OBJECTIVES
Individuals with bipolar disorder (BPD) exhibit motor, perceptual, and cognitive disturbances involving predominantly right hemisphere dysfunction. This asymmetry has been used to advance the hypothesis that the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder may be related to disturbances of the right cerebral hemisphere. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine hemispheric asymmetries in manic and depressed BPD. A secondary goal of the study was to examine effects of psychotropic medications on blood volume changes in the motor cortices.

METHODS
We studied 18 right-handed BPD and 13 right-handed normal healthy comparison subjects. Blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses in the primary motor area (M1) and supplementary motor area (SMA) of both hemispheres were elicited during reaction time (RT) tasks.

RESULTS
Healthy subjects activated the SMA in a reciprocal fashion with significantly greater activity in the left SMA for right hand trials and the right SMA for left hand trials. Depressed BPD subjects failed to show this normal reciprocity indicating a failure to suppress unwanted activity in the ipsilateral right SMA, whereas manic BPD subjects failed to suppress unwanted ipsilateral SMA activity in both hemispheres. Manic and depressed BPD subjects exhibited greater activity in the left primary motor area suggesting increased cortical excitability. BPD subjects treated with antipsychotics or mood-stabilizing medications exhibited longer RTs, lower BOLD responses in M1 and SMA, and a loss of normal hemispheric asymmetry in the SMA than untreated subjects.

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of a right hemisphere disturbance in BPD is consistent with the hypothesis that the right hemisphere may be dominant in mood regulation. The presence of both left and right hemisphere disturbances in mania may explain the coexisting psychotic and affective symptoms observed in this condition.


Published 24 times a year, The American Journal of Cardiology is an independent journal designed for cardiovascular disease specialists and internists with a subspecialty in cardiology throughout the world. AJC is an independent, scientific, peer-reviewed journal of original articles that focus on the practical, clinical approach to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. AJC has one of the fastest acceptance to publication times in Cardiology. Features report on systemic hypertension, methodology, drugs, pacing, arrhythmia, preventive cardiology, congestive heart failure, valvular heart disease, congenital heart disease, and cardiomyopathy. Also included are editorials, readers' comments, and symposia.


Base stations constitute the basic infrastructure of today's cellular networks. Unfortunately, vulnerabilities in the GSM (2G) network protocol enable the creation of fake base stations (FBSes) that are not authorized by network operators. Criminal gangs are using FBSes to directly attack users by sending spam and fraud SMS messages, even if the users have access to 3G/4G networks. In this paper, we present the design, deployment, and evolution of an FBS detection system called FBS-Radar, based on crowdsourced data of nearly 100M users. In particular, we evaluate five different metrics for identifying FBSes in the wild, and find that FBSes can be precisely identified without sacrificing user privacy. Additionally, we present a novel method for accurately geolocating FBSes while incurring negligible impact on end-user devices. Our system protects users from millions of spam and fraud SMS messages per day, and has helped the authorities arrest hundreds of FBS operators.


Observing and modifying object-oriented programs often means interacting with objects. At runtime, it can be a complex task to identify those objects due to the live state of the program. Some objects may exist for only a very limited period of time, others can be hardly reachable because they are never stored in variables. To address this problem we present Collectors. They are dedicated objects which can collect objects of interest at runtime and present them to the developer. Collectors are non-intrusive, removable code instrumentations. They can be dynamically specified and injected at runtime. They expose an API to allow their specification and the access to the collected objects. In this paper, we present an implementation of Collectors in Pharo, a Smalltalk dialect. We enrich the Pharo programming and debugging environment with tools that support the Collectors API. We illustrate the use of these API and tools through the collection and the logging of specific objects in a running IOT application.


The purpose of this study is to analyse household food security over village food resilience Programme Participants at Sei Geringging Village in Left Kampar District of Kampar Regency. Sampling using purposive sampling method (75 people) with 30 people respondents. The result shows that the availability of food at Sei Geringging Village in Left Kampar District Kampar Regency in 2013 as village food resilience disable to provide food for villager because from eight kinds of comestible, threre are just side dish, vegetables and fruits available from the village. Total distribution of respondent income is IDR 66.339.750,00 which are 75,77% main income and 24,33% other income. The average of respondents expends is IDR 749.028,00 in which 78,88% for food expenditure and 21,12% for non food expenditure. Aspect of food consumption indicate that people have a good knowledge for food and nutrition at score of 3,70 (knowing category), in practicing prefer to fill the food needs without taking seriously for nutrients and energy standards that must be filled every day instead. That is illustrated by the number of calorie 1.197,57 Kkal which is far below from Food and Nutrients National Widya Karya Standard (2.000 Kkal and at 42,48%  lower than rular calorie consumption in Riau Province. Keywords : village food resilience, food availability, food distribution and food consumption


One of the ideas of agile software development is to respond to changes rather than following a plan. Constantly changing businesses result in changing requirements, to be handled in the development process. Therefore, it is essential that the underlying software architecture is capable of managing agile business processes. However, criticism on agile software development states that it lacks paying attention to architectural and design issues and therefore is bound to engender suboptimal design-decisions. In this paper we propose an architectural framework for agile software development, that by explicitly separating computational, coordinational, and communicational models offers a high degree of flexibility regarding architectural and design changes introduced by agile business processes. The framework strength is facilitated by combining the characteristics and properties of state-of-the-art middleware architectural styles captured in a simple API. The benefit of our approach is a clear architectural design with minimized effects of changes the models have on each other, accompanied by an efficient realization of new business requirements.


The human population most commonly inflicted with Aeromonas infection includes young children, the elderly and immunocompromised individuals. Importantly, the isolation rate of Aeromonas species from children suffering from diarrhea is similar in developing and developed countries. It is becoming clear that only a small subset of Aeromonas species belonging to a particular hybridization group causes disease in humans. Human infections with this pathogen occur by consuming contaminated food and water. Aeromonas species were isolated from wounds of patients during the tsunami in southern Thailand. Further, increased numbers of this pathogen were recovered from floodwater samples during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Among various species of Aeromonas, A. hydrophila, A. caviae and A. veronii biovar sobria are mainly responsible for causing disease in humans. Our laboratory has isolated various virulence factors from a diarrheal isolate SSU of A. hydrophila and molecularly characterized them. In addition to various virulence factors produced by Aeromonas species, the status of the immune system plays an important role in inducing disease by this pathogen in the host. Taken together, we have made significant advances in better understanding the pathogenesis of Aeromonas infections, which will help in differentiating pathogenic from non-pathogenic aeromonads. This review covers virulence aspects of a clinical isolate of A. hydrophila.


This system creates a manageable information resource that enables more complete and accurate interpretation, assessment and diagnosis of human behavior in constrained physical spaces. Through activity and environmental monitoring, a continuous, voluminous audio and video record is captured. Through work in information extraction, behavior analysis and synthesis, this record is transformed into an information asset whose efficient, secure presentation empowers specialists with greater insights into problems, effectiveness of treatments, and determination of environmental and social influences. Application environments range from nursery schools to nursing homes. The foundation for this work, the informedia digital video library (H.D. Wactlar et al., 1999), has demonstrated the successful integration of speech, image, and natural language processing in automatically creating an indexed, searchable multimedia information resource for broadcast-quality video, upon which this system builds.


The Tenth International Meeting on Ferroelectricity (IMF-10) was held in Madrid, Spain, from September 3 to 7, 2001. This was in the week before the terrorist attack on New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon Building in Washington shocked the world on September 11. The Opening Session of IMF-10 was presided over by the Minister of Science, Culture and Sport of Spain, who was accompanied by the Chancellors of the main Universities in Madrid (Universidad Complutense, Universidad Polit ́ ecnica and Universidad Autónoma) and by the President of the CSIC (Higher Council of Scientific Research). The plenary lectures at this session were: "Ferroelectrics 1966–2001: An overview" (by Prof. R. Blinc), "Phase Transitions in Ferroelectrics: Some historical background and other remarks" (by Prof. V. Ginzburg), and "On Ferroelectrics and High Temperature Superconductors" (by Prof. K.A. M ̈ uller, 1987 Nobel Prize Winner). Eight Plenary Lectures were presented at the Meeting, three at the Opening Session and five at the Special session on "Great Solid State Physicists of the 20th Century" held on the 5th fo September. Twenty four Invited Talks were given as well as fifty five Invited and Oral Presentations. A total fo 850 Posters were presented of which only 326 were selected for publication in order to keep the Proceedings within manageable proportions. So, in total about 940 papers and posters were presented by 625 participants. This figure (940) is greater than the number of papers and Posters presented at the two previous Meetings; IMF-8, held in the USA, (593) and IMF-9, held in Korea, (873). Of special significance at IMF-10 was the Historical Session held on September 5th, chaired by Dr. Gen Shirane (Brookhaven) and Prof. K.A. M ̈ uller (Zürich) on Great 20th Century Solid State Physicists. The second part of the session was opened personally by a 15 minutes speech by the Honorable President of the Commonwealth of Madrid, who talked in Spanish (the simultaneous translation in English was projected onto a giant screen from a computer for the benefit of the non Spanish speaking audience). He stressed the importance of the new technologies, including those based upon ferroelectric materials and devices such as non-volatile memories, sensors, controllers and some biomedical indicators, for a healthy and sustained economic development. He concluded his speech with a brief mention of Peter Debye, one of the great Solid State Physicists honored at the Special Session who he said was a good friend of Spain in the difficult years (difficult also for Europe and for the World) after the Second World war. The Session consisted of 45 min. Lectures by Prof. A.M. Glazer (Oxford) on "The Braggs," father (W.H.B) and son (W.L.B), who were the creators of X-ray crystallography; by Prof. E. Courtens (Montpellier) on "Peter Debye," who can be counted


Deep-sea archives all over the world show an enhanced concentration of the radionuclide $^{60}$Fe, isolated in layers dating from about 2.2 Myr ago. Since this comparatively long-lived isotope is not naturally produced on Earth, such an enhancement can only be attributed to extraterrestrial sources, particularly one or several nearby supernovae in the recent past. It has been speculated that these supernovae might have been involved in the formation of the Local Superbubble, our Galactic habitat. Here, we summarize our efforts in giving a quantitative evidence for this scenario. Besides analytical calculations, we present results from high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Superbubble and its presumptive neighbor Loop I in different environments, including a self-consistently evolved supernova-driven interstellar medium. For the superbubble modeling, the time sequence and locations of the generating core-collapse supernova explosions are taken into account, which are derived from the mass spectrum of the perished members of certain, carefully preselected stellar moving groups. The release and turbulent mixing of $^{60}$Fe is followed via passive scalars, where the yields of the decaying radioisotope were adjusted according to recent stellar evolution calculations. The models are able to reproduce both the timing and the intensity of the $^{60}$Fe excess observed with rather high precision. We close with a discussion of recent developments and give future perspectives.


Several studies of two-party negotiations have shown that negotiators more often than not reach inefficient compromises. We analyze the circumstances under which rational agents make inefficient compromises and refrain from improving them. We do this by describing and interpreting various negotiation situations and by developing formal constructs and theorems for determining the character of a negotiation situation. Key among these concepts is the notion of opposition. Although opposition is defined in terms of the utility functions, it is more fundamental in the sense that it is more intuitive to decision makers and can be used in contexts in which the parties' utilities are unknown or are partially known. The effects of various rationality assumptions on efficiency and their implications for negotiation support systems are discussed. We argue that the prescriptive/descriptive approach advocated by negotiation analysts lacks sufficient explanatory powers to be effectively used in negotiation support and that negotiation support systems should not constrain the parties to the set of efficient points.


Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are found ubiquitously in large, bulge-dominated galaxies throughout the local universe, yet little is known about their presence and properties in bulgeless and low-mass galaxies. This is a significant deficiency, since the mass distribution and occupation fraction of nonstellar black holes provide important observational constraints on SMBH seed formation theories and many dwarf galaxies have not undergone major mergers that would erase information on their original black hole population. Using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, we discovered hundreds of bulgeless and dwarf galaxies that display mid-infrared signatures of extremely hot dust highly suggestive of powerful accreting massive black holes, despite having no signatures of black hole activity at optical wavelengths. Here we report, in our first follow-up X-ray investigation of this population, that the irregular dwarf galaxy J132932.41+323417.0 (z = 0.0156) contains a hard, unresolved X-ray source detected by XMM-Newton with luminosity L2–10 keV = 2.4 × 1040 erg s−1, over two orders of magnitude greater than that expected from star formation, strongly suggestive of the presence of an accreting massive black hole. While enhanced X-ray emission and hot dust can be produced in extremely low metallicity environments, J132932.41+323417.0 is not extremely metal poor (≈40% solar). With a stellar mass of 2.0 × 108 M☉, this galaxy is similar in mass to the Small Magellanic Cloud, and is one of the lowest mass galaxies with evidence for a massive nuclear black hole currently known.


Abstract Objectives: To develop a claims-based severity index for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) database. Methods: Adult patients with at least two RA diagnoses 2 months apart were identified between 10/1/2008–09/30/2009. Patients were required to have at least 12 months continuous health plan enrollment before and after the index date (first RA diagnosis date) for an overall study period of 10/1/2007–09/30/2010. A severity index for rheumatoid arthritis (SIFRA, a proprietary algorithm of SIMR, Inc. [STATinMED Research]) was developed by calculating a weighted sum of 34 RA-related indicators assessed by an expert Delphi panel of six rheumatologists, including laboratory, clinical, and functional status, extra-articular manifestations, surgical history, and medications, during a 1-year pre-index period. Separate SIFRA versions were derived for patients with and without laboratory information. Correlations between SIFRA and previously validated claims-based indexes for RA severity (CIRAS), and other traditional comorbidity indexes were calculated during the pre-index period. The relationship between SIFRA and follow-up healthcare outcomes was also examined using histograms. Results: The Spearman's rank correlations between SIFRA and CIRAS were 0.525 for SIFRA without and 0.539 with laboratory data. The correlations between SIFRA and the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) (0.1503 without, 0.1135 with laboratory data), Elixhauser Index (ELIX) (0.105 without, 0.079 with laboratory data), and Chronic Disease Score (CDS) (0.255 without, 0.239 with laboratory data) were low. Histograms showed that patients in the upper tercile of SIFRA incurred $9123 more all-cause and $1326 more RA-related healthcare costs during the 1-year post-index period than patients in the lower tercile. Using SIFRA in combination with CCI, CDS, or ELIX significantly increased the percentage of variation explained in outcomes measures. Limitations: Patients in the VHA database may not represent typical RA patients since the database generally contains older, economically disadvantaged men with a high disease burden. Validity of the score is indirectly based on disease activity score 28 (DAS28), which measures disease activity rather than severity. Conclusions: SIFRA was found to have moderate correlations with the previously validated CIRAS score, and demonstrated evidence of being a significant determinant of total and RA-related healthcare costs for RA patients. This study suggests that SIFRA could be an important methodological tool to control for severity in RA-related outcomes research. The algorithm can be applied to any claims dataset.


SummaryThe phenology of flowering of male-fertile and genetic-cytoplasmic male-sterile upland cottons was observed and compared in detail, and a descriptive sequence which identifies 5 stages of an thesis is proposed. Phenological differences as well as other differences in availability and relative abundance of extrafloral nectar among cotton lines influenced honeybee (Apis mellifera) visits between cotton lines. In cage studies, cotton pollen-collection activity and flower-visitation movements of both honeybees and bees of an unidentified soil-nesting species were observed and recorded. Both species avidly collected loads of cotton pollen although, in open-field studies, it is unusual to find honeybees collecting cotton pollen. In the cage individual honeybees switched between pollen collection and nectar collection during single foraging trips.


A system incorporating a prototype automatic thermoelectric cooling method with computer-based recording of aphid supercooling points was developed and formed the basis of cold hardiness assessment.

Under laboratory culture all developmental stages of Myzus persicae had a mean inherent supercooling potential below -20°C, with first instar nymphs the most cold hardy. When maintained at 5°C, younger instars demonstrated acclimation ability unlike adult aphids, and in an insecticide
resistant strain, adults lost cold hardiness. When in contact with surface moisture, the majority of aphids did not experience inoculative nucleation. Sexual morphs of M. persicae possessed supercooling ability comparable with
laboratory maintained parthenogenetic morphs; eggs supercooled to below -30°C.

Seasonal studies of supercooling ability demonstrated that all aphid stages were most cold hardy in summer. Younger instars showed natural acclimatisation and were cold hardy throughout the year. Overall adults lost cold hardiness as winter progressed, exhibiting bimodal supercooling
point distributions in two winters, with distinct high (HG) and low (LG) groups and mean supercooling points of approximately -20°C and -10 oe respectively. Clonal differences and adult age did not account for this
pattern. Following experimental starvation at 5°C, first instars of M. persicae maintained extensive supercooling potential but adults exhibited losses of cold hardiness comparable with those in natural overwintering populations, suggesting that feeding may be necessary to maintain adult cold hardiness levels during winter. Subsequent starvation
experiments did not reproduce the dramatic losses of cold hardiness implying that the feeding influence was more complex than the availability of food per se. In a series of host transfer experiments the mean supercooling point of Aphis fabae adults could be shifted by over 10°C, increasing when they fed on beans and reduced when transferred back to spindle; the LG (spindle/poor supercoolers) to HG (bean/good supercoolers) shift was more difficult to achieve and suggested a nucleating agent in
spindle sap.

Trimethylsilyl derivatised carbohydrate extracts of M. persicae and A. fabae were analysed by capillary gas-liquid chromatography. Glucose, glycerol, fructose, mannitol, sucrose, and trehalose were detected in samples of both species, together with trace amounts of unidentified
carbohydrates in M. persicae samples. Dulcitol was present in spindle-fed A. fabae only. There was no obvious correlation between carbohydrate content and supercooling ability but high total percentage body carbohydrate levels were revealed and may have a solute effect, enhancing
inherent supercooling potential and dependent on carbohydrate-rich sap intake.

Laboratory cultured A. fabae were capable of extensive supercooling, as were individuals collected from summer herbaceous hosts; first instars were the most cold hardy. When associated with the primary host, spindle, all aphids showed poor supercooling potential, less than -15°C;
overwintering eggs were capable of supercooling to below -30°C and acclimatised in winter. Eggs and oviparae were not subject to inoculative nucleation. Preliminary experiments to relate supercooling ability to mortality at sub-zero temperatures proved inconclusive and were terminated
when temperature shock and/or desiccation were thought to have induced premature mortality.

The results demonstrate that the cold hardiness characteristics of M. persicae are atypical of those observed in other freezing-susceptible arthropods. It is proposed that continued feeding during mild winters
maintains cold hardiness levels in adult M. persicae and this influence may provide a possible explanation for the successful anholocyclic overwintering of this aphid during such winters. Avenues of research to further investigate this proposal are suggested.


This paper examines the relationships between movements in primary commodity prices and changes in inflation in the large industrial countries. It begins by developing a two-country model in order to examine the theoretical effects of monetary, fiscal, and supply-side disturbances on commodity and manufactures prices and on exchange rates. It is shown that if monetary shocks dominate, then commodity prices should lead general price movements, and the level of commodity prices should be correlated with the general inflation rate. Non-monetary shocks generally weaken these relationships, but such disturbances may cancel out for broad indexes covering a wide range of commodities. Country-specific commodity price indexes are developed for the major industrial countries. The weights assigned to different commodities vary substantially across countries. Nonetheless, when the indexes are expressed in a common currency, they tend to be highly correlated over time, except when sharp movements occur in certain commodity prices. The major source of contrast across countries in the behavior of the indexes derives from exchange rate movements. Several empirical tests broadly support the conclusions of the theoretical model, with relatively few differences across countries. Three main tendencies may be cited. First, low inflation in industrial countries has tended to be associated with low levels of commodity prices, and conversely; commodity-price levels are cointegrated with consumer-price inflation rates. Second, there has been some tendency for movements in commodity prices to precede changes in general inflation rates by a few months, although it is not clear whether this tendency is strong enough to be a reliable aid in forecasting the rate of inflation. Third, there s a strong and fairly reliable tendency for turning points in general inflation rates. Commodity prices thus appear to contribute to predictions of turning points in inflation, predictions of inflation rates but more strongly to predictions of turning points in inflation.


Background: Stress may cause damages to DNA or/and change the ability of the cells to overcome these damages. It may also cause irregularities in the cell cycle and induce abnormal cell divisions through glucocorticoid-dependent functions. The abnormal cell divisions, in turn, lead to chromosomal mal-segregation and aneuploidy. In this study, the effects of the stress hormone, hydrocortisone (HYD), were investigated on the induced chromosomal abnormalities by vinblastine (VIN) during cell cycle in L929 cells. Methods: This work was performed in winter 2013 at Department of Biology, University of Ferdowsi, Mashhad, Iran. Cultured cells were divided into different groups including control, VINtreated, HYD treated and VIN+HYD co-treated cells. The induced chromosomal damages were investigated by micronucleus assay in cytokinesis-blocked binucleated cells. Results: Although HYD by itself did not increase the micronuclei (Mn) frequency, co-treatment of cells with VIN and HYD led to significant increase (P<0.05) in the frequency of Mn in comparison to control and VIN treated groups. Conclusion: Cells treated with stress hormone are more sensitive to damages induced by VIN. Therefore, stress may not directly result in genetic instability, it can increase the harmful effects associated with other genotoxic agents.


Instruments on satellites for Earth observation on polar orbits usually employ a two-point calibration technique, in which deep space and an on-board calibration target provide two reference flux levels. As the direction of the deep space view is in general close to the celestial equator, the Moon moves sometimes through the field of view and introduces an unwelcome additional signal. One can take advantage of this intrusion, however, by using the Moon as a third flux standard, and 5 this has actually been done for checking the lifetime stability of sensors operating at visible wavelengths. As the disk-integrated thermal emission of the Moon is less well known than its reflected sunlight, this concept can in the microwave range only be used for stability checks and intercalibration. An estimate of the frequency of appearances of the Moon in the deep space view, a description of the limiting factors of the measurement accuracy and models of the Moon's brightness, as well as 10 a discussion of the benefits from complementing the naturally occurring appearances of the Moon with dedicated spacecraft maneuvers show that it would be possible to detect photometric lifetime drifts of a few percent with just two measurements. The pointing accuracy is the most crucial factor for the value of this method. Planning such observations in advance would be particularly beneficial, because it allows to observe the Moon at well-defined phase angles and to put it at the center of 15 the field of view. A constant phase angle eliminates the need for a model of the Moon's brightness when checking the stability of an instrument. With increasing spatial resolution of future microwave sensors another question arises, viz. to what extent foreground emission from objects other than the Moon will contaminate the flux entering the deep space view, which is supposed to originate exclusively in the cosmic microwave background. We conclude that even the brightest discreet sources 20 have flux densities below the detection limit of microwave sensors in a single scan.


Research shows that foster care youth have "poorer mental and physical health, are more likely to be involved with the legal system, and are at a higher risk of being engaged in substance abuse" than children who are not in the foster care system.1 This paper will address how mentoring programs such as Eastern Michigan University's Write-Link Community Connections and Student-to-Student Higher Learning Initiative (SSHLI) can increase the success rate of foster care adolescents once they age out of the system by having a significant impact on their future careers, while also determining what factors make these programs successful. Based on the results, this paper will also recommend the need for a third program dubbed Turning Point, which is proposed to start through EMU's Public Relations Student Society of America Chapter (PRSSA). Turning Point encompasses certain aspects of both Write-Link and SSHLI that will further inspire former foster care youth to pursue higher education. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department English Language and Literature


This article recounts the significance of Raymie McKerrow's article "Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis" for scholars in the field of communication studies. In contrast to the Foucauldian stance on domination and freedom put forward by McKerrow, I argue that the Marxist and antifascist activist Antonio Gramsci offers an account of domination and freedom in the theory of hegemony that is internally consistent. In addition to its coherence, hegemony theory is rooted in historical materialist practice that urges challenges to capitalism as a system rather than exercising contingent judgments without a clear goal, or telos. Gramsci's "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" is an urgent corrective to the "critique of freedom" and poststructuralist thought more generally in the present political moment.


This article examines heterogeneity in the effect of unemployment on social participation. Whereas existing studies on this relationship essentially estimate mean effects, we use quantile regression methods to provide a broader and more complete picture. To ac-count for the potential endogeneity of job loss, we estimate quantile treatment effects (on the treated) based on entropy balancing and focus on unemployment due to plant closures. Using German panel data, we show that the effect of unemployment varies across the distribution of public social activities. It is large and negative for individuals in the middle and lower part of the distribution of public activities, whereas those participating a lot are not affected. By contrast, the effect of unemployment on private social participation is virtually zero for individuals at the lower part of the outcome distribution and weakly positive in the middle. Our findings suggest that active labor market policies should account for target-group specific elements, tailored to those individuals which are most adversely affected by unemployment.


Lungs stored ahead of transplant surgery experience ischemia. Pulmonary ischemia differs from ischemia in the systemic organs in that stop of blood flow in the lung leads to loss of shear alone because the lung parenchyma does not rely on blood flow for its cellular oxygen requirements. Our earlier studies on the ischemia‐induced mechanosignaling cascade showed that the pulmonary endothelium responds to stop of flow by production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We hypothesized that ROS produced in this way led to induction of proinflammatory mediators. In this study, we used lungs or cells subjected to various periods of storage and evaluated the induction of several proinflammatory mediators. Isolated murine, porcine and human lungs in situ showed increased expression of cellular adhesion molecules; the damage‐associated molecular pattern protein high‐mobility group box 1 and the corresponding pattern recognition receptor, called the receptor for advanced glycation end products; and induction stabilization and translocation of hypoxia‐inducible factor 1α and its downstream effector VEGFA, all of which are participants in inflammation. We concluded that signaling with lung preservation drives expression of inflammatory mediators that potentially predispose the donor lung to an inflammatory response after transplant.


Teaching grammar has been a major area of debate and controversy in language teaching and second language acquisition for some time. Harsh criticism of traditional grammar teaching has continued over the last few decades, which has resulted in great confusion and lack of confidence among language teachers. This paper aims to encourage second language (L2) teachers and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers to reconsider the role of grammar instruction, through examining an alternative approach to grammar teaching, known as "form-focused instruction" (FFI), that reconciles with communicative language teaching (CLT). To this end, the paper reviews a number of studies in favor and against the direct teaching of grammar, and presents a brief discussion of four FFI options; namely, structured input, explicit instruction, production practice and negative feedback. Finally, the paper shows that grammar teaching is necessary to help students possess greater command of the target language. However, more input from L2 teachers and SLA researchers is needed to define the most effective FFI instructional options and strategies.


Organic solar cells based on solution processes have strong advantages over conventional silicon solar cells due to the possible low-cost manufacturing of flexible large-area solar modules at low temperatures. However, the benefit of the low temperature process is diminished by a thermal annealing step at high temperatures (≥200 °C), which cannot be practically applied for typical plastic film substrates with a glass transition temperature lower than 200 °C, for inorganic charge-collecting buffer layers such as zinc oxide (ZnO) in high efficiency inverted-type organic solar cells. Here we demonstrate that novel hybrid electron-collecting buffer layers with a particular nano-crater morphology, which are prepared by a low-temperature (150 °C) thermal annealing process of ZnO precursor films containing poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOz), can deliver a high efficiency (12.35%) similar to the pristine ZnO layers prepared by the conventional high-temperature process (200 °C) for inverted-type polymer:nonfullerene solar cells. The nano-crater morphology was found to greatly enhance the stability of solar cells due to improved adhesion between the active layers and ZnO:PEOz hybrid buffer layers.


This document describes Sampling and Filtering techniques for IP
packet selection. It provides a categorization of schemes and defines
what parameters are needed to describe the most common selection
schemes. Furthermore, it shows how techniques can be combined to build
more elaborate packet Selectors. The document provides the basis for
the definition of information models for configuring selection
techniques in Metering Processes and for reporting the technique in
use to a Collector. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


Seven extant and two fossil species within the family Asterolampraceae were studied with light and electron microscopy. The sequence of stages in valve morphogenesis was determined for those species where presumably developing valves were found. Occasionally valves from sibling cells were found still attached to one another, as they had been within the mother frustule during the process of cell division, giving evidence that forming, not eroding valves were being observed. Hollow rays are the most distinctive feature of genera in this family and appear to be formed by the marginal fusion of "tuning fork"-like structures emanating from a central or eccentric annulus. Rimoportulae, formerly termed labiate processes because of their lip-like internal structure, form at the marginal end of the rays where the "tines" of the forks apparently fuse. The structure of cribra, coverings over the loculate areolae, is very different in the species studied and we show the mode of development also varies.


OBJECTIVES
Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) has been reported to be a marker of morbidity and mortality for some cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. We aimed to evaluate RDW values in otherwise healthy smokers.

STUDY DESIGN
Two hundred and twenty consecutive subjects with current smoking and 230 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects without smoking history were enrolled. Number of cigarettes smoked per day and duration of smoking, evaluated as pack years, were recorded. Complete blood count, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels and lipid profile were analyzed in all study participants.

RESULTS
The mean RDW values were higher in smokers than in nonsmokers (13.9±1.2 vs. 13.1±0.8, p<0.0001). The mean leukocyte count, mean platelet volume and hs-CRP levels were also significantly greater in smokers when compared to nonsmokers (8440±1.750 vs. 7090±1550, p<0.0001; 8.7±0.8 fL vs. 8.3±0.6 fL, p<0.0001; 2.42±0.53 mg/L vs. 1.46±0.52 mg/L, p<0.0001, respectively). Significant positive correlations between RDW and number of cigarettes smoked per day and between RDW and duration of smoking were identified (r=0.565 and r=0.305, respectively).

CONCLUSION
Elevated RDW is associated with cigarette smoking and may be a useful indicator of inflammatory activity in smokers.


Early-late Cenomanian rocks of the Doe Creek unit are near the base of the Kaskapau Formation and were deposited in a broad, very shallow embayment that occupied the foredeep of the Western Canada foreland basin. The Doe Creek unit consists of 13 upward-shoaling sequences, typically 3–10 m thick. Subsurface correlation shows that sequences can be traced for 100–350 km from the fore-deep toward the forebulge. On the proximal and distal margins of the embayment, each sequence is capped by a flooding surface, commonly underlain by a paleosol developed in marine mudstone. In the center of the embayment, most sequences are capped by one or more isolated, sharp-based sandstone bodies interpreted as lowstand delta-front deposits. Flooding surfaces on top of each sequence are continuously traceable in well logs from the foredeep to the vicinity of the forebulge, implying simultaneous transgression across the basin. Every sequence shows an abrupt upward shallowing, usually to emergence, that was caused by accommodation loss, not sediment accumulation. A vertical relative sea-level excursion of ∼10 m on a time scale spanning a maximum range of ∼9–74 k.y. is estimated for each sequence. Because transgressions and regressions appear to be in phase across the basin, sequences are better explained by eustasy rather than by flexural reciprocal sedimentation: a glacioeustatic mechanism provides the most likely explanation.


The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes. Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of others, to stand 'under the shelter of the wall,' as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world.These, however, are exceptions.The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism — are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is muchmore easy to have sympathywith suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease. They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty.The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by thosewho suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life — educated men who live in the East End — coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins. There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair. Under Socialism all this will, of course, be altered. There will be no people living in fetid dens and fetid rags, and bringing up unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of impossible and absolutely repulsive surroundings.The security of society will not depend, as it does now, on the state


A chromosome translocation occurs at random in many hematological and solid malignancies and is considered the initiating event of carcinogenesis. However, the early events of carcinogenesis do not entirely align with this hypothesis. First, chromosome translocations are observed more frequently than expected if they were truly a random event. Second, chromosome translocations are often found in healthy individuals, and a specific rearrangement may be observed in up to half of the general population. Third, tissue proliferation is observed before chromosome translocation. Further, the at-random breakage–re-ligation–selection mechanism proposed to explain chromosome translocations in cancer is not well understood, particularly regarding how chromosomes come in contact with each other. These observations open the possibility that an alternative mechanism may contribute. Here, a model is proposed to describe how chromosome translocations, which are often observed in stressed tissue, could be produced in relation to transcription. Transcription–associated recombination may explain how over-expressed genes that are temporally in close proximity may become abnormally fused. This model offers a framework for the hypothesis that early carcinogenesis promotes chromosome translocation, rather than that cancer is initiated by chromosome translocation. Further, the hypothesis suggests that the role of genetic modifications observed early in malignancy is more complex and less determining than currently considered and implies that therapy targeting genetic modifications could miss the causal mechanism.


Expression of the estrogen‐regulated lysosomal protease, cathepsin D, was studied in a series of 94 breast cancers using an immunohistochemical technique. Granular staining of tumor cell cytoplasm was detected in 62 cases. Positive staining was associated with a significant increase in overall time to relapse and when survival was analyzed in terms of intensity of cathepsin D staining there was a significant trend for both increased time to relapse and increased length of survival. The presence of estrogen receptor was associated with positive cathepsin D immunostaining, and in the subgroup of estrogen receptor‐positive tumors cathepsin D staining was associated with significantly prolonged survival; this was not the case for estrogen receptor‐negative tumors. Positive cathepsin D immunostaining was associated with significant prognostic advantage in patients with confirmed lymph node metastasis but not in node‐negative patients. It is suggested that cathepsin D expression reflects the functional integrity of the estrogen response pathway. Cathepsin D may prove a clinically useful adjunct to assessment of estrogen receptor status.


In this paper we outline different theoretical approaches, namely outcome vulnerability, contextual vulnerability, and resilience, for addressing climate change effects in the context of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. We analysed how these three approaches were employed in the WASH-climate change nexus literature, and discuss the implications for WASH research, policy, and development work. Our analysis of 33 scholarly WASH-climate change nexus papers found that they implicitly draw most frequently on an outcome vulnerability approach that tended to focus on the impact of projected climate change hazards on physical aspects of WASH service delivery. Each individual approach has limitations due to their disciplinary and epistemological foundations and the WASH sector in particular must be mindful of who stands to benefit most and what values will be upheld when these approaches are used. We argue that in most cases it will be beneficial to draw on all approaches and describe challenges and opportunities for integrating different perspectives on preparing for climate change within the WASH sector.


In this paper we introduce the Energy-Efficient Multiple Access (EE-MA) protocol for wireless networks where nodes participate in a distributed election to gain interference-free access to the wireless channel. By taking advantage of the information used in the distributed elections, nodes can infer if they are not the intended receiver of a transmission and set their radios in sleeping state to save energy. To save even more energy and avoid false positives derived from the nature of the protocol, EE-MA also implements a sleeping scheme where nodes switch to the sleeping state if no message is received during the beginning of a time-slot. We show that the individual channel access plans computed by the proposed distributed algorithm are collision-free at the intended receivers and that intended receivers are always in receiving state. We also present a simulation-based performance analysis that shows that EE-MA outperforms a state of the art election-based channel access protocol in terms of energy efficiency with no cost in terms of network capacity. Simulations also show that EE-MA outperforms 802.11 contention based protocol in terms of goodput and channel access delay.


BACKGROUND
Manual skills teaching, such as physiotherapy education, requires immediate teacher feedback for the students during the learning process, which to date can only be performed by expert trainers.

OBJECTIVES
A machine-learning system trained only on correct performances to classify and score performed movements, to identify sources of errors in the movement and give feedback to the learner.

METHODS
We acquire IMU and sEMG sensor data from a commercial-grade wearable device and construct an HMM-based model for gesture classification, scoring and feedback giving. We evaluate the model on publicly available and self-generated data of an exemplary movement pattern executions.

RESULTS
The model achieves an overall accuracy of 90.71% on the public dataset and 98.9% on our dataset. An AUC of 0.99 for the ROC of the scoring method could be achieved to discriminate between correct and untrained incorrect executions.

CONCLUSION
The proposed system demonstrated its suitability for scoring and feedback in manual skills training.


Open access (OA) is a relatively new concept in the long history of published scholarly communication. Although there were already some open access journals in 2002, many point to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) held in that year as the beginning point of the "open access movement." The BOAI called for freely available literature which permits "users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." 1 Since the BOAI, the open access movement has continued to grow and change, and in 2013 David Lewis predicted that over the next ten years, OA would "become the dominant mode for scholarly journal publishing" and recommended that academic libraries "continue to support open access initiatives: institutional deposit mandates; support for open access journals; or funding of open access author fees." 2 Collection management was also expanding in the 2000s with the addition of access management: the need to facilitate effective and efficient access to electronic materials while still managing physical collections. 3 In 2011 Emilie Delquie asked if the philosophy of collection management was evolving from just collecting information to "'hooking' users up with information?" 4 This article examines if and how the integration of OA materials has changed collection and/or access management activities within academic libraries.


We use infrared-optical double resonance excitation, together with laser induced fluorescence (LIF) product detection, to measure rotationally resolved vibrational overtone spectra of hydrogen peroxide at energies up to 4500 cm(-1) above the O-O dissociation threshold. The spectroscopic constants obtained from such spectra help characterize the potential energy surface and provide a stringent test for any theoretical representation thereof. Line profiles of individual rovibrational features provide information on the vibrational and rotational dependence of the intramolecular dynamics. Coupling to the manifold of optically inactive background states is independent of the total density of rovibrational states but rather controlled by specific low-order coupling terms in the Hamiltonian. Moreover, we find no significant difference in the IVR dynamics between states with all quanta in a single OH oscillator or distributed between the two local OH stretches. Finally, increasing rotation around the O-O pseudo-figure axis clearly enhances the IVR rate in most vibrational bands of H2O2 due to increased a-axis Coriolis coupling. Comparison to other OH stretch containing molecules allows us to define chromophore specific dynamics of this light atom oscillator. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(00)01517-8].


Thyroid disease is common and may present to a wide range of doctors. With the widespread availability of thyroid function testing in recent years increasing numbers of patients with symptoms which might be attributable to hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are being tested. Many aspects of the management of thyroid disease have not been subjected to controlled clinical trials yet there are established practices which have never been questioned. The Research Unit of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Endocrinology and Diabetes Committee of the college, and the Society for Endocrinology set up a working group to produce a consensus statement for good practice with associated audit measures which could be used to ensure that purchasers of health care are obtaining an acceptable standard of care for patients with thyroid disease. The working group focused on patient management rather than presenting symptoms and signs, which were detailed in a similar report by the American Thyroid Association.1

This report summarises the consensus views reached by members of the working group.

Recognised United Kingdom authorities with an international reputation for clinical research as thyroid specialists were invited to produce background papers on specific aspects of the topic which summarised the relevant available published evidence from peer reviewed journals (see contributors of background papers listed at the end of this report). Because of the potential for bias in consensus development by small groups the background papers were circulated to members of a larger working group before a workshop held at the Royal College of Physicians of London. The working group consisted of specialists in endocrinology, general physicians, thyroid surgeons, general practitioners, clinical biochemists, representatives of thyroid disease patient groups, and purchasers of health care (see members of the working group listed at the end of this report).

The workshop consisted of a …


Plants are a considerable source of active substances which are exploited in the treatment of several diseases, among which are rheumatic affections. This study aimed to explore the knowledge of traditional practitioners and patients on medicinal plant species of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, used for the treatment of rheumatic affections. Direct interviews with open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires were used to collect information on ethnopharmacological uses of plants among 50 traditional practitioners and 125 patients of the Department of Rheumatology, CHU-Yalgado Ouedraogo. Majority of the traditional practitioners were male (70%) and their average age was 56.42 years. 74% of traditional practitioners had non-formal education and their knowledge on rheumatic affections was limited. A total of 73 medicinal plants belonging to 70 genera in 41 families were cited as being important for the treatment of rheumatism by traditional practitioners. Among the families, Caesalpiniaceae, Combretaceae, Meliaceae, Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae and Apocynaceae were the most represented and root dominated by 52% over other plant parts used as herbal remedies. Plants were used alone or in association with other plants or ingredients. The decoctions were more recommended and administered through oral and topical routes. Majority of the interviewed patients were female (73%) and half of the patients used a traditional treatment in rheumatic affection. The oral route was the advantaged mode of administration of remedies (55.7%) and approximately 10% of the patients considered that the side effects or the interactions between conventional medicine and healing plants were absent. Traditional practitioners are widely involved in the care of rheumatic affections in Ouagadougou. This is the first record on traditional practitioners' knowledge on plants used for the treatment of rheumatism in this area. Investigations have to continue to justify the empirical use of these plants and to obtain essays of medicinal formulations.

 Key words: Rheumatic affections, medicinal plants, traditional practitioners, Ouagadougou.


Various groups of people have been the victims of oppression throughout time and across national borders and cultures. Many forms of oppression continue to exist all over the world today, including in the United States. I have been particularly concerned with oppression on the basis of race. The responses to oppression have taken many forms, ranging from passivity and acquiescence to rebellion. Much of the response, however, takes place between these extremes, often in the form of ongoing collective action by more or less organized groups. Broadly speaking, these actions have come to be known as social movements, and they have been the subject of a great deal of scholarly examination. Through this scholarship, we have learned much about the nature of social movements, who joins them, and how they have been able to succeed. We have not learned as much about how the law and lawyers affect such movements and how, if at all, law and lawyers contribute to their success. I would like to examine these issues in an effort to elucidate the relationship between law, lawyers, and social movements and to better understand how lawyers can be helpful (or detrimental) to such movements.
My own interest in this field is somewhat more narrowly confined. For example, I have been skeptical of movements and lawyers who set as their goal the establishment of new or expansion of existing legal rights. New rights do not seem to have much social or political impact on subordinated groups, unless the holders of those rights have the power to enforce them. As an alternative to the rights discourse, I have been interested in the acquisition and utilization of power by marginalized and oppressed groups in the United States. Even more narrowly, my research has focused primarily on issues affecting the urban poor. Historically, there has been a significant intersection connecting social movements to urban poverty. The Civil Rights Movement, the Welfare Rights Movement, the Affordable and Fair Housing Movements, the Affordable Health Care Movement and the Black Lives Matter Movement among others, have had significant impetus from and impact on the urban poor.
Many of these movements succeeded in creating new rights for various groups. Many were successful in changing, to some extent individual lives and social environments. Nevertheless, we see today a society where wealth and well-being are even more polarized, often on the basis of race, and groups of people who remain subject to the same forms of intergenerational oppression as those faced by their long departed ancestors. These groups continue to exist on the wrong side of what I have previously called the "power deficit." If this assertion is correct the dedicated and well-intentioned efforts of lawyers have had only marginal results. Thus, I take the position, as do several others, that lawyers who work with oppressed groups must assist them in gaining and using power rather than pursuing rights as an end in themselves.
That being said, there is little consensus among social scientists, philosophers, and lawyers on the meaning of power and virtually no legal literature on how it can be obtained and used (although a fair amount exists on the need to obtain and utilize it). "Of all the concepts used by sociologists, few are the source of more confusion or misunderstanding than power." My intention in this paper is to dispel some of that confusion and to attempt to illuminate some issues concerning power in relation and as a response to oppression.


The genes involved in the inductive interactions that specify cell fates in the vulva of Caenorhabditis elegans are known in some detail. However, little is known about the morphogenesis of this organ. Using a combination of cell biological and anatomical approaches, we have determined a complete morphogenetic pathway of cellular events that lead to the formation of the vulva. These events include reproducible cell divisions, migrations, remodeling of adherens junctions, cell fusions and muscle attachments. In the course of these events, an epithelial channel comprising a stack of 7 toroidal cells is formed that connects the internal epithelium of the uterus with the external body epithelium, forming the vulva. Vulval muscles attach to the epithelial channel and the whole structure everts during the final molt. The mature vulva has rotational, two-fold symmetry. Using laser microsurgery, we found that the two halves of the vulva develop autonomously.


An outline of a conceptual model is offered for as- sessing the quality of customized clothing. The model is based on a former couture model, theoretical re- search on quality and related issues, and interview data from makers and users of customized clothing. The model suggests that assessments of quality occur in three periods of time: 1) before ordering, 2) during designing and making, and 3) during the use and stor- age of the clothes. Before ordering, the reputation of a maker—through shows, exhibitions, promotional letters, location, signs of professional affiliation, portfolios, clients' existing garments, stories told—is the main source of informa- tion for assessment, which is a recommendation to a potential client. In the process, style, fit, and features are developed through design, technique, and material to obtain fit- ness for use. Not only the process and the emerging product are assessed, but also interaction, information and confidence. During use and storage, serviceability, fitness for use, reliability, durability, and pleasurability are assessed as dimensions of quality.


A three phase shifted (3PS) distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser based on Reconstruction-Equivalent-Chirp (REC) technique is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The simulation results show that the performances of the equivalent 3PS DFB semiconductor laser are nearly the same as that of the true 3PS laser. However, it only changes the μm-level sampling structures but the seed grating is uniform. So, its cost of fabrication is low. The measurement results exhibit its good single longitudinal mode (SLM) operation even at high bias current and surrounding temperature.


The increasing prevalence rate has made diabetes a world epidemic. Considering diabetes complications and associated effects on patients' quality of life, this interventional study was performed to promote the life quality using education based on the Precede model in the rural areas of Andimeshk. This experimental study was conducted on 120 patients with type II diabetes who were randomly allocated to the experimental and control groups. The data were collected using two questionnaires including the Precede model framework and Short Form health survey (SF-36). The precede model-based intervention composed of six educational sessions (60 to 90 minutes a session). The patients were followed up for three months post-intervention and examined for glycated hemoglobin (Hemoglobin A1c or HbAlc). After educational intervention, the mean score of quality of life had a significant increase in the experimental group compared with the control group.The mean scores of Precede model constructs inpatients of the experimental group increased significantly after the intervention compared with the before intervention. Moreover, the mean score of HbA1c improved significantly in the experimental group compared to the control group. The present study indicated that the educational intervention program based on the Precede model has a positive effect on quality of life among diabetic patients.


We present a device designed for two-step downconversion of single-photon-level signals at 650 nm to the 1.5-μm band with low excess noise and low required pump power as a quantum interface between matter-qubit-based nodes and low-loss photonic channels for quantum communication networks. The required pump power for this interface is around 60% of that for a comparable conventional single-pass device, which reduces the demand on the pump laser and yields a corresponding reduction in dark counts due to inelastic pump scattering. The single-photon-level signal at 649.7 nm is downconverted to the telecom band using a fiber-coupled reverse proton exchange periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide and a 2.19-μm pump laser. By testing the device in the linear regime with a classical input, we achieved 99% depletion efficiency for each stage, corresponding to an internal quantum efficiency of 63% at the optimum pump power for the complete cascaded process.


From Syria to Sudan, governments have informal ties with militias that use violence against opposition groups and civilians. Building on research that suggests these groups offer governments logistical benefits in civil wars as well as political benefits in the form of reduced liability for violence, we provide the first systematic global analysis of the scale and patterns of these informal linkages. We find over 200 informal state–militia relationships across the globe, within but also outside of civil wars. We illustrate how informal delegation of violence to these groups can help some governments avoid accountability for violence and repression. Our empirical analysis finds that weak democracies as well as recipients of financial aid from democracies are particularly likely to form informal ties with militias. This relationship is strengthened as the monitoring costs of democratic donors increase. Out-of-sample predictions illustrate the usefulness of our approach that views informal ties to militias as deliberate government strategy to avoid accountability.


Aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of exchange rate movements on regional growth and inequalities across 26 NUTS-2 level regions in Turkey over a period 2004-2011. In terms of methodology, spatial-panel methods such as fixed and random effect estimators alligned with spatial autoregressive and error models were adopted. As an outcome, it has been shown that depreciation of Turkish lira creates an increasing effect on aggregate growth while its impact on regions are quite mixed. The industrialized Western regions are worsely affected. In these regions, depreciations create an increase in the cost items of companies, discouraging the production and output growth. Controversially, relatively less developed regions in Eastern parts are positively affected from depreciations, probably due to their improved export performances, following a depreciation, driven by a decrease in exported-good prices and increased competitiveness in foreign markets. This leads consequently to an improvement of convergence process


The challenge for policymakers evaluating calls to institute some form of network neutrality regulation is to bring reasoned analysis to bear on a topic that continues to generate more heat than light and that many telecommunications companies appear to believe will just fade away. Over the fall of 2007, the hopes of broadband providers that broadband networks could escape any form of regulatory oversight were dealt a blow when it was revealed that Comcast had degraded the experience of some users of Bittorent (a peer-to-peer application) and engaged in an undisclosed form of network management. This incident, as well as the polarized debate that followed it, underscores the need to reframe the policy and academic debate over broadband regulation and begin evaluating a blueprint for a next generation regulatory strategy that will focus on promoting innovation in the network itself and by applications developers. This Article seeks to do just that. This Article begins by explaining how the debate over network neutrality has all-too-often presented polarized perspectives and slogans where more nuanced analysis is called for. As Internet pioneer David Clark commented on the network neutrality debate, [m]ost of what we have seen so far (in my opinion) either greatly overreaches, or is so vague as to be nothing but a lawyer's employment act. As the Article explains, any effort by Congress to develop a well-specified response to network neutrality concerns would be premature, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should first be afforded an opportunity to develop an effective consumer protection and competition policy strategy. As the Article explains, the FTC has an important opportunity - and indeed a responsibility - to develop and implement a consumer protection strategy in this area, calling for effective disclosure of broadband terms of service and the enforcement of the commitments made in those policies. Moreover, as to the relevant competition policy issues, the Article calls on either the FTC or the FCC (or both) to develop and implement an effective institutional strategy to guard against anticompetitive refusals to provide access to quality of service assurances. In short, the appropriate response to network neutrality concerns is not to ban such quality of service assurances altogether - as that would stifle the Internet's development - but to ensure that the offering of such assurances is not used to injure competition and harm consumers.


Recently, we have proposed a new image device called gigavision camera whose most important characteristic is that pixels have binary response. The response function of a gigavision sensor is non-linear and similar to a logarithmic function, which makes the camera suitable for high dynamic range imaging. One important parameter in the gigavision camera is the threshold for generating binary pixels. Threshold T relates to the number of photo-electrons necessary for the pixel output to switch from "0" to "1". In this paper, a theoretical analysis of the threshold influence in the gigavision camera is given. If the threshold in the gigavision sensor is large, there will be a "dead zone" in the response function of a gigavision sensor. A method of adding artificial light is proposed to solve the "dead zone" problem. Through theoretical analysis and experimental results based on synthesized images, we show that for high light intensity, the gigavision camera with a large threshold and added light works better than one with unity threshold. Experimental results with a prototype camera based on a single photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) camera are also presented.


The biogeochemical cycling of carbon in Lochs Creran and Etive was investigated by using lignin as the biomarker for terrestrial organic matter. The oxygen uptake rate, percentage organic matter due to loss on ignition, Rp index, total carbon, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen, C/N ratio, and phosphate content were used as the proxies to determine the biodegradability of the sediment organic matter. Total lignin in Lochs Creran and Etive ranged from 0.03 to 0.55mg/g, and A (mg/lOOmg OC) ranged from 0.37 to 0.98; the syringyl/vanillyl and cinnamyl/vanillyl ratios for both lochs ranged from 0.16-1.61 and 0-1.47, respectively. It was found that non-woody angiosperm tissues predominated in the lochs. The concentrations of lignin and the proxies were constant at individual locations, indicating continual but intermittent input of terrestrial materials into the lochs. However, total lignin and these proxies decreased significantly from the head to the mouth and outside the lochs, indicating the importance of the Rivers Creran and Etive in contributing terrestrial materials into the lochs and the importance of terrestrial organic matter in fuelling the biogeochemical cycling of organic matter in the lochs. Overall the effect of the hydrodynamic and hydrological regimes of the lochs, fish and shellfish farms, and bioturbation on the sediment organic matter was investigated. From the head to mouth of the lochs, in Creran, lignin contributed to 0.69% and 0.47% TOC at LC0 and LC6 ; in Etive, lignin contributed to 0.91% and 0.33% TOC at RE2 and Camas Nathais, respectively. The input of organic matter into Creran was 1.9 x 109 g/year. Of this, 1.2 x 109 g/year (63.16%) was labile fraction and 7.0 x 108 g/year (36.84%) consisted of refractory organic matter. There were overall 5.0 x 108 gC/year input of total carbon and 2.5 x 106 g/year input of lignin materials into Creran.


Until recently, studies on films from colonial Korea in the Japanese empire had to rely primarily on secondary texts, such as memoirs, journal and newspaper articles, and film reviews. The recent discovery of original film texts from archives in Japan, China, Russia, and elsewhere and their availability on DVD format, prompted an important turning point in the scholarship. However, juxtaposing these newly released DVD versions with other archival sources exposes significant differences among the existing versions of texts. For instance, a newly discovered script reveals that important segments are missing in the recently released DVD version of the propaganda film Volunteer . There also exist important discrepancies in the dialogue among the original film script, the actual film version, the synopsis, and the Japanese subtitles. Some of the Korean-language dialogue, which might be interpreted as exhibiting some ambivalence toward Japanese imperial policies, was completely silenced through strategic omissions in the Japanese-language subtitles targeting Japanese audiences. Some Japanese-language translations of the script also exhibit drastic changes from the original Korean-language dialogue. Piecing together such fragmented and fraught linguistic dissonance found in the colonial archives, we can conjecture that viewers from the colony and the metropole of Volunteer may have consumed very different versions of the film. This article aims to examine the significance of such dissonance, which has only recently become audible in so-called films of transcolonial coproduction.


Conclusions * Relatively little attention has been devoted to understanding and explaining the value that human capital brings to industrial productivity in both the private and public sectors to the strategic political, economic, and political objectives of national security. * Manpower reductions in the Department of Defense and in the defense industry are focused on making personnel strengths match shrinking budgets. These reductions neither account for the strategic value of human capital nor for the possible consequences of its depletion and the resulting dispersal and loss of strategic knowledge, skills and experience. * Strategic human capital--and its probable dispersal and loss--is critical to defense industry production capability because it takes a long time to develop, embodies perishable skills, is not easily substitutable, and cannot be passively mothballed like physical capital. * Trained, skilled, experienced employees are being lost to the defense establishment by current "downsizing" requirements. Rather than relinquishing these valuable assets to job market forces they should be strategically re-employed in industries that can best make use of their specialized training and experience. Downsizing and Human Capital Americans have witnessed large-scale downsizing in the public and private sectors since the late 1980's. Work rolls have been slashed largely based on the need to reduce operating costs in the face of a more competitive global environment for industries and shrinking operating budgets for government agencies. But these downsizing strategies have been flawed. Corporate and government policymakers have reduced operating costs associated with infrastructure and manpower, but they have overlooked the effects these actions will have on the availability of strategic human capital. In short, think of strategic human capital as the skills, training and work experience aggregated across employees within public institutions and private industries that are instrumental to the achievement of national security objectives. Human Capital . . . The Lifeblood of Defense From the beginning of the Cold War, the United States has maintained a credible military force. The U.S. defense establishment has been composed of a collective of uniformed and civilian human capital that successfully responded to the unique demands of equipping, sustaining, and operating the components of military security. These workers can be classified as strategic human capital their numbers and capabilities are not trivial. Just over 3.5 million civilians were employed in a variety of occupations, by the private sector, in support of defense related projects in 1987, and one million civilians worked directly for DOD. This strategic human capital consisted of aerospace engineers, shipyard workers, and munitions technicians who designed, built or maintained defense technology and equipment. The pool of DODOs strategic human capital also included the managers and administrative personnel who successfully planned and achieved objectives within the organizations that comprised the military-industrial complex. The downsizing of DOD will cause hundreds of thousands of trained, experienced workers to leave the defense establishment and scatter to unknown job destinations. An Unprecedented Exodus of Skilled Personnel is Underway The jettisoning of experienced DOD employees into the civilian labor market has steadily increased since the end of the Cold War. In 1988, these actions were amplified by the first round of base closures and realignments recommended by the Base Alignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). The first round recommendations resulted in the loss of 11,900 civilian jobs. Three years later, DOD downsizing and the 1991 BRAC's recommendations resulted in the loss of 27,900 civilian jobs. These totals escalated during the 1993 BRAC recommendations, resulting in 42,300 civilian jobs. …


Kariz is a new architecture for caching data from datalakes accessed, potentially concurrently, by multiple analytic platforms. It integrates rich information from analytics platforms with global knowledge about demand and resource availability to enable sophisticated cache management and prefetching strategies that, for example, combine historical run time information with job dependency graphs (DAGs), information about the cache state and sharing across compute clusters. Our prototype supports multiple analytic frameworks (Pig/Hadoop and Spark), and we show that the required changes aremodest.We have implemented three algorithms in Kariz for optimizing the caching of individual queries (one from the literature, and two novel to our platform) and three policies for optimizing across queries from, potentially, multiple di erent clusters.With an algorithm that fully exploits the rich information available from Kariz, we demonstrate major speedups (as much as 3×) for TPC-H and TPC-DS.


The catches of the marine fisheries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo 'DRC', formerly known as Zaïre (here: 'Congo (ex-Zaïre)', were estimated, in spite of low availability of quantitative data and pertinent literature. Reconstructed total catches were estimated to be at least twice as much as the data supplied to FAO on behalf of the Congo (ex-Zaïre), with around 764,000 tonnes between 1950 and 2010 compared to 338,000 tonnes reported to the FAO on behalf of the Congo (ex-Zaïre), of which about 70% were taken by the small-scale fisheries. The reconstructed catches illustrate the fact that while political turmoil caused the nascent industrial fisheries to fold, wars and other conflicts contributed to increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to total fisheries removals, thus demonstrating the resilience of small-scale fisheries and their crucial role in contributing to the food security of coastal communities.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Menopause is a global phenomenon for women and about 74 to 80% of women worldwide suffer from symptoms of menopause. The symptoms women experience during this period include night sweats, sleep disorders, heart problems and flushing. The treatment currently used for these complications is hormone replacement method, which has serious side effects. One alternative method for the hormone replacement method is the use of plants from the family of phytoestrogens such as evening primrose. METHODS: This triple-blind clinical trial was conducted among 100 postmenopausal women with menopausal symptoms in both drug and placebo groups. First, the symptoms of menopause were measured based on scores of 0 – 16. The participants arbitrarily used placebo or evening primrose oil 1g perle twice a day for one month. After one month, the symptoms of menopause were measured and compared using Menopause Health Questionnaire. IRCT:1N2017012432161. FINDINGS: The results of the study demonstrated that evening primrose has considerable effects on the reduction of flushing (3.33±0.79 vs. 0.89±0.64), sleep disorders (2.65±0.6 vs. 1.3±0.66) and musculo-skeletal disorders (3.41±0.74 vs. 3.41±0.73 vs. 0.82±0.73) in evening primrose group compared with placebo group (p<0.001). In this study, the mean physical symptom score before menopause was 11.15±1.78, while it was 4.78±1.60 at the end of the study (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Results of the study demonstrated that the use of evening primrose is effective in reducing the physical symptoms in postmenopausal women and can be used as a complementary therapy or an alternative method for hormone replacement method to improve the symptoms of menopause in women.


Ancient asexuals – organisms that have lived without sex for millions of years – offer unique opportunities for discriminating among the various theories of the maintenance of sex. The last few years have seen molecular studies of a number of putative ancient asexual lineages, including bdelloid rotifers, Darwinulid ostracods, and mycorrhizal fungi. To help make sense of the diverse findings of such studies, we present a review and classification of the predicted effects of loss of sex on the eukaryotic genome. These include: (1) direct effects on the genetic structure of individuals and populations; (2) direct effects on the mutation rate due to the loss of the sexual phase; (3) decay of genes specific to sex and recombination; (4) effects of the cessation of sexual selection; (5) dis-adaptation due to the reduced efficiency of selection; and (6) adaptations to asexuality. We discuss the utility of the various predictions for detecting ancient asexuality, for testing hypotheses of the reversibility of a transition to asexuality, and for discriminating between theories of sex. In addition, we review the current status of putative ancient asexuals. © 2003 The Linnean Society of London. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 2003, 79 , 69–84.


The name of May Willie.ms Ward is synonymous with the growth of interest in poetry in the State of Kansas, for she has been writing here for thirty years. It has been the privilege of the writer of this thesis to be counted among the friends of Mrs. Ward during the last of these decades, when settings and themes other than Kansa s and its people have appeared frequently in her works She has taken thought of war and the world and evaluation of individuals known or imagined as themes of poetry. Yet in research through the whole body of her work, especially that of the twenties and thirties, the Kansas influence is found not only to be marked, but dominant; and in the last decade, too, it is a fundamental theme on which her whole philosophy is based. Long considered one of the foremost poets of Kansas, Mrs. Ward has gained prominence in the United States and recognition in England. Acceptance has come because of her ability to see the potentialities in everyday circumstances and persons. As a person, M.W.W. is many-sided, with norm.al interests and hobbies, but with perhaps a more than normal understanding of people. She has no children, but in such a poem as \Garden Wedding\ she expresses an emotion many parents have, and the setting might be almost anywhere in America.


Prior to the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats shared neighbourhoods and friendships. The war, through its objective and effect, divided these communities and groups. Postconflict, the physical return of displaced persons and refugees was, and remains, insufficient to renew coexistence. Moreover, the weak economy aggravates divisions, further impeding sustainable return and reconciliation. Recognising these difficulties, UNHCR launched 'Imagine Coexistence,' a series of activities designed to rebuild trust among ethnic groups in areas of return. Many of the activities involved an income-generating component. The article reviews this and other similar initiatives that aim to promote livelihoods, community development, return and coexistence concurrently. It finds that while such inventive projects receive limited attention and funding, they have achieved successes in repairing social relationships, addressing poverty and strengthening communities in Bosnia. Consequently, they should be given greater prominence in Bosnia and more generally in the design of transitional justice and peace building interventions.


We model an incumbent's decision to pursue radical or incremental innovation when facing a rival entrant. The radical innovation may yield lucrative financial returns but entails significant technological and market‐related uncertainties. It is also particularly attractive to the rival entrant: if the market for it pans out, such an innovation obsoletes the existing technology and any incremental improvements to it. Each firm has its own assessment of the market potential for the radical innovation, and the reliability of these market forecasts can differ. We show that when the entrant's market‐assessment capability is weak, the incumbent will pursue incremental innovation and postpone its plans to develop radical innovation even when it thinks highly of the market potential for the radical innovation. The incumbent does so to avoid validating the high market potential to the entrant, who may otherwise be encouraged to invest aggressively. The incumbent thus prefers to look "soft" with respect to its innovation strategy in order to discourage entry. Even if its innovation strategy is not observable, we show that an incumbent that assesses the commercial potential for a radical innovation favorably may pursue an incremental path and communicate its plans publicly; this strategy serves to reduce entry by affecting the entrant's beliefs about the market potential of the innovation. Finally, we extend the model to investigate the entrant's decision to communicate its innovation intentions. We find that the entrant communicates its plans to aggressively pursue radical innovation only if the incumbent's market‐assessment capabilities are strong. In doing so, the entrant acts preemptively to discourage the incumbent from pursuing the radical innovation, and is less concerned with validating market potential.


Parametrized surfaces of low degrees are very useful in applications, specially in Computer Aided Geometric Design and Geometric Modeling. The precise description of their geometry is not easy in general. Here we study surfaces of bidegree (1,2). We show that, generically up to linear changes of coordinates, they are classified by two continuous parameters (modulus). We present an elegant combinatorial description where these modulus appear as cross ratios. We provide compact implicit equations for these surfaces and for their singular locus together with a geometric interpretation.


Catchments with minimal disturbance usually have low dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) export, but disturbances and anthropogenic inputs result in elevated DIN concentration and export and eutrophication of downstream ecosystems. We studied streams in the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA, an area dominated by hardwood deciduous forest but with areas of valley agriculture and increasing residential development. We collected weekly grab samples and storm samples from nine small catchments and three river sites. Most discharge occurred at baseflow, with baseflow indices ranging from 69% to 95%. We identified three seasonal patterns of baseflow DIN concentration. Streams in mostly forested catchments had low DIN with bimodal peaks, and summer peaks were greater than winter peaks. Streams with more agriculture and development also had bimodal peaks; however, winter peaks were the highest. In streams draining catchments with more residential development, DIN concentration had a single peak, greatest in winter and lowest in summer. Three methods for estimating DIN export produced consistent results. Annual DIN export ranged from less than 200 g ha−1 year−1 for the less disturbed catchments to over 2,000 g ha−1 year−1 in the catchments with the least forest area. Land cover was a strong predictor of DIN concentration but less significant for predicting DIN export. The two forested reference catchments appeared supply limited, the most residential catchment appeared transport limited, and export for the other catchments was significantly related to discharge. In all streams, baseflow DIN export exceeded stormflow export. Morphological and climatological variation among watersheds created complexities unexplainable by land cover. Nevertheless, regression models developed using land cover data from the small catchments reasonably predicted concentration and export for receiving rivers. Our results illustrate the complexity of mechanisms involved in DIN export in a region with a mosaic of climate, geology, topography, soils, vegetation, and past and present land use.


While horticultural therapy (HT) has a long history in the United States, the profession has not had the acceptance and growth that related fields, such as art, music, recreational, occupational, and physical therapies have experienced. The objective of this study was to identify the current challenges and opportunities of HT in the United States. Maximum variation sampling was used to select current and former members of the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) for interviews. A total of 27 participants were interviewed between Nov. 2019 and Jan. 2020 using semi-structured qualitative interviews by Zoom. The interviews revealed six themes: 1) current state of the profession, 2) AHTA operations/structure, 3) education/credentialing, 4) funding/job opportunities, 5) public awareness/networking, and 6) research. This paper will discuss the challenges and opportunities presented in the six themes and provide recommendations for the future growth of the HT profession.


Epigenetic control of gene expression is vital for normal development and
differentiation of cells, and is also important in the development of disease. In
particular, there is a strong association between hallmark epigenetic changes and
cancer – namely, genome wide hypomethylation, gene specific hypermethylation
and characteristic histone modification. Almost all studies of cancer epigenetics
to date have been conducted in malignant tissues or already transformed cell
lines, and therefore do not take into account epigenetic changes occurring during
the process of transformation. Our lab has developed a line of primary
mesenchymal stem cells (MSC; thought to be the origin of various types of
sarcoma) in which five oncogenic steps towards a fully transformed state are
sequentially introduced including: human telomerase, necessary to extend the life
span of MSC in culture, genes to inactivate the p53 and pRb tumour suppressor
genes and genes to activate the oncogenes c-Myc and Ras. I hypothesized that
hallmark epigenetic changes take place in this step-wise model of transformation,
and aimed to investigate genome wide hypomethylation and the activity of the
polycomb repressive 2 (PRC2) complex in this system. Utilizing the PCR based
technique MethyLight, I show that transformed MSC are hypomethylated
compared to parental MSC, with this decrease in methylation occurring on the
introduction of oncogenic H-Ras in the final step. I also show that this
hypomethylation is a gradual event following H-Ras expression, and
transformation can take place in the absence of hypomethylation. I demonstrate
that the three core components of the PRC2 complex are up-regulated during
step-wise transformation and that PRC2 target genes are down-regulated. Finally,
I show that MSC are able to be transformed when the PRC2 components EZH2
and SUZ12 are knocked down before the final oncogenic hit. These studies show
that hallmark epigenetic changes occur during step-wise transformation and
suggest that tumour-associated epigenetic changes occur following genetic
aberrations. This model is valuable and relevant to further explore the
mechanisms behind epigenetic alterations in cancer.


Abstract Since 11 September 2001, the 'Muslim world' has become a novel religio-culturally defined civilisational frame of reference around which American foreign policy has been partly reoriented and reorganised. In parallel, the 'Muslim world', is increasingly becoming, at this historical juncture, a civilisational social fact in international politics by being progressively embedded in, and enacted onto the world by, American foreign policy discourses, institutions, practices, and processes of self-other recognition. This article theoretically understands and explains the causes and consequences of these changes through an engagement with the emerging post-essentialist civilisational analysis turn in International Relations (IR). In particular, the article furthers a constructivist civilisational politics approach that is theoretically, empirically, and methodologically oriented towards recovering and explaining how actors are interpreting, constructing, and reproducing – in this case through particular American foreign policy changes – an international society where intra- and inter-civilisational relations 'matter'.


The geomorphology of the upper reaches of the River Wear Valley has been based on Individual assessments of the complex topography of the area. Evaluation of the superficial deposits as a method of understanding the area, has so far been limited to subjective assessment. In this study a technique recently developed in sedimentary petrology is applied to samples of the suite of deposits existing in Upper Weardale. Two samples are considered, one, a purposive sample chosen to "represent" the deposits of the region for an initial evaluation of the technique, the other sample, a random sample, to permit general conclusions about the nature of the deposits existing in that area. Analysis of the particle-size distribution of the sediments obtained in each sample gives a basis for conclusions about the representative nature of both purposive and random samples. Factor Analysis of the particle-size data gives similar results for each body of data and the Factor analyses of all data as a single unit demonstrates an equal consistency. Consideration of the nature of the four factors produced in this way leads to their tentative identification as the products of glacial action, water-washing processes, rock decomposition and gelifluction. This tentative identification is reinforced by the statistically significant trend surface patterns which emerge from further data analysis. In the final section all other evidence is considered together with the results obtained from data analysis. The conclusions about the geomorphological history are compatible with the evidence considered by previous workers, although the conclusion that the whole area was over-ridden by ice is a departure from the commonly-held view. Conclusions of a methodological nature concerning the wider application of these techniques to complex suites of deposits are also formulated.


The remote sensing images are more accessible nowadays and there are proper technologies to receive, distribute, manipulate and process long satellite image time series that can be used to improve traditional methods for harvest monitoring and forecasting. The potential of the satellite multi-temporal images to support research of agricultural monitoring has increased according to improvements in technological development, especially in analysis of large volume of data available for knowledge discovery. In Brazil, sugarcane is cultivated on extensive fields and is the main agriculture crop used to produce ethanol. The main objective of this chapter is to monitor the sugarcane crop by clustering analysis with multi-temporal satellite images having low spatial resolution. A large database of this kind of image and specific software were used to perform the image preprocessing phase, extract time series, apply clustering method and enable the data visualization on several steps during the whole analysis process. According to the analysis done, our methodology allows to identify land areas with similar development patterns, also considering different growing seasons for the crops, covering monthly and annual periods. Results confirm that satellite images of low spatial resolution can indeed be satisfactorily used in agricultural crop monitoring in regional scale.


The term 'calculation software' is used here to describe computer software which has the basic functionality of a programmable scientific hand calculator, but which offers some additional functions, and much more convenient input and output. It is shown how such software can be used effectively in the teaching of engineering. A number of representative files or templates, which illustrate the concept, are presented and discussed. Specific examples are based on the software MathCAD, but the concept is clearly extendible to other products which are appearing on the market.


Glass with embedded spherical silver nanoparticles of ~15 nm in radius contained in a layer with thickness of ~20 µm was irradiated using a nanosecond (36 ns) pulsed laser at 532 nm. Laser irradiation led to the formation of a thin surface film containing uniformly distributed nanoparticles - with an increase in the overall average nanoparticle size. Increasing the applied number of pulses to the sample resulted in the increase of the average size of the nanoparticles from 15 nm to 35 – 70 nm in radius, and narrowing of the surface plasmon band compared to the absorption spectra of the original glass sample. The influence of the applied number of laser pulses on the optical and structural properties of such a recipient nanocomposite was investigated.