Aspect level sentiment classification aims at identifying the sentiment of each aspect term in a sentence. Deep memory networks often use location information between context word and aspect to generate the memory. Although improved results are achieved, the relation information among aspects in the same sentence is ignored and the word location can't bring enough and accurate information for the analysis on the aspect sentiment. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for aspect level sentiment classification, deep mask memory network with semantic dependency and context moment (DMMN-SDCM), which integrates semantic parsing information of the aspect and the inter-aspect relation information into deep memory network. With the designed attention mechanism based on semantic dependency information, different parts of the context memory in different computational layers are selected and useful inter-aspect information in the same sentence is exploited for the desired aspect. To make full use of the inter-aspect relation information, we also jointly learn a context moment learning task, which aims to learn the sentiment distribution of the entire sentence for providing a background for the desired aspect. We examined the merit of our model on SemEval 2014 Datasets, and the experimental results show that our model achieves a state-of-the-art performance.


The article discusses a selection of theoretical inputs underlying discussions on the regulation of Internet-based services. Since the Internet's expansion into civilian use in the 1990s, the debate on regulation of specific digital markets (e.g. audiovisual services, social networks or transportation services) has skirted around the ideas of exception and harmonization. That is to say that stakeholders have often approached these debates from the narrow perspectives of topical sectoral conflicts of interest, where policy choices swung between extension of pre-existing legislation to new services and exceptional measures (which often meant no measure). There are, however, theoretical frameworks that may underpin and inform regulatory choices in the face of those dilemmas, broadening the understanding of the challenge of Internet regulation and what it demands from legislators. This article aims to contribute to this framework by bringing three strains of theories applicable to Internet regulation. Namely on (i) the theoretical context of insufficiency of traditional regulatory means and the quest for other means of legitimation; (ii) on the peculiar challenges that technologies impose on regulators; and (iii) on how these challenges are reflected in the specific context of Internet based services. Hence, it proposes a recapitulation of the academic literature that has dealt with such issues and that is relevant to digital regulation discussions across different markets.


Phenolic compounds are well known for their health benefits related to antioxidant activity. In addition, this kind of compounds can be extracted from natural sources, such as olives, grapes, fruits, vegetables, rice, spices, herbs, tea and algae, among others. In this way, these compounds have increased their popularity and, little by little, the consumers are more interested in these compounds due to the fact that they come from natural sources and because they have health biological activity. In fact, other important characteristics associated to phenolic compounds are the antimicrobial activity, because phenolics have the capacity of retarding the microbial invasion in some products and avoiding the putrefaction of others, mainly fruits and vegetables. These properties allow phenolic compounds to be suitable for numerous food preservation applications. Therefore, different kinds of products can be fortificated with phenolic compounds to extend the shelf life of some foods, to turn them in functional food or to incorporate them in food packaging. Active packing is an innovative strategy where phenolic compounds can play an important role for improving the global assessment and extend the shelf life of commercial products.


"Theorizing Ambivalence in Ang Lee's Transnational Cinema" takes a unique approach to the study of transnational cinema by examining the representation of Chinese identity in Ang Lee's films and the public discourse from various audience communities. This book focuses on his transnational films "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) and "Lust, Caution" (2007) as two case studies. Providing a systematic analysis of audience discourse from Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora, this study challenges ideological constructions of racial and ethnic identity, such as Chineseness, that are objectively defined within a static nation-state mechanism in an era of globalization. Through the study of the representation of Chineseness, this book expands the theoretical discussions on the politics of national identity and cultural syncretism represented in transnational cinema and further provides a good example of the familiar cycle of ambivalent emotion toward the West in the aftermath of postcolonialism. China and Taiwan's long history of engaging in a subordinate relationship with the West enhances the resurgence of ambivalence. The representations become a significant and predominant way to mediate one's bodily experiences, to connect and collaborate with one another, and to form and inform one's cultural identity. The analyses of these films and the audience discourse are essential to an understanding of the ways in which new media technologies impact and alter the human interactions between people from various cultural, social, and political contexts.


CONTEXT
- With enormous growth in the field of molecular pathology, the reporting of results gleaned from this testing is essential to guide patient care.

OBJECTIVE
- To examine molecular reports from laboratories participating in proficiency testing for required elements to convey molecular laboratory test results to clinicians and patients.

DESIGN
- Molecular laboratories participating in the College of American Pathologists (CAP) proficiency testing program for BRAF mutation analysis were solicited to submit examples of final reports from 2 separate proficiency testing reporting cycles. Reports were reviewed for the presence or absence of relevant components.

RESULTS
- A total of 107 evaluable reports were received (57 demonstrating a positive result for the BRAF V600E mutation and 50 negative). Methods for BRAF testing varied, with 95% (102 of 107) of reports adequately describing their assay methods and 87% (93 of 107) of reports adequately describing the target(s) of their assays. Information on the analytic sensitivity of the assay was present in 74% (79 of 107) of reports and 83% (89 of 107) reported at least 1 assay limitation, though only 34% (36 of 107) reported on variants not detected by their assays. Analytic and clinical interpretive comments were included in 99% (106 of 107) and 90% (96 of 107) of reports, respectively. Of participants that perform a laboratory-developed test, 88% (88 of 100) included language addressing the development of the assay.

CONCLUSIONS
- Laboratories participating in BRAF proficiency testing through the CAP are including most of the required reporting elements to unambiguously convey molecular results. Laboratories should continue to strive to report these results in a concise and comprehensive manner.


Price risks are everywhere, and a profusion of derivative instruments have been created to hedge them. The BIFFEX Baltic Freight Index futures contract, based on an index of ocean shipping costs for a set of standard routes, is one of the more unusual. An important problem with such a futures contract based on a nonstorable service is that there is no arbitrage trade to enforce cost of carry pricing. This allows considerable basis risk in the contract. In this article, Kavussanos and Nomikos examine the hedging characteristics of the BIFFEX contract within a GARCH framework that takes account of cointegration between the spot and futures markets. They find that allowing for time variation in the hedge ratio does improve hedge performance, but basis risk remains very large compared with other futures markets. A recent change in the contract, to use a narrower index, appears to have reduced the problem somewhat, but not enough to produce much increase in trading activity so far.


Masquerade, both literal and metaphorical, is now a central concept on many disciplines. This timely volume explores and revisits the role of disguise in constructing, expressing and representing marginalised identities, and in undermining easy distinctions between 'true' identity and artifice. The book is interdisciplinary in approach, spanning a diverse range of cultures and narrative voices. It provides provocative and nuanced ways of thinking about masquerade as a tool for construction, and a tool for critique. The essays interrogate such themes as: *mask and carnival *fetish fashion *stigma of illegitimacy *femininity as masquerade *lesbian masks *cross-dressing in Jewish folk theatre *the mask in seventeenth and eighteenth century London and nineteenth century France *the voice as mask.


For ceramicists of any level, surface design is an essential skill for creating beautiful work. And this comprehensive and invaluable studio reference captures all the popular techniques available for embellishing clay. A wealth of practical information and detailed images lead you through every phase of the process - from the wet and leather-hard stages (faceting, carving, burnishing) through bisque ware (terra sigillata and slip work), to firing (glazing methods) and post-firing (decals, lusters and raku). Because the procedures shown all require the same basic skill level, readers can dip in at any point. Time-tested recipes are offered in abundance, photographs of fired demonstration pieces show the final effect, top-quality contemporary gallery pictures display the fabulous results and sidebars throughout offer options for further exploration.


The exchange of tubulin dimer into steady-state microtubules was studied over a range of solution conditions, in order to assess the effects of various common buffer components on the dynamic instability of microtubules. In comparison with standard buffer conditions (100 mM-Pipes buffer, pH 6.5, containing 0.1 mM-EGTA, 1.8 mM-MgC12 and 1 M-glycerol), the rate and extent of exchange, and thus of dynamic instability, are suppressed by increasing the concentration of glycerol above 2 M. Exchange is enhanced by the addition of further Mg2+ (up to 17 mM) or by the addition of Ca2+ (up to 0.4 mM). Phosphate ion (150 mM) has relatively little effect on the dynamic behaviour of microtubules, as judged by the exchange method. The findings are interpreted within the framework of the Lateral Cap model for microtubule dynamic instability, in terms of the effects of these changes on the intrinsic rate constants of the system. By contrast, the extent of tubulin exchange depends selectively on the value of the dissociation rate constant for tubulin-GDP. A decrease in the extent of exchange, and hence in dynamic activity, is associated with a decreased value for this rate constant, and vice versa. The results also show good agreement of predictions of the model in treating the observed variations in the dynamic properties of individual microtubules, induced by different solution conditions.


Using vocational choice and social dominance theories as theoretical frameworks, the authors examined the effects of ideology/role congruency on differential institutional rewards. The authors reasoned that congruents (i.e., individuals high in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-enhancing [HE] social roles and low in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-attenuating [HA] roles) would receive higher institutional rewards than would incongruents (i.e., individuals high in antiegalitarianism in HA social roles and low in antiegalitarianism in HE roles). Furthermore, it was predicted that one's continued exposure to the university environment would increase the probability of being a congruent. The authors used a large sample of university students, with grade point average as the operationalization of institutional reward. Role was defined as the students' major, and antiegalitarianism was defined by a classical racism scale. As expected, (a) everything else being equal, congruents received higher grades than did incongruents, and (b) the probability of being a congruent increased with university experience.


This thesis is a contribution to a critical debate about the role and impact of audience development theory on the organisation of orchestra concerts. It suggests that the conventional analysis of orchestra audience development, which is influenced by a marketing management tradition that favours the metaphor of 'customer comfort', is too reductive and that it gives the listening subject too limited a role in the process of music. In reaction to this, John Dewey's idea of 'art as experience' is introduced to open up the debate and explore the underlying assumptions of the prevailing arts marketing model of audience development. The thesis calls for a reform of the dominant audience development paradigm and the 'toolbox' conception of arts management.

This thesis is based on the pragmatist aesthetic reading and interpretation of 21 orchestra events, concerts and educational performances, involving eight symphony orchestras. The orchestras are: the Berlin Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The 21 musical events were chosen on the basis of their diversity and representation of the variety of audience development activity that the symphony orchestras promote. Furthermore, the events have critical potential since they raise issues that are important to the understanding of what changes to the concert structure might mean in terms of a different understanding of audience development.

The events are realisations of the fact that there are various ways of perceiving music through performance and listening. From the pragmatist perspective it is important that these variations on the classical concert form are not viewed or constructed as ideal, or more valuable in some abstract sense, but rather as alterations that create different ways of perceiving music for both performers and listeners. In conclusion, I suggest that audience development is a much broader subject than is usually recognised and far too important for the future of the art form to be theorised solely in terms of dominant marketing conceptions. A possible re-definition is proposed in which 'audience development' is understood in a more musical and pragmatist sense of a 'variation on the act of listening'.


Impaired insulin-stimulated glycogen synthesis of peripheral tissues is a characteristic feature of many patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and their first-degree relatives with normal glucose tolerance, suggesting putative inherited defects in this metabolic pathway. In previous studies, we have failed to reveal mutations in the coding regions of the muscle-specific glycogen synthase gene and the three genes that encode the catalytic subunits of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) as frequent causes of insulin resistance. Because the glycogen-associated regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1 G-subunit) plays a key role in the insulin stimulation of glycogen synthesis and the activity of PP1 is decreased in insulin-resistant subjects, we have now cloned the human G-subunit cDNA to search for abnormalities in the corresponding gene (designated PPP1R3 in the human genome nomenclature) in patients with NIDDM. The human cDNA was isolated from a skeletal muscle cDNA library and was found to encode a 126-kDa protein, which shows 73% amino acid identity to the rabbit PP1 G-subunit. The human G-subunit cDNA from 30 insulin-resistant NIDDM patients was analyzed for genetic variations in the G-subunit by using single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) scanning of reversely transcribed mRNA. One variant SSCP profile was detected in the region encoding the COOH-terminal part of the PP1 G-subunit in only one NIDDM patient, and subsequent nucleotide sequencing showed a C to A transversion on one allele at base position 2792. This change predicts an amino acid substitution from alanine to glutamic acid. The carrier of this mutation was characterized by reduced insulin-stimulated nonoxidative glucose metabolism when examined with the euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp. SSCP scanning of the 2584–2844 nucleotide fragment of PP1 G-subunit cDNA from an additional 22 NIDDM patients and 29 control subjects did not reveal additional genetic variants. To indirectly screen for abnormalities in PP1 G-subunit gene regulation, we measured the mRNA level of the G-subunit in skeletal muscle. However, no difference in the abundance of mRNA of PP1 G-subunit was found between patients with diabetes and control subjects.


In this paper the heterogeneous firms and trade literature is extended by integrating quality of inputs and outputs in a food and agricultural setting. Recently, Sexton (2013) has suggested that intermediate agricultural input quality is critical in food processing firms' output quality and pricing decisions. The results presented in this paper indicate that intermediate agricultural input quality, when combined with the quality of other food processing inputs, is important in analyzing the production decision-making of firms. Extending the model of Kugler and Verhoogen (2012), the quality of food processing inputs is integrated into the analysis in two ways: first, it affects the production of the final good, in that higher quality food processing inputs lower the marginal cost of producing the final good; and, second, food processing input quality is complementary to intermediate input quality in determining quality of the final good. By choosing these elements, firms become differentiated on a vertical (quality) level not only because of their capability draw and intermediate input quality choice, but also because of their choice of food processing inputs. Three key results are developed in the paper: first, larger firms, measured by revenue, charge a higher price for their final good, pay a higher price for their inputs, and produce a higher quality final good. Second, firms that produce for export destinations with a higher preference for quality, choose higher-quality inputs. Third, if preference for quality increases in export-destinations new firms enter the export market, while less capable firms are forced to exit. JEL Codes: F12, F61, L66


Background: Intra-hospital transport of critically ill patients is a challenging task. However, despite the improvements in intra-hospital transport practices, adverse event incidents remain high and constitute a significant risk for the transport of the critically ill ICU patients. Objectives: To observe the number and types of unexpected-events (UEs) occurring during intra-hospital transport of critically ill ICU patients. Interventions provided along with outcome. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective observational study of 254 intra-hospital critically-ill ICU patients of our hospital transported for diagnostic purposes during April 2012 - March 2013. The escorting intensivist completed the data of unexpected events during transport. Results: A total of 254 patients were observed prospectively for UEs during intra-hospital transfer of critically ill patients. The overall UEs observed were 139 among 64 patients. Among the UEs which occurred, the maximum were miscellaneous causes [89 (64.00%)] like oxygen probe [38 (27.33%)] or ECG lead displacement [27 (19.42%)]. Major events like fall in spo2 >5% observed in 15 (10.79%) patients, BP variation > 20% from baseline in 22 (15.82%) patients, altered mental status in 5 (3.59%), and arrhythmias in 6 (4.31%) patients. Among 64 (100%) patients with UEs, 3 (2.15%) patients with serious adverse events have been aborted from transport. Conclusion: Unexpected-events (UEs) are common during transport of critically ill ICU patients and these adverse events can be reduced when critically ill patients are accompanied by intensivist/medically qualified person during transport and following strict transport guidelines.


We studied the effect of using Motivational Interviewing Intervention (MII) on health facility delivery and newborn care practices among pregnant women receiving Care of the Mother and Newborn at Home (CNH) visits by Community Health Workers (CHWs). Near-Term women who had received at least one CHW home visit, were randomly assigned to one session of MII (intervention) or no MII (Control). Fifty five (55%) of intervention women, compared to 35% of control women delivered in health facilities. Intervention women also understood the need to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months better than controls (P = 0.000), and had a p-value of 0.07 for breastfeeding within one hour after birth. We concluded in the context of CHW Home visit program, adding may improve perinatal care.


The initial goal of evaluating a patient with SBO is to immediately identify strangulation and need for urgent operative intervention, concurrent with rapid resuscitation. This relies on a combination of traditional clinical signs and CT findings. In patients without signs of strangulation, a protocol for administration of Gastrografin immediately in the emergency department efficiently sorts patients into those who will resolve their obstructions and those who will fail nonoperative management.Furthermore, because of the unique ability of Gastrografin to draw water into the bowel lumen, it expedites resolution of partial obstructions, shortening time to removal of nasogastric tube liberalization of diet, and discharge from the hospital. Implementation of such a protocol is a complex, multidisciplinary, and time-consuming endeavor. As such, we cannot over emphasize the importance of clear, open communication with everyone involved.If surgical management is warranted, we encourage an initial laparoscopic approach with open access. Even if this results in immediate conversion to laparotomy after assessment of the intra-abdominal status, we encourage this approach with a goal of 30% conversion rate or higher. This will attest that patients will have been given the highest likelihood of a successful laparoscopic LOA.


This study examines whether the tax avoidance strategies that reflect special tax provisions provided to industries is determined by the ownership structure and the firm's corporate governance mechanisms including incentives given to executives. The study is conducted in Malaysia because it implemented a tax policy to gradually reduce the corporate tax rate from 40% to 25% over a period of ten years. The sample consists of 397 Malaysian public listed companies for whom data is available for 2007-2008. The study finds that government ownership, management power, and agency issue proxies' the free cash flows and total accruals are determinants of companies using effective tax rates (ETR) as a conduit to affect their market values. Additionally, the results show that companies that mitigate the agency conflicts with lower free cash flows and total accruals are more likely to have lower ETR, and these are also good predictors of long-term tax planning. These findings are explained in the context of making Malaysia an attractive destination for investments as well corporate taxes being a reliable source of government revenue.


A panel at ACM Multimedia 2012 addressed research successes in the past 20 years. While the panel focused on the past, this article discusses successes since the ACM SIGMM 2003 Retreat and suggests research directions in the next ten years. While significant progress has been made, more research is required to allow multimedia to impact our everyday computing environment. The importance of hardware changes on future research directions is discussed. We believe ubiquitous computing—meaning abundant computation and network bandwidth—should be applied in novel ways to solve multimedia grand challenges and continue the IT revolution of the past century.


Reform has been relatively successful in Georgia because, after the Rose Revolution, the new government used its dominance of the state to fire a huge number of officers, purge the old leadership, and instigate a crackdown on police corruption and links with organised crime. This took place in the background of a strong public demand for reform and a state-building process which dramatically reduced public sector corruption and altered state-society relations. In Kyrgyzstan and Russia, neither top-down nor bottom-up pressure has manifested itself into political pressure for reform. In the former, the state has been highly contested and powerful factions have competed to use it to extract resources for their own benefit and/or those of their constituents. In Russia, the state is more stable, but the leadership lacks the know-how or the willingness to implement meaningful reform. Instead of reform being imposed upon each country's Ministry of Interior, reforms have been co-opted by elements within the ministries, with the result that they have been ineffective.


Introduction: Mastopexy associated with implant placement is challenging for plastic surgeons. The objective is to describe the placement of a submuscular implant with anatomical detachment in combination with stable fixation of the breast tissue to the pectoralis muscle and analyze the aesthetic results. Method: Twenty-three mastopexy procedures with implants were performed from April 2015 to July 2017 by the same surgeon, and surgical markings were made in the breasts of the patients in a seated position. An incision was made in the inframammary fold, and the breast tissue was elevated to the upper pole in the subfascial plane and attached to the pectoralis major muscle using 9-12 stitches. Subsequently, the inferior margin of the pectoralis major muscle and the transition from the rectus abdominis muscle to the serratus muscle were dissected to expose the muscle. The implant was introduced and mastopexy was completed. Implant size ranged from 255 mL to 355 mL. Photographs of the breasts of 12 patients were evaluated by two plastic surgeons and two non-medical subjects, who considered the aesthetic results, symmetry of the nipple-areola complex, and degree of breast ptosis. The results were scored as unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or good. Results: The surgical technique was reproducible; there was only one case of unilateral hematoma, no implant infections, and only complaints of mild pain. Only one case was scored as satisfactory by one evaluator, whereas the results of the other cases were considered good. Conclusion: The treatment of breast ptosis with the placement of a submuscular implant in combination with fixation of the breast to the pectoralis major muscle is reproducible and yields good aesthetic results. ■ ABSTRACT


SUMMARY
There has been limited research into how different types of supply networks can be created and operated. This article develops a taxonomy of supply networks with a particular focus on managing network creation and operation. The taxonomy is based on a review of network literature from various academic perspectives and extensive empirical data across a variety of industry sectors including automotive, fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and communications technologies. The main differentiating factors for classifying a matrix of four types of supply network are found to be the degree of supply network dynamics and the degree of focal company supply network influence. Network characteristics and different patterns ofnetworking activities are identified for each type of supply network.


Litigation-type contingencies represent one of the most frequent and most important uncertainties faced in business. Inspired by the Entwistle et al. (1994) study, this study focuses on two aspects of litigation contingencies: the current status of disclosure practices by public firms, and the relationship between various environmental factors and litigation disclosure patterns. Using the 1994 financial statements of public companies, this study examines 44 firms' specific note disclosures of both litigation gains and losses. Disclosure scores are analyzed and compared to Entwistle et al. (1994) based on the information across nine aspects of the disclosures. In addition, seven disclosure environment characteristics, including size, capital structure, ownership structure, profitability, industry, SEC listing and nature of the lawsu~t, are examined for their relationship with firms' litigation disclosure practices. The findings indicate that despite the repeated expressed dissatisfaction with litigation disclosures nlade by public firms, no significant improvements have been made in public companies' financial statement litigation disclosures over the three-year time frame from 1991 to 1994. Further, and interestingly, the findings also fail to identify any statistically significant associations between the seven environmental factors explored and firms' disclosure patterns. The results of this study should be of interest to both accounting standard setters, and to future researchers in their efforts to better understand the possible causes of firms' litigation disclosure decisions.


Automatic word alignment plays a critical role in statistical machine translation. Unfortunately, the relationship between alignment quality and statistical machine translation performance has not been well understood. In the recent literature, the alignment task has frequently been decoupled from the translation task and assumptions have been made about measuring alignment quality for machine translation which, it turns out, are not justified. In particular, none of the tens of papers published over the last five years has shown that significant decreases in alignment error rate (AER) result in significant increases in translation performance. This paper explains this state of affairs and presents steps towards measuring alignment quality in a way which is predictive of statistical machine translation performance.


ABSTRACT Reactivation of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a significant cause of disease and death in immunocompromised patients, underscoring the need to understand how latency is controlled. Here we demonstrate that HCMV has evolved to utilize cellular microRNAs (miRNAs) in cells that promote latency to regulate expression of a viral protein critical for viral reactivation. Our data reveal that hsa-miR-200 miRNA family members target the UL122 (immediate early protein 2) 3′ untranslated region, resulting in repression of this viral protein. Utilizing recombinant viruses that mutate the miRNA-binding site compared to the sequence of the wild-type virus results in lytic rather than latent infections in ex vivo infections of primary CD34+ cells. Cells permissive for lytic replication demonstrate low levels of these miRNAs. We propose that cellular miRNA regulation of HCMV is critical for maintenance of viral latency. IMPORTANCE Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a herpesvirus that infects a majority of the population. Once acquired, individuals harbor the virus for life, where the virus remains, for the most part, in a quiet or latent state. Under weakened immune conditions, the virus can reactivate, which can cause severe disease and often death. We have found that members of a family of small RNAs, termed microRNAs, encoded by human myeloid progenitor cells are capable of repressing a key viral protein, thus enabling the virus to ensure a quiet/latent state. As these progenitor cells mature further down the myeloid lineage toward cells that support active viral replication, the levels of these microRNAs decrease. Together, our data suggest that host cell microRNA regulation of HCMV is important for the quiet/latent state of this pathogen.


A botnet is a network of compromised computers that are infected with code that allows an unauthorized user to control them via the Internet. Botnets are one of the most serious threats to today's Internet. Most current botnets have centralized command and control (C&C) architecture. However, peer-to-peer (P2P) structured botnets have gradually emerged as a new advanced form of botnets. Without central C&C servers, P2P botnets are more resilient to defenses and countermeasures .Compared with current botnets, the proposed botnet is harder to be shut down, monitored, and hijacked. It provides robust network connectivity, limited botnet exposure by each bot, and easy monitoring and recovery by its botmaster and more trustfull.


In ad hoc networks, due to the lack of a dedicated network infrastructure, members have to collaborate ones with the others to support the basic networking functions that allow them to communicate. The main challenge of this model is combating the intrinsic selfish behavior of the participants, which are usually equipped with handheld and mobile devices with limited resources. In this paper, a forwarding protocol is presented that stimulates the cooperation through a mechanism that combines both credit and reputation-based solutions. A micropayment protocol is used to charge and reward the applier and forwarders of a transmission respectively. The credits obtained for collaboration not only are a mean to pay for network services, but are a symbol of the cooperative range of a node. Using this information, the presented model benefits most cooperative no des with preferential transmission channels and a higher quality of service. The model is suited for plain and cluster-based ad hoc networks.


The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the suitability of applying MPC for the performance control of compressor systems. Dynamic model of the Kårstø gas compression system was used as a process model in D-spice simulator. It consists of two stages with three parallel compressors on each and intercooling to reduce the temperature and total required compression work. The study has deepen into direction of optimization of operation for this system. A plantwide control design procedure was applied for the systematic approach of the control problem. Economic potential for the optimization was examined for the different operational conditions and controlled variables were stated. The main result of the study, a developed and tested MPC application for the optimization of operation of export gas compression system in Septic MPC. It was discovered significant nonlinear interactions in the plant during the modeling and simulation. Acquired step response models works properly only in a specific operational region where they taken.


Social media has become a value-adding marketing channel. With the significance of social media for online small businesses and the lack of understanding of this area, this study attempts to investigate the impact of social media marketing on the sales performance of such businesses. Drawing on the theories of media richness and uses and gratifications, we propose a research model in which the impact of social media marketing message strategies (i.e., message content and format) on customer engagement, brand awareness, and sales performance of online small business is investigated. Customer engagement and brand awareness are expected to mediate the relations between message strategies and online small business sales performance. To validate our model, we will collect data from a Twitter-like microblogging platform Sina Weibo and e-commerce platform Taobao in China. This study is expected to contribute to research and practice on social media marketing and online small businesses.


Distribution of information across IP based networks is today part of our everyday life. IP is the backbone of the Internet and most office networks. We use IP to access web pages, listen to radio, and to create computation clusters. All these examples use bandwidth, and bandwidth is a limited resource. Many applications distribute the same information to multiple receivers, but in many cases the same information is sent to a single receiver at a time, thus multiple copies of the same information is sent, thus consuming bandwidth. What if the information could be broadcasted to all the clients at the same time, similar to a television broadcast. TCP/IP provides some means to do that. For example UDP supports broadcasting; the problem faced when using UDP is that it's not reliable. There is no guarantee that the information actually reaches the clients. This Bachelor thesis in Computer Science aims to investigate the problems and solutions of how to achieve reliable distribution of fixed size data sets using a non reliable multicast communication channel, like UDP, in a LAN environment. The thesis defines a protocol (Almost Reliable Multicast Protocol – Arm-P) that provides maximum scalability for delivery of versioned data sets that are designed to work in a LAN-environment. A proof-of-concept application is implemented for testing purposes.


ABSTRACT Purpose In this paper, the application of Umberto NXT LCA software to devise a Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) for the technology of producing electricity from gas extracted in the process of shaftless underground coal gasification is presented. The Material Flow Analyses of underground coal gasification includes a range of technology, through obtaining process gas and its purification, to electricity production, and, additionally, the capture of carbon dioxide. Methods To evaluate electricity production based on Underground Coal Gasification, Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) was used. Modeling material and energy flow helps a high level of efficiency or technology of a given process to be reached, through the effective use of resources and energy, or waste management. The applied software for modeling material flow enables, not only, the simulation of industrial processes, but also the simulation of any process with a material or energy flow, e.g. in agriculture. Results MEFA enabled the visualization of material and energy flow between individual unit processes of the technology of electricity production from UCG gas. An analysis of material and energy flow networks presented in the form of Sankey diagrams enabled the identification of unit processes with the biggest consumption of raw materials and energy, and the greatest amount of emissions to the environment. Practical implications Thanks to applying material and energy flow networks with Umberto software, it is possible to visualize the flow of materials and energy in an analyzed system (process/technology). The visualization can be presented in the form of an inventory list of input and output data, or in the form of a Sankey diagram. In the article, a Sankey diagram has been utilized. MEFA is first stage of the plan to conduct analyses using Umberto software. The analyses performed so far will be used in the following stages of the research to assess the environmental impact using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) technique, to analyze costs using the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) technique, and to analyze eco-efficiency. It is important to highlight the fact that this is the first attempt of material and energy flow analysis of electricity production from UCG gas. Originality/value This is the first approach which contains a whole chain of electricity production from Underground Coal Gasification, including stages of gas cleaning, electricity production and the additional capture of carbon dioxide.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that mentoring has on Canadian early career teachers' (ECTs') well-being. The authors describe findings from a pan-Canadian Teacher Induction Survey (n=1,343) that examined perceptions and experiences of ECTs within K–12 publicly funded schools, with particular interest in retention, career interests and the impact of mentoring on well-being.

Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was used to examine perceptions and experiences of ECTs within publicly funded K–12 schools across Canada. For this paper, the authors selectively analyzed 35 survey questions that pertained to mentorship and well-being of ECTs, using quantitative and qualitative procedures.

Findings
The findings revealed a strong correlation between the mentoring experiences and well-being of the participating Canadian ECTs. The teachers who did not receive mentorship indicated significantly lower feelings of well-being, and conversely, teachers who participated in some kind of mentorship demonstrated much higher levels of well-being.

Research limitations/implications
This paper draws on the selective analysis of the data from a larger study to elicit the connections between the mentoring support and perceived well-being. Due to inconsistencies in terminology and multifaceted offerings of induction and mentoring supports for ECTs across Canada, there might have been some ambiguity regarding the formal and informal mentorship supports. A longitudinal study that is designed to specifically examine the connection between the mentorship and well-being of ECTs could yield deeper understandings. A comparative study in different international contexts is commended.

Practical implications
The findings showed that the ECTs who did not receive any mentorship scored significantly lower feelings of well-being from external, structural, and internal well-being sources, and conversely, the ECTs who participated in some kind of mentorship scored much higher levels of feelings of well-being. Policy-makers should therefore continue to confidently include mentorship as an intentional strategy to support and help ECTs to flourish. However, inconsistent scoring between individuals and their levels of external, structural and internal well-being suggest that more research on the connection between mentoring and well-being of the ECTs.

Social implications
Work-life imbalance seems to be more challenging for ECTs than policymakers who provide these expectations are aware. Therefore, excessive work demands and intensive workloads need to be given proper attention for their potential negative effects (such as stress, burnout and absence) on the beginning teachers' health and well-being. Likewise, purposeful strength-based approaches should be undertaken to establish generative and pro-social efforts to enhance the connectedness, collaboration, collegiality and resilience-building opportunities for novice professionals within flourishing learning communities.

Originality/value
In this paper, the authors have undertaken the first steps in exploring the impact that mentoring has on Canadian ECTs' well-being. The study increases the understanding of how mentoring can be used as a purposeful strategy to support the well-being of ECTs and retain them in the teaching profession in Canada and potentially in different international contexts.


Background: There is much discussion about whether high acceptance rates of asylum applications lead to a greater inflow of asylum seekers to Europe. To date, little is known about this relationship before and after the peak of the so-called refugee crisis of 2015. While Syrian and Iraqi inflows decreased after 2015, African asylum seekers became more numerous, their numbers tripling between 2008 and 2018. Objective: We study the two-way relationship between the number of asylum applications from Africans and African refugee acceptance rates in Europe. Methods: We compile quarterly data from 2008 to 2018 on 1,488 country dyads of 48 African and 31 European countries and estimate fixed effects panel models with different lags of the variables of interest. Results: We find robust evidence for a positive effect of acceptance rates on the number of subsequent asylum applications in the respective countries. However, this effect is rather small in size. Conversely, more applications can prompt authorities to accept fewer asylum seekers, but evidence for this effect is much weaker. Conclusions: Higher acceptance rates lead to a greater number of asylum seekers, but formal protection rates cannot explain the substantial increase in asylum applicants from Africa to Europe that has continued since the 'refugee crisis' of 2015. Besides informal practices, which can play a role, the self-reinforcing nature of migration is a major driver of the current increase in inflows. Contribution: This is the first study to analyze country-to-country flows of asylum seekers on a fine-grained timescale (quarters) focusing on recent developments before and after the 'refugee crisis' in Europe.


Introduction Information and Communication Technology has enhanced teachers' professional knowledge, skill, and capabilities by extending their subject knowledge, enabling planning and preparation for teaching to be more efficient (Leach, 2005). Research has also shown that ICT enables effective learning (Sutton, 2006). As a result of this, ICT is now recognized as an essential ingredient for creating 21st century learning environment. Educators worldwide are now harnessing the power of technology to transform learning and enhance results. To foster classroom ICT integration, teachers have been identified to be a major factor in fostering classroom integration. This is because teachers constitute the facilitators and entrepreneurs in classroom ICT learning environment. For this reason, research efforts have concentrated on teacher-related factors such as ICT attitudes, self-efficacy, competence, etc. This is with the belief that each of this ICT-related behaviour will impact ICT use. For example Yuen, Law, and Chen (1999) identified teachers' positive attitude toward computers as an important factor in fostering computer integration and the enhancement of quality learning and teaching using computers. Kenzie, Delecourt, and Power (1994) opined that computer self-efficacy predicted computer use. Similarly, individuals who did not see themselves as competent ICT users were less likely to use ICT, in other words, competence is related to usage. The missing fact in these findings is that the relationships between the constructs of each of these ICT behaviour components were not investigated. This may obscure important information and facts that may be needed in remedying identified problems. This information is what this study attempts to provide. Previous endeavours in this context have investigated constructs of ICT attitudes and each of self-efficacy and competence (Jegede, 2007; Jegede, Dibu-Ojerinde, & Ilori, 2007). What is yet to be added is the answer to the question: What relationship exists between each of ICT attitudinal constructs and use level of teachers? Use level in this context implies the extent to which teachers use ICT for personal and professional practices. Chin and Marcolin (2007) emphasized the need for examining the actual phenomena of ICT usage. Phenomena of usage according to authors encompassed ICT usage pattern, quality of usage and quantity of usage. The present study measures usage in quantitative and qualitative terms. Teachers in this study were those involved in pre-service teacher training institution in Nigeria, such as Colleges of Education and Universities' Faculties of Education. The reason for choosing these populations is because good ICT behaviour when achieved among teacher educators will eventually be achieved on the student-teachers they teach. Thus tomorrow's ICT classroom environment will be guaranteed through these means. This is in consonance with Oliver (1994) who posited that unless student teachers have ICT role models, it will be impossible for them to integrate ICT into teaching. The sole objective of the study therefore is to ascertain the nature of relationship that exists between ICT attitudinal constructs and use level of teachers. Method Participants and Setting Four hundred and sixty seven teachers selected from ten teacher education institutions (five Colleges of Education and five Universities) participated in the study. The sample covers all teaching cadre and subject discipline. Two research instruments were employed to collect relevant data. These included Teachers ICT Attitudinal Scale (TICTAS) designed by Selwyn (1987) but adapted by Soh (1998) and Teachers' Use of ICT Checklist (TUIC). TICTAS is a 21-item five-point Likert scale with five constructs namely; affective components, perceived usefulness factor, behavioural factor, perceived control factor and defense factor. …


Runoff generation in a forested catchment (0.18 km 2 ) was simulated using a quasi-three-dimensional rainfall-runoff model. The model was formulated over a finite grid where water movement was assumed to be dominantly vertical in the unsaturated soil zone and horizontal in the saturated soil. The vertical soil moisture distribution at each grid cell was calculated using a conceptual approximation to the one-dimensional Richards equation. The approximation allowed the use of a simple soil surface boundary condition and an efficient solution to the water table elevation over the finite grid. The approximation was coupled with a two-dimensional ground water model to calculate lateral soil water movement between the grid cells and exfiltration over saturated areas, where runoff was produced by the saturation-excess mechanism. Runoff was an input to a channel network, which was modelled as a nonlinear reservoir. The proposed approximation for the vertical soil moisture distribution in unsaturated soil compared well to a numerical solution of the Richards equation during shallow water table conditions, but was less satisfactory during prolonged dry periods. The simulation of daily catchment outflow was successful with the exception of underprediction of extremely high peak flows. The calculated water table depth compared satisfactorily with the measurements. An overall comparison with the earlier results of tracer studies indicated that the modelled contribution of direct rainfall/snowmelt in streamflow was higher than the isotopically traced fraction of event-water in runoff. The seasonal variation in the modelled runoff-contributing areas was similar to that in the event-water-contributing areas from the tracer analysis.


The investigation of vocal folds viscoelastic properties in an animal model (rabbit) after injection of various augmentation substances, 6 months after injection, is reported. The injected materials were: hyaluronan-based materials (Hylan B gel and Deflux®), cross-linked collagen (Zyplast®) and polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon®). Rheological properties of the augmentation substances were also evaluated. The results from these animal experiments indicate that the viscoelastic properties of the vocal folds injected with Deflux®, Zyplast® and Hylan B gel are similar to the healthy vocal folds (non-injected samples) used as control, thus demonstrating that these materials are good candidates for further studies aimed at restoring/preserving the vibratory capacity of the vocal folds with injection treatment in glottal insufficiency.


This study serves as a qualitative, descriptive case study analyzing the social, economic, and political relationship between the University of Montana and its host municipality, the City of Missoula, often referred to as "The Zoo." The University of Montana is home to "The Griz" student body; 12,000 of Missoula's 70,000 residents. Being that the student population in Missoula is a significant portion of its total size, the impact that the university has on Missoula and its residents is quite noticeable, most often in a positive manner, but at times strenuous. This paper provides a brief overview of what are commonly referred to as "town-gown" relations from a historical perspective, beginning with the first established universities in Europe, through the Morrill Land Grant Acts and the post-World War II boom in student enrollment in the United States. In specific reference to The Griz and The Zoo, this research presents findings, using grounded theory, from surveys and interviews with Missoula residents, ranging from students, to alumni, as well as residents, and community leaders. The research identifies and evaluates the feedback from the research participants, and highlights positive interactions between the two entities, while also suggesting actions for improvement in less than ideal areas, as well as recommendations for future research in related areas.


This research was carried out in 2018, at the Látókép Experimental Station of the University of Debrecen in a moderately warm and dry production area, on deep humus layered medium-hard calcareous chernozem soil. In the scope of the research, the chlorophyll content of maize (Zea mays L.) was examined under field circumstances by means of local sensory measurements and we were looking for correlation between the obtained values and the amount of yield. Our measurements were carried out with Minolta SPAD-502 and GreenSeeker devices at 3 measurement times (4 leaf stage, 10 leaf stage and silking). It was found that phenological phases had an effect on the obtained SPAD and NDVI values and were in a slightly significant correlation with the yield. The most significant correlation was found between the results obtained during silking and the amount of yield. This may be because the least time has passed between the measurement time and harvest. Results obtained during the 10-leaf stage show excessive values in each case, which can be due to a measurement error. It was found that the phenological phase had an effect on the correlation of SPAD and NDVI values and the amount of yield. As the phenological phase progressed, the correlation between the measured results and yield has increased.


In female mammals, meiotic prophase one begins during fetal development. Oocytes transition through the prophase one substages consisting of leptotene, zygotene, and pachytene, and are finally arrested at the diplotene substage, for months in mice and years in humans. After puberty, luteinizing hormone induces ovulation and meiotic resumption in a cohort of oocytes, driving the progression from meiotic prophase one to metaphase two. If fertilization occurs, the oocyte completes meiosis two followed by fusion with the sperm nucleus and preparation for zygotic divisions; otherwise, it is passed into the uterus and degenerates. Specifically in the mouse, oocytes enter meiosis at 13.5 days post coitum. As meiotic prophase one proceeds, chromosomes find their homologous partner, synapse, exchange genetic material between homologs and then begin to separate, remaining connected at recombination sites. At postnatal day 5, most of the oocytes have reached the late diplotene (or dictyate) substage of prophase one where they remain arrested until ovulation. This review focuses on events and mechanisms controlling the progression through meiotic prophase one, which include recombination, synapsis and control by signaling pathways. These events are prerequisites for proper chromosome segregation in meiotic divisions; and if they go awry, chromosomes mis-segregate resulting in aneuploidy. Therefore, elucidating the mechanisms regulating meiotic progression is important to provide a foundation for developing improved treatments of female infertility.


ABSTRACT This article features an analysis of the relationship between the DOW JONES Industrial Average (DJIA) Index and a sentiment news series using daily data obtained from the Thomson Reuters News Analytics (TRNA) provided by SIRCA (The Securities Industry Research Centre of the Asia Pacific). The recent growth in the availability of on-line financial news sources, such as internet news and social media sources provides instantaneous access to financial news. Various commercial agencies have started developing their own filtered financial news feeds which are used by investors and traders to support their algorithmic trading strategies. TRNA is one such data set. In this study, we use the TRNA data set to construct a series of daily sentiment scores for DJIA stock index component companies. We use these daily DJIA market sentiment scores to study the relationship between financial news sentiment scores and the stock prices of these companies using entropy measures. The entropy and mutual information (MI) statistics permit an analysis of the amount of information within the sentiment series, its relationship to the DJIA and an indication of how the relationship changes over time.


The general framework of Mobile Flexible Networks (MFN) is to design dense self-organizing, self-healing and self-energy harvesting secure networks where terminals and base stations interact and self-adapt in an intelligent manner without the need of a central controller or with the right amount of regulation to let the agents in the network exploit fully the degrees of freedom. The design depends mainly on the mobility pattern as in highly mobile environments, intelligence at the terminal reduces the cost of signaling whereas for fixedling whereas for fixed (non-mobile) networks, all the intelligence can be put on the network side. One of the big challenges is to find how to optimally split the intelligence between cognitive terminals and cognitive networks. In this paper, we discuss the challenges ahead and provide some research directions to develop the theoretical foundations of these networks.


This article takes up the axiomatic place of family law under federalism. Family is often depicted as belonging squarely in the state law domain, reflecting its nature as a matter of moral deliberation, rather than of, say, commerce or constitutional rights. This article demonstrates, however, that family law is a matter of federal law in an endless number of substantive areas, from immigration and taxation to privacy in the marital bedroom and the relative rights of putative and presumed fathers. It asks how the innumerable exceptions to the rule about family law's place under federalism come to be rationalized. The answer, the article argues, has to do with the fact that the state-federal divide with respect to family maps onto the private-public divide that has long vexed feminists. The constant creation of exceptions to the general rule that family law is state law serve to preserve family's allegedly moral character and obscure individualist dimensions of family.


MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) Tourism in Mexico generates more than 501 thousand jobs and contributes 1.43% to the national GDP. According to the World Ranking of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Mexico is increasingly positioned as a destination for this tourism market, becoming a key driver in the economy. This tourism activity is characterized to be a large-scale phenomenon, in which an interdependence is generated between the various agents involved creating positive and negative impacts and repercussions on the hosting destinations of the events. That is why is relevant manage this activity as a complex system identifying the relationships of its elements to generate solutions considering its economic, social, cultural, and environmental reality. In this research is presented the current situation of MICE Tourism in Mexico through the Soft Systems Methodology. In the end, all those components and external agents that make up this tourist segment in Mexico can be identified, as well as the problem situations existing in the system and its environment. This diagnosis guides to the generation of a Viable System Model that allows the system to persist over the time despite the changes that occur in the environment, this by the realization of sustainable events.


Introduction: Since the World Health Organization's definition of health in 1948, researchers have continued to search for an Operationalization that is keeping with the holistic definition of health, wellbeing. Objective. The purposes of the current work are (1) to examine the correlates among some predisposed variables and subjective psychosocial wellbeing (SWB) of Jamaicans, (2) to model factors that influence SWB, (3) to determine the predictability of those selected predisposing conditions on SWB, and (4) to ascertain whether SWB is better proxy of wellbeing than Bourne's Model. Method. Analysis of the data is by bivariate and multivariate analyses, and it is taken from a nationally representative survey of 1,338 Jamaican adults who are 18 years or over. The survey was conducted between July and August 2006 by the Centre of Leadership and Governance, department of Government, the University of the West Indies, Mona-Jamaica. Findings. The findings indicate that religiosity is positively correlated with SWB as well as ethnicity, education and social class, with gender being negatively related to SWB. It can be generalized, using multiple regressions, that religiosity, race, gender, education and social class can explain 7.7% of the variance in SWB of Jamaicans. Religiosity is found to be a weak predictor of subjective wellbeing (SWB), (1%), with race contributing 0.4% and gender 0.3% being among the least suppliers to the model. Conclusion. The utilization of subjective psychosocial wellbeing is not a good evaluation of wellbeing compared to Bourne's Model, which offers an insight into how health must be defined.


Background: Microbial plaque-induced oral diseases are among the most common diseases worldwide. The present study aimed to compare the antimicrobial effect of electrolyzed water (EW), (acidic, mildly basic, and basic) on the growth of bacterial species producing dental plaque and to assess their cytotoxicity on fibroblasts and epithelial cells. Methods: The study was performed at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2019. Several bacterial species (Streptococcus salivarius, Staphylococcus aureus, Lactobacillus casei, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans) were treated with different EW types at three pH values (3, 9, and 11) for 30 seconds and subsequently, the colonies were counted. The cytotoxic effect of these EW types was evaluated on HeLa and L929 cell lines at 30 seconds, 1 minute, and 5 minutes. GraphPad Prism 6.0 was used for statistical analysis. The Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Mann-Whitney U and one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey's test were used to analyze bacterial activity and cell cytotoxicity, respectively. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: EW types significantly inhibited bacterial growth at all pH values. The strongest antibacterial activity of EW was against A. actinomycetemcomitans (P<0.001) and the least significant antibacterial activity was against S. aureus (P<0.001). The EW types showed increased cytotoxic activity against L929 cells as the treatment time increased. The most cytotoxic effect was seen at 5 minutes of treatment in all EW types compared with the negative control group (P<0.0001). This negative cytotoxic effect on HeLa cells was shown just after 30 seconds and viable cell counts increased over time, reaching its highest value at 5 minutes of treatment with basic EW (P<0.0001). Conclusion: The contradictory effects of the EW types on both HeLa and fibroblasts, in addition to variable results at different exposure times, indicated that the effect of EW could vary depending on cell types and treatment periods.


Extracellular cues affect signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes to elicit cellular responses. Although intracellular signaling, metabolic, and regulatory networks are highly integrated, previous analyses have largely focused on independent processes (e.g., metabolism) without considering the interplay that exists among them. However, there is evidence that many diseases arise from multifunctional components with roles throughout signaling, metabolic, and regulatory networks. Therefore, in this study, we propose a flux balance analysis (FBA)–based strategy, referred to as integrated dynamic FBA (idFBA), that dynamically simulates cellular phenotypes arising from integrated networks. The idFBA framework requires an integrated stoichiometric reconstruction of signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes. It assumes quasi-steady-state conditions for "fast" reactions and incorporates "slow" reactions into the stoichiometric formalism in a time-delayed manner. To assess the efficacy of idFBA, we developed a prototypic integrated system comprising signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes with network features characteristic of actual systems and incorporating kinetic parameters based on typical time scales observed in literature. idFBA was applied to the prototypic system, which was evaluated for different environments and gene regulatory rules. In addition, we applied the idFBA framework in a similar manner to a representative module of the single-cell eukaryotic organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Ultimately, idFBA facilitated quantitative, dynamic analysis of systemic effects of extracellular cues on cellular phenotypes and generated comparable time-course predictions when contrasted with an equivalent kinetic model. Since idFBA solves a linear programming problem and does not require an exhaustive list of detailed kinetic parameters, it may be efficiently scaled to integrated intracellular systems that incorporate signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes at the genome scale, such as the S. cerevisiae system presented here.


Substructure shake table testing is a class of real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS). It combines shake table tests of substructures with real-time computational simulation of the remaining part of the structure to assess dynamic response of the entire structure. Unlike in the conventional hybrid simulation, substructure shake table testing imposes acceleration compatibilities at substructure boundaries. However, acceleration tracking of shake tables is extremely challenging, and it is not possible to produce perfect acceleration tracking without time delay. If responses of the experimental substructure have high correlation with ground accelerations, response errors are inevitably induced by the erroneous input acceleration. Feeding the erroneous responses into the RTHS procedure will deteriorate the simulation results. This study presents a set of techniques to enable reliable substructure shake table testing. The developed techniques include compensation techniques for errors induced by imperfect input acceleration of shake tables, model-based actuator delay compensation with state observer, and force correction to eliminate process and measurement noises. These techniques are experimentally investigated through RTHS using a uni-axial shake table and three-story steel frame structure at the Johns Hopkins University. The simulation results showed that substructure shake table testing with the developed compensation techniques provides an accurate and reliable means to simulate the dynamic responses of the entire structure under earthquake excitations.


SYNOPSIS: In this article, I explain how two economic forces of the 1970s and 1980s, volatile exchange rates and inflation, provided a constant and compelling backdrop to the FASB's debates on its conceptual framework. While it has been acknowledged that rising prices contributed to a move towards greater flexibility in measurement, the role of fluctuating exchange rates has not been addressed so far. When, in 1976, a first foreign currency translation standard became effective, it sparked considerable controversy such that the FASB reconsidered the statement, embracing an exception to the all-inclusive income concept. This seemingly ad hoc exclusion, which is now described as other comprehensive income (OCI), was to be addressed conceptually in the further course of the conceptual framework project. However, the Board was not able to agree on its recognition and measurement project, issuing a descriptive Concepts Statement No. 5. By abandoning further work on reporting income, the FASB included an insuff...


What does Afghanistan's political history reveal about possible pathways to a more peaceful future, such as the creation of space for non-violent political opposition? The lack of legitimate space for dissent has been a persistent driver of violent resistance in Afghanistan. A predominant political culture has evolved of power concentrated centrally in a single ruler who sets policy and distributes resources leaving no room for nonviolent opposition. Leaders have struggled to exert authority nationwide, however, and in practice have had to accommodate regional rivals through de facto provincial autonomy to avoid insurrection. Tackling conflict today requires both strengthening existing governance structures and creating a political system that can incorporate insurgents peacefully. Regional devolution of power could alleviate pressure on the centre, but would still leave the core problem of how to introduce effective opposition politics. An emerging political dynamic with potential to break this enduring deadlock may be found in Afghanistan's growing young population, who increasingly see political participation as a right rather than a privilege and are making demands for more meaningful representation.


In the course of their various activities, the Harambee Project proponents recognized that processes supporting collaboration and partnership are critical to enhancing the participation of Africans in their own development. There is both an immediate and strong need in Africa for capacity development in the design of processes that assist in the creation, use and sharing of knowledge, and in the use of ICTs to support such engagement. Harambee assists its proponents and partners in supporting specific networks and communities in Africa by increasing their respective capacities to facilitate and coordinate such groups. Through the implementation of focus network pilot activities, provision of channels for knowledge sharing, a small grant facility and the development of research and training materials, Harambee is increasing the capacity of network coordinators and ultimately the effectiveness of the networks themselves.

This case study provides a brief background of Harambee and presents its approach to development through strengthening networks. It also presents some of the key lessons learned as well as what it sees as the major challenges that lie ahead.


Objective This study analyses patterns in reporting rates of medication errors, rates of medication errors with harm, and responses to the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), all in the context of four cultural and three system-level interventions for medication safety in an intensive care unit. Methods Over a period of 2.5 years (May 2007 to November 2009), seven overlapping interventions to improve medication safety and reporting were implemented: a poster tracking 'days since last medication error resulting in harm', a continuous slideshow showing performance metrics in the staff lounge, multiple didactic curricula, unit-wide emails summarising medication errors, computerised physician order entry, introduction of unit-based pharmacy technicians for medication delivery, and patient safety report form streamlining. The reporting rate of medication errors and errors with harm were analysed over time using statistical process control. SAQ responses were collected annually. Results Subsequent to the interventions, the reporting rate of medication errors increased 25%, from an average of 3.16 to 3.95 per 10 000 doses dispensed (p<0.09), while the rate of medication errors resulting in harm decreased 71%, from an average of 0.56 to 0.16 per 10 000 doses dispensed (p<0.01). The SAQ showed improvement in all 13 survey items related to medication safety, five of which were significant (p<0.05). Conclusion Actively developing a transparent and positive safety culture at the unit level can improve medication safety. System-level mechanisms to promote medication safety are likely important factors that enable safety culture to translate into better outcomes, but may be independently ineffective in the face of poor safety culture.


People with dementia have different needs, and it is important to have variation in the services that are offered for this population. Farm-based day care aims to meet this diversity in need, but research on such services is lacking. The present study provides knowledge about how people with dementia experience attending farm-based day care services in Norway. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted for five different services, while the participants were at the farm. The interviews were analysed in accordance with the content analysis of Graneheim, U., & Lundman, B. (2004) [Nurse Education Today, 24(2), 105-112] and revealed three main categories that included (1) social relations, (2) being occupied at the farm, and (3) individually tailored service. The findings were summarised in the overall theme that attending day care at a farm makes me feel like a real participant. Our findings indicate that the farm-based day cares in the present study provide person-centred care. The farm setting facilitates services that are tailored to the individual, where the participants get to use their remaining resources and spend time outdoors. Further, farm-based day care was described as being suitable for people with or without farm experience and must be seen as an important supplement to regular day care for those who could benefit from a more active service.


With the trend of miniaturization and maximizing the potential of nanomaterials, the properties of important materials in electronic devices such as graphene and silicene have been widely investigated. This presentation aims to provide computational information for the achievement of this goal by studying the structural stability and electronic properties of hexagonal-boron nitride on graphene (h-BN/G) hetero-bilayer and silicene on hexagonal-boron nitride on graphene (Si/h-BN/G) heterostructure using density functional theory. The calculations were performed through the Vienna Ab Initio Simulation Package (VASP) implemented with three different approximations namely, LDA, GGA, and GGA with Tkatchenko-Scheffler van der Waals (vdW) correction. From the calculations, the h-BN/G hetero-bilayer and Si/h-BN/G heterostructures were found to be computationally stable relative to the experimental binding energy and interlayer distance between graphitic layers. Moreover, it was observed that layers of graphitic structures interact through the Van der Waals forces (vdW), thus calculations of such structures must be done with vdW corrections. Lastly, the application of perpendicular strain modified the band gap and Dirac cone shifting of the system.  These characteristics suggested that the hetero-bilayer and heterostructure have great potential for electronic device applications.


In content-based image retrieval, the first-round retrieval result by simple visual feature comparison may be unsatisfactory, which can be refined by visual re-ranking techniques. In image retrieval, it is observed that the contextual similarity among the top-ranked images is an important clue to distinguish the semantic relevance. Inspired by this observation, in this paper, we propose a visual re-ranking method by contextual similarity aggregation with self-attention. In our approach, for each image in the top-K ranking list, we represent it into an affinity feature vector by comparing it with a set of anchor images. Then, the affinity features of the top-K images are refined by aggregating the contextual information with a transformer encoder. Finally, the affinity features are used to recalculate the similarity scores between the query and the top-K images for re-ranking of the latter. To further improve the robustness of our re-ranking model and enhance the performance of our method, a new data augmentation scheme is designed. Since our re-ranking model is not directly involved with the visual feature used in the initial retrieval, it is ready to be applied to retrieval result lists obtained from various retrieval algorithms. We conduct comprehensive experiments on four benchmark datasets to demonstrate the generality and effectiveness of our proposed visual re-ranking method.


Abstract. Floods frequently cause disasters worldwide. In Argentina, almost half of disasters are related to floods (Celis & Herzer, 2003). During the period 1944 to 2005, 41 major floods occurred in urban areas in the country (Argentina Red Cross, 2010) with more than 13 million people affected. Luján (34°33′S, 59°07′W) is a city of about 110,000 people, situated 21 m above the mean sea level in a relatively plain area. It suffered from 21 floods between 1967 and 2018 with a result of about 14,600 evacuees and 3 dead people. The main cause of the floods is the overflow of the Luján River, which has an average flow of 5.37 m3/s (INA, 2007). The National Disaster Risk Assessment guidelines (UNDP, 2010; UNSIDR, 2018) outline the use of qualitative or quantitative approaches to determinate the acceptable level of risk. Risk has been associated with a potential loss with different levels of certainty (Crichton, 1999; WMO, 2013), and it could be defined as a combination of hazard, exposure and vulnerability (Akhtar et al, 2018; Behanzin, 2015; Armeneakis et al., 2017; UNISDR, 2017) (Figure 1). If one of those elements is missing, risk is not defined. The hazard is related to the potential danger that the natural phenomenon has, which is inherent to the event itself, and it would be inundation scenarios in this study. Vulnerability has been defined by Cardona et al. (2012) as a propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. That definition includes the characteristics of a person or a group, and their situation that influences their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the adverse effects of physical events (Natenzon et al., 2005; González, 2009). The perspectives selected in the present work focus on working with social vulnerability which is linked to socio-economical population conditions and the possibility of these being affected. Spatial distribution of exposure (elements at risk) in proximity to a hazard is a significant factor of disaster risk (UNISDR, 2017). Some researchers (González et al., 1998; Villagrán De León, 2001; Moel et al., 2009) defined "exposure" as what can be affected by a flood such as buildings, land use, and population, the latter of which is a significant factor of disaster risk (UNISDR, 2017). Flood risk maps play an important role in decision-making, planning and implementing flood management options (WMO, 2013). Geographical Information Systems (GIS) enable us to perform a spatial analysis of the elements of risk (hazard, vulnerability, and exposure) for Luján City. By creating categories from the selection of some indicators, it is possible to define which area is more likely to be impacted by a flood, which population and which infrastructure are more exposed, and who is more vulnerable. A final flood risk index is created with five categories based on risk values from 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest) (Figure 2). Hazard analysis is made by using a 5-m Digital Elevation Model (DEM), rainfall data, land use information, drainage system (sewers and streams) and historical flood maps. Sources of vulnerability and exposure indicators are data from the last National Argentinian Census in the year 2010. Although it is impossible to totally eliminate the flood risk, it is possible to mitigate some consequences. Findings from this study illustrate that some areas of higher flood risk coincide with areas of high flood hazard, more exposed, and more vulnerable. This methodology helps to develop disaster risk management strategies for settlements frequently flooded.


Once a rabies case has been detected in a rabies-free area, diagnosis of infected animals and/or humans should be confirmed by the national reference laboratory as soon as possible. In case of confirmation sequencing (e.g. partial N gene) of the isolate should be conducted to identify the potential origin of the RABV as the detection of a dog-mediated rabies case in an illegally imported pet or other animal, or a fox-mediated rabies case would each imply different measures (see (...)


Abstract: This study examines whether attitudinal homogamy is
associated with well-established homogamy in religiosity, ethnicity, education
and age. Attitudinal homogamy is measured among 1095 co-residing Swedish
couples for attitudes towards gender equality, work, values in life and social
conservatism. Calculations were made with variable-centered approach (VCA) and
couple-centered approach (CCA). In addition, linear regression models were used
to determine whether homogamy in religiosity, ethnicity, education and age were
associated with attitudinal homogamy. Couples showed strong similarity in
attitudes on gender equality (r=0.29) and social conservatism (r=0.27),
moderate similarity in attitudes to values in life (r=0.18), and somewhat weak,
yet statistically significant, similarity in attitudes to work (r=0.11). The
probability that these results has occurred by chance is less than one in a
thousand. However, none of the well-established areas of homogamy regarding
religiosity, ethnicity, education and age were statistically associated with
the four areas of attitudinal homogamy. Our main conclusion is that we find
homogamy on various attitudinal dimensions but they are not related to other
type of couple homogamy.


As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. --Abraham Lincoln These words of Lincoln form part of the long historical debate about the meaning of the founding principles of this country. They speak to the fundamental conception we must have about democracy in America--that it is not simply a matter of individual rights, but also a matter of the collective relationship of citizens to each other. The denial of democracy to any one group of citizens within the United States denies the reality of democracy to the entire citizenry. Throughout the history of the world's oldest democracy, the ideal has been that all citizens will play a role in the management of public affairs, either through direct participation or by voting in elections to select leaders. From the founding of the republic, however, there has been a gap between the intentions expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the reality of daily life as experienced by millions of citizens. As we know, the original voters of the new nation included only white men with property. Women would not have the vote until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, more than 140 years after the Constitution was written. African Americans would wait another 45 years before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. It is difficult to imagine that for all the lives devoted--and even sacrificed--to secure the right to vote in this country, there could still be more than a half million American citizens who lack this right. But Washington, D.C., continues to be denied a voice or a vote in Congress, even though its residents are taxed and drafted and governed like other American citizens. The history of its disenfranchisement is one of the most important issues surrounding the District of Columbia's complicated history, and yet is one of the least known and understood. Origins of the National Capital The American Revolution ended the colonial era of United States history. With peace declared in 1783, the thirteen coastal colonies were proclaimed free and independent of Great Britain. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states," he was in effect announcing the birth of a new nation. However, the new nation had a weak government and no capital city under the Articles of the Confederation. Although Philadelphia met all the requirements for a capital site, jealousies between the states prevented Pennsylvania--as well as New Jersey, New York, or either of the Carolinas--from becoming the choice for the nation's capital. Placing a permanent capital within the jurisdiction of any one state was seen as imperiling the influence of every other. The surest way of avoiding that risk was for Congress to impose "exclusive legislation" over the capital and a small Federal District around it. Representatives agreed on the overriding importance of a central location for the seat of government. But whereas some defined central as geographically half-way between southern Georgia and northern New Hampshire, to others the term meant the center of population, a point considerably north of Virginia, even when slaves were counted. (Apparently, no speaker mentioned the drawbacks of locating the capital in slave-holding territory.) In the end, neither geography nor demography as much as political bargaining fixed the location of the capital. But an event in June 1783 highlighted some of the difficulties facing the new national government. Pennsylvania veterans not yet discharged from the army had prepared to march to the State House in Philadelphia where Congress was in session to demand the pay long overdue them for service during the Revolution. Earlier petitions had elicited no answer from Congress (perhaps because the national treasury was bankrupt due to the war). …


Factory Lives contains four works of great importance in the field of nineteenth-century working-class autobiography: John Brown's A Memoir of Robert Blincoe; William Dodd's A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd; Ellen Johnston's "Autobiography"; and James Myles's Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy. This Broadview edition also includes a remarkably rich selection of historical documents that provide context for these works. Appendices include contemporary responses to the autobiographies, debates on factory legislation, transcripts of testimony given before parliamentary committees on child labour, and excerpts from literary works on factory life by Harriet Martineau, Frances Trollope, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others.


Within the academic debate about good citizenship, several authors have emphasized different possible notions – such as adhesion to more traditional-elitist, solidarity-based or participative norms (Denters, Gabriel, & Torcal, 2007). Recently, scholars have proposed the use of person- centred approaches to analyze typologies of good citizenship conceptions (Hooghe, Oser & Marien, 2016; Reichert, 2016). The existing studies have not addressed until now the European political context or investigated ideas of good citizenship related to a supranational level. The present study examines by means of latent profile analysis young people's patterns of adhesion to different notions about what is a good European citizen and investigates how the different groups are characterized by socio-demographic characteristics, levels of participation and perceptions of belonging or political alienation related to the European context. The study is part of the Catch-EyoU project and uses the pilot questionnaire data with a sample of 994 respondents from two age groups –adolescents (16-19 years old, 52.7%) and young adults (20-26 years old, 47.3%)– collected in eight European countries. The results identified five different profiles that distinguished between youth who held a mixed conception of the good European citizen (where different normative ideas coexist), groups that emphasized a particular view and a pattern of low adhesion to all theorized conceptions. While most respondents give high importance on both traditional and more participative norms, the findings confirm the existence of comparatively more passive views and of a critically oriented group differentiated by more negative perception of the European context.


In the July 2012 decision of UsedSoft v. Oracle, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") held that "the right of distribution of a copy of a computer program is exhausted if the copyright holder... has authorized" its downloading free or for compensation. This decision gives consumers purchasing and downloading software in Europe the right to resell that software as "second-hand" without seeking the authorization of the copyright holder. The ruling has enormous implications for international intellectual property law and the principle of exhaustion (or first sale rule). The case is also important from an international law perspective as it comes on the heels of efforts in the United States and the EU to pass legislation — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ("ACTA") and the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") — meant to protect the business model of online content providers.


We study the formation of R&D networks when each firrm benefits from the research done by other firms it is connected to. Firms can be either myopic or farsighted when deciding about the links they want to form. We propose the notion of myopic-farsighted stable set to determine the R&D networks that emerge in the long run. When the majority of firms is myopic, stability leads to R&D networks consisting of either two asymmetric components with the largest component comprises three-quarters of firms or two symmetric components of nearly equal size with the largest component having only myopic firms. But, once the majority of firms becomes farsighted, only R&D networks with two asymmetric components remain stable. Firms in the largest component obtain greater profits, with farsighted firms having in average more collaborations than myopic firms that are either loose-ends or central for spreading the innovation within the component. Besides myopic and farsighted -firms, we introduce yes-firms that always accept the formation of any link and never delete a link subject to the constraint of non-negative profits. We show that yes-firms can stabilize R&D networks consisting of a single component that maximize the social welfare. Finally, we look at the evolution of R&D networks and we find that R&D networks with two symmetric components will be rapidly dismantled, single component R&D networks will persist many periods, while R&D networks consisting of two asymmetric components will persist forever.


The respective roles of expressed emotion and dysfunctional cognitive processes are well documented in depression, but their interplay has seldom been given attention. We examined the patients' and partners' expressed emotion (EE) and dysfunctional attitudes in predicting depressive symptoms in a sample of N = 63 couples with one clinically-depressed partner (37 females and 26 males). Partners' EE played a more important role for patients' dysfunctional attitudes and their depressive symptoms; nondepressed partners' dysfunctional attitudes and depressive symptoms were unaffected by patients' EE. In contrasting two models that predict self-reported and clinician-rated depression, we found more support for dysfunctional attitudes serving as a mediator rather than a moderator for the association between partners' EE and patients' depressive symptoms. Partners' criticism may play a role worthy of more attention in depressed patients' dysfunctional attitudes and maintenance of their depressive symptoms.


The deep sea plays a critical role in global climate regulation through uptake and storage of heat and carbon dioxide. However, this regulating service causes warming, acidification and deoxygenation of deep waters, leading to decreased food availability at the seafloor. These changes and their projections are likely to affect productivity, biodiversity and distributions of deep‐sea fauna, thereby compromising key ecosystem services. Understanding how climate change can lead to shifts in deep‐sea species distributions is critically important in developing management measures. We used environmental niche modelling along with the best available species occurrence data and environmental parameters to model habitat suitability for key cold‐water coral and commercially important deep‐sea fish species under present‐day (1951–2000) environmental conditions and to project changes under severe, high emissions future (2081–2100) climate projections (RCP8.5 scenario) for the North Atlantic Ocean. Our models projected a decrease of 28%–100% in suitable habitat for cold‐water corals and a shift in suitable habitat for deep‐sea fishes of 2.0°–9.9° towards higher latitudes. The largest reductions in suitable habitat were projected for the scleractinian coral Lophelia pertusa and the octocoral Paragorgia arborea, with declines of at least 79% and 99% respectively. We projected the expansion of suitable habitat by 2100 only for the fishes Helicolenus dactylopterus and Sebastes mentella (20%–30%), mostly through northern latitudinal range expansion. Our results projected limited climate refugia locations in the North Atlantic by 2100 for scleractinian corals (30%–42% of present‐day suitable habitat), even smaller refugia locations for the octocorals Acanella arbuscula and Acanthogorgia armata (6%–14%), and almost no refugia for P. arborea. Our results emphasize the need to understand how anticipated climate change will affect the distribution of deep‐sea species including commercially important fishes and foundation species, and highlight the importance of identifying and preserving climate refugia for a range of area‐based planning and management tools.


A nem multiple-processor architecture is described that can exploit the instruction level concurrency in numerical processing tasks. The expression processor contains multiple processing elements (PE's), which can be configured either as an SIMD [8] array or as an expression tree pipeline. An expression tree is the parse tree conctructed by a compiler from an arithmetic or logical expression. The expression tree pipeline, or "X-Pipe," is a binary-tree networks of PE'S upon which expression tress are executed intact.A series of expression trees can be executed in pipelined fashion for enhanced concurrency. With this capability, the expression processor can exploit the concurrency in vector merges and scalar tasks, as well as conventional vector tasks. The architecture is designed for low-cost implementation using large-scale in (LSI) components.


A technique for recovering the original object wavefront obscured by a thin diffuse layer is presented in this paper. Filling-up the indentations on the rough surface with surface smoothening agents could reduce the detrimental effects of scattered light on image quality. Employing digital holography, the amplitude and phase of a test object wave are evaluated and holograms of the obscured object with and without the agent applied are compared. The effectiveness of the technique was demonstrated using diffusers with varying degrees of roughness.


A new technique of translating linear to rotary motion, using the Stiller-Smith mechanism, can be applied to the design of internal combustion engines and compressors. This new mechanisms produces purely sinusoidal motion of the pistons relative to crank angle, which is a different motion from that produced by a conventional slider-crank mechanism. Influence of this sinusoidal motion on thermodynamic performance of engines and compressors was investigated theoretically and experimentally. Data are presented from a numerical analysis of compression and of spark-ignited combustion. Also, pressure-time curves for a standard and a modified (long connecting rod) spark ignition engine are compared. All data confirm that there is little thermodynamic difference between the Stiller-Smith and slider-crank devices.


This paper examines one aspect of the historical income distribution in Tanzania – the shares of top incomes – using information published as a result of the administration of the individual income tax. Although tax data were employed in earlier studies of developing countries, they have tended in recent years to be rejected as a source. In one sense, this is not surprising. Income taxes only cover a part, sometimes a very small part, of the population. The resulting data cannot provide a picture of the overall distribution.


Intrauterine growth restriction is defined as the pathologic inhibition of intrauterine fetal growth and the failure of the fetus to achieve its growth potential. Reduced fetal growth is seen in about 10% of the pregnancies, but only a minority has a detectable background. In this article, we are presenting a review of epidemiology, pathogenesis and current diagnosis of IUGR associated with single umbilical artery, starting from the case of a preterm newborn with single umbilical artery without any other chromosomal abnormalities associated, complicated with intrauterine growth restriction. Our data suggest an increased risk of IUGR when the diagnosis of single umbilical artery is made, making a clinical recommendation for serial growth assessment scans in the setting of single umbilical artery. The detection of a single umbilical artery is a marker for aneuploidy, low birth weight and congenital anomalies, therefore careful evaluation and investigation of the fetus should be carried out.