Majority of unintended pregnancies worldwide are results of contraceptive non-use, inconsistent use, or a reliance on ineffective methods of contraception. Key barriers to contraceptive use include financial constraints, lack of knowledge about the safety and efficacy of the various methods as well as the unavailability of contraceptives. Tanzania being one of the resources limited (developing) countries that face a myriad of socio-economic problems. For such countries family planning, which include usage of
contraceptives, cannot be overemphasized Objective: The study aimed to assess the availability of contraceptives in health facilities and their acceptability in Kinondoni Municipal residents aged between 18 and 55 years. It was designed to provide baseline data on contraceptive availability and documentations in health facilities, and knowledge as well as attitude towards contraceptives usage among Kinondoni residents. This was a cross-sectional study involving collection of prospective and retrospective data for assessment of availability and acceptability of contraceptives. The study was carried out in Kinondoni Municipal between July 2008 to March 2011. The following settings were involved namely Mwananyamala Municipal Hospital, 3 Health facilities (Sinza, Magomeni and Mburahati) and 2 secondary schools (Mugabe and Manzese). Pharmacists in-charge for each health facility (Municipal hospital and health centers) were interviewed and from them permission to the records/data was obtained. Face to face interviews guided by structured questionnaire and checklists were employed for data collection from 156 voluntary respondents. Representative contraceptives namely vasectomies, condoms, inter uterine devices [IUD], implants, hormonal injectable, emergency contraceptives and hormonal pills were used for this purpose. There were seven items to measure knowledge of an individual. If an individual gets all seven item correct then he/she was very knowledgeable. Knowledge on contraceptives was measured on a scale of 0-7 based on 7 tracer items, whereby 80%-100%= implies very knowledgeable and 0%-49%= not knowledgeable at all. The tracer disease conditions that can be prevented by using contraceptives were malaria, STIs, HIV, Unwanted pregnancy, TB, Typhoid and not Effective at all. Three (3) health facilities were involved in assessment of availability of contraceptives. Overall availability of contraceptives was measured based on availability of
at least three contraceptives (method mix). Out of 3 health facilities, 2 facilities used the method mix however they were in small amount. In a period between July 2008 and March 2011 there were no emergency contraceptives, spermicides nor implants in all health facilities. Documentation was generally poor especially at Sinza health center, which led to failure to obtain record on availability of contraceptives during that period. The following contraceptives namely hormonal and condoms were available in larger quantities in all health facilities. The relatively more abundantly encountered hormonal contraceptives were micrognon (20%) and Lo-feminal (10%). Availability of male condom was (39%) while female (1%). The selection criteria in all three health facilities were according to customer demand/need of contraceptives. Forecasting and/ or quantification of contraceptives were by consumption method in all three health facilities visited. On the other hand procurement was mainly by donation while distribution was by vehicles. Slightly more than half of respondents 83 (53.2%) were not using contraceptives and out of these, 17 (10.9%) had used them before. Seventy three 73 (46.8%) were still using contraceptives. Sixty six respondents (42.3%) had never used any kind of contraceptives methods. Of those who had never used contraception methods, 10(15.2%) said they are not
aware of contraceptive methods. Conclusion: Availability of modern contraceptives was generally low in all three health facilities, and documentation was generally unsatisfactory especially at Sinza health center. Majority of respondents (96.8%) had moderate knowledge of contraceptives however, demonstrated negative attitudes towards contraceptive usage. Contraceptives were not very much accepted by respondents due to the purported side effects, being unaware of the commodities and/or negative perception like being against their religious belief. The selection criteria for procurement of contraceptives were consumers demands oriented. Forecasting and Quantification of contraceptives was mainly by consumption based method. Procurement of contraceptives was mainly by donation and the products were fundamentally distributed by vehicles.


Background : Coconut milk consumption in middle-aged male rats can cause increased blood vessel endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and cystathionine-γ-lyase (CSE) protein expression, and decreased fasting blood glucose. Objective : The present study aimed to investigate whether coconut milk oil (CO), the major constituents of the coconut milk, was responsible for those effects. Methods : CO was isolated from dried fresh coconut milk and gavaged (1 and 3 ml/kg) to middle-aged male rats for 6 weeks. Animal body weight and food intake, internal organ weight, blood biochemistry, lipid profile, basal blood pressure and heart rate and vascular functions were investigated. Results : In comparison to a distilled water control group, no differences were observed in any of the parameters studied in the group fed 1 ml/kg of CO except for an increase in retroperitoneal fat accumulation. Feeding 3 ml/kg of CO caused decreased fasting blood glucose, plasma alkaline phosphatase and blood urea nitrogen and liver cell lipid accumulation, but increased retroperitoneal fat tissue. It also caused decreased maximal contractile response of endothelium-intact thoracic aortic rings to phenylephrine although the effect disappeared in the presence of N-nitro-L-arginine (L-NA) or removal of the endothelium. DL-propargylglycine together with L-NA caused a higher contraction to phenylephrine in the CO-treated groups than in the control group. It also caused an increase in vasodilatation to acetylcholine, but not to glyceryl trinitrate, of the phenylephrine pre-contracted aortic rings. CO treatment caused increased vascular wall eNOS and CSE protein expression. Conclusion : CO at a dose of 3 ml/kg causes some decrease in cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged male rats, although the amount of CO consumption should be limited as it caused an increase in retroperitoneal fat. Keywords : Coconut oil; blood vessel; liver lipid; NO; H 2 S


Within the scope of SIRRO (Siberian River Run off) expeditions of RV Akademik Boris Petrov were carried out in the Kara Sea during August and September 1999, 2000 and 2001. One major aim of the project is characterisation and quantification of terrigenous sediment primarily supplied by Ob and Yenisei rivers. We used a high resolution CHIRP echosounding system for selected profiles and additionally the ships sonar was used to obtain data of Holocene sediment thickness. The main objective of this study is the identification and characterisation of sediment echo types in conjunction with geophysical and sedimentological investigations of the collected gravity cores.During the expedition the geological work concentrated on a detailed sediment profiling survey by means of an ELAC sediment echograph (operating frequency of 12 kHz, impulse length of 1 ms, and 200 W transmitting power) as well as a GeoChirp sytem (2-8 kHz), and the sampling of bottom sediments using Multicorer, Giant Box Corer, and Gravity Corer for ground truthing.The history and extent of the Quaternary glaciations in Eurasia is controverse. Within this context, the largest remaining uncertainty is how far the Kara Sea ice sheet extended towards the east during the LGM (Svendsen et al., 1999; Polyak et al., 2000, 2002; Stein et al. 2002). The key question related to this problem is: how did the discharge of the siberian rivers respond/interact to an proximal ice sheet?Based on echosounding results we are able to reconstruct the palaeo drainage network of Ob and Yenisei rivers. Both rivers incised into the recent shelf, leaving filled and unfilled river channels and river canyons/valleys behind. The rivers were in the braided/meandering stage depending on the variable shelf gradient. Asymmetrical channel levee complexes with incision depths of 60 meters and more developed. The rivers formed channel levee complexes which in some places border to glacial dominated morphology, which implies fluvial deflection by an ice shield. This finding denots the non existence of an ice sheet on large areas of the Kara Sea shelf. Furthermore mapping of sediment thickness and character reveals no evidence for an ice dammed lake, as postulated by some workers.Sidorchuk et al. (2001) found macromeanders formed during the LGM until 14000 years BP, fluvial features an order of magnitude bigger than recent fluvial dimensions. Although the mean precipitation was lower than today, they related these features to an increased discharge which main cause is in their opinion the existence of permafrost, whose degradation (as recent) leads to the development of increased groundwater flow. Therefore it seems reasonable to relate fluvial features on the Kara Sea shelf, developed during sea level lowstand, to a pronounced riverine discharge as proposed by Sidorchuk et al. (2001).


In the UK, published national indices of deprivation are routinely used for resource allocation at a local level yet are constructed from national datasets. Data are usually derived from aggregate population based census sources using comparable geographical frameworks. This can ignore locality specific socio-economic and environmental factors associated with deprivation such as the location of crime hot spots, road traffic accidents or air pollution levels. The methodology developed here allows the combination of data collected using different spatial frameworks, from a range of sources and at both individual point level and aggregate area level to create a flexible approach to mapping deprivation at the local level. Deprivation grids are calculated using a combined statistical and GIS approach to portray deprivation at the local level in the county of Northamptonshire, UK. This approach has been adopted by Northamptonshire County Council to augment national indices to improve local decision making processes.


Effects of pesticide exposure on farmer's health are conducted mostly in developed countries, which is rare in least developed countries like Bangladesh. Here farmers had less guidance and instruction about the preventive measures to protect themselves and environment. This work was studied to assess the impacts of pesticide exposure on the paddy farmer's health in two different Upazilas of Manikganj, Bangladesh. The study was conducted as cross-sectional study with quantitative and qualitative components. Five hundred eighty two farmers (368 sprayers and 214 non-sprayers) were interviewed. Chi-squared tests and multinomial logistic regression analysis were performed for statistical analysis. Three hundred sixty eight farmers (64.3%) sprayed pesticides and were directly exposed to chemicals. Among them 64.22% and 9.06%, farmers used moderately and highly hazardous pesticides, respectively. 257 farmers (69.8%) were not taken any protective measures to handle pesticides. Excessive sweating, burning eyes and fatigue were reported by 26.3%, 24.4% and 18.8% of the farmers, respectively. These types of symptoms were significantly associated among male farmers. The study reveals that due to lack of awareness, occupational exposures of pesticides among farmers are common in Bangladesh and it also emphasize the importance of use of personal protective equipments. Jahangirnagar University Environmental Bulletin, Vol.2, 18-25, 2013 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jueb.v2i0.16326


The World Trade Organization ("WTO") can become a force for limited government in our day, just as the Framers' Constitution was in theirs. First, the WTO has structural similarities to the original Constitution of the United States. The WTO enlarges the polity for trade purposes and thereby weakens protectionism around the world by mobilizing exporter groups to battle protectionist interest groups in each country. It therefore sets certain factions against each other in the same way that James Madison suggested in his theory of the large republic. (1) In that respect the WTO actually improves democratic choice, since otherwise democratic nations would be hobbled by protectionist interest groups with undue power. (2) Second, the WTO helps promote a structure of limited government like that espoused in the U.S. Constitution because it replicates the idea of federalism on the international level. Federalism, in turn, creates a market for governance, and thereby creates incentives for government to provide public goods and appropriate regulation that will attract investment. Today, the WTO and allied agreements on open capital markets allow for the free movement of goods and capital while maintaining a fairly thin structure of government. Inside that structure, nation states make independent decisions about social policy. Just as the Constitution was a great charter for economic growth in the United States by promoting a beneficial regulatory competition among states, so the WTO can be a great charter for international economic growth by promoting beneficial jurisdictional competition among nation states. I. THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE WTO AND FACTIONAL COMPETITION The WTO agreements on trade facilitate private transactions and therefore generate economic growth. Trade is ultimately about mutually beneficial contracts among different parties; in the WTO context, the parties happen to be in different countries. The reasons the international community needs the WTO are not entirely economic. Despite the fact that economic theory promotes unilateral free trade as ideal, throughout human history xenophobia and interest groups have conspired to prevent this ideal from being realized. Today, the WTO is a mechanism that attempts to counteract these political tendencies to bring greater prosperity to the world and succor to the world's poorest. Even though free trade policies in general are wealth maximizing, special interest groups often try to prevent these types of policies. While competition from overseas goods is beneficial to the consumer because competition lowers prices, overseas competition can hurt local industries and unions. Furthermore, because they are concentrated groups, industries and unions have substantial power in the political process and incentives to lobby the government for favorable policies and to provide campaign contributions and election support to candidates that support protectionist measures. (3) Diffuse groups, such as consumers, have less concentrated power in the political process. (4) While every consumer benefits in some sense from free trade policies, they each benefit to a relatively small degree. Very substantial free rider problems inhibit consumer influence on trade policy. If one consumer contributes to a consumer lobby, other consumers who have not contributed will still benefit from the lobby's actions. In contrast, industries and unions are already organized for other purposes: to manufacture and sell goods and to bargain with management. As a result, consumers have fewer incentives to join organizations aimed at lobbying for free trade. Another obstacle that consumers face is rational ignorance--an important truth about modern democracies that should be central to all political discussions of the proper structure of government. (5) Rational ignorance describes the systematic tendency of citizens to pay little attention to political information. …


Experience learning made easyand quickly teach yourself how to create professional-looking business and technical diagrams with Visio 2010. With Step by Step, you set the pacebuilding and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them!Build a variety of charts and diagrams with Visio templates Draw organization charts, floor plans, flowcharts, and more Apply color, text, and themes to your Visio diagrams Use Visio shapes to link to, store, and visualize data Collaborate on diagrams with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Create custom diagrams with your own shapes and templates Your Step by Step digital content includes:All the book's practice filesready to download and put to work. Fully searchable online edition of this bookwith unlimited access on the Web. Free online account required.


Purpose: Previous studies demonstrate that intratumoral CpG immunotherapy in combination with radiotherapy acts as an in-situ vaccine inducing antitumor immune responses capable of eradicating systemic disease. Unfortunately, most patients fail to respond. We hypothesized that immunotherapy can paradoxically upregulate immunosuppressive pathways, a phenomenon we term "rebound immune suppression," limiting clinical responses. We further hypothesized that the immunosuppressive enzyme indolamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is a mechanism of rebound immune suppression and that IDO blockade would improve immunotherapy efficacy. Experimental Design: We examined the efficacy and immunologic effects of a novel triple therapy consisting of local radiotherapy, intratumoral CpG, and systemic IDO blockade in murine models and a pilot canine clinical trial. Results: In murine models, we observed marked increase in intratumoral IDO expression after treatment with radiotherapy, CpG, or other immunotherapies. The addition of IDO blockade to radiotherapy + CpG decreased IDO activity, reduced tumor growth, and reduced immunosuppressive factors, such as regulatory T cells in the tumor microenvironment. This triple combination induced systemic antitumor effects, decreasing metastases, and improving survival in a CD8+ T-cell–dependent manner. We evaluated this novel triple therapy in a canine clinical trial, because spontaneous canine malignancies closely reflect human cancer. Mirroring our mouse studies, the therapy was well tolerated, reduced intratumoral immunosuppression, and induced robust systemic antitumor effects. Conclusions: These results suggest that IDO maintains immune suppression in the tumor after therapy, and IDO blockade promotes a local antitumor immune response with systemic consequences. The efficacy and limited toxicity of this strategy are attractive for clinical translation. Clin Cancer Res; 22(17); 4328–40. ©2016 AACR.


This dissertation deals with modeling, simulation and optimization of low-frequency electromagnetic devices and quantification of the impact of uncertainties on these devices. The emphasis of these methods
is on their application for electric machines.

A Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) is simulated using Iso-Geometric Analysis (IGA). An efficient modeling procedure has been established by incorporating a harmonic stator-rotor coupling.
The procedure is found to be stable. Furthermore, it is found that there is strong reduction in computational time with respect to a classical monolithic finite element method. The properties of the ingredients of IGA, i.e. B-splines and Non-Uniform B-Splines, are exploited to conduct a shape optimization for the example of a Stern-Gerlach magnet. It is shown that the IGA framework is a reliable and promising tool for simulating and optimizing electric devices.

Different formulations for robust optimization are recalled. The formulations are tested for the optimization of the size of the permanent magnet in a PMSM. It is shown that under the application of
linearization the deterministic and the stochastic formulation are equivalent. An efficient deterministic optimization algorithm is constructed by the implementation of an affine decomposition. It is shown that the deterministic algorithm outperforms the widely used stochastic algorithms for this application.

Finally, different models to incorporate uncertainties in the simulation of PMSMs are developed. They incorporate different types of rotor eccentricity, uncertainties in the permanent magnets (geometric and material related) and uncertainties that are introduced by the welding processes during the manufacturing. Their influences are studied using stochastic collocation and using the classical Monte Carlo method. Furthermore, the Multilevel Monte Carlo approach is combined with error estimation and applied to determine high dimensional uncertainties in a PMSM.


The fast pace of change within the animation, computer game and post production industries has presented a problem for Vocational Education and Training (VET) programme developers who are finding it increasingly difficult to stay relevant and upto-date with the latest employability skill-sets in this industry sector. A comprehensive study of the Australian digital media industry -including the latest systems, software, technologies and production pipelines -is not readily available, making it difficult for Training Package developers to create up-to-date, flexible, meaningful and transferable qualifications.
In response to this problem, this research was undertaken to identify the needs and realities of work required for the production of digital content within the Australasian digital media and post-production industry sectors. Employability skill-sets and attributes have been recognized and categorized through a skills audit (quantitative data) of position descriptions and role statements advertised over a six year period. Progressive levels of skill, knowledge, problem solving and attitude have been applied to the researcher's own studio production through an Action Research process.
This report documents the research and reports on findings identified through industry position descriptors making recommendations to support the integration of the new digital animation skills through a framework of progressive qualifications.


Malignant hyperthermia is rare inherited disorder in our part of the world; there are only few cases reported in literature in India who were suspected of having this condition. The overall incidence of malignant hyperthermia during general anesthesia is estimated to range from 1: 5000 to 1: 50,000–100,000 and mortality rate is estimated to be <5% in the presence of standard care. In India, there is no center where in vitro halothane caffeine contraction test is performed to confirm diagnosis in suspected cases. Second, dantrolene drug of choice for this condition is not freely available in market in India and is stored only in some hospitals in few major cities. Among the cases reported of suspected of malignant hyperthermia in India almost 50% have survived the condition despite nonavailability of dantrolene emphasizing role of early detection and aggressive management in these cases.


Get the inside scoop on Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization is a top priority for thousands of companies all over the world. Written by an author team that is part of the Windows virtualization group at Microsoft, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V will walk you through Hyper-V essentials so you can get you up to speed and down to business with Hyper-V. Now fully updated for Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, you will find additional content on new features and capabilities such as Live Migration and support for 64 Logical Processors (LP). Teaches how to manage virtual machines with the latest System Center tools such as Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Data Protection Manager 2010, and Operations Manager 2007 R2 Covers all of the new functionalities of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, including Live Migration, 64 LP support, Processor Compatibility Mode, enhanced processor functionality support, hot-add and remove of storage, TCP Offload support, and VM Queue support Demonstrates key scenarios for Hyper-V, including server consolidation, testing and development, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, and Dynamic IT Provides step-by-step instructions and examples This insiders guide will help you get the most out of your hardware and reduce cost with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.


Novel ubiquitin-based active site probes including a fluorescent tag have been developed and evaluated. A new, functionalizable electrophilic trap is utilized allowing for late stage diversification of the probe. Attachment of fluorescent dyes allowed direct detection of endogenous deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) activities in cell extracts by in-gel fluorescence imaging.


Abstract Education in ecology and evolution often utilizes field instruction to teach key learning outcomes. Remote teaching of learning outcomes that have been traditionally taught in the field, necessitated by the COVID‐19 pandemic, presents unique challenges for students, instructors, and institutions. A survey of 117 faculty conducted during spring 2020 revealed substantial reduction of learning outcomes typically taught in the field, and frequent substitutions of less active and more instructor‐centered remote activities for field activities. The survey revealed generally negative instructor views on many remote teaching substitutions, yet also showed several approaches that instructors regarded as more effective, despite potential challenges with equitably teaching them. I suggest several models of remote substitutions for traditional field teaching of identification, field techniques, data collection, and study design in the context of the results of this survey.


Stereognosis refers to the ability to identify and discriminate the form of an object solely based on the sensation of touch. Similarly, oral stereognosis is the capability of an individual to discern the form and shape of an object inside their oral cavity without any visual assistance. The oral stereognostic ability evaluates the oral functioning of an individual and also determines the response of patients towards various dental therapies. This is accomplished by the association of more than one group of mechanoreceptors that are located on several oral structures. Oral streognostic testing greatly depends on the design of the experiment, since both the method and the material used for this kind of studies dramatically influences its result. The subject of oral stereognosis is closely linked with the overall oral health of an individual and their treatment per se, and needs wide exploration. This review is thus an attempt to comprehend the various aspects of oral stereognosis and provide clearer guidelines for further research in this field.


This project focuses on web security. Some of the most famous vulnerabilities, known troubling web applications. Has been collected and analyzed. Each vulnerability collected in this project, was exploited and secured. Demon- strations from a web application prototype, developed for this project. Brings real examples for each vulnerability, both secured, and insecured. The proto- type ran on a Tomcat web server, and was developed with frameworks such as Web, Spring and Hibernate. Connected to one PostgreSQL data source. All vulnerabilities was successfully implemented in Spring framework, and they were all exploited. Every vulnerability was also secured, with different tools and methods from earlier mentioned frameworks. As a result, real examples from the prototype is used for demonstration in the project, both in a secure and an insecure state. The result views Spring as a framework with good security potential. Most of the Spring specific vulnerabilities, are logical design flaws from developers that can be avoided. Vulnerabilities not related to Spring, such as the one collected for this project. Could be prevented by using methods from the Spring framework or intelligent programming. Which leads to conclusions. Web applications are always exposed to attacks, no matter the framework in use. Creative hackers search to discover new vul- nerabilities, and update old ones all the time. Developers has a responsibility, towards the web applications users. Web applications can not just developed for normal use, but also against possible misuse. Frameworks with good reputation and well processed models, is a good ground for developing a secure application.


The linear stability of an erodible sediment bed beneath a turbidity current is analysed, in order to identify potential mechanisms responsible for the formation of longitudinal gullies and channels. On the basis of the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, the stability analysis accounts for the coupled interaction of the three-dimensional fluid and particle motion inside the current with the erodible bed below it. For instability to occur, the suspended sediment concentration of the base flow needs to decay away from the sediment bed more slowly than does the shear stress inside the current. Under such conditions, an upward protrusion of the sediment bed will find itself in an environment where erosion decays more quickly than sedimentation, and so it will keep increasing. Conversely, a local valley in the sediment bed will see erosion increase more strongly than sedimentation, which again will amplify the initial perturbation. The destabilizing effect of the base flow is modulated by the stabilizing perturbation of the suspended sediment concentration and by the shear stress due to a secondary flow structure in the form of counter-rotating streamwise vortices. These streamwise vortices are stabilizing for small Reynolds and Péclet numbers and destabilizing for large values. For a representative current height of O(10–100m), the linear stability analysis provides the most amplified wavelength in the range of 250–2500m, which is consistent with field observations reported in the literature. In contrast to previous analyses based on depth-averaged equations, the instability mechanism identified here does not require any assumptions about sub- or supercritical flow, nor does it require the presence of a slope or a slope break.


Objective. Fatigue and sleep problems are significant in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). This subanalysis of the RHAPSODY study (Review of Safety and Effectiveness with Adalimumab in Patients with Active Ankylosing Spondylitis) was conducted to evaluate the effect of adalimumab on sleep in patients with active AS. Methods. All patients (n = 1250) had active AS and received adalimumab 40 mg every other week during the 12-week open-label treatment period. Sleep was assessed by the Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS) at screening and Weeks 6, 12, and 20 (optional continuation period). Effect sizes were calculated to determine clinical significance. Paired Student t tests compared the change in the MOS-SS domains from Week 12 to baseline. Correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationship between change in sleep domains and other Week 12 clinical and patient-reported outcomes (Bath AS Disease Activity Index, C-reactive protein, nocturnal pain, total back pain, Bath AS Functional Index, patient's global assessment of disease activity, morning stiffness, Short Form-36 Health Survey, and Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire components). Results. At Week 12, adalimumab significantly improved sleep in each of the MOS-SS domains (p < 0.001). Effect sizes for 3 of the 6 domains (disturbance, −0.69; adequacy, 0.55; somnolence, −0.52) and both sleep problems indices (Index I, −0.68; Index II, −0.77) were moderate, suggesting clinical significance. Change in the MOS-SS Sleep Problem Index II was moderately correlated with change in most clinical and patient-reported outcomes. Sleep improvements were similar in patients with and without radiographically advanced AS. Conclusion. Adalimumab improves overall sleep and sleep quality in patients with active AS.


Introduction: Allostatic load (AL) refers to the physiological response associated with the burden of chronic stress. Excessive weight is an important source of physiological stress that promotes a detrimental chronic low-inflammation state. In order to define a correlation between cumulative biological dysregulation and excess weight, we measured AL scores in a pediatric population. Patients and Methods: We enrolled 164 children and adolescents (11.89 ± 3.89). According to their body mass index (BMI) threshold, subjects were classified as normal in the BMI < 75th percentile, overweight in the BMI 75–95th percentile or obese in the BMI >95th percentile. Data based on 16 biomarkers were used to create the AL score. A dichotomous outcome for high AL was defined in those who had more than four dysregulated components. Results: High AL was noted in 88/164 subjects (53.65%), without significant differences between genders (p = 0.07) or pubertal status (p = 0.10). Subjects with a high AL, in addition to a higher BMI (p < 0.001), showed higher WC and WC/HtR (p < 0.001), triglycerides (p = 0.002), fasting blood glucose (p = 0.03), insulin resistance (p < 0.001), systolic (p < 0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.001), GGT (p = 0.01), PCR (p = 0.01), and calprotectin (p < 0.01) as well as lower HDL cholesterol (p = 0.002) than subjects with a low AL. The rate of the cumulative biological dysregulation increased progressively with increases in BMI (p < 0.001). Conclusions: A high AL was associated with excess weight. AL may be considered a significant factor correlated with increased morbidity in children who are overweight/obese.


The wide availability of power distribution cables provides an interesting no-new-wires communication channel. However, its electrical characteristics make it a harsh environment for the data transmission purpose and prevent the deployment of services with high reliability requirements. This paper proposes and implements an OSI-Layer2 network coding-based cooperative scheme with the aim of improving communication reliability in indoor narrowband powerline channels. The proposed scheme uses random linear network coding with a sliding window and relaying. We use network coding to replace the retransmissions triggered by legacy subsequent repeat request (ARQ) schemes. We evaluate the performance of our approach in terms of throughput and delay. Regarding the throughput achieved in harsh environments, we show that our scheme often more than doubles the throughput of existing legacy ARQ schemes. At the same time, and even under the large variation of traffic characteristics, it is shown that the delay is likely to be upper bounded by a few seconds, a bound that cannot be guaranteed in other existing transmission techniques.


Abstract. Variable effects of backwaters complicate the development of rating curves at hydrometric measurement stations. In areas influenced by backwater, single-parameter rating curve techniques are often inapplicable. To overcome this, several authors have advocated the use of an additional downstream level gauge to estimate the longitudinal surface level gradient, but this is cumbersome in a lowland meandering river with considerable transverse surface level gradients. Recent developments allow river flow to be continuously monitored through velocity measurements with an acoustic Doppler current profiler (H-ADCP), deployed horizontally at a river bank. This approach was adopted to obtain continuous discharge estimates at a cross-section in the River Mahakam at a station located about 300 km upstream of the river mouth in the Mahakam delta. The discharge station represents an area influenced by variable backwater effects from lakes, tributaries and floodplain ponds, and by tides. We applied both the standard index velocity method and a recently developed methodology to obtain a continuous time-series of discharge from the H-ADCP data. Measurements with a boat-mounted ADCP were used for calibration and validation of the model to translate H-ADCP velocity to discharge. As a comparison with conventional discharge estimation techniques, a stage-discharge relation using Jones formula was developed. The discharge rate at the station exceeded 3250 m3 s−1. Discharge series from a traditional stage-discharge relation did not capture the overall discharge dynamics, as inferred from H-ADCP data. For a specific river stage, the discharge range could be as high as 2000 m3 s−1, which is far beyond what could be explained from kinematic wave dynamics. Backwater effects from lakes were shown to be significant, whereas interaction of the river flow with tides may impact discharge variation in the fortnightly frequency band. Fortnightly tides cannot easily be isolated from river discharge variation, which features similar periodicities.


Compressed sensing (CS) can recover sparse signals from under-sampled measurements. In this work, we have developed an advanced CS framework for photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT). During the reconstruction, a small part of the nonzero signals' locations in the transformed sparse domain is used as partially known support (PKS). PACT reconstructions have been performed with under-sampled in vivo image data of human hands and a rat. Compared to PACT with basic CS, PACT with CS-PKS can recover signals using fewer ultrasonic transducer elements and can improve convergence speed, which may ultimately enable high-speed, low-cost PACT for various biomedical applications.


Active probe-based measurements are the foundation for understanding important network path properties such as SLA compliance and available bandwidth. Well-known challenges in active probe-based measurement include the logistics of deploying and managing host-based measurement infrastructures, the load that probe packets place on network resources, the inaccuracy of resultant measurements, and the relatively limited set of features that can be measured. In this paper, we argue that these challenges can be addressed through programmable, router-based support for active measurement. While commercial routers today have some basic capabilities for emitting probe packets, these mechanisms are minimal and do not allow the necessary flexibility in the kinds of probing that can be done. We describe a set of functional primitives that enable a wide range of router-based active measurements and would improve and simplify the ability to assess and understand network structure and dynamic network state. We discuss the associated resource requirements and implications of our approach related to configuration, security and privacy. Finally, we support and illustrate the powerful potential of our approach through a series of measurement scenarios and describe our ongoing efforts toward a Click-based implementation of our framework.


From the perspective of cognitive informatics, cognition can be viewed as the acquisition of knowledge. In real-world applications, information systems usually contain some degree of noisy data. A new model proposed to deal with the hybrid-feature selection problem combines the neighbourhood approximation and variable precision rough set models. Then rule induction algorithm can learn from selected features in order to reduce the complexity of rule sets. Through proposed integration, the knowledge acquisition process becomes insensitive to the dimensionality of data with a pre-defined tolerance degree of noise and uncertainty for misclassification. When the authors apply the method to a Chinese diabetic diagnosis problem, the hybrid-attribute reduction method selected only five attributes from totally thirty-four measurements. Rule learner produced eight rules with average two attributes in the left part of an IF-THEN rule form, which is a manageable set of rules. The demonstrated experiment shows that the present approach is effective in handling real-world problems.


Abstract
P.aeruginosa is an extracellular, Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen. One of the most important virulence factors during infection is the type III secretion system (T3SS). This system is found exclusively in Gram-negative bacteria and it forms a conduit between the bacteria and the host cell through which effector molecules can be translocated. These effectors alter the function of the host cell to promote survival of the bacterium. Infections are detected initially by the innate immune system via germ-line encoded receptors, pathogen recognition receptors (PRRs). These receptors recognise conserved microbial patterns, known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns and molecules which signal danger, danger-associated molecular patterns. PRRs are both membrane bound, such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs), and cytosolic, such as Nod-like receptors (NLRs). Some NLRs are involved in the formation of multimeric protein complexes, the Nod-signalosome and inflammasomes. These lead to the activation of NF-κB and the activation of caspase-1 and subsequent proteolytic processing of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) into its mature form. Both processes contribute to the inflammatory response following infection.
In this study we sought to elucidate whether P.aeruginosa is able to trigger cytosolic PRRs and the mechanism of this activation. Initially we studied inflammasome activation by P.aeruginosa. We demonstrated that P.aeruginosa is able to activate the NLRC4/ASC-inflammasome complex. This was found to be dependent on a functional T3SS, but independent of any effectors passing through the system. The activation was discovered by detection of processed, and thus active caspase-1 fragments, as well as by secretion of mature IL-1β.
The mechanism of the inflammasome activation was then investigated. We found that the NLRC4-dependent inflammasome activation is also dependent on extracellular potassium. An increase of extracellular potassium leads to a complete abrogation of inflammasome activation by P.aeruginosa and Salmonella. To further elucidate this finding, we investigated the leakiness of the pore formed by the T3SS in the host cell membrane. No flux of ions or small molecules could be detected in the host cell membrane following infection. However, host-membrane repair mechanisms were triggered, which could be detected by lysosomal-associated membrane protein (LAMP)-1-specific staining of the plasma membrane. We hypothesize a role for membrane potential in triggering of inflammasome activation by bacteria possessing a secretion system. Potassium-efflux has previously been identified as a activator of the NLRP3 inflammasome, but no changes in intracellular potassium could be found during this study.
The activation of the NLRC4 inflammasome by the Pseudomonal strain PA103 was shown, in this study, to be independent of flagellin. Instead, the bacterial molecule responsible for inflammasome activation was shown to be pilin. Pilin is important for attachment to the host cell and the function of the T3SS. We showed that a strain lacking pilin were still able to translocate effectors through its T3SS. However, it was unable to activate the inflammasome complex. Transfection of purified pilin into cells was shown to trigger inflammasome activation. This was found to be dependent on caspase-1 but independent of NLRC4 and ASC, which is not in agreement with the results found for live bacteria. We hypothesised that the reason for this is the delivery method used, since a T3SS and infection delivers proteins and molecules differently compared to a transfection reagent.
Finally, the role for Nod1 in infection by P.aeruginosa was explored. We could not identify Nod1-dependent NF-κB-activation using luciferase reporter gene assays. We therefore hypothesise that Nod1 does not have a role in the innate immune response to P.aeruginosa.
In conclusion, we have identified NLRC4- and ASC-dependent inflammasome activation by P.aeruginosa. This activation was shown to be dependent on a functional T3SS and the surface protein pilin, as well as extracellular potassium. This describes a novel NLRC4-activation mechanism dependent on potassium and identifies pilin as a PRR-trigger for the first time.


Received: June 2014, Accepted: February 2015 Background: Physicians and medical students are at risk of exposure to a broad range of viral pathogens through percutaneous injury, contact of mucous membrane with blood, and other potentially infectious body fluids. The objective of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of physicians and medical students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, regarding standard precautions. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional research based on a survey performed in 3 teaching hospitals affiliated with Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire. Subsequently, researchers distributed the questionnaires among the individuals who agreed to participate in the study. The participants were given instructions on completing the questionnaires. After completion of the questionnaires, they were collected and statistically processed with SPSS software using frequencies, percentages, the averages and standard deviations, and the independent ttest. All P values equal to or less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. Results: The response rate in this study was 95%. The mean age of subjects was 27.6 ± 5.3 years. The majority of subjects were female (62.1%), single (66.3%), and medical interns (78.9%). Most subjects were untrained on standard precautions (64.5%). The mean and standard deviations of KAP scores were 37.6 ± 7.4 (out of 46), 32.6 ± 4.5 (out of 45), and 33.06 ± 6.5 (out of 44), respectively. The independent t-test showed significant differences between knowledge and practice scores and marital status. It also showed significant differences between the practice score and training on standard precautions (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The results showed that the knowledge score was desirable, but the attitude and practice scores were not desirable. Thus, educational programs with the foundation of bloodborne infections, infection control, safety recommendations, and different aspects of standard precautions are recommended.


The Port of Durban is a resource utilsed by a wide range of stakeholders. The water quality of this resource is a prerequisite for sustaining the preferred uses of the bay for future generations. Given the extent of development in the port the abundance of fauna and flora is remarkable. Based on the current literature available the management of the port uses a combination of international and local standards to manage the water resource. An associated problem however is that the local legislation does not address the heart of the pollution problem the polluter. This is highlighted in all chapters of this thesis, as the South African water quality guidelines are not legally enforceable, and do not take into account the combined use of resources. The uncontrolled nutrient loads and pollution present in the port system could ultimately affect the ecosystem health. This is amplified by apparent inability of officials to protect the receiving environment of the Port of Durban. The subsequent condition of water quality in the port compared with the Department of Water Affairs guidelines indicates that there is less than 5% compliance with the target water quality variables. in comparing the same water quality to international water quality Legislation the compliance percentage increased marginally, however the bacterial contamination and nutrient contamination of the resource is apparent even with more relaxed international comparisons. The noticeable cause was clearly evident when comparing results, indicating extensive unacceptable bacterial and nutrient contamination emanating from stormwater systems from the city of Durban, and highly urbanised river catchments. Based on the water quality results it is highly recommended that sustainable environmental management practices be implemented to protect and address the water resource. The metropolitan authorities need to investigate the origins of the stormwater pollution and dialogue must ensue between Portnet and the City to reach consensus on receiving water quality objectives with the aim of compiling a water management policy.


We estimate the effect of the child support grant on mothers' labour supply in South Africa. Identification is based on the use of specific samples, such as black mothers, aged 20 to 45, whose youngest child is aged within 2 years of the age eligibility cut-off, and unanticipated variation over the years in the age eligibility cut-off. Balancing tests across the age cut-o s are used to show that there are no signi cant di erences between mothers of eligible and ineligible children in the samples used, over the years. Different techniques are used to estimate the effect of the child support grant from many angles, including simple OLS as a bench mark, a difference in difference estimator, using appropriately constructed treatment and control groups, instrumental variables estimates, and descriptive analysis. The effect of having an age eligible child is large. Mothers who become recipients in their twenties see an average increase in employment probability of 15%, and in labour force participation of 9%. Many robustness and specification checks are used, including placebo regressions in the pre-treatment years, to ensure the estimated effect is not due to age or another variable.


Ownership and control over assets such as land and housing provide direct and indirect benefits to individuals and households, including a secure place to live, the means of a livelihood, protection during emergencies, and collateral for credit that can be used for investment or consumption. Unfortunately, few studies - either at the micro or macro levels- examine the gender dimensions of asset ownership. This paper sets out a framework for researchers who are interested in collecting data on individual level asset ownership and analyzing the gender asset gap. It reviews best practices in existing surveys with respect to data collection on assets at both the household and individual levels, and shows how various questions on individually owned assets can be incorporated with a minimum of effort and cost into existing multi-topic household surveys, using examples of three Living Standard Measurement Study surveys: the 1998-99 Ghana survey, the 2000 Guatemala survey, and the 1997-98 Vietnam survey questionnaires. The analysis shows that it is feasible to add a minimal set of questions to enable calculation of the gender asset gap. Adding a series of extra questions will permit a more satisfactory and nuanced analysis of asset acquisition, use, disposition, and valuation - information that is critical for policies promoting gender equality, poverty reduction, and economic growth.


Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary field with the potential to replace tissues lost as a result of trauma, cancer surgery, or organ dysfunction. Periodontal disease leads to loss of periodontal supporting structures, like cementum, the periodontal ligament and the alveolar bone. Periodontal treatments like scaling, root planing and gingival curettage are effective in repairing disease related defects and halting further progress of disease. In recent years tissue engineering strategies for clinical applications have been mainly developed in different medical fields to replace skin, cartilage, bone, cardiovascular component and pancreas. It has been applied in dentistry mainly in the fields of oral and maxillofacial surgery and periodontics for bone and soft tissue regeneration. In this paper an overview of the basic principles of tissue engineering and its application in periodontics is explored.


Blazars are characterized by large intensity and spectral variations across the electromagnetic spectrum It is believed that jets emerging from them are almost aligned with the line-of-sight. The majority of identified extragalactic sources in γ-ray catalogs of EGRET and Fermi are blazars. Observationally, blazars can be divided into two classes: flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lacs. BL Lacs usually exhibit lower γ-ray luminosity and harder power law spectra at γ-ray energies than FSRQs. We attempt to explain the high energy properties of FSRQs and BL Lacs from Fermi γ-ray space telescope observations. It was argued previously that the difference in accretion rates is mainly responsible for the large mismatch in observed luminosity in γ-ray. However, when intrinsic luminosities are derived by correcting for beaming effects, this difference in γ-ray luminosity between the two classes is significantly reduced. In order to explain this difference in intrinsic luminosities, we propose that spin plays an important role in the luminosity distribution dichotomy of BL Lacs and FSRQs. As the outflow power of a blazar increases with increasing spin of a central black hole, we suggest that the spin plays a crucial role in making BL Lac sources low luminous and slow rotators compared to FSRQ sources.


This volume provides an overview of modern acoustical techniques for the measurement of mechanical properties. Chapters include Fundamentals of Elastic Constants; Point Source/Point Receiver Methods; Laser Controlled Surface Acoustic Waves; Quantitative Acoustical Microscopy of Solids; Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy; Elastic Properties and Thermodynamics; Sound Speed as a Thermodynamic Property of Fluids; Noninvasive Determination of Sound Speed in Liquids; Introduction to the Elastic Constants of Gases; and Acoustic Measurement in Gases.


weSPOT 1is a new project supported by the European Commission launching on 1st of October 2012. weSPOT aims at propagating scientific inquiry as the approach for science learning and teaching in combination with today's curricula and teaching practices. It lowers the threshold for linking everyday life with science teaching in schools by technology. weSPOT supports the meaningful contextualization of scientific concepts by relating them to personal curiosity, experiences, and reasoning. weSPOT addresses several challenges in the area of science learning and technology support for building personal conceptual knowledge. The project focuses on inquiry-based learning with a theoretically sound and technology supported personal inquiry approach. In inquiry based-learning learners take the role of an explorer and scientist and are motivated by their personal curiosity, guided by self-reflection, and develop knowledge personal and collaborative sense-making and reasoning. weSPOT will work on a meta-inquiry level in that it will (a) define a reference model for inquiry-based learning skills, (b) create a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills, and (c) implement a working environment that allows the easy linking of inquiry activities with school curricula and legacy systems.


The Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 11 (Parents Involved) presents the seeming paradox that the Constitution can on one day require a school district to take drastic measures, including busing students across a giant school district to increase racial integration in schools, and then prohibit school districts from taking even the mildest measures, such as using race as a tie-breaker in making student assignments, on the next. How, a rational observer must wonder, can this be possible? The answer is that, as usual in the making of "constitutional law," the Constitution has nothing to do with it. It is the entirely logical, though paradoxical, result of a long-established irrational and deceptive system of lawmaking by the Supreme Court on the subject of race and the schools. 2 Because the requirement of integration was falsely and illogically justified as only a remedy for segregation, opponents of compulsory integration can find the requirement inapplicable in any given case by simply pointing out that there is no segregation to be remedied, as they did in Parents Involved.


Spatial aggregation is a framework for organizing computations around image-like, analogue representations of physical processes in data interpretation and control tasks. It conceptualizes common computational structures in a class of implemented problem solvers for difficult scientific and engineering problems. It comprises a mechanism, a language, and a programming style. The spatial aggregation mechanism transforms a numerical input field to successively higher-level descriptions by applying a small, identical set of operators to each layer given a metric, neighborhood relation and equivalence relation. This paper describes the spatial aggregation language and its applications.

The spatial aggregation language provides two abstract data types - neighborhood graph and field -- and a set of interface operators for constructing the transformations of the field, together with a library of component implementations from which a user can mix-and-match and specialize for a particular application. The language allows users to isolate and express important computational ideas in different problem domains while hiding low-level details. We illustrate the use of the language with examples ranging from trajectory grouping in dynamics interpretation to region growing in image analysis. Programs for these different task domains can be written in a modular, concise fashion in the spatial aggregation language.


Smooth projective hashing was firstly introduced by Cramer and Shoup (EuroCrypt'02) as a tool to construct efficient chosen-ciphertext-secure public key encryption schemes. Since then, they have found many other applications, such as password-based authenticated key exchange, oblivious transfer, zero-knowledge arguments et al. Certificate-based encryption (CBE) not only eliminates third-party queries and heavy certificate management problem in traditional public-key encryption, but also solves key escrow problem for identity-based encryption. We introduce the new concept of certificate-based smooth projective hashing (CB-SPH). Under the security model for the leakage-resilient certificate-based encryption (LR-CBE), we show how to construct a general leakage-resilient certificate-based encryption scheme using the certificate-based smooth projective hashing. Based on these theoretical constructions, we present two concrete CB-SPH instantiations under the DBDH assumption and the DLWE assumption respectively. Based on these CB-SPH instantiations, we can construct leakage resilient CBE schemes.


Multi-core processors have become the dominant processor architecture with 2, 4, and 8 cores on a chip being widely available and an increasing number of cores predicted for the future. In addition, the decreasing costs and increasing programmability of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) have made these an accessible source of parallel processing power in general purpose computing. Among the many research challenges that this scenario has raised are the fundamental problems related to theoretical modeling of computation in these architectures. In this thesis we study several aspects of computation in modern parallel architectures, from modeling of computation in multi-cores and heterogeneous platforms, to multi-core cache management strategies, through the proposal of an architecture that exploits bit-parallelism on thousands of bits. Observing that in practice multi-cores have a small number of cores, we propose a model for low-degree parallelism for these architectures. We argue that assuming a small number of processors (logarithmic in a problem's input size) simplifies the design of parallel algorithms. We show that in this model a large class of divide-and-conquer and dynamic programming algorithms can be parallelized with simple modifications to sequential programs, while achieving optimal parallel speedups. We further explore low-degree-parallelism in computation, providing evidence of fundamental differences in practice and theory between systems with a sublinear and linear number of processors, and suggesting a sharp theoretical gap between the classes of problems that are efficiently parallelizable in each case. Efficient strategies to manage shared caches play a crucial role in multi-core performance. We propose a model for paging in multi-core shared caches, which extends classical paging to a setting in which several threads share the cache. We show that in this setting traditional cache management policies perform poorly, and that any effective strategy must partition the cache among threads, with a partition that adapts dynamically to the demands of each thread. Inspired by the shared cache setting, we introduce the minimum cache usage problem, an extension to classical sequential paging in which algorithms must account for the amount of cache they use. This cache-aware model seeks algorithms with good performance in terms of faults and the amount of cache used, and has applications in energy efficient caching and in shared cache scenarios. The wide availability of GPUs has added to the parallel power of multi-cores, however, most applications underutilize the available resources. We propose a model for hybrid computation in heterogeneous systems with multi-cores and GPU, and describe strategies for generic parallelization and efficient scheduling of a large class of divide-and-conquer algorithms. Lastly, we introduce the Ultra-Wide Word architecture and model, an extension of the wordRAM model, that allows for constant time operations on thousands of bits in parallel. We show that a large class of existing algorithms can be implemented in the Ultra-Wide Word model, achieving speedups comparable to those of multi-threaded computations, while avoiding the more difficult aspects of parallel programming.


There is conflicting evidence about the merits of mobile bearings in total knee replacement, partly because most randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have not been adequately powered. We report the results of a multicentre RCT of mobile versus fixed bearings. This was part of the knee arthroplasty trial (KAT), where 539 patients were randomly allocated to mobile or fixed bearings and analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. The primary outcome measure was the Oxford Knee Score (OKS) plus secondary measures including Short Form-12, EuroQol EQ-5D, costs, cost-effectiveness and need for further surgery. There was no significant difference between the groups pre-operatively: mean OKS was 17.18 (sd 7.60) in the mobile-bearing group and 16.49 (sd 7.40) in the fixed-bearing group. At five years mean OKS was 33.19 (sd 16.68) and 33.65 (sd 9.68), respectively. There was no significant difference between trial groups in OKS at five years (-1.12 (95% confidence interval -2.77 to 0.52) or any of the other outcome measures. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the proportion of patients with knee-related re-operations or in total costs. In this appropriately powered RCT, over the first five years after total knee replacement functional outcomes, re-operation rates and healthcare costs appear to be the same irrespective of whether a mobile or fixed bearing is used.


Cloud Computing is an Internet-based business paradigm, within which cloud providers o↵er resources (e.g. storage, computing, network) and cloud consumers use them after accepting the associated agreements. The demand of a particular functionality can rapidly change in this paradigm, so organizations need to count with a method to elicit, analyze, specify, verify, and manage dynamic requirements in a systematic and repeatable way. Existing requirements engineering (RE) approaches for Cloud Computing are generally focused on a limited number of non-functional characteristics (e.g. security, privacy, performance), and service consumers have no guideline to cover multiple dimensions of a requirement in cloud environments. To address this problem, a conceptual model is initially presented to analyze cloud requirements and services. Then, a workflow is proposed for handling those requirements and supporting cloud service adoption. In this paper, we explain our contribution based on practical experience in projects and existing RE approaches.


Speech dynamics refer to the temporal characteristics in all stages of the human speech communication process. This speech "chain" starts with the formation of a linguistic message in a speaker's brain and ends with the arrival of the message in a listener's brain. Given the intricacy of the dynamic speech process and its fundamental importance in human communication, this monograph is intended to provide a comprehensive material on mathematical models of speech dynamics and to address the following issues: How do we make sense of the complex speech process in terms of its functional role of speech communication? How do we quantify the special role of speech timing? How do the dynamics relate to the variability of speech that has often been said to seriously hamper automatic speech recognition? How do we put the dynamic process of speech into a quantitative form to enable detailed analyses? And finally, how can we incorporate the knowledge of speech dynamics into com uterized speech analysis and recognition algorithms? The answers to all these questions require building and applying computational models for the dynamic speech process. What are the compelling reasons for carrying out dynamic speech modeling? We provide the answer in two related aspects. First, scientific inquiry into the human speech code has been relentlessly pursued for several decades. As an essential carrier of human intelligence and knowledge, speech is the most natural form of human communication. Embedded in the speech code are linguistic (as well as para-linguistic) messages, which are conveyed through four levels of the speech chain. Underlying the robust encoding and transmission of the linguistic messages are the speech dynamics at all the four levels. Mathematical modeling of speech dynamics provides an effective tool in the scientific methods of studying the speech chain. Such scientific studies help understand why humans speak as they do and how humans exploit redunda cy and variability by way of multitiered dynamic processes to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of human speech communication. Second, advancement of human language technology, especially that in automatic recognition of natural-style human speech is also expected to benefit from comprehensive computational modeling of speech dynamics. The limitations of current speech recognition technology are serious and are well known. A commonly acknowledged and frequently discussed weakness of the statistical model underlying current speech recognition technology is the lack of adequate dynamic modeling schemes to provide correlation structure across the temporal speech observation sequence. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, the majority of current research activities in this area favor only incremental modifications and improvements to the existing HMM-based state-of-the-art. For example, while the dynamic and correlation modeling is known to be an important topic, most of the ystems nevertheless employ only an ultra-weak form of speech dynamics; e.g., differential or delta parameters. Strong-form dynamic speech modeling, which is the focus of this monograph, may serve as an ultimate solution to this problem. After the introduction chapter, the main body of this monograph consists of four chapters. They cover various aspects of theory, algorithms, and applications of dynamic speech models, and provide a comprehensive survey of the research work in this area spanning over past 20~years. This monograph is intended as advanced materials of speech and signal processing for graudate-level teaching, for professionals and engineering practioners, as well as for seasoned researchers and engineers specialized in speech processing


An integrated, free‐standing, and binder‐free type of flexible anode electrode is fabricated from numerous holey‐structured, 2D nickel‐based phosphide nanosheets connected with carbon nanotubes. This electrode architecture can not only uniformly disperse the nanosheets throughout the whole electrode to avoid aggregation or detachment, but also provide an ideal sodium ion and electrolyte diffusion and penetration network with high electronic conductivity. Meanwhile, bimetallic phosphide formation by introducing secondary metal species will lead to a synergistic effect to modify the electrochemical properties. Due to the excellent compositional and structural characteristics of this electrode, it delivers superior performance. This designed flexible anode with Ni1.5Co0.5Px nanosheets demonstrates a reversible capacity of 496.4 mAh g−1 at 0.5 C and a good rate capacity of 276.1 mAh g−1 at 8 C. Meanwhile, this connected integrated network woven from carbon nanotubes can effectively restrain volumetric expansion and shrinkage, and affect the conversion reaction products formation as well, from large‐sized microspheres to film structure, which is primarily credited with the improvement in electrochemical performance. This work may open up a new path for the synthesis of morphology‐controlled phosphides and promote the further development of flexible devices.


This paper provides new evidence that verb cluster formation in West Germanic takes place post-syntactically. Contrary to some previous accounts, I argue that cluster formation involves linearly adjacent morphosyntactic words and not syntactic sister nodes. The empirical evidence is drawn from Swiss German verb doubling constructions where intriguing asymmetries arise between ascending and descending orders. The approach additionally solves the cluster puzzle with extraposition and topicalization, generates all of the crosslinguistically attested six orders in the verbal complex and correctly predicts which orders are penetrable in which positions. On a more general level, the paper provides arguments for a derivational treatment of verb cluster formation and order variation and adduces important evidence in favor of a right-branching VP.


This book chronicles the dawn of the global movement for women's rights in the first decades of the twentieth century. The founding mothers of this movement were not based primarily in the United States, however, or in Europe. Instead, Katherine M. Marino introduces readers to a cast of remarkable Latin American and Caribbean women whose deep friendships and intense rivalries forged global feminism out of an era of imperialism, racism, and fascism. Six dynamic activists form the heart of this story: from Brazil, Bertha Lutz; from Cuba, Ofelia Domíngez Navarro; from Uruguay, Paulina Luisi; from Panama, Clara Gonzoz; from Chile, Marta Vergara; and from the United States, Doris Stevens. This Pan-American network drove a transnational movement that advocated women's suffrage, equal pay for equal work, maternity rights, and broader self-determination. Their painstaking efforts led to the enshrinement of women's rights in the United Nations Charter and the development of a framework for international human rights. But their work also revealed deep divides, with Latin American activists overcoming U.S. presumptions to feminist superiority. As Marino shows, these early fractures continue to influence divisions among today's activists along class, racial, and national lines.
Marino's multinational and multilingual research yields a new narrative for the creation of global feminism. The leading women introduced here were forerunners in understanding the power relations at the heart of international affairs. Their drive to enshrine fundamental rights for women, children, and all people of the world stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when global thinking meets local action.


As traditional museum dynamics have shifted from primarily visual engagement with artifacts to a multisensory experience, the interaction between the viewer and the object has changed. On the part of museums, the goal has been to move away from previous conceptions of the institution as an elite environment where touching was forbidden and people spoke in whispers to an inclusive place of exploration and discovery. This has opened up possibilities for more active engagement with the objects, which has encouraged the visitor to become a participant, rather than a spectator. Artists have become increasingly interested in the changing practices of the museum. By incorporating in their work the traditional methods used by museums for archiving, display, and storage, artists such as Hamilton's Between Taxonomy and Communion (1990) and Toren's Safety Regulation Painting No. 10 (1999), use creative means to comment on the changing approach of the museum to the visitor's experience, providing a fresh take on the institution and the role of the visitor. The research presented in this essay examines how, historically, artists have commented on and critiqued the practices of museums in their work, particularly with found object installations such as Dion's Cabinet of Curiosities for the Wexner Center for the Arts (1997) and Fontcuberta/ Forminguera's collaboration in Fauna. (1987/90) The subject of my research is intimately linked with my own creative work, which uses humor and social commentary as a bridge to connect with a diverse body of viewers. The purpose of the work is to explore how fabricated artifacts along with an invented narrative, when displayed using the techniques employed by museums, might be accepted as authentic due solely to their manner of presentation, which confers legitimacy on the artifacts regardless of whether the work is displayed in a public place such as a museum or library or in a private setting such as clubs or parlors. The research presented in my thesis as well as incorporated in my body of work underscores the need for awareness of the role played by the museum: even when the changes to the visitor's experience are positive, the decisions made by the museum still influence the viewer's assessment of the cultural and historical value of the artifacts on display.


1. Changes in plasma renin activity, plasma noradrenaline and adrenaline, and blood pressure were evaluated after mild haemorrhage (6 ml/kg) and subsequent intravenous captopril in conscious, restrained rabbits. Two protocols were followed. In the first, control animals (n = 8) were compared with rabbits receiving indomethacin ( n = 8) in their drinking water for 5 days and intravenously during the haemorrhage and captopril study. In the second protocol, animals receiving propranolol in the drinking water and intravenously ( n = 7) were compared with a group ( n = 7) receiving propranolol plus indomethacin.

2. Urinary prostaglandin E excretion was decreased significantly with the oral administration of indomethacin in both protocols. Plasma renin activity levels were not significantly different at baseline, but the animals receiving indomethacin had significantly ( P < 005) lower values after haemorrhage in both studies. The large increases in plasma renin activity after captopril were not influenced by indomethacin in either study.

3. The blood pressure response to captopril was significantly blunted in the indomethacin group in the first experiment.

4. Plasma noradrenaline and adrenaline levels were not affected by indomethacin treatment in either protocol.

5. It is concluded that the plasma renin activity response to haemorrhage in conscious rabbits is mediated in part by a cyclo-oxygenase-dependent component separable from the β-adrenoceptor. The renin response to converting enzyme inhibition is not influenced by cyclo-oxygenase inhibition. A component of the blood pressure response to captopril may involve a cyclo-oxygenase product.


This harmonized, gridded global data set of soil parameter estimates includes files listing: (1) soil parameter estimates for the component soil units of each terrestrial grid cell, in un-binned format, and (2) soil parameter estimates aggregated or binned into a number of predefined classes. The spatial data, with a resolution of ½ by ½ degree, was derived from the ISRIC-WISE soil database. The land surface between longitudes -180o W and +180o E and latitudes +90o N and -90o S has been characterized using 45948 unique map units; each of these can comprise from one to ten soil units, characterized according to the original legend of the 1:5 million scale Soil Map of the World (FAO-Unesco 1974). Soil parameter estimates for each of these units were derived from analyses of some 9600 profiles held in a working copy of WISE (ver. 2.0). Twenty-two soil variables, identified as being useful for agro-ecological zoning, land evaluation, crop growth simulation, modelling of soil gaseous emissions and analyses of global environmental change, were considered. Parameter estimates for the topsoil (0-30 cm) and the subsoil (30-100 cm) are presented for the following variables: content of organic carbon, total nitrogen, the C/N ratio, pH(H2O), CECsoil, CECclay, base saturation, total exchangeable bases, aluminum saturation, exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), electrical conductivity of saturated paste (ECe), calcium carbonate content, gypsum content, content of sand, silt and clay, content of fragments > 2 mm, bulk density, total porosity. For soil drainage class, effective soil depth, and available water capacity (-10 to -1500 kPa), however, parameter estimates are presented on a profile basis. The parameter estimates - median values - presented here should be seen as best estimates; possible types and sources of uncertainty are discussed in the report. The data are considered appropriate for exploratory studies at global scale (< 1:5 000 000).


Abstract Zeolitic tuffs from the Xerovouni location of the Avdella area (Evros Prefecture, Greece) contain on average 54 wt.% HEU-type zeolite, 6 wt.% smectite, 4 wt.% mica (64 wt.% microporous minerals), 8 wt.% alkali feldspar, 9 wt.% plagioclase, 11 wt.% cristobalite and 8 wt.% quartz (36 wt.% non-microporous minerals). The chemical formula of the HEU-type zeolite is Ca2.4K0.6Na0.4Mg0.3Al6.7Si29.3O72·17H2O and the tuffs contain on average 72.3 wt.% SiO2, 11.9 wt.% Al2O3, 1.2 wt.% Fe2O3, 1.0 wt.% MgO, 2.8 wt.% CaO, 1.3 wt.% Na2O and 1.9 wt.% K2O. The zeolitic tuffs show an average ammonium exchange capacity of 144 meq/100 g. HEU-type zeolite accounts for the most of the ammonium exchange capacity, while smectite and mica contribute to a relatively small extent. The ammonium exchange capacity of the Xerovouni zeolitic tuffs showed positive correlations with (a) the HEU-type zeolite content, (b) the total microporous minerals content, (c) the loss on ignition content and (d) the CaO content. Such materials could be used in a large variety of agricultural, aquacultural, industrial and environmental applications.


Smokeless tobacco products such as moist oral snuff are being promoted by the tobacco industry with a half billion dollars per year in advertising. It is likely that the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use will continue to increase in the U.S. Smokeless tobacco products are widely used in other parts of the world and are considered by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as causes of cancer of the oral cavity, esophagus and pancreas in humans. However, no previous study has reported the presence of a strong oral cavity carcinogen in these products. N'-Nitrosonornicotine (NNN) occurs in significant amounts in smokeless tobacco products, generally being found at levels of 1 - 10 μg/g tobacco. Since NNN has a chiral center, it exists as (S)- and (R)- enantiomers. (S)-NNN is the major enantiomer in smokeless tobacco products. While racemic NNN (a 50:50 mixture of (S)- and (R)-NNN) has been previously shown to cause esophageal tumors in rats, the carcinogenicity of the individual enantiomers has not been reported. Based on our published metabolism and DNA binding studies of (S)-NNN, we hypothesized that it might be a more powerful carcinogen than (R)-NNN and, furthermore, that it might cause oral cancer. Groups of 24 male F-344 rats were treated with either (S)-NNN (15 ppm), (R)-NNN (15 ppm), or racemic NNN (30 ppm) in the drinking water for 15-20 months. Necropsy of 20 rats treated with (S)-NNN demonstrated a 100% incidence of oral cavity tumors. More than 60 oral cavity tumors were observed, including benign and malignant tumors of the buccal mucosa, soft and hard palate, tongue, and pharynx. All rats also had esophageal tumors. (R)-NNN was significantly less carcinogenic than (S)-NNN. Racemic NNN also induced a high incidence of oral cavity and esophageal tumors. The results of this study demonstrate for the first time the presence of a strong oral cavity carcinogen in smokeless tobacco. (S)-NNN is a prime target for elimination from these products as a positive step toward cancer prevention. Citation Format: Stephen S. Hecht, Sandra James-Yi, Gerard O'Sullivan, Irina Stepanov, Mingyao Wang, Fekadu Kassie, Steven Carmella, Pramod Upadhyaya, Silvia Balbo. Induction of oral cavity cancer in rats by (S)-N'-nitrosonornicotine, a constituent of smokeless tobacco. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2012 Oct 16-19; Anaheim, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Prev Res 2012;5(11 Suppl):Abstract nr CN06-01.


THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT unstructured play for preschool aged children is diminishing in Australia, however, the reasons for this decline have not been previously explored in depth. The current research examines the amount of time preschool children spend engaged in unstructured play and the predictors of unstructured play for these children. Data is drawn from the results of 564 Australian parent participants who completed an online survey, detailing the activities of their preschool aged children. Results found that children who participated in playgroup were more likely to participate in unstructured play, while children who participated in organised activities were less likely to participate in unstructured play. When the children in this study slept longer, read more and watched television less, they were more likely to participate in unstructured play, however, the number of hours spent watching television has no apparent effect on the number of hours a child engages in play. This research emphasises and reinforces the importance of balance in activities for optimal health and positive outcomes for Australian children.


We coupled a mass‐transfer formulation of evaporation to the density‐dependent variably saturated finite element model MARUN to predict the salinity under realistic conditions in a beach in the Gulf of Mexico. The results showed that evaporation almost doubled the pore water salt concentration in the intertidal zone in comparison to the case with no evaporation. The results also showed that for the relatively wet atmospheric conditions, the maximum evaporation did not occur from the supratidal zone, rather from the intertidal zone, and it was due to the difference in moisture between pore water and atmosphere. The highest salinity occurred during the spring tide period, and extended into the neap tide period. When the atmospheric condition was assumed to be constant and conducive to large evaporation (high temperature and low air humidity), the maximum salinity region shifted to the supratidal zone and persisted there due to low mixing. The maximum salinity value in the intertidal zone for this case was not larger than that of the variable atmospheric condition case. However, the maximum was more landward than the (more realistic) variable atmospheric condition case, which suggests that accurate characterization of pore water salinity in tidally influenced beaches requires accurate knowledge of atmospheric conditions in addition to beach and hydraulic properties. The constant atmospheric condition simulations suggest that antecedent extreme conditions greatly affect the salinity in the supratidal zone but they are dampened in the intertidal zone.


Salicylic acid-binding protein 2 (SABP2) is essential for the establishment of systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in tobacco; SABP2's methyl salicylate (MeSA) esterase activity is required in healthy systemic tissues of infected plants to release the active defense phytohormone SA from MeSA, which serves as a long-distance signal for SAR. In the current study, we characterize a new gene family from Arabidopsis thaliana encoding 18 potentially active alpha/beta fold hydrolases that share 32-57% identity with SABP2. Of 14 recombinant AtMES (MES for methyl esterase) proteins tested, five showed preference for MeSA as a substrate and displayed SA inhibition of MeSA esterase activity in vitro (AtMES1, -2, -4, -7, and -9). The two genes encoding MeSA esterases with the greatest activity, AtMES1 and -9, as well as AtMES7 were transcriptionally upregulated during infection of Arabidopsis with avirulent Pseudomonas syringae. In addition, conditional expression of AtMES1, -7, or -9 complemented SAR deficiency in SABP2-silenced tobacco, suggesting that these three members of the AtMES family are SABP2 functional homologs (orthologs). Underexpression by knockout mutation and/or RNAi-mediated silencing of multiple AtMES genes, including AtMES1, -2, -7, and -9, compromised SAR in Arabidopsis and correlated with enhanced accumulation of MeSA in the systemic tissue of SAR-induced plants. Together, the data show that several members of the AtMES gene family are functionally homologous to SABP2 and redundant for MeSA hydrolysis and probably SAR. These data suggest that MeSA is a conserved SAR signal in Arabidopsis and tobacco.


Purpose: Private R&D investment in the business sector is often subject to market failures, such as positive externalities, information asymmetries, uncertainty and risk, making it often less than socially desirable. This is the primary reason that governments promote private R&D investment. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of public R&D policy on business R&D expenditures. Design/methodology/approach: Applying panel data regression analysis on a sample of 3,113 company-year observations, covering Slovenian companies for the period 2012-2016. Findings: The empirical results show that public support for R&D investment plays an important role in firms' R&D expenditures. As to R&D subsidies, the empirical results reveal they are generally ineffective since they displace firms' R&D expenditures. Yet they do become effective when used in combination with R&D tax incentives and received by companies that are growing. On the contrary, the empirical results also show that R&D tax incentives are always effective when companies have a sufficient tax base. Practical Implications: The overall findings suggest that R&D tax incentives are more effective than R&D subsidies in Slovenia. However, R&D subsidies are still attractive especially for smaller companies without a sufficient tax base. It is hence important to consider both public policy instruments as two parallel ways of supporting firms' R&D expenditures. Originality/value: Utilising a comprehensive dataset covering Slovenian companies made by merging multiple data sources, namely R&D survey, tax, balance-sheet and income-statement data, representing the main originality and value of the paper.


This essay is an exploration of the ramifications for the Middle East of the profound transformations in global politics implied in the end of the Cold War and the birth of a new, American-dominated world order. In doing so, Anderson takes up an issue posed since the birth of many of today's Middle Eastern states after World War I: the influence of great-power politics in the Middle East and within the individual states of the region which, added to local traditions, result in an explosive mix. She concludes with the prospects for Middle East democracy in the new world order.


Most scientists agree that birds are living dinosaurs, survivors of the mass extinction that did in all other dinos at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago. But birds are also the result of a remarkable series of evolutionary events that transformed dinosaurs from mighty masters of the land into light and feathery lords of the skies. At a meeting of vertebrate paleontologists last month, researchers pondered fresh clues about the origins of flight from studies of feathered dinosaurs and baby birds.


A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned by literary critics. Now, in West of Everything, Tompkins shows how popular novels and films of the American west have shaped the emotional lives of people in our time. Into this world full of violence and manly courage, the world of John Wayne and Louis L'Amour, Tompkins takes her readers, letting them feel what the hero feels, endure what he endures. Writing with sympathy, insight, and respect, she probes the main elements of the Western--its preoccupation with death, its barren landscapes, galloping horses, hard-bitten men and marginalized women--revealing the view of reality and code of behavior these features contain. She considers the Western hero's attraction to pain, his fear of women and language, his desire to dominate the environment--and to merge with it. In fact, Tompkins argues, for better or worse Westerns have taught us all--men especially--how to behave. It was as a reaction against popular women's novels and women's invasion of the public sphere that Westerns originated, Tompkins maintains. With Westerns, men were reclaiming cultural territory, countering the inwardness, spirituality, and domesticity of the sentimental writers, with a rough and tumble, secular, man-centered world. Tompkins brings these insights to bear in considering film classics such as Red River and Lonely Are the Brave, and novels such as Louis L'Amour's Last of the Breed and Owen Wister's The Virginian. In one of the most moving chapters (chosen for Best American Essays of 1991), Ttompkins shows how the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, killer of Native Americans and charismatic star of the Wild West show, evokes the contradictory feelings which the Western typically elicits--horror and fascination with violence, but also love and respect for the romantic ideal of the cowboy. Whether interpreting a photograph of John Wayne of meditating on the slaughter of cattle, Jane Tompkins writes with humor, compassion, and a provocative intellect. Her book will appeak to many Americans who read or watch Westerns, and to all those interested in a serious approach to popular culture.


The development of the institutional capacity to create and evaluate economic policies remains a critical need-and constraint-in most transition economies if they are to complete the successful passage to fully functioning market economies. To take an active role in the transition process, economic policymakers, business leaders, government officials, and others need a thorough grounding in market-based economics. This requires strengthening economics education and providing support for qualified economists to teach economics at all levels and to carry out high-quality research and policy analysis. Although the education systems in a handful of countries have already risen to the challenge, in many other transition countries, the structure of educational and research institutes remains grounded in the Communist model. This paper presents findings from a comprehensive study assessing the state of economics education and research in 24 countries in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. While 20 countries were initially included because preliminary assessments showed that they lacked the capability to offer high-quality economics education, four additional countries-the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine-were included to highlight five centers of excellence that they already host. Based on the experience of these successful centers, the study's findings, and information gathered from a series of donor meetings in Berlin, New York, and Washington, D.C., this paper presents an approach to building new indigenous capacity for teaching and research on market-based economics in regions where the need is particularly critical-the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Southeast Europe.


In this paper, we focus on online representation learning in non-stationary environments which may require continuous adaptation of model architecture. We propose a novel online dictionary-learning (sparse-coding) framework which incorporates the addition and deletion of hidden units (dictionary elements), and is inspired by the adult neurogenesis phenomenon in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, known to be associated with improved cognitive function and adaptation to new environments. In the online learning setting, where new input instances arrive sequentially in batches, the neuronal-birth is implemented by adding new units with random initial weights (random dictionary elements); the number of new units is determined by the current performance (representation error) of the dictionary, higher error causing an increase in the birth rate. Neuronal-death is implemented by imposing l1/l2-regularization (group sparsity) on the dictionary within the block-coordinate descent optimization at each iteration of our online alternating minimization scheme, which iterates between the code and dictionary updates. Finally, hidden unit connectivity adaptation is facilitated by introducing sparsity in dictionary elements. Our empirical evaluation on several real-life datasets (images and language) as well as on synthetic data demonstrates that the proposed approach can considerably outperform the state-of-art fixed-size (nonadaptive) online sparse coding of Mairal et al. (2009) in the presence of nonstationary data. Moreover, we identify certain properties of the data (e.g., sparse inputs with nearly non-overlapping supports) and of the model (e.g., dictionary sparsity) associated with such improvements.


Bangoy et al. [1992] presented a new method aiming at the characterization of a fractured media by pumping tests using at least two observation wells. This method, based on the late-time asymptotic form of the general radial flow model (GRF) given by Barker [1988] allows the determination of the hydraulic diffusivity and the average transmissivity of fractured media. It also allows to outline the fractal groundwater flow in a fractured media and, second, delimits areas of higher hydraulic conductivities. This paper introduces an improved approach which is adapted to pumping tests with only one observation well, i.e. the pumping well. Moreover, this improved approach provides more accurate determination of the fractured transmissivity around the tested well and allows its mapping as a function of the distance (r) from the tested well. The spatial distribution of the fractured transmissivity is then related to either the hydraulic conductivity variation or to the structural features (b) of fractures or structural network. From a standard pumping test, applying this improved approach gives, of course, the aquifer parametres, as well as the delimitation of the areas of higher hydraulic conductivity related to the geometrical features of the fractured network, that can allow to delimit the zone influenced by the fractured well pumping tests, namely the capture zone. This new approach is applied in a case study in fractured network imbedded in a granitic intrusion within the French Pyrenees (Granites of Millas). The fractured transmissivities obtained here increase with the distance from the pumping well.


Femtosecond Laser Micromachining-Roberto Osellame 2012-03-05 Femtosecond laser micromachining of transparent material is a powerful and versatile technology. In fact, it can be applied to several materials. It is a maskless technology that allows rapid device prototyping, has intrinsic three-dimensional capabilities and can produce both photonic and microfluidic devices. For these reasons it is ideally suited for the fabrication of complex microsystems with unprecedented functionalities. The book is mainly focused on micromachining of transparent materials which, due to the nonlinear absorption mechanism of ultrashort pulses, allows unique three-dimensional capabilities and can be exploited for the fabrication of complex microsystems with unprecedented functionalities.This book presents an overview of the state of the art of this rapidly emerging topic with contributions from leading experts in the field, ranging from principles of nonlinear material modification to fabrication techniques and applications to photonics and optofluidics.


Numerical abstract domains are an important ingredient of modern static analyzers used for verifying critical program properties (e.g., absence of buffer overflow or memory safety). Among the many numerical domains introduced over the years, Polyhedra is the most expressive one, but also the most expensive: it has worst-case exponential space and time complexity. As a consequence, static analysis with the Polyhedra domain is thought to be impractical when applied to large scale, real world programs. In this paper, we present a new approach and a complete implementation for speeding up Polyhedra domain analysis. Our approach does not lose precision, and for many practical cases, is orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art solutions. The key insight underlying our work is that polyhedra arising during analysis can usually be kept decomposed, thus considerably reducing the overall complexity. We first present the theory underlying our approach, which identifies the interaction between partitions of variables and domain operators. Based on the theory we develop new algorithms for these operators that work with decomposed polyhedra. We implemented these algorithms using the same interface as existing libraries, thus enabling static analyzers to use our implementation with little effort. In our evaluation, we analyze large benchmarks from the popular software verification competition, including Linux device drivers with over 50K lines of code. Our experimental results demonstrate massive gains in both space and time: we show end-to-end speedups of two to five orders of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art Polyhedra implementations as well as significant memory gains, on all larger benchmarks. In fact, in many cases our analysis terminates in seconds where prior code runs out of memory or times out after 4 hours. We believe this work is an important step in making the Polyhedra abstract domain both feasible and practically usable for handling large, real-world programs.