This paper explores how a cinematic representation of landscape appropriates not just the material objects of the landscape backdrop but can also simultaneously 'capture' an ideological framework in which the landscape objects are physically embedded in. This process of embedding an ideological framework is a consequence of society at some historical point intentionally designing the landscape to have a particular affect on the 'seeing-eye', in effect constructing a garden. In choosing a considerable amount of the movie locations from within the grounds of Ashford Castle to represent Irish landscape the collective cinematographers of the Quiet Man appropriated an idealised English looking landscape a garden which was designed to look 'natural'. This type of garden is known as the Informal style or the Picturesque which originated in the eighteenth century England and is associated with the endeavours of Capability Brown and his followers. And the Picturesque style of garden was adopted by the large property owning classes of Britain and later by their class peers throughout the British Empire. Therefore, Ashford Castle and the other large landed estates of Ireland created Brownian gardens in the image of 'little Englands' in their grounds. Consequently, the landscape aesthetic of the Quiet Man is in designed terms closer to England than Ireland, but when Ford filmed in these idealised grounds he appropriated an English landscape garden to become the best known representation of Irish landscape in the world of the global cinema.


An Introduction to Aquatic Toxicology-Mikko Nikinmaa 2014-07-01 An Introduction to Aquatic Toxicology is an introductory reference for all aspects of toxicology pertaining to aquatic environments. As water sources diminish, the need to understand the effects that contaminants may have on aquatic organisms and ecosystems increases in importance. This book will provide you with a solid understanding of aquatic toxicology, its past, its cutting-edge present and its likely future. An Introduction to Aquatic Toxicology will introduce you to the global issue of aquatic contamination, detailing the major sources of contamination, from where they originate, and their effects on aquatic organisms and their environment. State-of-the-art toxicological topics covered include nanotoxicology, toxicogenomics, bioinformatics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, as well as water management and the toxicological effects of major environmental issues such as algal blooms, climate change and ocean acidification. This book is intended for anyone who wants to know more about the impact of toxicants on aquatic organisms and ecosystems, or to keep up to date with recent and future developments in the field. Provides with the latest perspectives on the impacts of toxicants on aquatic environments, such as nanotoxicology, toxicogenomics, ocean acidification and eutrophication Offers a complete overview, beginning with the origins of aquatic toxicology and concluding with potential future challenges Includes guidance on testing methods and a glossary of aquatic toxicology terms.


Two-dimensional, lithospheric-scale magnetotelluric imaging in the central Australian Proterozoic has constrained the large-scale architecture of terrane assembly during Paleoproterozoic accretion and collision. The comparatively conductive North Australian craton, consisting of rocks between ~2500 and 1730 Ma in age, has been imaged to extend for 150 km under the 1690–1620 Ma Warumpi Province, which forms part of a large, comparatively juvenile terrane in central-southern Australia. Collision between the North Australia craton and Warumpi Province occurred ca. 1640 Ma. The boundary between these domains is modeled to be subvertical at crustal scale, but dips south at ~45° in the mantle to depths of 150 km. We interpret this geometry to reflect lithospheric-scale underthrusting of the North Australian craton beneath the Warumpi Province, and suggest that it provides a first-order constraint on subduction polarity during collision ca. 1640 Ma. In contrast, most contemporary models for the evolution of Paleoproterozoic Australia propose that the North Australian craton was located on the overriding plate of a long-lived (ca. 1800–1550 Ma) north-directed subduction system. The polarity of these models is not consistent with the lithospheric-scale geophysical architecture.


Geological processes controlled by plate tectonics govern the time-space distribution of key rock assemblages. Stratal components of geosynclinal prisms, igneous provinces of orogenic belts, and regional facies of metamorphic terranes all display patterns controlled by inferred plate motions. Similarities between most Precambrian rock assemblages and Phanerozoic counterparts, coupled with analogies between Precambrian and Phanerozoic apparent polar wander paths, suggest that most surviving crustal rocks of all ages owe their origins to plate-tectonic processes. Archaean crustal blocks resemble collages of oceanic island arcs and volcanic archipelagoes whose tectonic juxtaposition to form cratonic nuclei was probably accomplished by subduction and crustal collision. Thereafter, similar Proterozoic oceanic elements were gradually accreted to growing continental margins and eventually crushed between colliding continental blocks of progressively larger size. Meanwhile, Archaean terranes within the interiors of cratons were generally shielded from further deformation, with their oceanic aspects largely preserved. In time, Phanerozoic oceanic terranes will systematically be destroyed by subduction or modified by incorporation into consolidated continental blocks. Differences between Precambrian and Phanerozoic plate tectonics and related assemblages reflect secular decline in global heat flux of radiogenic origin and progressive growth in the dimensions of cratonic blocks of continental crust.


The use of information technology (IT) is increasingly important for local governments (municipalities) in adhering to their responsibilities for providing services to citizens and this requires effective IT management. We present an engaged scholarship approach to formulating the IT management problems with local government – not for local government. We define such engaged problem formulation as joint learning and definition of a contemporary and complex problem by researchers and those who experience and know the problem. This engaged problem formulation process was carried out as an initiation of action research and design science research activities at multiple levels in Danish municipalities. In this paper we present the IT management problems identified in our study and discuss the engaged problem formulation process in relation to engaged scholarship and implications for action research and design science research activities.


An integrated computer program called Cropping System and Water Management Model (CSWM) with a three-step feature (expert system-simulation-optimization) was developed to address a range of decision support for rainfed farming, i.e. crop selection, scheduling and optimisation. The system was used for agricultural planning with emphasis on sustainable agriculture in the rainfed areas through the use of small farm reservoirs for increased production and resource conservation and management. The application of the model was carried out using crop, soil, and climate and water resource data from the Philippines. Primarily, four sets of data representing the different rainfall classification of the country were collected, analysed, and used as input in the model. Simulations were also done on date of planting, probabilities of wet and dry period and with various capacities of the water reservoir used for supplemental irrigation. Through the analysis, useful information was obtained to determine suitable crops in the region, cropping schedule and pattern appropriate to the specific climate conditions. In addition, optimisation of the use of the land and water resources can be achieved in areas partly irrigated by small reservoirs.


"Who is a worker?" The answer often determines who receives legal protection or support, and who does not. Disputes over this question animate both feminist scholarship examining nonmarket work and labor law scholarship examining how labor market restructuring challenges legal definitions of employment. This Article brings together these two lines of inquiry. It shows how the legal category of employment relies on distinctions between market and nonmarket work, and does so well beyond the familiar context of family labor. By examining prison inmates' statutory employment law claims, I identify a previously unrecognized economic dimension to disputes over the employment relationship's scope. This economic dimension is analytically distinct from the traditional control dimension rooted in agency law. Courts often hold that prisoners are not employees because their efforts are not economic in character, even though the work is done for pay. Throughout employment law, similar issues arise about work in welfare, educational, medical, and religious institutions. What unites these disputes over paid nonmarket work is that courts are torn between two rival accounts of what makes employment economic. The more restrictive one requires a market relationship; the more expansive one requires productive work. I show that neither approach is viable. Understanding employment's economic dimension requires a new approach to employment law. Employment law does not simply identify and regulate a relationship that exists independently in society. Instead, employment law helps to constitute employment as an economic relationship, to promote its coherence, its distinctiveness, and its location in the market economy. Employment law fosters the very divide between economic and noneconomic relationships to which it purports to respond.


Working staff at PT Asuransi Jiwa Bringin Jiwa Sejahtera (BRI life) achieved satisfactory and less than satisfactory assessment based on Performance Management Unit (SMK), thus it needs to be improved. The purpose of this study is to understand and analyze the effect of competence, training, and compensation variables to the staff performance at headquarter level either partially or simultaneously. The population used in this research is all of the staff at headquarters with the status of permanent employee or pattern contract 2. The sampling technique is probability sampling with Simple Random Sampling method using the slovin approach and 120 staff were taken as a sample. Data analysis consisted of Multiple Linear Regression. The results of the study showed that competence, training, and compensation partially and simultaneously have a positive and significant effect on performance variables. Compensation variable was shown as the most dominant effect. The authors suggested that the company gives a chance to the staff to improve social competence, giving qualified and required training facilities, as well as providing non-financial rewards. It can be one of the considerations in reviewing the compensation to improve performance and to achieve company goals.


Unicast V is a progressive, misrouting algorithm for packet or virtual cut-through networks. A progressive protocol forwards a message at an intermediate node if a nonfaulty profitable link is available and waits, deroutes, or aborts otherwise. A misrouting protocol uses both profitable and nonprofitable links at each node; thus, a message can move farther away from its destination at some steps. Unicast V is simple for hardware implementation, requires a very small message overhead, and makes routing decisions by local failure information only. However, it is claimed to be partially adaptive and to be able to tolerate static faults in hypercubes only. In this paper, we uncover some new features of Unicast V: (1) it is fully-adaptive, (2) it also applies to meshes and tori, and (3) it can tolerate dynamic faults by careful implementation. In addition, we also provide bounds on the performance of the algorithm.


Motivation: The heterogeneity of cancer cannot always be recognized by tumor morphology, but may be reflected by the underlying genetic aberrations. Array comparative genome hybridization (array-CGH) methods provide high-throughput data on genetic copy numbers, but determining the clinically relevant copy number changes remains a challenge. Conventional classification methods for linking recurrent alterations to clinical outcome ignore sequential correlations in selecting relevant features. Conversely, existing sequence classification methods can only model overall copy number instability, without regard to any particular position in the genome. Results: Here, we present the heterogeneous hidden conditional random field, a new integrated array-CGH analysis method for jointly classifying tumors, inferring copy numbers and identifying clinically relevant positions in recurrent alteration regions. By capturing the sequentiality as well as the locality of changes, our integrated model provides better noise reduction, and achieves more relevant gene retrieval and more accurate classification than existing methods. We provide an efficient L1-regularized discriminative training algorithm, which notably selects a small set of candidate genes most likely to be clinically relevant and driving the recurrent amplicons of importance. Our method thus provides unbiased starting points in deciding which genomic regions and which genes in particular to pursue for further examination. Our experiments on synthetic data and real genomic cancer prediction data show that our method is superior, both in prediction accuracy and relevant feature discovery, to existing methods. We also demonstrate that it can be used to generate novel biological hypotheses for breast cancer. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


This paper describes research activities at FX Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) in the area of multimedia browsing, search, and retrieval. We first consider interfaces for organization and management of personal photo collections. We then survey our work on interactive video search and retrieval. Throughout we discuss the evolution of both the research challenges in these areas and our proposed solutions.


BEACH, CLIFTON BAILEY (16 Sept. 1845-15 Nov. 1902) Congressman and businessman, was born in Sharon, Medina County, the son of Israel Bailey and Emily C. (Wiggin) Beach. He moved with his parents to Cleveland in 1857, attending public schools and Western Reserve College in Hudson where he graduated in 1871. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1872 and practiced with several firms until 1884, when he joined the partnership of Terrill, Beach & Cushing. He also became president of the H. P. Nail Co. which was organized by his father-in-law HENRY CHISHOLM in 1877 to produce wire, nails, staples, and rods. Beach also served two terms as congressman from Cleveland's 20th district (4 Mar.1895-3 Mar. 1899); he was not a candidate for renomination in 1898. After living in Cleveland for many years, Beach purchased a 427-acre estate along the lake shore in 1888 from George Merwin and ex-Ohio governor Reuben Wood where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1897, Beach donated land to Rockport Township for an elementary school which was named Beach School. The Beach Cliff area of ROCKY RIVER originally was part of his property. The Rocky River Clock Tower at Avalon Dr. and Lake Rd. was rebuilt and rededicated in 1987; built in 1912, it had been the ornamental entrance marker for the Beach estate. Beach married Janet Chisholm 15 Oct. 1873, and they had a son Chisholm. After her death 21 Sept. 1890, he married Adelaide Thow of St. Louis. Beach died at his home in ROCKY RIVER and was buried at LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.


Abstract This qualitative multi-case study explored four young leaders' idiosyncratic leadership styles manifested within the context of their classrooms (toddler and preschool). In order to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and variety of early childhood leadership and provide holistic descriptions of young leaders' emerging leadership behaviors, the data were collected through teacher interviews and two kinds of observations (natural observations and videotaped observations) in a university-affiliated child care center. Although there were some common characteristics across all four young leaders, each of the young leaders was quite unique in his or her leadership characteristics and ways of enacting leadership in the classroom. Interestingly, each of them also was quite powerful in his or her particular way. Findings also suggested that differences in age group and classroom dynamics influenced children's enactment of leadership and responses from others in their respective classrooms. Recognizing individual differences in young children's leadership styles and strengths, this study encourages educators and researchers to broaden their perspectives and assumptions about early childhood leadership and young leaders, and to create classroom environments that support the emergence of different leadership styles.


Introduction The advance of austerity has produced an environment in which mental health services are increasingly under threat (Coxon, 2015). Austerity is but the latest phase of a project of state restructuring which has rendered all public services as vulnerable to cuts, marketisation and privatisation. The consequences are felt not only by service users, but public service professionals and workers whose dayto-day delivery of services made subject to the neoliberal values of competition, private ownership, and individual responsibility (Heywood, 2012, Harvey, 2005), runs contrary not only to their professional values, but also risks their own personal integrity and thereby wellbeing. By 'reclaiming radicalism' public service professionals in general, and mental health nurses in particular, can indeed 'promote our own form of positivity, anti-cynicism and belief in ourselves' (Coxon, 2015: 15) by developing new forms of practice based in radical ideas and alternative values. The outcome will not only be to empower service users, but also service providers who by practising what they believe to be right as well as what they believe to be effective can move beyond the 'bad faith' that can characterise supposedly 'good practice'. In this article, we will present and reflect upon one such new practice: nonviolent resistance (NVR) with parents and carers of adolescents displaying controlling and self-destructive behaviours. We will locate NVR within a sociopolitical and theoretical context and consider its application in relation to an NVR group in the field of substance misuse. We will also reflect on its implications for mental health nurses wishing to break from their conservative image and traditions (Barker and Buchanan-Barker, 2011).


Introducing interactive techniques of teaching in medical education can promote learner participation and, as a result, can lead to a higher level of learning. This article assesses the effectiveness of interactive learning technique. The present study was conducted on 300 first professional medical students of two consecutive batches, each of 150 students, with an aim to evaluate the impact of "Workshop" on their performances in Physiology. Students of both the batches were divided into three groups of 50 students each. All the groups were exposed to a workshop of two hours held once a week for ten weeks under the guidance of a facilitator. Their performance in Physiology was then assessed by subsequently held pre-professional theory examination. To evaluate the impact of workshop, their individual performances in terms of marks obtained as well as performance of the batch in terms of number of students passed in pre-professional examination were compared with that in the semester examination, held before conduction of the workshops. Outcome analysis of both the batches revealed that not only the performance of the batch but also the individual performances of the students were significantly higher in pre-professional examination than that in semester examination. This revealed the positive impact of workshop on the acquisition of knowledge by the students, their retention of the topic and their motivation towards self-directed learning.This study may help facilitators encourage more of student-centered learning activities in their curriculum to fulfill the goals of outcome based education focused towards students becoming lifelong learners.


[1] This study reports an atmospheric methane (CH4) source term previously uncharacterized regarding strength and isotopic composition. Methane emissions from 14 Siberian lakes and 9 Alaskan lakes were characterized using stable isotopes (13C and D) and radiocarbon (14C) analyses. We classified ebullition (bubbling) into three categories (background, point sources, and hot spots) on the basis of fluxes, major gas concentrations, and isotopic composition. Point sources and hot spots had a strong association with thermokarst (thaw) erosion because permafrost degradation along lake margins releases ancient organic matter into anaerobic lake bottoms, fueling methanogenesis. With increasing ebullition rate, we observed increasing CH4 concentration of greater radiocarbon age, depletion of 13CCH4, and decreasing bubble N2 content. Microbial oxidation of methane was observed in bubbles that became trapped below and later within winter lake ice; however, oxidation appeared insignificant in bubbles sampled immediately after release from sediments. Methanogenic pathways differed among the bubble sources: CO2 reduction supported point source and hot spot ebullition to a large degree, while acetate fermentation appeared to contribute to background bubbling. To provide annual whole-lake and regional CH4 isofluxes for the Siberian lakes, we combined maps of bubble source distributions with long-term, continuous flux measurements and isotopic composition. In contrast to typical values used in inverse models of atmospheric CH4 for northern wetland sources (δ13CCH4 = −58‰, 14C age modern), which have not included northern lake ebullition as a source, we show that this large, new source of high-latitude CH4 from lakes is isotopically distinct (δ13CCH4 = −70‰, 14C age 16,500 years, for North Siberian lakes).


The major concentration of blackbirds and Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in North America occurs in the southeastern United States where an estimated 350 million Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), Common Grackles (Quiscalus quiscula), Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater), and Starlings congregate in winter roosts (Meanley 1971, 1975, 1977). An estimated 75-100 major (containing >1 million birds) roosts form in the southeastern states each year. Increasing attention is being given to many of these roosts because of nuisance problems, reputed health hazards, and agricultural damage associated with them. Although considerable effort has been directed toward developing methods for reducing roosting populations (Lefebvre and Seubert 1970), field applications of such methods have met with considerable public opposition (Graham 1976). Unfortunately, little effort has been directed to ecological studies of the various roosting species during the winter months. The objectives of this study were: (1) to document food habits, habitat preferences and use, and general feeding and roosting behavior of the various blackbird species and Starlings using a large winter roost; and (2) to undertake a preliminary survey of the impact that this large roosting population has on agriculture within a 40 km foraging radius of the roost.


We present CAREY, an alert system notification for regions in state of emergency. CAREY implements the mediator-wrapper architecture on top of the Geospatial Web to visualize risky regions in terms of their weather conditions. We illustrate the formalization of the problem of detecting risky regions as a two-fold problem that relies on annotations of sensor data with the ontology of Observations and Measurements (O&M) to enhance state-of-the-art data mining and ranking techniques. First, sensor observations are clustered according to their Geospatial information then, proximate regions are clustered into micro-climate areas in terms of the similarity of their weather conditions. Finally, Top-k Skyline techniques are used to identify the top-k areas that best meet criteria of risk among the areas that are incomparable with respect to this condition. We demonstrate the capabilities of CAREY.


Mainstream captioning models often follow a sequential structure to generate captions, leading to issues such as introduction of irrelevant semantics, lack of diversity in the generated captions, and inadequate generalization performance. In this paper, we present an alternative paradigm for image captioning, which factorizes the captioning procedure into two stages: (1) extracting an explicit semantic representation from the given image; and (2) constructing the caption based on a recursive compositional procedure in a bottom-up manner. Compared to conventional ones, our paradigm better preserves the semantic content through an explicit factorization of semantics and syntax. By using the compositional generation procedure, caption construction follows a recursive structure, which naturally fits the properties of human language. Moreover, the proposed compositional procedure requires less data to train, generalizes better, and yields more diverse captions.


One of the most exciting developments in recent literary studies bases interpretation on a new understanding of bodily aspects of text. The method employed here views the body as a text to be read. Though the approaches of these essays are widely varied, three concerns figure and refigure themselves throughout the book: the gendered body and the copied book as locus of pain, pleasure, and desire. They will be of immense interest to medievalists and other scholars of language, philosophy, history, art history, and gender studies.


People are often reluctant to make decisions by calculating the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action in particular cases. Knowing, in addition, that they may err, people and institutions often resort to second order strategies for reducing the burdens of, and risk of error in, first order decisions. They make a second order decision when they choose one from among such possible strategies. They adopt rules or presumptions; they create standards; they delegate authority to others; they take small steps; they pick rather than choose. Some of these strategies impose high costs before decision but low costs at the time of ultimate decision; others impose low costs both before and at the time of ultimate decision; still others impose low costs before decision while exporting to others the high costs at the time of decision. We assess these second-order strategies and provide grounds for choosing among them in both legal and nonlegal contexts, by exploring the extent to which they minimize the overall costs of decision and costs of error. We also attempt to cast light on political, legal, and ethical issues raised by second-order decisions.


This article adopts a human rights lens to consider Australian law and practice regarding elective abortion. As such, it considers Australian laws within the context of the right to equality, right to privacy, right to health, and right to life. After setting out the human rights framework and noting the connected nature of many of the rights (and their corresponding violations), the article shifts its focus to analyzing Australian law and practice within the framework of these rights. It considers the importance of decriminalizing abortion and regulating it as a standard medical procedure. It discusses the need to remove legal and practical restrictions on access to abortion, including financial obstacles and anti-abortion protestors. Further, it comments on the importance of facilitating access; for example, by keeping accurate health data, securing continuity of health care, increasing the availability of medical abortion, and ensuring appropriate care is provided to the most marginalized and vulnerable women.


Detailed simulations of the gamma-ray sky played an important role before the launch of Fermi. Pre-launch simulation campaigns aided the development of new analysis tools and the assessment of the expected Fermi-LAT science performance. After four years of the Fermi mission in orbit, improved sky simulations can still be very useful to support the activities of Fermi, to refine our understanding of the scientific performance and to explore potential new science cases. We have used the LAT observations collected so far to develop new, highly-detailed simulations of the sky as seen by LAT. These simulations include the isotropic and Galactic diffuse emission, as well as the list of point and extended sources detected by the LAT. Furthermore, our sky simulations account for transient and variable sources, including Gamma Ray Bursts, pulsars and flaring blazars. We report on the latest developments of this new sky simulation work, describing its potential benefits for improving the science of Fermi today and in the near future.


Middleboxes play a major role in contemporary networks, as forwarding packets is often not enough to meet operator demands, and other functionalities (such as security, QoS/QoE provisioning, and load balancing) are required. Traffic is usually routed through a sequence of such middleboxes, which either reside across the network or in a single, consolidated location. Although middleboxes provide a vast range of different capabilities, there are components that are shared among many of them. A task common to almost all middleboxes that deal with L7 protocols is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). Today, traffic is inspected from scratch by all the middleboxes on its route. In this paper, we propose to treat DPI as a service to the middleboxes, implying that traffic should be scanned only once, but against the data of all middleboxes that use the service. The DPI service then passes the scan results to the appropriate middleboxes. Having DPI as a service has significant advantages in performance, scalability, robustness, and as a catalyst for innovation in the middlebox domain. Moreover, technologies and solutions for current Software Defined Networks (SDN) (e.g., SIMPLE [41]) make it feasible to implement such a service and route traffic to and from its instances.


When a glare beam enters the eye as a tiny pencil of light, we perceive the corneal scatter subjectively as a faint luminous veil, which is bordered by the screening effect of the iris.Measurements of the luminance decrease at this shadow border indicated that the corneal share in entoptic scatter makes up some 30% between 30° and 70° angle of glare.


Background The risk of subsequent infections in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who receive biologic therapy after a serious infection is unclear. Objective To compare the subsequent risk of hospitalised infections associated with specific biologic agents among RA patients previously hospitalised for infection while receiving anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy. Methods Using 2006–2010 Medicare data for 100% of beneficiaries with RA enrolled in Medicare, we identified patients hospitalised with an infection while on anti-TNF agents. Follow-up began 61 days after hospital discharge and ended at the earliest of: next infection, loss of Medicare coverage or 18 months after start of follow-up. We calculated the incidence rate of subsequent hospitalised infection for each biologic and used Cox regression to control for potential confounders. Results 10 794 eligible hospitalised infections among 10183 unique RA patients who contributed at least 1 day of biologic exposure during follow-up. We identified 7807 person-years of exposure to selected biologics—333 abatacept, 133 rituximab and 7341 anti-TNFs (1797 etanercept, 1405 adalimumab, 4139 infliximab)—and 2666 associated infections. Mean age across biologic exposure cohorts was 64–69 years. The crude incidence rate of subsequent hospitalised infection ranged from 27.1 to 34.6 per 100 person-years. After multivariable adjustment, abatacept (HR: 0.80, 95% CI 0.64 to 0.99) and etanercept (HR: 0.83, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.96) users had significantly lower risks of subsequent infection compared to infliximab users. Conclusions Among RA patients who experienced a hospitalised infection while on anti-TNF therapy, abatacept and etanercept were associated with the lowest risk of subsequent infection compared to other biologic therapies.


Evolutionary Computation (EC) has been an active research area for over 60 years, yet its commercial/home uptake has not been as prolific as we might have expected. By way of comparison, technologies such as 3D printing, which was introduced about 35 years ago, has seen much wider uptake, to the extent that it is now available to home users and is routinely used in manufacturing. Other technologies, such as immersive reality and artificial intelligence have also seen commercial uptake and acceptance by the general public. In this paper we provide a brief history of EC, recognizing the significant contributions that have been made by its pioneers. We focus on two methodologies (Genetic Programming and Hyper-heuristics), which have been proposed as being suitable for automated software development, and question why they are not used more widely by those outside of the academic community. We suggest that different research strands need to be brought together into one framework before wider uptake is possible. We hope that this position paper will serve as a catalyst for automated software development that is used on a daily basis by both companies and home users.


For every gallon of ink that has been spilt on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its consequences, only one very small drop has been spent on the study of the forced migration of black Africans into the Mediterranean world of Islam. From the ninth to the early twentieth century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. Yet their story has not yet been told. This book provides an introduction to this "other" slave trade, and to the Islamic cultural context within which it took place, as well as the effect this context had on those who were its victims. After an introductory essay, there are sections on Basic Texts (Qur'an and Hadith), Some Muslim Views on Slavery, Slavery and the Law, Perceptions of Africans in Some Arabic and Turkish Writings, Slave Capture, the Middle Passage, Slave Markets, Eunuchs and Concubines, Domestic Service, Military Service, Religion and Community, Freedom and Post-Slavery, and the Abolition of Slavery. A concluding segment provides a first-person account of the capture, transportation, and service in a Saharan oasis by a West African male, as related to a French official in the 1930s.


A pragmatic theory of the approximate vs. precise interpretation of round number words such as one hundred vs. ninety-seven is developed that improves on the previous account of Krifka (2002) insofar as it does not postulate a general bias for approximate interpretations. It is shown that under a speaker preference for number expressions that are short and/or refer to cognitively salient values on scales, approximate interpretations are favored for these expressions even if there is no general bias for them. Also, it is shown that there is a general tendency for values on coarse-grained scales to be denoted by shorter expressions, which can be seen as evidence of optimization of language. Finally, evidence is discussed that speakers may preferentially select those messages for which an ecomomic code is available.


The thermal management of microelectronic using liquid cooling technique has been effective from the research community across the globe In this work we have been used rectangular micro channels in different manifold arrangements i.e in rectangular manifolds and rectangular manifold with semi-circular arrangements. Three different heat inputs 100 W,200 W and 300W applied in rectangular micro channels in different manifold arrangements. The rectangular micro channels were made of aluminium 6061. Assembly of aluminium test pieces and acrylic cover plate is made with the help of tightening screws. Thermocouples are inserted in the top surface of inlet & outlet adapters. These thermocouples further attached to the temperature indicator and data acquisition system to provide the actual value of temperature at that position..So As the reynold number increases by applying different heat inputs the nusselt number also increases. Also find out the friction drop in micro channels at different manifold arrangements. After experimental investigation it has been found that Heat transfer through rectangle with semicircle manifold is higher than the rectangular manifold arrangements. Heat transfer coefficient also increases as the reynold number increases. Heat transfer coefficient is higher in in rectangle with semicircle manifold arrangement compared to rectangular manifold arrangement. Thermal performance of rectangle with semicircle manifold arrangement slightly better than the rectangular manifold arrangements.


In both the industrialized and developing worlds, a distinctive feature of the last two decades has been prolonged buildups and sharp collapses in asset markets such as stock, housing, and exchange markets. The volatility has sparked intense debate in academic and policy circles over the appropriate monetary and regulatory response to dramatic market shifts. This book examines asset price bubbles to further our understanding of the causes and implications of financial instability, focusing on the potential of central banks and regulatory agencies to prevent it. The book grew out of a conference jointly sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the World Bank Group in April 2002.


In this paper a closed-loop substrate feed control for agricultural biogas plants is proposed. In this case, multi-objective nonlinear model predictive control is used to control composition and amount of substrate feed to optimise the economic feasibility of a biogas plant whilst assuring process stability. The control algorithm relies on a detailed biogas plant simulation model using the Anaerobic
Digestion Model No. 1. The optimal control problem is solved using the state-of-the-art multi-objective optimization method SMS-EGO. Control performance is evaluated by means of a set point tracking problem in a noisy environment.
Results show, that the proposed control scheme is able to keep the produced electrical energy close to a set point with an RMSE of 0.9 %, thus maintaining optimal biogas plant operation.


This paper focuses on the hegemonic politics between the Eggon and Hausa/Fulani ethnic groups in Nasarawa, North-Central Nigeria, which eventually erupted into the Ombatse crisis of May 2013a precursor to the 2015 general elections. It addresses four research questions seeking to unravel whether or not: (1a) the crisis truly reflects a spiritual revivalist agenda as projected by the Ombatse promoters or merely espouses Eggon rejection of MuslimHausa/Fulani ethnic hegemonymirroring broadly the identity, hegemonic and exclusionary politics in the area cum the larger Nigerian society;(b) the Eggon-Hausa-Fulani feud has the potential to exacerbate the sectarian strife in Nigeria's northern region and therefore deepen the polarization among Nigeria's disparate social groups-thereby threaten the consolidation of Nigeria's young democracy; (2) there are any institutional safeguards in place to forestall the promotion of discriminatory tendencies in the politics of the state;(3) there is the likelihood of the tendencies in the Nasarawa politics nudging the state into violence after the 2015 elections; and (4) there are viable solutions available to address the potentially violate situation. Methodologically, using both primary and secondary sourcesinterviews and works of scholars, and media reports on the crisis, the study came up with the following findings: (1) the Ombatse crisis is not a religious-puritanical cause, but fits into the themes of identity conflict, hegemonic and exclusionary politics; (2)the election outcome still reflected the deep divisions and polarization among Nigeria's disparate social groupsprojecting Nigeria yet as a deeply-divided society; (3) contrary to the pre-election anxiety, there were no violence during and after the elections-owing essentially to the moderating presence in Nigeria during the 2015 election of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who threatened to prosecute person(s) or group(s) that perpetrate violence in the course of the election; (4)Nasarawa politics lacks any 'institutional safeguards to prevent the emergence of conditions in which divisions within the society gain a salient discriminatory dimension and eventually facilitate the rise of violence as a means to realize group interest'. The study suggests six recommendations that can promote the solution of the potentially violate situation; importantly, evolving a well-defined power-sharing framework, which aims at rotating such political offices among the ethnic groups for a better inter-group relations, implementing past recommendations of commission of inquiries and having the presence of the ICC during elections.


"GIVE IT ALL UP AND FOLLOW YOUR LORD": MORMON FEMALE RELIGIOUSITY, 1831-1843 Janiece Lyn Johnson Department of History Master of Arts Since the 1750s American women have flocked to churches. Women have consistently been the majority in church populations. Religion was the central motivation of the female life experience. Likewise, women comprised a significant portion of the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its first decade. There exists little historical analysis of the contribution and experience of these women as a whole. As a result of this lack of research some historians have made erroneous assumptions of patriarchal oppression and a lack of commitment on the part of early Mormon women. This project closely examines the religious experience of these earliest Mormon women through the documentary editing of nineteen letters written between 1831 and 1843. The women come from a variety of life experiences notwithstanding consistent membership in The Church of Jesus Christ. They come from a distinct geographical base, a wide span of education, are married and single, and vary in age from twenty to sixty-four years old. Despite these differences, they demonstrate a continuity of religious commitment and dedication. Three themes dominate their correspondence: spiritual knowledge, bearing witness, and sacrifice. They exhibit knowledge of the existence of God as a Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ as Savior of the world, and Joseph Smith, Jr. as God's direct mouthpiece. They repeatedly and unabashedly testify of these truths to their relations not yet acquainted with Joseph Smith and his message and admonish them to know truth for themselves. To husbands and soon-to-be husbands already believers in Smith's message the women demonstrate the application of these beliefs in their lives and a consistent faith. This knowledge and devotion creates a high level of commitment which leads them to follow Smith over thousands of miles and through fires of persecution. They willingly sacrificed whatever they felt that God required of them. Conviction was explicitly demonstrated through their personal writings proffering an intimate glimpse of a unique religion and belief as the motivation of these women. In religion they found a degree of autonomy to define themselves not readily available in other areas of their lives, they knew Joseph Smith to be a modem prophet with the sure word of the Lord to them. The claim to direct revelation from God was singular. Their conviction to it was sure enough to enable their adherence to this persecuted prophet, belief in new doctrine, and the church which Smith established rather than fulfilling their religious desires through the mainstream religions of the day.


Many amputees have maps of referred sensation from their missing hand on their residual limb (phantom maps). This skin area can serve as a target for providing amputees with tactile sensory feedback. Providing tactile feedback on the phantom map can improve the object manipulation ability, enhance embodiment of myoelectric prostheses users and help reduce phantom limb pain. The distribution of the phantom map varies with the individual. Here, we investigate a fast and accurate method for hand phantom map shape detection. We present three elementary (group testing, adaptive edge finding and support vector machines (SVM)) and two combined methods (SVM with majority-pooling and SVM with active learning) tested with different types of phantom map models and compare the classification error rates. The results show that SVM with majority-pooling has the smallest classification error rate.


The Fermi Large Area Telescope has detected an extended region of GeV emission toward the Galactic Center that is currently thought to be powered by dark matter annihilation or a population of young and/or millisecond pulsars. In a test of the pulsar hypothesis, we have carried out an initial search of a 20 deg**2 area centered on the peak of the galactic center GeV excess. Candidate pulsars were identified as a compact, steep spectrum continuum radio source on interferometric images and followed with targeted single-dish pulsation searches. We report the discovery of the recycled pulsar PSR 1751-2737 with a spin period of 2.23 ms. PSR 1751-2737 appears to be an isolated recycled pulsar located within the disk of our Galaxy, and it is not part of the putative bulge population of pulsars that are thought to be responsible for the excess GeV emission. However, our initial success in this small pilot survey suggests that this hybrid method (i.e. wide-field interferometric imaging followed up with single dish pulsation searches) may be an efficient alternative strategy for testing whether a putative bulge population of pulsars is responsible for the GeV excess.


Random experiments could allow the government to test tax policies before enactment into general law. Such experiments can be revenue-neutral, with the tax authority ensuring ex post that average tax revenues received from taxpayers in the treatment and control groups are equal. Taxpayers might thus volunteer even for experiments that would broaden the tax base, for example by eliminating deductions. Continued participation by taxpayers in such experiments would indicate that the proposed reforms are efficient at least if externalities are disregarded. Non-revenue-neutral experiments raise greater concerns about horizontal inequity, but may be helpful in addressing questions about effects of tax rates and in increasing participation. <br>


The magnitude and nature of the problem of alcohol and road accidents in Great Britain has been monitored through special returns of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in fatalities, through routine reporting of positive screening (breath) tests recorded by the police for drivers involved in injury accidents, and through records of offences related to motor vehicles. The involvement of different road users is considered. Recent epidemiological studies are outlined, which give a new insight (albeit limited) into drinking habits and characteristics of offenders, and report on the role of drinking pedestrians in accidents. Although there is some evidence that the acceleration of the drink/driving problem has been checked, alcohol remains a major factor in the occurrence of road accidents. The data presented reinforce the need to strengthen legislation to deal with drinking and driving, including publicity to all road users, and to continue with supporting research activities to identify more effective countermeasures. (TRRL)


Novel H1N1 influenza is a new influenza stain that has not been seen before. Most cases are mild and self-limiting. However, there are individuals at high risk of complicated illness and there are cases of rapidly progressive disease in previously healthy individuals. Depending on the severity of the H1N1 influenza infection, antiviral medication may be indicated, possibly with antibiotics or other required
therapy. Influenza vaccination is the most important tool in the prevention of influenza. Pneumococcal vaccination should be encouraged for those individuals at increased risk of pneumococcal infection. Antiviral postexposure prophylaxis may be considered for high-risk individuals with close contact of a confirmed or suspected case of pandemic H1N1 influenza. However, an alternative of early recognition
of influenza and rapid treatment may be suitable depending on the specific situation.


The aim of the present study is to examine the semantic Loss and its causes in two English translations of Surah Ya-Sin by two translators: Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Arthur John Arberry. Semantic loss focuses on over-translation, under-translation or mistranslation of a source text and can result in partial or complete loss of meaning in the target text. Semantic loss is inevitable while translating from a source language due to the lack of equivalence of some cultural words in the target language. Baker's typology of equivalence (1992) was adopted to identify causes of losses in the two English translations: Equivalence at word level, above word level, Textual, Grammatical and Pragmatic Equivalence. This research is qualitative in nature and is based on Hermeneutics, an interpretative framework of translation studies. The English translations of Surah Ya-Sin were selected from Abdullah Yusuf Ali's work "The Holy Qur'an: Text and Translation" (1938) and Arthur John Arberry's "The Koran Interpreted" (1968). Two language experts were consulted for the present study to understand the meanings of the source text. Moreover Tafsir by Ibn Khathir (2000) was used as a reference book. The analysis of the data revealed frequent partial loss of meaning in Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation and complete loss of meaning in Arthur John Arberry's translation. Linguistic deviation from the source text was identified as one of the major causes of such losses.


In Europe and the USA there is a growing awareness of the wider benefits of supporting the built heritage directly through the public purse. This paper concentrates on an aspect of research conducted in recent years in the United Kingdom regarding the dynamic benefits of conservation. In the findings of the joint study of the Department of National Heritage, English Heritage and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors ( The Value of Conservation: 1996) the absence of case studies to provide evidence of the benefits of' pump-priming' historic areas was recognised and the need to identify the benefits of such action was highlighted. This has further support from the Council of Europe's document Funding the Architectural Heritage (1991) which refers to the importance of monitoring the running, management and re-use of heritage assets. Moreover, examination of case studies allows the opportunity to consider whether investment is able to improve the economic and social performance of an area. In this paper a comparison will be made of selected exemplar projects in Europe and the USA. Some of the acknowledged direct and indirect benefits of urban conservation strategies are examined. The benefits of co-ordinated partnership action to revitalise historic centres are considered in light of the Council of Europe Helsinki Declaration (1996) in which it was acknowledged that the sustaining of the cultural heritage should be a principle established for combined action in which both public and private operators have a responsibility to assist.


Firm size and book-to-market ratios are both highly correlated with the returns of common stocks. Fama and French (1993) have argued that the association between these firm characteristics and their stock returns arises because size and book-to-market ratios are proxies for non-diversifiable factor risk. In contrast, the evidence in this paper indicates that the return premia on small capitalization and high book-to-market stocks does not arise because of the co-movements of these stocks with pervasive factors. It is the firm characteristics and not the covariance structure of returns that explain the cross-sectional variation in stock returns.


This study examines the ways in which freshmen regulate their privacy via contact-seeking and contact-avoiding behaviors in residence halls. The survey was conducted at an American university in the Midwest (n=200) and at a Turkish university in Ankara, Turkey (n=208). The results revealed that students who can regulate their privacy display better adjustment to college life. The use of passive contact-seeking behaviors was common for the American students. The perceived degree of individual adjustment suggests that American university setting may not be well-suited to serving students' social needs. Turkish students appear to develop much more favorable social networks and they seem to accomplish this via more proactive social behaviors. Practical applications of the findings are discussed and future research areas are also identified. ********** Privacy regulation is an optimizing process in which individuals are motivated to achieve their desired levels of privacy (Altman, 1975). Although the desire for privacy varies from one situation to another, it appears that some cultures have a stronger preference for privacy and more privacy needs and gradients than others (Altman and Chemers, 1980). Hall (1966) proposes cultures as contact and non-contact. The contact culture is composed of individuals (e.g., Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Hispanic) who interact more closely with one another than individuals of the non-contact culture (e.g., Northern European, North American). Hall (1966) uses the term American to refer to the dominant non-contact group of Americans of Northern European ancestry. According to Hall's classification of cultures, individuals from contact cultures who prefer closer social interaction would have less privacy needs than non-contact cultures. The privacy regulation model proposed by Altman (1975) defines privacy as a dialectic process that involves both the opening and closing of the self to others. When an individual's achieved privacy equals what he/she desires, an optimum state of privacy occurs. The individual experiences a sense of solitude when he/she wants to be alone or a sense of connection when he/she wants to be with others. However, when the achieved privacy level is greater than the desired privacy level, an individual feels isolated. On the other hand, if the achieved privacy level is less than the desired privacy level, an individual feels crowded. When these two levels are disparate, attempts will be made to resolve the discrepancy. In each case, an individual employs behavioral mechanisms to either gain social contact or avoid social interaction with others. In a study of first year college students living in residence halls, Vinsel et al. (1980) found that students who use a variety of contact-seeking or contact-avoiding behaviors to regulate their privacy are less likely to drop out of school by the end of the second year. Thus, the effective usage of behavioral mechanisms was associated with better adjustment at a university. Further, Harris et al. (1996) explored the relationship between privacy regulation and place attachment in the home. When privacy regulation is facilitated, family functioning and feelings of control are enhanced, which in turn increases the feelings of attachment to the home. During the transition from high school to college, many students face challenges in social, academic, and personal adjustment (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). Important elements of social adjustment include becoming integrated into the social life of college, managing new social freedoms and forming a social network, as well as receiving emotional support and having a sense of competence (Janosik et al., 1988). Several studies recognized the potential influences of separation from parents on personal and social adjustment (Gerdes and Mallinckrodt, 1994; Holmbeck and Leake, 1999; Wintre and Yaffe, 2000), because separation-individuation issues are particularly relevant during the first year of college (Berman and Sperling, 1991). …


Historically, political discussions in the United States have been laced with phrases such as "the solid South," "the Bible belt," and "the industrial Northeast." The ongoing use of these and similar phrases implies a widespread recognition that there are regional patterns of political behavior. To date, studies examining regional effects on voting behavior have been confined to state level data and broad regional definitions such as "the South," which hide intrastate variation and obscure regional effects that cross state boundaries. Regional differentials in voting behavior are also apparent in other nations, including Mexico. This paper focuses on U.S. presidential voting behavior in the region surrounding the border with Mexico. Its purpose is to determine whether there is a border effect on voting that goes beyond any economic or social peculiarities of the border region. Three basic questions are asked: (1) Is there a statistically significant difference between border and nonborder voting behavior, after controlling for differences in demographic, social, and economic variables? (2) If there is such a border influence, does it extend beyond the immediate border region? (3) Are differences in border voting behavior consistent across elections? Hypotheses based on these questions are tested using economic, social, and presidential voting data from 1992 and 1996. The units of observation include the 360 counties of the four border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The paper provides an overview of border voting patterns, which is followed by a review of the literature on statistical and econometric models of presidential voting patterns. This literature review provides the basis for the third section in which a model is specified to allow statistical tests of various hypotheses regarding presidential voting patterns. Finally, the results are presented and conclusions drawn.


Purpose of the article: This article deals with analysis of corporate culture by using an example of selected university department in Slovak republic. The corporate culture is very strong and powerful motivational (or de-motivational) factor. The situation in the company, the quality and quantity of work performance are direct influenced through the culture (regardless the branch, size or type of the company).
Methodology/methods: In this paper we use the data gained from sociological research at selected university department (19 employees of the department, which represents 76 % of all staff). The questionnaire with 44 statements has been created to identify the type of corporate culture in the university department. We use the Likert scale ("strong agreement" – "agreement" – "disagreement" – "strong disagreement") with no middle value ("I don't know" or "doesn't matter") to gain the exact data about the attitude of respondents to statements.
Scientific aim: The scientific aim of this article is to analyse and to identify the type and position of corporate culture in selected university department in Slovak republic and to detect the most noticeable characteristics of the culture as the potential base for improvements.
Findings: The analysis of data revealed two types of the culture regarding the typology: following the Trompenaars typology: the Eiffel tower culture; following the Goffee and Jones typology: the networked type of the culture.
Conclusions: It's almost impossible to identify only one type of the culture in the department. We detected very small differences among the types of culture within each typology. The most important findings: the culture in the department is hierarchical and toward tasks oriented, with low level of solidarity, there is no strong leader of the department with right core values, there are mostly reason-based relationships among the employees. The analysis of the culture is the base for the next improvements.


This paper reports the development of a compact double-pulse laser system to enhance laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for field applications. Pumped by high-power vertical-surface emitting lasers, the laser system that produces 16 ns pulse at 12 mJ/pulse with total weight less than 10 kg is developed. The inter-pulse delay can be adjusted from 0μs with 0.5μs increment. Several LIBS experiments were carried out on NIST standard aluminum alloy samples. Comparing with the single-pulse LIBS, up to 9 times enhancement in atomic emission line was achieved with continuum background emission reduced by 70%. This has led to up to 10 times improvement in the limit of detection. Signal stability was also improved by 128% indicating that a more robust and accurate LIBS measurement can be achieved using a compact double-pulse laser system. This paper presents a viable and field deployable laser tool to dramatically improve the sensitivity and applicability of LIBS for a wide array of applications.


Objectives: In Palestine, there are no data about the prevalence of oral lesions or their associated risk factors. Thus, this study came to assess the prevalence and the risk factors of oral lesions among adult dental patients visiting Al-Quds University (AQU) Dental Clinics. Materials and Methods: Three hundred Twenty patients were diagnosed clinically for the presence of oral lesions at oral medicine clinics at Al-Quds University in the period between 2015 to 2016. Their age ranged from 21 to 60 years old (mean age: 40.2 ± 17.6). Senior students were trained to conduct the oral exam under the direct supervision of Oral Medicine specialist. Trained students also collected data on patients' demographics, dental history, medical history and other health related habits. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were generated to describe lesions prevalence and associations with other suggested factors. Results: A total of 68 lesions were found in this study (29.4% of study's sample). Recurrent aphthous ulcer, traumatic ulcer and geographic tongue were the most common oral lesions. Ten oral potentially malignant lesions were diagnosed (8 cases were Leukoplakia, 2 cases were erythroplakia). Non filtered smoking cigarettes were associated with reported lesions. Oral lesions were noticed to increase with age. Oral lesions were more common on the Tongue, labial and buccal mucosain this study. Conclusions: This study revealed high prevalence of apthous and traumatic ulcer while potentially malignant lesions like leucoplakia and erythroplakia were also seen in patients who were smokers. Dentists should have a high level of awareness during oral examination and intervention should be performed to raise awareness among the population about the harmful effects of smoking on oral health.


"The Emperor's New Critique" reads Hans Christian Andersen's famous 1837 tale as critiquing constitutional monarchy's endemic disarray and satirizing its opponents. If, as theorists from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Derrida have noted, the tale's truth is the fantasy-desire for the kind of truth that can be revealed, what happens when what is revealed is not naked power but a weak ruler? Does the public really want transparent government? Like Hamlet's father's ghostly whispering, like Dupin's Queen's purloined love letter, like the prophecy whispered to Laius and Jocasta, the weavers' description of beautiful cloth has the power to topple a king. To those who listen to such fabrications, the words are material and "true." They sell a particular idea that the king has something to be embarrassed about. Disgraceful revelation is the basis for all four stories, each of which is resolved by an act of discovering, recovering, uncovering, or covering up.


Abstract : The world wide web represents vast stores of information. However, the sheer amount of such information makes it practically impossible for any human user to be aware of much of it. Therefore, it would be very helpful to have a system that automatically discovers relevant, yet previously unknown information, and reports it to users in human-readable form. As the first attempt to accomplish such a goal, we proposed a new clustering algorithm and compared it with existing clustering algorithms. The proposed method is motivated by constructive and competitive learning from neural network research. In the construction phase, it tries to find the optimal number of clusters by adding a new cluster when the intrinsic difference between the instance presented and the existing clusters is detected. Each cluster then moves toward the optimal cluster center according to the learning rate by adjusting its weight vector. From the experimental results on the three different real world data sets, the proposed method shows an even trend of performance across the different domains, while the performance of our algorithm on text domains was better than that reported in previous research.


The study was carried out to appraise tomato value chain in order to promote the development of tomato production and processing industry in Nigeria. Currently in Nigeria, about 1.8 Million tonnes of fresh tomato are produced per year, but over 50% of these are lost due to poor storage system, poor transportation and lack of processing enterprises. This makes it important to develop strategies for the development of tomato value chain. The method employed in this study includes semi-structured informal interviews with key value chain actors such as producers, intermediate traders, retailers and input suppliers and a critical review of available literature. The study revealed that there are good varieties of tomatoes in Nigeria, but only a few are suitable for industrial processing with regard to quantity and quality. The research also revealed that Nigeria is still not a major exporter of either fresh or processed tomato products despite the high production of fresh tomatoes. This was found to be due to inadequate supply of good quality seeds, inadequate Review Article Ugonna et al.; JSRR, 7(7): 501-515, 2015; Article no.JSRR.2015.231 502 storage facilities, poor disease and pest management, and poor processing facilities. The development of tomato for industrial use is currently gaining momentum, in the area of production of tomato juice, paste, ketchup, puree, and powder. Strategies identified to overcome the challenges include: policy shift to encourage Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as Industries along the value chain; improved input supplies; organisation of farmers into cooperatives so as to initiate innovative funding mechanism for them; establishment of clusters for processors; improvement in marketing strategies including guaranteed price for fresh tomato products; adjustment in tariff regime to favour local manufacturers including outright ban on importation of processed tomato products; increased investments in Research and Development (R&D) to produce improved seed varieties and develop technologies for storage and processing; adoption of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) by farmers and a strong National Commodity Association or Network.


Much recent work in robot learning from demonstration has focused on automatically segmenting continuous task demonstrations into simpler, reusable primitives. However, strong assumptions are often made about how these primitives can be sequenced, limiting the potential for data reuse. We introduce a novel method for discovering semantically grounded primitives and incrementally building and improving a finite-state representation of a task in which various contingencies can arise. Specifically, a Beta Process Autoregressive Hidden Markov Model is used to automatically segment demonstrations into motion categories, which are then further subdivided into semantically grounded states in a finite-state automaton. During replay of the task, a data-driven approach is used to collect additional data where they are most needed through interactive corrections, which are then used to improve the finite-state automaton. Together, this allows for intelligent sequencing of primitives to create novel, adaptive behavior that can be incrementally improved as needed. We demonstrate the utility of this technique on a furniture assembly task using the PR2 mobile manipulator.


The Ilan Plain in northeastern Taiwan is located at a pivotal point where the Ryukyu trench subduction zone, the northern Taiwan crustal stretching zone, and the ongoing arc-continent collision zone converge. In contrast to the North Ilan Plain, the South Ilan Plain exhibits a thin unconsolidated sedimentary layer with depths ranging from 0 - 1 km, high on-land seismicity and significant SE movements relative to Penghu island. We deployed a dense network of 43 short-period vertical component Texan instruments from June to November 2013 in this study, covering most of the South Ilan Plain and its vicinity. We then used the ambient noise tomography method for simultaneous phase and group Rayleigh wave velocity measurements to invert a high-resolution 3-D S-wave for shallow structures (up to a depth of 2.5 km) in the South Ilan Plain. We used the fast marching method for ray tracing to deal with ray bending in an inhomogeneous medium. The resulting rays gradually bend toward high velocity zones with increasing number of iterations. The high velocity zone results are modified by more iterations and the resolutions become higher because ray crossings are proportional to ray densities for evenly distributed stations. The final results agreed well with known sedimentary basement thickness patterns. We observed nearly EW trending fast anomalies beneath the mountainous terrain abutting to the South Ilan Plain. The Chingshui location consistently exhibited a low S-wave velocity zone to a depth of 1.5 km.


We report the results of a nationally-representative sample of the US population during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey ran in two waves from April 1-5, 2020 and May 2-8, 2020. Of those employed pre-COVID-19, we find that about half are now working from home, including 35.2% who report they were commuting and recently switched to working from home. In addition, 10.1% report being laid-off or furloughed since the start of COVID-19. There is a strong negative relationship between the fraction in a state still commuting to work and the fraction working from home. We find that the share of people switching to remote work can be predicted by the incidence of COVID-19 and that younger people were more likely to switch to remote work. Furthermore, states with a higher share of employment in information work including management, professional and related occupations were more likely to shift toward working from home and had fewer people laid off or furloughed. We find no substantial change in results between the two waves, suggesting that most changes to remote work manifested by early April.