Abstract The main key to achieving high-power long-duration discharges on Tore Supra, the actively cooled toroidal pump limiter (TPL) is the main plasma-facing component, handling high heat fluxes. The heat pattern on the TPL presents features of both localized and large-area limiters (mixed influences of parallel and cross-field heat fluxes). The combination of the toroidal field ripple and the flat surface results in a peaked heat flux pattern with large private flux areas on the surface. The apparent heat flux decay length is shorter than 10 mm and varies by less than 10% with the plasma conditions. The conduction/convection is modeled within 5% by the heat flux deposition code TOKAFLUX. The heat pattern is further modified by the contribution of suprathermal particles (ion ripple losses, fast electrons). Altogether, the relation of the peak heat flux to a given injected power is consistent with modeling made during TPL design. The thermal response of the elements is also in line with the design, with a typical thermal time constant of 1 s and steady-state surface temperature during long discharges. An important issue being investigated concerns the growth of material deposits; they accumulate in shadowed areas and especially just along the frontier to plasma-wetted areas. In 2009, the limiter is still in operation and several thematics are still being actively investigated, such as the effect of the material deposits on the operation, the long-time-scale behavior of the tile to heat sink bond, and the deuterium retention.


In this paper, we provide new evidence on the determinants of sovereign yield spreads and contagion effects in the euro area in order to evaluate the rationale for a common Eurobond jointly guaranteed by euro-area Member States. We find that default risk is the main driver of yield spreads, suggesting small gains from greater liquidity. Fiscal fundamentals matter in the pricing of default risk but only as they interact with other countries' yield spreads; i.e. with the global risk that the market perceives. More important, the impact of this global risk variable is not constant over time, a clear sign of contagion driven by shifts in market sentiment. This evidence points to a discontinuity in the disciplinary role of financial markets. If markets can stay irrational longer than a country can stay solvent, then the role of yield spreads on national bonds as a fiscal discipline device is considerably weakened, and issuing Eurobonds can be economically justified.


Methane hydrates are considered a major potential source of hydrocarbon energy and could be important in meeting natural gas demand in the future. To study the feasibility of recovering methane from the offshore southern Taiwan region and its impact on many geological processes, it is necessary to know the total amount of hydrate in the region; something that is still unclear. Here we take the first step using a bottom-simulating reflector (BSR) to estimate the total volume of the stability field that can hold hydrates in the sediments offshore of southern Taiwan. We used a dense grid of 6-channel and 120-channel reflection profiles to study the istribution and sub-bottom depth of a BSR. BSRs are marked by a reversed polarity reflector that increases in sub-bottom depth with increasing water depth, suggesting that BSRs mark the base of methane hydrate stability zones. For offshore Taiwan a BSR is located in offscraped sediments derived from the Taiwan orogen and the Chinese continental margin. These sediments may have high amounts of organic carbon, thereby providing a source for the methane. We document the areal extent and subbottom depth of BSRs covering a 45000 km^2-wide region. The BSRs were classified into three categories based on how well they fit the seismic characteristics of the BSR associated with hydrates. Q1 BSR fits with all the expected seismic attributes to be found at the base of a hydrate boundary, while Q2 and Q3 BSRs are possible and probable reflectors resulting from such a boundary. We then estimate the volume of the hydrate stability zone bounded between the seafloor and the mapped BSRs in the offshore region. At least 1023 km^3 of the hydrate stability field is underlain by the highest quality BSRs while as much as 11522 km^3 is underlain by all mapped BSRs. We then speculated on the total amount of hydrate stored in the region using published regional porosity-depth relations and assuming a range of saturation values of hydrates in the pore spaces. Hydrate storage can be better estimated once additional porosity and saturation information becomes available.


The caprellidean fauna of deep-sea waters from Azores is investigated based on the material collected during the expedition BIACORES 1971 on board the vessel Jean Charcot (29 September-20 November 1971). The collection contained four species: Liropus azorensis n. sp., Protoaeginella paraspinipoda n. sp., Protoaeginella verrucosa n. sp. and Pseudoprotella phasma (Montagu, 1804). The three new species are described and illustrated in detail, and a key to the world species of Liropus Mayer, 1890, Protoaeginella Laubitz & Mills, 1972 and Pseudoprotella Montagu, 1804 is included. Liropus azorensis n. sp. is the only species in the genus with pereopods 3 and 4 two-articulate and the appendages well developed, being two-articulate in males. Protoaeginella paraspinipoda n. sp. is very close to P. spinipoda Laubitz & Sorbe, 1996 but can be distinguished mainly by the two-segmented abdomen and the abdominal appendages with three to five apical teeth. Protoaeginella verrucosa n. sp. differs from the remaining species of the genus mainly by the presence of two pairs of abdominal appendages. The present study enlarges the deep range known for Pseudoprotella phasma to 2450 m.


Symmorphosis is a concept of economy of biological design, whereby structural properties are matched to functional demands. According to symmorphosis, biological structures are never over designed to exceed functional demands. Based on this concept, the evolution of the diaphragm muscle (DIAm) in mammals is a tale of two structures, a membrane that separates and partitions the primitive coelomic cavity into separate abdominal and thoracic cavities and a muscle that serves as a pump to generate intra-abdominal (Pab ) and intrathoracic (Pth ) pressures. The DIAm partition evolved in reptiles from folds of the pleural and peritoneal membranes that was driven by the biological advantage of separating organs in the larger coelomic cavity into separate thoracic and abdominal cavities, especially with the evolution of aspiration breathing. The DIAm pump evolved from the advantage afforded by more effective generation of both a negative Pth for ventilation of the lungs and a positive Pab for venous return of blood to the heart and expulsive behaviors such as airway clearance, defecation, micturition, and child birth. © 2019 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 9:715-766, 2019.


A multi-zone direct-injection (DI) diesel combustion model has been implemented for full cycle simulation of a turbocharged diesel engine. The above combustion model takes into account the following features of the spray dynamics: • the detailed evolution process of fuel sprays; • interaction of sprays with the in-cylinder swirl and the walls of the combustion chamber; • the evolution of a Near-Wall Flow (NWF) formed as a result of a spray-wall impingement as a function of the impingement angle and the local swirl velocity; • interaction of Near-Wall Flows formed by adjacent sprays; • the effect of gas and wall temperatures on the evaporation rate in the spray and NWF zones. In the model each fuel spray is split into a number of specific zones with different evaporation conditions including in zones formed on the cylinder liner surface and on the cylinder head. The piston bowl in the modelling process is assumed to have an arbitrary axi-symmetric shape. The combustion model considers all known types of injectors including non-central and side injection systems. A NOx calculation sub-model uses detailed chemistry analysis which considers 199 reactions of 33 species. A soot formation calculation sub-model used is the phenomenological one and takes into account the distribution of the Sauter Mean Diameter in injection process. The ignition delay sub-model implements two concepts. The first concept is based on calculations using the conventional empirical equations. In the second approach the ignition delay period is estimated using relevant data in the calculated comprehensive 4-D map of ignition delays. This 4-D map is developed using CHEMKIN detailed chemistry simulations which take into account effects of the temperature, the pressure, the Air/Fuel ratio and the EGR. The above approach is also planned to be used in future for calculations of ignition delays in diesel engines fuelled by bio-fuels. The model has been validated using published experimental data obtained on high-and medium-speed engines. Comparison of results demonstrates a good agreement between theoretical and experimental sets of data. The above sub-models were integrated into DIESEL-RK software, which is a full-cycle engine simulation tool, allowing more advanced analysis of PCCI and HCCI diesels.


On the night of 6 January 1537 Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici killed his cousin, the first Duke of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici. In an Apologia, written around three years after the assassination, Lorenzo claimed that he had killed Alessandro in order to restore Florence to republican liberty. Historians have interpreted this text as a self-justificatory and self-aggrandizing piece. This article argues that the Apologia is better understood as an example of revenge humanism, and that its purpose was not to justify the assassination of Alessandro, but to defend Lorenzo's own name. The narrative of the Apologia presented Lorenzo as the defender of Florence's republican and civic traditions, but it did so within the culture and etiquette of sixteenth-century court society. Lorenzo was fighting a verbal duel with the contemporary critics who accused him of lacking honor, courage, and integrity.


Background & Objectives: Punica granatum is a non-productive form of a plant and is used for the treatment of diseases in traditional medicine. In this study, we evaluate the antibacterial activity and the total phenol compounds of Punica granatum. Materials & Methods: Disk and well diffusion methods and MIC were used to evaluate the antibacterial activity of hydro-alcoholic extract on S. aureus and E. coli compared to standard commercial antibiotic disks. Measurement of phenol compounds were performed by Seevers and Daly colorimetric methods (Folin-ciocalteu indicator). Results: 35 and 29 mm inhibition zones in S. aureus and 22 and 17 mm inhibition zones in E. coli were shown by disk and well diffusion method, respectively. Also, 7.8 mg/ml concentration of extract showed the MIC points for two bacteria. Phenol compound of extract was 233.15 ± 5.1 mg/g of extraction. Conclusion: Antibacterial effect of Punica granatum compared to antibiotics indicates the strong activity against examined bacteria. Extensive antibacterial study of Punica granatum is suggested.


With increasing water scarcity, research on policy options for improved water allocation and governance has become an urgent priority for many developing and developed countries. More and more, the focus is placed on institutional reforms but evaluating institutional alternatives is a challenging task. This paper takes a comparative approach and confronts case study data from Tunisia and South Africa, highlighting the importance of water rights reforms for irrigators. Using contingent valuation methods, the benefits for water users of changes in water rights systems are quantified. In both countries, willingness to pay estimates reveal that, from the farmers9 perspective, significant improvements can be made to current water rights systems. This is valuable information for policy makers to guide institutional reforms.


Preface Prologue: Literacy for the Modern World Part 1 Logic and Problem Solving Chapter 1 Thinking Critically 1A Recognizing Fallacies 1B Propositions and Truth Values 1C Sets and Venn Diagrams 1D Analyzing Arguments 1E Critical Thinking in Everyday Life Chapter 2 Approaches to Problem Solving 2A The Problem-Solving Power of Units 2B Standardized Units: More Problem-Solving Power 2C Problem-Solving Guidelines and Hints Part 2 Quantitative Information in Everyday Life Chapter 3 Numbers in the Real World 3A Uses and Abuses of Percentages 3B Putting Numbers in Perspective 3C Dealing with Uncertainty 3D Index Numbers: The CPI and Beyond 3E How Numbers Deceive: Polygraphs, Mammograms, and More Chapter 4 Managing Your Money 4A Taking Control of Your Finances 4B The Power of Compounding 4C Savings Plans and Investments 4D Loan Payments, Credit Cards, and Mortgages 4E Income Taxes 4F Understanding the Federal Budget Part 3 Probability and Statistics Chapter 5 Statistical Reasoning 5A Fundamentals of Statistics 5B Should You Believe a Statistical Study? 5C Statistical Tables and Graphs 5D Graphics in the Media 5E Correlation and Causality Chapter 6 Putting Statistics to Work 6A Characterizing a Data Distribution 6B Measures of Variation 6C The Normal Distribution 6D Statistical Inference Chapter 7 Probability: Living with the Odds 7A Fundamentals of Probability 7B Combining Probabilities 7C The Law of Large Numbers 7D Assessing Risk 7E Counting and Probability Part 4 Modeling Chapter 8 Exponential Astonishment 8A Growth: Linear versus Exponential 8B Doubling Time and Half-Life 8C Real Population Growth 8D Logarithmic Scales: Earthquakes, Sounds, and Acids Chapter 9 Modeling Our World 9A Functions: The Building Blocks of Mathematical Models 9B Linear Modeling 9C Exponential Modeling Chapter 10 Modeling with Geometry 10A Fundamentals of Geometry 10B Problem Solving with Geometry 10C Fractal Geometry Part 5 Further Applications Chapter 11 Mathematics and the Arts 11A Mathematics and Music 11B Perspective and Symmetry 11C Proportion and the Golden Ratio Chapter 12 Mathematics and Politics 12A Voting: Does the Majority Always Rule? 12B Theory of Voting 12C Apportionment: The House of Representatives and Beyond 12D Dividing the Political Pie Chapter 13 Mathematics and Business 13A Network Analysis 13B The Traveling Salesman Problem 13C Scheduling Problems Credits Answers Index


The rise of the Internet brings up a debate about its role in eroding or strengthening the nation-state. Taking the perspective of media ecology, this article explored the Internet's impacts on social context in which national identity and trust in the state are formed. Using the data from the World Values Survey, this article carried out multilevel analyses with 47,965 respondents in 33 countries. The results illustrated two conclusions. First, the Internet as a context threatens the mutual support between the nation and the state, leading to the separation of the nation-state. Second, democracy harnesses the Internet. On the one hand, digital freedom neutralizes the challenges brought by digital infrastructure. On the other hand, digital infrastructure favors the civic approach over the ethnic approach.


Wind energy's ability to compete with fossil fuels on a market level depends on lowering wind's high operational costs. Since damages on wind turbine blades are the leading cause for these operational problems, identifying blade damages is critical. However, recent works in visual identification of blade damages are still experimental and focus on optimizing the traditional machine learning metrics such as IoU. In this paper, we argue that pushing models to production long before achieving the "optimal" model performance can still generate real value for this use case. We discuss the performance of our damage's suggestion model in production and how this system works in coordination with humans as part of a commercialized product and how it can contribute towards lowering wind energy's operational costs.


One category of research in Artificial Life is concerned with modeling and building so-called adaptive autonomous agents, which are systems that inhabit a dynamic, unpredictable environment in which they try to satisfy a set of time-dependent goals or motivations. Agents are said to be adaptive if they improve their competence at dealing with these goals based on experience. Autonomous agents constitute a new approach to the study of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is highly inspired by biology, in particular ethology, the study of animal behavior. Research in autonomous agents has brought about a new wave of excitement into the field of AI. This paper reflects on the state of the art of this new approach. It attempts to extract its main ideas, evaluates what contributions have been made so far, and identifies its current limitations and open problems.


The successful use of gene technology for complex crop traits and responses to stress environments remains a challenging approach despite its potential. Stable crop yield in drought prone environments has been one of the most studied complex traits in recent years and transgenic crops with better performance have been repeatedly reported. We reviewed the experimental approach of contrasting case studies that report the enhancement of drought resistance in rice using various strategies. If the overall gene technology method is very similar in the different studies analyzed, the limited number of transgenic lines evaluated remains often a pitfall from a breeding perspective since it does not provide a robust assessment of the strategy. The protocols for plant evaluation and the parameters used to assess stress resistance are very different, which is a major limitation to literature mining. This clearly emphasizes the urgent need to define or redefine the major steps and criteria to meet better crop performance in the field, in particular for less favorable environments. We summarized some of these key parameters and we proposed some enabling solutions that can address crop breeding challenges.


Optical metasurfaces are a class of ultra-thin diffractive optical elements, which can control different properties of light such as amplitude, phase, polarization and direction at various wavelengths. The compatibility of optical metasurfaces with standard micro- and nano-fabrication processes makes them highly-suitable for realization of compact and planar form optical devices and systems. In addition, optical metasurfaces have achieved unique and unprecedented functionalities not possible by conventional diffractive or refractive optical elements. In this thesis, after a short review on the history and state of the art optical metasurfaces, I will discuss the systems consisting of optical metasurfaces, called optical meta-systems, which allow for implementations of complicated optical functions, such as wide field of view imaging and projection, tunable cameras, retro-reflection, phase-imaging, multi-color imaging, etc. Thereafter, the concept of folded metasurface optics is introduced and a compact folded metasurface spectrometer is showcased to demonstrate how the folded meta-systems can be designed, fabricated and practically utilized for real-life applications. Furthermore, different approaches for implementation of miniaturized hyperspectral imagers are investigated, among which the folded metasurface optics and a computational scheme using a random metasurface mask will be highlighted. Other potentials of optical metasurfaces achieved by the employment of optimization techniques to improve their multi-functional performances, as well as example applications in realizing optical vortex cornographs are studied. Finally, I will conclude the dissertation with an outlook on further applications of optical metasurfaces, where they can surpass the performance of current optical devices and systems and what limitations are still to be overcome before we can expect their wide-spread applications in our daily life.


Meteorological data and high resolution numerical simulations were used to estimate spatial fields in eastern Amazonia where is located the Forest and the Bay of Caxiuana. The study were performed for the period of November 2006, when occurred the field experiment COBRA-PARA. Analysis of the MODIS sensor from the Terra Satellite images show the occurrence of various phenomena such as local cloud streets, precipitating convective systems and an important influence of the interfaces between the forest and water surfaces. Numerical simulations for November 7, 2006 showed that the model represented well the major meteorological processes. The results show that the Caxiuana Bay causes significant impact on adjacent meteorological fields mainly through advection by the northeast winds that induce to colder canopy temperature to the west of the bay and convective rainfall. Simulations with high resolution (LES) produced spatial patterns of temperature and humidity aligned with the winds during the daytime, and at nighttime the patterns are influenced mainly by the presence of the bay. Correlations between the mid-level winds and the latent heat fluxes showed that there is a change from negative correlations for the early hours to positive correlations for the afternoon and early evening.


Abstract Smart information systems (SIS - Big Data and artificial intelligence) are used in Customer Relations Management (CRM) to help manage large customer databases and improve customer interaction by companies. This case study involves research into the Finnish telecommunications provider Company A regarding their use of SIS in developing CRM. This they use primarily for assessing "churn", the drop-off rate of customers choosing not to re-subscribe to Company A services, and for improving customer service by monitoring customer activity on Company A's website. SIS has the potential to improve both of these areas through developing an understanding based on patterns of behaviour. A literature review of ethical issues facing the use of SIS in CRM reveals that there are a number of such issues. These include autonomy, control and manipulation of people, privacy, customer knowledge as to what happens with data pertaining to them, algorithmic bias, responsibility of companies, governments and individuals, trust and informed consent. The interview held at Company A demonstrated that many of these issues are recognised and encountered by practitioners operating in SIS. Informed consent and trust were not discussed in the interview while global approaches to ethics was raised in the interview in a manner not seen in the literature review. Overall, this case study evaluates how ethical issues found within the SIS literature correlate with those identified, and tackled, in the business practice of CRM.


A study was conducted to assess the existing village chicken and egg marketing system of Bure district, North West Ethiopia. A participatory rural appraisal and a formal survey were used to collect all the relevant data, using a multistage sampling technique. Seven farmer kebeles (2 from high land, 3 from mid altitude and 2 from low land agro ecologies) and a total of 280 village chicken owner households were selected and considered for the study. In addition, 30 chicken and egg collectors (middle men) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. All local and urban markets were visited once in a month in all seasons of the year. The result of the current study revealed that there was no any formal chicken and egg marketing operation in the study district. The result showed that 69.3% and 99.6% of interviewed village chicken owners involved in marketing of chicken and eggs, respectively. Producer-Consumer, Producer-Middle men, Producer-Retailer, Middle menRetailer, Middle men-Consumer were the prevailing chicken and egg marketing channels of the study district. According to the result of the study village chicken owners traveled, on average, a distance of 5.5km and 15.9km to reach to nearby local markets and urban markets, respectively. It is identified that the majority (59.3%) of chicken owners used both hand carrying (hanging birds with a piece of stick) and carrying birds with bamboo-made containers to transport live birds to markets. The result of the current study revealed that the price of chicken and eggs showed variation between months of the year. The percentage increase in market prices of chicken products at holyday market days, as compared to ordinary market days was 19.2% for cocks, 15.3% hen, 24.2% for pullets/cockerels and 16% for eggs. Some of the major marketing problems identified in this study were: low supply of marketable chicken products, presence of only few/limited market out-lets and lack of appropriate marketing information. It is suggested that chicken and egg marketing of village chicken producers can be improved through development of market information system at farmer's level and strengthening of agricultural extension services, through trainings and advisory services.


Exurban development is the fastest growing land use across the United States (US). Its prevalence on the East Coast is susceptible to natural disaster events such as hurricanes and nor'easters. However, the socio-ecological processes related to disaster mitigation within exurban areas remain understudied. Our objective was to integrate social and landscape data to compare resident attitudes towards utility roadside vegetation management across four areas in the state of Connecticut, US. We collected data from residents using two mail surveys completed in 2017 and 2019 (n = 1962). From the survey questions, three attitude variables measured perceptions of the utility vegetation management process, and tradeoffs between protecting trees and maintaining reliable power. Across all locations, respondents with more favorable attitudes toward vegetation management were more likely to have greater knowledge about trees, and beliefs that trees should be used for human benefit; land cover characteristics and sociodemographic variables were less strongly associated with attitudes scores. Respondents differed among study areas in their preferences for aesthetics of roadside trees and their basic beliefs regarding the importance of trees. The results suggested that social processes within the exurban landscapes are spatially heterogeneous. Therefore, local variation in residential preferences for vegetation management may influence support for natural disaster management policy.


This paper reports the outcomes of the 2014 Data Fusion Contest organized by the Image Analysis and Data Fusion Technical Committee (IADF TC) of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE GRSS). As for previous years, the IADF TC organized a data fusion contest aiming at fostering new ideas and solutions for multisource remote sensing studies. In the 2014 edition, participants considered multiresolution and multisensor fusion between optical data acquired at 20-cm resolution and long-wave (thermal) infrared hyperspectral data at 1-m resolution. The Contest was proposed as a double-track competition: one aiming at accurate landcover classification and the other seeking innovation in the fusion of thermal hyperspectral and color data. In this paper, the results obtained by the winners of both tracks are presented and discussed.


When sweetpotato chlorotic stunt crinivirus (SPCSV) and sweetpotato feathery mottle potyvirus (SPFMV) infect sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.), they interact synergistically and cause sweetpotato virus disease (SPVD), a major constraint to food productivity in east Africa. The genetic basis of resistance to these diseases was investigated in 15 sweetpotato diallel families (1352 genotypes) in Uganda, and in two families of the same diallel at the International Potato Center (CIP), Lima, Peru. Graft inoculation with SPCSV and SPFMV resulted in severe SPVD symptoms in all the families in Uganda. The distribution of SPVD scores was skewed toward highly susceptible categories (SPVD scores 4 and 5), eliminating almost all the resistant genotypes (scores 1 and 2). Likewise, when two promising diallel families ('Tanzania' x 'Bikilamaliya' and 'Tanzania' x 'Wagabolige') were graft inoculated with SPCSV and SPFMV at CIP, severe SPVD was observed in most of the progenies. Individual inoculation of these two families with SPCSV or SPFMV, and Mendelian segregation analysis for resistant vs. susceptible categories led us to hypothesize that resistance to SPCSV and SPFMV was conditioned by two separate recessive genes inherited in a hexasomic or tetradisomic manner. Subsequent molecular marker studies yielded two genetic markers associated with resistance to SPCSV and SPFMV. The AFLP and RAPD markers linked to SPCSV and SPFMV resistance explained 70% and 72% of the variation in resistance, respectively. We propose naming these genes as spcsv1 and spfmv1. Our results also suggest that, in the presence of both of these viruses, additional genes mediate oligogenic or multigenic horizontal (quantitative) effects in the progenies studied for resistance to SPVD.


The literature on inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) typically assumes that humans take actions to minimize the expected value of a cost function, i.e., that humans are risk neutral. Yet, in practice, humans are often far from being risk neutral. To fill this gap, the objective of this paper is to devise a framework for risk-sensitive (RS) IRL to explicitly account for a human's risk sensitivity. To this end, we propose a flexible class of models based on coherent risk measures, which allow us to capture an entire spectrum of risk preferences from risk neutral to worst case. We propose efficient non-parametric algorithms based on linear programming and semi-parametric algorithms based on maximum likelihood for inferring a human's underlying risk measure and cost function for a rich class of static and dynamic decision-making settings. The resulting approach is demonstrated on a simulated driving game with 10 human participants. Our method is able to infer and mimic a wide range of qualitatively different driving styles from highly risk averse to risk neutral in a data-efficient manner. Moreover, comparisons of the RS-IRL approach with a risk-neutral model show that the RS-IRL framework more accurately captures observed participant behavior both qualitatively and quantitatively, especially in scenarios where catastrophic outcomes such as collisions can occur.


Background Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) has episodic or subclinical inflammation that may lead to a decrease in bone mineral density (BMD). Objective To assess BMD in Egyptian children with FMF on genetic basis. Subjects and methods A cross sectional study included 45 FMF patients and 25 control children of both sexes, with age range between 3–16 years old. The patients were reclassified into 2 groups: Group I (A) 23 cases used colchicines for 1 month or less, and Group I (B) 22 cases used colchicines for more than 6 months. For both patients and control, MEFV mutations were defined using molecular genetics technique and BMD was measured by DXA at 2 sites: proximal femur and the lumber spines. Results four frequent gene mutation where found in the patient group: E148Q (35.6%), V726A (33.3%), M680I (28.9.0%) and M694V (2.2%). There were also 4 heterozygous gene mutations in 40% of control children. Patients received Colchicines treatment for less than 1 month had highly significant lower values of BMD at femur and lumber spines than control children (p < 0.007, p < 0.001). Patients received Colchicines treatment for more than 6 months had improved values of BMD at femur compared to control, but there were still significant differences between them at lumbar spine (p > 0.036). There are insignificant effect of type of gene mutation on BMD and the risk of osteopenia among the patients. Conclusion FMF had significant effect on BMD. However; regular use of colchicines treatment improves this effect mainly at femur.


The effects of various cultural conditions on the composition and nutritional quality of Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Sing. were investigated. Variation in composition was found between different classes of sample. Sampling techniques were standardised to allow for major variations in the different developmental stages and culture ages. Fruitbodies were found to be of low calorific value but contained protein of high digestibility and quality, containing all the essential amino acids required by man. Quantitative estimates of the sulphur-containing amino acids indicated that fruitbodies were deficient in methionine and cysteine. The extent of water application and the supplementation of conventional substrates with various nitrogen-containing substances, influenced yield and composition, establishing the importance of these two factors in the physiology of fruitbodies and cultural management. Storage conditions influenced composition, high temperatures being deleterious to the nutritional value of fruitbodies. Submerged culture techniques were used to investigate the effects of various nutrients on growth and composition of mushroom mycelium, with special reference to the sulphur-containing amino acids. Yield and composition were greatly affected by the carbon:nitrogen ratio of the medium and by the nitrogen source. Significant increases in mycelial methionine content were observed on the addition of inorganic sulphate, the methionine derivative N-acetyl-L-methionine, and L-methionine. A greater increase in methionine content was obtained when the biomass of a thermophilic bacterium isolated from compost was used as a nitrogen source.


In this article we discuss known and possible uses of echolocation by humans. We argue that echolocation may be a basic perception-action ability of humans. We review studies which suggest that both blind and sighted humans are capable of substantial precision in the perception of properties of distal objects, such as distance, size, shape, substance, and relative motion. We analyze relations between acoustic pulse and echo that may provide information to support these percepts and others. Our analysis predicts echolocation-based sensitivity in humans and other animals to a number of properties of the animal-environment interaction. We also discuss echolocation-based acoustic specification of time-to-contact. We develop a new variable that provides this information and discuss acoustic Τs recently developed by Shaw, McGowan, and Turvey (1991) and by Lee, van der Weel, Hitchcock, Matejowsky, and Pettigrew (1992).Our analysis suggests that there may be important insights to be gained from an ecological ...


Background Patients with brain tumours report elevated levels of distress across the disease course. Massage therapy is a commonly used complementary therapy and is employed in cancer care to reduce psychological stress and to improve quality of life (QoL). The purpose of this pilot study was to obtain a preliminary assessment of the effect of massage therapy on patient-reported psychological outcomes and QoL. Materials and methods This study was a prospective, single-arm intervention. Participants were newly diagnosed primary brain tumour patients who reported experiencing distress and who received a total of eight massages over a period of 4 weeks. Participants completed the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's Distress Thermometer (DT) six times over a 5-week period. Results As a group, levels of distress dropped significantly between baseline and week 3 (mean 4.19, SD 1.481, p≤0.025), with a further significant reduction in distress between week 3 and week 4 (p≤0.001). At the end of week 4, the DT scores of all participants were below the threshold for being considered distressed. By the end of the intervention, participants reported significant improvements in one test domain focused on emotional well-being. Conclusions This study further documents that brain tumour patients report high levels of distress across the disease course. However, participants in this study reported improvements in distress level and total number of sources of distress while receiving massage therapy.


Creative ideas are children of solitude, yet are rarely conceived in isolation. This is particularly true in science, which thrives on reliable and precise communication across linguistic, social, and cultural barriers. The digital age has given us instant global communication, yet scientists still prefer to talk about shared values and scientific issues face to face. As a unifying bond for our scientific culture, nothing rivals the spoken word.


Profile development during the isothermal drawing of the hollow all-polymer Bragg fibers is studied in the case when surface tension is strong enough to cause a hole collapse. The viscoelastic model of polymer flow is considered, and a comparison with the simpler Newtonian and generalized Newtonian models is made. The effects of draw ratio, draw temperature, feeding speed, core pressurization, and mismatch of material properties in the multilayer structure are investigated. A relation between the hole collapse and the layers nonuniformity is presented, and their effect on the fiber-transmission properties is investigated


Instruction-based or software-based self-testing (SBST) is a scalable functional testing paradigm that has gained increasing acceptance in testing of single-threaded uniprocessors. Recent computer architecture trends towards chip multiprocessing and multithreading have raised new challenges in the test process. In this paper, we present a novel self-test optimization strategy for multithreaded, multicore microprocessor architectures and apply it to both manufacturing testing (execution from on-chip cache memory) and post-silicon validation (execution from main memory) setups. The proposed self-test program execution optimization aims to: (a) take maximum advantage of the available execution parallelism provided by multiple threads and multiple cores, (b) preserve the high fault coverage that single-thread execution provides for the processor components, and (c) enhance the fault coverage of the thread-specific control logic of the multithreaded multiprocessor. The proposed multithreaded (MT) SBST methodology generates an efficient multithreaded version of the test program and schedules the resulting test threads into the hardware threads of the processor to reduce the overall test execution time and on the same time to increase the overall fault coverage. We demonstrate our methodology in the OpenSPARC T1 processor model which integrates eight CPU cores, each one supporting four hardware threads. MT-SBST methodology and scheduling algorithm significantly speeds up self-test time at both the core level (3.6 times) and the processor level (6.0 times) against single-threaded execution, while at the same time it improves the overall fault coverage. Compared with straightforward multithreaded execution, it reduces the self-test time at both the core level and the processor level by 33% and 20%, respectively. Overall, MT-SBST reaches more than 91% stuck-at fault coverage for the functional units and 88% for the entire chip multiprocessor, a total of more than 1.5M logic gates.


The paper presents a reliable organic solid-state tunable laser. Distributed-feedback lasing of [3-(2-benzothiazolyl)-7-(diethylamino)coumarin] (Coumarin 6) in a polymeric waveguide was achieved using holographic dynamic gratings. A low-threshold energy of lasing from Coumarin 6 was achieved in a poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVCz) matrix waveguide and in a tris(8-quinolinolato)aluminum (Alq) dispersed polystyrene (PS) matrix waveguide. For both PVCz / Coumarin 6 and PS/Alq/ Coumarin 6, the effective energy transfer played a significant role for lowering a lasing threshold. By rotating a Lloyd mirror, simply tunable lasing from 516 to 546 nm was achieved.


Input and interaction have received great attention in second language research due to their dominant role in second language teaching and learning. However, empirical studies that have examined their effects on the acquisition of Chinese as a second language remain scarce. This study fills this gap by comparing the effects of teacher-student interaction and student-student interaction on vocabulary acquisition in Chinese as a second language. Thirty-six adult beginners of Chinese completed ten weeks' study in Australia, in addition to preand posttests and a background questionnaire. Selected participants attended a focus group interview. Statistical analyses show that both types of interaction facilitate learning but their effects depend on the mode of tests. There was no statistically significant difference between the teacher-student interaction and studentstudent interaction in their effects on the acquisition of word meaning based on written scores, whereas the teacher-student group outperformed the student-student group in pronunciation. There was no statistically significant difference between the written and spoken scores of the teacher-student group, whereas the student-student group had higher written scores than spoken scores. The results suggest when learners are allowed to select learning content and provided with the learning materials prepared by teachers, the studentstudent interaction may achieve the same results as teacherstudent interaction in the acquisition of word meaning. The findings lend support to the Input and Interaction Hypothesis by showing that negotiation of meaning and comprehended input facilitated vocabulary acquisition, and extend the effects of interactions to the acquisition of Chinese as second language by pure beginners using their first language. The findings and their pedagogical implications are discussed and contextualised within Chinese-as-a-second-language teaching.


Managed moves were conceived of as a means of giving a pupil a 'fresh start' in another school, often when the pupil is deemed to be at risk of permanent exclusion. Little research on managed moves has been published to date in spite of their prevalence in English and Welsh schools over the past decade. Existing research has largely focused on the views of professionals involved and there has been no published research focusing solely on the perspectives of the pupils who have had managed moves.
The aim of this study was to add to the body of psychological research on managed moves through an exploration of pupil experience. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with six Year 10 and 11 pupils who had recently undergone a managed move between mainstream comprehensive schools. Interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). From the interview data, themes for each participant emerged. These led to the identification of four overarching themes occurring across the participant group: the self as vulnerable; the impact of support on the self; identity as a learner; and the need to belong. The findings were discussed in the context of existing literature. Implications for practice for educational psychology services and local authorities were considered, particularly to consider how schools can be supported in understanding factors that may impact on pupils experiencing managed moves and helped to support pupils throughout the process.


Sodium fluoride (NaF), an inhibitor of membrane activity, was used to investigate the mechanisms by which alloimmune macrophages kill target cells and produce plaques in monolayers of specific target cells. When target cells were treated with 0.02 M or 0.002 M NaF and washed before adding alloimmune macrophages to establish loci of cell interaction, plaque formation was not affected. However, when interacting alloimmune macrophages and target cells were initially exposed for 30 minutes or 1 hour to 0.02 M or 0.002 M NaF plaque formation was markedly suppressed. Comparative studies with NaF and the inhibitor of protein synthesis, Puromycin, showed that protein synthesis by macrophages was not affected by treatment with 0.002 M NaF. Results obtained by subjecting interacting cells to 1 hour exposure to NaF at various intervals indicated that the destruction of target cells by immune macrophages was irreversibly initiated in large measure during the first hour of cell interaction. It is postulated that the membrane activity of immune macrophages responsible for target cell killing involves the release or secretion of a cytoxin.


Conserving the energy for motion is an important yet not-well-addressed problem in mobile sensor networks. In this paper, we study the problem of optimizing sensor movement for energy efficiency. We adopt a complete energy model to characterize the entire energy consumption in movement. Based on the model, we propose an optimal velocity schedule for minimizing energy consumption when the road condition is uniform; and a near optimal velocity schedule for the variable road condition by using continuous-state dynamic programming. Considering the variety in motion hardware, we also design one velocity schedule for simple microcontrollers, and one velocity schedule for relatively complex microcontrollers, respectively. Simulation results show that our velocity planning may have significant impact on energy conservation


Abstract Low and variable capsule and seed set is a major factor limiting seed production in Eucalyptus globulus seed orchards. This study identified the relative contribution of the maternal and paternal parent to reproductive success in E. globulus, and examined the genetic basis to the observed variation. Reproductive success was measured in terms of the number of viable seeds obtained per flower crossed. Data on the reproductive success of numerous genotypes from the Furneaux, Strzelecki Ranges and Otways races were obtained from: (i) 12 years of operational full-sib crossing; (ii) a designed fullsib diallel mating scheme; and (iii) capsule retention trials conducted over three seasons at two Tasmanian seed orchards on the same ramets of different genotypes. Analysis of the sparse operational data revealed that both male and female factors significantly affected reproductive success, accounting for 5.0% and 7.9% of the variation respectively. The more precise diallel crossing revealed that a large, and significant, proportion 55%, of the variation in reproductive success between crosses at a single site was explained by the female parent. The male parent explained only 6.7%, but this effect was not statistically significant and was related to variation in in vitro pollen germination. The significant female effect was found to be consistent at the genotype level across seasons, sites and pollination techniques suggesting a genetic basis to the variation. It is argued that selection of genetically fecund females is a key consideration in reducing costs of manual pollination for breeding and deployment purposes.


The purpose of this research was to examine the use of prosody in a group of mentally retarded (MR) subjects who were impressionistically dysprosodic. Seven adult, institutionalized, severe mentally retarded subjects matched with two groups of normal subjects (matched for chronological age and for language age) were compared in two production experiments. The first experiment was a study of word level stress in w h i c h t h e subjects named pictures of two syllable, morphologically simple, non-derived words. The second experiment was a study of sentence level stress in which the subjects described changing toy locations with three word (subject-preposition-object) utterances, intended to require the use of prosody to distinguish contextually unchanged information from changed information. All subject productions were analyzed perceptually for stress accuracy by three sophisticated judges. Acoustic measurements were made using a Visi-Pitch 6095 interfaced with an Apple lie computer and an Epson FX 100 printer. This instrument combination enabled extraction of fundamental frequency ( F 0 ) peaks, relative intensity ( 1 0 ) peaks, mean F 0 , mean 10, and duration data for each s u b j e c t 's productions in each experiment. Comparisons were made of the subject groups' use of the acoustic parameters which might have cued stress. The lexical stress experiment revealed no differences in perceptual judgments of the groups' ability to mark stress on the appropriate syllable. The sentence accent experiment revealed that the MR group performed significantly poorer than the two groups of normal subjects. The MR group was perceived to use utterance final stress in a majority of its productions. They did not appear to use prosody to distinguish contextually unchanged information from contextually changed information. No differences in stress cues were found for the first and third stress positions. However, variations in the use of these parameters occurred in the second stress position. The acoustic analyses did not reveal patterns which characterized the dysprosodic nature of the MR subjects' productions. Possible explanations for acoustic variations in the second stress position were discussed along with future research considerations.


We present measurements and calculations of the terahertz (THz) electric field measured in the near field of a metal tip used in THz apertureless near-field optical microscopy (THz-ANSOM). An analytical model in which we treat the metal tip as a linear wire antenna allows us to predict almost all of the features observed in the measurements, such as the relatively slow decay of the near-field amplitude when the tip-crystal separation increases. When the tip-crystal separation is modulated, in conjunction with lock-in detection at the modulation frequency, a smaller THz spot size is observed underneath the tip. A comparison with analytical expressions shows that in this case the electric field originates predominantly from the tip apex, with negligible contributions from the tip shaft. In the unmodulated case, the observed signal is the spatial integral of the electrooptic (EO) effect over the interaction length between the THz near field and the probe laser pulse. In the modulated case, to a good approximation, we find that the signal is proportional to the value of the THz near field at the surface of the EO crystal only.


(PVP) laws, a growing number of farmers are affected by plant breeders' rights. In addition, the seed certification law also affects farmers' relations with seeds. Discussing the farmers' interaction with the PVP law and seed certification law in Indonesia, this article establishes that the farmers have internalised the law beyond the scope of the legal text, such that they selflimit breeding, saving, and exchanging of seeds even in legally permissible situations. Based on the chilling effect doctrine, this article argues that the related laws should be relaxed to ensure that they do not over deter farmers from exercising their rights. This article calls for both negative and positive state obligations to address the chilling effect on farmers arising from both state and private actors.


Abstract In this study, the leaf anatomical structure and essential oil chemical composition of Cordia myxa (Boraginaceae) growing in Turkey were investigated. In the anatomical study of C. myxa conducted by light microscopy, anomocytic stomata, cystoliths, cystolithic trichomes, glandular trichomes and calcium oxalate crystals were observed in the leaves, which are hypostomatic and bifacial. Long non-glandular trichomes, glandular trichomes and calcium oxalate crystals were found in the petiole. The major components of the essential oil were phytol (19.2%) and linalool (8.4%). These findings can be used as distinguishing elements in the diagnosis of Cordia myxa.


Pre-service teachers face many challenges as they learn to teach in ways that are different from their own educational experiences. Pre-service teachers often enter teacher education courses with pre-conceptions about teaching and learning that may or may not be consistent with contemporary learning theory. To build on preservice teachers' prior knowledge, we need to identify the types of views they have when entering teacher education courses and the views they develop throughout these courses. The study reported here focuses specifically on preservice teachers' views of their own students' prior knowledge and the implications these views have on their understanding of the formative assessment process. Sixty-one preservice teachers were studied from three sections of a science methods course. Results indicate that preservice teachers exhibited a limited number of views about students' prior knowledge. These views tended to privilege either academic or experience-based concepts for different aspects of formative assessment, in contrast to contemporary perspectives on teaching for understanding. Rather than considering these views as misconceptions, it is argued that it is more useful to consider them as resources for further development of a more flexible concept of formative assessment. Four common views are discussed in detail and applied to science teacher preparation. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 497-523, 2008


Questions have arisen concerning the appropriateness of the performance of laparoscopic anti-reflux surgery in the community hospital setting. The requirements of a safe and effective program include credentialing, preoperative evaluation, creation of the surgical team, conduct of the operation, and adequacy of follow up. If these requirements are met, then results similar to those from academic medical centers can be obtained.


Ohmic contacts to AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructures with low contact resistance and smooth surface morphology play a vital role in the development of high power, high frequency GaN transistors. In the present work, two different Ohmic contact fabrication techniques, recess etching and surface plasma treatment, are optimized in order to obtain good Ohmic contact performance on undoped AlGaN/AlN/ GaN heterostructure on 6H-SiC substrate.For Ohmic contact fabrication, Ti/Al/Ni/Au metallization scheme is studied under optimized Rapid Thermal Annealing (RTA) temperature and time. Three samples are prepared with different recess based process flow and surface plasma treatment. Standard Transmission Line Model (TLM) is used for computation of contact resistance, sheet resistance and specific contact resistance of Ohmic contacts. For the first time, we explored feasibility of surface plasma treatment process for fabricating Ohmic contacts on AlGaN/ AlN/GaN based heterostructures. We achieved contact resistance of around 0.27 Ω*mm. Further to it we realized improvement in contact resistance on AlGaN/AlN/GaN based heterostructures using recess etching and achieved contact resistance of around 0.25 Ω*mm using Ti/Al/Ni/Au metal stack. Based on the characterization results it is also observed that surface plasma treatment process is a good alternative of comparatively complex recess etching process in fabricating Ohmic contacts for AlGaN/AlN/GaN based High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs).


ABSTRACT: Solar exposure profoundly affects stream processes and species composition. Despite this, prominent stream monitoring protocols focus on canopy closure (obstruction of the sky as a whole) rather than on measures of solar exposure or shading. We identify a candidate set of solar exposure metrics that can be derived from hemispheric images. These metrics enable a more mechanistic evaluation of solar exposure than can be achieved with canopy closure metrics. Data collected from 31 stream reaches in eastern Oregon enable us to quantify and compare metrics of solar exposure from hemispheric images and a metric of canopy closure with a concave densiometer. Repeatability of hemispheric metrics is generally as good as or better than the densiometer closure metric, and variation in the analysis of hemispheric images attributable to differences between analysts is negligibly small. Metrics from the hemispheric images and the densiometer are typically strongly correlated, at the scale of an individual observation and for 150 m stream reaches, but not always in a linear fashion. We quantify the character of the uncertainty in the relationship between the densiometer and the hemispheric metrics. Hemispheric imagery produces repeatable metrics representing an important ecological attribute; thus those researching the effects of solar exposure on stream ecosystems should consider the use of hemispheric imagery.


Hitherto the basic units of agricultural statistics have been fictional (the holding and the Local KAU). The case is made that for many purposes basing economic statistics on the institutional units that undertake production - household-firms and corporations - would bring substantial advantages in terms of improving quality, easier interpretation and greater policy relevance. In particular, accounts drawn up for household-firms and companies should be constructed to complement the traditional activity accounts at aggregate and microeconomic levels. Implications for data systems are discussed.


The key argument of this dissertation is that the success of an Natural Language Processing (NLP) application depends on a proper representation of the corresponding linguistic problem. This theme is raised in the context that the recent progress made in our field is widely credited to the effective use of strong engineering techniques. However, the intriguing power of highly lexicalized models shown in many NLP applications is not only an achievement by the development in machine learning, but also impossible without the extensive hand-annotated data resources made available, which are originally built with very deep linguistic considerations. More specifically, we explore three linguistic aspects in this dissertation: the distinction between closed-class vs. open-class words, long-tail distributions in vocabulary study and determinism in language models. The first two aspects are studied in unsupervised tasks, unsupervised part-of-speech (POS) tagging and morphology learning, and the last one is studied in supervised tasks, English POS tagging and Chinese word segmentation. Each linguistic aspect under study manifests itself in a (different) way to help improve performance or efficiency in some NLP application. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Computer and Information Science First Advisor Mitchell P. Marcus


Measurements of two-photon fluorescence excitation (TPE) spectra are presented for 11 common molecular fluorophores in the excitation wavelength range 690 nm < λ < 1050 nm. Results of excitation by ∼100-fs pulses of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser are corroborated by single-mode cw Ti:sapphire excitation data in the range 710 nm < λ < 840 nm. Absolute values of the TPE cross section for Rhodamine B and Fluorescein are obtained by comparison with one-photon-excited fluorescence, assuming equal emission quantum efficiencies. TPE action cross sections for the other nine fluorophores are also determined. No differences between one-photon- and two-photon-excited fluorescence emission spectra are found. TPE emission spectra are independent of excitation wavelength. With both pulsed and cw excitation the fluorescence emission intensities are strictly proportional to the square of the excitation intensity to within ±4% for excitation intensities sufficiently below excited-state saturation.


Effective Big Data analytics pose several difficult challenges for modern data management architectures. One key such challenge arises from the naturally streaming nature of big data, which mandates efficient algorithms for querying and analyzing massive, continuous data streams (that is, data that is seen only once and in a fixed order) with limited memory and CPU-time resources. Such streams arise naturally in emerging large-scale event monitoring applications; for instance, network-operations monitoring in large ISPs, where usage information from numerous sites needs to be continuously collected and analyzed for interesting trends. In addition to memory- and time-efficiency concerns, the inherently distributed nature of such applications also raises important communication-efficiency issues, making it critical to carefully optimize the use of the underlying network infrastructure. In this talk, we introduce the distributed data streaming model, and discuss recent work on tracking complex queries over massive distributed streams, as well as new research directions in this space.


This dissertation examines the international history of the Gulf region during the period from 1958 to 1979. It begins with the fall of the Iraqi monarchy and ends with the fall of the Shah of Iran. Particular attention is paid throughout to the establishment of the new Gulf states and their emergence into `modernity'. In Chapter I we deal with the historical background of the Gulf states, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Besides the historical background we also deal with recent social, economic and political developments within all of these states. Special attention has been paid to the culture, religion and society of our subjects since these factors play a major role in the domestic and external decision-making. Faysal of Saudi Arabia, for example, formed his policies according to his strong Islamic beliefs. In Chapter II we deal with the conflicts and disputes among our subjects. Disputes over whole territory, as in the case of the Iraqi claim over Kuwait and the Iranian claim over Bahrain or disputes over islands which one state believes to be part of its national territory but which claim is disputed - the Iranian claim to the two Tunbs and Abu Musa or the Bahraini claim to Zubara, for example, or disputed claims by several parties - in the case of the Buraimi Oasis between Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Oman. These claims became important as a result of the oil discoveries in our region and the establishment of new states deepened some of these conflicts. There have also been important strategic considerations at stake - for example, with regard to the Iraqi claims to the two Kuwaiti islands of Warba and Bubiyan. In Chapter III we look at the involvement of the superpowers in the region. Particular attention is given to the relationships between the United States and Iran and between the United States and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and that between the Soviet Union and Iraq on the other. Attention has inevitably focussed upon military rivalry and the development of armed forces. In the subsequent chapters the emphasis changes. We deal with the region as a whole and look at events as they involve all the countries concerned. These chapters cover the entire period from 1958 to 1979 on a daily basis by watching its politically dynamic developments, starting with the fall of the Iraqi monarchy and the emergence of the revolutionary regime in its place and ending with the downfall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. That has entailed consideration of the fate of the Iraqi revolution and the emergence and fragile independence of Kuwait. Another significant landmark is the British announcement in 1968 of their determination to bring their long-established role in the region to an end three years later. That in turn leads to a consideration of the politics of the establishment of the United Arab Emirates and also of the international aspects of the Omani question. The final chapters consider the `Algiers Accord' between Iran and Iraq and the dispute over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Considerable note is taken of the Kurdish revolt in its various phases. The thesis comes to an end by describing the downfall of the Shah and the international evaluation of its significance.


A comparison between two different systems for smart space localization is presented. A smart space implemented at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was designed for automated and intelligent assistance for elderly and disabled people, and also for astronauts in space. Localization is a critical component of the smart space since it provides the system with the movement patterns and location of its inhabitants. Two systems have been deployed and evaluated for the purpose of localizing people in the smart space: the Ubisense ultra-wide band (UWB) system and the Cricket indoor localization system. Both systems support three-dimensional localization within the smart space. The two systems are evaluated, compared, and analyzed in the perspective of smart space development.


In 1986, O'Neil wrote a Reviews in Mineralogy chapter on experimental aspects of isotopic fractionation. He noted that in order to fully understand and interpret the natural variations of light stable isotope ratios in nature, it was essential to know the magnitude and temperature dependence of the isotopic fractionation factor amongst minerals and fluids. At that time it was difficult to imagine that this would become true for the heavier, so called non-traditional stable isotopes, as well. Since the advent of the multiple collector inductively coupled plasma-source mass spectrometer (MC–ICP–MS), natural variations of stable isotope ratios have been found for almost any polyisotopic element measured. Although it has been known that as temperature and mass increase, isotope fractionation decreases very quickly, the MC–ICP–MS has revolutionized the ability of a geochemist to measure very small differences in isotope ratios. It was then that the field of experimental non-traditional stable isotope geochemistry was born. As O'Neil (1986) pointed out there are three ways to obtain isotopic fractionation factors: theoretical calculations, measurements of natural samples with well-known formation conditions, and laboratory calibration studies. This chapter is devoted to explaining the techniques involved with laboratory experiments designed to measure equilibrium isotope fractionation factors as well as the best practices that have been learned. Although experimental petrology has been around for a long time and basic experimental methods have been well-refined, there are additional considerations that must be taken into account when the goal is to measure isotopic compositions at the end of the experiment. It has been only about ten years since these initial studies were published, but much has been learned in that time about how best to conduct experiments aimed at determining equilibrium fractionation factors. We will not focus on the scientific results that have been determined by such experiments, as each …


The adsorption of Triton X-100 in aqueous solution on the less than 53 \mm size fractions of Tuncbilek lignite and Zonguldak bituminous coal was studied. The adsorption isotherms were formed for 5, 30 and 1,440 (equilibrium) minutes. The isotherms were evaluated using both Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption equations. Concentrations of the reagent in the monolayer after equilibrium adsorption were determined to be 8.17 and 7.27 \mM/g coal for the lignite and bituminous coal using the Langmuir adsorption equation. The specific adsorption capacity per unit area of Zonguldak bituminous coal was 5.3 times higher than that of Tuncbilek lignite. The adsorption kinetic tests were also conducted with the reagent and coal samples used in the study. The experimental data indicated that there were two very different adsorption rates, one being fast and the other very slow. A large amount of the reagent was adsorbed on the solid surface during the fast adsorption stage.


Autophagy-related proteins regulate the activity of transcription factors that mediate stress-induced changes in gene expression. Gloss Macroautophagy is an important degradative process in the cell, responsible for recycling proteins and even whole organelles, such as mitochondria, when they become dysfunctional. A set of more than 30 autophagy-related (ATG) proteins carry out the functions of macroautophagy, mainly under the control of a master regulator, a protein kinase–containing complex called the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1). However, ATG proteins can themselves play roles in numerous regulatory pathways, influencing the transcription factors that promote responses to stresses, such as nutrient or oxygen starvation, or DNA damage caused by irradiation or drugs. These ATG functions, which act in a retrograde fashion or upstream in the pathways responding to stresses, are the subject of this Review, which contains 7 figures, 1 table, and 112 citations. Macroautophagy is a process in which cytoplasmic components, including whole organelles, are degraded within lysosomes. Basally, this process is essential for homeostasis and is constitutively functional in most cells, but it can also be implemented as part of stress responses. We discuss findings showing that autophagy proteins can modulate and amplify the activities of transcription factors involved in stress responses, such as those in the p53, FOXO, MiT/TFE, Nrf2, and NFκB/Rel families. Thus, transcription factors not only amplify stress responses and autophagy but are also subject to retrograde regulation by autophagy-related proteins. Physical interactions with autophagy-related proteins, competition for activating intermediates, and "signalphagy," which is the role autophagy plays in the degradation of specific signaling proteins, together provide powerful tools for implementing negative feedback or positive feed-forward loops on the transcription factors that regulate autophagy. We present examples illustrating how this network interacts to regulate metabolic and physiologic responses.


It is now 40 years since Lipset and Rokkans heavily influential 'Cleavage Structures…' was first published. Current research has still made little effort to explain why the 'freezing' of party systems these authors observed actually took place. The purpose here is to contribute to this field by elucidating the individual-level mechanisms that make party system stability more intelligible. The argument put forward here is that three interrelated factors give us deeper insights into the mechanics of the so called 'freezing process'. Firstly, the 'problem of collective action among potential party-entrepreneurs' makes it puzzling that new political parties emerge at all. Secondly, even if the original collective-action problem somehow is overcome, the 'principal-agent problem' and the 'problem of voter coordination' make it hard for new parties to attract voters. Finally, well-established and powerful competitors have the incentives and instruments to fight newcomers and steer them away from the political arena. I reach the conclusion that it is not surprising at all that Lipset and Rokkan made their empirical observations. Instead, what is really puzzling is why new political parties emerge and gain support at all.


Abstract. In this study, we identify the key message passing interface (MPI) operations required in atmospheric modelling; then, we use a skeleton program and a simulation framework (based on SST/macro simulation package) to simulate these MPI operations (transposition, halo exchange, and allreduce), with the perspective of future exascale machines in mind. The experimental results show that the choice of the collective algorithm has a great impact on the performance of communications; in particular, we find that the generalized ring-k algorithm for the alltoallv operation and the generalized recursive-k algorithm for the allreduce operation perform the best. In addition, we observe that the impacts of interconnect topologies and routing algorithms on the performance and scalability of transpositions, halo exchange, and allreduce operations are significant. However, the routing algorithm has a negligible impact on the performance of allreduce operations because of its small message size. It is impossible to infinitely grow bandwidth and reduce latency due to hardware limitations. Thus, congestion may occur and limit the continuous improvement of the performance of communications. The experiments show that the performance of communications can be improved when congestion is mitigated by a proper configuration of the topology and routing algorithm, which uniformly distribute the congestion over the interconnect network to avoid the hotspots and bottlenecks caused by congestion. It is generally believed that the transpositions seriously limit the scalability of the spectral models. The experiments show that the communication time of the transposition is larger than those of the wide halo exchange for the semi-Lagrangian method and the allreduce in the generalized conjugate residual (GCR) iterative solver for the semi-implicit method below 2×105 MPI processes. The transposition whose communication time decreases quickly with increasing number of MPI processes demonstrates strong scalability in the case of very large grids and moderate latencies. The halo exchange whose communication time decreases more slowly than that of transposition with increasing number of MPI processes reveals its weak scalability. In contrast, the allreduce whose communication time increases with increasing number of MPI processes does not scale well. From this point of view, the scalability of spectral models could still be acceptable. Therefore it seems to be premature to conclude that the scalability of the grid-point models is better than that of spectral models at the exascale, unless innovative methods are exploited to mitigate the problem of the scalability presented in the grid-point models.


With the rapid growth of the social web an increasing num- ber of people started to replicate their off-line preferences and lives in an on-line environment. Consequently, the social web provides an enormous source for social network data, which can be used in both commercial and research applications. However, people often take part in multiple social network sites and, generally, they share only a selected amount of data to the audience of a specific platform. Consequently, the interlink- age of social graphs from different sources getting increasingly impor- tant for applications such as social network analysis, personalization, or recommender systems. This paper proposes a novel method to enhance available user re-identification systems for social network data aggrega- tion based on face-recognition algorithms. Furthermore, the method is combined with traditional text-based approaches in order to attempt a counter-balancing of the weaknesses of both methods. Using two sam- ples of real-world social networks (with 1610 and 1690 identities each) we show that even though a pure face-recognition based method gets out- performed by the traditional text-based method (area under the ROC curve 0.986 vs. 0.938) the combined method significantly outperforms both of these (0.998, p = 0.0001) suggesting that the face-based method indeed carries complimentary information to raw text attributes.


Anatexis is a commonly recognized feature of high-grade metamorphism, but segregated melts are generally ascribed to anatexis during peak metamorphic conditions and little is known about melting along the prograde path. A suite of small-volume, deformed, two-mica leucogranites has been recognized within the High Himalayan Crystalline Series of the Garhwal Himalaya. These granites are consistently more siliceous than minimum-melt granite compositions and are characterized by low Rb/Sr ratios, high Ba, low abundances of HFS elements and positive Eu anomalies. Such trace-element characteristics contrast strongly with the geochemistry of the well-studied Early Miocene leucogranites of the High Himalaya, derived from fluid-absent melting. Sm–Nd garnet dating of one deformed granite indicates a crystallization age of 39±3 Ma, c. 15 Ma before the emplacement of the more voluminous High Himalayan leucogranites. Whilst some entrainment of restitic phases cannot be excluded, trace element signatures suggest a low temperature (<650°C) crustal melt formed under conditions of high H2O activity. Positive Eu anomalies and unusually low Rb/Sr ratios are indicative of rapid, disequilibrium melting. Fluid-enhanced melting may be a common feature of prograde upper amphibolite-facies metamorphism of orogenic belts, predating peak metamorphism by at least 15 Ma. These melts will only crystallize within this period if they segregate from their protoliths. Subsequent dating of long-lived melts would indicate erroneously young ages for the prograde melting events. However, melts formed in this way may be recognized by their distinctive trace-element chemistry. The persistence of early formed melts within an orogen provides insights into the prograde heating path, and may be critical in controlling the rheology of the middle crust, and hence its deformational history.


Enterococci isolated from the crop and caecum of Japanese quails exposed to 7 day conditions of microgravity were re-vitalized after their dry-freezing long storage. Originally, the strains were isolated from Japanese quails after their landing from flight onboard the orbital station Mir during the experiment in August 1990. Because taxonomy as well as the studies concerning the bacteriocins, especially those produced by enterococci, have been continually developed for years, the aim of this study was to confirm species identification, stability of the properties of enterococci as well as to test new properties after their long storage. Genotyping allotted the strains to the species E. faecium. Lactic acid production was detected in similar amounts in the strains before and after their long-storage in dry-frozen form. The strains were vancomycinsensitive and kanamycin-resistant before as well as after their long-time storage. Variability in sensitivity to different antibiotics was found among the strains tested even before and after longtime storage. Each of the strains possessed at least one structural enterocin gene. The structural genes for enterocin A, P, B, L50B were detected in E. faecium EP7. E. faecium EP2, EEP4 have the genes for ent A, B, L50B. The gene for ent P was detected only in the strain EP7. The most often detected was ent A gene followed by ent genes B, L50B. All strains inhibited growth of at least 4 out of 15 indicators. The stability of the enterococcal properties determined before as well as after their dry-freezing was not influenced during their long-term storage; moreover, new properties were determined. Enterococci, storage, enterocin gene, properties, stability


The heterogeneous ice nucleation ability of oxalic acid in the immersion mode has been investigated by controlled expansion cooling runs with airborne, ternary solution droplets composed of, (i), sodium chloride, oxalic acid, and water (NaCl/OA/H 2 O) and, (ii), sulphuric acid, oxalic acid, and water (H 2 SO 4 /OA/H 2 O). Polydisperse aerosol populations with median diameters ranging from 0.5–0.7 μm and varying solute concentrations were prepared. The expansion experiments were conducted in the AIDA aerosol and cloud chamber of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology at initial temperatures of 244 and 235 K. In the ternary NaCl/OA/H 2 O system, solid inclusions of oxalic acid, presumably nucleated as oxalic acid dihydrate, were formed by temporarily exposing the ternary solution droplets to a relative humidity below the efflorescence point of NaCl. The matrix of the crystallised NaCl particulates triggered the precipitation of the organic crystals which later remained as solid inclusions in the solution droplets when the relative humidity was subsequently raised above the deliquescence point of NaCl. The embedded oxalic acid crystals reduced the critical ice saturation ratio required for the homogeneous freezing of pure NaCl/H 2 O solution droplets at a temperature of around 231 K from 1.38 to about 1.32. Aqueous solution droplets with OA inclusions larger than about 0.27 μm in diameter efficiently nucleated ice by condensation freezing when they were activated to micron-sized cloud droplets at 241 K, i.e., they froze well above the homogeneous freezing temperature of pure water droplets of about 237 K. Our results on the immersion freezing potential of oxalic acid corroborate the findings from a recent study with emulsified aqueous solutions containing crystalline oxalic acid. In those experiments, the crystallisation of oxalic acid diyhdrate was triggered by a preceding homogeneous freezing cycle with the emulsion samples. The expansion cooling cycles with ternary H 2 SO 4 /OA/H 2 O solution droplets were aimed to analyse whether those findings can be transferred to ice nucleation experiments with airborne oxalic acid containing aerosol particles. Under our experimental conditions, the efficiency by which the surface of homogeneously nucleated ice crystals triggered the precipitation of oxalic acid dihydrate was very low, i.e., less than one out of a hundred ice crystals that were formed by homogeneous freezing in a first expansion cooling cycle left behind an ice-active organic crystal that acted as immersion freezing nucleus in a second expansion cooling cycle.


A humanistic and transpersonal approach to personal growth necessitates careful inquiry into the often pathological world of egoistic functioning—where the psyche is engaged in a continual, defensive, and ruminative effort to assert the uniqueness, power, and positivity of an independent symbolic self. This article describes narrative research, conducted at the beginning of several undergraduate courses in personality theory, in which students (n = 229) were encouraged to introspect into the process of objectifying and evaluating the self. After undergoing brief mindfulness training, individuals spent 1 week journaling about salient upward and downward social comparisons, with particular attention to those experiences that triggered strong feelings of inferiority and superiority. Prototypic journal passages are quoted to illustrate central findings. Participants expressed a remarkably intense array of self-evaluative episodes, particularly along the dimensions of physical appearance and intellect. Discussion focuses on the very high frequency of social comparisons reported, the cyclical nature of self-evaluation and its implications for persistent suffering, and the spontaneous experiences of insight into ego transcendence and deeper levels of self-awareness. This work advances the humanistic project by detailing a novel mechanism for facilitating self-realization in an educational context.


Contamination of food with spoilage bacteria and pathogens from food processing environment remains a challenge for the food industry. Bacteria able to persist in such environments over time must survive several hygienic hurdles. The aim of this study was to identify bacteria surviving practical disinfection and compare their survival abilities with representative isolates of the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Bacteria isolated from processing surfaces after cleaning and disinfection in a meat abattoir were identified. Selected isolates of the most frequently isolated bacterial genera along with eight meat associated L. monocytogenes were further characterized with regard to biofilm formation abilities at 12℃ and 20℃, tolerance to desiccation (stainless steel at 70% RH at 12℃) and bactericidal effects of recommended in-use-concentrations of four commercial disinfectants on stainless steel surface. The most dominating bacterial genera based on counts on non-selective agar were Aerococcus, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Serratia and Staphylococcus. Isolates of Citrobacter. Enterobacter and Serratia dominated on agar plates selective for Enterobacteriaceae. In general, Gram negative bacteria formed more biofilm than Gram positives, especially at 12℃ with the best biofilm formers being Acinetobacter, Citrobacter and Pseudomonas. Listeria monocytogenes were poor biofilm formers. Gram positives survived better air drying than Gram negatives. Strains of L. monocytogenes were more sensitive to desiccation than the other Gram positives; Aerococcus, Kocuria and Staphylococcus. Two disinfectants containing peracetic acid and a disinfectant containing alkylaminoacetate had limited or no antibacterial effect against bacteria dried on stainless steel. A quaternary ammonium compound-based disinfectant provided >2 log reductions of Aerococcus, Acinetobacter and Listeria. Only 0.5 log reductions were obtained against Staphylococcus and no bactericidal effect against Serratia. In this study the dominating flora in a meat abattoir was isolated and identified. Several of these bacteria were better biofilm formers and more resistant to desiccation and disinfection than L. monocytogenes. The disinfectants tested had limited bactericidal activity against surface associated bacteria.


Abstract. The Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model, Version 2 (GEOS V2 CCM) is used to investigate the response of the Antarctic stratosphere to (1) warm pool El Nino (WPEN) events and (2) the sensitivity of this response to the phase of the QBO. A new formulation of the GEOS V2 CCM includes an improved general circulation model and an internally generated quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). Two 50-yr time-slice simulations are forced by repeating annual cycles of sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations composited from observed WPEN and neutral ENSO (ENSON) events. In these simulations, greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance concentrations represent the present-day climate. The modelled responses to WPEN, and to the phase of the QBO during WPEN, are compared with NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalysis. WPEN events enhance poleward tropospheric planetary wave activity in the central South Pacific region during austral spring, leading to relative warming of the Antarctic lower stratosphere in November/December. During the easterly phase of the QBO (QBO-E), the GEOS V2 CCM reproduces the observed 4–5 K warming of the polar region at 50 hPa, in the WPEN simulation relative to ENSON. In the recent past, the response to WPEN events was sensitive to the phase of the QBO: the enhancement in planetary wave driving and the lower stratospheric warming signal were mainly associated with WPEN events coincident with QBO-E. In the GEOS V2 CCM, however, the Antarctic response to WPEN events is insensitive to the phase of the QBO: the modelled response is always easterly QBO-like. The QBO signal does not extend far enough into the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere to modulate convection and thus planetary wave activity in the south central Pacific.


Sensing with equal gain combining (SEGC), a novel cooperative spectrum sensing technique for cognitive radio networks, is proposed. Cognitive radios simultaneously transmit their sensing results to the fusion center (FC) over multipath fading reporting channels. The cognitive radios estimate the phases of the reporting channels and use those estimates for coherent combining of the sensing results at the FC. A global decision is made at the FC by comparing the received signal with a threshold. We obtain the global detection probabilities and secondary throughput exactly through a moment generating function approach. We verify our solution via system simulation and demonstrate that the Chernoff bound and central limit theory approximation are not tight. The cases of hard sensing and soft sensing are considered and we provide examples in which hard sensing is advantageous to soft sensing. We contrast the performance of SEGC with maximum ratio combining of the sensors' results and provide examples where the former is superior. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of SEGC against existing orthogonal reporting techniques such as time division multiple access (TDMA). SEGC performance always dominates that of TDMA in terms of secondary throughput. We also study the impact of phase and synchronization errors and demonstrate the robustness of the SEGC technique against such imperfections.


The leaching behaviour of nickeli?½copper matte in an acidici?½copper sulphate solution during the repulping stage at Impala Platinum Refineries has been studied. The base metal recovery process consists of a matte repulping stage prior to a series of pressure leach stages. Therefore, the repulping stage is basically an atmospheric leach stage in which the matte containing mostly Ni and Cu is leached in copper-spent electrolyte from the tank house, resulting in dissolution of nickel and precipitation of almost all the copper. To understand the nature of the leaching process during this stage of the operation, the effects of temperature stirring rate and matte particle size on the rate and extent of base metal dissolution and copper rejection from the solution have been investigated. The leaching mechanism of the matte in the investigated system is also proposed.


With the increase in popularity of mobile devices, there has been a significant rise in mobile related security problems. The biggest threat for a mobile subscriber is lost or stolen device, which can lead to confidential data leakage, identity theft, misuse, impersonation, and high service charges. A significant amount of time may elapse between losing a device and disabling it through the service provider, during which an unauthorized malicious user may gain access and incur severe damage. We propose a probabilistic approach to spatio-temporal anomaly detection and evaluate smoothing techniques for sparse data. Our approach outperforms Markov Chain in experiments with a mobile phone dataset comprising over 500,000 hours of real data. Results indicate that our approach can effectively and efficiently detect device abnormalities for location, time, or both.


ABSTRACT Plant foods are universally promoted for their links to improved human health, yet carbohydrate-containing foods are often maligned based on isolated, reductionist methods that fail to assess carbohydrate foods as a matrix of nutrients and food components. Currently accepted positive carbohydrate quality indices include plant food, whole-grain content, and dietary fiber, while negative health outcomes are linked to high intakes of added sugar and high glycemic index. More recently, negative health aspects have been linked to ultra-processed foods, which are often high in carbohydrates. Yet, carbohydrate staples such as grains and dairy products are both enriched and fortified, resulting in these carbohydrate foods containing important nutrients of concern such as dietary fiber, potassium, vitamin D, and calcium. This Perspective analyzes carbohydrate metrics used in dietary guidance and labeling and finds limitations in accepted indices included in standardized quality carbohydrate definitions and also proposes additional indices to benefit both human and environmental health. As nutrition recommendations shift away from a single-nutrient focus to a more holistic dietary pattern approach that is flexible and adaptable for each individual, it is necessary to determine the quality components that make up these patterns. This review concludes that current approaches that demonize staple carbohydrate foods do little to promote the recommended patterns of foods known to improve health status and reduce disease risk.


The newfound ability of Social Media to transform public communication back to a conversational nature provides HEP with a powerful tool for Outreach and Communication. By far, the most effective component of nearly any visit or public event is that fact that the students, teachers, media, and members of the public have a chance to meet and converse with real scientists. While more than 30,000 visitors passed through the ATLAS Visitor Centre in 2011, nearly 7 billion did not have a chance to make the trip. Clearly this is not for lack of interest. Rather, the costs of travel, in terms of time and money, and limited parking, put that number somewhat out of reach. On the other hand, during the LHC "First Physics" event of 2010, more than 2 million visitors joined the experiment control rooms via webcast for the celebration. This document presents a project developed for the ATLAS Experiment's Outreach and Education program that complements the webcast infrastructure with video conferencing and wireless sound systems, allowing the public to interact with hosts in the control room with minimal disturbance to the shifters. These "Virtual Visits" have included high school classes, LHC Masterclasses, conferences, expositions and other events in Europe, USA, Japan and Australia, to name a few. We discuss the technology used, potential pitfalls (and ways to avoid them), and our plans for the future.


A review of 4320 consecutive term deliveries identified 258 women (6%) delivered at a gestational age of 42 weeks or longer. The group accounted for 30% of all cesarean sections for fetal distress, 30% of all infants with a low five-minute Apgar score, 40% of neonatal intensive care admissions, 60% of neonatal deaths, and 30% of all stillbirths. Nonstress tests were performed on 228 women with a postmature pregnancy. Results were defined as normal (score 7 to 10) in 83.4%, inconclusive (score 5 to 6) in 12.2%, and abnormal (score 1 to 4) in 4.4% of these cases. Monitored patients did significantly better than patients in the nonmonitored group, and so did those with normal nonstress test scores when compared with the abnormal scores. Whereas perinatal mortality in the monitored group was similar to that in the nonpostmature population, the perinatal morbidity was significantly higher.


Background Asymptomatic bacteriuria is one of the common problems in pregnancy. Asymptomatic bacteriuria is associated with pyelonephritis, preterm labor and low birth weight infants. The physiological and anatomical changes in pregnancy facilitate urinary tract infection (UTI) during pregnancy. Several tests are available for diagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria. The urine culture is a gold standard diagnostic test for asymptomatic bacteriuria but it is expensive and time-consuming. Screening methods may be useful in detecting high-risk pregnant women for asymptomatic bacteriuria. Objective The aim of the present study was to compare urine analysis as a rapid screening test to urine culture in diagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria. Methods A total of 123 pregnant women attending the obstetrics clinic of Boo-Ali hospital in Tehran, Iran from March 2013 to September 2014 were included in the present diagnostic cross-sectional study. One hundred twenty three mid-stream urine samples were inoculated into cultures and were processed by dipstick (nitrite test and leucocyte esterase test) and microscopic pus cell count. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of nitrite test, leucocyte esterase test and microscopic pus cell count were compared with urine culture in diagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria by using SPSS version 19. Results Of 123 urine samples, significant asymptomatic bacteriuria (≥104 cfu/Ml) was detected in 8 (6.5%) subjects. The sensitivity and specificity of nitrite test were 37% and 100% respectively. The sensitivity of pus cell count alone and leucocyte esterase test alone were 100% but the specificity of them were 64% and 65% respectively. We found high negative predictive value by Pus cell count and the leucocyte esterase test (100%) and low positive predictive value by them (16% and 17% respectively). Conclusion Urine culture is the most useful test for diagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria. None of our screening tests had a sensitivity and specificity of 100%, whereas we can only refer the pregnant women with positive leucocyte esterase test and significant pyuria to the urine culture.


Indigenous New Zealand Mäori have maintained many customs evident in our pre-contact histories and, ever-pragmatic, we allowed and continue to allow for the introduction and infl uence of contemporary ideologies and objects of signifi cance. In te ao Mäori, our world, such objects include taonga tuku iho, treasures from the past handed down to us. Our taonga are revered repositories that can reveal much about their owners, those owner's families, and the histories of our people, preceding and subsequent. Their tangible presence is often subtle, yet their social signifi cance can be historically and culturally far-reaching, movingly evocative and even controversial. In the experience of these three authors, kakahu and korowai are just such exemplars. In so saying, as revered treasures of the Mäori, they are guarded preciously and vigilantly by custodians or kaitiaki whose caretaking roles are perhaps all too often unsung. In this paper we seek to explore that juncture between our kaitiaki and their/our revered taonga tuku iho, in particular, unique and rare cloaks of the Mäori. It is these taonga which Mäori aspire to being, at some point, cloaked, in life and death.


Nearest Neighbour search is a widely used technique in Pattern Recognition. In order to speed up the search many indexing techniques have been proposed. However, most of the proposed techniques are static, that is, once the index is built the incorporation of new data is not possible unless a costly rebuilt of the index is performed. The main effect is that changes in the environment are very costly to be taken into account. In this work, we propose a technique to allow the insertion of elements in the LAESA index. The resulting index is exactly the same as the one that would be obtained by building it from scratch. In this paper we also obtain an upper bound for its expected running time. Surprisingly, this bound is independent of the database size.