A pulsed current is introduced into the traditional coaxial laser cladding process to decrease the porosity of the cladding layer. The magneto contraction force caused by pulsed current exerted on the molten pool squeezes the gas out and compensates the shrinkage during molten pool solidification. As a result the porosity of the cladding layer is decreased to an extremely low degree. Simultaneously, the grain of the cladding layer is finer with the added supercooling degree with pulsed current. The microhardness of an equiaxed zone in the cross section of a cladding layer also increases.


In 2017, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth's atmosphere-carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide-reached new record highs. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth's surface for 2017 was 405.0 ± 0.1 ppm, 2.2 ppm greater than for 2016 and the highest in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800 000 years. The global growth rate of CO2 has nearly quadrupled since the early 1960s. With ENSO-neutral conditions present in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean during most of the year and weak La Nina conditions notable at the start and end, the global temperature across land and ocean surfaces ranked as the second or third highest, depending on the dataset, since records began in the mid-to-late 1800s. Notably, it was the warmest non-El Nino year in the instrumental record. Above Earth's surface, the annual lower tropospheric temperature was also either second or third highest according to all datasets analyzed. The lower stratospheric temperature was about 0.2°C higher than the record cold temperature of 2016 according to most of the in situ and satellite datasets. Several countries, including Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, and Bulgaria, reported record high annual temperatures. Mexico broke its annual record for the fourth consecutive year. On 27 January, the temperature reached 43.4°C at Puerto Madryn, Argentina-the highest temperature recorded so far south (43°S) anywhere in the world. On 28 May in Turbat, western Pakistan, the high of 53.5°C tied Pakistan's all-time highest temperature and became the world-record highest temperature for May. In the Arctic, the 2017 land surface temperature was 1.6°C above the 1981-2010 average, the second highest since the record began in 1900, behind only 2016. The five highest annual Arctic temperatures have all occurred since 2007. Exceptionally high temperatures were observed in the permafrost across the Arctic, with record values reported in much of Alaska and northwestern Canada. In August, high sea surface temperature (SST) records were broken for the Chukchi Sea, with some regions as warm as +11°C, or 3° to 4°C warmer than the longterm mean (1982-present). According to paleoclimate studies, today's abnormally warm Arctic air and SSTs have not been observed in the last 2000 years. The increasing temperatures have led to decreasing Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. On 7 March, sea ice extent at the end of the growth season saw its lowest maximum in the 37-year satellite record, covering 8% less area than the 1981-2010 average. The Arctic sea ice minimum on 13 September was the eighth lowest on record and covered 25% less area than the long-term mean. Preliminary data indicate that glaciers across the world lost mass for the 38th consecutive year on record; the declines are remarkably consistent from region to region. Cumulatively since 1980, this loss is equivalent to slicing 22 meters off the top of the average glacier. Antarctic sea ice extent remained below average for all of 2017, with record lows during the first four months. Over the continent, the austral summer seasonal melt extent and melt index were the second highest since 2005, mostly due to strong positive anomalies of air temperature over most of the West Antarctic coast. In contrast, the East Antarctic Plateau saw record low mean temperatures in March. The year was also distinguished by the second smallest Antarctic ozone hole observed since 1988. Across the global oceans, the overall long-term SST warming trend remained strong. Although SST cooled slightly from 2016 to 2017, the last three years produced the three highest annual values observed; these high anomalies have been associated with widespread coral bleaching. The most recent global coral bleaching lasted three full years, June 2014 to May 2017, and was the longest, most widespread, and almost certainly most destructive such event on record. Global integrals of 0-700-m and 0-2000-m ocean heat content reached record highs in 2017, and global mean sea level during the year became the highest annual average in the 25-year satellite altimetry record, rising to 77 mm above the 1993 average. In the tropics, 2017 saw 85 named tropical storms, slightly above the 1981-2010 average of 82. The North Atlantic basin was the only basin that featured an above-normal season, its seventh most active in the 164-year record. Three hurricanes in the basin were especially notable. Harvey produced record rainfall totals in areas of Texas and Louisiana, including a storm total of 1538.7 mm near Beaumont, Texas, which far exceeds the previous known U.S. tropical cyclone record of 1320.8 mm. Irma was the strongest tropical cyclone globally in 2017 and the strongest Atlantic hurricane outside of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean on record with maximum winds of 295 km h-1. Maria caused catastrophic destruction across the Caribbean Islands, including devastating wind damage and flooding across Puerto Rico. Elsewhere, the western North Pacific, South Indian, and Australian basins were all particularly quiet. Precipitation over global land areas in 2017 was clearly above the long-term average. Among noteworthy regional precipitation records in 2017, Russia reported its second wettest year on record (after 2013) and Norway experienced its sixth wettest year since records began in 1900. Across India, heavy rain and flood-related incidents during the monsoon season claimed around 800 lives. In August and September, above-normal precipitation triggered the most devastating floods in more than a decade in the Venezuelan states of Bolivar and Delta Amacuro. In Nigeria, heavy rain during August and September caused the Niger and Benue Rivers to overflow, bringing floods that displaced more than 100 000 people. Global fire activity was the lowest since at least 2003; however, high activity occurred in parts of North America, South America, and Europe, with an unusually long season in Spain and Portugal, which had their second and third driest years on record, respectively. Devastating fires impacted British Columbia, destroying 1.2 million hectares of timber, bush, and grassland, due in part to the region's driest summer on record. In the United States, an extreme western wildfire season burned over 4 million hectares; the total costs of $18 billion tripled the previous U.S. annual wildfire cost record set in 1991.


We present an on-line linear time and space algorithm to check if an integer array f is the border array of at least one string w built on a bounded or unbounded size alphabet Σ . First of all, we show a bijection between the border array of a string w and the skeleton of the DFA recognizing Σ*ω, called a string matching automaton (SMA). Different strings can have the same border array but the originality of the presented method is that the correspondence between a border array and a skeleton of SMA is independent from the underlying strings. This enables to design algorithms for validating and generating border arrays that outperform existing ones. The validating algorithm lowers the delay (maximal number of comparisons on one element of the array) from O(|w|) to 1 + min{|Σ|,1 + log 2 |ω|} compared to existing algorithms. We then give results on the numbers of distinct border arrays depending on the alphabet size. We also present an algorithm that checks if a given directed unlabeled graph G is the skeleton of a SMA on an alphabet of size s in linear time. Along the process the algorithm can build one string w for which G is the SMA skeleton.


All he wanted to do was to marry the woman he loved. But his country said 'No!' He was Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, King of India, King of Australia, and King of thirty-nine other countries. And he loved the wrong woman. She was beautiful and she loved him - but she was already married to another man. It was a love story that shook the world. The King had to choose: to be King, or to have love ...and leave his country, never to return.


Objective To describe in a sample of patients with a confirmed diagnosis of a hematological cancer: (a) the proportion who self-report experiencing an unexpected adverse event as part of their care; (b) how the adverse event was handled by the health-care organization; and (c) the sociodemographic, disease, and treatment characteristics associated with experiencing an adverse event. Design Cross sectional survey. Setting Three Australian hematological oncology treatment centers. Participants Individuals with a confirmed diagnosis of a hematological cancer. Main Outcome Measures Participants were asked if they had ever experienced an adverse event in their cancer care. Those who did were asked about their perceptions concerning what the adverse event was related to, how much harm the event caused, who identified the adverse event, and how the health-care organization responded to the adverse event. Results Forty-two participants (26.4%) perceived that they had experienced an unexpected adverse event as part of their care. Most were told about the event as soon as it happened (62%) and were given an explanation about why the event occurred (75%). Fewer were given information about how to take the matter further if they wished (43%). Participants who were unemployed, retired, disabled, or performed home duties and those whose employment status was "other" had higher odds of reporting an adverse event than those in full- or part-time employment. Conclusions There is a need for routinely querying patients during their treatment regarding the occurrence of unexpected adverse events. In addition, there is a need for improvement in the responses of health-care providers and the health-care system to these events in regard to full disclosure, apology, and options available to the patient for resolution.


The Journal of Jewish Studies, published in Oxford, is an international academic journal founded in 1948 for the promotion of research into all aspects of Jewish studies. Owned by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies since 1976, the Journal has become one of the leading forums in the world for new findings and discussions of Jewish history, literature and religion from Biblical times to the present day. A large reviews section and a list of Books Received keeps readers in touch with recent publications. The Journal appears twice a year in Spring and Autumn.


A Research project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Business Science in Financial Economics at Strathmore University


This letter reports a photoplastic (SU-8) piezoelectric (ZnO) nanocomposite route for realization of simple and low-cost piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Integrating the ZnO nanoparticles into a photosensitive SU-8 polymer matrix not only retains the highly desired piezoelectric properties of ZnO but also combines the photopatternability and the optical transparency of the SU-8 polymer. These two aspects, therefore, lead to exciting MEMS applications with simple photolithography-based microfabrication. This approach opens up many new applications in the field of both sensor and energy harvesting.


Objective: To assess the feasibility of applying Quality Management philosophies and techniques to pathology laboratories. Design: Series of case studies. Setting: Two tertiary referral pathology laboratories in Australian University teaching hospitals. Intervention: Application of Continuous Quality Improvement techniques to complex laboratory processes; Implementation of formal Quality Systems into laboratories; Introduction of a new Laboratory Information System. Measurement: Measurement of changes in key performance indicators. Results: Statistically significant improvements in a variety of key performance indicators, reduction in frequency of incidents, and improvement in surrogate clinical outcomes were achieved using Quality Management approaches in pathology laboratories. Comparison of environments associated with introduction of a new Laboratory Information System identified the presence of a formal Quality System as a key factor associated with superior laboratory performance. Conclusion: Quality Management can be applied successfully to a variety of pathology laboratory environments, and can result in significant improvements in product and service quality. A key success factor in implementing Quality Management may be the introduction of a formal Quality System.


The Lay Folks' Catechism is an English rendering of injunctions issued in 1357 by John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, setting forth the elements of Christian belief. Ever since W. W. Skeat's treatments, the Catechism has been placed in the general orbit of alliterative verse, yet closer identifications have proved elusive. The text is now recorded in both The Index of Middle English Verse and The Index of Middle English Prose ; the principal stylistic study proposes that John Gaytryge, the author of the English text, may have been influenced by the system of Latin prose rhythm known as cursus . Renewed treatment must begin by establishing an accurate and authoritative text. Collation of the two best copies, York, Borthwick Institute, MS Abp Reg 11 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don.c.13, confirms the general authority of the York copy. Recent studies of alliterative metre allow Gaytryge's composition to be distinguished with confidence from that English verse form. Affiliations to Latin cursus are more difficult to assess, but doubtful: more likely influences are the Latin of the Creed, Pater noster , and other pastoralia , and the plain style that preachers were instructed to adopt in preaching to the laity. The form of the Catechism may have been a deliberate innovation: a new plain style in the vernacular, aiming to embody the priorities of pastoral instruction. , ,


Jonathan Franzen, arguably the best living American novelist, began his career in the late eighties. His first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, is a thriller set in his hometown of St. Louis. Franzen's second novel, Strong Motion, tells the story of the Holland family, who live in a Boston that is beset by earthquakes. But it wasn't until 2001, with The Corrections, that the author found a wider readership. This book sets the Lambert family's conflicts and anxieties against the backdrop of larger social issues, like the changing economy of the '90s, and the rampant use of psychopharmaceuticals. When Franzen expressed ambivalence at having The Corrections selected as an Oprah's Book Club pick, the ensuing flurry of media coverage secured his foothold in mainstream culture. The author's fourth novel, Freedom, interweaves the story of the Berglunds with subplots that examine mass consumerism and environmental issues. Franzen's oeuvre also includes two collections of essays, How to Be Alone, and Farther Away, and a personal history, The Discomfort Zone. His most recent book is The Kraus Project, a translation with commentary of the work of the nineteenth-century Austrian critic, Karl Kraus. Franzen's visit to Butler University—as part of the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series—was three-fold: a reading for the general public, a Q&A for Butler students, and an interview with Booth. As the MFA candidate/reader for Booth who was to interview Mr. Franzen, I attended his reading and Q&A so as to get a better sense of what the author is like. Many articles profiling the novelist cast him as a cranky contrarian, but the Jonathan Franzen I saw didn't fit into any of my preconceived ideas. During his reading he seemed intent on entertaining the crowd. Afterwards he fielded questions from the audience and responded genially. He smiled. He said thank you. When someone asked Franzen if he wanted his work to be a catalyst for social change, the novelist said he wasn't opposed to the idea, but added, "I'm just trying to give the reader a good time." The undergraduates who attended the author's Q&A had questions about The Discomfort Zone. Franzen said that the first thirty pages he wrote were awful because he was ashamed of his innocence. "Shame is the worst substance on the page, the most contagious of all feelings," he said. After he rewrote the material using humor, casting himself as a "ridiculous figure," he was able to let go of that shame. When Franzen was asked about his intense interest in birding, he told the crowd—most of them in their late teens and early twenties—that he didn't start to grow up until he was in his forties. "I was so self-conscious for so much of my life, especially as a teenager," he said, adding that it was through birding that he learned how to be in the moment and enjoy it. After the undergraduates left, Jonathan Franzen sat down with me to share some of his thoughts on literature, social media, and infamy. Cover Page Footnote A Conversation with Jonathan Franzen was originally published at This article is available in Booth: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/booth/vol7/iss2/2


The second volume of Doris Lessing's 'Collected African Stories', and a classic work from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. 'As for these stories - when I write one, it is as if I open a gate into a landscape which is always there. Time has nothing to do with it. A certain kind of pulse starts beating, and I recognise it: it is time I wrote another story from that landscape, external and internal at the same time, which was once the Old Chief's Country.' Doris Lessing, from the Preface This much-acclaimed collection of stories vividly evokes both the grandeur of Africa and the glare of its sun and the wide open space, as well as the great, irresolvable tensions between whites and blacks. Tales of poor white farmers and their lonely wives, of storm air thick with locusts, of ants and pomegranate trees, black servants and the year of hunger in a native village - all combine to present a powerful image of a continent which seems incorruptible in spite of all the people who plough, mine and plunder it to make their living. In Doris Lessing's own words, 'Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape.'


Introduction: Abdominoplasty is one of the most popular aesthetic procedures performed in Brazil. Postbariatric patients present a challenge to the plastic surgeon as not only do they have complex reconstructive challenges but also they have residual medical comorbidities and nutritional deficiencies. A serious and potentially fatal complication of abdominoplasty is venous thromboembolism (VTE). Despite the frequency of this serious complication, the accepted standard methods to prevent VTE in abdominoplasty patients, including chemoprophylaxis, remain controversy. Objective: To evaluate the author experience with rivaroxaban, for VTE prophylaxis in abdominoplasty patients after massive weight loss. Methods: A retrospective 396 cases series were conducted. All patients who underwent abdominoplasty after bariatric surgery and received rivaroxaban were included. The prophylactic dose was 10 mg daily for 30 days, beginning 24 hours postoperatively. Patient demographics, comorbidities, type of surgery and complications were recorded. Results: From July 2015 until July 2018, 396 post bariatric patients (356 women and 40 men) underwent abdominoplasty and received rivaroxaban postoperatively. The mean body mass index prior to their weight loss procedure was 43.8kg/m2 (range, 37.361.9kg/m2) and mean BMI was 27.2kg/m2 at the time of the abdominoplasty. Mean patient age was 39.1 years. Only one patient had a symptomatic PTE event. Thirteen patients had a hematoma requiring operative evacuation, and all went on to heal without sequel. Conclusions: Routine chemoprophylaxis with rivaroxaban for abdominoplasty patients after massive weight loss has a low rate of VTE events. This oral medication is well tolerated and has an acceptable complication profile. ■ ABSTRACT


Meeting and Conference of the international Society for the Systems Sciences focuses on the meta-theme of Curating the Conditions for a Thrivable Planet. It has been conceived as a living learning lab for collective intelligence so as to provide its participants with a set of total immersion environments in which to explore our role as systems scientists, and beyond that, as members of a globalizing species at this time in history.  As such, the conference provides individual and collective opportunities to foster that basic feeling of being connected, to explore what it means to be Appreciative Systems, to manifest new levels of community, and fundamentally, to evolve the narrative of our role as authors of the conscious evolution of our species.  Through this process, we will address the principal theme of the conference this year: the search for systemic leverage points for the emergence of a global eco-civilization.


Since the mid-1980s a growing body of leadership research has focused on strategic leadership, in contrast to managerial and visionary leadership. It focused on how top leadership makes decisions in the short term that guarantees the long-term viability of the organisation. The best performing organisations are consciously strategic in their leadership planning. These top leaders also have the ability to align human resources in an effective way directly to the business strategy. This article identifies some of the direct and indirect pathways in which strategic leadership influences the operational strategy and performance of business organisations in South Africa. This research pinpointed theoretical and substantively meaningful endogenous organisational capabilities that mediated this relationship and exogenous organisational factors that moderated this relationship.


Past orbital analogues to the current interglacial, such as Marine Isotope Stage 19c (MIS 19c, ca. 800 ka), can provide reliable reference intervals for evaluating the timing and the duration of the Holocene and factors inherent in its climatic progression. Here we present the first high-resolution paleoclimatic record for MIS 19 anchored to a high-precision 40Ar/39Ar chronology, thus fully independent of any a priori assumptions on the orbital mechanisms underlying the climatic changes. It is based on the oxygen isotope compositions of Italian lake sediments showing orbital- to millennial-scale hydrological variability over the Mediterranean between 810 and 750 ka. Our record indicates that the MIS 19c interglacial lasted 10.8 ± 3.7 k.y., comparable to the time elapsed since the onset of the Holocene, and that the orbital configuration at the time of the following glacial inception was very similar to the present one. By analogy, the current interglacial should be close to its end. However, greenhouse gas concentrations at the time of the MIS 19 glacial inception were significantly lower than those of the late Holocene, suggesting that the current interglacial could have already been prolonged by the progressive increase of the greenhouse gases since 8–6 ka, possibly due to early anthropogenic disturbance of vegetation.


In cancer, neoplastic cells can develop resistance to a variety of drugs, even to those drugs that cells have never come across. This makes the cancer therapy even more demanding and challenging, as clinicians have to take into consideration that the heavy medication they administer to the patients can be ine↵ective. This phe- nomenon acts as a motivation to explore the mechanisms behind molecular transport across the cell membrane. Using cancer cells and fluorescent dyes, we can detect experimentally whether a dye molecule can enter the cell. The most important aim of this research work is to detect whether there is a link between physical pa- rameters of the cell, like the membrane charge density and the ionic accumulation, and the molecule's transport. We then build a mathematical model to explain and predict what happens during the experimental procedure. Our experiments show that the dye's crossing is influenced by alteration of the membrane potential. In de- tails, when the di↵erence in potential across the membrane increases, then more dye molecules cross the membrane. Using our mathematical approach, we approximate the dye crossing the cell membrane via competition between di↵usion and electro- static forces. In that way, we are able to predict a molecule's movement from the outside to the inside of the cell when the potential, the distribution of ions and the electrostatic properties of the membrane are known. Furthermore, it is possible to predict the transport time of the molecule as well as its distribution in the vicinity of the membrane area.


The dopamine hypothesis of drug reward remains a difficult area of research and perhaps a major problem and hindrance to progress in unraveling the biology of addiction. Pharmacological treatment of drug dependency has been disappointing and new therapeutic targets and hypotheses are needed. Since there is accumulating evidence indicating a central role of endocannabinoid physiological control system (EPCS) in the regulation of the rewarding effects of abused substances, an endocannabinoid hypothesis of drug reward is postulated. Endocannabinoids mediate retrograde signaling in neuronal tissues and suppress classical neurotransmitter release. This powerful modulatory action on synaptic transmission has significant functional implications and interactions with the effects of abused substances. Cannabinoids and endocannabinoids appear to be involved in adding to the rewarding effects of addictive substances including, nicotine, opiates, alcohol, cocaine and BDZs. Thus, the EPCS may be important natural regulatory mechanism for reward and a target for the treatment of addictive disorders.


The response of soil organic matter (OM) decomposition to increasing temperature is a critical aspect of ecosystem responses to global change. The impacts of climate warming on decomposition dynamics have not been resolved due to apparently contradictory results from field and lab experiments, most of which has focused on labile carbon with short turnover times. But the majority of total soil carbon stocks are comprised of organic carbon with turnover times of decades to centuries. Understanding the response of these carbon pools to climate change is essential for forecasting longer‐term changes in soil carbon storage. Herein, we briefly synthesize information from recent studies that have been conducted using a wide variety of approaches. In our effort to understand research to‐date, we derive a new conceptual model that explicitly identifies the processes controlling soil OM availability for decomposition and allows a more explicit description of the factors regulating OM decomposition under different circumstances. It explicitly defines resistance of soil OM to decomposition as being due either to its chemical conformation (quality) or its physico‐chemical protection from decomposition. The former is embodied in the depolymerization process, the latter by adsorption/desorption and aggregate turnover. We hypothesize a strong role for variation in temperature sensitivity as a function of reaction rates for both. We conclude that important advances in understanding the temperature response of the processes that control substrate availability, depolymerization, microbial efficiency, and enzyme production will be needed to predict the fate of soil carbon stocks in a warmer world.


We propose an optimal-level distributed transform for wavelet-based spatiotemporal data compression in wireless sensor networks. Although distributed wavelet processing can efficiently decrease the amount of sensory data, it introduces additional communication overhead as the sensory data needs to be exchanged in order to calculate the wavelet coefficients. This tradeoff is explored in this paper with the optimal transforming level of wavelet transform. By employing a ring topology, our scheme is capable of supporting a broad scope of wavelets rather than specific ones, and the "border effect" generally encountered by wavelet-based schemes is also eliminated naturally. Furthermore, the scheme can simultaneously explore the spatial and temporal correlations among the sensory data. For data compression in wireless sensor networks, in addition to minimizing energy and consumption, it is also important to consider the delay and the quality of reconstructed sensory data, which is measured by the ratio of signal to noise (). We capture this with metric and using it to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. Theoretically and experimentally, we conclude that the proposed algorithm can effectively explore the spatial and temporal correlation in the sensory data and provide significant reduction in energy and delay cost while still preserving high compared to other schemes.


Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been successful in discovering replicable SNP-trait associations for many quantitative traits and common diseases in humans. Typically the effect sizes of SNP alleles are very small and this has led to large genome-wide association meta-analyses (GWAMA) to maximize statistical power. A trend towards ever-larger GWAMA is likely to continue, yet dealing with summary statistics from hundreds of cohorts increases logistical and quality control problems, including unknown sample overlap, and these can lead to both false positive and false negative findings. In this study we propose a new set of metrics and visualization tools for GWAMA, using summary statistics from cohort-level GWASs. We proposed a pair of methods in examining the concordance between demographic information and summary statistics. In method I, we use the population genetics Fst statistic to verify the genetic origin of each cohort and their geographic location, and demonstrate using GWAMA data from the GIANT Consortium that geographic locations of cohorts can be recovered and outlier cohorts can be detected. In method II, we conduct principal component analysis based on reported allele frequencies, and is able to recover the ancestral information for each cohort. In addition, we propose a new statistic that uses the reported allelic effect sizes and their standard errors to identify significant sample overlap or heterogeneity between pairs of cohorts. Finally, to quantify unknown sample overlap across all pairs of cohorts we propose a method that uses randomly generated genetic predictors that does not require the sharing of individual-level genotype data and does not breach individual privacy.


The purpose of this study is to characterize heavy metals in ambient PM10 (particles with aerodynamic diameter below 10 µm) and PM2.5 (particles with aerodynamic diameter below 2.5 µm) particles in a typical integrated iron and steel industry zone (HG) and a background site (ZWY) during February 2011 to January 2012 in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, China. Twelve elements were measured to study their levels, size distribution and sources. At the two sampling sites, Fe was found as the dominated metal in the total detected metals in both particle sizes, followed by Zn and Pb. They were regarded as the marker elements of iron and steel production emission along with Cr and Mn. The concentrations of all measured heavy metals in HG were 1–3.53 times higher than those measured in ZWY. When compared with previous studies, the concentrations of steel related elements (Fe, Zn, Mn) in this work were significantly high. The highest correlation coefficient was observed in HG for Fe and Zn. Additionally, Cd was found as the most enriched heavy metal by the enrichment factor analysis, followed by Zn, Pb, and Cu. The main sources contributing to heavy metals at HG site were identified by principle component analysis: steel dust (including coal combustion of coal-fired power plant, coke making and steel making emission), vehicle emission and road re-suspension dust and soil dust. Besides, steel dust was also found as the possible source of heavy metals at ZWY site. The result suggested the steel dust has influence on the whole study area.


Supply chain network design choices and the challenges in implementing and understanding how alternatives influence firm performance are key management skills that can be applied to the case of a global company, Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S), and its expansion strategy. Suitable for the MBA, EMBA, GMBA, and executive education programs, the case explores the decision to expand the company's tool bonding capacity in order to manage its growth. The question becomes whether to grow current operations in Yokneam Israel or seek alternative sites. And if it was decided to seek a location outside of Israel, where exactly should the company go?


Understanding the link between the Sun and climate is vital in the current incidence of global climate change, and 10Be in natural archives constitutes an excellent tracer for this purpose. As cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, cosmogenic isotopes like 10Be and 14C are formed. Variations in solar activity modulate the amount of incoming cosmic rays, and thereby cosmogenic isotope production. Atmospherically produced 10Be enters natural archives such as sediments and glaciers by wet and dry deposition within about a year of production. 10Be from natural archives therefore provides information on past solar activity, and because these archives also contain climate information, solar activity and climate can be linked. One remaining question is to what degree 10Be in natural archives reflects production, and to what extent the local and regional environment overprints the production signal. To explore this, 10Be was measured at annual resolution over the last 600 years in a Greenland ice core. Measurement potentials for these samples benefited from the development of a new laboratory method of co-precipitating 10Be with niobium. To diversify geographic location and archive media type, a pioneer study of measuring 10Be with annual resolution in varved lake sediments from Finland was conducted, with samples from the entire 20th century. Pathways of 10Be into lake sediments are more complex than into glacial ice, inferring that contemporary atmospheric conditions may not be recorded. Here, it is shown for the first time that tracing the 11-year solar cycle through lake sediment 10Be variations is possible. Results also show that on an annual basis, 10Be deposition in ice and sediment archives is affected by local environmental conditions. On a slightly longer timescale, however, diverse 10Be records exhibit similar trends and a negative correlation with solar activity. Cyclic variability of 10Be deposition persisted throughout past grand solar minima, when little or no sunspot activity was recorded. 10Be levels indicate that although solar activity has been high during the 20th century, levels are not unprecedented in the investigated 600 years. Aerosol 10Be/7Be values indicate possible influence of stratosphere-troposphere exchange on isotope abundance and the production signal.


The accelerated pace of consumption in the Western world has led to an increase in clothing and textiles disposed of in the garbage rather than being reused or recycled. The purpose of this article is to increase understanding of how clothing and textile consumption can become more sustainable by demonstrating how members of a network view and deal with this problem. The study is based on meetings over one and a half years and on a survey. Different views on the problem as well as various solutions on how to increase reuse and recycling of clothing and textiles are presented, including means and challenges. A macromarketing perspective, involving different actors in society, is necessary in order to make consumption more sustainable and for finding long-term solutions. We argue that understanding symbolic consumption and the fashion system can contribute to the macromarketing study of societal development from a sustainable perspective.


Quasi-static and freely falling dynamic penetrometers are currently in extensive use for measuring the mechanical properties of sediments composing the littoral seafloor. Sediments in this zone are often inhomogeneous both laterally and with depth so that it is difficult to predict burial of mines and other objects when relying on models that assume uniform, homogeneous sediment. The results of penetrometer tests discussed in this paper show that there can be a wide spread in the penetration resistance that is measured depending on the degree of sediment inhomogeneity and the rate of penetration. Moreover, the dilative response of granular strata appears to further complicate matters because of the sudden, large changes in shear strength that can occur. As a result, mine burial models currently in use, which often rely on simple strain-rate factors and shear strength determined from experiments utilizing uniform, reconstituted sediment, do not appear to be adequate to handle real in situ conditions in many cases. The objective of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of in situ properties and how they may be incorporated into various burial models.


Reuters is a worldwide company focused on supplying financial and news information to its over 40,000 subscribers around the world. To enhance the quality and consistency of its customer support organization, Reuters embarked on a global knowledge development and reuse project. The resulting system is in operational use in the North America, Europe, and Asia. The system supports 38 Reuter products worldwide. This paper is a case study of the Reuters experience in putting a global know ledge organization in place, in building knowledge bases at multiple distributed sites, in deploying these knowledge bases in multiple sites around the world, and in maintaining and enhancing knowledge bases within a global organizational framework. This project is the first to address issues in multi-country knowledge development and maintenance, and multi-country knowledge deployment. These issues are critical for global companies to understand, address and resolve, in order to effectively gain the benefits of global knowledge systems.


"This paper supports the hypothesis that the process of subjectivation resorts to a firmness of personal or artistic style when the subject is threatened by psychotic attacks, especially during adolescence. Thought and representation are then seen to intensify in the subject, but it is difficult to distinguish between the excess of melancholic consciousness, psychotic anxiety, and a type of sublimation that is fascinated by drive chaos. The paper proposes a second hypothesis regarding, inversely, the usefulness of a kind of solitude and of masochistic compromise with object and reality. A moment of psychotic crisis in an adolescent girl with a neurotic problem is presented in terms of how the quest for the distinctiveness of style curbs her breakdown. The paper then analyzes the theatrical work of the playwright S. Kane in detail; indeed, here we find an example of the paradox of a suicide that follows successful representational mastery. Finally, we discuss Freud's ideas about masochistic destructiveness and Winnicott's ideas about the core of the true self as being non-communication."


Background There is limited knowledge of serotypes that cause non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia (NBP). Here we report serotypes, their associated disease potential and coverage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) in adults with NBP and compare these to bacteremic pneumonia (BP). Methods Adults with pneumonia and Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from the lower respiratory tract or blood were included 1 year in a population-based design in Denmark. Pneumonia was defined as a new infiltrate on chest radiograph in combination with clinical symptoms or elevated white blood count or plasma C-reactive protein. All isolates were serotyped using type-specific pneumococcal rabbit antisera. All values are medians with interquartile ranges. Results There were 272 cases of NBP and 192 cases of BP. Ninety-nine percent were hospitalized. NBP and BP cases were of comparable age and sex but NBP cases had more respiratory symptoms and less severe disease compared to BP cases. In total, 46 different serotypes were identified. Among NBP cases, 5 serotypes accounted for nearly a third of isolates. PCV10 and -13 types covered 17% (95% confidence interval (CI): 11-23%) and 34% (95% CI: 25-43%) of NBP isolates, respectively. In contrast, the five most frequent serotypes accounted for two-thirds of BP isolates. PCV10 and -13 types covered 39% (95% CI: 30-48%) and 64% (95% CI: 48-79) of BP isolates, respectively. More severe NBP disease was associated with infection with invasive serotypes while there was an inverse relationship for BP. Conclusions Only a third of cases of adult non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia would potentially be preventable with the use of PCV13 and just one sixth of cases with the use of PCV10 indicating that PCVs with increased valency are needed to increase vaccine coverage for NBP in adults. PCV13 could potentially prevent two-thirds of adult bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia.


Background Historically, significant advances in scientific understanding have followed advances in measurement and observation. As the resolving power of an instrument increased, so have gains in the understanding of the phenomena being observed. Modern interactive systems are potentially the new "microscopes" when they are instrumented to record fine-grained observations of what students do in an online task. Advances in the conceptualization, design, and analyses of such interaction data enable the discovery of learning patterns and can power new applications. One application, personalization, is one of 14 engineering Grand Challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering (2008). Purpose This article examines three levels of data available in online systems that can be used to understand student performance. Empirical research is reviewed to examine three fundamental questions: To what extent does students' online behavior (a) relate to their cognitive processing, and to what extent can student behavior (b) be used to model their problem solving process and (c) be used diagnostically to reveal understandings and misconceptions? Participants The reviewed studies involved participants from college and K12 settings. Research Design The reviewed studies all focused on learning processes and outcomes. Nearly all studies had high frequency process-tracing data such as concurrent think-alouds, moment-to-moment telemetry, or both. Participants interacted with an online task on an academic subject. The task typically spanned one or a few class periods, and the studies collectively examined relations among students' online behavior, cognitive processes (via think-alouds), and external measures of learning. Data Collection and Analysis In the reviewed studies, students' online behavior was captured by instrumenting the system to capture and log interaction events. The more sophisticated approaches used a telemetry design based on the presumed cognitive processing occurring in the system. Findings In general, measures derived from students' online behavior can be used (a) to decide when to intervene to influence learning processes (e.g., increased help seeking) and outcomes (e.g., improved course grades) and (b) as proxy measures of cognitive processing, understanding, and misconceptions. Conclusions In the coming years, multiple levels of data will be fused to better understand the student, including static data such as demographics, low-frequency data such as interactions within a learning management system, and high frequency data such as moment-to-moment interactions in a digital app. As education enters the era of big data and transmedia-based learning, data of and for an individual will power new applications to realize the promise of personalized instruction.


Particle filtering is known as a robust approach for motion tracking by vision, at the cost of heavy computation in a high dimensional pose space. In this work, we describe a number of heuristics that we demonstrate to jointly improve robustness and real-time for motion capture. 3D human motion capture by monocular vision without markers can be achieved in realtime by registering a 3D articulated model on a video. First, we search the high-dimensional space of 3D poses by generating new hypotheses (or particles) with equivalent 2D projection by kinematic flipping. Second, we use a semi-deterministic particle prediction based on local optimization. Third, we deterministi-cally resample the probability distribution for a more efficient selection of particles. Particles (or poses) are evaluated using a match cost function and penalized with a Gaussian probability pose distribution learned off-line. In order to achieve real-time, measurement step is parallelized on GPU using the OpenCL API. We present experimental results demonstrating robust real-time 3D motion capture with a consumer computer and webcam.


The epidermal growth factor-like receptor tyrosine kinase (ErbB) fam ily is frequently overexpressed in a variety of human carcinomas, includ ing breast cancer. To assist in characterizing the role of ErbB-4 in breast cancer, we generated three specific hammerhead ribozymes targeted to the ErbB-4 m UNA. These ribozymes, Rz6, R/.2I. and Rz29, efficiently catalyzed the specific cleavage of ErbB-4 message in a cell-free system. We demonstrated that the neuregulin-induced mitogenic effect was abolished in ribozyme Rz29and Rz6-transfected 32D/ErbB-4 cells. Inhibition of mitogenesis was characterized by ribozyme-mediated down-regulation of ErbB-4 expression. In addition, we provide the first evidence that differ ent threshold levels of ErbB-4 expression and activation correlate with different responses to neuregulin stimulation. High levels of ErbB-4 ex pression, phosphorylation, and homodimerization are necessary for neuregulin-stimulated, interleukin 3-independent cell proliferation in the 32D/E4 cells. In the case of Rz29-transfected 32D/E4 cells, low levels of ErbB-4 expression allowed neuregulin-induced phosphorylation but were insufficient to couple the activated receptor to cellular signaling. Further more, expression of the functional ErbB-4 ribozyme in T47D human breast carcinoma cells led to a down-regulation of endogenous ErbB-4 expression and a reduction of anchorage-independent colony formation. These studies support the use of ErbB-4 ribozymes to define the role of ErbB-4 receptors in human cancers.


Intrinsically doped samples of YCuTe2 were prepared by solid state reaction of the elements. Based on the differential scanning calorimetry and the high temperature X-ray diffraction analyses, YCuTe2 exhibits a first order phase transition at ∼440 K from a low-temperature-phase crystallizing in the space group Pm1 to a high-temperature-phase in P. Above the phase transition temperature, partially ordered Cu atoms become completely disordered in the crystal structure. Small increases to the Cu content are observed to favour the formation of the high temperature phase. We find no indication of superionic Cu ions as for binary copper chalcogenides (e.g., Cu2Se or Cu2Te). All investigated samples exhibit very low thermal conductivities (as low as ∼0.5 W m−1 K−1 at 800 K) due to highly disordered Cu atoms. Electronic structure calculations are employed to better understand the high thermoelectric efficiency for YCuTe2. The maximum thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, is measured to be ∼0.75 at 780 K for Y0.96Cu1.08Te2, which is promising for mid-temperature thermoelectric applications.


This paper describes improvements and interaction of multi-objective optimization and simulation tools for the analysis of suspension system kinematics and vehicle dynamics in the conceptual phase of low-floor minibus development. Achieving optimum parameters of the vehicle at this stage of development reduces the possibility of wrong solutions or concepts. Suspension system development process is a challenging task due to the existence of many influential parameters, complex and often conflicting objectives related to stability, handling, ride comfort and other aspects of vehicle dynamics. Also this is a multidisciplinary task which presents a computational and modeling challenge. This task has three fundamental steps: multi-objective problem definition, multi-objective optimization process and multi-criteria decision making. In this research, the focus is on the first two steps. The definition of design variables, objectives and constraints is necessary in the problem definition process. After that in optimization process, the goal is to determine optimal suspension system parameters of low-floor minibus using newly developed optimization model, based on evolutionary algorithms and vehicle dynamics simulations. This paper gives a contribution to the validation of simulation models, the fine adjustment of optimization algorithm parameter values (population size, probability of mutation, crossover or selection, etc.), the analysis of convergence of an evolutionary algorithm, the comparison of the results obtained by evolutionary algorithms with results of other multi-objective optimization methods and the implementation of proposed optimization model for determining optimal suspension system parameters of low-floor minibus.


Taylor reads Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) through the history of the captured prosthetic limb of Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. U.S. travel narratives, soldiers' accounts, and P. T. Barnum's 1847 display of the captured prosthesis in his American Museum figured the leg as a symbol of the regenerative and reembodying benefits that territorial imperialism offered to Jacksonian working classes. Melville's journalism on Barnum's exhibit evinces a deep anxiety about the enthusiasm of Barnum's working-class audience for the prosthesis of empire, scrutinizing the figurative and rhetorical modalities by which the limb gained its symbolic value and affective force. Moby-Dick, Taylor argues, turns the figurative operations that Melville isolated in his reading of Barnum into a hermeneutic for interpreting the symbolic economies governing the interclass relations that produced populist imperialism. Moby-Dick narrates how hegemonic redeployments of the working-class rhetoric of loss transformed the hands of industry, seeking autonomy through territorial imperialism, into the prostheses of an Ahabian empire.


The treatment and utilization of plant and animal waste and by-products from agriculture is very diverse. Traditional environmental management practices for waste management have been retained through soil conservation and the applied of recycle degradable organic substances in soil. The management of by-products from agriculture (animal husbandry) is important because a closed loop can be created to utilize by-products (manure, feathers) from the production of the main product (eggs, meat, milk) and to form a raw material for a new product. It is important to treat the resulting by-products, especially deep-litter manure, as it has served as a basis for compost-treated manure to develop an organic-based, soil-conditioning product line. Poultry manure by itself is not suitable as a substrate for aerobic decomposition, so it has to be mixed with other substances (zeolite, bentonite, soil), because of its high nutrient capacity, it is an acidifying substance.
The aim of this study was to compost the mixture of poultry manure and hen manure by the addition of zeolite and to monitor the composting process. It was also our aim to statistically determine the effect of the zeolite on parameters describing the composting process.
The windrow composting experiments were set up in the composting area of the University of Debrecen, Institute of Water and Environmental Management. The composting experiment was 62 days long, during which the main parameters describing the composting process were continuously monitored: temperature (°C), moisture content (w/w%), electrical conductivity (mS/cm), organic matter content (w/w%), examination of nitrogen forms (w/w%). In this study, three factors were investigated: temperature, humidity, and pH. For statistical evaluation, R software and RStudio user interface were used. We developed a repeated measurement model, in which the fixed and random effects were determined for our parameters under study, and the resulting relationships were shown on interaction plots.
Based on our results, the temperature of the prisms has become independent of the ambient temperature and the composting stages can be separated in both the control and the zeolite treated prisms. In the repeated measurement model, we proved that treatment, time and treatment: time interaction were significant at both temperature and pH.


The most common surgical gloves used at the Royal Hobart Hospital are
'Individually Tested' (IT) gloves, in which each glove is tested for leaks by the
manufacturer prior to sterilization and packaging. A cheaper brand of glove is
available in which sample gloves from manufactured batches are tested for leaks
(BT), but not each glove. The latter gloves were widely rejected by surgeons on
the theoretical ground that there would be more perforations, and consequently
more wound infection and greater exposure of staff to patient pathogens.
However no objective study had been done to test this conjecture.
The aims of this study were to compare the integrity of the two brands of gloves
by mechanical and microbiological methods, and to compare the incidence of postoperative
wound infection following the use of either brand.
110 unused gloves of each brand were tested for leaks. 318 IT and 278 BT gloves
were then tested after clean surgery, for mechanical leaks. Scrub-team member's
gloves and hands were cultured post-surgery. Wound infection rates were
compared.
The pre-use perforation rate was not significantly different. The macroperforation
rate for if gloves was slightly but statistically significantly higher than for BT
gloves, and no bias in types of operations or in staff members could be uncovered
to account for this.
Growth of normal skin flora was found on virtually every wearer's hands after
removal of gloves, suggesting a failure of current scrub techniques or solutions to
eliminate skin flora. Furthermore these bacteria were commonly cultured from the
outside of the gloves at the conclusion of surgery, indicating development of
microporosity of the glove-latex during surgery. There was a statistically
significant difference in the glove outer-surface bacterial detection rates between
the brands (BT>IT) indicating a difference in latex properties between brands. It is
suggested that a standardized form of this test could be developed as a quality
measure of surgical gloves.
A final finding was the absence of translation of macroperforation rates or
bacterial culture rates into morbidity as measured by wound infection. It could be
concluded that for this type of surgery, the detected glove differences are
irrelevant with regard to patient morbidity. However caution is suggested in
extending these findings to situations of known patient infectivity (eg. HIV or
viral hepatitis) or to cases where Am contamination could be a serious problem
(eg. joint surgery or neurosurgery). The data adds weight to the strategy of double
gloving.


In most of the industrialized countries, the aging of the population dramatically progress rapidly. This trend demands economically feasible solutions to provide care to elderly, preferably at their home. IT can play an important enabling role in such solutions. Previously, we proposed an approach for personalizing IT-based homecare services by introducing a tailoring process. The tailoring process allows to create personalized services for elderly with various needs. The outcome of a service tailoring process is a so called service plan, which represents a composite service tailored to the specific needs of a specific elderly (the 'care-receiver') as understood by the person responsible for deciding on the care activities (the 'care-giver'). The service plan is created based on a treatment pattern that corresponds to the homecare task for which automated support is needed. In this paper, we elaborate on the idea of pattern-based service tailoring. First, we briefly introduce the architecture of the tailoring platform and identified common homecare tasks via interview with the care-givers. Then, we zoom in on how we established two important aids for creating a service plan, namely the treatment patterns and the abstractions of devices and applications that can be deployed in the automated support. We give examples of both patterns and abstractions, and discuss how these can be used in creating a tailored service plan.


Currently the parameters in a constraint solver are often selected by hand by experts in the field; these parameters might include the level of preprocessing to be used, the variable ordering heuristic or the suitable modelling approach. The efficient and automatic mechanism of parameters tuning for a constraint solver is a step towards making constraint programming a more widely accessible technology. Two types of tuning algorithms are discussed in this thesis: single instance tuning algorithms and instance-based tuning algorithms. A standard genetic based algorithm and a sexual genetic based algorithm are proposed and implemented to deal with the single instance tuning. As an instance-based tuning algorithm, the self-learning genetic algorithm, which suggests or predicts a suitable solver configuration for test instances by learning from train instances, is proposed in this thesis. To improve the efficiency of the instance-based tuning in further, a self-learning sexual genetic algorithm, which combines the self-learning mechanism with the sexual genetic algorithm, was discussed. The experiments in the thesis demonstrate how genetic algorithms are implemented and adapted to aid in parameter selection for constraint solvers. Genetic algorithms were implemented as the fundamental algorithm for tuning and the parameter sensitivity of genetic algorithms is also discussed in this thesis.


In 1979, New York City enacted a local law requiring prior written notice of a defect before the city may be found liable for injuries resulting from potholes. But a prior written notice statute interferes with the traditional negligence doctrine of constructive notice. This Note examines traditional common law negligence as it relates to municipal liability. The procedural requirements and legislative history of the Pothole Law are analyzed. In addition, the legal and policy considerations surrounding its enactment are discussed. This Note recommends an alternative solution to the statute which takes into account both the procedural inequities of the law and the city's financial problems. A balance must be struck between the rights of injured parties and the need of the city to have a reasonable opportunity to effect repairs.


The primary purposes of this mixed methods study were to (a) examine whether using an art therapy intervention based on the theory of possible selves enhanced the motivation for change among individuals with alcohol addiction in Korea, and (b) to explore the study participants' lived experiences of the self as it emerged from the specific art therapy intervention. This study consisted of three distinct theoretical frameworks: the transtheoretical model (TTM); the theory of possible selves; and art therapy—which bridged the two aforementioned theories. A total of seven participants completed five individual sessions each, creating a series of possible future selves through the use of digital media. This convergent parallel mixed methods study included pre and post evaluations using the Korean version of the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale, which measures motivation in three independent subscales (Recognition, Ambivalence, and Taking Steps). Phenomenological research was proceeded simultaneously, which data were collected holistically and creatively throughout the sessions. As a result, qualitative relationships among self-perception, motivation, and creative imagination were revealed in the participants' movement through the stages of change. These findings also suggested that clients' artwork of their possible future selves can be powerful predictors to reflect readiness for change, and art therapists are in a unique position to utilize this tool to enhance motivation for change in addiction treatment. However, no statistically significant difference was reported both on a Wilcoxon Signed-ranks Test and a mixed-design ANOVA. Yet considering the small sample size (n = 7), Taking Steps was remarkably found to exceed a large effect size (r = 0.50). Limitations and cultural aspects in this study are also discussed. Continuing research on the topic of possible future selves by using digital media is encouraged for further exploration and application in art therapy. ART THERAPY AND POSSIBLE SELVES 12 CHAPTER


This paper addresses the various deficiencies of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, or "DSHEA." In it, I argue that the DSHEA (a federal statute passed by Congress in 1994, superseding the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act as the applicable law governing the sale of nutraceutical products) gives impermissible latitude to manufacturers of dietary supplements by allowing them to sell products without establishing whether they are safe or effective. The DSHEA also allows manufacturers to employ unsubstantiated and misleading labeling claims in marketing their products. I assert that the DSHEA promotes deceptive labeling practices. I also suggest that the current regulatory regime is ineffective in assessing health risks posed by dietary supplements to the general public. I propose a way to amend the statute, by implementing a testing regime to better ensure both the safety and efficacy of supplements (comparable to, but distinguishable from and not nearly as stringent as the testing regime governing the distribution of pharmaceutical drugs). Furthermore, the paper advocates alleviating the burden the DSHEA imposes on the FDA in banning potentially dangerous supplements, by requiring courts to defer to FDA findings that a supplement is harmful (under the DSHEA, the FDA bears the burden of proof in showing that a supplement poses an "unreasonable or significant risk of harm" before removing it from the market; moreover, courts must apply de novo review to questions of law and fact in determining whether the FDA is justified in firstname.lastname@example.com 2 prohibiting the sale of a supplement). Additionally, I articulate a litigation strategy (based on California statutory law) that might incentivize enactment of an amendment by Congress. Alternative medicine implicates many controversial issues. The public's obsession with dietary supplements, despite the inadequacy of evidence demonstrating their benefits, is rather disturbing. I feel the government's lack of regulation over this industry should be addressed (especially in light of the deaths linked to the herbal supplement ephedra). email@example.com 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS


Classification of protein sequence is one of the foundations of bioinformatics, as new proteins are sequenced every day. Each protein sequence represents a protein of a certain family and its function can sometimes be predicted through sequence classification. Today several approaches exist for sequence classification, and in this work pattern approaches are considered. A pattern is an expression, representing a certain protein family, which corresponding protein sequences hopefully match. PROSITE is a pattern collection that well known in the area of bioinformatics and therefore plays an important part in this project together with the MAMA pattern collection. Evaluation of patterns today focus on accuracy, i.e. sensitivity and specificity, but in this thesis information content is also considered. The intended experiment which was about discovering any relationship between accuracy and information content showed that no clear connection was found. This fact led to the conclusion that information content might not be suitable as an evaluation measure when evaluating patterns. The second experiment concerned the fact that sometimes the same sequences are used both during training and testing, which probably gives misleadingly high accuracy values. This fact gave birth to the idea that an independent test set other than the training set reduces accuracy values, which was revealed after a number of tests. Finally the last experiment, which was about creating a new system for evaluating whole pattern collections, is presented with results showing that MAMA performs better than PROSITE according to this system.


Analog-Multiplexers (AMUXs) are attractive architectures to increase electro-optical transmitters' analog bandwidth through the time interleaving of several high-speed digital-to-analog converters' outputs, to enable the transmission of high order electrical modulation formats (PAM-4, PAM-8) for ultra high capacity (>1Tb/s/channel) optical communications. In this paper, we present the design, fabrication and measurement of an AMUX circuit realized in III-V Lab in-house InP DHBT technology. The design challenges and necessary tradeoffs are discussed. Measurements of PAM-4 AMUX output signals up to 100 GBd with an over 1-V differential output swing are presented.


Introduction A high nurse-vacancy rate combined with high numbers of applications for junior pharmacist roles resulted in Colchester Hospital University National Health System Foundation Trust trial employing junior pharmacists into traditional nursing posts with the aim of integrating pharmacists into the ward team and enhancing local medicines optimization. The aim of the evaluation was to describe the implementation process and practice of the integrated care pharmacists (ICPs) in order to inform future innovations of a similar nature. Methods Four band 6 ward-based ICPs were employed on two wards funded within current ward staffing expenditure. With ethical committee approval, interviews were undertaken with the ICPs and focus groups with ward nurses, senior ward nurses and members of the medical team. Data were analyzed thematically to identify service benefits, barriers and enablers. Routine ward performance data were obtained from the two ICP wards and two wards selected as comparators. Appropriate statistical tests were performed to identify differences in performance. Results Four ICPs were interviewed, and focus groups were undertaken with three junior nurses, four senior nurses and three medical practitioners. Service enablers were continuous ward time, undertaking drug administration, positive feedback and use of effective communication methods. Barriers were planning, funding model, career development, and interprofessional working and social isolation. ICPs were believed to save nurse time and improve medicines safety. The proportion of patients receiving medicine reconciliation within 24 hours increased significantly in the ICP wards. All ICPs had resigned from their role within 12 months. Discussion It was believed that by locating pharmacists on the ward full time and allowing them to undertake medicines administration and medicines reconciliation, the nursing time would be saved and medicines safety improved. There was however significant learning to be derived from the implementation process, which may enable similar future models to be introduced more successfully.


The end of this decade is marked by a paradigm shift of the industrial information technology towards a pay-per- use service business model known as cloud computing. Cloud data storage redefines the security issues targeted on customer's outsourced data. To ensure the correctness of users' data in the cloud, we propose an effective and flexible distributed scheme with two salient features, opposing to its predecessors. By utilizing the homomorphic token with distributed verification of raptor coded data, our scheme achieves the integration of storage correctness insurance and data error localization, i.e., the identification of misbehaving server(s).Using this new scheme it further support security and dynamic operations on data block. Our result shows that, our proposed model provides a secure storage for data in cloud.


Computer designers rely on simulation systems to assess the performance of their designs before the design is transferred to silicon and manufactured. Simulators are used in early design studies to obtain projections of performance and power over a large space of potential designs. Modern simulation systems can be four orders of magnitude slower than native hardware execution. At the same time, the numbers of applications and their dynamic instruction counts have expanded dramatically. In addition, simulation systems need to be validated against cycle-accurate models to ensure accurate performance projections. In prior work, long running applications are used for early design studies while hand-coded microbenchmarks are used for performance model validation.
One proposed solution for early design studies is statistical simulation, in which statistics from the workload characterization of an executing application are used to create a synthetic instruction trace that is executed on a fast performance simulator. In prior work, workload statistics are collected as average behaviors based on instruction types. In the present research, statistics are collected at the granularity of the basic block. This improves the simulation accuracy of individual instructions.
The basic block statistics form a statistical flow graph that provides a reduced representation of the application. The synthetic trace generated from a traversal of the flow graph is combined with memory access models, branching models and novel program synthesis techniques to automatically create executable code that is useful for performance model validation. Runtimes for the synthetic versions of the SPEC CPU, STREAM, TPC-C and Java applications are orders of magnitude faster than the runtimes of the original applications with performance and power dissipation correlating to within 2.4% and 6.4%, respectively, on average.
The synthetic codes are portable to a variety of platforms, permitting validations between diverse models and hardware. Synthetic workload characteristics can easily be modified to model different or future workloads. The use of statistics abstracts proprietary code, encouraging code sharing between industry and academia. The significantly reduced execution times consolidate the traditionally disparate workloads used for early design studies and model validation.


The film of microalgae and macroalgal propagules which coats intertidal rocks is the main food resource of limpets, the dominant grazers on exposed shores of north-west Europe. Spatial and temporal variability in feeding activity of limpets and abundance of microalgae were examined at mid-tide level across a European gradient from the Isle of Man in the British Isles to south-west Portugal. Feeding activity was assessed as the frequency of radula scrapes on wax surfaces placed on the shore. This was undertaken monthly at 2 shores at each of 4 locations, the Isle of Man, south-west England, northern Spain and south-west Portugal, over 1 yr. The abundance of the microalgal film was determined simultaneously at 3 of the 4 locations by measuring the concentration of chlorophyll a on the rock surface. The density and species diversity of limpets increased with decreasing latitude. This was mirrored by a trend of increased levels of limpet grazing, although 1 location (northern Spain) did not fit this trend. Seasonal changes in limpet grazing intensity were found at 3 of the 4 locations, characterised by elevated grazing during the summer and autumn. The seasonal variations resulted from changes in the level of foraging of individual limpets and were positively correlated with mean sea temperature in the Isle of Man and south-west England. The pattern of grazing activity was not solely a function of sea temperature. In the Isle of Man, grazing by Patella vulgata declined during the later stages of gonad development and increased following spawning. Seasonal variation in the standing stock of microalgae, measured as the concentration of chlorophyll a, was found at all 3 locations examined, the Isle of Man, south-west England and northern Spain, with greater abundance in the winter compared to summer. This pattern was consistent over both large (among locations: 100s of kilometres) and medium (between shores: 1000s of metres) scales. There were no correlations between microalgal abundance and limpet grazing activity at any location. There were significant negative correlations between chlorophyll a and maximum monthly air temperature and monthly sunshine hours. Comparison of microalgal abundance among locations showed a general decline in standing stock with decreasing latitude, but differences between specific locations varied with season. South-west England showed similar levels of microalgal abundance to the most northerly location (Isle of Man) in winter, and to the most southerly location (northern Spain) in the summer.


The main course of the Penghu Submarine Canyon is located along the intersection of bottoms of the Kaoping Slope and the South China Sea Slope in a nearly north-south direction. The Penghu Canyon can be considered a single head canyon with three major tributary canyons joining into the main course to form the fan-shaped upper reach of the canyon. The upper reach begins near the shelf edge of the Taiwan Strait Shelf and extends about 150 km southwards to a water depth about 2200 m at the lower slope where no tributary canyons are present. The upper reach of the Penghu Canyon shows high relief, steep walls and V -shaped cross sections, showing typical canyon morphology.
Characteristics of seismic profiles suggest that the formation of the upper reach of the Penghu Canyon is mainly attributed to foreland basin sedimentation and accompanying incision of the syn-depositional orogenic sediments of the basin. Orogenic sediments derived from Taiwan progressively onlap westward and bury the Chinese passive margin and deposit in the bottom of the foreland basin. The main course of the Penghu Canyon has resulted mainly from excavating the orogneic sediments along the axis, tilting southward, of the deep foreland basin.
Slumping and sliding and downward excavation into the sea floors by downslope sediment flows are the major forming processes in the canyon head and upper canyon part. Diapiric intrusion becomes important in the formation of the lower parts of the upper reach of the Penghu Canyon.


Achieving large-scale changes to develop a sustained hydrogen economy requires a large amount of planning and cooperation at national and international levels alike. ECS developed a long-term hydrogen-based scenario (B1-H2) of the global energy system to examine the future perspectives of fuel cells (Barreto et al., 2002). That earlier study, done with the collaboration and support of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), illustrated the key role of hydrogen towards a clean and sustainable energy future. In an affluent, low-population-growth, equity and sustainability-oriented world, hydrogen technologies experience substantial but plausible performance and costs improvements and diffuse extensively. Fuel cells and other hydrogen-using technologies play a major role in a transformation towards a more flexible, less vulnerable, distributed energy system that meets energy needs in a cleaner, more efficient and cost-effective way. This profound structural transformation of the global energy system brings substantial improvements in energy intensity and an accelerated decarbonizaton of the energy mix, resulting in relatively low climate impacts.

In order to understand the future potential of hydrogen, in this report we compare the two main hydrogen production alternatives from natural gas and biomass as identified in the above-mentioned (B1-H2) scenario in more detail. The first alternative, steam reforming of natural gas, is a well-established technology and the most common and current method to produce hydrogen (Ogden, 1999a). The second technology, biomass gasification, is still in its infancy. A small number of demonstration facilities are in place. Many issues still have to be addressed before the technology can be expected to reach an adequate technical performance and hence become economically competitive (Milne et al., 2002). Nevertheless, biomass-based systems are a very promising option for ensuring the sustainability of a future hydrogen-supply system.

The report includes a comparative analysis of both systems and their potential for carbon mitigation via CO2 capture and sequestration. Estimates of the hydrogen costs for alternative production chains are presented, and the competitiveness of the systems under alternative CO2 taxes are analyzed. Both technologies appear as economically attractive and environmentally compatible options for shaping a sustainable hydrogen economy and contributing to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in the long term.


The authors examine how papyrological sources from Roman Egypt written in Greek on antichresis relate to classical Roman law. Antichresis attested in papyrological antichretic contracts had a lot in common with antichresis emerging from Roman dispute resolutions. There was only one substantive difference: in classical Roman law, protection of the debtor was emphasized, whereas in the Greek papyrological antichretic contracts the position of the creditor was favoured. Given the similarities found, the authors conclude that antichretic loan both as an independent legal institution and as a pactum antichreticum was a pan-Mediterranean legal concept.


The fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 shock in most LAC countries was much larger than during the GFC, suggesting fiscal space was not as tight as expected. We argue that it is feasible and desirable, though not without risks, to embark in a more gradual consolidation path than currently envisaged by several countries in the region. Avoiding an early withdrawal of support in 2021 and 2022 is important given that countries are still facing high rates of contagion and deaths, vaccination will take place very slowly, the economic recovery is partial, uncertain and not strong enough to help those most affected by the twin public health and economic crisis. At the center of this discussion is our conviction that fiscal space is not set in stone and it is endogenous to the medium-term targets and commitments undertaken by governments and congresses throughout the region. Also, revisions to fiscal responsibility frameworks should help anchor fiscal sustainability, as well as improve their effectiveness and flexibility. In this context, low-for-long interest rates and easy market access is generating a situation that, in spite of higher debt levels, interest cost on public debt will remain contained in the foreseeable future. Especially if, as argued in this paper, a more gradual fiscal consolidation path is accompanied with stronger commitments and institutional frameworks that ensure debt is put on a credible downward trajectory once the pandemic is under control. Catalyzing these changes, as well as initiating the debate to design other fiscal reforms to strengthen social protection and increase the progressivity of public finances, would require a broad social consensus and political cohesion around several crucial dimensions of public finances: a fiscal pact. On the other hand, if this agenda is neglected the continuation of low growth, social discontent, and political polarization could drive Latin America towards a very dangerous path of institutional and economic decay.


This study examines how e-business initiatives are able to create value, from a shareholder value perspective, through four value drivers: efficiency, complementarity, lock-in and novelty. For this purpose, a theoretical framework that links these four value drivers of e-business to the shareholder value approach is built; more specifically, to the four financial value drivers of shareholder value (acceleration, enhancement and reduction in the risk of cash flows as well as augmentation of the long term value of the business). In practice, the objective of the framework is to examine a chain of linkages that connect value drivers of e-business to financial value drivers of shareholder value and consequently to a set of metrics assessing financial outcomes of firms. Then, empirical evidence is introduced to verify the validity of the previously designed framework The data used in this study were collected through a web-based questionnaire targeted to the upper management in Finnish companies representing the media industry. The survey was sent to 319 decision makers, of which 70 completed the questionnaire resulting in a response rate of 22%. The data were analyzed using two multivariate data analysis techniques: confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings of this study suggest that e-business initiatives have an effect in the shareholder value of firms both in the short and the long term. In particular, e-business initiatives show a robust effect on shareholder value by accelerating cash flows and augmenting the long term value of the business. Based on these findings, managers should carefully examine the potential of the internet as a strategic element when it comes to strengthening bonds with customers, reinforcing the value of the brand and reducing information asymmetries with stakeholders. In order to get the benefits of online presence, managers should consider how to align e-business initiatives of their firms to their strategic objectives. From a theoretical perspective, the present study contributes to the existent knowledge in the field of e-business and strategic marketing in two ways. First, this study is the first attempt to empirically examine the value creation process in the context of e-business from a shareholder value perspective. Second, this study provides a valid and reliable scale development for the value drivers of e-business and the financial value drivers of shareholder value. In sum, this study responds to recent requests from academics to demonstrate the impact of marketing activities, in this case related to e-business, in terms of shareholder value; hence contributing to a marketingfinance conciliation.


Responses given for not participating in one or more of 19 outdoor recreation activities are analyzed to ascertain whether individuals belonging to distinct recreation groups and socioeconomic categories perceive recreation opportunities in the same manner. The findings suggest that the opportunity theory of leisure may be applicable only to certain segments of the population. On the basis of the results and in view of the large proportion of society which does not participate in many activities, the authors conclude that more intensive use of data on why people do not participate would be helpful in recreation research.


Herein we reveal a straightforward supramolecular design for the H-bonding driven J-aggregation of an amine-substituted cNDI in aliphatic hydrocarbons. Transient absorption spectroscopy reveals sub-ps intramolecular electron transfer in isolated NDI molecules in a THF solution followed by a fast recombination process, while a remarkable extension of the excited state lifetime by more than one order of magnitude occurred in methylcyclohexane likely owing to an increased charge-separation as a result of better delocalization of the charge-separated states in J-aggregates. We also describe unique solvent-effects on the macroscopic structure and morphology. While J-aggregation with similar photophysical characteristics was noticed in all the tested aliphatic hydrocarbons, the morphology strongly depends on the "structure" of the solvents. In linear hydrocarbons (n-hexane, n-octane, n-decane or n-dodecane), formation of an entangled fibrillar network leads to macroscopic gelation while in cyclic hydrocarbons (methylcyclohexane or cyclohexane) although having a similar polarity, the cNDI exhibits nanoscale spherical particles. These unprecedented solvent effects were rationalized by establishing structure-dependent specific interactions of the solvent molecules with the cNDI which may serve as a general guideline for solvent-induced morphology-control of structurally related self-assembled materials.


Improvement in the performance of perovskite solar cells (PSC) and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) upon modifications of mesoporous titania layers has been studied. For PSC with triple cation perovskite (FA0.76 MA0.19 Cs0.05 Pb (I0.81 Br0.19)3) about 40% higher photocurrent (up to ∼24 mA cm-2) was found for more homogenous, made of larger particles (30 nm) and thinner (150-200 nm) titania layer. For DSSC (both with liquid cobalt-based electrolyte as well as with solid state hole transporter - spiro-OMeTAD), a greater dye loading, rise in photovoltage, and the enhancement in relative photocurrent were observed for the cells prepared from the diluted titania paste (2 : 1 w/w ratio) with respect to those prepared from undiluted one. The impact of these improvements in titania layers on charge transfer dynamics in the complete solar cells as well as in pristine TiO2 layers was investigated by femtosecond transient absorption. Shorter photocarriers lifetime in perovskite material observed in better PSC, indicated that faster electron transfer at the titania interface was responsible for the higher photocurrent. Moreover, the photoinduced changes close to TiO2 interface were revealed in better PSC, which may indicate that in the efficient devices halide segregation takes place in perovskite material. In liquid DSSC, the fast component of unwanted recombination was slower in the samples with the diluted titania paste than in those made with undiluted ones. In solid state DSSC, hole injection from MK2 dye to spiro-OMeTAD takes place on the very fast ps time scale (comparable to that of electron injection) and the evidence of better penetration of spiro-OMeTAD into thinner and more porous titania layers was provided.


ABSTRACT Aim: Detection of sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastases in breast cancer patients has been determined by conventional histological examination or by molecular biological examination such as one step nucleic acid amplification (OSNA). OSNA is in widespread use because of its simplicity and sample error-resistance. We examine the assessment using a combination of histological examination and OSNA and the possibility of omitting axillary lymph node dissection. Methods: We included 1215 consecutive patients with clinical node-negative cTis-cT3 primary breast cancer who underwent SLN biopsy with intraoperative multi-section histological examination and OSNA between February 2010 and June 2013 at our institution. 315 patients (26%) with positive SLN metastases by either histology or OSNA underwent further axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). We allotted 3 points to macro metastasis by histology, 2 to micro metastasis, and 1 to isolated tumor cells (ITC). We allotted 3 points to 2+ by OSNA, 2 to 1 + , 1 to +I. We defined "intraoperative SLN score (ISS)" as the sum total points and predicted the existence of non-SLN metastases intraoperatively. Results: The non-SLN metastases detection rate was high in patients with SLN macro metastases (43%, 70 of 160) and OSNA 2+ patients (46%, 62 of 136). The incidence of non-SLN metastases among patients with micro metastases, patients with ITC in SLNs, OSNA 1+ patients and OSNA +I patients were 28% (15 of 66), 7% (2 of 29), 18% (18 of 101) and 17% (3 of 17), respectively. The rate of non-SLN metastases detection was low in OSNA positive patients without histological metastases (10%, 8 of 73) and OSNA negative patients with histological metastases (14%, 8 of 56). The non-SLN metastases detection rate was low (12%) in patients whose ISS is 3 and below. In patients whose ISS is from 4 to 12 and 13 and above, the non-SLN metastases detection rate was 38% and 80%. Conclusions: The non-SLN metastases detection rate was low in patient with ITC in SLNs, OSNA +I, discordance of the results of both examinations, and ISS 3 and below. We suggests that in these cases we could omit the further ALND. By using a combination of histological examination and OSNA and taking clinical findings into consideration we could decide the cases that we omit the further ALND. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale is one of the fastest growing areas of research and technology. Nanotechnology has a vast range of applications in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. New developments in nanotechnology are growing all the time. In the near future, nanotechnology is expected to be a mature industry, with countless mainstream products.Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is an important and optimal material in electronic and photonic applications due to its important properties like direct band gap (3.3 eV) semiconductor with large exciton binding energy (60 meV) which can provide more efficient excitonic emission even at room temperature. Beside that noncentrosymmetric property of ZnO makes it an ideal piezoelectric material. Various onedimensional ZnO nanostructures appear as an interesting material for a variety of mechanical, piezoelectric, optical, and electrical applications. ZnO nanostructures used in study were grown by the lower temperature aqueous chemical growth (ACG) on a variety of substrates.The main objective of this research studies is to investigate the piezoelectric, mechanical and electrical phenomenon of ZnO nanostructured based nanodevices on cheap, disposable and flexible substrate like paper, plastic. As low cost fabrication of nanodevices is very crucial and best choice for the upcoming years. We have successfully demonstrated that paper substrates can be used for the growth of ZnO nanostructures.In the first part, piezoelectric power nanogenerators based on ZnO NRs / NWs on flexible paper substrates were demonstrated and output piezopotential was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Different p-type polymers like poly (3-hexylthiophene) P3HT, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene-Tosylate (PEDOT-Tos) were coated around the ZnO NRs / NWs in order to minimize the screening effect and increase the output piezopotential and it was found that by introducing a layer of p-type polymer we get more piezopotential compared to non-coated ZnO NRs / NWs. We also demonstrated the direct and converse piezoelectric response from ZnO NWs grown on lighter, flexible paper substrate for the first time by using nanoindentation technique.In the second part, the mechanical properties like elastic modulus and hardness of ZnO NRs / NWs and NTs were investigated by using nanoindenter. Elastic modulus of a single ZnO horizontal NR was demonstrated by nanoindentation technique based on three point bending configuration. Buckling phenomena of ZnO NRs and NTs was investigated by nanoindenter and various parameters like buckling energy, elastic modulus, critical stress, and critical strain calculated under different end conditions.In the third part of thesis fabrication of Au/n-ZnO Schottky devices were fabricated and their electrical and optical properties were investigated by current voltage (I-V), electroluminescence (EL) and impedance spectroscopy. We investigated interface trap states of Au/n-ZnO nanorods interface by temperature dependence I-V parameters. That study reveals that the ideality factor decreases, while the barrier height increases with increase of temperature. Detailed and systematic analysis of the frequency-dependent capacitance and conductance measurements were performed to extract the information about the interface trap states. The energy of the interface states with respect to the valence band at the ZnO NR surface was also calculated. It was found that recombination-generation in the interface states are responsible for capacitance and conductance.The effect of the post-growth annealing of Au/n-ZnO NWs Schottky diodes were examined and it was shown that light from the LEDs can be tuned from cold white light to warm white light by post growth annealing in different ambient.


A sports drink is a beverage made to rehydrate, as well as replace electrolytes, carbohydrates, and other nutrients. The objective of this in vitro study was to evaluate the endogenous pH, total titratable acidity and total soluble solids content (TSSC) of nine sports drinks. pH analysis was performed by potentiometry and buffering capacity was assessed by dilution of each substance. Increments of 0.1 N KOH were titrated until neutrality was reached. TSSC readings were performed by Brix refractometry using the Abbe refractometer. pH values ranged from 2.03 (Gatorade Tangerina®) to 2.93 (Marathon Limao®) and all sports drinks showed pH below the critical value of 5.5. The titratable acidity values ranged from 0.106 (Marathon Limao®) to 0.32 (Gatorade Tangerina®). Gatorade Tangerina® presented the lowest TSSC content (6.33%) and Marathon Guarana e Acai® presented the highest TSSC content (12.50%). Statistically significant differences were observed between temperatures for pH (G3, G4, G5, G6 and G8), TSSC (G2, G3, G6 and G9) and TA (G2, G3 and G5). When groups 1 and 3 were compared (Marathon Guarana Acai versus Gatorate Guarana Acai), statistically significant difference concerning pH at room temperature, concerning TSSC at room and ± 9°C temperatures and concerning TA at room temperature was seen. The sports drinks evaluated have a high erosive potential to dental hard tissues, as they present low pH. Regarding temperature, it is recommended to intake these beverages chilled.


It is becoming increasingly clear that long-range control of gene expression is mediated through direct physical interactions between genes and regulatory elements, either intra- or interchromosomally. In addition to transcriptional initiation, formation of active chromatin hubs seem to be crucial for increased transcriptional efficiency as well as insulation from neighbouring heterochromatic environment. Regulatory factors apparently have an important role in organization of such functional modules in a development and differentiated- dependent fashion. The relevance of trans-acting factors in the 'choice' process of X-Chromosome Inactivation (XCI) was highlighted by our observations where CTCF was shown to occupy a homologous position on the active mouse and human Xist/XIST promoters and its binding affinity was altered in familial cases of opposite skewed X-inactivation patterns. The paradigm of genomic imprinting, i.e. the Igf2-H19 locus, manifests its imprinted states through the H19 Imprinting Control Region (ICR). The repression of the maternal Igf2 allele depends on the insulator properties of the H19 ICR when this interacts with CTCF. The studies here detected a novel kind of CTCF-dependent tightly closed pocket- like higher order structure exclusively on maternal allele which was found to be essential for imprinted Igf2 expression as well as maintenance of precise epigenetic marks at various Differentially Methylated Regions (DMRs) across this locus. Despite the highly condensed state of the mitotic chromosome, the insulator protein CTCF was found to constitutively occupy its known target sites. Furthermore, pivotal CTCF-dependent long-range regulatory loops within Igf2-H19 locus were found to survive mitotic compaction and such mechanisms might serve as a novel kind of epigenetic memory to minimize transcriptional chaos and to reset proper expression domains in the daughter cells as soon as cells exit mitosis. Our observations also suggest that the epigenetic reprogramming of H19 ICR during spermatogenesis is initiated by a CTCF-dependent recruitment of chromatin remodeling factor Lsh to the H19 ICR followed by completion of the imprint acquisition process by a replacement of CTCF with its closely related paralogue termed BORIS. Overall, this thesis unravels the novel roles for CTCF as an architectural factor in the organization of higher order chromatin conformations and transcriptional regulation.


Several methods to synthesize bimetallic complexes in which two different metal fragments are connected by halide bridges are described. Using simple starting materials a large pool of structurally defined bimetallic complexes with unique chemical reactivities can be prepared in short time. Applications in organometallic synthesis and homogeneous catalysis are discussed.


A comparison of existing online revenues collected from digital music licenses and the potential royalty market for online music, suggests an inadequate royalty market capture within the European Union. An estimate of the 2012 market for digital music royalties in ten different E.U. countries indicates this market could have been well over €18 billion. However, only €116 million were reported by corresponding Collective Rights Management Organizations in that same year. The three largest digital music royalty markets (U.K., Germany and France) comprise around €11 billion. Yet, the corresponding Collective Rights Management Organizations (PRS for Music, SACEM and GEMA) generate only €95 million in royalty revenue from all online media. The gap between existing and potential royalties is tremendous and suggests that E.U. Member States have not come to grips yet with the internet. Their existing business models, paired with a regulatory environment rooted in the 19th century rationale of the Berne Convention has not been supportive of grasping the opportunities provided by a disruptive technology. By consequence, artists do not receive the royalties they deserve, commercial users are exposed to prohibitive license fees and non-commercial users suffer from adequate legal alternatives to digital piracy.