Recent legislation, LOLER, removed the compulsion of periodical proof testing of lifting equipment to ascertain its "fitness for purpose". It has become the responsibility of a competent person to assess equipment's fitness for purpose and ability for continued safe use. This thesis reviews the technologies available to the competent person to enable him/her to come to an informed decision regarding the condition of mechanical structures. It was identified that an optimal methodology would interrogate structural integrity whilst the equipment performed its intended function. Coupling a means of assessment with the equipment's operation allows the investigator to focus on only defective conditions that will limit the future operation. Such an approach of condition monitoring structural integrity as opposed to employing traditional methods of inspection that are essentially failure finding tasks permits the discrimination between benign and malignant defects. Restorative and replacement activities can therefore take place based upon the likelihood of equipment's functional failure. The supplementary monitoring of Acoustic Emission (AE), with the established industrial practice of proof testing, was considered to provide data to monitor structural integrity and provide the basis upon which a structure can be re-qualified for future service. The nature of failure of engineering materials was examined which identified failure modes such as corrosion, creep and fatigue resulted in a progressive degradation of a localised area. The AE is a proportion of energy released during such deterioration. Further it was determined that the rate at which the deterioration increased was non-linear. Within a laboratory environment wire ropes with seeded faults were subjected to a simulated life during which the qualitative and quantitative nature of the AE was investigated.It was found that the quantity of the emission generated during proof tests was indicative of the severity of the induced defect. This substantiated the claim that AE could be used to enhance the proof test and provide a means by which a condition assessment could be made at intervals throughout the life of a structure. A series of five case studies explored the use of AE on a variety of differing in-service mechanical structures, mostly lifting equipmept. The case studies were conducted on pad-eyes,link-plates, cranes, both Electrical Overhead Travelling (EOT) and pedestal cranes and finally, an underwater vehicle pressure hull. The approach of using the combination of AE with a proof test was verified in the cases of pad-eyes and EOT cranes. In the instance of link plates, simultaneous measurement of strain and AE during a load test demonstrated the ability of AE to detect localised yielding. During the destruction test of a pedestal crane boom section, various conventional methods of AE evaluation were utilised to investigate which would provide the most reliable condition indicator; it was found that Intensity Analysis generated the most effective trendable measurement. A study on a pressure hull with known fatigue cracks that were subjected to both static and dynamic testing whilst monitoring with AE was conducted. The fatigue cracks were sized pre and post the trial using Time of Flight Diffraction (ToFD). During the trial Alternating Current Potential Drop (ACPD) was used to detect any growth as it occurred. Such techniques were used to substantiate claims AE could detect a propagating defect. When the AE is viewed in conjunction with ACPD results and the measurements attained with the ToFD it was clear that all three techniques concluded that crack growth occurred at two sites. Finally the investigation returns to a laboratory to exarnine the robustness of the technique through the life of a mechanical structure. The objective being to identify if periodical measurement of AE taken during the course of the life of the structure would repetitively generate information pertaining to the identification of the flaw as well as the severity of the flaw as it initiates and propagates through to failure. A power law was fitted to the data acquired during the proof tests. The use of a power law was considered appropriate due to the previously identified non-linear nature of material failure. A Scanning Electron Microscope was used to visually examine the fracture surfaces. It was found that increasing increments between striations on the fracture surface illustrated the non-linear increase of crack extensions during fatigue and corroborated the appropriateness of fitting a power law to the proof test data. Such an investigation permitted the conclusion that the approach of fitting a power law to the discrete energies from sequential proof tests is an appropriate method of attaining a trendable condition indicator. The competent person could employ such a methodology for the purposes of attaining information upon which an informed decision can be made on the continued safe use of mechanical structures.


The aim of this work was to define the correlation between heavy metal (mercury, lead, cadmium, chrome and nickel) concentration changes (in soil, leaf, stem, root and essential oil in Tansy) and type and distance from source pollution. The concentration was monitored on different locations: 1) Chemical industry panevo (with accident situation); 2) Panevo industrial zone; 3) highway; 4) Ada Ciganlija recreation zone and 5) Topider park. Mercury (Hg) concentration was analyzed as a function of time, starting from accident situation from 1999 to 2008. Hg had maximum concentration of 131 200 mg/kg at a soil depth of 0 - 15 cm. After three, six and nine years, linear accident Hg concentrations in soil decreased from 85 400 via 41 060 to 106.0 mg/kg. Mercury concentration which results in the location where accident occurred showed that 6 years was necessary for concentration to drop below the limits and for revitalization of standard industrial Tansy vegetation. Concentrations of Hg in the Tansy plants from contaminated site were 5, 10, 100 and 200 times greater than in industrial zone, highway, Ada Ciganlija and Topider, respectively. The highest amount of lead (Pb) was in leaves (14.1 mg/kg) and in essential oil (0.7 mg/kg) of Tansy near the highway. However, Pb concentration in soil and plant was decreased with square of highway distance.


In London at the start of the 1980s, three new style magazines emerged to define an era. It was a time of change: after Punk, before the digital age, and at the dawn of a hedonistic club scene that saw the birth of the New Romantics. On the pages of 'BLITZ', 'The Face' and 'i-D', a new breed of young iconoclasts hoped to inspire revolution. As 'BLITZ' magazine's fashion editor from 1982-87, Iain R. Webb was at the centre of this world. His images manipulated fashion to explore ideas of transformation, beauty, glamour and sex. The magazine's arresting, subversive fashion pages, and its profiles of disparate designers and creative types, let the imagination run free. Lavishly presented here are over 100 'BLITZ' fashion stories, with previously-unseen archive content, original images and tear-sheets. A separate section features original BLITZ interviews with the key designers, and there is also a vast amount of completely new material: Iain R. Webb has gathered the memories of those involved into a gripping oral history of an under-documented time. The cast of characters and contributors includes Leigh Bowery, Amanda Cazalet, Boy George, Princess Julia, Nick Knight, David LaChapelle, Paul Morley and Anna Piaggi. Featured designers include Bodymap, Judy Blame, Dean Bright, Comme Des Garcons, Jasper Conran, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Katharine Hamnett, Hermes, Pam Hogg, Marc Jacobs, Stephen Jones, Calvin Klein, Andrew Logan, Issey Miyake, Franco Moschino, Rifat Ozbek, Antony Price, Vivienne Westwood, and many, many more.


This chapter, which will appear in a book examining current controversies in equal protection, considers the state of judicial doctrine governing congressional power to enforce the Equal Protection clause. That doctrine – the "congruence and proportionality" standard enunciated in 1997 in City of Boerne v. Flores, has faced a decade of challenges as early consensus about the standard evolved into sharp disagreements over its proper application. This chapter considers those disagreements. First, it considers the problem raised when the Court accords skeptical review of enforcement legislation based on the suspect class status of the benefitted group. It argues that the Court's approach makes little sense when it has abandoned meaningful suspect class analysis of groups, particularly groups only recently beginning to assert equal protection claims. More fundamentally, this approach misconstrues the Court's tiered scrutiny/suspect class methodology. The Court's Enforcement Clause jurisprudence assumes that suspect class analysis constitutes core equal protection law, rather than what it really is – a useful, judicially-workable method of deciding equal protection cases, but one that only approximates the true constitutional rule. Thus, a gap exists between the results suspect class analysis yields and those the Constitution demands. Congress should enjoy at least some leeway to fill in that gap, subject to appropriate limiting principles. Unfortunately, the Court's Enforcement Clause doctrine denies the existence of that gap, and hence of Congress's legitimate role in constructing constitutional meaning. Second, this chapter considers problems raised by the Court's two most recent Enforcement Clause cases. Those cases – striking down a provision of the Family and Medical Leave Act and narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the Voting Rights Act – raise distinct but related problems. The FMLA case, Coleman v. Court of Appeals, reflects the Court's impatience with Congress's attempts to address stubborn or nuanced discrimination through aggressive or indirect means. While the Court did not reach the Enforcement Clause issue in the VRA case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder ("NAMUDNO"), it nevertheless expressed unmistakable skepticism about the continued need for the statute, in light of evidence tentatively suggesting that the VRA had successfully eradicated racial discrimination in voting. Thus, these cases limit congressional latitude to make quintessentially legislative judgments: in Coleman, about the need for aggressive legislation, and in NAMUDNO, judgments about the VRA's success and predictions about backsliding were the statute to disappear. Such judgments might result in overly broad enforcement legislation, were congressional power not appropriately cabined. But Coleman and NAMUDNO reflect a refusal to accord Congress adequate discretion to make the policy judgments appropriate to the national legislature. Limits on congressional enforcement power are appropriate: the Enforcement Clause, while broad, is not limitless. But as these examples illustrate, an appropriate set of judicial limitations on that power requires the Court to recognize its, and Congress's, respective institutional roles. This chapter argues that the Court should rethink its application of the congruence and proportionality test in a way that recognizes those distinct, but complimentary, roles.


We compare the forecasting performance of univariate and multivariate models for BRICS and OPEC economies. For the univariate models, we produce forecasts using ARIMAX models that have a deterministic component to account for structural breaks over the full sample period and different ARIMA specifications over a reduced sample period that avoids the modelling structural breaks. The univariate ARIMA models that we develop over the reduced sample period are, first, a seasonal ARIMA specification identified using the Box-Jenkins method, second, a seasonal ARIMA model identified using EView's automatic model selection tool and third, a non-seasonal ARIMA model identified using EView's automatic model selection tool applied to seasonally adjusted data. The other univariate model we considered include the regime shift threshold Autoregressive model (over the full sample and reduced sample) and the naive model which added as a benchmark. Multivariate models are estimated over the reduced sample period to avoid modelling structural breaks and are based upon Vector Autoregression (VAR) models that utilise differencing and cointegrating restrictions to ensure the stationarity of the data. In particular, we consider the unrestricted VAR model with differenced (stationary) data, the (unrestricted) Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) that assumes cointegration without imposing cointegrating restrictions and the restricted VEC that imposes a single cointegrating equation on the VECM. Our study shows that the benchmark models (naive) were never favoured over the best selected univariate and multivariate model. The univariate EView's automatic non-seasonal ARIMA model is generally favoured for the BRICS countries (the exception is South Africa). However, the results are mixed between univariate and multivariate methods for OPEC countries. For OPEC countries that have a history of moderate inflation, for example, Saudi Arabia, the univariate automatic non-seasonal ARIMA model outperforms the multivariate model. In contrast, multivariate models generally outperform univariate automatically selected ARIMA models for countries with high inflation (e.g Angola and Algeria).


Additive manufacturing (AM) can be defined as a layer upon layer manufacturing process of objects directly from three-dimensional (3D) computer aided design models. This technology is rapidly improving new product design, development and manufacturing capability. The technology provides a very important advantage where designers are now able to analyse their products more efficiently and quicker during the design process to enable products to be fit for the purpose of its production. This research intends to explore the potential of AM technology for use in the manufacture of fully-functional end-use parts (a process known as rapid manufacturing (RM)) and validate the AM technology production capabilities via experimental analysis. In this study, plastic clips for gripping cotton textile are considered. First, a 3D model of the clips was modelled using SolidWorks 3D parametric solid modelling software and manufactured using the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) AM technology. Two sets of the product samples were built. One set conformed to the dimensions of the original clips, while the other set was improved through design modifications. Subsequent physical tests were conducted for both designs to obtain data relating to the maximum strength (load bearing capacity) of these FDM components. In addition, the data reported the capability of FDM technology and its fit for the intended manufacturing purposes, and the successfully conducted design modifications and improvements. This work contributes to further research into the development of RM design rules, specifically in design analysis and validation of AM as a viable route for producing direct-use functional parts.


Goal! The State of AD in Poland after Euro 2012 In 2012 Poland and Ukraine hosted Euro 2012. It is worth mentioning that all 31 matches in 8 cities were audio described. Audio description (AD) was a part of the UEFA EURO 2012 Respect Inclusion – Football with No Limits project. This article is an attempt to summarise the implementation of AD during Euro 2012 and to evaluate its impact on the development of AD in Poland. Could AD fi nally be provided during mainstream events, by big institutions cooperating with each other? Could this be a chance for the foundations to join forces and to benefi t from the attention given to this service in the media? Will AD become a fully professional activity performed on a national-wide scale? Last but not least, the notion of simultaneous audio description shall be introduced. Similarities between simultaneous AD and interpreting shall be briefl y discussed, as well as possibilities of including this technique in the curricula of translation studies.


Data centers play a key role in the expansion of cloud computing. However, the efficiency of data center networks is limited by oversubscription. The typical unbalanced traffic distributions of a DCN further aggravate the problem. Wireless networking, as a complementary technology to Ethernet, has the flexibility and capability to provide feasible approaches to handle the problem. In this article, we analyze the challenges of DCNs and articulate the motivations of employing wireless in DCNs. We also propose a hybrid Ethernet/wireless DCN architecture and a mechanism to dynamically schedule wireless transmissions based on traffic demands. Our simulation study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed wireless DCN.


Stream restoration goals include reducing erosion and increasing hyporheic exchange to promote biogeochemical processing and improve water quality. Little is known, however, about fine particle dynamics in response to stream restoration. Fine particles (<100 μm) are exchanged with transient storage areas near and within streambeds and banks. Fine particle retention directly impacts carbon and nutrient cycling by supporting benthic and hyporheic primary production, but overaccumulation of fine particle deposits can impair metabolism by burying benthic biofilms and reducing streambed permeability. We analyzed the transport and retention of water and fine particles at both the reach and local scales in a restored urban stream, 9 years postrestoration. We injected conservative solute and fine particle tracers under summer baseflow conditions and monitored their distribution between surface water, porewaters, and storage areas (i.e., biofilms, hyporheic zones, and slow surface waters). Comparison of the results to a nearby unrestored stream demonstrate that the restored reach had 10–45 times greater exchange of fine particles with transient storage zones, but 5 times lower rate of net particle immobilization. Local‐scale results showed that restoration increased fine particle exchange with short‐term storage areas but did not increase long‐term particle retention. Thus, the restored stream rapidly exchanged fine sediments with transient storage areas, but did not store fine sediments as efficiently as the unrestored stream. The decreased retention of particulate organic matter in the restored stream may reduce biogeochemical processes, such as denitrification, by not providing sufficient organic carbon or the surface area required for microbial colonization.


The sweet cherry industry has grown substantially in recent years and high quality fruit is required for domestic and export markets. Incidence of rot can be high in some seasons and optimal management is not well understood. Several pathogens are known to cause rot in sweet cherry fruit, primarily including Monilinia fructicola , Monilinia laxa and Botrytis cinerea . The Monilinia spp. cause brown rot while B. cinerea causes grey mould, however the symptoms caused by these three pathogens can be difficult to distinguish and all result in substantial losses to fruit quality. Key times of risk are not currently well understood in Australian orchards but factors such as inoculum presence and weather-based infection likelihood can be determined. Relative abundance of rot pathogens in Australian sweet cherry orchards has not been well documented to date. During a three year project it was clearly established that Botrytis cinerea was the dominant rot pathogen in the orchards surveyed in southern Tasmania, while Alternaria alternata was a dominant cause of rot in orchards of Orange and Young in NSW. Temperature and wetness durations conducive to fruit infection (and the impact of fruit susceptibility) were modelled for B. cinerea , M. laxa and M. fructicola . Latent infection was quantified for flowers and developing fruit but there was no significant relationship with rot at harvest. A molecular method was developed to quantify spores of B. cinerea , M. laxa and M. fructicola from spore trap samples and peaks of high relative abundance occurred throughout the season from flowering to harvest.


This project examined the potential of three plant species, Heuchera micrantha, Polystichum acrostichoides and Pachysandra procumbens individually and in various combinations as potential ground cover for a heavily shaded north-facing slope on the Maymont Estate in Richmond, Virginia. Digital photographs were taken of the planting sites. Two software applications were used to make quantitative evaluations of ground cover for the test plantings: the USDA's point sampling application SamplePoint, and NIH's image analysis application ImageJ. GNU's Image Manipulation Program was used to edit the digital images as needed to prepare them for interpretation and OpenOffice.org was used to analyze data. Limiting factors for plant growth on these sites included topography and a dense tree canopy, which obstructed sunlight (May – September) and produced mats of leaf litter (October – March) which hindered quantification of plant growth. In order to compare the two image evaluation methods, individual plant species' ground cover averages recorded by ImageJ were summed to compute overall ground cover, and they were compared to the overall ground cover recorded in SamplePoint. The two ground cover evaluation methods gave similar results. The SamplePoint method can be applied by users with less technical training. However, due to consistent image quality and appropriate algorithms, ImageJ has great potential as a vegetation quantifier. SamplePoint results from August to May indicated H. micrantha initially covered an average of 6% in its quadrats in August 2009. May 2010 showed the average area had declined to 2%, while P. procumbens ground cover increased by from 3 to 4.5% and P. acrostichoides cover increased from 11 to 16.5%, making it the most effective species. Based on this study, P. acrostichoides will be used to revegetate the area, perhaps in combination with P. procumbens.


This thesis represents an attempt to investigate the mode of operation of electronic effects on the C=C bond in 5-substituted-2-norbomenes. A total of 14 exo and 9 endo derivatives were prepared for study. In the first instance their 13C NNlR spectra were obtained, and the effects of these substituents on the chemical shifts of the two alkene carbon atoms were investigated. The role of the polar and resonance effects of the substituent in influencing these by polarising the 7t electrons of the double bond was explored. It was found that the polar effect of the substituent distorted the 7t system; but that although -I substituents led to a build up of electron density on the nearer of the two carbons as expected, this build up was less than expected and suggested that part of the charge was being delocalised into the saturated norbomyl framework in some way. Attempts to correlate substituent effects with Hannnett substituent constants of various types were unsuccessful. Next the regiochemistry of the addition of phenylselenenyl chloride to the same alkenes was studied. The ratio of the addition products formed was found to be controlled by the electronic nature of these substituents, although in the case of the endo substituted compounds steric effects appeared to play an important role in some cases. Lastly, the ability of the double bond in 2-norbomene to interact with a C5-X bond was investigated by measuring the effect on the length of the C-X bond by xray diffraction. A series of derivatives where X was a good leaving group (nucleofuge) was prepared and their structures were determined. It was hoped to show that the C-X bonds were longer when X was exo than when it was endo, indicating that the bond in the first had been weakened by the 7t bond of the alkene interacting with the back orbital of the C-X bond. Unfortunately the crystals showed considerable disorder, and this affected the reliability of the bond lengths obtained to such an extent that the results obtained proved inconclusive.


In this paper we study from a topological point of view the Hellmann-Feynman theorem of Quantum Mechanics. The goal of the paper is twofold: On one hand we emphasize the role of the strong topology in the classic version of the theorem in Hilbert spaces, for what concerns the kind of convergence required on the space of continuous linear endomorphisms, which contains the space of (continuous) observables. On the other hand we state and prove a new pointwise version of the classic Hellmann-Feynman theorem. This new version is not yet present in the literature and follows the idea of A. Bohm concerning the topology which is desiderable to use in Quantum Mechanics. It is indeed out of question that this non-trivial new version of the Hellmann-Feynman theorem is the ideal one - for what concerns the continuous observables on Hilbert spaces, both from a theoretical point of view, since it is the strongest version obtainable in this context - we recall that the pointwise topology is the coarsest one compatible with the linear structure of the space of continuous observables -, and from a practical point of view, because the pointwise topology is the easiest to use among topologies: it brings back the problems to the Hilbert space topology. Moreover, we desire to remark that this basic theorem of Quantum Mechanics, in his most desiderable form, is deeply interlaced with two cornerstones of Functional Analysis: the Banach-Steinhaus theorem and the Baire theorem .


Facing death by hanging, haunted by guilt because he has lost touch with the avenging God whose word he has followed, William Styron's Nat Turner devotes his last days to a careful examination of the people and events that have driven his life. Styron calls the section of the novel that commences Nat's analysis "Old Times Past: Voices, Dreams, Recollections." Nat's determination to focus on these elements of his life--the voices that he has heard and that have shaped his mental world, his dreams, and his memory--indicates his desire to find a new sense of himself by reconstructing the narrative of his life. His religion having failed him, Nat searches for another means to understand how he has become the man he is and how he has committed his life to the most important slave revolt in American history. The episodic structure of "Old Times Past: Voices, Dreams, Recollections" resembles the structure of an analysand's free association through his store of experiences. Such an examination constitutes a self-analysis and more, for Styron puts Nat at the mercy not only of his own conscience but of readers who, he must hope, can accept the confession of his pain and guilt. Already judged legally guilty in a Virginia courtroom, Nat seeks self-justification and moral expiation from his readers by providing the complex network of events that motivated his actions, beginning with events from his childhood. Among the motifs that dominate Nat's recollection are his sense of having been a "chosen one," his curiosity about his father's departure (and his desire to replace the lost father), and, perhaps most of all, his reaction to seeing an Irish overseer rape his mother. Though no single act fully determines one's personality, one as shocking as his mother's rape makes such an impact on Nat that he relives the experience at several points in his life. Deprived of a father and unable to forget his mother's violation as he watched passively, Nat suffers a fractured masculine identity. To compensate, he makes women the object of his rage, while denying himself the fulfillment of his sexual desires. Before he can understand himself and his actions, Nat must recognize the importance of his ambivalent feelings, some of which are directed at the absent father and his white surrogate fathers, others of which are directed at the violated mother and the sexual attraction and threat she represents. In his representation of Nat's family life and his relatively comfortable status as a house slave, Styron has given his hero considerable grounds for confusion and ambivalence. Nat's ambivalence is first evident in his feelings about his father, a runaway. How is Nat to accept his mother's story of his father's flight? Nat seems proud, on the one hand, of his father's refusal to take the beatings his master has given him. On the other hand, Nat must wonder whether fate or a failure of will has caused his father not to fulfill the promise he made to Nat's mother to come back and buy their freedom. Even if he fully understands the dangers inherent in such a return, young Nat might understandably feel rejected by his father. His real father gone, Nat is left especially free to fantasize about himself and his family origins. He creates a "family romance," a fantasy in which, according to Freud, "the child's imagination becomes engaged in the task of getting free from the parents of whom he now has a low opinion and of replacing them by others, who, as a rule, are of higher social standing" ("Family" 238-39).(1) I have shown elsewhere that Styron used the family romance in Sophie's Choice (Ross), but in the case of a black slave the family romance has the potential to be especially complex. For a slave child like Nat this fantasy could easily have implications of racial mixing: according to Frederick Douglass, no black child could be sure of his paternity, and many fantasized having a white father.(2) Others encourage Nat's fantasy, especially his master, Samuel Turner, who gives him special attention, and his mother, who, as Nat recalls, "teases me for the way I parrot white folks' talk--teases me with pride" (114). …


ABSTRACT There has been near-universal condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict. The international community has nevertheless struggled to make progress on holding the perpetrators to account. This article reviews developments at the international level in terms of Syrian chemical weapon justice between 2011 and 2017. It argues that there have been substantive disagreements between states on the rationale and means of justice in the Syrian case. It also argues that international initiatives have been tightly intertwined with developments in chemical disarmament and conflict resolution processes as well as the broader war. The article describes progress and challenges to chemical weapon justice in a number of distinct formal international mechanisms during the period studied. The analysis concludes by contextualizing international responses—including the U.S. tomahawk strikes against a Syrian airbase—to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attacks of April 2017.


We regard simulation as a set of interaction episodes between partaking agents in an agent-based simulation. In order to structure the interaction we use commitments, acid the semantics of such commitments is an analogy to a two-phase commit scheme used in distributed databases. A commitment is a contract between the involved agents to reach and preserve a specified goal, during a specified time. Here we define the semantics, describe the messages and outline administrative issues. The full strength of the model is reached when an initiator needs to make commitments with a number of other agents. It then awaits the replies, and then, depending on the replies, it either confirms or rejects proposed commitments. Hereby it accomplishes an analogy to an atomic action when a two-phase commit scheme is used When the commitment scheme is applied to a simulation, a crucial part of the design is to model the requirements for accepting commitments during simulation. We introduce the concepts of an acceptance function and acceptance domains that are used to express these requirements. An example from battle field simulation is given. With the proposed model simulated objects may quite easily be replaced by real objects. With the right kind of interface, real trucks and other entities may partake in real time operations, while other entities are simulated.


The existence of a patent on a particular technology conveys the statutory right to exclude, but in no way guarantees economic power in the marketplace. When a patented technology is adopted as an industry standard, however, that equation can change radically. Because of competitive necessity to practice the patented standard, particularly in industries characterized by network effects, the power potentially conveyed by the patent is greatly amplified. Industry standards are subject to "capture" when firms that participate in formulating a standard have also obtained (or are seeking) patent or other proprietary rights in some aspect of the technical subject matter of the standard, without disclosing the existence of those rights to the standard-setting organization. Conflicts arise when a license under these patents is essential to practicing a standard and the patent owner refuses to license certain competitors, or grants licenses only at terms perceived by users as commercially unreasonable. Absent a mechanism to compel licensing, a hold-up problem ensues. This Article contends that patents are not fundamentally incompatible with industry standards, but that the existence of patents on standards must be transparent and the licensing of such patents subject to appropriate controls so as to ensure widespread industry access. In order-to make fully informed choices about technology under consideration for adoption as an industry standard, standards-setting organizations must be made aware of any relevant patent rights or pending patent applications owned by standards-setting participants. In cases of "abusive" standards capture, defined as the intentional or willful nondisclosure of patent rights by a standards setting participant who thereafter refuses to license all users at reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, courts should refuse to enforce such patents altogether under a theory of patent misuse.


In the vast anthropological literature devoted to hunter-gatherer societies,surprisingly little attention has been paid to the place of hunter-gathererchildren. Children often represent 40 percent of hunter-gatherer populations,thus nearly half the population is omitted from most hunter-gathererethnographies and research. This volume is designed to bridge the gap in ourunderstanding of the daily lives, knowledge, and development of hunter-gatherer children.


In an interview, Gita Sen, a founding member of DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), reflects on the network's two and a half decades of experience connecting scholars, policy advocates, and activists in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific. Focusing on DAWN's praxis over three phases of the network's life, Sen comments on DAWN's continuing relationship to a variety of states and the United Nations. She describes DAWN members' Marxist-feminist critique of the structural location of the state, their opposition to liberal feminism and neoliberal state policies, and also their effort to create public policies sensitive to feminist concerns. Sen emphasizes the necessity of being attentive to interlinkages and tensions among the host of issues that the network confronts, such as trade policy and sexual and reproductive health rights.


In December 2002, the Bracks Government established the Department for Victorian Communities. This fulfilled an election promise to take seriously the alienation that many Victorians had felt from government. It also picked up a longer-term process of public administration reform, which had identified deficits in policy and implementation arising from service planning and delivery focused more on individuals than communities. This initiative places Victoria at the leading edge of an international trend in public administration: recognising the crucial role of communities in maintaining the fabric of society. The establishment of the new Department is, however, not merely about policy. It also marks a significant departure from traditional public service structures with their top-down focus on doing something in, or to, the community. This article places the development in the framework of international public administration reform and outlines the main issues facing the new Department for Victorian Communities.


Deterioration models can be successfully deployed only if decision-makers trust the modelling outcomes and are aware of model uncertainties. Our study aims to address this issue by developing a set of clearly understandable metrics to assess the performance of sewer deterioration models from an end-user perspective. The developed metrics are used to benchmark the performance of a statistical model, namely, GompitZ based on survival analysis and Markov-chains, and a machine learning model, namely, Random Forest, an ensemble learning method based on decision trees. The models have been trained with the extensive CCTV dataset of the sewer network of Berlin, Germany (115,258 inspections). At network level, both models give satisfactory outcomes with deviations between predicted and inspected condition distributions below 5%. At pipe level, the statistical model does not perform better than a simple random model, which attributes randomly a condition class to each inspected pipe, whereas the machine learning model provides satisfying performance. 66.7% of the pipes inspected in bad condition have been predicted correctly. The machine learning approach shows a strong potential for supporting operators in the identification of pipes in critical condition for inspection programs whereas the statistical approach is more adapted to support strategic rehabilitation planning.


Freeze events during January and February can result in major crop and economic losses for growers of low-chill, early-ripening cultivars of blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) in Florida. Overhead irrigation for freeze protection is commonly used by growers to protect their crop from freeze events. Freezes are typically categorized as either radiative or advective, each with their own set of risk parameters. The objective of this research was to use historical weather data to provide growers with additional information for their selection of passive and active freeze protection strategies to mitigate risk. Three sites in Florida were chosen as representative of major blueberry growing regions and weather data from 2000-2015 were downloaded from the Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN) and analyzed. Hourly temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity were used to determine the average of number of days per month with sub-zero temperatures, the average duration of freeze events, and to classify each event as a radiation, advective, or mixed freeze. Radiation freezes were the most common type of freeze event in Alachua County, Florida, whereas Polk County has fewer freeze events including some years without sub-zero temperatures, without a clear prevalent freeze event type. Ultimately, the frequency and severity of freeze events, based on historical data, can be used to further inform grower investments in freeze avoidance and protection.


This volume, with a foreword by Sir Roger Penrose, discusses the foundations of computation in relation to nature. It focuses on two main questions: What is computation? How does nature compute? The contributors are world-renowned experts who have helped shape a cutting-edge computational understanding of the universe. They discuss computation in the world from a variety of perspectives, ranging from foundational concepts to pragmatic models to ontological conceptions and philosophical implications. The volume provides a state-of-the-art collection of technical papers and non-technical essays, representing a field that assumes information and computation to be key in understanding and explaining the basic structure underpinning physical reality. It also includes a new edition of Konrad Zuse's "Calculating Space" (the MIT translation), and a panel discussion transcription on the topic, featuring worldwide experts in quantum mechanics, physics, cognition, computation and algorithmic complexity. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Alan M Turing -- the inventor of universal computation, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, and is part of the Turing Centenary celebrations.


Grating couplers for side coupling of the light from a high-power laser diode array (LDA) into the inner cladding of a double-clad fiber were studied theoretically and implemented experimentally. In the experiments, two types of grating couplers were designed and fabricated: a gold-coated surface relief grating coupler and a gold-embedded silica grating coupler. A suitable design for heat dissipation for each grating coupler was employed to minimize thermal expansion due to the heat accumulated from the light absorption by the metal part of the grating coupler. The experimental results show that the gold-embedded silica grating coupler is superior to the surface relief gold grating coupler, because of its higher resistance to thermal expansion and better heat removal capability. In addition, the grating pitch and groove width were optimized for the highest overall coupling efficiency by taking account the backward diffraction loss and the groove wall nonverticality due to fabrication distortion. The experimental results show that the gold-embedded silica grating coupler is capable of coupling light power up to 21 W from a 976-nm continuous-wave LDA into the inner cladding of a 400- m-diameter double-clad fiber with an overall coupling efficiency of 50%.


We investigate an active pure-exploration setting, that includes best-arm identification, in the context of linear stochastic bandits. While asymptotically optimal algorithms exist for standard multi-arm bandits, the existence of such algorithms for the best-arm identification in linear bandits has been elusive despite several attempts to address it. First, we provide a thorough comparison and new insight over different notions of optimality in the linear case, including G-optimality, transductive optimality from optimal experimental designand asymptotic optimality. Second, we design the first asymptotically optimal algorithm for fixed-confidence pure exploration in linear bandits. As a consequence, our algorithm naturally bypasses the pitfall caused by a simple but difficult instance, that most prior algorithms had to be engineered to deal with explicitly. Finally, we avoid the need to fully solve an optimal design problem by providing an approach that entails an efficient implementation.


This note introduces the notion of dependence among intervals to account for observed or theoretical constraints on the relationships among uncertain inputs in mathematical calculations. We define dependence as any restriction on the possible pairings of values within respective intervals and define nondependence as the degenerate case of no restrictions (which we carefully distinguish from independence in probability theory). Traditional interval calculations assume nondependence, but alternative assumptions are possible, including several which might be practical in engineering settings that would lead to tighter enclosures on arithmetic functions of intervals. We give best possible formulas for addition of intervals under several of these dependencies. We also suggest some potentially useful models of correlation, which are single- parameter families of dependencies, often ranging from the identity dependence (u=v) representing maximal correlation, through nondependence, to opposite dependence (1 u=v) representing maximally negative correlation.


Our food system is heavily industrialized, which means it consumes an incredible amount of resources, including energy derived from burning fossil fuels. By one estimate, the food system takes 10 calories of energy to produce one calorie of food. The phrase "eating oil" refers to our use of oil to power the machines that plant seeds, spray pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, spread fertilizer, operate irrigation pumps, till the soil, harvest and process crops, and transport the food. All of these activities produce greenhouse gases. In short, our food system is a major contributor to climate change. The development of urban farms is a necessary strategy to "de-carbon" the food system for several reasons. Urban farms typically use human power in place of machines powered by oil. Urban farms are smaller than industrial scale farms; thus they can be worked and managed with fewer machines. And despite a low tech approach, home gardens and small urban farms can be much more productive per unit of land and energy used than large scale farms.


Currently, much research is being directed at alternative energy sources to supply power for modern life of today and the future. One of the most promising sources is wind energy which can provide electrical power using wind turbines. The increase in the use of this type of energy requires greater consideration of design, installation and especially the cost of offshore wind turbines. This thesis will discuss the modelling of a novel type of shallow foundation for wind turbines under combined loads. The footing considered in this research is a circular caisson, which can be installed by the suction technique. The combined loads applied to this footing will be in three-dimensional space, with six degrees of freedom of external forces due to environmental conditions. At the same time, during the process of building up the model for a caisson, the theoretical analyses for shallow circular flat footing and spudcans also are established with the same principle. The responses of the soil will be considered in both elastic and plastic stages of behaviour, by using the framework of continuous plasticity based on thermodynamic principles. During this investigation, it is necessary to compare the numerical results with available experimental data to estimate suitable values of factors required to model each type of soil. There are five main goals of development of the model. Firstly, a new expression for plasticity theory which includes an experimentally determined single yield function is used to model the effects of combined cyclic loading of a circular footing on the behaviour of both sand and clay. This formulation based on thermodynamics allows the derivation of plastic solutions which automatically obey the laws of thermodynamics without any further assumptions. A result of this advantage is that non-associate plasticity, which is known to be a proper approximation for geotechnical material behaviour, is obtained logically and naturally. A FORTRAN source code called ISIS has been written as a tool for numerical analysis. Secondly, since there are some characteristics of the geometric shape and installation method which are quite different from that of spudcans and circular flat footing, another objective of this study is to adapt the current model which has been developed in ISIS for spudcans to the specific needs of caissons. The third goal of this research is the simulation of continuous loading history and a smooth transition in the stress-strain relationship from elastic to plastic behaviour. The model is developed from a single-yield-surface model to a continuous plasticity model (with an infinite number of yield surfaces) and then is discretized to a multiple-yield-surface model which can be implemented by numerical calculation to be able to capture with reasonable precision the hysteretic response of a foundation under cyclic loading. This can not be described by a conventional single-yield-surface model. Fourthly, as a method to simplify the numerical difficulties arising from the calculation process, a rate-dependent solution will be introduced. This modification is implemented by changing the dissipation function derived from the second law of thermodynamics. Finally, in order to control the model to capture the real behaviour, many parameters are proposed. A parametric study will be implemented to show the effects of these parameters on the solution.


Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been recognized as a global public health issue. Air quality monitoring across the Philippines is mainly based on data gathered by on-ground stations, which are too sparse to accurately assess the exposure effects of air pollution for the entire archipelago. Thus, the demand for exposure assessment models that estimate physical parameters of ambient air at extensive spatiotemporal resolutions has rapidly grown. We investigate the potential of satellite-derived products to improve PM2.5 estimates across Metro Manila. An eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model was developed incorporating ground monitoring data with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, meteorological parameters, and auxiliary predictors from 2015 to 2018. Variable importance measures suggest day of year, MERRA-2 PM2.5, and 10-meter wind velocities are among the most important features for predicting PM2.5 concentrations. Conventional five-fold cross-validation (CV) results for the model achieved a mean absolute error of 7.61 μg/m3, RMSE of 11.67 μg/m3, sMAPE of 30.45%, and R2 of 0.89, indicating similar or better prediction performance versus previous studies done in other countries. The annual mean predicted PM2.5 concentration from 2015 to 2018 in the study domain was 56.61 μg/m3, and the cities of Makati, Mandaluyong, and Malabon were the most polluted areas.


To evaluate the overall good/welfare of any action, policy or institutional choice we need some way of comparing the benefits and losses to those affected: we need to make interpersonal comparisons of the good/welfare. Yet sceptics have worried either: (1) that such comparisons are impossible as they involve an impossible introspection across individuals, getting 'into their minds'; (2) that they are indeterminate as individual-level information is compatible with a range of welfare numbers; or (3) that they are metaphysically mysterious as they assume the existence either of a social mind or of absolute levels of welfare when no such things exist. This article argues that such scepticism can potentially be addressed if we view the problem of interpersonal comparisons as fundamentally an epistemic problem – that is, as a problem of forming justified beliefs about the overall good based on evidence of the individual good.


The Internet has transformed the availability and dissemination of pornography, providing easy and instantaneous access to diverse range of sexually explicit material. Countries have, on different occasions, tried to regulate internet pornography. For instance, the rising number of pornographic websites in the early days of the Internet created a 'moral panic' in the United States, which resulted in various legislative attempts to regulate online pornography. However, most of those legislative attempts were unsuccessful, following the courts striking down provisions as unconstitutional under the First Amendment's speech clause. In the UK, although there was no sui generis legislation enacted to address Internet pornography per se, a number of changes were made in relation to existing legislation, including the creation of simple possession offences for child and extreme pornography. Rather than focusing on the publisher or distributor, possession offences makes the end-user consumer liable for accessing content. The focus of this talk is on the possession offence for adult extreme pornography, and it will consider whether the offence is desirable in light of the 'harm argument' whilst also addressing issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy, along with other associated concerns.


The separation of a molecularly imprinted polymer for cordycepin was investigated. The synthesis employed cordycepin as the molecular template, alpha-methylacrylic acid as the functional monomer, glycol dimethyl acrylate as the cross-linking agent, azobisisobutyronitrile as the initiator, and tetrahydrofuran as the solvent and pore-foaming agent. The interaction between cordycepin and the functional monomer was investigated by ultraviolet-visible and infrared spectroscopy. The properties of the molecularly imprinted polymer were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, equilibrium adsorption experiments, and the Scatchard equation. Static adsorption, solid phase extraction, and high-performance liquid chromatography experiments were employed to evaluate the adsorption properties and selective recognition characteristics. The results showed that the molecularly imprinted polymer had specific adsorption with cordycepin, and the maximum absorption capacity was 1920 µg/g. Scatchard analysis suggested that high affinity and low affinity binding sites were present. For the high affinity case, the dissociation constant and apparent maximum numbers of the binding sites were 0.0089 mmol/L and 4.78 µmol/g, respectively. The dissociation constant and apparent numbers of binding sites were 0.035 mmol/L and 6.047 µmol/g for the low affinity sites. Compared with the corresponding nonimprinted polymer, the cordycepin molecularly imprinted polymer exhibited higher adsorption and selectivity for cordycepin than structural analogs.


Boys' love (BL) manga (as a genre of Japanese comics) with either homoerotic or homosocial graphics and content, is largely produced by and for female readers. Much like the audacious women writers in Victorian Britain, these amateur female BL artists (dōjin) and their respective consumers in Japan have arguably empowered themselves as a subcultural community, as well as the represented LGBT community, through progressive and often radical means. Although much scholarly attention has focused on the readers' gratifications and why BL has such a large female readership, little attention has been given to how, or the extent to which, the popularity of BL manga has potentially fostered LGBT visibility; or to the illustrators who have continued to independently publish such content at their own expense. Essenitally, I analyse the positive socio-economic effects and greater significance which lie in autonomous authorship, exclusive fan rituals, and their potential by-product of progression towards equality in terms of gender and sexuality. By comparing content, readership and fandom practices from the Victorian era and modern-day Japan, I demonstrate that the dissemination and consumption of cultural products which cater for and stem from a disempowered gender group may foster an explicitly queer space and its wider tolerance in the community. Determining if and how this phenomenon has fostered the empowerment of traditionally disenfranchised groups in Japan can provide insight into the subtle social and ideological shifts currently underway in Japan—shifts in which gender and sexuality are enmeshed, and occur in a contemporary context of an ageing population which is clinging onto the security found in traditions and conventions, albeit while adapting to the effects of globalisation.


This paper describes a tool for aligning and searching parallel treebanks. Such treebanks are a new type of parallel corpora that come with syntactic annotation on both languages plus sub-sentential alignment. Our tool allows the visualization of tree pairs and the comfortable annotation of word and phrase alignments. It also allows monolingual and bilingual searches including the specification of alignment constraints. We show that the TIGER-Search query language can easily be combined with such alignment constraints to obtain a powerful cross-lingual query language.


In 1970, Senator Edward M. Kennedy introduced a bill to add a waiver of sovereign immunity to the Administrative Procedure Act. A series of Supreme Court opinions had left sovereign immunity doctrine hopelessly muddled, making it unclear when plaintiffs could challenge federal agency actions in court. Initially, Kennedy's bill languished because the Executive Branch opposed it. Then Antonin Scalia became Assistant Attorney General, and the Executive Branch changed its position. As Scalia explained, however, the Executive Branch conditioned its support for the bill on the understanding that the amendment would not throw open the courthouse doors for claims against the United States, but would be subject to the other limitations of the APA. The groups that had drafted the bill shared that understanding. Senator Kennedy accepted Scalia's conditions, and the bill finally passed in 1976. Unfortunately, the amendment that was meant to clarify the law has not done so. Instead, the question of how to interpret the APA's waiver of sovereign immunity has generated inter- and intra-circuit splits and general confusion. Moreover, the majority of the federal courts of appeals have ignored Scalia and Kennedy's bargain and held that the waiver of sovereign immunity in the APA is not constrained by the other limitations in the APA. This article – the first to address this issue – argues that the majority approach misinterprets the waiver and raises serious concerns related to separation of powers, democratic legitimacy, and the institutional competence of the courts, and should not stand.


: Studies of the treatment of panic anxiety and various other states with monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors are critically reviewed. It is concluded that MAOIs have differential effects on several dimensions of pathologic anxiety. The association between depression and anxiety states is also reviewed; it is observed that MAOIs effectively treat severe anxiety and phobic disorders without operating strictly via their antidepressant mechanism. In addition, it is proposed that biologic depression and biologic anxiety should be considered to have some independence from one another. Guidelines for the clinical delineation of anxiety disorders are provided, and the clinical and research implications of the proposal for revision of DSM-III anxiety and phobic disorders section, are outlined in detail. It is suggested that anxiety and phobic disorders be classified into endogenous (disease) and exogenous (nondisease) types.


This report presents the findings of a multi-university research study conducted for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on the health impacts associated with commercial hazardous waste incinerators. The members of the research team studied what is known abut hazardous waste incinerators and the emissions associated with such facilities. The researchers also reviewed the available methodologies for evaluating the impacts of a proposed incinerator before it is built and for monitoring actual impacts after an incinerator has been built. It is hoped that legislators and interested citizens find this report to be useful in any future discussions regarding commercial hazardous waste incineration.


This paper presents both sides of the debate over whether States should allow payment of ransoms to pirates. United States Executive Order 13536 and other recent national and international legislation have brought increased awareness to this issue. This paper does not attempt to settle the ransom debate, but instead highlights the key issues, which perhaps will inspire progress in the fight to curb piracy. In their simplest distillations the positions are the pro-ransom stance advocating use of all means available to limit immediate threats of violence and disaster; versus the antiransom stance advocating use of all means available to limit acts of piracy over a longer term. Maritime industry practitioners assert that paying ransoms are the only tool available once a ship has been hijacked. Paying ransoms, they claim, minimizes risks of escalated violence, revenue liability, and environmental disaster. Those individuals/States opposed to paying ransoms believe that each ransom payment fuels and perpetuates the menace of piracy and that the eventual outcome of this escalation would likely be military intervention. In the final section of this paper, we briefly examine recent legislation and a small sample of international views that illustrate the practical complexity of ransom policies. A reader unfamiliar with the laws and opinions concerning this issue may find it useful to read this section before jumping into the arguments. Piracy Ransoms—Conflicting Perspectives 2


Private Equity is rapidly growing as an asset class for investors in South Africa. Local and international literature presents overwhelming evidence to suggest that Private Equity offers superior risk-adjusted returns and portfolio diversification benefits. This study addresses the question of how exactly Private Equity managers are able to achieve superior returns. A sample of 46 individual completed investments representing large buy-outs in South Africa in the period 1992 to 2007 was selected and analysed to quantitatively investigate the relationship between some of the identified sources of return and the realised internal rates of return in the case of each investment. These relationships were not found to be as strong as expected and in many cases were not supportive of the findings in the literature. Only earnings growth and an increase in the earnings multiple had a significant impact on the internal rates of return achieved according to the sample analysed. The authors conclude that investing in Private Equity is too interdisciplinary to distil the sources of return into a few concise elements. Proprietary knowledge, expertise, superior management skills, relationships and experience all seem to play a role in providing Private Equity managers with a competitive edge over their public market participants.


Classification of metamorphic rocks is normally carried out using a poorly defined, subjective classification scheme making this an area in which many undergraduate geologists experience difficulties. An expert system to assist in such classification is presented which is capable of classifying rocks and also giving further details about a particular rock type. A mixed knowledge representation is used with frame, semantic and production rule systems available. Classification in the domain requires that different facets of a rock be classified. To implement this, rocks are represented by 'context' frames with slots representing each facet. Slots are satisfied by calling a pre-defined ruleset to carry out the necessary inference. The inference is handled by an interpreter which uses a dependency graph representation for the propagation of evidence. Uncertainty is handled by the system using a combination of the MYCIN certainty factor system and the Dempster-Shafer range mechanism. This allows for positive and negative reasoning, with rules capable of representing necessity and sufficiency of evidence, whilst also allowing the implementation of an alpha-beta pruning algorithm to guide question selection during inference. The system also utilizes a semantic net type structure to allow the expert to encode simple relationships between terms enabling rules to be written with a sensible level of abstraction. Using frames to represent rock types where subclassification is possible allows the knowledge base to be built in a modular fashion with subclassification frames only defined once the higher level of classification is functioning. Rulesets can similarly be added in modular fashion with the individual rules being essentially declarative allowing for simple updating and maintenance. The knowledge base so far developed for metamorphic classification serves to demonstrate the performance of the interpreter design whilst also moving some way towards providing a useful assistant to the non-expert metamorphic petrologist. The system demonstrates the possibilities for a fully developed knowledge base to handle the classification of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. The current knowledge base and interpreter have been evaluated by potential users and experts. The results of the evaluation show that the system performs to an acceptable level and should be of use as a tool for both undergraduates and researchers from outside the metamorphic petrography field. .


Lineated valley fill (LVF) in fretted valleys at the dichotomy boundary has been interpreted as glacial in origin. Unknown are (1) the original thickness of the glacier ice, (2) the amount of ice-surface lowering, through sublimation and retreat, to its presently observed level, and (3) whether there were multiple periods of glaciation. We address these questions through analysis of an LVF glacial system. The elevation difference between the upper limit of a previous highstand and the current surface of the LVF at the study site is ~920 m. We interpret this difference to be the minimum amount of ice-surface lowering of the glacier system. Consistent with a general lowering of the ice surface are multiple moraines and/or trimlines, and changes in LVF flow patterns, as the ice retreated and decreased in thickness. The superposition of several lobes onto the current surface of the LVF indicates that a phase of alpine glaciation followed the lowering of the valley glacial system. These data suggest that the Late Amazonian glaciation that produced LVF in this region involved significantly larger amounts of ice than previously thought, and that subsequent alpine glaciation followed.


Risk nowadays is a social phenomenon that often makes the headlines. It has gradually emerged as one of the major themes of public debate following on from a number of disasters, but also risk appears at the heart of many scientific controversies addressed by both all the hard sciences and the human and social sciences. But risk is difficult to grasp as it is eminently subjective and depends on the period. Confronted by this diversity of concepts and the inventiveness of scientific production, we attempt to review the state of communication around risk. The goal is to show that the perception of risk communication is more important than the risk. A broad search was performed, covering the last ten years based on a lot of papers, books and texts, both electronic and manual bibliographic searches. Having given a brief historical overview and taken a look at a few attempts at classification, we give an appraisal of the state of the art in the scientific literature in the organisational communication sciences, seeking to trace changes in approach and identify possible channels for future research. The ambition of this article is to overcome the traditional dichotomy relating to theoretical specialisations.


Objective: To study the effects of pregnancy on the disease activity in ulcerative colitis. Methodology: This experimental study was conducted at department of Medicine at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital Oman from July 2002 to December 2004. A total 60 diagnosed cases of ulcerative colitis proven on colonoscopy and biopsy and fairly well controlled disease at the time of enrollment were included in the study. Those who conceived and delivered during the study period were inducted as experimental group (total 30 patients), and those who did not conceive during the study period were inducted as control group (total 30 patients). Result: Out of total 60 patients, 30 patients who were included in the study group, 24 remained well with mild exacerbation requiring only increased dose of mesalamine, four patients had moderate disease exacerbation requiring oral steroids along with mesalamine. Two patients had severe exacerbation that was controlled on parental steroids. Among control group, 25 had mild exacerbation, 4 had moderate exacerbation and 1 had severe exacerbation during the study period. The eventual out come was good in all patients. Conclusion: It is thus concluded that a planned pregnancy when the disease is well controlled minimizes the risk of complications in patients of ulcerative colitis and also has got favorable outcome of pregnancy.


While the caveat emptor (buyer beware) theory has traditionally applied to real estate purchases, courts are continuously recognizing a brokers' duty to disclose. Some courts have found duty under an agent-principal relationship; others have found a duty as a matter of public policy, statutory language, ethics codes, or malpractice case law. Courts also differ on whether brokers have a duty to investigate the property and disclose defects. The author recognizes three issues of broker liability about which courts are divided: (1) the level of culpability required to find broker liability; (2) the basis of a real estate broker's duty to a prospective purchaser; (3) the scope of any duty a broker owes to a prospective purchaser. The note examines the role of a broker and surveys tortious misrepresentation in the real estate context. The author concludes that courts should not impose liability for innocent misrepresentation, nor an affirmative duty of inspection and disclosure. The note recommends that legislatures take action to prevent transaction of defective real estate in order to protect both home buyers and brokers.


Mingers [16] suggests a notion of 'meaning system' in order to clarify the relationships between data (signs), information and meaning, and their bearings on information systems (IS for short). We observe that there are a few important points that need further investigation, which are centred on the basic notions of information and meaning. In this paper, we summarise the most seemingly influential studies on these two concepts in the field of information systems especially Dretske's semantic theory of information. Then we take a close look at the notion of 'meaning system' by drawing on Dretske [8] and Devlin [6] in addition to Mingers [16]. We conclude that the term of 'meaning system' may be seen referring to an overall system whose elementary components are the cognitive systems whereby an human agent generates meaning in responding to stimuli, and it is through such a system an human agent interacts with the world including other humans in which he/she is, which includes crucially access to and


OBJECTIVES
There is a lack of awareness regarding the carcinogenicity of Afzal, an illegal smokeless tobacco product (STP) widely used among the Omani youth. Previous research has shown that certain types of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) are associated with oral and lung cancers. This study therefore aimed to assess levels of four common TSNAs in a randomly selected sample of Afzal.

METHODS
This study was carried out at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, between April and September 2013. A random sample of Afzal was analysed for four types of TSNAs using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The four types of TSNAs analysed were 4-(N-nitrosomethylamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), N-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), N-nitrosoanatabine (NAT) and N-nitrosoanabasine (NAB). As a reference product, a sample of laboratory-manufactured American moist snuff (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA) was also used to confirm the accuracy and precision of the analysis.

RESULTS
The analysis revealed total TSNA levels of 3.573 μg/g in the Afzal sample. Mean levels of NNN, NNK, NAT and NAB were 1.205, 1.015, 0.809 and 0.545 μg/g, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Levels of the two most abundant TSNAs (NNN and NNK) found in the Afzal sample exceeded international regulatory limits. Afzal users therefore need to be educated regarding the potential health risks associated with their STP use. Stricter implementation of current legislation is recommended to reduce the availability and usage of Afzal in Oman.


To make good decisions, we need to be suitably informed. 'Good' and 'Suitably' in this case depend on the informational needs of the decision and the mechanisms of getting the information to the decision maker in time. The trade-offs in qualities, quantities, timeliness, impacts on other activities, and so on are infamously wickedly complex, and usually buried in a clutter of special circumstances, personality characteristics, environments unsuitable for study, and so on. Decision-making systems can be explored using case studies and exercises, but these are limited by the expense and time of using real people. A virtual simulator for large scale networks of communities can provide systems to examine that are not otherwise possible, while bearing in mind that simulators only partially reflect real systems. This paper describes a design for such a simulator framework that can be implemented on an ordinary desktop computer. We intend to use it to exercise and explore various 'knowledge distribution strategies' in order to understand and suggest information communication mechanisms for investigation in the real world, without expecting it to be complete enough to be prescriptive. We focus on military collaborations as suitably 'eXtreme' environments to exercise these communication mechanisms. Topics for further investigation include isolation, turnover and resilience.


The development of a K–12 computer science curriculum based on constructivist principles needs to be informed by knowledge of content and process concepts that are central to the discipline of computer science. These central concepts play an important role in multiple domains of computer science, can be taught on every intellectual level, will be relevant on the long term, and are related to everyday language and/or thinking. Two empirically based catalogues of central concepts of information science (content and process concepts) have recently been developed and validated for the German context. Examples of central content concepts are problem, model, and algorithm; examples of central process concepts are analyzing, categorizing, and classifying. Taking a cross-cultural approach, this study compares the combinations of content and process concepts identified as important in Germany with those considered relevant in the US context. Results show that (1) the combinations identified in Germany can be generalized to the US context, (2) other combinations can be identified in the US context that are also important in the German context, and (3) the combinations of content and process concepts identified in the two contexts can be integrated to generate a broader perspective that is valid for both contexts.


Road pricing as a means to manage traffic in Singapore has a long history, starting with a manual system in 1975 and then replaced with a DSRC-based road pricing system that offered improved convenience to motorists and improved effectiveness for the authority. This will be improved further when the GNSS-based road pricing system comes into operation from 2020 onwards and will double up to provide other value-added services such as the monitoring of traffic conditions and disseminating such traffic conditions to drivers on the roads to make the road network operate more effectively. While road pricing has been effective in Singapore for managing traffic, this approach to be adopted elsewhere has to be customized to suit the nature of the urban city as well as the culture and acceptance of the people.


The acoustic wave propagation in the hexagonal structured ZnTe nanoparticles has been studied at room temperature. In this paper, the orientation dependence of three types of acoustic wave velocity and Debye average velocity have been calculated using second order elastic constants. The six second order elastic constants are calculated for ZnTe at 300 K using Lenard-Jones Potential. An anomalous behaviour in orientation dependent acoustic wave velocity is obtained which is due to the combined effect of elastic constants and density. These velocity data are important for their structural information and to differentiate them from other nanostructure materials and other compounds. Obtained results, together with other well known physical properties, may expand future prospects for the applications and study of this nano material.


2-Chloronitrobenzene and 4-chloronitrobenzene are oily yellow solids that are used primarily as chemical intermediates in the production of dyes, lumber preservatives, drugs, and photographic chemicals. Although these chemicals are solids at room temperature, the vapor pressures of these chemicals are sufficiently high to result in significant inhalation exposure. Toxicity studies of 2-chloronitrobenzene and 4-chloronitrobenzene were performed by exposing male and female F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice to the chemicals by whole-body inhalation 6 hours per day, 5 days per week, for 2 weeks or 13 weeks. Animals were evaluated for histopathology, clinical chemistry (rats), hematology (rats), and reproductive system effects. In separate studies, the dermal absorption of the chemicals was compared, and the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion were partially characterized following oral administration to male F344/N rats. 2-Chloronitrobenzene and 4-chloronitrobenzene were also administered orally to CD-1(R) Swiss mice for evaluation of reproductive and developmental toxicity. Genetic effects were evaluated in Salmonella typhimurium, in Chinese hamster ovary cells, and in Drosophila melanogaster. The highest exposure concentrations used in the 2 week and 13 week studies were limited by technical factors in vapor generation to 18 ppm (115.2 mg/m(3)) for 2-chloronitrobenzene and 24 ppm (153.6 mg/m(3)) for 4-chloronitrobenzene. Other concentrations were 0, 1.1, 2.3, 4.5, and 9 ppm (0, 7, 14.7, 28.8, and 57.6 mg/m(3)) for 2-chloronitrobenzene and 0, 1.5, 3, 6, and 12 ppm (0, 9.6, 19.2, 38.4, and 76.8 mg/m(3)) for 4-chloronitrobenzene. In 2-week studies with 2-chloronitrobenzene, all rats survived to the end of the study. One of five male mice exposed to 18 ppm died, but weight gains of exposed rats and mice were not affected. Exposed rats and mice had concentration-related increases in liver weights, and spleen weights were increased in rats and mice exposed to 18 ppm. Histopathologic findings in rats were limited to hemosiderin deposition in the liver and spleen at the highest exposure concentration. Exposed mice, primarily those in the 18 ppm groups, had coagulative necrosis, hepatocytomegaly, and granulomatous inflammation in the liver. Splenic changes including increased hematopoietic cell proliferation and hemosiderin deposition occurred at concentrations as low as 4.5 ppm. In 13-week studies with 2-chloronitrobenzene, all rats survived to the end of the study; 2 of 10 male mice exposed to 18 ppm died. Body weight gains of exposed rats and mice were similar to or somewhat higher than those of the respective controls. Methemoglobinemia occurred in rats and resulted in a normocytic, normochromic anemia that became responsive by the end of the study. Exposed rats and mice had increased liver weights, but these increases were not as great as those seen in the 2-week studies. Spleen weights were increased in exposed rats. Histopathologic changes in rats included increased basophilia of centrilobular hepatocytes, pigmentation and regeneration of the proximal convoluted tubules of the kidney, and hyperplasia of the nasal cavity respiratory epithelium. In mice, hepatocellular necrosis, cytomegaly, mineralization, and chronic inflammation occurred in the liver, primarily in mice in the 18 ppm group, and hematopoietic activity in the spleen was increased. In 2-week studies with 4-chloronitrobenzene, all rats and mice survived to the end of the studies. Body weight gains of exposed rats were similar to those of the controls; body weight gains of exposed mice were greater than those of the controls. Liver and spleen weights were increased in exposed rats and mice. In rats, histopathologic changes in the liver were limited to an increase in hemosiderin pigment in Kupffer cells. The spleens of exposed rats were congested and had increased hematopoietic activity and hemosiderin deposition. Kidneys of exposed male rats had lesions consistent with hyaline droplet nephropathy. The proximal convoluted tubules of exposed female rats c contained hemosiderin. Microscopic changes in exposed mice primarily involved increased hematopoietic activity in the spleen and hemosiderin pigmentation in the spleen, liver, and proximal convoluted tubules in the kidney. In 13-week studies with 4-chloronitrobenzene, there were no deaths that were clearly related to exposure to 4-chloronitrobenzene. Body weight gains of exposed rats and mice were either equal to or greater than those of the controls. A more severe methemoglobinemia developed in rats exposed to 4-chloronitrobenzene than occurred in rats exposed to 2-chloronitrobenzene, and this methemoglobinemia resulted in a responsive macrocytic, hyperchromic anemia. Spleen weights were markedly greater in exposed rats and mice than in controls. In exposed rats, lesions in the spleen, liver, and kidney were similar to those described for the 2-week study. Additionally, increased hematopoietic cell proliferation in bone marrow, histiocytic hyperplasia in mediastinal lymph nodes, testicular atrophy, and chronic inflammation of the harderian gland occurred in exposed rats. In exposed mice, microscopic changes in the spleen and liver were similar to those noted in the 2-week study. Additional lesions included increased hematopoiesis and hemosiderin deposition in the bone marrow of exposed males and females and squamous cell hyperplasia of the forestomach epithelium in female mice. In reproductive system assessments, there was evidence of decreased spermatogenesis in rats exposed to either 2- or 4-chloronitrobenzene. In mice, effects were limited to a decrease in sperm motility in males exposed to 2-chloronitrobenzene and an increase in estrous cycle length in females exposed to 4-chloronitrobenzene. In continuous breeding studies, a progressive decrease in fertility was noted in CD-1® Swiss mice receiving 4-chloronitrobenzene by oral gavage; fertility was not affected in mice administered 2-chloronitrobenzene by oral gavage. Percutaneous absorption of [14C]-2-chloronitrobenzene and [14C]-4-chloronitrobenzene was demonstrated in rats. For doses ranging from 0.65 to 65 mg/kg of either chemical, 33% to 40% of 2-chloronitrobenzene and 51% to 62% of 4-chloronitrobenzene were absorbed under nonocclusive conditions. Oral absorption was somewhat higher than dermal absorption for both chemicals, and metabolism was complicated, with over 20 unidentified metabolites isolated from urine of rats given either 2- or 4-chloronitrobenzene. 2-Chloronitrobenzene and 4-chloronitrobenzene were mutagenic in Salmonella typhimurium with S9 activation. In addition, both compounds induced sister chromatid exchanges and chromosomal aberrations in Chinese hamster ovary cells; requirements for S9 activation varied among testing laboratories. Neither compound induced sex-linked recessive lethal mutations in germ cells of male Drosophila melanogaster treated as adults or as larvae. In summary, inhalation exposure of rats and mice to 2- or 4-chloronitrobenzene resulted in methemoglobin formation and oxidative damage to red blood cells, leading to a regenerative anemia and a recognized spectrum of tissue damage and changes secondary to erythrocyte injury. In addition, numerous other lesions that were considered primary toxic effects occurred following exposure. These included renal hyaline droplet accumulation and testicular atrophy in male rats exposed to 4-chloronitrobenzene and hyperplasia of the respiratory epithelium in rats exposed to 2-chloronitrobenzene. A no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) for rats was not achieved, as increases in methemoglobin and histopathologic changes occurred at exposure concentrations as low as 1.1 ppm for 2-chloronitrobenzene and 1.5 ppm for 4-chloronitrobenzene in the 13-week studies. The NOAEL for histopathologic injury in mice was 4.5 ppm for 2-chloronitrobenzene and 6 ppm for 4-chloronitrobenzene. 2-Chloronitrobenzene Synonyms: o-Cloronitrobenzene; 2-chloro-1-nitrobenzene; ONCB. 4-chloronitrobenzene Synonyms: p-Chloronitrobenzene; 4-chloro-1-nitrobenzene; PNCB.


Context. The role of mass and momentum exchanges in close massive binaries is very important in the subsequent evolution of the components. Such exchanges produce several observational signatures such as asynchronous rotation and altered chemical compositions, that remain after the stars detach again.Aims. We investigated these effects for the close O-star binary LSS 3074 (O4 f + O6-7:(f):), which is a good candidate for a past Roche lobe overflow (RLOF) episode because of its very short orbital period, P = 2.185 days, and the luminosity classes of both components.Methods. We determined a new orbital solution for the system. We studied the photometric light curves to determine the inclination of the orbit and Roche lobe filling factors of both stars. Using phase-resolved spectroscopy, we performed the disentangling of the optical spectra of the two stars. We then analysed the reconstructed primary and secondary spectra with the CMFGEN model atmosphere code to determine stellar parameters, such as the effective temperatures and surface gravities, and to constrain the chemical composition of the components.Results. We confirm the apparent low stellar masses and radii reported in previous studies. We also find a strong overabundance in nitrogen and a strong carbon and oxygen depletion in both primary and secondary atmospheres, together with a strong enrichment in helium of the primary star.Conclusions. We propose several possible evolutionary pathways through a RLOF process to explain the current parameters of the system. We confirm that the system is apparently in overcontact configuration and has lost a significant portion of its mass to its surroundings. We suggest that some of the discrepancies between the spectroscopic and photometric properties of LSS 3074 could stem from the impact of a strong radiation pressure of the primary.


This paper is concerned with the study of certain irreducible representations, over the field of complex numbers, of finite groups of Lie type, and especially with the characters afforded by these representations. The methods used are based on the theory of blocks with cyclic defect groups for certain prime different from the characteristic, called special primes, relative to which the groups have cyclic Sylow subgroups. Character values are obtained on certain regular semisimple classes, and all Deligne-Lusztig virtual characters relative to certain maximal tori are decomposed.


A simple technique for characterization of dielectrics at high microwave frequencies is proposed and verified experimentally. The technique makes use of the measured impedance of a test structure. The latter is a simple capacitor, formed on the top of a substrate with an arbitrary number of dielectric/conductor layers and contains a material under test (MUT) layer with unknown loss tangent and dielectric constant. Assuming that all other layers are specified, a simple method is given to calculate RF impedance of such a structure enabling extraction of MUT properties


Get to grips with Programming Office 2007 using Visual Studio Tools for Office A step-by-step guide for brand-new Office developers who want to explore programming with VSTO Precise information on programming in Microsoft InfoPath, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, and Project 2007 using VSTO Create your own fully featured Office extensions Packed with easy-to-follow examples covering all the Office applications In Detail With the arrival of Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0 (VSTO), developers can now program Microsoft Office from the .NET framework. There are huge books in the market that give loads of unnecessary information but are of no real help to brand-new Office developers. Wouldn't it be great to have a precise book that simply covers the basics and introduces programming Office 2007 with VSTO using the latest version of Visual Studio? This is that book. VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming shows you how to write Office 2007 applications with Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0. Learn how to automate tasks in InfoPath, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project 2007 with greater programming power and flexibility than was available from the VBA language. With this book and the mastery of VSTO you will learn, Office will no longer be an application to you; it will be a platform for developing custom applications. VSTO 3 is the most recent version of VSTO, making use of Visual Studio 2008, and working with Office 2007. This book shows how VSTO puts Office automation into the hands of developers, allowing them to use the power of the .NET framework to automate Office applications thus increasing the speed of the applications, their security, and the opportunity to use other parts of the .NET Framework such as its data handling capabilities. This book builds a solid programming foundation in VSTO for brand-new Office developers. You will leave behind the world of VBA programming and take your first steps into the powerful and exciting world of using C# to create Office 2007 applications. Packed with examples and covering all the main Office applications, this book will have you creating fully featured Office extensions before you know it. What you will learn from this book? Enhance Office applications with the features of VSTOLearn Microsoft Office InfoPath programming in Visual Studio and discover its role in SharePoint WorkflowGet confident with Microsoft Word Programming in Visual Studio 2008, working with task panes, menus, toolbars, and ribbonsBuild a Microsoft Excel solution in Visual Studio, process data with Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and work with host items in Excel and chartsCustomize Microsoft Outlook using VSTO, work with Ribbons for Outlook 2007, and understand SQL server database interactionExplore Programming in PowerPoint using VSTO 3.0 including creating presentations, adding slides, ribbons, and using Visual designer for ribbonsLearn Programming in Visio and Project 2007 using VSTO 3.0 ApproachThis book contains complete step-by-step instructions and simple explanations about VSTO programming of entire Office applications. It covers the concepts of VSTO, VSTO architecture, its features, and versions using practical examples, to help beginners and intermediate developers develop real-world Office applications. Separate chapters cover programming InfoPath, Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.Who this book is written for? This book is aimed at .NET developers, familiar with C#, who want to get to grips with programming Office 2007. The book will also be useful for those of you who already have experience with VBA and programming Office, but are ready to take the next step into the more powerful world of Office programming with VSTO.


Inclusive and differential cross-sections for the production of top quarks in association with a photon are measured with proton$-$proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. The data were collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC during Run 2 between 2015 and 2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The measurements are performed in a fiducial volume defined at parton level. Events with exactly one photon, one electron and one muon of opposite sign, and at least two jets, of which at least one is $b$-tagged, are selected. The fiducial cross-section is measured to be $39.6^{+2.7}_{-2.3}$ fb. Differential cross-sections as functions of several observables are compared with state-of-the-art Monte Carlo simulations and next-to-leading-order theoretical calculations. These include cross-sections as functions of photon kinematic variables, angular variables related to the photon and the leptons, and angular separations between the two leptons in the event. All measurements are in agreement with the predictions from the Standard Model.


Dicranopteris linearis belongs to the family of Gleicheniaceae known locally in Malay as 'Resam'. Preliminary phytochemical investigation of the crude extracts revealed the presence of flavonoids, saponins, steroids, tannins, and terpenoid. The main aim of this study was to find out the bioactive compounds with potential antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities based on the bioassay-guided fractionation and isolation procedures. Methanol and fractionated extracts (hexane, chloroform and methanol) of D. linearis were investigated for their cytotoxic effects against three cell lines, namely HL60, HCTl16 and MCF7 and one normal cell WRL68 using the MTT assay. The methanol extract was found to be most effective against HL60 (ICso 9.20 ug/ml., respectively). The methanol fraction possessed strong activity against HL60
with ICsoof 12.88 ug/ml. and was fractionated by vacuum liquid chromatography into eleven fractions (FI, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, FlO and FI1). Only F7 showed the active value with ICso 6.21 ug/ml., Purification of the most bioactive fraction, F7
with column chromatography, radial chromatography and preparative thin layer chromatography resulted in the isolation of four compounds (PCI, PC2, PC3 and PC4). Only PCI and PC2 showed the active value of cytotoxic activity against HL60
with IC50 values of 4.59 and 3.87 ug/ml. respectively. The structure of these compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic methods (lD-NMR, 2-D-NMR, UV, IR and MS) and compared with published data. PCI and PC2 were identified as quercitrin and afzelin, respectively. The micro-broth dilution method was used to
determine the antimicrobial activity against S. aureus 25923 (MSSA), S. aureus 33591 (MRSA), B. subtilis 6633, E. coli 35218, P. aeruginosa 27853 and C. albicans 10231. The highest activity was methanol extracts and methanol fraction with the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) values 1250 ug/ml, and 625 ug/ml.. All the fractions Fl until F7 showed the weak antimicrobial activity with the MIC >1250 ug/ml., Hence, the separation into single pure compounds was not possible, resulting in a reduced antimicrobial activity. The objectives as outlined were successfully
achieved only for cytotoxic activity


The primary aim of this research was to explore the effect ionic strength on aqueous cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) dispersions with a range of concentrations spanning isotropic, biphasic, and liquid crystalline regimes. The CNCs used in this research were extracted from woody biomass using sulfuric acid hydrolysis and obtained from the US Forest Products Lab. This research was partially motivated by an unusual rheological characteristic of lyotropic CNC dispersions. When viscosity is plotted as a function of mesogen concertation, lyotropic liquid crystals typically exhibit a relative maximum in the middle of the biphasic concentration regime and a relative minimum at the beginning of the liquid crystal phase. However, CNCs do not exhibit this typical rheological behavior, instead CNC dispersion viscosity simply increases with concentration. This has been attributed to the charge on the CNC and change in the overall ionic strength, and pH, with increasing concentration. This research explored the hypothesis that holding ionic strength constant across a range of CNC concentrations would result in the typical non-monotonic viscosity versus concentration curve.
Solutions of 0.01 M hydrochloric acid (HCl) and 0.1 M sulfuric acid (H2SO4) were added to CNC dispersions until a target ionic strength was achieved for all the dispersion concentrations. Steady shear rheology and cross-polarized optical microscopy were used to monitor the changes of the dispersion microstructure after acid addition. In general, acid addition was found to affect cholesteric pitch and viscosity. It was also found that liquid crystal dispersions became biphasic after each acid addition; this suggests that the acid addition reduced the solvent quality. The studies using HCl addition suffered from experimental errors and were inconclusive. The sulfuric acid addition studies had less error, but failed to support the hypothesis since they did not result in the expected rheological behavior. Obtaining conclusive results was impeded by the complexity of the ionic interactions between the CNC and the added acid, and the discovery that the CNC dispersions used in this study were much more sensitive to rheological testing protocols than the CNC dispersions used in previous studies.
The secondary aim of this research was to test the feasibility of producing hydrolytically stable cellulose nanocrystals films for use in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Surface modification of CNC thin films included the adsorption of various chlorosilane derivatives which produced a two dimensional, self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on top of the film. Water contact angle measurements along with the time-lapsed microscopy were used to determine the hydrophobicity and hydrolytic stability of CNC thin films. The results suggest that chlorosilane, namely octyltrichlorosilane (OTS), produced water resistant CNC films when tested using a solution of OTS and hexane. However, further optimization of the application protocol is needed.


We consider real-time control systems that consist of a controller that computes and sends setpoints to be implemented in physical processes through process agents. We focus on systems that use commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software components. Setpoints of these systems have strict real-time constraints: Implementing a setpoint after its deadline, or not receiving setpoints within a deadline, can cause failure. In this paper, we address delay faults: faults that cause setpoints to violate their real-time constraints. We present Axo, a fault-tolerance protocol that guarantees safety and improves availability for a class of such systems that exhibit two main properties: the setpoints must have a known validity horizon, and process agents must be capable of handling duplicate setpoints. To reason about delay faults, and consequently design Axo, we present an abstraction of a controller; the abstraction applies to a wide range of real-time control systems. We prove guarantees of safety and availability. Finally, we present an implementation of Axo and the results of the tests performed with Commelec, a real-time control system for electric grids.


Pope Benedict XVI's recent encyclical,  Caritas in Veritate , calls for businesses to play a role in authentic human development. One of the pope's ideas is for firms to pursue both profits and the common good with equal fervor. This article categorizes possible types of such hybrid firms and explores the institutions necessary for promoting them. It suggests that a robust civic space, careful attention to tax policy, and an emphasis in business education on social entrepreneurship would promote the formation and growth of hybrid firms. Further work is necessary to quantify the optimal distribution of profits of these firms among their respective stakeholders. Michael Troilo, "Caritas in Veritate, Hybrid Firms, and Institutional Arrangements," Journal of Markets & Morality 14, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 23-34