Jacques Derrida's (2009 [1978]:301-315) metaphor of "pointure" forms a leitmotif in the final narrative series of the Dis-Location/Re-Location exhibition (2007-2008), titled A Room of Her Own (2006-2007). The metaphor of "pointure" itself is doubly-bound: although pointure-practices may be aligned with actions that connote mastery such as "penetrating", "piercing", "pricking", "puncturing" or "rupturing" a surface, their consequences also "point to" restitution: a conjoining of otherwise discreet elements through stitching, lace-making, binding, braiding and weaving type practices historically associated with femininity and domesticity.
In A Room of Her Own, conceptions of what I propose to be three pointure-type practices - the Victorian construct of needlework, the historically gendered nineteenth-century psychosomatic disorder of hysteria and the contemporary practice of self-mutilation through cutting - as signifiers of passive, self-negating "femininity" are subverted through redefinition as forms of agency. With reference to the ways in which these pointure-practices are played out in A Room of Her Own, and by aligning these practices with Julia Kristeva's (1995) concept of 'transgressive writing', I suggest that they can be read as empowering forms of preverbal, bodily-driven self-expression; a means of "giving voice" to unspoken traumas and speaking in the face of being silenced by nineteenth-century gendered discourses.


Modernisation and easy connectivity across spatial boundaries are providing greater opportunities for retirees to migrate abroad. In Malaysia, the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program has been gaining popularity over the last 14 years. It is a government initiative designed to promote the country as a retirement haven for affluent foreigners. By studying the Japanese retirement community in Penang, this paper examines the role and significance of the program in supporting retirement migration. It further identifies the concerns and contributions of the Japanese retirees as they build their "second lives" in Penang. While the MM2H program has undergone several enhancements, discussions on the experiences of the Japanese participants and research observations have highlighted several concerns that require further improvements. The lack of policy coordination between the various sectors catering to the expanding needs of foreign retirees, for example, reduces the chances of maximising participants' contribution to the local economy. The ability to track and monitor the movement of participants is equally, if not more, important as promoting and enticing new ones.


Sibayak geothermal field is located about 65 km to the southwest of Medan in the North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. Starting from 1998, a small-scale geothermal power plant (2 MWe) has been installed in this area. Since electricity demand increases in the North Sumatra Province, Pertamina Geothermal Energy plans to increase the capacity to 20 MWe. Accordingly, detailed knowledge of the reservoir structure and its extension must be determined for a new production target. The mise-a-la-masse (MAM) surveys were carried out in this field using the exploration well SBY-1 and the production well SBY-4 to delineate a new production target for further field development. A conventional one-dimensional MAM data processing has been done to obtain lateral variation of subsurface resistivity. However, the result is not satisfied to image real condition of the geology on the subsurface. Therefore, we carried out an advanced 3-D MAM inversion based on the smoothness-constrained least-squares method using a homogeneous earth as the simplest assumption of the starting model. Interpretation of the 3-D MAM model was done by combining the results with previous geo-electrical data and borehole information to image a promising reservoir zone. The resistivity model obtained from this study is characterized by a very low resistivity cap rock beneath a resistive layer and rather high resistivity layer of the reservoir. The very low resistivity layer is due to clay minerals such as montmorillonite. This interpretation result of the 3-D MAM model indicates that reservoir zones trend to the north-northeast direction of the study area, between Mt. Sibayak and Mt. Pratektekan, and shows a good correlation with the formation temperature and the lost circulation zone. This geophysical information is useful for the task of selecting sites for the promising zone in the Sibayak geothermal field.


It's natural and convenient that the face is used as a feature in the city safety monitoring. Components and feature extraction are two key problems in face detection. To address the local occlusion and pose variation in face detection, face can be looked on as a whole composed of several parts from up to down. First, the face is divided into a number of local regions from which various features are extracted. Each region is identified by a local classifier and is assigned a preliminary part label. A random field is established based on these labels and multiple dependencies between different parts are modeled in a CRF framework. The probability that the test image may be a face is calculated by a trained CRF model. The probability is used as a measure to test the existence of a face. The experiments were carried out on the CMU/MIT dataset. As indicated by the experiment results, the following methods can improve the detection rate and enhance the robustness of face detection in case of occlusion: 1 integrating multiple features and multiple dependencies in CRF framework; 2 dividing the face optimally.


Menaquinone-7 (MK-7) is a type of vitamin K. MK-7 is produced via bacterial fermentation, and in order to reach the desired product purity, several downstream processing steps, including extraction, drying, ultrasonication, must be carried out. These processes, however, need to be carried out in such fashion to ensure the least amount of vitamin K lost and maximum recovery into the end-product. Therefore, in this study, drying, storage at 4 and −20 °C, and ultrasonication steps were evaluated under different conditions. Static liquid fermentations were conducted in McCartney bottles to explore the maximum MK-7 secretion potentials in different glycerol and glucose-based media compositions that were optimized in our previous studies. Maximum 32.5±0.4 mg l⁻¹ and 14.6±0.4 mg l⁻¹ concentrations were achieved in glycerol and glucose-based media, respectively. Concentrations of MK-7 produced under same fermentation conditions in 30 ml McCartney amber bottles with 3 ml of media in them and in 75 ml culture tubes with 20 ml media were compared. Also, ultrasonication, drying, and storage conditions were investigated to ensure the least amount of vitamin K is lost. Results showed that drying under forced air flow was the fastest, thus, demonstrated a better preservation of the vitamin, and should replace vacuum drying. Ultrasonication for 15 min seems to be safe and sufficient for phase transition for analysis. Also, storage at refrigerated temperatures seems to preserve MK-7 at least for one week. Furthermore, fermentations in McCartney bottles indicated how MK-7 concentrations are distributed in different zones of the static liquid broth. Culture tube results provided the conclusion as of how the metabolism of MK-7 changes in static fermentation when the scale-up process begins from McCartney bottle to culture tubes. Results in general showed a clearer road map to ensuring better quality and preservation of the valuable end-product, and illuminated more the path to further scaling up of the fermentation process for commercial production of MK-7.


In post-Franco Spain, a re-shaping of notions of the masculine has been under way for some time. The authors of "Live Flesh" demonstrate how contemporary Spanish films, during this modern period, have contributed to this process. They do so by visualizing the ways in which Spanish men have been abandoning old self images and adopting new ones, and they explain and explore the complexity and diversity of these fresh cinematic creations of masculine identities. The book's point of focus is Spanish films of the democratic period, both popular and auteur, made by directors of national and international prominence, such as Pedro Almodovar, Alejandro Amenabar, Bigas Luna or Julio Medem, as well as films featuring acclaimed actors who have contributed to the construction of contemporary ideas of the masculine in their country, including Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem. Using a fresh theoretical framework, embracing queer and feminist theory and concepts of nation, race and class, each chapter examines key films that represent the male body, highlighting notable elements - young, muscular, homosexual, (dis)abled, foreign and so on - and goes on to focus on recent case studies from the early 1990s to the present. An increasingly transnational Spanish cinema is a most promising field in which to explore questions of how male bodies are represented - and mediated - in film. "Live Flesh" more than fulfils this promise and goes further, to reveal how these representations have intervened in the Spanish cultural imagination.


Functionalizing atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips by picking up single inert probe particles like CO or Xe from the surface drastically increase the resolution. In particular, this approach allows imaging organic molecules with submolecular resolution revealing their internal bonding structure. However, due to the weak coupling of these probe particles to both, the surface they are picked up from and the tip apex, these experiments require liquid helium temperatures (i.e. ≈5 K). In the present study we demonstrate that functionalizing an AFM tip with an atomically defined O-terminated copper tip (CuOx tip) allows performing such experiments at liquid nitrogen temperatures (i.e. ≈78 K) with outstanding quality. We show that it is possible to utilize CuOx tips for chemically selective imaging of a copper oxide nanodomain on a partially oxidized Cu(110) surface in the repulsive force regime at elevated temperatures. Moreover, the high structural and chemical stability of CuOx tips allow even ex situ investigations where these tips are used to perform experiments on other, non-Cu, non-oxidized, substrates. In particular, we present results obtained from a dicoronylene (DCLN) molecule with submolecular resolution. An analysis of inner and peripheral bond lengths of the DCLN molecule shows excellent agreement with theoretical gas phase simulations emphasizing the exceptional imaging properties of CuOx tips also at elevated temperatures.


Dear Sir

I have read with interest your excellent Journal devoted to blind children and their care and rehabilitation (J Comm Eye Health 1998; 11: 33–48). May I make some comments to emphasise some of the points in the article by Dr P Vijayalakshmi about the possibility of treatment for some of these blind children. It is interesting to note that there were significant numbers of children in blind schools in south India for whom some treatment was possible. Sadly, this is even more true in Africa where quite frequently children with treatable conditions are placed in blind schools. The possible treatment is nearly always surgical treatment, either for congenital or early onset cataracts or surgical treatment for corneal scarring and its complications.

I would like to make the following points:

The treatment for congenital cataract is evolving quite rapidly at present and there is considerable uncertainty as to which is the preferred method of treatment and at what age intraocular lenses should be recommended. However, all these children have many years of potential vision ahead of them. It is well worth taking the time, trouble and expense of referring such children to a unit with good microsurgical facilities and someone experienced in treating congenital cataracts, because the results of such treatment are often significantly better in specialised units.

Nystagmus is a very useful clinical sign. Severe nystagmus points to true congenital cataract and a prognosis for vision which cannot be very good. The absence of nystagmus and good fixation, however, would indicate a post-natal cata-ract and potentially good vision.

Children who have been blind for many years, but did have vision in early life, often take a long time to 'learn to see' again. This is sometimes a psychologically stressful and difficult time for them to re-adapt to the new sensory input they are receiving. They often need a great deal of sympathy and encouragement to 'learn to see' and during this period they may be confused or even depressed.

Corneal staphyloma affecting one eye in a child in Bangladesh

Photo: Murray McGavin

Children with corneal scars may receive real benefit from an optical iridectomy. In very severe cases of corneal scarring the iris may be bound down to the lens. There may also be secondary lens opacification, or degenerate or calcific remains of lens matter, which may complicate surgery. Although corneal grafting is very obviously indicated for children with corneal scars, those eyes where scarring is most dense have a high risk of graft rejection. Often an iridectomy operation, which is simpler to perform and requires much less follow up, is more appropriate.

Any patient with a corneal scar or who has had an optical iridectomy will be looking eccentrically through the cornea. These children may have very severe degrees of astigmatism. A very careful refraction may produce a dramatic improvement in their visual acuity.

An optical iridectomy (pictured on left) may considerably improve vision. The cornea, pictured right, is totally scarred

Photos: Clare Gilbert (Left)

David Yorston (Right)

Finally, there are some children who have blind eyes with staphylomas or buphthalmos where the eye is both painful and unsightly. These children may receive some symptomatic benefit from an evisceration or an enucleation.

I hope all these remarks are helpful. Children in blind schools, particularly in developing countries, present a very special challenge to the ophthalmologist, as well as to other carers who are involved in rehabilitation and support.


Abstract. An integral part of air quality management is knowledge of the impact of pollutant sources on ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM). There is also a growing desire to directly use source impact estimates in health studies; however, source impacts cannot be directly measured. Several limitations are inherent in most source apportionment methods motivating the development of a novel hybrid approach that is used to estimate source impacts by combining the capabilities of receptor models (RMs) and chemical transport models (CTMs). The hybrid CTM–RM method calculates adjustment factors to refine the CTM-estimated impact of sources at monitoring sites using pollutant species observations and the results of CTM sensitivity analyses, though it does not directly generate spatial source impact fields. The CTM used here is the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, and the RM approach is based on the chemical mass balance (CMB) model. This work presents a method that utilizes kriging to spatially interpolate source-specific impact adjustment factors to generate revised CTM source impact fields from the CTM–RM method results, and is applied for January 2004 over the continental United States. The kriging step is evaluated using data withholding and by comparing results to data from alternative networks. Data withholding also provides an estimate of method uncertainty. Directly applied (hybrid, HYB) and spatially interpolated (spatial hybrid, SH) hybrid adjustment factors at withheld observation sites had a correlation coefficient of 0.89, a linear regression slope of 0.83 ± 0.02, and an intercept of 0.14 ± 0.02. Refined source contributions reflect current knowledge of PM emissions (e.g., significant differences in biomass burning impact fields). Concentrations of 19 species and total PM2.5 mass were reconstructed for withheld observation sites using HYB and SH adjustment factors. The mean concentrations of total PM2.5 at withheld observation sites were 11.7 (± 8.3), 16.3 (± 11), 8.59 (± 4.7), and 9.2 (± 5.7) μg m−3 for the observations, CTM, HYB, and SH predictions, respectively. Correlations improved for concentrations of major ions, including nitrate (CMAQ–DDM (decoupled direct method): 0.404, SH: 0.449), ammonium (CMAQ–DDM: 0.454, SH: 0.492), and sulfate (CMAQ–DDM: 0.706, SH: 0.730). Errors in simulated concentrations of metals were reduced considerably: 295 % (CMAQ–DDM) to 139 % (SH) for vanadium; and 1340 % (CMAQ–DDM) to 326 % (SH) for manganese. Errors in simulated concentrations of some metals are expected to remain given the uncertainties in source profiles. Species concentrations were reconstructed using SH results, and the error relative to observed concentrations was greatly reduced as compared to CTM-simulated concentrations. Results demonstrate that the hybrid method along with a spatial extension can be used for large-scale, spatially resolved source apportionment studies where observational data are spatially and temporally limited.


Along the 500 km of the Catalan coast (NE Spain), from the littoral fringe to the continental slope, there is a considerable heterogeneity of substrat and benthic communities. Cnidarians have been collected from all these communities in surveys that followed the three axes of maximum variance in the zone: bathymetric, seasonal, and geographic. The sampling surveys were of three kinds: a) Coastal sub-littoral surveys, at six stations along the Catalan coast; b) Coastal sub-littoral surveys centered on a specific locality; c) Shelf surveys, along the continental shelf. The results obtained show that in the shallower sub-littoral communities, in environmental conditions which are more dynamic and unstable, short-lived species (Hydrozoa) characterized by stolonial growth, small average biomass, and small polyp size predominate. On deep, hard bottoms, larger, massive of erect (mainly Anthozoa) species, with longevities of from one to a few years, and larger polyp size predominate. ON deep, soft bottoms on the continental shelf these massive encrusting and erect sessile species are replaced by mobile and large ones. These general trends are occasionally modified by species well adapted to specific conditions. Such is the case with certain species of Anthozoa, which can develop in fluctuating emvironments with strong hydrodynamism, and with some species of Hydrozoa which, by virtue of their opportunism, are able to seasonally colonise rocky bottoms or sandy depths. These exceptions to the general rule confirm the adaptive ability of the Cnidarians, which are good indicators both of biotic conditions and of different habitats in the marine environment.


Organic materials are used as soil amendments in productive agriculture to increase or replace soil organic matter and provide essential plant nutrients. Two field trials were undertaken in Tasmania (a temperate region located between latitudes 40° and 44° south and between longitudes 143° and 149° east) over two years to quantify changes to biological, chemical and physical properties of soil and to determine crop responses from applying locally available organic materials to a texture contrast soil. Lime amended biosolids (LAB) and anaerobically digested biosolids (ADB) were applied at both sites with application rates calculated from local EPA guidelines. Lime and fertiliser (L+F) was applied at both sites, with application rates based on nitrogen requirement of the crop. Poppy mulch (PM) and poppy seed waste (PSW) were applied at one site only, with application rates based on industry recommendations.

Results showed that the application of bio-resources can produce equivalent cereal crop yields to inorganic fertiliser, for two successive seasons following application. LAB applied at 1NLBAR (for cereals) and PM applied at 17.5 wet t/ha increased soil pH by 0.9 and 0.6 units respectively within 9 months of application. Without further application of P, a season of growing cereals did not reduce soil Colwell P from pre-trial levels for the LAB treatment. However, an increase in Colwell P after the second year is of major concern for potential leaching and surface run-off of mobile P. A partial nitrogen balance after the first year showed that actual mineralised N from LAB was > 30% higher than calculated mineral N from EPA guidelines, whilst mineralised N from ADB was 19% lower than calculated mineral N from EPA guidelines. Furthermore, contrary to previous research, an inverse relationship was found between increasing rates of LAB and mineralised N according to partial N balances after the first season.

A further field trial and an incubation experiment were conducted to study nitrogen mineralisation kinetics of the different bio- resources. Results confirmed that current EPA guideline assumptions for application of ADB and LAB do not adequately reflect actual release of mineral nitrogen from either product. They also showed that eight weeks after application, PAN as a percentage of total N applied in PSW was 6 times higher than PAN from ADB, even though the application rate for ADB was 6 times higher than PSW and total N of the initial products were 4.1% and 4.2% respectively. After 56 days incubation at 12.5° C (temperature of autumn/winter period when bioresources are applied to soil) and constant soil moisture, PAN from total N applied in ADB, PSW and LAB was 35%, 49% and 62% respectively. The PM treatment showed a drawdown of PAN over the same period, suggesting that applying this product requires additional nitrogen to satisfy plant demand.

A modelling component was included in the research program using APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) with data from the field trials to interpret and improve understanding of the results obtained. The model simulation of mineral nitrogen accumulation in the soil following application of LAB was in good agreement with the measured data. However, measured mineral nitrogen for ADB and the higher application rates of LAB were not in agreement with the simulated model. This result together with partial nitrogen balances performed as part of this research suggests that the nitrogen equations used in the model may require additional information such as a constant that allows for the (non) uniformity of the soil to product contact when incorporated. This constant may then be used in general application guideline calculations to better reflect nitrogen release from bio-resources after application to soil.


Perilla frutescens is commonly used as an n-3-fatty acid source for people living in Northern Thailand. However, cultivated areas are limited because it apparently requires specific growth conditions. Our results suggested that perilla seeds grown at higher altitude in Maehongson province contained more α-linoleic acid (ALA) contents than seeds collected from Chiang Rai and Nan provinces. Furthermore, mass spectrometry, proteomic and gene expression analysis revealed that the increase of KASII and FAD3 proteins was associated with mRNA expression and ALA production. Predictive bioinformatics analysis demonstrated two important transcription factor binding sites, AP2 and B3, are responsible for kasII and fad3 genes, respectively. The AP2 and B3 transcription factor families were known to be responsible for abiotic stress such as drought and temperature changes. From our observation, geographical factors could possibly influence the expression of genes related to fatty acid production. Furthermore, plant responses to abiotic stress environments contribute to the increase of kasII and fad3 genes and their protein expression. However, responsive transcription factors will be further studied as well as other geographical influences for a proof of concept and also to improve growing methods in order to increase perilla productivity.


Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has transformed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) into a chronic, relatively manageable illness for those who can access medical care. Despite increased life expectancy, however, HIV remains a serious illness, as problems associated with the virus and its treatments contribute to a reduced quality of life and a significant burden of disease. Patients face issues of aging and frailty, including an increased risk for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a range of metabolic, morphological and psychological problems. Physiotherapists and other health care providers have advocated for the use of exercise training interventions and increased physical activity participation in HIV infection to help manage many physical and psychological complications. However, the effects of long term physical activity in this context are largely unknown. This Thesis will aim to determine whether long term physical activity is associated with improved health outcomes for people living with HIV and will focus on clinical endpoints relevant to chronic, treated HIV infection. Increasing knowledge of patterns of physical activity behaviours in this patient group and understanding factors that may contribute to low levels of physical activity is also important. This knowledge may allow HIV health care providers to target physiotherapy referrals to those who are most likely to benefit from physical activity interventions. Specific strategies can be developed to target interventions and reduce inactivity (and the associated poorer health outcomes). The current research was undertaken in five main parts: 1. Measurement of the prevalence of physical activity in an ambulatory HIV-infected population. 2. Validation of a well recognised physical activity measurement tool for use in HIV-infected populations. 3. A systematic evaluation of existing evidence on the effects of exercise training on morphological and metabolic outcomes in HIV-infected populations. 4. Description of long term physical activity/cardiovascular fitness and an exploration of relationships between long term physical activity/cardiovascular fitness and body composition, body image and CVD risk, in HIV-infected individuals. 5. Evaluation of the relationship of body composition and joint health (knee structure) in HIV-infected individuals. The description and measurement of physical activity behaviours in populations with chronic, treated HIV infection has been the subject of few studies. The proportion of HIV-infected individuals who meet physical activity recommended guidelines is also unknown. Chapter 2 measured the physical activity prevalence of an ambulatory HIV- infected population and determined the proportion of individuals meeting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) physical activity guidelines. The majority of HIV-infected participants (73.8%) met recommended physical activity guidelines, however 1:4 participants engaged in suboptimal levels of physical activity. There is a current lack of practical and reliable physical activity measurement instruments that have been validated for clinical and research purposes in populations with HIV infection. Chapter 3 investigated the validity of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) long form, a well recognised physical activity measurement tool. The IPAQ long form is a simple, inexpensive, easily to administer questionnaire. It has been extensively used in healthy and disease specific populations, however its application in HIV-infected populations has not previously been evaluated. There was significant correlation between physical activity measured by the IPAQ and accelerometry, however problems of over-reporting and its poor ability to identify inactive individuals are of concern. To our knowledge, a systematic review on the effects of exercise training on metabolic and morphological complications has not previously been performed. Chapter 4 represents a systematic review of published randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on the topic and aims to elucidate the latest evidence for the role of exercise interventions in managing these important complications of HIV and its treatment. Few RCTs were found and their quality varied. Aerobic exercise decreased adiposity and improved certain lipid subsets while progressive resistive exercise increased body weight and peripheral limb girths. A combination of both types of training did not provide additional benefits. There is a relative lack of data regarding the optimal role of long term physical activity in managing HIV-infected patients in the era of HAART. Chapter 5 aimed to improve our understanding of the relationships between long term physical activity/cardiovascular fitness and important HIV clinical outcomes. Truly evidence-based health recommendations and interventions require knowledge of the effects of sustained, habitual physical activity, as well as an understanding of the determinants of and barriers to participation in physical activity in the relevant patient population. This data will facilitate optimal prescription of physical activity and assist in the future development of evidence-based physical activity guidelines for this group. An improved ability to target patients who could benefit most from physiotherapy intervention has also been achieved. Both physical activity and cardiovascular fitness did not change substantially over one year; however a suboptimal level of physical activity participation was identified. Cardiovascular fitness was associated with improved body composition, while improving physical activity levels were associated with improved perceived body image. Despite convincing evidence that physical activity and cardiovascular fitness are associated with reduced CVD risk in the general population, our findings were inconclusive. Finally, being in a permanent relationship was correlated with higher levels of physical activity. The problem of obesity is increasing in the HIV setting and it is a well recognized risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA) in the general population. It is plausible that the morphological complications discussed in Chapter 4, particularly recent problems of obesity, overweight and central fat accumulation observed in HIV- infected individuals may also result in an increased incidence of OA. A rising prevalence of bone health issues, including osteopenia and osteoporosis in the HIV-infected population has recently been observed. Chapter 6 explored a cross sectional sample of HIV-infected individuals and looked at the relationship between body composition and knee structure abnormalities. Total body and android fat mass were inversely related to average knee cartilage volume in ambulant, HAART-treated HIV-infected adults. This Chapter discusses these findings as novel implications for musculoskeletal health of chronic, treated HIV infection. This Thesis examined the relationships between long term physical activity/cardiovascular fitness and important HAART-related complications over a one year period. It defined the prevalence of long term physical activity in a local cohort of HIV-infected individuals and validated a well recognised physical activity measurement instrument. Existing RCTs on the effects of exercise training on metabolic and morphological complications were systematically reviewed and the risk of OA in this population is discussed after a novel finding. This Thesis contributed to an increased understanding of the plausible role of both physical activity and exercise training in the optimal management of chronic, treated HIV infection. It has also identified priority areas for future study in this area.


At 1299±17 Ma (Blaxland et al, 1978), the Gronnedal-Ika is the oldest of the Gardar centres, situated in the extreme north-west of the province. Hare-earth clement (REE) trends suggest that the nepheline-syenites which make up the bulk of the complex were derived from a parental magma formed by a few percent of partial melting of a garnet-lherzolite mantle source during an episode of rifting in the Early Gardar. In contrast to other undersaturated Gardar centres, the syenites of Gronnedal-l'ka show some striking raineralogical differences. The scarcity of amphibole and lack of olivine indicate a magma with a relatively high oxygen fugacity. Opaque oxide compositions and pyroxene trends provide further support for this idea. Additionally, the occurrence of zircon in all units of the complex is unusual, and is probably related to post-magmatic alteration processes. Fractionation of apatite and zircon appears to have been responsible for the observed variations in REE content, although later iteration and variations in the composition of the inter- cumulus liquid have given rise to a considerable scatter in major and trace element abundances. Normative compositions show the evidence for the development of a 'sandwich' horizon in both the Lower and Upper Series. At a later stage, a plug of xenolithic syenite was intruded, which was followed by a the em placement of a body of xenolithic carbonatite, containing fragments of the earlier syenites. This unit is predominantly s0vitic, but with increasing fractionation, more iron-rich (ferrcarbonatite) compositions were developed. Compared to many carbonatites, the rock at Gronnedal is rather poor in 'exotic' minerals. Trace element abundances, however, show extreme enrichment in Sr, Th, REE's, and Y, and depletion in Zr, Ti, and K compared to the syenites. These variations are comparable to the observed concentrations in the Igaliko carbonatite dykes (Pearce, 1988). Hf, Ta, and REE distributions between the carbonatite and syenitic rocks suggest that the carbonatite was derived by liquid immiscibility from a Co(_2)-saturated phonolitic magma, with the conjugate silicate phase possibly intruded as the Xenolithic Porphyritc Syenite. Patchy metasomatic alteration has affected all units, and has given rise to the Coarse- Grained Brown Syenite, which occurs in both the Lower and Upper Series. More intense alteration has affected the syenites, giving carbonate-rich 'carbosyenites', and xenoliths of country rock within the syenites and carbonatite; the surrounding country-rock is not as severely affected as might have been expected. The presence of zircon, alkali mafics, sodalite veins, and recrystallisation of feldspar in the altered rocks is attributed to the effects of peradkaline. C1 and C0(_2)-rich late-stage fluids derived from both the syenites and carbonatite.


Social isolation has been linked with negative health effects in senior women. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of socially-isolated senior women. Local senior-serving organizations assisted with the recruitment of six sociallyisolated senior women to participate in individual qualitative interviews. Three service providers were also interviewed. Seniors' interviews were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis and service provider interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Three superordinate themes were derived from the senior interviews: social needs, self-perceptions of isolation and loneliness, and constraints to and facilitators of social engagement. Five superordinate themes were derived from the service provider interviews: definitions of social isolation, differences between social isolation and loneliness, gender differences in isolation and loneliness, identifying socially-isolated seniors, and essential components of initiatives aimed at reducing social isolation. The views of socially-isolated seniors are important to understand to develop programs and policies that promote healthy aging.


The installation and decommissioning of components in nuclear fusion reactors will require quick, and reliable, cutting and welding of hundreds of thick-walled steel cooling pipes. To this end, laser cutting and welding techniques have been investigated and prototype in-bore robotic tools have been developed to apply these laser process within a pipe. The prototype laser tools include a novel miniaturised laser head design to fit within the confines of the pipe and apply the laser processes with a short standoff distance. The novel laser heads and prototype tools were manufactured and used for a series of demonstration trials at a high power laser facility. Here, we will present the design of the laser optics heads and prototype tools, results of the high power laser trials, analysis of the demonstration cuts and welds produced, and laser process issues discovered during the trials.


This thesis is concerned with the design and implementation of algorithms in Computer Algebra - a discipline which pursues a symbolic approach to solving mathematical equations and problems in contrast to computing solutions numerically. More precisely, we study sys¬tems of pseudo-linear equations, which unify the classes of linear differential, difference and q-difference systems. Whilst the classical mathematical theory of asymptotic expansions and the notion of formal solutions of this type of solutions are well established for all these indi-vidual cases, no unifying theoretical framework for pseudo-linear systems was known prior to our work. From an algorithmic point of view, the computation of a complete fundamental system of formal solutions is implemented by the formal reduction process. The formal reduction of linear differential systems had been treated in the past, and linear difference systems were also investigated and partly solved. In the case of linear q-difference systems, the structure of the formal solution is much easier which results in an alleviated formal reduction. However, no satisfying algorithm had been published that would be suitable to compute the formal solutions. We place ourselves in the generic setting and show that various algorithms that are known to be building blocks for the formal reduction in the differential case can be extended to the general pseudo-linear setting. In particular, the family of Moser- and super-reduction algorithms as well as the Classical Splitting Lemma and the Generalised Splitting Lemma are amongst the fundamental ingredients that we consider and which are essential for an effective formal reduction procedure. Whereas some of these techniques had been considered and adapted for systems of difference or q-difference equations, our novel contribution is to show that they can be extended and formulated in such a way that they are valid generically. Based on these results, we then design our generic formal reduction method, again in-spired by the differential case. Apart from the resulting unified approach, this also yields a novel approach to the formal reduction of difference and q-difference systems. Together with a generalisation of an efficient algorithm for computing regular formal solutions that was devised for linear differential systems, we finally obtain a complete and generic algorithm for computing formal solutions of systems of pseudo-linear equations. We show that we are able to compute a complete basis of formal solutions of large classes of linear functional systems, using our formal reduction method. The algorithms presented in this thesis have been implemented in the Computer Algebra System Maple as part of the Open Source project ISOLDE.


Objective- To evaluate the clinical safety and superiority of monopolar and bipolar electrocauter in laparoscopic ovariohysterectomy in dogs. Design-Elective experimental study Animals- Twenty four mixed breed healthy adult female dogs. Procedures-The dogs divided into two equal groups. Laparoscopic ovariohysterectomy performed using either monopolar (n=12) or bipolar (n=12) electrocoagulation. Under general anesthesia, dorsal recumbency and reverse trendelenburg position a 10 mm portal for camera insertion at the umbilicus. Two other 5 mm portals were placed 5 cm cranial and caudal to umbilicus in both groups. Monopolar electrocauter were used for coagulation and cutting but bipolar electrocauter were used for coagulation only. Following identification of ovaries, suspensory ligament, ovarian vessels, broad ligament and uterine vessels and body were coagulated and cut. The pedicles were checked for any signs of hemorrhage. Ovaries, broad ligament and uterus were removed from the abdomen through umbilical portals. Results-There were no significant differences between surgical time and the amount of hemorrhage in both groups. Significant differences observed in degrees of the released smoke and tissue burning between groups. Conclusion- As a whole we concluded that the bipolar electrocauter was superior to monopolar electrocoagulator in laparoscopic ovariohysterectomy and has the advantages of decreasing released smoke and burnt tissue compare to that of monopolar electrocauter.


Rainwater has been widely use in developing countries including Thailand. In the study area, Ayutthaya, rainwater is not much in use due to the quality, abundance and low tariff of municipal water supply. However a survey of residents has shown that there is interest in using rainwater for drinking. The community purchases bottled water and treats water by boiling or by on-site purification devices. A high level of demand for rainwater use was found in this study and this is attributed to past practices and a local culture of using rainwater. It was found that more than 90% of respondents were interested in using rainwater if it was of good quality. Piped water tariffs are currently very low in the range of 4 to 5 THB per m 3 . Approximately 70% of households from a questionnaire survey were satisfied with the current tariff. However, it should be noted that the true cost of water should be 9-11 THB per m 3 . From the same survey, 63% of respondents who currently purchase bottled water are interested in using rainwater as drinking water subject to its acceptable quality. The estimation cost of pilot design is 50,000 to 80,000 THB or 1,200 to 2,500 US dollars.


A new method for continuous observation of aerosol–cloud interactions with ground-based remote sensing instruments is presented. The main goal of this method is to enable the monitoring of the change of the cloud droplet size due to the change in the aerosol concentration. We use high-resolution measurements from a lidar, a radar and a radiometer, which allow us to collect and compare data continuously. This method is based on a standardised data format from Cloudnet and can be implemented at any observatory where the Cloudnet data set is available. Two example case studies were chosen from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program deployment on Graciosa Island, Azores, Portugal, in 2009 to present the method. We use the cloud droplet effective radius (re) to represent cloud microphysical properties and an integrated value of the attenuated backscatter coefficient (ATB) below the cloud to represent the aerosol concentration. All data from each case study are divided into bins of the liquid water path (LWP), each 10 gm—2 wide. For every LWP bin we present the correlation coefficient between ln re and lnATB, as well as ACIr (defined as ACIr = dln re=dlnATB, change in cloud droplet effective radius with aerosol concentration). Obtained values of ACIr are in the range 0.01–0.1. We show that ground-based remote sensing instruments used in synergy can efficiently and continuously monitor aerosol–cloud interactions


The favoured option for disposal of low and intermediate level radioactive waste is
burial deep underground. In the safety assessment of deep disposal facilities a
possibility which has to be considered is the eventual penetration of the engineered and
natural barriers by ground water. Unfortunately humic and fulvic acids, present in most
natural waters, can combine with radionuclides to produce metal complexes which are
potentially more mobile in the environment than the original radionuclides from which
they are formed. Migration of such complexes via groundwater and/or subsequently
surface water routes could result in accelerated release of radionuclides to the biosphere.
Quantitative knowledge of the extent of possible metal humate and fulvate interactions
is therefore of considerable importance.
In this study the complexation of Ni, Eu and Ce by humic and fulvic acids present in
both ground and surface waters has been investigated. In most studies, to simplify the
chemistry involved, humics and fulvics are separated from the water in which they
occur before determination of their complexation properties. However, the severe
conditions employed in the extraction process could conceivably alter the very
properties to be measured. Accordingly the complexation properties of humics and
fulvics present in a surface water have been studied both before and after extraction.
The major part of this study was undertaken using a High Performance Size Exclusion
Chromatographic technique especially developed to facilitate determinations on nonextracted
materials. A fluorescence technique was also investigated as a more rapid
alternative but was found to be of limited applicability.
Complexation parameters were derived using a strong and weak site model.
The effects of side reactions, ionic strength, pH, ligand type and nature of the cation
were taken into account. With respect to measured stability constants, no major
differences between ground and surface waters or extracted and non extracted materials
were found. However, measured capacities of humics and fulvics for metals showed
some variation according to the nature of the material and the system.


Data deduplication systems discover and remove redundancies between data blocks. The search for redundant data blocks is often based on hashing the content of a block and comparing the resulting hash value with already stored entries inside an index. The limited random IO performance of hard disks limits the overall throughput of such systems, if the index does not fit into main memory. This paper presents the architecture of the dedupv1 dedupli-cation system that uses solid-state drives (SSDs) to improve its throughput compared to disk-based systems. dedupv1 is designed to use the sweet spots of SSD technology (random reads and sequential operations), while avoiding random writes inside the data path. This is achieved by using a hybrid deduplication design. It is an inline deduplication system as it performs chunking and fingerprinting online and only stores new data, but it is able to delay much of the processing as well as IO operations.


Zimbabwe's constitution has been amended fifteen times in the past nineteen years. Considering that the American constitution has only been amended 26 times in over 200 years, the Zimbabwean scenario is rather extra ordinary. It raises critical questions about constitutional development in Zimbabwe. For instance, what political factors have dictated changes to the constitution? What role does the constitution play in the consolidation of political power by the ruling elite? Did constitutional amendments lead to a more open and responsive democracy or were they primarily designed to entrench a dictatorship?
Answers to these and other pertinent questions can only be obtained after undertaking a brief journey through the various amendments. What may be said at the outset is that the overall goal of the constitution-amendment process in Zimbabwe appears to have been to create and entrench a dominant position for the nationalist elite who took power at independence. The creation of a more open and responsive democracy does not emerge from any of the key amendments made in the period under survey.


There are more than 20 million chemicals in the literature, with new materials being synthesized each week. Most of these molecules are stable, and the 3-dimensional arrangement of the atoms in the molecules, in the various solids may be determined by routine x-ray crystallography. When this is done, it is found that this vast range of molecules, with varying sizes and shapes can be accommodated by only a handful of solid structures. This limited number of architectures for the packing of molecules of all shapes and sizes, to maximize attractive intermolecular forces and minimizing repulsive intermolecular forces, allows us to develop simple models of what holds the molecules together in the solid. In this volume we look at the origin of the molecular architecture of crystals; a topic that is becoming increasingly important and is often termed, crystal engineering. Such studies are a means of predicting crystal structures, and of designing crystals with particular properties by manipulating the structure and interaction of large molecules. That is, creating new crystal architectures with desired physical characteristics in which the molecules pack together in particular architectures; a subject of particular interest to the pharmaceutical industry.


Despite the attractiveness and extraordinary progress of many nations and world commerce, since industrial revolutions in the 20 th century by fossil fuel, it's the major source of many social problems and concerns, as environmental hazards and sustainability issues. The following assessment is focused on analyzing the functions of floating, storage, offloading and production of offshore oil vessels. Information related to the technology, design, operation and project management of these vessels from a marine perspective has been presented likewise. Observing the rapid digitalization of the modern world, researchers have significantly deployed numerous strategies in order to integrate technology for provisioning better end services while constructing these vessels. However, the detailed information on oil and gas processing as well as the complex engineering assessments are nevertheless avoided in the following assessment.


Many combined sewer networks are currently constrained due to lack of capacity. Surface water entering the network may have an impact on the local environment by causing additional spills from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and flooding events. With the increasing number of developments taking place in Scotland, more and more demands are being placed upon the existing wastewater assets and infrastructure of the drainage utility, Scottish Water. The principal way of preventing these CSO spills/flooding event s is to reduce the number of surface water connections to the combined sewer network and promote more surface water discharges to nearby watercourses. The problem is being addressed by examining all development applications as they are considered by a drainage planning officer in the water authority. The research reported in this paper is investigating the conditions under which it is reasonable and practical for Scottish Water to accept surface water flows into its combined sewer network . This paper presents a summary of the initial findings of the research to date by examining a sample of the sites examined. The objective of the work is to develop a methodology to support a rigorous stance on the acceptance of surface water flows into the combined sewer n etwork. The results have not as yet been obtained.


In this paper we present a theorem that generalizes Sawyer's classic result about mixed weighted inequalities to the multilinear context. Let $\vec{w}=(w_1,...,w_m)$ and $\nu = w_1^\frac{1}{m}...w_m^\frac{1}{m}$, the main result of the paper sentences that under different conditions on the weights we can obtain $$\Bigg\| \frac{T(\vec f\,)(x)}{v}\Bigg\|_{L^{\frac{1}{m}, \infty}(\nu v^\frac{1}{m})} \leq C \ \prod_{i=1}^m{\|f_i\|_{L^1(w_i)}}, $$ where $T$ is a multilinear Calder\'on-Zygmund operator. To obtain this result we first prove it for the $m$-fold product of the Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator $M$, and also for $\mathcal{M}(\vec{f})(x)$: the multi(sub)linear maximal function introduced in \cite{LOPTT}.
As an application we also prove a vector-valued extension to the mixed weighted weak-type inequalities of multilinear Calder\'on-Zygmund operators.


Given two sets of points A and B (|A| = m, |B| = n), we seek to find a minimumweight many-to-many matching which seeks to match each point in A to at least one point in B and vice versa. Each matched pair (an edge) has a weight. The goal is to find the matching that minimizes the total weight. We study two kinds of problems depending on the edge weight used. The first edge weight is the Euclidean distance, d1. The second is edge weight is the square of the Euclidean distance, d2. There already exists an O(k log k) algorithm for d1, where k = m + n. We provide an O(mn) algorithm for the d2 problem. We also solve the problem of finding the minimum-weight matching when the sets A and B are allowed to be translated on the real line. We present an O(mnk log k) algorithm for the d1 problem and an O(3) algorithm for the d2. Furthermore, we also deal with the special case where A and B lie on a circle of a specific circumference. We present an O(k2 log k) algorithm and O(kmn) algorithm for solving the minimum-weight matching for the d1, and d2 weights respectively. Much like the problem on the real line, we extend this problem to allow the sets A and B to be rotated on the circle. We try to find the minimumweight many-to-many matching when rotations are allowed. For d1 we present an O(k2mn log k) algorithm and a O(3) algorithm for d2.


Every year, large numbers of children are killed or injured in road accidents when riding their bicycles. The present study aimed to assess whether cycle training schemes lead to improved, safer cycling skills and knowledge. A total of 1,974 children took part in the project. They completed a quiz containing questions about the Highway Code and their cycling skills were assessed when performing manoeuvres at a 'T' junction. It was found that children who had received formal cycle training tuition were more likely to be rated as 'safe' when performing cycling manoeuvres than the untrained children. The trained children also received significantly higher scores on the knowledge quiz. Differences were found between different types of cycle training courses. (A)


The article concentrates itself in the environmental conditions of the city of Santiago at that time as viewed by some national critics as well as by some foreign travellers. It covers different aspects such as housing problems, transportation, and health mainly, which are enhaced by the different writers at that time. The critics posed by the local writers to the living conditions show a deep and complex crisis in the country, its institutions and covering all the people, in a general overview. There seem to be a generalized view of an idyllic situation among the popular sectors of the city, view that is strongly demystified by the authors through the very critic statements gathered from different sources steming from period. These testimonies help us to appreciate in a more detatched manner the prevailing ideas about the environmental problems at that time.


Contemporary geoscientific shallow-subsurface assessment chiefly relies on outcrops, drilling, excavations, and sometimes geophysics. Often the information gathered is insufficient to accurately characterize the archaeological and/or geologic record and ongoing shallow-subsurface processes that affect a variety of economic and environmental aspects of our society. The extra effort of acquiring very dense ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey grids and three-dimensional (3D) data processing transforms uncorrelatable and uninterpretable GPR signals into clear images of complex shallow-subsurface anatomy with an unprecedented resolution. Here we present two examples of noninvasive 3D shallow-subsurface imaging. Example 1 images decimeter- to meter-scale sedimentary structures in a Pleistocene oolite shoal-barrier bar setting. Example 2 images the fracture network in a Triassic limestone quarry. Denser-than-quarter-wavelength grid acquisition in combination with 3D migration processing focuses scattered energy and removes out-of-plane reflections. In addition to conventional vertical cross sections, horizontal depth slices and data volume animations reveal previously unseen diagnostic patterns of past human activities, laterally changing depositional processes, and fracture networks including near-vertical joints with millimeter apertures.


Abstract This work examines the meaning of the Hindi particle '-hii' and sheds new light on the link between modality and words like 'only.' Our two new judgment studies reveal that '-hii' indicates exclusivity (like 'only,' and other similar lexical items) and also can associate with either the MIN or MAX of a scale of propositional alternatives. More specifically, the alternatives are ordered based on speaker conceptions of likelihood or of desirability, and which endpoint is felicitous with '-hii' depends on which scale is made salient by the discourse context. Since existing analyses of 'only' and 'even' are insufficient for capturing the presuppositions of '-hii' that are revealed by the experimental data, we draw on the recent theoretical literature on modality to map these ranking types of '-hii' to epistemic, bouletic, and teleological modality types that form its core scalar felicity condition. Besides helping to formalize the varied types of speaker expectations needed by '-hii', this move helps to explain some differences between the likelihood and desirability contexts' patterning of data in our experimental results.


Abstract Higher levels of LINE1 methylation in blood DNA have been associated with increased kidney cancer risk using post-diagnostically collected samples; however, this association has never been examined using pre-diagnostic samples. We examined the association between LINE1 %5mC and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) risk using pre-diagnostic blood DNA from the United States-based, Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) (215 cases/436 controls), and the Alpha-tocopherol, Beta-carotene Cancer Prevention Study (ATBC) of Finnish male smokers (191 cases/575 controls). Logistic regression adjusted for age at blood draw, study center, pack-years of smoking, body mass index, hypertension, dietary alcohol intake, family history of cancer, and sex was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using cohort and sex-specific methylation categories. In PLCO, higher, although non-significant, RCC risk was observed for participants at or above median methylation level (M2) compared to those below the median (M1) (OR: 1.37, 95% CI: 0.96–1.95). The association was stronger in males (M2 vs. M1, OR: 1.54, 95% CI: 1.00–2.39) and statistically significant among male smokers (M2 vs. M1, OR: 2.60, 95% CI: 1.46–4.63). A significant interaction for smoking was also detected (P-interaction: 0.01). No association was found among females or female smokers. Findings for male smokers were replicated in ATBC (M2 vs. M1, OR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.07–1.60). In a pooled analysis of PLCO and ATBC male smokers (281cases/755controls), the OR among subjects at or above median methylation level (M2) compared to those below the median (M1) was 1.89 (95% CI: 1.34–2.67, P-value: 3 x 10–4); a trend was also observed by methylation quartile (P-trend: 0.002). These findings suggest that higher LINE1 methylation levels measured prior to cancer diagnosis may be a biomarker of future RCC risk among male smokers.


Introduction: Grandmothers are an essential part of the extended family. In modern culture, grandparents frequently have a direct role in the care of grandchildren. Grandmothers have a powerful and prominent role within the family and usually when the mother is working the grandmothers takes charge of child-rearing.Aim: To assess the knowledge, stress and coping patterns of grandmothers involved in child-rearing practices of children of employed mothers in selected areas of Udupi district, Karnataka, India.Materials and Methods: The present descriptive study was conducted in Udupi taluk of Udupi district. Villages of Udupi taluk were selected randomly and the samples were selected by purposive sampling techniques. A total of 300 grandmothers involved in child-rearing practices of children of employed mothers were assessed with the help of a structured questionnaire.Results: The result showed that grandmothers had average knowledge, moderate stress and high coping in regard to child-rearing practices. A statistically significant association was found between knowledge score and selected variables such as educational status (χ2=13.768, p=0.022), family income (χ2=14.363, p=0.016) and previous work experience (χ2=15.77, p<0.001). A statistically significant association was also found between levels of stress score with family income (χ2=17.028, p=0.005) and between levels of coping score with demographic variables. There was a negative correlation between the stress and coping and there was a weak positive correlation between the knowledge and the coping patterns of grandmothers. Conclusion: Caring for a grandchild may be stressful for grandmothers. The study suggests that when the grandmothers take care of grandchildren their views should also be considered as it may reduce stress among them and helps to lead a positive life.


One hundred and twenty (120) groundwater samples were taken from forty (40) boreholes from Afigya Kwabre District of Ghana to study the Hydrochemical characteristics to know the current state of the groundwater quality, the natural processes and anthropogenic activities that affects the groundwater quality as well as the suitability of the groundwater for drinking, domestic and agricultural purposes. The objective was to contribute to and improve the understanding of the hydrochemistry of the groundwater in aquifers in the study area and also to understand the suitability of the groundwater for drinking, domestic and irrigation purposes. Although a lot of works on the groundwater hydrochemistry and quality assessment have been done in Ashanti region of Ghana very little detail work has been conducted with regard to the quality of the groundwater delivered by the aquifers within the Districts on smaller scale. Methods used in this work include groundwater sampling, laboratory analysis of samples, bi-plot techniques which were applied to the groundwater data. The study revealed that the groundwater types in the study area are Na-Cl, Mixed and Na-HCO3. The study also identified silicate weathering, carbonate weathering, mixing processes, ion exchange and anthropogenic activities such as improper waste disposal and application of agrochemicals to influence the groundwater quality in the study area. The groundwater is generally soft and calculation of water quality index for the groundwater showed that 87.5% are suitable for drinking purpose while 12.5% are unsuitable. Low pH, high Fe, F- and Pb are the quality concerns observed in the groundwater. For irrigation use, the groundwater is excellent except high sodium percent of over 60 % in some samples (52.5%).


Survival of the fetus and newborn is not possible without vital immune components. The immune repertoire includes a cadre of innate factors sheltered in the intrauterine domicile as well as maternally-sourced humoral elements. The latter, known as passive immunity, refer to maternal antibodies that mediate vigilant immune surveillance during gestation and for a few months after birth. While immunologically beneficial, their therapeutic luster is tarnished somewhat by a number of antibody-associated abnormalities that have been reported in offsprings. And though basic science tenets of the antibody transfer process are well accepted, the immuno-biochemical mechanisms related to the therapeutic and pathogenic effects remain incompletely understood. This opinion-based paper provides reasoned insight regarding the bi-functionality of immunoglobulins by focusing on maternal benefit, and potential in utero detriment, of a recombinant monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of one breast cancer subtype. If valid, this concept may be applicable to other engineered antibodies.


This book introduces the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant-in particular, the concepts of autonomy, dignity, and character-to economic theory, explaining the importance of integrating these two streams of intellectual thought. Mainstream economics is rooted in classical utilitarianism, recommending that decision makers choose the options that are expected to generate the largest net benefits. For individuals, the standard economic model fails to incorporate the role of principles in decision-making, and also denies the possibility of true choice, which can be independent of preferences and principles altogether. For policymakers, standard decision-making frameworks recommend tradeoffs that are beneficial in terms of material goods or wealth, but may be morally questionable from a more person-centered perspective. Integrating Kantian ethics affects economics in three important ways. This integration allows for a more complete understanding of human choice, incorporating not just preferences and constraints, but also principles and strength of will or character. It demonstrates the broader impact of welfare economics, which generates policies that affect not only persons' well-being, but also their dignity and autonomy. Finally, it reconciles the traditional, individualist stance in economic models of choice with the social responsibility emphasized by many systems of philosophical ethics and heterodox schools of economics.


To understand the long-term effects of payatak and conventional rice farming system on soil properties and soil quality, a soil survey was conducted in existing "payatak" and conventional rice fields in Catubig Valley, Northern Samar, Philippines. Chemical analyses revealed that soils under "payatak" are more acidic, with low EC, OM, and N content compared to those soils from conventional rice farms. However, available P and exchangeable K in "payatak" soils were higher than those in conventional. The available N varied significantly with time and sampling area and the mineral N levels fluctuated greatly within three weeks after land preparation. The BiologEcoPlateTM and subsequent correlation analysis have shown a partial characterization of microbial functional community attributed to several factors leading to differences in chemical properties of the two rice farming systems. These results imply that the levels of OM and the amount of exchangeable K could trigger a distinct microbial community functional structure. Variations in soil pH, EC, and the amounts of nutrients have also caused a shift of the microbial functional diversity as represented by correlations between Shannon–Weaver indices. Overall, the results would indicate that long term "payatak" and conventional rice farming system would result in different soil nutrient status and distinct microbial functional community which may affect the overall productivity and soil quality. Further analysis should be done to establish the relationship between soil microbial properties data onto long term productivity in paddy soils.


OBJECTIVE: to determine the frequency of antinucleosome (AN) antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and their association with disease activity. METHODS: cross-sectional study to evaluate patients with diagnosis of SLE based on the American College of Rheumatology criteria. SLEDAI score was used as a disease activity index. AN antibodies were tested by ELISA (INOVA Diagnostics Inc). Systemic sclerosis (SSc) and myositis patients were also studied to determine the diagnostic performance of the ELISA system. RESULTS: a total of 82 SLE patients, 81 female, mean age 35 ± 11.7 years were included in the study. AN antibodies were positive in 48 SLE samples (58.5%), three with myositis (21.4%) and two with SSc (14.2%), determining a sensitivity and specificity of AN antibodies for the diagnosis of SLE of 58.5% and 82.14%, respectively. Utilizing a cut off of 40 U, test was positive in 45 SLE samples (53.65%), two with myositis (13.33%) and one with SSc (6.66%), determining a sensitivity and specificity of AN antibodies for the diagnosis of SLE of 53.65% and 90%, respectively. There were no correlation between AN antibodies and SLEDAI scores. On the other hand, it was observed a positive correlation between anti-DNA antibodies and disease activity (r = 0.42; p < 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: in the present study it was demonstrated a high specificity and moderate sensitivity of AN antibodies for the diagnosis of SLE. However, the lack of association with disease activity suggests that it has limited value in rheumatologic practice.


The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of atrioventricular (AV) node reentry tachycardia in infants undergoing transesophageal electrophysiological study for paroxysmal tachycardia. The records of all 52 infants < 1‐year‐old with structurally normal hearts who underwent transesophageal study for paroxysmal tachycardia over a 3‐year period were reviewed. Those with a diagnosis of AV node reentry tachycardia underwent complete data review, and follow‐up of > 12 months was obtained. Six of 52 infants had a diagnosis of the common type of AV node reentry tachycardia. Tachycardia was diagnosed at a mean age of 2.1 months (range 1 day to 10 months), and 3 of 6 underwent transesophageal study within the first month. Although no patient had structural heart disease, three patients had significant noncardiac disease. Follow‐up of 15–38 months (mean 24 ± 7.8) revealed recurrences in 2 of 6 patients. The mean tachycardia cycle length was 240 ms (range 200–310 ms), and the transesophageal ventriculoatrial intervals ranged from < 30 to 55 ms. All patients had an inducible reentrant tachycardia with a ventriculoatrial interval that remained constant even when tachycardia cycle length increased following verapamil or adenosine administration, or decreased following isoproterenol infusion. Five of 6 had evidence for discontinuous AV node conduction curves. In our patients the substrate for AV node reentry tachycardia was present early in life, and AV node reentry tachycardia can be a clinical problem even in the newborn period.


Abstract The study of a new Serravallian (Middle Miocene) locality from the Southeastern Spain has yielded a shark assemblage characterized by microremains of at least seven taxa (Deania calcea, †Isistius triangulus, †Squaliolus cf. S. schaubi, †Paraetmopterus sp., Pristiophorus sp., Scyliorhinus sp. and a cf. Squaliformes indet) of three different orders (Squaliformes, Pristiophoriformes and Carcharhiniformes). In addition, associated macroremains have also been found, including teeth of †Cosmopolitodus hastalis, Isurus sp., Hemipristis serra, Odontaspis sp., Carcharhinus spp. and †Otodus (Megaselachus) megalodon. The assemblage contains taxa with disparate environmental preferences including not only neritic and epipelagic sharks but also an important number of meso and bathypelagic representatives. The migration of deep water taxa to shallower waters through submarine canyons/coastal upwelling is proposed as the most plausible cause for explaining the origin of such assemblage. Interestingly, the composition of the deep-water taxa here reported contrast with the chondrichthyans assemblages from the Pliocene and extant Mediterranean communities. This entails a complex biogeographic history, where the Messinian salinity crisis strongly affected the posterior evolution of the Mediterranean ecosystems but some other factors, such us the existence of anoxic events during the Quaternary, could have also played an important role.


Stents are commonly associated with the mechanical support of the coronary arteries to improve blood flow and retain residual plaque following various angioplasty procedures. However, they are becoming more frequently used in other vessels in the human body, such as the carotid and femoral arteries. The femoral arteries transverse through the hip region, and are the sites of potential plaque build-up. Thus the design of a stent for the specific biomechanical stresses and conditions of this location is of growing interest. The effectiveness of stent designs are quantified by their ability to survive in the human body without failing mechanically, dislocating, or invoking a major inflammatory response. Common methods of failure are mechanical, including fractures and dislocations. Several different instruments are commercially available for the testing of stents under various stresses and application frequency. However, these machines generally test with small bending angles or they apply nonphysiological axial, radial and torsional loads; thus they are not idealized for motions to mimic accurate biomechanical motion. Specifically, for the design of a stent localized in the hip region, a test for significant bending cases is necessary. The placement of stress on a mock artery should be applied solely to the ends of a mock artery to remove any radial or axial stresses not caused directly from the bending motion. Furthermore, visualization of the stent inside the mock artery is desired for tracking displacement of the stent and cycle count until failure. The ability to quantify the mechanical failure and dislocation of stent designs under extreme bending conditions is a prerequisite to the optimization of physical stent designs and of stent spacing, orientation and placement. We compare a proprietary stent-like design (Innovasc Inc., Honolulu, HI) placed at fixed intervals versus a commercially available SMART stent (Cordis Corporation, Warren, NJ). Both designs are intended to retain the arterial plaque while minimizing the stress applied to the artery wall to prevent restenosis. The new stent prototype designs are uniquely configured to enable points of stress reduction along the length of interest. Early preliminary experiments with the Innovasc design show promising results in the reduction of restenosis in porcine models. Stent designs are tested in mock arteries of latex and silicone. The mock arteries are selected for internal diameters and thicknesses to match artery properties. Two symmetric cylinders holsters are allowed to rotate freely and are affixed to the ends of the mock arteries. A simple linkage system drives the two cylinders together and apart, allowing for the mock arteries to bend at a fixed angle of 120 degrees at frequencies (∼10–20 Hz) without external stresses for one million cycles. Images are captured using a X-Stream Vision High-Speed CMOS camera (Integrated Design Tools, Tallahassee, FL) via a trigger system. Failure points and dislocations are noted and measured using the NIH ImageJ imaging software.


In this paper we examine variation between Mexican cities in women's labor force participation, differentiating between wage and non-wage work. In the past decade women's employment has increased in response to household income shortages due to the economic crisis, while prior increases appeared to be related to demographic and social change. Using data from the 1987 and 1993 Mexican Urban Employment Surveys, we analyze the relative shifts in the ranks of cities by total, wage, and non-wage female labor force participation. We choose six cities, representing distinct urban economies, to perform logistic regression analyses of the individual and household determinants of female labor force participation. We find that the characteristics of the urban economies interact with household and individual characteristics creating different magnitudes of effects on women's likelihood of working and the type of work which they engage.


We present a novel geometric deep learning method to compute the acoustic scattering properties of geometric objects. Our learning algorithm uses a point cloud representation of objects to compute the scattering properties and integrates them with ray tracing for interactive sound propagation in dynamic scenes. We use discrete Laplacian-based surface encoders and approximate the neighborhood of each point using a shared multi-layer perceptron. We show that our formulation is permutation invariant and present a neural network that computes the scattering function using spherical harmonics. Our approach can handle objects with arbitrary topologies and deforming models, and takes less than 1ms per object on a commodity GPU. We have analyzed the accuracy and perform validation on thousands of unseen 3D objects and highlight the benefits over other point-based geometric deep learning methods. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first real-time learning algorithm that can approximate the acoustic scattering properties of arbitrary objects with high accuracy.


Frampton & Guttmann (2002) argue that a language design that assumes "crashing derivations" would seem to be less computationally efficient than a design which outputs only convergent derivations. Therefore, they advocate a "crash-proof" syntax which requires constraining all the computational operations. This paper makes a distinction between a fatal crash/strict crash and non-fatal crash/soft crash. I will argue that in a model with Feature Inheritance (Chomsky 2000, 2001 and 2004), a mechanism that supersedes Agree, seemingly non-convergent derivations can be salvaged as long every mechanism in the grammar that's available is exhausted. I argue, given data from Tamazight Berber, that the three logical possibilities of Feature Inheritance namely DONATE, KEEP, and SHARE, proposed in Ouali (2006, 2008), and whose application is ranked with KEEP applying only if DONATE fails, and SHARE applying only of KEEP fails, despite requiring seemingly different derivations can be accounted for within a less strict crash-proof syntax.


A novel combination of tall and slender tanks and reactors has been installed at the Grolsch brewery, located in the urban area of Enschede, The Netherlands. Specific design was required to meet very strict constraints with respect to space, odours, view and biosolids production. The plant consists of buffering, anaerobic and aerobic treatment, whereas sludge handling is not required. The design capacity of the treatment plant is 10.500 kg/d. Removal efficiencies are 80 % on total-COD and 94 % on soluble-COD. Two and a half years of operation confirm that performance is not compromised due to the very small footprint design as well as that further site requirement have been addressed very well.


Introduction: Appropriate medication prescribing may be influenced by a prescriber's ability to understand and interpret medical research. The objective of this review was to synthesize the research related to prescribers' critical appraisal knowledge and skills—defined as the understanding of statistical methods, biases in studies, and relevance and validity of evidence. Methods: We searched PubMed and other databases from January 1990 through September 2015. Two reviewers independently screened and selected studies of any design conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Canada that involved prescribers and that objectively measured critical appraisal knowledge, skills, understanding, attitudes, or prescribing behaviors. Data were narratively synthesized. Results: We screened 1204 abstracts, 72 full-text articles, and included 29 studies. Study populations included physicians. Physicians' extant knowledge and skills were in the low to middle of the possible score ranges and demonstrated modest increases in response to interventions. Physicians with formal education in epidemiology, biostatistics, and research demonstrated higher levels of knowledge and skills. In hypothetical scenarios presenting equivalent effect sizes, the use of relative effect measures was associated with greater perceptions of medication effectiveness and intent to prescribe, compared with the use of absolute effect measures. The evidence was limited by convenience samples and study designs that limit internal validity. Discussion: Critical appraisal knowledge and skills are limited among physicians. The effect measure used can influence perceptions of treatment effectiveness and intent to prescribe. How critical appraisal knowledge and skills fit among the myriad of influences on prescribing behavior is not known.


Introducing anisotropy to seismic wave propagation reveals more realistic physics of our Earth's subsurface as compared to the isotropic assumption. However wavefield modeling, the engine of seismic inverse problems, in anisotropic media still suffers from computational burdens, in particular with complex anisotropy such as transversely isotropic (TI) and Orthorhombic anisotropy. We develop effective isotropic velocity and density models to package the effects of anisotropy such that the wave propagation behavior using these effective models approximate those of the original anisotropic model. We build these effective models through the high frequency asymptotic approximation based on the eikonal and transport equations. We match the geometrical behavior of the wavefields, given by traveltimes, from the anisotropic and isotropic eikonal equations. This matching yields the effective isotropic velocity that approximates the kinematics of the anisotropic wavefield. Equivalently, we calculate the effective densities by equating the anisotropic and isotropic transport equations. The effective velocities and densities are then fed into the isotropic acoustic variable density wave equation to obtain cheaper anisotropic wavefields. We justify our approach by testing it on an elliptical anisotropic model. The numerical results demonstrate a good matching of both traveltime and amplitude between anisotropic and effective isotropic wavefields.


The aim of the concept of inclusive growth, which is being promoted in particular by international organisations such as the OECD, is to derive political recommendations on the basis of selected indicators so that a maximum number of socio-economic groups may benefit from the economic progress of a country. On the one hand, this initiative continues the long-running debate on alternative welfare measures beyond GDP per capita. On the other, the discussion on the relationship between growth and distribution is being revitalised. This article deals with the potentials and limitations of the concept of inclusive growth. In principle, it would be welcomed to pay more attention to the distribution aspects of economic growth. However, conventional inclusive growth concepts bear a number of shortcomings: they are theoretically weak, institution-blind, not embedded within a growth context, and normatively shaped. The indicators used focus on results or outcome rather than on growth drivers. In addition, outcome variables are mixed with supply-side indicators. Therefore, the conventional concepts should be further developed into an institution-oriented "inclusive growth accounting" with a focus on the growth factors of labour, education and capital.


Cucumber plants in the vegetative phase of growth received deficient, sufficient, or toxic treatment of manganese (Mn) during a 15 day period beginning 43 days after germination. Deficiency and toxicity of manganese both supressed accumulation of fresh and dry weight. Stem length, number of leaves, and number of seconday meristems per plant were not significantly different among Mn treatments. Manganesedeficient plants accumulated less manganese and nitrogen but more copper and iron, and about the same amount of zinc, phosphorus, and potassium as the Mnsufficient plants. Manganese toxicity caused cucumber plants to accumulate less copper, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but more manganese, and about the same amounts of iron and zinc as the Mnsufficient plants.


Background Much recent research effort in traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been devoted to the discovery of a reliable biomarker correlating with severity of injury. Currently, no consensus has been reached regarding a representative marker for traumatic brain injury. In this study, we explored the potential of epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk) as a novel marker for TBI. Methodology/Principal Findings TBI was induced in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats by controlled cortical impact. Brain tissue samples were analyzed by Western blot, Q-PCR, and immunofluorescence staining using various markers including glial fibrillary acidic protein, and epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk). Results show increased Etk expression with increased number and severity of impacts. Expression increased 2.36 to 7-fold relative to trauma severity. Significant upregulation of Etk appeared at 1 hour after injury. The expression level of Etk was inversely correlated with distance from injury site. Etk and trauma/inflammation related markers increased post-TBI, while other tyrosine kinases did not. Conclusion/Significance The observed correlation between Etk level and the number of impacts, the severity of impact, and the time course after impact, as well as its inverse correlation with distance away from injury site, support the potential of Etk as a possible indicator of trauma severity.


Long-term weather and hydrology data from the Santee Experimental Forest were used to assess trends in air temperature, precipitation, and the water balance in gauged watersheds over a 63-year period. Since 1946, the mean annual air temperature has increased at a rate of 0.19 °C per decade, a rate higher than the global mean for the same period. Total annual precipitation has not changed significantly over the period of 1946–2008; however, large storm events (>50 mm precipitation) have increased 21 percent over the 63-year period. Annual stream discharge has varied from 5.5 percent of annual precipitation in dry years to 44.7 percent in wet years. In 1989, much of the forest was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo, a disturbance that, in turn, influenced streamflow. The water balance was estimated using the hydrologic model MIKE SHE; the long-term simulations showed that average annual flow was about 24 percent of annual precipitation and that mean annual evapotranspiration was approximately 76 percent over the 63-year period. The carbon balance on the 500-ha watershed was evaluated using Forest-DNDC. The model performance efficiency was 0.67 for soil CO 2 efflux, 0.70 for soil temperature, 0.40 for soil moisture, and 0.86 for wood biomass dynamics, demonstrating that this model was applicable for predicting carbon dynamics for this complex forest mosaic.


We studied the photo-assisted wet-etching effects in lithium niobate crystals with different compositions under different illuminating light wavelengths of 532nm, 488nm and 351nm. It is found that the properties of the photo-assisted wet-etching effect depend strongly on both the composition and the illuminating light. This phenomenon is of interest to the study and the fabrication of photonic surface-microstructure in lithium niobate. The involved mechanism is also qualitatively explained in this paper.


In a strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma, collective excitations of gluons and quarks should dominate over the excitation of individual quasi-free gluon and quark modes. To explore this possibility, we computed screening masses for ground-state light-quark mesons and baryons at leading-order in a symmetry-preserving truncation scheme for the Dyson-Schwinger equations using a confining formulation of a contact-interaction at nonzero temperature. Meson screening masses are obtained from Bethe-Salpeter equations; and baryon analogues from a novel construction of the Faddeev equation, which employs an improved quark-exchange approximation in the kernel. Our treatment implements a deconfinement transition that is coincident with chiral symmetry restoration in the chiral limit, when both transitions are second order. Despite deconfinement, in all T=0 bound-state channels, strong correlations persist above the critical temperature, T>T_c; and, in the spectrum defined by the associated screening masses, degeneracy between parity-partner correlations is apparent for T >1.3T_c. Notwithstanding these results, there are reasons (including Golberger-Treiman relations) to suppose that the inertial masses of light-quark bound-states, when they may be defined, vanish at the deconfinement temperature; and that this is a signal of bound-state dissolution. Where a sensible comparison is possible, our predictions are consistent with results from contemporary numerical simulations of lattice-regularised QCD.


Social science data are an unusual part of the past, present, and future of digital preservation. They are both an unqualified success, due to long-lived and sustainable archival organizations, and in need of further development because not all digital content is being preserved. This article is about the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS), a project supported by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which is a partnership of five major U.S. social science data archives. Broadly speaking, Data-PASS has the goal of ensuring that at-risk social science data are identified, acquired, and preserved, and that we have a future-oriented organization that could collaborate on those preservation tasks for the future. Throughout the life of the Data-PASS project we have worked to identify digital materials that have never been systematically archived, and to appraise and acquire them. As the project has progressed, however, it has increasingly turned its attention from identifying and acquiring legacy and at-risk social science data to identifying ongoing and future research projects that will produce data. This article is about the project's history, with an emphasis of the issues that underlay the transition from looking backward to looking forward.


In this paper, we investigate how cloud computing can be seen as a planned result or perhaps a consequence of IT transformation initiatives. To this end we discuss the case of eni, a multinational utility corporation based in Italy. The analysis has been carried out following an interpretative perspective, on the basis of the observation of the current structuring of the infrastructure in relation to IT transformation strategy. The latter has been considered in general, thus, independently from the existence or lack of a clear cloud strategy at business level rather than at IT level. Contrary to other contributions we first focus on IT transformation, showing how in the considered case the principles of simplification and virtualization create shared understadings suitable to facilitate the idea of cloud computing as "the next step". Thus, the main contribution of the paper is to show how cloud computing initiatives may rise from drifting of other unrelated IT transformation strategies rather than from a clear top down cloud computing strategy. To this end, state of the art dimensions are used to identify different steps of a path for the emerging of cloud computing infrastructure, pointing out the role of openness and modularity.


The intention of this dissertation is to gain deeper insight into mechanisms of drug action on the genomic and proteomic level in HER2-positive breast cancer cell lines with different resistance phenotypes. In the era of personalized cancer therapy such insights are essential for the development and improvement of (combined) targeted therapeutics and their application in individual therapy approaches.
On the proteomic level, cell line specific Boolean networks were reconstructed based on RPPA time course data to model signal transduction between the measured proteins under drug treatment. The drugs of interest were trastuzumab and pertuzumab which target HER2 and its dimerisation, respectively. In addition, erlotinib was analysed which targets EGFR. The time series covered a range up to 60 minutes and 30 hours, respectively. These models were used to simulate the effect of different drug combinations on the different cell lines. Therefore, the activity states of selected (phospho-)proteins in the PI3K and MAPK signalling pathways were computed. The simulation results were mostly confirmed by the actual measurement data, but still they have to be distinguished, as homoeostasis does not necessarily have to be reached after the measured maximum time points. The simulations further revealed a more diverse drug response in the short-term measurements than in the long-term measurements. This underlines the importance of early drug intervention at the top level layer of the signalling network. For the trastuzumab resistant cell line HCC1954 additional simulations were performed. These revealed specific protein interactions reinforcing the hyperactive PI3K signalling pathway in this cell line. Furthermore, the model structures were compared between the cell lines to detect potential resistance mechanisms. Indeed, cell lines with different breast cancer and resistance phenotypes seem to prefer different signalling pathways, requiring individual therapeutic strategies. In addition, the models hint at feedback loops, pathway crosstalk and hyperactive heterodimers as main resistance mechanisms.
To facilitate the analysis of RPPA data, a corresponding software was conceptually refined and methodologically enhanced. The majority of available tools for RPPA data comprises commercial or non standardized in-house solutions. Above that, these software solutions are generally limited to data preprocessing and normalization, lacking additional functions for graphical and statistical analysis. Hence, the users of the RPPA technology would benefit from improved and freely available alternatives which also allow data comparison across different RPPA platforms. The RPPanalyzer software represents such an alternative. It was extended by new functions which were further integrated in a standardized workflow. This way, users can conveniently conduct automated standard preprocessing steps. The novel methods imply variance estimation, normalization and visualization of time course data. At the same time, the modular character of the software was preserved which allows users to flexibly integrate add-on functions and to choose or adapt existing functions of the toolbox according to their specific needs.
On the genomic level, RNA-Seq data were used to detect genes whose expression differed under trastuzumab treatment or between the analysed cell lines. Both kinds of differential expression point to an essential role of these genes in the action and for the efficiency of trastuzumab. The resistance phenotypes of the cell lines covered sensitivity, intrinsic and acquired resistance. The detected and validated genes were differentially expressed between the sensitive cell line and its trastuzumab treated version as well as between the sensitive cell line and the intrinsically resistant one. The latter comparison mainly revealed genes which are already known in an oncogenic context or suspected to hinder trastuzumab efficiency. Their expression is strongly depending on steroid receptors which is in line with the results presented here. Analogously to the proteomic analysis mentioned before, also in this analysis the PI3K signalling pathway was ascribed an important role in drug resistance. Furthermore, the analyses revealed that the intrinsically resistant cell line differs more from the sensitive one than it is the case for the one with acquired resistance. The intrinsically resistant cell line was further influenced less by trastuzumab treatment than the one with acquired resistance. Additionally, mutations were detected in the untreated cell lines which also potentially impact trastuzumab action and efficiency. In the intrinsically resistant cell line more variations were detected than in the one with acquired resistance. This highlights the afore mentioned results. The intersect of mutations in the resistant cell lines very likely affects the efficiency of trastuzumab.
In conclusion, genomic and proteomic measurement data and corresponding models provided an insight into resistance mechanisms. The signalling network models unveiled protein interactions as potential resistance mechanisms and allowed simulations to infer optimal drug combinations. Based on the genomic measurements, genes and mutations were detected as potential resistance mechanisms. Additionally, within both approaches the different resistance phenotypes were compared to indicate prospective applications in personalized medicine.


In this article I address the question as to why natural language has special principles governing the binding of pronouns and anaphors and the licensing of reflexive predicates. That is, why do we have principles such as conditions A, and B of the binding theory? Based on facts from Malayalam discussed by Jayaseelan (1997), I show that the role of licensing reflexivity and the obligation to be (locally) bound should be fundamentally distinguished. A crucial property of complex anaphors is that they allow the language system to express reflexivity, and yet prevent an arity violation from arising.


The Closest Pair problem aims to identify the closest pair (using some similarity measure, e.g., Euclidean distance, Dynamic Time Warping distance, etc.) of points in a metric space. This is one of the fundamental problems that has a wide range of applications in the data mining area, since most of the data can be represented in a vector form residing in a high dimensional space, and we would like to identify the relationship among those data points. Typical applications include but not limited to, social data analysis, user pattern identification, motif mining in biological data, data clustering, etc. This is a very classical problem and has been studied very well in the past decades. In this thesis, we study the Closest Pair problem and its variants, and also bring the machine learning perspective to solve some closely related problems. In particular, we have proposed two approximate algorithms to efficiently address the Closest Pair of Points (CPP) problem, and one deterministic approach to solve the Closest Pair of Subsequences (CPS) problem, using Euclidean distance measure. In addition, to identify the closest subsequences in the time series data, we have proposed a learnable feature extractor embedded in an artificial neural network, to learn patterns in the Xingyu Cai University of Connecticut, 2020 scope of the Dynamic Time Warping metric. In the end, to speed up the inference speed of the proposed algorithm, we have also proposed a neural network pruning technique to obtain a smaller network with similar capacity. All the proposed methods are shown to have achieved the state-of-the-art performance in various standard benchmark datasets. Effective Algorithms for the Closest Pair and Related Problems