presented Artek Abstract The 'Blue House' is a standard family detached house built by Panbo Huse A/S in 1985 in Sisimiut, Greenland. As an old building, it has many problems such as poor thermal comfort and high energy consumption, and therefore, the house has a potential to be retrofitted. The investigation of the 'Blue House' was carried out in August 2011, including collection of original documentation, visual inspection, blower-door test, thermography test, the indoor climate monitoring, questionnaire and interview with the occupants. The indoor climate, including temperature and relative humidity, has been recorded since December 2010. The results of the investigation show that the house has some serious problems influencing proper functions, such as thermal bridges, poor thermal comfort and high energy consumption. A retrofitting plan, including having an additional paper insulation layer and exterior climate shield, has been proposed and will be carried out in 2012. Although the blower-door test shows that comparing with the considerably large number of houses built in past times in Greenland, the 'Blue House' has a relatively high air tightness, the thermal performance of the house needs to be improved. Due to the harsh climate in Greenland and the low building standard in the earlier period, it is still a major challenge for Greenlandic building industry to retrofit existing buildings.


HCF-1 (host cell factor-1) is a transcriptional coactivator that is involved in the stimulation of various mammalian genes, as well as the immediate early (IE) genes of herpes simplex virus. HCF-1 interacts with multiple transcriptional regulators and is autocatalytically processed within the nucleus to generate a family of polypeptides that remain associated. Vogel and Kristie showed (using yeast two-hybrid and glutathione S-transferase pull-down experiments) that HCF-1 interacted with the transcriptional regulator four-and-a-half LIM domain-2 (FHL2) through specific regions of the proteolytic processing domain (PPD) of HCF-1. Furthermore, the interaction appeared to be specific for FHL2, because other proteins with LIM domains either did not interact or interacted only weakly. FHL2 preferentially interacted with the noncleaved form of HCF-1, and in a reporter gene assay, a noncleavable mutant of HCF-1 was substantially more effective at stimulating FHL2-dependent gene expression than was the wild-type HCF-1. Thus, in terms of the interaction with FHL2, proteolysis of HCF-1 may serve as a negative regulatory mechanism. However, whether and how HCF-1 autocatalysis is regulated remains to be determined. A reporter gene assay for two different IE gene promoters indicated that FHL2 stimulated expression of those genes in a dose-dependent manner, thereby implicating FHL2 in herpes virus infection. J. L. Vogel, T. M. Kristie, Site-specific proteolysis of the transcriptional coactivator HCF-1 can regulate its interaction with protein cofactors. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 6817-6822 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This paper presents the coupled thermal and structural analysis of the rotating components of the generator using ABAQUS finite element solver. The interference between shaft and rotor is optimized to have a positive contact pressure and also minimize the stresses in the laminate at all operating speeds. Thermal analysis is performed to simulate the temperature distribution arising from the heat losses of generator. The flow path of the coolant is designed through the shaft to minimise the temperature rise of the generator. The resulting changes in the contact pressure between laminated disc and shaft is computed using sequentially coupled thermal and structural analysis. The thermal stresses of rotor are computed estimated and the design is optimized for transmitting torque at different operating speeds.


A new rigorous electromagnetic theory is developed for studying the second-harmonic generation process that occurs when a high-power laser beam falls on a periodically corrugated waveguide. The waveguide can consist of several layers with corrugated or plane boundaries, with at least one of the layers being filled with a nonlinear lossless or lossy dielectric. The theory uses a nonorthogonal coordinate transformation, which maps the corrugated interfaces onto planes. The Maxwell equations written in covariant form lead to a set of first-order partial differential equations with nonconstant coefficients. Taking into account the periodicity of the system, this set of equations could be transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients, which can be resolved by an eigenvalue-eigenvector technique, avoiding numerical integration. The theory is developed for both TE and TM polarizations and for any groove geometry and incidence; it can be used, in particular, when surface waves (guided modes or surface plasmon-polaritons) are excited. It is a powerful tool for studying the enhancement of the second-harmonic generation resulting from local field enhancement by electromagnetic resonances. In addition an approach based on the Rayleigh hypothesis is developed. Both theoretical approaches are compared with previously developed differential theory for gratings in nonlinear optics. A spectacular agreement is obtained between the three theories for both TE and TM polarization. The new method is free of limitations concerning the waveguide thickness, the groove depth, and the conductivity of the grating material. It is demonstrated that the limitations of the Rayleigh hypothesis are stronger at the second-harmonic frequency.


A distinction should be made between institutional media accountability and journal- istic accountability. Th e latter individualizes the accountability of media organizations and enables the public to see the individual journalist (with his own ideas, sense of moral values) instead of a homo- geneous mass that fi ts into the corporate journalistic system. Th is paper focuses on the possibilities accomplished by journalists' blogs: are these new instruments of accountability that enable individual journalists to highlight their personal moral sensitivity and open their information processing prac- tices to the public? Do Estonian journalists have enough incentives and autonomy to use weblogs as an opportunity to explain their professional decisions or even openly confront the editorial opinion? Th e analysis draws on 11 qualitative interviews conducted with Estonian journalists and editors. Th e fi ndings indicate that the fading interest in weblogs is not the main reason why personal blogs of professional journalists would not function as accountability instruments. Journalists seldom describe attitudes that would characterize the "socially responsible existentialist."


The world's oceans are a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The biological carbon pump plays a vital role in the net transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to the oceans and then to the sediments, subsequently maintaining atmospheric CO2 at significantly lower levels than would be the case if it did not exist. The efficiency of the biological pump is a function of phytoplankton physiology and community structure, which are in turn governed by the physical and chemical conditions of the ocean. However, only a few studies have focused on the importance of phytoplankton community structure to the biological pump. Because global change is expected to influence carbon and nutrient availability, temperature and light (via stratification), an improved understanding of how phytoplankton community size structure will respond in the future is required to gain insight into the biological pump and the ability of the ocean to act as a long-term sink for atmospheric CO2. This review article aims to explore the potential impacts of predicted changes in global temperature and the carbonate system on phytoplankton cell size, species and elemental composition, so as to shed light on the ability of the biological pump to sequester carbon in the future ocean.


Detailed understanding of ecosystem decline and recovery attending the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB) mass extinctions is hindered by limited constraints on the pace and tempo of environmental events near the boundary. To mitigate this shortcoming, high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar geochronology was performed on tephras intercalated between fossiliferous terrestrial sediments of the upper Hell Creek and lower Fort Union Formations in the western Williston Basin of northeastern Montana (USA). Tephra samples were collected from 10 stratigraphic sections spanning an area of ∼5000 km2. Several distinctive tephras can be correlated between sections separated spatially by as much as ∼60 km. The tephras are thin distal deposits generally preserved only in lignite beds, which are interbedded with clastic deposits yielding vertebrate faunas of Lancian (late Maastrichtian) to Torrejonian (early Danian) North American Land Mammal Ages. Sanidine from 15 tephra samples was analyzed in 1649 total fusion experiments (1597 on single crystals) and 12 incremental heating analyses of multigrain aliquots. Ages were determined for 13 distinct tephras, ranging from 66.289 ± 0.051 to 64.866 ± 0.023 Ma, including only analytical uncertainties. This level of precision is sufficient to resolve the ages of all of the coal beds that have served as a basis for a regional stratigraphic framework. The data confirm that the Hell Creek–Fort Union formational contact is diachronous, and further support the age of the KPB impact layer at 66.043 ± 0.010 Ma (or ± 0.043 Ma considering systematic uncertainties). Application of the new results to previous magnetostratigraphic data indicates an appreciably compressed time interval between the base of chron C29r and the top of chron C28r, with a maximum duration estimate of 1.421 ± 0.066 Ma. Most notable is the implied brevity of chron C29r, with a maximum estimate of 457 ± 54 ka, and possibly as brief as 345 ± 38 ka, compared to the 710 ka estimate from the Geologic Time Scale 2012 (GTS2012). Further, application of new results to terrestrial biostratigraphy adds higher precision to the timing and tempo of biotic change before and after the KPB. Our results indicate that the timing of pre-KPB ecological decline is constrained to the last ∼200 ka of the Cretaceous, adding further support to the press-pulse extinction hypothesis. Additionally, the duration of the depauperate basal Paleogene Puercan 1 disaster fauna is confined to a 70 ka interval. Faunal recovery in this region, indicated by the appearance of primitive members of the placental mammal radiation and the restoration of taxonomic richness and evenness, occurred within ∼900 ka after the KPB. These results show that biotic recovery after the mass extinction in the terrestrial realm was more rapid than in the marine.


New seismic reflection data reveal details of the Permo-Triassic basin fill in the central Cheshire Basin. The seismic stratigraphy indicates that the Permian and Triassic succession is far thicker than previously estimated. Seismic data and backstripping of the preserved Permian to early Jurassic sedimentary succession suggest that at least two phases of fault-controlled subsidence occurred, in early Permian and early Triassic times. An intra-Triassic unconformity is seen on the seismic data near the top of the Sherwood Sandstone Group. This may equate with the Hardegsen Unconformity. It is possible that this unconformity was generated by syn-extensional regional uplift accompanying lithospheric thinning. The gross morphology and location of the faults on the eastern margin of the Cheshire Basin are interpreted to be, at least locally, controlled by extensional re-activation of a westwards-dipping reverse fault, possibly an extension of the Pontesford–Linley lineament.


Multiple node architectures are possible for WDM networks. These architectures strongly condition the cost of optical network planning and traffic engineering. This paper aims first to introduce the four optical switching systems currently considered; namely Optical Cross-Connect (OXC), Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), Optical Packet Switching (OPS), and Optical Burst Switching (OBS). Then a detailed description of a multi-layer EXC/OXC node architecture is presented. Such architecture can handle full-wavelength circuits as well as sub-wavelength electrical connections. The major functionalities of this EXC/OXC node (add, drop, switching, and grooming) are modeled by means of an auxiliary


OBJECTIVES
To determine the frequency of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER-2/neu (HER2) testing multiple foci of ipsilateral invasive breast carcinoma at our institution and to evaluate resulting change in treatment recommendation.

METHODS
We identified 165 consecutive cases of multifocal invasive breast cancer over a 10-year period (2005-2014). Clinicopathologic features and treatment recommendation were assessed by slide and chart review.

RESULTS
Seventy (42.4%) of 165 patients had two or more foci tested. In the first 6 years (2005-2010), frequency of testing two or more foci was 31.6% and increased to 70.6% in 2014. Seven (10%) of 70 had a clinically significant difference in ER/PR and/or HER2 status, five (7.1%) with a difference in HER2, one (1.4%) in ER/PR, and one (1.4%) in both ER/PR and HER2. All cases with difference in status had different histology and/or the largest focus was the most positive one.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings support current recommendations to evaluate additional smaller tumor foci in multifocal invasive breast cancer if the focus is of different grade or histology. Additional features, including specific histology, grade, and ER, PR, and HER2 status of the largest focus, should also be considered when selecting cases for which testing of additional foci may be of benefit.


The process of embryogenesis in higher plants is a critical stage of the sporophytic life cycle, transforming the fertilised egg cell via a precise sequence of events into a multi-cellular organism. It is during embryogenesis that the body plan of the developing plant is established. Analysis of transcriptional changesembryo. This thesis demonstrates the application of laser capture micro dissection to the analysis of embryogenesis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. This technique has been used in combination with DNA microarray technology to allow a global analysis of gene expression in the cotyledon, root and shoot apical meristem regions of the torpedo-stage embryo. Validation of the approach has been achieved by comparison of the ATH1 GeneChip® data obtained, with published gene expression patterns confirmed by in situ hybridisation and promoter: GUS analysis. Further validation was successfully undertaken through the creation of promoter: Gus constructs for a number of previously uncharacterised putative transcription factor genes, selected on the basis of differential expression between the cotyledon and root regions. Initial attempts to assign putative function to these genes through an analysis of T-DNA insertion lines yielded no aberrant phenotypes. Transcriptional profiling of embryogenesis from the globular-stage through to the torpedo-stage was carried out using GeneSpring, uncovering distinct spatial and temporal expression patterns, and revealing a number of genes of potential interest for further research.


Distributed, event-driven applications that process sensitive user data and involve multiple organisational domains must comply with complex security requirements. Ideally, developers want to express security policy for such applications in data-centric terms, controlling the flow of information throughout the system. Current middleware does not support the specification of such end-to-end security policy and lacks uniform mechanisms for enforcement. We describe DEFCon-Policy, a middleware that enforces security policy in multi-domain, event-driven applications. Event flow policy is expressed in a high-level language that specifies permitted flows between distributed software components. The middleware limits the interaction of components based on the policy and the data that components have observed. It achieves this by labelling data and assigning privileges to components. We evaluate DEFCon-Policy in a realistic medical scenario and demonstrate that it can provide global security guarantees without burdening application developers.


This paper shows the relationship between agricultural production and the economic growth of four South American agricultural countries. Time series data were analyzed using DF GLS unit root test, ARDL approach and VECM approach to show the short run and long run relationships between variables. Results indicated a positive and significant effect of agricultural production on economic growth in Brazil, Chile and Colombia in the long run.


The major coat proteins of clathrin‐coated vesicles are the clathrin triskelion and heterotetrameric associated protein (AP) complexes. The APs are thought to be involved in cargo capture and recruitment of clathrin to the membrane during endocytosis and sorting in the trans‐Golgi network/endosomal system. AP180 is an abundant coat protein in brain clathrin‐coated vesicles, and it has potent clathrin assembly activity. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there are 13 genes encoding homologs of heterotetrameric AP subunits and two genes encoding AP180‐related proteins. To test the model that clathrin function is dependent on the heterotetrameric APs and/or AP180 homologs, yeast strains containing multiple disruptions in AP subunit genes, as well as in the two YAP180 genes, were constructed. Surprisingly, the AP deletion strains did not display the phenotypes associated with clathrin deficiency, including slowed growth and endocytosis, defective late Golgi protein retention and impaired cytosol to vacuole/autophagy function. Clathrin‐coated vesicles isolated from multiple AP deletion mutants were morphologically indistinguishable from those from wild‐type cells. These results indicate that clathrin function and recruitment onto membranes are not dependent upon heterotetrameric adaptors or AP180 homologs in yeast. Therefore, alternative mechanisms for clathrin assembly and coated vesicle formation, as well as the role of AP complexes and AP180‐related proteins in these processes, must be considered.


Dating recent peat deposits (i.e., past } 300 yrs of peat accumulation) has emerged as an important yet challenging task for estimating rates of organic matter accumulation and atmospheric pollutant deposition in peatlands. Due to their ombrotrophic nature and the tendency for Sphagnum-derived peat to have high cation exchange capacity, peatlands are ideal archives of atmospheric pollution. However, efforts to establish depth-age relationships in peats are complicated by the difficulty of dating deposits reliably. Assumptions underlying the techniques available for dating peat deposits often are poorly understood and generally untested. We outline the approaches used to establish depth-age relationships in peat chronologies, including brief descriptions of the theory, assumptions, methodology, and logistics of each technique. We include both continuous dating methods (i.e., methods based on 14C, 210Pb, constant bulk density, acidinsoluble ash, moss increment, pollen density) and chrono-stratigraphic markers (i.e., fallout isotopes from the Chernobyl accident and nuclear weapons testing, pollen stratigraphies, isothermal remanence magnetism, charcoal particles, spherical carbonaceous particles, PAHs, PCBs, DDT, toxaphene) that can be measured in peat and correlated temporally with known historical events. We also describe the relatively new radiocarbon application of wiggle matching and use hypothetical data to highlight the potential of this developing technique for dating recent peat. Until the uncertainty associated with each of these dating approaches is clarified, we recommend employing multiple techniques to allow for corroboration between different methods.


In the wake of the 2016 US Presidential election and similar developments parts of Europe, commentators widely acknowledged the rise of populist movements on both the right and left of the political spectrum that both were deeply suspicious of big business. This development potentially has important implications for the law and practice of corporate purpose.

Left of center corporate social responsibility campaigners have long advocated the use of "boycotts, shareholder activism, negative publicity, and so on" to pressure corporate managers to act in ways those campaigners deem socially responsible. Right of center populists could use the same tactics to induce corporate directors to make decisions they favor. The question thus is whether they are likely to do so based on their historical track record.

Assuming for the sake of argument that right-of-center populists begin focusing on corporate purpose, the question arises whether modifying the shareholder wealth maximization norms so as to give managers more discretion to take the social effects of their decisions into account would lead to outcomes populists would view as desirable. Populists historically have viewed corporate directors and managers as elites opposed to the best interests of the people. Today, right of center populists find themselves increasingly at odds with an emergent class of social justice warrior CEOs, whose views on a variety of critical issues are increasingly closer to those of blue state elites than those of red state populists.


Microcalcifications are an early mammographic indicator of breast cancer. To assist screening radiologists in reading mammograms, machine learning techniques have been developed for the automated detection of microcalcifications. In the last few years, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in many computer vision and medical image analysis applications. A key step in CNN-based detection is image preprocessing, including brightness and contrast variations. In this work, we investigate the influence of preprocessing of digital mammograms on the microcalcification detection performance of two CNNs inspired by the popular AlexNet and VGGnet. We tested two preprocessing methods commonly applied to unprocessed raw digital mammograms: (i) the logarithmic transformation adopted by different manufacturers for the presentation of the image to the radiologists; and (ii) the square-root of image intensity that stabilizes the intensity-dependent noise present in the mammogram. Experiments were performed on 1,066 mammograms acquired with GE Senographe systems. Both preprocessing methods yielded statistically significantly better microcalcification detection performance. Results of the square-root transform were superior to those obtained with the log transform.


Real-time multimedia streams like audio and video are now integral data types in modern programming environments. Although a great deal of research has investigated effective and efficient programming support for manipulating such streams and although the design of digital media "middleware" is fairly well understood, no widely available or commonly accepted programming model exists within the research community. The authors believe this lack of common practice impedes our collective progress because it prevents disparate research groups from easily leveraging each other's work. They propose a solution to this problem that combines the best features of a number of existing multimedia toolkits-Berkeley's Continuous Media Toolkit, MIT's VuSystem, and the LBL/UCB MBone tools-into a fine-grained, extensible, and high performance toolkit. They describe the convergence of these three toolkits into a common programming infrastructure and argue that the availability and acceptance of the middleware could potentially facilitate and accelerate breakthroughs in multimedia networking.


"By assembling an international cast of contributors from all walks of research life, Professors Prasad, Pringle and Konrad successfully broaden the scope of scholarly discourse on workplace diversity. This stimulating volume considers how to define this fuzzy construct, what "differences" are more important than others, and how to make best use of alternative research methods at different levels of analysis. It reviews what we have learned about workplace diversity along several important dimensions (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, weight, sexual orientation, disabilities, class), and it offers useful recommendations for how to conduct future research that will expand our knowledge of the implications of diversity for individuals, marginalized groups, work organizations, and societies'" - Gary N Powell, Professor of Management, University of Connecticut"In this much-needed Handbook, an international collection of first-rate scholars deals incisively and perceptively with the problems of diversity, difference, inclusion, and cultural pluralism in organizations.This Handbook will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students - one of those books that stays on the top of the desk, covered with bookmarks'" - Joanne Martin, Stanford UniversityGlobalization and its melting pot of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures is attracting research that is gathering in substance and theory. A dynamic new field that represents a significant focus within management and organisation studies is emerging.This Handbook showcases the scope of international perspectives that exist on workplace diversity and is the first to define this hotly contested field.Part I of the Handbook dissects the theoretical reasons and shows how the study of workplace diversity follows different directions. Part II critiques quantitative and qualitative research methods within the field, while Part III investigates the parallels and distinctions between different workplace groups. Key issues are drawn together in an insightful introduction from the editors, and future directions for research are proposed in the conclusion.The Handbook of Workforce Diversity is an indispensable resource for students and academics of human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational psychology and organization studies.


Translational Research delivers original investigations in the broad fields of laboratory, clinical, and public health research. Interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary in scope, it keeps readers up-to-date on significant biomedical research from all subspecialties of medicine. Aiming to expedite the translation of scientific discovery into new or improved standards of care, it promotes a wide-ranging exchange between basic, preclinical, clinical, epidemiologic, and health outcomes research. It encourages submission of studies describing preclinical research with potential for application to human disease, and studies describing research obtained from preliminary human experimentation with potential to refine the understanding of biological principles underpinning human disease. Also encouraged are studies describing public health research with potential for application to the clinic, disease prevention, or healthcare policy.


More and more traditional services, such as malware detectors or collaboration services in industrial scenarios, move to the cloud. However, this behavior poses a risk for the privacy of clients since these services are able to generate profiles containing very sensitive information, e.g., vulnerability information or collaboration partners. Hence, a rising need for protocols that enable clients to obtain knowledge without revealing their requests exists. To address this issue, we propose a protocol that enables clients (i) to query large cloud-based knowledge systems in a privacy-preserving manner using Private Set Intersection and (ii) to subsequently obtain individual knowledge items without leaking the client's requests via few Oblivious Transfers. With our preliminary design, we allow clients to save a significant amount of time in comparison to performing Oblivious Transfers only.


In this paper, we propose a 4-port edge-fed rectangular microstripline antenna that is integrated with a 4-FET dual-fed distributed amplifier. The 4-port antenna is directly connected to the FETs and has the additional roles of power combining, harmonic suppression and FET biasing. This approach eliminates transmission lines and other elements that would otherwise be needed to realize the amplifier and connect it to an antenna, thereby saving circuit area and minimizing losses.


Background
Discolored anterior teeth can have a very negative effect on a patient's appearance.
Bleaching represents an alternative to invasive treatment such as crowning and the use of
veneers1 for correcting discoloration, while at the same time preserving the hard tissue of
the tooth. Endodontically treated, discolored teeth are generally bleached internally using
the walking bleach technique, in which the bleaching agent (recommended agent: a mixture
of sodium perborate/water) is left in the pulp chamber for about 3 or 4 days.2 Consequently,
the problems outlined below involved in the bleaching of endodontically treated teeth relate
exclusively to the walking bleach technique.


The thesis presents an experimentally validated modelling study of the flow of combustion air in an industrial radiant tube burner (RTB). The RTB is used typically in industrial heat treating furnaces. The work has been initiated because of the need for improvements in burner lifetime and performance which are related to the fluid mechanics of the com busting flow, and a fundamental understanding of this is therefore necessary. To achieve this, a detailed three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model has been used, validated with experimental air flow, temperature and flue gas measurements. Initially, the work programme is presented and the theory behind RTB design and operation in addition to the theory behind swirling flows and methane combustion. NOx reduction techniques are discussed and numerical modelling of combusting flows is detailed in this section. The importance of turbulence, radiation and combustion modelling is highlighted, as well as the numerical schemes that incorporate discretization, finite volume theory and convergence. The study first focuses on the combustion air flow and its delivery to the combustion zone. An isothermal computational model was developed to allow the examination of the flow characteristics as it enters the burner and progresses through the various sections prior to the discharge face in the combustion area. Important features identified include the air recuperator swirler coil, the step ring, the primary/secondary air splitting flame tube and the fuel nozzle. It was revealed that the effectiveness of the air recuperator swirler is significantly compromised by the need for a generous assembly tolerance. Also, there is a substantial circumferential flow maldistribution introduced by the swirier, but that this is effectively removed by the positioning of a ring constriction in the downstream passage. Computations using the k-e turbulence model show good agreement with experimentally measured velocity profiles in the combustion zone and proved the use of the modelling strategy prior to the combustion study. Reasonable mesh independence was obtained with 200,000 nodes. Agreement was poorer with the RNG  k-e and Reynolds Stress models. The study continues to address the combustion process itself and the heat transfer process internal to the RTB. A series of combustion and radiation model configurations were developed and the optimum combination of the Eddy Dissipation (ED) combustion model and the Discrete Transfer (DT) radiation model was used successfully to validate a burner experimental test. The previously cold flow validated k-e turbulence model was used and reasonable mesh independence was obtained with 300,000 nodes. The combination showed good agreement with temperature measurements in the inner and outer walls of the burner, as well as with flue gas composition measured at the exhaust. The inner tube wall temperature predictions validated the experimental measurements in the largest portion of the thermocouple locations, highlighting a small flame bias to one side, although the model slightly over predicts the temperatures towards the downstream end of the inner tube. NOx emissions were initially over predicted, however, the use of a combustion flame temperature limiting subroutine allowed convergence to the experimental value of 451 ppmv. With the validated model, the effectiveness of certain RTB features identified previously is analysed, and an analysis of the energy transfers throughout the burner is presented, to identify the dominant mechanisms in each region. The optimum turbulence-combustion-radiation model selection was then the baseline for further model development. One of these models, an eccentrically positioned flame tube model highlights the failure mode of the RTB during long term operation. Other models were developed to address NOx reduction and improvement of the flame profile in the burner combustion zone. These included a modified fuel nozzle design, with 12 circular section fuel ports, which demonstrates a longer and more symmetric flame, although with limited success in NOx reduction. In addition, a zero bypass swirler coil model was developed that highlights the effect of the stronger swirling combustion flow. A reduced diameter and a 20 mm forward displaced flame tube model shows limited success in NOx reduction; although the latter demonstrated improvements in the discharge face heat distribution and improvements in the flame symmetry. Finally, Flue Gas Recirculation (FGR) modelling attempts indicate the difficulty of the application of this NOx reduction technique in the Wellman RTB. Recommendations for further work are made that include design mitigations for the fuel nozzle and further burner modelling is suggested to improve computational validation. The introduction of fuel staging is proposed, as well as a modification in the inner tube to enhance the effect of FGR.


Since its initiation on January 1, 1994, the agriculture section of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been controversial, which has led to several trade disputes, suggestions for modification and strengthening, and even Presidential initiatives such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). While NAFTA has done much to spur economic growth and development, it has not realized its potential in integrating agrifood markets. Several illustrations are summarized in this report on progress in overcoming sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) barriers to trade under NAFTA; much remains to be accomplished. The basic problem is the NAFTA agreement itself, which lacks a strong NAFTA Secretariat that is charged with moving the NAFTA agrifood economic and market integration agenda forward. While this could best be accomplished by modifying the NAFTA agreement to form an EU Commission type body, without authorization for a common market or an economic union, this option is not politically feasible in an environment where anti-free trade advocates are prevalent.


The sectional title industry has been a part of the property landscape in South Africa for almost half a century, and plays a significant role in addressing the housing problem in the country. Stakeholders such as owners and investors in sectional title property are in most cases not directly involved in the management thereof, and place reliance on the audited annual financial statements of bodies corporate for decision-making purposes. Although the industry seems to be highly regulated, the legislation regarding accounting and auditing of sectional title is vague and ambiguous. Furthermore, there are no industry-specific auditing and accounting standards to guide accounting and auditing practitioners in performing their work and industry financial benchmarks are not readily available. In addition, financial pressure on sectional title schemes is often very high due to the fact that some owners exercise unrealistic pressure to keep monthly levies as low as possible. All these factors have an impact on the business risk as well as audit risk of bodies corporate. Very little academic research has been undertaken on the sectional title industry in South Africa from an accounting and auditing perspective. The aim of this paper is threefold: Firstly, to discuss the findings of a literature review on uncertainties, ambiguity and confusing aspects in current legislation regarding the audit of a sectional title property that may cause or increase audit and business risk. Secondly, empirical findings of riskrelated aspects from the results of interviews with three groups of body corporate role-players will be discussed. The role-players were body corporate trustee chairpersons, body corporate managing agents and accounting and auditing practitioners of bodies corporate. Specific reference will be made to business risk and audit risk. Thirdly, practical recommendations will be made on possibilities of closing the audit expectation gap, and further research opportunities in this regard will be discussed. Keywords—Assurance, audit, audit risk, body corporate, corporate governance, sectional title.


Sphingolipids are ubiquitous and essential components of eukaryotic cells. They are major components of the membrane, and have also been identified to be important in signalling. Until recently, very little has been known about IPCS in plants. The activity has been characterized in bean microsomes in 2003 by Bromley et al., but until now no genes encoding IPCS have been identified. Here the three Arabidopsis thaliana genes potentially encoding IPCS, which is responsible for a step in sphingolipid synthesis have been characterized and the expression level has been identified. Genes have been cloned and transformed into the yeast-E. coli shuttle vector pRS426 MET for investigating the encoded activity. In vivo and metabolic labelling in vitro studies of the complementation studies of AURl of these IPCS genes demonstrated that IPCS function as AURl. Although salt tolerance in vivo studies and metabolic labelling in vitro studies of ISCl complementation studies showed that IPCS did not function as ISCl, IPC-PLC. By designing gene specific primer sets, tissue-specific expression patterns for these genes have been identified for the first time and suggest that the expression of particular IPCS genes are regulated in a tissue-specific and developmental stage manner. Furthermore, A. thaliana IPCS was found to be resistant to the anti-fungal agent aureobasidm A (AbA). This may provide important aspects to future management and prevention of fungal diseases in plants. Identifying the functions and characteristics of A. thaliana IPCS provides important aspects of sphmgolipid synthesis and signalling in plants.


Hot flashes affect about three fourths of postmenopausal women and are one of the most common health problems in this demographic group. Dysfunction of central thermoregulatory centers caused by changes in estrogen levels at the time of menopause has long been postulated to be the cause of hot flashes. Treatment should begin with a careful patient history, with specific attention to the frequency and severity of hot flashes and their effect on the individual's function. For mild symptoms that do not interfere with sleep or daily function, behavioral changes in conjunction with vitamin E (800 IU/d) use is a reasonable initial approach. For more severe symptoms, the next step is to determine whether there is a contraindication or a personal reservation to estrogen replacement therapy. For women who are able and willing to use estrogen, it will successfully relieve symptoms by about 80% to 90%. In patients with a history of breast or uterine cancer, treatment with the progestational agent megesterol acetate appears to be a safe alternative that also decreases hot flashes by approximately 80%. For women unwilling or unable to use hormone therapy, one of the newer antidepressant agents can be prescribed. Venlafaxine decreases hot flashes by about 60%. Gabapentin is another drug that appears promising as therapy for women unable or unwilling to use estrogen, and the results of ongoing trials to determine its efficacy are eagerly awaited. The use of clonidine, methyldopa, and belladonna should be discouraged because of their modest efficacy and adverse effects.


We present an approach to accelerating a wide variety of image processing operators. Our approach uses a fully-convolutional network that is trained on input-output pairs that demonstrate the operator's action. After training, the original operator need not be run at all. The trained network operates at full resolution and runs in constant time. We investigate the effect of network architecture on approximation accuracy, runtime, and memory footprint, and identify a specific architecture that balances these considerations. We evaluate the presented approach on ten advanced image processing operators, including multiple variational models, multiscale tone and detail manipulation, photographic style transfer, nonlocal dehazing, and nonphoto- realistic stylization. All operators are approximated by the same model. Experiments demonstrate that the presented approach is significantly more accurate than prior approximation schemes. It increases approximation accuracy as measured by PSNR across the evaluated operators by 8.5 dB on the MIT-Adobe dataset (from 27.5 to 36 dB) and reduces DSSIM by a multiplicative factor of 3 com- pared to the most accurate prior approximation scheme, while being the fastest. We show that our models general- ize across datasets and across resolutions, and investigate a number of extensions of the presented approach.


Crime control in any country though primarily a mandate of the government should be a responsibility for all people, and an engagement of several agencies. This is because crime which is the main source of insecurity has many negative impacts. At the individual, family and neighbourhood levels, effective crime control lies in ensuring that one does not become a victim. However, in some countries like Kenya, provision of security has been left mainly to the traditional government institutions such as the police who have not succeeded because of a plethora of weaknesses in and mal-functioning of the criminal justice system in general. The aim of this paper is to explore these limitations against the fulfillment of deterrence, incapacitation, reformation and rehabilitation theories of punishment by the Criminal Justice System in Kenya. The methodology involved elaborate review of the findings of numerous scholars on the factors responsible for the malfunctions of the Criminal Justice System in Kenya. The paper concludes by making a case for the use of environmental, situational and social strategies based on the theories of public security as a mechanism of ensuring security in the country instead of relying heavily on the criminal justice agencies.


Outsourcing data to a third-party managerial control, as is done in cloud compute, gives rise to security concerns. The data compromise may occur due to attacks by other users and nodes within the cloud. Therefore, high security measures are required to protect data within the cloud. However, the employed security strategy must also take into account the optimization of the data retrieval time. In this paper, we propose Division and Replication of Data in the Cloud for Optimal Performance and Security (DROPS) that collectively approaches the security and presentation issues. In the DROPS methodology, we divide a file into fragments, and replicate the fragmented data over the cloud nodes. Each of the nodes stores only a single fragment of a particular data file that ensures that even in case of a successful attack, no meaningful information is revealed to the attacker. Moreover, the nodes storing the fragments, are separated with certain distance by means of graph T-coloring to prohibit an attacker of guessing the locations of the fragments. Furthermore, the DROPS methodology does not rely on the traditional cryptographic techniques for the data security; thereby relieving the system of computationally expensive methodologies. We show that the probability to locate and compromise all of the nodes storing the fragments of a single file is extremely low. We also compare the performance of the DROPS methodology with ten other schemes. The higher level of security with slight performance overhead was observed. Keywords— Centrality, cloud security, fragmentation, replication,


Can financial integration, particularly the cross-border investments of multinational firms, help explain the synchronization of business cycles? This paper presents evidence on the comovement of returns and investment within U.S. multinational firms to address this question. These firms constitute significant fractions of economic output and investment in most large economies, suggesting that they could create significant economic linkages. Aggregate measures of rates of return and investment rates of U.S. multinational firms located in different countries are highly correlated across countries. Firm-level regressions demonstrate that rates of return and investment rates of affiliates are highly correlated with the rates of return and investment of the affiliate's parent and other affiliates within the same parent system, controlling for country and industry factors. The evidence on these interrelationships and the importance of multinationals to local economies suggests that global firms may be an important channel for transmitting economic shocks. This evidence also sheds light on asset pricing puzzles related to the diversification benefits provided by multinational firms.


The 1987 market crash was associated with a dramatic and permanent steepening of the implied volatility curve for equity index options, despite minimal changes in aggregate consumption. We explain these events within a general equilibrium framework in which expected endowment growth and economic uncertainty are subject to rare jumps. The arrival of a jump triggers the updating of agents' beliefs about the likelihood of future jumps, which produces a market crash and a permanent shift in option prices. Consumption and dividends remain smooth, and the model is consistent with salient features of individual stock options, equity returns, and interest rates.


Multiphoton fluorescence microscopy is a powerful imaging technique that depends on complex quantum mechanical interactions between photons and matter for fluorophore excitation. In conventional fluorescence microscopy, a fluorescent molecule is pumped to an excited state by absorbing a single photon. The molecule subsequently falls back to its ground state by emitting a less energetic photon. This is a linear process of absorbing and emitting energy in the form of single photons. By contrast, multiphoton microscopy is based on nonlinear interactions between light and matter, whereby multiple photons are absorbed to bring single fluorophore molecules to an excited state. Two-photon fluorescence microscopy is the most commonly used multiphoton imaging technique. In two-photon microscopy, the fluorescent molecule absorbs two photons simultaneously in a single event, and their combined energies provoke the electronic transition of the molecule to the excited state. Advantages of two-photon fluorescence, compared to typical single-photon epifluorescence microscopy, include reduced autofluorescence, deeper tissue penetration, inherent confocality and three-dimensional (3D) imaging, as well as, minimised photobleaching and photodamage. Thus, two-photon microscopy facilitates optical sectioning of thick biological specimens in vivo, which would not be possible with conventional imaging techniques. Recent advances in fluorescence microscopy have expanded the application spectrum and usability of multiphoton imaging, which has become an important and versatile tool in modern biomedical research.

Key Concepts:

Multiphoton microscopy is based on nonlinear interactions between light and matter.

Two-photon excitation transpires only at the objective lens focal volume, where photon density is high enough to generate sufficient absorption events.

Multiphoton microscopy requires the use of ultra-fast femtosecond, pulsed laser light sources to achieve appropriate fluorophore excitation conditions at the focal point.

Because of sharply focused excitation in two-photon microscopy, photodamage is reduced and viability of the biological specimen is increased.

Multiphoton microscopy uses photons with near infra-red wavelengths that are poorly absorbed and less scattered by biological material, allowing deeper light penetration into specimens.

As a result of using photons of longer wavelength for excitation, two-photon fluorescence microscopy is limited to slightly lower resolution, compared with single-photon confocal microscopy.

In two-photon excitation, photodamage and thermal damage are considerably reduced and become significant only at the focal point.

Photoconvertible fluorophores have been developed for multiphoton microscopy applications that allow localised photochemical reactions in a biological sample.

Conventional fluorophores exhibit distinct two-photon absorption spectra, which are not directly related to their single-photon excitation properties.

Two-photon microscopy is suitable for in vivo imaging and monitoring of neuronal function in freely moving and behaving animals.

Keywords:

confocal microscopy;
fluorophore;
GFP;
imaging;
infra-red light;
laser;
model organism;
multiphoton absorption;
nonlinear process;
photodamage


Yutengping Sandstone in Tieh-chan-shan, Taiwan is a potential reservoir for geological CO2 storage. Cyclic loadings were applied to rock samples taken from an outcrop to create artificial pre-stress. The pre-stress evaluation accuracies using two core-based techniques, acoustic emission (AE) and deformation rate analysis (DRA), were investigated under different pre-stresses, delay times and curing temperatures. The experimental results validate the pre-stress evaluations using AE and DRA. The delay time and curing temperature were shown to have minor impacts on the measurement accuracy. However, although both axial strain and lateral strain can be used in DRA, the stress memory fades as the delay time increases. Therefore, delay time, which represents the time from the borehole drilling to the DRA test, must be carefully considered when applying these techniques to evaluate the in situ stress of Yutengping sandstone. Article history: Received 2 February 2012 Revised 10 June 2012 Accepted 21 September 2015


Students can explore calcium signaling in slow-twitch, fast-twitch, and superfast-twitch skeletal muscle in response to action potentials. Skeletal muscle cells release and resequester stored calcium ions to contract and subsequently relax. CalDyx (short for "Calcium Dynamics") is a self-contained software program that teaches the student about the major events that underlie the excitation-contraction (EC) coupling process in skeletal muscle. The program simulates changes in the concentrations of myoplasmic calcium (Ca2+) in three types of adult vertebrate muscle fibers (slow-twitch, fast-twitch, and superfast-twitch) in response to action potentials. The simulations are closely tied to experimental measurements of changes in the myoplasmic free Ca2+ concentration performed with calcium indicator dyes introduced by microinjection into these fiber types. The program includes 10 exercises that guide the student through the major signaling events of EC coupling, including the release of Ca2+ from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), the binding of Ca2+ to the major myoplasmic Ca2+ binding sites, and the return of Ca2+ to the SR by the Ca "pump" proteins of the SR. The program is quantitatively based and should increase the student's understanding of kinetic processes within cells.


Energy and resource management problems are important in areas such as embedded systems or autonomous systems. They are concerned with the question whether a given system admits infinite schedules during which certain tasks can be repeatedly accomplished and the system never runs out of energy (or other resources). In order to develop a general theory of energy problems, we introduce energy automata: finite automata whose transitions are labeled with energy functions which specify how energy values change from one system state to another. We show that energy functions form a *-continuous Kleene ω-algebra, as an application of a general result that finitely additive, locally *-closed and T-continuous functions on complete lattices form *-continuous Kleene ω-algebras. This permits to solve energy problems in energy automata in a generic, algebraic way. In order to put our work in context, we also review extensions of energy problems to higher dimensions and to games.


Tumor-specific imaging is a major challenge in clinical tumor resection. To overcome this problem, several activatable probes have been developed for use in tumor imaging. However, most of these probes are activated based on a single-factor stimulation and are irreversible. Therefore, false signals that make tumor-specific imaging difficult are easily generated. We have developed a new dual-stimulus responsive near-infrared (NIR) reversible adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP)-pH probe for fluorescence and photoacoustic ratiometric imaging of tumors. Since the H+ and ATP content is significantly higher in the tumor microenvironment than that in normal tissues, the Förster resonance energy transfer-based probe ATP-pH was constructed with silicon rhodamine as the donor, CS dye as the acceptor, and ATP/H+ recognition units that could only be activated when both H+ and ATP were connected to the acceptor. The ATP-pH probe is reversibly activated by both the H+ and ATP, which effectively reduces the cumulative response of the probe in circulation after intravenous injection. Further, the NIR ratiometric property of the probe makes it suitable for in vivo imaging. Finally, our probe was successfully utilized in ratiometric photoacoustic and fluorescence tumor imaging and ratiometric fluorescence imaging-guided tumor resection.


Da Vinci in detail: Leonardo's life and work - the definitive edition. All pictures, all drawings! Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed one of the greatest minds of all time; his importance and influence are inestimable. This two-volume, midsize format comprehensive survey is the most complete book ever made on the subject of this Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist and all-around genius. With huge, full-bleed details of Leonardo's masterworks, this highly original publication allows the reader to inspect the subtlest facets of his brushstrokes. Part I explores Leonardo's life and work in ten chapters. All of his paintings are interpreted in depth, with "The Annunciation" and "The Last Supper" featured on large double-spreads. Part II comprises a catalogue raisonne of Leonardo's paintings, which covers all of his surviving and lost painted works and includes texts describing their states of preservation. Part III contains an extensive catalogue of his drawings (numbering in the thousands, they cannot all be reproduced in one book); 663 are presented, arranged by category (architecture, technical, anatomical, figures, proportion, cartography, and more).


The issuance of injunctions that reach beyond just the plaintiffs has recently become the subject of a mounting wave of censorious commentary, including by members of Congress, a Supreme Court justice, the Solicitor General, the Attorney General, and the President. Critics of these "universal" injunctions have claimed that such injunctions are a recent invention and that they exceed the power conferred by Article III to decide cases "in … equity." This Article rebuts the proposition that the universal injunction is a recent invention and that it violates Article III or the traditional limits of equity as practiced by the federal courts. As far back as 1913, the Supreme Court itself enjoined federal officers from enforcing a federal statute not just against the plaintiff, but against anyone, until the Court had decided the case. If the Supreme Court can issue a universal injunction against enforcement of a federal law, then — as an Article III matter — so can a lower federal court. Moreover, lower federal courts have been issuing injunctions that reach beyond the plaintiffs as to state laws in cases that date back more than a century, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly approved of these injunctions. If Article III allows such injunctions as to state laws, it also allows such injunctions as to federal laws. Mapping these and other pieces of the lost history of the universal injunction, this Article demonstrates that the Article III objection to the universal injunction should be retired, and that the unfolding efforts to outright strip the federal courts of the tool of the universal injunction — whether by statutory fiat or by a judicial re-definition of Article III — should halt.


How do honeybees find their way home? Why is Venus so hot? How can you measure the speed of the wind? What makes a sound loud or soft? Discover the awesome answers to these and other fascinating mysteries in biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, and astronomy. Just try these 201 fun, safe, low-cost experiments at home or in the classroom. You'll look through a drop of water to find out how a magnifying lens works. Using a Styrofoam ball, a pencil, and a lamp, you'll learn why the Moon appears and disappears. With just a jar and some ice cubes, you can demonstrate how rain is formed. Each experiment includes an illustration and easy to follow step-by-step instructions. This companion volume to the enormously popular 200 Gooey, Slippery, Slimy, Weird, and Fun Experiments brings together magical projects from Janice VanCleave's Science for Every Kid and Spectacular Science Projects series--plus 40 all-new experiments that make science come to life. Children Ages 8-12


One of the fundamental tasks in science is to find explainable relationships between observed phenomena. Recent work has addressed this problem by attempting to learn the structure of graphical models especially Gaussian models by the imposition of sparsity constraints. The graphical lasso is a popular method for learning the structure of a Gaussian model. It uses regularisation to impose sparsity. In real-world problems, there may be latent variables that confound the relationships between the observed variables. Ignoring these latents, and imposing sparsity in the space of the visibles, may lead to the pruning of important structural relationships. We address this problem by introducing an expectation maximisation (EM) method for learning a Gaussian model that is sparse in the joint space of visible and latent variables. By extending this to a conditional mixture, we introduce multiple structures, and allow side information to be used to predict which structure is most appropriate for each data point. Finally, we handle non-Gaussian data by extending each sparse latent Gaussian to a Gaussian copula. We train these models on a financial data set; we find the structures to be interpretable, and the new models to perform better than their existing competitors. A potential problem with the mixture model is that it does not require the structure to persist in time, whereas this may be expected in practice. So we construct an inputoutput HMM with sparse Gaussian emissions. But the main result is that, provided the side information is rich enough, the temporal component of the model provides little benefit, and reduces efficiency considerably. The GWishart distribution may be used as the basis for a Bayesian approach to learning a sparse Gaussian. However, sampling from this distribution often limits the efficiency of inference in these models. We make a small change to the state-of-theart block Gibbs sampler to improve its efficiency. We then introduce a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampler that is much more efficient than block Gibbs, especially in high dimensions. We use these samplers to compare a Bayesian approach to learning a sparse Gaussian with the (non-Bayesian) graphical lasso. We find that, even when limited to the same time budget, the Bayesian method can perform better. In summary, this thesis introduces practically useful advances in structure learning for Gaussian graphical models and their extensions. The contributions include the addition of latent variables, a non-Gaussian extension, (temporal) conditional mixtures, and methods for efficient inference in a Bayesian formulation.


The paper presents a technology for strain sensing on steel using resonant MEMS packaged in vacuum. For this purpose, a custom sensor fabrication technology and a novel vacuum packaging technique have been developed. The MEMS sensors have been fabricated by surface micromachining of thick (15 μm) Silicon On Insulator substrates with heavily doped handle layers ( = 0.005 Ω cm). Using this process, Double-Ended Tuning Fork (DETF) parallel-plate resonators with reduced coupling gaps (less than 1 μm) have been fabricated, using a high-performance Deep Reactive Ion Etching performed on submicrometer features realized by near-UV lithography combined with a maskless line narrowing technique. The devices have been bonded to a thin steel bar by epoxy glue, packaged in vacuum and tested by applying strain to the bar, showing good tolerances to packaging parasitics, measurement reversibility, and strain sensitivity of 10 Hz/μ . © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of our study is to examine the relationship between kinesiophobia (fear of movement), physical activity level and quality of life.

METHODS
In this study, we assessed 112 patients consulting for low back pain (LBP) of ≥ 3 month's duration. We used Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain intensity, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) for physical activity level, Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale for perception of kinesiophobia, Oswestry Disability Index for disability status of low back.

RESULTS
The results of this study, there was no statistically significant correlation between International Physical Activity Questionnaire, duration of pain, intensity of pain at rest and Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale (p> 0.05). It was found a statistically significant correlation between pain intensity at activity (p= 0.009), disability level (p= 0.000) and Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale. Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale were highly negative correlated with sub-scale of SF-36 Quality of Life Index (general health, physical function, social status, bodily pain, role limitations due to physical health) (p= 0.000).

CONCLUSION
The kinesiophobia adversely affect the quality of life limiting the physical activity status of patients with chronic low back pain.


As the world shifts away from the unquestioned American hegemony that followed in the wake of the Cold War, the United States is likely to face new kinds of threats and sharper resource constraints than it has in the past. However, the country's alliances, military institutions, and national security strategy have changed little since the Cold War. American foreign and defense policies, therefore, should be assessed for their fitness for achieving sustainable national security amidst the dynamism of the international political economy, changing domestic politics, and even a changing climate. This book brings together sixteen leading scholars from across political science, history, and political economy to highlight a range of American security considerations that deserve a larger role in both scholarship and strategic decision-making. In these chapters, scholars of political economy and the American defense budget examine the economic engine that underlies U.S. military might and the ways the country deploys these vast (but finite) resources. Historians illuminate how past great powers coped with changing international orders through strategic and institutional innovations. And regional experts assess America's current long-term engagements, from NATO to the chaos of the Middle East to the web of alliances in Asia, deepening understandings that help guard against both costly commitments and short-sighted retrenchments. This interdisciplinary volume sets an agenda for future scholarship that links politics, economics, and history in pursuit of sustainable security for the United States - and greater peace and stability for Americans and non-Americans alike. Contributors to this volume - Joshua Busby Daniel Byman Audrey Kurth Cronin Daniel W. Drezner Sumit Ganguly John W. Hall Nancy F. Hite-Rubin William Inboden Jonathan Kirshner Jennifer Lind Sara Bjerg Moller Jeremi Suri Benjamin Valentino Cindy Williams William Wohlforth


The Queenston shale among other shales from southern Ontario exhibits timedependent deformation behaviour. This behaviour is manifested in the form of volume increase which can cause damage to the hosted underground structures. The time-dependent deformation of rocks can cause cracks in the springline of tunnels, wall inward movement, roof spalling and floor heave, which requires costly remedial measures. The expansion of the existing infrastructure in southern Ontario requires construction techniques, such as micro-tunneling to build new tunnels and pipelines under existing structures with minimal impact to these structures and to the environment. However, adopting this technique in swelling rocks, such as the Queenston shale requires an evaluation of its feasibility and functionality prior to its application. Accordingly, a comprehensive study that included experimental and numerical investigations was conducted to evaluate the impact of lubricant fluids used in micro-tunneling applications on their time dependent behaviour. The experimental program evaluated the impact of water, bentonite and polymer solutions on the Queenston shale through: i) investigating the influence of lubricant fluids on the timedependent deformation behaviour of the Queenston shale through performing free swell, semi-confined, and null swell tests on Queenston shale in these fluids, ii) investigating the impact of lubricant fluids on the strength of the Queenston shale utilizing Brazilian, direct tension, unconfined compression, and triaxial compression tests, before and after soaking in lubricant fluids, and iii) investigating the depth of penetration of lubricant fluids and water into the Queenston shale. It was revealed that the impact of polymer solution was significant in reducing the time-dependent deformation of the Queenston shale compared to bentonite solution and water. The strength of the Queenston shale was remarkably decreased after their continuous exposure to water and lubricant fluids with minimal impact caused by polymer solution. The penetration of lubricant fluids was found to be smaller than for water, and a relation was derived to compute the penetration depth of each fluid in Queenston shale with time. The numerical investigation comprised finite element parametric analyses using the derived tests results along with time-dependent deformation model employing the computer program PLAXIS 2D. Different pipe diameter, pipe depth, in-situ stress ratio, and waiting time before final grouting were used in the analyses. ii Accordingly, micro-tunneling was found to be workable and suitable technique to construct tunnels and pipelines in the Queenston shale of southern Ontario. Recommendations to use the appropriate strength of the concrete, waiting time and the most suitable depth for microtunneling applications are given. The results are envisioned to aid in determining whether or not micro-tunneling technique is a feasible construction technique for pipelines / tunnels in Queenston shale of southern Ontario.


There are not many names bigger than Ray Ozzie's in computer programming. An industry visionary and pioneer in computer-supported cooperative work, he began his career as an electrical engineer but fairly quickly got into computer science and programming. He is the creator of IBM's Lotus Notes and is now chief technical officer of Microsoft, reporting to chief software architect Bill Gates. Recently, Ozzie's role as chief technical officer expanded as he assumed responsibility for the company's software-based services strategy across its three major divisions.


The success of deep learning sparked interest in whether the brain learns by using similar techniques for assigning credit to each synaptic weight for its contribution to the network output. However, the majority of current attempts at biologicallyplausible learning methods are either non-local in time, require highly specific connectivity motifs, or have no clear link to any known mathematical optimization method. Here, we introduce Deep Feedback Control (DFC), a new learning method that uses a feedback controller to drive a deep neural network to match a desired output target and whose control signal can be used for credit assignment. The resulting learning rule is fully local in space and time and approximates GaussNewton optimization for a wide range of feedback connectivity patterns. To further underline its biological plausibility, we relate DFC to a multi-compartment model of cortical pyramidal neurons with a local voltage-dependent synaptic plasticity rule, consistent with recent theories of dendritic processing. By combining dynamical system theory with mathematical optimization theory, we provide a strong theoretical foundation for DFC that we corroborate with detailed results on toy experiments and standard computer-vision benchmarks.


A meronym, such as gray, is an "image of parts," one which can encompass seeming opposites and can be applied to any balance or blend of its components--all of which are coterminous. Thus gray must always be a balance of black and white, although that can include a myriad of variations, for each of which we assign a unique term, such as charcoal or platinum. In my current study of women's fiction I have borrowed this term to describe novels which seek to balance and encompass seeming contradictions in style and in content. Possession: A Romance by A [ntonia] S [usan] Byatt is such a novel, balancing poetry and prose, past and present, and numerous shades and meanings of the word "possession" in a blend of the Romance and Realism styles of the Victorian and contemporary novel. As Jay Parini asserted in his review, "Possession is a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight" (11). This is not simply "literary game-playing," as Donna Rifkind calls it (77), but an attempt to re-unite the fragmented traditions of narrative style. Both Romance and Realism began as meronymic novelistic traditions, balancing ideas and their concrete expressions in our sensually apprehendable world. The Romance, as Nathaniel Hawthorne has explained in his "Custom House" introduction to The Scarlet Letter, achieves its meronymic perspective by placing the story in the "neutral territory" of the author's imagination, within which the real objects of life can be seen freshly in the "spiritual" light of the moon, with the warmth of the human spirit tempering the scene (66). Realism, as Henry James assures the reader in his preface to The American, must equally embody the romantic idea: The real represents to my perception the things we cannot possibly not know, sooner or later, in one way or another; it being but one of the accidents of our hampered state, and one of the incidents of their quantity and number, that particular instances have not yet come our way. The romantic stands, on the other hand, for things that, with all the facilities in the world, all the wealth and all the courage and all the wit and all the adventure, we never earl directly know, the things that can reach us only through the beautiful circuit and subterfuge of our thought and our desire. (The Art of the Novel 31-2) Later writers of the Romance obscured the realistic surface of their imaginative constructs, barely clinging to the logical extension of scientific theories in journeys Elsewhere and Else when in science fiction or blithely fulfilling hopes and dreams in our time and place by ignoring the complexities of human character and the logic of probability, until the word itself came to mean escapism and fantasy for most critics. Conversely, Realism became mired in the "things we cannot possibly not know" until that tradition fragmented, railing outward at a naturalistic universe or retreating inward to explore the modernistic individual consciousness. Once broken by the Victorian Realist's rejection of Romance, the novelistic mirror has since shattered into so many shards that critics have abandoned trying to name them all, settling for "experimental" and "post-modern" as catch-all terms or attaching a "fantastic" term--such as "Mythic" or "Magic" Realism--to describe attempts to return Romance to the novel. Ann Hulbert suggests this in her review of Byatt's "Romance," noting that the two main characters/researchers must "confront the glacial anti-romanticism at the heart of their studies and their lives so far" (47). To balance Romance and Realism, Byatt returns to a Victorian "foremother" for stylistic guidance. In 1990, the same year Possession appeared, Byatt co-edited and introduced George Eliot: Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings, and that Introduction reflects her stylistic and ideological similarities to Eliot. Included is an Eliot essay which expresses a balancing view of civilization and religion as "`an anonymous blending of lifeless barbarisms, which have descended to us like so many petrifications from distant ages, with living ideas, the offspring of a true process of development"'(xxi). …


In the southwestern United States, non-native grass invasions have increased wildfire occurrence in deserts and the likelihood of fire spread to and from other biomes with disparate fire regimes. The elevational transition between desertscrub and montane grasslands, woodlands, and forests generally occurs at ∼1,200 masl and has experienced fast suburbanization and an expanding wildland-urban interface (WUI). In summer 2020, the Bighorn Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains burned 486 km2 and prompted alerts and evacuations along a 40-km stretch of WUI below 1,200 masl on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, a metropolitan area of >1M people. To better understand the changing nature of the WUI here and elsewhere in the region, we took a multidimensional and timely approach to assess fire dynamics along the Desertscrub-Semi-desert Grassland ecotone in the Catalina foothills, which is in various stages of non-native grass invasion. The Bighorn Fire was principally a forest fire driven by a long-history of fire suppression, accumulation of fine fuels following a wet winter and spring, and two decades of hotter droughts, culminating in the hottest and second driest summer in the 125-yr Tucson weather record. Saguaro (Carnegia gigantea), a giant columnar cactus, experienced high mortality. Resprouting by several desert shrub species may confer some post-fire resiliency in desertscrub. Buffelgrass and other non-native species played a minor role in carrying the fire due to the patchiness of infestation at the upper edge of the Desertscrub biome. Coupled state-and-transition fire-spread simulation models suggest a marked increase in both burned area and fire frequency if buffelgrass patches continue to expand and coalesce at the Desertscrub/Semi-desert Grassland interface. A survey of area residents six months after the fire showed awareness of buffelgrass was significantly higher among residents that were evacuated or lost recreation access, with higher awareness of fire risk, saguaro loss and declining property values, in that order. Sustained and timely efforts to document and assess fast-evolving fire connectivity due to grass invasions, and social awareness and perceptions, are needed to understand and motivate mitigation of an increasingly fire-prone future in the region.


Moving Dislocations The mechanical properties of crystalline materials are limited by the presence and motion of defects caused by extra or missing atoms in the crystal lattice. Plastic deformation of a material causes these defects, known as dislocations, to move and multiply. Much is known about the motion of dislocations in three dimensions but less so in two. Warner et al. (p. 209; see the Perspective by Bonilla and Carpio) used graphene as a model material to track dislocation dynamics in real time. The strain fields in the graphene sheet were mapped, which suggests that the dislocation motion is connected to the stretching, rotating, and breaking of individual carbon bonds. Two-dimensional dislocation dynamics and the resulting strain fields are studied at high resolution in graphene. The movement of dislocations in a crystal is the key mechanism for plastic deformation in all materials. Studies of dislocations have focused on three-dimensional materials, and there is little experimental evidence regarding the dynamics of dislocations and their impact at the atomic level on the lattice structure of graphene. We studied the dynamics of dislocation pairs in graphene, recorded with single-atom sensitivity. We examined stepwise dislocation movement along the zig-zag lattice direction mediated either by a single bond rotation or through the loss of two carbon atoms. The strain fields were determined, showing how dislocations deform graphene by elongation and compression of C-C bonds, shear, and lattice rotations.


We realized a quantum "charge" pump for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a novel bipartite magnetic lattice, whose bands are characterized by nontrivial topological invariants: the Zak phases. For each band, the Zak phase is determined by that band's integrated Berry curvature, a geometric quantity defined at each crystal momentum. We probed this Berry curvature in a charge pump experiment, by periodically and adiabatically driving the system. Unlike topological charge pumps in filled bands that yield quantized pumping, our BEC occupied just a single crystal momentum state allowing us to access its band's local geometry. Like topological charge pumps, for each pump cycle we observed an overall displacement (here, not quantized) and a temporal modulation of the atomic wavepacket's position in each unit cell, i.e., the polarization. Our magnetic lattice enabled us to observe this modulation by measuring the BEC's magnetization. While our periodic drive shifted the lattice potential by one unit cell per cycle, the displacement of the BEC, solely determined by the underlying Berry curvature, was always less than the lattice's displacement. Host: Jed Pixley Web: http://www.physics.umd.edu/cmtc/seminars.html Ian Spielman UMD and NIST Condensed Matter Theory Center Seminar


The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the only mechanism available for use by developing nations. It is there for highly important for the inclusion of these developing nations in the climate change regime. A consideration on the early implementation of the CDM in South Africa and China, being two countries with many similarities and differences and vastly different successes, provides important lessons on how to approach the climate change regime. Certain barriers exist purely due to the nature of countries in which the CDM applies as well as other barriers found within the CDM project life cycle and development. Through the comparison these barriers are explored and areas for development within South Africa are noted as well as weakness with the current climate change regime particularly the Kyoto Protocol.


Pervaded by 'third way' values and identified as archetypal Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs), programmes such as Education Action Zones (EAZs) and Health Action Zones (HAZs) follow a procedural rationale based on heterarchy and partnership. They are a response to an alleged prior fragmentation of service provision in welfare across sectors. Employing evidence from an evaluation of an EAZ and HAZ in one location, this article makes two claims. First, it is claimed that the extent of the alleged ?problem? of fragmentation across the governance of local social and welfare services prior to the introduction of these CCIs is contestable and was exaggerated for political purposes. Second, despite the application of CCIs in the form of EAZs and HAZs, it is claimed that a continuing problem of fragmentation across local governance of social and welfare services is evident. Several insights from the emerging theory of governance failure are employed to offer an explanation for why this situation has occurred.


The global market for valves and valve terminals today is so large that it is almost impossible to maintain an overview. Often, price seems the only buying criterion. But it pays to look more closely, particularly with regard to higher productivity and process reliability. Users of Festo's attractively priced and long-lasting high-quality valves benefit in tough everyday practical applications from the meticulous development processes, including numerous simulation tests and the correct choice of technologies and materials.


Boosting is a general method for improving the accuracy of any given learning algorithm. This short overview paper introduces the boosting algorithm AdaBoost, and explains the underlying theory of boosting, including an explanation of why boosting often does not suffer from overfitting as well as boosting's relationship to support-vector machines. Some examples of recent applications of boosting are also described.


Cloud computing is an application hosting model providing the illusion of infinite computing power. However, even the largest datacenters have finite computing capacity, thus cloud infrastructures have experienced overload due to overbooking or transient failures. The topic of this paper is the comparison of different control strategies to mitigate overload for datacenters, that assume that the running cloud applications are cooperative and help the infrastructure in recovering from critical events. Specifically, the paper investigates the behavior of different controllers when they have to keep the average response time of a cloud application below a certain threshold by acting on the probability of serving requests with optional computations disabled, where the pressure exerted by each request on the infrastructure is diminished, at the expense of user experience. (Less)


Humans employ a high degree of redundancy in joint actuation, with different combinations of muscle and tendon action providing the same net joint torque. Both the resolution of these redundancies and the energetics of such systems depend on the dynamic properties of muscles and tendons, particularly their force-length relations. Current walking models that use stock parameters when simulating muscle-tendon dynamics tend to significantly overestimate metabolic consumption, perhaps because they do not adequately consider the role of elasticity. As an alternative, we posit that the muscle-tendon morphology of the human leg has evolved to maximize the metabolic efficiency of walking at self-selected speed. We use a data-driven approach to evaluate this hypothesis, utilizing kinematic, kinetic, electromyographic (EMG), and metabolic data taken from five participants walking at self-selected speed. The kinematic and kinetic data are used to estimate muscle-tendon lengths, muscle moment arms, and joint moments while the EMG data are used to estimate muscle activations. For each subject we perform an optimization using prescribed skeletal kinematics, varying the parameters that govern the force-length curve of each tendon as well as the strength and optimal fiber length of each muscle while seeking to simultaneously minimize metabolic cost and maximize agreement with the estimated joint moments. We find that the metabolic cost of transport (MCOT) values of our participants may be correctly matched (on average 0.36±0.02 predicted, 0.35±0.02 measured) with acceptable joint torque fidelity through application of a single constraint to the muscle metabolic budget. The associated optimal muscle-tendon parameter sets allow us to estimate the forces and states of individual muscles, resolving redundancies in joint actuation and lending insight into the potential roles and control objectives of the muscles of the leg throughout the gait cycle.


ELIZABETH BONOMO Sanctionable Behavior in a Felony Level Drug Court: Categorizing Noncompliant Behavior Through a Criminal-Thinking Lens (Under the direction of DR. WENDY GUASTAFERRO) Drug
  courts
  use
  sanctions
  as
  a
  form
  of
  behavior
  management
  and
  modification,
  and they
  are
  an
  important
  structural
  tool
  in
  the
  treatment
  of
  drug
  offenders
  by
  the criminal
  justice
  system.

  This
  research
  examined
  noncompliant
  behavior
  being sanctioned
  in
  a
  felony
  level
  drug
  court.

  The
  sample
  consisted
  of
  66
  high
  risk/high needs
  individuals
  who
  were
  enrolled
  in
  a
  drug
  court
  over
  a
  two-‐year
  period. Sanctionable
  behaviors
  were
  analyzed
  through
  a
  criminal-‐thinking
  framework
  in order
  to
  better
  understand
  noncompliant
  behavior
  in
  drug
  court.

  This
  study
  finds support
  for
  applying
  a
  criminal-‐thinking
  framework
  to
  noncompliant
  behavior sanctioned
  in
  drug
  court.

  The
  findings
  from
  this
  study
  illustrate
  the
  nuances
  of noncompliant
  behavior
  of
  a
  drug
  court
  population. INDEX WORDS: drug court, sanction, criminal thinking. xi


Phyto-archaeological data based on macro-remains studies, especially prehistoric charcoal, provide evidence concerning the changes in western Mediterranean vegetation during the last millennia. Comparisons are based on present vegetation levels as defined by Ozenda. From the last glacial period to the present time, differences between warm and cool vegetation were of about 8 °C in the south of France but less extreme in more southern regions. The late Pleistocene and early Holocene (Late Palaeolithic and part of Mesolithic) were a period of transition with pines and junipers. Then, the late Mesolithic and the early Neolithic are typically periods of good forestation. During the Neolithic period deciduous and holm oaks had a role of varying importance in all the present Mediterranean levels (thermomeso- and supramediterranean). Man's influence on the vegetation became significant in the middle Neolithic (south of France) or earlier (south of Spain) and may be characterized by plants such as Buxus sempervirens, Quercus ilex, Pinus halepensis and heaths. The Chalcolithic, the Roman period and the Middle Ages are also periods during which Man's influence was important.


Sever0,1 early game-playing computer programs used forward pruning (i.e., the practice of delib- erately ignoring nodes that are believed unlikely to affect a game tree's minimax value), but this technique did not seem to result in good decision- making. The poor performance of forward prun- ing presents a major puzzle for AI research on game playing, because some version of forward pruning seems to be "what people do," and the best chess-playing programs still do not play as well as the best humans. As a step toward deeper understanding of how for- ward pruning affects quality of play, in this paper we set up a model of forward pruning on two ab- stract classes of binary game trees, and we use this model to investigate how forward pruning affects the accuracy of the minimax values returned. The primary result of our study is that forward prun- ing does better when there is a high correlation among the minimax values of sibling nodes in a game tree. This result suggests that forward pruning may possibly be a useful decision-making technique in certain kinds of games. In particular, we believe that bridge may be such a game.


A case study was conducted with a student leadership body of a private multicultural international secondary school in North- West Province , South Africa, to indicate that the emotional intelligence leadership development challenges of student leaders can be identified through a questionnaire as a measuring instrument, which can then be utilized in promoting training and development of student leaders. The questionnaire results were used to construct emotional intelligence leadership profiles for the 12 participating student leaders, followed by semi-structured interviews with them to verify the results qualitatively. The results of the questionnaire and two of the interviews are reported. It was established that it was possible to develop a reliable instrument to measure the emotional intelligence leadership development challenges of student leaders, which can be used in promoting their training and development. Keywords : emotional intelligence; emotional intelligence student leadership profiling; emotionally intelligent student leadership; student leadership; student leadership development; student leadership questionnaire


We introduce the mean and RMS dot product between normalized gradient vectors as tools for investigating the structure of loss functions and the trajectories followed by optimizers. We show that these quantities are sensitive to well-understood properties of the optimization algorithm, and we argue that investigating these quantities in detail can provide insight into properties that are less well understood. Using these tools, we observe that variance in the gradients of the loss function can be mostly explained by a small number of dimensions, and we compare results when training networks within the subspace spanned by the first few gradients to those obtained by training within a randomly chosen subspace.


This thesis is concerned with Algerian Jewish Sign Language (AJSL) and the Algerian Jewish Sign Language community. AJSL developed naturally in the Jewish quarter of Ghardaia, a town in the sub-Saharan part of Algeria. A high percentage of deaf people lived in this quarter, and because of that a sign language emerged, and was used by both deaf and hearing members of the community. Many members of the AJSL community migrated to Israel in the middle of the twentieth century, where they have continued to use AJSL with friends and family members. As a result, AJSL has persisted alongside the dominant sign language of Israel, which is Israeli Sign Language (ISL).

This thesis uses data collected from nine members of the AJSL community to explore the sociolinguistic conditions of the AJSL community prior to, and following, the migration of AJSL community members to Israel. It considers how AJSL was used in Ghardaia, and how it has persisted in Israel alongside ISL, which is more prevalent and socially more powerful. The research participants shared narratives on life in Ghardaia and life in Israel, and were also asked about their attitudes towards AJSL and ISL. Specific recurring themes have been identified in their narratives, and these are used to build up a picture of the AJSL community in Ghardaia and Israel.

Analysis of these data shows that, once in Israel, AJSL and Algerian culture were perceived negatively by the mainstream Deaf community in Israel, and so AJSL was relegated to the status of a minority language, used only with friends and family members. Deaf Algerian immigrants began to learn ISL, and used this more in public, but hearing Algerian immigrants had no motivation to learn ISL, and remained sign-monolingual in AJSL.

For this study, just under 300 lexical items have been elicited from AJSL users in order to compare the lexica of AJSL and ISL. Lexical comparison suggests that AJSL has retained its own distinct lexical items over the past 60 years, and in this respect AJSL has been remarkably persistent. In light of the narratives shared by research participants, it is concluded here that the persistence of AJSL in Israel can be attributed to two main factors: its importance as a means of communication between deaf and hearing family members, and its rejection by the dominant community, the ISL users.

In spite of the remarkable persistence of AJSL, however, it is clear that AJSL is an endangered language, since intergenerational transmission of the language has all but ceased. This thesis presents evidence to suggest that AJSL is a moribund language, on the grounds not only of intergenerational transmission, but also the relocation and dispersal of the AJSL community, the size of the AJSL community, contact with ISL, and the low status of AJSL in the period immediately following migration to Israel.

The study of AJSL is interesting for many reasons. First, AJSL has characteristics both similar to and different from other village sign languages, and may shed light on the development and structure of such languages. Second, AJSL is unique as a sign language that has persisted in Israel, alongside a widely used sign language, where the sign languages of other immigrant communities have long since disappeared. The case is made in this thesis for the importance of documenting AJSL; language documentation is crucial, given that AJSL is now used only by older generations, and no longer acquired by younger generations.


(1−x)BaTiO3–xBi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 [(1−x)BT–xBMT] polycrystalline ceramics were obtained via solid-state processing techniques. The solubility limit for (1−x)BT–xBMT was determined to be about x=0.07. A systematic structural change from the ferroelectric tetragonal phase to pseudocubic phase was observed at about x≥0.05 at room temperature. Dielectric measurements revealed a gradual change from normal ferroelectric of pure BaTiO3 to highly dispersive relaxor-like characteristics in the solid solution with 30–60 mol% Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3, showing low-temperature coefficients of capacitance over a wide temperature range. The properties of Nb2O5-doped 0.85BT–0.15BMT ceramics were investigated to better understand the formation mechanism of core-shell structure, for further improving the temperature stability of the dielectric behavior.


Microwave radiometers allow remote sensing of earth and atmospheric temperatures from space, anytime, anywhere, through clouds, and in the dark. Data from microwave radiometers are high-impact operational inputs to weather forecasts, and are used to provide a vast array of climate data products including land and sea surface temperatures, soil moisture, ocean salinity, cloud precipitation and moisture height profiles, and even wind speed and direction, to name a few. Space-borne microwave radiometers have a major weakness when it comes to long-term climate trends due to their lack of traceability. Because there is no standard, or absolute reference, for microwave brightness temperature, nationally or internationally, individual instruments must each rely on their own internal calibration source to set an absolute reference to the fundamental unit of Kelvin. This causes each subsequent instrument to have a calibration offset and there is no 'true' reference. The work introduced in this thesis addresses this vacancy by proposing and introducing a NIST microwave brightness temperature source that may act as the primary reference. The NIST standard will allow pre-launch calibration of radiometers across a broad range of remote sensing pertinent frequencies between 18 GHz and 220 GHz. The blackbody will be capable of reaching temperatures ranging between liquid nitrogen boiling at approximately 77 K and warm-target temperature of 350 K. The brightness temperature of the source has associated standard uncertainty ranging as a function of frequency between 0.084 K and 0.111 K. The standard can be transferred to the calibration source in the instrument, providing traceability of all subsequent measurements back to the primary standard. The development of the NIST standard source involved predicting and measuring its brightness temperature, and minimizing the associated uncertainty of this quantity. Uniform and constant physical temperature along with well characterized and maximized emissivity are fundamental to a well characterized blackbody. The chosen geometry is a microwave absorber coated copper cone. Electromagnetic and thermal simulations are introduced to optimize the design. Experimental verifications of the simulated quantities confirm the predicted performance of the blackbody.


This experiment was conducted to study the morphometric and genetic diversity of Tegal, Magelang, and their crossbred ducks. Each ten female about twenty weeks old ducks from Tegal, Magelang, Gallang, and Maggal ducks, respectively, were used as the group materialss. The body weight, chest circumference, body length, shank length, neck length, and pubis width were recorded and tested by analysis of variance of one way classification as the morphometric characteristics. Polymorphism of cytochrome b ( cyt b) gene on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was analyzed by Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Genetic distance was analyzed based on value of heterozygosity, whereas the phylogeny tree was reconstructed using MEGA6 software. The results showed there were highly significant difference (P<0.01) on body weight, chest circumference, body length, and neck length between population, while shank and pubis width were not significant different. The genetic distance between Gallang and Maggal ducks (0.206) was higher than Tegal and Magelang ducks (0.169). It is concluded that the reciprocal crosses increased the morphometric and genetic diversity of Indonesian local duck population.