This paper uses the term, capital management techniques, to refer to two complementary (and often overlapping) types of financial policies: policies that govern international private capital flows and those that enforce prudential management of domestic financial institutions. The paper shows that regimes of capital management take diverse forms and are multi-faceted. The paper also shows that capital management techniques can be static or dynamic. Static management techniques are those that authorities do not modify in response to changes in circumstances. Capital management techniques can also be dynamic, meaning that they can be activated or adjusted as circumstances warrant. Three types of circumstances trigger implementation of management techniques or lead authorities to strengthen or adjust existing regulations: changes in the economic environment, the identification of vulnerabilities, and the attempt to close loopholes in existing measures. The paper presents seven case studies of the diverse capital management techniques employed in Chile, China, Colombia, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan Province of China during the 1990s. The cases reveal that policymakers were able to use capital management techniques to achieve critical macroeconomic objectives. These included the prevention of maturity and locational mismatch; attraction of favoured forms of foreign investment; reduction in overall financial fragility, currency risk, and speculative pressures in the economy; insulation from the contagion effects of financial crises; and enhancement of the autonomy of economic and social policy. The paper examines the structural factors that contributed to these achievements, and also weighs the costs associated with these measures against their macroeconomic benefits. The paper concludes by considering the general policy lessons of these seven experiences. The most important of these lessons are as follows. (1) Capital management techniques can enhance overall financial and currency stability, buttress the autonomy of macroeconomic and microeconomic policy, and bias investment toward the long-term. (2) The efficacy of capital management techniques is highest in the presence of strong macroeconomic fundamentals, though management techniques can also improve fundamentals. (3) The nimble, dynamic application of capital management techniques is an important component of policy success. (4) Controls over international capital flows and prudential domestic financial regulation often function as complementary policy tools, and these tools can be useful to policymakers over the long run. (5) State and administrative capacity play important roles in the success of capital management techniques. (6) Evidence suggests that the macroeconomic benefits of capital management techniques probably outweigh their microeconomic costs. (7) Capital management techniques work best when they are coherent and consistent with a national development vision. (8) There is no single type of capital management technique that works best for all developing countries. Indeed our cases, demonstrate a rather large array of effective techniques. There are sound reasons for cautious optimism regarding the ability of policymakers in the developing world to build upon these lessons. In particular, we are heartened by the growing understanding of the problems with capital account convertibility in developing countries; by the increasing recognition of the achievements of capital management techniques by important figures in academia, the IMF and the business community; and by the potential for some developing countries (such as Chile, China, India, Malaysia and Singapore) to play a lead role in discussions of the feasibility and efficacy of various capital management techniques.


In addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is expected that governments, private sector businesses and civil society organizations will be involved. Social enterprises, in particular, are attracting global attention. While international development agencies have increased their investment in social enterprises, empirical research on their business practices remains limited. For the purpose of determining factors critical to the success of social enterprises in a developing world context, this paper examines the cases of for-profit social enterprises that provide goods and services necessary for poor communities constituting the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) in India. The paper identifies the distinctive business approaches that enable social enterprises to continue their work in what can be described as a challenging and critical geographical context.


To improve the use of soil and its conservation, precipitation data are necessary. With the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), the study of historical precipitation series is a main factor, but in these series, there are gaps that need to be filled. This study had, as a basis, the methods of weighted likelihood, multiple regression, and weighted likelihood based on multiple regression to fill the gaps of the rainfall data for the rainfall gauges in the Brazilian biomes (Cerrado and Pantanal, municipalities of Campo Grande, Bandeirantes, Sidrolândia, Miranda, Fazenda Ponte, and Ribas do Rio Pardo). With this, it became pos- sible to calculate the rainfall erosivity (R factor in the USLE). Therefore, the consistency of the filled rainfall data was analyzed by the double mass method. The value of the rain - fall erosivity calculated varies from 2304.80 to 13562.10 MJ mm ha −1 h −1 year. With this data, it was possible to identify particular results that differed from the rainfall erosivity. Comparing all the gap-filling methods, numbers varying from 0–12% at the same rainfall gauge were obtained.


The COVID-19 pandemic is harming health, social and economic well-being worldwide, with women at the centre. First and foremost, women are leading the health response: women make up almost 70% of the health care workforce, exposing them to a greater risk of infection. At the same time, women are also shouldering much of the burden at home, given school and child care facility closures and longstanding gender inequalities in unpaid work. Women also face high risks of job and income loss, and face increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine.  Policy responses must be immediate, and they must account for women's concerns. Governments should consider adopting emergency measures to help parents manage work and caring responsibilities, reinforcing and extending income support measures, expanding support for small businesses and the self-employed, and improving measure to help women victims of violence. Fundamentally, all policy responses to the crisis must embed a gender lens and account for women's unique needs, responsibilities and perspectives


This article aims to map the position of academic legal research, using a distinction between "law as a practical discipline", "law as humanities" and "law as social sciences" as a conceptual framework. Having explained this framework, we address both the "macro" and "micro" level of legal research in the UK. For this purpose, we have collected information on the position of all law schools within the structure of their respective universities. We also introduce "ternary plots" as a new way of explaining individual research preferences. Our general result is that all three categories play a role within the context of UK legal academia, though the relationship between the "macro" and the "micro" level is not always straight-forward. We also provide comparisons with the US and Germany and show that in all three countries law as an academic tradition has been constantly evolving, raising questions such as whether the UK could or should move further to a social science model already dominant in the US.


Foucault studied the change in the governmental practices of European countries under the influence of Enlightenment. The transition from intuitive actions of power to the rational ways of governing developed the need for experts as a group of people with professional knowledge. Our article focuses on experts as the key element of this concept. The article argues that the symmetry between governmental needs and the experts' qualifications is the crucial factor in the application of new accounting techniques. We investigate an attempt to introduce an accounting innovation in the royal estate during the reign of Russian Empress Catherine II. The failure of this innovation can be attributed to the lack of skilled experts in public sector accounting. The authors came to this conclusion through analysis of the archival sources, including the account books of the Moscow Palace Office, which has not been widely academically discussed from that point of view before.


We investigate the effect of pseudo-bilayer configurations at low operating voltages (≤0.5 V) in the heterogate germanium electron-hole bilayer tunnel field-effect transistor (HG-EHBTFET) compared to the traditional bilayer structures of EHBTFETs arising from semiclassical simulations where the inversion layers for electrons and holes featured very symmetric profiles with similar concentration levels at the ON-state. Pseudo-bilayer layouts are attained by inducing a certain asymmetry between the top and the bottom gates so that even though the hole inversion layer is formed at the bottom of the channel, the top gate voltage remains below the required value to trigger the formation of the inversion layer for electrons. Resulting benefits from this setup are improved electrostatic control on the channel, enhanced gate-to-gate efficiency, and higher ION levels. Furthermore, pseudo-bilayer configurations alleviate the difficulties derived from confining very high opposite carrier concentrations in very thin s...


The environmental consequences of the Gulf War in 1991 affected the air, the marine environment, and the terrestrial ecosystem. Various scenarios and forecasts had been made before the war about the possible and probable impacts under different conditions. The follow-up studies have showed a rather different picture than what had been forecasted. When considering the various aspects of air and atmospheric pollution, in brief summary, the following observations have been made:

In early 1991 more than 800 oil wells were blown up, of these more than 600 caught fire and burned with flames and about 50 wells gushed oil onto the ground. During the period up to October 1991 all the wells were capped. The maximum amount of oil and gas in the oil fires was about 355,000 tons and 35 million m3 respectively per day. The soot emissions for the burning oil and gas has been estimated to about 20,000 tons per day and the total SO2 emission about 24,000 tons per day. The CO2 emission from the burning oil and gas in Kuwait has been estimated to about 130 to 140 million tons corresponding to 2-3% of the global annual anthropogenic contribution from the use of fossil and recent fuels and only 0.1% of the total global CO2 emission. Levels of particles in the air a few kilometers from the burning oil fields was in the order of about 10 5 per cm3. this corresponds to 10% of the global contribution from anthropogenic burning of recent and fossil fuels. Most of the soot particles accumulated at altitudes between 1000 and 3000 meters and very little contamination reached higher than 5000 meters. As a result the soot did not spread over large areas but fell out with rain and dew mostly over the Arabian Peninsula. The high volume of particles in the air had a very pronounced effect on the climate in Kuwait and in the neighboring countries. Temperatures were up to 10 degrees C lower than under normal years. Soot and oil covered extensive areas in Kuwait, Northern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. the vegetation as well as wildlife was exposed to this fallout but no or very scattered information is available about environmental aspects.

The oil from the oil wells formed networks of rivers and lakes on land. The total volume of oil din these lakes and rivers has been estimated to between 10 and 20 million tons. During 1991, up to 200 km2 of ground was covered with oil forming about 250 lakes. In 1992 the figure had decresaed to about 50 km2, partly due to weathering, penetrating of oil into the ground, coverage of oil by dust and sand, and physical removal. The oil has subsequently the ground to varying depth, depending on the nature of underlying soil. The total area of oil lakes calculated based on satellite image in 1998 was about 24 km2. However, at that stage much of the surface area of the oil lakes were covered by sand and could hardly be observed from the sky.

The "marine environment" was exposed to large quantities of petroleum hydrocarbons, the volume of the spills has been estimated to between 1 and 1.7 million tons. the oil was released from tank farms on land (Al Ahmadi North), oil loading terminals (Sea Island and Mina Al-Bakr (Iraq)) and from oil carriers anchored along the Kuwait coast. the spill was broken up from several smaller spills which contaminated most of the Saudi Arabian coastline. About 700 km of Saudi Arabian shoreline consisting of sand, gravel, wetlands, lagoons, and muddy tidal flats and a total of the surfacve area of about 34 km2 was contaminated. Some oil ended up on the beaches of Kuwait, Iran, Bahrain, and Qatar but generally these countries were less affected. The oil on the SAudi Arabian coastline ende up in shallow lagoons, wetlands and flats covered with vegetation. Here the oil caused considerable damage and caused primarily by the physical characteristics of the oil on the vegetation and on animals in the intertidal zone. Hence most of the mangroves and marshes in the wetlands along the affected coast was destroyed by the oil. Fifty to 90% of the fauna of these areas, mainly crabs, amphipoda and molluscs, were also killed by the oil. Already within a year natural cleanup process had removed most of the oil from hard surfaces and decresed the quantities considerably in areas with sand and mud. About three years after the spill most of the fauna had re-colonized the lower sections of the beach, and the recovery on the upper sections were underway. About 10 years after the spill, weathered and underground oil were still present on some beaches.

The large-scale clean-up that was carried out after the spill in many areas did contribute to incresing the damage and spreading the oil into previously unaffected areas. Studies from different subtidal areas along the Saudi Arabian coast on sand, mud and rock bottoms and in sea-grass beds showed minor or no effects at all among the fauna and flora at 1 to 6 meters depth and deeper areas. Several investigations were carried out to study the impacts on soral reefs along the coast but these studies did not reveal any significant effects, particularly in the reefs off the Saudi coast. Also the fish fauna appeared to have survived intact.

About 75 to 80% of the sun's radiation was absorbed and the remainder was scatttered by the smoke in the super composite plume and this resulted in a drop in the temperature by up to 10 degrees C in Kuwait and in the Northern Saudi Arabia. Also as far away as 250 km from the burning Kuwait oil fileds a reduction in mid day temperature of 5-8 degrees C was recorded. Also seawater temperatures in the Gulf were considerably lower during 1991 as conpared to previous years. This drop of seawater temperature during spring-summer period of 1991 was considered more damaging to fish and prawns than the oil spills.

Seabirds and waders were affected by direct oiling of feathers and due to intake of oil primarily through preening. It has been estimated that between 22 and 50% of the populations of several species of cormorants and grebes died as a result of the spill. Investigations of the presence of waders on the shores made during the acute phase of the war a reduction by almost 100% and most of the birds found were contaminated by oil. It was estimated that about 100,000 waders were killed directly or indirectly by the oil spill in 1991.

Investigations of the marine turtles showed that green turtles nested at normal rates and with a hatching success similar to the figures for the figures for the years previous to the spill. For hawksbills the number of nests were normal but the hatching rate was much lower than normal.

Approximately 50 dugongs and several times as many dolphins were found dead on the beaches of Saudi Arabia after that spill.

In total over 84,000 tons of bombs were dropped over an area of about 4,000 square miles during 43 days of war. The military casualties and the allied side was 149 dead and another 513 wounded. In the years after the war between 50 and 100 allied soldiers were killed in connection with mine clearance. The total loses of Iraqi soldiers were much higher, probably more than 100,000 during 43 days of war. Nearly 25,000 died during the mass retreat. In addition at least another 100,000 Iraqi military were wounded, the majority of whom later died due to lack of medical facilities and medicine.

Between 400 and 600 Kuwaiti civilians were killed directly during the war. In addition an astimated 2,000 died due to consequences of the war. Between 15,000 and 16,000 civilians spent time in prison during and after the war. In additio there have been more than 1,500 civilian mine and ammunition victims in Kuwait since August 1990. Furthermore a large portion of the Kuwaiti population suffered various psychosomatic disorders, so called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) several years after the war. Another consequence of the war is that crime and violence has become more common in Kuwait.

Between 2,500 to 3,000 Iraqi civilians died directly as a result of the allied bombardment. However, Iraqi civilians suffered much larger casualties as indirect consequences of the war dring the period 1991-2001. Figures are not known but several hundred thousand civilian, including infants and children, have probably died due to the lack of medicine, hospital supplies, and medical services. Other studies indicate that more than 46,900 children under five years age died between January and August 1991 due to the war and its aftermath. In addition about 100,000 Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south of Iraq died and many more suffered from heavy repression in the civil unrest immediately after the war. Other reports indicate increseased child mortality among children in Iraq, in excess of 40,000 per year during the period 1992-1998.


Guarantees of non-recurrence of mass atrocity crimes are embedded within the United Nations resolutions and declarations on peacebuilding and sustainable development, particularly SDG 16 linking social integration, justice, and sustainable peace. The United Nations and the World Bank recognize the need to channel conflict towards socially regenerative pathways, and work to prevent conflict prior to its effect on the social, economic, and political systems that drive human development. Yet there is a scarcity of empirical investigations into the requisite societal incentives and capabilities for the fostering of local dynamics to reduce the risk of conflict, including the establishment and function of constitutions, human rights institutions, and transitional justice processes. As part of the joint World Bank-United Nations "Sustaining Peace: Making Development Work for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts" project, this study provides an initial exploration of the relationship between these factors and conflict reoccurrence.
In Part I of this report, we define the set of concepts used in the study and set out the hypotheses drawn from the existing literature on relationships of transitional justice mechanisms and institutional and civil society factors to conflict non-recurrence. The section identifies underlying assumptions, their logic, and the scope for their interrogation. It further summarizes existing empirical studies on the hypothesized relationship between post-conflict policy and conflict reoccurrence, and the existing gaps in understanding.
In Part II of the paper, with a technical appendix attached, we present a summary of our findings based on a statistical testing of the relationships described in part I. We find that new constitutions and trials of certain perpetrators of violent crimes a correlated with conflict non- recurrence. We do not find any statistically significant relationship between particular provisions of national constitutions, national human rights institutions and ombuds offices, and non- prosecutorial transitional justice mechanisms and conflict non-recurrence.
In the concluding section of the report (Part III) we set out the policy implications of our findings and outline areas for further investigation. Our findings suggest that international agencies could most directly target conflict non-recurrence by focusing, first, on the creation of new constitutions and the promotion of prosecutorial mechanisms to advance accountability for middle and low level perpetrators of abuses.. Despite our statistical findings, we would not recommend abandoning support for national human rights institutions and ombuds offices, specific constitutional provisions, truth commissions, and amnesties. These mechanisms do not increase (or decrease) the likelihood of reoccurrence of conflict. However, they may advance other goals, and provide transitional governments the flexibility in determining the set of institutional mechanisms they prioritize following conflict.
Moreover, data limitations necessitate further research and analysis. We propose additional qualitative and quantitative analysis of national human rights institutions and ombuds offices, and pre-conflict constitutional provisions, less commonly used forms of transitional justice (e.g., reparations, vetting, and accountability for corporate complicity), qualitative analysis of successful peace processes, and qualitative analysis of conflicts that reoccurred after ten years of peace.


We propose a CNN based visual servoing scheme for precise positioning of an eye-to-hand manipulator in which the control input of a robot is calculated directly from images by a neural network. In this paper, we propose Difference of Encoded Features driven Interaction matrix Network (DEFINet), a new convolutional neural network (CNN), for eye-to-hand visual servoing. DEFINet estimates a relative pose between desired and current end-effector from desired and current images captured by an eye-to-hand camera. DEFINet includes two branches of the same CNN that share weights and encode target and current images, which is inspired by the architecture of Siamese network. Regression of the relative pose from the difference of the encoded target and current image features leads to a high positioning accuracy of visual servoing using DEFINet. The training dataset is generated from sample data collected by operating a manipulator randomly in task space. The performance of the proposed visual servoing is evaluated through numerical simulation and experiments using a six-DOF industrial manipulator in a real environment. Both simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Arts, Culture, and Blindness is the first book to study adult and child art students actually participating in courses designed with their needs in mind in universities and schools for the blind. In doing so it uniquely delves into the topic of the culture of education and society and its affects on an understanding of blindness and the visual arts. Furthermore, through an analysis of individual and group behaviour, the book also introduces a new cultural model for studying blindness and disability, investigates the social influences on the nature of blindness and the treatment of people who are blind, and examines the influences that have affected the self belief of blind students and the way they create art. There are a number of books on the education of people who are blind or deaf. However, these are largely descriptive or based on experimental rather than observational or social research. Furthermore, books that have analysed blindness and the arts only analyse tactile perception in the education of students who are blind, not social and cultural factors. In addition, although there have been many books and articles analysing research on the perception of aesthetics and blindness, there are only two, one first published in the 1950s and now long out of print (Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987), and the other published in 2003 (Axel & Levent, eds., 2003) that consider the practice of this subject in depth. In particular, there have been no books solely addressing the culture of arts education by non-visual means. In the Handbook of Disability Studies (Albrecht, Seelman, & Bury, 2001), Albrecht also identified the need for more works on the experience and cultural history of disability. In this respect, this book represents a unique study of the theory of blindness and the arts. In its first section it analyses traditional models of blindness and disability, finding that the history of disability is more a reflection of changes in society towards its scientific study and classification. This book then presents a unique social psychological study of arts students, both children and adults, in situ, their understanding and practice of the arts, particularly the visual arts, and their reaction to the attitudes of their teachers, past and present. In researching the material for Arts, Culture, and Blindness, the author has collaborated with internationally renown charities in the area of blindness, galleries, exhibitions and art, such as Art Education for the Blind, New York and BlindArt, London, leading to interest from museum and gallery professionals in his work. University courses and practising teachers can also benefit from this book. In particular, there are few resources which directly relate to studies of teaching practise in undergraduate and postgraduate courses specialising in the education of students with physical disabilities, or students studying for undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees in subjects such as disability studies, sociology, social and applied psychology, and fine art and design.


This paper studies the feature selection problem using a greedy least squares regression algorithm. We show that under a certain irrepresentable condition on the design matrix (but independent of the sparse target), the greedy algorithm can select features consistently when the sample size approaches infinity. The condition is identical to a corresponding condition for Lasso.

Moreover, under a sparse eigenvalue condition, the greedy algorithm can reliably identify features as long as each nonzero coefficient is larger than a constant times the noise level. In comparison, Lasso may require the coefficients to be larger than O(√s) times the noise level in the worst case, where s is the number of nonzero coefficients.


During the last few years there has been significant interest in combining the benefits of an object-oriented approach with Petri net formalism which is suitable to modelling and simulation of concurrent systems. Nevertheless, for modelling some system behaviour dynamic creation of new components is often needed. In this paper we introduce a formalism based on algebraic Petri nets using the object-orientation paradigm. Object classes are specified by means of algebraic Petri nets, synchronization expressions link the class instances and static as well as dynamic creation of objects is allowed. Inheritance and subtyping are considered as two different mechanisms. Inheritance is viewed as a duplication mechanism while subtyping is considered at a semantic level as a relation between models. The order-sorted algebras framework captures the subtyping notion between the objects which are identified by order-sorted values. Language semantics is defined through distributed transition systems over the models of algebraic specification.


The Future of Work in Africa focuses on the key themes of creating productive jobs and addressing the needs of those left behind. It highlights how global trends, especially the adoption of digital technologies, may change the nature of work in Sub-Saharan Africa by creating new opportunities and challenges. It argues that, contrary to global fears of worker displacement by new technologies, African countries can develop an inclusive future of work, with opportunities for lower-skilled workers. Harnessing these opportunities is, however, contingent on implementing policies and making productive investments in four main areas. These are enabling inclusive digital technologies; building human capital for a young, rapidly growing, and largely low-skilled labor force; increasing the productivity of informal workers and enterprises; and extending social protection coverage to mitigate the risks associated with disruptions to labor markets. This companion report to the World Bank's World Development Report 2019 concludes with important policy questions that should guide future research, whose findings could lead to more inclusive growth for African nations.


This article reviews the feasibility of global eradication of rabies and factors affecting eradication of rabies in the world. Effective vaccines are now available against many viruses making eradication a viable proposition. As in the case of smallpox, the following questions should be addressed when the feasibility of eradication of a particular human virus disease is considered. Is the disease worth eradicating? Is there any animal reservoir? Is there a carrier state? Is effective vaccination available? How communicable is the rabies? What level of coverage is required for eradication? What are the possibilities for rabies control in reservoir hosts? Can rabies be controlled in wildlife reservoirs? Can the population density of reservoir hosts be reduced? Can contact between wild dogs and domestic dogs be minimized? Whether a virus disease can be eradicated or not depends on many factors, not least on the will power to implement such a policy. These factors include human (increased human activities and international travel; lack of adequate public awareness, proper surveillance, emergency preparedness planning, solid commitment and resourced initiatives among others); socioeconomic (major ecologic changes, agricultural practices, poverty, increasing demands for meat etc.); animal factors (illegal importation, population increase, migration of dogs, stray animals etc.); and vaccines and vaccination (low vaccination coverage and potent vaccines, vaccine failure, inferior vaccine quality, vaccine shortage, high cost, existence of multiple hosts, reservoir and healthy carriers etc.). Rabies eradication is not feasible because of the extensive factors and the inability to eliminate reservoirs with existing technology. However, elimination of human rabies in urban areas may be possible through different strategies. Vaccination of stray dogs could lead to the eradication of rabies in countries where dog rabies is the sole source of human exposure. Research to design strategies for rabies control globally, is urgently needed. Additional genetic work will help to set priorities for the conservation of populations which may be genetically unique for spread of rabies and other related diseases.


The research in this thesis revolves around developing analytical methods for the determination of coumann and 7-hydroxycoumann for various applications. The techniques used in this work were, capillary electrophoresis, immunosensing and electrochemistry. Chapter 1 serves as general review of the analysis of coumann and 7-hydroxycoumann, including the many different types of analytical technique which have been used to analyse this drug. Capillary electrophoresis was used as the basis of a method for the determination of 7-hydroxycoumann in unne and serum. This method offered advantages over existing technology, due to the speed of analysis compared to existing methods Capillary electrophoresis was also used to study of the metabolism of coumann by liver microsomes. This work proved very interesting with a novel method
being developed for the determination of the mam metabolite of coumann
in humans This method was also applied to an mterspecies study on the
metabolism of coumann m a vanety of species, while it also found
application m tiying to understand some of the different reactions which take place in hver microsomes Electrochemistry was used to study further some microsome reactions with some success. A biosensor was constructed for the determination of 7-hydroxycoumann which used electrochemical detection. An immunosensor based on a competitive electrochemical immunoassay was developed. The antibody-based biosensor employed horseradish peroxidase-labelled anti-7- hydroxycoumann, with the enzyme catalysed reaction involving the reduction of hydrogen peroxide m the presence of a mediator.


The genus Prosopis consists of woody leguminous trees and shrubs of interest for fuelwood and agroforestry purposes in arid and semi-arid regions. Prosopis velutina is common to the south-western United States and northern Mexico. Its flowers are an important food source for several native insects, as well as Apis mellifera used in the honey industry. This paper examines plant-pollinator interactions, and provides the first quantification of pollination effectiveness and pollination efficiency of several groups of insects that forage on P. velutina in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona. Pollination effectiveness is defined as a measure of an insect's potential as a pollen vector, as reflected by its ability to effect fruit production significantly. Pollination effectiveness of small insects, determined by covering inflorescences with mesh bags with 3 mm pore size, was equal to that on completely open-pollinated inflorescences. Pollination effectiveness of nocturnal insects, determined by exposing inflorescences to visitation only at night, was nonsignificant. However, actual activity of nocturnal insects was not monitored. Pollination efficiency is defined as the relative ability of an insect to pollinate flowers effectively, as measured by fruit production per some unit of measure (i.e. per visit). Three measures of pollination efficiency based on pod production per visit (Spears' PE), per minute on the inflorescence (PE t ), and per unit of distance traversed on the inflorescence (PE d ), were determined for A. mellifera, Chalicodoma spp., Colletidae, Perdita spp. and Volucella spp. Chalicodoma spp. were most efficient according to Spears' PE and PE t . Perdita spp. and Volucella spp. were equally as efficient as A. mellifera. Colletidae had the lowest values for all three measures of PE. The results are discussed in regard to interactions between floral development and insect behaviour. When considering the number of visits required by a particular insect to effect pod production equal to that of open-pollinated inflorescences, native Chalicodoma spp., Perdita spp. and Volucella spp. were more efficient than the introduced A. mellifera. Implications of the results with regard to conservation of biological diversity in natural ecosystems, and utilization of insects in pod or seed production orchards, are discussed.


PURPOSE
To understand and compare the optical, histological, and ecological differences among 4 vertebrate species that have had evolutionary attempts toward 4 eyes.

METHODS
An evolutionary attempt at 4 eyes in defined as the duplication or one or more structures integral to the refraction or interpretation of the visible spectrum for that animal. We reviewed and compared the known optics, histology, and ecology of each of these vertebrate species with attempts at 4 eyes including Anableps anableps, Dialomnus fuscus, Mnierpes macrocephalus, and Bathylychnops exilis. These animals have developed portions of ancillary eyes that have diverged from the primary globe in 3 different patterns. At least 1 specimen of each of those vertebrate species known to have 4 eyes was examined histologically and compared to the animal's ecology and current cladistic relationship.

RESULTS
A anabteps has 2 distinct optical systems in each eye: an upper one for aerial vision and a lower system for aquatic vision. These systems feature separate retinae and an asymmetric lens to achieve focus in the aerial and aquatic vision, but only 1 optic nerve per eye. The visual system is split horizontally to function optimally in a "prone" position in the water. D fuscus is a terrestrial feeder and has a vertically (almost perpendicular to the long axis of the fish) divided cornea using pigment and a condensation of collagen as the divider, a single pupil, and a divided retina. The split cornea allows for the fish to remain vertical with 1 cornea in air and 1 cornea in water. M macrocephalus is probably closely related to D fuscus with a similar split cornea. B exilis is a mesopelagic inhabitant living at approximately 200 to 1,000 m and has an ancillary globe that "buds" off the primary globe. This secondary globe is directed inferiorly toward the ocean floor as compared to the primary globe, which is directed 35 degrees superiorly from the horizontal. Adult species of B exilis have 2 additional scleral bodies suspected to be lenses. If so, these structures would be capable of focusing light from the inferior field onto the superior retina, presumably adding to the panoramic inferior visual field. There are other mesopelagic species, including Styleophorus chordatus, Opisthoproctus grimaldii, Scopelarchus gantheri (or guentheri), Dolichopteryx binocularis, Benthalbella infans, and Evermannella indica, that have other unusual ocular mechanisms, such as retinal diverticulae and lens pads capable of reflection, but do not meet the definition of multiple eyes, as defined for purposes of this work.

CONCLUSIONS
D fuscus and M macrocephalus are terrestrial feeders requiring aquatic and aerial vision, and hence have a split cornea for this purpose, and they probably use their anterior corneae for terrestrial vision. A anableps swims at the surface with combined aerial and aquatic vision for feeding and protection from predators. B exilis is a mesopelagic feeder requiring a binocular visual field in the horizontal meridian and above, and simultaneously is a bottom scavenger using an ancillary globe and perhaps scleral lenses for recognition of bioluminescent detritus. Although 2 of these models are related (D fuscus and M macrocephalus), these 4 fish represent 3 separate, distinct, and unrelated convergent evolutionary attempts toward 4 eyes in vertebrates satisfying the ecological needs of each. The 3 different models are unrelated evolutionarily and are found in 3 separate orders.


Transformations of the area structure of farms in Poland are determined by various factors among which the ability to acquire land on preferential terms is of critical importance. This thesis is supported, inter alia, by the analysis of sales realized in years 2010-2013 by the Agricultural Property Agency. They would not have been obtained, had it not been for farmer demand supported by the division of payments into installments or subsidizing interest payments on loans by the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture. The circumstances, scale and effects of this type of public aid as related to the creation of new agricultural holdings or enlargement of existing ones, are the subject of this study.


For over a century, Protestant evangelists have held revivals to spread their beliefs. The invitation song is the culmination of these meetings; a sermon ends with an invitation to the unsaved to come forward and publicly accept the faith of the revivalists during the "invitation song." This hymn is not just a traditional means to allow converts to declare their faith; Christians view this time of congregational singing as an intensely personal declaration of their own conviction, a discourse between themselves and the divine. The singers believe their music can be a powerful instrument of change because of a fundamental belief that the divine is present in their singing. Through archival research and field study of modern Arkansan revivals, this paper examines the evangelical Christian's perception of the invitation song as both a means of spiritual discourse between laity and divine and as a vital persuasive device.


State and Federal governments are increasingly reliant on the re-purchase of water access rights as a vehicle for bringing 'over-allocation' in the Murray- Darling Basin into check. Not surprisingly, this has attracted criticism from several quarters, usually on the basis that such mechanisms produce unnecessary hardship for rural communities. Set against this are the views of many economists who have bemoaned the modest endeavours of governments to actively use water markets and the ongoing proclivity of agencies to instead embark on public projects under the guise of water use efficiency (see, for example Watson 2008). This paper focuses specifically on water buyback and traces recent policy episodes in this context. The paper also offers details of alternative market instruments which have the potential to improve on the current, relatively fragmented arrangements. We use contemporary examples to test the efficacy of alternative buyback instruments in the hope of informing policy formulation.


bGenomica Forestal S.A., Concepcion, Chile. SUMMARY Chilean forest industry should not pursue development without incorporating advances from current biotechnology and genomics tools. Traditional forest breeding programs have been founded in phenotypic selection based on field testing which is time consuming, and where the prediction of breeding values is subjected to the influence of the environment. The use of marker-assisted selection has been focused on discovering quantitative trait loci using markers related to the expression of commercial traits, although a small fraction of explained genetic variance is usually achieved. In animal breeding, a recent revolutionary technology called genomic selection, defined as the use of dense single nucleotide polymorphism markers to predict genomic breeding values, has allowed taking advantage of all possible marker information in estimating genomic values which are highly correlated with true breeding values. The main aspects of this technology and its potential implications in forest breeding are discussed. While main factors that are controlling the performance of genomic selection should be carefully defined, such as the linkage disequilibrium level, trait heritability and the analytical procedures of estimation and validation of genomic values, it is expected that incorporation of genomic selection in forest breeding programs would allow the early capture of the best genotypes for propagation, selection and deployment in breeding of commercial forest traits.


We propose a new specification framework for information hiding properties such as anonymity and privacy. The framework is based on the concept of a function view, which is a concise representation of the attacker's partial knowledge about a function. We describe system behavior as a set of functions, and formalize different information hiding properties in terms of views of these functions. We present an extensive case study, in which we use the function view framework to systematically classify and rigorously define a rich domain of identity-related properties, and to demonstrate that privacy and anonymity are independent.

The key feature of our approach is its modularity. It yields precise, formal specifications of information hiding properties for any protocol formalism and any choice of the attacker model as long as the latter induce an observational equivalence relation on protocol instances. In particular, specifications based on function views are suitable for any cryptographic process calculus that defines some form of indistinguishability between processes. Our definitions of information hiding properties take into account any feature of the security model, including probabilities, random number generation, timing, etc., to the extent that it is accounted for by the formalism in which the system is specified.

Partially supported by ONR grants N00014-02-1-0109 and N00014-01-1-0837 and DARPA contract N66001-00-C-8015.


It is an under-appreciated fact that Quine's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinctionwhen coupled with some other plausible and related viewsimplies that there are serious difficulties in demarcating empirical theories from pure mathematical theories within the Quinean framework. This is a serious problem because there seems to be a principled difference between the two disciplines that cannot apparently be captured in the orthodox Quienan framework. For the purpose of simplicity let us call this Quine's problem of demarcation. In this paper this problem will be articulated and it will be shown that the typical sorts of responses to this problem are all unworkable within the Quinean framework. It will then be shown that the lack of resources to solve this problem within the Quinean framework implies that Quine's version of the indispensability argument cannot get off the ground, for it presupposes the possibility of making such a distinction.


The successful application of data mining in highly visible fields like e-business, commerce and trade has led to its application in other industries. The medical environment is still information rich but knowledge weak. There is a wealth of data possible within the medical systems. However, there is a lack of powerful analysis tools to identify hidden relationships and trends in data. Heart disease is a term that assigns to a large number of heath care conditions related to heart. These medical conditions describe the unexpected health conditions that directly control the heart and all its parts. Medical data mining techniques like association rule mining, classification, clustering is implemented to analyze the different kinds of heart based problems. Classification is an important problem in data mining. Given a database contain collection of records, each with a single class label, a classifier performs a brief and clear definition for each class that can be used to classify successive records . A number of popular classifiers construct decision trees to generate class models. The data classification is based on MAFIA algorithms which result in accuracy, the data is estimated using entropy based cross validations and partition techniques and the results are compared. C4.5 algorithm is used as the training algorithm to show rank of heart attack with the decision tree. The heart disease database is clustered using the K-means clustering algorithm, which will remove the data applicable to heart attack from the database. Keywords—Data mining; MAFIA (Maximal Frequent Itemset Algorithm); C4.5 Algorithm; K-means clustering


Bayesian nonparametric models are widely and successfully used for statistical prediction. While posterior consistency properties are well studied in quite general settings, results have been proved using abstract concepts such as metric entropy, and they come with subtle conditions which are hard to validate and not intuitive when applied to concrete models. Furthermore, convergence rates are difficult to obtain. By focussing on the concept of information consistency for Bayesian Gaussian process (GP)models, consistency results and convergence rates are obtained via a regret bound on cumulative log loss. These results depend strongly on the covariance function of the prior process, thereby giving a novel interpretation to penalization with reproducing kernel Hilbert space norms and to commonly used covariance function classes and their parameters. The proof of the main result employs elementary convexity arguments only. A theorem of Widom is used in order to obtain precise convergence rates for several covariance functions widely used in practice.


The purpose of this paper is to generalize the (Poisson) Optimal Reduction Theorem in Ortega and Ratiu [Momentum Maps and Hamiltonian Reduction. Progress in Mathematics 222. Boston, MA: Birkhauser. xxxiv, 497pp., 2004] to general proper Lie group actions on Dirac manifolds, formulated both in terms of point and orbit reduction. A comparison to general standard singular Dirac reduction is given emphasizing the desingularization role played by optimal reduction.


Model checking is a prominent technique used in the hardware and software industries for automatic verification. While it is very successful in finding subtle bugs in distributed systems, it faces the state explosion problem - the number of reachable states grows exponentially in the number of concurrent components. In this book the authors introduce unfoldings, an approach to model checking which alleviates the state explosion problem by means of concurrency theory. They offer a gentle introduction to the basics of the method, and in particular they detail an unfolding-based algorithm for model checking concurrent systems against properties specified as formulas of linear temporal logic (LTL). Self-contained chapters cover transition systems and their products; unfolding products; search procedures for basic verification problems, such as reachability and livelocks; and model checking LTL. The final chapter summarizes the results of the book, and points the reader to tools and case studies. The book will be of value to researchers and graduate students engaged in automatic verification and concurrency theory.


The age dependence of growth, metabolic rate, the degree of lipid peroxidation and antioxidative defence was studied in 3 different size groups of White Sea (Russia) blue mussels Mytilus edulis L.: small (S, wet tissue weight = 0.23 g, length 20-25 mm), medium (M, wet tissue weight = 0.52 g, length 30-35 mm) and large (L, wet tissue weight = 1.05 g, length 40-50 mm). Sg roup mussels were 2-8 yr old, M group mussels 2-9 yr old, and L group mussels 3-10 yr old. Absolute and weight-specific growth rates were determined from the beginning of the growth sea- son (May) to the time of sampling (August). Respiration rates were measured in individuals from all size groups. Net growth efficiency coefficients were calculated. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and fluo- rescent age pigment (FAP) concentrations were determined as a measure of lipid peroxidation. The level of antioxidant defence was estimated from superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities in whole body homogenates. Metabolic performance was found to be a function of both age and body size. Weight-specific growth rates and net growth efficiencies decreased with age until mussels reached a 'critical' age, beyond which growth virtually stopped. Respiration rates were size dependent, but did not show a clear correlation with age. MDA levels remained unrelated to both age and body size, whereas FAP accumulation increased exponentially with age. However, FAP levels correlated negatively with size (growth rate). At constant body size, SOD and CAT activities did not display clear age-related changes; however, CAT activity decreased significantly with increasing body size. As a corollary, size effects potentially mimic age effects on key physiological functions of continuously growing species, and this needs to be considered in physiological studies of the ageing process.


As a self-employed sports consultant, I was overwhelmed when three of the athletes I work with were selected for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Working in a minority sport, I knew there would not be scope for me to attend to every step of the way; but like all good sports consultants, I was committed to doing the best I could to ensure these athletes performed at their peak when required. This paper follows my journey as performance coach with one Olympic athlete and the National coach, reviewing practice along the way through interviews, conferences, research, journal entries and the social media. It has led me to what some will see as a surprising conclusion; namely, that most sports science is not used in a functional way. Although my analysis is qualitative, I hope this account of what I did or observed will help us to rethink strategies going forward to Rio 2016.


Protection of water resources plays an important role in providing safe and reliable drinking water for people and industry. Drinking water resource protection usually comprises active and passive measures. Passive measures, consisting of different protection zones surrounding the recharge area of the drinking water abstraction point, are the most important and most widely used measures. In the paper is illustrated how the protection of drinking water is implemented through the Water Framework Directive. Protection zones are defined based on the classification of drinking water resource types. They are divided into two groups; groundwater and surface water bodies. All of them are further divided into subgroups; groundwater into intergranular, karstic and fissured aquifers; surface water into stagnant and flowing water bodies. For all drinking water resources three protection zones are defined: inner, middle and outer zone. The outer zone was defined as the total recharge zone of the water quantities abstracted. Inside of inner zone, abstraction point zone is defined, which is protected from unauthorized access. Protection zones for intergranular aquifers are determined according to the isochrones based on travel times. Karstic aquifers are protected on the basis of intervention times and the level of the recharge zone karstification. Fissured aquifers are protected according to groundwater flow velocities; if the flow is laminar, the method of intergranular aquifers is used, otherwise the method of karstic aquifer is implemented. For surface water protection zones limitation method of distances, method of isochrones and dilution and method of intervention times are used.


Despite profound successes, contrastive representation learning relies on carefully designed data augmentations using domain-specific knowledge. This challenge is magnified in natural language processing, where no general rules exist for data augmentation due to the discrete nature of natural language. We tackle this challenge by presenting a Virtual augmentation Supported Contrastive Learning of sentence representations (VaSCL). Originating from the interpretation that data augmentation essentially constructs the neighborhoods of each training instance, we, in turn, utilize the neighborhood to generate effective data augmentations. Leveraging the large training batch size of contrastive learning, we approximate the neighborhood of an instance via its K-nearest in-batch neighbors in the representation space. We then define an instance discrimination task regarding the neighborhood and generate the virtual augmentation in an adversarial training manner. We access the performance of VaSCL on a wide range of downstream tasks and set a new state-of-the-art for unsupervised sentence representation learning.


The BB rat spontaneously develops autoimmune abnormalities such as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and thyroiditis. The autoimmunity of the BB rat is controlled in part by genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), known as the RT1 complex in the rat, and accumulating evidence suggests the involvement of MHC class II molecules. The RT1 complex specifies two types of class II molecules, which are encoded by the loci RT1.B and RT1.D. We have determined the relative steady-state mRNA levels of the class II genes RTI.Bβ, RTI.Dα, and RT1.Dβ in splenic lymphocytes from individual autoimmune BB rats of various ages and from agematched histocompatible normal Wistar-Furth (WF) rats. The relative steady-state mRNA levels of the RTI.Dα and RT1.Dβ genes, but not of the RT1.Bβ gene, were elevated ∼2.5-fold in lymphocytes of prediabetic BB rats 45–75 days old in comparison with age-matched normal WF rats and older BB rats >75 days old. In the diabetic and nondiabetic BB rats >75 days old, the RTI.Dα and RT1.Dβ transcripts were found at lower normal levels, similar to that of WF rats. In contrast, the RTI.Bβ transcripts were found at comparable levels in lymphocytes of the BB and WF rats at all ages examined. The increased steady-state mRNA levels of the RTI.Dα and RTI.Dβ genes in the prediabetic BB rats may reflect differences in the proportion of lymphocytes expressing these genes and thus differences in splenic lymphocyte populations. These elevated steady-state mRNA levels of both RT1.D genes in lymphocytes of prediabetic BB rats correlate with the age when the autoimmune effector mechanisms are highly activated and suggest an involvement of RT1.D class II antigens with the autoimmune disease process in the BB rat. The differences in steady-state class II mRNA levels in prediabetic BB rats and the age-matched normal WF rats and older BB rats suggest that the RTI.Dα and RTI.Dβ genes are similarly regulated, but not coordinately regulated with the RTI.Bβ gene, in splenic lymphocytes of young autoimmune BB rats.


China is undergoing a very rapid process of structural and institutional transformation, which has led to dramatic increases in income levels. During this process, the country is facing a series of development challenges that need to be dealt with in order to sustain growth. The question posed in this paper is whether China has anything to learn from the Swedish process of development, or the 'Swedish Model'. The author first describes the emergence of the Swedish Model, and then summarises its main features and the various institutions, both economic and political, that have sustained it. He discusses governance issues, the welfare state, and policies towards the private sector. He contrasts the situation of China with that of Sweden, in order to try to ascertain whether an analysis of the Swedish Model gives insights that are of relevance to China.


Improving the selectivity of zeolite catalysts over a wide variety of reactions without diminution of their catalytic activity requires both shortening the diffusion path of guest molecules within the micropores and selective deactivation of the external acid sites. In this work, the former was achieved by mechanochemical bead-milling treatment of micron-sized ZSM-5 zeolite and subsequent recrystallization, and the latter by the selective removal of framework Al and silica–alumina species on the external surface of ZSM-5 nanoparticles via hydrothermal treatment with a concentrated HNO3 aqueous solution. The modified ZSM-5 nanoparticles showed higher propylene yields as well as high resistance to coke formation during hexane cracking. Significant changes in the Bronsted and Lewis acid sites on the external surface of the treated ZSM-5 were also observed using FT-IR with CO and collidine as probe molecules.


Reperfusion of the ischemic myocardium is associated with a dramatic inflammatory response leading to TNF-α release, IL-6 induction, and subsequent neutrophil-mediated cytotoxic injury. Because inflammation is also an important factor in cardiac repair, we hypothesized the presence of components of the inflammatory reaction with a possible role in suppressing acute injury. Thus, we investigated the role of IL-10, an anti-inflammatory cytokine capable of modulating extracellular matrix biosynthesis, following an experimental canine myocardial infarction. Using our canine model of myocardial ischemia and reperfusion, we demonstrated significant up-regulation of IL-10 mRNA and protein in the ischemic and reperfused myocardium. IL-10 expression was first detected at 5 h and peaked following 96–120 h of reperfusion. In contrast, IL-4 and IL-13, also associated with suppression of acute inflammation and macrophage deactivation, were not expressed. In the ischemic canine heart, CD5-positive lymphocytes were the predominant source of IL-10 in the myocardial infarct. In the absence of reperfusion, no significant induction of IL-10 mRNA was noted. In addition, IL-12, a Th1-related cytokine associated with macrophage activation, was not detected in the ischemic myocardium. In vitro experiments demonstrated late postischemic cardiac-lymph-induced tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP)-1 mRNA expression in isolated canine mononuclear cells. This effect was inhibited when the incubation contained a neutralizing Ab to IL-10. Our findings suggest that lymphocytes infiltrating the ischemic and reperfused myocardium express IL-10 and may have a significant role in healing by modulating mononuclear cell phenotype and inducing TIMP-1 expression.


Humanity's challenge in the 21st century is to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity for all within the means of the planet's limited natural resources. In the run-up to Rio+20, this discussion paper presents a visual framework – shaped like a doughnut – which brings planetary boundaries together with social boundaries, creating a safe and just space between the two, in which humanity can thrive. Moving into this space demands far greater equity – within and between countries – in the use of natural resources, and far greater efficiency in transforming those resources to meet human needs.


Development of high-throughput sequencing techniques have greatly benefited our understanding about microbial ecology; yet the methods producing short reads suffer from species-level resolution and uncertainty of identification. Here we optimize PacBio-based metabarcoding protocols covering the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS region) and partial Small Subunit (SSU) of the rRNA gene for species-level identification of all eukaryotes, with a specific focus on Fungi (including Glomeromycota) and Stramenopila (particularly Oomycota). Based on tests on composite soil samples and mock communities, we propose best suitable degenerate primers, ITS9munngs + ITS4ngsUni for eukaryotes and selected groups therein and discuss pros and cons of long read-based identification of eukaryotes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


This is the complete guide to exploring the fascinating world of maths you were never told about at school. Stand-up comedian and mathematician Matt Parker uses bizarre Klein Bottles, unimaginably small pizza slices, knots no one can untie and computers built from dominoes to reveal some of the most exotic and fascinating ideas in mathematics. Starting with simple numbers and algebra, this book goes on to deal with inconceivably big numbers in more dimensions than you ever knew existed. And always with something for you to make or do along the way.


This paper argues that state and institutional processes are intertwined with ground-level interactions to create circumstances for Chinese migrants to either accept or reject the authority of their host environments. Contrasting host country models of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are examined to offer predictions about how PRC migration functions on a regional and global scale. Variance in state-level and subnational responses will ultimately impact the environment in which Chinese assets and migrants must function in. By nature of their political and economic environments, each country has a unique relationship with China. Kazakhstan is a key resource farm and transit zone for China. A substantial Chinese migrant population continues to grow in Kazakhstan, but its presence is not overt. Social disruption is rare. Kazakhstan's central political authority and high per capita GDP usually are effective at deterring public contention. Kyrgyzstan serves as the region's wholesale market for affordable Chinese consumer goods. Chinese migrants, goods, and investments in Kyrgyzstan interact with society on a much more noticeable level. Violent disputes occasionally arise between Chinese migrants and Kyrgyzstanis. In a decentralized state with weak economic development, uncertainty surrounding China's growing influence continues to channel resentment against Chinese interests. A sense of urgency compels Chinese interactions with Central Asia from a standpoint of national interest. China's demographic imbalance means that its dense population centers are reaching capacity. Central Asia is a strategic and growing source of energy, market access, and business opportunities. Moreover, cross-border security and development projects between Xinjiang and the Central Asian states are important to China for mitigating perceived risks of separatism, extremism, and terrorism within its geographic rear. Yet China's ascension to influence in Central Asia is largely inadvertent. Instead of being a single grand strategy, China's actions in the region are organic and market-driven. Change is rapid. The movement of Chinese to and from Central Asia is playing a vital role in determining the future of development and security across the Eurasian landmass. Nonetheless, host countries can and do have an impact on their interactions with China and Chinese migrants in particular. This important observation creates different implications for China's evolving presence both within Central Asia and elsewhere.


Organic pollutants dyes are the highly toxic major waste products causing severe harmful environmental pollution. From the viewpoint of environmental issues, the removal of harmful organic dye compounds is of great interest and importance1. Traditionally physical and biological methods are generally used to decompose many organic pollutants. However, these methods suffers from certain disadvantages and are time-consuming process. 2,3 Visible-light photocatalysis has been renewable "green" technologies which can harvest solar energy in the environmental remediation capable of removing harmful heavy organic contaminations4. This presentation is focused on the design of a novel kind of photocatalyst that cover entire solar spectrum i.e. from ultraviolet to infrared (IR) regions to decolorize and degrade the organic dye such as rhodamine 6G in an effective way. Now a days, the use of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) as active photo-catalysts has been receiving considerable attention over the layered metal oxides. A number of photocatalysts have been reported for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. Among the new generation photocatalyst, LDH was very much promising material for pollutant degradation5. However, designing novel visible light active LDH catalysts to meet present technical requirements is a great challenge. Intercalation of different polyoxometalic anionic species into inorganic layered materials like layered double hydroxide (LDH) offers a technique in which altering the properties of the two components are combined into a single modified material. By intercalating different anions, the characteristics of the layered double hydroxide (LDH) can be improved. Layered double hydroxide basically called Hydrotalcite consist of a cationic brucite like sheets with anionic moieties in the interlayer through electrostatic interaction. The unique structure, surface hydroxyl groups, interlayer spaces with intercalated anions, swelling properties, oxo-bridged linkage and high chemical stability are some of the added advantages of this group of materials. To harvest solar energy efficiently a series of Mg/Fe Layered double hydroxide materials has been synthesized by hydrothermal method and modified by intercalating molybdate anion by ion exchange. These materials have been characterized by various techniques and tested for their photocatalytic activity for the pollutant removal. The broad absorption band in case of Mg/Fe LDH was found due to the metal ligand charge transfer band of O2p →Fe3+ and the metal-metal-charge-transfer spectra of Mg2+-O-Fe3+. The metal to metal charge transfer (MMCT) for an oxo-bridged bimetallic system with different oxidation states was defined to be an excitation transition of an electron from one metal to the other, which is known to absorb visible light and even near-IR light. 6,7 In the case of Mg/Fe/Mo LDH, the absorption edge shifted towards near IR is due to the HOMO-LUMO OMCT of Interlayer Molybdate where the HOMO is mainly derived from the O 2p orbitals and the LUMO is from the Mo 4d orbitals. These materials show enhanced photoactivity for the degradation of organic dyes such as rhodamine 6G. The enhanced photoactivity is due to edge shared metal oxygen octahedron of (MO6) of brucite sheet, visible light absorbing species, low recombination of charge carriers', metal-metal charge transfer spectra (MMCT) of the oxo-bridged bimetallic Mg2+-O-Fe3+ system, long life time of photogenerated charge carriers and HOMO–LUMO oxygen metal charge transfer spectra of intercalated Molybdate anions. These modified photo catalysts can be reused easily with several times without substantial loss of catalytic activity, which is green alternative material for practical applications for degradation of organic dyes like rhodamine 6G. References 1. Yanlan Liu, Kelong Ai, and Lehui Lu, Chem. Rev., 2014, 114, 5057–5115. 2. Ana Ballesteros-Gomez, Soledad Rubio, Anal. Chem., 2011, 83, 4579–4613. 3. Ian L. Gunsolus and Christy L. Haynes, DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.5b04221. 4. Y. Takahashi, S. Kubuki, and T. Nishida, Green Catalysts for Energy Transformation and Emission Control, Chapter 4, 2014, 71–84. 5. K. J. Klabunde, Nanoscale Materials in Chemistry: Environmental Applications, Chapter 10, 2010, 179–189. 6. L. Mohapatra, K. Parida, M.Satpathy, J. Phys. Chem. C 2012, 116, 13063–13070. 7. L. Mohapatra, K. M. Parida, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, 16, 16985–16996.


As part of the GEOTRACES Program, six laboratories participated in an intercalibration exercise on several anthropogenic radionuclides of interest. The effort was successful for 239,240Pu activity, 240Pu/239Pu isotope ratio, and 137Cs activity measured in filtered seawater samples from the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series station (BATS) and a site on the continental slope of the Northeastern U.S. A limited number of analyses were reported for 237Np, 241Am, 90Sr, and 238Pu in filtered seawater. Intercalibration of any of the isotopes of interest in filtered particulate matter was unsuccessful due to insufficient size of the samples distributed. Methods used were based on traditional radio‐counting techniques and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS). Although the majority of analyses were performed on samples ≥ 60 L, one lab demonstrated the ability to analyze several of the anthropogenic radionuclides on 10–20 L sample volumes using ICP‐MS.


A two-dimensional triangular spring network model is used to investigate the time-dependent damage evolution and failure of model materials in which the damage formation is a nucleated event. The probability of damage formation r(i)(t) at site i at time t is taken to be proportional to the local stress at site i raised to a power: r(i)(t) = A sigma(i)(t)(eta). As damage evolves in the material, the stress state becomes heterogeneous and drives preferential damage evolution in regions of high stress. As predicted by an analytical model and observed in previous electrical fuse network simulations, there is a transition in the failure behavior at eta = 2: for eta less than or equal to 2, the failure time and damage density are independent of the system size; for eta textgreater 2, the failure time and damage decrease with increasing time and failure occurs by the formation of a finite Critical damage region which rapidly propagates across the remainder of the material. The stress distribution prior to failure exhibits no abrupt changes or scalings that indicate imminent failure. The scalings of the failure time and the failure time distribution are investigated, and compared with analytic predictions. The failure time scales as a power law in In N-T, where N-T is the system size, but the exponent is not the predicted value of 1 - eta/2; this is attributed to a difference in the stress concentration factors (scf) between the discrete lattice and a continuum model. Using the scf values for the lattice lead to predicted scalings consistent with the simulations. Predicted absolute failure times versus size are generally in good agreement with simulation results at larger eta values. The coefficient of variation of the failure time distribution is observed to be nearly constant, in slight contrast to the predicted scaling of (InNT)(-1). Overall, the simulation results quantitatively and qualitatively validate many of the critical predictions of the analytic model.


Current implementations of automatic differentiation are far from automatic. We survey the difficulties encountered when applying four existing AD systems, ADIFOR, TAPENADE, ADIC, and FADBAD++, to two simple tasks, minimax optimization and control of a simulated physical system, that involve taking derivatives of functions that themselves take derivatives of other functions. ADIC is not able to perform these tasks as it cannot transform its own generated code. Using FADBAD++, one cannot compute derivatives of different orders with unmodified code, as needed by these tasks. One must either manually duplicate code for the different derivative orders or write the code using templates to automate such code duplication. ADIFOR and TAPENADE are both able to perform these tasks only with significant intervention: modification of source code and manual editing of generated code. A companion paper presents a new AD system that handles both tasks without any manual intervention yet performs as well as or better than these existing systems.


This is a contribution to the serious "Current Clinical Oncology" which addresses the pathogenesis and multimodal clinical therapy of primary central nervous system tumors. The authors approached the topic by separating the field into general principles (part 1), gliomas (part 2) and other tumor types (part 3). It is a multi-author book assembled by three experts in the field of neurological oncology who are involved in various of the most interesting and innovative experimental trial initiatives in primary central nervous system tumors. This setup defines the major strength as well as the possible weakness of this endeavour. On one hand, as far as this is possible in a text book, chapters are truly up-to-date: the pertinent scientific literature up to 2010 is covered. The authors cover the most recent developments in experimental and clinical science in a disease-specific manner. On the other hand, multiple author books have the inherent problem of heterogeneous setup and focus of content by chapter. The perspective is comprehensive and that of the clinical neuro-oncologist; accordingly, the book may be most suitable for this audience. It does not provide insight or updates on the technical aspects of neurosurgery or radiation oncology, but may be very helpful for translational scientists, too, who wish to understand where clinical neuro-oncology is moving. Altogether, this textbook is a rich source of knowledge in a highly moving field and recommended for all medical professionals interested in brain tumors who enjoy reading systematic topical reviews on subjects, some of which are otherwise seldom the subject of review articles.


When we consider that water covers some four-fifths of the
surface of the earth, and that the health of men depends
upon its free and lavish use; when we consider again that,
though the vast reservoirs of water are, for a wise purpose,
salt and useless for drinking purposes, Nature has taken upon
herself the work of a great distiller, we may well deplore
the folly and apathy of communities of men who allow what
was offered to them for their benefit to return thanklessly
in waste to the ocean from whence it came. Nature has
made the clouds her carriers of the purest distilled water,
which has left all its salts behind, and then deposits her
precious burden in the form of snow, or sleet, or rain, upon
the tops of the mountain ranges and table-lands.


The research in the field of comfort is extremely important worldwide. Not only for the researchers in universities, but also for the industry itself, for fashion designers, even for consumers. The comfort of a clothing product is directly influenced by the characteristics of the used textile materials, such as finesse, hygroscopicity, elasticity, hydrophilicity etc. Consumer preferences for clothing products are determined by comfort, especially by sensory characteristics. Therefore, the production of high quality clothing products, which offer high comfort according to the consumers requirements, is one of the current concerns of the research and the industry. The sensory comfort is a universal and fundamental requirement for consumers. The defining and assessment of comfort is approached in two ways, namely objective and subjective. Likewise, the sensory comfort is a relation influenced by the subjective sensations, the same ones perceived by direct contact of the human skin with the surface of the fabric. In the framework of this study of the analysis of sensory comfort from a subjective point of view was applied the tactile assessment, which consists of passing a gentle touch of the fingertips over the surface of the fabrics placed on a flat surface. The use of an unbalanced comparative assessment scales was also used, which includes the descriptors relating to the tested samples. The purpose is the subjective assessment of sensory comfort studied on a series of different fabric samples, designed for women's nightclothes. The study presents the results obtained from the questionnaire as a research tool in terms of testing the analysis and subjective assessment of sensory comfort on the samples tested. The questionnaire was used for a case study on the sensorial comfort analysis from a subjective point of view of a group of 50 female subjects aged 20 to 30.To reduce the volume of work and to be more efficient, the paper presents and offers a software solution in the form of an application that can be used as an e-learning tool.


The pricing of vanilla options on underliers with cash dividends is a surprisingly contentious and active research subject, for both European or American exercise style. Neither on the listed options side (calls and puts) nor on the flow/structured side of longer-term vanillas or light exotics are market participants in agreement on what model to use, nor on what an efficient practical implementation of the chosen model would be. The modeling problem boils down to the question of what a proper generalization of the Black-Scholes model to the case of cash dividends is, i.e. what should replace simple geometric Brownian motion (GBM).We discuss this question with the aim of taking a first step towards a rationalization and normalization of the equity volatility market. We compare the two main classes of models in use, namely the "spot model" (piecewise GBM) and several "hybrid models" (shifted GBM). We are interested in consistency, simplicity, speed, and generality (covering all traded vanilla options, dividend and borrow rate assumptions, as well as easy modeling of business time, events, term-structure, credit, light exotics, etc). We also discuss the calibration problems that market participants face in some detail.We show that: (i) all hybrid models are closely related on a mathematical level -- despite qualitatively different financial properties -- with simple and accurate relationships between calibrated parameters (borrow costs and volatilities) for both European and American options with cash dividends; (ii) all hybrid models allow accurate and very fast pricing of vanilla options using fine-tuned tree methods; (iii) some hybrid models have essentially all the desired properties outlined above; in particular, we describe a hybrid model closely related to the spot model, motivated by the spot-strike adjustment idea of Bos and Vandermark.


In this paper, we study the determinants of rental values in urban housing markets in Kigali, Rwanda. In particular, we study the value of access to piped water; due to the high costs associated with installing new piped connections, renting a property with an existing connection is often the only way for low income households to access piped water. Our results indicate that extending the piped network to a new house will in many cases raise the rental value of the house enough to pay for the cost of installing the new connection in less than two years.


Wi-Fi and smartphone based location tracking technologies have been widely applied in location based services (LBS). This research is a part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) project required by a large global shopping mall company located in Australia. It aims to develop an effective customer tracking approach for acquiring shopping behavior of customers and providing them better services. Currently, the log data provided by the company only recorded one Wi-Fi connection at a time for one smartphone user. This makes most of the conventional tracking and positioning methods inapplicable. In order to solve this problem, a new approach was developed, which takes advantage of both the cell of origin (CoO) method and the fingerprinting method. Its implementation mainly includes two phases: 1) the cell determination phase, including partitioning of the floors of the shopping mall using a Voronoi diagram and determining a unique cell for each wireless access point (AP), adjusting the cells manually according to the real floor layout, obstructions as well as an on-site observing and calibrating process. An AP-shop/room matching table and other relevant information are stored in a database; and 2) the user location tracking phase, including determination of the cell that the customer locates in according to the detected AP linked with the customer's mobile phone. A back-tracing method is also used to improve the tracking performance. This new approach was tested in a large shopping-mall-like space covering an area of 1000 square meters, containing 8 simulated shops and 11 APs. The results showed a 96% correct detection rate whilst the 4% erroneous detections occurred when a user was near the cell boundaries. This new approach is also easy to implement and integrate with other location tracking systems.


With the network playing more and more important effect in the modern society, crimes using computer network are presenting the obvious trend of escalation. In order to ensure network security, one technique adopted for detecting abnormal or unauthorized behavior is the Intrusion Detection System (IDS). Various data mining techniques are applied in an offline environment to add more depth to the network defense in order to determine the various attacks or threats to the network. This work focuses on finding the best classifier with respect to accuracy in detecting various attacks on the tcpdump data so that mechanisms can be incorporated in Intrusion Detection Systems to detect the misclassified types of attacks efficiently. This helps to reduce the rate of misreporting and thus enhancing the efficiency of the Intrusion Detection System.


This article assesses cultural representations of Blackness in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) in relation to contemporary forms of racism in North American society. In particular, this case study examines media narratives surrounding the adoption of the NBA dress code and the behavior of NHL goaltender Ray Emery during the 2005 to 2006 basketball and hockey seasons. Despite significant differences in the racial composition of the two leagues, the NBA and the NHL made similar efforts to discipline, police, and contain the young Black males under their control. Racialized constructions of Black athletes as menacing, criminal, and dangerously different were prominent in media coverage of both sports. An exploration of these sporting controversies offers a transnational and comparative framework for understanding racial discourses in the United States and Canada today.


The class DE inverter offers high-efficiency power conversion under high operating frequency (megahertz order) with low switching noises and low switch voltage stress. It has been applied to DC/DC converters as high-density power sources. Conventional converters with the class DE inverter are controlled by varying the operating frequency, the switch duty ratio or the phase difference with two inverters. However, in general, frequency-modulated control requires a complex control unit. Changing the switching duty ratio puts the switch-voltage waveforms out of shape, and the phase shift control needs the double space of inverters, which is not suitable for the low output power circuit. As a remedy to these problems, we propose to combine the class DE inverter with the class E rectifier using the thinned-out method (deleting some of the pulses to the rectifier). The DC/DC converter's output power is controlled in the rectifier by eliminating its diode-voltage pulse at a desirable rate. The operating frequency is fixed and the waveforms keep the characteristics of class DE. An experimental circuit was designed at 1 MHz operating frequency and in the optimum operation, the measured DC/DC power conversion efficiency was over 80% with 2.2 W output power at 1 MHz. Characteristics of the converter for the line and load variations are given by circuit experiments. It is shown that the proposed circuit has good characteristics with high power conversion efficiency in a wide range of these variations.


Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny. Trumpeted as orthodoxy, the resulting "findings" on everything from rape to domestic abuse to economic bias to the supposed crisis in girls' self-esteem perpetuate a view of women as victims of the "patriarchy." Moreover, these arguments and the supposed facts on which they are based have had enormous influence beyond the academy, where they have shaken the foundations of our educational, scientific, and legal institutions and have fostered resentment and alienation in our private lives. Despite its current dominance, Sommers maintains, such a breed of feminism is at odds with the real aspirations and values of most American women and undermines the cause of true equality. Who Stole Feminism? is a call to arms that will enrage or inspire, but cannot be ignored.


In response to a deadly fire in a Beijing neighbourhood inhabited mostly by migrant workers, the authorities of the Chinese capital launched an unprecedented wave of evictions. Without any notice, migrants who often had spent years in the capital were told to leave their habitations and relocate elsewhere in the midst of the freezing north-China winter. While foreign media widely reported on the unfolding of the crisis, they often overlooked the outpouring of outrage in Chinese public discourse. This essay seeks to fill this gap. Beijing Evictions: A Winter's Tale


BACKGROUND
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is the most important contributing cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) worldwide. Bardoxolone methyl, a nuclear factor-erythroid-2-related factor 2 activator, augments estimated glomerular filtration. The Bardoxolone methyl EvAluation in patients with Chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Occurrence of renal eveNts (BEACON) trial was designed to establish whether bardoxolone methyl slows or prevents progression to ESRD. Herein, we describe baseline characteristics of the BEACON population.

METHODS
BEACON is a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial in 2185 patients with T2DM and chronic kidney disease stage 4 (eGFR between 15 and 30 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) designed to test the hypothesis that bardoxolone methyl added to guideline-recommended treatment including inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system slows or prevents progression to ESRD or cardiovascular death compared with placebo.

RESULTS
Baseline characteristics (mean or percentage) of the population include age 68.5 years, female 43%, Caucasian 78%, eGFR 22.5 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and systolic/diastolic blood pressure 140/70 mmHg. The median urinary albumin:creatinine ratio was 320 mg/g and the frequency of micro- and macroalbuminuria was 30 and 51%, respectively. Anemia, abnormalities in markers of bone metabolism and elevations in cardiovascular biomarkers were frequently observed. A history of cardiovascular disease was present in 56%, neuropathy in 47% and retinopathy in 41% of patients.

CONCLUSIONS
The BEACON trial enrolled a population heretofore unstudied in an international randomized controlled trial. Enrolled patients suffered with numerous co-morbid conditions and exhibited multiple laboratory abnormalities, highlighting the critical need for new therapies to optimize management of these conditions.


In this paper we report the evidence of the potential role of diffluence in the 200hPa wind field off the coast of West Africa in the formation of a significant number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes in the recent decade. It is shown that on an average of 65% cases of hurricanes at Category 4 and above is preceded by upper level diffluence in the Tropical Easterly Jet (TEJ) by 0–3 days. This TEJ is the outflow from the southern flank of the Tibetan anticyclone from the Asian monsoon region.


How would you like to receive free e-prescribing software? Or maybe a state-of-the-art medical records software package, complete with Internet connectivity and help desk support? Well, get ready, because some gifts may be coming your way! On Aug. 8, the Department of Health & Human Services, through its CMS and Office of Inspector General, published parallel final rules allowing certain healthcare groups to donate e-prescribing and electronic health record (EHR) technology to physicians, pharmacies, and others. And, better yet, the final rules are broader and more practical than those proposed back in October 2005.


OF THESIS Early sowing of swedes increases yield but also increases the risk of bolting. The aim of the study was to investigate vernalisation, that is, low temperature flower induction, of swedes. In a series of experiments, plants of different ages and cultivars were given low temperature treatments of varying duration and tem perature. Swedes were vernalised by temperatures of 11° and below, the optimum being around 5° to 6° for Wilhelmsburger and 3° to 6° for Doon Major. High temperatures following low temperature treatment and interruptions of treatment with periods at higher temperature were devernalising, reducing the numbers of plants flowering and decreasing the rate of flowering. Stem extension and response of stem growth to gibberellic acid were less affected by devernalisation than flowering. c Plants grown at around 15 were found to have a juvenile stage of under A days, some cultivars having a shorter stage of 2 days or less. Low light intensities during vernalisation reduced the number of plants flowering but mature swedes could be vernalised in the absence of light. There was considerable variation in susceptibility to vernalisation in the cultivars used in the experiments. In order of decreasing susceptibility they were Pentland Harvester, Della, W i 1nelmsburger and Marian, Harrietfield, Doon Major and Ruta Otofte. There was evidence of differences in within cultivar variation, early and late flowering selected Wilhelmsburger lines differing more from the parent population in susceptibility to vernalisation than selected Doon Major lines. The longer the duration of low temperature the more plants flowered and the earlier they flowered. The normal site of vernalisation was found to be the growing point although axillary buds could be vernalised in the presence and absence of the growing point. There was no evidence of a translocatable flowering stimulus. Methods of selection and shortening the reproductive cycle are described.


While very successful in traditional radio communications, the usage of TDMA and CSMA schemes for underwater acoustic communications is severely limited in efficiency and scalability, primarily due to the very large propagation delays. FDMA seems a viable alternative in that the propagation delay does not impact significantly its efficiency. However, in underwater communications, the capacity achievable on a particular channel depends strongly both on its frequency and on the communication distance, unlike in traditional radio transmissions where FDMA channels usually have comparable performance. Therefore, fixed channel allocation schemes traditionally used for radio FDMA do not perform well in underwater communications. In this paper, we investigate the application of the principles of cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access to underwater communications. In particular, we propose a channel allocation scheme which exploits user location knowledge in order to maximize the minimum channel capacity among those achieved by the users. This provides maximum fairness and makes a more efficient use of the available spectrum resources. Performance evaluation carried out by means of simulation shows that our approach can achieve a great improvement in fairness among users, with respect to fixed allocation schemes, while at the same time scaling much better and thus allowing effective communications over larger distances.


The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the asymmetric membrane capsule can be used to deliver a poorly water soluble drug with a pH sensitive solubility such as gliclazide. In order to obtain the desired delivery duration, the drug was solubilized with the use of a pH-controlling excipient. The capsule wall membrane was made by a phase inversion process, in which asymmetric membrane was formed on glass mold pins by dipping the mold pins into a coating solution containing a polymeric material followed by dipping into a quench solution. This study evaluates the influence of coating formulation that was cellulose acetate (CA), ethyl cellulose (EC), and plasticizer (glycerin and PEG 600). Results show capsule that made by CA with glycerol and PEG 600(F8), which appear in asymmetric structure and are able to release gliclazide(GLZ) in significant percentage. Results show that sodium bicarbonate and Dmannitol is able to promote the release of GLZ from polymeric capsules prepared with CA with asymmetrical membrane. The addition of solubilizer, sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) could enhance the release of GLZ by micelle formation of GLZ. Based on these results, influence of core formulation variables, including D-mannitol, sodium bicarbonate and the added amount of SLS were examined on the release of GLZ. It was found that HPMC 15cp was suitable to be a thickening agent and both added amount of HPMC and SLS showed a comparable and profoundly positive effect. In vitro release studies for all the prepared formulations were done (n=3). Statistical test (Dunnett's multiple comparison test) was applied for in vitro drug release at P>0.05. The best formulation closely corresponded to the marketed formulation by a similarity (f2) value of 78.36 and difference (f1) value of 4.49. The drug release was independent of pH but dependent on the osmotic pressure of the dissolution medium. The release kinetics followed the First order model and the mechanism of release was anomalous type.


We present an object-oriented software framework allowing to specify, solve, and estimate nonlinear dynamic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. The imple- mented solution methods for nding the unknown policy function are the standard linearization around the deterministic steady state, and a function iterator using a multivariate global Chebyshev polynomial approximation with the Smolyak op- erator to overcome the course of dimensionality. The operator is also useful for numerical integration and we use it for the integrals arising in rational expecta- tions and in nonlinear state space lters. The estimation step is done by a parallel Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, using a linear or nonlinear lter. Implemented are the Kalman, Extended Kalman, Particle, Smolyak Kalman, Smolyak Sum, and Smolyak Kalman Particle lters. The MH sampling step can be interactively moni- tored and controlled by sequence and statistics plots. The number of parallel threads can be adjusted to bene t from multiprocessor environments. JBendge is based on the framework JStatCom, which provides a standardized ap- plication interface. All tasks are supported by an elaborate multi-threaded graphical user interface (GUI) with project management and data handling facilities.