To clarify the effect of fruit gas exchange on photosynthate accumulation and fruit growth of strawberries (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.), fruit CO2 and H2O fluxes, and changes in fruit volume and sugar accumulation were investigated under limiting and non-limiting conditions of fruit gas exchange. By limiting fruit gas exchange with a combination treatment of calyx removal and vaseline coating, the daily integral values of fruit CO2 and H2O flux decreased to one-half of those in non-treatment. The limitations to fruit gas exchange remarkably inhibited translocation of sugars to fruits, and the concentration of total sugar (glucose + fructose + sucrose) in fruits was decreased below one-half of that in non-treated fruits. As a result, this inhibition of sugar accumulation to fruits under the limitation of fruit gas exchange brought a suspension of fruit growth. This suggests that not only leaf photosynthesis but also fruit gas exchange (respiration, transpiration) affect the sugar accumulation and growth of fruits through a process of photosynthates partitioning from leaves to fruits. It can be expected to achieve a higher strawberry productivity by the environmental control based on physiological responses of leaf photosynthesis and photosynthates translocation with the help of plant instruments.


Translation Studies (TS) has gained a certain recognition as a domain in its own right. Along with this recognition, come various forms of institutionalization, even though it is difficult to determine its exact nature and scope and different "turns" have been taken (linguistic, textual, psycholinguistic, cognitive, sociological, etc.). We deal first with TS easily borrowing from various other disciplines and we question the types of interdisciplinarity. Then we claim that, in the process of maturation, the time has come for a socio-analysis of the field. In the second part of the paper, we try to understand the possible relationships between translation, the translator and sociology. Finally, we suggest a socio-translation, with three main orientations.


The conventional understanding of mootness doctrine is that it operates as a mandatory bar to federal court jurisdiction, derived from the "cases or controversies" clause of the United States Constitution, Article III. In two crucial respects, however, this Constitutional model - which was first adopted by the Supreme Court less than 45 years ago - fails to account for the manner in which courts actually address contentions of mootness. First, the commonly-applied exceptions to the mootness bar are not derived from the "cases or controversies" clause and cannot be reconciled with the Constitutional account of mootness. Second, courts regularly consider and resolve mootness issues based on practical considerations having nothing to do with the text of Article III, revealing an implicit understanding that federal courts have authority to decide moot cases independent of Article III considerations. Despite growing recognition that mootness doctrine is in a state of confusion, no one has yet articulated a theoretically coherent alternative, much less an alternative that also explains the manner in which federal courts actually apply mootness in close cases. The author argues that federal courts should - and in the most pertinent subset of cases, already do - apply mootness as a largely discretionary doctrine, and he offers the first sustained account of how this prudential doctrine of mootness operates in practice. Principally, courts apply two distinct doctrines of mootness - the first ("issue mootness") in circumstances where post-filing events moot the issue raised by the action, and the second ("personal stake mootness") in circumstances where post-filing events have mooted only the plaintiff's personal stake in that issue. Courts treat issue mootness as precluding federal jurisdiction, but treat personal stake mootness as supporting, but not requiring, dismissal. The ultimate decision whether to dismiss is driven by a number of prudential considerations largely independent of Article III. This partially prudential model of mootness has three advantages over the flawed Constitutional model: It is more theoretically consistent, it fits better with existing case law in the most important subset of mootness cases, and it is a step in the direction of a unified theoretical approach to questions of justiciability.


The Hamiltonian formulation of the guiding centre drift orbits for three-dimensional (3D) toroidal configurations with general time-dependent electric and magnetic field structures has been extended to cover relativistic particles. For static 3D magnetic fields with nested magnetic surfaces, a mapping procedure from the equilibrium to the canonical coordinates is outlined. This transformation is shown to be so complicated that it renders impractical most applications in canonical coordinates. For magnetic coordinates, the transformation is straightforward. The relativistic guiding centre drift equations are explicitly derived with a constrained perturbed magnetic field that allows these coordinates to adopt a canonical structure.


We investigate the spectroscopic and photophysical properties of new series complex molecules, which is capable of fluorescence and some generating light in solvents of various kinds within the wavelength region 308 - 420 nm with a high fluorescence quantum yield (gamma) equals 0.01 - 0.97 and a low threshold pump density Elp(Plp). We worked from the measured lifetimes and to calculate the rate constants for radiative decay (Kfl) and intercombinational conversion, (KST), the cross section for a stimulated emission ((sigma) 31osc), and the characteristic time tlp in solvents of various types and in the vapor. The latter is the limiting rise time of the pump pulse (tlp) at which the generation of electromagnetic radiation is still possible. The cross sections for the induced singlet-singlet ((sigma) 3S*) and triplet-triplet ((sigma) 2T*) absorption in the generation band, required for calculating tlp, were taken from a variety of sources: experimental and for all other complex molecules, we used results calculated by some semiempirical methods SCF MO LKAO the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP/CI) and in complete neglect of differential overlap (INDO/S-CI). The results show that the decrease or increase of in the switch from solution to vapor, or as the properties of the solvent change, stems from dynamic separation or overlap of the lasing and induced absorption bands of the S1* yields Sn* and T1 yields Tn transitions. Lasing does not occur in concentrated acids because of the nearly complete overlap of the limiting gain and induced absorption T1 yields Tn transitions (compare it with the behavior of dyes in their chemo absorbed state). Using the density matrix method, we show that the solvent affects the distribution of electron density among the individual atoms and fragments of the complex geteratomic molecule in the ground state, leading to systematic changes in geometry. As a result, there are changes in the distribution of bond lengths in the rings of the azo-cycles aromatic molecule. Photonation of the nitrogen atoms in the azocycles molecules changes the structure of the excited electronic singlet (Si*) and (Ti) triplet states and in the transitions SO yields Sn*, S1* yields S0, S1* yields Sn*, T1 yields Tn, T1 yields S0, which determine the spectroscopic and generation characteristics of the complex compounds. The calculated geometry vapor complex molecules and [(sigma) (pi) ]-anion and [(sigma) (pi) ]-kation radicals compound AM-1/CI and PPP/CI methods in the ground state in their chemosorbtion state of the surface.


Aims: The specific objective of this ongoing investigation is to assess various menu manipulations and nutrition labelling to determine if they can effectively guide the older adult consumer to select healthier food items from a menu offering meals with differing nutritional attributes. Methods: One of three randomly assigned menus and a questionnaire were distributed to 150 senior adults (> 60 years of age) living in three assisted living residences, three congregate senior day programmes, and one senior church group in New Jersey, USA. A generic control menu, a treatment menu that used various merchandizing tools to promote the healthier menu items and the same treatment menu with nutritional labels added were designed. Participants selected their top five choices and then answered a short questionnaire, which surveyed demographics and menu selection background information. Results: The researchers found that certain menu merchandizing tools were effective, while nutrition labelling did not have a substantial effect for this population. Conclusions: Nutrition labels did not encourage healthier choices for the seniors surveyed in this study. Therefore, subliminal menu treatments may be more effective than nutrition labelling of menu items for elderly populations. Menu design has the potential to encourage healthier decisions through hidden persuaders, without infringing on the rights of elderly consumers to choose more indulgent menu options. However, menus are not effective tools for seniors who cannot cognitively and independently understand the menu. In certain circumstances, a non-select meal offering might be the best option. The menu strategies used in this study are most effective for those who are able to make independent menu choices.


Cancer disease has been on the increase recently in both developed and developing countries of the world resulting in 40 million deaths annually. Ethno-medicinal survey of indigenous herbal plants used in traditional medicine in the treatment of cancers was conducted in major communities in Bali, Gashaka and Sarduana Local Government Areas Taraba State Nigeria. Traditional medicine practitioners as well native herbalists, herbal plants and product marketers were orally interviewed by structured questionnaires. One hundred and six (106) species of plants from forty-nine (49) families were surveyed and documented in this study. Out of these, 70 % of the plants were neither screened for their anticancer activity nor documented in literatures while no any members of the Families Salvadoraceae, Simaroubaceae, and Elatinaceae have ever been reported for their anticancer activity. Members of the Family Fabaceae have the highest number of species distribution with 15%, followed by Family Asteraceae with 9% while Family Rubiaceae and Annonaceae have 6% and 5% distribution respectively. The leaves of the plants were the most used part in the treatment of cancers in all the communities, and preparation is usually by decoction. Sides effects of these plants were generally low on observation.The need for conservation of these plants is of utmost important because most these plants might go into extinct as a result of urbanization pressure and timber activities in most of these areas surveyed.


During the 2010 excavations of Mlambalasi rockshelter, Iringa Region, Tanzania, a single rifle bullet casing was recovered. Analysis of this casing found that it was manufactured in 1877 at the munitions factory in Danzig for the German infantry's Mauser 71 rifle. This casing is thus directly linked to the period of German colonization of Tanganyika, during which Iringa was a key centre of anti-colonial resistance. Mlambalasi was the location of the last stand of Chief Mkwawa of the Hehe people, and this bullet casing provides a tangible link to his uprising during the 1890s. In light of this colonial context and our ongoing research at Mlambalasi, this find is used to illustrate that a single artifact can reinforce multiple narratives about the past and the significance of an archaeological site.


We examined the genetic structure of snowy plovers ( Charadrius alexandrinus ) in North America, the Caribbean, and the west coast of South America to quantify variation within and among breeding areas and to test the validity of three previously recognized subspecies. Sequences (676 bp) from domains I and II of the mitochondrial control region were analyzed for 166 snowy plovers from 20 breeding areas. Variation was also examined at 10 microsatellite loci for 144 snowy plovers from 14 breeding areas. The mtDNA and microsatellite data provided strong evidence that the Puerto Rican breeding group is genetically divergent from sites in the continental U.S. (net sequence divergence = 0.38%; F ST for microsatellites = 0.190). Our data also revealed high levels of differentiation between sites from South America and North America (net sequence divergence = 0.81%; F ST for microsatellites = 0.253). In contrast, there was little genetic structure among breeding sites within the continental U.S. Our results suggest that snowy plovers in Florida should be considered part of C. a. nivosus (rather than part of C. a. tenuirostris , where they are currently placed), whereas snowy plovers from Puerto Rico should be considered part of C. a. tenuirostris . Snowy plovers in South America should remain a separate subspecies ( C. a. occidentalis ). Although U.S. Pacific and Gulf Coast breeding areas were not genetically distinct from other continental U.S. sites, demographic isolation, unique coastal habitats, and recent population declines suggest they warrant special concern.


The objective of this thesis is to present the design and implementation of ultra-low power radio transceivers at microwave frequencies, which are applicable to wireless sensor network (WSN) and, in particular, to the requirement of the Speckled Computing Consortium (or SpeckNet). This was achieved through quasi-MMIC prototypes and monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) with dc power consumption of less than 1mW and radio communication ranges operating at least one metre.
A wireless sensor network is made up of widely distributed autonomous devices incorporating sensors to cooperatively monitor physical environments. There are different kinds of sensor network applications in which sensors perform a wide range of activities. Among these, a certain set of applications require that sensor nodes collect information about the physical environment. Each sensor node operates autonomously without a central node of control. However, there are many implementation challenges associated with sensor nodes. These nodes must consume extremely low power and must communicate with their neighbours at bit-rates in the order of hundreds of kilobits per second and potentially need to operate at high volumetric densities. Since the power constraint is the most challenging requirement, the radio transceiver must consume ultra-low power in order to prolong the limited battery capacity of a node. The radio transceiver must also be compact, less than 5×5 mm2, to achieve a target size for sensor node and operate over a range of at least one metre to allow communication between widely deployed nodes.
Different transceiver topologies are discussed to choose the radio transceiver architecture with specifications that are required in this project. The conventional heterodyne and homodyne topologies are discussed to be unsuitable methods to achieve low power transceiver due to power hungry circuits and their high complexity. The super-regenerative transceiver is also discussed to be unsuitable method because it has a drawback of inherent frequency instability and its characteristics strongly depend on the performance of the super-regenerative oscillator. Instead, a more efficient method of modulation and demodulation such as on-off keying (OOK) is presented. Furthermore, design considerations are shown which can be used to achieve relatively large output voltages for small input powers using an OOK modulation system. This is important because transceiver does not require the use of additional circuits to increase gain or sensitivity and consequently it achieves lower power consumption in a sensor node.
This thesis details the circuit design with both a commercial and in-house device technology with ultra-low dc power consumption while retaining adequate RF performance. It details the design of radio building blocks including amplifiers, oscillators, switches and detectors. Furthermore, the circuit integration is presented to achieve a compact transceiver and different circuit topologies to minimize dc power consumption are described. To achieve the sensitivity requirements of receiver, a detector design method with large output voltage is presented. The receiver is measured to have output voltages of 1mVp-p for input powers of -60dBm over a 1 metre operating range while consuming as much as 420μW.
The first prototype combines all required blocks using an in-house GaAs MMIC process with commercial pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (PHEMT). The OOK radio transceiver successfully operates at the centre frequency of 10GHz for compact antenna and with ultra-low power consumption and shows an output power of -10.4dBm for the transmitter, an output voltage of 1mVp-p at an operating range of 1 metre for the receiver and a total power consumption of 840μW. Based on this prototype, an MMIC radio transceiver at the 24GHz band is also designed to further improve the performance and reduce the physical size with an advanced 50nm gate-length GaAs metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (MHEMT) device technology.


Foundational number sense - being able to operate flexibly with number and quantity - is a predictor of later mathematical achievement. In this paper, drawing on lessons on number sequences to grade 1 children, we examine how two teachers, one English and one Hungarian, construed locally as effective, created opportunities for children to develop foundational number sense. The Hungarian teacher, in ways typical of that country's mathematics teaching tradition, offered frequent and coherent opportunities for students to develop foundational number sense. The English teacher, working in a tradition whereby interactive technology increasingly mediates classroom discourse, offered few and less coherent opportunities, masked by the teacher's frequent attention to display features of the technology.


Objective: In the field of career-counselling significant attention has been given to vocationand career-related thinking and cognitions in research as well as in interventions supporting personal and vocational development. In contrast, little if any attention has been given to vocational cognitions in the study of those mental disorders that cause disabling symptoms and disrupt employment. Studies of vocational and rehabilitation outcomes tended to focus on the impact of psychopathology itself, cognitive functioning and related phenomena such as stigmatisation. There is no particular reason that job seekers with mental disorders and those without mental disorders should be regarded differently. Indeed understanding vocational cognition in mental disorder may enhance vocational outcomes and personal development for affected individuals. Here, the objective is to test whether career choice certainty and dysfunctional career beliefs can predict remission and functioning, recovery and assertive jobhunting behaviour. Method: Participants (n = 109) with severe mental disorders attending community outpatient services completed interviews, self-report measures and tasks assessing vocational cognitions, symptom severity, cognitive functioning, hope and self-esteem, recovery and stigma. Path analyses were used to ascertain whether hope and self-esteem play a major role for factors associated with remission and recovery, whether a stigma-related model of factors associated with remission and recovery can be replicated, and whether an alternative model using career decision indices can predict remission and recovery factors. Results: There was evidence that higher career choice certainty and lesser dysfunctional career beliefs predicted symptom remission, functioning and recovery outcomes. Career decidedness did not predict assertiveness in job-hunting but dysfunctional thoughts about vocation did. Hope and self-esteem were important predictors of remission and recovery. The stigma related model could not be replicated sufficiently. Conclusion: The findings suggest that vocational cognition predicts symptom remission outcomes and key measures of recovery in major mental disorders. Keeping in mind the limitations of cross-sectional design, it may be that career decisions and thoughts offer an important target for enhancing recovery from employment disrupting mental disorders. ON THE VOCATIONAL PATHWAY TO RECOVERY iii


In Meta-Reinforcement Learning (meta-RL) an agent is trained on a set of tasks to prepare for and learn faster in new, unseen, but related tasks. The training tasks are usually hand-crafted to be representative of the expected distribution of test tasks and hence all used in training. We show that given a set of training tasks, learning can be both faster and more effective (leading to better performance in the test tasks), if the training tasks are appropriately selected. We propose a task selection algorithm, Information-Theoretic Task Selection (ITTS), based on information theory, which optimizes the set of tasks used for training in meta-RL, irrespectively of how they are generated. The algorithm establishes which training tasks are both sufficiently relevant for the test tasks, and different enough from one another. We reproduce different meta-RL experiments from the literature and show that ITTS improves the final performance in all of them.


Ultrasound imaging suffers from severe speckle noise. We propose a novel approach for speckle reduction using 2D homogeneity and directional average filters to remove speckle noise. We transform speckle noise into additive noise using a logarithm transformation. Texture information is employed to describe the speckle characteristics of the image. The homogeneity value is defined using texture information value, and the ultrasound image is transformed into a homogeneity domain from the gray domain. If the homogeneity value is high, the region is homogenous and has less speckle noise. Otherwise, the region is nonhomogenous, and speckle noise occurs. The threshold value is employed to distinguish homogenous regions from regions with speckle noise obtained from a 2D homogeneity histogram according to the maximal entropy principle. A new directional filtering is convoluted to remove noise from pixels in a nonhomogenous region. The filtering processing iterates until the breast ultrasound image is homogenous enough. Experiments show the proposed method improves denoising and edge-preserving capability.
We present a novel enhancement algorithm based on fuzzy logic to enhance the fine details of ultrasound image features, while avoiding noise amplification and over-enhancement. We take into account both the fuzzy nature of an ultrasound and feature regions on images, which are significant in diagnosis. The maximal entropy principle utilizes the gray-level information to map the image into fuzzy domain. Edge and textural information is extracted in fuzzy domain to describe the features of lesions. The contrast ratio is computed and modified by the local information. Finally, the defuzzification operation transforms the enhanced ultrasound images back to the spatial domain. Experimental results confirm a high enhancement performance including fine details of lesions, without over- or under-enhancement.
Identifying object boundaries in ultrasound images is a difficult task. We present a novel automatic segmentation algorithm based on characteristics of breast tissue and eliminating particle swarm optimization (EPSO) clustering analysis, thus transforming the segmentation problem into clustering analysis. Mammary gland characteristics in ultrasound images are utilized, and a step-down threshold technique is employed to locate the mammary gland area. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach increases clustering speed and segments the mass from tissue background with high accuracy.


Tax-exempt hospitals receive millions of dollars worth of tax breaks each year, yet there is little evidence that they operate much differently than their for-profit counterparts. When a hospital does not meet the federal standard for exemption, the IRS currently has two enforcement options: (1) do nothing or (2) move to revoke a hospital''s tax-exempt status. Revocation is a harsh option that is not appropriate for every circumstance of a hospital failing to meet one ore more of the requirements for exemption. Therefore, many tax-exempt hospitals fail the exemption standard but are not subjected to revocation of status. Commentators have recommended modifying the qualifying standard for hospital tax exemption to address this problem. Alternatively, this Note argues that Congress should give the IRS statutory authority to impose excise tax intermediate sanctions on underperforming hospitals as an enforcement tool short of revocation. Intermediate sanctions would provide the IRS with flexibility to regulate the boundaries of tax-exempt status and ensure that communities continue to benefit from the services of tax-exempt hospitals.


The acroblast of Helix spermatids is a duplex structure: it consists of an 'externum' (which appears dark by positive phase-contrast microscopy and becomes impregnated with osmium) enclosing a region called the 'internum'. Histochemical studies show the externum to be composed principally of phospholipid and to contain glycolipid, alkaline phosphatase, and an enzyme which splits thiamine pyrophosphate. The internum contains neutral mucopolysaccharide. Ribonucleic acid and acid phosphatase are not present in the acroblast. These histochemical results suggest a homology between the invertebrate acroblast and the Golgi apparatus in vertebrate cells.


Introduction-Aim: The association between peripheral blood haematological indices and acute ischemic stroke severity, in-hospital and long-term outcome is controversial. We aimed to evaluate this relationship and the potential association of haematological indices with serum adipokines levels and systemic inflammation. Patients and Methods: We prospectively studied 93 patients consecutively hospitalized for acute ischemic stroke (39.8% males, age 79.7±6.3 years). Peripheral blood haematological indices and serum adiponectin, leptin and resistin levels were determined at admission. The haematological indices that were evaluated were total white blood cells count (WBC), absolute neutrophil count (NC), absolute lymphocyte count (LC), absolute monocyte count (MC), red blood cells count (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (Ht), platelet count (PC), mean platelet volume (MPV) and the ratios MPV/PC (MPR), NC/LC (NLR) and PC/LC (PLR). Stroke severity at admission was evaluated with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). In-hospital outcome was evaluated by dependency rates at discharge and in-hospital mortality. One year after discharge, functional status, incidence of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality were recorded. Functional status was evaluated with the modified Rankin scale (mRS). Results: None of the haematological indices predicted stroke severity or in-hospital mortality. However, patients with dependency at discharge had higher WBC (p<0.05) and NC (p<0.05). Independent predictors of dependency at discharge were prior history of acute ischemic stroke [Risk Ratio (RR) 7.55, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.69-33.58, p<0.01], NIHSS score at admission (RR 1.47, 95% CI 1.17-1.84, p<0,001) and serum triglyceride levels (RR 0.98, 95% CI 0.96-0.99, p<0.05). None of the haematological indices predicted cardiovascular events or all-cause mortality during 1-year-follow-up after discharge. However, patients with adverse outcome had higher NC (p<0.05), lower LC (p<0.05) and higher NLR (p<0.05) and PLR (p<0.05). In multivariate analysis, the mRS score at discharge was the only independent predictor of adverse outcome 1 year after discharge (RR 2.78, 95% CI 1.54-5.00, p<0.001). Regarding the correlation of haematological indices with major adipokines, there was a positive correlation of adiponectin levels with NLR (r=0.295, p=0.012) and PLR (r=0.378, p=0.001), while there was a negative correlation with Hb (r=-0.252, p=0.033). The NLR (r=0.277, p=0.019) and PLR (r=0.240, p=0.043) were also positively correlated with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) levels. Serum resistin levels were positively correlated with NC (r=0.278, p=0.018). The WBC (r=0.295, p=0.012) and NC (r=0.401, p<0.001) showed a positive correlation with hsCRP levels. Regarding leptin, none of the haematological indices appeared to correlate with leptin levels. Conclusions: Higher WBC and NC at admission predict a worse functional outcome of patients with acute ischemic stroke at hospital discharge and one year after hospitalization, due to more severe stroke with greater systemic inflammation. In addition, lower LC and higher NLR and PLR at admission seem to be associated with adverse outcome at 1 year after discharge due to a higher degree of systemic inflammation and greater disability at discharge. Adipokines appear to affect peripheral blood cell counts and are associated with haematological indices. In particular, adiponectin was positively correlated with NLR and PLR, while negatively with Hb. In addition, resistin was positively correlated with NC. These associations reflect the role of haematological indices as biomarkers of inflammation and possibly their determinant effect, through adipokines and inflammation, on the pathophysiology and prognosis of acute ischemic stroke.


Elwin Francis settled his personal injury case for $150,000 and walked away with $111 from the settlement. Yes, the lawyers got their one-third, but this is not a story about attorney malpractice. Mr. Francis's limited recovery stems from his involvement with the new kid in town, third-party litigation funders. Several years before the case settled, Mr. Francis borrowed money from LawCash and Lawbuck$, two litigation funding companies, via non-recourse loans. The nature of the loans meant that he only had to repay them if his case was successful. The catch was the extremely high interest rate, much higher than rates charged by credit card companies. All told Mr. Francis borrowed $27,000, but with the high interest rates by the time the case had settled that amount due had swelled to $96,000. Out of the $150,000 settlement, LawCash and Lawbuck$ received a profit $69,000 in interest that amounted to 46 percent of the settlement, the repayment of the principle of the loans represented another 18 percent, the attorney fees and expenses took a little more than a third, and the plaintiff was left nothing except for the money that had been advanced to him by the funding companies. While this situation sounds like an extreme example, the loan arrangement is not unique, and is part of a larger trend of third party litigation funding that has been sweeping across America in recent years.


This title offers a compelling new theory of the psychological roots of the Scientific Revolution. The standard account of the rise of Western science recently has come under fire by historians who claim that there was nothing revolutionary about the Copernican Revolution and that science did not suddenly become modern in its aftermath. How, then, explain the fact that, after 14 centuries of barely noticeable scientific progress, virtually all of the major discoveries that formed the foundation of modern science were made within a few years of 1600? In "It Started with Copernicus", social theorist Howard Margolis answers with a controversial new theory of the psychological roots of the Scientific Revolution. Margolis points out that Copernicus's great discovery was not that the Earth revolved around the sun - since Aristarchus had proposed it 1,800 years earlier - but that entertaining such a seemingly unlikely idea would solve other problems. Thus, he provided a model for Kepler, Galileo, Steven, Gilbert, and others who would go on to lay the foundations of modern science.


In this work, several types of column switching were used for a number of analytical problems in liquid chromatography.
Thus, comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography was used for the study of tea. This developed into a semi-quantitative comparison of catechins in matcha and sencha tea.This revealed that about twice as much catechins is absorbed in the consumption of matcha tea as with sencha tea.
To evaluate the best combination of columns in the LC x LC, a vector based mathematical model was developed. This calculation makes it possible to determine the effective area in a two-dimensional chromatogram, independently of the complexity of the distribution of the chromatogram spots. With this method, the best combination of columns for the analysis of Radix Angelicae sinensis was determined on the basis of the effective area, the peak capacity and the orthogonality. These results do not correlate with the results of the Neue-test. The best column selection is determined not only by the selectivity of the phases but also by the properties of the analyte in the complex sample. Thus, the optimal combination of columns to assess the separation efficiency - directly from the two-dimensional chromatogram - is of great importance.
The separation efficiency of on-line LC x LC was compared with off-line LC x LC, with the analysis of Radix Angelicae sinensis as an example. This showed, as was to be expected, that the off-line LCxLC method had a higher peak capacity (2683) than on-line LC x LC (661). However, this was accompanied by a significant increase in analysis time, from 5 to 28 hours. No significant difference was found in the orthogonality and the consumption of solvents. The great advantage of the online method is the larger number of substances detected, probably because ca. 30 % of the volatile analytes disappear during storage of the fractions in the off-line method.
For the investigation of white wine, ion-exchange chromatography was coupled with reverse-phase chromatography (IC-LC x LC) for the first time. This technique allows the simultaneous analysis of phenols, polyphenols, phenolic acids and other components in the wine. A higher degree of orthogonality could be achieved than with previously known applications of this method. It was also possible by the use of suitable eluents to couple the chromatographic system with a mass spectrometer.
Finally, in this work a new recycling method for HPLC was developed which is suitable for the separation of substances with a similar selectivity factor (e.g., enantiomers). Theseparation of carvone enantiomers showed the advantage of this method - the low peak broadening during the recycling process - over the CLR method.


In this theoretical study, we analyze quantum walks on complex networks, which model network-based processes ranging from quantum computing to biology and even sociology. Specifically, we analytically relate the average long time probability distribution for the location of a unitary quantum walker to that of a corresponding classical walker. The distribution of the classical walker is proportional to the distribution of degrees, which measures the connectivity of the network nodes and underlies many methods for analyzing classical networks including website ranking. The quantum distribution becomes exactly equal to the classical distribution when the walk has zero energy and at higher energies the difference, the so-called quantumness, is bounded by the energy of the initial state. We give an example for which the quantumness equals a Renyi entropy of the normalized weighted degrees, guiding us to regimes for which the classical degree-dependent result is recovered and others for which quantum effects dominate.


A map of the world of 'technical' communication shows the (a, s)-universe, flat country filled with language experts and scientists, including engineers. In the centre Technical Writing is situated, a territory in turmoil, on the border of α-land and s-land. In the U.S.A. the territory is developing fast as the professional core of a new skill. As emigrants, many people of an α-type or s-type nature end up in the territory. Having a problem of professional identity they possess a hy-brid personality. The attention paid to this problem causes them to lose sight of the two 'natural' forces of an emigrating individual, that is to say feedforward — an anticipative composition principle — and metaphoric transfer — 'as-if use of knowledge from the individual's professional past, to solve the communication problems met at present. Feedforward (Ivor A. Richards, 1893-1979) is a principle of creative action, proceeding from more generic to less (a top-down hier-archy); a number of 'formators' (Charles W. Morris and Bess Sondel), the tools for making text according to the feedforward scheme, are discussed. Nowadays visual elements as formators receive more emphasis. Text is seen as a distribution of three types of elements ('knowing', 'feeling', 'acting') glued into a unit, the communicative 'whole', by the formators. The textual whole should match the type of readers as originally anticipated by the technical writer (27 types, a classification based upon estimating three levels of knowing, feeling, acting; examples are included). Some prescriptions for solving Technical Writing problems found by metaphoric transfer are discussed. To illustrate the traffic of ideas arising from metaphoric transfer, a detailed map of the border area science/ technical writing is shown.


Los Angeles is a major net importer of water and relies on sources several hundred miles away in Northern California and Colorado for two-thirds of its supply. The ecosystems of these source regions are significantly impacted by decades of diverting water for agricultural, industrial and municipal use. Combined with the periodic droughts afflicting the Southwest U.S., these circumstances put Los Angeles under increasing pressure to reduce reliance on imported water by using what we have more efficiently.Significant investments by public agencies that build on previous efforts are required to achieve needed gains in water use efficiency. These investments take the form of storm water capture and treatment infrastructure, groundwater treatment equipment and recharge systems, graywater systems for homes, sub-metering multi-family housing, water de-salting facilities, indoor appliance/fixture retrofit campaigns, ecosystem restoration, and irrigation system evaluation and repair.We present information about water use efficiency investments and their subsequent multiplier effects in two ways. First we analyze Los Angeles' water sector – the establishments that provide goods and services that directly build and maintain municipal water infrastructure, manufacture specialized water systems equipment, provide engineering consulting services, and provide support services for these direct providers. Second, we analyze over 50 recent water use efficiency projects in the Los Angeles region, detailing their supplier networks and multiplier effects.


The intended purpose of the present article is two‐fold: first, introducing an interval‐like representation of uncertainty that is an adequate summary of the following two items of information: a report on how strongly the validity of a proposition is supported by a body of evidence and a report on how strongly the validity of its negation is supported. A representation of this type is called a beliefinterval and is introduced as a subinterval of a certain verbal scale consisting of nine linguistic estimates expressing the amount of support provided for the validity of a proposition and/or its negation; each linguistic estimate is represented as a fuzzy number in the interval [0,1]. A belief‐interval is bounded from below by an estimate indicating the so‐called degree of support and from above by an estimate indicating the so‐called degree of plauibility. The latter is defined as the difference between a fuzzy number representing the maximal degree of support that might be provided for a proposition in general and a fuzzy number expressing the degree of support provided for the validity of the negation of the proposition under consideration. The so‐introduced degrees of support and plausibility of a proposition are subjective measurements provided by the expert on the basis of some negative and/or positive evidence available to him. Thus, these two notions do not have the same measure‐based origins as do the set‐theoretic measures of support and plausibility proposed by G. Shafer, neither do they coincide with the possibility and necessity measures proposed by L. Zadeh. The main difference is that in our case the degree of plausibility might be, in cases of contradictory beliefs, less than its corresponding degree of support. Three types of belief‐intervals are identified on the basis of the different amounts of support that might be provided for the validity of a proposition and/or its negation, namely balanced, unbalanced, and contradictory belief‐intervals. The second objective of this article is to propose a calculus for the belief‐intervals by extending the usual logical connectives and, or, negation, and implies. Thus, conjunctive and disjunctive operators are introduced using the Dubois' parametrized family of T‐norms and their dual T‐conorms. The parameter Q characterizing the latter is being interpreted as a measure of the strength of these connectives and further interpretation of the notion of strength is done in the cases of independent and dependent evidence. This leads to the introduction of specific conjunctive and disjunctive operators to be used separately in each of the latter two cases. A negation operator is proposed with the main purpose of determining the belief‐interval to be assigned to the negation of a particular proposition, given the belief‐interval of the proposition alone. A so‐called aggregation operator is introduced with the purpose of aggregating multiple belief‐intervals assigned to one and the same proposition into a total belief‐interval for this particular proposition. Detachment operators are proposed for determining the belief‐interval of a conclusion given the belief‐interval of the premise and the one that represents the amount of belief commited to the validity of the inference rule itself. Two different detachment operators are constructed for use in cases when: (1) the presence of the negation of the premise suggests the presence of the negation of the conclusion, and (2) when the presence of the negation of the premise does not tell anything at all with respect to the validity of the conclusion to be drawn.


This report presents the experimental and numerical work carried out by ECN and Hanze University of Applied Sciences on methane sorption on activated carbon, as part of their activities within the EDGaR Energy Storage project. Eleven different activated carbon types were tested. It was found that MaxSorb MSC-30 offered the highest methane mass storage density (m/m ratio). However, due to the low density of the MaxSorb MSC-30 activated carbon, the highest volumetric methane storage density (V/V ratio) was found for Brightblack. An increase of the packing density and heat conductivity significantly improves the V/V ratio and shortens the time needed to reach thermal equilibrium. In the case of the Brightblack activated carbon, a total V/V ratio of 112 was found at 12 oC and 40 bar, implying an effective storage density that is 3 times higher than for compressed methane. During the adsorption of methane on activated carbon, sorption heat is released and the temperature of the bed is increased, which negatively affects the effective V/V ratio. Temperature rises up to 70 oC were experimentally observed at higher methane inflow rates. For MaxSorb MSC-30 a temperature rise of 25 oC reduced the effective V/V ratio by about 20 %. The temperature rise of the Brightblack bed caused relatively smaller reductions in the volumetric storage density. Calculations with the validated numerical models indicated an even higher temperature increase for the full scale methane storage, reaching bed temperatures up to 137-150 oC in the case of the MaxSorb MSC-30 activated carbon. At this temperature range, the models indicate a V/V ratio fall down to 46. This performance is similar to the one offered by direct methane compression to 40 bar, and is much lower than the V/V ratio of ~ 100 that was found both experimentally and by calculations for the lab scale reactor performance. The calculations showed, that the low bed permeability can limit the gas flow during adsorption and desorption. A high reactor diameter can countervail the effect of permeability, but the higher dimensions impede the heat dissipation and thus decrease the storage efficiency. Efficient temperature control and management are very important to effectively make use of the methane storage capacity through adsorption.


Skillful sea ice forecasts from days to years ahead are becoming increasingly important for the operation and planning of human activities in the Arctic. Here we analyze the potential predictability of the Arctic sea ice edge in six climate models. We introduce the integrated ice‐edge error (IIEE), a user‐relevant verification metric defined as the area where the forecast and the "truth" disagree on the ice concentration being above or below 15%. The IIEE lends itself to decomposition into an absolute extent error, corresponding to the common sea ice extent error, and a misplacement error. We find that the often‐neglected misplacement error makes up more than half of the climatological IIEE. In idealized forecast ensembles initialized on 1 July, the IIEE grows faster than the absolute extent error. This means that the Arctic sea ice edge is less predictable than sea ice extent, particularly in September, with implications for the potential skill of end‐user relevant forecasts.


We describe a new species of rhacophorid frog from the Langbian Plateau in southern Vietnam. Rhacophorus vampyrus sp. nov. is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of: a pale tan to brick red dorsum; white throat, chest and belly; black flanks and anterior and posterior surface of thighs; grey to black webbing between fingers and toes; reduced finger webbing; and pointed projection at tibiotarsal articulation. At present, the new species is known from montane evergreen forest between 1470–2004 m elevation. Rhacophorus vampyrus sp. nov. is a phytotelm breeder, depositing eggs in foam nests in small tree-holes.


When molecules which give rise to Raman and fluorescent light scattering are distributed within small dielectric particles, the signal is affected by the morphology and optical properties of the particle, and the distribution of molecules of interest within it. These effects are manifested by changes in the magnitude, in the angular distribution, and in the polarization of the scattered radiation. Furthermore, because the effects vary with the wavelengths of both the exciting and the emitted radiation, the emission spectrum for fluorescence may vary with the exciting wavelength, the morphology and optical properties of the particle, the distribution of the active molecules within the particle, and even the angle of observation. These phenomena must be considered in quantitative procedures for utilizing Raman and fluorescent scattering for determining the concentration of specific molecules in small particles such as aerosols or biological cells. The effects are illustrated here by a series of numerical calculations involving inelastic noncoherent scattering by molecules variously embedded in dielectric spheres.


Two of the three leading health care reform proposals being considered by Congress—the House "Tri-Committee" health care reform legislation and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee's reform legislation—include sensibly designed "play-or-pay" provisions that require employers to pay an assessment if they do not offer insurance to some or all of their employees. The third leading health care reform proposal—the bill proposed by Sen. Max Baucus and currently under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee—also includes a play-or-pay requirement, but it is poorly designed and would be unfair to employers, harmful to employees, and impose wasteful expenses on taxpayers.


Although prior work has demonstrated a link between online political engagement and offline participation, less is known about which mechanisms might influence online political opinion expression. This study examined specific constructs that might lead to increased social media engagement among Latinos—a demographic group with high social media adoption, but lower levels of political participation. Results from this study, using data from the 2016 presidential election, suggest that acculturation processes can explain the likelihood of online political engagement, willingness to share opinions, and offline political participation. Findings indicate that for Latinos, the ethnic heterogeneity of one's social media network and perceptions of commonality between one's own ethnic group and other ethnic and racial groups drive willingness to share opinions, online political engagement, and, indirectly, offline political participatory behaviors. Results are contextualized in relation to the ways Latinos uniquely integrate with U.S. political culture through online engagement.


Illegal trade and human‐wildlife conflict are two key drivers of biodiversity loss and are recognized as leading threats to large carnivores. Although human‐wildlife conflict involving jaguars (Panthera onca) has received significant attention in the past, less is known about traditional use or commercial trade in jaguar body parts, including their potential links with retaliatory killing. Understanding the drivers of jaguar killing, trade and consumption is necessary to develop appropriate jaguar conservation strategies, particularly as demand for jaguar products appears to be rising due to Chinese demand. We interviewed 1107 rural households in north‐western Bolivia, an area with an active history of human–jaguar conflict, which has also been at the epicentre of recent jaguar trade cases. We collected information on participants' experiences with jaguars, their jaguar killing, trading and consuming behaviours and potential drivers of these behaviours. We found that the relationships between local people and jaguars are complex and are driven largely by traditional practices, opportunism, human–jaguar conflict and market incentives from foreign and domestic demand, in the absence of law awareness and enforcement. Addressing jaguar trade and building human–jaguar coexistence will require a multifaceted approach that considers the multiple drivers of jaguar killing, trade and consumption, from foreign and local demand to human–jaguar conflict.


The aim of the development of these investigation's projects in Almirall is to find new molecules for a particular disease and it can get started in two different ways: the selection of a phenotype or of a protein targeting (GPCRs, enzymes, ion channels, etc.) whose modulation could become a benefit to a pathology of interest.
One of the proteins targeting that is currently raising more interest in the therapeutic investigation are the ion channels. The reason is that they play a critical role in the monitoring of many physiological processes. These processes form the molecular base of the nervous system, they also adjust the selective transport of the ions and macromolecules, they have a vital role in the synthesis of the mediators, they take part in the homeostasis and in the cellular communication. This project focus in the (VGSC). Nine sodium channels in humans have been identified and found nowadays that perform vital functions in the central nervous system and in the peripheral nervous system, as well. The dysfunction of these channels can create diseases which are called channelopathies such as the Brugada syndrome, childhood epilepsy or chronic pain.
Due to the required need in the discover of new drugs, the main objective of the study that was carried out for Almirall focused in the set-up of a new primary high-efficiency assay and minor costs than the electrophysiology using the platform FLIPR Tetra and monitoring the changes in the membrane potential, that could allow to characterize the power of new inhibitors of the sodium channel Nav1x. Once the set-up of the FLIPR Tetra was done, twenty-four inhibitors that were previously tested with the electrophysiology IonWorks quatro were characterized.
The results obtained with the FLIPR Tetra were in truth successful, the 87,5% being the most detected compounds in the same potency order than the electrophysiology. Moreover, the 75% of the detected compounds with a different potency order were more powerful than in the electrophysiology assay and the remaining 25% only seven times less powerful. This could assure its detection with the set-up assay. The controlling assay of the membrane potential using the FLIPR Tetra could be considered acceptable as a primary assay of characterization and narrowed down for specific inhibitors of the sodium channel Nav1.x, putting the electrophysiology as a activityconfirmation assay and characterization of inhibitors


This thesis is a dialectical exploration of the importance of the Jewish tradition and theology in the work of Walter Benjamin, primarily through his reading of Franz Joseph Molitor's Philosophie der Geschichte oder uber die Tradition, and secondarily through his close friendship with Gershom Scholem. It also argues that the influence of the Jewish tradition is a constant factor in Benjamin's work, transcending the conventional division between his 'metaphysical' Fruhwerk and his 'Marxist' Spatwerk.

The first chapter presents a historical-philosophical overview of the form and content of the Jewish tradition, with particular emphasis on the seminal importance of language as the medium of tradition. The second chapter offers both an exhaustive philological investigation of Benjamin's contacts with Molitor's book, on the basis of new information gathered from both Benjamin's and Scholem's diaries and correspondence, as well as a selection and discussion of some of the most salient and relevant aspects of Philosophie der Geschichte. The third and final chapter assesses the impact of the foregoing as it culminates in the work of Walter Benjamin.

Firstly, it focuses on the early essays Uber Sprache uberhaupt und uber die Sprache des Menschen and Uber das Programm der kommenden Philosophie, drawing parallels between their conception of language as a medium and Jewish concepts of language and tradition as they are presented by Molitor and Scholem. Secondly, it turns to the Protokolle zu Drogenversuchen and to Benjamin's unfinished magnum opus, Das Passagen-Werk, to illustrate the continuity of his thoughts on language and tradition in the concept of profane Erleuchtung. After each chapter, a short interlude focuses on different forms of Judaism in Benjamin's work, notably the Jewish concept of commentary in the essays on Kafka, the concept of the understated apocalypse and the name of God.


Labeling video data is an essential prerequisite for many vision applications that depend on training data, such as visual information retrieval, object recognition, and human activity modelling. However, manually creating labels is not only time-consuming but also subject to human errors, and eventually, becomes impossible for a very large amount of data (e.g. 24/7 surveillance video). To minimize the human effort in labeling, we propose a unified multiclass active learning approach for automatically labeling video data. We include extending active learning from binary classes to multiple classes and evaluating several practical sample selection strategies. The experimental results show that the proposed approach works effectively even with a significantly reduced amount of labeled data. The best sample selection strategy can achieve more than a 50% error reduction over random sample selection.


This study was performed to identify genetic polymorphisms in multidrug and toxin extrusion 2-K (MATE2-K, SLC47A2), a proton/organic cation antiporter that plays a role in the transport of organic cations across the apical membrane in kidney epithelial cells into the urine, and to demonstrate their effects on MATE2-K functions in vitro. Four of the thirty single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) we identified in three ethnic groups (Caucasian, African American, and Japanese) were novel [308C>G (P103R), c.487-8C>T, 818A>G (Y273C), and c.1018+14T>C]. The transport activities of the prototypical substrates, tetraethylammonium and metformin, for four nonsynonymous SNPs (P103R, P162L, G211V, and Y273C) were significantly different from those of the wild-type. In particular, transport activity was higher in P103R than in the wild-type, which is the first time elevated transport activity was demonstrated due to these coding SNPs. Kinetic analysis revealed that P103R had a higher Vmax value, whereas Y273C had a lower value than that in the wild-type. Cell surface protein expression levels were higher for P103R than for the wild-type, whereas Y273C expression was decreased. Immunofluorescence analysis revealed that the P103R protein was localized to the plasma membrane, whereas Y273C showed cytoplasmic localization. Therefore, the difference in transport activities between P103R and Y273C variants was suggested to be responsible for the different protein expression levels observed at the plasma membrane. Four nonsynonymous SNPs in this study showed relatively low allelic frequencies (0.5 to 2.1%), but these were associated with markedly reduced or increased MATE2-K function.


This study, using an original survey data of individuals, presents new empirical evidence on the relationship between occupational licenses and labor market outcomes. The novelty of this study is its distinction between the possession and actual use of licenses as well as the distinction between certifications and monopolistic licenses. Occupational licenses have a large impact on the function of the labor market in Japan. The majority of respondents holds certifications or licenses, and nearly 40% of the respondents use either one in their current jobs. The use of certifications and licenses is particularly prevalent in the service sector such as health care and education industries. The possession of occupational license has positive impacts on the labor market attachment and wages of female and elderly people. On the other hand, occupational licensing may negatively affect market efficiency through its creation of monopoly rents. In considering the importance of occupational licenses under the trend toward the service economy, it is desirable to include questionnaires on the possession and the use of occupational licenses in statistical surveys periodically.


Cattle grazing the pastures of inland Australia can be poisoned by ingestion of certain native Pimelea plant species, particularly Pimelea trichostachya and Pimelea simplex. The Pimelea toxin, simplexin, causes often fatal restriction of the pulmonary venules, with resultant heart impacts and characteristic fluid accumulation (oedema) of the jaw and brisket regions. In certain years heavy livestock losses can occur. Currently, there is no effective vaccine or antidote for Pimelea poisoning and the only management strategy is to reduce contact between toxic plants and susceptible stock, for beef producers to avoid potentially devastating poisoning events. Nevertheless, previous research has demonstrated that prolonged low dose feeding diminished the effect in animals. It was postulated that the animal exposed to prolonged low doses developed a mechanism for detoxifying simplexin, possibly through adaptation of the rumen microbial environment. The present study seeks to investigate the use of a biopolymer/toxin composite to foster toxin-degrading microbe populations. The objectives are to manufacture biopolymer composites based on biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and/or polycaprolactone (PCL), as toxin slow-release systems for the rumen that would have broad utility across a range of plant toxins and other beneficial rumen compounds. The poster covers the manufacturing, characterisation and performance of the biopolymers in a simulated rumen environment. Preliminary results of different biopolymers/composites containing Pimelea material and toxin extracts in an in vitro simulated rumen environment for up to 30 days are presented. It was found that the release rate could be tailored by choosing the right type of biopolymer.


Heat transfer characteristics of flat augmented surfaces in subcooled flow boiling with water at atmospheric pressure were obtained as functions of the surface orientation and Reynolds number. Data was collected with the heater surface temperature between 90C and 1 15C. The maximum temperature recorded by the thermocouple closest to the heater was between 200C and 220C. Five augmented surfaces and a base line plain polished aluminum surface were prepared and their performance was experimentally obtained in a 3 mm x 40 mm rectangular channel. The five augmented surfaces consisted of a sintered plain surface, microfin #1 (fin height .132 mm, pitch .635 mm, fin shape round), sintered microfin #1, microfin #2 (fin height .197 mm, pitch .726 mm, fin shape trapezoidal), and microfin #3 (fin height .240 mm, pitch .870 mm, fin shape trapezoidal). Two microfin orientations of 0 and 20 were tested by rotating the heater surface. The heat transfer performance of the heater surface in the non-boiling (single-phase) and boiling regions were obtained over a Reynolds number range of 1565 to 7254 and compared with the plain surface performance. Microfin #3 and microfin #1 exhibited better heat transfer performance compared to the polished aluminum surface while microfin #2 transferred less heat compared to the polished aluminum surface. For microfin #1 nucleation started as soon as positive wall superheat was attained, while for microfin #2, microfin #3, and a polished aluminum surface awall superheat of 6 to 10 C was required for inception ofnucleation. A number ofparameters affect the heat transfer from the augmented surfaces subcooling, flow rate, swirl angle, surface finish, and surface geometry. The effect ofthese parameters was investigated for the six surfaces studied. Bubble activity was studied with the aid ofvideo images obtained using a regular 30 frames per second video camera and a high speed video camera up to 1 000 frames per second under a magnification ofup to 43OX. As the degree of superheat increased beyond 10C, bubble activity became faster and could not be tracked by the high speed camera which only showed streaks ofbubbles. It is thought that this increased bubble behavior continues with faster and smaller bubbles as the surface temperature continues to increase. Using experimental data taken byMizo (1995), for flow boiling ofwater on a flat polished aluminum surface, existing pool boiling bubble growth models were investigate for possible extension into flow boiling. Extending existing pool boiling models to flow boiling proved very complex. Mikic and Rohsenow's [17] pool boiling bubble growth rate model is well accepted in literature. Limitations in applying this work to flow boiling were identified.


It has recently been reported that chronic pain affects 43% of American, approximately 100 million adults in 2012 (Tsang and colleagues, The Journal of Pain 9(10): 883–891, 2008); accordingly, it remains essential that research continue to advance the current ability to assess and manage pain. Here, in this special issue, we highlight the impact of pain in chronic medical illness and present a body of research that addresses areas where data are currently lacking. Specifically, we present articles that characterize pain in cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, breast cancer, gastric bypass surgery, neurofibromatosis, low back pain, and postherpetic neuralgia. Importantly, these studies characterize pain in underrepresented populations including adolescents and surgical patients, and in diverse populations that include individuals from the United States, Iran, and France. Several commonalities arise involving an association between obesity and pain, a call for increased patient education, and a call for continuing education in pain for health care professionals.

Included, you will find the following ten articles: (1) "Prevalence of chest pain, depression, somatization, anxiety, global distress, and substance use among cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation patients" by E. Serber and colleagues, (2) "Pain narratives in breast cancer survivors" by P. Peretti-Watel and colleagues, (3) "Presurgical weight is associated with pain, functional impairment, and anxiety among gastric bypass surgery patients" by S. Wedin and colleagues, (4) "Physical, cognitive, and psychosocial predictors of functional disability and health-related quality of life in adolescents with neurofibromatosis-1" by M. Garwood and colleagues, (5) "The pain crisis: what it is and what can be done" by B. Sessle, (6) "Low back pain prevalence and associated factors in Iranian population: findings from the national health survey" by A. Biglarian and colleagues, (7) "Validation of the self-assessment of treatment questionnaire among patients with postherpetic neuralgia" by K. Wyrwich and colleagues, (8) "Sarcoidosis and pain caused by small fiber neuropathy" by L. Heij and colleagues, (9) "Depressive symptoms, pain, and quality of life among patients with non-alcohol related chronic pancreatitis" by W. Balliet and colleagues, and (10) "Depression and anxiety symptoms relate to distinct components of pain experience among patients with breast cancer" by S. Galloway and colleagues.

As a whole, this body of research highlights the impact, incidence, and characteristics of pain in chronic medial illness, as well as opportunities to improve care and assessment.

Justin Brown

Jarred Younger

Alok Madan

Jeffrey Borckardt


Knowledge about the taxonomy and distribution of the monogeneric polychaete family Longosomatidae Hartman, 1944 is limited in all parts of the world. A new species of the genus Heterospio Ehlers, 1874 (Annelida, Longosomatidae) is described from the Indian Ocean. Heterospio indica sp. nov. is mainly characterised by the conspicuous flattening of the distal half of capillary chaetae located in anterior elongated segments. Several body characters of high taxonomic relevance in the genus are examined under the SEM and discussed. The 18S SSU rDNA and COI genes were sequenced and represent the first sequencing of a species of Heterospio , and the sequences have been deposited in GenBank.


In this paper, we propose ARCH (Animatable Reconstruction of Clothed Humans), a novel end-to-end framework for accurate reconstruction of animation-ready 3D clothed humans from a monocular image. Existing approaches to digitize 3D humans struggle to handle pose variations and recover details. Also, they do not produce models that are animation ready. In contrast, ARCH is a learned pose-aware model that produces detailed 3D rigged full-body human avatars from a single unconstrained RGB image. A Semantic Space and a Semantic Deformation Field are created using a parametric 3D body estimator. They allow the transformation of 2D/3D clothed humans into a canonical space, reducing ambiguities in geometry caused by pose variations and occlusions in training data. Detailed surface geometry and appearance are learned using an implicit function representation with spatial local features. Furthermore, we propose additional per-pixel supervision on the 3D reconstruction using opacity-aware differentiable rendering. Our experiments indicate that ARCH increases the fidelity of the reconstructed humans. We obtain more than 50% lower reconstruction errors for standard metrics compared to state-of-the-art methods on public datasets. We also show numerous qualitative examples of animated, high-quality reconstructed avatars unseen in the literature so far.


Despite the compelling theoretical prediction that divided government decreases legislative performance, the empirical literature has struggled to identify a causal effect. We suspect that a combination of methodological challenges and data limitations are to blame. Here, we revisit this empirical relationship. Rather than relying on traditional measures of legislative productivity, however, we consider whether divided government affects the ability of lawmakers to meet critical deadlines — specifically, the ability of state lawmakers to adopt an on-time budget (as mandated by state law). By focusing on delay instead of productivity we avoid measurement problems, particularly the challenges inherent in measuring the supply of and demand for legislation. To assess the causal effect of divided government, we develop and implement a regression discontinuity design (RDD) that accounts for the multiple elections that produce unified or divided government in separation of powers systems. Our RDD approach yields compelling evidence that divided government is a cause of delay. We also evaluate and find support for a new hypothesis that divided government is more likely to lead to delay when the personal and political costs that stalemate imposes on politicians are low.


In this paper, we utilize a set of controlled experiments to benchmark the cost associated with the cloud execution of typical repository functions such as ingestion, fixity checking, and heavy data processing. We focus on the repository service pattern where content is explicitly stored away from where it is processed. We measured the processing speed and unit cost of each scenario using a large sensor dataset and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The initial results reveal three distinct cost patterns: 1) spend more to buy up to proportionally faster services; 2) more money does not necessarily buy better performance; and 3) spend less, but faster. Further investigations into these performance and cost patterns will help repositories to form a more effective operation strategy.


The local oscillators (LOs) of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission payload are used to shift the operating frequency of the 72 receivers to an optimal intermediate frequency needed for the signal processing. The LO temperature variations produce phase errors in the visibility, which result in a blurring of the reconstructed brightness temperature (Tb) image. At the end of the commissioning phase, it was decided to calibrate the LO every 10 min while waiting for a more in-depth analysis. During short periods of time, the LO calibration has been performed every 2 min to assess the impact of a higher calibration rate on the quality of the data. In this paper, by means of a decimation experiment, the relative errors of 6- and 10-min calibration interval data sets are estimated using the 2 min as a reference. A noticeable systematic across- and along-track pattern of amplitude ±0.3 K is observed for Tb differences between 10 and 2 min, whereas this is reduced between 6 and 2 min. A simulation experiment confirms that the nature of such systematic pattern is due to the visibility phase errors induced by the LO calibration rate. Such pattern is propagated into the sea surface salinity (SSS) retrievals. Overall, the SSS error increase (relative to the 2 min SSS data) is about 0.39 and 0.14 psu for the 10- and 6-min data sets, respectively. This paper shows that a LO calibration rate of at least 6 min would noticeably improve the SSS retrievals.


Russian literature has long had a great impact on British authors, especially from the early 20th century onwards. Russian topics, motifs, and modes of writing in particular were readily adapted into British fiction. A comparatively recent case is the adaptation of Venedikt Erofeev's subversive postmodern drinker's novel Moscow to the End of the Line (Moskva-Petushki, 1973) into Scottish literature. In a multilayered process of linguistic, cultural and generic translation, Stephen Mulrine adapted this iconic text for the stage under the ambiguous title Moscow Stations (1993). The new title emphasizes the original's pronounced biblical subtext by alluding to the Way of the Cross, which is also at the core of A.L. Kennedy's Paradise (2004), another "drunken Odyssey-cum-Via Dolorosa" (Mulrine) that bears striking similarities to both the original and Mulrine's adaptation. Erofeev's and Mulrine's as well as Kennedy's protagonists are continuously oscillating between their actual space of belonging – the empirical reality they live in – and an elusive space of longing which they try to reach through drink – their individual, alluring paradise.
This essay proposes to use Yuri Lotman's model of culture as a 'semiosphere' to conceptualize and analyse the relationship between 'original' and 'adaptations'. It will pay special attention to the varying ways in which all three authors employ biblical motifs and stories to position their narratives in the field of tension between a hegemonic culture and a transgressive subculture.


Nowadays, the Internet represents a ubiquitous source of information and communication. Its central role in everyday life is reflected in the curricula of modern schools. Already in early grades, children are encouraged to search for information on-line. However, the way in which they interact with state-of-the-art search interfaces and how they explore and interpret the presented information, differs greatly from adult user behaviour.
 This work describes a qualitative user study in which the Web search behaviour of Dutch elementary school children was observed and classified into roles motivated by prior research in cognitive science. Building on the findings of this survey, we propose an automatic method of identifying struggling searchers in order to enable teaching personnel to provide appropriate and targeted guidance where needed.


The crux of this essay is that birdsong—something generally thought of a pleasing and enjoyable—can function, in certain contexts, as an indexical sign of the presence of evil in the world. I narratively contrast notions of the unknown as eerie with the uncanny at home, while simultaneously extending the notion of home to the world though ethnographic examples from fieldwork with Warlpiri people in central Australia. I explore the links between sounds and the uncanny, putting forward that what constitutes the uncanny is culturally specific, and highlight this point through contextualising and contrasting the central Australian case with examples from elsewhere: the Middle Ages, colonial Australia, Horror movies, and so on.Keywords: sounds and the uncanny, ethno-ornithology, Aboriginal Australia, horror, bird song


I study the implications for central bank discount window stigma of the model by Philippon and Skreta (2012). I take an equilibrium perspective for a given discount window program instead of following the program-design approach of the original paper. This allows me to narrow the focus on the model's positive predictions. In the model, firms (banks) need to borrow to finance a productive project. There is limited liability and firms have private information about their ability to repay their debts. This creates an adverse selection problem. The central bank can ameliorate the impact of adverse selection by lending to firms. Discount window borrowing is observable and it may be taken as a signal of firms' credit worthiness. Under some conditions, firms borrowing from the discount window may pay higher interest rates to borrow in the market, a phenomenon often associated with the presence of stigma. I discuss these conditions in detail and what they suggest about the relevance of stigma as an empirical phenomenon.


The authors use data from Wikipedia to build a graph visualization of the evolution of artistic styles inspired by Alfred H. Barr's poster for the 1936 Cubism & Abstract Art exhibition. Drawing from Wikipedia articles about persons and art styles, the authors construct a bi-partite network based on their mutual hyperlinks and assume relationships between styles if their respective articles are bridged by hyperlinks to and from person articles. The resulting visualization extends its model with respect to the number of covered styles, thus embedding it within a larger art-historical perspective as seen through the lens of Wikipedia.


Abstract Automatic click detectors and full-bandwidth sound recorders are widely used in passive acoustic monitoring of small cetaceans. Detection of these signals depends on a variety of factors, including signal to noise ratio. Passive acoustic monitoring is often used to study impact of underwater noise on small cetaceans, but as detection probability is affected by changes in signal to noise ratio, variable noise levels may affect conclusions drawn from these experiments. Therefore, we examine how different detectors and filters perform in varying ocean noise conditions. C-PODs and full-bandwidth recorders (Wildlife Acoustics, SM2M+) were deployed at two stations in an environment with fluctuating ambient noise for 42 days. Noise level and harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) click trains simultaneously recorded on both loggers were compared. Overall, we found that porpoise click detections by the algorithm used to analyse full-band recorder data (Pamguard) paralleled detections by the C-POD. However, Pamguard detected significantly more clicks than the C-POD. A decrease in detections was seen for both loggers with increasing noise in the band 20 –160 kHz, in particular for levels above 100 dB re 1μPa rms. We also found that the Pamguard detection function changed the least over varying noise conditions when compared to the C-POD detectors. This study sheds light on the fact that inference of animal presence/absence or density that are based on echolocation cues (here, Porpoise Positive Minutes) shall account for the acoustic environments where probability of detecting signals may be affected by variability in ambient noise levels.


In biometric research and many security areas, it is very difficult task to match optical face images to infrared face images. infrared and optical face images captured by different devices such as infrared imaging device and optical imaging device large difference exist between infrared face images and optical face images because they belongs to multiple modality. Converting the samples of multimodality into common feature space is the main objective of this project. The new method has been developing for identification of heterogeneous face identification. Training set contains the images from different modalities. Initially the infrared image is preprocessed by applying Gaussian filter, difference of Gaussian and CSDN filters are apply on infrared face image. After preprocessing next step to extracting the feature by using LBP(local binary pattern) feature extraction then relevance machine classifier is used to identify the best matching optical image from the corresponding infrared images from the optical images dataset.


In the recent era, utmost attention is paid towards exploring the alternative source of energies, being more specific green energies. In modern days, when growing energy scarcity is a hot topic and considered as a global threat, in that context a green technology capable of sustainably addressing waste management issues and synthesize waste-derived end-product such bio-diesel from Jatropha Curcas linnaeus (JCL) and Chlorella vulgaris shall be paid ancillary attention. The attribution of the above-mentioned species and Lemnagibba L towards the purification of the municipal solid waste (MSW) leachate by utilizing its bioaccumulation properties and ultimately yielding several value-added co-products could be the solution of the era in terms of sustainable leachate treatment. A specially designed ridge furrow phytoremediation wetland was fabricated under the controlled environment associated with a pre-treatment facility and bottom lining system to captivate the downward percolation. A 1.5 m high Jatropha species were planted at an interval of 1 m on the ridges and the root for the same found to reach a depth of 0.8 m on an average over a period of 3 months. Leachate was supplied by means of free flow into the furrows with an initial addition rate of 1 m3 per day for a 10 m x 10 m remediation hybrid pond system and simultaneously the loading was elevated up to 80 m3/ha/day. Prior to the active remediation zone, a pre-treatment unit was installed which works on the bio-accumulation property of the vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides). A packed bed system of gravel, marble chips, sand, and coconut coir as a medium of filtration was installed to bring the concentrate waste juice up to the wetland treatment standard. Moreover, the bleaching influence of the sunlight also found to be effective against pathogen removal, active evaporation, and evapotranspiration. The ultimate treatment capacity for the designated size was assessed as ~ 0.03 m3 per day ascertained with an HRT value of 45 days. The ultimate outcome was on par with the influent characteristics obligatory for the tertiary units with a comprehensive efficacy value evaluated as approx. 60%. Thus, it's quite evident to claim the feasibility of the present study towards the bio-remediation of the enormous quantity of leachate generation associated with the handling of solid waste which is otherwise, a costly affair.


Children who experience abuse, neglect, and/or trauma are disproportionately represented among those who deteriorate into challenging and pervasive behavioral disorders. The TrustBased Relational Intervention [TM] Interactive Principles, described in this article, have been used effectively in a variety of settings, including camps, homes, schools, and residential treatment facilities. ********** In the United States, there are approximately 127,000 adoptions annually (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2004). Currently, about 15% of these adoptions are intercountry adoptions, 39% are conducted through publicly funded agencies, and 46% are private adoptions. This can be contrasted with data from the early 1990s when, although the total number of children adopted was similar, only 5% were intercountry, 18% were publicly funded, and 77% were private adoptions. Currently, over half of the children adopted are from the child welfare system and from overseas, and many of these children are at risk for various relationship-based disturbances stemming from histories of abuse, neglect, and/or trauma prior to their adoptions by caring families. Despite the stable caring homes that these children are often adopted into, attachment problems, behavioral problems, and social problems are manifested in these children frequently. A recent meta-analysis on the reports of behavior problems in internationally adopted, domestically adopted, and nonadopted control children found that adopted children showed more behavior problems (both internalizing behaviors such as depression and externalizing behaviors such as aggression) than did nonadopted children (Juffer & van IJzendoom, 2005). It was also found that adopted children were overrepresented among clientele presenting for mental health services. The current article is an abbreviated version of the Hope Connection [TM] manual (Purvis & Cross, 2002) and is based on an interactive principles framework developed in the context of Trust-Based Relational Intervention[TM] (TBRI[TM]). These interactive principles (see Figure 1) form the basis of our various intervention programs that target behaviorally at-risk adopted children. The interactive principles were first developed for our research-based summer day camp for behaviorally at-risk adopted children and have been integrated into home program interventions (Purvis, Cross, & Sunshine, 2007), family camp interventions, and summer camp interventions (Purvis, Cross, Federici, Johnson, & McKenzie, 2007). They have been used to facilitate positive outcomes with children as young as 3 years and as old as 17 years. They have been applied in homes, schools, orphanages, and residential treatment facilities with equal efficacy and are shared here with the hope that they will enrich services for children in other domains. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The principles are classified into three categories: empowering principles, connecting principles, and correcting principles. The empowering principles include ecology and physiology, the connecting principles include awareness and interacting, and the correcting principles include proactive strategies and redirective strategies. EMPOWERING PRINCIPLES The TBRI[TM] empowering principles address the physical and physiological needs of the child. The foundation of these principles is that a child's mind is housed in her or his body and that the needs of the body influence the child's ability to do higher level tasks. This is an important realization but one that is all too often overlooked when crafting interventions for children. The empowering principles are founded on research from various domains, including Tiffany Field's work on touch (Field, 2001; Field, Hernandez-Reif, & Diego, 2005), Stephen Porges's work on the polyvagal system (Porges, 1998, 2003), work carried out on regulatory and sensory processing disorders (see Barton & Robins, 2000; Greenspan & Wieder, 1993; Kranowitz, 2005), and efforts to determine the effect of nutritional interventions on children's psychopathology (e. …


The Blackstones Bank, located about 60 km WSW of the Isle of Mull in Western Scotland, is a submarine plutonic complex in the British Tertiary Igneous Province. Geochemical and isotopic analysis of gabbros, microgabbros and basic dykes shows that the magmas interacted strongly with crustal rocks during their emplacement. The isotopic signature of the contaminated Tertiary intrusions shows no evidence of any interaction with Archaean basement, despite the location of the Blackstones complex to the west of the Great Glen fault. Instead, the Blackstones rocks have crustal signatures resembling the Proterozoic basement and cover rocks of western Islay. It is therefore inferred that Early Proterozoic crust extends to the west of the Great Glen fault at this point on the Scottish continental shelf. In addition, the occurrence of similar isotopic signatures in Tertiary igneous rocks east of the Loch Gruinard fault confirms that Early Proterozoic basement extends under the Grampian block of mainland Scotland. When combined with published evidence from the Rockall bank, the new data constrain the location of an Archaean–Proterozoic crustal suture with a WNW trajectory which cuts across the continental shelf of northwest Britain.


A History of Settlement in Ireland provides a stimulating and thought-provoking overview of the settlement history of Ireland from prehistory to the present day. Particular attention is paid to the issues of settlement change and distribution within the contexts of: * environment * demography * culture. The collection goes further by setting the agenda for future research in this rapidly expanding area of academic interest. This volume will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the archaeology, history and social geography of Ireland.


This complete, yet concise, guide introduces you to the rapidly developing field of high throughput screening of biomaterials: materiomics. Bringing together the key concepts and methodologies used to determine biomaterial properties, you will understand the adaptation and application of materomics in areas such as rapid prototyping, lithography and combinatorial chemistry. Each chapter is written by internationally renowned experts, and includes tutorial paragraphs on topics such as biomaterial-banking, imaging, assay development, translational aspects, and informatics. Case studies of state-of-the-art experiments provide illustrative examples, whilst lists of key publications allow you to easily read up on the most relevant background material. Whether you are a professional scientist in industry, a student or a researcher, this book is not to be missed if you are interested in the latest developments in biomaterials research.


In recent years fuel consumption of passenger vehicles has received increasing attention by customers, the automotive industry, regulatory agencies and academia. However, some areas which affect the fuel consumption have received relatively small interest. One of these areas is the total energy used for vehicle interior climate which can have a large effect on real-world fuel consumption.

Realistic combinations of energy saving measures were evaluated regarding the total energy use for vehicle interior climate using a one dimensional (1D) simulation model. The 1D simulation model included sub models of the passenger compartment, the air-handling unit, the Air Conditioning (AC) system, engine and engine cooling system. A test cycle representative for real-world conditions was developed. The test cycle included tests in cold, intermediate and warm conditions and the results were weighted with the estimated use in each condition.

In the investigated case the average electrical power was decreased with 50%, primarily through a new blower control unit. The mechanical compressor power was decreased with 45%, primarily through less engaged AC-system. In addition the energy flow into the passenger compartment, for cooling and heating, was decreased with almost 20%, largely through increased insulation of windows, shell, ducts, and decreased interior mass. All these savings were made without decreasing the potential of thermal comfort for the passengers.

When the most beneficial energy saving measures have been implemented further reductions of energy use for the climate control system will become very challenging. To achieve additional energy reductions, with this type of system, the airflow has to be reduced or more energy must be recovered from the air. Many challenges with these measures can be expected.


We use the Cargo Cult metaphor to discuss visions, methods and communication of robot research. Essentially cargo cult involves performing of imitative rituals that are conducted without understanding the underlying cause of a phenomenon. We discuss how this is an ongoing challenge within the field of HRI, and what researchers could do to avoid contributing to a robotic cargo cult.


Recent results on direct femtosecond inscription of straight low-loss waveguides in borosilicate glass are presented. We also demonstrate lowest ever losses in curvilinear waveguides, which we use as main building blocks for integrated photonics circuits. Low-loss waveguides are of great importance to a variety of applications of integrated optics. We report on recent results of direct femtosecond fabrication of smooth low-loss waveguides in standard optical glass by means of femtosecond chirped-pulse oscillator only (Scientific XL, Femtolasers), operating at the repetition rate of 11 MHz, at the wavelength of 800 nm, with FWHM pulse duration of about 50 fs, and a spectral widths of 30 nm. The pulse energy on target was up to 70 nJ. In transverse inscription geometry, we inscribed waveguides at the depth from 10 to 300 micrometers beneath the surface in the samples of 50 x 50 x 1 mm dimensions made of pure BK7 borosilicate glass. The translation of the samples accomplished by 2D air-bearing stage (Aerotech) with sub-micrometer precision at a speed of up to 100 mm per second (hardware limit). Third direction of translation (Z-, along the inscribing beam or perpendicular to sample plane) allows truly 3D structures to be fabricated. The waveguides were characterized in terms of induced refractive index contrast, their dimensions and cross-sections, mode-field profiles, total insertion losses at both 633 nm and 1550 nm. There was almost no dependence on polarization for the laser inscription. The experimental conditions – depth, laser polarization, pulse energy, translation speed and others, were optimized for minimum insertion losses when coupled to a standard optical fibre SMF-28. We found coincidence of our optimal inscription conditions with recently published by other groups [1, 3] despite significant difference in practically all experimental parameters. Using optimum regime for straight waveguides fabrication, we inscribed a set of curvilinear tracks, which were arranged in a way to ensure the same propagation length (and thus losses) and coupling conditions, while radii of curvature varied from 3 to 10 mm. This allowed us to measure bend-losses – they less than or about 1 dB/cm at R=10 mm radius of curvature. We also demonstrate a possibility to fabricate periodical perturbations of the refractive index in such waveguides with the periods using the same set-up. We demonstrated periods of about 520 nm, which allowed us to fabricate wavelength-selective devices using the same set-up. This diversity as well as very short time for inscription (the optimum translation speed was found to be 40 mm/sec) makes our approach attractive for industrial applications, for example, in next generation high-speed telecom networks.


We present an interface for eliciting sets of acceptable gambles on a three-outcome possibility space, discuss an experiment conducted for testing this interface, and present the results of this experiment. Sets of acceptable gambles form a representation for imprecise probabilities that is close to human behavior and eliciting them directly may improve the quality of the resulting uncertainty model. The experiment consisted of a betting competition for the 2014 FIFA World Cup: For each match bets were assigned based on the sets of acceptable gambles elicited from the participants. A new algorithm was designed for generating fair bets for assignment. Participant feedback indicated that improving the usability and transparency of the interface would ease the elicitation procedure. The experiment's results underlined that imprecision is an essential aspect of real-life uncertainty modeling.


In this paper we estimate inflation expectations for several Latin American countries using an affine model that takes as factors the observed inflation and the parameters generated from zero-coupon yield curves of nominal bonds. By implementing this approach, we avoid the use of inflation-linked securities, which are scarce in many of these markets, and obtain market measures of inflation expectations free of any risk premium, eliminating potential biases included in other measures such as breakeven rates. Our method provides several advantages, as we can compute inflation expectations at any horizon and forward rates such as the expected inflation over the five year period that begins five years from today. We find that inflation expectations in the long-run are fairly anchored in Chile and Mexico, while those in Brazil and Colombia are more volatile and less anchored. We also find that expected inflation increases at longer horizons in Brazil and Chile, while it is decreasing in Colombia and Mexico.