A large scale open source solution composed of several open source softwares is now attracting attention as the next-generation software development paradigm because of the cost reduction, quick delivery, and work saving. The testing phase of open source solution means the binding testing and system testing. Generally, it makes no sense to perform the unit testing of open source solution, because the unit testing means the test for open source software. Then, it is very important for software managers to assess the binding status of open source solution. In this paper, we propose a new approach to software performability analysis based on stochastic differential equations in order to consider an interesting aspect of the collision status during the binding-phase of open source softwares in open source solution. Especially, we derive several performability assessment measures from our stochastic differential equation model. Also, we analyze actual software fault-count data to show numerical examples of software performability assessment considering the component collision for several open source softwares. Moreover, we show that the proposed performability analysis can assist improvement of quality for the large scale open source solution.


There is nothing novel about the development of Science Unit Boxes by elementary school teaching candidates. In fact, students enrolled in elementary school science in the Faculty of Education at McGill University are expected to prepare a Science Unit which takes the form of a Materials Box and Resource File. This activity, a major and culminating assignment for the methods course since 1970, involves the preparation of a comprehensive multimaterials supply box as well as an appropriate set of pupil-oriented activities in the form of a conceptual scheme.


Bison (Bison bison) and elk (Cervus elaphus) in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem have long been infected with Brucella abortus. The continued culling of large numbers of Yellowstone bison to reduce the risk of brucellosis transmission to cattle could negatively affect long-term conservation. A desirable management objective is to reduce the level of B. abortus infection while conserving wildlife populations. Identifying the ecological factors that influence immune suppression and vulnerabilityto infection will help initiate effective control measures. Seasonal food restriction during pregnancy has the potential to limit resources available for immune defence and may be an important factor sustaining brucellosis in wild ungulate populations. Consequently, effective management practices will need to include a diverse range of integrated methods, which include maintaining separation of livestock and wildlife, managing habitat to reduce brucellosis transmission, and reducing disease prevalence in wildlife. The long-term success of these management practices will depend on sound science and support of the stakeholders involved.


When combined with cepstral normalisation techniques, the features normally used in Automatic Speech Recognition are based on Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). We show that calculating SNR from the outset, rather than relying on cepstral normalisation to produce it, gives features with a number of practical and mathematical advantages over power-spectral based ones. In a detailed analysis, we derive Maximum Likelihood and Maximum a-Posteriori estimates for SNR based features, and show that they can outperform more conventional ones, especially when subsequently combined with cepstral variance normalisation. We further show anecdotal evidence that SNR based features lend themselves well to noise estimates based on low-energy envelope tracking.


We address the numerical simulation of fluid-structure interaction problems characterized by a strong added-mass effect. We propose a semi-implicit coupling scheme based on an algebraic fractional-step method. The basic idea of a semi-implicit scheme consists in coupling implicitly the added-mass effect, while the other terms (dissipation, convection and geometrical nonlinearities) are treated explicitly. Thanks to this kind of explicit–implicit splitting, computational costs can be reduced (in comparison to fully implicit coupling algorithms) and the scheme remains stable for a wide range of discretization parameters. In this paper we derive this kind of splitting from the algebraic formulation of the coupled fluid-structure problem (after finite-element space discretization). From our knowledge, it is the first time that algebraic fractional step methods, used thus far only for fluid problems in computational domains with rigid boundaries, are applied to fluid-structure problems. In particular, for the specific semi-implicit method presented in this work, we adapt the Yosida scheme to the case of a coupled fluid-structure problem. This scheme relies on an approximate LU block factorization of the matrix obtained after the discretization in time and space of the fluid-structure system. We analyze the numerical performances of this scheme on 2D fluid-structure simulations performed with a simple 1D structure model.


TIn the recent years interest in the application of elastic wave propagation for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of structures has been significantly rising. This results from the fact that this method allows damage to be detected at early stages of its development, before it can endanger the safety of the structure. The idea behind the elastic wave propagation method involves generating elastic waves that would propagate in the investigated structure and registering their amplitudes as a function of time. After encountering discontinuities, waves reflect from them. Wave reflections provide the information on location, size and type of damage, this information is extracted from registered signals by appropriate algorithms. In various modeling and analysis associated with propagation of elastic waves, spectral finite element method is supposed to be most suitable modeling technique out of a variety of numerical methods used nowadays to solve wave propagation-related problems. The spectral finite element method is a relatively new computational technique that basically combines two different numerical techniques that is Spectral methods and the Finite element method. Spectral methods are a special class of techniques employed for solving problems described by partial differential equations numerically. It decreases the computational error exponentially and also guarantees very fast convergence of the solution to exact solutions. The finite element method is employed to solve complex problems from various disciplines of physical sciences described by partial differential equations or integral equations. A characteristic property of the finite element method is discretization of the analyzed area into certain number of smaller sub areas called finite elements, within which one seeks solutions described by approximating polynomials over uniformly spaced nodes. The spectral finite element method is essentially a combination of both mentioned methods; it combines the properties of approximating polynomials of spectral methods and approach to discretizing the analyzed area particular to the finite element method. In this work, a triangular spectral finite element is formulated using Fekete points. The formulation of the elements by Fekete points leads to a diagonal mass matrix, which is a basic requirement in any time-integration scheme. Further, with any triangular elements, the complex geometries may easily be modeled. The developed formulation will be coded in MATLAB. A simple plate structure with possible damages introduced will be analyzed for Lamb wave propagation and the efficiency of the technique will be highlighted.


The U.S. telecommunications industry has come under scrutiny amid concerns that regulatory policies have been too permissive. These concerns are perhaps most prominent in the residential broadband market where there is a perception that the "duopoly" between telephone carriers (DSL suppliers) and cable TV operators (cable modem services) has given rise to anti-competitive behavior. The presence of market power is a testable hypothesis that cannot be deduced solely from market shares or price-cost margins. We develop an economic analysis that incorporates both static and dynamic factors to examine the extant marketplace evidence. The data suggest that "duopoly" broadband providers do not generate supra-competitive returns. Public policies to regulate broadband providers should be informed by these market conditions.


As a general trend, accounts on regional and local herpetofaunas tend to become more and more colourful and extensive, and the classical borders between fieldguide, distribution atlas and handbook are fading. The book reviewed here is a good example for this trend. Edited by Remi Duguet und Frederic Melki for the "Association pour la Connaissance et l'Etude du Monde Animal et Vegetal" (ACEMAV), it summarizes the state of knowledge on the amphibians of France, Luxembourg and Belgium. Thereby it bridges a very important gap, because no comprehensive account on this region was so far available – despite its "batrachophilic" character, expressed in the yearly import of over 2970 tons of frog limbs to France, 2100 t to Belgium and 34 t to Luxembourg for consumption. These detailed figures (referring to 1999) exemplify the high density of detailed and original data that are woven into the text by the 18 authors who contributed to the book. The first 200 pages are devoted to introduce amphibians and place them into the context of the animal kingdom (chapter 1) and to discuss the basic patterns of their biology (chapter 2), biogeography and ecology (chapter 3) as well as their relationships to human culture and society (chapter 4). These chapters have an ample perspective, illustrating, for instance, representatives of many tropical amphibian families to be able to sort the European taxa into a world-wide context. Many aspects of the biology and behaviour of European amphibian species are documented photographically, and the same is true for many of the regionally typical habitats. All species are allocated to different biogeographic clusters depending on their distribution pattern, and much effort is devoted to discussing the possible geological and climatic explanations of these patterns. Amphibian conservation is another focus, and the many detailed reports of regional conservation measures are especially interesting. Precise instructions are given to carry out successful amphibian conservation measures, and state-of-the-art methods for inventorization, mapping and monitoring of these animals are described. The latter bears relevance because previous efforts of herpetofaunal mapping in France have heavily been criticized by part of the scientific community because of their presumably too uncritical approach.


This collection charts the rise of commercial sponsorship in the arts, sports, health and education in the British context.  It begins from the establishment of the welfare state and traces the development of commercial sponsorship in sports and the later encouragement of 'patronage' in the arts.  It identifies a distinction between patronage and sponsorship and investigates how, with the governments of Thatcher and Blair, private sponsorship increased to the point that it became an integral part of government finance, a position that has solidified under the coalition government of Cameron.  The book argues that commercial sponsorship was the Trojan horse that ushered in a politics which allowed for the privatization of public services


1.The isolated chloroplasts from Stellaria media show a progressive fall in activity approaching zero in 3-6 hr. Four different strains of the plant were grown which showed differences in the stability of chloroplasts after removal. 2. Two methods have been used to measure the activity of chloroplasts: (a) The measurement with HbO2 of oxygen produced from ferric potassium oxalate as previously described. (b) The measurement of the rate of reduction of methaemoglobin in presence of atmospheric oxygen, the methaemoglobin being reduced by the ferrous iron. 3. The Qo2, measured as rate of oxygen production calculated on the basis of dry weight of leaf taken, is about 20. The Qo2, measured as rate of methaemoglobin reduction, generally appeared less as the reduction of methaemoglobin by ferrous iron is relatively slow. 4. The reduction of methaemoglobin in presence of ferric potassium oxalate has been studied quantitatively from the point of view of iron, methaemoglobin, and chloroplast concentration. 5. The effect of different light intensities on the ferric oxalate reaction is similar to the effect of varying light intensity on photosynthesis in whole plants and lies within the range of values found by different workers. 6. The ferric oxalate reaction is inhibited by urethane. Phenyl urethane inhibits in much smaller concentrations than ethyl urethane. The effective concentrations of urethane are similar to those affecting photosynthesis. 7. It is concluded from the present observations that the light reaction in vegetable photosynthesis is the production of the oxygen molecule and is not the reduction of carbon dioxide.


Wh-dependencies are known to be formed rapidly in real-time comprehension. The parser posits the location of gap sites in advance of the bottom-up evidence for missing constituents, and must therefore have a means of deciding when and where to project dependencies. Previous studies have observed that the parser avoids building ungrammatical wh-dependencies, for example, by restricting the search for gap sites from island domains. This paper tests the stronger claim that constraints are not merely respected, but that grammatical knowledge actively prompts the construction of some representations in advance of the input. Three self-paced reading experiments examined patterns of wh-dependency formation in multiple-dependency constructions: obligatory across-the-board (ATB) extraction from coordinated verb phrases, and from optional parasitic gaps in post-verbal adjunct clauses. The key finding is that comprehenders immediately enforce the requirement for extraction from coordinates, and hence actively search for multiple gap sites within a coordinate VP; but they do not search for post-verbal parasitic gaps. This difference cannot be attributed to relative differences in acceptability, as comprehenders rated both of these multiple-gap constructions equally highly, nor can it be explained by general parsing incentives to develop maximal incremental interpretations of partial strings. More plausibly, the difference reflects the deployment of detailed grammatical knowledge in a parser that is motivated to satisfy structural licensing requirements in real time.


We estimate inflation expectations and inflation risk premia using inflation forecasts from Consensus Economics and Australian inflation-indexed bond price data. Inflation-indexed bond prices are assumed to be non-linear functions of latent factors, which we model via an affine term structure model. We solve the model using a non-linear Kalman filter. While our results should not be interpreted too precisely due to data limitations and model complexity, they nonetheless suggest that long-term inflation expectations are well anchored within the 2 to 3 per cent inflation target range, while short-run inflation expectations are more volatile and more closely follow contemporaneous inflation. Further, while long-term inflation expectations are generally stable, inflation risk premia are much more volatile. This highlights the potential benefits of our measures over break-even measures of inflation which include both components.


The effective integration of competencies in university programmes follows a holistic and diversified assessment model and the educational potential development of students' assessment results. This work questions: how are students informed about the results of their learning? Specifically, it aims to understand students' and professors' perspectives about the use of learning results and the strategies that are promoted in the practice of improved use of their educational potential. The results described are derived from a case study on 12 degree graduates adapted to the EEES. Although feedback and the feedfoward are strategies for informing students about their learning results, the results of the study show that their use is not entirely generalised and frequently only inform the grades obtained. Students identify the difference between knowing the grade and obtaining feedback. The relational dimension is also valued positively when students are informed about the results of their assessment. However, it seems that use of the educational potential is pending. The students say that the tutorials and the follow up through continual assessment helps to reduce failure. Also, the faculty identifies that reflection about the results obtained is very much linked to metacognitive reflection, although it is not generalised in practice. The students recognise the limitations and the work load involved for the professor to individually monitor them. The study is concluded with the need for systematically incorporating feedback and feedforward in teaching practices and offers guidelines for orienting these strategies towards improving academic performance.


The Semantic Web was designed to unambiguously define and use ontologies to encode data and knowledge on the Web. Many people find it difficult, however, to write complex RDF statements and queries because it requires familiarity with the appropriate ontologies and the terms they define. We describe a framework that eases the experiences in authoring and querying RDF data, in which we focus on automatically finding a set of appropriate Semantic Web ontology terms from a set of words used as the labels of nodes and edges in an incoming semantic graph.


This article provides a detailed and rigorous analysis of the two commonly used methods for redundancy reduction: linear independent component analysis (ICA) posed as a direct minimization of a suitably chosen redundancy measure and information maximization (InfoMax) of a continuous stochastic signal transmitted through an appropriate nonlinear network. The article shows analytically that ICA based on the Kullback-Leibler information as a redundancy measure and InfoMax lead to the same solution if the parameterization of the output nonlinear functions in the latter method is sufficiently rich. Furthermore, this work discusses the alternative redundancy measures not based on the Kullback-Leibler information distance. The practical issues of applying ICA and InfoMax are also discussed and illustrated on the problem of extracting statistically independent factors from a linear, pixel-by-pixel mixture of images.


The present article deals on modernization with programmes in public libraries with reference to Tamil Nadu. Modernization is a course that a library constantly applies to new technology by taking the computer as the core to replace manual operations so that it can meet the needs of society and serve better. Mechanization of library activities like acquisition, classification, cataloging circulation, maintenance and information retrieval which are labour intensive could be operated through computers. This study covers all the 30 district central libraries. Data has been collected both from primary and secondary sources. A sample of 300 users has been selected at the rate of 10 from each library on the basis of random sampling method. A structured, close-ended questionnaire was used in addition to interview technique and informal talk with users of library for the collection of first hand information. Simple statistical tools such as average, percentages, table's diagrams, trend and compound growth rate and chi square test are used for analysis and interpretation of the data collected.


This paper supplies a compact synthesis of the empirical literature on misconceptions of and misinformation about decision-relevant science. The incidence and impact of misconceptions and misperceptions, the article argues, are highly conditional on identity protective cognition. Identity protective cognition refers to the tendency of culturally diverse individuals to selectively credit and dismiss evidence in patterns that reflect the beliefs that predominate in their group. On issues that provoke identity-protective cognition, the members of the public most adept at avoiding misconceptions of science are nevertheless the most culturally polarized. Individuals are also more likely to accept misinformation and resist the correction of it when that misinformation is identity-affirming rather than identity-threatening. Effectively counteracting these dynamics, the paper argues, requires more than simply supplying citizens with correct information. It demands in addition the protection of the science communication environment from toxic social meanings that fuse competing understandings of fact with diverse citizens' cultural identities.


Extensive efforts have been made to maximize the potential of children with disabilities in Oman. The establishment of Al-Wafaa centers of disabilities served as a channel to help families secure a variety of services provided to children with different disabling conditions. The purpose of this study was to explore the burnout of staff working in the disability centers in Oman. A related purpose was to compare their burnout levels in relation to the type of disability (intellectual disability and hearing impairment) and years of experience (1-5 years, 6-10 years, and above 10 years). Also, the study explored the association between burnout and work stress. The participants were 81 female staff in the disability centers from different areas. The participants completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Teacher Occupational Stress Factor Questionnaire (TOSFQ). The results of the study showed that disability centers staff had a moderate level in both emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment while they had a high level of depersonalization. The Kruskall Wallis test showed a significant effect of the experience level in the depersonalization subscale, χ 2 (2, N = 81) = 6.07, p = 0.048. Post-hoc analyses using the Mann-Whitney test indicated that staff with the experience level (6-10 years) had a higher depersonalization level than the experience level (above 10 years). The results also indicated that a significant relationship was found between burnout and work stress. The results of the study are discussed in relation to the early intervention services provided to children with disabilities and how the study variables relate to the policy and practice in the disability centers in Oman.


Consider a prediction market of multiple rounds with a security contingent on a certain event whose final outcome is decided by the agents who also trade in the market. One such prediction market is one in which two agents, Alice and Bob, are trading on the likelihood of a project both are working on complete. Prior research either only considers the expected rewards in the prediction market or if external incentives are present, then only a low number of rounds in the prediction market, to our knowledge at most 2. In addition, the existing literature assumes that when external incentives exist, there is no net difference between the cost of different actions agents may take outside of the prediction market. For example, it is the same cost for either Alice to work hard to complete the project as it is for her to "loaf" and not work hard. In this work we consider a 2-round round setting in which agents' cost of external actions differ. We show that when external action costs differ but are within a proper range, a prediction market is incentive compatible regardless of the initial market estimate, something that currently is not shown in the existing literature.


For more than a decade scholars have understood that Ezra Pound employed mystical concepts of love in his writing of The Cantos. In Ezra Pound and the Mysteries of Love, Akiko Miyake furthers this understanding by looking at The Cantos as a major work in the Christian mystic religious tradition. The author uncovers, in the five volumes of Gabriel Dante Rossetti's Il mistero dell'amor platonico del medio evo, the crucial link between The Cantos and the traditions of mystical love established by the ancient Greeks at Eleusis and borrowed by the late medieval Italian and Provencal poets. Drawing upon this key five-volume work, as well as comprehensive research in both primary and secondary sources, Miyake brings the partial perceptions of other critics and commentators into an illuminating whole. Disclosing the deliberateness of The Cantos, Miyake provides new insight into Pound's sense of culture and into the nature of his Confucianism. She sheds light on the disastrous path Pound followed into Fascism and anti-Semitism, and, in contrast to the image of a "pagan" Pound that has emerged in recent years, reveals a poet writing as a Christian from within the Christian mythical tradition.


Experimental measurements are presented to demonstrate the isolator capabilities of a new class of magnetooptic materials called dilute magnetic semiconductors. The specific sample used is Cd0.55Mn0.45Te, and it is shown to exhibit significantly better performance than other magnetooptic materials available for use at wavelengths shorter than 1.0 μm.


Abstract Shrews (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) are particularly vulnerable to mortality associated with small-mammal livetrapping. We compiled data on mortality rates and protocols from 16 different small-mammal studies and analyzed 16 years of livetrapping data from a single study in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario to assess factors affecting shrew mortality. In the comparison across studies, accidental mortality ranged from 10% to 93%. Mortality was lower in studies conducted in locations and at times of year with warmer average temperatures. We found no differences in mortality among bait and trap types across these 16 studies. In our intrastudy analysis from Algonquin Park, Sorex spp. experienced high mortality (81%) regardless of environmental conditions. In contrast, northern short-tailed shrews had low overall mortality (13%), but mortality increased on rainy nights and on colder nights when overnight temperatures dropped below 10°C. Comparisons between 2 trapping protocols within Algonquin Park suggested that both Blarina brevicauda and Sorex sp. experienced higher mortality in Sherman compared with Longworth traps, but these effects were confounded by other differences in methodology between studies. Although we found evidence consistent with some shrew mortality being caused by caloric constraints, experimental studies on bait supplements are necessary to test whether providing high-calorie baits is an efficient method to reduce the widespread shrew mortality that occurs in small-mammal livetrapping studies.


Contact to dimethyl hydrazine (DMH) or disclosure to gamma radioactivity brings group of responsive oxygen classes (ROC) particularly radical of peroxyl group (ROO•) and radical of hydroxyl group (•OH), which is able to initiate the peroxidation of lipids. The demonstration of early study shows the possibility of extraction therapeutically. Edible plants like Zingiber, Loranthus europeaus, dactylifera, have an important characteristic action called "antioxidant" which is counted as a radical searcher. This study inspected the shielding DMH which lead to cause the peroxidation of lipids by means of brain mitochondria and liver of rats as perfect organisms. The outcomes shows the therapeutic plant excerpts potentially reserved thio-acid and the hydroperoxides of the lipids as active ingredients which demonstrate the effect of the protection of membranes. We conclude that the deep protection consequences due to the outcomes of Zingiber officinale, Citrus aurantifolis, Phoenix dactylifera, Loranthus europeaus in contradiction of the peroxidation of the lipids through two main methods of ROC accomplished of making this kind of harm in a main organelle, the mitochondria as of both rat brain and liver. It also leads to the possibility of using these plants for health benefits.


This paper considers three-dimensional prismatoids which can be embedded in R. A subclass of this family are twisted prisms, which includes the family of non-triangulable Schönhardt polyhedra [12, 10]. We call a prismatoid decomposable if it can be cut into two smaller prismatoids (which have smaller volumes) without using additional points. Otherwise it is indecomposable. The indecomposable property implies the non-triangulable property of a prismatoid but not vice versa. In this paper we prove two basic facts about the decomposability of embedded prismatoid in R with convex bases. Let P be such a prismatoid, call an edge interior edge of P if its both endpoints are vertices of P and its interior lies inside P . Our first result is a condition to characterise indecomposable twisted prisms. It states that a twisted prism is indecomposable without additional points if and only if it allows no interior edge. Our second result shows that any embedded prismatoid in R with convex base polygons can be decomposed into the union of two sets (one of them may be empty): a set of tetrahedra and a set of indecomposable twisted prisms, such that all elements in these two sets have disjoint interiors.


We study the link between underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) and index excess returns in secondary markets. We use a theoretical model to argue that underpricing of IPOs raises investors' attention and, thereby, triggers investments in secondary markets. Our theoretical model implies that such investments should give rise to positive index excess returns in secondary markets. The results of our empirical tests, based on a dataset of stocks from the Neuer Markt and the Nouveau Marche, are in line with the implication of our theoretical model.


We frame the exercise of control through social media not as power-over or oppression, but in its broader sense, as purposive influence toward a predetermined goal. We focus on one growing channel of control; social media use for official communication between government agencies and the public. This paper introduces a framework for analyzing social media use and interaction between government agencies and the public, focusing on a comparative analysis of two consumer protections agencies; one, the Konsumentverket in Sweden, the second, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the US. Contrasting the efficacy and practices associated with social media as a communication tool for citizens and their governments in different societies may lead to important insights regarding local and global applications of new media. The proposed framework is grounded in the concept of active co-construction of reality via Giddens structuration theory, as expanded on by Orlikowski. While this provides a useful lens for understanding the construction of government and public interaction, it does not provide a methodology for examining the discourse in action. To do this we embed critical discourse analysis in structuration theory and use algorithms and methods from social media research (group informatics and TwitterZombie) to collect data and identify social networks. The analysis includes examinations of the written policy as well as the discourse or text published via Twitter and Facebook. In this paper we present our synthesis of structuration theory, computational social science and social media research that emerges from our dozens of empirical studies in these domains over the past seven years. We introduce the resulting approach to the study of technologies of control as a proposed foundation for future empirical work designed to validate the proposed methodology. Future work will implement the methodology and ask how social media is being used to help government agencies achieve their goals.


This is the official Open Group Pocket Guide for TOGAF Version 9.1 and is published in hard copy and electronic format by Van Haren Publishing on behalf of The Open Group. TOGAF, an Open Group Standard, is a proven enterprise architecture methodology and framework used by the world s leading organizations to improve business efficiency. It is the most prominent and reliable enterprise architecture standard, ensuring consistent standards, methods, and communication among enterprise architecture professionals. Enterprise architecture professionals fluent in TOGAF standards enjoy greater industry credibility, job effectiveness, and career opportunities. TOGAF helps practitioners avoid being locked into proprietary methods, utilize resources more efficiently and effectively, and realize a greater return on investment.


Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) was the first eukaryote to have its full genome sequenced, which makes it one of the longest studied genomes. The scientific community has established that S. cerevisiae is a useful model in the study of human diseases due to the homology that exists in numerous human and yeast genes. Yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) have been developed that contain inserts of human DNA. These YACs can be used to study the mechanisms that cause DNA fragility in humans by placing a known human fragile site within a YAC. Though it is useful to study human DNA inserted into yeast to monitor the inherent fragility of the sequence, studying the nature of native yeast fragile sites may have benefits as well. The types of native fragile sites in Saccharomyces cerevisiae include Mec1 mutant, hydroxyurea, palindromic, ty-element, and Pol1 mutant induced fragile sites. Many of the mechanisms of yeast DNA fragility are similar to those of human DNA. The purpose of this review is to compare and contrast the mechanisms of fragility in S. cerevisiae and human DNA. Though human and yeast fragile sites are not always caused by similar means, with further study of the native fragile sites in S. cerevisiae, more similarities may be found that can give further insight into the human fragile sites and diseases caused by them. 1 Murphy: Review of Native Fragile Sites in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Published by DigitalCommons@EMU,


This contribution starts out by noting a conflict of interest between consumers and insurers. Consumers face positive correlation in their assets (health, wealth, wisdom, i.e. skills), causing them to demand a great deal of insurance coverage. Insurers on the other hand eschew positively correlated risks. It can be shown that insurance contributes to a reduction of their asset volatility only if unexpected deviations of payments from expected value correlate negatively across lines of insurance. Analyzing deviations from trend in aggregate insurance payments, one finds the following for the United States and Switzerland. Private U.S. but not Swiss insurance has a hedging effect for consumers, while both social insurance schemes expose consumers to excess asset volatility. In the insurance systems of both countries, the private component fails to offset deviations in the social component (and vice versa). As to the supply of insurance, cointegration analysis indicates the absence of common trends. Therefore, insurance companies could offer combined policies to the benefit of consumers, hedging their underwriting risks both domestically and internationally.


© Biochemical Society. Life on earth began some 4 billion years ago, but then got stuck at the level of bacteria for more than 2 billion years. The complex 'eukaryotic' cell arose abruptly in a singular event around 1.5-2 billion years ago. All eukaryotes share a long list of complex traits, from the nucleus to sex and senescence, which are all but unknown in bacteria. Why are humans so similar to mushrooms at the level of cells, even though we live so differently? Why did evolution follow such a peculiar trajectory? The answers might lie in the equally strange mechanism by which all cells generate ATP: chemiosmotic coupling.


In our analysis of the protective actions of the novel homeopathic agent AEURA we have 1) investigated the capacity of AEURA to show antiviral effects using virally infected PC12 cells (a neuronal model system) and we have 2) analyzed the effect of AEURA in preventing cell death caused by high extracellular glutamate or by hypoxia/re-oxygenation exposure. AEURA treatment was found to significantly decrease the cell death caused by HSV-1 infection. Similarly, when cells were infected with rhinovirus (the viral agent responsible for the common cold), treatment with AEURA significantly increased cell survival back to control uninfected levels. Under conditions that elicit cell death caused either by glutamate excitotoxicity or by hypoxia/ re-oxygenation it was found that pretreatment with AEURA elicited high level protection against both forms of cell stress and increased cell viability back to the levels of healthy control cells.


Laboratory tests on a new modular inverter using an application-specific integrated circuit are discussed. The inverter design is optimised for Ascom's large-scale telecom production facilities. The ASIC is developed by means of sophisticated simulation tools and is the key controlling unit in the design. The electrical properties of the inverter, such as efficiency of power conversion, quality of delivered energy and behaviour of a large number of inverters in parallel are tested by the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN). Special attention is paid to the behaviour of inverters in parallel in relation to harmonic distortion, to estimate the effect of large-scale PV integration. This design process resulted in a rapid adaptation to market demands for a new low-cost inverter and brought the final user price below one €/W and the warranty period to ten-years. Keywords: Qualification and Testing - 1: Small Grid-connected PV Systems - 2: Inverter - 3


This research considers ideas about local knowledge and place for firefighters during a bushfire. In 2012, we interviewed 68 Australian bushfire firefighters from selected agencies and volunteer brigades in diverse localities. The findings from the interviews indicate local knowledge can help firefighters to navigate tracks and understand fire behaviour in familiar landscapes. At the same time, they can experience a heightened awareness of the fire on local people and valued assets. This sets up a 'responsibility for place', which can both mediate actions during the fire and increase risk to the firefighters involved. A distant fire can present many unknowns and potential hazards for deployed firefighters because they do not have local knowledge. This disconnect can mean they are more cautious in negotiating unfamiliar surrounds and awaiting orders. We find that although local knowledge can assist firefighters, it highlights the complexity of decision-making during a fire that can make it more hazardous for local firefighters. This research contributes to firefighter training by exploring how local knowledge associated with landscape and community can dominate decision-making in practice.


Despite a relatively long history of scientific interest fuelled by exploratory research cruises, the UK deep sea has only recently emerged as the subject of targeted and proactive conservation. Enabling legislation over the past 10 years has resulted in the designation of marine protected areas and the implementation of fisheries management areas as spatial conservation tools. This paper reflects on progress and lessons learned, recommending actions for the future. Increased investment has been made to improve the evidence base for deep‐sea conservation, including collaborative research surveys and use of emerging technologies. New open data portals and developments in marine habitat classification systems have been two notable steps to furthering understanding of deep‐sea biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in support of conservation action. There are still extensive gaps in fundamental knowledge of deep‐sea ecosystems and of cause and effect. Costs of new technologies and a limited ability to share data in a timely and efficient manner across sectors are barriers to furthering understanding. In addition, whilst the concepts of natural capital and ecosystem services are considered a useful tool to support the achievement of conservation goals, practical application is challenging. Continued collaborative research efforts and engagement with industry to share knowledge and resources could offer cost‐effective solutions to some of these barriers. Further elaboration of the concepts of natural capital and ecosystem services will aid understanding of the costs and benefits associated with human–environment interactions and support informed decision‐making in conserving the deep sea. Whilst multiple challenges arise for deep‐sea conservation, it is critical to continue ongoing conservation efforts, including exploration and collaboration, and to adopt new conservation strategies that are implemented in a systematic and holistic way and to ensure that these are adaptive to growing economic interest in this marine area.


Knowledge-based environmental education has been consistently found to be limited in its effectiveness due to its small and indirect role in promoting sustainable behavior, while focusing on the impact of social context has been found to be more conceptually relevant. Transformative learning theory is positioned to be foundational to environmental education based on its increasing focus on promoting social activism through personal transformations. We suggest four criteria in the development of an effective transformative environmental education methodology. Methodologies should (1) focus on change and not just knowledge attainment, (2) reveal behaviors in a real-world context, (3) highlight internal and external influences on environmental behavior, and (4) include a problem-solving approach that demands a solution. Role-play simulations addresses these criteria and can influence the perspective change necessary to promote sustainable behavior. We provide one example of this methodology and discuss its potential merits in fostering transformative learning in adult environmental education.


We examine how observations and art activities mediate what elementary school children learn in science. We compare results from six different settings in which the children were involved in observing and depicting fish with texts and illustrations using various resources. In three of the settings the aim was scientific, and in the remaining three artistic. The data has been analysed in the light of pragmatist theories and socio-cultural perspectives (a practical epistemology analysis). The results show that different resources afforded the children to observe certain qualities and disregard others. In both the science and art classes the children learned about aesthetics, which involved moral considerations.


Smart metering is an essential part of the future smart grid but causes privacy issues by collecting sensitive data from households with a high temporal resolution. Peer-based privacy mechanisms can solve this problem through privacy-aware aggregation. The SMART algorithm, originally proposed for wireless sensor networks, is a lightweight approach to this problem. In this paper, we propose to adapt the ideas of SMART for privacy-aware smart metering. However, our simulation results show, that accuracy suffers in the presence of communication errors especially in large networks. Therefore, we designed SMART-ER, an improved version of SMART. It utilizes dependency tracking and grouping to provide exact and robust smart metering even in the presence of communication errors. We show, that SMART-ER provides significantly more accurate results in typical churn scenarios.


In this thesis I start by reviewing the theoretical perspectives that have informed the debate around equality rights for gays and lesbians. Next, I will analyze the concept of equality developed by the Supreme Court of Canada under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the Andrews case, decided in 1989, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected a model based on formal equality, embracing instead the far-reaching concept of substantive equality as a way to redress historical prejudice and disadvantage of individuals and groups that fall within enumerated or analogous grounds of discrimination. In the last decade, a number of courts have applied this model to equality claims brought under the Charter by same-sex couples. I will explore the details of several of these cases as well as a variety of statutes relating to same-sex couples. Finally, I will discuss recent law reform proposals that recommend that state benefits should be allocated regardless of the relationship status of the beneficiaries, thereby envisaging more radical changes to the legal system. I conclude that the Canadian approach to equality for same-sex couples has followed an interpretive method that seems to apply a definition of family that is shifting and varies on an ad hoc basis, but that the denial of spousal status under marriage laws represents a limitation of equality rights still to be overcome. I also conclude that, in fact, the concept of status may still influence the adjudication process under section 15 of the Charter as far as marriage rights are concerned. This is because the framework of analysis under section 15 calls for an assessment of the claimant's position in the larger socio-political context, and this element, if not properly circumscribed, risks being corrupted by existing prejudices and biases relating to family.


Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board's recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or …


Across many subject disciplines, video and audio data are recorded in order to document processes, procedures or interactions. These video and audio data are consequently analysed using a number of techniques, in order to try and make sense of what was happening at the time of the recording, sometimes in relation to initial hypotheses or sometimes in terms of a "post hoc" analysis where a more grounded approach is used. This paper contains an overview of tools and techniques for examining video data and looks at potential new methods borrowed from the field of learning analytics, related to discourse analysis. Discourse analysis, where conversations and the spoken word are explored and dissected in detail, can provide us with information about the learning context and the ways in which learners interact with people and other resources in their environment.


OBJECTIVE
To test the hypothesis that a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain measures obtained during early childhood distinguish children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from typically developing children and is associated with functional outcome.

METHOD
Quantitative MRI technology was used to measure gray and white matter volumes (cerebrum and cerebellum), total brain volume, and the area of the cerebellar vermis in 52 boys with a provisional diagnosis of autism (aged 1.9-5.2 years) and 15 typically developing young children (aged 1.7-5.2 years). Diagnostic confirmation and cognitive outcome data were obtained after the children reached 5 years of age.

RESULTS
A discriminant function analysis of the MRI brain measures correctly classified 95.8% of the ASD cases and 92.3% of the control cases. This set of variables also correctly classified 85% of the ASD cases as lower functioning and 68% of the ASD cases as higher functioning.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that variability in cerebellar and cerebral size is correlated with diagnostic and functional outcome in very young children with ASD.


Many problems in data management center on relating values to values in other observations, either within a dataset as a whole or within groups such as panels. This column reviews some basic Stata techniques helpful for such tasks, including the use of subscripts, summarize, by:, sum(), cond(), and egen. Several techniques exploit the fact that logical expressions yield 1 when true and 0 when false. Dividing by zero to yield missings is revealed as a surprisingly valuable device.


Aim: To explore district nurses' experiences of information received from the employer and communicated to patients in the context of the pandemic A (H1N1). Background: Dissemination of oral and written information in pandemics is essential to limit the spread of infection and public concern. Information is channeled via various authorities and health care centers, where district nurses often provide information directly to patients. Method: Transcribed semi structured interviews with 21 district nurses in Region Skåne were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The district nurses experienced shortfalls in the information communicated from the employer and that the relevant information was often preceded by public media. This made it problematic to provide information concerning pandemic A(H1N1) in a professional manner, as well as to mediate safety and credibility. During the pandemic the district nurses simultaneously sought information from websites, popular science magazines and other public media. The nurses did however express an understanding of the difficulty in this unique situation and have a positive outlook on the use of the intranet for dissemination of information. Conclusion: It is important that district nurses receive prompt and precise information from their employer in a pandemic to facilitate the patients' information needs in credible manner.


Contemporary discussions of English Romantic philosophers and their theories often include such names as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Thomas DeQuincey, and Charles Lamb, but rarely do they treat of George Gordon, Lord Byron. While Byron's reputation was not built upon complex philosophical explications of literary theory, the passion of his life did not preclude that of his mind. He has left us with no overtly philosophical work, and yet, many of the digressions in Don Juan are directed at the poets and philosophers of his time and some others seem to point us to a coherent system of thought about literature and how it works. Specifically, Juan's voyage at sea contains several passages which parody Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Some of these similarities have been explored, but are frequently treated as if Byron were simply creating a pastiche of contemporary literature. However, Coleridge had used the Rime to elucidate a portion of his understanding of how literature works. It seems possible that Byron is purposely answering Coleridge in the second canto of Don Juan. Thus, we may be able to use Byron's natural imagery and poetic technique to piece together a philosophical statement from that most unphilosophical of Romantics, Lord Byron.


Menus play an important role in both information presentation and system control. We explore the design space of shake menus, which are intended for use in tangible augmented reality. Shake menus are radial menus displayed centered on a physical object and activated by shaking that object. One important aspect of their design space is the coordinate system used to present menu options. We conducted a within-subjects user study to compare the speed and efficacy of several alternative methods for presenting shake menus in augmented reality (world-referenced, display-referenced, and object-referenced), along with a baseline technique (a linear menu on a clipboard). Our findings suggest tradeoffs amongst speed, efficacy, and flexibility of interaction, and point towards the possible advantages of hybrid approaches that compose together transformations in different coordinate systems. We close by describing qualitative feedback from use and present several illustrative applications of the technique.


The emergence of social networking sites (SNSs) has led to marked shifts in the ways that individuals communicate, share, and acquire information. Present-day adolescents are the first generation to grow up with these technologies and are among the most frequent users (Shapiro & Margolin, 2014). Although the technological landscape continues to evolve, the impact it has on aspects of adolescent development remains poorly understood. This study examined the possible relationship between SNS use and perceptions of social connectedness and friendship quality in a sample of Canadian and American adolescents. A self-report questionnaire developed by the author was utilized to examine the ways participants use SNSs. The Social Connectedness Scale (Lee, Draper, & Lee, 2001) and a modified version of this scale were used to measure offline and online social connectedness. The Friendship Quality Scale (FQS; Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994) and a modified version of this scale were used to measure aspects of offline and online friendship quality. The results showed a nonsignificant relationship between the amount of time adolescents spent on SNSs for both friendship quality and social connectedness. The ways that adolescents used SNSs (e.g., for communication or non-communication purposes) were also found to be nonsignificant in their relation to friendship quality and social connectedness. These results are likely due to the variability in the ways that participants spent their time online as well as the overlap between offline and online domains. The finding that using SNSs for communication purposes did not impact friendship quality or social connectedness is likely due to the changing nature of SNSs, which facilitates visually-based information sharing and can result in superficial communication. Limitations of the study and future directions are discussed.


Objective: The aim of this study was to determine if thumb motor performance metrics varied by movement orientation, direction, and device size during single-handed use of a mobile phone device. Background: With the increased use of mobile phones, understanding how design factors affect and improve performance can provide better design guidelines. Method: A repeated measures laboratory experiment of 20 right-handed participants measured the thumb tip's 3-D position relative to a phone during reciprocal tapping tasks across four phone designs and four thumb tip movement orientations. Each movement orientation included two movement directions: an "outward" direction consisting in CMC (carpometacarpal) joint flexion or abduction movements and an "inward" direction consisting in CMC joint extension or adduction movements. Calculated metrics of the thumb's motor performance were Fitts' effective width and index of performance. Results: Index of performance varied significantly across phones, with performance being generally better for the smaller devices. Performance was also significantly higher for adduction–abduction movement orientations compared to flexion–extension, and for "outward" compared to "inward" movement directions. Conclusion: For single-handed device use, adduction–abduction-type movements on smaller phones lead to better thumb performance. Application: The results from this study can be used to design new mobile phone devices and keypad interfaces that optimize specific thumb motions to improve the user-interface experience during single-handed use.


Orthogonal time frequency and space (OTFS) modulation is a pulse-shaped Gabor signaling scheme with additional time-frequency (TF) spreading using the symplectic finite Fourier transform (SFFT). With a sufficient amount of accurate channel information and sophisticated equalizers, it promises performance gains in terms of robustness for high mobility users. To fully exploit diversity in OTFS, the 2D-deconvolution implemented by a linear equalizer should approximately invert the doubly dispersive channel operation, which however is a twisted convolution. In theory, this is achieved in a first step by matching the TF grid and the Gabor synthesis and analysis pulses to the delay and Doppler spread of the channel. However, in practice, one always has to balance between supporting high granularity in delay-Doppler (DD) spread, and multi-user and network aspects. In this paper, we propose mobility modes with distinct grid and pulse matching for different doubly dispersive channels. To account for remaining self-interference, we tune the minimum mean square error (MMSE) linear equalizer without the need of estimating channel cross-talk coefficients. We evaluate our approach with the QuaDRiGa channel simulator and with OTFS transceiver architecture based on a polyphase implementation for orthogonalized Gaussian pulses. In addition, we compare OTFS to a IEEE 802.11p compliant design of cyclic prefix (CP) based orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Our results indicate that with an appropriate mobility mode, the potential OTFS gains can be indeed achieved with linear equalizers to significantly outperform OFDM.


We analyse the combined effect of political violence and adverse climatic shocks on child nutrition. Instrumental variable models using longitudinal data from Andhra Pradesh, India, yield two key results: (i) drought has an adverse effect on child nutrition in Andhra Pradesh only in violence-affected communities, and (ii) political violence has large negative effects on child nutrition through a reduction of the ability of households to cope with drought. FE-2SLS results are complemented by the use of a unique natural experiment created by a ceasefire in 2004. Results show that the eight months ceasefire period reversed the adverse effects of drought in communities previously affected by the conflict. Potential mechanisms explaining the strong joint welfare effect of conflict and drought are the failure of economic coping strategies in areas of violence and restricted access to public goods and services.


This study compares the effectiveness of five crop insurance/disaster assistance plans: an individual farm-yield insurance plan similar to the current Federal Crop Insurance Corporation multiperil program, two area-yield insurance plans, a farm-yield disaster assistance plan, and an area-yield disaster assistance plan. These methods are examined for reduction in yield and gross income variability with and without participation in the government deficiency payment program using farm-level yield data from 98 dryland wheat farms and 38 dryland corn farms in Kansas. Although individual farm-yield insurance is complex, suffers from moral hazard and adverse selection problems, and is likely to be the most expensive to administer, it provides more yield and gross income risk reduction than any of the alternative insurance/disaster assistance plans.


Purpose: The Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI) calls pharmacists to more direct patient care and increased responsibility for medication-related outcomes, as a means of achieving greater safety, improving outcomes and reducing costs. This article acknowledges the value of interprofessional collaboration to the PPMI and identifies the implications of the Initiative for space design and technology, both of which stand to help the Initiative gather additional support. Summary: The profession of pharmacy has for some time now become increasingly vocal about its desire to take on greater responsibility for patient outcomes. With drug costs representing the largest portion of a hospital's pharmacy budget and reimbursements becoming more contingent on readmission avoidance, the pharmacy's influence on a hospital's bottom line is significant. More importantly, study after study is showing that with greater pharmacist intervention, patient outcomes improve. This article addresses the ways in which developments in the fields of technology and facility design can assist in the deployment of the PPMI. Conclusion: As the PPMI achieves a critical level of support from inside and outside the pharmacy, and more empirical research emerges regarding the improved outcomes and cost savings of increasing the roles of both clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, the industry sectors of healthcare technology and healthcare design stand ready to assist in the execution of this new model. By encouraging pharmacists, doctors and nurses to work together – and all caregivers to work with facility designers, biomedical engineers and IT specialists, there is the increased likelihood of these fields turning to each other to problem-solve together, all for the ultimate benefit to patients and their families.


Schisandra (Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill) is an important medicinal herb in China, which is mainly used for treatment of insomnia and memory decay. In September 2010, rot was observed on approximately 5% of the fruits during ripening of schisandra in several orchards at Linjiang City and Ji'an City, Jilin Province. Watery spots on infected fruits of schisandra appeared at the end of ripening, and then the fruits darkened in color, shrunk, and turned soft. The surface of the lesions became covered with masses of blue-green mycelium, conidiophores, and conidia under high humidity. To isolate the causal agent, conidia and conidiophores were suspended in sterile water and streaked onto the surface of potato dextrose agar (PDA). Single hyphal tips were then transferred to new PDA plates to be purified. The isolates were then cultured on CYA (Czapek yeast extract agar) and two kinds of strains (wwzqm1 and wwzqm2) were established based on differential growth rate, microscopic features, and colony color. Pathogenicity of each strain was tested on 25 healthy mature fruits of schisandra cv. Red Pearl by inoculating the fruit surface with a 15 μl conidial suspension (106 conidia/ml). Control fruits were treated with sterile water. Fruits were kept at 25°C and 90% relative humidity. After a 5-day incubation, symptoms described above were observed on all inoculated fruits, whereas all control fruits were symptomless. The causal agent was reisolated, confirming Koch's postulates. Strain wwzqm1 was identified as Penicillium glabrum (Wehmer) Westling on the basis of its morphology. Conidiophores arose from basal hyphae, with stipes smooth or finely roughened, 50.5 to 300.0 × 2.5 to 3.5 μm, penicillus monoverticillate, and bearing verticils of 8 to 12 phialides. Conidia were globose to subglobose, approximately 2.9 to 3.5 μm in diameter, with smooth or nearly smooth walls, and conidial chains in compact columns. Colonies grown for 7 days on CYA at 25°C attained a diameter of 32.4 to 39.1 mm, with the center of a deep bluish green, plane, velutinous, and heavily sporulated. Margin mycelium of the colony was white, with a yellowish brown under surface. Strain wwzqm2 was identified as P. adametzii K. M. Zalessky according to its morphological features with conidiophores born from funicolose hyphae, stipes smooth, 10.2 to 20.1 × 1.5 to 2.5 μm, penicillus monoverticillate, and bearing verticils of 4 to 6 phialides. Conidia were nearly globose to glubose, 2.0 to 2.7 μm in diameter, with smooth or finely roughened walls, and conidial chains loose and irregular. Colonies on CYA at 25°C for 7 days grew rather fast and reached a diameter of 50.3 to 60.2 mm, and were deep grayish green, near plane, floccose or funicolose, and heavily sporulated. Margin mycelium of the colony was white with a yellowish brown under surface (1). The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) was amplified for wwzqm1 and wwzqm2 using primers ITS4/ITS5 and sequenced. BLASTn analysis of the 595 bp wwzqm1 (GenBank Accession No. JN887323) amplicon had 99% sequence identity with P. glabrum (DQ681321) and the 568 bp wwzqm2 amplicon (JN887322) had 99% sequence identity with P. adametzii (AF033401). To our knowledge, this is the first report of fruit rot on S. chinensis caused by P. glabrum and P. adametzii in China. Reference: (1). H. Z. Kong. Penicillium et Teleomorphi Cognati. Flora Fungorum Sinicorum. Science Press, Beijing, 35:43, 2007.


The paper analyses the European Research Area policy (ERA) from the innovation perspective. The Lisbon Treaty gives the Union the objective of free circulation of researchers, scientific knowledge and technology. The five ERA initiatives implement the ERA policy on the basis of voluntary cooperation. The ERA and innovation are linked through the business sector R&D investment. The economic value of the ERA comes from accelerated cross-European knowledge spillovers reducing the cost of inventing. In general, important obstacles hinder the knowledge spillovers making them largely intra-national. These obstacles arise due to the incentives in providing and sharing knowledge and to costs of capturing knowledge spillovers. Funding of knowledge from national budgets and uncertain benefits from knowledge circulation across the heterogenous member states complicates situation further. The analysis of Joint Programming and Better Careers and Mobility initiatives reveals multiple sources of obstacles to cross-European knowledge spillovers. Weak incentives in the member states and limited possibilities at the EU level block the implementation of ERA. In this constellation, the ERA initiatives need to support openness and competition in publicly funded research and universities as well as better models of scientific management to guarantee highest scientific quality. Accelerated (ERA) knowledge spillovers require extended and dynamic markets.


The antioxidant compounds are needed for the food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals industry. For this purpose, an appropriate method is required to measure the antioxidant properties in various types of samples. Spectrophotometric method usually used has some weaknesses, including the high price, long sample preparation time, and less sensitivity. Among the alternative methods developed to overcome these weaknesses is antioxidant biosensor based on superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme. Therefore, this study was carried out to measure the SOD activity originating from Deinococcus radiodurans and to determine its kinetics properties. Carbon paste electrode modified with ferrocene and immobilized SOD exhibited anode and cathode current peak at potential of +400 and +300mv respectively, in both pure SOD and SOD of D. radiodurans. This indicated that the current generated was from superoxide catalytic dismutation reaction by SOD. Optimum conditions for SOD activity was at pH 9 and temperature of 27.5C for D. radiodurans SOD, and pH 11 and temperature of 20C for pure SOD. Dismutation reaction kinetics of superoxide catalyzed by SOD followed the Lineweaver-Burk kinetics with D. radiodurans SOD KMapp value was smaller than pure SOD. The result showed that D. radiodurans SOD had higher enzyme-substrate affinity and specificity than pure SOD. It concluded that D. radiodurans SOD had a great potential as biological recognition component for antioxidant biosensor. Keywords—Antioxidant biosensor, Deinococcus radiodurans, enzyme kinetic, superoxide dismutase (SOD).


ABSTRACT Heterogeneity of inventiveness across urban, metro-adjacent rural and remote rural counties is analyzed using a spatial autoregressive negative binomial regression model, taking into account spatial spillover effects, the count nature of patenting, creative class population, industry characteristics and other regional factors influencing innovation creation. Results indicate that key drivers of invention—namely presence of universities, share of creative arts related occupations and professional services, access to cell phone services, the diversity of high industries, and share of foreign-born population—are common across county types. However, their marginal effects often vary by county type, e.g., diversity of high-tech industries and cell phone access have relatively higher marginal effects in metro-adjacent rural areas than urban counties. These innovation drivers also have statistically significant spatial spillover effects on patent output in neighboring counties. Urban inventive advantage persists even after controlling for variation in levels of key drivers of innovation. The estimated marginal and spillover effects in rural counties suggest that policies promoting technological diversity and communication infrastructure in rural counties can be effective in mitigating the urban–rural innovation gap.


Extensive groundwater withdrawal from the unconsolidated deposits in the San Joaquin Valley caused widespread aquifer-system compaction and resultant land subsidence from 1926 to 1970—locally exceeding 8.5 meters. The importation of surface water beginning in the early 1950s through the Delta-Mendota Canal and in the early 1970s through the California Aqueduct resulted in decreased groundwater pumping, recovery of water levels, and a reduced rate of compaction in some areas of the San Joaquin Valley. However, drought conditions during 1976–77, 1987–92, and drought conditions and operational reductions in surfacewater deliveries during 2007–10 decreased surface-water availability, causing pumping to increase, water levels to decline, and renewed compaction. Land subsidence from this compaction has reduced freeboard and flow capacity of the California Aqueduct, Delta-Mendota Canal, and other canals that deliver irrigation water and transport floodwater. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the California Department of Water Resources, assessed more recent land subsidence near a 145-kilometer reach of the California Aqueduct in the west-central part of the San Joaquin Valley as part of an effort to minimize future subsidencerelated damages to the California Aqueduct. The location, magnitude, and stress regime of land-surface deformation during 2003–10 were determined by using data and analyses associated with extensometers, Global Positioning System surveys, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, spiritleveling surveys, and groundwater wells. Comparison of continuous Global Positioning System, shallow-extensometer, and groundwater-level data indicated that most of the compaction in this area took place beneath the Corcoran Clay, the primary regional confining unit. The integration of measurements strengthens confidence in individual measurement methods and provides the information at spatial and temporal scales that water managers need to design and implement groundwater sustainability plans in compliance with California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Measurements of land-surface deformation during 2003–10 indicated that the parts of the California Aqueduct closest to the Coast Ranges in the west-central part of the San Joaquin Valley were fairly stable or minimally subsiding on an annual basis; some areas show seasonal periods of subsidence and uplift that resulted in little or no longer-term elevation loss. Many groundwater levels in these areas did not reach historical lows during 2003–10, indicating that deformation nearest the Coast Ranges was likely primarily elastic. Land-surface deformation measurements indicated that some parts of the California Aqueduct that traverse farther from the Coast Ranges toward the valley center subsided. Some parts of the California Aqueduct subsided locally, but generally the California Aqueduct is within part of a 12,000-square-kilometer area affected by 25 millimeters or more of subsidence during 2008–10, with maxima in Madera County, south of the town of El Nido near the San Joaquin River and the Eastside Bypass (540 millimeters), and in Tulare County, west of the town of Pixley (345 millimeters). Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar-derived subsidence maps for various periods during 2003–10 show that the area of maximum active subsidence (that is, the largest rates of subsidence) shifted from its historical (1926–70) location southwest of the town of Mendota to these areas nearer the valley center. Calculations indicated that the subsidence rate doubled in 2008 in parts of the study area. Water levels declined during 2007–10 in many shallow and deep wells in the most rapidly subsiding areas, where water levels in many deep wells reached their historical lows, indicating that subsidence measured during this period was largely inelastic. 2 Land Subsidence Along the California Aqueduct in West-Central San Joaquin Valley, California, 2003–10 Continued groundwater-level and land-subsidence monitoring in the San Joaquin Valley is important because (1) operationaland drought-related reductions in surfacewater deliveries since 1976 have resulted in increased groundwater pumping and associated water-level declines and land subsidence, (2) land use and associated pumping continue to change throughout the valley, and (3) subsidence management is stipulated in the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The availability of surface water remains uncertain; even during record-setting precipitation years, such as 2010–11, water deliveries fell short of requests and groundwater pumping was required to meet the irrigation demand. In some areas, the infrastructure is not available to supply surface water, and groundwater is the only source of water. Because of the expected continued demand for water and the limitations and uncertainty of surface-water supplies, groundwater pumping and associated land subsidence remains a concern. Spatially detailed information on land subsidence is needed to minimize future subsidence-related damages to the California Aqueduct and other infrastructure in the San Joaquin Valley, as well as alterations to natural resources such as stream gradients, water depths, and water temperatures. The integration of data on land-surface elevation, subsurface deformation, and water levels—particularly continuous measurements—enables the analysis of aquifer-system response to groundwater pumping, which in turn, enables estimation of the preconsolidation head and calculation of aquifer-system storage properties. This information can be used to improve numerical model simulations of groundwater flow and aquifer-system compaction and allow for consideration of land subsidence in the evaluation of water resource management alternatives and compliance with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.


Background: Prognostic counselling is a sensitive issue in medicine and especially so in MS due to the highly heterogeneous disease course. However, people with MS (pwMS) seek prognostic information. The web-based 'Evidence-Based Decision Support Tool in Multiple Sclerosis' (EBDiMS) uses data of 717 patients from the London/Ontario cohort to calculate personalized long-term prognostic information. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and effect of long-term prognostic counselling in pwMS using EBDiMS. Methods: Ninety consecutive pwMS were provided with personalized estimations of expected time to reach Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores of 6 and 8 and time to conversion to secondary-progressive MS. Participants gave estimates on their own putative prognosis and rated the tool's acceptability on six-step Likert-type scales. Results: Participants rated EBDiMS as highly understandable, interesting and relevant for patient–physician encounters, coping and therapy decisions. Although it provoked a certain degree of worry in some participants, 95% would recommend using the tool. Participants' own prognosis estimates did not change significantly following EBDiMS. Conclusion: Long-term prognostic counselling using an online tool has been shown to be feasible in a clinical setting. EBDiMS provides pwMS with relevant, easy-to-understand, long-term prognostic information without causing relevant anxiety.


Within a structural model we explicitly allow for the trade orientation of companies to estimate productivity dynamics within 4-digit UK manufacturing industries. We use the FAME data on UK companies over the period 1994-2003. Following Ackerberg et al. (2005) we adjust the algorithm in Olley and Pakes (1996) by augmenting investment and exit decisions to allow for exogenous demand shocks by trade orientation, assuming that labour and capital are state variables, and productivity follows a first-order Markov process. We extend the framework further by allowing exporting to be an additional control variable that is driven by lagged productivity as in Melitz (2003), leading productivity to follow a second-order Markov process. We find that over the period of introduction of the Euro improvements in aggregate productivity were driven by exporters – mainly by market share reallocations away from inefficient and towards efficient export companies. Aggregate productivity also benefited from improvements in productivity of non-exporters but was driven by improvements within companies rather than by market share reallocations. In a period of sustained real exchange rate appreciation both export cleansing and competitive pressure on non-exporters seem to have contributed to improvements of productivity in the UK manufacturing.


We propose research to investigate a new paradigm for Interactive Information Retrieval (IIR) where all input and output is mediated via speech. Our aim is to develop a new framework for effective and efficient IIR over a speech-only channel: a Spoken Conversational Search System (SCSS). This SCSS will provide an interactive conversational approach to determine user information needs, presenting results and enabling search reformulations. We have thus far investigated the format of results summaries for both audio and text, features such as summary length and summaries documents (noisy document or clean document) generated from (noisy) speech-recognition output from spoken document. In this paper we discuss future directions regarding a novel spoken interface targeted at search result presentation, query intent detection, and interaction patterns for audio search.


One of the more poignant claims Badiou makes is that the subject develops an understanding of itself as a political subject only by executing decisive political actions or making decisive political interventions. In this article I will argue that in order to have a fuller philosophical conception of political subjectivity, and therefore political agency, one must also hold that, first, political interventions do not necessarily lead to a definition or a further way of referring to and understanding the subject. In fact, political events and interventions may consciously aim at and result in the de-politicizing, de-subjectivating or dehumanizing of the subject. Second, political agency need not result in an event or an intervention in order to be political. In other words, failed or non-interventions may still be considered political. Third, despite Badiou's call for an ethics rooted in truth and fidelity, his political philosophy results in a relativism that can easily lapse into violence and injustice.


ABSTRACT Regional strategic dynamics in South Asia is in a state of flux since the announcement of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China emphasises on the economic aspect of investment in infrastructures and energy projects, but strategic underpinning are very much apparent. China loan has created indebtedness in these countries and has helped Beijing to gain strategic foothold in the region which India considers as core to its security. India's aid programme though focuses on the neighbourhood, it remains small compared to China and suffers from delivery deficit. This article examines India's policy response to China's presence in the region.


ABSTRACT Spitsbergen shows a several kilometers thick, mostly siliciclastic Devonian sequence. In this sequence, the Wood Bay Formation represents a typical Old Red Sandstone megafacies unit of Early Devonian age (Pragian-Emsian). It outcrops in the Andrée Land Block (often wrongly designated as the "main Devonian graben") in NW Spitsbergen. Its stratigraphy has been mostly established in two areas of this block, that is, in the Woodfjorden area in the north, and in the Dicksonfjorden-Austfjorden area in the south. A revision of the pteraspidiform heterostracan vertebrates has been carried out in both areas. Eight different fossil assemblages are defined, five for the Woodfjorden area (WA), and three for the Dicksonfjorden-Austfjorden area (DAA), that enable the correlation of the Sigurdfjellet and Kapp Kjeldsen "faunal divisions" of the lower Wood Bay Formation (in WA) with the Austfjorden Member (in DAA), and the Keltiefjellet "faunal division" of the upper Wood Bay Formation (in WA) with the Dicksonfjorden Member (in DAA). Unfortunately, pteraspids do not help with correlation between the uppermost parts of the Wood Bay Formation in the north and south of the Andrée Land Block. These results are used also for a more precise correlation with the heterostracan-bearing, Early Devonian, Old Red Sandstone series of Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya in the Russian Arctic. They also confirm that Spitsbergen and those Russian archipelagos were elements of the Early Devonian, palaeobiogeographic Arctic Province.


In this paper an audio processing solution for video conference based aerobics is presented. The proposed solution leaves the workout music unaltered by separating it from the speech and processing each signal separately. The speech signal processing is also performed at a lower sample rate, which saves computational power. Real time evaluation of the system shows that high quality music as well as a good two-way communication is maintained during the aerobic session.


The content of this issue presents novel four research results in information logistics and knowledge supply represented by the best papers of the 7th International Workshop on Information Logistics (ILOG) which took place in Lund (Sweden) in September 2014 and the paper on the bibliometric analysis of performance modeling. The focus of the ILOG workshop series is on advances in information logistics as a forum for sharing knowledge and experiences between the academic community and practitioners from industry and the public sector. ILOG was initiated in 2005; since its foundation it has been hosted in Sweden (2005, 2014), Germany (2006, 2009), Latvia (2011), Russia (2012) and Poland (2013).


A new protocol based on a combination of an excystation process followed by a nucleic acid extraction that combines the lysing and nuclease-inactivating properties of the chaotropic agent guanidinium thiocyanate and the nucleic acid-binding properties of silica particles is described for the extraction and purification of nucleic acids from Cryptosporidium. The application of nested and/or semi-nested PCR using different external and internal primers to DNA extracted by this method from seeded and naturally occurring Cryptosporidium oocysts concentrated and purified from environmental samples detects numbers of oocysts ranging from 20 to 50. The method is feasible, detects mostly excystable oocysts and no problems of inhibition of PCR were observed when applied to environmental samples.


Many quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in different barley populations were discovered for resistance to  Puccinia hordei and heterologous rust species. Partial resistance (host basal resistance) and nonhost resistance (nonhost basal resistance) in barley to leaf rusts are based on prehaustorial mechanism of resistance which is associated with papillae formation. They are mainly governed by genes with relatively small, quantitative effects, located on QTL. The genes for host basal resistance seem to play similar roles in basal resistance as those governing nonhost basal resistances. From different studies it was observed that these two resistance types are based on shared principles. Four and two quantitative trait loci-near isogenic lines (QTL-NILs), respectively, were developed for basal resistance and nonhost resistance QTLs using SusPtrit as recurrent parent. SusPtrit is a research line which is exceptionally susceptible to leaf rusts for which normally barley is a nonhost. They were infected with one homologous ( P. hordei isolate 1.2.1) and three heterologous ( Puccinia triticina isolate 'Flamingo', P. hordei -murini and P. hordei -secalini) leaf rusts in three replications at seedling stage to evaluate whether relatively large-effect QTLs show specificity in their reaction to homologous and heterologous rust isolates. The result showed that, the QTLs for host basal resistance and the QTL for nonhost basal resistance have a significant (P<0.05) effect on both homologous and heterologous rusts. Also, higher positive (P<0.05, r = 0.98) correlation was observed between different macroscopic and microscopic parameters measured indicating that there is a possible association between partial resistance quantitative trait loci and nonhost resistance quantitative trait loci. These give an indication that indeed, host and nonhost basal resistance are associated. Keywords: Partial resistance, nonhost resistance, near isogenic lines, barley


This mixed-methods study investigated implementation strategies and child learning outcomes in early years education in the Primary Years Programme. Researchers from Deakin University evaluated processes and outcomes in four early years programmes, two in Singapore and two in Melbourne, Australia. Researchers collected qualitative data through classroom observations, drawings and writing produced by children, and interviews with educators, coordinators and parents. Quantitative data was collected through assessments of children's literacy, developmental school readiness and learning skills. Three of the early years programmes appeared to support the development of learner profile attributes through inquiry-led learning and play-based approaches, while one site in Singapore was still in a developmental stage of implementing the programme. The study suggested that literacy skills at all sites were fairly developed; that children were performing at levels commensurate with or better in terms of school readiness; and that children were developing learning skills at higher rates than a comparative sample.


Resveratrol and compounds related to it, known as resveralogues, have been shown to extend healthy lifespan in a number of species. A diverse set of molecular mechanisms have been proposed to account for these effects, including the activation of the NAD+-dependent histone deacetylase SIRT1. However, both resveratrol and some of its derivatives also display potentially detrimental activities including direct DNA damage, toxicity and the induction of cellular senescence. Accordingly, the overall aim of this thesis was to enable the generation of better compounds with minimal detrimental activity and maximum beneficial activity. The data presented in this thesis show my development of a new, convenient, one-pot stereo-selective synthesis of resveratrol and other trans-stilbene derivatives. This synthesis has been used to prepare more than 40 compounds, of which 20 are completely novel and a further 12 previously uncharacterised with regard to their biological effects. This study have evaluated these resveralogues with respect to their cytotoxicity in human fibroblasts using a range of widely-recognised assays. Data on the compounds' toxicity are presented, together with evidence that two of the assays commonly used to measure cytotoxicity in vitro (the MTT and neutral red assays) are unsuited for cytotoxicity testing with this class of compound. Twenty-two of the (lowest toxicity) compounds have also been assayed for their effects on growth and senescence using indirect immunostaining for the proliferation marker pki-67 and catalytic histochemical visualisation of SA-β-galactosidase activity, respectively. The results indicate that the growth inhibitory activity of resveratrol is abrogated by the removal of the trans-stilbene double bond (no reduction of growth fraction in dihydroresveralogues at 100 μM). Interestingly, at low doses (5-10 μM), many resveralogues induce a significant increase in proliferation compared to control untreated cells. SIRT1 activity in the presence of each compound was measured using an in-vitro deacetylation assay and, whilst most resveralogues are SIRT1 activators, none of the compounds examined produced a significant increase in SIRT1 activation compared to the parent compound. SIRT1 activation was, for the first time, found to be independent of the presence of a trans-stilbene double bond. Some initial characterisation of the ability of the resveralogues to alter pro-inflammatory cytokine expression was also undertaken by using ELISA for interleukin 6. Some difficulties with this assay, with respect to background signal interference, were encountered but parallel data from collaborator (Professor Lynne Cox, University of Oxford) using a human specific IL6 antibody are available. Collabrator data, evaluating a selection of resveralogues, indicate that inhibition of IL6 release is independent of SIRT1 activation, demonstrating that not all potential beneficial effects are SIRT1 mediated. Finally, this work has identified three novel lead compounds (V24, V31, and V34) that have less detrimental activities with retention in SIRT1 activity.


We implement a biometric authentication system on the Android platform, which is based on text-dependent speaker recognition. The Android version used in the application is Android 4.0. The application makes use of the Modular Audio Recognition Framework, from which many of the algorithms are adapted in the processes of preprocessing and feature extraction. In addition, we employ the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm for the comparison of different voice features. A training procedure is implemented, using the DTW algorithm to align features. Furthermore, we introduce personal thresholds, based on which the performance for each individual user can be further optimized. We have carried out several tests in order to evaluate the performance of the developed system. The tests are performed on 16 persons, with in total 240 voice samples, of which 15 samples are from each person. As a result, for authentication, one of the optimal trade-offs of the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR) achieved by the system is shown to be 13% and 12%, respectively. For identification, the system could identify the user correctly with a rate of 81%. Our results show that one can actually improve the system performance in terms of FAR and FRR significantly, through using the training procedure and the personal thresholds.


Mounting evidence indicates that neutrinos likely undergo fast flavor conversion (FFC) in at least some core-collapse supernovae. Outcomes of FFC, however, remain highly uncertain. Here we study the cascade of flavor-field power from large angular scales in momentum space down to small ones, showing that FFC enhances this process and thereby hastens relaxation. Cascade also poses a computational challenge, which is present even if the flavor field is stable: When power reaches the smallest angular scale of the calculation, error from truncating the angular-moment expansion propagates back to larger scales, to disastrous effect on the overall evolution. Essentially the same issue has prompted extensive work in the context of plasma kinetics. This link suggests new approaches to averting spurious evolution, a problem that presently puts severe limitations on the feasibility of realistic oscillation calculations.


A growing theoretical and empirical literature shows that public recognition can lead employees to exert greater effort. However, status competition is also associated with excessive expenditure on status goods, greater likelihood of bankruptcy, and more risk taking by money managers. This paper examines the effects of recognition and status competition jointly. In particular, we focus on the spillover effects of public recognition on the performance and risk taking of peers. Using newly collected data on monthly "victory" scores of more than 5,000 German pilots during World War II, we find that status competition had important effects: After the German armed forces bulletin mentioned the accomplishments of a particular fighter pilot, his former peers performed considerably better. This outperformance varied across skill groups. When a former squadron peer was mentioned, the best pilots tried harder, scored more, and died no more frequently; in contrast, average pilots won only a few additional victories but died at a significantly higher rate. Hence our results show that the overall efficiency effect of nonfinancial rewards can be ambiguous in settings where both risk and output affect aggregate performance.


* Corresponding author: telephone: (303) 492-8830 E-mail: email@example.com © 2001 with author. Between June 1, 2000 and September 30, 2000, 32 precipitation events were sampled near Telluride, CO at an elevation of 3200 m. The wet deposition site was operated following protocols of the Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network (AIRMoN), a network of the National Atmospheric Deposition Network (NADP). Inorganic nitrogen deposition at the Telluride site of 1.41 kg ha–1 during the study period was 25 to 50% higher than nearby NADP sites. In turn, nitrogen deposition at these NADP sites was similar to high-elevation sites in and near the Colorado Front Range that have been shown to be impacted by atmospheric deposition of inorganic nitrogen in wetfall. Power plant emissions are a likely source of a major portion of this elevated inorganic nitrogen in wetfall to the San Juan Mountains. Principal component analysis (PCA) shows that solutes formed by gases that are emitted from power plants were clustered tightly together, including nitrate, ammonium, sulfate, and chloride. Trajectory analysis, including both backward and forward trajectories, shows that the air masses that contributed to the precipitation events with high amounts of nitrogen deposition at the Telluride site passed directly over or near power plants. Our results suggest that Class I Wilderness Areas in and near the San Juan Mountains are at risk to ecosystem impairment at present rates of atmospheric deposition of inorganic nitrogen in wetfall. Deployment of proposed power plants to this area will likely increase the risk of degradation of resource values in nearby Class I areas. While these data were collected over a short time span, they indicate that establishment of an official AIRMoN site in the southwestern U.S. may be warranted.