Earnings management involves the use of acceptable accounting rules and procedures as well as circumventing business activities to achieve desired ends. In the literature, earnings management through discretionary accruals has always been associated with an opportunistic motive to mislead various stakeholders about a business' financial performance to the advantage of owners and managers. However, the literature presented two possible motives behind earnings management, namely: an opportunistic, a self-serving perspective which mirrors the agency problem; and an efficient motive which utilizes earnings management as a signalling mechanism to send signals about the firm to its stakeholders. In this paper, we investigate the type of earnings management employed by industrial firms in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). Evidence was found that managers use earnings management in an efficient perspective to signal private information to stakeholders. In addition, the study examined firm-specific characteristics in terms of profitability, leverage, cash flows from operations, and firm size. Furthermore, this study also examined corporate governance variables such as the number of independent board of directors, the presence of CEO duality, board size, and audit quality. We also examined the effect of these variables on a firm's tendency to engage in earnings management using discretionary accruals. Results revealed that among the firm specific characteristics, leverage and cash flow from operations are both significantly and positively related to a firm's level of discretionary accruals, while profitability was found to be negatively related. However, we found that corporate governance variables such as board size, board independence, CEO duality, and audit quality were all insignificant predictors of a firm's earnings management activities.


The composition of a musical work may be viewed as involving the exploitation, through various combinations, transformations and arrangements, of a finite set of compositional processes and musical materials. As a consequence, combinatorial and transformational processes and musical materials across various musical dimensions tend to be scattered throughout a musical work. Although the processes involved in music composition vary widely between composers, and indeed between works, in general these processes tend to be iterative, with the composer creating and revising musical materials within and between different musical dimensions and concerns. When musical materials are modified, related musical structures must also be updated, in order to maintain musical coherence. However, in general, the relationships that exist between musical materials are not explicitly notated. Although for many composers this process may be unconscious, we hypothesize that tools for identifying, creating, organising, modifying and manipulating such related structures explicitly would have numerous applications for composers, teachers and analysts.

The aim of the research described in this thesis is to find ways in which Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP), and cognate techniques, may be used to facilitate the development of computer systems that support musical composition by assisting in the separation, organisation and combination of musical concerns.

We investigate the semantics of crosscutting within a musical context and use this to evolve an Aspect Oriented Music Representation (AOMR), and a concrete proof-of-concept implementation of AOMR called AspectMusic. AOMR demonstrates how two different, current approaches to AOP, namely symmetric and asymmetric, can be usefully applied to the separation, composition and conditional modification of musical structures.

We also describe an approach, called Composition History, which provides a detailed history of the symmetric composition operations that have been applied to a structure and makes this information available within the asymmetric framework. In this way, details of the provenance of any given musical event may be used as part of the pointcut expression within asymmetric AOMR aspects. Additionally, we demonstrate a logic reification of AOMR events, including composition history, which permits declarative pointcut expressions.


Our hero is Turing, an interactive tutoring program and namesake (or virtual emanation?) of Alan Turing, World War II code breaker and father of computer science. In this unusual novel, Turing's idiosyncratic version of intellectual history from a computational point of view unfolds in tandem with the story of a love affair involving Ethel, a successful computer executive, Alexandros, a melancholy archaeologist, and Ian, a charismatic hacker. After Ethel (who shares her first name with Alan Turing's mother) abandons Alexandros following a sundrenched idyll on Corfu, Turing appears on Alexandros's computer screen to unfurl a tutorial on the history of ideas. He begins with the philosopher-mathematicians of ancient Greece -- "discourse, dialogue, argument, proof... can only thrive in an egalitarian society" -- and the Arab scholar in ninth-century Baghdad who invented algorithms; he moves on to many other topics, including cryptography and artificial intelligence, even economics and developmental biology. (These lessons are later critiqued amusingly and developed further in postings by a fictional newsgroup in the book's afterword.) As Turing's lectures progress, the lives of Alexandros, Ethel, and Ian converge in dramatic fashion, and the story takes us from Corfu to Hong Kong, from Athens to San Francisco -- and of course to the Internet, the disruptive technological and social force that emerges as the main locale and protagonist of the novel.Alternately pedagogical and romantic, Turing (A Novel about Computation) should appeal both to students and professionals who want a clear and entertaining account of the development of computation and to the general reader who enjoys novels of ideas.


The Handbook of Business Practices and Growth in Emerging Markets consists of a collection of specially commissioned chapters that describe the current business environment, organizational culture, consumer behavior, financial investment climate, and examples of best prevailing practices in emerging markets. It covers all the major functional areas of business - marketing, strategy, operations and finance - in all continents. The focus of each chapter is on the identification of different business issues in different emerging markets (including Asia, Africa and South America) and on the implementation of a proposed set of recommendations, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques to assist in decision-making and in improving organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Readers will also appreciate the multidimensional view of financial and non-financial performance measurement of businesses.Specifically, the goal of this research-based handbook is to provide a comprehensive guide for business students and managers by discussing a range of issues from the diverse emerging markets and enabling them to develop a strategic mindset for a market-oriented culture. Given the changing business dynamics, government policies and demands in industries, this handbook is both timely and topical.


ABSTRACT Ionic liquids (ILs), both as pure lubricants and as lubricant additives, have been demonstrated extensively to exhibit excellent tribological performance in terms of friction and wear reduction in the boundary lubrication (BL) regime. Because engineering contacts experience boundary and mixed as well as full film lubrication depending on operating conditions, it is crucial to examine whether lubrication regimes other the BL regime can also benefit from the use of ILs. The objective of this work is to investigate the tribological performance of IL additives in the mixed lubrication (ML) and the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) regimes. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used as the base fluid. ILs were synthesized in situ by dissolving lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl) imide (LiTFSI) in PEG. Friction and film thickness measurements were employed to investigate the effectiveness of IL additives at room temperature, 60°C, and 80°C at various loads and slide–roll ratios (SRRs). The effect of IL additives on the rheological behavior of PEG was also investigated. The EHL film thickness increases with increasing IL concentration. EHL friction is, however, only mildly affected by IL additives. In the ML regime, IL additives can reduce friction and metal wear compared to pure PEG in mild conditions. It is conjectured that IL forms sacrificial layers and protects the rubbing surfaces. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


Seminars, called zemi in Japanese, form an important part of the educational system at most universities in Japan. These courses generally involve a group of ten to twenty students studying and researching a specific area of their major, under the guidance of a professor for two consecutive years. The professor offers career guidance, lectures on their research interest, and supervises students' graduation projects, typically in the form of dissertations. Although dissertation topics vary from student to student, they commonly follow a theme that is closely related to the research interests of their professor. For the few students aiming to pursue graduate studies, learning about this theme, conducting research, and writing a dissertation are all invaluable learning experiences for their studies ahead. However, for students who will start their careers, writing a dissertation on a topic far-removed from their chosen vocation will not offer similar benefits. In hopes of constructing a meaningful experience for career-bound students, the author incorporated the option of creating interactive e-portfolios into the seminar class. In this presentation, the author will introduce the digital publishing software that was used to create these interactive e-portfolios and outline the potential and significance of e-portfolios to promote self-awareness and foster career development in Japanese universities. The presenter will also illustrate how e-portfolios can be used with the LEGO® Serious Play® methodology to construct a professional development plan that includes a visual SWOT analysis of personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats in the student's job of interest.


Despite the extensive archaeological surveys carried out in the last decades, little attention has been paid to one of the longest water supply systems of ancient times – the Byzantine water infrastructure which fed Constantinople from the mid-late fourth century ad. This work uses modern satellite terrain data and Global Positioning System (GPS) data to assess this system and provide an improved description of its route, total length and gradient profile. Forty-four validated GPS Control Points were correlated with ASTER GDEM V2 digital satellite data and archaeological information in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. We concluded that the total length of the water supply system was 426 km, and possibly even 565 km if the fifth-century aqueduct continued in parallel all the way to Constantinople rather than merging with the fourth-century aqueduct. The gradient of the channels varied across their length, being steepest near the spring sources, with a gradient mostly in the region of 5 m/km, and flattest at around 0.4 m/km in the most downstream section nearest the City. This reconstruction of the gradient profile provides valuable insight into the physical characteristics of the system, allowing future study of its hydraulic function.


Search methods based on Monte-Carlo simulation have recently led to breakthrough performance improvements in difficult game-playing domains such as Go and General Game Playing. Monte-Carlo Random Walk (MRW) planning applies Monte-Carlo ideas to deterministic classical planning. In the forward chaining planner ARVAND, Monte-Carlo random walks are used to explore the local neighborhood of a search state for action selection. In contrast to the stochastic local search approach used in the recent planner Identidem, random walks yield a larger and unbiased sample of the search neighborhood, and require state evaluations only at the endpoints of each walk. On IPC-4 competition problems, the performance of ARVAND is competitive with state of the art systems.


We use an N-body simulation to study the 3D density distribution of spirals and the resulting stellar vertical velocities. Relative to the disc's rotation, the phase of the spiral's peak density away from the mid-plane trails that at the mid-plane. In addition, at fixed radius the density distribution is azimuthally skewed, having a shallower slope on the trailing side inside corotation and switching to shallower on the leading side beyond corotation. The spirals induce non-zero average vertical velocities, 〈Vz〉, as large as 〈Vz〉 ∼ 10–20 km s−1, consistent with recent observations in the Milky Way. The vertical motions are compressive (towards the mid-plane) as stars enter the spiral, and expanding (away from the mid-plane) as they leave it. Since stars enter the spiral on the leading side outside corotation and on the trailing side within corotation, the relative phase of the expanding and compressive motions switches sides at corotation. Moreover, because stars always enter the spiral on the shallow density gradient side and exit on the steeper side, the expanding motions are larger than the compressing motions.


Basalt Fibre Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) is a new material in civil engineering and has shown to be a promising material for infrastructure strengthening. In comparison to carbon fiber, glass fiber and other composites, it has some advantages such as high-temperature resistance and low cost. At the Structural and Composite Laboratory at Reykjavik University (SEL) several research projects involving strengthening concrete beams and columns by using FRP materials have been on-going in recent years. These tests have shown improvements in strength and durability compared to unstrengthened concrete members. The benefit of using basalt fiber or other FRP material is that they are non-corrosive, which is a good choice for reinforcing concrete structure exposed to de-icing salts, for examples in bridge decks and parking garage elements. Also for concrete exposed to marine environment, such as seawalls, water breaks and buildings or other structures located near a waterfront. Two research projects are presented in this paper; a test of prestressed concrete with internal basalt rods instead of steel and a test of columns strengthened by wrapping fibre-reinforced composite sheets around the columns to increase their strength and ductility. These experimental tests show increasing strength and ductile for both the beams and the columns.


Abstract : Texture provides one cue for identifying the physical cause of an intensity edge, such as occlusion, shadow, surface orientation or reflectance change. Marr, Julesz, and others have proposed that texture is represented by small lines or blobs, called 'textons' by Julesz (1981a), together with their attributes, such as orientation, elongation, and intensity. Psychophysical studies suggest that texture boundaries are perceived where distributions of attributes over neighborhoods of textons differ significantly. However, these studies, which deal with synthetic images, neglect to consider two important questions: How can these textons be extracted from images of natural scenes? And how, exactly, are texture boundaries then found? This thesis proposes answers to these questions by presenting an algorithm for computing blobs from natural images and a statistic for measuring the difference between two sample distributions of blob attributes. As part of the blob detection algorithm, methods for estimating image noise are presented, which are applicable to edge detection as well.


France's great heroine and England's great scourge: whether a lunatic, a witch, a religious icon, or a skilled soldier and leader, Joan of Arc's contemporaries found her as extraordinary and fascinating as the legends that abound about her today. But her life has been so endlessly cast and recast that we have lost sight of the remarkable girl at the heart of it - a teenaged peasant girl who, after claiming to hear voices, convinced the French king to let her lead a disheartened army into battle. In the process she changed the course of European history. In "The Virgin Warrior", Larissa Juliet Taylor paints a vivid portrait of Joan as a self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined figure, whose sheer force of will electrified those around her and struck terror into the hearts of the English soldiers and leaders. The drama of Joan's life is set against a world where visions and witchcraft were real, where saints could appear to peasants, battles and sieges decided the fate of kingdoms and rigged trials could result in burning at the stake. Yet in her short life, Joan emboldened the French soldiers and villagers with her strength and resolve. A difficult, inflexible leader, she defied her accusers and enemies to the end. From her early years to the myths and fantasies that have swelled since her death, Taylor teases out a nuanced and engaging story of the truly irresistible 'ordinary' girl who rescued France.


Abstract The unit selection bias in treatment and control group affects negatively in evaluation of treatment effects. In some studies, the random units selected for the treatment and control group are out of control of the researcher and there may be differences between the units under consideration. This will cause the estimates obtained to be biased. Propensity score matching (PSM) has been used to reduce bias in estimation of treatment effect in observational data. Therefore, nearest neighbor (1:1), caliper, stratification, mahalanobis metric, full and combining propensity score and mahalanobis metric matching, which have been widely used as PSM methods, were compared in terms of the correct classification rates conducting a detailed Monte Carlo simulation study. In addition, standardized and percent reduction bias of covariates were evaluated for each of the PSM methods. It is suggested that stratification and full matching methods should be considered to study with high correct classification rate whereas caliper matching method should be prefered due to the low bias to make statistical inferences.


The concept of monsters is ubiquitous across cultures, but there has been little research on monsters themselves and what factors shape people's attitudes toward them. Kennesaw State University undergraduate psychology students (N = 450) read unbiased, positively biased, or negatively biased reports of one of 15 fictional monsters before all participants read identical stories about an encounter with the monster. Questionnaire responses indicated that reading a negatively biased report results in significantly more negative attitudes toward a monster than reading an unbiased report, that attitudes toward animals positively correlate with attitudes toward monsters, and that attitudes toward monsters differ depending on what real-life animals they most resemble. The results provide a greater understanding of how humans perceive and react to unfamiliar nonhumans, specifically those with characteristics of various animals, and suggest that research on animal-like monsters can elucidate human perceptions of real-life animals. Applications include identifying the best methods to counteract negative media images of animals, discovering a culture's views on animals through the monsters in its folklore, and identifying in advance which unfamiliar endangered animals likely need the most publicity in order to engender public support.


The over-arching aim of this thesis was to evaluate a new experimental approach to detect recognition memory in liars, when recognition of familiar photographs was intentionally concealed. Eye tracking was selected as a novel methodological approach to memory detection because previous eye movement research documented that recognition of familiar faces and scenes produced fewer fixations to fewer regions of longer durations. The effect of deception on fixation-based measures of memory was examined in four experimental chapters. Experiment 1 explored whether fixations exposed concealed person recognition of three different familiar face types: newly learned via one exposure, famous celebrities, and personally known. Multiple fixation measures exposed recognition when liars denied recognition of famous celebrities and people who were personally known. Memory for newly learned faces was revealed during honest recognition solely in fewer fixations, with a trend in the number of fixations to suggest memory in lie trials. Experiment 2 emphasised monitoring of memory and eye movements during a similar concealed recognition task. Participants told the truth and lied about faces that were newly learned-to-criterion and personally familiar faces followed by a confidence rating (0-100%) based on each honest and deceptive recognition judgement. Effects of memory were observed in multiple fixation quantity measures and in fixation durations. The pattern of results for newly learned faces was the opposite of results found in Experiment 1. Unexpectedly, no effects of memory were found during honest recognition of newly learned faces, but fewer fixations and run counts were observed during lie trials. The data suggest that the clear reduction in viewing during lie trials could be a consequence of participant's efforts to control their gaze behaviour to evade detection combined with recollective efforts to remember then conceal newly learned faces. Experiment 3 monitored fixations during concealed recognition of objects and scenes. When participants told the truth about personally familiar scenes and buildings memory effects were observed in fewer fixations, run counts and interest areas visited. During lie trials, effects of memory were only robust for the number of fixations. Similar to Experiment 2, lies about items newly learned-to-criterion produced no effect of memory in truth trials but revealed fewer fixations, run counts and areas of interest visited during lies. In both Experiments 2 and 3, a reduction in the variability of verbal confidence ratings was associated with recognition of personally familiar faces. Experiment 4 monitored fixations whilst participants viewed pairs of faces associated with specific scenes. The location and duration of first fixations revealed a preference for viewing faces that matched the scene displayed. Longer fixation durations in the last fixation also indicated deceptive efforts when intentionally making misidentifications.
Overall, the results of the present thesis supported the potential of fixations as markers of memory when people lied about recognition of faces, scenes, and objects, as well as face-scene relationships. The results suggest that memory effects during recognition of personally known faces is robust in the number of fixation measure, but is observed in less fixations measures during lies about recognition of personally familiar objects and scenes. Furthermore, memory effects during recognition of newly learned items is more vulnerable to cognitive load and other executive processes, such as trying to control eye movements, and thus caution is advised when interpreting the effect of memory on fixations during concealed recognition of newly learned items. The research recommends that future experiments carefully explore the ability of liars to effect countermeasures on gaze behaviour to evade memory detection. The research further suggests that fixations durations might be a better measure to distinguish lies from truths about recognition and that the combined effect of memory and cognitive effort during lies produce more consistent and distinguishable differences in fixation durations between truth tellers and liars.


Whether one is in one's native culture or abroad, one's personality can differ markedly from the personalities of the majority, thus failing to match the "cultural norm." Our studies examined how the interaction of individualand cultural-level personality affects people's self-esteem and well-being. We propose a person-culture match hypothesis that predicts that when a person's personality matches the prevalent personalities of other people in a culture, culture functions as an important amplifier of the positive effect of personality on self-esteem and subjective well-being at the individual level. Across two studies, using data from more than 7,000 individuals from 28 societies, multilevel random-coefficient analyses showed that when a relation between a given personality trait and well-being or self-esteem exists at the individual level, the relation is stronger in cultures characterized by high levels of that personality dimension. Results were replicated across extraversion, promotion focus, and locomotive regulatory mode. Our research has practical implications for the well-being of both cultural natives and migrants.


The Panamint Range, California, exemplifies many of the characteristic geomorphic features of basin ranges. The central part of the range was an inselberg on a pre-faulting surface of generally low to moderate relief developed in an arid climate. The Panamint block was brought into strong relief presumably by late Pliocene and early Pleistocene downfaulting of adjacent basin blocks on faults of variable dip. Movement was in part strike-slip; the Panamint Valley block moved northward and down with respect to the mountain block. In addition the Panamint block and adjacent depressed Death Valley block were rotated eastward. Fan remnants were uplifted on the Panamint Valley scarp, and alluvial fans were entrenched in Death Valley. Streams in the southern part of the west flank of the range cut valleys of V in V cross profile, and their longitudinal profiles developed convexities at and near the margin of the range because of successive uplifts or accelerations in uplift.


[Summary of the book containing this chapter:] Although there is a small body of feminist scholarship that problematizes gender in public relations, gender is a relatively undefined area of thinking in the field and there have been few serious studies of the socially constructed roles defining women and men in public relations.

This book is positioned within the critical public relations stream. Through the prism of 'gender and public relations', it examines not only the manipulatory, but also the emancipatory, subversive and transformatory potential of public relations for the construction of meaning. Its focus is on the dynamic interrelationships arising from public relations activities in society and the gendered, lived experiences of people working in the occupation of public relations. There are many previously unexplored areas within and through public relations which the book examines. These include: the production of social meaning and power relations; advocacy and activist campaigns for social and political change; the negotiation of identity, diversity and cultural practice; celebrity, bodies, fashion and harassment in the workplace; notions of managing reputation and communicating policy.

In extending the field of inquiry, this edited collection highlights how gender is accomplished and transformed, and, thus how power is exercised and inequality (re)produced or challenged in public relations. The book will expand thinking about power relations and privilege for both women and men and how these are affected by the interplay of social, cultural and institutional practices.

Winner of the Outstanding Book PRIDE Award, awarded by the National Communication Association (NCA).


Major tourism events pose challenges to administrators, including the development of electronic government (e-Gov) services that offer assistance to tourists. Although technological solutions have frequently been proposed in past research on such e-Gov services, the diversity aspects associated with tourists have received scant attention, an issue that is compounded by the sheer size and variety of tourist groups. Thus, this research paper aims, through the theoretical lenses of Contextualism, the Social Shaping of Technology, and the Structurationist View of Technology, to build a conceptual framework to examine and explain how the diversity of tourists can influence the development of e-Gov initiatives for major tourism events. The Hajj, an important religious event in Islam held in the Holy City of Makkah, is used as an in-depth case study to examine diversity phenomena through this conceptual framework. This paper reveals the interrelations between diversity aspects and technological frames as well as identifying key developmental findings that can guide implementation of the e-Gov system for Hajj. The main finding of this research suggested that there is an issue with the process of negotiations mainly in the requirements translation to be addressed in the development process of the electronic Hajj system.


The United States has very few women political representatives, especially at the federal level. Many reasons exist for why women's representation is not equal, including the power of incumbency and the persistence of gender roles which keep women from entering politics because of a general lack of education and a responsibility to care for one's family. With the emergence of strong women like Hillary Clinton, the factors historically known to keep women from participating may not be applicable to today. These factors will be evaluated in expectation of finding what makes women politicians successful and what measures can be taken to increase the overall participation of women in all levels of politics. In order to gauge the role of today's women in politics, research will be done in a multitude of ways. First and foremost, many scholarly articles exist on this topic. The originals date back to the mid-1960s when second wave feminism was quite prominent. The factors that troubled women during this time will be examined to see how influential they remain today. The more recent works will also be studied to see if any new problems have arisen for today's women politicians. Finally, newspaper articles and interviews will be closely analyzed to learn more about Hillary Clinton's success. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Political Science First Advisor Dr. Edward Sidlow


Abstract Organic compounds are ubiquitous in the Earth's surface, sediments and many rocks, and preserve records of geological, geochemical and biological history; they are also critical natural resources and major environmental pollutants. The naturally occurring stable isotopes of volatile elements (D, 13C, 15N, 17,18O, 33,34,36S) provide one way of studying the origin, evolution and migration of geological organic compounds. The study of bulk stable isotope compositions (i.e. averaged across all possible molecular isotopic forms) is well established and widely practised, but frequently results in non-unique interpretations. Increasingly, researchers are reading the organic isotopic record with greater depth and specificity by characterizing stable isotope 'structures' – the proportions of site-specific and multiply substituted isotopologues that contribute to the total rare-isotope inventory of each compound. Most of the technologies for measuring stable isotope structures of organic molecules have been only recently developed and to date have been applied only in an exploratory way. Nevertheless, recent advances have demonstrated that molecular isotopic structures provide distinctive records of biosynthetic origins, conditions and mechanisms of chemical transformation during burial, and forensic fingerprints of exceptional specificity. This paper provides a review of this young field, which is organized to follow the evolution of molecular isotopic structure from biosynthesis, through diagenesis, catagenesis and metamorphism.


meaning of FDA approval. Physicians tended to overestimate the minimum evidence of efficacy required of new drugs. Similarly, many misinterpreted the term breakthrough—believing these drugs were supported by stronger evidence than required by the statute. Our results are limited by social desirability and other inherent survey response biases and may not be generalizable beyond internists and medical specialists. The misconceptions identified may lead physicians to overprescribe newly approved drugs—particularly breakthrough therapies— and inadequately communicate how well these drugs work to the patients who will use them.


With nanotechnology we are not only moving into a new technological world but into 'a new legal, ethical, economic, social, cultural and political one too'. The article examines the questions of value preference in this transition to the new technological world and proposes to employ the moral concept of beneficence as a regulatory virtue for the governance of nanotechnology. Setting up the concept of beneficence against the concept of justice, the article argues that beneficence, instead of the relatively inferior virtue of justice, is the appropriate regulatory virtue for the governance of nanotechnology. It proposes the 'beneficent regulation of nanotechnology' which will be distinctive for its direct engagement with substantive and normative values as distinguished from previous proposals of regulation which were largely short on substantive values.


Medical professionals need to handle the orders for their patients. Many steps can go wrong in the result management process and current systems fail to solve the missed results problem. We introduce our design guidelines for rich tabular displays to ensure timely medical care: (i) show pending results, (ii) prioritize by late and lost status, (iii) clarify responsibility, and (iv) embed actions. We evaluated the benefits of applying the first two guidelines in a user study, which showed very promising results. These guidelines can be applied to a variety of other application domains.


The "VALERIE" project ("Fire Risk Assessment – Fire reaction of construction products") originates from a strict co-operation between IVALSA, the Fire Brigade Department of Trento and ISAQ Studio in Falconara (Ancona – Italy). The main objective of this project is to implement a standard procedure to reduce fire risks in civil buildings and to do this by applying the most efficient technology or the most cost efficient methods, taking into account the limitation of the regulation. The methodology proposed is quite user-friendly, even if it requires a good deal of experience about the fire risk analysis. Qualified professionals are therefore required for an adequate application of the VALERIE approach, consisting of a multi-level hierarchical analysis whose application implies the assignment of the appropriate "weight" to each element into which the whole problem (i.e. the fire safety of that specific building) has to be decomposed. The quality of the results given by the VALERIE model is directly related to appropriate choice of these "weights". To guarantee an unbiased assessment of the influence of each parameter relevant to the fire safety, a "reference ranking" shall be built-up, which has to be dependent from actual local working conditions. VALERIE, in order to obtain a common working platform, aims for a strict cooperation both with the fire brigade and with professionals in charge of the approval of the submitted designs. A further important task of this project is the definition of reference parameters for the assessment of a "safety index" recognised by all the involved parts and included in the official approval documents.


We introduce a theoretical basis of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) equalizers based on the operator representation of PMD using Taylor's expansion. The two types of configuration of PMD equalizers are derived as the inverse of diagonalization operators and delay time difference compensation. One is a type using physical rotation of quarter wave phase plates. The other is a type using variable phase shifters suitable for PLC integration. Waveform comparison algorithm was simulated to show the existence of multiple equivalent optimum points due to the symmetry and periodicity of optical circuits. The second order PMD equalization is discussed briefly on the case of cascading the first and the second PMD equalizing circuits with two different polarization state converters.


We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. 2012 North Kyungsang Korean (NKK) is a pitch accent language in which each word has one of a restricted set of possible tonal patterns, and where the tonal pattern of a given lexical word is not fully predictable. This dissertation reports on a corpus study of accent patterns in existing words and the results of a study in which NKK speakers were asked to produce novel forms. This study demonstrated that when NKK speakers produce novel words, their accent patterns reveal regular tendencies, most notably a tendency for heavy syllables to attract accent. An experiment in which speakers were asked to produce novel forms that differed in only one segment from existing forms revealed that these tendencies do not originate from analogy to phonetically similar familiar words. Rather, they reflect a statistical association in the lexicon between accent and heavy syllables, though this association was even stronger in novel words than in existing words. In addition, phonetic factors predicting the position of accent were found: accent was more likely in syllables with aspirated onset consonants and in syllables containing high vowels, perhaps due to the acoustic property of higher F0 which is shared by high vowels, vowels following aspirated consonants, and accented (high-toned) vowels. I argue that NKK speakers' behavior in accenting novel words reflects a set of universal markedness constraints. In native existing words, constraints which require lexical entries to surface faithfully in the output outrank these markedness constraints, but when no lexical entry is present, the effects of the markedness constraints emerge. I present a grammar involving a set of stochastically ranked constraints which predicts the patterns of both existing and novel words, and present evidence that this grammar is learnable on the basis of the patterns of existing words. The data from the accentuation of novel words supports the conclusion that speakers tend to iv extend statistical tendencies of the lexicon to novel forms when such tendencies are consistent with cross-linguistic phonological tendencies.


This text was, in essence, originally circulated as a concept paper at a workshop held at the Universiry of Copenhagen, in January 2012, to inaugurate the project, 'Optimal distortion: Ethnographic explorations of paradoxical connections', that had been funded by the Danish Research Board for Culture and Communication (with us as its two principal investigators). By concluding the present volume with an 'epi-pro-logue" that was written before the preceding case studies were themselves completed, we hope to make a final instantiation of the 'non-linear' logic of distortion that we have sought to explore throughout this book. From the outset of the research project it had been stipulated that processes of distortion might offer a germane arena for studying how certain logics and forms of linear causality come to mutate in productive ways: hence, the present text might be a further empirical illustration of this theoretical hypothesis. For, if the order of academic texts are conventionally based on the premise that the conditions for a given line of argument are ideally set up prior to the subsequent analyses, then could it not be that certain lines of ethnographically driven anthropological analyses require precisely the opposite namely, that the process of gaining insight into a certain problem occurs by reversing the relationship between premise and argument, cause and effect?


Conventionally, inefficiencies in supplying socially optimal levels of natural amenities have been addressed by government intervention via taxes and subsidies. However, these measures may not result in the socially optimal level of provision because they are often influenced by collective action and may inadequately account for local tastes and preferences. This dissertation research addresses the ways in which private markets instead can be used to solve the dilemma of under-provision and over-exploitation of natural resources. The first manuscript examines a prominent ecolabeling program that provides consumers with information about responsible sourcing of seafood and investigates whether or not there is a demonstrated price premium in the retail market for ecolabeled seafood. The study specifically focuses on the commonly-voiced doubts regarding whether consumers are willing to pay a premium for the Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC) label. The analysis utilizes scanner data on frozen pollock products from supermarkets in the metropolitan area of London, UK across a sixty-five week panel. I use a hedonic model to control for brand, package size, product type and form. I find evidence that consumers within the sampled area are paying a 14% premium for MSC-certified pollock products. The second and third manuscripts address the possibility of creating a direct market for natural amenities in which consumers can contract with suppliers or custodians of the resource. However, complications arise when eliciting preferences for natural amenities because they are often public goods and thus are non-rival and non-excludable, i.e. scenic views, clean air and drinking water, etc. Willingness to pay for public goods are difficult to measure because individuals have incentives to hide their true values for the good offered for exchange. This research deals with the two most prominent sources of this bias: incentives to free-ride on others' contributions and the tendency of respondents to overstate their values when no monetary consequence exists. The second manuscript explores how well laboratory-tested public goods elicitation mechanisms that mitigate free-riding perform in the field. I employ a mixed logit model in willingness-to-pay space to estimate individual-specific willingness to pay for protecting grassland nesting bird habitat on farmland and compare some of the most promising elicitation mechanisms in their ability to produce results that yield the highest valuations. I also estimate individual-specific measures of the scale of the error variance and test which elicitation mechanisms are the least noisy. I find evidence that providing a familiar reference mechanism induces behavior more in line with laboratory results, but that otherwise, individuals tend to ignore the elicitation mechanisms in the field. The third manuscript addresses a continuing debate [1, 2] in the literature regarding whether hypothetical choice experiment surveys can accurately reflect revealed preferences in a market for public goods. This issue is particularly important in studies involving valuation of public goods and common-pool resources because non-rival non-exclusive goods imply a disconnect between what is paid for and what can be consumed. I utilize a latent class model of attribute non-attendance to identify individuals who are more or less likely to accurately state their willingness-to-pay for habitat preservation for grassland nesting birds on farmland. I find that hypothetical bias differs based on the strategy employed in the stated preference experiment and that individuals who are estimated to fully attend to all attributes are more likely to generate reliable preference estimates. Overall, this research provides guidance on market approaches for enhancing environmental public goods provision.


How Hard Can It Be? is the fourth hilarious volume in Jeremy Clarkson's The World According to Clarkson series. How hard can it be: To build a power station without upsetting the eco-mentalists? To seek world domination if you've been hit the ugly stick? For the Met Office to get yesterday's weather right? In volume four of The World According to Clarkson, Jeremy Clarkson pours scorn on the nonsensical, the dumb, the idiotic and the plain foolish in his continuing quest to discover where exactly we've all gone wrong. Along the way he ponders: whether conquering France might solve the immigration problem; what happens when you ignore proper warning labels; and what would happen if we turned the internet off. Often controversial, frequently scathing but always funnier than James May, Jeremy Clarkson shows us how we could so easily make the world a better place. "Brilliant ...laugh-out-loud". (Daily Telegraph). "Outrageously funny ...will have you in stitches". (Time Out). Number-one bestseller and presenter of the hugely popular Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson writes on cars, current affairs and anything else that annoys him in his sharp and funny collections. Born To Be Riled, Clarkson On Cars, Don't Stop Me Now, Driven To Distraction, Round the Bend, Motorworld, and I Know You Got Soul are also available as Penguin paperbacks; the Penguin App iClarkson: The Book of Cars can be downloaded on the App Store.


People in organizations commonly talk about the energy associated with a project, team or individual. But is energy related to performance or learning in organizations? And how is it created and transferred in groups?

To answer those questions, the authors assessed energy within seven large groups in different organizations. They collected data that allowed them to map social networks and, more specifically, determine who the "energizers" and "de-energizers" were in those groups. Their analyses, supplemented by interviews with network members, also reveal why energy is important for performance and learning and how it is created (or destroyed) in organizations. And they gave rise to a set of questions that can help managers and the people they oversee increase the energy they generate in their interactions with colleagues.

By mapping relationships, managers can see where energy is being created and where it is being depleted. They can then take action, encouraging simple changes in behavior to increase energy in places where its lack is hindering the progress of important organizational initiatives.


The relationship between Africa and the International Criminal Court (ICC) was cordial for many years. However, since the decisions of the United Nations Security Council to invoke its special powers to impose the Court on Sudan and Libya, African States acting through their regional body - the African Union - have adopted numerous resolutions claiming that the ICC maybe impeding, rather than assisting, their efforts to restore peace in several ongoing conflicts and transitional situations on the continent. In this invited lecture, given as the first RJR Distinguished Visiting Professor Lecture at North Carolina Central University School of Law in fall 2010, I build on earlier published research to assess the current state of the Africa-ICC relationship. I evaluate whether there are serious prospects of resetting the tense relationship between the two sides or whether they appear to be on a collision course that might eventually lead some African states parties to withdraw from ICC-administered justice.


The investigation of hybrid zones has proven to be one of the most promising approaches to advance our understanding of species barriers, and to elucidate evolutionary processes involved in speciation. Due to the improvement of molecular techniques it will soon be possible to investigate the genetic composition of non-model species in much greater detail, and also include species that defy investigation using controlled laboratory conditions. To be able to draw further reaching conclusions about the generality of certain evolutionary factors, it is crucial to investigate a wide spectrum of organisms differing in traits, life histories and relatedness. This study investigates patterns of hybridisation between two pairs of closely related species in the genus Rhododendron. AFLP data for 346 loci, from twelve populations in total comprising 390 individuals, were obtained. Additionally, the abundance of three alkane components in the leaf waxes of 115 individuals was determined. For the species pair R. clementinae and R. roxieanum low levels of recent hybridisation were found, however, the wax composition of R. roxieanum var. cucullatum suggests historical introgression. Two types of hybrid zones were found for R. aganniphum and R. phaeochrysum, one mainly comprising F1 individuals, and the other frequent backcrosses to R. aganniphum. Furthermore, evidence for genomic incompatibilities at several loci for the two species will be presented, and hybrid identity of R. aganniphum var. flavorufum and R. phaeochrysum var. agglutinatum is suggested.


Allergic asthma has a high prevalence and is characterized by airway inflammation, tissue remodeling and a decline in respiratory function. Although the pathogenesis is well known, the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. It is believed that a fine interplay exists between the exposure to environmental stimuli and relatively small changes in expression of several genes with inter-individual variation. As microRNAs (miRNAs) are known to be responsive to environmental exposures and show dysregulated levels in diseased states, their function as regulators of gene expression might be a missing link for the changes seen in asthma.
In this project, changes in miRNA expression in a mouse model for allergic asthma were investigated and the interaction with possible target genes was analyzed.

Female Balb/c mice were i. p. sensitized with ovalbumin (OVA) followed by aerosol challenge on two consecutive days. An asthmatic phenotype was confirmed by elevated total cell numbers due to a rise in inflammatory cells, as well as increased CCL17 levels in broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL). High titres of OVA-specific serum IgE were measured and lung histopathology revealed infiltration of inflammatory cells with eosinophilia.

To study changes in miRNA expression, whole lung RNA was subjected to miRNA-microarray analysis (Exiqon). From 580 screened miRNAs, 319 were found to be expressed, of which 36 were differentially regulated in the allergic asthma group compared to healthy control mice. A second, TaqMan® chemistry based array was performed for validation. Based on the overlap between the two arrays in addition to fold changes and p-values (Exiqon), eight miRNAs were selected for single RT-qPCR measurement. Dysregulated expression of six miRNAs could be confirmed (miRNA-21, -142-3p, -144, -205, -208, -451).

Due to relatively low fold changes and in order to monitor possible co-regulation, the top 100 differentially regulated miRNAs from the Exiqon array were included in an in situ target prediction. Applying a "full consensus" approach of five prediction algorithms, 961 putative target genes were identified. Based on the assumption, that target genes harboring multiple miRNA sites might be more relevant, 11 targets containing more than four miRNA binding sites were selected. From these, the transcription factor cAMP-responsive element-binding protein 1 (CREB1) was chosen for further analysis because of its previous association with asthmatic disease. Moreover, four miRNAs (miRNA-17, -22, -144, -181a) were predicted to bind at eight different sites, one of them being miRNA-144, a significantly up-regulated miRNA identified in the initial asthma profile.
To experimentally test the functional interaction between CREB1 and the predicted miRNAs, a CREB1 3´-untranslated region (UTR) containing luciferase based reporter plasmid vector was constructed and co-transfected with precursor (pre-) miRNAs into human bronchial epithelial cells. Binding of all four miRNAs could be confirmed by measuring luciferase expression. Furthermore, three of four miRNAs, when transfected alone, were able to down-regulate endogenous CREB1 expression in vitro. In the lung tissue of asthma mice, CREB1 mRNA levels were significantly reduced compared to healthy controls, in contrast to two miRNAs, miRNA-17 and -144, which showed up-regulation.

To gain further insight into expression patterns during sensitization and after challenge, expression of CREB1, the two validated binding partners miRNA-17, and -144, as well as the two miRNAs (miRNA-21, -451) with most significant p-values and high fold changes from the Exiqon array were analyzed. Clear expression changes happened after OVA aerosol challenge with CREB1 levels being steadily decreased, whereas all tested miRNAs showed elevated levels at 24 h post challenge, which further intensified after 120 h. This increase resembles measurements of inflammatory cell counts in BAL pointing at a possible origin within this population.

In order to test whether findings can be translated into the human situation, miRNA changes in whole blood samples of mice were compared to miRNA patterns in peripheral blood of asthmatic children. In contrast to measurements in lung tissue, all four miRNAs showed markedly decreased expression in murine blood. In human samples this reduction was mirrored and significant for miRNA-144 and -451.


Fluids close to their liquid-vapour critical point exhibit peculiar properties which have strong consequences on their hydrodynamics. Considerable experimental work has been conducted to measure the divergence of near-critical fluid's properties close to the critical point. But owing to their peculiar hydrodynamics, some of these quantities have proved difficult to access. One way out of this limitation has been the use of microgravity experiments, in which the effects of gravity could be suppressed. But even in the absence of gravity, near-critical fluids are subjected to very strong dynamical phenomena. In particular, it has been observed that the heat transfer in fluids near the liquid-vapour critical point is governed not only by diffusion, convection and radiation, but also by a thermo-mechanical coupling called the Piston Effect, discovered in the early 90s. Among the least known properties close to the critical point is the bulk viscosity, which is expected to exhibit a very strong critical divergence. Despite this divergence, most existing theoretical models of the Piston Effect are based on non-viscous equations. Using equations recently developed for the hydrodynamics of viscous nearcritical fluids, we propose a new indirect way of measuring bulk viscosity close to the critical point. This method is based on the use of a carefully monitored Piston Effect, acting as a probe and triggering a dynamic response in which the signature of bulk viscosity can be measured.


Size-selective grazing of three heterotrophic nanoflagellates (with cell sizes of 21, 44, and 66 μm3) isolated from Lake Arlington, Texas was examined by using a natural mixture of fluorescence labelled lake bacteria. Sizes of ingested bacteria in food vacuoles were directly measured. Larger bacterial cells were ingested at a frequency much higher than that at which they occurred in the assemblage, indicating preferential flagellate grazing on the larger size classes within the lake bacterioplankton. Water samples were collected biweekly from June through September, 1989, fractionated by filtration, and incubated for 40 h at in situ temperatures. The average bacterial size was always larger in water which was passed through 1-μm-pore-size filters (1-μm-filtered water) (which was predator free) than in 5-μm-filtered water (which contained flagellates only) or in unfiltered water (in which all bacterivores were present). The increase of bacterial-cell size in 1-μm-filtered water was caused by a shift in the size structure of the bacterioplankton population. Larger cells became more abundant in the absence of flagellate grazing.


Introduction Human body acceleration is often used as an indicator of daily physical activity in epidemiological research. Raw acceleration signals contain three basic components: movement, gravity, and noise. Separation of these becomes increasingly difficult during rotational movements. We aimed to evaluate five different methods (metrics) of processing acceleration signals on their ability to remove the gravitational component of acceleration during standardised mechanical movements and the implications for human daily physical activity assessment. Methods An industrial robot rotated accelerometers in the vertical plane. Radius, frequency, and angular range of motion were systematically varied. Three metrics (Euclidian norm minus one [ENMO], Euclidian norm of the high-pass filtered signals [HFEN], and HFEN plus Euclidean norm of low-pass filtered signals minus 1 g [HFEN+]) were derived for each experimental condition and compared against the reference acceleration (forward kinematics) of the robot arm. We then compared metrics derived from human acceleration signals from the wrist and hip in 97 adults (22–65 yr), and wrist in 63 women (20–35 yr) in whom daily activity-related energy expenditure (PAEE) was available. Results In the robot experiment, HFEN+ had lowest error during (vertical plane) rotations at an oscillating frequency higher than the filter cut-off frequency while for lower frequencies ENMO performed better. In the human experiments, metrics HFEN and ENMO on hip were most discrepant (within- and between-individual explained variance of 0.90 and 0.46, respectively). ENMO, HFEN and HFEN+ explained 34%, 30% and 36% of the variance in daily PAEE, respectively, compared to 26% for a metric which did not attempt to remove the gravitational component (metric EN). Conclusion In conclusion, none of the metrics as evaluated systematically outperformed all other metrics across a wide range of standardised kinematic conditions. However, choice of metric explains different degrees of variance in daily human physical activity.


The educational background of the Top Managers of the Italian Health Authorities: results of a study on eight Regions A survey to investigate the educational background of the Health Top Managers recently appointed by Italian Regions as CEOs (Chief Executive Officer) of Local Health Authorities (ASL) and General Hospitals was performed in April 2019, approximately one year after the entry into force of the new law for their selection (D.Lgs 171/2016). The study follows a similar one carried out by Bocconi University in 2013 and focuses on 8 Italian Regions (Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, Umbria, Lazio, Basilicata, Sicily, Sardinia). The study examined the CVs of the 112 recently appointed CEOs: the average age is 58.7 years, with the proportion of female surprisingly low (16%). About half of them (50.5%) have a Degree in Medicine and Surgery. Among Managers with a non-medical degree (49.5%), Law (21) and Economic sciences (21) are the most common degrees. Among medical doctors, 33 (58.9%) are specialists in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. Overall, our data are consistent with those recorded in 2013 (except a decrease in medical graduates -18.5%) and confirm the diversified backgrounds of Health Managers. The background in Public Health, acquired from the 35 Schools of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, remains relevant among Managers of the Italian National Health Service. (www.actabiomedica.it)


...there are three elements of cognition; thoughts, the habitual connection between thoughts, and processes establishing a habitual connection between thoughts. We have seen already that an idea cannot be instantaneously present, that consciousness occupies time, and that we have no consciousness in an instant. So that at no time have we a thought. But now it further appears that in reference to a belief not only can we not have it in an instant, but it can not be present to the mind in any period of time. It does not consist in anything which is present to the mind, but in an habitual connection among the things which are successively present. That is to say, it consists in ideas succeeding one another according to a general rule; but not in the mere thinking of this general rule, nor in the mere succession of ideas one upon another, nor in both together. A thought must therefore be a sign of a belief; but is never the belief itself. The same thing is obviously true in regard to an inference; and even a simple idea is of intellectual value to us not for what it is in itself but as standing for some object to which it relates. Now a thing which stands for another thing is a representation or sign. So that it appears that every species of actual cognition is of the nature of a sign.


The size of the DKIST (formerly ATST) Enclosure, similar to the 8-10 meters class telescopes such as VLT or GTC, together with the strict and demanding requirement of using the azimuth and shutter movement for accurate positioning of the entrance aperture stop while tracking, makes it probably the most complex enclosure built up to date. Thus, managing the system validation becomes a challenging task, in which the singularity of this system has to be considered by applying customized tools and processes in addition to the usual procedures. This paper describes the managing process followed towards DKIST Enclosure validation, focused on ensuring final on-site assembly and performance. During the design phase, the system verification was carried out by means of modeling tools and detailed simulations and calculations. Furthermore, an overall BIM (Building Information Model) was built to integrate all the design work and detect potential problems since the design phase; it was used to check interfaces between subsystems, verify accessibility for maintenance and study the construction process. The Factory Assembly and Testing phase (FA&T) test campaign, recently finished, has been oriented towards the final system validation, by testing: 1) the overall system integration; 2) the performance; 3) the simulation of the final on-site assembly. The importance of guaranteeing a correct on-site assembly has driven also the decision towards the installation of a modular prefabricated cladding, which reduces the risk inherent to the site remoteness and the on-site installation of the outer water-cooled skin. The validation process also included early prototyping and testing of critical subsystems. That being said, all this helps reducing the risk significantly during the final on-site assembly and commissioning through the replication of already validated procedures.


The objective of this research was to develop simpler and less expensive procedures for characterizing the resilient properties (K sub 1 to K sub 3) and the strength parameters [cohesion (C) and angle of internal friction (phi)] of base and subgrade materials. Researchers accomplished this by developing prediction equations which use easy to obtain soil properties and by evaluating a modified Texas triaxial test procedure which can be used to determine both the strength and resilient properties of pavement materials. Researchers tested five subgrade soils, i.e., sand, lean clay, fat clay, silt, and sandy gravel, and four base materials, i.e., crushed limestone, caliche, shellbase, and iron ore gravel, according to Texas specifications to obtain a database of material properties for developing the prediciton equations. In developing this database, the strength parameters, C and phi, of the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion, were obtained from standard Texas triaxial tests. For the resilient properties, compressive creep and recovery tests were run using AASHTO T-274 as a guide, to obtain the resilient moduli and Poisson's ratios of the materials tested at different stress states and moisture contents. The standard Texas triaxial test procedure, TEX-117-E, was modified to include a creep and recovery cycle before the test sample is loaded monotonically to failure. This loading sequence produced test data that allowed the estimation of the K sub 1 to K sub 3 resilient properties in addition to the strength parameters, C and phi. The strength and resilient parameters obtained from the modified Texas triaxial test were compared to those obtained from the standard Texas triaxial test and the compressive creep and recovery test. Researchers document the results of these comparisons, as well as the development of the equations for predicting the strength and resilient parameters of base and subgrade materials, in this report.


Engineering the Multi-Length Scale Structure of Self-Assembled Conjugated Polymer Networks Gregory Matthew Newbloom Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. Lilo D. Pozzo Department of Chemical Engineering Conjugated polymers are a Nobel Prize winning class of materials known for their intrinsic semiconducting properties and have been used in applications as diverse as organic-based solar cells, transistors, light emitting diodes, sensors and thermoelectric devices. These applications have varying, but optimized, structure and property requirements which often include an interconnected network of conjugated polymers to transport charge. In this work, self-assembly and gelation are explored as a platform to engineer the multi-length scale structure of conjugated polymer networks. A detailed understanding is developed through structural characterization of each stage of the self-assembly process: dissolved polymer, semi-crystalline fiber, fibrillar branching and percolated network formation. Variations in self-assembly conditions were utilized to develop multi-length scale structure-property relationships. Furthermore, a new method to directly incorporate these fibrillar network structures into thin films for organic electronics is discussed. This dissertation will demonstrate our work towards understanding the mechanisms behind conjugated polymer self-assembly in order to provide robust design parameters that can be tuned to generate specific structures, occurring on multiple length scales, and relevant properties for a diversity of applications.


Concerted efforts have been made to cross different silkworm varieties to produce the hybrids with an objective to improve the productivity traits. Systematic and planned hybridization together with improved farming in rearing practices in sericulture has helped a great deal to increase the productivity by several folds in sericultural countries including tropical India. In fact, the ultimate results in silkworm breeding are judged by the superiority of commercial characters of the parental strains that appear in the F1 hybrids in the form heterosis or the extra vigor which form paramount criteria in the evaluation of the suitability of hybrids for commercial exploitation. Hence, in the present investigation, an attempt has been made to select superior bivoltine hybrids utilizing the four newly evolved bivoltine races of the authorsÂ' viz.MG405,MG406,MG408 andMG414 and crossing them with four conventional bivoltine races viz. KA, NB4D2, NB7 and NB18, to evaluate the rearing performance of different hybrid combinations for heterosis, over dominance and also determine their extent improvement over the control hybrids. The manifestation of heterosis was observed to be varying with the different economic traits and the hybrids. The extent of heterosis was high for productivity traits than the viability traits. Higher level of heterosis and over dominance was noticed for the traits, cocoon yield by weight, single cocoon weight, shell weight and filament length. Majority of the new hybrid combinations manifested better heterosis and over dominance values than the two control hybrid combinations, NB18 x NB7 and KA x NB4D2 for most of the characters studied.


Firstly, the tracking and the stabilization loops for an astronomical antenna tracking system were designed according to the requirements such as bandwidth and phase margin. However, the performances would be degraded if either the tacking loop gain was reduced or the hysteresis effect of servo was enlarged. Thus the PID-based fuzzy-neural controlled was applied the next. But the computing time was very large with 343 rules. This paper proposed two methods to solve this problem. Firstly, a new optimization method was proposed by applying various neural network training algorithms, e.g. gradient descent (GD), scaled conjugate gradient (SCG), and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) optimization methods are applied alternatively in each step of iteration to determine the optimal parameters of the neural controller. Secondly, a hybrid controller was applied by integrating both a conventional integrator and a fuzzy-neural-based PD-type controller, so that not only the computing time could be reduced, but the error at steady state can be equal zero. Note that the system performances obtained by the proposed method were better not only for parameter variations but hysteresis effects in the system. Thus it was more robust.


ABSTRACT Local governments are increasingly considering blue and green infrastructure (BGI) in order to climate-proof cities. Because BGI can have multiple benefits beyond climate adaptation, policy integration is required. Since drainage services have traditionally been within the remit of a single department, this is new territory for water management. This article provides a dynamic perspective on the messy process of policy integration 'on the ground' in two BGI projects in Dordrecht, NL and Bradford, UK. Drawing on interviews with key actors involved in the cases, our research question is: How are ambitions to integrate policies resulting in multi-functional BGI projects? While previous research typically defines organisational structures as barriers for policy integration, our findings demonstrate instances of actors who are successfully navigating these structures as a route towards policy integration. Nevertheless, we found that actors who push for BGI lack resources and authority, so they mainly rely on more voluntary forms of policy integration that involve concerted action over a number of years. Overall, our cases demonstrate that space for policy integration exists and powerful agencies are sympathetic to this, but more support is needed to achieve this mandate.


ABSTRACT The spatial distributions of chaffinch full song and some of the calls are described with regard to the territories. Full songs of five colour ringed and transmitter marked males occurred mainly inside and in a few cases outside the territories. These events are interpreted as attempts by the birds to enlarge their territories. Rain calls and courtship tchirp calls were restricted to the singing territories. The social chink call was frequently uttered outside the territories as a means of intra-pair communication.


Exploit the amazing features of OpenCV to create powerful image processing applications through easy-to-follow examples About This BookLearn how to build full-fledged image processing applications using free tools and librariesTake advantage of cutting-edge image processing functionalities included in OpenCV v3Understand and optimize various features of OpenCV with the help of easy-to-grasp examplesWho This Book Is ForIf you are a competent C++ programmer and want to learn the tricks of image processing with OpenCV, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of image processing is required. In Detail OpenCV, arguably the most widely used computer vision library, includes hundreds of ready-to-use imaging and vision functions and is used in both academia and enterprises.This book provides an example-based tour of OpenCV's main image processing algorithms. Starting with an exploration of library installation, wherein the library structure and basics of image and video reading/writing are covered, you will dive into image filtering and the color manipulation features of OpenCV with LUTs. You'll then be introduced to techniques such as inpainting and denoising to enhance images as well as the process of HDR imaging. Finally, you'll master GPU-based accelerations. By the end of this book, you will be able to create smart and powerful image processing applications with ease! All the topics are described with short, easy-to-follow examples.


Almost from the moment they arrived there in 1542, Jesuits in India and Sri Lanka have made substantial contributions to the scientific disciplines. In the initial stages they were not directly involved in environmental works, but in recent years many are taking the initiative to work for environmental justice. Some Jesuits are involved in raising awareness on environmental issues, such as promoting reforestation and watershed programs, whereas others work to provide safe drinking water or to prevent tree-felling, while others study local biodiversity and are creating and maintaining botanical gardens. Other environmental projects include the promotion of solar energy, biopesticides and biofertilizers for organic farming, the micropropagation of rare, endangered, and threatened (RETs) plant species (so that they may be replanted in greater numbers), the formation of local centers and eco clubs where students and others can collaborate for a healthier environment. Several Jesuits are also active politically assuming advocacy roles, and writing books and research articles in the interest of environmental conservation. A select few Jesuits are even recognized on a national level for their contributions to environmental causes.


Manufactured housing units (built under the HUD Code or Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards in the controlled environment of a manufacturing plant and transported in one or more sections on a permanent chassis) provide an important source of affordable housing within the United States. After adjusting for land costs, the per square foot cost of HUD-Code housing is less than half of standard, site-built housing. With the increased use of multi-section units and recent innovations in manufactured housing building technology, particularly integrated floor and chassis systems, many manufactured housing units are now virtually indistinguishable from conventional site-built units.


This article responds to recent calls for a 'new diplomatic history' of early modern Europe with an investigation of an important subset of Renaissance diplomatic practices: those related to the house, household and hospitality. It considers the prescriptive sources, including treatises on the office of ambassador by Ermolao Barbaro and Étienne Dolet, in light of the practice of a small number of diplomats active in the 1520s and 30s, in particular Gregorio Casali, a well‐connected member of a Bolognese patrician family who acted as Henry VIII's resident ambassador at the papal court from 1525 to 1533. The article draws on a range of archive evidence, including diplomatic correspondence, notarial records and trial witness statements, and begins by assessing how diplomats in sixteenth‐century Italy understood the house and household, highlighting the symbolic and instrumental functions of sociability. It then turns to some characteristics of diplomatic entertainment, examining attitudes towards splendour and the interplay between the diplomat's official and familial concerns. Third, it asks why the authors of treatises on diplomacy were preoccupied by the proper conduct of members of the ambassador's household, arguing that contemporary conceptions of the household as a microcosm of the polity have a particular resonance in the case of the Renaissance ambassador, a point neglected in recent studies of the treatises on diplomacy.


"Once again, Roberta Bragg proves why she is a leading authority in the security field! It's clear that Roberta has had a great deal of experience in real-world security design and implementation. I'm grateful that this book provides clarity on what is often a baffling subject!""Full of relevant and insightful information. Certain to be a staple reference book for anyone dealing with Windows Server 2003 security. Roberta Bragg's Windows Server 2003 Security is a MUST read for anyone administering Windows Server 2003.""Few people in the security world understand and appreciate every aspect of network security like Roberta Bragg. She is as formidable a security mind as I have ever met, and this is augmented by her ability to communicate the concepts clearly, concisely, and with a rapier wit. I have enjoyed working with Roberta more than I have on any of the other 20 some odd books to which I have contributed. She is a giant in the field of network security.""Windows Server 2003 Security explains why you should do things and then tells you how to do it! It is a comprehensive guide to Windows security that provides the information you need to secure your systems. Read it and apply the information.""Ms. Bragg's latest book is both easy to read and technically accurate. It will be a valuable resource for network administrators and anyone else dealing with Windows Server 2003 security.""I subscribe to a number of newsletters that Roberta Bragg writes and I have 'always' found her writing to be perfectly focused on issues I 'need' to know in my workplace when dealing with my users. Her concise writing style and simple solutions bring me back to her columns time after time. When I heard she had written a guide on Windows 2003 security, I 'had' to have it.Following her guidance on deployment, her advice on avoiding common pitfalls, and her easy to follow guidelines on how to lock down my network and user environments (those darned users!) has me (and my clients) much more comfortable with our Win2k3 Server deployments. From AD to GPO's to EFS, this book covers it all.""Roberta Bragg has developed a 'must have' manual for administrators who manage Microsoft Windows 2003 servers in their organizations. The best practices for strengthening security controls are well organized with practical examples shared throughout the book. If you work with Windows 2003, you need this great resource.""Roberta Bragg's Windows Server 2003 Security offers more than just lucid coverage of how things work, but also offers sound advice on how to make them work better.""This book is an invaluable resource for anyone concerned about the security of Windows Server 2003. Despite the amount and complexity of the material presented, Roberta delivers very readable and clear coverage on most of the security-related aspects of Microsoft's flagship operative system. Highly recommended reading!""As long as you have something to do with Windows 2003, I have four words for you: 'Order your copy now.'"If you're a working Windows administrator, security is your #1 challenge. Now there's a single-source reference you can rely on for authoritative, independent help with every Windows Server security feature, tool, and option: Windows Server 2003 SecurityRenowned Windows security expert Roberta Bragg has brought together information that was formerly scattered through dozens of books and hundreds of online sources. She goes beyond facts and procedures, sharing powerful insights drawn from decades in IT administration and security. You'll find expert implementation tips and realistic best practices for every Windows environment, from workgroup servers to global domain architectures. Learn how to: Reflect the core principles of information security throughout your plans and processes Establish effective authentication and passwords Restrict access to servers, application software, and data Make the most of the Encrypting File System (EFS) Use Active Directory's security features and secure Active Directory itself Develop, implement, and troubleshoot group policies Deploy a secure Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Secure remote access using VPNs via IPSec, SSL, SMB signing, LDAP signing, and more Audit and monitor your systems, detect intrusions, and respond appropriately Maintain security and protect business continuity on an ongoing basis"Roberta Bragg has developed a 'must have' manual for administrators who manage Microsoft Windows 2003 servers in their organizations. The best practices for strengthening security controls are well organized, with practical examples shared throughout the book. If you work with Windows 2003, you need this great resource." © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.


Among modern philosophers, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) has few rivals for his influence over the development of contemporary philosophy as a whole. While the issue of language has become a key fulcrum of continental philosophy since the twentieth century, Kant has been overlooked as a thinker whose breadth of insight has helped to spearhead this advance. The Linguistic Dimension of Kant's Thought remedies this historical gap by gathering new essays by distinguished Kant scholars. The chapters examine the many ways that Kant's philosophy addresses the nature of language. Although language as a formal structure of thought and expression has always been part of the philosophical tradition, the "linguistic dimension" of these essays speaks to language more broadly as a practice including communication, exchange, and dialogue.


Price stability is one of the key objective of public policy. Ever increasing prices have negative implications for economic growth and poverty. The present study attempts to analyze; how prices in Pakistan are affected by monetary and fiscal policies. It analyzes the interaction of domestic debt, fiscal deficit, money supply and exchange rate with the price level, by applying the VAR decomposition, Granger causality and Impulse response models. The study uses data for the period 1973 to 2010. The results reveal that in Pakistan both Monetary and Fiscal policies play significant role in determination of prices. However, the role of fiscal policy is comparatively stronger than monetary policy as it has both direct and indirect impacts on prices. As the fiscal deficit and domestic debt also affects prices through money supply. Furthermore, the effects of inflationary expectations on prices are highest in magnitude. The study suggests that to cope with increasing prices the coordination between fiscal and monetary policies is necessary.


The aim of this PhD project was to develop the technology of dielectrophoresis on the sub-micrometre scale and to use DEP to manipulate sub-micrometre particles and measure their dielectric properties. Of particular interest was the application of DEP to viruses, the largest of which is approximately 250 nm in diameter. A system for virus characterisation, identification and separation based on DEP would be a major milestone in this field of research, as well as having beneficial medical and biotechnological uses.

Particles with a diameter between 1nm and 1m are referred to as Colloidal particles and the dynamics of their movement are complicated by the effects of thermal energy and Brownian motion. High electric fields are required to dominate these effects but signals with high potentials and high frequencies are difficult to generate. Semiconductor manufacturing techniques can be used to fabricate micro-electrode structures which can produce high electric fields from relatively low potentials.

Lithography based manufacturing techniques were developed to produce suitable electrodes for dielectrophoresis on a scale small enough to manipulate sub-micrometre particles. Detailed electric field patterns were numerically calculated for these electrodes, so that the dielectrophoretic force could be simulated, predicted and compared with experimental measurements of particle movement. The dielectric properties of latex spheres with diameters from 93 nm to 557 nm were determined through observation and measurement of the DEP movement; new theories were postulated to account for the results which did not conform to accepted theories.

A rod shaped plant virus, Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) was also studied and its dielectric properties determined from the experimental results. TMV is 300 nm long with a cylindrical radius of 9nm, a shape of particle which is very different from a sphere and one which has not been studied by this method previously. An expression for the frequency dependent dielectrophoretic force on such a particle was derived and values of the dielectrophoretic force on the particle were measured and compared with the theoretical model.


ABSTRACT This paper presents a geomorphologic map of the Mt. Prinzera ultramafic rock complex (Parma Province, Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy) mapped at large scale (1:2500). The map is the first contribution to the detailed geomorphologic knowledge of the area within the framework of a multidisciplinary approach used to analyse Mt. Prinzera as a hard rock aquifer case study. The geomorphologic mapping was carried out by field survey and aerial photograph analysis. All the surface processes and landforms were considered, with particular attention to structural geomorphologic features. The mapping of linear morphologic features was considered useful for revealing the presence of sets of joints otherwise difficult to detect due to surface weathering. Sets of rock discontinuities are important for water seepage and percolation and their identification is crucial for developing the hydrogeological conceptual model of the aquifer.


Diabetes affects today an estimated 366 million people world-wide, including 20 million to 40 million of patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D). While T1D accounts for 5% to 20% of those with diabetes, it is associated with higher morbidity, mortality and health care cost than the more prevalent type 2 diabetes. Patients with T1D require exogenous insulin for survival and should be identified as soon as possible after diagnosis to avoid high morbidity due to a delay in insulin treatment. It is also important to present to the patient correct prognosis that differs by the type of diabetes. From the research point of view, correct classification should help to identify the etiologies and to develop specific prevention for T1D. This review summarizes evidence that may be helpful in diagnosing T1D in various ethnic groups. Challenges in interpretation of results commonly used to determine the type of diabetes are highlighted.


Objectives To assess whether delaying risk reduction treatment has a different impact on potential life years lost in younger compared with older patients at the same baseline short-term cardiovascular risk. Design Modelling based on population data. Methods Potential years of life lost from a 5-year treatment delay were estimated for patients of different ages but with the same cardiovascular risk (either 5% or 10% 5-year risk). Two models were used: an age-based residual life expectancy model and a Markov simulation model. Age-specific case fatality rates and time preferences were applied to both models, and competing mortality risks were incorporated into the Markov model. Results Younger patients had more potential life years to lose if untreated, but the maximum difference between 35 and 85 years was <1 year, when models were unadjusted for time preferences or competing risk. When these adjusters were included, the maximum difference fell to about 1 month, although the direction was reversed with older people having more to lose. Conclusions Surprisingly, age at onset of treatment has little impact on the likely benefits of interventions that reduce cardiovascular risk because of the opposing effects of life expectancy, case fatality, time preferences and competing risks. These findings challenge the appropriateness of recommendations to use lower risk-based treatment thresholds in younger patients.


Kuwait, one of the major oil producing countries in the Middle East, is in the
process of globalizing its operation in petroleum and petrochemical production.
Kuwaiti officials have expressedin terest in acceleratingd evelopmento f the country's
relatively small petrochemical industry. The development is to produce new valuable
chemicals from the available basic feedstock chemicals.
Two of the important planning objectives for a petrochemical industry are the
economic gain and the industrial safety involved in the development.
For the economic evaluation of the industry, and for the proposed final
product chemicals in the development, a long-range plan is needed to identify trends
in chemical prices. The chemical prices are related to the oil price, which is
considered an important motivator for the whole petrochemical industry. Price trend
modelling is performed to be able to forecast these prices for the planning horizon.
Safety, as the second objective, is considered in this study as the risk of
chemical plant accidents. Risk, when used as an objective fimction, has to have a
simple quantitative form to be easily evaluated for a large number of possible plants
in the petrochemical network. The simple quantitative form adopted is a risk index
that enables the number of people affected by accidents resulting in chemical releases
to be estimated.
The two objectives, when combined with constraints describing the desired or
the possible structure of the industry, will form an optimization model. For this study,
the petrochemical planning model consists of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming
(MILP) model to select the best routes from the basic feedstocks available in Kuwait
to the desired final products with multiple objective functions.
The economic and risk objectives usually have conflicting needs. The
presence of several conflicting objectives is typical when planning. In many cases,
where optimization techniques are utilized, the multiple objectives are simply
aggregated into one single objective function. Optimization is then conducted to get
one optimal result. However, many results are obtained for different aggregations of
the objectives and eventually a set of solutions is obtained. Other tools, such as
strategic tools, are used to select the best solution from the set.
This study, which is concerned with economic and risk objectives, leads to the
identification of important factors that affect the petrochemical industry. Moreover,
the procedure, of modelling and model solution, can be used to simplify the decisionmaking
for complex or large systems such as the petrochemical industry. It presents
the use of simple multiple objective optimization tools within a petrochemical
planning tool formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. Such a tool is
particularly useful when the decision-making task must be discussed and approved by
officials who often have little experience with optimization theories.


The lungs conceptually represent a sponge that is interposed in series in the bodies' systemic circulation to take up oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide. As such, it matches the huge surface areas of the alveolar epithelium to the pulmonary blood capillaries. The lung's constant exposure to the exterior necessitates a competent immune system, as evidenced by the association of clinical immunodeficiencies with pulmonary infections. From the in utero to the postnatal and adult situation, there is an inherent vital need to manage alveolar fluid reabsorption, be it postnatally, or in case of hydrostatic or permeability edema. Whereas a wealth of literature exists on the physiological basis of fluid and solute reabsorption by ion channels and water pores, only sparse knowledge is available so far on pathological situations, such as in microbial infection, acute lung injury or acute respiratory distress syndrome, and in the pulmonary reimplantation response in transplanted lungs. The aim of this review is to discuss alveolar liquid clearance in a selection of lung injury models, thereby especially focusing on cytokines and mediators that modulate ion channels. Inflammation is characterized by complex and probably time-dependent co-signaling, interactions between the involved cell types, as well as by cell demise and barrier dysfunction, which may not uniquely determine a clinical picture. This review, therefore, aims to give integrative thoughts and wants to foster the unraveling of unmet needs in future research.


To the extent that family law is governed by statute, all families are treated as though they are the same. This is of course consistent with the equal protection guarantees of the US Constitution as well as those of the states. However, in our pluralistic society, all families are not alike. At birth, some children are born to wealthy, married parents who will always put the children's interests first and will never engage in domestic violence. Many laws benefit these children, while, according to some academics, they either further disadvantage other children or at best ignore their needs.This presentation empirically explores these questions using a large sample of more than a thousand family dissolution case records (divorces, support and custody actions) from two counties in Arizona and five in Indiana. The cases were randomly selected from those initiated in January, April and September of 2008, and documents were collected for all file entries at least through the next five years and were coded to permit comparisons along more than a hundred variables.The discussion involves differences — inequalities — based on income, parents' marital status, race and ethnicity, and the presence or absence of domestic violence. It also compares results based upon differences in the two states' parenting and child support laws, showing how presumptions and guidelines chosen to validate public policy can exacerbate inequalities. Time permitting, I will also discuss how the data also reveal differences (no doubt related to wealth) in cases handled by attorneys compared to the pro se.


The cost of tendering in the construction industry is widely suspected to be excessive, but there is little robust empirical evidence to demonstrate this. It also seems that innovative working practices may reduce the costs of undertaking construction projects and the consequent improvement in relationships should increase overall value for money. The aim of this proposed research project is to develop mechanisms for measuring the true costs of tendering based upon extensive in-house data collection undertaken in a range of different construction firms. The output from this research will enable all participants in the construction process to make better decisions about how to select members of the team and identify the price and scope of their obligations.


We analyze the three-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II) Supernova (SN) Survey data and identify a sample of 1070 photometric Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) candidates based on their multiband light curve data. This sample consists of SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, with a subset of 210 candidates having spectroscopic redshifts of their host galaxies measured while the remaining 860 candidates are purely photometric in their identification. We describe a method for estimating the efficiency and purity of photometric SN Ia classification when spectroscopic confirmation of only a limited sample is available, and demonstrate that SN Ia candidates from SDSS-II can be identified photometrically with ∼91% efficiency and with a contamination of ∼6%. Although this is the largest uniform sample of SN candidates to date for studying photometric identification, we find that a larger spectroscopic sample of contaminating sources is required to obtain a better characterization of the background events. A Hubble diagram using SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, but with host galaxy spectroscopic redshifts, yields a distance modulus dispersion that is only ∼20%–40% larger than that of the spectroscopically confirmed SN Ia sample alone with no significant bias. A Hubble diagram with purely photometric classification and redshift-distance measurements, however, exhibits biases that require further investigation for precision cosmology.


How do altruistic links affect allocative behavior and wellbeing? Can the processes of transmission and probable acquisition of parental traits result in a stable equilibrium where all agents are altruists? Why do children furnish their parents with attention and care? Does the timing of the intergenerational transfer of the family's productive asset affect the recipient's incentive to acquire human capital? Why do migrants remit? Altruism and Beyond provides answers to these and related questions. In addition, it traces some of the market repercussions of the intrafamilial, intergenerational, and intragroup transfers and exchanges that it models.