Fanconi syndrome is very uncommon in hepatitis B virus infected patients treated with tenofovir. Proximal tubular cells of kidney are particularly sensitive to the toxic effects of tenofovir due to their unique set of cell membrane transporters that favour entry of the drug. A 47-year old male with hepatitis-B virus (HBV) infection presented with sudden onset of weakness of all four limbs, difficulty in walking, myalgia and slurring of speech, polyuriasince past two days. Twelve months before admission, the patient had been initiated on tenofovir 300 mg as treatment for HBV infection.Fanconi syndrome (FS) was diagnosed based on normal anion gap acidosis with hypokalemia, hypophosphatemia, glucosuria, aminoaciduria (Amino acid presence in urine- very high), and proteinuria. This case and the other cases reported to date suggest thattenofovir causes Fanconi syndrome, and that this may become more problematic with more widespread use of the drug. The possibility of irreversible renal damage also suggests that patients given this drug should be followed more closely in the 12- to 18-month period after initiation of tenofovir therapy and should have a urinalysis, serum creatinine, and potassium performed on a regular basis following initiation of therapy. Raising the awareness of clinicians with regard to the potential for this side effect is important so that patients with this side effect can be discovered early and switched to an alternate antiviral therapy.


Public and academic interest in youth and community violence has grown with school shootings, horrific cases of child abuse, and reports of domestic abuse becoming regular news features. Research on interpersonal violence has had a corresponding progression, but there is a tendency by researchers to examine these issues at the individual level, rather than considering the micro- and macro-level causes, correlates, and outcomes for those affected directly and indirectly by violence. Edited by four leading violence researchers, Violence in Context takes the more systemic view, offering a critical appraisal of research and theory that focuses on violence in youth, families, and communities. Authors investigate the ways in which violence is defined and understood, how risk and protective factors promote and inhibit violence in the groups most responsible for the socialization of youth, and how violence and related behaviors differ by gender, race, and ethnicity. A rich analysis of the field familiarizes readers with some of the most compelling approaches to violence prevention, including interventions that begin at infancy with families at risk. Every chapter examines the latest research on violence prevention, with a goal of moving towards the multi-system, integrated intervention models and approaches that will incorporate the social context of violence across settings and population subgroups. The result is a valuable interdisciplinary book for scholars, practitioners, and students that provides a comprehensive overview of published studies, limitations of research findings, and a thoughtful discussion of the ways in which future research can build on what is currently known about the causes, consequences, and prevention of violence in different settings.


The study explores the validity of the media visibility thesis in a cross-country comparative framework, concentrating on the position of media outlets sympathetic or affiliated to the populist radical right parties in the public spheres in Hungary and Romania. The visibility of such media outlets in the public sphere is considered crucial in the context of discursive opportunities for political mobilization, whereby the presence of discursive elements of populist radical right communication in mainstream media is understood as empirical evidence for the visibility of populist radical right politics. We analyze first the characteristics of media discourses. We then identify the positions of radical right media products in relation to mainstream media. Using network analysis as a methodological approach, we evince the differences and similarities pertaining to the location of radical right media in the wider network architecture of the public spheres in Hungary and Romania.


Problem statement: Target tracking is a challenging application in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) because it is computation-intensive and requires real-time location processing. This study proposes a practical target tracking system based on the Hidden Markov Model in a distributed signal processing framework. In this framework, wireless sensor nodes perform target detection and tracking, whereas target localization requires the collaborative signal processing between wireless sensor nodes for improving the location accuracy and robustness. Approach: For carrying out target tracking under the constraints imposed by the limited transmission capabilities of the wireless sensor nodes, the HMM model and the particle filter approach are adopted in single wireless sensor node due to their outstanding performance and light computational calculations. Furthermore, a progressive multi sensor localization algorithm is proposed in distributed wireless sensor network considering the tradeoff between the localization accuracy of the target and the resource constraints of sensor nodes. Results: Finally, a real world target tracking experiment had been illustrated for static and mobile targets. Here blind child is considered as the target to be tracked within the sensor network. Conclusion: Mathematical analysis and the real world results showed that the target tracking system based on a distributed WSN make efficient use of the communication resources and achieve accurate target tracking successfully.


This article traces the development of what may be called Indonesian critical discourse particularly related to the position of "West" and "East" from the colonial period to the New Order era. The development of this discourse and its manifestation in Indonesian literary theory began with a postcolonial debate on the construction of Indonesian modernity, i.e., toward which center it is going to be oriented. The tension between Western-centric discourse, on the one hand, and traditional orientation, on the other, characterized the earliest intellectual debate in the 1930s. This argument took a different contour in the 1960s when the tension turned out to be between social realism and liberal humanism. The banning of leftist ideology and teaching after 1965 gave way to the unchallenged dominance of the traditional humanist outlook in the literary-critical scene. The paper argues that the present hegemony of traditional humanist approach in Indonesian consciousness is rooted in its distinctive development in these few decades.


"See you there. In the free." This is the closing statement in Erna Brodber's fourth novel, The Rainmaker's Mistake (2007). In the novel, Brodber creatively imagines a past for the New World present, taking advantage of the space literary speculation and science fiction offer to create a counterhistory of the present. Reading the novel through the lens of Afrofuturism and via Kamau Brathwaite's conception of a Caribbean cosmology and Sylvia Wynter's theories of aethetics, this essay examines the novel's representation of "the free": a rapidly changing present existing simultaneously with an imaginary past and slippery future, all unmediated by physical geography.


CONTEXT
Low-income and minority status in the United States are associated with poor educational outcomes, which, in turn, reduce the long-term health benefits of education.

OBJECTIVE
This systematic review assessed the extent to which out-of-school-time academic (OSTA) programs for at-risk students, most of whom are from low-income and racial/ethnic minority families, can improve academic achievement. Because most OSTA programs serve low-income and ethnic/racial minority students, programs may improve health equity.

DESIGN
Methods of the Guide to Community Preventive Services were used. An existing systematic review assessing the effects of OSTA programs on academic outcomes (Lauer et al 2006; search period 1985-2003) was supplemented with a Community Guide update (search period 2003-2011).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Standardized mean difference.

RESULTS
Thirty-two studies from the existing review and 25 studies from the update were combined and stratified by program focus (ie, reading-focused, math-focused, general academic programs, and programs with minimal academic focus). Focused programs were more effective than general or minimal academic programs. Reading-focused programs were effective only for students in grades K-3. There was insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness on behavioral outcomes and longer-term academic outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS
OSTA programs, particularly focused programs, are effective in increasing academic achievement for at-risk students. Ongoing school and social environments that support learning and development may be essential to ensure the longer-term benefits of OSTA programs.


During the COVID-19 pandemic, many on whom the public depends for truthful information purposefully or recklessly spread misinformation that put thousands at risk. The term "misinfodemic," coined in 2019, describes such events, where misinformation facilitates the spread of a disease or causes some other health-related outcome. Though the term was only recently defined, the recent misinfodemic was not a new or novel phenomenon. False information is spread to the public all the time. This often results in harm to public health. False claims are communicated by corporations seeking to mislead the public to make more money, by politicians to gain votes and support, and by media outlets to increase viewership and advertising revenue. Although these and other deceptions of the public for profit might be unethical, they are legal. This Article explores the question of why. There are two key components to this analysis, one centered on tort law and the other on the First Amendment. This Article will focus only on tort law aspects. This Article discusses how fraud law developed to focus almost exclusively on personal deceptions while almost entirely ignoring impersonal deceptions like deceptions of the public. As a result, there is most often no tort remedy available to individuals harmed by misinfodemics. This Article prescribes a fix for this gap in the law: treat fraud on the public like any other fraud by prohibiting misinformation and punishing those who spread it. Precedent and policy support imposing civil remedies against those who purposefully or recklessly mislead the public for gain. The important First Amendment aspects of this issue will be addressed in future scholarship.


Sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs) are a class of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors that regulate diverse cellular responses in eukaryotes. Adding to the recognized importance of SREBPs in human health, SREBPs in the human fungal pathogens Cryptococcus neoformans and Aspergillus fumigatus are required for fungal virulence and susceptibility to triazole antifungal drugs. To date, the exact mechanism(s) behind the role of SREBP in these observed phenotypes is not clear. Here, we report that A. fumigatus SREBP, SrbA, mediates regulation of iron acquisition in response to hypoxia and low iron conditions. To further define SrbA's role in iron acquisition in relation to previously studied fungal regulators of iron metabolism, SreA and HapX, a series of mutants were generated in the ΔsrbA background. These data suggest that SrbA is activated independently of SreA and HapX in response to iron limitation, but that HapX mRNA induction is partially dependent on SrbA. Intriguingly, exogenous addition of high iron or genetic deletion of sreA in the ΔsrbA background was able to partially rescue the hypoxia growth, triazole drug susceptibility, and decrease in ergosterol content phenotypes of ΔsrbA. Thus, we conclude that the fungal SREBP, SrbA, is critical for coordinating genes involved in iron acquisition and ergosterol biosynthesis under hypoxia and low iron conditions found at sites of human fungal infections. These results support a role for SREBP–mediated iron regulation in fungal virulence, and they lay a foundation for further exploration of SREBP's role in iron homeostasis in other eukaryotes.


V2O5 and LiMn2O4 are promising cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries due to their high capacities and battery voltages. The several work was mainly focused on the study of electrochemical and structural properties during lithium intercalation. But there is no detailed knowledge of the changes in electronic structure and the intercalation mechanism itself. Especially no general agreement has been reached on the nature and the extent of the interactions between host material and alkali guest atoms. This thesis addresses the electronic stucture of transition-metal oxides and its changes during the intercalation of alkali metals. The intercalation of Na and Li into V2O5 thin films and LiMn2O4 powder samples have been studied mainly using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and resonant photoemission spectroscopy (RPES). The PVD prepared V2O5 thin films are nearly stoichiometric with only about 4% oxygen deficiency. After deposition onto the HOPG substrate, the oxide surface is smooth and polycrystalline. The valence band of V2O5 is formed by the hybridisation of the O2p and V3d electron states. It has been shown by RPES that the V3d admixture to the valence band is about 20%. Therefore, the real electron occupation number of the 3d electron state of the V ions in V2O5 is about 2 instead of 0, and the simple ionic model is not valid. The influence of heating on the V2O5 films has also been studied. Elevated temperatures lead to sub-stoichiometric V2O5-x that can be probed by chemically shifted components in the V2p3/2 emission line, and a decrease of O1s/V2p intensity ratios. Annealing of the sub-stoichiometric films at 400°C in an oxygen atmosphere lead to the reoxidation of vanadium to its higher oxidation state. The alkali metals are instantaneously intercalated into V2O5 when they are deposited onto the surface at room temperature. Only a small amount (about 10%) of the alkali metal atoms remain adsorbed on the surface due to the intercalation kinetics. The results obtained in this work demonstrate that the electrons of intercalated alkali metals s orbitals are mostly transferred to the transition-metal 3d orbitals and cause the reduction of the transition-metal ions as proven by the XPS and UPS data. The values of effective electron transfer for Na3s and Li2s are about 0.42 and 0.55 electrons per alkali atom, respectively. With low content of intercalated alkali metals, the electronic and crystalline structure of the host do not change considerately. For Na, an alkali saturation concentration of V2O5 films can be reached as Na1.4V2O5 without decomposition of the host, for Li, this saturation value is about Li2.5V2O5. When this limit for alkali intercalation is reached, further deposition of alkali atoms will not intercalate into the host but form oxides, peroxides and even metallic alkali on the surface. The formation of surface oxide films on the electrodes would have a severe impact on battery performance. A better understanding of such films can be essential to solve the stability problem of lithium-ion batteries, such as capacity loss, power-fade, poor cyclability, and self-discharge. After the over-intercalated samples have been kept in the ultra-high vacuum chamber for few days, the alkali metal will react further with vanadium oxides and form alkali oxides and peroxides on the surface. In this work, we have clearly demonstrated the formation of alkali oxides and peroxides species, which are probably part of the so-called solid electrode interface (SEI) layers. Finally, the electronic structure and surface composition of LiMn2O4 powder has been studied. The results show that manganese ions exist in two oxidation states: a trivalent state (Mn3+) as well as a tetravalent state (Mn4+). The photoemission intensity ration of Mn3+ to Mn4+ is about 0.9, so that the average oxidation state is 3.55 which is a little higher than the expected value of +3.5 which is probably due to small amounts of lithium oxides formed on the surface. UPS and RPES indicate that the Mn ions are in a high spin configuration, and O2p and Mn3d orbitals are strongly hybridised.


Demonstrating the essence of the journal as a truly international platform that covers issues of interest and concern to the global academic and professional community, this issue of Archnet-IJAR, volume 11, issue # 2, July 2017 includes various topics that manifest plurality and diversity as inherent qualities of architectural and urban research published in the journal.  Topics include architectural education and design studio teaching, urban and rural slums, heritage and historic environments in various contexts, participatory planning and the charrette process, assessment of public spaces and plazas, and human perception of the built environment. These topics are debated and analytically discussed within cities, settlements, and urban environments in Bahrain, Bangladesh, California-USA, Libya, Scotland, and Spain. The issue also includes three papers selected from the Fifth Architectural Jordanian International Conference – 1-3 November 2016, which uniquely speak to the context of Jordan and the wider Middle East. The edition ends with a book review that highlights emerging issues related to border landscapes and social ecologies.


With the occurrence of increasingly frequent and severe climate-related events, adapting to the impacts posed by climate change has been a pivotal research topic influencing transport operation, infrastructure, planning and policymaking in recent decades. As most studies on climate change still focus on its short-term impacts, there is insufficient research on how to systematically adapt to the impacts of climate change on transportation, in particular in an integrated inland transport system, e.g., roads and railways. Hence, an assessment of the long-term risks posed by climate change on transportation systems is urgently required. The primary purpose of this thesis is to explore the general picture of how the impacts of climate change can be adapted in the UK transport systems. A quantitative analysis mainly involves an innovative decision aiding tool: the Fuzzy Bayesian Reasoning (FBR) model. This hybrid model is capable of tackling the existing issues in risks assessment, such as unavailability or incompleteness of climate risk data, synthesis of inconsistent risk and costs expressions and challenges in estimation and selection of risk scenarios. The modelling is followed by a nationwide survey among the road and rail stakeholders in the UK, which not only further confirms the feasibility of the FBR model but also illustrates an overall view of current climate adaptation issues. Afterwards, a comparative study through interviewing five domain experts in the UK transport industry is undertaken, which covers four representative cases. It reveals both opportunities and under-reached issues in climate adaptation planning. This research re-emphasises the importance of raising the awareness of the community's consideration of the risks of climate change on transport systems and strives for effective risk analysis and adaptation planning to cope with them. The outcomes from this thesis including the critical literature review, advanced FBR model, empirical multi-mode case studies and comparative analyses, have provided transport stakeholders with a pioneer trail in systematically evaluating climate risks and adaptation strategies in the British transport systems. This work has great potential to be tailored for broader applications, offering workable recommendations and global references for climate adaptation on other transportation systems and regions.


This article examines the relationship of Barack Obama and an emerging generation of evangelical leaders. It argues that his 2008 presidential campaign courted centrist evangelicals by rendering the Religious Right as extreme and "out of touch" with the American mainstream while framing his longtime pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as a coinciding extreme voice on the left. To be sure, evangelical centrists typify a longstanding religious tradition of response known as intermediation that has often had access to presidential power. Unfortunately, this strategy of religious triangulation that isolates the "extreme" Right and Left deprives the administration of the moral resources from the Left that could catalyze a robust progressive agenda.


Background: Quality of life (QoL) is known to be lower in people with psychosis than the general population. Physical activity (PA) has been suggested as one way to improve QoL, but little is known about the relationship between PA and QoL in people with psychosis. No known research has implemented mixed methods (MM) to explore PA and QoL in people with psychosis. Aim: To explore if and how PA is associated with QoL in people with psychosis. Methodology: A MM design was implemented which consisted of three studies. Study one was a cross-sectional survey design, which assessed the relationship between PA and QoL (n=79). Study two was a phenomenological study which involved conducting semi-structured interviews with people who were perceived to be active by professionals or themselves (n=8). Study three entailed conducting focus groups with mental health professionals which were analysed using thematic analysis (n=10). Results: Study one: Those achieving PA guidelines scored significantly higher on physical QoL than those who did not meet the guidelines. Moderate and vigorous intensity PA were related to physical QoL and walking was associated with better social functioning. No PA variables were related to mental QoL. Study two: Four major themes emerged: 1) cocooned in a web of lethargy and tangled thoughts, 2) Experiencing a snapshot of reality, 3) Being 'normal', 4) Dance as if no-one is watching. Study three: Four major themes were found: 1) Service provision, 2) Professional interpretation of policy, 3) Professional personal experiences and beliefs, 4).Negative experiences. Upon synthesising the outcomes of the studies it was concluded that if PA was seen as meaningful to the individual it was beneficial for QoL. PA emerged as meaningful for the participants for the following reasons: it was perceived to develop self; provide time-out from symptomology; present the opportunity to break free into a real and social world; and enable self, mind and body to feel they belong and therefore feel 'normal'. However, the type, intensity, amount of PA and the stage of the participants' illness were all seen to influence the perceived impact on QoL. A number of implications for supporting PA services within Mental Health Trusts were suggested. The main finding in relation to service implications was that PA needs to be provided consistently and not in an ad-hoc manner which was found to be detrimental to Service Users routine and autonomy. Further, it is suggested that a broader range of PA provision should be available for those with psychosis to suit individual needs. However, consideration should be given to the intensity, amount and type of PA as well as the perceived severity of the illness. Conclusion: The findings from this thesis add support to the proposition that PA can be used to enhance QoL in people with psychosis. Professionals are encouraged to promote PA, with the caveat that it should be perceived to be meaningful by the individuals with psychosis.


Photonic crystal fibers are used in fiber amplifiers and lasers because of the flexibility in the design of mode area and dispersion. However, these quantities depend strongly on the wavelength. The wavelength dependence of gain, nonlinearity and dispersion are investigated here by including the wavelength dependence explicitly in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for photonic crystal fibers with varying periods and hole sizes. The effect of the wavelength dependence of each parameter is studied separately as well as combined. The wavelength dependence of the parameters is shown to create asymmetry to the spectrum and chirp, but to have a moderating effect on pulse broadening. The effect of including the wavelength dependence of nonlinearity in the simulations is demonstrated to be the most significant compared that of dispersion or gain.


The arts, inclusive of the disciplines of dance, drama, music and visual arts have been included within the formal New Zealand school curriculum for over seventeen years. These disciplines have valuable intrinsic aesthetic and educational value and the rationale for including arts disciplines in formal education is well articulated. (Abbs, 1987; Bamford, 2006; Eisner, 1998). Current research (Buck, 2003; Fraser, Aitken & Whyte, 2013; McDonald & Melchior, 2007; Snook, 2012) reveals however, that the teaching of the arts in New Zealand schools remains sporadic with a government focus on literacy and numeracy. We propose that the arts may be valued for their instrumental roles in enhancing teaching and learning across other disciplines in the New Zealand curriculum. Our research is directed by the question: how can the disciplines of dance, drama, music and visual arts better support teaching and learning in the New Zealand curriculum? This article argues that through an introduction of an arts integration pedagogy into classrooms, teachers and students will achieve learning objectives across the entire curriculum, including the arts.


Background: Obesity epidemic has been on rise and this has been attributed to unhealthy practices including physical inactivity and unhealthy diet. Adolescence has been a critical period for development of obesity due to changes in body composition and behaviour. Objectives: To assess knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) regarding obesity-risk reduction factors and its association with obesity-risk among Junior high school students. Methods: Study conducted among 397 Junior high school students from 12 randomly selected English medium schools from pool of eligible schools in Udupi District using pretested and validated questionnaire to assess their KAP regarding Physical activity and diet. Standardized equipments were used for measuring anthropometry and Total body fat (%). Data entered and analyzed on SPSS 15. Results: 51.4% of the participants were recruited from private funded schools and boys accounting 51.6%. Statistically significant difference in proportions was observed between boys and girls in Physical activity, dietary and overall KAP scores and Total body fat (%). Correlation between Total body fat (%) and overall KAP score showed decline in Total body fat (%) with increase in overall KAP score (r=-0.120; p=0.017). Conclusions: Male gender and public funded schools were protective against obesity-risk. Interventions are required to increase awareness regarding obesity-risk reduction factors among school children.


A scavenger that protects the heart Coronary heart disease is a tale of two forms of plasma cholesterol. In contrast to the well-established effects of "bad" cholesterol (LDL-C), the role of "good" cholesterol (HDL-C) is mysterious. Elevated HDL-C correlates with a lower risk of heart disease, yet drugs that raise HDL-C levels do not reduce risk. Zanoni et al. found that some people with exceptionally high levels of HDL-C carry a rare sequence variant in the gene encoding the major HDL-C receptor, scavenger receptor BI. This variant destroys the receptor's ability to take up HDL-C. Interestingly, people with this variant have a higher risk of heart disease despite having high levels of HDL-C. Science, this issue p. 1166 A human genetics study sheds light on how HDL (good) cholesterol protects against cardiovascular disease. Scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI) is the major receptor for high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (HDL-C). In humans, high amounts of HDL-C in plasma are associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Mice that have depleted Scarb1 (SR-BI knockout mice) have markedly elevated HDL-C levels but, paradoxically, increased atherosclerosis. The impact of SR-BI on HDL metabolism and CHD risk in humans remains unclear. Through targeted sequencing of coding regions of lipid-modifying genes in 328 individuals with extremely high plasma HDL-C levels, we identified a homozygote for a loss-of-function variant, in which leucine replaces proline 376 (P376L), in SCARB1, the gene encoding SR-BI. The P376L variant impairs posttranslational processing of SR-BI and abrogates selective HDL cholesterol uptake in transfected cells, in hepatocyte-like cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells from the homozygous subject, and in mice. Large population-based studies revealed that subjects who are heterozygous carriers of the P376L variant have significantly increased levels of plasma HDL-C. P376L carriers have a profound HDL-related phenotype and an increased risk of CHD (odds ratio = 1.79, which is statistically significant).


Water resource management (WRM) has increasingly come to be considered within the realm of peacebuilding. Through investigating the case of water resource management in Kosovo after 1999, this study argues that the international community has treated post-conflict water resource management as a primarily technical issue, to the neglect of its complex political nature. This has impeded the peacebuilding process in three ways. First, it consolidated the physical separation of actors through allowing separate water governance structures. Second, it avoided conflictive issues instead of actively engaging in conflict resolution. Third, it incapacitated locals by placing ownership in the hands of external actors. To redress this tripartite dilemma, this study stresses the need for research that provides deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the political mechanisms that connect WRM to post-conflict reconstruction efforts.


The aim of this study is to present the effects of industrial enterprises on Land Surface Temperature (LST) and to retrieve Surface Heat Island (SHI) maps of these regions. SHI is one of the types of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and as the urban areas grow in a city, UHI effect becomes bigger. The city centre of Zonguldak was chosen as study area and Landsat 5 satellite data were used as materials. Zonguldak has important industrial enterprises like thermal power plants and iron and steel plant. ERDEMIR is the biggest iron and steel plant in Turkey and it is one of the biggest ones in Europe, as well. There are three operating thermal power plants in the region namely CATES, ZETES1 and ZETES2. In order to investigate these industrial regions, Landsat 5 satellite data were processed using mono-window algorithm to retrieve LST and they were acquired on 11.09.1987, 18.09.2007 and 29.09.2011, respectively. The obtained results revealed that from 1987 to 2011, spatial and temporal variability in LST in industrial enterprises became higher than the surroundings. Besides, the sizes of SHIs in 2011 are bigger than the ones in 1987. For the countries and governments, having industrial enterprises is crucial for the development and it is also important to present the community better conditions in life. Thus, decision makers should consider mitigating the effects of these regions on LST.


Inadequate nutrient and irrigation management of turfgrass may result in nitrate (N0 3 ) losses by leaching, and may contribute to elevated N0 3 -N con centrations in groundwater. A field study was conducted to evaluate the ef fect of three irrigation levels on the N0 3 -N concentration in soil solution and the mass of total N0 3 -N lost by leaching for three grasses: Bermuda [Cyn- odon dactylon (L.) Pers.], Centipede [Eremochloa ophiuroides (Munro.) Hack], and Zoysia manila [Zoysia matrella (L.) Merr.]. The study was con ducted at Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, on a San Antón soil (fine-clayey, montmo-rillonitic, isohyperthermic Cumulic Haplustolls) from June 2001 until Sep tember 2002. Soil water N0 3 -N concentrations below the root zone were obtained from water samples collected from suction lysimeters.The levels of irrigation applied were 75,100 and 125% of the daily evapotranspiration (ET), 2007. calculated by using the pan evaporation method. Grass was fertilized with 165 kg N/ha/yr, split into four applications. The Bermuda grass exhibited the highest rate of horizontal growth (cover), reaching maximum cover in 45 days, whereas the others reached maximum cover in 120 days. Bermuda grass was the most efficient in reducing the loss of N0 3 -N, with a mean an nual soil water concentration below the root zone of 3.24 mg/L, whereas Zoy sia and Centipede grasses were less efficient with mean annual soil water concentrations below the root zone of 17.4 and 17.8 mg/L, respectively. The soil solution concentration of N0 3 -N did not change significantly for the Ber muda grass with increases in the level of irrigation. However, lower mean an nual N0 3 -N concentrations were observed for the Centipede and Zoysia grasses at the irrigation levels of 100% and 75% ET, with mean values of 14.0 and 11.1 mg/L, respectively. The Bermuda grass had an acceptable color in dex at the 100% ET, and resulted in decreased N0 3 -N concentrations and mass losses. On the other hand, Zoysia and Centipede grasses presented a commercially acceptable color index and minimal N0 3 -N leaching at the 75% ET irrigation level. The results from this study provide valuable information related to water and nutrient management for the turfgrass industry in south ern Puerto Rico.


This study of Baudelaire and English modernism observes his protean influence on poets from Swinburne, who wrote the first English review of Les Fleurs du Mai, to T. S. Eliot. Documenting Baudelaire's impact on Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, Arthur Symons, Aldous Huxley, Edith and Osbert Sitwell, D. H. Lawrence, the Imagists, John Middleton Murry, Eliot, and others, Patricia Clements describes the Baudelaire who is the creation of the English poets and identifies some major lines in the development of modernism in English literature.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


We present the development and evaluation of a basic building block for a future wireless sensor network for agriculture monitoring in Argentina. The module consists of a compact battery-powered wireless sensor node capable of monitoring the ambient air parameters of temperature, humidity, gas and air pressure in the agriculture industry of Argentina's Pampa region. Further in-and outputs allow the system to be extended flexibly by adding more sensors. Throughout the development, a simple, low-cost and open-source-based approach together with a lightweight communication protocol was pursued. The sensor nodes cover ranges of over 400 metres and can be operated on two AAA alkaline batteries for several years. Detailed current consumption values, range limits and battery life estimates are presented.


ABSTRACT Despite the recent attention given to moral character in moral psychology and moral philosophy, there is little evidence on how the folk concept of character is structured. Virtue ethics literature suggests a number of views formalizing how different virtues or vices are structured in overall virtuous or vicious character. The Unity of Virtues View (UV) assumes that any virtue implies all other virtues through practical wisdom. On the contrary, the Disunity of Virtues View (DUV) argues that different virtues or vices do not imply one another. Finally, the Limited Unity of Virtues View (LUV) suggests that UV is true when considering specific spheres of life but DUV is true when considering overall character. Here, we report an experiment that suggests that the folk concept of moral character follows an intuitive Limited Unity of Virtues view. Also, folk beliefs about moral character differ between virtuous and vicious character. The psychological and philosophical implications of these findings are discussed. Materials (in Spanish) and data analysis scripts for all studies are available in OSF: https://osf.io/72ywp/.


In the course of the debate over the existence and possible explanations for democratic peace (the tendency of democracies not to fight wars with one another), some scholars have looked to the world of Classical Greece to bolster their claims about the phenomenon. This article critiques the best of these efforts, looking at the way the ancient evidence has been handled and the conclusions drawn therefrom. It is argued that while the ancient world is an entirely appropriate era to investigate with regard to the issue, the analyses offered thus far have not made a strong case for the existence of a Greek democratic peace. Indeed, contrary to what investigators had hoped to show, the evidence from the period in and around the Peloponnesian war indicates that not only did ancient democracies go to war with each other, they did so with relatively high frequency. Both quantitative and more traditional literary analyses support this conclusion. These results do not so much attack the general notion of democratic peace as offer a more fruitful way of using ancient history to help explain it: by focusing on the differences between ancient and modern democracies and their historical settings, future studies may be able to identify the factors which encourage or discourage democratic peace.


E-business provides important opportunities of trade for businesses, and the supporting business system must handle this environment efficiently. One current trend in business systems is to move business logic, such as business processes and business rules, out from the application logic and into separate support systems. The reason to make this separation is to increase the agility of the business, to make the system able to change more rapidly when the business situation changes. This report focus on business rules enforced in business rule engines. Specific interest is on how such rule engines meet the requirements of the e-business domain. The report presents an overview of business rule engines. Five general categories of characteristics are proposed. The proposed characteristics are then used in a comparison of three business rule engines.


Seismic Oceanography is coming of age as an established technique of observation of the thermohaline structure of the ocean. The present paper deals with the seismic reflectivity of the Armorican Shelf seasonal thermocline, west of France, based on two seismic experiments performed with a sparker source. The peak frequency was 500 Hz for the ASPEX experiment, where the thermocline was located at 27 m water depth, and reduced to 400 Hz associated to a higher source level for the IFOSISMO experiment, where the thermocline was 12 m deeper. Despite this settings, only the first experiment could clearly highlight the thermocline reflector, providing the first seismic observation of a shallow oceanic structure. To better understand the limitation of high-resolution seismic devices in detecting weak oceanic features, we develop a wavelet-based seismic analysis and consider, as a first approximation, a simple thermocline modelled by a Gauss Error function, allowing an analytical expression for the associated seismic reflectivity. We show that the acoustic impedance profile of the thermocline is mainly controlled by a sound velocity proportional to the temperature. We show that the seismic reflectivity is controlled by the reflection coefficient of the large-scale structure of the thermocline and by an attenuation factor which depends on the ratio between the seismic wavelength and the characteristic size of the thermocline. Depending on this ratio, the strength of the thermoclinerelated reflection may be too weak to be detected by seismic measurement.


In this thesis we consider generic tools and techniques for the proof-theoretic investigation of not necessarily normal modal logics based on minimal, intuitionistic or classical propositional logic. The underlying framework is that of ordinary symmetric or asymmetric two-sided sequent calculi without additional structural connectives, and the point of interest are the logical rules in such a system. We introduce the format of a sequent rule with context restrictions and the slightly weaker format of a shallow rule. The format of a rule with context restrictions is expressive enough to capture most normal modal logics in the S5 cube, standard systems for minimal, intuitionistic and classical propositional logic and a wide variety of non-normal modal logics. For systems given by such rules we provide sufficient criteria for cut elimination and decidability together with generic complexity results. We also explore the expressivity of such systems with the cut rule in terms of axioms in a Hilbert-style system by exhibiting a corresponding syntactically defined class of axioms along with automatic translations between axioms and rules. This enables us to show a number of limitative results concerning amongst others the modal logic S5. As a step towards a generic construction of cut free and tractable sequent calculi we then introduce the notion of cut trees as representations of rules constructed by absorbing cuts. With certain limitations this allows the automatic construction of a cut free and tractable sequent system from a finite number of rules. For cases where such a system is to be constructed by hand we introduce a graphical representation of rules with context restrictions which simplifies this process. Finally, we apply the developed tools and techniques and construct new cut free sequent systems for a number of Lewis' conditional logics extending the logic V. The systems yield purely syntactic decision procedures of optimal complexity and proofs of the Craig interpolation property for the logics at hand.


In the course of the recent back-and-forth between states and internet retailers over the collection of use taxes, Colorado enacted House Bill 1193, which imposes notice and reporting requirements on retailers that do not collect use taxes on behalf of the state. Not surprisingly, an action has now been filed challenging the constitutionality of those requirements. The action, brought by the Direct Marketing Association (the "DMA") in Colorado federal district court, contends that the statute's notice and reporting requirements violate the dormant Commerce Clause. A Viewpoint article published by State Tax Notes in April (the "April Viewpoint") argued the same. The DMA Complaint and the April Viewpoint might reach the correct conclusion, but whether they do is hardly obvious and most likely turns on the standard of review the court applies to the reporting requirements. In fact, there are colorable, and perhaps even persuasive, arguments that HB 1193 should survive Commerce Clause review. This article presents some of those arguments.


Loneliness is a subjective distressing feeling of being disconnected from a desired group or intimate relationship. Most children and adolescents experience loneliness at some time but for 10-20% of young people it can be severe and chronic. While there are many avenues for help for distressed young people, such as friends and family as well as the professional help of counselors and psychologists, lonely young people often do not seek help. Telephone help-lines are one way to assist young people in difficulty which is cost effective, accessible and anonymous. Many countries provide this free or low cost help with specific services for youth either by telephone or online. From the call records of help-lines however, it would seem that lonely young people do not often utilize these services. The reasons for this apparent reluctance are discussed.


When Latino migration to the U.S. South became increasingly visible in the 1990s, observers and advocates grasped for ways to analyze "new" racial dramas in the absence of historical reference points. However, as this book is the first to comprehensively document, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have a long history of migration to the U.S. South. Corazón de Dixie recounts the untold histories of Mexicanos' migrations to New Orleans, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina as far back as 1910. It follows Mexicanos into the heart of Dixie, where they navigated the Jim Crow system, cultivated community in the cotton fields, purposefully appealed for help to the Mexican government, shaped the southern conservative imagination in the wake of the civil rights movement, and embraced their own version of suburban living at the turn of the twenty-first century. Rooted in U.S. and Mexican archival research, oral history interviews, and family photographs, Corazón de Dixie unearths not just the facts of Mexicanos' long-standing presence in the U.S. South but also their own expectations, strategies, and dreams.


The aim of the research was to analyze the cost of rainmaking services on maize, cassava and sugarcane in the Lamtakhong River Basin in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand. The results will assist the Bureau of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation to decrease rainmaking service expenditure and increase the effectiveness of the service in the future. Data were collected on costs and returns of maize, cassava and sugarcane grown in the 2006/2007 crop year in Sungnun district. Data were collected through interviews with 30 maize, 30 cassava and 30 sugarcane farmers receiving rainmaking services and with the same number of both types of farmers not receiving rainmaking services. Regression analysis and t-test analysis were then made. The results showed that rainmaking expenditure can be reduced by conducting rainmaking operations only from March to October. The quantity of rainfall affected statistically the maize yields.


The most valuable assets of many companies today are patents. If patents are valuable, why do banks operating across the United States refuse to lend against patents in commercial lending to reduce their risks? Lending is the primary function of banks. Yet banks have a strong aversion to accept patents as collateral, rendering the vast number of patents as idle assets. This empirical study is the first to identify the patent aversion problem as contrary to the frequent headlines of how valuable patents are to the economy. By carefully extracting relevant patent and security interest filings data and examining the nuances underlying the data from 1980 to 2016, this Article explains why very few banks are willing to accept patents as collateral and potential consequences to the innovation economy sectors when patent aversion continues to persist among banks. The Article proposes solutions rooted in Secured Transactions and Banking laws to end banks' patent aversion.


Introduction Emergency department visits and hospital admissions resulting from adult bicycle trauma have increased dramatically. Annual medical costs and work losses of these incidents last were estimated for 2005 and quality-of-life losses for 2000. Methods We estimated costs associated with adult bicycle injuries in the USA using 1997–2013 non-fatal incidence data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System with cost estimates from the Consumer Product Safety Commission's Injury Cost Model, and 1999–2013 fatal incidence data from the National Vital Statistics System costed by similar methods. Results Approximately 3.8 million non-fatal adult bicycle injuries were reported during the study period and 9839 deaths. In 2010 dollars, estimated adult bicycle injury costs totalled $24.4 billion in 2013. Estimated injury costs per mile bicycled fell from $2.85 in 2001 to $2.35 in 2009. From 1999 to 2013, total estimated costs were $209 billion due to non-fatal bicycle injuries and $28 billion due to fatal injuries. Inflation-free annual costs in the study period increased by 137% for non-fatal injuries and 23% for fatal injuries. The share of non-fatal costs associated with injuries to riders age 45 and older increased by 1.6% (95% CI 1.4% to 1.9%) annually. The proportion of costs due to incidents that occurred on a street or highway steadily increased by 0.8% (95% CI 0.4% to 1.3%) annually. Conclusions Inflation-free costs per case associated with non-fatal bicycle injuries are increasing. The growth in costs is especially associated with rising ridership, riders 45 and older, and street/highway crashes.


Objective: To investigate the expression of NDRG1 gene in marrow mononuclear cells of children with Acute Leukemia (AL) and its clinical significance.
Methods: The expression level of NDRG1 mRNA at different stages was detected by RT-PCR in a total of 60 children with AL with another 20 children with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) enrolled as control group.
Results: The positive expression rate of NDRG1 in 60 children with AL was 66.7% (40/60), in which it was highest in children with AML (88.2%) (AML group), significantly higher than that in children with ALL (38.5%) (ALL group) and in control group (10%) (P 0.05). The expression of NDRG1 mRNA in AML group was significantly higher than that in ALL group and control group. NDRG1 had varying expression in AML children of different types and the relative expression level of mRNA was successively M5>M4>M1 and/or M2, but no expression was found in type M3. NDRG1 had moderately high positive expression in high-risk children with AML. In AML patients the positive expression rate of NDRG1 mRNA level of the children with diagnosed disease but given no treatment (initial group) were significantly higher than in those with remission (remission group) and control group, with no statistically significant difference found between the latter two; the expression of NDRG1 in children with no remission (non-remission group) was significantly higher than that in remission group and control group.
Conclusion: The high expression of NDRG1 is related to occurrence of AL and children with AML have obviously higher expression level of NDRG1 than children with ALL. It is associated with the risk of leukemia and suggests poor prognosis. Therefore, NDRG1 gene may be a target for AL diagnosis, treatment and prognosis in children.


Objects and their parts can be visually recognized and localized from purely spatial information in static images and also from purely temporal information as in the perception of biological motion. Cortical regions have been identified, which appear to specialize in visual recognition based on either static or dynamic cues, but the mechanisms by which spatial and temporal information is integrated is only poorly understood. Here we show that visual recognition of objects and actions can be achieved by efficiently combining spatial and motion cues in configurations where each source on its own is insufficient for recognition. This analysis is obtained by the identification of minimal spatiotemporal configurations: these are short videos in which objects and their parts, along with an action being performed, can be reliably recognized, but any reduction in either space or time makes them unrecognizable. State-of-the-art computational models for recognition from dynamic images based on deep 2D and 3D convolutional networks cannot replicate human recognition in these configurations. Action recognition in minimal spatiotemporal configurations is invariably accompanied by full human interpretation of the internal components of the image and their inter-relations. We hypothesize that this gap is due to mechanisms for full spatiotemporal interpretation process, which in human vision is an integral part of recognizing dynamic event, but is not sufficiently represented in current DNNs. Spatiotemporal interpretation features in the 1 recognition of dynamic images 2 Guy Ben-Yosef , Gabriel Kreiman , Shimon Ullman 3 1. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 5 2. Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston ,MA 021155 ,USA 6 3. Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7 Rehovot 7610001, Israel 8 4. Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 9 02139, USA. 10 Text statistics: Number of figures: 4, Number of supplementary figures: 6, Number of supplementary. 11 tables: 2, Number of words in abstract: 218, Number of words in main text: 6073 12


With the increased globalization and expansion of the markets worldwide, companies have to struggle with increased competition. Therefore, organisations have begun to offer advantages such as a personalisation of products to potential customers. Market conditions and legal policies can make it challenging to predict whether those ad-vantages can be realized. Project managers are often in the position of having to fulfil these requirements; in continuously changing influencing factors that make tasks diffi-cult to manage. These circumstances create complexity. Frequently, managers are una-ware that complexity has created problems in a specific project. Often, the traditional standards of project management no longer provide a sufficient support to managers of complex projects.
This research investigates how current standards of project management address com-plexity, and whether a supplement is necessary. Complexity strengtheners are investi-gated. One standard Project Management Institute (PMI) is selected as an example to analyze the influence of strengtheners on PM-processes. A funnel model is developed based on these research findings. This is aimed to help managers in their daily practice and support them in categorizing the complexity of their projects. Based on this model, managers should be able to recognize the actual strengtheners of complexity and which processes of their project are affected. Finally, a possible adaption of the standard is re-searched. A proposition for a new comprehensive guide is designed to support manag-ers carrying out complex projects.
The key managerial implication of this research is the development of a five-step model for handling complexity in projects: forming, storming, norming, performing, and ad-journing. Furthermore, the intent of this thesis is to make a valid contribution to the management literature. For handling complexity the new funnel model should close the gap between the recognition of complexity in a project and underlying causes. The new five-step model thus provides project managers helpful guidelines for handling complex projects.
This research applies a mixed method, consisting of a survey (quantitative method) and focus interviews (qualitative method) with experts of project management (PMI) in Germany. There are approximately 4.900 PMI certified project managers in Germany; more than 170 participated in the survey (3.6%). This is considered sufficient to provide reliable results for this research. Further, three focus interviews deepen the knowledge and validate the results of the survey: Complexity is an actual problem in project man-agement. Existing standards are sufficient for project management, but complexity can-not be standardized. This thesis proposes to help project managers to resolve project complexity by providing guidelines for navigating through complex projects.


Renewable technologies are often characterized as being somewhat different to 'conventional' generating technologies in three ways, each with different implications for electricity markets. Firstly, some have highly variable and somewhat uncertain availability, meaning that electricity markets must be designed to elicit adequate flexibility. Secondly, many have very low short‐run marginal costs (operating costs), meaning that the mechanisms for managing resource adequacy must be carefully considered. Thirdly, some are nonsynchronous, meaning that grid codes and regulatory requirements must be appropriately designed. Access to flexibility can be enhanced by a range of market design choices, such as short dispatch intervals, short delays from gate closure to dispatch, large balancing areas, high demand side participation, and exposing renewable technologies to market price signals commensurate with other technologies. The design of markets for frequency control ancillary services (FCAS) also provides opportunities to increase access to flexibility, by creating active real‐time markets for a wide range of FCAS, allowing renewable technologies to provide FCAS, and determining FCAS reserve requirements dynamically in real time. Mechanisms for managing resource adequacy are a source of ongoing debate, with many of the key issues having been exacerbated by the entry of renewables. Rapid market change makes investment decisions difficult, regardless of the market model applied. Ultimately, given the existence of arguably successful examples of both energy‐only and capacity market designs, the choice of market model may be less important than the quality of governance with which it is implemented and maintained. WIREs Energy Environ 2015, 4:279–289. doi: 10.1002/wene.137


During its 2010 Regular Session, the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution No. 126 and Senate Joint Resolution No. 99 "[r]equesting the Virginia Transportation Research Council to study alternatives to the public funding and operation of all or portions of the Commonwealth's interstate safety rest areas." These resolutions were sponsored by Delegate Dave Nutter (7th House District) and Senator Mark Herring (33rd Senate District), respectively. The findings of the review were to be completed by November 30, 2010, and submitted to the Division of Legislative Automated Systems no later than the first day of the 2011 Regular Session of the General Assembly. In 2009, 19 Virginia interstate safety rest areas (SRAs) were closed with the intent of saving approximately $9 million per year in costs to the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), but these closures were met with opposition by interstate travelers because of concerns regarding traveler safety, losses of state tourism dollars, and the injury to the Commonwealth's reputation as a business-friendly state. Federal law prohibits federal-aid highways from offering any type of commerce for "serving motor vehicle users" at SRAs located on the interstate highway system right-of-way unless the establishment was in existence prior to 1960 and is owned by a state (23 U.S.C. § 111). Accordingly, commercial enterprises in Virginia have located off-line at interstate interchanges and are now consistently opposed to efforts to amend directly or interpret innovatively federal code limiting commercial activity at SRAs. Yet the commercialization of SRAs is not the only possible access through federal or state code to nonpublic funding of these facilities. In the last 20 years, incremental changes—essentially "workarounds"—have been introduced to federal law through federal transportation authorizations either allowing charges for specific, limited services meeting national needs through interstate SRAs or providing innovative pilot programs aimed at generating "whole-facility" interstate funding, such as tolling. Although it is true that some nonpublic SRA funding options have appeared and disappeared with successive federal surface transportation programs, there are other avenues to nonpublic funding of SRAs allowable under current federal code, currently extended federal transportation authorization, and current state law. A review of state and federal law governing interstate highway right-of-way, surveys of Virginia interstate rest area users, interviews with industry groups, assessment of current state DOT initiatives for interstate SRA funding, and questionnaires distributed to state DOTs provided the nonpublic funding options presented in this report. These options include the expansion of vending options, indoor advertising, and facility sponsorship, as well as relocated facilities under regional management at scenic/historic locations and commercial facilities on private land adjacent to existing SRAs in the interstate right-of-way. In the long term, modification of the provisions of 23 U.S.C. § 111 or the repeal of 23 U.S.C. § 301 would allow states significantly more flexibility in nonpublic funding options for interstate safety rest areas.


In natural uncorrected vision in young observers, a given eccentric fixation target at any distance can be fixated by various combinations of eye and head position with an identical resulting visual input. The properties of the visual input do not depend on the rotational status of the eye. In contrast, the quality of visual input strongly depends on eye position in progressive lens wearers. A specific eye position provides clear, focused vision at a specific distance only. Thus for fixating a target with clear vision, one specific optimal combination of eye and head position exists in a progressive lens wearer. Especially in challenging visual situations a change in eye head coordination is therefore a prerequisite for successful task performance. In modern everyday life, car driving is one of the strongest visual challenges, where a large field of view is scanned permanently with coordinated eye-head-movements. Although free to move their gaze and head, car driver's fixational behavior is constantly determined by the tasks requirements. In progressive lens wearers, specific head movements might therefore be enforced during driving. In the present study, changes in head-movement behavior are shown in progressive lens wearers during driving compared to controls. Progressive lens wearers and controls performed a real-world driving task, each of them driving along the same predefined urban round course track in Stuttgart downtown. Eye head coordination of progressive lens wearers was analyzed with respect to three main parameters: head gain, temporal properties in head movements and variance in head movements. Changes in head movement behavior, specific to progressive lens wearers, were determined in all three parameters, pointing towards complex changes in eye-head-coordination induced by the modification of optical properties in a progressive lens. Therefore, the varying optical properties of a progressive lens can be interpreted as visual learning signal for eye-head-coordinated movements. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


The objective of this study was to make a quantitative assess of the anatomic characteristics of leaf blade of the sugarcane cultivars RB855113, SP80-1842, SP80-1816, RB867515 and clone RB957689 presenting different sensitivity to the mixture of sodium trifloxysulfuron + ametryn herbicides. Compared to the other cultivars assessed, RB855113 cultivar, considered more sensitive to the herbicide mixture, presented relevant differences such as greater proportion of bulliform cells, greater tissue proportion in the transverse section of the leaf blade, greater stomata and trichome density on both surfaces, thinner epidermis on the adaxial surface and length of stomata on both surfaces. The external paraclinal wall of the bulliform cells was thinner than in the common epidermis cells in all the genotypes on the adaxial and abaxial surfaces. Multivariate analysis of the data on the variables considered most relevant to explain the herbicide penetration singled out the sensitive RB855113 from the other materials. Such characteristics can explain the greater penetration, and consequently, greater sensitivity of this cultivar to the sodium trifloxysulfuron + ametryn mixture.


Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms based on local maps have been demonstrated to be well suited for mapping large environments as they reduce the computational cost and improve the consistency of the final estimation. The main contribution of this paper is a novel submapping technique that does not require independence between maps. The technique is based on the intrinsic structure of the SLAM problem that allows the building of submaps that can share information, remaining conditionally independent. The resulting algorithm obtains local maps in constant time during the exploration of new terrain and recovers the global map in linear time after simple loop closures without introducing any approximations besides the inherent extended Kalman filter linearizations. The memory requirements are also linear with the size of the map. As the algorithm works in a covariance form, well-known data-association techniques can be used in the usual manner. We present experimental results using a handheld monocular camera, building a map along a closed-loop trajectory of 140 m in a public square, with people and other clutter. Our results show that the combination of conditional independence, which enables the system to share the camera and feature states between submaps, and local coordinates, which reduce the effects of linearization errors, allow us to obtain precise maps of large areas with pure monocular SLAM in real time.


The global penetration of the internet and related information and communication technologies (ICS) is intensifying. Increasingly, both adults and children are using the internet to meet some of their educational and entertainment needs. However, the internet contains information that may have adverse impacts on the psychosocial and sexual development of children. Furthermore, children may not be sufficiently equipped to navigate cyber-related risks. And yet some explanations of children's internet use posit that children are not entirely unaware of the many risks connected with internet use. Consequently, the goal of this article was to examine the idea that children have agency – a concept used in the article to describe children's capacity to act independently to pursue their own goals, preferences and choices online − and can meaningfully manage the risks associated with internet use. To do this, the article analyses the narratives of ten (10) purposively selected learners at a secondary (post-primary) school in Chiredzi, aged between 14 and 17 years old, who were learners. The article finds that the children included in the study enjoy a strong online presence with parents facilitating it. Children had access to inappropriate content, although parents were less likely to find out. Interestingly, children were very much aware of both the potential dangers associated with internet use and the mitigation measures. In order to make children's online presence safer, the article recommends active and informed involvement of parents as well as deliberate state-supported, stakeholder-driven programmes that recognize the agency of children even as they educate children on cyber ethics and relevant legal protections. Keywords: agency, children, internet, risks; teenagers, parental involvement, Chiredzi, Zimbabwe


Wilma cruise (b 1945) is a well-known and established South African artist who sculpts in clay as well as in bronze and cement, often accompanying these three-dimensional works with drawings. She is one of the few South Africans who has managed to straddle the disciplinary divide between art and ceramics, which is still considerable in this country's art practice and discourse. She is, on the one hand, a productive and critically acclaimed artist whose works and commissions are found in numerous public and private collections and, on the other, a ceramics writer and historian who wrote the definitive book on South African ceramics (Contemporary Ceramics in South Africa) and who participates in the ceramics world, for example, she exhibits in and judges national ceramics exhibitions.


This paper evaluates the effect of excise taxes and bans on smoking in public places on the exposure to tobacco smoke of non-smokers. We use a novel way of quantifying passive smoking: we use data on cotinine concentration- a metabolite of nicotine- measured in a large population of non-smokers over time. Exploiting state and time variation across US states, we reach two important conclusions. First, excise taxes have a significant effect on passive smoking. Second, smoking bans have on average no effects on non smokers. While bans in public transportation or in schools decrease the exposure of non smokers, bans in recreational public places can in fact perversely increase their exposure by displacing smokers to private places where they contaminate non smokers, and in particular young children. Bans affect socioeconomic groups differently: we find that smoking bans increase the exposure of poorer individuals, while it decreases the exposure of richer individuals, leading to widening health disparities.


The study develops two significant arguments in relation to Pakistan's socio-legal situation and analysis. First, it outlines and discusses the various prominent facets of the country's legal architecture to formulate and present, what the thesis terms as, Pakistan's Socio-Legal Tapestry. It considers the historical and conceptual trajectories of some of the multiple legal and normative structures that prevail in the country, their interplay and encounters, as well as their limitations and problems. It puts this socio-legal architecture at the heart of the examination, and by making the different constituents of the legal terrain explicit – components that include common law, Islamic law, colonial law, traditional law, legal 'exteriority' of tribal regions, and issues of 'lawlessness' – it makes the case for a holistic understanding of law as the necessary prerequisite to understanding the difficulties that that the country's law, state and the wider society are faced with.

The second significant argument of the study emerges from this expansion of the subject matter of (socio)legal analysis. It is argued that a shift in the understanding of what constitutes law in the context of Pakistan logically leads towards a (re)consideration of the lenses and narratives generally employed to examine it. The identification, examination and problematisation of these narratives – which include the dominant state-oriented legal narrative and the legal positivistic approach, the Islamic law narrative, legal pluralistic approach and the ascendant discourse on human rights – formulate the second substantive part of the study. It is argued that these Narratives of law differ in terms of how they perceive the context, identify their priorities, frame the problems and then propose solutions for their rectification. However, caught in a struggle to maintain their definitional consistencies, these narratives are only able to adopt a partial view of the picture and, owing to that, they generate contradictions that ultimately weaken their approach and proposed solutions.

The purpose behind these two arguments is both to make a case for new avenues of context-specific legal analysis, as well as to create possibilities for it in the case of Pakistan. The problems that the country faces and the suffering that its people experience create an urgent need to recognise the deficiencies, both in our conceptualisation of law in this particular context, as well as the narratives, perspectives, theories and ideologies that we employ to approach it. This necessitates the search for alternative narratives for comprehending Pakistan's socio-legal situation, to offer more nuanced approaches that might enable us to frame issues differently. This, I argue, is the most pressing task for those engaged in the analyses of legal, social and political spheres of Pakistan, and the necessary first step if our goal is the (re)formation of the legal and normative orders to make them more accountable to the people. By adopting the framework of colonialism and Coloniality to offer a different lens to understand Pakistan's socio-legal peculiarities, the study presents one such attempt in this vein, with the purpose of initiating discussion and inviting critique.


For income tax purposes, a taxpayer operating a business will account for discount received differently from a taxpayer not operating a business. When a taxpayer operating a business obtains goods or services at a discount, the taxpayer can claim a section 11(a) deduction at the value of the goods or services, net of the discount received. The discount reduces the value of the net reduction of taxable income and the taxpayer is effectively taxed on the discount received. A taxpayer who is not operating a business will not qualify for a section 11(a) deduction (read together with section 23(g)) for goods or services obtained (it does not meet the requirements 'for the purposes of trade' and 'in the production of income'). Discount received in the hands of a non-trading person (often a natural person) is currently not subject to normal South African income tax. The main objective of this article is to investigate whether the existing provisions in the Income Tax Act No. 58 of 1962 and related case law provide a basis for taxing discount received in the hands of the non-trading individual. In order to meet this objective, local literature was analysed to determine the correct income tax treatment and it was found that discount received by a non-trading person meets all the requirements of the 'gross income' definition and consequently should be taxable.


In recent years, by investigating bacterial degradation of lignin, interesting enzymatic activities aimed at breaking specific linkages were identified. In this work we focused on the tetrahydrofolate (THF)-dependent O-demethylase LigM from the bacterium Sphingobium sp. strain SYK-6 which converts vanillic acid to protocatechuic acid (PCA). The recombinant LigM was overexpressed in E. coli up to 80 mg L−1 fermentation broth, and the main kinetic parameters on the best substrate vanillic acid (kcat = 0.19 s−1 and Km = 54 μM) and the substrate specificity were identified. The substrate preference was rationalized using a three-dimensional model of LigM structure in complex with THF, which also allowed us to propose a reaction mechanism. LigM efficiently converts vanillic acid into PCA but the reaction requires a 10-fold molar excess of the THF cofactor. In order to limit the cofactor consumption, the plant methionine synthase MetE enzyme was also overexpressed in E. coli and used in combination with LigM. Under optimized conditions, the dual enzyme system produced 5 mM PCA using 0.1 mM THF only, a 500-fold decrease in the cofactor:substrate molar ratio compared to the mono-enzyme process. This represents the first regeneration method for THF in a biocatalytic process.


Hybrid positioning frameworks use various sensors and algorithms to enhance positioning through different types of fusion. The optimisation of the fusion process requires the testing of different algorithm parameters and optimal low-as well as high-level sensor fusion techniques. The presented OpenHPS open source hybrid positioning system is a modular framework managing individual nodes in a process network, which can be configured to support concrete positioning use cases or to adapt to specific technologies. This modularity allows developers to rapidly develop and optimise their positioning system while still providing them the flexibility to add their own algorithms. In this paper we discuss how a process network developed with OpenHPS can be used to realise a customisable indoor positioning solution with an offline and online stage, and how it can be adapted for high accuracy or low latency. For the demonstration and validation of our indoor positioning solution, we further compiled a publicly available dataset containing data from WLAN access points, BLE beacons as well as several trajectories that include IMU data.


Current therapies for neurodegenerative diseases offer only limited benefits to their clinical symptoms and do not prevent the degeneration of neuronal cells. Neurological diseases affect millions of people around the world, and the economic impact of treatment is high, given that health care resources are scarce. Thus, many therapeutic strategies to delay or prevent neurodegeneration have been the subject of research for treatment. One strategy for this is the use of herbal and essential oils of different species of medicinal plants because they have several bioactive compounds and phytochemicals with neuroprotective capacity. In addition, they respond positively to neurological disorders, such as dementia, oxidative stress, anxiety, cerebral ischemia, and oxidative toxicity, suggesting their use as complementary treatment agents in the treatment of neurological disorders.


In the face of rising rates of diabetes, many states have passed laws requiring health insurance plans to cover medical treatments for the disease. Although supporters of the mandates expect them to improve the health of diabetics, the mandates have the potential to generate a moral hazard to the extent that medical treatments might displace individual behavioral improvements. Another possibility is that the mandates do little to improve insurance coverage for most individuals, as previous research on benefit mandates has suggested that mandates often duplicate what plans already cover. To examine the effects of these mandates, we employ a triple‐differences methodology comparing the change in the gap in body mass index (BMI) between diabetics and nondiabetics in mandate and nonmandate states. We find that mandates do generate a moral hazard problem, with diabetics exhibiting higher BMIs after the adoption of these mandates.


This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of an environmental tax reform in a growing economy. A model of endogenous growth based on human capital accumulation is used to numerically simulate the growth effects of different environmental tax reforms and compute their impact on welfare in the short and the long-term. Our results suggest that the magnitude of these effects depends on the type of tax reform. Thus, only environmental tax reform that aims to use the revenue from environmental tax to reduce wage tax and increase the proportion of public spending within GDP, enhances both growth and welfare in the long-term. However, the short-term effect remains negative.


The characteristically disruptive conduct exhibited both at school and home by children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) appears to be particularly emotionally difficult for the children's mothers, who often turn to educational professionals for guidance. With a view to improving best practice in assistance to mothers and to promoting the tenets of inclusive education policy, the authors investigated the ways in which mothers experienced the support provided by educational psychologists. A qualitative interpretivist approach was adopted, with five purposefully selected mothers, whose children had previously been diagnosed with ADHD. Data was gathered from a focus group discussion and an individual interview. It emerged that mothers experienced parenting their children with ADHD as stressful, requiring continual reassurance and emotional support from educational psychologists. Having need of counselling for their families and academic help for their children, these mothers expected that educational psychologists should collaborate with educators and other role players, so as to enhance overall support to their children as learners. The findings pointed to the need for an effective inclusive school environment that forefront the role of educational psychologists in sharing knowledge and working collaboratively across the education system in South Africa.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper analyzes U.S. trade relations with the North Africa region. The study uses quarterly trade data for the period 1989-2008. There is a growing awareness among countries in the North Africa region regarding the importance of international trade for stimulating growth and integrating into the world economy. The research will attempt to achieve the following objectives: (a) analyze U.S. trade flows to the North Africa region; and (b) identify the effects of trade with the U.S. on economic growth in North African countries. The finding of the study may shed some light on the growing importance of U.S. trade relations with the North African nations. Keywords: International trade, U.S trade flows, North African region, Economic growth (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) INTRODUCTION The North African region, consisting of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Somalia, has two main groups of countries, namely, the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia) andthe Mashreq countries (Egypt and Sudan)(Bolle, 2006). These countries possess various connections comprising shared religion, culture and language. Conversely, they are distinct in terms of size, crude source endowments, and standard of living (Al-Atrash and Yousef, 2000). In this region, some are mainly farming and rural countries (Sudan), others are chiefly focus on energy sectors (Libya and Algeria), and others hold a promising and rising industrial foundation (Egypt and Morocco). According to the Business Monitor International (2009), while the North African region has proved resilient in 2009 largely escaping recession, its outlook for year 2010 appears more promising, driven largely by a pick-up in demand for exports. For Libya and Algeria, developments in the oil market will prove key, while Morocco and Tunisia will benefit from a pick-up in European growth. The U.S. trade with North Africa is a trivial part of overall U.S. trade, accounting for about 0.8 percent of all U.S. exports and 1.1 percent of all U.S. imports in 2008. More than 60 percent of the oil and gas consumed in the United States each year is imported. Oil and gas imports from the Middle East constitute 70 percent of total U.S. imports from that region. Three main products, namely, mineral fuel, oil, etc., woven apparel, and knit apparel, account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. merchandise imports from North Africa. Of these products, mineral fuel, oil, etc. accounted for 87 percent of U.S. imports from the region in the first eleven months of 2009. On the other hand, more than 50 percent of the U.S. exports to North African countries are greatly focused in few industries: machinery (17%), aircraft and spacecraft (11%), mineral fuel and oil etc. (10%), cereals (9%), and miscellaneous grain, seed, and fruit (7%). Although the U.S. trade with North Africa is a trivial part of overall U.S. trade, North African region's exports to the U.S. accounts for nearly 13 percent of region's overall exports. Therefore, this research will attempt to achieve two objectives: first, to analyze U.S. trade flows to the North Africa region; and second, to identify the effects of trade with the U.S. on economic growth in North African countries. The finding of the study may shed some light on the growing importance of U.S. trade relations with the North African nations. The paper is structured as follows: the next section discusses the nature and the dynamics of U.S. trade with the North African region, whereas section 3 presents a survey of literature. Section 4 presents the specification of the econometric model and data sources. The empirical results are presented and discussed in Section 5 and finally, Section 6 summarizes the main results and concludes with some policy implications. GENERAL PERFORMANCE OF U.S. TRADE WITH NORTH AFRICA In this section, we describe the extent, nature, and dynamics of trade between the United States and North Africa. …


* Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics. Richard Davis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. 232 pp. $19.95 pbk. Bloggers are usurping the power of traditional journalism elites and giving a political voice to the previously unheard masses. Right? Not according to Richard Davis. In Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics, Davis carefully and convincingly documents a surprisingly limited role for the nation's most-read political blogs. His provocative thesis is that blogs do not represent a "distinctive form and a reform of the existing communications and political systems" as bloggers often claim. Rather, Davis concludes that blogs have developed a mutually dependent relationship with politicians and the traditional media. The conceptual framework for this book is transactional agenda setting, which Davis describes as the idea that "[rjather than a linear relationship in which other players are merely the receivers of media agendas, the agenda-setting process is more transactional in nature. Elites, the public, and the media all join in agenda setting." Davis explores that notion using the results of quantitative and qualitative content analyses of both political blogs and elite media content and surveys of traditional journalists and readers of political blogs. If a 200-page agenda-setting study is not your idea of a good read, don't worry. Davis' agenda-setting analysis adds a valuable theoretical component to his study but does not detract from the book's readability. Typing Politics begins with a well-written account of the decade-long history of political blogging. Davis pays special attention to the most-read political blogs, including Daily Kos, Instapundit, and The Huffington Post. (The top ten political blogs have 49% of political blog readership, Davis says.) There are many interesting anecdotes about blogging, some familiar but others new to me. Then Davis, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, explores the still-evolving relationships between bloggers, politicians, and the traditional media. In an admirably even-handed way, Davis describes how these groups do - and do not - influence one another. For example, he says bloggers often are the first to frame a news story because bloggers sometimes can report a story more quickly than the traditional media. That frame then sometimes is adopted by the traditional media. However, traditional journalists surveyed said that while they read political blogs, they seldom rely on them for either story ideas or information because they perceive the blogs as biased and inaccurate. …


Summary In the last few decades, the use of molecular tools has greatly improved the efficiency of plant disease diagnosis. However, one of the major setbacks of most molecular diagnostic approaches is their inability to differentiate between dead and viable pathogens. We propose a new strategy for the detection of plant pathogens, based on the use of mRNA as a viability marker, on the basis that mRNA degradation in dead cells is significantly more rapid than that of DNA. A real-time reverse-transcription PCR (RT-PCR) assay targeting the mRNA of the subunit I of the cytochrome oxidase gene was designed for Phytophthora ramorum, the causal agent of sudden oak death and ramorum blight. In controlled laboratory tests, the developed RT-PCR assay did not detect the target mRNA a week after the pathogen had been killed by rapid lyophilization, while DNA of the pathogen could still be detected 3 months after the pathogen had died. The RT-PCR assay was then compared with a traditional culturing approach using PARP selective medium and two nested real-time PCR techniques on symptomatic California bay laurel leaves. Samples were either collected in three different sites in July, or in the same site but in three different seasons. Overall, RT-PCR results showed less positive samples than DNA-based nested PCR techniques (p < 0.0001), but more than culturing (p = 0.017). Nested PCR-positive but RT-PCR-negative samples may not be viable. On the other hand, RT-PCR-positive but culture-negative samples may be viable but dormant. A comparative analysis of the results indicated that RT-PCR and culturing provide comparable results when climatic conditions are optimal for the pathogen, but RT-PCR may be the most accurate approach to determine pathogen viability when climatic conditions are less than optimal for the pathogen.


Further deregulation of energy markets has been challenged by the California energy crisis of 2000-2001 and the collapse of Enron. Many observers have argued that these events are unrelated, and, therefore, deregulation itself should not be questioned. Each disaster is just a symptom, however, of something more fundamental and structural: the failure of modern American political discourse to appreciate regulation's rationale. In particular, both the California energy crisis and Enron's collapse were caused by legislative and administrative failures to design regulatory institutions that adequately constrained opportunistic behavior. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom about what happened in California and therefore challenges the conventional wisdom about what should be done to avoid similar problems. This inquiry has relevance both for other states considering deregulation (or its euphemistic cousin, "restructuring'), as well as how the federal government approaches its role in a partially-deregulated electricity market. The dominant story of what happened in California is riddled with both factual and conceptual errors, and those errors engendered a series of policy responses that exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the underlying causes of the crisis. Political discourse on the Bush Administration's National Energy Plan suffers from similar problems. Our nation, therefore, runs a serious risk of repeating the conditions that gave rise to the California energy crisis, rather than learning from them.


The scientific debate on systemic transition from a command-style to a market economy focused in the past mainly on the cases of former soviet countries and China (e. g. Heiduk, 1997). The case of Vietnam has been given little attention before the Asian crisis shed some light on the economic performance of that country. Vietnam's role as an outsider is astonishing, taken into consideration that its economic development is with an average growth rate below 9 % and an inflation rate below 10 % impressive. That underlines the notion that Vietnam has coped with the transformation process much better than other (former) socialist countries in transition (see table 1). Also, the point that Vietnam has managed to survive the Asian Crisis much better than neighbouring countries (although rapid growth slowed down as a result of the turmoil in Asia to 6-7 %), turns it into an interesting study field for development economists


Section 12(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 is the only provision of the federal securities laws that provides a broad, express remedy for fraud to purchasers of securities. Traditionally, section 12(2) was given broad scope with courts interpreting it to apply to public offerings, private transactions, and ordinary aftermarket trading so long as the purchaser could show, among other things, that the seller sold by means of a communication that included a material misstatement or omission. In Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 115 S. Ct. 1061 (1995), however, the Supreme Court offered a radically altered vision of section 12(2). There, the Court departed from the traditional understanding of section 12(2) by interpreting section 12(2) to apply to public offerings by an issuer or a controlling shareholder, but not to private transactions among sophisticated parties or to ordinary aftermarket trading. The Court therefore concluded that section 12(2) did not apply to the privately negotiated stock purchase agreement at issue in the case. This paper analyzes section 12(2) from the perspective of law and from the perspective of economics. In doing so, it reaches a conclusion that differs both from the traditional view of section 12(2) and from the view espoused by the Supreme Court in Gustafson -- that section 12(2) should be applied to public offerings and to ordinary aftermarket trading, but not to private transactions. This implies that the Supreme Court was correct in holding section 12(2) inapplicable to private transactions like those involved in Gustafson, but that the Court should revisit the reasoning underlying its decision when it considers whether section 12(2) applies in factually distinct setting of ordinary aftermarket trading.


This paper presents the optimization of functional tolerancing by dispersions method, this later has made this evidence in manufacturing dimensions optimization. In this work the dispersions method on the basis of unknown variables is combined with the minimal transfer method for automatically the modelling of the functional requirements of a mechanical assembly. The simulation is constructed around two procedures. The first procedure executes the extraction of the functional requirements, the second procedure results in the optimization of the dispersions. The functional dimensions are synthesized by uses of the optimised values of the dispersions to compute the mean values and tolerances of the functional dimensions in the chains. They are in adequacy with the writing within the meaning of the ISO standard of the functional dimensions.


Volcanic rocks play an important role in the building and construction industry. Most of the raw materials used by the building industry around Nairobi are the volcanic rocks. The main volcanic rocks considered include Lavas and Pyroclastic rocks. There has been no close monitoring of the proper application of the volcanic raw materials in the construction and cement industry. This might have been resulted due to lack of initiative to study the impacts that results from not applying the right raw materials to the right end use. This has been promoted by fraudulent contractors who could just use this type of rocks without any scientific or mineralogical study. In the world of property valuation, real estate managers have not been able to present objective valuation of such properties due to lack of data on the mineralogical and physical properties of the building materials. Insurance Agencies cannot place realistic premiums on buildings and structures due to lack of geological information of the materials used in the construction. The aim of this of this research is to provide knowledge on properties of volcanic raw materials and develop their suitable application in construction industry. The method used involved carrying out end use tests which included aggregate test, pozzolanicity tests and building stone tests. Project area is bounded by latitudes 1 0 00' S and 1 0 30'S and by longitudes 36 0 30' and 37 0 00' E and has an area of approximately 1,200 square miles (31,108 km 2 ). The geological history of Nairobi area is dominated by volcanic activity whereby a thick succession of alkaline lavas associated tuffs began accumulating in Mid-Miocene time and continued into Upper Pleistocene. The result shows that Kapiti phonolites contain zeolites which react with alkalis in concrete to course cracking. It is also noted that most trachytes and tuffs are weak and therefore unsuitable for aggregates. The best material found stronger to be used in aggregate making is the phonolites. It is noted that trachytes and phonolites cannot be used as pozzolana material in cement manufacturing. Most of the volcanic rocks around Nairobi can be used either as walling stones or building stones. The machine cut blocks can only be made from the tuffs because other rocks are harder to be cut.


ABSTRACT Four sedimentary sections were logged and sampled from upper Tortonian-lower Messinian outcrops on the island of Crete (Greece). The collected material yielded about 60 bryozoan species belonging to nine different colonial morphotypes. A few species are stenobathic, indicating either shallow- or deep-water environments, but most of them are eurybathic (with bathymetric ranges extending in some instances from the shelf down to several hundreds of metres). Bryozoan communities point to sea-level variations modulated by local tectonics. Deep circalittoral environments were recognized at the base of three sections (whereas the fourth section starts with infralittoral/shallow circalittoral environments passing to deep circalittoral. Shallow bathyal habitats follow upwards, succeeded in turn by assemblages indicative of deep circalittoral and subsequently shallow circalittoral/infralittoral depths. Inferred bathymetric fluctuations are diachronous throughout the island. Shallow-water species found associated, sometimes abundantly, with rarer deep-water faunas in a few levels, are interpreted as transported by currents. Several dysoxic episodes have been also detected: likely the result of water column stratification and enhanced productivity. These processes were probably boosted by a combination of changes in oceanic circulation, climate, global sea-level, and the local/regional tectonics (in Crete and/or the marine gateways between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic).


A new systolic architecture for modular division is proposed in this paper. The architecture is based on a new hardware algorithm for modular division that is extended from the plus-minus algorithm for the greatest common divisor computation. Both the area complexity and the time complexity of the new architecture are linear with respect to the operand bit length. Compared to the architecture using a redundant number representation proposed by Kaihara and Takagi, the new architecture allows a doubled throughput due primarily to the greatly reduced critical path delay, while the area is only about 20 percent larger. Moreover, it is shown that, with a small addition to the control logic, the architecture can also be used to perform Montgomery modular multiplication, thereby efficiently realizing a unified modular multiplier/divider