The Federal Highway Administration published the final rule updating 23 CFR 630 Subpart J in September 2004. The revised rule requires agencies using federal funding to address both safety and mobility in planning and construction of roadway improvements. The Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) requested the assistance of the Center for Transportation Research and Education in developing guidance for a policy and procedures to comply with the final rule. This report describes an in-depth examination of current Iowa DOT project development processes for all types of improvements, including maintenance, as well as a detailed characterization of work zone impact considerations throughout project completion. To comply with both the letter and perceived intent of the final rule on safety and mobility, the report features a suggested work zone policy statement and suggested revisions in the Iowa DOT project development processes, including a definition of the key element: significant projects.


A settlement is an agreement between parties to a dispute. In everyday parlance and in academic scholarship, settlement is juxtaposed to trial or some other method of dispute resolution in which a third-party factfinder ultimately picks a winner and announces a score. The "trial versus settlement" trope, however, represents a false choice; viewing settlement solely as a dispute-ending alternative to a costly trial leads to an anemic understanding of how dispute resolution should and often does work. In this article, we describe and defend a much richer concept of settlement, amounting in effect to a continuum of possible agreements between litigants along many dimensions. "Fully" settling a case, of course, appears to completely resolve a dispute, and if parties to a dispute rely entirely on background default rules, a "naked" trial occurs. But in reality virtually every dispute is "partially" settled. The same forces that often lead parties to fully settle — joint value maximization, cost minimization, and risk reduction — will under certain conditions lead them to enter into many other forms of Pareto-improving agreements while continuing to actively litigate against one another. We identify three primary categories of these partial settlements: award-modification agreements, issue-modification agreements, and procedure-modification agreements. We provide real-world examples of each and rigorously link them to the underlying incentives facing litigants. Along the way, we use our analysis to characterize unknown or rarely seen kinds of partial agreements that nevertheless seem to us theoretically attractive, and we allude to potential reasons for their scarcity within the context of our framework. Finally, we study partial settlements and how they interact with each other in real-world adjudication using new and unique data from New York's summary jury trial program. Patterns in the data are consistent with parties using partial settlement terms both as substitutes and as complements for other terms, depending on the context, and suggest that entering into a partial settlement can reduce the attractiveness of full settlement. We conclude by briefly discussing the distinctive welfare implications of partial settlements.


The astonishing propagation of sophisticated electronics across the globe has attracted the attention of many for developing disease diagnoses, water purity measurements, and security applications using cellular telephones and the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) cameras with which many are equipped. This Focal Point article builds on the theme of using technology already in the hands of students/consumers to teach spectrophotometry and, by extension, to suggest how one might inexpensively develop an instrumental analysis curriculum at extraordinarily low cost. A grating spectrophotometer using a white light-emitting diode (LED) light source, plastic sample cuvette, holographic transmission grating, and any camera that produces JPG files as output is described. Optical characteristics are explained and a sample working curve provided. The raw data for that curve are available as Supplementary Material on-line. The behavior of the "Cell Phone Spectrometer" is inadequate for routine analysis but outstanding for teaching the workings of optical instrumentation components and systems.


Access to justice (A2J) is associated with a number of metrics aimed at assessing the extent to which people enjoy equal access to courts, including pre-trial means for resolving disputes. While the concept is typically associated with civil justice systems, many factors associated with that context overlap with criminal justice system concerns. Central among these and of growing significance in the rural context is a worsening attorney shortage. When lawyers are not readily available, A2J is undermined, and costs to litigants and courts rise.

Many quantitative factors measured in relation to A2J are unidimensional and have limited ability to reveal the full complexity of impediments to accessing legal processes. Simple metrics include attorney counts and caseload data. In both the civil and criminal contexts, the more revealing studies deploy mixed methods; in studying indigent defense, interviews with key stakeholders have proved particularly effective. Surveys of litigants, attorneys, and judges have proved highly informative, too, especially in rural settings without infrastructure for tracking data. Ethnographic research remains rare in both criminal and civil contexts. Meanwhile, law scholars often frame their work more explicitly in terms of constitutional and other legal issues, e.g., attorney ethics, implicated by access.

This chapter, written for an anthology on Research Methods for Rural Criminologists, begins with a broad introduction to A2J. Next, it turns a geographic lens on the A2J landscape, highlighting spatial and place-specific issues as a prelude to discussing rural deficits, including the lawyer shortage. The chapter concludes by discussing rural criminal justice, with a focus on indigent defense. Tribal courts are beyond the scope of this chapter.


As satisfiability (SAT) solver performance has improved, so has their complexity, which make it more likely that SAT solvers contain bugs. One important source of increased complexity is clause sharing in parallel SAT solvers. SAT solvers can emit a proof of unsatisfiability to gain confidence that the their results are correct. Such proofs must contain deletion information in order to check them efficiently. Computing deletion information is easy and cheap for parallel solvers without clause sharing, but tricky for parallel solvers with clause sharing.We present a method to generate unsatisfiability proofs from clause sharing parallel SAT solvers. We show that the overhead of our method is small and that the produced proofs can be validated in a time similar to the solving (CPU) time. However, proofs produced by parallel solvers without clause sharing can be checked in a similar to the solving (wall-clock) time. This raises the question whether our method can be improved such that the checking time of proofs from parallel solvers without clause sharing is comparable to the time to check proofs from parallel solver with clause sharing.


We introduce Intelligent Annotation Dialogs for bounding box annotation. We train an agent to automatically choose a sequence of actions for a human annotator to produce a bounding box in a minimal amount of time. Specifically, we consider two actions: box verification [34], where the annotator verifies a box generated by an object detector, and manual box drawing. We explore two kinds of agents, one based on predicting the probability that a box will be positively verified, and the other based on reinforcement learning. We demonstrate that (1) our agents are able to learn efficient annotation strategies in several scenarios, automatically adapting to the image difficulty, the desired quality of the boxes, and the detector strength; (2) in all scenarios the resulting annotation dialogs speed up annotation compared to manual box drawing alone and box verification alone, while also outperforming any fixed combination of verification and drawing in most scenarios; (3) in a realistic scenario where the detector is iteratively re-trained, our agents evolve a series of strategies that reflect the shifting trade-off between verification and drawing as the detector grows stronger.


Every year physicians face an increasing demand of image-based diagnosis from patients, a problem that can be addressed with recent artificial intelligence methods. In this context, we survey works in the area of automatic report generation from medical images, with emphasis on methods using deep neural networks, with respect to (1) Datasets, (2) Architecture Design, (3) Explainability, and (4) Evaluation Metrics. Our survey identifies interesting developments but also remaining challenges. Among them, the current evaluation of generated reports is especially weak, since it mostly relies on traditional Natural Language Processing (NLP) metrics, which do not accurately capture medical correctness.


The singularities from the general relativity resulting by solving Einstein's equations were and still are the subject of many scientific debates: Are there singularities in spacetime, or not? Big Bang was an initial singularity? If singularities exist, what is their ontology? Is the general theory of relativity a theory that has shown its limits in this case? In this essay I argue that there are singularities, and the general theory of relativity, as any other scientific theory at present, is not valid for singularities. But that does not mean, as some scientists think, that it must be regarded as being obsolete. After a brief presentation of the specific aspects of Newtonian classical theory and the special theory of relativity, and a brief presentation of the general theory of relativity, the chapter Ontology of General Relativity presents the ontological aspects of general relativity. The next chapter, Singularities, is dedicated to the presentation of the singularities resulting in general relativity, the specific aspects of the black holes and the event horizon, including the Big Bang debate as original singularity, and arguments for the existence of the singularities. In Singularity Ontology, I am talking about the possibilities of ontological framing of singularities in general and black holes in particular, about the hole argument highlighted by Einstein, and the arguments presented by scientists that there are no singularities and therefore that the general theory of relativity is in deadlock. In Conclusions I outline and summarize briefly the arguments that support my above views.


Anthrax lethal toxin (LeTx) and edema toxin (EdTx) have been shown to alter hemodynamics in the rodent model, while LeTx primarily is reported to induce extensive tissue pathology. However, the rodent model has limitations when used for comparison to higher organisms such as humans. The rabbit model, on the other hand, has gained recognition as a useful model for studying anthrax infection and its pathophysiological effects. In this study, we assessed the hemodynamic effects of lethal toxin (LeTx) and edema toxin (EdTx) in the rabbit model using physiologically relevant amounts of the toxins. Moreover, we further examine the pathological effects of LeTx on cardiac tissue. We intravenously injected Dutch-belted rabbits with either low-dose and high-dose recombinant LeTx or a single dose of EdTx. The animals' heart rate and mean arterial pressure were continuously monitored via telemetry until either 48 or 72 h post-challenge. Additional animals challenged with LeTx were used for cardiac troponin I (cTnI) quantitation, cardiac histopathology, and echocardiography. LeTx depressed heart rate at the lower dose and mean arterial pressure (MAP) at the higher dose. EdTx, on the other hand, temporarily intensified heart rate while lowering MAP. Both doses of LeTx caused cardiac pathology with the higher dose having a more profound effect. Lastly, left-ventricular dilation due to LeTx was not apparent at the given time-points. Our study demonstrates the hemodynamic effects of anthrax toxins, as well as the pathological effects of LeTx on the heart in the rabbit model, and it provides further evidence for the toxins' direct impact on the heart.


A new species of the varunid crab genus Gopkittisak Naruse and Clark, 2009, G. angustum sp. nov., is described on the basis of seven specimens from intertidal sand flats at Iriomote Island, Ryukyu Islands, Japan. It is close to its sole congener G. gallardoi (Serene and Soh, 1976), but the different shapes of the carapace and male abdomen, as well as the setal pattern of the propodus of the fourth pereopod and the coloration in life, distinguish the new taxon from G. gallardoi.


Is There an Answer? is intended to serve as a forum in which readers to IUBMB Life may pose questions of the type that intrigue biochemists but for which there may be no obvious answer or one may be available but not widely known or easily accessible. Readers are invited to e-mail email@example.com if they have questions to contribute or if they can provide answers to questions that are provided here from time to time. In the latter case, instructions will be sent to interested readers. Answers should be, whenever possible, evidence-based and provide relevant references. Paolo Ascenzi


The point spread function of a static fiber bundle is not spatially invariant, and the system cannot therefore be strictly characterized by an optical transfer function. It is shown both theoretically and experimentally that, in the case of circular fibers of diameter d, the modulation of the image of an object varies with the position of the fiber bundle and lies between two extreme values which become closer together as the spatial frequency decreases. Thus, for sufficiently low frequencies (of the order 1/8d), an optical transfer function can be used. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theory. A randomly vibrating bundle is found to have a spatially invariant point spread function and can therefore be characterized by an optical transfer function.


With increasing greenhouse gas emissions, we are embarked on an unprecedented experiment with an uncertain outcome for the future of the planet. The Kyoto Protocol serves as an initial step through 2012 to mitigate the threats posed by global climate change. A second step is needed, and policy-makers, scholars, business people, and environmentalists have begun debating the structure of the successor to the Kyoto agreement. Written by a team of leading scholars in economics, law, and international relations, this book contributes to this debate by examining the merits of six alternative international architectures for global climate policy. Architectures for Agreement offers the reader a uniquely wide-ranging menu of options for post-Kyoto climate policy, with a concern throughout to learn from past experience in order to maximize opportunities for future success in the real, 'second-best' world. It will be an essential reference for scholars, policy-makers, and students interested in climate policy.


Plastic flow of near-surface rail material under contact loading is a feature of rail-wheel contact, and severe flow typically leads to both wear, and the initiation and development of small surface-breaking cracks. This paper presents results from a ratcheting based computer simulation, which has been developed to allow the simultaneous investigation of wear, crack initiation and early crack propagation. To identify repeatably small crack-like flaws, image analysis is applied to the visual representation of the wearing surface generated by the model. This representation shows a good similarity to traditional micrographs taken from sections of worn surfaces. The model clearly reveals the interaction of wear with crack development, processes which are linked because wear truncates surface-breaking cracks, and can completely remove small surface-breaking cracks.


Payslips are supposed to notify employees about wage-related information, enabling them to adjust their labor supply, when appropriate. However, payslips are often information-laden and complex to understand, casting doubt on whether they are adequately up to the task, potentially resulting in inefficient labor supply reactions. In a real-effort laboratory experiment we use a variety of information frames to potentially support a better understanding of wage related information. We find that participants strongly react to changes of incidental wage costs, yet the framing of payslips has no additional effect on people's labor supply. Nevertheless, including simple graphics increases comprehension and readability.


RICO is a statute, originally developed to thwart organized crime. When read broadly, the statute, however, has been applied to non-organized crime activities. Thus, courts have now started applying four substantive requirements for use of the RICO statute: (1) requiring that the plaintiff must allege that the defendant has connection to organized crime, (2) limiting standing to a particular type of injury, (3) requiring the plaintiff to allege an enterprise distinct from the pattern of racketeering or from the defendant, and (4) permitting only civil RICO claims in instances where the defendant has been previously convicted of the predicate acts alleged in the civil complaint. Along with these requirements, a second area of confusion, which has arisen from the federal RICO statute is the lack of an express statute of limitations. This Note argues that instead of using the method of applying the statute of limitations for an analogous cause of action (the Supreme Court's general method when no express statute of limitations is offered), Congress should step in and create an express statute of limitations for the civil RICO statute. Utilizing the general Supreme Court method for determining the statute of limitations is against the purpose and history of the civil RICO statute. In light of the potential unfairness with the current limitations scheme and the federal nature of the RICO statute, it makes sense for Congress to enact an express limitations scheme, creating predictability in RICO cases.


The ERK pathway promotes phosphorylation of lysyl-tRNA synthetase and its nuclear translocation during mast cell activation. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) covalently attach amino acids to tRNAs to form aminoacyl-tRNAs for mRNA translation. Some aaRSs, including lysyl-tRNA synthetase (LysRS), are part of the multisynthetase complex (MSC), which is located in the cytosol. aaRSs also produce the nucleotide diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A), which appears to be produced during cellular stresses. LysRS is a major producer of this nucleotide, particularly when it is not associated with the MSC. In addition, LysRS associates with the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor in the nucleus, and higher Ap4A concentrations are associated with increased MITF transcriptional activity. Previous work indicated that phosphorylation of aaRSs increases Ap4A production without affecting the rate of aminoacylation, although the underlying mechanism was not known. Yannay-Cohen et al. found that in rat basophilic leukemia (RBL) mast cells transfected with short interfering RNA (siRNA) directed against LysRS, Ap4A accumulation in response to activation [aggregation of the IgE receptor (FcεRI) by antigen bound to IgE] was blocked. In nonactivated RBL cells, LysRS was mostly associated with the MSC in the cytosol; however, upon activation of RBL cells by FcεRI aggregation, LysRS dissociated from the MSC and translocated to the nucleus. Treatment of RBL cells before FcεRI aggregation with the MEK inhibitor U0126, but not with the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitor SB203580, blocked phosphorylation of Ser207 of LysRS. This phosphorylation was required for dissociation of LysRS from the MSC and translocation of LysRS from the cytosol to the nucleus. siRNA knockdown of LysRS reduced the transcript abundance for two MITF target genes, tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) and mast cell protease 5 (MCP5), and this effect was also seen with pretreatment of RBL cells before FcεRI aggregation with U0126. Thus, the ERK pathway promotes phosphorylation of LysRS during mast cell activation, which switches its function from a component of the translational machinery to a transcriptional regulator. N. Yannay-Cohen, I. Carmi-Levy, G. Kay, C. Maolin Yang, J. M. Han, D. M. Kemeny, S. Kim, H. Nechushtan, E. Razin, LysRS serves as a key signaling molecule in the immune response by regulating gene expression. Mol. Cell 34, 603–611 (2009). [PubMed]


Service‐based cloud applications are software systems that continuously evolve to satisfy new user requirements and technological changes. This kind of applications also require elasticity, scalability, and high availability, which means that deployment of new functionalities or architectural adaptations to fulfill service level agreements (SLAs) should be performed while the application is in execution. Dynamic architectural reconfiguration is essential to minimize system disruptions while new or modified services are being integrated into existing cloud applications. Thus, cloud applications should be developed following principles that support dynamic reconfiguration of services, and also tools to automate these reconfigurations at runtime are needed. This paper presents an extension of a model‐driven method for dynamic and incremental architecture reconfiguration of cloud services that allows developers to specify new services as software increments, and the tool to generate the implementation code for the services integration logic and the deployment and architectural reconfiguration scripts specific to the cloud environment in which the service will be deployed (e.g., Microsoft Azure). We also report the results of a quasi‐experiment that empirically validate our method. It was conducted to evaluate their perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived intention to use. The results show that the participants perceive the method to be useful, and they also expressed their intention to use the method in the future. Although further experiments must be carried out to corroborate these results, the method has proven to be a promising architectural reconfiguration process for cloud applications in the context of agile and incremental development processes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Many multicycle caldera volcanoes display a complex extracaldera fault system genetically linked to caldera evolution. On Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), the Miocene Tejeda caldera was filled by ignimbrites and epiclastic sediments and intruded by syenites and a major cone-sheet swarm, obscuring intracaldera structural relations. Extracaldera radial and circumferential faults and dikes are well exposed. We used field data and experiments scaled to the island of Gran Canaria to clarify the poorly understood structural, temporal, and genetic relationship of peripheral faults to the central caldera. The experimental setup comprises a cone of medium-grained sand in which a rubber balloon was repeatedly inflated and deflated. Balloon inflation resulted in updoming and a dominantly radial fault pattern, whereas balloon deflation caused piecemeal caldera collapse and a concentric peripheral fault arrangement on the edifice flanks. A complex interplay of repeated inflation and deflation cycles of the experimental magma chamber is found to explain the peripheral fault system of the Tejeda caldera on Gran Canaria and offers insight into the structure of the caldera floor and the mechanisms acting in multicycle caldera volcanoes.


Morton Keller, a leading scholar of twentieth-century American history, describes the complex interplay between rapid economic change and regulatory policy. In its portrait of the response of American politics and law to a changing economy, this book provides a fresh understanding of emerging public policy for a modern nation.


The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that all citizens have the right to vote without regard to their "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." For almost a century the Fifteenth Amendment was a dead letter. Throughout the South millions of nonwhite Americans were excluded from the political process by poll taxes, literacy tests, and other devices. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to end that injustice. In this absorbing book, political scientist Abigail Thernstrom analyzes the radical transformation of the Voting Rights Act in the years since its passage. She shows how a measure carefully crafted to open the polling booths to southern blacks has evolved into a powerful tool for affirmative action in the electoral sphere--a means to promote black and Hispanic officeholding by creating "safe" seats for minority candidates, What began as an effort to give minorities a fair shake has become a means of ensuring a fair share. Thernstrom demonstrates how voting rights have created a "political thicket" in which Congress, the courts, and the justice Department have been lost. Why this should be true, how small statutory changes led to large and unexpected results, how civil rights groups prevailed against a conservative Senate, how Republicans have benefited from gerrymandering to increase black officeholding--these stories are all part of Thernstrom's well-told tale. Even though the concept of the right to vote retains an aura of moral simplicity, the issue of minority voting rights is perhaps the most complex, yet least studied, of all affirmative action issues. "Whose Votes Count?" should stimulate the overdue discussion that the subject deserves among all those concerned with American politics.


In this article, the goal is to monitor the deformation and damage behavior of composites in real-time using a Nylon/Ag fiber sensor when subjected to dynamic loading. Composite samples are integrated with Nylon/Ag fiber sensors at distinct locations and directions between the plies. Then, these samples are experimentally impacted with low-velocity impact using the Taylor Cannon Gun apparatus at three different velocities i.e. 2.5 m s−1, 3 m s−1, and 6.5 m s−1, respectively. These three sets of tests are conducted to determine the detection performance of the Nylon/Ag fiber sensor when the composite sample experiences no damage, some microdamage, and overall breakage. Besides, the fiber sensor placed in each position showed distinct electrical behavior in all three tests and detected the deformation, damage initiation, quantification, identification, and damage propagation. The results confirmed the ability of the fiber sensor to monitor and identify the mechanical deformation during dynamic loading and showed that the sensor can be used as a flexible sensor reinforcement in composites for in-situ monitoring as well.


The European Union (EU) may be presiding over the most successful democracy promotion program ever implemented by an international actor. Among postcommunist states with a credible EU membership perspective, we can see a significant – though far from complete – convergence toward liberal democracy. This is all the more interesting since ten years ago many of these states had illiberal or authoritarian regimes. I focus in this article on the sources of political change in previously illiberal regimes before and after "watershed elections," especially in the Western Balkans. I argue that over time the EU's leverage strengthened the hand of liberal forces against illiberal ones by way of four mechanisms: creating a focal point for cooperation, providing incentives for adapting, using conditionality, and serving as a credible commitment for reform. Consequently, most political parties have eventually changed their agenda to make it compatible with the state's bid for EU membership. I investigate the domestic conditions that have caused these mechanisms to function only weakly in Serbia and Bosnia.


A flexible air source heat pump testing platform is being developed at the National Renewable Energy Centre that will have the advantages of both a field trial and a laboratory test. It may be considered as a "black box" testing method that will be able to produce performance data that reflects the actual operating performance of the heat pump. At the same time it will also enable more experimental investigations to be carried out to understand the parameters that influence a heat pump's coefficient of performance.

The testing platform is controlled by automated instruments programmed in NI Labview software that enables customised tests to be carried out. The heat pump is installed normally as it would in operating condition. The heat pump under investigation in this study is a transcritical CO2 inverter controlled heat pump. It is installed with a 220 litre buffer tank that provides combined hot water and space heating and is supported by an optional solar pre-heat system.

The characteristics of two alternative heating circuits for controlling heating in the test platform are compared based on experimental and theoretical findings. The first heating circuit is based on standard radiator installation and it is entirely controlled by flow rate. The second heating circuit combines both water temperature and flow rate control. The first heating circuit required a complex multi-band variable step control strategy, partly to overcome resonances and slow valve traverse. The second heating circuit required a much simpler control algorithm and achieved more responsive heating control.

Dynamic behaviour of the cooling tank in the test platform for heat transfer from the first heating circuit was investigated using vertical tank temperatures and theory. At low level heating of 3kW, long duration (12 minutes) temperature fluctuations were observed due to on/off cycling of chiller. Short duration (1-2 minutes) temperature fluctuations were also observed and attributed to natural convection. At high levels of heating of 7-8kW, only short
duration (1-3 minutes) temperature fluctuations with larger amplitudes were seen with fluctuations due to chiller cycling masked by these fluctuations. According to theory and published experimental work on turbulence, the conclusion can be drawn that the temperature fluctuations are primarily due to laminar convection in the cooling tank.

Daily and night-time COPs were obtained using the second heating circuit continuously for a month in the winter season. Daily COPs showed an unexpected positive linear correlation with average daily heating. The COP varied from 1.8 to 2.6 for heating between 3 and 7kW. Based on the theory of CO2 as a heat pump refrigerant and published experimental work, it is suggested that the rise in COP with higher heat output can be explained by the rise in refrigerant pressure as the heat pump tries to output more heat.


This paper describes a system developed to help University students get more from their online lectures, tutorials, laboratory and other live sessions. We do this by logging their attention levels on their laptops during live Zoom sessions and providing them with personalised video summaries of those live sessions. Using facial attention analysis software we create personalised video summaries composed of just the parts where a student's attention was below some threshold. We can also factor in other criteria into video summary generation such as parts where the student was not paying attention while others in the class were, and parts of the video that other students have replayed extensively which a given student has not. Attention and usage based video summaries of live classes are a form of personalised content, they are educational video segments recommended to highlight important parts of live sessions, useful in both topic understanding and in exam preparation. The system also allows a Professor to review the aggregated attention levels of those in a class who attended a live session and logged their attention levels. This allows her to see which parts of the live activity students were paying most, and least, attention to. The Help-Me-Watch system is deployed and in use at our University in a way that protects student's personal data, operating in a GDPR-compliant way.


The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an open IP based service infrastructure that enables an easy deployment of new rich multimedia services mixing voice and data. The IMS is an overlay network on top of IP that uses SIP as the primary signaling mechanism. As an emerging technology, the SIP standard will certainly be the target of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and consequently IMS will also inherit this problem. The objective of proposed architecture for IMS is to cram the potential attacks and security threats to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and explore the security solutions developed by 3GPP. This research work incorporates the ideas of immune system and multiagent architecture that is capable of detecting, identifying and recovering from an attack. The proposed architecture protects IMS core components i.e. P-CSCF (Proxy- Call Session Control Function), I-CSCF (Interrogating-Call Session Control Function), S-CSCF (Serving Call Session Control Function) and HSS (Home Subscriber Server) from external and internal threats like eavesdropping, SQL injection and denial-ofservice (DoS) attacks. In the first level i.e. CPU under normal load all incoming and out going messages were investigated to detect and prevent SQL injection. Second level considers Denial of Service (DOS) attacks when CPU load exceeds threshold limit. Proposed architecture is designed and evaluated by using an approach called Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). The results obtained confirm consistency of the architecture.


Australia's regulatory framework has resulted in the standardisation of cheese production based on pasteurisation. Up until early 2015, regulations effectively prohibited raw milk cheese-making in Australia and thus stifled artisanal on-farm production. Although the introduction of Food Standards Australia New Zealand Standard 4.2.4 has allowed the production of certain hard, low-moisture raw milk cheeses, the new standard is rigid and does not encourage new entrants into the emerging raw milk cheese consumer market. This article compares the Australian system with the French raw milk cheese regulation and production system, and argues that its approach in encouraging and supporting small farmhouse artisanal traditional raw milk cheese is beneficial to both producer and consumer, and has not resulted in any significant health risks. The Australian approach amounts to a missed opportunity to encourage the emergence of a value-added industry with local and export potential, and is at odds with important movements in food policy, such as recognition of the value of localism and terroir.


These School gates were constructed in Powder Coated Plate Steel with laser Cut imagery. The gate imagery was designed in collaboration with school children and their parents. Images from the school curriculum were laser-cut from Plate Steel panels, which make up the gate structure. The letters were created in aluminum and enameled copper made by the staff, children, and parents. The work was created with assistance from Lottery and The Department of Education. NK Fencing in Carrickfergus made the Gate structure.


This study is concerned with the teaching and learning of Arabic as a
second or a foreign language in Malaysia in general and in the
Faculty of Islamic Studies of the National University of Malaysia in
particular. Its main purpose is to evaluate the existing Arabic
program in the Faculty, and to provide some suggestions for its
improvement.
This thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one provides some
background to the teaching and learning of Arabic in Malaysia. The
historical development of religious teaching and learning
institutions in Malaysia, and the teaching and learning of Arabic in
the existing Arabic and religious institutions in Malaysia are
discussed. In addition, this first chapter also discusses the role
and the status of Arabic in Malaysia in order to lay the ground for
understanding the actual needs for Arabic in Malaysia.
Chapters two and three are concerned with the review of the
literature in second and foreign language program design. They
discuss the factors involved in SL teaching and learning, the general
framework to be used in designing SL program, methods and approaches
for specifying goals and objectives for such program, and the
syllabuses and teaching methodologies for SL teaching and learning.
At the end of chapter three, general criteria for the design and
evaluation of Arabic programs are described.
Chapter four is concerned with the teaching and learning of Arabic to
noi cttive speakers. It focuses on the historical development in
TASL, issues and problems in TASL, and the teaching and learning of
Arabic in the Faculty of Islamic Studies. In addition, this chapter
defines the research problem, scope of the study, hypo thesis, and
the research methods followed.
Chapters five, six and seven are concerned with the description,
analysis and discussions of the results. The results reveal that the existing Arabic program in the Faculty of Islamic Studies is not
compatible with the needs for Arabic in Malaysia and in the Faculty
itself. It is found that the major components of the existing
program, namely objectives, syllabus content and teaching
methodologies, are not compatible with the present stated goal of the
program. The prescription and the design of the program components do
not seem to comply with general principles for SL program design. In
the light of these conditions, suggestions are provided for the
improvement of the Arabic program in the Faculty. These suggestions
include some important areas for further research.


Coding theory has several applications in Genetics and Bioengineering. This thesis concentrates on a specific application from Computational Biology. This concerns the construction of new DNA codes which satisfy certain combinatorial constraints, using an alphabet of four symbols. The interest in these codes arises because it is possible to synthesise short single strands of DNA known as oligonucleotides. The codes can be useful in the design of these oligonucleotides. For example, the codes are used in DNA computing, as bar codes in molecular libraries and in microarray technologies. The computer algebra system Magma, which deals successfully with coding theory computation, is applied initially to the construction of DNA codes satisfying a GC-content constraint and a minimum Hamming distance constraint. The constraints are specified to avoid unwanted hybridizations and to ensure uniform melting temperatures. Additionally, another constraint, known as a reverse-complement constraint, is added to further prevent unwanted hybridizations. This additional constraint is studied using involutions in a permutation group. Codes constructed in this thesis are derived from linear codes overGF (4) and Z4 and additive codes over GF (4). Previous approaches to the construction of these codes are extended in several ways. Longer codes are constructed, the examination of cyclic and extended cyclic codes is more comprehensive, and cosets of codes are considered. In addition, attention is paid to the mapping from field or ring elements to the DNA nucleotides; different mappings can give different lower bounds. Further improvements have been made after the techniques of shortening and puncturing are applied to the table of best codes, and also by searching for codes in the tables that have an all-ones vector in their dual. The use of a database of best known linear codes is also considered. In many cases codes are obtained which are larger than the best codes currently known. In the case of codes of length greater than twenty, linear DNA codes have not been constructed previously and so all codes obtained are the best known results. Generator polynomials are given for the codes constructed. Coset leaders are also given in cases where cosets of linear codes are used. Thus it is possible for the reader to construct the codes without repeating the work presented in the thesis. Additionally, files of codewords are available online when the codes constructed are the best known codes and have fewer than 50000 codewords.


The performance of sub-contractors directly affects the outcomes of most construction projects. However, sub-contractors are sometimes unable to perform in their full capacity due to unfavourable project environment and poor quality of management by the main contractor. In-depth interviews to the management and front line staff, of the main contractor and the sub-contractors have been conducted to identify the major factors governing the performance of the sub-contractors in the building construction projects in Hong Kong.


The most discouraging aspect of any attempt to examine the economic development of China is the lack of any long-term series of basic data. There are, of course, a number of studies [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] which include valuable statistics but until a systematic attempt is made to put all these together, to supplement and to modify them, we feel that we are looking at a confused picture. We cannot even see clearly where the gaps in our knowledge lie. (It is precisely for this reason that the construction of National and Social Accounts dapite lack of data are so important as Miss Peter Ady pointed out long since). This brief paper cannot claim to go far in the direction of coordinating all the available material on Chinese output but it makes an attempt to provide one useful series which, it is hoped, will reveal at least roughly the magnitude of China's development.


Software‐defined networking is a promising networking paradigm for achieving programmability and centralized control in communication networks. These features simplify network management and enable innovation in network applications and services such as routing, virtual machine migration, load balancing, security, access control, and traffic engineering. The routing application can be optimized for power efficiency by routing flows and coalescing them such that the least number of links is activated with the lowest link rates. However, in practice, flow coalescing can generally overflow the flow tables, which are implemented in a size‐limited and power‐hungry ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). In this paper, a set of practical constraints is imposed to the software‐defined networking routing problem, namely, size‐limited flow table and discrete link rate constraints, to ensure applicability in real networks. Because the problem is NP‐hard and difficult to approximate, a low‐complexity particle swarm optimization–based and power‐efficient routing (PSOPR) heuristic is proposed. Performance evaluation results revealed that PSOPR achieves more than 90% of the optimal network power consumption while requiring only 0.0045% to 0.9% of the optimal computation time in real‐network topologies. In addition, PSOPR generates shorter routes than the optimal routes generated by CPLEX.


Purpose: The examination of the retina is crucial for early detection of any unwanted alteration. Although there are different successful implementations of retinal imaging devices (ophthalmoscopes), new robust systems able to operate under many eye's conditions may have a practical importance. Here, we introduce, as a proof of concept, a novel approach to image the retina in real time using a single-pixel camera. Methods: The Single-Pixel camera Ophthalmoscope (SPCO) is based on the concept of sequentially detecting the inner–product's intensity of the object and a series of controlled base patterns. The image corresponding to the object is subsequently reconstructed computationally. The used configuration was a double-pass system that contains a digital micromirror device (DMD) creating a spatially coded illumination that were projected on the retina covering a field of around 16 degrees. The DMD was able to display series of Hadamard patterns with a rate up to 22 kHz. For each projected pattern, the reflected light coming from the retina is detected with an avalanche photomultiplier (single-point detector). After displaying a distinct number of patterns, an image of the retina is retrieved and displayed within our developed software interface in real-time. Results: Experimental results obtained using an artificial eye confirmed the viability of this approach. We were able to reconstruct images with a resolution up to 128 x 128 pixels. Furthermore, real-time video streaming with a frame-rate between 1 to 20 frames per second depending on the chosen resolution was produced. The use of sub-sampling techniques based in the spatial content of the images could either increase the frame rate or the image size. Since multiplexed illumination may offer a SNR improvement when compared to traditional approaches, this may reduce the light illuminating the eye. Conclusions: A novel approach to obtain images of the retina based in a single point detector has been proposed. The instrument (SPCO) operates in real-time and should be extremely tolerant to a variety of ocular conditions that typically degrade the images of the fundus, including large refractive errors or opacities. This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.


This thesis aimed to address and inform the gap in current sport psychology/coaching research, knowledge and practice related to the implementation of technical refinement in already learnt, well-established and self-paced skills. This was achieved through a series of studies conducted within golf. Accordingly, Chapter 2 revealed technical refinement as neither systematic nor consistent within and between European Tour players and coaches and high-level amateurs. Building on this need, the systematic Five-A Model was derived from the literature (Chapter 3), targeting outcomes of permanency and pressure resistance. Following, motor control (Chapter 4) and kinematic (Chapter 5) measures, technological methods from which these data could be obtained (Chapter 6) and appropriate training environments and task characteristics (Chapter 7) were determined, aimed at enabling informative tracking of progress through the Five-A Model in applied golf coaching environments. Having developed these ranges of measures and methods, Chapter 8 presented three longitudinal case studies aimed at implementing and tracking progress through stages of the Five-A Model. Results revealed outcomes with different levels of success in facilitating technical refinement, based primarily on psycho-behavioural limitations that were also found in Chapter 2. Therefore, as a final check on measures proposed, Chapter 9 confirmed previous suggestions by tracking six performers making short-term technical refinements within a single training session. Finally, Chapter 10 summarised the findings and implications of this thesis. Particular emphasis was directed towards the impact of psycho-behavioural skills in determining the success when attempting refinements, the further development of informative measures to track progress and inform coaches decision making and the wider implications of this research within clinical and rehabilitation settings.


Activated microwave-exfoliated graphite oxide combined with an ionic liquid can be used to make an enhanced capacitor. Supercapacitors, also called ultracapacitors or electrochemical capacitors, store electrical charge on high-surface-area conducting materials. Their widespread use is limited by their low energy storage density and relatively high effective series resistance. Using chemical activation of exfoliated graphite oxide, we synthesized a porous carbon with a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of up to 3100 square meters per gram, a high electrical conductivity, and a low oxygen and hydrogen content. This sp2-bonded carbon has a continuous three-dimensional network of highly curved, atom-thick walls that form primarily 0.6- to 5-nanometer-width pores. Two-electrode supercapacitor cells constructed with this carbon yielded high values of gravimetric capacitance and energy density with organic and ionic liquid electrolytes. The processes used to make this carbon are readily scalable to industrial levels.


Each academic year, the number of international students attending colleges and universities in the United States increases. Of the nearly 1 million international students coming to the United States for education, just under 10% enroll at community colleges; international student-athletes are among that total. In addition to the cultural and academic adjustments that all international students face, international student-athletes have the added pressures of athletics to adjust to when attending their community college. In the past, limited research focusing on the international student-athlete adjustment experience at 4-year universities has been conducted. In this study, I emulated previous research, focusing more on the adjustment experiences of international student-athletes attending community colleges in the Midwest. In the semistructured interviews conducted for this qualitative case study, I focused on the adjustments of international student-athletes in the areas of academic, social, and athletic experiences. A total of 12 international student-athletes, attending six different institutions located in the Midwest, volunteered to participate and met the defined criteria. Through the analysis of coded data collected during the semi-structured interviews, the findings indicated two major themes that reflected the adjustment experience of international student-athletes at community colleges, with multiple patterns supporting each theme. The emergent themes in this study were (a) factors influencing college-bound international student-athletes and (b) the transition to finding a place on campus. Reinforcing patterns that supported the themes that emerged included the participants' focus on education, athletic skills, and scholarship as influencing factors, whereas language barriers, homesickness, and


As is well known, in any infinite-dimensional Banach space one may find fixed point free self-maps of the unit ball, retractions of the unit ball onto its boundary, contractions of the unit sphere, and nonzero maps without positive eigenvalues and normalized eigenvectors. In this paper, we give upper and lower estimates, or even explicit formulas, for the minimal Lipschitz constant and measure of noncompactness of such maps.


The six articles in this issue offer guidance to educators in the application of learning technology in different contexts. The first three articles are aimed at those employing learning technology on specific educational contexts - informal and formal - whilst the fourth deals with inclusion countrywide. The last two articles offer valuable insights into learner behaviours and skills in changing technological contexts.

Laine, Vinni, Sedano and Joy draw on their experiences of developing Myst to offer a set of design principles for pervasive game platforms to be used in various contexts.

In their multi-site study of video-linked lectures for healthcare students Wang, Mattick and Dunne found that students' tendency to prefer live lectures at the home site created a challenge for multi-site videoing of lectures; but that student attendance at live lectures was more affected by topic and speaker than the availability of a video version.

Mogey, Paterson, Burk and Purcell explored the offering of a choice to students of handwriting or word-processing their answers to essay examinations. There were no significant differences attributable to writing format though the variation between the markers was striking.

From a review of the literature, Alebaikan and Troudi identify challenges in the application of blended learning to Saudi Higher Education that are also relevant to those facing similar challenges.

Barnard-Brak, Paton and Lan conclude from their study that self-regulatory skills are not automatically developed with students' online learning experiences, and that the design of online courses needs to consider ways of developing these skills.

The evidence from Winter, Cotton, Gavin and Yorke's study of effective e-learners highlights their ability to multi-task between learning and non-learning activities. Students' use of boundary management techniques is particularly relevant where Web 2.0 is used in educational activities.


William Wells Brown took rather unconventional first step in The Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847-48), the first publication of his long and successful literary career. The text bears many of the marks of 19th-century slave narratives' depictions of slave society: the narration of brutalities to which slaves were subjected, the breaking up of familial bonds, the hypocrisies and cruelties of "Christian" plantation owners and overseers, and the heroic attempts to escape this subjection and degradation, culminating in the successful removal to freedom in the North. However, Brown notably omits from the Narrative any mention of his education in letters, a common element of the slave narrative genre that prominent 20th-century literary critics have touted as chief among the genre s concerns. (1) Instead of depicting his literary education, and the links between that education and his desire for and success in flight from slavery, Brown reproduces the compulsory and fugitive travels of his youth and young adulthood. By foregoing the narration of literary acquisition in his first publication, Brown demonstrates the possibilities for freedom and agency outside of, or by routes other than, literacy. In this essay, I examine the disparate forms of travel and mobility that Brown experiences and reconstructs throughout the Narrative. Much of the narrative content that exists between an early scene in which Brown solicits a young man's reading ability and his description, in the text's final chapter, of himself reading antislavery periodicals revolves around the different possibilities for agency lodged in his various travels--travel on the Mississippi River in the service of his owners, fugitive travel on foot, and autonomous travel across the Great Lakes that he achieves by the narrative's conclusion. Brown's narrative addresses what Mark Simpson refers to as a "crisis of movement under slavery, in which an unlicensed, unpredictable slave mobility actually constitutes material and social violence," and in which "movement as a social resource ... pre-supposes a degree of subjective integrity--a measure of motive force, of selfhood, of will" (8). Just as literacy stood as a liberating disobedience in many narratives, travel is, for Brown and for other narrators of the period, the essential transgression of and emancipation from the laws of bondage. (2) In Brown's Narrative, a post-slavery subjectivity emerges from and with the achievement of deliberate mobility "as a social resource"--an un(der)acknowledged material precondition for most literary production. (3) It is not until Brown revises his personal history in the "Narrative of the Life and Escape of William Wells Brown," the text that prefaces both his novel Clotel; or, the President's Daughter (1853) and his travelogue The American Fugitive in Europe: Sketches of People and Places Abroad (1855), that he depicts the events through which he learned to read and write. In that revised narrative, Brown recalls his early days in Cleveland, Ohio, and the decision to split up the first shilling he earns by spending "6d. for a spelling book, and the other 6d. for sugar candy or barley sugar" (Clotel 22). He subsequently bribes two young boys to teach him the alphabet: "We all laid down upon the floor, covered with the same blanket; and first one would teach me a letter, and then the other, and I would pass the barley sugar from one side to the other" (23). Brown, it would seem, learns quickly and easily from these boys, recalling, "Before I left that place I could read. Finally, from that I went on until I could write" (23). For readers already familiar with Brown's life and writing, the omission of this brief anecdote might not seem particularly surprising. Much of Brown's young life, as he represents it in his various nonfictional narratives, was spent aboard Mississippi River steamers in the service of various owners and slave traders, and much of his fugitive adulthood was spent in transit as well, including journeys across Lake Erie and a sojourn in Europe documented in Three Years in Europe; or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met (1852), which was later expanded and republished as The American Fugitive in Europe. …


Most flowers are bisexual in function, but counting secondary allocation to attractive structures such as the corolla as equally male and female leads to the paradoxical conclusion that plants bearing perfect flowers invariably allocate much more to female than to male function. A method of calculating the gender of secondary floral allocation is described, and it is speculated that this allocation is predominantly male. Observations and experiments with natural populations of herbs, designed to test this hypothesis gave the following major results, (i) Insects visit larger flowers more frequently (Fragaria), and removal of floral biomass causes a reduction in the frequency of insect visits proportional to the fraction of biomass removed (Impatiens). (ii) Removal of attractive structures may cause a decline in the probability that a fruit will be formed but has no effect on the number of seeds set per fruit; thus, mutilation of essentially solitary flowers has no effect on seed-set per fruit (Impatiens), while removal of flowers from inflorescences in a species that forms several many-seeded fruits per inflorescence reduces fruit-set per inflorescence but has no effect on seed-set per fruit (Asclepias), and removal of sterile flowers from an inflorescence in which the fertile flowers yield one-seeded fruits is effective in reducing seed-set per inflorescence (Viburnum), (iii) Larger flowers may disperse a greater fraction of their pollen in unit time (Impatiens) and the removal of flowers from inflorescences causes a steep reduction in total pollen exported and a weak decline in the quantity of pollen exported per flower (Asclepias). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a single insect visit (or a very few visits) suffices to fertilize almost all available ovules and is procured by a very small allocation to attractive structures, while much greater allocation is necessary to procure the numerous visits required to disperse a large fraction of the pollen. This inference is supported by a comparative survey of sexually dimorphic plants, in which male flowers are generally larger than female flowers, male inflorescences bear more flowers, and male plants bear more inflorescences. It is concluded that the flower is primarily a male organ, in the sense that the bulk of allocation to secondary floral structures is designed to procure the export of pollen rather than the fertilization of ovules. This conclusion may be sensitive to whether it is the flower or the inflorescence as a whole that represents the primary unit of attraction to insects. It was found that the performance of a given flower was substantially affected by other flowers in the same compact inflorescence (Asclepias), though not by other inflorescences on the same plant nor by those borne by nearby plants (Fragaria, Impatiens). A general quantitative theory of flower and inflorescence design is outlined, and used to organize the extensive experimental results for Asclepias.


Part I. Introduction and Overview of Financial Markets 1. Introduction 2. Determinants of Interest Rates 3. Interest Rates and Security Valuation 4. The Federal Reserve System, Monetary Policy, and Interest Rates Part II. Securities Markets 5. Money Markets 6. Bond Markets 7. Mortgage Markets 8. Stock Markets 9. Foreign Exchange Markets 10. Derivative Securities Markets Part III. Commercial Banks 11. Commercial Banks: Industry Overview 12. Commercial Banks' Financial Statements and Analysis 13. Regulation of Commercial Banks Part IV. Other Financial Institutions 14. Other Lending Institutions: Savings Institutions, Credit Unions, and Finance Companies 15. Insurance Companies 16. Securities Firms and Investment Banks 17. Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds 18. Pension Funds Part V. Risk Management in Financial Institutions 19. Types of Risks Incurred by Financial Institutions 20. Managing Credit Risk on the Balance Sheet 21. Managing Liquidity Risk on the Balance Sheet 22. Managing Interest Rate and Insolvency Risk on the Balance Sheet 23. Managing Risk off the Balance Sheet with Derivative Securities 24. Managing Risk off the Balance Sheet with Loan Sales and Securitization


To have better understanding of radiochemical reactions among oxygen baking products in a fusion reactor, reactions in equimolar tritium molecule (T2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) were examined by laser Raman spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. After mixing them at room temperature, T2 and CO2 decreased rapidly in the first 30 minutes and then the reactions between them became much slower. As the predominant products of the reactions, carbon monoxide (CO) and tritiated water (T2O) were found in gaseous phase and condensed phase, respectively. However, there likely existed also some solid products that were thermally decomposed into CO, CO2, T2, T2O, etc. during baking up to 523 K.


As the period of implementation for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draws to a close, the global community is actively debating what should replace them. Local government is working hard to ensure that the post-2015 global development agenda reflects the important role of local government in implementing the new targets. It is a unique opportunity for local government to make its voice heard, to promote the importance of localisation of the new targets, and to position local government as a key partner in the implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)


Pressure drops of multiple piping elbows were experimentally determined for high Reynolds number flows. The testing described has been performed in order to reduce uncertainties in the currently used methods for predicting irrecoverable pressure losses and also to provide a qualification database for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computer codes. The earlier high Reynolds number correlations had been based on extrapolations over several orders of magnitude in Reynolds number from where the original database existed. Recent single elbow test data shows about a factor of two lower elbow pressure loss coefficient (at 40x 106 Reynolds number) than those from current correlations. This single piping elbow data has been extended in this study to a multiple elbow configuration of two elbows that are 90o out-of-plane relative to each other. The effects of separation distance and Reynolds number have been correlated and presented in a form that can be used for design application. Contrary to earlier extrapolations from low Reynolds numbers (Re c 1.0x 106), a strong Reynolds number dependence was found to exist. The combination of the high Reynolds number single elbow data with the multiple elbow interaction effects measured in this study shows that earlier design correlations are conservative by significant margins at high Reynolds numbers. Qualification of CFD predictions with this new high Reynolds number database will help guide the need for additional high Reynolds number testing of other piping configurations. The study also included velocity measurements at several positions downstream of the first and second test elbows using an ultrasonic flowmeter. Reasonable agreement after the first test elbow was found relative to flow fields that are known to exist from low Reynolds number visual tests and also from CFD predictions. This data should help to qualify CFD predictions of the three-dimensional flow stream downstream of the second test elbow.


Introduction Food security in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is an international policy priority. SIDS have high rates of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases, including obesity and type 2 diabetes, micronutrient deficiencies and, in many, persistent childhood stunting. This is associated with an increasing reliance on imported processed food of poor nutritional quality. Calls have been made for strengthening local food systems, resilient to climate change, to increase the consumption of nutritious locally produced food. We aimed to systematically review interventions intended to improve diet in SIDS, and specifically explore whether these interventions applied a local food approach. Methods The search strategy was applied to 11 databases, including in health, social science and agriculture. Screening of titles, abstracts and data extraction was undertaken in duplicate. Risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane tools. Narrative synthesis of the results was undertaken. The study protocol was registered (PROSPERO registration number: 2020CRD42020201274). Results From 26 062 records, 154 full texts were reviewed and 24 were eligible. Included studies were from the Caribbean, Pacific, Mauritius and Singapore. Five were a randomised study design, one an interrupted time series analysis, eight controlled and ten uncontrolled pre-test and post-test. Nine studies included some aspect of a local food approach. Most interventions (n=15) included nutrition education, with evidence of effectiveness largely limited to those that also included practical skills training, such as vegetable gardening or food preparation. Three studies were considered low risk of bias, with the majority (n=13) of moderate risk. Conclusion There is a lack of robust evidence on interventions to improve diet in SIDS. The evidence suggests that multifaceted approaches are likely to be the most effective, and local food approaches may promote effectiveness, through mechanisms of cultural and contextual relevance. Further development and evaluation of interventions is urgently required to increase the comparability of these studies, to help guide policy on improving nutrition in SIDS.


Summary After-ripening (AR) is a time and environment regulated process occurring in the dry seed, which determines the germination potential of seeds. Both metabolism and perception of the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) are important in the initiation and maintenance of dormancy. However, molecular mechanisms that regulate the capacity for dormancy or germination through AR are unknown. To understand the relationship between ABA and AR, we analysed genome expression in Arabidopsis thaliana mutants defective in seed ABA synthesis (aba1-1) or perception (abi1-1). Even though imbibed mutant seeds showed no dormancy, they exhibited changes in global gene expression resulting from dry AR that were comparable with changes occurring in wild-type (WT) seeds. Core gene sets were identified that were positively or negatively regulated by dry seed storage. Each set included a gene encoding repression or activation of ABA function (LPP2 and ABA1, respectively), thereby suggesting a mechanism through which dry AR may modulate subsequent germination potential in WT seeds. Application of exogenous ABA to after-ripened WT seeds did not reimpose characteristics of freshly harvested seeds on imbibed seed gene expression patterns. It was shown that secondary dormancy states reinstate AR status-specific gene expression patterns. A model is presented that separates the action of ABA in seed dormancy from AR and dry storage regulated gene expression. These results have major implications for the study of genetic mechanisms altered in seeds as a result of crop domestication into agriculture, and for seed behaviour during dormancy cycling in natural ecosystems.


This dissertation provides an innovative expansion of the historiography of Upper South locations during the Black Freedom Struggle and the War on Poverty of the 1960s. This study asserts that racial attitudes in Winston-Salem were superficially cordial and accommodating among the elites of both classes, with both sides invested in presenting a positive image of the city to the outside world. This tradition had its roots in the peculiar form of slavery practiced by the communitarian Moravians and was carried forward by New South industrialists and financiers. This dissertation demonstrates that at various moments in history, the less-privileged classes within the African American community revolted against the elites of both races to foment much more rapid change than was previously thought possible. "An Uneasy Peace" is concerned as well with the opinions and emotions of southern whites as they came to terms with the reality that their world was forever changing. This study examined hundreds of "letters to the editor" of local newspapers which provided contemporary opinions of events that occurred locally in Winston-Salem as well as elsewhere in the civil rights movement. These sources provide insights from people across lines of race, class, gender, and generation in a way not previously seen in any local movement study. "An Uneasy Peace" goes beyond the usual simplistic view of the struggle for civil rights as a straightforward battle between good and evil to probe the historical complexities and "gray areas" of various race-based issues and ideologies.


Document Classification in Support of Automated Metadata Extraction from Heterogeneous Collections Paul K. Flynn Old Dominion University, 2014 Co-Directors: Dr. Steven Zeil Dr. Kurt Maly A number of federal agencies, universities, laboratories, and companies are placing their documents online and making them searchable via metadata fields such as author, title, and publishing organization. To enable this, every document in the collection must be catalogued using the metadata fields. Though time consuming, the task of identifying metadata fields by inspecting the document is easy for a human. The visual cues in the formatting of the document along with accumulated knowledge and intelligence make it easy for a human to identify various metadata fields. Even with the best possible automated procedures, numerous sources of error exist, including some that cannot be controlled, such as scanned documents with text obscured by smudges, signatures, or stamps. A commercially viable process for metadata extraction must remain robust in the presence of these external sources of error as well as in the face o f the uncertainty that accompanies any attempts to automate "intelligent" behavior. While extraction accuracy and completeness must be the primary goal of an extraction system, the ability to detect and report questionable results is equally important for a production quality system, since it promotes confidence in the system. We have developed and demonstrated a novel system for extracting metadata. First, a document is examined in an attempt to recognize it as an instance of a known document layout. Then a template, a scripted description of how to associate blocks o f text in the layout with metadata fields, is applied to the document to extract the metadata. The extraction is validated after post-processing to evaluate the quality of the extraction and, if necessary, to flag untrusted extractions for human recognition. The success or failure of the template approach is directly tied to document classification, which is the ability to match the document to the proper template correctly and consistently. Document classification in our system is implemented as a module which applies every template available in the system to a document to find candidate templates that extract any data at all. The candidate templates are evaluated by a validation module to select the best performing template. This method is called "post hoc" classification. Post hoc classification is not only effective at selecting the correct class but it also excels at minimizing false positives. It is, however, very sensitive to changes in the template collection and to poorly written templates. While this dissertation examines the evolution and all the major components o f an automated metadata extraction system, the primary focus is on the problem of document classification. The main thrust of my research has been investigating alternative methods of document classification to replace or supplement post hoc classification. I experimented with machine learning techniques as an additional input factor for the post hoc classification script or the final validation script.


The third Evidence Live conference, organised jointly by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and the BMJ , was held in the 200-year-old University of Oxford Examination Schools. Run as a mixture of keynote sessions and seminars, it attracted several hundred people from around the world. There was an international line up of speakers which one meeting chair described as 'Evidence royalty'!

The meeting opened with a presentation by Muir Gray on transforming healthcare. Muir, who always provides a new perspective on matters, talked about changing paradigms and the new paradigm of population healthcare. In his model there would be no more inpatients versus outpatients or even hospital pharmacists versus community pharmacists. Care would become patient centred with the healthcare team ensuring that patients were cared for in the best environment, be that in hospital or at home, with the involvement of the relevant …


The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the basis of the court's authority to examine and decide on pretrial lawsuits, analyze and describe the legal force of pretrial decisions regarding the illegitimacy of determining criminal suspects and describe the comparative implementation of pretrial proceedings before and after the Constitutional Court ruling Number: 21 / PUU-XII / 2014 in the Batang State CourtThis research uses descriptive research type with sociological juridical and normative juridical, data collection method with literature study, observation and content analysis.At the end of the study the authors concluded that although the Constitutional Court's decision was indeed final and binding and binding and legal remedies could not be made anymore (a final decision). However, that does not mean automatically changing the Criminal Procedure Code. Because these changes can only be made by official institutions appointed by the State, namely the President and the Parliament which are the state's decision. Pre-trial objects prior to the enactment of the Constitutional Court Decision Number: 21 / PUU-XII / 2014, consisting of: whether or not a forced act of force (in the form of: arrest, detention, search and seizure); the validity of the termination of the investigation or the termination of the prosecution; and compensation or rehabilitation of pretrial objects after the entry into force of the Constitutional Court Decision Number: 21 / PUU-XII / 2014, namely the addition of a pretrial object over the validity of determining the suspect. In addition, the implications of the a quo Constitutional Court ruling also affect the validity of arrest and the validity of detention must be based on the objective requirements of the investigator; through two pieces of evidence and an examination of a prospective suspect in order to fulfill the allegation of "preliminary evidence, sufficient preliminary evidence, and sufficient evidence".Keywords: Pretrial; MK Decision; Pretrial Object.


Teaching Biology concepts such as molecular genetics and inheritance patterns to students in K-12 and college is challenging. The created Super Bowl Activity uses kinesthetic and visual models and a "hook" to engage students in the material. Through guided inquiry and modeling, this lesson reviews concepts of DNA, mutations, genotype/phenotype, transcription, translation, homozygous/heterozygous, and inheritance patterns while entertaining the students with a story of a football player with sickle cell trait who couldn't play in the Super Bowl. The students create a mutated and normal folded hemoglobin protein model based on amino acid chemical character and use them to simulate Mendelian genetics, inheritance patters, and heterozygous advantage. This lesson can be used by teachers and professors teaching middle/high school Biology courses as well as Undergraduate Introductory and non-major Biology courses. This teaching model was created to address content areas where students perform poorly on standardized Biology exams and was presented at a series of professional development workshops for secondary and undergraduate Biology teachers. One Biology instructor utilized it successfully in her Biology course as a review for end of course exams and felt the students were very engaged in the activity and material.


Online evaluations are one of the most important innovations in tourism in recent years, often combining a review/rating (business-specific evaluation) and a ranking (inter-business comparison). As online reputation determines economic success, tourism managers may be tempted to manipulate online content. This paper presents the results from a qualitative study involving 20 hotel managers in southern Sweden, and their perspectives on manipulation. Results confirm that there exists a wide range of review manipulation strategies, many of which are difficult to control. Even though only few managers appear to systematically manipulate, online evaluations represent a significant challenge for businesses, as they introduce direct competition and foster consumer judgement cultures. It is postulated that managers will increasingly find themselves in a Prisoner's dilemma, representing a situation where engaging in manipulation is the most rational choice in an increasingly competitive market situation.


Objectives: The objective was to determine the long-term effect (18 months) of 40 g daily consumption of whole soy bean on metabolic syndrome (MetS) in apparently healthy women. Design: Single-system experimental design. Subjects and setting: Ninety women were randomly recruited from three communities in Qwa-Qwa, Free State province. Outcome measures: Dietary intake (24-h recall questionnaire), waist circumference (WC), blood pressure, fasting venous blood samples for total serum cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TRGs) and glucose analyses. Results: The prevalence of MetS was significantly (p < 0.001) reduced from 53.3% to 34.4% after the intervention. The most prominent risk factors were low serum HDL-C and high serum TRG levels followed by obesity (WC). After the intervention, the MetS group had significantly improved mean serum glucose (p = 0.013), systolic (p < 0.001) and diastolic (p < 0.001) blood pressure. No significant improvements were observed in the non-MetS group. Conclusions: The prevalence of MetS is high in black women residing in Qwa-Qwa. Despite the beneficial metabolic effects observed in this study, a relationship between soy protein consumption and MetS risk factors could not statistically be confirmed. However, soy is a source of good-quality protein and is often used in low-income households as a replacement for other more expensive protein sources and the use of soy should not be discontinued as it may have a beneficial effect on MetS and may play a role in preventing MetS. More research is needed in large-scale case-control studies to determine the effect of soy consumption on MetS risk factors. Social media message: Research has shown that soy may be beneficial for ameliorating some of the metabolic syndrome risk factors.


Yes, there is something new in the way mechanical engineers are expected to design and in the way professors must now teach design. To illustrate how one institution is helping mechanical engineers to become mechatronics engineers, the article describes the undergraduate program in mechatronics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and in particular, the integration of the theory covered in lectures with the laboratory exercises. The hardware systems used in both courses are described. Also discussed are observations from conducting professional training in mechatronics both in industry and for the ASME Professional Development Program.


Implementation science has emerged in K-12 education to understand how new programs are introduced and sustained in schools and classrooms. The purpose of this study was to further the research relating to the implementation of evidence-based programs (EBP) in K-12 systems. Through the lens of the theoretical domains framework (TDF), the researcher analyzed the school-based implementation of a one-to-one computer initiative in an upstate New York district. Interviews with K-5 school principals, focus groups of K-5 teachers, and a review of the district's implementation documents provided the sources for the data. The study resulted in several interrelated findings. Educators lack determinant frameworks to guide the implementation of evidence-based programs, though a framework such as the TDF has applicability to K-12 settings. The environmental context, teachers' professional/social identity, and supportive principal leadership are vital to the implementation of new programs in a school. The findings provide the basis for several recommendations for future research and executive leaders. Further research is needed in the development of frameworks to study implementation in K-12 settings. Executive leaders enacting change in a system must consider the multiple forces that may impact an implementation process. Additionally, leaders must ensure meaningful, collaborative participation from key stakeholders to ensure support from the practitioners. The results of this study add a unique perspective to the growing body of knowledge in the field of implementation science for educators and educational researchers. Document Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Education (EdD) Department Executive Leadership First Supervisor Marie Cianca Subject Categories Education This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd/311 A Qualitative Study of the Implementation of an Evidence-Based Program in a K-12 Setting


This paper provides an asymptotic performance evaluation of network based or multilateral radio location estimators that use the time of arrival (TOA) and/or the angle of arrival (AOA) measurements of the signals travelling from a mobile station (MS) to a set of fixed stations (FSs) to estimate the MS's position. The analysis is based on the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) and the maximum likelihood theory, and takes into account the effects of the system design parameters as well as the effects of biased measurements, which can result for example from hardware calibration errors or multipath effects, including the lack of line of sight. Explicit formulas that provide a clear relationship between the various system design parameters and the positioning accuracy are derived and discussed. Finally, the theory is verified with numerical simulations.


There is concern in the Cross-Channel region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France) and Kent (Great Britain), regarding the extent of atmospheric pollution detected in the area from emitted gaseous (VOC, NOx, S02)and particulate substances. In particular, the air quality of the Cross-Channel or "Trans-Manche" region is highly affected by the heavily industrial area of Dunkerque, in addition to transportation sources linked to cross-channel traffic in Kent and Calais, posing threats to the environment and human health. In the framework of the cross-border EU Interreg IIIA activity, the joint Anglo-French project, ATTMA, has been commissioned to study Aerosol Transport in the Trans-Manche Atmosphere.

Using ground monitoring data from UK and French networks and with the assistance of satellite
images the project aims to determine dispersion patterns. and identify sources responsible for the pollutants. The findings of this study will increase awareness and have a bearing on future air quality policy in the region. Public interest is evident by the presence of local authorities on both sides of the English Channel as collaborators. The research is based on pollution transport simulations using (a) Lagrangian Particle Dispersion (LPD) models, (b) an Eulerian Receptor Based model. This paper is concerned with part (a), the LPD Models.
Lagrangian Particle Dispersion (LPD) models are often used to numerically simulate the dispersion of a passive tracer in the planetary boundary layer by calculating the Lagrangian trajectories of thousands of notional particles. In this contribution, the project investigated the use of two widely used particle dispersion models: the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and the model FLEXPART. In both models forward tracking and inverse (or·. receptor-based) modes are possible. Certain distinct pollution episodes have been selected from the monitor database EXPER/PF and from UK monitoring stations, and their likely trajectory predicted using prevailing weather data. Global meteorological datasets were downloaded from the ECMWF MARS archive. Part of the difficulty in identifying pollution sources arises from the fact that much of the pollution outside the monitoring area. For example heightened particulate concentrations are to originate from sand storms in the Sahara, or volcanic activity in Iceland or the Caribbean work identifies such long range influences.

The output of the simulations shows that there are notable differences between the formulations of and Hysplit, although both models used the same meteorological data and source input, suggesting that the identification of the primary emissions during air pollution episodes may be rather uncertain.


The Spitting Cobra, Naja nigricollis, is widely and densely distributed in Africa. Fourteen patients with proven N. nigricollis bites, who were seen in the savanna region of Nigeria, did not exhibit the neurological signs, such as cranial nerve lesions and respiratory paralysis, expected following Elapid poisoning. All had local swelling, in eight cases involving the entire limb, and ten developed local tissue necrosis. Spontaneous haemorrhage was detected in three cases and was the probable cause of death in one of them; the other death in this series was unexplained. Haematological abnormalities included prolonged clot lysis anf failure of clot retraction due to a platelet defect. There was no specific deficit in clotting factors and a delayed rise in fibrin degradation products was attributed to extensive tissue damage at the site of the bit. Most patients showed depletion of complement component C3 and glycine-rich beta-glycoprotein (GBG), suggesting activation of the alternative pathway of complement fixation. There was evidence of hepatocellular damage in two out of six patients investigated. There was no evidence that specific polyvalent antivenoms, used in doses of up to 80 ml, prevented any of the effects of N. nigricollis venom. Clinical laboratory diagnosis is discussed. In the past many bites were wrongly classified as viper bites on the basis of clinical findings. Immunodiagnosis is a promising method for assessing the true importance of N. nigricollis bite in West Africa.


Centuries ago, science discarded all notions of a vital force, although it retained concepts of invisible physical forces despite frequent objection by strict empiricists. Yet the concept of a vital force or elan vital is central to virtually all indigenous knowledge and perennial wisdom worldwide. It is often regarded as the quintessence of life. In recent decades a concept similar to the "vital force" has emerged at the frontiers of science, known as the "biofield." The biophysical paradigm embraces a "field" view of life that may be considered complementary to the dominant "particle" view, the biomedical paradigm. While the latter maintains that life is composed of a hierarchy of organized biological substructures down to the level of biomolecules and genes, the biophysical paradigm maintains that the essence of life is like a flame, burning matter into energy, and dancing like a flame--coherent yet somewhat chaotic. The biofield is a field of energy intimately connected with each organism that holds information central to its higher order of being. It has been proposed as having mind-like properties as super-regulator of the biochemistry and physiology of the organism, coordinating all life functions, and key to understanding life's integral wholeness. Although Western science has essentially neglected the field concept of life in recent decades, today more scientists embrace it for its integrative and explanatory powers.


The southern Absaroka Mountains are composed of layered rocks ranging in age from middle Eocene to Oligocene. Most of the rocks, which reach a maximum thickness of approximately 5000 ft, are volcanic sediments of andesitic composition. Locally, they interfinger with andesite flows and flow breccias. Hague9s nomenclature, Early and Late Basic Breccias, is considered inappropriate for these volcanic sedimentary units. Later nomenclature, such as Aycross and Tepee Trail, etc., suggested as correlative with Hague9s nomenclature is not considered completely compatible from a mapping standpoint. It is suggested that the terms Pitchfork and Wiggins formations respectively replace the Early and Late Basic Breccia terminology. The 2 formations, then, are completely correlative on a mappable basis with those of Hague9s that have been in use for more than 60 years.


Abstract. This paper presents diverse methods of photogrammetric surveys and applications in restoration works. It compares the methods of survey and highlights their advantages for each specific project. All the methods used showed the great advantage of photogrammetry, compared with the traditional method of survey. There is a great reduction of working hours (field and office). The restitution may be drawn up at any time, with the required degree of rigour, and may be more or less detailed depending on the needs of the Project, case of the dismantling of Cais das Colunas, in Lisbon. The single-image photogrammetry allows the restitution of flat elements, without information on their depth, which is ideal for surveying facades. In the Conservation project of the vaults of Jerónimos monastery church, the traditional stereophotogrammetry had the advantage of stereoscopic vision, allowing a careful observation of the details, anomalies of the construction and a precise diagnostic in situ. Photogrammetry of multiple images is a much faster method for obtaining the 3D model, through a dense cloud of points, which is the most commonly used in recent restoration projects, for heritage documentation and three-dimensional visualisation of the object. This last method was used to survey the church facade of the monastery of Alcobaça. The survey of São Miguel – o - Anjo lighthouse in Porto, and all the other cases, proved that photogrammetric restitution allows a detailed mapping of the construction, necessary for a correct diagnostic of the anomalies to support the Conservation Project.


The maximum drawdown control strategy dynamically allocates wealth between cash and a risky portfolio, keeping losses below a chosen pre-defined level. This paper introduces variations of the strategy, namely the excess drawdown and the relative drawdown control strategies. The excess drawdown control is a more flexible strategy that can cope with common (re)allocation restrictions such as lock-up periods, cash bans or liquidity constraints through an implementation with a hedging overlay. The relative drawdown control strategy is adapted to contexts in which investors seek to limit benchmark underperformance instead of absolute losses. A formal proof that the loss-control objectives introduced can be insured using dynamic allocation is provided and the potential benefits and implementation aspects of the strategies are illustrated with examples.


The disambiguation and processing of coherence relations is often investigated with a focus on explicit
 connectives, such as but or so. Other, non-connective cues from the context also facilitate
 discourse inferences, although their precise disambiguating role and interaction with connectives have been largely overlooked in
 the psycholinguistic literature so far. This study reports on two crowdsourcing experiments that test the role of contextual cues
 (parallelism, antonyms, resultative verbs) in the disambiguation of contrast and consequence relations. We compare the effect of
 contextual cues in conceptually different relations, and with connectives that differ in their semantic precision. Using offline
 tasks, our results show that contextual cues significantly help disambiguating contrast and consequence relations in the absence
 of connectives. However, when connectives are present in the context, the effect of cues only holds if the connective is
 acceptable in the target relation. Overall, our study suggests that cues are decisive on their own, but only secondary in the
 presence of connectives. These results call for further investigation of the complex interplay between connective types,
 contextual cues, relation types and other linguistic and cognitive factors.


Background: Of those military service members returning from the current conflict in the Middle East, nearly 20% report symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and only slightly more than half of them seek treatment. Most of these patients are reluctant to participate in traditional interventions such as group or individual psychotherapy, or the supplemental anti-depressives or anxiety pharmaceuticals prescribed to alleviate their symptoms. Through a systematic review of the literature based on GRADE criteria to validate the quality of evidence, this paper seeks to evaluate alternative medicine practices for the treatment of PTSD that are both effective and appealing to the patient. Method: An exhaustive search of available medical literature was conducted using specific inclusion/ exclusion criteria. Nineteen studies were selected for review. After applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, two studies were selected to be analyzed. Results: An initial search of available medical literature journal databases using specific keyword searches produced 19 articles for analysis. From these initial resulting studies, all unanimously showed positive results for the use of acupuncture in effectively reducing patients' depression and anxiety. None of the studies produced showed any evidence of adverse effects for the use of acupuncture in the treatment of PTSD. These articles were then limited to the time span of 2002 to the present in order to best capture those studies limited to investigations of servicemen and women specific to the current Middle East conflict. Several studies were excluded as anecdotal or small population case studies. The remaining 2 studies included Randomized Control Trials and Cohort Studies. These studies uniformly supported the use of acupuncture as therapy for PTSD. Conclusion: Based on GRADE criteria, acupuncture used as an alternative to traditional cognitive behavioral therapy or anti-depressive/ mood-altering pharmaceuticals provides equal to superior results in patients' symptom resolution and in extended remission of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.


We consider the classical evolution of the inflaton field and the Hubble parameter in homogeneous and isotropic single-field inflation models. Under an extremely broad assumption, we show that the Universe generically emerges from an initial singularity in a noninflating state where the kinetic energy of the inflaton dominates its potential energy. In this kinetically dominated regime, the dynamical equations admit simple analytic solutions are independent of the form the potential energy. In such models, these analytic solutions thus provide a simple way of setting the initial conditions from which to start the (usually numerical) integration of the coupled equations of motion. We illustrate this procedure by applying it to spatially flat models with polynomial and exponential potentials, and determine the background evolution in each case; generically the Hubble parameter and the inflation field as well as their time derivatives decrease during kinetic dominance until the onset of a brief period of fast-roll inflation prior to a slow-roll phase. We also calculate the approximate spectrum of scalar perturbations produced in each model and show that it exhibits a generic damping of power on large scales. This may be relevant to the apparent low-l falloff in the cosmic microwave background power spectrum.


We have developed a simple, rapid, and reliable protocol for the small-scale purification of DNA and RNA from, e.g., human serum and urine. The method is based on the lysing and nuclease-inactivating properties of the chaotropic agent guanidinium thiocyanate together with the nucleic acid-binding properties of silica particles or diatoms in the presence of this agent. By using size-fractionated silica particles, nucleic acids (covalently closed circular, relaxed circular, and linear double-stranded DNA; single-stranded DNA; and rRNA) could be purified from 12 different specimens in less than 1 h and were recovered in the initial reaction vessel. Purified DNA (although significantly sheared) was a good substrate for restriction endonucleases and DNA ligase and was recovered with high yields (usually over 50%) from the picogram to the microgram level. Copurified rRNA was recovered almost undegraded. Substituting size-fractionated silica particles for diatoms (the fossilized cell walls of unicellular algae) allowed for the purification of microgram amounts of genomic DNA, plasmid DNA, and rRNA from cell-rich sources, as exemplified for pathogenic gram-negative bacteria. In this paper, we show representative experiments illustrating some characteristics of the procedure which may have wide application in clinical microbiology.