The objective of the present study was to make comparison between rat models of depression achieved by chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) and reserpine injection from the angle of traditional Chinese medicine syndrome, depict the regularity of syndrome variation of the two models, and preliminarily explain its molecular mechanism. Rat depression models were achieved respectively by CUMS and intraperitoneal reserpine injection. The syndromes of liver stagnation, spleen deficiency and liver stagnation with spleen deficiency were judged by equivalently transforming the related clinical symptoms and into macro-characterization of rats. Elisa was used to measure the content of 5- serotonin (5-HT) in serum and Immunohistochemical method was used to measure the content of 5-HT in the hippocampal tissue CA2 district. The regularity of syndrome variation is: Rats in the CUMS group developed liver stagnation syndrome 2 weeks after stress and liver stagnation with spleen deficiency syndrome 6 weeks after stress, while rats in the reserpine injection group developed spleen deficiency syndrome 2 weeks after injection and liver stagnation with spleen deficiency syndrome 4 weeks after injection. Compared with the normal group, rats in CUMS group and reserpine group both presented persistent decrease in brain tissue 5-HT content (P<0.05) and increase in serum and intestine tissue 5-HT content (P<0.05), while degree of increase or decrease differed in the two groups in different period. The model of depression achieved by CUMS develops from liver stagnation syndrome gradually into Liver stagnation and Spleen deficiency syndrome, whose biological basis is that the onset of central 5-HT system dysfunction is faster than the peripheral 5-HT system for the stress conditions; The model of depression achieved by reserpine injection develops from spleen deficiency syndrome gradually into Liver stagnation and Spleen deficiency syndrome, whose biological basis is that the increase of peripheral 5-HT is faster than the decrease of central 5-HT for the effect of reserpine.


The objective of this work was to develop a solid-phase microextraction (SPME) technique for the determination of residues of the pyrimethanil, pirimicarb and buprofezin pesticides in surface waters from irrigated areas, with analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The optimized method used a 100 µm polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) fiber, agitation speed of the sample of 900 rpm and pH 7.0. Extraction and desorption times were 30 and 7 min, respectively. Linearity was achieved in the concentration range 0.1-4.0 µg L-1, and coefficients of determination (R2) were > 0.991. Precision, expressed as relative standard deviation (RSD), was < 15%, and limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) were in the ranges 0.04-0.1 µg L-1 and 0.1-0.2 µg L-1, respectively. Surface water samples were collected from irrigated regions of the Plato de Neopolis in Sergipe State (Brazil) and from Distrito de Irrigacao Senador Nilo Coelho in Pernambuco State (Brazil). Concentrations of buprofezin were < 0.14 µg L-1, while those of pirimicarb were lower than the limit of quantification (LOQ). Pyrimethanil was not detected in the samples.


Title of Dissertation: Studies in Tip Vortex Formation, Evolution and Control Karthikeyan Duraisamy, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Dr. James D. Baeder Department of Aerospace Engineering A high resolution computational methodology is developed for the solution of the Compressible Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations. This methodology is used to study the formation and evolution of tip vortices from fixed wings and rotary blades. The numerical error is reduced by using high order accurate schemes on appropriately refined meshes. For vortex evolution problems, the equations are solved on multiple overset grids that ensure adequate resolution in an efficient manner. For the RANS closure, a one equation wallbased turbulence model is used with a correction to the production term in order to account for the stabilizing effects of rotation in the core of the tip vortex. A theoretical analysis of the accuracy of high resolution schemes on stretched meshes is performed as a precursor to the numerical simulations. The developed methodology is validated with an extensive set of experimental measurements ranging from fixed wing vortex formation studies to far-field vortex evolution on a two bladed hovering rotor. Comparisons include surface pressure distributions, vortex trajectory and wake velocity profiles. During the course of these validations, numerical issues such as mesh spacing, order of accuracy and fidelity of the turbulence model are addressed. These findings can be used as guidelines for future simulations of the tip vortex flow field. A detailed investigation is conducted on the generation of tip vortices from fixed wings. Streamwise vorticity is seen to originate from the cross-flow boundary layer on the wing tip. The separation and subsequent roll-up of this boundary layer forms the trailing vortex system. The initial development of the vortex structure is observed to be sensitive to tip shape, airfoil section and Reynolds number. While experimental comparison of the computed vortex structure beyond a few chord lengths downstream of the trailing edge is lacking in the literature, for a single bladed hovering rotor, good validations of the vortex velocity profiles are achieved upto a distance of 50 chord lengths of evolution behind the trailing edge. For the two bladed rotor case, the tip vortex could be tracked upto 4 revolutions with minimal diffusion. The accuracy of the computed blade pressures and vortex trajectories confirm that the inflow distribution and blade-vortex interaction are represented correctly. Finally, utilizing a surface boundary condition to represent a spanwise jet, the effect of tip blowing on the vortex structure is investigated. The interaction of the jet with the cross-flow boundary layer is shown to reduce the vortex strength with a marginal loss in performance. Overall, this level of consistent performance has not been demonstrated previously over such a wide range of test cases. The accuracy achieved in the validation studies establishes the viability of the methodology as a reliable tool that can be used to predict the performance of lift generating devices and to better understand the underlying flow physics.


Baruch A. Levine has written a masterful study of the first half of the "Book Of Numbers" for the "Anchor Bible Commentaries". "The Book of Numbers" - from the numbering or census of the people in the opening chapters - is a much-neglected part of the Torah, the five books of Moses, which constitutes the heart of Holy Scriptures for Jews, while also forming an integral part of the Bible for Christians."The Book of Numbers" is an account of the young would-be nation of Israel's wanderings in the Wilderness after the magnificent event at Sinai, where Moses speaks with God face-to-face and receives the Ten Commandments. Throughout this time of trial, the people complain, sensing the contrast between the relative security of slavery in Egypt, from which they have fled, and the precarious insecurity of freedom in the Wilderness."Numbers" is a book filled with power struggles, raising questions about who speaks for God, along with personal and communal crises of faith and rumors of revolt. Yet despite the people's blindness and rebelliousness, God remains faithful to the promises made to Israel's ancestors - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now Moses - and remains at Israel's side, guiding her slowly but surely to the Promised Land. In all, "Numbers" describes a terrific journey of discipline and dependence upon the God who liberated the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt: a journey to strengthen Israel for the challenge of a new and wondrous land and the battles she will have to fight in order to claim and keep it.Despite the importance of "The Book of Numbers", its rich collection of stories is not easily assimilated, even by the most conscientious of readers. As such, it requires the help of an expert guide to thread one's way through this mixture of interesting episodes and anecdotes on the one hand, and the many lists, prescriptive rules, ritual regulations, and repeated admonitions on the other. Professor Levine shows us the way into this difficult and sometimes forbidding book of the Bible, and we can be confident of our guide, and secure in the knowledge that the one who led us into the thicket will lead us out again into a broad and fair land.


This study examines foraging strategy in the ecologically-valid, real-world setting of a competitive Easter Egg Hunt. Foraging studies often test marginal value theorem (MVT), an optimality model that describes ideal foraging behavior in patchy environments with diminishing returns. A typical setting for studying MVT is picking in an apple orchard. Here, a forager balances pursuit of nearby, smaller, lower-density reward trees with pursuit of more distant, larger, higher-density reward trees. The optimal MVT apple-picking tactic has been shown to utilize a cost-benefit analysis of these two pursuit strategies. However, such models omit the real-world role of competitor behavior which complicates modeling but improves ecological validity. To address this issue, we examined foraging behavior in an Easter Egg Hunt. We analyzed competitive foraging behavior of 64 adults in an egg hunt with patchy egg distribution. We found that the most successful hunters initially ignored nearby patches with densely distributed eggs when those patches were crowded with competitors. Instead, top hunters favored running to distant patches with less dense egg-distributions and scant competition. Best performers also exhibited distinct strategy stages, reorienting after the initial scramble removed easily visible eggs, and, then, methodically exploring crowded but difficult areas that novices treated more cursorily. In contrast to apple orchards without dynamic competition, the best strategy was not dominated by MVT planning phases of shortest-routes-to-densest-egg-distribution areas. Rather, it was dominated by taking advantage of behavioral tendencies of competition and systematically changing strategies when the competitive environment fundamentally changed. Our findings support that standard traveling salesman route-length minimization models, like MVT, can be improved by incorporating dynamic competition variables that are fundamental to many real-world foraging tasks. Egg hunters who initially minimize density of competition and later brave crowds to persistently scour tougher terrains prove to be the ones who "bring home the bacon" (and eggs)! Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


This research work analyzes the universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocol, which suffers from the traffic bottleneck at home location register and authentication center (HLR/AuC). In addition, serving network has no capability to authenticate mobile station. To overcome these problems a new security scheme has been proposed which provides a more efficient and a secure authentication between mobile station and home networks, the proposed protocol called Efficient AKA (E-AKA). The E-AKA uses a temporary key to enable visitor location register and serving network (VLR/SN) to authenticate mobile station (MS) without intervention of HLR/AuC. To analyze and validate the security of the proposed protocol, the BAN (Burrows, Abadi and Needham) logic is used. The results show that the E-AKA protocol is more robust than the current AKA protocol.


Introduction Physical education (PE) programs have been under siege for years. As reported in the National Conference of State Legislatures, the number of states mandating daily physical education for grades K-12 remains low with only two states requiring K-12 PE in 2005. In 2007 it was reported that only 4% of elementary schools, 8% of middle schools and 2% of high schools required daily physical education for all students for the entire year (Pangrazi 2010). One of the backlashes of these policies is an increase in the number of students who are physically inactive with a concomitant increase in the number of children who are overweight and obese (Booth and Chakravarthy 2002; Pangrazi 2010; Weiss 2000). A syndrome named Sedentary Death Syndrome (SeDS) by Researchers against Inactivity related Diseases' (RID) suggests sedentary behavior has become the second greatest risk to public health behind cigarettes and tobacco (Booth and Chakravarthy 2002). Effective physical education programs may be part of the solution. A review article by Strong et al. (2005) concluded that physical education classes should be daily with at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity that is developmentally appropriate. Effective physical education programs designed to teach and encourage lifelong activity, as well as an understanding of the consequences of inactivity might make a difference (Carrel et al. 2005; Pangrazi 2010). Research is needed that shows this can be accomplished in our schools and at the same time effective evaluation that is able to identify intension for activity throughout life must be developed. Physical Education in the Twenty-first Century One barrier to effective physical education in schools is competition for limited funding. With the advent of the Carol M. White PEP (Physical Education Programs) grants in 2001 school districts found at least one focused avenue for much needed support. Curriculums are being reinvented, teachers are working together and receiving additional training, and the equipment everyone so desperately needs is being provided. To maintain this momentum it is essential that those receiving the funds include evaluation of the programs to determine effectiveness (Wirszyla 2002). If that does not occur we know that legislators will not be convinced that requiring quality physical education programs makes fiscal sense and they will continue to deplete the already meager funds available to support the programs. When most states were requiring daily physical education in the 1950s many curricula followed the multi-sport model at high school benefiting those students interested in competitive sports (Pangrazi 2010). For students interested in mastery of non-competitive, lifetime activities, training was either non-existent or inadequate. The curricula were not comprehensive and lacked the articulation necessary to graduate students with proficient skill levels to be active for a lifetime (Corbin 2002; Pangrazi 2003; Pangrazi 2010). Fortunately, curricula are changing and "New PE" is becoming a reality. State and federal agencies have set standards and physical education teachers are trying to reverse the trends we are seeing of physical inactivity and obesity in our youth. Spokane Public School's Solution In 1998 a cohort of Spokane physical education teachers began writing a developmentally appropriate curriculum designed to meet the benchmarks of Washington State standards (See Appendix A). Following three years of partial implementation and re-evaluation thanks to PEP grant funding the complete written curriculum, "Fit for the Future," was implemented during the 2004-2005 school year. The curriculum framework is divided into three major components to meet the Washington State assessment standards. These areas are fitness content (50% of curriculum time); health promotion and maintenance (30% of curriculum time); and structure and function of movement (20% of curriculum time). …


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This paper analyzes the evolution of property rights legislation in Argentina with respect to new seed varieties. In comparison to the United States, Argentina has weak protection and enforcement of property rights for new seeds. These weak property rights affect the registration and commercialization of new soybean seeds. We show how private producers of seeds react to differences in property rights between Argentina and the United States and also between corn and soybeans. As we show, investment efforts will concentrate on those crops with more secure property rights at the expense of the markets in which property rights are less secure. This effect has important consequences for a developing market producing in a global market.


Practical Handbook of Thermal Fluid Science is an essential guide for engineering students to practical experiments and methods in fluid mechanics. It presents the topic of practical fluid physics in a simple, clear manner by introducing the fundamentals of carrying out experiments and operational analysis of systems that are based on fluid flow. The information enables readers to relate principles in thermal fluid science with the real world operation of important instruments that greatly impact our daily life, such as power generators, air conditioners, refrigerators, engines, flow meters, airplanes, among others.

Key Features:

- A simple organized chapter layout that focuses on fundamental and practical information about thermal fluid science experiments and equipment

- Provides an introduction to essential knowledge for analysis and evaluation of practical systems and major inventions

- Presents information about analysis of operating data for power plant efficiency

- Detailed chapters for studying and testing wind tunnels, sphere heating/cooling, pipe flow, engines, and refrigerators/heat pumps are provided

- Experimental data of Venturi and orifice plate flow meters are provided to show step by step calibration and experimentation.

- Presents information on report preparation

- Includes multiple appendices to consolidate practical information for readers for quick reference.


THREE ESSAYS ON LABORATORY AND FIELD EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS BY GUANLIN GAO AUGUST 2015 Committee Chair: Dr. James Cox Major Department: Economics This dissertation explores what factors and institutions influence individual decision making and their economic impacts on the society, using approaches of laboratory and field experiments. The first essay addresses the effect of communication on cooperation. The second essay explores various types of public recognition, and their impacts on individual donation. The third essay studies how principals use their time in K-12 schools and the potential impact on student and school outcomes. The first essay employs a laboratory experiment including three factors in human interactions, a noisy environment, indefinite length of interactions, and various levels of communication, to study what factors make individuals more cooperative. Results show that subjects are less cooperative in a noisy environment, and communication via fixed messages is not a remedy for the low cooperation rate in this noisy environment. However, communication via free messages leads to more cooperations, and it maintains cooperation rate at a high level over time. The second essay is a joint work with Yefeng Chen, Haoran He, and Jun Luo. We conduct a field experiment to investigate how public recognition influences individual charitable giving. We design five treatments with distinct public recognition schemes and vary the timing when we offer opportunities of public recognition. Results show that both donation amount and participation rate are significantly higher when we mandate recognition. However, public recognition offered before donation crowds out small donations and thus lowers the participation rate. We claim that public recognition is a "double-edged sword" on individual charitable giving. The third essay is a joint work with Mary Mira. We conduct a principal motion study in Fulton County, Georgia and shadow 30 school principals from all levels of public K-12 schools for two work days. We link our observational data with student performance data from state-wide standard scores. Results show that principals' time spend on building and maintaining school culture and school climate, as well as evaluating teachers and school staff are most positively related to student performance. THREE ESSAYS ON LABORATORY AND FIELD EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS BY GUANLIN GAO A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies of Georgia State University GEROGIA SATE UNIVERSITY 2015 Copyright by Guanlin Gao 2015


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) referred for polysomnography (PSG) and to look for predictors of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and severe OSA in these children.

METHODS
This is a retrospective case series of children ages 2 to 18 years who underwent PSG between January 2009 and February 2015. Children were excluded if they had major comorbidities, prior tonsillectomy, or missing data. The following information was collected: age, sex, race, height, weight, tonsil size, and prior diagnosis of allergies, asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disease, seizure disorder, developmental delay, cerebral palsy, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Predictors of OSA were evaluated.

RESULTS
A total of 45 children were included with a mean (standard deviation [SD]) age of 6.1 years (2.8). The patients were 80% male, 49% Hispanic, 27% African American, 22% Caucasian, and 2.2% other. Of these children 26 (58%) had OSA (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI] > 1 event/h) and 15 (33%) were obese (body mass index, body mass index z-score ≥ 95th percentile). The mean (SD) AHI was 7.7 (15.0) events/h (range 1.0-76.6). A total of 9 (20%) had severe OSA (AHI ≥  10 events/h). There were no demographic or clinical predictors of OSA in this group. However, increasing weight served as a predictor of severe OSA and African American or Hispanic children were more likely obese.

CONCLUSIONS
The absence of demographic or clinical predictors of OSA supports using general indications for PSG in children with ASD.


Gene regulation in animals is arguably at least as important as the genes that are being regulated. Animal body plans, their structures and in particular the functions that the animal morphology provides, are the consequence over time and space of successive regulatory and developmental processes. Gene regulation in animals is a highly complex process, and can be likened to a computation that the regulatory machinery performs [1]. Often, single genes are regulated by a complex network of genes with activators, repressors, attenuators and the like, and the elucidation of these networks has taken molecular and developmental biologists decades. But while we know a tremendous amount about how genes and their associated proteins evolve, much less is known about how regulatory systems evolve. We know the basic building blocks: multiple transcription factor binding sites that regulate the expression of other transcription factors that ultimately lead to the expression of the regulated gene. Each transcription factor has a specific affinity to its binding site, and binding sites can interact either synergistically or antagonistically. If we compare the regulatory regions for the same gene across species in the same family, we can see sometimes significant differences in the regulatory sequence. Are these differences adaptive? How do regulatory networks change in response to changes, either in the environment or in response to a change in body size? In the proposed work, we will analyze the gene regulatory network or "cis-regulatory module" (CRM) that regulates the patterning of a fly embryo in the dorsal-ventral axis. This is a well-studied system for which expression and sequence data is available from the Arnosti lab, and aligned homologous CRMs have been collected [2]. Yet, we do not know in detail how evolution affects such systems. What are the "operators" that evolution uses to change these networks? A computational analysis of the regulatory region of 12 Drosophila species will help us move towards a better understanding of how regulatory systems evolve.


This paper examines the transitions from primary to secondary school for a contemporary cohort of children moving between state schools in England. It uses data on over 12,000 primary schools, over 2000 secondary schools and around 400,000 pupils. The results suggest that the experiences of poor (FSM) pupils at age 11 may be quite different, on average, to their non-poor peers. Poor pupils' primary peer groups are more fractured at the age of 11 and these pupils tend to find themselves more concentrated within lower performing secondary schools. High ability pupils are more likely to go to the modal secondary school if it is better than average; the reverse is true for low ability pupils. Poor pupils are less likely to go to the modal school when it is better than average but more likely to go when it is worse. Finally, we find that primary schools which have high academic test scores have more bifurcated flows: poor and non-poor pupils are dispersed across different secondary schools, with the former more likely to attend a low performing secondary school.


Living mulch cover crops can improve soil health and build organic matter, yet their use in fruit orchards comes with a risk of encouraging meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), a rodent that can be destructive to fruit trees. Several living mulch cover crop species were assessed in an apple (Malus ×domestica) orchard understory along with wood chip mulch and bare ground. Desired species characteristics were weed competitiveness, low growth habit, nitrogen fixation, and potential rodent repellency. Legume species included birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), medic (Medicago spp.), and subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum), which were planted in solid stands as well as mixtures. Nonlegume species included sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum), sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima), creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum), and colonial bentgrass (Agrostis tenuis). Meadow vole presence was evaluated in fall and spring with point-intersect and run-length measurements. A legume mix (medic, birdsfoot trefoil, subterranean clover, and colonial bentgrass) had the highest meadow vole presence, with no reduction under the "sandwich" system of tilling either side of the tree trunks while leaving a cover crop in a narrow strip with the trunks. The nonlegume mix [colonial bentgrass, sweet alyssum, creeping thyme, and fivespot (Neomophila maculata)] had similar results. However, the sweet woodruff (planted in the "sandwich" system) had significantly lower presence of meadow voles than the other living mulches. Wood chip mulch, cultivation, and bare ground control were all similar, with very low presence, indicating low risk of meadow vole damage. The results from the sweet woodruff suggest that we need more research on the potential to select living mulches that are nonattractive or repellent to meadow voles for use in orchards.


Radiculopathy can occur in a variety of patients ranging from complications of obesity to sports injuries to a combination of repetitive stress movements with post- traumatic disc disorder. In the case of three teenage patients, each of these causes contributed to their pain that led them to present in Emergency Departments, Family Medicine clinics, and eventual referral to Pediatric Neurosurgery. Various approaches were administered to help with the pain of these teenagers that included local steroid injection and chiropractic adjustments that ultimately contributed to no lasting pain relief. Each patient was considered to have chronic lower back pain and deemed a candidate to receive an innovative treatment option to help manage the back pain. The patients were all referred to receive epidural lysis of adhesions (LOA) which provided the lasting relief of the pain that the patients were seeking. LOA is a procedure that includes using a needle, Racz catheter, and injectable contrast guided with fluoroscopy to locate the appropriate spinal level of the radiculopathy and associated scarred entrapment of nerves. LOA utilizes the injection of hyaluronidase dissolved in normal saline to free the entrapped nerve so that a local anesthetic/steroid solution can be injected to block sensory signals and provide pain relief.


Background/Question/Methods
Pathogens play an important role for many host organisms, ranging from population regulation to species invasion, which in turn, have applications for issues such as disease control, pest control and biodiversity. However, much of our empirical understanding of host-pathogen ecology and evolution is derived from scenarios where the host is infected by a single pathogen or parasite.

Molecular techniques have revealed that many infections in insect hosts are caused by several pathogen genotypes which differ phenotypically in their interaction with the host. This raises the question of how competing genotypes co-exist in the field. The simplest assumption would be that competition between genotypes within a host is a race to gain the greatest share of resources (host tissues), as in the tragedy of the commons. However, this would act to reduce genetic diversity rather than to maintain it.

Results/Conclusions

In this talk we aim to build upon recent developments in the literature by conducting single infection bioassays to obtain data on within-host growth and fitness parameters for phenotypically different and similar strains of nucleopolyhedroviruses in the Lepdipoteran host Spodoptera exigua. Using these data, a simple mechanistic mathematical model (a coupled system of differential equations) is derived and fitted. Predictions from this model agree with empirical findings, such as increased virus doses leading to decreased virus yields.

Extending the single infection model, we assume that in mixed infections viruses compete for host resources, but otherwise act independently. The outcome of these simple assumptions leads to multiple infections producing some non-intuitive outcomes. For example, we predict that multiple infections can lead to significantly increased or decreased virus yield when compared to single infections. This resource mediated competitive synergistic or antagonistic relationship depends crucially on the composition of the multiple infections and the time-lag between infections, which potentially has great importance for understanding pathogen coexistence and for biocontrol design.


Background Previous research has demonstrated that children growing up in poor communities have limited access to high-performing schools, while more affluent neighborhoods tend to have higher-ranking schools and more opportunities for after-school programs and activities. Therefore, many researchers and policy makers expected not only that the families moving to low-poverty neighborhoods with the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program would gain access to zone schools with more resources but also that mothers would be more likely to meet middle-class parents who could provide information about academic programs and teachers, leading them to choose some of these new higher-quality-zone schools. However, research evaluating the effects of the MTO program on child outcomes 4-7 years after program moves found that while the schools attended by the MTO children were less poor and had higher average test scores than their original neighborhood schools, the differences were small: Before moving with the program, MTO children attended schools ranked at the 15th percentile statewide on average; 4-7 years after the move, they were attending schools that ranked at the 24th percentile on average. Purpose The fact that the residential changes brought about by the MTO experiment did not translate into much larger gains in school academic quality provides the impetus for our study. In other words, we explore why the experiment did not lead to the school changes that researchers and policy makers expected. With survey, census, and school-level data, we examine where families moved with the MTO program and how these moves related to changes in school characteristics, and how parents considered schooling options. Setting Although the MTO experiment took place in five cities (New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore), we use data from the Baltimore site only. Population The sample in our study includes the low-income mothers and children who participated in the Baltimore site of the MTO housing voucher experiment. Ninety-seven percent of the families were headed by single black women. The median number of children was two, and average household income was extremely low, at $6,750. Over 60% received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) as their primary source of income (at program entry in 1994), over 77% of household heads were unemployed, and 40% of the women had no high school degree or GED. Program The Moving to Opportunity program gave public housing residents in extremely poor neighborhoods in Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston a chance to apply for the program and move between 1994 and 1998. Families were randomly assigned into one of three groups: an experimental group that received housing counseling and a special voucher that could only be used in census tracts with 1990 poverty rates of less than 10%; a second treatment group, the Section 8 group, that received a regular voucher with no geographic restrictions on where they could move; and a control group that received no voucher through MTO, although they could continue to reside in their public housing units or apply for other housing subsidies (usually a regular Section 8 voucher). The program did not provide assistance with transportation costs, job searches, or local school information after the family relocated. Research Design We use survey data, census data, school-level data, and interviews from the Baltimore site of a randomized field trial of a housing voucher program. We present a mixed-methods case study of one site of the experiment to understand why the children of families who participated in the Baltimore MTO program did not experience larger gains in schooling opportunity. Conclusions Our article demonstrates that in order to discover whether social programs will be effective, we need to understand how the conditions of life for poor families facilitate or constrain their ability to engage new structural opportunities. The described case examples demonstrate why we need to integrate policies and interventions that target schooling in conjunction with housing, mental health services, and employment assistance. Future programs should train mobility counselors to inform parents about the new schooling choices in the area, help them weigh the pros and cons of changing their children's schools, and explain some of the important elements of academic programs and how they could help their children's educational achievement. Counselors could also assuage parents' fears about transferring their children to new schools by making sure that receiving schools have information about the children and that little instruction time is lost in the transition between schools.


Dust is common close to the martian surface, but no known process can lift appreciable concentrations of particles to altitudes above ~150 kilometers. We present observations of dust at altitudes ranging from 150 to above 1000 kilometers by the Langmuir Probe and Wave instrument on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft. Based on its distribution, we interpret this dust to be interplanetary in origin. A comparison with laboratory measurements indicates that the dust grain size ranges from 1 to 12 micrometers, assuming a typical grain velocity of ~18 kilometers per second. These direct observations of dust entering the martian atmosphere improve our understanding of the sources, sinks, and transport of interplanetary dust throughout the inner solar system and the associated impacts on Mars's atmosphere.


U to pi an D is co ur se s Ac ro ss C ul tu re s The term Utopia, coined by Thomas More in 1516, contains an inherent semantic ambiguity: it could be read as eu topos (good place) or ou topos (no place). The authors of this volume analyze this polysemous notion and its fascination for scholars across the centuries, who have developed a variety of visions and ways to explain the 'realization' of utopian discourses. The experts in the fields of sociology, political science, economics, computer science, literature and linguistics offer extensive studies about how utopian scenarios are realized in different cultural contexts.


Large-scale Earth system and land surface models often lack an adequate representation of subgrid-scale processes in permafrost landscapes. Small-scale processes such as thermokarst formation might, however, considerably impact the energy and carbon budgets in way which is not resolved within large-scale models. Since a spatially high-resolved simulation of such processes is not feasible, novel techniques for up-scaling subgrid processes are demanded.
Within this work a one-dimensional model of the ground thermal regime of land surfaces, CryoGrid 3, is employed to conceptually represent small-scale features of permafrost landscapes, particularly those related to thermokarst. For example, the model has been shown to adequately describe the degradation of permafrost underneath waterbodies in a warming climate. Using tiling approaches such point-wise realizations can be up-scaled in a statistical way in order to represent larger land surface units.
The model development is closely linked to field campaigns to the Lena River Delta in Siberia which offers very diverse land surface features such as polygonal tundra and thermos-erosional valleys. These features are related to the region's diverse soil stratigraphies, in particular the occurrence of ice-rich ground. Combining field measurements with modelling ultimately allows an improvement in the qualitative and quantitative understanding of the typical geomorphological processes in permafrost landscapes and their representation in large-scale models.


We report the results of a study of multi-muon events produced at the Fermilab Tevatron collider and acquired with the CDF II detector using a dedicated dimuon trigger. The production cross section and kinematics of events in which both muon candidates are produced inside the beam pipe of radius 1.5 cm are successfully modeled by known processes which include heavy flavor production. In contrast, we are presently unable to fully account for the number and properties of the remaining events, in which at least one muon candidate is produced outside of the beam pipe, in terms of the same understanding of the CDF II detector, trigger, and event reconstruction.


There's a current that courses through the old Chelsea Hotel, an electricity that drives people relentlessly to create. It's an energy that longtime resident and creator of "Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog" Ed Hamilton will tell you often drives inhabitants to madness. In a series of linked cyanide capsules, Legends of the Chelsea Hotel tells the odd, funny, and often tragic truth of the writers, artists, and musicians -- the famous and the obscure alike -- who have fallen prey to the Chelsea. Readers enter one of Dee Dee Ramone's flashbacks; meet the ghost of author Thomas Wolfe; learn of movie star Ethan Hawke's mystical powers over women; see the ungodly acts allegedly being perpetrated in the basement club Serena's; and feel the dark aura of Room 100, where punk rocker Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend Nancy. Other Chelsea residents past and present who will be included: Ryan Adams, club kid/murderer Michael Alig, Sarah Bernhardt, the Warhol Factory's Richard Bernstein, Victor Bockris, Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Lesbian activist Storme DeLarverie, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, Madonna, Edgar Lee Masters, Arthur Miller, Edie Sedgwick, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith, Dylan Thomas, and Rufus Wainwright.


Patient motion and its deteriorating effects in medical imaging is well known. Likewise, head rigid-body motion degrades the image quality in brain SPECT. We developed an algorithm to compensate the head motion in multi-pinhole SPECT systems within a statistical iterative image reconstruction algorithm. Previously, volunteer's head motion was recorded by Vicon MX visual tracking system for 10 minutes while laying inside a SPECT/CT gantry. We then divided the motion into 120 intervals, each 5 seconds long. AdaptiSPECT-C, a multi-pinhole multi-detector stationary SPECT system, we are developing for dedicated brain imaging was used for this study. We generated an XCAT voxelized brain phantom emulating the activity distribution of Iodine-123 N-isopropyl-4-iodoamphetamine (IMP) for brain perfusion scan. To simulate the data acquisition with head motion, we used generic analytic simulation software we developed for multi-pinhole SPECT systems. The 6-degrees-offreedom (6-DOF) motion was incorporated into the simulation software to realistically simulate the data acquisition with motion. Our previously developed graphics-processing-unit (GPU)-based iterative reconstruction software was augmented to incorporate motion compensation using 3D Gaussian interpolation. The rigidbody (i.e. 6-DOF) head motion was input to the reconstruction software through 120 motion intervals. For comparison, we reconstructed the motion corrupted SPECT data without motion compensation and a motion-free acquisition as ground truth. The results show that our proposed motion compensation method provides a significantly better SPECT reconstruction when compared to no motion compensation. The developed software can be applied for any scan duration with any number of motion intervals.


A number of firsts marked the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, including: * more live television coverage than any previous Winter Olympics with an estimated global audience of more than a billion people; * the most medal events (86) in a Winter Games; * the largest city ever to host a Winter Olympics; and * the Canadians winning the most gold medals (14) of any host country for a Winter Games. And, although IOC President Jacques Rogge did not go so far as to label the Vancouver Games the best ever--in either the summer or winter version--he did give it a superlative accolade. The enthusiasm in Vancouver for the 2010 Games is unparalleled to that of any other host city ... I have never seen a city embrace a Games like Vancouver. The athletes are happy, excellent villages, the transportation system worked and we are absolutely thrilled with the television audiences. (1) This paper provides an overview of the history of Winter Olympic Games opening ceremonies from Chamonix in 1924 up to the Vancouver 2010 version. The growth in importance and magnitude of this introductory event of the Olympic program is documented and discussed. Both the highlights and lowlights of the Vancouver opening ceremony are examined in order to provide an objective analysis of this event from a local, national and international perspective. Comparisons are also made between opening ceremonies in Winter and Summer Games to help demonstrate how important the event that signifies the start of an Olympic Games has become. Finally, there is a discussion on the pros and cons of viewing the opening ceremony live versus watching it on television. Historical Overview of Olympic Winter Games Opening Ceremonies: 'Mimicking the Summer Olympics' Since the inception of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, there have been official opening and closing ceremonies in both the Summer and Winter Games. With the Summer Games starting some 28 years before the Winter Games, the latter version naturally inherited the opening ceremony protocol from its older summer version. The Olympic Charter clearly spells out what needs to occur from an official viewpoint in the content and the IOC reserves the right to approve the overall program and whatever variations might occur in the traditional ceremonial features. Over the years since the first 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, there have been various alterations to the program (see Table 1). There has always been an official opening conducted by the Head of State or a nominated replacement from the host Olympic nation. For example, in 1936 it was done by Adolf Hitler, in 1976 in Montreal it was by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1996 in Atlanta it was by US President Bill Clinton, and in Vancouver it was by the Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean. It is a tradition later in the official proceedings at every opening ceremony for both the President of the IOC and the head of the local OCOG (Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) to provide opening remarks about the Games. (2) Another official component within the opening ceremony, which began in the 1920 Antwerp Games, is the Olympic Oath by an athlete. An Olympic Oath for Officials began at the 1972 Munich Games. A major component of the opening ceremony--usually consuming a significant amount of time--is the Parade of Athletes, highlighted by Greece as the first nation out and the host nation at the end. This practice has been a mainstay of the modern Olympic Games since the 1908 London Games when athletes also wore national uniforms for the first time. Interestingly, at the first Winter Games in 1924 athletes paraded by sport not by country but they eventually adopted the parade protocol by entering as national teams. The release of doves first took place at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp but it wasn't until the 1960 Squaw Valley Games that this practice was adopted in the Winter Games, though several Winter Games did not include this as it was too cold for the birds. …


We present a new method based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) for evaluating the thermal expansion coefficient and thermomechanical properties of thin films. The silicon nitride thin films deposited on Corning glass and Si wafers were prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition in this study. The anisotropic residual stress and thermomechanical properties of silicon nitride thin films were studied. Residual stresses in thin films were measured by a modified Michelson interferometer associated with the FFT method under different heating temperatures. We found that the average residual-stress value increases when the temperature increases from room temperature to 100°C. Increased substrate temperature causes the residual stress in SiN(x) film deposited on Si wafers to be more compressive, but the residual stress in SiN(x) film on Corning glass becomes more tensile. The residual-stress versus substrate-temperature relation is a linear correlation after heating. A double substrate technique is used to determine the thermal expansion coefficients of the thin films. The experimental results show that the thermal expansion coefficient of the silicon nitride thin films is 3.27×10(-6)°C(-1). The biaxial modulus is 1125 GPa for SiN(x) film.


Analysis of respiratory muscles activity is an effective technique for the study of pulmonary diseases such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Respiratory diseases, especially those associated with changes in the mechanical properties of the respiratory apparatus, are often associated with disruptions of the normally highly coordinated contractions of respiratory muscles. Due to the complexity of the respiratory control, the assessment of OSAS related dysfunctions by linear methods are not sufficient. Therefore, the objective of this study was the detection of diagnostically relevant nonlinear complex respiratory mechanisms. Two aims of this work were: 1) to assess coordination of respiratory muscles contractions through evaluation of interactions between respiratory signals and myographic signals through nonlinear analysis by means of cross mutual information function (CMIF); 2) to differentiate between functioning of respiratory muscles in patients with OSAS and in normal subjects. Electromyographic (EMG) and mechanomyographic (MMG) signals were recorded from three respiratory muscles: genioglossus, sternomastoid and diaphragm. Inspiratory pressure and flow were also acquired. All signals were measured in eight patients with OSAS and eight healthy subjects during an increased respiratory effort while awake. Several variables were defined and calculated from CMIF in order to describe correlation between signals. The results indicate different nonlinear couplings of respiratory muscles in both populations. This effect is progressively more evident at higher levels of respiratory effort.


Microbes resident in the gut induce an immunoregulatory population of T cells that promote immune homeostasis. Our guts harbor trillions of microbial inhabitants, some of which regulate the types of immune cells that are present in the gut. For instance, Clostridium species of bacteria induce a type of T cell that promotes tolerance between the host and its microbial contents. Ohnmacht et al. and Sefik et al. characterized a population of gut regulatory T cells in mice, which required gut microbiota to survive. Multiple bacterial species of the microbiota could induce transcription factor–expressing regulatory T cells that helped maintain immune homeostasis. Mice engineered to lack these transcription factors exhibited enhanced susceptibility to colonic inflammation and had elevated amounts of proinflammatory molecules associated with allergies (see the Perspective by Hegazy and Powrie). C. Ohnmacht, J.-H. Park, S. Cording, J. B. Wing, K. Atarashi, Y. Obata, V. Gaboriau-Routhiau, R. Marques, S. Dulauroy, M. Fedoseeva, M. Busslinger, N. Cerf-Bensussan, I. G. Boneca, D. Voehringer, K. Hase, K. Honda, S. Sakaguchi, G. Eberl, The microbiota regulates type 2 immunity through RORγt+ T cells. Science 349, 989–993 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text] E. Sefik, N. Geva-Zatorsky, S. Oh, L. Konnikova, D. Zemmour, A. M. McGuire, D. Burzyn, A. Ortiz-Lopez, M. Lobera, J. Yang, S. Ghosh, A. Earl, S. B. Snapper, R. Jupp, D. Kasper, D. Mathis, C. Benoist, Individual intestinal symbionts induce a distinct population of RORγ+ regulatory T cells. Science 349, 993–997 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. N. Hegazy, F. Powrie, Microbiota RORgulates intestinal suppressor T cells. Science 349, 929–930 (2015). [Summary] [Full Text]


Introduction: Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) are still a serious public health problem in healthcare facilities and are a major cause for morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. There is currently no consensus for the most effective surveillance approach for MDRO management. The objective of this study is to compare focused enhanced surveillance for populations at high-risk for MDRO colonization to the current vertically oriented (organism focused) surveillance strategy. A cost-effective analysis will be performed to determine which approach is more economical.

Methods: Electronic medical record surveillance was performed to randomly identify 100 high-risk patients. Nursing staff in the UPMC-Mercy ICUs and infection control department gathered samples from patients for the following MDRO: Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA), Vancomycin resistant Enterococci (VRE), Carbapenem resistant enterobactericiae (CRE) and extended spectrum Beta lactamase producing organisms (ESBL). Specimens were analyzed, and the results were recorded. Chart abstraction collected patient characteristics, severity index and comorbidity index. Stata SE 15.1 was used for data analysis to compare the current surveillance method to the horizontal approach. TreeAge software was used to conduct a cost-effective analysis to compare the two approaches.

Results: From Oct 1st, 2017 through Nov. 30th, 2017 there were total of 155 eligible patients identified through EMR surveillance. We screened 74 patients who met our clinical criteria and 26 patients who met our 7-day length of stay criterion. There were 52% men in our cohort, with an average age of 60.1 years. The mean severity index was 38.8 and the mean comorbidity index was 4.4. There was evidence of MDRO (CRE, ESBL, VRE & MRSA) in 30% of patients with high-risk clinical criteria and 27% in 7-day LOS patients, as compared to 10% MRSA captured using the current screening strategy. Horizontal surveillance was found to be the cost-effective approach.

Discussion: Clinical-based horizontal surveillance is a more effective way of identifying MDRO colonization and infection. The next step in our research is to include a larger patient sample to verify these data results.


Over the last 10–15 years, our understanding of the composition and functions of the human gut microbiota has increased exponentially. To a large extent, this has been due to new 'omic' technologies that have facilitated large-scale analysis of the genetic and metabolic profile of this microbial community, revealing it to be comparable in influence to a new organ in the body and offering the possibility of a new route for therapeutic intervention. Moreover, it might be more accurate to think of it like an immune system: a collection of cells that work in unison with the host and that can promote health but sometimes initiate disease. This review gives an update on the current knowledge in the area of gut disorders, in particular metabolic syndrome and obesity-related disease, liver disease, IBD and colorectal cancer. The potential of manipulating the gut microbiota in these disorders is assessed, with an examination of the latest and most relevant evidence relating to antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics, polyphenols and faecal microbiota transplantation.


This article explores the seminal United States Supreme Court decision of United States v. Smith (1820). Smith, an early piracy case, has influenced developments in both domestic and international law on piracy, universal jurisdiction, and a range of broader themes. This article is the first to explore the context within which the case arose, as well as the circumstances of the case itself. In addition to the details of the case, the story of the men prosecuted for their cruise aboard the vessel known as the Irresistible in the late spring and early summer of 1819 also offers a window into important issues of the day, including growing federal assertions of power over the states, the roles of Congress and the courts in defining and punishing piracy under the Constitution, theories of punishment, and the power of the press.


The Agricultural Science and Technology Experiment and Demonstration Park, as a unique tourist scenic spot, is a new model for the development of low-carbon leisure agriculture. In this paper, with Xinglong Tropical Botanical Park as a study case, the practice of developing a model of low-carbon agricultural science and technology tourism in the park is explored. Main measures for developing low-carbon leisure agriculture in Agricultural Science and Technology Experiment and Demonstration Park are summarized, including development of low carbon attractors, construction of low carbon facilities, strengthening low-carbon management, building low-carbon environment and so on, according to analysis on the models for development of low-carbon agricultural science tourism in this park.


Attempts have been made to account for the increased propensity of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) in regularly training individuals, by focusing on the effect of exercise on the primary mucosal immunoglobulin secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA). However, the pathophysiological significance of observed changes in sIgA levels remains unclear, as indeed does the existence of increased URTI in athletes. The aim of this work was to examine the use of sIgA as a marker of exercise-induced immunomodulation and its possible role in protection against URTI. Before these questions could be addressed the optimum method for saliva collection, and the ideal terms for expression of sIgA levels were investigated. Experimental data advocate the use of the passive dribbling method above the use of salivettes. Salivettes were found to result in an underestimation of both saliva flow rate and protein concentrations as a consequence of limited absorption (3 ± 1ml) and variable retention of the sample (49.1 ± 24.9%). Secretory IgA levels are commonly expressed in terms of secretion rate which is the product of saliva flow rate and sIgA concentration. Examination of the relative contribution of these two factors to secretion rate revealed that exercise-induced changes in saliva flow rate (-51 %) matched the changes in secretion rate (-51 %), whereas changes in sIgA concentrations (+4%) did not. It was concluded that changes in saliva flow rates have an important role with the occurrence of symptoms associated with URTI whether induced by infective or inflammatory factors. Epidemiological data from others on the incidence of symptoms associated with URTI in marathon runners have provided evidence on the incidence of URTI in athletes. However here, reported symptoms associated with URTI were most common during the race suggesting that an infective agent was not involved. Examination of the effect of marathon running revealed a non-significant decrease in saliva flow rate (-27.7 ± 15.8%). A final study investigated the effect of increased ambient temperature, and the possibility of fluid replacement as a intervention strategy against exercise-induced decreases in saliva flow rate. This study revealed that exercise reduced saliva flow rate exercise in the heat exacerbated this and that fluid replacement tempered the exercise-induced decrease. Changes in saliva flow rate were found to be associated with changes in plasma volume. The overall conclusions of this thesis are that innate defence mechanisms such as saliva have a role to play in conferring defence against potential pathogens, and therefore warrant further investigation. It appears from data presented in this thesis that saliva flow rate is affected by exercise, perhaps to a greater extent than sIgA concentration. Changes in saliva flow rate with exercise may have a role to play in the purported increased incidence of URTI reported by athletes, and fluid replacement may provide an effective strategy against this exercise-induced decrease.


This book addresses the various ways in which modern approaches to the protection of national security have impacted upon the constitutional order of the United Kingdom. It outlines and assesses the constitutional significance of the three primary elements of the United Kingdom's response to the possibility of terrorism and other phenomena that threaten the security of the state: the body of counter-terrorism legislation that has grown up in the last decade and a half; the evolving law of investigatory powers; and, to the extent relevant to the domestic constitution, the law and practice governing international military action and co-operation. Following on from this, the author demonstrates that considerations of national security – as a good to be protected and promoted in contemporary Britain – are reflected not merely in the existence of discrete bodies of law by which it is protected at home and abroad, but simultaneously and increasingly leaked into other areas of public law. Elements of the constitution which are not directly and inherently linked to national security nevertheless become (by both accident and design) implicated in the state's national security endeavours, with significant and at times far-reaching consequences for the constitutional order generally. A renewed and strengthened concern for national security since September 2001 has, it is argued, dragged into its orbit a variety of constitutional phenomena and altered them in its image, giving rise to what we might call a national security constitution.


The interdependency of our questions about the historic environment and the data capture techniques used to answer them is complex. Metric survey is a primary tool that, directed correctly through brief and specification, can provide useful data for the heritage information process. The inherent differences in data quality derived from different techniques are primarily a result of capture by two classes of information: undifferentiated (derived from indirect techniques such as photogrammetry and laser scanning) and differentiated (derived from direct techniques such as measured drawing, total station, and global positioning systems [GPSs]). The value and utility of information is thus dependent on the method chosen for its capture; it may demonstrate selectivity to meet a particular purpose or be an unselective record for future interpretation. An appropriate response to information requirements should be shaped by an understanding of the significance and value of the heritage (as described under Article 16 of the ICOMOS Charter of Venice, May 31, 1964) to be recorded along with the performance of capture techniques.


One of the most persistent issues in contemporary organizations has been how to evaluate individual performance. Basically, the problem is who should evaluate whom and against what productivity criterion. Educational institutions have been the organizations most concerned with this dilemma in recent years. As recently as September, 1973, teachers went on strike over accountability procedures. This study was conducted to identify which mode of teacher evaluation was most efficient, based on fairly objective performance criterion, and to establish a basis for viewing teaching style as leadership style. In existing research, superior ratings were the most used evaluation measure, student ratings were a rapidly growing mode of evaluation, self-ratings were considered biased, and peer ratings were used very little. Hence, who should do the evaluating was an unsolved problem. All four evaluation modes were employed in the present study for comparison.


The criteria involved in the degradation of polyethylene-based degradable polymer samples have been investigated, with a view to obtaining a clearer mechanism of photo-biodegradation. The compatibility of degradable polymer samples during materials recycling was also studied. Commercial and laboratory prepared degradable polymer samples were oxidised in different environments and the oxidation products formed were studied using various analytical chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques such as HPLC, FT-IR and NMR. It was found that commercial degradable polymer samples which are based on the ECO systems, degrade predominantly via the Norrish II process, whereas the other degradable systems studied (starch-filled polyethylene systems, transition metal systems, including metal carboxylate based polyethylene systems and the photoantioxidant-activator systems) photodegrade essentially via the Norrish I process. In all cases, the major photoxidation products extracted from the degradable polymer samples were found to be carboxylic acids, although, in the polymer itself a mixture of carbonyl containing products such as esters, lactones, ketones and aldehydes was observed. The study also found that the formation of these hydrophilic carbonyl products causes surface swelling of the polymer, thus making bioerosion possible. It was thus concluded that environmental degradation of LDPE is a two step process, the initiation stage being oxidation of the polymer which gives rise to bioassimilable products, which are consequently bioeroded in the second stage, (the biodegradation step). Recycling of the degradable polymer samples as 10% homogeneous and heterogeneous blends was carried out using a single screw extruder (180°C and 210°C) and an internal mixer (190°C). The study showed that commercial degradable polymer samples may be recycled with a minimal loss in their properties.


In this paper we develop a constructive theory of continuous almost periodic functions. We expose those aspects of the standard theory that are not constructive and give constructive substitutes. For example, it is not true in constructive mathematics that each trigonometric polynomial is almost periodic. A trigonometric polynomial is almost periodic if and only if its exponents are rationally discrete. We obtain a constructive proof of Bohr's fundamental theorem that leads to a computational method for uniform approximations to continuous almost periodic functions by trigonometric polynomials.


Potato virus Y (PVY) is the most important and widespread virus infecting potato (Solanum tuberosum) worldwide. Recently, new PVY recombinant genotypes have emerged and their incidence is increasing throughout the world. In Sweden, the non-recombinant PVYO strain used to be most common, but it now seems to have been replaced by the recombinant genotypes, as has been reported for many European countries. This study intends to biologically, serologically and molecularly characterize Swedish PVY isolates from potato. To study the present genetic diversity of PVY in Swedish potato, 50 symptomatic potato samples from different parts of Sweden were selected for characterization of the infecting PVY genotypes using serology, multiplex-PCR, sequence analyses and inoculation tests. In DAS-ELISA, one sample was positive only for serotype O, 31 samples for only serotype N and 15 samples for both serotypes. None of the samples were positive for serotype C. Three samples did not react with any of the employed antibodies, but tested positive in the subsequent PCR analyses. To identify specific PVY genotypes, multiplex-PCR was used with diagnostic patterns for known genotypes. The identities of the amplification products were verified by sequencing. Among 42 Swedish samples analysed by PCR, PVYNTN was the most common genotype with 19 samples having a single infection by PVYNTN and 19 samples having mixed infection by PVYNTN and one or several other PVY genotypes. PCR analyses also indicated frequent infections by PVYN-W and other recombinants, most often in mixed infection with PVYNTN. The previously dominant PVYO strain was detected in 12 of the samples in mixed infections. In inoculation tests, extracts of all 16 tested samples were found to induce vein and stem necrosis on tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), which is indicative of the N pathotype of PVY, including PVYNTN. Leaf/tuber extracts of 12 samples initially identified to contain the PVYO strain were inoculated into potato cv. Desiree (Nytbr:nc:nz:Ndtbr) and screened for hypersensitive response (HR). Unexpectedly, no HR was observed in cv. Desiree for extract from any of these samples. These findings indicate the absence of PVYO and PVYD strains from the tested samples and that the PVYO patterns obtained in the multiplex-PCR were generated by other related genotypes. Full-genome sequencing is required to be carried out to identify in more detail the exact PVY genotypes in selected samples. It can be concluded that PVYO in Sweden mainly has been replaced by recombinant genotypes, such as PVYNTN and PVYN-W.


Abstract A single-layer mesoscale model, originally developed for the study of wintertime take-effect storms, is applied to the airflow over the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. Terrain effects, land roughness, island heating, and surface evaporation are all included. Convective precipitation and latent heating are parameterized in terms of larger-scale motions resolved on the 3-km × 3-km grid. Experiments were conducted with an atmospheric structure consistent with typical trade conditions as well as with variations from normal wind speed and inversion height. Satisfactory agreement was achieved with observed patterns of inversion height, cloud base height, temperature, relative humidity, wind flow, and precipitation under typical conditions. Mixing of dry air through the inversion from above was deduced to be very important. In most experiments the model generated a hydraulic jump to the lee of the mountains. Sea breeze effects were only partially simulated. Under some conditions the blocking effect of the Islan...


Background. The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of lumefantrine, a component of the most widely used treatment for malaria, artemether-lumefantrine, has not been adequately characterized in young children. Methods. Capillary whole-blood lumefantrine concentration and treatment outcomes were determined in 105 Ugandan children, ages 6 months to 2 years, who were treated for 249 episodes of Plasmodium falciparum malaria with artemether-lumefantrine. Results. Population pharmacokinetics for lumefantrine used a 2-compartment open model with first-order absorption. Age had a significant positive correlation with bioavailability in a model that included allometric scaling. Children not receiving trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole with capillary whole blood concentrations <200 ng/mL had a 3-fold higher hazard of 28-day recurrent parasitemia, compared with those with concentrations >200 ng/mL (P = .0007). However, for children receiving trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, the risk of recurrent parasitemia did not differ significantly on the basis of this threshold. Day 3 concentrations were a stronger predictor of 28-day recurrence than day 7 concentrations. Conclusions. We demonstrate that age, in addition to weight, is a determinant of lumefantrine exposure, and in the absence of trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, lumefantrine exposure is a determinant of recurrent parasitemia. Exposure levels in children aged 6 months to 2 years was generally lower than levels published for older children and adults. Further refinement of artemether-lumefantrine dosing to improve exposure in infants and very young children may be warranted.


In recent years, Persian Gulf cities have become symbols of the most spectacular forms of the 'globalization of urbanization'. Current scholarship has sought to situate these cities in transnational processes and linkages with conceptualizations of 'the global city' and the mechanisms of 'worlding'. This article builds on but moves beyond this line of analysis by turning to the histories of this region and its built environment to explore the longue‐duree influence of capital and empire operating across multiple scales. From this perspective, the glittering high‐rises and manmade islands are contemporary manifestations of a century of urban forms and logics of social control emanating from company towns, the struggles of state building, and the circulation and fixing of capital. To grasp how the Persian Gulf region has been remade as a frontier for accumulation, the analysis in this article blurs the boundaries between metropole and periphery, reconceptualizing the region not as an eclectic sideshow, but as a central site for global shifts in urbanism, capitalism and architecture in the twentieth century.


Fritz Muller (1822–1897), German naturalist, was one of the great Darwinians of the nineteenth century. Educated in math and science in what was then part of Prussia, he emigrated to Brazil in 1852; in the forests and ocean of the province of Santa Catarina, he found a rich diversity of organisms for study, especially marine and freshwater Crustacea, insects and flowering plants. From original observations of morphology, development, physiology and behaviour, he documented the power of natural selection in the evolution of adaptations. He encountered Darwin's Origin of Species in its German translation in 1861, tested its salient points in the Crustacea and endorsed them. Although he and Darwin were half a world apart, they recognised many common interests through correspondence and publications, and Muller became Darwin's closest intellectual kin.

Keywords:

adaptation;
atheism;
biogenetic law;
cross-fertilisation;
Darwin;
heterostyly;
lepidopteran scent;
mimicry;
natural selection


In most aquatic ecosystems, copepod nauplii outnumber all other mesozooplankton. Although thousands of studies have examined feeding by later life history stages, the feeding habits of nauplii are poorly known. We offered conspecific adult and naupliar stages of the current‐feeding calanoid copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus and the ambush‐feeding cyclopoid copepod Oithona davisae 14 species of phytoplankton from various functional and taxonomic groups that spanned a wide size range. Using a novel epifluorescence microscopy method, we calculated an index of gut pigment for copepods fed each phytoplankton species. We also measured adult and naupliar feeding rates on three species of phytoplankton: the cryptomonad Rhodomonas salina, the prasinophyte Tetraselmis suecica, and the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, by an improved gut fluorescence method using a microplate reader. Despite their smaller size, weaker swimming and sensory capabilities, and rudimentary feeding apparatus, nauplii fed on a large range of cell sizes and were capable of consuming many of the same phytoplankton as adults.


Microbial Ecology of Activated Sludge, written for both microbiologists and engineers, critically reviews our current understanding of the microbiology of activated sludge, the most commonly used process for treating both domestic and industrial wastes. The contributors are all internationally recognized as leading research workers in activated sludge microbiology, and all have made valuable contributions to our present understanding of the process. The book pays particular attention to how the application of molecular methods has changed our perceptions of the identity of the filamentous bacteria causing the operational disorders of bulking and foaming, and the bacteria responsible for nitrification and denitrification and phosphorus accumulation in nutrient removal processes. Special attention is given to how it is now becoming possible to relate the composition of the community of microbes present in activated sludge, and the in situ function of individual populations there, and how such information might be used to manage and control these systems better. Detailed descriptions of some of these molecular methods are provided to allow newcomers to this field of study an opportunity to apply them in their research. Comprehensive descriptions of organisms of interest and importance are also given, together with high quality photos of activated sludge microbes. Activated sludge processes have been used globally for nearly 100 years, and yet we still know very little of how they work. In the past 15 years the advent of molecular culture independent methods of study have provided tools enabling microbiologists to understand which organisms are present in activated sludge, and critically, what they might be doing there. Microbial Ecology of Activated Sludge will be the first book available to deal comprehensively with the very exciting new information from applying these methods, and their impact on how we now view microbiologically mediated processes taking place there. As such it will be essential reading for microbial ecologists, environmental biotechnologists and engineers involved in designing and managing these plants. It will also be suitable for postgraduate students working in this field.


This paper defends the view that the intricate difficulties challenging the emerging domain of Musical Pattern Discovery, which is dedicated to the automation of motivic analysis, will be overcome only through a thorough taking into account of the specificity of music as a perceptive object. Actual musical patterns, although constantly transformed, are nevertheless perceived by the listener as musical identities. Such dynamical properties of human perception, not reducible to geometrical models, will only be explained with the notions of contexts and expectations. This paper sketches the general principles of a new approach that attempts to build such a general perceptual system. On a sub-cognitive level, patterns are discovered through the detection, by an associative memory, of local similarities. On a cognitive level, patterns are managed by a general logical framework that avoids irrelevant inferences and combinatorial explosion. In this way, actual musical patterns that convey musical significance are discovered. This approach, offering promising results, is a first step toward a complete system of automated music analysis and an explicit modeling of basic mechanisms for music understanding.


Summary Three microbial galactosidases, Aspergillus oryzae, Escherichia coli and Klyveromyces marxianus b-galactosidase, were used as catalysts for transgalactosylation synthesis of alkyl-b-galactosides in single-phased alcohol media. Their selectivity towards different alcohol nucleophiles was quantified by determining the transgalactosylation/hydrolysis ratio in the water/alcohol mixtures containing water in concentrations below the level of saturation. p-Nitrophenyl-b-galactoside was used as a glycosyl donor at a concentration of 10 mM. Both the total reaction rate (transgalactosylation+hydrolysis) and the ratio between the transgalactosylation (alcoholysis) and hydrolysis increased with the increase of water activity. Although the A. oryzae b-galactosidase showed relatively low total activity (3.13 mmol/(min·mg protein)), it exhibited the highest selectivity towards the hexanol nucleophile among the examined enzymes (0.65). The selectivity values in all the examined cases were below one, which implies that the hydrolysis, and not the synthesis, was the dominating reaction. The total reaction rate (transgalactosylation+hydrolysis) was strongly affected by the water activity, and for the specific water activity in the different alcohols, it increased in the following order: n-octanol


Recently the creative education is being discoursed actively for the primary and the secondary school in Korea. It makes students get the creativity and the alternative knowledge which is merged in the new solution for solving some problems that they can meet in their life. On the other hand, Game Based Learning (G-Learning) has been approved it"s educational effects not only in Korea but also all over the world. This study tried to consider G-Learning as educational methods for improving the creativity. To put it concretely, the purpose of this study is inquiry useful strategies for designing the G-Learning considering factors for the creativity. There are many scholars who has been researching about the creativity factors such as Guilford, Torrance, Anderson or Clark and so on. This study inquired some strategies into the G-Learning considering creativity factors by Guilford and Torrance who had researched creativity factors for the primary and the secondary school students. For the game design theory, this study examined Whitton"s one because he had reported one of the most comprehensive game design strategies. Finally, this study inquired game design strategies based on merging the creativity factors by Guilford with the game design strategies by Whitton. It suggests useful strategies for the game designer who are willing to develop some games for improving students" creativity directly or creativity strategies as necessary factors for the G-Learning.


Many of the world?s protected areas are established for the dual purposes of ecological preservation and recreational use. Therefore, protected area agencies nowadays have common responsibility to provide the society a variety of recreational opportunities whilst, simultaneously, keep maintaining the integrity of their natural and cultural features. As demands of recreation and the closely allied nature based tourism increase, protected areas consequently appeal different types of tourists whose activity preferences, profiles and hence needs widely differ and who as such do not respond homogenously to marketing activities. Therefore, to find the balance between conservation and visitors demands, and to achieve effective and sustainable management of protected areas, a holistic understanding of visitors and their needs became one of the vital tasks for managers. Using visitors to Paklenica National Park as a target population, present research focuses on demonstration of the practical application of different visitor market segmentation approaches in the processes of evaluation of management effectiveness in protected areas. Visitors to Paklenica National Park were surveyed in August of 2013. Data were gathered by means of self-administrated questionnaire with a face-to-face approach. In total, 352 questionnaires were collected of which 97.1% (342) was considered as usable for further analysis. First, study illustrated the methodological process in development and validation of the measurement instrument for identification of visitors' desired benefits. Here, literature driven approach was used to test the relevancy of five hypothesized benefit dimensions, composed of eighteen recreational experiences items, on the general visitor sample. These were: Enjoy nature, Novelty and learning, Socializing, Escape and solitude and Personal achievement. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) process proceeded through two distinct phases. In the first phase, data fit for two competing models, orthogonal and correlated, was tested. In the second phase the reliability and convergent validity of measurement instrument was assessed. The results revealed that the model with correlated benefit dimensions reproduced the data better than the orthogonal one. Inter-correlations between hypothesized benefit dimensions were statistically significant and positive. Reliability and convergent validity indicated reasonable consistency of measurement instrument. The measurement instrument developed represents a reliable and cost-effective tool that may aid park managers in empirically evaluating at least a basic level of performance in visitor management. Second, benefit sought segmentation enabled to identify three distinct visitor segments. These were: Naturalists, Escapists and Ecotourists. The differences between the obtained segments were examined in terms of the importance of and satisfaction with the facilities and services provided by the park agency. The results indicated that the segments significantly differed in four out of six underlying factors. Yet, the results revealed that quality of experience (i.e. service quality gap analysis) for all three segments was adversely affected by the condition of general infrastructure, availability of informations and price. Given that these attributes were highlighted as the most important for all three segments identified, the findings provide managers with clear empirical evidence that immediate management action is needed. By combining benefit sought segmentation and service quality gap analysis study findings provided a series of useful information which can assist park managers in identifying visitor needs and prioritizing the further managerial efforts. Third, activity based segmentation enabled to distinct a two managerially relevant segments: Activists and Passivist. Segments were further characterized according perceived importance of desired benefits, travel behaviour, environmental commitment and socio-demographic characteristics. The findings revealed significant differences among the segments in terms of perceived importance of desired benefits, travel behaviour and environmental commitment. Socio?demographic descriptors exhibited weak role in segment characterization. Yet, for each segment, inter-correlations between latent desired benefit dimensions were examined. The results indicated that all correlations between desired benefits were significant and positive. The informations obtained may assist Park managers to understand demand side in a more complete manner and to draw more concrete visitor management strategies. This research bridges the gap between visitor market segmentation theory and practice by broadening the perspective of its practical application for the purposes of the evaluation of management effectiveness of protected areas. The main theoretical contribution relates to providing new insights into visitor market segmentation as a powerful managerial tool in developing effective visitor management strategies. The results can increase the knowledge of protected area managers and service providers with regard to their customers as well as giving insights into the needs of diverse customer segments. The managerial implications of the research findings were also given and discussed.


Overview: Since childhood, most human beings have been raised on the foundation of accepting and adhering to the "Golden Rule" in everyday aspects of life. We have grown to appreciate the idea that one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reports that more than 100 million animals every year suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food and cosmetic tests; lab experimentations and lessons in the sciences; medical training exercises; and curiosity-driven medical experiments. Why do human beings sit back and do nothing, knowing that these innocent creatures who so greatly benefit the world are locked up in cold cages? The animals ache with lonesomeness, suffer in agony, and so desperately yearn to be free and loved. Instead, all they are able to do is wait in terror of the next excruciatingly painful procedure that they must tolerate. The stress and boredom these animals are compelled to deal with everyday causes many of them to exhibit neurotic behaviors, including ceaselessly spinning in circles, pulling out their own hair, and biting their own skin. After enduring lonely lives filled with pain, many of them will be killed. At what point will human beings step up and act in these animals' best interest; at what point will we treat them the way we know we would want to be treated? Animal rights activist, Charles R. Magel detests the lack of logic behind animal testing. "Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction" (Magel). According to Robert Waterston, a prominent American geneticist, in his article, "Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome," "There is only a slight difference, roughly 2%, between the genome of a human being and the genome of a chimpanzee" (Waterston 73). We should be promoting animals' happiness and well-being and treating them as if they were our brothers and sisters, not promoting their demise. Accordingly, in this paper I will argue that researchers who perform animal testing for medical advancements should understand that harming animals for the benefit of humanity violates basic bioethical principles and should therefore be stopped; further, animals cannot defend themselves and for this reason, humans should take on the responsibility of being the voice for the animals, promoting alternatives to animal testing, and acting in the animals best interest, promoting for these animals the same principles we insist on for humans, the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Accordingly, this paper will examine (1) the reality of animal testing and what goes on behind closed doors, (2) the life-saving alternatives that are proven to be more cost effective and comprehendible, (3) the lifelong implications testing has on animals who survive, (4) the inefficiency of current laws regarding animal testing, and (5) why this destruction of lives is not justified based on the moral standing of animals as compared to humans.


Wireless sensor networks have increasingly become contributors of very large amounts of data. The recent deployment of wireless sensor networks in Smart City infrastructures have led to very large amounts of data being generated each day across a variety of domains, with applications including environmental monitoring, healthcare monitoring and transport monitoring. The information generated through the wireless sensor nodes has made possible the visualization of a Smart City environment for better living. The Smart City offers intelligent infrastructure and cogitative environment for the elderly and other people living in the Smart society. Different types of sensors are present that help in monitoring inhabitants' behaviour and their interaction with real world objects. To take advantage of the increasing amounts of data, there is a need for new methods and techniques for effective data management and analysis, to generate information that can assist in managing the resources intelligently and dynamically. Through this research a Smart City ontology model is proposed, which addresses the fusion process related to uncertain sensor data using semantic web technologies and Dempster-Shafer uncertainty theory. Based on the information handling methods, such as Dempster-Shafer theory (DST), an equally weighted sum operator and maximization operation, a higher level of contextual information is inferred from the low-level sensor data fusion process. In addition, the proposed ontology model helps in learning new rules that can be used in defining new knowledge in the Smart City system.


Policy gradient methods are powerful reinforcement learning algorithms and have been demonstrated to solve many complex tasks. However, these methods are also data-inefficient, afflicted with high variance gradient estimates, and frequently get stuck in local optima. This work addresses these weaknesses by combining recent improvements in the reuse of off-policy data and exploration in parameter space with deterministic behavioral policies. The resulting objective is amenable to standard neural network optimization strategies like stochastic gradient descent or stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. Incorporation of previous rollouts via importance sampling greatly improves data-efficiency, whilst stochastic optimization schemes facilitate the escape from local optima. We evaluate the proposed approach on a series of continuous control benchmark tasks. The results show that the proposed algorithm is able to successfully and reliably learn solutions using fewer system interactions than standard policy gradient methods.


Sainsbury's v. MasterCard establishes the pass-on "defence" in English/UK law. The Competition Appeal Tribunal set out a two-part test which it erroneously distinguished from the economists' notion of pass-on. It then went on the develop key elements of legal test for pass-on in price fixing cases. This article critically assesses the Tribunal's judgment within a law and economics framework. It provides a rounded interpretation of pass-on as both a defence and offence, the different evidentiary standards and principles used, and the potential for inconsistency which could see defendants liable to claims more than the overcharges.


We demonstrate the measurement of transient changes of the Ca concentration in live neurons by Fluorescence Transient Lifetime Scanning (FLITS) and by temporal Mosaic FLIM. FLITS is based on the build-up of a photon distribution over the distance along a line scan, the times of the photons after the laser pulse, and the times of the photons after a periodic stimulation of the sample, temporal mosaic FLIM on the buildup of a photon distribution over the coordinates of a fast repetitive x-y scan, and the photon times after the laser pulses and the stimulation pulses. For the commonly used scanners the time resolution is about 1 ms for FLITS and about 40 ms for temporal mosaic FLIM.


Building on doctrinal texts created by ICOMOS global membership, the Policy Guidance document draws upon scientific expertise of the ICOMOS SDGs Working Group and ICOMOS Scientific Committees from all five global regions and all areas of expertise, to illustrate the many ways in which heritage can address the SDGs and demonstrates the potential of harnessing heritage in achieving sustainable development. Grounded in the United Nations' Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's five Ps (People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships), and in the interrelated nature of the SDGs, the document is intended for heritage and development actors alike.

The aim of this Policy Guidance document is twofold: 1) engage development actors and raise awareness of the potential contribution of heritage practices to sustainable development processes; 2) guide ICOMOS members and heritage professionals at large, in adopting a sustainable development perspective in their heritage practices and aligning them to the SDGs. Therefore, it represents a first attempt at providing a policy framework for all actors, including international organizations, national and local governments, businesses, civil society, and expert organizations.

The Policy Guidance document was developed by the ICOMOS SDGs Working Group with five lead contributing authors. During the process, inputs and peer reviews were provided by more than 70 ICOMOS experts, coming from 20 National Committees and 13 International Scientific Committees , both in-person (Knowledge Cafe and experts' meeting), and online (survey, a Working Group meeting, and two rounds of consultations on drafts of the document).

With its constantly evolving doctrines and methodologies, ICOMOS is a learning organization that seeks to mobilize its adaptive capacity for the SDGs to respond to the current needs of the professional and broader society, and this document has the potential to shape both high-level policy and grassroots implementation, while building synergies and strengthening advocacy.


Abstract:
 In oviparous reptiles with no parental care, the choice of nest site is a mother's final investment in her offspring. Although linkages between nest site choice, egg temperatures, and embryonic success have been well studied, much less is known about analogous linkages with soil moisture encompassing developing embryos. Most ground-nesting reptiles nest at depths <25 cm, with the deepest nests <1.0 m deep. Recently, however, the nests of two species of monitor lizards (Varanus panoptes and V. gouldii) have been discovered at depths of 2.3-3.0 m, suggesting that nesting at extreme depths in these species is an adaptive response to the lack of sufficient soil moisture at shallower depths. Herein, we examine this idea with V. panoptes, specifically predicting that deeper nests in a desert ecosystem compared with those in a savannah ecosystem are attributable to differences in the magnitude of rainfall. We excavated a communal nesting warren to a depth of 4 m and identified 11 fresh nests and 99 hatched nests. Mean nest depth in the present study was greater than that in savannah. However, nests were shallower than those of V. gouldii in the same general location, possibly because of local heterogeneity in soil moisture. Hatchlings excavated their own emergence burrows rather than following the burrows of their mothers, despite relatively great distances through resistant soils. Collectively, deep nesting creates energetic challenges for mothers and hatchlings, suggesting an adaptive function for the behavior.


A large number of animal models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are already available for studies on mechanisms and experimental treatments of TBI. Immediate and early seizures have been described in many of these models with focal or mixed type (both gray and white matter damage) injury. Recent long‐term video‐electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring studies have demonstrated that TBI produced by lateral fluid‐percussion injury in rats results in the development of late seizures, that is, epilepsy. These animals develop hippocampal alterations that are well described in status epilepticus–induced spontaneous seizure models and human posttraumatic epilepsy (PTE). In addition, these rats have damage ipsilaterally in the cortical injury site and thalamus. Although studies in the trauma field provide a large amount of information about the molecular and cellular alterations corresponding to the immediate and early phases of PTE, chronic studies relevant to the epileptogenesis phase are sparse. Moreover, despite the multiple preclinical pharmacologic and cell therapy trials, there is no information available describing whether these therapeutic approaches aimed at improving posttraumatic recovery would also affect the development of lowered seizure threshold and epilepsy. To make progress, there is an obvious need for information exchange between the trauma and epilepsy fields. In addition, the inclusion of epilepsy as an outcome measure in preclinical trials aiming at improving somatomotor and cognitive recovery after TBI would provide valuable information about possible new avenues for antiepileptogenic interventions and disease modification after TBI.


Standard digital cameras are sensitive to radiation in the near-infrared domain, but this additional cue is in general discarded. In this paper, we consider the scene categorisation problem in the context of images where both standard visible RGB channels and near infrared information are available. Using efficient local patch-based Fisher Vector image representations, we show based on thorough experimental studies the benefit of using this new type of data. We investigate which image descriptors are relevant, and how to best combine them. In particular, our experiments show that when combining texture and colour information, computed on visible and near-infrared channels, late fusion is the best performing strategy and outperforms the state-of-the-art categorisation methods on RGB-only data.