This study presents a comparison of trace (Hg) and criteria (CO, SO_2, NO_x, O_3 and PM_(10)) air pollutants monitored at two remote sites with the same latitude but different altitude: Mt. Lulin and the Penghu Islands, in Taiwan from 2011 to 2012. A filtering technique was comprehensively applied to distinguish the climatic characteristics of the two remote sites, as well as to determine their discriminant factor. The concentrations of air pollutants monitored at Mt. Lulin were generally lower than those at the Penghu Islands, with the exception of O_3 concentration. PM_(10) and NO_x were the important factors that can distinguish two clusters of measurement data at the two remote sites, and a criteria discriminant factor of atmospheric parameters derived from these two air pollutants. For both high- and low-frequency patterns, the concentrations of NO_x and PM_(10) exhibit significant differences between the two remote sites. However, O_3 concentrations showed almost no differences between these two remote sites, implying that the pattern for the formation and transportation of O_3 at these two sites resulted from similar mechanisms. Moreover, atmospheric mercury (TGM) had a very good linear correlation with CO. The diurnal variation of Hg concentration was dramatic at the Penghu Islands, while it appeared as low as the North Hemisphere background mercury concentration at Mt. Lulin, indicating that they were not formed via the mechanism modes. This study thus proposed "scenario mercury" and "background mercury" for interpreting this interesting phenomenon.


Presbyopia is closely associated with the loss of accommodation, and hence with a decline in the viscoelastic properties of the human eye lens. In this article we describe a method for obtaining spatially resolved in vivo measurements of the rheological properties of the eye lens, based on the spectroscopic analysis of spontaneous Brillouin scattering using a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA). The multi-pass configuration enhances resolution to the extent that measurements are possible in elastic biological tissue characterized by intense scattering. We also present spatially resolved measurements obtained in extracted animal eyes and lenses. The results yield entirely new insights into the aging process of the eye lens.


This thesis aims to know the code choice made by a radio broadcaster who has to broadcast her program to many people from different ethnic background like in Surabaya. In order to reach the goal of this study, the writer chooses Global FM as one of the popular radios in Surabaya in their program named Global Mandarin. She is very curious to know the kinds of codes, which will occur in the conversation between the Global FM?s broadcaster and the participants in Global Mandarin program that the writer chooses. In addition, she also wants to know how deep the influences of social relationship on the broadcaster?s code choices in communicating with the participants as in Holmes theory (1992:12). In conducting this research, the writer uses a tape recorder to record all the phone conversation (on-air communication) between the broadcaster and the participants until 40 (forty) participants had been collected randomly. Then, she checks the data she had with the Global Mandarin?s broadcaster in order to know her relationship with each participant by using questionnaires. This is a descriptivequalitative study, for the writer herself becomes the instrument in collecting the data and she represents the findings in the form of tables. In analyzing the data, the writer applies Holmes? theory (1992) on Language Choice in Multilingual Communities (book: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics). From the research, the writer finds out that the codes that occur are Standard Indonesian, Non-Standard Indonesian, Standard English, Non-Standard English, and Standard Mandarin. Moreover, Standard Indonesian is the code that is mostly used by the broadcaster as the main code while communicating with the participants. Also, the writer finds that the social relationship between the broadcaster and the participants plays a very important role in code choices used by the broadcaster.


The paper proposes an open approach to modeling to cater for the emerging trend to complex adaptive systems. Such systems are seen as collections of people, programs, computers and other physical objects that must coexist and work towards a vision in a continually changing environment. The information system here is perceived as a network of physical, knowledge and other kinds of entities connected into a network that emerges as the environment evolves. The paper describes a community oriented approach to model such systems where each community is seen as a collection of such entities. The communities themselves are connected to create a system of systems or a community ecosystem where the communities collaborate to realize a continually emerging vision. The paper describes an open modeling approach for such ecosystems to provide designers a systematic way to design community coordination. It first uses living systems and complexity as metaphors to design community structures that ensure collaboration persists over a long time. The modeling methods provide a flexible approach to show networks of community collaborating within their context. An open approach is to provide users with a flexible method to create community networks using semantics natural to the user and emphasizing perspectives to visualize the complex relationships within such systems.


For decades, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has required trademark owners to comply with sundry non-trademark laws governing the sale of their trademarked goods and services. Pursuant to this "lawful use requirement", the agency has refused or even cancelled registration of thousands of marks used on everything from Schedule I controlled substances to mislabeled soap. This Article subjects the agency's lawful use requirement to long-overdue scrutiny. It suggests that in requiring compliance with other laws for registration, the PTO has lost sight of the one statute it is supposed to administer. In the process, the agency has overstepped the limits of its statutory authority and undermined federal trademark policy. Whether a mark owner has used its mark to sell improperly labeled soap or an illicit drug, the PTO has no mandate, and no convincing policy reason, to deny the owner the substantial benefits of registration. Simply put, the agency's lawful use requirement has no place in trademark law.


Data from cruises between 1989 and 2005 with RV POLARSTERN reveal significant temperature and salinity variations of the Warm Deep Water and the Weddell Sea Bottom Water. In the bottom water of the Weddell Sea proper a temperature increase by 0.12°C was observed over 16 years from 1989 to 2005. At the prime meridian warming occurred in the Warm Deep Water from 1984 to 1996 followed by cooling since then. The warming trend in the bottom water is detected here as well and started in 1992.The warming of Warm Deep Water is associated to a salinity increase which is consistent with an intensified inflow from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. However, in spite of cooling since 1996 the salinity remains constant. This suggests that the variations are generated by a period of intensified injection of Circumpolar Deep Water. The additional heat is lost to the atmosphere whereas the salt remains in the water column. Since the contrast of Warm Deep Water and Winter Water properties determines the stability of the upper water column, the observed variations have the potential to affect the formation of a large polynya in the area. However, intensive seasonal variations in the near surface layers render the detection of trends difficult and variable freshwater input might wipe out the input from the deeper layers. The Weddell Sea Bottom Water increases in temperature and salinity as well, suggesting that the variation of the source water is transmitted to the newly formed water masses.The Weddell Sea is known to feed freshly formed deep and bottom waters into the Antarctic circumpolar water belt from where it spreads as part of the global thermohaline circulation into the basins of all three world oceans. By this process the Southern Oceans plays a significant role in global climate. Variations in the Weddell Sea can therefore be essential for global thermohaline circulation.


With direct-touch interaction, users are sensitive to very low levels of latency, in the order of a few milliseconds. Assessing the end-to-end latency of a system is thus becoming an important part of touch-devices evaluation, and this must be precise and accurate. However, current latency estimation techniques are either imprecise, or they require complex setups involving external devices such as high-speed cameras. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate a novel method that does not require any external equipment and can be implemented with minimal efforts. The method is based on short-term prediction of the finger movement. The latency estimation is obtained on the basis of user calibration of the prediction to fully compensate the lag. In a user study, we show that the technique is more precise than a similar "low overhead' approach that was recently presented.


The behaviour postures and their sequences during courtship displays of the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans
at South Georgia are described. Females initiated most display bouts, which began with a series of greetings. The
core of the display consisted of a rapid sequence of head movements, snaps, ritualized preening and vocalisations.
Most display bouts ended when the female walked away, although in 25% of cases the birds sat together on the
male's nest site. An underlying basic sequence was common to both sexes although there were differences in responses
to the partner's behaviour. Courtship behaviour was very similar to that described for Wandering Albatrosses
breeding in the Indian Ocean.


ABSTRACT Microviridins represent a unique family of ribosomally synthesized cage-like depsipeptides from cyanobacteria with potent protease-inhibitory activities. The natural diversity of these peptides is largely unexplored. Here, we describe two methodologies that were developed to functionally characterize cryptic microviridin gene clusters from metagenomic DNA. Environmental samples were collected and enriched from cyanobacterial freshwater blooms of different geographical origins containing predominantly Microcystis sp. Microviridins were produced either directly from fosmid clones or after insertion of environmental DNA-derived gene cassettes into a minimal expression platform in Escherichia coli. Three novel microviridin variants were isolated and tested against different serine-type proteases. The comparison of the bioactivity profiles of the new congeners allows deduction of further structure-function relationships for microviridins. Moreover, this study provides new insights into microviridin processing and gene cluster organization.


This investigative research at its very beginning aims to develop deeper and wider understanding of, from an architectural point of view, the fuzzy relations between architectonic space, exhibitions and exhibited art. The first part is about my subject: "the spatial practices within the architectures of contemporary art" and dictates a background pointing out current spatial tendencies within the field. I will discuss different modes of utilizing architectonic space within the institutions, with focus on the appropriation of given spaces and the performance of process- and new media- oriented art. In part two, I will introduce a set of borrowed questions/concepts, which I hope will serve me as tools during the investigation. The third part will contain arguments for my choice of film as my investigative medium and eventually present a film-project in progress. In this part I will also discuss in cinematic media as a research tool.


Proton-mediated activation of TRPA1 channels in oligodendrocytes during ischemia damages myelin. Ischemia, deprivation of tissues of oxygen and nutrients due to loss of blood flow such as occurs during stroke, damages neurons and glia, including the myelin sheath produced by oligodendrocytes. Although cytotoxic influx of Ca2+ through NMDA-type glutamate receptors plays a key role in damaging neurons, Hamilton et al. provide evidence in rodents that oligodendrocyte damage involves the divalent cation–permeable channel TRPA1. Electrophysiological analysis, analysis with ion-selective electrodes, and ion-imaging analysis using ion-responsive dyes showed that rat oligodendrocytes in cerebellar slice preparations exhibited an ischemia-induced increase in intracellular H+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ and a decrease in K+ conductance. Furthermore, extracellular K+ increased. Removing extracellular Ca2+ or K+ abolished or reduced, respectively, the ischemia-induced increase in intracellular Ca2+ and H+ in the oligodendrocytes, indicating that the rise in intracellular Ca2+ resulted from Ca2+ influx, not release from intracellular stores, and that the change in K+ promoted this Ca2+ influx possibly by acidifying the cytosol. TRPA1 and TRPV3 are channels of the transient receptor potential (TRP) family that are activated by low pH. Experiments with pharmacological agonists and antagonists of TRPA1 and TRPV3 indicated that TRPA1 was involved in the H+-induced increase in oligodendrocyte intracellular Ca2+, a conclusion supported by experiments with slice preparations from Trpa1-knockout mice and the detection of TRPA1-encoding, but not TRPV3-encoding, transcripts in mature mouse oligodendrocytes. Using a rat optic nerve myelin damage model, blocking TRPA1 pharmacologically reduced ischemia-induced myelin damage, but did not prevent axon damage, indicating that glial injury and neuronal injury occurred through different molecular mechanisms. Whether pH-mediated activation of TRP channels is also involved in other areas of the brain and nervous system and in humans remains to be determined, but these results suggest that targeting TRPA1 channels may be therapeutically beneficial in treating stroke patients (see Saab and Nave). N. B. Hamilton, K. Kolodziejczyk, E. Kougioumtzidou, D. Attwell, Proton-gated Ca2+-permeable TRP channels damage myelin in conditions mimicking ischaemia. Nature 529, 523–527 (2016). [PubMed] A. S. Saab, K.-A. Nave, A mechanism for myelin injury. Nature 529, 474–475 (2016). [PubMed]


The Black Panther Party (BPP) seized the attention of America in the frenetic days of the late 1960s when a series of assassinations, discontent with the Vietnam War, and impatience with lingering racial discrimination roiled the United States, particularly its cities. The BPP inspired dread among the American body politic while receiving support from many urban black youths. The images of angry and armed young black radicals in the streets of U.S. cities seemed a stunning reversal and repudiation of the accommodationist and assimilationist black goals associated with Martin Luther King s movement, as well as an unprecedented defiance of the civil power.Although many have written about the BPP in memoirs and polemics, "Survival Pending Revolution" contributes to a new generation of objective, analytical BPP studies that are sorely needed. Alkebulan displays the entire movement s history: its lofty and even idealistic goals and its in-your-face rhetoric, its strategies, tactics, and the internal divisions and ego clashes, drawing upon public records as well as the memories of both leaders and foot soldiers, to attempt a description that both understands the inner workings of the BPP and its role in the greater society."


This essay examines eighteenth- and nineteenth-century inheritance laws in India in order to analyse the intersections between state power, heteronormative reproductivity and colonial structures of race. In particular, I focus on the case of Troup et al. v. East India Company, which involves the estate of Begum Sumroo, one of the wealthiest women in colonial India. I explore the ways in which the normativization of western notions of inheritance, allied with reproductive heterosexuality, worked to undergird the racialized expansion of Empire. I argue that, by law, inheritance and gain came to be reinforced as heteronormative (in its definition, procreative) and patriarchal virtues under colonial rule. Begum Sumroo's place within this legal scheme poses serious challenges to the logic of colonial inheritance. I use the Begum's case to expose the mechanisms through which, in order for colonial rule to take effect, sexual normativity was heightened to secure the goals of territorial expansion, thus yoking the notion of private property to various controls over bodily and sexual privacy. I read the Sumroo case as an instance of counter-colonial juridical claims to inheritance and possession that in their violent suppressions reveal the brutality of British power and the illogic – racial and sexual – of early colonial governance.


Quality education is the main driver for the lifelong learning of people and the development of the organizations and society. Accordingly, also UNESCO's global vision for education towards 2030 is endeavoring to "˜ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all'.
   From the quality point of view, the existing situation is however very fragmented. A great variety of organizations provide formal and non-formal education for lifelong learning to people having very different needs and expectations, and the education providers and experts are not very aware of the general professional quality concepts and practices.
   Very recently the international standardization committee ISO/PC 288 has started the work of harmonizing quality management in the educational organizations with the other organizations of the society by using the common professional approach.    This new standardization will challenge all educational organizations, because it requires the adoption of the general basic quality concepts and quality management structures and practices. This will enable educational organizations to demonstrate their ability to provide consistently education to the requirements and strive for enhancing satisfaction of the involved parties.


Networks of nanoscale conductors such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, and metallic nanowires are promising candidates to replace metal oxides as transparent conductors. However, very few previous reports have described nanostructured thin films that reach the standards required by industry for high-performance transparent electrodes. In this review, we analyze the sheet resistance and transmittance data extracted from published literature for solution processed, nanostructured networks. In the majority of cases, as their thickness is reduced below a critical value, nanoconductor networks undergo a transition from bulklike to percolative behavior. Such percolative behavior is characteristic of sparse networks with limited connectivity and few continuous conductive paths. This transition tends to occur for films with a transmittance between 50% and 90%, which means that the properties of highly transparent films are predominately limited by percolation. Consequently, to achieve low resistance coupled with high transparency, the networks must be much more conductive than would otherwise be the case. We show that highly conductive networks of metallic nanowires appear to be the most promising candidate to replace traditional transparent electrode materials from a technical standpoint. However, many other factors, including cost, manufacturability, and stability, will have to be addressed before commercialization of these materials.


Uniquely widespread and persistent open defecation in rural India has emerged as an important policy challenge and puzzle about behavioral choice in economic development. One candidate explanation is the culture of purity and pollution that reinforces and has its origins in the caste system. Although such a cultural account is inherently difficult to quantitatively test, we provide support for this explanation by comparing open defecation rates across places in India where untouchability is more and less intensely practiced. In particular, we exploit a novel question in the 2012 India Human Development Survey that asked households whether they practice untouchability, meaning whether they enforce norms of purity and pollution in their interactions with lower castes. We find an association between local practice of untouchability and open defecation that is robust; is not explained by economic, educational, or other observable differences; and is specific to open defecation rather than other health behavior or human capital investments more generally. We verify that practicing untouchability is not associated with general disadvantage in health knowledge or access to medical professionals. We interpret this as evidence that the culture of purity, pollution, untouchability, and caste contributes to the exceptional prevalence of open defecation in rural India.


For a long time, Chile's innovation system was rudimentary, having developed through a series of ad hoc decisions in the absence of a strategic vision for the role of innovation in economic development and for the role of government in its promotion. It consisted mainly of a funding agency which supported mostly academic research and financed scholarships and a set of publicly owned or funded technological institutes that performed public missions and provided some technological services to the industrial and agricultural sectors. A turning point occurred in the early 1990s, following the reestablishment of democracy, when policies explicitly aimed at strengthening capabilities in the areas of science, technology and innovation in the various sectors of production were first introduced. Chile is currently going through a new, probably more fundamental, transition. A growing political awareness of the importance of innovation for the country's further catching-up has motivated three bold decisions: the creation of an Innovation Council for Competitiveness entrusted with the mission of proposing guidelines for a long-term national innovation strategy; the introduction of a specific mining tax to increase resources available to implement this strategy; and the introduction of an R&D tax incentive to motivate private-sector participation. Country: Chile [1] LinkToContentAt: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264037526-7-en Knowledge Type: Country report [2] Other Tag: foreign direct investment [3] role of government [4] technological innovation [5] technological development [6] policy mix [7] competitiveness [8] innovation system [9] national innovation systems [10] Parent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264037526-en [11]


This work calls for a paradigm shift in order to change the operational patterns of self‐regulated membranes in response to chemical signals. To this end, the fabrication of a retrofitting material is introduced aimed at developing an innovative generation of porous substrates endowed with symbiotic but fully independent sensing and actuating capabilities. This is accomplished by transferring carefully engineered plasmonic architectures onto commercial microfiltration membranes lacking of such features. The integration of these materials leads to the formation of a coating surface proficient for ultrasensitive detection and "on‐command" gating. Both functionalities can be synergistically modulated by the spatial and temporal distribution of an impinging light beam offering an unprecedented control over the membrane performance in terms of permeability. The implementation of these hybrid nanocomposites in conventional polymeric porous materials holds great potential in applications ranging from intelligent fluid management to advanced filtration technologies and controlled release.


Eukaryotic cells clearly monitor and respond to variations in the organization of the cytoskeleton, but the precise sensors that are used are not well understood. In yeast cells, septin proteins must be organized into filaments in a ring-like structure at a site where a bud forms and where cytokinesis eventually pinches off the daughter cells. If septins are not properly assembled, a checkpoint mechanism is engaged that delays progression of the cell division cycle so that cells do not undergo mitosis. The protein kinase Hsl1 is activated in cells with properly assembled septins and transmits a signal that promotes entry into mitosis. Hanrahan and Snyder now report that this kinase itself appears to function as a sensor of septin status. They show that, like many kinases, Hsl1 contains an autoinhibitory domain that binds to and inhibits activity of the catalytic domain. Two-hybrid analysis showed that this same kinase inhibitory domain also contains multiple septin-binding domains. In vitro, presence of autoinhibitory fragment inhibited catalytic activity of the intact kinase, and addition of septins relieved this inhibition. In vivo, mutants in which the septin-binding domains were disrupted were morphologically similar to mutants lacking Hsl1. Thus, the protein kinase Hsl1 appears to sense septin organization directly at the bud and then to phosphorylate substrates that promote progression through mitosis. J. Hanrahan, M. Snyder, Cytoskeletal activation of a checkpoint kinase. Mol. Cell 12, 663-673 (2003). [Online Journal]


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Patients who undergo endoscopic biopsy suffer anxiety until results are confirmed. This study assesses the effects of written educational material on the anxiety level of patients following endoscopic biopsy.

METHODS
This study was a randomized controlled study trial with 83 patients divided into the following three groups: a biopsy group given written educational material prepared by our institution following the biopsy (intervention group, n=28), a biopsy group without written material (biopsy only group, n=25), and a control group without biopsy (control group, n=30). The anxiety level of each patient was evaluated three times using Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI): for baseline at the first visit to our institution, at the day of endoscopy, one day later, and one week after the procedure. We compared baseline characteristics, STAI scores at each visit, and differences in STAI scores among the three groups.

RESULTS
No difference was found in STAI score among groups at baseline and before and after the endoscopic procedure. However, the STAI-state score of the intervention group was slightly lower than biopsy only group one day post-procedure (40.3 ± 7.7 vs. 43.9 ± 7.1, p=0.135). The STAI-state score significantly decreased from pre- to post-procedure only in the intervention group (-2.75 ± 6.1 vs. 0.92 ± 4.0, p<0.027).

CONCLUSIONS
Use of written educational material for patients having biopsy might lessen their anxiety level.


A knowledge of history becomes important in learning the way concepts have evolved and how they are understood in different and conflicting traditions in psychiatry. Modern psychiatry and its history has always been observed through the prism of western science which has its own evolutionary line in which the eastern sciences can't fit and are always at a disadvantage. Especially the colonial bid to prove its legitimacy as a civilizing mission led to representation of European medicine as morally superior to the eastern practices resulting in a biased history. Though in reality, the history of psychiatry is heterogeneous and consists of many different scientific and cultural traditions which vary between populations. hence the Indian concept of "unmada" can't be compared or conformed to "schizophrenia" without addressing its cultural and historical contexts. Many suggest that in case of Indian patients, an understanding of illness through a Vedantic model of psych seems more appealing in comparison to the western constructs, as such an attitude has been transferred over generations. Therefore, a knowledge of history of psychiatry, especially from an Indian perspective becomes important.


Aims: To explore the precision of task based estimates of upper arm elevation in three occupational groups, compared to direct measurements of job exposure. Methods: Male machinists (n = 26), car mechanics (n = 23), and house painters (n = 23) were studied. Whole day recordings of upper arm elevation were obtained for four consecutive working days, and associated task information was collected in diaries. For each individual, task based estimates of job exposure were calculated by weighting task exposures from a collective database by task proportions according to the diaries. These estimates were validated against directly measured job exposures using linear regression. The performance of the task based approach was expressed through the gain in precision of occupational group mean exposures that could be obtained by adding subjects with task based estimates to a group of subjects with measured job exposures in a "validation" design. Results: In all three occupations, tasks differed in mean exposure, and task proportions varied between individuals. Task based estimation proved inefficient, with squared correlation coefficients only occasionally exceeding 0.2 for the relation between task based and measured job exposures. Consequently, it was not possible to substantially improve the precision of an estimated group mean by including subjects whose job exposures were based on task information. Conclusions: Task based estimates of mechanical job exposure can be very imprecise, and only marginally better than estimates based on occupation. It is recommended that investigators in ergonomic epidemiology consider the prospects of task based exposure assessment carefully before placing resources at obtaining task information. Strategies disregarding tasks may be preferable in many cases.


Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biopolymers are widely recognised as outstanding candidates to replace conventional petroleum-derived polymers. Their mechanical properties are good and can be tailored through copolymer composition, they are biodegradable, and unlike many alternatives, they do not rely on oil-based feedstocks. Further, they are the only commodity polymer that can be synthesised intracellularly, ensuring stereoregularity and high molecular weight. However, despite offering enormous potential for many years, they are still not making a significant impact. This is broadly because commercial uptake has been limited by variable performance (inconsistent polymer properties) and high production costs of the raw polymer. Additionally, the main type of PHA produced naturally is poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which has limited scope due to its brittle nature and low thermal stability, as well as its tendency to embrittle over time. Production cost is strongly impacted by the type of the feedstock used. In this article we consider: the production of PHAs from methanotrophs using methane as a cost-effective substrate; the use of mixed cultures, as opposed to pure strains; and strategies to generate a poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) copolymer (PHBV), which has more desirable qualities such as toughness and elasticity.


This original and thought-provoking study looks at the context of postmodernist thought in general cultural terms as well as in relation to history. Postmodernism in History traces philosophical precursors of postmodernism and identifies the roots of current concerns. Beverley Southgate describes the core constituents of postmodernism and provides a lucid and profound analysis of the current state of the debate. His main concern is to counter 'pomophobia' and to assert a positive future for historical study in a postmodern world. Postmodernism in History is a valuable guide to some of the most complex questions in historical theory for students and teachers alike.


Satyajit Ray, one of the greatest auteurs of twentieth century cinema, was a Bengali motion-picture director, writer, and illustrator who set a new standard for Indian cinema with his Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) (1955), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) (1956), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959). His work was admired for its humanism, versatility, attention to detail, and skilled use of music. He was also widely praised for his critical and intellectual writings, which mirror his filmmaking in their precision and wide-ranging grasp of history, culture, and aesthetics. Spanning forty years of Ray's career, these essays, for the first time collected in one volume, present the filmmaker's reflections on the art and craft of the cinematic medium and include his thoughts on sentimentalism, mass culture, silent films, the influence of the French New Wave, and the experience of being a successful director. Ray speaks on the difficulty of adapting literary works to screen, the nature of the modern film festival, and the phenomenal contributions of Jean-Luc Godard and the Indian actor, director, producer, and singer Uttam Kumar. The collection also features an excerpt from Ray's diaries and reproduces his sketches of famous film personalities, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Akira Kurosawa, in addition to film posters, photographs by and of the artist, film stills, and a filmography. Altogether, the volume relays the full extent of Ray's engagement with film and offers extensive access to the thought of one of the twentieth-century's leading Indian intellectuals.


In 2011, Beaton et al. analytically proved that the number of directed column-convex permutominoes of size $n$ is given by $(n+1)!/2$.  In this paper, we provide a different proof of this statement using a bijective method. More precisely, we present a bijective correspondence between the class $D_n$ of directed column-convex permutominoes of size $n$ and a set of permutations (called $dcc$-permutations) of length $n+1$, which we prove to be counted by $(n+1)!/2$.  The class of $dcc$-permutations is a new class of permutations counted by half factorial numbers, and here we show some combinatorial characterizations of this class, using the concept of logical formulas determined by a permutation and the notion of mesh pattern .


Changes in the financial industry result in new data that are inconsistent with the former presentation, and therefore adjustments are required to "adjust" or smooth out these breaks to establish continuity. The author explains the methodology for newly calculated continuity adjustments to components of the monetary aggregates. Continuity adjustments have previously been done only for the aggregates themselves. The author lists the aggregates and their components and shows the adjustments that have been made.


The history of confidence intervals is discussed together with the pedagogical predilection to a parametric view of the world. The weakness of these methods is that they are not related to any measurement of probability. The inappropriateness of such an outlook in the realm of real estate is illustrated with real world examples. A non-parametric vision is developed and the utility of the jackknife and bootstrap methods (Efron 1979) developed. Their similarity to Monte Carlo Simulation is demonstrated. The standard algorithm is derived and presented in both VBA code suitable for incorporation into Excel and in the C# language that is compatible with the .Net framework. An original recode that is an order of magnitude faster is also presented. Applications to confidence intervals for residential price indices and weighted multiple linear regression are demonstrated.


For the last forty years, the Supreme Court has insisted that the standing doctrine's requirements of imminent injury-in-fact, causation, and redressability are mandated by Article III of the Constitution. During that same time, however, the federal courts have consistently permitted Congress to relax or altogether eliminate those requirements in many "procedural rights" cases — ones in which a federal statute creates a right to have government follow a particular procedure, including to provide judicial review of agency decisions. This Article asks how best to rationalize this contradiction. After examining several possibilities, we conclude that the best course is to recognize openly that the Case or Controversy Clause of Article III means different things in different types of litigation. In one "tier" — cases where Congress has made it clear that it has created procedural rights that may be vindicated in court without meeting the usual injury, causation, and redressability requirements — the plaintiff should merely be required to show that he or she falls within the "zone of interests" the statute aims to protect. In all other cases — the other "tier"—existing Article III standing requirements would apply.


The focus of this dissertation is on safety improvement at intersections and presenting how Vehicle/Bicycle-to-Infrastructure Communications can be a potential countermeasure for crashes resulting from drivers' and cyclists' violations at intersections. The characteristics (e.g., acceleration capabilities, etc.) of transportation modes affect the violation behavior. Therefore, the first building block is to identify the users' transportation mode. Consequently, having the mode information, the second building block is to predict whether or not the user is going to violate. This step focuses on two different modes (i.e., driver violation prediction and cyclist violation prediction). Warnings can then be issued for users in potential danger to react or for the infrastructure and vehicles so they can take appropriate actions to avoid or mitigate crashes. A smartphone application was developed to collect sensor data used to conduct the transportation mode recognition task. Driver violation prediction task at signalized intersections was conducted using observational and simulator data. Also, a naturalistic cycling experiment was designed for cyclist violation prediction task. Subsequently, cyclist violation behavior was investigated at both signalized and stop-controlled intersections. To build the prediction models in all the aforementioned tasks, various Artificial Intelligence techniques were adopted. K-fold CrossValidation as well as Out-of-Bag error was used for model selection and validation. Transportation mode recognition models contributed to high classification accuracies (e.g., up to 98%). Thus, data obtained from the smartphone sensors were found to provide important information to distinguish between transportation modes. Driver violation (i.e., red light running) prediction models were resulted in high accuracies (i.e., up to 99.9%). Time to intersection (TTI), distance to intersection (DTI), the required deceleration parameter (RDP), and velocity at the onset of a yellow light were among the most important factors in violation prediction. Based on logistic regression analysis, movement type and presence of other users were found as significant factors affecting the probability of red light violations by cyclists at signalized intersections. Also, presence of other road users and age were the significant factors affecting violations at stop-controlled intersections. In case of stop-controlled intersections, violation prediction models resulted in error rates of 0 to 10 percent depending on how far from the intersection the prediction task is conducted.


The author, giving an account of efforts conducted since 2009 in Poland by artists who strive to improve the workers' lot and welfare and the quality of political democracy, tries to defend four propositions. 1) The process of aspiring to make the arts more democratic must lay greater emphasis on arts institutions than it has done to date. This field must be regarded as essential if the struggle for democracy in the arts is to be successful. 2) The workers' movement (its trade-union incarnation included) plays a key part within the institution and where the creative work of individuals and arts organizations converge. 3) The foundation of unique trade unions is vital if democratic goals are to be attained (not every trade union has a positive impact on real democracy). 4) Democratic movements of the present day must acknowledge that the workers' movement (including the trade-union movement) is an integral part at the forefront of the struggle for social and political democracy, to a greater extent than they have done thus far. The author defends these propositions by analysing the conduct of groups and organisations such as the Winter Holiday Camp, the Civic Forum for Contemporary Art and Workers' Initiative National Trade Union campaigns such as ArtStrike (2012), the campaign for the democratization of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw (2013–2014), the campaign establishing the Agreement on Minimum Pay for Artists (2014–2015), We, the Precariat (2015), and the campaign in defence of the Polski Theatre in Wroclaw (2016–2017).


Context: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a potential cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is most commonly transmitted through injecting drug use; the reuse or inadequate sterilization of medical equipment and the transfusion of unscreened blood products. Management of thalassemia requires long-term blood transfusion. Though it improves the overall survival, it carries a definite risk of infection which is expected to be higher in resource limited settings. Aims: To find the percentage of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) in multitransfused patients of thalassemia in Eastern India. Settings and Design: The study was conducted to assess blood safety in rural population in India by measuring the percentage of TTIs including HCV in multitransfused thalassemia patients. Methods and Materials: One hundred and twenty three patients with major beta-thalassemia were enrolled in this study. The blood samples were tested using ELISA technique for all TTIs. HIV fourth generation kits, HbsAg, HCV third generation kits, malaria and syphilis, parbovirus IgM and parbovirus IgG kits, HEV Antigen and IgM antibody were used. Statistical Analysis Used: Proportions and means were calculated for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Chi-square test was applied and P value of <0.05 was taken as significant. Results: The mean age of patients was 9.5 years ± 5.2 years. Among various TTIs, Hepatitis C and HIV was prevalent among 59.3% and 4.1% of the study participants, respectively. Conclusions: The causes of high prevalence of HCV may be due to donors being usually asymptomatic in early stages, despite being screened for HCV possibly due to missing early window period infections. The screening methodology of TTIs particularly HCV at the district and village level and consequent increased prevalence of HCV in multitransfused rustic population of India shows the extent of blood safety.


Most people's imagination about robots has been shaped by Hollywood movies or novels, resulting in the dream of having robots as assistants or household helpers in our homes. However, there is still a large gap between this dream and the actual capabilities of robots. One underlying reason is that every home is unique and largely unstructured, making it impossible to pre-program a robot for all the challenges it might face in such an environment. For instance, floor plans and furniture differ from home to home. Humans and pets walk around, potentially getting in the robot's way and making the environment non-static. Hence, a pre-programmed robot deployed in such an environment will undoubtedly face problems that it cannot solve with its existing knowledge. In order to cope with this issue, researchers started to equip robots with learning capabilities. Ideally, such capabilities allow a robot to adapt skills to new or changing situations or even to learn completely new tasks. Also humans learn new skills over time and are able to adapt them if needed. Therefore, such learning capabilities seem natural to us. If we are not able to master a specific task, we usually would ask another person to demonstrate it or to give instructions on how to perform it. In robotics research, the field of "Learning from Demonstration" tries to mimic this behavior by learning new skills from demonstrations of a task. By applying machine learning techniques, the data perceived from a single or multiple demonstrations are exploited to learn a mapping from perception to the action of a robot.

In this thesis, we concentrate on important Learning from Demonstration aspects that have not gotten so much attention in the research community so far. In particular, we focus on learning methods for robot manipulation tasks. These tasks have two important characteristics. First, they can be naturally decomposed into a set of subtasks and, therefore, can be mastered by performing the individual subtasks in the correct sequential order. Second, they involve physical contact between the robot and objects in its environment. One aim of this thesis is developing methods which allow for learning skills for robot manipulation tasks that generalize well to unknown situations. For instance, a learned skill should also be applicable if positions and orientations of objects differ from those seen in a demonstration.

In the first part of the thesis, we focus on the "sequential" aspect of manipulation tasks. Many approaches assume that subtasks are executed in a purely sequential manner or that the human always
demonstrates the same sequence of subtasks. We propose an approach that does not have this assumption. Based on the demonstrations, a graph is generated which connects the subtasks with each other. Each subtask is associated with a movement primitive, a basic elementary movement necessary to perform the subtask. Depending on the environmental conditions, different sequences of movement primitives are executed, allowing the robot to perform tasks which for instance require an arbitrary number of repetitions (e.g., unscrewing a light bulb).

As we concentrate on the sequential aspects of a task in the first part of the thesis, we assume the demonstrations are labeled with the correct movement primitives over time. Additionally, the movement primitives are predefined. In the second part of the thesis, these two assumptions are relaxed. We first present an approach which decomposes the demonstrations into a set of meaningful movement primitives by inferring the underlying sequential structure of the task. The decomposition is based on a probability distribution we call Directional Normal Distribution. By utilizing the distribution, our method infers if a movement should be performed relative to an object in the scene and if a force should be applied in certain directions or not. Forces are especially important when interacting with the environment, for example if the robot has to manipulate objects. By defining movements relative to objects in the scene, the robot is likely to generalize better to new situations, for instance if the object positions differ from the demonstrations.
Our task-decomposition method allows for inferring the most likely movement primitives over time and replaces the process of manually labeling the demonstrations. By combining the method with the sequencing concept presented in the first part of the thesis, complex skills can be learned from scratch without further human supervision. Such a learning scheme is an essential requirement for domestic robots, as not every human teacher might be able or willing to do the tedious labeling of the data.

In both the decomposition and the sequencing part of the thesis, we assume that the teacher performs point-to-point movements and stops between two successive movements. While these assumptions lead to an approach which can learn skills for fairly complex tasks, it also restricts the class of tasks for which the approach can be used. In the third part of the thesis, we therefore introduce the Mixture of Attractors movement primitive representation. Here, a movement is modulated by continuously changing the activations of a set of simple attractors over time. We present a learning algorithm for the representation which learns both the attractors and their activations. An important property of the representation is that the attractors can be defined in different coordinate frames. The continuous activations and the attractors defined in different coordinate frames allow the system to learn movements of arbitrary shape and to generalize them to different object positions. In addition, the transitions between successive movements are smooth.
This property reflects an important behavior of humans who often tend to co-articulate between successive movements. In contrast to many existing approaches, movements are learned by solving a convex optimization problem that does not rely on a good initial estimate of parameters.

In summary, the contribution of this thesis to the state-of-the-art in Learning from Demonstration is two-fold. The first contribution is a framework which is able to learn sequential skills for robot manipulation tasks from a few demonstrations. In contrast to other approaches, our method incorporates object-relative movements and force information directly into the skill learning framework. The second contribution is the Mixture of Attractors movement primitive representation. The representation supports co-articulated movements represented in different coordinate frames and outperforms existing movement primitive representations in terms of accuracy and generalization capabilities. Both contributions are evaluated on a wide range of tasks in simulation and on a real single arm robot with seven degrees of freedom. Altogether, this thesis aims at bringing us closer to the dream of having autonomous robots in our homes.


The ability to assign grades to students is an element of a professor's academic freedom that has been litigated in several circuits with different results. In this Note, Evelyn Sung explores the differences in the methods of analysis employed by the courts to determine the level of constitutional protection appropriately accorded to professors and the extent to which college administrators may exact alterations in professors' grading policies. Sung evaluates education theory and conducts historical analysis to determine that grade assignment qualifies as symbolic speech under current caselaw. Accordingly, the interest of professors to assign grades must be balanced against the interest of college administrators to promote efficiency in the services they provide, such as the thorough preparation and evaluation of graduating students. The maintenance of standardized grading policies, Sung argues, is at the core of the mission of the public unversity. A college administrator's interest in making grades consistent and meaningful must be balanced delicately with a professor's First Amendment right to assign grades.


Singapore Airlines is widely regarded as an exemplar of excellence in an industry whose service standards are tumbling. What's not so well known is that the company is also one of the civil aviation industry's cost leaders. SIA's success in executing a dual strategy of differentiation and cost leadership is unusual. Indeed, management experts, such as Michael Porter, argue that it's impossible to do so for a sustained period since dual strategies entail contradictory investments and organizational processes. Yet SIA, and a few other emerging-economy companies, view the dualities as opposites that form part of a whole. SIA executes its dual strategy by managing four paradoxes: Achieving service excellence cost-effectively, fostering centralized and decentralized innovation, being a technology leader and follower, and using standardization to achieve personalization. The results speak for themselves: SIA has delivered healthy financial returns; it has never had an annual loss; and except for the initial capitalization, the Asian airline has funded its growth itself while paying dividends every year.


*Supplied through the courtesv of Dr. Paul G. Stein, of Sandoz Ltd., Basle, Switzerland. 1. In previous publications we have demonstrated that psychoneurotics can be divided into 2 groups: A. The emotionally tense (acute anxiety) group, characterized plethysmographically by peripheral vasoconstriction; and B. The emotionally less tense (hysteric and neurasthenic) group with peripheral vasodilatation. 2. Hydergine, which is a sympatheticolytic and a vasodilator preparation proves to be a valuable adjunct in the treatment of those cases belonging to group A, i.e. the tense individuals, with a typical plethysmogram. 3. Bellergal is of special value in the treatment of the tense anxiety state (group A), and the clinical improvement is almost invariably accompanied by a relative change from peripheral vasoconstriction to vasodilatation. 4. On the other hand it was found that both bellergal and hydergine have little influence clinically and experimentally in those cases characterized by initial vasodilatation (group B).


Changes in canopy height and plant area index (PAI) in a temperate mixed forest were assessed between 2010 and 2014 using airborne laser scanning. Patterns of canopy height change could be identified and related to forest management and tree growth. PAI changes followed no clear patterns and need further investigation.


While the costs of some Sea-Level Rise (SLR) adaptation tools are undeniably daunting, the American legal system poses an additional, potentially budget-busting impediment — the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Officials at all governmental strata and from all three branches should keep the demands made by the Takings Clause, as interpreted by the judiciary, in mind as they choose tools from the diverse SLR-adaptation toolbox, as they justify their choices to the electorate and other constituencies, as they put those tools to use, and as they defend that use from litigants claiming abuse. This article sets out to achieve four tasks: First, the article locates the heart of the Takings Clause in a single sentence from a 1960 decision — Armstrong v. United States. Second, the article reviews six taking varieties, ranging from the most concrete common — the affirmative exercise of eminent domain — to the most fanciful — judicial takings. Each variety in turn is matched with one representative Supreme Court decision and with operative language drawn from that opinion. Third, with Armstrong as a guiding principle, the article identifies which of the most common SLR tools already being deployed pose "no," "minimal," "moderate," and "serious" takings implications. Fourth, the article suggests methods that government officials can use to address the challenge posed by tools with the highest takings risk.


Objective: Asthma and obesity are important public health problems that affect millions of people in the world. Recently it has been shown that vitamin D may affect the prevalence of allergic disease and obesity. In this study, we evaluated the correlations between vitamin D, asthma, obesity and severity of asthma. Materials and Methods: One hundred and nineteen subjects were included in the study. The study population consisted of four ageand sex-matched groups: Obese asthmatic children as group 1 (n:34), non-obese asthmatic children as group 2 (n:28), obese nonasthmatic children as group 3 (n:30) and non-obese non-asthmatic children as group 4 (n:27). Results: There was no significant difference in serum vitamin D levels between groups. Also there was no difference between groups when we compared the serum vitamin D levels according to the severity of asthma. Conclusion: There was no correlation between levels of serum vitamin D and presence of asthma and obesity.


Spreadsheet use in educational environments has become widespread, likely because of the ‡exibility and ease of use of these tools. However, they have serious shortcomings if the teacher is to understand exactly what students or others have done. It is far too easy for students to replace a formula that gives an apparently unacceptable answer with a number that they believe to be correct. The same concern applies to recorded marks, as well as to business spreadsheets and to other reports that are used for decision-making. While intentionally misleading changes to spreadsheet …les receive much attention, simple mistakes are probably more common. Some of these, such as the Trans-Alta Utilities (Globe and Mail, 2003) cut and paste error that cost the …rm $24 million (US), have extreme consequences. Few are merely embarrassing. A log …le or audit trail, enhanced by suitable …lters, can allow both intentional and accidental changes that cause erroneous results to be caught. In order to meet these requirements, we have developed server based software tool ("TellTable") which allows editing, version control, and auditing of spreadsheet …les. Users connect to the server using a standard web browser, and are able to access and edit spreadsheet …les in a Java applet in the browser window. TellTable has been used for a pilot study to maintain marks and course information for a multi-section courses with several instructions and teaching assistants. This paper describes the TellTable software and preliminary results of the pilot test.


We present two paradigms to realize a scalable and low latency all-optical packet switch. We report for both techniques experimental results showing the routing operation of the 160 Gb/s packets and beyond. Photonic integrated sub-systems required to implement the packet switch are reviewed.


Teaching and learning speaking skills should be able to engage students in a creative process. Students have to be able to speak in front of the class, create a dialogue, tell a story, and produce the language creatively. The teaching and learning of the speaking skill focusing on story telling ability can work well when supported by the appropriate choice of teaching method. This study attempts to: 1) identify the list of things needed by teachers of primary schools to teach Bahasa Indonesia in fun and creative ways, 2) design a prototype of suggestopedia based storytelling learning model to teach Bahasa Indonesia in primary schools, 3) develop the prototype into a suggestopedia based storytelling learning model to teach Bahasa Indonesia in primary schools, 4) determine the effectiveness of the application of suggestopedia based storytelling learning model to teach Bahasa Indonesia in primary schools. This research is a model development study based on the procedures by Borg and Gall. This study demonstrated that a teaching model is created through the following steps: 1) identifying and analyzing the needs of the students and teachers, 2) designing and evaluating the model, 3) developing and testing the model. The effectiveness test showed a significant increase of 3.03 or 8.11% in the experimental group's mean score, from 18.94 in the pretest to 21.97 in the posttest. Meanwhile, the control group only experienced a 2.51 or 6.36 % in the mean score, from 18.50 in the pretest to 21.05 in the posttest. Hence, it can be concluded that the students' story telling skill in the experiment class using the teaching method developed in this study was higher than in the control class. The result implied that the teaching model prototype can be further developed to increase the primary students' story telling skill in Salatiga.


The only comprehensive, official guide to buying and earning money on eBay AustraliaWritten by an eBay insider with more than ten years of experience with the company, The New eBay guides you through the very basics to the more complicatedfrom a brief history of eBay itself to simple site navigation to every complexity of buying and selling. Whether you just want to earn a few dollars on the side or turn your hobby into a full-time business, this book explains it all.Written in clear, user-friendly language backed by simple step-by-step instructions and helpful screen grabs from the site, the book covers everything first-timers need to know and all the secrets experienced sellers wish they knew.The first complete official guide for eBay Australia written by a company insiderCovers such topics as finding items and bidding on them, pricing and listing items for sale, accepting payments, tracking sales, logistics, customer service, and morePerfect for every eBay user, from part-timers to serious sellers who want to build a profitable business, The New eBay is the ideal guide for anyone who wants to get the most out of the world's most popular shopping and selling site.


Wave-breaking often occurs when a short intense optical pulse propagates in a long normally dispersive optical fiber. This effect has conventionally been avoided in fiber (super-)continuum-based pulse compression because the accumulated frequency chirp of the output pulse cannot be fully compensated by a standard prism (or grating) pair. Thus, the spectral extending capability of the wave-breaking has not been utilized to shorten the compressed pulse. We demonstrate that wave-breaking-free operation is not necessary if a 4f pulse shaper-based compressor is employed to remove both the linear and nonlinear chirp of the output pulse. By propagating a 180 fs (FWHM) input pulse in a nonlinear photonic crystal fiber beyond the wave-breaking limit, we compress the wave-breaking-extended supercontinuum output pulse to the bandwidth-limited duration of 6.4 fs (FWHM). The combination of high compression ratio (28×) and short pulse width represents a significant improvement over that attained in the wave-breaking-free regime.


Here, we aim to address the increasing need for a suitable human muscle in vitro model in order to advance in the knowledge of muscle pathophysiology and test novel thera- pies for muscle disorders. Our model is based on a simple 2D culture method that yields highly mature human myotubes under optimized environmental conditions. Culture conditions that produced functional and contractile human myotubes with an extended lifetime consisted in extracellular matrix overlay and addition of several trophic factors to the differentiation medium. In this work, we describe the generation of suitable mod els of muscular dystrophies (limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2A—LGMD2A and Duchenne) by silencing expression of key proteins in these myotubes. Western blot and immunocytochemical analyses demonstrated similar features between our knockdown human myotubes and dystrophic muscles in vivo, which support the general validity of our cellular models. We also found that both dystrophic models present higher rest- ing cytosolic Ca 2+ levels than controls, which support a common underlying deficit in calcium homeostasis. This novel human in vitro system would allow for high-throughput screening of new treatments for these muscular dystrophies as well as for other neuro- muscular disorders. In addition, our model could be used to advance in our understand ing of human skeletal muscle pathophysiology.


We theoretically study the Fano resonance in Josephson current. The system under consideration is a double-path Josephson junction in which one path is through an insulating barrier and the other one is through a quantum dot (QD). To treat the Coulomb interaction inside the QD, we employ the Hubbard-I approximation, in which the correlation {δn↑δn↓) can be taken into account beyond the Hartree-Fock approximation. It is found that the dependence of the Josephson critical current on the QD energy level has an asymmetric resonance, which is similar to the Fano resonance in normal metal systems. Moreover, we find that the sign of the critical current can change around the resonance, and such behavior is not seen without the Coulomb interaction. These results indicate that the cooperation of the Fano effect and the Coulomb interaction induces the 0-π transition.


Critical thinking plays an important role in improving the quality of students and education all over the world. However, educators are criticized for not preparing students effectively for future employment since the students lacked critical thinking skills. Thus, educators need to be able to provide critical thinking learning environment in the classroom. This study focuses on the critical thinking application in the classroom for the English language programme in APB UiTM Shah Alam. This study aims to investigate how the English lecturers in APB perceive their critical thinking application in class as well as how their students perceive their critical thinking application in class. Additionally, the study investigates whether there is a significant difference between their perceptions regarding the critical thinking application in class. The study adapts a framework which introduced seven dimensions of critical thinking. A quantitative approach is employed in this study while questionnaires are used as instruments for collecting the data. A pilot test was conducted in order to measure the reliability as well as the validity of the instrument. From the findings, there is only one dimension that has a significant difference between the lecturers' and the students' perception of application in class. From this study, it can be concluded that both lecturers and students in APB are aware of the importance in incorporating critical thinking in learning and the current practice of critical thinking application should continue. Recommendations for future research are provided in the final chapter.


Uncertain and ambiguous environments are commonplace in information systems development (ISD) projects, and while different Agile frameworks welcome changes in organizational, technical, and business environments, the incurred uncertainty is known to negatively affect the development process and the quality of the final product. The effects of uncertainty on ISD projects have been studied in the past in real organizational contexts, but the effects of uncertainty on students in Agile systems development have received less attention from scholars. In this study, we measured the effects of experienced uncertainty on students' performance in an Agile systems development course and how uncertainty affected the quality of the system developed by the students using Scrum. We implemented the course using a problem based learning (PBL) approach and simulated uncertainty through various work environment reflecting concepts. Our study reveals that the effects of uncertainty are fairly similar among students and software professionals, and we identified three different coping strategies that students used with varying degrees of success. We present that learning approaches such as PBL enable a befitting environment for students to acquire hands-on experience in coping with uncertain environments, thus mitigating the problems students are likely to face in their work environments.


Men having sex with men (MSM) are by far the transmission-risk-category most affected by HIV in Berlin and were investigated in this pilot-study with the aim to identify detailed riskand prevention-behaviours in recently infected persons. From November, 2005 February, 2007, venous blood samples were taken from patients in Berlin aged 18 years within 3 months after diagnosis of HIV-infection and tested with BED IgGcapture-ELISA (BED-CEIA) to differentiate between longstanding and recent HIV-infections dating back no longer than 140 days from blood sampling. Data on knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and practices ("KABPsurvey") relating to HIV/AIDS, were collected anonymously by structured patients' questionnaires, accomplished by demographic data via additional questionnaires filled by the physicians. SPSS 15.0 was used for data analysis. This sub-analysis includes 37 MSM with confirmed recently acquired HIV infection. Mean age was 34 years (20 53). Good knowledge on HIV/AIDS in Germany and transmission risks was present in most cases; nevertheless unprotected sexual contacts were indicated by 90% of recently HIVinfected MSM (independent from type of intercourse and partners' sero -status) with 64% reporting unprotected anal intercourse. Unprotected anal intercourse with a person they knew to be infected with HIV was stated by 19% of cases. In 5% drugs/alcohol and in 48% (n = 18/37) uncertain HIV-related knowledge, hope and beliefs about transmission risks were stated as reasons for unprotected sex. Almost half of recently infected MSM in this pilot -study were infected because hope and beliefs on HIVtransmission-risks had guided their personal decisions on HIV-prevention efforts. Limitations due to a small study population, lack of HIV-negative-tested controls and selection bias should be optimised in future studies; however, the findings have strong implications for amending prevention messages in Germany addressing MSM.


High-rate communications technology leveraging the unlicensed spectrum around 60 GHz is almost ready for deployment with several demonstrations of successful wireless links. One key aspect of the transceiver is the ability to handle analog fractional bandwidths in the order of 20%, challenging for both the linear processing chain and the frequency reference generator. In classical LC loaded stages bandwidth trades with gain making them unsuitable for wide band amplifiers at millimeter-waves where the available device gain is relatively low. In this work, we exploit inter-stage coupling realizing higher order filters where wider bandwidth is achieved at the expense of in-band gain ripple only. The receiver adopts a sliding IF architecture employing an integer-N type-II synthesizer, with a three state phase frequency detector charge pump combination, a switched tuned LC VCO followed by a low power wide range divider chain. By judicious choice of charge pump current and filter components integrated phase noise, critical for signal constellation integrity at high rate, is kept low. This paper inspects the inter-stage coupling technique, providing design formulas, and discusses the design of each receiver block. Experiments performed on 65 nm prototypes provide: 6.5 dB maximum noise figure over >;13 GHz bandwidth, -22.5 dBc integrated phase noise while consuming 84 mW.


Objective : This study reviewed the current literature about epidemiology, aetiology and treatment of menstrual cycle disorders in athletes.
Data sources : Literature from the past 25 years on menstrual cycle disorders in athletes using MEDLINE and library searches was combined with the author's research.
Study selection : Journal articles, abstracts and books were reviewed, and selected on their relevant contribution to data on epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostic tests, preventive strategies and management protocols.
Data extraction : From these investigations the analysed variables and the main outcomes were extracted.
Data synthesis : Disorders of menstrual function, including amenorrhea, oligomenorrhea and delayed menarche are recognised to occur more frequently in female athletes than in the general population. Amenorrhea that is related to athletic training is mainly caused by changes in hypothalamus. These changes result in the decrease in oestrogen level, which can cause serious damage to the bones. There appears to be two major influences on the changes in hypothalamus : a critical level of body fat and the effect of stress.
Conclusions : Menstrual disorders should be promptly recognised and adequately treated because of their long-term consequences on bone health.


Purpose – Economic cross-linkages and the increased co-movement of asset prices across international markets are important outcomes as the result of globalization. Hereby, the nature of international stock markets and the extent to which the 1997-1998 East Asian turmoil had affected the market relationship of five countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN-5) remain as probing questions. Design/methodology/approach – We resort to the standard time series econometrics analysis. These include the unit root, cointegration and the Granger causality tests. Hereby, further empirical analyzes is conducted upon two sub-periods of interest: (1) pre-crisis period from 1987:1 to 1997:7 and (2) post-crisis period from 1997:8 to 2007:12. This is to allow for possible transitional motion leading to and departing from the crisis. Findings – Using an array of econometrics analysis upon the stock price volatility series, we found partial market integration for the pre-crisis; whereas in the post-crisis, complete integration prevails. Hence, the financial meltdown in 1997 is said to be a contagion led crisis as markets integrate well off after the crisis than prior to it. Nonetheless, long run portfolio asset diversification benefits across the ASEAN-5 basin are reduced as markets are integrated in both the pre- and post-crisis. Originality/value – The paper is of value by showing to uncover the issue of interdependence of stock market integration focusing on the ASEAN-5 economies. The formation of the ASEAN Investment Area (AIA- 1998) parallel with the establishment of a developed ASEAN Index-Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) regional index is viable to foster deeper regional market convergence.


Background & Objectives: Working in the mines particularly in underground mines is one of the hard and harmful jobs due to occurring different accidents and diseases. The aim of this study was application of job analysis and William Fine to identify and control hazards in a uranium mine. Methods: The risk assessment was conducted using job safety analysis (JSA) in 22 jobs with high accident frequency and severity rates. Data were collected for analysis using observation and interview methods and frequency of job risks was identified. William Fine method was used to evaluate health risks, make decision, and prioritize corrective measures for the hazards. Results: 182 risks were identified as a result of JSA. The most probable risks were identified as radiation exposure and rock falls with respective relative frequency of 42 and 18%. According to the results of William Fine, oxygen deficiency, radon gas inhalation, exposure to ionizing radiation, and serving activities had the highest level of risk with respective scores of 3600, 3000, 3000, and 3000. Carpentry operations and compressor operator had the lowest level of risk score of 60 and 180, respectively. Conclusion: Radiation is the major risk in uranium mining operations. Therefore, the basic control measures including using the wet mountain cutting method (to prevent from radioactive dust dispersion), ventilation of radon gas in the tunnel, monitoring the gases after blasting process, personnel training, and the risk assessment routinely should be done for all the mining operations.


Language comprehension is a complex task that involves a wide network of brain regions. We used topological measures to qualify and quantify the functional connectivity of the networks used under various comprehension conditions. To that aim we developed a technique to represent functional networks based on EEG recordings, taking advantage of their excellent time resolution in order to capture the fast processes that occur during language comprehension. Networks were created by searching for a specific causal relation between areas, the negative feedback loop, which is ubiquitous in many systems. This method is a simple way to construct directed graphs using event-related activity, which can then be analyzed topologically. Brain activity was recorded while subjects read expressions of various types and indicated whether they found them meaningful. Slightly different functional networks were obtained for event-related activity evoked by each expression type. The differences reflect the special contribution of specific regions in each condition and the balance of hemispheric activity involved in comprehending different types of expressions and are consistent with the literature in the field. Our results indicate that representing event-related brain activity as a network using a simple temporal relation, such as the negative feedback loop, to indicate directional connectivity is a viable option for investigation which also derives new information about aspects not reflected in the classical methods for investigating brain activity.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To examine the lived experience of individuals when confronted with a life-threatening disease.

RESEARCH APPROACH
Qualitative, phenomenologic using Giorgi's approach.

SETTING
Patients' homes in the Midwest.

PARTICIPANTS
Five women and two men, aged 44-74 years, who had a variety of diagnoses, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, and myocardial infarction.

METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
Subjects were recruited through flyers posted at support groups and religious establishments and by word of mouth.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Willingness to volunteer to share their stories.

FINDINGS
Participants described how their spirituality provided comfort throughout their journey, strength in facing the life-threatening illness, many blessings despite the hardship of the illness, and trust in a higher power to see them through the journey. All participants described a sense of meaning in their lives throughout their experience.

CONCLUSIONS
Spirituality greatly affected patients' journeys through a life-threatening illness and provided a sense of meaning despite the illness.

INTERPRETATION
Nurses need to acknowledge patients' spirituality and, in turn, assist patients in meeting their spiritual needs. By understanding the study participants' experiences, nurses can better support their patients, provide time and space for spiritual practices, and honor patients' spiritual journeys.


We use recently available Chinese data from 2005m1 to 2016m2 to examine the impact of monetary policy on agricultural price using a factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) model proposed by Bernanke et al. (2005). Results show the superiority of a FAVAR model with three variables and three factors over other specifications. Impulse response functions show that both money supply and interest rate have no impact on agricultural price in the long-run (beyond 50 months). However, results indicate the considerable short-run impact of monetary policy on agricultural price. According to forecasting error variance decompositions, the interest rate could account more for the fluctuations in agricultural price than the money supply.


Parser combinators provide an elegant way of writing parsers: parser implementations closely follow the structure of the underlying grammar, while accommodating interleaved host language code for data processing. However, the host language features used for composition introduce substantial overhead, which leads to poor performance.
 In this paper, we present a technique to systematically eliminate this overhead. We use Scala macros to analyse the grammar specification at compile-time and remove composition, leaving behind an efficient top-down, recursive-descent parser.
 We compare our macro-based approach to a staging-based approach using the LMS framework, and provide an experience report in which we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of both methods. Our library outperforms Scala's standard parser combinators on a set of benchmarks by an order of magnitude, and is 2x faster than code generated by LMS.


1. The problem posed by biological weapons is very complex. It encompasses attempts to ensure biological disarmament under the BWC has real meaning, the prohibition on use of biological weapons in the Geneva Protocol remains the international norm, and that the proliferation of capabilities is not transformed into actual weapons. There are no easy solutions to the biological weapons issue. 2. Any attempt to model solutions to the biological weapons problem based only on international treaties and agreements will fail. This is not an issue which can be resolved by a treaty on its own. 3. If the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission seeks to identify realistic proposals to reduce the dangers posed by biological weapons in the short to long term it will have to advocate a break with past policies. Efforts such as those enshrined in the negotiations on the BWC Protocol (1995-2001) are no longer workable. 4. The issue is not biological weapons and states: the issue is the biological weapons problem itself, which encompasses states, non-state actors, and individuals. Efforts at control must address each of those discrete areas of concern through a variety of measures. 5. Any effort to ameliorate the problems posed by biological weapons requires six components: (1) a real understanding of the problem such weapons pose; (2) a willingness to go well beyond the traditional arms control/disarmament paradigm; (3) a short-term strategy to overcome the political difficulties in the BWC; (4) a medium-term strategy to strengthen the BWC; (5) a willingness to actually enforce – by putative means if required – existing law and norms; (6) a recognition that there is no solution to this problem: it requires on-going and permanent management.


Objective: The study aimed to explore the relationship among renal injury, abnormal vitamin D metabolism, and bone homeostasis in insulin resistance (IR) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Design and Methods: The animal models of IR, T2DM, and T2DM treated with 1-alpha hydroxyvitamin D (1-!(OH)D) were established on 18-month-old male Wistar rats. Glucose infusion rates (GIR) and levels of urinary albumin (UA), serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-(OH)D), serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D), and bone mineral density (BMD) in lumbar vertebrae and femoral bone were measured. Results: Urinary albumin level in the rats with T2DM significantly increased, and there existed a significant and negative correlation between GIR and UA level in the rats with T2DM or IR. The levels of serum 25(OH)D in all models were similar. The levels of serum 1,25-(OH)2D and BMD in the rats with IR were significantly higher than those in the rats with T2DM and were lower than those in normal control rats. In the aged rats with T2DM, administration of 1-!(OH)D had no effect on serum 25-(OH)D level although significantly increased the levels of serum 1,25-(OH)2D and BMD. There existed a negative correlation between the levels of serum 1,25-(OH)2D and UA in the rats with T2DM or IR. Conclusions: In IR or T2DM, abnormal vitamin D metabolism is characterized by 1,25-(OH)2D deficiency and is related to renal injury, and there also existed bone loss. In T2DM, both 1,25-(OH)2D deficiency and bone loss can be reversed by 1-!(OH)D.


Learning an ASR acoustic model directly from raw waveforms using CNNs has proved to be effective, where convolutional layers with learnable filters are able to automatically extract useful features. However, these filters, with independent parameters, can be highly redundant resulting in inefficient systems. In this paper, we propose a novel method to generate CNN filter parameters by first sampling from a low-dimensional parameter space and then using a trainable scalar vector to perform a linear combination. This filter sampling and combination method (denoted as FSC) not only naturally enforces parameter sharing in the low-dimensional sampling space, but also adds to the learning capacity of filters. The FSC-CNN model has a significantly smaller number of parameters and is more efficient compared to conventional CNN models, which makes it feasible for small-footprint ASR. Experimental results on the WSJ LVCSR task show that FSC-CNNs are able to achieve a WER of 3.67 with a standard decoder set-up with only 1.19M nonlinearlayer parameters (better than a strong baseline CNN model with 3.2x more parameters). It also outperforms a CNN model with a similar number of parameters by a relative improvement of 10.26%. .


This article looks in detail at one aspect of global liquidity: cross-border credit provided by banks. Cross-border banking can potentially have considerable benefits, especially by diversifying the available sources of lending and borrowing, and by increasing banking competition. But such flows can also amplify risks in times of stress. As this article sets out, cross-border bank lending contributed to the build-up in vulnerabilities before the recent crisis, and exacerbated the bust once the crisis hit. The article then considers possible policy responses, arguing in particular that policymakers need to ensure that they can properly monitor these flows, from the point of view of recipient countries and the global system as a whole.


It is a commonplace observation that at many points in the history of tonal music, contemporaneous theorists have been hard pressed to keep pace with the more progressive efforts of imaginative composers. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in theoretical writing of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in which theorists were faced with the task of explaining an expanding vocabulary of chromatic operations which could not be rationalized satisfactorily from the existing foundation of theoretical concepts. In fact, as Matthew Brown observes in his recent article in the Journal of Music Theory, some modern speculative theorists have been forced to divide the so-called period of common practice into, on the one hand, "classical diatonic tonality" with one set of rules and assumptions and, on the other, "nineteenth-century chromatic tonality," in which fundamentally new assumptions must be made.1 The following is an attempt to come to a greater understanding of this divergence in harmonic practice by examining the use of certain harmonic procedures in the music of Joseph Haydn, whose later works stand near the intersection of these two epochs, and by considering the efforts of theorists of the late eighteenth century to rationalize Haydn's progressive harmonic language. Haydn's uses of third-related keys, especially as they occur in or among the movements of a multi-movement work, cannot easily be explained using eighteenth-century conceptions of key relation. The inadequacy of existing theory is graphically illustrated in August Kollmann's Essay on Practical Musical Composition,2 in which the author attempts unsuccessfully to rationalize certain key relationships among the movements of Haydn's piano trios Hob.XV:27-29. It is possible, however, by examining the evolution of Haydn's approach to the use of third-related keys to speculate on a rationale the composer himself may have had in mind in the use of these key relationships. Obviously there are dangers in this line of approach: Haydn was not a theorist and he did not feel compelled to articulate any specific theoretical system either in writing or in conversations with his early biographers. Although the composer's ultimate intentions can only be a matter of speculation, the body of music from which this concept of harmonic relations can be inferred is substantial and the evolution of Haydn's methods can be traced clearly. This paper considers the issue of Haydn's third-related keys in three ways: first, by examining briefly the writings of certain late eighteenth-century theorists; second, by proposing a new theory that is suggested by Haydn's actual practice; and finally, by tracing the evolution of this system in Haydn's later instrumental works. In his recent article, "The New Modulation of the 1770's: C. P. E. Bach in Theory, Criticism, and Practice," Richard Kramer sheds new light on a revised edition of Bach's Versuch uber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen that was published in 1797 by Engelhardt Schwickert.3 In a supplement that was added by Bach to the last chapter of his treatise the subject of modulation to distant keys is discussed and examples from certain works of Bach-identified for the first time in modern writing by Kramer-are given as illustrations. In the course of his discussion of a Rondo in C major (which Kramer identifies from the collection Ciavier-Sonaten nebst einigen Rondos fur Kenner und Liebhaber. . . W.56), Bach offers a rationale for modulations to keys that are not closely related: 4 When I played this rondo, I was asked . . . "Who but yourself would dare go directly from C major to E major?" I replied, "Anyone can and will assuredly do it who knows that E is the dominant of A, and that A minor is very closely related to C major." This rationale for distant key relations is common among theorists of the second half of the eighteenth century. For example, in Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (1771-1779), Johann Philipp Kirnberger writes that when it is "occasionally . …


BACKGROUND
Amyloid deposition is a potential contributor to postoperative cognitive dysfunction. The authors hypothesized that 6-week global cortical amyloid burden, determined by F-florbetapir positron emission tomography, would be greater in those patients manifesting cognitive dysfunction at 6 weeks postoperatively.

METHODS
Amyloid deposition was evaluated in cardiac surgical patients at 6 weeks (n = 40) and 1 yr (n = 12); neurocognitive function was assessed at baseline (n = 40), 6 weeks (n = 37), 1 yr (n = 13), and 3 yr (n = 9). The association of 6-week amyloid deposition with cognitive dysfunction was assessed by multivariable regression, accounting for age, years of education, and baseline cognition. Differences between the surgical cohort with cognitive deficit and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative cohorts (normal and early/late mild cognitive impairment) was assessed, adjusting for age, education, and apolipoprotein E4 genotype.

RESULTS
The authors found that 6-week abnormal global cortical amyloid deposition was not associated with cognitive dysfunction (13 of 37, 35%) at 6 weeks postoperatively (median standard uptake value ratio [interquartile range]: cognitive dysfunction 0.92 [0.89 to 1.07] vs. 0.98 [0.93 to 1.05]; P = 0.455). In post hoc analyses, global cortical amyloid was also not associated with cognitive dysfunction at 1 or 3 yr postoperatively. Amyloid deposition at 6 weeks in the surgical cohort was not different from that in normal Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative subjects, but increased over 1 yr in many areas at a rate greater than in controls.

CONCLUSIONS
In this study, postoperative cognitive dysfunction was not associated with 6-week cortical amyloid deposition. The relationship between cognitive dysfunction and regional amyloid burden and the rate of postoperative amyloid deposition merit further investigation.


A BSTRACT : A new method for calibrating the hadron response of a segmented calorimeter is developed and successfully applied to beam test data. It is based on a principal component analysis of energy deposits in the calorimeter layers, exploiting longitudinal shower development information to improve the measured energy resolution. Corrections for invisible hadronic energy and energy lost in dead material in front of and between the calorimeters of the ATLAS experiment were calculated with simulated Geant4 Monte Carlo events and used to reconstruct the energy of pions impinging on the calorimeters during the 2004 Barrel Combined Beam Test at the CERN H8 area. For pion beams with energies between 20 GeV and 180 GeV, the particle energy is reconstructed within 3% and the energy resolution is improved by between 11% and 25% compared to the resolution at the electromagnetic scale.


Quinidine has proved more effective than quinine against chloroquine-resistant Plasmodium falciparum both in vitro and in patients with uncomplicated disease. To examine the effectiveness and pharmacokinetics of quinidine for this use, we treated 14 patients who had severe falciparum malaria with intravenous quinidine gluconate; a loading dose of 15 mg of the base per kilogram of body weight was followed by 7.5 mg per kilogram every eight hours. Two of the five patients with cerebral malaria died, but parasitemia was eliminated in the 12 survivors. Two patients had recurrent parasitemia on Days 25 and 28. Times required for parasite clearance and elimination of fever (49.4 +/- 17.8 and 69.5 +/- 18.7 hours, respectively) were comparable to those in earlier studies with a loading dose of quinine. Quinidine appears to have a larger volume of distribution than quinine. The elimination half-life was 12.8 hours, the volume of distribution was 1.68 liters per kilogram, total clearance was 1.75 ml per kilogram per minute, and urinary clearance was 0.62 ml per kilogram per minute. Electrocardiographic changes were common but there were no dysrhythmias. In two patients, blood pressure fell during the initial infusion of quinidine. Quinidine gluconate is more widely available than quinine in many countries, and our findings show that it is effective in severe falciparum malaria.


This paper details the validation of a comprehensive teaching model for security requirements engineering which ensures that security is built into the software from its inception. It centers on the employment of the SQUARE method for secure software requirements engineering, which was developed at Carnegie Mellon University. The effectiveness of the SQUARE method, its learning system and the initial results of using it in student case studies and in a practical, higher education classroom application are reported.


Language is a system of communication by sound, operating through the organs of speech and hearing, among members of a given community, and using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary conventional meanings. Register is language varieties that are used by the people in particular
settings and situations. In this study, the writer investigates the registers, the register in social
context, and factors that make them use registers. The investigation is done because the writer is interested to find and to know of registers used by the fishermen community in Dharma Tanjung, in social context and also the factors that make used them that differ from another fishermen's area.
The writer hopes that the result of the study can give contribution to the teacher, students, and the people who study Sociolinguistics. In addition, it is expected to give contribution to the sociolinguistics, linguistics and also Maduranese language development.
In this study, the writer used a descriptive qualitative design. It was used to describe and interpret the registers used by the fishermen in Dharma Tanjung, the register in social context, and also factors that make the fishermen use those registers. The subject of this study was part of the fishermen in Dharma Tanjung. The informants taken from fishermen community were 10 persons. To collect the data, the writer used interview and observation. In the observation, the writer observed the dialogues occurred among the fishermen in Dharma Tanjung. To analyze the
data, the writer used several steps as follows: 1) Identifying and classifying the data of fishermen's registers, 2) Analyzing the registers based on the data obtained from the informants, 3) Arranging the data in the form of table, 4) Drawing conclusion based on the data.
The result of this study shows that from 70 registers used by the fishermen community, there are 12 registers that are known by Maduranese community and also different meaning and purposes.
Finally, the writer suggests that this study will encourage for the teacher, students and the other researcher to conduct the better research, especially in Linguistic and Sociolinguistics course.


The main purpose of this study was to investigate science, social studies, and classroom teachers' reading and writing practices, and to investigate their beliefs about content area reading and writing. One hundred and forty-three teachers filled out the survey developed to learn their content area reading and writing practices and beliefs. In the second part of the study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 teachers. The study results showed that teachers did not employ specific reading and writing strategies. They used question-asking strategy before, during, and after reading. This study concluded that there is a need for content area reading and writing courses for pre-service and in-service teachers.


Imagined Voices deals
with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic
between sound, words and visuals is explored. The research explores the
ideas around these 'music-text-films', and attempts to explain how meaning is
constructed in the interplay between the different layers of media.

Issues that initially arose out of the research, were directly
related to the question of 'voice': Who is narrating? And where is the voice
located? These questions became more pertinent after noticing a phenomenon occurring
during performances of these works: that when we read text synchronised to
music, we become very aware of an inner voice silently reading along. This
effect of hearing one's own voice in the music, was a discovery that had many
consequences for the ways in which the ideas about listening and the role of
multimedia could function within music.

In the creative work
of the research, that has resulted in over thirty works of 'music-text-film' the
media are set up to highlight ways of listening that puts emphasis on the role
of the listener/spectator. A state of limbo is created between the
narrative voice of the text and the implied voice of the music, due to the
absence of a conventional focal point to pin it on - an actor or a singer. The
thesis suggests that because of this vacancy and the way the projected word
takes the place of the sung or spoken voice, the inner voice of the audience
becomes activated. This then becomes a vital immersive dimension in the
performance, as the inner voices of the audience find their place within the
fabric of the music.