Reinforcement learning has enabled agents to solve challenging tasks in unknown environments. However, manually crafting reward functions can be time consuming, expensive, and error prone to human error. Competing objectives have been proposed for agents to learn without external supervision, but it has been unclear how well they reflect task rewards or human behavior. To accelerate the development of intrinsic objectives, we retrospectively compute potential objectives on pre-collected datasets of agent behavior, rather than optimizing them online, and compare them by analyzing their correlations. We study input entropy, information gain, and empowerment across seven agents, three Atari games, and the 3D game Minecraft. We find that all three intrinsic objectives correlate more strongly with a human behavior similarity metric than with task reward. Moreover, input entropy and information gain correlate more strongly with human similarity than task reward does, suggesting the use of intrinsic objectives for designing agents that behave similarly to human players.


This research aims at improving observations and recording observations in the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) in the seafood and fish processing industry. HACCP implementation is becoming more and more important nowadays - the new EU food hygiene legislation that came into effect on l January 2006 requires food operators to implement procedures based on HACCP principles. Keeping accurate documentation and records is one of the principles of HACCP. The research aims at developing guidelines and recommendations that will be of help to the industry to improve observations and data recording.
In this research a case study approach is used where a seafood processing company is studied through careful observations and experiments. The set of results obtained are then further validated with other similar processors in the UK
A qualitative and synthesized view from observations, experimental results, and the literature indicates that companies in this industry often operate in a physically harsh setting characterized by low temperatures and wet working environments. The research demonstrates the inconvenience of using paper as a recording medium in this type of environment. Further results from the research strongly support the use of appropriate Personal Digital Assistants (PDA5) as an alternative and improved medium over paper for recording data.
In order to improve observations within HACCP and also in relation to product freshness and quality, the area of sensory analysis is investigated. Sensory analysis can and does improve observations provided it is applied correctly, ideally as described in the British Standards for sensory analysis. The use of a PDA also helps in this area by enabling assessors to enter data directly in electronic format at source. More elaborate computer programs could be developed and used to perform statistical computations using raw sensory data and also to compare results with existing reference values stored
in a database. The valuable output returned to the assessors could help in decisions on accepting or rejecting a batch. This research finishes with a list of guidelines that could help improve observations and data recording in the industry.


As an auto-ethnographic study, "Calligraphy: A Vehicle to Self-Reflection" was designed to explore the art of Arabic calligraphy and its possibilities. The driving question of this research was: How can understanding calligraphy art, the creative process, and its evolution be transferred by an artist-teacher promoting inspiration to regain self-identity and humanity for young minds? The researcher became the student through studying the history, understanding the theory, and practicing the craft. Traditional work and techniques were investigated as well as modern work. Throughout the study, memos, reflections, and journals were maintained along with photos and videos and each oeuvre created was followed by an artist statement. These sources were analyzed and recommendations made for their use to promote a reflection of belonging, regaining self-confidence, and promoting acceptance of who they are amongst the lost youth of Algeria and other third world countries. Therefore, promoting local craft extracted directly from the milieu was found to be an excellent method to foster the desired self-reflection that would encourage the strengthening of identity, culture, and belonging; furthermore stop the imitation of others and build self-confidence.


1 John 3:1-7 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.


Mobile micro-clouds are promising for enabling performance-critical cloud applications. However, one challenge therein is the dynamics at the network edge. In this paper, we study how to place service instances to cope with these dynamics, where multiple users and service instances coexist in the system. Our goal is to find the optimal placement (configuration) of instances to minimize the average cost over time, leveraging the ability of predicting future cost parameters with known accuracy. We first propose an offline algorithm that solves for the optimal configuration in a specific look-ahead time-window. Then, we propose an online approximation algorithm with polynomial time-complexity to find the placement in real-time whenever an instance arrives. We analytically show that the online algorithm is <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(1)$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="wang-ieq1-2604814.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-competitive for a broad family of cost functions. Afterwards, the impact of prediction errors is considered and a method for finding the optimal look-ahead window size is proposed, which minimizes an upper bound of the average actual cost. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated by simulations with both synthetic and real-world (San Francisco taxi) user-mobility traces. The theoretical methodology used in this paper can potentially be applied to a larger class of dynamic resource allocation problems.


This article reviews the use of hand washing soap and detergent in a healthcare facility, with the goal of facilitating procurement of such products. Currently, three active antiseptic ingredients are used in soaps for infection prevention and control. These are chlorhexidine (povidone), iodine, and alcohol. In this article, these will be scrutinised. A precis of research, on the availability of hand washing facilities and hand hygiene culture in a healthcare setting, is included in the review.


ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the area of geodemographic research through the development of a new and novel flow-based classification of commuting for England and Wales. In doing so, it applies an approach to the analysis of commuting in which origin-destination flow-data, collected as part of the 2011 census of England and Wales, are segmented into groups based on shared similarities across multiple demographic and socioeconomic attributes. k-Means clustering was applied to 49 flow-based commuter variables for 513,892 interactions that captured 18.4 million of the 26.5 million workers recorded as part of the 2011 census of England and Wales. The final classification resulted in an upper-tier of nine 'Supergroups' which were subsequently partitioned to derive a lower-tier of 40 'Groups'. A nomenclature was developed and associated pen portraits derived to provide basic signposting to the dominant characteristics of each cluster. Analysis of a selection of patterns underlying the ninefold Supergroup configuration revealed a highly variegated structure of commuting in England and Wales. The classification has potentially wide-ranging descriptive and analytical applications within research and policy domains and the approach would be equally transferable to other countries and contexts where origin-destination data are disaggregated based on commuter characteristics.


Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) is a prevalent but poorly understood disorder that is characterized by uncontrollable movements during sleep, resulting in sleep disturbance. Olfactory memory in Drosophila melanogaster has proven to be a useful tool for the study of cognitive deficits caused by sleep disturbances, such as those seen in RLS. A recently generated Drosophila model of RLS exhibited disturbed sleep patterns similar to those seen in humans with RLS. This research seeks to improve understanding of the relationship between cognitive functioning and sleep disturbances in a new model for RLS. Here, we tested learning and memory in wild type and dBTBD9 mutant flies by Pavlovian olfactory conditioning, during which a shock was paired with one of two odors. Flies were then placed in a T-maze with one odor on either side, and successful associative learning was recorded when the flies chose the side with the unpaired odor. We hypothesized that due to disrupted sleep patterns, dBTBD9 mutant flies would be unable to learn the shock-odor association. However, the current study reports that the recently generated Drosophila model of RLS shows successful olfactory learning, despite disturbed sleep patterns, with learning performance levels matching or better than wild type flies.


In this article, four different practical experiments in robotics and human/machine merger are firstly described and then considered with regard to their ethical implications. Results from the experiments are discussed in terms of their meaning and application possibilities. The article is written from the perspective of scientific experimentation, opening up realistic possibilities to be faced in the future rather than giving conclusive comments on the technologies employed. Human implantation and the merger of biology and technology are key elements.


Background Adiposity is a major risk factor for T2D, and is associated with diabetes markers. Saudi Arabia is in the top ten countries as to the prevalence of obesity, with an overall prevalence of 35.6% among adults. Although obesity is a major health problem in Saudi, the associations between anthropometric measures and T2D have not been extensively investigated in population-based studies within the Saudi context. The aim of this study was to examine the cross-sectional associations between anthropometric measures such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and T2D prevalence in Saudi adults. Methods This study was based on 2355 Saudis (≥18 years), part of a larger sample of 14,060 Saudis randomly selected from a roster of 150 primary health care centres (PHCC's) of Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. For each PHCC, a physician invited participants from randomly selected households (alternate houses). The number of subjects sampled from each PHCC was dependent on the total population assigned to the respective PHCC. Physicians confirmed diabetes diagnosis by either following World Health Organisation proposed cut-off values (fasting plasma glucose levels ≥7.0 mmol/L) and/or self-report of anti-diabetes medications. For the overall sample and for men and women separately, logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of T2D prevalence across body mass index (BMI) groups and WC tertiles. The reference category was the lowest. Covariates included: age, sex, marital status, education level, family history of diabetes, physical activity, caloric intake, and history of gestational diabetes (GDM) in females. Results The overall prevalence of T2D was 29.3% (25.4% in females versus 32.9% in males). In obese females (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) the OR for diagnosed diabetes was 3.39 (95% CI, 1.5–7.6, p = 0.001). While in males, a statistically significant association was observed for increased WC (OR 1.99, 95% CI, 1.2–3.1, p = 0.006) and T2D. In the overall sample, a direct and statistically significant (p = 0.014) association was observed between WC and the OR for diabetes within each group of BMI, whereas the associations of BMI with diabetes attenuated (p = 0.572) after accounting for WC. Conclusion Results suggest that measures of central adiposity, such as WC, are associated with diabetes, independently of BMI. These results may have clinical and public health implications in terms of targeted preventive strategies to address the ongoing diabetes epidemic in this context.


During expedition MSM37 on the German RV Maria S. Merian, bottom water temperature and sediment temperature profiles were measured in the vicinity of North Pond (western flank of Mid‐Atlantic Ridge) during exploratory dives with Remotely Operated Vehicle Jason II. In addition, push cores were taken at locations with high sediment temperature gradients. We could identify two locations where sediment temperature gradients exceed 1 K/m and bottom water temperatures showed an anomaly of up to 0.04 °C above background. We interpret these observations as clear indication of low‐temperature diffuse venting of fluids that have traveled through the uppermost crust. We can safely assume that the observed phenomena are widespread at ridge flank settings where sediment cover is thin or absent, and hence, we can explain the efficient heat mining on ridge flanks. Due to the difficulties of locating diffuse low‐temperature discharge sites and due to the fact that discharge can occur through thin sediment cover as well as through sediment‐free basement outcrops, it will be very difficult to quantify fluxes of energy and mass from low‐temperature diffuse venting in ridge flank settings; however, thermal anomalies may be used to locate sites of discharge for geochemical, microbial, and hydrologic characterization.


I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more 15 than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:—I mean the law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers[e] histories, at which goodnatured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the strangest I ever saw or heard 20 of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel. 25


Objective: The effectiveness of behavioral/lifestyle interventions in treating morbidly obese individuals is questionable. Aim of the present study was to compare the long-term efficiency of an intensive lifestyle intervention to bariatric surgery in morbidly obese women.Methods: Twenty-nine morbidly obese females participated in this study. Fifteen subjects were assigned to the Lifestyle Group and 14 underwent vertical banded gastroplasty. Participants in the Lifestyle Group attended 30 behavioral modification sessions over three years, whereas the Surgery Group received the standard of care nutrition after bariatric surgery. Body weight, resting metabolic rate, physical activity, body composition measurements and dietary intake data were assessed repeatedly during the first 3 years postintervention. Body weight and physical activity information were also collected 9 years later.Results: The Surgery Group lost significantly more weight in the first 3 months, and at 1, 2 and 3 years after surgery compared to the Lifestyle Group (P=0.004). However, at 9 years weight loss was similar between groups. Furthermore, at 9 years, the same percentage (61.5%) of participants in both groups lost and maintained at least 5% of their initial body weight. Physical activity level was more elevated in the Lifestyle Group compared to the Surgery Group throughout the study.
Conclusion: Surgery led to significantly more weight loss than the lifestyle intervention in the first post-intervention years. However, 9 years later both groups ended with similar weight loss, indicating that an intensive lifestyle intervention should not be ignored for treating morbid obesity, as it represent a safe, efficacious and costeffectiveapproach.


The aim of this study was to assess whether one month's stay in a shelter causes any behavioral change in the guest dogs. Fifteen cross-breed dogs were video-recorded for twenty minutes in their boxes once a week for five times, starting from the third day after admittance to the shelter. A significant reduction was observed in the frequency of dozing (r=0.95; p=0.01), waving high tail (r=0.95; p=0.01), and waving tail (r=0.92; p=0.02); duration was reduced for lying down (r=0.93; p=0.021), dozing (r=0.98; p=0.003), and waving high tail (r=0.93; p=0.019). Moreover a significant increase was observed in the duration of activity behavioral patterns, such as scratching door (r=0.93; p=0.023) and digging (r=0.86; p=0.060). In addition, an increase was observed in the frequency of standing upright (r=0.92; p=0.026), scratching door (r=0.99; p=0.001), digging (r=0.91; p=0.034), whining (r=0.92; p=0.024), and scratching (r=0.93; p=0.024). On the third and fourth week of their stay, some behaviors that are typical of a state of restlessness appeared, while others that are typical of a state of inactivity disappeared. The dogs underwent a behavioral test involving the introduction of different stimuli (unexpected noise, food and toy) in an unknown place, which showed they had got used to such external stimuli as noise (p=0.004). Data suggest that staying in a shelter can induce behavioral changes that should be carefully monitored to prevent behavioral problems which might develop after adoption.


Abstract.
 Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) have used central New York waters for breeding and stopover habitats during migration since 1984. In response to public concern over Oneida Lake, the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation initiated an integrated research, management and monitoring program aimed at mitigating cormorant impacts to fisheries and other natural resources in 1998. The history of this program was reviewed and efforts to reduce negative impacts of the Double-crested Cormorant population in central New York described. Management was successful, as demonstrated by a substantial decrease in cormorant use of Oneida Lake during spring, summer and fall seasons, and the apparent recovery of certain sportfish populations. Research identified cormorant movement patterns within and among water bodies and documented cormorant responses to hazing and other management techniques. The cormorant management program in central New York was intended to keep cormorant use of Oneida Lake at a level that prevents unsustainable impacts to fisheries populations.


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The Internet and the advance of communication technologies have brought unprecedented opportunities for harnessing the creative potential of people all over the world. In an attempt to utilize this potential to explore breakthrough new product ideas and find solutions to challenging innovation problems, companies make extensive use of crowdsourcing practices. The main purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a greater understanding of the dynamics of crowdsourcing by providing a comprehensive investigation of the behavioral factors that influence innovative behavior and the performance of the crowd. In particular, we examine motivational, knowledge and relational mechanisms of crowd engagement, creativity and knowledge-sharing behavior. We demonstrate that crowd members engage in new product ideation and innovative problem solving for different reasons (i.e., intrinsic, extrinsic, prosocial and learning motivation), and monetary rewards impact creativity in different ways, according to individuals' prosocial motivation. In addition, we find that a crowd member's performance in solving innovation problems is a consequence of the interplay between his/her expertise and how broadly and deeply he/she searches for solutions. Finally, we show that fear of opportunism by others – the main relational risk attached to disclosing knowledge in crowdsourcing platforms – is not uniform among crowd members, and trust in the owner of the crowdsourcing platform is central in assuaging such fears.


This paper presents an analysis of the long‐term (1982–2015) variability of aerosol optical properties, as well as aerosol and greenhouse gases (GHG) direct radiative forcing (RF) in central Europe on the basis of MERRA‐2 reanalysis and ground‐based observation. Calculations of longwave (LW) and shortwave (SW) RF were made with the use of the off‐line Fu‐Liou radiative transfer model and were preceded by the sensitivity study of the code's input parameters. Then, the long‐term mean as well as the annual variability for selected regions of aerosol optical properties and radiative forcing were analysed. The mean AOD trend was −0.056 ± 9% per decade and AOD was reduced by 48% between 1982 and 2015. While for 1982–1990 the trend per decade was −0.12 ± 20%, for 1991–2000 it was −0.17 ± 17% and only −0.02 ± 31% in the last 15 years (2001–2015). The trend of the aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) was 1.52 ± 0.12 W·m−2/10 year and 1.21 ± 0.19 W·m−2/10 year at top of the atmosphere (TOA) and at Earth's surface, respectively. The trend for GHG was significantly smaller and it equalled 0.27 ± 0.01 W·m−2/10 year at TOA and 0.17 ± 0.01 W·m−2/10 year at the surface. Changes in GHG and aerosol direct effect produced additional 3.2 ± 0.2 W·m−2 at TOA, which could be associated with the observed regional climate warming. The change of the direct aerosol effect was about 4 times the GHG RF. The influence of aerosol loading reduction on the radiation budget was significantly higher in the 1990s of the 20th century in comparison to the first decades of the 21st. The effect of aerosol reduction has significant impact on air temperature changes during warm season and negligible during winter.


Deep Belief Networks (DBN's) are generative models that contain many layers of hidden variables. Efficient greedy algorithms for learning and approximate inference have allowed these models to be applied successfully in many application domains. The main building block of a DBN is a bipartite undirected graphical model called a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM). Due to the presence of the partition function, model selection, complexity control, and exact maximum likelihood learning in RBM's are intractable. We show that Annealed Importance Sampling (AIS) can be used to efficiently estimate the partition function of an RBM, and we present a novel AIS scheme for comparing RBM's with different architectures. We further show how an AIS estimator, along with approximate inference, can be used to estimate a lower bound on the log-probability that a DBN model with multiple hidden layers assigns to the test data. This is, to our knowledge, the first step towards obtaining quantitative results that would allow us to directly assess the performance of Deep Belief Networks as generative models of data.


Abstract Nationwide, school principals are given wide discretion to use disciplinary tools like suspension and expulsion to create a safe learning environment. There is legitimate concern that this power can have negative consequences, particularly for the students who are excluded. This study uses linked disciplinary, education, and criminal justice records from 2008 to 2016 in North Carolina to examine the impact of principal-driven disciplinary decisions on middle school student outcomes. We find that when principals are more likely to remove students, this leads to reductions in reported rates of minor student misconduct. However, this deterrence comes at a high cost—these harsher principals generate more juvenile justice complaints and reduce high school graduation rates for all students in their schools. Students who commit minor disciplinary infractions in a school with a harsh principal suffer additional declines in attendance and test scores. Finally, principals exhibiting racial bias in their disciplinary decisions also widen educational gaps between white and black students.


Congenital limb malformations occur in 1 in 500 to 1 in 1000 human live births and are diverse in their epidemiology, aetiology and anatomy. The molecular analysis of disturbed gene function in inherited limb malformations provides essential information for the understanding of physiological and pathophysiological limb development in humans as well as in other vertebrates. The following Ph.D thesis focussed on the identification and molecular characterisation of disease causing genes and their pathophysiological mechanism for selected human limb defects such as Cenani-Lenz syndrome (CLS), Werner mesomelic syndrome (WMS), Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS), Split hand/ foot malformation (SHFM) and Temtamy preaxial brachydactyly syndrome (TPBS). In this context, we were able to identify novel limb specific genes and causative mutations in different components of evolutionary highly conserved pathways and, furthermore, to elucidate their role in physiological as well as in pathophysiological limb development. In detail, we found (i) alterations in the low-density-lipoprotein-related protein 4 (LRP4), an antagonistic receptor of Wnt signalling, causing the rare autosomal recessive CLS, (ii) specific mutations in the cis-acting limb-specific enhancer of the sonic hedgehog (SHH) gene being causative for WMS, and (iii) mutations in CHSY1 to be responsible for TPBS. Furthermore, we could show that mutations in the ciliary protein BBS12 can cause a very mild BBS phenotype. Moreover, we used in vitro studies to obtain insights into the molecular pathogenesis of these limb malformations. We studied the effect of five LRP4 mutants on the transduction and activation of canonical Wnt signalling by using a Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay and showed that co-expression of each of the five missense mutations with LRP6 and WNT1 abolish the known antagonistic effect of LRP4 on LRP6-mediated activation of Wnt/s-catenin signalling and thus conclude that homozygous LRP4 mutations in CLS cause a loss of protein function. Additionally, we functionally characterized the first autosomal recessive p.R332W mutation in the WNT10b gene causing SHFM6 and rise evidence that p.R332W causes loss of function of Lrp6-mediated Wnt signalling. In this regard we examined the role of the SHFM3 candidate gene Fgf8 in altering Wnt signalling and demonstrated that Fgf8 is a novel putative Wnt signalling antagonist which functions by direct interaction with Wnt10b. Hence, we present the first direct cross-talk between Fgf and Wnt signalling pathways and, therefore, physically link two important signalling pathways involved in limb initiation and outgrowth.


SUMMARY: The behavioural patterns of 26 species of Antho- and Leptomedusae (with or without medusa stage) were investigated by video recordings. The analysed activities were: answers to mechanical stimuli, prey capture and ingestion, digestion, egestion, and swimming. The quantity of behavioural patterns identified in the small number of hydrozoan diversity studied so far is sufficient to demonstrate that these supposedly "simple" animals have evolved a complex array of responses to both external and internal stimuli.


Among the most important goals in cosmology is detecting and quantifying small (M_(halo)≃10^(6−9) M⊙) dark matter (DM) subhaloes. Current probes around the Milky Way (MW) are most sensitive to such substructure within ∼20 kpc of the halo centre, where the galaxy contributes significantly to the potential. We explore the effects of baryons on subhalo populations in ΛCDM using cosmological zoom-in baryonic simulations of MW-mass haloes from the Latte simulation suite, part of the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. Specifically, we compare simulations of the same two haloes run using (1) DM-only (DMO), (2) full baryonic physics and (3) DM with an embedded disc potential grown to match the FIRE simulation. Relative to baryonic simulations, DMO simulations contain ∼2 × as many subhaloes within 100 kpc of the halo centre; this excess is ≳5 × within 25 kpc. At z = 0, the baryonic simulations are completely devoid of subhaloes down to 3×10^6M⊙ within 15 kpc of the MW-mass galaxy, and fewer than 20 surviving subhaloes have orbital pericentres <20 kpc. Despite the complexities of baryonic physics, the simple addition of an embedded central disc potential to DMO simulations reproduces this subhalo depletion, including trends with radius, remarkably well. Thus, the additional tidal field from the central galaxy is the primary cause of subhalo depletion. Subhaloes on radial orbits that pass close to the central galaxy are preferentially destroyed, causing the surviving population to have tangentially biased orbits compared to DMO predictions. Our method of embedding a potential in DMO simulations provides a fast and accurate alternative to full baryonic simulations, thus enabling suites of cosmological simulations that can provide accurate and statistical predictions of substructure populations.


We investigate the problem of secure communication in a simple network with three communicating parties, two distributed sources who communicate over orthogonal channels to one destination node. The cooperation between the sources is restricted to a rate limited common random source they both observe. The communication channels are erasure channels with strictly causal channel state information of the destination available publicly. A passive adversary is present in the system eavesdropping on any one of the channels. We design a linear scheme that ensures secrecy against the eavesdropper. By deriving an outer bound for the problem we prove that the scheme is optimal in certain special cases.


The encapsulation of paclitaxel (PTX) using amphiphilic calixarene (SC4-C6) is an attempt to improve its water solubility. The optimized nanocapsules were successfully prepared by a thin film hydration method where an organic phase containing the mixture of PTX and SC4-C6 (molar ratio of 1 : 10) was dispersed by probe sonication for 30 s into an aqueous phase. The optimized formulation of PTX loaded amphiphilic calix[4]arene nanocapsules had an average particle size of 206 ± 14 nm and an encapsulation efficiency of 82.65 ± 2.54%. Transmission electron micrographs demonstrated the sphere shape of the PTX loaded amphiphilic calix[4]arene formulation without obvious agglomeration. In vitro drug release experiments clarified the obvious sustained release behaviors of the PTX loaded amphiphilic calix[4]arene formulation compared to commercial Taxol. Furthermore, the PTX loaded SC4-C6 formulation revealed improved PTX induced cytotoxicity in human cervical cancer cell culture experiments in contrast to Taxol. The nanocapsules assembled from amphiphilic calixarenes obtained in this work displayed a desired narrow size range with acceptable drug loading and sustained release behaviors, which are beneficial for their potential application as an anti-cancer drug delivery vehicle.


Background: There is a growing evidence base for how people use religious and spiritual coping, and how coping patterns differ between ethnic groups. Aims: To describe what constitutes religious coping and compare patterns of religious coping across ethnic groups. Methods: In-depth interviews were completed by 116 people recruited from six ethnic groups. Subjects described how they cope with mental distress; their accounts were recorded, transcribed and subjected to the "Framework" approach to qualitative data analysis. Results: Formalized religion was not always necessary for individuals to make use of religious coping. Religious coping was most commonly practiced by Bangladeshi Muslims and African Caribbean Christians. Coping included prayer, listening to religious radio, using amulets, talking to God, having a relationship with God and having trust in God. Cultural or spiritual coping practices were indistinguishable from religious coping among Muslims. There was a greater degree of choice and personal responsibility for change among Christians who showed a less deferential and more conversational quality to their relationship with God. Religious and spiritual coping practices were frequently used, and led to a change in emotional states. Conclusions: People use religious coping, and this has implications for promoting resilience and recovery.


Hume thought that if you believed in powers, you believed in necessary connections in nature. He was then able to argue that there were none such because anything could follow anything else. But Hume wrong-footed his opponents. A power does not necessitate its manifestations: rather, it disposes towards them in a way that is less than necessary but more than purely contingent. In this paper a dispositional theory of causation is offered. Causes dispose towards their effects and often produce them. But a set of causes, even though they may succeed in producing an effect, cannot necessitate it since the effect could have been counteracted by some additional power. This would require a separation of our concepts of causal production and causal necessitation. The most conspicuous cases of causation are those where powers accumulate and pass a requisite threshold for an effect to occur. We develop a model for representing powers as constituent vectors within an n-dimensional quality space, where composition of causes appears as vector addition. Even our resultant vector, however, has to be understood as having dispositional force only. This model throws new light on causal modality and cases of prevention, causation by absence and probabilistic causation.


Mouth-to-ear (M2E) latency describes the time it takes speech input in a voice communication transmit device to be output from a receiving device, and has been identifed as a key component of quality of experience (QoE) in communications. NIST's PSCR division developed a method to measure and quantify the M2E latency of any communications system transmitting audio, with specifc emphasis on push to talk (PTT) devices. This measurement method is the frst step in establishing QoE key performance indicators (KPI) for mission critical voice (MCV) and a measurement system to quantify these QoE KPIs. Additional measurement methods will be established and published in the near future. The measurement system provides a fair platform for the comparisons of M2E latency across radio communications technologies. Both single and two location measurement systems were developed. The single location measurement system is a simpler setup ideal for measurements performed in a single, controlled setting. The two location system allows for the measurement of M2E latency between devices in two distinct locations and adds the capability to see potential effects of distance and signal propagation on the latency a user experiences. Example measurements of the M2E latency of VHF and UHF land mobile radios (LMR) operating in both direct mode and in trunked mode were performed. These tests demonstrated that both the single and two location tests return consistent measurement results. i _____________________________________________________________________________________ This puication is avilable ree of carge rom : https://rg/10.6028/N IS .IR .206


Adaptive random testing (ART) has been proposed as an enhancement to random testing for situations where failure-causing inputs are clustered together. The basic idea of ART is to evenly spread test cases throughout the input domain. It has been shown by simulations and empirical analysis that ART frequently outperforms random testing. However, there are some outstanding issues on the cost-effectiveness and practicality of ART, which are the main foci of this thesis. Firstly, this thesis examines the basic factors that have an impact on the faultdetection effectiveness of adaptive random testing, and identifies favourable and unfavourable conditions for ART. Our study concludes that favourable conditions for ART occur more frequently than unfavourable conditions. Secondly, since all previous studies allow duplicate test cases, there has been a concern whether adaptive random testing performs better than random testing because ART uses fewer duplicate test cases. This thesis confirms that it is the even spread rather than less duplication of test cases which makes ART perform better than RT. Given that the even spread is the main pillar of the success of ART, an investigation has been conducted to study the relevance and appropriateness of several existing metrics of even spreading. Thirdly, the practicality of ART has been challenged for nonnumeric or high dimensional input domains. This thesis provides solutions that address these concerns. Finally, a new problem solving technique, namely, mirroring, has been developed. The integration of mirroring with adaptive random testing has been empirically shown to significantly increase the cost-effectiveness of ART. In summary, this thesis significantly contributes to both the foundation and the practical applications of adaptive random testing.


Mesh models are a promising approach for encoding the structure of 3D objects. Current mesh reconstruction systems predict uniformly distributed vertex locations of a predetermined graph through a series of graph convolutions, leading to compromises with respect to performance or resolution. In this paper, we argue that the graph representation of geometric objects allows for additional structure, which should be leveraged for enhanced reconstruction. Thus, we propose a system which properly benefits from the advantages of the geometric structure of graph encoded objects by introducing (1) a graph convolutional update preserving vertex information; (2) an adaptive splitting heuristic allowing detail to emerge; and (3) a training objective operating both on the local surfaces defined by vertices as well as the global structure defined by the mesh. Our proposed method is evaluated on the task of 3D object reconstruction from images with the ShapeNet dataset, where we demonstrate state of the art performance, both visually and numerically, while having far smaller space requirements by generating adaptive meshes


Purpose: We assessed the safety and efficacy of synchronous VEGF and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) blockade with concurrent chemoradiation (CRT) in locally advanced head and neck cancer (HNC). Experimental Design: Newly diagnosed patients with stage III/IV HNC received a 2-week lead-in of bevacizumab and/or erlotinib, followed by both agents with concurrent cisplatin and twice daily radiotherapy. Safety was assessed using Common Toxicity Criteria version 3.0. The primary efficacy endpoint was clinical complete response (CR) rate after CRT. Results: Twenty-nine patients enrolled on study, with 27 completing therapy. Common grade III toxicities were mucositis (n = 14), dysphagia (n = 8), dehydration (n = 7), osteoradionecrosis (n = 3), and soft tissue necrosis (n = 2). Feeding tube placement was required in 79% but no patient remained dependent at 12-month posttreatment. Clinical CR after CRT was 96% [95% confidence interval (CI), 82%–100%]. Median follow-up was 46 months in survivors, with 3-year locoregional control and distant metastasis-free survival rates of 85% and 93%. Three-year estimated progression-free survival, disease-specific survival, and overall survival rates were 82%, 89%, and 86%, respectively. Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) analysis showed that patients who had failed had lower baseline pretreatment median Ktrans values, with subsequent increases after lead-in therapy and 1 week of CRT. Patients who did not fail had higher median Ktrans values that decreased during therapy. Conclusions: Dual VEGF/EGFR inhibition can be integrated with CRT in locally advanced HNC, with efficacy that compares favorably with historical controls albeit with an increased risk of osteoradionecrosis. Pretreatment and early DCE-MRI may prospectively identify patients at high risk of failure. Clin Cancer Res; 18(5); 1404–14. ©2012 AACR.


Drowsiness has been identified as one of the most important causes of traffic accidents, as it is pressent in the 20 % of them. Therefore, there is a growing interest in looking for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), capable of detecting driver's fatigue, to prevent potential accidents. So that, research in this area is vital.
In order to tactle drowsiness analysis while a user is driving, several worldwide research groups have been working on different techniques. Computer Vision techniques are prominent among them, since it allows, by means of relatively cheap technology, to monitor driver's state in a non intrusive way.
In this thesis a technique based on monocular image processing is introduced. This consists of detection, tracking and characterization of eye closure, able to deal with different users and real driving conditions. Using this information and others acquired from the car, the driver behaviour is infered.
Driver-related signals have been obtained from a wide set of sequences, in which there are different people's faces, either simulation or real driving conditions, awake or sleepy users.
For the purpose of driver drowsiness evaluation is necessary to generate a ground truth, which can provide the real state of the user at a particular time. This signal is obtained by 3 experts, as a result of studying several parameters as: KSS Karolinska Sleepines Scale, facial features obtained from the recorded sequences and registered signals from the driving process.
This ground truth usually has 2 levels, awakeness and drowsiness, although in this Thesis it has been extended, including a middle level: fatigue, to preciselly clasify the user's state. This methodology is new because takes information of the KSS scale and some experts.
Once all the user's face sequences were obtained, the developed computer vision techniques to
obtain eye closure have been tested. Face detection is based on Viola & Jones algorithm, which
is appearance-based, and eye detection is improved using clustering techniques and Kalman
filtering, as predictor. Eye closure is obtained applying, over the located eyes, adaptive filters,
projective integration and Gaussian modelling. All these image treatment algorithms makes the
system robust against illumination variation and different users, archieving real time operation.
Once the closure is known, the parameter PERCLOS (PERcentaje of eye CLOSure) is computed.
This parameter is one of the most relevant in drowsiness detection.
Talking about driving signals, obtained from the car, which depends on the user, some signs
filtered using temporal window have been obtained like: standard deviation (STD), root mean
square error (MSE) of the vehicle possition on the lane, number of lane excedances (Lanex), time
to lane crossing (TLC), its standard deviation, fast changes on the steering wheel angle, yaw
angle standard deviation, and generic variability indicators (GVI). In order to remove sign-user
dependence, parameter optimization using genetic algorithms has been carried out, taking into
account the ground truth.
In order to stablish the driver's state, some indicators have been merged using a multilayer
perceptron neural network, in which the number of neurons of the hidden layer is set using the
ROC curve.
Some results are shown in simulation and real driving conditions. The classification is performed by individual signals as well as fusing them, presenting the results using diagram error for 2 and 3 variables, and tables where the recall rate, the specificity, the sensitivity and the objective function are shown.
The results related to drowsiness detection demonstrates that PERCLOS is a fundamental parameter for the estimation of driver's state, and merging it with other driving signals improves the overall recall rate. Indicators related to driving yield worse results than using PERCLOS because those signals are not only caused by drowsiness but also by real driving conditions that are difficult to estimate. Heading error has been tested only in simulation because in real conditions it has not been provided by the person in charge of driving signals. During the simulation, the best possible combinations are the following: the fusion of PERCLOS and the standard deviation of the heading angle; and PERCLOS and the optimized MSE indicator.
During real conditions, the best possible combination is the last one. If heading angle had had taken into account during real operation, the recall rate would have been improved. Therefore, the obtained results guarantee the methodology used, and can be easily extrapolated from the realistic simulator to real driving operation. Conclusions obtained using this methodology are valid for real conditions even though the detection rate is lower since the input signals are noisier.
The results are in line with other important works about this subject [Sandberg, 2011] except in the consideration of the PERCLOS, the best signal for us maybe due to we use our own vision system and not a commercial one. On the other hand, results are better than other important works of the state of the art [Friedrichs & Yang, 2010a, Caterpillar, 2008].


Berggren and Elinder (BE) in this journal write on the relationship between the degree of tolerance in a nation and its rate of economic growth. They are disturbed to find in their cross sections that faster economic growth statistically goes together with intolerance of homosexuals. In this comment, we revisit the issue and demonstrate that the concern expressed by BE is unwarranted if we properly account for "conditional convergence" in the regressions for economic growth. Other things being equal, a country grows faster if it starts from a poorer initial position. In the BE dataset, China since the Deng reforms is a prime example. At about the same time, another group of countries managed to accelerate their economic growth after a long period of stagnation: the ex-communist countries in central and Eastern Europe. Many of these nations also grew exceptionally fast for a number of years, once freedom had been regained and the initial chaos overcome. With simple modeling of these historical initial conditions, we find no statistical pattern that associates bias against homosexuals with weaker economic growth. Our results are robust under alternative specifications.


This article discusses the challenges that Bobaljik and Landau (2009) pose to Boeckx and Hornstein's (2006) movement-based analysis of control in Icelandic. We show in detail that contrary to what Bobaljik and Landau claim, the movement theory of control (with a modification to accommodate quirky Case, a specialty of Icelandic) makes the right empirical cuts regarding the issues they raise, namely, (a) the differences in Case agreement between control and raising constructions, (b) the different patterns of Case transmission (un)available, and (c) the fact that allegedly Case-marked PROs are phonetically null. We argue that rather than being problematic, the data bearing on these issues actually provide independent support to the movement theory of control.


The use of a particle filter (PF) for camera pose estimation is an ongoing topic in the robotics and computer vision community, especially since the FastSLAM algorithm has been utilised for simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) applications with a single camera. The major problem in this context consists in the poor proposal distribution of the camera pose particles obtained from the weak motion model of a camera moved freely in 3D space. While the FastSLAM 2.0 extension is one possibility to improve the proposal distribution, this paper addresses the question of how to use measurements from low-cost inertial sensors (gyroscopes and accelerometers) to compensate for the missing control information. However, the integration of inertial data requires the additional estimation of sensor biases, velocities and potentially accelerations, resulting in a state dimension, which is not manageable by a standard PF. Therefore, the contribution of this paper consists in developing a real-time capable sensor fusion strategy based upon the marginalised particle filter (MPF) framework. The performance of the proposed strategy is evaluated in combination with a marker-based tracking system and results from a comparison with previous visual-inertial fusion strategies based upon the extended Kalman filter (EKF), the standard PF and the MPF are presented.


PURPOSE
CT number variations due to image artifacts induced by respiratory motion in CT and cone-beam CT (CBCT) imaging were investigated. A model was developed to predict CT number variations observed in CT and CBCT images.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Three target volumes of differing sizes were constructed of tissue-equivalent gel material and embedded into an artificial lung phantom. This mobile phantom mimicked respiratory motion with eight different amplitudes of respiratory motion in the range 0-20 mm at a frequency of 15 cycles/min. A model was developed allowing for simulation of the observed CT number variation as a function of the target volume, phantom motion frequency and amplitude and speed of CT scanning. The simulation results were compared quantitatively with CT profiles that were obtained from CT and CBCT imaging.

RESULTS
The size and distribution of CT numbers of well-defined homogenous targets varied with respiratory motion. In CBCT, CT number variations depends mainly on the target size and motion amplitude. Targets with a dimension smaller than the motion amplitude show highest CT number densities at the edges of the elongated volume. Conversely, targets larger than motion amplitude showed greatest CT number densities in the middle of the target. In CT imaging, CT number variations were more complicated and further depends on the speed of CT scanning where some targets were elongated or shrunk with varying CT number gradients depending on the above parameters.

CONCLUSION
The sizes and CT number distributions varied with motion for the homogenous targets. The CT number variations were modeled and simulation provided comparable distributions to those observed in CT and CBCT images based on target size, amplitude, frequency, and scanning speed. The results here might provide useful tools to correct image artifacts and consider CT number variation due to motion in treatment planning and dose delivery.


I. INTRODUCTION In 1997, Stanford University and the California Youth Authority [hereinafter "CYA"] conducted a biomedical research experiment on sixty-one male inmates from ages fourteen to eighteen. (1) All of the subjects were given a drug named Depakote, used primarily for treating seizures and mania. (2) The drug was tested to see if it would reduce the amount of aggressiveness in juvenile inmates. (3) The possible side effects to such a drug include "drowsiness, nausea, indigestion and vomiting ... hair loss, anxiety, depression, and a decrease in white blood cells." (4) These particular juveniles were selected as a target population because they had been convicted of violent crimes. (5) While Stanford attempted to obtain consent from parents of the juvenile inmates, not all parents responded. (6) Where parents did not respond or could not be found, the CYA consented for the juveniles. (7) This experiment presents various issues in biomedical and behavioral research on human subjects in vulnerable populations. The Stanford study led to such serious concerns, that the Governor of California asked the attorney general and inspector general to investigate the study's "legal implications." (8) The most important issue presented by the Stanford study is whether children who are incarcerated can give voluntary, informed consent to such experiments. (9) Federal regulations govern biomedical and behavioral research on human subjects. (10) These regulations give separate additional protections to both children and prisoners. (11) However, there are no regulations specifically covering the area of biomedical and behavioral research on juvenile prisoners or inmates. This is an especially vulnerable class of individuals to target for conducting biomedical and behavioral research. Voluntary informed consent is an essential element to any type of research, and when dealing with juvenile inmates as subjects, that consent is more difficult to obtain. Yet biomedical and behavioral research is still conducted on this population, as evidenced by the 1997 Stanford University study. (12) The question that will be addressed here is whether juvenile inmates can voluntarily give informed consent to participate in biomedical and behavioral research. Further, can juvenile inmates act voluntarily in the midst of coercion used by researchers to persuade the subjects to participate, and coercion that is inherent in the nature of being a juvenile inmate? Can consent be informed when a juvenile inmate's comprehension and understanding of what biomedical and behavioral research entails is limited by age and maturity level? Finally, even if juvenile inmates are deemed capable to give voluntary informed consent to biomedical and behavioral research, is simply participating in such research violative of their constitutional rights? This note begins briefly by defining biomedical and behavioral research according to the federal regulations. Then, the development and history behind the federal regulations is highlighted to show the origin of the current form of the regulations. This development includes an examination of the current form of the regulations, which illustrates the general provisions and their application to biomedical and behavioral research on human subjects. This section on the general provisions covers what is termed an Institutional Review Board [hereinafter "IRB"], informed consent standards, and possible sanctions for noncompliance. Following the section on general provisions is an analysis of two specific provisions that add protections for vulnerable classes of persons as research subjects. These two additional protections are for children and prisoners. Before there can be an investigation into research on juvenile inmates, there must first be a description of the additional protections provided for children and prisoners. The provision that relates to children is examined first, and covers definitions, minimal risk standards, and parental consent attached to informed consent standards. …


Our lab studies resistance to
 tombusviruses such as Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV), Cymbidium ringspot virus
 (CymRSV), and Cucumber necrosis virus (CNV) in Nicotiana species, according to the
 ''gene for gene'' model, which requires the recognition between a plant resistance (R)
 gene and a viral avirulence (Avr) gene, resistance that is commonly associated with a
 hypersensitive response (HR). Previously, we introgressed a dominant resistance from N.
 glutinosa into N. clevelandii, and showed that the R gene against tombusviruses could be
 a member of the N family of R genes, but distinct from it. In this study, I found 15
 groups of N gene homologs in these Nicotiana species, and hypothesized that one of these
 is the tombusvirus R gene. A screen of 22 Nicotiana species that belong to 10 out of 14
 sections of the Nicotiana genus showed that 18 species were resistant, 13 of them with
 HR. The tombusvirus P22 proteins triggered HR in N. glutinosa, N. edwardsonii, and N.
 forgetiana TW50, whereas the P19 protein elicited HR in N. tabacum, N. sylvestris, and
 N. bonariensis. To identify other tombusvirus genes that might act as Avr genes, I
 tested the TBSV replicase p33 and p92 genes and the coat protein p41 gene. The coat
 protein gene elicited HR in most species within the Alatae section. I suggested there
 are at least five R genes against tombusviruses, and showed that agroinfiltration is a
 powerful technique to screen not only a diversity of plant species as sources for R
 genes to study their evolution, but also to express viral genes as possible Avr
 determinants.


We analyze a cost allocation problem which could naturally arise from a situation wherein a tree networkT = ( N ? {0},E), serving heterogeneous customers, has to be constructed. The customers, located atN, require some service from a central supplier, located at vertex 0. The customers have heterogeneous preferences for the level or quality of service received from the central supplier.We formulate the above cost allocation problem as a cooperative game, referred to as anextended tree game. The extended tree game is a proper extension of Megiddo's (1978) tree game, wherein all the customers have identical preferences regarding the level of service received. We prove that an extended tree game is convex, and we show that its Shapley value can be computed in ( p| N|) time, wherep is the number of distinct preference levels. We further provide a complete facial description of the core polytope of an extended tree game, and demonstrate that even when there are only two classes of customers, the number of nonredundant core constraints could be exponential in | N|. Nevertheless, we are able to construct an ( p| N|) algorithm to check the core membership of an arbitrary cost allocation, which can be used to construct an ( p| N| 3) combinatorial algorithm to compute the nucleolus of an extended tree game. Finally, we show that the complements of the facet-defining coalitions for the core are all connected in an auxiliary tree graph with node setN.


This paper proposes a novel approach for detecting groups of people that walk "together" (group mobility) as well as the people who walk "alone" (individual movements) using wireless signals. We exploit multiple wireless sniffers to pervasively collect human mobility data from people with mobile devices and identify similarities and the group mobility based on the wireless fingerprints. We propose a method which initially converts the wireless packets collected by the sniffers into people's wireless fingerprints. The method then determines group mobility by finding the statuses of people at certain times (dynamic/static) and the space correlation of dynamic people. To evaluate the feasibility of our approach, we conduct real world experiments by collecting data from 10 participants carrying Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in an office environment for a two-week period. The proposed approach captures space correlation with 95% and group mobility with 79% accuracies on average. With the proposed approach we successfully 1) detect the groups and individual movements and 2) generate social networks based on the group mobility characteristics.


Background/Objective Gene-gene interactions in the reverse cholesterol transport system for high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) are poorly understood. The present study observed gene-gene combination effect and interactions between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ABCA1, APOA1, SR-B1, and CETP in serum HDL-C from a cross-sectional study in the Japanese population. Methods The study population comprised 1,535 men and 1,515 women aged 35–69 years who were enrolled in the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort (J-MICC) Study. We selected 13 SNPs in the ABCA1, APOA1, CETP, and SR-B1 genes in the reverse cholesterol transport system. The effects of genetic and environmental factors were assessed using general linear and logistic regression models after adjusting for age, sex, and region. Principal Findings Alcohol consumption and daily activity were positively associated with HDL-C levels, whereas smoking had a negative relationship. The T allele of CETP, rs3764261, was correlated with higher HDL-C levels and had the highest coefficient (2.93 mg/dL/allele) among the 13 SNPs, which was statistically significant after applying the Bonferroni correction (p<0.001). Gene-gene combination analysis revealed that CETP rs3764261 was associated with high HDL-C levels with any combination of SNPs from ABCA1, APOA1, and SR-B1, although no gene-gene interaction was apparent. An increasing trend for serum HDL-C was also observed with an increasing number of alleles (p<0.001). Conclusions The present study identified a multiplier effect from a polymorphism in CETP with ABCA1, APOA1, and SR-B1, as well as a dose-dependence according to the number of alleles present.


Objectives: To examine the relationships among preinjury and postinjury stress, coping, personality, mood state, and rehabilitation adherence. Design: Participants completed measures of preinjury life-event stress, social-support satisfaction, dispositional optimism, and mood state. Injured athletes completed postinjury measures of mood state, coping methods, and cognitive appraisals of stress and coping ability 1, 4, 7, 14, and 28 days postinjury. Their athletic trainer completed a measure of rehabilitation adherence on those days. Participants: 84 college football players including 19 injured athletes. Results: Negative-life-event stress predicted postinjury mood disturbance, which was positively related with appraisals. Appraisals were related to greater avoidance coping at day 7, greater active behavioral coping at days 14 and 28, and less active cognitive coping at day 28. Active behavioral coping was associated with greater mood disturbance, and active cognitive coping and avoidance coping were inve...


Nowadays scientific applications address complex problems in nature. As a consequence they have a high demand for computation power and for an I/O infrastructure providing performant access to data. These demands are satisfied by various supercomputers in order to engage grand challenges. From the operator's point of view it is important to keep the available resources of such a multi dollar machine busy, while the end-user is concerned about the runtime of the application. Evidently it is vital to avoid idle times in an application and congestion of network as well as of the I/O subsystem to ensure maximum concurrency and thus efficiency. Load balancing is a technique which tackles this issues. While load balancing has been evaluated in detail for computational parts of a program, analysis of load imbalance for complex storage environments in High Performance Computing has to be addressed as well. Often parallel file systems like Lustre, GPFS, or PVFS2 are deployed to meet the needs of a fast I/O infrastructure. This thesis evaluates the impact of unbalanced workloads in such parallel file systems exemplarily on PVFS2 and extends the environment to allow dynamic (and adaptive) load balancing. Some cases leading to unbalanced workloads are discussed, namely unbalanced access patterns, inhomogeneous hardware, and rebuilds after crashes in an environment promising high availability. Important factors related to the performance are described, this allows to build simple performance models on which the impact of such load imbalances can be assessed. Some potential countermeasures to fix these unbalanced workloads are discussed in the thesis. While most cases could be alleviated by static load balancing mechanisms a dynamic load balancing seems important to make up for environments with fluctuating performance characteristics. In the thesis extensions to the software environment are designed and realized that provide capabilities to detect bottlenecks and to fix them by moving data from higher loaded servers to lower loaded servers. Therefore, further mechanisms are integrated into PVFS2, which allow and support dynamic decisions to move data by a load-balancer. A first heuristics is implemented using the extensions to demonstrate how they can be used to build a dynamic load-balancer. Experiments are run with balanced as well as unbalanced workloads to show the server behavior.Also a few experiments with the developed load-balancer in a real environment are made. These results demonstrate problematic issues and demonstrate that load balancing techniques could be successfully applied to increase productivity.


This article is about the fear of the queer child — the fear that exposing children to homosexuality and gender variance makes them more likely to develop homosexual desires, engage in homosexual acts, deviate from traditional gender norms, or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This fear is thousands of years old, but it has undergone a remarkable transformation in the last half-century, in response to the rise of the LGBT movement. For centuries, the fear had been articulated specifically in sexual terms, as a belief that children would be seduced into queerness by adults. Since the 1970s, it has been reformulated in the more palatable and plausible terms of indoctrination, role modeling, and public approval.Since the earliest days of the LGBT movement, advocates have responded to this fear by insisting that it is empirically false — that sodomy laws have "nothing to do" with children, that marriage laws have "nothing to do" with schools, that children raised by lesbian and gay parents are "no different" than children raised by heterosexual parents — and above all, that children's sexual orientation and gender identity are fixed early in life and cannot be learned or taught, chosen or changed. In recent years, this empirical strategy has begun to falter, as advocates run up against the inherent vagueness, incompleteness, and unpredictability of empirical data. To break through this strategic impasse, this article highlights a growing vanguard of scholars, lawyers, and judges who are developing a normative challenge to the fear of the queer child. It argues that the state has no legitimate interest in encouraging children to be straight or discouraging them from being queer, because it may not presume that queerness is immoral, harmful, or inferior — in children or in anyone else. The state must adopt a neutral stance toward children's straightness or queerness, without attempting to promote one set of desires, behaviors, or identities over the other.


Salinity limits the rice germination and seedling growth at early growth stages. This study aimed to determine the morpho-physiological response of seventeen Turkish rice genotypes to four NaCl salinity stress (0, 40, 80 and 120 mM) under in vitro conditions during seed germination and early seedling stages. The effects of NaCl stress on water uptake, germination ratio, root length, shoot length, root fresh weight, root dry weight, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, ion contens (Na, K, Ca and K/Na) for both root and shoot, and photosynthetic pigments (Chl a , Chl b , Chl a+b and carotenoid) in 17 rice genotypes were investigated in the experiment. The values of all traits were decreased by increasing the NaCl levels (p ≤ 0.05), and genotype specific variations were identified under salt stress (p ≤ 0.05). The investigated traits were decreased by salt stress including germination rate (43.1%), root and shoot lengths (80.3 and 78.4%), root fresh and dry weights (85.9 and 83.1%), shoot fresh and dry weights (70.4 and 64.9%), root and shoot K/Na (97.8 and 98.6%), and chl a (44.3%). According to genotype, genotype  environment (GGE) biplot analysis, principal components (PC1 and PC2) represented (38.02 and 18.39%, respectively) 56.41% of the total variation among the genotypes under salt stress. Gönen cultivar showed greater performance for the investigated traits, and had the highest salt tolerance among the cultivars. It is concluded that Gönen cultivar could be recommended for the region.


It has become increasingly apparent that the future of next generation of electronic devices can and will rely on graphene nanoribbons. Graphene nanoribbons and sister structures showcase several key properties that can address the emerging need of terahertz science and technology, and break through the many technological limits on conventional semiconductor electronics operating in the terahertz spectrum. In this thesis, we focus on the study of the terahertz nonlinear optical response of metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons and sister structures using a k · p model and time dependent perturbation theory. We find that these nanoribbons exhibit a stronger interband optical response, and a smaller critical field strength (of the order of 10 kV/m) than does 2D single layer graphene. We demonstrate that finite ribbon size, spatial profile of the applied terahertz radiation field, polarization of the applied terahertz radiation, a small band gap opening, and application of a superlattice potential are several ways to tune the strong terahertz nonlinear optical response of metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons. The major contributions of this thesis include: 1) developes of a simpler method compared to other sophisticated methods of the terahertz nonlinear optical interband response of metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons; 2) extends the method in the characterization of various quantum size effects, elliptically polarized radiation field, small gap opening and superlattice on the terahertz optical response of these nanoribbons; 3) The versatility of the tunability showed in the terahertz


Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are a class of synthetic two-dimensional nano-structured anionic clays whose structure can be described as nano-layered ordered material. This study aims to use nano-layered materials as a host for Azo-compounds to form nano-hybrid materials and as filler for poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) to form nano-composite materials. A large anionic pigment (phenyl azobenzoic sodium salt; orange colour) has been intercalated into Zn-Al LDH and X-ray diffraction patterns showed that the interlayer spacing of Zn-Al LDH increased from 0.77 nm to 1.9-2.8 nm. Thermal analyses (TG and DTA) revealed the presence of a complex system of supra-molecular host-guest interactions. Nano-composite based on nano-hybrid Zn-Al-Azo LDH and PVA was prepared through intercalation reactions. It was characterised by X-ray diffraction, UV-Visible absorption spectra and thermal analyses. The results suggest that the nano-composites are formed via the re-aggregation of the delaminated LDH lamellar with the interlayer spacing 3 nm, and the thermal stability of the nano-composite improved compared with the original PVA.


This paper points out that several known ways of modeling non-negative nominal interest rates lead to different implications for the risk-neutral distribution of the short rate that can be checked with options data. In particular, Black's boundary models ("interest rates as options") imply a probability density function (pdf) that contains a Dirac delta function and a cumulative distribution function (cdf) that is nonzero at the zero boundary [P (K) ∝ K behavior for put option price for strike K near 0], while models like the CIR and positive-definite quadratic-Gaussian (QG) models have a zero cdf at the boundary [P (K) ∝ K, α > 1]. Eurodollar futures options data are found to favor Black's boundary models: the CIR/QG models, even multifactor versions, have difficulty capturing option prices accurately not only in low interest rate environments but also in higher interest rate environments, and data in early 2008 provide an almost tangible signature of the Dirac delta function in Black's boundary pdf models. Options data also contradict the prediction of well-known models whose cdf is zero at the zero boundary, namely that the risk-neutral pdf is always positively skewed.


Open ocean surface CO2 levels are projected to reach approximately 800 µatm, and ocean pH to decrease by approximately 0.3 units by the year 2100 due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the subsequent process of ocean acidification (OA). When exposed to these CO2/pH values, several fish species display abnormal behaviour in laboratory tests, an effect proposed to be linked to altered neuronal GABAA receptor function. Juvenile blacksmith (Chromis punctipinnis) are social fish that regularly experience CO2/pH fluctuations through kelp forest diurnal primary production and upwelling events, so we hypothesized that they might be resilient to OA. Blacksmiths were exposed to control conditions (pH ∼ 7.92; pCO2 ∼ 540 µatm), constant acidification (pH ∼ 7.71; pCO2 ∼ 921 µatm) and oscillating acidification (pH ∼ 7.91, pCO2 ∼ 560 µatm (day), pH ∼ 7.70, pCO2 ∼ 955 µatm (night)), and caught and tested in two seasons of the year when the ocean temperature was different: winter (16.5 ± 0.1°C) and summer (23.1 ± 0.1°C). Neither constant nor oscillating CO2-induced acidification affected blacksmith individual light/dark preference, inter-individual distance in a shoal or the shoal's response to a novel object, suggesting that blacksmiths are tolerant to projected future OA conditions. However, blacksmiths tested during the winter demonstrated significantly higher dark preference in the individual light/dark preference test, thus confirming season and/or water temperature as relevant factors to consider in behavioural tests.


Stormont, Fletcher's Adit and Ti Tree Creek are three mineralised, calc-silicate skarns
in the Moina district, NW Tasmania. Stormont is a Au and Bi-bearing skarn, Fletcher's Adit
contains minor Cu, Au, Bi, W, Sn and Zn, and Ti Tree Creek contains small amounts of Sn
and Bi. The three skarns are hosted in the basal section of the Ordovician Gordon Limestone
and the upper portion of the underlying Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician Moina Sandstone.
Metasomatism and mineralisation occurred during the late Devonian intrusion of the ilmenite
series, Dolcoath Granite. The granite-to-prospect distance increases to the west, from Ti Tree
Creek to Fletcher's Adit, to the most distal (0.5 - 1 km) Stormont deposit.
The three skarn deposits have a similar paragenesis during the metamorphic,
metasomatic and early retrograde stages of skarn development Wollastonite and salitic
clinopyroxene were formed during the metamorphic stage of skarn development. Andradite
(and minor Cr-rich grossular) garnet, salitic clinopyroxene and minor vesuvianite were formed
during the infiltration metasomatic phase.
Epidote, actinolitic amphibole, quartz and fluorite were the major phases formed
during the actinolite replacement stage of retrograde alteration, while chlorite, fluorite,
muscovite, calcite and quartz were stable during the later mineralisation stage of retrograde
alteration. Differences between the deposits in the late retrograde and mineralisation stages
include the intensity of retrograde alteration, the abundance of minor retrograde phases, native
gold, native bismuth, bismuthinite, galenobismutite, magnetite and base metal sulphides.
Opaque minerals present in the three skarns are magnetite, pyrrhotite, pyrite,
marcasite, arsenopyrite, native bismuth, bismuthinite, galenobismutite, a Bi-Te sulphide,
chalcopyrite, native gold, hematite and goethite. Gold is associated with bismuthinite.
Generally, Au, Bi, Pb and Sn mineralisation is restricted to the calcareous host rocks, Cu, W,
As, Ag and Zn mineralisation occurs in the skarn or the footwall lithologies and Mo
mineralisation occurs exclusively in the footwall.
Stormont is a gold skarn, having a high pyroxene/garnet ratio, a deficiency of base
metal sulphides, abundant retrograde alteration, late stage reduced mineralising fluids,
statistically significant positive Au/Bi, Au/Pb and Bi/Pb metal correlation coefficients, a statistically insignificant positive Au/Cu metal correlation coefficient, locally high Au and Bi
grades, very high Au(ppm)/Cu(%) ratios, and common bismuthinite and native bismuth.
The compositions of major calc-silicate phases support Stormont's status as a gold
skarn. Clinopyroxenes from Stormont belong to the diopside-hedenbergite series, ranging
from Diso to Di76· although they are occasionally anomalously manganiferous (up to J09), and
are not highly aluminous. Garnets from Stormont are grandites and range from A£49 to Ad6Q.
The observed opaque mineral paragenesis and thermodynamic modelling indicate that
gold was deposited (with bismuthinite) as a bisulphide complex late in the paragenesis, as a
result of the mineralising fluids dropping in temperature and f02. A discrete population of high
Au and Bi grades is unique to Stormont in the Moina area, indicating that the mineralising
fluids that precipitated Au and Bi at Stormont were of a different character to those at
Fletcher's Adit.
The gold at Stormont is hypothesized to have originated from underlying Cambrian
volcanics which were leached by late stage, circulating meteoric (and magmatic?) fluids.
Stormont's increased granite-to-prospect distance, fracture/fault controlled permeability and
inter-granular permeability of the skarn (due to massive actinolite replacement), as well as the
regionally high permeability of the footwall arenites may have assisted the development of an
efficient large-scale convection cell.


The impact of human activity on the planet cannot be understated. Food systems are at the centre of a tangled web of interactions affecting all life. They are a complex nexus that directly and indirectly affects, and is affected by, a diverse set of social, environmental and technological phenomena. The complexity and often intractability of these interactions have created a variety of food-related problems that people seek to address in a collaborative and interdisciplinary manner through the adoption of a holistic food systems perspective. However, operationalising a systemic approach to address food system challenges is not a guarantee of success or positive outcomes. This is largely due to the partiality inherent in taking a systems perspective, and the difficulty in communicating these different perspectives among stakeholders. A functional food systems literacy is therefore required to aid people in communicating and collaborating on food system problems within dynamic learning networks. The Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) programme has been operating since 2015 as a social learning system to develop a food systems pedagogy with a range of multi-sectoral partners. The findings in this paper arise out of iterative reflexive practice into our teaching approach and delivery methods by former and current staff. In order to foster integrative engagement on food system challenges, we propose and define a functional food systems literacy—a theoretical minimum that can aid diverse stakeholders to explore and intervene in food systems through more effective communication and collaboration. Derived from a reflective analysis of instruments and methods in delivering the IFSTAL programme, we provide a framework that disaggregates functional food systems literacy according to four knowledge types, and includes examples of skills and activities utilised in the IFSTAL programme to support learning in these different domains. We argue that claims to comprehensive food systems knowledge are unrealistic and therefore propose that a functional food systems literacy should focus on providing a means of navigating partial claims to knowledge and uncertainty as well as fostering effective collaboration. We believe that this will enhance the capabilities of stakeholders to work effectively within dynamic learning networks.


The course syllabus is a staple document in virtually every higher education classroom. Studies suggest that given appropriate attention to contents, the syllabus has opportunity to elevate student engagement and performance in a class. However, research on syllabi components in construction management (CM) is minimal to date. This paper presents an introductory exploration into the inclusion of syllabi components within CM that informed a larger body of research currently ongoing. Couse syllabi from 34, 4-year CM programs were evaluated for the presence of 26 specific components. These results were compared to a previous study of 350 syllabi in higher education and current recommended practice by selected teaching and learning centers to determine the areas where CM syllabi exceed or fall short of other disciplines. CM syllabi exceeded other disciplines within higher education in most categories. Details related to course assignments, instructor contact information, events specific to CM, and motivation of learning tactics were the key areas where CM syllabi had potential to enhance educational effectiveness within the CM discipline.


Background. The impact of human genetic background on low-trauma fracture (LTF) risk has not been evaluated in the context of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and clinical LTF risk factors. Methods. In the general population, 6 common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associate with LTF through genome-wide association study. Using genome-wide SNP arrays and imputation, we genotyped these SNPs in HIV-positive, white Swiss HIV Cohort Study participants. We included 103 individuals with a first, physician-validated LTF and 206 controls matched on gender, whose duration of observation and whose antiretroviral therapy start dates were similar using incidence density sampling. Analyses of nongenetic LTF risk factors were based on 158 cases and 788 controls. Results. A genetic risk score built from the 6 LTF-associated SNPs did not associate with LTF risk, in both models including and not including parental hip fracture history. The contribution of clinical LTF risk factors was limited in our dataset. Conclusions. Genetic LTF markers with a modest effect size in the general population do not improve fracture prediction in persons with HIV, in whom clinical LTF risk factors are prevalent in both cases and controls.


Nanostructured magnetic materials continuously attract tremendous interest in both science and technology and their applications are found, for example, in the area of magnetic data storage.
One versatile, and technologically mature, route to design and
tailor modern magnetic materials is the growth of thin films as epitaxial heterostructures.
The precise control of the associated epitaxial strain, in other words an elastic deformation, can profoundly alter the intrinsic magnetic properties of the coherently grown layers.
However, going beyond the elastic regime, strain may also create lattice instabilities, reshaping the material's energy landscape, and possibly promoting novel, metastable phases and/or the spontaneous formation of magnetic nanostructures.

In this thesis, the iron-rhodium (Fe-Rh) binary alloy system is identified as a promising candidate for epitaxial strain-tailoring due to the presence of both, fragile and competing magnetic exchange interactions and inherent lattice instabilities. The close entanglement of these properties may lead to unprecedented strain adaption mechanisms accompanied by beneficially modified magnetic characteristics.

Indeed, in the course of this work, it was discovered that epitaxial layers of chemically disordered equiatomic FeRh grown on tungsten (W) buffer layers show a novel strain adaption behavior. Essentially, the strain triggers a lattice instability, which in turn drives the film
from a tetragonal into an orthorhombic structure, featuring a 90° domain pattern, reminiscent of adaptive martensites.
The structural changes have a profound impact on magnetism,
suppressing ferromagnetic (FM) order and eventually resulting in a spin glas (SG) configuration at low temperatures.
 A study of the thickness dependence
evidenced a gradual evolution from a tetragonally distorted lattice to the adaptive orthorhombic structure in films with increasing thickness, representing a coherent release of epitaxial stress and hence decrease of the system's elastic energy.
Then, the compositional limit of the lattice instability was explored. Beyond a Fe content of 72 at.-% it is no longer possible to accommodate the strain by adoption of the orthorhombic phase. Instead a fully relaxed, bcc phase is found, which shows its expected FM ground state.

The influence of the epitaxial misfit was investigated by using tungsten-vanadium (W-V) alloy buffer layers. Here, a distinct dependence of the final structure on the growth temperature was revealed. FeRh films grown at ambient temperatures on buffer layers with decreasing mismatch (compared to pure W) develop a structure similar to the orthorhombic phase, which features an extra directional tilting in order to match to the W-V lattice constant. However, at elevated growth temperatures the films spontaneously segregate on the lateral scale, into two different phases: the orthorhombic and a partially ordered body-centered-tetragonal (bct) phase, reducing the elastic energy in each individual phase. Most importantly, these two phases are in different magnetic states, the first being paramagnetic (PM) and the second ferromagnetic (FM). The resulting nano-scale arrangement of the PM and FM phase can be described as a strain-induced self-assembled magnetic nanostructure.
Hence,
the newly found lattice instability is directly placed into an application related context, potentially allowing the bottom up down-scaling of the magnetic bit size in FeRh based data storage media.

The findings of this work extend the concepts of strain-induced or strain-engineered magnetic nanostructures from the purely nano-twinned structures to a two-phase-adaption mechanism. On a more general note, the presented studies highlight the fascinating properties of hitherto unknown metastable phases in the Fe-Rh system, which may motivate similar studies in related binary or ternary alloy systems, likewise offering advantageous prerequisites.


When testing a theory, we should ask not just whether its predictions match what we see in the data, but also about its "completeness": how much of the predictable variation in the data does the theory capture? Defining completeness is conceptually challenging, but we show how methods based on machine learning can provide tractable measures of completeness. We also identify a model domain—the human perception and generation of randomness—where measures of completeness can be feasibly analyzed; from these measures we discover there is significant structure in the problem that existing theories have yet to capture.


The total number of genes in higher organisms is estimated to be under one hundred thousand. However, constructing a cDNA library containing a full set of genes expressed throughout the life time of an organism, without redundancy, is a major challenge for modern biology. Towards this goal, I have tried to make a library of mouse fibroblastoid Ltk- cells with nearly equal representations of cDNA clones. Double-stranded cDNAs (ds-cDNAs) are synthesized from mRNA using an oligo(dT)-Notl primer. After shearing to 200-400 bp, a synthetic linker-primer, which has one blunt and one sticky end and an internal EcoRl site, is ligated to the cDNAs. The cDNAs are amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the ligated linker-primer sequence. After denaturation and reassociation of the ds-cDNAs, and isolation of single-stranded cDNAs (ss-cDNAs) by hydroxylapatite chromatography, the ss-cDNAs are again amplified by PCR. The cDNAs are digested with EcoRl and Notl, and inserted into a plasmid vector. Colony hybridization with eight probes of different abundance showed a reduction in 'abundance variation' from at least 20,000-fold in the original library to 40-fold in the library constructed after three cycles of equalization. This indicates the usefulness of the current procedure for making equalized cDNA libraries.


Background: Peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) reflects the strength and condition of respiratory muscles and the degree of airflow limitation in large airways. PEFR shows hour-to-hour variation that follows a specific pattern, which has been identified in both asthmatics and healthy individuals. Adequate data were not available for the diurnal variation in normal individuals who are students in professional courses and lead a sedentary lifestyle. Hence, this study was undertaken to study the diurnal variation in PEFRs in healthy adult male and female subjects in South India. Materials and Methods: PEFR was recorded in 50 healthy adult male and 50 healthy adult female students aged 18-23 years who were enrolled in professional courses [e.g. Bachelor of Medicine (MBBS), Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), Nursing, and Master of Science (M.Sc.)]. Mini-Wright peak flow meter was used to measure the PEFR. The PEFRs were recorded at 7-8 AM, 10-11 AM, 1-2 PM, 4-5 PM, and 7-8 PM for 2 consecutive days. Results: On analysis of the PEFR records of individual subjects, it was seen that there was an overall dip in the morning at 7-8 AM PEFR, which increased in the daytime, peaking in the afternoon at 4-5 PM and eventually decreased in the night. The subjects did not show the peak PEFR values at the same time point, 16% of the subjects had a rise in PEFR in the early morning, afternoon (1-2 PM) peak was observed in 22% of subjects, and evening (4-5 PM) peak was observed in 36% of subjects. Only 2% of subjects showed a peak in the night time (7-8 PM) PEFR values. Conclusion: This study provided the preliminary reference data of diurnal variation of PEFR in healthy adults. There is a variation in the PEFR recorded during different time points of the day; hence, in order to compare the PEFR between individuals it is advisable to record the PEFR at the same time point. The difference in diurnal variation may be due to the difference in the waking up time between the male and the female subjects as the peak PEFR is generally seen at the midtime of the entire duration when the subject is awake.


This report describes a project aimed at developing a low-cost, portable, on-site, userfriendly system for detecting different concentrations of phosphate in drinking water. Phosphate is a natural chemical, but toxic in large concentrations; detection is therefore important to avoid drinking contaminated water. Despite this fact, no cheap, and/or nontoxic system for phosphate detection is yet on the market. The detection system utilizes a paper-based microfluidic device to automate the electrochemical detection process, which normally requires expert use of lab equipment. When combined with a portable potentiostat that works with a mobile app, the device will allow untrained users to determine if any source of drinking water contains unsafe levels of phosphate without equipment or training, and to communicate that information to a central database for further analysis. Those of any background, particularly in developing countries, will be able to maintain health and raise awareness about clean water. Microfluidic devices are useful tools for the detection of water contaminants, but there is a gap in technology for the detection of phosphate. Our phosphate detection system is a paper-based microfluidic device with an already-developed voltammetry device that automates the detection process so that any user can safely find phosphate in water. The system will provide a binary analysis about whether the water is safe to consume or not. Completion of the project provides a valuable tool to both average customers in developing countries and scientific researchers in determining the safety of drinking water.


Periphrasis straddles the boundary between syntax and morphology, and so creates analytical and theoretical problems. These concern the nature of the word, the interaction between syntax and morphology, and the possible sizes and shapes of inflectional paradigms. Progress has been hampered because the theoretical devices available have been inadequate and because the range of data considered has been narrow. We are therefore undertaking a typological survey, adopting a 'canonical' approach in which we specify the different dimensions along which concrete instances of periphrasis can be classified as more or less canonical. Periphrastic constructions are common, yet relatively little is known about their typological range. Following Haspelmath (2000), our canonical approach encompasses not just verbs but also comparable phenomena involving other parts of speech ('analytic' forms in some traditions). Thus we include less familiar examples, such as this one, showing periphrastic expression of number on nouns. We give just two of seven cases: Nenets ti 'reindeer' (Ackerman 2000:3) SINGULAR DUAL PLURAL NOMINATIVE ti tex°h tiq DATIVE ten°h tex°h nyah tex°q Number and case are expressed synthetically for most cells of the paradigm, except for certain cells in the dual (represented here by the dative). We plan a careful examination of four key languages, Archi, Bininj Gun-Wok, Nenets and Sanskrit, each of which has significant and different instances of periphrasis. Based on this survey, we will establish: • the set of criteria for periphrasis; this is to define the space across which to calibrate any attested periphrastic construction. We shall start from the definitions in Ackerman & Stump (2004: 125-147). • the typological range of periphrasis, taking into account both the constructions and how they interact with language-specific morphological and syntactic rules • the diachronic stages that the syntactic phrase goes through on its way to becoming part of the morphological paradigm, and the conditions that permit this. Periphrasis can be understood in terms of a configuration of properties of canonical inflectional morphology (e.g. obligatoriness) and canonical syntax (e.g. independence of expression), as in our Nenets example. The canonical approach with its inclusive orientation allows us to calibrate and clarify the differing intuitions of typologists, and place periphrasis within the larger space of morphology-syntax interaction. Ackerman, Farrell. 2000. Lexical constructions: Paradigms and periphrastic expressions. Paper read at the LFG Workshop on Morphosyntax, Berkeley. Ackerman, Farrell & Gregory Stump. 2004. Paradigms and periphrastic expression: A study in realization-based lexicalism. Projecting Morphology, ed. by Andrew Spencer & Louisa Sadler, 111-157. Stanford: CSLI. Haspelmath, Martin. 2000. Periphrasis. Morphology: An international handbook on inflection and word formation, ed. by G. Booij, C. Lehmann & J. Mugdan, 654-664. Berlin: de Gruyter.


Generation of industrial waste materials such as fly ash and slag in bulk provides an opportunity to convert these wastes into eco-friendly, value-added products. A geopolymer, a strong, porous and environmentally friendly material, was synthesized by mixing fly-ash with an alkaline activator, followed by addition of a pore forming agent (PFA) which created voids of varied pore sizes within the mixture. This polymer has potential applications as an adsorbent or membrane material; however, there is no established technology to regulate the pore size. Corn oil, waste palm oil and starch were investigated as potential organic additives to produce geopolymer materials with pore sizes suitable for water treatment membranes. Geopolymer without additives had a compressive strength of 30.93 MPa. Corn oil induced the highest porosity of up to 26.6 % with a compressive strength of 9.9 MPa, waste palm oil at 21.3 % and 9.0 MPa and starch at 17.9 % and 20.41 MPa. SEM analysis revealed that the voids and tunnels formation increased with increased PFA dosage.


In this paper, we argue that discontinuous preference over certain and uncertain outcomes (as in Andreoni and Sprenger, 2009; 2012) have a dampening effect on the demand for insurance. The intuition is that if agents exhibit a disproportionate preference for certain outcomes, they would undervalue uncertain insurance indemnity payments compared to certain premium cost and exhibit lower demand for insurance compared to a classic expected utility maximizer. Inspired by the seminal work of Andreoni and Sprenger, we design games to identify agents with a disproportionate preference for certain outcomes and play them with 571 cotton farmers in Western Burkina-Faso. We then provide experimental evidence that this is a powerful framework to understand demand for micro-insurance. Specifically we show that agents with discontinuous preference respond positively to an alternative presentation of a classic insurance contract: they are willing to pay more for a given contract if the premium cost is artificially made uncertain by being directly deducted from indemnity payments. We also explore alternative behavioral arguments such as loss aversion but argue that they offer less appealing framework to understand the full set of our results. Our results have practical implications for the design of insurance contracts.


In this article, the question 'Why Can ́t Banksy Be a Woman' is a point of departure to approach some of the pressing challenges regarding sex and gender in graffiti and street art studies, in order to contribute on the matter of the presence/absence of women graffiti and street artists in this epistemological field. To this aim, I summon feminist contributions on the invisibility of women in the established art world, namely from art historians Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock. I map important contributions on the question of women in graffiti, by referring to graffiti scholars Nancy MacDonald and Jessica PábonCólon. As street art has been considered more gender inclusive in regards to conditions of production, I locate restrictions mainly in terms of reception. Finally, I suggest that the question of women in graffiti and street art studies is larger than sex and gender.