Universal design for learning (UDL) offers an educational framework for a college instructor that can maximize the design and delivery of course instruction by emphasizing multiple representations of materials, varied means for student expression, content and knowledge, and multiple ways to motivate and engage student learning. Through a UDL lens, learner variability is anticipated and considered as a strength in the instructional planning process. The present study examined the reflective practice of one faculty member as she applied the UDL framework to her graduate class. Study participants were engaged in action research that both explored the faculty's use of the UDL framework to design and deliver an introductory graduate research methods course and, student perspectives of the application of this approach. Both faculty and student responses were favorable towards the implementation of the UDL instructional practice. Results suggest that when faculty use the UDL framework to help design courses, goals are more clearly aligned with instructional practices; there is a positive relationship to student interest and engagement; and students are positively engaged in the course.


In January 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued new regulations that are intended to preempt a broad range of state laws from applying to national banks and their operating subsidiaries. The OCC's rules declare that state laws are preempted if they obstruct, impair, or condition a national bank's ability to fully exercise its federally-authorized powers, either directly or through operating subsidiaries. According to the OCC, state laws apply to national banks only to the extent that state laws provide the legal infrastructure that makes it practicable for national banks to do business. The OCC's new rules are also designed to prevent state officials from suing in federal or state courts to enforce state laws against national banks or their operating subsidiaries. The practical effect of the OCC's new rules is to create a regime of de facto field preemption for national banks and their operating subsidiaries. This article contends that the OCC's rules are contrary to decisions of the Supreme Court and the intent of Congress. The Supreme Court and Congress have generally upheld the application of state laws to national banks, except in situations where state laws prevent or significantly interfere with the exercise of congressionally-authorized powers by national banks. During the past century, Congress has preserved the dual banking system by maintaining a competitive equilibrium between national and state banks in the most important areas of banking operations. The OCC's new rules conflict with congressional intent and threaten to disrupt the competitive balance that has long existed between national and state banks. The OCC has declared that national banks are exempt from state laws dealing with consumer protection, fair lending, and other areas regulated by the states under their historic police powers. Unless the OCC's rules are overturned by Congress or the courts, large state-chartered banks with interstate branches are likely to convert to national charters so that they, too, can obtain the blanket immunity from state regulation offered by the OCC. Over time, the state banking system will probably be reduced to a group composed primarily of smaller, community-oriented banks, and the national banking system will be increasingly dominated by large multistate banks. Even if the state system can survive as a chartering authority for community banks, there will no longer be a meaningful chartering option for most banks. Such an outcome will destroy, or at least severely weaken, the dual banking system's current incentives for regulatory innovation, responsiveness and flexibility. Federal and state courts have upheld the authority of state officials (i) to obtain judicial remedies to stop violations of state laws by national banks, and (ii) to bring administrative or judicial proceedings to enforce state laws against state-chartered providers of financial services. State enforcement has proven to be an effective and necessary supplement to federal efforts to protect consumers against illegal, fraudulent or unfair conduct by consumer lenders, securities firms, and mutual funds. Large national banks and their affiliates have been involved in abusive practices in all three areas. The OCC's rules, however, bar the states from continuing to license, examine or otherwise regulate state-chartered corporations that are operating subsidiaries of national banks. In doing so, the OCC's rules ignore fundamental principles of corporate separation and vastly expand federal control over state-chartered corporations, thereby eroding the states' historic primacy in corporate regulation. Public policy does not favor entrusting the OCC with sole authority to enforce fair lending statutes and other consumer protection laws against national banks and their operating subsidiaries. Large national banks and their affiliates have become dominant competitors in today's financial marketplace. Virtually the entire OCC budget is funded by fees and assessments paid by national banks. The OCC therefore acted with an obvious self-interest in issuing preemption rules that encourage large multistate banks to operate under national charters. During the past decade, the OCC has not initiated a single public prosecution of a major national bank for violating a consumer protection law. The OCC's unimpressive enforcement record is, unfortunately, consistent with its strong budgetary interest in maintaining the loyalty of leading national banks. Because the OCC issued its preemption rules to build its regulatory empire and please its largest regulated constituents, the courts should refuse to give deference to the rules and Congress should override them.


Before Raymond Chandler, before Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie, there was Metta Fuller Victor, the first American author—man or woman—of a full-length detective novel. This novel, The Dead Letter , is presented here along with another of Victor's mysteries, The Figure Eight . Both written in the 1860s and published under the name Seeley Regester, these novels show how—by combining conventions of the mystery form first developed by Edgar Allan Poe with those of the domestic novel—Victor pioneered the domestic detective story and paved the way for generations of writers to follow.

In The Dead Letter , Henry Moreland is killed by a single stab to the back. Against a background of post–Civil War politics, Richard Redfield, a young attorney, helps Burton, a legendary New York City detective, unravel the crime. In The Figure Eight, Joe Meredith undertakes a series of adventures and assumes a number of disguises to solve the mystery of the murder of his uncle and regain the lost fortune of his angelic cousin.


Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, faces huge traffic congestion, the cost of which is estimated to be more than 2 percent of the city's gross regional product. Effective policies are needed, based on weighing their overall economic cost and benefit to society. This study developed an empirical model based on microeconomic theory, accounting for production and consumption behavior related to transportation in the Greater Beirut Area, to simulate various policy combinations. A key finding of the study is that individual supply-side policies, such as the expansion of roads or introduction of a bus rapid transit system, are quite effective at reducing traffic congestion while increasing economic output and welfare. They also account for most of the benefits from implementing policy packages with supply- and demand-side measures. The introduction of bus rapid transit with expansion of the road system to feed the bus rapid transit system reduces congestion by about 16 percent and congestion costs by more than 50 percent. This would increase Beirut's gross regional product by roughly 2 percent, and the average social welfare of the residents of Beirut by 4 percent. In contrast, demand-side instruments, implemented alone, lower gross regional product and welfare with limited effects on congestion.


Water resources management is increasingly important for sustainable economic and social development. A coherent division of the development stages is of primary importance for selecting and implementing related water resource management strategies. Using evolving supply–demand relationships, this paper proposes a framework that considers water development stages to present a series of dynamic relationships between water demand changes and overall economic development. The framework is applied to China to advance the understanding of how demand evolves at different stages of water resources development under specific socioeconomic circumstances, and of strategic choices in general. The case of China explains how water resources management has gradually improved during distinct socioeconomic development stages. It illustrates the varieties and effectiveness of water policies made to adapt to changing demand over the course of socioeconomic development. The framework can be potentially applied to other countries or regions to identify the development stage in order to select proper water management strategies.


S.C. Lindstrom and L.A. Hanic. 2005. The phylogeny of North American Urospora (Ulotrichales, Chlorophyta) based on sequence analysis of nuclear ribosomal genes, introns and spacers. Phycologia 44: 194–201. Amplification of the ribosomal cistron of Urospora isolates from within the 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene through the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and 5.8S regions into the 28S rRNA gene produced fragments of varying lengths. The lengths depended on the absence or presence of up to three group I introns, located at positions 943, 989 and 1512 of the 18S rRNA gene (positions based on the Escherichia coli sequence). The 943 and 1512 introns belong to subgroup IC1 and the 989 intron to subgroup IE. Introns occurred in all species except U. penicilliformis. Intron sequence data and phylogenetic analyses based on the intron sequences supported recognition of the same species groups as the ITS data and helped resolve relationships between the species. Urospora penicilliformis, U. wormskioldii and two undescribed taxa ('Aberdeen' and 'Viking') occurred in one clade, and U. neglecta in a separate clade. Pacific U. neglecta differed from Atlantic U. neglecta in both intron sequence and occurrence. The 18S rRNA gene sequences (excluding the introns) were identical in all species except for one autapomorphy each in U. neglecta, U. wormskioldii, Aberdeen and Viking and one synapomorphy in U. neglecta, U. penicilliformis and Viking. Comparisons of this gene with other ulvophycean taxa support the placement of Urospora in the Acrosiphoniaceae, order Ulotrichales. The uninucleate genus Chlorothrix rather than the multinucleate Acrosiphonia is the genus closest to Urospora.


This study presents bibliometric data to compare the growth of research between Sustainability, Sustainable, and Circular Economy. Thus, a bibliometric study was carried out from 2009 to 2017 using Web of Science and Scopus, broadening the understanding about the subject and understanding that there is a particular orientation of these studies for European research on the subject. Another critical fact in this research was the disagreement between the two bases concerning the leading authors and most cited articles, having no agreement between the bases, being this an essential gap for research. This article presents a demonstration of how research in Sustainability, Sustainable and Circular Economy has been treated, with a specific commitment of European productions (Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Belgium, followed by North American productions, resulting in gaps in the literature, and even in the market, and may arouse interest in further research in the area. This article brings a critical contribution to the thought that there is a gap and an opportunity to be explored. From this article, we obtained the search results in the Web of Science and Scopus databases in order to compare their Sustainability, Sustainable, and Circular Economy development. Key-Words: Bibliometrics; Circular Economy; Sustainability; Sustainable.


Accurate software cost estimation is a vital task that affects the firm's software investment decisions before committing required resources to that project or bidding for a contract. This study proposes an improved Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) approach integrated with multi-agent technology to retrieve similar projects from multi-organizational distributed datasets. The study explores the possibility of building a software cost estimation model by collecting software cost data from distributed predefined project cost databases. The model applying CBR method to find similar projects in historical data derived from measured software projects developed by different organizations.


Sexual selection is a powerful and ubiquitous force in sexual populations. It has recently been argued that sexual selection can eliminate the twofold cost of sex even with low genomic mutation rates. By means of differential male mating success, deleterious mutations in males become more deleterious than in females, and it has been shown that sexual selection can drastically reduce the mutational load in a sexual population, with or without any form of epistasis. However, any mechanism that claims to maintain sexual reproduction must be able to prevent the fixation of an asexual mutant clone with a twofold fitness advantage. Here, I show that despite very strong sexual selection, the fixation of an asexual mutant cannot be prevented under reasonable genomic mutation rates. Sexual selection can have a strong effect on the average mutational load in a sexual population, but as it cannot prevent the fixation of an asexual mutant, it is unlikely to play a key role on the maintenance of sexual reproduction.


Geographic body-size variation characterises many mammal species. Hypotheses centring around heat conservation, heat dissipation, primary productivity and seasonality have been advanced to explain geographic body-size patterns. However, identification of the primary body-size drivers has often been hampered by a paucity of data for broadly distributed species and the application of regression models that have not explicitly accounted for the spatial clustering inherent in such datasets. We used Australia's most widespread marsupial, the common brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula, as a model species with which to test five proposed drivers of geographic body-size variation. Using geo-referenced skull measurements from 588 specimens and a suite of putative environmental covariates, we employed spatial simultaneous autoregressive models, together with information criteria, to evaluate these different hypotheses. Our analysis identified a strong, positive relationship between possum body size and primary productivity during the least productive season, whereas the relationship with mean annual productivity received less support. Consistent with the heat-dissipation hypothesis, T. vulpecula body size also decreased with increasing mean summer maximum temperature. Spatial autoregression coefficients estimated from the simultaneous autoregressive models were always high, suggesting that additional abiotic or biotic factors might contribute to the spatial patterns observed. We argue that the analysis of geographic body-size variation should consider multi-causal possibilities rather than treating the numerous hypotheses as competing, mutually exclusive alternatives.


The aim of the study was to compare sexual functioning among Malaysian women in a primary care setting between those with a low and high frequency sexual intercourse.Across-sectional study on 230 married Malaysian women in a primary-care setting was conducted at the Bandar Tun Razak Clinic, Cheras. A validated Malay version of Female Sexual Function Index questionnaire (MVFSFI) was used to assess the sexual functioning profiles among women with low and high sexual activity. The percentage of women who had sexual intercourse 3-4 times a week, 1-2 times a week and < 1-2 times a month were 13.4%, 44.3 % and 42.4 % respectively. Women with a low frequency of sexual intercourse (Low SI) tended to suffer from more sexual dysfunction, (χ²=28.98, p < 0.001) compared to those with a high frequency of sexual intercourse (High SI) group. Women who were less sexually active (having low frequency intercourse, ie. ≤ 1 – 2 times per week) were found to be less sexually aroused (χ²= 25.9, p< 0.001), less orgasmic (χ²=19.8, p< 0.001), less lubricated during sexual activity (χ²=11.1, p< 0.001), complain of sexual pain (χ²=4.3, p = 0.033) and feels less satisfied sexually (χ²=12.6, p< 0.001).The problem of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) in the Malaysian primary care population with low sexual activity needs to be addressed


A mobile Rayleigh Doppler wind LIDAR at an eye-safe wavelength of 355 nm incorporating double-edge technique with triple-channel Fabry-Perot etalon is developed for wind measurement from 5 to 40km. The structure of this LIDAR system is described. An intercomparsion experiment with rawinsonde is made, showing good agreement with expected measurement accuracy. A continuous observation of stratosphere wind field for several days with temporal resolution of 15 min and spatial resolution of 200 m from 5 to 40 km is presented, demonstrating the stability and robustness of the LIDAR. A stratospheric quasi-zero wind layer can be found at around 20 km with a direction change from east to west evident in the continuous observation.


When s 15AB of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) was enacted over 30 years ago, its purpose was to establish clear and particular rules about when extrinsic materials could be used in the interpretation of Commonwealth legislation. Accordingly, s 15AB stipulates three threshold tests, at least one of which must be satisfied before extrinsic materials can be considered as an aid to interpretation. However, developments in the common law since that enactment have largely overtaken the utility and effect of s 15AB (and its State equivalents). In particular, the development of the 'contextual' approach to statutory interpretation has meant that the common law now permits recourse to extrinsic materials, including parliamentary ones, without the need to pass any gateway test. Consequently, the important emerging issue is, not when such materials can be considered, but how they may be used. This article, using recent High Court cases, examines some of the key threads that have emerged about the 'appropriate use' of parliamentary materials, particularly with respect to identifying the purpose of the statute and as against the weight of the statutory text.


Hyper-heuristic approaches aim to automate heuristic design in order to solve multiple problems instead of designing tailor-made methodologies for individual problems. Hyper-heuristics accomplish this through a high-level heuristic (heuristic selection mechanism and an acceptance criterion). This automates heuristic selection, deciding whether to accept or reject the returned solution. The fact that different problems, or even instances, have different landscape structures and complexity, the design of efficient high-level heuristics can have a dramatic impact on hyper-heuristic performance. In this paper, instead of using human knowledge to design the high-level heuristic, we propose a gene expression programming algorithm to automatically generate, during the instance-solving process, the high-level heuristic of the hyper-heuristic framework. The generated heuristic takes information (such as the quality of the generated solution and the improvement made) from the current problem state as input and decides which low-level heuristic should be selected and the acceptance or rejection of the resultant solution. The benefit of this framework is the ability to generate, for each instance, different high-level heuristics during the problem-solving process. Furthermore, in order to maintain solution diversity, we utilize a memory mechanism that contains a population of both high-quality and diverse solutions that is updated during the problem-solving process. The generality of the proposed hyper-heuristic is validated against six well-known combinatorial optimization problems, with very different landscapes, provided by the HyFlex software. Empirical results, comparing the proposed hyper-heuristic with state-of-the-art hyper-heuristics, conclude that the proposed hyper-heuristic generalizes well across all domains and achieves competitive, if not superior, results for several instances on all domains.


In Thailand, various preventive measures have been implemented to control and minimize the volume of road traffic accidents (RTAs). However, the country still faces varying degrees of success in curbing the incidence of RTAs, which has devastating consequences to the Thai economy. Since there are many factors related to the density of RTAs, this study examines the density according to three main causes-humans, the environment, and vehicles-relative to the provincial economic status in Thailand. A time-series cross-sectional design was employed. Descriptive statistics, Spearman's rank correlation, and the concentration index (CI) were used to measure the degree of inequitable distribution of RTAs relative to the provincial economic levels. The cumulative proportion of accidents was measured against the cumulative proportion of provinces ranked by the gross provincial product per capita. A negative value from CI-RTAs indicated a disproportional accumulation of RTAs among the poor. In contrast, apositive value reflected a disproportional concentration of RTAs among the well-off populations. Since 2006, human causes of RTAs (such as driving while under the influence of alcohol and violation of traffic rules) were the main contribution to RTAs. The RTAs were concentrated among the well-off provinces during 2006-2013, as reflected by positive indices and positive CI-RTAs were stronger for human-caused RTAs. Since 2014, the total in cidence of RTAs was higher among the less well-off provinces (negative CI-RTAs). The shifting trend of CI-RTAs from among the affluent to the less affluent provinces provided insightful information for policymakers and implementation in the Thai public health arena. However, the statistical significance of the associations between RTAs and economic status was observed only in the early years of the investigation. The reasons behind the varying degree of statistical significance in the association should be investigated further. Additional studies on CIs and RTAs, which could help inform policymakers and academics regarding the prioritization and optimization of RTA preventive measures of each individual area, are recommended.


Fossil wood from the poorly dated (Jurassic–Cretaceous?) continental sediments of the Khorat Group, northeastern Thailand (Isan) is described. The Khorat Group is widely distributed (Laos, Cambodia and Thailand) and, despite its poorly known age, stratigraphy and palaeoecology, is of importance in understanding the Sibumasu–Indochina collision. The systematics of wood assemblage and palaeobiogeographical analysis reveal strong relationships with Indochina, especially Vietnam, and suggest an age in the range Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. According to wood taphonomy, the corresponding trees grew alongside streams under a rather arid climate, although this became wetter during the deposition of the upper formations of the Khorat Group.


Ensemble-based systems are software-intensive systems consisting of large numbers of components which can dynamically form goal-oriented communication groups. The goal of an ensemble is usually achieved through interaction of some components, but the contributing components may simultaneously participate in several collaborations. With standard component-based techniques, such systems can only be described by a complex model specifying all ensembles and participants at the same time. Thus, ensemble-based systems lack a development methodology which particularly addresses the dynamic formation and concurrency of ensembles as well as transparency of participants. This thesis proposes the Helena development methodology. It slices an ensemblebased system in two dimensions: Each kind of ensemble is considered separately. This allows the developer to focus on the relevant parts of the system only and abstract away those parts which are non-essential to the current ensemble. Furthermore, an ensemble itself is not de ned solely in terms of participating components, but in terms of roles which components adopt in that ensemble. A role is the logical entity needed to contribute to the ensemble while a component provides the technical functionalities to actually execute a role. By simultaneously adopting several roles, a component can concurrently participate in several ensembles. Helena addresses the particular challenges of ensemble-based systems in the main development phases: The domain of an ensemble-based system is described as an ensemble structure of roles built on top of a component-based platform. Based on the ensemble structure, the goals of ensembles are speci ed as linear temporal logic formulae. With these goals in mind, the dynamic behavior of the system is designed as a set of role behaviors. To show that the ensemble participants actually achieve the global goals of the ensemble by collaboratively executing the speci ed behaviors, the Helena model is veri ed against its goals with the model-checker Spin. For that, we provide a translation of Helena models to Promela, the input language of Spin, which is proven semantically correct for a kernel part of Helena. Finally, we provide the Java framework jHelena which realizes all Helena concepts in Java. By implementing a Helena model with this framework, Helena models can be executed according to the formal Helena semantics. To support all activities of the Helena development methodology, we provide the Helena workbench as a tool for speci cation and automated veri cation and code generation. The general applicability of Helena is backed by a case study of a larger software system, the Science Cloud Platform. Helena is able to capture, verify and implement the main characteristics of the system. Looking at Helena from a di erent angle shows that the Helena idea of roles is also well-suited to realize adaptive systems changing their behavioral modes based on perceptions. We extend the Helena development methodology to adaptive systems and illustrate its applicability at an adaptive robotic search-and-rescue example.


The tumor suppressor gene MEN1 is frequently mutated in sporadic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNET) and is responsible for the familial multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN-1) cancer syndrome. Menin, the protein product of MEN1, associates with the histone methyltransferases (HMT) MLL1 (KMT2A) and MLL4 (KMT2B) to form menin–HMT complexes in both human and mouse model systems. To elucidate the role of methylation of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3K4) mediated by menin–HMT complexes during PanNET formation, genome-wide histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) signals were mapped in pancreatic islets using unbiased chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq). Integrative analysis of gene expression profiles and histone H3K4me3 levels identified a number of transcripts and target genes dependent on menin. In the absence of Men1, histone H3K27me3 levels are enriched, with a concomitant decrease in H3K4me3 within the promoters of these target genes. In particular, expression of the insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2) gene is subject to dynamic epigenetic regulation by Men1-dependent histone modification in a time-dependent manner. Decreased expression of IGF2BP2 in Men1-deficient hyperplastic pancreatic islets is partially reversed by ablation of RBP2 (KDM5A), a histone H3K4-specific demethylase of the jumonji, AT-rich interactive domain 1 (JARID1) family. Taken together, these data demonstrate that loss of Men1 in pancreatic islet cells alters the epigenetic landscape of its target genes. Implications: Epigenetic profiling and gene expression analysis in Men1-deficient pancreatic islet cells reveals vital insight into the molecular events that occur during the progression of pancreatic islet tumorigenesis. Mol Cancer Res; 13(4); 689–98. ©2014 AACR.


The CHI conference has grown rapidly over the last 26 years. We present a quantitative analysis on the countries and organizations that contribute to its success. Only 7.8 percent of the countries are responsible for 80 percent of the papers in the CHI proceedings, and the USA is clearly the country with most papers. But the success of a country or organization does not depend only on the number of accepted papers, but also on their quality. We present a ranking of countries and organizations based on the h index, an indicator that tries to balance the quantity and quality of scientific output based on a bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric analysis also allowed us to demonstrate the difficulty of judging quality. The papers acknowledged by the best paper award committee were not cited more often than a random sample of papers from the same years. The merit of the award is therefore unclear, and it might be worthwhile to allow the visitor to the conference to vote for the best paper.


This paper models policy responses to changes in solvency by Dutch occupational pension funds using a unique panel dataset containing the balance sheets of all registered pension funds in the Netherlands over a period of 15 years (1993–2007). The model describes how nominal pension rights are expanded, by e.g. indexation or backservice, or, on the contrary, how the current pension accumulation is skimmed, e.g. by setting the pension premium over its actuarially fair price to build buffers. Policy responses are explained by the funding ratio and other pension fund characteristics such as pension funds´ size and type, and participants' ages. We find that pension rights are expanded in line with the funding ratio, but that the pension funds' response function exhibits two sharp and significant behavioural breaks, close to the minimum funding ratio of 105% and the target ratio of around 125%. These levels also play a pivotal role in current supervisory regulation. We further find that large pension funds and grey funds are relatively generous to participants.


It's an exciting life - full of fast cars, money, and travel. The names of Formula One champions are known all over the world. And everywhere young drivers dream of success one day in Monaco, Melbourne, Monza... But it is a difficult life too. Drivers need strong bodies - and minds. They need to think quickly, drive hard, and sometimes look death in the face. This is the dangerous, exciting world of Formula One - where the world's best drivers have only seconds to win or lose a race. (Word count 10,645)


Despite that ships get the approval of classification societies and structural members are designed to survive random environmental conditions for twenty or twenty-five years, fatigue crack damage still occurs. Nowadays, the operation based on weather routing programs has become important, not only to avoid adverse sea conditions that can cause damage, time loss or significant speed reduction but also to improve the crew safety. In this paper, S-N based fatigue assessment of a welded joint in an ocean going is performed. It is assumed that the ship sails following a planned route and a route based on weather conditions. Short sea sequences are generated by a storm model called "4G Storm Model", proposed by one of the co-authors (De Gracia et al., 2017). Stress histories are generated considering the stochastical nature of the wave direction variation. Cumulative fatigue damage is performed following a classification society rule. Based on these results, the effect of ship routing and headings model on the S-N fatigue assessment is discussed. Keywords: Weather routing, fatigue, cumulative damage, storm model, wave sequence model.


Archaeology's ability to generate long-term datasets of natural and human landscape change positions the discipline as an inter-disciplinary bridge between the social and natural sciences. Using a multi-proxy approach combining archaeological data with palaeoenvironmental indicators embedded in coastal sediments, we outline millennial timescales of lowland landscape evolution in the Society Islands. Geomorphic and cultural histories for four coastal zones on Mo'orea are reconstructed based on stratigraphic records, sedimentology, pollen analysis, and radiocarbon determinations from mid- to late Holocene contexts. Prehuman records of the island's flora and fauna are described utilizing landsnail, insect, and botanical data, providing a palaeo-backdrop for later anthropogenic change. Several environmental processes, including sea level change, island subsidence, and anthropogenic alterations, leading to changes in sedimentary budget have operated on Mo'orea coastlines from c. 4600 to 200 BP. We document significant transformation of littoral and lowland zones which obscured earlier human activities and created significant changes in vegetation and other biota. Beginning as early as 440 BP (1416–1490 cal. ad), a major phase of sedimentary deposition commenced which can only be attributed to anthropogenic effects. At several sites, between 1.8 and 3.0 m of terrigenous sediments accumulated within a span of two to three centuries due to active slope erosion and deposition on the coastal flats. This phase correlates with the period of major inland expansion of Polynesian occupation and intensive agriculture on the island, indicated by the presence of charcoal throughout the sediments, including wood charcoal from several economically important tree species.


New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world . There are many ambiguities around the risk factors and life events preceding a suicide attempt or completion , despite the vast amount of research done in this area. Clinical psychologists have the ability to add a wealth of knowledge on this topic, and surprisingly there has been little research done with this group. wanted to find out directly from clinical psychologists about their experiences of working with youth who have attempted or completed suicide. I also wanted the opportunity to explore, from a clinical psychologists' perspective, the questions surrounding prevention and treatment programme efficacy. These topics and ideas are considered to be complex and controversial. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to investigate detailed reports of youth suicide from eight participants. Three master themes emerged from the analysis , those being "Client Actions", "Social and Cultural World " and "Psychological Person", as the central features of the phenomenology of suicide. Suicide is often explained in statistical terms, and an extensive amount of research has found many risk factors pertaining to youth suicide. However, the present study found that statistics cannot fully grasp the phenomenon of suicide, and participants were unable to meaningfully relate to suicide in this way. Findings in this study also suggest that one of the biggest gaps in the research is around the psychosocial aspects of youth suicide, particularly the sociocultural specificities of New Zealand youth . More training and research around these areas is recommended , along with inclusion of family in the treatment of youth suicide and mental illness.


Energy supply and security is a topic that connects geoscience and ethics to economic, social and sustainable development. It also involves a wide range of interests and social actors, such as politicians, experts, industry, environmental NGO and citizen organizations and platforms. The fossil fuel extraction industry using hydraulic fracturing, and commonly known as fracking, is one of the most recent and controversial issues arising from the application of energy technologies in North America, South America and Europe. This paper examines the public debate in Spain on the topic of fracking from a multi-level and complementary perspective, based on data collected during 2012-2016 by exploring the development of public policies at national and regional levels, monitoring public perception through a survey, and analyzing the media content. From the theoretical frameworks of social amplification of risk and post-materialist values, a content analysis was applied to assess the relevance and the social, cultural and human values distributed by the press when dealing with fracking in Spain. Our results concerning public policies show that there are different positions on the matter between national and regional authorities, even if both authorities belong to the same political party. Regarding social perception, almost 60 per cent of Spaniards have admitted to having no opinion about fracking. Finally, media discourse has been driven by pessimistic views, focused mainly on cost-benefit analysis and emphasizing how human health, natural resources and local communities might be negatively affected by fracking activities.


During the last century,materials use increased 8-fold and as a result humanity currently uses almost 60 billion tons of materials per year. The construction industry alone consumesmore rawmaterials than any other economic activity. However, research on construction materials still is excessively focused on their mechanical properties with minor concerns regarding environmental considerations and energy saving measures. By starting to focus attention on indoor air quality,water and energy efficiency and environmentally sound materials in particular eco friendly glasses,wewillmake an impact on our life and the world in which we live. Photo catalysis has recently become a common word and various products using photo catalytic functions have been commercialized. Among many candidates for photo catalysts, TiO2 is almost the onlymaterial suitable for industrial use at present and also probably in the future. This is because TiO2 has the most efficient photo activity, the highest stability and the lowest cost. This paper provides some insights on future construction materials which are essential for the rational design and reproducible construction of bio-inspired multifunctional self-cleaning surfaces in practical applications.


Abstract This study evaluated egg production and quality variables of caged and free‐range Hy‐Line Brown laying hens fed soybean meal (SBM) and soybean‐meal‐free (SBMF) diets. Hens were randomly assigned to the same 2 dietary treatments within 3 location blocks. SBM and SBMF diets with equivalent calculated nutrient content were prepared based on Hy‐Line Brown rearing guidelines. The SBMF diets utilized cottonseed meal, corn distillers dried grains with solubles, corn gluten meal, and wheat middlings in place of dehulled soybean meal. The experiment was conducted between August 2015 and January of 2016 within the TAMU Poultry Research Center and data analyzed over 6 consecutive 28‐day periods. Data were analyzed as a split‐plot with rearing systems designated whole plots and diets designated as subplots. Hens reared in the free‐range rearing system peaked a couple of wk later than those hens within the more conventional indoor caged system, and cumulative production data were considerably more variable for hens raised in the free‐range environment. Cumulative egg production, feed per dozen eggs and feed conversion ratio (g feed/g egg) were 92 ± 1.23 and 86 ± 1.84%, 1.45 ± 0.02 and 1.89 ± 0.05 kg, and 2.14 ± 0.04 and 2.77 ± 0.08 (P < 0.05), respectively, for the caged vs. free‐range rearing systems. Cumulative egg weight, feed per dozen eggs, and feed conversion ratio were 59.9 ± 0.59 and 56.5 ± 0.60 g, 1.57 ± 0.04 and 1.77 ± 0.05 kg, and 2.24 ± 0.06 and 2.67 ± 0.08 kg (P < 0.05) for SBM and SBMF diets, respectively. Diet did not affect cumulative egg production (P > 0.05). With respect to egg quality, there were no differences in cumulative albumen height, Haugh unit, or breaking strength, but there was a significant rearing system by diet interaction for shell thickness, with the free‐range hens averaging 40.77 ± 0.19 and 39.86 ± 0.31 &mgr;m (P < 0.05), respectively, for the hens fed SBM vs. SBMF diets. In conclusion, the results suggested free‐range production is more variable than traditional closed‐house cage systems based on standard errors, and SBMF diets containing cottonseed meal can be used in both caged and free‐range production systems without affecting egg production, although one might see lower egg weights.


This dissertation offers an interdisciplinary argument in favour of integrating empirically grounded musicological evidence into linguistic curricula. Phonological, syntactic, and neurological convergences betweenmusic and language are identified and supported by existing research. However, differences in semantic content and the deliberateness ascribed to a musical or linguistic event inhibit the extent to which a music-language comparison can advance without qualification. In order to create a forum appropriate for the breadth of this discussion, two experiments were conducted. The first experiment presents a unique music-linguistic phenomenon, suggesting that the major and minor modes in music are non-arbitrarily associated with certain linguistic stimuli (kiki and bouba, respectively) in accord with their phonetic characteristics (e.g. vowel and consonant quality). This topic is considered in the light of evidence from synaesthesia and sound symbolism. Having endeavoured to show the relevance of a joint discussion on music and language, the second experiment explores the level of accord within the linguistic and musical academic communities (university students and teachers/researchers) on salient themes relative to such a discussion. A questionnaire form was administered, with results indicating that an insufficient amount of interdisciplinary agreement exists to facilitate a productive exchange and evaluation of ideas. Interdisciplinary topics and epistemological implications are discussed.


This talk addresses the modal nature of if-conditionals. If-conditionals are seen as bipartite constructions (Fillmore 1986: 196, 1998: 36) which (a) attract modality statistically significantly above average, and (b) show a markedly higher degree of modal density than non-conditional sentences and when-constructions. The discussion will also draw on the notion of "mental spaces" (Fauconnier 1994) as adapted for conditionals by Dancygier & Sweetser (2005) To illustrate the point, I used the written BNC as a whole, as well as random samples of if-conditionals, non-conditional sentences, and when-constructions from it. These were subjected to (a) automatic and manual keyword analysis, and (b) modal density analysis (cf. Halliday's measure of lexical density, 2004: 654-655). The keyword analysis of if-conditionals against the whole written BNC showed that the bulk of modal expressions were key in the sample (Gabrielatos 2006, 2007). Even more key modal expressions were found by comparing all if-sentences in the written BNC with that corpus as a whole. The modal density analysis revealed the following: (a) On average, each if-conditional construction has 1.13 modal expressions (discounting if); (b) in contrast, the modal density of non-conditionals and when-constructions is 0.34 and 0.4 repectively. The high modal content of if-conditionals is all the more intriguing given that they are already within the scope of the modal expression if. However, the high attraction exerted by if-conditionals to modality does not, in itself, define their modal nature. Two questions are pertinent to that nature: Can they be seen as being modalised? Can they be seen as being modal themselves? It will be shown that a remarkable characteristic of if-conditionals (and, it would seem, conditionals in general) is that they are modally dense constructions, without being either externally modalised or modal themselves. Moreover, the case will be made that if-conditional constructions are internally modalised – or self-modalised. Seen as such, if-conditional constructions can usefully be treated as the language equivalent of the box in Schrodingers' famous thought experiment (1935, English translation by Trimmer 1980). This conception can show how the fundamental nature of if-conditionals gives rise to their different types and functions in English.


The origin of tourmaline nodules, bizarre spherical to irregular textures documented worldwide, remains a geologic mystery. Although previously described by numerous researchers, the physical and chemical parameters that govern their formation have yet to be resolved. Commonly containing tourmaline, quartz, and occasionally feldspar, nodules are surrounded by a halo of leucocratic host rock, and are typically eight to ten centimeters in diameter. Tourmaline nodules of the present study are contained within the Paleoproterozoic Scrubber Granite of the southern Gascoyne Complex in Western Australia. This study integrated field observations, nodule petrography, tourmaline crystal chemistry, tourmaline fluid inclusion analyses, whole rock chemistry of nodule cores, leucocratic halo zones and host granite zones, stable and radiogenic isotope signatures of tourmaline separates as well as comparisons with other tourmaline nodule studies to propose the most scientifically sound theory for the formation of tourmaline nodules in the Scrubber Granite. Numerous nodule morphologies, including spherical and C-shaped nodules, along with other features such as tube-like nodules and tourmaline veins occur in massive, porphyritic, foliated and sheared phases of the Scrubber Granite. Microscopically, tourmaline displays prismatic, sub-rounded and massive textures. Microthermometric studies completed on tourmaline fluid inclusions revealed that the nodule-forming fluid contained 14 to 15 weight percent NaCl + CaCl2. Based on stable isotope studies and homogenization temperatures, fluid temperatures were constrained between 450 and 700 ̊C. The δO and δD concentrations of the nodule-forming fluid at this temperature range plot above the typical magmatic water field. Epsilon Nd values indicate that the tourmaline nodules of the Scrubber Granite may have been disturbed by a later metamorphic event. Tourmaline nodules of the Scrubber Granite are herein proposed to have formed from the exsolution and rise of buoyant pockets or bubbles of volatile fluid derived from the crystallizing Scrubber Granite magma.


INTRODUCTION My grandmother spent most of her adult life in Brownsburg, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. When she first moved there in the 1950s, it was a traditional American small town. There was one stoplight at the corner of Main and Green Streets, with a two-block downtown area featuring a bank, a mom and pop drug store with a soda fountain, a movie theater, a restaurant, a bar, and a cafe. Just a few minutes' walk down the sidewalk was the public library. The owners of these downtown businesses lived above their stores in apartments. My grandparents' first house was on O'Dell Street, a residential, tree-lined street within walking distance of the downtown area. Everyone knew everyone, and my mother complained that she couldn't go to the drug store without her parents hearing about it from nosy neighbors. Over the years, however, more and more cars began crowding the narrow streets, and a one-stoplight town became two, then four. My grandparents moved to a house a mile outside of town, surrounded by cornfields, to get away from the traffic and noise. Eventually, the buildings at Main and Green were razed to make room for expanding streets, and the library was moved to the far end of town. In their place, large shopping centers with huge parking lots were built. No one walked on the sidewalks anymore because everyone needed a car to get where they wanted to be in a practical amount of time. The town began to sprawl out in cookie cutter subdivisions, office parks, and strip malls. For most of my childhood, my grandmother complained about all the "new folks in their ugly houses" and the "endless construction" in town, but was mostly immune to these changes in her little house amidst the cornfields. Then, a farmer nearby sold his lot to a developer who would build another subdivision, and another farmer across the street sold his lot to a church. Sprawl had finally come to her backyard. Today, on the corner of Main and Green Streets, there is a CVS on one side with a large, and usually empty, parking lot, and a bank on the other with an equally large, empty parking lot. In fact, in Brownsburg's new proposed zoning ordinance, over eleven pages are dedicated to parking standards and requirements alone. (1) The town is dominated by big box retail stores, fast food restaurant chains, and large thoroughfares allowing residents to travel in their cars from home, to work, to school, and to shop. In fact, they cannot get to any of these locations without traveling in their car. The reason Brownsburg has transformed from the cohesive, community-oriented small town it used to be to the sprawling, commercial, unremarkable place it is now is conventional, or Euclidean, zoning ordinances. By mandating single-use zones, such as residential, commercial, and office, and creating stringent setback, parking, and low-density requirements, conventional zoning incentivizes towns to spread indefinitely, often without a comprehensive plan in mind. (2) This spread then requires amply wide roads to accommodate the amount of resulting traffic, which is unsafe for pedestrians-and daily needs are usually so far away that they are not walkable at any rate--thus, a car-centric, rather than pedestrian-centric, culture results. (3) If my grandmother were around to see Brownsburg today, she would probably say she liked it better the way it was in the 1950s. And the New Urbanists, proponents of the new zoning alternative called form-based codes, would agree with her. The New Urbanism movement grew "out of widespread dissatisfaction with suburban sprawl," and advocates high density, mixed-use development in place of conventional zoning's low density, single-use pattern. (4) The choice, as New Urbanists see it, is between "either a society of homogenous pieces, isolated from one another in often fortified enclaves, or a society of diverse and memorable neighborhoods, organized into mutually supportive towns, cities, and regions. …


This chapter presents a qualitative analysis of attitudes towards different forms of English held by four students at an international study programme in Denmark. The students belong to a transient multilingual community in which historically-accrued language ideologies cannot necessarily be assumed to be shared by all members. Our analysis suggests that the students see competence and effectiveness as important parameters in their evaluation of different forms of English in the university context, irrespective of the provenance of the speaker, but they also subscribe to familiar language ideologies that favour 'native' English varieties and accents over other kinds of English. This could be seen as a contradiction between practice and ideology, but we argue that the contradiction is only apparent.


Synopsis The earthquake of 26 December 1979, with an epicentre north of Carlisle, near Longtown, Cumbria, was one of the most significant British earthquakes of the second half of the 20th century. It had a magnitude of 4.7 ML (local magnitude) and was felt over an area of around 84 000 km2 at intensity 3 EMS (European Macroseismic Scale), covering most of central Scotland, the Borders, Cumbria and the NE of England. It was the mainshock of a sequence of around 90 events recorded by the British Geological Survey (BGS), then the Institute of Geological Sciences (IGS), UK seismic monitoring network. BGS undertook a macroseismic (felt effect) survey for the mainshock, with around 4000 usable responses received, and also for the two largest aftershocks, which occurred on 1 January 1980 and 13 December 1980, both with magnitude 3.8 ML. The results of these surveys have not been published until now. The highest intensities were reached around the Carlisle and Longtown areas, where 6 EMS was assigned from reports describing chimney stack and roof damage, with debris falling into the street, cracks in walls and other similar effects. Macroseismic estimates of the parameters of the earthquake agree well with the instrumental parameters so far as epicentre and magnitude are concerned, but there is a significant discrepancy with respect to depth. Also, although the size of the felt area is consistent with what is expected from average UK intensity attenuation, there is a marked directionality to the energy release, resulting in the earthquake being much more perceptible to the north than to the south.


Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) production by microbial populations was measured at 19 stations in the Atlantic Ocean to quantify the fraction of photoassimilated carbon that flows through the dissolved organic pool at basin scale and to assess the relationship between the percentage of DOC production, phytoplankton size structure, and rates of net community production. Experiments were conducted during four cruises carried out between May 1998 and October 1999, covering three upwelling regions: Benguela (SW Africa), Mauritania (NW Africa) and NW Spain, and the oligotrophic North Atlantic subtropical gyre between 30°N and 36°N. Photic zone integrated particulate organic carbon (POC) production rates ranged from 10 to 1,178 mg C m−2 h−1, thus covering a wide productivity spectrum. The percentage of DOC production with respect to total integrated primary production ranged from 4 to 42%, being larger in oligotrophic, picoplanktonߚdominated waters, where a balanced metabolism of the microbial community was observed, than in productive, net autotrophic waters, where largeߚsized cells formed the bulk of the phytoplankton biomass. A highly significant relationship was calculated between DOC and POC production rates in upwelling conditions. By contrast, the relationship between these variables in oligotrophic environments was weak, which suggests that different processes could be controlling the release of dissolved organic matter in productive and unproductive waters.


This dissertation reports on research related to trace organic compounds (TrOCs) in surficial groundwater supplies and their subsequent removal from nanofiltration (NF) membranes. The research was conducted along coastal South Florida in cooperation with the Town of Jupiter Water Utilities, Jupiter, FL (Town). The focus of the research was to determine the extent of reclaimed water impacts on surficial groundwater supplies and subsequent effects on the Town's NF water treatment plant.
Routine monitoring of fourteen TrOCs in reclaimed water and at the water treatment facility revealed varying degrees of TrOC detection in the environment. Certain TrOCs, including caffeine and DEET, were detected in a majority of the water sampling locations evaluated in this work. However, subsequent dilution with highly-treated reverse osmosis (RO) permeate from alternative supplies resulted in TrOCs below detection limits in potable water at the point-of-entry (POE).
Pilot testing was employed to determine the extent of TrOC removal by NF. Prior to evaluating TrOC removal, hydraulic transients within the pilot process were first examined to determine the required length of time the pilot needed to reach steady-state. The transient response of a center-port NF membrane process was evaluated using a step-input dose of a sodium chloride solution. The pilot was configured as a two-stage, split-feed, center-exit, 7:2 pressure vessel array process, where the feed water is fed to both ends of six element pressure vessels, and permeate and concentrate streams are collected after only three membrane elements. The transient response was described as a log-logistic system with a maximum delay time of 285 seconds for an 85% water recovery and 267 gallon per minute feed flowrate.
Eleven TrOC pilot unit experiments were conducted with feed concentrations ranging from 0.52 to 4,500 ?g/L. TrOC rejection was well-correlated with compound molecular volume and polarizability, with coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.94. To enhance this correlation, an extensive literature review was conducted and independent literature sources were correlated with rejection. Literature citations reporting the removal effectiveness of an additional sixty-one TrOCs by loose NF membranes (a total of 95 data points) were found to be well-correlated with molecular volume and polarizability, with R2 values of 0.72 and 0.71, respectively.
Of the TrOC's detected during this research, the anthropogenic solute caffeine was selected to be modeled using the homogeneous solution diffusion model (HSDM) and the HSDM with film theory (HSDM-FT). Mass transfer coefficients, K_w (water) K_s (caffeine), and k_b (caffeine back-transport) were determined experimentally, and K_s was also determined using the Sherwood correlation method. Findings indicate that caffeine transport through the NF pilot could be explained using experimentally determined K_s values without incorporating film theory, since the HSDM resulted in a better correlation between predicted and actual caffeine…


Within the field of interactive digital storytelling, one goal pursued is to build highly interactive fictional worlds in which a user can have the first-person experience of being a character in a story. The story events should unfold based in part on the user's actions. This introduces a story representation challenge because branching narrative representations used in the games industry are insufficient. Story content must be expressed using novel procedural and generative (AI-based) representations.

Emergent narrative is one approach proposed by the field to create this kind of experience. In this approach, the storyworld is inhabited by a collection of intelligent, autonomous agents, each playing the role of a story character. As in dramatic improvisation, the story is not scripted, but emerges based on the interactions of these characters with each other and with the storyworld they inhabit.

This thesis presents conceptual and technical contributions situated within the emergent narrative approach. In order to better understand user agency and authorship of emergent narrative, we took lessons from the theory and practice of dramatic improvisation. User agency in emergent narrative was explored using a human-only, chat-based experiment. Improvisers were given the task to provide participants with an engaging experience as a character in an improvised story. To explore authorship of emergent narrative, we developed The Virtual Storyteller, a story generator based on the emergent narrative approach. Authoring experiments led to the identification of an iterative, improvisational style of authoring in which the emergent properties of the system affect the creative process. Dramatic improvisation also informed character agent modeling. A distinction was proposed between two tightly coupled roles that the agent plays: that of a self-interested character in the storyworld, and that of a drama-interested actor. Modeled after human improvisers, the agents were given the means to delay decisions about the details of the storyworld they inhabit until they became relevant to the unfolding narrative.


Thesis: Ph. D., Joint Program in Chemical Oceanography (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2017.


The perception of better economics and less risk from infill drilling and recompletions are reasons well-focused remedies are preferred compared to reservoir-focused solutions, such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, most literature does not discuss the economic and risk indicators driving this.
 Using a real example, this work demonstrates that combining polymer flooding with infill drilling and recompletion substantially increases economic benefits with reasonable risk.
 The reservoir considered is an Oligocene sandstone at a depth of 2700 m. The °API is 29.5 and permeability ranges from 50 to 500 mD. Current reservoir pressure is 43% of the original and it is below bubble point. A black oil model with a 133 × 56 × 128 grid was used. The model incorporated more than 50 years of matched primary and waterflooding production history and experimental polymer physico-chemical parameters. For the stochastic economic risks estimation, 1,000 iterations were run for each scenario considering uncertainties in injection-production, capital expenditures (CAPEX), operational expenditures (OPEX), and oil prices.
 For a 20-year horizon, the injection-production-pressure profiles were numerically forecasted; economic results were calculated using a classic model and inputs from the forecast. The economic risk was determined stochastically. The redevelopment scenarios considered were as follows: Base: current waterfloodingExisting wells interventions: workover, opening shut-in wells, and new perforationsInfill drilling: vertical/horizontal infill drilling wells + existing wells operationsPolymer flooding: using existing wellsCombined Infill and polymer: vertical infill drilling wells and polymer flooding
 P50 forecasts showed that interventions in existing wells in the base scenario increased oil production by 11% and net present value (NPV) by 71% with a risk index of 0.38.
 A numerical optimizer was used to account for possible combinations of 14 potential drilling locations and vertical to horizontal well ratios. A scenario with three vertical wells was selected. Compared to the base case, this scenario showed an oil production increase of 23%, NPV increase of 178%, and a risk index of 0.41.
 The injection rate of the polymer flood was optimized, resulting in a 17% increase in oil production and 95% increase in the NPV, with a risk index of 0.40. This justifies performing a polymer flood.
 The most promising scenario is the combined infill drilling and polymer injection, which significantly improved the economic indicators—30% increase in oil production, 230% improvement of the NPV over the base scenario, with a risk index of only 0.41.
 The results of this study demonstrate that the combination of EOR with different operational strategies results in significant benefits compared to the individual scenarios. Analysis of just oil production independent of economics and risk can be misleading. Infill drilling or flooding should no longer be the question. Instead, the question should be how they can be properly combined at various stages of asset life.


An all-fiber, narrow-linewidth, high power Yb-doped silica fiber laser at 1179 nm has been demonstrated. More than 12 W output power has been obtained, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 43% with respect to launched pump power, by core-pumping at 1090 nm. In order to increase the pump absorption, the Yb-doped fiber was heated up to 125 degrees C. At the maximum output power, the suppression of amplified spontaneous emission was more than 50 dB. Furthermore, theoretical work confirms that the proposed laser architecture can be easily scaled to higher power.


Recurrent (neural) networks have been deployed as models for learning musical processes, by computational scientists who study processes such as dynamic systems. Over time, more intricate music has been learned as the state of the art in recurrent networks improves. One particular recurrent network, the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network shows promise as a module that can learn long songs, and generate new songs. We are experimenting with using two LSTM modules to cooperatively learn several human melodies, based on the songs' harmonic structures, and the feedback inherent in the network. We show that these networks can learn to reproduce four human melodies. We then introduce two harmonizations, constructed by us, that are given to the learned networks. i.e. we supply a reharmonization of the song structure, so as to generate new songs. We describe the reharmonizations, and show the new melodies that result. We also use a different harmonic structure from an existing jazz song not in the training set, to generate a new melody.


"International Msc Educational Programme in Environmental Management and Modelling" (GeoNetC) is a European Commission funded project under ERASMUS+: Higher Education – International Capacity Building programme (Project No 561967-EPP-1-2015-1-SE-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). It began in October 2015 and ended in October 2018. Initiated by the Lund University and partners from the Middle East countries, the GeoNetC project is an ambitious project aiming to match labour market needs with geospatial education offer both in Europe and Middle East countries.
The aim of this three-year project is to enable European universities to exchange best practices and innovation with each other and with Middle Eastern universities regarding the mismatch between Europe's geospatial education and training and the geospatial education in Middle East countries. There is a growing need for well-trained students at all levels – vocational, bachelors, masters – in the field of geospatial technologies. Obviously there is a growing number of jobs available in land surveying, mapping data collection, data processing, data delivery and turning data into information in both European and Middle East countries.
Through cooperation, all partners will improve the quality of their respective academic programs. The European partners will make their courses more attractive and well adjusted for students from the Middle East. As well, they will increase the general quality and add state-of-the-art learning components to their offerings, and the partners from the region will significantly increase the academic level and quality in the education they provide. There will be spin-offs into other subjects than environment/Geomatics, since both the pedagogic models developed (e.g. e-Learning) and communication and administrative tools can be used throughout the partner universities. Therefore, this partnership cooperation will be of great value to Partner Countries as well as to Programme Countries.
A number of distance learning courses/modules are developed jointly by partner institutions in Europe and the Middle East. The main aim of the network is to promote the use of spatial information and earth observation for environmental management and modelling through capacity building and institutional development, via a network in which all partners would contribute from their own positions of strength.
All 13 modules are following EU higher education standards regarding e.g. ECTS, and learning outcomes. The outcome of the project, in terms of courses/modules, will be freely used among the partners, with the possibilities of offering individual courses or a whole MSc programme, whether individually or together.
All produced material was evaluated/quality controlled by an external evaluation group of independent experts within environmental management and modelling, higher education, as well as pedagogy.


Based on a survey of behavioral finance literature, this paper presents a descriptive model of individual investor behavior in which investment decisions are seen as an iterative process of interactions between the investor and the investment environment. This investment process is influenced by a number of interdependent variables and driven by dual mental systems, the interplay of which contributes to boundedly rational behavior where investors use various heuristics and may exhibit behavioral biases. In the modeling tradition of cognitive science and intelligent systems, the investor is seen as a learning, adapting, and evolving entity that perceives the environment, processes information, acts upon it, and updates his or her internal states. This conceptual model can be used to build stylized representations of (classes of) individual investors, and further studied using the paradigm of agent-based artificial financial markets. By allowing us to implement individual investor behavior, to choose various market mechanisms, and to analyze the obtained asset prices, agent-based models can bridge the gap between the micro level of individual investor behavior and the macro level of aggregate market phenomena. It has been recognized, yet not fully explored, that these models could be used as a tool to generate or test various behavioral hypothesis.


In many cases, (processed) wastewater or thermal effluents are discharged into the marine environment, rivers or lakes. To accurately determine the dispersion, recirculation and environmental impacts of outfall plumes, it is important to be able to model the different characteristics of the outfall plume in detail - from the near field (metres around the outfall) to the far field (up to kilometres away). The solution for engineering practice is to combine different types of models (near and far field models) that each focus on specific scales, with corresponding optimised resolutions and processes. However, to adequately describe the hydrodynamic processes on these different scales, it is essential to couple these models in a dynamic and comprehensive way. To achieve this, a dynamic coupling between the open-source Delft3D-FLOW far field model and the CORMIX near field expert system is proposed. This coupled modelling system is able to use the computed far field ambient conditions in the near field computations and, conversely, to use the initial near field dilution and mixing behaviour in the far field model. Preliminary results are presented to provide a first indication of the potential of the method for modelling the complete trajectory of effluent outfall plumes, allowing an accurate assessment of the environmental effects and the design of possible mitigating measures.


Alone among abortion opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court's second partial-birth abortion decision, Gonzales v. Carhart, included fetuses within the categories of human life and family relations. It spoke of a "bond" between a woman and her unborn "child." Its analysis of constitutional law concerning abortion incorporated presumptions about parent-child relationships ordinarily applied only respecting already-born children: first that the law should prefer maintaining parent-child relationships; and second, that children are naturally vulnerable such that parents have a primary duty of protection, which will be supplemented by the state when a child's welfare is seriously endangered. This article argues that Gonzales' harmonizing of abortion law with family law has important and positive consequences not only for children's health, but also for women and families in the areas of helping women to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and better accommodating women's employment and other social commitments to women's childbearing.


Background: Over the last decades, many efforts have been made to improve the wastewater purification by developing suitable treatment methods for various pollutants removal. Most studies in this field have focused on heterogeneous photocatalysis which use semiconductor oxides, such as titanium dioxide (TiO2). This useful technique is based on the pollutant decomposition by means of a chemical reaction occurring on a photocatalytic surface activated by light with a specific wavelength. The efficiency for removing of persistent organic pollutants such as azo dyes, photostability and inertness to chemical environment has made TiO2 an important photocatalytic material. In this study, the photodegradation of an industrial textile dye Acid blue 113 (AB113), using anatase TiO2 nanoparticles and ultraviolet (UV-A) radiation, has been performed in an aqueous heterogeneous medium. Methods: The photocatalytic process was monitored by the UV–visible spectrometry, and different dosages of catalyst (10.00-60.00 mg), pH conditions (3-8), contact time (2-30 min), at the dye concentration of 25 mg/L were used. In addition, response surface methodology based on a threevariable three-level Box-Behnken design was employed to study and optimize the photocatalytic process. The interactive effects of three operational parameters including irradiation time, pH, and the catalyst amount on the dye degradation were analyzed. Results: The dye degradation efficiency was accurately modeled by a quadratic equation with an R2 of 0.9649. The optimum conditions for the dye removal were found at 29.78 min, pH 6.56 and catalyst dose of 42 mg in 100 mL of the solution. At this condition, 95.3% of the dye was removed. Conclusion: The results show that anatase TiO2 nanoparticles present excellent photocatalytic activity on the degradation of AB113 under UV irradiation. Therefore, the photodegradation of dyes using anatase TiO2 nanoparticlesas can be efficiently used under optimum conditions for treatment of dyecontaining industrial effluents.


Snowcover areal depletion curves inferred from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) are validated and then applied in NASA's catchment‐based land surface model (CLSM) for numerical simulations of hydrometeorological processes in the Kuparuk River basin (KRB) of Alaska. The results demonstrate that the MODIS snowcover fraction f derived from a simple relationship in terms of the normalized difference snow index compares well with Landsat values over the range 20 ≤ f ≤ 100%. For f < 20%, however, MODIS 500 m subpixel data underestimate the amount of snow by up to 13% compared with Landsat at spatial resolutions of 30 m binned to equivalent 500 m pixels. After a bias correction, MODIS snow areal depletion curves during the spring transition period of 2002 for the KRB exhibit similar features to those derived from surface‐based observations. These results are applied in the CLSM subgrid‐scale snow parameterization that includes a deep and a shallow snowcover fraction. Simulations of the evolution of the snowpack and of freshwater discharge rates for the KRB over a period of 11 years are then analysed with the inclusion of this feature. It is shown that persistent snowdrifts on the arctic landscape, associated with a secondary plateau in the snow areal depletion curves, are hydrologically important. An automated method is developed to generate the shallow and deep snowcover fractions from MODIS snow areal depletion curves. This provides the means to apply the CLSM subgrid‐scale snow parameterization in all watersheds subject to seasonal snowcovers. Improved simulations and predictions of the global surface energy and water budgets are expected with the incorporation of the MODIS snow data into the CLSM. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Previous research in Artificial Intelligence has identified the possibility of simplifying planning problems via the identification and exploitation of symmetries. We advance the state of the art in algorithms that exploit symmetry in planning problems by generalizing previous approaches, and applying symmetry reductions to state-based planners. We suggest several algorithms for symmetry exploitation in state-based search, but also provide a comprehensive view through which additional algorithms can be developed and fine-tuned. We evaluate our approach to symmetry exploitation on instances from previous planning competitions, and demonstrate that our algorithms significantly improve the solution time of instances with symmetries.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common heart rhythm disorder, effecting about 20% of cardiac surgical patients. While often benign, it leads to a prolonged hospital stay, and potentially to malignant arrhythimas. Many anti-arrhythmic drugs have been used to both prevent and treat post-operative AF and other post-operative arrhythmias; however, they have potentially harmful side-effects (e.g., hypotension, pulmonary fibrosis). Cardioversion is often the therapy of last resort to restore a perfusable rhythm. We propose a novel, innovative concept that allows for local pharmacological and electrical therapy of the heart. We have shown in animal models that such delivery increases the efficacy of the therapy and reduces side effects. Several variations of the device have been conceived and prototypes are currently being developed. The simplest version is a multi-port infusion catheter incorporated into a temporary pacing lead. Placement of the device would be trivial for surgeons, who routinely place temporary pacing leads prior to closing the chest. Removal of the device post-operatively would be equally simple. More complex iterations include an expandable wick to maintain the infused drug in a desired location. Designs may also include epicardial defibrillation capabilities, which would lower the energy required for defibrillation. To demonstrate proof of principle, cadaver and animal investigations were performed. In a fresh cadaver, a sternotomy and pericardiotomy was performed. A catheter was placed in the pericardium, and an infusion of radio-opaque contrast was administered under fluoroscopy. The majority of the contrast collected near the pulmonary veins, which are often the origin of atrial arrhythmias. To evaluate the efficacy of drugs administered into the pericardium as compared with drugs administered through the conventional route (intravenously), animal studies in swine were performed. Results demonstrated that pericardially administered metoprolol had a greater and more lasting effect on heart rate than when given intravenously. Additionally, during pericardial delivery myocardial contractility was better preserved. Only trace amounts of metoprolol were found in the circulation. Thus pericardial delivery may enhance certain therapeutic effects of drugs while limiting side effects. Currently, studies are underway to evaluate the efficacy other pharmacologic agents delivered into the pericardium. Should our animal studies continue to show promising results, we anticipate moving into clinical trials. Development and refinement of prototype delivery devices will also continue as we pursue this promising new therapy for post-operative arrhythmias.


The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . ." This language restricts government both more and less than it would if it were applied literally. It restricts government more in that it applies not only to Congress, but to all branches of the federal government, and to all branches of state and local government. It restricts government less in that it provides no protection to some types of speech and only limited protection to others. This report provides an overview of the major exceptions to the First Amendment — of the ways that the Supreme Court has interpreted the guarantee of freedom of speech and press to provide no protection or only limited protection for some types of speech.


In this paper, the effect of seal clearance on the efficiency of a turbine with a shrouded rotor is compared with the effect of the tip clearance when the same turbine has an unshrouded rotor. The shrouded versus unshrouded comparison was undertaken for two turbine stage designs one having 50% reaction, the other having 24% reaction. Measurements for a range of clearances, including very small clearances, showed three important phenomena. Firstly, as the clearance is reduced, there is a "break-even clearance" at which both the shrouded turbine and the unshrouded turbine have the same efficiency. If the clearance is reduced further, the unshrouded turbine performs better than the shrouded turbine, with the difference at zero clearance termed the "offset loss." This is contrary to the traditional assumption that both shrouded and unshrouded turbines have the same efficiency at zero clearance. The physics of the break-even clearance and the offset loss are discussed. Secondly, the use of a lower reaction had the effect of reducing the tip leakage efficiency penalty for both the shrouded and the unshrouded turbines. In order to understand the effect of reaction on the tip leakage, an analytical model was used and it was found that the tip leakage efficiency penalty should be understood as the dissipated kinetic energy rather than either the tip leakage mass flow rate or the tip leakage loss coefficient. Thirdly, it was also observed that, at a fixed flow coefficient, the fractional change in the output power with clearance was approximately twice the fractional change in efficiency with clearance. This was explained by using an analytical model. © 2014 by ASME.


In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court invalidated strict federal campaign finance laws and upheld the First Amendment right of corporations to use general treasury funds to support or oppose candidates in political elections. Shortly after the case was decided, a grassroots popular movement began calling for an amendment to the Constitution to establish that money is not speech and that human beings, not corporations, are the only "persons" entitled to constitutional rights. The concept of corporate personhood entered the national debate, causing many average Americans to question the legitimacy of corporations' legal personhood status. Federal and state lawmakers have introduced several bills proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood, and hundreds of cities nationwide have passed municipal resolutions supporting such an amendment. Progressive groups that oppose corporate influence in politics disagree on whether the push for a constitutional amendment is a good idea. This article identifies several problems with the amendment strategy and suggests that the focus on personhood is misplaced. Legal history shows that the personhood label has long been arbitrarily applied in constitutional law cases, and, as a practical matter, personhood is largely indeterminate and sometimes irrelevant. More significantly, corporate personhood and power do not find their origin exclusively in constitutional law, but in long-standing corporate law doctrines and deeply entrenched norms. An attempt to curb corporate power in the political realm through a constitutional amendment does not address the systemic features of corporate law that allow corporate entities to amass great economic and political power. To ignore the tensions that corporate law raises in this regard is to miss the deeper source of corporate ascendance in the modern world.


Information about the ligand environment of the iron binding sites in a cyanide adduct of transferrin was obtained by an analysis of powder-type ENDOR and ESEEM spectra. The low-spin cyanide adduct of transferrin is formed only in the C-terminal site of the protein and is characterized by a rhombic EPR spectrum. Earlier work demonstrated that three cyanide groups are necessary to form the adduct, but it wasn't clear whether these groups were coordinated directly to the metal or to cationic sites on the protein. The ENDOR spectra of the $\sp{13}$CN adduct showed one set of $\sp{13}$C ENDOR resonances which probably corresponds to only one or two of the CN groups, the other(s) being ENDOR silent. Simulations of the ENDOR line positions indicate a substantial isotropic coupling and smaller dipolar couplings. From an analysis of the orientation dependent dipolar term it is concluded that the carbon giving rise to the ENDOR signals lies along the g$\sb{\rm xx}$ axis of the g-tensor. The iron-carbon distance was calculated based on a point dipole model and a model in which the ground state metal-based d$\sb{\rm xy}$ orbital of the electron was considered explicitly. ESEEM studies with C$\sp{15}$N indicated that there are at least two equivalent CN groups coordinated to the iron center. The maximum hyperfine coupling for the nitrogen was observed near g$\sb{\rm xx}$ which is consistent with the ENDOR results which placed the carbon of the cyanide group on the g$\sb{\rm xx}$ axis. There is a substantial hyperfine contribution along g$\sb{\rm zz}$ which indicates that the CN bond is not aligned along the g$\sb{\rm xx}$ axis. The lack of resolved couplings in the spectrum along g$\sb{\rm yy}$ makes it impossible to determine the nitrogen position exactly. The ESEEM spectra of the C$\sp{14}$N adduct were complicated, presumably because the Zeeman and hyperfine terms did not cancel at the spectrometer frequencies used. The ESEEM and ENDOR spectra of the D$\sb2$O solvent exchanged adduct demonstrated that water does not coordinate directly to the iron. The ESEEM of the g$\sp\prime$ = 4.3 signal which arises from the high-spin N-terminal site was also studied and the observed ESEEM resonances were attributed to histidine nitrogen.


Social network research has begun to take advantage of fine-grained communications regarding coordination, decision-making, and knowledge sharing. These studies, however, have not generally analyzed how external events are associated with a social network's structure and communicative properties. Here, we study how external events are associated with a network's change in structure and communications. Analyzing a complete dataset of millions of instant messages among the decision-makers in a large hedge fund and their network of outside contacts, we investigate the link between price shocks, network structure, and change in the affect and cognition of decision-makers embedded in the network. When price shocks occur the communication network tends not to display structural changes associated with adaptiveness. Rather, the network 'turtles up'. It displays a propensity for higher clustering, strong tie inter- action, and an intensification of insider vs. outsider communication. Further, we find changes in network structure pre- dict shifts in cognitive and affective processes, execution of new transactions, and local optimality of transactions better than prices, revealing the important predictive relationship between network structure and collective behavior within a social network.


Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor is stable at the surface of center vessels and rapidly endocytosed, degraded, and synthesized at sites of endothelial sprouting. Angiogenesis, or the building of blood vessels, involves the sprouting of highly mobile endothelial tip cells that extend processes called filopodia. Mature vessels have quiescent endothelial cells that form tight junctions, creating the endothelial barrier. Vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFRs) and their ligands are critical to angiogenesis, and binding of VEGF to its receptor stimulates endocytosis. Nakamaya et al. investigated the role of VEGFR endocytosis in the postnatal vascularization of the mouse retina. Unexpectedly, VEGFR2 immunostaining was highest in the established vasculature of the center retina, and it was barely detectable in the angiogenic sprouts. The abundance of VEGFR2 and VEGFR3 in the sprouts was increased by intraocular injection of a proteasome inhibitor, a lysosome inhibitor, or inhibitors of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Perinuclear accumulation of dye-labeled VEGF was greatest in the cells at the angiogenic front. The transmembrane protein EphrinB2 is implicated in VEGFR internalization, and proteins affinity-purified with the cytoplasmic region of Ephrin B2 contained components of the clathrin-mediated endocytosis machinery (the adaptor AP2, clathrin heavy chain, dynamin, and the clathrin-associated sorting protein Dab2). The interaction of EphrinB2 with Dab2 was mediated by PAR-3, which acted as a molecular adaptor for VEGFR2, VEGFR3, EphrinB2, Dab2, and atypical protein kinase C (aPKC). Coimmmunoprecipitation of VEGFR3, Dab2, and PAR-3 was detected in lung lysates, and endothelial-cell–specific loss of PAR-3 reduced the coimmunoprecipitation of Dab2 and VEGFR2. Knockdown of Dab2 or PAR-3 decreased the uptake and perinuclear accumulation of exogenously added VEGF to cultured mouse endothelial cells and compromised downstream VEGFR signaling to the guanosine triphosphatase Rac1 and the mitogen-activated protein kinases ERK1 and -2. Inducible endothelial-cell–specific genetic knockout of Dab2 or PAR-3 reduced the size and complexity of the endothelial network in the retina and was associated with decreased tip cell number, sprout length, and number of filopodia. Furthermore, uptake of dye-labeled VEGF was reduced at the angiogenic front. In contrast, inducible endothelial-cell–specific genetic knockout of the aPKC PKCλ resulted in increased accumulation of dye-labeled VEGF in the central vasculature of the retina, reduced abundance of VEGFRs in the central region, and aberrant sprouting of the vasculature of the central retina. In vitro assays indicated that PKCλ phosphorylated a Dab2 fragment, which reduced the interaction between the Dab2 fragment and VEGFRs. Inhibition of aPKC enhanced VEGFR internalization and downstream signaling in cultured endothelial cells. Phosphorylated (and activated) aPKC was predominantly detected in the central retinal vasculature, suggesting that in mature vessels of the central retina, spatial regulation of aPKC activity contributed to the stabilization of VEGFR but reduced its endocytosis and signaling. M. Nakayama, A. Nakayama, M. van Lessen, H. Yamamoto, S. Hoffmann, H. C. A. Drexler, N. Itoh, T. Hirose, G. Breier, D. Vestweber, J. A. Cooper, S. Ohno, K. Kaibuchi, R. H. Adams, Spatial regulation of VEGF receptor endocytosis in angiogenesis. Nat. Cell Biol. 15, 249-260 (2013). [PubMed]


The response of eukaryotic cells to ionising radiation (IR)-induced double-strand DNA breaks is highly conserved and involves a DNA repair mechanism characterised by the early phosphorylation of histone protein H2AX (producing the active form γH2AX). Although the expression of an induced γH2AX variant has been detected in Drosophila melanogaster, the expression and radiation response of a γH2AX homologue has not been reported in economically important fruit flies. We use Bactrocera tryoni (Diptera: Tephritidae, Queensland fruit fly or 'Q-fly') to investigate this response with a view to developing molecular assays to detect/quantify exposure of fruit flies to IR and consequent DNA damage. Deep sequencing confirmed the presence of a H2AX homologue that we have termed H2AvB (i.e. variant Bactrocera) and has an identical sequence to a histone reported from the human disease vector Glossina morsitans. A linear dose-response of γH2AvB (0-400 Gy IR) was observed in whole Q-fly pupal lysates 24h post-IR and was detected at doses as low as 20 Gy. γH2AvB signal peaked at ~20min after IR exposure and at 24h post-IR the signal remained elevated but declined significantly by 5 days. Persistent and dose-dependent γH2AvB signal could be detected and quantified either by western blot or by laser scanning cytometry up to 17 days post-IR exposure in histone extracts or isolated nuclei from adult Q-flies (irradiated as pupae). We conclude that IR exposure in Q-fly leads to persistent γH2AvB signals (over a period of days) that can easily be detected by western blot or quantitative immunofluorescence techniques. These approaches have potential as the basis for assays for detection and quantification of prior IR exposure in pest fruit flies.


This book chapter discusses the functional ontology of filmic documents. The authors examine a few phases of probing of filmic documents, and the relationship between structure and meaning. The authors have taken the liberty of sketching the earlier phases and of presenting the most recent in somewhat more detail. Considerations of the early phases, among other issues of document use, led to the functional ontology construction as a foundation for this probing and for wider concerns within the arena of messages, meanings, and uses.


The usage of renewable resources has become a hot topic upon the rising global awareness against fossil feedstock consumption. Lignin, the 2nd most abundant natural polymer on Earth, is an aromatic biomacromolecule that holds a tremendous potential for the synthesis of biobased materials. The production of monomers and polymers from lignin has been investigated for years and keeps on expanding, as proven by the flourishing literature. However, the sustainability of the synthetic reactions has not been systematically analyzed. Herein, green chemistry plays a vital role in this area and provides several tools to design eco-friendly production methods. This critical review first describes the preeminent approaches for the synthesis of biobased monomers and polymers from lignin-derived compounds. In the second part, the "greenness" aspects of the 175 key monomer synthetic methods and 32 polymerization methods are evaluated based on selected criteria, including waste generation, atom efficiency, energy efficiency, usage of safer solvents, and biocatalytic methodology. The accessible green metrics, such as environmental factor (E factor) and atom economy are calculated to measure the greenness and to provide a quantitative base for strategic decisions. Furthermore, this study provides insights for the improvement opportunities and lights up the room for further developments. This review, aiming at scientists, industries and investors, strives to provide a critical outlook for the existing synthetic methods and motivates researchers to call for the integration of sustainability factors.


This thesis is a study of receptor-mediated events occurring in olfaction. Potential enzymes involved in olfactory transduction were investigated using standard biochemical techniques, and an investigation of the fatty acid receptor/s was attempted using psychophysical methods.

1. Other investigators in olfaction have recently demonstrated an odorant modulated adenylate cyclase in the frog. We have shown that tissue preparations from the rat have high levels of the enzyme adenylate cyclase. This activity was stimulated in the presence of odorants by up to two times the basal value. The concentrations of odorants used were in the range expected to be physiologically relevant. Both basal and stimulated adenylate cyclase were inhibited by μM calcium ion. Tissue preparations from brain showed no odorant activation. Guanylate cyclase was present at a tenth the concentration of adenylate cyclase and showed no odorant simulation.

2. There are no studies in the literature characterising the cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases in olfactory tissue. The Sutherland criteria require the presence of a cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) in olfactory tissue, if cyclic AMP is to be a second messenger in olfaction. It is possible that olfactory PDE is directly regulated by a receptor, as is found in vision. It is important, therefore, that the PDE's in olfactory tissue are characterised.

Tissue preparations of the rat and sheep were shown to have high levels of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase. The activities were not stimulated in the presence of physiologically relevant concentrations of odorants; inhibition of these activities by odorants was not significantly different from that of brain homogenates. Characterisation of the phosphodiesterase isoenzymes separated by DEAE chromatography established that they resembled the isoenzymes characterised from other tissues. The evidence presented indicates that olfactory tissue does not resemble visual tissue, which has a receptor-linked phosphodiesterase. All evidence suggests that PDE's in olfactory tissue serve to return cyclic nucleotide concentrations to resting levels after stimulation. The observation that the Type 1 (calcium/calmodulin stimulated) phosphodiesterase is present in high concentrations in olfactory tissue suggests that calcium ion concentration in vivo may be an important regulator of phosphodiesterase activity.

3. The threshold values of various short chain fatty acids, of high purity, were determined using human subjects. The results were one order of magnitude greater than found by Amoore (1970) but showed a similar group trend. Descriptive analysis was also performed on these acids by generating a series of descriptors sufficient to discriminate between the acids. Analysis of the results by principal component analysis yielded a three dimensional map that showed the acids clustering into four groups. These four groups could indicate the presence of four receptors. Attempts to demonstrate structure-activity relationships between the thresholds, and descriptive analysis results with various physical and chemical parameters, failed. This was probably due to the interaction of the acids with more than one receptor.

So far, the lack of success in identifying olfactory receptors by researchers has meant that investigations of olfactory receptors have had to be done using psychophysical techniques such as those used in this report. It will probably not be known if these methods are useful for identifying receptors, until the receptors can be purified and characterised biochemically.


The Center for Psychoanalysis of ASM 13 is part of a district psychiatric facility specialized in non-neurotic pathologies. This particularity has caused it to develop distinct treatment techniques and to elaborate certain theoretical concepts (transference investment, third party, interpretation of function or process…) that take into account the necessity of adapting the psychoanalytic approach when using it with this type of patient.