Climate resilience is an important mix of climate mitigation and climate adaptation designed to minimize current and future disruption while promoting opportunity. Given the importance of the regional and local arena for consideration of impacts of climate change trends and needs for climate action, climate resilience in one community, Duluth, Minnesota, is considered. At the core of this project is the climate resilience question: what can we currently be doing in our communities to prepare for projected climate change while simultaneously improving life for current residents and visitors? Given the growing importance of outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism in Duluth, the role this sector may be able to play in climate resilience is considered. Using action research methodology, the research process of adjusting, presenting, and conducting follow-up from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Adaptation for Coastal Communities workshop is presented. The study takes a unique look at one workshop outcome, a Duluth Parks and Recreation planning tool. Specifically, a resilience checklist is presented as a useful sample outcome of the overall process. Beyond the study community, the role of outdoor recreation to serve climate resilience is explored and affirmed.


How does the geometric representation of a dataset change after the application of each randomly initialized layer of a neural network? The celebrated Johnson– Lindenstrauss lemma answers this question for linear fully-connected neural networks (FNNs), stating that the geometry is essentially preserved. For FNNs with the ReLU activation, the angle between two inputs contracts according to a known mapping. The question for non-linear convolutional neural networks (CNNs) becomes much more intricate. To answer this question, we introduce a geometric framework. For linear CNNs, we show that the Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma continues to hold, namely, that the angle between two inputs is preserved. For CNNs with ReLU activation, on the other hand, the behavior is richer: The angle between the outputs contracts, where the level of contraction depends on the nature of the inputs. In particular, after one layer, the geometry of natural images is essentially preserved, whereas for Gaussian correlated inputs, CNNs exhibit the same contracting behavior as FNNs with ReLU activation.


Certain important security policies such as information flow characterize system-wide behaviors and are not properties of individual executions. It is known that such security policies cannot be expressed in trace-based specification languages such as linear-time temporal logic (Ltl). However, formalisms such as hyperproperties and the associated logic HyperLTL allow us to specify such policies. In this thesis, we concentrate on the static enforcement and runtime verification of safety hyperproperties expressed in HyperLTL. For static enforcement of safety hyperproperties, we incorporate program repair techniques, where an input program is modified to satisfy certain properties while preserving its existing specifications. Assuming finite state space for the input program, we show that the complexity of program repair for safety hyperproperties is in general NP-hard. However, there are certain cases in which the problem can be solved in polynomial time. We identify such cases and give polynomial-time algorithms for them. In the context of runtime verification, we make two contributions: we (1) analyze the complexity of decision procedures for verifying safety hyperproperties, (2) provide a syntactic fragment in HyperLTL to express certain k-safety hyperproperties, and (3) develop a general runtime verification technique for HyperLTL k-safety formulas, for cases where verification at run time can be done in polynomial time. Our technique is based on runtime formula progression as well as on-the-fly monitor synthesis across multiple executions.


Sediments can act as both a sink for pollutants and a source for aquatic contaminants. Natural and human disturbances of the sediments can release the contaminants to the overlying water where bottom dwelling, or benthic, organisms may be exposed through direct contact, ingestion of sediment particles, or uptake of dissolved contaminants present in the water. Dredging, the most common remediation technology for heavy metals, exacerbates this process. The in situ use of emulsified metal has been studied for its ability to pull heavy metals from aqueous solution and from saturated soils. It has proven successful in the laboratory with removal of lead, cadmium, copper, nickel, and uranium from aqueous solution and removal of lead and cadmium from saturated spiked soils. The use of zero-valent metal particles, particularly those of zero-valent iron (Fe), as an in situ remediation technique, is currently undergoing evaluation. The basic mechanism for removal appears to be reduction of contaminant metals followed by the subsequent precipitation of their insoluble forms. This is accompanied by the oxidation of the zerovalent metal. In the case of iron, Fe undergoes oxidation to Fe and then to the Fe state. Particulate Fe has been shown to precipitate Cr to Cr and Pb undergoes reduction to Pb. Initially, zero-valent iron filings were used to reduce the metal iii contaminants, but it has been shown that smaller size iron particles, such as nano-scale iron, have higher initial reduction rates as well as a higher concentration of contaminant removal per mole of iron. Emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) technology has been employed as a remediation technique for the removal of metals from wastewater where extraction and stripping processes are performed in a single operation. The ELMs are made by forming an emulsion between two immiscible liquids, such as oil and water, and are often stabilized by a surfactant. We have attempted to demonstrate the application of the combination of these two technologies through the use of emulsified zero-valent metal (EZVM) to treat sediments with heavy metal contamination. Emulsions were prepared using vegetable oil, water, Span 85, and either nanoscale Fe, 1-3 μm Fe, 4 μm Mg, or a 20 wt % Fe-Mg mixture. The results presented in this study demonstrate that EZVM is a viable technique for in situ remediation of heavy metals in sediments. Laboratory scale studies have shown high levels of removal of lead and cadmium from solution using emulsified zero-valent iron. Additionally, the use of emulsified magnesium has shown the ability for high levels of removal of copper, cadmium, nickel, lead, and uranium from solution. A variety of solution matrices were also explored for a lead solution including seawater, the presence of complexing agents and humic acids. Small-scale laboratory studies have shown 65% removal of lead and 45% removal of cadmium from saturated, spiked soils. A bench scale test to demonstrate the applicability of this technique in the environment revealed similar results for the removal of lead. iv To Mom & Dad, For never letting me think that I couldn't.


OBJECTIVE
Generalized, or hematogenously disseminated, tuberculosis (TB) in patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been associated with a high incidence of cases remaining undiagnosed until postmortem. To better characterize generalized TB in the setting of AIDS, this report describes the clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and pathologic features of 20 fatal cases.

DESIGN
The medical records, autopsy protocols, and histologic material from patients with AIDS and concomitant TB were reviewed. All patients were autopsied at a tertiary care medical center during the years 1985-1997.

RESULTS
In 50% of our 20 cases, diagnosis was not made until postmortem. Signs and symptoms were few, including the absence of fever (temperature > or = 38 degrees C) in 55% of patients. Consistent laboratory abnormalities of a nonspecific nature were limited to hyponatremia (sodium <135 mmol/L) in 60%. Both peripheral and deep (thoracic and abdominal) lymphadenopathy, unusual in adults with TB, occurred in 45% and 95% of cases, respectively. In contrast to previous reports, all of the 6 cases of tuberculous meningitis presented as acute meningitis with a predominance of neutrophils in cerebrospinal fluid. Necrotizing encephalitis with extension of the acute inflammation into the superficial cortex was seen in all cases and tuberculous brain abscesses occurred in 50% of cases, a higher frequency than previously reported. Despite lung involvement in 90% of the cases, 33% of chest radiographs were interpreted as normal and disseminated mycobacterial disease was not suggested in the radiograph report in any of the other cases. Soft tissue abscesses in uncharacteristic locations such as the neck, mediastinum, and perirectal area occurred in these patients. Histologically, 95% of organs sampled showed inflammatory foci characterized by extensive necrosis with numerous neutrophils and/or karyorrhectic debris, numerous acid-fast bacilli, few or no epithelioid histiocytes, and no Langhans giant cells.

CONCLUSION
Clinically and pathologically, generalized TB in the setting of AIDS is characterized by either unusual features or a lack of the typical features described for generalized TB in patients who do not have AIDS. This absence of classic features contributes to the high incidence of cases that remain undiagnosed until postmortem examination.


The Existential Model of Perfectionism and Depressive Symptoms (EMPDS) is a promising integrative model. According to the EMPDS, self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism indirectly influence depressive symptoms through rumination and difficulty accepting the past. Yet, the extent to which self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, rumination, and difficulty accepting the past uniquely and collectively influence depressive symptoms is unestablished. Likewise, supporting evidence derives from relatively healthy university students, rendering the generalizability of the EMPDS to more distressed individuals unclear. Our study addressed these important limitations. Data were obtained from 393 depressed individuals. Congruent with the EMPDS, bias-corrected bootstrapped tests of mediation indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism indirectly predicted depressive symptoms through rumination and difficulty accepting the past. In contrast, self-oriented perfectionism indirectly predicted depressive symptoms through rumination, but not difficulty accepting the past. Overall, the current findings highlight similarities and differences between trait perfectionism dimensions in mechanisms that link them with depression.


This essay discusses two of Coetzee's best-known works in academic circles: both appear widely on university syllabi and offer students a chance to engage with debates on authorship, intertextuality, and canonicity. Beginning with a discussion of the reception histories of these two novels, the essay charts the ways in which Coetzee's fiction is consumed locally and globally and ask questions not only about the politics of writing, but also the ethics of reading (see Attwell 1993; Huggan 2001; Attridge 2005; and Easton in Morrison & Watkins (eds), 2006).
When Foe was published in 1986 at the height of State of Emergency South Africa, for example, it caused a stir for its apparent remoteness from the South African situation (as the reviewer Harriett Gilbert asked: 'Postmodern narratives while Soweto burns?'). When Disgrace appeared in 1999, it caused great consternation for its 'bleak' representation of the 'new' South Africa – not just in reviews, but also in Government quarters. At the same time, it won Coetzee many accolades, including an unprecedented second Booker Prize. What does this say about the absence of 'South Africa' as a geographical marker in Foe compared with its stark presence in Disgrace?
Like Coetzee's 1994 novel, The Master of Petersburg, Foe involves a literary figure, a text, from afar, that intervenes in Coetzee's story: here it is of course Daniel Defoe, the eighteenth-century world of his Robinson Crusoe in particular, but also his corpus more generally; in The Master of Petersburg there is similarly a mix of fact, fiction and literary biography, when Coetzee uses Dostoevsky and the genesis of his novel The Possessed; in Disgrace, there is an obvious sub-text of Byron and his satire, Don Juan, as well as the poem 'Lara': and yet, since Byron is not exactly a character in this work, his presence too has been marginalised in the critical reception of this work.
These identifiable authors in Coetzee's novels lead us to intertextuality and the question of canonicity. How do the canonical texts of Defoe (and behind him, a host of 'Robinsonnades') illuminate or problematise our reading of Coetzee's Foe, and how might their presence affect the way that Coetzee's own novel has become canonical? Had Coetzee not borrowed from Defoe, would his novel be taught in courses that focus not on postcolonial literature or Africa, or even South Africa, but contemporary literature and postmodernism? In the case of his later novel Disgrace, we have quite the opposite: this novel has been set in South Africa, a pointedly new South Africa, where Byron, and the teaching of Romantic poetry, are of seeming irrelevance. Do we need to know Byron to understand Disgrace? Do we need to know Defoe to understand Foe?
When Coetzee received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, he offered not a lecture but a short story called 'He and His Man', in which questions of character and authorship continue: this story expands the story in Foe, since it is Robinson Crusoe (now with an 'e') who is seemingly alive and well in Bristol, writing about 'his man' Defoe/Foe, this busy man, who writes about plagues, and tours through England. Reading this 'sequel' story-lecture alongside Foe raises intriguing questions about 'original' texts, textual proliferations, and gaps and infiltrations in terms of gender, race, and history.
To explore the overlapping or fluid boundaries of fiction and history, we read Linda Hutcheon's seminal essay on 'historiographic metafiction' (see The Poetics of Postmodernism); Brenda Marshall's incisive reading of Barthes's essay, 'From Work to Text' in relation to Foe (see Teaching the Postmodern, 1993) furthermore reminds us that intertextual readings are almost contradictory: if intertextuality is a 'mosaic of quotations' without origin, as Kristeva would have it, how do we as critics read the intertextual without falling into what Barthes calls 'the myth of filiation'? How do we dismiss the idea of origins and source studies, whilst also pointing to possible literary predecessors?


The biological data required by fisheries managers to develop plans for conserving fish stocks have been obtained for Mulloway and Silver Trevally in Western Australian waters. The first species is commercially and recreationally important and the second is caught in large numbers by recreational fishers. We have produced, for managers in the Department of Fisheries Western Australia, data on crucial aspects of the biology of Mulloway and Silver Trevally. These include data on habitats, spawning periods, size and age compositions, growth and reproductive biology in the northern and southern parts of the distribution of these two species on the west coast of Australia. Although all of the results are relevant to developing management plans for conserving the stocks of these two important species, the following are of particular relevance. The females and males of Mulloway typically reach first maturity at lengths of about 930 and 880 mm, respectively. These lengths, which are usually attained at 5 - 6 years in age, are far greater than the minimum legal length (MLL) of 500 mm for the retention of this species. In the case of Silver Trevally, the average length of females at first maturity is 60 mm greater than the current MLL of 250 mm and thus the females are exposed to one year of fishing mortality before they are able to spawn. Thus, managers will need to assess whether the current MLLs for the above two species, and particularly for Mulloway, are appropriate for ensuring that the stocks of these heavily-fished species are conserved. Management policies will also need to take into account the schooling behaviour of Mulloway at spawning as this results in this species becoming an easy target for fishers at a crucial stage in its life cycle.


The main objective of this work was to study the antioxidant properties of polyphosphates in frozen chickens, which were obtained during supervised factory trials, and to propose reasons for this effect. Previous work has been mainly concerned with why polyphosphates increase the water holding capacity (WHC) of meat.After a brief review of the types, uses, and effects of polyphosphates in the food industry, their specific use and effects in frozen chicken are discussed. The factors which affect WHC and the lipid and fatty acid compositions of chicken tissues are discussed; as is the mechanism of the autooxidation reaction, and the theories about the mode of action of polyphosphates. Lipid and fatty acid compositions were determined by chromatographic methods. The degree of autooxidation was determined by the thiobarbituric acid(TBA) test. The distribution of added polyphosphates and the ionic composition of individual muscles were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (IOPAES). The hydrolysis of polyphosphates was studied using thin layer chromatography(TLC) and phosphorus-31 Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance ([31] P-FTNMR) . The reasons for choosing thesetechniques, and the results of preliminary tests are given.Polyphosphate treatment was found to result in cooked muscles having reduced TBA numbers and lower levels of calcium and magnesium than untreated muscles; but to have little effect on chill-water uptake, thaw and cooking losses, and lipid and fatty acid composition. Added polyphosphates were found in the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor muscles, but leg muscles contained either none or very small amounts. Polyphosphates were found to undergo considerable hydrolysis immediately on mixing with excised muscle, and during prolonged frozen storage of the whole chicken. The general conclusions concern the lipid and fatty acid composition of chicken muscles, the autooxidation process, and the scope and reliability of the TBA test. It was concluded that polyphosphates remove calcium and magnesium from thawed muscle, and that they perhaps associate with phospholipids.


Today the whole contract lifecycle in eBusiness is handled manually. Contracts are not only written and agreed upon by humans, they have to be manually translated into technical terms to become an electronic contract. More and more research activities in eBusiness focus on the usage of electronic contracts (in particular Service Level Agreements) and how they can be created and enforced autonomously. So far, proposed solutions were not taken up by business users because of low flexibility, poor usability and high maintenance costs. This paper presents a proposal how "traditional" approaches can be extended to a broker-based solution valuable to business users, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises. The focus is on one of the main phases in the SLA-lifecycle – the negotiation phase. The paper describes how SLA negotiation can be outsourced to third parties and what the benefits and difficulties of such an approach would be.


User preferences for items can be inferred from either explicit feedback, such as item ratings, or implicit feedback, such as rental histories. Research in collaborative filtering has concentrated on explicit feedback, resulting in the development of accurate and scalable models. However, since explicit feedback is often difficult to collect it is important to develop effective models that take advantage of the more widely available implicit feedback. We introduce a probabilistic approach to collaborative filtering with implicit feedback based on modelling the user's item selection process. In the interests of scalability, we restrict our attention to tree-structured distributions over items and develop a principled and efficient algorithm for learning item trees from data. We also identify a problem with a widely used protocol for evaluating implicit feedback models and propose a way of addressing it using a small quantity of explicit feedback data.


The traditional image of slavery begins with a master and a slave. However, not all slaves had traditional masters; some were owned instead by institutions, such as church congregations, schools, colleges, and businesses. This practice was pervasive in early Virginia; its educational, religious, and philanthropic institutions were literally built on the backs of slaves. Virginia's fi rst industrial economy was also developed with the skilled labor of African American slaves. This book focuses on institutional slavery in Virginia as it was practiced by the Anglican and Presbyterian churches, free schools, and four universities: the College of William and Mary, Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Virginia, and Hollins College. It also examines the use of slave labor by businesses and the Commonwealth of Virginia in industrial endeavors. This is an account not only of how institutions used slavery to further their missions but also of the slaves who belonged to these institutions.


Whether included in national bills of rights or regional or global human rights treaties, human rights are often vague. They require interpretation. The article illustrates how regional human rights tribunals have largely followed the rules for treaty interpretation set out in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. In the interpretation of rights and their limitations the European Court has traditionally put greater emphasis on regional consensus than the Inter-American Court and the African Commission which often look outside their continents to treaties and soft law of the UN and the jurisprudence of other regional tribunals. However, there is a trend towards universalism also in the jurisprudence of the European Court. The article illustrates that the reasoning of the regional tribunals is sometimes inadequate. The quality of the reasoning of the tribunals is important as it provides states and individuals with predictability so that action can be taken to avoid human rights violations. Good reasoning may also help to achieve compliance with the decisions and societal acceptance on controversial issues.


This paper is based on a project with the title Centering the Human Subject in Health Research: The Meaning and Experience of Research Participation. This paper looks at research interpreters and research workers who are influenced by both professional and ethical codes and broader research policies which govern the ethical conduct of clinical and community-based research. It is based on a review of the research ethics literature and a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews with fourteen key informants including researchers, interpreters and members of Research Ethics Boards (REBs). These interviews were completed with individuals with direct experience working across language barriers, sometimes as interpreters and sometimes as researchers; it is these interviews that provide the framework for this paper. It asks two main questions: (1) What are the differences and similarities between interpreters working in research and medical interpreters; and (2) How do the codes and policies governing research ethics compare with the professional codes of ethical conduct applied to interpreters.
To answer the first question we revisit the three models of the medical interpreter: the interpreter as conduit, the interpreter as cultural broker, and the community embedded interpreter (Avery, 2001). We provide a brief description of each model and discuss the roles of interpreters, focusing on language and relationships. We also examine the implications of language barriers for research ethics, focusing on informed consent and the technical and ethical challenges of translating consent forms from one language to another. We then compare the professional codes of ethical conduct developed for medical interpreters by their own profession with the rules and regulations issued by government policy and research funding agencies and implemented by Research Ethics Boards. Lastly, we look at the question of community consent and at the roles played by some interpreters in speaking "for" a researcher and a research project.


ARM has become the most competitive processor architecture. Many platforms or tools are developed to execute or analyze ARM instructions, including various commercial CPUs, emulators, and binary analysis tools. However, they have deviations when processing the same ARM instructions, and little attention has been paid to systematically analyze such semantic deviations, not to mention the security implications of such deviations. In this paper, we conduct an empirical study on the ARM Instruction Semantic Deviation (ISDev) issue. First, we classify this issue into several categories and analyze the security implications behind them. Then, we further demonstrate several novel attacks which utilize the ISDev issue, including stealthy targeted attacks and targeted defense evasion. Such attacks could exploit the semantic deviations to generate malware that is specific to certain platforms or able to detect and bypass certain detection solutions. We have developed a framework iDEV to systematically explore the ISDev issue in existing ARM instructions processing tools and platforms via differential testing. We have evaluated iDEV on four hardware devices, the QEMU emulator, and five disassemblers which could process the ARMv7-A instruction set. The evaluation results show that, over six million instructions could cause dynamic executors (i.e., CPUs and QEMU) to present different runtime behaviors, and over eight million instructions could cause static disassemblers yielding different decoding results, and over one million instructions cause inconsistency between dynamic executors and static disassemblers. After analyzing the root causes of each type of deviation, we point out they are mostly due to ARM unpredictable instructions and program defects.


A new type of ferroelectric which exhibits a threshold switching field and a number of highly useful technical properties is simply distinguished from ordinary ferroelectrics as ferrielectrics. These new materials have been described in detail in various publications. The good industrial properties of the mixed bismuth oxide (MBO) ferrielectrics permitted the extension of work on fundamental research into applied research. The objective of this work was to demonstrate that capacitor elements comprised of MBO-type ferrielectrics exhibiting a threshold field as a dielectric represent an important improvement as compared to ordinary ferroelectric capacitors, and they can be utilized as logic and memory devices. Work was essentially devoted to the following application areas. 1) Improved field controlled polarization transfer devices (Transpolarizers ®) were developed. These transpolarizers utilize internally biased MBO-type ferrielectrics which made it possible to block and unblock the transpolarizer with opposite polarity pulses. Furthermore two-section transpolarizers requiring only ten volts for switching have been fabricated. Due to the improved switching features and low switching levels attained, these transpolarizers are compatible with transistor technology. 2) An exploratory content addressable memory system using these improved transpolarizers was developed and constructed, and its operating features are described.


Urban models are essential for understanding the structure and dynamics of cities and for testing the impact of changes in the locations of land use and  transportation on the urban environment. As a result of the increased involvement of social media (SM) or digital social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla and Foursquare data) in contemporary urban society they can be relevant for urban modeling in two was. First, they can serve as an appropriate unique provider of data that can tell us how, and when, individuals are using urban spaces. Second, as they have potential effect on individuals' spatial behavior and urban dynamics they should be taken into consideration in urban modeling. In the following I discuss the relevance and potential of SM for urban modeling.


The argan woodlands of South Morocco represent an open-canopy dryland forest with traditional silvopastoral usage that includes browsing by goats, sheep and camels, oil production as well as agricultural use. In the past, these forests have undergone extensive clearing, but are now protected by the state. However, the remaining argan woodlands are still under pressure from intensive grazing and illegal firewood collection. Although the argan-forest area seems to be overall decreasing due to large forest clearings for intensive agriculture, little quantitative data is available on the dynamics and overall state of the remaining argan forest. To determine how the argan woodlands in the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas had changed in tree-crown cover from 1972 to 2018 we used historical black and white HEXAGON satellite images as well as recent WorldView satellite images (see Part A of our study). Because tree shadows can oftentimes not be separated from the tree crown on panchromatic satellite images, individual trees were mapped in three size categories to determine if trees were unchanged, had decreased/increased in crown size or had disappeared or newly grown. The current state of the argan trees was evaluated by mapping tree architectures in the field. Tree-cover changes varied highly between the test sites. Trees that remained unchanged between 1972 and 2018 were in the majority, while tree mortality and tree establishment were nearly even. Small unchanged trees made up 48.4% of all remaining trees, of these 51% showed degraded tree architectures. 40% of small (re-) grown trees were so overbrowsed that they only appeared as bushes, while medium (3–7 m crown diameter) and large trees (>7 m) showed less degraded trees regardless if they had changed or not. Approaches like grazing exclusion or cereal cultivation lead to a positive influence on tree architecture and less tree-cover decrease. Although the woodland was found to be mostly unchanged 1972–2018, the analysis of tree architecture reveals that a lot of (mostly small) trees remained stable but in a degraded state. This stability might be the result of the small trees' high degradation status and shows the heavy pressure on the argan forest.


A simple approximate formula is found for the mean time for mutant genes to first fix at one or another of two duplicate loci. The fixation is a result of one-way mutation from the wild-type to the mutant alleles, but is retarded by strong selection against the doubly homozygous mutants. The two-dimensional diffusion that models the evolution of the mutant allele frequencies at the two loci is studied by means of a transformation to two univariate diffusions having different time scales. Most of the results, but not all, agree well with the numerical studies by previous authors. Some new simulation results are pre-sented, which agree well with the analytical results and, therefore, cast doubt on some previous simulations.


ABSTRACT Protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) have been implicated in transcriptional activation and repression, but their role in controlling cell growth and proliferation remains obscure. We have recently shown that PRMT5 can interact with flag-tagged BRG1- and hBRM-based hSWI/SNF chromatin remodelers and that both complexes can specifically methylate histones H3 and H4. Here we report that PRMT5 can be found in association with endogenous hSWI/SNF complexes, which can methylate H3 and H4 N-terminal tails, and show that H3 arginine 8 and H4 arginine 3 are preferred sites of methylation by recombinant and hSWI/SNF-associated PRMT5. To elucidate the role played by PRMT5 in gene regulation, we have established a PRMT5 antisense cell line and determined by microarray analysis that more genes are derepressed when PRMT5 levels are reduced. Among the affected genes, we show that suppressor of tumorigenicity 7 (ST7) and nonmetastatic 23 (NM23) are direct targets of PRMT5-containing BRG1 and hBRM complexes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that expression of ST7 and NM23 is reduced in a cell line that overexpresses PRMT5 and that this decrease in expression correlates with H3R8 methylation, H3K9 deacetylation, and increased transformation of NIH 3T3 cells. These findings suggest that the BRG1- and hBRM-associated PRMT5 regulates cell growth and proliferation by controlling expression of genes involved in tumor suppression.


It is abundantly clear that adequate, reliable and clean energy services are vital for the achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In essence, energy access has come to represent one of the intractable challenges in development, and therefore emblematic of the call for poverty eradication, and economic and social transformation. This focus issue on 'Energy Access for Sustainable Development' is initiated to draw broadly from the ideas and emerging experiences with energy activities and solutions that sought to enhance sustainable development through expansion of energy access. The focus issue includes several contributions from authors on some of the knowledge gaps this field, including: (i) the role of off-grid and mini-grid energy systems to meet multiple SDGs; (ii) the impacts of the evolving suite of off-grid and distributed energy services on inequalities across gender, and on minority and disadvantaged communities; (iii) the opportunities that the evolving technology base (both of energy services and information systems) plays in expanding the role of off-grid and mini-grid energy systems; (iv) energy options for cooking; (v) new insights into energy planning as well as the political economy, institutional and decision challenges across the energy system. Drawing from papers in this focus issue and other literature, this paper provides a sketch of the key issues in energy access.


The study describes the differences and similarities between parents' feelings and their perception of their children's feelings in a politically uncertain situation. The study focuses on Israeli families living in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) during two periods: the Intifada and the post-Oslo Agreements years during the first phase of the peace process with the Palestinians. The research combines qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that most of the feelings evoked by the uncertainty are negative emotions, such as fear, anger, hate, the desire for revenge, and avoidance. These emotions are experienced by parents and, according to the parents' perceptions, by their children as well. In addition to the correlation between parents' own experiences and their appraisal of their children's, the children were perceived as having more negative feelings than the parents. Systemic analysis of the results indicates that the children are often a channel for expression of their parents' emotions. Based on this finding, suggestions are made regarding intervention with children that takes family processes into account. Some direction for applying the findings of this specific study in other contexts of shared political uncertainty, such as Northern Ireland, are suggested.


A survey, consisting of two hundred sample farmers, was conducted in major
cool-season food legume growing regions of Ethiopia. Assessment of grain
legume seeds collected from sample farmers' stores revealed the importance of
adzuki bean beetle, C. chinensis (L.). Storage pests were more serious in mid
altitude than highland areas. Farmers realized the negative effect of storage
insect pests on marketability, consumption quality and viability of legume seeds.
Hence, development of economically feasible and environmentally friendly
control options is needed.
Biology of C. maculatus was studied on adzuki bean seeds in Malaysia at UPM.
Mated female bruchid laid 61.8 eggs on average in its life with reproductive
effort of 11.6. Eggs had average incubation period of 4.6 days and mean
hatchability rate of 77.9%. Four larval instar stages were recognized. The insect
had mean developmental period of 27.8 days with adult emergence rate of
62.0%. Number of eggs had strong negative relation to age of female bruchid
while developmental period had positive relation.
Obtuse-base-angle box heaters glued from inside with aluminum foil had better
ability in trapping solar energy where 118' base-angle box had significantly high
performance. Square box heaters painted black from inside trapped higher
solar energy with better performance of boxes of 10 cm height, though not as
capable as the obtuse-base-angle box heaters. The different glazing
thicknesses and glazing layers did not show significant effect on the extent of
trapped energy. Box heater of 118' base angle, glued from inside with
aluminum foil was, therefore, promoted for further evaluation of the effect of
heating on C. maculatus, due to its better performance in trapping solar energy.
Effect of heat treatment on C. maculatus and adzuki bean seed moisture
content and germination was evaluated. Exposure of the various developmental
stages of C. maculatus to heat for up to 45 minutes raised the temperature
between and within the seeds well in excess of the lethal level and resulted in
complete control. Treatment of adzuki bean seeds with heat for up to one hour
did not significantly affect seed viability. Though there was no significant
difference, about 18.6% and 27% loss in seed viability resulted from seeds
treated for 30 and 60 minutes, respectively, should not be undermined. Hence,
adzuki bean seeds meant for planting should not be heat treated to control
storage insect pests. However, heat treatment had no much effect on seed
moisture content.
Assessment on the effect of seed layer thickness on the efficacy of heat
treatment against C. maculatus revealed that up to 3 cm thickness of adzuki
bean seed can be treated at a time, as neither adult bruchids survived heat
treatment nor emerged later. Therefore, solar heating of infested adzuki bean
seeds using the aforementioned box heater around noon for an hour can give
effective control of C. maculatus.


Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are potentially advantageous as an energy-efficient approach for wastewater treatment. Integrating membrane filtration with MFCs could be a viable option for advanced wastewater treatment with a low energy input. Such an integration is termed as membrane bioelectrochemical reactors (MBERs). Comparing to the conventional membrane bioreactors or anaerobic membrane bioreactors, MBER could be a competitive technology, due to the its advantages on energy consumption and nutrients removal. By installing the membrane in the cathodic compartment or applying granular activated carbon as fluidized bed materials, membrane fouling issue could be alleviated significantly. In order to drive MBER technology to become a more versatile platform, applying anion exchange membrane (AEM) could be an option for nutrients removal in MBERs. Wastewater can be reclaimed and reused for subsequent fermentation use after a series MFC-MBR treatment process. Such a synergistic configuration not only provide a solution for sustainable wastewater treatment, but also save water and chemical usage from other non-renewable resource. Integrating membrane process with microbial fuel cells through an external configuration provides another solution on sustainable wastewater treatment through a minimal maintenance requirement.


Polymorphisms in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are used to group individuals into haplogroups reflecting human global migration and are associated with multiple diseases, including cancer. Here, we evaluate the association between mtDNA haplogroup and risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Cases were identified by the Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System. Controls were identified through the Minnesota State driver's license/identification card list. Because haplogroup frequencies vary by race and ethnicity, we restricted analyses to non‐Hispanic whites. We genotyped 15 mtSNPs that capture common European mitochondrial haplogroup variation. We used SAS v.9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) overall and stratified by MDS subtype and IPSS‐R risk category. We were able to classify 215 cases with confirmed MDS and 522 controls into one of the 11 common European haplogroups. Due to small sample sizes in some subgroups, we combined mt haplogroups into larger bins based on the haplogroup evolutionary tree, including HV (H + V), JT (J + T), IWX (I + W + X), UK (U + K), and Z for comparisons of cases and controls. Using haplogroup HV as the reference group, we found a statistically significant association between haplogroup JT and MDS (OR = 0.58, 95% CI 0.36, 0.92, P = 0.02). No statistically significant heterogeneity was observed in subgroup analyses. In this population‐based study of MDS, we observed an association between mtDNA haplogroup JT and risk of MDS. While previously published studies provide biological plausibility for the observed association, further studies of the relationship between mtDNA variation and MDS are warranted in larger sample sizes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The existing electromobility (EM) is still in its fledgling stage and multiple challenges have to be overcome to make Electric Vehicles (EVs) as convenient as combustion engine vehicles. Users and Electric Vehicle Fleet Operators (EFOs) want their EVs to be charged and ready for use at all times. This straightforward goal, however, is counteracted from various sides: The range of the EV depends on the status and depletion of the EV battery which is influenced by EV use and charging characteristics. Also, most convenient charging from the user's point of view, might unfortunately lead to problems in the power grid. As in the case of a power peak in the evening when EV users return from work and simultaneously plug in their EVs for charging. Last but not least, the mass of EV batteries are an untapped potential to store electricity from intermittent renewable energy sources. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to tackle this multi-layered problem from different perspectives. Using on-board EV data and grid prediction models, we build up an information model as a foundation for a back end service containing EFO and Charging Station Provider (CSP) logic as well as a central Advanced Drivers Assistant System (ADAS). These components connect to both battery management and user interfaces suggesting various routing and driving behaviour alternatives customized and incentivized for the current user profile optimizing above mentioned goals.


This book provides a student audience with the best scholarly edition of Malthus' Essay on Population. Written in 1798 as a polite attack on post-French revolutionary speculations on the theme of social and human perfectibility, it remains one of the most powerful statements of the limits to human hopes set by the tension between population growth and natural resources. Based on the authoritative variorum edition of the versions of the Essay published between 1803 and 1826, and complete with full introduction and bibliographic apparatus, this new edition is intended to show how Malthusianism impinges on the history of political thought. Based on Malthus's second edition of 'An Essay on the Principle of Population' published in 1803, which established the author's reputation as a population theorist and political economist.


Background: Ecstasy related cognitive impairments have been compared to age related impairments which are underpinned by a reduction in information processing speed. The present study predicted that if a common mechanism underlay both types of impairment, then controlling for the efficiency and speed of information processing should remove differences in working memory performance between ecstasy users and nonusers.

Method: For all tasks group was a between-participants independent variable at three levels, namely current ecstasy users (n = 29), former ecstasy users (n = 10), and controls (n = 46). Two information processing speed tasks were performed requiring as many same/ different judgements of letters and patterns, respectively, in 30 s as possible. Each task presented three levels of stimulus complexity. Working memory performance was measured by the computation span task.

Results: Both user groups performed significantly worse than controls on the computation span task when the speed and efficiency of information processing were controlled by covariates representing the numbers of correct responses and errors on both comparison tasks. No significant inter-group differences were found for the number of correct responses on the pattern task, although a trend was found on the letter task with controls performing better. Current users made more errors than controls on both comparison tasks.

Conclusions: The failure of the covariates to remove inter-group differences on the computation span task suggests that these working memory differences are not mediated by the same mechanism which has been shown to underlie age related differences in performance. An alternative mechanism for ecstasy related deficits could be the premature termination of processing, related to elevated levels of impulsivity reported in this population.


Recent research has shown lakes play an outsized role in carbon cycling, but long‐term continuous observations and analysis of carbon dynamics are rare, limiting our understanding of interannual variation, important timescales of variability, and drivers of efflux. Therefore, we examined lake‐atmosphere carbon fluxes with the goal of quantifying annual trends and patterns in lake carbon efflux and identifying important timescales. To do so, this study integrated 6 yr of eddy‐covariance flux tower observations of lake‐atmosphere fluxes with high‐frequency observations of in‐lake temperature, dissolved oxygen, and partial pressure of CO2, for a eutrophic lake in Wisconsin, U.S.A. While growing season fluxes are variable and switch between source and sink, annual net carbon fluxes show the lake acts as an annual sink of carbon, with the magnitude depending on climate, along with the timing and strength of fall turnover, with half of the total annual carbon uptake happening in October and November.


This paper explores central discourses emerging from women students' talk about heterosexual relationships. Given the widespread problematisation of heterosexual sexuality (heterosex) through feminist critique and the global imperative to halt the spread of HlV infection, there has been a growing focus on heterosex among young people in South Africa. An increasing number of studies highlight widespread coercive sexuality and women's, especially young womens, lack of negotiation in their sexual relations with men. The paper presents a discourse analysis of the transcripts of 14 focus groups held with women students, in single sex and mixed groups, at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Three central areas are outlined: male sexual drive, repression of female desire; male power discourse; and discourses of resistance and change. Similar to other local and international studies, the analysis illuminates the pervasiveness of dominant discourses of male and female sexuality which reproduce essential differences between the sexes, male-defined and centred (hetero) sex and the silencing of a positive voice on female sexuality and desires. The analysis also highlights significant contradictions within and between discourses which participants draw on and multiple sites of resistance, which within a discourse analytic framework signifies some possibilities for positive change.


Objective: The present study compared the effect of quadriceps and hamstring muscle cooling on standing balance in healthy young men. Methods: Thirty healthy young men (18-30 years) participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups (n=10 each): quadriceps cooling (QC), hamstring cooling (HC), or control group (no cooling). Participants in the QC and HC groups received 20 minutes of cooling using a cold pack (gel pack), placed on the anterior thigh (from the apex of the patella to the mid-thigh) and the posterior thigh (from the base of the popliteal fossa to the mid-thigh), respectively. Balance score including unilateral stance was measured at baseline and immediately after the application of the cold pack. Results: No significant difference in the balance score was noted in any group after the application of the cold pack (p>0.05). Similarly, no significant differences in post-test balance score were noted among the three groups (p>0.05). Conclusions: Cooling of the quadriceps and hamstring muscles has no immediate effect on standing balance in healthy young men. However, longitudinal studies are warranted to investigate the long-term effects of cooling these muscles on standing balance.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of face clustering in real-world videos. In many cases, the distribution of the face data is unbalanced. In movies or TV series videos, the leading casts appear quite often and the others appear much less. However, many clustering algorithms cannot well handle such severe unbalance between the data distribution, resulting in that the large class is split apart, and the small class is merged into the large ones and thus missing. On the other hand, the data distribution proportion information may be known beforehand. For example, we can obtain such information by counting the spoken lines of the characters in the script text. Hence, we propose to make use of the proportion prior to regularize the clustering. A Hidden Conditional Random Field (HCRF) model is presented to incorporate the proportion prior. In experiments on a public data set from real-world videos, we observe improvements on clustering performance against state-of-the-art methods.


The purpose of this capstone is to examine the conditions of teamwork and success in an Ivy League Football context. This capstone utilizes the research along with the model of Shea and Guzzo (1987) to examine predictive elements of success in relation to three categories; potency, outcome interdependence and task interdependence. The framework of this examination was developed through research and survey data as they relate to the enhanced conditions fostering team achievement. This capstone examines the results of the survey conducted across the Ivy League to find supporting data for predictors that positively impact the probability for success in athletic competition. Comments Submitted to the Program of Organizational Dynamics In the Graduate Division of the School of Arts and Sciences In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania Advisor: John Eldred This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/od_theses_msod/47 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS: WHAT MAKES AN IVY LEAGUE FOOTBALL CHAMPION?


Recent works (White et al., 2020a; Yan et al., 2020) demonstrate the importance of architecture encodings in Neural Architecture Search (NAS). These encodings encode either structure or computation information of the neural architectures. Compared to structure-aware encodings, computation-aware encodings map architectures with similar accuracies to the same region, which improves the downstream architecture search performance (Zhang et al., 2019; White et al., 2020a). In this work, we introduce a Computation-Aware Transformer-based Encoding method called CATE. Different from existing computation-aware encodings based on fixed transformation (e.g. path encoding), CATE employs a pairwise pre-training scheme to learn computation-aware encodings using Transformers with cross-attention. Such learned encodings contain dense and contextualized computation information of neural architectures. We compare CATE with eleven encodings under three major encoding-dependent NAS subroutines in both small and large search spaces. Our experiments show that CATE is beneficial to the downstream search, especially in the large search space. Moreover, the outside search space experiment demonstrates its superior generalization ability beyond the search space on which it was trained. Our code is available at: https://github.com/MSU-MLSys-Lab/CATE.


This paper reviews the literature on the impact of work on health. We consider work along two dimensions: (i) the intensive margin, i.e. how many hours an individual works when employed and (ii) the extensive margin, i.e. whether an individual is in employment or not. We show that most of the evidence on the negative health impact of work found in the literature is based on situations in which workers have essentially no control (no choice) over the amount of work they provide. In essence, what is detrimental to health is not so much work per se as much as the gap which may exist between the actual and the desired amount of work, both at the intensive and extensive margins.


Artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential to accelerate scientific discovery in medicine and to transform healthcare. In radiology, AI is about to enter into clinical practice and has a wide range of applications covering the whole diagnostic workflow. However, AI applications are not smooth sailing. It is crucial to understand the potential risks and hazards that come with this new technology. We have to implement AI in the best possible way to reflect the time-honored ethical and legal standards while ensuring the adequate protection of patient interests. These issues are discussed under the light of core biomedical ethics principles and principles for AI-specific ethical challenges while giving an overview of the statements that were proposed for the ethics of AI applications in radiology.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
A successful screening colonoscopy is closely linked to the quality of a bowel preparation. In this study, we aimed to determine the impact of a 1-day clear liquid diet (CLD) compared to a 3-day combined diet (CMD) accompanied by a split-dose regimen of polyethylene glycol and electrolyte lavage solution (PEG-ELS) for screening colonoscopy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This was a prospective, randomized, endoscopist-blinded study. Patients referred for screening colonoscopy were randomized to four groups as a 1-day CLD+PEG-ELS vs. a 1-day CLD+sulfate free (SF)-PEG-ELS and a 3-day CMD+PEG-ELS vs. a 3-day CMD+SF-PEG-ELS. An assessment of the quality of colon cleaning, tolerability to the preparation, and symptoms related to the preparation were recorded.

RESULTS
A total of 506 patients were enrolled in this study. The quality of bowel preparation was significantly inferior in the CMD+PEG-ELS group than CLD+PEG-ELS (p=0.004) and CMD+SF-PEG-ELS groups (p=0.007). There were no statistical differences among the groups in terms of the polyp detection rate. With respect to an easy rating of diet following and the consumption of laxative, there were no significant differences among the four groups. Gastric fullness and nausea/vomiting were pointed out much more, especially in the SF-PEG-ELS users (p=0.008 and p=0.004, respectively).

CONCLUSION
A 1-day CLD was not inferior to a 3-day CMD for colonoscopy preparation in terms of bowel cleaning, the polyp detection rate, and patient tolerance.


BACKGROUND A critical review was conducted of the quantitative literature linking indoor air pollution from household use of biomass fuels with acute respiratory infections in young children, which is focused on, but not confined to, acute lower respiratory infection and pneumonia in children under two years in less developed countries. Biomass in the form of wood, crop residues, and animal dung is used in more than two fifths of the world's households as the principal fuel. METHODS Medline and other electronic databases were used, but it was also necessary to secure literature from colleagues in less developed countries where not all publications are yet internationally indexed. RESULTS The studies of indoor air pollution from household biomass fuels are reasonably consistent and, as a group, show a strong significant increase in risk for exposed young children compared with those living in households using cleaner fuels or being otherwise less exposed. Not all studies were able to adjust for confounders, but most of those that did so found that strong and significant risks remained. CONCLUSIONS It seems that the relative risks are likely to be significant for the exposures considered here. Since acute lower respiratory infection is the chief cause of death in children in less developed countries, and exacts a larger burden of disease than any other disease category for the world population, even small additional risks due to such a ubiquitous exposure as air pollution have important public health implications. In the case of indoor air pollution in households using biomass fuels, the risks also seem to be fairly strong, presumably because of the high daily concentrations of pollutants found in such settings and the large amount of time young children spend with their mothers doing household cooking. Given the large vulnerable populations at risk, there is an urgent need to conduct randomised trials to increase confidence in the cause-effect relationship, to quantify the risk more precisely, to determine the degree of reduction in exposure required to significantly improve health, and to establish the effectiveness of interventions.


This dissertation explores the phonological systems of Micronesian languages, in search of patterns that are consistent throughout the family and others that are unique to subgroups and individual languages. Using data from Pohnpeian, Mokilese, Pingilapese, Puluwat, Chuukese, Woleaian, Marshallese, and Kosraean, the study focuses on reduplicative morphology as an illustrative window into the phonology of each language. Each language is treated with an Optimality-Theoretic analysis, and consequently the phonology of each is attributed to the same set of principles. However, as a whole, the analyses cannot explain the existence of common and unique patterns within the family. A model of language change called Confluence is presented in order to account for typological trends among related languages. The model acknowledges that learners of languages settle on a grammar based on ambient data; thus, the acquired grammar should approximate the grammar that produces the ambient data. However, a number of perceptual and articulatory factors have the result that the set of data that the learner perceives is unlike the set of data that the ambient grammar would predict. As a consequence, the learneri¦s grammar may differ from that of the ambient grammar. Because of the inclusion of perceptual and articulatory biases in the model, Confluence predicts several outcomes. First, a particular pattern might be resistant to change, or the same innovation might be likely to occur independently in different languages, and either way it is an observable property of otherwise divergent languages. Second, two or more co-occurring grammatical traits of a particular language can be shown to have a common source. Each of the predictions of Confluence is supported in the language analyses. Examples of robust patterns include coda consonant restrictions, moraic feet, and bimoraic reduplicative prefixes. Two examples of recurring innovations are the introduction of final vowel deletion and the avoidance of initial geminate consonants in favor of some other structure. Phonological patterns that co-occur in a principled manner include geminate inventories and morpheme alignment, foot structure and final vowel lenition, and a cluster of properties that consists of length contrasts, word maximality, morpheme alignment, and segment inventories.


From the introduction] The lives of artists have fascinated scholars for centuries. Artists' unique style of creative expression is reflected in their psychological life and in their physical studios and spaces in which they work. Unlike many earlier artists, twenty-first-century artists often write narratives about their own experiences with the creative process (Tharp 2003: 15). This allows for a greater accumulation of literature on the creative process and artistic space. By constructing their lives around their work, professional artists create a unique relationship with the physical, which helps to sustain their inspiration. Needing to be aware of their own creative rhythm, artists' lifestyle perpetuates their productivity (Tharp 2003: 15). This thesis investigates the physical and psychological environment in which art (painting, sculpture, glass, dance, etc.) is created and how particular spaces serve as catalysts for artists. Specifically, is there is a connection between physical spaces, which artists construct to promote their own creative inspiration, and the social spaces of artistic production in relationship to a community of shared thoughts and ideas? My research will act as a small case study, which asks a larger ethnographic question: how can we account for the genesis of artistic production in our society today? Document Type Capstone Project Degree Name Bachelor of Arts Department Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Public Health First Advisor Cheleen Mahar Subject Categories Social and Behavioral Sciences Rights Terms of use for work posted in CommonKnowledge. This capstone project is available at CommonKnowledge: http://commons.pacificu.edu/cassoc/34 I dedicate this thesis to Cheleen Mahar, Chris Wilkes, Craig Honeycutt, for all the support and faith they have had in me throughout my education.


This paper discusses the results of investigations of the variation of the readings
 of a measurement device when it monitors the position of a railroad track relative
 to an array of fiducial marks by means of a stereoscopic optoelectronic system.
 Methods are determined for error attenuation.


Global citizenship education has been suggested as a means of overcoming the limitations of national citizenship in an increasingly globalised world. In divided societies, global citizenship education is especially relevant and problematic as it offers the opportunity to explore identities and conflict in a wider context. This paper therefore explores young people's understandings of global citizenship in Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict. Results from focus groups with primary and post-primary pupils reflect some theoretical conceptualisations of global citizenship, including an awareness of global issues, understandings of environmental interdependence and global responsibility, though other elements appear to be less well understood. We argue that global citizenship education will fail to overcome engrained cultural divisions locally and may perpetuate cultural stereotypes globally, unless local and global controversial issues are acknowledged and issues of identity and interdependence critically examined at both levels.


The objective of this qualitative study, carried out in two maternity-hospitals in Salvador da Bahia, was to investigate the experience and representations of health professionals, and particularly obstetricians-gynecologists, regarding legal abortion in comparison with their representations and experience with illegal abortion. A questionnaire was distributed and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 health professionals (13 obstetricians-gynecologists) in a hospital providing legal abortion (P) and with 20 health professionals (9 obstetricians-gynecologists) in another hospital that does not provide this service (F). The factors that influence the representations and experience of abortion of most obstetricians-gynecologists and explain the high rate of conscientious objection at Hospital P were: 1- the criminalization of abortion and the fear of being denounced; 2- the stigmatization of abortion by certain religious groups and by the physicians themselves; 3- training in obstetrics and the lack of good training in the epidemiology of maternal morbidity-mortality and abortion; 4- representations on gender relations. The main factors associated with liberal attitudes were: age - under 30 and over 45 years of age - experience with high maternal mortality rates due to abortion and experience with legal abortion.


We live in a world were people have become empowered. Consumers can contact companies directly and they can talk to each other with a powerful voice they never had before. "Sticky Marketing" takes into account these fundamental changes and provides a new set of rules for effective communications in a world transformed by new technology. It introduces a new model of customer engagement and asks 'not what your marketing can do for you, but what your marketing can do for your customer'. Companies have to move away from the old marketing system of shouting messages at people to attracting them by providing value around their product or service - in other words by becoming 'sticky' or attractive. Grant Leboff argues that it is not 'return on investment' that matters but 'return on engagement', not your unique sales point (or USP), but your customer engagement point (your CEP), that will make the difference in today's cluttered marketplace. "Sticky Marketing" proves that marketing should now be about value creation if you want to truly engage with your customers. It is only by providing value that you can win the battle for customer attention - stop shouting and start a conversation.


Abstract We describe SkillSum, a Natural Language Generation (NLG) system that generates a personalised feedback report for someone who has just completed a screening assessment of their basic literacy and numeracy skills. Because many SkillSum users have limited literacy, the generated reports must be easily comprehended by people with limited reading skills; this is the most novel aspect of SkillSum, and the focus of this paper. We used two approaches to maximise readability. First, for determining content and structure (document planning), we did not explicitly model readability, but rather followed a pragmatic approach of repeatedly revising content and structure following pilot experiments and interviews with domain experts. Second, for choosing linguistic expressions (microplanning), we attempted to formulate explicitly the choices that enhanced readability, using a constraints approach and preference rules; our constraints were based on corpus analysis and our preference rules were based on psycholinguistic findings. Evaluation of the SkillSum system was twofold: it compared the usefulness of NLG technology to that of canned text output, and it assessed the effectiveness of the readability model. Results showed that NLG was more effective than canned text at enhancing users' knowledge of their skills, and also suggested that the empirical 'revise based on experiments and interviews' approach made a substantial contribution to readability as well as our explicit psycholinguistically inspired models of readability choices.


Background Modified radical mastectomy remains the most commonly performed surgery for breast cancer. Aim of the work The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different methods (conventional scalpel, electrocautery, and harmonic scalpel) of breast dissection during mastectomy on seroma formation. Patient and methods This study was conducted in Al-Azhar University Hospital in Assiut from April 2013 to April 2016, on 110 female patients aged from 25 to 70 years; all patients were having stage II breast cancer, according to the Manchester and International Union against Cancer (TNM). Modified radical mastectomy was done after complete preoperative assessment. Result One-hundred and ten female patients have stage II breast cancer aged from 25 to 70 years. During the modified radical mastectomy, in this study, the breast dissection was done by electrocautery in 42 patients, using conventional scalpel in another 42 patients and using harmonic scalpel in the remaining 26 patients. At the end of this study, there were 15 cases (out of 110 patients) of postmastectomy seroma detected postoperatively, only one case in the conventional scalpel group, 14 cases in the electrocautery group and no case in the harmonic scalpel group. The wound drains were removed in all cases on day 7postoperatively. In all patients of this study, a pressure garment was used postoperatively. Conclusion The use of harmonic scalpel in breast dissection is better than electrocautery use as regards postmastectomy seroma formation. If harmonic scalpel is not available, it is better to use the conventional scalpel.


ABSTRACT Digital techniques, primarily software appropriated from the entertainment and industrial design sectors, have destabilized the essential status of the architectural image-object formulated in classical philosophical thought. Western European art experienced a similar crisis when conceptual art movements of the 1960s challenged Clement Greenberg's notion of medium specificity. The author examines work by conceptual artists whose theories posit alternative views of spatial and social relations based on open-ended systems and indeterminacy. An examination of the relationship between materiality and abstraction as exemplified in new media's reformulation of architectural design processes indicates how a more inclusive and mutable profession has been realized.


Long Term Evolution, the fourth generation of mobile communication technology, has been commercially deployed for about five years. Even though it is continuously updated through new releases, and with LTE Advanced Pro Release 13 being the latest one, the development of the fifth generation has been initiated. In this article, we measure how current LTE network implementations perform in comparison with the initial LTE requirements. The target is to identify certain key performance indicators that have suboptimal implementations and therefore lend themselves to careful consideration when designing and standardizing next generation wireless technology. Specifically, we analyze user and control plane latency, handover execution time, and coverage, which are critical parameters for connected mobility use cases such as road vehicle safety and efficiency. We study the latency, handover execution time, and coverage of four operational LTE networks based on 19,000 km of drive tests covering a mixture of rural, suburban, and urban environments. The measurements have been collected using commercial radio network scanners and measurement smartphones. Even though LTE has low air interface delays, the measurements reveal that core network delays compromise the overall round-trip time design requirement. LTE's breakbefore- make handover implementation causes a data interruption at each handover of 40 ms at the median level. While this is in compliance with the LTE requirements, and lower values are certainly possible, it is also clear that break-before-make will not be sufficient for connected mobility use cases such as road vehicle safety. Furthermore, the measurements reveal that LTE can provide coverage for 99 percent of the outdoor and road users, but the LTE-M or NarrowBand-IoT upgrades, as of LTE Release 13, are required in combination with other measures to allow for additional penetration losses, such as those experienced in underground parking lots. Based on the observed discrepancies between measured and standardized LTE performance, in terms of latency, handover execution time, and coverage, we conclude the article with a discussion of techniques that need careful consideration for connected mobility in fifth generation mobile communication technology.


Analyzing observed or measured data is an important step in applied sciences. The recent increase in computer capacity has resulted in a revolution both in data collection and data analysis. An increasing number of scientists, researchers and students are venturing into statistical data analysis; hence the need for more guidance in this field, which was previously dominated mainly by statisticians. This handbook fills the gap in the range of textbooks on data analysis. Written in a dictionary format, it will serve as a comprehensive reference book in a rapidly growing field. However, this book is more structured than an ordinary dictionary, where each entry is a separate, self-contained entity. The authors provide not only definitions and short descriptions, but also offer an overview of the different topics. Therefore, the handbook can also be used as a companion to textbooks for undergraduate or graduate courses. 1700 entries are given in alphabetical order grouped into 20 topics and each topic is organized in a hierarchical fashion. Additional specific entries on a topic can be easily found by following the cross-references in a top-down manner. Several figures and tables are provided to enhance the comprehension of the topics and a list of acronyms helps to locate the full terminologies. The bibliography offers suggestions for further reading.


Wildlife in a Changing World presents an analysis of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Beginning with an explanation of the IUCN Red List as a key conservation tool, it goes on to discuss the state of the worlds species and provides the latest information on the patterns of species facing extinction in some of the most important ecosystems in the world, highlighting the reasons behind their declining status. Areas of focus in the report include: freshwater biodiversity, the status of the worlds marine species, species susceptibility to climate change impacts, the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot, and broadening the coverage of biodiversity assessments.


150 years ago, Stanley Jevons introduced the concept of energy rebound: that anticipated energy efficiency savings may be "taken back" by behavioural responses. This is an important issue today because, if energy rebound is significant, this would hamper the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies aimed at reducing energy use and associated carbon emissions. However, empirical studies which estimate national energy rebound are rare and, perhaps as a result, rebound is largely ignored in energy-economy models and associated policy. A significant difficulty lies in the components of energy rebound assessed in empirical studies: most examine direct and indirect rebound in the static economy, excluding potentially significant rebound of the longer term structural response of the national economy. In response, we develop a novel exergy-based approach to estimate national energy rebound for the UK and US (1980–2010) and China (1981–2010). Exergy—as "available energy"—allows a consistent, thermodynamic-based metric for national-level energy efficiency. We find large energy rebound in China, suggesting that improvements in China's energy efficiency may be associated with increased energy consumption ("backfire"). Conversely, we find much lower (partial) energy rebound for the case of the UK and US. These findings support the hypothesis that producer-sided economies (such as China) may exhibit large energy rebound, reducing the effectiveness of energy efficiency, unless other policy measures (e.g., carbon taxes) are implemented. It also raises the prospect we need to deploy renewable energy sources faster than currently planned, if (due to rebound) energy efficiency policies cannot deliver the scale of energy reduction envisaged to meet climate targets.


We model the broadband enhancement of single-photon emission from color centers in silicon-carbide nanocrystals coupled to a planar hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) resonator. The design is based on positioning the single-photon emitters within the HMM resonator, which is made of a dielectric index-matched with silicon-carbide material. The broadband response results from the successive resonance peaks of the lossy Fabry–Perot structure modes arising within the high-index HMM cavity. To capture this broadband enhancement in the spontaneous emission of the single-photon emitter, we placed a simple gold-based cylindrical antenna on top of the HMM resonator. We analyzed the performance of this HMM-coupled antenna structure in terms of Purcell enhancement, quantum efficiency, collection efficiency, and overall collected photon rate (CPR). For perpendicular dipole orientation relative to the interface, the HMM-coupled antenna resonator leads to a significantly large spontaneous emission enhancement with a Purcell factor of the order of 250, along with a very high average total CPR of about 30 over a broad emission spectrum (700–1000 nm). The peak CPR increases to about 80 at 900 nm, corresponding to the emission of silicon-carbide quantum emitters. This is a state-of-the-art improvement considering previous computational designs have reported a maximum average CPR of 25 across the nitrogen vacancy center emission spectrum, 600–800 nm, with the highest value being about 40 at 650 nm.


Light scattering by a spherical particle with radial anisotropy is discussed by extending Mie theory to diffraction by an anisotropic sphere, including both the electric and the magnetic anisotropy ratio. It is shown that radial anisotropy may lead to great modifications in scattering efficiencies and field enhancement, elucidating the importance of anisotropies in the control of scattering. The capacity for nondissipating damping is demonstrated for anisotropic spheres with different signs in radial and transversal permittivities.


This is a representative collection of the work of one of the world's leading scholars in the area of speech acoustics. It follows the development over the past 15 years of research presented in the author's previous publications on speech analysis, feature theory, and applications to language descriptions. Most of the articles have had very restricted distribution--many appearing only in the Quarterly Progress Reports issued by Dr. Fant's laboratory. The first part of the book covers manifold aspects of speech analysis such as instrumental techniques, spectrum data, formant statistics with an emphasis on Swedish vowels and stops, speaker dependencies, normalization procedures, production theory, and coarticulation. The second part analyzes established feature systems and suggests revisions and general discussions on the concept of distinctive features, perception, and the applicability of feature theory to automatic speech recognition. Articles in this part of the book are especially valuable because they represent Dr. Fant's work on "inherent" features and their phonetic correlates as it has evolved since his collaboration in 1952 with Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle. Speech Sounds and Features is the fourth volume in the series Current Studies in Linguistics.


The fight against global warming is ongoing, with nations setting forth ambitious goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), both on a national and on a joint international scale. This factor among others is resulting in new power production strategies that focus on renewable energy sources. The ocean is one of those resources with a number of developers trying to develop a technology that will result in the most cost-effective utilization of that resource. Valorka.ehf is an Icelandic company that is developing a new device that utilizes the ocean currents to create power. To support the development of Valorka, a numerical model was built using OpenFOAM. This model consist of a flat plate rotating in a channel, with the model using a dynamic mesh to account for the rotation. This model is supposed to be a startup point of a more complicated model that can be used in the future. The results of the numerical model are compared to measurements that were designed specifically for this project. Also an optimum dimensionless velocity for different blade sizes was found, to confirm if different scales of blade sizes affect the relations found using dimensional analysis. Future work such as blade optimization and 3D modelling is achievable using this model.


Data mining, also known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) is one of the most important and interesting research areas in 21 st century. Frequent pattern discovery is one of the important techniques in data mining. The application includes Medicine, Telecommunications and World Wide Web. Nowadays frequent pattern discovery research focuses on finding co-occurrence relationships between items. Apriori algorithm is a classical algorithm for association rule mining. Lots of algorithms for mining association rules and their mutations are proposed on the basis of Apriori algorithm. Most of the previous algorithms Apriori-like algorithm which generates candidates and improving algorithm strategy and structure but at the same time many of the researchers not concentrate on the structure of database. In this research paper, it has been proposed an improved algorithm for mining frequent patterns in large datasets using transposition of the database with minor modification of the Apriori-like algorithm. The main advantage of the proposed method is the database stores in transposed form and in each iteration database is filtered and reduced by generating the transaction id for each pattern. The proposed method reduces the huge computing time and also decreases the database size. Several experiments on real-life data show that the proposed algorithm is very much faster than existing Apriori-like algorithms. Hence the proposed method is very much suitable for the discovering frequent patterns from large datasets.


While various studies have developed hypotheses about the antecedents of international diversification drawing mainly on the resource-based view, the behavioral theory of the firm, and the transaction costs literature, we advance our understanding by investigating the explanatory power of agency costs of free cash flow arguments. Using a sample panel of 167 Italian firms longitudinally evaluated during the 1980-2010 period, this study tests whether the firm's choice to spread operations in multiple foreign countries is conditioned by excess of free cash flow and debt, especially in firm-contexts where agency problems are exacerbated by managers or large shareholders' opportunism. We find that debt has a negative effect on international diversification, while, contrary to our expectation, we find that the effect of cash flow is negative. Results also show that both high ownership concentration and low growth opportunities have a significant moderating effect on the debt - and cash flow - international diversification relationships.


A refreshing look at economics with topics ranging from sex, drugs, arms and music to energy, movies and farming, the Internet and Aids, Diane Coyle plunges herself and the reader into some of the world's most contentious political and social issues. Diane Coyle shows how economic principles apply to headline issues in an entertaining, humane, and highly intelligent way. Harvard-educated Coyle is an economist and award-winning writer specializing in business, technology, and global economics.


Aim Accurate and reliable patient information plays a crucial role in the multidisciplinary treatment of malignancies helping to ensure compliance of the patients and their relatives with often long-lasting and stressful treatment. The English version of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been recently reported to be the prominent source of online health information. However, there is little information concerning the quality of information found in Wikipedia. Method We therefore created a questionnaire concerning of 20 questions asking for scope, completeness and accuracy of information found on osteosarcoma. Three independent observers tested the English version of Wikipedia as well as the patient version and the health professional version of the website of the National Cancer Institute. Answers (scores 0-3) were verified with authoritative resources and international guidelines. Results The professional version of the NCI scored best with 50 of 60 possible points (mean 2.5 ± 0.83 SD per question), compared to the patient version of the NCI with 40 points (mean 2 ± 1.38 SD) and to the Wikipedia site with 33 points (mean 1.65 ± 1.39 SD). Only the difference between the NCI professional version and Wikipedia was significant (p=0.039). Conclusion Our study shows that the quality of osteosarcoma-related information found in English Wikipedia is good but inferior to the patient information provided by the National Cancer Institute. Especially in multidisciplinary treated tumours like osteosarcoma accurate and complete information found on Wikipedia might influence patients9 compliance with treatment. Therefore national agencies for cancer research like the NCI and international organizations on cancer treatment should check and actualize this website on a regular basis.


Nomadic way of life based on housing migration is flexible in accordance with the living conditions and lifestyle arising from the standard of living that is the reason for the adaptation of nomads to the climatic conditions of the environment around them, housing that has survived from the past to the present and with sustainable environmental, physical, economic and social conditions that have successfully achieved the effects of maintainable housing. The aim of this study is to identify the components of the formation of sustainable nomadic housing. In fact, the black tent has all the definitions and meanings of a house, which is at a low cost and with a simple appearance but high in efficiency, which despite the flexibility in the dimensions of nomadic life and housing, can be found in justifiable housing factors, housing that meets the conditions of the natural environment and its inhabitants. The method of this research is data collection within a documentary framework based on local interviews with the tribes of the Qashqai community; moreover, the research method is classification and content analysis. This study introduces the spatial dimension of physical and functional elements of nomadic housing in various types of flexibility and the dimension of environmental sustainability introduces functional and structural elements and their adaptation to diversity and adaptability. In the field of social sustainability, it examines the concepts of nomadic life structure in each of the three types of flexibility. Findings indicate that the use and integration of these principles with modern technology and expertise can be a step towards the richness of the design and implementation of mobile and sustainable housing.


The Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS) is an NIAAA-sponsored Web site that provides detailed information on alcohol-related public policies at both the State and Federal levels. Updated annually, the APIS information can be used to identify policy changes in 33 policy areas. Up to two-thirds of these policies can be tracked back to 1998, and data on the remaining one-third are available since 2003.

APIS provides a tool for conducting research on the effectiveness of alcohol policies in reducing alcohol-related harm. Natural experiments on the impact of a policy are possible whenever a State makes a change in some aspect of alcohol policy. To conduct such an experiment, scientists obtain a series of regularly collected data on an outcome of interest, compare problem levels before and after a policy change, and report this comparison for both the "experimental" State and a "control" State that did not change its policy. As described in other articles in this issue, measures of policy outcomes can be taken from a number of existing data series that report rates of mortality, morbidity, accidents, crimes, and the like. APIS provides an accurate and consistently maintained source of the "independent variable" of interest in these studies, showing changes in codified statutes and regulations.

As the lead Federal agency responsible for research into alcohol use and its related consequences, NIAAA believes that providing this research tool is critically important. A vigorous program of research on the effects of various drinking-and-driving policies has been a key factor in reducing alcohol-related traffic fatalities to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians, ages 16 to 20 by 50 percent since 1982. By providing information on other aspects of alcohol policy, APIS can lead to similar advances in research knowledge and improvements in public health.

APIS development began in September of 2001, and the Web site went public in June of 2003. The 33 existing policy topics cover underage drinking, blood alcohol concentration limits, transportation, taxation, retail sales, alcohol control systems, pregnancy and alcohol, and health care services and financing.

New topics are added periodically and are selected on the basis of the likelihood that they will stimulate new research on policy outcomes. Candidate policy topics should cover areas where recent policymaking activity has occurred or where current discussions imply that impending change is likely. Additional criteria include (1) a scientifically grounded expectation that policy change in the particular candidate area is likely to produce measurable changes in some public health outcome; (2) sufficient data are available to measure these policy outcomes; (3) the legal research involved in locating relevant statutes and regulations and in constructing precise and consistent operational definitions that categorize meaningful features of the laws is a manageable task that falls within the resources available; and (4) case law or administrative decision making that is not captured in statutory or regulatory texts plays a limited role in interpreting the policy.

Documenting the decision rules for categorizing the features of State policies is a critical concern. This documentation must capture the decisions made by the APIS research staff in such a way that consistent decisions can be made across all States, consistent decisions can be made across time as policies change, and the basis for the decisions can be clearly communicated to research users.

In addition to strict documentation, a hallmark of APIS has been careful attention to quality control. Each new law or regulation is reviewed by a minimum of two research lawyers and a senior social scientist. Any conflicting interpretations are then resolved. On occasion, new developments in some detail of a policy reveal a gap or an ambiguity in the coding procedures that were used previously. In suchcases, that coding is reviewed and, if necessary, changes are made. Likewise, when errors are encountered in APIS's legal descriptions, those corrections are made and documented in a "Change Log." Fortunately, the number of such instances has remained remarkably low.

Policy changes are reviewed each year for each topic and for every State. Shortly after the beginning of each calendar year, legal tools become available that make it possible to identify all of the codified statutory and regulatory activity that has occurred in a given State over the preceding year. APIS legal researchers sift through these policies to see if changes have occurred in any of the 32 policy areas tracked by APIS. Typically, the most difficult aspect of this work is "demonstrating the negative," that is, verifying that there has not been a change in some specific aspect of a policy. This work is costly and has become the largest part of the APIS contract budget.

The APIS Web site (www.alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov) features three basic displays (see figure):

"Data on a Specific Date" shows the features of a given policy as of the date of the last system-wide update (the default value) or as of a specific date selected by the viewer. Any given APIS policy will vary across States in a number of specific features. Understanding these details is important.

"Changes Over Time" contains entries whenever a State changes its policy. There is one row showing the policy before the change and another showing the policy afterward. Should a State make additional policy changes, even more rows are added.

"Timeline of Policy Changes" displays calendar years on the horizontal axis and States on the vertical axis. Icons indicate the year (and quarter) when a policy change went into effect. Note that for all APIS information, policies are categorized according to the date when they took effect rather than when they were enacted.

Figure

The APIS Web site (www.alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov) features three basic displays

There are a number of other useful Web site features and displays. The "Maps and Charts" feature shows graphic depictions of selected information. An "About This Policy" section gives useful background information on each policy. "State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws" contains brief State-by-State summaries of policy in 12 topic areas specifically related to underage drinking. "Citations" are given so that the statutory or regulatory text of each policy covered by the Web site canbe located. Finally, there are links to NIAAA's current funding opportunity announcements, inviting researchers to submit proposals to study policy impacts. NIAAA encourages all researchers who are interested in the effect of public policy on alcohol-related health outcomes to visit the APIS Web site and to consider applying for research support.


The increasing rate of online purchasing has resulted in the emergence of novel economical activities. It is essential to comprehend consumers' intention to achieve highly competitive advantages offered by e-commerce. Understanding what motivates consumers is crucial because such motivation is of paramount importance to succeed in this hypercompetitive and fast-paced environment. Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce is one of the various types of e-commerce, which has turned into an influential key to retailing channel. Using fuzzy logic method, this paper was aimed to find out the importance of key factors affecting the consumers' intention to purchase on B2C e-commerce websites. Findings can help researchers and decision makers to determine the factors that can satisfy consumers when using an e-commerce and persuade them to do online purchase. To achieve the objectives of this study, fuzzy logic was employed to effectively assess the factors. The outcome of the proposed system helps shopping websites managers and service providers to know the real level of the factors' importance, which in turn helps them improve their website quality.


Distinguished scholars explore historical context, perpetrators, the courts, and historical perspective as these relate to the complex topic of the Holocaust and justice. The Holocaust and justice: How can one link these terms, given the enormity of Nazi mass murder? Is justice possible for crimes of such magnitude? If so, what kind of justice? In the courts? Before the bar of history? Retrospective as well as contemporary? Divine? Weighing these questions and their considerable implications, a group of distinguished scholars attempt to untangle the complex and often contradictory relationship between the Holocaust and justice. What were the political, social, psychological, and ideological prerequisites for this tragedy? the contributors ask, seeking an historical context. What animated the murderers, and what agencies did they work through? Examining the courts and trials, from those during and immediately after the war to recent cases against aging perpetrators, the authors examine the legal mechanisms for trying to achieve justice, as well as the issues that complicate litigation, including the dimming effects of the passage of time. Their inquiry extends to questions about memory - how it is shaped and reshaped and whether it can be reliable - and about the recreation of the events of the Holocaust for a second generation: Does reassembling the evidence of the Holocaust through the lens of a later generation provide a deeper understanding, and does this understanding include a sense of justice accomplished? In raising and responding to these questions in a balanced, multifaceted, and informative way, this volume sharpens and deepens our understanding of a topic that has only become more perplexing and pressing with time.


In the 1970's and early 1980's, an experimental program was performed on the facilities of the CEA Valduc Research Center to measure several actinide-fission product yields. Experiments were, in particular, completed on the Caliban and Prospero metallic core reactors to study fission-neutron-induced reactions on {sup 233}U, {sup 235}U, and {sup 239}Pu. Thick actinide samples were irradiated and the number of nuclei of each fission product was determined by gamma spectrometry. Fission chambers were irradiated simultaneously to measure the numbers of fissions in thin deposits of the same actinides. The masses of the thick samples and the thin deposits were determined by mass spectrometry and alpha spectrometry. The results of these experiments will be fully presented in this paper for the first time. A description of the Caliban and Prospero reactors, their characteristics and performances, and explanations about the experimental approach will also be given in the article. A recent work has been completed to analyze and reinterpret these measurements and particularly to evaluate the associated uncertainties. In this context, calculations have also been carried out with the Monte Carlo transport code Tripoli-4, using the published benchmarked Caliban description and a three-dimensional model of Prospero, to determine the average neutron energymore » causing fission. Simulation results will be discussed in this paper. Finally, new fission yield measurements will be proposed on Caliban and Prospero reactors to strengthen the results of the first experiments. (authors)« less


The sliding mode control scheme is proposed for a class of nonlinear time-delayed systems by using a novel disturbance observer. The lumped nonlinear disturbances are first estimated by using the current system states. Then the disturbance observe-based sliding mode controller is designed to guarantee the asymptotical stability of the closed-loop system. The prominent advantage of the proposed scheme is that the linear boundary condition for the uncertainties are removed, thus largely reducing the switching gain. The simulation results illustrate the obtained results.