State-space models (SSMs) are an important modeling framework for analyzing ecological time series. These hierarchical models are commonly used to model population dynamics, animal movement, and capture-recapture data, and are now increasingly being used to model other ecological processes. SSMs are popular because they are flexible and they model the natural variation in ecological processes separately from observation error. Their flexibility allows ecologists to model continuous, count, binary, and categorical data with linear or nonlinear processes that evolve in discrete or continuous time. Modeling the two sources of stochasticity separately allows researchers to differentiate between biological variation (e.g., in birth processes) and imprecision in the sampling methodology, and generally provides better estimates of the ecological quantities of interest than if only one source of stochasticity is directly modeled. Since the introduction of SSMs, a broad range of fitting procedures have been proposed. However, the variety and complexity of these procedures can limit the ability of ecologists to formulate and fit their own SSMs. We provide the knowledge for ecologists to create SSMs that are robust to common, and often hidden, estimation problems, and the model selection and validation tools that can help them assess how well their models fit their data. In this paper, we present a review of SSMs that will provide a strong foundation to ecologists interested in learning about SSMs, introduce new tools to veteran SSM users, and highlight promising research directions for statisticians interested in ecological applications. The review is accompanied by an in-depth tutorial that demonstrates how SSMs models can be fitted and validated in R. Together, the review and tutorial present an introduction to SSMs that will help ecologists to formulate, fit, and validate their models.


........................................................................................................................................................ ii Co-Authorship.............................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................ viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................ x List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................... xi Chapter


PURPOSE
This article describes an innovative practice called Blended Learning Networks (BLNs) whose aim is to enable older people, their families, and care providers to exchange knowledge, learn together, and support each other in local development work so that care is improved for older people. BLNs were established in 31 municipalities, headed up by a local facilitator. They were supported by a national themed network consisting of virtual meetings between local facilitators and national facilitators at the Swedish National Family Care Competence Centre.

DESIGN AND METHODS
An evaluation was conducted to explore the utility of the BLNs so that any improvements to the model could be instigated. Focus group interviews were conducted with members of 9 BLNs, and self-evaluation questions were discussed in 16 BLNs. Limitations are that not all BLN members participated in the evaluation, and local facilitators conducting self-evaluations were not trained in focus group dynamics. Virtual focus groups were carried out with 26 of the 31 local facilitators and with the national facilitators.

RESULTS
Participants reported an increased understanding of caregiver issues and of each group's roles. Of particular value were the stories shared by caregivers and the potential for change locally due to the involvement of decision makers. The practice demanded considerable skills of the local facilitators. An initial education for new local facilitators was deemed necessary.

IMPLICATIONS
BLNs is a unique practice of community communications and knowledge transfer as it creates partnerships among all key stakeholder groups that act as a catalyst for improving care for older people.


Terrestrial laser scanners generate dense and accurate 3D point clouds with minimal effort, which represent the geometry of real objects, while image data contains texture information of object surfaces. Based on the complementary characteristics of both data sets, a combination is very appealing for many applications, including forest-related tasks. In the scope of our research project, independent data sets of a plain birch stand have been taken by a full-spherical laser scanner and a hemispherical digital camera. Previously, both kinds of data sets have been considered separately: Individual trees were successfully extracted from large 3D point clouds, and so-called forest inventory parameters could be determined. Additionally, a simplified tree topology representation was retrieved. From hemispherical images, leaf area index (LAI) values, as a very relevant parameter for describing a stand, have been computed. The objective of our approach is to merge a 3D point cloud with image data in a way that RGB values are assigned to each 3D point. So far, segmentation and classification of TLS point clouds in forestry applications was mainly based on geometrical aspects of the data set. However, a 3D point cloud with colour information provides valuable cues exceeding simple statistical evaluation of geometrical object features and thus may facilitate the analysis of the scan data significantly.


Objectives & Background Whole Body Computed Tomography (WBCT) scanning is considered to be the chief imaging modality for patients with major trauma. There is growing evidence that the rate of survival is higher for patients undergoing early WBCT by facilitating rapid and accurate anatomical characterisation of potentially life-threatening injuries. There remains ongoing controversy whether this outweighs the potential risks from high-dose ionising radiation. Methods Data from the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) trauma registry was analysed for all patients presenting from January 2005 to July 2014 inclusive aged 16 years or more admitted directly to hospital Emergency Departments (ED) with suspected severe blunt polytrauma. Survival was compared between two groups: (1) patients who underwent WBCT scans, and (2) those who underwent a focused CT ("non-WBCT") scanning approach within the first four hours of arrival at the ED. Results 14,598 (23·2%) of 62,942 eligible cases underwent WBCT directly from the ED within four hours of arrival. The calculated crude survival rate for the WBCT group was 89·2%, compared to 88·9% in the non-WBCT group (p=0·260). The results of multivariate regression analysis, taking account of all possible confounders, demonstrated a trend towards improved survival in the WBCT scan group, with an OR=1·080 (95% CI 0·986–1·183) compared to the non-WBCT group (p=0·098). Conclusion The results of our investigation demonstrate a trend towards improved survival for adult patients with suspected severe blunt polytrauma undergoing WBCT scanning early in their management in the ED. Our analysis of the largest series of trauma cases investigating WBCT so far is the first to take account of all possible confounding factors including centre effect – often a major limitation for generalisability in previous studies of this kind. The existing evidence for the use of WBCT during the management of major trauma is also discussed in the context of these new results. Figure 1 Figure 2


Many details about how inflammatory pain is amplified at the spinal dorsal horn have been uncovered in recent years, but a unifying cellular model is still missing. Ikeda et al. identified a synaptic pain amplifier that is turned on by low-frequency conditioning stimulation and by natural noxious stimulation. In vivo, a low-frequency afferent barrage can raise Ca2+ concentration in nociceptive spinal cord neurons sufficiently to induce long-term potentiation. This process causes amplification of pain-related information at the first synapse in pain pathways. H. Ikeda, J. Stark, H. Fischer, M. Wagner, R. Drdla, T. Jäger, J. Sandkühler, Synaptic amplifier of inflammatory pain in the spinal dorsal horn. Science 312, 1659-1662 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Abstract. Lake ice is a strong climate indicator and has been recognised as part of the Essential Climate Variables (ECV) by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). The dynamics of freezing and thawing, and possible shifts of freezing patterns over time, can help in understanding the local and global climate systems. One way to acquire the spatio-temporal information about lake ice formation, independent of clouds, is to analyse webcam images. This paper intends to move towards a universal model for monitoring lake ice with freely available webcam data. We demonstrate good performance, including the ability to generalise across different winters and lakes, with a state-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model for semantic image segmentation, Deeplab v3+. Moreover, we design a variant of that model, termed Deep-U-Lab, which predicts sharper, more correct segmentation boundaries. We have tested the model's ability to generalise with data from multiple camera views and two different winters. On average, it achieves Intersection-over-Union (IoU) values of ≈71% across different cameras and ≈69% across different winters, greatly outperforming prior work. Going even further, we show that the model even achieves 60% IoU on arbitrary images scraped from photo-sharing websites. As part of the work, we introduce a new benchmark dataset of webcam images, Photi-LakeIce, from multiple cameras and two different winters, along with pixel-wise ground truth annotations.


In recent years, many major innovations in healthcare and medical education have been experienced. Technology has called for a change in most of the societal norms. Critics and advocates have varying opinions toward the online education, some believe that it literary disrupts the traditional learning while others term it as an essential tool for development. Due to intricate nature of some medical topics as well as varying global privileges, most students are forced to seek information online. This has led to the emerging technologies which serve as a tool for supplementing medical education. Some institutions have come forward to make education freely accessible to third world countries through web-based programs. Most offer education through an informal approach. However, they offer certificates to their distant learner. This paper explores how online learning supplements medical learning and especially in the higher education platforms, ultimately leads to the constructive disruption, which is certainly not destructive.


In passing Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress missed an opportunity to address the impact on auditor independence and corporate governance of the tax services provided by auditors to reporting companies and their executives. Although the SEC's adopting release for auditor independence rules suggests that audit committees should not approve auditor tax services for transactions that lack a business purpose, the only non-audit tax service that the rules unambiguously prohibit is auditor representation of audit clients on tax issues in court proceedings. This Article argues that the SEC's approach fails to respond adequately to the multidisciplinary expansion of audit firms. In particular, this Article contends that the inadequacy of audit committees' information about audit firms hinders their ability to perform key functions of selecting auditors and approving non-audit tax services. Similarly, directors likely have insufficient information about a reporting company's tax risks to permit effective monitoring of internal tax and accounting functions or company participation in potentially abusive tax transactions. Those information asymmetries also leave investors without tax risk information that would otherwise factor into investment decisions. To address these problems, this Article urges the SEC to ban auditor provision of certain tax shelter services. These rules need not invent a separate, SEC-generated definition of problematic tax shelters. They can simply adopt by cross-reference the reporting categories for corporate tax shelters established in the IRS's recently finalized corporate tax shelter regulations. The Article also proposes two types of internal tax risk disclosure, also based on the IRS reporting categories, to enhance company directors' decisionmaking. The audit firm tax risk profile and reporting company tax risk profile would provide objective information to directors about audit firm and reporting company promotion of, and participation in, aggressive tax transactions. As an additional benefit, the profiles would counter the tendency of auditors to acquiesce in promoters' analysis of aggressive tax transactions. Finally, the Article proposes certain public disclosure based on these tax risk profiles, and a series of strict liability penalties to deter non-disclosure and ensure adequate review.


Amid xenophobic challenges to America's core value of welcoming the tired and the poor, Irina Aristarkhova calls for new forms of hospitality in her engagement with the works of eight international artists. In this first monograph on hospitality in contemporary art, Aristarkhova employs a feminist perspective to critically explore the artworks of Ana Prvacki, Faith Wilding, Lee Mingwei, Kathy High, Mithu Sen, Pippa Bacca, Silvia Moro, and Ken Aptekar and asks who, how, and what determines who is worthy of our welcome.Spanning a diverse range of contemporary art practices, Arrested Welcome shows how artists challenge our existing notions of hospitality—culturally, philosophically, and politically. From the role of "microcourtesies" in social change to the portrayal of waiting as a feminist endeavor, Aristarkhova looks deeply into topics such as gender stereotypes of welcome, ways to reclaim civility, and the means by which guests (sometimes human, sometimes animal) push the limits of our hosting traditions.Blending a feminist analysis of hospitality with in-depth case studies on how contemporary artists stimulate personal reflection and political engagement, Aristarkhova initiates these important conversations at a critical time of national and international hospitality crises.


DNA is the genetic material for all living organisms which is constantly being unpackaged replicated and repackaged. The replication of this genetic material involves numerous different proteins; however DNA polymerase delta (pol [delta]) carries much of the load by replicating a major portion of the genome in both leading and lagging strand synthesis. Using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster we investigate two novel mutations in two different evolutionary conserved regions. One region corresponds with the polymerase's ability to polymerize new nucleotides onto an existing strand of DNA. The other region corresponds with the polymerase's ability to proofread in the 3' to 5' direction. These two mutants both homozygous lethal and recessive show interesting phenotypes with a delay in S-phase numerous chromosome aberrations defects in endoreplication and possible protection form DNA damage. Using these two mutants these two domains can be further characterized. By understanding how pol [delta] functions in an in vivo setting we can apply this knowledge to the mechanics of cancer biology in humans another multicelluar organism and inform new therapies to treat it.


This special issue traces multifaceted readings of criminal law reform in the context of developments in Australia, North America and Europe. It addresses a range of criminal law legislative regimes, frameworks and issues confronting criminal law reform including as they relate to family violence, organisational liability for child sexual abuse, drug-driving and Indigenous under-representation on juries. In doing so, the articles variously assess the impacts of past criminal law reforms, current processes of reform, areas in need of future reform and the limitations of reform. It poses a number of challenges: Who does law reform serve? What principles should guide the work of criminal justice reform? What is the role and responsibility of universities in law reform? Who are the natural allies of academics in agitating for reform? Is reform of criminal law enough for progressive social change? Do public inquiries and law reform assist with progressive change or do they have the potential to undermine the struggle for more humane and equitable social responses?


Considers why, after nearly twenty years of development, the electronic publishing model has not replaced the paper based model for academic journals. Gives three insights that attempt to explain this: the first is the 'means-end' confusion of commercial publishers, the second is the failure to realise it is the purpose not the form that is important about the current journal model, and third is the failure to recognise that a net-based replacement for the journal does not necessarily need a publisher. Finally some 'ground rules' to be used when thinking about, or designing, any future electronic publishing model are proposed.


Normative guidelines for addressing project-induced displacement and resettlement have been successful in coercing companies and practitioners to comply with international standards and local requirements. However, good practice has not always been effectively implemented, leading to reduced social wellbeing of people in local communities. We assess how the reciprocal relationships between institutional norms and practitioners' situated perspectives about company-community interactions can improve social management practice. Drawing on Hajer and Versteeg's method of environmental discourse analysis, discussions and storylines about a mining project in Mpumalanga in South Africa were assessed against contextualised discursive conventions in the mining industry. It was found that practitioners learn to manipulate legislative requirements, which ultimately perpetuates the impoverishment of project affected communities. The question is not whether or not practitioners understand the requirements of environmental and social management, but the extent to which such understandings are manipulated for corporate gain as opposed to social good. We consider practitioner rationalities about the purpose and function of environmental and social management, and how it is implemented. We suggest that practitioners and companies should construct positive aspirational identity perspectives about social management that would transcend from their current limited view (that achieving minimum compliance is sufficient) to aspiring to achieve better social development outcomes for all, especially the most disadvantaged. This requires a genuine commitment to obtaining and maintaining a social licence to operate, perspective transformation, a commitment to inclusiveness, and increased capacity for critical reflection.


The purpose of this project was to study and compare 20 gold occurrences from within the Botwood Basin and surrounding lithologies. The Botwood Basin is located within the eastern Dunnage Zone of central Newfoundland and encompasses a region comprised of Middle Paleozoic cover sequences deposited upon dominantly Ordovician rocks. The area has been subdivided into two tectonostratigraphic belts that are separated by a major fault (the Dog Bay Line), which has been defined as a major Silurian terrane boundary. The Indian Islands Belt to the southeast of the fault encompasses the deep to shallow marine Davidsville and Indian Islands groups. The Botwood Belt to the northwest of the fault includes the shallow marine to terrestrial Botwood and Badger groups. The large bimodal Mount Peyton Intrusive Suite (MPIS) intruded some of these units during the Late Silurian to Early Devonian in the central Botwood Basin. The MPIS is a composite post kinematic intrusion consisting mainly of gabbro and granite with minor tonalite, diorite and granodiorite phases. The relationship between the gabbro and granite phases, as well as the relationship of the suite to the surrounding sedimentary lithologies, is still poorly understood due to the lack of contact exposures. The auriferous occurrences occur dominantly within the Ordovician Davidsville and Silurian Indian Islands groups and also within intrusive units throughout the region. A key question to be answered was whether regional intrusive suites (granitic to gabbroic) were key components of the ore-forming systems, acting as heat sources driving ore fluids, or just as rheologically contrasting host lithologies. -- Reconnaissance mapping confirmed the presence of Indian Island Group rocks to the southeast and resulted in the discovery of new fossiliferous outcrops in the north. These latter localities, at Duder Lake and east of Ten Mile Lake, are significant to regional stratigraphy as they contain Wenlock fossils that are characteristic of the Indian Islands Group. This extends the group to the northwest of the current location of the Dog Bay Line. -- Mapping observations along the eastern margin of the MPIS define the relationship between the felsic and mafic phases of the intrusive suite, as well as the relationship of the suite to the Indian Islands Group. Field relationships suggest that the granite is younger than the gabbro; these include the gabbro's lack of chilled margins and gabbro pieces stoped by the granite suggesting the gabbro was cooled prior to the granite intrusion. Immediately west of Glenwood, a dioritic dyke, which has been correlated with the MPIS, intrudes the Indian Island Group sedimentary rocks. Along Red Rock Brook a faulted relationship is inferred between the granite phase of the MPIS and the Indian Islands Group, and thus, it is possible that the relationship is a fault-modified intrusive contact. -- There are different gabbroic intrusive suites in the region as defined by whole-rock geochemistry. Mafic intrusive dykes to the north of the Trans Canada Highway (TCH) are petrographically and somewhat geochemically similar to the mafics of the MPIS. However, these dykes contain slightly higher Ti and less SiO₂ contents. This may indicate that the dykes are fractionated equivalents of the MPIS, originated from a separate but similar magma source. The intrusive dykes at Duder Lake are petrographically and geochemically distinct from all intrusive bodies examined to the south inclusive of the dykes north of the TCH, the MPIS and the Paul's Pond intrusives. The data also indicate that there is an intermediate phase to the 'bimodal' MPIS. The sedimentary sequences display subtle differences in trace element contents between groups and these differences may be dependant on their locations in the region. -- There are wide ranges in sulphur isotope ratios for sulphide mineral separates from different occurrences and the dominant control appears to be the lithological source of the sulphur. That is, occurrences within deep marine sedimentary lithologies are negative in terms of δ³⁴S (‰). Occurrences in proximity to intrusive suites are near 0 ‰. Occurrences in which S was derived from igneous rocks have ratios that are slightly to moderately positive in terms of δ³⁴S (‰). -- Trace element compositions of pyrite suggest that different auriferous deposit types have recognizable signatures. For example, several of the pyrite grains from the Mustang Prospect contained the 'toxic suite of elements' characteristic of Carlin-type pyrite. Some pyrite from the Stog'er Tight and Hurricane Prospects contained elevated W and Te recognized in orogenic lode gold occurrences. Pyrite from the Bruce Pond Epithermal Prospect resembles that from low-sulphidation epithermal types of occurrences. -- Geochronological data indicate that magmatism in the central to northern Botwood Basin was episodic from the Middle Silurian to Early Devonian. Age data also show that the granitic phase of the MPIS is younger than the gabbroic phase as (LAM-ICP-MS) U-Pb ages of ca. 430 Ma and 410 Ma were obtained for the diorite and granite phases of the MPIS, respectively. An intrusive gabbroic dyke to the north of the MPIS and the Charles Cove granodiorite were also dated at ca. 430 Ma suggesting that at least some of the magmatism in the northern Botwood Basin corresponded with MPIS magmatism. Thus, the magma may have been more deep-seated and widespread than previously thought. With the recognition that the MPIS granite intruded in Early Devonian time, it is more feasible to recognize the MPIS as a possible heat source for mineralization, at least along its eastern margin. The 494 ± 7 Ma age for the Huxter Lane intrusive in the Botwood Basin basement reveals that auriferous mineralization in the region spans a significant geological time span (494 to 380 Ma). -- Inherited zircons were common in both the MPIS and Charles Cove Pluton granites suggesting that Botwood Basin granitoids may have been generated through crustal anatexis of lower crustal material by mantle-derived gabbroic melts. The age of inheritance in both intrusions of ca. 1850-1800 Ma suggests that the melts may have sampled either Indian Islands Group rocks, or rocks that were their detritus source, as detrital components from that Group indicate a source region of a similar (1850 Ma) age. -- There are several auriferous mineralization styles present in the Botwood Basin including epithermal, orogenic and perhaps Carlin-type. Although these occurrences display similarities in terms of mineralization characteristics, the tectonic and geological disparities throughout the region have led to differences between the occurrences. Thus, a generic model for 'Botwood Basin-type' auriferous mineralization is unrealistic.


ProteinsProteins are the workhorses of the cell, but to get the most work out of them, they need to be in the right place. In neurons, for example, proteins needed at axons differ from those needed at dendrites, while in budding yeast cells, the daughter cell needs proteins the mother cell does not. In each case, one strategy for making sure a protein gets where it belongs is to shuttle its messenger RNA to the right spot before translating it.

In vitro reconstitution experiments with an mRNA-transport complex from yeast identify a quality control step for the incorporation of correct transcripts ...

The destination for such an mRNA is encoded in a set of so-called "zipcode" elements, which loop out of the RNA string to link up with RNA-binding proteins. In yeast, these proteins join up with a myosin motor that taxis the complex to the encoded location. While this general picture has become clear in the past several years, details of the transport complex itself have remained murky. In this issue of PLoS Biology, Marisa Muller, Dierk Niessing, and colleagues show that the complex forms in stages, with the final protein added only in the cytoplasm, an event crucial to ensuring the transport complex doesn't pick up passengers who weren't meant to travel.

The authors began by showing that a known zipcode element binding protein, called She2p, bound in a similar way to RNAs without the elements as to those with them, suggesting that the job of keeping non-transported RNAs out of the transport complex fell to another protein. Tests of another known complex protein, called Puf6p, were negative, leading the authors to look elsewhere.

One candidate was She3p, known to link the complex to the myosin motor. They found that She3p co-purified with She2p, indicating they linked together, and that together they bound tightly to zipcode-containing mRNAs, but not to other RNAs without the address sequences. She3p also interacted with RNAs by itself, albeit weakly, which was a surprise, since its sequence bore no resemblance to other RNA-binding proteins. When She2p was mutated to prevent its linkage to RNA, the ability of the RNA–protein complex to reach its destination was impaired.

She2p binds to its target RNAs in the nucleus, but She3p was thought to be a cytoplasmic protein. To test that belief, they examined its distribution in a cell with a temperature-sensitive defect in nuclear export, and saw that even at high temperatures, when nuclear export was shut down, She3p was found only in the cytoplasm, indicating that it, unlike She2p, waits for the nascent transport complex to enter the cytoplasm before it binds on.

Based on their results, the authors propose a two-step model of transport complex formation. Within the nucleus, She2p binds to the mRNA as it is transcribed, and then shuttles it to the cytoplasm. She2p binds loosely and promiscuously, though, catching up mRNAs both with and without zipcodes. Once in the cytoplasm, She3p joins on, tightening the grip on mRNAs that contain zipcodes while booting out those without them. With the myosin motor attached to She3p, the complex motors off to its destination elsewhere in the cell.

The results in this study indicate that quality control in mRNA transport relies on a reciprocal action: the complex proteins together ensure that only those mRNAs with a destination tag are incorporated into the transport complex, and the mRNA, by binding to each of the proteins in the complex, ensures that all are on board before the journey starts.

These findings are an important step forward to understand how mRNAs are transported to their chosen destination in yeast, and opens up the possibility that a similar strategy is followed in other organisms.

Muller M, Gerhard Heym R, Mayer A, Kramer K, Schmid M, et al. (2011) A Cytoplasmic Complex Mediates Specific mRNA Recognition and Localization in Yeast. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000611


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Low birthweight is one the common problems of infants and one of the main health indicators of a society. Weight is one the major determinants of physical and mental development in infants, particularly preterm infants. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of multisensory stimulation on weight gain of preterm infants. METHODS: In this double-blind clinical trial, 80 preterm infants born at 32-36 weeks gestational age, were randomly divided into two groups (control and multisensory stimulation). The intervention group received multisensory stimulation program consisting of 12-minute daily sessions, 5 times a week until the day of discharge and the control group received only the usual care. Infants were weighed every day until the day of discharge (IRCT registration code: 2016073114454N2). FINDINGS: No significant difference was observed between the two groups of preterm infants in terms of gestational age, birthweight and sex. The difference between mean weight gain on the first day and the day of discharge was 131.6±10.1 g in the intervention group and 58.9±10.2 g in the control group. The difference between the two groups was significant (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: The Results of the study revealed that using multisensory stimulation for weight gain of preterm infants is a cost-effective and effective method. © 2016, Babol University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.


Poetry, stories, hymns, prayers, and wisdom texts found exquisite written expression in ancient Egypt while their literary counterparts were still being recited around hearth fires in ancient Greece and Israel. Yet, because of its very antiquity and the centuries during which the language was forgotten, ancient Egyptian literature is a newly discovered country for modern readers. This anthology offers an extensive sampling of all the major genres of ancient Egyptian literature. It includes all the texts from John Foster's previous book Echoes of Egyptian Voices, along with selections from his Love Songs of the New Kingdom and Hymns, Prayers, and Songs: An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Lyric Poetry, as well as previously unpublished translations of four longer and two short poems. Foster's translations capture the poetical beauty of the Egyptian language and the spirit that impelled each piece's composition, making these ancient masterworks sing for modern readers. An introduction to ancient Egyptian literature and its translation, as well as brief information about the authorship and date of each selection, completes the volume.


Social scientists have long identified export partner concentration as a key indicator of dependency in relationships between countries, particularly between poor countries and rich countries. This study explores trends in export partner concentration in the age of globalization using IMF DOTS data. Four different measures of export partner concentration are tracked for a constant panel of 156 countries over the period 1981-2008. Results are also reported for sub-panels of rich countries, poor countries, and poor countries by region. Export partner concentration remains high among poor countries, but with some decline associated with the rise of China (and, to a lesser extent, India) as alternative export partners in the 2000s. The increasing prominence of China and India as a major export markets for poor countries implies a shift in the meaning of export partner concentration as a measure of dependency, since "dependency" in this sense no longer necessarily implies dependency on the rich countries of Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, even as the specific patterns of export partner concentration have shifted, the overall structure of the world-economy has remained the same throughout this period of massive economic change.


Introduction: Based on the hypothesis that neurovascular events involving in the pathophysiology of migraine can cause hearing loss by influencing blood flow of inner ear, it was aimed to determine whether migraine with or without aura in our clinics patients are at risk for hearing loss by assessing hearing levels via a high-frequency audiometry, acoustic reflex and transient otoacoustic emission responses; to discriminate whether hearing loss is cochlear or retrocochlear originated, if present; and to evaluate whether or not migraine treatment affect hearing level in patients received treatment for migraine in this study. Materials and Methods: The study included patients who were diagnosed as migraine between December 2011 and December 2012 at Neurology Department of Cumhuriyet University, Medicine School according to ICD-II classification and accepted to receive medical therapy. In all patients, hearing levels were measured at baseline and after treatment by using high-frequency audiometry, transient otoacoustic emission and acoustic reflex tests. Results: In the present study, hearing thresholds measured in the right ear was normal in migraine patients with or without aura at baseline, while mild hearing loss was detected in right ear at the frequency of 500 Hz after treatment when hearing thresholds at different frequencies were compared. This difference was significant (P < 0, 05). When hearing thresholds in right ear at baseline and after treatment was compared, mild hearing loss was detected at the frequency of 250 Hz in migraine patients with aura. This difference was significant (P < 0, 05). In migraine patients with aura, hearing was normal in all patients at baseline, while in both ears mild hearing loss was detected in 2 patients (8.7%) after treatment. This difference was not significant (P > 0, 05). Conclusion: Differently from literature, hearing loss in our patients developed at lower frequencies and after treatment. The results we obtained from our study also presented that there might be a relationship between migraine disease and sensorineural hearing loss.


Water soldier is a plant growing all across lowlands in Poland, in eutrophic reservoirs of still and slowly flowing water. Because this macrophyte is used as a fertilizer or a component in fodder for cattle or pigs, the purpose of this paper was to determine the content of magnesium and calcium in water soldier depending on pollution of water with selected heavy metals. The study used water and plant samples collected from the natural environment and a hydroponic experiment (6 variants of water pollution with heavy metals and two terms of plants' exposure). Concentrations of magnesium and calcium in the mineralized samples were measured in three cycles with the atomic absorption spectrometry method on a spectrometer Solaar S AA. Water soldiers (from the hydroponic experiment) contained 5.911 g Mg kg –1 d.w. and 16.32 g Ca kg –1 d.w. It was determined that both addition of a heavy metal and the exposure time had a statistically significant effect on concentrations of magnesium and calcium in water soldier, as well as on their concentration in water. Except the control and regardless the exposure time, most magnesium remained in those water soldier specimens that had been exposed to iron and cadmium. The smallest amounts of magnesium in a plant were observed when water had been enriched with ions of zinc and cooper. After 6 weeks of exposing the plants to the metals, the content of magnesium was 12% lower than after 3 weeks. On the other hand, the smallest amount of calcium in water soldier was recorded for specimens exposed to iron and cadmium, while the largest amount was found in those grown with an addition of zinc and in the control group. The drop in calcium content measured on the second term, compared to the first one, was 6.119 g kg–1 d.w. Pollution of water with heavy metals has a negative effect on development of water soldier and on accumulation of calcium and magnesium. The reduced con


Perhaps the one completely uncontested truth in the shared public ideology of American politics is that an election campaign ought to be a serious occasion in the life of a democratic polity, a time when citizens reflect maturely on the great public issues of the day. On this view, the ultimate purpose of election campaigns is to offer voters and candidates a meaningful opportunity for deliberation and persuasion. Of course, the typical modern American election campaign does not seem seriously reflective and deliberative so much as shallow and unengaging. Reasoned persuasion seems to play a minor role, if that. The paper asks whether this gulf between American political ideals and reality might have its roots in any kind of flaw in our legal institutions. Do we have, that is to say, a constitutional infrastructure well suited to summoning forth the kind of electoral politics to which we aspire? The paper pursues this question through a close institutional analysis of the federal constitutional jurisprudence of ballot access, public financing of presidential campaigns, the associational rights of political parties, and the giving and spending of money in election campaigns. This analysis reveals that although the American constitutional regime pays emphatic lip service to the ideal of reasoned persuasion in elections, its actual institutional arrangements in fact presuppose just the opposite - election campaigns that are thin rather than thick, that are aggregative rather than deliberative, that are aimed at counting political preferences, not creating them. The paper concludes by examining briefly some of the implications of this disjunction between our democratic ideals and practices for our conceptions of democratic legitimacy, our aspirations for better quality campaigns, our notions of the venues in which democratic politics is actually conducted, and some important scholarly critiques of electoral regulation.


UML State Machines constitute an integral part of software behavior specification within the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The development of realistic software applications often results in complex and distributed models. Hence, potential errors can be very subtle and hard to locate for the developer. In this paper, we present a set of robustness rules that seek to avoid common types of errors by ruling out certain modelling constructs. Furthermore, adherence to these rules can improve model readability and maintainability. The robustness rules constitute a general Statechart style guide for different dialects, such as UML State Machines, Statemate, and Esterel Studio. Based on this style guide, an automated checking framework has been implemented as a plug-in for the prototypical Statechart modeling tool KIEL. Simple structural checks can be formulated in a compact, abstract manner in the Object Constraint Language (OCL). The framework can also incorporate checks that go beyond the expressiveness of OCL by implementing them in Java directly, which can also serve as a gateway to formal verification tools; we have exploited this to incorporate a theorem prover for more advanced checks. As a case study, we adopted the UML well-formedness rules; this confirmed that individual rules can easily be incorporated into the framework.


Research on the relationship between political institutions and civil war has paid insufficient attention to the role of traditional institutions in developing countries. This study presents large-N evidence showing that traditional ethnic institutions with origins prior to Western colonization are associated with the prevalence of civil wars in Africa after independence. Matching ethnographic data on the pre-colonial political organization of African indigenous groups to contemporary data on ethnic groups in conflict, I investigate the relationship between the traditional organization of ethnic groups and ethnic civil wars in Africa after decolonization. Specifically, I argue that excluded groups with centralized traditional institutions can rely on these institutions to more credibly bargain with the state, and that this reduces their risk of conflict. Accordingly, I find that excluded groups with centralized pre-colonial institutions are less likely to be involved in civil wars.


Environment-friendly, fully biodegradable, 'green' composites based on plant based fibers and resins are increasingly being developed for various applications as replacements for non-degradable materials derived from petroleum that are currently being used. Unlike petroleum, plant based proteins, starches and fibers are yearly renewable. In addition, these green composites may be easily composted after their life, completing nature's carbon cycle. In this study, soy flour (SF) was modified by cross-linking it with glutaraldehyde (GA). The cross-linked soy flour (CSF) polymer was characterized for its tensile and thermal properties. The effect of glycerol on the mechanical properties of the soy flour was characterized and optimized. CSF polymer showed improved tensile properties and thermal stability, compared to unmodified SF resin, for use as a resin to fabricate composites. Unidirectional green composites using flax yarn and CSF resin were fabricated and characterized for their tensile and flexural properties. The composite specimens exhibited fracture stress and Young's modulus of 259.5 MPa and 3.71 GPa, respectively, and flexural strength of 174 MPa, in the longitudinal direction. These properties seem to be sufficient for considering these green composites for indoor structural applications.


One hundred and twenty six piglets from a commercial genetic strain weaned at 21 days of age (6.11±0.42 kg) were used to evaluate the effects of supplementation levels of organic sources of trace minerals in the diets of weaned piglets on performance, occurrence of diarrhea, excretion of copper and zinc in the feces, and hematological parameters. A completely randomized block design was adopted, composed of six treatments (diets containing 100% of inorganic trace minerals premix at 3.00 kg/T; diets containing 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100% of organic trace minerals premix, equivalent to 0; 0.75; 1.50; 2.25 or 3.00 kg/T, respectively), seven replicates and three animals per plot. During the experimental period (from 21 to 63 days of age), the increasing levels of organic trace minerals premix in the diets determined a quadratic effect on daily weight gain (DWG), feed conversion (FC), percentage of hematocrit (Ht), hemoglobin (Hb), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), platelets (Pt), and a linear increase of Cu and Zn concentrations in feces. The comparison of means between the treatment with inorganic trace minerals premix and the other treatments showed that piglets fed diets without trace minerals premix had lower values of DWG, Ht, Hb, MCH, MCV, Pt and the worst FC value of piglets fed diets containing 25% of organic trace minerals premix presented lower values of Ht and Hb, in comparison with those fed diets with 100% of inorganic trace minerals premix. Inorganic trace minerals premix can be substituted by organic trace minerals premix at a lower level of inclusion in diets for weaned piglets.


BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the IGF1R expression has a prognostic role in non-small cell lung cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Forty-seven patients histopathologically diagnosed with small cell lung cancer upon bronchoscopic biopsy or resection materials were included in the study. IGF1R expression was examined via immunohistochemical methods. In samples, >10% staining were assessed as positive and ≤10% as negative. Information about demographic datas and treatments was obtained by retrospective searches of patient files.

RESULTS
IGF1R expression was determined as positive in 38 (80.9%) and as negative in 9 (19.1%) patients. There was no significant relation between IGF1R expression and histological sub-type, local invasion, lymph node and metastasis status (p=0.842, p=0.437, 0.064, 0.447, respectively). There was also no correlation with IGF1R expression and survival (p=0.141).

CONCLUSIONS
There are conflicting results between IGF1R and its prognostic effects in the various studies. It has been claimed in some studies it is not related to prognosis as in our study, and in some studies it has been claimed that it is a good prognostic factor whereas in some studies it has been claimed as being a factor for worse prognosis. We think that IGF1R expression in non-small cell lung carcinoma patients deserves further analysis, because of its potential prognostic and predictive roles.


This paper is written in response to the unfolding relationships between my research and the studio practice teaching in Higher Education that I have been developing over the past four years. My current research examines the transformative encounters and choreographic scorings available in the embodied experiences of coalescing energies of light and the dancing body. My investigations chart how working specifically from the attenuation and intensification of lighting states allows for the possibilities of new choreographic language to emerge. These tentative principles and accompanying philosophies filter continually through my dance teaching practice, giving rise to an implicit relationship of reciprocity in my research and pedagogic practices. The paper will draw on student testimonies to support my developing analysis.

In my practice-led sessions, where possible, my starting point is to turn off the lights. This is both a gesture to ecological awareness and a research strategy. The initial effect is that the studio space becomes a more intimate environment, which is conducive to the 'melting states' of haptic-based engagements with dance. The presence of delicate light acts upon the dancer's proprioceptive awareness and a more profound sense of self emerges, enabling encounters that are better able to invest in risk and trust. A communal environment is generated where openness and allowance are key in unfolding sensuous moments, of undoing the familiar towards the development of new codes of engagement, where "each step distances the "I" from the ego" (Cixous, 1991:134). Here the liquidity of the dance-encounter prepares the participant for what Zygmunt Bauman has identified as our Liquid Times (2007) in a fragile world.

Bibliography
Bauman, Z., 2007. Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cixous, H., 1991. Coming to Writing and Other Essays. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.


In their investigations into bronchospasm, Crofton, Douglas, Simpson, and Merchant (1963), and Douglas, Simpson, Merchant, Crompton, and Crofton (1966a and b) have found that a ratio of endomural bronchial pressure to oesophageal pressure in wheezy patients is frequently above unity. They suggested that this might be due to active bronchial muscle contraction on expiration. In a series of lungs we examined the evidence for an alternative theory of a radial traction effect which could explain their findings. The lung was placed in an airtight jar and inflated and deflated, the pressure excursion (J) inside the jar being recorded. Simultaneously, the endomural bronchial pressure excursion (B) was recorded by means of a specially designed probe. The ratio of these two excursions (B/J ratio) was calculated. A ratio of less than unity was consistently obtained, suggesting a simple pressure gradient in the lung. No evidence of a radial traction effect was found in the size of bronchi (4 mm.) measured, though of course such an effect could not be excluded in other sizes of bronchi or in bronchioles.


Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) technology, particularly magnetron sputtering process, enjoys the competitive advantages of depositing different new generation coatings (e.g., multicomponent, multilayer, graded, composite etc.) on three-dimensional objects (substrate) with excellent mechanical and tribological properties. In an industrial-scale sputtering chamber with a limited number of active magnetron sources (target) on the chamber wall, the density of coating species from different sources would not be uniform everywhere around the chamber. As a result, at a constant speed of rotating substrate table in a single revolution, the instantaneous deposition rate will be highest in front of the active targets and lowest when the substrate moves away from the active targets. In this work, a method of controlling the rotational speed (i.e., slower speed in front of active targets and faster speed in front of inactive targets in a revolution) of a substrate table installed in a magnetron sputtering chamber has been developed in order to improve the deposition rate of a multicomponent TiN+MoSx coating. The mechanical and tribological properties of TiN+MoSx coating have also been characterised to assess the beneficial effects of adding solid lubricant (MoS2) in hard TiN coating.


1. The aim of this study was to define from umbilical artery flow velocity waveforms absolute peak systolic and time-averaged velocity, fetal heart rate, fetal heart rate variability and flow velocity variability, and the relation between fetal heart rate and velocity variables in early pregnancy.2.A total of 108 women presenting with a normal pregnancy from 10 to 20 weeks of gestation consented to participate in a cross-sectional study design. Doppler ultrasound recordings were made from the free-floating loop of the umbilical cord.3. Umbilical artery peak systolic and time-averaged velocity increased at 10-20 weeks, whereas fetal heart rate decreased at 10-15 weeks of gestation and plateaued thereafter. Umbilical artery peak systolic velocity variability and fetal heart rate variability increased at 10-20 and 15-20 weeks respectively.4. The inverse relationship between umbilical artery flow velocity and fetal heart rate at 10-15 weeks of gestation suggests that the Frank-Starling mechanism regulates cardiovascular control as early as the late first and early second trimesters of pregnancy. A different underlying mechanism is suggested for the observed variability profiles in heart rate and umbilical artery peak systolic velocity. It is speculated that heart rate variability is mediated by maturation of the parasympathetic nervous system, whereas peak systolic velocity variability reflects the activation of a haemodynamic feedback mechanism.


Percutaneous catheter based edge-to-edge mitral valve (MV) repair with a mitral clip (MitraClip, Abbott Vascular, Abbott Park, Illinois, USA) mimics Alfieri's surgical technique, bringing the anterior and posterior leaflets together from beneath the valve with a metallic stitch (clip). The procedure creates a 'double orifice' repair, re-establishing leaflet coaptation and thereby reducing mitral regurgitation (MR).

In 2005, Feldman et al published their initial feasibility data (EVEREST (Endovascular Valve Edge-to-Edge Repair) phase 1 clinical trial) of a cohort of 27 patients with moderate-to-severe MR who were symptomatic or asymptomatic with compromised left ventricular (LV) function.1 Patients were selected on the basis of specific valve morphology for which the procedure was thought to be particularly suited. In the case of degenerative MV regurgitation (ie, flail leaflet), anatomical inclusion criteria were a regurgitant jet originating from the A2/P2 segment with a flail gap of <10 mm and a flail width of <15 mm. In the case of functional MV regurgitation, inclusion criteria were a coaptation length of at least 2 mm and a coaptation depth of no more than 11 mm.1 Post-procedural success (ie, residual MR ≤2+ on a scale of 4+) was achieved in 74% of cases with <1% in-hospital mortality. At 1 year, freedom from death, surgery or residual MR ≥2+ was 66%. The EVEREST II trial was presented for the first time at the 2011 American College of Cardiology Scientific Session /i2 summit and subsequently published.2 The conclusions of this second trial was that the MitraClip, though less effective at reducing MR (a threefold greater percentage of percutaneously treated patients had ≥2+ MV regurgitation compared with surgically treated patients), was not inferior to surgical repair or replacement, with a significantly reduced adverse event rate.2 It is important to note that in the case of failure, the surgical option always remains open.

These …


A new hierarchical nonparametric Bayesian framework is proposed for the problem of multi-task learning (MTL) with sequential data. The models for multiple tasks, each characterized by sequential data, are learned jointly, and the intertask relationships are obtained simultaneously. This MTL setting is used to analyze and sort large databases composed of sequential data, such as music clips. Within each data set, we represent the sequential data with an infinite hidden Markov model (iHMM), avoiding the problem of model selection (selecting a number of states). Across the data sets, the multiple iHMMs are learned jointly in a MTL setting, employing a nested Dirichlet process (nDP). The nDP-iHMM MTL method allows simultaneous task-level and data-level clustering, with which the individual iHMMs are enhanced and the between-task similarities are learned. Therefore, in addition to improved learning of each of the models via appropriate data sharing, the learned sharing mechanisms are used to infer interdata relationships of interest for data search. Specifically, the MTL-learned task-level sharing mechanisms are used to define the affinity matrix in a graph-diffusion sorting framework. To speed up the MCMC inference for large databases, the nDP-iHMM is truncated to yield a nested Dirichlet-distribution based HMM representation, which accommodates fast variational Bayesian (VB) analysis for large-scale inference, and the effectiveness of the framework is demonstrated using a database composed of 2500 digital music pieces.


Evolution, broadly construed, has become a powerful unifying concept in much of science – not only in the biological evolution of plants and animals, but also in the physical evolution of stars and planets, and the cultural evolution of society and its many varied products. This paper (1) explores the bulk structure and functioning of open, non-equilibrium, thermodynamic systems relevant to the interdisciplinary field of astrobiology, (2) places the astrobiological landscape into an even larger, cosmological context, (3) defines life, complexity and evolution writ large, (4) claims that life depends ultimately on the expansion of the Universe and the flow of energy derived therefrom and (5) proposes a quantitative metric to characterize the rise of complexity throughout all of natural history. That metric is neither information nor negentropy, for these inveterate yet qualitative terms cannot be quantified, nor even defined, to everyone's satisfaction in today's scientific community. Rather, the newly proposed metric is normalized energy flow, a revision of a long-cherished term – energy – that is physically intuitive, well defined and readily measurable. All ordered systems – from rocky planets and shining stars, to buzzing bees and redwood trees – can be best judged empirically and uniformly by gauging the amount of energy acquired, stored and expressed by those systems. Appeals to anthropism are unnecessary to appreciate the impressive hierarchy of the cosmic evolutionary narrative, including a technological civilization that now embraces an energetics agenda designed to better understand, and perhaps to unify, all the natural sciences.


We describe the all-sky Planck catalogue of clusters and cluster candidates derived from Sunyaev–Zeldovich (SZ) effect detections using the first 15.5 months of Planck satellite observations. The catalogue contains 1227 entries, making it over six times the size of the Planck Early SZ (ESZ) sample and the largest SZ-selected catalogue to date. It contains 861 confirmed clusters, of which 178 have been confirmed as clusters, mostly through follow-up observations, and a further 683 are previously-known clusters. The remaining 366 have the status of cluster candidates, and we divide them into three classes according to the quality of evidence that they are likely to be true clusters. The Planck SZ catalogue is the deepest all-sky cluster catalogue, with redshifts up to about one, and spans the broadest cluster mass range from (0.1 to 1.6) × 1015 M . Confirmation of cluster candidates through comparison with existing surveys or cluster catalogues is extensively described, as is the statistical characterization of the catalogue in terms of completeness and statistical reliability. The outputs of the validation process are provided as additional information. This gives, in particular, an ensemble of 813 cluster redshifts, and for all these Planck clusters we also include a mass estimated from a newly-proposed SZ-mass proxy. A refined measure of the SZ Compton parameter for the clusters with X-ray counter-parts is provided, as is an X-ray flux for all the Planck clusters not previously detected in X-ray surveys.


We present a new database of absorption and emission-line measurements based on the entire spectral atlas from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) 7th data release of galaxies within a redshift of 0.2. Our work makes use of the publicly available penalized pixel-fitting (pPXF) and gas and absorption line fitting (gandalf) IDL codes, aiming to improve the existing measurements for stellar kinematics, the strength of various absorption-line features, and the flux and width of the emissions from different species of ionized gas. Our fit to the stellar continuum uses both standard stellar population models and empirical templates obtained by combining a large number of stellar spectra in order to fit a subsample of high-quality SDSS spectra for quiescent galaxies. Furthermore, our fit to the nebular spectrum includes an exhaustive list of both recombination and forbidden lines. Foreground Galactic extinction is implicitly treated in our models, whereas reddening in the SDSS galaxies is included in the form of a simple dust screen component affecting the entire spectrum that is accompanied by a second reddening component affecting only the ionized gas emission. In order to check for systematic departures from the rather standard set of assumptions that enters our models, we provide a quality assessment for our fit to the SDSS spectra in our sample, for both the stellar continuum and the nebular emissions and across different wavelength regions. This quality assessment also allows the identification of objects with either problematic data or peculiar features. We hope to foster the discovery potential of our database; therefore, our spectral fit is available to the community. For example, based on the quality assessment around the Hα and [N ii] λ6584 lines, approximately 1% of the SDSS spectra classified as "galaxies" by the SDSS pipeline do in fact require additional broad lines to be matched, even though they do not show a strong continuum from an active nucleus, as do the SDSS objects classified as "quasars." Finally, we provide new spectral templates for galaxies of different Hubble types, obtained by combining the results of our spectral fit for a subsample of 452 morphologically selected objects.


We have developed an analysis pipeline to facilitate real-time mutation tracking in SARS-CoV-2, focusing initially on the Spike (S) protein because it mediates infection of human cells and is the target of most vaccine strategies and antibody-based therapeutics. To date we have identified thirteen mutations in Spike that are accumulating. Mutations are considered in a broader phylogenetic context, geographically, and over time, to provide an early warning system to reveal mutations that may confer selective advantages in transmission or resistance to interventions. Each one is evaluated for evidence of positive selection, and the implications of the mutation are explored through structural modeling. The mutation Spike D614G is of urgent concern; it began spreading in Europe in early February, and when introduced to new regions it rapidly becomes the dominant form. Also, we present evidence of recombination between locally circulating strains, indicative of multiple strain infections. These finding have important implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, pathogenesis and immune interventions.


Nearly all studies of impulsive magnetic perturbation events (MPEs) with large magnetic field variability (dB/dt) that can produce dangerous geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) have used data from the Northern Hemisphere. Here we present details of four large‐amplitude MPE events (|ΔBx| > 900 nT and |dB/dt| > 10 nT/s in at least one component) observed between 2015 and 2018 in conjugate high‐latitude regions (65–80° corrected geomagnetic latitude), using magnetometer data from (1) Pangnirtung and Iqaluit in eastern Arctic Canada and the magnetically conjugate South Pole Station in Antarctica and (2) the Greenland West Coast Chain and two magnetically conjugate chains in Antarctica, AAL‐PIP and BAS LPM. From one to three different isolated MPEs localized in corrected geomagnetic latitude were observed during three premidnight events; many were simultaneous within 3 min in both hemispheres. Their conjugate latitudinal amplitude profiles, however, matched qualitatively at best. During an extended postmidnight interval, which we associate with an interval of omega bands, multiple highly localized MPEs occurred independently in time at each station in both hemispheres. These nighttime MPEs occurred under a wide range of geomagnetic conditions, but common to each was a negative interplanetary magnetic field Bz that exhibited at least a modest increase at or near the time of the event. A comparison of perturbation amplitudes to modeled ionospheric conductances in conjugate hemispheres clearly favored a current generator model over a voltage generator model for three of the four events; neither model provided a good fit for the premidnight event that occurred near vernal equinox.


The Stuxnet malware attack has provided strong evidence for the development of a forensic capability to aid in thorough post-incident investigations. Current live forensic tools are typically used to acquire and examine memory from computers running either Windows or Unix. This makes them incompatible with embedded devices found on SCADA systems that have their own bespoke operating system. Currently, only a limited number of forensics tools have been developed for SCADA systems, with no development of tools to acquire the program code from PLCs. In this paper, we explore this problem with two main hypotheses in mind. Our first hypothesis was that the program code is an important forensic artefact that can be used to determine an attacker's intentions. Our second hypothesis was that PLC debugging tools can be used for forensics to facilitate the acquisition and analysis of the program code from PLCs. With direct access to the memory addresses of the PLC, PLC debugging tools have promising functionalities as a forensic tool, such as the "Snapshot" function that allows users to directly take values from the memory addresses of the PLC, without vendor specific software. As a case example we will focus on PLC Logger as a forensic tool to acquire and analyse the program code on a PLC. Using these two hypotheses we developed two experiments. The results from Experiment 1 provided evidence to indicate that it is possible to acquire the program code using PLC Logger and to identify the attacker's intention, therefore our hypothesis was accepted. In Experiment 2, we used an existing Computer Forensics Tool Testing (CFTT) framework by NIST to test PLC Logger's suitability as a forensic tool to analyse and acquire the program code. Based on the experiment's results, this hypothesis was rejected as PLC Logger had failed half of the tests. This suggests that PLC Logger in its current state has limited suitability as a forensic tool, unless the shortcomings are addressed.


This fantastic slipcase contains six of Winnie and Wilbur's crazy capers. Meet them in their black house, take a hazardous ride on Winnie's broomstick, join them on a hot and sunny winter's day, find out what happens when Winnie's wand stops working, discover how much chaos a computer can cause and spend a day with them at the seaside! This collection is a must-have purchase for Winnie fans everywhere and, for those who have yet to meet everyone's favourite witch, it is a set that is guaranteed to make readers the best of friends with Winnie and her big black cat, Wilbur! The stories are full of noisy antics: clattering footsteps, colliding broomsticks, clanking washing machines, whirring computers and splashing waves are just some of the wonderful additions to the narration of each story on the accompanying two CDs.


Ecologists need not despair ot discovering the mechanisms that lead to large scale patterns. The search for process at higher scales has already led to enhanced confidence in the patterns and to improvements in their description. For example, species-area relationships turn out to form not one. but three patterns. Each is controlled by gain-loss dynamics at its own scale. At the macroscale, origination and global extinction reign. At the archipelagic scale, immigration and island extinction determine the results. At the local scale, metapopulation processes do. The three scales exhibit species-area curves with systematically different slopes in logarithmic space. We use the three scales of species-area to illuminate the relationship between local and regional diversity. Algebra shows that the latter pattern is an echo of species-area curves, and that those echoes ought to be nearly linear. So. we call the relationship of local and regional diversity, the Echo pattern. Ecology has long known that species-area curves within a region reflect the accumulation of habitat variety. Thus, their connection to Echo patterns argues against concluding that local diversity has little or nothing to do with population interactions. To obtain a pure Echo pattern, one should draw data from independent regions rather than separate islands. The independence allows natural selection to adjust the fundamental niches of species to diversity. Theory suggests that higher diversity should shrink niches, allowing the coexistence of more species locally. Hence, independence should tend to produce the straightest Echoes. However, archipelagic species-area curves predict that even when different islands are used as the regions, the Echoes should show only very gentle curvatures. Flouting theory, some archipelagic Echoes approach an asymptote as regional diversity increases. These must have logarithmic slopes that increase with regional pool size. We do not understand why.


Modern science is dominated by scientific productions from teams. A recent finding shows that teams of both large and small sizes are essential in research, prompting us to analyze the extent to which a country's scientific work is carried out by big or small teams. Here, using over 26 million publications from Web of Science, we find that China's research output is more dominated by big teams than the rest of the world, which is particularly the case in fields of natural science. Despite the global trend that more papers are written by big teams, China's drop in small team output is much steeper. As teams in China shift from small to large size, the team diversity that is essential for innovative work does not increase as much as that in other countries. Using the national average as the baseline, we find that the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) supports fewer small teams than the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States does, implying that big teams are preferred by grant agencies in China. Our finding provides new insights into the concern of originality and innovation in China, which indicates a need to balance small and big teams.


The characterization of freshly cleaved mica surfaces for surface structure and chemical composition was briefly reviewed and focused on surface crystal chemistry using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and other surface-sensitive techniques. This paper considers micas, which are useful as a first approximation for the behavior of many clay surfaces. Emphasis was given to phyllosilicate XPS binding energies ("chemical shift"), which were described and used to obtain oxidation state, layer charge, and chemical bonding information from the chemical shifts of different peaks. The chemical shift of the Si2p binding-energy to lower values can result from a negative charge increase because of Si4+ replacement by Al3+ and/or Fe3+. The apparent interlayer coordination number reduction from twelve to eight at muscovite and tetraferri-phlogopite (001) surfaces was indicated by the XPS measured K2p binding-energy and is consistent with bond relaxation. Although chemical shifts are valuable to distinguish chemical bonding and oxidation state, chemical shifts usually cannot distinguish between different Al coordination environments where Al is in both tetrahedral and octahedral sites.


Credit scoring is a system or method used by banks or other financial institutions to determine the debtor feasible or not get a loan. One of credit scoring method is used to classify the characteristics of debtor is Support Vector Machine (SVM). SVM has an excellent generalization ability to solve classification problems in a large amount of data and can generate an optimal separator function to separate two groups of data from two different classes. One of the success using SVM method is dependent on features selection process that will affect the level of classification accuracy. Various methods have done to features selection, because not all the features are able to give best classification results. Features selection that used this study is Variance Threshold, Univariate Chi - Square, Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) and Extra Trees Classifier (ETC). Data in this study use secondary data from the database in UCI machine learning responsitory. Based on simulations to compare the accuracy of using feature selection method on SVM in classification ofcredit riskscoring, obtained that Variance Threshold and Univariate Chi – Square method can decrease accuracy while RFE and ETC method can increase accuracy. RFE method gives better accuracy. Keywords: C redit scorin g, C redit ris k, F eature selectio n, S upport vector machine


Although the adoption of Enterprise Web 2.0 within organisations is beneficial, it could meet with employees' resistance and the adoption process can be lengthy. The successful implementation of Enterprise Web 2.0 is based on employee involvement and adoption of such social technology. This paper is part of a larger research project that explored the adoption of Web 2.0 by individuals within enterprises. Using a qualitative study, the findings show that there are number of adoption influences including technological, individual and contextual issues. This paper presents Web 2.0 technological attributes that influence its adoption. The found attributes are: friendliness, reliability, mobility, technical compatibility, discoverability, transparency and Web 2.0 type.


The villages Hasliberg Reuti and Meiringen in Switzerland were affected by flood and debris flow events resulting from unusually large rainfall in August 2005. The endangerment of these settlements was not consistent with the existing damage potential and thus the need for action was very great. Due to the difficult natural basic conditions in the catchment area with permanent sliding of alenien schist material with very low friction coefficient if infiltrated by water, conventional preventive stiff measures could not be used there because of foundation problems. A promising new solution was selected with 13 flexible ringnet barriers providing a total retention capacity of 12,000 m. Because of little experience with this new type of protection measure in dimensioning, wellfounded investigations with extensive laboratory tests and numerical simulations had to be undertaken. These analyses gave the maximal possible certainty to engineers and authorities that these measures will afford adequate protection and keep the residual risk as low as possible. Close co-operation between the scientific team of the WSL, the industrial partner and the cantonal authority during the dimensioning process led to a consistent and technically plausible solution. On 10th October 2011, another big storm occurred in the Hasliberg area with a 100 year flood declared from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). The rainfall in the Berner Alps summarized within 12 hours up to 80 mm plus the stored water by the snow fall of up to 70 cm resulted in flooding of mountain rivers, slope failures and landslides. Around 2,000 m of material were mobilized in the catchment area of Hasliberg by a shallow landslide flowing into the torrent. One of the 13 barriers was filled completely and two others were half filled. The new protection measure installed in 2008 predicts a bigger debris flow Monitoring, Simulation, Prevention and Remediation of Dense and Debris Flows IV 187 www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 73, © 201 WIT Press 2 doi:10.2495/DEB120 1 16 event by already stopping the material in the catchment area and avoiding further erosion of the flow process river upstream which happened in August 2005.


Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): Clarendon Fund, John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund, Oxford BHF Centre of Research Excellence (RE/18/3/34214), Alison Brading Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Medical Science, National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, National Institutes of Health (R01HL144706).

 Right ventricular (RV) function evaluation is an integral part of comprehensive cardiac assessment, including for pulmonary hypertension, congenital heart disease and arrhythmogenic RV cardiomyopathy (ARVC) [1]. It is commonly assessed by measuring tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) and peak systolic velocity (RV s') on echocardiography [2]. However, it is highly sensitive to imaging window and small changes in the beam angle, limiting reliability [3]. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is the imaging gold-standard for assessing RV structure and function, and is highly reproducible. CMR can assess tricuspid valve (TV) motion using four-chamber (4Ch) and RV two-chamber (2Ch) cines, with high diagnostic performance when compared against single-plane analysis [4]. However, manual placement of the TV insertion points is highly time-consuming for routine clinical workflows. TVnet, a deep-learning framework for automatically tracking the TV in 4Ch cines [5] has been recently validated, but without the orthogonal plane (RV 2Ch) which is helpful to more reliably characterise TV motion.

 We further extend TVnet to automatically track RV 2Ch cines and derive analysis of global TV motion parameters (global TAPSE and RV s') on par with expert level performance.

 74 patients undergoing CMR (1.5T Siemens MR scanner) with 4Ch and RV 2Ch views were retrospectively included in this ethically-approved study. The patients had the following cardiovascular conditions: myocardial infarction (n=43), ARVC (n=28) and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (n=3). The dual-stage deep-learning pipeline with a residual neural network backbone [5, 6] (Figure 1A) was trained using 69 patient datasets and 15 patients were randomly chosen for testing. The TVnet trained on 4Ch cines [5] was used to automatically annotate the 4Ch cines of the testing set for global analysis comparison. For manual reference, the software Segment [7] was used to manually annotate the TV insertion points in all imaging data (1,865 RV 2Ch images, 375 4Ch images). The global TAPSE and RV s' were derived as the mean perpendicular motion from the end-diastolic plane from both chamber views (Figure 1B).

 TVnet achieved a fast processing accuracy (<1 second per cine) and successfully tracked the TV insertion points from the RV 2Ch cine with a plane tracking error of 0.08±0.83 mm. The integrated pipeline yielded an excellent clinical-metric agreement with the manual reference (Figure 2) for both global TAPSE (error=0.42±0.68 mm, ICC=0.95) and RV s' (error=-0.10±0.71 cm/s, ICC=0.85).

 TVnet demonstrated excellent performance in both tracking the TV insertion points in RV 2Ch cines and deriving global TAPSE and RV s' compared to manual reference. TVnet can eventually provide a complete automatic inline analysis of TV plane motion for a fast, reliable and reproducible assessment of RV function in routine clinical workflows. (A) TVnet pipeline (B) Metric derivationCorrelation and Bland-Altman plots


The use of trade credit as a short-term financing is increasing in the last years; large firms use more days to pay small firms than they need, which causes financial fatal consequences to suppliers. These financial problems are not new, but with the credit crunch they are coming up because the massive use of the trade credit impacts negatively on suppliers whose insolvency and bankruptcy risks increase. In this paper we review in a descriptive way the use of trade credit in the credit crunch. The main contributions of the paper are two. Firstly, we show the financial consequences of the use of trade credit, and specifically in credit crisis, and how UK government develop public payment policies to reduce the negative effect of delete payments. Secondly, we study and compare the situation of European countries in terms of payment to suppliers, and in particular the case of UK, but also Spanish case.


Tourmaline typically forms where crustal rocks interact with migrating hydrous fluids or silicate melts, and its isotopic composition provides a reliable record of the isotopic composition of the fluids and melts from which it crystallized. Minerals of the tourmaline supergroup are exceptional in their physical robustness and chemical variability, and they allow us to extract a uniquely broad range of isotopic information from a single mineral. The chemical variability of tourmaline confronts us with the difficulty of deciphering an extremely complex mineral system, but it also presents us with a geochemical recorder of half the periodic table, a breadth of representation that is unparalleled among minerals. Plate tectonic–scale geochemical cycles, local and regional fluid–rock interactions, magmatic–hydrothermal systems, ore-forming processes, and ages of tourmaline formation have all been reconstructed using this unique isotopic broadband recorder.


This journal contains the proceedings of the SUMO Conference 2018 – Simulating Autonomous and Intermodal Transport Systems. The conference was held form 14. until 16.May 2018 in Berlin. The aim of the conference is to present new and unique results in the field of mobility simulation and modelling using openly available tools and data.

Traffic simulations are of immense importance for researchers as well as practitioners in the field of transportation. SUMO has been available since 2001 and provides a wide range of traffic planning and simulation applications. SUMO consists of a suite of tools covering road network imports and enrichment, demand generation and assignment and a state-of-the-art microscopic traffic simulation capable to simulate private and public transport modes, as well as person-based trip chains. Being open source, SUMO is ready to implement new behavioral models or to control the simulation remotely using various programming environments. These and other features make SUMO one of the most often used open source traffic simulations with a large and international user community.

The major topic of the 6th SUMO conference is the simulation of autonomous and intermodal transport. This journal includes articles about RoboShuttles, Robo-Taxis and the influence of autonomous driving functions. Furthermore, the coupling of other simulations, the modelling of different traffic modes and the validation of transport systems are also addressed in the proceedings to name only a few topics.


In this paper, we investigate and compare the pricing of European crack spread call options under different underlying models. New proposed univariate and explicit constant elasticity of variance (CEV) models are assumed and new analytic approximation formulae in the form of asymptotic expansions are derived. As well we derive an analytic approximation formula based on an explicit version of two correlated Schwartz models. In order to compare the performance of our new formulae with the performance of current popular formulae, we calibrate market prices of short tenor heating oil crack spread call options (traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange) and empirically test their performances. Results from the analysis show that our univariate-based CEV formulae outperforms known univariate formulae in capturing market prices. Overall, however we found the explicit approach to be superior to the univariate approach and in particular our new explicit-based formulae performed best in capturing market prices for options with short tenor.


Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. This study analyzes whether rural poverty increases the incidence of food insecurity and whether food insecurity perpetuates the condition of poverty among the rural poor in Bolivia. In order to achieve this aim, the risks that households face and the capacity of households to implement coping strategies in order to mitigate vulnerability shocks are identified. We suggest that efforts by households to become food secure may be difficult in rural areas because of poverty and the vulnerability associated with a lack of physical assets, low levels of human capital, poor infrastructure, and poor health; as well as the precarious regional environment aggravating the severity of vulnerability to food insecurity.


In this study, we fabricated electrolyte-dielectricmetal(EDM) device incorporating a high-k Al2O3 sensing membrane through porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) by two step anodizing process for pH detection. To change the characters of the AAO template, the crystallizing time was varied from 0 hour to 10 hours at 600 o C. The structural properties were observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The pH sensitivity increased in the crystallizing time from 0 hour to 2 hours and gradually saturated at 5 hours or more. The porous AAO sensor with the crystallizing temperature of 10 hours showed the good sensitivity and long-term stability were 54.1 mV/pH, 2.4mV/h, respectively.


Do a little armchair time-travel, rub elbows with a four-dimensional intelligent life form, or stretch your mind to the furthest corner of an uncharted universe. With this astonishing guidebook, Surfing Through Hyperspace, you need not be a mathematician or an astrophysicist to explore the all-but-unfathomable concepts of hyperspace and higher-dimensional geometry. No subject in mathematics has intrigued both children and adults as much as the idea of a fourth dimension. Philosophers and parapsychologists have meditated on this mysterious space that no one can point to but may be all around us. Yet this extra dimension has a very real, practical value to mathematicians and physicists who use it every day in their calculations. In the tradition of Flatland, and with an infectious enthusiasm, Clifford Pickover tackles the problems inherent in our 3-D brains trying to visualize a 4-D world, muses on the religious implications of the existence of higher-dimensional consciousness, and urges all curious readers to venture into "the unexplored territory lying beyond the prison of the obvious." Pickover alternates sections that explain the science of hyperspace with sections that dramatize mind-expanding concepts through a fictional dialogue between two futuristic FBI agents who dabble in the fourth dimension as a matter of national security. This highly accessible and entertaining approach turns an intimidating subject into a scientific game open to all dreamers. Surfing Through Hyperspace concludes with a number of puzzles, computer experiments and formulas for further exploration, inviting readers to extend their minds across this inexhaustibly intriguing scientific terrain.


A common FDI pattern observed across Korean parents investing in China is that they invest sequentially. Revoking that Korean parents are intended to achieve production efficiency in China, the economies of scale of a sequential investment strategy is relatively lower compared to a large scale one-shot investment; however, the latest production technologies can be applied to sequentially established subsidiaries, which can open a strategic pathway to leapfrog other competitors in the long run. A game model is constructed to demonstrate that as longer the Korean parents are expected to stay in China, they are better off by pursuing a sequential investment strategy. Unfortunately, this result does not mean that they can leapfrog competitors through sequential investment strategy. This can happen only when they begin with larger resource endowments. The model predicts that, under the lack of resources in establishing Chinese subsidiaries, Korean firms' leapfrogging through sequential investment strategy can occur if technology shocks occur to follow-up investments after an initial investment is done. A scenario approach is performed to prove this prediction empirically. It turns out that the firm value of those Korean parents that pursue sequential investment strategy increases the most when the longer they operate in China and when their research and development investments are higher at the same time. Also, as they stay longer in China, they are intended to make more sequential investments.


In the wake of the 1997 regional economic crisis, but before 11 September 2001, many Southeast Asian governments were besieged by formidable challenges to their legitimacy These challenges have been arguably mitigated by the political capital provided by the September 11 event as many regional governments have joined forces with the United States in its "war against terror." These governments have uncovered the existence of regional terrorist organizations, such as Jemaah Islamiah, with alleged links to the al-Qaida network. With the ostensible routing of the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia has been postulated as the new front line and base for Islamic militants. While international forces have undoubtedly contributed to the rise of political and militant Islam in Southeast Asia, this article will highlight the importance of localized sociopolitical and economic sources of Muslim grievance and the vexed issue of authoritarian governance. It is imperative that these issues be seriously addressed if the ideological appeal of radical and militant Islamists is to be effectively mitigated.


Of recent, advances in electronic communications have played an increasing role in changing the
microstructure of financial markets. Many stock exchanges across the world are gradually
replacing their traditional physically convened markets with electronic markets. For securities
markets to contribute to wealth maximization objective of investors and economic growth, they
need to be efficient in terms of securities' price discovery process. The Nairobi Securities
Exchange (NSE) has therefore made various changes to its market microstructure, especially the
introduction of an automated trading system. The main rationale behind the microstructure
changes is to gain market efficiency. Information is however lacking on how such changes have
affected the informational efficiency of the Exchange. This study tried to determine whether the
introduction of the microstructure changes had improved the informational efficiency of the
securities market. Using a data collection sheet, secondary data was obtained from the NSE's
authorized data vender (Synergy Ltd.) relating to the NSE 20 Share Index for the period
spanning 12 years (2000-2012). The data was analysed using non parametric approaches to
measure market efficiency before and after market automation. The results indicate that mean
market returns in the post automation period were higher and more volatile than those in the pre
automation period. This higher market returns can be attributed to improved price discovery
process, while the higher volatility may be due to changes in market microstructure through the
trading system. The results from normality tests show that market returns are not normally
distributed in both the periods. In addition, the runs test results reveals that market returns are
more random in the period following automation than the prior period, implying that the market
has improved in efficiency. The general conclusion of the study is that introduction of
automation in the Kenyan securities market has led to improved market efficiency, providing
support for the adaptive market hypothesis. The findings of this study are of importance for
policy making, especially interested in improving the efficiency of the Kenyan securities market.
The study recommends that the NSE and CMA should consider pursuing full market automation
by enabling online and internet securities trading and use of mobile money transfer platforms in
paying for stock transactions, in addition to the adoption of a hybrid trading system – both call
and continuous trading system – to enhance liquidity and transparency in trading.


We describe a method to create and reconstruct computer-generated Fourier-transform holograms in photorefractive materials. Holographic reconstructions are obtained from computer-generated data by imaging computer-generated holograms into a BaTiO3 crystal, using either spatially coherent or incoherent light. The intensity variations in the images produce a phase hologram in the crystal by the photorefractive effect. The diffraction efficiency of the holographic reconstructions depends on imaging system f number, crystal orientation, and read-beam polarization. Because these holograms are recorded by using (incoherent or coherent) images rather than coherent interference patterns, our system provides a new technique for the holographic display of computer-generated information.


A suite of Early Jurassic metaluminous to strongly peraluminous granitoids occupy a rear-arc position in Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula with respect to a Mesozoic–Cenozoic magmatic arc. Fractional crystallization of a range of mafic to silicic magmas yielded feldspar megacrystic granites, orthogneisses and foliated granodiorites. Leucogranites are strongly peraluminous and have the highest 87Sr/86Sr initial ratios of 0.7205–0.7208, somewhat lower than those of older paragneiss. Isotopic and elemental data are used to model generation of leucogranite magma by partial melting of paragneiss, followed by mixing of basalt magma with the crustal melt to form parent magmas of the rest of the granitoids. The crustal partial melting was a result of heat convected by the mafic magma, intruded into an extensional back-arc basin setting contemporaneous with the initial stages of Gondwana break-up. The mafic magma had relatively low 143Nd/144Nd ratios, distinct isotopically from the MORB-like basalt thought to represent the mantle input to granitoid genesis in the north western part of the Antarctic Peninsula. The nature of the mantle source(s) of the enriched basalt is uncertain, but it is isotopically similar to approximately contemporaneous basalts associated with the Karoo mantle plume.


This article presents the views of Americans on what the government's future role should be in regulating or overseeing the growing sales of dietary supplements for health purposes. Based on results of multiple national opinion surveys, including the views of both users and nonusers of supplements, we found that a substantial percentage of Americans surveyed reported that they regularly take dietary supplements as a part of their routine health regimen. However, they reported that they do not discuss the use of dietary supplements with their physicians because they believe that the physicians know little or nothing about these products and may be biased against them. Many users felt so strongly about the potential health benefits of some of these products that they reported that they would continue to take them even if they were shown to be ineffective in scientifically conducted clinical studies. However, there also was broad public support for increased government regulation of these products. We found that a majority of Americans surveyed supported the following: to require that the Food and Drug Administration review the safety of new dietary supplements prior to their sale; to provide increased authority to remove from sale those products shown to be unsafe; and to increase government regulation to ensure that advertising claims about the health benefits of dietary supplements are true.


We report a case of a 31-year-old Japanese woman with an uncommon shape of epiglottis misleading as acute epiglottitis. She presented with high fever, arthralgia, general fatigue and strong throat pain. Laryngeal fiberscopy showed a markedly swollen epiglottis suggestive of acute epiglottitis, though she had no signs of asphyxia. A careful observation and detailed medical history ruled out acute epiglottitis. However, without clinical discretion, it might have been misinterpreted as acute epiglottitis. She was diagnosed later with Behçet's disease, which is reported to present pharyngeal stenosis. Two years later, a repeat laryngeal fiberscopy showed exactly the same appearance of the epiglottis, suggesting its shape to be permanent. The cause of this misleading shape of the epiglottis in this patient is yet unknown. For similar cases, a possibility of this kind of epiglottis should be considered before diagnosing as acute epiglottitis.


Princeton University professor of civil engineering David P. Billington, at the invitation of civil engineering professors at Tokyo University, tours Japan and critiques several of the country's new bridges. He also responds to artistic criticism from one of Japan's foremost sculptors about the country's recently completed Seto Great Bridge, actually a series of bridges that form part of the Honshu-Shikiku Bridge project in which Japan is connecting two of its four main islands by 2000. He sets forth a theory of design (citing three basic principles: efficiency, economy and elegance), not to set rules for the designer, but rather to offer a framework of criticism for the critic and the general public. This theory is used to critique the Hokko, Ajigawa and Kuma bridges, and yields suggestions for improvements in bridge design in Japan and the U.S. including: emphasizing design in engineering education, encouraging the individuality of designers, and stressing bridge-design criticism.


Electrophoretic analyses of protein components of striated muscle myofibril purified from various vertebrate and invertebrate species revealed that proteins much larger than myosin heavy chain are present in significant amounts. To define possible roles of these heretofore unidentified proteins, we purified a combination of two uncommonly large proteins, designated as titin, from chicken breast myofibrils. Chemical and immunological studies indicated that titin is distinct from myosin, actin, and filamin. Specific titin anti body crossreacts with similar protein in both skeletal and cardiac myofibrils of many vertebrate and invertebrate species. Immunofluorescent staining of glycerinated chicken breast myofibrils indicated that titin is present in M lines, Z lines, the junctions of A and I bands, and perhaps throughout the entire A bands. Similar staining studies of myofibrils from other species suggest that titinlike proteins may be organized in all myofibrils according to a common architectural plan. We conclude that titin is a structurally conserved myofibrillar component of vertebrate and invertebrate striated muscles.