Agonist regulation of platelet alpha 2-adrenoceptors was examined in human volunteers after acute elevations of adrenoceptor agonist and during chronic elevation of plasma catecholamines in two patients with phaeochromocytoma. Platelet alpha 2-adrenoceptor number was measured by radioligand binding [( 3H]yohimbine) and alpha 2-adrenoceptor function measured by turbidimetric platelet aggregation. Short term infusion of adrenoceptor agonists with alpha 2 activity caused reductions in the platelet response to adrenaline in vitro; conversely an increase in activity was observed postoperatively in two patients after removal of phaeochromocytoma. The changes in platelet response were not accompanied by changes in alpha 2-adrenoceptor number. It is proposed that a process of receptor inactivation occurs during desensitization and this is responsible for the dynamic regulation of platelet responses.


The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a US agency that provides results-oriented assistance to low- and lower-middle income countries that exhibit strong performance on a number of measures of development. Among these measures is the Worldwide Governance Indicator for control of corruption. A country must score in the top half of its income group on control of corruption to pass the overall selection procedure. This paper examines the empirical underpinning of this "corruption hard hurdle." It suggests the following: (1) the control of corruption indicator reflects broad perceptions of governance with some noise risking considerable errors of inclusion and exclusion; (2) the control of corruption indicator is not strongly related to progress in development outcomes nor are country-level governance indicators strong determinants of aid project performance; and (3) the control of corruption indicator changes slowly over time with an opaque relationship to reform efforts. The paper suggests abandoning the corruption hard hurdle and using in its place country- and sector-specific indicators of the quality of governance that are amenable to policy reform.


Systemic Lupus Erythematosus is one of the classic examples of autoimmune diseases among human beings and is a rare disease in Pakistani population. Clinically it is a quite diverse and complicated autoimmune disease in a sense that it involves multiple organs of the body and mimics with other diseases as well. This study focused on the distribution of HLA alleles in SLE patients with ACE I/D Polymorphism. A total of 122 individuals were enrolled in this study, 61 were the SLE patients who fulfilled revised ACR criteria and 61 were the healthy controls. Mean age of SLE patients at diagnosis was 30.35 ± 1.687 years (Range: 12-68 years). ACE gene I/D polymorphism was performed by nested PCR and DNA based HLA typing technique was used. ACE gene I/D polymorphism of Intron16 was studied and found to be involved in the activity of SLE. There is high frequency of HLA-A*01, HLA-B*40, HLA-DRB1*01 alleles in SLE patients with ACE DD genotype. The distribution of HLA-A, -B, -DRB1 alleles was analyzed in SLE patients with various disease phenotypes. HLA-A*01 and HLA-B*40 was the most common allele found in SLE patients with the involvement of skin. HLA-A*01, -A*03, HLA-B*13 and -B*46 were common in SLE patients with arthritis while HLA-A*26 and -A*69 were commonly found in Lupus nephritis cases. SLE patients involving both skin and kidney had an allele HLA-DRB1*01 common in them.


Position estimation of wireless devices has many applications in short-range networks. Ultra-wideband (UWB) signals provide accurate positioning capabilities that can be harnessed in wireless systems to realize these applications. This title provides detailed coverage of UWB positioning systems, offering comprehensive treatment of signal and receiver design for ranging, range estimation techniques, theoretical performance bounds, ranging algorithms and protocols. Beginning with a discussion of the potential applications of wireless positioning, and investigating UWB signals for such applications, later chapters establish a signal processing framework for analyzing UWB positioning and ranging systems. The recent IEEE 802.15.4a standard related to UWB is also studied in detail. Each chapter contains examples, problems and Matlab scripts to help readers grasp key concepts. This is an ideal text for graduate students and researchers in electrical and computer engineering, and practitioners in the communications industry, particularly those in wireless communications.


Objective: To investigate the total alkaloid fraction of the methanol extract of leaves of Hygrophila auriculata for its hepatoprotective activity against CCl4-induced toxicity in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes, HepG2 cells, and animal models. Materials and Methods: Mature leaves of H. auriculata were collected, authenticated, and subjected to methanolic extraction followed by isolation of total alkaloid fraction. Freshly isolated rat hepatocytes were exposed to CCl4 (1%) along with/without various concentrations of the total alkaloid fraction (80–40 µg/ml). Protection of human liver-derived HepG2 cells against CCl4-induced damage was determined by the MTT assay. Twenty-four healthy Wistar albino rats (150–200 g) of either sex were used for the in vivo investigations. Liver damage was induced by administration of 30% CCl4 suspended in olive oil (1 ml/kg body weight, i.p). Results: The antihepatotoxic effect of the total alkaloid fraction was observed in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes at very low concentrations (80–40 µg/ml). A dose-dependent increase in the percentage viability was observed when CCl4-exposed HepG2 cells were treated with different concentrations of the total alkaloid fraction. Its in vivo hepatoprotective effect at 80 mg/kg body weight was comparable with that of the standard Silymarin at 250 mg/kg body weight. Conclusion: The total alkaloid fraction was able to normalize the biochemical levels which were altered due to CCl4 intoxication.


The equations for the refraction operation in generalized ray tracing are rederived using the Frenet equations from metric differential geometry and the idea of the directional derivative. Expressions are obtained for the principal directions and curvatures of a refracted wave front in terms of those quantities on the incident wave front and on the refracting surface. This provides the geometrical properties of the refracted wave front in the neighborhood of the traced ray.


Recent changes in U.S. energy policy have prompted the growth of the bio energy market. The ability to quickly enter and respond to the opportunities of this market is critical to an agribusiness' success. Understanding entry into this rapidly growing bio energy market, however, is not well understood. In drawing on management theories of the Resource Based View (RBV) and that of Organizational Ecology, this study develops a conceptual and dynamic programming model to explain the entry behaviors of different types of bio energy businesses. A contribution of this study is it demonstrates that bio energy entry decisions emphasize a basic trade-off involving gains from a commitment to specialized, and correspondingly higher cost assets, and gains from remaining flexible with lower levels of fixed and less specific assets. This commitment-flexibility trade-off not only underlies entry, but such a trade-off is argued to be influenced by the population and uncertain conditions of the market. Importantly our work also sheds light on the implicit risks of the ethanol industry, and in part explains how corn-based dry mills and cellulosic-ethanol conversion technologies may be ideal depending on the type of market conditions upon entry.


Abstract Through consideration of the requirements for a DEMO-relevant blanket concept, Korea (KO) has proposed a He-Cooled Molten Lithium (HCML) Test Blanket Module (TBM) for testing in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). To validate the safety of the HCML TBM design concept and guarantee high efficiency of the power conversion system, an evaluation of the heat transfer capability of the gas coolant in a high Reynolds number regime should precede this test. In this study, a thermal hydraulic test with a high-pressure nitrogen gas loop was performed and a thermal hydraulic analysis was carried out with the commercial CFD code Fluent 6.3.26 and the system code GAMMA (Gas Multicomponent Mixture Analysis) under the same test conditions. In the experiment, a single TBM First Wall (FW) mock-up made from the same material as the KO TBM, ferritic martensitic steel, was used, and the test was performed at pressures of 11, 19 and 29 bar and under various flow rates ranging from 0.63 to 2.44 kg/min. As one-side of the mock-up was heated by a furnace heater at a constant temperature, the wall temperatures were measured by installed thermocouples, with the measured temperatures showing strong parity with code results simulated under the same test conditions. Even with the system code using the modified Dittus-Boelter correlation, which was developed under a different heating condition, the three-dimensional approach of the system code is capable of estimating a one-sided heating condition in a fusion application.


Past research has demonstrated that digital Fresnel holograms can be binarized in a non-iterative manner by downsampling the source image with a grid lattice prior to the hologram generation process. The reconstructed image of a hologram that is binarized with this approach is superior in quality compared with that obtained with direct thresholding, half-toning, and error diffusion. Despite the success, the downsampling mechanism results in a prominent texture of regularly spaced voids in the shaded regions. To alleviate this problem, an enhanced non-iterative method for the generation of binary Fresnel holograms is presented. Our method is based on a multi-direction line-sampling formed by a combined grid and cross lattice, which is capable of preserving a more solid texture in the shaded regions and enhancing the visual quality of the reconstructed image. Computer simulations and optical reconstructions are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed technique.


This study was conducted to determine the effect of cooking by boiling and freezing period on the chemical properties, cholesterol content and caloric value of cooked chicken breast and thigh stored at -18± 2 oC for 90 days. Approximate analysis including moisture, protein, fat, ash, carbohydrates and cholesterol content for each breast, thigh and broth was performed each 30 days. Moisture and cholesterol significantly decreased (P<0.05) , whereas protein , fat , ash and carbohydrates increased in cooked breast , thigh and the broth of each .The predicting equations of the caloric value showed that fat and protein contents were more affected . However, fat content was more affected at the beginning of the storage period , whereas the effect on protein was at the end of it .


Changes in the cement manufacturing process, such as the use of higher sulfur fuels, have tended to raise clinker sulfate levels and sulfur trioxide (SO 3 ) alkali ratios. As one of the consequences, the nature and quantity of the clinker sulfate phases have been modified. Clinker sulfates tend to be available as double sulfate salts; calcium langbeinite instead of potassium sulfate. Anhydrite is present in the clinker only when the quantity of clinker sulfate is higher than the amount that can be combined by the alkali ions as alkali sulfates and calcium langbeinite. It has been demonstrated recently that in clinkers with sulfate/alkali ratios as high as 3.6, anhydrite is not detectable and only begins to form at levels above this. This is consistent with observations from regular industrial production. Even with fairly high sulfate levels and SO 3 /alkali ratios, industrial clinkers do not attain high enough SO 3 /alkali ratios to permit anhydrite formation. Thus, the presence of clinker anhydrite is illusive. It has been alleged recently that clinker anhydrite would provide nonheat-cured concrete with a lesser durability. The objective of this study is to establish what would be the effect of anhydrite on durability in the hypothetical case that this phase was present in clinker. The impact of clinker anhydrite has been examined on a laboratory clinker with a SO 3 /K 2 O ratio of 5.2 and a SO 3 level of 3.8%. The laboratory clinker anhydrite amount has been evaluated at 1.1%. Two aspects have been studied: ○ The dissolution rate of clinker anhydrite present in a very high SO 3 /alkali clinker during hydration, and ○ The influence of clinker anhydrite on expansion. Experiments indicate that anhydrite dissolves and reacts quite quickly, mainly within a few days, and does not produce concrete with expansion. Therefore, clinker anhydrite, if it did exist, would not contribute to ambient temperature DEF.


With the vision of ubiquitous computing becoming increasingly realized through smart city solutions, the proliferation of smartphones and smartwatches, and the rise of the quantified-self movement, a new technological layer is being added to the urban environment. This technological layer offers the possibility to capture, track, measure, visualize, and augment our experience of the urban environment. But to that end, there is a growing need to better understand the triangular relationship between person, place, and technology.
Urban HCI studies are increasingly focusing on emotion and affect to create a better understanding of people's experience of the city, and to investigate how technology could potentially play a role in augmenting this urban lived experience. Artist Christian Nold for example, used wearable technology to measure people's arousal levels as they walked freely through the urban environment, identifying locations in the city that evoked an emotional response from people. After these walks, people's arousal levels were superimposed on a map of the city and participants were asked to interpret their own data, resulting in aggregated, fully annotated, and beautifully visualized emotion maps of the city.
Based on a systematic review of emotions maps in existing literature, and our own work which seeks to understand how people's experiences of places in the urban environment that are meaningful to them on a personal level, for example the place where they have met their partner, could potentially inform the design of future technological devices and services, this journal paper discusses the strengths, limitations and potential of capturing, representing, exploring and sharing this personal, geo-located emotion data with other people using emotion maps. Although our analysis seems to indicate that emotion maps in their current form are only of limited efficacy in accurately capturing, representing and communicating the profound, complex emotional bond that people have with personally meaningful places in the city, there appears to be potential for the use of emotion maps as a provocation in a speculative design approach.


This paper explores the macroeconomic consequences of changes in fiscal policy in the United States and Japan, for countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The basis of the study is the McKibbin-Sachs Global model that now includes models for Korea, Australia and Japan. It is shown that the response of global financial markets is important in determining the short run impact and the dynamics of adjustment of countries in the Asia-Pacific region when macroeconomic policies change in Japan and the United States. It is also shown that whether a policy is anticipated or not has important consequences for the adjustment process. Indeed in the short run GDP may rise or fall in response to a change in fiscal policy depending on the announcement effect of the policy change. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


This research aims to identify the effect of the recent pictorial cigarette pack's health warning that was imposed at the beginning of the year 2013 on smoking packs in terms of convincing smokers to quit or cut down the cigarette smoking habit. A qualitative approach of expert interviews is used to evaluate the impact of health advertising on the awareness about the risks of smoking habit for universities' students in Jordan. Focus group and observations are also used in this research. The findings have indicated that there is a theoretical link between the effect of advertising and decision making through affective and cognitive responses. The research has highlighted that the new health warning has no direct or indirect influence over Jordanian university students in terms of cutting down or quitting smoking, although it was described by the interviewees and the media as "scary and terrifying". This is one of few studies that explore the effect of the picture health warning on the university students in Jordan. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper that provides empirical evidence about the influence of health advertising in a developing country.


The nationwide trend to criminalize juvenile delinquency in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in the placement of large numbers of adolescent criminal offenders in adult correctional facilities. Prior research has assessed the consequences of this practice through comparisons of youth in juvenile corrections with youths placed in adult prisons and jails. These studies minimized the pains of imprisonment for youth who continue to be placed in juvenile correctional facilities by comparing their conditions to the more violent and toxic conditions of confinement in adult institutions. In this article, we more carefully assess the conditions of confinement within a broader range of juvenile and adult correctional settings where juvenile courts place youths. We analyze data from interviews with matched samples of 188 young men ages 16-18 incarcerated in juvenile and adult facilities across two states. Our results show that although inmates in adult facilities (surprisingly) give better reports than youth in juvenile facilities on several domains of institutional climate including criminal activity and victimization, they also fare much worse on measures of social and psychological well-being. Importantly, the inmates in adult facilities report substantially and significantly greater rates of PTSD and mental illness symptoms, and are much more likely to fear for their safety, compared to those in juvenile facilities. Overall, conditions in adult facilities are harsher than conditions in juvenile facilties, but juvenile correctional facilities pose their own hazards. We argue that incarceration should be used only as a last resort for juveniles, regardless of institutional auspice, but that when it is deemed necessary, juvenile correctional facilities represent the lesser of two evils.


The one‐dimensional Schrodinger equation and two of its generalizations are considered, as they arise in quantum mechanics, wave propagation in a nonhomogeneous medium, and wave propagation in a nonconservative medium where energy may be absorbed or generated. Generically, the zero‐energy transmission coefficient vanishes when the potential is nontrivial, but in the exceptional case this coefficient is nonzero, resulting in tunneling through the potential. It is shown that any nontrivial exceptional potential can always be fragmented into two generic pieces. Furthermore, any nontrivial potential, generic or exceptional, can be fragmented into generic pieces in infinitely many ways. The results remain valid when Dirac delta functions are included in the potential and other coefficients are added to the Schrodinger equation. For such Schrodinger equations, factorization formulas are obtained that relate the scattering matrices of the fragments to the scattering matrix of the full problem.


Papillary cystadenocarcinoma; Intraosseous tumor; Salivary gland neoplasm
Background: Central papillary cystadenocarcinoma of the jaw is an extremely rare tumor with only three previously reported cases in the English literature. This tumor is a histologically low-grade cancer, affecting only the mandible.
Methods: A 65-year-old woman presented with a two months history of a rapidly growing, painless mass of the right ascending ramus of the mandible. The patholologic report from incisional biopsy was a papillary cystic tumor with a differential diagnosis of cystadenoma versus cystadenocarcinoma.
Results: Segmental mandibulectomy, parotidectomy and submandibular gland resection were performed. The final pathology was intraosseous papillary cystadenocarcinoma.
Conclusions: Clinical features of central papillary cystadenocarcinoma of the mandible mimic an odontogenic lesion and metastatic bone disease, careful review of radiograph and pathology should be done. En bloc resection with adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy in high stage disease, and long-term follow-up allow the patient to have a favourable prognosis.


Background & Objective : HCV infection may be transmitted from an infected mother to her fetus in a low percentage; however, it is the most important route of infancy HCV infection. The chance of HCV transmission in HIV/HCV co-infected mothers is higher than that in HCV mono-infected ones. The aim of this study is to assess HCV infection status in orphan newborns in Shiraz, Iran by quantitative PCR assay and HCV core-Ag Elisa. Materials & Methods : Twenty nine HCV suspected infants, 2-7 months old, were evaluated for HCV and HIV antibodies, HCV core antigen and quantitative genome viral load. Results: Although HCV-Ab was detected in all the studied infants, HCV-RNA was not detected in plasma or Peripheral Blood Mono-Nuclear Cells (PBMCs). HIV 1, 2 Abs were not detected in none of them, either. Conclusion: A few studies have been conducted on the HCV transmission from infected mothers to their infants. According to the present results, assessment of HCV viral load and HCV core-Ag can serve as reliable tests for the prediction or exclusion of HCV infection from mothers to infants.


It is vital that people with spinal cord injury (SCI) maintain a physically active lifestyle to promote lifelong health and well-being. Yet despite these benefits, within hospital rehabilitation and upon discharge into the community, people with SCI are largely inactive. Physiotherapists in SCI rehabilitation have been identified as the healthcare professionals (HCPs) ideally placed to promote a physically active lifestyle. However, to successfully engage people with SCI in physical activity (PA), physiotherapists have to manage their hopes and expectations of SCI rehabilitation. With all this in mind, the purpose of this thesis was to explore the role of PA for people with SCI in hospital rehabilitation and in the community. The first aim of this research was to explore the barriers, benefits and facilitators of PA for people with SCI. The second aim was to examine how hopes and expectations are managed by the physiotherapists in SCI rehabilitation and by health practitioners in a community-based leisure time physical activity (LTPA) setting. The third aim was to propose improvement to LTPA promotion for people with SCI. These aims were addressed through: 1) a meta-synthesis of the qualitative literature to identify the barriers, benefits and facilitators of LTPA for people with SCI; 2) an examination of the role of LTPA in SCI rehabilitation; and 3) an exploration of experiences of participants with SCI, and their trainers in a new type of LTPA; activity-based rehabilitation (ABR).

Framed by interpretivism, data were analysed by thematic analysis and dialogical narrative analysis. This thesis has made an original and significant contribution to the literature by revealing a deep understanding of factors that constrain and facilitate physically active lifestyles for people with SCI. For example, this research has uniquely demonstrated the role of pleasure in facilitating continued engagement in LTPA. Furthermore, this thesis identified that despite valuing the role of PA for people with SCI, active promotion of PA remains largely absent from physiotherapy practice. The dilemmas of promoting PA for the physiotherapists in SCI centres included a lack of training and education in health promotion and a concern over the false hope of recovery from LTPA opportunities such as ABR. To try and avoid false hope of recovery, the physiotherapists drew upon the therapeutic plot of acceptance and employed therapeutic actions to guide patients towards realistic hopes and expectations. An identification of three narrative types operating in ABR did reveal that some clients were exercising in the hope to walk again. However, the trainers were not preoccupied with acceptance as they also tried to avoid false hopes of ABR.

In light of these findings there are several practical recommendations for people with SCI, HCPs such as physiotherapists, the health care system and other health practitioners in community based LTPA opportunities. These practical implications are aimed at improving PA promotion and reducing the barriers to PA for people with SCI. For example, there is a need for more effective knowledge translation across the macro, meso and micro fields. At the macro level meaningful guidelines on PA for people with SCI need to be developed and embedded into UK and Ireland policies if they are to be received and utilised by physiotherapists in SCI rehabilitation and health practitioners in the community. At the meso and micro level appropriate training and education need to be delivered to physiotherapists on PA and SCI to equip them with sufficient knowledge to prescribe and promote PA. Furthermore, the knowledge on PA shared with physiotherapists needs to include the diversity of LTPA opportunities available to people with SCI including ABR. Closer communication and engagement should be implemented at the micro level between physiotherapists in SCI centres and the health practitioners working in community initiatives such as ABR to confront issues regarding hope. In addition to knowledge translation practices, there needs to be support within the healthcare system to facilitate a physically active lifestyle for people with SCI. Equally, a more critical attitude to PA promotion is called for in terms of the possible adverse consequences.


[1] Aerosol measurements over the tropical urban site of Hyderabad, India, provide a way of determining the variability of the aerosol characteristics over a duration of 1 year (October 2007 to September 2008). The meteorological pattern over India, mainly driven by the regional monsoons, has a great effect on the amount and size distribution of the aerosols. Higher aerosol optical depth (AOD) values are observed in premonsoon, while the variability of the Angstrom exponent (α) seems to be more pronounced, with higher values in winter and premonsoon and lower values in the monsoon periods. The AOD at 500 nm (AOD500) is very large over Hyderabad, varying from 0.46 ± 0.17 in postmonsoon to 0.65 ± 0.22 in premonsoon periods. A discrimination of the different aerosol types over Hyderabad is also attempted using values of AOD500 and α380–870. Such discrimination is rather difficult to interpret since a single aerosol type can partly be identified only under specific conditions (e.g., anthropogenic emissions, biomass burning or dust outbreaks), while the presence of mixed aerosols, without dominance of the coarse or accumulation mode, is the usual situation. According to the analysis the three individual components of differing origin, composition and optical characteristics are (1) an urban/industrial aerosol type composed of aerosols produced locally and all year round by combustion activities in the city or long-range transported (mainly in spring) biomass burning, (2) an aerosol type of mineral origin raised by the wind in the deserts (mainly in premonsoon) or constituting coarse-mode aerosols under high relative humidity conditions mainly in the monsoon period, and (3) an aerosol type with a marine influence under background conditions occurring in monsoon and postmonsoon periods. Nevertheless, the mixed or undetermined aerosol type dominates with percentages varying from 44.3% (premonsoon) to 72.9% (postmonsoon). Spectral AOD and α data are analyzed to obtain information about the adequacy of the simple use of the Angstrom exponent for characterizing the aerosols. This is achieved by taking advantage of the spectral variation of lnAOD versus lnλ, the so-called curvature. The results show that the spectral curvature can be effectively used as a tool for aerosol types discrimination, since the fine-mode aerosols exhibit negative curvature, while the coarse-mode particles are positive.


Intelligence analysts are at the forefront to provide decision makers with a greater picture of current situational context. Their main task is to identify relevant pieces of information from disparate systems and growing amounts of data while often lacking the appropriate tools. We propose a visual analytics approach to support analysts in monitoring and reasoning about the dynamics in a complex system. In our approach, we systematically map relations onto the user interface and support both overview and provenance over temporal dynamics. We further map explicitly otherwise tacit organisational knowledge. Our use case is based on a crime system taking the perspective of criminal network analysis tasks. Our analytics extract force-prioritised, weighted co-offender networks, which are represented through both a graph and a matrix visualisation, incorporating the evolution of relationships between offenders. The developed tools were evaluated in a study with domain experts, with the goal to assess tool utility and to investigate the appropriateness of the tool with the end user.


The Drought Management Plans (DMPs) are a regulatory instrument that establishes priorities among the different water uses and defines more stringent constraints to access to publicly provided water during droughts, especially for non-priority uses such as agriculture. These plans have recently become widespread across EU southern basins. Shockingly, in some of these basins the plans were approved without an assessment of the potential impacts that they may have over the economic activities exposed to water restrictions. This paper develops a stochastic methodology to estimate the expected water availability in agriculture that results from the decision rules of the recently approved DMPs. The methodology is applied to the particular case of the Guadalquivir River Basin in southern Spain. Results show that if the DMPs are successfully enforced, available water will satisfy in average 62.2% of the annual demand. This is much lower than the minimum water access reliability of 90% that the Spanish law has assured to irrigators so far.


Background Water immersion during labour and birth is recognised as a means of empowering women and reducing need for analgesia. Although waterbirth is a 'hands off' birth, midwives are required to monitor progress and assist controlled delivery of the head. Viewing using a handheld mirror can often be restricted due to maternal position or inadequate lighting, which has implications for infection control and manual handling. There is therefore an unmet clinical need for a mirror with an inbuilt light suitable for use in waterbirths. Objectives To i) undertake a scoping exercise with midwives and expecting mothers to identify the appropriate product specifications; ii) develop and iii) test prototypes based on these specifications suitable for commercial manufacture. Design pathway and results Device specification: The device requirements were specified in consultation with midwives of different seniorities attending to their requests and experiences of waterbirths. A novel weekly electronic 'Comic Book' (Figure 1) was to facilitate the design process (e.g. nature of illumination, ergonomics of device) and obtain feedback to ensure ongoing engagement with our midwifery target end-users. Prototype development: Schematics and Computer Aided Drawings of potential devices (Figure 2) were used to inform the rapid prototyping techniques used to generate a Phase 1 prototype Following Phase I prototype testing and design modification, a Phase 2 prototype was developed which we are currently preparing for licensing Abstract PD.04 Figure 1 Example of a 'Comic Book' Abstract PD.04 Figure 2 Drawings to inform Phase 1 prototype Conclusion Using an innovative and interactive product design process, our multidisciplinary study team have developed an illuminated, flexible prototype mirror for use in waterbirths.


Context. Photometric variability of chemically peculiar (CP) stars of the upper main sequence is closely connected to their local stellar magnetic field and their rotational period. Long term investigations, as presented here, help us to identify possible stellar cycles (as in the Sun). Furthermore, these data provide a basis for detailed surface mapping techniques. Aims. Photoelectric Strömgren uvby time series for 27 CP stars within the boundaries of open clusters are presented. In addition, Hipparcos photometric data (from 1989 to 1993) are used for our analysis. Our observations cover a time period of about six years (1986 to 1992) with typically fifteen measurements for each objects. These observations help us to determine the rotational periods of these objects. Methods. A standard reduction procedure was applied to the data. When possible, we merged our data sets with already published ones to obtain a more significant result. A detailed time series analysis was performed, involving five different methods to minimize spurious detections. Results. We established, for the first time, variability for fourteen CP stars. For additional two stars, a merging of already published data sets, resulted in more precise periods, whereas for six objects, the published periods could be confirmed. Last, but not least, no significant variations were found for five stars. Apart from six stars, all targets seem to be members of their host open clusters. Conclusions. The present observations fill an important gap in previous photometric long-time studies of CP stars. The presented open cluster members are excellent targets for follow-up observations, employing for example polarimetric, high-resolution spectroscopic, and surface mapping techniques.


This article clarifies several points related to the Ottoman entry into the First World War. First, the Young Turk leaders mistrusted deeply Great Britain which had occupied Egypt in 1882, and appeared disposed to satisfy French and Italian ambitions at the Ottoman expense. Yet, most of the Unionists, not to speak of the public and Parliament, were opposed to war. Indeed, the British and French tacitly agreed to divide the Ottoman state. For this reason, Cemal paşa, a friend of the French, even tried to conclude an alliance with Paris but was unsuccesful. Second, the decision to enter the war came as the consequence of stiff German pressure upon the Unionists leadership and became immediately a fact after the fleet under admiral Souchon's command bombarded the Russian ports. Only four Unionist leaders at most were informed about the German plans to attack Russia. Leading Ottoman officials such as Kazım Karabekir, Hafız Hakkı and many others were against early Ottoman entry into the war. Most of them wanted to wait until spring so as to have time to complete the necessary preparations for the battlefield. Probably, if the Ottoman entry into the war had been postponed for six months or so, Istanbul would have not entered the war at all since by then the hopes for a quick German victory would have vanished. Indeed, after the German offensive in France was stalled at Marne the Unionists seemed to develop second thoughts about the wisdom of fighting on Berlin's side. Consequently, the German diplomatic mission in İstanbul increased its pressures on Enver paşa, who acceded to Kaiser's war demands, still under the illusion that a German victory was imminent. In sum, the Ottoman entry into the war was not the consequence of careful preparation and long debate in the Parliament (which was recessed) and press. It was the result of a hasty decision by a handful of elitist leaders who disregarded democratic procedures and lacked long range political vision and fell easy victim to German machinations and their own utopian expectations of recovering the lost territories in the Balkans. The Ottoman entry into war prolonged it for two years and allowed the Bolshevik revolution to incubate and then explode in 1917 which in turn impacted profoundly the twentieth century world history and the Republican Turkey.


This paper examines information available to Francophone persons regarding their rights as British subjects prior to the adoption of the 1774 Quebec Act, as well as the use they made of these concepts. The bilingual Quebec Gazette reported on legal developments in France, England, and the American colonies, including challenges to the traditional vision of governmental authority. It discussed the right to be taxed by elected representatives and the conflicts between the metropolis and the colonies. Debates about these issues are thought to have appeared in Quebec only after the beginning of the American Revolution, but they circulated earlier. Educated members of the Francophone elite sought more specific information about the new legal system. Many of them were eager to obtain an Assembly, if Catholics could sit in it. This was considered one of their rights as British subjects, together with the continuation of property rights guaranteed by the Capitulation of 1760 and, by extension, inheritance and matrimonial laws. In the end, requests for an assembly were shelved in order to obtain religious equality. Thus, British officials were free to declare that Canadians had no interest in such an institution, creating a lasting and misleading impression.


The sea-surface microlayer (SML) is the ocean's uppermost boundary to the atmosphere and in control of climate relevant processes like gas exchange and emission of marine primary organic aerosols (POA). The SML represents a complex surface film including organic components like polysaccharides, proteins, and marine gel particles, and harbors diverse microbial communities. Despite the potential relevance of the SML in ocean-atmosphere interactions, still little is known about its structural characteristics and sensitivity to a changing environment such as increased oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2. Here we report results of a large-scale mesocosm study, indicating that ocean acidification can affect the abundance and activity of microorganisms during phytoplankton blooms, resulting in changes in composition and dynamics of organic matter in the SML. Our results reveal a potential coupling between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the biogenic properties of the SML, pointing to a hitherto disregarded feedback process between ocean and atmosphere under climate change.


LLINQ, Language INtegrated Query, is a new extension to the Visual Basic and C# programming languages designed to simplify data queries and database interaction. It addreses O/R mapping issues by making query operations like SQL statements part of the programming language. It also offers built-in support for querying in-memory collections like arrays or lists, XML, DataSets, and relational databases. LINQ in Action is a fast-paced, comprehensive tutorial for professional developers. This book explores what can be done with LINQ, shows how it works in an application, and addresses the emerging best practices. It presents the general purpose query facilities offered by LINQ in the upcoming C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 languages. A running example introduces basic LINQ concepts. You'll then learn to query unstructured data using LINQ to XML and relational data with LINQ to SQL. Finally, you'll see how to extend LINQ for custom applications.LINQ in Action will guide you along as you explore this new world of lambda expressions, query operators, and expression trees. As well, you'll explore the new features of C# 3.0, VB.NET 9.0. The book is very practical, anchoring each new idea with running code. Whether you want to use LINQ to query objects, XML documents, or relational databases, you will find all the information you need to get startedBut LINQ in Action does not stop at the basic code. This book also shows you how LINQ can be used for advanced processing of data, including coverage of LINQ's extensibility, which allows querying more data sources than those supported by default. All code samples are built on a concrete business case. The running example, LinqBooks, is a personal book cataloging system that shows you how to create LINQ applications with Visual Studio 2008.


This article is concerned with the Ireland of the 1950s and with one segment of the Irish upper class — the Irish business elite. The importance of studying the 1950s lies in the fact that if there is to be an understanding of the class structure of today the reconstruction of the immediate past is a required precondition. The business elite is defined in terms of those who control Irish corporate capital. Corporate capital is the key form of private property related to economic power. Capital as it relates to the business system is divisible into commercial, industrial and financial interests. Section I of the present article presents the concepts and current debates relating to the issues of capital ownership and control and the role of the family as an important mechanism in the control of, and reproduction, of wealth. Section II discusses methodology and identifies Ireland's top companies in the 1950s. Section III examines patterns of ownership in prominent Irish companies and financial institutions. Finally Section IV identifies Ireland's leading business families of the 1950s and raises questions relating to the nature of dynastic control.


We present a comparative experimental study of spectral broadening and supercontinuum (SC) generation in 3-mm-thick sapphire crystal using 800 nm, 130 fs pulses in low-numeric-aperture focused Gaussian and axicon-generated Bessel beam geometry. Despite the markedly higher input energy used in the case of the Bessel beam, the dynamics of spectral broadening appears to be very similar in both cases, eventually producing a flat SC spanning across the visible and near-infrared spectral range with low shot-to-shot fluctuations (standard deviation ≤1%) of the spectral intensity. The statistical analysis performed at different stages of the spectral broadening reveals that shot-to-shot fluctuations of the spectral intensity are associated with four-wave-mixing-induced spectral correlations.


Abstract. Time-dependent variational data assimilation allows the possibility of extracting wind information from observations of ozone or other trace gases. Since trace gas observations are not available at sufficient resolution for deriving feature-track winds, they must be combined with model background information to produce an analysis. If done with time-dependent variational assimilation, wind information may be extracted via the adjoint of the linearized tracer continuity equation. This paper presents idealized experiments that illustrate the mechanics of tracer–wind extraction and demonstrate some of the limitations of this procedure. We first examine tracer–wind extraction using a simple one-dimensional advection equation. The analytic solution for a single trace gas observation is discussed along with numerical solutions for multiple observations. The limitations of tracer–wind extraction are then explored using highly idealized ozone experiments performed with a development version of the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) in which globally distributed hourly stratospheric ozone profiles are assimilated in a single 6 h update cycle in January 2009. Starting with perfect background ozone conditions, but imperfect dynamical conditions, ozone errors develop over the 6 h background window. Wind increments are introduced in the analysis in order to reduce the differences between background ozone and ozone observations. For "perfect" observations (unbiased and no random error), this results in root-mean-square (RMS) vector wind error reductions of up to ~4 m s −1 in the winter hemisphere and tropics. Wind extraction is more difficult in the summer hemisphere due to weak ozone gradients and smaller background wind errors. The limitations of wind extraction are also explored for observations with imposed random errors and for limited sampling patterns. As expected, the amount of wind information extracted degrades as observation errors or data voids increase. In the case of poorly specified observation error covariances, assimilation of ozone data with imposed errors may result in increased RMS wind error, since the assimilation is constrained too tightly to the noisy observations.


Recently, Clifford Williams has attempted to argue for the plausibility of a Christian form of physicalism. To make his case, Williams appropriates certain claims by John Locke regarding the possibility of thinking matter to argue for what Williams calls the parity theses: (1) God can make matter and nonmatter either to think or not to think. Given God's omnipotence, the justification for (1) is: (2) there is no contradiction in asserting either that matter or nonmatter thinks or that they do not think. If we expand thinking to include other morally and religiously relevant operations of the mind, then we get: (3) God can make either a purely material being or a nonmaterial entity to have moral and religious characteristics. From this, Williams infers that: (4) there is an equal amount of mystery in thinking matter as there is in non-thinking matter. In response to Williams, I argue that his main arguments for the parity theses fail and his Lockean style argument must be judged a failure. To show this I, first, state Williams' Lockean parity argument and, second, criticize the three arguments he offers for its most important premise.


We purified 15,000-fold from HeLa cell nuclear extract the centromere antigen that reacts specifically with the 17-bp sequence, designated previously as CENP-B box, in human centromeric alpha-satellite (alphoid) DNA by a two-step procedure including an oligonucleotide affinity column. The purified protein was identified as the centromere protein B (CENP-B) by its mobility on SDS-PAGE (80 kD), and reactivities to a monoclonal antibody raised to CENP-B (bacterial fusion protein) and to anticentromere sera from patients with autoimmune diseases. Direct binding by CENP-B of the CENP-B box sequence in the alphoid DNA has been proved using the purified CENP-B by DNA mobility-shift assay, Southwestern blotting, and DNase I protection analysis. The binding constant of the antigen to the CENP-B box sequence is 6 x 10(8) M-1. DNA mobility-shift assays indicated that the major complex formed between the CENP-B and the DNA contains two DNA molecules, suggesting the importance of the CENP-B/CENP-B box interaction in organization of higher ordered chromatin structures in the centromere and/or kinetochore. Location of DNA binding and dimerization domains in CENP-B was discussed based on the DNA mobility- shift assays performed with a protein fraction containing intact and partial cleavage products of CENP-B.


Ion microprobe (SHRIMP) U-Pb zircon dating has determined the age of a gabbroic enclave within the supraregional intrusive komatiitic Mashaba Igneous Complex (MIC) to be 2743 ± 11 Ma and that of an interpreted comagmatic thick differentiated komatiitic flow within the adjacent Mashava-Masvingo greenstone belt to be 2754 ± 13 Ma. Recent geological observations support a revised structural interpretation of the MIC as an assemblage of three separate horizontal layered sills emplaced almost coevally at two different crustal depths: the chromititiferous Prince Sill intruded concordantly, and prior to regional folding, into the basal sedimentary rocks of the late Archaean Upper Bulawayan Supergroup, the relatively thin and evolved West Sill within early Archaean greenstone and gneissic basement, and the major Northwest Arm-Main Sill mainly within adjacent basement gneiss. The sill assemblage was vertically linked via ultramafic dykes and, as previously proposed, was fed through the dyke-like Northeast Arm, whose overlying layered rocks are here interpreted as correlatives of the Northwest Arm-Main Sill. The new precise age for the MIC is 50 Ma years older than the former geological estimate of ~2.7 Ga. The comparable date for the volcanic phase supports the interpretation of both as component phases of a putative Masvingo W komatiitic sill-flow complex but is incompatible with interpretation of the late Archaean lithostratigraphy of the Mashava-Masvingo belt as a thrust-stacked package of unrelated continental and oceanic rocks.


Filament winding is a process for the placement of reinforcement fibres on to a rotating surface in a specified geometric pattern. A conventional straight line interpolation controller is not very appropriate for filament winding because the fibre pay-out-eye is at some distance away from the mandrel surface and its movement from one point to another may disturb the position of previously laid fibre on the mandrel. Filament winding demands a controller which can produce fast and smooth carriage movements, and have a path-anticipation capability so that while moving around curves the effect of pay-out-eye movement on previous fibre positions is minimised. This problem can be overcome by using an interpolation technique which determines the pay-out-eye path by considering more than two data points, and whose profile is continuous in nature up to its second derivative. In this project an IDM PC based filament winding controller, using B-spline interpolation technique, is developed. To test the performance of the controller a 3-axis CNC filament winding machine was designed and manufactured. For optimum performance, emphasis was given to the low inertia of the machine carriage, while at the same time maintaining the system's structural stiffness. To reduce the machine carriage weight, the DC servomotors were installed on the machine's frame, instead of the carriage, and a timing belt arrangement was used for power transmission. The controller's electronic hardware was assembled using servo amplifiers, DAC cards, and a purpose built optical encoder interface card. The controller software was developed using TURBO C++ as the main programming language, whereas the hardware interface routines were written in Assembly Language. Problems of winding path deviation as a result of B-spline approximation were tackled using knowledge based programming techniques. The results showed a considerable improvement in winding speed and less fibre slippage in the case of non-geodesic winding patterns, resulting in higher accuracy of fibre placement on the mandrel.


This paper develops and analyzes a queueing model to examine the role of patient choice on the high rate of organ refusals in the kidney transplant waiting system. The model is an M/M/1 queue with homogeneous patients and exponential reneging. Patients join the waiting system and organ transplants are reflected by the service process. In addition, unlike the standard M/M/1 model, each service instance is associated with a variable reward that reflects the quality of the transplant organ, and patients have the option to refuse an organ (service) offer if they expect future offers to be better. Under an assumption of perfect and complete information, it is demonstrated that the queueing discipline is a potent instrument that can be used to maximize social welfare. In particular, first-come-first-serve (FCFS) amplifies patients' desire to refuse offers of marginal quality, and generates excessive organ wastage. By contrast, last-come-first-serve (LCFS) contains the inefficiencies engendered by patient choice and achieves optimal organ utilization. A numerical example calibrated using data from the U.S. transplantation system demonstrates that the welfare improvements possible from a better control of patient choice are equivalent to a 25% increase in the supply of organs.


Background The use of magnesium sulfate as an adjuvant in neuraxial block has gained popularity, with the aim of improving and enhancing the quality and duration of anesthesia, delaying the onset of postoperative pain, and thus reducing the demand for postoperative rescue analgesics. However, until today, there has been no consensus as regards the ideal dose of magnesium sulfate as an adjuvant in the subarachnoid block. The present study was designed to examine whether the addition of intrathecal magnesium sulfate (50 and 100 mg) would enhance the analgesic efficacy of intrathecal bupivacaine. We hypothesized that the additive effect of magnesium sulfate as an adjuvant to bupivacaine in subarachnoid block is dose dependent. Materials and methods This study was carried out on 90 American Society of Anesthesiology I and II patients of both sexes in the age group of 20–60 years scheduled for below knee surgeries under subarachnoid block. Group 1 (n = 30) patients received intrathecal 0.5% heavy bupivacaine (2.8 ml) +0.2 ml normal saline; group 2 (n = 30) received intrathecal 0.5% heavy bupivacaine (2.8 ml) +50 mg (0.1 ml) magnesium sulfate +0.1 ml normal saline; and group 3 (n = 30) received intrathecal 0.5% heavy bupivacaine (2.8 ml)+100 mg (0.2 ml) magnesium sulfate. The primary outcome measure was the duration of postoperative analgesia, and secondary outcomes included the number of supplemental analgesic requirements, block characteristics, and hemodynamic stability. Results The onset of sensory and motor block was delayed in the magnesium group (100 mg>50 mg). There was a significant prolongation of postoperative analgesia in the magnesium group in a dose-dependent manner, and total dose of rescue analgesic requirement was found to be significantly delayed in the 100 mg group. Patients in all groups remained hemodynamically stable without any adverse effects. Conclusion Magnesium sulfate (100 mg) as an adjuvant to bupivacaine in subarachnoid block prolongs the duration of analgesia and decreases the demand for rescue analgesics compared with the control and the magnesium sulfate 50 mg group.


In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph. "Shusaku Endo was a Japanese author born in Tokyo in 1923. He was raised by his single mother who became a fervent believer in Christianity. With her influence, Endo himself was baptized by the age of twelve. Having grown up in Japan, Endo was obviously very knowledgeable about Japanese religion and customs and most especially Japanese ideals. He claimed that "the Japanese have a traditional saying to the effect that the four most dreadful things on the earth are fire, earthquakes, thunderbolts, and fathers" (4). Obviously, as this quote illustrates, the image of a strict father is not very appealing to the Japanese; instead, according to Endo, the Japanese prefer the image of a maternal figure. This is precisely why, Endo argues, that the Christian religion is such a minority in Japan. Because God has always been depicted as a stern father in western cultures, Christianity has never caught on in Japan. So to help his Japanese audience better understand his beloved religion, Shusaku Endo wrote the novel called A Life of Jesus. To accomplish this purpose, Endo depicted God and Jesus in a very different way from which western readers are used to seeing. Because the Japanese identify more with the maternal side of things and are more "responsive to one who "suffers with [them]"", Endo decided to depict God as a caring maternal figure and Jesus as a man who had such great love that he was willing to die even for those who did not yet believe (1). In this way Endo is able to greatly bring out the humanity of Jesus. When A Life of Jesus is read with this perspective in mind, it makes a lot more sense in terms of the arguments made, the type of soft language used, and the tear jerking metaphors presented. Overall, this book serves its purpose, which is to present and in a way to "sell" Christianity to a Japanese based audience who know very little, if anything, about Jesus." This research paper is available in Verbum: http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/verbum/vol7/iss2/9


Herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) lytic infection results in global changes to the host cell proteome and the proteins associated with host chromatin. We present a system level characterization of proteome dynamics during infection by performing a multi-dimensional analysis during HSV-1 lytic infection of human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) cells. Our study includes identification and quantification of the host and viral proteomes, phosphoproteomes, chromatin bound proteomes and post-translational modifications (PTMs) on cellular histones during infection. We analyzed proteomes across six time points of virus infection (0, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 h post-infection) and clustered trends in abundance using fuzzy c-means. Globally, we accurately quantified more than 4000 proteins, 200 differently modified histone peptides and 9000 phosphorylation sites on cellular proteins. In addition, we identified 67 viral proteins and quantified 571 phosphorylation events (465 with high confidence site localization) on viral proteins, which is currently the most comprehensive map of HSV-1 phosphoproteome. We investigated chromatin bound proteins by proteomic analysis of the high-salt chromatin fraction and identified 510 proteins that were significantly different in abundance during infection. We found 53 histone marks significantly regulated during virus infection, including a steady increase of histone H3 acetylation (H3K9ac and H3K14ac). Our data provide a resource of unprecedented depth for human and viral proteome dynamics during infection. Collectively, our results indicate that the proteome composition of the chromatin of HFF cells is highly affected during HSV-1 infection, and that phosphorylation events are abundant on viral proteins. We propose that our epi-proteomics approach will prove to be important in the characterization of other model infectious systems that involve changes to chromatin composition.


This letter proposes a new burst assembly technique for supporting QoS in optical burst switching (OBS)networks. It consists of the adaptive-threshold burst assembly mechanism and QoS-based random offset-time scheme. The assembly mechanism, which is fit well to multi-class burst assembly, not only matcheswith IP QoS mechanism based on packet classification, and also utilizes fairly and efficiently assemblycapacity. Based on token-bucket model and burst segment selective discard (BSSD), the offset-time schemecan smooth the traffic to support OBS QoS. The simulation results show that the technique can improvethe performance in terms of packet loss probability (PLP).


The efficiency and aberration of partitioned-field uniaxial volume holographic compound lenses are theoretically and experimentally studied. These systems increase the image fields of holographic volume lenses, limited by the angular selectivity that is typical of these elements. At the same time, working with uniaxial systems has led to a decrease in aberration because two recording points (that behave as aberration-free points) are used. The extension of the image field is experimentally proved.


In this paper, we give a distributed solution to the problem of making a team of nonholonomic robots reach consensus about their orientations using monocular cameras. We consider a scheme where the motions of the robots are decided using nearest-neighbor rules. Each robot is equipped with a camera and can only exchange visual information with a subset of the other robots. The main contribution of this paper is a new controller that uses the epipoles that are computed from the images provided by neighboring robots, eventually reaching consensus in their orientations without the necessity of directly observing each other. In addition, the controller only requires a partial knowledge of the calibration of the cameras in order to achieve the desired configuration. We also demonstrate that the controller is robust to changes in the topology of the network and we use this robustness to propose strategies to reduce the computational load of the robots. Finally, we test our controller in simulations using a virtual environment and with real robots moving in indoor and outdoor scenarios.


Business Process Standardization (BPS) leads to organizational changes, which are often faced with employee resistance. To make BPS initia- tives successful, the 'human resource' has to be taken into consideration and with it, the job process fulfilled by them, their needs, and their work environ- ment. The objective of this research is to analyze the role of employees affected by BPS initiatives and their perceptions of their work they are doing as part of the processes to be standardized. Based on job characteristics theory and the work-role fit concept, we develop a research model theorizing the role of these concepts for the acceptance of BPS initiatives. As main theoretical contribution, this research explains how employees' job-related attitudes toward their own work and the collaborations with others determine their (non-)openness towards BPS initiatives, while it will also guide managers in incorporating the 'right' people into a BPS project.


This paper provides a brief overview of the linkages between the primary factors driving gold mining, how these interact with regional geology to concentrate impacts on specific river basins, and the primary environmental and social impacts that can erode the economic benefit delivered from gold production if it is left unmanaged. We consider these impacts in the context of operational scale and the regional differences in background hydrological conditions with a view to identifying freshwater systems that are most inherently vulnerable to the effects of mining and that thus have the greatest impact of additionality. The paper concludes by considering ways in which these impacts might be averted or mitigated through a mix of approaches aimed at normalizing mining processes, structures, and relationships through tailored, incentive-based policies and actions.


In this paper, a critical evaluation of the filter paper method is presented. The paper evaluates wetting and drying filter paper suction calibration and total and matric soil suction measurement techniques using the filter paper method. Calibration of the method was investigated by evaluating the processes of wetting and drying the filter papers through vapor transfer and of wetting and drying the filter papers through fluid transfer. Recent research shows that different calibration curves result from two different experimental measurement programs (vapor transfer, no contact method and fluid transfer, contact method) for total and matric components of suction. In this study, a filter paper wetting curve was constructed using osmotic suction potentials of sodium chloride (NaCl), ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), calcium chloride (CaCl2), and sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) salt solutions and Schleicher & Schuell No. 589-WH filter papers. Equilibrium time and temperature were two weeks and 25°C with ±0.1°C accuracy, respectively. The adopted laboratory testing protocol shows that suction measurements as low as 50 kPa can be made reliably using the wetting calibration curve obtained in this research study. The calibration curves obtained from the processes of drying the filter papers through vapor transfer (from salt solutions) and drying and wetting the filter papers through fluid transfer (pressure plate type devices) were evaluated based on recently published literature. Although there is hysteresis between the wetting curve with salt solutions and the drying curve with pressure plates, the marked differences between the curves at very low suction levels may not be explained with hysteresis.


The probability of error or, alternatively, the probability of correct classification (PCC) is an important criterion in analyzing the performance of a classifier. Labeled sample (those with ground truth) are usually employed to evaluate the performance of a classifier. Occasionally, the numbers of labeled samples are inadequate, or no labeled samples are available to evaluate a classifier's performance; for example, when crop signatures from one area from which ground truth is available are used to classify another area from which no ground truth is available. This paper reports the results of an experiment to estimate the probability of error using unlabeled test samples (i.e., without the aid of ground truth).


The design of the AskMSR question answering system is motivated by recent observations in natural language processing that for many applications, significant improvements in accuracy can be attained simply by increasing the amount of data used for learning (e.g., Banko & Brill, 2001). By taking advantage of the vast amount of online text available via the worldwide web, rather than relying on an approach that depends heavily on natural language intensive techniques, we developed a simple but effective question answering system. Many groups working on question answering use a variety of linguistic resources – part-of-speech tagging, parsing, named entiry extraction, WordNet, etc. We chose instead to focus on the tremendous resource that the web provides simply as a gigantic data repository. The web, which is home to billions of pages of electronic text, is orders of magnitude larger than the TREC QA document collection, which consists of fewer than 1 million documents.


Different technologies for tertiary wastewater treatment are compared in their environmental impacts with life cycle assessment (LCA). Targeting very low phosphorus concentration (50-120 μg/L) and seasonal disinfection of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) secondary effluent, this LCA compares high-rate sedimentation, microsieve, dual media filtration (all with UV disinfection), and polymer ultrafiltration or ceramic microfiltration membranes for upgrading the large WWTP Berlin-Ruhleben. Results of the LCA show that mean effluent quality of membranes is highest, but at the cost of high electricity and chemical demand and associated emissions of greenhouse gases or other air pollutants. In contrast, gravity-driven treatment processes require less electricity and chemicals, but can reach significant removal of phosphorus. In fact, dual media filter or microsieve cause substantially lower specific CO2 emissions per kg P removed from the secondary effluent (180 kg CO2-eq/kg P, including UV) than the membrane schemes (275 kg CO2-eq/kg P).


Testing is a software development activity, devoted to evaluating product quality and improving it by identifying defects and problems. Concerning multi agent systems, testing is a challenging task, which asks for new testing techniques dealing with their specific nature. The techniques need to be effective and adequate to evaluate agent's autonomous behaviors and build confidence in them.The "Model Based Testing" (MBT) is a technique particularly interested among  all existing  solutions  of   tests. This  latter is  based on a  system model, which produces  abstract  test cases. To run these last ones against systems under test,the abstract test cases have to be transformed to concrete ones. As part of this effort, we propose a model based testing approach for multi agent systems based on such a model called Reference net, where a tool, which aims to providing a uniform and automated approach is developed. The feasibility and the advantage of the proposed approach are shown through a short case study.


Background/aim To evaluate the utility of tuberculosis (TB) screening in diagnosing ocular TB in uveitis patients in a government-funded hospital. Methods The charts of 142 consecutive patients seen during August 2011–July 2012 at the Los Angeles County Hospital uveitis clinic were reviewed for manifestation/laterality of uveitis, purified protein derivative (PPD) test results, interferon γ release assay, chest x-ray, birthplace, treatment history and diagnosis. 'Presumed TB-uveitis' was diagnosed when patients had positive TB screening and favourable response to anti-TB therapy, and definite ocular TB when Mycobacterium tuberculosis' presence was demonstrated. Post-test probabilities were determined. Results TB screening was positive in 21.1%. Six patients were diagnosed with TB-related uveitis: one definite, four presumed and one systemic TB with uveitis. With regard to PPD positivity, being foreign-born was the only statistically significant factor with OR of 2.26 (95% CI 1.01 to 5.13; p<0.01) if born in Mexico and 4.90 (95% CI 1.74 to 13.83; p<0.01) if born in other foreign countries. The post-test probabilities of a positive PPD in a uveitis patient showed a 17.2% (overall) or 30.3% (foreign-born patients) chance of ocular TB. Conclusions PPD skin test plays an important role in the diagnosis of TB-associated uveitis in high-risk groups, such as immigrants from TB endemic regions.


The aim of the paper is to take a closer look behind the curtain of low aggregate trade union densities in retail and to outline the major obstacles and problems trade union organising faces in the retail trades. Trade union organising and recruitment is analysed against the background of a 'two hurdle model of organising' (cf. Haas 2000, Dribbusch 2003) derived from explanations on trade union membership put forward by Green (1990) and Disney (1990). Within this framework the first hurdle to be taken is the establishment of a workplace presence as a precondition for any sustainable membership development. The second hurdle is then to convince the potential members in the workplace to join i.e. the recruitment.


In contrast to its immediate neighbors, for over a century Hungary has had a seriously declining birth rate. This paper aims to provide an overview of this anomaly through a historical perspective by considering the major findings of a series of demographic studies that identify the key factors behind falling levels of fertility. It does so by focusing on four major periods. The first period covers the era prior to the demographic transition that commenced before 1880, when the demography was characterized by high birth rates and high death rates. The second period is one of demographic transition, between 1880 and 1960 coinciding with modernization, and is the period when death rates fell, while at the same time being accompanied by a decrease in birth rates. The third period is the post-transitional era of 1960-1980. The fourth covers the post-socialist change of 1990-2010. Hungary was the first country in Europe after the Second World War in which the level of fertility declined below a level of simple replacement of the population, which is less than 2.1 births per woman. Since 1981 the population has been declining by about 0.15 – 0.20 percent per year, and currently fertility in Hungary is one of the lowest in Europe. The Hungarian age structure will become increasingly problematic as the fertile age group of the population continues to shrink.


Based on criticisms of the traditional approach to the control of concrete quality which often relies entirely on 28-day compressive strength assessment, a new approach is proposed which involves monitoring quality in various ways from the time of mixing. The alternatives examined are: recording batch weights to establish W-C ratio, monitoring consistency, analyzing freshly prepared mortar or concrete mixtures to determine water content and cement content, and assessing strength potential by means of autoclave or hot-water curing. On the basis of past case histories, it is concluded that assessment of strength potential must remain the primary assurance of concrete quality, and that the other alternatives can only complement rather than substitute for strength assessment. The techniques proposed for mixture analysis and strength assessment involve testing specimens prepared from a sample of mortar extracted from the parent concrete, on the premise that just about anything that is detrimental to the quality of the concrete will manifest itself in the quality of the extracted mortar. Provided the relationship between mortar and concrete strength is established from trial mixtures or past plant records for the materials in question, it is shown that strength potential can be effectively and routinely assessed using autoclave or hot-water curing of 25 by 50 mm (1 by 2 in.) mortar cylinders, and that water content can likewise be determined from oven drying of small specimens of mortar. The problem of determining cement content with acceptable accuracy and precision is not completely solved either by the wet-sieving technique discussed herein or by any of the other available physical or chemical techniques. The techniques proposed for strength assessment and mixture analysis offer considerable potential for cost savings in concrete quality control because of the small size of the facilities needed, their consequent portability, and their relatively low capital and operating costs compared with the equivalent costs of conventional concrete testing.


: The motivations for collecting and the idiosyncrasies of physical and digital collections have been long studied. However, how they are presented in the digital space is an unresolved challenge. To help better understand this problem from a design perspective, we built Thinga.Me. Thinga.Me is a system which allows users to capture photographs of physical objects and then cut them out, place them into digital collections, and share them. By segmenting the object from the background the interface creates the illusion of a physical item, giving a sense of carrying your stuff with you in your pocket. Following two years of development, iteration and feedback, we discuss uses of the app and the implications it can have for changing the way we reflect on physical things in our lives. In particular, we focus on how digital collection are presented and displayed in a realistic way as a way of providing more meaning and helping shape users' identities. Demonstrating the importance of visual design choices, our results lead to considerations on how to most appropriately display physical objects in the virtual world, whilst avoiding the uncanniness some might experience when interacting with skeuomorphic collections.


Due to the increasing usage of cloud computing applications, it is important to minimize energy cost consumed by a data center, and simultaneously, to improve quality of service via data center management. One promising approach is to switch some servers in a data center to the idle mode for saving energy while to keep a suitable number of servers in the active mode for providing timely service. In this paper, we design both online and offline algorithms for this problem. For the offline algorithm, we formulate data center management as a cost minimization problem by considering energy cost, delay cost (to measure service quality), and switching cost (to change servers's active/idle mode). Then, we analyze certain properties of an optimal solution which lead to a dynamic programming based algorithm. Moreover, by revising the solution procedure, we successfully eliminate the recursive procedure and achieve an optimal offline algorithm with a polynomial complexity. For the online algorithm, We design it by considering the worst case scenario for future workload. In simulation, we show this online algorithm can always provide near-optimal solutions.


Mr. Chairman, I am Timothy J. Muris, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.1 I am pleased to appear today, on behalf of the Commission, to provide the Committee with information about our recently-announced amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule ("TSR" or "Rule"). In particular, you have asked about our request for authority to collect fees to offset the costs of implementing the "do-not-call" amendments to the TSR. Our testimony provides an overview of the TSR amendment process, discussion of the do-not-call provisions, and an examination of the funding request. The do-not-call registry is an important aspect of the Commission's ongoing efforts to protect consumers' privacy, and we look forward to working with this Committee to ensure its implementation in fiscal year 2003.


We have dissected the autonomously replicating sequence ARS121 using site-directed in vitro mutagenesis. Three domains important for origin function were identified; one of these is essential and contains an 11-base-pair sequence resembling the canonical ARS core consensus; the second region, deletion of which affects the efficiency of the origin, is located 3' to the T-rich strand of the essential sequence and encompasses several elements with near matches to the ARS core consensus; the third region, containing two OBF1 DNA-binding sites and located 5' to the essential sequence, also affects the efficiency of the ARS. Here we demonstrate that a synthetic OBF1 DNA-binding site can substitute for the entire third domain in origin function. A dimer of the synthetic binding site, fused to a truncated origin containing only domains one and two, restored the origin activity to the levels of the wild-type ARS. The stimulation of origin function by the synthetic binding site was relatively orientation independent and could occur at distances as far as 1 kilobase upstream to the essential domain. Based on these results we conclude that the OBF1 DNA-binding site is an enhancer of DNA replication. We suggest that the DNA-binding site and the OBF1 protein are involved in the regulation of the activation of nuclear origins of replication in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.


Cassini's successful orbit insertion has provided the first examination of Saturn's magnetosphere in 23 years, revealing a dynamic plasma and magnetic environment on short and long time scales. There has been no noticeable change in the internal magnetic field, either in its strength or its near-alignment with the rotation axis. However, the external magnetic field is different compared with past spacecraft observations. The current sheet within the magnetosphere is thinner and more extended, and we observed small diamagnetic cavities and ion cyclotron waves of types that were not reported before.


The following categories of inventions will be considered for the filing of patent applications by NASA in countries other than the United States: (a) Inventions which may be utilized abroad in governmental programs of the United States. (b) Inventions which may be exploited abroad in the public interest by license to U.S. nationals or others. (c) Inventions which may be utilized in applications type satellites, such as communications and meteorological satellites. (d) Inventions considered to be basic discoveries or of major significance in an art. (e) Inventions in fields which directly concern the public health or public welfare.


Engineering faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are participating in a middle school mathematics partnership, involving nine school districts (administrators, teachers, parents) and higher education faculty at two universities, and the Mathematics Education Collaborative (MEC). The partnership promotes inquiry-based learning curricula modeled after the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. The engineering faculty contribution to the partnership lies in the connection of mathematics to real world applications and to users of mathematics within the framework of an inquiry-based middle school mathematics classroom. The engineering faculty have surveyed many existing science and engineering based problems and activities, both to determine what is available and how our local teachers might use them. A number of resources exist that provide real world examples applicable to middle school mathematics. In some cases these activities are presented in a format that is difficult for teachers to adapt to an inquiry-based pedagogy in a mathematics classroom. Resources are also available that provide applicationoriented problems in the form of word problems. These resources provide students with a connection to real world applications in their everyday lives and are supportive of inquiry-based practices. However, our local teachers wanted students to become more engaged in the problems by discovering how the mathematics is used to help solve critical problems in applications of interest. Engineering research and development relies on mathematics and covers many areas of interest for middle school students. Although many wonderful resources are available that provide educators with a connection between engineering, science, mathematics, and real world applications, there is a need for development in support of inquiry-based engineering application tasks for the middle school mathematics classroom. In this paper, available resources for engineering applications in middle school classrooms, inquiry-based pedagogy, and the need for engineering applications supporting inquiry-based mathematics education are presented. Development of the first new application task in this effort and feedback from middle school mathematics teachers are also briefly discussed.


Children in families with mental health problems may encounter multiple risks to their well-being. General aims of peer support programmes for these children include fostering resilience and effective coping strategies, and enhancing self-esteem and social skills. This study aimed to evaluate outcomes from a pilot multi-site implementation of the ON FIRE peer support programme. The purpose of ON FIRE is to cultivate hope, resilience and well-being in children and adolescents aged 8–17 years living in families affected by sibling or parental mental health problems. We employed a pre-post test (baseline and 4 months) evaluation using a suite of outcome measures. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Children's Hope Scale, Kids Connections Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C) were completed for 64 child/adolescent participants. At baseline, participants had significantly greater difficulties compared with Australian norms. At 4 months, there were significant differences in children's hope and in connections outside the family. There were no significant differences in the SDQ or the PANAS-C.


The following is an excerpt from a new book by James G. Speth, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy (Yale University Press, 2012). Speth envisions a future America in which citizens have created a sustainable and desirable society, and lived up to our present challenges. The vision is focused on America, but the lessons are relevant for many parts of the modern world…


This paper introduces a research aiming at the development of a decision support system concerning the approval of automated railway transportation systems. The objective is to implement a valuation method for the degree of compliance of the automated transportation system in-group of safety standards by the analysis of the scenarios of accident. To reach this target, we envisaged an approach Rex (Return of experience) who draws the lessons of accidents / incidents lived and/or imagined by the experts of the analysis of security in the IFSTAAR. Our approach consists in offering a decision support in the side of the experts of the certification based on a reuse of the scenarios of accidents already validated historically on other approved transportation systems. This approach Rex is very useful since it provides to the experts a class of scenarios of accidents similar to the new case treated and getting closer to the context of new case. The Case-based reasoning is then exploited as a mode of reasoning by analogy allowing to choose and to recollect one under group of historical cases that can help in the resolution of the new case introduced by the experts. Process-Oriented Case-Based Reasoning (PO-CBR) is a growing application area in which CBR is used to address problems involving process data in a variety of specialized domains. PO-CBR systems often use structured cases. Our approach is characterized by a two-phased retrieval strategy. A first phase consists in retrieving a set of cases to be considered (a class of cases most similar to a problem to resolve). In a second phase, a more fine grained strategy is then applied to the pool of candidate cases already selected by the mean of similarity measures. This approach can enhance the process of retrieving cases compared to an exhaustive case-by-case comparison.


Based on morphological and molecular evidence, two new species of Silene are recognized and described here, S. penduliflora F.Jafari, Keshavarzi & Doostm. sp. nov. and S. thyrsiantha F.Jafari, Mirtadz. & Keshavarzi sp. nov. The newly discovered species are distributed in the central and southeastern parts of Iran, growing in rocky habitats. Relationships among these species and their close relatives are demonstrated using nrDNA ITS and cpDNA rps16 phylogenies. Silene ghahremaninejadii, S. parrowiana, and S. shahrudensis form a clade with these new species. A key to S. penduliflora and S. thyrsiantha and their close relatives is provided.


This research explored whether academic self-efficacy calibration (the match between self-efficacy beliefs and academic outcomes) in first-year psychology students (n=197) differed as a function of task type (written assignment/multiple-choice exam), domain specificity (task level/subject level), over time (mid-semester/end of semester) and according to student achievement level (high achievers/low achievers). Lower-achieving students were overconfident across both the written assignment and the exam, while higher-achieving students were accurately calibrated on both tasks. The subject-level calibration of lower-achieving students improved between mid-semester and the end of semester (though students remained overconfident). Higher-achieving students' subject-level calibration remained stable over the semester, and they were about half as overconfident as the lower-achieving students. Both groups of students were more overconfident at subject-level than at task-level overall. On the whole, overconfidence was prevalent, especially for low achievers, and at subject level. Findings suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to self-efficacy is unlikely to be beneficial for all learners.


This study investigates the nature and role of common ground in group learning of mathematics by means of the analytical constructs of focal projects and contextualization. The analysis investigates two students (12–13 years old) playing a dice game, where their task is to distribute a set of markers based on the total of two dice. The analysis shows how consistency between the students' focal projects became crucial in their progression from a uniform to a non-uniform distribution of the markers used in the game. The task system and concrete manipulatives became important in furthering the students' explorations. In the frame of a frequency context, we also discuss how a contextualization may restrict certain aspects of probability from coming into play during such explorations.


A laser-diode-array end-pumped Nd:LuVO4 crystal continuous-wave (cw) laser operating at 1.34 µm has been demonstrated. The maximum cw output power of 1.85 W was obtained at the incident pump power of 17 W for a c-cut 0.5 at. % Nd-doped LuVO4 crystal sample, giving the corresponding optical conversion efficiency of 10.88% and a slope efficiency of 13.5%. Laser experiments of Nd3+ concentration of 0.5 and 0.9 at. % a-cut crystal LuVO4 samples were also investigated; due to the strong excited-state absorption of Nd:LuVO4 at 1.34 µm, the output power was limited.


In the last three decades, China's rapid economic growth has resulted in an increase in energy consumption, air pollution and associated health effects. From 2007, the 2008 Olympic Games, the Expo 2010 and the 2010 Asian Games have been held in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou which are important megacities in China respectively. These mega-events which draw millions of local and international visitors to the host cities give these cities a chance to highlight air quality improvements in the long- and short- term. To improve the air quality during these mega-events, many emission control measures (ECMs) focusing on energy, industry, transport and construction were implemented by host cities before and during the mega-events. Satellite observations will provide unique insight into the regional air quality around host cities and air pollution transport from surrounding provinces.

In this work, we present an investigation of air quality over Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou before, during and after the Olympic Games, the Expo 2010 and the 2010 Asian Games using satellite measurements. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) is one of the new-generation European instruments carried on the MetOp satellite, which will continue the long-term atmospheric composition measurements started by GOME on ERS-2 and SCIAMACHY on Envisat. The GOME-2 ozone and minor trace gases products such as NO2, SO2 and formaldehyde (CH2O) developed at German Aerospace Center have already reached operational status, in the framework of the EUMETSAT's Satellite Application Facility on Ozone and Atmospheric Chemistry Monitoring (O3M-SAF).

GOME-2 tropospheric NO2, CH2O and SO2 products are used to study air quality of the host cities before, during, and after their respective mega-events. The effect of air pollution transport from neighboring provinces to mega-events host cities will be researched. Initial comparison with ground based measurements (in-situ) in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will be shown. Long-term NO2, SO2 and CH2O data recorded from GOME, SCIAMACHY and GOME-2 are analyzed to investigate possible trends in air pollutants and to assess the effectiveness of the controls applied by host cities in the last ten years.


Patient sustained cardiac tamponade caused by rupture of type A aortic dissection may result in sudden death. Pericardio-centesis is a lifesaving procedure; nevertheless, blood may occlude the catheter and fail to relieve the pressure. However, open-chest cardiac massage in resuscitation has been studied in animal models by some medical centers and laboratories with inspiring results. We report a 58-year-old woman who was transferred from a local hospital with the diagnosis of cardiac tamponade caused by ruptured type A aortic dissection. Pulseless electrical activity followed by cardiac arrest occurred thereafter. Successful resuscitation in the emergency department was achieved using open cardiac massage through the sub-xyphoid region by opening a pericardial window. Therefore, in unstable patients with cardiac tamponade due to aortic dissection, this resuscitative procedure is feasible, safe and efficient.


The preservation of embryogenic lines derived from several endangered local grapevine cultivars was studied. Embryogenic calluses were obtained from immature anthers of eight cultivars, sampled on both fruity-cuttings and field grown vines. Anthers at the 'separated flower' stage, derived from fruity-cuttings, resulted in an increased induction of somatic embryogenesis, compared to those derived from the field. Pro-embryogenic calluses were induced on Chee and Pool (1987) basal medium, supplemented with 9 µM of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 11.35 µM of thidiazuron (TDZ) under dark conditions. Different anther zones (filament, abaxial, adaxial, lateral zones and entire anthers) were involved in somatic embryogenesis induction. The percentages of granular and yellowish pro-embryogenic calluses ranged between 15.6% and 34.8% in 'Kahli Kerkennah' and 'Muscat Raf-raf' cultivars, respectively. Although, morphological diversifications of pro-embryogenic calluses (several necrosis and spontaneous maturation) were observed on the induction mediumafter 5 subcultures. The reduction of 2,4-D and TDZ levels to 4.52 µM and 2.89 µM respectively, induced granular and yellowish embryogenic material. Thus, Chee and Pool (1987) (CP) enriched with 4.52 µM of 2,4-D and 2.89 µM of TDZ revealed to be the most appropriate for long-term maintenance. In fact, all the cultivars presented high and regular embryo maturation rates after 12, 24, 36 and 48 months of cultivation on this medium, under light conditions. After 4 years, they still exhibit high germination and regeneration abilities. Germination of somatic embryos was achieved on Murashige and Skoog (1962) basal-medium, with rates ranging from 69% to 96%. Only 5% of somatic embryos were concerned by morphological variations. The regenerated plantlets presented a normal phenotype under controlled greenhouse conditions, compared to mother plants.


The adenosine analog, N-ethylcarboxamidoadenosine (NECA), causes transient activation of phospholipase C and an enhancement of antigen-induced secretion in a rat mast cell (RBL-2H3) line via adenosine A3-receptors (Ramkumar et al., J. Biol. Chem. 268:16887, 1993) by a mechanism that is inhibited by bacterial toxins and potentiated by dexamethasone (Ali et al., J. Biol. Chem. 265:745-753, 1990). Here we show that NECA synergizes the secretory response to Ca(2+)-ionophore as well as to antigen. The ability of NECA to synergize the secretory responses persisted for 10 to 20 min, long after the early phospholipase C-mediated reactions to NECA had subsided. NECA caused, however, a dose-dependent sustained activation of phospholipase D, as indicated by the formation of [3H]phosphatidic acid, or in the presence of 0.3% ethanol, [3H]phosphatidylethanol. This activation was associated with a sustained increase in diglycerides, in protein kinase C activity and in the phosphorylation of myosin light chains by protein kinase C. The generation of diglycerides was enhanced in dexamethasone-treated cells and suppressed in cells that had been treated with cholera toxin or pertussis toxin. Collectively, the studies suggested that the generation of diglycerides via phospholipase D and the associated activation of protein kinase C were, by themselves, insufficient signals for secretion in RBL-2H3 cells, but that these reactions synergized responses to stimulants such as antigen or A23187 that caused substantial increases in [Ca2+]i.


In spite of its impressive development at the level of treaty law and soft law, international environmental law remains a weak and under-developed body of law. This is due especially to the persistent institutional "deficit" and lack of compulsory dispute settlement mechanisms that hamper effective monitoring and implementation of environmental standards. To overcome these limits, in a perspective that avoids wishful thinking, such as the project of an "international court for the environment", and the hard realism of an unfettered sovereignty over the natural resources, this paper argues for a "realistic utopia" that recoups the original idea of the natural environment as a "common good". Congruent with this idea is the re-discovery of the category of erga omnes obligations to be administered in the interest of the international community as a whole. At the normative level, this entails a re-conceptualisation of "sovereignty" in terms of responsible exercise of state powers over natural resources located in the national territory and over activities capable of impacting on the global environment, so as to make such exercise responsive and functional to the achievement of the goal of conserving the quality of the environment that sustain our life. At the institutional level this approach invites two responses: rejection of the need for reform of global institutions and reliance instead on market mechanisms of self-regulation and transnational private enforcement; or a search for reform of the institutional system of environmental governance in view of creating effective multilateral institutions that can mirror what has been done in other areas of international law, such as trade, investments and human rights. This paper argues that the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. They should be complementary because the first one can hardly work without the other.


Following the notion of deliberative democracy, political decisions are legitimized when they are based on debate that permits the circulation of information, stances, arguments, and ideas to create mutual understanding. We investigate to what extent political parties and the mass media in political campaign communication follow qualitative principles demanded by the public sphere concept. We introduce and test the index of a quality of understanding (IQU). We define four indicators for deliberation quality: statement of reasons, proposals for solutions, respect, and doubts. In the empirical part, we examine political parties' press releases and newspaper coverage of the Austrian national elections in 1970, 1983, 1999, and 2008.


We investigate the problem of estimating the average reward of given decision policies in discrete-time controllable dynamical systems with finite action and observation sets, but possibly infinite state space. Unlike in systems with finite state spaces, in infinite‐state systems the expected reward for some policies might not exist, so policy evaluation, which is a key step in optimal control methods, might fail. Our main analysis tool is Ergodic theory, which allows learning potentially useful quantities from the system without building a model. Our main contribution is three-fold. First, we present several dynamical systems that demonstrate the difficulty of learning in the general case, without making additional assumptions. We state the necessary condition that the underlying system must satisfy to be amenable for learning. Second, we discuss the relationship between this condition and state-ofthe-art predictive representations, and we show that there are systems that satisfy the above condition but cannot be modeled by such representations. Third, we establish sufficient conditions for average-reward policy evaluation in this setting.