First published in 1986. The focus of this book is the dramatic strategies of scenic repetition and character separation. The author traces the way in which Shakesperare often presents recurring gestures, dramatic interactions, and complex scenic structures at widely separated intervals in a play - thereby providing an internal system of cross-reference for an audience. He also examines the way in which Shakespeare increases the dramatic voltage in central relationships by limiting the access key characters have to each other on stage. These strategies, it is argued, are indelible marks of Shakespeare's craftsmanship which survive all attempts to obliterate it in many modern productions.


ABSTRACT Emotions have important implications for many aspects of cognition and behaviour, including those that are of concern to forensic psychologists. This review article provides an overview of the emerging field of affective neuroscience – the scientific discipline that seeks to identify the neural mechanisms that give rise to emotion. The theories and methods in the field are described, and then applied to emotional states and issues that are relevant in forensic contexts, including fear and anxiety, anger and aggression, pleasure and reward, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotional memory. The review concludes with a summary of the uses (and misuses) of affective neuroscientific research, and the potential for future applications of this knowledge.


Characterization and testing of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are interesting in many different aspects. Histogram test is a common method to characterize the linearity features of an ADC. Two commonly used stimuli signals are sine waves and Gaussian noise. This paper will present a metrological comparison between Gaussian and sine wave histogram tests for wideband applications; that is evaluate the performance in characterization of the ADC and the usability of post correction. A post-correction procedure involves characterization of the ADC nonlinearity and then utilization of this information by processing the ADC output samples to remove the distortion. The results indicates that even though the Gaussian histogram test seems to give reasonable accuracy to measure nonlinearities it is not thereby a suitable model for post-correction. A single-tone sine wave histogram will most likely be a better solution. Best result is to train the look-up table with several single-tone sine waves in the frequency band


The spatial correlations of the monomer displacements are studied via molecular-dynamics simulations of a melt of fully flexible, unentangled polymer chains with different length, interacting potential, density, and temperature. Both the scalar and the vector characters of the correlations are considered and their extension quantified in terms of suitable dynamical correlation lengths. Displacements performed at both short, i.e., vibrational, and long times, i.e., comparable to the structural relaxation time, are investigated. On both time scales the spatial correlations are modulated according to the radial distribution function g(r) to an extent which is determined by the character of the correlations, the time scale of the displacements and the structural slowing down. The spatial correlations of the short-time displacements have clear directional character. The modulus correlations of the long-time displacements are more marked, especially for sluggish states. Analogous findings are found by experiments on colloids. By inspecting the dynamical heterogeneities of states with slowed-down dynamics, it is observed that fast monomers exhibit correlations which are stronger and more differing from the bulk than the slow ones. It is shown that states with identical average vibrational monomer displacement exhibit identical spatial correlations of the monomer displacements pertaining to the subsets of the fast and the slow monomers characterizing both the short-time and the long-time dynamical heterogeneities.


DOI: 10.7508/rmm.2015.02.008 Abstract Background: Gamma -aminobutyric acid (GABA), a non-protein amino acid acts as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system of mammalians. The glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) is responsible for the conversion of Lglutamate to GABA. The human brain has two isoforms of this enzyme, GAD65 and GAD67 that differ in molecular weight, amino acid sequence, antigenicity, cellular location and interaction by factor of pyridoxal phosphate. The purpose of this study was cloning of gene encoding the human glutamate decarboxylase. Materials and Methods: Total cellular RNA was extracted from human brain tissue and then converted to cDNA. PCR was performed using exclusive primers for gad gene amplification. After purification of PCR product, it was partially cloned successfully in pJET1.2 blunt t-vector and was sent for sequencing. Results: The outcomes indicate that only gad gene was cloned partially. The length of human gad gene isoform 65 is 1759 base pair that encodes 585 amino acids. The length of partially cloned gad gene in this study was 385 base pair. Conclusion: Because obtaining fresh human brain is difficult and amount of mRNA is low, it may not be easy to clone full length of human gad gene. The approach described in this paper may be useful in cloning of other genes for which the corresponding mRNA is present at low levels.


Phase change materials (PCMs) have been extensively characterized as constant temperature latent heat thermal energy storage (TES) materials. Nevertheless, the widespread utilization of PCMs is limited due to the flow of liquid PCMs during melting, phase separation, supercooling and low heat transfer rate. In order to overcome these inherent problems and to improve thermo-physical properties, the confinement of PCMs at the nanoscale has been identified as a versatile strategy, which ensures the encapsulation of PCMs in much smaller nano-containers. Such strategies including core–shell, longitudinal, interfacial and porous confinement have been widely presented in recent years to efficiently encapsulate PCMs in nanospaces and are presenting attractive ways to enhance thermal performance. This review summarizes the recent advancement and critical issues of nanoconfinement technologies of PCMs from the point of view of material design. In addition, the potential applications of nanoconfined PCMs in diverse fields, including energy conversion and storage, thermal rectification and temperature controlled drug delivery systems, are presented in detail. Finally, the major drawbacks associated with nanoconfined PCMs and their prospective solutions are also provided.


Shallow-water sponges are often cited as being 'climate change winners' due to their resiliency against climate change effects compared to other benthic taxa. However, little is known of the impacts of climate change on deep-water sponges. The deep-water glass sponge Vazella pourtalesii is distributed off eastern North America, forming dense sponge grounds with enhanced biodiversity on the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia, Canada. While the strong natural environmental variability that characterizes these sponge grounds suggests this species is resilient to a changing environment, its physiological limitations remain unknown, and the impact of more persistent anthropogenic climate change on its distribution has never been assessed. We used Random Forest and generalized additive models to project the distribution of V. pourtalesii in the northwest Atlantic using environmental conditions simulated under moderate and worst-case CO2 emission scenarios. Under future (2046-2065) climate change, the suitable habitat of V. pourtalesii will increase up to 4 times its present-day size and shift into deeper waters and higher latitudes, particularly in its northern range where ocean warming will serve to improve the habitat surrounding this originally sub-tropical species. However, not all areas projected as suitable habitat in the future will realistically be populated, and the reduced likelihood of occurrence in its core habitat on the Scotian Shelf suggests that the existing Vazella sponge grounds may be negatively impacted. An effective monitoring programme will require tracking changes in the density and distribution of V. pourtalesii at the margins between core habitat and where losses and gains were projected.


Traditional asset pricing models predict that covariance between prices of different assets should be lower than what we observe in the data. This paper introduces markets for information that generate high price covariance within a rational expectations framework. When information is costly, rational investors only buy information about a subset of the assets. Because information production has high fixed costs, competitive producers charge more for low-demand information than for high-demand information. The low price of high-demand information makes investors want to purchase the same information that others are purchasing. When investors price assets using a common subset of information, news about one asset affects the other assets' prices; asset prices comove. The cross-sectional and time-series properties of comovement are consistent with this explanation. Copyright 2006, Wiley-Blackwell.


Increased LDL level is one of the major causes of heart disease including arteriosclerosis. Hence an accurate and timely measure of LDL can prevent the incidence of cardiac disorders. In the present study we compared the results between directly measured plasma LDL and calculated LDL. The LDL level was measured by colorimetric method and the calculation was done using friedwald's equation in hyperlipidemic patients and healthy populations. We aimed to measure the accuracy of colorimetric method and fridwald's equation in the estimation of plasma LDL in hyperlipidemic patients and healthy populations and assess if there is correlation between cholesterol level and LDL level thereby prevent false diagnosis due to false or inaccurate results . 2.5ml of blood was taken in lithium heparin container from 50 hyperlipidemic and normal populations, then centrifuged at 4000r.p.m for 3mins, the plasma was separated. Estimation of cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL was done using the routine reagents. Control sera (normal and pathologic) were used for every patch, after incubation the reaction color was read in a colorimeter (JENWAY 6051), beer,s and lambert,s law was used to measure the concentrations of the samples. Then for the same samples the Fridwald's equation was used to calculate the LDL level. Mean value of 139.5 mg/dl, and a standard deviation of 37.44 was found for the hyperlipidemic patient's LDL level by direct measurement and a mean of 136.5 mg/dl, and a standard deviation of 43.90 was found by using the Fridwald's equation. The p value was found equal to 0.624, which is statistically insignificant. Also a mean of 73.6 mg/dl, and a standard deviation of 17.65 was found for the normal subjects LDL level by direct measure, and a mean of 71.2 mg/dl and a standard deviation of 22.50 was found by using the equation. The p value was found equal to 0.60 which is statistically insignificant. A moderate correlation of 0.48 was found between patient's cholesterol and LDL levels. Also a moderate correlation of 0.49 was found between normal subject's cholesterol and LDL level. We conclude that both Fridewald's equation and direct colorimetric method can be used for routine LDL levels because it gives acceptable results. Moreover there is a correlation between cholesterol level and LDL level.
Key words: Hyperlipidemia, LDL, cholesterol, colorimetric method, Fridewald's equation.


Before becoming Prime Minister David Cameron described troubled young people as '… more often defensive than offensive' and in need of 'compassion and kindness' (Cameron 2006: 4-5). The Prime Minister has characterized the Big Society as a means of mending 'societally Broken Britain' by tackling the root causes of poverty and criminality and emphasizing that 'what matters most to a child's life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting' (Cameron 2010). However in the wake of the August 2011 riots, the Prime Minister now believes that challenging, and disciplining, families and young people is the starting point for 'mending the broken society'. David Cameron blamed the riots on, amongst other things, a lack of ethics, morals and upbringing (Cameron 2011). Subsequently, in the Big Society young people who offend are perceived as responsible active citizens who are accountable for their behavior and deserving of punishment and no longer worthy of protection as children.

This paper will examine the way in which changing conceptions of citizenship have impacted upon and consequently re-shaped the contemporary youth justice system in England and Wales. I will consider whether the rhetoric of the Big Society offers the prospect of a new approach to young people in trouble and their citizenship or whether it represents a continued diminished conception of social citizenship for children and young people. Throughout the paper I will question, is it right to impose such responsibilities upon children and young people; does the youth justice system pay sufficient attention to the uniquely vulnerable position of children in society or does youth justice law and policy have an unrealistic perception of youth and youth crime?


This thesis presents a study of the compressibility of forwarding tables in the Internet. The size of the forwarding tables that routers need to keep increases steadily. This leads to pressure on the forwarding plane and high memory requirements on routers. We studied the compressibility of forwarding tables based on the state-of-the-art algorithm, called Optimal Routing Table Constructor (ORTC). The evaluation of the algorithm contains two parts. In the first part, we analyze the compressibility of BGP table snapshots. In the second part, we study the compression behavior of the algorithm for incremental updates as well as the efficiency of the algorithm. Our analysis is based on publicly available BGP data. Our results show that the size of the output forwarding tables can be reduced down to 30% of the original size, while guaranteeing the same forwarding behavior as with uncompressed input table. Our study shows that applying changes incrementally to the compressed forwarding table leads to much less changes compared to a complete re-computation of the forwarding table. This suggests that BGP updates can be applied in such a way that minimizes the re-computation time as well as the changes to the forwarding table.


We developed a hollow PEGylated encapsulin nanoparticle from Rhodococcus erythropolis N771. The hollow engineered encapsulin nanoparticles with His-Tag and Lys residues on the surface were constructed by means of genetic recombination. The Lys residues on the particle surface were successfully PEGylated with a PEG derivative, methoxy-PEG-SCM. Consequently, we demonstrated that the hollow PEGylated engineered encapsulin nanoparticle could successfully disassemble or reassemble even after PEGylation in the presence or absence of a protein denaturing agent. The nanoparticle obtained in the present study has the potential to incorporate hydrophilic compounds in the internal cavity of the particle by reversibly controllable disassembly and reassembly. The hollow PEGylated encapsulin nanoparticle can be used as a drug carrier for the delivery of hydrophilic biopolymers in future medical applications.


Flavor chemists, organoleptic and neuro-scientists contribute to our understanding of the basis of flavor. Their relative tasks and approaches are discussed with emphasis on the last two. Beer excites many senses but recent research (summarized here) stresses the dominance of smell. Smell and taste sensations can interact and odors may have additive effects with implications for the effectiveness of additives to beer, such as fatty acids. Perception of flavor appears to fluctuate according to such factors as hormonal levels, degree of hunger and thirst. Recent evidence (summarized here) suggests that the term potentiator when used in relation to the action of such compounds as 5-ribonucleotides may be misleading since the effects are at least partly due to flavor modification. Other modifiers include miracle fruit and gymnemic acid.


Objectives The aim of the present study was to test whether construction workers, who are known to have a relatively higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), had higher concentrations of cortisol in saliva and a lower relative variability when compared with white-collar workers. Methods Data from two groups of male construction workers with physically demanding job assignments, with either regular or extended workhours (N=40) and a group of white-collar workers recruited from both the private and the public sector (N=118) were examined. All of the workers had participated in previous research projects with similar methodology. Saliva was sampled during ordinary workdays at awakening, between 30 and 45 minutes after awakening, and approximately 14 hours after awakening. Results Compared with the white-collar workers, the construction workers had higher mean concentrations of cortisol in saliva, 36% and 14% for construction workers with regular and extended workhours, respectively. The observed differences weakened when the exact sampling time (time of day) was taken into consideration in the statistical modeling. Compared with the white-collar workers, the construction workers had a lower relative variability in salivary cortisol as measured by the coefficient of variation (CV 76% versus 99%). A detailed analysis revealed that the construction workers with regular workhours had the highest concentration of cortisol in saliva but the lowest relative variability when compared with the construction workers with extended workhours (CV 72% versus 82%). Conclusions The results suggest that physically demanding construction work is associated with a less variable and increased cortisol excretion when compared with white-collar work.


Government officials who run administrative agencies must make countless decisions every day about what issues and work to prioritize. These agenda-setting decisions hold enormous implications for the shape of law and public policy, but they have received remarkably little attention by either administrative law scholars or social scientists who study the bureaucracy. Existing research offers few insights about the institutions, norms, and inputs that shape and constrain agency discretion over their agendas or about the strategies that officials employ in choosing to elevate certain issues while putting others on the back burner. In this article, we advance the study of agency agenda-setting by offering concepts and frameworks that emerged from a Penn Program on Regulation workshop we organized at which more than two dozen leading scholars, practitioners, and government official discussed the relatively hidden world of agency agendas. Addressing the concept of agenda-setting itself, we distinguish between mandatory and discretionary agendas as well as between agenda-setting over high-salience regulatory initiatives versus workaday regulatory activities. We also recount what workshop participants shared about the influence of courts, Congress, the White House, and interest groups over administrative agendas. Finally, we consider a variety of possible reforms that might make agency agenda-setting more democratic, open, and responsive. Overall, we show that agency agenda-setting, notwithstanding its relative opacity, is a distinctive and important process that warrants greater study by legal and empirical scholars.


With regard to cancer management, minority populations do not fare as well as the majority in the US health-care system. There is clear evidence of an increased incidence of cancer in minority populations, in many cases accompanied by reduced survival. Several factors appear to contribute to these differences, and the biomedical community has begun to focus on definining the scope of the problem and possible solutions. This review will address specific areas of disparity in cancer care, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes, and will consider steps toward resolving these issues.


Our Signet Classic Shakespeare Series was extensively revised in 1998. We offer the best of everything -- unforgettable works edited by eminent Shakespeare scholars, comprehensive notes on the text, an essay on Shakespeare's life and times, source material, critical commentaries, extensive bibliographies, and footnotes. And there's more-- Grow with the times by including both historical and thoroughly contemporary critical commentary on such issues as feminist, political, and theatrical interpretations of the plays -- with recent full-length essays by such respected scholars as Frank Kermode, Carolyn Heilbrun, Michael Goldman, Linda Bamber, and many others.-- Provide more bibliographic listings and more up-to-date and relevant listings of pertinent books and articles in the Suggested Reference Section than the competition offers.-- Feature essays on the Performance or Stage History of each play, written by Sylvan Barnet.


The paper investigates the effect of local economic conditions on crime. The study focuses on Italy's local labor markets and analyzes the short-term response of crime to the severe slump of 2007-2009. It shows that the downturn led to a significant increase in economic-related offenses that do not require particular criminal skills or tools (namely, thefts); on the other hand, for offenses for which specific skills and criminal experience are essential (say, robberies) the impact of the crisis was negative. The results also suggest that: i) labor market institutions (i.e. wage supplementary schemes and pro-worker contractual arrangements) had a role in slowing down the effect of the economy on crime; ii) the link between the downturn and crime was weaker in areas where the presence of organized crime is relatively more intensive.


We study IPOs by focusing on the degree of portfolio diversification of the shareholders taking the company public. We argue that a less diversified shareholder has more to gain from taking the company public and would be more willing to accept a lower price for the sale of its shares, i.e. tolerate higher underpricing. We test these hypotheses by considering all the IPOs that took place in Sweden in the period 1995-2001. We have obtained detailed information on the portfolio composition of all the investors in the companies being taken public, both before and after the IPO, as well as the portfolio composition of investors in similar (in terms of size, book-to-market and industry) companies not taken public. The information is detailed at the stock level, for both private and public companies. We construct several proxies for portfolio diversification of the shareholders and relate them to both the probability of the IPO and the underpricing. We show that companies held by less diversified shareholders are more likely to go public and suffer a higher underpricing. We show that, as predicted, the degree of diversification explains a significant (economically and statistically) part of the probability of going public, and may account for between one third and one half of the reported underpricing. This suggests that the degree of diversification of controlling shareholders should play a prominent role in the discussion of the process of going public.


Periparturient cows are immunosuppressed. Critical neutrophil functions (egress and phagocytic activities) and lymphocyte functions (immunoglobulin and cytokine secretion) are all impaired during this time. Exact causes ofperiparturient immunosuppression are not known but tremendous fluxes in endocrine factors undoubtedly effect changes in immunological competence. Periparturient cows experience large changes in plasma concentrations of vitamins and also are adjusting to the calcium, energy and protein demands necessary for lactation. The end of gestation appears to induce a progressive suppression of immune function. There appears to be a teleological basis for suppression of antigen specific immunity in the periparturient female. Development of immunity against self and paternal antigens released into the cow as a consequence of tissue damage associated with parturition would serve little useful purpose. However, as a result of this suppression, innate immune function is also impaired (perhaps inadvertently) and opportunistic infections such as mastitis and metritis occur with increased frequency in postpartum cows.


Published by Bretton Woods Project in co-production with In November 2011, political analysts and news reports began speculating that Zoellick would not seek a second term as Bank president, but by early February he still had not said anything in public. The Bank board was also silent on the issue, as Sunil Chacko, an academic at Simon Fraser University in Canada, wrote in a January piece for the website Huffington Post: "By not producing and leading an open, meritbased selection process the World Bank board is opening the doors for machinations of all kinds frequently seen in the international system, otherwise known as horse-trading." Chacko called for the next Bank president to be selected in a transparent manner before Zoellick's term ends on 30 June. Since October 2008, the Development Committee, a group of finance and development ministers that guides the Bank's direction, has endorsed an "open, merit-based and transparent" selection process "with nominations open to all board members and transparent board consideration of all candidates" (see Update 63). In April 2011, the Bank's executive board approved a paper that "regularised the selection process for the president based on the Bank's past experience and practice". The paper lays out recommendations for nomination, shortlisting and final selection of the president, but fails to go beyond the Bank's own past practice, which has long been criticised by many civil society groups as weak and unfair due to the gentlemen's agreement that allows the US to appoint the president of the Bank, while European leaders get to choose the head of the IMF. Collins Magalasi, of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, argued that "it's a World Bank, not a US Bank. It needs the best candidate to get the job with support of wide Bank membership, not just the US." The process recommended in the paper is closed to any kind of external input and leaves many details to be decided by the board during each selection round, including the duration of the candidate nomination period. Moreover, development experience is not mentioned as a qualification criterion, even though the Bank only operates in developing countries. This fact has long prompted many civil society groups to argue that any candidate to the Bank presidency, as well as to the IMF's top job, who is not supported by a majority of developing countries would lack legitimacy (see Update 75). Calls for a presidential selection that is truly competitive and rewards the best candidate available are being further discussed at worldbankpresident.org, a blog relaunched in January 2012 to provide a space for debate around the selection process. Other international forums are also pushing for change at the Bank. In December last year the United Nations' General Assembly adopted a resolution that called for the reform of governance structures at the Bank and IMF, including regarding the representation of developing countries in quotas and voting rights. The resolution also "reiterates that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions, particularly the Bretton Woods institutions, should be appointed through open, transparent and merit-based selection processes, with due regard to gender equality and geographical and regional representation." The G20 made this same commitment in a June 2010 communiqué that endorses "open, transparent and merit-based selection processes for the heads and senior leadership of all the international financial institutions (IFIs)" (see Update 71). Even Bank staff recognised the need for "merit-based" appointments to civil service posts in the Bank's new draft governance and anti-corruption strategy and implementation plan, which was published in January. European dominance of the IMF was reinforced in June 2011 when Mexico's central bank governor, Agustín Carstens, was sidelined in the race for the Fund's top job and European candidate Christine Lagarde sailed through a hasty selection process (see Update 76). It seems certain that the US will push to hold its grip on the Bank presidency when Zoellick leaves. The media has reported that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is interested in the job, while in January the name of former Obama administration economic adviser and former Bank chief economist, Lawrence Summers, emerged as another potential US candidate. Soren Ambrose of NGO ActionAid said: "If Bank members want a genuine reformer, the best candidates could be developing countries academics and officials, like Chilean Michelle Bachelet, Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan or Malaysian Jomo K.S. Even if they only want to preserve the status quo, there are plenty from the South who would do as good a job as Summers or Clinton."


Human hearing loss often occurs as a result of damage or malformations to the functional soft tissues within the cochlea, but these changes are not appreciable with current medical imaging modalities. We sought to determine whether optical coherence tomography (OCT) could assess the soft tissue structures relevant to hearing using mouse models. We imaged excised cochleae with an altered tectorial membrane and during normal development. The soft tissue structures and expected anatomical variations were visible using OCT, and quantitative measurements confirmed the ability to detect critical changes relevant to hearing.


Insomnia is a common occurrence and can have a negative impact on physiological, psychological and social well-being. There is a need for simple, effective solutions to increase sleep quality. It has been suggested that weighted blankets and vests can provide a beneficial calming effect, especially in clinical disorders. Hence, we aimed to investigate the effects of a chain weighted blanket on insomnia, using objective and subjective measures. Objectively, we found that sleep bout time increased, as well as a decrease in movements of the participants, during weighted blanket use. Subjectively, the participants liked sleeping with the blanket, found it easier to settle down to sleep and had an improved sleep, where they felt more refreshed in the morning. Overall, we found that when the participants used the weighted blanket, they had a calmer night's sleep. A weighted blanket may aid in reducing insomnia through altered tactile inputs, thus may provide an innovative, non-pharmacological approach and complementary tool to improve sleep quality.


This thesis comprises two Parts and concerns the cytology of Lycopersicon and Solanum. Part I was a study of pachytene in Lycopersicon and began as an attempt to assess the usefulness of this stage as a source of information to aid classification. The principal findings of this thesis were as follows: 1. Chromosomes at pachytene were examined by the 'isolated chromosome technique', the precision of which was augmented by reference to probability theory. 2. In no case was it possible to identify all 12 chromosomes in any species examined but in L. esculentum sub sp humboldtii 9 chromosome types were elucidated. 3. Detailed interspecific comparisons of two distinctive chromosomes revealed that differences were of two kinds (a) difference in chromomere size and number, (b) differences in chromomere sequence presumably due to inversion. 4. Since such a small proportion of the genome was available for reliable interspecies comparisons pachytene morphology probably has little taxonomic value. 5. The occurrence of distinctive types once rather than twice in each nucleus provided morphological evidence for a basic number of 12 rather than 6. 6. Examination of diakinesis confirmed that at this stage the bulk of the chiasmata were confined to the achromatic region. This observation was however reinterpreted as evidence of terminalisation. 7. Evidence was obtained that chiasma formation occurred in both chromatic and achromatic regions. 8. The observation that chiasmata occurred at random throughout the tomato chromosome considered jointly with the existence of very small chromosome changes provided instances of 'cryptic structural differentiation' and may account for a proportion at least of the genetic breakdowns observed in F\(_2\) populations of interspecific Lycopersicon and Solanum hybrids. Part II was a study of meiosis in polyploid species of Solanum and the principal findings were as follows: 1. Solanum juzepczukii may well have originated from the cross S. acaule x S. stenotomum. 2. S. curtilobum probably originated from a cross between S. juzepczukii and S. tuberosum. 3. During this study an attempt was made to define precisely types of chromosome configuration encountered.


In Kenya, beekeeping offers benefits which could make it attractive to smallholder farmers as a possible strategy for making their livelihoods more sustainable. However, its potential remains largely unexploited and the lack of new entrants is thought to be one key reason for a decline in beekeeping. This paper reports on a study that examined the factors affecting beekeeping adoption in Baringo County, Kenya with a focus on three smallholder farming communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 90 informants in these communities, including 41 new beekeepers, 21 non-adopters, 13 group leaders, 10 village elders and 5 teenagers. In addition, 28 key stakeholders at national and local levels were approached. The findings show that in high traditional beekeeping areas apprenticeship pathway is predominant, while in low traditional beekeeping areas most of the beekeepers follow the traineeship pathway. The main factors affecting the decision of smallholder farmers to take up beekeeping were access to information, land and beehives, availability of alternative income generating activities, perceptions of beekeeping outcomes and performance, access to market, feelings towards bees, and cultural norms. The importance of these factors varies according to interviewee demographics (gender, age and level of education) and location. The findings suggest that to increase the uptake of beekeeping the following should be considered: (a) increasing awareness and knowledge in all locations but particularly in the low traditional beekeeping areas; (b) improving access to improved harvesting tools (e.g. smokers and protective clothing) and to movable comb or frame hives, especially for young people and women; and (c) supporting local social networks.


A-me is a fictitious memory-evoking apparatus at the intersection of science, art and technology. The system enables users to experience other people's memories as well as store their own by interacting with a volumetric representation (MR) of a human brain. The user retrieves or stores memories (audio traces) by pointing and clicking at precise voxels locations. Triggered by their exploratory action, a story is slowly revealed and recomposed in the form of whispering voices revealing intimate stories. A-me it's a public receptacle for private memories, thus exploring the possibility of a collective physical brain.
 The installation introduces an original optical see-through AR setup for neuronavigation capable of overlaying a volume rendered MR scan onto a physical dummy head. Implementing such a system also forced us to address technical questions on quality assessment of AR systems for brain visualization.


In case of a terrorist attack or natural outbreak of a contagious disease, it may be necessary to vaccinate patients in mass quantities. This paper focuses on the creation and implementation of a mathematical model that gives an estimate of the performance of a clinic with a modeled number of stations and staffing, given that there is a large number of patients waiting before the clinic opens. The model was created in Microsoft Excel so that it can be easily accessed by any clinic. Simulation for the purpose of validation was done in Rockwell Arena. Two separate simulations with different cases were compared to estimates made by the planning model to determine its accuracy.


Abstract 2-Methylthio-N6-isopentenyl modification of adenosine (ms2i6A) is an evolutionally conserved modification that is found in transfer RNAs (tRNAs). We have recently shown that Cdk5 regulatory subunit-associated protein 1 (Cdk5rap1) specifically converts i6A to ms2i6A at position A37 of four mitochondrial DNA-encoded tRNAs, and that the modification regulates efficient mitochondrial translation and energy metabolism in mammals. Curiously, a previous study reported that ms2i6A is present abundantly in nuclear-derived RNA species such as microRNAs, but not in tRNA fractions. To fully understand the molecular property of ms2i6A, the existence of non-canonical ms2i6A must be carefully validated. In the present study, we examined ms2i6A in total RNA purified from human and murine ρ0 cells, in which mitochondrial DNA-derived tRNAs were completely depleted. The ms2i6A was not detected in these cells at all. We generated a monoclonal antibody against ms2i6A and examined ms2i6A in murine RNAs using the antibody. The anti-ms2i6A antibody only reacted with the tRNA fractions and not in other RNA species. Furthermore, immunocytochemistry analysis using the antibody showed the predominant localization of ms2i6A in mitochondria and co-localization with the mitochondrial elongation factor Tu. Taken together, we propose that ms2i6A is a mitochondrial tRNA-specific modification and is absent from nuclear-encoded RNA species.


Monitoring and Evaluation are closely related concepts that are distinct but complementary. Monitoring is a continuous collection of data on specified indicators to facilitate decision making on whether an intervention is being implemented in line with the design while evaluation is the periodic and systematic collection of data to assess the design, implementation and impact in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, distribution and sustainability of outcomes and impacts. The youth in general is facing one of the greatest development challenges at the moment, and the government and donors have come up with interventions to address this issue. The objectives of this study were to find out factors influencing effective monitoring and evaluation of the National Youth Service empowerment projects. The study was to determine how effective the empowerment projects implemented by NYS are monitored and evaluated. Data for the study was collected using the descriptive method where a questionnaire was administered to managers and supervisors. The data was subsequently analyzed by use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings identified monitoring and evaluation system and compared them with the best practices. The findings further indicated that those working on ongoing projects are under pressure to demonstrate and learn from the impact of their work, involved all stakeholders to show the long-term effect of their work to the intended beneficiaries. The results of the study show that monitoring and evaluation practices of the NYS fell short of the best practices, most of the best practices were inconsistently done and others were not done at all. Planning of the monitoring and evaluation was adequately and consistently done by the respondents. The study also identified quite a number of the challenges the NYS faced in carrying out monitoring and evaluation of the youth empowerment projects. These challenges made it hard for the NYS to effectively monitor and evaluate the projects they implement. The most significant ones include inadequate funds, lack of expertise, and lack of baseline data. The study made some recommendations in order to mitigate the challenges faced.


Summary
1. Management of lowland mesotrophic grasslands in north-west Europe often makes use of inorganic fertilizers, high stocking densities and silage-based forage systems to maximize productivity. The impact of these practices has resulted in a simplification of the plant community combined with wide-scale declines in the species richness of grassland invertebrates. We aim to identify how field margin management can be used to promote invertebrate diversity across a suite of functionally diverse taxa (beetles, planthoppers, true bugs, butterflies, bumblebees and spiders).

2. Using an information theoretic approach we identify the impacts of management (cattle grazing, cutting and inorganic fertilizer) and plant community composition (forb species richness, grass species richness and sward architecture) on invertebrate species richness and body size. As many of these management practices are common to grassland systems throughout the world, understanding invertebrate responses to them is important for the maintenance of biodiversity.

3. Sward architecture was identified as the primary factor promoting increased species richness of both predatory and phytophagous trophic levels, as well as being positively correlated with mean body size. In all cases phytophagous invertebrate species richness was positively correlated with measures of plant species richness.

4. The direct effects of management practices appear to be comparatively weak, suggesting that their impacts are indirect and mediated though the continuous measures of plant community structure, such as sward architecture or plant species richness.

5. Synthesis and applications. By partitioning field margins from the remainder of the field, economically viable intensive grassland management can be combined with extensive management aimed at promoting native biodiversity. The absence of inorganic fertilizer, combined with a reduction in the intensity of both cutting and grazing regimes, promotes floral species richness and sward architectural complexity. By increasing sward architecture the total biomass of invertebrates also increased (by c. 60% across the range of sward architectural measures seen in this study), increasing food available for higher trophic levels, such as birds and mammals.


Abstract: Positive education aims to contribute to the optimal functioning of students, staff, and school communities. Parents play a vital role in school communities, and finding effective ways to engage parents with positive education is therefore critical. This small-scale pilot study aimed to provide preliminary insights into the impact of a 3-day intensive positive education program for parents, which focused on teaching positive psychology strategies, such as gratitude and use of character strengths, to the parent population. A mixed methodology non-randomized control group design was used to assess pre- to post-intervention change in 24 intervention participants and 16 waitlist control participants. An online survey assessed parents' mental health and wellbeing, knowledge and use of character strengths, feelings of connection with the school, and beliefs about child wellbeing. Results revealed significant increases in parental wellbeing and parent-school connection among the intervention participants, as compared to controls. Qualitative results indicated that parents also perceived a positive impact on their communication with their child. Overall, the study findings provide promising preliminary evidence for the benefits of strategically engaging parents in positive education. Replication is now needed in further larger-scale studies.


Social psychological research suggests that where police hold a theoretical view of the crowd in line with the 'classic' crowd psychology of Gustavé Le Bon this can lead to police practices that inadvertently escalate public disorder. This research reflects debates within the criminology literature which suggests that a primary factor governing police tactics is police knowledge. However, the existing research on the specific relationships between police theoretical knowledge of crowds and their practice towards them is limited by its reliance on post hoc data. This paper addresses this limitation by examining the role of police theoretical view of crowd psychology and their operational practice during a high risk football crowd event. The analysis supports the argument that when the police hold a view of the crowd as inherently irrational and dangerous they rely upon tactics of mass containment and dispersal. This study advances the literature by suggesting that this 'classic' theoretical view of the crowd is leading to missed opportunities for the police to develop more efficient, effective and less confrontational approaches to the management of public order during crowd events.


In humid, forested mountain belts, bedrock landslides can harvest organic carbon from above ground biomass and soil (OCmodern) while acting to refresh the landscape surface and turnover forest ecosystems. Here the impact of landslides on organic carbon cycling in 13 river catchments spanning the length of the western Southern Alps, New Zealand is assessed over four decades. Spatial and temporal landslide maps are combined with the observed distribution and measured variability of hillslope OCmodern stocks. On average, it is estimated that landslides mobilized 7.6 ± 2.9 tC km−2 yr−1 of OCmodern, ~30% of which was delivered to river channels. Comparison with published estimates of OCmodern export in river suspended load suggests additional erosion of OCmodern by small, shallow landslides or overland flow in catchments. The exported OCmodern may contribute to geological carbon sequestration if buried in sedimentary deposits. Landslides may have also contributed to carbon sequestration over shorter timescales (<100 years). 5.4 ± 3.0 tC km−2 yr−1 of the eroded OCmodern was retained on hillslopes, representing a net‐carbon sink following re‐vegetation of scar surfaces. In addition, it was found that landslides caused rapid turnover of the landscape, with rates of 0.3% of the surface area per decade. High rates of net ecosystem productivity were measured in this forest of 94 ± 11 tC km−2 yr−1, which is consistent with rapid landscape turnover suppressing ecosystem retrogression. Landslide‐OCmodern yields and rates of turnover vary between river catchments and appear to be controlled by gradients in climate (precipitation) and geomorphology (rock exhumation rate, topographic slope). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Andrew Tudor. Theories of Film. New York: The Viking Press, 1974. 168 pp. $3.25. Andrew Tudor. Image and Influence: Studies in the Sociology of Film. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1974. 260 pp. Andrew Tudor's examination of Eisenstein, Grierson, Kracauer, Bazin, the "politique des auteurs," and genre criticism, and his much briefer discussion of structuralism and semiology in Theories of Film are governed by his assumption that: "The ultimate justification for looking at works of the past must surely be in terms of future utilities- in the widest sense of that much misused term. Anything else trips dangerously close to scholasticism" (p. 153). And since Tudor believes that "models of film language must be a first priority" in future "theorizing" (p. 164), his primary purpose seems twofold: first, to suggest the need for "models of film" ("theories which are aimed principally at scientific comprehension of film," p. 15) by locating the radical contradictions and deficiencies in what he calls "aesthetics of film," that is, theories such as Grierson's, Kracauer's , and Bazin's which aim at "principally making value judgments" (p. 15); and second, to determine the "future utilities," if any, of various methodologies- auteur and genre criticism, structuralism and semiology. These two investigations ultimately yield the same conclusion, for the critical methods, like the unsatisfactory "aesthetics of film," underline the need for "models of film." Finally, Theories of Film should be read not as a critical guide to select film theories, but as an argumentative preface to some future formulation, more precisely, to the theory Tudor himself expounds in his more recent book. Image and Influence. In the history of film theory, Eisenstein represents, for Tudor, "great beginnings" towards the "scientific comprehension of film" (p. 25). And Tudor's desire to rescue Eisenstein from his "standard image" as the "archpriest of montage" (p. 17) is admirable. Unfortunately the discussion in Theories of Film resembles more an aerial photograph than a comprehensive overview of Eisenstein's "creative but heterodox Marxist aesthetic" (p. 26). Of the "four main trends" in Eisenstein's thought, Tudor is "particularly concerned" with only two: Eisenstein's "approach to the 'language' of film through the concept of montage" and his " ideas about what sort of cinema this language should be used to create" (p. 27). Further, Tudor devotes most attention to language and montage. Although he suggests some of the complexity in Eisenstein's many discussions of montage, he concentrates primarily and offers his soundest analysis on the important 1929 essay, "Methods of Montage" Film Form, pp. 72-83), in which Eisenstein formulates a five-part classification of montage (metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual). Yet gaps are apparent, even when Tudor discusses montage, which is clearly for him the most important and salvageable "trend" in Eisenstein's theory. For example, "vertical montage," subject of the last three sections of The Film Sense, receives at best minimal attention; and Eisenstein's concern with "conflicts within the shot," another primary source of montage Film Form, p. 38f, p. 54, etc.), is not considered. Thus while Tudor's analysis of the finale of 77?e Wild Bunch does, in his words, "illustrate some uses of Eisenstein's work" (p. 51), still the great Soviet theorist seems shortchanged. One only has to consider the "uses" of Eisenstein in Noel Burch's Theory of Film Practice, or compare Tudor's analysis with the forty page analysis of Alexander Nevsky in The Film Sense to see both the much greater complexities of montage for Eisenstein and the potentially much broader practical "uses of Eisenstein's work." Along with the discussion of Grierson's "purposive cinema" and some very perceptive (if brief) comments about the problems involved in applying structuralist methodology to film, Tudor's chapter on Eisenstein is the highpoint of Theories of Film. …


Thin-film heaters made of molybdenum silicide (MoSi2) were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering, and the heating characteristics of these heaters in a high vacuum were evaluated. The crystal structure of thin-film was hexagonal contrary to the tetragonal one of the target. MoSi2 thin-film heaters deposited outside an alumina crucible showed almost linear resistance-temperature (R-T ) characteristics. However, resistance decreased due to repeated heatings. The heaters generated almost no contamination in vacuum. The temperature of the crucible reached 1000°C at an electric power of 190 W.


This book explores the identity of the 'French disease' (alias the 'French pox' or 'Morbus Gallicus') in the German Imperial city of Augsburg between 1495 and 1630. Rejecting the imposition of modern conceptions of disease upon the past, it reveals how early modern medical theory facilitated enormous flexibility in defining disease, and how disease identification was a local matter, and one of constant negotiation and renegotiation.Drawing on a wealth of primary source material, this work combines concern with the conceptualisation of the disease with its practical application, and argues for the inseparability of both. It focuses on how theoretical understanding of the pox shaped the various therapeutic reactions, and vice versa. It exemplifies this in the specific socio-cultural context of sixteenth and seventeenth century Augsburg, through an investigation of the city's municipal and private pox hospitals. Combining medical, religious, economic, municipal and institutional history, this book offers a fascinating insight into how early modern society came to terms with disease both in a practical and theoretical sense. Translated into English here for the first time, Dr Stein's work adds new layers of understanding to fascinating but complex subject.


A brief introduction to cancer biology and treatment is presented with a focus on current clinical advances in the delivery of chemotherapy and antiangiogenic therapies. Mathematical oncology is then surveyed with summaries of various models of tumor growth, tumor angiogenesis and other relevant biological entities such as angiogenic growth factors. Both strictly time-dependent ordinary differential equation (ODE)-based and spatial partial differential equation (PDE)-based models are considered. These biological models are first developed into an ODE model where various treatment options can be compared including different combinations of drugs and dosage schedules. This model gives way to a PDE model that includes the spatially heterogeneous blood vessel distribution found in tumors, as well as angiogenic growth factor imbalances. This model is similarly analyzed and implications are summarized. Finally, including the effects of interstitial fluid pressure into an angiogenic activity model is performed. This model displays the importance of factor convection on the angiogenic behaviour of tumours.


The present paper reviews two key merger decisions of the Irish Competition Authority (hereinafter 'Authority'). Unlike the majority of mergers notified to the Authority, both involved significant competition issues. Kerry/Breeo was the first case in which the Authority addressed the issue of efficiencies and was the first merger decision by the Authority to be appealed to the High Court, while Heineken/Scottish & Newcastle was the first case referred back to the Authority by the EU Commission. The paper argues that the Authority's economic analysis in both cases was highly unsatisfactory. The Authority appeared to place greater emphasis on qualitative rather than quantitative evidence, and several aspects of its analysis appear inconsistent with economic theory. The Authority's treatment of efficiencies in the Kerry case may discourage efficiency enhancing mergers. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations for improving the Authority's merger control procedures in light of these two cases. These include the introduction of more effective internal checks and balances, greater emphasis on quantitative methods, and clarification of the Authority's approach to efficiencies. It also suggests amending the legislation to provide a right for third parties to appeal merger decisions of the Authority.


The eastern expansion of the EU resembles German unification in its momentousness. Whereas the latter led to a 26% increase in the population of the Federal Republic, the former will increase the population of the EU by 28% if all ten entry aspirants are accepted. A special problem will be posed by migration. In view of the existing wage differences between eastern and western European countries, a massive westward migration can be expected after EU expansion. A temporary east-to-west migration up to the time that the eastern countries have created an efficient capital stock makes economic sense if it is driven by wage differences and meets with a flexible labour market. Migration does not make economic sense, however, if, and to the extent to which, it is induced by the current social assistance systems. Moreover, welfare-motivated migration would create competition among western European states to frighten off potential migrants, which would lead to an erosion of the traditional social welfare state. If the EU plan incorporated a limitation of the free movement of labour, the beneficial migration would also be stopped. A better solution would be to limit access to the western social systems, at least for a transitional period in order to filter out migration induced by differing social standards. An EU-wide application of the home-country principle in the granting of social benefits would achieve this goal.


The vitamin E analogs δ-tocotrienol (DT3) and γ-tocotrienol (GT3) have significant protective and mitigative capacity against the detrimental effects of ionizing radiation (IR). However, the expense of purification limits their potential use. This study examined the tocotrienol-rich fraction of rice bran (TRFRB) isolated from rice bran deodorizer distillate, a rice oil refinement waste product, to determine its protective effects against IR induced oxidative damage and H2O2. Several cell lines were treated with tocotrienols or TRFRB prior to or following exposure to H2O2 or IR. To determine the radioprotective capacity cells were analyzed for morphology, mitochondrial bioenergetics, clonogenic survival, glutathione oxidation, cell cycle, and migration rate. TRFRB displayed similar antioxidant activity compared to pure tocotrienols. Cells pretreated with TRFRB or DT3 exhibited preserved cell morphology and mitochondrial respiration when exposed to H2O2. Oxidized glutathione was decreased in TRFRB treated cells exposed to IR. TRFRB reversed mitochondrial uncoupling and protected cells migration rates following IR exposure. The protective antioxidant capacity of TRFRB treated cells against oxidative injury was similar to that of purified DT3. TRFRB effectively protects normal cells against IR induced injury suggesting that rice bran distillate may be an inexpensive and abundant alternate source.


Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA and p24 antigen concentrations were determined in plasma samples from 169 chronically infected patients (median CD4 cell count, 140 cells/microL; range, 0-1500 cells/microL). p24 quantification involved heat-mediated immune complex dissociation and tyramide signal amplification-boosted ELISA, which has a diagnostic sensitivity similar to that of RNA quantification by a commercial polymerase chain reaction kit. In Cox's proportional hazard models adjusted for CD4 cell count, both RNA (P<.005) and p24 (P=.043) levels were significant predictors of progression to AIDS. Measurement of p24 was superior to measurement of RNA in the model for survival (P=.032 vs. P=.19). p24 level was a significant predictor of CD4 cell decline in models adjusted for CD4 cell counts and was superior or equivalent to RNA level, depending on the group analyzed. Stratification by CD4 cell counts at baseline showed that the superiority of p24 measurement was more pronounced at lower levels of CD4 cells (<200/microL). p24 level may be of interest as a simple and inexpensive predictive marker of disease progression.


The research contained in this thesis describes three studies designed to investigate the ability of the observer to detect stimuli defined by changes in luminance in space and/or time in mesopic conditions, including contrast sensitivity, temporal flicker sensitivity and visual acuity.

The first two studies determined the effect of the aging of the retina on spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity at photopic and mesopic light levels. The literature states that older people experience losses of retinal neurons including rods, cones and ganglion cells. Furthermore, older people tend to have particular difficulties with vision at low light levels which can be attributed to greater loss of rods than cones, particularly at parafoveal eccentricities. Spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity was measured separately in two groups of participants, aged 20-73 (n=74) and 20-74 (n=80) years of age, respectively. Measures were taken to ensure that thresholds largely reflected age-related changes to the retina rather than the optics of the eye. Spectral content of the stimuli was restricted to the middle and long wavelength regions of the visual spectrum and the pupil was measured continuously so as to obtain participant-specific retinal illuminances for each condition. The HRindex was derived and calculated for each participant as a single number which summarized performance from photopic to mesopic light levels. As age increased both spatial and temporal contrast vision worsened and older participants showed particularly elevated thresholds at lower light levels when compared to younger participants. Spatial contrast thresholds show a steady linear decline with age, whereas temporal modulation thresholds were relatively stable up to 50 years of age and then demonstrated a rapid decline. These different trends of changes in performance with increasing age suggests that contrast and temporal HRindex may be measuring the aging of different retinal mechanisms. The normal limits of HRindex values were calculated which could be used in the future to detect abnormal performance.

A secondary aim of the first two studies was to determine if binocular summation of spatial and temporal contrast thresholds declined with age, while accounting for differences in retinal illuminance between monocular and binocular conditions. For spatial contrast vision, binocular summation declined significantly with age and 18% showed binocular inhibition. However, the binocular summation of flicker signals did not change significantly with age and only 1% of participants showed binocular inhibition. Interocular differences cannot explain our results.

The third study determined whether altering the scotopic/photopic luminous efficiency ratio could improve spatial acuity at mesopic light levels. This was achieved by altering the spectral power distribution of illuminating lights to increase the contribution of rods to vision at constant levels of photopic illumination. It was found that visual acuity at the fovea was improved by low levels of increased scotopic luminance, but peripheral acuity was improved by larger increases of scotopic luminance.

The three studies demonstrate that the detection of luminance defined stimuli can be compromised in a number of external conditions such as low light levels, as well as due to internal changes caused by aging to the optics of the eye, retina and/or the central visual system.


The Petroleum Resources Management System published in 2007 (PRMS-2007) is firmly established as the most widely used resource classification system in the oil and gas sector. It also provides the foundation and keystones for consistent application to petroleum resources of the United Nations Framework Classification for Fossil Energy and Mineral Reserves and Resources 2009 (UNFC-2009). UNFC-2009 is designed as a generic classification system for any commodity, with extremely broad potential application. It comprises a set of high level specifications (rules of application) which provide the necessary "umbrella" framework for consistent classification across all commodity types, while the relationship with PRMS-2007 ensures consistency for the petroleum commodity type. A similar arrangement, known as a bridging document, exists for solid minerals via the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO) Template and for nuclear fuel resources based on the classification system of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). UNFC-2009, supported by PRMS-2007 and the other bridged systems, now provides an excellent tool for comparing on a common basis all significant fossil energy projects. The design, flexibility and granularity of UNFC-2009 mean that its application can be broadened to encompass injection projects, and importantly the geological storage of CO2. While UNFC-2009 provides a tool for classifying and comparing fossil energy projects, there is currently no global classification system able to address the rapidly-expanding sector of renewable energies. The renewable energy industry has become a fully commercialized industry, in which some oil and gas Majors are starting to play a role. The development of a classification system for renewable energies is now required, and a project under the UN umbrella was started for that purpose in 2013. Such development draws on the only global multi-commodity classification system in existence, namely UNFC-2009, to ensure that all the existing knowledge and experience is used, while also achieving comparability of estimated future supplies from both renewable and fossil energy sources. This is where the three key principles behind UNFC-2009 will be of particular value to the renewable energy industry: the application of the proj ect concept to resource classification, the description of the technical & commercial maturities of this project as key attributes of the resource, and the adoption of a range of uncertainty in estimated recoverable quantities from that project. Generic specifications for the application of UNFC-2009 to renewable energies were developed over the last three years and are available. Commodity-specific specifications, related to the Generic specifications but addressing specific renewable energy commodities, are currently being developed. Geothermal-specific specifications were developed in 2015-16 and are available for public comments. Work on bioenergy-specific specifications is making good progress while a work group to develop solar-specific specifications is being initiated, to be followed by two more work groups addressing hydropower and wind, respectively. This paper will discuss how the key principles of UNFC-2009, hence PRMS-2007, are being applied to the development of renewable energy classification and why this is of relevance to the petroleum industry in building a sustainable energy mix for future generations.


Examination of the light output of discharge tubes, using the multiplier-type photo-tube in conjunction with a cathode-ray oscillograph, is suggested as a powerful aid to the usual electrical measurements in understanding the behavior of electrical discharges in gases. Exhaustive experiments of this type are under way, the preliminary results of which are reported in this paper. A striking characteristic of these results is the appearance of oscillations not only in the voltage and current, but particularly in the light intensity. These oscillations appear to be very general, and are not due to the external circuit used. They are only of a few percent magnitude in the case of the voltage and current, but often nearly 100 percent in the case of the light intensity. It seems certain that the theory of electrical discharges should in many cases be revised to take these oscillations into account.


This work is a study of the relationship between literature and social criticism in nineteenth century Latin America. More specifically, it is an analysis of the critique of power as it was conveyed by authors from Mexico, Brazil and Argentina through literary genres such as the drama, the short story, the chronicle, and the political satire. It argues that through an aesthetic correlation between certain literary forms (mainly, the tragedy and the animal fable) and morality, these authors exercised a critique of the hegemonic discourse on social and racial domination in their societies. Using the figures of the slave and of the animal, these literary texts were not only criticizing governments and social practices, but also deconstructing the old aristocratic ethics in which the Enlightenment had founded the very legitimation of the modern state. Taking the figures of the slave and the animal as structural and analytical axes, this dissertation is devoted to the reading of six works. In the first section ("Slaves") it deals with three dramas that, invoking the relationship between tragedy and ethics, are proposed as political interventions that deconstruct the figure of the master and its moral contradictions in three post- colonial national scenarios. Despite the fact that its authors belonged to the political elites of their countries, these plays, Mae (1860), by Jose de Alencar, Atar-Gull (1855), by Lucio V. Mansilla, and La venganza de la gleba (1906), by Federico Gamboa, are a unique access to the tensions and disarticulations within the national dominant ideologies of the times, and end upshowing how the figure of the slave was already necessary in Eurocentric discourse on legitimate ivpower and, ultimately, on the definition of the human. In the second section ("Fabulous Animals"), this dissertation analyses El gallo pitagorico (1842), by Juan Bautista Morales; Cuentos (1880), by Eduarda Mansilla, and chronicles and stories by Machado de Assis (c.1891- 1906). It argues that the talking animal in these texts (contrary to the norms of European fable) becomes a powerful vehicle for a moral critique that faces the discourse on humanism with its own failures and contradictions.


The retrieval of concentration vertical profiles of atmospheric constituents from spectroscopic measurements is often an ill-conditioned problem and regularization methods are frequently used to improve its stability. Recently a new method, that provides a good compromise between precision and vertical resolution, was proposed to determine analytically the value of the regularization parameter. This method is applied for the first time to real measurements with its implementation in the operational retrieval code of the satellite limb-emission measurements of the MIPAS instrument and its performances are quantitatively analyzed. The adopted regularization improves the stability of the retrieval providing smooth profiles without major degradation of the vertical resolution. In the analyzed measurements the retrieval procedure provides a vertical resolution that, in the troposphere and low stratosphere, is smaller than the vertical field of view of the instrument.


Abstract Nonlinear acceleration of a continuous finite element (CFE) discretization of the transport equation requires a modification of the transport solution in order to achieve local conservation, a condition used in nonlinear acceleration to define the stopping criterion. In this work we implement a coarse-mesh finite difference acceleration for a CFE discretization of the second-order self-adjoint angular flux (SAAF) form of the transport equation and use a postprocessing to enforce local conservation. Numerical results are given for one-group source calculations of one-dimensional slabs. We also give a novel formal derivation of the boundary conditions for the SAAF.


Meriwether Lewis and William Clark did not embark on their epic trek across the continent alone-dozens of men and eventually one woman accompanied them. The towering triumph of the Lewis and Clark expedition is due in no small part to the skill and fortitude of such men as Sgt. Charles Floyd, the only expedition member to die; Sgt. Patrick Gass, who lived until 1870, the last surviving member of the expedition; Sgt. Nathaniel Hale Pryor, husband to an Osage woman; and York, Clark's slave, who was freed after the expedition. The men who were instrumental to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition come to life in this volume. Through the aid of a detailed biographical roster and a composite diary of the expedition that highlights the roles and actions of the expedition's members, Charles G. Clarke affords readers precious glimpses of those who have long stood in the shadows of Lewis and Clark. Disagreements and achievements, ailments and addictions, and colorful personalities and daily tasks are all vividly rendered in these pages. The result is an unforgettable portrait of the corps of diverse characters who undertook a remarkable journey across the western half of the continent almost two hundred years ago.


Ambipolar semiconductors are attracting a great interest as building blocks for photovoltaics and logic applications. Field-effect transistors built on solution-processable ambipolar materials hold strong promise for the engineering of large-area low-cost logic circuits with a reduced number of devices components. Such devices still suffer from a number of obstacles including the challenging processing, the low Ion/Ioff, the unbalanced mobility, and the low gain in complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-like circuits. Here, we demonstrate that the simple approach of blending commercially available n- and p-type polymers such as P(NDI2OD-T2), P3HT, PCD-TPT, PDVT-8, and IIDDT-C3 can yield high-performing ambipolar field-effect transistors with balanced mobilities and Ion/Ioff > 107. Each single component was studied separately and upon blending by means of electrical characterization, ambient ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and grazing incidence wide angle X-ray scat...


We investigated antioxidant, antibacterial potentials and secondary metabolites of Chenopodium botrys aerial parts to rationalize its effectiveness in free radicals induced disorders and infectious diseases. Antioxidant activity of plant extracts were investigated using DPPH and ABTS free radicals scavenging assays. Antibacterial potential was studied using well diffusion method. Phytochemical analysis was performed for the presence of secondary metabolites. In DPPH assay chloroform fraction (CHF), ethyl acetate fraction (EAF) and n-hexane fraction (NHF) were most active causing average inhibition of 65.9, 59.2 and 55.9% at concentration of 1mg/ml with IC50 values of 140, 30 and 590 μgml respectively. EAF, CHF and aqueous fraction (AQF) revealed highest scavenging effect against ABTS free radicals causing 85.46, 82.73 and 68.80% inhibition with of IC50 of 75, 94 and 530 μg/ml respectively. In antibacterial assay, CHF was found most effective against S. aureus presenting an inhibitory zone of 19 mm whereas; EAF, CHF and NHF were most active against K. pneumoneae with inhibitory zones of 27.1 mm, 25.4 and 18.7 mm respectively. C. botrys was tested positive for flavonoids, anthraquinones, saponins and tannins. Current findings revealed that that C. botrys is rich source of natural antioxidant and antibacterial bioactive compounds and may be further investigated.


Internet coordinate schemes have been proposed as a method for estimating minimum round trip time between hosts without direct measurement. In such a scheme, each host is assigned a set of coordinates, and Euclidean distance is used to form the desired estimate. Two key questions are: How accurate are coordinate schemes across the Internet as a whole? And: are coordinate assignment schemes fast enough, and scalable enough, for large scale use? In this paper we make contributions toward answering both those questions. Whereas the coordinate assignment problem has in the past been approached by nonlinear optimization, we develop a faster method based on dimensionality reduction of the Lipschitz embedding. We show that this method is reasonably accurate, even when applied to measurements spanning the Internet, and that it naturally leads to a scalable measurement strategy based on the notion of virtual landmarks.


We propose a novel optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission, where the frequency spacing of subchannels is less than the symbol rate. We show experimentally that the novel OFDM transmission achieves an optical SNR (OSNR) sensitivity level and dispersion tolerance roughly equivalent to those of the conventional OFDM. We also show the influence of chromatic dispersion from the transmission channel on the OFDM signal. The chromatic dispersion causes a desynchronization of the symbol timing between subchannels and breaks the frequency orthogonality in OFDM. We confirm experimentally that it is possible to mitigate the signal degradation due to the chromatic dispersion by optimizing the symbol timing and orthogonally polarizing the subchannels to the neighboring subchannels.


This handbook chapter seeks to document the economic forces that led the US to become an urban nation over its two hundred year history. We show that the urban wage premium in the US was remarkably stable over the past two centuries, ranging between 15 and 40 percent, while the rent premium was more variable. The urban wage premium rose through the mid-nineteenth century as new manufacturing technologies enhanced urban productivity; then fell from 1880 to 1940 (especially through 1915) as investments in public health infrastructure improved the urban quality of life; and finally rose sharply after 1980, coinciding with the skill- (and apparently also urban-) biased technological change of the computer revolution. The second half of the chapter focuses instead on the location of workers and firms within metropolitan areas. Over the twentieth century, both households and employment have relocated from the central city to the suburban ring. The two forces emphasized in the monocentric city model, rising incomes and falling commuting costs, can explain much of this pattern, while urban crime and racial diversity also played a role.


Low socio-economic groups are typically difficult to recruit and retain in health research, which makes it difficult to investigate their health-related beliefs and behaviours. Low socio-economic parents with overweight or obese children took part in a longitudinal qualitative child obesity study over 12 months. These parents' views of and recommendations for appropriate recruitment and retention strategies are reported. Their interpretations and suggestions are considered in the light of the difficulties that were experienced in designing the study to meet their needs and the approaches that were found to be more effective in achieving and maintaining a viable study cohort. Relevant aspects of recruitment included remuneration, recruitment locations and the use of appropriate weight-related terminology. Retention factors included protocol flexibility, ongoing remuneration and learning opportunities. Barriers to ongoing participation are also discussed. Suggestions are provided for future qualitative research with low socio-economic families.


Objective To assess the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) on relieving stress-related symptoms—sleep disorders, anxiety, depression and burnout—in medical students. Methods Eighty-two students were randomised into an EA treatment group (n=30), a sham TENS group (n=18) and an untreated control group (n=34). EA was applied at a continuous frequency of 2 Hz to the limbs, face, ears and scalp for 20 min once a week, over 6–8 weeks. Sham transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) was performed on similar sites for the same number of times in each session and for the same length of time. Outcome measurements included a comparison of the indices obtained by different self-applied questionnaires before and after treatment. The surveys used were the Mini-Sleep Questionnaire (MSQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories (BDI and BAI) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory—Student Survey (MBI-SS), in addition to the Quality of Life Questionnaire—abbreviated version (WHOQOL-bref). Results EA significantly improved scores on the MSQ, PSQI, BDI and the cynicism and academic efficacy (AE) dimensions of the MBI-SS in relation to the control. Sleep quality (MSQ) improved from 36.9 (SD 7.6) to 25.0 (5.7) with EA, 37.6 (6.0) to 32.1 (6.9) with sham TENS, and 36.5 (5.9) to 33.6 (6.7) in the controls (p=0.0000). Compared with the sham TENS group, EA significantly reduced scores on the PSQI. Score improvements in the sham TENS group in relation to control group were significant in the MSQ, BDI and AE. In the EA group, the number of students with better scores after intervention was significantly higher for the MSQ, PSQI, ESS and BAI. This only occurred for the MSQ in the sham TENS group and for the MSQ and ESS in the control group. Conclusions EA significantly reduced stress-related mental symptoms. The improvement obtained by sham TENS compared with the control group confirmed the presence of a placebo effect resulting from the treatment ritual.


This document proposes an informal management model of Differentiated Services (Diffserv) routers for use in their management and configuration. This model defines functional datapath elements (e.g., classifiers, meters, actions, marking, absolute dropping, counting, multiplexing), algorithmic droppers, queues and schedulers. It describes possible configuration parameters for these elements and how they might be interconnected to realize the range of traffic conditioning and per-hop behavior (PHB) functionalities described in the Diffserv Architecture.


Large enterprises are confronted with an increased need to fully understand the IT systems that support their business applications. Unfortunately, conventional communication trace-based approaches to discovering IT infrastructure dependencies are insufficient to gain a comprehensive mapping of business applications to IT infrastructure. This paper describes BizMap, a novel, information-discovery-based approach for deriving accurate business application topologies. BizMap uses a combination of information management, data analysis, and interactive visualization techniques to rapidly develop accurate topology models based on discovered information and configuration experts' insight. BizMap's evaluation is based on a comparison of the topologies created by BizMap's automated topology discovery with manually derived topologies with respect to performance and accuracy. It also includes a discussion of the user validation of the interactive BizMap steps.


The redistribution of risk across social groups is an important aspect of risk analysis. This article argues for a more general concept of risk redistribution across any significant categorisation, however, not just social groups. This includes the redistribution of risk across different kinds of harm, different kinds of failure mode and so on. These redistributions are connected by the way in which they all somehow threaten coping capacities that are adapted to specific past distributions: for example redistributions across failure modes threaten technological and organisational risk controls, whereas redistributions across social groups can threaten notions of fairness and social order. The purpose of the study described here was to investigate this general concept of risk redistribution as a managerial problem. It involved interviews with regulatory and consultancy staff, predominantly in offshore, maritime and railroad operations. These indicated that redistribution was a ubiquitous outcome of activity – and not one confined to discontinuous changes in technology or organisation. Yet, the management of this redistribution was not strongly institutionalised. It was mostly not embodied as an important concept in regulations, codes and procedures and it was not a product of risk assessment processes. But there was a considerable sensitivity to how both technological change and the practice of risk management itself produced redistributions, and extensive efforts were often made to deal with them in the informal domain.


In this pilot study near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) neurofeedback was investigated as a new method for the treatment of Attention Deficit-/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Oxygenated hemoglobin in the prefrontal cortex of children with ADHD was measured and fed back. 12 sessions of NIRS-neurofeedback were compared to the intermediate outcome after 12 sessions of EEG-neurofeedback (slow cortical potentials, SCP) and 12 sessions of EMG-feedback (muscular activity of left and right musculus supraspinatus). The task was either to increase or decrease hemodynamic activity in the prefrontal cortex (NIRS), to produce positive or negative shifts of SCP (EEG) or to increase or decrease muscular activity (EMG). In each group nine children with ADHD, aged 7–10 years, took part. Changes in parents' ratings of ADHD symptoms were assessed before and after the 12 sessions and compared within and between groups. For the NIRS-group additional teachers' ratings of ADHD symptoms, parents' and teachers' ratings of associated behavioral symptoms, childrens' self reports on quality of life and a computer based attention task were conducted before, 4 weeks and 6 months after training. As primary outcome, ADHD symptoms decreased significantly 4 weeks and 6 months after the NIRS training, according to parents' ratings. In teachers' ratings of ADHD symptoms there was a significant reduction 4 weeks after the training. The performance in the computer based attention test improved significantly. Within-group comparisons after 12 sessions of NIRS-, EEG- and EMG-training revealed a significant reduction in ADHD symptoms in the NIRS-group and a trend for EEG- and EMG-groups. No significant differences for symptom reduction were found between the groups. Despite the limitations of small groups and the comparison of a completed with two uncompleted interventions, the results of this pilot study are promising. NIRS-neurofeedback could be a time-effective treatment for ADHD and an interesting new option to consider in the treatment of ADHD.


In this collaborative work seventeen international scholars use contemporary methodologies to address the ways in which we understand Gothic church buildings today. Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings discusses major monuments that have traditionally stood at the core of medieval art-historical studies: the cathedrals of Durham, Wells, Chartres, Reims, Poitiers, Strasbourg, and Naumburg, the abbey of Saint-Denis, and the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris. The contributors approach the subject from different specialties and methodologies within the field of art history, as well as from the disciplines of history, liturgical studies, and theology. Willibald Sauerl)nder's overview acknowledges that since the early nineteenth century scholars have been confronted with monuments that no longer perform their original functions. The moment of the creation of these great cages of stone, filled with images in metal, paint, glass, stone, and textiles, has passed as surely as Villon's 'snows of yesteryear.' Artistic intentions shifted continuously over the centuries as these great buildings were adapted to new situations, historical, cultural, and religious. Once the settings for complex and diversified rituals of religious, social, and political dimensions, the buildings today stand in a completely different time frame and are experienced by a different audience. This volume addresses the hermeneutics of the development of scholarship concerning the Gothic church, reviewing the variable, but largely exclusive, agendas from the early nineteenth century to the present, including those of Viollet-le-Duc, Lef|vre-Pontalis, M+le, Sedlmayr, Von Simson, Panofsky, Grodecki, and Bony. The conclusion is that there is no way to return to the original Gothic cathedral or the original audience. Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings reassesses the traditional canon through a new pluralism of approaches and presents the Gothic church as an intricate and complex living monument that has been evolving over eight centuries and more.


Cognitive radio networks suffer from dynamic interruptions from primary users. The joint congestion control and routing are tackled using stochastic control techniques. Centralized dynamic programming is applied for the primal optimization, which provides a performance upper bound. Q-learning is applied when the primary user knowledge is unknown. Dual optimization based decomposition is used to decentralize the stochastic control. A heuristic scheme based on the limited lookahead policy (LLP) and binary pricing is proposed to tackle the prohibitive difficulty in the dual optimization. Numerical simulation shows that the proposed algorithms achieve the optimal or near-optimal performance.


Towards the development of a systems biology-based risk assessment approach for environmental toxicants, including tobacco products in a systems toxicology setting such as the "21st Century Toxicology", we are building a series of computable biological network models specific to non-diseased pulmonary and cardiovascular cells/tissues which capture the molecular events that can be activated following exposure to environmental toxicants. Here we extend on previous work and report on the construction and evaluation of a mechanistic network model focused on DNA damage response and the four main cellular fates induced by stress: autophagy, apoptosis, necroptosis, and senescence. In total, the network consists of 34 sub-models containing 1052 unique nodes and 1538 unique edges which are supported by 1231 PubMed-referenced literature citations. Causal node-edge relationships are described using the Biological Expression Language (BEL), which allows for the semantic representation of life science relationships in a computable format. The Network is provided in .XGMML format and can be viewed using freely available network visualization software, such as Cytoscape.


Much work has been undertaken to demonstrate the advantages of analogue VLSI for implementing neural architectures. This paper attempts to address the issues concerning 'in-situ' learning with analogue VLSI multi-layer perceptron (MLP) networks. In particular, the authors propose that 'chip-in-the-loop' learning is, at the very least, necessary to overcome typical analogue process variations and the authors argue that MLPs containing analogue circuits with 8 bit precision can be successfully trained provided they have digital representations of the weights of at least 12 bits. The authors demonstrate that weight perturbation, with careful choice of the perturbation size, gives improved results over backpropagation, at the cost of increased training time. Indeed, the authors go on to show why weight perturbation is possibly the only sensible way to implement MLP 'on-chip' learning. The authors have designed a set of analogue VLSI chips specifically to see if their theoretical results on learning work in practice. Although these chips are experimental, it is their intention to use them to solve 'real world' problems which have relatively low input dimensionality, such as the task of speaker identification.


The paper defends everyday aesthetics against critiques inspired by Kant's distinction between the agreeable and the beautiful, such as that of Christopher Dowling. It does this by focusing on analysis of the concept of the pretty. Following Carolyn Korsmeyer and A. C. Bradley, I posit a continuum for the aesthetic, from the pretty to the beautiful and finally to the sublime. After giving a history of the concept of 'pretty,' I consider its largely gendered nature and the feminist issues this raises. I conclude by arguing that limiting aesthetics to art or to art plus nature ignores the continuity between everyday life and the arts first emphasized by John Dewey, and ignores the importance of aesthetic value in the parts of our lives not devoted to art.


The young tourism today is a phenomenon whose dynamics are little studied. The set of knowledge turns on specific areas, so we can conclude that the prospect of interdisciplinary studies can contribute to a thorough understanding of the problems of education and tourism, touching issues related to culture, tourism, territory and identity. This article comes from a qualitative research within the Research Institute in Tourism at the University of Paris 1, in partnership with the Center for the Improvement of Higher Education - CAPES. The goal was to understand the representations of young people and their social practices in tourist places of Paris, in order to grasp the contents can guide tourism in also improving the teaching / learning in relation to continuing education of teachers. The results, compared with the theory of advanced modernity (TMA) Guiddens (1991), suggest that the territory Parisian has a meaning assigned to it by young tourists where their practices are a reflection your travel project.


The greatest asset in any knowledge-based organization, such as a professional service firm (PSF), is the expertise of its professionals. In recent decades, most top-tier PSFs have focused on expertise specialization, creating narrowly defined practice areas and rewarding professionals for developing reputations in ever more precise niches. The collective expertise in such firms has thus become distributed across people, places and practice groups. Increasingly, however, the growing complexity and integrative nature of client issues demand that professionals collaborate with others throughout the firm (and often around the world) who have the complementary specialist expertise necessary to develop and serve clients. Further, the continuing globalization of business means that the clients of PSFs are demanding seamless, multinational service. Counsel must frequently collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries with far-off partners to ensure that work is aligned with the client's global strategy and accounts for country-specific issues. For example, a patent dispute in China might require lawyers in the United Kingdom to collaborate with litigators in Shanghai who not only are highly qualified in subject-matter competence, but also have a deep understanding of the language, culture and political ramifications of identifying, maintaining and protecting trademarks and overall brand strategy in the region. Many PSFs have therefore concluded that to gain or even maintain competitive advantage, accumulating star talent is no longer enough. Rather, in order to maximize the value and output of such individuals, their diverse and distributed knowledge must be integrated. By bringing together professionals with different bases of expertise, a collaborative approach to serving clients has the potential to develop more innovative outcomes that are customized to the specific needs of the client, thereby increasing satisfaction and repeat business. Moreover, as individuals in a firm bring together their distinct expertise and knowledge to form innovative solutions, they may create entirely new types of services that can attract new clients. Some of the very drivers that are forcing firms toward a more collaborative client-service approach, however, are the same factors that make collaboration increasingly difficult. Collaboration involves knowledge and expertise sharing, introducing colleagues to one's own clients, and working across structural and interpersonal barriers to pitch work and serve clients. Such collaboration requires trust – both a deep respect for a colleague's competence ("I trust you not to make a blunder") and a belief in his integrity ("I trust you won't undermine my relationship with my client"). My research shows that when people face high performance pressure – the sort of high-stakes client situation where it is most vital to access and use the firm's best experts – collaboration becomes harder because professionals tend to become risk averse and may attempt to exert control by limiting access to their client. Ironically, collaboration suffers just when it should be most beneficial. Section 2 of this chapter explores the challenges of collaboration in today's legal environment.By developing and leveraging a well-honed collaborative capability, PSFs can work efficiently and effectively across knowledge gaps, enabling them to perform the complex, multidisciplinary work that their clients increasingly demand. My research demonstrates how collaboration benefits not only the firm, but also the individual lawyers who work jointly with other partners to serve and develop clients. Section 3 of this chapter focuses on the outcomes of collaboration.If the benefits of collaboration make it worthwhile to invest in overcoming the challenges, the question becomes, "How do we achieve greater collaboration?" My research has investigated not only best practices of firms with a long-standing tradition of collaboration, but also other firms' transitions from highly individualistic to more collaborative working. Section 4 of this chapter provides specific steps that law firms, their formal leaders and individual lawyers can take to lay foundations for enhanced collaboration.


Introduction: Nowadays, bariatric surgery is considered to be the most effective technique in the treatment of morbid obesity. In the current study, the effect of Laparoscopic Gastric Plication (LGP), a new technique, on the serum protein profile of obese patients has been investigated following surgery. Materials and Methods: Serum of 16 obese subjects with mean body mass index (BMI) of 41.2±5.3 kg/m2, who underwent LGP was investigated before surgery and at two timepoints post-surgery (T1-1 to 2 months after surgery and T2-4 to 5 months after surgery). Peptide mixtures prepared using Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) membrane and trypsin enzyme were analyzed by Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Results: In the present study 157 proteins were quantified, and twenty-four proteins showed statistically significant different levels at T1 post-surgery, using paired two -sample t-test (adjusted pvalue<0.05); of these, levels of 12 increased, while those of 12 decreased. At T2 post-surgery, 16 proteins were differentially regulated (adjusted p-value<0.05), 10 upregulated proteins and 6 downregulated proteins. Conclusion: Due to the significant effect of bariatric surgery on the protein profile of patients, it is possible to study the impact of effective factors on the identified biomarkers and find a new strategy for obesity treatment in the future.


Using a discrete dynamical system model for a networked social system, we consider the problem of learning a class of local interaction functions in such networks. Our focus is on learning local functions which are based on pairwise disjoint coalitions formed from the neighborhood of each node. Our work considers both active query and PAC learning models. We establish bounds on the number of queries needed to learn the local functions under both models. We also establish a complexity result regarding efficient consistent learners for such functions. Our experimental results on synthetic and real social networks demonstrate how the number of queries depends on the structure of the underlying network and number