The development of 5G communication technology has introduced new families of applications and use cases during just its standardization and some of them have brought peculiar system requirements, where existing channel coding in its current form might suffer from tackling them. As an example of this, it can be shown that deploying one of the powerful channel coding techniques might suffer in tackling stringent delay requirements while sustaining higher reliability in some mission-critical applications due to iterative decoding structure. Besides, an error-floor region might prevent turbo-coded systems from deploying in certain use cases. From this perspective, a channel coding technique, while currently less popular than the others, might have considerable potential over 5G and beyond after optimizing its modules.
Motivated by this fact, this thesis aims to present an SNR-adaptive convolutionally coded transmission model where the simplicity of a convolutional encoder has combined with current advanced optimization ability. Basically, the proposed transmission model combines one-shot decoding superiority of convolutional coder with the utilization of choosing an optimized group of symbol points, which are obtained specifically for a given convolutional encoder, channel characteristic and transmission model. The enabler of an SNR-adaptive optimization framework is the derivation of upper bound error performance expression by exploiting the product-state matrix technique, which is used in the calculation of generating function for a given convolutional encoder and it brings the superiority to work with any type of constellations. The importance of including fully arbitrary, irregular type, constellations in constellation search lies on that the uniform constellations can lead to suboptimal performance in many coded scenarios including bit-interleaved coded modulated and turbo-trellis coded modulations as already shown.
As an initial step towards the proposed SNR-adaptive transmission model, a generalized error performance calculation was first presented. Once optimized symbol point locations via particle swarm constellation optimizer are found for each operating point, the performance comparison of the proposed SNR-adaptive convolutionally coded transmission model with SNR-independent counterparts is given in terms of BER and spectral efficiency. The superiority of the proposed transmission model, in terms of algorithmic complexity and decoding latency, is also presented.


The purpose of this article is to assess the adequacy of disclosure requirements for environmental information. Beginning with listing rules and market disclosures, it then analyses disclosure from the viewpoint of accountancy standards, corporate governance and requirements for pension fund trustees, and finally, voluntary standards of disclosure and de facto or ad hoc disclosures occurring in different sectors of industry. It is argued that it is beyond doubt that environmental information is an important source of financial information. As such, it should be disclosed in a uniform manner and on a regular basis because of its potential impact on investment decision-making, company value and the viability and profitability of businesses. It follows that there should be an end to the uncertainty concerning the question of the "materiality" of environmental information, its disclosure and an acceptance of the need to disclose it. The failure to require specific disclosure of environmental information, and the general failure by corporations to accept the materiality of environmental information in light of other legislative developments in the field of investor protection, is viewed as a major weakness. Providing such important information to investors ought to be an obligation on listed companies. To overcome this significant weakness, specific and if possible, uniform disclosure rules for environmental information must be adopted generally.


Book synopsis: The diversity of Nietzsche's books, and the sheer range of his philosophical interests, have posed daunting challenges to his interpreters. This Oxford Handbook addresses this multiplicity by devoting each of its 32 essays to a focused topic, picked out by the book's systematic plan. The aim is to treat each topic at the best current level of philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche. The first group of papers treat selected biographical issues: his family relations, his relations to women, and his ill health and eventual insanity. In Part 2 the papers treat Nietzsche in historical context: his relations back to other philosophers—the Greeks, Kant, and Schopenhauer—and to the cultural movement of Romanticism, as well as his own later influence in an unlikely place, on analytic philosophy. The papers in Part 3 treat a variety of Nietzsche's works, from early to late and in styles ranging from the 'aphoristic' The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil through the poetic-mythic Thus Spoke Zarathustra to the florid autobiography Ecce Homo. This focus on individual works, their internal unity, and the way issues are handled within them, is an important complement to the final three groups of papers, which divide up Nietzsche's philosophical thought topically. The papers in Part 4 treat issues in Nietzsche's value theory, ranging from his metaethical views as to what values are, to his own values of freedom and the overman, to his insistence on 'order of rank', and his social-political views. The fifth group of papers treat Nietzsche's epistemology and metaphysics, including such well-known ideas as his perspectivism, his promotion of becoming over being, and his thought of eternal recurrence. Finally, Part 6 treats another famous idea—the will to power—as well as two linked ideas that he uses will to power to explain, the drives, and life. This Handbook will be a key resource for all scholars and advanced students who work on Nietzsche.


By the commonly accepted theory, today's logistics processes and systems are characterized by an increasing complexity and by the need for global networking to cope with the growing diversity of logistics problems; because of this, knowledge is becoming more and more a strategic resource in logistics. But some questions remain unanswered: How far has implementation of knowledge management methods gone in the logistics practice? To what degree does the supposed (theoretical) relevance of investments into knowledge and knowledge management match the actual priority of several knowledge management activities as shown by the respective investment volume? How do knowledge-related investments change a company's logistics performance? In order to answer those questions, a survey was run with German and Portuguese logistics companies on the relevance of knowledge and knowledge management for executing logistics processes, on the need of investment into knowledge and knowledge management activities in logistics, and on the eventually existent relationship between knowledge and logistics performance. To analyze the impact of knowledge management on a company's logistics performance a model has been developed which contributes to an economic assessment of knowledge management and the analysis of its potentials. As a result, a qualitative determination of the state-of-the-art in implementing and applying knowledge management in the logistics practice was produced. Specifically, severe differences between the German and Portuguese reality turned out, although it has been quite challenging to derive statistical benchmarks for an optimal use of knowledge in logistics from the small amount of responses received. The paper will present conclusions drawn from the use of the methodology and a list of recommended actions derived from this respectively.


The journey into theatre-made places offered here is both analytical and creative. It is comprised of case studies analysing three theatre productions that occurred in Perth between 2004 and 2006 and two of my own creative works, forming the Prologue and Conclusion to the thesis. Throughout, I am informed by Edward Casey's philosophy of place as I work to develop both a poetics and a dramaturgy of place in theatre. I draw upon of a range of thinkers in order to interrogate the limits of theatrical representation and to suggest that an active engagement in the process of place-making in theatre offers a touchstone and paradigm that can release both thought and the body from totalizing and foreclosing cultural imperatives. This dramaturgical and poetical journey into place works, I hope, toward creating an open and dynamic field from which to experience the 'here and now' of being in place in theatre, and in the world. I argue that the notion of place as embodied meaning frames the body and the mind in contexts that are personal, emotional, historical, ethical, and political; that to be in place, to be aware that one's body is a particular place, suggests that the body and mind are listening to each other. This conscious connection, I believe, offers a radical challenge to the bifurcation of body and mind that runs as a consistent theme throughout the history of Western thought. More particularly, I aim to demonstrate that a voyage into place, in theatre, conveys the body and mind together in ways that allow us to "resume the direction, and regain the depth, of our individual and collective life once again – and know it for the first time" (Casey, 1993: 314).


The UK government set a bold green target that all newly built homes would be carbon-neutral by 2016 as a response to the agenda of tackling increasing global warming issues. In consideration of the authors' previous studies of the obstacles that have been contributing to limiting the delivery of zero carbon affordable homes in Scotland (i.e. the absence of clear definitions of housing affordability and zero carbon homes and the house-builders' unfamiliarity with passive environmental design techniques and active renewable energy technologies), a Design Charrette approach being implemented for the developments of sustainable homes and communities in Canada was reviewed and experimented in collaboration with the Scottish house-building industry. This paper documents the authors' charrette experience in collating the industry's response to Canadian low energy affordable housing design strategies, which had been learned through their visits to the construction sites in Canada, and examines the potential application for the production of zero carbon affordable homes in the Scottish context, which the authors are currently in charge of the research and development.


This paper examines the utility of the air pollution Model (TAPM) in simulating meteorology and dispersion of PM10 and wind data in order to assess The Impacts of Wind Variability Function on Urban Heat Island for the day of 25, November, 2012 in Karaj city that experienced severe degradation in air quality. Drawing, Skew-T diagrams, maps of surface pressure (500hp), omega (850hp) and atmospheric conditions at 300 – 900hp level are used for analysis. Due to wind patterns, the air pollution behavior is simulated regarding to resolution of 5 km for output amplitude. Simulations of the PM10 and wind data in ten metric levels from three point of city are prepared according to synoptic conditions. Meteorology and PM10 dispersion results indicate that in spite of prevailed wind direction (West to East) in the mentioned day the effect of wind threshold on the air filtration is reduced and heat island formation is occurred as a result of reduction in air flow speed in urban areas. Therefore, it is essential to consider adopted strategies to mitigate urban heat islands such as the principles of bioclimatic architecture, urban morphology, urban infrastructure-related measures (architecture and land use planning) for urban planning.


This paper has two primary aims: to present the data on the prevalence of licit and illicit substance use among the general population in the Republic of Croatia and to compare these prevalence rates with those from other European countries. The data on the prevalence in Croatia were gathered by empirical research on a nationally representative sample of Croatian adults aged 15-64 years (N = 4756). The data on the prevalence of licit drugs for other European countries were obtained through secondary analysis of raw data from the Special Eurobarometer 385 (tobacco) and 331 (alcohol), and the source of data on illicit drugs was the EMCDDA's Statistical Bulletin 2012. The results showed that, in Croatia, last month prevalence of smoking was 37.4%, which is among the highest in Europe and above the European average (32.4%). In the month prior to the research, 60.8% of adults in Croatia drank alcohol, which is among the lower prevalence rates compared to the other European countries and also lower than the European average (70.3%). Cannabis was the most widely used illicit drug in Croatia, 15.6% of adults used it at least once in their lifetime, which is below the European average (23.7%).


In the traditional fuzzy logic, the experts' degrees of confidence in their statements is described by numbers from the interval [0,1]. These degree have a clear intuitive meaning. Somewhat surprisingly, in some applications, it turns out to be useful to also consider different numerical degrees - e.g., complex-valued degrees. While these complex-valued degrees are helpful in solving practical problems, their intuitive meaning is not clear. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for the success of complex-valued degrees which makes their use more intuitively understandable - namely, we show that these degrees naturally appear due to the approximate nature of the traditional fuzzy methodology.


The transition to parenthood (TTP) is a stressful life event for most couples. Therefore, the way both partners jointly cope with stress (i.e., dyadic coping) is important for the prevention of individual adjustment problems (e.g., depression). For dyadic coping to be effective in reducing depressive symptoms, efforts of both partners should be equal. However, many couples experience a decrease of equity in task division within the domestic sphere across the TTP. The current study investigates the equity of a specific skill within the 'relationship sphere', because similarly to a decreased equity in household and childcare, a decreased equity of dyadic coping is likely to be associated with poorer individual adjustment. We collected longitudinal self-report data on dyadic coping and depressive symptoms from 104 mixed-gender first-time parents (n = 208 individuals) from pregnancy until 40 weeks postpartum. We created an equity score for men and women that measured their perceived difference between received and provided dyadic coping. On average, women reported providing more and receiving less dyadic coping than men. While both genders agreed on this distribution, men did perceive a higher equity of dyadic coping than women. Furthermore, the decrease of equity perceived by women across TTP was not visible in men. In line with our assumptions based on the equity theory, perceived equity of dyadic coping was associated with depressive symptoms in a curvilinear manner: Decreases in women's perceived equity in either direction (over- or underbenefit) were associated with more depressive symptoms in women and their male partners. This association was found above and beyond the beneficial effect of dyadic coping itself. This implies that not only how well partners support each other in times of stress, but also how equal both partners' efforts are, is important for their individual adjustment across TTP.


This paper presents the results of an experiment, conducted on a sample of computer science students, using the adaptive learning system called ALS_CORR[LP] 1. Indeed, unlike the traditional LMS, the adaptive learning systems provide a personalized learning experience based on the objectives, the prerequisites or even the learning styles generating thereafter a specific learning path. However their main issue remains the fact, that they assume that the generated learning path is necessarily the leading one, which is far from being true, since we can always detect some failure cases during the evaluation phase. In this paper we conduct a learning experience using the system ALS_CORR[LP] which has the ability to correct the generated learning path by recommending the most relevant learning objects, and update the learner model based on a calculation of similarity in behavior between the struggling learner and the succeeding ones. We analyze later the results of behavior tracking within the system.


Abstract Infrared spectroscopy in the mid-IR region was used to follow the structural changes occurring in five Li-saturated dioctahedral smectites upon heating. The smectites included three montmorillonites, an Fe-beidellite and a ferruginous smectite. Fixation of Li+ ions in the structure even upon heating at 120℃ caused the appearance of an AlMgLiOH-Stretching band near 3670 cm-1 in the spectra of all three montmorillonites. This band confirmed the presence of Li(I) in the previously vacant octahedral positions in montmorillonites. No similar band was observed in the spectra of ferruginous heated smectites with prevailing tetrahedral charge. A gradual upward frequency shift and decrease in intensity of the AlAlOH-bending band showed that Li(I) present in the hexagonal cavities causes pronounced perturbation of this OH-bending mode. The Li(I) present in the octahedral sheets causes small perturbations of the OH-bending mode near 850 cm-1 and activation of a new OH-bending mode near 803 cm-1. Reversible changes in the positions of the stretching Si-O and bending OH bands in the spectra of Fe-beidellite and a ferruginous smectite proved that Li was present in these minerals primarily in the hexagonal holes of the tetrahedral sheets.


The prevailing trend within the legal community has been to associate the recent decline of professionalism in the practice of law with the emergence of increasing commercialism, indicating that law has become more a business than a profession. Despite the evidence apparently supporting the position that law has evolved into a business, some scholars have responded by reaffirming the professionalism model, arguing that legal practice remains true to its professional ideals. These scholars admit that the professional paradigm is not without its flaws, but argue that it is more likely to lead to a better practice of law than the business paradigm. This Essay suggests that the abiding faith many scholars have expressed in the professionalism model more closely parallels a declaration of religious belief than an empirical or analytical conclusion developed through systematic reasoning or observation. This critique is certainly not intended as an endorsement of what one scholar has called a "dogma[ ] of liberalism" that "religious beliefs are irrational or non-rational and therefore cannot meet the standards of public reason." Rather, consistent with the ideas I have expressed elsewhere, I draw a parallel here specifically to those religious arguments that, because they are accessible only to believers, are unlikely to be persuasive to others. Specifically, this Essay engages in an examination of the views of Dean Anthony Kronman, whose position is instructive both because of his status in the legal community and because his views appear to have evolved over the course of more than a decade. Part I broadly traces Kronman's loss of faith in the legal profession in the early 1990s, followed by his more recent reaffirmation of the professionalism model. Part II offers a closer look at the evolution of Kronman's views, noting his current use of both religious imagery and a seemingly religious methodology to support his belief in professionalism. Part III carries the analysis one step further, examining the methods of response used by Kronman and other believers to attack the heretical views of those who favor alternative models of legal practice, such as a business model. This Essay concludes that the approach of the believers, perhaps useful in preaching to the converted, is unlikely to be an effective means of convincing nonbelievers that such faith in legal professionalism is justified.


"Since the industrial revolution, Dutch soils have gradually been diffusely contaminated by human activities like industry, agriculture and road traffic. Nevertheless, most soils comply with the threshold levels of the Dutch Soil Quality Decree. However, in the long term (several hundreds of years) underneath (diffusely) contaminated soils the increasing concentrations of heavy metals in groundwater may become a risk. These substances can leach from the upper soil and gradually contaminate the groundwater. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment recommends that for sustainable groundwater management these long-term effects are taken into account. Special attention is needed for the concentrations of cadmium, nickel and zinc. It is unrealistic to undo the impact of human activities on soils. However, it is important for spatial planning to reckon with the effects of soil contamination on groundwater ߿? for example, when diffusely contaminated soils are being reused. For sustainable groundwater management the groundwater function (ecosystemservice) should not deteriorate as a result of these effects ߿? for example, when groundwater is used for drinking water production or when groundwater feeds a sensitive surface water ecosystem. At locations with residential or industrial activities, higher metal soil concentrations are allowed in accordance with use. For the model calculations the worst case scenarios from the Dutch Soil Quality Decree are simulated. In these scenarios soils have the maximum concentrations allowed (the so-called Maximum Values). The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment recommends refining the model scenarios to gain insight into the specific situations in which these increased concentrations in groundwater can occur. It is also recommended that the model be improved so that it can be used to address general questions concerning the relationship between heavy metal impact on soils and groundwater quality ߿? for example, in the case of sustainable spatial planning and the re-use of contaminated soils and waste products."


Deep neural networks (DNNs) are well-known to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, where malicious human-imperceptible perturbations are included in the input to the deep network to fool it into making a wrong classification. Recent studies have demonstrated that neural Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) are intrinsically more robust against adversarial attacks compared to vanilla DNNs. In this work, we propose a stable neural ODE with Lyapunov-stable equilibrium points for defending against adversarial attacks (SODEF). By ensuring that the equilibrium points of the ODE solution used as part of SODEF is Lyapunov-stable, the ODE solution for an input with a small perturbation converges to the same solution as the unperturbed input. We provide theoretical results that give insights into the stability of SODEF as well as the choice of regularizers to ensure its stability. Our analysis suggests that our proposed regularizers force the extracted feature points to be within a neighborhood of the Lyapunov-stable equilibrium points of the ODE. SODEF is compatible with many defense methods and can be applied to any neural network's final regressor layer to enhance its stability against adversarial attacks.


Lysosomes are the main degradative compartments of mammalian cells and serve as platforms for cellular nutrient signaling and sterol transport. The diverse functions of lysosomes and their adaptation to extracellular and intracellular cues are tightly linked to the spatiotemporally controlled synthesis, turnover and interconversion of lysosomal phosphoinositides, minor phospholipids that define membrane identity and couple membrane dynamics to cell signaling. How precisely lysosomal phosphoinositides act and which effector proteins within the lysosome membrane or at the lysosomal surface recognize them is only now beginning to emerge. Importantly, mutations in phosphoinositide metabolizing enzyme cause lysosomal dysfunction and are associated with numerous diseases ranging from neurodegeneration to cancer. Here, we discuss the phosphoinositides and phosphoinositide metabolizing enzymes implicated in lysosome function and homeostasis and outline perspectives for future research.


Underwater images often suffer from color distortion and low contrast, because light is scattered and absorbed when traveling through water. Such images with different color tones can be shot in various lighting conditions, making restoration and enhancement difficult. We propose a depth estimation method for underwater scenes based on image blurriness and light absorption, which can be used in the image formation model (IFM) to restore and enhance underwater images. Previous IFM-based image restoration methods estimate scene depth based on the dark channel prior or the maximum intensity prior. These are frequently invalidated by the lighting conditions in underwater images, leading to poor restoration results. The proposed method estimates underwater scene depth more accurately. Experimental results on restoring real and synthesized underwater images demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other IFM-based underwater image restoration methods.


For many years military leaders have been calling for the U.S. Armed Forces to be more agile, adaptive, and innovative in order to defeat future and emerging threats. To assist the military in this endeavor, the University of Alabama in Huntsville explored Department of Defense (DoD) culture at the organizational level. Having the proper organizational culture can improve performance by empowering members to interact better with their environment, to communicate


Combinatorial Optimization problems play central role in applied mathematics and computer science. A particular class of combinatorial optimization problems is vertex ordering problems whose goal is to find an ordering on vertices of an input graph in such way that a certain objective cost is optimized. This thesis focuses on three different vertex ordering problems. First, we consider a variant of Directed Feedback Arc Set problem with applications in computational biology. We present an efficient heuristic algorithm for this problem. Next, we concentrate on parameterized complexity of Minimum Linear Arrangement problem while the parameter is size of vertex cover. We formulate the problem as Quadratic Integer Programming and propose two new techniques to tackle the problem. Finally, we introduce a vertex ordering problem on bipartite graphs with applications in different areas. We give a general algorithmic strategy for the problem, as well as, polynomial-time algorithms for three classes of graphs.


BACKGROUND
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) have unfavorable effects on glucose and lipid metabolism if consumed in high quantities by obese subjects, but the effect of lower doses in normal-weight subjects is less clear.

OBJECTIVE
The aim was to investigate the effects of SSBs consumed in small to moderate quantities for 3 wk on LDL particle distribution and on other parameters of glucose and lipid metabolism as well as on inflammatory markers in healthy young men.

DESIGN
Twenty-nine subjects were studied in a prospective, randomized, controlled crossover trial. Six 3-wk interventions were assigned in random order as follows: 600 mL SSBs containing 1)40 g fructose/d [medium fructose (MF)], 2) 80 g fructose/d [high fructose (HF)], 3) 40 g glucose/d [medium glucose (MG)], 4) 80 g glucose/d [high glucose (HG)], 5) 80 g sucrose/d [high sucrose (HS)], or 6) dietary advice to consume low amounts of fructose. Outcome parameters were measured at baseline and after each intervention.

RESULTS
LDL particle size was reduced after HF by -0.51 nm (95% CI: -0.19, -0.82 nm) and after HS by -0.43 nm (95% CI: -0.12, -0.74; P < 0.05 for both). Similarly, a more atherogenic LDL subclass distribution was seen when fructose-containing SSBs were consumed (MF, HF, and HS: P < 0.05). Fasting glucose and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) increased significantly after all interventions (by 4-9% and 60-109%, respectively; P < 0.05); leptin increased during interventions with SSBs containing glucose only (MG and HG: P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The present data show potentially harmful effects of low to moderate consumption of SSBs on markers of cardiovascular risk such as LDL particles, fasting glucose, and hs-CRP within just 3 wk in healthy young men, which is of particular significance for young consumers. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01021969.


In this paper, I explore the often-contested territory that tort occupies within the more expansive domain of worker's compensation. This exploration reveals that, far from being substitutes, tort and worker's compensation are, in fact, deeply and inextricably joined: A complementarity that underscores the trade-offs intrinsic to each system. Whatever the source and scale of harm, the incentives to pursue a third-party tort suit—in light of the bar on a direct claim against the employer—are straightforward. Worker's compensation no-fault benefits feature stringent caps on economic loss beyond medical expenses, and bar non-economic recovery altogether. By contrast, tort provides the prospect of recovery for total wage loss, as well as pain and suffering, which is considerably more remunerative than worker's compensation benefits—particularly in the case of more serious injuries or workplace-related fatalities.
These tort claims, in turn, can raise a related question that again demonstrates the inextricable tie between worker's compensation and tort: Whether the third-party product manufacturer, if responsible in tort, can recover a portion of the tort award through a contribution claim against the employer, despite the ban on a direct employee tort claim against the employer. Correlatively, there is the prospect of the employer seeking to recapture worker's compensation benefits paid to the employee through a subrogation claim against the third-party tort defendant.
These intersecting claims most frequently involve accidental harm in the workplace, rather than intentional misconduct or reckless disregard for the safety of workers. But in the latter cases of egregious employer misconduct, most states recognize an exception from the bar on tort recoveries. As a consequence, these are situations where tort recovery may be a substitute for worker's compensation rather than standing side-by-side with tort, as in accidental harm cases. Similarly, Title VII claims for sexual harassment in the workplace stand as a distinct tort-type source of recovery entirely apart from the worker's compensation system.


Therapeutic jurisprudence ("TJ") is growing in prominence as a reappraisal of law and the legal process. It seeks to reframe law by offering a prism through which it can be viewed as a healing agent, to enhance the positive consequences of legal intervention, or at least to mitigate its more harmful effects.1 The aim of this article is twofold: (1) to briefly outline the evolution of therapeutic jurisprudence, and discuss the prominence of evidence-based/evidence-informed healthcare policymaking; and, more specifically, (2) to use a TJ-informed framework to investigate the role of emotion (as evidence, or impact on evidence) in the development, implementation, and evaluation of health policy. The intent is not to identify the right policy in any given case; rather, it is to utilize framing questions to better understand how emotion impacts policy and policymaking with an eye toward enhancing therapeutic consequences.


Suppressed Anger, Retaliation Doctrine, and Workplace Culture is an interdisciplinary piece combining legal analysis with organizational behavior/psychology research. Suppressed Anger examines and critiques two employment law doctrines on retaliation — the "reasonable belief" doctrine and, what we call, the "manner of the complaint" doctrine and argues that beyond hindering employees' rights as has been examined in prior scholarship, the law in this area also does a significant disservice to employers by inhibiting emotion expression and thereby negatively affecting workplace culture and productivity. The "reasonable belief" doctrine essentially dictates that for retaliatory conduct to be unlawful, the complaining party must have an objectively reasonable belief that the practices he or she opposed were unlawful, basing the assessment of reasonableness on whether a court would find the practices to be unlawful discrimination. The "manner of the complaint" doctrine arises in cases in which an employer deems the manner of the employee's complaint regarding discriminatory practices to be insubordinate and fires the employee on that basis. In these cases, courts rarely question an employer's claim of insubordination, ignoring the circumstances that gave rise to the complaint and focusing solely on the employer's subjective belief that the employee's demeanor was unacceptable. The result of both of these doctrines, we argue, is a legal framework that incentivizes employees to stay quiet and refrain from making any complaints.
This piece breaks new ground by drawing on existing scholarship in the psychology and organizational behavior field detailing the negative outcomes when employees suppress anger and other emotions in the workplace, particularly in response to perceived injustice. We use this research to argue that retaliation doctrine inhibits the useful airing of problems that require management attention, instead fomenting worker dissatisfaction and even leading to psychological and physiological issues for individual employees that negatively impact the workplace as a whole. As a result, we maintain that changing retaliation doctrine should not be a goal of workers alone but that employers, upon examining the research on expressions of anger in the workplace should find common ground with their employees.


In recent years UK real wages have been growing faster than labour factor productivity, implying that the labour share has been rising. This paper looks at various definitions of the labour share and derives a measure for the UK, which appears positively correlated with the growth rate of the UK gross value added price deflator. Following Layard, Nickell and Jackman (1991), we investigate the relationship between inflation and the share more formally by estimating a pricing equation or "new Phillips curve" obtained from a structural dynamic model of price setting based on Rotemberg (1982) and extended to capture employment adjustment costs and the openness of the UK economy. This model nests the Sbordone (1998) and Gali, Gertler and Lopez-Salido (2000) relationship between inflation and marginal costs in the limiting case of a constant equilibrium mark-up and no employment adjustment costs. Our findings suggest that there is a stable ceteris paribus relationship between inflation and the labour share over the last 30 years in the UK and so the share contains information that helps to predict inflation.


BACKGROUND
Mucopolysaccharidosis II, also known as Hunter syndrome, is a rare, X-linked disease caused by a deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme iduronate-2-sulfatase, which catalyses a step in the catabolism of glycosaminoglycans. The glycosaminoglycans accumulate within tissues affecting multiple organs and physiologic systems. The clinical manifestations include neurologic involvement, severe airways obstruction, skeletal deformities and cardiomyopathy. The disease has a variable age of onset and variable rate of progression. In those with severe disease, death usually occurs in the second decade of life, whereas those patients with less severe disease may survive into adulthood. Enzyme replacement therapy with intravenous infusions of idursulfase has emerged as a new treatment for mucopolysaccharidosis type II.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of enzyme replacement therapy with idursulfase compared to other interventions, placebo or no intervention, for treating mucopolysaccharidosis type II.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis and Genetic Disorders Group's Trials Register (date of last search 22 July 2013).We also searched EMBASE, PubMed and the Literature Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS) (date of last search 09 July 2013).

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials of enzyme replacement therapy with idursulfase compared to no intervention, placebo or other options (e.g. behavioral strategies, transplantation).

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently screened the trials identified, appraised quality of papers and extracted data.

MAIN RESULTS
One study (96 patients) met the inclusion criteria, although the primary outcome of this review - z score for height and weight, was not assessed in the study. This trial was considered to be of overall good quality. Following 53 weeks of treatment, patients in the weekly idursulfase 0.5 mg/kg group demonstrated a significant improvement rate compared with placebo for the primary outcome: distance walked in six minutes on the basis of the sum of ranks of change from baseline, mean difference 37.00 (95% confidence interval 6.52 to 67.48). The every-other-week idursulfase 0.5 mg/kg group also showed an improvement, which was not significant compared with placebo, mean difference 23.00 (95% confidence interval -4.49 to 50.49). After 53 weeks, there was no statistical significance difference in per cent predicted forced vital capacity between the three groups and absolute forced vital capacity was significantly increased from baseline in the weekly dosing group compared to placebo, mean difference 0.16 (95% confidence interval CI 0.05 to 0.27). No difference was observed between the every-other-week idursulfase 0.5 mg/kg group and placebo.In addition, liver and spleen volumes and urine glycosaminoglycan excretion were significantly reduced from baseline by both idursulfase dosing regimens. Idursulfase was generally well tolerated, but infusion reactions did occur. Idursulfase antibodies were detected in 31.7% of patients at the end of the study and they were related to a smaller reduction in urine glycosaminoglycan levels.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
The current evidence is limited. While the randomised clinical trial identified was considered to be of good quality, it failed to describe important outcomes. It has been demonstrated that enzyme replacement therapy with idursulfase is effective in relation to functional capacity (distance walked in six minutes and forced vital capacity), liver and spleen volumes and urine glycosaminoglycan excretion in patients with mucopolysaccharidosis type II compared with placebo. There is no available evidence in the included study and in the literature on outcomes such as improvement in growth, sleep apnoea, cardiac function, quality of life and mortality. More studies are needed to obtain more information on the long-term effectiveness and safety of enzyme replacement therapy.


The United Kingdom left the European Union in January 2020. During a transition period that lasts until the end of 2020, the European Union and the United Kingdom aim to determine their future trade relations. In this Research Paper, we explore quantitatively the role of non-tariff measures (NTMs), including regulatory measures such as sanitary and technical requirements, in shaping the United Kingdom's future trade relations with the European Union and the impact on developing countries. We simulate the possible impacts of Brexit using a panel data gravity model and compare the European Union membership effect with the effects of free trade agreements and customs unions. The Paper finds that there is a significant European Union membership effect well beyond zero tariffs, an effect we do not find for the other two agreements. It interprets the effect above and beyond tariffs as the European Union's impact on NTMs. The economic effects for the United Kingdom, the European Union and developing countries are about 2.5 times larger in the scenario that takes rising trade costs related to NTMs in addition to potentially rising tariffs into account. A potential increase of tariffs between the United Kingdom and the European Union and rising trade costs related to NTMs could decrease United Kingdom's exports to the European Union by 14 per cent. Even in the case a "standard" free trade agreement is signed, such exports could drop by 9 per cent. Exports from developing countries into the United Kingdom, and to a much smaller extent into the European Union, could increase if the United Kingdom would not increase its tariffs for third countries.


During the financial crisis, non-US banks relied increasingly on foreign exchange swap markets to fund their US dollar asset holdings. This caused the cost of borrowing US dollars via the swap market to rise above the measured cost of borrowing US dollars directly in money markets – an apparent deviation from the covered interest parity condition. Pricing in the Australian dollar foreign exchange swap market, and to a lesser degree the cross-currency swap market, also reflected the global scarcity of US dollar funding at the height of the crisis.


Pharmacognosy: Fundamentals, Applications and Strategies explores a basic understanding of the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, their constituents and metabolites. This book also provides an in-depth look at natural sources from which medicines are derived, their pharmacological and chemical properties, safety aspects, and how they interact with humans.

 The book is vital for future research planning, helping readers understand the makeup, function, and metabolites of plants in a way where the history of their usage can be linked to current drug development research, including in vitro, in vivo, and clinical research data.

 By focusing on basic principles, current research, and global trends, this book provides a critical resource for students and researchers in the areas of pharmacognosy, pharmacy, botany, medicine, biotechnology, biochemistry, and chemistry.

 Covers the differences between animal and plant cells to facilitate an easier transition to how the body interacts with these entities

 Contains practice questions and laboratory exercises at the end of every chapter to test learning and retention

 Provides a single source that covers fundamental topics and future strategies, with the goal of enabling further research that will contribute to the overall health and well-being of mankind


As traffic-related work zone crashes continue to increase across the nation, safety of road users and workers has become a top priority for transportation agencies. Since inattention and irresponsible behavior by drivers are surmised to contribute to the frequency of work zone crashes, a program featuring extraordinary presence of and enforcement by law officers has been implemented in many states to address this concern. A literature search of such programs and related research was conducted. While the overall benefits of these activities have been found positive, much of the evidence has been anecdotal. To assess the scope of extra work zone enforcement programs, a survey was developed and distributed to state departments of transportation across the nation. This survey sought information regarding these efforts such as criteria for selection of target work zones, methods of enforcement operations, and beneficial results. A special survey was also designed and distributed to enforcement agencies in Iowa and other selected states. In addition to the surveys, personal contacts and office visits were conducted by the research team staff. The study found that use of extra enforcement in work zones is a common practice in many states and these activities appear to be increasing. Current literature, survey responses, and interviews have all indicated a prevalent opinion for the benefits of increased law enforcement presence and activity in work zones. Very few comments offered conclusions of negative impacts, such as additional congestion, from these efforts. However, the beneficial effects of focused enforcement have not been intensively quantified. In addition, procedures for the use of law officers in work zones are quite inconsistent across the nation, as is the general implementation of specific legislation addressing work zone traffic violations. Similar variation can be found in funding levels and sources for enforcement activities in work zones among the states. Training of law officers prior to work zone duty does not appear to be commonly required, though the value of focused training is being recognized in some states. As crashes and deaths continue to rise annually in our nation's work zones, it is imperative that demonstrated beneficial programs such as the expanded use of law officers in these locations be continued, refined, and expanded. Future study is needed to supplement the knowledge base and provide guidance to agencies when considering the use of law enforcement to calm traffic, ensure compliance with traffic laws, and thus provide for safer work zones.


We present channel capacity calculations for a multispan dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) system that employs an ideal coherent optical receiver. Both dispersive and dispersion-free single-mode nonlinear optical fibers are considered. Degradation due to interference among Kerr nonlinear noise and optical amplifier noise accumulated along many spans is included in our model calculations. We will show that in the low-power quasi--linear regime, a multispan system can be approximated by an "equivalent" single-span system. The "equivalent" Kerr coefficient for most dispersive fibers is shown to increase with the square root of the number of spans, in contrast to the linear scaling dependence for a dispersion-free fiber. For a conventional fiber with β = -20 ps2/km, our calculated capacity of 10 (2 x 80 km), 8 (8 x 80 km), and 6 (32 x 80 km) bps/Hz indicates that today's technologies with 0.4 bps/Hz have only realized 5% of the theoretical total capacity. We have shown an increased (or decreased) capacity by about 1 bps/Hz per ten-fold increase (decrease) in dispersion.


It is well-known that cloud computing has many potential advantages and many enterprise applications and data are migrating to public or hybrid cloud. But regarding some business-critical applications, the organizations, especially large enterprises, still wouldn't move them to cloud. The market size the cloud computing shared is still far behind the one expected. From the consumers' perspective, cloud computing security concerns, especially data security and privacy protection issues, remain the primary inhibitor for adoption of cloud computing services. This paper provides a concise but all-round analysis on data security and privacy protection issues associated with cloud computing across all stages of data life cycle. Then this paper discusses some current solutions. Finally, this paper describes future research work about data security and privacy protection issues in cloud.


Tuberous sclerosis, caused by germline mutations in the TSC1 or TSC2 genes, is associated with aberrant upregulation of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signalling pathway, resulting in growth of tumours, including renal angiomyolipomas (AMLs). AMLs may cause hypertension, renal failure and spontaneous life-threatening haemorrhage. Previously, invasive interventions were required to treat AMLs. More recently, mTOR inhibitors have been used as molecularly targeted treatment to treat AMLs. We present here the case of a paediatric patient with TSC in whom sirolimus has been used successfully to halt growth of renal AMLs. Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder, with 95% penetrance and a birth incidence of 1 in 6000–11 000.1 TSC is caused by germline mutations in either the TSC1 gene on chromosome 9q34 encoding the protein hamartin or the TSC2 gene on chromosome 16p13 encoding tuberin.1 Tuberin and hamartin form a complex that regulates signalling through the mammalian target of rapamycin (Rheb/mTOR/p70S6K) pathway, which controls processes such as growth, cell cycle progression and apoptosis.2 Mutations of these proteins permit aberrant upregulation of the mTOR signalling pathway and cellular proliferations (subependymal giant cell astrocytomas, cutaneous angiofibromas, cardiac rhabdomyomas, lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), pulmonary multifocal micronodular hyperplasia and renal angiomyolipomas).3 4 Eighty per cent of children with TSC have renal lesions by 10.5 years of age: 75% of these lesions are angiomyolipomas (AMLs) and 17% are renal cysts.1 AMLs increase in size and/or number in around 60% of children; thus, follow-up is required even if an initial renal ultrasound is normal. AMLs are benign mesenchymal tumours composed of smooth muscle cells, fibrous tissue, adipose tissue and thick-walled disorganised vascular channels. AMLs cause hypertension and renal failure and, importantly, may cause spontaneous life-threatening haemorrhage, particularly lesions more than 4 cm in diameter. Previously, invasive interventions, such as embolisation or surgery, were required to treat AMLs. Sirolimus, an mTOR inhibitor, is a macrocyclic lactone isolated from a Streptomyces hygroscopicus strain with immunosuppressive activity. Sirolimus is commonly used following renal transplantation and has been approved for treatment of renal cell carcinoma and acute myeloid leukaemia.4 More recently, sirolimus has been used as molecularly targeted treatment in both patients with TSC and lymphangioleiomyomatosis.3 5 We present here the case of a paediatric patient with TSC and renal AML in whom sirolimus has been used successfully to halt growth of the renal AMLs.


This article revisits the approximation problem of systems of nonlinear delay differential equations (DDEs) by a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). We work in Hilbert spaces endowed with a natural inner product including a point mass, and introduce polynomials orthogonal with respect to such an inner product that live in the domain of the linear operator associated with the underlying DDE. These polynomials are then used to design a general Galerkin scheme for which we derive rigorous convergence results and show that it can be numerically implemented via simple analytic formulas. The scheme so obtained is applied to three nonlinear DDEs, two autonomous and one forced: (i) a simple DDE with distributed delays whose solutions recall Brownian motion; (ii) a DDE with a discrete delay that exhibits bimodal and chaotic dynamics; and (iii) a periodically forced DDE with two discrete delays arising in climate dynamics. In all three cases, the Galerkin scheme introduced in this article provides a good approximation by low-dimensional ODE systems of the DDE's strange attractor, as well as of the statistical features that characterize its nonlinear dynamics.


The consumption of resources within an urban neighbourhood depends on the behaviour of its occupants. To understand the randomness of this behaviour and its effect on the demand of resources calls for the development of a set of stochastic models which are discussed here. This includes models for presence and interactions with lights, blinds and electrical and water appliances as well as solid waste production. The theoretical approach of each model has been chosen based on a priori hypotheses. Data has been collected to check their consistency with reality and to further refine them. The purpose of these models is to offer a reliable prediction of occupant behaviour at the community scale to more accurately predict the thermal and electrical energy demands of buildings as well as the consumption of water and the production of liquid and solid waste resources; the latter potentially being fed back. The development of the stochastic models is part of project SUNtool [1], a project funded by the EU that, after its completion next year, will provide a software capable of simulating the resource flows of an urban neighbourhood entered by its user.


Elemental composition, dimensionality and morphology are the main factors that influence the catalytic activity and stability of platinum-based and noble metal alloy nanocatalysts. Herein, we present a facile and cost-efficient approach to synthesize ternary alloy Pt–Pd–Ag nanoflowers by co-reduction of the metal precursors in aqueous solutions in a suitable molar ratio, involving hexamethylenetetramine as a structure-directing agent and ascorbic acid as a reducing agent. Both the presence of the aforementioned agents and the interaction between the component metals allow good control over the anisotropic growth of the ternary alloy nanostructure. The as-prepared nanocomposite demonstrates superior electrocatalytic activity towards the oxygen reduction reaction in acidic medium, compared with commercial Pt/C (20 wt%) and Pd/C (10 wt%) catalysts, as well as sufficiently good stability, as demonstrated by the accelerated durability test. The electrocatalytic activity of irregularly shaped nanoparticles of the same elemental composition was also measured, which revealed that the nanoflowers were superior catalysts owing to their specific morphological characteristics. Moreover, the nanoflowers displayed a relatively low electrochemical surface area decay (from 100% to 80.82%) due to their three-dimensional open-framework surface which can limit the aggregation of individual particles.


This paper evaluates general achievement effects of choice and competition between private and public schools at the nine-year school level by assessing a radical voucher reform that was implemented in Sweden in 1992. Starting from a situation where the public schools essentially were monopolists on all local school markets, the degree of privatization has developed very differently across municipalities over time as a result of this reform. We estimate the impact of an increase in private enrolment on short, medium and long-term educational outcomes of all pupils using within-municipality variation over time, and control for differential pre-reform and concurrent municipality trends. We find that an increase in the private school share moderately improves short-term educational outcomes such as 9th-grade GPA and the fraction of students who choose an academic high school track. However, we do not find any impact on medium or long-term educational outcomes such as high school GPA, university attainment or years of schooling. We conclude that the first-order short-term effect is too small to yield lasting positive effects.


Nitrogen doped ZnO (NZO) thin films, at different N2 flow rates have been deposited on glass substrates by pulsed DC reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The effect of N2 flow rate (1.0 sccm - 3.0 sccm) on the structural, optical, electrical and chemical state of N has been studied. With the effect of N2 flow rate: the crystallinity of the films decreased, tensile stress is developed, optical transmittance decreased (80% to 60%), conductivity decreased till 1.5 sccm and films were n-type conducting. At 2.0 sccm and 2.5 sccm of N2 flow rates, NZO thin films showed p-type conductivity. The changes in the magnitude and type of conductivity have a direct relation with the changes observed in N-chemical state in ZnO lattice. p- NZO thin films are electrically unstable; this instability has been explained based on the changes occurred in the N chemical states, resulting from the stress release in NZO lattice.


From 2008 to 2012, large numbers of Hungarian Romani refugee claimants came to Canada. Their arrival was controversial. Some political actors suggested that their claims were unfounded and amounted to abuse of Canada's refugee processes -- abuse which could only be prevented through wide-scale reforms to the refugee determination system. Many advocates for refugees, by contrast, argued that persecution against Roma was rampant in Hungary and noted that hundreds of Hungarians had been recognized as refugees in Canada. Some went further and contended that Romani refugee claimants fled persecution in Hungary only to be confronted with similar mistreatment in Canada. Unfortunately, much of the debate about Hungarian Romani refugee claims in Canada has occurred in an evidentiary vacuum. The purpose of this article is to fill this vacuum by setting out the results of a quantitative and qualitative empirical study of Hungarian Romani refugee claims. The article begins by discussing the context of the study, offering an overview of the historic and contemporary experience of Roma in Hungary and outlining the history of Hungarian Romani migration to Canada, including two recent streams of migration by Hungarian Romani refugee claimants and Canada's response to these claimants. The article then moves on to an empirical study about the experience of Hungarian Romani with Canada's refugee determination system between 2008 and 2012. Finally, the article offers concluding remarks, focusing on several particularly troubling findings from the study, including the impact of anti-refugee rhetoric, concerns about institutional bias and inconsistent decision making at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and problems related to quality of counsel.


A water-quality monitoring program is proposed that would provide data to meet multiple information needs of Massachusetts agencies and other users concerned with the condition of the State's water resources. The program was designed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management, with input from many organizations involved in water-quality monitoring in the State, and focuses on inland surface waters (streams and lakes). The proposed monitoring program consists of several components, or tiers, which are defined in terms of specific monitoring objectives, and is intended to complement the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative (MWI) basin assessments. Several components were developed using the Neponset River Basin in eastern Massachusetts as a pilot area, or otherwise make use of data from and sampling approaches used in that basin as part of a MWI pilot assessment in 1994. To guide development of the monitoring program, reviews were conducted of general principles of network design, including monitoring objectives and approaches, and of ongoing monitoring activities of Massachusetts State agencies. Network tiers described in this report are primarily (1) a statewide, basin-based assessment of existing surface-water-quality conditions, and (2) a fixed-station network for determining contaminant loads carried by major rivers. Other components, including (3) targeted programs for hot-spot monitoring and other objectives, and (4) compliance monitoring, also are discussed. Monitoring programs for the development of Total Maximum Daily Loads for specific water bodies, which would constitute another tier of the network, are being developed separately and are not described in this report. The basin-based assessment of existing conditions is designed to provide information on the status of surface waters with respect to State water-quality standards and designated uses in accordance with the reporting requirements [Section 305(b)] of the Clean Water Act (CWA). Geographic Information System (GIS)-based procedures were developed to inventory streams and lakes in a basin for these purposes. Several monitoring approaches for this tier and their associated resource requirements were investigated. Analysis of the Neponset Basin for this purpose demonstrated that the large number of sites needed in order for all the small streams in a basin to be sampled (about half of stream miles in the basin were headwater or first-order streams) pose substantial resource-based problems for a comprehensive assessment of existing conditions. The many lakes pose similar problems. Thus, a design is presented in which probabilistic monitoring of small streams is combined with deterministic or targeted monitoring of large streams and lakes to meet CWA requirements and to provide data for other information needs of Massachusetts regulatory agencies and MWI teams. The fixed-station network is designed to permit the determination of contaminant loads carried by the State's major rivers to sensitive inland and coastal receiving waters and across State boundaries. Sampling at 19 proposed sites in 17 of the 27 major basins in Massachusetts would provide information on contaminant loads from


Optical forces available on a chip that possess features of strong trapping at the subwavelength scale, in a coplanar geometry, and at specific and selective locations portend many useful applications. We demonstrate here a two-pronged approach to accomplish this. First, the plasmon fields emanating from a subwavelength aperture are manipulated so that they leak maximally to the sides on a surface through the use of tailored corrugations. Second, the location of secondary corrugation at some distance permits reflection of these leaky waves, which, with the coherence property of light used, generate optical standing wave fields capable of strong optical trapping. The linear optical forces generated with this scheme are presented here.


In this paper, we propose a new posterior based scoring approach for keyword and non keyword (garbage) elements. The estimation of these scores is based on HMM state posterior probability definition, taking into account long contextual information and the prior knowledge (e.g. keyword model topology). The state posteriors are then integrated into keyword and garbage posteriors for every frame. These posteriors are used to make a decision on detection of the keyword at each frame. The frame level decisions are then accumulated (in this case, by counting) to make a global decision on having the keyword in the utterance. In this way, the contribution of possible outliers are minimized, as opposed to the conventional Viterbi decoding approach which accumulates likelihoods. Experiments on keywords from the Conversational Telephone Speech (CTS) and Numbers'95 databases are reported. Results show that the new scoring approach leads to better trade off between true and false alarms compared to the Viterbi decoding approach, while also providing the possibility to precalculate keyword specific spotting thresholds related to the length of the keywords.


Research Question : What is the attitude of young females towards their husband or sex partners presuming them infected with HIV?Objectives : Attitude of young slum dwelling females towards husband or sex partner presuming them HIV infectedaccording to age of respondentsaccording to marital status of respondentsaccording to occupation of respondentsaccording to literacy status of respondents Study Design : Cross sectional studyStudy Area : 10% of the Slums of Kanpur City having population less than 3000.Participants : 13 to 25 years aged females of selected slums.Study variables : Age, marital status, occur' ,:on, literacy status.Statistical Analysis : PercentageResults : 12.3% expressed about non disclosure of disease. 25.7% were indecisive, 65.2% to pursue for treatment, 32.7% to continue sex relationship and 31.2% to continue social relationship. Respondents employed as teachers showed greater degree of concern for more care (45.5%) and also for continuation of social and sexual relationship. Continuation on social & sexual relationship along with pursuation for treatment and more care of victim (husband/sex partner) was observed among highest percentage in graduate and above level with gradual decrease in the prevalence with decrease in the level of education.


The Enhanced Rail Contribution by Increased Reliability (ERCIR) project aimed to enhance availability by condition monitoring of the track and vehicle suspension from in-service trains. In this project, the possibility of instrumenting an inservice train is explored, with emphasis on using a minimal sensor set for the detection and diagnosis of track and vehicle faults. The use of a bogie-mounted pitch rate gyro to observe mean vertical track geometry is novel, as is using a bogiemounted yaw rate gyro to observe mean lateral alignment as well as the more usual longer wavelength track curvature. Mathematical algorithms are developed to detect vehicle suspension faults and track irregularities. The suspension faults considered are changes in secondary lateral and anti-yaw dampers, and changes in effective conicity. Sudden changes are detected and diagnosed using a Kalman filter-based innovation approach; gradual changes in damping coefficients and effective conicity are detected by parameter estimation using a Rao-Blackwellised particle filter. Observable track geometry irregularities include mean vertical and lateral alignment irregularities, as well as crosslevel and twist faults. This paper finally describes the results of trials carried out on two different railway vehicles, using the data obtained to assess the validity of the fault detection algorithms.


Simulation software is increasingly replacing traditional physical testing in the process of product development, as it can in many cases reduce development times and costs. In a variety of applications, the reduction of noise is an important aspect of the product design and using methods from the field of computational aero-acoustics (CAA), the generation and propagation of sound in air may be simulated. In this project, a FEM-based solver for the three-dimensional Helmholtz equation, modeling the propagation of sound waves, has been developed and tested. The implementation includes Galerkin/leastsquares stabilization. Both interior and exterior problems are handled; the latter by a coupled finite-infinite element method. Further, using a hybrid CAA methodology the solver may be coupled to a CFD solver, to simulate the sound arising from transient fluid flows. The solver has been tested, and observed to perform well, on a set of interior and exterior problems. Results are presented for three cases of increasing complexity: first an interior, homogeneous problem with a known analytical solution, second an exterior problem with point sources and third an exterior problem with acoustic sources from a CFD computation, i.e. a full hybrid CAA simulation. In the two latter cases, the frequencies at which standing waves appear in a pipe and a deep cavity, respectively, are compared to theoretically computed values, and are seen to be well captured by the simulations. Moreover, the results of the full CAA simulation are compared to experimental data, to which they show good resemblance. The mathematical model, numerical methods and implementation are presented in the report along with numerical results. .


Following an invitation by the authorities of the Republic of Madagascar the European Union is deploying a mission to observe the presidential elections. The first round is scheduled for 25 October. The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) is led by Ms. Maria Muniz de Urquiza, Member of the European Parliament, who arrived in Antananarivo on 2 October and will officially launch the mission during a press conference on 3 October. A core team of 9 EU election analysts arrived in Antananarivo on 25 September. They will be joined by 44 long-term observers on 3 October and will be reinforced by 50 short-term observers a few days before election day. On the election day a Delegation of the European Parliament as well as locally based members of the EU diplomatic community will join the mission. The EU EOM will deploy throughout the country over 100 observers (coming from 25 EU Member States and from Norway) on election day. Shortly after election day, the EOM will issue a preliminary statement of its initial findings at a press conference in Antananarivo. The EOM will remain in Madagascar to observe final counting of votes and any complaint procedures. It will also observe the legislative elections scheduled for 20 December and a possible second round of the presidential elections. The EU EOM will prepare a final report including recommendations to be submitted to Malagasy authorities with a view to further developing and possibly improving the electoral framework.


This research examines the relationship between primary postgraduate (PGCE) students' conceptions of geography, knowledge and pedagogy and their development as teachers of primary geography over two years – the primary PGCE course and the first year of teaching. The methodology is essentially qualitative and based on the principles of grounded theory. Personal Construct Theory (PCT) has also informed the choice of research techniques, PCT being seen to be appropriate for a research project that aims to access and therefore examine a range of alternative constructions. Concept mapping was used at the beginning and end of the geography component of a PGCE Primary course to elicit all students' conceptions of geography, teaching and learning. Analysis of the concept maps from the whole cohort (n=79) show that primary students' conceptions of geography are generally rather simplistic and reflective of the descriptive-rich and scientific persuasions identified by Barratt Hacking (1996). Only a few students' maps reflected environmental or humanistic/welfare persuasions. The concepts maps were also sorted into four categories from most sophisticated to least sophisticated conceptions of geography. It was noted that of the eight students in category one (most sophisticated) only one had a geography degree. A sample of 11 students was then interviewed (using a stimulated recall technique (Calderhead 1986)) about their conceptions using the elicitation data as a stimulus for the discussion. This enabled the researcher to both probe students' conceptions in greater depth, and to validate initial analysis of the elicitation data. Finally, three students – one a geographer (with a geography degree) and the others non-geographers – were observed teaching geography and interviewed directly after the observations on three occasions over the two years. A coding system was developed from all the data, and was then used to analyse the interviews using Microsoft Word index and cross-referencing functions. These analyses, along with elicitation data, formed the basis of case studies of the development of three students as geography teachers over two years.A model for beginning teacher development in the field of primary geography is then proposed.  The model emerged from interpreting and synthesising the evidence from the three case studies, and through the use of the constant comparison technique (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The model is applied to the series of lessons observed for each case study providing an overview of their development as teachers of primary geography. Comparison of the three cases over two years shows some startling similarities as well as some differences in their development. It seems that each of them, whether they held a geography degree or not, discounted the geographical knowledge they have gained from life experiences as a valuable base to work from, despite the relevance of this knowledge to their teaching. It also seems that each of them, when observed during their PGCE course, were most likely to draw on their memory of geography lessons from when they were a pupil as a model to inform their teaching. As the two years progressed, and their pedagogical knowledge developed, they began to replace these early experiences with ones more suited to effective teaching – that is, their more recent experiences as teachers.  Of the three beginning teachers, only David, who had a geography degree, developed to become an effective geography teacher during the research period. However, it is considered that, for the majority of primary teachers, the most that can be expected is that they will develop into effective teachers of primary geography because it is unlikely that they would have opportunities to develop the depth of subject knowledge required to be an effective geography teacher. The thesis concludes by offering some thoughts for the development of primary geographical education. It proposes that primary geography could be usefully conceptualised as 'everyday', or 'ethno-'geography, that is a geography that recognises and seeks to address the 'false split between practical, everyday knowledge and abstract, theoretical knowledge' (Frankenstein & Powell, 1994). This is a geography that explicitly values the geographical knowledge that we all build up from everyday experiences in the world and that, in conjunction with the development of a geographical imagination, might form the basis of a primary geography framework.


Cooperation in evolving populations of agents has been explained as arising from kin selection, reciprocity during repeated interactions, and indirect reciprocity through agent reputations. All of these mechanisms require signican t agent capabilities, but recent research using computational models has shown that arbitrary markers called \tags" can be used to achieve signican t levels of cooperation even in the absence of memory, repeated interactions or knowledge of kin. This is important because it helps to explain the evolution of cooperation in organisms with limited cognitive capabilities, and also because it may help us to engineer cooperative behaviors in multi-agent systems. The computational models used in previous studies, however, have typically been constrained such that cooperation is the only viable strategy for gaining an evolutionary advantage. Here we show that tagmediated recognition can lead to signican t levels of cooperation in a less constrained articial life simulation, even when other viable survival strategies exist. The results suggest that tags provide a simple yet eectiv e mechanism for promoting the emergence of collective behaviors in evolving agent populations.


The number of items of data which are irretrievable without additional effort after hashing can be greatly reduced if several hash tables are used simultaneously. Here we show that, in a multiple hashing scheme, this number has a distribution very close to Poisson. Thus choosing the number and sizes of the tables to minimize the expected number of irretrievable items is the right way to dimension a scheme.


James Risen has broken story after story on the abuses of power of the Bush administration. From warrantless wiretapping to secret financial data mining to the CIA's rogue operations, he has shown again and again that the executive branch has dangerously overreached, repudiated checks and balances on its power, and maintained secrecy even with its allies in Congress. In no small part thanks to Risen and "State of War, " the "secret history" of the Bush years has now come partially into view. In a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Risen describes the two-front war that President Bush is now fighting: at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses; and in the Middle East, where George W. Bush's great gamble to bring a democratic revolution is failing radically. We must learn the lessons of Risen's history now, before it is too late.


Traditionally supply chain management has meant factories, assembly lines, warehouses, transportation vehicles, and time sheets. Modern supply chain management is a highly complex, multidimensional problem set with virtually endless number of variables for optimization. An Internet enabled supply chain may have just-in-time delivery, precise inventory visibility, and up-to-the-minute distribution-tracking capabilities. Technology advances have enabled supply chains to become strategic weapons that can help avoid disasters, lower costs, and make money. From internal enterprise processes to external business transactions with suppliers, transporters, channels and end-users marks the wide range of challenges researchers have to handle. The aim of this book is at revealing and illustrating this diversity in terms of scientific and theoretical fundamentals, prevailing concepts as well as current practical applications.


Salvia is a representative genus of Lamiaceae, a eudicot family with significant species diversity and population adaptibility. One of the key goals of Salvia genomics research is to identify genes of adaptive significance. This information may help to improve the conservation of adaptive genetic variation and the management of medicinal plants to increase their health and productivity. Large-insert genomic libraries are a fundamental tool for achieving this purpose. We report herein the construction, characterization and screening of a gridded BAC library for Salvia officinalis (sage). The S. officinalis BAC library consists of 17,764 clones and the average insert size is 107 Kb, corresponding to similar to 3 haploid genome equivalents. Seventeen positive clones (average insert size 115 Kb) containing five terpene synthase (TPS) genes were screened out by PCR and 12 of them were subject to Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencing, which yielded 28,097,480 90-bp raw reads (2.53 Gb). Scaffolds containing sabinene synthase (Sab), a Sab homolog, TPS3 (kaurene synthase-like 2), copalyl diphosphate synthase 2 and one cytochrome P450 gene were retrieved via de novo assembly and annotation, which also have flanking noncoding sequences, including predicted promoters and repeat sequences. Among 2,638 repeat sequences, there are 330 amplifiable microsatellites. This BAC library provides a new resource for Lamiaceae genomic studies, including microsatellite marker development, physical mapping, comparative genomics and genome sequencing. Characterization of positive clones provided insights into the structure of the Salvia genome. These sequences will be used in the assembly of a future genome sequence for S. officinalis.


Located in one of the most diverse cities in the world, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) offers several programs catering to a variety of student interests. Specialty Arts Programs (SAPs) have gained particular attention in part because of their reputation as excellent schools providing a unique opportunity for training in the arts. However, recently such programs have also raised concerns about who can access and who ultimately benefits from specialized programming in the arts. While the TDSB is committed to equal access for all families, the student populations at these programs do not mirror the broader school population, serving mostly affluent families and students with access to high levels of social and cultural capital. Employing data from the TDSB's Parent and Student Census and the School Information Systems, the article first demonstrates the demographic homogeneity of specialized arts programs and then examines whether this homogeneity is a particular outcome of specialized arts programs or a manifestation of a de facto streaming mechanism that begins earlier in the schooling process. To do this, the authors explore the relationship between feeder schools and programs that guide students towards SAPs. Results demonstrate that the bulk of SAP students are drawn from a select few elementary schools across the board. Largely, the demographics of elementary feeder schools reflect similar characteristics of the SAP population and this relationship is amplified as the number of students drawn from feeder schools increases. In addition, students in SAPs experience a high level of belonging in school as compared to students across the system. While this outcome is often attributed to the immersion in arts-based curriculum, the authors query how the role of creating homogenous spaces through selective programming contributes to students' experience of belonging while at the same time reproducing structural inequality.


This article contributes to a clear understanding of important aspects of economic globalization. Specifically, we want to highlight the distributional concerns and how these are related to efficiency aspects of globalization. To this end, we identify relevant scenarios within a simple model of international trade featuring two groups of households who differ in both preferences and sector specific endowments. We address two kinds of scenarios which appear particularly topical: An abolition of agricultural protection, and an increase in import competition from low wage coutnries. All scenarios considered have severe redistributive consequences which our model identifies as a real income loss or gain, respectively, for one of the two groups of households. But, absent further distortions, a liberalization scenario will also feature an efficiency gain which implies that any real income loss may be fully compensated for by means of direct transfer payments. Globalization scenarios may, however, also entail a real income loss for the economy as a whole if they entail a deterioration of the terms-of-trade. In such a case, redistributive consequences may not be fully undone by means of compensation payments. A fortiori, then, full compensation cannot be achieved through trade restrictions either. Globlization scenarios may thus entail, not only distributional consequences, but also an aggregate welfare loss for an individual country. But responding with trade restrictions will aggravate the problem by inflicting a further real income loss on such a country. Efficienca gains may be jeopardized by rigid vactor prices and adverse incentives from compensation payments.


As veterinary graduates will take up an ethically challenging role, initiatives fostering reflective thinking and moral development are being increasingly promoted in the veterinary curriculum. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a structured, reflective learning tool to promote ethical awareness in pre-clinical veterinary students. The Animal Welfare Associated Reflective Exercise (AWARE) focused on the ethical content of animal welfare related issues witnessed by pre-clinical students during extra mural study (EMS) placements. The AWARE had five sections: demographic information, animal welfare related event, personal reflection, ethical reflection and round up. Students were invited to identify, and give details of, a relevant incident that had an animal welfare impact. The AWARE guided students to reflect on their emotional reaction to the event, and its ethical basis, with reference to three well established ethical frameworks. A
computer based teaching package was created to accompany the AWARE. The AWARE was piloted with 25 first year veterinary undergraduate students. Most students reflected on an experience on a lambing placement and feedback from the pilot study was positive with the majority of students self-reporting that their awareness of animal welfare and ethical issues had improved. Validation of the AWARE was then completed with a full cohort of first year veterinary students using a mixed-methods approach. Qualitative analysis revealed that students exhibited higher levels of reflection in the AWAREs than they did in the unstructured reflections previously completed by students following EMS placements. Ethically relevant text was also significantly increased in the AWAREs than in the unstructured reflections. However, completion of the AWARE did not improve scores on standardised measures of ethical sensitivity or moral reasoning, two components of moral
development. Following validation, the AWARE was adapted for use in clinical EMS contexts. Fourth year veterinary students completed either the AWARE using a clinical
situation which impacted animal welfare or a modified version of the AWARE, the Reflection on Professional Ethics (ROPE) which focused on a professional ethical dilemma. Three different frameworks were utilised in the ROPE – RCVS's ten guiding principles, the bioethical principles and virtue ethics. Engagement with the AWARE was similar in clinical and pre-clinical students but fewer clinical students left responses blank and more considered their future actions. Findings from analyses of the ROPEs indicated that veterinary surgeons struggled to meet all of their ethical obligations in difficult situations, that respect for client autonomy was met in the majority of cases, and that virtue ethics was poorly understood by students completing the exercise. Investigations into
moral reasoning abilities of vet students at various points in the curriculum were also carried out, using a well-established measure, the Defining Issues Test (DIT). First year students were found to have a wide range of moral reasoning abilities but their mean scores were similar to that expected for students of their age and stage. The moral reasoning scores of clinical stage veterinary students were no higher than those of first year veterinary
students. Application of the DIT to qualified veterinary surgeons also revealed a wide range of moral reasoning ability, with practising veterinarians scoring no higher than members of the public and over a quarter relying primarily on a basic form of moral reasoning, normally reserved for pre-adolescent children. These findings raise important questions regarding the impact of veterinary education on moral reasoning and concern for animal welfare and veterinary well-being. Ethical development is an area where both undergraduates and qualified veterinarians could benefit from improved training of ethical skills. Collectively, the findings show that the AWARE reliably elicits ethically relevant content, is viewed positively by students and has several learning benefits including improved ability to recognise and reflect on animal welfare and ethical issues. The AWARE now forms part of the veterinary curriculum at the University of Glasgow and is
available to other UK vet schools.


Variegated thistle (Silybum marianum) is a prevalent weed on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. Goats may provide a novel management tool to control thistles, but little is known about how cutting thistles prior to grazing affects thistle consumption by goats. This study investigated the extent to which goats consume either uncut entire variegated thistle plants or cut thistles. Eight groups of three goats were presented with thistle vegetation in each of two replicate 1-hour feeding sessions on 2 consecutive days. Averaged over both days, in the cut treatment, goats consumed 99% of the leaves that had been removed from the thistles and reduced the ground cover of the thistle plants by 68%. In the uncut treatment, ground cover of the thistles was reduced by 46%. A combination of cutting and goat grazing is likely to be a useful tool for stopping variegated thistle debris from smothering pasture and for inhibiting seed setting. Further work is required to test this at paddock scale.


This thesis contributes to the literature of critical geopolitics. Based on the exploration of existing studies of critical geopolitics, in this thesis I first argue that this body of literature only presents a partial picture of the world from the perspective of political geographies. While it does offer a solidly critical stance in the investigation of how spatiality influences the exercise of power, it also has certain limitations from ontological and epistemological perspectives. Many studies in this literature suffer from three problems. First, many works have empirically and overly focused on Western states while neglecting both non-Western spaces/places and non-Western geopolitical theories. Second, this body of literature has paid too much attention to media texts rather than the audience who consume those media. In the small amount of audience studies, fans, who are considered to be the most passionate consumer, have always been equated with the audience, thereby ignoring other consumption forces, such as critics and occasional readers. Third, the majority of extant critical geopolitical studies have been concerned with constructionism, which emphasises the significance of human beings in creating a space and thus influencing the exercise of power, while much less attention has been paid to the materiality that underlines the being, or object, playing any of a set of active roles in a narrative.
Those limitations of critical geopolitical studies, in particular the lack of non-Western examples, provide new possibilities for the development of the current field of critical geopolitics. This thesis focuses on Chinese political geographies, a non-Western socio-political background. It indicates that the socio-political context of China has brought potentialities for investigating the complex entanglement between spatial practices and the exercise of power. Specifically, this thesis gives an overview of Chinese geopolitical traditions, hua-yi distinction and Sino-centrism, that have had, and still have, a significant impact upon Chinese political cultures. At the same time, this thesis also reviews the extant literature of Chinese geopolitics. On this basis, it argues that previous works of/in Chinese geopolitical studies have been intimately associated with Western dominance, in particular the classical geopolitical tradition in Western academia, and thus lacked the examination of internal geopolitical voices. These overviews have built two fundamental frameworks for this thesis: critical geopolitics and non-Western geopolitics. Critical geopolitics is the main theoretical framework for this thesis, while non-Western geopolitics is the primary empirical framework for this thesis, although its contribution is not limited to empirics.
Thus I argue that geopolitical space is seldom a pure space controlled by any single force or any single element, but rather a heterogeneous space influenced by a mixed range of forces and factors, including both Western and non-Western forces and values, ruling and ruled forces and values, and socially constructed and material factors. In particular for popular geopolitics, I argue that popular space usually strengthens cultural hegemony, but at the same time it also erodes authority. It is a space of difference and antagonism. Armed with the above perspectives, this thesis will use three chapters of empirical studies to explain how various spaces, forces and values are involved in the exercise of power. Three stories are narrated in this thesis:
(1) Two different – even opposite – Chinese newspaper writings of terrorism and the US war on terror, which can be read as an examination of how Chinese elites practice and perform their geopolitical identities.
(2) Audience imaginations of terrorism and the US war on terror through their readings of Chinese newspapers as mentioned above (1), which can be read as an investigation of how Chinese elitist views are spread and how geopolitical visions are established in Chinese society.
(3) Discussion of terrorism and the US war on terror in the Internet community, in which both Internet users and computer algorithms and bots have a significant impact upon the creation of public opinion.


Abstract We tested the ability of a small dynamic penetrometer, Nimrod, to infer geotechnical properties of sediment mixtures in the inner shelf. The penetrometer is light and easy to operate, and its operation by scuba divers ensures a greater degree of precision than ship-based penetrometer deployments. We have studied selected positions along a sorted bedform (~ 100 m wide) on the continental shelf off the Coromandel Peninsula close to Tairua, North Island of New Zealand, and additionally took sediment samples at the exact positions of penetrometer impact, also by scuba divers. The derived dynamic penetrometer signatures (i) measured deceleration of the probe and estimated quasi-static bearing capacity as a measure of sediment strength, (ii) reflected changes in grain-size distribution ranging from very fine to very coarse sands, and (iii) revealed the uppermost seafloor stratification (top layer 2–6 cm) potentially being an indicator for sediment dynamics. In this manner, the device proved to be suitable for spatially fine-scaled surveys using divers' support and might deliver complementary information about sediment dynamics, in this case sorted-bedform maintenance.


Despite the fact that serious concerns regarding the deterioration of the environment and natural resources have been voiced for decades, current business and organizational approaches toward sustainability remain inadequate and substantially unsustainable. An important research question, therefore, has to do with understanding how to make positive behavior more prevalent in the face of many urgent global challenges. Newer business and organizational models that are significantly moving toward sustainability, for instance, serve as remarkable examples of such. What can we learn from them? This study seeks more specific answers to this broad question. How are modern organizations motivated to embrace sustainability initiatives in a genuine manner? How have they created their sustainable business models? How do they continue to sustain the initial momentum? What are the key factors that assist in the implementation of sustainability strategies? Lastly, how are they defining and achieving sustainability success? Answers to these questions were sought through an inductive and qualitative case research design that explored three quite different organizational settings, each pursuing sustainability objectives with advancing success and yet finding its own way in very different environments based on industrial, regulatory, and cultural influences. Nevertheless, several general characteristics seemed to accrue across organizational and industrial divides. A model for sustainability management, derived from the lessons learned in this study, is thus proposed.


Frankie and Sal have already played every sport and board game invented, baked and eaten batches of cookies, and painted a zillion pictures. What's left to do? Nothing! Ten seconds of nothing! Can they do it? Can they act like stone statues in the park? Can they simply hold their breath and not blink an eye? With a wink to the reader and a command of visual humor, feature film animator Tony Fucile demonstrates the Zen-like art of doing nothing...oops! Couldn't do it!


Objectives: Vegetative dysfunction occurs in a host of medical and psychiatric conditions and is also influenced by their treatment. Heart rate variability (HRV) is an indicator of the heart's autonomic activity. HRV is also an indicator of treatment outcome in depression. As autonomic activity affects the seizure threshold, it could influence the induction of seizures in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). This study analyzed the correlation between autonomic nervous system activity measured by HRV and the seizure threshold in the first session of ECT.

Methods: All patients treated with ECT at the Odessa Private Psychiatric Institute between December 2013 and May 2015 meeting study entry criteria formed the study sample. Measures calculated from the analysis of ECGs recorded immediately before the first seizure induction was correlated with the seizure threshold.

Results: Thirty patients were included in the study. Univariate analysis revealed that only age (p=0.023) and the square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences (RMSSD) between all adjacent inter-beat (NN) intervals (p=0.007) had significant positive correlations with the initial stimulus intensity.

Conclusion: This is the first report to demonstrate a correlation between the initial stimulus dose of ECT and the RMSSD, a measure of HRV. The RMSSD could be a promising, easily measurable parameter to ascertain initial stimulus intensity in ECT.


Abstract Context. Wild pigs are an invasive species linked to numerous negative impacts on natural and anthropogenic ecosystems in many regions of the world. Robust estimates of juvenile wild pig survival are needed to improve population dynamics models to facilitate management of this economically and ecologically important invasive species. Despite this critical knowledge gap, to date no successful known-fate study of wild piglet survival (<5 months of age) has been conducted, due to a lack of appropriate method for this species. Aims. To aid in locating and tagging neonates, we piloted the use of vaginal implant transmitters (VITs) in adult wild pigs and evaluated average retention times of stud ear-tag transmitters, clip ear-tag transmitters, sutured and epoxied transmitters, harness transmitters, and surgically implanted transmitters to monitor known-fate survival of piglets. Methods. We captured pregnant female pigs and implanted them with VITs. We tagged subsequently located neonates and piglets captured in traps with the aforementioned transmitters and monitored them to determine retention times and feasibility of each method. Key results. VITs were effectively used to determine the location and time of wild pig parturition, allowing counting and tagging of neonate wild pigs. Stud ear-tag and abdominal implant transmitters were well retained by piglets weighing ≥3 kg, in contrast to the other tested transmitters. Conclusions. Stud ear-tag and abdominal implant transmitters allowed known-fate monitoring of juvenile wild pigs, although, of these, stud ear-tag transmitters may be more practical as they do not require field surgery on piglets. Due to their relatively large size, the stud ear tag transmitters were infeasible for monitoring of true neonates (∼1 kg); however, this application method may be suitable for neonates upon development of lighter-weight transmitters. The other transmitter attachment methods we tested were ineffective for monitoring of piglet survival, due to poor retention of transmitters. Implications. The techniques piloted in this study will facilitate research into the reproductive ecology of wild pigs and known-fate studies of piglet mortality to aid in population modelling and evaluation of cause-specific mortality and factors affecting survival of these often-invasive animals.