The ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex is the essential transcription-replication machinery of the influenza virus. It is composed of the trimeric polymerase (PA, PB1 and PB2), nucleoprotein (NP) and RNA. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of RNP assembly is central to our understanding of the control of viral transcription and replication and the dependence of these processes on the host cell. In this report, we show, by RNP reconstitution assays and co-immunoprecipitation, that the interaction between NP and polymerase is crucial for the function of the RNP. The functional association of NP and polymerase involves the C-terminal '627' domain of PB2 and it requires NP arginine-150 and either lysine-627 or arginine-630 of PB2. Using surface plasmon resonance, we demonstrate that the interaction between NP and PB2 takes place without the involvement of RNA. At 33, 37 and 41°C in mammalian cells, more positive charges at aa. 627 and 630 of PB2 lead to stronger NP-polymerase interaction, which directly correlates with the higher RNP activity. In conclusion, our study provides new information on the NP-PB2 interaction and shows that the strength of NP-polymerase interaction and the resulting RNP activity are promoted by the positive charges at aa. 627 and 630 of PB2.


Device classification is important in many applications such as industrial quality control, through-wall imaging and network security. A novel approach has been proposed to use a digital noise radar (DNR) to actively interrogate microwave devices and classify defective units using 'radio frequency distinct native attribute (RF-DNA)' fingerprinting and various classifier algorithms. RF-DNA has previously demonstrated 'serial number' discrimination of numerous passive radio frequency signals, achieving classification accuracies above 80% using multiple discriminant analysis/maximum likelihood (MDA/ML) and generalised relevance learning vector quantisation-improved (GRLVQI) classifiers. It has also demonstrated above 80% classification of limited active interrogation responses with a DNR signal using these classifiers. The performance capabilities of the two different classifiers, MDA/ML and GRLVQI, on RF-DNA fingerprints produced from the ultra-wideband noise radar correlation response is expanded.


Botanical art and illustration, presented alongside scientific descriptions, were at the heart of Jewish national projects during the British Mandate in Palestine-Israel and following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Looking back, we recognised three prominent women artists who contributed widely to many such botanical projects: Ruth Koppel, Esther Huber and Bracha Avigad. This study aims to investigate the plant images these three artists have created. We will do so by using the approach of visual anthropology while focusing on two main aspects: the connection between botanical illustration and national identity, and the link between botanical art and gender. This study is the first to demonstrate that botanical art in Israeli culture has been gendered, with women doing most of the work, in agreement with findings from Western culture.


This paper presents a successful demonstration of application of neural networks to perform various data mining functions on an RB211 gas-turbine-driven compressor station. Radial basis function networks were optimized and were capable of performing the following functions: (a) backup of critical parameters, (b) detection of sensor faults, (c) prediction of complete engine operating health with few variables, and (d) estimation of parameters that cannot be measured. A Kohonen SOM technique has also been applied to recognize the correctness and validity of any data once the network is trained on a good set of data. This was achieved by examining the activation levels of the winning unit on the output layer of the network. Additionally, it would also be possible to determine the suspicious, faulty or corrupted parameter(s) in the cases which are not recognized by the network by simply examining the activation levels of the input neurons.


This paper presents the result of the analysis of the data gathered from 20 Role Models (RM) case studies regarding their successful heritage-led rural regeneration models. For the study and comparison of the narratives of these Role Models two tools were used: the Community Capitals Framework, which studied the transference of capitals in each process and the identification of six Systemic Innovation Areas that allow this capital transference. A multilevel repository of best practices has been developed allowing the identification of common features, mechanisms for mobilisation of capitals and required resources that will facilitate the replication in other rural areas. The results of this work support the acknowledgement of the contribution of culture, together with cultural and natural heritage, to economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in rural areas reinforcing the role of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development.


This paper is result of a research Project PCI funded by AECID between University Carlos III of Madrid and University Cheikh Anta Diop. Our aim is to design and edit an e-learning platform characterized by a user inter - face adapted to the cultural heritage of Senegalese immigrant communities living in Madrid. This project, implemented by the NGO "Casa de Senegal" was developed using a qualitative methodology of participant observation and interviews with teachers and students of this center. As a result it has been devel - oped a map of icons typical of Wolof culture for use in representing the commands in the e-learning platform: e-Senegalaise. Platform created specifi - cally to provide a web environment for contextual learning in a Senegalese immigrant community. As a result it was found that Senegalese immigrants had digital and media skills enough to be able to act autonomously if possessed of a platform for media literacy. However, its competences are limited when try access to basic local news as strategy for his social integration. Local news such as training courses or social grants. A second conclusion is that access to local media plays an essential role for them as a factor of social inclusion as we find a greater integration between those with predominant local information.


Commitment and creativity in science are not merely a function of an individual's competence or excellence, but are a product of the social environment as well. Acceptance and recognition from significant other people (one's peers and other professionals), and opportunities for stimulating and challenging interaction are essential for developing a strong occupational or professional identiy, and for creating the inner sense of role competence which can lead to greater commitment and productivity in professional work. Unfortunately women, especially those who have experienced interrupted or discontinuous careers, find such opportunities and acceptance difficult to obtain.


Swim faster, stronger, and more efficiently. Whether you are a dedicated open-water swimmer or a triathlete looking to conquer the sport's most challenging event, Open Water Swimming is your complete guide to improving your performance and decreasing your time.
 In Open Water Swimming, renowned marathon swimmer, coach, and commentator Steven Munatones shares his insights and expertise on preparing, training, and competing in open-water events. From triathlon to marathon and all distances in between, you'll learn these tactics:
 • Refine your freestyle stroke to improve power, speed, effectiveness, and navigational IQ.
 • Pace yourself, and conserve energy, for faster finishes.
 • Train for every event with conditioning programs for short, Olympic, marathon, and triathlon distances.
 • Shave seconds off your time with professional tactics for starts, turns, feedings, transitions, and finishes.
 • Incorporate the racing strategies of the most successful swimmers in the sport.
 • Prepare physically and psychologically for the demands of competition.
 From the art of efficient pack swimming to the best dryland and pool workouts for improving endurance, strength, and power, Open Water Swimming covers it all. Read it, refer to it, and rely on it for improved results and faster times!


Hormone replacement medicine such as traditional Chinese medicine has proven to be effective in decreasing the risk of osteoporosis. Mongolian medicine echinops prevents osteoporosis, but its mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we explored the mechanism underlying echinops prevents and treats postmenopausal osteoporosis. Osteoporosis model was established by ovariectomy in rats. Rats were treated to Echinops (16.26, 32.5, or 65 mg/kg/day) by oral gavage for 3 months. Bone mineral density (BMD) was detected by micro-CT detection of left proximal medial metaphyseal tibia. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and toluidine blue O staining were also performed. Serum levels of E2, ALP and testosterone were examined. Bone marrow-derived bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) were isolated and treated with echinops-containing serum. Estrogen receptors (ER) including ERα and ERβ in bone specimens and BMSCs were detected by qRT-PCR. Cell viability and colon formation of BMSCs were detected. Expressions of ERα, ERβ, AKT, p-AKT, ERK, and p-ERK in BMSCs were detected by western blot. Results showed that echinops significantly increased trabecular interconnectivity, thickness of trabeculae, and connection of trabecula. Echinops significantly increased BMD and E2, but significantly reduced ALP and testosterone in dose-dependent manners. Echinops induced ERα and ERβ in both bone specimens and BMSCs. Echinops enhanced cell viability and ability of colony formation of BMSCs, and increased ERα, ERβ, p-AKT, and p-ERK. Thus, Mongolian echinops reduced bone loss and delayed the occurrence and development of osteoporosis, and increased ERα, ERβ, p-AKT, and P-ERK in BMSCs. These results provide experimental basis for clinical prevention and treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis by echniops.


Background: Rare cases of vasculitis restricted to the lower limbs have been reported, but the characteristics, outcome and response to treatment of this entity are not well known. Objective: To describe the clinical, complementary examinations and response to treatment of this rare entity in the first retrospective series, and to compare data with historical pooled cases. Methods: Retrospective analysis of all biopsy-proven cases observed over a 10-year period in four French tertiary medical units. Diagnosis of vasculitis restricted to the lower limb required the absence of any clinical symptom and complementary test finding, suggesting major extramuscular visceral involvement. Results: 11 patients were included. Vasculitis restricted to the lower limb was associated with disabling muscle pain of the calves. Fever was present in 50% of cases; ankle arthralgia in 50% and skin involvement in 40%. MRI was the cornerstone of the diagnosis, showing hyperintense signal in T2 weight and in T1 weight after gadolinium injection. MRI findings correlated well with clinical outcome and were useful in guiding biopsy. Muscle biopsy was consistent with a polyarteritis nodosa-type vasculitis in only 40% cases, whereas a leucocytoclastic vasculitis was seen for all other cases. Treatment with corticosteroids was effective in all cases, but there were relapses requiring immunosuppressive agents in 54% of cases. Conclusion: Vasculitis of the calf muscles must be considered for patients with calf pain and with a biological inflammatory syndrome.


Social media are considered useful tools for academic purposes. Our exploratory study offers insight into the use of Twitter by social work faculty in the USA. Employing an online survey, this study investigates Twitter usage among a sample of social work faculty (n 1⁄4 274) from the top-fifty-ranked MSW programmes in the USA. Slightly more than half of the participants had Twitter accounts, the majority of whom use Twitter as part of their academic work. The most common motivations for using Twitter include promoting one's research, raising awareness about an area of research and engaging in networking with peers. This study contributes to the literature by describing the prevalence and patterns of Twitter usage among social work academics and lays a foundation for future research, investigating its effectiveness in increasing awareness and promoting changes related to social justice issues.


Entity resolution, the task of automatically determining which mentions refer to the same real-world entity, is a crucial aspect of knowledge base construction and management. However, performing entity resolution at large scales is challenging because (1) the inference algorithms must cope with unavoidable system scalability issues and (2) the search space grows exponentially in the number of mentions. Current conventional wisdom has been that performing coreference at these scales requires decomposing the problem by first solving the simpler task of entity-linking (matching a set of mentions to a known set of KB entities), and then performing entity discovery as a post-processing step (to identify new entities not present in the KB). However, we argue that this traditional approach is harmful to both entity-linking and overall coreference accuracy. Therefore, we embrace the challenge of jointly modeling entity-linking and entity-discovery as a single entity resolution problem. In order to make progress towards scalability we (1) present a model that reasons over compact hierarchical entity representations, and (2) propose a novel distributed inference architecture that does not suffer from the synchronicity bottleneck which is inherent in map-reduce architectures. We demonstrate that more test-time data actually improves the accuracy of coreference, and show that joint coreference is substantially more accurate than traditional entity-linking, reducing error by 75%.


Background Identification of genes that modulate longevity is a major focus of aging-related research and an area of intense public interest. In addition to facilitating an improved understanding of the basic mechanisms of aging, such genes represent potential targets for therapeutic intervention in multiple age-associated diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders. To date, however, targeted efforts at identifying longevity-associated genes have been limited by a lack of predictive power, and useful algorithms for candidate gene-identification have also been lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings We have utilized a shortest-path network analysis to identify novel genes that modulate longevity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Based on a set of previously reported genes associated with increased life span, we applied a shortest-path network algorithm to a pre-existing protein–protein interaction dataset in order to construct a shortest-path longevity network. To validate this network, the replicative aging potential of 88 single-gene deletion strains corresponding to predicted components of the shortest-path longevity network was determined. Here we report that the single-gene deletion strains identified by our shortest-path longevity analysis are significantly enriched for mutations conferring either increased or decreased replicative life span, relative to a randomly selected set of 564 single-gene deletion strains or to the current data set available for the entire haploid deletion collection. Further, we report the identification of previously unknown longevity genes, several of which function in a conserved longevity pathway believed to mediate life span extension in response to dietary restriction. Conclusions/Significance This work demonstrates that shortest-path network analysis is a useful approach toward identifying genetic determinants of longevity and represents the first application of network analysis of aging to be extensively validated in a biological system. The novel longevity genes identified in this study are likely to yield further insight into the molecular mechanisms of aging and age-associated disease.


Information technology systems are traditionally designed to impose structure on processes, while innovation activities require a tolerance for ambiguity and failure and the flexibility to redefine goals when opportunities or roadblocks arise. Yet the potential of information systems to improve the innovation process is too great to dismiss them out of hand. Undertaking research to learn how leading innovators have used IT to make their innovation activities more effective and efficient, the authors found that companies require three things in order to do so. First, they need specific IT-enabled organizational capabilities, which are formed by combining the IT assets with non-IT assets to enable the across-the-board processes essential to developing and applying innovations. Second, companies need a strong set of IT-based tools to effectively sustain the central activities required for innovation and to support the analytical work that innovators need to transfer ideas into products, processes and services. Third, companies need a system of control that allows workers to access and use the IT resources effectively. The authors' research provides numerous lessons for organization's innovation leaders, IT managers and top leadership – particularly the CEO.


Cold Central Plant Recycling (CCPR) has been used by many state highway agencies to save material, money, time, and energy in pavement construction and rehabilitation. The objectives of this thesis were to: (1) perform an instrumented verification analysis, (2) evaluate the response and performance of two pavement configurations with a CCPR base layer through accelerated pavement testing (APT), and (3) construct models using mechanistic-empirical pavement design software for comparison with the APT results. The pavement configurations featured a 5-inch CCPR mixture with either a 3-inch or 1.5-inch SM-9.5D surface mixture. Each section was instrumented with strain gauges, pressure cells, and thermocouples. A heavy vehicle simulator (HVS) was used to load three replicate test sections in each lane, with the temperature controlled at 39°C at a depth of 1.5 inches. Results from the instrument verification analysis showed that the strain gauges and pressure cells used in the experiment recorded pavement responses with a high degree of repeatability. In addition, the loading condition variables (speed, wheel load, and tire inflation pressure) affected the response following the expected trends and did not affect the repeatability of the instruments. The average CV of all strain gauge and pressure cell signals was approximately 0.009 or 0.9%, and 0.004 or 0.4%, respectively. In terms of the rutting comparison, the sections with the 3-inch surface layer outperformed the sections with the thinner 1.5-inch surface layer. However, the age of the pavement at the start of testing significantly affected the rutting performance. After adjusting for the pavement age at the time of testing, the section with the thicker surface showed approximately half of the rutting of the section with the thinner surface. The results from preliminary ME Design analysis indicate that the software cannot model the studied APT sections using the default material properties and calibration factors available at the time of analysis. In particular, the software does not seem to be prepared to model the CCPR materials. Performance Analysis and Modeling of Pavements with a Cold Central Plant Recycled Base under Accelerated Loading Testing


Allozyme variation was characterised by starch gel electrophoresis at 23 enzyme coding loci and one regulatory locus in Atlantic salmon from 53 rivers in Eastern Canada, encompassing the majority of the species' North American range. Variation among rivers was highly heterogeneous and eight of the 15 polymorphisms showed regionally restricted distributions. Nearest neighbour joining (NJ) analysis and multi-dimensional scaling suggest six distinct regional groups; Labrador/Ungava, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Newfoundland (excluding Gulf rivers), the Atlantic shore/Southern Uplands of Nova Scotia, the inner Bay of Fundy, and the outer Bay of Fundy. Approximately 25% of observed genetic variation was distributed among these regions with a weak though significant overall correlation of genetic and geographic distance (Mantel Test, r = 0.255, P = 0.005). Collectively, the rivers showed consistent divergence from European populations with strong bootstrap support for the two clusters across loci in the NJ analysis. Mean heterozygosity was 0.061 for both continental groups, but the European population showed more than twice the variation among populations. F ST values were 0.076 and 0.176 for North America and Europe, respectively, with an overall F ST of 0.330.


Visual markers are graphic symbols designed to be easily recognised by machines. They are traditionally used to track goods, but there is increasing interest in their application to mobile HCI. By scanning a visual marker through a camera phone users can retrieve localised information and access mobile services. One missed opportunity in current visual marker systems is that the markers themselves cannot be visually designed, they are not expressive to humans, and thus fail to convey information before being scanned. This paper provides an overview of d-touch, an open source system that allows users to create their own markers, controlling their aesthetic qualities. The system runs in real-time on mobile phones and desktop computers. To increase computational efficiency d-touch imposes constraints on the design of the markers in terms of the relationship of dark and light regions in the symbols. We report a user study in which pairs of novice users generated between 3 and 27 valid and expressive markers within one hour of being introduced to the system, demonstrating its flexibility and ease of use.


Cyclosporin is a cyclic undecapeptide useful as drug for organ transplantation due to its immunosuppressive properties. Ten years ago, an anti-viral activity was discovered, incompatible with immunosuppression. These two activities originate in the presence of two receptors, i.e. cyclophiline A, which interferes in two processes and calcineurine, regulating immunosuppression. Consequently, the synthesis of modified analogues at different positions represents a research domain of high importance for elucidating structure-activity relationships of these receptors. Position 2 of cyclosporin is in close contact to cyclophiline and, consequently, of particular interest. cyclosporin C (CsC) differs from the well-known immunosuppressive analogue cyclosporin A (CsA) by the presence of a trifunctional amino acid at position 2, i.e. a threonine residue replacing 2-amino butyric acid (Abu2) in CsA. While the biological and pharmacokinetic properties of CsC and CsA are very similar, the presence of the threonine makes CsC a most attractive candidate for structure-activity relationship studies in applying the pseudo-proline concept (ΨPro) developed in the group of Prof. M. Mutter. The advantage of this concept relies in the direct incorporation of the pseudoproline moiety into CsC by cyclocondensation of ketals with yields reaching up to 60%, depending on the substituents R1 et R2 (figure 1). Figure 1: Direct insertion of the pseudo-proline system into CsC NMR analysis showed that monosubstitutions at C2 strongly effect the conformational properties. For example, unique conformations were found in weakly polar (CDCl3) and polar solvents (DMSO), depending on R1/R2. In contrast, the simultaneous presence of R1 and R2 result in intermediate effects. The drastic conformational impact on the Cs backbone by the invertion of ΨPro-systems is manifested by the loss of biological activity. Based on these results, the ΨPro concept was applied for the synthesis of so-called soft prodrugs of CsC. As prototype, a derivative containing a phosphate group (R1 = 3,5-Dimethoxy-4-phosphonooxyphenyle; R2 = H) improved the water solubility of cyclosporin by a factor higher than 500. The developed strategies can be applied to any peptide featuring a threonine or serine in its primary sequence, paving the way to a new class of prodrugs. With the goal to obtain analogues of higher receptor selectivity, the second part of the thesis focuses on the modification of position 8 of cyclosporin. Most notably, located in the effector domain of calcineurin, modifications of residue D-Ala8 should prevent the binding of the dimeric complex Cs-cyclophiline A to calcineurin, a prerequisite for antiviral and non-immunosuppressive activity. Based on experiments on the alkylation of CsA at D-NAla8, a selective ring-opening procedure of CsA between residues Ala7 and D-Ala8 was elaborated in three major steps: Selective alkylation of the nitrogen of D-Ala8 in 43% yield (5 steps), N —> O acyl transfer of Ala7 (>70%) and a solvolysis followed by Edman degradation to the linear decapeptide in 24.5% yield. Starting from CsA, the linear decapeptide was obtained on 10.5% overall yield for 10 steps (figure 2). Figure 2: Retrosynthesis of the 7-8 ring-opening of CsA While the reported ring opening procedures allow the study of the influence of modifications on positions 11 to 5 of Cs, the elaborated strategy gives access to the efficient modification of key position 8, opening interesting perspectives for structureactivity relationship studies of high therapeutical potential.


Relative age advantages for the relatively oldest – those born closer to, but following a sport-imposed cut-off date – are well documented among youth sport participants (e.g., representation on higher level teams, etc.). Yet, a variety of benefits attributed to 'advantage reversals' (McCarthy et al., 2016) have been observed among relatively younger athletes at professional levels. Proposed mechanisms include enhanced physical and/or psychological skill developmental to overcome the disadvantages of being relatively younger in one's cohort. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore an association between positive youth development (PYD) and relative age in a post-adolescent, athlete sample. The Developmental Assets Profile (Search Institute, 2004) was distributed to female soccer players in a one-year cohort from Ontario, Canada (~age 17 years). Responses were coded for relative age by half year based on the age-group cut-off employed by Ontario Soccer (i.e., December 31st). The presence of differences between groups of relatively older (H1; n = 64) and younger (H2; n = 57) participants and the developmental asset scales was assessed by using a one-factor, between-subjects MANOVA (p < .01); followed by a discriminant analysis for descriptive purposes. Findings suggest that two internal asset categories contributed to group separation: commitment to learning (.402) and positive values (.366). These findings provide preliminary, albeit cautious, support that 'advantage reversals' may be in part associated with enhanced PYD resulting from developmental sport experiences. Detailed research with larger, more diverse samples is needed. Future research avenues are discussed.Acknowledgments: Support was received through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship (K. Smith).


The `equation-free toolbox' empowers the computer-assisted analysis of complex, multiscale systems. Its aim is to enable you to immediately use microscopic simulators to perform macro-scale system level tasks and analysis, because micro-scale simulations are often the best available description of a system. The methodology bypasses the derivation of macroscopic evolution equations by computing the micro-scale simulator only over short bursts in time on small patches in space, with bursts and patches well-separated in time and space respectively. We introduce the suite of coded equation-free functions in an accessible way, link to more detailed descriptions, discuss their mathematical support, and introduce a novel and efficient algorithm for Projective Integration. Some facets of toolbox development of equation-free functions are then detailed. Download the toolbox functions (this https URL) and use to empower efficient and accurate simulation in a wide range of your science and engineering problems.


Introduction Adults with congenital heart disease have a high burden of arrhythmias related to the underlying substrate, and the consequences of palliation. The NORPAP ACHD database, established in 1993, contains 2587 patients in 2 non-surgical centres. Methodology Patients with documented arrhythmias were extracted from the NORPAP database and analysed for demographics, underlying condition, surgical intervention, rhythm, and electrophysiological (EP) procedures between 1993 and 2015. Results 13.6% of patients (353/2587) had documented arrhythmia, mean age 51 years, 50% male, prior surgical intervention in 77.9%. Atrial tachyarrhythmias predominate: Atrial Fibrillation (AF) 35.6%, Atrial Flutter (AFL) 24.3%, Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) 19.5% and Atrial Tachycardia (AT) 8.2%. It was common for patients to experience more than one episode and type of arrhythmia. High grade AV Block in 8.5%, Sinus Node Dysfunction 3.4%. Ventricular Tachycardia (VT) 9.9%, Ventricular Fibrillation 0.6%. 32% of patients with arrhythmias had EP procedures, 82.4% had prior surgical intervention. Of the total, 88 had RF Ablation; 18% required repeat procedures. Underlying condition was diverse (21 conditions): Secundum ASD 19/88 (21.6%), Fallot's Tetralogy 19/88 (21.6%), and Ebstein's anomaly 9/88 (10.2%) were the most common. Conclusions Whilst arrhythmias are most common in Secundum ASD, complex ACHD (ccTGA, complex congenital, TGA and Ebstein's anomaly) have a disproportionately high arrhythmia burden. 10% increase in EP procedures noted compared to our 2006 study. This is appropriate for to avoid recurrent admissions and long term anti-arrhythmics. Complex anatomy, challenging venous access and scar related re-entry tachycardias underline the need to expand the subspecialist EP-CHD capacity internationally.


Change impact analysis aims at identifying software artefacts that are being affected by a change. It helps developers to assess their change efforts and perform more adequate changes. Several approaches have been proposed to aid in impact analysis. However, to the best of our knowledge, none of these approaches have been used to study the scope of changes in a program. We present a metaphor inspired by seismology and propose a mapping between the concepts of seismology and change propagation, to study the scope of change propagation. We perform three case studies on Pooka, Rhino, and Xerces-J to observe change propagation. We use ANOVA and Duncan statistical tests to assess the statistically significance of our observations, which show that changes propagate to a limited scope.


Neutrality plays a central role in the literature on international taxation. In its most prevalent form, the concept of neutrality posits that in order to maximize aggregate global welfare, capital needs to flow to where it would produce the highest pretax return. The thesis of this Article is that neutrality is ordinarily inapplicable in the field of international taxation. When considering neutrality in the international arena, the problem that one encounters is that the term "international taxation�? is commonly used to describe a number of very different types of tax regimes (what the Article refers to as "intranational taxation,�? "supranational taxation,�? and "inter-jurisdictional taxation�?). Although the literature tends not to distinguish among them, the different types of international tax regimes are conceptually distinct and require radically dissimilar guiding principles. The Article argues that neutrality is an appropriate principle with regard to only one type of international taxation: a hypothetical non-Pigouvian supranational tax. With regard to intranational taxation, neutrality has no role to play, as a rational country will exploit its tax system to promote the welfare of its own constituents without regard to which investments it would have attracted in a no-tax world. With regard to a hypothetical Pigouvian supranational tax and in particular with regard to the much-scrutinized field of inter-jurisdictional taxation, neutrality is irrelevant, as here it is the after-tax return and not the pretax return that is determinative of allocative efficiency. Promoting neutrality would undermine the very goals that the principle of neutrality purports to serve. The Article concludes by noting that the current discourse with regard to international taxation is fraught with conceptual confusion. First, there is a tendency to rely upon concepts that were developed within the context of domestic taxation without a thorough examination of their applicability to the international arena. Second, there is a tendency to lump together a number of very distinct types of tax regimes under the overbroad category of "international taxation,�? and to ignore the fact that due to the fundamental dissimilarities among them, the principles of tax theory relevant to each will also be different.


The East German town of Hoyerswerda, with its ten huge complexes of prefabricated slab-construction housing, was once the GDR's showcase metropolis, exemplifying the socialist model of a modern, progressive city. In today's Germany Hoyerswerda has become a symbol of radical social and urban-developmental changes. Once the GDR town with the largest number of children, who decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall Hoyerswerda has becomeis the fastest-shrinking city in Germany. As a result, the city has experienced fundamental alterations and de-urbanisation. The photographs by Stefan Boness provide not only an intimate portrait of this post-socialist urban landscape. They also serve as a symbol for the radical social transformations at the beginning oft he twenty-first century that can be observed across many regions of Europe and the United States of America.


Open government is definitely not a new concept. For almost a decade, countries around the world have been implementing open government initiatives as a way to increase transparency, improved accountability, fight corruption, or foster economic development. However, there is still no consensus about the constitutive dimensions of open government and how they are perceived by public managers in different contexts. Based on a systematic literature review and a survey administered to Spanish local governments, this paper discusses the concept of Open Government (OG) and its dimensions. According to our results, public managers working on OG initiatives perceive OG through three different lenses: a) democratic values of co-responsibility, b) technological innovation, and c) availability and access to information. This new categorization of OG perspectives provides a valuable contribution to the scientific debate about what OG is and how this new public management strategy is perceived by local government managers.


Abstract Purpose The aim was to investigate and compare the prevalence of symptoms of depression throughout pregnancy and postpartum among women who at the first pregnancy consultation had (1) record of mental disease, (2) self-reported psychological difficulties but no record of mental disease, or (3) no mental vulnerability. Materials and methods Prospective cohort study. An electronic questionnaire containing the Major Depression Inventory (MDI) was e-mailed to 1494 pregnant women after the first, second and third prenatal care consultation and eight weeks postpartum. High depression score was considered present with MDI scores of 21 or more. Information on sociodemographic, somatic comorbidities and previous psychiatric disorders was collected. We used logistic regression to estimate odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Results The overall prevalence of symptoms of depression (MDI ≥ 21) dropped throughout pregnancy. At the first prenatal care consultation the prevalence was 15.3%, 10.7% in the second trimester, 9.3% in the third trimester and 5.6% postpartum. Logistic regression showed increased risk of symptoms of depression throughout pregnancy and postpartum for both women with mental disease and psychological difficulties. For each outcome, the increase in odds for the psychological difficulties group was about one third of the increase in odds for the mental illness group. Conclusions Self-reported psychological difficulties may indicate higher odds of depressive symptoms. The healthcare staff meeting the pregnant women in early pregnancy have a good opportunity to identify this subgroup of vulnerable women by means of the Pregnancy Health Records and additional questions exploring women's experiences with previous psychological difficulties.


This paper investigates a novel type of optical fiber which is composed of three portions: the core, inner cladding, and outer cladding. It is assumed that the core has the largest refractive index of the three, and the outer cladding index is the next largest. When the index difference between the core and the inner cladding is much larger than that between the outer cladding and the inner, the new fiber has a stronger confinement property than a usual singly clad fiber in the single-mode region. It is also assumed that the inner-cladding thickness is larger than or comparable with the core radius. This confinement is the origin of the following three properties of potential importance in single-mode optical communication. 1) As compared with a singly clad fiber, the largest core area for single-mode operation is roughly twice. 2) The group delay arising from waveguide characteristics has an opposite sign against that of typical glass dispersion. (Singly clad fiber has a dispersion of the same sign.) 3) The field is much more tightly confined within the core as compared with a singly clad fiber. This minimizes extra attenuation due to absorption in the cladding.


approved: ______________________________________________________ Christopher Scaffidi Software maintenance tasks often require finding information within existing code, which is time-consuming and difficult even for professional programmers [1,55]. For example, programmers may need to know what code implements certain functionality or what is the purpose of certain code [3,2]. In response, researchers have developed tools to help programmers find information during programming tasks [5,6,7,8]. The empirical success of these tools can be explained by Information Foraging Theory (IFT) [9], which predicts how people will seek information by navigating through virtual patches in an information system. In the case of programming, these patches are often chunks of code (e.g., functions), with navigable links for moving among methods. IFT predicts people will perceive cues (such as words or symbols) associated with navigable links, select links that seem relevant to their information needs, and attempt to obtain the needed information by maximizing the rate of information gained relative to the cost of navigating and understanding patches. Many existing tools accelerate foraging by decreasing the cost associated with navigating from one patch to another. IFT suggests that the visual weight of the information features in a patch can have a strong effect on a predator's foraging choices and, consequently, on how well the predator succeeds in maximizing the rate of information gain. In an ideal situation, visual weight will efficiently lead the predator to the needed information; on the other hand, if visual weight leads the predator astray, then this could lead the predator to process more patches than necessary (increasing cost and reducing the rate of information gain). Therefore, it is anticipated that increasing the relative weight of important information features with respect to unimportant information features will aid an end-user programmer's foraging effort. Towards this end, two prototypes were implemented: each of these uses an existing algorithm [10] to identify the most important lines of code in a function. One prototype increases the relative weight of important information features by highlighting important lines of code; the other prototype decreases the relative weight of unimportant information features by hiding unimportant lines of code. This research's focus is end-user programmers, who have received minimal attention in prior work. An empirical study evaluated the effectiveness of the prototypes relative to the baseline (no information feature modification). These results indicate that increasing the relative weight of important information features by highlighting important statements had a significant effect on the amount of information foraged and the rate of information gained; on the other hand, decreasing the relative weight of unimportant information features by hiding unimportant statements had a significant effect on the rate of information gained, but not on the amount of information foraged. Neither approaches seemed to have any effect on the amount of time spent on information foraging or patch-to-patch navigation.


Sentence embedding is an effective feature representation for most deep learning-based NLP tasks. One prevailing line of methods is using recursive latent tree-structured networks to embed sentences with task-specific structures. However, existing models have no explicit mechanism to emphasize taskinformative words in the tree structure. To this end, we propose an Attentive Recursive Tree model (AR-Tree), where the words are dynamically located according to their importance in the task. Specifically, we construct the latent tree for a sentence in a proposed important-first strategy, and place more attentive words nearer to the root; thus, AR-Tree can inherently emphasize important words during the bottomup composition of the sentence embedding. We propose an end-to-end reinforced training strategy for AR-Tree, which is demonstrated to consistently outperform, or be at least comparable to, the state-of-the-art sentence embedding methods on three sentence understanding tasks.


The Messeturm ("Trade Fair Tower") in Frankfurt/Main is currently adjusted to the requirements of a modern office building. The lobby area has been enlarged by a highly transparent facade consisting of oversized insulating glass (IG) units. The IG units are curved and have a size of up to 17 m x 2.8 m. To obtain a perfectly curved facade, the IG units were fabricated with laminated cold-bended glass panes. Horizontally the IG units are supported by tapered stainless steel fins. Inclined steel beams connect the top of the facade fins with the tower structure creating a rounded roof. The vertical facade with its glass roof allows maximum transparency for people inside the lobby as well as for people passing by outside to the nearby trade fair grounds. The glass was fabricated by sedak. The facade was installed by seele on behalf of the owner OFFICEFIRST, the asset-management of Blackstone.


Is there a way of matching donations that avoids crowding out? We introduce a novel matching method where the matched amount is allocated to a different project, present some simple theoretical considerations that predict reduced crowding out or more crowding in (depending on the degree of substitutability between the two projects) and present evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment and a laboratory experiment. Similar to findings in the literature, conventional matching for the same project results in partial crowding out in the field experiment and, as predicted, crowding out is reduced under the novel matching scheme. The lab experiment provides more fine-tuned evidence for the change in crowding and yields further support for the theory: the novel matching method works best when the two projects are complements rather than substitutes.


The livestock is an important sub-sector within Ethiopia's economy in terms of its contributions to both agricultural value-added and national GDP. Between 1995/96 and 2005/06, the livestock sub-sector's share averaged 24 percent of agricultural GDP and 11 percent of national GDP, with the highest shares recorded at 27 percent and 13 percent, respectively, at its peak (NBE 2005/06). The contribution of livestock and livestock product exports to foreign exchange earnings is also large. The annual average revenue from livestock and livestock product exports was estimated to be 13 percent of the annual national foreign exchange earnings during the period 2000/01 to 2007/08 (NBE 2007/08). Given the large porous border, a large amount of cross-border exports also go un-recorded. Therefore, the official estimates of foreign exchange earnings do not necessarily reflect the actual volume of exports.At the household level, livestock plays a critical economic and social role in the lives of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and smallholder farm households. Livestock fulfills an important function in coping with shocks, accumulating wealth, and serving as a store of value in the absence of formal financial institutions and other missing markets. In the case of smallholder mixed farming systems, livestock provides nutritious food, additional emergency and cash income, transportation, farm outputs and inputs, and fuels for cooking food. In the case of pastoralists, livestock represents a sole means to support and sustain their livelihoods. Furthermore, available research suggests that with economic growth, consumption patterns tend to change towards high value and high protein foods, such as those derived from livestock (Delgado et al. 1999). This implies that, given the economic growth in Ethiopia and the region, the market demand for livestock and livestock products is likely to continue growing in the future. The government recognizes the importance of livestock in poverty alleviation and has increased its emphasis on modernizing and commercializing the livestock sub-sector in recent years (SPS-LMM 2008).Focusing on four key livestock classes—cattle, sheep, goats, and chicken—this chapter undertakes three tasks: (1) it provides a characterization of the livestock subsector, (2) it assesses livestock and livestock product value chains based on primary data, and (3) analyzes the trends in marketing and trade of live animals and animal products. Carrying out these tasks relies on the critical review of existing literature and policy documents, as well as extensive use of both secondary and primary data, including household and traders' surveys. The paper is organized following the sequence of these major tasks and concludes with a summary and policy implications.


The purpose of the study was to determine food security through homestead vegetable production. The study was conducted in the Bhaluka, Trishal and Gaforgaon upazilas of Mymensingh district, which were the project areas of the Smallholder Agricultural Improvement Project (SAIP). Sixty (60) respondents were randomly selected from the beneficiaries of SAIP. Data were collected by face-to-face interview with the help of interview schedule. Most of the respondents were middle-aged having small farm size and primary level education. Vegetable production, consumption and calorie uptake of the respondent were increased by 56%, 55% and 68%, respectively, after implementation of demonstration. All the respondents are following the 'Kalikapur' model. Nutrient contribution from the produced vegetables through homestead vegetable production fulfilled the 100% Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) requirements of vitamin A, vitamin C, and iron, also 87% of calcium and 47% of protein. Four vegetable crops i.e. red amaranth, cabbage, tomato and batishak were introduced into the existing cropping pattern. Changes in social and livelihood issues of a respondent were satisfactory after demonstration. Majority of the respondents (45%) earned satisfactory annual income having homestead. Shortage of irrigation water, quality seeds and inputs cost were the major problems faced by the farmers in homestead vegetable production.


This paper presents the lessons learned from the design and implementation of a whole school Health Promoting School (HPS) pilot on a high school in The Netherlands. This pilot aims to improve a range of health behaviours in adolescents via the Whole School Approach of Health Promoting Schools framework of the WHO-supported Schools for Health in Europe initiative (SHE). Eleven semi-structured interviews were held with key stakeholders in the intervention's design and implementation. Results showed that becoming a HPS should be considered a comprehensive curriculum change that requires significant organizational investments. By integrating the intervention instead of implementing it "as is" into school's existing infrastructure the additional burden to the curriculum was minimized; this was important for intervention relevance and it strengthens feelings of intervention ownership and motivation among teachers. Also, implementation should be led by a steering group of professionals from health sciences and education as well as parents, students and teachers from the school to combine knowledge on practical feasibility and evidence based practices. Teachers should be further educated to increase competence in their new role. Lastly, a central coordinator with proper personal competencies and power to get things done is necessary to steer these developments. Since not all schools are able to make the necessary investments, successfully becoming a HPS is not feasible for just any school at any point in time; it has to be considered a well-planned comprehensive system change. Schools with competing problems such as school violence or organizational struggles should postpone HPS developments.


This paper examines the political philosophy of the Temperance Movement in Canada during the late nineteenth-century (1870-1898). Specifically, it focuses on the movement's ideas regarding the role prohibition legislation played in protecting both the community and individual liberty. The paper argues that temperance ideology in late nineteenth century Canada advocated for a democratic state which would act to promote the well-being of communities while simultaneously protecting and enhancing the liberty of the individual. This analysis is done by examining the published writings of two organizations, The Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic and The Women's Christian Temperance Union, as well four prominent temperance activists.


The effect of L-methionine-DL-sulfoximine (MSO) on renal glutathione concentration and aspartic acid transport has been studied by analyses of parts of individual freeze-dried glomeruli, early and late proximal convoluted, early and late proximal straight, and distal straight and convoluted tubules, and patches from thinlimb and papilla areas. Glutathione normally varies threefold along the kidney nephron, being highest in the convoluted and early straight proximal tubule, lowest in the distal straight tubule. Large loads of aspartate cause 20% diminution of glutathione in outer cortex, due entirely to changes in proximal tubule segments. MSO alone lowers glutathione 90% in all parts of the proximal tubule, with no change elsewhere. MSO does not affect the large increase in aspartate in proximal tubules caused by saturating aspartate loads, suggesting that glutathione is not directly involved in transport of this amino acid. Aspartate loads cause a large increase in renal glutamine, which is especially marked in the proximal straight tubule. MSO effectively blocks this increase and depresses tissue glutamine below normal levels.


Locally Rotation Invariant (LRI) image analysis was shown to be fundamental in many applications and in particular in medical imaging where local structures of tissues occur at arbitrary rotations. LRI constituted the cornerstone of several breakthroughs in texture analysis, including Local Binary Patterns (LBP), Maximum Response 8 (MR8) and steerable filterbanks. Whereas globally rotation invariant Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) were recently proposed, LRI was very little investigated in the context of deep learning. We use trainable 3D steerable filters in CNNs in order to obtain LRI with directional sensitivity, i.e. non-isotropic filters. Pooling across orientation channels after the first convolution layer releases the constraint on finite rotation groups as assumed in several recent works. Steerable filters are used to achieve a fine and efficient sampling of 3D rotations. We only convolve the input volume with a set of Spherical Harmonics (SHs) modulated by trainable radial supports and directly steer the responses, resulting in a drastic reduction of trainable parameters and of convolution operations, as well as avoiding approximations due to interpolation of rotated kernels. The proposed method is evaluated and compared to standard CNNs on 3D texture datasets including synthetic volumes with rotated patterns and pulmonary nodule classification in CT. The results show the importance of LRI in CNNs and the need for a fine rotation sampling.


Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have become gradually accepted by the civil engineering industry for the repair and rehabilitation of concrete structures in recent years. Extensive research on the use of a host of different forms of FRP forms, such as rods, plates, grids and jackets, has led to confidence in their design for strengthening work. Is it however extremely difficult so assess the structural performance of a strengthened structure using conventional non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technologies such as strain gauges, dye-penetrant, x-ray, radiography and acoustic emission. One form of NDE which has attracted research attention of late is the use of optical fibre sensors as they have the potential of providing real-time structural health monitoring. The sensors, which are typically embedded into the strengthening work, are capable of being used to assess damage and warn of impending weakness in the structural integrity of the structures at any marginal situations. The development of distributed fibre-optic sensors, which provide a large number of continuously distributed parameters such as strain, temperature and vibration profile due to traffic loading, is also of great interest in most engineering applications. In this paper, the use of glass fibre composites and embedded fibre-optic Bragg grating strain sensors as external reinforcement and structural health monitoring devices, respectively, for concrete structures are introduced. The potential applications of FRP reinforcing bars with integrated fibre-optic sensors, for new structures and known as a "Smart Composite", is another real-time structural health monitoring application discussed in this paper.


The optical probe in tonometers is a key component in measuring the flattened diameter or area of the ocular cornea. A new kind of optical probe for the direct measurement of the flattened area of the ocular cornea is presented. The optical probe uses the cone prism with a modulating flake of light intensity as its measuring body. The test results on simulated eyeballs with different radii of curvature of the ocular cornea show that there is a linear relation between the flattened area of the ocular cornea and the normalized current. The optical probe, which is more compact compared with existing optical probes and easily configured with its coaxiality of optical parts, may be an excellent probe for constructing a low-cost, miniaturized applanation tonometer.


This article focuses on the infrequency with which "gifts of the Spirit" are experienced during services at a small Pentecostal church in Pretoria, attended mostly by Afrikaans-speaking men who self-identify as homosexual. It aims to shed some light on the ways in which pastors work to shape churchgoers' perceptions of the world, their place in it, as well as how experiences of marginalisation and suffering relate to spirits (and their absence) that are understood to mediate between heaven and earth. I argue that difficulties related to the cultivation of faith, on which relationships with the divine are constructed, frustrate direct experiences of spiritual gifts. I also show that certain steps are taken in this church, with varying degrees of success, to try and render the invisible corporeally present. An analysis of sermons is folded into a broader discussion of spiritual self-fashioning and the roles of technologies of the self within the church in an attempt to provide an inclusive, broad-based analysis of "gifts of the Spirit" in a Pentecostal Charismatic Church (PCC) that engages with religious belief on its own terms.


An economic air pollution control model, which determines the least cost of reaching various air quality levels, is formulated. The model takes the form of a general, nonlinear, mathematical programming problem. Primary contaminant emission levels are the independent variables. The objective function is the cost of attaining various emission levels and is to be minimized subject to constraints that given air quality levels be attained. The model is applied to a simplified statement of the photochemical smog problem in Los Angeles County in 1975 with emissions specified by a two-dimensional vector, total reactive hydrocarbon, (RHC), and nitrogen oxide, (NOx), emissions. Air quality, also two-dimensional, is measured by the expected number of days per year that nitrogen dioxide, (NO2), and mid-day ozone, (O3), exceed standards in Central Los Angeles. The minimum cost of reaching various emission levels is found by a linear programming model. The base or "uncontrolled" emission levels are those that will exist in 1975 with the present new car control program and with the degree of stationary source control existing in 1971. Controls, basically "add-on devices", are considered here for used cars, aircraft, and existing stationary sources. It is found that with these added controls, Los Angeles County emission levels [(1300
tons/day RHC, 1000 tons /day NOx) in 1969] and [(670 tons/day RHC, 790 tons/day NOx) at the base 1975 level], can be reduced to 260 tons/day RHC (minimum RHC program) and 460 tons/day NOx (minimum NOx program). "Phenomenological" or statistical air quality models provide the relationship between air quality and emissions. These models estimate the relationship by using atmospheric monitoring data taken at one (yearly) emission level and by using certain simple physical assumptions, (e. g., that emissions are reduced proportionately at all points in space and time). For NO2, (concentrations assumed proportional to NOx emissions), it is found that standard violations in
Central Los Angeles, (55 in 1969), can be reduced to 25, 5, and 0 days per year by controlling emissions to 800, 550, and 300 tons /day, respectively. A probabilistic model reveals that RHC control is much more effective than NOx control in reducing Central Los Angeles ozone. The 150 days per year ozone violations in 1969 can be reduced to 75, 30, 10, and 0 days per year by abating RHC emissions to 700, 450, 300, and 150 tons/day, respectively, (at the 1969 NOx emission level). The control cost-emission level and air quality-emission level relationships are combined in a graphical solution of the complete model to find the cost of various air quality levels. Best possible air quality levels with the controls considered here are 8 O3 and 10 NO2 violations per year (minimum ozone program) or 25 O3 and 3 NO2 violations per year (minimum NO2 program) with an annualized cost of $230,000,000 (above the estimated $150,000,000 per year for the new car control program for Los Angeles County motor vehicles in 1975).


A marginal oscillator is an amplifier with a resonator (electrical, mechanical, or acoustical) incorporated into the positive feedback loop. When the loop gain barely exceeds one (barely oscillating), the oscillation level is extremely sensitive to small changes in the resonator Q. Compared to traditional bridges with frequency locking, marginal oscillators are simple and inexpensive. Being regenerative, they yield useful signal levels with remarkably few stages of gain. The operating frequency automatically follows the resonator frequency. Marginal oscillators have been used to detect magnetic resonance absorption in LC resonators and to detect small impurity particles in a blood‐filled ultrasonic resonator. Applications in measurement science will be discussed.


Purpose: This paper examines whether unemployment rates at ages 55-64 are associated with physical functioning at later-life among cohorts in 11 European countries. The paper also assesses whether specific social protection programmes mitigate potential health-effects of macroeconomic conditions. Data and Methods: Data came from 6,036 participants in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) aged 64-74 at baseline. Data on functional limitations, as well as employment, marriage and fertility retrospective histories were linked to national unemployment rates as well as quantitative information on different social protection programmes for ages 55-64. Results: Higher unemployment rates at ages 55-57 and 63-64 were associated with more functional limitations at ages 50-74 among men and women. Preliminary results suggest that social protection programmes may mitigate negative health-effects of higher unemployment rates. Additional analyses will systematically assess the role of social protection programmes and potential mechanism linking economic conditions and health at later-life.


Background: This work was to investigate the effect of different doses of hydrocortisone (HC) on rats with septic encephalopathy.
Material and Methods: Wistar rats of clean grade, 5-6 weeks old, were randomly divided into Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) group, high-dose hydrocortisone group, medium-dose hydrocortisone group, low-dose hydrocortisone group, and sham group (n=10). Except sham group, rats of other group were injected LPS, 25 mg/kg, i.v. 6 hours later, neuron-specific enolase (NES) in serum and brain water content were tested, and pathological changes were observed by light microscope and electron microscope.
Results: Compared with sham group, LPS group demonstrated significantly higher levels of serum NES, brain water content and pathological scores (P<0.05). Different doses of HC ameliorated the injury induced by SE to different extent.
Conclusion: HC decreased serum NES, lessened brain water content and relieved pathological changes of brains, which indicate that HC is likely to protect brain injury caused by SE; besides, low dose of HC has the best efficacy and high dose of HC has the worst efficacy.


Abstract Background: Diagnostic reasoning involves the thinking steps up to and including arrival at a diagnosis. Dual process theory posits that a physician's thinking is based on both non-analytic or fast, subconscious thinking and analytic thinking that is slower, more conscious, effortful and characterized by comparing and contrasting alternatives. Expertise in clinical reasoning may relate to the two dimensions measured by the diagnostic thinking inventory (DTI): memory structure and flexibility in thinking. Aim: Explored the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) correlates of these two aspects of the DTI: memory structure and flexibility of thinking. Methods: Participants answered and reflected upon multiple-choice questions (MCQs) during fMRI. A DTI was completed shortly after the scan. The brain processes associated with the two dimensions of the DTI were correlated with fMRI phases – assessing flexibility in thinking during analytical clinical reasoning, memory structure during non-analytical clinical reasoning and the total DTI during both non-analytical and analytical reasoning in experienced physicians. Results: Each DTI component was associated with distinct functional neuroanatomic activation patterns, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. Conclusion: Our findings support diagnostic thinking conceptual models and indicate mechanisms through which cognitive demands may induce functional adaptation within the prefrontal cortex. This provides additional objective validity evidence for the use of the DTI in medical education and practice settings.


Even though both Ernst von Glasersfeld, the founding father of radical constructivism, and his epistemological alter ego, Heinz von Foerster, one of the principal architects of second-order cybernetics, would both repeatedly stress the formative importance of communication, neither would ever model communication as a phenomenon per se. I will propose a first modelling of communication as seen through the stereoscopic lens of these two schools of thought. I will first present, discuss and evaluate how communication is traditionally modelled. This will serve as an informed backdrop when I proceed to integrate the common denominators pertaining to communication from relevant works of both scholars. In addition to the fact that both would willingly profess to the 'Linguolaxis' of Maturana and Varela, i.e., that humans exist suspended in communication, two basic assumptions have proven formative. Firstly, that communication is perceived as a flux, as an almost William-James-like 'stream of communication'. Secondly, and this is more in the vein of Heraclitus, that both communicators and communication alike undergo transformations in the process of immersion. This implies favouring a view of communication in which communication is a perpetual oscillation between ongoing reciprocal perturbations (Glasersfeld), that occur over time, and the endeavours to re-establish (cognitive) homeostasis (Foerster). The latter must not be reduced to either mere compliance, as it were, i.e., that the 'other' does as s/he is told, or to the mutual understanding of a dominance-free communication of a Habermasian persuasion, but rather in the pragmatic notion of 'compatibility' (Glasersfeld). For illustrative purposes I will end this paper by translating these notions into a model depicting what I have labelled co-actional communication, in effect forging an exemplar.


Early Childhood Education/Preschool Teacher provides an excellent overview to give candidates a strong idea of what being an early childhood educator is all about. This book explains what early childhood educators do, why early childhood education is such a rewarding career, and whether or not it is the right job for you. There's also information about different positions in the early childhood education field, how to find the degree and certificate program that is right for you, how to apply for financial aid, how to find a job, and how to succeed once you have landed one.


Hydrogen has a large array of uses throughout the chemical and energy industries, yet is largely produced through the reformation of fossil fuels. Renewable production of hydrogen, via electrolytic water splitting, could be key to moving beyond fossil fuel reliance, but research has mainly focused on maximising efficiency to increase the performance of the electrolysis process. Access to cheap, renewable earth abundant materials to produce hydrogen could be argued to be of equal importance. Electron-coupled proton buffers (ECPBs) have been shown to separate the oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions of water electrolysis (OER and HER) in space and time, but have previously relied on precious metal catalysts to produce H2. Herein, we report the use of four earth abundant catalysts capable of spontaneously evolving hydrogen from reduced ECPBs. The hydrogen production rate was found to be influenced by both the onset potential of the HER for a particular catalyst, and the redox potential of the ECPB used. The catalysts were shown to evolve hydrogen at rates up to 9.4 mmol H2 per h per mg catalyst and up to 60% of the theoretical maximum hydrogen capacity of the ECPBs.


The inelastic emission spectrum of a single fluorescent microsphere (bead) exhibits resonances arising from whispering gallery modes. Two beads in close proximity form a coupled bisphere. Coherent coupling arises from each bead's evanescent field and leads to resonance splitting. Here we collect emission spectra of two coupled beads, with nearly identical diameters, as spacing between beads is varied. Using these size-matched beads allows us to probe resonance splitting under strong coupling conditions.


Input-output (I/O) placement has always been a concern in modern integrated circuit design. Due to flip-chip technology, I/O can be placed throughout the whole chip without long wires from the periphery of the chip. However, because of I/O placement constraints in design cost (DC) and performance, I/O buffer planning becomes a pressing problem. During the early stages of circuits and package co-design, I/O layout should be evaluated to optimize DC and to avoid product failures. The objective of this brief is to improve the existing/initial standard cell placement by I/O clustering, considering DC reduction and signal integrity preservation. The authors formulate it as a minimum cost flow problem that minimizes alphaW+betaD, where W is the I/O wirelength of the placement and D is the total voltage drop in the power network and, at the same time, reduces the number of I/O buffer blocks. The experimental results on some Microelectronics Center of North Carolina benchmarks show that the author's method averagely achieves better timing performance and over 32% DC reduction when compared with a conventional rule-of-thumb design that is popularly used by circuit designers


The performance of automatic speech recognition system degrades significantly when the incoming audio differs from training data. Maximum likelihood linear regression has been widely used for unsupervised adaptation, usually in a multiple-pass recognition process. Here we present a novel adaptation framework for which the offline, supervised, high-quality adaptation is applied to clustered channel/speaker conditions that are defined with automatic and manual clustering of the training data. Upon online recognition, each speech segment is classified into one of the training clusters in an unsupervised way, and the corresponding top acoustic models are used for recognition. Recognition lattice outputs are combined. Experiments are performed on the Wall Street Journal data, and a 37.5% relative reduction of Word Error Rate is reported. The proposed approach is also compared with a general speaker adaptive training approach.


A survey of crystal structures including two organic compounds unable to form hydrogen bonding has been carried out using the Cambridge Structural Database. Such systems are common and numerous. Association modes mostly include stacking of flat systems, one of them usually being an aromatic hydrocarbon. "Alternate-ladder" (AL) and "slanted column" (SC) motifs occur most frequently; AL is somewhat prevalent in fluoroarene and pyromellitic dianhydride cocrystals, whereas SC occurs preferentially, but not exclusively, with quinones, nitrobenzene, TCNB and TCNQ coformers. Segregation of A and B chemical units in separate columns is very seldom observed, while A⋯B is the energetically dominating pair in a vast majority of the cases. A stable network of stacked A⋯B units seems to be a strict requirement for observing cocrystallization, even more than an overall higher stability of the cocrystal with respect to its coformers. This highlights the central role of kinetic factors in determining the drive to stacking hetero-recognition. Energy dissection using the PIXEL scheme shows that dispersion energies play a dominant but not exclusive role. The interaction between flat organic systems is found to be a viable synthetic approach for cocrystallization, on the same footing as the more popular O–H⋯O, O–H⋯N and N–H⋯O hydrogen bonding. Some practical suggestions for the choice of the best coformers are provided.


After a series of crises with severe economic and social consequences in the 1990s and early 2000s, emerging and developing economies (EDEs) have become even more closely integrated into what is widely recognized as an inherently unstable international financial system. Both policies in these countries and a highly accommodating global financial environment have played a role. Not only have their traditional cross-border linkages been deepened and external balance sheets expanded rapidly, but also foreign presence in their domestic credit, bond, equity and property markets has reached unprecedented levels. New channels have thus emerged for the transmission of financial shocks from global boom-bust cycles. Almost all EDEs are now vulnerable irrespective of their balance-ofpayments, external debt, net foreign assets and international reserve positions although these play an important role in the way such shocks could impinge on them. Stability of domestic banking and asset markets is susceptible even in countries with strong external positions. Those heavily dependent on foreign capital are prone to liquidity and solvency crises as well as domestic financial turmoil. The new practices adopted in recent years including more flexible exchange rate regimes, accumulation of large stocks of international reserves or borrowing in local currency would not provide much of a buffer against severe external shocks such as those that may result from the normalization of monetary policy in the United States. And the multilateral system is still lacking adequate mechanisms for an orderly and equitable resolution of external financial instability and crises in EDEs.


The Coordinate Rotational Digital Computer (CORDIC) algorithm allows computation of trigonometric, hyperbolic, natural log and square root functions. This iterative algorithm uses only shift and add operations to converge. Multiple fixed radix variants of the algorithm have been implemented on hardware. These have demonstrated faster convergence at the expense of reduced accuracy. High radix adaptive variants of CORDIC also exist in literature. These allow for faster convergence at the expense of hardware multipliers in the datapath without compromising on the accuracy of the results. This paper proposes a 12 stage deep pipeline architecture to implement a high radix adaptive CORDIC algorithm. It employs floating point multipliers in place of the conventional shift and add architecture of fixed radix CORDIC. This design has been synthesised on a FPGA board to act as a coprocessor. The paper also studies the power, latency and accuracy of this implementation.


One promising direction for moving AI planning into the real world is to build systems that are more usercentric, in that they allow the user—not the system—to make many of the decisions necessary to create the final plan. However, since there are a large number of decisions to make in the course of producing a plan, shifting the responsibility for those decisions to the human planner runs the risk of overwhelming the human planner with too many choices. One approach to helping the human planner manage the large number of decisions is to automatically prioritize those decisions according to their importance or urgency in the current planning context. This paper describes two methods for automatically prioritizing planning decisions. One is a commitment-based approach, which prioritizes decisions according to the number of future decisions they eliminate from the planning process. The other is an experience-basedapproach, which prioritizes decisions according to the order in which they have been performed in previous planning sessions. Both approaches have been implemented in PASSAT, a plan-authoring system in which users construct and modify plans interactively using a library of templates.


Despite a rich literature on switching costs in traditional markets, little has been said on the context of competition between pirate and legal providers. With a sizeable literature on the effects of piracy and its determinants, it is crucial to understand the specific barriers that may prevent consumers from diverting to unauthorised consumption in the first place. Basing on existing switching cost typologies, literature on piracy and new empirical evidence, I provide a first thorough categorisation of different switching costs in a market with legal and pirate providers. I discuss the implications for consumer retention strategies.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the ability of a modified-live virus (MLV) bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) type 1 (BVDV1) vaccine administered to heifers prior to breeding to stimulate protective immunity that would block transmission of virulent heterologous BVDV during gestation, thus preventing persistent infection of a fetus.

ANIMAL
40 crossbred Angus heifers that were 15 to 18 months old and seronegative for BVDV and 36 calves born to those heifers.

PROCEDURE
Heifers were randomly assigned to control (n = 13) or vaccinated (27) groups. The control group was administered a multivalent vaccine where-in the BVDV component had been omitted. The vaccinated heifers were administered a single dose of vaccine (IM or SC) containing MLV BVDV1 (WRL strain). All vaccinated and control heifers were maintained in pastures and exposed to BVDV-negative bulls 21 days later. Thirty-five heifers were confirmed pregnant and were challenge exposed at 55 to 100 days of gestation by IV administration of virulent BVDV1 (7443 strain).

RESULTS
All control heifers were viremic following challenge exposure, and calves born to control heifers were persistently infected with BVDV. Viremia was not detected in the vaccinated heifers, and 92% of calves born to vaccinated heifers were not persistently infected with BVDV.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
These results document that vaccination with BVDV1 strain WRL protects fetuses from infection with heterologous virulent BVDV1.


Handbook of Open Source Tools introduces a comprehensive collection of advanced open source tools useful in developing software applications. The book contains information on more than 200 open-source tools which include software construction utilities for compilers, virtual-machines, database, graphics, high-performance computing, OpenGL, geometry, algebra, graph theory , GUIs and more. Special highlights for software construction utilities and application libraries are included. Each tool is covered in the context of a real like application development setting. This unique handbook presents a comprehensive discussion of advanced tools, a valuable asset used by most application developers and programmers; includes a special focus on Mathematical Open Source Software not available in most Open Source Software books, and introduces several tools (eg ACL2, CLIPS, CUDA, and COIN) which are not known outside of select groups, but are very powerful. Handbook of Open Source Tools is designed for application developers and programmers working with Open Source Tools. Advanced-level students concentrating on Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science will find this reference a valuable asset as well.


Global biodiversity in river and riparian ecosystems is generated and maintained by geographic variation in stream processes and fluvial disturbance regimes, which largely reflect regional differences in climate and geology. Extensive construction of dams by humans has greatly dampened the seasonal and interannual streamflow variability of rivers, thereby altering natural dynamics in ecologically important flows on continental to global scales. The cumulative effects of modification to regional-scale environmental templates caused by dams is largely unexplored but of critical conservation importance. Here, we use 186 long-term streamflow records on intermediate-sized rivers across the continental United States to show that dams have homogenized the flow regimes on third- through seventh-order rivers in 16 historically distinctive hydrologic regions over the course of the 20th century. This regional homogenization occurs chiefly through modification of the magnitude and timing of ecologically critical high and low flows. For 317 undammed reference rivers, no evidence for homogenization was found, despite documented changes in regional precipitation over this period. With an estimated average density of one dam every 48 km of third- through seventh-order river channel in the United States, dams arguably have a continental scale effect of homogenizing regionally distinct environmental templates, thereby creating conditions that favor the spread of cosmopolitan, nonindigenous species at the expense of locally adapted native biota. Quantitative analyses such as ours provide the basis for conservation and management actions aimed at restoring and maintaining native biodiversity and ecosystem function and resilience for regionally distinct ecosystems at continental to global scales.


Pupils of foreign origin need proficiency in both oral and literate skills to succeed in the Dutch secondary school system. In this article the development of literate skills in L-1 and L-2 is examined.The way in which a second language is learned is influenced by the level and type of mother tongue competence. In the case of older learners a higher proficiency in L-1 can facilitate the L-2-acquisition process. Especially language skills based upon cognitive development are expected to be transferred from L-1 to L-2 (Cummins, 1979,1980), which is the reason why reading was chosen as the object of this study.The study compares two groups of Turkish secondary school pupils, one group consisting of pupils who learned Dutch at a relatively early age, the other of pupils who had just arrived in the Nether-lands. The latter are expected to have a higher competence in Turkish than the former when starting to learn Dutch. For both groups a positive relation has been found between Turkish and Dutch for technical reading and reading comprehension.The findings suggest not only a positive transfer from L-1 to L-2 but also from L-2 to L-1 in the case of the group of pupils who had hardly been taught in L-1 and arrived in The Netherlands at an earlier age. Positive transfer seems to occur especially in reading comprehension provided that there is a certain level of competence in both languages.


The speed at which on-line technologies are being adopted in the learning of English as a second or foreign language creates an urgent need to establish links between theoretical positions and professional practice in the digital realm. As far as issues in motivation studies are concerned, much of what is known about the way learners of English behave is classroom and print-based and may not illuminate operational matters on-line to their fullest extent. This thesis describes the trial of English academic reading skills materials designed for Chinese scholars attending a tertiary-level Institution overseas and attempts to Identify and understand the variables that affected their performance on-line. The data collected from both quantitative and qualitative sources were considered within a framework that Identifies distinct patterns of behaviour, classified either as adaptive or maladaptive, Insofar as they affect the ways learners use their talents In the classroom. Analysis of the data showed that some participants seemed to obstruct their own learning on-line through their negative affective responses to the technology, materials and pedagogy used on the course. Others were able to achieve to a certain extent personally challenging and valued achievement goals. The data also highlighted challenges facing language tutors on-line In relationship building, fostering reflective practice and promoting Independence, and self-direction. Such areas of research are considered to be of particular value to practitioners who work In on-line contexts and have difficulty In Identifying and managing the dynamics of the environment they are involved in. Several implications are drawn from this study concerning the exploitation of online learning environments with Chinese students. Chief among these concerns the claim that cultural factors have a powerful Influence on the manner in which these students study and react on-line. In particular, Issues of 'face-management' and the operation of the 'self-worth motive' are highlighted and commented upon.


The effect of -tricalcium phosphate additive on the alumina matrix was investigated. The sintering behaviour of the alumina tricalcium phosphate composites was characterized by using magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction, dilatometry, differential thermal analysis and scanning electron microscopy analysis. The mechanical properties of composites have been investigated by the Brazilian test. The produced alumina tricalcium phosphate composites with different percentages of tricalcium phosphate (10 wt%; 20 wt%; 40 wt% and 50 wt%) exhibited much better mechanical properties than the reported values of βtricalcium phosphate without alumina. The alumina tricalcium phosphate composites showed a higher rupture strength at 1600°C, which certainly increased with the alumina content and reached the optimum value with 90 wt%. The best mechanical properties of the composites were obtained after the sintering process at 1600°C for 1 hour. With different weight rations of alumina: tricalcium phosphate (50:50, 60:40 and 80:20), the performance of the composites was hindered by the formation of both cracks and intragranular porosity.


We present a simple and scalable algorithm for maximum-margin estimation of structured output models, including an important class of Markov networks and combinatorial models. We formulate the estimation problem as a convex-concave saddle-point problem that allows us to use simple projection methods based on the dual extragradient algorithm (Nesterov, 2003). The projection step can be solved using dynamic programming or combinatorial algorithms for min-cost convex flow, depending on the structure of the problem. We show that this approach provides a memory-efficient alternative to formulations based on reductions to a quadratic program (QP). We analyze the convergence of the method and present experiments on two very different structured prediction tasks: 3D image segmentation and word alignment, illustrating the favorable scaling properties of our algorithm.


The performance of the mainstream news media during the SARS epidemic, particularly their treatment of risk-related information, raised heated criticism from the government, academia, and public in Taiwan. This study examines journalists' perceptions and experiences in covering the SARS epidemic. Based on in-depth interviews with eight medical journalists from the mainstream news media in June and July 2003, the study addresses the following issues: journalistic routines of medical coverage; major changes to medical reporting during the epidemic; journalists' judgments on information-seeking as well as on angle and source selection while facing scientific and political uncertainty; journalists' reactions to criticism of news media performance during the SARS coverage; and what journalists learned about the news covering process from their experiences during the SARS epidemic.


In this study, the elastic buckling strength of cubic open-cell foams subjected to uniaxial compression is investigated using the homogenization framework developed by the present authors (Ohno et al., JMPS 2002; Okumura et al., JMPS 2004). First of all, based on the framework, the microscopic bifurcation and macroscopic instability of cubic open-cell foams are numerically analyzed by performing finite element analysis. It is thus shown that long wavelength buckling is the primary mode and occurs just after the onset of macroscopic instability. Then, a solution for predicting the stress of long wavelength buckling is analytically derived from the onset condition of macroscopic instability. The validity of this analytical solution is demonstrated by the finite element results.


Excerpt] In the summer of 1983, four other photographers and I set out to document laid-off workers in different areas, mainly in that vast and loosely termed region called the Midwest. We were all part of a group project funded by the Duke Center for Documentary Photography. As one might guess, unemployment is a difficult subject to portray visually — we found no ravaged battlegrounds, no gaping wounds, almost no outward signs of suffering which immediately catch the stranger's eye. Yet there is ongoing devastation in the still depressed pockets of places like Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Butte. Theirs has become a silent struggle, not only because most of the national media has deserted their hardships in favor of stories which report an overall economy on the upswing, but also because laid-off workers continue to lead quiet, desperate lives surrounded by confusion and new senses of self-doubt. Of course, the prevailing hope is that jobs and the old days will somehow return, that the mills will soon fire up again; but the reality is that many will be worse off this winter than ever before as unemployment benefits end and high heating bills start again. While in Youngstown, I tried to focus on individuals, their families, and their homes rather than on soup lines or unemployment offices. In the process, I began to understand why it is usually too costly for them to relocate, why proposed retraining does not always provide viable alternatives, and why remaining in their communities is such a deep-seated emotion. I saw that laid-off workers are a population caught in the middle, in a cruel dichotomy which no longer permits their ingrained middle-class values to quite merge with a middle-class lifestyle. Many carry on a fapade of their lives before unemployment until they can no longer afford to make the house payments, bring home nourishing food, and clothe growing children. One worker expressed to me his worry that he and others like him were no longer accounted for in our society. "You have to tell somebody what's going on here," he said to me. "I'm afraid that they're trying to forget about all of us who aren't a part of their so-called 'recovery' You have to tell somebody who can do something about it."


It is well known that where-ever combustible dusts are handled, or result as a waste
product, unwanted ignitions and explosions can occur. Dust explosions present a high
potential risk in the process industries. The past has shown that, in the European Union,
more than 2,000 dust / air or gas / air explosions occur each year. In Germany alone the
damage of dust explosions costs more than £ 16,000 per day.
A lot of fundamental research work on dust explosion has been done for single vessels
however, in reality, vessels are normally connected via pipes to other process vessels.
To prevent secondary vessel explosions, and to protect interconnected vessels from the
effects of explosions, further research into these complex phenomena is required.
This research work concerns the investigation of dust explosion phenomena in
interconnected vessels. Large scale tests were conducted in which I m' or 4.25 m'
process vessels were connected via a pipe to a realistically filled 9.4 m' vessel. Pressure
transducers were placed in the vessels and along the pipe, also photo diodes, positioned
along the pipe, were used to measure the pressure development and the flame front
velocity respectively. In further investigations the process vessels were connected to an
open ended pipe. It was possible to estimate, with the aid of a CCD camera, the flame
shape and flame length of the emerging flame jet dependent on the explosion course at
the process vessel.
The results have shown that, under different circumstances, dust explosion propagation
from the primary process vessel through the connecting pipe which reaches the
secondary silo as a flame jet, may ignite a dust / air mixture and thereby initiate a secondary dust explosion. The expected reduced explosion over-pressure of such a
secondary dust explosion may be much higher than in case of a single vessel explosion.
For the first time an empirical mathematical model for calculating the flame front
propagation time inside a connecting pipe after a dust explosion in a connected
explosion vessel has been developed. The model is validated for dust and gas explosions
in different vessels, independently of whether the explosion vessels are vented or closed
and for different diameters of the connecting pipe.
A numerical simulation model for dust explosions in closed spherical vessels was
written in a C comparable language which runs under Windows 3.11 and Windows 95
on a standard PC. The validation of this numerical model is in good accordance with
measurement results of real dust explosions. The model shows good agreement with
data from explosions in closed vessels for maize starch, aluminium and magnesium
dusts and propane gas. In vented vessels in some cases for maize starch good agreement
is also shown.


In recent years, support vector regressions (SVRs), a novel artificial neural network (ANN) technique, has been successfully used as a nonparametric tool for regression estimation and forecasting time series data. In this thesis, we deal with the application of SVRs in financial markets volatility forecasting.An accurate forecast of volatility is essential to estimate the value of market risk and it is one of the primary inputs to a wide range of financial applications from risk measurement such as value at risk to asset and financial derivatives pricing. Many researchers use GARCH models to generate volatility forecasts and these models are usually estimated using maximum likelihood (ML) procedures, assuming that the data are normally distributed. In this thesis, we will show that GARCH models can be estimated using SVRs and that such estimates have a higher predicting ability than those obtained via common ML methods.But when using SVRs, two problems are faced: how to choose the optimal input feature subset for SVRs, and how to set the best kernel parameters. Since no structured way being available to choose the free parameters of SVR and kernel function, these parameters are usually set by researcher in trial and error procedure which is not optimal.In this thesis a novel method, named as GA assisted SVR has been introduced, which a genetic algorithm simultaneously searches for SVR's optimal parameters and kernel parameter (in this study: a radial basis function (RBF)).Based on this optimized radial basis SVR, a GARCH model is proposed and is compared with a parametric GARCH in terms of their ability to forecast FTSE100 Index return volatility. The experiment shows that, the GA assisted SVR-GARCH significantly outperforms the parametric GARCH based on the criteria of mean absolute error (MAE) and mean squared error (MSE).


A superb account of the rise of modern broadcasting. Financial TimesWhen the pirate operator Oliver Smedley shot and killed his rival Reg Calvert in Smedleys country cottage on June 21, 1966, it was a turning point for the outlaw radio stations dotting the coastal waters of England. Situated on ships and offshore forts like Shivering Sands, these stations blasted away at the high-minded BBCs broadcast monopoly with the new beats of the Stones and DJs like Screaming Lord Sutch. For free-market ideologues like Smedley, the pirate stations were entrepreneurial efforts to undermine the growing British welfare state as embodied by the BBC. The worlds of high table and underground collide in this riveting history. 16 pages of photographs


Games are played by a wide variety of audiences. Different individuals will play with different gaming styles and employ different strategic approaches. This often involves interacting with nonplayer characters that are controlled by the game AI. From a developer's standpoint, it is important to design a game AI that is able to satisfy the variety of players that will interact with the game. Thus, an adaptive game AI that can scale the difficulty of the game according to the proficiency of the player has greater potential to customize a personalized and entertaining game experience compared to a static game AI. In particular, dynamic game difficulty scaling refers to the use of an adaptive game AI that performs game adaptations in real time during the game session. This paper presents two adaptive algorithms that use ideas from reinforcement learning and evolutionary computation to improve player satisfaction by scaling the difficulty of the game AI while the game is being played. The effects of varying the learning and mutation rates are examined and a general rule of thumb for the parameters is proposed. The proposed algorithms are demonstrated to be capable of matching its opponents in terms of mean scores and winning percentages. Both algorithms are able to generalize well to a variety of opponents.


Humans can abstract prior knowledge from very little data and use it to boost skill learning. In this paper, we propose routine-augmented policy learning (RAPL), which discovers routines composed of primitive actions from a single demonstration and uses discovered routines to augment policy learning. To discover routines from the demonstration, we first abstract routine candidates by identifying grammar over the demonstrated action trajectory. Then, the best routines measured by length and frequency are selected to form a routine library. We propose to learn policy simultaneously at primitive-level and routine-level with discovered routines, leveraging the temporal structure of routines. Our approach enables imitating expert behavior at multiple temporal scales for imitation learning and promotes reinforcement learning exploration. Extensive experiments on Atari games demonstrate that RAPL improves the state-of-the-art imitation learning method SQIL and reinforcement learning method A2C. Further, we show that discovered routines can generalize to unseen levels and difficulties on the CoinRun benchmark.