Synthesis of Finite State Machines: Functional Optimization is one of two monographs devoted to the synthesis of Finite State Machines (FSMs). This volume addresses functional optimization, whereas the second addresses logic optimization. By functional optimization here we mean the body of techniques that: compute all permissible sequential functions for a given topology of interconnected FSMs, and select a `best' sequential function out of the permissible ones. The result is a symbolic description of the FSM representing the chosen sequential function. By logic optimization here we mean the steps that convert a symbolic description of an FSM into a hardware implementation, with the goal to optimize objectives like area, testability, performance and so on. Synthesis of Finite State Machines: Functional Optimization is divided into three parts. The first part presents some preliminary definitions, theories and techniques related to the exploration of behaviors of FSMs. The second part presents an implicit algorithm for exact state minimization of incompletely specified finite state machines (ISFSMs), and an exhaustive presentation of explicit and implicit algorithms for the binate covering problem. The third part addresses the computation of permissible behaviors at a node of a network of FSMs and the related minimization problems of non-deterministic finite state machines (NDFSMs). Key themes running through the book are the exploration of behaviors contained in a non-deterministic FSM (NDFSM), and the representation of combinatorial problems arising in FSM synthesis by means of Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs). Synthesis of Finite State Machines: Functional Optimization will be of interest to researchers and designers in logic synthesis, CAD and design automation.


From the Publisher:
"I heartily recommend Effective C++, to anyone who aspires to mastery of C++ at the intermediate level or above."
— The C/C++ User's Journal
From the author of the indispensable Effective C++, here are 35 new ways to improve your programs and designs. Drawing on years of experience, Meyers explains how to write software that is more effective: more efficient, more robust, more consistent, more portable, and more reusable. In short, how to write C++ software that's just plain better.
More Effective C++ includes:

Proven methods for improving program efficiency, including incisive examinations of the time/space costs of C++ language features
Comprehensive descriptions of advanced techniques used by C++ experts, including placement new, virtual constructors, smart pointers, reference counting, proxy classes, and double-dispatching
Examples of the profound impact of exception handling on the structure and behavior of C++ classes and functions
Practical treatments of new language features, including bool, mutable, explicit, namespaces, member templates, the Standard Template Library, and more. If your compilers don't yet support these features, Meyers shows you how to get the job done without them.

More Effective C++ is filled with pragmatic, down-to-earth advice you'll use every day. Like Effective C++ before it, More Effective C++ is essential reading for anyone working with C++.


This study attempts to advance corpus-based exploration of sound iconicity, i.e. the existence of a non-arbitrary relationship between forms and meanings in language. We examine a number of phonesthemes , phonetic groupings proposed to be meaningful in the literature, with the aim of developing ways to validate their existence and their semantic content. Our first experiment is a replication of Otis and Sagi (2008), who showed that sets of words containing phonesthemes are more semantically related to each other than sets of random words. We augment their results using the British National Corpus and the Semantic Vectors package for building a distributional semantic model. Our second experiment shows how the semantic content of at least some phonesthemes can be identified automatically using WordNet, thereby further reducing the room for intuitive judgments in this controversial field.


In their 2004 paper Hevner et. al proposed a set of guidelines for conducting design science research projects in the IS discipline. While useful, these guidelines have a relatively high level of abstraction. However, various IT artifacts such as models, methods, techniques and implementations require IS researchers to apply differing methods in order to construct and evaluate purposeful artifacts respectively. In this paper we discuss a particular class of IT artifacts: conceptual modeling languages. As constituent parts of software development methods, a multitude of such languages has been proposed and discussed. Yet, in the related literature on method design only little guidance is provided on how to derive appropriate conceptual modeling languages from empirical data. We believe that "good methods" need to be rigorously grounded in empirical findings. Taking a look at the related literature on inductive theory building reveals that at there are prominent similarities between the elements that constitute theories and those that constitute conceptual modeling languages: whereas theories comprise of constructs and relationships between these, conceptual modeling languages comprise of language constructs and relationships among these. We draw from the body of literature on grounded theory building and propose a new approach to designing conceptual modeling languages.


100 years of celebration? 2012 marks the centenary of the founding of the Irish Labour Party. Like most political parties in Ireland, Labour likes to trade on its radical heritage by drawing a link to Connolly. On the history section of the Labour Party's website it says, 'The Labour Party was founded in 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin and William O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC). It is the oldest political party in Ireland and the only one which pre-dates  independence. The founders of the Labour Party believed that for ordinary working people to shape society they needed a political party that was committed to serving their needs; they knew that there is only so much that trade unions and community organisations can do, an effective political party is needed to create a fair society'


This paper introduces readers to the political science literature on voter mobilization, highlighting what we know (and what we wish we knew) about getting college students to vote in the United States. The purpose of the paper is to provide advice to those wishing to mobilize student voters and to help set a research agenda for the future. We focus on experiments designed to test the effectiveness of specific techniques to register and engage young voters, documenting practical steps that have proven effective across campuses. While only 40% of 18-24 year olds are enrolled in college, and turnout is lower for non-college youth, college students represent a population that academics should be best positioned to mobilize and turn into voters.


This report describes a descriptive and qualitative risk assessment of the risks of Gambusia infestation to Tasmanian aquatic ecosystems and related values. The following conclusions have been drawn.
Infestation risk
• Extensive areas are at risk of potential infestation of Gambusia in Tasmania. Most river, wetland, waterbody and estuarine systems are suitable for establishment of Gambusia populations once introduced. The risk of infestation is high statewide in the medium to long term, and presents a high and spatially extensive hazard to the state's aquatic ecosystems.
• Most aquatic habitats in Tasmanian are likely to ultimately contain and sustain Gambusia populations if control is poor. Infestations will be more substantial and widespread in lowland and coastal, shallow wetland, lagoon, farm dam, estuary and saltmarsh habitats.
• The rate of Gambusia dispersal will vary greatly. In the absence of human translocation it will be slow between catchments. Local dispersal within catchments could be relatively fast in downstream directions. Cooler temperatures and higher flow velocities will limit the rate of dispersal and establishment and the intensity of new infestations in western and upland areas.
• Human translocation remains the single most likely route of introduction to uninfested aquatic assets.
• All lowland wetlands, lagoons and lakes are rated at moderate to high risk of Gambusia infestation. Upper elevation lentic habitats are rated at low to moderate risk, but are not rated as having no risk.
• Most lowland river catchment mainstem channels across the state are at moderate to high risk of Gambusia infestation. Larger tributaries are rated at low to moderate risk, while all smaller tributaries are rated at low risk.
• All mapped estuarine and saltmarsh assets are rated at moderate to high risk.
• Several extensive wetland and saltmarsh complexes have the potential to develop into substantial nodes of infestation.
Consequences
• Consequences of Gambusia infestation are likely to be variable, depending on habitat and the presence of vulnerable species.
• The combination of high and widespread infestation potential with locally intense consequences leads to a high overall risk from Gambusia to aquatic ecosystem biodiversity, frog community conservation status and the conservation status of up to 7 native endemic fish species.
• Consequences of severe infestations for nearly all frog species are likely to be severe. Consequences for fish species are variable. All listed Galaxiid and Paragalaxiid species are likely to be vulnerable to Gambusia predation and competition.
• Impacts on aquatic ecosystem benthic and water column invertebrate communities may be severe in highly infested, shallower waters.
• Risks to socioeconomic values are likely to be low to moderate, but may occasionally be locally high.
• Large scale impacts on recreational or commercial fisheries are unlikely. Local impacts on shallow water lowland and coastal recreational fisheries for trout are most likely.
• Localised impacts on social amenity and aesthetic values could occur through changes in water quality and perceptions related to Gambusia presence in waters of public amenity, high visibility or conservation areas.
• Increased costs associated with management of other species may include mitigation costs and increased fish translocation costs.
Management commentary
• General comment is provided on the current control program and activities.
• Several management and research recommendations are made aimed at adding value to the current program (see Sections 8 and 9 for details)


The role of cetuximab in the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is currently unclear. The molecular target of cetuximab, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), as measured by FISH, has shown potential as a predictive biomarker for cetuximab efficacy in NSCLC. SWOG S0819 is a phase III trial evaluating both the value of cetuximab in this setting and EGFR FISH as a predictive biomarker. This work describes the decision process for determining the design and interim monitoring plan for S0819. Six possible designs were evaluated in terms of their properties and the hypotheses that can be addressed within the design constraints. A subgroup-focused, multiple-hypothesis design was selected for S0819 that incorporates coprimary endpoints to assess cetuximab in both the overall study population and among EGFR FISH-positive (FISH+) patients, with the sample size determined based on evaluation in the EGFR FISH+ group. The chosen interim monitoring plan specifies interim evaluations of both efficacy and futility in the EGFR FISH+ group alone. The futility-monitoring plan to determine early stopping in the EGFR FISH-nonpositive group is based on evaluation within the positive group, the entire study population, and the nonpositive group. SWOG S0819 uses a design that addresses both the biomarker-driven and general-efficacy objectives of this study. Clin Cancer Res; 18(15); 4004–12. ©2012 AACR.


Northern Hemisphere cyclone activity is assessed by applyi ng an algorithm for the detection and tracking of synoptic scale cyclones to mean sea level pressure data. The method, originally developed for the Southern Hemisphere, is adapted for application in the Northern Hemi sphere winter season. NCEP-Reanalysis data from 1958/59 to 1997/98 are used as input. The sensitivities of the results to particular parameters of the algorithm are discussed for both case studies and from a clim atological point of view. Results show that the choice of settings is of major relevance especially for the t racking of smaller scale and fast moving systems. With an appropriate setting the algorithm is capable of auto matically tracking different types of cyclones at the same time: Both fast moving and developing systems ove r the large ocean basins and smaller scale cyclones over the Mediterranean basin can be assessed. The c limatology of cyclone variables, e.g., cyclone track density, cyclone counts, intensification rates, prop agation speeds and areas of cyclogenesis and -lysis gives detailed information on typical cyclone life cycles f or different regions. The lowering of the spatial and temporal resolution of the input data from full resolution T 62/06h to T42/12h decreases the cyclone track density and cyclone counts. Reducing the temporal resoluti on alone contributes to a decline in the number of fast moving systems, which is relevant for the cyclone track density. Lowering spatial resolution alone mainly reduces the number of weak cyclones.


Wind LiDARs are nowadays a standard tool for the estimation of wind resource because of their ability to measure wind profiles, their reduced cost, the flexibility of their deployment and their ease of use. They allow the measurement of the horizontal wind speed up to several hundred meters with a high accuracy, but only under several assumptions. The horizontal homogeneity of the boundary layer is arguably the most limiting one. Therefore, measurements in complex terrain and in other conditions where one could expect inhomogeneities are to be treated very carefully. The most common scanning strategies for pulsed wind LiDARs to reconstruct the horizontal wind speed make use of either a 3-shot scan (one vertical, one towards the North and the last towards the East), a 4-shot scan (N, E, S and W) or a 5-shot scan (vertical, N, E, S, and W). These strategies, however, do not provide any information regarding the homogeneity of the boundary layer. The inhomogeneity of the boundary layer is difficult to assess a priori since there are many facts that could contribute to it, being complex terrain the most discussed one in research, but by no means the only one. This makes it difficult to know when to trust, and to which degree, the measurements taken with the strategies mentioned above. Alternatively to common strategies, consecutive PPI (Plan Position Indicator) scans can be used to calculate wind speed and at the same time estimate the inhomogeneity of the boundary layer. Furthermore, a theoretical and statistical uncertainty analysis has been carried out, which relates the uncertainty in the measurement to a coefficient that represents inhomogeneity. This allows the measurement of wind speed profiles together with their uncertainty under any kind of circumstances (even highly complex terrain) and the rejection of only those wind vectors that do not have the required accuracy.


PURPOSE
To effectively teach radiology residents the fundamental physics behind magnetic resonance imaging based on a semi-classical model of the photon.

METHOD
The Desktop Magnet is a Java application that comprises both a set of tutorials and a programming environment to simulate the running of custom written pulse protocols. The tutorials can mostly be presented in a single hour-long lecture that covers from the semi-classical model of the electron to spin-warp imaging. Alternately, the interested student may study them at leisure. The tutorials are interactive, allowing the student to adjust the parameters of the simulations. Each year our first year residents take an introductory MR physics class; for the past two years, one lecture of this class is a presentation of the tutorials in lecture format. As a test of the validity of the simulation kernel used, the program can display a prediction of the reconstructed MRI image using established analytic formulae for spin echo images, gradient echo images, and RF spoiled images.

RESULTS
The reconstructed images from the simulated MR sequences qualitatively match the analytic predictions very well. Feedback from the residents on the utility of the lecture has been limited but positive.

CONCLUSION
By avoiding the use of a quantum mechanical formalism, and using accurate animated images to illustrate concepts, the Desktop Magnet is a potentially useful aid to teaching MRI at a level suitable for radiology.


The inadequate resource allocation, lack of I/O performance prediction and insufficient isolation are affecting the storage performance in the multi-tenant cloud storage environment. In order to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS), Softwaredefined Storage (SDS) is an effective approach in data centers. However, the lack of intelligence, robustness and selfadjustment are blocking the applications and promotions of SDS heavily. This paper focuses on the QoS-Aware I/O resource scheduling problem to build data centers with high availability, scalability and QoS. We will study workload characteristics, requirement analysis, the theory of QoS in SDS and I/O scheduling strategies. We obtain such goals by proposing a mathematics model of workload burstness, QoS semantic description with rule execution mechanisms and dynamic robust I/O scheduling algorithms for multi-type resources allocation. In the current progress, A QoS-Aware I/O Scheduling Framework towards SDS, qSDS has been proposed for the SSD/HDD hybrid storage. The preliminary evaluation in some benchmarks shows that qSDS can gain better performance compared with other strategies.


Chondrules are a major component of chondritic meteorites and potentially populated the entire protoplanetary disk before planet formation. Chondrules provide insights into the physical and chemical evolution of the protoplanetary disk. An important constraint for the protoplanetary disk is whether chondrules in individual chondrite groups formed in spatially separate reservoirs and were then transported and mixed throughout the disk, finally accreting in chondrites, or did chondrules in individual chondrite groups form and then accrete in the same reservoir and locality, without large-scale transport and mixing involved. Both scenarios have been proposed. Here we use bulk chondrule compositional data from the recently published ChondriteDB database in combination with a mixing model we developed to test whether the compositional distributions of chondrule populations in individual chondrites (1) are the result of mixing chondrules from multiple parental reservoirs or (2) originated from single parental reservoirs. We thereby provide a fundamental framework that each mixing model needs to obey. Although one mixing model is principally possible, this particular model is unlikely, and it therefore appears more reasonable that chondrules in individual chondrites originated from single, although different, parental reservoirs. Significant disk-wide transport or mixing of chondrules seems unlikely, while chondrule-forming models that produce chondrules from single reservoirs seem more likely. Anomalous minor element and nucleosynthetic isotope chondrule compositions are possibly best explained by admixing tiny nuggets such as refractory or presolar grains with distinct elemental or isotopic compositions into chondrules.


The organizational justice doctrine has been applied widely in understanding the performance of criminal justice institutions. Although most of the research has been conducted in the West, few studies have focused on postcolonial societies. Given the importance of cross-cultural investigations, the current study attempts to test the validity of organizational justice theory in Ghana by exploring how key organizational justice components impact correctional officers' perception of job satisfaction and job commitment. The results reveal significant support for organizational justice hypotheses in Ghana. Practical policy implications of the findings are discussed.


The asymptotic behaviour of an elastically supported infinite string and an elastic isotropic half plane (in frames of specific asymptotic model) under a moving point load are studied. The main results of this work are uniform asymptotic formulae and the asymptotic profile for the string and the exact solution and uniform asymptotic formulae for a half plane. The crucial assumption for both structures is that the acceleration is sufficiently small. In order to describe asymptotically the oscillations of an infinite string auxiliary canonical functions are introduced, asymptotically analyzed and tabulated. Using these functions uniform asymptotic formulae for the string under constant accelerating and decelerating point loads are obtained. Approximate formulae for the displacement in the vicinity of the point load and the singularity area behind the shock wave using the steady speed asymptotic expansion with additional contributions from stationary points where appropriate are derived. It is shown how to generalise uniform asymptotic results to the arbitrary acceleration case. As an example these results are applied for the case of sinusoidal load speed. It is shown that the canonical functions can successfully be used in the arbitrary acceleration case as well. The graphical comparative analysis of numerical solution and approximations is provided for different moving load speed intervals and values of the parameters. Vibrations of an elastic half plane are studied within the framework of the asymptotic model suggested by J. Kaplunov et al. in 2006. Boundary conditions for the main problem are obtained as a solution for the problem of a string on the surface of a half plane subject to uniformly accelerated moving load. The exact solution over the interior of the half plane is derived with respect to boundary conditions. Steady speed and Rayleigh wave speed asymptotic expansions are obtained. In the neighborhood of the Rayleigh speed the uniform asymptotic formulae are derived. Some of their interesting properties are discovered and briefly studied. The graphical comparative analysis of the exact solution and approximations is provided for different moving load speed intervals and values of the parameters.


The study highlights some of conservation challenges, quality strategies and interventions that could be enhanced for sustainable  eco-development. The study area has one of the most degraded environments in Tanzania. The statement of the problem is that, while progress has been made to a certain level on environmental conservations programme, this change in terms of quality has not been investigated and assessed. A case study design was adopted in which a population of 629 respondents was involved. In this Study the population was used as sample hence Census technique, not sampling. Distribution of respondents for data collection was in four groups and divided into two categories which included intervention designers 215 and intervention implementers 414. Data analysis by using SPSS and descriptive statistics were used to meet the case. Major findings include; poor use of natural resources, lack of adequate knowledge and knowledge dissemination, financial constraints and conflict of interest among stakeholders. Therefore, it is recommended that, ongoing interventions to environmental conservation should be refined and strengthened for quality and sustainable way. Key words : Quality, Intervention, Environment, Conservation, Efficiency, effectiveness


A qanat is an underground channel consisting of verticals shafts connected at their bottom with a sub-horizontal tunnel bringing water from an aquiferous stratum, with a slight downward slope useful for the water tapped to run down it and into the open air by gravity. Qanats were first developed in Kurdistan as a side result of mining activity by the early millennium B.C. at the latest. Qanats exist in more than 34 countries all over the world, but most are concentrated in present day Iran. In Italy, Sicily is usually cited for its "Ingruttati", but also in the Campania Region, there are some qanats ("Qanate"). As a matter of fact, this paper describes the historical, biological and morphological aspects of the Roccarainola qanat located in the district of Naples, in Southern Italy. It dates back to the Roman Ages, but currently the hypogean environmental condition misrepresents its ancient state. The animal species discovered forty years ago in the Roccarainola qanat were substantially small sized arthropods, a planaria and some species of bats. The Roccarainola qanat is composed of three branches for a total length of 786 m, with a drop of 9 m. The tunnel slope varies from around 1.70 cm/m to 5.20 cm/m. However, original slopes have been modified due to accumulation of debris and waste. Seventeen vertical shafts (not internally covered) with a circular section were found along the hypogeum. On the average, the shafts are spaced 36.5 m apart.


Two methods to fabricate artificial nanoscale mechanical devices are presented. One is based on the combination of local Ga+ doping of silicon by a focused ion beam and KOH etching. The second is based on the use of nanostencil as miniature shadow mask to define metal nanowires that are subsequently underetched. Both method allow for rapid prototyping of novel NEMS elements having resonance frequencies up to several 100s MHz, and have distinct characteristics in terms of material properties. Method 1: Selective Ga + ion implantation by focused ion beam exposure and subsequent wet chemical etching is used to fabricate micro/nanomechanical elements in Si. Freestanding elements with a 30 nm membrane thickness are made by controlled selective underetching between unexposed and exposed areas. Ultrahigh-frequency cantilever beams have been made with resonances in the tens of MHz range. Using a U-shaped beam cross section, mechanical stiffness could be increased 100-fold, which in turn increased the beam resonance frequency to several hundreds of MHz. The direct-write patterning/milling technique was used to fabricate various arbitrary shapes with vertical sidewalls such as submicrometer-sized containers, cups, and other nanomechanical devices. Method 2: We report an all-dry, two-step, surface nanoengineering method to fabricate nanomechanical elements without photolithography. It is based on the local deposition through a nanostencil of a well-defined aluminum pattern onto a silicon/silicon-nitride substrate, followed by plasma etching to release the structures. The suspended 100-nm-wide, 2-um-long, and 300-nm-thick nanolevers and nanobridges have natural resonance frequencies of 50 and 91 MHz, respectively. The fabrication method is scalable to a full wafer and allows for a variety of materials to be structured on arbitrary surfaces, thus opening new types of nanoscale mechanical systems.


Evidence of an Anthropocene epoch Humans are undoubtedly altering many geological processes on Earth—and have been for some time. But what is the stratigraphic evidence for officially distinguishing this new human-dominated time period, termed the "Anthropocene," from the preceding Holocene epoch? Waters et al. review climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores. Combined with deposits of new materials and radionuclides, as well as human-caused modification of sedimentary processes, the Anthropocene stands alone stratigraphically as a new epoch beginning sometime in the mid–20th century. Science, this issue p. 10.1126/science.aad2622 BACKGROUND Humans are altering the planet, including long-term global geologic processes, at an increasing rate. Any formal recognition of an Anthropocene epoch in the geological time scale hinges on whether humans have changed the Earth system sufficiently to produce a stratigraphic signature in sediments and ice that is distinct from that of the Holocene epoch. Proposals for marking the start of the Anthropocene include an "early Anthropocene" beginning with the spread of agriculture and deforestation; the Columbian Exchange of Old World and New World species; the Industrial Revolution at ~1800 CE; and the mid-20th century "Great Acceleration" of population growth and industrialization. ADVANCES Recent anthropogenic deposits contain new minerals and rock types, reflecting rapid global dissemination of novel materials including elemental aluminum, concrete, and plastics that form abundant, rapidly evolving "technofossils." Fossil fuel combustion has disseminated black carbon, inorganic ash spheres, and spherical carbonaceous particles worldwide, with a near-synchronous global increase around 1950. Anthropogenic sedimentary fluxes have intensified, including enhanced erosion caused by deforestation and road construction. Widespread sediment retention behind dams has amplified delta subsidence. Geochemical signatures include elevated levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticide residues, as well as increased 207/206Pb ratios from leaded gasoline, starting between ~1945 and 1950. Soil nitrogen and phosphorus inventories have doubled in the past century because of increased fertilizer use, generating widespread signatures in lake strata and nitrate levels in Greenland ice that are higher than at any time during the previous 100,000 years. Detonation of the Trinity atomic device at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945 initiated local nuclear fallout from 1945 to 1951, whereas thermonuclear weapons tests generated a clear global signal from 1952 to 1980, the so-called "bomb spike" of excess 14C, 239Pu, and other artificial radionuclides that peaks in 1964. Atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations depart from Holocene and even Quaternary patterns starting at ~1850, and more markedly at ~1950, with an associated steep fall in δ13C that is captured by tree rings and calcareous fossils. An average global temperature increase of 0.6o to 0.9oC from 1900 to the present, occurring predominantly in the past 50 years, is now rising beyond the Holocene variation of the past 1400 years, accompanied by a modest enrichment of δ18O in Greenland ice starting at ~1900. Global sea levels increased at 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/year from 1993 to 2010 and are now rising above Late Holocene rates. Depending on the trajectory of future anthropogenic forcing, these trends may reach or exceed the envelope of Quaternary interglacial conditions. Biologic changes also have been pronounced. Extinction rates have been far above background rates since 1500 and increased further in the 19th century and later; in addition, species assemblages have been altered worldwide by geologically unprecedented transglobal species invasions and changes associated with farming and fishing, permanently reconfiguring Earth's biological trajectory. OUTLOOK These novel stratigraphic signatures support the formalization of the Anthropocene at the epoch level, with a lower boundary (still to be formally identified) suitably placed in the mid-20th century. Formalization is a complex question because, unlike with prior subdivisions of geological time, the potential utility of a formal Anthropocene reaches well beyond the geological community. It also expresses the extent to which humanity is driving rapid and widespread changes to the Earth system that will variously persist and potentially intensify into the future. Indicators of the Anthropocene in recent lake sediments differ markedly from Holocene signatures. These include unprecedented combinations of plastics, fly ash, radionuclides, metals, pesticides, reactive nitrogen, and consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. In this sediment core from west Greenland (69˚03'N, 49˚54'W), glacier retreat due to climate warming has resulted in an abrupt stratigraphic transition from proglacial sediments to nonglacial organic matter, effectively demarcating the onset of the Anthropocene. [Photo credit: J. P. Briner] Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.


Prohibitions against transnational bribery suffer from a paradoxical problem of simultaneous over- and under-enforcement. On the "supply-side," U.S. enforcement against bribery through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is increasingly over-aggressive, while enforcement by other developed economies is nearly non-existent. On the "demand-side," governments of developing economies where bribes take place often have neither an interest in nor the capacity to rein in their corrupt officials. In light of these shortcomings, this Article proposes reforming the FCPA as follows. First, the SEC should cease paying profits disgorged by corporate defendants into the U.S. Treasury. Second, disgorgements should instead be transferred to the Host country where bribery took place, conditional on the Host government's cooperation with the FCPA investigation. And third, if cooperation is not forthcoming, disgorgement proceeds should be transferred to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Group — an international organization designed to facilitate the enforcement of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery. Reforming FCPA enforcement in this manner would re-allocate the proceeds from anti-bribery regulation on a global scale so as to properly align the incentives of the parties involved and provide greater access to the information required for effective enforcement.


Aim/Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between knowledge sharing process and innovation success with specific emphasis on tacit knowledge. Based on the literature review, we hypothesised that knowledge donating and collecting have a positive relationship with innovation success.

Methodology: The hypotheses were empirically tested using the partial least square path modelling with data collected from twelve state-owned public organisations operating in Southern Nigeria.

Contribution: The research made distinct empirical contributions to the burgeoning literature on knowledge sharing and innovation from the public sector and developing country context.

Findings: Knowledge donating and collecting contribute to innovation success positively and significantly. Knowledge donating effect on innovation success was found to be more significantly positive than the effect of knowledge collecting on innovation success.

Recommendations for Practitioners: Public organisations should promote a supportive culture to spur innovation through the frequent share of experiences, information and skills among the various knowledge actors. Public managers should convey the importance of knowledge sharing and its value to knowledge users in clear terms and attend to creating conditions or contexts that encourage people to share knowledge freely and willingly with others. It is apt to improve organisational commitment and support for knowledge sharing activities such as mentorship programs, workshops, conferences, seminars and other related training and development programs in order to provide opportunities for employees to develop innovation competencies from the transfer of tacit knowledge developed over time from experience. To optimise innovation outcomes from knowledge sharing practices, knowledge sharing should be in tandem with the industry or global best practices.

Future Research: Future studies should add interviews to provide depth in terms of insights and substance to the questionnaire, and may extend to public organisation with different ownership structure.


Abstract We present new records of chondrichthyans recovered from strata of Maastrichtian age of the López de Bertodano Formation, Seymour (=Marambio) Island, and from levels of latest Campanian age of the Santa Marta Formation, James Ross Island, both located in the eastern Antarctic Peninsula. The material from Marambio Island comprises an associated assemblage with the first records of an indeterminate odontaspidid different from Odontaspis, as well as the genera Pristiophorus, Squatina, Paraorthacodus, and the species Chlamydoselachus tatere from the López de Bertodano Formation. Also, the studied section provides a well-constrained age for several taxa already recognized in the López de Bertodano Formation only by scattered samples of Maastrichtian age for the first time. The assemblage from Marambio Island is representative of one of the latest environmental conditions during the end of the Cretaceous in the coastal seas of the Larsen Basin before major changes that began after the K/P boundary. In addition, the finds from James Ross Island comprise the southernmost records of the neoselachians Cretalamna sp., Centrophoroides sp., as well as the holocephalans Callorhinchus sp. and an indeterminate rhinochimaerid, extending the occurrence of some of these taxa into the late Campanian, being their oldest record of the Weddellian Biogeographic Province.


The NSW Suicide Prevention Strategy has identified suicide prevention as a high priority for government and the community. Death by suicide is a relatively uncommon event; however, more people in NSW now die from suicide than road injury. Nationally, two per cent of all deaths were attributed to suicide in 1998. This article describes the Suicide in New South Wales—The NSW Suicide Data Report, which has been developed and produced by the Centre for Mental Health, and presents improved information on suicide, hospitalisation following attempted suicide, and risk of suicide, both at a state and an area health service level.


Neurons of the substantia nigra are most prone to degeneration in Parkinson's disease. The cause of their vulnerability remains unclear and knowledge of the molecular and microstructural features of the substantia nigra pars compacta will help understanding why nigral neurons are vulnerable to damaging factors. The present study was aimed to investigate the intranuclear inclusions of the nigral neurons, the Marinesco bodies and the Roncoroni rodlets, which origin and function are uncertain, using ubiquitin-, tyrosine hydroxylase-, nitric oxide synthase-, calbindin-, NeuN-, glutamic acid decarboxylase-, and α-tubulin-immunohistochemistry and iron histochemistry with DAB enhancement. Of the tested substances, tyrosine hydroxylase and nitric oxide synthase were revealed for the first time in the Marinesco bodies. Non-heme iron was found for the first time in both the Marinesco bodies and the Roncoroni rodlets. In accordance with previous studies, ubiquitin-immunoreactivity was demonstrated in the Marinesco bodies. Moreover, we describe some smaller round and dot-like ubiquitin-immunoreactive structures in the nucleus of melanized neurons. The found small ubiquitin-immunopositive structures within the nucleus are proposed to be the developmental stages of growing Marinesco bodies, whereas Marinesco bodies themselves seem to label the neurons with impaired function of proteasome.


Reference terms used to refer to d/Deaf individuals in America have long been a point of contention within the d/Deaf population. Although this population in its majority prefers to be regarded as members of a cultural and linguistic minority mainstream society often opts for a different view, one that associates them as a disabled, or 'impaired' group. It can be argued that the ubiquitous use of the term 'impaired' in classifying the d/Deaf population is one of the ways in which existing power relations are maintained, constraining the opportunities of those considered 'impaired'. d/Deaf individuals, as well as advocates and allies of the d/Deaf community, believe that the association with the disabled community and classification as 'impaired' promotes the same agenda popular years ago: one where d/Deaf people need the help of hearing people to compensate for their impairment and where the ultimate goal should be to mend said impairment in order to participate in society as a 'normal' person would (Lane, 1995; 1999). This paper presents a small-scale textual analysis that is used to determine to what degree these beliefs are true. The analysis presented in this paper reveals elements suggesting the existence of divergent discourses surrounding the use of the reference terms 'hearing-impaired' and 'd/Deaf'. Conducted within the framework of critical discourse analysis, this small-scale research study employs systems of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), including social actor representation (van Leeuwen, 1996) and transitivity, as the means for discourse analysis. Findings will show the discursive strategies in which the term 'hearing-impaired' is used and the extent to which the discursive use of this label supports the ideology that Deafness is deficiency.


ABSTRACT Two experiments investigated the effect of sulfate and hydroxychloride trace minerals (TM), Zn, Cu, and Mn, in laying hens and broiler chickens. In Expt. 1, Lohmann Brown pullets (total of 1,344) at 21 wk of age were used for a 24-wk experiment. Each of the two treatments had 32 replicates with 21 hens per replicate. At 45 wk of age, three eggs per cage were randomly selected and used for internal quality assessment. In Expt. 2, Ross 308 broilers (total of 1,080) were allocated to two treatments. Each treatment had 30 replicates with 15 chicks per replicate. On day 28, after weighing, three birds were randomly selected from 15 randomly selected pens per treatment. The birds were euthanized and blood was collected for analysis for uric acid, C-reactive protein and methylmalonic acid. Samples were also taken from pectoralis muscle of each chicken and analyzed for mRNA expression of protein synthesis or hydrolysis genes. On day 35, 7 birds per pen were used for carcass evaluation. In Expt. 1, egg weight was greater (P < 0.01) in birds receiving sulfate TM from week 16 (of experiment) onwards whereas the percentage of cracked eggs was lower (P < 0.01) in hens receiving hydroxychloride TM. Percentage hen-day production tended to be greater (P < 0.10) in hens receiving hydroxychloride TM in weeks 4 to 8 only. In Expt. 2, birds receiving hydroxychloride TM had greater (P < 0.05) weight gain and tended to have greater (P < 0.10) feed intake on day 35. Expression of the gene, PSMA1, was lower (P < 0.05) whereas plasma level of uric acid and methyl malonic acid tended to be lower (P < 0.10) in birds receiving hydroxychloride TM. It was concluded that hydroxychloride TM reduced egg loss in hens at peak production and that improved growth performance response in broilers can be partly explained by reduction in proteolytic activities in the pectoralis muscle and greater resilience to oxidative stress.


Most recently, the recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individuals who illegally downloaded and distributed a large amount of music via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, such as KaZaA, Grokster, iMesh, and Gnutella. Although the industry's recent approach was controversial and resulted in major criticisms from legislators, academics, civil libertarians, consumer advocates, and university officials, the copyright holders' aggressive tactics are not new. In fact, copyright holders have been known for using, or encouraging their government to use, coercive power to protect their creative works. Only a decade ago, the U.S. copyright industries have lobbied their government to use strong-armed tactics to coerce China into protecting intellectual property rights. Succumbing to U.S. trade pressure, the Chinese authorities eventually raided pirate factories and handed out harsh penalties, including the death penalty and life imprisonment in severe cases, on their citizens. The similarities between the RIAA and China stories were more than a coincidence and could be further linked to a third story. That story took place two centuries ago when the United States was still a less developed country. At that time, book piracy was rampant, and the United States was considered one of the most notorious pirating nations in the world. This Article brings together, for the first time, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, twentieth-century China, and twenty-first-century cyberspace and analyzes them using a cross-cultural, cross-systemic, cross-temporal, and cross-sectoral approach. This Article not only highlights the striking similarities among the three stories, but also argues that these similarities provide insight into the war on piracy, intellectual property law reforms, and international harmonization efforts.


Over the past few months I have delivered lectures, presentations and interviews on the Egyptian Revolution. I have had overflowing houses everywhere, been stopped by old ladies in the street and had my hand shaken by numerous taxi drivers and shopkeepers. And all because I'm Egyptian and the glitter of Tahrir is upon me. They wanted me to talk to them, to tell them stories about it, to tell them how, on the 28th of January when we took the Square and The People torched the headquarters of the hated ruling National Democratic Party, The (same) People formed a human chain to protect the Antiquities Museum and demanded an official handover to the military; to tell them how, on Wednesday, February 2nd, as The People defended themselves against the invading thug militias and fought pitched battles at the entrance to the Square in the shadow of the Antiquities Museum, The (same) People at the centre of the square debated political structures and laughed at stand-up comics and distributed sandwiches and water; to tell them of the chants and the poetry and the songs, of how we danced and waved at the F16s that our President flew over us. People everywhere want to make this Revolution their own, and we in Egypt want to share it. Ahdaf Soueif - novelist, commentator, activist - navigates her history of Cairo and her journey through the Revolution that's redrawing its future. Through a map of stories drawn from private history and public record Soueif charts a story of the Revolution that is both intimately hers and publicly Egyptian. Ahdaf Soueif was born and brought up in Cairo. When the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted on January 25th, she, along with thousands of others, called Tahrir Square home for eighteen days. She reported for the world's media and did - like everyone else - whatever she could.


Abstract. This paper presents a package of modified temperature-index-based snow water equivalent models as part of the hydrological modeling system NewAge-JGrass. Three temperature-based snow models are integrated into the NewAge-JGrass modeling system and use many of its components such as those for radiation balance (short wave radiation balance, SWRB), kriging (KRIGING), automatic calibration algorithms (particle swarm optimization) and tests of goodness of fit (NewAge-V), to build suitable modeling solutions (MS). Similarly to all the NewAge-JGrass components, the models can be executed both in raster and in vector mode. The simulation time step can be daily, hourly or sub-hourly, depending on user needs and availability of input data. The MS are applied on the Cache la Poudre River basin (CO, USA) using three test applications. First, daily snow water equivalent is simulated for three different measurement stations for two snow model formulations. Second, hourly snow water equivalent is simulated using all the three different snow model formulae. Finally, a raster mode application is performed to compute snow water equivalent maps for the whole Cache la Poudre Basin.


The conference theme of "exploding technology" seemed particularly appropriate to Session 18, "Integrating Semiconductor Memories into Systems," which probed some of the problems attendant upon increasing chip densities. Discussing alpha particle bombardments, Michael Geilhufe of Intel described the effects of such phenomena as random, non-recurring, single-bit errors. The rate of these "soft errors" today, said Geilhufe, is an order of magnitude greater than hard error rates. For example, with an error rate of 0.1 percent per 1K hours for a 16K RAM, a 16 x 64K memory would have an MTTF of 1.75 years, whereas a 16-megabyte memory would only have a MTTF of less than four days. Memory design alternatives such as automatic error correction, periodic memory purges, and systems redundancy must be considered. Periodic memory purges may be necessary since soft errors may accumulate in infrequently accessed memory regions.


The temperature variation of the total hemispherical emissivity ∊h of an electropolished surface of 3N8 pure tungsten has been investigated with a transient calorimetric technique in the temperature range 180–1000 K. The experimental data are believed to be the first ever obtained on tungsten below 273 K and also the first ever obtained on electropolished tungsten above 273 K. It is found that the data depart in a significant manner at all temperatures investigated from the theory that assumes a zero relaxation time τ for conduction electrons. In the range 180–300 K, ∊h behaves as though τ is finite and nearly independent of the frequency. At higher temperatures, ∊h behaves in a manner that indicates qualitatively that τ is frequency dependent. Beginning at 600 K, the slope of the ∊h -vs-T graph increases steadily up to 1000 K. This increase is belived to be due to the onset of interband excitations.


A time series is a set of random values collected at equal time intervals; this randomness makes these types of series not easy to predict because the structure of the series may change at any time. As discussed in previous research, the structure of time series may change at any time due to the change in mean and/or variance of the series. Consequently, based on this structure, it is wise not to assume that these series are stationary. This paper, discusses, a method of analyzing time series by considering the entire series non-stationary, assuming there is random change in unconditional mean and variance of the series. Specifically, this paper emphasizes financial time series. The main goal in this process is to break the series into small locally stationary time series on which stationary assumption applies. The most interesting part of this procedure is locating the break-points, where the unconditional mean and/or variance of the series change. After having found what the break-points are, we divide the series into smaller series according to the break points; the number of break-points determines how many small stationary time series we have. The analysis by this method considers each interval on which the series is stationary as an independent time series with its specific parameters. Hence, the overall time series that is naturally nonstationary is broken into small stationary time series that are easier to analyze. Afterwards, by using Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) we are comparing the local stationary model to the model considering the entire series stationary. In a simulation study with known sample size, unconditional means and variances, for each small stationary series, the result shows that we can locate the exact true break-points when the sample size is greater than 500. After our simulation study, this method is also applied to the real data, S&P 500 series of returns, which is a financial time series. The results obtained by using Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) show that BIC is smaller for the locally stationary model.


Fish year-class strength can be established at early life stages, such as the egg and larval stage. A small variation in growth and survival during these early life periods can result in a substantial variation in fish recruitment. Therefore, a better understanding of factors influencing growth and survival of fish eggs and larvae can help fisheries scientists better understand the variations in fish population sizes. Based on a literature review and laboratory experiments, this study investigated the size-dependent effects on early life stages (egg and larvae) of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). -- Egg size can be influenced by many factors including female size (age, length or weight), fecundity and seasonal temperature. Larval size at hatching is often related to egg size and incubation temperature. Size (stage)-dependent survival has been observed for larvae in many studies. Growth rate, which may be influenced by many factors including temperature and food supply, is one of the key factors determining larval size and mortality rate. -- For Atlantic cod, my study showed that larger eggs yielded larger larvae at hatching, but took longer to hatch. Larval size at hatching and incubation time were negatively correlated with incubation temperature. Although neither egg size nor incubation temperature was found to affect yolk size at hatching, higher accumulated incubation temperature significantly decreased the yolk size at hatching, but increased larval size at hatching. -- The larval survival and growth experiment showed that feeding conditions and larval size at hatching significantly influenced larval survival. Better feeding resulted in higher survival. The study found that the survival rate for small larvae was higher than that for large larvae, which might result from the absence of predators in this study. Higher temperature reduced the time of yolk utilization and thus caused the cod larvae to start exogenous feeding earlier. The growth rate of cod larvae during the exogenous feeding period is higher than that during endogenous feeding period. The first few days of growth mainly resulted in a significant increase in larval weight. Delayed first feeding significantly decreased the growth rate in cod larvae. However, the large larvae showed a higher growth rate compared with small larvae under the delayed first feeding condition. After a 10 to 13-day acclimatization, the larvae under delayed first feeding exhibited the compensatory growth. -- The size effect on cod larval growth was only significant in the delayed feeding condition, which implies that the bigger the better is more evident in cod larvae under unfavourable conditions, such as delayed initial feeding in this study.


The early flame development stage of syngas and CNG are analysed and compared from the flame images taken over 20° CA from the start of ignition. An imitated syngas with a composition of 19.2% H2, 29.6% CO, 5.3% CH4 and balance with nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which resembles the typical product of wood biomass gasification, was used in the study. A CCD camera triggered externally through the signals from the camshaft and crank angle sensors was used in capturing of the images. The engine was accessed through an endoscope access and a self-illumination inside the chamber. The results of the image analysis are further compared with the mass fraction burn curve of both syngas and CNG analysed from the pressure data. The analysis result of the flame image of syngas validates the double rapid burning stage of the mass fraction burn of syngas analysed from in-cylinder pressure data.


In the light of recent strong global increases of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), Ethiopia is one of the developing countries having received high FDI inflows in its agribusiness sector especially since 2006. As the agribusiness sector is the base of the Ethiopian economy these increases may considerably influence the total economy. This study aims at giving a first insight of possible midterm impacts of the FDI inflows on the sustainable development of Ethiopia. By analysing former empirical studies, likely future trends of development are derived. It is estimated that the high FDI inflows currently have and in the future continue to have a positive impact on the economic growth and poverty reduction. However, scarcity of agricultural land and water and corresponding environmental problems are bound to increase if no new production technologies and sufficiently strong regulatory frameworks are implemented.


Abstract This article addresses the tensions and contradictions of applying a popular education approach in the current context of South Africa. It draws upon data from an 18-month research project exploring the traditions of popular education. It presents an extended discussion on the meanings of popular education, and their varied implications for practice. It presents a heuristic device in the form of a 'compass', to assist popular educators locate themselves in their work at different historical moments.


This thesis critically analyses the implications of a now global capitalist modernity for Theodor W. Adorno's theory of art. The thesis takes as its starting point the sociological presuppositions at play in his social theory and problematises the spatial and historical dimensions in which they are embedded. The analysis of the process of homogenisation of social relations that Adorno presents as a constitutive feature of societies during monopoly capitalism brings to the fore the centrality of the state as administrator. This thesis claims that there is a spatial contradiction in Adorno's definition of society, given that the interconnectedness of capitalism as a system is negated by the restriction of that definition to industrialised societies. In other words, there is a universalisation of the particularity of industrialised societies underlying Adorno's social theory, that hides a functionalist understanding of the state and disavows its constitutive character for capitalist social relations. The introduction of an analysis of the particularity of the state in latin American societies serves as a counterpoint to the societies analysed by Adorno. latin American societies are analysed from the point of view of Dependency Theory, particularly in relation to Henrique Cardoso's and Enzo Faletto's concept of dependent development. This concept allows a further differentiation internal to latin American societies and problematises the common assumption that structural heterogeneity is a key concept for understanding these societies. Consequently, the thesis focuses its analysis on the socio-economic and political situation of the societies in the Southern Cone of South America, particularly Argentina, given their relative social homogenisation during the 1960s. The thesis claims that contrary to Adorno's assumption that capitalist social development destroys collective subjectivities while producing homogenisation, the Southern Cone societies show that development and relative social homogenisation in contexts of dependency do not necessarily produce political neutralisation but rather its opposite.
The problematisation of Adorno's social theory is further complicated by the historical development of capitalism during neoliberalism. The decoupling of the spatial grounding of the relation between capital and labour constituted during monopoly capitalism is presented from the point of view of the radical transformation of Argentine society from the mid-1970s onwards. The thesis introduced the concept of the 'destruction of the social' in reference to the central role that the process of accumulation by dispossession, as theorised by David Harvey, has for the transformation of Argentina. Given this expanded global context, the thesis then discusses the effects that the transformation of the relation between capital and labour has for the conditions of production of artistic labour during neoliberalism. In particular, it claims that the 'developmentalist' dynamic that aligns technological development, industrialisation and artistic material in Adorno's concept of the new, has been problematised by the primacy of financial valorisation as a form of accumulation, and the dynamic role that accumulation by dispossession has in it. The emergence of a globally expanded labour theory of culture is analysed in relation to the contemporary art produced in Argentina between the late 1960s and the 2000s. The relation between the socially regressive tendencies developed during this period and artistic technique is analysed throguh the introduction of the notion of the 'return to craft.'


Abstract : Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and metal oxide-MOF composites were investigated for adsorption and oxidation of carbon monoxide. Metal oxides were successfully included in MOFs via both impregnation and encapsulation. UiO-66, a zirconium-based MOF, was impregnated with magnesium or cobalt oxide. Cobalt oxide in UiO-66 increases the room temperature CO capacity and shows increased adsorption at 65 C due to strong cobalt-CO interactions. Titania and magnetic nanoparticles were encapsulated in HKUST-1, a copper-based MOF. Including titania in HKUST-1 lowers the CO oxidation onset temperature by over 100 C compared with HKUST-1, and the composite reaches complete conversion by 250 C. HKUST-1 with magnetic nanoparticles shows enhanced structural stability and increased room temperature adsorption of CO and hexane. MOF-74, an isostructural family with coordinatively unsaturated metal centers of cobalt, magnesium, nickel, or zinc, was investigated for the metal center s impact on stability and adsorption. Pre-treatment conditions to optimize accessibility were found that maximize solvent removal while retaining structural integrity. The impact of air exposure on equilibrium CO capacity was investigated, and these predictions were compared to dynamic conditions, separating CO from nitrogen or air at room temperature. The cobalt analog loses only 25% of its CO capacity with air exposure, retaining higher capacity than the other analogs under ideal conditions. Unlike cobalt, the magnesium analog does not follow the predicted trends with air exposure, having higher dynamic capacities with pre-exposed samples. Under all dynamic conditions, the nickel analog oxidized a portion of the carbon monoxide feed.


Results of recent fieldwork were compared with data collected in 1981, taken as a reference condition. Surveys were conducted with the same method (time-based visual census along random paths), in the same sites, by the same people. Semi-quantitative inventories of conspicuous species were analysed by univariate and multivariate techniques. Available information on the main potential stressors indicated that a regime shift has occurred in these 30+ years: sea surface temperature rose by1-2°C, human pressure grew impressively, and invasion by several alien species took place. Consistently, a phase shift occurred in the biological communities. Of the 120 conspicuous species found in total, only 51 were common to both surveys; 31 species ('losses') were found in 1981 but not again in 2013, 38 ('gains') were found exclusively in 2013, 16 ('winners') increased their abundance, 8 ('losers') got scarcer, and 27 underwent little or no change. Gains included 7 alien, 2 nitrophilic, and 7 thermophilic species. Multivariate analysis evidenced biotic homogenisation in 2013 and huge change in rocky reef habitats. The once flourishing algal forests have disappeared to leave space to sponges and wide areas of bare substratum. This has most probably been the result of overgrazing by alien herbivorous fishes ( Siganus luridus and S. rivulatus ), whose establishment and spread has been favoured by seawater warming; the synergic action of local human impacts was also evidenced.


We live in a time of uncertainty about relationships. We search for The One but find ourselves staying single because nobody measures up. We long for a happily-ever-after but break-up after break-up leave us bruised and confused.

Rewriting the Rules: An Anti Self-Help Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships is a friendly guide through the complicated - and often contradictory - advice that's given about sex and gender, monogamy and conflict, break-up and commitment. It asks questions about the rules of love, such as which to choose from all the rules on offer? Do we stick to the old rules we learnt growing up, or do we try something new and risk being out on our own? And what about the times when the rules we love by seem to make things worse, rather than better?

This new edition, updated throughout, considers how the rules are being 'rewritten' in various ways - for example in monogamish and polyamorous relationships, different ways of understanding sex and gender, and new ideas for managing commitment and break-up where economics, communities, or child-care make complete separation impossible. This book considers how the rules are being 'rewritten' in various ways, giving you the power to find an approach that best fits your situation.


The problem of multitarget tracking using bearings-only measurements is addressed, when the number of targets is unknown a priori. The minimum description length (MDL) criterion of Rissanen is first chosen as a natural way to determine the number of targets when a prior distribution is unavailable. However, it is shown that MDL results in inconsistent estimates of the number of targets, and hence a modified estimation criterion, which is shown to yield unbiased target estimates, is proposed. The resulting asymptotically unbiased target identification (AUTI) algorithm corresponds to the computation of joint maximum likelihood (ML) estimates of target states and associations, with an additional penalty term to prevent overparameterization. The problem of data association is solved using a set of parallel simulated annealing algorithms over the sensors and scans. As the associations are formed by annealing, a conventional nonlinear programming algorithm simultaneously estimates the target states (position and velocity). This partitioning is justified by examining the structure of the bearings-only tracking problem under clairvoyant associations; It is shown that the norm squared of the target state error vector is a Lyapunov function for a gradient descent differential equation. As a consequence, an idealized nonlinear programming algorithm (steepest descent with infinitesimal step size) is globally convergent. A practical algorithm is then developed for identification of the number of targets, which combines simulated annealing for associations, and the Gauss-Newton algorithm for target state estimation. Simulation results are presented which compare the tracking performance of the MDL and AUTI algorithms.


: Drawing upon ethnographic data from mountainous central Crete, a feuding society up to the present moment, this article will focus on cases of retaliatory crimes where men avenge a relative who was killed before they were born. In these cases, what is interesting is that there do not seem to be any factors in the present to fuel the fire of a past animosity between the two kinship groups. Instead, these men seek revenge looking either for the murderer himself or for one of his male relatives in the places where they were forced to emigrate after the commitment of crime in order to avoid the perpetuation of violent actions. Reflecting upon crime in a feuding society as a 'cultural trauma' for the identity of the victim's kinship group, and elaborating upon the ideas that Freud has exposed in his article 'Mourning and Melancholia', the ways by which a memory of a past crime triggers another crime are explored here.


Nowadays, there are devices with great computing capabilities and these in different places around us. This technology opens us new possibilities and allows us the simple and easy interaction between user and computer. We propose in this work an approach to make it easier to handle information in the ducational context; we have adapted Near Field Communication (NFC) technology which provides a simple input to the system to come from the own context like of the environment. For this, it is necessary only the user bring his/her mobile phone, equipped with a radiofrequency reader, and near it to tag obtaining services like localization, access, presence and, the most important for us, the visualization of information.


How should one apply deep learning to tasks such as morphological reinflection, which stochastically edit one string to get another? A recent approach to such sequence-to-sequence tasks is to compress the input string into a vector that is then used to generate the output string, using recurrent neural networks. In contrast, we propose to keep the traditional architecture, which uses a finite-state transducer to score all possible output strings , but to augment the scoring function with the help of recurrent networks. A stack of bidirectional LSTMs reads the input string from left-to-right and right-to-left, in order to summarize the input context in which a transducer arc is applied. We combine these learned features with the transducer to define a probability distribution over aligned output strings, in the form of a weighted finite-state automaton. This reduces hand-engineering of features, allows learned features to examine unbounded context in the input string, and still permits exact inference through dynamic programming. We illustrate our method on the tasks of morphological reinflection and lemmatization.


Situated within the sphere of influence of the major core areas of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the plain of Cilicia
can easily be defined as a border zone where different systems interact. The early first millennium BC was a period of deep
social and political interaction in the region which took place among groups of populations of different origins, including
Luwian-speakers, Phoenicians, Cypriots and, probably, Greeks. Delimited by the Taurus and the Amanus ranges, and the
Mediterranean coast, it constituted the Neo-Hittite state of Que, the capital of which was ancient Adana. The results of the
cultural mixing are clearly visible in the material culture assemblages that are known from the major centres of the region,
among which Misis, the site of ancient Mopsouestia, must be counted. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the phenomena
of entanglement in Iron Age II Misis and their relevance for a better understanding of the making of the local social fabric. It
also intends to show how a condition of extended multiculturalism contributed to shaping the cultural identity and the social
practices of the Cilician city.


Recently, a functional gene array—GeoChip—was introduced, targeting more than 12,000 different microbial functional genes. In addition to microbial genes involved in widespread microbial functions, this array also includes 37 probes for genes involved in atrazine [6‐chloro‐N‐ethyl‐N′‐(1‐methylethyl)‐1,3,5‐triazine‐2,4‐diamine] degradation. In our study, we evaluated whether this type of microarray is suitable for screening a rural aquifer for native atrazine degraders and their intrinsic degradation capacities. Surprisingly, small amounts of organic contaminants (up to ∼10 μg/L) in a well close to a farmyard led to the establishment of a specific degrader community. This means that although contamination at such low concentrations should have only a minor effect on water quality, the microbial community in this oligotrophic environment reacted in a very sensitive manner to the contaminants. Specific atrazine degradation genes were detected in the aquifer showing the highest level of contamination. Their presence was confirmed using a specially developed polymerase chain reaction approach combined with gene sequence analysis. Whether this should be considered an undesired ecotoxicological effect or whether it should be taken as evidence for regular natural attenuation of such diffuse contaminants is a question that remains to be answered by more comprehensive studies.


This paper presents a novel approach to generate data-driven regression models that not only give reliable prediction of the observed data but also have smoother response surfaces and extra generalization capabilities with respect to extrapolation. These models are obtained as solutions of a genetic programming (GP) process, where selection is guided by a tradeoff between two competing objectives - numerical accuracy and the order of nonlinearity. The latter is a novel complexity measure that adopts the notion of the minimal degree of the best-fit polynomial, approximating an analytical function with a certain precision. Using nine regression problems, this paper presents and illustrates two different strategies for the use of the order of nonlinearity in symbolic regression via GP. The combination of optimization of the order of nonlinearity together with the numerical accuracy strongly outperforms ldquoconventionalrdquo optimization of a size-related expressional complexity and the accuracy with respect to extrapolative capabilities of solutions on all nine test problems. In addition to exploiting the new complexity measure, this paper also introduces a novel heuristic of alternating several optimization objectives in a 2-D optimization framework. Alternating the objectives at each generation in such a way allows us to exploit the effectiveness of 2-D optimization when more than two objectives are of interest (in this paper, these are accuracy, expressional complexity, and the order of nonlinearity). Results of the experiments on all test problems suggest that alternating the order of nonlinearity of GP individuals with their structural complexity produces solutions that are both compact and have smoother response surfaces, and, hence, contributes to better interpretability and understanding.


Received: August 2017, Accepted: September 2017 Background: Hazardous chemical agents in the welding operation are a mixture of metal fumes and toxic gases, the inhalation of which causes adverse health effects among welders. The emission of gases in the workplace is a logical cause for concern regarding the potential development of respiratory disease. The aim of the present study was to determine the concentration values of gases discharged during arc welding and perform risk assessment through semi-quantitative chemical risk assessment (SQCRA) method. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in an Iranian steel mill on the 3 processes of plasma arc welding (PAW), submerged arc welding (SAW), and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). Direct reading instruments were used for sampling of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen monoxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3). SQCRA method was used for risk assessment of gases. Results: The concentrations of O3 (0.356 ppm), CO (41.642 ppm), NO (6.357 ppm), and NO2 (4.871 ppm) were found to exceed their threshold limit values (TLVs), while the concentrations of CO2 (3879.285 ppm) were below its TLV. The maximum exposure concentration of all gases, except CO2, was observed in SAW. SQCRA method showed that among the gases, the highest and least risk rating was related to ozone and nitrogen monoxide, respectively. The risk rating for CO2, CO, and NO2 was low, high, and very high, respectively. Conclusions: In this study, exposure values were higher than the threshold limit values-time weighted average (TLV-TWA) and the results of risk assessment showed that control engineering should be applied and the use of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) should be made mandatory for welders especially in SAW, PAW, and GTAW processes.


South Korea, which imported around 26 million tons of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) in 2007, is the worlds second largest LNG importing country after Japan. It has recently experienced a tight supply and demand of natural gas due to both domestic and overseas issues, such as the domestic consumption pattern concentrated in winter, the delay of concluding long-term contracts caused by domestic gas industry restructuring, and rapidly increasing global LNG demand. Meanwhile, both Japan and South Korea, which are close in geographical and cultural terms, also share many similarities in natural gas industries. For example, both countries depend on imports for the majority of their natural gas supply, the total amount of natural gas is imported in the form of LNG, the import volume by spot contract is increasing in order to make up shortfall in winter, and so on. To cope with the LNG market circumstance positively, both countries have recently developed their bilateral business relationship more closely, with the introduction of cargo swapping between their gas and electric power companies. In this report, natural gas supply and demand trends as well as future plans concerning gas industry in South Korea are examined based on the background of South Koreas natural gas demand pattern.


The aim of the study was to analyse pulmonary function and to identify reliable prognostic factors associated with respiratory abnormalities in a consecutive series of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Pulmonary function was evaluated by means of a battery of measures, including maximal voluntary ventilation, forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume, in 71 consecutive patients with primary and secondary progressive MS. Respiratory impairment was common in MS patients, occurring in 63.4% of all patients, ranging from 82.9% in non‐ambulatory patients (with EDSS score >6.5) to 35.7% in ambulatory patients (with EDSS score <6). Severity of illness and cerebellar and mental impairment were significantly negatively associated with basal pulmonary function. Coordination plays an important role in determining respiratory abnormalities: respiratory abnormalities were found in 27 out of 32 patients (84.4%) with severe cerebellar impairment. The presence of severe cerebellar signs was associated with a very high risk of occurrence of respiratory impairment (O.R.=6.24; 95% C.I. 1.71–22.82). Other significant variables were severity of illness (EDSS score >6.5) (O.R.=4.71; 95% C.I. 1.42–15.66) and long disease duration (>15 years) (O.R.=3.39; 95% C.I. 1.01–11.42).


The methods used to estimate the contribution of financial services to national income are seriously flawed. Banking sector output in the UK was estimated to have increased in 2008 while the financial services sector was collapsing. The relative contribution of service activities in GDP is not easy to measure, but there are many problems in measuring financial services in general and the output of banks in particular. National income accounting standards, used to estimate the output of financial intermediation companies such as banks, rely on flawed indirect measurements based on interest rate spreads. Furthermore, many services are provided at no charge so price indexes cannot be meaningfully created. The main method used, Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured (FISIM), is arbitrary and fails to measure the quality of banking assets and risk. Over the period 2003–7, one study found that aggregate risk-adjusted output would have been only 60% of officially estimated output across the Euro area.


We use reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to address the problem of model order uncertainty in autoregressive (AR) time series within a Bayesian framework. Efficient model jumping is achieved by proposing model space moves from the the full conditional density for the AR parameters, which is obtained analytically. This is compared with an alternative method, for which the moves are cheaper to compute, in which proposals are made only for new parameters in each move. Results are presented for both synthetic and audio time series.


This article focuses on a teacher's evaluation of an experiment with problem-based learning (PBL) and its effects on his professional development. This case study, of a descriptive-analytical nature, involved the collaboration between the researcher and teacher in the planning, implementation of PBL and, to some extent, analysis of results. Research data—collected via participant observation of classes and openended interviews with the teacher—were analyzed in light of the literature on PBL, teacher knowledge base, and professional development. Results indicate teacher satisfaction, but also point to higher class unpredictability and increased time/workload. PBL also seems to distribute teaching workload more evenly throughout the semester than traditional methods do. This hinders routinisation and constrains teachers' autonomy. On the other hand PBL appeared to foster the teacher's development of his teaching knowledge base, especially regarding the knowledge of students, their reasoning mode and interests.


The writings of Juri Udi (alter ego of Estonian poet and actor Juhan Viiding, from 1968 to 1978) display the reality of something that could be referred to as a joyful dimension of anguish. Using four different (yet connected) conceptual frames, this study seeks to observe how that dimension is created through play with and within words. Hando Runnel (1975) has described Juri Udi's word artistry as walking on language. From this description and others, Hasso Krull has derived the concept of decentred affirmation (1998), as pure expression (1991), encouraging one to thus consider the process of expression as essentially conditioned by language. In biosemiotic intuition, language use is considered as unconditionally transparent as any other living process, while life tends to express in its current form all of its memory (its history of creating surfaces). To some extent, the works of Mikhail Bakhtin (1934, and others) have already deeply inscribed this intuition into the discourses of literary theory, observing how language use is ever polyphonic, therefore polylogical; keeping several voices in play, at once laughing and true to its most deeply cherished ideals; tradition-bound; always already to quote another, in anticipation of the other's response. This study is intentionally written in an elusive manner, deeply influenced (perhaps indirectly as well via Franz Kafka and Jacques Derrida) by Soren Kierkegaard's incessant emphasis (1843) on singularities ever introducing ruptures in language-bound life, inventing thresholds, drawing lines of flight via paradox, via the absurd, and by the beautifully exemplary manner in which Kierkegaard's pseudonymous discourse embodies undecidability. This study does not seek to explain how the writings of Juri Udi perplex or enchant. Perplexed and enchanted, this study focuses rather on subjects of a more general nature, such as the conditions of writing (truthfully, through laughter) as observed within ecosophies of non-linguistic, pre-iconographic life, of singularities, of impersonal individuations, of undecidabilities. Keeping the writings of Juri Udi in mind, this study sketches the outlines of an ecosophy on which poetry is incessantly in the process of commenting, while never actually intervening as an object of research. Rather, poetry inspires as knowledge of how it feels to live and to understand. Writing as an actor's work requires participation of a kind that seems to be precisely explicated in an early designation of the role of Juri Udi as the chant of a realist angel ("realistliku ingli laul", 1968). Thus, this study is merely an adventure seeking to understand that particular designation, drawing support from some inspiring patterns of inventing concepts between philosophy and life.


In the long term, productivity and especially productivity growth are necessary conditions for the survival of a farm. In this paper, we focus on the technology choice of a dairy farm, i.e. the choice between a conventional and an automatic milking system. Our aim is to reveal the extent to which economic rationality explains investing in new technology. The adoption of robotics is further linked to farm productivity to show how capital-intensive technology has affected the overall productivity of milk production. In our empirical analysis, we apply a probit model and an extended Cobb-Douglastype production function to a Finnish farm-level dataset for the years 2000–10. The results show that very few economic factors on a dairy farm or in its economic environment can be identified to affect the switch to automatic milking. Existing machinery capital and investment allowances are among the significant factors. The results also indicate that the probability of investing in robotics responds elastically to a change in investment aids: an increase of 1% in aid would generate an increase of 2% in the probability of investing. Despite the presence of non-economic incentives, the switch to robotic milking is proven to promote productivity development on dairy farms. No productivity growth is observed on farms that keep conventional milking systems, whereas farms with robotic milking have a growth rate of 8.1% per year. The mean rate for farms that switch to robotic milking is 7.0% per year. The results show great progress in productivity growth, with the average of the sector at around 2% per year during the past two decades. In conclusion, investments in new technology as well as investment aids to boost investments are needed in low-productivity areas where investments in new technology still have great potential to increase productivity, and thus profitability and competitiveness, in the long run.


Water regulation world-wide is moving to a new and challenging paradigm characterised by integrated assessment and management of multiple pollution loadings within drainage basins. This is seen in the European Water Framework Directive and the United States Clean Water Act. Implementation lessons of the latter suggest the principal water quality concern at the continental scale is microbial pollution by faecal indicators and pathogens. This presents a major new challenge to the microbiological community and presents major opportunities of joint working with catchment scientists, modellers, engineers and the farming community. To date, very little catchment-scale science has addressed microbial flux measurement, modelling and prediction when compared to other parameters such as the nutrients, oxygen demand and sediments. The engineering community has made excellent progress on point-source pollution control from sewage works but, parallel progress on agricultural best management practices to limit diffuse-source pollution from agriculture is less evident and the science evidence-base for the efficacy of such measures remains equivocal. This contribution presents a clear set of research challenges and management priorities designed to stimulate further involvement by the microbiological community in this emerging area.


When Hamline's participation in the FIPSE grant was announced several years ago, the Hamline community saw an opportunity to help achieve the stated strategic-plan objective to ensure that every graduating student "will have basic knowledge about ADR and the opportunity for simulation experience with ADR." The FIPSE grant working-group established the following objectives to guide the curriculum-development effort: (a) emphasize the importance of ADR by formally recognizing it as "substance," (b) help students confront the standard philosophical map of lawyers and promote an "alternative" definition of lawyer as "problem-solver," (c) provide a baseline familiarity with rule vs. interest and position vs. interest distinctions, and (d) provide a definitional overview of ADR processes and ways they differ from the traditional litigation model. The working group concluded that a student leaving Hamline should have a combination of substantive knowledge, skills training, and experience to: (a) effectively listen to a client, (b) understand legal and other interests, (c) choose the most appropriate dispute resolution process, and (d) differentiate between law as a tool for justice and law as a tool to accomplish individual client objectives. While on paper, the author can make a strong case for having accomplished a great deal during the two years of the FIPSE project, as well as the subsequent academic year, he is not as convinced as he would like to be that our efforts actually influence student perception of a lawyer's work. The article discusses his uncertainties, as well as what was accomplished, difficulties encountered, and the results of a formal project assessment.


Global warming is continuing without delay and this is caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, 25 times stronger compared to CO2. The increase in methane concentrations in the atmosphere is largely the result of human influences, but there are also natural sources of methane, as for instance peat bogs. Peat bogs store an enormous amount of carbon, three times as much as tropical rain forests, yet are also responsible for about 10% of the methane flux to the atmosphere. This methane flux is substantial, however, it is already strongly reduced by methane-oxidizing bacteria (methanotrophs), which live in symbiosis with peat moss (Sphagnum). This thesis comprises the investigation of Sphagnum-associated methanotrophy on a global scale and down to a molecular level, aiming to further the understanding of the interactions between the methane cycle and a changing climate. The work described in this thesis demonstrates that Sphagnum-associated methane oxidation occurs ubiquitously across the globe. Labelling experiments showed that methane-derived carbon is transferred, via methane-oxidizing bacteria, into plant material in different Sphagnum mosses. This way, carbon is efficiently recycled. Climate change projections indicate that areas at mid- to high latitude, where peat bogs are situated, will become increasingly wetter and warmer. It was shown in this theses that, with increasing temperature and increasing humidity, methane oxidation rates rise. At the same time, the balance between methane oxidation and methane production becomes more critical, as methanotrophs cannot compensate for the increase in methane production that occurs concurrently. Methanotrophs act as an efficient filter for the escape of methane, reducing diffusive methane emissions up to 98%. The efficiency of this filter, however, strongly declines at increasing temperatures, from 98% at 5oC to only 50% at 25oC. Even though methane consumption increased with increasing temperature, methanotrophs were not able to compensate for the increase in methane production, at least on the time scale of the experiment. Therefore, global warming may be enhanced by increased methane release from peat bogs. Biomarkers can be used to assess the long term influence of environmental change on peat bogs. The stable carbon isotopic composition of hopenes and the BHPs aminobacteriohopanetetrol and aminobacteriohopanepentol have been shown to be the most suitable biomarkers to assess methanotrophy in peat bogs. Methanotrophic biomarkers in a peat record from Misten Bog indicated that methanotrophic activity is strongly influenced by humidity, being higher during cold, wet periods compared warm and dry episodes over the past 1200 years. Since methane emissions increase with increasing water level, this implies that peat bogs probably generated highest methane emissions during cold periods, providing a negative feedback for the prevailing colder conditions. What the future will bring thus critically depends on the extent of the increase in temperature and precipitation. It is, however, clear that methanotrophs play a vital role in reducing methane emissions from peat bogs worldwide and this role may become increasingly important when the climate changes in the near future.


The interaction of light with nanostructured metal leads to a number of fascinating phenomena, including plasmon oscillations that can be harnessed for a variety of cutting-edge applications. Plasmon oscillation modes are the collective oscillation of free electrons in metals under incident light. Previously, surface plasmon modes have been used for communication, sensing, nonlinear optics and novel physics studies. In this report, we describe the scientific research completed on metal-dielectric plasmonic films accomplished during a multi-year Purdue Excellence in Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories. A variety of plasmonic structures, from random 2D metal-dielectric films to 3D composite metal-dielectric films, have been studied in this research for applications such as surface-enhanced Raman sensing, tunable superlenses with resolutions beyond the diffraction limit, enhanced molecular absorption, infrared obscurants, and other real-world applications.


In recent years much attention has been focused on photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants by TiO2 particles irradiated by ultraviolet (UV) light. This method is undoubtedly an effective approach toward abatement of a wide variety of harmful/toxic organic pollutants in wastewaters. Unfortunately, the need of an ultraviolet excitation source restricts its technological utility to limited applications. In this work, TiO2/ SiO2 and Pt-TiO2/SiO2 nanoparticles were prepared in anatase form to improve and modify TiO2 photocatalytic activity in UV and visible light. In the case of using SiO2 the results showed that the crystal size and surface area of TiO2 have been improved from17 to 5 (nm) and 80 to 555 (m2/g) respectively. In the case of using platinum (Pt), platinum can be either doped in the crystalline structure of TiO2/SiO2 or deposited on the surface of TiO2/SiO2. The results showed that photocatalytic activity of Pt-TiO2/SiO2 and TiO2/SiO2 has been increased in visible and UV light respectively. The characterizations of catalysts were performed by XRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM, BET and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra. Finally, in order to assess photocatalytic activities of TiO2/SiO2 and Pt-TiO2/SiO2, degradation of monochlorobenzene (MCB) was tested under UV and visible light.


Previous work indicates that learning of spatial locations relative to environmental boundaries and the learning of spatial locations relative to discrete landmarks are dissociable processes supported by different neural systems (Wang & Spelke, 2002; Doeller & Burgess, 2008). However, the perceptual systems that provide the inputs to these learning mechanisms are not well understood. We hypothesized that the Occipital Place Area (OPA), a scene-selective region located near the transverse occipital sulcus, might play a critical role in boundary-based learning, by extracting boundary information from visual scenes during navigation. To test this idea, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to interrupt processing in the OPA while subjects performed a virtual navigation task that required them to learn locations of test objects relative to boundaries and landmarks. The environment consisted of a circular chamber, which was limited by a boundary wall, contained a rotationally symmetric landmark object, and was surrounded by distal cues for orientation (mountains, rendered at infinity). The relative position of the landmark and boundary changed across testing blocks. Test objects were tethered to either the landmark or the boundary, thus allowing learning of object location relative to each cue to be independently assessed. Prior to each block, transcranial magnetic continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) was applied to either the functionally-defined right OPA or a Vertex control site. Consistent with our prediction, we found that cTBS to the OPA impaired learning of object locations relative to boundaries, but not relative to landmarks. These results provide the first evidence that OPA is causally involved in visually-guided navigation. Moreover, they indicate that the OPA is essential for the coding of environmental boundary information. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that selectively affects motor neurons (MNs) of the cortex, brainstem, and spinal cord. Several genes have been linked to both familial (fALS) and sporadic (sALS) cases of ALS. Among all the ALS-related genes, a group of genes known to directly affect cytoskeletal dynamics (ALS2, DCTN1, PFN1, KIF5A, NF-L, NF-H, PRPH, SPAST, and TUBA4A) is of high importance for MN health and survival, considering that MNs are large polarized cells with axons that can reach up to 1 m in length. In particular, cytoskeletal dynamics facilitate the transport of organelles and molecules across the long axonal distances within the cell, playing a key role in synapse maintenance. The majority of ALS-related genes affecting cytoskeletal dynamics were identified within the past two decades, making it a new area to explore for ALS. The purpose of this review is to provide insights into ALS-associated cytoskeletal genes and outline how recent studies have pointed towards novel pathways that might be impacted in ALS. Further studies making use of extensive analysis models to look for true hits, the newest technologies such as CRIPSR/Cas9, human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and axon sequencing, as well as the development of more transgenic animal models could potentially help to: differentiate the variants that truly act as a primary cause of the disease from the ones that act as risk factors or disease modifiers, identify potential interactions between two or more ALS-related genes in disease onset and progression and increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms leading to cytoskeletal defects. Altogether, this information will give us a hint on the real contribution of the cytoskeletal ALS-related genes during this lethal disease.


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.