Cyberstalking is an important issue which causes significant distress but which has been difficult to find a means of regulating, particularly through formal criminal systems. Yet proper regulation of cyberstalking behaviour could have substantial impact upon the wellbeing of many victims – from child to adult. In this article, I suggest that a different from of regulation is required: one based upon a virtual, community-based concept of regulation. Such a concept offers a novel approach based on three elements fundamental to the discussion of regulation of cyberstalking: (1) the differences between physical stalking and cyberstalking; (2) the character of a virtual community and the effects of social interactions; and (3) the scope of experience and reality. This formulation is based on an expansive view of regulation and 'normativity' of a virtual community. The author advocates the formation of codes of conduct based on the 'rights and responsibilities' discourse, termed here as 'protocols,' which reflect optimal sociological conceptions. The philosophical underpinning of protocols recognises the value of community, essentially the connection between individuals and their community. As such, these protocols will assist in the formation of private laws that are practical and acceptable within the virtual community. The aim of this concept of regulation is to ensure that cyberspace remains a lawful and socially useful space.


RNA is not regarded anymore as a simple transfer molecule between DNA and proteins. Indeed, over the past decades a plethora of new functional roles have been assigned to RNA molecules. Such functions are carried out either by RNA molecules alone or through interactions with DNA, other RNA molecules, or proteins. In all cases, the structure that the RNA molecule adopts will impact its function, as it happens with proteins. Therefore, to fully characterize the function of an RNA molecule, its structure needs to be either determined by experiments or predicted by computation. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the atomic mechanism by which RNA molecules adopt their biological active structures is still limited. Such hurdle is now being addressed by the development of new computational methods for RNA structure prediction, which complement experimental methods such as X‐ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, small‐angle X‐ray scattering, and cryo‐electron microscopy. This software focus is not dedicated to a single computational method but aims at outlining the most adopted methods for computational RNA structure prediction. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2015, 5:56–61. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1198


Tight coupling between pelagic and benthic communities is accepted as a general principle on Arctic shelves. Whereas this paradigm has been useful for guiding ecological research, it has perhaps led to a disproportionate focus on POM and ice algae as the most likely sources of carbon for the benthic food web. Arctic shelves are complex systems, including banks, fjords, and trough systems up to 350 m or more in depth. In this stable-isotope study, thirteen different potential carbon sources were analysed for their contribution to the food-webs of Isfjorden, Svalbard. A mixing model with herbivorous copepods and grazing sea urchins as end-members was applied to determine the relative contributions of the most likely carbon sources to pelagic and benthic taxa. Most taxa from the benthos feed on a broad mixture of POM and macroalgal detritus, even at depths down to 410 m. Most suspension-feeding bivalves had isotopic signals consistent with more than a 50% contribution from kelps and rockweeds. In contrast, nearly all pelagic species had diets consistent with an overwhelming contribution of pelagic POM. These results indicate that macroalgal detritus can contribute significantly to near-shore Arctic food-webs, a trophic link that may increase if macroalgae increase in the Arctic as predicted. These weaker quantitative links between pelagic and benthic components of coastal systems highlight the need for thorough sampling of potential carbon-baselines in food-web studies. A large detrital-carbon component in diets of Arctic benthos may dampen the impacts of strong seasonality in polar primary producers, leading to higher ecosystem resilience, but may also result in lower secondary productivity.


Community science is an increasingly integral part of biodiversity research and monitoring, often achieving broad spatial and temporal coverage but lower sampling intensity than studies conducted by professional scientists. When designing a community‐science monitoring programme, careful assessment of sampling designs that could be both feasible and successful at meeting programme goals is essential. Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are the focus of several successful community‐science projects in the U.S., but broader coverage is needed to monitor breeding areas and explain population declines observed in overwintering areas. The U.S. Monarch Conservation Science Partnership's Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program (IMMP) will representatively monitor monarchs and milkweed across North America. We performed a simulation‐based power analysis to predict trade‐offs between sampling breadth (number of sites and years) and sampling intensity (number of visits or subplots per site and year) for the IMMP. We evaluated whether each sampling design would produce sufficient statistical power to detect population trends and differences among land‐use sectors in densities of milkweed, monarch eggs, and adult monarchs. Sampling breadth had much stronger effects than sampling intensity on statistical power for all three monitoring targets. Depending on land‐use sector, monitoring 400–800 sites over 10–15 years would detect trends in densities of milkweed and adult monarchs, but no scenarios were successful for monarch eggs. Sampling 400–800 sites would also detect small (for adult monarchs) to large (for milkweed) differences among land‐use sectors in density of all three monitoring targets within the first 2–5 years. As more data become available from the IMMP, the sampling goals can be updated. Synthesis and applications. Careful sample design is an essential step in developing a successful monitoring programme. For monarchs and milkweed, we found that sampling breadth (number of sites and years) had a much stronger effect on statistical power than sampling intensity (number of visits or subsamples per site), suggesting field protocols could be tailored to maximize recruitment and retention of volunteers by minimizing the effort required to monitor each site. Many long‐term monitoring programmes might similarly benefit from evaluating the statistical trade‐offs between sampling breadth and intensity in their sampling designs.


The purpose of this study was to determine what activities vocational agriculture teachers in the United States believed should be a part of their summer programs and what they actually did during the summer of 1983. Three Instruments were used to collect data for this study: a two-page questionnaire to state supervisors of agricultural education to determine what statewide activities were scheduled for teacher participation, a three-page questionnaire to 227 vocational agriculture teachers to gather program and teacher information and to determine what the teachers believed should be accomplished during their summer program, and a one-page bi-weekly summary to be used by the teachers to report the time they actually spent on activities during the summer of 1983. Analyses were conducted to determine: the mean percentage of time that teachers believed should be allotted to 38 summer activities, the mean percentage of time actually allotted to these activities during the summer, if any significant differences occurred between the two means by activity and if any significant relationships existed between selected program/teacher variables and selected actvities. Results revealed 20 significant differences between what should be and what was actually accomplished on summer activities. vii Five significant correlations existed between time spent and selected variables but none of these were practically significant.


The analysis, identification and control of periodic systems has gained increasing interest during the last few decades due to the increased use of dynamical systems that exhibit periodic motion. The vast majority of these studies focus on the analysis and control problem for a known state-space formulation of the linear time-periodic (LTP) system. On the other hand, there are also some studies that focus on data-driven identification of LTP systems with unknown state-space formulations. However, most of these methods provide numerical estimates for the harmonic transfer functions (HTFs) of an LTP system that are extremely difficult to work with during controller design. The goal of this paper is to provide a simple controller design methodology for unknown LTP systems by utilizing so-called HTFs estimates. To this end, we first build a mathematical basis of LTP controller design for known LTP systems using the Nyquist diagrams and analytically derived HTFs. We propose a new methodology to design P-, PD- and PID-type controllers for LTP systems using Nyquist diagrams and the eigenlocus of the HTFs. Having established the HTF-based controller design procedure, we extend our methodology to unknown LTP systems by presenting a new sum-of-cosine signal-based data-driven system identification method. We show that the proposed data-driven controller design method allows estimation of the HTFs and it provides simple tools for optimizing certain time-domain performance metrics. We provide numerical examples for both known and unknown LTP system cases to illustrate the performance of the proposed controller design methodology.


The Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller's area unit the foremost unremarkably used controllers in industrial applications. As is acknowledge, the Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller's area is unit at risk of noise interference and windup impact. A lot of sensible alternatives are lead-lag compensators. Generally, frequency-division or time-division strategies area unit used to design a lead-lag controller to meet the design stipulation. The main task of this text is to form a needed lead-lag controller mistreatment genetic algorithms (GAs). A main feature of our approach is to incorporate the look specifications directly into the cost function or fitness function perform in GA iterations. Computer unit simulations show that the performances of our planned controllers unit quite desirable.


This paper proposes and analyzes the employment of Dual Golay Codes in the PSP-BOTDA system for the application of fiber optics distributed strain sensor. In the previous research, Golay codes generated through the complementary sequences method were used in PSP-BOTDA in order to improve its signal to noise ratio (SNR). There were four optical signals involved in order to analyze the typical Golay code based PSP-BOTDA system. In this research, the employment of Dual Golay Codes is introduced for the improvement of the Brillouin optical power amplification detection. A typical PSP-BOTDA system consists of two types of optical pump called 0-pump and π-pump; each pump produces positive and negative Brillouin gain respectively. Since Golay codes generated in PSP-BOTDA system are in bipolar forms (+1 and −1), these codes can be applied to the 0-pump which corresponds to +1 and π-pump that corresponds to −1 code. Compared to the previous research results, as the numbers of optical signal used for the Dual Golay Code PSP-BOTDA are doubled to eight, the Brillouin optical power detected and correlated is also doubled. The unique feature of Dual Golay Code PSP-BOTDA is that the Brillouin optical power detected at the stressed part of the optical fiber is increased and the signal-to-noise ratio increases considerably compared to the previous ones because the total length of Golay codes used in a given time period is increased. Furthermore, the side-lobes from the correlation process were completely cancelled, producing a noiseless correlated code. For this paper, the research was carried out by evaluating the power detection at the stressed fiber for 2n × 2m Dual Golay code length.


Conclusion There is a regrettable tendency to think about defense against biological warfare either as unnecessary or as "too hard." Unfortunately, the danger of biological warfare did not dissipate with the dismantling of our own offensive program in 1969, the signing of the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the threat of nuclear retaliation against Saddam in 1991. Only by planning and preparing will we be able to diminish the likelihood that biological weapons will be used, and reduce the risks if they are. Fortunately, substantial improvements can be made in our biological defensive capabilities at relatively small levels of investment. Why Think About Biological Warfare? There are three compelling reasons why the national security establishment ought to be thinking more about, and investing more in, defenses against biological warfare (BW). 1. Our future enemies' strategies. To assess our vulnerabilities, it is useful to put ourselves in the shoes of our potential opponents. The overwhelming conventional military superiority the United States displayed in the Kuwaiti desert will make potential aggressors less likely to confront us directly. Concomitantly, those who wish to challenge our resolve will be tempted to do so indirectly and unconventionally. Additionally, the perception that America is reluctant to accept high mortality rates in combat will make high casualty weapons, such as biological agents, especially attractive to our enemies. 2. Our future enemies' resources. While a nuclear arsenal requires massive investments and a sophisticated and capable military infrastructure to support it, an opponent does not need to be a superpower to have a biological warfare capability. Biological weapons are inexpensive and accessible. A small pharmaceutical industry or even moderately sophisticated university or medical research laboratory can generate a significant offensive capability. Delivery can be by warheads on missiles, but also by means as simple as a crop sprayer. Some sense of why biological weapons are the "poor man's nuclear bomb" is suggested by a United Nations expert's 1969 estimate that the costs of producing mass casualties per square kilometer are as follows: biological-$1/km2; chemical (nerve agent)-$600/km2; nuclear-$800/km2; conventional-$2000/km2. While these figures are outdated, the relative orders of magnitude they suggest are still quite valid. 3. Our blind spots. Our current vulnerabilities to BW are substantial. Many of these blind spots are beyond our immediate control; they result from the inherent nature of the biological weapons, such as their relative ease of production and concealment. Many, however, are self-inflicted--they are a result of our underinvestment and lack of attention. In short, by our neglect, we are ourselves creating an incentive to use BW. The history of the absorption of technology into the operational and warfighting capabilities of the Department of Defense suggests one reason for this blind spot. Professor Alan Beyerchin of Ohio State University has suggested that we might think about WWI as a conflict that forced chemists and warfighters to talk with one another; WWII as a conflict that brought physicists and warfighters together; the Cold War as a history of Pentagon investments in computers, electronics, and telecommunication skills. But, as Prof. Beyerchin notes, this framework does not include events that led to the development and integration of biologists with the Pentagon. Today, the number of biologists employed by DOD is orders of magnitude less than the number of scientists and engineers employed in other areas. Taken together, these factors suggest that it is important to think about biological warfare because it is an area of weaknesses, because our opponents are likely to perceive this, and because they will have the resources to exploit it. …


This paper briey discuss the general class of algorithms that can be implemented using parallel constructions. Common characteristics of these algorithms are also described in order to provide a generic representation for parallel algorithms. In addition it describes the parallel pattern in terms of image scannings and its relationship within mathematical morphology. Such a pattern is essential for the development of morphological operators and operations. Examples of the application of the parallel generic pattern are given for both scalar lattices and nonscalar lattices. Scalar lattices are used to give a parallel pattern representation for real values, parabolic morphology, and b-bit integers. Non-scalar lattices are restricted to color lattices. Each case study presented in this paper match the generic representation of the parallel pattern.


QT Dispersion: Can it predict the Extent of Stable Coronary Artery Disease?
Background: QT dispersion was found to increase during episodes of myocardial ischemia or infarction. A substantial body of evidence now supports the notion that prolongation of ventricular repolarization as measured by the QT interval is related to the underlying ischemia in patients with coronary artery disease. Objectives: To explore a possible relationship between QT dispersion and the extent of coronary artery disease.
Methods: This study enrolled 120 cases admitted for elective coronary angiography. The cases were divided, according to the number of the affected coronary vessels, into four groups [normal, single vessel disease (SVD), double vessel disease (DVD) and three vessel disease (TVD)] with 30 patients in each group. The QT interval was measured by the manual technique and we recorded the maximal and minimal QT intervals, QT dispersion (QTD) and corrected QT dispersion (QTcD) for each patient individually.
Results: QTD was found to increase significantly with the increasing number of stenosed coronary vessels (33.3 ± 6, 49.6 ± 6, 79.2 ± 8 and 119.8 ± 12 msec for the normal, SVD, DVD and TVD groups respectively, p=0.001). In this study, QTcD also showed a significant difference between the groups with different number of affected coronary vessels (35.9 ± 6, 53.7 ± 7, 86.9 ± 8 and 131 ± 10 msec for the normal, SVD, DVD and TVD respectively, p=0.001). Moreover, the sensitivity of QTD in detection of CAD increased with the increase in number of diseased coronary vessels (53.3%, 86.7% and 93.3% for SVD, DVD and TVD respectively).
Conclusion: We concluded that QTD and QTcD are prolonged in patients with stable CAD. Furthermore, we established a strong correlation between QTD and QTcD with the number of stenosed coronary vessels at rest. So, we assumed that QTD and QTcD can be used to predict the extent of stable CAD and the number of diseased coronary vessels.


Dispersion of fine particles in a hot metal bath is of essential importance for effective desulfurization and dephosphorization. Previous water model experiments revealed that rapid and uniform dispersion of fine particles in a mechanically agitated water bath can be achieved by immersing a circular cylinder slightly into the bath from its surface. Further water model experiments have been carried out in this study to derive an empirical equation for the period required for the uniform dispersion. This period is named the flow establishment time. Three types of impellers are chosen to take into account the effects of the shape and size of impeller on the flow establishment time.


An earthquake of M(subseript D)=5.7 occurred at Taipingshan, Ilan, Taiwan on May 10, 1983. A low seismicity zone appeared before the occurrence of the mainshock in the aftershock area. The epicentral pattern of aftershocks showed a significant correlation with an unexposed fault zone. The monthly frequency of events displayed abnormal seismicity both in the aftershock area and its neighborhood. This abnormal seismicity migrated somewhat from the outside area to the source area. About one and a half years before the mainshock, the b values increased markedly but then decreased before the major event. The duration ratio (DR) of the total coda waves duration time from a distant station compared to that at a closer station is also studied as an earthquake precursor. The DR values immediately decreased after the mainshock. An overestimation of total coda waves duration times for the close-in station might be due to a mixture of seismograms generated from the events which occurred in a small time interval and might result in this decrease. One hour after the mainshock, the DR values raised. This is interpreted to be a result of a large fracture density caused by the rapid increase of the number of M(subscript D)>3 events immediately after the mainshock.


In this groundbreaking new book, one of the world's greatest living scientists argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for what he calls consilience, the composition of the principles governing every branch of learning. Edward O Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos. It is a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialisation of knowledge in the last two centuries. Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and human scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world.


Created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the UK Government"s recommended method of assessing the energy ratings of dwellings. Modelling future complex dwellings, and their servicing systems, will require a more advanced calculation which is as simple as SAP to use but can produce more detailed results. This paper extends a novel advanced dynamic calculation method (IDEAS – Inverse Dynamics based Energy Analysis and Simulation) of assessing the controllability of a building and its servicing systems. IDEAS produces SAP compliant results and allows confident (i.e. calibrated in SAP) predictions to be made regarding the impact of novel heating and renewable energy systems. This paper describes the addition of an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) model to IDEAS. This allows for detailed analysis to be made of ASHPs in a SAP compliant framework. The benefits of using the IDEAS method is highlighted with capabilities outwith the scope of SAP also possible. For example, IDEAS can be used as sizing tool for a heating system in a building.


During the twentieth century, many coastal areas in Europe changed dramatically due to coastal protection works, human expansion drift and booming beach tourism. As a result the natural area of suitable nesting habitat of many coastal birds has decreased enormously and a large number of species are now listed as threatened. Some species were able to exploit new opportunities offered by human activities, but most coastal birds are now confined to islands, protected areas or artificial sites (nature development projects, restored coastal habitats and even floating rafts). Protection of local resources, as well as further development and management of breeding sites is considered vital in maintaining the populations of threatened coastal breeders. The rationale behind nature restoration and development is often solely based on offering suitable habitat to the birds, while its success is mainly judged from the evolution in the number of birds present. As more and more information becomes available on the reproductive performance of coastal birds, it becomes clear that in some protected areas long-term reproductive success is below self-sustaining levels. Apparently humans are able to create artificial nesting habitats that are highly attractive from the birds' perspective but are in fact pitfalls for the population in the long term. In contrast, the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, is an excellent example of an artificial nesting habitat of high quality in terms of attraction as well as reproduction. Here, vast sandy areas were raised in a former marine habitat in the 1980s. The works mimicked natural dynamic processes and coastal breeding birds instantly reacted. Within 20 years, the area has developed from open sea to a breeding site of major international importance. Peak population figures by far exceed the 1% of the total biogeographical population. At present, Zeebrugge harbours more than 4% of the total north-west European Common Tern population, thus making it the largest colony in Europe. It is a highly productive population and acts as a major source of recruits for the biogeographical population as a whole. Until recently, the success of the bird populations was based on the ongoing creation of suitable nesting habitats and management measures, like removal of the vegetation and covering areas with shell fragments. Further development of the harbour, the arrival of the fox and competition for nesting habitat with large gulls are major threats for the bird population. Therefore part of the colony was allocated to a peninsula and further steps are now being considered to preserve this valuable population. Apparently feeding conditions are very good and the harbour itself and its direct surroundings function as a major source of small prey fish of which the availability is facilitated by the heavy shipping traffic and the sheltered conditions of the feeding areas.


Introduction: Providing antenatal care (ANC) to pregnant women has positive impact on the health of mothers and their newborns. Provided ANC should be of high quality to have such an impact. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of ANC services provided by the governmental primary health care centers in the Gaza Strip as perceived by nurses and midwives providing ANC to this group of health service users. Design: A cross sectional descriptive design was used in this study. Participants of the study were all nurses and midwives (55 participants) who provide ANC at governmental primary health care centers in the Gaza Strip. Results: Results showed that about half (50.9%) of the participants were between 36 – 45 years, the majority of them (72.7%) have more than 10 years of work experience. 40% of participants hold a diploma in midwifery and about one third of them (34.4%) were from Gaza Governorate. Results showed high scores of all study variables and domains. Participants thought that emotional support was the most essential feature of quality of antenatal care and that they are following the national standards criteria related to providing ANC. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that nurses and midwives working at the governmental primary health care centers are providing their clients a high quality ANC service according to national guidelines of ANC. However, this was the perception of the nurses and midwives who provide the services . An assessment of the quality of delivered ANC as perceived by service users is needed to get a full picture of the actual quality of ANC services.


The hypothesis that two people collaborating in recall would remember more than a single person was examined in a series of four experiments. All the experiments used variations on the same sequential design where, in social conditions, people recalled alone initially and then recalled jointly in pairs: as a control for reminiscence, some people recalled alone on two separate occasions. On the second recall in all of the experiments two people always recalled more than one, but this was simply due to the independent statistical summation of two people's memories: no evidence whatsoever was found for the pairs of people generating new information that was not available to either member of the pair. This surprising result was not attributable to artefacts linked to the complexity or familiarity of stimulus material, nor was it linked to variations in people's cognitive perspectives. No evidence of social facilitation of memories was therefore found: two people recalling together certainly pool their separate memories so as to outperform individuals but the social interaction does not appear to generate previously unavailable memories.


Declarative programming is a paradigm that allows programmers to specify what they want to compute, leaving how to compute it to a solver. Our declarative programming language, Dyna, is designed to compactly specify computations like those that are frequently encountered in machine learning. As a declarative language, Dyna's solver has a large space of (correct) strategies available to it. We describe a reinforcement learning framework for adaptively choosing among these strategies to maximize efficiency for a given workload. Adaptivity in execution is especially important for software that will run under a variety of workloads, where no fixed policy works well. We hope that reinforcement learning will identify good policies reasonably quickly-offloading the burden of writing efficient code from human programmers.


Density and diversity of arthropods were studied at different habitats of the Qatari desert. Diurnal sampling was conducted at two seasons of the year, the end of the dry season, at the beginning of autumn (October) in 1995-1996, and in spring (April) in 1996-1997. The habitats selected included land-depressions (roda), sand dunes (nijyan) and salt mud flats (sabkha). Variations in macroclimate were apparent in the records of air temperature, relative humidity, soil surface temperature and wind speed. Soil characteristics (texture, moisture content, organic content and salt content) were found to affect plant biomass and consequently the occurrence and distribution of the arhropods. Arthropods represented the major animal taxon in all the localities studied, and members of the class Insecta were dominant both in density and in diversity. Insect diversity was highest in the sand-dune locality while a higher density was recorded in land depressions. Salt-mud flats sustained the lowest density and diversity. Soil arthropod fauna was richer in land depression samples collected from Rodat Urn Alamad in April 1996. Temporary rain pools in Rodat Alkaraana investigated in April 1996, supported a variety of aquatic arthropod species. This indicates that the Qatari desert, though comparatively small, embodies distinct localised habitats. These support diverse assemblages of arhropods which constitute the bulk of the animal biomass. The role played by arthropods in the structure and functions of the desert is most probably considerable in the overall balance of this delicate ecosystem.


System Identification approach can be used to estimate the models and parameters of the passive system of a test rig for a quarter car active suspension systems. The passive suspension system is consists of sprung mass, unsprung mass, damper and hydraulic actuator. Identification of the system is carried out based on the experimental work of the test rig. The input of the system is an input signal from the LVDT sensor that be controlled by valve and two output signals of the system are the output signals from accelerometers. One output signal is taken from the accelerometer that placed at the body of the car and another one is placed at the tire of the car. Input signal excitation and data acquisition process are controlled by using Simulink. In order to estimate and validate the model and parameters, the data are process using the System Identification Toolbox in Matlab. Since the system is modeled as a linear model, linear ARX model is utilized as a model structure. Model parameter estimation for the passive systems is performed using ARX430 and ARX420 methods respectively. Through the validation process, percentage of the best fit can be reached more than 90% and the smallest LF, PFC and AIC criterions also can be reached. Hence, the model parameters of the system are acceptable.


Summary Aspen ( Populus tremula L.) is associated with high biodiversity and provides high- quality forage for wild browsing herbivores in boreal and temperate ecosystems. The long-term persistence of aspen in many regions in Scandinavia has been questioned due to the historically high browsing levels. We here review the basic ecology, genetics and life histories of aspen in a browsing context. Browsers can suppress the regeneration of aspen and the relatively short lifespan of the trees result in frequent regeneration cycles and concurrent exposure to browsers. In the long term, browsing may reduce recruitment and delay maturation, increase mortality and ultimately cause a decline of aspen. Norwegian forest inventory data indicate a reduced recruitment rate of young aspen (diameter at breast height; 60 – 79 mm) during the last 25 years, but it is unclear whether this is all due to browsing. Regeneration may also be hampered by lack of disturbance. Recent genetic studies have shown that aspen may have substantial regeneration by seeds, which allows for effective migration. The main conclusion of this review is that although browsing may affect demography and local abundance of aspen, it is very unlikely to lead to the eradication of the species in Fennoscandia.


In the following paper the writer describes various species of
Vertebrata, nearly all of which he had the opportunity to see
in Texas, in December, 1914. Some of these were examined
at Baylor University, at Waco; some at College Station, in the
collection of Dr. Mark Francis; and others at the State University,
at Austin. Many of the specimens were afterwards
sent to the writer at Washington where they could be studied
with more care. For the use of these materials the writer is
especially indebted to Dr. John K. Strecker, of Baylor University,
Dr. Mark Francis, of the Agricultural College, and
Prof. F. L. Whitney, of the State University.
The greater number of the species described here belong to
the Pleistocene ;but the pycnodont fishes were derived from the
Lower Cretaceous deposits of Texas.


This study investigates the effect of corporate governance on the performance of commercial banks in Nigeria, and the determination of governance effect on profitability of banks. This came as a result of the fact that corporate governance has been relied on statements which do not represent a true situation of the strength of banks. Four research hypotheses were formulated based on these variables capital adequacy, asset base, policy shift, investment, liquidity ratio, inflation and their relationship with profitability. Descriptive research design was used for this study. Data were obtained from published annual reports and account of the selected commercial banks and the publication of Central Bank of Nigeria. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique was used to estimate the variables using multiple linear regression models. The result of the analysis revealed that the estimation of capital adequacy, asset base, policy shift, investment, liquidity ratio and inflation are prime determinants of corporate governance. The findings revealed that the profitability of banks increased within the years under review as assets base of the banks increased. It further shows that as policy shift and investment increases profitability of banks also increases. Consequently, it was recommended that the regulatory authority should restructure their regulatory framework and strengthen their supervisory capacity to ensure a smooth working relationship with banks, prevent distress and failure in the post-consolidation era. Finally, there should be a provision of heavy sanctions for those that violate banking regulation and other laws that guide bank business.


The development of public integrity management has been the focus of government which can defined as marketing organization; the introduction of customer satisfaction is a new issue, the public organization should utilize scientific quantitative method to increase public satisfaction. This article is aiming to apply marketing research method to analyze public satisfaction and suggest the key driving factors for government, the effective ways will be concluded to serve the public better and achieve long term social stability and sustained development. In the article, the new "customer orientation" will be introduced as buzz marketing, which may be core concept of government, through the quantitative marketing research, the practical applications are suggested. This article attempts to construct satisfaction model according to marketing theory and recognized satisfaction model and collect data by questionnaire, through the analysis, the current situation of integrity of public sector is described, according to the theory of buzz marketing, this article will establish index model on public satisfaction, through designing the questionnaire by orthogonal design, the conjoint analysis is executed to the current situation and suggests recommendations.


Naturally occurring elongate bodies that are segmented or appear to be in the process of segmentation occur in a variety of environments and scales. A simple, process-based numerical model of planform shoreline evolution demonstrates that fetch controls on alongshore sediment transport can result in the segmentation of an elongate water body into smaller, rounded lakes or ponds. The shape of elongate water bodies leaves their long coasts prone to a high-angle-wave instability in shoreline shape that results in the formation of capes that grow through interactions with one another along the same coast. In a numerical model, as capes extend farther offshore, a new behavior emerges, whereby capes on opposing coasts attract one another laterally as they grow, suggesting a novel mechanism for large-scale shoreline self-organization through fetch-limiting interactions. We demonstrate these interactions through analysis of local net sediment flux and coastline stability. Ensemble model runs suggest that, for a symmetric wind distribution, the initial segmentation of a water body requires four lengths per initial width, yet water bodies with higher initial aspect ratios segment to one final round water body per factor of two of the initial aspect ratio. Wave-dominated elongate water bodies with coasts consisting of clastic sediment (and a lack of vegetation) are most likely to undergo this predicted segmentation.


One of the greatest myths being propagated in this contemporary neoliberal scenario is that the nation state is no longer the main force in this period characterized by the intensification of globalization. Deregulation was brought in by governments to expedite the process where various forms of provision, private and formerly public, were left to the market. And yet the credit crunch starkly laid bare the folly of this conviction as new forms of regulation are being put in place with the state, the national state, intervening to bail out banks and other institutions in this situation. I consider this an opportune moment to look at the function of the state and assess its role within the contemporary scenario of 'hegemonic globalization', to adopt the term used by the Portuguese sociologist, Boaventura de Sousa Santos (de Sousa Santos in Dale and Robertson, 2004: 151), and its underlying ideology, neoliberalism. I will look at different theoretical insights and then end this excursus with a discussion of Gramsci's conceptualization of the state and its implications for present day politics. This journal article is available in International Gramsci Journal: http://ro.uow.edu.au/gramsci/vol1/iss3/7 INTERNATIONAL GRAMSCI JOURNAL NO. 3 MARCH 2011 The Centrality of the State in Neoliberal Times


Arabic syntax has yet to be studied in detail from a corpus-based perspective. The Arabic copula kāna, 'be', functions additionally as an auxiliary, creating periphrastic tense-aspect constructions; but the literature on these functions is far from exhaustive. To analyse kāna within the million-word Leeds Corpus of Contemporary Arabic, part-of-speech tagging (using novel, targeted enhancements to a previously described program which improves the accessibility for linguistic analysis of the output of Habash et al.'s 2012 MADA disambiguator for the Buckwalter Arabic morphological analyser) is applied to disambiguate copula and auxiliary at a high rate of accuracy. Concordances of both are extracted, and 10% samples (499 instances of copula kāna, 387 of auxiliary kāna) are manually analysed to identify surface-level grammatical patterns and meanings. This raw analysis is then systematised according to the more general patterns' main parameters of variation; special descriptions are developed for specific, apparently fixed-form expressions (including two phraseologies which afford expression of verbal and adjectival modality). Overall, substantial new detail, not mentioned in existing grammars, is discovered (e.g. the quantitative predominance of the past imperfect construction over other uses of auxiliary kāna); there exists notable potential for these corpus-based findings to inform and enhance not only grammatical descriptions, but also pedagogy of Arabic as a first or second/foreign language.


Objective The aim of the present study was to compare sociodemographic characteristics of children with single versus recurrent episodes of injury and provide contemporary evidence for Australian injury prevention policy development. Methods Participants were identified from the Environments for Healthy Living: Griffith Birth Cohort Study 2006-11 (n=2692). Demographic data were linked to the child's hospital emergency and admissions data from birth to December 2013. Data were dichotomised in two ways: (1) injured or non-injured; and (2) single or recurrent episodes of injury. Multivariate logistic regression was used for analysis. Results The adjusted model identified two factors significantly associated with recurrent episodes of injury in children aged <3 years. Children born to mothers <25 years were almost fourfold more likely to have recurrent episodes of injury compared with children of mothers aged ≥35 years (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=3.68; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.44-9.39) and, as a child's age at first injury increased, odds of experiencing recurrent episodes of injury decreased (aOR=0.97; 95% CI 0.94-0.99). No differences were found in sociodemographic characteristics of children aged 3-7 years with single versus recurrent episodes of injury (P>0.1). Conclusion National priorities should include targeted programs addressing the higher odds of recurrent episodes of injury experienced by children aged <3 years with younger mothers or those injured in the first 18 months of life. What is known about the topic? Children who experience recurrent episodes of injury are at greater risk of serious or irrecoverable harm, particularly when repeat trauma occurs in the early years of life. What does the paper add? The present study identifies key factors associated with recurrent episodes of injury in young Australian children. This is imperative to inform evidence-based national injury prevention policy development in line with the recent expiry of the National Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Plan: 2004-2014. What are the implications for practitioners? Injury prevention efforts need to target the increased injury risk experienced by families from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and, as a priority, children under 3 years of age with younger mothers and children who are injured in the first 18 months of life. These families require access to education programs, resources, equipment and support, particularly in the child's early years. These programs could be provided as part of the routine paediatric and child health visits available to families after their child's birth or incorporated into hospital and general practitioner injury treatment plans.


This article explores the impact of the 2008 Texas raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community near Eldorado called the Yearning for Zion Ranch. We examine some critical post-raid developments and the convictions of prophet Warren Jeffs and ten other key church leaders on charges related to marriages with underage girls. These developments include Jeffs' efforts to maintain his authority from prison, non-compliance by some members, the emergence of a rival leader, and Texas' efforts to seize the Yearning for Zion property. The convergence of these developments has introduced a degree of uncertainty and instability within the FLDS community significantly impacting the future trajectory of the movement.


A huge part of housing finance is related to mortgage. In Europe, loan-to-value range between 50% and 85% for mortgage while the mortgage market/GDP ratio increased by 20% in 2010. In most developed countries housing is the most important household's investment or expenditure. This investment is generally leveraged by mortgage borrowing. The mortgage can bear fixed or variable interest rate; both with their pros and cons. Fixed rate allows easier budgeting over years since the bank bear the interest rate risk. This property of fixed rate mortgage is often assimilated to insurance that hedge against monthly payment fluctuation. Usually, initial variable rate is cheaper since the interest rate risk is assumed by the borrower. Yet, there has been surprisingly little work on mortgage decisions from the perspective of the household. Instead, most research on mortgages has been conducted by real estate or fixed-income securities specialists who are interested in pricing mortgage-backed derivatives. This paper proposes a method to assess the relative cost of fixed rate mortgage implied insurance for the borrower. Thus, we link the insurance cost with insurance premium concept and the related hedged risk. The proposed method is applied to Swiss data. This method offers a sound's basis for comparison of the cost of fixed mortgage rate in time and among countries. It also allows the exploration of the relationship between fixed rates implied insurance cost and people's preference for the financial product. We use the method to analyse mortgage rate between 2002 and 2012. We compare variables rates (Libor and bank variable rate) with five and three years fixed rate. We find that most of the time fixed implied insurance is costly for the borrower. This cost represents a value between 0.5% and 7% of the total initial mortgage when compared with libor.


We present a scheme of two-photon quantum Fourier transform at first, where the controlled π/2 phase gate and the Hadamard gates are applied. The indirect interaction between two photons can be realized through a coupling bus provided by a coherent state in Kerr media. Employing photon-number measurements and the corresponding classical feed-forward techniques, the task of low-error quantum Fourier transform can be fulfilled. With revision and modulation on the optical elements, controlled π/2n (n=2,3,…) phase gates are constructed, and the multiphoton quantum Fourier transform can be achieved by integrating these controlled phase gates and Hadamard gates.


We present a method for computerizing the transition rules of a state-and-transition model and then linking this model to a geographic information system. The resulting simulation characterizes rangeland vegetation dynamics in space and time. The method makes use of an expert system, a computer program that forms logical chains of transition rules. Simulation using state-and-transition rules, sometimes called qualitative simulation, has the disadvantage that it is less precise than traditional numerical simulation. However, it may have the advantage of being able to generate more robust simulation of complex vegetation communities. We demonstrate the application of the method by constructing a model of hardwood rangeland in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The model is tested by comparison with historic black-and-white aerial photographs. The model is found to agree generally with the observed data but to differ substantially in some locations. Implications of this difference are discussed.


Abstract Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine at 1606 m, has about 13 km2 (1300 ha) of alpine and subalpine tundra and krummholz on a summit plateau and in upper cirque basins. Lichens and bryophytes have been collected above tree line since the mid-19th century, but the cryptogam biota of the mountain has remained incompletely documented. For 16 days during 2001–2004 we inventoried lichens and bryophytes of the subalpine and alpine zones of Katahdin (above 884 m), visiting open alpine tundra, alpine cliffs in glacial cirques, seeps, fellfields, krummholz and subalpine forests. We relocated most species represented by historic collections and added many more to the documented biota, including significant range extensions and species new to North America or northeastern United States. The floristic results are presented in two associated papers. Here we (1) summarize previous studies of the botany, ecology and geology of Katahdin; (2) compare quadrats from a Diapensia heath in exposed alpine tundra on the Table Land with a snow bed community just below the Table Land, where a marked difference in the bryophyte and lichen assemblages may reflect cryptogam-vascular plant interactions and/or site-specific differences; and (3) summarize unpublished weather data collected at the Chimney Pond Ranger Station (ca. 890 m). Katahdin and Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, have similar recent temperature and precipitation records on the basis of the available data. Katahdin shares some vegetation components and climate features with mountain ranges in the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand and the Scottish Highlands that have been studied for lichens and/or bryophytes.


Intimal cushions form in the fetal ductus arteriosus by fibronectin-dependent smooth muscle cell migration which is associated with greater efficiency of fibronectin mRNA translation. We investigated whether the AU-rich element (ARE), UUAUUUAU, in the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR) of fibronectin mRNA is involved in this mechanism by transfecting smooth muscle cells with plasmids containing the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase coding region with its 3'UTR replaced by fibronectin 3'UTR bearing intact or mutated ARE. More efficient translation of fusion mRNA with intact versus mutated ARE was observed. This effect was amplified in ductus (10.9-fold) compared with nonmigratory, lower fibronectin-producing aorta cells (6.5-fold). Ductus cells transfected with wild-type but not ARE-mutated plasmid reverted to the stellate phenotype of aorta cells associated with reduced fibronectin production. This suggested that plasmid ARE sequesters RNA-binding factors, thereby reducing endogenous fibronectin mRNA translation. We next purified a 15-kD fibronectin ARE-dependent RNA-binding protein and identified it as microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3). LC3 is present in greater amounts in ductus compared with aorta cells, and overexpression of LC3 in aortic cells by transfection enhances fibronectin mRNA translation to levels observed in ductus cells.


In this delightful book, Dr. Seuss introduces the youngest children to the concept of sight and seeing, looking at a range of everyday things from colours and cutlery to socks and underpants! This title belongs to Dr. Seuss's Bright and Early Beginner Book series, designed especially for "Beginning Beginners" - preschool children on the threshhold of learning to read. Using an exuberant combination of bright, bold pictures and rhythmic rhyme, Dr. Seuss introduces simple stories and concepts, adding a large helping of zany humour to help the youngest child make the all important connection between word and picture. Originally published under the pseudonym of Theo. LeSieg, The Eye Book is being relaunched with a stylish new cover design which reveals, for the first time, the true identity of the author - Dr. Seuss himself!


This study analyses forward-spot relationships at two of the world's largest hubs for natural gas (Henry Hub and NBP). We find that spot and forward prices are covariance-stationary. Testing the theory of storage shows that inventories are highly significant in explaining the basis. In particular, we find evidence of a positive cost-of-carry in both markets. Furthermore, in both markets, forward prices have on average exceeded subsequent spot prices. Under the assumption of rational expectations, this indicates a negative risk premium. In fact, the premium appears to be time-varying. Finally, expected inventories at a contract's maturity seem to be a more important determinant of the risk premium than the contractual length in the UK.


Phenol is a toxic compound found in many industrial-waste effluents. A locally isolated yeast strain RETL-Cr1 from the effluent of the Exxon Mobil Oil Refinery wastewater treatment plant was investigated for phenol degradation using batch and fedbatch fermentation under aerobic condition. Based on a BLASTN search of GenBank, the complete sequences of ITS1-5.8S rDNA-ITS2 regions and portions of I8S and 28S for the purified DNA products of RETL-Cr1 shared 98% similarity with C. tropicalis. This yeast strain RETL-Cr1 was redesignated C. tropicalis RETL-Cr1 and was deposited at the GenBank under the accession number AY725426. The optimum condition for phenol degradation was at 30oC, pH 6.5 in RM in the absence of glucose. The highest phenol biodegradation efficiency in shake-flask cultures with IPC of 3mM was 100% achieving a degradation rate of 0.0257 g L-1 h-1 at µ 0.3718 h -1 after 14 h cultivation. Degradation of phenol was faster by 1.5-fold in bioreactor than in shake-flask whereby degradation rate was improved to 0.0395 g L-1 h-1 at µ 0.5391 h-1 after 10 hours of incubation. When tested at various IPC (0.0028 – 0.94 g L-1), inhibition was evident at IPC levels above 5 mM (0.470 g L-1). The fed-batch system in a bioreactor offered an 85 times fold degradation rate (2.3 g L-1 h-1) over shake-flask culture (0.0257 g L-1 h-1) and 61-fold over 2L bioreactor (0.0395 g L-1 h-1) batch system. It was observed that kinetically phenol degradation by RETL-Cr1 was significantly high in fed-batch culture as indicated by high degradation rate (2.3 g L-1 h-1) and substrate yield (Yx/s = 0.71-4.48 g g-1). However, a lower product yield (Ypc/s = 1.6x10-4 – 2.1x10-3 g g-1; Ypc/x = 3.5x10-5 – 1.4 x10-3 g g-1; YccMA/s = 1.0x10-4 – 2.0x10-4 g g -1; YccMA/x = 4.4x10-5 – 1.8x10-4 g g-1) and productivity (catechol = 1.2x10-5 – 5.3x10-5 g L-1 h-1; ccMA = 1.4x10-5 – 2.6 x10-5 g L-1 h-1) were achieved. When catechol and ccMA were analysed to determine whether an ortho or meta pathway was taken, it was found that these two metabolites were present in low amounts. This probably indicates further degradation of the metabolites. Hence, RETLCr1 strain metabolizes phenol via ortho-cleavage pathway. The optimum condition for both phenol hydroxylase and catechol 1,2-dioxygenase were at 30oC, pH 6.5. The most distinctive feature of this yeast strain is that it has a very high tolerance limit towards phenol reaching up to 60 mM. Based on the observations, RETL-Cr1 has a good potential to be used for treatment of phenol in industrial effluent


Between 1935 and 1942, photographers for the New Deal's Resettlement Administration-Farm Security Administration (FSA) captured in powerfully moving images the travail of the Great Depression and the ways of a people confronting radical social change. Those who speak of the special achievement of FSA photography usually have in mind such white icons as Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" or Walker Evans's Alabama sharecroppers. But some six thousand printed images, a tenth of FSA's total, included black figures or their dwellings. At last, Nicholas Natanson reveals both the innovative treatment of African Americans in FSA photographs and the agency's highly problematic use of these images once they had been created. While mono-dimensional treatments of blacks were common in public and private photography of the period, such FSA photographers as Ben Shahn, Arthur Rothstein, and Jack Delano were well informed concerning racial problems and approached blacks in a manner that avoided stereotypes, right-wing as well as left-wing. In addition, rather than focusing exclusively on FSA-approved agency projects involving blacks - politically the safest course - they boldly addressed wider social and cultural themes. This study employs a variety of methodological tools to explore the political and administrative forces that worked against documentary coverage of particularly sensitive racial issues. Moreover, Natanson shows that those who drew on the FSA photo files for newspapers, magazines, books, and exhibitions often entirely omitted images of black people and their environment or used devices such as cropping and captioning to diminish the true range of the FSA photographers' vision.


Chair Richard P Swinson. MD, FRCPC, FRCPsych Working Group Members Martin M Antony, PhD, ABPP Pierre Bleau, MD, CSPQ, FRCPC Pratap Chokka, MD. FRCPC Marilyn Craven, MD. PhD, CCFP Angela Fallu, MD, FRCPC Kevin Kjernisted, MD, FRCPC Ruth Lanhts. MD, FRCPC Katharina Manassis. MD. FRCPC Diane McIntosh. BSc Pharmacy. MD, FRCPC Jacques Plamondon. MD. FRCPC Kiran Rabheni MD. CCFP, FRCP, ABPN Michael Van Ameringen. MD, FRCPC John R Walker. PhD, CPsych Canadian and International External Reviewers Peter McLean, PhD Peter P Roy-Byrne. MD Murray B Stein. MD. MPH Dan J Stein. MD, PhD This supplement is available in French. Ce supplement est disponible en francais. 1. Introduction Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent of mental disorders, yet the chrome and disabling nature of these conditions is often seriously underestimated (1-3). This has led to underdiagnosis and undertrcatment, resulting in considerable disability and overuse of both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric medical services (4-6). These guidelines were developed to provide practical, evidence-based recommendations to primary care physicians and specialists in psychiatry for the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders in Canada, including panic disorder (PD), with and without agoraphobia; specific phobia; social anxiety disorder (SAD) (social phobia); obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The objectives are to review assessment and diagnosis and to provide recommendations for improving assessment, diagnosis, and management of these disorders in clinical practice. They are based on an intensive review of the current literature by a panel of Canadian experts in anxiety disorders and were developed through a consensus process. We obtained data on psychological treatment and pharmacothcrapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders through MEDLINE searches of English-language citations (1980-2005) and meeting abstracts (2003-2005), using the specific treatments and specific anxiety disorders as search tenus. This was supplemented by searches using PsycINFO, as well as by hand searches of the bibliographies of efficacy studies, metaanalyses, and review articles. We then rated treatment strategies on strength of evidence for the intervention and made a clinical recommendation for each intervention, based on global impression of efficacy, effectiveness, and side effects, using a modified version of the periodic health examination guidelines (Tables 1.1 and 1.2). The committee included 13 psychiatrists, 2 psychologists, and 1 family physician organized into subcommittees according to expertise in each type of anxiety disorder as well as in treating children and the elderly. At a meeting in May 2005, the group reviewed preliminary evidence and treatment recommendations; the subcommittees developed draft guidelines, which were then presented to the entire group for consensus ratification in September 2005. At the Canadian Psychiatric Association annual meeting in November 2005, the draft version of the guidelines was presented to the Canadian psychiatric community for its input prior to submission of the guidelines for publication. These guidelines are divided into 9 sections, including this introduction. Section 2 discusses principles of diagnosis and management. This section provides an overview of the differential diagnosis of anxiety disorders in general, discusses issues that affect all anxiety disorders, including comorbidities, and presents the general advantages and disadvantages of psychological treatment and pharmacotherapy options. An overall management algorithm that outlines decision points in treating anxiety disorders is provided. Sections 3 through 8 review the specific diagnosis and management of PD, specific phobia, SAD, OCD, GAD, and PTSD. …


Purpose: To investigate the effects of reconstruction field‐of‐view (FOV), slice increment and kernel on the quantification of kidney stone volume. Methods: Three concentrations (200, 400 and 800 mg/cc) and two sizes (21.87 and 99.9 mm3) of hydroxyapatite (HA: Ca5(PO4)OH) cylinders were used to simulate kidney stones of 3 and 5 mm diameter, respectively). These were submerged in a 30 cm wide water phantom and scanned on a dual‐ source CT scanner operating in dual‐energy mode. Reconstruction was performed with a) FOVs from 50 to 300 mm at 50 mm interval; b) image reconstruction increments of 0.1, 0.3 and 0.6 mm; c) 6 recon kernels, from very smooth to medium sharp, all using a 0.6 mm image thickness. CT data were segmented and volumes calculated using volume‐rendered 3D images of each stone, commercial software(Analyze, version10.0) and fixed CT number thresholds (130, 250 and 550 HU for HA200, HA400 and HA800, respectively). Differences in volume between measured and reference values, normalized to the reference values were calculated. The range (maximum — minimum) in normalized volume differences were used to assess the overall influence of various reconstruction parameters. Results: Although normalized volume differences varied with cylinder concentration and size, the differences among FOVs were not substantial (<10.61%). The normalized volume differences among image increments were very small (< 2.45%), except for the lowest concentration/smallest size (differences up to 8.14%), where the smallest image increment was most accurate (differences < 3.02%). Very smooth kernels decreased volume accuracy by as much as 16.19%. Conclusions: Reducing reconstruction FOV did not increase accuracy of volume measurements. Overlap between reconstructed images was beneficial for volume measurement of low concentrations of HA (200 mg/cc) and small size (3 mm diameter) objects. Very smooth kernels were not suitable for volume measurement due to too much edge blurring.


Joint project has been conducted in a demonstration plant with 1-MGD capacity at Jurong Water Reclamation Plant to produce high quality effluent through a combined process of up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor and ceramic membrane bioreactor (UASB-CMBR). Water quality of the product and energy consumption met target which were evaluated after one-year operation. The joint project has further been conducted to optimize operating conditions including cleaning procedure. Recovery cleaning (RC) of the ceramic membrane was carried out after 18 months operation and permeability was recovered to be initial value. Stable filtration at 25 LMH was achieved after the RC. RO filtration test was also carried out to treat effluent from the UASB-CMBR. Stable operation in the RO system was achieved with flux of 15 LMH and recovery of 60%. Quality of RO permeates met criteria for industrial water. It is concluded that UASB-CMBR process with RO system can produce high quality water for reuse from industrial used water.


Creating an institutional repository (IR) requires much forethought and planning. Setting up a university IR committee will help direct policy and collection goals, and will encourage faculty participation. There are many things to consider in design such as branding, policy, copyright, collection development, author submissions and discoverability. Publishing in an IR requires original works, and copyright issues arise, especially if authors wish to publish in other journals. Our IR goal was to promote scholarship and encourage faculty to create publishing profile space in SelectedWorks, which can become a virtual curricula vita. The ultimate goal is discoverability and open access contribution to scholarship in the field. This article is a personal recounting of our experience in setting up FireScholars, our institutional repository at Southeastern University.


Abstract Results of recent research by Kranzler and Keith (1999) raised important questions concerning the construct validity of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS; Naglieri & Das, 1997), a new test of intelligence based on the planning, attention, simultaneous, and sequential (PASS) processes theory of human cognition. Their results indicated that the CAS lacks structural fidelity, leading them to hypothesize that the CAS Scales are better understood from the perspective of Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory as measures of psychometric g, processing speed, short-term memory span, and fluid intelligence/broad visualization. To further examine the constructs measured by the CAS, this study reports the results of the first joint confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the CAS and a test of intelligence designed to measure the broad cognitive abilities of CHC theory—the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities-3rd Edition (WJ III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001). In this study, 155 general education students between 8 and 11 years of age (M = 9.81) were administered the CAS and the WJ III. A series of joint CFA models was examined from both the PASS and the CHC theoretical perspectives to determine the nature of the constructs measured by the CAS. Results of these analyses do not support the construct validity of the CAS as a measure of the PASS processes. These results, therefore, question the utility of the CAS in practical settings for differential diagnosis and intervention planning. Moreover, results of this study and other independent investigations of the factor structure of preliminary batteries of PASS tasks and the CAS challenge the viability of the PASS model as a theory of individual differences in intelligence.


This paper describes the design and implementation of an optimizing compiler that automatically generates profile information to assist classic code optimizations. This compiler contains two new components, an execution profiler and a profile‐based code optimizer, which are not commonly found in traditional optimizing compilers. The execution profiler inserts probes into the input program, executes the input program for several inputs, accumulates profile information and supplies this information to the optimizer. The profile‐based code optimizer uses the profile information to expose new optimization opportunities that are not visible to traditional global optimization methods. Experimental results show that the profile‐based code optimizer significantly improves the performance of production C programs that have already been optimized by a high‐quality global code optimizer.


The availability of fresh vegetables in UAE especially in summer season has become a major issue as they are susceptible to post-harvest deterioration after harvest. Therefore, it is necessary to cool the product as quick as possible before it delivered to the customers. In present research work a comparison of pre-cooling unit with normal refrigeration was analyzed. The results revealed that for pre-cooling unit and normal refrigeration i.e. the average temperature ratio (TRavg), cooling rate (CR) and mean half cooling time (Z) values were found to be (0.404, 0.221 EsC/time and 55.21 minutes) and (0.556, 0.154 EsC/time and 82.13 minutes) respectively. The curve produced strong relation between temperature ratio values (TR) and time in both cases i.e. pre-cooling and normal refrigeration having value of R2 as 0.988 and R2 as 0.978 respectively. Likewise, a linear regression was found between cooling rate values (CR) and time in both cases i.e. pre-cooling and normal refrigeration having value of R2 as 0.9954 and R2 as 0.9951 respectively. Furthermore, the study described that the pre-cooling unit saved 32.77% time to reduce the product temperature than normal refrigeration which is an ultimate gain.


How does an understanding of the antecedents of trust and trust building contribute to our knowledge of relationships in the corporate banking sector in the United Arab Emirates? How is trust operationalised? This thesis has 1) identified the interaction between bankers and their clients; 2) empirically studied both sides of this dyad; 3) investigated the extent to which the antecedents of trust are contextually dependent; and 4) drawn out the implications for relationship managers.
This work fills a gap in the financial services marketing literature: it provides an understanding of the antecedents of trust and insights into corporate banking in an Arab/Muslim context. It has implications for other Gulf States and Arab cultures, and finds a significant relationship between emotions and trust.
The literature on trust is vast; many surveys analyse the meanings of trust and provide typologies. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the antecedents of trust. This work devises a typology of trust, classified into six antecedents: competence, reliability, integrity, benevolence, openness of communication and "antecedent" satisfaction – all with particular reference to Emirati religion, culture and shared values.
Thematic qualitative analysis was deployed here through the use of semi-structured interviews with 170 respondents. Key informants in the Central Bank of Abu Dhabi and in a multi-national oil company provided triangulation.
The antecedents of trust in the banking sector in an Arab/Muslim context fall into three clusters: "Cognitive", "Affective" and "Religion, culture and shared values". All were investigated in an Arab/Muslim context. It is shown here that the antecedents of trust for Emiratis are controlled by the key mediating variables of religion, culture and shared values. For non-Emiratis, antecedents of trust are predominantly cognitive, focusing on knowledge, skills and profit. This research reveals that additional antecedents of trust, beyond those in the literature, influence the building of trust.


We describe a new method for imaging leukocytes in vivo by exciting the endogenous protein fluorescence in the ultraviolet (UV) spectral region where tryptophan is the major fluorophore. Two-photon excitation near 590 nm allows noninvasive optical sectioning through the epidermal cell layers into the dermis of mouse skin, where leukocytes can be observed by video-rate microscopy to interact dynamically with the dermal vascular endothelium. Inflammation significantly enhances leukocyte rolling, adhesion, and tissue infiltration. After exiting the vasculature, leukocytes continue to move actively in tissue as observed by time-lapse microscopy, and are distinguishable from resident autofluorescent cells that are not motile. Because the new method alleviates the need to introduce exogenous labels, it is potentially applicable for tracking leukocytes and monitoring inflammatory cellular reactions in humans.


We describe a method for controlling smoke simulations through user-specified keyframes. To achieve the desired behavior, a continuous quasi-Newton optimization solves for appropriate "wind" forces to be applied to the underlying velocity field throughout the simulation. The cornerstone of our approach is a method to efficiently compute exact derivatives through the steps of a fluid simulation. We formulate an objective function corresponding to how well a simulation matches the user's keyframes, and use the derivatives to solve for force parameters that minimize this function. For animations with several keyframes, we present a novel multiple-shooting approach. By splitting large problems into smaller overlapping subproblems, we greatly speed up the optimization process while avoiding certain local minima.


: Based on an ethnographic fi eld study in a museum and an evening high school in Cologne, this paper discusses experiences of young German adults in everyday encounters with the Holocaust, which are oft en accompanied by feelings of discomfort. Considering the Holocaust as an uncanny, strange matter contributes to understanding that distance and proximity are key factors in creating uncomfortable encounters. Distance from the Holocaust reduces discomfort, but where distance cannot be created, other strategies have to be put to work. Th is article underlines the signifi cance of experience in an individual's personal relation to the past for gaining an improved understanding of Holocaust memorial culture in Germany.


Numerous highly angled electrode penetrations through the opercular region of macaque striate cortex reveal that layers 4A, 4C alpha, and 4C beta--the primary input sublaminae for axons from the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)--are retinotopically organized on a fine scale and populated mostly by monocularly driven cells having small receptive fields and lacking orientation selectivity. Layer 4B, which does not receive a direct thalamic input, contains orientationally selective cells, and many of these are also direction selective. To a significant degree the response properties of cells in layers 4C alpha and 4C beta reflect the response properties of their respective afferent inputs, from the magno- and parvocellular laminae of the LGN. Accordingly, cells in layer 4C alpha have lower contrast thresholds and larger minimum response fields than do the cells in layer 4C beta. In contrast to this clear-cut separation, the cells of layer 4A (whose major source of direct LGN input arises from the parvocellular layers) exhibit both high and low contrast thresholds. With regard to the precision of retinotopic mapping that is seen in lamina 4C, it is noteworthy that there is substantial overlap among the minimum response fields of neighboring neurons. Due to a larger mean receptive field size, this overlap is greater in layer 4C alpha than it is in 4C beta. In either sublamina, however, the minimum cortical distance that separates different and nonoverlapping parts of the visual field corresponds closely--within a factor of 2--to the known arborizational spreads of single geniculate afferents.


Agrin is a basement membrane-associated proteoglycan that induces the formation of postsynaptic specializations at the neuromuscular junction. This activity is modulated by alternative splicing and is thought to be mediated by receptors expressed in muscle fibers. An isoform of agrin that does not induce postsynaptic specializations binds with high affinity to dystroglycan, a component of the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex. Transcripts encoding this agrin isoform are expressed in a variety of non-muscle tissues. Here, we analyzed the tissue distribution of agrin and dystroglycan on the protein level and determined their binding affinities. We found that agrin is most abundant in lung, kidney, and brain. Only a little agrin was detected in skeletal muscle, and no agrin was found in liver. Dystroglycan was highly expressed in all tissues examined except in liver. In a solid-phase radioligand binding assay, agrin bound to dystroglycan from lung, kidney, and skeletal muscle with a dissociation constant between 1.8 and 2.2 nm, while the affinity to brain-derived dystroglycan was 4.6 nm. In adult kidney and lung, agrin co-purified and co-immunoprecipitated with dystroglycan, and both molecules were co-localized in embryonic tissue. These data show that the agrin isoform expressed in non-muscle tissue is a high-affinity binding partner of dystroglycan and they suggest that this interaction, like that between laminin and dystroglycan, may be important for the mechanical integrity of the tissue.


BackgroundIn patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), the frequent provocation of ventricular tachycardia during exercise, the sensitivity toward catecholamines, and the response toward antiarrhythmic drug regimen with antiadrenergic properties suggest an involvement of the sympathetic nervous system in arrhythmogenesis. Methods and ResultsTo analyze the presence, extent, and location of impaired myocardial sympathetic innervation in ARVC, 123I–meta-iodobenzylguanidine (123I-MIBG) scintigraphy was performed in 48 patients with ARVC. For comparison, 9 patients with idiopathic ventricular tachycardia and a control group of 7 patients without heart disease were investigated. In patients with ARVC, the clinical sustained (n=25; 52%) or nonsustained (n=23; 48%) ventricular tachycardia originated in the right ventricular outflow tract in 38 patients (79%), whereas in the remaining 10 patients (21%), the site of origin was the apical (n=5) or inferior (n=5) right ventricle. In 33 patients (69%), nonsustained or sustained ventricular tachycardia was provocable by exercise (n=28 of 48; 58%) and/or by isoproterenol infusion (n= 16 of 37; 43%), whereas programmed ventricular stimulation induced sustained or nonsustained ventricular tachycardia in 16 patients each (33% each). With I MIBG scintigraphy, the right ventricle was not visible in any patient. No areas of intense 11I-MIBG uptake ("hot spots") were observed. All patients of the control group and 7 of 9 patients (78%) with idiopathic ventricular tachycardia showed a uniform tracer uptake in the left ventricle. In contrast, only 8 of 48 ARVC patients (17%) showed a homogeneous distribution of 123I-MIBG uptake, whereas 40 patients (83%) demonstrated regional reductions or defects of tracer uptake. In 3 of 48 patients (6%), the defect area was < 15%; in 21 patients (44%), it was 15% to 30%; and in 16 patients (33%), it was >30% of the polar map area of the left ventricle (mean, 23±15%; range, 0% to 57%). In 38 of 40 patients (95%) with an abnormal 123I-MIBG scan, reduced tracer uptake was located in the basal posteroseptal left ventricle, involving the adjacent lateral wall in 10, the anterior wall in 2, and the apex in 12 patients. Only 2 patients demonstrated isolated defects of the anterior or lateral wall; one involved the apex. Perfusion abnormalities in the areas of 123I-MIBG defects were excluded by stress/redistribution 201Tl single-photon emission computed tomography scintigraphy and by normal coronary angiograms in all patients. Abnormalities in 123I-MIBG scintigraphy in patients with ARVC correlated with the site of origin of ventricular tachycardia, demonstrating a regionally reduced tracer uptake in 36 of 38 patients (95%) with right ventricular outflow tract tachycardia compared with only 4 of 10 patients (40%) with other right ventricular origins of tachycardia. There was no correlation between the results of 123I-MIBG scintigraphy and the extent of right ventricular contraction abnormalities, right ventricular ejection fraction, biopsy results, coronary anatomy, or left ventricular involvement in ARVC. ConclusionsIn patients with ARVC, regional abnormalities of sympathetic innervation are frequent and can be demonstrated by 123I-MIBG scintigraphy. Sympathetic denervation appears to be the underlying mechanism of reduced 123I-MIBG uptake and may be related to frequent provocation of ventricular arrhythmias by exercise or catecholamine exposure in ARVC. Therefore, in patients with ARVC, the noninvasive detection of localized sympathetic denervation by 123I-MIBG imaging may have implications for the early diagnosis and for the choice of antiarrhythmic drugs in the treatment of arrhythmias.


Trypanosoma cruzi infection is characterized by chronic parasitism of non-lymphoid tissues and is rarely eliminated despite potent adaptive immune responses. This failure to cure has frequently been attributed to a loss or impairment of anti-T. cruzi T cell responses over time, analogous to the T cell dysfunction described for other persistent infections. In this study, we have evaluated the role of CD8+ T cells during chronic T. cruzi infection (>100 dpi), with a focus on sites of pathogen persistence. Consistent with repetitive antigen exposure during chronic infection, parasite-specific CD8+ T cells from multiple organs expressed high levels of KLRG1, but exhibit a preferential accumulation of CD69+ cells in skeletal muscle, indicating recent antigen encounter in a niche for T. cruzi persistence. A significant proportion of CD8+ T cells in the muscle also produced IFNγ, TNFα and granzyme B in situ, an indication of their detection of and functional response to T. cruzi in vivo. CD8+ T cell function was crucial for the control of parasite burden during chronic infection as exacerbation of parasite load was observed upon depletion of this population. Attempts to improve T cell function by blocking PD-1 or IL-10, potential negative regulators of T cells, failed to increase IFNγ and TNFα production or to enhance T. cruzi clearance. These results highlight the capacity of the CD8+ T cell population to retain essential in vivo function despite chronic antigen stimulation and support a model in which CD8+ T cell dysfunction plays a negligible role in the ability of Trypanosoma cruzi to persist in mice.


Abstract The paradigm of Tabled Logic Programming (TLP) is now supported by a number of Prolog systems, including XSB, YAP Prolog, B-Prolog, Mercury, ALS, and Ciao. The reasons for this are partly theoretical: tabling ensures termination and optimal known complexity for queries to a large class of programs. However, the overriding reasons are practical. TLP allows sophisticated programs to be written concisely and efficiently, especially when mechanisms such as tabled negation and call and answer subsumption are supported. As a result, TLP has now been used in a variety of applications from program analysis to querying over the semantic web. This paper provides a survey of TLP and its applications as implemented in the XSB Prolog, along with discussion of how XSB supports tabling with dynamically changing code, and in a multi-threaded environment.


The absence of a generic modeling framework in hydrology has long been recognized. With our current practice of developing more and more complex models for specific individual situations, there is an increasing emphasis and urgency on this issue. There have been some attempts to provide guidelines for a catchment classification framework, but research in this area is still in a state of infancy. To move forward on this classification framework, identification of an appropriate basis and development of a suitable methodology for its representation are vital. The present study argues that hydrologic system complexity is an appropriate basis for this classification framework and nonlinear dynamic concepts constitute a suitable methodology. The study employs a popular nonlinear dynamic method for identification of the level of complexity of streamflow and for its classification. The correlation dimension method, which has its base on data reconstruction and nearest neighbor concepts, is applied to monthly streamflow time series from a large network of 117 gaging stations across 11 states in the western United States (US). The dimensionality of the time series forms the basis for identification of system complexity and, accordingly, streamflows are classified into four major categories: low-dimensional, medium-dimensional, high-dimensional, and unidentifiable. The dimension estimates show some "homogeneity" in flow complexity within certain regions of the western US, but there are also strong exceptions.


Based on an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research project (2014-7) assessing international investment treaty dispute management more broadly, this paper (abridged from a related project) introduces part of our joint project examining key questions around the effect of investment treaties and some of their provisions on direct investment flows. It focuses on the vexed question of whether offering treaty-based Investor-State Dispute Settlement ('ISDS') leads to significant increases in inbound foreign direct investment (FDI), in light of the persistent public debate about the merits of this procedural option for enforcing substantive commitments made by host states. Overall, our econometric analysis generates complex implications for policy-makers reassessing the historical impact of ISDS in order to decide whether and how to include different forms of such procedural provisions in future investment treaties. Skeptics can point to counter-intuitive results indicating that weaker-form ISDS and/or substantive provisions seem to have stronger and more robust impact, especially since the turn of this century. Proponents can point to results indicating that there has still been a positive and significant impact from stronger provisions, including from full-scale ISDS provisions in promptly ratified treaties concluded between OECD and non-OECD countries. Although our baseline model specification has generally dealt effectively with the endogeneity problem characteristic of this field, further variables impacting on FDI may be investigated (notably, double tax treaties) and data limitations remain (notably, FDI outflows from non-OECD countries and sectoral-level data). This econometric analysis can therefore be usefully complemented by the qualitative research component of our ongoing project.


DDT has the potential for great benefit and great harm. It is currently the most efficient method for controlling malaria, particularly for those countries the disease affects most. However, it also causes global pollution and damages the health of humans and wildlife. These characteristics of DDT make regulating DDT difficult because they create a need for the continued use of DDT to prevent the debilitating effects of malaria, but also a need to ban the use of DDT in order to prevent its negative environmental and health effects. These conflicting needs correlate to diverging interests of developing and developed countries. The Stockholm Convention is an international attempt to regulate DDT use while recognizing this tension. It permits DDT use for public health purposes, though ultimately pursues an objective of total elimination of the chemical. After examining malaria, DDT, and the Convention in some detail, this Note suggests several reforms to the Stockholm Convention in order to more effectively reconcile the need for DDT with the need to eliminate DDT from manufacture or use.


Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic for 1994-2003, this study examines the relationship between a firm's liquidity constraints and its supply linkages with multinational corporations (MNCs). The empirical analysis indicates that Czech firms supplying MNCs are less credit constrained than non-suppliers. A closer inspection of the timing of the effect, however, suggests that this result is due to less constrained firms self-selecting into becoming MNC suppliers rather than the benefits derived from the supplying relationship. As recent literature finds that productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) are most likely to take place through contacts between MNCs and their local suppliers, our finding suggests that well-developed financial markets may be needed in order to take full advantage of the benefits associated with FDI inflows.


Tourism in Cuba is thriving. Since 1991 the island has quickly become one of the top Caribbean tourist destinations. As a result tourism researchers have recently turned their attention towards investigating many facets of tourism on the island. However one omission in this growing corpus of research is the effect that politics has had on Cuba's tourist destination image (TDI). In this study I explore how politics influences the evolution of tourist destination image. I also demonstrate that a critical constructivist paradigm can be used as an alternative to traditional positivist/postpositivist ways of researching tourist destination image. Finally I utilize the unique, politically charged, situation of Cuba, the US, and Canada as a case study to illustrate the above objectives. To accomplish this I critique the body of TDI literature to demonstrate that the over reliance on positivist and postpositivist approaches has narrowed how TDI is conceptualized. I then present the findings of my study as a means of addressing the deficiencies in the current literature. The way I approach my study as a critical constructivist demonstrates an alternative way of knowing and researching tourist destination image. This approach broadens the scope of acceptable areas of exploration, which is particularly important when the subject of the study, Canadians' and Americans' image of Cuba, presents fertile material for the investigation of how politics influence people's TDI. As a means of operationalizing a critical constructivist epistemology I interviewed 20 Canadian and 22 American tourists to the Caribbean using a semistructured interview designed to elicit their images of Cuba. I then used a qualitative frame analysis approach incorporating Creed, Langstraat, and Scully's (2002) signature matrix in order to scrutinize these interviews for organizing narratives that would suggest unifying frames. Both groups of interviewees were found to have a dominant framing of images related to Cuba. I present a critical exploration of these frames by examining their unifying logics, the implicit assumptions made by those who proffer it, the contradictions both within the frame and between the frame and the discourse that nurtures it, and reflect on the significance of my embeddedness within the culture I am investigating.


This study sought to identify factors influencing HIV testing decisions among clients at a sexually transmitted disease clinic, gay men, and injection drug users. Focus group and intensive interview data were collected from 100 individuals. The AIDS Risk Reduction Model was adapted to describe factors that affect test decisions. Testing barriers and facilitators were grouped as factors affected by "Individual" beliefs, "System" policies and programs, "Testing" technology, and "Counseling" options. Individual factors (fear of death and change), system factors (anonymous test availability, convenience), and counseling and testing factors (rapid results, counseling alternatives) interact to determine whether an individual does not test ("apprehension") or does test ("action"), and ultimately, tests routinely ("integration"). In conclusion, traditional HIV testing presents barriers to some populations at risk for HIV. These findings suggest several strategies to improve HIV test acceptance: acknowledge fears, address system barriers, utilize available test technologies, and expand counseling options.


The objective of this series of experiments was to evaluate the effect of bioceramic coatings/ incorporations on implant surfaces as a function of implant and surgical drilling design. Methods: A series of four in vivo studies were conducted utilizing the dog proximal tibia model. The models provided implants that remained from 2 to 5 weeks implantation time. The different studies comprised the placement of implants with intimate contact with bone following placement and implant designs that resulted in healing chambers. The various implant types presented surfaces with and without Ca- and P-based bioceramic incorporations. Biomechanical and histomorphometric measurements along with qualitative bone-implant interface morphology evaluation were performed. For all studies, one-way ANOVA at 95% level of significance was employed along with Tukey's post-hoc multiple comparisons. Results: Close contact between cortical and trabecular bone and all the different implant surfaces irrespective of implant fit (with and without healing chambers) showed that all surfaces were biocompatible and osteoconductive. In general, appositional bone healing was observed at all implant regions that were in intimate contact with bone immediately after placement, and an intramembranous-like healing occurred throughout the whole volume of the healing chambers. Irrespective of implant + surgical drilling design, the presence of Ca and P resulted in a bone morphology that showed primary osteonic structures at earlier times than uncoated surfaces. Conclusion: Irrespective of implant design and surgical drilling combination, the presence of Ca and P on the implant surface positively modulated early healing around endosseous implants.


Back with a Vengeance After surgery, gliomas (a type of brain tumor) recur in nearly all patients and often in a more aggressive form. Johnson et al. (p. 189, published online 12 December 2013) used exome sequencing to explore whether recurrent tumors harbor different mutations than the primary tumors and whether the mutational profile in the recurrences is influenced by postsurgical treatment of patients with temozolomide (TMZ), a chemotherapeutic drug known to damage DNA. In more than 40% of cases, at least half of the mutations in the initial glioma were undetected at recurrence. The recurrent tumors in many of the TMZ-treated patients bore the signature of TMZ-induced mutagenesis and appeared to follow an evolutionary path to high-grade glioma distinct from that in untreated patients. Primary brain tumors and their recurrences can exhibit vastly different mutational profiles. Tumor recurrence is a leading cause of cancer mortality. Therapies for recurrent disease may fail, at least in part, because the genomic alterations driving the growth of recurrences are distinct from those in the initial tumor. To explore this hypothesis, we sequenced the exomes of 23 initial low-grade gliomas and recurrent tumors resected from the same patients. In 43% of cases, at least half of the mutations in the initial tumor were undetected at recurrence, including driver mutations in TP53, ATRX, SMARCA4, and BRAF; this suggests that recurrent tumors are often seeded by cells derived from the initial tumor at a very early stage of their evolution. Notably, tumors from 6 of 10 patients treated with the chemotherapeutic drug temozolomide (TMZ) followed an alternative evolutionary path to high-grade glioma. At recurrence, these tumors were hypermutated and harbored driver mutations in the RB (retinoblastoma) and Akt-mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathways that bore the signature of TMZ-induced mutagenesis.


This thesis presents computational pathology algorithms for enabling early cancer detection in Barrett's Esophagus (BE) and early subtype diagnosis in Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILD). BE is a condition affecting 10% of heartburn sufferers, for which 0.1% of patients develop esophageal adenocarcinoma each year. For most of the 130-200 diseases included in the class of ILDs, a full recovery is expected, but for a few of these diseases, the survival rate is less than three years. For both disease classes, treatment of the malignant forms would be harmful in patients with other forms, thus diagnosis is necessary prior to beginning treatment, and early treatment is most effective in eradicating disease. Early diagnosis of both of these disease classes is complicated by a high degree of sharing of subtle disease phenotypes, leading to high pathologist disagreement rates. Computational pathology methods can aid early diagnosis of these diseases through unbiased, data-driven algorithms.

To detect precancerous changes in patients with BE, we develop an automated algorithm which identifies epithelial nuclei in biopsy samples on which nano-scale optical biomarkers, related to cancer risk, can be quantified. The automated nuclei detector produces a higher quality selection of epithelial nuclei than manual detection, resulting in enhanced characterization of precancerous phenotype perturbations. To stratify ILD patients, we develop a novel quantitative representation of pathohistology samples that models lung architecture based on computed image features and insights from pathologists, and establish its utility as part of a diagnostic classifier. Algorithms such as these applied in a clinical setting can save pathologists time by filtering out obvious cases and providing unbiased reasoning to assist diagnoses.


During the early decades of the Cold War, large-scale investments in American defense and aerospace research and development spawned a variety of problem-solving techniques, technologies, and institutions. From systems analysis to reconnaissance satellites to think tanks, these innovations did not remain exclusive accessories of the defense establishment. Instead, they readily found civilian applications in both the private and public sector. City planning and management were no exception. Jennifer Light argues that the technologies and values of the Cold War fundamentally shaped the history of postwar urban America. From Warfare to Welfare documents how American intellectuals, city leaders, and the federal government chose to attack problems in the nation's cities by borrowing techniques and technologies first designed for military engagement with foreign enemies. Experiments in urban problem solving adapted the expertise of defense professionals to face new threats: urban chaos, blight, and social unrest. Tracing the transfer of innovations from military to city planning and management, Light reveals how a continuing source of inspiration for American city administrators lay in the nation's preparations for war.


A center-crossing recurrent neural network is one in which the null- (hyper) surfaces of each neuron intersect at their exact centers of symmetry, ensuring that each neuron's activation function is centered over the range of net inputs that it receives. We demonstrate that relative to a random initial population, seeding the initial population of an evolutionary search with center-crossing networks significantly improves both the frequency and the speed with which high-fitness oscillatory circuits evolve on a simple walking task. The improvement is especially striking at low mutation variances. Our results suggest that seeding with center-crossing networks may often be beneficial, since a wider range of dynamics is more likely to be easily accessible from a population of center-crossing networks than from a population of random networks.