Social studies of agriculture tend to overlook the micro and symbolic interactions that structure relationships among agriculturalists, the environment, and animals raised as commodities. In this study, I use ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews with conventional beef producers to understand their perceptions of the environment and the nonhuman animals they raise. Central themes in this setting are the ethics of stewardship and husbandry. I seek to understand how these values are constructed and used interactionally. I argue that stewardship and husbandry help describe a process of co-constitution that binds together ranchers, cattle, and the natural environment. The analysis engages actor-network theory by emphasizing nonhuman activeness and draws from symbolic interaction and cultural sociology to show how people interpret the actions of nonhumans. The findings show that ranchers frame their relationships with cattle and the environment as symbiotic and work to understand the interests of the nonhuman as complementary to production. I introduce the term symbiotic ideology to show the way this approach mystifies power dynamics embedded in the ethic of dominion.


Protecting human health and protecting the environment are essential requirements in today's exploration and production (E&P), refining, and petroleum marketing workplaces (pipelines and terminal facilities). Preventing tank overfills at above-ground, atmospheric storage tanks is essential, for "overfills" and the attendant consequences (e.g., potential volitization and groundwater/soil contamination) pose significant risk to the safety of workers, surrounding communities, and the environment itself. Overfill incidents demonstrate the need, and urgency, for tank-overfill-protection (TOP) measures to be evaluated and, as determined, undertaken. The design and implementation of a TOP program offers potential benefits for E&P in the environmental, human-health, community-welfare, and safety performance areas. E&P operations do not necessarily involve the numbers of atmospheric tanks that are involved in, say for example, midstream (pipeline) operations; nonetheless, safety and environmental contamination are issues of concern. There are common attributes of a comprehensive overfill protection that can be applied to E&P settings. A TOP program for a large pipeline organization—consisting of more than 800 above-ground, atmospheric storage tanks (Class 1 through 3 liquids), at more than 90 facilities—was recently developed and implemented, and is currently undergoing its first year of compliance and assurance (C&A) evaluation. This program was comprehensive in nature, containing its own unique objectives and distinctives. The comprehensive approach and method undertaken provided major benefits to the organization and successful and long-term implementation. Such benefits apply to large-scale programs and projects alike and include the following: • Defined management philosophy/vision • Organizational commitment • Strengthened accountability • Identification of systemic gaps • Consistency in policies, standards, and operations • Long-term C&A The results yield enhanced operations, risk reduction, and improved safety, all of which were evidenced in the TOP program. There are two aspects to an overfill-protection program. The first is the "programmatic" aspect, which addresses the various program features [i.e., policy development, standards and procedures, roles and responsibilities, program management (PM) functions] and various content features of the overfill policy to be implemented. The second aspect deals specifically with overfill equipment, to include equipment identification and related engineering, procurement, and construction (installation) activities, as well as any necessary electrical and instrumentation upgrades at a facility. The programmatic aspect, in a proactive and preventive sense, is deemed the most protective regarding tank-overfill events. This paper addresses a "conceptual model" for an overfill-protection program, based on this recent industry example. Key portions of the programmatic and overfill-equipment aspects will be addressed.


The vast majority of patients with Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS) are of Slavic origin and carry a deleterious deletion (c.657del5; rs587776650) in the NBN gene on chromosome 8q21. This mutation is essentially confined to Slavic populations and may thus be considered a Slavic founder mutation. Notably, not a single parenthood of a homozygous c.657del5 carrier has been reported to date, while heterozygous carriers do reproduce but have an increased cancer risk. These observations seem to conflict with the considerable carrier frequency of c.657del5 of 0.5% to 1% as observed in different Slavic populations because deleterious mutations would be eliminated quite rapidly by purifying selection. Therefore, we propose that heterozygous c.657del5 carriers have increased reproductive success, i.e., that the mutation confers heterozygote advantage. In fact, in our cohort study of the reproductive history of 24 NBS pedigrees from the Czech Republic, we observed that female carriers gave birth to more children on average than female non-carriers, while no such reproductive differences were observed for males. We also estimate that c.657del5 likely occurred less than 300 generations ago, thus supporting the view that the original mutation predated the historic split and subsequent spread of the 'Slavic people'. We surmise that the higher fertility of female c.657del5 carriers reflects a lower miscarriage rate in these women, thereby reflecting the role of the NBN gene product, nibrin, in the repair of DNA double strand breaks and their processing in immune gene rearrangements, telomere maintenance, and meiotic recombination, akin to the previously described role of the DNA repair genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.


Global Positioning System geodesy and structural analysis of parts of the Aleutian island chain support the interpretation of forearc migration westward along right-lateral transcurrent faults. Measured displacements are essentially arc parallel in the eastern (Unalaska Island) and western (Attu Island) parts of the arc and vary from 3.1 mm/yr to 31.4 mm/yr, respectively. At the center of the arc (Adak) subduction of the Amlia fracture zone disrupts the pattern of arc-parallel displacement and records an upper plate velocity of 9.6 mm/yr parallel to plate motion. Where active, displacement partitioning accommodates 30%–50% of the strike-slip component of plate convergence. In the area of impeded subduction partitioning ceases, suggesting that the process is sensitive to the degree of coupling across the plate-boundary megathrust. The differential arc-parallel displacements observed at the ends of the arc together with structural relations indicate substantial arc-parallel extension, which may play an important role in exhumation of high-pressure–low-temperature metamorphic rocks in ancient arc systems.


The fundamental objective of this thesis is to question the legitimacy of the prevalent assumptions of civil society with regard to who should constitute civil society and how the the experiences of the underprivileged are to be addressed through a scrutiny of micro social processes of power at the community level in a particular space. It is thus through an in-depth-analysis of informal youth activism within a politics of place- its dynamics, complexities, interactions, contestations, and normative orientations- that I have endeavored to show a possibility of context-specific patterns of civil society. The thesis is particularly concerned with unveiling some of the dynamics shaping the forms of public communication within the emergent autonomous space of the Alevi youth in the Şahkulu Sultan Dergahi via the modalities of counter public. It is the argument of this thesis that the Şahkulu youth has successfully constructed a counter public within the Dergah to formulate their oppositional interpretations of Alevi identity and their grievances with regard to the unjust participatory privileges enjoyed by the people in power position while simultaneously constructing itself as an embryonic counter public vis-a-vis the general Alevi counter public. It has also built such a capacity of civility that epitomizes how-to-coexist with differences in a culturally diverse society as such.


Dutch listeners outperform native listeners in identifying syllable stress in English. This is because lexical stress is more useful in recognition of spoken words of Dutch than of English, so that Dutch listeners pay greater attention to stress in general. We examined Dutch listeners' use of the acoustic correlates of English stress. Primary- and secondary-stressed syllables differ significantly on acoustic measures, and some differences, in F0 especially, correlate with data of earlier listening experiments. The correlations found in the Dutch responses were not paralleled in data from native listeners. Thus the acoustic cues which distinguish English primary versus secondary stress are better exploited by Dutch than by native listeners.


Method inlining is considered to be one of the most important optimizations in a compiler. However, a poor inlining heuristic can lead to significant degradation of a program's running time. Therefore, it is important that an inliner has an effective heuristic that controls whether a method is inlined or not. An important component of any inlining heuristic are the features that characterize the inlining decision. These features often correspond to the caller method and the callee methods. However, it is not always apparent what the most important features are for this problem or the relative importance of these features. Compiler writers developing inlining heuristics may exclude critical information that can be obtained during each inlining decision. In this paper, we use a machine learning technique, namely neuro-evolution [18], to automatically induce effective inlining heuristics from a set of features deemed to be useful for inlining. Our learning technique is able to induce novel heuristics that significantly out-perform manually-constructed inlining heuristics. We evaluate the heuristic constructed by our neuro-evolutionary technique within the highly tuned Java HotSpot server compiler and the Maxine VM C1X compiler, and we are able to obtain speedups of up to 89% and 114%, respectively. In addition, we obtain an average speedup of almost 9% and 11% for the Java HotSpot VM and Maxine VM, respectively. However, the output of neuro-evolution, a neural network, is not human readable. We show how to construct more concise and read-able heuristics in the form of decision trees that perform as well as our neuro-evolutionary approach.


Highly dense spaces such as narrow pathways are a great challenge for path planning. The goal of this study is to develop feasible paths in highly constrained spaces for a mobile robot. In this study, the rapidly-exploring random trees (RRT) algorithm was used to generate paths. The RRT was subjected to two workspaces of the same dimensions but with different obstacle size. By varying the obstacle size, the free regions available will adjust depending on the obstacle.  The step size of the RRT algorithm was varied incrementally from 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. For each step size variation, the path length and path coordinates were retrieved. Small step size always produced successful search results. Null searches were encountered in the workspace with large obstacles, most especially at high step size. The step size 100 has the highest number of null searches with 21 out of 40 trials. Smaller mean free path length and standard deviation were obtained in the environment with smaller obstacles. Practical applications of the study are in closed-loop path planning in a workspace wherein robot-robot and robot-obstacle interactions are the dominant features.


In this paper the palaeobiogeographical affinities of Villafranchian continental molluscan faunas of Italy are examined. The best known Early Villafranchian (= Middle Pliocene) assemblages come from the Piedmont Basin which delivered a rich malacofauna dominated by archaic pulmonates, studied a hundred years ago by Sacco. New sampling in this basin by the authors of this paper have permitted to find some other palaeobiogeographically interesting taxa. Many taxa indicate strong affinities with west-European basins (France, western Germany). In central Italy, recent findings in deposits of the Tiberino Basin (Umbria) have pointed out a good number of Early Villafranchian pulmonate species common to the Piedmont Basin and some endemic aquatic prosobranchs. A different palaeobiogeographical history arises from the analysis of an Early Villafranchian fauna collected in western Sardinia. A strong affinity with Balearic and Iberian regions is evidenced. Molluscan assemblages of Middle Villafranchian (= Late Pliocene) age in Italy are poorly known. Late Villafranchian (= Early Pleistocene) continental molluscs come from many localities of northern and central Italy. The best studied faunas are those of the basins of Valdarno, Valdichiana and the Tiberino (western side of central Italy). In these basins the assemblages are dominated by endemic aquatic prosobranchs but some elements with western or east-European affinities are also present. Numerous Early Villafranchian genera and species of pulmonates are lacking in the sediments of Late Villafranchian age. Probably they became extinct in coincidence with the onset of the first large ice sheet on the Northern Hemisphere, at the Gauss/Matuyama-boundary (c. 2.6 Ma BP). Late Villafranchian pulmonates are represented mostly by modern species, whereas archaic elements are dominant among the mostly endemic prosobranchs of this age. These last-mentioned elements do not cross the Early/Middle Pleistocene boundary (c. 0.8 Ma BP), i.e. they do not survive the first strong climatic crisis of the Quaternary. On the whole it results that since the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene clear modern features are shown by the continental molluscan faunas of Italy, both at genus and at species level. This work has been supported by a M.P.I, grant 60% (2.09.02.157).


Searching for desired 3D models is not easy because many of them are not well labeled; annotations often contain inconsistent information (e.g., uploaders' personal way of naming) and lack important details (e.g., detailed ornaments and pattern) of each model. We introduce PolySquare, a search engine for 3D models based on tag propagation---the process of assigning existing tags to other similar but unlabeled models considering important local properties. For instance, a tag `wheel' of a wheelchair can be spread out to other objects with wheels. Furthermore, PolySquare allows people to interactively refine the search results by iteratively including desired shapes and excluding unwanted ones. We evaluate the performance of tag propagation by measuring the precision-recall of propagation results with various similarity thresholds and demonstrate the effectiveness of the use of local features. We also showcase how PolySquare handles the unrefined tags through a case study using real 3D model data from Google Poly.


This Essay sketches out the Movement for Black Lives' claims about law, argues that law faculty should be paying close attention to the movement's challenges to core empirical and methodological assumptions in our teaching and scholarship, and offers pedagogical techniques to welcome these challenges into our classrooms.The movement's empirical claim is that law does not function as is often imagined, the imagination of law's functioning being central to the legitimacy we invest in our system of government. This claim has many dimensions worth exploring, but here I point to two central applications: police killings and the disjuncture between procedural rights and substantive justice.The movement's methodological claim challenges conventional wisdom about how law changes and the role of law in social change. Organizers have refused to work within the traditional confines of legal process or to celebrate law as the end of their struggle. Instead, they have lifted up disruption and contestation as tactics, and relied on law only as a tool for incremental change in a broader campaign for a radical restructuring. In the process, they have shed light on law's operation, recast law's morality, and questioned its relationship to haunting social problems.The movement exposes to the mainstream what black communities have argued — and black freedom struggles have organized against — for centuries: Law is not fair, it does not treat people equally, and its violence is lethal and routine. Law is constituted by power and the powerful, and it changes for the benefit of the marginalized only when it is made to.The movement's critiques may make us uncomfortable, and taking them on in the classroom may require risks — but we need to get uncomfortable. For too long, too many of us have looked the other way, even when we know better. It is time to look at the law beyond our conventional ways of seeing. It is time to bring in the people who for too long have been outside the classroom, and yet are so central to law's operations.


"Firms, markets and relational contracting are important economic institutions. They are also the evolutionary product of a fascinating series of organisational innovations." [1] Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) are at a disadvantage when competing in a global environment. This paper looks at the need for specialised and adequate tools for the small and medium sized enterprise. These tools are comprised of both human and technical elements if they are to be successful in providing SMEs with the wherewithal to compete efficiently on the global marketplace.


The real estate market of Belarus historically is still very young. The beginning of its development can be dated by middle of 1992, when together with process of privatization in Minsk the legal bargains on sale of flats, later - other real estate have appeared. Thus, Belarusian real estate market, as well as the conference of ERES celebrates the 10 anniversaries. In other towns of Belarus the start of the real estate market has taken place together with the beginning of economics liberalization - in 1992, 1993 and later. For the last 10 years it has done unprecedented way of a becoming and development. From first steps of the real estate market the most far-seeing practices - realtors and the specialists of scientific organizations have began to analyze the legitimacies and tendencies of its development. However till now it is not deeply researched in reality and there is no developed and accepted methodology of its analysis and forecasting. It is known the main regularity of the developed markets: cycle variations of activity and prices together with economical, investment and other cycles; connection between the real estate market and other markets (currency, share); formation of the prices on the basis of equilibrium of a supply and demand and ctr. The researches have shown that all these of regularity are upset and flow by another way for the developing real estate markets in conditions of transition economies. The analysis of the real estate market of Minsk for 10 years of its existence is maid. The features and regularity of its development are detected. With usage of econometric methods the forecast of the real estate market for 2003 is maid. The concept of creation of the real estate market monitoring is offered. In Europe it is offered to create Center of Real Estate Markets Monitoring that will be useful for financial organizations and for experts to analyze development of real estate markets in transition and market economy. The Center could be organized with a help of ERES.


Linkage disequilibrium (LD) is a fundamental concept in genetics; critical for studying genetic associations and molecular evolution. However, LD measurements are only reliable for common genetic variants, leaving low-frequency variants unanalyzed. In this work, we introduce cumulative LD (cLD), a stable statistic that captures the rare-variant LD between genetic regions, which reflects more biological interactions between variants, in addition to lack of recombination. We derived the theoretical variance of cLD using delta methods to demonstrate its higher stability than LD for rare variants. This property is also verified by bootstrapped simulations using real data. In application, we find cLD reveals an increased genetic association between genes in 3D chromatin interactions, a phenomenon recently reported negatively by calculating standard LD between common variants. Additionally, we show that cLD is higher between gene pairs reported in interaction databases, identifies unreported protein-protein interactions, and reveals interacting genes distinguishing case/control samples in association studies.


The oxygen isotope signature (δ18O) of stalagmite SI3 collected from Shizi Cave in north‐east Sichuan Province provides an Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) record in Central China for the period 54–46 ka. The SI3 δ18O record clearly shows a negative δ18O excursion centred around 49.4 ka, which was reported in Hulu Cave in East China but not identified in the speleothem records from South‐west China. As a whole, this record displays a higher coherence with the two Hulu records from East China than with the speleothem δ18O records from South‐west China, suggesting that at 54–46 ka, Central China was influenced more by the East Asian Summer Monsoon than by the Indian Summer Monsoon. It also displays a significant negative δ18O excursion at 47.5–46.6 ka, which is not clearly documented in two other speleothem δ18O records previously reported from South‐west China. This suggests that details of the Greenland interstadial 12 warrant further investigations in future in monsoonal China. The SI3 δ18O record displays more significant centennial‐scale variations than the other four speleothem δ18O records from East and South‐west China, which may be due to the fact that the study site is closer to the north‐west boundary of the ASM and more sensitive to variations of the ASM than East and South‐west China. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and toxicity of rituximab combined with CHOP (R-CHOP) in the treatment of relapsed or refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL).Methods 30 patients were enrolled.All patients,pathologically confirmed to be CD20 positive DLBCL (all in stages Ⅲ-Ⅳ ), were relapsed or refractory after received 2-6 cycles of chemotherapy. Then all of them received R-CHOP schedule for 4 to 6 cycles, each cycle was 21 days. Clinical data before and after R-CHOP were collected.A retrospective analysis of the R-CHOP therapy,either compared to the literature or self-control was performed to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity. Results All the 30 patients were evaluable, induding 15 cases were complete remission (CR), 10 cases were partial remission (PR), 3 cases were stable disease (SD),and 2 cases were progressed disease (PD).The CR rate was 50.0 % (15/30),the total response rate (RR) was 83.3 % (25/30).All patients were well tolerated to the therapy.Only 3 cases were Ⅱ degree neutropenia,1 case was Ⅰ degree thrombocytopenia, and 2 cases suffered nausea and other mild gastrointestinal discomfort. Conclusions R-CHOP regimen could also achieve good response for relapsed or refractory DLBCL significantly.The common adverse effects of rituximab were mild.All the patients were well tolerated.

Key words:
Rituximab; Relapse; Refractory; Diffuse large B cell lymphoma


Background: Child illness and death in Ethiopia are primarily due to five common childhood illnesses, namely pneumonia (ARI), diarrhea, malaria, measles, and malnutrition and often combination of these conditions.

Objective: Assessment prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among children aged 6-59 months at woreda 06 Addis Hiwot health center, Gulele sub city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2017.

Methods: A cross sectional institution based quantitative study was carried out in Gulele Sub-city woreda 06. The sample size was determined using a single population proportion. The sample size thus was 359 Adopted, modified and pre- tested interview questionnaire is used. The data collectors are those trained health professional working out the study facility. Data is collected from mothers or care takers who were come to Gulele sub-city woreda 06 Addis Hiwot Health center by giving structured questionnaire.

Result: In this study Growth monitoring, weight for age of children shows, normal 165 (46%), mild 160 (44.6%) moderate 34 (9.5%). Weight for height, normal 150 (41.8%), mild 176 (49%) moderate 23 (6.4%) and severe wasting 4 (1.1%). MUAC measurement shows normal 159 (44.3%) wasted 160 (44.6%).

Conclusion & Recommendation: The majority of children assessed were in age group of 6-12 months with unknown weight during their neonatal period presented at sick baby clinic. Since malnutrition results from multi socioeconomic factors multisectoral collaboration should implemented for alleviation of malnutrition problem from woreda health office, Addis Hiwot health center, woreda finance and economic office and woreda urban agriculture extension.


In this paper we describe a new class of silicon photonic crystal fibre (SiPCF) that brings together two powerful optical technologies, the photonic crystal fibre (PCF) and the semiconductor optical fibre. The PCF is now a well established fibre paradigm that has proven to be a very versatile waveguide and has found applications in nonlinear optics, fibre lasers, and sensors. The versatility of the PCF is due to its microstructured cladding which enables complex manipulation of the waveguide's characteristics, and also allows for enhanced light interaction with materials that are infiltrated into the cladding voids. The most typical form of semiconductor optical fibre has a fused silica cladding and guides light in the high refractive index semiconductor core. Although semiconductor optical fibres are a nascent technology, practical applications, such as nonlinear pulse shaping and all optical modulation, have begun to emerge in the last couple of years. However, material losses are currently preventing this fibre type from becoming a major disruptive technology and, with this in mind, we present the first steps to decouple the functionality of the semiconductor from its material losses. We achieve this by filling the holes of a modified total internal reflection guiding silica PCF with hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) inclusions. We will show that the resulting SiPCF guides light in the low loss core via the antiresonant reflecting optical waveguiding (ARROW) mechanism.


We present a system that augments live presentation videos with interactive graphics to create a powerful and expressive storytelling environment. Using our system, the presenter interacts with the graphical elements in real-time with gestures and postures, thus leveraging our innate, everyday skills to enhance our communication capabilities with the audience. However, crafting such an interactive and expressive performance typically requires programming, or highly-specialized tools tailored for experts. Our core contribution is a flexible, direct manipulation UI which enables amateurs and experts to craft such presentations beforehand by mapping a variety of body movements to a wide range of graphical manipulations. By simplifying the mapping between gestures, postures, and their corresponding output effects, our UI enables users to craft customized, rich interactions with the graphical elements. Our user study demonstrates the potential usage and unique affordance of this mixed-reality medium for storytelling and presentation across a range of application domains.


The research outlined in this thesis stems from empirical work carried out with vitiligo sufferers over a period of 3 years, from 1995 to 1998. Vitiligo is a pigmentation disorder, which causes the destruction of melanocytes in the skin. The affected areas lose their pigmentation resulting in the appearance of irregular white patches over the surface of the skin. Although the appearance of the skin can change dramatically, vitiligo does not cause any pain or physical discomfort, nor is it in any way physically limiting. Therefore the psychological effects of the disfiguring nature of this condition can be studied independently of other physical changes. The present research was prompted by the recognition that empirical studies in the field of psychodermatology are scarce, especially with regard to the effects of skin disease on psychological health. Vitiligo provides a unique opportunity to examine the psychological impact of disfigurement in the absence of other variables such as pain, or trauma. Furthermore, unlike other skin conditions, such as eczema and psoriasis, few empirical studies have been carried out to examine the impact of a patient's psychological state on the progression of vitiligo and therefore, an opportunity to undertake some preliminary research in this field was identified. The main thesis of the research outlined herein is that mental state and physiological state are not independent of each other for vitiligo sufferers. A patient's psychological state may influence the onset or progression of their condition, and the appearance of the condition may impact upon a patient's psychosocial functioning. With this hypothesis in mind, a series of studies were undertaken, examining the interaction between mental and physiological state in vitiligo. Four central hypotheses were examined:
1. Newly diagnosed vitiligo patients experience a higher proportion of stressful life events in the year preceding the onset of their condition, than a matched clinical sample. 2. Psychological counselling using cognitive behaviour therapy helps to improve the body image, self esteem and quality of life of vitiligo patients and may impact upon the progression of their condition. 3. Being involved in a non-directive support group helps to improve the body image, self esteem and quality of life in vitiligo sufferers. 4. Variation exists across vitiligo sufferers regarding their beliefs about the onset, course and symptomatology of their condition. These beliefs will vary according to demographic variables. It is anticipated that amongst others, the present study may be of interest to clinical and counselling psychologists and counsellors working in the field of disfigurement, dermatologists, nurses, general practitioners and other health professionals who have face-to-face contact with dermatology patients, and health and social psychologists involved in research in this field.


Summary: Background: Physical exercise is essential for performance of the immune system. The integrity of immune response is dependent on the intensity and duration of the exercise performed. During exercise the metabolic and hormonal changes that occurred can induce lymphocyte apoptosis. Dehydroepiandrosteron sulphate (DHEAS) is one of the hormones that is affected by exercise, it is an androgen released from the adrenal cortex in response to adrenocortiocotropin releasing hormone (ACTH). DHEAS is regarded as an anti-aging hormone; it is primarily immune enhancing, providing some degree of counterbalance to the potentially detrimental effects of catecholamine and cortisol which are immunosuppressive if chronically elevated, it also had a role in the elimination of harmful lymphocytes which may give rise to chronic inflammation and possibly to autoimmunity. Methods: Sixty healthy subjects were involved in this study with a mean age of (37.05 ± 13.02) year. They were subjected to moderate exercise session which lasted for 60 min and repeated 3 times per week for 3 months. The exercise intensity was 50-60% of heart rate reserve (according to Karvonen formula). Two exercise stages were performed; the first stage include 30 minute of physical activity program and the second stage include 30 minute of treadmill exercise. Blood samples were collected before and after exercise to examine its effect on the level of DHEAS hormone and apoptosis of peripheral blood lymphocyte. Results: This study showed significant increment (P < 0.05) in the level of DHEAS hormone and the percentage of lymphocyte apoptosis after exercise in comparison to pre exercise values for each week along the period of the test.Three months exercise showed a significant correlation with the levels of DHEAS hormone (P= 0.000, r= 0.75), and with percentage of lymphocyte apoptosis (P = 0.001, r= 0.701). Conclusion: in this prospective study, following moderate exercise for three months; there was increase in the percentage of periphral blood lymphocyte apoptosis and increased level of DHEAS hormone in the first two months while in the third month this anti aging hormones had reached to a steady state after the subjects get trained to exercise.


In today's DNS infrastructure, DNS forwarders are devices standing in between DNS clients and recursive resolvers. The devices often serve as ingress servers for DNS clients, and instead of resolving queries, they pass the DNS requests to other servers. Because of the advantages and several use cases, DNS forwarders are widely deployed and queried by Internet users. However, studies have shown that DNS forwarders can be more vulnerable devices in the DNS infrastructure. In this paper, we present a cache poisoning attack targeting DNS forwarders. Through this attack, attackers can inject rogue records of arbitrary victim domain names using a controlled domain, and circumvent widely-deployed cache poisoning defences. By performing tests on popular home router models and DNS software, we find several vulnerable implementations, including those of large vendors (e.g., D-Link, Linksys, dnsmasq and MS DNS). Further, through a nationwide measurement, we estimate the population of Chinese mobile clients which are using vulnerable DNS forwarders. We have been reporting the issue to the affected vendors, and so far have received positive feedback from three of them. Our work further demonstrates that DNS forwarders can be a soft spot in the DNS infrastructure, and calls for attention as well as implementation guidelines from the community.


Birds are geographical creatures. In fact, we can map connections between birds and politics, recreation, economics, global health, mythology, aviation, and even professional sports. In other words, birds are a pervasive presence in various geographies. Birds have been symbols in past and present cultures. Ancient cultures considered some birds deities; modern nations and states elevate birds as national and international symbols (Houlihan 1987; Demarest 2004). Birds also make up a significant number of mascots for professional sporting teams in North America. Outdoor sports enthusiasts also spend literally tens of millions of dollars on activities such waterfowl hunting and bird-watching (Kerlinger, Payne, and Eubanks 1997; Vivanco 2001; Henderson 2005; Grado 2008). Although the end results of these two activities are seemingly disparate--dead birds versus live ones--both are driven by desire for and appreciation of birds. Scholars in fields such as ornithology and biology conduct most of the bird-oriented research, but social scientists, particularly geographers, have made important contributions to avifaunal research. Ornithologists play a leading role regarding studies focused on avian genetics, evolutionary history, and behavior; however, these areas of inquiry cover only part of the overall research landscape related to birds. People profoundly influence bird evolution, bird behavior, bird genetics, and bird numbers. Humans hunt, watch, house, feed, or value birds based on cultural constructs such as beauty, power, pests, and food (Doughty 1975; Hobbs 2004; Steinberg 2008). And these constructs impact key biological research topics. Indeed, culturally influenced activities such as hunting or feeding birds certainly influence avian behavior, population size, disease transmission, and, over time, evolution (Yaukey 1996; Doughty and Fergus 2002). This special issue of the Geographical Review highlights avian research conducted by geographers by examining such topics as cultural perception of specific birds, bird conservation and population trends, human impacts on birds through habitat alteration, and bird exploitation in a variety of cultural and historical contexts. But the issue is not intended merely to highlight current research; its purpose is also to stake a claim in avifaunal research for geographers and by doing so also point to the potential for other research to be led by geographers. Can anyone argue that topics such as the diffusion of global disease, often with birds as vectors, or the role played by birds in ecotourism does not fall squarely within the realm of geography (Donaldson and Wood 2008)? This special issue is informally divided into two sections: the first is more cultural and human-environment-oriented; the second focuses on bird biogeography. Given our discipline's long research traditions in cultural, human-environmental, and biological geography, I think this division is appropriate. Being geographers instead of ornithologists influences how we contextualize birds and overall avian research. We often see birds at different scales than ornithologists do: as part of a larger human-environmental landscape, whose presence and status are greatly influenced by history, politics, economics, and, of course, local culture. Thus geographical research focused on birds often provides a broader, more complete portrait of birds in and part of a landscape, not simply birds as single units in an ecosystem. The material in this issue is important because, as humans continue to alter the natural world on an unprecedented scale, geographers and our often interdisciplinary research approach can and will shed light on the underlying, often diverse causes of environmental degradation. …


Many natural language processing tasks, such as named entity recognition (NER), part of speech (POS) tagging, word segmentation, and etc., can be formulated as sequential data labeling problems. Building a sound labeler requires very large number of correctly labeled training examples, which may not always be possible. On the other hand, crowdsourcing provides an inexpensive yet efficient alternative to collect manual sequential labeling from non-experts. However the quality of crowd labeling cannot be guaranteed, and three kinds of errors are typical: (1) incorrect annotations due to lack of expertise (e.g., labeling gene names from plain text requires corresponding domain knowledge); (2) ignored or omitted annotations due to carelessness or low confidence; (3) noisy annotations due to cheating or vandalism. To correct these mistakes, we present Sembler, a statistical model for ensembling crowd sequential labelings. Sembler considers three types of statistical information: (1) the majority agreement that proves the correctness of an annotation; (2) correct annotation that improves the credibility of the corresponding annotator; (3) correct annotation that enhances the correctness of other annotations which share similar linguistic or contextual features. We evaluate the proposed model on a real Twitter and a synthetical biological data set, and find that Sembler is particularly accurate when more than half of annotators make mistakes.


Abstract Comparative analyses of party policy diffusion are only just emerging. To better understand the conditions under which diffusion occurs, this article argues that three heuristics – availability, representativeness and anchoring – shape parties' efforts to gather information (from elsewhere), leading to differing diffusion effects. The study operationalizes the outcome as textual similarity of party manifestos in nineteen Western democracies from 1960 to 2016, applying a text-as-data approach and machine translation. Analyzing dyads, it assesses how commonalities and sender/receiver attributes impact diffusion. It finds that there is little room for cross-border diffusion as successful parties stick to their old program. Beyond the still-prevailing domestic context, 'learning from cultural reference groups' in a region is most important. In addition, diffusion appears within EP factions and transnational party organizations independently of the success/loss of the sender. The analysis thus sheds light on (un-)favorable conditions for party policy diffusion and paves the way for future studies applying machine translation and quantitative text analyses.


During the past two generations, democratic forms have coexisted with massive increases in economic inequality in the United States and many other advanced democracies. Moreover, these new inequalities have primarily benefited the top 1 percent and even the top .01 percent. These groups seem sufficiently small that economic inequality could be held in check by political equality in the form of "one person, one vote." In this paper, we explore five possible reasons why the US political system has failed to counterbalance rising inequality. First, both Republicans and many Democrats have experienced an ideological shift toward acceptance of a form of free market capitalism that offers less support for government provision of transfers, lower marginal tax rates for those with high incomes, and deregulation of a number of industries. Second, immigration and low turnout of the poor have combined to make the distribution of voters more weighted to high incomes than is the distribution of households. Third, rising real income and wealth has made a larger fraction of the population less attracted to turning to government for social insurance. Fourth, the rich have been able to use their resources to influence electoral, legislative, and regulatory processes through campaign contributions, lobbying, and revolving door employment of politicians and bureaucrats. Fifth, the political process is distorted by institutions that reduce the accountability of elected officials to the majority and hampered by institutions that combine with political polarization to create policy gridlock.


Almost all children throughout the elementary grades respond positively to being read to (Mendoza, 1985). Many teachers consider reading aloud an important part of their daily routine, primarily so students can enjoy a good story. Being read to provides students with an opportunity to be transported across distance and time, to imagine, and to vicariously take part in experiences beyond the realm of the listener. Through such positive reading aloud experiences a variety of additional benefits are often achieved with little overt instructional support; reluctant readers may be "turned on" to reading, students may be exposed to literature beyond their reading ability and outside their typical reading interests, aural exposure to more complex and formal written syntactic patterns prepares listeners to predict these structures in future print experiences, schema IS expanded through vicarious experiences, and vocabulary is increased. For the pure enjoyment derived, and these additional benefits, reading aloud to students is an invaluable activity. READING ALOUD TO STUDENTS: QUESTIONING STRATEGIES TO LISTENING COMPREHENSION


Historical research, especially research without clear genealogical bonds to contemporary world religions seems to be on the way out of the national curricula in Sweden, both in secondary school and at the universities. The new national guidelines for the secondary school, decided by the government 2010, show this clearly. This situation diverges greatly from the curriculums just 30-40 years ago where the proportions have been nearly the opposite. This study aims to investigate this difference to "former times" more closely.Material for this study is selected textbooks for the secondary school and the national curriculums from different epoques. The method is both qualitative and quantitative. How much space takes the past compared to the present? Which past is represented, what are the main themes? Is there an argument for the selection? Are the past and the people of the past treated differently than present religions? The theoretical point of departure is inspired from anthropological research about race, ethnicity and religion, looking for implicit and explicit valuations of religions and peoples from former times, trying to outline the differences over time.The analysis of the national curricula raises questions of education politics and the role of past religions within it. Have there been power-shifts of minority and majority groups? This would be interesting for further investigations both in comparison to other countries as to other objects like the department of history.


This paper explores how the relationship between freedom of access to information and freedom of expression is expressed across the international library community. Specifically, it analyses this relationship in the setting of Internet access in libraries where the Internet has been seen as a tool for fostering democracy and furthering social inclusion. Using preliminary analysis of data collected from a global survey of Internet access issues within the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) member countries (2003), and by comparing this data with a survey of European library institutions carried out in 2002, the paper shows the extent to which libraries – from the point of view of national associations and national libraries – are able to use the Internet to promote freedom of access to information and freedom of expression despite the existence of barriers to this task.


Activated carbons prepared by chemical activation of corn cobs and coffee husks, using H3PO4 were characterized for its moisture content, bulk density, pH of zero point charge (pHpcz) and pH. Batch adsorption of catechol from aqueous solution using the characterized activated carbons was investigated. The adsorption properties were studied in terms of pH, equilibrium time, initial concentration (C0: 10-110 mg/L) and adsorbent mass. The experimental data fitted well the pseudo second order kinetic model while the equilibrium isotherm data fitted the Langmuir model. The results indicate that activated carbons obtained from the chemical activation of corn cobs and coffee husks are suitable adsorbents for the removal of catechol from aqueous solution.


In this work different fibre optic sensors for the structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures are reported. A fibre optic crack sensor and two different fibre optic moisture sensors have been designed to detect the moisture ingress in concrete based building structures. Moreover, the degeneration of the mechanical properties of optical glass fibre sensors and hence their long-term stability and reliability due to the mechanical and chemical impact of the concrete environment is discussed as well as the advantage of applying a fibre optic sensor system for the structural health monitoring of sewerage tunnels is demonstrated. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of SysInt 2016.


The Allergic Rhinitis and Its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative started more than 20 years ago and has developed and disseminated evidence-based guidelines and projects in the field of allergic rhinitis. This initiative is currently focused on providing patient-centred guidelines that contribute to an integrated care pathway between the various levels of care and take advantage of digital solutions, and the introduction of integrated care pathways in clinical practice has been recommended. In this article we describe the adaptation for Portugal of the ARIA Integrated Care Pathways document. After a brief review of the epidemiology and impact of allergic rhinitis in Portugal and the activities carried out in Portugal within the ARIA initiative, we describe the broad knowledge base used for the development of recommendations for the pharmacological treatment of allergic rhinitis, and these recommendations are based on the GRADE methodology, real world evidence acquired by mobile technology (mHealth) and resulting from allergenic exposure chamber studies. What follows is a summary of integrated care pathways for allergen immunotherapy produced in 2019. Allergen immunotherapy is considered an example of precision medicine where the use of mHealth technologies will improve stratification for patient selection and response monitoring. These recommendations were considered as best practices of integrated patient-centred care supported by digital systems from Directorate General for Health and Food Safety of the European Union (DG Santé) and represent the ARIA Phase 4 Change Management strategy.


"The Islamic World" is a collection of important and representative documents from all periods of Islamic history. From the formative years in Arabia to the confrontations with and responses to modernity, these translations indicate the continuity and development of the youngest of the world's greatest civilizations. Included are historical, theological, philosophical, and political writings, as well as poetry and narratives, from Muslim writers in the Arab lands, Turkey, Persia, and other parts of the Islamic world. The editors have provided informative introductions to each historical period and to the individual texts, making this an enlightening and intriguing first look at Islamic civilization and tradition.


A new type of wavelength-modulation laser spectroscopy is accomplished by utilizing an external phase modulator driven at radio frequencies large compared to the width of the spectral feature of interest. The spectral feature is probed by a single frequency-modulated (FM) sideband, and the associated absorption and dispersion are measured by monitoring the resulting radio-frequency beat signal. Experimental results are presented for the measurement of Fabry–Perot resonances, I2 vapor absorption lines, and saturation holes in Na vapor.


Database design and development using this feature-rich, powerful user-extensible interface Install, configure, customize, and manage your SQL Developer environmentIncludes the latest features to enhance productivity and simplify database developmentCovers reporting, testing, and debugging conceptsMeet the new powerful Data Modeling tool - Oracle SQL Developer Data ModelerDetailed code examples and screenshots for easy learning In Detail As technology is evolving rapidly, many developers are looking for modern tools to assist them in daily tasks. A clean, easy-to-navigate interface for browsing and working with databases is essential. Oracle SQL Developer is a graphical user interface that makes your life much easier by allowing you to browse database objects, run SQL statements and scripts, and create, edit, and debug PL/SQL statements in the most efficient way. It enhances productivity and simplifies your database development tasks.Although the journey looks simple and easy, there are many areas that might go undiscovered, leaving you just scratching the surface.It's easy to get started and master this powerful tool when you've got this book to hand. It will provide you with in depth details about all aspects of using SQL Developer to assist you in your day-to-day database tasks and activities. Use the book to become more productive in everyday tasks. You will learn to utilize SQL Developer's extensible environment to support your ongoing needs.This book offers detailed instructions for installing, configuring, and effectively using Oracle SQL Developer. You will learn how to utilize every feature of this development tool and make the most out of it. While none of the tasks are complex, the book progresses from the easy, most commonly used features, such as browsing objects and writing queries in the SQL Worksheet, to the more involved and possibly less frequently used features, such as Tuning and Testing SQL and PL/SQL, and adding User Extensions, and finally to those features used by a smaller more targeted audience, such as Migrations, Oracle APEX, and the Data Modeler. Throughout the book there are tips and suggestions gathered as a result of working with the current SQL Developer user base. This book will also show you how to assess the health of your database with built-in as well as customized reports.By the end of the book you will be confident in making the best use of SQL Developer, and be able to set up and maintain a productive environment for quick and easy database development. What you will learn from this book? Build complex queries based on a number of tables using visual Query BuilderAssess the health of your database, data structure of your application, and data in that application with built-in as well as user-defined reportsCreate, compile, and debug PL/SQL code and explore some useful features available to facilitate writing PL/SQL codeIntegrate your SQL Developer with open source version control systems CVS and Subversion, which allow checking out of files from a repository, editing, and checking them back inEnter and execute your SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus statements with the SQL Worksheet interfaceProduce easily replicable scripts that copy and move data from one database instance to another, or from one schema to anotherCreate advanced database connections using a variety of connection and authentication types available for Oracle as well as non-Oracle databasesCreate, review, and update database schema designs with SQL Developer Data ModelerAugment your environment with features that are specific to your needs by extending your SQL Developer with XML structured user-defined extensionsMonitor and manage your Application Express applications by integrating with SQL DeveloperSet up an easy and quick migration environment for your database schema by using the migration repository Browse and review non-Oracle databases, before using the migration environment to migrate and consolidate databases on the Oracle platform Approach Covering SQL Developer fundamentals as well more intermediate and advanced topics, this book uses in-depth explanation and detailed examples to help you get the most out of Oracle SQL Developer. The book has a modular structure, so that you can dip into any chapter that covers your current area of focus and get going. Who this book is written for? This book is for Oracle developers who want to ease their database development, and enhance their productivity using Oracle SQL Developer.You should have a programming knowledge of SQL and PL/SQL, and have a general familiarity with Oracle database concepts.


This document contains the results of Task D, Best Practices Guidelines for the Culvert Repair Best Practices, Specifications and Special Provisions Guidelines Project. These guidelines will provide guidance to Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) engineers in making better decisions on culvert repairs. New materials specifications, special provisions, and standard details will ensure adherence to standardized practices and increase the effectiveness and longevity of repairs. Focus is on repair of centerline culverts of 24 inches to 72 inches in diameter. This Task D document contains the best practices guidelines for replacement, rehabilitation and repair methods for deteriorating culverts. An overview of replacement methods is provided. Rehabilitation and repair methods are discussed in more detail. The methods discussed are the most common culvert rehabilitation and repair methods identified during governmental and industry surveys conducted during Tasks A and B. The final list for inclusion in this guideline was chosen by the authors and the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). Special provisions and standard details were prepared for the following methods: paved invert, cured-in-place pipe liner (CIPP), sliplining culvert pipe, centrifugally cast concrete culvert lining, spall repair, joint repair, and void filling outside the culvert.


With the growing demerits of fossil fuels - its finitude and its negative impact on the environment and public health - renewable energy is becoming a favoured emerging alternative. For over a millennium anaerobic digestion (AD) has been employed in treating organic waste (biomass). The two main products of anaerobic digestion, biogas and biofertilizer, are very important resources. Since organic wastes are always available and unavoidable too, anaerobic digestion provides an efficient means of converting organic waste to profitable resources. This paper elucidates the potential benefits of organic waste generated in Nigeria as a renewable source of biofuel and biofertilizer. The selected organic wastes studied in this work are livestock wastes (cattle excreta, sheep and goat excreta, pig excreta, poultry excreta; and abattoir waste), human excreta, crop residue, and municipal solid waste (MSW). Using mathematical computation based on standard measurements, Nigeria generates about 542.5 million tons of the above selected organic waste per annum. This in turn has the potential of yielding about 25.53 billion m³ of biogas (about 169 541.66 MWh) and 88.19 million tons of biofertilizer per annum. Both have a combined estimated value of about N 4.54 trillion ($ 29.29 billion). This potential biogas yield will be able to completely displace the use of kerosene and coal for domestic cooking, and reduce the consumption of wood fuel by 66%. An effective biogas programme in Nigeria will also remarkably reduce environmental and public health concerns, deforestation, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.


This report by the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute, entitled "The Track Record on Takings Legislation: Lessons from Democracy's Laboratories," examines the experiences of Florida, Oregon, and several other states with legislation implementing the property rights agenda. The report is the first comprehensive effort to systematically identify and evaluate the on-the-ground consequences of so-called takings "compensation" laws. The major findings of the report are that the takings agenda has undermined community protections by forcing a roll back of existing legal rules and/or by exerting a chilling effect on new legislative activity, special interests such as developers and timber companies have been the primary beneficiaries of takings legislation, the takings laws have fomented and exacerbated neighbor-neighbor conflicts over land use issues, the takings agenda has conferred large windfalls on certain owners either in the form of taxpayer-funded awards or special exemptions from the rules that apply to the rest of the community, and the property rights agenda has undermined the democratic process. Contrary to a common argument made by proponents of this type of legislation, requiring the government to pay to regulate does not lead government officials to make a more nuanced appraisal of the costs and benefits of regulations, apparently because the salience of fiscal costs to government officials far outweighs the relatively more diffuse political benefits of community and homeowner protection.


Low-Speed Stability and Control of Exploratory Tailless Long-Range Supersonic Configurations Sarah Langston Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Eli Livne Aeronautics and Astronautics This thesis presents studies of the low-speed stability and control of a representative long-range supersonic flight vehicle. The aircraft of interest is a research uninhabited aerial vehicle (R-UAV), a 1/16 scaled model of a concept supersonic business jet. Evaluation of stability and control characteristics is based on a linear time-invariant state-space small-perturbations approach. Low-speed wind tunnel results together with unsteady aerodynamic panel method analysis are the basis for the aerodynamic stability derivatives used. The main goal of this work is to study the effects on stability and controllability of reduction in size or complete elimination of tail surfaces, with particular emphasis on the vertical tail.


In this work the efficiency of mechanically prepared magnetic (x)ZnO(1 − x)Fe 2 O 3 nanocrystallines for Ni(II) and Cd(II) ions removal was investigated. The produced nanoparticles were characterized using N 2 adsorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and magnetization techniques. Batch mode experiments were performed to evaluate the parameters of the heavy metal ions adsorption on the nanoparticles. The concentration and temperature were found to be detrimental factors in the adsorption process as the amounts adsorbed were enhanced by their increase. While Cd(II) adsorption was found to comply with the Langmuir isotherm, the adsorption of Ni(II) ions fitted both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The pseudo-second-order model was the kinetics model describing the adsorption process. The adsorption process was endothermic and spontaneous as indicated by the thermodynamic study results. The positive entropy obtained may suggest increased randomness at the solid–solution interface. A mechanism for the metal ions adsorption was proposed.


Anatomical connectivity mapping (ACM) is a measure of anatomical connectivity obtained by initiating streamline diffusion tractography from all parenchymal voxels and then counting the number of streamlines passing through each voxel of the brain. ACM highlights WM structures that present multiple connections to the rest of the brain but not necessarily strong microstructural orientation coherence. In this study, ACM was used to develop an atlas of the human brain. The ACM template was constructed from 3 T diffusion‐weighted data from 19 healthy adults. To account for multiple diffusion directions in a voxel, a high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) technique, namely Q‐ball, was used to model diffusion. To bring data from different subjects into a common space, an algorithm for rotating and averaging the principal directions was implemented, which can be generalized to any application requiring algebraic operations on principal directions derived from any HARDI method. ACM from the average dataset was computed and several white matter connections of interest were identified and highlighted. Fractional anisotropy (FA) from standard diffusion tensor modelling was also derived and FA‐modulated colour coded images obtained from the mean tensor were also shown for comparison, highlighting differences and similarities. The ACM template can serve for educational purposes and as future reference for studies based on the evaluation of ACM in subjects affected by neurological and psychiatric disorders. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The role of lakes in the global methane budget seems to be higher than previously thought. Numerous pockmarks have been described for the marine environment, but at freshwater fluid seeps the geological, chemical and biological processes operating are largely unknown. Based on different observations of intense gas flow through the water column at Lake Constance two joint research cruises were conducted in winter 2005/06 to systematically search and study these structures. Several large fields of pockmark like structures were found in the eastern part of the lake (side scan sonar, echo sounder). Water and gas was selectively sampled and based on these preliminary data a joint DFG-funded research project was arranged. The objectives are to (1) locate, describe and map pockmark areas at Lake Constance, (2) identify the pockmark formation mechanism, (3) quantify the methane flux and the temporal variability and (4) identify the source of methane.So far more than 450 pockmarks larger > 2 m have been identified by side-scan sonar. The pockmarks vary largely in size (dm-range to maximum diameters of 15m) and spatial distribution. At some places, they are irregular spaced, but now and then smaller decimetre sized pockmarks are evenly spaced along small lineaments. Often, large pockmarks are located at morphological highs, such as channel rims or little hills at the lake floor. There is no morphological evidence for a catastrophic gas release (solid discharge at the rim, or irregular sediment patterns near the pockmarks). The observed structures point to a constant gas release from a deeper reservoir.Two representative locations (water depth 12m and 85m) close to the former Rhine estuary have been selected for further geochemical examinations. After deploying a digital horizontal sonar system at the lake floor to allow for exact positioning, water and sediment samples were taken within the pockmark with niskin bottles from a rosette and multicorer. In addition, sediment samples and gas samples were taken by divers across the shallow pockmark. Gas concentration and isotope ratios of dissolved gas in water were measured using standard GC-FID and GC-irMS techniques. Methane concentration in sediment samples was measured directly after coring by means of by a diffusion-based methane sensor.Preliminary results of the isotope analysis of methane (δ13C, δD) and CO2 (δ13C) as well as the absence of higher molecular weight alkanes strongly indicate a bacterial formation of the gases rather than a thermogenic origin of the methane. The results of the analysis of free gas of the sediments indicate the methyl formation as dominant pathway. However, up to now available data suggest a certain difference in the gases located at the deep pockmark, the corresponding reference site and gas sampled at the shallow pockmark. In the sediments of the deep pockmark high methane concentrations were recorded, however with no significant differences between the pockmark and control cores. At the shallow pockmark sediment cores could be positioned more precisely. Here methane concentrations vary within meters in order of magnitude. Several autonomous devices for gas flow measurements using different approaches were deployed in March 2008 at selected gas emanating pockmarks. Data are not yet available but will hopefully presented


Lemna gibba freshwater macrophyte and seaweeds Ulva lactuca of the middle basin Papaloapan River, southeast of Mexico were chemically characterized in their nutrients and bioactive compounds for possible use in the formulation of functional foods. The proximate chemical analysis showed that ashes contents (g 100 g -1 sample) of L. gibba and U. lactuca were 20.10 and 33.07, crude protein 21.5 and 17.2, lipids 4.45 and 1.7, nitrogen-free extract 32.4 and 38.34, respectively. Significant differences ( P < 0.05) were found in the chemical composition between the two species of aquatic plants. L. gibba resulted in a protein source, and U. lactuca resulted in an energy source. They had eight essential amino acids for fish and other aquatic species and were abundant in lysine and methionine. Both aquatic plants had an essential quantity of inulin (functional fiber) this data not been reported. Also, they had xanthophyll and variety of antioxidant (β-carotenes, lutein, lycopene and neoxanthin). L gibba had only had one polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA; α-linolenic (ALA) 30.31 mg g -1 ). U. lactuca had a variety of essential PUFA´s (ALA, LA, AA; 3.93, 6.73 and 0.41 mg g -1 of fatty acids, respectively). Based on these results, both of the aquatic plants of the middle basin Papaloapan River studied are susceptible to take advantage in the formulation of functional food, since according to the literature the compounds identified have shown beneficial effects as immunonutrients, immunostimulants, antioxidants or modulators of intestinal flora. In aquaculture production, it is suggested to prove the combined use of these two plants as functional ingredients or some particular component in the diets as prevention strategy of diseases as well as to promote aquaculture sustainable through the use of these plants in the productions.


This paper reports on the changes Divine Word University in Madang, Papua New Guinea, is making to its journalism curriculum. It has taught journalism since 1979 mainly with an emphasis on journalism craft skills. This model has been replaced by an ideological model that identifies social justice and the need to provide a voice for the voiceless, while holding the powerful to account, as the central issues for journalists. This new mission is aspirational and much work still has to be done on the curriculum. This paper examines the new model and situates it in a number of contexts: the challenges facing journalism in the country; debates in the developed world on the true path for journalism education and the needs for journalism training identified from within PNG. It concludes with suggestions on what the new curriculum might contain to achieve the aspirations.


This study examined the presence and experience of muscle dysmorphia among current and former steroid-using recreational bodybuilders. The Muscle Dysmorphia Inventory was given to 60 male participants, with 9 of these being interviewed to examine the predisposing factors, characteristics, and negative consequences of muscle dysmorphia comprising Lantz, Rhea, and Mayhew's (2001) conceptual model. Quantitative results from the MDI data showed no significant differences between current and former steroid users in their experiences of muscle dysmorphia. In contrast, interviews suggested that former users appeared to be more susceptible to some of the characteristics of muscle dysmorphia, including physique protection and body distortion/dissatisfaction, which suggests perhaps a limitation in the amount of information that can be extracted from a questionnaire. These preliminary findings also raise concerns about the lack of a diagnostic tool available for the condition and are discussed in relation to Lantz et al.'s (2001) conceptual model.


Free trade in Asia could aggravate the situation of small-scale furniture producers, if they are not strengthened. The furniture value chain describes the role of different actors in the furniture business from forest to market. Each actor contributes to, and obtains benefits from, the chain. Research was conducted in Jepara, Central Java, the centre of furniture production in Indonesia. The value of Jepara's exports is more than US$110 million annually. This research aimed to improve the position of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in the value chain. The study was conducted in 2008–2012, mainly using participatory action research (PAR). The results show that PAR is able to influence the value chain and improve the livelihoods of small-scale furniture producers. By creating a representative association, SMEs were able to strengthen their bargaining position, connect to wider markets and improve trust and support from government. The association was recently issued with the first collective timber legality assurance system (SVLK) license in Indonesia.


This paper contains of exact data approximately the robot's approach and machine. As all and sundry is aware of, how artificial intelligence is rising within the marketplace and the marketplace is receiving absolutely reliant on artificial intelligence for duty the multifaceted responsibilities. Robotics is a best well-known department inside the arena of manufacturing and sciences wherein all engineer is taking eager interest to make a robot that may do a sure project and may supply appropriate outcomes for the given undertaking. Every engineer is trying to mark a robot via zero% error that is quite not possible as the technology is growing. We can reflect on consideration on it however still zero% doesn't unkind that it'll now not have any point of blunders but it means it's going to come up with the precise answer for each question without any doubt. Show its makes use of its specific data how it workings and the way it senses running all is signified in this paper if you want to be sufficient for getting and accurate statistics approximately robotics and devices along side the gadget of robots. Anxiety is mounting that robots and artificial intelligence will replacement many professions. To stay pertinent in this converting occupation panorama, the worker of the future is predictable to be superior, capable of spot activities rework agencies and offer original solutions to encounter international exams. To expand such competences, work included learning (WIL) has appeared as an important method. The decision of this examine is to study the key factors driving invention among WIL pupils. Unlike prior educations which have been particularly qualitative or based totally on one lone photograph, this measureable, longitudinal observe moves student competences before and after contribution in a WIL venture at a commercial enterprise. It then assumes confirmatory trouble evaluation to accomplice pre- and submit-placement competences . Keywords: Innovation, Industry 4.0, Robots, Artificial intelligence, Work integrated learning.


Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can reduce poverty by improving poor people's access to education, health, government and financial services. ICT can also help small farmers and artisans by connecting them to markets. It is clear that in rural India -as well as in much of the developing world- realization of this potential is not guaranteed. This paper outlines a simple model to explain why a digital divide may exist between rich and poor. Low-cost access to information infrastructure is a necessary prerequisite for the successful use of ICT by the poor, but it is not sufficient. The implementation of ICT projects needs to be performed by organizations and individuals who have the appropriate incentives to work with marginalized groups. Furthermore, grassroots intermediaries and the involvement of the community are identified as the key factors that foster local ownership and the availability of content and services that respond to the most pressing needs of the poor.


Executives at Johnson & Johnson repeatedly discussed their worries about the potential health effects of asbestos contamination of their talcum Baby Powder even as they told regulators and the public that all their tests were finding none, investigations by Reuters and the New York Times show.

Reuters reported on 14 December that it had examined thousands of pages of company memos and other internal documents provided to plaintiffs' lawyers in ongoing talcum powder litigation.1 Many of the documents have not yet been used in court or were designated confidential by court order, it said.

The company's share price fell by 10% within hours of the investigation being published. Although it earns less than 1% of Johnson & Johnson's revenue, Baby Powder is an iconic product for …


STOEVA, I. and A. IVANOVA, 2009. Correlation between the breadmaking properties of common winter wheat varieties and some agronomical factors. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 15: 286-291 Results are given for the changes of the wet gluten content in flour, the sedimentation value, the physical properties of dough and the breadmaking quality of varieties Aglika, Iveta, Pryaspa, Kristy and Karat (the varieties belong to different quality groups) in relation to major elements of the agronomy practice – crop rotation position and norm of applied nutrients during the period 2004 – 2006. It was found out that the factor fertilization had a stable effect on the sedimentation value of varieties Aglika and Iveta, on the wet gluten in 70 % flour of varieties Aglika, Iveta, Pryaspa and Karat, on the rheological properties of dough of varieties Aglika, Iveta, Pryaspa and Karat, and especially on the bread loaf of variety Aglika. Variety Aglika had the best quality characteristics combined with high responsiveness to improved environmental conditions. Variety Kristy (wheat of medium strength) had the best ecological stability by physical properties of dough and bread loaf. At fertilization with N 10 P 10 bread loaf was in high positive correlation with the varietals responsiveness to the growing conditions (r = +0.82).


This study reports on the utilisation of the Driver Attitude Questionnaire (DAQ) to examine the self-reported driving behaviours of a sample of Australian fleet drivers (N = 443). Surveys were posted to drivers who agreed to participate in the study. Univariate analyses of the four subscales revealed that participants were least concerned about speeding, followed by risky overtaking manoeuvres, while attitudes regarding the seriousness of close following and drink driving were significantly higher. Additional analyses revealed the speeding factor was associated with self-reported traffic offences, and was predictive of demerit point loss at a multivariate level, even after controlling for driving exposure (i.e., kms driven each year). This paper further outlines the major findings of the study and highlights implications regarding the utilisation of self-report measurement tools within fleet settings to examine on-road behaviour.


On April 6th 1974, Blue Swede's cover version of "Hooked on a Feeling" occupied the number one spot on the Billboard chart. This was an extraordinary achievement, especially considering it was the first time a Swedish rock act topped this American list. On the very same day ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest at the Dome in Brighton, England. After that, Swedish popular music would never be quite the same. Blue Swede didn't manage to sustain their international success, but ABBA, of course, went on to become the perhaps most prosperous band of the 70's. Needless to say, those crucial events had profound consequences for the Swedish music scene. One was that Sweden as the winning nation was expected to host the next Eurovision Song Contest, which took place at the Alvsjo Fair in Stockholm in 1975.


I use the pro-poor growth and convergence analytical frameworks to study the dynamic of the world income growth. I propose an integrated approach which allows to show whether the world growth has been favourable to the developing countries, and to assess the world income mobility over countries. The empirical illustration considers a panel of 125 countries observed during the 1989-2006 period. The results point out that the world income growth was not pro-developing countries; they show rather a relative impoverishment of the low-income countries. The results suggest also that the bulk of income mobility took place in the middle-income economies.


The article by Levanon et al (2011) reports that expression of the transcription factor Runx3 is undetectable in gastrointestinal (GIT) epithelium. These results contradict our results, particularly those in Li et al (2002), which indicate that Runx3 is strongly expressed and functions as tumour suppressor in GIT. Here, I aim to clarify the issues by summarizing the findings associated with this controversy.

Li et al (2002) (Fig 1I) indicated that mouse Runx3 RNA is expressed primarily in the lower part of the gastric gland where pepsinogen-producing chief cells reside (reproduced here in Fig 1A). Subsequently, we demonstrated the presence of RUNX3 protein in chief cells of human gastric epithelium by immunohistochemistry (IHC; Fig 1B), which was further validated by in situ hybridization (Ito et al, 2005; Fig 1C). Overall, remarkably similar RUNX3 RNA and protein expression patterns in human and mouse gastric epithelium were obtained by three different individuals, 3 years apart. In contrast to these observations, Levanon et al (2011) claim that RUNX3 is absent from mouse GIT epithelium. To document their claim in human tissues, they illustrate this negative result in a single figure (see Supporting Information Fig 2 in Levanon et al, 2011). In addition, Levanon et al (2011) did not discuss Ito et al (2005), which is an unfortunate omission given the relevance of this work to the current discussion.

Figure 1

Assortment of figures from earlier publications demonstrates the expression of Runx3/RUNX3 in mouse and human stomach epithelial cells

We show here that Runx3 RNA expression can be detected by RT-PCR in samples from mouse GIT epithelium. We have previously noted that the level of cellular Runx3 RNA is low (Ito et al, 2009). Strikingly, exon 4 and LacZ are absent from a large fraction of Runx3 RNA in GIT epithelium of Kyoto-Runx3 KO and exon 3 is directly linked to exon 5 (Fig 2). The Kyoto-Runx3 KO we sent to Israel in 2010 have been continuously bred for about 10 years, which may have resulted in exon 4 skipping and explain why Levanon et al could not observe LacZ staining in GIT epithelium of Kyoto-Runx3 KO (Levanon et al, 2011). Evidence of strong Runx3 expression in mouse GIT that we observed around 1998–2002 and the induction of Runx3 upon genotoxic stress will be discussed in detail elsewhere.

Figure 2

Runx3 RNA extracted from purified GIT epithelium of adult mouse

In their paper, Levanon et al first use Runx3Lacz/+ mice (Rehovot-Runx3 KO) to conclude that Runx3 is not expressed in mouse GIT. This mouse strain was reported in 2002 (Levanon et al, 2002) and their properties of Rehovot-Runx3 KO were later described as follows:

This genetic modification did not result in a Runx3-null allele since the p33 Runx3 splice variant escaped the knockout strategy (Supporting Information Fig S1, upper left panel; Fainaru et al, 2004).

The p33 protein is highly active and required for dendritic cell maturation (Puig-Kroger et al, 2010).

p33 transcripts do not contain the LacZ ORF (Levanon et al, 2003; Levanon and Groner, 2009) since the LacZ cassette was inserted in exon 2 (Levanon et al, 2002).

p33 transcripts are a minor transcript in normal mouse but, in Rehovot-Runx3 KO, it constitutes the major transcript in bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (Supporting Information Fig S1, upper right panel; Fainaru et al, 2004).

This results in lack of LacZ staining in the affected tissues.

In 2001, Levanon/Groner traced the expression of Runx3 through LacZ staining in the Rehovot-Runx3 KO (Levanon et al, 2001). Since the p33 transcript does not have LacZ, one would surmise that LacZ staining cannot be observed in bone marrow-derived dendritic cells of Rehovot-Runx3 KO. Indeed, the lack of LacZ expression in the Runx3-positive epidermal cells in Rehovot-Runx3 KO was reported (third paragraph on p. 1481, Raveh et al, 2005).

It is thus unclear whether Rehovot-Runx3 KO can be used to accurately trace Runx3 expression through the use of LacZ expression. Accordingly, the Rehovot-Runx3 KO results in Mech Dev, 2001, indicating lack of Runx3 expression in epithelial cells, should be re-evaluated. Since they continued using Rehovot-Runx3 KO (Fig 2; Levanon et al, 2011), Levanon/Groner should examine whether splicing of Runx3 mRNA is skewed in epithelial cells. Yet, there is no mention of the p33 transcript in Levanon et al (2011).

Levanon/Groner subsequently generated new mouse strains to reach the same conclusion as that obtained by Rehovot-Runx3 KO. Inconsistent with their conclusion is the flow cytometry data (Fig 5G, Levanon et al, 2011), which suggests Runx3 expression in EpCAM+ cells in adult intestine. There is a low but definite peak at intensities ranging higher than 104, thus indicating the presence of Tomato fluorescence in EpCAM+ fraction. The data suggest the existence of a small population of epithelial cells expressing high Runx3 levels. Furthermore, at the range of 102–103 intensity, there may be a significant number of Tomato-positive cells in EpCAM+ fraction. With these hints for Runx3 presence in epithelial cells, Levanon et al should re-examine why the other methods they employed failed to detect Runx3 in the GIT epithelia. Since Levanon et al (2011) employ T cells as positive control in the intestine during IHC, their approach would have missed the much lower Runx3 expression in epithelial cells. Furthermore, they used embryonic tissues to examine Runx3 expression in stomach and adult tissues to examine the intestine.

Levanon/Groner devoted considerable effort to generate new mouse strains instead of focusing on human tissues. The significant amount of data on mouse embryos presented in Levanon et al (2011) is only remotely relevant to human cancer.

In summary, I stress that the conclusions of Levanon et al (2011) are not well supported because critical information, be it references or relevant KO mouse characteristics, was omitted. Moreover, they did not follow up on clues that could have led to positive detection of Runx3 in the GIT epithelium. As such, they should re-evaluate their conclusion.


INTRODUCTION As human rights atrocities continue to shock our world media, the international community is calling for ways to hold accountable the government actors who commit egregious acts of terror against their people. (1) Advocates have turned to U.S. courts as one arena in which violations of human rights may be vindicated. (2) Yet, no matter how commendable the fight for international human rights may be, there remains a fundamental jurisdictional bar to these suits: sovereign immunity. Although sovereign immunity for foreign states has been codified in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), (3) the Supreme Court held in Samantar v. Yousuf that the FSIA does not codify immunity with respect to foreign officials or heads of state. (4) The Supreme Court opined, however, that a suit against a foreign official "may still be barred by foreign sovereign immunity under the common law." (5) The Supreme Court's holding in Samantar left it to the lower courts to decide how foreign official immunity should be treated under the "common law." (6) On remand, the Fourth Circuit concluded that foreign officials "are not entitled to foreign official immunity for jus cogens violations [of international law]," (7) which include atrocities such as genocide, (8) torture, and extrajudicial killing. (9) The court reasoned that because foreign officials may only claim immunity for acts "arguably attributable to the state," and "jus cogens violations are, by definition, acts that are not officially authorized by the Sovereign," foreign officials are not entitled to immunity for jus cogens violations. (10) This conclusion, however, poses considerable problems, both constitutionally and pragmatically. Most importantly, submitting foreign officials to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts significantly affects U.S. foreign relations--an area delegated by the Constitution to the political branches. (11) This Note will propose the constitutional framework courts should implement when suits are brought against individual foreign officials post-Samantar, specifically arguing that the constitutional allocation of foreign affairs powers requires U.S. courts to broadly insulate foreign officials from suit absent authorization from a political branch. (12) Part I examines the law of nations and its incorporation into the specific foreign relations powers delegated by the Constitution to the political branches, highlighting that the power to affect relations with foreign sovereigns resides in the political branches. Part II explains the Supreme Court's development of foreign sovereign immunity and the act of state doctrine--which were both informed by the law of nations--leading up to its decision in Samantar. Part III analyzes Samantar after remand, with particular emphasis on the Fourth Circuit's judicially created abrogation of immunity for foreign officials when plaintiffs allege violations of jus cogens norms of international law. This Part also describes the considerable problems, particularly constitutionally but also pragmatically, with recognition of a judicially created jus cogens exception to immunity. Part IV proposes the constitutional framework under which analysis of a foreign official's amenability to suit should proceed. Specifically, this Note argues that the Constitution itself requires U.S. courts to abstain from entering a judgment against current and former officials of recognized foreign sovereigns, absent express authorization from a political branch. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit's judicially created abrogation of immunity for allegations of jus cogens violations runs afoul of the separation of powers because it usurps the constitutionally delegated powers of the political branches to shape U.S. foreign relations. Courts should first employ two separate immunity doctrines in suits involving foreign officials: status-based immunity, which bars suits against sitting heads of state and foreign officials, and conduct-based immunity, which bars suits for acts committed by officials in their official capacities. …


We measured modulation sensitivity to a pair of equally luminous sinusoidally modulated lights (568 and 630 nm) as a function of their relative phase. Measurements were made for 2, 3, 6, and 12 Hz at a retinal illuminance of 100 Td. The data indicated that two processes were active and their outputs combined by a vector summation rule. There was a phase shift of -18 degrees to -20 degrees (630 nm leads 568 nm) at 6 Hz, no phase shift at 12 Hz, an equivocal shift at 2 Hz, and an indeterminate shift at 3 Hz. At frequencies where a phase shift was observed, our analysis indicated that the phase shift affected sensitivities measured at all relative phase settings. These results are inconsistent with models postulating equal contributions of long-wavelength- and middle-wavelength-receptors to centers and surrounds of processes responsible for the detection of luminance flicker.


Purpose Chromium, a potentially harmful element, occurs commonly within the urban sediment cascade as a result of abundant industrial and transport-related sources. The risks that Cr-bearing particles pose to ecosystems and humans depend on the solid-phase chemical speciation of Cr and its environmental mobility. In this study, we adopt an integrated geochemical approach to investigate and determine the longterm fate of Cr in the urban sediment cascade. Materials and methods We use bulk chemical digests, sequential chemical extraction analysis, electron microscopy, electron microprobe and microfocus XANES analysis to describe the solid-phase speciation, geochemical characteristics and potential long-term behaviour of Cr in urban particulate matter from both aquatic sediment and road dust sediment (RDS) in Manchester, UK. Results and discussion Cr-bearing grains within RDS and aquatic sediment are predominantly iron oxides and alumino-silicate glass grains. Electron microprobe analysis indicates Cr concentrations up to 3300 and 133,400 μg g in the RDS and aquatic grains, respectively. XANES analysis indicates that Cr(III) is the dominant oxidation state, with only trace amounts of Cr(VI). Importantly, Cr speciation does not appear to have changed between sedimentary environments and the dominance of Cr(III) suggests limited bioavailability or toxicity under predominant environmental (anoxic and neutral pH) conditions in the aquatic sediment sink. Furthermore, geochemical analyses suggest the environmental mobility of Cr in the aquatic sediment sink is low (compared to other toxic metals) due to its association mainly with alumino-silicate glass grains and its inclusion as an integral part of the glass structure. Conclusions Industrial glass grains are a major component of urban sediment worldwide. The speciation and geochemical investigations performed in this study suggest most Cr within the urban sediment cascade may be resistant to environmental processes that could mobilise other toxic metals.


We explored the effects of language-based stigma on the relationship between native and nonnative speakers. In two studies, we found that stigmatized nonnative speakers experienced more negative interpersonal interactions, higher levels of intergroup threat, and reduced performance on an English test compared with nonnative speakers who did not experience stigma. These effects were mediated by anxiety and moderated by prevention-related goals. Furthermore, native speakers perceived stigmatized (vs. not-stigmatized) speakers' accents as stronger and their commitment to living in the host country as weaker. Our findings suggest that experiencing language-based stigma can (a) incite a stereotype threat response from nonnative speakers, and (b) damage their relationship with native speakers on an interpersonal and intergroup level.


Objectives. We investigated tuberculosis (TB) incidence rates and characteristics of patients with TB in large US cities. Methods. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Tuberculosis Surveillance System data, we categorized 48 cities annually from 2000 to 2007 as reporting decreasing or nondecreasing rates with Joinpoint analysis. We compared demographic, clinical, and treatment characteristics of patients with TB using bivariate and multivariate analyses. Results. We found that 42 448 patients with TB in 48 cities accounted for 36% of all US patients with TB; these cities comprised 15% of the US population. The average TB incidence rate in the 48 cities (12.1 per 100 000) was higher than that in the US excluding the cities (3.8 per 100 000) but decreased at a faster rate. Nineteen cities had decreasing rates; 29 cities had nondecreasing rates. Patient characteristics did not conclusively distinguish decreasing and nondecreasing rate cities. Conclusions. A significant TB burden occurs in large US cities. More than half (60%) of the selected cities did not show decreasing TB incidence rates. Studies of city-level variations in migration, socioeconomic status, and resources are needed to improve urban TB control. (Am J Public Health. 2011;101:1256–1263.


Background: The clinical and MRI presentation differs between earlier- and later-onset pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS), whereas the effect of age on the CSF inflammatory profile is unknown and may contribute to delayed diagnosis. Objectives: To compare the CSF cellular and immunoglobulin G (IgG) profiles between earlier- and later-onset pediatric MS. Methods: We queried the databases of 6 pediatric MS centers for earlier-onset (onset <11 years) and later-onset (≥11 and <18 years) patients with MS or clinically isolated syndrome who underwent CSF analysis within the first 3 months of presentation (observational study). We compared CSF white blood cell (WBC) differential count, IgG index, and IgG oligoclonal bands between age groups. Results: We identified 40 earlier-onset (mean age at onset = 7.2 ± 2.7 years, 60% females) and 67 later-onset pediatric MS patients (15.1 ± 1.7 years, 63% females). Although WBC count tended to be higher in earlier-onset patients (median = 9/mm3 [0–343] vs 6 [0–140], p = 0.15), they had a lower proportion of lymphocytes (70% [0–100] vs 93% [0–100] of WBCs, p = 0.0085; difference = +3% per 1-year increase of age, p = 0.0011) and higher proportion of neutrophils than later-onset patients (0.5% [0–75] vs 0% [0–50] of WBCs, p = 0.16; difference = −1% per 1-year increase of age, p = 0.033). In earlier-onset disease, fewer patients had an elevated IgG index than in the later-onset group (35% vs 68% of patients, p = 0.031). Conclusion: Age modifies the CSF profile at pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) onset, which may mislead the diagnosis. Our findings suggest an activation of the innate rather than the adaptive immune system in the earlier stages of MS or an immature immune response.


Dense cross-border power grid connections can benefit the ASEAN region through maximum use of untapped resources to generate power and stabilise power supply with low investment for power stations. This study aims to support existing initiatives--ASEAN Power Grid and Greater Mekong Subregion Power Master Plan--by quantitatively showing possible economic and environmental benefits of such power grid connections. This study selected specific routes from candidate international connection lines extracted from a FY2013 study on the same subject, and carried out preliminary planning and cost estimation for said selected routes and cross-border line per kilowatt-hour. The results indicate that although cross-border connection lines are capital intensive, the attainable benefits seem large enough to rationalise the investment. This study drew policy implications on how to resolve the remaining institutional barriers.


Extracting meaningful information out of massive streaming data is a significant challenge due to the high dimensionality of the inference problem and limits on available computational power and memory. While Bayesian models often convey significant inferential advantages, standard computational algorithms relying on Markov chain Monte Carlo are infeasible to apply. This motivates online variational approximations, which are increasingly popular but have no theoretical guarantees. We propose a novel framework based on online learning theory for assessing the performance of a broad class of online variational approximations. These analyses show that after T streaming observations, a new online variational Bayes approximation yields losses which are within a factor of O(T−1/2) of those for an uncomputable batch variational approximation. The new algorithm is compared with competitors using several examples.