What political and economic factors stimulate growth and make an economy expand? These original contributions by some of today's leading macroeconomists and political economists explore a broad spectrum of social, political, and technological variables that encourage or impede economic growth. Topics range from economic reform and price flexibility to the economic effects of political coups and include both theoretical analysis and empirical results. During the past decade, economists have seen important new developments linking growth and business cycles to government policy. These contributions provide a clear understanding of these processes and their effect in shaping economic policy. They look at the welfare side of economics and offer strong economic models to explain the connection between social policies and economic growth. For example, John Londregan and Keith Poole address the economic effects of political coups, Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini explore the question of whether inequality is harmful for growth, and Stephen Parente and Edward Prescott look at the role of technology adoption in stimulating growth. The essays cover a wide range of approaches. Several focus on the interaction between growth and the choice of policy, where policy reacts to economic and distributional considerations through a majority rule process. Others take the policy as given and focus on the empirical estimation of the speed of convergence of rates of growth across states and regions and the importance of externalities and knowledge spillovers for rates of growth. Essays about the business cycle fall into two broad categories. One, arising from the new political economy tradition, examines the effects of elections and price decontrols on the business cycle. The other explores the implications of optimal economic policies in a representative agent framework for the cyclical behavior of the economy.


This systematic review, commissioned by the Humanitarian Evidence Programme and carried out by a team from the EPPI-Centre, University College London (UCL), draws together primary research on mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programmes for people affected by humanitarian crises in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It investigates both the process of implementing MHPSS programmes and their receipt by affected populations, as well as assessing their intended and unintended effects. What are the barriers to, and facilitators of, implementing and receiving MHPSS interventions delivered to populations affected by humanitarian emergencies? What are the effects of MHPSS interventions delivered to populations affected by humanitarian emergencies? What are the key features of effective MHPSS interventions and how can they be successfully developed and implemented? What are the gaps in research evidence for supporting delivery and achieving the intended outcomes of MHPSS interventions?
The systematic review, together with corresponding executive summary and evidence brief, forms part of a series of humanitarian evidence syntheses and systematic reviews commissioned by the Humanitarian Evidence Programme. Other reports in the series review the evidence on interventions or approaches to mental health, child protection, market support and household food security, acute malnutrition, pastoralist livelihoods, shelter self-recovery and urban response.


Background Low-volume high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is emerging as a time-efficient exercise strategy for improving cardiorespiratory fitness and for controlling blood sugar levels and hypertension. In addition, patient acceptance of HIIT may improve adherence to exercise programs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of HIIT for improving the mental and physical health of people with chronic schizophrenia. Methods Twenty patients attending a psychiatric day care unit volunteered for an 8-week program of HIIT. Blood pressure, resting heart rate, body weight, body mass index, waist and hip circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio were measured weekly. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale score was recorded at baseline and at the end of the study. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores were recorded every 2 weeks. Results Statistically significant changes occurred in the physical and mental parameters measured in the 18 patients who completed the study. Body weight, body mass index, resting heart rate, and pulse pressure decreased significantly. Mean arterial pressure and diastolic blood pressure increased significantly. Mental health scores improved, with the Negative Scale score decreasing from 31.17±5.95 to 27.78±3.57 (P<0.01) and the General Psychopathology Scale score from 14.28±2.16 to 13.00±1.72 (P<0.01). Positive Scale scores changed, but not significantly, from 12.28±2.27 to 12.33±2.00 (P=0.729). Scores on the BDI (from 19.56±15.28 to 15.89±14.33, P<0.001) and BAI (from 13.67±13.83 to 10.06±11.18, P=0.003) both improved significantly. Conclusion This study demonstrated that HIIT has positive effects on the physical and mental health of patients with chronic schizophrenia.


To assist our residents in attaining and maintaining a high standard for their quality of life. The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority will provide services and opportunities associated with affordable, desirable, and secure housing to individuals and families. We will provide customer service, programs and amenities which are the best possible. The BMHA also has a number of goals: to provide safe, clean, affordable housing to residents of the City of Buffalo that will be considered housing of choice; to encourage and participate in strategic redevelopment of city's neighborhoods; to offer all residents equal access to desirable housing and communities; to foster a sense of purpose and pride that will encourage family self-sufficiency; to encourage tenant participation and involvement in BMHA operations and services as well as providing access to entrepreneurial development and employment opportunities.


The Object Management Group's model driven architecture defines a system development approach that formally separates system specification from platform implementations - in platform-independent models and platform-specific models, respectively. According to MDA, software development involves a sequence of model mappings that transform an initial PIM to a final PSM that is precise enough for direct translation into an executable program. A mapping is a set of rules and techniques for translating one model into another. When the starting and final models are expressed in the same formalism, the mapping is said to be intralanguage; otherwise, it is interlanguage. We focus here on interlanguage mapping, showing the central role of formalism extension mechanisms in managing the abstraction-level gap between languages as well as the platform-level details of specific implementations.


Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a new technology which uses temporary near-field heating of the media during write to increase hard disk drive storage density. By using a plasmonic antenna embedded in the write head, an extremely high thermal gradient is created in the recording media (up to 10 K/nm). State-of-the-art HAMR media consist of grains of L10-FePt exhibiting high perpendicular anisotropy separated by 1–2 nm-thick carbon segregant. Next to the plasmonic antenna, the difference of temperature between two nanosized FePt grains in the media can reach 80 K across the 2 nm-thick grain boundary. This represents a gigantic local thermal gradient of 40 K/nm across a carbon tunnel barrier. In the field of spincaloritronics, much weaker thermal gradients of ~1 K/nm were shown to cause a thermal spin-transfer torque (TST) capable of inducing magnetization switching in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). Considering on the one hand, two neighboring grains separated by an insulating grain boundary in an HAMR media can be viewed as an MTJ, and on the other hand, the thermal gradients in HAMR are 1–2 orders of magnitude larger than those used in the conventional spincaloritronic experiments; one may expect a strong impact from these TSTs on magnetization switching dynamics in HAMR recording. This issue has been totally overlooked in the previous investigations on the development of the HAMR technology. This paper combines theory, experiments aiming at determining the polarization of tunneling electrons across the media grain boundaries, and micromagnetic simulations of the recording process taking into account these thermal gradients. It is shown that the thermal in-plane torque can have a detrimental impact on the recording performances by favoring antiparallel magnetic alignment between neighboring grains during the media cooling. Implications on media design are discussed in order to overcome the influence of these thermal torques. Suggestions of spincaloritronic experiments taking advantage of these huge thermal gradients produced by plasmonic antenna are also given.


An understanding of the extent, distribution and patterns of genetic variation is useful for estimation of any possible loss of genetic diversity and assessment of genetic variability and its potential use in breeding programs, including establishment of heterotic groups. This study assessed patterns of genetic diversity and relationships among 30 West African sorghum accessions using 22 microsatellite markers. Population structure and within population genetic diversity was also assessed using the same markers. Genotypic data was generated using the ABI Prism 3730 and alleles called and sized using genemapper software version 3.7. Molecular data was analyzed using DARwin 4.0, powermarker 3.0 and Arlequin version 3.11. The average marker quality index was 0.27 while a mean PIC of 0.54 was observed across the 22 SSR markers. Among the 30 accessions, the markers detect a total of 146 alleles with an average of 6.6 alleles per marker. Results from the various statistical analyses performed revealed a wide range of polymorphism from 22.7 to 86.4%. The mean heterozygosity was relatively low at 0.28 while the average Nei's genetic diversity among the 30 populations was 0.57. The within population Nei's genetic diversity assessed from 49 individuals in 10 populations was lower at 0.54 and the average heterozygosity was also lower at 0.21. Cluster and principal coordinate analysis of the 30 populations revealed two distinct groups independent of their geographic origins The examination of the hierarchical partitioning of genetic variation by AMOVA demonstrated that genetic differentiation was significant at P < 0.00. Of the total diversity, 8.9% was attributed to country differences, 54.11% was attributed to population differences within the countries while 36.99% was attributed to differences within populations. The F ST value (0.63) indicated a very high genetic differentiation as expected for selfing species. This study demonstrates the utility of SSR markers in detecting polymorphism, estimating genetic diversity and establishment of genetic clusters for heterotic studies. Keywords: Genetic diversity, heterozygosity, SSR microsatellites, heterotic grouping, alleles, polymorphism African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol 13(14), 1503-1514


This paper addresses the issue of the increasing infringement of European football supporters' civil rights and liberties since the mid-1980s. The analysis of the national and supranational regulation of football hooliganism in the light of the evolution of crime control policies in Europe reveals that this jeopardising of freedoms, owing to the institutionalisation of the control of deviance and the blurring of the frontiers between the executive and the legislative powers, is not a side-effect of the counterhooliganism policies. It is inherent to the very structure of the regulation of the phenomenon in that it stems from the rationale of the crime control patterns that frame it.


DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS HARGROVE, JASMINE J. B.S. SPELMAN COLLEGE, 2011 STRUCTURALAND ELECTRONIC PROPERTIES OF GRAPHENE-BASED MATERIALS Committee Chair: Xiao-Qian Wang, Ph.D. Thesis dated July 2014 This thesis includes work done on graphene-based materials, examining their unique electronic properties using first-principles density-functional calculations. Abinitio methods such as density functional theory (DFT) are widely accepted as computational methods in condensed matter and materials physics. We begin by studying the electronics properties of graphene intercalation compounds (GICs). In order for bilayer graphene to be used for field effect transistors, the GIC must decouple the adajent graphene layers and decrease interlayer interaction. We conducted a theoretical study in order to elucidate the electronic characteristics of methane intercepted bilayer graphene under a perpendicularly applied electric field. We show that methane intercalated graphene can make a promising material for implimentations of graphene based field effect transistors since it has a controllable band gap. Finally, we show the evolution of band structure of graphene treated with fluorinated olefins through covalent functionalization. The bonding of fluorine to the graphene surface results in the transformation of orbital hybridaztion from sp2 to sp3. We find that the modification of graphene's electronic properties by such a drastic change in i hybridization can lead to the elimination of the bands near the Fermi level and the opening of a band gap. We hope this work will help bring to light the promising electronic properties of graphene based materials for future device applications.


The processes by which individual sperm cells navigate the length and complexity of the female reproductive tract and then reach and fertilise the oocyte are fascinating. Numerous complex processes potentially influence the movement of spermatozoa within the tract, resulting in a regulated supply of spermatozoa to the oocytes at the site of fertilisation. Despite significant differences between species, breeds and individuals, these processes converge to ensure that an optimal number of high quality spermatozoa reach the oocytes, resulting in successful fertilisation without a significant risk of polyspermy.

Computational modelling provides a useful method for combining knowledge about the individual processes in complex systems to help understand the relative significance of each factor. In this thesis, the first agent based computational model of sperm behaviour within the oviductal environment has been created.

First, a generic conceptual model of sperm behaviour within the 3D oviduct is presented. Sperm are modelled as individual cells with a set of behavioural rules defining how they interact with their local environment and regulate their internal state.

Secondly, a set of 3D models of the mammalian oviduct were constructed. Histology images of the mouse oviduct were obtained and the path that the oviductal tube follows through the tissue was identified using CUDA based image analysis. This was used to determine cross-sectional topology, and measurements from the cross sections were used to generate a set of accurately scaled 3D models of the oviduct.

The process of constructing and validating the agent-based computational model of sperm movement and transport within the oviductal environment is described. The model is grounded in reality, with accurate space and time scales used throughout, and parameters and mechanisms from literature where available. Sensitivity analysis is performed on all parameters, and those which are most sensitive to variation have been identified. The model has been validated against literature were possible, and the limitations of the model, validation and assumptions made are clearly stated.

The model has been used to investigate the significance of the oviductal environment on the regulation of sperm distribution and progression to the site of fertilisation, and how changes to that environment alter the distribution. Finally, the potential use for the model and how more complex mechanisms could be integrated in the future are discussed.


Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, is involved in a variety of diseases including the tumor growth. In response to various angiogenic stimulations, a number of proteins on the surface of vascular endothelial cells are activated to coordinate cell proliferation, migration, and spreading processes to form new blood vessels. Plasma membrane localization of these angiogenic proteins, which include vascular endothelial growth factor receptors and integrins, are warranted by intracellular membrane trafficking. Here, by using a siRNA library, we screened for the sorting nexin family that regulates intracellular trafficking and identified sorting nexin 9 (SNX9) as a novel angiogenic factor in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). SNX9 was essential for cell spreading on the Matrigel, and tube formation that mimics in vivo angiogenesis in HUVECs. SNX9 depletion significantly delayed the recycling of integrin β1, an essential adhesion molecule for angiogenesis, and reduced the surface levels of integrin β1 in HUVECs. Clinically, we showed that SNX9 protein was highly expressed in tumor endothelial cells of human colorectal cancer tissues. High‐level expression of SNX9 messenger RNA significantly correlated with poor prognosis of the patients with colorectal cancer. These results suggest that SNX9 is an angiogenic factor and provide a novel target for the development of new antiangiogenic drugs.


The main Afrotropical malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto, is undergoing a process of sympatric ecological diversification leading to at least two incipient species (the M and S molecular forms) showing heterogeneous levels of divergence across the genome. The physically unlinked centromeric regions on all three chromosomes of these closely related taxa contain fixed nucleotide differences which have been found in nearly complete linkage disequilibrium in geographic areas of no or low M-S hybridization. Assays diagnostic for SNP and structural differences between M and S forms in the three centromeric regions were applied in samples from the western extreme of their range of sympatry, the only area where high frequencies of putative M/S hybrids have been reported. The results reveal a level of admixture not observed in the rest of the range. In particular, we found: i) heterozygous genotypes at each marker, although at frequencies lower than expected under panmixia; ii) virtually all possible genotypic combinations between markers on different chromosomes, although genetic association was nevertheless detected; iii) discordant M and S genotypes at two X-linked markers near the centromere, suggestive of introgression and inter-locus recombination. These results could be indicative either of a secondary contact zone between M and S, or of the maintenance of ancestral polymorphisms. This issue and the perspectives opened by these results in the study of the M and S incipient speciation process are discussed.


The Blackout Crew have a song with the title 'Put a donk on it' - but what is a 'donk'? Which ending came first: '-ise' or '-ize'? Where does the idea of a 'white elephant' come from? Who decides on the collective noun for something? And what is it that made the crocodile cry? Sparkling with insight and linguistic curiosity, this delightful compendium answers 101 of the most intriguing questions about the English language, from word origins and spelling to grammar and usage. Irresistible to anyone with an interest in the words around them. Supported by Oxford's celebrated dictionary research programme, Susie Dent tackles these and many other fascinating questions in this wonderfully accessible and endlessly entertaining exploration of the English language.


With advances in technologies and revolutions in patient, trainee, and public expectations, the global healthcare sector is increasingly turning to serious games to solve problems. Serious games are applications with serious purposes, developed using computer game technologies more often associated with entertainment. Serious Games for Healthcare: Applications and Implications will introduce the development and application of game technologies for health-related serious games. Further, it provides cutting-edge academic research and industry updates which will inform readers about the current and future advances in the area. Encapsulating the knowledge of commercial and noncommercial researchers, developers, and practitioners in a single volume will benefit not only the research and development community within this field, but could also serve public health interests by improving awareness and outcomes.


An assessment of Cd0.9Zn0.1S window layer thickness and its impact on photoresponse uniformity in CdTe thin film photovoltaic (PV) devices is presented. A triple-wavelength laser beam induced current (LBIC) system provided a spatially resolved photocurrent mapping technique. Three diode lasers; λ = 405, 658, 810nm gave photon absorption and carrier generation characteristics over the spectral range of the Cd0.9Zn0.1S/ CdTe devices. Two contrasting device structures were grown by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD), where the uniformity of the Cd0.9Zn0.1S window layer was known to vary: 1. uniform 240 nm Cd0.9Zn0.1S/ 2 μm CdTe and 2. a poorly nucleated 40 300 nm Cd0.9Zn0.1S/ 2 μm CdTe. Calculated photon penetration depths, δp allowed for the separation of identified defects within the device cross-section. Cd0.9Zn0.1S pin holes were identified in 240 nm Cd0.9Zn0.1S/ 2 μm CdTe where 405 nm photon 'punch-through' into the absorber material was observed. These pin holes also led to a localised reduction in photoresponse at λ = 658 and 810 nm. In the device structure where the Cd0.9Zn0.1S window layer thickness was known to vary from 40 to 300 nm, CdTe pin holes were identified where localised ~ 50 μm regions of reduced photoresponse, at all wavelengths were observed. Local variations in both Cd0.9Zn0.1S and CdTe thickness were also identified where variable absorption led to a distribution of LBIC photoresponse. It was demonstrated that reduced photoresponse uniformity at all incident wavelengths was related to reduced device shunt resistance, Rsh and open-circuit voltage, Voc.


WE INVESTIGATED THE CONTRIBUTION OF TONAL relationships to the perception of musical ideas and to the feelings of "arousal." Two excerpts of piano sonatas by Beethoven and two atonal variants were used as experimental stimuli. This manipulation destroyed the tonal relationships but preserved both the local and global temporal organization (rhythm and formal). Listeners were asked to indicate the onset of musical ideas, to estimate the arousing properties of the music in a continuous response task, and to rate the similarity of the pieces. A drastic change in the pitch structure strongly affected judgments of similarity. However, it had no effect on the segmentation of musical ideas, nor on the response of arousal. This finding emphasizes the importance of local and global levels of temporal structures on perceptual and emotional judgments, at the cost of the influence of tonal relationships.


ABSTRACT We investigate whether financing constraints affect the size distribution of Chinese industrial firms from 1998 to 2007. Although the firm size distribution does not follow Zipf distribution in China, it is approaching Zipf distribution over time. In general, financing constraints have a robustly negative effect on the size distribution of firms. Furthermore, firms in Western China grow significantly more equally after controlling for financing constraints. However, the effect of financing constraints in Central China is significantly negative, and the effect of financing constraints on firm size distribution in Eastern China is insignificant. We thus expect a non-linear relationship between financing constraints and firm size distribution.


Completeness is usually listed as a desirable attribute of specifications; incompleteness, as a reason for the failure of software to satisfy its intended requirements. Unfortunately, these terms are rarely given anything but intuitive definitions, making it unclear how to achieve the former or, alternatively, avoid the latter. This thesis begins by examining various notions of (in)completeness in specifications, and introduces a pragmatic definition of incompleteness: a classification based on its potential sources. From this, it observes that completeness, though needed to properly reason about, and capture the behaviour of, the system, is undesirable in some cases. To reconcile these conflicting needs, this thesis proposes a novel formal method for (partially) tolerating incompleteness in specifications. The method focuses on one of the classes. A connection is drawn between this class and a group of related problems involved in reasoning about time and action in artificial intelligence: the qualification, frame, and ramification problems. Both endeavors must contend with incomplete information. Since the techniques employed to deal with these problems usually involve non-monotonic logics, a number of such logics are considered, but most rejected. Shoham's logic of chronological ignorance, however, shows promise. Its shortcomings are addressed, and an extension of it defined. This serves as the formal basis for the specification language KAT, which is intended for real-time, concurrent systems. The thesis concludes with a description of the language, a discussion of pragmatic issues, including how it permits fairly easy modification of specifications, and a specification of a telephone system demonstrating its use


Current approaches to off-road autonomous navigation are often limited by their ability to build a terrain model from sensor data. Available sensors make very indirect measurements of quantities of interest such as the supporting ground height and the location of obstacles, especially in domains where vegetation may hide the ground surface or partially obscure obstacles. A generative, probabilistic terrain model is introduced that exploits natural structure found in off-road environments to constrain the problem and use ambiguous sensor data more effectively. The model includes two Markov random fields that encode the assumptions that ground heights smoothly vary and terrain classes tend to cluster. The model also includes a latent variable that encodes the assumption that vegetation of a single type has a similar height. The model parameters can be trained by simply driving through representative terrain. Results from a number of challenging test scenarios in an agricultural domain reveal that exploiting the 3D structure inherent in outdoor domains significantly improves ground estimates and obstacle detection accuracy, and allows the system to infer the supporting ground surface even when it is hidden under dense vegetation.


Background: Given the complexity of microsurgical breast reconstruction, there are many opportunities to improve both surgical efficiency and outcomes. The use of two operating surgeons has been employed, but the outcomes are unproven. In this study, the authors compare the outcomes of patients undergoing microsurgical breast reconstruction with one operating surgeon to those with two surgeons. Methods: A retrospective review of all patients undergoing microsurgical breast reconstruction between July of 2011 and January of 2014 at a single academic institution was conducted. Patients were divided into two cohorts: those undergoing reconstruction with one surgeon and those having reconstruction with two surgeons. Once identified, patients were analyzed and outcomes were compared. Results: A total of 157 patients underwent 248 microsurgical breast reconstructions during the study period. One hundred three patients (170 flaps) had two surgeons and 54 patients (78 flaps) had one surgeon. Patients undergoing unilateral and bilateral reconstructions with two surgeons had decreased mean operating room time by 60.1 minutes and 134 minutes (p < 0.001) and length of stay by 1.8 days and 1.3 days (p < 0.05), when compared to a single surgeon. Additionally, patients with one surgeon were more likely to have postoperative donor-site breakdown at 5.1 percent (n = 4) versus 0.6 percent (n = 1) (p = 0.0351). Conclusions: The use of two operating surgeons has demonstrable effects on the outcomes of microsurgical breast reconstruction. The addition of a second surgeon significantly decreases operating room time and shortens hospital length of stay in both unilateral and bilateral reconstruction. It also significantly decreases donor-site wound healing complications. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, III.


A model for thermal dispersive effects due to self-heating in electron devices at different "case" temperatures is here presented. The model is based on an equivalent voltage approach, which has already been used for taking into account dispersive effects due to charge trapping phenomena in FETs. According to this approach a virtual non-dispersive associated device controlled by equivalent port voltages is defined, in such a way to be compatible with modelling based on standard non-linear dynamic approaches. The equivalent-voltage description of dispersive effects can be identified on the basis of conventional measurements carried out under static and low-frequency small-signal operating conditions and takes into account both charge trapping effects in FETs and self-heating in a comprehensive way. A preliminary experimental validation of the proposed approach is presented.


Manuscript Type
Review

Research Question/Issue
This study focuses on the role of Say-on-Pay as a mechanism that aims to promote the efficiency of corporate governance by providing an additional channel for the expression of shareholder "voice." Initially introduced in the UK, Say-on-Pay has subsequently been adopted in a large number of countries and it has recently received significant attention from regulators, media, and the general public. The purpose of this study is to review prior literature related to Say-on-Pay and its impact on firm value and corporate decision making.

Research Findings/Insights
Our study highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research on Say-on-Pay. We also shed light on conceptual gaps and empirical discrepancies in prior studies, indicating that many questions linked to Say-on-Pay and its importance for the executive pay-setting process remain largely unanswered.

Theoretical/Academic Implications
At a theoretical level, we highlight potential areas for development of the existing theoretical framework for Say-on-Pay, which is at present rather limited and primarily influenced by agency theory. At an empirical level, we propose a substantial number of avenues for fruitful future research on this topic.

Practitioner/Policy Implications
In the light of recent proposals for extending the role of Say-on-Pay within the corporate governance framework, our findings are particularly relevant to regulators. More thought is needed about changing its nature from advisory to binding, as the degree of its effectiveness and the dynamics of the voting process are still unclear. Our study could also be informative for the media and the general public, especially given the increasing attention afforded to Say-on-Pay.


Since 2005, the public has lived with high and volatile prices for basic energy and agricultural commodities. The public focus on this unprecedented commodity price volatility has been intense, because a large proportion of the cost of living borne by individuals and families in the U.S. (and around the globe) is represented by commodities-based costs, notably food, fuel, and clothing. Interestingly, as commodity prices have shown more price volatility, there has been an accompanying significant increase in the volume of commodities futures and swaps transactions, as well as commodities markets open interest. Moreover, Commodity Index Traders ('CITs'), a relatively new type of participant, now collectively make up the single largest group of non-commercial participants in commodities futures markets. These CITs, which represent giant institutional pools of capital, have at times been the single largest class of participant, outweighing bona fide hedgers (producers and consumers of commodities) and traditional "speculators," who take short-term bi-directional bets and provide liquidity. Given both the size and the specific and largely homogeneous investment strategy of the CITs, many market observers have concluded that this group is most likely responsible for greatly disrupting price formation in commodities futures markets. Further, it has been posited that this distortion has directly led to recent unprecedented price volatility and higher absolute price levels for numerous food and energy commodities in markets around the world. Using a new set of analytic approaches, the authors seek to test whether the behavior of CITs has impacted commodities prices in a manner independent of fundamental supply and demand forces. Specifically, we examine the behavior of futures price spreads before, during, and after the monthly CIT 'Roll' period, a set period from the 5th to 9th business day of each month, during which funds tracking the most popular commodity index, the Standard & Poor's Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) must roll forward their expiring futures contracts. We find strong evidence that the CIT Roll Cycle systematically distorts forward commodities futures price curves towards a contango state, which is likely to contribute to speculative 'boom/bust' cycles by changing the incentives of producers and consumers of storable commodities, and also by sending misleading and non-fundamental, price signals to the market.


Amphiphilic diblock copolymers, poly(2-(diethylamino)ethyl methacrylate-co-2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate)-b-poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate), P(DEAEMA-co-DMAEMA)-b-PDMAEMA with various amounts of DEAEMA have been synthesized by RAFT polymerization. Their micellization in water has been investigated by scattering measurements over a wide pH range. It appeared that the polymers self-assembled into pH sensitive star like micelles. For a given composition, when the pH is varied the extent of aggregation can be tuned reversibly by orders of magnitude. By varying the copolymer composition in the hydrophobic block, the onset and extent of aggregation were shifted with respect to pH. This class of diblock copolymer offers the possibility to select the range of stimuli-responsiveness that is useful for a given application, which can rarely be achieved with conventional diblock copolymers consisting of homopolymeric blocks.


Seismic reflection methods have been developed through several innovative steps in the history. They are : CDP (or CMP), geophone grouping, deconvolution and seismic migration methods evolved from 1960s through 1980s. Although their assumption was horizontally stratified layers, these techniques have been taken into standard acquisition and processing chain to image invisible subsurface structures such as petroleum reservoirs even for relatively complex structure where the assumption may break up.Due to the recent tendency to have their target structures in smaller scale or more complex than it used to be, new tendency is about to be brought into the existing processing chain. We may summarize the tendency as follows : a) true amplitude acquisition/processing to detect seismic signals with non-grouped geophones, i.e., mono-geophone acquisition, b) 4-C marine data acquisition (tri-component geophone and pressure gauge), c) deconvolution for deep water with vertical or deep-tow cable, d) multichannel signal processing to form seismic beams to enhance S/N, e) inclusion of anisotropy and attenuation to help quantitative processing like AVO (Amplitude Versus Offset), f) multi-resolutional imaging using measurements with different frequency signals, and g) GLI (Generalized Linear Inverse) type imaging.


#1 New York Times bestselling author Victoria Kann is back with a new I Can Read story featuring Pinkalicious! When Pinkalicious goes on a class trip to the birdhouse, she can't wait to see all the different birds-especially the rare pink parakeet! Pinkalicious sees lovebirds, peacocks, toucans, and even one very chatty parrot, but no parakeet-until she spies it escaping from the birdhouse! Everyone gets in a flap, and it's up to Pinkalicious to bring her feathered friend back home. This is a Level One I Can Read book that is perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences.


Since 1999, 59 icebergs have been tagged with GPS buoys in the Weddell Sea to enable monitoring of their position. The icebergs chosen were of small to medium size, with a few icebergs larger than 10 km associated with the calving of icebergs A38 and A43 from the Ronne Ice Shelf. The majority of icebergs were tagged off Neumayer Station (8 E, 70S). The observed drifts of icebergs and sea-ice showed a remarkably coherent motion. The analysis of an iceberg - sea-ice buoy array in the western Weddell Sea and an iceberg array in the eastern Weddell Sea showed a coherent sea-ice iceberg drift in sea-ice concentrations above 86%. Differential kinematic parameters (DKP) during the course of coherent movement were low anddeviations from the mean course associated with the passage of low-pressure systems. Iceberg and thus freshwater export out of the Weddell Sea was found to be highly variable. In one year the majority of buoys deployed remained in the Weddell Sea, constituting about 40% of the NCEP P-E freshwater input, whereas in other years all of the tagged icebergs were exported.


Although known for its sandy beaches and pounding surf, historic Cape Cod is also home to a unique community of mushrooms that can be found on its heaths, pine and oak barrens, and on the borders of its bogs, kettle ponds, and cedar swamps. Here is the definitive guide to the highly varied mycoflora of Cape Cod and the National Seashore. It contains accurate and up-to-date descriptions and over 150 color illustrations that help the reader identify over 250 indigenous mushroom species. The scope of this work goes well beyond the identification of mushrooms. The authors provide information that increases the readers awareness of the fragile nature of Cape Cod's various ecosystems and the critical role that mushrooms play in helping to preserve them.


A number of methods have been used to extract, purify and characterise the major storage proteins of dry seeds of Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. 'Seafarer'. Four fractions, which together account for the majority of the proteins solubilised by alkaline salt extractants and separated by pulyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, ' are described. The predominant protein, accounting for about 60% of the total protein content of the seed, is a vicilin-like protein, and is composed of two subunits, with molecular weights 50,000 and 47,000. A second protein fraction, prepared by zonal isoelectric precipitation, is a legumin-like protein; a third fraction was found to agglutinate erythrocytes. Amino acid compositions are presented for these protein fractions and their identity with storage proteins prepared in previous studies is discussed. The fourth fraction was not characterised. The protein content of protein bodies prepared by two methods was compared; the method of preparation was found to have a significant effect on the apparent distribution of both storage proteins and trypsin inhibitor activity. Variations in the distribution of storage proteins within the cotyledon are also described. The formation of storage protein during seed development and its subsequent mobilisation during seed germination was followed by SDS gel electrophoresis. Changes in proteolytic activity during germination were determined and attempts were made to identify the in vivo location of storage protein hydrolysis and the possible effect of endogenous inhibitors on this process.


In this paper, we investigate the impact of spatial coupling on the thresholds of turbo-like codes. Parallel concatenated and serially concatenated convolutional codes as well as braided convolutional codes (BCCs) are compared by means of an exact density evolution (DE) analysis for the binary erasure channel (BEC). We propose two extensions of the original BCC ensemble to improve its threshold and demonstrate that their BP thresholds approach the maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) threshold of the uncoupled ensemble. A comparison of the different ensembles shows that parallel concatenated ensembles can be outperformed by both serially concatenated and BCC ensembles, although they have the best BP thresholds in the uncoupled case.


High speed milling has been realized owing to a number of component technologies. The advancement of these technologies plays a pivotal role in practical application of high speed milling. Cutting tool is one of the most important component technologies among them. Especially, ball end mills, which are the central tools for die and mould machining, have wide usage. Therefore, ball end mills with long tool life and high machining performance are strongly demanded. However, the relationship between tool shapes of ball end mill and high speed milling has not been made clear since it is hard to analyze some complex tool shape parameters. The study focuses on the cutting edge shapes of ball end mills, and allows the creation of micro-lands on rake face and flank face in order to make tool lives longer and keep machining more stable. They are named Neg-land (land between cutting edge and rake face) and Pos-land (land between cutting edge and flank face). High speed cutting experiments enable us to recognize some specific cutting characteristics of created ball end mills. Based on the obtained characteristics, ball end mills with an original cutting edge shape (Opt-tool) are again proposed and produced. As a result, it is experimentally found that the Opt-tool shows the longest tool life and the highest machining performance in high speed milling.


A template for worked out problems and tutorials on the internet, as presented in former CBLIS conferences, was recently extended with an evaluation system. At the end of a session the student is prompted to fill in a questionnaire. Evaluation data, together with variables from the template (answers to questions in the courseware, timely information) are gathered on a central location. The system is used for evaluation of the courseware supporting a first year university physics course. Apart from the internet data, a paper and pencil questionnaire at the end of the course provides information about the students' study habits and preferences. In this way an answer is expected to the question, which supporting courseware will be appropriate for students with a certain profile of study habits. The paper gives the results of the evaluation. Furthermore a discussion is given which data can be gathered online and what kind of data are collected preferably by means of an additional questionnaire.


In this paper we focus on the relationship between remittance inflows and financial inclusion in developing countries. We present single equation estimates on remittances and financial inclusion, and system estimates in which economic growth is explained by e.g., financial inclusion, and financial inclusion by, e.g., remittances inflows. These regressions clearly confirm our main hypothesis that remittances have a development impact through their effect on financial inclusion. Overall, our paper indicates the importance of studying the effects of remittances in developing countries. Remittances, in terms of size, are not only one of the main capital inflows in developing countries, often even more substantial than ODA, but they also appear to have a robust positive effect on economic growth.


Alteration of liver function is an inevitable phenomenon in hepatic fibrosis. Since many enzymes are useful in diagnosing liver diseases, the alteration of the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) isoenzyme pattern was studied in experimentally induced liver fibrosis. The liver injury was induced by intraperitoneal injections of dimethylnitrosamine (DMN) into adult male albino rats belonging to the Wistar strain. The injections were given on the first 3 consecutive days of each week over a period of 3 weeks. The degree of hepatic fibrosis was assessed by histopathological examination as well as by monitoring the collagen content of the liver tissue. The LDH isoenzymes in serum and liver were separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The percentage distribution of the isoenzymes was determined, and the M/H ratio was calculated. The total LDH activity was also studied in the liver and serum samples. The results demonstrated many pathological changes including centrilobular necrosis and fibrosis after DMN treatment. The collagen content was increased to about 4 times normal by the 21st day of DMN administration. The total LDH activity was significantly increased in the serum on the 14th and 21st days. But in the liver tissue, a significant increase was noticed only on the 7th day. The LDH isoenzyme patterns indicated a sharp increase in the activities of LDH4 and LDH5 in the serum on the 14th and 21st days of DMN treatment. A remarkable increase was noticed in the M/H ratio on the 14th and 21st days in the serum and on all the days in the liver tissue. Increased serum LDH activity suggests deterioration of liver functions during hepatic fibrosis. The present study demonstrated that serum LDH isoenzyme assay is a useful tool in the diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis along with other biochemical tests.


This paper examines the size-effect in the German stock market and intends to address several unanswered issues on this widely known anomaly. Unlike recent evidence of a reversal of the size anomaly we document a conditional relation between size and returns. We also detect strong momentum across size portfolios. Our results indicate that the marginal effect of firm size on stock returns is conditional on the firm's past performance. We use an instrumental variable estimation to address Berk's critique of a simultaneity bias in prior studies on the small firm effect and to investigate the economic rationale behind firm size as an explanatory variable for the variation in stock returns. The analysis in this paper indicates that firm size captures firm characteristic components in stock returns and that this regularity cannot be explained by differences in systematic risk.


Standard growth accounting exercises find large cross-country differences in aggregate TFP. Here we ask whether specific sectors are driving these differences, and, if this is the case, which these problem sectors are. We argue that to answer these questions we need to consider four sectors. In contrast, the literature typically considers only two sectors. Our four sectors produce services (nontradable consumption), consumption goods (tradable consumption), construction (nontradable investment), and machinery and equipment (tradable investment). Interacting the data from the 1996 benchmark study of the Penn World Tables with economic theory, we find that the TFP differences across countries are much larger in the two tradable sectors than in the two nontradable sectors. This is consistent with the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. We also find that within the tradable sectors the TFP differences are much larger in machinery and equipment than in consumption goods. We illustrate the usefulness of our findings by accounting for the conflicting results of the existing two-sector analyses and by developing criteria for a successful theory of aggregate TFP.


Social scientists generally enjoy substantial latitude in selecting measures and models for hypothesis testing. Coupled with publication and related biases, this latitude raises the concern that researchers may intentionally or unintentionally select models that yield positive findings, leading to an unreliable body of published research. To combat this "fishing" problem in medical studies, leading journals now require preregistration of designs that emphasize the prior identification of dependent and independent variables. However, we demonstrate here that even with this level of advanced specification, the scope for fishing is considerable when there is latitude over selection of covariates, subgroups, and other elements of an analysis plan. These concerns could be addressed through the use of a form of comprehensive registration. We experiment with such an approach in the context of an ongoing field experiment for which we drafted a complete "mock report" of findings using fake data on treatment assignment. We describe the advantages and disadvantages of this form of registration and propose that a comprehensive but nonbinding approach be adopted as a first step to combat fishing by social scientists. Likely effects of comprehensive but nonbinding registration are discussed, the principal advantage being communication rather than commitment, in particular that it generates a clear distinction between exploratory analyses and genuine tests.


Increased expression of DNA methyltransferase-1 (DNMT1) associates with the progression of many human diseases. Because DNMT1 induces cell proliferation, drugs that inhibit DNMT1 have been used to treat proliferative diseases. Because these drugs are nonspecific inhibitors of DNMT1, subsidiary events or the compensatory mechanisms that are activated in the absence of DNMT1 limit their therapeutic application. Here, we studied the molecular mechanisms that occur during angioplasty-induced restenosis and found that DNMT1 inhibition in both in vitro and in vivo approaches resulted in the induction of DNA methyltransferase-3a (DNMT3a) expression. In vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), the microRNA hsa-miR-1264 mimic, specifically inhibiting DNMT1, induced nuclear expression of DNMT3a. On the contrary, there was no induced expression of DNMT3a in VSMCs that were transfected with hsa-miR-1264 inhibitor. Further, ectopic expression of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) through adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated gene delivery in the coronary arteries of Yucatan microswine showed inhibition of both DNMT1 and DNMT3a in vivo. These findings show the existence of an inter-regulatory mechanism between DNMT1 and DNMT3a where, in the absence of DNMT1, induction of DNMT3a compensates for the loss of DNMT1 functions, suggesting that the inhibition of both DNMT1 and DNMT3a are required to prevent restenosis.


Although the wheat grain comprises 82 - 86% starchy endosperm, only approximately 76 - 78% is able to be separated using current milling technology. Suitability for primary processing depends on three main characteristics that are in turn influenced to varying degrees by the genetic origin of wheat and agro-climatic conditions during plant development: the endosperm to bran ratio, kernel hardness and ease of separation of bran and endosperm. Among these, hardness appears to be an essential factor in wheat milling behavior also important to the food processing industries. Accumulated evidence supports the prominent influence of the puroindoline (pin) proteins on grain hardness though additional factors influence milling quality.
The general aim of this project was to increase the understanding of grain characteristics in hard wheat varieties that influence flour yield. The first research question involved the validation of the rheological information derived from the Single Kernel Characterisation System (SKCS) as the most suitable indicator of milling quality for small sample quantities. The methodologies initially involved correlation of fragment/particle size distribution of conditioned and unconditioned hard wheat varieties produced by first break rolls and the SKCS. The use of the SKCS for studies in milling quality was validated (Chapter 4).
This was followed by a process relating qualitative observations gained from light microscopy, conventional and environmental electron microscopy with the crush response profiles produced by the SKCS. This study generated an hypothesis involving starch granule size distribution (SGSD) which was tested by correlating quantitative data produced by a laser diffraction technique with small scale milling and SKCS data. SGSD has generally been disregarded as having a significant influence on hardness or milling quality with much investigative effort instead directed towards the puroindolines. However the results presented indicate the contrary with significant correlations with hardness and flour yield across a range of hard varieties. This is partially a reflection of positive relationships between bonding area and cohesion within composite materials (Chapter 5).
Finally, standard DNA sequencing methods were used to screen puroindoline sequence variation in 120 varieties from the Australian Winter Cereal Collection harvested and milled from two different environments. Further SGSD analysis indicated significant correlations with flour yield though differing between pin genotypes. In addition quantitative analysis of starch granule-bound puroindoline using a micro-capillary electrophoresis method (Lab-on-chip) demonstrated a significant negative correlation with flour yield in the premium milling quality varieties with pin genotype, Pina-D1a, Pinb-D1b (Chapter 6). Several alternative influences on milling quality such as lipid content, cell wall characteristics, the regulation of the hardness locus (Ha) and function of the grain softness proteins require further investigation.…


We introduce a scalable Bayesian preference learning method for identifying convincing arguments in the absence of gold-standard ratings or rankings. In contrast to previous work, we avoid the need for separate methods to perform quality control on training data, predict rankings and perform pairwise classification. Bayesian approaches are an effective solution when faced with sparse or noisy training data, but have not previously been used to identify convincing arguments. One issue is scalability, which we address by developing a stochastic variational inference method for Gaussian process (GP) preference learning. We show how our method can be applied to predict argument convincingness from crowdsourced data, outperforming the previous state-of-the-art, particularly when trained with small amounts of unreliable data. We demonstrate how the Bayesian approach enables more effective active learning, thereby reducing the amount of data required to identify convincing arguments for new users and domains. While word embeddings are principally used with neural networks, our results show that word embeddings in combination with linguistic features also benefit GPs when predicting argument convincingness.


Velocity and nutrient studies at 12 sites in Western Washington streams indicated that 50 cm/sec is the critical average current velocity where the productive base of the food web is impacted. Swiftly flowing streams rich in nutrients should not be slowed to this value, and slowly flowing streams should not be altered to have velocities greater than this value.


Parthenium weed is a noxious invasive species that has negative effects on agriculture and also causes allergic reactions in humans. The goal of this study was to evaluate several management strategies for parthenium weed and assess the suitability of each control measure for farmers, and other stakeholders in Uganda. Field experiments were conducted in a completely randomized design, and the quadrat sampling method used to assess the effect of mulching, foliar application of table salt solution, hand pulling, slashing, hand hoeing, foliar herbicide application, and integrated weed management on parthenium plant populations. All tested weed management strategies except foliar herbicide application significantly (P0.05) reduced parthenium plant populations, with parthenium weed counts for treated plots reducing on subsequent data collection days. The experimental data showed that parthenium plant populations increased for the untreated plot overtime. The authors recommend that a combination of multiple weed control measures (integrated weed management) are utilized for effective management of parthenium weed in Uganda to reduce limitations that result when one management strategy is used singly. This study informs farmers, the general public, and researchers how to effectively control parthenium weed, contributing to reduction of the numerous negative effects of parthenium weed on human livelihoods.

 Key words: Agriculture, invasive, management, noxious, parthenium weed, Uganda.


International law has special significance in South African law, particularly within the framework of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa (the Constitution). The Constitution provides for mechanisms for the direct application (sections 231 and 232) and indirect application of international law (section 39(1)(b)). This paper explores the vital role of international human rights law in South Africa, focusing on labour and housing rights.


This paper presents a new technique for high-accuracy tracking of vocal-tract resonances (which coincide with formants for nonnasalized vowels) in natural speech. The technique is based on a discretized nonlinear prediction function, which is embedded in a temporal constraint on the quantized input values over adjacent time frames as the prior knowledge for their temporal behavior. The nonlinear prediction is constructed, based on its analytical form derived in detail in this paper, as a parameter-free, discrete mapping function that approximates the "forward" relationship from the resonance frequencies and bandwidths to the Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) cepstra of real speech. Discretization of the function permits the "inversion" of the function via a search operation. We further introduce the nonlinear-prediction residual, characterized by a multivariate Gaussian vector with trainable mean vectors and covariance matrices, to account for the errors due to the functional approximation. We develop and describe an expectation–maximization (EM)-based algorithm for training the parameters of the residual, and a dynamic programming-based algorithm for resonance tracking. Details of the algorithm implementation for computation speedup are provided. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of our new paradigm for tracking vocal-tract resonances. In particular, we show the effectiveness of training the prediction-residual parameters in obtaining high-accuracy resonance estimates, especially during consonantal closure.


STEM is a curriculum targeted to be used in all educational levels to support the education of students in four speci c disciplines{science, technology, engineering and mathematics{in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Recently, as computational thinking and strong foundation in computing have been identi ed as de ning features that are likely to strongly shape the future, major research and development e orts have been put together to also promote computing by programs like STEM+C, where \C" further emphasizes computing. STEM+C not only aims to make the topics concerning these elds more understandable and enjoyable, but also to make them more accessible and a ordable for every group in the society. STEM+C promotes active learning, in other words, direct involvement of the student in class instead of passively listening, as an essential feature of an ideal learning environment and advocates for the use of technology and hands-on experience for strengthening the understanding of fundamental concepts. We propose HandsOn-SEA, a low cost, single degree-of-freedom, force-controlled educational robot with series elastic actuation, to enable physical interactions with educational tools, helping solidify STEM+C concepts. The novelty of the proposed educational robot design is due to the deliberate introduction of a compliant cross- exure pivot between the actuator and the handle, whose de ections are measured to estimate interaction forces and to perform closed-loop force control. As an admittance-type robot, HandsOn-SEA relies on a force control loop to achieve the desired level of safety and transparency during physical interactions and complements the existing impedance-type force-feedback educational robot designs. HandsOn-SEA also serves as a building block of more complex, higher degrees of freedom force-feedback robot designs. HandsOn-SEA is e ective in the education of STEM+C concepts, as physical interaction with virtual educational environments not only ensures a higher level of student engagement by adding new bi-directional sensorimotor pathway for active student perception, but also improves student motivation by enabling more engaging and exciting learning experiences. Furthermore, HandsOn-SEA allows for quantitative measurements of student progress and enables visually impaired students to bene t from a larger range of educational tools, by replacing certain visual presentations with haptic feedback. Along these lines, we present the integration of HandsOn-SEA into STEM+C education, by providing guidelines for the use of the device for teaching fundamental concepts in physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) at the undergraduate level and for teaching algorithmic thinking at both the high school and undergraduate levels. For pHRI education, we provide a set of laboratory modules with HandsOn-SEA to demonstrate the synergistic nature of mechanical design and control of force feedback devices. In particular, we propose and evaluate e cacy of a set of laboratory assignments that allow students to experience the performance trade-o s inherent in force control systems due to the non-collocation between the force sensor and the actuator. These exercises require students to modify the mechanical design in addition to the controller of the educational device by assigning di erent levels of sti ness values to its compliant element, and characterize the e ects of these design choices on the closed-loop force control performance of the device. We have evaluated the e cacy of introducing HandsOn-SEA into engineering education by testing the device in a senior level robotics course and provide evidence that the device is e ective in providing experience on admittance control architectures for pHRI and instilling intuition about fundamental trade-o s in the design and control of force-feedback devices. To promote algorithmic thinking, we propose to use force-feedback educational robotic devices for hands-on teaching of algorithms and present an interactive tool for teaching several sorting and search algorithms with such educational devices. The addition of haptic feedback to teach algorithmic thinking is advantageous as haptic feedback enables an e ective means of enforcing pairwise comparisons while ensuring data hiding, a key component in explaining several core concepts while teaching several sorting and search algorithms. Furthermore, physical interactions with virtual learning environments paves the way for more exible, engaging and exciting learning experiences, surpassing what can be achieved by basic physical elements or applications based on pure visualization. We have evaluated the e cacy of introducing haptic feedback into teaching algorithmic thinking by testing the proposed force-feedback application with several student groups and provide evidence that the approach is e ective in instilling the core principle of formulating a precise sequence of instructions for performing sorting tasks, in a technology independent manner.


How paternal influences interact with community factors to determine adolescent mental health is currently not well understood. In the current study we present a unique analysis of how paternal work stress, mental health, ethnicity, work history, and migration patterns between rural and urban communities (or vice versa) are associated with mental health outcomes among 2,342 adolescents. Path analyses revealed that fathers' relocation was associated with less paternal work stress, and fewer mental health problems both in adolescents and their fathers. These findings contribute to our understanding of how family-level variables interplay with community characteristics to promote or hinder mental health among youth.


Second generation particle swarm optimization (SGPSO) is a new swarm intelligence optimization algorithm. SGPSO is based on the PSO. But the SGPSO will sufficiently utilize the information of the optimum swarm. The optimum swarm consists of the local optimum solution of every particle. In the SGPSO, every particle in the swarm not only moves to the local optimum solution and the global optimum solution, but also moves to the geometric center of optimum swarm. SGPSO, PSO and PSO with time-varying acceleration coefficients(PSO TVAC) are compared on some benchmark functions. And experiment results show that SGPSO performs better in the accuracy and in getting rid of the premature than PSO and PSO_TVAC. And according to the different swarm centers which every particle moves to, I will show some kinds of the variation of SGPSO.


A major challenge in the emerging research field of coupling of existing regional climate models (RCMs) and hydrology/land-surface models is the computational interaction between the models. Here we present results from a full two-way coupling of the HIRHAM RCM over a 4000 km × 2800 km domain at 11 km resolution and the combined MIKE SHE-SWET hydrology and land-surface models over the 2500 km 2 Skjern River catchment. A total of 26 one-year runs were performed to assess the influence of the data transfer interval (DTI) between the two models and the internal HIRHAM model variability of 10 variables. DTI frequencies between 12 and 120 min were assessed, where the computational overhead was found to increase substantially with increasing exchange frequency. In terms of hourly and daily performance statistics the coupled model simulations performed less accurately than the uncoupled simulations, whereas for longer-term cumulative precipitation the opposite was found, especially for more frequent DTI rates. Four of six output variables from HIRHAM, precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and air temperature, showed statistically significant improvements in root-mean-square error (RMSE) by reducing the DTI. For these four variables, the HIRHAM RMSE variability corresponded to approximately half of the influence from the DTI frequency and the variability resulted in a large spread in simulated precipitation. Conversely, DTI was found to have only a limited impact on the energy fluxes and discharge simulated by MIKE SHE.


We studied the F wave of the facial muscles on both the normal side and the spastic side in 14 patients with hemifacial spasm. The purpose of this study was to determine if the mechanism of hemifacials spasm originates in ephaptic transmission in the facial nerve at the site of vascular compression or in a hyperexcited facial motor nucleus. Larger amplitude, longer duration and shorter latency F waves in the peripheral nerves than in normals indicate anterior horn cell hyperexcitability. We found abnormal potentials exhibiting synkinesis (lateral spread), a typical electrophysiological finding in hemifacial spasm, in the facial nerve evoked electromyograms of the 14 patients, none of whom had experienced facial palsy or facial nerve block. Electrical stimulation was delivered transcutaneously to the most distal portion of the marginal mandibular branch of the facial nerve. Using surface electrodes the F waves were obtained over the mentalis muscle as the second response after the M wave. While the F waves were normal on the patients' normal side, on the spastic side, their duration was longer (mean duration about 1.9 times that of the normal side), their onset latency was slightly shorter, and their F/M amplitude latency was greater than on the normal side. After microvascular decompression, the facial spasm and abnormal F-wave findings resolved. Onset latency was not increased, and on the spastic side some patients displayed facial spasm clinically and electrophysiologically for one year after MVD. In other words, there was hardly any focal demyelination of the facial nerve, so it is possible that ephaptic transmission and ectopic excitation are the mechanism of HFS.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Book synopsis: Religious belief is rooted in and sustained by material practice, and this book provides an extraordinary insight into how it works on the ground. David Morgan has brought together a lively group of writers from religious studies, anthropology, history of art, and other disciplines, to investigate belief in everyday practices; in the objects, images, and spaces of religious devotion and in the sensations and feelings that are the medium of experience. By avoiding mind/body dualism, the study of religion can break new ground by examining embodiment, sensation, space, and performance.

Materializing belief means taking a close look at what people do, how they feel, the objects they exchange and display, and the spaces in which they perform whether spontaneously or with scripted ceremony. Contributions to the volume examine religions around the world—from Korea and Brazil to North America, Europe, and Africa. Belief is explored in a wealth of contexts, including Tibetan Buddhism, the hajj, American suburbia and the world of dreams, visions and UFOs.


ABSTRACT To understand the functional-physiological influences on the depth distribution of deep-water cisco (bloater), Coregonus hoyi, in the Laurentian Great Lakes, we compared their gas bladder anatomy with the putative ancestor, shallowwater cisco, C. artedi, from a shallow inland lake. There were no general differences in the gas bladder anatomy—both coregonines possessed simple micro retia (counter-current gas multipliers) and an open pneumatic duct connection between the bladder and esophagus. Bloater possessed a significantly smaller duct diameter relative to body size in comparison with shallowwater cisco, yet the estimated resistance to air flow through the duct of bloater was ~7.2 times lower than that of cisco. In light of these findings, we discuss evidence for two modes of gas bladder inflation in bloater: 1) gas deposition via micro retia at depth, and 2) gas acquisition via aquatic surface gulping (ASG). Because the hypolimnetic distribution of adult bloater precludes them from using ASG, we infer that these fish utilize micro retia to deposit gas into their bladders. We hypothesize that bloater compensate for relatively modest rates of gas deposition by not voiding excess gas. This "gas bladder conservation (GBC) hypothesis" for bloater is supported by four pieces of evidence: 1) deepwater habitation with no access to the surface to perform ASG, 2) a lack of extensive retia and modest gas deposition rates in coregonines, 3) a tendency to bloat when brought from depth to the surface, and 4) previous findings of a confined depth range, centered around the depth of neutral buoyancy.


Antigen-presenting cells (APCs), such as macrophages, and B cells can stimulate activated T cells. Dendritic cells (DCs) are specialized APCs that can potently activate resting (nonactivated) T cells. Within the regions of cell-to-cell contact between APCs and T cells, T cell antigen receptors aggregate to form a supramolecular signaling complex referred to as the immune synapse. Formation of the immune synapse requires the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in activated T cells, but actin reorganization in their cognate APCs does not appear to be required. It is unknown what is necessary for the activation of resting T cells. Al-Alwan et al. observed the intracellular rearrangements that occur during the contact of DCs and resting T cells and found that clustering of T cells at the surface of DCs correlated with cytoskeletal reorganization in DCs in vitro, as measured by fascin (an actin-bundling protein) and actin polymerization. Pretreatment of either resting T cells or DCs with cytochalasin D (CytD) or jasplakinolide, toxins that prevent actin reorganization, greatly reduced cell-to-cell clustering between DCs and resting T cells, and also prevented the activation of resting T cells. However, clustering of activated T cells with DCs was not diminished when DCs were pretreated with CytD, a finding that parallels the unimportance of cytoskeletal rearrangement in B cell stimulation of activated T cells. Thus, actin reorganization is required in DCs before the activation of resting T cells. Cytoskeletal reorganization might act to increase the contact surface area between the cells, leading to stronger signals generated in the synapse to activate resting T cells and thus explaining why DCs are such potent activators of resting T cells. M. M. Al-Alwan, G. Rowden, T. D. G. Lee, K. A. West, Cutting edge: The dendritic cell cytoskeleton is critical for the formation of the immunological synapse. J. Immunol. 166: 1452-1456 (2001). [Online Journal]


What do the following news stories have in common? The Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme responsible for the biggest corporate securities fraud in history, the Austrian rape and murder case of Josef Fritzi whose daughter was enslaved for 24 years, and the Irish Republican Army shooting two British soldiers and injuring four others in March 2009, breaking the peace outside Belfast? The answer is that we will probably never know what steps have been taken to provide a form of reparation to the victims or their families, in ways that allow them to live their lives in peace. Victims-driven restorative justice is happening all around the globe. It is challenging the traditional criminal justice system by providing a new vision for systemic justice reform. The crime victims and those who recognize their unmet needs are the ones who are increasingly leading the effort to make this transition. However, despite thorough evidence and numerous restorative justice evaluations, the victims' appeals for restoration are rarely heard.


With advances in microelectronic and wireless communication technologies, smartphones have computer-like capabilities in terms of computing power and communication bandwidth. They allow users to use advanced applications that used to be run on computers only. Web browsing, email fetching, gaming, social networking, and multimedia streaming are examples of wide-spread smartphone applications. Unsurprisingly, networkrelated applications are dominant in the realm of smartphones. Users love to be connected while they are mobile. Streaming applications, as a part of network-related applications, are getting increasingly popular. Mobile TV, video on demand, and video sharing are some popular streaming services in the mobile world. Thus, the expected operational time of smartphones is rising rapidly. On the other hand, the enormous growth of smartphone applications and services adds up to a significant increase in complexity in the context of computation and communication needs, and thus there is a growing demand for energy in smartphones. Unlike the exponential growth in computing and communication technologies, the growth in battery technologies is not keeping up with the rapidly growing energy demand of these devices. Therefore, the smartphone's utility has been severely constrained by its limited battery lifetime. It is very important to conserve the smartphone's battery power. Even though hardware components are the actual energy consumers, software applications utilize the hardware components through the operating system. Thus, by making smartphone applications energy-efficient, the battery lifetime can be extended. With this view, this work focuses on two main problems: i) developing an energy testing methodology for smartphone applications, and ii) evaluating the energy cost and designing an energy-friendly downloader for smartphone streaming applications. The detailed contributions of this thesis are as follows: (i) it gives a generalized framework for energy performance testing and shows a detailed flowchart that application developers can easily follow to test their applications; (ii) it evaluates the energy cost of some popular streaming applications showing how the download strategy that an application developer adopts may adversely affect the energy savings; (iii) it develops a model of an energy-friendly downloader for streaming applications and studies the effects of the downloader's parameters regarding energy consumption; and finally, (iv) it gives a mathematical model for the proposed downloader and validates it by means of experiments.


Abstract The transboundary dynamics of COVID-19 present an unprecedented test of organisational resilience. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS), a talisman of collective fortitude against disease and illness, has struggled to cope with inadequate provision of virus tests, ventilators, and personal protective equipment needed to fight the pandemic. In this paper, we reflect on the historic dynamics and strategic priorities that have undermined the NHS's attempts to navigate these troubled times. We invoke the organisational resilience literature to address 'the good, the bad and the ugly' of preparedness in readiness and response to the current pandemic. In particular, we draw on Meyer's (1982) seminal work on 'adaptation to jolts', excavating current preparedness failings. We argue an overreliance on perceived efficiency benefits of 'lean production' and 'just in time' continuity planning superseded strategic redundancy and slack in the system. This strategic focus was not simply the result of a failure in foresight, but rather a failure to act adaptively on knowledge of the known threats and weaknesses spotlighted by earlier projections of an inevitable pandemic threat. In conclusion, we consider how the UK Government and NHS must now undergo a phase of 'readjustment' in Meyer's terms, in light of these failings. We suggest that independent responsibility for national future preparedness should be handed to the NHS free from political interference. This would operate under the umbrella of a national emergency preparedness, resilience and response public body, enshrined in law, and similar in governance to the current Bank of England. This will help ensure that foresight is accompanied by durability and fortitude in safeguarding the UK against future pandemic threats.


This article introduces the energetic macroscopic representation (EMR) as approach for the dynamic nonlinear modeling of a reciprocating air compressor. EMR has been introduced recently for research development in complex electromechanical systems. It is based on action reaction principle, which organizes the system as interconnected subsystems according to the integral causality. The graphical modeling based on EMR has advantages such as readability, modularity, structural and functional characteristics. The EMR is the first step toward model-based control structure development. The air compressor system containing: slider-crank mechanism, cylinder head and valves, is divided into multitude simple subsystems. Each subsystem describes an elementary step of the energy conversion, several of these blocks may occur in a single module. Calculations are carried out using two basic principles: mass and energy balances. Models are developed for different subsystems, which are assembled into a final overall system EMR. The EMR modeling presented here allows the modeling of multi-physics components and highlights the interactions of the electromechanical, thermodynamical, heat transfer and fluidic phenomena that occur simultaneously in an air compressor.


Why is it that Western science evolved as a thoroughly male-dominated enterprise? As philosopher Sandra Harding has noted, "women have been more systematically excluded from doing serious science than performing any other social activity except, perhaps, frontline warfare." In A World Without Women, David F. Noble provides the first full-scale investigation of the origins and implications of the masculine culture of Western science and technology, and in the process offers some surprising revelations. Noble begins by showing that, contrary to the widely held notion that the culture of learning in the West has always excluded women--an assumption that rests largely upon the supposed legacy of ancient Greece--men did not thoroughly dominate intellectual life until the beginning of the second millennium of the Christian era. At this time science and the practices of higher learning became the exclusive province of the newly celibate Christian clergy, whose ascetic culture denied women a place in any scholarly enterprise. By the twelfth century, papal reform movements had all but swept away the material and ideological supports of future female participation in the world of learning; as never before, women were on the outside looking in. Noble further demonstrates that the clerical legacy of a world without women remained more or less intact through the Reformation, and permeated the emergant culture of science. A World Without Women finally points to a dread of women at the core of modern scientific and technological enterprise, as these disciplines work to deprive one-half of humanity of its role in production (as seen in the Industrial Revolution's male appropriation of labor) and reproduction as well (the age-old quest for an artificial womb). It also makes plain the hypocrisy of a community that can honor a female scientist with a bronze bust, as England's Royal Society did for Mary Somerville in the mid-nineteenth century, yet deny her entry to the very meeting hall in which it enjoyed pride of place. An important and often disturbing book, A World Without Women is essential reading for anyone concerned not only about the world of science, but about the world that science has made.


This study aims at describing the in-hospital prognosis of patients admitted with suspected acute myocardial infarction, focusing on the possibility of emergency room prediction of the risk for death and severe complications. From 7157 consecutive patients with chest pain or other symptoms suggestive of acute myocardial infarction in the emergency room, 4690 were hospitalized. Of these, 246 (5%) died in hospital, with a mortality rate among the 921 patients who developed myocardial infarction of 14%, and among those without infarction of 3%. From the clinical history, examination and electrocardiogram in the emergency room, independent predictors of death and death or any severe complication were determined by logistic regression analysis. These included age, initial degree of suspicion of infarction, electrocardiographic pattern, history of diabetes mellitus, history of congestive heart failure and on admission arrhythmias, loss of consciousness, acute congestive heart failure, or unspecific symptoms. From these analyses the probability of death or death or any severe complication can be calculated. Thus, 18% of patients hospitalized due to suspected acute myocardial infarction suffered a severe complication or died in hospital. From a statistical model it is possible to predict the in-hospital prognosis of every such patient.


This report introduces the fundamental principles of the Blockchain focusing on its potential for the education sector. It explains how this technology may both disrupt institutional norms and empower learners. It proposes eight scenarios for the application of the Blockchain in an education context, based on the current state of technology development and deployment.


As measured by developmental biology, cultural markers, and self-perception, adolescence is longer today than it has ever been in human history, with leading psychologists asserting that it lasts into the mid-twenties. This Article considers whether the extension of adolescence requires changing the allocation of criminal jurisdiction over young adults aged eighteen to twenty-five. It explores three possible responses: (1) keeping young adults within general jurisdiction criminal courts with greater accommodations, (2) expanding juvenile court jurisdiction beyond age seventeen, and (3) creating specialized Young Adult courts. The Article argues that criminal court's emphasis on punishment and incapacitation are ill-suited to the individualized interventions that best serve the public's long-term interest in safety and best promote a successful transition to adulthood. Expanding juvenile court jurisdiction would make its rehabilitative approach available to young adult offenders who, like juveniles, are not yet fully-developed adults. But it would also mean the loss of important procedural rights and a paternalistic, inquisitorial, interventionist approach that is not appropriate for young adults. Specialized courts dedicated to eighteen to twenty-five year-olds offer a developmentally-informed response at the front and back end of cases without unduly complicating the work of the juvenile court, avoid potential due process and rights problems, and communicate to these offenders that they are worthy of something other than punitive, assembly-line treatment as criminals. That said, creating young adult courts across the nation faces several challenges and carries potential drawbacks for those diverted to young adult court and for the remainder left behind in criminal court.


Abstract. Based on an integration of socioecological systems and intergroup contact theory, we hypothesized that the context in which intergroup contact takes place moderates its association with attitudes toward refugees. To test this prediction, majority members in Germany reported in three studies ( Ntotal = 695) how often they have had positive and negative direct and indirect contact with refugees in different contexts and their attitudes toward refugees. While the association between direct contact and intergroup attitudes was relatively context-independent, the association between indirect contact and attitudes toward refugees strongly depended on context. Indirect contact was more strongly associated with attitudes toward refugees in contexts with close relationships (family and friends) than in contexts with distanced relationships (newspaper and TV).


In recent years there have been an increasing number of research groups that have begun to develop multi-chip address-event systems. The communication protocol used to transmit signals between these systems' components is based on the address-event representation (AER). It is therefore important to have access to robust and reliable AER communication infrastructures for streamlining the systems' development and prototyping stages. We propose an AER communication infrastructure that can be easily interfaced to workstations or laptops during a prototyping phase, and that can be embedded into compact and low-cost systems in the application phase. The infrastructure proposed uses a novel serial AER interface with flow-control, overcomes many of the drawbacks observed with previous solutions, and can achieve event rates of up to 78.125 MHz for 32 bit AEs.


With rising demands on child welfare, workers need to consider new options, including strategies that promote a collaborative effort of family, community, and government. Family group conferencing integrates efforts to advance child and adult safety and strengthens family unity while expanding its meaning. The conclusions in this article are based on family interviews and child protective services' file comparison from an outcome study of the Family Group Decision Making Project.


Through this practice based research I argue that cultural democracy as a way of thinking contests dominant models of commissioning art to effect social change. A method of generative metaphor of critical distance emerges through four projects based on a contextual and theoretical framework that tests the conditions for recognising cultural democracy as a critical practice. Cultural democracy is distinct from the democratisation of culture, which means providing free, accessible professional culture to all. The socially engaged art commission is, I argue, an example of the democratisation of culture based on predefined economic, aesthetic and social values. Cultural democracy disrupts expected forms of participation and communication of culture, drawing attention to these values. As an uninvited act of disobedience, it is thought and practised as individuals reclaim the right to express themselves, creating conflicts with expected norms of behaviour. This research project began in 2006, nine years into New Labour's administration, and reflects an urgent question of the time: what are the implications of increasing dependency on a culture of commissioning art to effect social change that might perpetuate, rather than radically rethink, social injustices' These concerns are even more significant in a political and economic climate where public funding for critical, non-conformist participation in culture slips further down the agenda. My own career is a symptom of New Labour's neoliberal policies of social inclusion and the arts. A new period of 'austerity' may imply fewer paid opportunities for this professional class of socially engaged art workers, coupled with a distancing of the recognition of cultural democracy as a possible alternative, with further reliance on free, precarious cultural labour. For this reason, I hope this research will be of use to those who also find it an urgent task to address these issues critically and practically.


Objectives: To describe a multimodal recovery protocol (fast-track surgery) for hydrocele surgery, as developed by our urology department over the course of the last 10 years. Likewise, our aim was to demonstrate the use of this protocol improves the cost effectiveness of the procedure, compared to the classical procedure which requires hospital admission and general or spinal anaesthesia. Material and Methods: We compared two groups of patients. The first group underwent hydrocelectomy under our multimodal recovery protocol in an outpatient setting, with data collected prospectively, while the second group of patients underwent hydrocelectomy before the implementation of the multimodal recovery protocol, with hospital admission and general or spinal anesthesia, with data collected retrospectively. The results obtained were assessed and satisfaction degree ascertained by survey. Results: The results obtained with fast-track protocol were comparable to those of conventional surgery. Only two of the patients needed to be admitted in hospital due to postoperative complications, which it was not related with the outpatient setting treatment. The satisfaction degree with the treatment was found to be over 95%. Conclusions: Virtually all patients affected by hydroceles could be suitable candidates for a fast-track surgery programme, with the consequent improvement in cost-effectiveness of the procedure with no reduction of the quality of care received or patient satisfaction. *Corresponding author: Pedro Navalón Verdejo, Urology Department, University Hospital "Casa de Salud", Catholic University San Vicente Mártir, Paseo Alameda 38246023, Valencia, Spain, Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


A numerical study of the flow through a safety butterfly valve used in a hydro-electric power scheme to stop water supply to a downstream penstock is reported. Computational fluid dynamics applied in a quasi-steady manner is used to predict the hydrodynamic torque versus opening angle characteristic during a constant head test. Factors influencing these results, such as Reynolds number and unsteady flow effects, are found to be significant. The predicted results are compared with field measurements of the full-size valve. Issues associated with applying the numerical results to predict valve characteristics at higher Reynolds numbers are discussed. Further computational and experimental studies are recommended.


Hydrous chromium oxide nanoparticles (~15 nm diameter) are assembled from a colloidal solution onto tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) substrates by layer-by-layer electrostatic deposition with aqueous carboxymethyl-cellulose sodium salt binder. Calcination produces purely inorganic mesoporous films (average thickness increase per layer of 1 nm) of chromia Cr2O3. When immersed in aqueous carbonate buffer at pH 10 and investigated by cyclic voltammetry, a chemically reversible oxidation is observed because of a conductive layer at the chromia surface (formed during initial potential cycling). This is attributed to a surface CrIII/IV process. At more positive potentials higher oxidation states are accessible before film dissolution. The effects of film thickness and pH on voltammetric responses are studied. X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) evidence for higher chromium oxidation states is obtained. ITO junction experiments are employed to reveal surface conduction by CrIII/IV and CrIV/V 'mobile surface states' and an estimate is obtained for the apparent CrIII/IV charge surface diffusion coefficient Dapp = 10–13 m2 s–1. The junction experiment distinguishes mobile surface redox sites from energetically distinct deeper-sitting 'trapped states'.


From colonial times Americans have sought force multipliers against an unforgiving physical environment. The man who masters the machine, Hank Morgan rather than John Henry, is a dominant archetype. The Western hero combines moral force and technical proficiency: righteousness sustained by a six-gun in expert hands. The heady visions of supremacy through technology found throughout U.S. policy and military–professional literature through the 1990s and beyond derive both their substance and their persuasiveness from this underlying cultural predisposition. American analysts have in consequence defined revolutions in military affairs as technological–organizational asymmetries between combatants, usually embracing three distinct but interrelated areas. The first and most obvious is straight-line improvement in the capacity to destroy targets. Second is an "information edge" generated through exponential and synergistic increases in the ability to collect, process, and distribute information. The third decisive aspect of the American-style RMA is the provision of doctrines, skills, and force structures necessary to optimize the potential of new materiel. The fate of French armor in 1940 and of the Arab air forces in 1967 demonstrates the uselessness of hardware without appropriate concepts for its use and competent personnel effectively organized to implement those concepts. The Prussian army from the 1840s onward provides an almost classic model of technological innovation that acted as catalyst for radical changes in tactics, operations, military organization, and state policy.


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by a progressive loss of upper and lower motor neurons, resulting in muscle weakness and death from respiratory failure within 3-5 years after onset. The incidence is 1.5-2.7/100,000 inhabitants. 5-10% of all cases are hereditary. The aetiology of sporadic ALS is still unknown. The only neuroprotective drug approved for the treatment of ALS is riluzole, a glutamate-antagonist, which has shown to improve survival. We evaluated if riluzole sales statistics can be used as a method for estimating the prevalence of ALS/motor neuron disease in Sweden. We found that this method, which is less time consuming than conventional methods, could be used as a crude marker for the prevalence. In a longitudinal study of overall Quality of Life (QoL) in ALS we found that QoL changes only slightly over time despite disease progression. ALS does not necessarily result in a low QoL. Growth factors are important for the survival of neurons. In ALS we found increased or normal levels of GDNF mRNA and BDNF mRNA in muscle biopsies, VEGF in serum and spinal cord and FGF-2 in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. There is thus no deficit of these growth factors although there may be a relative lack because of high demands of the motor neurons. Polyamines are small aliphatic molecules that are important for the function of cells. The level of the polyamines spermidine and spermine were increased in red blood cells in both patients with ALS and patients with Parkinson's disease, suggesting that polyamines may have a role for the neurodegenerative process. Polyamines in spinal cord were of the same level in the patients with ALS and in controls, indicating a maintained regulation of polyamines at the end-stage of the disease.