Waveguide Raman spectroscopy has been applied to the analysis of single-layer, refractory-oxide, thin-film coatings on fused silica. With the use of the film as a waveguide, the interaction of the laser probe beam with the film is maximized, and interference from the silica substrate is minimized. An amorphous film of Ta2O5 was found to be an excellent waveguide, yielding an intense Raman spectrum. Even though polycrystalline films of Y2O3, ZrO2, HfO2, and ThO2 were found to be poor waveguides, they still yielded Raman spectra containing useful structural information. Such Raman spectra showed that the ThO2 film was initially in an unusual structural form, which spontaneously transformed into cubic ThO2. Even for films yielding relatively weak Raman bands, substrate Raman scattering was not a serious interference. Representative spectra are presented, along with a brief discussion of the requirements for coupling optical beams into films with large refractive indices.


Emotion detection in conversations is a necessary step for a number of applications, including opinion mining over chat history, social media threads, debates, argumentation mining, understanding consumer feedback in live conversations, and so on. Currently systems do not treat the parties in the conversation individually by adapting to the speaker of each utterance. In this paper, we describe a new method based on recurrent neural networks that keeps track of the individual party states throughout the conversation and uses this information for emotion classification. Our model outperforms the state-of-the-art by a significant margin on two different datasets.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiac arrhythmia that affects 1% of the population worldwide and is associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality. Catheter ablation (CA) has become one of the first line treatments for AF, but its success rates are suboptimal, especially in the case of persistent AF. Computational approaches have shown promise in predicting the CA strategy using simulations of atrial models, as well as applying deep learning to atrial images. We propose a novel approach that combines image-based computational modelling of the atria with deep learning classifiers trained on patient-specific atrial models, which can be used to assist in CA therapy selection. Therefore, we trained a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) using a combination of (i) 122 atrial tissue images obtained by unfolding patient LGE-MRI datasets, (ii) 157 additional synthetic images derived from the patient data to enhance the training dataset, and (iii) the outcomes of 558 CA simulations to terminate several AF scenarios in the corresponding image-based atrial models. Four CNN classifiers were trained on this patient-specific dataset balanced using several techniques to predict three common CA strategies from the patient atrial images: pulmonary vein isolation (PVI), rotor-based ablation (Rotor) and fibrosis-based ablation (Fibro). The training accuracy for these classifiers ranged from 96.22 to 97.69%, while the validation accuracy was from 78.68 to 86.50%. After training, the classifiers were applied to predict CA strategies for an unseen holdout test set of atrial images, and the results were compared to outcomes of the respective image-based simulations. The highest success rate was observed in the correct prediction of the Rotor and Fibro strategies (100%), whereas the PVI class was predicted in 33.33% of the cases. In conclusion, this study provides a proof-of-concept that deep neural networks can learn from patient-specific MRI datasets and image-derived models of AF, providing a novel technology to assist in tailoring CA therapy to a patient.


The thesis is a contribution to extreme-value statistics, more precisely to the estimation of clustering characteristics of extreme values. One summary measure of the tendency to form groups is the inverse average cluster size. In extreme-value context, this parameter is called the extremal index, and apart from its relation with the size of groups, it appears as an important parameter measuring the effects of serial dependence on extreme levels in time series. Although several methods exist for its estimation in univariate sequences, these methods are only applicable for strictly stationary series satisfying a long-range asymptotic independence condition on extreme levels, cannot take covariates into consideration, and yield only crude estimates for the corresponding multivariate quantity. These are strong restrictions and great drawbacks. In climatic time series, both stationarity and asymptotic independence can be broken, due to climate change and possible long memory of the data, and not including information from simultaneously measured linked variables may lead to inefficient estimation. The thesis addresses these issues. First, we extend the theorem of Ferro and Segers (2003) concerning the distribution of inter-exceedance times: we introduce truncated inter-exceedance times, called K-gaps, and show that they follow the same exponential-point mass mixture distribution as the inter-exceedance times. The maximization of the likelihood built on this distribution yields a simple closed-form estimator for the extremal index. The method can admit covariates and can be applied with smoothing techniques, which allows its use in a nonstationary setting. Simulated and real data examples demonstrate the smooth estimation of the extremal index. The likelihood, based on an assumption of independence of the K-gaps, is misspecified whenever K is too small. This motivates another contribution of the thesis, the introduction into extreme-value statistics of misspecification tests based on the information matrix. For our likelihood, they are able to detect misspecification from any source, not only those due to a bad choice of the truncation parameter. They provide help also in threshold selection, and show whether the fundamental assumptions of stationarity or asymptotic independence are broken. Moreover, these diagnostic tests are of general use, and could be adapted to many kinds of extreme-value models, which are always approximate. Simulated examples demonstrate the performance of the misspecification tests in the context of extremal index estimation. Two data examples with complex behaviour, one univariate and the other bivariate, offer insight into their power in discovering situations where the fundamental assumptions of the likelihood model are not valid. In the multivariate case, the parameter corresponding to the univariate extremal index is the multivariate extremal index function. As in the univariate case, its appearance is linked to serial dependence in the observed processes. Univariate estimation methods can be applied, but are likely to give crude, unreasonably varying, estimates, and the constraints on the extremal index function implied by the characteristics of the stable tail dependence function are not automatically satisfied. The third contribution of the thesis is the development of methodology based on the M4 approximation of Smith and Weissman (1996), which can be used to estimate the multivariate extremal index, as well as other cluster characteristics. For this purpose, we give a preliminary cluster selection procedure, and approximate the noise on finite levels with a flexible semiparametric model, the Dirichlet mixtures used widely in Bayesian analysis. The model is fitted by the EM algorithm. Advantages and drawbacks of the method are discussed using the same univariate and bivariate examples as the likelihood methods.


The balance of computation and communication in any application or task is, of course, known to be a fundamental determinant of delivered performance. Such balance is a muchsought-after goal for the architects and designers of any system, large or small, from the smallest processor chip to the largest of interconnected hardware or software system (such as the Web). Depending on the workload, and the level at which you analyze performance, information processing is either computation or communication bound. The workload variability factor is easy to see; but let's take a look at the other factor: the measurement perspective. For example, from the perspective of a single machine node in a massive cluster of computers, the main CPU might be frequently underutilized, waiting for data from the networked world to which it connects. Thus, at the compute node's level, the application appears mostly communication bound, in this case. However, the overriding reason for this high communication latency might actually be due to low processing bandwidth or poor throughput performance at the network router level. The network processor(s) handling the communication traffic within the router hardware might actually be compute bound, and this could be the real performance bottleneck when viewed from the perspective of the whole (integrated) system. Indeed, in general, the workload might exhibit phased behavior, where at one time the main compute node processor is the bottleneck; at another time the network processor hub is the bottleneck. And, of course, limitations in the link communication latency and bandwidth can also be the main source of traffic congestion and the performance shortfall, not the compute node or the communication node, per se. So, if the goal is to optimize overall system performance in a networked environment, the balance between computation and communication at each node (be it a true number-crunching compute node or a traffic routing communication node) and the intervening communication links requires careful architecting. If the compute node idles because of poor communication latency, but there is spare communication bandwidth, then it makes sense to upgrade the compute node to support higher degrees of multithreading (either through multiple cores or the use of simultaneous multithreading, or both). On the other hand, if available bandwidth is the constraint, reducing the number of threads in the compute node CPU, while increasing the single-thread performance, is probably the way to go. How to maintain such rate match or balance dynamically, across variable application workloads, to maintain overall system efficiency from the perspective of performance and power, is an interesting research topic that many in this field are pursuing. IEEE Micro devotes this issue to network processors, a key set of components that help engineers build rather complex, interconnected computer systems developed to solve a variety of scientific, engineering, and commercial applications. Network processor design brings out many of the inherent power-performance trade-off choices common in the world of general-purpose processors. Yet, because of their unique role in optimizing system communication needs (as opposed to computational needs), these processors have certain unique requirements that make it interesting to focus on this segment of the microprocessor market. I hope you find these articles interesting and relevant to your needs. Enjoy!


During a time of advancement in science, innovation, and culture, no noteworthy change has been found in the lives of Dalits (untouchables) in India. Social, monetary, and cultural existence of Dalits has not changed since the pre-historic. Dalit literary movement and development, which had begun in the early part of the twentieth century, has been a branch of the abuse of Dalits by the upper caste positions. Through literary works, they have been attempting to protect their sense of pride, identity, personality, and heritage/ legacy of their locale. Untouchable Spring by Kalyan Rao is a novel that also can be called as a verifiable archive that represents the situation of Dalits in a post-independence time. The novelist G. KalyanRao, a Dalit, who trusts and believes in the progressive philosophy and revolutionary ideology, depicts the lives of Dalit Christians and their mortification in the hands of caste Hindus. It likewise features how they "find their mankind through resistance." The paper goes for giving historiography of the denied more than several generations and ages for the rise of powerful voice in subaltern writing.


At times, manuscripts are submitted that present possible conflicts of interest for the editorial team or for the Editorial Panel. On those occasions, we invite a guest editor (usually a former JRME Editor or Panel Chair) to manage the editorial process. Their work has helped preserve the integrity and quality of the journal while assuring authors that their manuscripts would be reviewed fairly. The editorial team is grateful to the following individuals who have served as guest editors for manuscripts submitted to the journal in 2018.


The detection of a grating located in the periphery is impaired by the presence of a surrounding grating of same spatial frequency and orientation. This suppression is the psychophysical counterpart of the surround suppression found in the striate cortex that is orientation tuned and can be mediated dichoptically (De Angelis, et al 1994). The proposed sources of this suppression involve long-range lateral connections and feedback connections to V1 from extrastriate cortex, thus the neurotransmitter GABA may regulate this intracortical inhibition. A recent study (Lunghi, et al, 2014) has shown that a short-term monocular deprivation reduced GABA concentration by 11%, thus, our hypothesis is that monocular deprivation will reduce surround suppression. Four subjects performed two contrast-detection experiments where the target was a 1c/deg grating located at 5 deg eccentricity. We tested three conditions: a) target with no surround (NS), b) target embedded within a surrounding grating of 20 deg diameter, 25% contrast, same spatial frequency, and orthogonal orientation (OS), and c) target embedded within a surrounding grating with parallel orientation (PS). We tested both eyes independently using a 3D display. In the first experiment stimuli were monocular. In the second, stimuli were dichoptic, i.e. target in one eye and surround in the other. Both experiments had three sessions; (1) baseline, (2) after 150 min of patching the right eye and (3) 24 hours later. Monocular deprivation did not change the relative contrast sensitivity of the two eyes (Exp 1, NS). Neither did it cause significant differences in suppression indices monocularly (Exp 1, log10(PS/NS)). However, after deprivation, we found a strong, temporary reduction (-41%) of the suppression in the PS condition only when the target was presented in the deprived eye. Thus, brief (2.5hrs) monocular deprivation reduces inter ocular surround suppression but not monocular surround suppression. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


The continuous 24-h infusion of a maximally stimulating dose (1 micrograms/kg per h) of ovine corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) in man caused a modest elevation of plasma cortisol (17.2 +/- 1.4 micrograms/dl) and urinary-free cortisol (173 +/- 43 micrograms/24 h) concentrations, which was far less than that seen with a maximally stimulating dose of ACTH (50.4 +/- 2.2 micrograms/dl and 1,200 +/- 94 micrograms/24 h, respectively). The circadian rhythms of plasma ACTH and cortisol were preserved during CRF administration. An intravenous bolus injection of 1 microgram/kg of ovine CRF given to normal volunteers under basal conditions resulted in elevated plasma ACTH and cortisol peak levels (28 +/- 6 pg/ml and 15.0 +/- 1.0 micrograms/dl, respectively). However, no plasma ACTH and cortisol responses were observed when an identical CRF stimulation test was given at the end of the continuous infusion. These findings suggest that the stimulatory activity of exogenous CRF on the ACTH-secreting cells of the pituitary gland is restrained by the negative feedback of cortisol. The persistent circadian rhythm of ACTH, despite a constant level of plasma CRF during the infusion, suggests that the circadian variation in the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis cannot be explained solely by circadian periodicity of the endogenous CRF stimulus.


Cryogenic machining of titanium alloys using the internal cooling method is being identified as an alternative effective process to current practice of machining materials with poor thermal conductivity. The choice of jet parameters is particularly important for improving their machining quality and saving the production cost simultaneously. This research aimed to minimize the surface roughness by optimizing the comprehensive jet parameters in cryogenic milling Ti-6Al-4V. By comparing the cooling capability of liquid nitrogen and gaseous nitrogen, the influence mechanism of nitrogen phase on surface roughness was illuminated. A self-developed cryogenic machine tool with conveying liquid nitrogen through the spindle and tool was specially used to carry out milling experiments. The results indicated that the nitrogen phase had a most significant effect on surface roughness, followed by the pressure while the effect of flowrate was lowest. A lower volume fraction of gas, a higher pressure, and a proper flowrate could produce a lower surface roughness. An optimal combination of jet parameters was ultimately selected as the liquid nitrogen with 45 l/h of flowrate and 0.6 MPa of pressure to obtain the minimum surface roughness at 0.076 μm.


This contribution aims at unifying two recent trends in applied particle filtering (PF). The first trend is the major impact in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) applications, utilizing the FastSLAM algorithm. The second one is the implications of the marginalized particle filter (MPF) or the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) in positioning and tracking applications. Using the standard FastSLAM algorithm, only low-dimensional vehicle models are computationally feasible. In this work, an algorithm is introduced which merges FastSLAM and MPF, and the result is an algorithm for SLAM applications, where state vectors of higher dimensions can be used. Results using experimental data from a UAV (helicopter) are presented. The algorithm fuses measurements from on-board inertial sensors (accelerometer and gyro) and vision in order to solve the SLAM problem, i.e., enable navigation over a long period of time.


Based upon long-term observations (1993-2010) of satellite-derived winter sea surface temperature (SST) data, an exceptional cold-water intrusion into the southern Taiwan Strait (TS) was noted in February 2008. In the winter of 2008, La Nina caused a strong and continuous northeasterly wind that drove the cold ocean current, the China Coastal Current, more southward to penetrate the southern TS north of the Chang-Yuen Ridge. A portion of this current turned eastward to the south of Penghu Islands (PHI). The low-SST event significantly impeded local marine aquaculture and wild fish, causing the death of more than 73 tons of fish around PHI. Comparing variations of the first quarterly catches in 2008 with the long-term averages from 1993 to 2010 (excluding 2008), we noted a 50 to 80% decrease in catches from pole-and-line, long-line, and gill-net fishery. Non-migratory species dominated the composition of the catches. We also noted a greater than 230% increase in the catches from set-net fishery, with the majority being migratory species. These results illustrate the positive and negative effects of cold-water intrusion on several fish communities and species.


Introduction: Calcification is an excellent predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Microcalcifications in thin fibrous caps of atherosclerotic plaques create biomechanical instability, leading to plaque rupture and subsequent myocardial infarction and stroke. We previously showed that cellular-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) play a role in the microcalcification nucleation; however, the mechanisms remain unknown. We hypothesize that the aggregation of specialized EVs with a unique proteomic fingerprint serve as nucleating foci for microcalcifications. Methods and Results: Transmission electron microscopy of atherosclerotic plaques indicated aggregation of EVs within regions of disrupted collagen. Using super-resolution confocal microscopy and a near-infrared calcium tracer we observed EVs derived from human coronary artery smooth muscle cells (SMCs) cultured in osteogenic media (OM) aggregating to form microcalcifications within collagen hydrogels, a 3D model of fibrous cap. After 21 days in OM, SMCs produced an endogenous collagen matrix with entrapped microcalcifications. We collected the conditioned media from SMCs cultured in OM or control media for 21 days (enriched in non-calcifying EVs) and a collagenase digestion was performed to obtain the trapped calcifying EVs. Mass spectrometry with tandem mass tagging was used to assess the proteome of each EV population. Cluster analyses of the 621 identified proteins (> 2 unique peptides) revealed 131 proteins that increased in OM and trapped within the collagen matrix. SCaMC-1 was 3.2 fold increased in EVs from SMCs cultured in OM. A protein with homology to SCaMC-1 was recently shown to induce calcium mineralization in the Japanese pearl oyster and calcium phosphate deposition in the mitochondria of cancer cells, suggesting its role in biomineralization. We further performed immunostaining of calcified human carotid arteries that revealed a colocalization of SCaMC-1 expression and microcalcifications, while SCaMC-1 was not detected in non-calcified regions of the tissue. Conclusions: Here, we identify SCaMC-1, a calcium-dependent ATP transporter previously unreported in vascular calcification, that is associated with EV mineralization.


Giant fibrovascular polyp of the esophagus is a rare but dramatic entity. These large polyps arise in the proximal esophagus and can cause airway obstruction secondary to mechanical pressure on the larynx, or they can present as a mass that is regurgitated into the oral cavity. We present a 66-year-old man who complained of nausea and vomiting that were associated with a fibrovascular polyp protruding into the mouth. He had also experienced several episodes of syncope resulting from intermittent airway obstruction. He underwent an open resection of an 11.8-cm fibrovascular polyp and an endoscopic resection of a second fibrovascular polyp 2 days later. Histopathologically, both masses were composed of a mixture of mature adipose tissue lobules and fibrovascular tissue, lined by reactive squamous epithelium. Despite their large size, giant fibrovascular polyps should be recognized radiologically and pathologically as benign lesions. However, they can result in significant morbidity.


The prose storyboard language is a formal language for describing movies shot by shot, where each shot is described with a unique sentence [4]. The language uses a simple syntax and limited vocabulary borrowed from working practices in traditional movie-making, and is intended to be readable both by machines and humans. The language is designed to serve as a high-level user interface for intelligent cinematography and editing systems.


Newspapers are in trouble. Circulation and advertising are down as readers shift from print to online media. Although changing reader preferences and the loss of lucrative classified advertising to online sources are major worries, the news media seems preoccupied with news aggregators and bloggers who distribute news content on the internet without permission. Newspapers are not the only ones worried about the unauthorized distribution of "their" news on the internet. Financial services companies are unhappy about the distribution of their "hot" stock recommendations and other content providers seek to control online news ranging from movie schedules to business ratings. Traditional copyright doctrine offers varying degrees of protection for the literary format of the news — broad in scope for the text of news stories, narrower and less certain for smaller expressions like news headlines and leads. Content providers want more. They seek to control the online distribution not just of their literary forms, but of the very facts that are the news itself. The battle is being waged on two fronts. One involves an attempt to extend the traditional scope of copyright beyond the protection of expression into the previously forbidden realm of facts. The second front involves efforts by content providers to enlist the century-old common law tort of misappropriation. The reemergence of the misappropriation tort from the shadow of federal copyright law is somewhat improbable, resting as it does on a single paragraph of legislative history, extracted from an ABA Committee Report, that was directed at a portion of the copyright revision bill that was never actually enacted. Nevertheless, its application to news on the internet has been cheered by many commentators. This Article examines the recent attempts by content providers to gain control over facts through federal copyright law and the common law tort of misappropriation.


Particle Technology and Engineering presents the basic knowledge and fundamental concepts that are needed by engineers dealing with particles and powders. The book provides a comprehensive reference and introduction to the topic, ranging from single particle characterization to bulk powder properties, from particle-particle interaction to particle-fluid interaction, from fundamental mechanics to advanced computational mechanics for particle and powder systems. The content focuses on fundamental concepts, mechanistic analysis and computational approaches. The first six chapters present basic information on properties of single particles and powder systems and their characterisation (covering the fundamental characteristics of bulk solids (powders) and building an understanding of density, surface area, porosity, and flow), as well as particle-fluid interactions, gas-solid and liquid-solid systems, with applications in fluidization and pneumatic conveying. The last four chapters have an emphasis on the mechanics of particle and powder systems, including the mechanical behaviour of powder systems during storage and flow, contact mechanics of particles, discrete element methods for modelling particle systems, and finite element methods for analysing powder systems. This thorough guide is beneficial to undergraduates in chemical and other types of engineering, to chemical and process engineers in industry, and early stage researchers. It also provides a reference to experienced researchers on mathematical and mechanistic analysis of particulate systems, and on advanced computational methods.Provides a simple introduction to core topics in particle technology: characterisation of particles and powders: interaction between particles, gases and liquids; and some useful examples of gas-solid and liquid-solid systemsIntroduces the principles and applications of two useful computational approaches: discrete element modelling and finite element modellingEnables engineers to build their knowledge and skills and to enhance their mechanistic understanding of particulate systems


Western Turkey is one of the most spectacular regions of widespread active continental extension in the world. The most prominent structures of this region are E–W-trending grabens (e.g. Gediz and Büyük Menderes grabens) and intervening horsts, exposing the Menderes Massif. This paper documents the result of a recent field campaign (field geological mapping and structural analysis) along the southern margin of the modern Gediz Graben of Pliocene (∼ 5 Ma) age. This work provides field evidence that the presently low-angle ductile-brittle detachment fault is cut and displaced by the high-angle graben-bounding normal faults with total displacement exceeding 2.0 km. The evolution of the N–S extension along the Gediz Graben occurred during two episodes, each characterized by a distinct structural styles: (1) rapid exhumation of Menderes Massif in the footwall of low-angle normal fault (core-complex mode) during the Miocene; (2) late stretching of crust producing E–W grabens along high-angle normal faults (rift mode) during Pliocene–Quaternary times, separated by a short-time gap. The later phase is characterized by the deposition of now nearly horizontal sediments of Pliocene age in the hanging walls of the high-angle normal faults and present-day graben floor sediments. The evolution of extension is at variance with orogenic collapse and/or back-arc extension followed by the combined effect of tectonic escape and subduction rollback processes along the Aegean-Cyprean subduction zone. Consequently, it is misleading to describe the Miocene sediments exhumed on shoulders of the Gediz Graben as simple graben fill.


Marketing cooperatives in developing and transition countries face challenges when they aim to strengthen their competitiveness. One of these challenges relates to improving the quality of the products delivered by their members. Another challenge relates to the financial sustainability of the cooperative, as cooperatives have to choose between paying out a surplus to members and retaining it in the organisation. As these problems are not specific to one organisation, and public policies often affect the scope for individual cooperatives, we explore how the institutional environment helps in reducing those challenges. We present a case study of the Moroccan dairy industry, exploring how the institutional environment has affected the development and performance of dairy cooperatives. The methods used were in-depth semi-structured interviews within six dairy cooperatives. Findings point to the weak coordination between the main value chain actors. We also found a lack of financial instruments to facilitate investments in adequate quality assurance equipment and capacity development programs. Finally, we found a perceived lack of support from state policies vis-as-vis smallholders and their cooperatives.


The traditional contact-type printed circuit board (PCB) test methods have been unable to meet the needs of the fault detection and maintenance of a variety of increasingly complex electronic equipment. The visible and infrared respectively reflects the background information and the radiation information of PCB, so we can fuse the visible image and infrared image of the board together, and use the new fusion image to locate and identify the abnormal high temperature components or areas of the circuit board. A novel fusion algorithm of multi-sensor image is proposed based on Discrete Wavelet transform (DWT) and pulse coupled neural networks (PCNN) in this paper. Firstly, the IR and visible images are decomposed by DWT, then a fusion rule in the DWT is given based on the PCNN. This algorithm uses the local entropy of wavelet coefficient in each frequency domain as the linking strength, then its value can be chosen adaptively. After processing PCNN with the adaptive linking strength, new fire mapping images are obtained. According to the fire mapping images, the firing time gradient maps are calculated and the fusion coefficients are decided by the compare-selection operator with firing time gradient maps. Finally, the fusion images are reconstructed by wavelet inverse transform. The proposed algorithm of image fusion using modified pulse coupled neural networks (MPCNN) and DWT results in better quality of fused image with Entropy, Average grads, Cross-Entropy as compared to conventional image fusion Algorithms.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to profile methylation alterations of CpG islands in ovarian tumors and to identify candidate markers for diagnosis and prognosis of the disease.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
A global analysis of DNA methylation using a novel microarray approach called differential methylation hybridization was performed on 19 patients with stage III and IV ovarian carcinomas.

RESULTS
Hierarchical clustering identified two groups of patients with distinct methylation profiles. Tumors from group 1 contained high levels of concurrent methylation, whereas group 2 tumors had lower tumor methylation levels. The duration of progression-free survival after chemotherapy was significantly shorter for patients in group 1 compared with group 2 (P < 0.001). Differential methylation in tumors was independently confirmed by methylation-specific PCR.

CONCLUSIONS
The data suggest that a higher degree of CpG island methylation is associated with early disease recurrence after chemotherapy. The differential methylation hybridization assay also identified a select group of CpG island loci that are potentially useful as epigenetic markers for predicting treatment outcome in ovarian cancer patients.


Fiat lux .... In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And as sin came into the world, so too did the possibility and the promise of redemption. The Book of Genesis' accounts of Creation supply three distinct ethics that inform agriculture as the profoundest point of contact between humanity and the natural world. The combatants in the debate between conventional and alternative agriculture have co-opted the dominion ethic of Genesis' first account of Creation and the stewardship ethic of the Scriptures' second account. But these intrinsically romantic accounts overlook a third ethic, the survival ethic that God pronounces upon expelling Adam and Eve from Eden. Fiat lex .... In the beginning was the farm, and the farm was with the law, and the farm was the law. Modern American agricultural law may have been born during the developmental dawn of 1862, but the beast had spent nine decades in gestation. The Constitution itself included the first two pieces of agricultural law in the United States: the accommodation of slavery and the apportionment of Senate seats by territory. The politics of slaves and Senators defined American agricultural policy well past the Civil War. The curse of slavery as American agriculture's original sin grips us still. So tight is the grip that the entire history of racial oppression in America can be succinctly stated in agricultural terms. And the darkness comprehended it not .... The Agrarian manifesto, I'll Take My Stand, provides a touchstone by which Americans can reflect upon their country's agricultural history and upon the South's unique contribution to that history. Agrarian romanticism, as embodied in Agrarian ideology, conceals the depravity and original sin of American agriculture. Look homeward, America, to the Dixie where you were born early on one frosty mornin', and you will reap the bitter harvest that your founding farmers sowed. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first . . . . Any redemption of American agriculture and the law it has spawned surely does not rest in the idolatrous attribution of divine power to the farmer. In a world without agrarian virtue, on face of an earth cursed for Adam's sake, the only redemption possible is a redemption without romance. Hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, let us through Eden take our solitary way.


This paper analyzes an interaction between a carbon-tax collecting and
investing coalition of rich countries, abstaining rich countries and poor
countries. The non-coalition countries may suffer from loss of reputation and
guilt and may overstate the emission-moderating effect of the carbon tax. As long as
these three types of countries react to their counterparts' emissions, taxing
carbon-dioxide emissions unilaterally does not necessarily reduce the global
emissions. Nor does it necessarily moderate the emissions of the coalition.


Wireless devices connected to our daily lives, such as smartphones and laptops, are increasingly demanding more bandwidth and services. At the same time, a large proportion of the population in developing countries is still waiting for wireless broadband internet connectivity and services. The CSIR has developed an innovative, smart spectrum management tool that allows optimal sharing and utilisation of currently wasted and scarce spectrum resources to improve the reach of broadband internet services.


'Fiery the angels fell; slow thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.' Whether in recent popular culture, or back across countless centuries, angels have perpetually enthralled and even terrified us. 'Every single angel is terrible,' wrote the German Romantic poet Rilke: 'and so I hold myself back from the dark bird-cry of my anguished sobbing.' For sceptics, angels may be no more than metaphors: poetic devices to convey, at least for those with a religious sensibility, an active divine interest in creation. But for others, angels are absolutely real creatures: manifestations of cosmic power with the capacity either to enlighten or annihilate those whose awestruck paths they cross. Valery Rees offers the first comprehensive history of these beautiful, enigmatic and sometimes dangerous beings, whose existence and actions have been charted across the eons of time and civilization. Whether exploring the fevered visions of Ezekiel and biblical cherubim; Persian genii; Arab djinn; Islamic archangels; the austere and haunting icons of Andrei Rublev; or Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and the more benign idea of the watchful guardian angel, the author shows that the ubiquity of these celestial messengers reveals something profound, if not about God or the devil, then about ourselves: our perennial preoccupation with the transcendent.


The Common Authentication Protocol Speci cation Language (CAPSL) is a high-level language for applying formal methods to the security analysis of cryptographic protocols. Its goal is to permit a protocol to be speci ed once in a form that is usable as an interface to any type of analysis tool or technique, given appropriate translation software. This paper describes the rst operational CAPSL translator to the language used by the NRL Protocol Analyzer (NPA), a software tool developed speci cally for the analysis of cryptographic protocols.


Abstract Academic conferences have always been privileged spaces and moments for the dissemination of new scientific knowledge, as well as for social interaction and for the establishment and development of social networks among scientists. However, the virtual dimension of conferences, in which individuals are not physically present in the same place, begins to emerge as an increasingly used possibility, which implies a different framing of these scientific events. This paper seeks to comparatively analyse several models of academic conferences, putting forth their advantages, limitations and potentials. Furthermore, it also seeks to reasonably envision the importance and challenges to be faced in the near future. The analysis allows concluding that virtual conferences tend to take on an increasingly central role in this type of scientific dissemination, but without totally relegating the conference mode with face-to-face interaction. Moreover, there may be conferences that emerge as a hybrid between these two types of conferences, in an attempt to provide their main benefits to the various participants. However, the insufficient literature on this topic calls for the need to develop and deepen studies in this area that allow understanding this academic and social, but also economic phenomenon, in its broader implications.


The panoptic segmentation task requires a unified result from semantic and instance segmentation outputs that may contain overlaps. However, current studies widely ignore modeling overlaps. In this study, we aim to model overlap relations among instances and resolve them for panoptic segmentation. Inspired by scene graph representation, we formulate the overlapping problem as a simplified case, named scene overlap graph. We leverage each object's category, geometry and appearance features to perform relational embedding, and output a relation matrix that encodes overlap relations. In order to overcome the lack of supervision, we introduce a differentiable module to resolve the overlap between any pair of instances. The mask logits after removing overlaps are fed into per-pixel instance id classification, which leverages the panoptic supervision to assist in the modeling of overlap relations. Besides, we generate an approximate ground truth of overlap relations as the weak supervision, to quantify the accuracy of overlap relations predicted by our method. Experiments on COCO and Cityscapes demonstrate that our method is able to accurately predict overlap relations, and outperform the state-of-the-art performance for panoptic segmentation. Our method also won the Innovation Award in COCO 2019 challenge.


This thesis is a study of the bronze Italian helmet over six
centuries, from the last quarter of the sixth century B. C to the end
of the 1st century A. D. It surveys and examines the mainstream
development and evolution of the helmet in the Apennine peninsula, in
particular the nine major forms which dominate the equipment of the
Italian warrior during this period i. e. The Apulo-Corinthian, the
Negau, the Italo-Chalkidian, the Etrusco-Thracian, the Italo-Pilos,
the Samno-Attic, the Montefortino, the Coolus and the Hagenau helmets.
Starting from the premise that the majority of helmets no matter of
what form, were intended to be functional and that their evolution is
entirely dependent upon the type of warfare for which each form was
developed, the changing nature of that warfare and the cultural
affinities of the people who used it, this thesis discusses the
external agencies and cultural influences that can be traced in the
development of each form, the origins of the forms themselves and
provides a definitive typology for each. Where possible it also
establishes an absolute chronology for these typologies, based upon
dated examples, the stylistic evolution of form, the size and shape of
the helmet bowl, its decoration and standards of manufacture and
finish.
Due to the complexities of the manufacturing processes involved in the
production of bronze helmets and as many of the techniques used were
common to all forms this study commences with an examination of these
processes and the tools and technology employed including an
examination of the growth of mass-production technique in Italian
helmet production. Where possible workshop groups have been isolated for each form and areas of regional production defined. This analysis
is based on a detailed examination and comparison of the distribution
of each type within each form, their dating, fittings i. e crestfixtures,
cheek-pieces etc and their decoration and its possible
derivation.
Finally the functional aspects of the bronze Italian helmet are
discussed and attempts are made to account for the overwhelming
popularity of the Montefortino helmet which from the the end of the
third century B. C. had eclipsed all other Italian helmet forms. It
examines the disappearance of the majority of these culturally
distinct types which is a marked feature of Rome domination of Italy.
It concludes therefore that it is Rome's centralisation of production
under her political and military control that led to the suppression
of the widespread indigenous Italian arms industries and inevitably
led to the progressive rearmament of the Apennine peninsula after the
Roman and ultimately Celtic fashion and therefore that it is Rome's
cultural control of Italy that led to the supremacy of the
Montefortino helmet.


Purpose - Eye diseases affecting central vision impair fixation and interfere with day-to-day tasks such as reading. Diabetic retinopathy and clinically significant macular edema (CSME) are leading causes of visual impairment in diabetes patients. The aim of this study is to find whether diabetic patients with CSME have poorer fixation stability compared to patients without CSME, by analyzing the fundus images obtained from the Laser Scanning Digital Camera (LSDC).Methods - Two hundred underserved, diabetic patients were screened for diabetic retinopathy at the Eastmont Wellness Center within the EyePACS telemedicine network, using LSDC. One eye of each patient who had diabetic retinopathy was included in this study. Non-mydriatic color fundus photos were classified for presence of CSME by two independent, certified EyePACS graders. The first 50 patients (25 males a 25 females) with CSME were selected and 50 (27 males a 23 females) diabetic patients without CSME were selected as controls. Mean age was 59 (±9) years for patients with CSME and was 55 (±10) years for patients without CSME. The subjects included 53% Hispanics, 26% African Americans and 21% other. A series of 20 images (36 deg field, 1024 X 1024 pixels, and 850 nm) were acquired at 11 fps. Eye positions were obtained by selecting a region of interest in the first image of each series and aligning the remaining images to that region by cross-correlation. The bi-contour ellipse area (BCEA) and the standard deviation of the Euclidean distance (SDED) were used to quantify fixation stability.Results - The fixation stability for patients with CSME was significantly worse than for those without CSME (t test: p l 0.001, 0.007 for BCEA and SDED, respectively). The mean fixation stability obtained by the BCEA metric was 2.74 (±0.40) log(minArc2) and 2.34 (±0.42) log(minArc2) for patients with and without CSME, respectively. For SDED the mean was 48.4 (±28.8) microns and 34.6 (±20.4) microns for patients with and without CSME, respectively. The correlation with age was not significant for either group (R2 = 0.052, 0.011).Conclusions - Diabetic patients with CSME had poorer fixation stability than patients without CSME for both metrics. Fixation stability is a potential tool for assessing macular function and could be used for tracking the treatment and progression of macular edema.The LSDC images provide one method to quantify fixation stability rapidly.


------->Antitrust law and policy today are a semi-coherent welter of legal and economic doctrines. Immanent in them, however, is a structure of great simplicity and utility. The concept at the heart of the antitrust laws is the linear supply chain, consisting of an essential input, a downstream market in which competition is harmed through the discriminatory supply of the input to downstream firms, and consumers who pay higher prices for finished products as a result of the discriminatory behavior. Antitrust attacks this problem of the discriminatory supply of inputs in two ways. First, it seeks to prevent any one intelligence from taking control over the input, because absent such centralized control, competition from input suppliers eliminates any attempt at discrimination. Stopping the centralization of control over inputs is not always possible, however, because sometimes centralized control improves the quality of the input, and antitrust follows an implicit rule of "innovation primacy," which holds that any act that plausibly improves the product likely does more good for consumers than any resulting increase in prices harms them, and so the act must be immune from antitrust scrutiny. ------->Second, antitrust regulates attempts by input controllers to use their power to increase their profits other than by charging what they know to be the highest possible prices for their products given their level of knowledge of consumer willingness to pay. Profits can be increased in this way by only three routes, each of which involves discrimination by the input controller in the supply of inputs to downstream firms. The input controller can discriminate in favor of firms that improve the final product ultimately sold to consumers and so increase consumers' willingness to pay. The input controller can discriminate in favor of downstream firms that supply the input controller with information about consumer willingness to pay, enabling the input controller better to choose its prices to maximize its profits. And the input controller can discriminate against downstream firms that refuse to give the input controller access to profits that the firms have in turn extracted from consumers. The doctrine of innovation primacy protects discrimination that improves the final product sold to consumers, but not discrimination that facilitates information acquisition or the disciplining of refractory downstream firms. ------->This analysis resolves numerous longstanding conundrums in antitrust, including (1) whether antitrust picks winners (it must), (2) whether picking winners limits consumer sovereignty (impossible, because whenever a firm discriminates in the supply of inputs, the firm picks winners, and antitrust, which does no more than challenge such discrimination, therefore only ever substitutes its judgment for that of firms, never for that of end consumers), (3) whether antitrust should have a monopoly power requirement (it should, but the requirement should apply to the input market and not, as at present, to the downstream market in which competition is harmed), (4) whether firms should be allowed to compete on their own platforms as a general matter (of course they should, unless it is thought that consumers always know better than firms how everything they buy should be made, from start to finish), and (5) how to define the limits of the firm (the boundary of the firm does not end where formal ownership ends, but rather where discrimination in the supply of inputs ends). The analysis also shows why Lorain Journal, Aspen Skiing, Linkline, Trinko, Microsoft, Qualcomm, exclusive dealing, and tying are all the same basic case.


Rhesus macaque (RM) rhadinovirus (RRV) is a simian gamma-2 herpesvirus closely related to human Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV). RRV is associated with the development of diseases in simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) co-infected RM that resemble KSHV-associated pathologies observed in HIV-infected humans, including B cell lymphoproliferative disorders (LPD) and lymphoma. Importantly, how de novo KSHV infection affects the expression of host genes in humans, and how these alterations in gene expression affect viral replication, latency, and disease is unknown. The utility of the RRV/RM infection model provides a novel approach to address these questions in vivo, and utilizing the RRV bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) system, the effects of specific viral genes on host gene expression patterns can also be explored. To gain insight into the effects of RRV infection on global host gene expression patterns in vivo, and to simultaneously assess the contributions of the immune inhibitory viral CD200 (vCD200) molecule to host gene regulation, RNA-seq was performed on pre- and post-infection lymph node (LN) biopsy samples from RM infected with either BAC-derived WT (n = 4) or vCD200 mutant RRV (n = 4). A variety of genes were identified as being altered in LN tissue samples due to RRV infection, including cancer-associated genes activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AICDA), glypican-1 (GPC1), CX3C chemokine receptor 1 (CX3CR1), and Ras dexamethasone-induced 1 (RasD1). Further analyses also indicate that GPC1 may be associated with lymphomagenesis. Finally, comparison of infection groups identified the differential expression of host gene thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP), suggesting a possible mechanism by which vCD200 negatively affects RRV viral loads in vivo.


We study a class of impulsive neural networks with mixed time delays and generalized activation functions. The mixed delays include time-varying transmission delay, bounded time-varying distributed delay, and discrete constant delay in the leakage term. By using the contraction mapping theorem, we obtain a sufficient condition to guarantee the global existence and uniqueness of the solution for the addressed neural networks. In addition, a delay-independent sufficient condition for existence of an equilibrium point and some delay-dependent sufficient conditions for stability are derived, respectively, by using topological degree theory and Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method. The presented results require neither the boundedness, monotonicity, and differentiability of the activation functions nor the differentiability (even differential boundedness) of time-varying delays. Moreover, the proposed stability criteria are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMI), which can be conveniently checked by the MATLAB toolbox. Finally, an example is given to show the effectiveness and less conservativeness of the obtained results.


PolicyArchive collects public policy research from over 700 known research publishers and makes these documents accessible in a navigable digital library. The contributions of thousands of publications from these providers enables in-depth secondary source materials to be utilized by policymakers, legislators, foundations, scholars, journalists, and educators. The functionality of this digital repository is discussed, including the use of terminologies, subject navigability, and Special Collections. PolicyArchive presents unique content with structured metadata which is openly accessible; the application of these principles not only provides coordinated access to previously unavailable resources, but also allows the reader to place a given document in multiple contexts. Analysis of this information environment illuminates ongoing digital library initiatives regarding the creation of navigable, accessible learning resources.


Background and Objectives: Spirituality is a concept that has found its position in the field of psychology for years. The purpose of present study is to examine that spirituality and demographic characteristics to what extent can predict death anxiety and to determine how to use spirituality as a frame and supportive source against the difficulties like death anxiety. Methods: Methods this descriptive study was correlational. Statistical society of the present study was consisted of older adults of retirement homes that from them 245 (121 female and 124male) older adults were recruited via accessible sampling method and responded to Death anxiety Scale (DAS) and Spiritual Assessment Inventory(SAI). Data of research were analyzed by enter regression analysis by using SPSS Software. Results: The results showed that among the spirituality components, disappointment and instability were predicators of the death anxiety. It means that the increases in these two components lead to the increase in the death anxiety. None of the demographic characteristics in this study could predict the death anxiety. Conclusion: The result indicates that the spirituality components can significanty predict death anxiety.So it can be concluded with the raising spirituality components among the older adults, their death anxiety rate decreased.


This volume, in the main, covers a range of topics related to infectious disease caused by organisms which are, at present, or permanently, in the news. Many of these organisms are of substantial public concern, because of major health problems involving them. The article by Basset et al. (1), for example, reviews Helicobacter; who would have believed, 20 years ago, that gastric and duodenal ulcer and possibly gastric cancer, would be linked to the presence of a novel helical bacterium, in the stomach, and no doubt, even fewer would have anticipated the possible involvement of this organism in other diseases. The demonstrated involvement of Helicobacter has enabled clinicians, in some cases, to successfully use antimicrobials to alleviate these conditions. Basset and Holton review factors that influence the occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease, emphasising particularly immunological and bacteriological aspects (2); again, strikingly, there is some evidence for the involvement of Helicobacter spp in such d isorders, although the evidence is much less substantial. Hopefully, further studies will enable these painful and often intransigent disorders to be much more readily alleviated. The discovery of numerous natural antimicrobial agents, in the thirties, forties and fifties of the last century, and the synthesis of other antimicrobials, led many to believe that the days of lethal infectious diseases, especially those caused by bacteria, were almost over. Even in the earliest days after the discovery of antibiotics, however, resistance was noticed, and a major concern in recent years has been the evolution of numerous antibiotic-resistant organisms; with transferable resistance e.g. by plasmids, as a complication, and with resistance occurring against so many agents, the possible strategies available to the clinician have been greatly reduced. In a few cases, where resistance occurs towards all antibiotics useful against a particular organism, treatment with antibacterials is actually impossible. Stapleton and Taylor write here about antibiotic resistance (3), and their contribution is of considerable value, because their emphasis is on MRSA. MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aur eus) had become one of the major bacterial problems of the last few years of the 20th century, and will no doubt continue to be a serious clinical problem in the early 21st century, because it is refractory to most, and sometimes all, of the chief agents generally useful against staphylococci. Stapleton and Taylor write cogently, not only about the nature of the resistance, but also about how it may be modulated (3); a number of agents appear able to reduce methicillin resistance of MRSA when they are administered with the antibiotic, and further studies on these agents may offer exciting possibilities for the future. The article of Waugh and Long is also on a "hot" topic in the infectious disease area, one which has become of critical importance because antibiotic resistance has become so widespread, namely on the search for new antibacterials (4). It is obvious from the account given, that there are several ways of approaching this problem. The major approach described in this article, namely gene and enzym e modification, with the use also of novel substrates, has already given some interesting and exciting results and there is clearly further substantial potential (4). The article by Warhurst (5) is in a similar area, in particular on resistance to antifolate drugs and how such resistance can be overcome by the use of novel compounds; what makes this article of even more interest, is that it relates to antimicrobial drug resistance in the malaria parasite. In 1940, D.D. Woods, having established the mode of action of sulphonamides, proposed that agents structurally resembling essential metabolites, should act as antimicrobials. Warhurst's demonstration (5), that we may be able, soon, to design agents which can fit into enzyme active sites, suggests that Woods' vision may soon become reality, and a plethora of new antimicrobials will become available. …


Tetrahymena pyriformis are single-celled phagocytes that feed by forming food vacuoles in a process known as phagocytosis. The goal of this experiment was to examine to what extent exposure of Tetrahymena to India ink affects the average number of vacuoles formed. We hypothesized that the increase of feeding time would increase the amount of India ink food vacuoles per Tetrahymena in a linear fashion. By observing Tetrahymena vacuole formation in response to India ink over a 60-minute period, we found that that vacuole formation in Tetrahymena initially increased linearly with increased India ink exposure time. After a certain time, however, vacuole formation ceased due to either a lack of remaining ink or a deficiency in the energy or resources necessary to continue performing phagocytosis. The relationship between India ink exposure time and food vacuole formation also provides insight into correlated changes in metabolic rate in Tetrahymena and other organisms for which Tetrahymena serves as a model. The way in which Tetrahymena budget their energy over time between vacuole formation, metabolism, and the countless other biological processes necessary for survival, particularly when supplied a non-nutritional particle such as India ink, could also be important for further studies on various organisms' reactions to food shortages.


Neratinib following the completion of trastuzumab has been shown to reduce the risk of disease recurrence for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer in whom extended adjuvant therapy seems advisable. In clinical trials, the most common side effect of neratinib and other anti-HER2 therapies was diarrhea. Presenters at JADPRO Live clarified the findings of trials studying the benefit of differing prophylactic regimens with loperamide, budesonide, and colestipol.


The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the quintessential American fairy tale. Michael Patrick Hearn, the world's leading Oz scholar, now provides a fascinating new annotation that not only reacquaints readers with the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion, but also illuminates the colorful background of this treasured American classic. This edition explores numerous contemporary references, provides character sources, and explains the actual meaning of the word "Oz." A facsimile of the rare 1900 first edition appears with the original drawings by W.W. Denslow, as well as 25 previously unpublished illustrations. There is a bibliography of L. Frank Baum's published work, every notable "Oz" edition, and the stage and cinematic productions from 1939's The Wizard of Oz, to the 1974 Broadway hit, The Wiz. A beautiful, awe-inspiring work, The Annotated Wizard of Oz is an enduring tribute to the timeless joy of The Wizard of Oz, and a classic to rival Baum's own.


This title offers a step-by-step technique for sparking breakthrough creativity in advertising - or any field. Since its publication in 1965, "A Technique for Producing Ideas" has helped thousands of advertising copywriters smash through internal barriers to unleash their creativity. Professionals from poets and painters to scientists and engineers have also used the techniques in this concise, powerful book to generate exciting ideas on demand, at any time, on any subject. Now let James Webb Young's unique insights help you look inside yourself to find that big, elusive idea - and once and for all lift the veil of mystery from the creative process."James Webb Young is in the tradition of some of our greatest thinkers when he describes the workings of the creative process. The results of many years in advertising have proved to him that the key element in communications success is the production of relevant and dramatic ideas. He not only makes this point vividly for us but shows us the road to that goal." -William Bernbach, Former Chairman and CEO, Doyle Dane Bernbach Inc.


Introduction Incorrect positioning is one of the main factors for glenoid component loosening in reverse shoulder arthroplasty and component placement can be challenging. This study aimed to assess whether Patient-Specific Instrumentation (PSI) provides better guide pin positioning accuracy and is superior to standard guided and freehand instrumentation methods in cases of glenoid bone deformity. Materials and Methods Based on the Walch classification, five different scapula types were acquired by computed tomography (CT). For each type, two different surgeons placed a guide pin into the scapula using three different methods: freehand method, conventional non-patient-specific guide, and PSI guide. Each method was repeated five times by both surgeons. In these experiments, a total of 150 samples of scapula models were used (5 × 2 × 3 × 5 = 150). Post-operative CT scans of the samples with the guide pin were digitally assessed and the accuracy of the pin placement was determined by comparison to the preoperative planning on a three-dimensional (3D) model. Results The PSI method showed accuracies to the preoperative plan of 2.68 (SD 2.10) degrees for version angle (p < .05), 2.59 (SD 2.68) degrees for inclination angle (p < .05), and 1.55 (SD 1.26) mm for entry point offset (p < .05). The mean and standard deviation errors compared to planned values of version angle, inclination angle, and entry point offset were statistically significant for the PSI method for the type C defected glenoid and non-arthritic glenoid. Conclusion Using the PSI guide created by an image processing software tool for guide pin positioning showed advantages in glenoid component positioning over other methods, for defected and intact glenoid types, but correlation with clinical outcomes should be examined.


Motion estimation (ME) is the most computationally intensive part of a video coding system. Therefore it is very important to reduce its computational complexity. In this paper, a novel all-binary approach for reducing the computational complexity of sub-pixel accurate ME is proposed. An efficient hardware architecture for the proposed all-binary sub-pixel accurate motion estimation approach is also presented. The proposed hardware architecture has significantly low hardware complexity and therefore very low power consumption. It can process 720p video frames at 30 fps in a pipelined fashion together with the integer ME hardware. Therefore, it can be used in real-time low power video coding systems required by many mobile consumer electronics devices.


The United States Gulf Region features areas that face significant flood risk. Climate change may further elevate this risk. Home owners in such areas face potentially large asset losses and property maintenance costs. Anticipating these challenges, the Federal government has enacted a complex set of policies through its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP offers reduced insurance rates for homes built before rate maps were drawn and grandfathers rates for homes when new maps increase their risk ratings. This paper asks if the goal of affordable NFIP insurance rates for the high risk Gulf Coast areas is warranted? We compare the income distribution of the set of people who live in the areas that face the highest risk of flooding relative to nearby areas. Our findings imply reduced rates for high risk areas cannot be justified based on the assumption that low income households live in these areas.


Abstract Government authorities use resources on information campaigns in order to inform citizens about relevant policy changes. The motivation is usually that individuals sometimes are ill-informed about the public policies relevant for their choices. In a survey experiment where the treatment group was provided with public information material on the social security system, we assess the short- and medium-term knowledge effects. We show that the short run effects of the information on knowledge disappear completely within 4 months. The findings illustrate the limits of public information campaigns to improve knowledge about relevant policy reforms.


In this volume, Germen de Haan gives a multi-faceted view of the syntax, sociolinguistics, and phonology of West-Frisian. The author discusses distinct aspects of the syntax of verbs in Frisian: finiteness and Verb Second, embedded root phenomena, the verbal complex, verbal complementation, and complementizer agreement. Because Frisian has minority language status and is of interest to sociolinguists, the author reviews the linguistic changes in Frisian under the influence of the dominant Dutch language and, more generally, reflects on how to deal with contact-induced change in grammar. Finally, in three phonological articles, the author discusses nasalization in Frisian, the putatively symmetrical vowel inventory of Frisian, and the variation between schwa + sonorant consonants and syllabic sonorant consonants.


Stratigraphic and structural data from the Archean Zimbabwe craton suggest that a major detachment surface exists within the Belingwe greenstone belt. The surface separates ultramafic and mafic magmatic rocks of the upper greenstones in the hanging wall from an ancient gneiss complex, older volcanic-sedimentary rocks, and a shallow-water sedimentary sequence in the footwall. Rocks dated at ca. 2.7 Ga above the detachment surface form the proposed Mberengwa allochthon. The regionally extensive upper greenstone succession represents tectonically emplaced allochthonous sheets, not indigenous magmas erupted within autochthonous continental rifts. Magmatic rocks of the Mberengwa allochthon resemble oceanic plateaus preserved in younger mountain belts. Comparison of the Zimbabwe craton with the Proterozoic Birrimian terranes of west Africa leads us to suggest that Precambrian continental growth may have been characterized by intense structural imbrication related to the difficulty of subduction of buoyant oceanic lithosphere.


Abstract The heavy burden of maternal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has resulted in a high prevalence of premature births, with an associated increase in the incidence of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). NEC is a life-threatening inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract that predominantly occurs in preterm infants. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are carbohydrate compounds which have been shown to have health-promoting effects through their bifidogenic and antiadhesive properties. There is a reduced incidence of NEC in infants who receive human milk, compared to those receiving infant formula. It is suggested that the oligosaccharides found within human milk may act as specific substrates in assisting the growth of selected beneficial bacteria, called probiotics. Probiotics are live microbial food ingredients which have been shown to have health-promoting effects. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Bifidobacterium infantis have been used as probiotics to reduce the incidence of NEC. Furthermore, HMOs have been associated with protection against postnatal HIV transmission. HMOs may hold key responsibility for the prevention of NEC, and possibly the transmission of HIV, to infants in resource-limited settings and in a developing country, such as South Africa, where HIV plays a major role in the outcomes of preterm neonates.


Agrobacterium tumefaciens can transfer oncogenic T-DNA into plant cells; T-DNA transfer is mechanistically similar to a conjugation process. VirD2 is the pilot protein that guides the transfer, because it is covalently associated with single-stranded T-DNA to form the transfer substrate T-complex. We used the VirD2 protein as an affinity ligand to isolate VirD2-binding proteins (VBPs). By pull-down assays and peptide-mass-fingerprint matching, we identified an A. tumefaciens protein designated VBP1 that could bind VirD2 directly. Genome-wide sequence analysis showed that A. tumefaciens has two additional genes encoding proteins highly similar to VBP1, designated vbp2 and vbp3. Like VBP1, both VBP2 and VBP3 also could bind VirD2; all three VBPs contain a putative nucleotidyltransferase motif. Mutational analysis of vbp demonstrated that the three vbp genes could functionally complement each other. Consequently, only inactivation of all three vbp genes highly attenuated the bacterial ability to cause tumors on plants. Although vbp1 is harbored on the megaplasmid pAtC58, vbp2 and vbp3 reside on the linear chromosome. The vbp genes are clustered with conjugative transfer genes, suggesting linkage between the conjugation and virulence factor. The three VBPs appear to contain C-terminal positively charged residues, often present in the transfer substrate proteins of type IV secretion systems. Inactivation of the three vbp genes did not affect the T-strand production. Our data indicate that VBP is a newly identified virulence factor that may affect the transfer process subsequent to T-DNA production.


The establishment of exotic invasive species, including plants, has been linked to the decline of some amphibian populations. Of particular concern with invasive plants, from an amphibian conservation perspective, is that they are disproportionately wetland or riparian species. Recent evidence suggests that Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera), an exotic deciduous tree species, is expanding its range and becoming more abundant where it occurs in the United States. This is particularly relevant to amphibian conservation considering that Chinese tallow tends to invade wetlands, and recent studies have demonstrated that the leaf litter causes mortality of anuran eggs and larvae by reducing the dissolved oxygen and pH of water. The lethal effect of Chinese tallow leaf litter is short lived and concentrated soon after leaf fall, typically December through to February in the south-eastern United States. In this study, we were interested in determining the sub-lethal effects of Chinese tallow leaf litter on the surfacing frequency and air-gulping behaviour of overwintering anuran larvae. Lithobates catesbeianus and L. clamitans clamitans are two frog species that commonly overwinter as aquatic larvae and extensively overlap in range with invasive Chinese tallow, which may expose their tadpoles to the deleterious effects of the leaf litter. We conducted experiments where we exposed tadpoles to four different concentrations of tallow leaf litter and recorded water chemistry and tadpole surfacing frequency. We found that as Chinese tallow concentration increased, oxygen levels decreased. Both anuran species responded similarly to our treatments and dissolved oxygen levels, where tadpoles swam to the water's surface to air gulp at a significantly higher rate in the treatments with greater tallow concentration. Such changes in behaviour induced by Chinese tallow could have negative consequences on tadpole foraging efficiency and predator avoidance, ultimately reducing fitness. As biological invasions will continue to be an important part of global change, more attention should be given to sub-lethal impacts, as they pertain to fitness.


We reinterpret post World War II US economic history using an estimated microfounded model that allows for changes in the monetary/fiscal policy mix. We find that the fiscal authority was the leading authority in the '60s and the '70s. The appointment of Volcker marked a change in the conduct of monetary policy, but inflation dropped only when fiscal policy accommodated this change two years later. In fact, a disinflationary attempt of the monetary authority leads to more inflation if not supported by the fiscal authority. If the monetary authority had always been the leading authority or if agents had been confident about the switch, the Great Inflation would not have occurred and debt would have been higher. This is because the rise in trend inflation and the decline in debt of the '70s were caused by a series of fiscal shocks that are inflationary only when monetary policy accommodates fiscal policy. The reversal in the debt-to-GDP ratio dynamics, the sudden drop in inflation, and the fall in output of the early '80s are explained by the switch in the policy mix itself. If such a switch had not occurred, inflation would have been high for another fifteen years. Regime changes account for the stickiness of inflation expectations during the '60s and the '70s and for the break in the persistence and volatility of inflation.


Since its original publication in Chinese in the 1930s, this work has been accepted by Chinese scholars as the most important contribution to the study of their country's philosophy. In 1952 the book was published by Princeton University Press in an English translation by the distinguished scholar of Chinese history, Derk Bodde, "the dedicated translator of Fung Yu-lan's huge history of Chinese philosophy" (New York Times Book Review). Available for the first time in paperback, it remains the most complete work on the subject in any language. Volume I covers the period of the philosophers, from the beginnings to around 100 B.C., a philosophical period as remarkable as that of ancient Greece. Volume II discusses a period lesser known in the West--the period of classical learning, from the second century B.C. to the twentieth century.


This paper introduces
the measure of approximate-degree and the concept of approximate-degree
function between numerical values, thus developing a new interpolation method
—— approximation-degree-based interpolation, i.e., AD interpolation.
One-dimensional AD interpolation is done directly by using correlative
interpolation formulas; n(n>1)-dimensional AD interpolation is
firstly separated into n parallel
one-dimensional AD interpolation computations to do respectively, and then got
results are synthesized by Sum-Times-Difference formula into a value as the
result value of the n-dimensional
interpolation. If the parallel processing is used, the efficiency of n-dimensional AD interpolation is almost
the same as that of the one-dimensional AD interpolation. Thus it starts a feasible and convenient approach and provides
an effective method for high-dimensional interpolations. Furthermore,
if AD interpolation is introduced into machine learning, a new instance-based
learning method is expected to be realized.


A new insight on the interaction between complex fluids and solid surfaces is given in this study. It is demonstrated how these liquid-solid interactions can greatly influence the droplet generation during membrane emulsification and, therefore, resultant emulsion size and uniformity. These aspects of the process are often underestimated and poorly comprehended by, specially, industrial colleagues. Thus, that unawareness can lead to poor results and to a disbelief in this upcoming technology.
A novel membrane emulsification system is reported consisting of a tubular metal membrane, periodically azimuthally (tangentially) oscillated with frequencies up to 50 Hz and 7 mm displacement in a gently cross flowing continuous phase. Using an azimuthally oscillating membrane, oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions were experimentally produced with a diameter of 20 120 µm, and a coefficient of variation (CV) of droplet size of 8%. The drop size was correlated with shear stress at the membrane surface using a force balance. In a single pass of continuous phase, it was possible to achieve high dispersed phase concentrations up to 38% v/v.
A vertical oscillation membrane emulsification was used to study the influence of dynamic interfacial tension in membrane emulsification: drop size can be tuned between 35 and 85 µm by changing the surfactant concentration in the continuous phase. In addition, a method to determine the percentage of active pores during membrane emulsification is demonstrated. This method links knowledge acquired in the surfactant adsorption dynamics and drop expansion rate. This study reinforces the importance of dynamic interfacial tension which must be considered in process design, and modelling purposes, particularly in two liquid phase systems using membranes such as membrane emulsification at high injection rates.
Hydrophobization of metal surfaces is reported based on silanization reactions to broaden the use of metal porous membranes to water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion production. The developed procedure is shown to be a straightforward hydrophobization method, with minimal cost to apply, reproducible, stable and the possibility of reuse of the membrane after losing hydrophobicity by simply reapplying the hydrophobization method.
On the other hand, formation of water-based droplets can be achieved using a hydrophilic porous metal membrane. To investigate this, water-based droplets were produced using a hydrophilic membrane and wetting experiments were also carried out: sessile droplets were used to determine static contact angles and a rotating drum system was used to determine contact angles under dynamic conditions. In the latter case the three-phase contact line was observed between the rotating drum and two immiscible liquids. It was observed that the oil phase can preferably wet a hydrophilic surface in case when a surfactant is present in the oil phase, and above a certain concentration, even in the presence of the water phase.
Apart from membrane emulsification, spontaneous formation of water droplets in kerosene was observed, facilitated by the presence of an oil soluble surfactant: Span® 80. This process was characterized and the influence of chemical potential between both phases was evaluated. Nano-sizing analyses were performed for a set of experiments, where the influence of the surfactant concentration in the organic phase, as well as the influence of NaCl concentration in the aqueous phase, was studied. Water droplets between 100 and 400 nm were measured in kerosene. Interfacial tension between both phases, was not lower than 4 mN/m. Therefore, ultra-low interfacial tension was not required for this process to occur spontaneously.
Continuous production of spherical polymeric particles, via membrane emulsification, was demonstrated. An o/w emulsion was used as precursor and, by solvent removal, solid particles were obtained. In addition, production of polycaprolactone (PCL) particles containing encapsulated (entrapped) protein model was also demonstrated via a double emulsion method.


In the ICEBERG project at UC Berkeley, we are developing an Internet-based integration of telephony and data services spanning diverse access networks. Our primary goals are extensibility, scalability, robustness, and personalized communication. We leverage the Internet's low cost of entry for service creation, provision, deployment, and integration. We present our solutions to signaling, easy service creation, resource reservation, admission control, billing, and security in the ICEBERG network architecture.


The optical properties of intersubband transition in a semipolar AlGaN/GaN single quantum well(SQW) are theoretically studied, and the results are compared with polar c-plane and nonpolar m-plane structures. The intersubband transition frequency, dipole matrix elements, and absorption spectra are calculated for SQW on different semipolar planes. It is found that SQW on a certain group of semipolar planes (55° < θ < 90° tilted from c-plane) exhibits low transition frequency and long wavelength response with high absorption quantum efficiency, which is attributed to the weak polarization-related effects. Furthermore, these semipolar SQWs show tunable transition frequency and absorption wavelength with different quantum well thicknesses, and stable device performance can be achieved with changing barrier thickness and Al compositions. All the results indicate that the semipolar AlGaN/GaN quantum wells are promising candidate for the design and fabrication of high performance low frequency and long wavelength optoelectronic devices.


Index Bonds are a particular form of a structured investment product that consists of a bond element and a return element. The bond element is based on the guaranteed amount repaid to the investor at maturity. The return element is typically a bundle of options on an index or financial asset, scaled by a participation factor. Nordea Kraftobligasjon was the first Norwegian index bond with electricity forward contracts as underlying. This thesis demonstrates the analysis that an investor should perform to be able to make an independent and prudent decision on whether or not to invest in Nordea Kraftobligasjon XV. The results indicate that an investor could pay as much as 3,5% to 4,5% in commission fee in addition to up to 3% in subscription fee. The expected return on the investment is estimated at approx. 3,5% p.a., compared with the risk-free rate of 4,5% p.a. The thesis illustrates what methodological and practical challenges an investor can meet analysing an index bond on electricity contracts.


The present study examines the economic analysis of female labour participation in rice cultivation in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh state. The survey for this purpose was conducted in three blocks i.e. Dharamjaigarh, Pussore and Baramkela block of Raigarh district. Primary data were collected from 148 farmers from 11 villages of these three selected blocks through personal interview method with the help of a pre-structural schedule for the crop year 2015-16. The simple mean and average methods was used to calculate the cost of cultivation. The human labour contribution was estimated to be 108 man-days, which was 36 (33.33%) and 72 (66.67%) man-days in case of male and female labour contribution, respectively. The total economic contribution of labour participation including both male and female in terms of cost incurred for performing various agricultural operations was ₹ 16017.23 per farm. On an average, the cost of female labour participation was estimated much higher ₹ 9771.28 (61.00 per cent) than male labour at ₹ 6245.95 (39 per cent). The decision making in different farming operations was taken by the male members across all farm size groups in the study area. However, it was observed that the female participation was comparatively higher in marginal (43.74 per cent) and small farmers (44.12 per cent) as compared to medium (33.19 per cent) and large farmers (14.93 per cent) in rice cultivation. 48.65 per cent female have ownership of agricultural productive resources. It was found that 100 per cent female labour earned lower wage rate than male labour.


Through a combination of social change and legislative initiatives, the workplace has been transformed from a rigidly stereotypical environment (i.e., with males and females occupying distinct roles) to an arena that offers equality and opportunity for all. Regrettably, however, individuals who perform traditionally counter-stereotypical roles (e.g., male nurses, female pilots) continue to experience significant disadvantage and dissatisfaction. Why then is this this case? The authors explore the possibility that this may be due, at least in part, to unexpected events that trigger implicit negative associations. The results of two experiments support this hypothesis. Individuals depicted in counter-stereotypical roles activated negative evaluative responses, an effect that was most pronounced for male targets. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are considered.


Several researchers in artificial intelligence have recognized the usefulness of a two-stage model of sentence comprehension for building a computer model of language. In the first stage, an intermediate level of representation called logical form is derived. During the second stage, logical form is updated with additional information (e.g., quantifier scoping). We introduce three constraints we consider necessary to make this model of language computationally feasible: \begin{enumerate} \item Logical form should compactly represent ambiguity. \item Logical form should be initially computable from syntax and local (sentence-level) semantics. In particular, logical form should not be dependent on pragmatics, which requires inference and hence internal representation. \item Further processing of logical form should only disambiguate or further specify logical form. Logical form has a meaning. Any further processing must respect that meaning. \end{enumerate} Within this framework, we have devised logical-form representations for pronouns, singular definite noun phrases, and singular indefinite noun phrases. For example, we represent a pronoun as a function of all of the variables corresponding to operators that can bind the pronoun. This representation allows us to indicate a meaning for the pronoun without deciding on the antecedent for the pronoun. Later, when we can determine the antecedent for the pronoun, we replace the pronoun function with the variable or function used to represent its antecedent. Like pronouns, definites are represented as functions. However, indefinites cannot initially be represented as a function in logical form. Initially, we represent an indefinite as an existentially quantified variable. Later, when more information is available about the meaning of a noun phrase, the initial representation is limited to indicate the intended meaning of that noun phrase. We demonstrate that these representations both model the appropriate linguistic behavior and satisfy our computational constraints. This work has been implemented and tested on a wide variety of examples.


We consider relations with no order on their attributes as in Database Theory. An independent partition of the set of attributes S of a finite relation R is any partition X of S such that the join of the projections of R over the elements of X yields R. Identifying independent partitions has many applications and corresponds conceptually to revealing orthogonality between sets of dimensions in multidimensional point spaces. A subset of S is termed self-correlated if there is a value of each of its attributes such that no tuple of R contains all those values. This paper uncovers a connection between independence and self-correlation, showing that the maximum independent partition is the least fixed point of a certain inflationary transformer α that operates on the finite lattice of partitions of S. α is defined via the minimal self-correlated subsets of S. We us e some additional properties of α to show the said fixed point is still the limit of the standard a pproximation sequence, just as in Kleene's well-known fixed point theorem for continuous func tions.


Adult T cell leukaemia/lymphoma (ATL) is a human T cell leukaemia virus type‐I (HTLV‐I)‐infected T cell malignancy with poor prognosis. We herein developed a novel therapeutic vaccine designed to augment an HTLV‐I Tax‐specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response that has been implicated in anti‐ATL effects, and conducted a pilot study to investigate its safety and efficacy. Three previously treated ATL patients, classified as intermediate‐ to high‐risk, were subcutaneously administered with the vaccine, consisting of autologous dendritic cells (DCs) pulsed with Tax peptides corresponding to the CTL epitopes. In all patients, the performance status improved after vaccination without severe adverse events, and Tax‐specific CTL responses were observed with peaks at 16–20 weeks. Two patients achieved partial remission in the first 8 weeks, one of whom later achieved complete remission, maintaining their remission status without any additional chemotherapy 24 and 19 months after vaccination, respectively. The third patient, whose tumour cells lacked the ability to express Tax at biopsy, obtained stable disease in the first 8 weeks and later developed slowly progressive disease although additional therapy was not required for 14 months. The clinical outcomes of this pilot study indicate that the Tax peptide‐pulsed DC vaccine is a safe and promising immunotherapy for ATL.


A new class of superresolution pairs of pupil filters for three-dimensional, two-pupil confocal imaging is proposed. A distinctive feature of these filters is the asymmetry of their impulse response. For synthesizing the amplitude transmittance of such filters the Fourier transform properties of Hermitian functions are employed. It is shown that, with simple phase-only filters that belong to the class in question, either axial or unidirectional lateral superresolution is achieved.


The aim of this research is to determine the effect of teat dipping of Ettawa crossbred goat using babadotan leaves (Ageratum conyzoides Linn.) extract on the number of Staphylococcus aureus in milk . The udder inflammation degree also was determined using California Mastitis Test (CMT). The treatments were post milking teat dipping using antiseptic solutions containing 1%, 3%, and 5% of babadotan leaves extract (T1, T2 and T3, respectively). Milk samples were collected at before treatment (H0) and on the day 3, 6 and 9 day of the treatments (H3, H6 and H9, respectively). Commercially antiseptic povidone iodine was used as positive control (K+). Experimental research design was completely randomized design (CRD) split plot types, with the different extract concentration as the main plot and the day of treatment as subplot. CMT scores was analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis test. The results showed that babadotan leaves extract 5% had the same effectiveness (p>0,05) with povidone iodine to reduce the number of Staphylococcus aureus in milk. All extract concentrations (1%, 3% and 5%) had the same effectiveness (H>c0,05 (3) ) to decrease the CMT scores by postmilking teat dip treatments for 9 days. Keywords: Teat dipping, Ageratum conyzoides (L)., Staphylococcus aureus, CMT score


Abstract What explains mass party formation? Prevailing approaches explain party formation as a process of reflection of preexisting social constituencies, or as the consequence of the rise of the bureaucratic state and in particular the advent of universal suffrage. These approaches fail to explain why Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) emerged as a mass party in some regions but not others despite attempts to do so and similarity in conditions that have been posited as central to party formation. I put forth a novel approach that posits that parties emerge as mass organization through a process of constitution of the very social base they claim to represent, but their constitutive powers are conditioned by fundamental economic structures. Relying on agrarian censuses and archival data, I show that the PRI emerged as a mass party in areas where land privatization had been more intensive. In these areas the party during its process of formation was able to build new, and absorb existing, peasant unions and organizations and carry out strong electoral mobilization. These findings suggest that mass party formation is dependent on the destruction of "pre"-capitalist agrarian structures.


There is a growing imperative for responses to climate change to go beyond incremental adjustments, aiming instead for society‐wide transformation. In this context, sociotechnical (ST) transitions and social–ecological (SE) resilience are two prominent normative agendas. Reviewing these literatures reveals how both share a complex‐systems epistemology with inherent limitations, often producing managerial governance recommendations and foregrounding material over social drivers of change. Further interdisciplinary dialogue with social theory is essential if these frameworks are to become more theoretically robust and capable of informing effective, let alone transformational, climate change governance. To illustrate this potential, ideas from Deleuze and Guattari's political writing as well as other approaches that utilize the notion social fields (as opposed to sociosystems) are combined to more fully theorize the origins and enactment of social change. First, the logic of systems is replaced with the contingency of assemblages to reveal how pluralism, not elitism, can produce more ambitious and politicized visions of the future. In particular, this view encourages us to see social and ecological tensions as opportunities for thinking and acting differently rather than as mere technical problems to be solved. Secondly, the setting of social fields is introduced to situate and explain the power of ideas and the role of agency in times of uncertainty. The potential of such insights is already visible in some strands of climate change mitigation and adaptation research, but more needs to be done to advance this field and to bring it into dialogue with the mainstream systems based literature. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:251–265. doi: 10.1002/wcc.384


An alternative method of heat extraction from salt gradient solar ponds to solar collector is investigated with the aim of night operation for solar chimney power system. Some details of the combined power system integrated with solar ponds and solar chimney power system are also provided. Using a developed mathematical model, theoretical analyses are carried out to investigate the performance of the combined system without considering weak solar radiation effects in the early morning. It is found from steady-state analyses that the combined solar system comprising of a daytime 5 MW solar chimney power plant and solar ponds with proper dimension is able to produce more than 2.21 MW power during night. In addition, the power output for the combined system increases with the temperature of the collector entering hot brine and its mass flow, which is directly proportional to the plastic film height and the brine velocity. It is found from non-steady-state analyses that the combination of the daytime 5 MW solar chimney power plant and 1,400,000 m² solar ponds is a good choice, considering its performance and cost factor. This would make the day before performance of solar ponds be renewed by next day.


Observations indicate that the dispersal of protoplanetary discs in star clusters occurs on time scales of about 5 Myr. Several processes are thought to be responsible for this disc dispersal. Here we compare two of these processes: dynamical encounters and interaction with the interstellar medium, which includes face-on accretion and ram pressure stripping. We perform simulations of embedded star clusters with parameterisations for both processes to determine the environment in which either of these processes is dominant. We find that face-on accretion, including ram pressure stripping, is the dominant disc truncation process if the fraction of the total cluster mass in stars is $\lesssim 30\,\%$ regardless of the cluster mass and radius. Dynamical encounters require stellar densities $\gtrsim 10^4$ pc$^{-3}$ combined with a mass fraction in stars of $\approx 90\,\%$ to become the dominant process. Our results show that during the embedded phase of the cluster, the truncation of the discs is dominated by face-on accretion and dynamical encounters become dominant when the intra-cluster gas has been expelled. As a result of face-on accretion the protoplanetary discs become compact and their surface density increases. In contrast, dynamical encounters lead to discs that are less massive and remain larger.