system, which incorporates a cubic phase-modulation (CPM) plate in the optical system and postprocessing of the detected image, effectively reduces a system's sensitivity to misfocus in general or axial (longitudinal) chromatic aberration, in particular. A fully achromatic imaging system (one that is corrected for a continuous range of wavelengths) can be achieved by initial optimization of the optical system for all aberrations except chromatic aberration. The chromatic aberration is corrected by the inclusion of the CPM plate and postprocessing.


This piece reviews three recent books on the significance of emotion in negotiation and dispute resolution (Fisher & Shapiro: Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate; Peter Ladd: Mediation, Conciliation and Emotion: A Practitioner's Guide for Understanding Emotions in Dispute Resolution; and Lacey Smith: Get It! Street-Smart Negotiation at Work: How Emotions Get You What You Want), situating each work within a theory of practice for emotionally learned negotiators. After discussing the how the appearance of emotional sterility became synonymous with professionalism (and the toll this has taken on professional interaction), the piece sets forth a functional theory of emotion in negotiation based on four elements: emotion as (1) ether, (2) obstacle, (3) episteme, and (4) instrument. To cast emotion as ether (the ether of human experience) is to understand the inevitability of emotional impacts on negotiated exchange. For many, emotion in negotiation is encountered as an obstacle (that which obstructs mechanical application of established negotiating techniques). The more sophisticated negotiator recognizes emotionality as episteme (the medium of insight by which we consult interests and hypothesize about others) - a means for better understanding herself, the people she deals with, and a good deal else about the world. Finally, the emotionally learned negotiator uses emotion not only epistemologically but also instrumentally (as a tool for achieving desired ends), taking affirmative steps to help manage the emotional climate within a negotiation. She uses her emotional skills to mitigate undesired emotions and engender preferred emotions within herself and other participants: to soothe, bolster, win respect, build trust, and encourage creativity. The emotionally learned negotiator thus uses emotions not only as tools of knowing, but as instruments of persuasion. The new series of books on the subject offer strategies by which negotiators can learn to better integrate emotional skills into negotiation, among the most emotionally-charged of professional spheres. While the three books share the central premise that emotionality plays a critical role in the unfolding dynamics of all negotiations, each offers its own primary lesson. Lacey Smith's business-oriented Get It! examines how the emotions of hope and fear can be both tools and obstacles to the interest-based bargaining method we first learned in Roger Fisher's classic, Getting to Yes. Fisher and Shapiro's Beyond Reason takes the Getting to Yes method to the next level of sophistication, providing a taxonomy of core emotional concerns that underlie individual negotiators' behavior, and with it a Seven-Elements - like structure from which to prepare, advance, and overcome emotional obstacles in each negotiating context. Peter Ladd's Mediation, Conciliation and Emotions expands the analysis of emotional content in a negotiation from the individual to the shared experience, exploring the establishment of emotional climates that arise between individuals and offering empirically based counsel for mediators and conciliators about how to help remedy undesirable emotional climates and create emotional climates more conducive to problem-solving. No book has all the answers we need, but each makes a valuable contribution to the field.


In this work, propagation dynamics on social networks are studied in order to identify the most influential users. For this purpose, diffusion data has been collected during 4 weeks from a microblogging OSN (online social network) called Tumblr. Then, the propagation graph has been built and studied using the first 2 weeks data (period $T_1$). Subsequently, this graph has been used to predict th influencers during the last 2 weeks (period $T_2$ ). A ranking of influential nodes is obtained for $T_2$ , set as the ground truth. The aim is to predict this ranking using the data from $T_1$. Based on the average spread of users' posts, rankings obtained with several techniques are tested and compared. These techniques include classical centrality measures used in the literature, the $T_1$ ranking itself, and new alternatives based on effective degree using local (network) information. Whilst all methods perform similarly when considering whole global ranking, differences among them appear when ranking the top influencers. For those, in general, the methods proposed here outperform the classical
centrality measures.


This thesis investigates how collective action is achieved in the governance of transnational common pool resources, taking the example of the electromagnetic radio spectrum as a global common. The thesis asks what determines variation in operational and collective choice property arrangements in common pool resources such as the radio spectrum. The radio spectrum represents the totality of radio frequencies used for wireless communications around the world. It is a transnational resource that exhibits properties of other common pool resources: a) high rivalry in consumption and b) difficulty in excluding non-contributing beneficiaries from its use. This study demonstrates that the presence of a public actor – even one with established authority at transnational level such as the Commission of the European Union – cannot fully explain variations in the configuration of property arrangements in the radio resource. Instead, this study finds that private actors in the electronic communications industry – i.e. service operators and system developers – define rules of access and rules of use in
the transnational radio resource, by means of negotiating the configuration of technology systems used to extract value from the resource. In addition, this study finds that industry actors are able to define common operational rules to access and use a transnational frequency pool even in complex situations of heterogeneous economic interests and heterogeneous technology capabilities. They reduce uncertainty in these complex situations by increasing participation in decision-making and by developing mechanisms of information exchange and mutual monitoring in industry associations. When industry actors agree these common rules of management, and reinforce them with common rules of exclusion, they are more likely to negotiate operational arrangements based on principles of common exclusive property rather than individual exclusive property in the transnational radio resource. These findings are derived from the analysis of four case studies, which trace the development of operational rules in five radio frequency bands across time. By revealing the central role of industry
associations in defining property arrangements in transnational commons such as the radio spectrum, this research seeks to contribute to the debate about the nature and scope of private transnational governance of common goods.


Social networks play important roles in the Semantic Web: knowledge management, information retrieval, ubiquitous computing, and so on. We propose a social network extraction system called POLYPHONET, which employs several advanced techniques to extract relations of persons, detect groups of persons, and obtain keywords for a person. Search engines, especially Google, are used to measure co-occurrence of information and obtain Web documents.Several studies have used search engines to extract social networks from the Web, but our research advances the following points: First, we reduce the related methods into simple pseudocodes using Google so that we can build up integrated systems. Second, we develop several new algorithms for social networking mining such as those to classify relations into categories, to make extraction scalable, and to obtain and utilize person-to-word relations. Third, every module is implemented in POLYPHONET, which has been used at four academic conferences, each with more than 500 participants. We overview that system. Finally, a novel architecture called Super Social Network Mining is proposed; it utilizes simple modules using Google and is characterized by scalability and Relate-Identify processes: Identification of each entity and extraction of relations are repeated to obtain a more precise social network.


War memorials are symbols of a community's sense of itself, the values it holds dear, and its collective memory. They inform us more, perhaps, about the period in which the memorials were erected than the period of the war itself. Kelly McMichael, in her book, "Sacred Memories: The Civil War Monument Movement in Texas", takes the reader on a tour of Civil War monuments throughout the state and in doing so tells the story of each monument and its creation. McMichael explores Texans' motivations for erecting Civil War memorials, which she views as attempts during a period of turmoil and uncertainty - 'severe depression, social unrest, the rise of Populism, mass immigration, urbanization, industrialization, imperialism, lynching, and Jim Crow laws' - to preserve the memory of the Confederate dead, to instill in future generations the values of patriotism, duty, and courage; to create a shared memory and identity 'based on a largely invented story'; and to 'anchor a community against social and political doubt'. Her focus is the human story of each monument, the characters involved in its creation, and the sacred memories held dear to them.


The first known mathematical solution for finite height, periodic waves of stable form was developed by Gerstner (1802). From equations that were developed, Gerstner (1802) arrived at the conclusion that the surface curve was trochoidal in form. Froude (1862) and Rankine (1863) developed the theory but in the opposite manner, i.e., they started with the assumption of a trochoidal form and then developed their equations from this curve. The theory was developed for waves in water of infinite depth with the orbits of the water particles being circular, decreasing in geometrical progression as the distance below the water surface increased in arithmetical progression. Recent experiments (Wiegel, 1950) have shown that the surface profile, represented by the trochoidal equations (as well as the first few terms of Stokes' theory), closely approximates the actual profiles for waves traveling over a horizontal bottom. However the theory necessitates molecular rotation of the particles, while the manner in which waves are formed by conservative forces necessitates irrotational motion.


This paper is the result of a study aimed at answering the question: 'What makes effective community development practitioners effective?' In it, all the articles published over a 10-year period in the Community Development Journal, International Social Work, Journal of Community Practice and Social Work (South Africa) were subjected to a secondary analysis. This made it possible to identify eight 'habits of effectiveness'. This set of habits can form a credo to guide a practitioner's service delivery. It also provides a list of criteria to help identify ineffective habits and confirm effective ones.


It is proven fact that human capital development plays a pivotal role in enhancing industrial and agricultural productivity and economic growth. Comprehensive research has been rendered by scientists to observe the relationships of human capital development (HCD) with multiple dimensions but none of the scientists explored, yet, connections between HCD and food security. This study is an endeavor to explore ranking of districts of Punjab province of Pakistan with respect to different indicators of HCD including overall literacy rate, farmers' literacy rates and population per school. Moreover, relationships between food security and target variables are also quantified. Data are collected from Punjab Development Statistics (Government of Punjab 2009) and Food Insecurity report 2009 (SDPI, SDC and WFP 2009). Moreover, values of the target variables are arranged in descending order to explore the ranks of the districts in the province while bidirectional Pearson correlation analysis is rendered to know the direction of relationships between food insecure population (%) and overall and farmers' literacy rates and population per school. Negative relationships are found between food insecure populations and rest of other indicators. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that policy maker must make necessary arrangements to augment literacy rates to secure food for the masses in the province.


In The Great American Novel Philip Roth stretched his genius to chart the history of the Patriot League, an imaginary third major league whose existence was subsequently expunged from all record books and even from human memory owing to its nefarious demise. An actual third major league, one for women only, has similarly all but been forgotten. In 1954, for economic reasons, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) folded its tent after a dozen seasons. Several generations of women with baseball in their blood have emerged since. Here we meet three of them who came of playing age in three very different parts of the country. The three seemingly had only one thing in common before I sat down with them: each had played baseball either with or against me. But as we all talked, I discovered they have many more commonalities. Before recounting what they told me about the diverse paths they have taken to play the game at a high level in the wake of the AAGPBL'S disappearance, let me introduce them: JAN BORGIA EDWARDS was born in Cleveland in 1938 and grew up in Bay Village, Ohio, where she was a classmate of mine. She holds a BA in English from Wooster and also MAS in theater arts and counseling. After teaching in Mansfield, Illinois, she and her ex-husband moved to California where she completed a long tenure as a teacher, counselor, and coach. Following a forty-two-year career in education, Jan retired in 2003 while serving as the director of counseling at Vallejo High School. Currently she volunteers by driving high-risk patients to medical appointments and teaches adult classes on "Living Well." During her playing days Jan was often called "Borge," a tribute to her ferocious bat; her career BA was in the .420s and she still swings a mean golf club. SAL COATS was born in Walnut Creek, California, in 1961 and spent her early years in Piedmont before moving to Sonora during her freshman year in high school. She holds several degrees including an MA in kinesiology/teaching and coaching from California State University--Chico. In 1992-93 Sal was the second baseman for the Oakland Oaks, an otherwise all-men's baseball team for which I served as player-manager, and she later played professionally in the Ladies League Baseball, the only women's pro league since the AAGPBL to last a full season, before helping to found a California women's version of the Men's Senior Baseball League (MSBL). Following a lengthy string of jobs that allowed her ample time to pursue her first love--baseball--Sal has worked for the past eight years at Genentech, Inc., in South San Francisco. MELISSA FRYDLO is "The Moll of a Million Monikers." Among them are Frid, Mel, Mo, Bird Dog, Nurse Nancy, Muff, Missy, Albie, Sadie, Moxie, and a new one she will discuss. Moxie, the nickname on her baseball card, best befits her. Moxie was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1971. After moving to Amherst, New Hampshire, when she was eight, she graduated from Milford High School in nearby Milford. Moxie holds degrees in architectural design and landscape architecture from Cazenovia College and the University of Massachusetts, respectively, and is currently a project engineer for ARCADIS in Springfield, Massachusetts. JAN: Three women meeting for the first time, we're all naturally curious about one other. I'm especially curious how Moxie acquired so many nicknames and what Sal was paid to play pro ball. MOXIE: When you play on as many teams as I have it's bound to occur. I've always felt nicknames were a sign of acceptance and even affection. In vintage baseball, which I now play, everyone has several. SAL: I pulled down $1,200 a month; I was a tough bargainer and among the higher paid players. JAN: Wow! Not bad. I know you both wonder what brought David and me together. We were the pitchers in the 5th and 6th grades for our rival crosstown elementary schools in the annual "Army-Navy Game," I for the girls and he the boys. …


The Alpine and Corsican Schistes lustres (SL) are nearly azoic Jurassic-Cretaceous metasediments often associated with ophiolites. They are derived from both the vanished Valais (N-Penninic) and Piemont-Ligurian (S-Penninic) oceans and from their continental margins.

Their age is generally poorly known. Because of fossils discovered by Alb. Heim and by S. Franchi at the beginning of the 20th century, they were believed for a long time to be mostly Liassic in age. We know now that the major part of the SL is Cretaceous.

Deep-sea sediments, and particularly the SL, are made up of a hemipelagic-pelagic background (HPB) associated with detrital components of local or distant origin. The nature of the HPB, mostly conditioned by Tethyan and worldwide events, is of great help as an at least rough stratigraphic marker ; in contrast, detrital material is not a reliable marker because it may occur at different times in different places. The HPB exhibits several successive, 10 to 40 m.y. long episodes which are either predominantly argillaceous (A) or calcareous (C). During the deposition of the Juras-sic-Cretaceous SL, seven episodes can be distinguished : C1, calcareous Liassic ; A1, marly Upper Liassic ; C2, calcareous latest Liassic and early Dogger ; A2, shaly or radiolaritic late Dogger-early Malm ; C3, calcareous late Malm ; A3 shaly or marly early Cretaceous ; C4 calcareous late Cretaceous. They can be recognized, each one by its prevailing lithology, and all together by their succession in order from C1 to C4. Nearly all of these subdivisions are here and there dated by rare fossils, which allow for a rough dating of the numerous azoic SL series.

As they exhibit very different lithologies, from pelagic calcareous oozes to Black Shales and various kinds of flysch and other mass flow deposits, the SL cannot be considered as a specific, well-defined facies : they are not characteristic for a particular stage of the geodynamic evolution of the Alps.

Finally, a possible influence of worldwide events is suggested. First, the role of the depth of the CCD, governed by early late Jurassic and early late Cretaceous biotic recoveries. Secondly, the correlation with first order eustatic events : transgressions on platforms seem to be roughly coeval with A episodes in the deep sea, regressions with C episodes.