"Ajay and Scott take an interesting approach in filling Defend I.T. with case studies and using them to demonstrate important security principles. This approach works well and is particularly valuable in the security space, where companies and consultants are often hesitant to discuss true security incidents for potential embarrassment and confidentiality reasons. Defend I.T. is full of engaging stories and is a good read."--Fyodor, author of the Nmap Security Scanner and Insecure.Org"Defend I.T. answers reader demand for scenario-driven examples. Security professionals will be able to look at these case studies and relate them to their own experiences. That sets this book apart."--Lance Hayden, Cisco Systems"This is an exciting book! It's like reading several mysteries at once from different viewpoints, with the added benefit of learning forensic procedures along the way. Readers will benefit from the procedures, and the entertaining presentation is a real plus."--Elizabeth Zinkann, Equilink ConsultingThe battle between IT professionals and those who use the Internet for destructive purposes is raging--and there is no end in sight. Reports of computer crime and incidents from the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University more than double each year and are expected to rise. Meanwhile, viruses and worms continue to take down organizations for days.Defend I.T.: Security by Example draws on detailed war stories to identify what was done right and what was done wrong in actual computer-security attacks, giving you the opportunity to benefit from real experiences. Approaches to securing systems and networks vary widely from industry to industry and organization to organization. By examining a variety of real-life incidents companies are too embarrassed to publicly share, the authors explain what could have been done differently to avoid the losses incurred--whether creating a different process for incident response or having better security countermeasures in place to begin with.Inside, you'll find in-depth case studies in a variety of categories: Basic Hacking: Blackhat bootcamp, including mapping a network, exploiting vulnerable architecture, and launching denial-of-service attacks Current Methods: The latest in malicious deeds, including attacks on wireless networks, viruses and worms, and compromised Web servers Additional Items on the Plate: Often overlooked security measures such as developing a security policy, intrusion-detection systems, disaster recovery, and government regulations Old School: Classic means of compromising networks--war dialing and social engineering Forensics: How to investigate industrial espionage, financial fraud, and network intrusionAimed at both information-security professionals and network administrators, Defend I.T. shows you how to tap the best computer-security practices and industry standards to deter attacks and better defend networks.


A multinational research institution provides advanced training to help high-school teachers bring inquiry into the classroom. Young people in Europe are becoming increasingly disinterested in science at school and are moving away from studying science at university, making it difficult to recruit the engineers and scientists needed to support technology-based economies (1). Several aspects of contemporary science teaching appear to be discouraging students: The pedagogy lacks variety, the quality of teaching is less engaging than for other subjects, and the content often appeals preferentially to male students (2–4). Most pedagogy is heavily reliant on transmission of facts and often lacks epistemological learning goals, which seek to offer an understanding of how we know that scientific facts are true. Many current teaching methods and curricula are designed to prepare students to pass tests by rote learning, but fail to develop cognitive skills needed in science (5). Coursework investigations are also widely criticized for being rather artificial exercises, which do not reflect the true nature of science as a process of inquiry (6).


This study aims to find out whether training learners on language learning strategies has an effect on foreign language learning achievement or not. The population is Kocaeli University 2013- 2014 education year Foreign Languages School students. This study is an experimental study in which randomly chosen experimental and control classes take part, and only the experimental classes were trained on language learning strategies for the defined period of time and observed until the end of the first term on their use of the language learning strategies. At the end of the first term, language learning strategies and learner autonomy surveys were conducted again as post- tests. The significant difference between the overall averages of the first term grades of beginner/ elementary level control and experimental groups shows that training students on language learning strategies may lead to better foreign language achievement, particularly in lower levels. Keywords: learner training; foreign language achievement


In 2007 the United Kingdom celebrates the 200th anniversary of its abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 2008 the U.S. will mark the 200th anniversary of its own prohibition of the trans-Atlantic trade.Yet, according to various sources, 27 million people worldwide are enslaved, and each year thousands of people are trafficked into the U.S. The modern re-emergence of trafficking in human beings and of slavery is said to be linked to the deepening interconnection among countries in the global economy, overpopulation (with its consequent production of disposable people), and the economic and other vulnerabilities of the victims. In response to the reported increase, some academics have explored the potential applicability of the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Also, a significant number of academics and commentators highlight in their work the evolution of the attempts to deal with the phenomenon of modern trafficking in humans from the international and domestic U.S. reactions to the white slavery hysteria of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the international instruments formulated to combat it. In addition, references and analogies to the trans-Atlantic slave trade are also made in government policy statements, in the literature analyzing the modern phenomenon and in other fora. Commentators analogize to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery in order to emphasize the similarities in the phenomena and to urge that like-minded people rise up to end the appalling practice, much as was eventually done to end the trans-Atlantic trade. The content of the analogies varies with the intent of their users. Either the old slavery is compared to the new slavery with respect to, for example, the egregiousness of abusive treatment of the enslaved, the level of interconnection of the phenomenon with the global economy, or the race or ethnicity of the victims in order to distinguish the new slavery from the old. Sometimes, the implicit hypothesis is that modern slavery is more widespread and awful, and involves more victims and, by extension, more human degradation than did the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Still others invoke the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery to assume a mantle of self-righteousness, and distance themselves, their political and economic system, their state and its efforts, from the repugnant phenomenon.Is the analogy to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and/or slavery relevant? Is it useful? Can it contribute to understanding of the phenomenon of modern trafficking in humans or lead to mechanisms to combat human trafficking in the Twenty-first Century? It is my hypothesis that those who have used the analogy have failed to explore it other than superficially, or to adequately map out the similarities and differences between the two phenomena. As a consequence, the ability to effectively combat the modern traffic in human beings (or indeed, to combat the slavery (or exploitative or forced labor) of the estimated 27 million people who are held in slavery within state borders but not trafficked) has been compromised both internationally and domestically. I argue that the analogy is underutilized as currently used because it does not illuminate the essential similarities or differences in the phenomena. Instead, use of the analogy too often appeals to emotions to serve particular ends of the user. I examine uses of the analogy to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and their impact, and map out the characteristics that both underlie and distinguish the phenomena to determine whether the trans-Atlantic slave trade, more than the white slavery of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries offers lessons that may be used to combat modern trafficking in humans. The heritage of white slavery is more entrenched in the legal frameworks constructed in response to the modern traffic, but the analogy to the trans-Atlantic slave trade adds to a richer understanding of the modern phenomenon and illuminates a potentially more effective path to its eradication. While it is the trans-Atlantic slave trade analogy that is most frequently invoked, it is the mechanisms to combat the later white slavery that are the progenitors of the most dominant of the frameworks used to understand and combat the modern traffic. I also expose the inherent contradictions of the competing (and complementary) invocation of analogies to trans-Atlantic slavery and the white slave trade: while the users of the analogy invoke the image of enslaved blacks to inspire the taking of action against the modern trafficking in humans, at the same time the subordination of blacks, blackness and the colored other is viewed as more natural than the enslavement of whites and whiteness. It is the enslavement of whiteness that, together with the threats to state borders (territory and authority) precipitated a coordinated international campaign against modern traffic in humans. And, ironically, the racism that arose from the phenomenon of the trans-Atlantic slave trade prevents users of the analogy from delving more deeply into the substantive meanings and similarities between the two phenomena.The analogy to the trans-Atlantic slave trade can be relevant if explored more deeply - there are similarities not merely in individual plights but in the deeper structures of the world economic system and the factors that cause and foster the rise in the phenomena. Comparisons of the modern trafficking in humans, white slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade reveals the essential nature of the phenomena - at bottom, they all trade in human labor.


UNLABELLED
Cocaine use during pregnancy has been shown to be deleterious to the infant. This may reflect reduction of flow to placenta or effects on the fetal brain. Methods to assess pharmacokinetics of drugs of abuse in vivo would be useful to investigate the mechanisms underlying the fetal adverse effects. We recently reported that combined MRI and PET technology allows the measurement of radioisotope distribution in maternal and fetal organs in pregnant Macaca radiata. Here, we evaluate the utility of PET to measure the uptake and distribution of (11)C-cocaine in the third-trimester fetus.

METHODS
Six pregnant M. radiata weighing 3.8-9.0 kg were anesthetized and MR images were acquired on a 4-T MRI instrument. In all 6 animals, dynamic PET scans were subsequently acquired using 148-259 MBq of (11)C-cocaine. Time-activity curves for both maternal and fetal organs were obtained simultaneously with the pregnant animal positioned transverse in the PET scanner. Distribution volume ratios for maternal and fetal brain for (11)C-cocaine were calculated.

RESULTS
Coregistration of PET and MR images allowed identification of fetal organs and brain regions and demonstrated that (11)C-cocaine or its labeled metabolites readily cross the placenta and accumulate mainly in fetal liver and to a lesser extent in the brain. Time to reach peak (11)C uptake in brain was shorter for the mother than for the fetus. The distribution volume ratios of the maternal striatum were higher than those of the fetus. Placenta was clearly visible on the early time frames and showed more rapid uptake and clearance than other fetal tissues.

CONCLUSION
The pregnant M. radiata model allows the noninvasive measurement of radioisotope pharmacokinetics in maternal and fetal brain and other organs simultaneously. Although the uptake of radioactivity into the fetal brain after the injection of (11)C-cocaine is lower and slower than in the maternal brain, a measurable quantity of (11)C-cocaine (or its labeled metabolites) accumulates in the fetal brain at early times after injection. The highest accumulation of (11)C occurs in the fetal liver. Rapid radioisotope accumulation and clearance in the placenta offer potential as an input function for kinetic modeling for future studies of binding site availability.


urban agriculture has been expanding rapidly in recent years, and it has the potential to recycle nutrients from local food wastes into new foods through the use of compost as growth medium. composts typically have low nitrogen: phosphorus (n:p) ratios, and in urban gardens, when composts are typically applied to soils annually to meet the n demand of crops, excess p can build up and be prone to leaching. We measured dissolved p (po4 3−) and n (no3 − & nh4 +) losses in the leachate from experimental raised-bed garden plots that received one of two commonly used composts (municipal organics compost derived from food scraps or cow manure derived compost) at three different application levels (15%, 35%, or 50% by volume). po4 3− concentrations in leachate from garden plots receiving manure composts were high, ranging from 5 to 11 mg/L, depending on the application level. Leachate po4 3− concentrations from plots receiving municipal organics composts were an order of magnitude lower, ranging from 0.5−1.2 mg/L, while leachate po4 3− in garden plots receiving no compost was 0.3 mg L−1. cumulative mass of po4 3− lost through leachate during the growing season ranged from 1.2 to 4.2 g/m2 for manure compost treatments, compared to 0.12–0.72 g/m2 for municipal compost treatments, and 0.06 g/m2 for soil with no compost. Leachate accounted for 0–37% and 18–45% of dissolved p and n exported from garden plots, respectively. The high application rate of municipal compost significantly increased crop yield relative to the control treatment. p lost from leachate and removed through harvest only represented 1–10% of total p applied as compost, suggesting that soil build-up was the dominant fate of p in this study. our results illustrate the potential trade-off in urban agriculture between crop production and recycling p efficiently from urban food waste.


There is continual concern about the ability of governments to perform the duties and responsibilities that their citizens have come to expect from them. Many citizens view government as inept, arthritic, and dedicated to the preservation of the bureaucratic status quo. As we close the twentieth century, the challenge for democratic governments is to become adaptive, flexible, innovative, and creative. In short, they need to become learning organizations. This book explores what it will take for governments to break out of their traditional ways of approaching problems and leam new approaches to finding solutions. "Can Governments Learn? "examines organizational learning in the public sector. It seeks to understand what role policy and program evaluation information can play in helping governments to learn. Among the democratic societies that are studied are Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Their governmental systems have produced and learned from evaluation information in quite different ways. Significantly, the studies documented here show that the concept of organizational learning has vitality and applicability cross-nationally. "Can Governments Learn ? "evaluates preconditions for governmental learning as well as the institutional and human resource factors that contribute to the process. This is the third volume in the comparative policy analysis series. It is essential for policymakers, government officials, and scholars interested in improving the performance of governments.


Melting-freezing dynamics of water confined in three MCM-41 materials with pore diameters of 2.0 nm, 2.5 nm and 3.7 nm was analyzed using dielectric spectroscopy method. Obtained results show, that reorientation of water molecules is strongly affected by confinement and interaction with the pore surface, which leads to the formation of highly disordered hydrogen bonded network. Defects of this network play the key role in the overall relaxation of confined water.


Demand response (DR) can provide a cost-effect approach for reducing peak loads while renewable energy sources (RES) can result in an environmental-friendly solution for solving the problem of power shortage. The increasingly integration of DR and renewable energy bring challenging issues for energy policy makers, and electricity market regulators in the main power grid. In this paper, a new two-stage stochastic game model is introduced to operate the electricity market, where Stochastic Stackelberg-Cournot-Nash (SSCN) equilibrium  is applied to characterize the optimal energy bidding strategy of the forward market and the optimal energy trading strategy of the spot market. To obtain a SSCN equilibrium, sampling average approximation (SAA) technique is harnessed to address the stochastic game model in a distributed way. By this game model, the participation ratio of demand response can be significantly increased while the unreliability of power system caused by renewable energy resources can be considerably reduced. The effectiveness of proposed model is illustrated by extensive simulations.


This project investigates how different approaches to parallel optimization impact the performance portability for Fortran codes. In addition, we explore the productivity challenges due to the software tool-chain limitations unique to Fortran. For this study, we build upon the Truchas software, a metal casting manufacturing simulation code based on unstructured mesh methods and our initial efforts for accelerating two key routines, the gradient and mimetic finite difference calculations. The acceleration methods include OpenMP, for CPU multi-threading and GPU offloading, and CUDA for GPU offloading. Through this study, we find that the best optimization approach is dependent on the priorities of performance versus effort and the architectures that are targeted. CUDA is the most attractive where performance is the main priority, whereas the OpenMP on CPU and GPU approaches are preferable when emphasizing productivity. Furthermore, OpenMP for the CPU is the most portable across architectures. OpenMP for CPU multi-threading yields 3%-5% of achievable performance, whereas the GPU offloading generally results in roughly 74%-90% of achievable performance. However, GPU offloading with OpenMP 4.5 results in roughly 5% peak performance for the mimetic finite difference algorithm, suggesting further serial code optimization to tune this kernel. In general, these results imply low performance portability, below 10% as estimated by the Pennycook metric. Though these specific results are particular to this application, we argue that this is typical of many current scientific HPC applications and highlights the hurdles we will need to overcome on the path to exascale.


In the last quarter of our own century, much has been made of issues of personal identity Concern for the individual rights of racial and sexual identities seems to have replaced for many people a consciousness of class and a sense of social solidarity This is partly the cause, and partly the result, of changing political agendas on the national and international scene. One of the main cultural expressions of this desire for personal respect and visibility is how people dress to present themselves to the world — their appearance declares a 'self image'. So if we cannot argue with reality, we can at least manipulate appearances. The fashion statement is supposed to create a new personality, and clothes are marketed as a means of transforming the self by changing the image. Thus in our own time dress has become political. During the period of the French Revolution too, dressing was used to define and to proclaim personal identity in the face of social upheaval. Street fashions could assert, or disguise, political positions, while theatrical costumes were used to manipulate ideological opinion.Of course, the values and anxieties of any culture can be analysed by how it dresses, but the 1780s saw the emergence, not only of an organised fashion industry, but of a new self-consciousness of how dress can declare political alignment as well as social status — and this awareness was inevitably reflected in that living mirror of fashion, the stage.


In the 'knowledge economy', knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) are a key driver for innovation and competitiveness. The internationalization of these businesses raises challenges given their specificities such as knowledge intensity, the importance of customer interaction and intimacy in service delivery. This paper focuses on design consultancies as a specific type of creative KIBS for which these characteristics are emphasized. The objective of this research is to analyse the resources leveraged by the firms to compete internationally. It is based on 11 case studies of design consultancies located in five different countries (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the UK) that were selected for their capacity to perform at the international level for several years. The paper advances three internationalization modes depending on contingent variables and focusing on specific resources that enable international competitiveness: star-based, process-based and glocality-based. In star-based creative KIBS, the individual designer has developed a reputation that attracts customers internationally, operating as a brand. In process-based creative KIBS, the reputation of a collective creative process attracts clients from other countries. In glocality-based creative KIBS, the geographical proximity obtained by opening international offices helps to develop a close understanding of the client through frequent interactions, and also to know the client's market well and to better understand local codes and signs. These modes complement those presented in the existing internationalization literature which takes the peculiarities of creative KIBS into consideration.


Political parties and interest groups play a vital role in incorporating societal interests into democratic decision-making. Therefore, explaining the nature and variation in the relationship between them will advance our understanding of democratic governance. Existing research has primarily drawn attention to how exchange of resources shapes these relationships largely neglecting the role of contextual conditions. Our contribution is to examine whether parties' structured interactions with different categories of interest groups vary systematically with the pattern of party competition at the level of policy dimensions. First, we argue that higher party fragmentation in a policy space makes organisational ties to interest groups more likely, due to fears of voter loss and splinter groups. Second, we expect higher polarisation between parties on a policy dimension to make ties to relevant groups less likely due to increased electoral costs. We find support for both expectations when analysing new data on 116 party units in 13 mature democracies along nine different policy dimensions. Our findings underline the value of considering the strategic context in which parties and interest groups interact to understand their relationship. The study sheds new light on parties and interest groups as intermediaries in democracy and contributes to a new research agenda connecting interest group research with studies ofeli parties' policy positions and responsiveness.


Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV)-assisted localization of wireless nodes in a given area is especially important in post-disaster scenarios where no other communication infrastructure is accessibleDifferent from related work solely focusing on simulations, we have done a measurement campaign using a multirotor MAV to derive a realistic propagation model for our scenario. Based on this propagation model and a novel positioning approach, the performance of different trajectories is reevaluatedOur results show that in practice, the variance of the measurements is higher, than commonly expected in related work on MAV-assisted localization. As a result, the study of our developed trajectories show localization errors of 6-7m in a 400x400m2 area. We also show that adaptive trajectories outperform state-of-the-art algorithms and are able to localize at least 90% of the nodes in under 20 minutes. Thus, they also outperform other algorithms with respect to the effectiveness of the trajectory.


Angioleiomyoma rarely occurs in the oral cavity, and it is extremely rare for this tumor to occur in the facies inferior linguae. We describe an exceptional angioleiomyoma that presented in the right facies inferior linguae in an obese 51-year-old female with hepatopathy. MRI showed high signal on T2-weighted image and the clear visualization of muscle and iso-signal on T1-weighted image. We excised the tumor under general anesthesia as the clinical diagnosis of benign tongue tumor. The tumor was covered by a capsule, and the split surface was yellowish white. Hematoxylin-eosin staining revealed that the wide, spindle-shaped cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm had a bundle-like and complex array, and slit-like blood vessels with branching were scattered. The smooth muscle of the blood vessel wall was observed to have grown. Immunohistochemical staining was positive for αSMA, HHF-35 and caldesmon, somewhat positive for desmin, and negative for CD31, CD34, S100 and Ki-67. The tumor was finally diagnosed as angioleiomyoma. We review the literature's case reports of angioleiomyoma of the tongue. Chronic estrogen metabolism abnormality due to liver dysfunction may have been the cause of this tumor. This case suggests that MRI imaging and an immunohistochemical analysis are useful for the diagnosis of this tumor.


Against the background of its problematic human-rights record and the military regime's continued extra-constitutional rule, Myanmar has faced mounting diplomatic pressure from the international community since the renewed detention of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003. This Adelphi Paper examines Myanmar's foreign policy, which is predicated on state-building and development, as well as defending the regime's decision to give priority to establishing an enduring constitution over immediate national reconciliation and democratisation. It discusses how the regime has been able to take advantage of the economic, security and geostrategic interests of both China and India in the country to achieve developmental and security goals, and how its relations with Beijing in particular have assumed ever greater significance as Western capitals have sought to place Myanmar under the scrutiny of the UN Security Council on the grounds that its domestic circumstances have regional security implications. It discusses the regime's objectives, concerns and challenges in its relations with the US, Japan and Europe; details the difficult decisions of the leadership as ASEAN has started to relax its application of the non-interference norm when dealing with Myanmar; and examines its interaction with the UN, particularly the secretary-general and his special envoys. The paper concludes by analysing the likely regional and international implications of intensified political pressure on the military regime.


The perceived socio-economic significance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has dramatically expanded the domains in which this cluster of technologies is being discussed and acted upon. Action to promote the 'information society' has made its way into government policy. National technology policy and action cannot however be adequately understood solely as the calculation of needs according to the development aspirations of the country concerned. Instead it needs to be placed in the intersection of simultaneous efforts by national and international organisations to shape technological developments. This research examines the nature of the efforts made to promote ICT innovation through national policies and programmes in the midst of international and regional influences.

The thesis involves the historical analysis of the policies for ICT diffusion in Greece within the context of the European efforts to promote the information society. It examines how the Greek state undertook to implement a large-scale ICT programme, in the backdrop of hesitant attempts at modernisation and technological innovation. The research traces the emergence of the ICT programme and the European visions which framed it, and explores the discourses and practices through which it came to materialise.

The research is theoretically informed by Foucault's ideas on governmentality, focusing on the government and self-government of conduct. The study explores the discourses sustained through the European and Greek policies on the information society. Practices of funding, monitoring and reporting are also scrutinised to understand the forms of discipline and contestation they gave rise to. Through this theoretical analysis, the research engages in a context-sensitive examination of the taken-for-granted relationship between policies and their implementation.

The main contribution of the thesis lies in illuminating the often neglected role of international and regional organisations in shaping technological agendas, and the material practices which allow them to operate effectively across distances.


Radev, Zh., v . LioLios, C. Tananaki and a. ThRasyvouLou, 2014. The impact of the nutritive value of pollen on the development, reproduction and productivity of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 685-689 The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of the nutritive value of pollen on the development, reproduction and productivity of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). The pollen collected in different periods of the year has a different pro tein value for honeybees. The protein content in the examined samples through the season ranged from 13.88% to 25.02%, and the average value was 19.45%. in spring providing pollen with an average protein content of 24.35%, bee colonies can maintain a high level of reproduction and development, whereas during autumn, when the average is 15.57%, reproduction and develop ment of colonies is reduced. During the period, when flowering plants provide pollen with protein content of 23.60%, honey and pollen productivity are higher, than period provide pollen with 16.24% protein content, although in which time the bee colonies had built wax foundation combs and reared the greatest amount of brood. There is relationship between the nutritional value of pollen and the development, reproduction and productivity of bee colonies.


We present an approach that is intended to facilitate the integration of domain-specific languages and heterogeneous systems on a semantic level by mapping language constructs to concepts in an asynchronous formalism capable of describing heterogeneous systems. The approach is centered around the use of extended automata to model the behaviors, interactions to model the glue between the transitions of these automata, and finally priorities to choose amongst possible interactions. Using this approach, we present a methodology for modelling SystemC a widely used language for system-level modelling of heterogeneous system-on-chip processes. The methodology incrementally produces (a) readable results opening the way for enhanced verification, (b) models with understandable execution semantics, (c) composable formal models allowing consistent integration with potential domain-specific sub-systems. We show the feasibility of the approach through the simulation and verification of assertion and deadlock properties on a realistic complex system.


The article offers an analysis of the particular type of populism that has evolved in Eastern and Central Europe, most notably in Hungary and Poland. The new populism in ECE differs from other populisms because it combines the elements of populism, ethnonationalism, and authoritarianism. Adhering to a similar script, which consists of sustained attacks on rule of law institutions, civil rights and freedoms, the media, and electoral rules, both populist governments in a relatively short period of time dismantled almost all the key cornerstones of democracy in Hungary and Poland. The current surge of populism in ECE demonstrates that constitutional democracy is in great danger when its core principles no longer enjoy wide democratic support. Paradoxically, constitutional democracy can play its "counter-majoritarian" role only when a majority of the people believe that it is the only game in town. Ultimately, democratic political parties and social movements with credible political ideas and programs offer the best hope for the survival of constitutional democracy. The role of law and constitutional checks and balances is less of an essential bulwark against democratic backsliding than is traditionally presumed in the legal literature.


Altered brain anatomy in specific gray-matter regions has been shown in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recently, white-matter tracts have become a focus of research in PTSD. The corpus callosum (CC) is the principal white-matter fiber bundle, crucial in relaying sensory, motor and cognitive information between hemispheres. Alterations in CC fibers have been reported in PTSD and might be assumed to underlie substantial behavioral and cognitive sequelae; however most diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies in adult-onset PTSD failed to address the clinical correlates between imaging and PTSD symptoms severity, behavioral manifestation and cognitive functions. In the current study we examined (a) to what extent microstructural integrity of the CC is associated with memory performance and (b) whether imaging and cognitive parameters are associated with PTSD symptom severity. DTI data were obtained and fractional anisotropy (FA) values were computed for 16 patients and 14 controls. PTSD symptom severity was assessed by employing the clinician administered PTSD scale (CAPS) and memory was tested using a task probing item and associative memory for words and pictures. Significant correlations were found between PTSD symptoms severity, memory accuracy and reaction-time to CC FA values in the PTSD group. This study demonstrates meaningful clinical and cognitive correlates of microstructural connectivity. These results have implications for diagnostic tools and future studies aimed at identifying individuals at risk for PTSD.


Coordinated Multi-point (CoMP) transmission and reception is considered as a promising technique to combat inter-cell interference, enhance throughput, improve mobility, reduce handover interruption time, and also to increase spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we investigate and analyze the performance of uplink intra-site joint reception CoMP (JR-CoMP) for LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems. Both single user-MIMO (SU-MIMO) CoMP and multiple user-MIMO (MU-MIMO) CoMP show significant gains in terms of cell average and cell-edge throughput performances. However, the complexity of JR-CoMP is a big concern for realistic systems. In this paper, we propose a novel and low-complexity JR-CoMP scheme which combines effective antenna selection (and is denoted as JR-CoMP-AS). Compared with original JR-CoMP, the proposed JR-CoMP-AS can significantly reduce the computational complexity with acceptable performance loss. Simulation results demonstrate and validate the advantage of the proposed JR-CoMP-AS scheme.


Transparent homogeneous polymeric composite media have been obtained and investigated that contain up to 14 wt. % of ZnO nanoparticles. It has been established that the physical properties of the material, such as light scattering, Brinell hardness, and moisture absorption, vary nonmonotonically as the concentration of nanoparticles increases as a result of the modification of the internal structure of the nanocomposites. The nanocomposite structure has been investigated by the methods of IR spectroscopy and atomic-force microscopy. By comparison with the unmodified polymeric matrix, the hardness is not degraded, while the light scattering and moisture absorption are reduced. Because the active groups of one of the monomers (the carboxyl groups) interact with the surface of the nanoparticles, the latter are uniformly distributed over the entire volume of the material, and this forms an optically homogeneous nanocomposite medium. The ZnO nanoparticles are photocatalysts and centers of the polymerization process.


Our study investigates the establishment of a design framework for multimedia software design for young learners with autism. The researcher, in partnership with local special needs and autism schools, has developed a social skills multimedia-based lesson. The Discrete Trial Instruction (DTI) teaching approach has been adopted within the framework of the prototype. DTI is a teaching method used to teach children with learning difficulties. DTI aims to positively improve a social behaviour or teach a task to a child within the classroom environment. The researcher has completed an in-depth study in the field in order to build a specific user model for these young learners. A series of interviews, classroom observations, parent/tutor reviews and sequential prototype design evaluations have been performed. Non-obtrusive observation techniques have been followed throughout the user profile building stage, as suggested by Druin, a children's technology and interaction design expert. This approach enables learners to feel at ease in their own environment.
Findings from these early investigations and user profiling have shown that ease of access to technology and software is a key criterion for these young users. A variety of multimodal technologies such as touchscreens and switches must also be integrated into the design of software. These technologies alleviate the motor and input difficulties which many young learners find when using the more common hardware devices such as a keyboard or mouse.
Further recommendations have also indicated the importance of audio to be included within the prototype construction. From the perspective of this project, voiceovers have been recorded to assist children with reading and understanding of lesson content. Results from initial evaluations state that current software on the market is strongly targeted at an American audience. Our project consists of an Irish tone in order to make the lesson more comprehensible for the young learner. In accordance with the DTI approach an animated social scenario lesson has been created using web animation tools. Accompanying the animation is a sample quiz and short animated rewards to assist with motivation and the transfer of knowledge of the lesson content.
A nationwide survey is currently in progress to further consolidate the design structure of the prototype. A random sample of Irish national special needs schools has been chosen to participate in the survey. An online questionnaire documenting both interface design and software usability questions has been developed to evaluate the software design framework. It is anticipated that results from this survey should further help the progression of educational computer-based programmes for young learners with autism, and contribute to a clearer understanding of multimedia and software development approaches that have good learning and teaching potential.


An important part of extra-tropical stratosphere-to-troposphere transport occurs in association with baroclinic wave breaking and cut-off decay at the tropopause. In the last decade many studies have attempted to estimate stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) in such synoptic events with various methods, and more recently efforts have been made to inter-compare these methods. These inter-comparisons show large variations between estimates from different methods. This large uncertainty points to a need to thoroughly evaluate such methods, assess the realism of the resulting STE estimates and determine the sensitivities to intrinsic parameters of the methods. The present study focuses on a trajectory-based Lagrangian method which has been applied in the past to climatological studies. This method is applied here to the quantification of STE in the context of a typical baroclinic wave breaking event. The analysis sheds light on (i) the complex three-dimensional temporal and spatial structures that are associated with the rapid inflow of stratospheric air into the troposphere, (ii) the variation of STE mass flux with the choice of the dynamical tropopause definition within 1.5 to 5 PVU, (iii) the sensitivity of the results to resolution, and in particular the minimum spatial resolution of 1°×1° required to reasonably capture STE fluxes in this wave breaking event, (iv) the effective removal of spurious exchange events using a threshold residence time larger than 8 h.


 Purpose: Selective Laser Melting (SLM) of high temperature nickel-base superalloys has had limited success due to the susceptibly of the material to solidification and reheat cracking. The aim of this study is to optimise the SLM process parameters for CMSX486 in order to produce a 'void-free' (fully consolidated) material, whilst reducing the cracking density to a minimum providing the best possible as-fabricated material for further post-processing.  Design/methodology/approach: Samples of CMSX486 were fabricated by SLM. Statistical DOE (Design of Experiments) using the response surface method was used to generate an experimental design and investigate the influence of the key process parameters (laser power, scan speed, scan-spacing and island size). A stereological technique was used to quantify the internal defects within the material, providing two measured responses: cracking density and void percent.  Findings: The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the most significant process parameters and showed that laser power, scan speed and the interaction between the two are significant parameters when considering the cracking density. Laser power, scan speed, scan spacing and the interaction between power and speed, and, speed and spacing were the significant factors when considering void percent. The optimum setting of the process parameters that lead to minimum cracking density and void percent was obtained. It was shown that the nominal energy density can be used to identify a threshold for the elimination of large voids; however it does not correlate well to the formation of cracks within the material. To validate the statistical approach, samples were produced using the predicted optimum parameters in an attempt to validate the response surface model. The model showed good prediction of the void percent; however the cracking


The success of Extension programming is often predicated on in-person events, and numerous Extension programs are preplanned and scheduled well in advance of the anticipated programming date. In-person events help foster community, collaboration, and the human connection within our society. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical for Extension to be adaptive and innovative and react proactively to worldwide, nationwide, and local authorities' and health professionals' recommendations to protect clientele, staff, and volunteers. Extension educators can tailor in-person programs to align with health professionals' recommendations by using creative, innovative, and adaptive measures. We describe two such programs.


Trace
elements constitute less than 1% of the rocks in the crust (Stumm and Morgan,
1991). In the human body, they constitute less than 100 mg/kg (0.01%). These
elements are released to the environment naturally by weathering and volcanic
activities (Flint and skinner, 1997). It has been observed that trace elements
are greatly absorbed and retained in the body when in liquid diet. This
phenomenon also influences the risk to human health, especially of infants and
children whose immature digestive system further promote absorption of toxic
heavy metals. The study was based on the analysis of domestic borehole water
supplies in Huruma estate of Eldoret Municipality for selected trace elements
and their implications on human health. The boreholes were systematically
selected for sampling points and trace elements, Cr, Cu and Se analyzed using
AAS. Statistical analysis for mean, standard deviation and confidence interval
limits was done using SPSS. The statistical t-test was used to test for significance
differences at (p = 0.05). The graphs were drawn using the Microsoft Excel
package. The resulting data obtained from analysis were compared with WHO data
for drinking water. In the study, the mean values of the following parameters
were as follows: Chromium 17.9 μg/L, Copper 563 μg/L and Selenium 22.7 μg/L.
There was a significant difference at 5% level of significance (p = 0.000) in
all the parameter values among the sampling points in Huruma estate. The above
mean values were far below the WHO recommended limits for drinking water. It
was concluded that the borehole water from Huruma was fit for drinking and
therefore could not cause cancer and cardiovascular diseases. However, borehole
water should be used if other water sources (tap water etc.) were not
available. All the industries near Huruma estate should carefully analyze and
regularly monitor their liquid waste effluents to ensure that no harmful
discharges get into the soil.


[ Helen Gavaghan ][1] Last month, a European Space Agency (ESA) task force outlined a new strategy for supporting Earth-observation missions that would make industry a full partner in designing, developing, and funding an entire class of missions. The proposal, previewed at a crowded meeting of industrialists at ESA's science and technology center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, on 18 December, would divide future Earth-observation programs into two types: scientific mission, which would be fully paid for out of ESA's budget, and applications missions, which would be private initiatives or risk- and cost-sharing partnerships between the agency and industry, which ESA would join only if the industrial sponsors already have purchasers for their data lined up. This new plan, which will be fleshed out at ESA headquarters over the next few months and presented to the organization's member states this summer, is designed to fill a looming gap in ESA's Earth-observation program.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org#name


Parallax error and ghosting are serious problems in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) image stitching. These problems occur even more obviously when stitching together large-parallax images. In this paper, an image stitching method based on projective interpolation is proposed. First, we estimate the homography matrix from the UAV images, obtain its inverse matrix. Second, the two matrices are decomposed and interpolated into sub-matrices. Then these sub-matrices are composed into two new matrices. Finally, the image stitching is finished by warping images using the new matrices. The proposed method disperses the parallax into the two images to help reduce the parallax error. Moreover, the method introduces a seam cutting technique to preserve the geometric structure and further improve local alignment. We conducted three experiments that compared the proposed method with other state-of-the-art methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce parallax error, eliminate ghosting, and achieve an overall good stitching result.


Wet deposition is the dominant mechanism for removing black carbon (BC) from the atmosphere, and is key in determining its atmospheric lifetime, vertical gradient and global transport. Despite the importance of BC in the climate system, especially in terms of its ability to modulate the radiative energy budget, there are few quantitative case studies of wet removal in ambient environments. We present a case study of BC wet removal by examining aerosol size distributions and BC coating properties sampled in three Canadian boreal biomass burning plumes, one of which passed through a precipitating cloud. In this plume,This depleted the majority of the plume's BC mass, and the largest and most coated BC particles were found to be preferentially removed, suggesting that nucleation scavenging was likely the dominant mechanism. Calculated mass absorption coefficient (MAC) in the plumes showed no significant variation, as the shifts to smaller BC cores and thinner coatings had opposing effects. Similarly, calculated single-scattering albedo (SSA) showed little variation, as a large number of non-BC particles were also present in the precipitation-affected plume. The remaining BC cores were smaller than those observed in previous studies of BC in postprecipitation outflow over Asia, possibly due to the thick coatings associated with the Canadian biomass burning particles. This study provides measurements of BC size, mixing state and removal efficiency to constrainimportant constraints to model parameterisations of BC wet removal in biomass burning regions, which will help to reduce uncertainty in radiative forcing calculations.


This data set represents the extent, approximate location and type of wetlands and deepwater habitats in Rhode Island. These data delineate the areal extent of wetlands and surface waters as defined by Cowardin et al. (1979). Certain wetland habitats are excluded from the National mapping program because of the limitations of aerial imagery as the primary data source used to detect wetlands. These habitats include seagrasses or submerged aquatic vegetation that are found in the intertidal and subtidal zones of estuaries and near shore coastal waters. Some deepwater reef communities (coral or tuberficid worm reefs) have also been excluded from the inventory. These habitats, because of their depth, go undetected by aerial imagery. By policy, the Service also excludes certain types of "farmed wetlands" as may be defined by the Food Security Act or that do not coincide with the Cowardin et al. definition. Contact the Service's Regional Wetland Coordinator for additional information on what types of farmed wetlands are included on wetland maps.


This paper explores the rationale for development actors to become more engaged in its pursuit of providing support for mass, sustainable mechanisms, which increase access to justice for the majority of people around the globe. It does so by demonstrating the importance of the historical evidence demonstrating finance as the key hindrance to individuals' accessing justice. Finally, it sets out two emerging areas that would be worthy of further investigation and support by the development community but which have at present received scant to no attention by the vast majority of 'rule of law' or 'justice reform' efforts.


Halima Bashir was born into the remote western deserts of Sudan. She grew up in a wonderfully rich environment and later went on to study medicine. At the age of twenty-four she returned to her tribe and began practising as their first ever qualified doctor. But then a dark cloud descended upon her people...Janjaweed Arab militias began savagely assaulting her people. At first, Halima tried not to get involved. But in January 2004 they attacked people in her village. Halima treated the traumatised victims and was sickened by what she saw. She decided to speak out in a Sudanese newspaper and to the UN charities. Then the secret police came for her. For days Halima was interrogated and subjected to unspeakable torture. She finally escaped but the nightmare just seemed to follow her...This inspiring story tells of one woman's determination to survive and her passion to defend her people. For the first time, we can truly understand the personal horrors of Darfur from someone who lived through it.


Cross site scripting (XSS) is a vulnerability of a Web application that is essentially caused by the failure of the application to check up on user input before returning it to the client's Web browser. Without an adequate validation, user input may include malicious code that may be sent to other clients and unexpectedly executed by their browsers, thus causing a security attack. Techniques to prevent this type of attacks require that all application input must be checked up and filtered, encoded, or validated before sending them to any user. In order to discover the XSS vulnerabilities in a Web application, traditional source code analysis techniques can be exploited. In this paper, in order to assess the XSS vulnerability of a Web application, an approach that combines static and dynamic analysis of the Web application is presented. Static analysis based criteria have been defined to detect potential vulnerabilities in the server pages of a Web application, while a process of dynamic analysis has been proposed in order to detect actual vulnerabilities. Some case studies have been carried out, giving encouraging results.


Today's healthcare system faces problems such as aging, a growth in age‐related illness and multi‐morbidity, a serious decrease of available personnel and a limited budget. The grand theme within healthcare is the need to do more with less. `eHealth', the use of advanced information and communication technologies in healthcare, may contribute to the solution of these problems by supporting a better balance between self‐care and professional care. Yet, despite the large number of eHealth projects to date and the positive outcomes of evaluation studies, the actual take‐up of eHealth services is lower than expected. This thesis presents an investigation into the factors that are critical for the development of sustainable eHealth technologies. To this end, we evaluated various interactive health communication applications in primary care.
One of the main problems is that the development of healthcare technology is expert‐driven, resulting in technology that does not meet the users' needs and that disregards the social‐cultural habits and the complexity of healthcare. In addition to this, eHealth interventions are often based on classic behavioral theories and medical models. They focus on rational decision‐making and discrete individual behavior change and neglect the very interdependencies between technology, care, context and communication. To ground eHealth, we formulated a number of key principles:
●
The development of eHealth technologies should be a process of value‐creation to match the technology with needs, motivations, incentives, profiles and contexts.
●
The development of eHealth technologies should be a participatory process of co‐creation in order to develop eHealth technologies that matter.
●
eHealth technologies should be persuasive to increase adherence.
These principles underpin our new holistic framework; the ceHRes (Center for eHealth Research) Roadmap. The ceHRes Roadmap aims to bring together the interdisciplinary fields of policy, research and practice by providing instruments related to participatory development and business modeling. Health 2.0 initiatives to advance sustainable healthcare technologies, the participation of users and stakeholders from different backgrounds and with different interests (political, medical, policy, commercial) are important for trust, commitment and creating ownership and for organizing the resources and capacities for the development of human‐centered and value‐driven eHealth technologies.


The aim of this paper is to analyze the stability problems of grid connected inverters used in distributed generation. Complex controllers (e.g., multiple rotating dq-frames or resonant-based) are often required to compensate low frequency grid voltage background distortion and an LCL-filter is usually adopted for the high frequency one. The possible wide range of grid impedance values (distributed generation is suited for remote areas with radial distribution plants) challenge the stability and the effectiveness of the LCL-filter-based current controlled system. It has been found out and it will be demonstrated in this paper that the use of active damping helps to stabilise the system in respect to many different kinds of resonances. The use of active damping results in an easy plug-in feature of the generation system in a vast range of grid conditions and in a more flexible operation of the overall system able to manage sudden grid changes. In the paper, a vast measurement campaign made on a single-phase system and on a three-phase system used as scale prototypes for photovoltaic and wind turbines, respectively, validate the analysis.


Hartmann and Kaiser argue that investors in funds of hedge funds underestimate the traditional equity market beta of these perceived absolute return investment vehicles. Hence, during times of financial crisis when the correlations of most asset categories with each other increase dramatically, the traditional equity market beta can have an adverse effect on the performance of funds of funds. Because investors in such environments are rarely able to redeem their fund-of-funds holdings due to low liquidity (e.g.,notice and redemption periods or lock-ups) or extraordinary circumstances (e.g., maximum redemptions, gates, and side pockets), the authors posit that the only way to decrease unwanted exposure is through overlay strategies. The academic literature so far has focused on the multifactor approach to estimate equity exposure in hedge fund portfolios. The authors compare different hedging approaches: a pure value-at-risk (VaR)-based approach, a technical market risk signal approach, and a combination of both over the May 2004–September 2009 period using weekly data from an investable hedge fund index. Their results suggest that using a risk overlay system for funds of hedge funds significantly decreases the downside risk of hedge fund investing during economic crises.


Despite the individually different molecular alterations in tumors, the malignancy associated biological traits are strikingly similar. Results of a previous study using renal cell carcinoma (RCC) as a model pointed towards cancer-related features, which could be visualized as three groups by microarray based gene expression analysis. In this study, we used a mathematic model to verify the presence of these groups in RCC as well as in other cancer types. We developed an algorithm for gene-expression deviation profiling for analyzing gene expression data of a total of 8397 patients with 13 different cancer types and normal tissues. We revealed three common Cancer Transcriptomic Profiles (CTPs) which recurred in all investigated tumors. Additionally, CTPs remained robust regardless of the functions or numbers of genes analyzed. CTPs may represent common genetic fingerprints, which potentially reflect the closely related biological traits of human cancers.


Objective: Although rare worldwide, primary squamous cell penile cancer (PSPC) is associated with significant psychological stress and cancer-specific mortality. We aim to analyze trends in PSPC in the United States from 2000–2015 using U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry (SEER). Clinical identification of risk factors for adverse outcomes will allow for patient-specific counseling on prognosis and intervention. Methods: Population-based data from SEER 18 was used to assess PSPC. SEER Stat was used to calculate incidence, mortality, and survival statistics of PSPC, as well as demographic, geographic, socioeconomic, and clinical variables from 2000 to 2015. Trends were assessed over 5-year spans (2000–2005, 2006–2010, and 2011–2015) using annual percent change. Kaplan-Meier logistic regression analysis was used to calculate 5-year, cancer-specific survival. Results: From 2000–2015, 5,144 men in the U.S. were diagnosed with PSPC at a rate of 0.38 per 100,000, which remained unchanged throughout the entire study period. Asians and Pacific Islanders had the lowest incidence (0.02, 95% CI=0.2, 0.2; P<.05) of all racial groups. Hispanics had a higher incidence (0.58, 95% CI=0.54, 0.62; P<.05) than non-Hispanics. Incidence was highest in the South (0.46, 95% CI=0.43, 0.48; P<.05); however, cancer-specific mortality was similar across regions. No difference in mortality was observed between urban and rural dwelling. Those lacking a high school education and living in areas with more than 10% poverty had a greater incidence of PSPC than others (P<.05). Overall, 5-year cancer-specific survival was 57%, which remained consistent across each studied time interval (P<.05). Compared to previous years, those diagnosed between 2011 and 2015 lacked surgical intervention, were of advanced age (>74–85 years), stage (T1, T2, T3), and with greater lymph node burden (>4) (P<.05). Increased mortality was associated with unmarried men, >20% poverty rate, advanced age, advanced T stage, and lack of surgical treatment (P<.05). Conclusion: Disparity in PSPC continues to exist. Incidence of penile cancer has increased with advanced age and stage. Unmarried, impoverished men with advanced stage and lack of surgical treatment have increased cancer-specific mortality. Efforts should be directed to those most at risk with hopes to identify disease at an earlier stage to provide surgical treatment with curative intent.


In Queer African Cinemas, Lindsey B. Green-Simms examines films produced by and about queer Africans in the first two decades of the twenty-first century in an environment of increasing antiqueer violence, efforts to criminalize homosexuality, and other state-sanctioned homophobia. Green-Simms argues that these films not only record the fear, anxiety, and vulnerability many queer Africans experience; they highlight how queer African cinematic practices contribute to imagining new hopes and possibilities. Examining globally circulating international art films as well as popular melodramas made for local audiences, Green-Simms emphasizes that in these films queer resistance—contrary to traditional narratives about resistance that center overt and heroic struggle—is often practiced from a position of vulnerability. By reading queer films alongside discussions about censorship and audiences, Green-Simms renders queer African cinema as a rich visual archive that documents the difficulty of queer existence as well as the potentials for queer life-building and survival.


The primary source of the discharge of phenols into the environment is industrial activity, such as the production of pharmaceuticals, plastics, and pesticides, being the majority discharged into surface water sources, reaching concentrations around 0.001 to 0.400 mg/L. These compounds are considered a priority contaminant due to their toxicity to aquatic life and effects on human health. The presence of phenols even at low concentrations generates flavour and odour in drinking water. Due to the molecular stability and solubility of phenols in water, their removal by conventional water treatment methods is inefficient. However, adsorption with granular activated carbon (GAC), after conventional filtration with sand and anthracite, is an efficient technique for the reduction of organic compounds such as phenols. This paper studied the effect of applying double filtration to the reduction of phenols present in the filtered water of a conventional drinking water treatment plant, using two types of GAC (vegetable and mineral) and three GAC:Sand configurations (100:00; 00:100; 50:50). The configurations with GAC showed an efficient reduction of turbidity, organic matter indicator variables (UV 254 absorbance and total organic carbon) and phenols, the mineral GAC being the most efficient GAC.


The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is expected to stimulate the North-South transfer of climate-friendly technologies. This paper provides an assessment of the technology transfers that take place through the CDM using a unique data set of 644 registered projects. It provides a detailed description of the transfers (frequency, type, by sector, by host country, etc.). It also includes an econometric analysis of their drivers. We show that transfer likeliness increases with the size of the projects. The transfer probability is 50% higher in projects implemented in a subsidiary of Annex 1 companies while the presence of an official credit buyer has a lower-albeit positive-impact. The analysis also yields interesting results on how technological capabilities of the host country influence technology diffusion in the CDM.


In addition to social communication difficulties, individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently experience problems in other domains such as motor control and learning. The goal of the current study was to better understand ASD-related differences in motor learning. We isolated and examined the ballistic and corrective submovements associated with learning of a rapid aimed limb movement in a sample of children with ASD and a matched comparison group of typically developing children without ASD. The overall rate of motor learning did not differ significantly between groups. Analysis of movement subcomponents, however, revealed significant group differences. These findings support the hypothesis that, while motor learning per se is not impaired in ASD, individuals with ASD utilized different strategies in motor learning.


Quantitative understanding of the fate of cyanide in the environment and its role in industrial processes requires quantitative characterisation of metal ion–cyanide complex formation and also the corresponding metal ion hydrolysis reactions that frequently compete with them. This thesis presents quantitative data for complex formation constants obtained using a range of techniques for a number of metal ion–hydroxide and metal ion–cyanide systems of environmental and hydrometallurgical importance that have been found difficult to study in the past. A specially–constructed combined spectrophotometric /potentiometric cell has enabled a variety of systems to be studied by UV–Visible spectroscopy at very low metal ion concentrations. This has circumvented problems associated with precipitation and/or polynuclear metal complex formation, which frequently predominate in these systems at higher concentrations.

Using this approach it has been possible to determine the formation constants and spectra of the mononuclear hydroxide complexes of Pb(II), Cu(II), Fe(III), Ag(I) and for the cyanide complexes of Pb(II), Ag(I), Ni(II) and Fe(III). It has also been possible to estimate the solubility products of Pb(CN)2(s), AgOH(s), AgCN(s) and NaFeFe(CN)6(s). For some of these species (namely, Pb(OH)42–, the higher order hydroxo–complexes of Cu(II) and Fe(III), Pb(CN)+, and the lower cyano–complexes of Fe(III)), the present results are the first quantitative estimates of their formation constants. These complexes have long been assumed to exist on theoretical grounds but have proven difficult to quantify experimentally. The main reasons for this difficulty are the sparing solubility of the neutral hydroxides and /or cyanides and the tendency of CN– to form either very weak or extremely strong complexes.

Where possible, attempts were made to confirm the spectrophotometric results using other techniques such as polarography, NMR spectroscopy (for Pb(II)), Raman spectroscopy and, for Cu(II), ESR spectroscopy. However, although these techniques were sometimes able to provide useful insights into the nature of the species formed, in general they were not sufficiently sensitive, or suffered from other constraints that meant that they yielded little quantitative information.

The formation constants measured in this work were combined with literature data to model the chemical behaviour of hypothetical cyanide–infiltrated soil. This modelling indicates that under typical contaminated soil conditions (i.e. soil containing Fe(OH)3(s) and [CN–] = 0.1mM), cyanide will be present mainly as the various forms of Prussian blue. However, strong competition between cyanide and hydroxide ions for Fe(III), points to possible conditions for the chemical degradation of the Prussian blue.


The design and implementation of precise static analyzers for significant fragments of imperative languages like C, C++, Java and Python is a challenging problem. In this paper, we consider a core imperative language that has several features found in mainstream languages such as those including recursive functions, run-time system and user-defined exceptions, and a realistic data and memory model. For this language we provide a concrete semantics —characterizing both finite and infinite computations— and a generic abstract semantics that we prove sound with respect to the concrete one. We say the abstract semantics is generic since it is designed to be completely parametric on the analysis domains: in particular, it provides support for relational domains (i.e., abstract domains that can capture the relationships between different data objects). We also sketch how the proposed methodology can be extended to accommodate a larger language that includes pointers, compound data objects and non-structured control flow mechanisms. The approach, which is based on structured, big-step G∞SOS operational semantics and on abstract interpretation, is modular in that the overall static analyzer is naturally partitioned into components with clearly identified responsibilities and interfaces, something that greatly simplifies both the proof of correctness and the implementation.


In this paper we present a (2x5) matrix amplifier with a DC power consumption as low as 200 mW with 13 dBm of RF output power (@ 1 dB compression point) achieving 7 dB of small-signal gain (residual ripple 0.3 dB) and input-output return loss always better than -14 dB. Designed using the LN05 monolithic process of Thomson Composants Microondes (TCM), the amplifier employs ten MESFETs of 160 µm (4x40 nm) gate width and sub-micron (0.5 µm) gate length, for a total chip area of 2.5x3.5 mm2. Broadband performance and very low power consumption make this amplifier very well suited for high-volume realization of monolithic multiple-stage front-ends in integrated high bit-rate fiber-optic receivers.


Real-time electricity pricing models can potentially lead to economic and environmental advantages compared to the current common flat rates. In particular, they can provide end users with the opportunity to reduce their electricity expenditures by responding to pricing that varies with different times of the day. However, recent studies have revealed that the lack of knowledge among users about how to respond to time-varying prices as well as the lack of effective building automation systems are two major barriers for fully utilizing the potential benefits of real-time pricing tariffs. We tackle these problems by proposing an optimal and automatic residential energy consumption scheduling framework which attempts to achieve a desired trade-off between minimizing the electricity payment and minimizing the waiting time for the operation of each appliance in household in presence of a real-time pricing tariff combined with inclining block rates. Our design requires minimum effort from the users and is based on simple linear programming computations. Moreover, we argue that any residential load control strategy in real-time electricity pricing environments requires price prediction capabilities. This is particularly true if the utility companies provide price information only one or two hours ahead of time. By applying a simple and efficient weighted average price prediction filter to the actual hourly-based price values used by the Illinois Power Company from January 2007 to December 2009, we obtain the optimal choices of the coefficients for each day of the week to be used by the price predictor filter. Simulation results show that the combination of the proposed energy consumption scheduling design and the price predictor filter leads to significant reduction not only in users' payments but also in the resulting peak-to-average ratio in load demand for various load scenarios. Therefore, the deployment of the proposed optimal energy consumption scheduling schemes is beneficial for both end users and utility companies.


The aim of this study was to isolate yeasts from subclinical mastitic cows and to investigate the slime production by the isolated yeasts. The material used in this study included 339 milk samples from 152 dairy cattle with subclinical mastitis. Milk was plated onto blood agar, MacConkey agar and Sabouraud dextrose agar. Forty-one samples (12.1% of total milk samples) were found positive for the yeast by API 20 C AUX identification system. The isolated yeasts were classified into four genera of Candida, Trichosporon, Cryptococcus and Saccharomyces. The Candida species were following: C. krusei, C. kefyr, C. guilliermondii, C. famata, C. rugosa and C. utulis. Other yeasts were identified as Trichosporon mucoides, T. asahii, Cryptococcus laurentii, C. neoformans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Slime production was tested on Congo red brain heart infusion agar and evaluated according to Congo red phenomenon. Fifteen (36.6%) strains were slime factor positive: seven were C. krusei, four C. kefyr, one C. guilliermondii, one C. famata, one T. asahii, and one C. laurentii. The results of the present study indicate that yeast mastitis is significant for causing economic losses and slime production is mostly found in non-albicans Candida species. Therefore, non-albicans Candida species should be examined for slime production.


Background Overdiagnosis is considered a risk associated with the diagnosis of osteoporosis–as many people diagnosed won't experience harm from the condition. As yet there's little evidence on community understanding of overdiagnosis outside cancer- where it is an established risk of some screening programs–or effective ways to communicate about it. We examined community understanding around overdiagnosis of osteoporosis, to optimise communication strategies about this problem. Methods and findings Using a qualitative design we recruited a community sample of women, 50–80 years, from the Gold Coast community around Bond University, Australia, using random digit dialing, and conducted 5 focus groups with 41 women. A discussion guide and 4-part presentation were developed and piloted, with independent review from a consumer and clinical experts. Initial discussion had 4 segments: osteoporosis; bone density vs. other risk factors; medication; and overdiagnosis. The second half included the 4 short presentations and discussions on each. Analysis used Framework Analysis method. Initially participants described osteoporosis as bone degeneration causing some fear, demonstrated imprecise understanding of overdiagnosis, had a view osteoporosis couldn't be overdiagnosed as bone scans provided "clear cut" results, expressed belief in early diagnosis, and interest in prevention strategies enabling control. Following presentations, participants expressed some understanding of overdiagnosis, preference for describing osteoporosis as a "risk factor" not "disease", concern about a poor risk-benefit ratio for medications, and surprise and unease the definition of osteoporosis decided bone density of young women was "normal", without age adjustment. Limitations include English-speaking backgrounds of the sample and complex materials. Conclusions Our findings suggest a gap between community expectations and how experts sometimes arbitrarily set low diagnostic thresholds which label those at risk as "diseased". Optimal communication about overdiagnosis could build on community scepticism about treatments, encouraging weighing up benefits and harms of tests and diagnoses, and framing this information as positively adding to knowledge.


Opioid abuse and addiction affects more than 2.4 million people in the United States. Medication assisted treatment (MAT), in combination with counseling, is recognized as the most effective treatment for patients with opioid dependence and abuse. Although MAT is considered the most effective treatment, previous research has found clinically significant weight gain with methadone. The purpose of this study was to determine if hedonic eating behaviors, sugar cravings, and addictive like eating was related to weight gain in opioid addicted patients receiving methadone and buprenorphine/naloxone (SuboxoneTM). Hedonic eating behaviors were measured using three validated surveys. Following survey collection, a chart review was completed to determine weight changes over time. One hundred twenty surveys were completed and 113 were analyzed. No differences were found between the medication groups in terms of mean age, weight at entry, BMI at entry, race, sex, and Hepatitis C status. A subset of 39 participants was analyzed for weight changes during treatment. There were no differences in food addiction scores, hedonic eating behaviors, and food cravings between the medication groups. We found significant weight gain in patients receiving methadone and no weight changes for those receiving SuboxoneTM. Weight gain in methadone maintenance does not appear to be related to addictive like eating, food craving, or hedonic eating. This research suggests that weight gain seen in methadone maintenance for opioid addiction treatment is related to something other than hedonic eating behaviors. Clinically significant weight gain should be considered when prescribing methadone for opioid addiction.


Hydroelectric potential exists in the Boulder, Colorado municipal water system. Excess pressure is developed in the water system because the water originates in the Rocky Mountains, west of Boulder at an altitude of approximately 9800 feet (2987. 04 meters) and is delivered to the city at 5200 feet (1584. 96 meters). Excess pressure in the municipal water system is wasted at numerous points throughout the transmission system. The PURPA law provided a means for the City to utilize the energy by installing hydroelectric equipment and selling the power generated to Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo). The City is installing six hydroelectric projects in the municipal water transmission system to recover energy that was previously wasted in providing water to the citizens. These hydroelectric projects are installed at points throughout the system to reduce the pressure as required by the municipal water system.


Osteoporosis management in older people should be aimed at fracture prevention. Most trial evidence involving antiosteoporotic medications in reducing fragility fractures exists in women up to the age of 80 years. In this review we discuss the management of osteoporosis in the very elderly, those over the age of 80, focusing on the evidence for anti-resorptive and anabolic agents in reducing fragility fractures in this particular age group.


Vacuum-propagation optical communication with high photon efficiency (many bits/photon) and high spectral efficiency (many bits/s ·Hz) requires operation in the near-field power transfer regime with a large number of spatial modes. For terrestrial propagation paths, however, the effects of atmospheric turbulence must be factored into the photon and spectral efficiency assessments. In Part I of this study [N. Chandrasekaran and J. H. Shapiro, "Photon Information Efficient Communication Through Atmospheric Turbulence-Part I: Channel Model and Propagation Statistics," J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 1075-1087, Mar. 2014], modal-transmissivity statistics were derived for the turbulent channel that depend solely on the mutual coherence function of the atmospheric Green's function, and these bounds were evaluated for ~ 200 spatial-mode systems whose transmitters used either focused-beam (FB), Hermite-Gaussian (HG), or Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes and whose receivers either did or did not employ adaptive optics. This Part II paper derives upper and lower bounds for the ergodic Holevo capacities of classical and private information transmission over the multiple spatial-mode turbulent channel that can be evaluated from Part I's transmissivity statistics. Also included are bounds on the ergodic capacity for on-off keying encoding and direct detection. It is shown that: 1) adaptive optics are not necessary to realize high photon information efficiency and high spectral efficiency simultaneously; 2) an FB-mode system with perfect adaptive optics outperforms its HG-mode and LG-mode counterparts; and 3) the converse is true when adaptive optics are not employed.


The aim of this study was to investigate metabolism of unsaturated fatty acids in ruminants. We focused particularly on the question if there is a selective mobilisation of n-3 fatty acids from adipose tissue during start of lactation, when demands are augmented. 10 Brown Swiss and 14 Holstein Friesian dairy cows form the herd of the ETH Zurich research station were allotted into 4 groups which got an isoenergetic ration with a concentrate containing different amounts of either n-3 fatty acids as linseed or n-6 fatty acids as sunflower seed. The sampling took place from 6 weeks before to 6 weeks after calving. During this time, feed, blood, adipose tissue and milk samples were taken regularly. 2 weeks before calving, intense metabolic measurements were made. This study shows the influence of the dry period feeding on fatty acid pattern of milk. But the effect lasts only for a few days. Hence there seems to be no use feeding n-3 rich concentrates before calving to enrich milk for human consumption. Fatty acid pattern of milk is mainly influenced by the actual diet. The different contents of unsaturated fatty acids in adipose tissue gives evidence for a selective mobilisation of n-3 fatty acids.


Pass the CWTS exam with the help of this fully updated official guide Completely updated to cover the latest Certified Wireless Technology Specialist exam, this best-selling guide is the only Official Study Guide for the popular wireless certification. This foundation-level certification is in high demand for wireless networking professionals, and you can master all the exam topics with this Official guide. It covers all the exam objectives and helps you study with hands-on exercises, chapter review questions, an objective map, a pre-assessment test, and additional study tools on the companion website. The only official study guide endorsed by CWNP Thoroughly covers all exam objectives, including Wi-Fi Technology, Standards, and Certifications; Hardware and Software; Radio Frequency (RF) Fundamentals; Site Surveying and Installation; Applications, Support, and Troubleshooting; and Security & Compliance Includes hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios to increase understanding Study aids include review questions, glossary, objective map, sample tests, and electronic flashcards CWTS: Certified Wireless Technology Specialist Official Study Guide, 2nd Edition is the study buddy that will enhance your chances for exam success. Note: CD-ROM materials for eBook purchases can be downloaded from http://booksupport.wiley.com .


Public policy becomes managerial practice through a process of implementation. There is an established literature within Implementation Studies which explains the variables and some of the processes involved in implementation, but less attention has been focused upon how public service managers convert new policy initiatives into practice. The research proposes that managers and their organisations have to go through a process of learning in order to achieve the implementation of public policy. Data was collected over a five year period from four case studies of capital investment appraisal in the British National Health Service. Further data was collected from taped interviews by key actors within the case studies. The findings suggest that managers do learn to implement policy and four factors are important in this learning process. These are; (i) the nature of bureaucratic responsibility; (ii) the motivation of actors towards learning; (iii) the passage of time which allows for the development of competence and (iv) the use of project team structures. The research has demonstrated that the conversion of policy into practice occurs through the operationalisation of solutions to policy problems via job tasks. As such it suggests that in understanding how policy is implemented, technical learning is more important than cultural learning, in this context. In conclusion, a "Model of Learned Implementation" is presented, together with a discussion of some of the implications of the research. These are the possible use of more pilot projects for new policy initiatives and the more systematic diffusion of knowledge about implementation solutions.


Though openness in government has obvious benefits, recent scholarship has devoted less attention to the possibility that it might also have costs. I use a formal framework to investigate the effect of public versus private decision making on opinion polarization. Existing work emphasizes that public debate helps to reduce polarization and promote consensus, but I argue that when debate takes place between representatives the opposite may be true. When representatives make decisions in public, they face incentives to use their actions as a signal of loyalty to their constituents, potentially ignoring private information about the true desirability of different policies. Anticipating this, constituents will not alter their prior policy beliefs following a debate of this type. When representatives instead make policy decisions in private, they are more likely to allow private information to influence their actions. An important consequence is that even if constituents do not observe actions or statements of...


This study investigates how the availability and expansion of childcare services for children aged under 3 years relate to the subjective wellbeing of German mothers and fathers. It extends previous studies by examining in more detail the relationship between day-care availability and use, maternal employment and parental subjective wellbeing during early childhood in a country with expanding childcare services and varying work–care cultures. The empirical analysis links annual day-care attendance rates at the county-level to individual-level data of the Socio-Economic Panel Study for 2007–2012 and the 'Families in Germany' Study for 2010–2012. We apply fixed-effects panel models to samples of 2002 couples and 376 lone mothers. We find some evidence of a positive effect of the day-care expansion only on satisfaction with family life for lone mothers and for full-time employed partnered mothers. Transitions to full-time employment are associated with reductions in subjective wellbeing irrespective of local day-care availability among partnered mothers in West Germany but not in East Germany. These results suggest that varying work–care cultures between East and West Germany are more important moderators of the relationship between maternal employment and satisfaction than short-term regional expansions of childcare services.


Background: Currently, over 45 million people in the United States are uninsured. Many among the uninsured population are not established with a primary care provider and therefore utilize the Emergency Department (ED) for non-emergency concerns. Investigators have examined the impact a primary care referral has on subsequent ED utilization. At University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH), Murnik et al asked if scheduling follow-up visits for uninsured patients using the ED to a primary care clinic would decrease subsequent ED utilization. The follow-up visits were scheduled using the Community Access Program for Central New Mexico (CAP-NM) a HIPAA compliant web-based system developed to share medical information from UNMH-ED and a consortium of six safety net community primary care clinics. Murnik et al results showed a 31% reduction of ED visits in referred patients compared to the control group. However, the number of clinic follow up visits for referred patients not was determined. Purpose: To determine the number of visits made to a primary care home by uninsured, unassigned patients referred from the emergency department. Methods: CAP-NM data base included 484 patients given a referral to primary care clinic between January 27, 2005 and November 30, 2005. The establishment of a "primary care home" was defined as at least two visits within a two-year period. Referral counts were limited to those made from the UNMH Emergency Ward to one of the First Choice Community Healthcare clinics. Results: There were 203/484 (42%) of referred patients that made one or more First Choice visit in the two years following the CAP referral. Of the 203, 103 (50%) had one visit; 35 (17%) had two visits; 27 (13%) had three visits; 12 (6%) had 4 visits; 11 (5%) had 5 visits; 3 (1%) had 6 visits; 4 (2%) had 7 visits; 2 (1%) had 8 visits; 4 (2%) had 9 visits; 1 (0.5%) had 10 visits; 1 (0.5%) had 11 visits; and 1 (0.5%) had 13 visits. Therefore, there were 101 out of the 484 (21%) who had two or more visits, meeting the criteria of having established a "medical home." Conclusions: This study of the First Choice Community Healthcare Clinic shows that referral of uninsured patients from the emergency department to a primary care home results in only one fifth of patients establishing a medical home. Further research is needed to determine effective interventions to increase patients' establishing such a home.


Arab-owned media conglomerates that have business interests both inside and outside the Arab region raise questions about the relative contributions made by those interests at the different national, regional, and global levels in securing for their owners global recognition as well as power and influence at home. Arab media owners like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Naguib Sawiris, and others feature regularly in global rankings of the rich and powerful but, although they are most often presented as members of a transnational corporate elite, each arguably also remains embedded in a national ruling class. This article explores relevant aspects of the evolution of the Alwaleed and Sawiris empires in order to locate them within the structures of transnational media and communications industries. By also investigating and comparing their interventions at the national level, in relation to media choices respectively available to Saudi and Egyptian media users, the study aims to shed light on the interplay of national and transnational powerbases in the context of Arab media politics and economics.


Civil service reform is one of the most intractable yet important challenges for governments and their supporters today. However, civil service reform thus far has largely failed. Based on a review of existing literature, this paper presents principles for donors, governments, and advocates to help them design more effective reform programmes. While the current understanding of how best to promote civil service reform has advanced, it remains broadly incomplete due to a combination of the complexity of the subject, disagreement on the objectives, and a failure of practitioners to reflect on their experiences and then disseminate the results. Recommendations are presented separately for reform designers and reform funders.


Abstract. Magnetic measurements, mineralogical and geochemical studies were carried out on surface soil samples in order to find possible relationships and to obtain environmental implications. The samples were taken over a square grid (500 × 500 m) near the city of Coimbra, in central Portugal. Mass specific magnetic susceptibility ranges between 12.50 and 710.11 × 10−8 m3 kg−1 and isothermal magnetic remanence at 1 tesla values range between 253 and 18 174 × 10−3 Am−1. Chemical analysis by atomic absorption spectrometry shows that the concentration of various toxic elements was higher than the mean background values for world soils. Higher values of susceptibility and toxic elements content were reported near roads and rivers. Urban pollution and road traffic emission seem to be the main influence for these values. A semi-quantitative X-ray diffraction study has been carried out on a representative set of subsamples, using peak areas. Illite (average 52%), kaolinite (average 55%), chlorite (average 6%) and irregular illite-smectite mixed-layers (average 9%) are the major clay minerals groups identified. Mineral composition of total fraction confirms the presence of magnetite/maghemite. The clay minerals results point to a contrast in the behavior of the main clay minerals: illite, chlorite, and kaolinite (also, smectite in some samples), which are generally in agreement with the magnetic and geochemical data. The results showed that magnetic measurements are a sensitive, fast, inexpensive and robust method, which can be advantageously applied for studying soils affected by urban and road pollution.


Distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) combines the array gain of coherent MIMO processing with the proximity gains of distributed antenna setups. In this paper, we analyze how transceiver hardware impairments affect the downlink with maximum ratio transmission. We derive closed-form spectral efficiencies expressions and study their asymptotic behavior as the number of the antennas increases. We prove a scaling law on the hardware quality, which reveals that massive MIMO is resilient to additive distortions, while multiplicative phase noise is a limiting factor. It is also better to have separate oscillators at each antenna than one per BS.


In this essay Professor Beatty joins the debate as to how, if at all, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the process of judicial review can be integrated with our tradition of democratic rule and the sovereignty of the popular will. Rather than deal directly with the arguments of those who are critical of the entrenchment of a written bill of rights, Professor Beatty endeavors to cast the Charter and the new role of the judges in the best possible light. Analogizing the process of constitutional review to "conversations of justification" (using examples drawn from the labour law field), Professor Beatty describes how the Charter offers those who are generally financially weak, numerically small and otherwise politically disadvantaged an opportunity to participate in the formulation of social policies which profoundly affect their lives in a way majoritarian politics have never allowed.


The pH-independent fusion of membranes induced by measles virus (MV) requires, in addition to the fusion-competent protein F, hemagglutinin (H), and on the target membrane, the virus receptor CD46. We constructed hybrid receptors composed of different numbers and combinations of the four CD46 short consensus repeat (SCR) domains, followed by immunoglobulin-like domains of another cell surface protein, CD4. Hybrid proteins containing SCRs I and II bound MV particles and conferred fusion competence to rodent cells. SCRs III and/or IV strengthened MV binding. Increasing the distance between the MV binding site and the transmembrane domain enhanced virus binding but reduced fusion efficiency. A hybrid protein predicted to be about 120 Angstroms (12 nm) longer than the standard receptor lost fusion support function and was dominant negative over a functional receptor. These data indicate that receptor protein length influences virus binding and determines fusion efficiency.


Summary This paper is concerned with the storied landscapes underlying the megalithic tradition of the Irish Neolithic. The importance of place is now well established as a significant factor in the distribution of megalithic tombs at a local level as well as the original source of material from which they were built. At one level those places could be seen as a backdrop to the megalithic tomb; at another they could be seen as the reason for its construction or an intrinsic element of the construction ritual. Here we are concerned with the Neolithic mythologies that might have given meaning to ancient landscapes. Although the specific mythical personalities and events through which the meaning of places were reinforced and transmitted from generation to generation in deep prehistory are now lost to us, we can nevertheless hope to identify the landscapes in which such mythical dramas were brought to life in the stories. The paper draws on analogies from Irish mythology and folklore, and examines a small number of Neolithic case studies in some detail.