Objectives To test the relationship between increasing severity of obesity, calculated risk and observed outcomes. Methods Patients with symptoms suggestive of coronary artery disease (CAD) (n=10 003) were stratified according to body mass index (BMI). We compared risk factors, pooled risk scores and physicians' perception of risk. Cox regression tested the association between BMI and (1) presence of obstructive CAD and (2) composite clinical endpoints (death, cardiovascular death, unstable angina hospitalisation and myocardial infarction). Results BMI was ≥30 kg/m2 in 48% of patients and ≥35 in 20%. Increasingly obese patients were younger, female and non-smoking but with higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, black race and sedentary lifestyle. Pooled risk estimates of CAD were highest in those with mid-range BMI. In contrast, physicians' estimation of the likelihood of significant CAD based on clinical impression increased progressively with BMI. For a 10% increase in the Diamond-Forrester probability of CAD, the adjusted OR for obstructive CAD was 1.5 (95% CI 1.4 to 1.5) in patients with BMI <35, but only 1.2 (95% CI 1.1 to 1.3) in those with BMI ≥35 (interaction p<0.001). Framingham Risk Score increased across increasing BMI categories. However, there was a strong and consistent inverse relationship between degree of obesity and all three composite clinical endpoints over a median 25 months of follow-up. Conclusions Despite perceptions of higher risk and higher risk scores, increasingly obese patients had obstructive CAD less frequently than predicted and had fewer adverse clinical outcomes. There is a need for risk assessment tools and guidelines that account for obesity. Trial registration number NCT01174550.


The underlying aim of this research is to gain a better knowledge of the relationship
between the selection criteria and academic performance of the students of
architecture; and the specific aim is to evaluate and improve the methods of student
selection in Iranian schools of architecture. The thesis consists of three parts.
The first part (Chapters 1 to 3) prepares the theoretical ground for the study.
Chapter 1 introduces the general issues of student selection, and Chapter 2
presents a review of the related studies. To supplement the review, a survey was
conducted to learn about the present state of affairs in a number of university
schools of architecture. Describing this survey, Chapter Three reports differing
views on the selection criteria and procedures, and the lack of objective knowledge
on this subject.
The second part (Chapters 4 to 6) is a close examination of two different student
selection methods in Iran by means of a qualitative and a quantitative survey.
Chapter Four describes the educational practices in Iran which form the background
to the case studies. Chapter Five is a quantitative study on the relationship between
selection criteria and the subsequent academic performance of the selected
students. The possibility of significant non-academic differences between groups of
students who were selected through two different methods, and also the predictive
ability of some non-academic variables, are studied in a qualitative survey in
Chapter Six.
In the third part (Chapter 7) various findings of the previous chapters are brought
together.
It is concluded that the choice between alternative selection methods is more a
matter of compromise than perfection. However, the research findings call into
question some of the assumptions of the currently applied selection methods. For
instance, little evidence was found to support the customary application of an
identical entrance examination for all schools of architecture. Moreover, evidence
was found for the noticeable relationship between the academic performance of the
students and some non-academic characteristics which the rigid academic selection
criteria tend to overlook.
Finally, some recommendations are proposed for the improvement of selection
procedures for the study of architecture in Iran.


The rate of growth of the continental crust is controversial. We present an evaluation of time-constrained analyses of oxygen isotopes in zircon grains and incompatible element (Zr, Th) concentrations in magmatic rocks to test for variations in the degree of crustal recycling through geological time. The data indicate a rise in these geochemical proxies from ca. 3.0 Ga to a statistically significant peak at 1.2–1.1 Ga during the amalgamation of supercontinent Rodinia, and a decrease thereafter. When combined with other geological and geophysical observations, the data are interpreted as a consequence of an unprecedented level of crustal recycling and sediment subduction during Rodinia assembly, arising from a "Goldilocks" (i.e., just right) combination of larger, thicker plates on a warmer Earth with more rapid continental drift relative to modern Earth. The subsequent decrease in δ 18 O, Zr, and Th measurements is interpreted to reflect decreasing drift rates on a cooling Earth.


Crowdfunding, the raising of capital from a large and diverse pool of donors via online platforms, has grown exponentially in the past five years, spurred by the rise of Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. While legislative attention in the US has turned to the potential to use crowdfunding as a means of raising capital for companies, less attention has been paid to the use of crowdfunding for civic projects - projects involving either directly or indirectly, the use of government funds, assets or sponsorship, which may include the development of public assets. This project analyzes the subgenre of civic crowdfunding from three perspectives. First, it provides a comprehensive quantitative overview of the subgenre of civic crowdfunding, its most common project types and its geographic distribution. Second, it describes three edge cases, projects that, while uncommon, demonstrate the current limits, aspirations and potential future path of the subgenre. Third, it analyzes the historical and intellectual paradigms within which civic crowdfunding projects and platforms are operating: whether they are best located within the historical context of community fundraising, participatory planning, entrepreneurial culture or a combination of the three. In addressing these questions, the thesis will explore the potential benefits and challenges of using crowdfunding as a means of executing community-oriented projects in the built environment, and offer proposals for how public and non-profit institutions can engage with crowdfunding to realize civic outcomes.


The water resources of Turphan are composed of snow and glaciers from the Tian Shang Mountains. People in Turphan have continued with a consolidated agriculture method since old times, depending on traditional channels and Kareez (underground conduits). In recent years, arable land has increased with the population and the demands of the irrigated water have increased abruptly for the assurance of productivity. Traditional systems of irrigation could not supply the essential water to the extended arable land, so dams and wells have been constructed for irrigation. The construction of large scale reservoirs, canals and wells enabled the enlargement of the irrigated area and an increase in the production of agricultural products. But, the excessive irrigation caused an increase in the evapotranspiration and salinization. In conditions like this, the extensive arable land has progressed to desertification and abandonment. The more traditional systems of irrigation have been largely ignored because of the interference problems caused by various facilities that have decreased the use of traditional Kareez irrigation systems. The potentiality of water resources development is comparatively small, judging from the present condition of water use in Turphan, because the developed water resources must be utilized effectively and strong measures must be taken to save irrigation. The management of irrigation systems must be intensified, the new technology of irrigation must be popularized and the efforts of saving water must be made for the irrigation system


Since the issue first arose in earnest in the 1970s, courts have struggled to create rules for causation in toxic tort cases that are both consistent with longstanding tort principles and fair to all parties. Faced with conflicting and often novel expert testimony, scientific uncertainty, the gap between legal and scientific culture, and unprecedented claims for massive damages, common-law courts needed time to adjust and accommodate themselves to the brave new world of toxic tort litigation. Eventually, however, courts around the country reached a broad consensus on what is required for a toxic tort plaintiff to meet his or her burden of proof.While there is a voluminous scholarly literature on various aspects of toxic tort litigation, this Article's unique contribution is to articulate the new consensus on causation standards, document and criticize the various ways plaintiffs attempt to evade these standards, and defend the courts' adherence to traditional notions of causation against their critics.Part I of this Article explains that to prove causation in a toxic tort case, a plaintiff must show that the substance in question is capable, in general, of causing the injury alleged, and also that exposure to the substance more likely than not caused his injury. When a plaintiff was exposed to a single toxin from multiple sources, to prove causation by a specific defendant the plaintiff must show that the actions of that defendant were a "substantial factor" in causing the alleged harm.Part II discusses plaintiffs' attempts to evade these standards by hiring experts to present various types of unreliable causation evidence. Examples of such evidence include testimony based on high-dose animal studies, anecdotal case reports, analogizing from the known effects of "similar" chemicals, preliminary epidemiological studies that have not been peer-reviewed, and differential etiologies used to "rule in" an otherwise unknown causal relationship. Additionally, when multiple defendants have contributed to the plaintiffs' exposure to a potentially toxic substance, plaintiffs often present experts who claim, with no reliable scientific grounding, that the level of exposure ("dose") is irrelevant to causation.Part III of this Article argues that courts should be steadfast in requiring toxic tort plaintiffs to meet their burden of proof. Traditional tort principles require that plaintiffs bear the burden of proving actual causation by a preponderance of the evidence, not merely that they were exposed to a risk. To hold otherwise and essentially shift the burden to defendants to disprove causation would open the floodgates to all manner of speculative claims, with potentially devastating consequences for Americans' well-being. Similarly, with regard to cases in which a plaintiff alleges injury after exposure to a toxin from multiple sources, a given defendant may only be held liable if the plaintiff proves by a preponderance of the evidence that exposure to that defendant's products was a "substantial factor" in causing that injury. To hold otherwise would amount to an implicit adoption of a system of broad, collective liability that courts have rejected when the issue has been raised explicitly. This section concludes by discussing the negative consequences that arise from speculative toxic tort litigation unsupported by reliable scientific evidence.


ABSTRACT: Water resource planning is based primarily on 20th century instrumental records of climate and streamflow. These records are limited in length to approximately 100 years, in the best cases, and can reflect only a portion of the range of natural variability. The instrumental record neither can be used to gage the unusualness of 20th Century extreme low flow events, nor does it allow the detection of low‐frequency variability that may underlie short‐term variations in flow. In this study, tree rings are used to reconstruct mean annual streamflow for Middle Boulder Creek in the Colorado Front Range, a semi‐arid region of rapid growth and development. The reconstruction is based on a stepwise regression equation that accounts for 70 percent of the variance in the instrumental record, and extends from 1703–1987. The reconstruction suggests that the instrumental record of streamflow for Middle Boulder Creek is not representative of flow in past centuries and that several low flow events in the 19th century were more persistent than any in the 20th century. The 1840s to early 1850s period of low flow is a particularly notable event and may have coincided with a period of low flow in the Upper Colorado River Basin.


Tax non-compliance has always been a major concern for all tax administrations,
more so in a self assessment environment where it is dependent on voluntary
compliance. In Malaysia, there is a dearth of empirical research on tax compliance
in relation to the implementation of self assessment which only began in 2001 for
corporations and 2004 for individual taxpayers. One of the objectives for
implementing self assessment is to increase voluntary tax compliance.
As such, in a tax system based largely on voluntary compliance, understanding
factors that affect compliance amongst individual taxpayers is of vital importance.
This thesis integrates two important approaches, namely, the economic and
behavioral approaches in examining factors affecting tax compliance. The factors
examined include perceived probability of detection, prior tax audit, sanction
perception, perception of fairness, perceived moral intensity and peer influence.
The data for this study were gathered by using a mail survey. Descriptive analysis
and multivariate analysis were performed on the data to determine how the above mentioned factors affect tax compliance behavior. The findings showed that four
factors, namely, perceived probability of detection, sanction perception, perceived
moral intensity and peer influence were found to have significa~t relationships
with tax compliance. On the other hand, perception of fairness and prior tax audit
were found to have insignificant relationships with tax compliance.
However, even though prior tax audit did not have a direct effect on tax
compliance, it was found to be significantly associated with perceived probability
of detection which is significantly related to tax compliance. This implies that prior
tax audit has an indirect effect on tax compliance. Apart from prior tax audit
affecting perceived probability of detection, another factor examined namely
sanction perception was found to affect perceived probability of detection. In
relation to perceived probability of detection and perceived moral intensity which
had significant relationships with tax compliance respectively, the findings also
indicated that both perceived probability of detection and perceived moral intensity
had significant relationships with perception of fairness.
Understanding these relationships is important as it not only extends knowledge on
improving tax compliance but also provides useful information for the revenue
collection authorities in designing better tax policies.


In this study, the authors have tried to examine the empirical evidence on the relationship between preventive health care and labour productivity and corporate profitability. While doing so, they try to generate awareness on the positive role of preventive health care in boosting the corporate sector's performance and improving the country's economy. Toward the end, based on their findings, they offer recommendations for policymakers and corporate management to promote preventive healthcare practice among employees. The primary research undertaken for this study included an electronic survey of some of the most well-established companies in the country, as well as a field-cum-electronic survey with a sample of employees in Delhi and the National Capital Region. Preventive health care holds enormous promise for the competitiveness of Indian companies, and for the country's economy in the global arena. In an era when the service sector is gaining pre-eminence, the value of the individual employee has increased more than ever before. Employees with specialized skills are the focal point on whose well-being and performance the productivity of a company rests. In a highly competitive corporate environment, companies cannot afford the absence of their employees due to sickness, caused by a sedentary lifestyle, etc., or a poor performance at the workplace due to poor health. Both as part of their corporate social responsibility and to boost their profits, a number of firms are offering preventive health care facilities to their employees. And it is on their performance, productivity and profitability that India's growth potential and global competitiveness depends substantially. Unfortunately, while the corporate sector has been quick to realize the benefits of preventive health care, policy has lagged behind and we do not yet have fiscal or other incentives that encourage prevention. While public spending on health has stagnated at 0.9 per cent of the GDP since the mid-1980s, and the government per capita health expenditure is one of the lowest in the world (US$7, as against US$2,548 in the United States), the government should focus its limited resources towards the health of the poor, and provide tax exemptions to sections which can take care of their own health needs.


If some historians are born great, few achieve greatness. But some have greatness thrust upon them. This was certainly true of Margaret Mary Gowing, civil servant, archivist, and Britain's first official historian of the nuclear age. From modest origins, but armed with a good education, and favoured by the circumstances of Britain at war, Gowing met and seized opportunities that led her eventually to occupy a position of national prominence that few historians—and, at the time, few women historians—could have anticipated, and which even fewer achieved. Her greatest, lasting scholarly contribution takes the form of two books, which in their mastery of official records laid the foundations of archival research upon which later generations of scholars have built. But her progress was never easy, nor were her successes complete. Ever entwined, her personal and her professional lives were deeply touched by moments of acute stress, tinged with tragedy, that came to affect not only her academic performance but also the lives of family, friends, colleagues and students.


An action packed guide using real world examples of the easy to use, high performance, free open source NumPy mathematical library Overview Perform high performance calculations with clean and efficient NumPy code Analyze large data sets with statistical functions Execute complex linear algebra and mathematical computations In Detail NumPy is an extension to, and the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python. In today's world of science and technology, it is all about speed and flexibility. When it comes to scientific computing, NumPy is on the top of the list. NumPy Beginner's Guide will teach you about NumPy, a leading scientific computing library. NumPy replaces a lot of the functionality of Matlab and Mathematica, but in contrast to those products, is free and open source. Write readable, efficient, and fast code, which is as close to the language of mathematics as is currently possible with the cutting edge open source NumPy software library. Learn all the ins and outs of NumPy that requires you to know basic Python only. Save thousands of dollars on expensive software, while keeping all the flexibility and power of your favourite programming language.You will learn about installing and using NumPy and related concepts. At the end of the book we will explore some related scientific computing projects. This book will give you a solid foundation in NumPy arrays and universal functions. Through examples, you will also learn about plotting with Matplotlib and the related SciPy project. NumPy Beginner's Guide will help you be productive with NumPy and have you writing clean and fast code in no time at all. What you will learn from this book Install NumPy NumPy arrays Universal functions NumPy matrices NumPy modules Plot with Matplotlib Test NumPy code Relation to SciPy Approach The book is written in beginners guide style with each aspect of NumPy demonstrated with real world examples and required screenshots. Who this book is written for If you are a programmer, scientist, or engineer who has basic Python knowledge and would like to be able to do numerical computations with Python, this book is for you. No prior knowledge of NumPy is required.


Food allergies impact the quality of life of both patients and their families and cause limitations in dietary and social habits. Moreover, food allergies can lead to life-threatening situations in case of food-induced systemic anaphylaxis. The world-wide prevalence of IgE-mediated food allergies has been estimated to be 4% in children and 1-3% in the adult population. To date, no curative treatments exist and food allergy management relies primarily on avoidance of the offending food(s). Novel therapeutic strategies aiming for induction of specific oral tolerance to food proteins are under study. In particular, oral immunotherapy (OIT) has shown promising results in relation to effective desensitization and sustained unresponsiveness after discontinuation of the treatment. Nevertheless, safety concerns and a lack of (long-term) efficacy have hampered translation to the clinic thus far. Non-digestible oligosaccharides (prebiotics) are fermented into bacterial metabolites, e.g. short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), by bacteria residing in the gut. SCFA can exert anti-inflammatory functions, both locally and at distinct sites in the body after uptake in the systemic circulation. SCFA can directly communicate with immune cells and intestinal epithelial cells via specific surface-bound receptors. In addition to stimulation of the growth of beneficial microbes, non-digestible oligosaccharides were shown to induce tolerance-associated immune cells and support homeostasis in the gut. In this PhD thesis, it was investigated whether a diet supplemented with non-digestible oligosaccharides can support the efficacy of OIT to treat cow's milk allergy in a murine model. The data indicated that the combination of OIT and a non-digestible oligosaccharide supplemented diet effectively reduced acute allergic symptoms upon allergen challenge in cow's milk allergic mice. The Th2-dominated allergic immune response was suppressed and Th1 and regulatory T cell responses were increased. Lower levels of allergen-specific IgE were detected in mice after the combination therapy and mast cell and basophil responses toward the allergen were decreased. Moreover, bone marrow-derived mast cell development was altered after in vivo exposure to non-digestible oligosaccharides. In addition to immunological parameters, higher levels of the SCFA butyrate were detected in mice treated with the combination therapy. Oral supplementation with butyrate during OIT was as effective as supplementation with non-digestible oligosaccharides in terms of desensitization. Specific alterations in bacterial species were observed in cow's milk allergic mice treated with the combination of OIT and the prebiotic diet. Interestingly, higher levels of the dysbiosis-associated bacterial phylum Proteobacteria were observed in mice only treated with OIT. It was therefore hypothesized that providing the diet supplemented with non-digestible oligosaccharides during OIT improves bacterial composition and metabolism, leading to improved immune function and control of allergies. In conclusion, the research conducted in this PhD thesis supports the use of food components with immunomodulatory capacities to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy strategies. Future (pre-clinical) studies are needed to investigate the potential of non-digestible oligosaccharide supplementation to enhance safety of immunotherapy and to retain long-term allergy protection.


Abstract. The MEGAPOLI (Megacities: Emissions, urban, regional and Global Atmospheric POLlution and climate effects, and Integrated tools for assessment and mitigation) experiment took place in July 2009. The aim of this campaign was to study the aging and reactions of aerosol and gas-phase emissions in the city of Paris. Three ground-based measurement sites and several mobile platforms including instrument equipped vehicles and the ATR-42 aircraft were involved. We present here the variations in particle- and gas-phase species over the city of Paris, using a combination of high-time resolution measurements aboard the ATR-42 aircraft. Particle chemical composition was measured using a compact time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (C-ToF-AMS), giving detailed information on the non-refractory submicron aerosol species. The mass concentration of black carbon (BC), measured by a particle absorption soot photometer (PSAP), was used as a marker to identify the urban pollution plume boundaries. Aerosol mass concentrations and composition were affected by air-mass history, with air masses that spent longest time over land having highest fractions of organic aerosol and higher total mass concentrations. The Paris plume is mainly composed of organic aerosol (OA), BC, and nitrate aerosol, as well as high concentrations of anthropogenic gas-phase species such as toluene, benzene, and NOx. Using BC and CO as tracers for air-mass dilution, we observe the ratio of ΔOA / ΔBC and ΔOA / ΔCO increase with increasing photochemical age (−log(NOx / NOy)). Plotting the equivalent ratios of different organic aerosol species (LV-OOA, SV-OOA, and HOA) illustrate that the increase in OA is a result of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Within Paris the changes in the ΔOA / ΔCO are similar to those observed during other studies in London, Mexico City, and in New England, USA. Using the measured SOA volatile organic compounds (VOCs) species together with organic aerosol formation yields, we were able to predict ~50% of the measured organics. These airborne measurements during the MEGAPOLI experiment show that urban emissions contribute to the formation of OA and have an impact on aerosol composition on a regional scale.


The shift towards network forms of urban and regional governance operating in a multi-level manner across different spatial scales and sectors is now well observed. For London, the system of network governance that developed from the 1980s appeared poorly positioned to respond to the particular challenges faced by world cities of retaining international competitiveness and dealing with increased social polarization. The restoration of pan-London strategic governance in 2000 initiated a phase of intense evolution in economic governance as the result of the creation of a Mayor and associated agency, the London Development Agency (LDA), to take the lead role for economic development and regeneration activity in the capital. This article analyses the emerging governance arrangements within London to illustrate the evolutionary and path-dependent nature of change through the interaction of national political and constitutional contexts, local conditions and wider processes of global change. The article argues that the potential of reinvigorated city-level economic governance within London is heavily constrained by the manner in which power was devolved by the central state. In its attempts to provide a strategic, lead role for London's economic development, the Mayor and the LDA must operate within a network governance system characterized by strong central control and a reliance on a complex array of partners operating across scales and sectors to deliver its economic strategy.


This paper presents a novel unified theoretical framework for differential kinematics and dynamics for the optimization of complex robot motion. By introducing an 18×18 comprehensive motion transformation matrix, the forward differential kinematics and dynamics, including velocity and acceleration, can be written in a simple chain product similar to an ordinary rotational matrix. This formulation enables the analytical computation of derivatives of various physical quantities (e.g. link velocities, link accelerations, or joint torques) with respect to joint coordinates, velocities and accelerations for a robot trajectory in an efficient manner ( O ( N J ) , where N J is the number of the robot's degree of freedom), which is useful for motion optimization. Practical implementation of gradient computation is demonstrated together with simulation results of robot motion optimization to validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.


Three years ago, it was hard to find a medical journal on the internet. Now most have websites, providing selections from their paper journals in electronic form. This week the BMJ joins the Lancet and a host of specialist journals in taking the obvious next step: providing the full text of the paper journal online. Soon most other medical journals interested in their long term survival will follow suit.

If "surfing the net" has become the defining catchphrase of the age then the wave we caught three years ago has turned out to be a tsunami. Since the world wide web was first used commercially the number of websites has grown exponentially. When the BMJ launched its original website in May 1995 there were fewer than 20 000 other websites. Last month the total was 2.1m.1 The number of people online has also been growing exponentially—to an estimated 107m.2 The widespread adoption of webTV should increase this figure by at least an order of magnitude.

The BMJ embraced the world wide web so avidly because it looked like fun and offered an almost miraculous escape from the limitations of paper publication. Costly and cumbersome, the printing presses and binding lines take 30 hours to churn out the 117 000 copies of the paper BMJ each week. The Royal Mail takes another day or two to deliver copies to most addresses in the United Kingdom. Further afield, the delays rapidly escalate—four days to get journals to continental Europe, two to three weeks to Australia. The resources we devote to increasing topicality are wasted for most of our non-UK readers.

By comparison, the electronic journal is available to all countries with world wide web access at 00.01 (GMT or BST) on the Friday preceding the cover date. The geographical reach …


Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is a prevalent progressive neurodegenerative disorder, affecting millions. Research continues to evolve and the medical community continues to gain knowledge surrounding the complex mechanism and pathophysiology of depletion of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. Researchers continue to search for new links and possible disease-modifying therapies, as treatment options for PD are primarily symptomatic. Serum uric acid, a powerful antioxidant, has been associated with a decreased risk of Parkinson disease at elevated levels in several studies, indicating a possible neuroprotective effect. Two prospective observational cohort studies established an inverse association between clinical progression of PD and urate levels, with a slower progression noted with elevated UA levels. This systematic review will examine whether uric acid levels can predict the clinical progression of Parkinson disease. Methods: An exhaustive search of literature databases was conducted using Medline-OVID, CINAHL, EBMR Multifile, and Web of Science, using the following keywords: Parkinson disease, uric acid, and disease progression. Relevant articles were included if they were primary research evaluating uric acid levels predicting progression of Parkinson disease. Each article was evaluated for quality using GRADE criteria. Results: Five articles met inclusion criteria, with two studies excluded due to being secondary analyses and to utilize the most current research. The three studies included in this systematic review are case-controlled observational studies that compared serum uric acid levels with disease progression. All studies showed an association between serum uric acid levels and disease progression of PD, with elevated levels being more favorable with a slower rate of decline. Conclusion: The results of this systematic review demonstrate the association between serum urate and the rate of PD progression, supporting future studies exploring potential disease-modifying therapy, and evaluating long-term risks of elevated serum urate levels. Degree Type Capstone Project Degree Name Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies First Advisor Annjanette Sommers, PA-C, MS


This paper investigates the automatic recognition of social roles that emerge naturally in small groups. These roles represent a flexible classification scheme that can generalize across different scenarios of small group interaction. We systematically investigate various verbal and non-verbal cues extracted from turn-taking patterns, vocal expression, and linguistic style to model speakers behavior. The influence of social roles on the behavior cues exhibited by a speaker is modeled using a discriminative approach based on conditional random fields. Experiments performed on several hours of meeting data reveal that social role recognition using conditional random fields achieves an accuracy of 74% in classifying four social roles and outperforms the baseline method on all social role categories . Furthermore , we also demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by evaluating it on previously unseen scenarios of small group interactions.


The CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) nuclear power plant is of the pressure tube type that utilizes heavy water as a coolant and moderator. As with other thermal power plants, nuclear fuel produces heat that is subsequently converted into electrical energy. The CANFLEX fuel bundle consists of forty-three fuel elements which contain natural uranium in the form of cylindrical pellets of sintered uranium dioxide. Fission reactions in the natural uranium fuel produce heat that is removed by a flow of pressurized heavy water coolant. This heat is transferred to light water in steam generators to produce steam which drives turbines that generates electricity. A finite-element model of the CANFLEX fuel bundle was developed using ANSYS. The application of this model is the prediction of the overall geometrical deformation of the bundle as a response to a given thermal/mechanical load that may occur under accident transient conditions. This paper summarizes the finite-element fuel bundle deformation model and the testing done on components.


Dynamic energy budget models relate phenomena at many levels of ecological organization and can provide quantitative links from individual physiology to population, community, and ecosystem dynamics. A prerequisite for making these links is an empirically tested model of growth and reproduction for individual organisms in a temporally variable environment. We construct a model that is applicable to organisms with indeterminate growth. By applying a recent statistical approach attributable to S. N. Wood, we use the model to infer the size dependence of feeding rates and of energy allocation to growth vs. reproduction for Daphnia from new laboratory data on growth and egg production. The implied feeding rates are consistent with independent measurements. With one additional assumption, respiration rates can be predicted; they scale with size in a manner consistent with previous measurements of respiration allometry. These findings support the use of inverse methods to determine physiologically based functions and parameters for subsequent use in population and ecosystem models.


Covariant density functional theory and the tilted axis cranking method are used to investigate antimagnetic rotation (AMR) in nuclei for the first time in a fully self-consistent and microscopic way. The experimental spectrum as well as the B(E2) values of the recently observed AMR band in (105)Cd are reproduced very well. This gives a further strong hint that AMR is realized in specific bands in nuclei.


The cell wall of most plant biomass from forest and agricultural resources consists of three major polymers, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Of these, hemicelluloses have gained increasing attention as sustainable raw materials. In this study, novel pH-sensitive semi-IPN hydrogels based on hemicelluloses and chitosan were prepared using glutaraldehyde as the crosslinking agent. The hemicellulose isolated from aspen was analyzed for sugar content by HPLC, and its molecular weight distribution was determined by high performance size exclusion chromatography. Results revealed that hemicellulose had a broad molecular weight distribution with a fair amount of polymeric units, together with xylose, arabinose, and glucose. The effects of hemicellulose content on mechanical properties and swelling behavior of hydrogels were investigated. The semi-IPNs hydrogel structure was confirmed by FT-IR, X-ray study, and the ninhydrin assay method. X-ray analysis showed that higher hemicellulose contents yielded higher crystallinity. Mechanical properties were mainly dependent on the crosslink density and average molecular weight between crosslinks. Swelling ratios increased with increasing hemicellulose content and were high at low pH values due to repulsion between similarly charged groups. In vitro release study of a model drug showed that these semi-IPN hydrogels could be used for controlled drug delivery into gastric fluid.


Object detection can be challenging when the object class exhibits large variations. One commonly-used strategy is to first partition the space of possible object variations and then train separate classifiers for each portion. However, with continuous spaces the partitions tend to be arbitrary since there are no natural boundaries (for example, consider the continuous range of human body poses). In this paper, a new formulation is proposed, where the detectors themselves are associated with continuous parameters, and reside in a parameterized function space. There are two advantages of this strategy. First, a-priori partitioning of the parameter space is not needed; the detectors themselves are in a parameterized space. Second, the underlying parameters for object variations can be learned from training data in an unsupervised manner. In profile face detection experiments, at a fixed false alarm number of 90, our method attains a detection rate of 75% vs. 70% for the method of Viola-Jones. In hand shape detection, at a false positive rate of 0.1%, our method achieves a detection rate of 99.5% vs. 98% for partition based methods. In pedestrian detection, our method reduces the miss detection rate by a factor of three at a false positive rate of 1%, compared with the method of Dalal-Triggs.


Long distance relationships are not well supported by current communication technologies. Although these technologies are superb at communicating facts, they lack an emotional element which I argue is necessary for people who care about one another and yet who must live apart. My PhD aims to address this problem by examining social presence in technologically mediated relationships. Thus far I have built a number of teletangible devices to mimic human actions across a distance. I will deploy these systems within a number of long-distance relationships. I expect my research to result in new understanding which will lead to communication technologies with higher levels of social presence, thus supporting long-distance relationships.


In this report we demonstrate that strategically choosing sampling points with an intelligent use of adaptive blue noise sampling methods can drastically reduce the computation time required in the rendering process. We explore the state of the art in blue noise sample generation and explore new ways it can be used within the rendering process. Monte Carlo ray tracing is a vastly adopted image syntheses technique used ubiquitously across commercial and academic applications. It is capable of creating very high fidelity physically plausible images with computation that it unrestricted by dimensionality unlike most analytical approaches. Although capable of producing a high quality images Monte Carlo ray tracing often still needs to compute millions, if not billions of samples to produce a fully converged, noise free image. Tracing these samples comes at a cost and can lead to large computation times. Although we can reduce the cost of tracing rays with more optimized acceleration structures or naively throwing more hardware at the problem these are overshadowed by the improved quality gained via improved strategic sampling. Strategic sample placement has been proved to improve convergence rate of Monte Carlo ray tracing requiring fewer samples, and therefore decrease computation required to produce comparable results in quality. We explore the current literature on sampling methodologies and compare their implementation, performance and limitations and show that their sampling quality is inferior to adaptive blue noise. We will focus on applying the use of adaptive blue noise sampling within four dimensions of the rendering pipeline specifically. Firstly, we present a technique for generating primary ray samples that adaptively samples the image plane. We use a blue noise algorithm that adapts based on pre-existing information about the scene to increase the sampling frequency within areas of interest. Secondly we look at filter importance sampling, a technique that seems to be becoming ever more popular in rendering, and how we can use adaptive blue noise to generate higher quality sampling distributions than what is possible with the currently used methods of importance sampling. Next we will explore importance sampling BxDFs by generating samples over the hemi- sphere. Finally we will conclude with a brief discussion on some future ideas about direct light sampling of arbitrarily defined mesh lights. A challenge that is faced by all professional rendering software as efficient sampling methodologies are not well defined. Although not all our results in this report are entirely conclusive we believe that we have brought attention and provided promising results that build the foundations to an under researched area of knowledge that could help solve practical rendering problems faced by professional graphics.


This study investigates the radial aerodynamic forces that may develop inside the centrifugal compressor and the turbine volutes due to pressure variation of the circulating gas. The forces are numerically predicted for magnitudes, directions, and locations. The radial aerodynamic forces are numerically simulated as static forces in the turbocharger finite element model with floating ring bearings and solved for nonlinear time-transient response. The numerical predictions of the radial aerodynamic forces are computed with correlation to earlier experimental results of the same turbocharger. The outcomes of the investigation demonstrate a significant influence of the radial aerodynamic loads on the turbocharger dynamic stability and the bearing reaction forces. The numerical predictions are also compared with experimental results for validation.


Johan Sverdrup is one of the largest oil fields discovered on the Norwegian continental shelf and will be one of the most prominent projects in Norway. As a seismic monitoring strategy, large parts of the Johan Sverdrup field will be monitored with a permanent reservoir monitoring (PRM) system. This feasibility study, investigates the rock physics challenges, calibration and further tests the conceptual understanding of reservoir models. Fundamental time-lapse aspects of interest have been investigated such as the possibility of detecting 4D effects in the thin intra-Draupne Fm sandstones, robustness of the time-lapse signal, drainage detection, how early in the production cycle can 4D effects be observed and finally if 4D data can be used quantitatively to reduce uncertainty in reservoir evaluation.


The story of BBC Local Radio in England, from the days of its conception around 1960, through to the launch of the first stations in 1967 and the finalisation of how to complete the chain in 1980 is a neglected area of research in media history. This thesis tells this story, using previously undocumented research from the BBC Written Archive Centre, and supplemented by oral history interviews with key participants. The approach is multi-faceted. Part of the investigation lies in gaining a greater understanding of how the BBC operated as an institution during these years. The internal culture of the BBC presents a series of complex issues, and the evolution of local radio illustrates this in many ways, in matters concerning management, autonomy, technology, the audience and finance. Linked to this are the differing notions and definitions of what "local? meant, in terms of the original concept and the output in practice. For local radio, this had a crucial impact on station location, the size of the transmission area and the degree to which the stations were able to represent and embody their communities. This history also assesses the impact the stations made, often in contrast to the popular image and perception of local broadcasting. The original contribution to knowledge that this thesis makes is in narrating this history for the first time, and in doing so, challenging previous assumptions about the nature of local broadcasting as part of the BBC and as part of the wider community.


In this thesis we discuss the theory of symmetric MHD equilibria with anisotropic pressure. More specifically, we focus on gyrotropic pressures, where the pressure tensor can be split into components along and across the magnetic field. We first explore 2D solutions, which can be found using total field type formalisms. These formalisms rely on treating quantities as functions of both the magnetic flux function and the magnetic field strength, and reduce the equilibrium equations to a single Grad-Shafranov equation that can be solved to find the magnetic flux function. However, these formalisms are not appropriate when one includes a shear field component of magnetic flux, since they lead to a set of equations which are implicitly coupled. Therefore, in order to solve the equilibrium problem with a magnetic shear field component, we introduce the poloidal formalism. This new formalism considers quantities as functions of the poloidal magnetic field strength (instead of the total magnetic field strength), and yields a set of two equations which are not coupled, and can be solved to find the magnetic flux function and the shear field. There are some situations where the poloidal formalism is difficult to use, however, such as in rotationally symmetric systems. Thus we require a further formalism, which we call the combined approach, which allows a more general use of the poloidal formalism. One finds that the combined formalism leads to multi-valued functions, which must be dealt with appropriately. Finally, we present some numerical examples of MHD equilibria, which have been found using each of the three formalisms mentioned above.


This thesis deals with the preparation of a new half-sandwich type ruthenium(II)- catalyst for racemization of optically active secondary alcohols and the development of a highly efficient method in combination with lipases such as Candida antarctica lipase B and Pseudomonas cepacia lipase for dynamic kinetic resolution of various functionalized alcohols under mild reaction conditions.It was shown that the RuCl(CO)2(η5-C5Ph5) complex can racemize optically active aliphatic and aromatic secondary alcohols at room temperature in rather short times. Different parameters, such as the nature of the catalyst, catalyst loading and solvent effect were studied. After the optimization steps, the Ru-catalyzed racemization of (S)-1-phenylethanol in the presence of Candida antarctica lipase B was also investigated. The compatibility of the metal- and enzyme-catalyzed reactions led to a highly efficient coupled catalytic system for transformation of racemic alcohols to their enantiomerically pure acetates. This protocol was applied for a wide range of secondary alcohols. It was shown that in the case of allylic alcohols the obtained enantiopure allylic acetates are useful compounds for synthesis of α-methyl carboxylic acids such as (R)-Flurbiprofen and acyloin acetates. Highly selective dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation of 3,5-piperidine diol to deliver various 3,5-dioxygenated piperidines is also described.


In this paper, we have investigated the dependence of the spectral entanglement and indistinguishability of photon pairs produced by the spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) procedure on the bandwidth of spectral filters used in the detection setup. The SPDC is a three-wave mixing process which occurs in a nonlinear crystal and generates entangled photon pairs and utilizes as one of the most useful resources in a variety of fields such as quantum computation, quantum cryptography, and quantum communication. The amount of the spectral entanglement and the indistinguishability of photon pairs are the two critical characteristics of the photon pairs determining their potential applications. The degree of the spectral entanglement of a quantum system, i.e. photon pairs, is determined by the entanglement entropy which is a measure of the system disorder. First, we derive the eigenvalue equation of reduced density operator of the signal and the idler photons in terms of the bandwidth of spectral filters. Then, by numerically solving the eigenvalue equation, we calculate the Schmidt coefficients for different values of the bandwidth of spectral filters. Finally, by calculating the entropy operator one can obtain the dependence of spectral entanglement of the photon pairs on filter bandwidth. The amount of indistinguishability of the photon pairs is measured by the visibility of the HOM diagram. Since the whole spectral information of the photon pairs exists in their two-photon mode function, using this function and the presented model we calculate the amount of indistinguishability by obtaining the visibility of the HOM diagram for different values of the bandwidth of the spectral filters. In this way, the dependence of the indistinguishability of the photon pairs on this quantity is reported.


Entry rates into self-employment increase during recessions and decrease during economic upswings. I show that this is mostly explained by the higher unemployment rate during a recession, together with the fact that at all times, unemployed persons have a relatively high propensity to become entrepreneurs out of necessity because they do not find paid employment. I use econometric decomposition techniques to quantify these effects based on the monthly matched US Current Population Survey before, during and after the Great Recession. I also document that this counter-cyclical pattern of entrepreneurial entry strongly applies to unincorporated entrepreneurship, but only weakly to incorporated entrepreneurship. This highlights the association of unincorporated and incorporated entrepreneurship with necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship, respectively. The results are useful for policy-makers and practitioners to understand, forecast and act on the different types of entrepreneurial activities that are to be expected over the business cycle.


We discuss the effects of inflation and time discounting on an EOQ model for deteriorating items under stock-dependent demand and time-dependent partial backlogging. The inventory model is studied under the replenishment policy starting with no shortages. We then use MATLAB to find the optimal replenishment policies. The objective of this model is to maximize the total profit (TP) which includes the sales revenue, purchase cost, the set up cost, holding cost, shortage cost and opportunity cost due to lost sales. Analytical results are given to justify the model. Finally, numerical examples are presented to determine the developed model and the solution procedure. Sensitivity analysis of the optimal solution with respect to major parameters is carried out. We propose a solution procedure to find the solution and obtain some managerial results by using sensitivity analysis.


Would you change your genes if you could? As we confront the 'industrial revolution of the genome', the recent discoveries of Crispr-Cas9 technologies are offering, for the first time, cheap and effective methods for editing the human genome. This opens up startling new opportunities as well as significant ethical uncertainty. Tracing events across a fifty-year period, from the first gene splicing techniques to the present day, this is the story of gene editing - the science, the impact and the potential. Kozubek weaves together the fascinating stories of many of the scientists involved in the development of gene editing technology. Along the way, he demystifies how the technology really works and provides vivid and thought-provoking reflections on the continuing ethical debate. Ultimately, Kozubek places the debate in its historical and scientific context to consider both what drives scientific discovery and the implications of the 'commodification' of life.


Steve McQueen Art Institute of Chicago October 21, 2012-January 6, 2013 Since bursting onto the contemporary art scene in the early 1990s, enigmatic British artist Steve McQueen has ostensibly been on a steady ascent to become one of the finest and most celebrated experimental filmmakers of his, generation. Having successfully transitioned into mainstream cinema in recent years, a move mirrored by his compatriot Sam Taylor-Wood, McQueen is arguably better recognized these days for his, feature films Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011). Nevertheless, with each gallery-based presentation, albeit increasingly infrequent given his current preoccupation with cinematic releases, McQueen continues to challenge the boundaries of movingimage discourses within the proverbial white cube. As such, it is fitting that the Art Institute of Chicago and the Schaulager in Switzerland have now co-organized the largest survey of is artistic output to date. Spanning two decades, the exhibition Steve McQueen showcased fifteen works that underscore McQueen's unique ability to propel viewers into striking environments where image and sound elegantly collide. Beyond the exhibition's rich content, the installation was a satisfying jaunt through a variety of cinematic experiences, occupying a large central room with freestanding projections that foregrounded the relationship between the body and the celluloid screen, while conversely breaking up into smaller black boxes that called for more intimate engagement with the work. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] McQueen's unapologetic approach to filmmaking is distinguished for its aesthetic rigor and deep political consciousness. This was evident from the exhibition's outset, as with the opening piece, Static (2009), a looped large-scale projection of the Statue of Liberty shot from a helicopter. This honest portrait of the famed neoclassical sculpture is seemingly without embellishment; the camera shakily pans around the figure, switching between wide and tights shots set against the shifting hues of New York City's skyline. However, it is the intense roar of the helicopter's motor and propellers, which fade in and out in a choreographed manner, that underline the partiality of McQueen's lens. The all-too-familiar sound conjures up thoughts of military warfare and invasion, or indeed surveillance, in our increasingly policed cities. On the other hand, given the film's location, the audio also infers the rogue nationalism that brings the frontlines of conflict to America's shores, as with the aircrafts that were used as weapons of terror on that ill-fated clay of September 11, 2001. The film's foreboding soundtrack thus cannot go unnoticed, for here it intimates a critique of the public monument, whose assigned values of liberty and democracy are intertwined, with violence and structures of control. Concurrently, Static speaks about the relationship between the mediated image and propaganda--a concern that ran throughout the retrospective, in that McQueen intentionally plays with the ambiguity of his images in order to obscure any embedded or presumed intent. As the exhibition unfolded, a striking facet of McQueen's work to emerge is his fascination with his persona. Across a collection of rarely seen black-and-white silent films produced early in his career, McQueen appears as a central protagonist. In Deadpan (1997), tucked away in a separate viewing room, the filmmaker recreates a famous Buster Keaton silent movie stunt in which a collapsing house threatens to flatten the comic, save for a strategically placed aperture in the building's facade. In what was previously a slapstick moment, McQueen's rendition is somber and defiant. Staring straight into the camera and standing unflinchingly as the film's title suggests, a series of jump cuts documents the collapse from different perspectives. With each change in viewpoint, we see the artist resist the compulsion to react. …


Emmett is a 44-year-old editor of medical textbooks. He decides to embark upon a project in which he will rise each morning before 5:00 a.m. The nature of this project and the reasons for its inception are not entirely clear. Not wishing to wake his family, when he awakens he wends his way through the dark house until he arrives in the kitchen, uses his sense of touch to locate the coffeepot, prepares a cup of coffee for himself, and then fumbles around on the dining room mantel to find a box of matches. Emmett then completes his morning ritual by starting a fire in the dining room fireplace and staring at the flames while contemplating the quotidian minutiae of life as the coffee beans work their magic on his brain. Between sips of coffee, Emmett's thoughts range widely. He worries about his pet duck outside in the doghouse braving the freezing cold of the Maine winter. He remembers the Olivetti electric typewriter his father bought for him when he went away to college. He reminisces about how he and his wife first met. He has fantasies of what would happen if the world were flat and one drove off the end of the earth. As the flames of the fire dance in front of his eyes, he also thinks about three contentious physician-authors who owe him chapters in the book on spinal cord trauma that he is editing. Most of all, though, Emmett contemplates the passage of time and the inexorable march toward death associated with it. As he remembers washing his son's hair the previous night he thinks, "How many years will be left before I have no child young enough to wash his or her hair?" (p. 74). The wail of a lonely freight train whistle reminds him of death. He has fantasies of digging his own grave. He is astonished at the rapidity of his transformation from a son into a father. As the reader gets farther into this clever little novella, Emmett's motives become clear. He wishes to stop time. More precisely, he hopes to observe the passage of time in slow motion by awakening before sunrise and observing each microsecond to the fullest extent possible before the stillness of the slumbering world is disrupted by the arrival of the dawn. Nicholson Baker's theme in A Box of Matches is one he has explored to one extent or another in his five previous novels. In The Fermata (1), his protagonist is able to stop time completely and engage in mischief while everyone else is in a state of suspended animation. In all of his works, Baker reminds us that a great deal is happening around us if we only pay attention. In A Box of Matches, however, Baker strikes a note of urgency that is new for him. As he enters middle age, Baker, like his narrator Emmett, seems to sense that life is largely a mourning process. No sooner have we overcome the loss of parents or grandparents than we notice that our children are slipping through our fingers before we have had sufficient time to rivet our eyes on them and fully appreciate their uniqueness. By the end of the book, one realizes that Emmett's groping in the predawn darkness for the coffeepot is a metaphor for how we all stumble through our lives in the darkness, groping from one landmark to the next to find our way. Baker is desperately trying to communicate a message to us before it's too late. Those little joys of existence involving the humdrum routines of daily interaction with spouse, children, and friends contain the essence of our lives. If we blink, we may miss them.


In late 1504 and early 1505, Leonardo da Vinci (1452--1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475--1564) were both at work on commissions they had received to paint murals in Florence's City Hall. Leonardo was to depict a historic battle between Florence and Milan, Michelangelo one between Florence and Pisa. Though neither project was ever completed, the painters' mythic encounter shaped art and its history in the decades and centuries that followed. This concise, lucid, and thought-provoking book looks again at the one moment when Leonardo and Michelangelo worked side by side, seeking to identify the roots of their differing ideas of the figure in 15th-century pictorial practices and to understand what this contrast meant to the artists and writers who followed them. Through close investigation of these two artists, Michael W. Cole provides a new account of critical developments in Italian Renaissance painting.


Over the past half-century, technology has evolved beyond our wildest dreams. However, while the benefits of technological growth are undeniable, the nascent Internet did not anticipate the online threats we routinely encounter and the harms which can result. As our world becomes increasingly connected, it is critical we consider what implications current and future technologies have for security and privacy. We approach this challenge by surveying 30 predictions across industry, academia and international organisations to extract a number of common themes. Through this, we distill 10 emerging scenarios and reflect on the impact these might have on a range of stakeholders. Considering gaps in best practice and requirements for further research, we explore how security and privacy might evolve over the next decade. We find that existing guidelines both fail to consider the relationships between stakeholders and do not address the novel risks from wearable devices and insider threats. Our approach rigorously analyses emerging scenarios and suggests future improvements, of crucial importance as we look to pre-empt new technological threats.


A redundancy reduction strategy, which can be applied in stages, is proposed as a way to learn as efficiently as possible the statistical properties of an ensemble of sensory messages. The method works best for inputs consisting of strongly correlated groups, that is features, with weaker statistical dependence between different features. This is the case for localized objects in an image or for words in a text. A local feature measure determining how much a single feature reduces the total redundancy is derived which turns out to depend only on the probability of the feature and of its components, but not on the statistical properties of any other features. The locality of this measure makes it ideal as the basis for a "neural" implementation of redundancy reduction, and an example of a very simple non-Hebbian algorithm is given. The effect of noise on learning redundancy is also discussed.


On the northern part of Gotland there are good examples of former defence sites that have faced different destinies. Often they were built for one purpose and then used for another. When abandoned, some were sold out to private investors while others stayed in government possession. The island of Enholmen has been in military use on and off from the 17th century until the beginning of the 21st century. The island has since been turned into a heritage site and a tourist attraction. The former training area Bungenäs was sold to a government-owned company. It was later resold to a private investor who has developed it into a residential area, with many of the bunkers being integrated with the new building. In 1885, during the Crimean War, the military built three fortifications in Fårö Strait. After being abandoned for 100 years one of the batteries was turned into a hotel in 2004. The Klintsbrovik chalk quarry was turned into a storage facility for sea mines during World War II. In 2012 a community planning event was held resulting in a master plan. The Swedish Fortifications Agency plan to dispose of the property after the plan is in place. The private sector has been very effective in transforming for- mer fortifications. The government has turned some sites into heritage and tourist sites. There are good examples of both in northern Gotland. Klintsbrovik will be the first case where the government via a master plan turns a former fortification into civilian use.


This article examines prosecutorial discretion and argues it is a major cause of racial inequality in the criminal justice system. It asserts that prosecutorial discretion may instead be used to construct effective solutions to racial injustice. The article maintains that since prosecutors have more power than any other criminal justice officials, with practically no corresponding accountability to the public they serve, they have the responsibility to use their discretion to help eradicate the discriminatory treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system.Part I of the Article explains the importance and impact of the prosecution function. Part II discusses the role of race and racism in discretionary prosecutorial decisions. Part III examines the difficulty in bringing successful legal challenges to discriminatory prosecutorial decisions. Part IV suggests the use of prosecutorial discretion as a remedy for race discrimination in the criminal justice system. Finally, Part V proposes the use of racial impact studies in prosecution offices to advance the responsible, nondiscriminatory exercise of prosecutorial discretion.


It is commonly accepted that ambulance staff undertake a large amount of lifting and
handling in their daily work. Their primary role is to provide pre-hospital care and to
transport sick and injured people to hospital. The emergency nature of the job means
that ambulance workers have to assist people who are incapable of moving themselves
in awkward and potentially hazardous environments. While safer lifting policies have
been introduced ambulance workers still lift weights which other healthcare workers
can avoid.
However since the introduction of manual handling regulations and more recently CEN
standards, ambulance services and manufacturers have been trying to find new ways
of moving and transferring patients. Ambulance services have purchased new
equipment to reduce musculoskeletal risks but there is little scientific evidence to
support their purchasing choices. This thesis presents two case studies describing
ergonomic equipment evaluations of stretcher loading systems and mobility equipment
to provide a scientific basis to support purchasing decisions.
Case study one is a comparative analysis of stretcher loading equipment used in UK
ambulance services. The study was carried out in two phases. Phase 1 was a field
study which used observation and interview methods to identify issues affecting
equipment use in a range of environments. Phase 2 was a simulation study which
used task simulation to assess the postures adopted during loading and unloading
activities with each system. Both phases identified the tail lift as the preferred system
to reduce manual handling and improve patient and operator safety.
Case study two is a comparative evaluation of mobility equipment. User trials were
carried out to evaluate 12 transport chairs and 4 stretchers for Accident and
Emergency and Patient Transport Service staff to identify preferred equipment for each
team. 16 staff assessed the equipment by conducting task simulations and completing
questionnaires for each product. Postures adopted during the tasks were assessed
using Rapid Entire Body Assessment. The mechanised stair climber chair was the
preferred chair for both teams. The stretcher analysis was inconclusive. This thesis has used two case studies to establish a protocol for field and lab based
evaluations of movement and transfer equipment in the future for the ambulance
vehicle. A more comprehensive procurement process is recommended to include
detailed ergonomic evaluation, ensuring that the end user is fully represented. The
thesis concludes that automation is way forward to reduce manual handling risks posed
to ambulance workers. The output from case study 1 (tail lift) has been included in the national specification for future Emergency Ambulances in the UK.


In this contribution we propose and investigate a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications system, where multiple receive antennas are distributed in the area covered by a cellular cell and connected with the base-station (BS). We first analyze the total received power by the BS through the distributed antennas, when assuming that the mobile's signal is transmitted over lognormal shadowed Rayleigh fading channels. Then, the outage probability of the distributed antenna MIMO systems is investigated, when considering various antenna distribution patterns. Furthermore, space-time coding at the mobile transmitter is considered for enhancing the outage performance of the distributed antenna MIMO system. Our study and simulation results show that the outage performance of a distributed antenna MIMO system can be significantly improved, when either increasing the number of distributed receive antennas or increasing the number of mobile transmit antennas.


The series of articles in this issue test conceptual models of the processes by which levels of educational attainment are passed from one generation to the next. Collectively, the investigations indicate that although proximal family processes mediate the relation between parent education and children's educational achievement, these processes may differ at different life phases. The studies point to the need to understand how and why these processes vary in different ethnic groups. One investigation considers the benefits accrued to children when mothers with low levels of education attend school. Because the parent-to-child educational attainment relation is strongest for parents with low levels of education, future work on cycle breaking would benefit from expanding mediational models into other systems in children's lives.


The specific attenuation factor, Q(_γ)(^-1), has been estimated from seismic Rayleigh waves in the frequency range 0.015-0.11 Hz. The 95% confidence limits determine a narrow region around all estimates. The observational data consists of digitised Rayleigh wave traces from film chips of the long period vertical component instruments of the WWSSN stations. Events used are nuclear explosions in Movaya Zemlya, the Lop Nor region of China (Southern Sinkiang Province) and the Aleutian Islands. The group velocity and spectral amplitudes are obtained for each seismogram using an improved "multiple filter technique Q(^-1)(_ γ) is estimated by a least squares regression fit to the subsequent amplitude distance plots. Values of Q(^-1)(_ γ) are generally larger when determined from Novaya Zemlya (.004) than for the Lop Nor test site (.003). The largest values of (.009) are found at low frequencies (0.02 Hz), implying a zone of high dissipation in the upper mantle sampled by these frequencies alone.-1The observed values of Q(^-1)*_ Q(^-1)(_ γ) are directly inverted using an extended Monte-Carlo technique - "Hedgehog". This successfully inverted the data from Novaya Zemlya revealing a region of high dissipation coincident with the low velocity zone, although low velocity is not assumed. The inversion model shows Q(^-1)(_a) = .002, Q(^-1)(_β) = .0045 for the uppermost 120 km and Q(^-1)(_a) = .007, Q(^-1)(_β) = .015 (Q(_a) = 140, Q(_β) = 65) in the absorption zone below 120 km.


Durability characteristics of cement paste with two types of metakaolin (MK1 and MK2) replacement were examined. "Fluidized bed" calcination produced MK1 which was relatively pure, while "flash" calcination produced MK2, which had a high amount of quartz mixed in. At a 50% replacement after 28 days, porosity increased by 8.9 and 7% for MK1 and MK2 while primary sorptivity decreased. Thermogravometric and XRD analysis showed a decrease in the portlandite content by 79 and 75% for MKI and MK2, while the CaCO3 level did not change significantly. MK2, at an optimal replacement range of 5-30% produced relatively more CSH than MK1. Observed by SEM, metakaolin particles in MK2 were consumed by the pozzolanic activity more thoroughly than the particles of quartz. Metakaolin replacement levels of 20% or more for MK1, and 25% or more for MK2, made the cement paste very susceptible to carbonation ingress. Hydration stopping with propan-2-ol appeared to cause cracking while freeze-drying worked with no apparent problems. M


Heterogeneous architectures have been widely used in the domain of high performance computing. However developing applications on heterogeneous architectures is time consuming and error-prone because going from a single accelerator to multiple ones indeed requires to deal with potentially non-uniform domain decomposition, inter-accelerator data movements, and dynamic load balancing. The aim of this thesis is to propose a solution of parallel programming for novice developers, to ease the complex coding process and guarantee the quality of code. We lighted and analysed the shortcomings of existing solutions and proposed a new programming tool called STEPOCL along with a new domain specific language designed to simplify the development of an application for heterogeneous architectures. We evaluated both the performance and the usefulness of STEPOCL. The result show that: (i) the performance of an application written with STEPOCL scales linearly with the number of accelerators, (ii) the performance of an application written using STEPOCL competes with an handwritten version, (iii) larger workloads run on multiple devices that do not fit in the memory of a single device, (iv) thanks to STEPOCL, the number of lines of code required to write an application for multiple accelerators is roughly divided by ten.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Recurrent ureteral strictures have higher complexity for repair compared to initial surgery for ureteral reconstruction. We describe a series of patients treated with robotic assisted laparoscopic (RAL) buccal mucosal graft (BMG) ureteroplasty and demonstrate techniques utilized to improve efficiency in these complex cases. METHODS: Retrospective review was conducted for the initial four cases of RAL ureteroplasty with BMG performed by a single surgeon between July and October 2017. Video recordings of these cases were reviewed to identify techniques utilized to facilitate completion of these complex cases using a RAL approach. RESULTS: All four cases were completed using RAL approach without need for conversion to an open procedure. Average patient age was 55 years. Two patients had lower ureteral strictures that initially resulted from prior pelvic surgery. Both of these patients developed recurrent lower ureteral strictures after prior ureteroneocystostomy with psoas hitch. The remaining two patients had upper ureteral strictures. One patient had recurrent ureteropelvic junction obstruction after two previous RAL pyeloplasty procedures. The only male patient in the series presented with a proximal ureteral stricture due to nephrolithiasis. Imaging demonstrated absence of dilation of the renal pelvis precluding repair with spiral flap pyeloplasty or primary uretero-ureterostomy. No patients had history of prior radiation therapy. Average operative time was 371 minutes (range 317-485). Median length of hospitalization was 4.5 days (range 3-6). Two patients were re-admitted for treatment of urinary tract infection. Ureteral stents were left in place for 5 weeks post operatively. Preliminary follow up ranging from 7-16 weeks showed no evidence of ureteral stricture recurrence. Intra-operative fluorescence imaging facilitated identification of the ureter in previously operated fields and aided in localization of the region of stricture. Access to the ureter via cystoscopy and ureteroscopy was useful for ureteral stricture identification and ureteral stent placement. Stay suture placement in the ureter served to expose the ureter for ureterotomy, measurement, and suturing of the BMG. CONCLUSIONS: Reconstruction of recurrent upper and lower ureteral strictures is feasible using a RAL approach. We demonstrate techniques that can be utilized to complete these complex procedures with encouraging results in short term follow up. Source of Funding: None


Postdepositional sediment mobilization is a common phenomenon that occurs over large areas of sedimentary basins, usually within mudstone-rich successions; however, defining the exact mechanism that initiates this process has proved elusive. Here we describe a number of large-scale clastic intrusions (injectites), 50 to >300 m in height, hosted within fine-grained biosiliceous upper Eocene to Pliocene strata in four sedimentary basins. Within these basins diagenetic conversion of opal A into opal CT (cristobalite and tridymite) causes a marked reduction in sediment porosity and the liberation of bound water, often at relatively shallow burial (<0.5 km). We propose that this occurs over geologically short time periods over large expanses of sedimentary basins, causing rapid pore fluid expulsion and overpressure buildup within interbedded sands. The liberated fluids primed these sands, rendering them susceptible to remobilization. This mechanism should have broad applicability.


This paper contains an analysis of the fixed-point accuracy of the powqer of two, fast Fourier transform algorithm. This analysis leads to approximate upper and lower bounds on the root-mean-square error. Also included are the results of some accuracy experiments on a simulated fixed-point machine and their comparison with the error upper bound.


In most aquatic environments, at least 2 subpopulations of bacterial cells can be discriminated by flow cytometry based on their nucleic acid content. Recent investigations have shown that the cells with a high nucleic acid (HNA) content have a higher cell-specific activity (CSA) cell than those with a low nucleic acid (LNA) content. In this study, the CSA and biomass-specific activities (BSA) of HNA and LNA cells from different aquatic ecosystems, including marine, brackish and freshwater, were investigated using radioactive leucine incorporation and cell sorting by flow cytometry. The genetic diversity of natural assemblages, HNA and LNA cells was investigated using the SSCP (PCR single-strand conformation polymorphism) method. Data showed that both CSA and BSA of HNA cells were always significantly higher than CSA and BSA of LNA cells. In addition, HNA cells had a dominant contribution to the production of the total community (77 to 98 %). For the different samples, the SSCP fingerprints from the natural assemblage and from the 2 sorted fractions were not significantly different. This clearly suggests that HNA and LNA subpopulations were composed by the same dominant species and, thus, confirms an important heterogeneity of physiological states within most natural populations.


A new family of self-organizing maps, the winner-relaxing Kohonen algorithm, is introduced as a generalization of a variant given by Kohonen in 1991. The magnification behavior is calculated analytically. For the original variant, a magnification exponent of 4/7 is derived; the generalized version allows steering the magnification in the wide range from exponent 1/2 to 1 in the one-dimensional case, thus providing optimal mapping in the sense of information theory. The winner-relaxing algorithm requires minimal extra computations per learning step and is conveniently easy to implement.


This text is an accompaniment to an endeavor spanning approximately thirteen months in which I used photographic and literary processes to create documents concerning my history. These nearly universal processes were chosen because of their correlative nature. Images are read in a similar fashion to texts and both facilitate discourse. This thesis is an investigation on a personal level about the manner in which experiences are had, documented, and in many ways conditioned. The photographs that amount to the physical portion of this thesis explore the personally anecdotal within the context of generalized methods of documentation. In this work I discuss how a consciously reflective engagement with particular processes can actively shed light upon, and ultimately proctor, the manner in which experiences are created.


Haematophagous parasites can negatively impact breeding success and their control is often the target of management for threatened bird species. Mitigating parasitism can be difficult and certainly should only be done if parasite control is possible and if successful control improves host species fitness. Here, we use an experiment to test the effect of two alternative chemical methods of Ornithonyssus bursa management in nests of a threatened host species, the New Zealand hihi Notiomystis cincta. We compared a reactive management alternative using Frontline® (active ingredient fipronil) to control O. bursa infestations after detection to a preventative management alternative using Avian Insect Liquidator (AIL) spray (active ingredients piperonyl butoxide (PBO), permethrin and methoprene) before egg laying. We found that AIL‐treated nests were less likely to be parasitized and parasitism occurred later in nestling development if nests did become parasitized. We also found no difference in egg hatchability nor nestling condition between alternative management approaches but did find nest success was higher in preventative AIL‐treated nests. Our approach highlights the value of an experimental approach in assessing management alternatives in threatened species conservation and the host fitness benefits that can be achieved from control of costly parasitism.


The growing body of empirical evidence for sympatric speciation has been complemented by recent theoretical treatments that have identified evolutionary conditions conducive to speciation in sympatry. The Neotropical Midas cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellum) fits both of the key characteristics of these models, with strong assortative mating on the basis of a colour polymorphism coupled with trophic and ecological differentiation derived from a polymorphism in their pharyngeal jaws. We used microsatellite markers and a 480 bp fragment of the mitochondrial DNA control region to study four polymorphic populations of the Midas cichlid from three crater lakes and one large lake in Nicaragua in an investigation of incipient sympatric speciation. All populations were strongly genetically differentiated on the basis of geography. We identified strong genetic separation based on colour polymorphism for populations from Lake Nicaragua and one crater lake (Lake Apoyo), but failed to find significant genetic structuring based on trophic differences and ecological niche separation in any of the four populations studied. These data support the idea that sexual selection through assortative mating contributes more strongly or earlier during speciation in sympatry than ecological separation in these cichlids. The long–term persistence of divergent cichlid ecotypes (as measured by the percentage sequence divergence between populations) in Central American crater lakes, despite a lack of fixed genetic differentiation, differs strikingly from the patterns of extremely rapid speciation in the cichlids in Africa, including its crater lakes. It is unclear whether extrinsic environmental factors or intrinsic biological differences, e.g. in the degree of phenotypic plasticity, promote different mechanisms and thereby rates of speciation of cichlid fishes from the Old and New Worlds.


statecharts in the making: a Personal account odologist responsible for evaluating and recommending software engineering methods and tools at IAI, described some problems IAI avionics engineers were having. This was part of the massive effort then under way to build a fighter aircraft, the Lavi (no connection with Jonah's surname). Following that meeting , I began consulting at IAI on a one-day-a-week basis, and for several months Thursday became my IAI day. The first few weeks were devoted to trying to understand the general issues from Lavi. Then it was time to be exposed to the details of the project and its specific difficulties, since I hadn't yet met the project's engineers. For several weeks, I spent my Thursdays with Lavi's assistant , Yitzhak Shai, and a select group of broader perspective.6 The present article is a greatly abridged version of the resulting conference paper. The implicit claim is that the emergence of the language brought to the forefront a number of ideas that today are central to software and systems engineering, including the general notions of visual formalisms, reactive systems, model-based development, model executabil-ity, and full code generation. In 1979 I published a paper on a tree-like language based on the idea of alternation called " And/Or Programs, " 18 prompting Jonah Lavi of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) to contact me. We met in late 1982, at which time I'd been on the faculty of the Weizmann Institute of Science for two years. Lavi, who was a meth-Writing a historical paper about something you yourself are heavily involved in is clearly difficult; the result is bound to be personal and idiosyncratic and might well sound presumptuous. I thus viewed an invitation to write about statecharts for the third History of Programming Languages conference in 2007 as an opportunity to put the language in a


These days, a modern car will be a complete office, lounge and chauffeur system, composed from different systems, that incorporate themselves into an on board automotive cluster system. This will behave like one component and offer a customized user interface. To facilitate the system development of such a cluster system, different system interfaces like memory and inter process communication mechanisms need to be provided through all the cooperating systems. Embedded systems are now facing the same problems, which occurred years ago in the server world. One of the major automotive original equipment manufacturers chose Intel's Atom CPU as the target platform for their latest development. This step shows that a modern x86 based architecture could provide the basis for a reliable automotive system. There is now an opportunity to introduce virtual machine (VM) technology combined with new security and reliability methods in the embedded automotive sector.


The acceptable disposal waste such as ash and sludge is a growing problem. A related problem is the recycling of other waste materials such as tires, glass and plastics. Because of the high-volume of kakawate tree in the region and that ash of kakawate wood is considered waste taken from dirty kitchen of every household, the researchers as engineers instigated to recycle the ash for admixture construction material for low-cost housing projects. With this study the researchers first proved that the compressive strength of concrete cylinder mixed with kakawate (Gliricidia sepium) Jacq. Kunth ex walph using the proportion 20% ash and 80% cement for the mixture 1:2:3 can achieve the consistent quality demanded a safe concrete structures. The result of the laboratory testing can be a basis in proceeding with other proportions. Information is needed about the wood material's physical properties. Further, environmental and waste management issues must be discussed as basis for the acceptability and practicability of waste and recycled material (WRMs). Researchers may consider the sustainability and practicability of kakawate ash and cement ratio recommended for construction of low-cost housing projects without sacrificing the strength of the structure .


Broadband high frequency systems are increasingly utilising MMIC technology to reduce circuit design uncertainties. At frequencies above 6 GHz the MMIC interconnections become critical, bond wire inductances become significant and bond length variations in the assembly process cause significant performance variation. At Marconi Electronic Systems the benefits of solder bump connections to the MMIC are being explored. These benefits include very low inductance, self-alignment and repeatable connections. The technology is also extremely well suited to automatic and semi-automatic production, making multiple channel systems such as phased arrays more cost-effective. This paper is a review of recent work (2-40 GHz) on solder bumped MMIC circuits and covers broadband flip-chip S-parameter circuit interconnect modelling, thermal modelling of HEMT transistors connected by solder bump arrays. Additional layers to the MMT H40 Foundry process have been specially designed to facilitate solder bump connection.


We propose a novel large-scale OXC architecture that utilizes WSSs for dynamic wavelength grouping and 1xn switches for fiber selection. We also develop a network design algorithm that can make the best use of the routing capability of the proposed nodes. Numerical experiments on several topologies show that the architecture attains substantial hardware scale reduction. A prototype demonstrates good transmission performance and confirms the technical feasibility of the proposed OXC architecture.


Classification accuracy is the ability of a marker or diagnostic test to discriminate between two groups of individuals, cases and controls, and is commonly summarized using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. In studies of classification accuracy, there are often covariates that should be incorporated into the ROC analysis. We describe three different ways of using covariate information. For factors that affect marker observations among controls, we present a method for covariate adjustment. For factors that affect discrimination (ie the ROC curve), we describe methods for modelling the ROC curve as a function of covariates. Finally, for factors that contribute to discrimination, we propose combining the marker and covariate information, and ask how much discriminatory accuracy improves with the addition of the marker to the covariates (incremental value). These methods follow naturally when representing the ROC curve as a summary of the distribution of case marker observations, standardized with respect to the control distribution.


Background: Hispanics in the USA have higher rates of substance use disorders than similar ethnic groups residing in Latin American nations, and recent evidence suggests an increase in substance use among US Hispanic youth. This investigation examines the familial and societal correlates of this increase by comparing Puerto Rican families residing in the mainland USA and Puerto Rico. Methods: Using migrant and controlled family study methods, 279 probands in San Juan and 236 probands in New Haven were recruited from treatment clinics and the general community to compose four diagnostic groups: drug abuse/dependence; alcohol abuse/dependence; psychiatric controls; unaffected controls. 806 biological offspring aged 12–17 were then directly interviewed. Results: Total rates for alcohol use were greater among San Juan Youth than their migrant counterparts. By contrast, US migrant adolescents were more likely to use cannabis. A strong association was observed between parental and child substance use at both sites, particularly for boys, and offspring of probands with drug use disorders were at greatest risk for substance use and related disorders. Familial aggregation patterns did not vary substantially by site. Conclusions: Despite societal influences on the magnitude and patterns of substance use in migrant youth, the consistent influence of parental disorders across sites reveals that the cross-generational transmission of substance use disorders in prior studies extends to Hispanic families and is an important factor to consider in the development of prevention strategies.


This ambitious, wide-ranging, exhaustively researched book is a compelling attempt to grasp the very nature of war. It takes us through the soldier's experience in its entirety - from the humiliation of basic training and the intense comradeship of army life, to the terror, isolation and exhaustion of battle. What does it feel like to be in the firing line? How does killing change a man? And what do the extreme conditions of war reveal about a man's basic instincts, his courage or his fear, his urge for self-preservation or self-sacrifice? Covering several centuries of warfare, and including the personal recollections of veterans from two World Wars, from Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands and the Arab-Israeli conflicts, Richard Holmes gives us a powerful picture of what motivates the soldier and enables him to maintain the struggle in conditions of extreme degradation and danger.


In this paper, we study energy efficiency of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing based system under power constraint and minimum rate requirement with system circuit power consideration. The optimal radio resource allocation is then formulated as an energy‐efficient maximisation where we propose a novel low complexity solution for obtaining the optimal solution. The solution consists of the optimal source transmission power and its distribution among subcarriers. In spite of the iterative solution with high computational complexity in previous works, we propose a quickly convergent low complexity scheme based on solving a nonlinear logarithmic equation. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed method, we compared its accuracy through simulations with the optimal solution in systems with and without circuit power consideration. Simulation studies indicate that the proposed method provide accurate solutions in both low and high signal to noise ratio regimes. The simulation results also indicate using our proposed method results in a significant improvement in the computational complexity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The consumer bankruptcy system plays an enormous, albeit largely under-appreciated, role in the United States economy. There were nearly 1.6 million consumer bankruptcy filings in the United States in 2004 - more than twice the number just ten years earlier, and more than one filing for every 70 households in the country. Nearly a third of these filings were under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. (Chapter 13 provides for individual debt readjustment pursuant to a repayment plan, whereas Chapter 7 provides for liquidation of assets to pay creditor claims.) Yet, little is known about what debtors and creditors achieve in Chapter 13 cases, or how well the Chapter 13 system serves its intended purposes. This article, co-authored by Associate Professor Andrew J. Velkey, reports on the findings of the Chapter 13 Project, a national empirical study of 795 Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings in seven federal judicial districts. Funded by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and the American Bankruptcy Institute, it is the first and only national study of its kind. It provides a detailed portrait of the Chapter 13 system and the extent to which Chapter 13 has fulfilled its principal purposes - debtor fresh start, on the one hand, and creditor repayment, on the other. The article first reports on who is using Chapter 13 - the gender, income, indebtedness and other bankruptcy filings of the debtors in the sample. It then reports on the extent to which the debtors in the seven districts completed their plans and obtained a discharge. Next, we consider various debtor characteristics - gender, income, amount and type of debt, debt-income ratio, other filings - and certain plan features - length, proposed distribution to unsecured creditors, income reserved for payment of living expenses - for their relation to case outcome. Regarding creditor repayment, the study reports in detail on the amounts and types of debt that are collected by creditors in Chapter 13 cases. The Project has produced a wealth of new information and insights into the Chapter 13 system. Some of the highlights include: Most of the debtors in the sample were far less affluent than the population as a whole. At least 50% of the debtors had filed one or more other petitions. Discharge rates varied significantly by district, but overall only one-third of the debtors completed a plan. We found statistically significant correlations between case outcome and debtor income, amount and type of debt, and other filings. Equally revealing, the study found no significant relationship between case outcome and plan feasibility, proposed plan length or proposed distribution to unsecured creditors. Regarding creditor repayment, the study reports that the primary creditor beneficiaries by far of the Chapter 13 system are secured creditors; and that less than a third of trustee disbursements were to general unsecured creditors. The median amount paid to unsecured creditors in all cases was $0.