: Understanding identity, including how young people come to aspire to become someone, is vital to address the underrepresentation of minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We report on a two-year, research project where we designed, implemented, and conducted case study research in an after-school program for inner city, middle school students. The program utilizes the school library, new media activities, and science fiction to engage young people to imagine STEM as relevant in their lives. We focus our analysis on two African-American boys, Damian and Jamal, who are best friends and avid gamers. Despite their similar backgrounds, they show starkly divergent identity trajectories while participating in our program. We highlight how they experienced different connected-learning activities and social positioning over time, and how these experiences related to Damian's developing aspiration to become a game designer or scientist, contrasted with Jamal's struggle to imagine a future in STEM.


What does the empirical study of well-being, or happiness research, imply for damage awards in tort? The current consensus is that, in light of the phenomenon of adaptation, current damage awards are likely inflated from a hedonic perspective. If juries properly accounted for the remarkable ability of individuals to adapt to their circumstances, the argument goes, then injuries initially defined by decreases in well-being would be largely defined away by the eventual hedonic rebound. A look at the broader empirical literature on well-being, however, complicates this picture. That is, while claims about the damage-reducing potential of adaptation may be true as far as they go, the current literature has overlooked other, potentially offsetting errors that juries may make in translating hedonic losses into damage awards. Chief among those errors is a common misunderstanding about the amount of well-being any particular amount of money will bring to an injured party. Money just doesn't "buy" as much happiness as people often think, and the courtroom context – by making the restorative powers of money psychologically salient – may exacerbate this misperception. If juries overestimate how much happiness a particular amount of money will bring to a plaintiff, they will underestimate damage awards. Perhaps counterintuitively, the misperception of more hedonic "bang for the buck" means less "bucks" awarded by juries. Thus, while a jury's failure to account for adaptation would tend to increase damage awards above their true hedonic value, while a jury's misunderstanding of the money/well-being connection would tend to decrease them. By placing adaptation in the context of the larger empirical literature on well-being, and comparing recent hedonic valuations of injuries to actual damage awards, this paper challenges the notion that hedonic conceptions of injury necessarily pose a downward threat to damage awards.


IMS Multimedia Telephony service has been standardized in 3GPP as the replacement of the circuit switched telephony service in cellular networks. The multimedia telephony service consists of several service components such as voice, video and text. 'IMS Multimedia Telephony over Cellular Systems' provides a comprehensive overview of the service that will enable enriched telephony for mobile users. Enriched telephony fulfils the user's desire to communicate in new ways, for example by sharing pictures and video clips. In addition to an overview of the Multimedia Telephony service, the book focuses on the modern media processing methods, which allows the quality of the packet switched voice and video telephony not only to match but also possibly exceed the quality of circuit switched telephony. Such key components as adaptive jitter buffering and adaptation of conversational media are explained in detail. Key features: * Detailed description of how Multimedia Telephony sessions are set-up and controlled * Analysis showing the capacity and quality of VoIP and Multimedia Telephony in cellular networks * Coverage of other IMS services such as PoC specified by 3GPP and OMA * Description of suitable QoS and radio bearers for Multimedia Telephony * Explanation of the modern radio interface, especially High Speed Packet Access, which is based on concepts such as link adaptation and fast hybrid ARQ The possibilities for the current and future standards covered in this book make it an indispensable resource for engineers, designers and researchers in VoIP, telecommunication companies and universities teaching and conducting research in telecommunications. It will also be of interest to managers needing an in-depth knowledge of the engineering and key issues of this complex technology, and students aspiring to develop a career in this area.


High sensitive measurement is needed for high and low temperature determination in the scientific and industrial applications. In this study, measurement and calibration system design of K-type thermocouple used in the temperature measurements was examined. The system was performed in two ways using thermocouple integrated circuit and analog-digital converter. Temperature sensors were used for thermocouple cold junction measurement. By adding a wireless transceiver, wired and wireless usages were developed. Control, calibration and display processes were performed with the written interface program. The program was written in a way that practically the thermocouple can be calibrated with reference temperatures. Sample measurements of the established system were compared with the mercury thermometer according to the calibration types. The calibrated results of the performed system with analog-digital converter were found to be the closest to reference thermometer.


The immune system is a complex system of molecules, cells, tissues and organs that protects higher organisms from pathogens or cancerous cells. A proper understanding of the immune system is vital for the development of new vaccines against infectious diseases or immunotherapies against cancer. Mass Spectrometry-based proteomics is an important analytical strategy in vaccinology that enables identification and quantification of proteins in cells or tissue, under normal or treated (diseased) conditions. This thesis covers major methodological aspects in the proteomics workflow, from sample enrichment to peptide identification. Applied to different research questions these methods address challenges in sample complexity and sensitivity, as difficulties in peptide sequencing. A positional proteomics strategy was introduced for the selective isolation of N-terminal peptides. This method effectively reduces the complexity of proteomes and enables the global characterization of N-terminal post translation modifications. The positional proteomics strategy was applied to quantitatively profile the protein content of Neisseria Meningitidisouter membrane vesicles (OMV)-based vaccines. Differences in protein content were found between OMV vaccines produced under different purification conditions. The quantitative proteomics data were sustained by serum blot proteomics, confirming a differential pattern in the antigenic protein content. This thesis furthermore describes the development of a two dimensional (2D) chromatographic separation technique for highly sensitive analysis of complex peptide mixtures. The method employs ion exchange chromatography and reversed phase chromatography in an online configuration. The introduction of a novel buffer system omitted the use of undesirable salts, resulting in an excellent compatibility between 2D liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. Another part of the thesis describes the utility of a recently introduced fragmentation method for the identification of Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) class I-associated peptides. This fragmentation technique employs dual fragmentation to generate both the fragment ions induced by Electron-Transfer Dissociation (ETD) and Higher-energy collision Dissociation (HCD) in a single spectrum. The identification of endogenous peptides considerably benefits from the complementary and informative-rich fragmentation spectra provided by this approach. Novel features in the antigen processing machinery are reported, including a variety of post translational modifications for which evidence is accumulating that they play important roles in human diseases.


In traditional winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cropping regions of the southern Great Plains, production constraints exist because of extreme variability in precipitation during planting periods. Intensive tillage aggravates dry early fall conditions to further hamper wheat emergence and growth. From 1983 through 1991, we determined the effects of three tillage and residue management practices on soil water storage in Bethany (fine, mixed, thermic Pachic Paleustoll) and Renfrow (fine, mixed, thermic Udertic Paleustoll) silt loams on a 2% slope near El Reno, OK. We measured soil management cumulative effects on soil bulk density and water infiltration during and after the 1990-1991 growing season. Every season, no-till soil consistently had higher volumetric water content in the 0- to 1.2-m depth, except in late fall or early spring when root-zone recharge took place for both soils. The gain was corroborated by increased water-holding capacity and decreased bulk density of no-till soils. Seasonal variability of field infiltration was more evident in plowed soil than in no-till soil. Such temporal dependence would affect surface distribution and flow of precipitation to explain differences in runoff, soil erosion, and environmental impacts of tillage systems between October and June. Water infiltration into no-till soil was significantly higher than into plowed soil at similar water contents. Under ponding, recharge occurred through macropores, directly wetting depths of 0.4 to 0.6 m of no-till soil, in contrast to a layered pattern in plowed soil. The phenomenon has many implications on profile recharge rate and solute transport in the field. Therefore, elimination of inversion tillage enhanced precipitation storage, thereby alleviating detrimental effects of climate variability in annual winter wheat cultivation.


Self-Ligation in Orthodontics is a major new text that reviews, analyses and clarifies the currently available peer-reviewed evidence on a number of applications of this technology, espousing diverse perspectives to make this a unique scientific resource on self-ligation. The book embraces all aspects of self-ligating brackets, extending from therapeutic outcome, to biomechanics, materials, and treatment manifestations. Each chapter addresses a specific question pertinent to the properties and clinical performance of self-ligating brackets including: force and moment generation during engagement; temporal variation of force in active self-ligating brackets; periodontal considerations and oral microbiota alterations; root resorption; treatment efficiency and associated dental effects. A work of substantial, thoughtful, and useful scholarship, Self-Ligation in Orthodontics will be a significant resource for clinicians and researchers in orthodontics, and related dental specialists. •First comprehensive resource on self-ligation in orthodontics •Surveys available peer-reviewed evidence •Epitomizes the management of self-ligating treatment suggesting important treatment concepts and tips for the practicing clinician •Includes diverse perspectives to provide a balanced and scholarly approach •Richly illustrated with detailed color clinical images


This study focuses on initial teacher education and results from the shift from college-based to school-based training in recent years. Specifically, the course involved is a post-graduate School Based Teacher Training Scheme (SCITT) in which the main participants are school-based training managers and mentors who hold the major responsibility for training trainee teachers. The study incorporates largely ethnographic research drawn from the participants taking part in several one year P. G. C. E. teacher training courses run by a non profit making Consortium, which is comprised of a partnership of secondary, primary and special schools together with colleges of Further Education.

The data is obtained from introductory questionnaires, analysis of
documentation including the trainees' course and subject handbooks and training documents for mentors, and finally audio-recorded interviews with six mentor-trainee teacher pairs.

The study lays a particular emphasis on the role of support and challenge in mentoring and the effect of mentoring on student teachers' professional growth, specifically their understanding of learning to teach and of pupils' learning. The study is constructed around four themes:-
A. Mentoring and Teacher Professional Development.
B. Teachers' and Student Teachers' Beliefs about Teaching.
C. Student Teachers' Subject Knowledge.
D. Mentoring and Children's Learning.

The importance of the study is the need for more research into the complex relationship between support and challenge in the training of student teachers, when the primary training role is that of the school-based teacher-mentor.

The findings are as follows:-
The study highlights the effectiveness of school-centred initial teacher training schemes in producing competent, thoughtful and highly motivated professionals who place children's learning at the centre of their teaching. It also emphasises the importance of the mentor's role in the student's training and professional growth. In the hands of skilful, experienced mentors the process offers the chance that students can become more rounded professionals providing that mentors are adequately trained.

Trainees were more concerned with immediate classroom skills in early stages of their training. In general, the study found unequal amounts of support and challenge from mentors with the focus largely on support for the student, particularly early in the training. Students tend to lack awareness of being challenged. However, the study concludes that to achieve students' optimum professional growth, high levels of support and challenge are necessary. Support not only to engender improvement in classroom skills but also to enable students to have the confidence to express their personal beliefs about teaching and learning.

The study's findings have important implications for mentor training, namely that if mentors were required to be conversant with theories of knowledge advocated by the SCITT and with the social, moral and ethical issues of teaching, they may be more inclined to challenge students' thinking on these issues. Furthermore, students' beliefs are more likely to be challenged by more skilled and knowledgeable mentors who could then help to clarify these beliefs and perceptions of teaching. Consequently, students may be encouraged to reflect critically on children's learning beyond the aim of enhancing their understanding of subject matter and obtaining academic success,to engage the pupils with these public forms of knowledge.


This book is concerned with the media's role in everyday life, power relations and the construction of masculine identities in the context of prisons. It is based upon unique research into the nature, impact and consequences of a situation where most prisoners in English prisons have access to some media resource, whether radio or television, or with communal or individual access to it.
Captive Audience charts for the first time the way in which prisons use media in coping -- or failing to cope -- with the pressures of prison life, exploring the impact of the media in terms of prisoner' identities, shaping power relations between prisoners and other prisoners, and in helping prisoners 'get through' a prison sentence.
At the same time this book raises a range of broader issues of theory and practice on the nature of the relationship between prisons, criminal justice systems and society more generally, and on the ways in which the media are conceived in everyday life. It will be of interest to all those concerned with prisons, criminology and the criminal justice system, the social role of the media, and the construction of identity.


Abstract Microsatellite markers were used to investigate the mating system of the Estuarine Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). Three-hundred and eighty-six hatchlings from 13 clutches from a wild Northern Territory population, and 364 hatchlings from 21 clutches from a captive North Queensland population, were sampled. All samples were genotyped across five microsatellite loci. Multiple paternity was found in 69% of clutches in the wild population compared to 38% of clutches in the captive population. Up to three possible fathers were indicated in some clutches. Shared paternity was suggested by the presence of a common paternal genotype within two clutches in the wild population and among up to three clutches from a large shared pen in the captive population. The probability of detecting multiple paternity at all loci was high; 95% in the wild population and 98% in the captive population. There was no evidence of increased hatching success in the clutches that indicated multiple paternity compared to single paternity clutches in either population (P = 0.43 to P = 0.67). It is unknown whether the occurrence of multiple paternity in C. porosus is a result of multiple mating within the same breeding season or of sperm stored from matings in a previous season. These results suggest the genetic mating system for C. porosus is not polygynous but more likely promiscuous, and there is no evidence of dominant alpha males who control paternity in large areas.


In African childhood studies, ideas about love, sex and gender are often ignored. Despite love's overarching presence children and young people are often written about as loveless. The study of African childhood sexualities, its gendered effects and the local configurations of power and affects, remains an embryonic field of study. Under the surveillance of sexual violence, disease and girls' particular vulnerability across Africa, much of the scholarship has remained concerned with children as victims and cast within the frame of a suffering sexuality. This article seeks to break from the tendency that ignores love, sex and gender in African children's intimate relations. By drawing on empirical research conducted with children and young people in South Africa, the article demonstrates how boys and girls negotiate and invest in intimacy under varying social conditions. In doing so it hopes to address this missing dimension in African research to reconfigure love, gender and sexuality as a critical part of young people's lives in Africa. In addressing young Africans as active agents in constructing sexualities and their investments in affective dimensions of relationships, the article seeks to arrive at a way of making childhood sexualities as critical to building a fuller account of African childhoods. In doing so this article radically calls into questions studies that curtails sexualities from the studies of children and young people. The article also argues that the benefits of addressing young Africans as sexual with capacities to engender love is important if we are to move beyond the scourge of violence and inequalities and to advance gender-equitable relations in childhood.


This paper provides evidence on the relationship between finance and growth in a fast growing country, such as China. Employing data of 27 Chinese provinces over the period 1995–2003, we study whether the financial development of two different types of financial institutions — banks and non-banks — have a (significantly different) impact on local economic growth. Our findings indicate that banking development shows a statistically significant and economically more pronounced impact on local economic growth.


Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) acts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, a brain region associated with drug-seeking behavior, to decrease self-administration of ethanol in mice. Its receptor is a complex that includes a glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol-linked GDNF family receptor and the receptor tyrosine kinase Ret. Carnicella et al. further explored the signaling mechanisms of GDNF and its effects on ethanol-drinking behavior. Administration of GDNF into the VTA, but not other nearby brain areas, reduced the frequency with which mice activated a lever that administered a dose of ethanol. After treatment of animals with GDNF or saline solution, initial rates of lever pressing for an ethanol reward were similar, but GDNF-treated animals repeated the ethanol-seeking behavior less often and terminated sessions of drinking earlier than did control animals. These effects were evident within 10 minutes after administration of GDNF and were associated with increased activity of the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) ERK1 and 2 (ERK1/2). Pharmacological inhibition of the MAPK pathway prevented the effects of GDNF. Administration of GDNF also was effective in a mouse model of relapse of drinking behavior after a period of extinction of the behavior. The authors conclude that GDNF appears to reduce the incentive value of alcohol and the strength of behavioral reinforcement associated with alcohol consumption. Interestingly, GDNF did not alter self-administration of a "natural" reward such as sucrose. The effect in the relapse model suggests that GDNF's effects extend to modification of ethanol-seeking behavior, as well as limiting ethanol consumption. Thus, the authors propose that GDNF signaling in the VTA might be a useful target for therapeutic intervention in alcoholism in humans. S. Carnicella, V. Kharazia, J. Jeanblanc, P. H. Janak, D. Ron, GDNF is a fast-acting potent inhibitor of alcohol consumption and relapse. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 8114-8119 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The Tangier city knew in the last decades an increasing production of household and industrial waste caused problems critical pollution. The objectives, in this study, were to understand the monitoring of water and sediment quality in Tangier area based on the comparison of hydrochemical data variations and land use changes during the urbanization, to distinguish the impact of natural processes and anthropogenic activities on the water and sediment quality. Six metallic trace elements were investigated at 5 water and sediment sites during 2010 and 2012. Concentrations of selected metals were measured using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). The results obtained show that the level of the station where the discharged wastewater discharges from the Tangier city, there has been a significant change in the values of the principal elements (Cr and Cd). Indeed, the metal content of the sediments of the Mghogha estuary of these elements reach particularly high values at three levels: in the vicinity of discharges upstream and downstream of the Mghogha estuary respectively characterized by a strong industrial activity and a rejection of domestic wastewater. Significant correlations (p<0.05) between Cr-Cd were observed in sediment and Pb-Fe in water.


Through working in over
100 countries during the last
45 years the British Geological
Survey (BGS) has become a
leading international provider
of applied geoscience services.
We undertake an extensive
programme of international
research, surveying and
monitoring, including major
institutional strengthening and
capacity building programmes
throughout the developing
world and especially in Africa.
The programme is managed
by BGS International under
a team of experienced
managers who draw on
specialists from across the
organisation to undertake multidisciplinary,
mainly commercial
contracts. In addition, we
have well-established links
with independent experts,
commercial consultants,
universities and private sector
organisations that can provide
relevant expertise not available
in-house.
We have worked for many
of the principal international
development agencies including
the Department for International
Development (DFID), the
European Union, and the World
Bank; as well as national
governments such as Hong
Kong, Botswana and the United
Arab Emirates.
Our international activities
are mainly directed toward
development issues such
as sustainable resource
development, protection
of people and the natural
environment, quality of life and
poverty alleviation. Many of these
have been long-term residential
projects involving working
closely with governmental
counterpart organisations
through capacity building and
institutional strengthening. We
have assisted governments in
formulating and undertaking
their national geoscientific
mapping programmes and the
development of 'fit-for-purpose'
multi-disciplinary geoscience
policy. Our depth of experience
has produced an unrivalled
understanding of the scientific,
logistic, managerial and cultural
requirements necessary for the
successful design, management
and implementation of multidisciplinary
geothematic projects.
Ongoing international work
includes projects in Papua
New Guinea, Nigeria, the
UAE, Ethiopia, China, the
Falkland Islands, Malawi and
Tanzania. The latter builds on
our long history of international
geological mapping and the
related transfer of knowledge
and skills in developing
countries and was undertaken
under the BGS Geoschool
initiative. This magazine
includes examples of recent
and current projects, including
the Tanzania Geoschool (page
19), that we hope you will find
interesting and welcome your
enquiries.


Viruses outnumber every other biological entity on Earth, and soil viruses are particularly diverse compared to other habitats. However, we have limited understanding of soil viruses because of the tremendous variation in soil ecosystems and because of the lack of appropriate screening tools. Here, we determined the global distribution of more than 24,000 soil viral sequences and their potential hosts, including >1,600 sequences associated with giant viruses. The viral sequences, derived from 668 terrestrial metagenomes, greatly extend existing knowledge of soil viral diversity and viral biogeographical distribution. We screened these sequences to identify a suite of cosmopolitan auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) encoding enzymes involved in soil organic carbon decomposition across soil biomes. Additionally, we provide evidence for viral facilitation of multi-domain linkages in soils by locating a fungal chitosanase in bacteriophages, generating a new paradigm of how viruses can serve as exchange vectors of carbon metabolism across domains of life.


In this article I argue that either the anticipation or the reality of pregnancy and motherhood shaped young women's participation in their senior year in a multiracial urban high school. In my interviews and analyses of public writing and classroom talk, I discovered frequent references to motherhood as young women made ambitious plans for their futures at the same time they worried about children. The article contrasts the discourses of adolescent pregnancy in the mainstream press to the narratives of low-income young women of color in my study. There is a paradox in the narratives I collected: Females without children claimed they could only succeed if they managed to avoid becoming pregnant. Young mothers in the same peer group explained their success or persistence in school as due, in part, to their children. These stories belie simple explanations of the success or failure of females of color living in poverty. The media contentions that these youth don't care, that they have resorted to drugs, babies, and dropping out, fail to acknowledge the complexity of the identities of adolescents living in poverty. In their lives, these young women are actively turning others' constructions of them as failures into their own narratives of success. I suggest that educators and policy makers use students' conceptions of the role that pregnancy and motherhood play in their school careers and futures to rethink the "problem" of teen pregnancy and to reimagine and redefine the opportunity structures available for young women in high school and beyond.


The IT for building a static and centralised infrastructure and applications does not provide companies flexibility to make rapid changes for the needs of evolving business. The changes in a traditional architecture could be complex, inefficient, and costly. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) provides a flexible and standards-based approach to IT architecture that uses a modular approach to delivering IT services. The ability of SOA to integrate with new services quickly and easily has attracted many companies to adopt SOA today. Cloud computing is now persuasive. It has unique capabilities in enabling efficient and cost effective business processes. A company may consider moving their IT architecture to a cloud computing infrastructure. Since SOA and cloud computing share many common characteristics of service orientation for interoperability, this paper discusses the adoption of SOA for the future preparation of the cloud. This paper further illustrates the utility and capabilities of SOA/cloud strategy by discussing its applicability in the domains of e-commerce and inter-enterprise collaboration. Commercially available solutions are surveyed to show the current status and trends in this arena.


The effect of pH on Cd(II) binding capacity of saltbush biomass was determined. Metal quantification performed using ICP/OES showed that Cd binding increased as pH increased from 2.0 to 5.0. The highest percentage of Cd bound ranged from 74-81%, 22-40%, and 70-80% for the native, esterified, and hydrolysed biomass. XAS studies showed that cadmium was present as Cd(II) and oxygen was the nearest neighbouring atom with bond lengths of approximately 2.3 A and coordination numbers ranging between 4 and 5. Results indicated that carboxyl groups may be the primary ligand involved in the Cd binding by saltbush biomass.


Two greenhouse pot experiments were conducted in Agrinion, Greece. The impact of treated municipal wastewater (TMWW) and sludge (i) on the growth of Lactuca sativa L. var Longifolia (lettuce) and (ii) on the extent of soil pollution with heavy metals was studied. Soil pollution was assessed by calculating the Pollution Load Index (PLI). Both of these experiments were conducted, using a randomized block design in four replications and seven treatments, respectively, as follows: (a) Experiment A: study of the effect of treated municipal wastewater (TMWW): [Control, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%, (100%+30 t/ha Sludge)] and (b) Experiment B: Study of the effect of sludge (t/ha): 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, (30+100%TMWW). The sludge affected significantly plant height and fresh and dry matter yield, as well as the dry matter N content of plants, while the TMWW affected significantly the dry matter yield and non-significantly the plant height. The pollution load index (PLI) was non-significant for both treatments (sludge and TMWW). According to PLI calibration scale, the soil was found to be slightly polluted with heavy metals under both treatments.


The focus of the paper is on professionalization of community development with its challenges and prospects in Nigeria. The paper explored the concept of professionalization as a process by which any trade, work or occupation transforms itself into a profession of high standards, integrity and competence in human environment. The paper identified the characteristics of professionalization to include educational and professional qualifications, training, area of specialization, formal certification, code of conduct, establishment of professional body, self regulatory association among others. The paper identified lack of professional culture, lack of interest to promote professionalization of community development, weak professional association, lack of control entry among others as the challenges which militate against professionalization of community development in Nigeria. The paper identified establishment of appropriate educational qualifications, appropriate professional body, self regulatory association, code of conduct, employment of community development professionals and issuance of operational licence to community development professionals as some of the prospects of professionalization of community development in Nigeria. The paper recommends among other things a policy framework to enact a law to make the practice of community development an exclusive domain of community development professionals to practice their profession, entrenchment of professional values and issuance of operational licence to only qualified community development professionals to practice community development as a profession in Nigeria.


Here, we characterize the three-orbital Hubbard model using state-of-the-art determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) simulations with parameters relevant to the cuprate high-temperature superconductors. The simulations find that doped holes preferentially reside on oxygen orbitals and that the (π,π) antiferromagnetic ordering vector dominates in the vicinity of the undoped system, as known from experiments. The orbitally-resolved spectral functions agree well with photoemission spectroscopy studies and enable identification of orbital content in the bands. A comparison of DQMC results with exact diagonalization and cluster perturbation theory studies elucidates how these different numerical techniques complement one another to produce a more complete understanding of the model and the cuprates. Interestingly, our DQMC simulations predict a charge-transfer gap that is significantly smaller than the direct (optical) gap measured in experiment. Most likely, it corresponds to the indirect gap that has recently been suggested to be on the order of 0.8 eV, and demonstrates the subtlety in identifying charge gaps.


HOW TO PORTRAY ACADEMIC SPIRIT. Identity changes in university museums over the last two centuries Mariann Raisma, MA, Director of the University of Tartu History Museum A university museum is like a window into the university. This statement is a concise characterisation of the essence of academic museums. This article examines the identity changes in university museums over the last two centuries and analyses the issues shaping the appearance and role of university museums today. University museums and collections are aggregates of the history of the social elite. Items for such museums are selected based on paradigm shifts and developments in perception of education and science. It is namely through the things preserved in university museums that we see clearly what humankind knows about nature, the universe and human beings. University-based museums are the oldest in Estonia, too: the University of Tartu's Natural History Museum was established in 1802, while its sibling, the Art Museum, was born just a year later. Yet many of the university-owned museums in Estonia and worldwide are quite young and quite a few have the status of mere collections. For instance, the Museum of Tallinn University of Technology was reopened only in 2009. This article analyses types of university museums and the idea behind the concept of academic museums, using as an example the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University. While the university museums existing in the 19 th century focused on lecturing and research work, the 20 th century saw the emergence of a new type of university-based museum that concentrated efforts on historically valuable science- and education-related collections and the history of their university. Two trends are discerned from analysis of such museums in Europe: the first stresses science (science museum/museum of history of science) and the second focuses on the university's history (university museum), with historically valuable scientific materials serving the latter priority. This article highlights the typical issues of modern-day university museums, such as centralisation vs decentralisation, university history vs history of science and curator vs researcher, and discusses the public role of university museums.


The hybrid wireless-optical broadband-access network (WOBAN) is a promising architecture for future access networks. Recently, the wireless part of WOBAN has been gaining increasing attention, and early versions are being deployed as municipal access solutions to eliminate the wired drop to every wireless router at customer premises. This architecture saves on network deployment cost because the fiber need not penetrate each end-user, and it extends the reach of emerging optical-access solutions, such as passive optical networks. This paper first presents an architecture and a vision for the WOBAN and articulates why the combination of wireless and optical presents a compelling solution that optimizes the best of both worlds. While this discussion briefly touches upon the business drivers, the main arguments are based on technical and deployment considerations. Consequently, the rest of this paper reviews a variety of relevant research challenges, namely, network setup, network connectivity, and fault-tolerant behavior of the WOBAN. In the network setup, we review the design of a WOBAN where the back end is a wired optical network, the front end is managed by a wireless connectivity, and, in between, the tail ends of the optical part [known as optical network unit (ONU)] communicate directly with wireless base stations (known as ldquogateway routersrdquo). We outline algorithms to optimize the placement of ONUs in a WOBAN and report on a survey that we conducted on the distribution and types of wireless routers in the Wildhorse residential neighborhood of North Davis, CA. Then, we examine the WOBAN's routing properties (network connectivity), discuss the pros and cons of various routing algorithms, and summarize the idea behind fault-tolerant design of such hybrid networks.


Recessed or juvenile vulva is frequently observed in female dogs of all ages. This may be a normal finding unaccompanied by clinical problems. However, some dogs with recessed vulva develop persistent, repeated infections of the vagina or bladder, and owners may confuse associated symptoms with urinary incontinence. It is often impossible to achieve long-term relief with antibiotic therapy alone, and surgical correction of the recessed conformation of the vulva facilitates treatment of lower urinary tract infection. Introduction Urinary tract infection (UTI) occurs commonly in dogs, and it has been suggested that as many as 15% of all dogs develop UTI during their lifetime [1]. The presence of renal failure or metabolic disorders such as hyperadrenocorticism or diabetes mellitus predisposes animals to urinary tract infection [1]. Accurate determination of the specific bacteria present and the pattern of antimicrobial sensitivity are critical to successful treatment of UTI. Recurrent or persistent UTI may be the result of: 1. use of an inappropriate antibiotic; 2. use of an appropriate antibiotic but for an insufficient length of time; 3. failure to perform urine culture after antibiotic therapy has been discontinued for at least 7 days to confirm control of the infection; 4. presence of calculi; 5. undetected pyelonephritis; 6. prostate disease; or 7. anatomic abnormalities which interfere with treatment of UTI. Contribution of Recessed Vulva to Persistent UTI Primary vaginitis in the absence of structural or hormonal abnormalities is uncommon in dogs. Systemic antibiotic therapy, with or without local flushing of the vagina and vulva, is usually unsuccessful in providing long-term control of vaginitis. Chronic vaginitis is also often associated with urinary tract infection, and it is assumed that this is the result of ascending migration of bacteria. In dogs with chronic vaginitis and/or chronic urinary tract infection, consideration should be given to correcting structural abnormalities, particularly a recessed location of the vulva, as part of the treatment. Chronic urinary tract infection can contribute to apparent 639 2011 WSAVA·FASAVA World Congress Proceedings 14(Fri) ~ 17(Mon) October 2011 ICC Jeju, Korea 2011 WSAVA·FASAVA World Congress www.wsava2011.org Reprinted in IVIS with the permission of WSAVA Close this window to return to IVIS 36th World Small Animal Veterinary Congress 2011 Jeju, Korea urinary incontinence by causing continued irritation and instability of the bladder leading the animal to initiate urination to alleviate discomfort. It has also been hypothesized that urine may be retained within the vagina as a result of structural abnormalities and that this volume of urine may be discharged periodically resulting in evidence of incontinence. It must be emphasized that not all dogs with a recessed (sometimes referred to as "juvenile") vulva will suffer perivulvar dermatitis, chronic vaginitis, or ascending UTI. However, the presence of one or more of these disorders concurrent to recessed conformation of the vulva raises the index of suspicion that the anatomy of the vulva may contribute to the onset or persistence of one or more of these conditions. In one study, correction of recessed vulva resulted in resolution of perivulvar dermatitis in 14 of 15 female dogs and resolutions of symptoms of UTI in all 16 female dogs treated [2]. In another study, surgical correction of recessed vulva was associated with resolution of UTI in 16 of 19 female dogs and pervivular dermatitis in 16 of 20 female dogs [3]. Both these studies indicated that improvement in UTI and perivulvar dermatitis was durable after surgery, although perivulvar dermatitis recurred in 1 dog after substantial weight gain. Bacteria were cultured from 11 of 15 dogs evaluated for vestibulovaginal stenosis, and it was concluded that surgical correction of vaginal stenosis facilitated treatment of chronic or recurrent UTI in these dogs [4]. It was assumed that vaginal stenosis resulted in urine retention, and vaginectomy or resection and anastomosis of the stenotic area were the most effective forms of surgical treatment. However, an extremely high percentage of female dogs have vaginal stenosis in the absence of clinical symptoms, and no correlation was found between vaginal diameter and lower urinary tract disease in one study [5]. Similarly, the presence of a vaginal septum usually remains undetected unless difficulties are encountered during breeding, and there is no evidence that vaginal septa contribute to chronic vaginitis or ascending UTI. Historically, many veterinarians have attributed vulvar hypoplasia to performance of ovariohysterectomy at an early age, but carefully controlled studies have failed to confirm this [6]. Treatment Obesity may contribute to development of redundant skin folds that overly the vulva and aggravate this problem; however, recessed vulva can also be observed in relatively thin dogs. In the author's experience, resection of the redundant skin folds around the vulva (vulvoplasty) has been very effective in controlling perivulvar dermatitis and chronic urinary tract infection and/or urinary incontinence in dogs with a recessed conformation of the vulva. Vulvoplasty is performed by removing an inverted "U"-shaped piece of skin dorsal and lateral to the vulva. In most dogs, there is a large amount of redundant skin available for closure. The amount of skin to be removed can usually be estimated by pinching the perivulvar skin between the thumb and fingers. It is often helpful to use a sterile marking pen to draw the proposed line of incision. This can be reassessed and redrawn to achieve the desired effect. The benefit of having the line of incision clearly marked is that it is easy to lose orientation relative to the vulva because the surrounding tissue is very mobile. It is uncommon that too much skin is removed, and a far more common error is to remove an insufficient amount, leaving the vulva in a recessed position. However, the amount of skin to be removed should be carefully assessed in each dog, because complications with wound healing due to excessive skin tension can occur. The wound is typically closed in 2 layers. Subcutaneous tissues are closed with 3-0 or 4-0 monofilament absorbable suture in an interrupted pattern, and the skin is closed with 3-0 suture in an interrupted pattern. Careful spacing 64


ABSTRACT The conference 'The Many Faces of Epigenetics: Multidisciplinary Perspectives "over" Genetics' was held in Oxford (6–8 December 2017) and offered a valuable window into the domain of Epigenetics and its promises. The workshop revealed that, among a wealth of discourses about Epigenetics, it is not so easy to decipher which discourses are to be trusted. Because Epigenetics is a rather old notion that has generated many debates and promises, defining precisely what has changed and where we are currently is a challenge in itself. Interestingly, the conference allowed debates beyond statements such as 'If you don't know the cause, you say it's epigenetic' (Deichmann 2016), pointing out that the lack of a precise definition of Epigenetics was no hindrance to the discussions. Finally, it highlighted the grounds of (dis)agreement among communities of natural and social scientists; but eventually the discussions showed that epigenetic tools open the path to new topics and challenges that are awaiting us.


Simulation is a powerful tool that is used to understand and analyze the effect of changes on real systems. However, developing and using simulation models requires high-level engineering skills. The objective of this research is to put state-of-the-art problem-solving technologies into the hands of decision makers, e.g. planners and supervisors. This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) that utilizes discrete-event simulation models and heuristic optimization, yet permits effective use without detailed knowledge of the methodologies. The system is developed for the panel shop at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems' (NGSS) Pascagoula Operations; the shop is considered the bottleneck for the shipyard. This system focuses on two key opportunities for improvement: sequencing panel production and resource allocation among steps in the production processes. The DSS is designed to be reused in similar operations at other shipyards and portions of the DSS may be used to apply simulation optimization to most industries


[1] The origin mechanisms and geologic evolution of chaotic terrain on Mars are poorly constrained. Iani Chaos, located at the head Ares Vallis, is among the most geomorphologically complex of the chaotic terrains. Its morphology is defined by (1) multiple, 1 to 2 km deep basins, (2) flat-topped, fractured plateaus that are remnants of highland terrain, (3) knobby, fractured remnants of highland terrain, (4) plateaus with a knobby surface morphology, (5) interchaos grooved terrain, (6) interior layered deposits (ILDs), and (7) mantling material. Topography, the observed geomorphology, and measured fracture patterns suggest that the interchaos basins formed as a result of subsurface volume loss and collapse of the crust, likely owing to effusion of groundwater to the surface. Regional patterns in fracture orientation indicate that the basins developed along linear zones of preexisting weakness in the highland crust. Multiple overlapping basins and fracture systems point to multiple stages of collapse at Iani Chaos. Furthermore, the total estimated volume loss from the basins (104 km3) is insufficient to explain erosion of 104–105 km3 of material from Ares Vallis by a single flood. Comparisons with the chronology of Ares Vallis indicate multiple water effusion events from Iani Chaos that span the Hesperian, with termination of activity in the early Amazonian. Recharge of groundwater through preexisting fracture systems may explain this long-lived, but likely episodic, fluvial activity. Late-stage, early to middle Amazonian aqueous processes may have deposited the ILDs. However, the topography data indicate that the ILDs did not form within lacustrine environments.


This paper proposes a dichotomous choice model that is based on a transformed beta (or "z") distribution. This model, called betit, nests both logit and probit and allows for various skewed and peaked disturbance densities. Because the shape of this density affects the estimated relation between the dichotomous choice variable and its determinants, the greater flexibility of the transformed beta distribution is useful in generating more accurate representations of this relationship. The paper considers asymptotic biases of the logit and probit models under conditions where betit should have been used. It also investigates small sample power and provides two examples of applications that illustrative of the capability of the betit model.


MONITOR is a project from the European Space Agency's GNSS Evolutions Programme started in 2010, dedicated to the collection of data and products during active periods of solar activity for later understanding of the impact of ionospheric effects on EGNOS and Galileo system performance. In the frame of this project several tasks have been achieved, in particular the deployment of a network of scintillation receivers (Novatel + Septentrio + GISMO) mainly at low and high latitudes, the development of a real time Central Archiving and Processing Facility (CAPF) and the development of dedicated processors to generate user oriented outputs for TEC, scintillation, and space weather issues.
This project, in its new phase started in 2014, is moving forward with an improved and updated scope, addressing in addition to general ionospheric monitoring, the generation of dedicated products and reports to EGNOS system evolution, international collaboration in related ionospheric topics including feasibility studies in Africa. The main new features are: an upgraded data archiving system providing improved accessibility, the integration of data from SAGAIE network from French Space Agency, CNES and the exploitation of its data for new products, new station deployment in regions of interest (mainly in West and Central Africa and in high latitudes in Europe), and the upgrade and development of new products allowing better analysis of geophysical conditions during periods of compromised system performance and service. As an example, the Along Arc TEC Rate (AATR index) is computed routinely, as it has proven to be a clear indicator of ionospheric activity that degrades SBAS system performance. In addition, Monitor already produces VTEC maps (obtained using various techniques and algorithms), several space weather indicators including solar flare detection, ROTI maps, indices related to the quality of
measurements and scintillation analysis tools.
This paper focuses on the relationship of an SBAS system (EGNOS, WAAS) to the ionosphere's variability and will analyse in detail the ionospheric parameters leading to a decrease or compromise of system performance. Several case studies will highlight significant EGNOS events for this purpose. The paper will demonstrate how AATR is able to discriminate availability degradation due to ionospheric events from other effects. The ionosphere scintillation aspects and the last developments of the GISM model will also be addressed for this issue.


Personal data is a commodity—frequently bought, sold, and traded on the open market by for-profit and non-profit organizations alike. It is now commonplace for political campaigns to synthesize large amounts of personal information to tailor messaging to particular individuals for persuasion, turnout, and fundraising. As campaigns and other political organizations use data in increasingly sophisticated ways, they have also dramatically increased their data collection and transfer efforts. This Note explores how federal election laws and regulations have failed to keep pace with these developments, creating a loophole through which virtually unlimited money can flow to campaigns.

This Note argues that personal data should be regulated like any other campaign asset. Federal political campaigns are subject to strict contribution limits as well as a comprehensive disclosure regime. Current Federal Election Commission advisory opinions and agency inaction have allowed campaigns to receive valuable personal data at practically no cost, even from organizations like super PACs that are otherwise prohibited from making contributions to campaigns. Perhaps even more troubling is that these contributions are not subject to the disclosure requirements that form the backbone of the federal campaign finance system. The transfer of this class of assets is subject to neither meaningful restrictions nor public scrutiny. This Note details the problem and proposes several simple regulatory changes to close existing campaign finance loopholes.


The paper describes the BotCom complex embedded conversational agent system, which is accessible over the Internet and capable of high quality natural language processing as well as sophisticated manipulation of emotions. It relies on an extension of Plutchik's emotional model. Experimental cases leading to useful constraints for optimization are discussed. BotCom, a prototype for a robust commercial application, is the outcome of both research and realistic development.


The quantitative analysis of iron ore by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is usually complicated due to nonlinear self-absorption and matrix effects. To overcome this challenge, a hybrid sparse partial least squares (SPLS) and least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) model was proposed to analyze the content of total iron (TFe) and oxides SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, and MgO in iron ore. In this study, 24 samples were used for calibration and 12 for prediction. Sparse partial least squares was used for variable selection and establishing the multilinear regression model between spectral data and concentrations; LS-SVM was used to fit the residual errors of the SPLS regression model to compensate for the nonlinear effects. The model parameters were determined by using the tenfold cross-validation (CV) method. With the hybrid model, the root-mean-square-error of prediction (RMSEP) values of TFe, SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, and MgO were 0.6242, 0.3569, 0.0456, 0.0962, and 0.2157 wt%, respectively. The results showed that the hybrid model yielded better performance than only the conventional SPLS or LS-SVM model. This study demonstrated that the hybrid model is a competitive data processing method for iron ore analysis using LIBS.


Who should decide what makes one's life good? This is a long-standing question that has recently led to an unresolved discussion between two leading figures of the contemporary political and social theory, namely Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. In this discussion, addressing the adverse effects of unjust social conditions on people's choices such as the problem of adaptive preferences, Nussbaum proposes a philosophically-informed list of aspects of the good life developed from a particular normative account. However, the reasoning behind her proposal, I argue, involves three flaws that appear due to absence of a sociologically-informed account of people's choices. First, considering that unjust social conditions can adversely affect not only people's choice on aspects of good life, but also their choices in achieving these aspects, developing a list from a philosophical account of the good life cannot be a solution against these adverse effects. Second, Nussbaum excessively generalises her findings based on data involving a quite limited number of disadvantaged women in a way that her findings are applicable to all disadvantaged people living in varied social settings. Third, both existing empirical evidences and the qualitative data I collected in three distinct settings of Turkey demonstrate that disadvantaged people are not necessarily those who, as Nussbaum implicitly addresses, are unable to develop sophisticated/reasoned judgements on their material conditions, but might be those who must have developed the ability of deliberately adapting their preferences to make a living within given structural inequalities.


Space division multiple access (SDMA) aided orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems assisted by efficient multi-user detection (MUD) techniques have recently attracted intensive research interests. Forward error correction (FEC) schemes and frequency-domain spreading techniques can be efficiently amalgamated with SDMA-OFDM systems for the sake of improving the achievable performance. A coded modulation (CM) assisted and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) multi-user detected SDMA-OFDM system combined with Walsh-Hadamard-transform-spreading (WHTS) across a number of subcarriers is proposed. The various CM schemes used are trellis coded modulation (TCM), turbo TCM (TTCM), bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) and iteratively decoded BICM (BICM-ID); they constitute bandwidth efficient schemes that combine the functions of coding and modulation. Invoking the WHTS technique makes possible further improvement of the average bit error rate (BER) performance of the CM-SDMA-OFDM system, since the bursty error effects imposed by the frequency-domain fading encountered are spread over the entire WHT block length, therefore increasing the chances of correcting the transmission errors by the CM decoders.


Blood Vessel Disease
Aneurysms are the abnormal enlargement of arteries and can lead to death if the artery wall bursts. Oller et al. studied patients with Marfan syndrome, an inherited genetic condition in which individuals are prone to cardiac aneurysms. They discovered lower levels of ADAMTS1 in the heart tissue of Marfan syndrome patients compared with that of organ transplant donors. Genetic inactivation of ADAMTS1 in mice resulted in a Marfan syndrome-like disease, which included low blood pressure, aortic dilation, and aneurysm development. These effects were driven by enhanced activity of nitric oxide, and treatment with a nitric oxide inhibitor reduced blood vessel size and reversed the clinical signs of aneurysm formation.

Nat. Med. 10.1038/nm.4266 (2017).


This work addresses a method for improving vertical whole body vibration isolation through optimal seat suspension design. The primary thrusts of this investigation are: (1) the development of a simple model that captures the essential dynamics of a seated human exposed to vertical vibration, (2) the selection and evaluation of several standards for assessing human sensitivity to vertical vibration, and (3) the determination of the seat suspension parameters that minimize these standards to yield optimal vibration isolation. Results show that the optimal seat and cushion damping coefficients depend very much on the selection of the vibration sensitivity standard and on the lower bound of the stiffnesses used in the constrained optimization procedure. In all cases, however, the optimal seat damping obtained here is significantly larger (by than a factor of 10) than that obtained using existing seat suspension design methods or from previous optimal suspension studies. This research also indicates that the existing means of assessing vibration in suspension design (ISO 7096) requires modification.


In this paper we present a system permitting controlled policy administration and delegation using the XACML access control system. The need for these capabilities stems from the use of XACML in the SweGrid Accounting System, which is used to enforce resource allocations to Swedish research projects. Our solution uses a second access control system Delegent, which has powerful delegation capabilities. We have implemented limited XML access control in Delegent, in order to supervise modifications of the XML-encoded XACML policies. This allows us to use the delegation capabilities of Delegent together with the expressive access level permissions of XACML.


CLEF (Co-operative Clinical e-Science Framework) is an MRC sponsored project in the e-Science programme that aims to establish methodologies and a technical infrastructure forthe next generation of integrated clinical and bioscience research. It is developing methodsfor managing and using pseudonymised repositories of the long-term patient histories whichcan be linked to genetic, genomic information or used to support patient care. CLEF concentrateson removing key barriers to managing such repositories ? ethical issues, informationcapture, integration of disparate sources into coherent ?chronicles? of events, userorientedmechanisms for querying and displaying the information, and compiling the requiredknowledge resources. This paper describes the overall information flow and technicalapproach designed to meet these aims within a Grid framework.


This thesis describes research in the area of automated industrial inspection using machine vision systems. It is anticipated that the algorithms described will contribute to the design of a machine vision system for the automatic surface inspection of cylindrical pellets.
Firstly, the acquisition and segmentation of pellet tray images using area capture is described. Individual pellets are segmented from a pellet tray image by a novel system using the Radon transform coupled with data clustering. Subsequent to the segmentation, the linking of four pellet views depicting the entire circumferential area of the pellet is described along with a simple technique to compensate for intensity variations brought about by imaging the three-dimensional cylindrical surface of the pellet.
The image processing techniques of filtering, edge detection, thresholding and morphology are used in the segmentation of grey level pellet defect images. The grey level pellet images are low-pass filtered and binary images formed using edge detection with thresholding. Binary morphology operators are then used in conjunction with a termination condition based on the number of objects in the image to ensure homogenous defect representations. The problem of overlapping defects is addressed, resulting in a second algorithm using the Radon transform coupled with data clustering.
Prior to classification salient features are extracted from a set of synthetic binary defect images to form feature vectors. The novel idea of image object classification using 100% fuzzy inference is described, and results are shown to be superior to results obtained by feature space classifiers. The sub-classification of crack defects is carried out using a heuristic classifier, and the parameterisation of pellet defects is described.


The thesis describes an investigation into the use of rectangular dielectric waveguide (RDWG) as a new technique for the determination of both complex permittivity and moisture content of oil palm fruits. The technique is analysed from the viewpoint of assessing its suitability as a simple, quick and flexible approach to permittivity and moisture measurements. An effective permittivity model is proposed where the rectangular dielectric waveguide/sample/rectangular dielectric waveguide interfaces are represented by a homogeneous medium with an effective permittivity obtained from the solution to the wave equation in the rectangular dielectric waveguide whilst the effective permittivity of the sample was found using a dielectric mixture model. The transmission and reflection coefficients are considered to be the effective values due to various interactions at the rectangular dielectric waveguide/sample/rectangular dielectric waveguide interfaces, which include both the radiation and guided modes. The measurement system consists of a HP8720B Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), rectangular dielectric waveguide, WR-90 standard waveguides and horn antennas. All microwave measurements were carried out using the VNA in the frequency range between 8 GHz and 12 GHz. A dielectric measurement software has been developed to control and retrieve data from the VNA using Agilent Visual Engineering Environment Software. The actual moisture content was found by applying standard oven drying method. A calibration equation relating the measured return loss and actual moisture content was established. The sensitivity of the rectangular dielectric waveguide sensor at 10 GHz is dB/% moisture content. The complex permittivity of the fruit samples was calculated using two methods. In the first method, the permittivity was calculated by inserting predicted moisture content values from an empirical relationship between the return loss and moisture content in the oil palm fruits into a dielectric mixture model. The second method directly calculates both the moisture content and permittivity using an optimization routine. The accuracy of the technique for the determination of moisture content was tested on 500 different fruit samples and was found to be within ±5% of the mean moisture content value from the standard oven drying method. The rectangular dielectric waveguide technique can be used to monitor fruit ripeness based on the measurement of the magnitude of the reflection coefficient alone. Fruit bunch with return loss values between 4.4 and 4.7 dB are considered ripe.


After 18 ICAD conferences, Auditory Display has become a mature research community. However, a robust evaluation and scientific comparison of sonification methods is often neglected by auditory display researchers. In the last ICAD 2012 conference, only one paper out of 53 makes a statistical comparison of several sonification methods and still no comparison with other stateof-the-art algorithms is provided. In this paper, we review profitable standards in other communities and transfer them to derive recommendations and best practices for auditory display research. We describe SonEX (Sonification Evaluation eXchange), a community-based framework for the formal evaluation of sonification methods. The goals, challenges and architecture of this evaluation platform are discussed. In addition, a simple example of a task definition according to the guidelines of SonEX is also introduced. This paper aims at starting a vivid discussion towards the establishment of thorough scientific methodologies for auditory display research and the definition of standardized sonification tasks.


Opportunities offered by high performance computing provide a significant degree of promise in the enhancement of the performance of real-time flood forecasting systems. In this paper, a real-time framework for probabilistic flood forecasting through data assimilation is presented. The distributed rainfall-runoff real-time interactive basin simulator (RIBS) model is selected to simulate the hydrological process in the basin. Although the RIBS model is deterministic, it is run in a probabilistic way through the results of calibration developed in a previous work performed by the authors that identifies the probability distribution functions that best characterise the most relevant model parameters. Adaptive techniques improve the result of flood forecasts because the model can be adapted to observations in real time as new information is available. The new adaptive forecast model based on genetic programming as a data assimilation technique is compared with the previously developed flood forecast model based on the calibration results. Both models are probabilistic as they generate an ensemble of hydrographs, taking the different uncertainties inherent in any forecast process into account. The Manzanares River basin was selected as a case study, with the process being computationally intensive as it requires simulation of many replicas of the ensemble in real time.


In the frame of a vectorial, pure operatorial (nonmatrix) Pauli algebraic approach to the action of the polarization devices on the polarized incident light, we obtain the analytic equation of the ellipsoid into which a deterministic device deforms any Poincare sphere corresponding to incident light of a given degree of polarization. On the basis of this equation, some graphical representations of the ellipsoid of the output polarization states are given, offering a better characterization of the global action of deterministic devices.


The changing structure of the food marketing system focuses attention on competitive relationships existing in food industries. Conventional measures of profits, such as profit rates on stockholders' equity and on total assets, often are used to appraise the performance of these industries. This article points out some of the shortcomings of these profit ratios, giving special emphasis to the impact of leasefinancing. Many retail chains use leases to finance their long-term capital needs, but few food processors do. When a firm finances its capital by leasing rather than by ownership or mortgage, the firm's net profit and its stockholders' equity each represent a larger percentage of total assets. As leased assets do not appear on the balance sheet, they represent implicit leverage. The following estimates present value of leased assets for a group of large food processing and retailing firms by capitalizing rental obligations. Total assets plus leased assets give total capital supplied by owners, creditors, and lessors. Gross returns to this capital are nearly equivalent for processors and retailers in spite of inequalities in conventional profit ratios. Some implications of this finding are considered.


Different languages adopt different grammatical options - SV, VS orders, (reduced) clefts - to answer the same question on the identification of the subject. The answering strategies are detected through speakers' grammaticality judgements and through acquisition data, specially adult L2 acquisition. The direct relevance of acquisition data in raising and help clarifying theoretical issues is meant to be among the contributions of the article. The different answering strategies, analyzed in cartographic terms as involving either the VPperipheral internal focus position or focalization in situ, are all in principle available in different languages, provided that no formal condition is violated in the interaction with other properties, the crucial one being the null-subject vs non null-subject nature of the language. The different answering strategies are in place early on in first language monolingual acquisition. Speculative hypotheses on economy and the characterization of development, are put forth on the reason(s) why a strategy should prevail over the others, in compliance with formal conditions.


A diagrammatic summary of the membrane actions of anesthetics and tran-quilizers is shown in figure 15. According to the definition of an anesthetic as a drug which directly blocks the membrane action potential, without appreciably affecting the resting potential, a wide variety of lipid-soluble compounds may be considered as anesthetics. Under conditions of general anesthesia the membrane concentration of an anesthetic is 0.003 moles/kg dry membrane, the anesthetic occupying a volume of 0.02% in the membrane phase. Under conditions of local anesthesia the membrane concentration is 0.04 moles/kg membrane, with an occupying volume of 0.3% in the membrane. The partitioning into the membrane is about 1/10 that of olive oil and about ⅕ that of octanol. These figures hold for many nerve-blocking drugs, and in order to explain differences in the in vivo action of these drugs, other factors must be considered, such as anesthetic sensitization etc. The biomembranes expand or swell about 10 times more than the anesthetic volume of occupation in the membrane, 0.4% expansion occuring under conditions of general anesthesia, and 2 to 3% expansion occuring under conditions of local anesthesia. Although the anesthetics electrically stabilize the membrane, they fluidize and disorder the components within the membrane, probably including membrane water. As a consequence of membrane expansion, membrane-associated enzymes and proteins can be either stimulated or inhibited. The pathways for facilitated fluxes of solutes across membranes are invariably depressed, presumably because of the conformation changes brought about by the membrane-expanding anesthetics; the Na+-conductance channel of the action potential appears to be one of these facilitated pathways. The anesthetic amines displace membrane-bound Ca++ and generally depress passive fluxes of cations. The neutral anesthetics generally increase membrane-bound Ca++ and generally increase the passive fluxes. The membrane fluidization may explain the enhanced neurosecretion of membrane-bound materials, by a mechanism of membrane-membrane fusion.


A biography of a brilliant, largely forgotten maverick - a major figure in the 17th-century cultural and scientific revolutions. The brilliant, largely forgotten maverick Robert Hooke was an engineer, surveyor, architect and inventor who was appointed London's Chief Surveyor after the Great Fire of 1666. Throughout the 1670s he worked tirelessly with his intimate friend Christopher Wren to rebuild London, personally designing many notable public and private buildings, including the monument to the fire. He was the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, and author and illustrator of 'Micrographia', a lavishly illustrated volume of fascinating engravings of natural phenomena as seen under the new microscope. He designed an early balance-spring watch, was a virtuoso performer of public anatomical dissections of animals, and kept himself going with liberal doses of cannabis and poppy water (laudanum). Hooke's personal diaries - as cryptically confessional as anything Pepys wrote - record a life rich with melodrama. He came to London as a fatherless boy of thirteen to seek his fortune as a painter, rising by his wits to become an intellectual celebrity. He never married, but formed a long-running illicit liaison with his niece. A dandy, boaster, workaholic, insomniac and inveterate socialiser in London's most fashionable circles, Hooke's irascible temper and passionate idealism proved fatal for his relationships with men of influence, most notably with Sir Isaac Newton, who, after one violent row, wiped Hooke's name from the Royal Society records and destroyed his portrait. In this lively and absorbing biography, Lisa Jardine at last does Hooke and his achievements justice. Illuminating London's critical role in the emergence of modern science, she rediscovers and decodes a great original thinker of indefatigable curiosity and imagination, a major figure in the 17th-century intellectual and scientific revolution.


Design Routes provides a comprehensive review of culturally significant designs, products and practices which are rooted to particular communities through making tradition and a sense of place. Many rich traditional practices associated with community, tacit knowledge and culture are being rapidly lost due to globalization and urbanization. Yet, they have much to offer for the future in terms of sustainability, identity, wellbeing and new opportunities in design. This book considers the creative roots, the place-based ecologies, and deep understandings of cultural significance, not only in terms of history and tradition but also in terms of locale, social interactions, innovation, and change for the sustainment of culturally significant material productions. Importantly, these are not locked in time by sentimentality and nostalgia but are evolving, innovative, and adaptive to new technologies and changing circumstances. This volume considers the historical roots of culturally significant designs, products and practices, emerging directions, amateur endeavours, enterprise models, business opportunities and the changing role and contribution of design in the creation of material cultures of significance, meaning and value. An international perspective is provided through case studies and research from North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia. It comprises five main sections: 1. Culturally Significant Designs, Products and Practices; 2. Authenticity and Tradition in Material Culture; 3. Revitalization by Design; 4. Enterprise, Policy and Education for Positive Development; and 5 Design Futures.


The function of the dark central floret (DCF) in the wild carrot, Daucus carota L. (Apiaceae), is uncertain. It has been suggested that it is a vestigial structure without a function, that it serves as a long or short distance signal to attract pollinators, or that it might function as a defense mechanism against herbivores. We experimentally assessed the role of the umbel size and height in the attractiveness of the DCF to insects in a coastal population of D. carota in western Turkey. We did not find differences in the number of insect visits between umbels with a DCF and umbels in which the DCF was removed when they were of average diameter (10 cm) and were placed either at the average inflorescence height (120 cm) or at 147 cm above ground. Similarly, we did not find differences in the number of insect visits before and after the removal of the DCF from an umbel or between umbels of small (5–7 cm) and large (11–13 cm) diameters. However, umbels of average diameter with DCF received more insect visits than those without it when we placed them at 81 cm above ground. These results suggest that umbel height, not diameter per se, influences the attractiveness of the DCF in the studied population. Thus, our study supports the hypothesis that DCF function depends on ecological context, reliant on both the visitor community and the predominant flower phenotype.


In speech recognition systems language model (LMs) are often constructed by training and combining multiple n-gram models. They can be either used to represent different genres or tasks found in diverse text sources, or capture stochastic properties of different linguistic symbol sequences, for example, syllables and words. Unsupervised LM adaptation may also be used to further improve robustness to varying styles or tasks. When using these techniques, extensive software changes are often required. In this paper an alternative and more general approach based on weighted finite state transducers (WFSTs) is investigated for LM combination and adaptation. As it is entirely based on well-defined WFST operations, minimum change to decoding tools is needed. A wide range of LM combination configurations can be flexibly supported. An efficient on-the-fly WFST decoding algorithm is also proposed. Significant error rate gains of 7.3% relative were obtained on a state-of-the-art broadcast audio recognition task using a history dependently adapted multi-level LM modelling both syllable and word sequences.


Standard sequential generation methods assume a pre-specified generation order, such as text generation methods which generate words from left to right. In this work, we propose a framework for training models of text generation that operate in non-monotonic orders; the model directly learns good orders, without any additional annotation. Our framework operates by generating a word at an arbitrary position, and then recursively generating words to its left and then words to its right, yielding a binary tree. Learning is framed as imitation learning, including a coaching method which moves from imitating an oracle to reinforcing the policy's own preferences. Experimental results demonstrate that using the proposed method, it is possible to learn policies which generate text without pre-specifying a generation order while achieving competitive performance with conventional left-to-right generation.


The current state-of-the-art in feature learning relies on the supervised learning of large-scale datasets consisting of target content items and their respective category labels. However, constructing such large-scale fully-labeled datasets generally requires painstaking manual effort. One possible solution to this problem is to employ community contributed text tags as weak labels, however, the concepts underlying a single text tag strongly depends on the users. We instead present a new paradigm for learning discriminative features by making full use of the human curation process on social networking services (SNSs). During the process of content curation, SNS users collect content items manually from various sources and group them by context, all for their own benefit. Due to the nature of this process, we can assume that (1) content items in the same group share the same semantic concept and (2) groups sharing the same images might have related semantic concepts. Through these insights, we can define human curated groups as weak labels from which our proposed framework can learn discriminative features as a representation in the space of semantic concepts the users intended when creating the groups. We show that this feature learning can be formulated as a problem of link prediction for a bipartite graph whose nodes corresponds to content items and human curated groups, and propose a novel method for feature learning based on sparse coding or network fine-tuning.


Fully-observable high-order Boltzmann Machines are capable of identifying explicit highorder feature interactions theoretically. However, they have never been used in practice due to their prohibitively high computational cost for inference and learning. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach for learning a fully-observable high-order Boltzmann Machine based on sparse learning and contrastive divergence, resulting in an interpretable Sparse High-order Boltzmann Machine, denoted as SHBM. Experimental results on synthetic datasets and a real dataset demonstrate that SHBM can produce higher pseudo-log-likelihood and better reconstructions on test data than the state-of-the-art methods. In addition, we apply SHBM to a challenging bioinformatics problem of discovering complex Transcription Factor interactions. Compared to conventional Boltzmann Machine and directed Bayesian Network, SHBM can identify much more biologically meaningful interactions that are supported by recent biological studies. To the best of our knowledge, SHBM is the first working Boltzmann Machine with explicit highorder feature interactions applied to realworld problems.


The time-critical tasks on the Internet are increasing. The delays in these tasks can have severe implications on the Quality of Experience (QoE) of a service. Therefore, networks require smart user-centric resource management mechanisms to reduce the impact of these delays on QoE. For this, a better understanding of the user preferences with regards to service performance is a prerequisite. In this paper, we present user responses to the three different distributions of delays, occurring during shopping sessions on the Web. By keeping the overall waiting time of the sessions same, we show how the users respond differently to the different set of delays. We analyzed the user responses and found that, the users prefer small frequently occurring delays as compared to the long rarely occurring delays within a task-based session.


Northern fulmars are seabirds which feed exclusively at sea, and as such, they are useful indicators of ocean health. Marine plastic pollution is an ever-increasing and global issue that affects the northern fulmar as they are frequently found to have ingested plastic. In this report we investigate whether the amount of ingested plastic affects the concentration of certain plastic-adsorbed toxicants in their tissues. Marine plastic pollution is a field of utmost importance. It is our hope that this continues to be an area which receives increased attention in order to elucidate the potential harmful effects plastics have on the northern fulmar and ocean health, in general.


Henry Friendly is frequently grouped with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Learned Hand as the best American jurists of the twentieth century. In this first, comprehensive biography of Friendly, David M. Dorsen opens a unique window onto how a judge of this caliber thinks and decides cases, and how Friendly lived his life. During his time on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1959-1986), Judge Friendly was revered as a conservative who exemplified the tradition of judicial restraint. But he demonstrated remarkable creativity in circumventing precedent and formulating new rules in multiple areas of the law. "Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era" describes the inner workings of Friendly's chambers and his craftsmanship in writing opinions. His articles on habeas corpus, the Fourth Amendment, self-incrimination, and the reach of the state are still cited by the Supreme Court. Dorsen draws on extensive research, employing private memoranda between the judges and interviews with all fifty-one of Friendly's law clerks - a veritable Who's Who that includes Chief Justice John R. Roberts, Jr., six other federal judges, and seventeen professors at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and elsewhere. In his Foreword, Judge Richard Posner writes: "David Dorsen has produced the most illuminating, the most useful, judicial biography that I have ever read ...We learn more about the American judiciary at its best than we can learn from any other ...Some of what I've learned has already induced me to make certain changes in my judicial practice".


Melting experiments of pressed granitic powders (10% < 3.23 m, 50% < 31.63 m, 90% < 169.85 m) have been performed at 1175°C, 1 atm for different run durations (5, 10, 40 mn and 3, 24, 68 h). During partial melting, quartz and feldspars progressively decrease in abundance, the amount of melt produced increases sharply after 40 mn and leads to a strong decrease of the porosity of the powder (from 42% before heat-treatment to 10% after 68 h). In the 5 mn charge, thin glass films (1-2 m) appear cementing small particles grains and narrow glass channels are formed and trapped within both albite and K-feldspar. Newly-formed K-feldspars appear in the 10 and 40 mn charges. They are both texturally and compositionally distinctive from the original feldspars. All feldspars have totally disappeared after 3 h and quartz (up to 330 m) persists in the longest experiment (68 h). For durations longer than 40 mn, glass compositions are chemically zoned. They vary mainly between two end-members, one rich in normative feldspar components and poor in normative quartz and the other rich in normative quartz corresponding to areas close to the quartz interface. The melting reaction is governed by disequilibrium melting. Two melting regimes were identified: (1) a low melt fraction regime corresponding to heterogeneous nucleation of melt at the surface and within interiors of both albite and K-feldspar and (2) a high melt fraction regime kinetically controlled by diffusive mass transport within the melt layer. The lack of leucite implies that the melting relations of K-feldspar observed in this study are congruent. About 50 days are needed for the melting reaction to approach chemical equilibrium at 1175°C.


Since 2000, diverging regional gas demand and production trends have induced a wider and more flexible network of trade-flows in an increasingly interconnected gas world, accelerated by unforeseen shocks in both supply and demand. North America and the UK entered the 2000s with liberalised markets and after many years of pro-competition EU regulatory initiatives, the dominance of oil-indexation in continental Europe began to wane in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2013 a combination of base price reductions and rebates brought Russian long term contract prices in competitive markets close to hub levels. The major lesson from North American and European gas markets is that financial distress of major utilities is transformative. This certainly pertains to the situation of Japan's power generation companies who, excluding TEPCO, are currently losing in excess of $10 billion per year because of the need to import higher quantities of LNG (due to the shutdown of nuclear plant) at prices linked to crude at prices in excess of $100/bbl. Given the scale of the Asian importers existing oil-indexed LNG contracted portfolios (and hence the limited scope for adjusting price dynamics much before 2020) and the oil-indexed pricing expectations of non-US prospective suppliers, there is a developing mismatch in pricing aspirations not just for future, but also possibly for existing, contracts. The prospect of new supplies of US LNG post 2015 offers an alternative to the status quo in terms of pricing models. This paper argues however that rather than basing new contracts on a US price benchmark, Asian buyers should develop a price formation mechanism more attuned to national or regional fundamentals. The paper concludes that we may move from todays 'contractual impasse' scenario to either a 'smooth contractual transition' or, less desirable for all parties, a scenario described as the 'contractual train wreck'. While the growth of an liquid LNG trading hub is seen as a key enabler to move to a more rational pricing reference point for Asian LNG contracts, the paper recognises the not insubstantial challenges in achieving this, calling for institutional and policy change on the part of buyers as well as sellers in this crucial, historically high growth, market segment.


The habitat selection and foraging ecology of scarlet robins (Petroica multicolor) and flame robins (Petroica phoenicea) were observed for three years at a site of breeding-season sympatry in order to examine seasonal patterns of foraging behaviour, habitat and resource use, and the significance of competition for food as a cause of interspecific aggression. Both species occupied habitats with open ground layers of grass or bark, and a sparse shrub-and-sapling layer. Flame robins occupied more mesic habitats; scarlet robins occurred in drier habitats. Seven habitat variables provided 73% separation between habitats occupied by the two species of robin. Both species foraged mostly on the ground during the cooler months. In summer and autumn, scarlet robins became snatchers of arthropods from bark and foliage substrates, and flame robins hawked for flying insects close to the ground. High overlap between their use of available foraging space, especially vertical foraging space, probably caused interspecific competition for food and space, leading to interspecific aggression and territorial behaviour. Such competition, in conjunction with the flame robin's interspecific dominance and apparently greater resilience to practices such as timber harvesting, may cause long-term changes to the distribution and relative abundance of each species. Recommendations for habitat management are considered briefly.


Contemporary document research involves the need to use the latest technologies and analytical techniques that provide the most complete possible knowledge of contemporary issues and methods of document research. Documents are used to record legal actions and events of legal significance. By their essence, they are therefore closely related to the sphere of rights and obligations of a specific person or institution. Crimes against documents pose a threat to the proper functioning of the state and thus the development of every enterprise. They affect, directly or indirectly, the misallocation of financial resources at the disposal of an enterprise. Forging documents may be aimed at obtaining unauthorized access to specific sources of financing, influencing key management decisions made in the company, or, finally, concealing inconvenient facts. On the other hand, the social harm suffered as a result of forging documents of evidence significance in tax matters may be enormous. For this reason, it is necessary to deepen the knowledge of the dynamics characterizing document forgery in the sphere of economic activity in order for the state to activate mechanisms able to prevent this type of crime. The article describes the issues of selected tax frauds in Italy with the use of accounting documents.


Patient values represents one of the three cornerstones of contemporary human EBM definitions, and are considered vital to both protect the patient from the tyranny of unsuitable treatment and to ensure the individual is central in clinical decisions. They comprise "unique preferences, concerns and expectations of each patient" (Sackett et al 1996). By stark contrast, EBVM replaces individual patient values with "circumstances of each patient, and the circumstances and values of the owner/carer" (CEVM 2015). There is a danger that in such a conception, animal welfare may not be prioritised in EBVM practice. Animal patients are not philosophically or scientifically likely to possess the complex values of humans, but it is conceivable that they possess 'values' in the context of veterinary interventions, such as preferences, wants, needs and desires; indeed these underlie much animal welfare science. They may be basic, such as the avoidance of suffering and a desire to continue life, or more complex, such as a desire to maximise pleasure or natural behaviour. They are likely to be individual and dynamic. They may be defined as the unique dynamic mental preference state of an animal during the period of veterinary medical or surgical intervention, including avoidance of suffering and maximisation of health and pleasure. EBVM's current consideration of patient values only extends to demonstrating effectiveness, or not, of an intervention for an animal. Any intervention involves some physical or mental welfare compromise for animal patients, which may be severe; EBVM aims to ensure this harm 'cost' is consistently outweighed by therapeutic 'benefit'. However, in current EBVM the evidence is often weak, incomplete, contradictory, fuzzy, non-existent or inapplicable, meaning there is a significant risk of causing harm to the patient's welfare when practising EBVM. This stands in opposition to a veterinary surgeon's oath and ethical imperative to do no harm, and to do the best for her patients' welfare (RCVS 2015). At what point does the risk become ethically unacceptable? The answer comprises both philosophical considerations, and empirical, critically anthropomorphic attributions of values to animals. Such conceptions and techniques are not currently explicitly expounded in EBVM research or practice. Rather than being marginalised or excluded from definitions of EBVM, this presentation will argue that patient values should be the central, primary and overriding consideration in both its practice and research if EBVM is to be an ethically acceptable pursuit.


Title of Document: ROLL CONTROL FOR UAVs BY USE OF A VARIABLE SPAN MORPHING WING Janisa Jernard Henry, Master of Science, 2005 Directed By: Dr. Darryll J. Pines, Ph.D., Department of Aerospace Engineering This thesis presents variable span wing morphing (VSWM) as an effector of roll control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this study, the roll coefficients obtained from VSWM are quantified by theoretical and experimental data and compared with typical aileron roll coefficients. We see that small changes in span are an effective alternative to conventional ailerons for producing roll. The standard six-degree of freedom (6-DOF) model that describes aircraft dynamics is revisited. We derive and examine the extra inertial terms that morphing introduces into the moment equations of the 6-DOF model. In this thesis, we derive simple expressions for these additional terms. In particular, we are able to extract a single degree of freedom model by considering the case of a pure roll. This model describes the dynamics of an aircraft executing a pure roll by means of span morphing. The critical distinction between the well-known aileron model and the span model derived in this thesis is clear. The span model contains an additional term whose behavior tends to modify the total damping. ROLL CONTROL FOR UAVs BY USE OF A VARIABLE SPAN MORPHING WING


In this paper, we address the problem of allocating disk resources to guarantee specified latency and throughput targets of VMs while keeping efficient disk I/O. Accordingly, we present two-level scheduling framework, namely Flubber, in Xen-based hosting platform that decouples latency and throughput allocation. The high-level throughput control regulates the pending requests from the VMs, in order to meet the throughput requirements of different VMs and ensure isolation. Meanwhile, the low-level latency control, by the virtue of the batch and delay EDF mechanism, reorders all pending requests from VMs based on the their deadlines, and batches them to the disk device considering the locality of accesses across VMs. We have implemented Flubber with intensive evaluations on Xen-based host. The results show that Flubber can simultaneously meet the different service requirements of VMs while improving the efficiency of the physical disk. In contrast to CFQ, besides that Flubber achieves the desired QoS of each VM, Flubber speeds up the sequential and random read by 17% and 25% due to the efficient physical disk utilization.


Traditional business models coped with the complexity inherent in buying complex capital assets that will be operated and maintained over many years by a division of labour based on subsets of the value chain. Recently, customers in a wide range of sectors are not buying subcontract production or construction capacity but procuring business 'solutions'. As a result, inter‐organizational interactions are changing in terms of their scale, scope and dynamic, requiring us to reconsider those mechanisms that coordinate inter‐organizational behaviour. Correspondingly, a conceptual model is developed that explores how contractual and relational mechanisms interact across different levels of analysis and over time. Reflecting on the implications of the model highlights how contractual and relational governance mechanisms are distinct but inseparable parts of a governance continuum, involving multi‐level interactions and transitions. Given that these interactions/transitions influence the behaviour of exchange partners and impact on the effectiveness of the overall governance mix, these (albeit conceptual) insights should be beneficial to academics, practitioners and policy makers involved in complex product–service systems.