The confluence of progress in micro-actuators, power sources, and mixed-signal microelectronics have recently moved swarm robotics and robot communities from simulation to reality. Swarms of 20 to 100 robots are in use already, implementations with several hundred robots are practicable, and communities exceeding a thousand robots are certainly conceivable. Such large robotic communities provide platforms for numerous exciting research directions including collaborative swarms and self-reconfiguring structures. Maintaining hundreds of robots, however, poses significant practical challenges. The literature on strategies for maintaining software and hardware in large robot communities is sparse, even if applicable concepts from wireless sensor-networks are included. Crucial for the viability of any such strategy is its impact on cost per robot. To provide a realistic setting we introduce a robot platform designed to be fabricated in full on standard printed circuit board (PCB) assembly lines. In this context we introduce a framework for on-line testing and calibration based on code pieces, termed plasmids, that migrate among the micro-controllers of the robots. The proposed approach allows the robots access to a larger library of code then what could be stored locally. The robot consists of a single PCB that doubles as chassis and contains no custom mechanical components. Inexpensive motors (mass produced to vibrate mobile phones) are directly soldered to the circuit board and used in direct drive. Our prototypes use a 200 mAh rechargeable lithium polymer battery giving the robot over an hour of autonomy while moving at a speedy 1 m/s. An MSP430F2131 microcontroller controls the robot and communicates with neighbouring robots via infrared light. The simplicity of the design allows the entire robot to be assembled with low-cost PCB manufacturing techniques and is well suited for small-scale mass production of several hundred robots. While this design significantly reduces the current cost barrier to obtaining a robot swarm, it also shifts the attention to the practical problem of maintaining hundreds of robots. Recharging batteries, sieving out robots with worn tyres or accidental damage is one aspect. A second aspect is testing and calibration. It can not be performed in the PCB assembly process and cost considerations prevent proprioceptive sensor. Collaboration among robots to verify performance and provide feedback (e.g., drift direction during a run and return) provide a scalable alternative. A third aspect is the maintenance of software in the robot community. Our plasmid framework addresses all three aspects with a design that is lightweight enough to run on the microcontrollers. Pieces of code and associated attributes (version, target number for redistribution, lifetime, conditions for transmission) are propagated among robots that meet. For example, the code may perform a test on the robot and require to be forwarded to four other robots that have not encountered this test, before it is deleted. Such test plasmids traverse the robot community which, in its collective memory,contains and executes more code than would fit within the program memory of a single device.


Expertise is dynamic, domain specific, and characterized according to an individual's level of knowledge, experience, and problem-solving ability. Having expertise in the phenomenon under investigation can be used as an indicator of an individual's aptitude to effectively serve as a coder in a content analysis or as panelist in a Delphi study. The purpose of this study was to assess 10 years of scholarship published in the premier journals of agricultural education and describe the ways researchers in agricultural communications, education, extension, and leadership disciplines who use content analysis and Delphi study methods are describing the qualifications of the people serving as expert coders and panelists. The study findings revealed the majority of researchers publishing in the premier agricultural education journals are not describing the qualifications used in selecting coders or the credentials the coders possess that would make them qualified to code the data in a content analysis. Furthermore, researchers were inconsistent citing literature that supported their selection of content analysis coders and citing literature to support a decision to describe or not to describe coders' qualifications. However, a description of Delphi study panelists' qualifications and citations to support why panelists were selected in a Delphi study were present in all of the Delphi studies analyzed over the 10-year period. Based on these findings, it was concluded that ACEEL researchers should include a description of coder credentials to enhance the consistency, transparency, replicability, rigor, and integrity of ACEEL research. Editors and research professionals who perform journal article reviews for the premier agricultural education journals are encouraged to note the exclusion of a description of content analysis coders' credentials as part of the peer review process.


In this paper, we show that there is a mismatch between information retrieval (IR) and database (DB) concepts, and we devise solutions for this problem. DB oriented approaches have to distinguish between the logical and the content structure of objects, and should also consider the layout structure. Data independence — not regarded in IR before — can be achieved by using the notion of vague predicates. Since IR is based on uncertain inference, data models with uncertainty are required for an integrated IR-DB system. For this purpose, we present a probabilistic relational algebra. As extensions, probabilistic Datalog yields a more expressive query language, whereas a probabilistic nested relational model is more appropriate for modelling document structures.


We have fabricated dense polyphase mixtures (silicate and oxide minerals, metal, and silicate melt) by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), a technique that has only recently been applied to silicates. We describe the SPS method and some of the characteristics of sintered specimens of forsterite, forsterite + MgO, forsterite + metal (Ni or Fe) and forsterite + metal + silicate melt. We show that SPS is a very efficient method to quickly prepare dense (>99 %) polyphase aggregates with homogeneous microstructures (well distributed phases, narrow grain size distributions, polygonal grain boundaries. . .) and small grain sizes with little or no grain growth during sintering. We observe the development of slight Shape Preferred Orientations (SPO), especially for the metal phases, due to the very simple setup we used here. Overall, SPS offers substantial advantages over traditional sintering techniques, making it perfectly suitable for experimental studies in Earth sciences, in particular those involving kinetic processes.


Modern Actuarial Risk Theory contains what every actuary needs to know about non-life insurance mathematics. It starts with the standard material like utility theory, individual and collective model and basic ruin theory. Other topics are risk measures and premium principles, bonus-malus systems, ordering of risks and credibility theory. It also contains some chapters about Generalized Linear Models, applied to rating and IBNR problems. As to the level of the mathematics, the book would fit in a bachelors or masters program in quantitative economics or mathematical statistics. This second and much expanded edition emphasizes the implementation of these techniques through the use of R. This free but incredibly powerful software is rapidly developing into the de facto standard for statistical computation, not just in academic circles but also in practice. With R, one can do simulations, find maximum likelihood estimators, compute distributions by inverting transforms, and much more.


Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) have a strong propensity for aggressive growth and metastasis. We showed that the secreted Wnt antagonist Frzb exhibited potent antitumor activity against prostate cancer, an epithelial type of malignancy. In this study, we further showed the antitumor efficacy of Frzb in STS, a mesenchymal group of cancer. Frzb transfection of HT1080 (fibrosarcoma) and SW872 (liposarcoma) cell lines and their conditioned media resulted in a significant reduction in cellular invasion, motility, and colony formation in soft agar compared with vector control-transfected cells. In a xenograft mouse model, Frzb dramatically suppressed tumor growth of HT1080 cells in nude mice. In a tail-vein injection metastatic model, Frzb-transfected HT1080 cells formed fewer and smaller lung nodules than vector control cells. In addition, we identified new mechanisms for Frzb antitumor activities. Frzb reduced c-Met expression and inhibited Met-mediated signaling, associated with up-regulation of epithelial markers (i.e., keratins 8 and 18) and down-regulation of mesenchymal markers (i.e., vimentin, N-cadherin, fibronectin, Slug, and Twist). Similar to Frzb, silencing of c-Met by short hairpin RNA or using a dominant-negative LRP5 receptor also suppressed Met signaling, leading to reduced cellular motility, invasion, and in vivo tumor growth. Given recent studies indicating an important role of c-Met in sarcoma development and progression, our data showed that Frzb expression was significantly inversely correlated with Met expression in both STS cell lines and tissues. These results suggested the usefulness of Frzb in modulating Met signaling as a new treatment strategy for STS.


A major area of recent web-related research
concerns automated web service composition. The strength of web services technology is the possibility of creating value-added services by combining existing ones to achieve customized tasks.
How to combine these services efficiently into an arrangement that is both functionally sound and architecturally realizable is a
very challenging topic that has founded a significant research area within computer science.
Our research contribution lies in the area of dynamic
composition services selection. We have started by collating and
analyzing current outstanding problems within the dynamic
composition area. To help explain the background to these
challenges we compare, firstly, the key components of distributed
computing technologies with web service composition.
implementation supplies its service description (WS Register),
and provides technical and business support to clients.
Then we
define the 'execute ability' problem - the key idea that
preconditions of web services must be satisfied before or during
composition. We discuss data distribution strategies among
services, how they can be used to overcome problems in dynamic
composition problems and how they relate to the quality of
service. Finally, we present our proposed framework model to
handle the process of web service composition and execution. We
propose that this framework eliminates the main problems as
discussed in the paper.


Social innovation is becoming a core value of the EU flagship initiative Innovation Union, but it is not clearly demarcated as it covers a wide field of topics. To understand social innovation within European policymaking a brief outline is given of EC policy developments on innovation and on workplace innovation. Defi nitions of social innovation formulated at the societal level and the organizational or workplace level are discussed. Empirical researh findings of workplace innovation in the Netherlands are presented as examples showing that workplace innovation activities boost organizational performance. The article explores the relation between workplace innovation and social innovation, and concludes that policy developments in the EU can be studied with the theory of social quality, provided that the latter in its empirical approach focuses on how individuals together constitute innovations.


Alienation to politics weakens political competition and can undermine the acceptance and legitimacy of democracy as a political system. Governance and representation problems at the local level cause part of citizens? lack of power and political alienation. Citizens have local power if they can influence the political process so that its outcomes are closer to their preferences and if they feel to be effective in the political sphere. In order to increase citizens? local power, we emphasize the role of institutions of local governance. Local democratic governance is concerned about the relationship between citizens and local government institutions, political representatives and officials. This relationship is fundamentally shaped by the federal structure of a nation?s government and by the scope and depth of citizens? participation possibilities in the political process.


ABSTRACT There is no empirical evidence to suggest that terrorism is driven by mental illness in the majority of cases. However, when terrorist acts are planned or executed by individuals with mental disorder, possible functional links between the two need to be explored in order to delineate risk and inform approaches to risk management and reduction. This paper explores such functional links, their complexities and implications for clinical interventions, with a focus on psychosis, PTSD and addictions. The challenges of establishing the precise role of mental disorder, especially where there is co-morbidity and a range of complex interacting symptoms, are explored. Finally, the limitations of the existing research in the field of mental disorder and terrorism, and the challenges of extrapolating from such research to practice, are addressed.


The feasibility of inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) to overcome polyatomic interferents in severely affected isotope determination is demonstrated here. This instrument arrangement presents an octopole reaction/collision system (ORS) in between two quadrupole mass analyzers. The first quadrupole operates as a mass filter which allows just the target mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) to enter the ORS and rejects all other species with m/z different from the target analyte's m/z. Once in the ORS, analytes react with the reaction gas introduced into the ORS, and the second quadrupole selects the product of the reaction's m/z (mass shift operation mode). We describe here a procedure for accurate determination of P, S and Si in biodiesel, diesel and lubricating oil by ICP-MS/MS. Fuel standard reference materials (SRMs) were microwave-assisted acid-digested using nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The oxygen gas flow rate in the ORS was optimized considering the limit of detection (LOD) values and accuracies reached for P, S and Si determinations in the lubricating oil SRM and the best oxygen gas flow rate was 0.75 mL min−1. Adopting optimized conditions, limits of detection were 1.2, 0.49, 0.31, 0.33 and 0.78 μg L−1 for 28Si16O+, 29Si16O+, 31P16O+, 32S16O+ and 34S16O+, respectively. Adequate precision, accuracy and sensitivity were obtained when using the mass shift mode and recoveries for biodiesel, diesel and lubricating oil digests ranged from 95.0 to 113%. No significant differences were observed between the certified values and the ones obtained using ICP-MS/MS at a 95% confidence level.


The geometry of the E-BD reservoir is such that that the thickness of the oil-leg and the water-leg are usually below the seismic limit of separability. Seismic amplitudes from a 3D survey have previously been used to characterise the reservoir. The validity of this approach is however affected by a thin, silt-rich unit that overlies the reservoir in places. This unit has been termed abandonment facies (AF), and modifies the seismic amplitude of the reservoir-top reflection. AVO effects along reservoir-associated interfaces also influence the stacked seismic amplitude. Five boreholes intersect the E-BD channel. Log data from these boreholes indicate changes in acoustic properties across the sandstone interval. These changes also affect the amplitude of the observed seismic data. In this article, the results of a 2D modeling study are presented, which was undertaken to understand these seismic amplitude effects.


Knowledge about harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin occurrence in Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Wales, is limited to daylight hours during summer, when conditions are suitable for traditional visual surveys. T-PODs are autonomous instruments programmed to log time-cues of species-specific echolocation signals for long periods of time. Here we investigated bottlenose dolphin and harbour porpoise habitat use and partitioning by deploying ten calibrated T-PODs in Cardigan Bay SAC for one year. The T-PODs detected both species all year round with a peak of detections in April –October for dolphins and in October –March for porpoise, revealing a previously unknown importance of the place to harbour porpoise during winter. Though the two species are sympatric, simultaneous detections of both species were rare and indication of temporal habitat partitioning between the two species in some parts of the SAC was observed. The one location where simultaneous detections were not as rare was close to the stretch of shoreline where stranding of porpoises killed by dolphins are most common, suggesting that the observed spatiotemporal overlap leads to inter-specific interactions, in some cases fatal for the porpoise.


This study aimed to explore Iranian primary school students' attitudes and knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The knowledge and attitudes of 597 primary school students from all areas of Ahwaz were assessed by anonymous questionnaires in November 2007. None of the students answered all the knowledge questions correctly, and results indicated that there were many misconceptions about the routes of transmission. Sneezing and coughing, contaminated food, water or hands were incorrectly identified as routes of transmission. The knowledge increased with age (P<0.001). The sources of pupils' information primarily included: Television (66.8%), family members (20.2%), friends (10.6%) and school teachers (2.4%). Also some pupils believed that there was some treatment (38.3%) or an effective vaccine (63.4%) for HIV/AIDS. The result of this study revealed that most primary school students in Ahvaz had a lack of proper knowledge about HIV/AIDS. There is a need to promote an AIDS education in Ahvaz and also all Iranian schools, to improve socio-cultural factors in next years. Electronic Physician 2009; Vol 1, Pages 17-23


The Canary Islands offer an example of an isolated electric grid of relatively important size within the EU. Generally, these systems do not have access to every technology available, nor can they be connected to continental grids when necessary. Due to their particularities, renewable energies, benefitting from their complementarity with fossil fuels, can play an important role in achieving the main energy policy goals of the islands. Electric vehicles (EVs), thanks to their storage capacity, can provide benefits to the power system reducing both the need for backup thermal generation and the amount of spilled renewable energy (mainly wind). Moreover, EVs can introduce more demand flexibility, which reduces the extra costs (intermittency costs) that renewable technologies impose on power systems. Comparing an efficient mix under a baseline scenario (null impact of electric vehicles) with an equivalent efficient mix under an alternative scenario assuming the introduction of a maximum of 122,000 cars into the Canarias market in 2025, we find a reduction of almost 11% in average generating cost (about 80 million euros/year), 9% in risk (measured as the standard deviation) and almost 13% in emissions.


Human mucin 1 (MUC1) is a highly glycosylated transmembrane glycoprotein that is expressed on the luminal surface of ductal epithelial cells. Human adenocarcinomas overexpress MUC1 as a tumor-associated antigen (TAA) that presents to the immune system peptide epitopes and glycopeptide epitopes with tumor specific carbohydrates, such as mono- and disaccharides known as Tn, sialyl-Tn, and TF antigens. Studies in MUC1 transgenic (MUC1-Tg) mice have indicated that, compared to transgene negative wild-type (WT) mice, the MUC1-Tg immune system maintains a certain level of tolerance to the MUC1 peptide, reflected most notably in decreased CD4 T cell help. We made a novel observation that in contrast to suppressed responses to the MUC1-peptide vaccine, vaccination of MUC1-Tg mice with tumor-associated MUC1 glycopeptide resulted in effective anti-MUC1 immunity similar to that elicited in WT mice. We hypothesized that the tumor-associated glycopeptides were seen as foreign and therefore not subject to tolerance. To study CD4 T cell responses to MUC1 glycopeptides we generated glycopeptide GST(GalNAc;Tn)A specific, MHC-Class II restricted CD4 T cell hybridoma, RF6. We cloned the RF6 TCR (RFT; Va4.1Ja16-Vâ15Jâ1.3) and generated TCR transgenic mice RFT-Tg. Using the RFT-Tg mice and the previously generated MUC1 peptide-specific TCR transgenic VFT-Tg mice, we show that peptide-specific VFT CD4 T cells transferred to MUC1-Tg mice are suppressed through mechanisms of peripheral tolerance, which are not induced against MUC1-glycopeptide specific RFT CD4 T cells. We show that peptide-specific CD4 T cells are transiently activated upon transfer into MUC1-Tg mice, suggesting that MUC1-peptide epitope is presented in the periphery in healthy mice as well as in tumor bearing mice. In contrast, MUC1-glycopeptide epitopes are tumor specific and thus treated as foreign antigens in MUC1-Tg mice, resulting in effective activation of glycopeptide-specific CD4 T cells. Simultaneous activation of glycopeptide-specific T cells can break tolerance of peptide-specific T cells. Our findings with MUC1 apply to other TAA that contain some epitopes that are "self" and subject to self tolerance and other epitopes that are tumor specific ("foreign") and not affected by tolerance. Understanding this distinction is very important in the development of effective and safe cancer vaccines.


INTRODUCTION It has long been recognized that the purchasing function can play an important strategic role in contributing to the success of a firm. In many cases, however, members of the purchasing function have been too far removed from decisions that affect their ability to perform the purchasing job effectively. The purpose of this article is fourfold. First, it begins with a brief exploration of past literature regarding the involvement of the purchasing function in a variety of decision issues that affect the purchasing function. Second, key purchasing decision issues are presented and clustered into categories. Third, the results of a survey of purchasing executives regarding the current level of the purchasing function's involvement in a variety of decision issues are presented. Finally, based on the study results, the article examines future trends in purchasing decision involvement. IMPORTANCE OF PURCHASING INVOLVEMENT IN DECISIONS The past decade has seen an increase in the body of literature that supports the concept that the purchasing function can be an active, vital contributor to the strategic success of a firm if it is informed of and involved in key decision issues.|1~ In particular, purchasing can contribute by playing a key role in the supplier selection process--matching the selection of a supplier with the firm's strategy. Researchers have postulated that given access to information regarding the firm's strategy and involvement in key decision-making issues within the firm, the purchasing function can be an important contributor to the overall strategic success of the firm.|2~ Thus, the purchasing function's involvement in decision making should reflect the important role that purchasing can play in the firm. In particular, the decision-making involvement of the purchasing function should reflect the large number of dollars that purchasing controls in many firms. Further, the involvement of the function in decision making should reflect the potentially significant strategic contribution purchasing can make to the firm's overall success. However, relatively little work has been undertaken that examines the purchasing function's involvement in decision making. An important study conducted by the Center for Advanced Purchasing Studies|3~ explores the purchasing function's involvement in key decision issues by examining the major areas for which the purchasing function is responsible. The involvement of the purchasing function in key decision issues is also explored to some extent by several other researchers.|4~ Nature of Decision Participation This research explores in some depth the specific nature of the purchasing function's involvement in decision making on a decision-by-decision basis. There are a variety of ways in which purchasing may become involved in a firm's decision-making process. Purchasing might have responsibility for some aspect of a given decision, responsibility for routine, day-to-day decisions, or complete responsibility for all decision making in a given area. Team Involvement On the other hand, purchasing could be involved in decision making as a member of a team. Today the team concept is becoming increasingly important in managing a business.|5~ For the purposes of this research, a team includes the use of a committee, task force, or group of people from a variety of functional areas to achieve a common goal. By using work teams that include a number of functions with a variety of skills and knowledge, communication, decision making, understanding, and commitment all improve. The concept supporting team involvement holds that improved interfunctional cooperation and understanding can improve the quality, the speed, and the commitment of decision making. Issues that have broad and strategic implications increasingly are decided at a team level. Team action typically provides a greater breadth of information for consideration in the decision process. …


Betalains are natural food colorants with high antioxidant activity. But the compounds are characterized by easiness to decondensation to achieve equilibrium of the reaction after dilution in solutions as food colorants. The aim of paper was to find molecular centers responsible for antioxidant activity by quantum chemical calculations. The calculations were performed by PM3 method in HyperChem 8.0 software. It was found that these are alpha C-H bonds to be broken to give radicals with less energy instead of phenolic OH groups commonly referred to as the most active sites of antioxidants. According to results of the calculations, the condensation reaction must not have a great impact upon colorant antioxidant activity. The assumptions made were confirmed by experimental results of the determination of antioxidant activity by Folin-Ciocalteu method with reagent are highly sensitive to reducing agents. Indeed, purified by solid-state extraction betacyanins of Beta vulgaris and of Opuntia joconostle really loosed the color but not an antioxidant activity for first two days of storage. It can be concluded that the trend of betalains for decondendation to reach the equilibrium of condensationdecondensation reaction after colorant solution dilution leads to decrease of color intensity (and betalain concentration) but only slightly affects the antioxidant activity.


As modern main-memory optimized data systems increasingly rely on fast scans, lightweight indexes that allow for data skipping play a crucial role in data filtering to reduce system I/O. Scans benefit from data skipping when the data order is sorted, semi-sorted, or comprised of clustered values. However data skipping loses effectiveness over arbitrary data distributions. Applying data skipping techniques over non-sorted data can significantly decrease query performance since the extra cost of metadata reads result in no corresponding scan performance gains. We introduce adaptive data skipping as a framework for structures and techniques that respond to a vast array of data distributions and query workloads. We reveal an adaptive zonemaps design and implementation on a main-memory column store prototype to demonstrate that adaptive data skipping has potential for 1.4X speedup.


Search games and rendezvous problems have received growing attention in computer science within the past few years. Rendezvous problems emerge naturally, for instance, to optimize performance and convergence of mobile robots. This gives a new algorithmic point of view to the theory. Furthermore, modern topics such as the spreading of gossip or disease in social networks have lead to new challenging problems in search and rendezvous. Search Theory: A Game Theoretic Perspective introduces the first integrated approach to Search and Rendezvous from the perspectives ofbiologists, computer scientists and mathematicians. This contributed volume covers a wide range of topics including rendezvous problems and solutions, rendezvous on graphs, search games on biology, mobility in governed social networks, search and security, and more. Most chapters also include case studies or a survey, in addition to a chapter on the future direction of Search and Rendezvous research. This book targets researchers and practitioners working in computer science, mathematics and biology as a reference book. Advanced level students focused on these fields will also find this book valuable as a secondary text book orreference.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the current study was to examine facilitative and avoidant coping as mediators between distress and transition status, social support, and loss.

METHOD
A total of 351 transgender individuals (n = 226 transgender women and n = 125 transgender men) participated in this study. Participants completed measures on transgender identity, family history of mental health concerns, perceptions of loss, coping, depression, and anxiety.

RESULTS
The rates of depressive symptoms (51.4% for transgender women; 48.3% for transgender men) and anxiety (40.4% for transgender women; 47.5% for transgender men) within the current study far surpass the rates of those for the general population. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data-2 separate models were hypothesized, based on reports of anxiety or depression. The SEM results suggest that the processes for transgender women and transgender men are primarily similar for depression and anxiety; avoidant coping served as a mediator between transition status and both distress variables. Social support was directly related to distress variables, as well as indirectly related through avoidant coping.

CONCLUSION
Results suggest the need for practitioners to focus on interventions that reduce avoidant coping strategies, while simultaneously increasing social support, in order to improve mental health for transgender individuals. Individuals who are in the beginning stages of their transition will use different coping strategies than those who are in later stages; interventions should be adjusted on the basis of the transition status of transgender clients.


Getting phosphorus into healthy shape ProTide therapeutics play a trick on the body, getting nucleoside analogs where they need to be by decorating them with unnatural phosphoramidates in place of ordinary phosphates. These compounds pose an unusual synthetic challenge because their configuration must be controlled at phosphorus; most methods have been refined to manipulate the geometry of carbon. DiRocco et al. report a metal-free, small-molecule catalyst that attains high selectivity for nucleoside phosphoramidation by activating both reaction partners. Kinetic studies with an early prototype revealed a double role for the catalyst that inspired the rational design of a more active and selective dimeric structure. Science, this issue p. 426 A doubly activating catalyst efficiently forms key phosphorus-based chiral centers inherent to ProTide therapeutics. The catalytic stereoselective synthesis of compounds with chiral phosphorus centers remains an unsolved problem. State-of-the-art methods rely on resolution or stoichiometric chiral auxiliaries. Phosphoramidate prodrugs are a critical component of pronucleotide (ProTide) therapies used in the treatment of viral disease and cancer. Here we describe the development of a catalytic stereoselective method for the installation of phosphorus-stereogenic phosphoramidates to nucleosides through a dynamic stereoselective process. Detailed mechanistic studies and computational modeling led to the rational design of a multifunctional catalyst that enables stereoselectivity as high as 99:1.


Transportation cost is an attractive similarity measure between probability distributions due to its many useful theoretical properties. However, solving optimal transport exactly can be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, there has been significant effort towards the design of scalable approximation algorithms. Previous combinatorial results [Sharathkumar, Agarwal STOC '12, Agarwal, Sharathkumar STOC '14] have focused primarily on the design of near-linear time multiplicative approximation algorithms. There has also been an effort to design approximate solutions with additive errors [Cuturi NIPS '13, Altschuler \etal\ NIPS '17, Dvurechensky \etal\, ICML '18, Quanrud, SOSA '19] within a time bound that is linear in the size of the cost matrix and polynomial in $C/\delta$; here $C$ is the largest value in the cost matrix and $\delta$ is the additive error. We present an adaptation of the classical graph algorithm of Gabow and Tarjan and provide a novel analysis of this algorithm that bounds its execution time by $O(\frac{n^2 C}{\delta}+ \frac{nC^2}{\delta^2})$. Our algorithm is extremely simple and executes, for an arbitrarily small constant $\varepsilon$, only $\lfloor \frac{2C}{(1-\varepsilon)\delta}\rfloor + 1$ iterations, where each iteration consists only of a Dijkstra-type search followed by a depth-first search. We also provide empirical results that suggest our algorithm is competitive with respect to a sequential implementation of the Sinkhorn algorithm in execution time. Moreover, our algorithm quickly computes a solution for very small values of $\delta$ whereas Sinkhorn algorithm slows down due to numerical instability.


Oil sands are a mixture of "bitumen" (a very viscous, heavily biodegraded crude oil), unconsolidated sand, and water bound together by the bitumen and confining stresses. Economic incentives to produce reserves from the western Canada oil sands have driven geological and geochemical mapping to assess fluid quality controls and improve our understanding of the fundamental principles of the biodegradation of oils. While much of this activity has been for practical application, researchers have also had the opportunity to make fundamental advances in our understanding of subsurface biogeochemical processes and the boundaries of life in Earth's crust. Indeed, the huge size and shallow location of oil sands, coupled with the many thousands of wells drilled, mean that on a per cell basis, oil sands represent a most accessible portion of the deep biosphere. Perhaps the most exciting future for the oil sand resource is on the biological front rather than as an energy resource.


Laser flash irradiation of substituted N-benzhydryl pyridinium salts yields benzhydryl cations (diarylcarbenium ions) and/or benzhydryl radicals (diarylmethyl radicals). The use of 3,4,5-triamino-substituted pyridines as photoleaving groups allowed us to employ the third harmonic of a Nd/YAG laser (355 nm) for the photogeneration of benzhydryl cations. In this way, benzhydryl cations can also be photogenerated in the presence of aromatic compounds and in solvents which are opaque at the wavelength of the quadrupled Nd/YAG laser (266 nm). To demonstrate the scope and limitations of this method, the rate constants for the bimolecular reactions of benzhydryl cations with several substituted pyridines were determined in acetonitrile and with water in acetone. The obtained data agree with results obtained by stopped-flow UV-vis spectroscopic measurements. The rate constants for the reaction of the 4,4'-bis[methyl(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)amino]benzhydrylium ion with 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine were also determined in dimethyl sulfoxide, N,N-dimethylformamide, and acetone. From the second-order rate constants, we derived the nucleophilicity parameters N and s(N) for the substituted pyridines, as defined by the linear free energy relationship, log k(2) = s(N)(N + E).


The interaction mechanism of multiple quaternary ammonium salts (MQAS) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) was examined by the fluorescence quenching method and circular dichroism (CD) spectra. Moreover, the effects of MQAS on the dynamic properties of BSA adsorption layers at different pH values were investigated using dilational interfacial rheology. Results show that the quenching constants increase with an increase in pH values and decrease with an increase in the experiment temperature at pH 5.3. The quenching mechanism is static quenching, and the electrostatic force dominates the interaction between MQAS and BSA at pH 5.3. Due to three positive head groups, MQAS can significantly affect the dynamic interfacial activity of BSA molecules at a relatively low concentration. At pH 4.3, the electrostatic repulsion is unfavorable for the formation of MQAS/BSA complexes. Consequently, MQAS molecules will replace BSA molecules from the interface by competitive adsorption. At the pH value above the isoelectric point of BSA, the electrostatic attraction is better for the formation of MQAS/BSA complexes, which exhibit a rapid adsorption rate and an enhanced interfacial activity. Moreover, the kinetic dependencies of interfacial dilational elasticity for the MQAS/BSA mixtures become nonmonotonous. The appearance of the maximum interfacial elasticity values can be attributed to the formation of tails and loops, which suggests that the addition of MQAS destroys the secondary and tertiary structure of protein in the bulk phase. In addition, the effects of MQAS on the secondary structure of protein were demonstrated by CD spectra.


With limited resources and a diminished budget, it is not surprising that the Internal Revenue Service would seek new tools to maximize its enforcement efficiency. Automation and technology provide new opportunities for the IRS, and in turn, present new concerns for taxpayers. In December 2018, the IRS signaled its interest in a tool to access publicly available social media profiles of individuals in order to "expedite IRS case resolution for existing compliance cases." This has important implications for taxpayer privacy.

Moreover, the use of social media in tax enforcement may pose a particular harm to an especially vulnerable population: low-income taxpayers. Social science research shows us that the poor are already over-surveilled, and researchers have identified various ways in which algorithmic screening and data mining can result in discrimination. What, then, are the implications of social media mining in the context of tax enforcement, especially given that the IRS already audits the poor at a rate similar to which it audits the highest earning individuals? How can these concerns be reconciled with the need for tax enforcement?

This article questions the appropriateness of the IRS further automating its enforcement tactics in ways that may harm already vulnerable individuals, makes proposals to balance the use of any such tactics with respect for taxpayer rights, and considers how tax lawyers should advise their clients in an era of diminishing privacy.


Thermal underwear has won a large proportion of Chinese clothing market over the last few decades. However, most of the current products in thermal underwear market can hardly meet consumers' demands because it still exist some disadvantages, such as poor fabric performance and unpopular styles. To fully understand the weaknesses in the performance of current thermal underwear, this paper is aimed at intensively investigating consumers' demands from the aspects of garment selecting standards, garment fabrics, and garment structures. Based on related literature, crucial survey factors were selected in relation to fabric comfort and garment structure. The price factor was also considered in the research. The survey, using questionnaires as the tool, was mainly conducted in China. It turned out that there was blindness in consumers' process of purchasing thermal underwear. Meanwhile, we have concluded main defects in the long-term using process of thermal underwear and a list of consumers' expectations. Then, suggestions were given to provide manufacturers with guidelines to improve their strategies. Besides, two new product development schemes were proposed with new design of fabric structure and component, garment style sketches, and garment structure patterns.


The concept of occupational health and safety is not defined in Polish law. The only place where such a definition can be found is PN-N-1801:2004. Nevertheless, according to the Act on standardisation, the application of Polish Standards is voluntary. Activities in the field of occupational health and safety should be an integral part of business management. Companies from countries which are members of the European Union, in accordance with Directive 89/391/EEC, are obliged to implement standards related to occupational health and safety. The most commonly used and recognised standard for occupational health and safety management systems, in line with the specifics of each company, is the OHSAS 18001 international management system, while in Poland it is
the PN-N-18001 standard. The study examined the scope of OHS at work among Research and Innovation Centre Pro-Akademia employees. The employees were subjected to surveys. The results obtained show that employees appreciate the importance of OHS regulations, but they do not always consciously comply with them. One of the tools that enabled author to prepare this article is analytic method called desk research. Desk Research is a research method that boils down to analyzing the records of available data sources, including in particular their compilation, mutual verification and processing. Such analysis is the basis for drawing conclusions about the examined problem. For example - the effect of the Desk Research analysis proceeded as part of the labor market survey is the diagnosis of the state of the labor market in the studied area, the characteristics of all its component groups as well as a description and verification of the actions taken by the institutions operating within it.


Ecologists are increasingly recognizing the conservation significance of microrefugia, but it is inherently difficult to locate these small patches with unusual climates, and hence they are also referred to as cryptic refugia. Here we introduce a new methodology to quantify and locate potential microrefugia using fine‐scale topoclimatic grids that capture extreme conditions, stable climates, and distinct differences from the surrounding matrix. We collected hourly temperature data from 150 sites in a large (200 km by 300 km) and diverse region of New South Wales, Australia, for a total of 671 days over 2 years. Sites spanned a range of habitats including coastal dune shrublands, eucalypt forests, exposed woodland ridges, sheltered rainforest gullies, upland swamps, and lowland pastures. Climate grids were interpolated using a regional regression approach based on elevation, distance to coast, canopy cover, latitude, cold‐air drainage, and topographical exposure to winds and radiation. We identified extreme temperatures on two separate climatic gradients: the 5th percentile of minimum temperatures and the 95th percentile of maximum temperatures. For each gradient, climatic stability was assessed on three different time scales (intra‐seasonal, intra‐annual and inter‐annual). Differences from the matrix were assessed using a moving window with a 5 km radius. We averaged the Z‐scores for these extreme, stable and isolated climates to identify potential locations of microrefugia. We found that our method successfully predicted the location of communities that were considered to occupy refugia, such as rainforests that have progressively contracted in distribution over the last 2.5 million years, and alpine grasslands that have contracted over the last 15 thousand years. However, the method was inherently sensitive to the gradient selected and other aspects of the modelling process. These uncertainties could be dealt with in a conservation planning context by repeating the methodology with various parameterizations and identifying areas that were consistently identified as microrefugia.


Globally 165 million children under-five years of age are stunted. Hence development of local therapeutic nutritional intervention is recommended by WHO. Present study was designed to find the efficacy of the nutritional intervention for the recovery of impaired lipid metabolism and correlation of weight for height% with cholesterol, triglyceride in malnourished children. 105 test and 100 control SAM children without infection, of 1 to 5 years of age and either sex were enrolled. Test group was given treatment of nutritional intervention therapy, providing 2.5 to 3gm Protein and 90-100 kcal /kg body Weight/day, for the three months. Their Anthropometric, and Biochemical parameters were measured before and after the nutritional therapy. Before the nutritional intervention treatment P values for Serum Total cholesterol, Triglyceride, Weight for height %, were insignificant suggestive of similar baseline characteristics at enrollment. After nutritional intervention treatment P values for Serum Total cholesterol, Triglyceride, Weight for height % were highly significant. The r value of Pearson correlation coefficient for triglycerides in the study group and its ANOVA model was very significant, showing poor positive correlation with weight for height % while for total cholesterol it was found to be insignificant. Depending on results we conclude that it is the most effective food supplement for the speedy recovery of the impaired lipid metabolism in SAM children and the use of weight for height % as a anthropometric marker for the pre-indication of fatty liver in malnourished children. KeywordsSAM, Triglyceride, Cholesterol, Weight for height %, Correlation, Nutritional intervention


In this illuminating study of corporate America's most critical issue-leadership-world-renowned leadership guru Warren Bennis and his co-author Burt Nanus reveal the four key principles every manager should know: Attention Through Vision, Meaning Through Communication, Trust Through Positioning, and The Deployment of Self. In this age of "process", with downsizing and restructuring affecting many workplaces, companies have fallen trap to lack of communication and distrust, and vision and leadership are needed more than ever before. The wisdom and insight in Leaders addresses this need. It is an indispensable source of guidance all readers will appreciate, whether they're running a small department or in charge of an entire corporation.


ABSTRACT This study is the first to examine the research productivity of public administration faculty by gender through the perceptions of full-time faculty members at NASPAA-accredited schools. It specifically examines how research productivity varies by gender according to faculty tenure status and academic rank. This study extends previous research by using survey methodology to explore research productivity through the perceptions of faculty using gender, tenure status, and academic rank. Findings suggest that during tenure-track years and after tenure, women publish significantly less than men overall. Findings also suggest that women who are assistant and full professors publish significantly less than men in similar ranks. Finally, the study finds no significant differences in publication rates between women and men who reported themselves to be associate professors. Through this study, the authors make three contributions to the discipline and present three recommendations that explore avenues to develop the research productivity of women in public administration scholarship.


The compression of soft elastic matter and biological tissue can lead to creasing, an instability where a surface folds sharply into periodic self-contacts. Intriguingly, the unfolding of the surface upon releasing the strain is usually not perfect: small scars remain that serve as nuclei for creases during repeated compressions. Here we present creasing experiments with sticky polymer surfaces, using confocal microscopy, which resolve the contact line region where folding and unfolding occurs. It is found that surface tension induces a second fold, at the edge of the self-contact, which leads to a singular elastic stress and self-similar crease morphologies. However, these profiles exhibit an intrinsic folding-unfolding asymmetry that is caused by contact line pinning, in a way that resembles wetting of liquids on imperfect solids. Contact line pinning is therefore a key element of creasing: it inhibits complete unfolding and gives soft surfaces a folding memory.


The purpose of this article is to investigate the consequences of judicial campaign activity for the perceived legitimacy of the Pennsylvania judiciary. The authors find that politicized campaign ads do detract from court support, although they find practically no difference between traditional campaign ads (e.g., presenting endorsements from groups) and strong attack ads. But this finding must be understood within the context of the 2007 Pennsylvania election increasing court support for all respondents, even those exposed to the most politicized ad content. Being exposed to politicized ads seems to retard the benefits of elections but does not eliminate them.


Winter wheat is often double-cropped after soybeans in no-tillage systems. The soybean crop removes large quantities of sulfur (S), which might cause S deficiency for the following wheat crop. Our objective was to evaluate the responses of three wheat varieties to three nitrogen (N) and four S fertilizer rates representing a range of N:S ratios. The experiment was conducted near Ashland Bottoms and Hutchinson, KS. Treatments were arranged as a complete factorial structure with a split-split-plot design. Variety was the whole-plot, N was the sub-plot, and S was the sub-sub plot. Nitrogen rates were 50, 100, and 150% of the university recommendations for a 60 bushel per acre yield, and S rates were 0, 10, 20, and 40 pounds of S per acre. Wheat varieties evaluated were Zenda, SY Monument, and LCS Mint. Increasing the N rate increased grain yield at both locations. Sulfur increased grain yield at Ashland Bottoms but not at Hutchinson. Nitrogen by S interaction occurred for protein concentration at both locations. At Hutchinson, N rates of 50, 100, and 150% N resulted in grain yield of 62, 73, and 78 bu/a. For the 50% and 100% N rate, protein concentration was 10.8% and 11.3%; however, the 150% N rate with 20 or 40 lb S/a increased protein concentration to 11.8% as compared to 11.5% observed in the 0 or 10 lb S/ a treatments. At Ashland Bottoms, N rates of 50, 100, and 150% resulted in grain yield of 56, 69, and 74 bu/a across S treatments. For the 0 pounds of S per acre treatment, though, these N rates resulted in grain yields of 36, 42, and 40 bu/a. The 150% N rate with 20 and 40 lb S/a increased grain yield by 5 bu/a as compared to the 10 lb S/a treatment. At the 50% N rate, protein concentration was 9.7% with an application of S as compared to 10.3% for the 0 lb S/a, which is due to a dilution effect from the increased grain yield. As S application increased, protein concentration decreased at the 100% N rate. However, at the 150% N rate, protein concentrations were 12.2, 11.5, 11.8, and 11.9% for the 0, 10, 20, and 40 lb S/a, respectively. Our results suggest that a balanced fertilization of N and S are essential for improving yield and protein concentration in no-till systems following soybeans, and that initial S in the profile and soil organic matter (OM) play a crucial role in determining the crop's response to the added fertilizers.


John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture: Religious Intolerance and Arguments for Religious Toleration in Early Modern and 'Early Enlightenment' Europe. By John Marshall. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2006. Pp viii, 767. $110.00.) This book is about much more than its title would suggest. A history of ideas written very much in the tradition of the Cambridge school (the author studied under both Mark Goldie and John Pocock), Marshall's account is predictably big on context - some 466 pages of it! A powerful piece of scholarship - brilliantly conceived, breath-taking in scope, and rich in historical insight - it will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars across a range disciplines (history, religion, political science, philosophy, history of science, literature, and queer studies), and to both Europeanists and Americanists alike. Marshall's premise is that in order to understand why the likes of Locke, Bayle, and other members of the emerging republic of letters of the 1680's and 1690's came to develop the particular arguments they did in favor of religious toleration, we must first understand both the practices of and intellectual justifications for religious intolerance that they were reacting against. Marshall takes us on a fascinating journey, where he first unfolds the horrors of religious persecution in early modern France, Piedmont, England, Ireland, and the supposedly tolerant Netherlands, before proceeding to unpack patristic, medieval, and early modern arguments for why those who refused to adhere to the state religion could not be tolerated. Heretics and schismatics were viewed as intrinsically seditious and treasonous (because disobedient toward authority), unable to control their lusts (and thus probably libertines and sodomites), and willfully obstinate; unless compelled to conform or silenced for good, they would spread their poison, or so it was feared, and threaten both the salvation of ordinary people's souls and the peace of the commonwealth. Thus like a cancerous growth, heresy had to be removed to prevent the whole body from becoming diseased. Although there were some early proponents of greater religious toleration - and Jews and Muslims, because not Christians, were freed from the charge of heresy - arguments for intolerance, as endorsed by both Catholics and Protestants, held the day; indeed, most western European societies were becoming less tolerant as the seventeenth century progressed. …


Intensive Language Action Therapy (ILAT) is a short-term aphasia therapy that emphasises massed-practise of language, where communication is framed through language action games that approximate everyday interactions. Despite increasing interest in ILAT, a comprehensive description of its methods has thus far been missing. Furthermore due to inconsistent results, further exploration of cortical reorganisation of language functions following ILAT is warranted.
The underlying principles and practical features of ILAT methods and of language-action games are fully described, including the structure and materials for two specific games. 14 English speaking patients with chronic aphasia underwent two weeks of ILAT utilising the methods outlined. Pre and post measures of language performance were collected through standardised clinical assessments, along with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from a subset of 8 patients. Accuracy and response times for speech output and comprehension during language-action games were also recorded to measure success during the therapy interval.
Data analysis showed significant improvements in clinical assessments of naming and comprehension, but not in auditory or syntactic processing tasks. Significant increases were also seen in patients' self-ratings of quality of communication following therapy. Video and voice recordings during therapy sessions demonstrated significantly faster response times in production and comprehension of language, alongside an increase in the complexity of patients' spoken output. Cortical activation was recorded whilst patients heard low-level noise, sentences containing ambiguous words and low-ambiguity sentences. Although the results showed no changes in cortical activation in the group of patients whilst processing low-level noise or low ambiguity sentences, increases in language-induced activation were seen in single-subject analyses in both the left and right hemispheres. Furthermore the group of patients recruited the right hemisphere significantly more than the left hemisphere following ILAT when processing complex sentences containing ambiguous words.
iii
Clinical assessments and measures of everyday communication showed undergoing two weeks of ILAT significantly improved speech output and comprehension in patients with chronic aphasia. Gains made in communicative performance during therapy highlight the importance of recording therapy sessions for additional assessment of therapy efficacy. Although conclusions regarding cortical reorganisation are not entirely clear, they indicate the important role of the right hemisphere in reorganisation of language after stroke.


This data brief is the fourth in a series that profiles children of immigrants using up-to-date census data and other sources.1 The first brief highlighted the fast growth of the immigrant population and important demographic trends. The second described the family circumstances of children of immigrants, and the third highlighted the circumstances of young children age 0 to 8. The current brief focuses on immigrant families' incomes, economic wellbeing, and use of public benefits.


Premise of the study: Buchloë dactyloides (Poaceae) is an important component of Great Plains prairies and a popular drought-tolerant turfgrass alternative in North America. This species comprises an autopolyploid series, and microsatellite primers were developed to understand the distribution of genetic variation among cytotypes and across its large geographic range. Methods and Results: Fifteen microsatellite loci were designed and successfully amplified in six B. dactyloides populations. Within-population genetic diversity was comparatively high, consistent with B. dactyloides' life history. Allelic variation at 13 loci was consistent with the cytotype established in chromosome-counted samples. Conclusions: This variable, interpretable set of loci allows for the determination of multilocus genotype in B. dactyloides individuals of varying cytotype. Data such as these from a range-wide sample set can provide important insights for germplasm conservation and crop improvement in this ecologically and economically important species.


Maintaining water quality in the Florida Keys is vital to the area's economy. However, the lack of sewage infrastructure has degraded nearshore water quality. The Monroe County Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan outlines strategies to improve sewage infrastructure to meet the State of Florida's 2010 effluent standards. This paper assesses the progress of the Monroe County Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan in the context of Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) by means of surveys, semi-structured interviews, and secondary data. Monroe County's plan included aspects of ICM and emphasized a community-based approach for incorporated and unincorporated areas to meet effluent standards. However, areas throughout the Florida Keys faced financial constraints and lack of resources in executing public work initiatives. Variability in management plans developed by municipalities demonstrated the need for a top down approach. The State of Florida and Monroe County could have provided more guidance and resources, and facilitated communication between the various entities to help complete objectives by the 2010 deadline.


It is important for the public and private sectors to establish effective risk allocation strategies for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects. According to Malaysia's PPP Guideline, one of the key feature or characteristics is to optimal sharing of risk whereby risk is allocated to the party who is the best able to manage. This mean that in PPP itself, it emphasis risk allocation in construction project. This paper presents on reviewing the risk factors of PPP construction project by mapping previous research works on PPP project around the world. The matrix of the mapping gives the frequency of factors that are considered the risk allocation of PPP project. The risk factors are clustered into 10 groups namely: Political, Construction, Legal, Economic, Operation, Market, Project selection, Project finance, Relationship and Natural factor. Result shows that the highest score frequency factors are change in law, delay in project approvals & permits and land acquisition. By knowing the risk factors gives better understanding in allocating them to parties/stakeholders involved.


Self-powered systems based on nanogenerators (NGs) that are capable of harvesting mechanical and thermal energies for electricity and are obtained using low-cost materials and simple preparation methods have received great attention. Herein, we report a lightweight and flexible self-powered hybrid NG based on the piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects of an electrospun non-woven poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanofiber membrane (NFM), which can be directly used as an active layer without any post-poling treatment. The flexibility of the NG was enhanced by using an electrospun thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) NFM as a substrate and a conductive PEDOT:PSS-PVP NFM and a carbon nanotube layer as the electrodes. The capabilities of the NFM to harvest mechanical and thermal energies were demonstrated. Mechanical impacting and bending can effectively stimulate the piezoelectric output of the NG, which can directly light a LED. Moreover, a hybrid piezoelectric–pyroelectric current of the NG was detected upon simultaneous application of strain and a thermal gradient. Due to its flexible non-woven structure, the NG can further harvest energy from body motion and cold/hot airflows. Furthermore, its mechanical durability, robustness and practicality were investigated by charging a capacitor. The novel design of the NFM-constructed hybrid NG demonstrated here can be applied not only to self-powered wearable electronic textiles but also to power generation on a large scale.


Interpretable predictions, which clarify why a machine learning model makes a particular decision, can compromise privacy by revealing the characteristics of individual data points. This raises the central question addressed in this paper: Can models be interpretable without compromising privacy? For complex "big" data fit by correspondingly rich models, balancing privacy and explainability is particularly challenging, such that this question has remained largely unexplored. In this paper, we propose a family of simple models with the aim of approximating complex models using several locally linear maps per class to provide high classification accuracy, as well as differentially private explanations on the classification. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach on several image benchmark datasets as well as a medical dataset.


Segmental resection of the mandible commonly results in deviation of the mandible to the defective side. This loss of continuity of the mandible destroys the balance of the lower face and leads to decreased mandibular function by deviation of the residual segment toward the surgical site. Prosthetic methods advocated to reduce or eliminate mandibular deviation include intermaxillary fixation, removable mandibular guide flange, palatel ramp, implant-supported prosthesis, and palatal guidance restorations which may be useful in reducing mandibular deviation and improving masticatory performance and efficiency. These methods and restorations would be combined with a well organized mandibular exercise regimen. This clinical report describes the rehabilitation following segmental mandibulectomy using palatal ramp prosthesis.


Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of the aesthetic, " Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon. Shakespeare has become the touchstone for all writers who come before and after him, whether playwrights poets or storytellers. In the creation of character, Bloom maintains, Shakespeare has no true precursor and has left no one after him untouched. Milton, Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Ibsen, Joyce, and Beckett were all indebted to him; Tolstoy and Freud rebelled against him; and Dante, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Whitman, Dickinson, Proust, the modern Hispanic and Portuguese writers Borges, Neruda, and Pessoa are exquisite examples of how canonical writing is born of an originality fused with tradition. Bloom concludes this provocative, trenchant work with a complete list of essential writers and books - his vision of the Canon.


A number of approaches to the problem of scattering of electromagnetic waves by metallic bodies are examined, in the context of earlier work done at the University of Surrey under a contract from the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. A review of this earlier work is given, followed by some fundamental electromagnetic theory and a discussion of solutions of the two dimensional wave equation. This leads naturally to the introduction of the Rayleigh hypothesis for scattering from irregularly shaped cylinders. The analytical continuation method of Wilton and Mittra for overcoming the problem of the invalidity of the Rayleigh hypothesis is given, and its reformulation in matrix notation motivates discussion of the properties of the scattering matrices of bodies which gave a number of symmetries. Because the scattering matrix of a body, depends only on the body and not at all upon the incident field, any symmetries of the scatterer must be reflected in the form of the scattering matrix. These results are used to discuss the boundary condition problem for a perfectly conducting body of rotation. Chapter eight contains an attempt to extend aperture field theory as used for calculating near-axis fields in, for example, reflector antenna systems to more general scattering problems. Some related work by Bach and his associates is discussed. In chapter nine an alternative approach to the calculation of the scattering matrix is given which leads to a reformulation of the method of physical optics. The modified method is used to investigate the validity of the Rayleigh hypothesis for a slightly perturbed circular cylinder and the results compared with those due to Van Den Berg and Fokkema. Finally, in chapter ten another method of overcoming the invalidity of the Rayleigh hypothesis is examined, but is shown to be impractical to implement numerically.


Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by the parasites transmitted through the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito. Thick and thin film microscopic examinations of blood smears are the most commonly used and reliable methods for diagnosis, however, its accuracy depends on the smear quality and human expertise in classifying the normal and parasitemic cells. Manual examination can be burdensome for large-scale diagnoses in endemic regions resulting in poor quality, unnecessary medication, leading to severe economic impact to the individual health program. Automated malaria screening using machine learning techniques, such as deep learning, offers the promise of serving as an effective diagnostic aid. In this study, we propose the advantages offered through visualizing the features and activations in a simple, customized deep learning model. We apply it to the challenge of malaria cell classification, and as a result the model achieves 98.61% classification accuracy with lower model complexity and computation time. It is found to considerably outperform the state of the art including other pre-trained deep learning models.


We present here the main results for reach extension in passive optical network (PON) technologies. Both passive and active architectures integrating several multiplexing techniques are studied, and they provide promising results for the future generation of optical access networks. Extender boxes based on optical amplification and optical-electrical-optical (OEO) repeaters are evaluated over a standardized gigabit PON (GPON) system. With this architecture, the optical budget of a class B+ access network can be increased so as to achieve a total budget of 65 dB. Furthermore, using the technique of remotely pumped optical amplification on a wavelength division multiplexing/time division multiplexing (WDM/TDM) topology, the optical budget of a class C+ PON tree could be increased by an additional 22 dB amounting to a total budget of 55 dB. These results are promising since they should enable high flexibility on the optical budget to achieve more reach and splitting ratio, which are prerequisites needed for the migration to the next-generation access networks.


"CCA's Congress Series No. 12", reflecting the contributions of numerous renowned arbitration experts to the 2004 ICCA Beijing Conference, commences with an overview of the current international arbitration regime in China and Hong Kong, noting both the progress that has been achieved and the work that remains to be done there. The remainder of the volume comprises two sets of papers on contemporary substantive and procedural issues in international commercial arbitration. The first set contains in-depth reports on the topical subjects of arbitration of foreign investment disputes, the granting of provisional or interim measures with respect to arbitration and the enforceability of awards, supplemented by commentary from the point of view of various specializations and regions. The second, also using the format of reports and commentary, addresses modalities of conciliation and settlement in relation to arbitration, including various non-binding (ADR) processes, issues (drafting step clauses and confidentiality) in integrated dispute resolution systems, which may combine conciliation and arbitration, and the role of arbitrators as settlement facilitators.


POLYTRAUMA FAMILY NEEDS ASSESSMENT By Kathryn Pamela Wilder Schaaf, M.S. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010 Major Director: Steven J. Danish Professor Department of Psychology There is a great deal of literature in civilian rehabilitation settings that documents the tremendous impact a brain injury has on both the injured person and the family as a whole. TBI is a leading cause of both death and disability world-wide and is often cited as the signature injury of the ongoing OEF/OIF conflict. In 2005, Congress recognized the severity of injuries that military personnel were encountering in the OEF/OIF conflicts and created the Polytrauma System of Care (PSC). While the PSC has made great efforts to provide innovative and effective treatment for active duty and veteran patients, little is known about the needs of their family members. Given the tremendous impact TBI has on families and the important caregiving role assumed by many, there is an urgent need to better understand their needs. The Family Needs Questionnaire (FNQ) was administered to 44 family members of patients at the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center (PRC) at McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) over a 30 month period. Family members rated 40 needs indicating the importance and extent to which needs were met. Results were compared with findings from similar studies in civilian rehabilitation settings. A review of the rated needs indicated that PRC families rated the needs in the Health Information domain as most important and most frequently met. In addition, PRC family members rated Emotional Support and Instrumental Support as least important and most frequently unmet. Overall results were consistent with findings in civilian rehabilitation research, but subtle differences were examined. Exploratory analyses were conducted to examine a subset of family variables associated with needs indices. Needs were rated differently based on respondents', gender, income, relationship to patient, and time since injury. Results highlight similarities across family needs in rehabilitation settings. However, there remains a need for further research within VAMC PRC's that include a larger more diverse sample and participants utilizing both inpatient and outpatient services. This document was created in Microsoft VISTA.


Objective: An accurate reverse phase High Performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method has been developed, validated and applied to stability indicating studies to determine Lercanidipine HCl in dosage form. Methods: Optimized chromatographic conditions were achieved by using Symmetry C18 Column, 250 mmx4.6 mm and 5μm particle size as stationary phase and Dihydrogen Orthophosphate Buffer: Methanol: ACN = (40 : 40 : 20) as eluent at flow rate 1.0 ml/min. UV detection was performed at 256nm. The developed method was validated and stability study was conducted as per ICH guidelines. Results: The retention time was found at 4.778 min. The method shows linearity over a range of 6 μg/ml to 40 μg /ml. The obtained correlation coefficient is 0.999. The LOD and LOQ values were 0.09 and 0.27 μg /ml. The acidic and alkaline stressed study shows more degradation of 8.181% and 7.241%. Conclusion: The present developed method was found stability indicating, easy and reliable method can be applied for routine analysis of lercanidipine in bulk drug and the Pharmaceutical formulations.


We present a systematic search for optical counterparts to 13 gravitational wave (GW) triggers involving at least one neutron star during LIGO/Virgo's third observing run (O3). We searched binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star black hole (NSBH) merger localizations with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and undertook follow-up with the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) collaboration. The GW triggers had a median localization area of 4480 deg2, a median distance of 267 Mpc, and false-alarm rates ranging from 1.5 to 10−25 yr−1. The ZTF coverage in the g and r bands had a median enclosed probability of 39%, median depth of 20.8 mag, and median time lag between merger and the start of observations of 1.5 hr. The O3 follow-up by the GROWTH team comprised 340 UltraViolet/Optical/InfraRed (UVOIR) photometric points, 64 OIR spectra, and three radio images using 17 different telescopes. We find no promising kilonovae (radioactivity-powered counterparts), and we show how to convert the upper limits to constrain the underlying kilonova luminosity function. Initially, we assume that all GW triggers are bona fide astrophysical events regardless of false-alarm rate and that kilonovae accompanying BNS and NSBH mergers are drawn from a common population; later, we relax these assumptions. Assuming that all kilonovae are at least as luminous as the discovery magnitude of GW170817 (−16.1 mag), we calculate that our joint probability of detecting zero kilonovae is only 4.2%. If we assume that all kilonovae are brighter than −16.6 mag (the extrapolated peak magnitude of GW170817) and fade at a rate of 1 mag day−1 (similar to GW170817), the joint probability of zero detections is 7%. If we separate the NSBH and BNS populations based on the online classifications, the joint probability of zero detections, assuming all kilonovae are brighter than −16.6 mag, is 9.7% for NSBH and 7.9% for BNS mergers. Moreover, no more than <57% (<89%) of putative kilonovae could be brighter than −16.6 mag assuming flat evolution (fading by 1 mag day−1) at the 90% confidence level. If we further take into account the online terrestrial probability for each GW trigger, we find that no more than <68% of putative kilonovae could be brighter than −16.6 mag. Comparing to model grids, we find that some kilonovae must have M ej < 0.03 M ⊙, X lan > 10−4, or ϕ > 30° to be consistent with our limits. We look forward to searches in the fourth GW observing run; even 17 neutron star mergers with only 50% coverage to a depth of −16 mag would constrain the maximum fraction of bright kilonovae to <25%.


We present here a SAT-based framework for LTLf (Linear Temporal Logic on Finite Traces) satisfiability checking. We use propositional SAT-solving techniques to construct a transition system for the input LTLf formula; satisfiability checking is then reduced to a path-search problem over this transition system. Furthermore, we introduce CDLSC (Conflict-Driven LTLf Satisfiability Checking), a novel algorithm that leverages information produced by propositional SAT solvers from both satisfiability and unsatisfiability results. Experimental evaluations show that CDLSC outperforms all other existing approaches for LTLf satisfiability checking, by demonstrating an approximate four-fold speedup compared to the second-best


This thesis presents a computational quantum chemical study on a class of hydrides, the group 13 hydrides. The hydrides of boron, aluminium and gallium are investigated using ab initio quantum mechanical methods. In particular the molecular structures and potential energy surfaces of tetraborane(10), tetralane(10) and tetragallane(10) and their mixed forms have been examined. This work mainly addresses two major issues. The first issue is to investigate appropriate theoretical methods to be used for the system in question. The second issue is to determine the structure and energy of these systems; in particular, to understand theoretically, the non-existence of the bis(diboranyl)- structures which are very close in energy to the arachno- structures experimentally found in the case of tetraborane(10) and gallatetraborane(10). The non-existence of the bis- isomer of the tetraborane structure had been the subject of several previous investigations and the question was not answered. To enable an objective evaluation of theoretical methods for the study of molecular energies and structures of isomers, different high level ab initio methods in the form of model chemistries are considered. The CBS models, which were available for only first and second row molecules, have been extended to molecules containing third row elements Ga-K, in this work. These are found to produce comparable results to the well-known G2 methods. The accuracy is less than that of the new G3 method, but the CBS methods scale better and are more economical for large molecules. The mean absolute deviation from experiments for the highly accurate methods CBS-Q and CBS-QB3 are 1.11 kcal/mol and 1.08 kcal/ mol, respectively, both lower than for the G2 method. The mean absolute deviation from experiment for the more affordable methods, CBS-4 and CBS-q, are 2.23 kcal/mol and 1.81 kcal/mol respectively. The methods, CBS-4(d), CBS-q(d), CBS-Q(d) and CBS-QB3(d), with the d orbitals included in the correlation space are also investigated, giving results in poorer agreement with experiment. Problems with the CBS extrapolation step when the d orbitals are included in the correlation space are discussed. Two different approaches have been taken to address the second problem. Firstly, the influence on the structure and energy of the tetraborane isomers were examined, by replacing boron with heavier atoms (Al and Ga). Secondly, the potential energy surfaces of the systems were investigated to find the pathways for the interconversion of the different isomers to the experimentally found isomers. For the substitution of heavy atoms, aluminium and gallium separately into tetraborane (10) and then gallium into tetraallane, the quantum chemical calculations were performed at G2, G2(MP2), CBS-Q and CBS-QB3 levels of theory. It was found that the incremental replacement of boron atoms by heavy atoms (Al and Ga), considerably lowers the energy of the corresponding bis- isomers compared to the arachno isomers. In case of gallium substitution into tetraborane, the stabilization increases gradually and in tetragallane(l0) the bis- isomer is ∼2 kcal/mol lower in energy that the arachno- isomer. The same trend is seen during aluminium substitution also, but the stabilization magnitude is slightly smaller, and bis-tetralane(10) is ∼0.5 kcal/mol below arachno-tetralane(10). Regarding the replacement of aluminium with gallium in tetralane(10), there was no marked decrease in energy difference between the bis- and arachno forms, but the bis-structure stayed lower in energy compared to the arachno- structure. In the study of reaction paths for the interconversion of bis-tetraborane(10) to arachnotetraborane( 10), two pathways, a concerted and a step-wise path, were found. The concerted pathway seemed more suitable compared to the stepwise pathway. Clear pathways have been found for the interconversion of isomers of gallatetraborane(10). The potential energy surface of tetraborane(10) and gallaboranes(10) have numerous transition structures due to the exchange of terminal and bridged hydrogens. New penta-coordinated isomers which appear to be promising synthetic targets have also been predicted.


Video gaming is often understood and narrated as an 'experience', and we would suggest that this is particularly notable with sports-themed video games. However, we would argue that how the game experience is curated and consumed, and how this relates to wider social process and forces, is rarely given any detailed consideration within the existing game research literature. Hence, this article explores how game experiences can be understood and articulated around four key themes. First, we begin with the argument that video games connect with, but also lead, a wider social trend: understanding social reality as a set of designed experiences. The real is progressively becoming a repository of technologically mediated experiences, and the logic of video games is anticipating this process. Second, we suggest video games are translations of phenomenological worlds: When successful, key aspects of the meaning of things remain similar even as one moves between spaces, domains, mediums and platforms. Developers often seek to bring others' experiences into a game environment, such as translating the geography and mechanisms of sporting locations and competitions into a game environment. Third, following this translation of meaning across domains, gamers often narrate their encounters with video games as they would with any other experience, such as winning the Champions League in Football Manager becomes recounted by gamers like any other achievement. Fourth, video games are interactive and explicit bodily experiences because they must be enacted in order to exist.


This letter considers statistical estimation problems where the probability distribution of the observed random variable is invariant with respect to actions of a finite topological group. It is shown that any such distribution must satisfy a restricted finite mixture representation. When specialized to the case of distributions over the sphere that are invariant to the actions of a finite spherical symmetry group G, a group-invariant extension of the Von Mises Fisher (VMF) distribution is obtained. The G-invariant VMF is parameterized by location and scale parameters that specify the distribution's mean orientation and its concentration about the mean, respectively. Using the restricted finite mixture representation these parameters can be estimated using an Expectation Maximization (EM) maximum likelihood (ML) estimation algorithm. This is illustrated for the problem of mean crystal orientation estimation under the spherically symmetric group associated with the crystal form, e.g., cubic or octahedral or hexahedral. Simulations and experiments establish the advantages of the extended VMF EM-ML estimator for data acquired by Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) microscopy of a polycrystalline Nickel alloy sample.


Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented healthcare emergency causing mortality and illness across the world. Although primarily affecting the lungs, the SARS-CoV-2 virus also affects the cardiovascular system. In addition to cardiac effects, e.g. myocarditis, arrhythmias, and myocardial damage, the vasculature is affected in COVID-19, both directly by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and indirectly as a result of a systemic inflammatory cytokine storm. This includes the role of the vascular endothelium in the recruitment of inflammatory leucocytes where they contribute to tissue damage and cytokine release, which are key drivers of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), in disseminated intravascular coagulation, and cardiovascular complications in COVID-19. There is also evidence linking endothelial cells (ECs) to SARS-CoV-2 infection including: (i) the expression and function of its receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in the vasculature; (ii) the prevalence of a Kawasaki disease-like syndrome (vasculitis) in COVID-19; and (iii) evidence of EC infection with SARS-CoV-2 in patients with fatal COVID-19. Here, the Working Group on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology together with the Council of Basic Cardiovascular Science of the European Society of Cardiology provide a Position Statement on the importance of the endothelium in the underlying pathophysiology behind the clinical presentation in COVID-19 and identify key questions for future research to address. We propose that endothelial biomarkers and tests of function (e.g. flow-mediated dilatation) should be evaluated for their usefulness in the risk stratification of COVID-19 patients. A better understanding of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on endothelial biology in both the micro- and macrovasculature is required, and endothelial function testing should be considered in the follow-up of convalescent COVID-19 patients for early detection of long-term cardiovascular complications.


The experiment was carried out in the vegetation seasons of 2010 and 2011. The main purpose of the study was to determine the effects of mulch practices (a control-unmulched treatment, a plastic mulch treatment, and a straw mulch treatment) on fresh ear yield and some yield-related traits of sweet corn according to 3 sowing dates: 1 April, 15 April, and 1 May, respectively. The main effects of sowing dates were significant for the harvest period, the emerging rate from soil, the fresh ear yield per hectare, and the yield components of the sweet corn. The emergence rate of sweet corn was decreased on 1 April and 15 April due to the low soil temperature on these sowing dates. Of the mulch practices, the plastic mulch practice resulted in the highest emergence rate, the highest ear length, the highest ear diameter, the highest ear weight, the highest number of kernels per ear, the highest fresh ear yield, and the highest fresh ear number in both 2010 and 2011. The fresh ear yield and yield components were decreased by the straw mulch practice in both 2010 and 2011. The effects of the sowing date × mulch practice interactions on emergence rate, fresh ear yield, and some yield-related traits of sweet corn were statistically (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01) significant in both years. Of the interactions between the sowing dates and the mulch practices, the highest emergence rate (91.2% in 2010 and 93.7% in 2011), highest ear length (18.4 cm in 2010 and 18.5 cm in 2011), highest ear diameter (45.2 mm in 2010 and 46.5 mm in 2011), highest ear weight (229.1 g in 2010 and 227.1 g in 2011), highest number of kernels per ear (562.1 grains in 2010 and 552.3 grains in 2011), highest fresh ear yield (14,952.6 kg ha-1 in 2010 and 14,805.2 kg ha-1 in 2011), and highest fresh ear numbers (65,781.8 cobs ha-1 in 2010 and 65,789.6 cobs ha-1 in 2011) were determined from the plastic mulch practices on 1 May, the latest sowing date. The lowest emergence rate, the lowest fresh ear yield, and the lowest yield components were obtained from the straw mulch practice on 1 April, the earliest sowing date, in both 2010 and 2011.


Proteins can exist in at least three forms: the ordered form (solid-like), the partially folded form (collapsed, molten globule-like or liquid-like) and the extended form (extended, random coil-like or gas-like). The protein trinity hypothesis has two components: (i) a given native protein can be in any one of the three forms, depending on the sequence and the environment; and (ii) function can arise from any one of the three forms or from transitions between them. In this study, bioinformatics and data mining were used to investigate intrinsic disorder in proteins and develop neural network-based predictors of natural disordered regions (PONDR) that can discriminate between ordered and disordered residues with up to 84% accuracy. Predictions of intrinsic disorder indicate that the three kingdoms follow the disorder ranking eubacteria < archaebacteria ≪ eukaryotes, with approximately half of eukaryotic proteins predicted to contain substantial regions of intrinsic disorder. Many of the known disordered regions are involved in signalling, regulation or control. Involvement of highly flexible or disordered regions in signalling is logical: a flexible sensor more readily undergoes conformational change in response to environmental perturbations than does a rigid one. Thus, the increased disorder in the eukaryotes is likely the direct result of an increased need for signalling and regulation in nucleated organisms. PONDR can also be used to detect molecular recognition elements that are disordered in the unbound state and become structured when bound to a biologically meaningful partner. Application of disorder predictions to cell-signalling, cancer-associated and control protein databases supports the widespread occurrence of protein disorder in these processes.


The legal profession is facing profound and perhaps irreversible changes. Whether you view these striking demographics as a "crisis" likely depends on the location of your perch. If you are a tenured professor at a T14 law school or a senior partner at an NLJ 250 firm, you may view the trends we have been discussing today as cyclical corrections. If you are an unemployed graduate looking for work or an untenured professor at a lower-tier school that is struggling to stay afloat, you may be more likely to view these trends as permanent and paradigm shifting. While applications to American law school have been steadily dropping since 2005, the last three years have seen the most dramatic changes. Between 2010 and 2012, the total number of applicants to U.S. law schools decreased by 25%. This year alone -- 2012-2013 -- the number of applicants dropped another 19%. By 2014, the legal academy may for the first time face an open enrollment situation where the total number of available seats exceeds the number of applicants.Most law schools have responded to this sharp application decline in one of two ways. Many schools have dramatically reduced their class sizes, which entails foregoing tuition revenue. Lower gross revenue means schools must seek out opportunities to cut costs. Other schools have kept their class sizes relatively stable by offering more scholarship assistance to attract students (essentially increasing their discount rates). This approach too requires expenditure cuts, because absent additional non-tuition sources of funding (such as gifts or endowment) spending more money on scholarships means spending less money on something else. Law schools cannot make up for this lost revenue by continuing to raise their tuitions at rates that far outpace inflation. A continued upward spiral in tuition threatens to further exacerbate the downward spiral in applications. On average, law school tuition in the United States increased 375% at private law schools and 820% at public law schools between 1985 and 2009. During this 25 year period, law schools on average increased their tuition between 6-15% each year, while inflation averaged only 3%. By way of comparison, tuition for MBA students at our nation's top management schools increased only 80% in the past decade, an average increase of 4-6% per year. Reining in the law school tuition spiral is critical to restoring consumer confidence in the value of the product we are selling -- especially in a climate where the job prospects for the graduates of some law schools are increasingly bleak. Legal educators are now engaged in some very difficult and painful conversations about the financial model of legal education. Schools that take an ostrich-like approach to this challenge risk becoming obsolete or irrelevant. What follows are seven proposed changes to the structure of legal education that could simultaneously reduce overall costs to law students, and improve the quality of their education. Quality is not always synonymous with price. With vision and lots of hard work, it may be possible to do more with less.Three of my proposals will require amendments to ABA accreditation standards. The political and institutional climate now seems ripe to make these reforms. Many ABA accreditation standards are perceived to impede experimentation and innovation in legal education, and to primarily benefit academics (who largely have captured the accreditation process) over students and the practicing bar. The President of the American Bar Association has recently appointed a "Task Force on the Future of Legal Education" that is looking at the structural and economic models of legal education, and the impact of rising tuition and falling employment rates on crushing student debt. The Task Force is soliciting comments and testimony from all sectors of the profession, and some of its members have predicted "bold" and perhaps even "radical" reform. My hope is that several of the proposals presented at today's symposium will be submitted for consideration by the Task Force in the critical months ahead.


Organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) are used as additives in plasticizers, foams, hydraulic fluids, anti-foam agents, and coatings for electronic components/devices to inhibit flames. These chemicals were developed and used as flame retardants because of environmental and health concerns of previously used brominated and chlorinated flame retardants (FRs). OPCFRs are divided into five main groups: organophosphates, organophosphonates, organophosphinates, organoposphine oxide, and organophosphites. Most of OPFRs are organophosphate esters that are further classified into the following five groups: 1. Aliphatic, 2. Brominated aliphatic, 3. Chlorinated aliphatic, 4. Aromatic-aliphatic, and 5. Aromatic phosphates. These OPFRs have the following neurotoxic actions: 1. Cholinergic Neurotoxicity, 2. Organophosphate-Induced Delayed Neurotoxicity (OPIDN), and 3. Organophosphate-Induced Chronic Neurotoxicity (OPICN) in addition to being endocrine disruptors. OPFRs have very low cholinergic neurotoxicity and this effect does not pose significant health hazards to adults or children. On the other hand, some OPFRs have shown to cause OPIDN that is a delayed central-peripheral axonopathy, characterized by neuronal cell death of the lower brain regions, spinal cord and peripheral nervous systems, leading to long-term neuronal injury. OPICN is characterized by neuronal cell death in the cortex, hippocampus campus and cerebellum and spinal cord. Finally, OPCFRs act as endocrine disrupters, that affect many functions of the body such thyroid glands and reproductive functions, and may be involved in the development of diabetes and cancer. Residues of these OPCFRs are widespread in the environment, home and workplaces. These chemicals adversely affect human health, especially for vulnerable population such as the elderly, pregnant women, fetuses, and children. Because some OPFRs cause neuronal cell death in the brain and spinal cord that do not repair as well as act as endocrine disrupters they may lead to permanent functional deficits such obesity, memory impairment, decreased motor skill and even more serious diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Because recent reports have accredited FRs for significant decrease in building fires, it is important to balance the risk and benefits of FRs and to use only the safest available FRs including OPFRs. *Corresponding author: Mohamed B. Abou-Donia, Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 277, USA, Tel: +919-68422/ Fax: 919-681-822, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Citation: Abou-Donia, M.B., et al. Organophosphorus Flame Retardants (OPFR): Neurotoxicity. (2016) J Environ Health Sci 2(1): 129. Organophosphorus Flame Retardants (OPFR): Neurotoxicity Mohamed B. Abou-Donia1* Mohamed Salama2, Mohamed Elgamal2, Islam Elkholi2,3, Qiangwei Wang1,4 Received date: July 07, 2015 Accepted date: May 05, 2016 Published date: May 11, 2016 DOI: 10.15436/2378-6841.16.022


We address the discovery of typical activities in video stream contents and its exploitation for estimating the abnormality levels of these streams. Such estimates can be used to select the most interesting cameras to show to a human operator. Our contributions come from the following facets: i) the method is fully unsupervised and learns the activities from long term data; ii) the method is scalable and can efficiently handle the information provided by multiple un-calibrated cameras, jointly learning activities shared by them if it happens to be the case (e.g. when they have overlapping fields of view); iii) unlike previous methods which were mainly applied to structured urban traffic scenes, we show that ours performs well on videos from a metro environment where human activities are only loosely constrained.