We investigated motion extrapolation in object tracking in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a multiple-object-tracking task (MOT; three targets, three distractors) combined with a probe detection task to investigate the distribution of attention around a target object. We found anisotropic probe detection rates with increased probe detection at locations where a target is heading. In Experiment 2, we introduced a black line (wall) in the center of the screen and block-wise manipulated the object's motion: either objects bounced realistically against the wall or objects went through the wall. Just before a target coincided with the wall, a probe could appear either along the bounce path or along the straight path. In addition to MOT, we included a single-object-tracking task (SOT; one target, five distractors) to control for attentional load. We found that linear extrapolation is dominant (better probe detection along the straight path than bounce path) regardless of attentional load and the motion condition. Anticipation of bouncing behavior did occur but only when attentional load was low. We conclude that attention is not tightly bound to moving target objects but encompasses the object's current position and the area in front of it. Furthermore, under the present experimental conditions, the visuo-attentional system does not seem to anticipate object bounces in the MOT task.


In this article I will address the changes and innovations in the music profession in Europe which are faced by our students and graduates, as well as new developments in their music careers. We will look into the question of what musicians' changing needs are and will then show how conservatoires in Europe respond to them. Consequently the various roles that musicians have within their changing career patterns and the profession will be addressed and an example will be given through the description of an emerging career type, that of the (performing and educating) musician who is engaged with new audiences in various social contexts, in other venues than the traditional concert venues. This will be followed by an exploration of the joint master programme New Audiences and Innovative Practice, which has been developed with a number of music academies in Europe and the USA and in which this particular type of musician and practice are central. The article will then finish by exploring the interconnection between the performing and educational roles of today's musicians, the question of how these two inform each other and how this can lead to the strengthening of musicians' learning processes. Lastly I will reflect on what these developments mean for curricula in the music academy.


BACKGROUND
Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) species are a rising threat, especially to patients living with pulmonary comorbidities. Current point-of-care diagnostics fail to adequately identify and differentiate NTM species from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Definitive culture- and molecular-based testing can take weeks to months and requires sending samples out to specialized diagnostic laboratories.

METHODS
In this proof-of-concept study, we developed an assay based on PCR amplification of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) rrs genes by using universal mycobacterial primers and interrogation of the amplified fragments with a panel of binary deoxyribozyme (BiDz) sensors to enable species-level identification of NTM (BiDz-NTMST). Each BiDz sensor consists of 2 subunits of an RNA-cleaving deoxyribozyme, which form an active deoxyribozyme catalytic core only in the presence of the complimentary target sequence. The target-activated BiDz catalyzes cleavage of a reporter substrate, thus triggering either fluorescent or colorimetric (visually observed) signal depending on the substrate used. The panel included BiDz sensors for differentiation of 6 clinically relevant NTM species (Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium avium, Mycobacterium intracellulare, Mycobacterium fortuitum, Mycobacterium kansasii, and Mycobacterium gordonae) and Mtb.

RESULTS
Using the fluorescent BiDz-NTMST assay, we successfully identified the species of 38 clinical isolates. In addition, a subset of strains was tested with visual BiDz sensors, providing proof-of-concept for species typing of NTM by the naked eye.

CONCLUSIONS
The BiDz-NTMST assay is a novel platform for rapid identification of NTM species. This method is highly specific and significantly faster than current tools and is easily adaptable for onsite diagnostic laboratories in hospitals or clinical laboratories.


The implications of physical conditions of the feedwell on the rheological properties of synthetic copper tailings, flocculated in seawater, were analysed. The mixing intensity of flocculation was related to the structural characteristics of the aggregates, and the outcomes were linked to the yield stress of the pulp sediments. Tailings settling assays were conducted by using a 30 mm turbine type stirrer with an in-situ aggregate size characterisation. The structural characteristics of the aggregates were determined by using the focused beam reflectance measurement (FBRM). After a mixing time between the pulp and the flocculant, the sample was allowed to settle for 2.5 h, where the variation of the sediment height was minimal. The sediment was gently removed and subjected to rheological characterisation. The yield stress was measured on an Anton Paar MCR 102 rheometer (ANAMIN Group, Santiago, Chile), with a vane-in-cup configuration. The mixing intensity was related to the characteristics of the aggregates, and the outcomes were linked to the yield stress of the flocculated pulp sediments. More aggressive hydrodynamics deteriorated the structure of the aggregates, promoting the reduction of both its size and the fractal dimension. This brought direct consequences on the rheological properties of the sediments: at higher mixing level, the yield stress was lower. The explanation lies in the structural changes of the aggregates, where at a fixed mixing rate, the yield stress presented a seemingly exponential increase over the fractal dimension. Additionally, correlations were found between the rheological properties with settling rate and aggregate size.


Many states mandate districts or schools notify parents when students have missed multiple unexcused days of school. We report a randomized experiment (N = 131,312) evaluating the impact of sending parents truancy notifications modified to target behavioral barriers that can hinder effective parental engagement. Modified truancy notifications that used simplified language, emphasized parental efficacy, and highlighted the negative incremental effects of missing school reduced absences by 0.07 days compared to the standard, legalistic, and punitively-worded notification — an estimated 40% improvement. This work illustrates how behavioral insights and randomized experiments can be used to improve administrative communications in education.


Objective: This study was designed to examine the effect of morphine administration on the intestinal mucus barrier and determine its direct effect on the virulence and lethality of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, one of the most frequent pathogens to colonize the gut of critically ill patients. Background Data: Surgical injury is associated with significant exposure of host tissues to morphine from both endogenous release and its use as a potent analgesic agent. Morphine use in surgical patients exposed to extreme physiologic stress is well established to result in increased infection risk. Although morphine is a known immunosuppressant, whether it directly induces virulence expression and lethality in microbes that colonize the human gut remains unknown. Methods: Mice were implanted with a slow release morphine or placebo pellet with and without intestinal inoculation of P. aeruginosa created by direct cecal injection. Mucus production and epithelial integrity was assessed in cecal tissue via Alcian blue staining and histologic analysis. In vivo and in vitro P. aeruginosa virulence expression was examined using reporter strains tagged to the epithelial barrier disrupting protein PA-I lectin. P. aeruginosa chemotaxis toward morphine was also assayed in vitro. Finally, the direct effect of morphine to induce PA-I lectin expression was determined in the absence and presence of methylnaltrexone, a &mgr; opioid receptor antagonist. Results: Mice intestinally inoculated with P. aeruginosa and implanted with a morphine pellet demonstrated significant suppression of intestinal mucus, disrupted intestinal epithelium, and enhanced mortality; whereas exposure of mice to either systemic morphine or intestinal P. aeruginosa alone enhanced intestinal mucus without mortality, suggesting a shift in P. aeruginosa during morphine exposure to a mucus suppressing, barrier disrupting, and lethal phenotype. Direct exposure of P. aeruginosa to morphine in vitro confirmed that morphine can transform P. aeruginosa to a more virulent phenotype that is attenuated in part by methylnaltrexone. Conclusions: Morphine administration shifts intestinal P. aeruginosa to express a virulent phenotype and may play a role in its ability to causes lethal gut-derived sepsis in a susceptible host.


Ensemble perception, the ability to rapidly and automatically assess the summary or 'gist' of large amounts of information presented in visual scenes, is available early in typical development (Sweeny et al., in press). Ensemble perception might be compromised in children with autism, who have been proposed to present limitations in their abilities to maintain and/or use summary statistics representations for the recent history of sensory input, which might be responsible for their unique perceptual experience (Pellicano & Burr, 2012). Here we examined ensemble perception of emotions in 29 children with autism, aged between 6 and 14 years, 30 age- and ability-matched typical children, and 12 typical adults. Participants received three child-friendly tasks: a) an average (ensemble perception) emotion discrimination task, assessing their ability to judge the average happiness of a set of 'morphs'; b) a non-average happiness discrimination task, evaluating baseline emotion discrimination; and c) a face identification task, estimating children's ability to identify morphs that had been previously presented to them. We also monitored participants' eye movements while they performed the three tasks using a Tobii X2-30 eye tracker (30 Hz). All three groups presented better precision in the non-average than in the average emotion discrimination task, while children's precision and accuracy in the three tasks were worse than those of adults- suggestive of a gradual and parallel maturation of emotion discrimination, ensemble perception, and face-processing abilities. Unexpectedly, children with autism were indistinguishable from typical children in their precision and accuracy across the three tasks. On eye-movement variables, the three groups did not differ in terms of the average number of fixations and the number of morphs sampled per trial. Contrary Pellicano and Burr (2012), these findings suggest that autistic children's abilities for ensemble perception of emotions are largely similar to those of typical children. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Abstract Ocean Acidification (OA) is an emerging environmental issue that is still largely unknown to the public and in its infancy in terms of educational strategies. OA teaching material should address the specific challenges that educators face while building learners' understanding of OA. The objective of this study is two-fold. First, we identified the barriers to teaching OA as experienced by formal and informal marine educators. Second, we provided educators an opportunity to experience virtual reality and discuss how it could serve as a tool for face-to-face and distance learning to address the identified challenges. The findings shed light on four overarching themes of challenges to teaching OA: lack of science literacy, unprepared education field, complex and invisible nature of OA and lack of personal connection with the ocean. Marine educators consider empowerment, perspective-taking and visualization as the three principal avenues through which virtual reality may contribute to mitigating the challenges to teaching OA.


We suggest a three-dimensional metamaterial structure exhibiting an isotropic expansion in response to an increased hydrostatic pressure imposed by a surrounding gas or liquid. We show that this behavior corresponds to a negative absolute (rather than only differential) effective compressibility under truly static and stable conditions. The poroelastic metamaterial is composed of only a single ordinary constituent solid. By detailed numerical parameter studies, we find that a pressure increase of merely one bar can lead to a relative increase in the effective volume exceeding one percent for geometrical structure parameters that should be accessible to fabrication by 3D printing.


Aim: The purpose of this study was to assess association between smokeless tobacco consumption and prevalence of dental caries in Dakshina Kannada population. Materials and Methods: In this study 172 elderly dentate and consenting individuals (79 females, 93 males) were included. Patients were subjected to clinical examination under natural light with the aid of mouth mirror, No. 23 explorer and cotton rolls. Age of study group ranged from 20 years to 65 years. Tobacco consumption habit data were collected through validated questionnaire. DMFT (Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth Index-WHO modification 1987) was used to assess caries experience of study group. Results: Mean DMFT score of smokeless tobacco chewers was 5.66 ± 1.55 and of non-tobacco chewers it was 3.99 ± 1.6 which showed significant association between smokeless tobacco consumption and dental caries experience in Dakshina Kannada population (p=0.001). Among various forms of smokeless tobacco, tobacco along with paan leaves was the most adopted one (15.1%); but the highest mean DMFT score being 6.00 ± 1.26 was observed in patients who consumed gutka. Conclusion: This study throws light on possible contribution of smokeless tobacco consumption towards increased caries experience and it also reflects potential role of form of smokeless tobacco consumption towards dental caries.


Automate your house, save lives, and survive the apocalypse with .NET on a Netduino! Overview Automate your house using a Netduino and a bunch of common components Learn the fundamentals of Netduino to implement them in almost any project Create cool projects ranging from self-watering plants to a homemade breathalyzer In Detail In recent years, electronics have gone from something that only electronic engineers can understand, to a common hobby that is accessible to all. Netduino has grown to be a part of this revolution, providing a development board that is both easy to use, and allows existing .NET developers to build on knowledge they already have. Most developers have wild ideas about all the gadgets they would develop to make the world a better (or easier) place, but have no idea how to get beyond blinking an LED. The topics contained go beyond what most books cover, taking an in-depth look at how to use Netduino for practical projects. This book starts off by showing you how to do the hello world of electronics fade an LED in and out. It will take you right through all the fundamentals, including how to control a wide range of electronic sensors. You will learn how easy it is to automate various parts of your home. You will learn how to open your gate with your smartphone, automatically water your plants, get emailed when someone invades your territory, connect up a keypad to unlock your door, make your own breathalyzer, control your home theatre, and much more! What you will learn from this book Write some simple code for a Netduino Use a microphone to determine the noise level of the room Power the sensors and components with external power supplies Control existing technology and appliances around your house with transistors and relays Link your smartphone to your Netduino with Bluetooth as a controller Determine alcohol on your breath Use servos to control physical objects Use a matrix keypad to secure your house and much more Approach Netduino Home Automation Projects for Lazy Boys is written in a practical and friendly style. Reading this book will be an experience full of fun and learning as well. Who this book is written for This book is ideally suited for someone who is interested in home automation, has some experience in C#, and has used a Netduino before but wants to explore more advanced topics. However, the book starts from the very basics so it can be picked up even by novices.


INRECA offers tools and methods for developing, validating, and maintaining decision support systems. INRECA's basic technologies are inductive and case-based reasoning, namely KATE -INDUCTION (cf., e.g., Manago, 1989; Manago, 1990) and S3-CASE, a software product based on PATDEX (cf., e.g., Wess,1991; Richter & Wess, 1991; Althoff & Wess, 1991). Induction extracts decision knowledge from case databases. It brings to light patterns among cases and helps monitoring trends over time. Case-based rea -soning relates the engineer's current problem to past experiences.


In this paper, we present a new multilevel k-way hypergraph partitioning algorithm that substantially outperforms the existing state-of-the-art K-PM/LFI algorithm for multiway partitioning, both for optimizing local as well as global objectives. Experiments on the ISPD98 benchmark suite show that the partitionings produced by our scheme are on the average 15% to 23% better than those produced by the K-PM/LF! algorithm, both in terms of the hyperedge cut as well as the (K1) metric. Furthermore, our algorithm is significantly faster, requiring 4 to 5 times less time than that required by K-PM/LFI.


The Prufer code is a bijection between trees on the vertex set $[n]$ and strings on the set $[n]$ of length $n-2$ (Prufer strings of order $n$). In this paper we examine the 'locality' properties of the Prufer code, i.e. the effect of changing an element of the Prufer string on the structure of the corresponding tree. Our measure for the distance between two trees $T$ and $T^*$ is $\Delta(T,T^*)=n-1-\vert E(T)\cap E(T^*)\vert$. We randomly mutate the $\mu$th element of the Prufer string of the tree $T$, changing it to the tree $T^*$, and we asymptotically estimate the probability that this results in a change of $\ell$ edges, i.e. $P(\Delta=\ell\, \vert \, \mu).$ We find that $P(\Delta=\ell\, \vert \, \mu)$ is on the order of $ n^{-1/3+o(1)}$ for any integer $\ell>1,$ and that $P(\Delta=1\, \vert \, \mu)=(1-\mu/n)^2+o(1).$ This result implies that the probability of a 'perfect' mutation in the Prufer code (one for which $\Delta(T,T^*)=1$) is $1/3.$


Machining, as a reliable manufacturing process, still offers unmatched capabilities in producing high quality three-dimensional parts from metals, polymers, ceramics, wood and composites. Advances in computational modeling and optimization methods enabled researchers to develop cost effective and high throughput modern machining processes. This book aims to provide recent advances intelligent machining for modern manufacturing engineering. It includes six chapters that provide basic fundamentals, modern machining processes, analytical and mechanistic modeling approaches, finite element modeling and systems based modeling, recent optimization methods and case studies.


The aim of this thesis was to investigate the regenerative potential of alternative sources of stem cells, derived from human dental pulp (hDPSCs) and amniotic fluid (hAFSCs) and, specifically, to evaluate their capability to be committed towards osteogenic and myogenic lineages, for the eventual applicability of these stem cells to translational strategies in regenerative medicine of bone and skeletal muscle tissues.
The in vitro bone production by stem cells may represent a radical breakthrough in the treatment of pathologies and traumas characterized by critical bone mass defects, with no medical or surgical solution.
Human DPSCs and AFSCs were seeded and pre-differentiated on different scaffolds to test their capability to subsequently reach the osteogenic differentiation in vivo, in order to recover critical size bone defects. Fibroin scaffold resulted to be the best scaffold promoting mature bone formation and defect correction when combined to both hDPSCs and hAFSCs.
This study also described a culture condition that might allow human DPSCs to be used for human cell therapy in compliance with good manufacturing practices (GMPs): the use of human serum (HS) promoted the expansion and the osteogenic differentiation of hDPSCs in vitro and, furthermore, allowed pre-differentiated hDPSCs to regenerate critical size bone defects in vivo.
This thesis also showed that hDPSCs and hAFSCs can be differentiated towards the myogenic lineage in vitro, either when co-cultured with murine myoblasts and when differentiated alone after DNA demethylation treatment. Interestingly, when injected into dystrophic muscles of SCID/mdx mice - animal model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) - hDPSCs and hAFSCs pre-differentiated after demethylating treatment were able to regenerate the skeletal muscle tissue and, particularly, to restore dystrophin expression. These observations suggest that human DPSCs and AFSCs might be eventually applied to translational strategies, in order to enhance the repair of injured skeletal muscles in DMD patients.


Social Network Analysis (SNA) is defined as the science of grouping members and finding influencers member inside each group by utilizing advanced set of algorithms. Most specialized data mining software firms, such as IBM, SAS, python and R, create their own predefined algorithms for generating the SNA groups, but none of them is dedicated for the telecom industry. The aim of this paper is to develop a customized SNA algorithm for the telecom industry, since the predefined commercial algorithm failed to generate satisfactory results when used to generate the SNA groups for the Palestinian mobile service provider company (Jawwal), such as a low capture rate (only 55%), and failed to even capture high value customers generating and receiving hundreds of calls and SMS's. In addition to customizing the SNA algorithm for the telecom industry, relation strength and extenders have been used to enhance results in this paper. In order to reach the finest telecom SNA model, oracle SQL-PL/SQL software have been utilized, and various experiments have been tested based on different specific telecom parameters, such as group size, call duration, call count, and the ratio between duration and count. To test the new developed algorithm, 300 million call detailed record (CDR) for 4 million user in three consecutive months have been collected and used, and a result comparison with the IBM SNA model is added. Results for the new algorithm have increased coverage of network to be 75.9% instead of around 55% for IBM algorithm; moreover, all high value customers have included in the results for the new algorithm. We believe that this paper is relevant to track two cloud Distributed and Parallel systems.


The result of the globalization is an intensification of the exchange of goods, capital,information and people between the countries from all over the world. Thus, to adapt to thisprocess, the demand on the labor market changes, skilled people and international knowledgeare required.During the last decade of years, we assisted to an increase of the High Education institutions,which offer to students the opportunity to study abroad. That becomes a strong competitivemarket. Thereby, we assist to an amplification of the student's mobility because they arelooking for living an unforgettable experience and improving their professional competences.Studies abroad require a lot of preparation. Students have to evaluate the alternatives offeredto them, and according to different factors of selection, they will determine their final choicefor their future university abroad.To attract international students, the universities need to develop marketing strategies. Theyhave to give the most information possible to the student and work on its communication.Selecting a university to go abroad is an important decision that the student has to take.Quantitative and qualitative researches were conducted in this study. The primary data werecollected directly at the university where the authors studied this year, through a survey andseveral interviews. This study contributes to the understanding of the student's motivationsto study abroad, and determine the different factors that they take into account to select theiruniversity.


We elucidate the stability properties of vector kink solitons at an interface separating a defocusing Kerr medium and an imprinted semi-infinite photonic lattice. The mutual trapping between two orthogonally polarized components results in the formation of vector states composed of well-known components in various forms, i.e., out-of-phase kinks, in-phase kinks, and surface gap solitons. Linear stability analysis reveals that a vector soliton composed of two out-of-phase kinks or an out-of-phase kink and a surface gap soliton can propagate stably in a wide parameter region. Our finding provides an example of stable vector solitons with nonvanishing amplitudes at infinity.


An essential input for environmental studies, especially for hydrological simulations is the soil information, which is usually provided by spatial soil databases. Despite the growing number of related analyses little is known about the uncertainty associated to databases. This study aimed to evaluate this issue. (i) the World Soil Classification System was used to classify soil horizons of the Unsaturated Soil Hydrologic Database of Hungary, (ii) the resulting soil classes were statistically analyzed, (iii) various static measures were derived and dynamic numerical simulations were carried out to assess the uncertainties of the classification method from hydrologic viewpoint. The results question the reliability of the FAO method.


UNLABELLED
Spray drying of liposomes with conventional wall materials such as maltodextrins often yields nonfunctional powders, that is, liposomes break down during drying and rehydration. Electrostatically coating the surface of liposomes with a charged polymer prior to spray drying may help solve this problem. Anionic lecithin liposomes (approximately 400 nm) were coated with lower (approximately 500 kDa, LMW-C) or higher (approximately 900 kDa, HMW-C) molecular weight cationic chitosan using the layer-by-layer depositing method. Low (DE20, LMW-MD) or high molecular weight (DE2, HMW-MD) maltodextrin was added as wall material to facilitate spray drying. If surfaces of liposomes (1%) were completely covered with chitosan (0.4%), no bridging or depletion flocculation would occur, and mean particle diameters would be approximately 500 nm. If maltodextrins (20%) were added to uncoated liposomes, extensive liposomal breakdown would occur making the system unsuitable for spray drying. No such aggregation or breakdown was observed when maltodextrin was added to chitosan-coated liposomes. Size changed little or even decreased slightly depending on the molecular weight of maltodextrin added. Scanning electron microscopy images of powders containing chitosan-coated liposomes revealed that their morphologies depended on the type of maltodextrin added. Powders prepared with LMW-MD contained mostly spherical particles while HMW-MD powders contained particles with concavities and dents. Upon redispersion, coated liposomes yielded back dispersions with particle size distributions similar to the original ones, except for LMW-C coated samples that had been spray dried with HMW-MD which yielded aggregates (approximately 30 μm). Results show that coating of liposomes with an absorbing polymer allows them to be spray dried with conventional maltodextrin wall materials.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Liposomes have attracted considerable attention in the food and agricultural, biomedical industries for the delivery of functional components. However, maintaining their stability in aqueous dispersion represents a challenge for their commercialization. Spray drying may promise a solution to that problem. However, prior to this study spray drying of liposomes often led to the loss of structural integrity. Results of this study suggest that spray drying might be used to produce commercially feasible liposomal powders if proper combinations of adsorbing and nonadsorbing polymers are used in the liquid precursor system.


Hidden curriculum pertains to values that pupils learn at school due to the manner in which the school engages in planning, and the way in which the school is organized, through ensured funding. In such a way, pupils learn values such as social and gender roles, attitudes, values and other aspects of life that are transferred without awareness from one generation to the next, as self-understandable and indisputable permanent facts that are part of the general culture. An important characteristic of the hidden curriculum is its implicitness, frequently hidden not only to children, but also to teachers and other staff in the educational system. However, the hidden curriculum is not conveyed only by teachers, but also by the community and society as a whole, including the government, teachers, non-teaching school staff, civil society, religious communities, and the media. Implicit theory, or "theory in practice", reflects beliefs and adopted values of teachers in regard to how a teacher perceives the child, how is the concept of childhood understood, and which theory of teaching the teacher is advocating, which is why implicit theory can be recognized most clearly in the specific setup of space, the structuring of time, the division of roles, and the style of communication with children. The relation between hidden curriculum and implicit theory is mutual. Once learned, hidden curriculum becomes the constituent part of teacher's implicit theory, and this theory becomes the teacher's leverage for subversive undermining of autonomous and free person, imposing the values of consumer society and forms of socially acceptable behavior. All these elements, coupled with the official curriculum of the institution, and the community in which the institution is active, together create the pedagogical culture of the institution. However, a teacher with his/her personal characteristics, pedagogical competences and professional ethics can respond to the traps of the hidden curriculum and his/her implicit theory by bringing to consciousness their modes of action. That can be done solely on the basis of vocational training and life-long learning, as values that the teacher should also transfer to his/her pupils.


Background Mental health problems (MHP) of parents are associated with an increased risk of psychological and developmental difficulties in their children. This study aims at analyzing population-based data of parents with MHP and their children and the effects of associated risk factors in order to further targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions. Methods The BELLA study is the mental health module of the German National Health Interview and Examination Survey among Children and Adolescents. MHP in parents and in their children as well as associated risk factors were examined in a sample of N = 1158 parents with children aged 11 to 17 years. Results Parental MHP were identified in 18.6% of the sample. Risk factors associated with parental MHP were low SES, parental unemployment, stressful life events, parental daily strain, parental chronic disease, and child MHP. A rate of 19.1% of the children of parents with MHP reported MHP themselves, the corresponding rate among children of parents without MHP was 7.7%. In multiple regression analyses the risk for children of parents with MHP to report MHP themselves was almost two times higher than the risk of children of parents without MHP. Other significant associations with child MHP included gender, the parents' age, and stressful life events. Conclusions Parental MHP constitute a significant risk for the mental health of their children. Targeted screening methods and preventive interventions are needed.


Summary Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are characterized by dynamic topology, limited channel bandwidth and limited power at the nodes. Because of these characteristics, paths connecting to the source nodes with destinations may very unstable and go down at any time, making communication over ad hoc networks difficult. Multicasting is intended for group-oriented computing. Multicast generally needs a tree construction that connects all the members of the multicast group as well as the nodes where data packets are duplicate. In this paper, we compared the multicast multipath routing protocols. The MAODV (Multicast Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector) routing protocol shows a smooth performance in light load ad hoc networks. However, as degraded quickly. Multipath routing allows building and use of multiple paths for routing between source and destination pair. It exploits the resource redundancy and diversity in the underlying network to provide benefits such as fault tolerance, load balancing, bandwidth aggregation, and improvement in QoS metrics such as delay. Multiple Path - MAODV (MP-AODV) distributes traffic through two node-disjoint routes to improve network efficiency and balances the network loads. Multiple Tree- MAODV (MT-MAODV) routing protocol consists mainly of constructing two disjoint trees. Only when the two links are broken, the source nodes restart to find new routes. So it decreases the number of routing discovery and reduces routing overhead. The MT-MAODV and MP-MAODV preferably ensure the network performance in heavy load ad hoc networks.


This article traces the contours of an inconspicuous kind of state power in the form of sovereign safety. This power is articulated, more precisely, in a combination of four elements: the historical term of public credit, the liquid government bond, the risk-free asset of financial textbooks and the safe-haven function assumed by the bond market in times of uncertainty. All of these involve a peculiar translation from sovereign debt as the most risky asset to sovereign creditworthiness, circulating unsecured. If critical security studies has largely limited itself to a critique of the relatively recent sense of political state security, this article explores the relevance of a far older financial sense of 'security' and 'securitization' for contemporary studies of security. So far, the Foucault-inspired finance–security literature has emphasized the risk calculus as a principal mechanism in 'securing circulation'. This article argues that sovereign safety constitutes an important overlooked factor in securing circulation in two ways: As the main form of collateral for financial transactions, its capacity to secure derives from being considered secure itself. As an epistemic variable, it constitutes the bedrock of modern finance theory. Moreover, rather than neatly complementary to the liberal security dispositif, sovereign safety can to some extent be said to represent the very object of the Foucaultian divesture of power.


Criminal justice education promotes interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking skills, and ethical decision making. A course on wrongful convictions falls squarely within that paradigm, as it draws upon criminology, criminal justice, law, psychology, and forensic science to examine basic assumptions about the criminal justice system and the actors within it. In a wrongful convictions course, students learn to think critically about the criminal justice system, and what happens when it fails to function as it should. Students identify practice and policy reforms that improve the accuracy and reliability of the system. This article first considers the broad objectives of criminal justice education. It next situates the subject of wrongful convictions squarely within criminal justice education curricula. Finally, this article provides a comprehensive overview of an effective undergraduate course in wrongful convictions. It sets out clear goals, learning units, and potential resources for members of the academy who might be interested in developing such a course.


Recent solicitations for comments on monetary penalties in China and Japan highlight opportunities to improve the deterrent effect of antitrust law by more closely aligning penalties with economic theory and evidence. When monetary penalties are not based upon economic analysis and clearly linked to identified harms, they are likely to generate costly errors, either by overdetering welfare-enhancing behavior or underdetering anticompetitive behavior.On June 17, 2016, China's Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council requested comments on Draft Guidelines issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) for the calculation of illegal gains (disgorgement) and setting of fines issued. On July 13, 2016, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) requested comments on introducing flexibility into their administrative surcharge system, developing a settlement program, and reforming due process in conjunction with surcharge reform. Both proposed monetary penalty systems would benefit from a deeper grounding in economics. The NDRC's Draft Guidelines provided only for the optional use of economic analysis in calculating illegal gains and appear to create a presumption that disgorgement would apply in addition to fines in nearly all cases. The JFTC's consultation acknowledged that the current inflexible surcharge system could give rise to "unreasonable or unfair" surcharges, but did not require economic analysis to determine appropriate monetary penalties. In both countries, monetary penalties are applied broadly and are not based upon identified harms, although the JFTC's consultation invited comments on whether differentiation by type of infringement was necessary.


This practical working manual considers many recent and far-reaching developments in damages for personal injury and death. Both the general practitioner and the specialist will find the advice and information provided useful when handling personal injury cases. The work will be equally useful to those investigating insurance claims in this field. The book is a stage-by-stage guide to the conduct of cases and the calculation of damages and it sets out the pre-trial considerations (including litigation), damages on death, danages for pecuniart loss and future pecuniary loss. pecuniary in "the lost years". the actuarial assessment of damages and damages for non-pecuniary loss. The book includes case summaries and statutes and important case and statutory developments are considered.


West Antarctic ice shelves have thinned dramatically over recent decades. Oceanographic measurements that explore connections between offshore warming and transport across a continental shelf with variable bathymetry toward ice shelves are needed to constrain future changes in melt rates. Six years of seal‐acquired observations provide extensive hydrographic coverage in the Bellingshausen Sea, where ship‐based measurements are scarce. Warm but modified Circumpolar Deep Water floods the shelf and establishes a cyclonic circulation within the Belgica Trough with flow extending toward the coast along the eastern boundaries and returning to the shelf break along western boundaries. These boundary currents are the primary water mass pathways that carry heat toward the coast and advect ice shelf meltwater offshore. The modified Circumpolar Deep Water and meltwater mixtures shoal and thin as they approach the continental slope before flowing westward at the shelf break, suggesting the presence of the Antarctic Slope Current. Constraining meltwater pathways is a key step in monitoring the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.


The article draws attention to the fact that political thought often manifests itself as a substitute for religion: metanarratives of a demystified telos for history. It discusses how socialism has progressively dispossessed the religious eschatology of its sphere of activity and has brought it to the common history. This posture led to the belief that, in the future, any political act will transform what once was absurd into something logical and what was disharmonious into something harmonic. Based on this, the article criticizes the utopian system and its nature of religious hope, using and advancing the Austrian proto-criticism.


Most of the displacement across the North American−Pacific plate boundary in southern California is accommodated by the San Jacinto and the southern San Andreas fault zones. If and how the rate of displacement across these fault zones varies along strike and through time are still being resolved. Here, we present four calculations of late Holocene slip rate and average slip per event from the Claremont fault of the northern San Jacinto fault zone that show variations in strain distribution over the past 2000 yr and illustrate how plate-boundary displacement is distributed between the San Jacinto and southern San Andreas fault zones. We calculate a slip rate of 12.8–18.3 mm/yr and an average slip per event of 2.5 m from two measurements of streams offset by 9–11 earthquakes in the past 1500–2000 yr. Faster slip rates of 21–30 mm/yr and an average slip per event of 2.7–3 m were determined from measurements of a stream and a buried channel that were offset by three earthquakes in the past 400–500 yr. The 2000 yr slip rate is similar to the range in slip rates reported for the adjacent San Bernardino section of the San Andreas fault zone, suggesting that the northern San Jacinto accommodates a similar amount of displacement as the San Andreas fault zone at the same latitude. The rate is also slightly faster (by ∼2–3 mm/yr) than reported slip rates from the central San Jacinto fault zone to the southeast. A slip rate of 15 ± 2 mm/yr is within the range of uncertainty for almost all the geologic and geodetic data for the entire length of the San Jacinto fault zone and may be the best approximation for long-term average slip rate of the fault zone. Alternatively, 2–3 mm/yr of slip along the northern San Jacinto fault zone may be accommodated to the south along the lesser-studied Hot Springs, Thomas Mountain, Buck Ridge, and Santa Rosa faults, the lateral slip rates of which are not well known nor included in typical estimates of slip rate along the central San Jacinto fault zone. We infer that the faster slip rate over the past 500 yr is due to a cluster of earthquakes along the Claremont fault between A.D. 1400 and A.D. 1850 and larger-than-average surface displacement of 3 m or more during the third event back. The 3 m or more measurement of displacement in this event corresponds to rupture lengths that are slightly longer than the total length of the Claremont fault, and previously published paleoseismic data indicate that this event occurred coincident in time with an event on the adjacent Clark fault. We propose that this combination of slip per event data and paleoseismic data from adjacent fault strands is strong evidence for rupture through the releasing step over that separates these two segments of the San Jacinto fault zone.


Indigenous peoples have, since time immemorial, understood that water is central to the cycles of life. Yet, as many of the articles in this special issue on water in Indigenous communities point out, Indigenous peoples have real problems accessing safe water. Why? Indigenous peoples have always cared for the water and followed practices that, depending on their geography, varied by season to protect and conserve fresh safe water. They have celebrated it as witnessed by the ceremony and language used. Colonial practices have disrupted the care and knowledge passing in Indigenous communities. Cost-effective technology exists to deliver safe water to Indigenous communities. The issue is that utilization of technology and environmental sustainability rest on the social determinants of safe water. From a policy perspective, this means we have to look outside of Western technological solutions and come to listen to the other 'story' the one that emanates from Indigenous Traditional Knowledge.


Abstract Chemotherapy, the commonly favoured approach to treat cancer is frequently associated with treatment failure and recurrence of disease as a result of development of multidrug resistance (MDR) with concomitant over-expression of drug efflux proteins on cancer cells. One of the most widely used drugs, doxorubicin (Dox) is a substrate of three different ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, namely, ABCB1, ABCG2 and ABCC1, predominantly contributing to MDR phenotype in cancer. To silence these transporter-coding genes and thus enhance the therapeutic efficacy of Dox, pH-sensitive carbonate apatite (CA) nanoparticles (NPs) were employed as a carrier system to co-deliver siRNAs against these genes and Dox in breast cancer cells and in a syngeneic breast cancer mouse model. siRNAs and Dox were complexed with NPs by incubation at 37 °C and used to treat cancer cell lines to check cell viability and caspase-mediated signal. 4T1 cells-induced breast cancer mouse model was used for treatment with the complex to confirm their action in tumour regression. Smaller (∼200 nm) and less polydisperse NPs that were taken up more effectively by tumour tissue could enhance Dox chemosensitivity, significantly reducing the tumour size in a very low dose of Dox (0.34 mg/kg), in contrast to the limited effect observed in breast cancer cell lines. The study thus proposes that simultaneous delivery of siRNAs against transporter genes and Dox with the help of CA NPs could be a potential therapeutic intervention in effectively treating MDR breast cancer.


ABSTRACTAmbient levels of culturable bioaerosol were measured at four different sites of Delhi, India in six size ranges (> 7.0 µm, 7.0–4.7 µm, 4.7–3.3 µm, 3.3–2.1 µm, 2.1–1.1 µm, < 1.1 µm). The study also accounted the seasonal variation (monsoon, post monsoon, winter and pre-monsoon) of the air microbes. The sampling was carried out for three different fractions of bioaerosols viz. fungi, gram positive and negative bacteria during August 2010 to April 2011 using a six-stage viable cascade impactor sampler. Unlike gram positive and negative bacteria, the concentration of fungal bioaerosol found in different stages at each site seems to follow a typical pattern in all four season. The typical pattern of concentration depicts that majority of the fungal species found in the diameter range of 3.3–2.1 µm, which coincides with the penetration range in the secondary bronchi of the lungs in the human body. This reveals that majority of the immunotoxic and allergic fungi found at this stage are mostly prone to affect the secondary bronchi in human lungs when inhaled. At all four sites maximum fungal concentration (1740.5–3224.7 CFU m–3), gram-positive bacterial concentration (2790.6–9428.3 CFU m–3) and gram-negative bacterial concentration (1990.3–7609 CFU m–3) were found in post monsoon season. In the majority of the sites, minimum concentrations were found in monsoon period which probably may be due to rain wash during the sampling. For all the three bioaerosol fractions no particular relationship pattern was found to exist between their respective concentrations with temperature and relative humidity (RH). However, higher range of variation was observed at higher concentration levels and lower range of variation at low concentration levels for all the three bioaerosol fractions. Most of the fungal bioaerosol identified such as Penicillium sp., Alternaria sp. and Aspergillus sp. are associated with immunotoxic and allergic diseases.


This paper addresses a national interest in investigating the potential of displacing a large fraction of U.S. gasoline use by 2030 with ethanol. This study assesses the feasibility, implications, limitations, and enablers of producing 90 billion gallons ethanol per year by 2030. We developed a dynamic supply chain model, the Biofuels Deployment Model (BDM), and conducted sensitivity analyses to determine the parameters that most affect the feasibility, cost-competitiveness, and greenhouse gas impact of large-scale ethanol production. Though we found no theoretical barriers to achieving the stated goal, we identified a number of practical obstacles that need to be addressed. In particular, investment in cellulosic ethanol production needs long-term protection against oil and feedstock price volatility. Capital costs are significant, and investment risk needs to be managed. Technology improvements, particularly in cellulosic conversion yields, are critical and must be sustained over a number of years.


The external financing of domestic government expenditures, as exemplified by the financing of social protection with official flows (aid and other official flows), faces what can be called a monetary transformation dilemma. This refers to the fact that official flows are in foreign currency and hence cannot be directly used for expenditures in domestic currency. Nor do domestic expenditures require foreign currency given that they can be financed through conventional domestic monetary and fiscal operations. The extent to which official flows are actually able to fund domestic expenditures therefore involves a range of macroeconomic management concerns, which are in turn prone to exacerbate the already thorny political relations between donors and recipient governments. This calls for a serious rethink of many of the accepted premises in the political economy of aid and social protection literatures, particularly with respect to the dominant focus on domestic governance rather than a broader systemic understanding of the often convoluted and contradictory external dynamics that domestic actors must contend with in the power relations that condition official flows. Several examples can be highlighted. First, conventional measures of absorption, as used by the IMF, actually include income payments to foreigners, which seriously muddles our understanding of the extent to which aid flows represent actual redistribution. Second, large mismatches between the absorption and notional domestic spending of aid appear to be the norm in most of the countries studied in the macroeconomic literature on aid and, given the first point, absorption is generally overestimated in this literature. Third, the full absorption and spending of aid, as advocated by the IMF, is in contradiction with the need to accumulate reserves in the face of financial account liberalisations, as also advocated by the IMF and other IFIs. Fourth, the full spending of aid is similarly in contradiction with substitutive approaches to social protection, as commonly advocated by donors and IFIs, which imply no net increase in spending. Finally, the obscurity of these monetary transformation dilemmas exacerbates donor concerns about fungibility, transparency and accountability, thereby inciting donors to seek ways of strengthening their micro-control over the end uses of aid, as exemplified by recent innovations in aid modalities such as cash-on-delivery or payment-by-results. Impulses to control recipient countries obviously do not originate from the monetary transformation dilemma although the associated tensions nonetheless reinforce broader ideological predilections to subordinate recipient countries within donor-recipient power relations, in parallel with increasingly conservative reactions to welfare in donor countries, thereby running counter to donor commitments of respecting national ownership.


National foreign trade is the economic sphere that determines the development of the international trade. Participation in global world markets is especially important for Lithuania as it is a free-market economy with the characteristics of a developing post-Soviet market. The vulnerability of the Lithuanian economy and the general level of globalization worldwide made integration into the European Union a necessity. This was one of the most significant events for the Lithuanian economy that gave start to a great number of changes in foreign trade. The world economic and financial crisis of the past few years has contributed to and made the problems under investigation more evident. Based on this background, the article analyses a topic relevant to the overall current development of Lithuania's economy—the specifics of Lithuania's foreign trade development—by determining its underlying problems. The aim of the article is to analyse the trends and problematic areas in Lithuania's foreign trade development. Export and import flows have been chosen as objects for the analysis. The methodology for the investigation comprises statistical data, chronological comparative analysis and use of the theory of constraints. The paper discusses the European Union's foreign trade policy and the course of Lithuania's integration into its trade system. Lithuania's foreign trade development throughout the period of 1995–2008 has been analyzed by using statistical database analysis. By using the method of the theory of constraints, a comprehensive foreign trade investigation has been carried out, in which the underlying problems in this economic area that hinder the functioning of foreign trade have been identified. Also, proposals on how to improve the effectiveness of the functioning of foreign trade have been provided. During the period of occupation, the independent functioning of Lithuania's foreign trade was restricted. Only after Lithuania regained its independence in 1991 did the volume of international trade begin to grow. Since the country became a member of the integral European Union, it expanded its foreign trade markets and substantially improved its conditions for international trade. The statistical database analysis that has been carried out enabled us to conclude that during the periods of 1995– 2003 and from the admittance to the European Union until 2009, exports and imports increased more than fourfold. The foreign trade balance deficit doubled in the periods under the investigation. The following major problems in Lithuania's foreign trade have been identified: a large trade balance deficit, the dependence of the dominant share of exports on imported raw materials, and the export of goods that are small value-added. By using the method of the theory of constraints, the fundamental obstacles that conditioned the problems in Lithuania's foreign trade have been identified: a cheap labour force in the country—an insufficient advantage in the long run, export and production structure typical of developing countries, lack of data on foreign countries' trade regulations, and Lithuania's low image. Apart from these problematic areas, the recent global economic and financial crisis has also contributed. To reduce problematic areas in Lithuania's foreign trade, the trade balance deficit ought to be decreased by means of export stimulation. This calls for changes in trade conditions: the expansion of export zones, an improvement of the country's image, the reduction of trade risk by fostering cooperation, the establishment of an effective business insurance system, and the improvement of financing conditions. To improve the structure of exports, it is necessary to switch from the energy and labour intensive sectors to those that create higher value-added goods by utilizing the intellectual potential of the country and by investing in scientific research. To improve export infrastructure its dependence on the import of raw materials ought to be decreased by exploiting local renewable energy sources. Stimulating the consumption of Lithuanian goods and services is also of great importance.


This thesis presents several hyperstructure-based Web search methods and a prototype system that is designed to implement the methods. Given the context of hyperlink structural and semantic information that is representable with new Web standards, this thesis is an effort to answer the open question of how to efficiently make use of such information for searching the Web and filtering and retrieving relevant information. The hyperstructure-based approach taken in this thesis is an extension to the traditional structure-based search method, which mainly handles hierarchical structures (composed by non-linking mechanisms) in structured documents (e.g., XML). In addition to such hierarchical structures, this approach can also handle both hierarchical and non-hierarchical structures composed by linking mechanisms. Compared to other link-based approaches that largely take into account the quantity of links in their search methods, this approach also makes use of the semantic information in links and link-based structures. It is in line with the trend of Web development with regard to capturing rich structural and semantic information and thereby capitalizing on the potential of new search methods. The hyperstructure-based search methods presented in this thesis can be applied to improve the search quality on the Web as the Web evolves from a poorly structured to a more structured, semantic-rich network. More concretely, by making use of hypertext composites and contexts, the search results can be more specific with respect to users' information needs, and additionally, the users' efforts to interpret the search results can be reduced. Presenting structured search results based on hypertext composites as inter-linked nodes/pages rather than separate nodes/pages helps users understand the retrieved information better. By making use of semantic information in hyperstructures (e.g., types of links and nodes), better filters can be developed for selecting and ranking the Web pages retrieved by search systems. These pages can be either intermediate information for further processing or final search results presented to users. By making use of domain models, domain-specific structure-based search methods can be developed, which may generate better results than general search methods that do not understand the domain-specific information.


This research adds to the literature on the attractiveness of telework to employees. To this end, we set up an innovative factorial survey experiment in which a high-quality sample of employees evaluates job offers with diverging characteristics, among which a wide variation in telework possibilities. We find that the relationship between the possibility to telework and job attractiveness is approximately linear: 10 percentage points more telework hours yield a rise of 2.2 percentage points in job attractiveness and, therefore, the willingness to give up an increase of 2.3 percentage points in wage in the new job. Our experimental design also allows us to investigate the underlying mechanisms of this relationship as well as its moderators. We find that the attractiveness of telework is particularly explained by expectations of an improved work-life balance, more work scheduling autonomy, a higher job satisfaction, and more work methods autonomy in jobs with a greater possibility to telework. In addition, our analyses show that less conscientious employees are on average more attracted to jobs with greater telework possibilities, so that it is important that self-selection in jobs with more telework is well-monitored.


The initial objective of the work reported in this paper was the development of generalized representations of film thickness results for elastohydrodynamic conjunctions in which lubricant entrainment coincided with one of the principal axes of the Hertzian conjunction. Some 106 solutions have been considered, including 33 presented in part I for entrainment along the major axis, four further solutions of a similar kind, the 34 solutions presented by Hamrock & Dowson (J. lubr. Technol. 98, 264-276 (1977)) for entrainment along the minor axis and 35 new solutions for similar geometries. It has been shown that normalization of the principal parameters in terms of the curvature in the direction of lubricant entrainment, 1/Re, permits the display of both central and minimum film thickness values as functions of the ratio of the radii of the solids normal to, and in the direction of, lubricant entrainment. These continuous curves enable film thickness to be predicted over a very wide range of geometrical configurations, but valid empirical expressions for both central and minimum dimensionless film thickness have also been developed. The second major feature of the study was to develop elastohydrodynamic solutions for the non-symmetrical conditions encountered when the lubricant entraining vector did not coincide with either of the principal axes of the conjunction. Such solutions are more representative of the conditions encountered in certain machine elements than the symmetrical solutions already reported. Examples of the resulting nonsymmetrical pressure distributions, elastic deformations and film shapes are presented. It is shown that normalization in terms of the curvature in the direction of lubricant entrainment, and the use of a simple trigonometric function, enables both the central and minimum film thicknesses to be predicted for any entrainment angle. It is demonstrated that this comprehensive and generalized presentation of new and previous solutions to the elastohydrodynamic lubrication problem for elliptical conjunctions yields film thickness predictions that compare very well indeed with specific solutions reported earlier. It is further shown that the central film thickness is little affected by the orientation of the lubricant entraining vector for many ellipsoidal solids, but that the minimum film thicknesses encountered cover a much wider range of values. In many cases the minimum film thicknesses occur in side-lobes located near the lateral boundaries of the Hertzian conjunction, which perform a sealing role and thus permit the generation of near-Hertzian hydrodynamic pressures in the central regions of the conjunction. The results are expected to provide a basis for the analysis and design of a wide range of machine elements operating in the elastohydrodynamic régime of lubrication.


Adsorption of anthracene as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecule on the pristine multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and functionalized MWCNTs with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) has been investigated in an attempt to explore adsorption mechanisms. The morphology of MWCNTs was observed by a Scanning Electron Microscope. Thermal Gravimetric Analysis was used to obtain the degree of polymer functionalization of MWCNTs after the thermal polymerization of Methyl methacrylate (MMA) with benzoylperoxide. Changing of fluorescence intensity as a function of time is recorded to follow the variance of adsorption.


We use asteroseismic data obtained by the NASA Kepler mission to estimate the fundamental properties of more than 500 main-sequence and sub-giant stars. Data obtained during the first 10 months of Kepler science operations were used for this work, when these solar-type targets were observed for one month each in survey mode. Stellar properties have been estimated using two global asteroseismic parameters and complementary photometric and spectroscopic data. Homogeneous sets of effective temperatures, Teff, were available for the entire ensemble from complementary photometry; spectroscopic estimates of Teff and [Fe/H] were available from a homogeneous analysis of ground-based data on a subset of 87 stars. We adopt a grid-based analysis, coupling six pipeline codes to 11 stellar evolutionary grids. Through use of these different grid-pipeline combinations we allow implicitly for the impact on the results of stellar model dependencies from commonly used grids, and differences in adopted pipeline methodologies. By using just two global parameters as the seismic inputs we are able to perform a homogenous analysis of all solar-type stars in the asteroseismic cohort, including many targets for which it would not be possible to provide robust estimates of individual oscillation frequencies (due to a combination of low signal-to-noise ratio and short dataset lengths). The median final quoted uncertainties from consolidation of the grid-based analyses are for the full ensemble (spectroscopic subset) approximately 10.8% (5.4%) in mass, 4.4% (2.2%) in radius, 0.017 dex (0.010 dex) in log  g, and 4.3% (2.8%) in mean density. Around 36% (57%) of the stars have final age uncertainties smaller than 1 Gyr. These ages will be useful for ensemble studies, but should be treated carefully on a star-by-star basis. Future analyses using individual oscillation frequencies will offer significant improvements on up to 150 stars, in particular for estimates of the ages, where having the individual frequency data is most important.


We take advantage of climate simulations from two multimodel experiments to characterize and evaluate the cloud phase partitioning in 16 general circulation models (GCMs), specifically the vertical structure of the transition between liquid and ice in clouds. We base our analysis on the ratio of ice condensates to the total condensates (phase ratio, PR). Its transition at 90% (PR90) and its links with other relevant variables are evaluated using the GCM‐Oriented Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation Cloud Product climatology, reanalysis data, and other satellite observations. In 13 of 16 models, the PR90 transition height occurs too low (6 km to 8.4 km) and at temperatures too warm (−13.9°C to −32.5°C) compared to observations (8.6 km, −33.7°C); features consistent with a lack of supercooled liquid with respect to ice above 6.5 km. However, this bias would be slightly reduced by using the lidar simulator. In convective regimes (more humid air and precipitation), the observed cloud phase transition occurs at a warmer temperature than for subsidence regimes (less humid air and precipitation). Only few models manage to roughly replicate the observed correlations with humidity (5/16), vertical velocity (5/16), and precipitation (4/16); 3/16 perform well for all these parameters (MPI‐ESM, NCAR‐CAM5, and NCHU). Using an observation‐based Clausius‐Clapeyron phase diagram, we illustrate that the Bergeron‐Findeisen process is a necessary condition for models to represent the observed features. Finally, the best models are those that include more complex microphysics.


A dual-beam differential-type laser Doppler velocimeter using variable fringe spacing is proposed to measure the number density as well as the velocity of homogeneous monodisperse particles. The main function of the system is to investigate the variation in the visibility of the photodetector signal as a function of the crossing angle of the two beams. A preliminary experimental study was conducted to verify the theory. Good agreement between the theoretical and experimental results was obtained.


Classifying action videos became challenging problem in computer vision community. In this work, action videos are represented by dictionaries which are learned by online dictionary learning (ODL). Here, we have used two simple measures to classify action videos, reconstruction error and projection. Sparse approximation algorithm LASSO is used to reconstruct test video and reconstruction error is calculated for each of the dictionaries. To get another discriminative measure projection, the test vector is projected onto the atoms in the dictionary. Minimum reconstruction error and maximum projection give information regarding the action category of the test vector. With action bank as a feature vector, our best performance is 59.3% on UCF50 (benchmark is 57.9%), 97.7% on KTH (benchmark is 98.2%)and 23.63% on HMDB51 (benchmark is 26.9%).


Increasing water scarcity in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region has underscored the need to improve our understanding of the management of water resources. Using total evapotranspiration (TET) and precipitation (P) data of the past 16 years this study used a modified version of the climate moisture index (CMI) in order to evaluate water scarcity throughout the SADC region, by examining the relative importance of P and TET on the variability of the CMI. The CMI value for the Democratic Republic of Congo (CMI DRC = 0.347) as well as for Angola (CMI Angola = 0.351), ranged between 0.25 and 1, characteristic of a humid region, whereas CMI values for Botswana (CMI Botswana = 0.027) and South Africa (CMI South Africa = 0.075) ranged between −0.6 and 0 or 0 and 0.25, characteristic of semi-arid to sub-humid regions. Namibia (CMI Namibia = −0.125) has been experiencing drier conditions. The findings of this linear correlation analysis confirm a strong and significant relationship between DRC-Angola ( r = 0.837), and a weak but significant relationship between Botswana–Namibia ( r = 0.554) and South Africa–Namibia ( r = 0.445) with regard to CMI, and suggest the possibility of transferring water from wetter to drier regions in the SADC study area.


Approximate Bayesian inference methods that scale to very large datasets are crucial in leveraging probabilistic models for real-world time series. Sparse Markovian Gaussian processes combine the use of inducing variables with efficient Kalman filter-like recursions, resulting in algorithms whose computational and memory requirements scale linearly in the number of inducing points, whilst also enabling parallel parameter updates and stochastic optimisation. Under this paradigm, we derive a general site-based approach to approximate inference, whereby we approximate the non-Gaussian likelihood with local Gaussian terms, called sites. Our approach results in a suite of novel sparse extensions to algorithms from both the machine learning and signal processing literature, including variational inference, expectation propagation, and the classical nonlinear Kalman smoothers. The derived methods are suited to large time series, and we also demonstrate their applicability to spatio-temporal data, where the model has separate inducing points in both time and space.


The wavelength dependence of the cubic nonlinearity of ligated platinum-terminated polyynes trans, trans-{(p-MeC6H4)3P}2(p-MeC6H4)Pt(C[triple bond]C)n Pt(p-C6H4Me){P(p-C6H4Me)3}2 (n = 3-6, 8, 10, 12) has been examined by femtosecond Z-scan studies in the wavelength range 520-1500 nm and the results rationalized by density functional theory calculations on the model complexes trans, trans-(H3P)2(C6H5)Pt(C[triple bond]C)n Pt(C6H5)(PH3)2 (n = 2-8, 10, 12). Although the final states for one- and two-photon transitions are not the same in these centrosymmetric molecules, the Z-scan studies reveal coincidences in one-photon absorption with features in the frequency dependencies of both real and imaginary parts of the cubic hyperpolarizability, as well as inflections in the frequency dependencies of the real part of gamma that correspond to resonances in the imaginary part of gamma. The theoretical studies suggest that the linear absorption spectra are dominated by X(1)A g --> n(1)B(3u) transitions, with the first state of B(3u) symmetry playing a steadily diminishing role upon oligoyne chain lengthening. The theoretical studies also predict a red-shift of two-photon absorption (TPA) profile with increasing conjugation length, and a significant enhancement on proceeding from the shortest to the longest chromophore, trends that are observed experimentally. The experimental low-energy TPA maxima for these complexes can be approximated by a simple Gaussian profile. The sp-carbon chain-length dependence of linear and nonlinear absorption maxima enable an estimate (neglecting saturation) of 660 and 1000 nm for the infinite carbon chain, carbyne.


[1] Computational modeling of Earth system processes often requires simplifying assumptions of the real system. These necessary assumptions result in the definition of internal model parameters that can take a number of different values but must be explicitly defined for any one model simulation. The main issue with such an uncertain multidimensional input space is that many simulations are needed to adequately explore it. This study presents a generalized parameter screening experiment for use in future earth system modeling. This approach identifies model parameters that dominate uncertainty, therefore reducing to a manageable number the simulations required to explore the input space. The approach we adopt is relatively inexpensive to implement and can be applied at both the aggregate and disaggregate (e.g., regional) level. To demonstrate the potential of such a method, it is applied to a surface mass balance model of intermediate complexity over the Greenland ice sheet. All identified parameters were related to the surface melt parameterization, with albedo parameters being identified as the most important. Spatial distributions of the parameter sensitivities show that, in recent years, most parameter sensitivities are concentrated around the southwest and northern ice sheet margins. Simulations for the 21st century indicate an increase in sensitivity in these high melt areas especially in the northeast. Melt contributions from temperature and radiative effects are shown to be important on the order of parameters identified, and as a consequence, sensitivities are dependent on the present climate used for modeling surface mass balance.


This paper highlights several issues regarding the Kushite presence in Twenty-fifth Dynasty Thebes. The Nubian influence in the iconography of the chapel of Osiris Heqa-Djet is discussed, as well as problems related to the identification of Kushites in the Theban necropolis, with the possible hints pointing to the Kushite connections of the deceased individuals previously identified as Egyptians.


Abstract Understanding watershed responses to extreme events is important for assessing potential impacts of floods, droughts, episodic pollution, and other external driving variables on watershed resources. In this study, we combine trend and frequency analyses with paired watershed techniques to evaluate the long-term high- and low-flow data from Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina, USA in an attempt to quantify and interpret responses to extreme flow events in managed and unmanaged watersheds. Two experimental watersheds were converted from mixed deciduous forest cover to pine (Pinus strobus L.) in 1957 and 1956, respectively and two others were kept untreated to serve as control watersheds. Seventy years of annual streamflow (instantaneous maximum, minimum, and mean) time series data from watersheds 1, 2, 17, and 18 were analyzed with a Mann–Whitney–Pettitt test to identify and compare change points. Mean annual streamflow increased in both watersheds for 10–12 years after harvests, but the more effective factor on the flow series was the growth of pine plantations. Maximum flows of 2-, 5-, and 10-year return periods decreased after planting pine, but there was no difference for larger flow events compared to deciduous forest. For minimum flows, pine stands were more effective compared to maximum flows as minimum flows decreased for all return periods.


The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires that access to education not be denied simply on the basis of disability. The law requires definition of "basic qualifications" required of all applicants, "essential elements" of the curriculum, and whether accommodation would alter the "fundamental nature" of the learning experience or impose "undue burden." Medical schools have a very low proportion of physically disabled students, which the author argues is largely a result of schools' conception of the "undifferentiated graduate" as being capable of performing the history, physical examination, and any medical procedure without an intermediary. But the author maintains that medical students need not be unblemished physically; medical educators' obligation is to educate those students who are qualified to become physicians by virtue of intelligence, professional attitude, and ability to effectively interact and communicate. With respect to clinical training, it is important to consider whether personal, hands-on experience is required for adequate learning to occur. Because most physicians limit the scopes of their practices and do not perform all procedures, because those physicians who develop physical disabilities are not precluded from continuing in some forms of medical practice, and because technologic advances allow for the substitution of imaging and diagnostic testing for the more conventional approach to the physical examination, the requirement for hands-on capability becomes less compelling. Yet not every physically disabled applicant should be admitted to medical school, and those admitted require coaching, guidance, and career advice in order to succeed with their physical limitations. The author suggests that one of the seminal concepts of medical education, "without handicap," should be seen not as referring to the pre-existing physical status of students but instead as the obligation of educators to provide all their students with the broadest possible learning experiences so that they will be without the handicap of inadequate education when they proceed to their chosen fields.


Language and speech are the primary source of data for psychiatrists to diagnose and treat mental disorders. In psychosis, the very structure of language can be disturbed, including semantic coherence (e.g., derailment and tangentiality) and syntactic complexity (e.g., concreteness). Subtle disturbances in language are evident in schizophrenia even prior to first psychosis onset, during prodromal stages. Using computer‐based natural language processing analyses, we previously showed that, among English‐speaking clinical (e.g., ultra) high‐risk youths, baseline reduction in semantic coherence (the flow of meaning in speech) and in syntactic complexity could predict subsequent psychosis onset with high accuracy. Herein, we aimed to cross‐validate these automated linguistic analytic methods in a second larger risk cohort, also English‐speaking, and to discriminate speech in psychosis from normal speech. We identified an automated machine‐learning speech classifier – comprising decreased semantic coherence, greater variance in that coherence, and reduced usage of possessive pronouns – that had an 83% accuracy in predicting psychosis onset (intra‐protocol), a cross‐validated accuracy of 79% of psychosis onset prediction in the original risk cohort (cross‐protocol), and a 72% accuracy in discriminating the speech of recent‐onset psychosis patients from that of healthy individuals. The classifier was highly correlated with previously identified manual linguistic predictors. Our findings support the utility and validity of automated natural language processing methods to characterize disturbances in semantics and syntax across stages of psychotic disorder. The next steps will be to apply these methods in larger risk cohorts to further test reproducibility, also in languages other than English, and identify sources of variability. This technology has the potential to improve prediction of psychosis outcome among at‐risk youths and identify linguistic targets for remediation and preventive intervention. More broadly, automated linguistic analysis can be a powerful tool for diagnosis and treatment across neuropsychiatry.


One way to undermine social media monopolies is to refuse to contribute to the communicational economy they are based upon: don't generate exploitable signals, stay quiet — and ask how this might be developed as a common response. Given the naturalized assumption that 'more communication' will automatically produce 'more freedom', suggestions, like this one, that are based on doing less of it might provoke hostility. However, in the case of the social media industries, communication is cultivated not in the interests of freedom, but in the interests of growth; social media wants to capture more of you through your transactions. Moreover, through this process communications are not made 'more free' but tend rather to become less open — certainly in the sense that they are commoditized. With this in mind, this paper asks if a media politics might be generated based on the potentials of silence, on speaking in tongues — and on relying on the resources of metaphorical language rather than on learning to speak or write in ways more amenable to code.


Objective: To investigate the clinical features and follow-up results of the patients with transient hypogammaglobulinemia of infancy (THI) and to understand to what extent the condition coexists with allergic diseases. Materials and Methods: Between January 2010 and February 2019, 172 patients who had been referred to Ankara University Faculty of Medicine's Pediatric Immunology and Allergy Outpatient Department for findings of atopic disease or for frequent infections with a suspicion of PID, who were diagnosed with THI, and followed-up for at least one year were included in this study. Their clinical and immunological features and follow-up results were evaluated retrospectively. Results: Of the 172 patients, 59% were boys. Median time of symptom onset was 14 months (1-46 months), median time of admission was 20 months (6-30 months), and consanguineous marriages were seen in 20% of the families. The most common referral complaints were respiratory tract infections and non-wheezing allergic diseases with rates of 71.5% and 27%, respectively. Cellular immune system analyses were normal. During a median follow-up time of 36 months, 42% of the patients recovered, 25% (n=43) still had THI, 25% (n=43) had unclassified hypogammaglobulinemia (UCG), 4% (n=7) had partial IgA deficiency, and 4% (n=7) had partial IgM deficiency. Allergic diseases were seen in 46% of the patients. An asthma diagnosis was made in 35.4% of the patients, allergic rhinitis in 5% and atopic dermatitis in 12.7%. The skin prick test was positive in 15% of them. Conclusion: THI mostly improves spontaneously in time. However, hypogammaglobulinemia can last until later years in life in a group of patients. Allergic diseases increase with the presence of THI. In patients who are admitted with allergic disease symptoms, underlying hypogammaglobulinemia should also be investigated.


Functioning quantum dot (QD) sensitized solar cells have been fabricated using the vacuum deposition technique atomic layer deposition (ALD). Utilizing the incubation period of CdS growth by ALD on TiO2, we are able to grow QDs of adjustable size which act as sensitizers for solid‐state QD‐sensitized solar cells (ssQDSSC). The size of QDs, studied with transmission electron microscopy (TEM), varied with the number of ALD cycles from 1‐10 nm. Photovoltaic devices with the QDs were fabricated and characterized using a ssQDSSC device architecture with 2,2',7,7'‐tetrakis‐(N,N‐di‐p methoxyphenylamine) 9,9'‐spirobifluorene (spiro‐OMeTAD) as the solid‐state hole conductor. The ALD approach described here can be applied to fabrication of quantum‐confined structures for a variety of applications, including solar electricity and solar fuels. Because ALD provides the ability to deposit many materials in very high aspect ratio substrates, this work introduces a strategy by which material and optical properties of QD sensitizers may be adjusted not only by the size of the particles but also in the future by the composition.


Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport. [Book Synopsis]


This paper reports on two experiments that tested the hypothesis that native phonology may influence speech perception. Both experiments used natural speech tokens of Standard Mandarin tones and Chinese- and American Englishspeaking listeners. The results from both the AX discrimination and the degree of difference rating experiments show language-specific effects: the Chinese-speaking listeners' tone perception space was warped due to tone sandhi processes that neutralize two otherwise contrastive lexical tones. On the other hand, the English-speaking listeners showed phonetic listening, paying more attention to the similarity in pitch offset and onset between a pair of tones.


Objectives: This study aims to investigate the arterial and venous vascularization of the tympanic membrane (TM) with colored vessel embalming procedure in fresh cadaver heads, as a guide for minimally invasive tympanoplasty procedures. Patients and Methods: This study was performed on two fresh frozen cadaver heads (4 ears, 1 male, 1 female). After vessel embalming procedure the TM was examined with rigid endoscopes and the mini vascular plexuses of the TM and external auditory canal were observed. Results: There is increased vascularization of the posterior superior part of the TM, and the main blood supply derives from the mallear region. The posterior half of the tympanic membrane has richer perfusion compared to the anterior half. Conclusion: Awareness of the vascular pattern of the TM allows modification of manipulations during tympanoplasty; the poorly vascularized anterior part of the TM must be protected for successful graft healing.


Abstract Twenty one samples of relatively pure tubular halloysites (HNTs) from localities in Australia, China, New Zealand, Scotland, Turkey and the USA have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and electron microscopy. The halloysites occur in cylindrical tubular forms with circular or elliptical cross sections and curved layers and also as prismatic tubular forms with polygonal cross sections and flat faces. Measurements of particle size indicate a range from 40 to 12,700 nm for tube lengths and from 20 to 600 nm for diameters. Size distributions are positively skewed with mean lengths ranging from 170 to 950 nm and mean diameters from 50 to 160 nm. Cylindrical tubes are systematically smaller than prismatic ones. Features related to order/ disorder in XRD patterns e.g. as measured by a 'cylindrical/prismatic' (CP) index and IR spectra as measured by an 'OH-stretching band ratio' are related to the proportions of cylindrical vs. prismatic tubes and correlated with other physical measurements such as specific surface area and cation exchange capacity. The relationships of size to geometric form, along with evidence for the existence of the prismatic form in the hydrated state and the same 2M1 stacking sequence irrespective of hydration state (i.e. 10 vs. 7 Å) or form, suggests that prismatic halloysites are the result of continued growth of cylindrical forms.


A series of new chalcones were synthesized by the reaction of 2-acetyl thiophene and substituted bezaldehydes. Then the chalcones were made to undergo cyclization reaction with hydroxylamine hydrochloride in ethanol to afford the synthesis of isoxazole derivatives of thiophene. The synthesized compounds were purified and their structures were elucidated with the help of IR and 1 H NMR spectroscopy. The compounds were screened for antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion method. The result suggested that the four compounds were moderately to highly active.


Sustainable development, a concept that emerged as we began to understand the negative impacts of environmental challenges, such as pollution and climate change, on human prosperity and social equality, was seen as offering a way of preserving the natural systems that sustain human life on Earth whilst continuing to support economic and social development. As a concept, however, it presents many challenges, both in its interpretation and in its application and one of the challenges is the requirement for behaviour change from all sectors of society, including the voluntary sector. There is an assumption by the UK government that voluntary organisations, as trusted agents of change, are well placed to help the poorest cope with the disproportionate impacts of economic and environmental unsustainability and that the voluntary sector should be working with local stakeholders to promote behaviour change at a local level. This research identified that limited understanding of the concept of sustainable development and inappropriate communication and interaction with the UK government, both nationally and locally, acted to inhibit voluntary sector engagement in change. Part of the problem could be that traditional linear approaches to behaviour change, based on clear cause and effect relationships and pre-determined outcomes, are not appropriate when addressing complex problems like sustainable development, which involve multiple stakeholders, both human and non human. The encouragement of behaviour change for sustainable development may require a new and different approach. This thesis concludes that Communities of Practice, a change approach that is sympathetic to the principles of complexity thinking, offers an alternative approach to behaviour change that could accommodate the complexity of sustainable development and additionally, has many features that would overcome the barriers to voluntary sector engagement. This type of non-hierarchical approach has the potential to encourage not only the voluntary sector but all stakeholders in a local community to work together to develop sustainability initiatives that are appropriate to the local circumstances.


Patient harm resulting from medical care is common, with 25.1 harms per 100 hospital admissions and 10.9% of harms being life threatening and causing or contributing to a patient's death.1 One study found at least 210 000 deaths of hospitalised patients to be associated with preventable harm per year.2 Factors contributing most frequently to patient safety incidents are active failures including cognitive and technical errors as well as deviations from policies, individual factors (eg, inexperience and stress), communication, equipment and supplies, and management of staff and staffing levels.3

As factors contributing to safety incidents are manifold, a multitude of strategies—involving the continuum from individuals to healthcare systems—has to be considered when aiming at improving the quality of healthcare and patient safety. A strategy certainly at the forefront of this process is active improvement of quality and effectiveness in medical education and training.4

Medical education has traditionally relied on on-the-job training. However, the often used 'see one, do one, teach one' approach may be detrimental to patient safety and health, as it exposes patients to inexperienced healthcare practitioners.5 In an effort to reduce human errors and improve operational safety, simulation-based training (SBT) has been recognised as an effective methodology.6 It is well documented that aviation, aerospace and nuclear power have developed a remarkable safety culture. Because of the profound safety awareness, these professions represent high-reliability industries and provide a 'benchmark safety record for medicine to emulate'.7

In hindsight, first initiatives to implement SBT into medical education in the 1960s and 1970s have to be considered as pioneer work. From these initial efforts incorporated mainly by anaesthesiologists, the use of simulation—defined as 'a technique to replace or amplify real experiences with guided experiences that evoke or replicate substantial aspects of the real world in a fully …


The focus of the thesis is on the evaluation of the effect of the implementation of a three-hour per week problem-based learning (PBL) module for 1SI year undergraduate
students. The research questions are outlined below:
• What approaches to learning are undergraduate students adopting at the initial stage of tertiary education?
• Are student approaches to learning related to age/gender/ time in university/achievement in examinations?
• Can a PBL module in chemistry be developed that can provide an effective teaching and learning environment, which develops students' understanding in chemistry and engages the students with the context and processes o f chemistry?
• Will the introduction of such a PBL module in chemistry have an effect on students' approaches to learning?
The main evaluation tool for determining student approaches to learning was the
learning style inventory - Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students. Other evaluation tools employed were student surveys, interviews and assessment data.

Key findings were that students on entry to tertiary level report a preference for deep and strategic approaches to learning over a surface approach. However, with time in university, the profile shifts with students indicating increasing use o f a surface approach. Mature students tended to prefer a deep approach in comparison to their younger counterparts and female students were more strategic than males in their
approach.

An introductory year-long chemistry PBL laboratory module was developed, implemented and evaluated. Interestingly, students who took part in the PBL module showed a lower preference for a surface approach having successfully completed the PBL module compared to those who followed the traditional approach despite showing similar trends at the start of the study. The effect on a deep approach to learning, after taking the PBL module, one sixth of the 1st year course, was not evident however. Conversely, the PBL students did significantly better in a non-formal exam designed to assess students learning in the first year chemistry laboratory. The students also successfully engaged with the chemistry content, context and processes and reported the benefit of the pre-lab, group work and practical aspects of the PBL approach.


This article is a belated contribution to a Common Knowledge symposium on the "unanticipated conceptual practice" of "anthropological philosophy." The basic argument is that the groundwork for this emerging approach, associated foremost with Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's book Métaphysiques cannibales of 2009, was laid in the 1970s by the controversial French anthropologists Pierre and Hélène Clastres. It is argued that the Clastres took the intellectual practices of Guarani shamans and prophets as analogous to the those of ancient Greek philosophers but also as sharply critical of the principles (in particular, the principle of noncontradiction) that underlay early Western metaphysics.


(Contd on P-2)... ITANAGAR, JuNe 22: Chief Minister Pema Khandu today attended the general conference of former legislators' welfare association along with speaker TN Thongdok, Deputy Speaker Tumke Bagra and Parliamentary Secretary Techi Kaso. Addressing the meeting, the CM said it's a historic occasion as former legislators have gathered for the first time under a platform in huge number. The CM acknowledged the contribution of former legislators in development of the state and sought their further cooperation. He said any valuable suggestions will always be welcomed and urged all to rise above differences for good of the state. He said a member from the former legislator association will be inducted the Chief Minister's Advisory Council and suggested the body to recommend a suitable name for the job. The CM said steps are being taken to fight corruption and delivery of speedy justice by proposing a permanent high court for Arunachal, establishment of lokayukta, by handing over of PDS case to CBI. He said corruption will not be tolerated and any person involved will face strict actions. On hydropower, the CM said the state government is examining all the earlier MoUs signed with the power developers. He said 16 MoUs has been cancelled and more 90 are being examined. He said MoUs are being examined to assess power developers ability to go ahead with the project and its feasibility. Speaker Thongdok in his speech urged the former legislators to contribute to the welfare of the state with their experience and wisdom. CM attended the general conference


A series of salts composed of the coordinatively unsatd. areneruthenium β-diketiminato cation and different anions, [(η6-C6H6)Ru(ArN:CMeCHCMe:NAr)][X] (1-4; Ar = 2,6-dimethylphenyl; X = OTf-, BF4-, PF6-, BPh4-) and [(η6-C6H6)Ru(ArN:CMeCHCMe:NAr)][BArF4] [5, ArF = 3,5-(CF3)2C6H3], were prepd. and characterized. The solid state structures of 1, 2, and 5 have also been detd. using single-crystal x-ray crystallog. Both soln. and solid state data reveal the presence of anion-cation interactions, the extent of which depends on the nature of the anion, which have been further rationalized via computed charge d. profiles using DFT energy optimized models. The catalytic activity of 1-5 in the hydrogenation of styrene was found to be highly dependent on the nature of the counteranion, as inferred from investigations based on high-pressure soln. NMR, pulsed gradient spin-echo (PGSE) NMR diffusion, and Overhauser NMR spectroscopy. A good correlation between catalytic activity and the extent and nature of ion pairing was found, and the structure of the active catalytic species is proposed.