Recent advances in spoken language technologies and the introduction of many customer facing products, have given rise to a wide customer reliance on smart personal assistants for many of their daily tasks. In this paper, we present a system to reduce users' cognitive load by extending personal assistants with long-term personal memory where users can store and retrieve by voice, arbitrary pieces of information. The problem is framed as a neural retrieval based question answering system where answers are selected from previously stored user memories. We propose to directly optimize the end-to-end retrieval performance, measured by the F1-score, using reinforcement learning, leading to better performance on our experimental test set(s).


The important sources of optical loss in the Brewster windows of a gas laser are outlined, and the effects of this loss on the performance of the laser are described. Particular attention is paid to thermal focusing effects which occur when absorbing films are formed on the Brewster windows of high-power lasers. A semiquantitative theory is developed which shows that absorptive loss in the windows sets an upper limit on the intracavity intensity of a Brewster window laser.


Cross-modal analysis offers information beyond that extracted from individual modalities. Consider a camcorder having a single microphone in a cocktail-party: it captures several moving visual objects which emit sounds. A task for audio-visual analysis is to identify the number of independent audio-associated visual objects (AVOs), pinpoint the AVOs' spatial locations in the video and isolate each corresponding audio component. Part of these problems were considered by prior studies, which were limited to simple cases, e.g., a single AVO or stationary sounds. We describe an approach that seeks to overcome these challenges. It acknowledges the importance of temporal features that are based on significant changes in each modality. A probabilistic formalism identifies temporal coincidences between these features, yielding cross-modal association and visual localization. This association is of particular benefit in harmonic sounds, as it enables subsequent isolation of each audio source. We demonstrate this in challenging experiments, having multiple, simultaneous highly nonstationary AVOs.


Over recent years, there has been rapid development of the bamboo industry in China since reform and liberalisation, which have brought about a series of economic policies and regulations favourable to economic development. Between 1981 and 1993, the area covered by bamboo forests expanded at a rate higher than the growth rate in forest-covered areas of the country over the same period. By 1996, the annual production value of primary products from bamboo resources reached 0.9 billion USD. The export value of manufactured bamboo products was US$ 35 million in 1995. Because 93% of bamboo forests in rural areas is collective-owned and directly managed by farmers, the increase in yields and profits from bamboo forest products significantly improves incomes and living standards of rural people. Thus the bamboo industry has become an important means to reduce poverty among the rural population. The purpose of this study is to promote sustainable development of the bamboo sector by reviewing the development of bamboo industries in Anji County, Zhejian Province. The review analyses industry fundamentals, approaches and potential weaknesses and explores the direction and methods for its further development.


Background: Dermatophytes are a group of closely related fungi that invade keratinized tissues (skin, hair and nails) of humans and animals and produce infections called dermatophytosis. Our objective was to determine causative agents of dermatophytosis in Gorgan, North of Iran. Methods: Data was based on collecting specimens from 1108 patients clinically suspected to have fungal infection during five years from 2003 through 2007. Specimens were collected from hair, nail and skin and were investigated by direct examination and cultured in Sabouraud dextrose agar. Fungal colonies were identified by macroscopic and microscopic examination and supplementary tests. Results: 351 samples out of 1108 were positive for dermatophytes and 277 ones had positive cultures. Epidemophyton floccosum was the most frequent species (70.4%) followed by Trichophyton rubrum (14.5%) and Microsporum audouinii (7.2%). Regarding the location of the lesions, groin and nails were the most frequent sites that developed dermatophytosis in the majority of the patients. Conclusion: Dermatophytosis is probably still one of the most infectious diseases in Iran. The anthropophilic (E.fluoccosum) and zoophilic (T. rubrum) species were the most common causes of dermatophyte of tinea in Gorgan, north of Iran. The frequency of tinea was higher in females and tinea cruris showed a remarkably increasing rate and can be an important public health issue in Gorgan. (Iran J Dermatol 2009;12: 1315)


A Bayes interval estimation for an exponential parameter Theta in a model of random censoring with incomplete information is investigated. The instant of item failure is observed if it occurs before a randomly chosen inspection time and the failure was signaled; otherwise, the experiment is terminated at the instant of inspection. An explicit expression for the posterior PDF (probability distribution function) of the parameter is derived, and a normal approximation to it based on Taylor expansion near the maximum likelihood estimate is suggested. The results of an extension simulation showed that the reparametrization Theta /sub 1/=log Theta appreciably increases the accuracy of the normal approximation. Highly accurate highest posterior density intervals for Theta /sub 1/ are derived in a closed form for a normal prior for Theta /sub 1/ or, equivalently, for the lognormal prior on Theta . >


The Transformer model has achieved state-of-the-art performance in many sequence modeling tasks. However, how to leverage model capacity with large or variable depths is still an open challenge. We present a probabilistic framework to automatically learn which layer(s) to use by learning the posterior distributions of layer selection. As an extension of this framework, we propose a novel method to train one shared Transformer network for multilingual machine translation with different layer selection posteriors for each language pair. The proposed method alleviates the vanishing gradient issue and enables stable training of deep Transformers (e.g. 100 layers). We evaluate on WMT English-German machine translation and masked language modeling tasks, where our method outperforms existing approaches for training deeper Transformers. Experiments on multilingual machine translation demonstrate that this approach can effectively leverage increased model capacity and bring universal improvement for both many-to-one and one-to-many translation with diverse language pairs.


Ewes/does individual performance is a prime factor that influence the overall meat productivity and profitability in goat and sheep production. The number of kids/lambs born per ewe/doe per year, effectively weaned and marketed at a desirable weight are absolutely essential components for the viability of any commercial goat and sheep enterprise. Hence one principal source of substantial meat production inefficiency in commercial goat and sheep production is poor maternal effects which compromise high kid/lamb growth, where a larger proportion of kid/lamb crop fails to attain desirable marketable weight resulting in immense economic losses. There is apparent evidence accrued through extensive studies in goats and sheep which point to the fact that heredity of the dam and other dam related non-genetic factors such as parity order, dam nutrition, age and weight of dam at kidding/lambing and the dam's body condition score influence kid/lamb pre-weaning growth trait and the actual weight at weaning. In this respect, birth weight, pre and post weaning weight gain of kids/lambs may vary with dams' genotype, parity, dams' nutrition, litter size as a dams' trait, dam weight/age and parity order. The resultant effect of genotype of dam on kid/lamb growth can be direct or indirect, firstly there is a direct contribution of half of the dams' genes to the progeny for potential growth of kids/lambs, and secondly the indirect effect comes from dam possessing genes for milk production enough to adequately nurse their kids/lambs hence promoting desirable growth. It is important to note that dam milking capacity is dependent on breed, in addition to being influenced by other environmental factors such as dam nutrition and parity order. Kid/lamb born to high milk producing dams are highly likely to outclass their counterparts in post weaning growth weight gain, as well as the actual weaning weight. Low birth weight kid/lamb are associated with poor nutrition of dams during pregnancy and its effects could be seriously felt in multiple birth which result in compromised post weaning growth. Genetics is a primary source of variation for prolificacy in goats and sheep hence litter size can be designated as a maternal trait. The higher the size of birth the lower the weaning weight because of nursing competition due to multiple birth in large litter size.  Mature dams give birth to heavier kids and provide enough milk to nursed kids/lambs promoting faster growth rates subsequently enhancing survivability of kids/lambs. There is potentiality of manipulation of husbandry practices focusing on ensuring that all born kids/lambs are as close as possible to the acceptable birth weight average for that specific breed of choice which can sustain desirable weaning and post weaning growth. It should be noted that due to multifaceted nature of the dam determinants of growth traits it is reasonable to assume that appreciation of specific cause and occurrence of kids'/lamb growth could be advantageous to minimize retarded growth rates. A total control of kid/lamb growth is probably unachievable as a result partly targeting the control of both environmental and dam-related factors is critical. High kid/lamb growth rates necessitate for good management practices and improved dam nutrition to support nursing of multiple birth, in addition to the exploitation of crossbred's heterosis to promote growth in kids/lambs. The present review gives an insight on the influence of dam related factors on pre and post-weaning growth, as well as actual weaning weight in goat and sheep production.


Background/aims: Transglutaminase activity has long been implicated in the cataract formation. However, the precise mechanism of how it is produced and involved in this process remains unclear. Here the authors sought to examine whether transglutaminase 2 (TGase 2) is expressed in lens epithelial cells from patients with anterior polar cataracts, to determine whether TGase 2 expression is induced by transforming growth factor (TGF-β) in cultured lens epithelial cells, and to determine whether TGase 2 participates in the crosslinking of fibronectin in lens epithelial cells in vitro. Methods: Lens epithelial cells from anterior polar cataracts, nuclear cataracts, and non-cataractous clear lenses were examined for the expression of TGase 2 using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, western blot analysis, and immunohistochemical analysis. The modulation of extracellular TGase 2 activity by TGF-β was measured by the formation of fibronectin polymers and the incorporation of fluorescein cadaverine into extracellular matrix proteins. The effect of TGase 2 overexpression was analysed by immunofluorescence staining and western blot analysis of human lens epithelial (HLE) B-3 cells transiently transfected with TGase 2 gene. Results: The expression of TGase 2 mRNA and its protein was markedly enhanced in lens epithelial cells from patients with anterior polar cataracts. Treatment of HLE B-3 cells with TGF-β caused an increase in TGase 2 protein, its extracellular activity, and the crosslinking of fibronectin. Transient transfection of HLE B-3 cells with the TGase 2 gene led to the increased production of fibronectin monomers and polymers. Conclusions: This study shows that TGase 2 is overexpressed in lens epithelial cells from anterior polar cataracts and that TGF-β may be a causative factor in the induction of TGase 2. The enhanced expression of TGase 2 might cause the accumulation and crosslinking of the extracellular matrix proteins and might play a part in anterior polar cataract development.


OFFICIAL CERTIFIED ETHICAL HACKER REVIEW GUIDE: FOR VERSION 7.1 is a valuable resource to help you pursue the most recognized, respected hacking certification in the world. As experienced instructors of the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), the authors draw on firsthand experience training top-caliber information security professionals for success on the council's Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) exam. The only exam review guide officially endorsed by the EC-Council, this proven resource focuses on the core concepts that are covered on the newest certification course (version 7.1), as well as a wide array of useful learning tools, including chapter objectives, step-by-step tutorials, "Try it Out" exercises and challenges, , group discussion topics, short lab examples, and practice exam questions and answers with explanations.The official CEH course teaches the latest hacking techniques, exploits, automated programs, and defensive recommendations, preparing students to audit organizations' protection of their information assets through a deep understanding of the methodologies and tools of the attack process. This official CEH Exam review guide can be used to either preview and prepare for this comprehensive course or review afterwards to prepare for the challenging exam. It is the perfect complement that gives any student a real advantage toward success with this certification.


Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Label Switched Paths (LSPs) may
be established using the Resource Reservation Protocol Traffic
Engineering (RSVP-TE) extensions. This protocol includes an object
(the SESSION_ATTRIBUTE object) that carries a Flags field used to
indicate options and attributes of the LSP. That Flags field has eight
bits allowing for eight options to be set. Recent proposals in many
documents that extend RSVP-TE have suggested uses for each of the
previously unused bits. This document defines a new object for RSVP-
TE messages that allows the signaling of further attribute bits and
also the carriage of arbitrary attribute parameters to make RSVP-TE
easily extensible to support new requirements. Additionally, this
document defines a way to record the attributes applied to the LSP on
a hop-by-hop basis. The object mechanisms defined in this document
are equally applicable to Generalized MPLS (GMPLS) Packet Switch
Capable (PSC) LSPs and to GMPLS non-PSC LSPs. This document replaces
and obsoletes the previous version of this work published as RFC 4420.
The only change is in the encoding of the Type-Length-Variable (TLV)
data structures.


The flavor physics sector allows us to explore the possible extensions of the Standard Model (SM)
in a complementary approach to the direct searches conducted i.e. at the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC). New physics contributions at high energy scales can manifest themselves in low energy
phenomena provided that the observables are carefully chosen, precisely measured and compared
to accurate predictions. A stringent test of the SM predictions is the observation of the rare decay
 K+ to pi+ nu nubar. The NA62 experiment at CERN is designed to measure the branching ratio (BR) of
this decay with 10% precision. NA62 has been successfully launched in October 2014, took data
in pilot runs in 2014 and 2015 achieving the commissioning of the detectors and the designed
beam intensity. The NA62 experimental setup is described and the quality of data collected in
view of the final measurement is reported.


Since the establishment of the Children's Research Centre at The Open University (CRC) in 2004, children from the age of nine have been shown to be able to engage meaningfully with research process when given appropriate training. This paper reports on the findings of a four-year doctoral study (Bucknall, 2009) which identifies and explores the issues and barriers that influence experiences of children's engagement in self-directed empirical research in these settings. Multiple-case study was adopted as the research strategy for this study. A flexible, multi-method research design was applied. Predominantly qualitative data were generated with adult and child participants in five schools associated with the CRC and data analysis was informed by grounded theory. The central categories which emerged from the data and, in particular, the identification of important issues by the children, have together informed the staged construction of a model for CaR initiatives in English primary schools. This illustrates the factors and processes that had an impact on both the children's experiences of research training and the research process and outcomes and demonstrates that these are inextricably interrelated. This study addresses a gap in our knowledge and understanding of children as researchers and consideration of the issues and barriers identified will provide a basis for good practice during the further implementation and evaluation of young researcher initiatives in schools (author abstract)


Abstract. From the time when its roots traced back all the way back in 1886, Little Tokyo has overcome numerous obstacles including the Great Depression, Japanese American internments in the Second World War, racial discrimination, transition into Bronxville, multinational redevelopment projects, and the demographic/ geographic dispersion of the Nikkei communities. Despite these numerous development, Little Tokyo remains the major historical, cultural, and civic center for Japanese Americans living in Southern California and has continued to be a historically and a culturally symbolic space for many. This research strives to identify the trends of gentrification in the study area; Little Tokyo, through indicators or variables in 5 domains: (A) Housing, (B) Demography, (C) Income, (D) Education Level, and (E) Public Safety with the central focus on housing. To analyze the occurrence of these elements between the year 1990 and 2013, quantitative research including GIS groundworks were delivered. This research is aimed at becoming a tool to measure and potentially assist communities to make more robust development intervention and implementation by identifying the trends that emerge socio-economic problems like gentrification facing local communities around the world.


The colorimetric determination of formaldehyde in a water extract of a leather sample is a procedure that has been criticized because of possible interferences of other aldehydes and coloured substances that could interfere in the spectrophotometric detection. The measurement by liquid chromatography HPLC is an alternative method that was developed some years ago. This method is more sophisticated but more selective and free of the aforementioned interferences. It is not sensitive to coloured extracts. With the implementation of HPLC equipment in many laboratories, this choice has become feasible in our sector. The process is selective. Formaldehyde is separated and quantified as a derivative from other aldehydes and ketones by liquid chromatography. The free-formaldehyde and formaldehyde which is hydrolysed during extraction to yield free-formaldehyde are detected by this method. The sample is eluted with water at 40oC. The eluate is mixed with 2,4 dinitrophenylhydrazine, whereby aldehydes and ketones react to yield the respective hydrazones. These are separated by means of a reversed-phase HPLC method, detected at 350 nm and quantified. The aim of this work is to present a collaborative inter-laboratory study coordinated by the Igualada Leather Technology School and carried out with four other laboratories that had previosly implemented the HPLC method or that were planning to do this. Determination of formaldehyde content in leather was carried out in each laboratory in accordance with prEN ISO 17226:2005 - HPLC Standard, developed by the Committee CEN/TC 289. Part 2 of the ISO 5725 Standard (Basic method for the determination of repeatability and reproducibiliry of a standard measurement method) was applied to examine the results. The study proved successful. The HPLC method achieved very reproducible results between laboratories. This work has also demonstrated that other aldehydes, glutaraldehyde included, do not interfere in the chromatographic method. The use of a PDA detector increases the confidence of the detection of formaldehyde in leather samples


When occurring without their goal argument, communication verbs induce two types of control: obligatory control (OC) by the implicit goal, or nonobligatory control (NOC) by a salient antecedent. Arguments are presented to demonstrate that the two are genuinely distinct, and furthermore, that the NOC option is not reducible to embedded imperatives. The two types of control implicate the same grammatical representations, the single difference being the choice of the context of evaluation for PRO (fixed as the reported context in OC, free in NOC). Finally, evidence is presented (from VP-ellipsis) that reference to deictic antecedents in NOC is not direct but mediated via grammatically present entities (SPEAKER and ADDRESSEE functions).


Classrooms are unlevel knowing fields, contested terrains where knowledge and ignorance are produced and circulate with equal vigor, and where members of dominant groups are accustomed to having an epistemic home‐terrain advantage. My project focuses on one form of resistance that regularly surfaces in discussions with social‐justice content. Privilege‐preserving epistemic pushback is a variety of willful ignorance that many members of dominant groups engage in when asked to consider both the lived and structural injustices that members of marginalized groups experience daily. I argue that this dominant form of resistance is neither an expression of skepticism nor a critical‐thinking practice. I suggest that standard philosophical engagements with these expressions of resistance are incapable of tracking the harms of privilege‐preserving epistemic pushback. I recommend treating this pushback as a "shadow text," that is, as a text that runs alongside the readings in ways that offer no epistemic friction. I offer this as one critical philosophical practice for making students mindful of the ways they contribute to the circulation of ignorance and epistemic violence during the course of their discussions.


The daily maximum and minimum temperature series of the European Climate Assessment & Dataset are homogenized using the quantile matching approach. As the dataset is large and the detail of metadata is generally missing, an automated method locates breaks in the series based on a comparison with surrounding series and applies adjustments which are estimated using homogeneous segments of surrounding series as reference. A total of 6,500 series have been processed and after removing duplicates and short series, about 2,100 series have been adjusted. Finally, the effect of the homogenization of daily maximum and minimum temperature on trend estimation is shown to produce a much more spatially homogeneous and then plausible picture. 20 Homogenization of daily temperature series in the ECA&D This chapter was originally published as: Squintu, A. A., van der Schrier, G., Brugnara, Y., and Klein Tank, A. (2019). Homogenization of daily temperature series in the european climate assessment & dataset. International Journal of Climatology, 39(3):1243–1261 https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5874


The scope of this chapter is to present successful cogeneration projects. As written in Chapter 5, there are four main sectors of cogeneration applications: utility, industrial, commercial (called also building), and agricultural sector; district heating can be categorized in the utility sector. Therefore, the example projects will be presented in the following by the application sector. Undoubtedly, there are innumerable successful cogeneration projects worldwide, and the intention here is not to give an exhaustive list (it would be rather impossible) but to give only a few characteristic examples. The selection was necessarily restricted to combined heat and power (CHP) plants with data available in the open literature only, so that revealing proprietary information is avoided. The eight applications of cogeneration, presented in this chapter, are covering all types of technologies (i.e., internal combustion engines, combined cycle, steam turbine, gas turbine, etc.), all major fuels used (i.e., natural gas, biomass, coal, etc.), all various capacities (i.e., micro, small-scale, and large), and all sectors of the economy (i.e., utility, industrial, commercial, and agricultural), so that the reader can form an integrated overview and understanding of modern cogeneration projects.


The government recently announced plans to stockpile essential
goods to keep prices down and supply stable Will this work and
what will it cost Malaysians ELIZABETH JOHN and ANIZA DAMIS
speak to Universiti Putra Malaysia s Dr Mad Nasir Shamsudin and learn from this professor of agriculture and resource economics that it s an idea worth trying.


Effects of Acid Whey Marination on Tenderness, Sensory and Other Quality Parameters of Beef Eye of Round Jason Kim Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science, BYU Master of Science The growth of the Greek-style yogurt market is causing many problems for dairy companies who are trying to handle the voluminous whey by-product. Acid whey, unlike sweet whey, has a low amount of protein and high amounts of lactic acid, calcium, and other minerals. Therefore, it has limited commercial value to the food industry and often requires additional processing for disposal. Lactic acid and calcium solutions have shown efficacy in increasing the tenderness of beef and other types of meat. The purpose of this project is to investigate the use of acid whey, with its high amounts of lactic acid and calcium, to tenderize beef (eye of round, IMP 171C) during marination. This study evaluated the effects of marination of utilizing acid whey in improving quality parameters of beef. 13 roasts (Top round steaks from USDA Select steers) were randomly assigned to one of six marination treatments: (1) calcium chloride, (2) lactic acid, (3) phosphate (4) acid whey (lot 1), (5) acid whey (lot 2), and (6) control. Steaks were marinated in vacuum pouches, aged for 48 hours, cooked to 70o C and evaluated by a consumer sensory panel and other quantitative tests (texture analyzer, colorimeter, collagen, cook loss, and pH). Marination with acid whey increased the tenderness and juiciness ratings without decreasing hedonic liking scores for the overall flavor or aftertaste of the beef samples.


In this paper I discuss transitivity in Murrinh-Patha, a non-Pama-Nyungan polysynthetic language from northern Australia. I survey the range of bivalent clauses in Murrinh-Patha and their morphosyntactic properties, and consider their analysis in terms of definitions of transitivity in the cross-linguistic literature. I argue that syntactic definitions of transitivity, while compatible with the Murrinh-Patha data, are empirically unrevealing since they provide little account for the varying morphosyntactic properties of different bivalent constructions. Instead, I show that the morphosyntax of bivalent constructions in Murrinh-Patha is sensitive to the semantic features of the participants, supporting a prototype approach to transitivity (such as those proposed by Hopper and Thompson 1980 and Naess 2007).


We extend Bayesian MAP and Minimum Description Length (MDL) learning by testing whether the data can be substantially more compressed by a mixture of the MDL/MAP distribution with another element of the model, and adjusting the learning rate if this is the case. While standard Bayes and MDL can fail to converge if the model is wrong, the resulting \safe" estimator continues to achieve good rates with wrong models. Moreover, when applied to classication and regression models as considered in statistical learning theory, the approach achieves optimal rates under, e.g., Tsybakov's conditions, and reveals new situations in which we can penalize by ( logprior)=n rather than p ( logprior)=n.


In a recent article, A. Maydeu-Olivares and D. L. Coffman (2006) presented a random intercept factor approach for modeling idiosyncratic response styles in questionnaire data and compared this approach with competing confirmatory factor analysis models. Among the competing models was the CT-C(M-1) model (M. Eid, 2000). In an application to the Life Orientation Test (M. F. Scheier & C. S. Carver, 1985), Maydeu-Olivares and Coffman found that results obtained from the CT-C(M-1) model were difficult to interpret. In particular, Maydeu-Olivares and Coffman challenged the asymmetry of the CT-C(M-1) model. In the present article, the authors show that the difficulties faced by Maydeu-Olivares and Coffman rest upon an improper interpretation of the meaning of the latent factors. The authors' aim is to clarify the meaning of the latent variables in the CT-C(M-1) model. The authors explain how to properly interpret the results from this model and introduce an alternative restricted model that is conceptually similar to the CT-C(M-1) model and nested within it. The fit of this model is invariant across different reference methods. Finally, the authors provide guidelines as to which model should be used in which research context.


It's no longer coming; it's here. What impact will the information superhighway have on businesses? What are the key commercial factors in the digital age? The answers are in this book. Welcome to the Wired World is about the strategic issues executives need to know, in order to take their businesses forward in the digital age. It provides a synthesis of and commentary on the key reports, surveys, and compliance and regulatory issues that are shaping commerce in the wired world. In addition, it will define the field of commercial practice: business models, markets, companies, legal frameworks, workers and more. Author : Anne Leer is a specialist in strategy and electronic media. She is strategic planning adviser to Oxford University Press and a research fellow at Oxford University.


For three decades, scholars (as well as courts and litigants) have written thousands of articles (and opinions and briefs) concerning the impact of the Chevron deference regime on judicial review of agency statutory interpretation. This should come as no surprise as Chevron is the most-cited administrative-law decision of all time. Little attention, however, has been paid to how Chevron and its progeny have actually shaped statutory interpretation inside the regulatory state. As part of the Fordham Law Review symposium Chevron at 30: Looking Back and Looking Forward, this Essay presents the findings of the first comprehensive empirical investigation into the effect of Chevron and related doctrines on how federal agencies interpret statutes they administer. The Essay draws on a larger, 195-question survey of federal agency rule drafters that covered a variety of topics related to agency statutory interpretation. (The survey is available online at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2481631.) The author administered the survey during a five-month period in 2013 at seven executive departments (Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation) and two independent agencies (Federal Communications Commission and Federal Reserve). Responses were received from 128 agency officials whose primary duties included statutory interpretation and rulemaking (for a 31% response rate). This Essay provides a new and important window into the role of Chevron and its progeny inside the regulatory state. Based on the findings presented in this Essay, it would not be an understatement to conclude that thirty years of Chevron have saturated the federal agency rulemaking process. The rule drafters surveyed overwhelmingly indicated familiarity with and use of Chevron and related doctrines in their statutory interpretation efforts. Moreover, two in five rule drafters surveyed agreed or strongly agreed — and another two in five somewhat agreed — that a federal agency is more aggressive in its interpretive efforts if it is confident that Chevron deference (as opposed to Skidmore deference or de novo review) applies.


Overlay journals are characterised by their articles being published on open access repositories, often already starting in their initial preprint form as a prerequisite for submission to the journal prior to initiating the peer-review process. In this study we aimed to identify currently active overlay journals and examine their characteristics. We utilised an explorative web search and contacted key service providers for additional information. The final sample consisted of 34 overlay journals. While the results show that new overlay journals have been actively established within recent years, the current presence of overlay journals remains diminutive compared to the overall number of open access journals. Most overlay journals publish articles in natural sciences, mathematics or computer sciences, and are commonly published by groups of academics rather than formal organisations. They may also rank highly within the traditional journal citation metrics. None of the investigated journals required fees from authors, which is likely related to the cost-effective aspects of the overlay publishing model. Both the growth in adoption of open access preprint repositories and researchers' willingness to publish in overlay journals will determine the model's wider impact on scholarly publishing.


*Corresponding Author: firstname.lastname@example.com DOI: 10.24081/nijesr.2017.1.0014 Branchless Banking (BB) is an emerging financial segment also known as "banking beyond branches". Branchless banking has viable opportunities for old as well as new entrants in technology based businesses. The strategic alliances and integrations with banks, mobile network operators (MNO's), agents, and infinite retail-outlets have the opportunity to maximize their profitability. New and emerging business opportunities always have challenges. Accordingly, BB also faces the challenges such as lack of trust, security, technology, e-readiness, regulatory norms, proper agent checking for implementation of AML (Anti Money Laundering), and KYC (Know Your Customer). The paper examines Strengths Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of BB and recommends some strategies to overcome the identified challenges and make the avenue more profitable specifically in Pakistan. Despite enormous challenges, BB has many potential opportunities and scope to boost up the economy by improving employment opportunities and foreign investments in branchless banking infrastructure in the country.


Through the rich Christian tradition in Macedonia from the early Christian, medieval and up to the modern period numerous churches and monasteries were built, where all forms of development of spiritual and cultural life took place. A historically remarkable location is Lesnovo Monastery, which has survived until today during almost one thousand years of spiritual and cultural tradition in Macedonia. The oldest indirect and legendary sources point to the conclusion that the original construction of the monastic church in Lesnovo should be moved to the period of the eleventh century, when from 1018 onwards, after the fall of Samuil's Slavic reign on the territory of Macedonia, the Byzantine state, political, and church protectorate was restored. As a consequence of the resistance to the restored Byzantine spiritual protectorate and the suppression of the established Slavic church tradition in this northeastern part of Macedonia, the anachoretic monasticism was revived, and as a reflection of the rising cult to the venerable hermit, St. Gavril of Lesnovo, the Lesnovo monastery was also affirmed. Its history directly reflects all the forms of spiritual and cultural tradition in Macedonia. In 2017, when the jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of the restoration of the autocephaly of the Ohrid Archbishopric (19672017) as the Macedonian Orthodox Church Ohrid Archbishopric is celebrated, the former abbot of the Lesnovo monastery Father Gabriel of Mt. Athos and Bishop of Velika was canonized as a saint (†12 January 1990). This blessed Christian act enriched the 10-century long spiritual tradition of the Lesnovo Monastery with the glory and honor of the holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, of the venerable hermit Gavril of Lesnovo and of the Holy Bishop of Velika, the venerable Gavril Svetogorac (of Lesnovo).


This paper analyzes the components of corporate credit spreads. The analysis is based on a structural model that can offer a framework to understand the decomposition. The paper contends that default risk may correctly represent only a small portion of corporate credit spreads. This idea stems both from empirical evidence and from the following theoretical assumptions underlying contingent claim models of default: that markets for corporate stocks and bonds are (i) perfect, (ii) complete, and (iii) trading takes place continuously. Thus, in these models there are no transaction or bankruptcy costs, no tax effects, no liquidity effects, no jump effects reflecting market incompleteness, and no market risk factors effecting the pricing of corporate stocks or bonds. The paper starts with the use of a modified version of the Black-Scholes-Merton diffusion based option approach. We estimate corporate default spreads as simply a component of corporate credit spreads using data from November 1991 to December 1998, which includes the Asian Crisis in the Fall, 1998. First we measure the difference between the observed corporate credit spreads and option based estimates of default spreads. We define this difference as the residual spread. We show that for AAA (BBB) firms only a small percentage, 5% (22%), of the credit spread can be attributed to default risk. We show that recovery risk also cannot explain this residual spread. Next, we show that state taxes on corporate bonds also cannot explain the residual. We note that the pure diffusion assumption may lead to underestimates of the default risk. In order to include jumps to default, we next estimate what combined jump-diffusion parameters would be necessary to force default spread to eliminate the residual spread. In each rating class on average firms would be required to experience annual jumps that decrease firm value by 20% and increase stock volatility by more than 100% over their observed volatility in order to eliminate the residual spread. We consider this required increase in stock volatility to be unrealistic as the sole explanation of the residual spread. So next we consider whether the unexplained component can be partly attributable to interest rates, liquidity, and market risk factors. We find the following empirical results: i) increases in liquidity as measured by changes in each firm's trading volume significantly reduces the residual spread, but does not alter the default spread; ii) increases in stock market volatility significantly reduces the residual spread by increasing the default spread relative to the credit spread, and iii) increases in stock market returns significantly increases the residual spread by reducing the default spread relative to the credit spread. This paper concludes that credit risk and credit spreads are not primarily explained by default and recovery risk, but are mainly attributable to taxes, jumps, liquidity, and market risk factors.


PURPOSE
Recent studies reported that clinical responsiveness to gefitinib was associated with somatic mutation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). Here, we investigated the relationship between EGFR mutation and clinicopathologic features.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
EGFR mutational status of 120 NSCLCs was determined mainly in EGFR exons 18 to 21 by direct sequence and correlated with clinicopathologic parameters.

RESULTS
EGFR mutations were present in 38 cases (32%) and the majority of mutations were in-frame deletions of exon 19 (19 cases) and a missense mutation in exon 21 (18 cases). EGFR mutations were frequently associated with adenocarcinoma (P < 0.0001), never smoker (P < 0.0001), and female gender (P = 0.0001). Of interest, increasing smoke exposure was inversely related to the rate of EGFR mutation (P < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis showed that smoking and histology were independent variables. Furthermore, gender difference was observed for the mutational location (P = 0.01) dominance of exon 19 for males and exon 21 for females. Twenty-one cases were treated with gefitinib and found that EGFR mutation was significantly related to gefitinib responsiveness (P = 0.002). In addition, median survival times of patients with and without EGFR mutations treated with gefitinib were 25.1 and 14.0 months, respectively. Patients with EGFR mutations had approximately 2-fold survival advantage; however, the difference was not significant.

CONCLUSIONS
We show that EGFR mutations were significantly related to histology and smoke exposure and were a strong predictive factor for gefitinib responsiveness in NSCLC.


Getting a high score on the IELTS begins with a plan. This book offers test-takers a range of strategies for choosing the best methods for answering questions, along with useful tips that help them make choices quickly and efficiently. Together, these tips and strategies will give prospective test-takers a plan for success on each module of the exam--Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking. Practice questions with fully explained answers and an MP3 CD add to the benefits of this unique test guide.


Electromagnetic articulography (EMA) is one of the instrumental phonetic research methods used for recording and assessing articulatory movements. Usually, articulographic data are analysed together with standard audio recordings. This paper, however, demonstrates how coupling the articulograph with devices providing other types of information may be used in more advanced speech research. A novel measurement system is presented that consists of the AG 500 electromagnetic articulograph, a 16-channel microphone array with a dedicated audio recorder and a video module consisting of 3 high-speed cameras. It is argued that synchronization of all these devices allows for comparative analyses of results obtained with the three components. To complement the description of the system, the article presents innovative data analysis techniques developed by the authors as well as preliminary results of the system's accuracy.


We have examined the abilities of helper T cells from commercially available (CBA/N X BALB/c)F1 (NBF1) xid male and phenotypically normal female mice to help T15+ and T15- B cells to produce thymus-dependent phosphorylcholine (PC)-specific direct plaque-forming cell responses. Carrier-primed T cells from both male and female mice were found (a) to restore T15+ TD responses in congenitally athymic BALB/c mice, (b) to help PC-primed BALB/c splenic B cells produce predominantly T15+ responses, and (c) to provide help for T15+ and T15- PFC responses generated by PC-primed normal F1 splenic B cells. Furthermore, carrier- primed irradiated xid and normal recipients contributed adequate helper activity for T15 dominant responses. We therefore conclude that male and female NBF1 mice are equally capable of helping T15+ responses.


In Tuscany, the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) became extinct at the beginning of the 20th century. Recently, some attempts have been made to re-establish wild populations in Tuscany using farm reared birds, but in most cases the released populations have shown difficulties in reaching sufficient viability, even in areas where the habitat can be considered suitable. Modern technologies for rearing game-birds may be not suitable for reintroduction purposes. For this reason we carried out preliminary research to evaluate the survival of red legged partridges reared under natural condition (Natural) compared to those farm reared (Artificial). Natural rearing occurred in a large pen where birds were allowed to mate freely and to nest. Natural reared birds reached a larger size than artificially-reared birds. Partridges were released in a 7.56 sq km protected area located in the province of Leghorn (western Tuscany, Italy). We followed the fate of 22 young radio-tagged red-legged female partridges (half Natural and half Artificial) and 56 young red-legged partridges (25 Artificial and 31 Natural) marked with different coloured ponchos. The survival of Natural radio-tagged red-legged partridges was double that of the Artificial red-legged partridges. After six months, the re-sighting rate of the Natural poncho-marked birds reached 22.6% whereas none of the Artificial stock was re-sighted. The preliminary results of this research suggest that Natural rearing may be an important tool to improve the success of partridge reintroduction.


In this thesis, wavelets are applied to the analysis of two types of medical signals, namely infant breathing signals and ultrasound images. One-dimensional wavelets are used to quantify amplitude modulation of infant breathing that occurs during quiet sleep. Two-dimensional wavelets are used to develop enhancement techniques in the wavelet domain, tailored to ultrasound images. The development of wavelets is described from the backgrounds of mathematics, signal processing and sub-band coding. One-dimensional wavelets are defined for both continuous and discrete cases. Two-dimensional wavelets are developed for both separable and non-separable classes. The construction of both oneand two-dimensional wavelets is described, and examples of wavelets that are used in subsequent analyses are presented. The analysis of breathing signals provides information for understanding the physiology of breathing. The wavelet domain is shown to isolate frequency characteristics of breathing signals, as well as indicating the temporal position of those characteristics in the signal. Some of the characteristics that were measured were not distinguished in the original signals. The extent of constant frequency components due to amplitude modulation of the principal breathing rate is quantified. Breathing in infants is of particular interest, as it may provide insight into the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), or cot death. Studies of infants who later succumbed to SIDS, or were at high risk for SIDS, and infants at low risk for SIDS were carried out. The infants who later succumbed to SIDS and those at high risk for SIDS showed different characteristics in the wavelet domain compared to infants at low risk for SIDS. As well as implying that there may be a difference in the physiologies of infants at high and low risk for SIDS, this result confirms that wavelets can be used to analyse breathing signals and produce meaningful results. Ultrasound images typically contain artefacts and low contrast between features of interest and often exhibit a noisy background. The aim of any enhancement procedure is to reduce the contributions from noise and artefacts and increase the contrast between the features of interest and the background. A method to objectively measure improvements in image quality is described, although this attempt achieved mixed results. Separable and non-separable two-dimensional wavelets are used with


Background. The effects of histamine on immunologic responses via the histamine receptor 2 (HR2) have been studied, but few investigations explored the immunomodulatory role of histamine in vivo. We examined whether the HR2 antagonist ranitidine affects the alloimmune response in a murine model of cardiac transplantation. Methods. CBA (H-2k) recipients were given no treatment or one intravenous injection of ranitidine on the day of transplantation of a heart from C57BL/10 (H-2b) donors. Survival of the allografts was recorded. The effect of the ranitidine treatment on cell proliferation and cytokine production was assessed by mixed leukocyte culture and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. An adoptive transfer study was conducted to determine whether regulatory cells were generated. The effect on graft survival of adding FK506 to the ranitidine treatment was also examined. Results. CBA recipients given ranitidine (60 mg/kg) had prolonged graft survival (median survival time [MST], 87 days). Ranitidine treatment also suppressed the proliferation of splenocytes and production of interleukin (IL)-2 and up-regulated IL-10 production. Adoptive transfer of splenocytes and CD4+ cells from ranitidine-treated allograft recipients induced significant prolongation of allograft survival in naive secondary recipients (MST, 71 and >100 days, respectively). CBA recipients given both ranitidine and FK506 (0.1 mg/kg/day for 14 days) had indefinite survival of cardiac allografts (MST, >100 days). CBA recipients treated with FK506 alone rejected the allografts (MST, 27 days). Conclusion. In our model, ranitidine treatment induced significantly prolonged survival of fully allogeneic cardiac grafts, generated CD4+ regulatory cells, and indefinite survival when combined with FK506 (0.1 mg/kg/day).


Abstract Background: The objective was to determine the reproducibility of two, three, four and five repeated 24-hour recalls among peri-urban African adolescents. Method: A prospective study design was used within the multidisciplinary PhysicaL Activity in the Young (PLAY) study. Eighty-seven Grade 9 learners (59 girls and 28 boys, aged 10–18 years) with a mean age of 14.7 ± 1.5 years, who had completed five 24-hour recalls, were investigated. The learners were from Seiphemelo Secondary School in Ikageng, a peri-urban area in the North West province of South Africa. Reproducibility coefficients (RCs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated, using the intraclass correlation coefficient formula for transformed values of selected nutrients and food groups, for two, three, four and five repeated 24-hour recalls. The RCs and 95% CIs were compared in order to identify the optimum number of 24-hour recalls to give the best reproducibility results. Results: The RCs were nutrient- and food-group sensitive and ranged from 0.25 (riboflavin) to 0.6 (carbohydrate). Although differences were not statistically significant, RCs for four and five 24-hour recalls were higher than those obtained for two and three 24-hour recalls. For most nutrients and food groups, four 24-hour recalls gave the highest RCs, with non-significant differences overall between the four and five 24-hour recalls. Conclusion: The results suggest that four 24-hour recalls would be sufficient to provide acceptable reproducibility of reported food group and nutrient intakes among peri-urban African adolescents.


We examine collaboration in a one-arm bandit problem in which the players' actions affect the distribution over future payoffs. The players need to exert costly effort both to enhance the value of a risky technology and to learn about its current state. Both product value and learning are public goods, which gives the players incentives to free-ride on each others' actions. This leads to an inefficiently low aggregate level of effort. When the players' actions affect the distribution over future payoffs, they eventually get trapped in the low action, causing an inefficient unraveling of the game. Moreover, the players' incentives to exert effort depend on the state that in turn depends on the aggregate effort. If the players start restricting effort when the belief decreases in expectation, the two effects play in the same direction. Higher effort encourages higher effort and vice versa. Unraveling leads to multiple symmetric Markov perfect equilibria.


Pondberry (Lindera rnelirsifol~ia Walt.] Blume) is a federally listed endangered shrub found as isolated populations in seasonally flooded forests across the Southeastern United States. Because this shrub is rare, it has received little research attention, and basic knowledge of its ecology and physiology is lacking. To facilitate future ecological and physiological studies on pondberry, we developed and tested a model to predict area of individual leaf blades from simple dimensions that are obtained nondestmctively. A linear function, using the product of blade length and width as the independent variable, was found to be the most suitable predictor of pondberry leaf blade area based on correlation coefficients (r2 = 0.99561, plots of actual versus predicted values, and predicted versus residual values. We demonstrate that simple dimensions that are obtained nondestructively, such as blade length and width, can be used to reliably predict leaf blade area of pondberry, but model coefficients should be calibrated for local colonies to improve estimates. Development of this model allows for leaf blade area determination at the plant level without the need to destructively harvest foliage.


Numerical simulations that take into account propagation, self-focusing, and gain saturation in solid-state lasers reveal that self-mode locking can take place in such lasers even in the absence of apertures. The combination of self-focusing and gain saturation produces a differential gain that favors the growth of short pulses and eliminates cw oscillations. Nonsymmetrical cavities can provide a substantial differential gain when they are operated near a stability limit.


In a heterogeneous environment, uncertainty in system parameters may cause performance features to degrade considerably. It then becomes necessary to design a system that is robust. Robustness can be defined as the degree to which a system can function in the presence of inputs different from those assumed. In this research, we focus on the design of robust static resource allocation heuristics suitable for a heterogeneous compute cluster that minimize the energy required to complete a given workload. In this study, we mathematically model and simulate a heterogeneous computing system that is assumed part of a larger warehouse scale computing environment. Task execution times/energy consumption may vary significantly across different data sets in our heterogeneous cluster; therefore, the execution time of each task on each node is modeled as a random variable. A resource allocation is considered robust if the probability that all tasks complete by a system deadline is at least 90%. To minimize the energy consumption of a specific resource allocation, dynamic voltage frequency scaling (DVFS) is employed. However, other factors, such as system overhead (spent on fans, disks, memory, etc.) must also be mathematically modeled when considering minimization of energy consumption. In this research, we propose three different heuristics that employ DVFS to minimize energy consumed by a set of tasks in our heterogeneous computing system. Finally, a lower bound on energy consumption is provided to gauge the performance of our heuristics.


A dense seismic network can increase Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system capability to estimate earthquake information with higher accuracy. It is also critical for generating fast, robust earthquake alarms before strong-ground shaking hits the target area. However, building a dense seismic network via traditional seismometers is too expensive and may not be practical. Using low-cost Micro-Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) accelerometers is a potential solution to quickly deploy a large number of sensors around the monitored region. An EEW system constructed using a dense seismic network with 543 MEMS sensors in Taiwan is presented. The system also incorporates the official seismic network of Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau (CWB). The real-time data streams generated by the two networks are integrated using the Earthworm software. This paper illustrates the methods used by the integrated system for estimating earthquake information and evaluates the system performance. We applied the Earthworm picker for the seismograms recorded by the MEMS sensors (Chen et al. 2015) following new picking constraints to accurately detect P-wave arrivals and use a new regression equation for estimating earthquake magnitudes. An off-line test was implemented using 46 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from M_L 4.5-6.5 to calibrate the system. The experimental results show that the integrated system has stable source parameter results and issues alarms much faster than the current system run by the CWB seismic network (CWBSN).


The exploitation status of cardinalfish (Epigonus crassicaudus) yielded in Chile between 33° to 41°S was analyzed. An indirect assessment was performed between 1997 and 2003 through size-structured model with a transition matrix defining the changes among sizes. The model was calibrated using size structures, official landings, catch-per-unit of effort (CPUE) taken from commercial fishing logbooks and standardized by generalized linear models (GLM). After 7 years of an intense fishery activity, we concluded that the cardinalfish resource in Chile is on the recruitment overfishing limit. On 2003, the spawning biomass with respect to the virginal spawning biomass is close to 40%. The biological references points (BRP) based on spawning per recruit biomass (SPR) support this assesment because the fishing mortality level on 2003 (F act ) was very close to fishing mortality level of 40% of SRP at virginal value (F 40% ).


This book makes available to scholars for the first time transcriptions of 313 clay tablets preserved in the Yale Babylonian Collection. The tablets date from the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, who presided over the destiny of the Neo-Babylonian empire from 556 B.C. until its conquest by the Persians in 539 B.C.. Representing a significant addition to the body of primary sources that illuminate the social and economic history of this transitional era, these clay documents include mainly administrative records and legal transactions, along with a few letters. Each tablet was written in the Akkadian language using the cuneiform script invented in Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.. Paul-Alain Beaulieu's transcriptions of the tablets are presented in autographed facsimile copies. The author also provides an introduction to the volume, a register and descriptive catalogue of the texts, and indexes of personal names, geographical names, and names of gods and temples appearing in the texts. This outstanding collection affords important new access to the history of Mesopotamian civilization during its last phase as an independent political and cultural entity.


: Police services are cited by economists as an example of a standard public good that should be supplied by the state to prevent market failure on account of the free-rider problem. However, from a historical perspective, the public police is a relatively new phenomenon. Even today in many countries the number of private security workers is larger than the number of public police officials. In this paper, we argue that the public police often do not aim to correct market failure, nor they tend to mimic a well-functioning market for security by reducing losses from crime to an efficient level.. On the contrary, the policy goal of fighting against crimes - especially against violent ones- has moved towards ensuring equal security for all residents. This aim has gained influence from writings of constitutional law scholars, who argue that the right to equal security against crimes derives from equal constitutional rights. It has also gained acceptance as a practical police strategy. We provide a model to examine legal and economic implications of the right to equal security against crimes. We show that 'equal security for all' approach toward policing is inconsistent with several other equally plausible legal objectives. It reduces efficiency as well as effectiveness of the crime fighting efforts. We show that even without discriminatory intent, the equal security-oriented policing leads to crime clearance und punishment rates that are different across police districts and also across communities. In particular, under highly plausible and realistic conditions, the equal security can result in statistical discrimination against minorities or immigrants in terms of crime punishment rates. Moreover, the adverse effects of the equal


This paper presents a new lightweight technique for automatically generating high coverage test suites for Haskell library code. Our approach combines four main features to increase test coverage: (1) automatically inferring the constructors and functions needed to generate test data; (2) using needed narrowing to take advantage of Haskell's lazy evaluation semantics; (3) inspecting elements inside returned data structures through the use of case statements, and (4) efficiently handling polymorphism by lazily instantiating all possible instances.
 We have implemented this technique in IRULAN, a fully automatic tool for systematic black-box unit testing of Haskell library code. We have designed IRULAN to generate high coverage test suites and detect common programming errors in the process. We have applied IRULAN to over 50 programs from the spectral and real suites of the nofib benchmark and show that it can effectively generate high-coverage test suites---exhibiting 70.83% coverage for spectral and 59.78% coverage for real---and find errors in these programs.
 Our techniques are general enough to be useful for several other types of testing, and we also discuss our experience of using IRULAN for property and regression testing.


The complete polarization state of the degenerate four-wave mixing signal from a GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs multiple quantum well is determined by time resolution of all four of its Stokes parameters as a function of the relative angle between the two linear input polarizations. The degree of ellipticity and the orientation of the polarization ellipse are both observed to vary dramatically in time, and the temporal evolution is found to depend strongly on the orientation of the input polarizations. These time-resolved results are shown to be consistent with previous measurements of the time-integrated Stokes parameters and to provide new constraints for physical models. The results are shown to be qualitatively consistent with a phenomenological model requiring the inclusion of both many-body interactions and biexcitonic effects.


The effector molecules in RNA interference (RNAi) are small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). The initial population of "primary" siRNAs, ~22 nucleotides in length with 5′-monophosphates groups, is generated by the Dicer nuclease. Amplification and "spreading" of the initial trigger population are thought to contribute to strength of the RNAi response in a number of systems and involve an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP) (see the Perspective by Baulcombe). To investigate the nature of this secondary response, Pak and Fire and Sijen et al. analyzed the course of an experimentally induced RNAi reaction in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and also examined endogenous small RNAs. They found distinct populations of "secondary" siRNAs that are antisense to the messenger RNA target, that have a di- or triphosphate moiety at their 5′ ends, and that may map both upstream and downstream of the original dsRNA trigger. Primary siRNAs do not appear to act as primers for RdRP but rather guide RdRP to targeted messages for the de novo synthesis of secondary siRNAs that further boost the RNAi response. J. Pak, A. Fire, Distinct populations of primary and secondary effectors during RNAi in C. elegans. Science 315, 241-244 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] T. Sijen, F. A. Steiner, K. L. Thijssen, R. H. A. Plasterk, Secondary siRNAs result from unprimed RNA synthesis and form a distinct class. Science 315, 244-247 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] D. C. Baulcombe, Amplified silencing. Science 315, 199-200 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


Recurrent Neural Networks are powerful tools for modeling sequences. They are flexibly extensible and can incorporate various kinds of information including temporal order. These properties make them well suited for generating sequential recommendations. In this paper, we extend Recurrent Neural Networks by considering unique characteristics of the Recommender Systems domain. One of these characteristics is the explicit notion of the user recommendations are specifically generated for. We show how individual users can be represented in addition to sequences of consumed items in a new type of Gated Recurrent Unit to effectively produce personalized next item recommendations. Offline experiments on two real-world datasets indicate that our extensions clearly improve objective performance when compared to state-of-the-art recommender algorithms and to a conventional Recurrent Neural Network.


We present an automatic zooming technique that leverages content analysis for viewing a document page on a small display such as a mobile phone or PDA. The page can come from a scanned document (bitmap image) or an electronic document (text and graphics data plus metadata). The page with text and graphics is segmented into regions. For each region, a scale-distortion function is constructed based on image analysis of the signal distortion that occurs at different scales. During interactive viewing of the document, as the user navigates by moving the viewport around the page, the zoom factor is automatically adjusted by optimizing the scale-distortion functions of the regions visible in the viewport.


The downscaling and integration of biomedical analyses onto a single chip offers several advantages in speed, cost, parallelism and de-centralization. Acoustic radiation forces are attractive to use in these applications since they are strong, long-range and gentle. Lab-on-a-chip operations such as cell trapping, particle fluorescence activated cell sorting, fluid mixing and particle sorting performed by acoustic radiation forces are exploited in this thesis. Two different platforms are designed, manufactured and evaluated.


Background: Sugammadex is a selective relaxant binding agent for antagonism of prolonged rocuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade. The recommended dose is 2 mg/kg. Based on the pharmacological characteristics of sugammadex in obese patients, the calculated lean body mass (CLBM) should be used to determine the dose to reverse moderate neuromuscular blockade induced by rocuronium. Objective: A study was undertaken to prove that sugammadex can be used according to CLBM to reverse moderate neuromuscular blockade in obese female patients. Methods: This is a prospective, non-randomised, observational study. Sugammadex was used at the end of bariatric surgery on obese patients with a body mass index > 32 kg/m2. The dose was calculated according to the lean body mass. Muscle blockade was assessed using train-of-four monitoring. Results: Twenty women were included in this study. All patients were female and ASA 2. The age of patients ranged between 20 and 50 years with a mean age of 35.74 (±10) years. The mean CLBM was 50 kg. The mean time from administration of sugammadex to reverse neuromuscular blockade from two responses of TOF to T4/T1 > 90% was 167.25 seconds (2.8 minutes) (60–285 seconds). Conclusion: It is concluded that the calculated lean body mass can be used to calculate the dose of sugammadex for obese female patients to reverse moderate neuromuscular blockade induced by rocuronium.


Abstract. Radio-frequency interference (RFI) can significantly contaminate the measured radiometric signal of current spaceborne L-band passive microwave radiometers. These spaceborne radiometers operate within the protected passive remote sensing and radio-astronomy frequency allocation of 1400–1427 MHz but nonetheless are still subjected to frequent RFI intrusions. We present a unique surface-based and airborne hyperspectral 385 channel, dual polarization, L-band Fourier transform, RFI-detecting radiometer designed with a frequency range from 1400 through  ≈  1550 MHz. The extended frequency range was intended to increase the likelihood of detecting adjacent RFI-free channels to increase the signal, and therefore the thermal resolution, of the radiometer instrument. The external instrument calibration uses three targets (sky, ambient, and warm), and validation from independent stability measurements shows a mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.0 K for ambient and warm targets and 1.5 K for sky. A simple but effective RFI removal method which exploits the large number of frequency channels is also described. This method separates the desired thermal emission from RFI intrusions and was evaluated with synthetic microwave spectra generated using a Monte Carlo approach and validated with surface-based and airborne experimental measurements.


Attention control of audience is required for suc-cessful presentations, therefore giving a presentation with im-mediate reaction, called reactive presentation, to unexpected changes in the context given by the audience is important. Examples of functions for the reactive presentation are shape animation effects on slides and slide transition effects.
Understanding the functions that realize the reactive pre-sentation on the Web can be useful. In this work, we present an effective method for synchronizing shape animation effects on the Web, such as moving the objects and changing the size and color of the shape objects. The main idea is to make a video of animated slides, called Web Slide Media, including the page information of slides as movie chapter information for synchronization. Moreover, we explain a method to reduce the file size of the Web slide media by removing all shape animation effects and slide transition effects from a Web slide media item, called Sparse Web Slide Media.
We demonstrate that the performance of the system is enough for practical use and the file size of the Sparse Web Slide Media is smaller than the file size of the Web Slide Media.


Antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors have been studied in depth, focusing on both individual differences and environmental variables. However, motivation has been largely overlooked as a contributor to these voluntary behaviors. Self-Determination Theory, a motivational framework, posits that environmental support in the form of fulfilled basic psychological needs leads to activities geared towards growth and development, whereas a lack of environmental supports thwarts these attempts towards self-growth. It is hypothesized that environmental support will account for unique variance above and beyond previously studied antecedents of voluntary workplace behaviors. This was supported using hierarchical regression.
It was also hypothesized that locus of control will moderate the effect of environmental support on voluntary behaviors, such that environmental support will play a larger role in people with an external locus of control, compared to those with an internal locus of control. This was not supported using moderated regression, but the trends suggest that future research in this area may be more successful. The implications for research and practice are discussed.


The FastInf C++ library is designed to perform memory and time efficient approximate inference in large-scale discrete undirected graphical models. The focus of the library is propagation based approximate inference methods, ranging from the basic loopy belief propagation algorithm to propagation based on convex free energies. Various message scheduling schemes that improve on the standard synchronous or asynchronous approaches are included. Also implemented are a clique tree based exact inference, Gibbs sampling, and the mean field algorithm. In addition to inference, FastInf provides parameter estimation capabilities as well as representation and learning of shared parameters. It offers a rich interface that facilitates extension of the basic classes to other inference and learning methods.


The goal of Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) is to
provide guidance to applications that have to select one or several
hosts from a set of candidates capable of providing a desired
resource. ALTO is realized by a client-server protocol. Before an ALTO
client can ask for guidance it needs to discover one or more ALTO
servers that can provide suitable guidance. In some deployment
scenarios, in particular if the information about the network topology
is partitioned and distributed over several ALTO servers, it may be
needed to discover an ALTO server outside of the own network domain,
in order to get appropriate guidance. This document details applicable
scenarios, itemizes requirements, and specifies a procedure for ALTO
cross-domain server discovery. Technically, the procedure specified
in this document takes one IP address or prefix and a U-NAPTR Service
Parameter (typically, "ALTO:https") as parameters. It performs DNS
lookups (for NAPTR resource records in the in-addr.arpa. or ip6.arpa.
tree) and returns one or more URI(s) of information resources related
to that IP address or prefix.


The effect of perfusate [Ca2+] on the function of cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum (CSR) was assessed by the oxalate-supported Ca2+ uptake rate of ventricular homogenates of isolated rat hearts maintained in a modified Langendorff preparation. The total Ca2+ pumping activity of the CSR was determined by using 20 microM ruthenium red or 625 microM ryanodine to close the CSR Ca2+ release channel. The homogenate Ca2+ uptake rate in the absence of ruthenium red or ryanodine decreased progressively with increasing perfusate [Ca2+] (25.7 +/- 1.2, 21.4 +/- 1.5, 17.2 +/- 1.1, and 16.3 +/- 1.2 [mean +/- SEM] nmol Ca2+.min-1.mg-1 for hearts perfused for 5 minutes with 0.2, 1.4, 2.8, and 5.6 mM Ca2+, respectively; p = 0.0001; n = 8). This depression was not observed when Ca2+ uptake was assayed in the presence of ryanodine or ruthenium red. Since the Ca2+ uptake in the presence of ryanodine or ruthenium red is determined by the Ca(2+)-ATPase, this result suggests that perfusion with varying [Ca2+] did not affect the Ca(2+)-ATPase. The observed decrease in Ca2+ uptake in the absence of ryanodine or ruthenium red is caused by an increased efflux through the ryanodine-sensitive Ca2+ release channel. When hearts perfused for 5 minutes with 0.2 or 5.6 mM Ca2+ were reperfused for 10 minutes with 1.4 mM Ca2+, homogenate Ca2+ uptake rates were restored to near control levels. These effects of perfusate Ca2+ were not direct effects, because changes in the [Ca2+] of the homogenization medium did not alter the homogenate Ca2+ uptake activity in either the presence or absence of ryanodine. The homogenate Ca2+ uptake rates were unaffected by prior active loading of the CSR with Ca2+. These results suggest a regulatory role of perfusate Ca2+ in increasing the open state of the ryanodine-sensitive Ca2+ release channel that is distinct from the beat-to-beat regulation of Ca2+ release from the CSR by Ca2+ (Ca(2+)-induced Ca2+ release).


Plant extracts and nutraceuticals are the most ancient and widespread form of medication among the general population. The pomegranate is an prehistoric, mystical and highly different fruit. Moreover pomegranate is found in some medicinal systems for a variety of illnesses. Pomegranate has been used for a long time for nutraceutical purposes. Current researches seem to demonstrate that the most medicinal useful pomegranate components are ellagitannins, anthocyanins, anthocyanidins, flavonoids, estrogenic flavonols and flavones. Also pomegranate seed oil contains 64-83% punicic acid. Therefore, in this review we mention about effects of punicic acid, particularly anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, antiinflammatory and antidiabetic effects. As we mentioned above nutraceuticals have a major role in the mechanism and prophylaxis of various diseases, punicic acid is an important and rising star among these agents. These agents are safe to use and show much less side effects. In spite of all these studies it is obvious that more clinical studies and new application areas are needed.


ABSTRACT Detection and quantification of dilute viral aerosols, as encountered outside animal housing facilities, requires methods that are able to detect small numbers of viruses in large volumes of air. This study compared the performance of two size-differentiating cascade impactors; an Andersen 8-stage (ACI; 28.3 L/min) and a high volume Tisch (TCI; 1,133 L/min) to assess sampling efficiency for detecting porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and influenza A virus (IAV). Samples of particles sorted by aerodynamic diameter were analyzed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and collection efficiency was assessed by particle size. Collection media (minimum essential medium [MEM] and beef extract [BE]), elution technique (active versus passive), and sampling times (10, 20, and 30 min) were variables assessed for the TCI sampler. Extraction efficiency was 35% higher with BE as compared to that of MEM (p = 0.0007); active extraction technique was 19% more efficient than the passive technique (p = 0.03); time of sampling did not significantly affect the amount of virus recovered. The ACI sampler was more efficient in detecting both viruses from small and medium sized airborne particles (≤3 μm) as compared to the TCI sampler (p < 0.001). The latter sampler, however, was more efficient at IAV detection from large airborne particles (>3 μm) (p = 0.0025) indicating the potential of this sampler in detecting the presence of small amounts of viruses in aerosols under field conditions. © 2017 American Association for Aerosol Research


This paper examines on-off systems and automatic monitoring and control of a biological aerated filter to identify the end point of nitrification and denitrification processes, and chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia-nitrogen removal (NH 3 -N) and aeration savings. Oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) were measured on-line and chemical parameters were measured in the wastewater. The 'nitrate knee' in the ORP profile was characterised by a breakpoint at average 160 min, representing the complete removal of NO 3 -N, i.e. the end of the denitrification period, as well as the end of the nitrification period was clearly shown in the pH profile (ammonia valley) at average 210 min for all C/N ratios. The NH 3 -N removal efficiencies were 92.30, 97.57 and 98.02% whilst the COD removals of 95.06, 96.38 and 97.56% were achieved for the C/N ratios of 10, 4 and 1 respectively. Therefore, the on-off control was operated at average 230 min for aeration time and 130 min for the anoxic period. Thus significant improvements can be achieved with respect to the continuous aeration strategy, and average operational costs reduced by 36.11%. The study showed that an on-off controller can easily be implemented in wastewater process-control, and monitoring systems improve effluent quality and reduce energy consumption.


We address the numerical solution of Lyapunov, algebraic and differential Riccati equations, via the matrix sign function, on platforms equipped with general-purpose multi-core processors and, optionally, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs). In the paper, we review the solvers for these equations as well as the underlying methods, emphasizing their concurrency and scalability, and providing a few details on their parallel implementation. Our experimental results show that this class of hardware provides sufficient computational power to tackle large-scale problems, which only a few years ago would have required a cluster of computers.


Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of people-and kills one to three million-each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did other regions control malaria and why does the disease still flourish in some parts of the globe? From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall Packard's far-ranging narrative traces the natural and social forces that help malaria spread and make it deadly. He finds that war, land development, crumbling health systems, and globalization-coupled with climate change and changes in the distribution and flow of water-create conditions in which malaria's carrier mosquitoes thrive. The combination of these forces, Packard contends, makes the tropical regions today a perfect home for the disease. Authoritative, fascinating, and eye-opening, this short history of malaria concludes with policy recommendations for improving control strategies and saving lives.


The two major pillars of searches for the Quark Gluon Plasma have been: J/Ψ suppression, proposed in 1986, and observed at both SPS fixed target energies and at RHIC; and, more recently, the suppression of π0 with pT ≥ 3 GeV/c by a factor ∼5 in Au+Au central collisions, observed at RHIC in 2001, which had been predicted in advance as a consequence of Landau-PomeranchuckMigdal coherent (gluon) bremsstrahlung by the outgoing hard-scattered partons traversing the medium. However, new effects were discovered and the quality of the measurements greatly improved so that the clarity of the original explanations has become obscured. For instance: J/Ψ suppression is the same at SpS and RHIC. Is it the QGP, comovers, something else? QCD provides beautiful explanations of π0 and direct γ measurements in p–p collisions but precision fits of the best theories of π0 suppression barely agree with the Au+Au data. Better data are needed for 10 <pT < 20 GeV/c, systematic errors are needed in theory calculations, the values of parameters of the medium such as 〈q〉 derived from precision fits are the subject of controversy. Baryons are much less suppressed than mesons, leading to an anomalous p/π ratio for 2 ≤ pT ≤ 4.5 GeV/c, but beautiful theoretical explanations of the effect such as recombination do not work in detail. Heavy quarks seem to be suppressed the same as the light quarks, naively arguing against the bremsstrahlung explanation and suggesting exotic, possible transformational explanations. Di-hadron correlations reveal a trigger side ridge, possible Mach cones on the away side, vanishing and reappearance of away jets, both wide and normal jet correlations with and without apparent loss of energy. Can this all be explained consistently? Preliminary results of direct γ production in Au+Au appear to indicate a suppression approaching that of π0 for pT ≈ 20 GeV/c and a possibly thermal component for 1 ≤ pT ≤ 3 GeV/c. What are the implications? Are fragmentation photons a problem? a e-mail: email@example.com bResearch supported by U.S. Department of Energy, DE-AC0298CH10886. Regeneration of direct γ by outgoing partons is predicted, leading to negative v2—is there evidence for or against it? STAR and PHENIX have different observations relevant to the existence of monojets in d+Au collisions. Will new data clarify the situation? When? etc. These and other issues will be discussed with a view to identify which conclusions are firm and where further progress towards real understanding is required.


Large network operator environments are composed of thousands of nodes and devices capable of performing multiple roles. This network infrastructure is multi-layered, multi-vendor and underpinned by a high capacity and complex optical transport network. Managing this network requires millions of lines of configuration files and hundreds of Operational Support Systems. Typically, the management data structure uses a hierarchical namespace containing tens of thousands of object identifiers (OID). Each OID identifies a variable that can be read, modified or set via management protocol. The British Telecom network collects many millions of OIDs every 10 minutes, and executes many thousands of configuration changes per month via many tools, and multiple generations of protocols, data models and software components. Blending Software Defined Network (SDN) model-driven management and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), for on-demand (scale-in and scale-out) virtual network functions (Big Data nodes, network heuristics and analytics), provides an exciting opportunity for significant operational savings: reduced outage impact, simplification of management stack, fault correlation and network healing, and network usage trending for efficient resource allocation and scaling. This paper and talk outlines the management plane challenges and use cases for complex tier-1 optical environments. It discusses how we need to rethink network analytics and embrace streaming telemetry for real-time resource adaptation. It outlines a guiding network telemetry framework being developed by leading operators and the enabling community-driven technologies, and how they may be used to facilitate the programmable management plane for optical transport infrastructure.


We studied the effects of upwelling on nutrient and phytoplankton dynamics in the pelagic and littoral zones of Lake Tanganyika near Kigoma, Tanzania. During the dry season of 2004, a rise in the thermocline and sudden drop in surface water temperatures indicated a substantial upwelling event. Increases in concentrations of nitrate, soluble reactive phosphorus, and silica in the surface waters occurred simultaneously after the temperature drop. Within days, chlorophyll a concentrations increased and remained elevated, while inorganic nutrient concentrations returned to preupwelling levels and organic nutrient concentrations peaked. We observed parallel temporal patterns of water temperature, nutrient concentrations, and phytoplankton chlorophyll in both the pelagic and the littoral zones, demonstrating that upwelling strongly affects the nearshore ecosystem as well as the pelagic zone. Concurrent records from 12 littoral sites indicated spatial variation in the timing, magnitude, and biological response to upwelling. There was no discernable latitudinal pattern in the timing of upwelling, suggesting that mixing did not result from a progressive wave. Our monitoring, as well as other multiyear studies, suggests that dry‐season upwelling occurs during most years in northern Lake Tanganyika. The observed sensitivity of littoral nutrients and phytoplankton to upwelling suggests that reductions in upwelling due to global climate change could strongly affect the dynamics of the spectacular nearshore ecosystem of Lake Tanganyika, as has been proposed for the pelagic zone.


Even if usability is becoming a hot topic both in industry and academic research, very little work has been done on the modeling and formalizing of empirical studies, in particular on usability testing processes. Process modeling is fundamental, not only for process maturity, standardization, and customization to different types of empirical studies, but also for the automation and integration of usability testing in the mainstream of software development lifecycle. Moreover, there is a big gap between usability testing practices and usability tools. Most of current tools used in usability testing cover only a few steps and activities of the testing process. We lack integrated toolsets that can support the whole usability testing process. Within this context, we reviewed the existing usability testing process models while highlighting their limitations. We then proposed a ten-step, well-defined and structured process that combines all strengths and overcomes the drawbacks of current processes. We also demonstrated how such a well-defined process can be embedded into a web-based wizard, WizUse, to assist usability professionals managing, customizing, and conducting usability tests. To validate our approach, we also conducted a series of tests to demonstrate that the proposed process model and WizUse are a suitable approach to bridge the gap between current usability practices and tools


This paper suggests a novel verification system for handwritten signatures. The proposed system is based on capturing motion signals from the sensors of wrist-worn devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, during the signing process, to train a machine learning classifier to determine whether a given signature is genuine or forged. Our system can be used to: (1) Verify signatures written on paper documents, such as checks, credit card receipts and vote by mail ballots. Unlike existing systems for signature verification, our system obtains a high degree of accuracy, without requiring an ad hoc digital signing device. (2) Authenticate a user of a secure system based on "who you are" traits. Unlike existing "motion-based" authentication methods that commonly rely on long-term user behavior, writing a signature is a relatively short-term process. In order to evaluate our system, we collected 1,980 genuine and forged signature recordings from 66 different subjects, captured using a smartwatch device. Applying our signature verification system on the collected dataset, we show that it significantly outperforms two other state-of-the-art systems, obtaining an EER of 2.36% and an AUC of 98.52%.


This paper extends the theory of median, order-statistic (OS), and stack filters by using mathematical morphology to analyze them and by relating them to those morphological erosions, dilations, openings, closings, and open-closings that commute with thresholding. The max-min representation of OS filters is introduced by showing that any median or other OS filter is equal to a maximum of erosions (moving local minima) and also to a minimum of dilations (moving local maxima). Thus, OS filters can be computed by a closed formula that involves a max-min on prespecified sets of numbers and no sorting. Stack filters are established as the class of filters that are composed exactly of a finite number of max-min operations. The kernels of median, OS, and stack filters are collections of input signals that uniquely represent these filters due to their translation-invariance. The max-min functional definitions of these nonlinear iliters is shown to be equivalent to a maximum of erosions by minimal (with respect to a signal ordering) kernel elements, and also to a minimum of dilations by minimal kernel elements of dual filters. The representation of stack filters based on their minimal kernel elements is proven to be equivalent to their representation based on irreducible sum-of-products expressions of Boolean functions. It is also shown that median filtering (and its iterations) of any signal by convex 1-D windows is bounded below by openings and above by closings; a signal is a root (fixed point) of the median iff it is a root of both an opening and a closing; the open-closing and clos-opening yield median roots in one pass, suppress impulse noise similarly to the median, can discriminate between positive and negative noise impulses, and are computationally less complex than the median. Some similar results are obtained for 2-D median filtering.


This paper investigates the relative impact of regional energy production on the legislative choices of Russian Duma deputies on energy regulation between 1994 and 2003. We apply Poole's optimal classification method of roll call votes using an ordered probit model to explain energy law reform in the first decade of Russia's democratic transition. Our goal is to analyze the relative importance of home energy on deputies' behavior, controlling for other factors such as party affiliation, electoral mandate, committee membership and socio-demographic parameters. We observe that energy resource factors have a considerable effect on deputies' voting behavior. On the other hand, we concurrently find that regional economic preferences are constrained by the public policy priorities of the federal center that continue to set the tone in energy law reform in post-Soviet Russia.


This note explores the parallelisms between the constraints on syntactic agreement and the properties found in intervention configurations of the type studied in the literature on acquisition. It is argued that the similarities between them make it possible to hypothesize that one single syntactic mechanism is responsible for the two types of effects, which reinforces a generalized featural approach to syntactic dependencies.


This paper addresses the role of evaluation in promoting social inclusion, an important component of social justice, with a focus on exclusion resulting from physical disability. We argue that the evaluation of social exclusion and social inclusion requires evaluators not only to reconsider their role and methods, but also to revise the fundamental constructs through which they study how programs and other interventions generate change at the individual, group, community, and societal levels. Drawing on field theory, we suggest that social inclusion processes can be understood and assessed in terms of the expansion of individuals' life space, which consists of social, political, cultural, and resource dimensions. The paper illustrates these constructs with data from a participative action evaluation of a pilot program for providing services to people with disabilities in Israel. Our aim in developing these constructs is to provide not only tools for assessment, but also ways of thinking that may enable socially excluded people to be more active agents of inclusion.


Because his plays, poems, and sonnets are inexhaustible sources of insight into the human condition, Shakespeare is the most quoted--and probably also the most misquoted--writer in the English language. In this topically arranged collection of Shakespeare quotations, the largest of its kind, writers and speakers can find not only an excellent saying on any of 600 subjects, but can be assured of the right wording and the precise source: play, act, scene, line, and character speaking. And if they remember a wonderful passage but forget who said it and in which play, a keyword index will lead them directly to the passage in question and provide the answer.