We present observations and simulations examining plant–water relations in a forested catchment characterized by strong topographic control over surface hydrology and stand structure. The system is dominated by xeric and mesic ecotypes of Quercus rubra L. Soil depths are typically very thin and the severity of seasonal water stress in these trees is determined largely by position along the local topographic gradient. Water balance related ecotypic differences in Q. rubra were measured during the 2000 growing season at an upland and lowland site. Significant site differences in stomatal conductance, sap flux density, and leaf to sapwood area ratios were observed. However, mid-day leaf water potentials and the leaf area-specific canopy hydraulic conductance were not significantly different despite a 20% increase in soil moisture content, an average 10 m increase in tree height, and a higher leaf area index at the lowland site. These results suggest a close coordination of tree morphology, stand structure, and the hydraulic conductance of the combined soil–root–leaf pathway that governs leaf-level water vapor exchange rates similarly across the topographic gradient. To place these stand-level observations in the context of catchment-scale water balance we linked the SPA canopy model with a 1-D soil column model and TOPMODEL hydrologic formulations. The SPA model was used to represent the canopy because of its specific inclusion of hydraulic constraints on transpiration and leaf water potential. The combined model is spatially explicit in the distribution of ecotype morphology, and calculates transpiration rates for TOPMODEL-derived saturated and unsaturated area fractions within the watershed separately. Model predictions of stomatal conductance, upland latent energy flux, stream discharge, and soil moisture content compared favorably with observations. Sensitivity analyses of canopy model parameters indicate stream discharge in this system is most sensitive to changes in the maximum leaf area index, the minimum leaf water potential, and belowground resistance. Discharge was least sensitive to changes in stem hydraulic conductivity and capacitance. Model results and observations are discussed with respect to adaptations to water stress, hydraulic controls on canopy water use, and ecosystem water use. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.


What do economists have to say about behavior within the context of the family? This book improves our understanding of how families and markets interact, why important aspects of families have been changing in recent decades, and how families respond to, and are affected by, public policy. It covers a broader range of topics with more consistency than have previous studies, including all major theoretical developments in the field over the past decade. John Ermisch builds his analysis on the premise that the standard analytical methods of microeconomics can help us understand resource allocation and the distribution of welfare within the family. Families are dynamic institutions--and so the author uses these same methods to study family formation and dissolution (including marriage, fertility, and divorce) and household formation, as well as intergenerational transfers, household production and investment, and bargaining between family members. He also shows how economic theories of the family can help guide and structure empirical analyses of demographic and related phenomena, such as labor supply, child support, and returns to education. Examples of studies that apply the theory are provided throughout the book. The most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to an increasingly dynamic area of research, one with important implications for public policy, An Economic Analysis of the Family will be a valuable resource for advanced students of microeconomics and also for students and researchers in sociology, psychology, and other social sciences.


Abstract Downslope fossil contamination is the result of erosion and subsequent redeposition of fossil material onto lower stratigraphic horizons. This produces time-averaged and potentially anomalous faunal records. Here, we describe vertebrate concentrations in Bighorn Basin (Wyoming) conglomerates that are early Wasatchian (earliest Eocene) in age (Wa-1) and rest erosionally upon Wa-0 strata deposited during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). The Wa-1 conglomerates were deposited during river channel migration and sheetflooding onto abandoned parts of an avulsion belt immediately after the PETM. Dark-colored Wa-1 fossil teeth eroding from the conglomerates are now mixed in places with the lighter-colored teeth of Wa-0 mammals. The spatial distribution of the conglomerate fossils and a vertical model of downslope contamination, based on species proportions from overlying stratigraphic intervals, are used to calculate an expected contribution of fossil contaminants to an assemblage. Results of this model are applied to address the principal weakness of the hypothesis that transient decreases in mammalian body size during the PETM were an evolutionary dwarfing response to climate change. Rare occurrences of large taxa with congeners of small size would refute the argument for evolutionary dwarfing, but our results indicate that such rare occurrences can be explained by downslope contamination alone. We conclude more generally that alluvial architecture is important for understanding the potential for downslope fossil contamination and that complications imposed by this type of contamination can be assessed quantitatively.


In February of 2009, the National Academy of Sciences released its much anticipated diagnosis and prescription for what ails the forensic science community. The Report confirmed the low but steady noise that had been building in the criminal justice system for at least a decade: that, with the exception of DNA evidence, much of what is presented as forensic science is not really science at all. Instead, a large segment of the high-tech pageantry seen on television and now expected and employed in court would fail to clear even the lowest hurdles of stringent scientific inquiry. Nonetheless, forensic evidence is often used to demonstrate the certainty of a person's guilt by authoritatively "matching" evidence from the crime scene or victim to the suspect. The Report sounded the alarm as to the needs of the forensic science community, raised critical concerns, and even suggested a remedy by calling for the creation of an independent agency to regulate the field of forensic science. Moreover, it came at a time of "forensiphilia" – where forensic science is itself a celebrity that captivates and enchants audiences. One year after the Report caused ripples throughout scientific and legal circles, it seems as though, in some ways, the shock has passed, numbness has set in, and progress is idle. This article will examine the evolution of forensic science on television and in the courtroom. It will evaluate whether DNA is the reliable anomaly among the forensic science disciplines. Finally, along a similar vein to the Report's resolution to strengthen forensic science, this article will call for a strengthening in legal education aimed at fostering both an understanding of the advances in science and a skepticism towards methods that inherently lack a solid foundation in science.


Aims. We present the results of three commissioning H i observations obtained with the MeerKAT radio telescope. These observations make up part of the preparation for the forthcoming MHONGOOSE nearby galaxy survey, which is a MeerKAT large survey project that will study the accretion of gas in galaxies and the link between gas and star formation. Methods. We used the available H i data sets, along with ancillary data at other wavelengths, to study the morphology of the MHONGOOSE sample galaxy, ESO 302-G014, which is a nearby gas-rich dwarf galaxy. Results. We find that ESO 302-G014 has a lopsided, asymmetric outer disc with a low column density. In addition, we find a tail or filament of H i clouds extending away from the galaxy, as well as an isolated H i cloud some 20 kpc to the south of the galaxy. We suggest that these features indicate a minor interaction with a low-mass galaxy. Optical imaging shows a possible dwarf galaxy near the tail, but based on the current data, we cannot confirm any association with ESO 302-G014. Nonetheless, an interaction scenario with some kind of low-mass companion is still supported by the presence of a significant amount of molecular gas, which is almost equal to the stellar mass, and a number of prominent stellar clusters, which suggest recently triggered star formation. Conclusions. These data show that MeerKAT produces exquisite imaging data. The forthcoming full-depth survey observations of ESO 302-G014 and other sample galaxies will, therefore, offer insights into the fate of neutral gas as it moves from the intergalactic medium onto galaxies.


The most common mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene in individuals with cystic fibrosis, ΔF508, causes retention of ΔF508-CFTR in the endoplasmic reticulum and leads to the absence of CFTR Cl- channels in the apical plasma membrane. Rescue of ΔF508-CFTR by reduced temperature or chemical means reveals that the ΔF508 mutation reduces the half-life of ΔF508-CFTR in the apical plasma membrane. Because ΔF508-CFTR retains some Cl- channel activity, increased expression of ΔF508-CFTR in the apical membrane could serve as a potential therapeutic approach for cystic fibrosis. However, little is known about the mechanisms responsible for the short apical membrane half-life of ΔF508-CFTR in polarized human airway epithelial cells. Accordingly, the goal of this study was to determine the cellular defects in the trafficking of rescued ΔF508-CFTR that lead to the decreased apical membrane half-life of ΔF508-CFTR in polarized human airway epithelial cells. We report that in polarized human airway epithelial cells (CFBE41o-) the ΔF508 mutation increased endocytosis of CFTR from the apical membrane without causing a global endocytic defect or affecting the endocytic recycling of CFTR in the Rab11a-specific apical recycling compartment.


Internet today is the most recent and important human technology, which is widely used, and its users are increasing. It is a phenomenon, which still has its primary attractiveness. This study examines the effect of Internet use and mental health in university student, and advantage and disadvantage of internet use, among 350 students at four university. The sample take randomly s from four universities in second year student. Study design: Our study is cross – sectional using quantitative approach. We distributed 350 questionnaires for students at (Hebron &Polytechnic& Bethlehem, al-Quds university) universities. Analysis : Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS, v 21). The result Gender, It found 57.2% of participant's female and 42.8 % male. M arital status, it is found 93% single, 5.7 % married and this due the participant's university student and its young. Place Palestine live in different place 52.1% live in village, and 42.5% city, and 4.8% camps. Monthly income , it's found 48% the monthly income less than 3000 s and, 20% monthly income 3000-4500s, 22.6% monthly income more than 4500s. 90% from student the internet is advantage, 59% from student have a disadvantage for internet, there were no statistically significant differences at the level of (≤0.05) to use the Internet attributed to gender, income, place, use of internet. In addition, have relationship between use of internet and academic achievements. The recommendation for universities to define a positive and negative effect of the Internet.  Further study about use the Internet and relation to psych health student, encourage the student to use internet safety.


Incision rates derived from river terraces are commonly used to infer rock uplift rates; however, an apparent dependence of incision rate on measured time interval may confound directly relating incision to uplift. The time-dependent incision rates are a Sadler effect that have been argued to result from a stochastic distribution of hiatal intervals in river incision, potentially reducing the utility of incision records for interpreting unsteadiness in tectonic processes. Here we show that time-dependent incision rates can arise from a simple systematic bias in the distance measurement used to calculate incision rate, and thus stochastic causes are not required. We present a conceptual model that describes the dynamic history of streambed elevation over cycles of terrace formation, illustrating that measured incision rate is time dependent because the stream channel reference frame is not fixed with respect to the geoid. Because it is challenging to reconstruct the full elevation history for a river channel, most researchers use the modern streambed elevation as a reference datum, but we demonstrate that doing so imposes a bias that manifests as an apparent dependence of rate on measured time interval. Fortunately, correction of this bias is straightforward, and allows river incision data to be used in studies of tectonic or climatic unsteadiness.


In Romanian, auxiliaries, mood particles, the negation and a handful of functional items traditionally analyzed as adverbs behave as clitics on the verb, forming together with the verb the so-called 'verbal cluster'. The analysis of this cluster as a complex head is problematic because auxiliaries, mood particles and negation display a head-initial order inside the cluster, instead of the normal head-final order inside complex heads found in Indo-European languages. Examining the alternatives proposed in the literature and a possible analysis as PF head-clitics, I conclude that the verbal cluster involves nevertheless complex head formation in syntax. I discuss the solutions proposed for the head-initial order in the literature and I offer an alternative analysis, based on the idea of PF-linearization.


The Sustainability Report contains information on IDB?s contributions to sustainability during 2011. It also provides insights into key development trends and sustainability dimensions in Latin America and the Caribbean. This year, the report focuses on sustainability and agriculture in the region.


Background: With increasing use of digital cameras, it is needed to develop a better method of taking photographs that meet the dermatologists' demand. Recent digital cameras have super-macro mode capability, but that mode is only available in very bright conditions such as sun shining locations because flashing is unavailable. Objective: To develop a better method of taking delicate and reproducible super-macro mode photographs using digital cameras under ordinary hospital or clinic settings. Methods: We planned to develop an illuminator with a high brightness light emitting diode for the super-macro mode of a digital camera. To be economical, convenient, and lightweight, the illuminator was designed to plug into the USB port of a personal computer for the power source. We have applied the illuminator to three different camera models. The light emitting diodes were arranged in some different ways for better results. Results: When we took super-macro photographs with this device, patients felt no discomfort, such as dazzling, which they have experienced with a camera flash. And, the photographs showed more delicate zoomed-in images and were reproducible. The image quality was enhanced with the more optimal arrangement of diodes. We named the small space in front of the camera lens, 'micro studio', because we can modify the lighting method for better illumination. The users may maximize the capability of the digital camera using this device. Conclusion: We developed an economically appealing and flexible digital camera device that enables us to take super-macro mode images of a much more enhanced quality. It may be useful for many dermatologists who use digital cameras. (Korean J Dermatol 2004;42(7):856-861)


Composite shell structures have many applications in aerospace industry in which deal with various loading abundantly. In  present paper Strain gauge instrument with rectangular rosette strain gauges were used to detect the maximum stress and strain distributions along the shell composite structure. Also a finite element analysis was done for validation of experimental results. The FEM software used was ANSYS14. Impact test, density measurement, and bending test were performed in order to detect physical and mechanical properties such as toughness, principal stresses, and density, of the three laminated composite shells. In addition, the results between experimental and ANSYS were compared. It was observed that an important discrepancy is found between theoretical and experimental results. It was also found a large difference in modulus of elasticity, toughness, and tensile strength for each composite material. These differences are  tabulated in many tables in the last paper.


Social psychological research on culture has mainly focused on differences in psychological processes between cultural groups. However, in the globalizing world today, a complementary approach to culture, a social psychology of cultural dynamics, is emerging as a critical research program. Adopting a neo-diffusionist meta-theory of culture, it regards culture as emerging from the processes of cultural transmission in situated social activities, and examines the dynamics involved in the formation, maintenance, and transformation of culture over time. The paper reviews recent research on culture in this perspective and makes suggestions about future directions.


This article reports on a pilot project involving eight students enrolled on the Bachelor of Education Primary Teaching Programme at the University of the West of Scotland, who undertook a short outward mobility placement in a French primary school. The project was specifically aimed to address the Scottish Government's commitment to the 1+ 2 language policy and was designed to enable participants to play a full part in this development after the completion of their studies. Participants observed a different educational system while being immersed in the French language and culture. They also contributed to guided activities involving English and Scottish culture to French Primary School children. The author used qualitative content analysis of participant logbooks to evaluate the impact of their experience. Overall, the importance and added value of increasing language proficiency as part of a greater engagement in the wider world beyond Scotland as well as developing cross-cultural sensitivity skills whilst being immersed in another culture were acknowledged as most noteworthy assets.


Microlensing started with the seminal paper by Paczyński in 1986 [], followed in 1993 by the first discovery of events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud and the galactic bulge. Since then many microlensing events have been observed also towards other targets such as globular clusters, the Andromeda Galaxy. Many new applications have been found: in particular, it turned out to be a powerful method to detect planets in our galaxy and even in the nearby M31. Here, we will present some results obtained so far by microlensing without, however, being exhaustive and based on more personal views and biases.


K-feldspar and Na-feldspar exhibit similar mineralogical, chemical and surface properties. Froth flotation is known to be the only technique to enable their separation. Our earlier studies revealed a good selectivity in the presence of K+ and to a larger extent with Na+ ions. In this context, in order to further identify the role of Na+ ions in the selective separation of these minerals, ion selective electrodes were employed to determine the released Na and K ions released from albite and microcline into the solution and those adsorbed ions onto the mineral surfaces. Adsorption isotherms in feldspars/inorganic systems were constructed and the regions representing ion exchange and ion adsorption isotherms delineated. The mechanism of selective separation was elaborated on the basis of micro-flotation, solubility, adsorption and zeta potential measurements.


In this paper, we explore the effectiveness of bootstrapping supervised machine-learning polarity classifiers using the output of domain-independent rule-based classifiers. The benefit of this method is that no labeled training data are required. Still, this method allows to capture in-domain knowledge by training the supervised classifier on in-domain features, such as bag of words.
We investigate how important the quality of the rule-based classifier is and what features are useful for the supervised classifier. The former addresses the issue in how far relevant constructions for polarity classification, such as word sense disambiguation, negation modeling, or intensification, are important for this self-training approach. We not only compare how this method relates to conventional semi-supervised learning but also examine how it performs under more difficult settings in which classes are not balanced and mixed reviews are included in the dataset.


We prove the following special case of Mazur's conjecture on the topology of rational points. Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Q}$ with $j$-invariant $1728$. For a class of elliptic pencils which are quadratic twists of $E$ by quartic polynomials, the rational points on the projective line with positive rank fibres are dense in the real topology. This extends results obtained by Rohrlich and Kuwata-Wang for quadratic and cubic polynomials.
For the proof, we investigate a highly singular rational curve on the Kummer surface $K$ associated to a product of two elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$, which previously appeared in publications by Mestre, Kuwata-Wang and Satg\'e. We produce this curve in a simpler manner by finding algebraic equations which give a direct proof of rationality. We find that the same equations give rise to rational curves on a class of more general surfaces extending the Kummer construction. This leads to further applications apart from Mazur's conjecture, for example the existence of rational points on simultaneous twists of superelliptic curves.
Finally, we give a proof of Mazur's conjecture for the Kummer surface $K$ without any restrictions on the $j$-invariants of the two elliptic curves.


The main function of a continuous media server is to concurrently stream data from storage to multiple clients over a network. The resulting streams will congest the host CPU bus, reducing access to the system's main memory, which degrades CPU performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways of improving I/O subsystems of continuous media servers. Several improved I/O subsystem architectures are presented and their performances evaluated. The proposed architectures use an existing device, namely the Intel i960RP processor. The objective of using an I/O processor is to move the stream and its control from the host processor and the main memory. The ultimate aim is to identify the requirements for an integrated I/O subsystem for a high performance scalable media-on-demand server.


In the computer networking world, administration and configuration in a UNIX based server are usually performed in terminal or shell in which administrator interact with the server. This is common for administrator that is used to interact with Command Line Interface or shell. For those who have not used to it will have a great obstacle to deal with . Thus, there are many people created web based application to perform admnitration on UNIX server such as webmin. But, o have web based network manajement application, a server must has web server services.This prequisite will not be a problem for a server that is designed to perform web application. But for dedicated server having services not web application, it will bring a compromise in consideration especially in security and reliability issue. Additional web application will bring concequences to open several port. That is obviously incereases server vulnerability. In other hand, additional web application will take some resources of a server which are actually designed for certain services. Thus, our previous research has promote an RSA application to manage a server. RSA is web application to manage remote servers. Connection between user and RSA performed using http port while connection between RSA and remote server performed using SSH port. So, a server doesn't have to open additional port except SSH port that is ussualy already opened for administration purpose RSA was developed using CGI-PERL script with APACHE as it web server. Several services that can be configure using this RSA are APACHE web server, BIND name server and SQUID proxy server. Unfortunately, after observing this application further, we found that this solution has it's own disadvantages. This paper will speak about the result of RSA application analysis. Keywords: RSA,Network Analysis, Network Management, Server Adninistration


The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that x-ray waveguide optics can be gen-
eralized from a single guiding film to an array of planar waveguides, enabling
more complex and controllable phenomena of field propagation both in partic-
ular in the near-field in the vicinity of objects to be probed by coherent imaging.
Two advanced x-ray multilayer waveguides (MWGs) structures, i.e. the waveg-
uide array (WGA) and the multi-guide resonant beam couplers (RBCs) are de-
signed and discussed. Starting from basic theoretical analysis, the structural
model of MWGs is built up. Then the MWGs are studied in detail by numerical
simulations based on finite-difference (FD) simulations, fabricated with preci-
sion methods for controlled layer thickness, and finally characterized experi-
mentally by phase retrieval methods.
Chap. 1 introduces the basic theory of x-ray waveguides (see section 1.1), and3
presents geometries and mechanisms of different coupling devices (see section
1.2). FD simulations and phase retrieval methods are discussed to characterize
the field propagation in the near-field and far-field (see section 1.3). In the final
section 1.4, the fabrication processes of multilayers and MWGs are presented.
Thereafter, the x-ray beams exiting from MWGs are characterized by x-ray re-
flectivity and far field measurements with focused synchrotron radiation.
Chap. 2 presents the concept of WGA, using the WGA structure with Mo/C
multilayer at 19.9 keV photon energy. The controlled variation in guiding layer
thickness is introduced to achieve the desired phase shifts between the guided
output beams. The FD simulations show that multi-beam interference with the
desired phase shifts can lead to a quasi-focal spot sized sub-50 nm in free space
behind the waveguide.
Chap. 3 uses two iterative phase retrieval algorithms to reconstruct the near-
field distribution behind tailored WGA and - for comparison - simpler periodic
waveguide multilayers (WGM) with N i /C multilayer structure for 13.8 keV pho-
ton energy. These are shown to yield distinctly different near-field patterns. Im-
portantly, the WGA also exhibits the desired secondary quasi-focal spot outside
the structure.
Chap. 4 presents the coupling of finite (sub-μm) x-ray beams into RBCs with
three guiding layers in the [N i /C ] 3 /N i structure. Using especially resonant
mode excitation, more than one reflected beams are generated with different
beam offsets along the RBC surface constituting an exceptionally large Goos-
Hanchen effect. Possible applications of such devices are beam splitters for co-
herent imaging and interferometry.
Chap. 5 summarizes the outcomes of this thesis, and discusses future applica-
tions and investigations of the WGA and multi-guide RBCs structures.


Radioiodine therapy (RIT) is an integral component in the treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Patients usually undergo RIT as initial therapy or later in the case of recurrent or persistent disease. The most important requirement for a successful RIT is the ability of metastases and thyroid (remnant) tissue to accumulate radioiodine. In order to calculate the achievable absorbed radiation dose for a lesion, volume and iodine kinetics in the lesion need to be determined. Pretherapeutic imaging and dosimetry with


A challenge for healthcare organizations is that operational efficiency suffers from variation in production. This is because variation in healthcare is hard to predict and the methods and IT-support tools for handling variation are suboptimal. The concept of production control can be used to describe the coordination of activities so that healthcare can be delivered on time, of adequate quality and at a reasonable cost, and thus includes the use of IT-support tools to handle variation. The objective of this report is to suggest improvements for production control in hospital departments through the development of a prototype for a new IT-support tool. In order to achieve this, a case study was conducted at the pediatric oncology department at Karolinska University Hospital (KS). The case study includes observations and interviews to investigate production control at department Q84, as well as associated roles and IT-support tools. Four IT-support tools were identified at the department, two of which were used interchangeably. Due to lack of integration between these systems and the fact that one system contained data manually synchronized from the other, handling changes required double labor. An improvement suggestion is therefore presented, consisting of a prototype which demonstrates that production control can be improved by automating the maintenance of a system at the department while fulfilling the organization's information security policy. The development of the prototype was aligned with the lean philosophy which KS strives to adopt. Through an investigation of the production system, a role for production control and associated IT-support tools at a hospital department can be identified and analyzed and through the prototyping of an IT-support tool for production control, improvements and optimizations can be made.


We quantified benthic community structure on shallow (10 m isobath) reefs separated by 3–130 km on four islands in the south Pacific, and evaluated the roles of disturbances vs. coral recruitment as causes of spatial heterogeneity. Reefs were surveyed in 2013 on Moorea, Tahiti, Tetiaroa, and Maiao, with community structure sampled at two sites on each island using photoquadrats. The effects of coral recruitment on population structure were evaluated through genetic analyses of Pocillopora on three of the islands. Benthic community structure with functional group resolution differed among islands and generally among sites, but coral community structure (generic resolution) differed among islands, but generally not among sites. Genetic analyses of Pocillopora using the open reading frame of host mtDNA revealed varying relative abundances of Pocillopora meandrina/Pocillopora eydouxi, Pocillopora verrucosa, Pocillopora effuses, and two unnamed haplotypes on each island. These results suggest that corals on each island represent unique samplings of genetically discrete larval assemblages rather than random samplings of a single larval assemblage. Together, our findings emphasize the extent to which coral community structure varies over a scale of <200 km, and suggests that recruitment from spatially discrete pools of coral larvae plays an important role in creating spatial variation in community structure, even where reefs are connected by prevailing currents.


Achieving yield potential in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is limited by many constraints that include biotic and abiotic stresses. Combining next‐generation sequencing technology with advanced statistical modeling has the potential to increase genetic gain efficiently. Whole genome resequencing data was obtained from 315 advanced chickpea breeding lines from the Australian chickpea breeding program resulting in more than 298,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) discovered. Analysis of population structure revealed a distinct group of breeding lines with many alleles that are absent from recently released Australian cultivars. Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) using these Australian breeding lines identified 20 SNPs significantly associated with grain yield in multiple field environments. A reduced level of nucleotide diversity and extended linkage disequilibrium suggested that some regions in these chickpea genomes may have been through selective breeding for yield or other traits. A large introgression segment that introduced from C. echinospermum for phytophthora root rot resistance was identified on chromosome 6, yet it also has unintended consequences of reducing yield due to linkage drag. We further investigated the effect of genotype by environment interaction on genomic prediction of yield. We found that the training set had better prediction accuracy when phenotyped under conditions relevant to the targeted environments. We also investigated the effect of SNP functional annotation on prediction accuracy using different subsets of SNPs based on their genomic locations: regulatory regions, exome, and alternative splice sites. Compared with the whole SNP dataset, a subset of SNPs did not significantly decrease prediction accuracy for grain yield despite consisting of a smaller number of SNPs.


The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been hailed as a landmark piece of civil rights legislation and a boon to people with disabilities in the United States. Title I of the ADA specifically addresses employment discrimination toward persons with disabilities. Congressional proponents of the ADA anticipated that the statute would bring about a reversal of the high unemployment numbers among the disabled. This thesis examines the unemployment data for persons with disabilities 10 years following enactment of the ADA. It shows that the ADA has not reversed unemployment trends among persons with disabilities. This work compares the expectations of the bill's sponsors and/or advocates for improvements in employment opportunities for working aged adults with disabilities, provided for by Title I of the ADA, with the actual outcomes. This thesis highlights some the principal problems inherent with the law itself, problems that may be contributing to the ADA's inability to reverse high unemployment numbers among the disabled. This paper also addresses concerns within the US business community regarding implementation of the law. The results presented show that the ADA has not brought about the flood of litigation originally anticipated by American business, neither has it increased frivolous litigation. Data are also offered which demonstrate that compliance with the law in the form of accommodation expenses for persons with disabilities is not onerous. Finally, this study presents some of the ongoing problems with regard to discrimination against persons with disabilities in the workplace.


Geophysical investigations reveal that many granitoid plutons possess a tabular shape: either laccolithic, lopolithic or phacolithic. In this study, the results of a centrifuge experiment are used to understand the formation mechanisms of these features. The model was build of a sequence of 14 differently coloured plasticine layers. Two buoyant layers - with a volume of c. 40 cm(3) each - were incorporated into the model stratigraphy at different depths to investigate, whether the rise and emplacement of buoyant material at different levels results in different intrusion structures. After centrifuging for 30 min at 700 G, both the buoyant layers had formed two lenticular sills (phacoliths) with aspect ratios (length/thickness) of 6 and 3.4 for the upper and lower phacoliths, respectively, directly above both pre-existing perturbations in the buoyant layers. During their movement, the buoyant phacoliths had pushed their roof plasticine upward. Simultaneously, their floor plasticine had subsided (bottom sinking). Subsidence of the floor material had choked the inflow of further buoyant material into the feeder channel of the developing sills and inhibited their further lateral growth. The observed forced downward movement of the plasticine floor of the forming PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) phacoliths resembles the so-called "floor depression" of host rock material around an emplacing tabular pluton. Floor depression is supposed to be a very important vertical material transfer process, which provides space for the construction of lopo- and phacoliths. The subsidence of host material made space for the developing buoyant phacoliths, but also restricted their growth to a certain time slot before the influx of new buoyant material into the feeder dyke of the tabular intrusive body was shut off. Similarly, in nature, the growth of a tabular pluton might be limited not only by the rate of magma ascent and its physical properties, but also by the emplacement processes of the evolving pluton.


A core capability of intelligent systems is the ability to quickly learn new tasks by drawing on prior experience. Gradient (or optimization) based meta-learning has recently emerged as an effective approach for few-shot learning. In this formulation, meta-parameters are learned in the outer loop, while task-specific models are learned in the inner-loop, by using only a small amount of data from the current task. A key challenge in scaling these approaches is the need to differentiate through the inner loop learning process, which can impose considerable computational and memory burdens. By drawing upon implicit differentiation, we develop the implicit MAML algorithm, which depends only on the solution to the inner level optimization and not the path taken by the inner loop optimizer. This effectively decouples the meta-gradient computation from the choice of inner loop optimizer. As a result, our approach is agnostic to the choice of inner loop optimizer and can gracefully handle many gradient steps without vanishing gradients or memory constraints. Theoretically, we prove that implicit MAML can compute accurate meta-gradients with a memory footprint that is, up to small constant factors, no more than that which is required to compute a single inner loop gradient and at no overall increase in the total computational cost. Experimentally, we show that these benefits of implicit MAML translate into empirical gains on few-shot image recognition benchmarks.


This paper proposes a structural approach to long-horizon asset allocation. In particular, the investor draws inferences about asset returns from a vector autoregression (VAR) with economic restrictions on the intercept, slope, and covariance matrix implied by the long-run risk model of Bansal and Yaron (2004). Comparing the optimal allocations of investors using the longrun risk VAR versus an unrestricted reduced-form VAR reveals stark differences in portfolio strategies. Long-run risk investors are quite conservative relative to reduced-form investors due to intertemporal hedging concerns. Despite the differing strategies, both investors achieve success in timing the market. The gains of the long-run risk investor appear to arise from his ability to avoid exposure to large negative events, while the reduced-form investor better capitalizes on periods of high average returns.


Application of an All-Solid-State Diode-Laser-Based Sensor for Carbon Monoxide Detection by Optical Absorption in the 4.4 – 4.8 μm Spectral Region. (December 2004) Rodolfo Barron Jimenez, B.S., Universidad de Guanajuato; M.S., Texas A&M University Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. J. A. Caton Dr. R. P. Lucht An all-solid-state continuous-wave (cw) laser system for mid-infrared absorption measurements of the carbon monoxide (CO) molecule has been developed and demonstrated. The single-mode, tunable output of an external-cavity diode laser (ECDL) is difference-frequency mixed (DFM) with the output of a 550-mW diode-pumped cw Nd:YAG laser in a periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal to produce tunable cw radiation in the mid-infrared. The wavelength of the 860-nm ECDL can be coarse tuned between 860.78 to 872.82 nm allowing the sensor to be operated in the 4.4 – 4.8 μm region. Results from single-pass mid-IR direct absorption experiments for CO concentration measurements are discussed. CO measurements were performed in CO/CO2/N2 mixtures in a room temperature gas cell that allowed the evaluation of the sensor operation and data reduction procedures. Field testing was performed at two locations: in the exhaust of a well-stirred reactor (WSR) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the exhaust of a gas turbine at Honeywell Engines and Systems. Field tests demonstrated the feasibility of the sensor for operation in harsh combustion environments but much improvement in the sensor design and operation was required. Experiments in near-adiabatic hydrogen/air CO2-doped flames were performed featuring two-line thermometry in the 4.8 μm spectral region. The sensor concentration measurement uncertainty was estimated at 2% for gas cell testing. CO concentration measurements agreed within 15% of conventional extractive sampling at WSR, and for the flame experiments the repeatability of the peak absorption gives a system uncertainty of 10%. The noise equivalent CO detection limit for these experiments was estimated at 2 ppm per meter, for combustion gas at 1000 K assuming a SNR ratio of 1.


The Daniels' Poisson limit theorem for the final size of a severe general stochastic epidemic is extended to the Martin-Löf epidemic, and an order of magnitude for the error in the approximation is also given. The argument consists largely of showing that the number of survivors of a severe epidemic is essentially the same as the number of isolated vertices in a random directed graph. Poisson approximation for the latter quantity is proved using the Stein–Chen method and a suitable coupling.


To deal with data uncertainty, existing probabilistic database systems augment tuples with attribute-level or tuple-level probability values, which are loaded into the database along with the data itself. This approach can severely limit the system's ability to gracefully handle complex or unforeseen types of uncertainty, and does not permit the uncertainty model to be dynamically parameterized according to the current state of the database. We introduce MCDB, a system for managing uncertain data that is based on a Monte Carlo approach. MCDB represents uncertainty via "VG functions," which are used to pseudorandomly generate realized values for uncertain attributes. VG functions can be parameterized on the results of SQL queries over "parameter tables" that are stored in the database, facilitating what-if analyses. By storing parameters, and not probabilities, and by estimating, rather than exactly computing, the probability distribution over possible query answers, MCDB avoids many of the limitations of prior systems. For example, MCDB can easily handle arbitrary joint probability distributions over discrete or continuous attributes, arbitrarily complex SQL queries, and arbitrary functionals of the query-result distribution such as means, variances, and quantiles. To achieve good performance, MCDB uses novel query processing techniques, executing a query plan exactly once, but over "tuple bundles" instead of ordinary tuples. Experiments indicate that our enhanced functionality can be obtained with acceptable overheads relative to traditional systems.


Land and resource conflicts in India have deep implications for the well-being of the country's people, institutions, investments, and long-term development. These conflicts reveal deep structural flaws in the country's social, agrarian, and institutional structures, including ambiguities in property rights regimes and institutions. In 2014, a study focusing primarily on reports in the national media reflected the gravity of these conflicts. There was great interest in this narrow exercise, which prompted a more rigorous and detailed data collection on conflicts and creation of an interactive web portal on land and resource conflicts in India. While the exercise is ongoing, this brief provides an interim analysis of approximately 289 conflicts for which data was collected thus far, covering the period between January-September, 2016. This analysis provides a powerful instrument to understand land resource conflicts in India. The emerging patterns from the analysis of the 289 conflicts provide inferences about sectoral and spatial distribution of conflicts. Based on these patterns, our assessment is that this brief has captured roughly 25- 40 percent of active and substantive land conflicts in the country.


Outcomes of a Social Communication Intervention on the Use of Emotion Words Amy T. Cornett Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Children with language impairment (LI) have often been identified as having social communication breakdowns. A number of these problems are likely the result of deficits in emotional competence. This thesis examines a social communication intervention designed to target the emotional competence of children with LI. Three elementary school-aged children with LI were recruited to receive twenty, 20-minute intervention sessions over the course of four months. Each intervention session involved a combination of activities targeting emotion recognition and emotion inferencing using story retell, story exploration, story enactment, perspectives charts, journal entries, emotion labeling, and personalization. These activities revolved around Mercer Mayer's A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog (1967) wordless picture book series. These books were used because of their age-appropriate subject matter and clear, simple depictions of character actions and facial expressions. To analyze the effectiveness of this intervention package in improving emotional competence, the number of emotion-based words belonging to the emotional categories of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust that were produced each session was counted. The percentage of appropriate usage was calculated to represent how often the participants used each emotion-based word in a semantically correct manner. Finally, emotion word productions that did not match the intended target word were analyzed for valence agreement. Results were highly variable but all three participants demonstrated improvements in the percentage of accurate productions in at least one emotional category. Although all three participants usually used words of a positive valence in an appropriate manner, inappropriate uses were also observed. When actual emotion-word productions mismatched the intended emotions, all three participants produced low valence agreement for words of positive valence and high valence agreement for words of negative valence. Further research is warranted but results suggested that this particular social communication intervention was effective in improving the production of specific emotion words by children with LI.


Telemetry studies have produced fundamental knowledge on animal biology and ecology that has the potential to improve management of aquatic resources such as fisheries. However, the use and integration of telemetry-derived knowledge into practice remain tenuous, so we surveyed 212 fish telemetry experts to understand existing barriers for incorporating telemetry-derived knowledge into fisheries management practices. We apply a sociological knowledge–action framework to structure the findings, which revealed four primary challenges to integrating telemetry findings into management: (1) the perceived uncertainties and unclear relevance of telemetry findings; (2) the underlying motivations and constrained rationalities of actors that can lead to inaction or suboptimal decisions; (3) the constraints of institutions, governance structures, and lack of organizational support, and (4) time and mismatches in scale, culture, and world views. On a more positive note, the relational dimension (collaboration, trust, and relationship building) appears to be important for overcoming and avoiding barriers. We further provide recommendations to navigate these perceived barriers and argue that these lessons also apply to other fields of applied ecology, conservation, and resource management.


textabstractThe distressed personality (Type D) is an emerging risk factor in cardiovascular disease (CVD) that incurs a risk on par with left ventricular dysfunction in patients with ischemic heart disease. Type D is defined as the co-occurring tendencies to experience increased negative emotions and to inhibit self-expression in social interactions. Evidence is accumulating that Type D may also be a risk factor for adverse outcome across CVD patient groups, including patients undergoing revascularization with drug-eluting stent implantation or bypass surgery, patients with heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, and arrhythmia. In these patient groups, Type D personality has been associated with a 2-5 fold increased risk of adverse prognosis, impaired quality of life and symptoms of anxiety and depression independent of traditional biomedical risk factors, including disease severity. Although little is known about the pathways responsible for the detrimental effects of Type D on clinical outcome, the immune system and health-related behaviors, such as smoking and noncompliance, are likely candidates. Further research is warranted to investigate whether Type D personality is here to stay as a risk factor for CVD, but weighing current evidence on Type D against a set of external criteria shows that Type D personality fulfills the majority of these criteria. Importantly, Type D can easily be assessed in clinical research and practice with the standardized and validated DS14.


ABSTRACT Recently, the Czech Republic has moved toward establishing licensure and securing funding for the advancement of applied behavior analysis (ABA). However, the breadth and quality of ABA services remains limited. Most practitioners are providing in-home ABA services with irregular oversight, are working in regions without access to support and collaboration, and forming partnerships with parents that may result in dual relationships. In an effort to improve ABA provisions, a structured professional development curriculum was presented across six behavioral skills training (BST) workshops. Six practitioners working in the field of ABA and toward behavior analyst certification participated in the workshop series. In addition to advancing ABA in the region, the aim of the BST series was to pilot an adapted approach to professional development training using an extended format, practitioner-driven curriculum, and self-assessment checklist. The information was modularized and focused on the progression of establishing ABA services and development of skills associated with: moving through the intake process, assessment, behavior plan development, curriculum planning, and parent involvement. The validity and applicability of providing consultation services in this format for emerging behavior analytic markets was evaluated using practitioner-provided self-assessment. Despite limited data collection, the results indicate that the modified BST package was socially valid for the practitioners in the Czech Republic. This project may set the stage for future research in supporting new ABA practitioners in settings where the community of behavior analysts is small.


Air pollution has become a growing concern, especially in urban cities with rapidly developing economies, increasing infrastructure and vehicular population, and reduced green spaces. Fossil fuel and transportation are the main source of pollutive particles (e.g., sulfur oxide and nitrous) released into the atmosphere. Once they have entered the atmosphere, these particles create health problems, degrade air quality, and cause acid rain. Seasonal investigations on rainwater chemistry and particulate matter pollution (SPM, PM10, and PM2.5) were conducted to understand the recent state of the ambient air quality in Jakarta, Indonesia. The characteristics of PM2.5 were also analyzed during Ied Al Fitr in 2016 and 2017. Based on the observational data, the ambient air quality in Jakarta improved during the period of our study (2000–2016). The chemical constituents, i.e., the anion and cation concentrations, in precipitation show decreasing trends starting from 2006. Moreover, the PM10 and SPM concentrations also decreased slightly. The causes of these favorable trends are climatic conditions—namely, an increasing trend of rainfall—and policy intervention. Additionally, an assessment during the feast of Ied Al Fitr in 2016 and 2017 indicated a further decrease in PM2.5 due to highly reduced inner-city traffic. These events exhibited an extreme reduction of the PM2.5 concentration in Jakarta.


Since 1988 the spiritual development of pupils has been a stated aim of the whole school curriculum. By 1994, OFSTEDs report into religious education and collective worship had identified the failure of collective worship in primary schools [more usually known as 'assembly') to contribute satisfactorily to pupils' spiritual development. Using a case study approach, this present research has sought to reveal ways in which teachers' perspectives on the spiritual and their assembly practices might impact upon pupils' spiritual development. The current assembly practices at six Somerset schools were examined together with the perspectives that those taking the assemblies bring to that experience. Data from observations and interviews was analysed in relation to those activities deemed conducive by the inspectorate to the promotion of spiritual development. The same data was also analysed in relation to those factors which are seen to affect the selection of assembly elements and activities. The findings suggest that whilst assemblies may be perceived to contain many of the elements currently recommended for spiritual development, factors relating to assembly organisation, accommodation, practices and content could nevertheless in some cases be impacting negatively on pupils' spiritual development. In addition, not only is the concept of the spiritual variously understood by both teachers and inspectors, but training for the development of pupils spiritually is not well established. The research raises questions about the suitability of current assembly practices for developing pupils spiritually. Furthermore it suggests that unless and until teachers and inspectors develop a more consistent understanding of the complex nature of spirituality and how pupils can best be developed spiritually, based on present and future research and adequate training, pupils' spiritual development is unlikely to be well served by primary school assemblies


The main purpose of this study was to develop and propose an alternative funding model(AFM) for public sector libraries in Pakistan which have always been under-financed. To achieve this objectives the researcher adopted a multi-phase research process. In the first phase, a comprehensive literature review conducted,. The areas covered in the review of literature include funding situation of public, academic and special libraries in developed countries, developing countries and Pakistan; causes and effects of, and response to , finding crisis in libraries; methods for alternative funding being used in libraries including fees for library service and fundraising; an model formulation in library and information science. Based on the review of literature instruments were developed for library survey and interviews.

In the second phase, data were collected about funding situation of libraries in Pakistan and possibilities of alternative funding in the country. For this purpose, a survey of large libraries was conducted. A sample of 100 university, college, public and special libraries of public sector throughout the county having a collection of at least 25,000 volumes was selected randomly. Data collected from 60 libraries that responded were analyzed. An other data collection tool that was used is interview. Sixty experts in the field of librarianship from eight major cities were selected for this purpose. Data were collected from 48 expert with the help of an interview schedule. The interviews were recorded on audio tape recorder.

Based on the findings of the previous two phase, a draft model for alternative funding for libraries in Pakistan was developed which was presented for validation before national and international experts in the field of library science. The comments of 21 experts were qualitatively analyzed, and on the basis of that, necessary amendments were made in the alternative funding model (AFM) before its final presentation.

This study has found out the funding of libraries in Pakistan is not according to a well thought systematic process ; all types of libraries are dissatisfied with their present policies of the government are two reasons for library under –finding; due to poor standard of collection and services libraries do not enjoy a good reputation in the Pakistan society; activities for seeking library funding from alternative sources are not many in the country; most of the library have no plans for seeking alternative funding; there is a potential in the Pakistani society for raisin library funds from alternative sources; and, library leadership in the country and policies of the government are two reason for library under-financing; due to poor standard of collection and services libraries do not enjoy a good reputation in the Pakistani society; activities for seeking library finding funding from alternative sources are not many in the country; most of the libraries have no plans for seeking alternative funding; there is a potential in the Pakistani society for raising library funds from alternative sources; and, library leadership in the country is in favor of fee-based services but everyone advocates for a core service to be offered free of charge as a basic right of the citizen.

The alternative funding model(AFM) proposed in this study demands an overhauling of the library system in the country as no fundraising model can succeed in Pakistani society unless the image of library is changed to be commensurate with the needs of information society. Based on general system theory the AFM proposed special inputs, processes and feedback mechanism to get effective output. Alternative funding for libraries, according to the Model, revolves around two types of activities(a0 fee-based services, and (b) fundraising. Leadership skill of library staff and the use of modern information technology in libraries can play a vital role in the success of the proposed AFM.


The sustainability of SNSs (social networking services) is a major issue for both business strategists and those who are simply academically curious. The "network effect" is one of the most important theories used to explain the competitive advantage and sustainability of the largest SNSs in the face of the emergence of multiple competitive followers. However, as numerous cases can be observed when a follower manages to overcome the previously largest SNS, we propose the following research question: Why are the largest social networking services sometimes unable to sustain themselves? This question can also be paraphrased as follows: When (under what conditions) do the largest SNSs collapse? Although the network effect generally enables larger networks to survive and thrive, exceptional cases have been observed, such as NateOn Messenger catching up with MSN Messenger in Korea (Case 1), KakaoTalk catching up with NateOn in Korea (Case 2), Facebook catching up with Myspace in the USA (Case 3), and Facebook catching up with Cyworld in Korea (Case 4). To explain these cases, hypothesis-building and practice-oriented methods were chosen. While developing our hypothesis, we coined the concept of a "larger population social network" (LPSN) and proposed an "LPSN effect hypothesis" as follows: The largest SNS in one area can collapse when a new SNS grows in another larger population's social network. For the validity and reliability of our case studies, we used an evidence chain and case study protocol with a publicly-accessible LPSN index to determine which SNS is better for participating in or adding offline social networks to their platform.


Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. "The Black Image in the White Mind" offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites towards Blacks. Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry - from prime-time dramas and sitcoms to commercials and Hollywood movies. While the authors find very little in the media that intentionally promotes racism, they find even less that advances racial harmony. They reveal instead a subtle pattern of images that, while making room for Blacks, implies a racial hierarchy with Whites on top and promotes a sense of difference and conflict. Commercials, for example, feature plenty of Black characters. But unlike Whites, they rarely speak to or touch one another. In prime time, the few Blacks who escape sitcom buffoonery rarely enjoy informal, friendly contact with White colleagues - perhaps reinforcing social distance in real life. Entman and Rojecki interweave such astute observations with candid interviews of White Americans that make clear how these images of racial differences insinuate themselves into Whites' thinking. Despite its disturbing readings of television and film, the book's cogent analyses and proposed policy guidelines offer hope that America's powerful mediated racial separation can be successfully bridged.


Due to its physiographic setting in the delta region of the Mississippi River, a majority of the inhabited lands in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana are below local mean sea level and much of the Parish is surrounded by levees. The foremost goal of Parish officials is to protect the well-being of its citizens and to reduce property losses. As a result, an extensive canal and pumping network has been developed to remove rainwater from low lying areas to the adjoining tidal water areas. In an effort to improve drainage network response to severe weather conditions, the Parish is installing a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) System. The SCADA System will also monitor the sanitary sewer and potable water networks of the Parish. When fully implemented the SCADA System will provide real-time, reliable and systematic capture and tabulation of the flows and related characteristics of each infrastructure network. Over the next several years, the Parish will be instituting an integration of the SCADA System with other spatial technologies. GIS technology will be the primary source for inventory information pertaining to the physical structures and conditions of each network. The Parish intends to link selected inventory components with actual performance data to physical models. This will allow the Parish to better control network operations under emergencies such as periods of potential flooding as well as providing for emergency preparedness training and better planning and design for future improvements. Such a linkage requires a multi-discipline effort including expertise in SCADA Systems, surveying, photogrammetry, civil engineering and GIS technology. The Parish is committed to both SCADA and GIS technologies and to the use of them to support the life cycle of planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, monitoring and data reduction. As an outgrowth, the Parish will continue in its effort to develop and routinely apply dynamic physical models of the performance of key infrastructure networks under normal and stressed conditions. This paper describes the conceptual design of this GIS technology application including data capture, engineering schematic design, modeling and data management, reduction and analysis requirements.


Widespread misconceptions can be critical, especially in times of crisis. Through a field experiment, we study how to address such wrong or inaccurate beliefs using messages delivered to individual citizens using mobile phones. We focus on misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic in a hard-to-reach population – India's slum residents. We randomly allocate participants to receive voice and video messages introduced by a local citizen, the messenger, and in which medical practitioners debunk misconceptions. To understand the role of targeting, we randomly vary the signaled religious identity of the messenger into either Muslim or Hindu, guaranteeing exogenous variation in religion concordance between messenger and recipient. Doctor messages are effective at increasing knowledge of, and compliance with, COVID-19 policy guidelines. Changes in misconceptions are observed only when there is religion concordance and mainly for religious-salient misconceptions. Correcting misconceptions with information requires targeting messages to specific populations and tailoring them to individual characteristics. ( JEL D04, D80, D83, I10, I15, Z12)


Due to changes in global security requirements attention is turning to new means by which anomalies on the human body might be identified. For security screening systems operating in the millimeter wave band anomalies can be identified by measuring the emissivities of subjects. As the interaction of millimeter waves with the human body is only a fraction of a millimeter into the skin and clothing has a small, but known effect, precise measurement of the emission and reflection of this radiation will allow comparisons with the norm for that region of the body and person category. A technique to measure the human skin emissivity in vivo over the frequency band 80 GHz to 100 GHz is developed and described. The mean emissivity values of the skin of a sample of 60 healthy participants (36 males and 24 females) measured using a 90 GHz calibrated radiometer were found to range from 0.17±0.005 to 0.68±0.005. The lower values of emissivity are a result of measuring particularly thin skin on the inner wrist, volar side of the forearm, and back of hand, whereas higher values of emissivity are results of measuring thick skin on the outer wrist, dorsal surface of the forearm, and palm of hand. The mean differences in the emissivity between Asian and European male participants were calculated to be in the range of 0.04 to 0.11 over all measurement locations. Experimental measurements of the emissivity for male and female participants having normal and high body mass index indicate that the mean differences in the emissivity are in the range of 0.05 to 0.15 for all measurement locations. These results show the quantitative variations in the skin emissivity between locations, gender, and individuals. The mean differences in the emissivity values between dry and wet skin on the palm of hand and back of hand regions were found to be 0.143 and 0.066 respectively. These results confirm that radiometry can, as a non-contact method, identify surfaces attached to the human skin in tens of seconds. These results indicate a route to machine anomaly detection that may increase the through-put speed, the detection probabilities and reduce the false alarm rates in security screening portals.


This final thesis project is done at the Control Laws EXPERTISE Team at the Auto Flight Control Systems Department of THALES Avionics in Toulouse. The division currently works for both aircraft and helicopter manufacturers.An autopilot (AP) for use in commercial aircrafts must be certified by national authorities; in the EU this body is named European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). For landing there are different certification standards. The first standard is called CAT I which is used when weather conditions prevents the pilot from seeing the runway during the initial approach. The CAT IIIa on the other hand is the standard needed when the weather conditions are so adverse that the pilot cannot see the runway markings until 50 ft over the ground.This project aims to investigate the possibility to upgrade a given aircraft from a CAT IIIa to a CAT IIIb EASA certification. The CAT IIIb includes the CAT IIIa with an AP controlled runway rollout. The work includes the following:System analysisProposition of a control lawImplementation in non linear Simulink modelMock-up: Simulation visualization with synchronized Flight Mode Annunciator (FMA) and Primary Flight Display (PFD)The primary objective is not to search for the optimal solution for a CAT IIIb upgrade but rather to identify the eventual problems that will be encountered due to system architecture and rollout dynamics.First a system analysis is done. Here important information about the architecture is found. For example there is no connection between the nose wheel command and the auto flight system, which will be necessary, and some parts in the Fly-By-Wire (FBW) system have to be disconnected during the rollout. Also important is an analysis of the ground reaction model made by the client i.e. calculation of friction coefficients and forces. Next step is to develop a control law and a linear model for the rollout is therefore made. The absolute speed is supposed to be the rudder and the nose wheel, we obtain a 2nd degree state space model with the yaw rate r [rd/s] and the lateral speed Vy [m/s] (AC - coordinates) states.Since the rudder only gives effect at relatively high speeds (over ≈100 knots) and the nose wheel due to stability only can be used at low speeds (under ≈50 kn) this can be seen as two different systems and one control law can be developed for each command. The commands are then distributed proportionally between these speeds.The maximal deviation from the runway for the nominal flight case with 15 knots of crosswind is acceptable. However, it does not converge until rather late in the rollout. Simulations with stronger crosswind and head wind have been made with good results. Wet runways or less landing mass seem to be the most degrading cases.At touch down a yaw bar appears in the FPD and shows the control target of the AP. The FMA is complemented with the mode rollout during that phase. The connection with the simulator makes it possible for the viewer to understand the relation between the different phases and the AP logics.The control law is stable for the nominal case and even for different masses and runway conditions. However, when these variables are changed simultaneously unstable behavior appears. The phase just after touchdown should be improved.The FMA and PFD with proper annunciation synchronized with the flight simulator enable the uninitiated to understand the CAT IIIb operation.


The importance and impact of reputation is well documented in the literature. Yet scant empirical research has been conducted into the way different stakeholder groups define and assess reputation. This paper examines the way that different stakeholder groups define a brand's reputation and identifies the criteria they use to evaluate a financial services brand's reputation. The findings provide confirmation of many of the themes discerned in definitions of reputation proposed in the literature. However, in contrast to the literature, the research revealed that different stakeholder groups do not necessarily use different criteria to evaluate reputation, but rather emphasise different criteria.


PURPOSE
The fibrotic lens disorder posterior capsule opacification (PCO) develops in millions of patients following cataract surgery. PCO characteristics are extensive extracellular matrix (ECM) production and contraction of the posterior lens capsule, resulting in light-scattering ECM modification (wrinkling). The pro-fibrotic cytokine transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) is central to PCO development. This study aimed to elucidate the role of the ECM modulators matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in TGFβ-mediated PCO formation.

METHODS
The human lens epithelial cell-line FHL-124 and human capsular bag models were employed. Gene expression of MMP family members was determined by oligonucleotide microarray and quantitative real-time RT-PCR. MMP2 and MT1-MMP protein levels were analyzed by ELISA and Western blotting, respectively. Matrix contraction was determined using an FHL-124 patch contraction assay; at end-point, cells were stained with Coomassie brilliant blue and area was determined using image analysis software. Cell coverage and wrinkle formation on the posterior capsule were also assessed using human capsular bag models.

RESULTS
Active TGFβ2 (10 ng/mL) increased gene and protein levels of MMP2 and MT1-MMP and induced matrix contraction in FHL-124 cells. Specific siRNA inhibition of MT1-MMP did not suppress TGFβ2-induced matrix contraction. Active TGFβ2-mediated contraction was prevented by broad-spectrum MMP inhibitor GM6001 (25 μM), MMP2 siRNA, and MMP2 neutralizing antibody (4 μg/mL). TGFβ2-induced wrinkle formation was attenuated in human capsular bags treated with MMP2 neutralizing antibody (20 μg/mL).

CONCLUSIONS
MMP2 plays a critical role in TGFβ2-mediated matrix contraction, which appears to be independent of MT1-MMP. MMP2 inhibition provides a novel strategy for the treatment of PCO and potentially other fibrotic disorders.


Which rules for aggregating judgments on logically connected propositions are manipulable and which not? In this paper, we introduce a preference-free concept of non-manipulability and contrast it with a preference-theoretic concept of strategy-proofness. We characterize all non-manipulable and all strategy-proof judgment aggregation rules and prove an impossibility theorem similar to the Gibbard--Satterthwaite theorem. We also discuss weaker forms of non-manipulability and strategy-proofness. Comparing two frequently discussed aggregation rules, we show that "conclusion-based voting" is less vulnerable to manipulation than "premise-based voting", which is strategy-proof only for "reason-oriented" individuals. Surprisingly, for "outcome-oriented" individuals, the two rules are strategically equivalent, generating identical judgments in equilibrium. Our results introduce game-theoretic considerations into judgment aggregation and have implications for debates on deliberative democracy.


The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges. Although Between the Woods and the Water was published nine years after A Time of Gifts, Fermor is famously still at work on the concluding part of his trilogy.


In Canada, the phenomenon of urban refugees is largely an expression of statemanaged practices, not spontaneous migration and settlement. This study focuses on the distinctly North American, and specifically Canadian, experiences of premeditated, state-planned, government-managed migration and settlement for urban refugees from the Aceh region of Indonesia to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2004. It explores why and how these refugees came to Vancouver; the state policy decision that located all of them in one city; and how they have fared in acquiring official language proficiency and employment. Whereas many refugees move to urban centres to enhance educational and employment opportunities, this study illustrates the obstacles to accessing both inVancouver. Despite full legal status and access to employment sanctioned by the host state, there is no guarantee that refugees will have an easier time creating livelihoods under dramatically new conditions. The analysis is based on research conducted between January and August 2005 during which a survey of housing, employment, and income issues was conducted with 70 of the 104 Acehnese refugees who had relocated to Vancouver since February 2004. In addition, a one-day, three-part series of focus groups was held during which 47 members of the Acehnese community took part. Discussions centred on three keymoments during their migration: (1) while inMalaysian detention camps; (2) upon arrival inVancouver, BritishColumbia; and (3) during the first year of settlement in the city, to ascertain common settlement experiences, policy implications, and the short-term 'success' of the resettlement.


This paper aims to synchronize the historical developments in the economy of the Kyrgyz Republic with the works of Professor Musaeva Dzharkinay Asanovna. Prof. Musaeva, the recipient of the outstanding scholar of National Education of the Kyrgyz Republic award, was a prominent representative of the science and culture of the country. Prof. Musaeva's research reputation is based mainly on her works on agricultural economics and problems of economic growth and development of the transitional economy of Kyrgyzstan, which was ended with the formation of the idea of the Asian model of economic reforms. She was involved in several significant research initiatives and projects as part of the growing concern about economic reforms, strategy of economic development and their likely impact on the transitional economy of Kyrgyzstan, where the choice of the liberal model of economic reforms was natural and determined by the specific socio-economic and cultural-historical features of the development of the Kyrgyz people as a result of the nomadic lifestyle. These followed by the formulation and interpretation of the Asian model of the economic reforms in Kyrgyzstan and its future development trends.


For voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, correctly interpreting users' intentions is of utmost importance. However, users sometimes experience friction with these assistants, caused by errors from different system components or user errors such as slips of the tongue. Users tend to rephrase their queries until they get a satisfactory response. Rephrase detection is used to identify the rephrases and has long been treated as a task with pairwise input, which does not fully utilize the contextual information (e.g. users' implicit feedback). To this end, we propose a contextual rephrase detection model ContReph to automatically identify rephrases from multi-turn dialogues. We showcase how to leverage the dialogue context and user-agent interaction signals, including the user's implicit feedback and the time gap between different turns, which can help significantly outperform the pairwise rephrase detection models.


The South African government's objectives of job creation and poverty reduction depend on the success of policies that promote the employment of unskilled labour. Over the past decade, unskilled jobs in the formal sector have been lost, while the demand for skilled capital and labour has risen. In sectors that heavily employ less-educated workers, capital intensity has increased. Recent economic growth has mainly benefited sectors that rely more on relatively educated labour, and in these sectors capital intensity has not significantly increased. This paper explores how growth and job creation depend on private sector choices concerning how to produce, i.e. the relative proportions of capital and skilled or unskilled labour employed. South Africa's rising capital intensity and increased demand for skilled labour are part of a global phenomenon. Cross-country analysis, however, suggests that South Africa's rising capital intensity is greater than what would be expected given international experience. An analysis of the capital-to-labour ratio by major sectors of the economy documents substantial heterogeneity in sectoral trends. The evidence is circumstantial, but it is consistent with the hypothesis that education-intensive sectors of the economy are not flowing with the economy's trend towards capital intensity. The two education-intensive sectors of the economy – financial services and trade – are growing more rapidly but without significant increases in capital intensity, and they are creating jobs. The sectors that are not educationintensive – namely mining, construction and manufacturing – are growing more slowly or contracting even as their capital intensity increases, and they are shedding jobs. The paper develops a theoretical model that offers one possible explanation for this phenomenon. In the model, job creation depends on: the rate of capital investment; the nature of productivity growth; and the degree of substitutability of capital and labour. Rising investment rates are not sufficient to generate job creation. If productivity growth is labouraugmenting and labour cannot be readily substituted for capital, more investment can lead to job losses, even as the economy grows. A symptom of this is a rising capital-to-labour ratio. The evidence discussed in this paper suggests a number of important policy implications. Given the preliminary nature of this research, the paper aims to illuminate issues on the table rather than to pose solid policy recommendations. Further research, particularly with more disaggregated sectoral data and micro-economic analysis, is required to derive robust policy conclusions. The cost of capital in South Africa does not reflect the true cost to society of diverting resources to employing machinery and equipment. Enterprises lay off workers and replace them with automated machinery based on expected cost-benefit analysis that assesses the relative costs to the firm. The additional costs to society of increasing unemployment do not enter the calculation—yet they are substantial, in terms of social safety net costs (both public and private), as well as increased crime and social unrest. In this sense, policy that affects the relative prices of capital and labour is important. Yet, any policy mechanism is likely to succeed only in the medium to long term. Transitional policies are therefore important. The final section of this paper examines policy options, which can be categorised into two groups. The first takes the trend towards skillsand capital-intensity as a given, addressing Capital/Skills-Intensity and Job Creation: An Analysis of Policy Options s 2 the consequences by stimulating growth to offset the unemployment impact or by strengthening social security. The second set of options focuses on reversing the trend through policies that affect relative prices, productivity or specific industrial interventions. Relative prices can be shifted through labour policy, tax reform, industrial subsidies, or monetary policy. The policy options are not mutually exclusive. For instance, social security can be strengthened in a manner that emulates wage subsidies, improving society's ability to cope with high unemployment while potentially addressing the underlying problem. Since some of the causes of increased capital intensity are difficult to modify, there is a need for comprehensive social security reform that can cope with social dislocation while promoting job creation in a developmental manner. Other causal factors are amenable to policy intervention. The government's current and proposed industrial policies aim in part to address factor price distortions, skills shortages, and bottlenecks that stall labour-intensive small and medium enterprise promotion. This paper suggests that support for these policies, to the extent that they focus on increasing labour intensity, will yield returns not only in terms of economic growth, but also job creation. Capital/Skills-Intensity and Job Creation: An Analysis of Policy Options s 3


This report is one of 11 country reports produced for the "New Challenges to Data Protection" study, commissioned by the European Commission, and describes the ways in which US law addresses the challenges posed by the new social-technical-political environment.The hallmark of the US federal approach to privacy is sectoral regulation. A panoply of statutes now regulates specific types of government and business practices, with no broadly-applicable privacy statute governing data collection, use, or disclosure. The Federal Trade Commission has encouraged self-regulation in a number of sectors, and the development of privacy-enhancing technologies. The US approach to privacy is incoherent, sectorally-based, and largely driven by outrage at particular, narrow practices. Still, several innovations from the US approach deserve attention internationally. First, increasingly, privacy statutes create evolving standards of care, thus encouraging innovation for handling of data and avoiding the reification that can result from prescriptive, detailed regulation. For instance, the Fair Credit Reporting Act mandates an evolving "maximum possible accuracy" standard. Second, in the direct marketing context, the US has imposed advertiser liability for violations of telemarketing, fax, and spam laws. This is a promising approach to address the use of difficult-to-identify and prosecute service providers that are responsible for illegal marketing campaigns. Third, audit requirements for access to personal information has had a profound effect in encouraging industry and citizen policing of privacy violations. Audit logs have substantiated long-suspected privacy problems regarding "browsing" of files, and news media access to celebrities' medical records. Fourth, the US has briefly experimented with "data provenance," a requirement that buyers of personal information exercise diligence to ensure against misuse of data. Data provenance responsibilities can create incentives to reduce gray and black market sales of personal information. Finally, most federal privacy law acts as a floor of protections, allowing states to enact stronger rules. This has created a tension between state and federal governments, resulting in a leveling up of protections, because states (which tend to be more activist on privacy issues) can act where the US Congress is occupied with other issues.NB: The final report, an executive summary of the final report, both by Douwe Korff and Ian Brown (et al), and one of two working papers, as well as two further country reports (on France and Germany) and a Comparative Chart, all by Douwe Korff, all also produced for the Comparative Study of Different Approaches to New Privacy Challenges in Particular in the Light of Technological Developments, can be found on SSRN.


Four cultivars of Hordeum vulgare L. differing in salinity tolerance, viz. Haider-93 and Jau-87 (tolerant), Frontier-87 (medium sensitive) and Jau-83 (sensitive) along with five genotypes of Triticum aestivum L., viz. Lyllpur-73 Pak-81 (tolerant and medium tolerant), Lu-26 (medium sensitive), Pasban-90 and Landrace (sensitive) were investigated during the present study. Besides, two exotic wheat varieties differing in proline content and frost tolerance, i.e. Capelle (low proline content and less frost tolerant) and Roughrider (high proline content and highly frost tolerant) were also evaluated. These wheat and barley varieties were investigated for changes in water and osmotic potential, stomatal resistance, chlorophyll fluorescence (Rfa-values), accumulation of Na+ and Cl- ions and proline, grain yield and biomass under salinity stress. The plants were subjected to increasing concentrations of salt viz. 75mM. 150mM, 300mM and 400mM NaCl at the three leaf stage under growth chamber, natural climatic and field conditions.

The first experiment was conducted in a growth chamber. The results revealed that increasing concentrations of NaCl had significant detrimental effects on the physiological parameters, particularly in the salt sensitive cultivars of barley viz., Jau-83 and Frontier 87, as well as in the salt sensitive cultivars of wheat viz. Landrace, Pasban 90 and Lu-26. The tolerant lines of barley viz. Jau-87 and Haider-93 and that of wheat viz. Pak-81 and Lyllpur-73 were less affected by NaCl treatments and exhibited better performance in terms of physiological parameters. The Canadian wheat variety with high frost tolerance, Roughrider proved to be salt sensitive in comparison to the frost sensitive. French variety Capelle, which was found to be more salt tolerant. At lower concentrations of NaCl. viz. 75mM, and 150mM, small effects were observed with regard to stomatal resistance, osmotic potential. Rfd-values and proline contents. At higher doses of salt i.e., 300mM and 400mM NaCl, the sensitive cultivars of barley viz. Jau-83 and Frontier-87 and there of the wheat varieties viz. Landrace, Roughrider and Pasban-90 showed marked reductions in water and osmotic potentials, decrease in Rfd-values, increase in diffusive resistance and less proline accumulation. The proline contents were significantly increased (p<0.001) in the resistant lines of wheat viz. cv. Pak-81, Lyllpur-73 and Capelle and barley viz. Jau-87 and Haider-93 with increasing concentrations of NaCI.

The tolerant lines in both crops exhibited greater Na+ contents than the sensitive lines. Higher concentration of sodium in the salt resistant genotypes of wheat and barley seem to be related to the transpirational pull. This view is supported by the observation that the salt tolerant genotypes exhibited less stomatal resistance.

The second experiment involved the evaluation of the selected wheat and barley varieties cultivated in pots under natural climatic conditions of Pakistan. The results obtained were similar to those found in controlled conditions, but the magnitude of responses varied depending on other environmental factors, viz. humidity, light intensity, temperature etc. which may have mitigated the adverse effects of salinity stress. The tolerant cultivars of wheat and barley accumulated more proline, showed less inhibition in fresh and dry weight, the number of tillers per plant and 100 seed weight under NaCl stress. The two exotic cultivars of wheat, Roughrider and Capelle, exhibited different behavior under NaCl stress. Roughrider behaved as sensitive to salt and Capelle, as salt resistant. These result confirm the finding when tested in the growth chamber conditions This observation, also indicates that frost tolerance is not necessarily correlated with salinity tolerance.

The third experiment was aimed at investigating the wheat and barley cultivars in four different salt-affected regions of Punjab. The proline contents accumulated more at higher EC value of saline soils particularly in the tolerant varieties of wheat and barley. The stomatal resistance was increased significantly (p<0.001) with higher EC values, particularly for the salt susceptible cultivars. The tolerant genotypes of both crops exhibited greater number of tillers and seed weight at EC values ranging from 8.3-12.5 dsm-1. They also showed comparatively higher proline contents, greater Na . and Cl uptake with higher stomatal resistance at the reproductive stage than at the vegetative phase. In barley and wheat salt tolerance was related to a better water status and the ability for pronounced accumulation of proline under saline conditions as compared to the salt susceptible ones.

It is concluded from the findings of these three experiments that a relationship exists between genotype- specific salinity tolerance and accumulation of proline in the leaves and roots along with higher uptake of sodium and chloride, lower decrease in the water and osmotic potentials less inhibition in the Rfd-values as well as yield under salinity stress.


Increasingly, geospatial web applications such as www.fixmystreet.com or www.seeclickfix.com are being integrated within citizen participation processes in spatial planning and the provision of communal services. Recently, several of these platforms have been launched in Latin America and other countries of the Global South. This development raises the questions of whether citizens with low ICT-skills can fully access and use these tools, and hence whether they are empowered to participate in related community management processes. The GeoCitizen framework (www.geocitizen.org) has been designed specifically to address citizens who tend to be excluded from established planning processes, providing them with accessible and easy-to-use online tools to make their voice heard through the public space of the internet. This paper describes the set-up and results of a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Evaluation carried out for the GeoCitizen-reporting application amongst members of marginalized communities in Cali, Colombia. It investigates whether spatially illiterate users with low ICT-skills can access and use this application to its full extent. It analyses the most common usability issues that were identified by the test user group and gives indications as to how geospatial web applications should be designed in order to meet the challenges that come along with its use.


Abstract This article examines critically the extent to which the availability of Enhanced Consumer Measures (ECMs) created by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 addresses the problems associated with the enforcement of consumer protection law in the UK. The article explains the genesis of the provisions by establishing the limitations of the previous law before moving on to consider the extent to which ECMs are successful in addressing those limitations. The article argues that, while the availability of ECMs will potentially improve the ability of both enforcers and courts to achieve some objectives of consumer protection law, the measures raise some significant concerns. Of particular concern is the extent to which they signal a move away from prosecution in cases in which that would be the optimal response, and so compromise the ability of consumer protection law to achieve some of its most important objectives.


Background: In order to be able to detect it at the earliest t is essential that the physicians are able to perform a good clinical breast exam. Also Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) presents the physician with an opportunity to make the women aware about their breasts. But whether our medical graduates are trained well enough to a good breast exam needs to be assessed. Material and Methods: The present study was conducted in New Delhi, capital of India. Since there is paucity of literature on this topic in India the sample size was calculated with p to be 50% so as to get the maximum sample size. Allowable error was fixed at 5%. Calculated sample size was 400. Study subjects were fresh medical graduates who had completed one year of compulsory internship posting. Data was collected from students who had reported for interviews for junior residency at various hospitals both teaching as well as non-teaching located in Delhi in the year 2014. A self-administered questionnaire was prepared in English. Questionnaire was given to them to be filled after the interview was over as then subjects could be freely contacted. Data was entered in Excel sheet. Analysis was done using SPSS licensed version 21.0.Simple and cross tables were made. Also appropriate tests of significance were applied. P value of <0.05 was taken to be significant. Results: Mean age of the participants was 23.8 years. 278(67.8%) of the participants were females and 132 (32.2%) were males. 271 (66.1%) of the participants were from a government medical college and 129 (31.5%) from private medical college. Out of a total of 410 participants 402 (98%) mentioned that they knew how to perform a CBE whereas 08 (1.95%) said they did not know how to do it. On being enquired about indications of doing a clinical breast exam majority mentioned 269 (66.9%) if a woman with a breast problem approached them then, 12 (3%) said for all women more than 40 years of age as a screening method and 121 (30.1%) mentioned in both the situations. A low proportion, 84 (20.9%) actually knew the correct perimeter of the breast. Participants also did not have adequate knowledge about the part of the hand to be used for palpation as only 116 (28.85%) responded that pads of middle three fingers should be used. Vertical strip pattern which is said to cover maximum breast area was stated by only 18 (4.5%). 99.5% (400) knew that nipples were to be examined as a part of CBE but did not know that spontaneous discharge from breast is an important sign of breast cancer. 87 (21.6%) even stated that they had never done a clinical breast exam. Only 2 (0.50%) had done more than 5 breast World J Epidemiol Cancer Prevention 2017; 6:1-8 Khokhar A et. Al 2 http://www.npplweb.com/wjecp/content/2017/6/1 exams during graduation. A large number of 390 (97.0%) stated that they were not confident of doing a CBE and the main reason cited for that was not enough clinical exposure and practice. Out of 392 who stated they further wanted training main reasons cited were that as a part of general; practice this skill is required 248 (61.7%), cancer is on the increase and hence one must learn CBE, 191 (47.5%), half of the women are patients 54 (13.4%). 301/392 (74.9%) said they would like to teach the women about breast self-awareness while doing a CBE whereas 91/392 (22.6%) were apprehensive that either the lady might not understand or they might not have enough time to explain the procedure to the lady who comes to them. On being enquired about how would they like to improve their CBE skill responses were by practicing on patients 214/392 (54.6%), 174/392 (44.4%), by practicing on models/mannequin and 98(25%) by seeing videos. Conclusion: A structured training programme for imparting skill of CBE should be formulated for the medical graduates so that they can contribute towards breast cancer screening of the large number of needy women.