Ecosystems and their wildlife communities are not static; they change and evolve over time due to numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors. A period of rapid change is occurring in the Arctic for which our current understanding of potential ecosystem and wildlife responses is limited. Changes to the physical environment include warming temperatures, diminishing sea ice, increasing coastal erosion, deteriorating permafrost, and changing water regimes. These changes influence biological communities and the ways in which human communities interact with them. Through the new initiative Changing Arctic Ecosystems (CAE) the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) strives to (1) understand the potential suite of wildlife population responses to these physical changes to inform key resource management decisions such as those related to the Endangered Species Act, and (2) provide unique insights into how Arctic ecosystems are responding under new stressors. Our studies examine how and why changes in the ice-dominated ecosystems of the Arctic are affecting wildlife and will provide a better foundation for understanding the degree and manner in which wildlife species respond and adapt to rapid environmental change. Changes to Arctic ecosystems will be felt broadly because the Arctic is a production zone for hundreds of species that migrate south for the winter. The CAE initiative includes three major research themes that span Arctic ice-dominated ecosystems and that are structured to identify and understand the linkages between physical processes, ecosystems, and wildlife populations. The USGS is applying knowledge-based modeling structures such as Bayesian Networks to integrate the work.


This study involves a model to investigate the effect of mass flow, channel depth and collector length on the thermal performance and cost benefit ratio for solar collector in double flow mode with and without porous media by using a developed internet based expert system. The thermal performance was determined over a wide range of operating conditions, and the optimum operating conditions were determined. It is found that for drying purpose the designed air flow rate should be in the range of 0.03 to 0.04 kg/s, and the thermal efficiency increased by 5% in double flow after using porous media. On the other hand it is concluded that the higher in cost energy for any particular combination of flow depth, collector length and mass flow rate is at short collector length, small flow depth with high quantity of mass flow rate. Moreover, the values of duct lengths and depths for which the cost of solar energy is minimized are different for different values of mass flow rates


The past five years has seen the commercialization of the first GM crops and their products in Europe. The next five years may well see their more widespread cultivation and use. Some of these crops, particularly GM oilseed rape and GM maize, are or will be visited by bees. This will have implications for beekeepers harvesting and marketing honey and other bee products from these crops, for the bees themselves as they feed on nectar and pollen from the crops and for other crops or wild plants that the bees may spread GM pollen too. This is the first of a series of articles that explore the interactions of bees with GM crops, the regulatory framework that aims to ensure the safety of the crops to human health and the environment, the wider issues that risk assessments must now consider before marketing consents are issued, and the farm scale evaluations of crops being undertaken prior to more extensive cultivation.


Multicultural training in academic counseling and psychotherapy programs is often designed to address the needs of minority populations, and it rarely places Whiteness in the spotlight. Its structure, in fact, risks mirroring the very dynamics embedded in White privilege. Using the framework of feminist theory, we build on key findings on White racial socialization—which has a profound impact on the quality of communication and interaction within and across racial groups—to outline the skills and awareness needed for White counselors and psychotherapists to promote racial justice in both their individual/counseling and community/advocacy work.


Abstract. The Kerguelen Plateau region in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean supports annually a large-scale phytoplankton bloom which is naturally fertilized with iron. As part of the second Kerguelen Ocean and Plateau compared Study expedition (KEOPS2) in austral spring (October–November 2011), one CARbon Interface OCean Atmosphere (CARIOCA) buoy was deployed east of the Kerguelen Plateau. It drifted eastward downstream along the Kerguelen plume. Hourly surface measurements of pCO2, O2 and ancillary observations were collected between 1 November 2011 and 12 February 2012 with the aim of characterizing the spatial and temporal variability of the biological net community production, NCP, downstream the Kerguelen Plateau, assessing the impact of iron-induced productivity on the biological inorganic carbon consumption and consequently on the CO2 flux exchanged at the air–sea interface. The trajectory of the buoy up to mid-December was within the longitude range 72–83° E, close to the polar front and then in the polar frontal zone, PFZ, up to 97° E. From 17 November to 16 December, the buoy drifted within the Kerguelen plume following a filament carrying dissolved iron, DFe, for a total distance of 700 km. In the first part of the trajectory of the buoy, within the iron plume, the ocean surface waters were always a sink for CO2 and a source for O2, with fluxes of respective mean values equal to −8 mmol CO2 and +38 mmol O2 m−2 d−1. To the east, as the buoy escaped the iron-enriched filament, the fluxes were in the opposite direction, with respective mean values of +5 mmol CO2 and −48 mmol O2 m−2 d−1. These numbers clearly indicate the strong impact of biological processes on the biogeochemistry in the surface waters within the Kerguelen plume in November–mid-December, while it is undetectable to the east in the PFZ from mid- December to mid-February. While the buoy follows the Fe-enriched filament, simultaneous observations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and dissolved oxygen (O2) highlight biological events lasting from 2 to 4 days. Stoichiometric ratios, O2 / C, between 1.1 and 1.4 are observed indicating new and regenerated production regimes. NCP estimates range from 60 to 140 mmol C m−2 d−1.


Abstract The investigation of macroscale defects in aluminum (Al) alloys with a 3-dimensional (3D) imaging approach is described in this report. Aluminum (Al) alloys play an important role in the production of aircraft and vehicles, as well as products in other industries. Defects present in Al alloys used for the production of aircraft, vehicles, or other products can have a significant effect on their quality, performance, and lifetime. Characterization of Al alloys in 3D can lead to a better understanding of defect formation and how to minimize or eliminate it. To produce 3D images of defects in non-transparent Al alloy, the samples are milled in small steps (10 μm). Optical microscopy 2D images of the surface are recorded after a certain thickness of alloy (50 μm) is removed. From these 2D images, a 3D image of the Al alloy defect is reconstructed. The entire workflow for Al alloy sample preparation and 2D image recording is completed in a very short time (1.5 h) using a single instrument, the EM TXP surface preparation system from Leica Microsystems. Typically, the completion of such a workflow with more common sample preparation methods would be 3 to 6 times longer. Finally, 3D image reconstruction is done using the LAS X 3D Visualization software.


Demand for electricity in Kenya is currently growing at a rate higher than the growth in supply. KenGen, as a major player in the electricity sector developed a strategic plan (2008-2012) which if implemented successfully would stabilize the equation for electricity supply and demand in the country, and increase its installed capacity from 912MW to 1510MW by 2012. Implementation of this strategic plan has however dwindled, with most projects running late or stalled. By the end of 2012, KenGen missed its planned projected installed capacity figure by nearly 50%. The objective of the study was to determine the challenges affecting implementation of corporate strategies at KenGen. The researcher determined to what extent organization culture, resource management, corporate social responsibility and leadership affect the implementation of corporate strategy at KenGen. The study was carried out in the 5 Ken Gen operation areas in Kenya. The target population was 22 managers and 96 chief officers across the organization. A sample size of 10% was picked using random sampling from the lot of chief officers, and another 10% was picked from the lot of managers. Questionnaires were used to collect data and analysis was done using descriptive statistics. The outcome of study was to help organizations in the electricity sector in Kenya to evaluate various challenges that affect implementation of corporate strategies. The government is expected to use the findings to review policies governing institutions in the electricity sector in order to give them the support and flexibility required to effectively compete in the liberalized sector. The study found out that half (50%) of the respondents viewed KenGen's corporate strategy (Horizon 1-500MW by 2013) as Essential to business growth and 50 % of the respondents viewed KenGen's corporate strategy (Horizon 1-500MW by 2013) as Critical to organization survival. The study also found that KenGen had good leadership and used its resources well. This had helped the organization to manage and streamline the business operations effectively. Organization culture and corporate social responsibility activities were found to be very critical to success in implementation of corporate strategies at KenGen.


The food packaging industry trends reflect the identified needs and requirements of consumers because entrepreneurs should satisfy changing consumer requirements to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage due to innovation. In the group of socio-economic needs, the most important ones are lifestyle changes, improving the quality of life through the added value offered to consumers through packaged products, profitable companies in the sector, packaged product safety and environmental protection. The main aim of the study was exploring the validity of food packaging requirements concerning the satisfaction of consumer needs. The resulting hierarchy of important needs and requirements represents the foundation for solutions and strategies to improve the quality of a consumer's life. Analysis of the results clearly shows that among all socio-economic needs and requirements posed to food packaging, safety is the most critical need for consumers. Other packaging properties such as convenience and legal requirements fulfillment are important. Proposed model packaging, which will stratify consumers' needs and requirements and will help to improve their quality of life, should be characterized by health, simplicity, identity, aesthetics, and meaning. The packaging industry is a branch considered to have high potential in the field of applying innovative solutions. This is mainly related to the desire of introducing solutions in the areas of improving safety, functionality, communication and environmental protection. Identification and understanding of consumer needs is a valuable source of information useful when developing improvements. Proposed components of model packaging follow the motto of the World Packaging Organization, which says: "Better quality of life through better packaging."


Trinucleotide repeat (TNR) expansions in the genome cause a number of degenerative diseases. A prominent TNR expansion involves the triplet CAG in the huntingtin (HTT) gene responsible for Huntington's disease (HD). Pathology is caused by protein and RNA generated from the TNR regions including small siRNA-sized repeat fragments. An inverse correlation between the length of the repeats in HTT and cancer incidence has been reported for HD patients. We now show that siRNAs based on the CAG TNR are toxic to cancer cells by targeting genes that contain long reverse complimentary TNRs in their open reading frames. Of the 60 siRNAs based on the different TNRs, the 6 members in the CAG/CUG family of related TNRs are the most toxic to both human and mouse cancer cells. siCAG/CUG TNR-based siRNAs induce cell death in vitro in all tested cancer cell lines and slow down tumor growth in a preclinical mouse model of ovarian cancer with no signs of toxicity to the mice. We propose to explore TNR-based siRNAs as a novel form of anti-cancer reagents.


In this paper, we study the stochastic combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB) framework that allows a general nonlinear reward function, whose expected value may not depend only on the means of the input random variables but possibly on the entire distributions of these variables. Our framework enables a much larger class of reward functions such as the max() function and nonlinear utility functions. Existing techniques relying on accurate estimations of the means of random variables, such as the upper confidence bound (UCB) technique, do not work directly on these functions. We propose a new algorithm called stochastically dominant confidence bound (SDCB), which estimates the distributions of underlying random variables and their stochastically dominant confidence bounds. We prove that SDCB can achieve O(log T) distribution-dependent regret and O(√T) distribution-independent regret, where T is the time horizon. We apply our results to the K-MAX problem and expected utility maximization problems. In particular, for K-MAX, we provide the first polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for its offline problem, and give the first O(√T) bound on the (1 — e)-approximation regret of its online problem, for any e > 0.


Force-directed graph layout is a widely used algorithm for the automatic layout of graphs. Little experimental work has been done exploring the behaviour of the algorithm under a variety of conditions. This thesis carries out three large-scale metric-based experiments. The first explores how the core algorithm behaves under changes to initial conditions. The second looks at extending the force-directed layout algorithm with additional forces to reduce overlaps. The third develops a novel symmetry metric for graphs and uses that to explore the symmetries of graphs. This thesis also carries out a user study to show that the differences reported by metrics in the graphs are reflected in a difference in user performance when using graphs for a free-form selection task.


We show an essentially tight bound on the number of adaptively chosen statistical queries that a computationally efficient algorithm can answer accurately given n samples from an unknown distribution. A statistical query asks for the expectation of a predicate over the underlying distribution, and an answer to a statistical query is accurate if it is "close" to the correct expectation over the distribution. This question was recently studied by Dwork et al. [DFH+ 15], who showed how to answer Ω(n2) queries efficiently, and also by Hardt and Ullman [HU14], who showed that answering Õ(n3) queries is hard. We close the gap between the two bounds and show that, under a standard hardness assumption, there is no computationally efficient algorithm that, given n samples from an unknown distribution, can give valid answers to O(n2) adaptively chosen statistical queries. An implication of our results is that computationally efficient algorithms for answering arbitrary, adaptively chosen statistical queries may as well be differentially private. We obtain our results using a new connection between the problem of answering adaptively chosen statistical queries and a combinatorial object called an interactive fingerprinting code [FT01]. In order to optimize our hardness result, we give a new Fourier-analytic approach to analyzing fingerprinting codes that is simpler, more flexible, and yields better parameters than previous constructions.


Purpose Treatments that delay retinal cell death regardless of genetic causation are needed for inherited retinal degeneration (IRD) patients. The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, used to treat epilepsy, and has beneficial effects for neurodegenerative diseases. This study aimed to determine whether the ketogenic diet could slow retinal degeneration. Methods Early weaned, rd10 and wild-type (WT) mice were placed on either standard chow, a ketogenic diet, or a ketogenic & low-protein diet. From postnatal day (PD) 23 to PD50, weight and blood β-hydroxybutyrate levels were recorded. Retinal thickness, retinal function, and visual performance were measured via optical coherence tomography, electroretinography (ERG), and optokinetic tracking (OKT). At PD40, serum albumin, rhodopsin protein, and phototransduction gene expression were measured. Results Both ketogenic diets elicited a systemic induction of ketosis. However, rd10 mice on the ketogenic & low-protein diet had significant increases in photoreceptor thickness, ERG amplitudes, and OKT thresholds, whereas rd10 mice on the ketogenic diet showed no photoreceptor preservation. In both rd10 and WT mice, the ketogenic & low-protein diet was associated with abnormal weight gain and decreases in serum albumin levels, 27% and 56%, respectively. In WT mice, the ketogenic & low-protein diet was also associated with an ∼20% to 30% reduction in ERG amplitudes. Conclusions The ketogenic & low-protein diet slowed retinal degeneration in a clinically relevant IRD model. In WT mice, the ketogenic & low-protein diet was associated with a decrease in phototransduction and serum albumin, which could serve as a protective mechanism in the rd10 model. Although ketosis was associated with protection, its role remains unclear. Translational Relevance Neuroprotective mechanisms associated with the ketogenic & low-protein diet have potential to slow retinal degeneration.


Puerto Rico's unique characteristics as a U.S. territory allow us to examine the channels through which (sub)sovereign default risk can have real effects on the macroeconomy. Post-2012, during the period of increased default probabilities, the cointegrating relationship between real activity in Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland breaks down and Puerto Rico spirals into a significant decline. We exploit the cross-industry variation in default risk exposure to identify the impact of changes in default risk on employment. The evidence suggests that there are significantly higher employment growth declines in government demand and external finance dependent industries. An additional real effect of default anticipation is that heightened default risk Granger causes Puerto Rico's austerity measures. An event study analysis using government bond yields and stock returns confirms that news of increased default risk increases the cost of capital for the Puerto Rican government and for publicly traded Puerto Rican firms.


Although an estimated US$6 billion is invested annually in our planet's biological diversity, little research has been conducted on which conservation treatments work best or provide best value for money. Conserving biodiversity efficiently depends on identifying conservation treatments which provide greatest return on investment. Where controlled experiments are not possible, panel econometric techniques can be used to determine the effectiveness of conservation treatments. A long-running Yellow-Eyed Penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) nest count in New Zealand presents a golden opportunity to compare the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of three commonly used conservation treatments—trapping of introduced predators, revegetation, and intensive management. Following ecological theory, we specify a density-dependent population growth rate. We control for year effects and site characteristics such as land cover, slope, and elevation. We confront the possibility of selection bias in treatment with site fixed effects and with an instrumental variable based on site accessibility. Of the three treatments analyzed, only intensive management is significantly correlated with increases in site-level penguin population growth rate. We estimate the marginal cost of providing yellow-eyed penguins through intensive management to be NZ$68,600 per nest.


Stable isotope tracers have been used to gain an understanding of integrative animal and human physiology. More commonly studied organ systems include hepatic glucose metabolism, lipolysis from adipose tissue, and whole body protein metabolism. Recent improvements in isotope methodology have included the use of novel physiologic methods/models and mathematical modeling of data during different physiologic states. Here we review some of the latest advancements in this field and highlight future research needs. First we discuss the use of an oral [U-13C3]-glycerol tracer to determine the relative contribution of glycerol carbons to hepatic glucose production after first cycling through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, entry of glycerol into the pentose phosphate pathway or direct conversion of glycerol into the glucose. Second, we describe an adaptation of the established oral minimal model used to define postprandial glucose dynamics to include glycerol dynamics in an oral glucose tolerance test with a [2H5]-glycerol tracer to determine dynamic changes in lipolysis. Simulation results were optimized when parameters describing glycerol flux were determined with a hybrid approach using both tracer-based calculations and constrained parameter optimization. Both of these methodologies can be used to expand our knowledge of not only human physiology, but also the effects of various nutritional strategies and medications on metabolism.


Abstract. Models of planetary, atmospheric and oceanic circulation involve eddy viscosity and eddy diffusivity, KM and KH, that account for unresolved turbulent mixing and diffusion. The most sophisticated turbulent closure models used today for geophysical applications belong in the family of the Reynolds stress models. These models are formulated for the physical space variables; they consider a hierarchy of turbulent correlations and employ a rational way of its truncation. In the process, unknown correlations are related to the known ones via "closure assumptions'' that are based upon physical plausibility, preservation of tensorial properties, and the principle of the invariant modeling according to which the constants in the closure relationships are universal. Although a great deal of progress has been achieved with Reynolds stress closure models over the years, there are still situations in which these models fail. The most difficult flows for the Reynolds stress modeling are those with anisotropy and waves because these processes are scale-dependent and cannot be included in the closure assumptions that pertain to ensemble-averaged quantities. Here, we develop an alternative approach of deriving expressions for KM and KH using the spectral space representation and employing a self-consistent, quasi-normal scale elimination (QNSE) algorithm. More specifically, the QNSE procedure is based upon the quasi-Gaussian mapping of the velocity and temperature fields using the Langevin equations. Turbulence and waves are treated as one entity and the effect of the internal waves is easily identifiable. This model implies partial averaging and, thus, is scale-dependent; it allows one to easily introduce into consideration such parameters as the grid resolution, the degree of the anisotropy, and spectral characteristics, among others. Applied to turbulent flows affected by anisotropy and waves, the method traces turbulence anisotropization and shows how the dispersion relationships for linear waves are modified by turbulence. In addition, one can derive the internal wave frequency shift and the threshold criterion of internal wave generation in the presence of turbulence. The spectral method enables one to derive analytically various one-dimensional and three-dimensional spectra that reflect the effects of waves and anisotropy. When averaging is extended to all scales, the method yields a Reynolds-averaged, Navier-Stokes equations based model (RANS). This RANS model shows that there exists a range of Ri, approximately between 0.1 and 1, in which turbulence undergoes remarkable anisotropization; the vertical mixing becomes suppressed while the horizontal mixing is enhanced. Although KH decreases at large Ri and tends to its molecular value, KM remains finite and larger than its molecular value. This behavior is attributable to the effect of internal waves that mix the momentum but do not mix a scalar. In the Reynolds stress models, this feature is not replicated; instead, all Reynolds stress models predict KM→0 at some value of Ri≤1 which varies from one model to another. The presented spectral model indicates that there is no a single-valued critical Richardson number Ri at which turbulence is fully suppressed by stable stratification. This result is in agreement with large volume of atmospheric, oceanic and laboratory data. The new spectral model has been implemented in the K-e format and tested in simulations of the stably stratified atmospheric boundary layers. The results of these simulations are in good agreement with the data collected in BASE, SHEBA and CASES99 campaigns. Implementation of the QNSE-derived KM and KH in the high-resolution weather prediction system HIRLAM results in significant improvement of its predictive skills.


This paper is concerned with experimental validation of a recently proposed method of controlling sound fields with a circular double-layer array of loudspeakers [Chang and Jacobsen, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131(6), 4518-4525 (2012)]. The double-layer of loudspeakers is realized with 20 pairs of closed-box loudspeakers mounted back-to-back. Source strengths are obtained with several solution methods by modeling loudspeakers as a weighted combination of monopoles and dipoles. Sound pressure levels of the controlled sound fields are measured inside and outside the array in an anechoic room, and performance indices are calculated. The experimental results show that a method of combining pure contrast maximization with a pressure matching technique provides only a small error in the listening zone between the desired and the reproduced fields, and at the same time reduces the sound level in the quiet zone as expected in the simulation studies well above the spatial Nyquist frequency except at a few frequencies. It is also shown that errors in the positions of the loudspeakers can be critical to the results at frequencies where the distance between the inner and the outer array is close to half a wavelength.


"Imagine a world where library users never reach a dead end, never fail to find the electronic resources they have the need—and the right—to access. This is the ultimate potential of the OpenURL: to link, seamlessly, among a multitude of information providers—proprietary and open access alike. In a world where libraries must acquire, manage, and provide access to a host of search tools and information sources from a variegated group of content providers, the promise of the OpenURL is tantalizing indeed." — The latest issue of LTR tackles the "appropriate copy problem," an important issue many libraries deal with when it comes to helping their users link to the "appropriate copies" in their collections' electronic resources. Authored by University of Alabama (UA) Libraries electronic-resources librarian and adjunct instructor at UA's School of Library & Information Studies Jill Grogg, the report also serves as a general survey of the OpenURL and context-sensitive linking. Explains Grogg, "Exploiting the OpenURL, particularly v. 1.0, means linking to more than just the full text of scholary journals." In one of the chapters, "Innovative Uses of the OpenURL," Grogg canvasses the efforts of many librarians and "other linking gurus" that are using OpenURL in innovative ways. Additionally, the report examines many other context-sensitive linking issues and includes discussion about Google Scholar and other freely available scholarly search engines, linking for open-access materials and digital objects, and OCLC's linking initiatives.


ABSTRACT:What might be the affinity between the palimpsest of a city space and memory? What happens if the city in question is the eternal city of Jerusalem? The article unravels interactions between the real, physical place and its traces in the symbolic geography of cinema between collective and individual memory as recorded on film. Three films guide this study: Himmo King of Jerusalem (Amos Guttman, 1987, based on Yoram Kaniuk's novel), The Cemetery Club (Tali Shemesh, 2006), and Jerusalem Cuts (Liran Atzmor, 2008). Each film introduces a different relation into the dialectic between memory and forgetting. All the films' narrative structures contain the past and revolve around attempts to embody and construe it between the abstract and material qualities of the city of Jerusalem and the cinematic medium.


Traditional security policies are often based on the concept of "need to know" and are typified by predefined and often rigid specifications of which principals and roles are pre-authorized to access the information. A recommendations of the 9/11 commission was to find ways to move from this traditional perspective toward one that emphasizes the "need to share". Ravi Sandhu and his colleagues have developed the Group centric secure information sharing model (gSIS) as a new model that is more adaptable to highly dynamic situations requiring information sharing. We present an implementation of gSIS and demonstrate its usefulness to use-cases in information sharing in social media. Our contributions include the prototype implementation, extension to the model such as hierarchical groups and necessary and sufficient conditions, and the use of the Semantic Web language for representing the central gSIS concepts and associated data. Our framework uses a pragmatic approach of using semantic web technology to represent and reason about the hierarchy and procedural method to compute access decisions relying on the gSIS semantics.


This paper presents a neuro-fuzzy network where all its parameters can be tuned simultaneously using Genetic Algorithms. The approach combines the merits of fuzzy logic theory, neural networks and genetic algorithms. The proposed neuro-fuzzy network does not require a priori knowledge about the system and eliminates the need for complicated design steps like manual tuning of input-output membership functions, and selection of fuzzy rule base. Although, only conventional genetic algorithms have been used, convergence results are very encouraging. A well known numerical example derived from literature is used to evaluate and compare the performance of the network with other modelling approaches. The network is further implemented as controller for two simulated thermal processes and their performances are compared with other existing controllers. Simulation results show that the proposed neuro-fuzzy controller whose all parameters have been tuned simultaneously using GAs, offers advantages over existing controllers and has improved performance.


»Das Versagen des Antifaschismus: Zur Ironie von Geschichte als Politik in der DDR«. The overthrow of Communism through the "peaceful revolution" during 1989/90 raised the question of what to do with its ideological justification of "anti-fascism." Ironically some self-critical GDR intellectuals like Christa Wolf had already argued that what had begun as a rigorous effort to repudiate National Socialism had turned into a legitimation of a new SED-dictatorship. Written during the exciting process of German unification, this essay attempted a preliminary assessment of the role of East German historians within the SED-regime: On the one hand their scholarly efforts had become more complex and convincing during the 1980s, leading to growing recognition from abroad. But on the other hand, these scholars also showed a failure of political nerve by not drawing the practical consequences from their empirical and methodological advances. Based on discussions with East German colleagues, this essay sought to resolve the paradox of their intellectual contribution and political inaction.


Although the Viking Age (ca. 750–1050 CE) is often characterized as a time of violence, significant questions remain regarding how conflict was conducted during the period. For example, there have been few attempts to understand the cultural norms, attitudes, and practices that drove individuals to participate in warfare. This article reports the results of a study that sought to shed light on this issue by considering the process of enculturation during Viking Age childhood. This was achieved by exploring how the influences of militarism and hegemonic masculinity conditioned those living within Scandinavian societies to participate in conflict from a young age. Through examining the archaeological and literary evidence for childhood pastimes, the study found that everyday aspects of Viking Age society reinforced militaristic, hegemonic hierarchies of masculinity. This can be seen, for example, in the form of toy weapons that were modeled on full-sized, functional weapons; strategic board games that conveyed messages regarding the ideological power of kingship; and physical games that provided opportunities for successful individuals to enhance their social status. The evidence therefore suggests that Viking Age societies perpetuated a series of self-reinforcing cultural norms that encouraged participation in martial activities.


Analytical expressions for the radiance produced by cw and pulsed laser beams transversing a particulate multiple-scattering medium are derived using radiative transfer theory and the small-angle approximation. In addition, analytical expressions for the mean-square spread of the radiant flux produced by cw illumination, and for the multipath time spread of the radiant flux produced by pulsed illumination are developed and compared with previously reported numerical and experimental results for laser beam propagation through fogs and clouds.


Sociocybernetics is particularly interested in investigating how societies steer their social systems. According to Hornung (2006), sociocybernetic studies have predominantly followed three main strategies: a problem–solution scheme, a structural analysis and a normative proposal. We consider that, to have an integral constructivist foundation, sociocybernetics needs to also take a critical perspective into account. Critical theory used to be circumscribed to the first school of Frankfurt, but now it includes a wide range of approaches —such as Michel Foucault's genealogical and archaeological project, psychoanalytical perspectives (e.g. Slavoj Žižek), schizoid-analysis (e.g. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari), feminist perspectives (e.g. Judith Butler), and de–colonialist proposals (e.g. Boaventura De Sousa Santos)— offering very diverse notions of power, ethics and transformation. Nevertheless, some key concepts, such as dispositif, event, subject, cultural industry and antagonism, link many of these critical theorists. In this article, we explore how sociocybernetics can develop a critical perspective and some of the challenges of bringing together concepts pertaining to different theories. Specifically, we develop the concept of dispositif originally used by Foucault, Agamben and Deleuze for an analysis of asymmetrical dynamics of power and steering processes between social systems. Thus, we put forth a sociocybernetical understanding of dispositifs as second–order steering mechanisms which intervene strategically between systems and couple them conditionally. Ultimately, we seek to demonstrate that sociocybernetics can benefit from critical theory and vice versa.


We describe a new approach to disambiguating semantic frames evoked by lexical predicates previously unseen in a lexicon or annotated data. Our approach makes use of large amounts of unlabeled data in a graph-based semi-supervised learning framework. We construct a large graph where vertices correspond to potential predicates and use label propagation to learn possible semantic frames for new ones. The label-propagated graph is used within a frame-semantic parser and, for unknown predicates, results in over 15% absolute improvement in frame identification accuracy and over 13% absolute improvement in full frame-semantic parsing F1 score on a blind test set, over a state-of-the-art supervised baseline.


A baby experiencing the world for the first time faces a considerable challenging sorting through what William James called the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of the senses. With the increasing capacity of modern sensors and the complexity of modern robot bodies, a robot in an unknown or unfamiliar body faces a similar and equally daunting challenge.

Addressing this challenge directly by designing robot agents capable of resolving the confusion of sensory experience in an autonomous manner would substantially reduce the engineering required to program robots and the improve the robustness of resulting robot capabilities. Working towards a general solution to this problem, this work uses distinctive state abstractions and sensorimotor embedding to generate basic knowledge of sensor structure, local geometry, and object geometry starting with uninterpreted sensors and effectors.


This paper examines the evolution of merger programs, that is, repeated acquisitions by the same firm. Most acquisitions are made by firms with merger programs. Acquisitions that are part of programs are different from one-off acquisitions both in the effect on CEO compensation and in the reaction of the stock market. CEO compensation rises more after growth from program acquisitions than after internal growth or growth from one-off acquisitions. During a merger program, the increase in CEO compensation is much larger when the acquirer's stock price is increasing than at other times. This is not true for other types of growth. Merger programs also show a distinct evolution. Initially, program mergers are received better by the stock market than are one- off mergers. ; As a program progresses, however, the acquisitions tend to have lower announcement reactions and long-run returns. In addition, the effect on CEO compensation is smaller for mergers later in a program. There is evidence that some firms are predisposed to make acquisitions. Firms that have made acquisitions in the recent past and that already pay their CEOs well are more likely to make future acquisitions. This suggests that there may be a managerial motivation for merger programs: firms where CEOs can expect to get large compensation increases from acquisitions are more likely to have merger programs.


Introduction Chapter 1 First Look at Windows 8.1 Introducing Windows 8.1 A First Look! Touring the Start Screen Using Touch in Windows 8.1 Using Single Tap Swiping Left Swiping Right Swiping Up and Down Using Pinch Zoom Getting Around with the Mouse and Keyboard Using the Mouse Hands-Free Mode Using the (Real) Keyboard Using a Touch Keyboard Choosing a Keyboard Finding the Help You Need Using Windows 8.1 Help + Tips Get Help + Tips Displaying Windows Help and Support Printing Help Shutting Down or Putting Windows 8.1 to Sleep Goodnight, Windows 8.1 Shutting Down Windows 8 Chapter 2 Preparing Your PC and Setting Up Devices Adding Devices in Windows 8.1 Viewing Installed Devices Connecting a Device Removing a Device Troubleshooting Hardware Devices Connecting to Wireless Networks Connecting to an Available Network Managing Your PC Power Choosing a Power Management Plan Changing Power Settings Transferring Files Using Windows Easy Transfer Recovering Your Windows 8.1 Refreshing Your PC Chapter 3 Using and Tweaking the Start Screen Beginning with the Start Screen Viewing All Your Apps at Once Reordering Apps in Apps View Tweaking the Start Screen Showing More Tiles Checking Out the Charms Displaying the Charms Bar Choosing Your Charm Changing the Way Tiles Look and Behave Making Big Tiles Small (and Vice Versa) Turning Off Live Updates Choosing New App Tile Sizes Getting a Rest from Notifications Hiding Personal Information on Your Tiles Moving, Grouping, and Removing Apps Moving Apps on the Start Screen Creating an App Group Naming App Groups Removing an App from the Start Screen Searching in Windows 8.1 Finding Something Fast Searching and Finding with Bing Searching Within an App Chapter 4 Working with the Desktop Moving Between the Desktop and the Start Screen Displaying the Windows 8.1 Desktop Using the Windows 8.1 Start Button Launching to the Windows 8.1 Desktop Launching Windows 8.1 to the Desktop Getting Ready to Work with Programs Adding Shortcuts Launching File Explorer Tailoring the Taskbar Adding Apps to the Taskbar on the Desktop Pinning Apps from the Start Screen Using Jump Lists Working with Windows on the Windows Desktop Window Basics Moving a Window Resizing a Window Arranging Windows Chapter 5 Making It Your Windows 8.1 Personalizing Your Lock Screen Choosing a New Lock Screen Picture Adding a New Lock Screen Picture On-the-Fly Creating a Slide Show for the Lock Screen Changing Your Account Picture Adding Lock Screen Apps Adjusting the Look of Windows 8.1 Tweaking Start Contrast Makes the Heart Grow Fonder Magnifying Your Display Changing the Time Changing Your Windows 8.1 Desktop Selecting a New Desktop Background Chapter 6 Securing Your Computer Customizing Your Login Changing a Password Creating a Picture Password Creating a PIN Logon Working with the Action Center Reviewing Your System Status Changing Action Center Alerts Deciding What to Do with Unrecognized Apps Using Windows Defender Scanning Your PC with Windows Defender Turning on Your Windows Firewall Activating the Firewall Changing Firewall Settings Working with User Accounts Add a User Changing User Account Settings Switching Users Maintaining Your Privacy Setting Location Privacy Chapter 7 Diving In with Apps Getting Started with Apps Checking Out Your Apps Pinning Apps to the Start Menu Finding and Starting Apps Finding an App Locating an App Launching an App from the Start Screen Launching an App on the Desktop Working with Apps Exploring a Program "Window" Checking Out a Windows 8.1 App Moving Among Open Apps Closing Apps Closing Selected Apps Using the Task Manager Getting Apps from the Revamped Windows Store Introducing the Windows Store Searching for an App Installing an App Managing Your Apps Starting and Stopping an App from the Desktop Starting a Program from the Desktop Exiting the Program Repairing and Uninstalling Programs Repairing Installations Uninstalling Programs Uninstalling Apps Chapter 8 Organizing Files with File Explorer Getting Started with File Explorer Starting File Explorer Touring the File Explorer Screen Checking Out This PC Using the Ribbon Learning the Ribbon Layout Showing and Hiding the File Explorer Ribbon Managing Your Files and Folders Finding Files and Folders Selecting Files and Folders Viewing File Information Tagging Files Arranging Folder Display Copying, Moving, and Sharing Files and Folders Copying Files Solving Copy Conflicts Sharing Files Compressing and Extracting Your Files Chapter 9 Browsing with Internet Explorer 11 What's New in IE 11? Introducing Internet Explorer 11 Starting Internet Explorer A Look Around the Internet Explorer Window(s) Browsing and Searching the Web Using the Address Bar Navigating the Web Saving Your Favorites Adding a Favorite Using Navigation Tiles Searching for Information Searching in IE 11 from the Start Screen Searching in IE 11 Desktop Selecting Your Home Page Working with Tabs Using Tabs in IE 11 Displaying Tabs Side by Side Opening a New Tab in Desktop IE 11 Securing Your Browsing Experience Deleting Cookies Chapter 10 Connect and Communicate with Windows 8.1 Calling and Messaging with Skype Launching Skype Adding Skype Contacts Making a Call with Skype Answering a Call with Skype Sending Messages Getting Social with the People App Getting Started with the People App Connecting Your Social Media Accounts Viewing Status Updates Adding a New Contact Searching for a Contact Staying in Touch Through Email Adding an Email Account Checking Out the Mail Window Composing an Email Message Organizing Your Email Keeping Your Dates Straight with the Calendar App Checking Today's Appointments Adding a New Appointment Chapter 11 Media and More Organizing and Editing Your Photos Launching the Photos App Viewing Your Photos Adding a Photo Folder Organizing Photos Editing Photos Setting Photo Options Displaying a Slideshow Your Music, Your Way Getting Started with the Music App Playing Your Own Music Finding Music You Like Creating a Radio Station Finding and Watching Your Favorite Shows Exploring Video Don't Forget Your Favorite Shows Playing Games with Windows 8.1 Finding and Playing Your Favorite Games Buying a Game Chapter 12 Working in the Cloud Working with SkyDrive Launching SkyDrive Accessing Files in the Cloud Saving Files to SkyDrive Managing Files in SkyDrive Getting Started with a HomeGroup Setting Up a HomeGroup Joining a HomeGroup Using Your HomeGroup Viewing Your HomeGroup Accessing Files on Shared Computers Chapter 13 Feeding and Troubleshooting Your PC Getting Windows Updates Turning On Automatic Updates Choosing a Time for Automatic Updates Checking for Updates Manually Backing Up and Restoring Your Files Backing Up Your Files Restoring Files Optimizing Your Computer Optimizing Your Hard Disk Checking Windows Compatibility Using the Windows Compatibility Center Appendix Windows 8.1 App Gallery Exploring Your Apps Checking Out the Bing Apps Finance App Weather App Maps App News App Sports App Travel App The Windows Store Revisited Using App Categories Browsing Apps Getting App Info Reading App Reviews Installing Apps Viewing Your Apps Adding Your Own Review Purchasing an App 9780789752222 TOC 10/11/2013


Mass tort cases involving serious personal injury are generally deemed inappropriate for class action treatment. It is presumed that in these cases adjudicative costs of determining non-common questions to individualize class members' recoveries negate judicial economies from trial of common questions on a class-wide basis. This presumption defies logic, lacks empirical substantiation, and most troubling for a legal system devoted to enhancing individual welfare, takes no account of the adverse tort deterrence and insurance consequences of relegating claims to the standard process of separate actions. Indeed, the presumption seems less the product of analysis than habit - the convention of resolving class actions by "integrated" final judgment that cumulates the results of common and non-common question trials. Under this form of judgment, success for the class and its counsel is contingent not only on their collectively winning class-wide trial of the common questions, but also on the extent to which each class member recovers damages in separate trial of the non-common questions. In effect, the integrated judgment holds class action deterrence benefits hostage to the costs and contingencies of individualizing compensation for class members, and in the process thwarts both objectives. This essay proposes to solve this problem by decoupling deterrence from compensation functions of mass tort class action. In particular, decoupling would result in two, separate final class rulings and related fee awards. The first ruling would issue upon class-wide trial of the common questions that determines aggregate liability and damages. This determination is sufficient for deterrence purposes. Because mass torts arise from the systematic risks of mass production processes and goods (products and services), the only questions of relevance to deterrence are common and indeed mostly statistical. The second ruling (assuming the class wins the first) would take the form of an insurance fund judgment that prescribes the terms and conditions for distributing the aggregate damage award (or the commercial insurance coverage that the award purchases) to compensate specified losses as far as practicable and if and when class members incur them. Distributing the fund for maximum insurance benefit eliminates much of the costly individualization. Significantly, even if the costs of individualizing severity of loss and deterrence incentives (e.g. contributory negligence) for insurance purposes preclude or reduce compensation for some fraction of class members (smaller than in the more costly and risky separate action process), decoupling fully achieves deterrence goals and thus makes everyone better off.


In this paper, we study the citation decision of a scientific author. By citing a related work, authors can make their arguments more persuasive. We call this the correlation effect. But if authors cite other work, they may give the impression that they think the cited work is more competent than theirs. We call this the reputation effect. These two effects may be the main sources of citation bias. We empirically show that there is a citation bias in Economics by using data from RePEc. We also report how the citation bias differs across regions (U.S., Europe and Asia).


Basic numerical abilities are generally assumed to influence more complex cognitive processes involving numbers, such as mathematics. Yet measuring non-symbolic number abilities remains challenging due to the intrinsic correlation between numerical and non-numerical dimensions of any visual scene. Several methods have been developed to generate non-symbolic stimuli controlling for the latter aspects but they tend to be difficult to replicate or implement. In this study, we describe the NASCO method, which is an extension to the method popularized by Dehaene, Izard, and Piazza (2005). Their procedure originally controlled for two visual dimensions that are mediated by Number: Total Area and Item Size (i.e., N = TA/IS). Here, we additionally propose to control for another twofold dimension related to the array extent, which is also mediated by Number: Convex Hull Area and Mean Occupancy (i.e., N = CH/MO). We illustrate the NASCO method with a MATLAB app—NASCO app—that allows easy generation of dot arrays for a visually controlled assessment of non-symbolic numerical abilities. Results from a numerical comparison task revealed that the introduction of this twofold dimension manipulation substantially affected young adults' performance. In particular, we did not replicate the relation between non-symbolic number abilities and arithmetic skills. Our findings open the debate about the reliability of previous results that did not take into account visual features related to the array extent. We then discuss the strengths of NASCO method to assess numerical ability, as well as the benefits of its straightforward implementation in NASCO app for researchers.


As computer networks evolve, they become more complex, introducing several challenges in the areas of performance and management. Such problems can lead to stagnation in network innovation. Software Defined Networks (SDN) framework could be one of the best candidates for improving and revolutionising networking by giving the full control to the network administrators to implement new management and performance optimisation techniques.

This thesis examines performance issues faced in SDN due to the introduction of the SDN Controller. These issues include the extra delay due to the round-trip time between the switch and the controller as well as the fact that some packets arrive at the destination out-of-order.

We propose a novel dynamic flow installation and management algorithm (OFPE) using the SDN protocol OpenFlow, which preserves the controller to a non-overloaded CPU state and allow it to dynamically add and adjust flow table rules to reduce packet delay and out-of-order packets. In addition, we propose OFPEX, an extension to OFPE algorithm that includes techniques for managing multi-switch environments as well as methods that make use of the packets interarrival time in categorising and serving packet flows. Such techniques allow topology awareness, helping the controller to install flow table rules in such a way to form optimal routes for high priority flows thus increasing network performance. For the performance evaluation of the proposed algorithms, both hardware testbed as well as emulation experiments have been conducted. The performance results indicate that OFPE algorithm achieves a significant enhancement in performance in the form of reduced delay by up to 92.56% (depending on the scenario), reduced packet loss by up to 55.32% and reduced out-of-order packets by up to 69.44%.

Furthermore, we propose a novel placement algorithm for distributed Mininet implementations which uses weights in order to distribute the experiment components to the appropriately distributed machines. The proposed algorithm uses static code analysis in order to examine the experimental code as well as it measures the capabilities of physical components in order to create a weights table which is then used to distribute the experiment components properly. The performance results of the proposed algorithm evaluation indicated reductions in delay and packet loss of up to 65.51% and 86.35% respectively, as well as a decrease in the standard deviation of CPU usage by up to 88.63%. These results indicate that the proposed algorithm distributes the experiment components evenly across the available resources.

Finally, we propose a series of Benchmarking tests that can be used to rate all the available SDN experimental platforms. These tests allow the selection of the appropriate experimental platform according to the scenario needs as well as they indicate the resources needed by each platform.


Higher demands for more reliable and maintainable JavaScript-based web applications have led to the recent development of MVC (Model-View-Controller) frameworks. One of the main advantages of using these frameworks is that they abstract out DOM API method calls, which are one of the leading causes of web application faults, due to their often complicated interaction patterns. However, MVC frameworks are susceptible to inconsistencies between the identifiers and types of variables and functions used throughout the application. In response to this problem, we introduce a formal consistency model for web applications made using MVC frameworks. We propose an approach -- called Aurebesh -- that automatically detects inconsistencies in such applications. We evaluate Aurebesh by conducting a fault injection experiment and by running it on real applications. Our results show that Aurebesh is accurate, with an overall recall of 96.1% and a precision of 100%. It is also useful in detecting bugs, allowing us to find 15 real-world bugs in applications built on Angular JS, a popular MVC framework.


Abstract Migration and emigration from Bangladesh is a pervasive phenomenon. Historically, large-scale migration from the region constituting the present Bangladesh started after tea plantations were introduced to Assam by the British in the early 19th century. Gradually, the number of migrants from this region increased due to geographic location, climate change and poverty. Over the years, there has been a change in the gender pattern of migration, where the proportion of female migrants has increased significantly. These migrants play a significant role in the Bangladesh economy, as remittances constituted about 8.21% of gross domestic product in 2014. This article examines why, despite the many dangers that the migrants face, including violence in the host countries and exploitation by their 'masters', the number of migrants from Bangladesh continues to rise constantly.


In order to optimize team's performance, preferred coaching leadership style and personality trait could be the main factors. A total of 16 coaches and 200 players of Malaysia Super League and Malaysia Premier League have completed Leadership Scale
for Sport (LSS, 1980) and Graduate Employability Questionnaire (GEQ, 2009) which LSS consisted of Training and Instruction (TI), Democratic Behaviour (DB), Autocratic Behaviour (AB), Social Support (SS), Positive Feedback (PF) and GEQ consisted of
Personal Attributes and Personal Qualities. This study found that Malaysian successful and less successful football teams showed means of TI, DB, AB, SS and PF with means (M=4.25; M=4.15; M=2.51; M=4.10; M=4.13), (M=4.30; M=4.21; M=2.51; M=4.20;
M=4.22) respectively. Subsequent for the personality traits, the results showed that the personal attributes and personal qualities for coaches of less successful football teams had the higher mean score of (M=4.43) and (M=4.56) as compared to the coaches' personal attributes and personal qualities of successful football teams (M=4.33) and (M=4.29).Similarly, players from the less successful teams showed superior mean score for personal qualities (M=4.32) and personal attributes (M=4.24) than the players from the successful teams (M=4.17) and (M=4.09). Pearson correlation has done with coaches and players demographic variables with coaching leadership style. As a result, relationships existed between age to Positive Feedback (r = .197, n = 100, p < .05) as well marital status to Positive Feedback (r = .266, n = 100, p < .05) in successful football teams.Whereas, in less successful football teams, there were relationships occurred between race to Training and Instruction (r = .367, n = 100, p < .05), race to Democratic Behaviours (r = .239, n = 100, p < .05) as well years of participation to Democratic Behaviours (r = .280, n = 100, p < .05). Moreover, multiple regression predicted that age,
level of competition/coaching certification and year of participation could be the most influential factors on coaches and players' achievement with statistical result supported: t (216) = 8.244; p < .05, t (216) = 2.058; p < .05 and: t (216) = 38.151; p < .05. In addition,the independent t-test examined that there is a significant difference between the personality traits of the players and those coaches n (214); t = 2.441, p = .015; <.05, n (214); t= 2.434, p = .020; <.05 as well there is significant difference for both Malaysian
successful and less successful football teams in personal qualities with the statistical reading of n (106); t = 4.947, p = .000; <.05. Therefore, this result implicated that coaching leadership style preferences are varies due to differences in players' ages as well
as different levels of experience which encounter prolonged periods of success or failure of a team and these contributed to coaching science, the body of knowledge.


Ideally, enterprise administrators could specify fine-grain policies that drive how the underlying switches forward, drop, and measure traffic. However, existing techniques for flow-based networking rely too heavily on centralized controller software that installs rules reactively, based on the first packet of each flow. In this paper, we propose DIFANE, a scalable and efficient solution that keeps all traffic in the data plane by selectively directing packets through intermediate switches that store the necessary rules. DIFANE relegates the controller to the simpler task of partitioning these rules over the switches. DIFANE can be readily implemented with commodity switch hardware, since all data-plane functions can be expressed in terms of wildcard rules that perform simple actions on matching packets. Experiments with our prototype on Click-based OpenFlow switches show that DIFANE scales to larger networks with richer policies.


This book represents the first attempt at covering all mangrove plant species in Southeast Asia, and aims at providing those involved with the management and conservation of mangroves in Southeast Asia with a guidebook for identifying mangrove plants. Various guidebooks exist for mangroves of Southeast Asia, but all have a limited geographic scope covering only one country. An even more severe limitation of these guidebooks is that they focus almost exclusively on so-called 'true mangrove species' - i.e. species that occur in the mangrove habitat only and are not found in other habitats. While this is an approach that is common worldwide, the disadvantage is that many plant species found in the mangrove habitat are not dealt with. Another disadvantage of most existing guidebooks is that they tend to ignore species other than trees and shrubs. This book represents the first attempt at covering all mangrove plant species in Southeast Asia, and aims at providing those involved with the management and conservation of mangroves in Southeast Asia with a guidebook for identifying mangrove plants. At the same time, the book gives a brief introduction to mangroves in general and Southeast Asia's mangroves in particular, useful to students and interested lay persons. Accordingly, the book has been split into two parts: part one deals with the mangrove habitat in Southeast Asia, while part two focuses on the mangrove plants themselves. The core of the book is formed by the skilfully drawn black-and-white drawings of the mangrove plants. These illustrations greatly enhance the usefulness of this book.


Epilepsy is a disorder characterized by the occurrence of seizures, which are periods of abnormally excessive synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Affecting over 70 million people worldwide, many of whom do not respond to pharmacotherapy, there is a need for novel anticonvulsant compound discovery. Diaminodiphenyl compounds, a class of compounds shown to present anticonvulsive effects in vivo have been purported to exert their effects on the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAr); an excitatory, ionotropic receptor that is a key player in the functions of the glutamatergic system. The glutamatergic system is vital in the promotion of synaptic plasticity and has been implicated in a myriad of mental health issues, including epilepsy. We hypothesize that diaminodiphenyl compounds interact with NMDAr at an allosteric binding site on the NR2 subunit which is activated by the agonist glutamate. This project is intended to characterize the diaminodiphenyl binding interactions with NMDAr, elucidate a structure activity relationship between diaminodiphenyl compounds and NMDAr and create novel diaminodiphenyl compounds employing rational drug design to improve the therapeutic index of the compounds. The data presented in the following manuscripts characterizes a novel binding motif between diaminodiphenyl compounds and NMDAr using computer based modeling techniques. A structure activity relationship was derived by examining the anticonvulsant effects of several different diaminodiphenyl compounds in animal models of epilepsy. Employing the computationally derived binding motif and structure activity relationship, several diaminodiphenyl derivatives have been designed in an effort to alleviate metabolic toxicity and improve anticonvulsive potency. Rational drug design targeting the described diaminodiphenyl binding site could offer novel anticonvulsants which act through a novel mechanism on NMDAr. Antagonism of NMDAr is not limited to epilepsy alone, NMDAr has been implicated in a number of disease states and diaminodiphenyls could serve multiple indications such as: neuropathy, mood disorders and post stroke outcomes.


The binding of extracellular ligands to their receptors on the cell membrane can evoke a variety of responses, and in some cases, these responses include a change in gene expression and in transcription. Santagata et al. describe a new pathway in which occupancy of a plasma-membrane receptor results in mobilization of a transcription factor to the nucleus. In its inactive state, the protein Tubby, which has been connected to adult-onset obesity in mice, binds to the phosphorylated head group of a plasma-membrane lipid. When the G protein-coupled serotonin receptor is activated, phospholipase C hydrolyzes the lipid and releases Tubby, which then enters the nucleus, probably through its nuclear localization sequence. An intriguing suggestion is that this result may explain why serotonin-receptor knockout mice display symptoms of adult-onset obesity. Cantley writes a Perspective on the paper. S. Santagata, T. J. Boggon, C. L. Baird, C. A. Gomez, J. Zhao, W. S. Shan, D. G. Myszka, L. Shapiro, G protein signaling through Tubby proteins. Science 292, 2041-2050 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text] L. C. Cantley, Translocating Tubby. Science 292, 2019-2021 (2001). [Full Text]


A species-rich lizard community responded variably to a range of experimental fire regimes in a tropical savanna. Heteronotia binoei was the only lizard species that showed a short-term response to fire, decreasing in abundance directly after the early- and late-burns. H. binoei and Diporiphora bilineata were significantly more abundant in early-burn treatments. Carlia amax was more abundant in unburnt and early-burn treatments. C. munda was more abundant in unburnt and early-burn sites. Differences in the relative abundance of species between treatments is attributed to site differences in vegetation structure, and fire-induced changes to the structure of habitat. Early-burn sites were significantly richer in lizard species (P< 0.05); however, overall lizard abundance, Shannon-Wiener diversity and Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) 1 and DCA 2 scores were not significantly different, suggesting that habitat partitioning has a stronger influence than the direct effects of fire. Many lizards were associated with a direct gradient of moisture availability, including a seepage assemblage, with Carlia gracilis and Sphenomorphus darwiniensis correlated with increased moisture, a well-developed canopy and abundant leaf litter. An assemblage associated with the drier end of the gradient included Carlia triacantha, Ctenotus kurnbudj, Diporiphora magna and D. bilineata. The lizard composition of most quadrats was intermediate along the moisture gradient and was associated with typical eucalypt savanna communities. Lizard species that largely are restricted to the moist seepage zones may be particularly sensitive to late dry-season fires which alter this habitat type.


Background: The fomites can serve as vehicles in transmission of pathogens. This study was conducted to determine the bacterial contamination in door handles of washrooms of a hospital, to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the isolates. Plasmid profile was done to observe the presence or absence of plasmid among isolated bacteria from door handles of washrooms of a hospital. Methods: Washrooms of four different wards of a hospital were included in this study. Sixteen (16) swabs were taken from sixteen (16) door handles. Bacterial identification was carried out by different biochemical tests according to Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology and antibiotic susceptibility test was done by Kirby-Bauer method. Plasmid extraction was done according to modified hot alkaline method. Results: Out of the 16 samples processed, 16 (100%) of them showed bacterial growth. A total of forty three (43) isolates were obtained. The bacteria isolated were Staphylococcus spp. (37.21%), Bacillus spp.(18.6%), E. coli.(16.28%), Fecal Coliform (13.95%), Micrococcus spp.(6.98%), Pseudomonas spp.(4.65%), Klebsiella spp.(2.33%).Plasmid profiling revealed (11 out of 43) bacterial isolates contained 1 or more plasmids with different profiles. The isolated bacteria showed varying susceptibility pattern to the antibiotics used and were all resistant to at least two antibiotics. Among the 43 isolates, 83.72% were found resistant to more than two antibiotics. Highest resistance percentage of the isolates was observed against Penicillin G (95.35%) followed by SXT (74.42%) and amoxicillin (65.12%), rifampicin (55.81%), tetracycline (18.60%), ciprofloxacin (23.26%), chloramphenicol (4.65%), gentamycin (2.33%) and streptomycin (6.98%). Conclusion: Findings of this study indicate the presence of bacterial strains resistant to more than two antibiotics in door handles of washrooms of a hospital which can serve as potential source of diseases. Section Topic Page no. CHAPTER ONE 1


What if you could discover your health status by looking at yourself in the mirror? Since November 2013, the EU FP7 Project SEMEOTICONS is working to make this possible. The Project is building a multi-sensory device, having the form of a conventional mirror, able to read the semeiotic code of the face and detect possible evidence of the onset of cardio-metabolic diseases. The device, called Wize Mirror, integrates unobtrusive imaging sensors used to capture videos, images and 3D scans of the face. These are processed to assess the risk of a cardio-metabolic disease and thereby suggest possible strategies to prevent its onset.


One of the main and essential issues in the developing countries is vast financial resources. Having vast financial resources with an efficient management in the economy ultimately leads to the development of the economy. Therefore, most companies are looking for certain activities which result in directing investment flow. In this regard, one of the most significant factors which plays an effective role in investment attractiveness is Tax policy although economists do not agree with this idea. Whereas some of them pay specific attention to tax incomes from firms, others believe in obtaining career and capital tax. Likewise, many people believe that applying taxes is against the principles of business and it could disturb the relations of the market. Many countries have gained good experiences in the field of achieving economic growth through particular financial policies. In this article an analytical-descriptive research method has been used to propose ways to contribute to developing the economy of the country. Additionally, the backgrounds of the relevant research studies, role of the tax and its effect on the economy will be studied and tax scenario of India which is essential for economic development of this country will be evaluated.


In the drug delivery systems using external ultrasonic stimulation to manipulate the drug release from carriers, the effect of the ultrasonic stimulation on drug carriers should be investigated. Alginate beads were fabricated using a conventional extrusion method, and their shear moduli were calculated by a compression test and the hertz law. The changes in the shear moduli of the alginate beads resulted in changes in their physical properties. Alginate is a thermally sensitive material. Ultrasonic stimulation increased the temperature of the solution. When sonicated at high temperatures, the alginate beads shrank and their shear moduli increased exponentially. In the absence of the ultrasonic thermal effect, no change in the physical properties of the alginate beads was evident. Therefore, the ultrasonic thermal effect influenced the physical properties of the alginate beads. The stream and cavitation effects produced by the ultrasonic stimulation did not affect the properties of the alginate beads. it can be attributed to the fact that alginate beads have a high shear moduli and that the ultrasonic cavitation cannot damage the surface of alginate beads.


A general defense strategy in computer security is to increase the cost of successful attacks in both computational resources as well as human time. In the area of binary security, this is commonly done by using obfuscation methods to hinder reverse engineering and the search for software vulnerabilities. However, recent trends in automated bug finding changed the modus operandi. Nowadays it is very common for bugs to be found by various fuzzing tools. Due to ever-increasing amounts of automation and research on better fuzzing strategies, large-scale, dragnet-style fuzzing of many hundreds of targets becomes viable. As we show, current obfuscation techniques are aimed at increasing the cost of human understanding and do little to slow down fuzzing. In this paper, we introduce several techniques to protect a binary executable against an analysis with automated bug finding approaches that are based on fuzzing, symbolic/concolic execution, and taint-assisted fuzzing (commonly known as hybrid fuzzing). More specifically, we perform a systematic analysis of the fundamental assumptions of bug finding tools and develop general countermeasures for each assumption. Note that these techniques are not designed to target specific implementations of fuzzing tools, but address general assumptions that bug finding tools necessarily depend on. Our evaluation demonstrates that these techniques effectively impede fuzzing audits, while introducing a negligible performance overhead. Just as obfuscation techniques increase the amount of human labor needed to find a vulnerability, our techniques render automated fuzzing-based approaches futile.


Chemical reduction-oxidation mechanisms within mantle rocks link to the terrestrial carbon cycle by influencing the depth at which magmas can form, their composition, and ultimately the chemistry of gases released into the atmosphere. The oxidation state of the uppermost mantle has been widely accepted to be unchanged over the past 3800 m.y., based on the abundance of redox-sensitive elements in greenstone belt–associated samples of different ages. However, the redox signal in those rocks may have been obscured by their complex origins and emplacement on continental margins. In contrast, the source and processes occurring during decompression melting at spreading ridges are relatively well constrained. We retrieve primary redox conditions from metamorphosed mid-oceanic ridge basalts (MORBs) and picrites of various ages (ca. 3000–550 Ma), using V/Sc as a broad redox proxy. Average V/Sc values for Proterozoic suites (7.0 ± 1.4, 2σ, n = 6) are similar to those of modern MORB (6.8 ± 1.6), whereas Archean suites have lower V/Sc (5.2 ± 0.4, n = 5). The lower Archean V/Sc is interpreted to reflect both deeper melt extraction from the uppermost mantle, which becomes more reduced with depth, and an intrinsically lower redox state. The pressure-corrected oxygen fugacity (expressed relative to the fayalite-magnetite-quartz buffer, ΔFMQ, at 1 GPa) of Archean sample suites (ΔFMQ –1.19 ± 0.33, 2σ) is significantly lower than that of post-Archean sample suites, including MORB (ΔFMQ –0.26 ± 0.44). Our results imply that the reducing Archean atmosphere was in equilibrium with Earth's mantle, and further suggest that magmatic gases crossed the threshold that allowed a build-up in atmospheric O2 levels ca. 3000 Ma, accompanied by the first "whiffs" of oxygen in sediments of that age.


Violations of international humanitarian law are compensable by a state causing the violations. The roots of this obligation can be traced to Article 3 of Hague Convention IV, which states that a party to the conflict which violates the provisions of [international humanitarian law] shall . . . be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces. A similar rule is also contained in Protocol I Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In practice, the enforcement of this important provision of international humanitarian law has remained a matter of rarity, particularly in terms of civil - rather than criminal - liability. However, a recent exception is the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission in The Hague (the Claims Commission or the Commission). The Claims Commission was established pursuant to a peace agreement signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia in Algiers, Algeria, on December 12, 2000, ending a devastating war fought between the two countries from May 1998 to December 2000. The Commission was charged with the duty of deciding, through binding arbitration, all claims by one party or citizens of that party against the other party for loss, damage, or injury resulting from violations of international law (mainly violations of international humanitarian law that occurred during the war). The Commission commenced its work in March 2001 and decided to consider the claims of the parties in two different phases of the proceedings: a liability phase and a damages phase. The Commissions rendered the final decisions of the liability phase on December 19, 2005. The damages phase is still being conducted, although no decisions have been rendered by the Commission to date as part of that phase. Thus, this Article exclusively focuses on the Commission's work as it relates to the completed liability phase.


Introduction: Selective brain cooling can minimize systemic complications associated with whole body cooling but maximize neuroprotection. Recently, we developed a non-invasive, portable and inexpensive system for selectively cooling the brain rapidly and demonstrated its safety and efficacy in porcine models. However, the widespread application of this technique in the clinical setting requires a reliable, non-invasive and accurate method for measuring local brain temperature so that cooling and rewarming rates can be controlled during targeted temperature management. In this study, we evaluate the ability of a zero-heat-flux SpotOn sensor, mounted on three different locations, to measure brain temperature during selective brain cooling in a pig model. Computed Tomography (CT) was used to determine the position of the SpotOn patches relative to the brain at different placement locations.Methods and Results: Experiments were conducted on two juvenile pigs. Body temperature was measured using a rectal temperature probe while brain temperature with an intraparenchymal thermocouple probe. A SpotOn patch was taped to the pig's head at three different locations: 1-2 cm posterior (Location #1, n=1), central forehead (Location #2, n=1); and 1-2 cm anterior and lateral to the bregma i.e., above the eye on the forehead (Location #3, n=1). This cooling system was able to rapidly cool the brain temperature to 33.7 ± 0.2°C within 15 minutes, and maintain the brain temperature within 33-34°C for 4-6 hours before slowly rewarming to 34.8 ± 1.1°C from 33.7 ± 0.2°C, while maintaining the core body temperature (as per rectal temperature probe) above 36°C. We measured a mean bias of -1.1°C, -0.2°C and 0.7°C during rapid cooling in induction phase, maintenance and rewarming phase, respectively. Amongst the three locations, location #2 had the highest correlation (R2 = 0.8) between the SpotOn sensor and the thermocouple probe.Conclusions: This SBC method is able to tightly control the rewarming rate within 0.52 ± 0.20°C/h. The SpotOn sensor placed on the center of the forehead provides a good measurement of brain temperature in comparison to the invasive needle probe.


Amino acids constitute a potentially important source of nitrogen for plants in boreal forest ecosystems. Accordingly, it may be suggested that distinct plant species differing abilities to take up amino acids constitutes an important factor in determining plant ecosystem composition. Using GC-MS and isotopically labelled amino acids, we measured the simultaneous uptake of 15 different amino acids by 31 common boreal forest plant species. The results from this study show that all plant species tested, representing a wide variety of plant types, have the ability to take up amino acids from an incubation solution. Furthermore, uptake rates were unrelated to mycorrhizal associations as well as habitat soil amino acid concentrations and plant nitrogen availability dependence as measured by Ellenberg nitrogen indicator values. These results suggest that mycorrhiza is of minor importance for discrete plant amino acid uptake rates and further points out the potential importance of amino acids to plant nitrogen nutrition in boreal forest ecosystems.


Santa Muerte is establishing a presence among practitioners of contemporary occultism in Europe and North America. The occult milieu is highly different from the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte, having a strong heritage of secrecy and tradition as social capital and being mostly middle-class in orientation. Nonetheless, this Catholic folk saint with a mostly pragmatic, popular, and grassroots cult is becoming increasingly popular among occultists. Based on a survey of three recent books on Santa Muerte geared towards an Anglophone, occult audience, it is therefore the aim of this article to understand how and why the Skeleton Saint is attracting adherents in the occult milieu, by analyzing the underlying causes of this growing trend, as well as the conditions shaping it. It is the overall argument of this article that the beginning reception of Santa Muerte in occultism is a result of perceived needs and demands specific to the occult milieu rather than characteristics inherent in the symbol itself, and that an analysis of the ways in which she is spreading outside of her original sociocultural context must be guided by an understanding of the novel one she is integrated in.


The introduction of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a vehicle for education delivery presents opportunities and challenges. In the context of the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre (Wicking Centre), the driver to develop a MOOC was the promise of addressing the international deficit in evidence-based dementia education, as well as the lack of research into international perspectives on dementia. The Wicking Centre's activity integrates research and education, framed by the concept of 'quality of life across the trajectory of dementia.' With dementia emerging as the public health issue of the 21 st century, lack of dementia education at multiple levels, professional and non- professional, is of increasing concern. The disruptive character of MOOCs, with associated risks and uncertainties, warranted the application of a research-oriented project management approach to development. This included investing resources in gathering and analysing data to underpin each phase of decision-making. We used a design-based research approach incorporating the concept of 'life-cycle of an e-learning design' (Phillips et al. 2012). Data collection and analysis focused on three dynamically interacting components: 1) expertise in dementia knowledge and dementia education; 2) a cohort-centric approach to design and delivery, and 3) models and designs for MOOCs currently promoted, discussed and reported in the higher education discipline. Laurillard's Conversational Framework, relating types of learning, teaching- learning activities and the digital technologies that support them (2012), informed the selection of digital technology elements for massive-scale engagement of our identified cohort. The paper describes the initial design process and the outcomes of the limited release pilot that informed the first full offering of the MOOC.


Nursing is more than a career; it is a calling, and one of the most important, fascinating, and dangerous professions in the world. As the frontline responders battling traumas, illnesses, and aggression from surprising sources, nurses are remarkable. Yet contemporary literature largely neglects them. In "THE NURSES," "New York Times" bestselling author and award-winning journalist Alexandra Robbins peers behind the staff-only door to write a lively, fast-paced story and a riveting work of investigative journalism. Robbins followed real-life nurses in four hospitals and interviewed hundreds of others in a captivating book filled with joy and violence, miracles and heartbreak, dark humor and narrow victories, gripping drama and unsung heroism. Alexandra Robbins creates sympathetic, engaging characters while diving deep into their world of controlled chaos the hazing ( nurses eat their young ); sex (not exactly like on TV, but it happens more often than you think); painkiller addiction (disproportionately a problem among the best and brightest); and bullying (by doctors, patients, and others). The result is a page-turner possessing all the twists and turns of a brilliantly told narrative and a shocking, unvarnished examination of our healthcare system. "THE NURSES" is a must-read both for the general public, who will learn hospital secrets that could save their own or a loved one s life, and for nurses, who will proudly share the book as a rallying cry for support and celebration."


The development of active and inexpensive catalysts is vital for progress in technologies related to efficient energy generation, storage, and utilization. Transition metal oxides (TMOs) make up a significant fraction of current state-of-the-art catalysts for these technologies. Density functional theory (DFT), the workhorse for computational chemistry and catalysis, can calculate the activity of catalysts, provide synthesis targets, and accelerate the discovery of active and cheap TMO catalysts. This dissertation develops DFT methods for accurately calculating and understanding the catalytic activity of TMOs. Known electron self-interaction errors in TMO bulk oxidation energies implies reactions energies on TMO surfaces should contain similar errors. The linear response U, proposed to correct self-interaction error, was evaluated as a method for obtaining more accurate TMO reaction energies. Application of the linear response U gave unprecedented improvement in TMO oxidation energies, mixed improvement in TMO formation energies, and improved trends in TMO surface reactivity. These results motivate the continued development of linear response U for bulk and surface calculations. The calculated electronic structure of a catalyst can be used to relate its structure and composition to its activity. Physical and chemical complexities of TMOs hinder development of useful and elucidative electronic structure models. Using the understanding of adsorption on metals as a foundation, a number of correlations between the calculated electronic structure and adsorption energy were found on TMO surfaces. These correlations led to structure-function relationships of binary, ternary, and polymorph TMOs. Methods and results used provides research directions on the continued search for new transition metal compound catalysts.


The spotted stem borer, Chilo partellus (Swinhoe) is one of the most destructive pests of
maize in the warm, low altitude regions of Zambia. A study was carried out in
Sinazongwe district, which is located at about 600 metres above sea level in the
Southern Province to determine the incidence of C. partellus, damage to maize plants
and the abundance of its natural enemy, Cotesia flavipes. This study was carried out
during the winter cropping seasons of 2005 and 2006 in four locations where previous
releases of C. flavipes had been made. The locations described by intensity of C. flavipes
released were: locality 1; 500-1000 parasitoids, locality 2; 50,000 parasitoids, locality 3;
100,000 parasitoids and locality 4; non-release. These were classified as low, medium,
high and non-release locations respectively. In each location, maize plants were sampled
from sixteen farmers' fields at three different growth stages, namely; knee height,
tasseling and cob maturity. Ten plants were also randomly collected from each farmer's
fields by destructive sampling to assess severity of C. partellus damage.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to determine if there were any
significant differences across the locations and between plant growth stages. The results
showed significant differences (F=7.74; d.f.=3; PO.001) in incidence of C. partellus
across the locations. Similar significant differences were also obtained among the three
plant growth stages (F=63.59; d.f.=2; PO.001). In addition, significant differences were
obtained in respect to the following damage variables; tunnel length (F=12.04; d.f.-3;
PO.001), damage index (F=16.39; d.f.=3; PO.001) and number of exit holes
(F=100.83; d.f.=3; P<0.001) across the locations. Similarly, significant differences were
also obtained at the three plant growth stages in tunnel length (F=115.54; d.f=2;
PO.001), damage index (F=12.04; d.f.=2; P<0.001) and number of exit holes (F=7.96;
d.f.=2; P<0.001). There were however, no significant differences in leaf damage when a
t- test was carried out to compare damage at knee height and tasseling stages across all
the locations. Similarly, there were no significant differences in the number of
parasitized larvae across the locations and at the three maize growth stages. C. partellus
constituted 94.5% and 95.6% of the total stem borer larvae collected from maize plants,
and the remaining 5.9% and 4.4% were Sesamia calamistis in the 2005 and 2006 winter
cropping seasons, respectively.
Results of the present study confirm that C. partellus is the dominant cereal stem borer
in Sinazongwe district and clearly show that C. flavipes is fairly well established in this
agroecosystem. The results indicate however, that at this level of establishment, C.
flavipes did not adequately suppress stem borer populations possibly due to low
parasitism levels at peak stem borer incidence. Follow up studies might be necessary to
clarify this phenomenon.


Micro-irrigation with treated wastewater has the potential to be the most efficient irrigation technique, especially in water scarce areas. Its main disadvantage is the high sensitivity of the drippers to clog. This study focused only on the chemical precipitation mechanisms. In a batch chemical process in parallel with PHREEQC software, two temperatures (22 and 55°C), four pH (8, 8.5, 9 and 9.5) and CO2 partial pressure were tested. The aim was to analyze the quantity of precipitates and their crystalline nature and calculate the effects of these factors on the behavior of dissolved chemical elements in treated wastewater to be able to validate and calibrate a geochemical software in order to predict chemical precipitation. The amount of precipitate increases by increasing pH and temperature. Precipitates were analyzed using thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the form of calcite was found to be the predominant precipitate. Experimental and model results showed that the saturation index (SI) of calcite was found to be the factor that most frequently affected calcite precipitation. Calcite SI is pH, temperature and CO2 partial pressure dependent. In the case of irrigation, water equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 minimizes precipitation of calcite.


Based on the report of Ernst Hasenclever on his visit to the Gong-Soco gold mine in 1839, this article seeks to understand the labor and administrative organizational system implemented by the English gold mining companies in Minas Gerais, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century at a time when the slave-based system was in its final stages. Our objective is to show the continuity of the administrative system and the use of slave labor by the English companies from the 1830s until the end of the century, despite the pressure applied by England against the transatlantic slave trade and the prohibition of Her Majesty's subjects to own slaves anywhere in the world.


Venture capital can be a lifeline to innovative and growth-oriented start-ups and small businesses in need of external capital. In this ECMI Research Report, the author argues that the recently proposed changes to the Regulation on European Venture Capital Funds (EuVECA) fail to address three important issues that could further boost financing: the extension of the EuVECA Regulation to third-country managers, the reduction of the €100,000 entry ticket, without further compromises on investor protection, and the harmonisation of rules on managing requirements. He proposes a number of measures that could facilitate access to financing for start-ups and SMEs.


The gas electron multiplier (GEM) detector is a promising particle and radiation detector which has been greatly improved from previous gas detectors. In particular, the 10 cm × 10 cm GEM detector is utilised in applications including highresolution tracking devices in nuclear and particle physics. With its operational and design simplicity, while still maintaining high quality, the GEM detector is suitable for both start-up and advanced research. This article reports simple procedures and results of an investigation of important properties of this detector, using current measurement and signal counting. Results show that gains of the GEM detector increase exponentially as voltages supplied to the detector increase and that the detector reaches full efficiency when the voltages are greater than −4100 V. In terms of signal sharing between X and Y strips of the read-out, the X strips, on the top layer of the read-out, collect larger signals. For the uniformity test, the GEM detector has slightly higher efficiencies at the centre of the detector. These results can be used for future reference and for better understanding of the GEM detector's characteristics.


It has been found in recent years that H-ITQ-13 zeolite as a catalyst performs excellently in the conversion of methanol to olefins (MTO); however, the relationship between the catalytic performance and its unique pore structure remains rather ambiguous. In this work, the reaction mechanism of MTO over H-ITQ-13 was investigated by density functional theory considering dispersive interactions (DFT-D). The results illustrate that both the aromatic and alkene cycles are viable for MTO over H-ITQ-13. Via the aromatic cycle, the selectivity to ethene is higher than that to propene (with pentamethylbenzene (5MB) and 1,4-dimethylnaphthalene (2MN) as the active hydrocarbon pool (HCP) species), whereas via the alkene cycle (with lower alkenes as the HCP species), propene is the primary product. The alkene cycle takes priority over the aromatic cycle, since the transition states formed in the alkene cycle can be well stabilized in the three-dimensional framework of small pores in H-ITQ-13; as a result, high selectivity to propene can be achieved for MTO over H-ITQ-13. The insights shown in this work help to clarify the reaction mechanism of MTO over H-ITQ-13 and reveal the relationship between the catalytic performance and the unique pore structure of H-ITQ-13, which is of great benefit to the development of better MTO catalysts and reaction processes with high selectivity to propene.


The successful development of autonomous mobile robot assistants depends significantly on the well-balanced reconcilements of the technically possible and the socially desirable. Based on empirical research 2 substantiated conclusions can be established for the suitability of "scenario-based design" (Rosson/Carroll 2003) for the successful development of mobile robot assistants and automated guided vehicles to be applied for service functions in stationary care facilities for seniors.


Declines in skeletal muscle size and strength, often seen with chronic wasting diseases, prolonged or high-dose glucocorticoid therapy, and the natural aging process in mammals, are usually associated with reduced physical activity and testosterone levels. However, it is not clear whether the decline in testosterone and activity are causally related. Using a mouse model, we found that removal of endogenous testosterone by orchidectomy results in an almost complete cessation in voluntary wheel running but only a small decline in muscle mass. Testosterone replacement restored running behavior and muscle mass to normal levels. Orchidectomy also suppressed the IGF-I/Akt pathway, activated the atrophy-inducing E3 ligases MuRF1 and MAFBx, and suppressed several energy metabolism pathways, and all of these effects were reversed by testosterone replacement. The study also delineated a distinct, previously unidentified set of genes that is inversely regulated by orchidectomy and testosterone treatment. These data demonstrate the necessity of testosterone for both speed and endurance of voluntary wheel running in mice and suggest a potential mechanism for declined activity in humans where androgens are deficient.


This paper addresses the problem of protecting distributed IoT units from network based attacks while still having a high level of availability. In particular we suggest a novel method where the IoT device execution state is modeled with a suitable high level application model and where the execution state of the application of the IoT device is "mirrored" in a cloud executed machine. This machine has very high availability and high attack resistance. The IoT device will only communicate with the mirror machine in the cloud using a dedicated synchronization protocol. All essential IoT state information and state manipulations are communicated through this synchronization protocol while all end application communication directed towards the IoT units is done towards the mirror machine in the cloud. This gives a very robust and secure system with high availability at the price of slower responses. However, for many non-real time IoT application with high security demands this performance penalty can be justified.


Dual‐frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers present a plausible and cost‐effective way of computing Total Electron Content (TEC). For accurate estimates of TEC, frequency‐dependent satellite and receiver instrumental biases should be removed from GPS measurements properly. Although instrumental satellite bias values are widely available through the internet from various International GPS Service (IGS) analysis centers, receiver biases (also known as differential code biases or interfrequency biases) are provided only for a very few GPS stations and a select number of days. This makes it very difficult to compute TEC for a single station. In this study, an online, single station receiver bias estimation algorithm, IONOLAB‐BIAS, is developed and implemented to obtain daily and monthly averages of receiver bias. The algorithm is successfully applied to both quiet and disturbed days of the ionosphere for stations positioned in high‐latitude, midlatitude, and equatorial regions. The receiver bias estimates are compared with two of the basic methods in the literature that can be applied off‐line, and also with the receiver bias values provided from the IGS centers for a select number of stations. It is observed that IONOLAB‐BIAS is in excellent accordance with the sparse estimates from the IGS centers for all ionospheric states and regions. IONOLAB‐BIAS has a high potential to be an alternative receiver bias computation algorithm with its ease of implementation and accurate estimates for any single station GPS‐TEC.