CD8(+) T cells respond to short peptides bound to MHC class I molecules. Although most antigenic proteins contain many sequences that could bind to MHC class I, few of these peptides actually stimulate CD8(+) T cell responses. Moreover, the T cell responses that are generated often follow a very reproducible hierarchy to different peptides for reasons that are poorly understood. We find that the loss of a single enzyme, endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 1 (ERAP1), in the antigen-processing pathway results in a marked shift in the hierarchy of immunodominance in viral infections, even when the responding T cells have the same T cell receptor repertoire. In mice, ERAP1 is the major enzyme that trims precursor peptides in the endoplasmic reticulum and, in this process, can generate or destroy antigenic peptides. Consequently, when ERAP1 is lost, the immune response to some viral peptides is reduced, to others increased, and to yet others unchanged. Therefore, many epitopes must be initially generated as precursors that are normally trimmed by ERAP1 before binding to MHC class I, whereas others are normally degraded by ERAP1 to lengths that are too short to bind to MHC class I. Moreover, peptide trimming and the resulting abundance of peptide-MHC complexes are dominant factors in establishing immunodominance.


Economists think they know a great deal about economic growth, both about why countries differ so much in their growth experience, and what needs to be done to get a country on track for faster growth, raising living standards. However, while there are many important theories about growth, and numerous country case studies of outstanding and sustained performance, there are also still too many countries that grow slowly if at all, where economic performance has somehow become 'stuck' at a low level. In the development context, a major policy concern is often to create enough jobs in a given period to employ all or most of those entering the labour force, preferably productively. Thus growth is not just about expanding aggregate output (GDP) but also about large-scale job creation. In the transition economy context, there was not only the complex matter of switching to a market-type economy in quite a short time, but generating growth and employment to catch up with more prosperous neighbours to the West. This has proved harder than many expected.
 Kolodko himself has written much about many aspects of economic growth, and has also contributed in important ways to concrete policy formation in Poland (especially when he served as Minister of Finance). In this paper I shall explore the ideas and challenges indicated above, drawing on Kolodko's work as appropriate, but also developing some new ideas that seem to be needed to understand better both growth successes and growth failures around the world.


Meeting, socializing and conversing online with a group of people using teleconferencing systems is still quite different from the experience of meeting face to face. We are abruptly aware that we are online and that the people we are engaging with are not in close proximity. Analogous to how talking on the telephone does not replicate the experience of talking in person. Several causes for these differences have been identified and we propose inspiring and innovative solutions to these hurdles in attempt to provide a more realistic, believable and engaging online conversational experience. We present the distributed and scalable framework REVERIE that provides a balanced mix of these solutions. Applications build on top of the REVERIE framework will be able to provide interactive, immersive, photo-realistic experiences to a multitude of users that for them will feel much more similar to having face to face meetings than the experience offered by conventional teleconferencing systems.


A variety of paleontologic and stratigraphic problems are presented by rocks near the MississippianPennsylvanian boundary in the central and northern Rocky Mountains. Stratigraphic sections of these rocks show diverse interpretations of fundamental concepts of stratigraphy and paleontology. In many places where Upper Mississippian rocks directly underlie Pennsylvanian rocks it is difficult to determine the precise location of the boundary between these units. Formations that straddle the boundary are very useful and satisfactory over large areas. Most geologists use various types of lithologic criteria to distinguish formations, but some appear to rely mainly on faunal data, unconformities, or attempts to trace prominent beds. More uniformity in criteria than now exists for the delimitation of formations is desirable. Surface and subsurface formations should conform to the same definition. Critical paleontologic studies of several common species and genera, if based on a large number of specimens, might help solve the boundary problem. More correlations based on several lines of paleontologic evidence and less reliance on a few index fossils wouldalso help. Larger and more varied collections of well-preserved fossils stratigraphically located are needed from critical areas. Additional stratigraphic work in this region should be of a detailed nature and should preferably be done in connection with detailed mapping. Ecologic and paleogeographic factors merit more attention. The age significance of unconformities has perhaps been overestimated generally.


Since ancient times people have used natural stone materials for building purposes. The need of safeguarding historical sites and cultural heritage provoke considering the precise technical characterization of building stones and their changes in weathering processes. In the paper there were listed detailed petrographical analysis used for assessing the quality and durability of the stone material The porosity properties are detected by means of a range of methods, divided into two groups: direct (including thin section microscopy and scanning electron microscopy), which allow direct documentation and measuring of pore space; and indirect (including mercury porosimetry or nitrogen sorption method), which enable calculating the porosity data from the measuring results. Precise knowledge of porosity characteristics, like total porosity, pore sizes, pore size distribution and pore surface is essential for: stone characterization, modeling of transportation processes, assessment of stone durability, interpretation and prediction of the weathering behavior of natural stones, quantification and rating of stone deterioration and evaluation of effectiveness of stone treatments. Basing on the literature digest and own experience, some examples of the stone porosity characteristic application was presented. The variety of natural stones used as construction material, the complicated nature of weathering processes and complex porosity properties determine implication of different analytical methods for stone examination. The most popular method is mercury porosimetry, but it is worth to remember that a reliable characterization of porosity properties can be guaranteed by application of different analytical procedures.


Abstract:Around the globe, democratically elected leaders are eroding democracy by legal means, a strategy that often averts domestic and international backlash. To counter this erosion, oppositions may deploy radical, extra-institutional opposition strategies which risk backfiring and strengthening autocracy. Safer options are moderate, institutional strategies that maintain opposition legitimacy and work within democratic frameworks, an approach exemplified by the Colombian opposition during President Álvaro Uribe's tenure. However, the success of moderate strategies hinges on strong domestic and international support for democracy. Global apathy towards democracy can combine with an autocrat's use of a democratic façade to produce rapid democratic backsliding, as in the case of El Salvador's transition to competitive authoritarianism under President Nayib Bukele.


Oxovanadium VO(IV) and Cu(II) complexes with a tridentate Schiff base derived from benzoin and 2-aminobenzoic acid have been synthesized and characterized. The nature of the bonding and geometry of the complexes have been deduced from elemental analysis, spectral (UV, FTIR, ESR) analysis, magnetic susceptibility measurements, molar conductivity measurements and thermal analysis. The magnetic moments and electronic spectra of the complexes indicate octahedral geometry for both the complexes having molecular formula [VOL(H2O)2] and [CuL(H2O)3]. Both the complexes were found to be non-electrolytic in nature. The IR spectra reveals the involvement of azomethine nitrogen (-C=N-) oxygen atoms from hydroxyl group and carboxylate ion are coordinated to the metal, with coordinated water. The thermal decomposition of the complexes yields the oxides of metal as the stable residue. The ESR spectra of both the complexes in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at 77K were recorded and their salient features are reported. The metal complexes have been screened for their antibacterial activity against organisms like Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Serattai sp, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus cereus by disc diffusion method and the results revealed that the complexes are more potent than the ligand.


This study gives an account of theory, models and measurements of returns to higher education, seen as the results of economically rational investment decisions. The focus is on returns in the form of increased wages and salaries. These returns vary considerably between different countries and tend to be considerably larger in the USA than in western Europe. One of the reasons for these differences in returns may be the differences in systems of funding of higher education. It is claimed that practically all studies of returns to investments in higher education disregard the benefits from reductions in consumer transaction costs and the role played by education as an important input in household production functions. Econometric studies, reported in the paper, accordingly indicate that the level of education has a considerable impact on the structure of household consumption expenditures.


This article explores the validity of Muslim claims for a particularistic Islamic law of nations. Such claims include the normative rejection of current international law in whose creation and continued development colonised peoples had little active role. Yet irrespective of its geographic origin and alleged normative shortcomings, international law is primarily a modern phenomenon serving functional needs not attainable by pre-modern precursors. Discussing the nature of religious law and examining the incomplete reception of the institutional "package" of modernity, the article aims to highlight why historical models of Muslim international relations share the same shortfalls as other unilateral attempts by "universal states" to regulate inter-group relations. The demand for greater recognition of religious law both domestically and internationally is a phenomenon driven by dissatisfaction with the costs of the modernisation process. The appeal of religious law is based on its perception as a language of justice. Nevertheless, reliance on religious law is unlikely to yield satisfactory results in either practical or intellectual terms, and is unlikely to resolve the contradictions of the global modernisation process.


We report on a first field test in which miniaturized sensor motes were used to explore and inspect an operational pipeline by performing in situ measurements. The spherical sensor motes with a diameter of 39 mm were equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) measuring 3-D acceleration, rotation, and magnetic field, as well as an ultrasound emitter. The motes were injected into the pipeline and traversed a 260-m section of it with the flow of water. After the extraction of the motes from the pipeline, the recorded IMU data were read out for the off-line analysis. Unlike dead-reckoning techniques, we analyze the IMU data to reveal structural information about the pipeline and locate pipe components, such as hydrants and junctions. The recorded data show different and distinct patterns that are a result of the fluid dynamics and the interaction with the pipeline. Using the magnetic data, pipe sections made from different materials and pipe components are identified and localized. A preliminary analysis on the motes' interaction with the pipeline shows differences in pipe wall roughness and locates structural anomalies. The results of this field test show that sensor motes can be used as a versatile and cost-effective tool for exploration and inspection of a wide variety of pipelines.


Given the growing pressure on academic institutions and, by extension, academic libraries to establish student learning outcomes and demonstrate their impact on student learning, researchers at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) explored how outcome-based instructional design can be used to 1) collect student data, 2) assess student learning, and 3) improve instruction. Two surveys were distributed to 59 undergraduate students who were enrolled in an introductory composition course at IUPUI. Because previous studies (e.g. Ford, Miller and Moss 2005) have linked human individual differences with web search strategy, the first survey collected information about the students' demographic features. The second survey, a search log, collected information about the sources that students chose, the search terms they used and the strategies they employed in order to complete their research. The students submitted their first survey after the instructional session and the second survey after they completed their research project. Using this data, the researchers examined whether students' achievement could be associated with their personal characteristics and/or the librarian's instruction. In contrast to Ford, Miller and Moss's study (2005), no significant relationships were found between students' personal characteristics and their search behaviour. However, after receiving instruction, all students were able to create keywords and structure them into search queries using Boolean operators. These results suggest that outcome-based instructional design is an effective pedagogical method for gathering assessment data and that the survey instrument was a useful tool for assessing this outcome - by providing both a measurement of student learning and a means of evaluating the librarian's instruction.


Artificial intelligence (AI) looks to transform the practice of medicine. As academics and policymakers alike turn to legal questions, including how to ensure high-quality performance by medical AI, a threshold issue involves what role AI will play in the larger medical system. This Article argues that AI can play at least four distinct roles in the medical system, each potentially transformative: pushing the frontiers of medical knowledge to increase the limits of medical performance, democratizing medical expertise by making specialist skills more available to non-specialists, automating drudgery within the medical system, and allocating scarce medical resources. Each role raises its own challenges, and an understanding of the four roles is necessary to identify and address major hurdles to the responsible development and deployment of medical AI.


One of the most difficult crime problems with which the government, police and South African community are confronted is the ever-increasing number of attacks on farms and small holdings. The reason for these attacks is unclear and the research being done provides divergent explanations.
The concept "farm attack" is a comprehensive concept which covers various actions which are directed at causing damage and pain to farmers and their dependants, workers, property and possessions. A farm attack is a situation in which the inhabitants of a farm are physically attacked with a specific objective in mind. This objective may be to murder, rape, rob or to inflict physical harm.
Statistics show that since 1991 there have been nearly 5 000 farm attacks in which more than 900 farmers have been killed. Between 1997 and 2000, farm attacks in Gauteng increased by nearly 600 percent. In 2001 there have been 100 victims in 800 attacks.
The dynamics of farm attacks are much more complicated than is usually believed. Although many farm attacks may be of a criminal nature and are often ascribed to existing socio-economic conditions, particularly in rural areas, there are certain trends and patterns which point to particular internal motives. Those who try to ascribe farm attacks to a single cause are simplyfing and underestimating the complexity of the problem.
It is clear that there are a variety of different opinions regarding and research findings on the causes of farm attacks and that it would be extremely naive to attempt to explain the phenomenon on the basis of one particular criminological theory.
For the purpose of this discussion farm attacks will be looked at from both the perspective of the conflict theory and the anomie theory.


This paper shows that the corporate life-cycle is an important dimension for the dynamics and valuations of cash holdings. Our results indicate that firms' cash policies are markedly interacted with their strategy choices. While firms in early stages and post-maturity stages hold large amounts of cash, cash ratios decrease when firms move towards maturity. Much of this variation in cash holdings is attributable to a changing demand function for cash over the different life-cycle stages. Trade-off and pecking order motives are of different importance for cash policies dependent on a firm's life-cycle stage. An additional dollar in cash is highly valuable for introduction and growth firms, while a dollar in cash adds, on average, less than a dollar in market value for firms in later life-cycle stages, most likely due to increasing agency problems. Most of the dynamics in cash holdings are observed at life-cycle transition points rather than during the different life-cycle stages. Finally, the secular trend in cash holdings seems strongly attributable to increases in cash in the introduction and the decline stage.


Effective Legal Writing: A Practical Guide introduces law students to essential writing skills and explains how they are applied in a legal context. It is designed as a course book for first year law students with ongoing relevance as a resource in subsequent years at law school and beyond. Basic literacy, legal literacy and writing skills are explored in a way that is fully integrated into legal content, reflecting current pedagogical best-practice.

The text assists students to develop their legal writing skills in their first year of law study and supports their transition to university life. The book also provides a useful reference for ongoing development as students progress through their degree and face a wide variety of legal writing tasks.

The skills developed by this text will provide a solid foundation to enhance performance in professional legal writing.

The text contains various examples, case-studies, questions and exercises in addition to a range of online ancillary materials designed for both lecturers and students.


Life-history diversity, movement patterns, and habitat associations of cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii have been widely studied in smaller river systems and are critical components of conservation planning. However, much less is known about how the patterns observed in smaller systems may "scale up" in larger, complex river systems. In my dissertation, I evaluated the life-history variation and spatial ecology of Snake River finespotted cutthroat trout O. c. behnkei in the upper Snake River, WY and collaborated on a statistical method to characterize habitat occupancy from radiotelemetry data. For my first chapter, I identified the life-history diversity and movement patterns of cutthroat trout in a large river network using radio-telemetry. Spawning occurred from May through July throughout the upper Snake River in spring creeks, tributaries, and side channels over a spatial extent > 100 km. Postspawning movement patterns varied among spawning areas and life-history forms. Results indicated that lifehistory diversity in large river networks is substantially more complex than may be observed in headwater systems, reflecting increased habitat complexity and availability in larger systems. For my second chapter, I collaborated on a method to address three biases in radio-telemetry datasets: (1) data may be collected at sparse, unequal sampling intervals, (2) encountering an individual in a location does not imply occupancy, and (3) all locations between where individuals are encountered are occupied to some extent, despite the lack of observations. The resulting adaptive kernel density interpolation method treated location as a utilization distribution for each tracking interval (e.g., a week) and estimated time spent per location as a function of individual movement speed and time since last relocation. For my third chapter, I evaluated habitat occupancy and movement patterns at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Spatial variation and hierarchical structure in the physical template interacted to produce contextual variation in the availability and function of habitat attributes (e.g., wood functioning as cover or as a velocity break). Collectively, these studies provide a more complete understanding of life-history diversity in a large river network and the way in which variation in the physical template shapes habitat occupancy, and movement patterns.


LED applications are becoming increasingly more diverse; design requirements, location or the function of the product are all elements that prove the challenges that face LED designers are continually evolving. LEDs, like most electronic devices will perform well until external influences start to deteriorate performance. Such influences can include the electrostatic attraction of dust, humid or corrosive environments, chemical or gaseous contamination, as well as many other possibilities. It is therefore extremely important that the end use environment is considered in detail to ensure the correct products can be chosen.


Abstract Carex phleoides Cav. is the largest species of the former genus Uncinia Pers. It is widely distributed in the Neotropics and is also known from the Juan Fernández archipelago off the coast of Chile. A second taxon, U. trichocarpa C. A. Mey., is often considered a synonym of C. phleoides, but also sometimes a variety of that species or even a distinct species. We performed a morphometric study using representative material covering the entire distribution and morphological variation of C. phleoides s.l. to clarify its taxonomy. Our analyses revealed that U. trichocarpa is distinct from C. phleoides. Accordingly, we coined the name C. quinquin Jim.-Mejías & Dorr to accommodate this species under Carex L. because combinations of other available names are all blocked. Carex phleoides displayed two extremes of variation with geographical correspondence, a southern form in the Southern Cone north to Bolivia, and a northern one ranging from Bolivia to Mexico. We propose to recognize two subspecies within C. phleoides, the nominate subspecies being the southern one, and the northern one based on the epithet koyamae. Plants from the Juan Fernández archipelago were shown to be morphologically intermediate with the endemic C. plurinervata J. R. Starr, a result that might point to introgression between these two species. We selected lectotypes for nine names, including two of the accepted ones, as well as their synonyms.


The purpose of this study was to examine positive illusion phenomena among Japanese students. In Study I, students were asked to rate themselves and the average same-sex student of their university or vocational school, in terms of their personality, optimism about the future, and belief in personal control Results indicated that participants showed positive illusions in their ratings of agreeableness, conscientiousness, optimism for negative future events, and personal control, However, negative illusions were found in their ratings of extraversion, openness to experience, and appearance. In Study 2, participants were asked to compare themselves with the average same-sex student of their university or vocational school. Results were similar to those of Study I. Cultural factors appeared to be responsible for those positive and negative illusions.


Arabic dialects are characterized by the occurrence of geminate consonants in word-medial and word-final position. This article relates the patterning of Arabic geminates to the on-going controversy in phonological theory concerning the representation of geminate consonants. Two views are contrasted: the prosodic length analysis of geminates whereby a geminate is underlyingly a single consonant phoneme linked to two C-slots, and the moraic weight representation where a geminate is underlyingly a single consonant linked to a mora. We specifically argue that the patterning of geminate consonants in Arabic dialects largely supports the moraic weight representation. Evidence comes from phenomena such as the patterning of word-final geminates, the behavior of geminates with respect to stress, geminates in loanwords, and geminates in first language acquisition. We show that each of these phenomena supports the moraic weight representation of geminates.


Natural variation exists for many traits, including those that enable plants to cope with environmental stress. The genetic mechanisms behind coping with these stresses have been studied extensively and some regulatory networks have been unraveled. However, due to the complex polygenic nature of many stress-related traits a lot remains unknown. A promising new technique called "genetical genomics" proofed to be feasible in Arabidopsis during this thesis project. The data generated through genetical genomics enables the construction of putative regulatory networks. The general research question of this thesis is therefore to unravel regulatory networks operating during ethylene- and low light-induced hyponastic growth in Arabidopsis. To this end QTL analyses of phenotypic leaf angle traits and global transcription analysis (genetical genomics) will be used to explain and dissect natural variation in hyponastic growth and rosette compactness. Chapter two describes hyponastic growth in detail and has a focus on a QTL study to find large effect controlling loci for leaf angle related traits. Two leaf regions of differential growth were identified and could be separated as genetically (partly) independent. Furthermore, a difference in response to ethylene compared to low-light was found. A QTL involved in the response to both ethylene and low-light was found to be caused by the allelic difference of the ERECTA gene. Some other QTLs could also be narrowed down to a single gene. In Chapter three the light influenced growth traits; rosette area, rosette diameter (fermax), rosette compactness and Relative Growth Rate (RGR) are investigated by QTL analysis. Several QTLs were found and for some the underlying gene could be identified. ERECTA again proved to play an important role in these traits, but also PHYB had a functional allelic difference. In chapter four a method is described to construct a network for transcript regulation by combining genetical genomics data with single gene perturbation transcript profiling. By using the difference in transcript abundance between the ERECTA mutant Ler and its wild type Lan as a start we constructed (part) of the downstream signaling cascade. In chapter five we concentrate on the comparison of two genetical genomics experiments using the Ler x Cvi RIL population. The results of a experiment, where the RIL population is treated with 3 hours of low light, are compared with a previous experiment on the same population (Keurentjes et al., 2007). Apart from network construction, the genetical genomics data of low light treated Ler x Cvi RILs is used to explain variations in light affected traits measured in chapters two and three. In chapter six a NIL is used to study the possibilities to extend the method of network construction described in chapter four. Although in chapter four the effects of a single gene were used, often the gene underlying a QTL is not known and the whole locus needs to be studied. By the transcript profiling of a NIL the effects of a single "small" introgression on transcript levels are known and can be used as a start for constructing the regulatory network. Chapter seven contains a general discussion about the research described in this thesis.


Human gammaherpesviruses are associated with malignancies in HIV infected individuals; in macaques used in non-human primate models of HIV infection, gammaherpesvirus infections also occur. Limited data on prevalence and tumorigenicity of macaque gammaherpesviruses, mostly cross-sectional analyses of small series, are available. We comprehensively examine all three-rhesus macaque gammaherpesviruses -Rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV), Rhesus Lymphocryptovirus (RLCV) and Retroperitoneal Fibromatosis Herpesvirus (RFHV) in macaques experimentally infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus or Simian Human Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV/SHIV) in studies spanning 15 years at the AIDS and Cancer Virus Program of the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. We evaluated 18 animals with malignancies (16 lymphomas, one fibrosarcoma and one carcinoma) and 32 controls. We developed real time quantitative PCR assays for each gammaherpesvirus DNA viral load (VL) in malignant and non-tumor tissues; we also characterized the tumors using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Furthermore, we retrospectively quantified gammaherpesvirus DNA VL and SIV/SHIV RNA VL in longitudinally-collected PBMCs and plasma, respectively. One or more gammaherpesviruses were detected in 17 tumors; generally, one was predominant, and the relevant DNA VL in the tumor was very high compared to surrounding tissues. RLCV was predominant in tumors resembling diffuse large B cell lymphomas; in a Burkitt-like lymphoma, RRV was predominant; and in the fibrosarcoma, RFHV was predominant. Median RRV and RLCV PBMC DNA VL were significantly higher in cases than controls; SIV/SHIV VL and RLCV VL were independently associated with cancer. Local regressions showed that longitudinal VL patterns in cases and controls, from SIV infection to necropsy, differed for each gammaherpesvirus: while RFHV VL increased only slightly in all animals, RLCV and RRV VL increased significantly and continued to increase steeply in cases; in controls, VL flattened. In conclusion, the data suggest that gammaherpesviruses may play a significant role in tumorogenesis in macaques infected with immunodeficiency viruses.


Genera used for fossil ginkgoalean leafy shoots, especially Baiera F. Braun,Ginkgoites Seward and Ginkgo L., are discussed both in their historical context and in the light of recent discoveries. Use of Ginkgoites Seward as a form- or organ-genus for fossil leaves lacking associated reproductive structures is readopted. Two species, Ginkgoitesbrauniana (Dunker) comb. nov. and Ginkgoites pluripartita (Schimper) Seward, from the Lower Cretaceous Wealden facies of Germany, are rediagnosed and neotypes selected. The occurrence of G. pluripartita in the Lower Cretaceous of western Greenland, Montana, U S A, Canada and Siberia is confirmed.


Litterfall, litter standing crops, nutrient dynamics and their turnover were studied in Ebom tropical rainforest of Cameroon six years after selective logging practices. Two sample sites, one in the logging part of the forest (disturbed site) and the other in the part of forest not affected by selective logging (undisturbed site) were used for the study. After two years of field experiment, the mean annual of litterfall varied from 1.95 to 10.93 t.ha-1.y-1 in undisturbed site, and from 1.49 to 9.07 t.ha-1.y-1 in logging site respectively for wood litter and the total litterfall. The greatest significant of total litterfall were recorded in long dry season in the two sites. The litter standing crops varied from 0.96 for wood to 2.09 t.ha-1 for leaf litter in the undisturbed site and from 0.49 for rest litter to 1.58 t.ha-1 for leaf litter in the logging site. The turnover (KL) of litter varied from 0.89 to 3.57 for wood in the logging site and from 0.49 to 2.99 for leaf litter in the undisturbed site. Overall, the nutrient amounts in litter fractions are higher in the undisturbed site than in the logging site, except that of Na. The logging impact, six years after logging, was negligible on the litterfall, but results in much faster release of Mg and Na which were low in the Ebom forest soil. It would take more than six years for the logging effects to cancel out.

 Key words: Litterfall, litter standing crops, litter turnover, logging, nutrient dynamics, tropical rainforest, Cameroon.


Pandrol Rail Fastenings Limited are a designer and manufacturer of railway rail-fastening
systems. As an organisation they have the capability to reduce the noise impact of bridges
using resilient track components. They also have a commercial interest in providing such
technology. Knowledge of the processes behind bridge noise is important to Pandrol in two
ways; to aid the engineers within the organisation in the design of fastening systems and to
demonstrate a state-of-the-art understanding of the problem of railway bridge noise to
customers, as this will aid in the sale of Pandrol products.
The fitting of new rail components to an existing track form, or failure to meet noise
regulations with a new track form, can be costly. It is important to be able to predict
accurately the effectiveness of noise reduction techniques. Currently, Pandrol's knowledge
of the problem consists almost entirely of experience gained and data gathered while
working on existing bridge projects.
To expand their knowledge base, Pandrol perform noise and vibration measurements on
railway bridges and viaducts and then use the measured data to predict the performance of
their systems on other bridges. This completely empirical approach to predicting bridge
noise is both costly and situation specific results cannot be provided before the installation
of the fastening system.
ii
Another approach to predicting bridge noise is through the application of analytical
models. Limited analytical modelling in the context of bridge noise is currently conducted
within the organisation. For these reasons, Pandrol are sponsoring research into bridge
noise in the form of this EngD project.
Here an existing rapid calculation approach is identified that relies less on the exact
geometry of the bridge and more on its general characteristics. In this approach an
analytical model of the track is coupled to a statistical energy analysis (SEA) model of the
bridge. This approach forms a suitable basis from which to develop a better model here by
concentrating on its weaknesses.
A mid-frequency calculation for the power input to the bridge via a resilient track system
has been developed by modelling the track-bridge system as two finite Timoshenko beams
continuously connected by a resilient layer. This has resulted in a power input calculation
which includes the important effects of coupling between the rail and bridge and the
resonance effects of the finite length of a bridge.
In addition, a detailed study of the frequency characteristics of deep I-section beams has
been performed using Finite Element, Boundary Element and Dynamic stiffness models. It
is shown that, at high frequencies, the behaviour of the beam is characterised by in-plane
motion of the beam web and bending motion in the flange. This knowledge has resulted in
an improved calculation for the mobility of a bridge at high frequencies.
The above improvements are included in an improved model for use by Pandrol in their
general activities. Data from real bridges is compared to predictions from the improved
model in order to validate different aspects of the model. The model is then used to study
the effect on noise of varying many bridge design parameters. It is shown that the
parameter that has most influence on the noise performance of a bridge is the dynamic
stiffness of the resilient rail fastening system. Additionally it is demonstrated that for a
given bridge and noise receiver location, an optimum fastener stiffness exists where the
noise radiated by the bridge and track is at a minimum.


Citrus unshiu farming has been assumed to be hard to develop on large-scale farms because of its labor intensive technical character, which makes mid-sized farms is superior to large farms. However large-size citrus farms are developing in Mikkabi, Shizuoka Prefecture, where improvement of production infrastructure is most advanced and market competitiveness in citrus unshiu has been strong. Therefore the technical systems in Mikkabi which have supported development of large-scale citrus unshiu farming were analyzed by a farm survey. Though mid-sized farms, which are within the existing appropriate farm size, are superior to large farms in land productivity, large farms, which for the most part exceed the existing appropriate size, are superior to mid-sized farms in labor productivity. The large farms have achieved high productivity by the introduction of technology which makes best use of improved production infrastructure such as mechanization and mulching cultivation, adoption of quality improvement technology such as mulching cultivation, and input of a large amount of hired labor.


Empathic design aims to build creative understanding of users' experiences for new product development (NPD). In this paper, we review the literature of empathic design, and we discuss our own experiences with introducing and practicing empathic design in several NPD projects at Philips Research over the past years. Having experimented with empathic design in an industrial context, we experienced success but also encountered eight challenges that relate to discrepancies between the theory of empathic design as described in literature on the one hand, and the application of empathic design in an industrial context on the other. Three cultural and methodological changes are proposed for addressing these challenges in the future. These include changing focus (a) from rational approaches to including empathic approaches, (b) from users as informers to users as partners in NPD practice, and (c) from being informed of user research to being engaged in user research. The first two changes strongly resonate with Sanders' (2006) dimensions of change. The third dimension is new, and highlights an area of empathic design that is largely unaddressed in the literature.


Internal solitary waves in a system of two fluids, silicone oil and water, bounded above by a free surface are studied both experimentally and theoretically. By adjusting an extra volume of silicone oil released from a reservoir, a wide range of amplitude waves are generated in a wave tank. Wave profiles as well as wave speeds are measured using multiple wave probes and are then compared with both the weakly nonlinear Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) models and the strongly nonlinear Miyata–Choi–Camassa (MCC) models. As the density difference between the two fluids in the experiment is relatively small (approximately 14 %), but non-negligible, special attention is paid to the effect of the boundary condition at the top surface. The nonlinear models valid for rigid-lid (RL) and free-surface (FS) boundary conditions are considered separately. It is found that the solitary wave of the FS model for a given amplitude is consistently narrower than that of the RL model and it propagates at a slightly lower speed. Due to strong nonlinearity in the internal-wave motion, the weakly nonlinear KdV models fail to describe the measured internal solitary wave profiles of intermediate and large wave amplitudes. The strongly nonlinear MCC-FS model agrees better with the measurements than the MCC-RL model, which indicates that the free-surface boundary condition at the top surface is crucial in describing the internal solitary waves in the experiment correctly. Leaving the top surface free in the experiment allows us to observe small and relatively short wave packets on the top surface, particularly when the amplitude of the internal solitary wave is large. Once excited, the wave packet is located above the front half of the internal solitary wave and propagates with a speed close to that of the internal solitary wave underneath. A simple resonance mechanism between short surface waves and long internal waves without and with nonlinear effects is examined to estimate the characteristic wavelength of modulated short surface waves, which is found to be in good agreement with the observed wavelength when nonlinearity is taken into account. Using ray theory, the evolution of short surface waves in the presence of a background current induced by an internal solitary wave is also investigated to examine the location of the modulated surface wave packet.


In the past twenty-five years there has been an explosion in research on the development of perception. This research has produced discoveries at multiple levels: ecological analyses of the information available for perception, models of representation and process, and improved understanding of biological mechanisms. In this comprehensive treatment of infant perception, Philip Kellman and Martha Arterberry bring together work at these multiple levels to produce a new picture of perception's origins. The emphasis is on perceptual knowledge -- how one comes to perceive the world; what information, processes, and mechanisms produce this knowledge; and how perceptual processes change over time. They examine early perception in various domains, such as object, space, motion, intermodal, and speech perception and attempt to discover the starting points and paths of development of each. By focusing on individual experiments, they also give the reader a view of how research is conducted, including the interplay of data and theory. Two families of views compete to describe how perception begins and develops. The authors show that the traditional constructivist view, emphasizing the construction of perceptual reality through extended learning, has been disconfirmed by experimental data in many domains. An ecological view, emphasizing the role of evolution in preparing infants to perceive, provides a better overall account, but the authors show that both innate foundations and learning contribute to perceptual development. The authors also examine interactions between infants' perceptual abilities and their cognitive, social, and motor development. They argue that the new picture of early perception requires a revised view of the beginnings of human cognitive and social development.


Contributors. Preface - Sir Alan Muir Wood. Introduction - William Allen. Population growth and housing - M Chisholm. Housing after 2000 AD: the likely effects of political, social and economic change - R Best. The envelope of the house in temperate climates - M Fordham. Design considerations for exterior envelopes of buildings in cold climate regions beyond 2000 - L T Hendricks and P H Huelman. Housing as an evolutionary process: planning and design implications - F C D Vigier. The home of tomorrow: communication and control - P Chemillier. Housing and advanced technology: towards a total housing system - N Kashino. Technologies for development - R Spence. Barriers to effecting change in housing - J P Eberhard. Summary of presentations - R Bender. Index. Contributors: Dr W A Allen, Bickerdike Allen Partners, London, UK Professor R Bender, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley, USA R Best, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, UK P Chemillier, President, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment, Paris, France Professor M Chisholm, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK Professor J P Eberhard, Chairman, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Professor M Fordham, Consulting Engineer, London, UK Professor L T Hendricks, Extension Specialist Forest Products, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN 55108, USA Professor P H Huelman, Associate Professor and Coordinator, Cold Climate Housing Center, Minnesota Extension Service, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN 55108, USA Dr N Kashino, Building Research Institute, Ministry of Construction, Tokyo, Japan Dr R Spence, The Martin Centre Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, UK Professor F C D Vigier, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning, Director, Unit for Housing and Urbanization, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


Conversations depend on information from the context. To go beyond one-round conversation, a chatbot must resolve contextual information such as: 1) co-reference resolution, 2) ellipsis resolution, and 3) conjunctive relationship resolution. There are simply not enough data to avoid these problems by trying to train a sequenceto-sequence model for multi-round conversation similar to that of one-round conversation. The contributions of this paper are: 1) We formulate the problem of context resolution for conversation; 2) We present deep learning models, including an end-to-end network for context resolution; 3) We propose a way of creating a huge amount of realistic data for training such models with good experimental results.


Transition to a Circular Economy (CE) is about structural change and is predicated on the introduction of transformative eco-innovation (EI). Research on the CE–EI nexus has recently attracted attention both from an analytical and regulatory perspective. However, in-depth research exploring EI dynamics within the CE is still marginal, especially concerning the trends and dynamics of the pro-CE innovation policy and strategy. This paper addresses this gap by taking advantage of the burgeoning research on CE of the last 20 years and offers a new working synthesis. By implementing a "(systematic) review of (systematic) reviews", this paper provides a new comprehensive framework for understanding pro-circular innovation strategies and, as a complement, argues the need to advance "circular innovation studies" as an agenda in its own right. Innovations related to recycling and recovery CE strategies along with business-model innovations and systemic/transformative innovations are found to be a major current trend in the research, connecting supply and demand side innovations and also driving other forms of innovation linked to design, product manufacturing, logistics and reverse logistics and end-of-life management and recovery. Additionally, of note is that the conceptual understanding of EI dynamics within a CE is still mainly implicit (rather than explicitly discussed) limiting the possibilities to advance knowledge in the area of innovation for CE: this is why we propose a "circular innovation studies" agenda.


A large-scale in silico evaluation of gene deletions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae was conducted using a genome-scale reconstructed metabolic model. The effect of 599 single gene deletions on cell viability was simulated in silico and compared to published experimental results. In 526 cases (87.8%), the in silico results were in agreement with experimental observations when growth on synthetic complete medium was simulated. Viable phenotypes were correctly predicted in 89.4% (496 out of 555) and lethal phenotypes were correctly predicted in 68.2% (30 out of 44) of the cases considered. The in silico evaluation was solely based on the topological properties of the metabolic network which is based on well-established reaction stoichiometry. No interaction or regulatory information was accounted for in the in silico model. False predictions were analyzed on a case-by-case basis for four possible inadequacies of the in silico model: (1) incomplete media composition, (2) substitutable biomass components, (3) incomplete biochemical information, and (4) missing regulation. This analysis eliminated a number of false predictions and suggested a number of experimentally testable hypotheses. A genome-scale in silico model can thus be used to systematically reconcile existing data and fill in our knowledge gaps about an organism.


In recent years, scientific community has an interest on nanometer sized materials with unique physical, chemical, and biological properties. Nano-copper oxide is very interested because of their potential applications in many fields such as heterogeneous catalysts, anti-microbial, antioxidants, imaging agents and drug delivery agents in field of biomedicine. Nanoparticles (NPs) can interact with biomolecules and it has useful in diagnosis and treatment cancer. Green synthesized CuO NPs have being used as photocatalyst, enhanced the rates of textile dye decolourisation, anti-microbial agent and better anti-cancer compound with minimal side effects. CuO NPs can also act as efficient anti-bacterial agent when incorporated in coatings, plastics, textiles, etc.


Midcrustal rocks in retrograde metamorphic settings are typically H2O-undersaturated and fluid-absent and have low permeability. Exhumed continental retrograde faults, nonetheless, show evidence for the operation of fluid-mediated weakening mechanisms during deformation at midcrustal conditions. To explore the origin and effects of fluids in retrograde faults, we study the Kuckaus Mylonite Zone (KMZ), an exhumed crustal-scale, strike-slip shear zone in the southern Namibian Namaqua Metamorphic Complex. The KMZ deformed quartzofeldspathic migmatised gneisses at midcrustal retrograde conditions (450-480°C, 270-420 MPa) in the Mesoproterozoic, 40 Ma after granulite facies peak metamorphism at 825°C and 550 MPa. The mylonites contain fully hydrated retrograde mineral assemblages, predominantly adjacent to anastomosing high-strain zones, providing evidence of local H2O saturation and fluid presence during deformation. Whole rock and quartz veinδ18O values suggest that at least some of the fluids were meteoric in origin. The rocks across the shear zone retain the effect of different protoliths, implying little effect of fluid-rock interaction on whole rock major element chemistry. Together with a general scarcity of quartz veins, this suggests that fluid/rock ratios remained low in the KMZ. However, even small amounts of H2O allowed reaction weakening and diffusion-precipitation, followed by growth and alignment of phyllosilicates. In the ultramylonites, a fine grain size in the presence of fluids allowed for grain size sensitive creep. We conclude that the influx of even small volumes of fluids into retrograde shear zones can induce drastic weakening by facilitating grain size sensitive creep and retrograde reactions. In retrograde settings, these reactions consume fluids, and therefore elevated fluid pressures will only be possible after considerable weakening has already occurred. Our findings imply that the range of seismic styles recently documented at active retrograde transform faults may not require high fluid pressures but could also arise from other local weakening mechanisms.


A thermostable suppository of artesunate (artesunic acid) has been developed. In Gabon, 12 children with Plasmodium falciparum malaria received two administrations of this suppository in a 4-hr interval. Parasitemia and fever were then measured and the plasma levels of artesunate and its active metabolite, dihydroartemisinin, were determined by means of a reversed phase high-pressure liquid chromatography method using reductive electrochemical detection. Substantial parasite clearance (97-100%) was noted 24 hr after the beginning of the treatment and body temperature had returned to normal. Absorption, metabolism, and elimination of artesunate were rapid. Mean values of maximum plasma levels (Cmax) and maximum concentration peak times (tmax) were evaluated. The Cmax of dihydroartemisinin (0.18 +/- 0.10 microg/ml [mean +/- SE]) was higher than the Cmax of artesunate (0.09 +/- 0.04 microg/ml) and the tmax of dihydroartemisinin (1.13 +/- 0.58 hr) was higher than the tmax of artesunate (0.58 +/- 0.19 hr). Plasma levels 30 min after the second suppository administration were not consistently higher than those found 30 min after the first administration.


1. The excretory patterns of sodium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus were evaluated in seventy-eight patients with varying degrees of renal insufficiency, and in twelve normal subjects. 2. In mild renal failure the fractional excretion of filtered sodium, magnesium and phosphorus are significantly higher while that of calcium is significantly lower than values seen in normals. In advanced renal failure the fractional excretions of the filtered loads of all these ions increase steeply. These patterns are not influenced by the type of renal disease. 3. The fractional excretions of filtered sodium and calcium, calcium and magnesium, and sodium and magnesium were plotted against each other. The analysis of the plots showed that the fractional excretions of their filtered loads correlate poorly in patients with mild and moderate renal insufficiency, but closely in patients with severe renal failure. 4. These results indicate that the relation between the renal handling of divalent ions is not uniform at all levels of renal insufficiency. The dissociation between the excretory patterns observed in patients with early renal failure is consistent with the concept that different mechanisms may influence each individual ion separately. This is in contrast to the close association which exists between the excretory patterns of these ions in patients with advanced renal disease, and in which a single common mechanism may underlie the renal handling of these ions.


Habitat instability has an important influence on species' occurrence and community composition. For freshwater arthropods that occur in ephemeral rock pools, the most drastic habitat instabilities are droughts and the intermittent availability of water. However, although the desiccation of a rock pool is detrimental for planktonic populations, it may also bring certain benefits: the exclusion of predators or parasites, for example, or the coexistence of otherwise competitively exclusive species. The commonness of drought resistant resting stages in many aquatic organisms shows the ecological significance of droughts. We measured daily evaporation in 50 rock pools inhabited by three Daphnia species D. magna, D. longispina and D. pulex over one summer. Daily evaporation and ultimately desiccation showed significantly seasonally influenced correlation with pool surface area, presence of vegetation, ambient temperature, wind and standardized evaporation measures. We used the estimates from this analysis to develop a simulation model to predict changes in the water level in 530 individual pools on a daily basis over a 25-year period. Eventually, hydroperiod lengths and desiccation events could be predicted for all of these rock pools. We independently confirmed the validity of this simulation by surveying desiccation events in the 530 rock pools over a whole season in 2006. In the same 530 rock pools, Daphnia communities had been recorded over the 25 years the simulation model considered. We correlated pool-specific occupation lengths of the three species with pool-specific measures of desiccation risk. Occupation lengths of all three Daphnia species were positively correlated with maximum hydroperiod length and negatively correlated with the number of desiccation events. Surprisingly, these effects were not species-specific.


Most readings of Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo come from a perspective that Reed establishes a series of binaries to be dissected. Many of these critics use Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction because they assert that Reed is simply reversing the roles of the marginalized African and the centralized white man. These implications cover most of the major points in Reed's work: the West vs. the East, Christianity vs. Hoodoo, white vs. black, etc. However, this type of reading is inadequate because it is too limiting. Reed goes beyond the binaries and beyond the Western assumption of one or the other. He creates a kind of hybrid notion, suggesting the text contains more of a crossroads motif than a simple inversion of dominance and oppression. Using Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism as a theoretical framework, I examine the protagonist, PaPa LaBas, as well as the text Mumbo Jumbo itself because they represent the points at which Reed's notions of hybridity are most prominent. Cynthia Hamilton writes that which most closely summarizes my concept: "The 'X' of the crossing roadbeds signals the multidirectionality of the juncture and is simply a single instance in a boundless network that redoubles and circles . . . and branches over the vastness of hundreds of thousands of American miles" (237). The sense of redoubling and circling aligns with Gates's theory of "Signifying(g)," and the process enables readers to go beyond the binaries to discover the complex nature of Reed's work.


The transition from Fordism to post-Fordism has been accompanied by profound
changes in the spatiality of west European states. The hierarchical, top-down and redistributive
structures that typified the Fordist welfare state have been replaced by more complex spatial
configurations as elements of economic and political power have shifted both downwards
to subnational territorial levels and upwards to the supranational level. A major debate has
developed around the nature of these emerging forms of state spatiality and of the processes
underpinning their formation. This paper examines how these processes have operated in the
particular case of the Republic of Ireland. Here, the spatiality of the state was founded on
a peculiar post-colonial combination of a localised populist politics and a centralised state
bureaucracy. While this arrangement was quite suited to the spatial dispersal of industrial
branch plants which underpinned regional policy in the 1960s and 1970s, it has become
increasingly problematic with the more recent emergence of new trends in the nature and
locational preferences of inward investment. This is reflected in the profound conflicts that have
attended the formulation and implementation of the National Spatial Strategy, introduced in
2002. The result is a national space economy whose increasing dysfunctionality may now be
compromising the very development model upon which Ireland's recent spectacular economic
growth has been built.


Apremilast is used as a systemic therapy for the treatment of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. This drug is considered relatively safe with a very low incidence of serious side effects. Common side effects are diarrhea, nausea, headache, nasopharyngitis, upper respiratory tract infections which are mild to moderate in severity. Diarrhea tends to occur within 2 weeks of starting treatment and resolve spontaneously within 4 weeks without dose adjustment or discontinuation of therapy. Chronic diarrhea and malnutrition due to apremilast have not been reported yet. We report a case of apremilast induced chronic diarrhea leading to malnutrition, necessitating discontinuation of therapy.


Software development and information systems design have a unique relationship, but are often discussed and studied independently. However, meticulous software development is vital for the success of an information system.Software Development Techniques for Constructive Information Systems Design focuses the aspects of information systems and software development as a merging process. This reference source pays special attention to the emerging research, trends, and experiences in this area which is bound to enhance the readers understanding of the growing and ever-adapting field. Academics, researchers, students, and working professionals in this field will benefit from this publications unique perspective.


Toxoplasma gondii is a single-celled eukaryotic parasite that belongs to the Apicomplexan phylum. Toxoplasma is an obligate intracellular parasite that is related to other important pathogens, such as, Plasmodium, the causative agent of malaria. Toxoplasma can reproduce both sexually and asexually and asexual reproduction is central to the pathogenesis of this organism. Asexual reproduction consists of two developmental stages, the tachyzoites, which grow rapidly and cause the acute infection and the bradyzoites, which grow slowly and cause the chronic infection. We are interested in identifying the genes involved in the bradyzoite differentiation process in order to better understand the biology of the conversion between tachyzoites and bradyzoites. To date, there are no drugs against the bradyzoite form, therefore, understanding which genes are involved in the conversion could lead to improved drug therapies. In the laboratory, we are able to induce the transition from tachyzoites to bradyzoites by starving the parasites of carbon dioxide (CO2). This method of induction renders them unable to synthesize pyrimidines, which stresses the parasites and causes them to switch to the dormant bradyzoite form. Previous work in the Matrajt laboratory, using a forward genetic screen involving insertional mutagenesis, generated several parasite mutants that are unable to switch from tachyzoites to bradyzoites under CO2 starvation conditions. In the current study, we performed whole genome-wide microarray analysis on 7 bradyzoite differentiation mutants and our data suggest that the mutant parasites are 'stuck' in an intracellular state even when they are extracellular. This result suggests a commonality of regulation for switching from state to state. We have also characterized functionally related gene sets that are highly represented in the intracellular state and are able to identify genes that express most differently across all mutant strains, as well as, between mutant strains and wild type. Specifically, DNA replication genes are predominantly expressed during the intracellular state compared to the extracellular tachyzoite or bradyzoite states. Interestingly, mutant extracellular tachyzoites also express these DNA replication genes. Lastly, our data suggest a clear difference between the gene expression profiles of wild type extracellular and intracellular parasites. In addition to the microarray studies, we have characterized the disrupted locus in one of the bradyzoite differentiation mutants, mutant B7. A putative non-coding RNA (ncRNA), designated B41, has been physically disrupted in mutant B7 and its expression is developmentally regulated in wild type but reduced in the mutant. B41 is a large, polyadenylated RNA that is alternatively spliced (1kb and 2.2kb) and has no open reading frame. Two genes adjacent to the insertion site, B41 and EST 13803210 have mis-regulated expression in mutant B7. Overexpression studies of EST13803210 suggest that this EST does not play a key role in bradyzoite differentiation. We also used luciferase reporter assays to test if the putative ncRNA, B41, regulates the expression of EST 13803210 and it does not. Although we have been unable to elucidate the function of B41, our results suggest that this gene is responsible for the mutant phenotype since we were able to complement the mutant using a cosmid complementation system that restored the mutant phenotype.


In this paper we deal with the problem of enumerating the finite topological spaces, studying the enumeration of a restrictive class of them. By employing simple techniques, we obtain a recursive lower bound for the number of topological spaces on a set of n elements. Besides we prove some collateral results, among which we can bring a new proof (Cor. 1.5) of the fact that p(n) – the number of partitions of the integer n – is the number of non-isomorphic Boolean algebras on a set of n elements.


F. Elizabeth Dahab. Voices of Exile in Contemporary Canadian Francophone Literature. Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2009.229 pp. Bibliography. Index. $60.00 hc. In 2002 Elizabeth Dahab published Voices in the Desert: An Anthology of Arabic-Canadian Women Writers (Guernica), a text now used in many courses in Canadian literature, comparative literature, and women's studies. This first collection of work by Canadian women of Arabic descent includes texts published in French, English, and Arabic, and thus epitomizes Deleuze and Guattari's ideal of minor literatures and deterritorialization. She has followed this seminal anthology with the first study anywhere of Arabic Canadian writers, Voices of Exile. It examines the works of several first-generation Canadian authors born in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, or the Maghreb. There is a striking lack of scholarship on authors of Arabic descent in North America, and Dahab's volume fills this lacuna with an in-depth critical study of selected writers and texts. We should note that she prefers the term Arabic as an adjective rather than Arab. Dahab begins her critical study of Arabic Canadian writers with a detailed (43-page) introduction that examines important topics: Quebec as locus of literatures of exile, other minority literatures in Canada, a profile of the Arabic community in Quebec, language choice of writers, literary themes, and the literary theory of exile. In addition to extensive notes, this chapter includes a list of twenty-nine selected Arabic Canadian writers, their genres, locations, and literary prizes. The rest of the book has one chapter each devoted to five senior authors: Saad Elikhadem, Naim Kattan, Abla Farhoud, Wajdi Mouawad, and Hedi Bouraoui. Beginning with the introductory chapter and continuing through the book, she provides a solid theoretical basis for cultural and literary analysis of Arabic Canadian literature, using these representative francophone authors. Saad Elikhaden is "among those Egyptian Canadian mediators (such as Alonzo and Naaman) who played a significant role in the transmission and diffusion of their own and other writer's products through the literary reviews and publishing houses they founded" (46). Dahab's chapter on Elikhaden examines four of his major works in English--Wings of Lead (1971/1994), The Plague (1989), Trilogy of the Flying Egyptian (1990-1992), and One Night in Cairo (2001)--as complex experimental novels which capture political and cultural values, as well as the despair of the exile. The best-known Canadian writer in this study is Naim Kattan, remembered for his twenty-four years as an administrator in the Canada Council promoting the development of Canadian literature. For this public service work and for his thirty-four books, Kattan has been honoured with many awards from both Quebec and English Canada. Dahab's chapter on Kattan focuses on his early novel, Adieu Babylone (1975), then later works, L'Anniversaire (2000) and Le Gardien de mon frere (2003), followed by some short story collections. Some of these books have been translated into English. …


CRAIG ROSE. England in the 1690s: Revolution, Religion and War. History of Early Modern England series. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Pp. xvii + 331, illustrations, notes, index. $36.95 (paper). In November 1688 William of Orange, the son-in-law of the British king, James II, invaded England, an act that led to James' flight from England and the crowning of William and Mary as England's rulers, the last British monarchs to gain the throne by force of arms. Hailed by many as a Protestant savior, William's reign was an often tragic period of continuing controversy. William, by nature cold and shy, never won the love of his people, and his actions, especially regarding the church and the prosecution of his wars in Europe, led many of his subjects to distrust him Although he would be hailed as a Protestant hero at the end of the eighteenth century, this was not the feeling he engendered among his subjects during the 1690s. While he secured the British Isles from the threat of Roman Catholicism, like Oliver Cromwell, with whom he was often compared, William never lived up to the hope that he would be the godly ruler who could achieve Protestant unity and moral reform in England. Craig Rose tells the story of William's reign in a well-written and thought-provoking survey, and he writes from the vantage point of those who lived through the period. With the undergraduate particularly in mind, he focuses on the nature of the revolution, the conduct of William's European wars, and the revolution's impact on England's religious situation. While specialist works on the period have proliferated, no one-volume history of the era has been published since David Ogg's England in the Reigns of James II and William III (1955), and in filling this gap in current scholarship, Rose sets William's reign in a seventeenth-century context, in contrast to recent studies which treat the decade as a part of the eighteenth century. He also offers a counterpoint to J.C.D. Clark's contention that the revolution was a conservative effort at securing the hegemony of the Church of England and England's aristocracy, suggesting that William's contemporaries, especially Tories, did not see things that way. As the subtitle indicates, religion plays a significant role in the story of this decade. Concurring with Tony Claydon's recent book, Rose contends that in 1689 many in England hailed William as a deliverer providentially sent to liberate England from James's Catholicism and secure the safety of European Protestantism. …


We propose a new approach for image segmentation at different scales of observation, based on a multiscale image decomposition and on the active contour segmentation model. The proposed method consists of two steps. Firstly, a representation of a given image at multiple scales is derived, by means of a smoothing method which minimizes the weighted total variation norm of the image. This method allows the longtime preservation of edges and contrast with increasing scale, facilitating the detection of underlying structures. Secondly, image structures are extracted at each scale, using a level set formulation of active contours, minimizing the Mumford-Shah functional. Promising results of the proposed segmentation approach on natural images are reported.


The aim of this study is designed to evaluate the best methods for cow oocytes collection from abattoir specimens which is the cheapest, easily obtained and bulky number. Forty five fresh cow genitalia specimens and testicle were collected directly after slaughter from Al-Shoáalla abattoir north-west of Baghdad the capital early morning, transported in cool box under (4-8) °C to the laboratory of theriogenology in the College of Veterinary Medicine/Baghdad University during the period from November 2016 to February 2017. Ovaries were separated from the surrounding tissues, washed thoroughly with dis. water repeatedly, then with normal saline and finally with MEM medium containing Antibiotics and Nystatin for contaminant elimination. Oocytes were collected with four methods aspiration, slashing, slicing after aspiration and slicing. The result showed that; the collected oocytes were 55, 68, 87 and 106 oocytes respectively; slicing methods yield more oocytes count. Period of time between slaughtering and samples processing significantly affect oocytes collected percentage and quality, periods as 2, 6, 12 and 24 hours yield 75%, 68%, 61% and 55% oocytes counts of good, fair, poor to aged and bad quality oocytes respectively. Two hours period yield an elevated oocytes count with good quality. Maturation index of oocytes according to the type of collected methods showed 44, 37, 39 and 42 with 12, 8, 6 and 6 good oocyte quality for the four methods respectively. In conclusion slicing methods yield more oocytes count with a moderate quality and embryos production while aspiration methods yield a moderate oocytes count with an elevated quality and good embryos production.


OBJECTIVES To investigate whether proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) can detect cortical dysfunction in non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease, and to correlate changes with cognitive function on formal neuropsychological testing. METHODS Multivoxel1H MRS was performed in 17 patients with levodopa treated idiopathic Parkinson's disease with out clinical dementia, and 10 age match ed control subjects. Measurements of N-acetylaspartate (NAA)/choline (Cho), NAA/creatine+phosphocreatine (Cr), and Cho/Cr were obtained from right and left temporoparietal cortex and occipital cortex. Fourteen patients with Parkinson's disease underwent a full battery of neuropsychological testing including performance and verbal subtests of the WAIS-R, Boston naming test, FAS test, and California verbal learning test. RESULTS There were significant temporoparietal cortex reductions in NAA/Cr ratios in right and left averaged spectra of the patients with Parkinson's disease (p=0.012 after Bonferroni correction) and in spectra contralateral to the worst clinically affected limbs of the patients with Parkinson's disease compared with controls (p = 0.003 after Bonferroni correction). There was a significant correlation between reduction in NAA/Cr ratios and measures of global cognitive decline, occurring independently of motor impairment (p=0.019). CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that 1H MRS can detect temporoparietal cortical dysfunction in non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease. Further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate whether these1H MRS changes are predictive of future cognitive impairment in the subset of patients with Parkinson's disease who go on to develop dementia, or occur as part of the normal Parkinson's disease process.


The present article explores how situated queerness takes place in relation to the construction of child and childhood. Lee Edelman (2004) argues that the child is opposed to, and in need of protection from contact with, homosexuality, which means that the queer cannot be part of the political fantasies of the future in which the child is central. In view of this, but unlike Edelman, I argue in this article that the child is part of different future fantasies, where the child is not necessarily separated from queerness. Here, I present contemporary connections between the child and queerness and analyze how possibilities and limitations appear in relation to this. Through two case studies, the article takes on a multi-sited approach (Marcus 1995), following when queerness is introduced on arenas where childhood is constructed. The first case is located to a preschool where the staff recently carried out hbtq-education and -certification and the analyzed data is one group interview with five preschool teachers and their principle. The second case is located in social media and consists of reactions on the presence of lesbian characters in the children's comic Bamse, where 326 commentary posts around this topic are analyzed. Based on critical perspectives on age and sexuality, this article discuss what normalizations about childhood and heterosexuality are being made, and how these normalizations condition how queer sexuality can be present within the two childhood arenas represented in the material. Conclusions drawn are that both in the preschool and in the adults' reactions to children's culture, heterosexuality passes unnoticed, while queerness is made something remarkable. The relationship between queer and childhood can here be understood as both requested and questioned, which I present as conditioned queerness, and the child and childhood as spaces where different discourses about the child's best and desirable future are negotiated.


I am very pleased to be here in this beautiful city, standing before colleagues and friends from the Library sector. In my opinion there are only emotional borders between Libraries, Museums and Archives. In a way we all are facing the same problems, challenges and obligations: ie, how to continue to build and preserve large collections and enhance their accessibility. So I prefer to speak of Institutions, which are helping to preserve the cultural heritage. In my lecture I will tell you about Deltaplan - its successes and its qualified successes. And I also want to tell you about the effects of Deltaplan on the institutions involved. Furthermore, I will tell you something of my own experiences collected during Deltaplan. Owing to the constraints of space, this is, of necessity, a selective appraisal. Libraries where excluded from Deltaplan. They got there own kind of plan in the Metamorfoze project, an initiative of the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and is coordinated by the National Preservation Office of the Netherlands of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands. Documents in archives, objects of art in museums and monuments are threatened by a silent decay. This decay is partly caused by air pollution, light, temperature and relative humidity; fungi, insects and rodents also play their parts; and last but not least by people consulting the original documents or books. Before Deltaplan there were conservation backlogs and no effective management strategies to clear them. Moreover, there were insufficient staff and resources across the sector. Also there were cataloguing backlogs, particularly in the museums. In addition the repositories were inadequate and no proper air conditioning had been installed. Restoration was the common policy in place, to restore materials item by item. As a result there was no overarching conservation plan or policy across the sector, a singular lack of knowledge about the conditions of collections, and consequently no prioritisation.


Power sourcing for large industrials has changed since many countries began to restructure their electric sectors. Before, energy sourcing was limited to a set of products offered by electric companies under regulation. Nowadays, deregulation of electricity markets provides industrials significant choice in energy sourcing for the first time, changing the way how electricity is purchased, and increasing the need for sourcing strategy development. In this paper it will be presented how changes as consequences of market reforms affect the way electricity is procured. Different type of market and the power price structures will be explained. The increasing demands of energy, the ambitious goal of increasing electricity supply from renewables and the recent blackouts in different parts of the world suggest the need for a new and different approach to energy supply which could be self-generation. Self-generation has gained attention given that it can contribute to achieve the goals of the EU Energy Policy. In the past, self-generation was considered only as backup, mainly to improve the reliability of supply and partly, when it was possible, to reduce the cost. Now, since the process of liberalization progressed and large industrials gained the right to sell generated power on the market, it offers more possibilities for its use.


Abstract:Historians of Chinese literature and philosophy have written extensively about the significance of emotion (qing 情) in late Ming times (1522–1644). But how did a pictorial image manifest emotion, and how were its visible signs of emotion conceptualized? This article considers the dilemma that painters faced in general when they represented an expressive body: How could the display of emotion in gesture and facial expression be contained within the bounds of propriety? The author examines, in particular, how Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬 (1598–1652) resolved this dilemma in two figural paintings, one of which represents a sorrowful woman, and the other, a worried drunkard. She argues that Chen's representation of sorrow and anxiety was inextricably tied to the pictorial conventions utilized by the print designers of his day to illustrate dramatic, emotionally charged moments in a story. Hence, Chen animated the actors in his paintings with emphatic gestures and poses, complementing their expressive bodies with more subtly shaped facial features. But Chen's incorporation into his painting of what was at the time readily identified as "print" disturbed his figural compositions. As much as the expressive figures aroused an empathetic response from his viewers, the juxtaposition of incompatible manners of representation also made his work seem strange and preposterous. However, Chen's visual laments were derived from poems and historical anecdotes. The author argues that the verbal texts to which he alluded not only enhanced and justified his viewers' empathetic response to his paintings but also enabled him to delineate emotions that were otherwise eschewed by the painters of his time.


In a revisionist look at the history of U.S. relations with Palestine, Lawrence Davidson offers a critical study of the evolution of American popular and governmental perceptions of Zionism and Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the founding of Israel in 1948. Zionism, which sought to transform Palestine into a Jewish state, emphasized the biblical and religious connections of the West to Palestine. Davidson argues that this orientation predisposed the American people to see Zionism as a form of "altruistic" imperialism that would bring civilization to a backward part of the world. However, American Zionists met resistance from the State Department, particularly the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, whose neutral stance until 1945 was shaped by a fear of foreign entanglements. Exploring rising tensions on both sides, Davidson describes how the American Zionists overcame this resistnace and outmaneuvered the State Department by using lobbying techniques and appeals to popular sentiment. Showing how a powerful and determined interest group turned the U.S. political system to its advantage and shaped foreign policy, America's Palestine is an important study of one of the 20th century's most controversial international stories.


The expression of metabotropic glutamate receptors in brain astrocytes is down-regulated in early postnatal development. The concept of the tripartite synapse, whereby astrocytes actively modulate the communication between the pre- and postsynaptic site, is widely accepted. The release of gliotransmitters has been linked to release of Ca2÷ from intracellular stores through the activation of astrocytic metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) by glutamate spillover from synapses. However, nearly all studies on the tripartite synapse have used brain tissue collected from young individuals. Many receptors undergo changes in expression level during development. Sun et al. (see the Perspective by Grosche and Reichenbach) applied genomic analysis, electron microscopy, and calcium imaging in slices and in vivo to assess the presence and the functionality of mGluR5 and mGluR3 receptors during postnatal development in human and mouse astrocytes. Astrocytic expression of mGluR5 was lost by the third postnatal week in mice and was not present in human cortical astrocytes, which calls into question the viability of the tripartite synapse model for adult synapses. W. Sun, E. McConnell, J.-F. Pare, Q. Xu, M. Chen, W. Peng, D. Lovatt, X. Han, Y. Smith, M. Nedergaard, Glutamate-dependent neuroglial calcium signaling differs between young and adult brain. Science 339, 197–200 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. Grosche, A. Reichenbach, Developmental refining of neuroglial signaling? Science 339, 152–153 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The conventional aerodynamic analysis of flapping animal flight invokes the `quasisteady assumption' to reduce a problem in dynamics to a succession of static conditions: it is assumed that the instantaneous forces on a flapping wing are equivalent to those for steady motion at the same instantaneous velocity and angle of attack. The validity of this assumption and the importance of unsteady aerodynamic effects have long been controversial topics. Weis-Fogh tested the assumption for hovering animal flight, where unsteady effects are most pronounced, and concluded that most insects indeed hover according to the principles of quasi-steady aerodynamics. The logical basis for his conclusion is reviewed in this paper, and it is shown that the available evidence remains ambiguous. The aerodynamics of hovering insect flight are re-examined in this series of six papers, and a conclusion opposite to Weis-Fogh's is tentatively reached. New morphological and kinematic data for a variety of insects are presented in papers II and III, respectively. Paper IV offers an aerodynamic interpretation of the wing kinematics and a discussion on the possible roles of different aerodynamic mechanisms. A generalized vortex theory of hovering flight is derived in paper V, and provides a method of estimating the mean lift, induced power and induced velocity for unsteady as well as quasi-steady flight mechanisms. The new data, aerodynamic mechanisms and vortex theory are all combined in paper VI for an analysis of the lift and power requirements and other mechanical aspects of hovering flight. A large number of symbols are needed for the morphological, kinematic and aerodynamic analyses. Most of them appear in more than one paper of the series, and so a single comprehensive table defining the major symbols from all of the papers is presented at the end of this paper.


The foremost determinants of agricultural production in much of the developing world are weather conditions and water availability, both of which are susceptible to the vagaries of climate. Any policy interventions that might make a difference to the global food situation in the future, but coupled with the harmful effects of climate change, the full benefits of these reforms may not be passed on to the wider agricultural community. In this report, we analyse the plausible futures of dryland cereals, namely millet and sorghum, under alternative policy and climate scenarios to assess the direction and probable magnitude of the change in supply and world prices of these cereals, particularly in the semi-arid tropics of Asia. We also examine the impact of the policy scenarios on human welfare such as child malnutrition and per capita calorie intake across countries. The human populations of the dryland live in increasing insecurity due to land degradation and desertification. Livelihood of the people in the dryland tropics will be affected by climate change if no measure is taken to check its disastrous implications on dryland farming. Various adaptation strategies are required to manage the possible risks that the agricultural population might face due to the impact of growing population and climate change. Diversification into livestock production is one viable alternative available to cushion the income losses from falling cereal demand. Income plays a major role in removing the constraints for adopting new technologies and enhancing accessibility to them. Changing consumption pattern is significant fallout of the rise in middle income group which prefers livestock products to cereals. Sorghum and millet having traits most suited for dryland farming will satisfy the growing food and feed demand than any other crop, being able to withstand water scarcity and rising temperatures. Indeed, the following analysis shows these cereals to be more resilient to climate change than maize, a substitute for these crops.


The Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act has spurred a search for measures of election performance that extend beyond race-based registration and turnout rates. We contribute to this endeavor by studying patterns of precinct congestion in Florida during the 2012 General Election. With precinct closing times as proxies for congestion, our study covers 5,302 total Election Day precincts in Florida. We show that there was tremendous variance in closing times in Florida on Election Day in 2012 and that precincts with greater proportions of Hispanic voters closed disproportionately late. This finding holds even controlling for the number of pollworkers/precinct. Broadly speaking, voting place congestion in the 2012 General Election did not affect all Floridians equally, and most notably the post-Shelby electoral environment in the United States continues to reflect racial disparities. With the loss of the Voting Rights Act's retrogression standard, our analysis illustrates how precinct congestion data can be used to assess whether different racial/ethnic groups face different barriers to voting.


textabstractCorporate finance and corporate strategy have long been seen as different sides of the same coin. Though both focus on the same broad problem, investment decision-making, the gap between the two sides--and between theory and practice--remains embarrassingly large. This book synthesizes cutting-edge developments in corporate finance and related fields--in particular, real options and game theory--to help bridge this gap. In clear, straightforward exposition and through numerous examples and applications from various industries, Han Smit and Lenos Trigeorgis set forth an extended valuation framework for competitive strategies.

The book follows a problem-solving approach that synthesizes ideas from game theory, real options, and strategy. Thinking in terms of options-games can help managers address questions such as: When is it best to invest early to preempt competitive entry, and when to wait? Should a firm compete in R&D or adopt an accommodating stance? How does one value growth options or infrastructure investments? The authors provide a wide range of valuation examples, such as acquisition strategies, R&D investment in high-tech sectors, joint research ventures, product introductions in consumer electronics, infrastructure, and oil exploration investment.

Representing a major step beyond standard real options or strategy analysis, and extending the power of real options and strategic thinking in a rigorous fashion, Strategic Investment will be an indispensable guide and resource for corporate managers, MBA students, and academics alike.


Framework for MPLS-TE to GMPLS Migration Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract The migration from Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Traffic Engineering (TE) to Generalized MPLS (GMPLS) is the process of evolving an MPLS-TE control plane to a GMPLS control plane. An appropriate migration strategy will be selected based on various factors including the service provider's network deployment plan, customer demand, and operational policy. This document presents several migration models and strategies for migrating from MPLS-TE to GMPLS. In the course of migration, MPLS-TE and GMPLS devices, or networks, may coexist that may require interworking between MPLS-TE and GMPLS protocols. Aspects of the required interworking are discussed as it will influence the choice of a migration strategy. This framework document provides a migration toolkit to aid the operator in selection of an appropriate strategy. This framework document also lists a set of solutions that may aid in interworking, and highlights a set of potential issues.


When a UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) completes a specific mission, it needs to return to the recovery platform autonomously safely in an unknown environment. So the works of path planning and guidance control for a UUV are indispensable and significant. In this paper, first a smooth and practical Dubins path back to the recovery platform is planned. In particular, the combined Dubins-RRT path (rapidly exploring random tree based on Dubins path) is introduced with densely spread obstacles. Then the UUV is guided along the Dubins-RRT path to the target by heading-vector control. The algorithm is simple and subjects to the kinematics constraints of UUV. The effectiveness of the algorithm is proved by the simulation in real geographical condition.


Since the early 1990s, the global effort to mitigate climate change has been framed primarily as an environmental law problem aimed at harm prevention. As the shortcomings of this approach have become increasingly clear, a number of scholars have begun to examine energy policy reform as a potential pathway to more fruitful climate change governance development. This article also identifies energy policy as an appropriate space for developing more effective climate change mitigation policy, but does so in a novel way. Rather than focus on the substance of environmental or energy law, this article suggests that we should reconceive of climate change as an emergent property of the global energy system. This perspective holds promise, the article suggests, because it can direct reform efforts toward those components of the energy system that are most likely to promote complex systems forces that will produce a large-scale transformation of the system as a whole. Given the urgency of climate change threats and the near-total failure of prior environmental law approaches to address them, the proposed re-conception of the problem offers a meaningful way forward and perhaps the last real hope for policy efforts to produce results that accord with widely accepted climate mitigation goals.


Abstract Progress has been made in reducing and quantifying residual gases in shells manufactured by the silicon doped glow discharge polymer (SiGDP) to glass process. Previously, glass shells were made using a high temperature, open-air box oven. If the temperature profile used was sufficient, clear, colorless shells were obtained which had ~1/3 of an atmosphere of residual gas consisting of a mixture of N2, O2, CO and CO2 with generally N2 and CO2 being the major constituents. Improvements to the process were made by utilizing a controlled atmosphere, high temperature oven and developing an improved temperature profile for the SiGDP to glass conversion process. It is now possible to manufacture clear, colorless glass shells containing noble gas(es), which is a first for the ICF program. In addition, the improvements in our process has led to shells containing less residual gas (N2, CO, and CO2) than previously obtainable. Tailored deuterium halflifes are also possible by adjusting the final sintering temperature which results in glass that is very near but not full density which allows in some cases for fielding of glass shells with half-lives which can be more suitable to the experimentalist.


The operational range of MEMS electrostatic parallel plate actuators can be extended beyond pull-in with the presence of an intermediate dielectric layer, which has a significant effect on the behavior of such actuators. Here we study the behavior of cantilever beam electrostatic actuators beyond pull-in, using a beam model. Three possible static configurations of the beam are identified over the operational voltage range. We call them floating, pinned and flat: the latter two are also called arc-type and S-type in the literature. We compute the voltage ranges over which the three configurations can exist, and the points where transitions occur between these configurations. Voltage ranges are identified where where bi-stable and tri-stable states can exist. A classification of all possible transitions, based on the dielectric layer parameters, is presented. Dynamic stability analysis is presented for the floating and pinned configurations. For high dielectric layer thickness, discontinuous transitions between configurations disappear and the actuator has smooth predictable behavior, but at the expense of lower tunability. We suggest that variable dielectric layer thickness may be used to obtain both regularity/predictability as well as high tunability.


Skaperdas (1996) characterized the contest success function (CSF), which stipulates the winning probabilities of the contestants, using respectively the scale invariance and translation invariance axioms. This paper first characterizes the entire family of CSFs that fulfils a convex mixture of the two axioms. This family contains the Skaperdas CSFs as special cases. Next, we consider two ordinal axioms, scale consistency and translation consistency, and characterize the respective classes of CSFs. While the former consists of the Skaperdas scale invariant and translational invariant CSFs and some new functional forms, the latter contains the Skaperdas translation invariant CSF and some additional CSFs that were not considered in the literature earlier.