Objectives/Research Problem: Successful formation of 3D tissue constructs requires appropriate combination of the three established tissue engineering principles. The principles include quality cell source, biocompatible material scaffold and suitable biological signalling factors. This preliminary study aims to evaluate in vitro tissue constructs engineered from poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) seeded with intervertebral disc (IVD) cells namely annulus fibrosus (AF), nucleus pulposus (NP), and a combination of AF:NP (1:1) with and without fibrin using specific cartilaginous markers i.e. collagen I and II immunohistochemistry staining.
Materials and Method: Porous PLGA discs (7.0mm dia. X 3.0mm height) were fabricated using solvent casting and salt leaching method. The cells were harvested from rabbits' IVD, cultured and seeded onto the pre-fabricated PLGA-based scaffolds. The resulting six "cells-scaffolds" construct groups were cultured for 3-weeks. The immunohistochemistry procedure and microscopic observation were performed at week 1, 2 and 3.
Results and Discussion: Minimal cartilaginous tissue formation is noted in all constructs at week 1 until week 3. This can be appreciated by the presence of cartilage-isolated cells in lacunae embedded within extracellular matrix (ECM) ground substance. Cellular and ECM distribution are better in PLGA+Fibrin+AF:NP group than the other groups. Presence of brownish precipitation in most of the constructs after the immunolocalization of collagen I and II indicates positive results. It demonstrates that certain constructs have cartilaginous properties.
Conclusion: The combination of PLGA and fibrin has the potential in facilitating early chondrogenesis of in vitro constructs engineered from AF, NP, and the combination of AF:NP (1:1) cells. The minimal cartilaginous tissue formation may be due to inefficient cells seeding. While it is apparent that human factor is unavoidable, there is much evidence in biomedical research and other fields that certain methodology can be refined to prevent errors before one's experiment is compromised. In this case, the cells seeding method should be observed and improved for future IVD tissue engineering research.


A Study of vacuum deposited films of the charge transfer complex (TTF)(TCNQ) and several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon sis described. Fluorescence techniques have been used to investigate the annealing behaviour of low temperature deposits of anthracene, pyrene, perylene and tetracene, in order to establish the cause of the structural optimum, or singularity which is known to occur when films of some of these materials are deposited onto substrates maintained at one third their normal boiling points (0.33 T(_B)). Evidence is presented for the formation of a metastable state in the vicinity of 0.33 T(_B) in the case of anthracene, pyrene and perylene. A detailed study of the topography of (TTF)(TCNQ) films has revealed a pronounced structural singularity at a deposition temperature of 213K which was accompanied by an apparent reduction in the activation energy for conduction. However, it was shown that this apparent optimisation of electrical properties was associated with crystallite orientation effects rather than a reduction in the influence of grain boundaries. In-situ infrared absorption spectroscopy has confirmed that films of (TTF)(TCNQ), either deposited at, or annealed to 213K adopt a neutral lattice structure with no evidence of charge transfer between donors and acceptors. Annealing experiments have established that this neutral lattice possesses short range order and has a metastable, glass-like, structure. Furthermore, conclusive evidence is presented for the formation of a disordered phase of (TTF)(TCNQ) below 0.33 T(_B) which exhibits anomalous infrared activity of the totally symmetric vibrational modes of both (TTF) and (TCNQ). This observation is considered to be analogous to the formation of excimers in disordered films of the aromatic hydrocarbons, prepared below 0.33 T(_B). On the basis of this evidence a model is discussed in which the observation of an optimum substrate temperature effect in Evaporated films of molecular solids is attributed to the formation of a dense metastable state which has a thermodynamic stability intermediate between the crystalline and disordered state of materials.


The process dynamics of single-screw extrusion on mixtures of polypropylene (PP) and recycled PP were studied using a statistical, design of experiments (DoE) approach. For a conventional screw design, the barrel temperature, screw speed and two vastly different melt viscosity polypropylene mixtures were selected as the independent factors, whilst melt pressure, mass output, screw torque and temperature rise at the die due to shear heating were the dependent responses. A central composite design (CCD) in the framework of response surface methodology (RSM) was constructed, and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to determine the significance of the response surface models. The resulting statistical and response surface predictions have demonstrated that the low viscosity component concentration in the blend is a dominating factor on melt pressure and screw torque, apart from the expected effect of screw speed on output. Viscous heating is affected only by screw speed and recycled polypropylene concentration. Furthermore, the predictions have identified a wider process operating window with increased low-viscosity component concentration. The data confirm that statistical tools make quantitative predictions for the effects of experimental process variables, in accordance with the expected qualitative trends towards process optimisation, providing scope towards its application in scaled-up industrial processes.


The economic downturn in the 1990s and early 2000s associated with the break-up of the Soviet Union had a negative impact on Georgian fisheries. Both marine and freshwater fisheries and aquaculture suffered considerable decline. The Georgian fishing fleet deteriorated. The role of state institutions in fisheries management weakened and funding of scientific research diminished. Economic and institutional problems had a negative effect on the state of aquatic bio-resources. The excessive and relentless use of living resources, use of illegal fishing gear and degradation of coastal ecosystems led to a considerable reduction in fish stocks, while the number of vulnerable and endangered species increased. Starting from the new millennium the attitude has changed. In 2004-2005 the 15-year plan for the development of the ecosystem approach to fisheries in Georgia was initiated with support from the FAO. A Georgian law on fisheries and aquaculture has been introduced. Discussions on responsible fisheries and an aquaculture code have also started, but are still pending. On the other hand, the fisheries department of the Ministry of Agriculture was abolished and the single fisheries research institute met a similar fate. Fisheries regulation came under the authority of the ministry of environment. There is still a lot to be done in order to establish an ecosystem approach to fisheries in Georgia. First of all, the legislative base must be addressed, including the Georgian law on fisheries, which would consider such issues as long-term sustainable development of fisheries, a responsible code of conduct for fishermen, monitoring and management structures at the national level, allocation of resources and application of scientific approaches in development of fisheries, aquaculture and mariculture.


The most violent countries in the world are increasingly countries considered 'at peace'. From Honduras to Mexico to South Africa, armed violence, often by gangs, has led to high levels of casualties. Disruption of daily life due to armed violence is similar to the challenges experienced during wartime, though often without the markers or recognition associated with war. With gang violence primarily viewed as a domestic criminal issue, external support for conflict mitigation and humanitarian assistance is often low. Yet the disruptive impact of such high rates of violence is significant, and the humanitarian impact is severe. New theoretical frameworks are needed to better problematize extreme armed violence in 'peacetime' states. This article seeks to bring an understanding of the severity of armed violence in states such as El Salvador into engagement with the critical and theoretical foundations of the women, peace and security (WPS) field. Gendered dynamics shape gang violence in El Salvador, and a gender lens helps reimagine its impact. Aligning critical theory with the lived experience of this subset of armed conflict allows new directions for engagement and, in particular, offers the opportunity to re-examine long-standing assumptions of what initiates, maintains, and challenges armed violence by non-state actors in communities considered 'at peace.' This article seeks to encourage greater debate and scholarship to inform our understandings of armed conflict and gender in communities affected by gang violence, such as those in El Salvador. In these communities, the level of violence often replicates the experiences of war, and thus a WPS lens is a critical tool for analysis.


Here we describe the first skeletal evidence of a tetrapod from Rhaetian (Upper Triassic) marine deposits of the Western Carpathians. The material consists of an isolated left femur and comes from the Úbočka locality near Čičmany in the Strážov Highlands. Based on morphological, histological, and stratigraphic evidence, we can exclude affinities of this femur to the most commonly occurring aquatic reptiles: the Eosauropterygia. The histology of a femur of aff. Pachystropheus from Aust Cliff, Gloucestershire, UK, is also described here for the first time and compared to the bone from Slovakia. However, a precise taxonomical assignment of the Rhaetian femur from Slovakia is not possible. The bone shows strong osteosclerosis that points to an inhabitant of a shallow marine environment. On the basis of morphological and histological characters, affinities to a cyamodontoid placodont, Endennasaurus-like thalattosaur or a rhynchocephalian are conceivable. The morphology of the Slovak find does not fully exclude choristoderan affinity, but the rare histological data available for comparison do not support such a statement. For all these reasons, we allocated this bone as Diapsida indet. The bone described here sheds the first, although limited light on the possible faunal composition of the Rhaetian tetrapod assemblage in the Western Carpathians. We can assume that the bone, which shows marks of transport, either represents an allochthonous component in this marine environment, transported postmortem and most likely from nearby dry land (i.e., in the case of rhynchocephalian affinities), or it belonged to an inhabitant of this shallow coastal biotope (e.g., cyamodontoid placodont affinities).


The Islamic regime's mismanagement of the economy has not spared Iran's oil industry. Indeed, the regime's shortsighted and irrational policies have adversely affected the performance and prospects of this once efficient and most profitable industry. Within the past two decades, Iran, which was once the world's fourth largest producer, and second leading exporter, of oil, has nearly lost its influential role in OPEC. More importantly, due to inappropriate production practices and inability to implement projects for increasing production capacity and secondary recovery, Iran's oil fields have been seriously and perhaps irrecoverably damaged. Furthermore, the initial decision of the Islamic Republic to cancel all of Iran's oil agreements concluded prior to the revolution, not only forced Iran to pay compensation to foreign oil companies but also eventually led to the conclusion of the so-called buy-back agreements. These agreements, that ignore many of the most common and internationally accepted provisions of oil agreements, have patently been detrimental to Iran's national interest.
These agreements are apparently more compatible with the provisions of the Islamic Republic' Constitution. However, they have saddled Iran with extraordinary financial obligations on the one hand, and exposed its oil fields to the long-range negative effects of short-term extensive exploitation, on the other. Under the terms of these agreements, Iran has no role in the determination of the amount of initial investment for exploration or its timetable. Furthermore, foreign oil companies, assured of high returns on their short-term investments, have no incentive to enter into long-term contractual agreements with the Islamic Republic, which would inevitably pave the way for the transfer of the latest drilling and exploitation technologies to Iran.


Biomass pyrolysis and hydropyrolysis have been studied in a high-temperature, high-pressure fluidized bed reactor system. The reactor system can be operated at reaction temperatures up to 982 °C (1800 °F) and pressures up to 4 MPa (600 psi). Baseline biomass pyrolysis experiments with an inert heat transfer material were conducted at various pressures and hydrogen partial pressures to determine the effect of these variables on product yields and quality, defined by the amount of oxygen in the hydrocarbon-rich liquid product. Biomass hydropyrolysis was performed at temperatures between 375 and 400 °C at 2 MPa (300 psi) with selected hydroprocessing catalysts. The most promising catalyst was exposed to 2.9 kg of woody biomass for a total of 21.7 h time on stream over a 10 day period. The cumulative mass balance during this period was 83%, and the overall C4+ yield was 16 wt %. This corresponds to 31% of the energy in the input biomass feedstock recovered in the hydrocarbon-rich liquid that contained an aver...


Background: The literature indicates that newly graduated nurses (NGNs) tend to feel inadequate during their first year of employment, due to a series of challenges they encounter with whilst transitioning into the role of qualified nurse. Although there is much research on the experiences of NGNs in a western context, far less attention has been paid to the experiences of NGNs in the eastern context, where the social, cultural and contextual climate is largely different.
Aim: To explore, describe and interpret the experiences of NGNs at a hospital in Saudi Arabia during their first year of employment, emphasising how culture and social attitudes affect the NGNs' transition process, and how NGNs rationalise such experiences.
Method: Qualitative case study informed by an ethnographic approach, to provide rich data into the context and meaning-making.
Data collection: Data was collected via fieldwork observations and semi-structured interviews with nine NGNs and four Head nurses.
Data Analysis: Data was analysed using thematic analysis, as described by Braun and Clarke (2006), to enable the synthesis of different data elements to produce a cohesive account of the case.
Findings: The Saudi NGN transition process shares multiple features with the transition process described in international literature. However, the Saudi transition process is also shaped by unique cultural and social challenges not present in other countries that influence experiences in a culturally distinct manner. These factors include nursing's lesser status in Saudi society, cultural views on women's labour force participation, the presence of foreign nurses, Saudi culture's lack of familiarity with nursing, sex-segregation, night shifts, and transportation challenges. Due to these challenges, NGNs struggle with self- confidence, emotional distress, low job-satisfaction, asymmetric relationships with senior nurses and doctors, and an intention to leave. These findings inform a set of recommendations for government, policy-makers, and educators that help to improve Saudi NGNs' transition process.


Recent developments in wireless underground communication have enabled the realization of underground sensor network applications. To this end, it is desirable to provide a sustainable operation for wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs) with extended lifetimes as maintenance is significantly costly. One promising method towards sustainable operation is to harvest energy underground based on the vibration sources in the environment. However, to the best of our knowledge, underground vibration energy harvesting has not been investigated before. In this paper, the feasibility of vibration energy harvesting for WUSNs is investigated. First, an analytical framework is developed to model the maximum harvestable power by a piezoelectric energy harvester at a certain depth underground, due to an above-ground vibration source. Then, field experiments are conducted to measure the vibration in an agricultural testbed and evaluated the harvestable output power. The results from this study illustrate the feasibility of vibration energy harvesting as a promising approach to be considered for the future underground sensor networks.


This paper explores the role that measurements of changes in atmospheric oxygen, detected through changes in the O2/N2 ratio of air, can play in improving our understanding of the global carbon cycle. Simple conceptual models are presented in order to clarify the biological and physical controls on the exchanges of O2, CO2, N2, and Ar across the air-sea interface and in order to clarify the relationships between biologically mediated fluxes of oxygen across the air-sea interface and the cycles of organic carbon in the ocean. Predictions of large-scale seasonal variations and gradients in atmospheric oxygen are presented. A two-dimensional model is used to relate changes in the O2/N2 ratio of air to the sources of oxygen from terrestrial and marine ecosystems, the thermal ingassing and outgassing of seawater, and the burning of fossil fuel. The analysis indicates that measurements of seasonal variations in atmospheric oxygen can place new constraints on the large-scale marine biological productivity. Measurements of the north-south gradient and depletion rate of atmospheric oxygen can help determine the rates and geographical distribution of the net storage of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems.


My dissertation investigates the relationship between experimental writing, bodies, and ecology in the work of modernist women writers. Specifically, I propose that the stylistic experiments of Gertrude Stein, H.D., and Virginia Woolf are inseparable from these authors' theorizations on the body and material environments. They examine how questions of language and the body are ecologically inflected. By "ecology," I do not simply refer to traditional representations of "green ecologies" that explore the human agent's place within balanced ecosystems consisting of plants and animals. Ecocritical readings of these modernist writers' works typically promote Stein's, H.D.'s, and Woolf's interest in restoring harmonious environments by emphasizing a return to serene and stable environments. As a result, the nonhuman world is cast as a pastoral, romantic, or distinctly feminine space of tranquility and restoration. In contrast, I examine precarious environments of which the body is not simply an integral component but indiscernible from the material composition of the nonhuman world. My dissertation builds upon but fundamentally reconceptualises a standard account of feminist modernisms' return to the body in light of the recent turn in both modernist scholarship and feminist studies towards ecocritical models of reading. My critique aligns with emerging conversations on the trans-corporeal body and agential materialism. Both Stacy Alaimo and Karen Barad reconsider how the body, materiality, and discursive processes are bound up in a material recreation of the world. These ideas are part of a larger conversation on the "narratives of matter" investigated by new material ecocriticism. I argue that as Stein, H.D., and Woolf examine the tension between the nonhuman world and socially constructed ideas of what is "natural," they suggest that nature is not a restorative space separate from cultural locales, but an unpredictable, volatile force central to their artistic projects. This rethinking of reductive readings of nature reveals how women writers and literary modernism move beyond discussions that focus on linguistic, historical, and cultural reconstructions of the self and the world, and instead considers how these discussions are imbricated in the ongoing performance of human and nonhuman matter.


Quantitative assessment of climatic and environmental health risks is necessary because changes in climate are expected. We therefore aimed to quantify the relationship between climatic extremes and mortality in the 5 largest Australian cities during the period 1979–1990. We then applied the relationship determined between recent climatic conditions and mortality to scenarios for climate and demographic change, to predict potential impacts on public health in the cities in the year 2030. Data on mortality, denominator population and climate were obtained. The expected numbers of deaths per day in each city were calculated. Observed daily deaths were compared with expected rates according to temperature thresholds. Mortality was also examined in association with temporal synoptic indices (TSI) of climate, developed by principal component and cluster analysis. According to observed-expected threshold analyses, for the 5 cities combined, the annual mean excess of deaths attributable to temperature over the period 1979–1990 was 175 for the 28°C threshold. This sum of statistically significant differences from the 5 cities was the greatest excess found in association with any threshold considered in the range of temperatures that occur. Excess mortality for the hottest days in summer was greater than for the coldest days in winter. Temperature-mortality relationships were little modified by socio-economic status. TSI analyses produced similar results: using this method, the climate-attributable mortality in the 5 cities was approximately 160 deaths yr–1, although this number was evenly distributed across summer and winter. Persons in the group aged 65 yr and older were the most vulnerable. After allowing for increases in population, and combining all age groups, the synoptic method showed a 10% reduction in mortality in the year 2030. We conclude that the 5 largest Australian cities exhibit climate-attributable mortality in both summer and winter. Given the scenarios of regional warming during the next 3 decades, the expected changes in mortality due to direct climatic effects in these major coastal Australian cities are minor.


The paper presents the dynamic modelling of induction machine with skin-effect. The computer simulation for the transient operation is obtained from the nonlinear differential system of equations that describe the induction machine in the rotor reference frame and with currents as state variables. It is shown that by using the characteristic data available from no-load, short circuit, and retardation tests of the machine, accurate simulations of the machine under dynamic condition are possible. The predicted time function of the transient current, speed, electromagnetic, and shaft torques characteristics of the machine from the conventional model and that from the skin-effect model are compared.


Australia has not only a highly interesting - and surprisingly rich - violinistic past, but has recently succeeded in gaining an enviable position in the field of instrumental pedagogy and performance. Australian artists and musicians play an important part in cultural life, both in their own country and on the international scene.
The present dissertation, which has involved a wide-ranging investigation from private sources as well as teaching and performing organisations, aims at defining the essential factors which have contributed to the formation and development of what may be called the Australian school of violin playing and teaching. Starting from a general and historical standpoint, the research moves towards more specific aspects including concrete data derived from personal experience. Chapter I investigates the historical background of violin playing and defines the sources from which the overseas schools have evolved. From the formation of the early schools of Corelli and Tartini in Italy, this research brings to light the remarkable continuity of the violinistic tradition down to the present time. Teacher-pupil genealogical studies demonstrate the possibility of tracing unbroken lines leading from Corelli and Tartini through Viotti and his disciples, to the present-day Australian violinists. Chapter II constitutes an attempt at a systematic comparative study of the great European schools of violin playing and of their Australian ramifications. The procedure adopted consists of a detailed examination of individual schools, first by presenting an outline of their history, key representatives, methodology and other characteristics. This is followed by the identification of the links gradually appearing in Australia and finally established at the present time.
Finally, Chapters III and IV focus on two noted Australian violinists and
pedagogues and investigate the varying as well as the common
background of their early instrumental training. This study offers the
possibility of considering different elements in the European tradition which are reflected in their highly individualized approach to playing and teaching. One can find here some of their many original ideas and striking pedagogical concepts.


The roles of zonal and meridional wind stress and of surface heat flux in the seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature (SST) are examined with a primitive equation (PE) model of the tropical Pacific Ocean. While a variety of previous numerical and observational studies have examined the seasonal cycle of SST in the eastern tropical Pacific, it is noteworthy that different mechanisms have been invoked as primary in each case and different conclusions have been reached regarding the relative importance of the various components of surface forcing. Here, we perform a series of numerical experiments in which different components of the surface forcing are eliminated and the resulting upper ocean variability is compared with that of the climatological experiment. The model used for these experiments reproduces a realistic climatological seasonal cycle, in which SST emerges as an independent quantity. We find that the different cases all produce qualitatively reasonable seasonal cycles of SST, though only the most complete model is also able to reproduce the seasonal cycle of near surface currents, tropical instability waves (TIWs), and net surface heat fluxes consistent with historical observations. These results indicate that simply reproducing a qualitatively accurate seasonal cycle of SST does not necessarily allow meaningful conclusions to be made about the relative importance of the different components of surface forcing. The results described here also suggest that a model simulation must at least reproduce all the documented near surface kinematic features of the equatorial Pacific cold tongue region reasonably well, before accurate inferences can be made from model experiments. This provides useful guidelines to current efforts to develop and evaluate more complex fully coupled air-sea models and shows that results for simple or intermediate ocean models that do not have this level of fidelity to the observations will be difficult to interpret. 1. NOAA/PMEL, 7600 Sand Point Way, Seattle, Washington, 98115, U.S.A. 2. Corresponding author. email: email@example.com 3. Present address: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA, Princeton, New Jersey, 08542, U.S.A.


A methodology is developed that integrates institutional analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify and overcome barriers to sustainability transitions and to bridge the gap between environmental practitioners and decisionmakers. LCA results are rarely joined with analyses of the social systems that control or influence decisionmaking and policies. As a result, LCA conclusions generally lack information about who or what controls different parts of the system, where and when the processes' environmental decisionmaking happens, and what aspects of the system (i.e. a policy or regulatory requirement) would have to change to enable lower environmental impact futures. The value of the combined institutional analysis and LCA (the IA-LCA) is demonstrated using a case study of passenger transportation in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. A retrospective LCA is developed to estimate how roadway investment has enabled personal vehicle travel and its associated energy, environmental, and economic effects. Using regional travel forecasts, a prospective life cycle inventory is developed. Alternative trajectories are modeled to reveal future "savings" from reduced roadway construction and vehicle travel. An institutional analysis matches the LCA results with the specific institutions, players, and policies that should be targeted to enable transitions to these alternative futures. The results show that energy, economic, and environmental benefits from changes in passenger transportation systems are possible, but vary significantly depending on the timing of the interventions. Transition strategies aimed at the most optimistic benefits should include 1) significant land-use planning initiatives at the local and regional level to incentivize transit-oriented development infill and urban densification, 2) changes to state or federal gasoline taxes, 3) enacting a price on carbon, and 4) nearly doubling vehicle fuel efficiency i together with greater market penetration of alternative fuel vehicles. This aggressive trajectory could decrease the 2050 energy consumption to 1995 levels, greenhouse gas emissions to 1995, particulate emissions to 2006, and smog-forming emissions to 1972. The potential benefits and costs are both private and public, and the results vary when transition strategies are applied in different spatial and temporal patterns.


The article gives us an analysis of problems concerned the formation of market relations in the field of insurance in Ukraine. Special role of government in insurance markets creation in countries with transformation economies has been revealed. Periodization of the Ukrainian insurance market development, depending on its governmental regulation, has been made.


Background: Garcinia cambogia (synonym Garcinia gummi-gutta) is commonly known as brindleberry and Malabar tamarind. It has received considerable recent interest due to its potential in the prevention and treatment of obesity and obesity related diseases. The fruit pericarp also has traditional uses in the treatment of a wide variety of diseases and medical conditions, yet these have received relatively little investigation to date. Methods : Garcinia cambogia fruit extracts were investigated for their ability to inhibit the growth of a panel of bacteria of medicinal importance. The extracts were also tested for their ability to block the proliferation of the CaCo 2 and HeLa human carcinoma cell lines. Results: Garcinia cambogia methanolic, aqueous and ethyl acetate extracts displayed broad spectrum antimicrobial activity, inhibiting the growth of between 16 (64 %; ethyl acetate extract) and 22 (88 % aqueous extract) of the 25 bacterial species tested. Strong inhibitory activity was detected with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values <1000 µg/ml against many bacteria. All extracts were effective against both Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria, although Gram negative bacteria were more sensitive. All extracts displayed anti-proliferative activity against CaCo 2 and HeLa carcinoma cells, yet were non-toxic in the Artemia franciscana bioassay, with LC50 values greatly in excess of 1000 µg/ml. Conclusion: The inhibitory bioactivity against a range of microbes, the anti-proliferative activity against CaCo 2 and HeLa cells, as well as the lack of toxicity, indicate the potential for G. cambogia in the discovery and development of new natural pharmaceuticals.


One-class learning is the classic problem of fitting a model to the data for which annotations are available only for a single class. In this paper, we explore novel objectives for one-class learning, which we collectively refer to as Generalized One-class Discriminative Subspaces (GODS). Our key idea is to learn a pair of complementary classifiers to flexibly bound the one-class data distribution, where the data belongs to the positive half-space of one of the classifiers in the complementary pair and to the negative half-space of the other. To avoid redundancy while allowing non-linearity in the classifier decision surfaces, we propose to design each classifier as an orthonormal frame and seek to learn these frames via jointly optimizing for two conflicting objectives, namely: i) to minimize the distance between the two frames, and ii) to maximize the margin between the frames and the data. The learned orthonormal frames will thus characterize a piecewise linear decision surface that allows for efficient inference, while our objectives seek to bound the data within a minimal volume that maximizes the decision margin, thereby robustly capturing the data distribution. We explore several variants of our formulation under different constraints on the constituent classifiers, including kernelized feature maps. We demonstrate the empirical benefits of our approach via experiments on data from several applications in computer vision, such as anomaly detection in video sequences, human poses, and human activities. We also explore the generality and effectiveness of GODS for non-vision tasks via experiments on several UCI datasets, demonstrating state-of-the-art results.


Accurate prediction of final tender sums (contract sums) of building projects depends on reliable projections of baseline cost plans developed at the design development stage. However, no matter how much care and effort is put into the preparation of design stage elemental cost plans, deviations are usually observed between these cost plans and the final tender sum. This makes accurate predictions challenging for construction practitioners in New Zealand. The major attributable factors for the observed variability are inherent risks in the design stage elemental cost plan development. Whilst this is recognised, this study evaluates the reliability of elemental cost plans in traditional building procurement. The study seeks to answer the question: is elemental cost plan a reliable budgetary tool for construction projects? The study was undertaken based on 20 completed building projects from which secondary data were collected within the New Zealand construction industry. Data analysis was carried out using document analysis and percentage deviation of final tender sums from the cost plans. Further analyses were carried out using root mean square and relative mean absolute deviation methods of analyses. The results showed that the budgetary reliability of elemental cost plans varied depending on project types. Whilst a deviation of -3.67% and +3.95% was obtained on the residential projects analysed, the deviation on educational projects was between -3.98% and +12.15%. Commercial projects attracted -14.22% and +16.33% while in the case of refurbishment projects, a deviation of -10.07% and +30.14% was obtained. These findings suggest that the larger or more complex a project is, the less reliable it is to use elemental cost plans to guarantee cost certainty.


Existing data sources show divergent estimates of the number of homes purchased by first-time homebuyers as a share of all home purchases. In this paper, we use a new data set to construct a time series of the share of first-time homebuyers. This series, based on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Equifax Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), shows a significant decline in this share, particularly for young households, which is consistent with the decline in homeownership in this age cohort since the early 2000s.


The alveolated structure of the pulmonary acinus plays a vital role in gas exchange function. Three-dimensional (3D) analysis of the parenchymal region is fundamental to understanding this structure-function relationship, but only a limited number of attempts have been conducted in the past because of technical limitations. In this study, we developed a new image processing methodology based on finite element (FE) analysis for accurate 3D structural reconstruction of the gas exchange regions of the lung. Stereologically well characterized rat lung samples (Pediatr Res 53: 72-80, 2003) were imaged using high-resolution synchrotron radiation-based X-ray tomographic microscopy. A stack of 1,024 images (each slice: 1024 x 1024 pixels) with resolution of 1.4 mum(3) per voxel were generated. For the development of FE algorithm, regions of interest (ROI), containing approximately 7.5 million voxels, were further extracted as a working subunit. 3D FEs were created overlaying the voxel map using a grid-based hexahedral algorithm. A proper threshold value for appropriate segmentation was iteratively determined to match the calculated volume density of tissue to the stereologically determined value (Pediatr Res 53: 72-80, 2003). The resulting 3D FEs are ready to be used for 3D structural analysis as well as for subsequent FE computational analyses like fluid dynamics and skeletonization.


Purpose: To investigate the biomechanical properties of the cornea using the dynamic Scheimpflug analyzer in young healthy adults. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional population study included 944 eyes of 472 participants aged 20 to 40 years. Participants underwent ophthalmic investigations, including evaluation of biomechanical properties of the cornea using the dynamic Scheimpflug analyzer, manifest refraction, and measurements of keratometric values by autokeratometry, intraocular pressure (IOP) by noncontact tonometer, central corneal thickness (CCT) by ultrasound, and white-to-white distance by Scheimpflug tomography. Statistical analyses included determination of the reference interval with a bootstrapping method, linear quantile mixed-effects model, and Spearman correlation analysis between the corneal biomechanical parameters and other variables (age, manifest refraction spherical equivalent, CCT, IOP, white-to-white, and keratometric values). Results: The 90% CIs of all corneal biomechanical parameters demonstrated that the ranges of the 90% CIs for the reference data were almost identical with and without bootstrapping. Quantile regression to determine the fifth, 50th, and 95th percentiles of each corneal biomechanical parameter supported the findings from the nonparametric method with the 90% CIs. Correlation analysis showed significant correlations between the parameters and variables, but there was a relatively high Spearman correlation coefficient in the case of the correlations with the CCT and IOP. Conclusions: Using data from a large population of young healthy adults, we developed a database of normal values for multiple corneal biomechanical parameters obtained from the dynamic Scheimpflug analyzer. We conclude that the biomechanical properties of the cornea are influenced by the CCT and IOP.


Obesity may have negative effects on fertility early onset of obesity in women; menstrual irregularities, chronic oligo-anovulation and infertility in adulthood can be seen. Obesity in women may increase the risk of miscarriage and may adversely affect the outcome of pregnancy achieved with assisted reproductive technologies. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship with the patient groups according to the BMI, pregnancy status and take home baby. 86 female patients which are Normal, owerweight and obes, participated in our study according to Body Mass Index. As the BMIs of the female patients in our study increased, pregnancy rates decreased (N: 43,33%, FK: 36,67%, OB 20%). As the female BMI increased, the rate of babies taking home decreased significantly (N: 81.82%, FK: 9.09%, OB: 9.09%). It is understood that obesity has a negative impact on oocyte and embryo quality, pregnancy rates and on baby take home status through hormones and cytokines. We hope that the comprehensive findings obtained in our study showing the effects of only obesity by excluding polycystic ovary syndrome will provide unique and valuable contributions to the literature. Key Words : Obesity, IVF, pregnancy, infertility. DOI : 10.7176/JSTR/5-4-17


Constitutional theory is bedeviled by five persistent controversies: (1) what to do when historical evidence is difficult to assess and does not readily resolve particular disputes; (2) how to define judicial activism and decide how much of it is proper; (3) how to deal with vagueness and borderline cases; (4) how to understand the relationship of judicial review and executive review; and (5) how to reconcile interpretive theory with possibly-erroneous precedent. This article contends that these problems can be solved, or at least framed to make a solution possible, by understanding the relationship of knowledge to the Constitution. I defend three principles regarding our knowledge of the Constitution, all consistent with either originalist or non-originalist constitutional ontologies. First, assertions about the Constitution require knowledge; agnostics may not legitimately impose constitutional judgments on others. Second, constitutional knowledge, like knowledge about anything, requires more evidence as stakes increase; the weightier we deem judicial review, the more certainty it demands. Third, those in a position to speak authoritatively about the Constitution — which is not all officials at all times — should not ignore relevant evidence. These three principles can put our five controversies on the road to solution: (1) The independence of these knowledge-related principles from the relationship of the Constitution to history explains why the prospect of constitutional ignorance neither requires nor undermines originalism. (2) Improper judicial activism is using too low a standard for knowledge about the Constitution, speaking despite agnosticism, or defining one's role in constitutional conversation too broadly. Improper judicial passivity is using too stringent a standard, suppressing evidence relevant to satisfying it, or defining one's role in constitutional conversation too narrowly. (3) Combined with these principles, an epistemic view of vagueness — which posits precise, but unknown, boundaries to concepts — means staying far enough away from uncertain constitutional boundaries given the current stakes. (4) Principles of restraint govern legislative and executive action as well as judicial action, but the stakes may differ. Enforce-but-don't-defend policies like the Obama Administration's approach to DOMA are justified if executive review is a higher-stakes context than judicial review and the evidence falls between their respective knowledge thresholds — akin to a compensate-but-don't-imprison policy when proof falls between civil and criminal standards. Further, if executive review requires proof at all, then executive officials must sometimes must enforce laws whose constitutionality they doubt, passing the constitutional buck back to Congress on a "not always my job to enforce the Constitution" rationale. That rationale is independently plausible in an intrabranch form for subordinate executive or judicial officials. (5) If interbranch and intrabranch constitutional buck-passing can be legitimate, so can intertemporal buck passing; a later Court might similarly pass the buck to an earlier version of itself. Limits on executive review thus provide a model for reconciling entrenched precedent with theories of interpretation labeling those precedents as erroneous.


Local governments manage Botubarani beaches to safeguard the characteristics of biodiversity through bureaucratic processes with the aim of enhancing sustainable economic growth for local communities. Through regulation both in the form of village regulations and local regulations. This research method is based on a qualitative approach. Data collection techniques used are, interviews, observation and documentation. Data analysis uses data reduction flow, data presentation, and conclusion. The results show a grand village management strategy leader in the protection of community-based Botubarani shark species. Government efforts in the protection of whale sharks as ecotourism centers are: (1) Beach management concept (2) Community and government management roadmap for protection of Botubarani shark species as ecotourism, and (3) Promotion and Utilization of Botubarani Beach as a Genetic Ecotourism Diversity Shark Pope.


Abstract. Vehicular-networking- and especially safety-related wireless vehicular services have been under intensive research for almost a decade now. Only in recent years has road weather information also been acknowledged to play an important role when aiming to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities via intelligent transport systems (ITSs). Part of the progress can be seen as a result of the Finnish Meteorological Institute's (FMI) long-term research work in Sodankyla within the topic, originally started in 2006. Within multiple research projects, the FMI Arctic Research Centre has been developing wireless vehicular networking and road weather services, in co-operation with the FMI meteorological services team in Helsinki. At the beginning the wireless communication was conducted with traditional Wi-Fi type local area networking, but during the development the system has evolved into a hybrid communication system of a combined vehicular ad hoc networking (VANET) system with special IEEE 802.11p protocol and supporting cellular networking based on a commercial 3G network, not forgetting support for Wi-Fi-based devices also. For piloting purposes and further research, we have established a special combined road weather station (RWS) and roadside unit (RSU), to interact with vehicles as a service hotspot. In the RWS–RSU we have chosen to build support to all major approaches, IEEE 802.11, traditional Wi-Fi and cellular 3G. We employ road weather systems of FMI, along with RWS and vehicle data gathered from vehicles, in the up-to-date localized weather data delivered in real time. IEEE 802.11p vehicular networking is supported with Wi-Fi and 3G communications. This paper briefly introduces the research work related to vehicular networking and road weather services conducted in Sodankyla, as well as the research project involved in this work. The current status of instrumentation, available services and capabilities are presented in order to formulate a clear general view of the research field.


Several countries worldwide have experienced increasing immigration waves. Studies have explained immigration attitudes mainly in terms of cultural threats and material self-interest. However, scarce attention has been given to chief executives' empathy toward the causes of migration, the impact of which may be moderated by the size of the migration wave. We test these propositions on data drawn from a survey-experiment using 101 Latin American and Caribbean mayors as subjects. Mayors were presented with hypothetical situations in which they had to approve or reject an experimentally manipulated number of immigrants. The cause of their migration was also manipulated by randomly presenting mayors a number of immigrants due to either an earthquake (natural disaster), a civil conflict, or an unspecified cause (control group). Findings show 79 percent of mayors approved immigrants regardless of the cause. Mayors are more likely to approve immigrants when the migration cause is stated. However, mayoral approval of immigrants due to disasters is not statistically different from mayoral approval of immigrants due to civil conflict. When the size of the immigration wave increases, mayors are still more likely to accept immigrants due to natural disasters, but less likely to accept immigrants due to civil conflict. Interestingly, South American, Caribbean and Central American mayors tend to be more empathetic toward immigrants than their Mexican colleagues.


Abstract. Current climate change models predict significant changes in rainfall patterns across Europe. To explore the effect of drought on soil CO2 efflux (FSoil) and on the contribution of litter to FSoil we used rain shelters to simulate a summer drought (May to July 2007) in an intensively managed grassland in Switzerland by reducing annual precipitation by around 30% similar to the hot and dry year 2003 in Central Europe. We added 13C-depleted as well as unlabelled grass/clover litter to quantify the litter-derived CO2 efflux (FLitter). Soil CO2 efflux and the 13C/12C isotope ratio (δ13C) of the respired CO2 after litter addition were measured during the growing season 2007. Drought significantly decreased FSoil in our litter addition experiment by 59% and FLitter by 81% during the drought period itself (May to July), indicating that drought had a stronger effect on the CO2 release from litter than on the belowground-derived CO2 efflux (FBG, i.e. soil organic matter (SOM) and root respiration). Despite large bursts in respired CO2 induced by the rewetting after prolonged drought, drought also reduced FSoil and FLitter during the entire 13C measurement period (April to October) by 26% and 37%, respectively. Overall, our findings show that drought decreased FSoil and altered its seasonality and its sources. Thus, the C balance of temperate grassland soils respond sensitively to changes in precipitation, a factor that needs to be considered in regional models predicting the impact of climate change on ecosystems C balance.


I continue to "teach" Criminal Procedure as one of my core courses. I do so while trying my best to stay true to my values and commitments, surfacing the tensions and deficits I have described, and using concrete examples to drive home the many disparities and dysfunctions that still exist in this country despite the development of decades of criminal procedure doctrine. I try to encourage students to embrace their roles and responsibilities both as representatives of clients and change agents in this deeply imperfect system—urging them to consider what it might take to be an effective advocate for individuals and communities within current structures while still working towards fundamental reform. I try to engage in these efforts through a variety of means—from the way in which I set forth expectations at the start of the semester, to creating norms for our community of learning, to the materials I include in our readings, to the ways in which I attempt to have students grapple with the applications and implications of constitutional doctrinal principles and other concepts—both inside and outside of our classroom. Of course, I do not purport to be pedagogically perfect. There are surely students who might prefer a different take on the course. And all of this does not resolve my internal dilemma or absolve me of some level of responsibility for the state of the world today, particularly as I continue to enjoy a relative position of privilege in an exclusive and elite institution of higher learning. But thus far it has provided somewhat of a middle path where I try to contextualize criminal procedural rules and consider current doctrinal principles while also questioning them. Where I push students to ask hard questions, speak truth to power, and encourage them to embrace their roles as the next generation of advocates who can continue to try to impact and improve institutions to ensure equal justice for all. And, to date, despite my internal struggle, a good number of students have reported that they appreciate my approach to the course. An approach I would characterize as different from professing or theorizing about the law—but instead practicing a form of critical criminal procedure. What follows are a few specific thoughts about, and examples from, this ongoing effort (and impasse).


Background Assemblies of diploid genomes are generally unphased, pseudo-haploid representations that do not correctly reconstruct the two parental haplotypes present in the individual sequenced. Instead, the assembly alternates between parental haplotypes and may contain duplications in regions where the parental haplotypes are sufficiently different. Trio binning is an approach to genome assembly that uses short reads from both parents to classify long reads from the offspring according to maternal or paternal haplotype origin, and is thus helped rather than impeded by heterozygosity. Using this approach, it is possible to derive two assemblies from an individual, accurately representing both parental contributions in their entirety with higher continuity and accuracy than is possible with other methods. Results We used trio binning to assemble reference genomes for two species from a single individual using an interspecies cross of yak (Bos grunniens) and cattle (Bos taurus). The high heterozygosity inherent to interspecies hybrids allowed us to confidently assign >99% of long reads from the F1 offspring to parental bins using unique k-mers from parental short reads. Both the maternal (yak) and paternal (cattle) assemblies contain over one third of the acrocentric chromosomes, including the two largest chromosomes, in single haplotigs. Conclusions These haplotigs are the first vertebrate chromosome arms to be assembled gap-free and fully phased, and the first time assemblies for two species have been created from a single individual. Both assemblies are the most continuous currently available for non-model vertebrates.


Why do villagers in China's most densely populated and productive agricultural regions use scarce farmland to construct housing? And why has the Chinese government, which has legislated to conserve arable land so as to ensure national food security, been unable to control housing construction in the countryside? Previous studies of the factors motivating the rural housing boom tend to explain this either as a reaction against insecure property rights in land and a speculative response to emergent market opportunities, or as a social mobility tactic. This paper presents interview and survey data from four villages in Zhejiang province that show that property rights in land do not affect villagers' housing construction and market incentives play only a minor role in propelling house-building. The social and demographic aspirations of families and the reconfiguration of rural households' economic activities are major stimuli of "the rural house-building craze."


We document a new finding regarding changes in labor market outcomes for high-skilled men and women in the US. Since 1980, conditional on being a college-educated man, the probability of working in a cognitive/high-wage occupation has fallen. This contrasts starkly with the experience for college-educated women: their probability of working in these occupations rose, despite a much larger increase in the supply of educated women relative to men. We show that one key channel capable of rationalizing these findings is a greater increase in the demand for female-oriented skills in cognitive/high-wage occupations relative to other occupations. Using occupation-level data, we find evidence that this relative increase in the demand for female skills is due to an increasing importance of social skills within such occupations. Evidence from both male and female wages is also indicative of an increase in the demand for social skills. Finally, we document how these patterns change across the early and latter portions of the period.


Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are associated with the development of Clostridium difficile infection in humans. Though it is assumed that PPIs mediate this effect through gastric acid suppression, there has been little investigation into whether PPIs, or ambient pH, might directly affect the expression of C. difficile toxin genes. In the present study, C. difficile ribotypes 001, 027 and 078 obtained from human subjects were grown under anaerobic conditions prepared at pHs of 5, 7.3 and 9. Matched trios were exposed to 100 µM and 200 µM of omeprazole along with PPI untreated controls. Custom designed reverse transcription quantitative PCR hydrolysis probes were used to assess C. difficile gene expression for toxins A (tcdA), B (tcdB) and binary toxin (cdtB), as well as their positive regulators (tcdR and cdtR), using rrsA, which encodes 16S rRNA, as a constitutively expressed reference gene. tcdC and codY, negative regulators of toxin expression, were also assessed. Basic pH resulted in greater expression of tcdA, and with PPI exposure a 120-fold higher expression was noted with ribotype 001. tcdB and cdtB expressions were much less responsive to pH or PPIs, though a clear response to acidic pH and PPI exposure was observed in ribotype 027. tcdC and codY expressions were largely unaffected, except with ribotype 027; low pH and PPIs resulted in their greater expression, though to a lesser degree than with toxin genes and their positive regulators. Non-neutral pH and PPI exposure appear to have an effect on C. difficile, one that has a net effect towards toxin gene expression.


Underground space is commonly exploited both to maximise the utility of costly land in urban development and to reduce the vertical load acting on the ground. Deep excavations are carried out to construct various types of underground infrastructure such as deep basements, subways and service tunnels. Although the soil response to excavation is known in principle, designers lack practical calculation methods for predicting both short- and long-term ground movements. As the understanding of how soil behaves around an excavation in both the short and long term is insufficient and usually empirical, the judgements used in design are also empirical and serious accidents are common. To gain a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in soil excavation, a new apparatus for the centrifuge model testing of deep excavations in soft clay has been developed. This apparatus simulates the field construction sequence of a multi-propped retaining wall during centrifuge flight. A comparison is given between the new technique and the previously used method of draining heavy fluid to simulate excavation in a centrifuge model. The new system has the benefit of giving the correct initial ground conditions before excavation and the proper earth pressure distribution on the retaining structures during excavation, whereas heavy fluid only gives an earth pressure coefficient of unity and is unable to capture any changes in the earth pressure coefficient of soil inside the zone of excavation, for example owing to wall movements. Settlements of the ground surface, changes in pore water pressure, variations in earth pressure, prop forces and bending moments in the retaining wall are all monitored during excavation. Furthermore, digital images taken of a cross-section during the test are analysed using particle image velocimetry to illustrate ground deformation and soil–structure interaction mechanisms. The significance of these observations is discussed.


This paper critically appraises the approaches that have characterized the literature on the macroeconomic effects of job reallocations. Since Lilien's (1982) seminal contribution there has been a flourishing of empirical analysis but no unifying theoretical framework has obtained consensus in the scientific debate. We face a corpus of research which is heterogeneous in variables' selection and experimental design. This heterogeneity makes the evaluation of results a daunting task. As a guiding principle for our excursion we track down the methodological development of the solutions to the crucial problem of observational equivalence of aggregate and sectoral reallocation shocks. We draw two main conclusions from our analysis. The first is that the non-directional nature of reallocation shocks holds the key to the solution of the fundamental identification problem. In this sense the recent perspective on job creation and destruction shows much promise. The second conclusion is that sectoral reallocation of labor has been responsible for no less that 1/4 and no more that 2/3 of the variance of aggregate unemployment in postwar data. While this range may seem wide it is an indication that the importance of labor reallocation may have changed over time, being quite large at particular historical junctures.


California has issued ambitious targets to decarbonize transportation through the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs), and to decarbonize the electricity grid through the expansion of both renewable generation and energy storage. These parallel efforts can provide an untapped synergistic opportunity for clean transportation to be an enabler for a clean electricity grid. To quantify this potential, we forecast the hourly system-wide balancing problems arising out to 2025 as more renewables are deployed and load continues to grow. We then quantify the system-wide balancing benefits from EVs modulating the charging or discharging of their batteries to mitigate renewable intermittency, without compromising the mobility needs of drivers. Our results show that with its EV deployment target and with only one-way charging control of EVs, California can achieve much of the same benefit of its Storage Mandate for mitigating renewable intermittency, but at a small fraction of the cost. Moreover, EVs provide many times these benefits if two-way charging control becomes widely available. Thus, EVs support the state's renewable integration targets while avoiding much of the tremendous capital investment of stationary storage that can instead be applied towards further deployment of clean vehicles.


We analyze simulated sea ice changes in eight different Earth System Models that have conducted experiment G1 of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). The simulated response of balancing abrupt quadrupling of CO2 (abrupt4xCO2) with reduced shortwave radiation successfully moderates annually averaged Arctic temperature rise to about 1°C, with modest changes in seasonal sea ice cycle compared with the preindustrial control simulations (piControl). Changes in summer and autumn sea ice extent are spatially correlated with temperature patterns but much less in winter and spring seasons. However, there are changes of ±20% in sea ice concentration in all seasons, and these will induce changes in atmospheric circulation patterns. In summer and autumn, the models consistently simulate less sea ice relative to preindustrial simulations in the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, and Laptev Seas, and some models show increased sea ice in the Barents/Kara Seas region. Sea ice extent increases in the Greenland Sea, particularly in winter and spring and is to some extent associated with changed sea ice drift. Decreased sea ice cover in winter and spring in the Barents Sea is associated with increased cyclonic activity entering this area under G1. In comparison, the abrupt4xCO2 experiment shows almost total sea ice loss in September and strong correlation with regional temperatures in all seasons consistent with open ocean conditions. The tropospheric circulation displays a Pacific North America pattern‐like anomaly with negative phase in G1‐piControl and positive phase under abrupt4xCO2‐piControl.


Sixty-five consecutive autopsied cases of ventricular aneurysm are reviewed. The incidence of aneurysm following myocardial infarction is similar to that reported in other series. Myocardial infarction preceded the formation of an aneurysm of the ventricle in the vast majority of patients, and a new myocardial infarction was the cause of death of about 50 per cent of them. The survival rate of patients with ventricular aneurysm is not significantly different from the long-term survival of all patients with myocardial infarction found in the same institution. Complications of ventricular aneurysm such as chronic congestive heart failure and rupture of the aneurysm were infrequent causes of death, and systemic embolic phenomena were not observed as a cause of death. In only four patients was the diagnosis made ante mortem. The lack of characteristic clinical, radiologic, and electrocardiographic findings is discussed. It is suggested that the hemodynamic significance of ventricular aneurysms is not ordinarily great, in view of the unaffected statistical prognosis in its presence. The recommended indications for surgery of ventricular aneurysms, based on this retrospective study, are presented.


In some Germanic languages, neuter gender is used both as a lexical gender and for certain grammatical functions, while in Romance languages, neuter gender is only employed for grammatical functions. Zulu, a Bantu language, has a much more elaborate noun class system than those languages, but one not rooted in sex or animacy as in Germanic or Romance. However, it is shown that Zulu noun class 17 is used for the same range of grammatical functions as neuter gender in Indo-European. Specifically, Indo-European neuter gender and Zulu class 17 are used when the referent has no specific noun class properties, for expletive subjects, and as the subject of nominal predication, even when the referent is human. Aside from its use in some languages as a gender for nouns, then, neuter gender can be understood as a cluster of grammatical functions, independently of the way the lexicon is organized.


Laakso, Nina Stories of becoming an elite sport manager in Finland Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2016, 195 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Business and Economics ISSN 1457-1986; 166) ISBN 978-951-39-6533-4 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-6534-1 (PDF) The purpose of this study was to examine the stories of Finnish sport managers: how their pathways to become sport managers had proceeded and what kinds of meanings and contents they constructed in their stories. In addition, one aim was to examine how the narrative method can be applied to sport management studies. This study included narrative interviews of 16 Finnish operational and governmental managers from the top of Finnish sport management – i.e. the elite. Twelve of them were male and four female, aged between 45–73 years. Exploring sport managers' interviews empirically by using the analysis of narratives (e.g. Greimas's actantial model), 16 individual, unique narrative stories were constructed. Particular attention was paid to what the stories contained and how the interviewees told their stories in their own words. Furthermore, the modalities as well as what kinds and degrees of agency – strong or weak – sport managers constructed in their stories were examined. From this data, four sport manager types: The Chosen, The Politician, The Sportsman and The Bureaucrat were discovered. On the basis of the stories' plots, actions and events, four different story types were also perceived: the story of growth, drifting, aspiration and the story of coincidence. Sport managers' stories illustrated at the individual level how the sport managers' careers were constructed, but they also reflected the social reality and the wider sociocultural context of Finnish sport management. In the sport managers' stories, there were four factors that had played a central role in their pathways to become an elite sport manager. A role within sports seemed legitimising and dominant, even a norm. Politics appeared to work/have worked both for and against their progress to become an elite sport manager and, thus, aroused controversial feelings. Management and leadership skills were considered important in higher leadership positions but only a few of the interviewees legitimised themselves to their positions through them. Gender stood out in women's stories: it was regarded both as a helping and hindering factor in their careers. Hence, becoming a top sport manager is a multifaceted phenomenon and there are different individual factors that affect and direct their pathways. This study shows that, despite the limitations of narrative research, it is a fruitful method for sport management studies. Qualitative research and a narrative approach can provide different perspectives and also give a deeper and better understanding of the individual's experiences.


Double walls are increasingly used in construction. Due to this, there is interest in reliable models of their sound insulation for the frequency range reguired in regulations (50-5000Hz). These models can be either statistical or deterministic. In this work, the finite layer method (FLM) is presented as a numerical technique for solving the problem in a deterministic way. it is used for discretising the Helmholtz equation in the cavity and combines a finite element method (FEM) discretisation in the direction perpendicular to the wall with trigonometric functions in the two in plane directions. The FLM exploits the simple geometry of the double wall and accounts for all its boundary and interface conditions with a reasonable computational cost. The statistical energy analysis (SEA) is a more suitable framework of analysis for vibroacoustic problems in large domains such as buildings. However, the best SEA approach for modelling double walls is not clear in the literature. The cavity is considered as a subsystem or treated as a connecting device between the two leaves depending on the autor. The finite layer method is a used to evaluate the performance of these two approaches, concluding that both considerations have to be taken into account together to reproduce the real behaviour. Finally, the FLM is used to define a combined deterministic energy based approach to deal with this kind of problems.


The spatial control of the nano-emitters in novel light harvesting platforms offers great potential for the manipulation of the excitonic interaction amongst the donor–acceptor pairs of energy transferring agents. In this work, we report colloidal quantum dot loaded electrospun nanofibers as a light harvesting platform to study the excitonic interaction among them. The donor emission lifetime modified from 12.46 ns to 7.45 ns with the change in the ratio of green and red quantum dots in the nanofiber, as a result of confining acceptor quantum dots in close proximity. The spectrally narrow emitter luminescent nanofiber platforms have further been investigated for their potential of white light generation. The hybrid platform of blue LED integrated electrospun nanofibers has been shown to demonstrate a correlated color temperature of 3632.5 K, luminous efficacy of optical radiation value of 307.7 lm/Wopt along with color rendering index value of 60.


Published in The Young Lawyer, Volume 14, Number 10, August 2010. © 2010 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. 1 How to Publish a Scholarly Legal Article


This article discusses a prototype that explores the simultaneous manipulation of three-dimensional digital forms and sound. Our multi-media study examines the aesthetic affordances of tight parameter couplings between digital three-dimensional objects and sound objects based on notions of process and user-machine interaction. It investigates how effective cohesion between visual, spatial and sonic might be established through changes perceived in parallel; what Michel Chion refers to as 'synchresis'. Drawing from Mike Blow's work On the Simultaneous Perception of Sound and Three-Dimensional Objects and processual art, this prototype uses computer technology for forming and mediating a creative practice involving 3D animation, sound synthesis, digital signal processing and programming. Our practice-based approach entails the rendering of a three-dimensional digital object in Processing whose form changes over time according to specific actions. Spatial data is sent via Open Sound Control (OSC) to Max MSP in real time, where sound is synthesized and then manipulated. Sonic parameters such as amplitude, spectral density/width and timbre are controlled by select spatial parameters from the three-dimensional object. Sound processing is realized based on the changing of the three-dimensional object in time through basic actions such as splitting, distorting, cutting, shattering and rotating. We use digital technology to look beyond basic synchronisation of sound and vision to a more complex cohesion of percepts, based on changes to myriad sonic and visual parameters experienced concurrently.


The horrendous and unforgivable attack on Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16,2 014 has not only pricked national conscience but also exposed governance and security vulnerabilities of the Pakistani State and its citizens. The incident appears to have roused a sense of urgency among the civil and military leadership, resulting in the National Action Plan to combat, dismantle and disrupt terrorism and its network in the country. Despite a promising awakening, deep-rooted governance failures, which have led to deterioration in services and writ, demand serious review and reform of key institutions of governance. It needs to be underscored that the edifice of democracy, representative government and good governance is built on the twin pillars of sustainable democratized political parties and modern, efficient, professionally competent and depersonalized bureaucracy. The purpose of this Policy Brief is to provide a framework for initiating discussion on the concept of governance and issues of civil service reform in Pakistan in general and Punjab in particular. The paper attempts to offer context of why governance and civil service reform have become matters of crucial significance for Pakistani state. It propounds that at the political and elite institutional level governance and reform issues are not getting the attention they deserve; therefore, a bottom's up approach may be pursued to induce behavioral and structural change. It argues that following the implementation of the 18th Amendment, provincial and local governments should be the pivot for improving governance and pushing civil service reform.


Flow line are one of the most commonly encountered layouts in manufacturing industries, where several product types (grades) are manufactured using a sequence of sub-systems or machinery with different tasks. With increasing prices of energy and specific customer demands employing effective product scheduling strategies has become essential for manufacturing industries to maintain their business viability. In this paper, a new product scheduling method is proposed for multi-machine, multi-product flow lines. The objective here is to control the production start time for each grade so that the product delivery time errors are minimised. It is also desired to minimise the overall makespan variability caused by non-Gaussian uncertainties formulated by the entropy of the delivery time errors. Therefore, the proposed product scheduling strategy is a nonlinear multi-objective optimisation problem with non-Gaussian uncertainties. To solve this problem, the nonlinear dynamic flow line model is converted to a linear dynamic equivalent using a (Max,+) algebraic approach. Then, a Proportional-Integral (PI) scheduling controller is used to control the production start time for each grade. The scheduling controller coefficients are tuned by a Multi-Objective Differential Evolution (MODE) algorithm. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique and a comparison is made between MODE, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO).


In this paper, a robust closed-loop cascaded controller is designed and analysed for an inverting buck-boost converter. The fast inner current loop uses sliding mode control (SMC). The slow outer voltage loop uses the proportional-integral (PI) control. Analysis of stability and robustness, proof of nonminimum phase structure, and proper selection of PI gains are based on the closed-loop transfer function. The controller design is facilitated by the system frequency responses. The output voltage transients caused by step changes of the input voltage and load resistance are predictable. The operating range of the reference voltage is discussed. The simulation results show that the reference output voltage is well tracked under modelling uncertainties, disturbances or step changes of parameters, confirming the validity of the proposed method.


Privacy protection, according to Colin Bennett and Charles Raab, involves politics and public policy as much as it does law and technology. Moreover, the protection of our personal information in a globalized, borderless world means that privacy-related policies are inextricably interdependent. In this updated paperback edition of The Governance of Privacy Bennett and Raab analyze a broad range of privacy policy instruments available to contemporary advanced industrial states, from government regulations and transnational regimes to self-regulation and privacy-enhancing technologies. They consider two possible dynamics of privacy regulation--a "race to the bottom," with competitive deregulation by countries eager to attract global investment in information technology, versus "a race to the top," with the progressive establishment of global privacy standards.Bennett and Raab begin by discussing the goals of privacy protection, the liberal and individualist assumptions behind it, and the neglected relationship between privacy and social equity. They describe and evaluate different policy instruments, including the important 1995 Directive on Data Protection from the European Union, as well as the general efficacy of the "top-down" statutory approach and self-regulatory and technological alternatives to it. They evaluate the interrelationships of these policy instruments and their position in a global framework of regulation and policy by state and non-state actors. And finally, they consider whether all of this policy activity at international, national, and corporate levels necessarily means higher levels of privacy protection.


The ability to optimize programs while they execute has become increasingly important in recent years. The primary challenge in such optimization is to keep the run-time overhead of optimization down while maximizing its effectiveness. The widely used solution of Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation keeps run-time overhead low, at considerable engineering cost, by sacrificing performance.
The past few years have seen the emergence of staged optimization , which produces run-time optimizations that often have much lower run-time overhead than traditional optimizers, yet do not sacrifice any of their functionality. The key to the technique is a method, called staging, to transfer optimization overhead to static compile time from run time. Unfortunately, developing staged variants of individual optimizations has been highly specialized, labor-intensive work; staging pipelines of optimizations even more so.
This dissertation presents a system called the Staged Compilation Framework (SCF), which automatically stages entire pipelines of compiler optimizations at arguably little additional engineering cost beyond building the slower traditional version of the pipeline. SCF harnesses two powerful but traditionally difficult-to-use techniques, partial evaluation and dead-store elimination, to achieve staging. An implementation of SCF shows that staged compilation can speed up pipelines of classical compiler optimizations by up to an order of magnitude, and more commonly by a factor of 4.5 to 5.


An authors' previous paper which reported on the influence of delta-ferrite on low temperature toughness of Type 316L austenitic stainless steel weld metal, revealed that the toughness of as-welded specimen was dependent not only on the delta-ferrite content but also on the solidification mode.In this paper, various factors being affected on the toughness such as concentration difference, coherency, etc., were investigated in detail by using a transmission electron microscopy (TEM), an analytical electron microscopy (STEM/EDX) and a scanning electron microscopy equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (SEM/EDX).From an electron diffraction analysis, a crystallographic orientation of primary delta-ferrite was coherent with that of its adjacent austenite matrix but in the eutectic delta-ferrite, the relation was incoherent.The amount of molybdenum contained in the eutectic delta-ferrite was 1.8 times as that in the primary delta-ferrite and moreover, a cell or a cellular dendrite boundary adjacent to the eutectic delta-ferrite, was enriched in molybdenum slightly. Probably, in these molybdenum-rich sites, a lattice strain was considered to be higher than that in the primary delta-ferrite.From the SEM/EDX analysis on the fractured surface of the Charpy tested eutectic delta-ferrite specimen, the chromium and molybdenum rich zones were measured, where these compositions were equivalent to that of delta-ferrite or cellular dendrite. However, in the primary delta-ferrite specimen, such a zone could not be detected.From results above, when the eutectic delta-ferrite specimen was Charpy-tested, a crack initiation occurred at the delta-ferrite/austenite boundary or within the delta-ferrite and subsequently, the crack propagated preferentially along the cell or the cellular dendrite boundary or the delta-ferrite.In the specimen heat-treated at 923 K for 100 hrs, the concentration of the principal elements such as chromium, molybdenum and nickel within the prior delta-ferrite fluctuated widely, independent of its morphology, in which furthermore, the presence of carbide M23C6 and σ phase were confirmed.


This paper distinguishes three types of countries (rich, middle-income, and pre-industrial) and focus on the latter, which, in contrast to the other two, didn't complete their industrial and capitalist revolutions. Can pre-industrial countries be governed well and embody the principles of consolidated democracies? Today these countries are under pressure from the imperial West to eschew institutions and developmental strategies that, in the past, allowed rich and middle-income countries to industrialize. At the same time, they are pressured by these same Western parties (and by its own people) to be democratic, even though their societies are not mature enough to fulfill that. In fact, no country completed its industrial and capitalist revolution within the framework of even a minimal democracy, suggesting that such demands are unfair. Added to this, pre-industrial countries are extremely difficult to govern because they usually don't have a strong nation and capable states. This double pressure to renounce development strategies that have worked for the West while being required to become a democracy represents a major obstacle to their development.


The enumeration of all Maximal Satisfiable Subsets (MSSes) or all Minimal Correction Subsets (MCSes) of an unsatisfiable CNF Boolean formula is a useful and sometimes necessary step for solving a variety of important A.I. issues. Although the number of different MCSes of a CNF Boolean formula is exponential in the worst case, it remains low in many practical situations; this makes the tentative enumeration possibly successful in these latter cases. In the paper, a technique is introduced that boosts the currently most efficient practical approaches to enumerate MCSes. It implements a model rotation paradigm that allows the set of MCSes to be computed in an heuristically efficient way.


Significance Identifying biological targets in major depressive disorder (MDD) is a critical step for development of effective mechanism-based medications. The epigenetic agent acetyl-l-carnitine (LAC) has rapid and enduring antidepressant-like effects in LAC-deficient rodents. Here, we found that LAC levels were decreased in patients with MDD versus age- and sex-matched healthy controls in two independent study centers. In subsequent exploratory analyses, the degree of LAC deficiency reflected both the severity and age of onset of MDD. Furthermore, the lowest LAC levels were found in patients with treatment-resistant depression, whereby history of emotional neglect and being female predicted decreased LAC levels. These translational findings suggest that LAC may serve as a candidate biomarker to help the diagnosis of a clinical endophenotype of MDD. The lack of biomarkers to identify target populations greatly limits the promise of precision medicine for major depressive disorder (MDD), a primary cause of ill health and disability. The endogenously produced molecule acetyl-l-carnitine (LAC) is critical for hippocampal function and several behavioral domains. In rodents with depressive-like traits, LAC levels are markedly decreased and signal abnormal hippocampal glutamatergic function and dendritic plasticity. LAC supplementation induces rapid and lasting antidepressant-like effects via epigenetic mechanisms of histone acetylation. This mechanistic model led us to evaluate LAC levels in humans. We found that LAC levels, and not those of free carnitine, were decreased in patients with MDD compared with age- and sex-matched healthy controls in two independent study centers. Secondary exploratory analyses showed that the degree of LAC deficiency reflected both the severity and age of onset of MDD. Moreover, these analyses showed that the decrease in LAC was larger in patients with a history of treatment-resistant depression (TRD), among whom childhood trauma and, specifically, a history of emotional neglect and being female, predicted the decreased LAC. These findings suggest that LAC may serve as a candidate biomarker to help diagnose a clinical endophenotype of MDD characterized by decreased LAC, greater severity, and earlier onset as well as a history of childhood trauma in patients with TRD. Together with studies in rodents, these translational findings support further exploration of LAC as a therapeutic target that may help to define individualized treatments in biologically based depression subtype consistent with the spirit of precision medicine.


Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is prevalent among children and adolescents in Botswana, but standardized neurocognitive testing is limited. The Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (PennCNB) attempts to streamline evaluation of neurocognitive functioning and has been culturally adapted for use among youth in this high-burden, low-resource setting. However, its reliability across measurements (i.e., test-retest reliability) is unknown. This study examined the test-retest reliability of the culturally adapted PennCNB in 65 school-age children (age 7-17) living with HIV in Botswana. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for PennCNB summary scores (ICCs > 0.80) and domain scores (ICCs = 0.66-0.88) were higher than those for individual tests, which exhibited more variability (ICCs = 0.50-0.82), with the lowest reliability on memory tests. Practice effects were apparent on some measures, especially within memory and complex cognition domains. Taken together, the adapted PennCNB exhibited adequate test-retest reliability at the domain level but variable reliability for individual tests. Differences in reliability should be considered in implementation of these tests.


Background: The responses of disparity selective cells in V2 can be influenced by stimuli outside their receptive fields. In particular, the response is often higher when the receptive field is near a depth edge, e.g., a border between two different depth planes composed of random dots (von der Heydt, Zhou, and Friedman, Vision Research, 2000). In addition, cell responses can reflect the phenomenon of disparity capture, in which global surfaces or grouping cues dictate the local interpretation of stimulus depth. Hence, cell responses to the surface area of a depth plane are tuned to the depth values at the surface boundary beyond the receptive fields (Bakin, Nakayama, and Gilbert, J. Neuroscience, 2000). Method: A model of the cortex with intra-cortical interactions is constructed to study how contextual influences contribute to the stereo grouping and segmentation phenomena observed physiologically. Nearby model pyramidal cells influence each other via monosynaptic facilitation or disynaptic inhibition. Input and neural representation focuses on the stereo domain. Hence, the input stimuli are dots in depth space without orientation, color, or motion information. The model cells are binocular and receive inputs from both the correct and false matches between stimuli dots in the left and right eyes, as suggested from the physiological data about the responses of V1 cells (Cumming and Parker, J. Neuroscience, 2000), which provide inputs to V2. Hence, the initial responses to an input pattern come from many model cells corresponding to all possible stereo matches. Contextual influences modify the cell responses, such that after the initial transient, the responses from the model are significant only from cells whose receptive fields correspond to the correct matches only. In particular, the model reproduces the physiological disparity capture and depth edge highlights.


Using a precise hafnium-tungsten "clock," three groups have recently revised the time table of the early events that led to Earth9s formation. In his Perspective,
 Jacobsen
 explains how this isotopic clock works and what it has revealed about early Earth. Just 10 million years after the first grains formed in the solar system, Earth had already accreted about 64% of its mass. About 20 million years later, a Mars-sized impactor smashed into Earth, leading to the formation of the Moon. The data also shed light on the origin of the materials from which the solar system was made.


Decoys and Disruptions is the first comprehensive collection of writings by American artist and critic Martha Rosler. Best known for her videos and photography, Rosler has also been an original and influential cultural critic and theorist for over twenty-five years. The writings collected here address such key topics as documentary photography, feminist art, video, government patronage of the arts, censorship, and the future of digitally based photographic media. Taken together, these thirteen essays not only show Rosler's importance as a critic but also offer an essential resource for readers interested in the issues confronting contemporary art. The essays in this collection illustrate Rosler's ongoing investigation into means of exposing truth and provoking change, providing a retrospective of characteristic issues in her work. Mixing analysis and wit, Rosler challenges many of the fundamental precepts of contemporary art practice. Her influential essay, "In, around, and afterthoughts: on documentary photography," almost single-handedly dismantled the myth of liberal documentary photography when it appeared. Many of the essays in this volume have had a similarly wide-ranging influence; others are published here for the first time. Illustrating the essays are 81 images by Rosler and other artists and photographers.


Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate patient-relevant outcomes following first revision total knee arthroplasties (rTKAs) performed for different indications. Methods: This population-based cohort study utilized data from the United Kingdom National Joint Registry, Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care, National Health Service Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, and the Civil Registrations of Death. Patients undergoing a first rTKA between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2019, were included in our data set. Patient-relevant outcomes included implant survivorship (up to 11 years postoperatively), mortality and serious medical complications (up to 90 days postoperatively), and patient-reported outcome measures (at 6 months postoperatively). Results: A total of 24,540 first rTKAs were analyzed. The patient population was 54% female and 62% White, with a mean age at the first rTKA of 69 years. At 2 years postoperatively, the cumulative incidence of re-revision surgery ranged from 2.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.9% to 3.4%) following rTKA for progressive arthritis to 16.3% (95% CI, 15.2% to 17.4%) following rTKA for infection. The mortality rate at 90 days was highest following rTKA for fracture (3.6% [95% CI, 2.5% to 5.1%]) and for infection (1.8% [95% CI, 1.5% to 2.2%]) but was <0.5% for other indications. The rate of serious medical complications requiring hospital admission within 90 days was highest for patients treated for fracture (21.8% [95% CI, 17.9% to 26.3%]) or infection (12.5% [95% CI, 11.2% to 13.9%]) and was lowest for those treated for progressive arthritis (4.3% [95% CI, 3.3% to 5.5%]). Patients who underwent rTKA for stiffness or unexplained pain had some of the poorest postoperative joint function (mean Oxford Knee Score, 24 and 25 points, respectively) and had the lowest proportion of responders (48% and 55%, respectively). Conclusions: This study found large differences in patient-relevant outcomes among different indications for first rTKA. The rate of complications was highest following rTKA for fracture or infection. Although rTKA resulted in large improvements in joint function for most patients, those who underwent surgery for stiffness and unexplained pain had worse outcomes. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


Objective: The infantile group that is accepted to be at risk of anaphylaxis has a special importance since they are unable to express their complaints and also the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis can be confused with common symptoms of infants such as drooling, vomiting, diarrhea and itching. However, early detection of the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis is crucial for effective diagnosis and treatment. The aim of study was to draw attention to infants anaphylaxis. Materials and Methods: All of the patients in the infant group (n=15) among a total of 35 anaphylaxis cases that we followed in the Pediatric Allergy Clinic of Dr. Behcet Uz Children's Hospital between the years 2011-2015 were included in the study. Demographic and clinical features of the patients were evaluated. Results: 9 of 15 (60%) patients involved in the study were male and 6 (40%) were female, and the average age of anaphylaxis was 8.13±6.83 (min 1-max 24) months. In 93% of cases (n=14) the trigger was food and in 7% of cases (n=1) the trigger was not determined. The most frequently responsible foods were respectively cow's milk (67%) and egg (20%). In 7 patients (47%), there were respiratory system and skin manifestations, in 7 patients (47%) 3 system involvement and in 1 patient respiratory and gastrointestinal system involvement has been observed. In only 3 cases (20%) the blood pressure was measured and also epinephrine was administered to only 3 cases (20%) in the hospital. In only 3 of the patients (20%), an epinephrine injector was prescribed after anaphylaxis. Conclusion: It was detected that the most common triggers are cow's milk and egg, the subjective symptoms are frequently overlooked, an atopic nature is a risk factor and physicians' rates of blood pressure measurement, epinephrine administration and EpiPen autoinjector prescription are low.


In this letter, it is shown how the application of a Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy technique to the study of the dopant signal in ultrashallow junctions in Si can lead, in the case of As in Si, to a quantitative determination of the dopant depth profile at subnanometer resolution. The quantitative results thus obtained demonstrate that As accumulates on the Si side of the SiO2∕Si interface with a negligible loss of dopant into the oxide. Modeling of the effect indicates that segregation occurring during the recrystallization of the implanted layer is the dominant cause of this dopant pileup.


The rapid growth and acceptance of the concept of participation has been a key feature in development in the 1990s, and is central to the evolving discussion on social exclusion. While during the 1970s and 1980s, 'participation' was more the discourse of grassroots organisations or NGO, this decade has seen the concept being embraced at the institutional and governmental level. The World Bank Working Group on Participation is seen as an authoritative source on participation in development. The Bank has launched 18 flagship participation projects internationally An Inter-agency Group on Participation has been established to promote participation amongst aid agencies. The UNDP is incorporating participation as a critical path for poverty alleviation. Encouraged by aid organisations, national governments are being urged to decentralise, and to democratise through strengthening community participation and planfling at the local and regional levels. In this article, I will briefly discuss the links between the concepts of participation and social exclusion. Then, turning to the context of the United States, I will present a short history of three government programmes that have attempted to use participation to address poverty and social exclusion. Finally, I will conclude with themes which emerge from this history and which may be relevant for the South, as participation is increasingly used as an institutionalised strategy for addressing poverty.