This is the presentation of the Juan Cruz-Benito's PhD "On data-driven systems analyzing, supporting and enhancing users' interaction and experience" that was defended on September 3, 2018 in the Faculty of Sciences at University of Salamanca Spain. This PhD was graded with the maximum qualification "Sobresaliente Cum Laude". The research areas of Human-Computer Interaction and Software Architectures have been traditionally treated separately, but in the literature, many authors made efforts to merge them to build better software systems. One of the common gaps between software engineering and usability is the lack of strategies to apply usability principles in the initial design of software architectures. Including these principles since the early phases of software design would help to avoid later architectural changes to include user experience requirements. The combination of both fields (software architectures and Human-Computer Interaction) would contribute to building better interactive software that should include the best from both the systems and user-centered designs. In that combination, the software architectures should enclose the fundamental structure and ideas of the system to offer the desired quality based on sound design decisions. Moreover, the information kept within a system is an opportunity to extract knowledge about the system itself, its components, the software included, the users or the interaction occurring inside. The knowledge gained from the information generated in a software environment can be used to improve the system itself, its software, the users' experience, and the results. So, the combination of the areas of Knowledge Discovery and Human-Computer Interaction offers ideal conditions to address Human-ComputerInteraction-related challenges. The Human-Computer Interaction focuses on human intelligence, the Knowledge Discovery in computational intelligence, and the combination of both can raise the support of human intelligence with machine intelligence to discover new insights in a world crowded of data. This Ph.D. Thesis deals with these kinds of challenges: how approaches like data-driven software architectures (using Knowledge Discovery techniques) can help to improve the users' interaction and experience within an interactive system. Specifically, it deals with how to improve the human-computer interaction processes of different kind of stakeholders to improve different aspects such as the user experience or the easiness to accomplish a specific task. Several research actions and experiments support this investigation. These research actions included performing a systematic literature review and mapping of the literature that was aimed at finding how the software architectures in the literature have been used to support, analyze or enhance the human-computer interaction. Also, the actions included work on four different research scenarios that presented common challenges in the Human-Computer Interaction knowledge area. The case studies that fit into the scenarios selected were chosen based on the Human-Computer Interaction challenges they present, and on the authors' accessibility to them. The four case studies were: an educational laboratory virtual world, a Massive Open Online Course and the social networks where the students discuss and learn, a system that includes very large web forms, and an environment where programmers develop code in the context of quantum computing. The development of the experiences involved the review of more than 2700 papers (only in the literature review phase), the analysis of the interaction of 6000 users in four different contexts or the analysis of 500,000 quantum computing programs. As outcomes from the experiences, some solutions are presented regarding the minimal software artifacts to include in software architectures, the behavior they should exhibit, the features desired in the extended software architecture, some analytic workflows and approaches to use, or the different kinds of feedback needed to reinforce the users' interaction and experience. The results achieved led to the conclusion that, despite this is not a standard practice in the literature, the software environments should embrace Knowledge Discovery and data-driven principles to analyze and respond appropriately to the users' needs and improve or support the interaction. To adopt Knowledge Discovery and data-driven principles, the software environments need to extend their software architectures to cover also the challenges related to Human-Computer Interaction. Finally, to tackle the current challenges related to the users' interaction and experience and aiming to automate the software response to users' actions, desires, and behaviors, the interactive systems should also include intelligent behaviors through embracing the Artificial Intelligence procedures and techniques.


The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996) and conclusive Acts record that effective human-resource management, career-development and training practices must be cultivated to maximise human potential. The unique nature and wide range of activities of the South African National Defence Force assign exceptional demands on the management expertise of military commanders. Therefore, the importance of effective training and for the purpose of this article, effective management training for mid-level commanders is indisputable. Against this background, a new management model is presented and the resulting training needs are empirically investigated in this article. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the survey, targeted 165 mid-level commanders in the South African National Defence Force. The empirical results of the study suggested that the existing management training for mid-level commanders fails to meet expectations primarily because of the non-existence of an appropriate management model. Thus, the article present a contemporary management model as foundation for management training of mid-level commanders in the South African National Defence Force. The management model also sanctions applicable standards for the development of management skills and appropriate competencies of military commanders.


Non‐sampling errors, and in particular, those arising from non‐response and the measurement process itself present a particular challenge to survey methodologists, because it is not always easy to disentangle their joint effects on the data. Given that factors influencing the decision to participate in a survey may also influence the respondents' motivation and ability to respond to the survey questions, variations in the quality of responses may simultaneously be caused by both non‐response bias and measurement error. In this study, we examine factors underlying both kinds of error using data from the 2008 ANES Internet Panel. Using interview and paradata from the initial recruitment survey, we investigate the relationship between recruitment effort (e.g. number of contact attempts; use of refusal conversion efforts), willingness to participate in subsequent panel waves, and the ability and motivation to optimize during questionnaire completion. We find that respondents who were hardest to reach or persuade to participate in the recruitment interview responded to fewer monthly panel surveys overall, and were more likely to stop participating in the panel altogether. They also had higher rates of item non‐response in the recruitment interview. Respondents who later stopped participating in the panel were also more likely to give answers of reduced quality in the wave 1 monthly survey (e.g. more midpoint answers, less differentiation between scale points for question batteries, and fewer responses to a check‐all‐that‐apply question format). We then investigated two potential common causes of the observed relation between the propensity to stop participating in the panel and response quality (interest in computers, and 'need to evaluate'), but neither one fully accounted for it. Interest in computers predicted later panel cooperativeness, while need to evaluate was related both to response quality and the propensity to attrit. Finally, we look at whether the panelists most likely to stop participating in the panel are also more likely to learn shortcutting strategies over time, to reduce the effort needed to complete monthly surveys. We find some support for this hypothesis. We discuss our findings and their implications for the design of future online panels.


In this paper, we model business investment distinguishing between ICT (communication equipment, hardware and software) and Non-ICT (machinery and equipment, and nonresidential buildings) components and taking into account asset specific characteristics potentially affecting the reactivity of capital accumulation over the business cycle. Business investment and ICT and Non-ICT assets are estimated within a VECM model to test, in a unique framework, the assumptions of the flexible accelerator model (Clark, 1944, and Koyck, 1954) and of the neoclassical model of Hall and Jorgenson (1967), as well as how financial constraints and uncertainty influence investment behaviour (Hall and Lerner, 2010, and Bloom, 2007). Our findings suggest that the long-run relationship with standard macro determinants (output and user cost) is verified for aggregate business capital stock as well as for individual Non-ICT assets but not for ICT. In the short run, liquidity is a key determinant of investment behaviour independently of the asset type. In the long-run, uncertainty significantly affects ICT. Finally, the results of the counterfactual exercises over the latest Italian recession support the idea that ICT is a key policy variable to foster the economic recovery.


Abstract Low back pain (LBP) is an important aspect of vertebral pathology. Due to its medical, social and financial importance, acute and chronic LBP is an important concern of the medical world. Pain catastrophizing and response expectancies are among the most robust psychological predictors of pain outcomes. Pain experience has been studied in relationship with pain catastrophizing on one hand, and in relationship with emotional distress, and with response expectancies on the other hand. Fewer studies have looked at relationships with hope. The current study was designed to investigate all these variables in one research. We assessed 46 patients (aged 27 to 84, 17 men and 29 women) with LBP to see the relevance of and relations between pain catastrophizing (Pain Catastrophizing Scale), emotional distress (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), pain outcomes (SF-McGill Pain Questionnaire) and expectancies and hopes for pain relief after treatment. Our results show that pain catastrophizing totally mediates the relationship between pain and emotional distress and is related to expectancies. Chronic pain patients have more negative expectancies and hopes for pain relief after treatment as compared to acute pain patients. Implications for research and treatment are discussed. Keywords: low back pain, pain catastophizing, emotional distress, secondary prevention Low back-pain (LBP) is an important aspect of vertebral pathology, accounting for approximately 12-30% of European population morbidity; according to recent studies, its prevalence could be as high as 60-80% among the adult population in the United States and Europe (DeLisa, 2005). Also, it has been established that LBP is the second most frequent cause of disability in the adult population (over 45 years of age) in Europe, and the third cause in the United States. In the US, annual costs required by investigations, treatment, and decreased job performance raise up to the impressive amount of 50 billion dollars (DeLisa, 2005). About 80-90% of the money spent on patients suffering from LBP is accounted for by the treatment costs of the 10% that develop chronic LBP. Clinical Guidelines concerning the management of LBP recommend, besides conservative medication therapy, physiokinetotherapy for patients with unfavorable evolution, and cognitive-behavioral therapy for those with sub-acute and chronic pain (Barclay, 2007). Acute pain plays an important role in signaling potential injury or damage to muscles, tissue or nerves. Chronic pain however, serves no immediate purpose (Winterowd, Beck, & Gruener, 2003), and it poses a significantly greater psychological strain on the patient and is perhaps one of the most challenging problems faced by healthcare consumers as well as health care practitioners and providers. It is a problem of enormous magnitude in society, yet there is overwhelming evidence that it is inadequately treated (for details see Winterowd Beck, & Gruener, 2003). There are two important psychological factors that have proved to be of predictive value in pain outcomes research: pain catastrophizing and response expectancies. Catastrophizing is defined as "an exaggerated negative mental set brought to bear during actual or anticipated painful experience" (Sullivan et al., 2001). Pain catastrophizing is a multidimensional construct comprising elements of rumination ("I can't stop thinking about how much it hurts"), magnification ("I worry that something serious may happen"), and helplessness ("There is nothing I can do to reduce the intensity of the pain"). There is an abundance of data in the field of pain indicating that catastrophizing plays an important role in producing pain related outcomes (e.g., pain intensity, pain related disability) in both healthy (e.g., France et al, 2002., Seminowicz & Davis, 2006) or clinical populations (e.g., Peters, Vlayen, & Weber, 2005; Sullivan, Lynch, & Clarck, 2005; Pavlin, Sullivan, Freund, & Roesen, 2005). …


The study examines the role of the largest public works program in the world—the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)—in buffering the negative effects of early childhood exposure to rainfall shocks on long-term health outcomes. Exploiting the spatial and temporal variation in NREGS coverage, the study estimates the extent to which nutritional shocks in early childhood can be offset by access to the program. The study employs a unique identification strategy by integrating detailed administrative records of drought shock and phased rollout information of NREGS with household-level panel data—the Young Lives survey—conducted over three waves (2002, 2007, and 2009–10) in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Using individual fixed effects estimation, the study finds that while the policy does not help correct for long-term past health deficiencies it is useful in buffering recent drought shocks, which vary by policy relevant subgroups.


The history of art is replete with examples of artists who have broken from existing conventions and genres, redefining the meaning of art and its function in society. Our interest is in emerging forms of art that trespass-occupy space, place, and time as part of their aesthetic identity. These new forms of art, which we call trespassory art, are creatures of a movement that seeks to appropriate cultural norms and cultural signals, reinterpreting them to create new meaning. Marcel DuChamp produced such a result when, in the early twentieth century, he took a urinal, signed it, titled it Fountain, and called it art.

Whether they employ twenty-first-century technologies, such as lasers, or painting, sculpture and mosaic, music, theatre, or merely the human body, these new artists share one thing in common. Integral to their art is the physical invasion of space, the trespass, often challenging our conventional ideas of location, time, ownership, and artistic expression. Their art requires not only borrowing the intellectual assets of others, but their physical assets. This is trespassory art-art that redefines and reinterprets space-art that gives new meaning to a park bench, to a billboard, to a wall, to space itself.

Our purpose is to propose a modified regime in the law of trespass to make room for the many new forms of art with which we are concerned-art that is locationally dependent or site specific. We begin by briefly describing and characterizing these often-new artistic forms. This provides a jumping off point for addressing the basic question this Article seeks to address-should the law accommodate these new types of art, and if so, to what degree? We first turn to the law of trespass, with particular focus on real property, both public and private, but also with an eye to personal and intellectual property. We conclude that adjusting trespass remedies for artistic trespass through a set of common law privileges would better balance the competing interests of owners and artists than do current trespass rules. We then turn to a set of constitutional issues and conclude that our common law proposal is consistent with, and in some ways perhaps required by, the First Amendment. Finally, we summarize our proposal and then revisit the value of trespassory art as art in our creative culture.


The school counselor is rarely the only human service provider in the school who works with children and youth, their families, or even teachers. Other human service providers-called external providers in this articlehave found their way to the schools through a variety of routes. As their numbers increase, unavoidable issues for school counselors are raised. They will either be in conflict with external providers, competing for a job and limited resources, or they will find ways to work together so that the strengths of the external providers and the school counselors can be utilized in a complementary fashion for the benefit of the clients they serve. The number of external providers in the schools is on the increase, and this situation can present problems for school counselors. Evidence can be noted in the frequency with which the concern is mentioned on electronic bulletin board discussions such as the "International Counseling Network" (ICN) or the Counselor Education and Supervision (CES) group "L" bulletin board sponsored by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Comments range from questions about how to deal with an influx of external providers who are not licensed as school counselors to descriptions of how school counselors and external providers have developed good working relationships in the school setting. Bulletin board comments indicate that in some instances licensed school counselors are being replaced by other service providers-either as school hires or as external providers. In other instances, external providers have been brought into the schools without clear definition of responsibilities and relationship to the school counselor, and role conflict has resulted. Much of the attention to integrated services is coming from organizations outside the school counseling arena such as the Center for School Mental Health Assistance (Garrison, 1996) and the National Center for Social Work and Education Collaboration (Clinton, 1996). In any event, the presence of external service providers has become so common that the implications for school counselors need to be addressed. In a recent random sampling of 10% of the public elementary, middle, and high schools in a western state, 80% of the schools reported the presence of one or more external providers at their school site. Respondents to the survey produced 25 different titles of human service professionals working in the schools, and some sites reported as many as five different providers at their site. Melaville and Blank (1991) clearly identify the need for collaboration in the statement, "At a time when many families across all income levels are experiencing greater stress and when child poverty is at record levels, the school cannot view itself as an isolated institution within the community, separate from family and community service" (p. 13). We take the position that there are not enough school counselors to do everything that needs to be done, especially in a time when student needs continue to increase in number and intensity. We also contend that there are few effective models of how different professional providers work together A system in which all of the social service provider components work together in harmony could be called a system of integrated services. School counselors need to understand how and where they fit into such a system. The term integrated services is used in this article to describe a system where several service providers, or more than one service agency, work together for the benefit of a single client or client group. The term will be applied to systems where most of the human services are delivered at the school site rather than having the student or client seek out the services at their several separate locations. Another term used to describe a similar organization and delivery of services is school-linked comprehensive social services (United States Department of Education/American Educational Research Association [USDE/AERA], 1995). …


This thesis investigates the application of artificial neural networks (NN) in air/fuel ratio (AFR) control of spark ignition(SI) engines. Three advanced neural network based control schemes are proposed: radial basis function(RBF) neural network based feedforward-feedback control scheme, RBF based model predictive control scheme, and diagonal recurrent neural network (DRNN) - based model predictive control scheme. The major objective of these control schemes is to maintain the air/fuel ratio at the stoichiometric value of 14.7 , under varying disturbance and system uncertainty. All the developed methods have been assessed using an engine simulation model built based on a widely used engine model benchmark, mean value engine model (MVEM). Satisfactory control performance in terms of effective regulation and robustness to disturbance and system component change have been achieved. In the feedforward-feedback control scheme, a neural network model is used to predict air mass flow from system measurements. Then, the injected fuel is estimated by an inverse NN controller. The simulation results have shown that much improved control performance has been achieved compared with conventional PID control in both transient and steady-state response. A nonlinear model predictive control is developed for AFR control in this re- . search using RBF model. A one-dimensional optimization method, the secant method is employed to obtain optimal control variable in the MPC scheme, so that the computation load and consequently the computation time is greatly reduced. This feature significantly enhances the applicability of the MPC to industrial systems with fast dynamics. Moreover, the RBF model is on-line adapted to model engine time-varying dynamics and parameter uncertainty. As such, the developed control scheme is more robust and this is approved in the evaluation. The MPC strategy is further developed with the RBF model replaced by a DRNN model. The DRNN has structure including a information-storing neurons and is therefore more appropriate for dynamics system modelling than the RBF, a static network. In this research, the dynamic back-propagation algorithm (DBP) is adopted to train the DRNN and is realized by automatic differentiation (AD) technique. This greatly reduces the computation load and time in the model training. The MPC using the DRNN model is found in the simulation evaluation having better control performance than the RBF -based model predictive control. The main contribution of this research lies in the following aspects. A neural network based feedforward-feedback control scheme is developed for AFR of SI engines, which is performed better than traditional look-up table with PI control method. This new method needs moderate computation and therefore has strong potential to be applied in production engines in automotive industry. Furthermore, two adaptive neural network models, a RBF model and a DRNN model, are developed for engine and incorporated into the MPC scheme. Such developed two MPC schemes are proved by simulations having advanced features of low computation load, better regulation performance in both transient and steady state, and stronger robustness to engine time-varying dynamics and parameter uncertainty. Finally, the developed schemes are considered to suit the limited hardware capacity of engine control and have feasibility and strong potential to be practically implemented in the production engines.


Cdc6p is an essential component of the pre-replicative complex (pre-RC), which binds to DNA replication origins to promote initiation of DNA replication. Only once per cell cycle does DNA replication take place. After initiation, the pre-RC components are disassembled in order to prevent re-replication. It has been shown that the N-terminal region of Cdc6p is targeted for degradation after phosphorylation by Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK). Here we show that Mck1p, a yeast homologue of GSK-3 kinase, is also required for Cdc6 degradation through a distinct mechanism. Cdc6 is an unstable protein and is accumulated in the nucleus only during G1 and early S-phase in wild-type cells. In mck1 deletion cells, CDC6p is stabilized and accumulates in the nucleus even in late S phase and mitosis. Overexpression of Mck1p induces rapid Cdc6p degradation in a manner dependent on Threonine-368, a GSK-3 phosphorylation consensus site, and SCFCDC4. We show evidence that Mck1p-dependent degradation of Cdc6 is required for prevention of DNA re-replication. Loss of Mck1 activity results in synthetic lethality with other pre-RC mutants previously implicated in re-replication control, and these double mutant strains over-replicate DNA within a single cell cycle. These results suggest that a GSK3 family protein plays an unexpected role in preventing DNA over-replication through Cdc6 degradation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We propose that both CDK and Mck1 kinases are required for Cdc6 degradation to ensure a tight control of DNA replication.


Degradation of pressurized topside static mud equipment is a very complex process. Inspection is a helpful tool to monitor degradation and helps reduce the number of critical failures. If it is left undetected and unchecked, it can lead to leakage resulting in accidents. To set up an effective inspection program, the concepts of Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) can be utilized. RBI helps to develop an optimum inspection program by evaluating the probability of failure (PoF) and consequence of failure (CoF), and combining them to estimate risk. The parts that have risk higher than the acceptable limit are then prioritized for inspection. This thesis studies the probability of failure in static equipment in pressurized mud systems on an offshore drilling installation, due to different degradation mechanisms and its influencing factors. Det Norske Veritas (DNV), suggests a number of models to estimate internal and external degradation. By analyzing inspection data from the industry, it is observed that the models can at times be inconvenient to use when the degradation process is complex. For example, it is difficult to develop a simple, yet reliable, model that can accurately predict rate of degradation in situations where corrosion and erosion are simultaneously taking place. In static equipment in high pressurized mud systems, inspection have shown that the main reason for internal degradation is high amounts of solids in the fluid, high velocity, presence of seawater, and corrosive chemicals. DNV-RP-G101 does not present any model for this situation. For external corrosion, the current models presented in DNV-RP-G101 can be used to analyze inspection data. In an old installation, the accurate quantitative records are often not available due to a number of reasons, like difficulty in measuring, old data management system, unsystematic inspections or lost records. Thus, it often becomes difficult to develop any qualitative model. On the other hand, the inspection and maintenance engineers have extensive experience that may be utilized for developing effective subjective models. In this thesis, based on some simplified parameters, a methodology for evaluating probability of failure is established. The methodology is divided into external and internal degradation, where the subjective judgments are more evident for internal degradation. Simplified flowcharts and tables are developed to easily evaluate probability of failure.


Abstract Isolated carbonate platforms and atolls occur throughout the geologic record, from Archean to present. Although the roles of sea-level change, tectonics, and sediment supply on large-scale changes in stratigraphical architecture of these systems are relatively well understood, the details of the nature and controls on sedimentological variability between and within individual geomorphic elements on platforms and atolls are less well constrained. The purposes of this study are (1) to describe, compare, and contrast geomorphological and sedimentological characteristics of surficial Holocene sediments from two south Pacific atolls (Aitutaki and Maupiti) representing different physical and chemical oceanographic settings, and (2) to explore possible causes for sedimentological heterogeneity by contrasting the patterns with those present on other platforms and regions. Both atolls include annular shelf-edge reef systems with a red algal rim and reef flat, flanked lagoonward by reef sand aprons up to 1,500 m wide. These aprons consist of moderately sorted coarse sand and gravel, with an abundance of Halimeda, coral, and red algal fragments; broadly, sediments become finer and better rounded away from margins. Water depths increase abruptly inboard of these reef sand aprons, into platform interiors with depths up to 25 m (Maupiti) and 9 m (Aitutaki). Although patch reefs dot these lagoons, sediment is commonly poorly sorted with bimodal and polymodal size distributions and includes a mix of whole and fragmented skeletal grains, peloids, and ooids; mud and fine sand are abundant (up to 80% on Maupiti, 85% on Aitutaki). The occurrence of peloids, fine ooid sand, and oolitically laminated skeletal grains on Maupiti Atoll (as previously documented on Aitutaki) is consistent with interpretations of the impact of elevated regional ocean total alkalinity (TA) and pH levels in this part of the Pacific. On these wave-dominated atolls, open-ocean waves impinging on the platform margins generate currents that transport sediment from the reef, across the sand apron, and towards the platform interior. Unlike the tide-dominated platforms of the Bahamas, however, weak tides preclude strong daily agitation and circulation, so ooids do not grow large, and mud and fine sand transported into the atoll interiors is sequestered there. In the interiors, both sediment produced in situ and fine allochthonous sediment are more influenced by biological processes than by physical transport processes, so bioturbated muddy sand is most common. Collectively, the comparative analysis provides actualistic, process-based conceptual models for the nature and controls on variability of shelf-margin reef and reef apron systems and platform interiors, within and among atolls.


The preternatural, meaning that which is beyond the natural, is an essential component of medieval romance, but has seldom been discussed in spatial terms. European maps and manuscript marginalia from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries place the preternatural on the margins of the late medieval imagination, where its role is often determined by subhuman or superhuman attributes, and the literary romances King Horn and Sir Orfeo outline similar categorizations of the preternatural in the form of the monstrous Saracens and the faerie other. The tales also draw the protagonist into the marginal spaces of his world, so that the natural relationship between centre and periphery becomes distorted. An examination of the spatial designations of the preternatural within these texts thus contributes towards a further understanding of the marginalized status of this category within late medieval romance, and reflects the historical trends of the era in which these boundaries were constructed.


This paper describes techniques used to quantify three types of benefits resulting from enlarging the Houston Ship Channel. These benefit types are vessel casualty reduction, delay reduction and energy savings. The importance of these benefit types is discussed relative to traditional deep-draft benefits in overall project feasibility.


Yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus L.) and purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.) are troublesome weeds of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in the southeastern United States. Glyphosate and MSMA applied in combination may be more effective in controlling these weeds than either herbicide alone. In field experiments, glyphosate at 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 kg acid equivalent (a.e.) ha-1 and MSMA at 0.6, 1.1, and 2.2 kg a.i. ha-1 were applied alone and in combination as topical treatments to yellow nutsedge (plants 10 to 20 cm tall) in glyphosate-resistant cotton (3- to 4-leaf stage). When each herbicide was applied alone, yellow nutsedge control increased as the herbicide rate increased. Yellow nutsedge was controlled by glyphosate at 0.4 and 0.8 kg ha-1 at 46 and 71%, respectively, and by MSMA at 1.1 and 2.2 kg ha-1 at 40 and 90%, respectively. Regression analysis indicated that control of yellow nutsedge with glyphosate in the field and greenhouse improved as the concentration of MSMA increased. Purple nutsedge control with glyphosate was improved with the addition of MSMA, but only when glyphosate was applied at less than 0.6 kg ha-1. Glyphosate was more effective in controlling purple nutsedge than yellow nutsedge, but MSMA was more effective in controlling yellow nutsedge than purple nutsedge. Glyphosate did not cause visible injury to cotton, but MSMA treatments alone and in combination with glyphosate caused stunting and stem reddening. Greater injury occurred from the combination of glyphosate and MSMA than from either herbicide alone, and injury increased as the concentration of glyphosate or MSMA in the mixtures increased. Further research is needed to evaluate strategies to reduce injury and to measure yield response.


In the last ten years a great deal of work has been done on the experimental investigation of atomic energy levels using magnetic resonance techniques. This paper concerns itself primarily with a review of some of the studies of atomic vapors in connection with level structures, on the one hand, and the mutual interactions of light oscillating magnetic fields and the effects of collisions, on the other.


Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are essential for performing a suitable energy management from renewable sources. They are therefore a necessary element of the new trends of smart grids and micro-grids. This paper proposes a storage system through independent battery strings to increment cycles of use during their lifespan and take advantage of the maximum extracted energy, which has a direct impact on reducing investment and operating costs. Hence, Battery Management Systems (BMS) are indispensable to improve the BESS's performance since they allow working with independent battery strings to connect and disconnect independently, depending on the load requirements. This paper seeks to validate a lead-acid battery model from measurements in terms of State of Charge (SOC), State of Health (SOH) and terminal voltage. Therefore, it is important to check different models that match with these applications' requirements. Since the final selection of the model depends on the parameters that shape it, it is necessary to study different methods for determination of SOC and SOH of the batteries to classify them according to their complexity and uncertainty for the set up advantages and disadvantages of each one. A MATLABSimulink® simulation of a model is made as an example, where the measurement matches the model's elements, allowing us to obtain basic values such as SOC, SOH, depth of discharge (DOD) and terminal voltage simulated under a previously established uncertainty value. This paper leaves a path opened to allow for a future study about the implementation of a BMS to control properly each one of the battery strings that compose a BESS.


Scarf bonded repair is the most widely used technique to repair composite laminates, especially critical and highly loaded components. This thesis presents the findings from an attempt at the prediction of the strength of scarf repaired laminate under remote in-plane tensile loads using the virtual crack closure technique (VCCT). For accuracy purposes, around the scarf repair which is the region of interest, each composite adherend ply is simulated by an individual layer of three-dimensional solid elements. Instead of assuming any particular failure types, all possible cases including cohesive, interlaminar and interface failures are investigated. Cases where VCCT is combined with progressive failure and others that consider only the progressive failure are also examined. In all considered cases, it is assumed that the adhesive layer is elastic till failure.
A linear elastic analysis of pristine scarf repaired laminate model under remote tension revealed that the most critical point which is the failure initiation location in the specimen, is situated in the top ply of the patch at a very small distance from the patch-adhesive interface. This might imply that fracture in the examined scarf repaired composite laminate was initiated within the patch material.
The results of VCCT and progressive failure analyses showed that the finite element model that assumes crack location at the patch-adhesive interface and uses interlaminar fracture toughness values gives the best prediction of failure load compared to the experimental data.
Also, it was shown that VCCT analysis without progressive failure is capable enough in accurately predicting the strength of the scarf repaired composite laminate.


Objective: To measure changes in psychometric state, neural activation, brain volume (BV), and cerebral metabolite concentrations during treatment of minimal hepatic encephalopathy. Methods: As proof of principle, 22 patients with well-compensated, biopsy-proven cirrhosis of differing etiology and previous minimal hepatic encephalopathy were treated with oral l-ornithine l-aspartate for 4 weeks. Baseline and 4-week clinical review, blood chemistry, and psychometric evaluation (Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score and Cognitive Drug Research Score) were performed. Whole-brain volumetric and functional MRI was conducted using a highly simplistic visuomotor task, together with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the basal ganglia. Treatment-related changes in regional BV and neural activation change (blood oxygenation level dependent) were assessed. Results: Although there was no change in clinical, biochemical state, basal ganglia magnetic resonance spectroscopy, or in regional BV, there were significant improvements in Cognitive Drug Research Score (+1.2, p = 0.003) and Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (+1.5, p = 0.003) with treatment. This cognitive amelioration was accompanied by changes in blood oxygenation level–dependent activation in the posterior cingulate and ventral medial prefrontal cortex, 2 regions that form part of the brain's structural and metabolic core. In addition, there was evidence of greater visual cortex activation. Conclusions: These structurally interconnected regions all showed increased function after successful encephalopathy treatment. Because no regional change in BV was observed, this implies that mechanisms unrelated to astrocyte volume regulation were involved in the significant improvement in cognitive performance.


The performance difference between commercial and laboratory scale cells remains a problem to be solved. Different way of battery electrode preparation is considered to be the main reason underlying various battery performance. In this work, the effect of slurry composition on electrochemical properties of Li-ion batteries is reported. Slurry preparation with various compositions of LiFePO4 active material (76-88%), PVdF binder (6-12%) and Super P Carbon conductive additive (6-12%) has been studied. Charge-discharge curves and capacity fade of electrodes are also investigated. Selected electrodes were pressed in order to see the effect of pressing on the final performance. Results showed that varying PVdF and carbon content mainly effects charge-discharge characteristics. For unpressed samples, higher amount of PVdF and carbon could result higher maximum specific capacity and lower internal resistance during lithiation and delithiation of positive electrode. Pressing reduces the distance between slurry particles, which enhances the conductivity of the prepared cell.


Introduction: Palatoplasty with elevated bilateral mucoperiosteal flaps using the von Langenbeck technique associated with intravelar veloplasty is a common procedure with low rates of oronasal fistula (ONF) and velopharyngeal insufficiency. The objective is to present the author's surgical experience and the incidence of ONF among 278 patients who underwent primary palatoplasty using the von Langenbeck technique associated with intravelar veloplasty. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the medical records of 278 patients who underwent primary palatoplasty at the Mário Covas Treatment Center for Craniofacial Malformations of the Guilherme Álvaro Hospital located in the municipality of Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, between May 2010 and May 2018. Results: A total of 278 primary palatoplasty procedures were performed; of them, 225 (80.9%) were performed in two surgical stages and 53 (19.1%) in one surgical stage. The study population included 182 men (65.5%) and 96 women (34.5%). The prevalence of left and bilateral cleft lip and palate was 26.3% and 27%, respectively, and the prevalence of bilateral cleft palate, and right cleft lip and palate was 37.4% and 7.6%, respectively. Sixty-one patients had ONF (21.94%), the incidence of which decreased progressively throughout the study period. Conclusion: Primary palatoplasty, using the von Langenbeck technique associated with intravelar veloplasty, is reproducible when performed in one or two surgical stages, and considered safe when the learning curve is reached with a complication rate similar to those in the literature. ■ ABSTRACT


We present a 1:33,333 geomorphological map of the Rees Valley, Otago, New Zealand. The Rees River drains an area of ∼405 km2 and feeds into the head of Lake Wakatipu. This area has been affected by a range of geomorphological processes including tectonic activity, glacial erosion and deposition, mass movement, fluvial action, and base (lake) level change. Mapping was achieved by a combination of interpretation from SPOT 5 HRG satellite imagery and ground-truthing. The map presents the current distribution of landforms and sediments associated with the wide variety of contemporary and past geomorphological processes. It represents the most detailed and finest resolution geomorphological map of this region to date, and hence a number of features have been mapped and described for the first time. The map will assist on-going studies in the Rees catchment that seek to understand fluvial sediment transport and associated flood hazards, the dynamics of former glaciers, base level change associated with a drop in the level of Lake Wakatipu, and mass movement hazards.


This paper provides the first comprehensive account of the rule against alienating indigenous lands to private parties, that is to say, parties other than the government. This rule exists, in common law and statutory forms, across common law settler societies, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The author provides an historical account of the development of the rule, outlining the ways in which the rule was seen to be justified across different time periods. The paper argues that none of the historical bases for the rule, which range from considerations of military strategy to outright racial paternalism, can provide an adequate justification for the rule in the present day. After providing an account of the current legal regimes in these four countries, the author sets out a contemporary justification for the rule, rooted in the collective autonomy and cultural integrity of indigenous groups. This is approached primarily from two angles. In economic or welfare-oriented terms, alienations of parts of a community's land base may impose a cost on members of the group by reducing the group's capacity to preserve its culture and way of life, goods which can only be enjoyed in collective form. Alternatively, one can take collective autonomy and cultural preservation as goods not fully reducible to welfare. Erosions of the group's land base impinge on its ability to exercise collective autonomy, especially if governance jurisdiction is linked to land ownership. The paper also considers the relevance of arguments based on indigenous sovereignty and distinctive indigenous approaches to land. Finally, the author outlines a set of promising alternative institutional arrangements that might reconcile the interests at stake in ways other than through a rigid prohibition on alienation to private parties.


This is a multi-site ethnographic study of the interactions between programs that intend to bring "development" to rural Africa, and the residents of Malangali division, Tanzania. It explores development through an internal examination of a European non-governmental organization, as well as a village-based ethnography of people the aid agency has defined as "the poorest of the poor." Research was also conducted in Dublin, Ireland, about the knowledge and attitudes about charity and rural Africans of donors to and designers of aid programs. Chapters specifically examine agriculture, forestry, and water programs, as well as programs intended for women, including population control through family planning. The research shows agriculture programs to depict rural Africans as barely capable of achieving subsistence, while Malangali residents make farming and labor decisions based more upon considerations of profit than of yield. Forestry programs were designed to combat deforestation that planners asserted but never demonstrated with reference to a local ecology featuring areas of thriving miombo woodlands; even so, many male residents engaged in tree planting when they foresaw high enough potential financial benefit. The water program, which delivered water to thousands of area residents, was seen by them as a success, but was viewed as a failure by aid planners on the basis that it lacked "sustainability," a concept that emerged in development thinking during the course of the project. Projects for women were aimed to address what planners perceived as conditions of gender oppression, but Malangali women never came to agree with the details of that analysis. Area residents accepted the presence of development programs in part because of perceptions and demonstrations of power, but then evaluated them on the basis of what they thought appropriate given their goals and experiences. The dissertation concludes that Malangali residents are sophisticated consumers of development who make choices based on their opportunities and constraints as they understand them. The clientele of development projects, however, are not "the poorest of the poor," but rather the theorists, donors, and designers of international aid programs; international aid is therefore designed to appeal to the intellectual and emotional concerns of those groups.


Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of small-scale interaction: the strength of dyadic ties. It is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another. The impact of this principle on diffusion of infl uence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored. Stress is laid on the cohesive power of weak ties. Most network models deal, implicitly, with strong ties, thus confi ning their applicability to small, well-defi ned groups. Emphasis on weak ties lends itself to discussion of relations between groups and to analysis of segments of social structure not easily defi ned in terms of primary groups.


Abstract—Animal studies are a foundation for defining mechanisms of atherosclerosis and potential targets of drugs to prevent lesion development or reverse the disease. In the current literature, it is common to see contradictions of outcomes in animal studies from different research groups, leading to the paucity of extrapolations of experimental findings into understanding the human disease. The purpose of this statement is to provide guidelines for development and execution of experimental design and interpretation in animal studies. Recommendations include the following: (1) animal model selection, with commentary on the fidelity of mimicking facets of the human disease; (2) experimental design and its impact on the interpretation of data; and (3) standard methods to enhance accuracy of measurements and characterization of atherosclerotic lesions. (Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2017;37:e000–e000. DOI: 10.1161/ATV.0000000000000062.)


In a model that allows smooth substitution between domestic and imported inputs, content protection distorts inout choice but does not force a divergence between price and unit production cost. Content protection biases gains intechnical efficiency away from those saving domestic input and toward those saving imported input. By increasing derived demand for the domestic input,a marginally effective content requirement benefits suppliers of this input. Increases in the content requirement above the marginally effective level increase such benefits to suppliers of the domestic input provided that the price elasticity of demand for the final product is less than a critical value. The consequences of content protection are not materially affected by monopoly in the domestic final product market or monopsony in the domestic input market unless such monopoly or monopsony are created by content protection. The situation of a monopolistic supplier of the domestic input is enhanced by content protection.


Objectives This study aimed to develop and validate a risk prediction model for long-term sickness absence. Methods Survey responses on work- and lifestyle-related questions from 65 775 public-sector employees were linked to sickness absence records to develop a prediction score for medically-certified sickness absence lasting >9 days and ≥90 days. The score was externally validated using data from an independent population-based cohort of 13 527 employees. For both sickness absence outcomes, a full model including 46 candidate predictors was reduced to a parsimonious model using least-absolute-shrinkage-and-selection-operator (LASSO) regression. Predictive performance of the model was evaluated using C-index and calibration plots. Results Variance explained in ≥90-day sickness absence by the full model was 12.5%. In the parsimonious model, the predictors included self-rated health (linear and quadratic term), depression, sex, age (linear and quadratic), socioeconomic position, previous sickness absences, number of chronic diseases, smoking, shift work, working night shift, and quadratic terms for body mass index and Jenkins sleep scale. The discriminative ability of the score was good (C-index 0.74 in internal and 0.73 in external validation). Calibration plots confirmed high correspondence between the predicted and observed risk. In >9-day sickness absence, the full model explained 15.2% of the variance explained, but the C-index of the parsimonious model was poor (<0.65). Conclusions Individuals' risk of a long-term sickness absence that lasts ≥90 days can be estimated using a brief risk score. The predictive performance of this score is comparable to those for established multifactorial risk algorithms for cardiovascular disease, such as the Framingham risk score.


Procedural content generation (PCG) in games is often framed as a way to feed the content furnace, satisfying the voracious appetites of players by generating infinite seas of content for them to consume. Although this dominant framing provides a clear structuring purpose for PCG research, it also unnecessarily limits our vision of alternative purposes that generative methods might serve. Furthermore, generative systems designed with this purpose in mind may tend to reinforce certain problematic dynamics in game design. In this paper, we draw a contrast between two approaches to procedural terrain generation and the dynamics of play they tend to enable, which we term mining and gardening. We then extend this analysis to PCG more broadly and suggest that the latter (gardening) dynamic represents a viable and compelling alternative philosophy of how generative methods can be used in games.


UDP glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) are a family of enzymes that glucuronidate a variety of exogenous and endogenous compounds, including androgens; which makes them more
hydrophilic, changes biological activity, and aids biological excretion. UGT2B17 has been identified as the major enzyme for testosterone glucuronidation, where UGT2B15 has been
suggested to play a minor role. A deletion polymorphism in the UGT2B17 gene and an amino acid change in the UGT2B15 gene at codon 85 (aspartate>tyrosine) has been described where the resulting reduced rate of glucuronidation was implicated in the increased risk of prostate cancer. This review aims to analyse the impact that UGT2B15 and UGT2B17 genetic polymorphisms have on the risk of prostate cancer, through the use of studies previously conducted assessing the level of expression of each independent UGT2B enzyme, whereby ethnicity was taken into account. Positive and negative outcomes of clinical studies have been outlined for both UGT2B15 and UGT2B17, where conflicting evidence has led to inconclusive results for determining the consequence of UGT2B enzymes in prostate cancer
risk. Additionally, inhibitors of testosterone glucuronidation such as non-steroidal, antiinflammatory drugs (diclofenac and ibuprofen), tea and red wine extracts have been
identified to potentially affect the level of circulating testosterone by inhibiting UGT2B enzymes, thus potentially exacerbating prostate cancer risk. Future trials would involve a
wider examination of other food substances and pharmaceuticals that can be attributed to the inhibition of UGT2B enzymes.


The phenomenon of library digitization in general, and the digitization of so-called 'orphan works' in particular, raises many important copyright law questions. However, as this article explains, correctly understood, there is no orphan works problem for certain kinds of library digitization. The distinction between expressive and nonexpressive works is already well recognized in copyright law as the gatekeeper to copyright protection - novels are protected by copyright, telephone books and other uncreative compilations of data are not. The same distinction should generally be made in relation to potential acts of infringement. Preserving the functional force of the idea - expression distinction in the digital context requires that copying for purely nonexpressive purposes (also referred to as non-consumptive use), such as the automated extraction of data, should not be regarded as infringing. The nonexpressive use of copyrighted works has tremendous potential social value: it makes search engines possible, it provides an important data source for research in computational linguistics, automated translation and natural language processing. And increasingly, the macro-analysis of text is being used in fields such as the study of literature itself. So long as digitization is confined to data processing applications that do not result in infringing expressive or consumptive uses of individual works, there is no orphan works problem because the exclusive rights of the copyright owner are limited to the expressive elements of their works and the expressive uses of their works.


The terms of religious coexistence established by the Edict of Nantes in 1598 posed many challenges as French Catholics and Protestants struggled to bridge the gap between the edict's provisions and their everyday lives.This article focuses on two pastoral visitations conducted in the dioceses of Vaison andAix-en-Provence in the wake of the edict's promulgation. Not only were they among the first dioceses to introduce Catholic reform in France; they were also home to biconfessional communities. The visitation records help to illuminate the complexities of navigating religious rivalries and the demands of Catholic renewal at the local level. Although the visitors addressed a range of topics, they were especially concerned with strengthening the material and liturgical dimensions of Sunday parish worship. The discussion will follow this common thread in order to elucidate the particular importance of the parish mass as a means of shaping Catholic group identity and social relations in late-sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France.


This paper examines the complex relationship between the subjective FDA-regulated word "healthy" and its effect on consumers moral balancing and licensing habits. I create a survey to test the ability of the word "healthy" to balance or license future decisions. The results indicate that if the word "healthy" is on a package, regardless of nutritional quality, consumers use "healthy" to license unhealthy activities the next time period they are faced with a decision in the moral sphere of health. However, the balancing effect is lost after two time periods. The findings suggest that balancing and licensing patterns may depend on habit and tastes and preferences.


Abstract This paper unveils the body_machine as a key element of dynamic mental maps that have come to shape both educational praxis and research. It traces and analyses instances in which the human and the mechanical encountered each other in metaphorical, material and visual forms, thereby blurring to some extent the boundaries between them while capturing and mobilising specific forms of knowing and acting. The paper studies, first, how certain 'orienting frames of reference' and associated 'experimental systems' managed to materialise around the body_machine and penetrate theory and praxis; and, second, what visual and textual sources related to a vocational school may reveal about where and how the body_machine has come to operate in education, industry and science. The paper centres on early twentieth-century photographs and analyses these not only as media presenting, representing and interrogating common thought and practice but also as agents of meaning-making around the body_machine.


Progress in natural language processing (NLP) models that estimate representations of word sequences has recently been leveraged to improve the understanding of language processing in the brain. However, these models have not been specifically designed to capture the way the brain represents language meaning. We hypothesize that fine-tuning these models to predict recordings of brain activity of people reading text will lead to representations that encode more brain-activity-relevant language information. We demonstrate that a version of BERT, a recently introduced and powerful language model, can improve the prediction of brain activity after fine-tuning. We show that the relationship between language and brain activity learned by BERT during this fine-tuning transfers across multiple participants. We also show that, for some participants, the fine-tuned representations learned from both magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are better for predicting fMRI than the representations learned from fMRI alone, indicating that the learned representations capture brain-activity-relevant information that is not simply an artifact of the modality. While changes to language representations help the model predict brain activity, they also do not harm the model's ability to perform downstream NLP tasks. Our findings are notable for research on language understanding in the brain.


This report summarizes the results of appraisals of various activities of CI-679 (a 2,4-diamino-6-amino-substituted quinazoline) in rhesus monkeys infected with the Ro and Ro/PM strains of Plasmodium cynomolgi. In subjects inoculated with sporozoites, CI-679, administered in appropriate schedules in doses up to and including the maximum tolerated level, neither prevented development of infections with these strains nor cured those already established. Although these evaluations showed that CI-679 was devoid of activity against both early and late tissue schizonts, they indicated that this compound had significant blood schizonticidal activity and suggested that such activity was much greater in infections with the Ro strain than in those with the Ro/PM strain. This latter suggestion, contrary to results of earlier experiments in mice infected with Plasmodium berghei, led to studies of the activities of CI-679 in trophozoite-induced infections. These showed that the total course dose of CI-679 required for cure of previously untreated infections with the Ro/PM strain was tenfold that required for cure of comparable infections with the Ro strain. They also showed that infections with either strain, treated previously with subcurative doses, were often not cured by doses of CI-679 that eradicated previously untreated infections regularly. Subsequent studies showed that emergency of parasites resistant to CI-679 was responsible for these retreatment failures and that this resistance was retained through mosquito transfer.


The objective of the study was to validate a self-administrated symptom rating scale for use in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders by item analysis, exploration of factor structure, and analyses of reliability and validity. Data on 151 patients, initially treated by risperidone, obtained within the framework of a naturalistic Phase IV longitudinal study, were analysed by comparing patient and clinician ratings of symptoms, side-effects and global indices of illness. The Symptom Self-rating Scale for Schizophrenia (4S) is psychometrically adequate (item analysis, internal consistency, factor structure). Side-effect ratings were reliable. Symptom ratings displayed consistent associations with clinicians' ratings of corresponding symptom dimensions, suggesting construct validity. Patients had most difficulties assessing negative symptom items. Patients were well able to assess their own symptoms and drug side-effects. The factor structure of symptom ratings differs between patients and clinicians as well as how they construe global indices of illness. Clinicians focus on psychotic, patients on affective symptoms. Use of symptom self-ratings is one way to improve communication and thereby strengthen the therapeutic alliance and increase treatment adherence.


The objective of this work is to determine the location(s) in any given oceanic area during different temporal periods where in situ sampling for Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) provides the best capability to retrieve accurate radiometric and derived product data (lowest uncertainties). We present a method to merge satellite imagery with in situ measurements, to determine the best in situ sampling strategy suitable for satellite Cal/Val and to evaluate the present in situ locations through uncertainty indices. This analysis is required to determine if the present in situ sites are adequate for assessing uncertainty and where additional sites and ship programs should be located to improve Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) procedures. Our methodology uses satellite acquisitions to build a covariance matrix encoding the spatial-temporal variability of the area of interest. The covariance matrix is used in a Bayesian framework to merge satellite and in situ data providing a product with lower uncertainty. The best in situ location for Cal/Val is then identified by using a design principle (A-optimum design) that looks for minimizing the estimated variance of the merged products. Satellite products investigated in this study include Ocean Color water leaving radiance, chlorophyll, and inherent and apparent optical properties (retrieved from MODIS and VIIRS). In situ measurements are obtained from systems operated on fixed deployment platforms (e.g., sites of the Ocean Color component of the AErosol RObotic NETwork- AERONET-OC), moorings (e.g, Marine Optical Buoy-MOBY), ships or autonomous vehicles (such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and/or Gliders).


This thesis presents novel evidence in support of a functional role for the anatomy of subcortical non-image forming white matter connections in the human brain. Observations of preserved ability to process threat in the absence of visual awareness in cortically blind
patients suggest the existence of an older, primitive and phylogenetically conserved visual circuit that processes orientation to threat. Three pathways including the retinotectal tract, the stria terminalis and a putative pathway for processing visual threat connecting the superior
colliculus and the amygdala via the pulvinar were virtually dissected with DTI tractography in healthy participants in vivo. Additionally, connectivity strength of dissected pathways were tested as predictors of performance on behavioural eye-tracking paradigms designed to optimise reflexive orienting responses to salient peripheral visual stimuli including abrupt onsets and threat.
Behavioural findings demonstrated a temporal hemifield advantage for short latency reflexive saccades performed within a 'gap' paradigm, supporting the prediction that the
superior colliculus receives retinal afferents via the retinotectal pathway that summon reflexive saccades. Saccadic bias to orient to threatening stimuli on a temporal order saccade decision task also demonstrated an advantage in the temporal hemifield, consistent with
predictions that retinal afferents to the superior colliculus contribute to a subcortical threat mediating circuit connecting the superior colliculus, pulvinar and amygdala.
Connectivity strength of anatomical demonstrations of a putative threat mediating connection between the superior colliculus, pulvinar and amygdala predicted a bias to orient
to visual threat, thereby validating anatomical dissections presented here with functional evidence. Topography of the SC-amygdala pathway demonstrated a trajectory from the
pulvinar to the lateral amygdala. The anatomy of the outflow of the amygdala connecting to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis was also considered, demonstrating anatomically distinct trajectories of the two pathways despite occupying topographies in close proximity. Stria terminalis connectivity strength also predicted a bias to threat, providing novel evidence for a functional role in selective orienting to threat, potentially driven by superior-colliculus afferents to amygdala nuclei.


Purpose: Depending on the perfusing interventricular septum of the arteries, there are 3 types of circulation dominance: right, left, and balanced. In this study, coronary artery branches supplying the ventricular septum were investigated in vivo in a large group of patients by multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) coronary angiography. In addition, the association of coronary artery variations with coronary arterial disease was investigated. Materials and Methods: The study included 325 consecutive patients (214 men and 108 women, with a mean age of 59 ± 14 years) who underwent MDCT coronary angiography. Multidetector computed tomography was performed with a 16-detector-row computed tomographic scanner. The type of dominance, coronary arterial diseases, and coronary artery variations were recorded. Results: In our study, the types of coronary circulation were right, left, and balanced in 227 (70%), 40 (12.5%), and 58 (17.5%) patients, respectively. Dominance of right circulation was detected in 150 of 217 (69%) of men and in 77 of 108 (71%) of women; dominance of left circulation was found in 26 of 217(12%) of men and in 14 of 108 (13%) of women; balanced/codominance circulation was found in 41 of 217 (19%) of men and in 17 of 108 (16%) of women. However, no significant differences were detected between the sexes for the type of coronary circulation. Coronary artery disease was determined in 68 patients (20.9%) by MDCT, and coronary artery variations were also determined in 34 patients (10.4%). Both the number and the rate of coronary artery variations were significantly higher among the patients with left artery dominance. Conclusions: Knowledge of coronary artery variations and pathologies is important in planning the treatment and in interpretation of findings of cardiovascular diseases. Our study indicated that, although right dominance circulation is more common in general population, both the coronary diseases and coronary artery variations are more common in individuals with left dominance circulation.


Kazakhstan is currently one of the dynamically developing states in its region. The stable growth in all sectors of the economy leads to a corresponding increase in energy consumption. Thus country consumes significant amount of energy due to the high level of industrialisation and the presence of energy-intensive manufacturing such as mining and metallurgy which in turn leads to low energy efficiency. With allowance for this the Government has set several priorities to adopt a transition of Republic of Kazakhstan to a "green economy". This article provides an overview of Kazakhstan's energy efficiency situation in for the period of 1991-2014. First, the dynamics of production and consumption of conventional energy resources are given. Second, the potential of renewable energy sources is summarised followed by the description of GHG emissions trends in the country. Third, Kazakhstan' national initiatives, policies and locally implemented projects in the field of energy efficiency are described.


Europe's urban economies do not look the same as ten years ago. And in ten years from now,they will again be different. The digital revolution is particularly disruptive: entire sectors are being transformed, old players are losing out, newcomers are taking over, and competition is fiercer than ever. At the same time, citizens are not just workers in companies, but many become independent entrepreneurs, and active producers. Innovation is becoming open, involving interaction between companies, universities and users. Working, living and recreation become intertwined in place and time.


In recent decades, saline fluids have been sampled worldwide at great depths in continental basements. Although some of them have been attributed to marine transgressions , the mechanisms allowing their circulation are not understood. In this paper, we describe the horizontal and vertical distributions of moderately saline fluids (60 to 1400 mg L −1) sampled at depths ranging from 41 to 200 m in crystalline rock aquifers on the regional scale of the Ar-morican Massif (northwestern France). The horizontal and vertical distributions of high chloride concentrations are in good agreement with both the altitudinal and vertical limits and the succession of the three major transgressions between the Mio-Pliocene and Pleistocene ages. The mean chloride concentration for each transgression area is exponentially related to the time spanned until the present. It defines the potential laws of leaching (displacement) of marine waters by fresh meteoric waters. The results of the Armorican aquifers provide the first observed constraints for the timescales of seawater circulation in the continental crystalline basement and the subsequent leaching by fresh meteoric waters. The general trend of increasing chloride concentration with depth and the time frame for the flushing process provide useful information to develop conceptual models of the paleo-functioning of Armorican aquifers.


The Cape Floristic Region (South Africa), is a global biodiversity hotspot that has undergone considerable landscape change in recent years. The impact of habitat transformation on arthropod taxa and the effect of pesticides on non-target arthropods in this area were studied. Arthropod diversity in a remnant patch of natural vegetation (fynbos) was compared with that in two apple orchards, one under intensive chemical pest management (sprayed), and the other under fungicide treatments only (unsprayed). Pitfall traps and vacuum sampling collected 221, 152 and 106 insect species in the fynbos, unsprayed and sprayed orchards, respectively. Far more species of Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and Orthoptera were found in fynbos than in either orchard. Cydnids, rove and ground beetle families were as species rich in the sprayed as in the unsprayed orchards whereas Diplopoda and Isopoda were more abundant in the unsprayed than the sprayed orchard. The introduced Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), was the most abundant species in both orchards. The study clearly indicated that habitat transformation and the use of pesticides had a negative impact on arthropod diversity in the Cape Floristic Region.


In the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), a novel experimental methodology is presented for carrying out studies which uses a theatrical presentation with an actor interacting and cooperating with robots in realistic scenarios before an audience. This methodology has been inspired by previous research in Human-Computer Interaction. The actor also stays in role for a post-theatre session, answering questions and encouraging the audience to discuss their respective opinions and viewpoints relating to the HRI scenario enactment. The development and running of a first exploratory pilot experiment using the new Theatre HRI (THRI) methodology is presented and critically reviewed. Based on this review and the associated findings from the audience discussion session, it is concluded that the Theatre-based HRI (THRI) methodology is viable for performing HRI user studies.


Sleep is an emerging area of research and practice for occupational therapists. The purpose of this study was to identify and investigate how college students' cognitive perceptions and beliefs about sleep affect their quality of sleep. Four college students participated in qualitative interviews investigating their sleep beliefs and attitudes. The students also completed a two-week daily sleep diary to report their sleep beliefs, attitudes, and daily living patterns. Four emerging themes were identified from the interviews: beliefs about sleep patterns related to temporal structure of sleep, stress, daytime performance associated with sleep, and conflicting beliefs about sleep. Daily sleep diaries also revealed inconsistencies between idealized and actual sleep patterns. Based on the identified themes and sleep diary data, researchers concluded that college students do not have defined beliefs and attitudes about the value of sleep or consistent, routine sleep schedules. Occupational therapy interventions should strive to identify beliefs and attitudes about sleep in order to change non-adaptive beliefs and help clients develop routines to improve sleep quality and daytime performance.


This research examined preservice early childhood educators' perceptions of outdoor settings and their intentions to use outdoor settings in their teaching practice. Students enrolled in an early childhood education program (n = 110) at a university in the Great Lakes region completed surveys that assessed perceptions of natural settings, intentions to use natural settings in future teaching, knowledge of the benefits of nature for children, and personal nature relatedness. Participants reported relatively high intentions to use natural settings in future teaching, as well as knowledge of the benefits of nature for children, but moderate levels of personal nature relatedness. Participants were more likely to select "maintained" settings such as parks for educational purposes, and more "natural" settings, especially those with water, for personal purposes. Knowledge of the benefits of nature experiences, the perceived difficulty in using natural settings, and personal levels of nature relatedness each significantly predicted intention to use natural settings in future teaching. We recommend that teacher preparation programs provide: opportunities for students to observe and/or interact with children as they engage in unstructured play in natural environments; opportunities to engage in both structured and unstructured learning experiences in natural environments; and preparing students to provide appropriate supervision in natural environments.


Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) promised to translate their findings into clinically beneficial improvements of patient management by tailoring disease management to the individual through the prediction of disease risk1,2. However, the ability to translate genetic findings from GWAS into predictive tools that are of clinical utility and which may inform clinical practice has, so far, been encouraging but limited1,2. Here we propose to use a more powerful statistical approach that enables the prediction of multiple medically relevant phenotypes without the costs associated with developing a genetic test for each of them. As a proof of principle, we used a common panel of 319,038 SNPs to train the prediction models in 114,264 unrelated White-British for height and four obesity related traits (body mass index, basal metabolic rate, body fat percentage, and waist-to-hip ratio). We obtained prediction accuracies that ranged between 46% and 75% of the maximum achievable given their explained heritable component. This represents an improvement of up to 75% over the phenotypic variance explained by the predictors developed through large collaborations3, which used more than twice as many training samples. Across-population predictions in White nonBritish individuals were similar to those of White-British whilst those in Asian and Black individuals were informative but less accurate. The genotyping of circa 500,000 UK Biobank4 participants will yield predictions ranging between 66% and 83% of the maximum. We anticipate that our models and a common panel of genetic markers, which can be used across multiple traits and diseases, will be the starting point to tailor disease management to the individual. Ultimately, we will be able to capitalise on whole-genome sequence and environmental risk factors to realise the full potential of genomic medicine.


The arc phase of an electrical discharge in salt water is investigated using a 1‐D nonlinear fluid model in cylindrical (r) coordinates. For most electrode geometries, the arc phase is more accurately modeled using a cylindrical geometry compared to the usual and simpler to implement spherical model. This is due to the fact that until the bubble radius is comparable to the distance between electrodes, the preferred geometry is cylindrical. Both the bubbles external (water) and internal (dissociated water and plasma) are discretized and modeled with nonlinear fluid equations. The model includes the energy flow from the capacitor, into the plasma arc through its resistivity, and then finally into the hydroacoustic pulse. Simulation results will be compared to experiments. Also the efficiency of various electrode configurations will be investigated. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]


ABSTRACT Arulraj, J.S.; Pandurengan, P.; Arasan, S.; Gopalrajan, S., and Paulraj, J., 2019. Acute toxicity of Lamda-Cyhalothrin and the histopathological changes of gill and liver tissues of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). In: Jithendran, K.P.; Saraswathy, R.; Balasubramanian, C.P.; Kumaraguru Vasagam, K.P.; Jayasankar, V.; Raghavan, R.; Alavandi, S.V., and Vijayan, K.K. (eds.), BRAQCON 2019: World Brackishwater Aquaculture Conference. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 86, pp. 235-238. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Cyhalothrin is one of the synthetic pyrethroid pesticides commonly used to kill pests in agriculture fields. Fishes have a poor ability to metabolize and eliminate such xenobiotics. Hence, to investigate the acute toxicity of the pesticide, lambda-cyhalothrin on tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), 96 hours lethal concentration 50 (96 h LC50) was determined, and histological changes in gill and liver tissues were also examined. The fishes were exposed to different concentrations such as 0, 0.75, 1.5, 3, 6 and 12 ppb, and the mortality rate of fishes in each concentration was determined. The results showed that maximum mortality was observed in higher concentrations (6 and 12 ppb) whereas the minimum was found at 0.75 ppb level of cyhalothrin. The LC50 value for the cyhalothrin pesticide on tilapia was found at 2.26 ppb. The histological changes such as gill lesions, necrosis, curling of secondary gill lamellae, hyperplasia and clubbed tips of secondary gill lamellae were observed in gill tissues. In the liver tissues, the irregular shape of the nucleus, melanomacrophage aggregation, hepatolysis and vacuole formation were observed. This toxicity study revealed that cyhalothrin pesticide is highly toxic to tilapia even at a minimum concentration (2.26 ppb), and the responsible use of lambda-cyhalothrin in the agriculture field is recommended.


Pioneer women were praised for their hard work, and this paper deals with all aspects of their lives in this district in the late nineteenth and, occasionally, the early twentieth century. Details are provided of all the women who held shares in local mines, not all of who lived in the district and some of whom were probably dummies for their husbands. Some women had paid work, sometimes out of necessity rather than a desire to be independent, and they struggled to become financially secure on low wages. Servants were not always well treated by the women who employed them. Women's lot included a variety of unpaid work and endless domestic duties. Some were fortunate enough to have money of their own, and sometimes held their husbands' property in their own name, usually to protect it against his creditors. Land was also held in women's names, usually to enable the family to hold more sections than the law permitted. Because of poverty, some women were forced to seek charitable aid. Many women were active in community life in a variety of ways, notably their churches, charity, nursing, and temperance. Younger ones enjoyed the outdoors and sports. Competition for popularity (and for a mate) meant a considerable amount of time was spent in trying to look their best and in displaying their finery at the many socials held in the district. Some women got into trouble for improper behaviour, notably drunkenness and even violence, but most of the female crime recorded was minor. Sexual misbehaviour included illegitimate children (some of whom had a short life) and abortion. Some wives were deserted, but some women were able to remarry. At the end of this paper, there are accounts of several women's lives, some of them unhappy – unhappiness being more easily uncovered because of the sources available for historians.


To sustain eel aquaculture, development of reproduction in captivity is vital. The aim of this review is to assess our current knowledge on the nutrition of broodstock eels in order to improve the quality of broodstock under farming conditions, drawing information from wild adult eels and other marine pelagic spawners. Freshwater eels spawn marine pelagic eggs with an oil droplet (type II), and with a large perivitelline space. Compared with other marine fish eggs, eel eggs are at the extreme end of the spectrum in terms of egg composition, even within this type II group. Eel eggs contain a large amount of total lipids, and a shortage of neutral lipids has been implied a cause for reduced survival of larvae. Eel eggs have higher ARA but lower EPA and DHA levels than in other fish. Too high levels of ARA negatively affected reproduction in the Japanese eel, although high levels of 18:2n-6 in the eggs of farmed eels were not detrimental. The total free amino acid amount and profile of eel eggs appears much different from other marine pelagic spawners. Nutritional intervention to influence egg composition seems feasible, but responsiveness of farmed eels to induced maturation might also require environmental manipulation. The challenge remains to succeed in raising European eel broodstock with formulated feeds and to enable the procurement of viable eggs and larvae, once adequate protocols for induced maturation have been developed.


Abstract:How do recent transnational encounters in East Asia help us explore the condition of poverty amidst increasingly unpredictable global and national political economy? Against a backdrop of East Asian "postmiracle" times, this article sheds light on the precarity of South Korean migrants in Northeast China, whose labor is no longer demanded in Korea's neoliberal restructuring processes and who try their luck in China's uncertain but fast-growing economy.In Seotap, a Korean migrant enclave in Shenyang, South Korean sojourners, who mostly engage in the unstable service sector, have undergone the fluctuations of life in response to shifting relationships to Korean Chinese dwellers as well as to political economic transformations across their homeland and the receiving country. The author examines how these migrants experience and respond to endemic fear of becoming a "loser," a stigmatic marker of poverty, with an eye to the neoliberal production of a "culture of poverty."The author argues that a "culture of poverty," which is invoked in Seotap, is neither a subculture that is passed down from generation to generation among a particular group of the poor, nor a disposition that is allegedly found among those who rely on governmental welfare schemes. The neoliberal production of a "culture of poverty" indicates contingent processes in which many ordinary people, who experience life insecurity and downward mobility under neoliberal economic transformations, invoke and (re)produce arbitrary cultural markers of poverty to secure their normalcy and distance themselves from other "losers." Despite staying outside a nation's governmental scheme based on the measured distinction between the poor and the nonpoor, transnational sojourners whom the author met in Seotap summon the arbitrary markers of poverty, which have been coined and widely narrated along with the very scheme. Importantly, however, their action does not just end up with a makeshift delineation of the other poor but also marks the embodiment of what they blame. The author's ethnography brings to light how precarious migrants, who are caught up in erratic political, economic shifts in both China and South Korea, are often inescapably embroiled in cultural and moral constructions of poverty as they are pushed into a series of informal, illicit practices for survival. This statement does not signal psychological features of poverty but suggests the grievous entanglement of structural, political economic violence and affective burden on the daily web of individual lives.


This article contends that theological training supported by effective mentoring can contribute to the shaping of theology students in terms of their spiritual growth, character development and ministry formation. It is further argued that mentoring as a supportive pedagogy needs to be an essential element of theological education. Subsequently, guidelines for making mentoring an effective pedagogy in theological training are proposed. A lot has been written about mentoring; however this article focuses on the use of mentoring as a supportive pedagogy in denominational seminaries as a means of fostering the holistic development of theology students.


This study used a cross-sectional, ten-point Likert-type scale survey design, to examine the perception of Jordanian seventh to twelfth-grade social studies teachers of the competency needed for technology implementation in their classrooms. The instrument for this study was a modified version of a survey developed by Kelly (2003) called the Technology in Education Survey (TIES). The scale ranged from 1-10, with 1 being the lowest score, indicating not important or not competent, and 10 being the highest score, indicating very important or very competent. Due to the cultural context of the study, the researcher used an Arabic-language version of the survey used by Al Ghazo (2008). The convenience sample (n = 221) was a blend of male (n = 135) and female teachers (n = 86). A significant interaction was found between age and gender of social studies teachers and their perceptions of competency needed to implement technology. Female teachers who were thirty or younger and who were thirty-one to thirty-nine scored the highest mean of perceptions of competency toward implementing technology in social studies classrooms, higher than all male teachers, while male and female teachers who were forty or older scored the same lowest mean (49.5) of perceptions of competency. Female teachers with the least teaching experience had high perceptions of competency for implementing technology in social studies classrooms, while female teachers with the most teaching experience had lower perceptions of competency than male teachers. The result of the study provides useful information to social studies educators, professional development leaders, national policy makers and teachers of social studies who are interested in understanding the factors that affect technology use in social studies classrooms in Jordan


We study age-rating restrictions in the health insurance marketplaces introduced by the A↵ordable Care Act. Because most buyers are subsidized, although age-rating restrictions a↵ect pre-subsidy premiums, participation is primarily driven by subsidy generosity rather than pricing decisions. Combining pre and post-reform data on prices and enrollment we find that age-rating restrictions altered pre-subsidy premiums: + 230/year for under-50 buyers and 900/year for over-50 buyers. Accounting for the ACA subsidy design, this regulation decreased federal spending by more than 10%, and reduced participation by 2% (-4% among under-50, +2% among over-50). These e↵ects di↵er across regions, varying with the age-composition of the uninsured.


This policy brief considers the lack of European Works Councils through a Belgian perspective. It discusses Belgian companies who are currently engaged in establishing one or have developed 'functionally equivalent' structures. The remaining companies are confronted with serious obstacles to establishing a European Works Council, principally: (i) a lack of knowledge about them, (ii) weak and time-consuming national-level information and consultation processes, and (iii) a low perceived added value of transnational information and consultation. It evaluates what needs to be done in order to increase the number of EWCs and what trade unions need to do in order to raise awareness on the importance of EWCs at European level.


A number of open questions in human evolutionary genetics would become tractable if we were able to directly measure evolutionary fitness. As a step towards this goal, we developed a method to examine whether individual genetic variants, or sets of genetic variants, currently influence viability. The approach consists in testing whether the frequency of an allele varies across ages, accounting for variation in ancestry. We applied it to the Genetic Epidemiology Research on Aging (GERA) cohort and to the parents of participants in the UK Biobank. Across the genome, we find only a few common variants with large effects on age-specific mortality: tagging the APOE ε4 allele and near CHRNA3. These results suggest that when large, even late onset effects are kept at low frequency by purifying selection. Testing viability effects of sets of genetic variants that jointly influence one of 42 traits, we detect a number of strong signals. In participants of the UK Biobank study of British ancestry, we find that variants that delay puberty timing are enriched in longer-lived parents (P~6×10−6 for fathers and P~2×10−3 for mothers), consistent with epidemiological studies. Similarly, in mothers, variants associated with later age at first birth are associated with a longer lifespan (P~1×10−3). Signals are also observed for variants influencing cholesterol levels, risk of coronary artery disease, body mass index, as well as risk of asthma. These signals exhibit consistent effects in the GERA cohort and among participants of the UK Biobank of non-British ancestry. Moreover, we see marked differences between males and females, most notably at the CHRNA3 locus, and variants associated with risk of coronary artery disease and cholesterol levels. Beyond our findings, the analysis serves as a proof of principle for how upcoming biomedical datasets can be used to learn about selection effects in contemporary humans.


DLC films cover a wide range of different carbon based coatings, starting from soft to extremely hard diamond-like carbon films. In this study two different types of DLC films have been studied in respect of their stress and strain characteristics and tribological performance. The coatings are hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) coatings deposited by PECVD and tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) coating deposited by filtered arc technique. In order to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of the coatings under load, 3D FE modelling was carried out in combination with scratch testing. Also the tribological performance was evaluated with pin-on-disc tests using stepwise increasing normal load. The 3D FEM model was developed for calculating the stress and strain distributions of DLC coated systems and to evaluate how coating thickness and elastic properties affect the stress-strain state at crack initiation location. The simulation was compared to the findings to experimental observations in scratch test contact conditions, when the spherical diamond tip was moving with increased load on a coated surface. The coating performance was evaluated with scratch testing to detect the crack generation as well as the coating adhesion. When combining the simulated coating characteristics with empirical observation of coating fracture patterns the coating fracture performance and tolerance to cracking could be evaluated. A major effect of the coating elastic modulus on the stress and fracture behaviour of the coatings was observed. In the tribological testing the both coatings had a low friction performance. In the tribological testing with stepwise increasing load, the critical load for coating delamination was higher for the a-C:H coating, which is in accordance with the results of FE modelling of coating stress state.


The potable water use recorded by 3 579 residential consumer water meters in Cape Town, South Africa, was analysed as part of this research. The focus was on selected residential properties in serviced areas, with additional private access to groundwater as a supplementary household water source. Private consumers in South Africa are not normally required to report on, or meter, groundwater use. The research team analysed records of an extensive, compulsory registration process for supplementary on-site water sources that was introduced by the City of Cape Town during the prolonged drought between 2004 and 2005. The main objective of this research was to determine the average annual water demand of residential properties serviced via the potable water distribution system, with additional registered access to a supplementary on-site groundwater source. Geo-referencing was employed to determine the approximate coordinate of each property, with subsequent one-by-one verification of each address. The data set initially contained 4 487 properties, but after filtering and verification 3 579 consumers remained in the data set for further analyses. The unique property code was identified for each verified property in order to link the attributes of consumers with access to on-site groundwater sources to their corresponding water meter records, so that the potable water demand for these stands could be analysed. The annual average water demand of the properties was subsequently obtained and analysed for two separate periods, namely, 2010 and 2014. The water use, categorised according to stand size, was similar for both periods. The results showed that consumers with access to groundwater used only about 65% of the estimated average annual water demand when compared to applicable water demand guidelines.


We experimentally demonstrate a sophisticated mid-IR microphotonics platform adopting engineered Si-rich and low-stress silicon nitride (SiNx) thin films where an extensive infrared transparency up to λ = 8.5 μm is achieved. Furthermore, because of the designed low-stress property, the SiNx deposition is able to reach a thickness > 2 μm that significantly reduces mid-IR waveguide loss to less than 0.2 dB/cm. We show directional couplers functioning over a broad infrared spectrum, thus enabling monolithic mid-IR multiplexing schemes for integrated linear and nonlinear photonics leading to sophisticated label-free sensing technologies.