The UN CRPD marks a shift of thinking in the disability sector; it lays down the premises for the enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and it demands State parties to put into place proper structures and services to make sure the conditions for enjoyment of human rights are respected. From the experience of the UN Standard Rules, the United Nations have further elaborated on the current international treaty on disability, the UN CRPD, and further deepened its impact at international level. Adapted work settings, commonly known also as sheltered workshops, are not referred to in the UNCRPD. This requires clarifications for the thousands of people that benefit from their services and whose future looks therefore uncertain. This report focuses on the role of adapted work settings in the international framework provided by the UNCRPD; in particular, special attention has been given to Article 26 and 27, as they both deal with principles, measures and services offered by adapted work settings. The analysis was carried out starting from three main subjects: what the Convention brought in general terms through its paradigm shift and the subsequent challenges for social services the analysis of the current text of Article 26 and 27 and the links to the role of sheltered workshop matters the history of the discussions around the inclusion of sheltered workshops in the UN CRPD. Article 26 dealing with issues concerning the "functioning" of the individual, renews the entitlement to habilitation and rehabilitation service, the latter considered as going beyond the medical sense of it, keeping a connotation of a non-permanent treatment. Article 27 concerns the right to work, which should lead to the possibility to gain a living and lead a life of dignity. Most sheltered workshops, that are providing rehabilitation and work related activities, seem, according to some, to be not fully compliant with either of the two articles as they provide rehabilitation-based activities on an on-going basis and offer work without fully guaranteeing conditions applying under the labour law. This concern emerged as well during the negotiation activities of the UN CRPD and was partly responsible for their exclusion from the current article on the right to work. However, the implementation of the Convention presents some challenges, especially when it comes to rights and obligations concerning overlapping fields of action, as may be the case for Article 26 and 27. Services like sheltered workshops may sometimes and very often fulfill more than one function for persons with disabilities, and thus their compliance to the UN CRPD articles is particularly sensitive. In the framework of a holistic approach to persons with disabilities, where disability itself is not the focus of attention, but everything is about the individual and the enjoyment of his rights, it is of utter importance to keep a good balance between the multitude of skills, personal choices, possibilities of individual development and society's response. This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/gladnetcollect/560 This report looks at the possible links existing between sheltered workshops and the UN CRPD in order to gain a view on the state of play and on future developments needed in the provision of work opportunities to persons with (intellectual) disabilities.


In this paper, two approaches to assess the impacts of climate change on streamflows have been used. In the first approach (direct), a statistical downscaling technique was utilized to predict future streamflows based on large-scale data of general circulation models (GCMs). In the second approach (indirect), GCM outputs were downscaled to produce local climate conditions which were then used as inputs to a hydrological simulation model. In this article, some data-mining methods such as model-tree, multivariate adaptive regression splines and group method of data handling were utilized for direct downscaling of streamflows. Projections of HadCM3 model for A2 and B2 SRES scenarios were also used to simulate future climate conditions. These evaluation were done over three sub-basins of Karkheh River basin in southwest Iran. To achieve a comprehensive assessment, a global uncertainty assessment method was used to evaluate the results of the models. The results indicated that despite simplifications included in the direct downscaling, this approach is accurate enough to be used for assessing climate change impacts on streamflows without computational efforts of hydrological modeling. Furthermore, comparing future climate projections, the uncertainty associated with elimination of hydrological modeling is estimated to be high.


Like the original Spencer-Brander result, the R&D incentives that we identify lead governments to set positive R&D subsides in the non-cooperative equilibrium. However, we find that if exporting governments could cooperate over their policy choices they would continue to subsidize R&D, rather than agreeing to tax R&D as in the original Spencer-Brander set-up. The reason is that under cooperation they will also agree to share perfectly the results of R&D investments (i.e., eliminate IPR protection), and R&D subsides are then required to maintain appropriate incentives for firms to engage in R&D investments. This last result is interesting for two reasons, both of which point to the importance of examining R&D subsides and IPR policies in tandem as we have done rather than in isolation as has heretofore typically been done. First, by this result we show that the case for strategic R&D subsides is more robust than previously thought, as it applies whether exporting governments are acting cooperatively or non-cooperatively, once their equilibrium choices of IPR protection are taken into account as well. And second, by this result we identify a puzzle as to why governments might wish to agree to jointly eliminate, rather than tighten, their levels of IPR protection, given that hey have at their disposal R&D outcomes. We show that the flavour of these findings extend as well to the case in which governments also have export policies at their disposal. In the original Spencer-Brander set-up, the addition of export policies leads governments to tax R&D and offer export subsides, pointing to another way in which the case for strategic R&D subsides appears to be fragile. But again out results imply that this fragility disappears in a setting in which the choice of IPR protection is modelled well.


Leaves of Morinda citrifolia (Rubiaceae) have been used in folk medicine to treat pain and inflammation. In this study, the anti-inflammatory activity of M. citrifolia leaf extracts was investigated. The extract was prepared by freeze-drying juice squeezed from M. citrifolia leaves. HPLC analysis of the crude extract revealed rutin to be a major compound together with small amounts of quercetin and kaempferol. The effect of this extract on TNF- , IL-1 , and NO secretion by lipopolysaccharide-induced macrophage RAW 264.7 cells was investigated and compared to that of rutin, dexamethasone, and indomethacin. The results show that the extract inhibited TNF- (98%, 750 µg/ml) secretion four times more than dexamethasone (3.92 µg/ml) and indomethacin (3.58 µg/ml), while rutin had no effect. The extract suppressed IL-1 secretion in a dose-dependent fashion with a maximum inhibition of about 79% (750 µg/ml). This was similar to that achieved by dexamethasone (97%, 3.92 µg/ml), indomethacin (70%, 3.58 µg/ml), and rutin (90%, 48.84 µg/ml). Moreover, the extract inhibited NO secretion (74%, 750 µg/ml) 50% more than rutin (40 µM) and 70% more than dexamethasone and indomethacin (10 µM). This study demonstrates the potential of M. citrifolia leaves as an effective therapeutic intervention against inflammatory diseases.


The strong motion accelerograms recorded during the 1990 Eastern Sicily earthquake have been analyzed to investigate source and attenuation parameters. Peak ground motions (peak acceleration, velocity and displacement) overestimate the values predicted by the empirical scaling law proposed for other Italian earthquakes, suggesting that local site response and propagation path effects play an important role in interpreting the observed time histories. The local magnitude, computed from the strong motion accelerograms by synthesizing the Wood-Anderson response, is ML = 5.9, that is sensibly larger than the local magnitude estimated at regional distances from broad-band seismograms (ML = 5.4). The standard omega-square source spectral model seems to be inadequate to describe the observed spectra over the entire frequency band from 0.2 to 20 Hz. The seismic moment estimated from the strong motion accelerogram recorded at the closest rock site (Sortino) is Mo = 0.8 x 1024 dyne.cm, that is roughly 4.5 times lower than the value estimated at regional distances (Mo = 3.7 x 1024 dyne.cm) from broad-band seismograms. The corner frequency estimated from the accelera- tion spectra i.5 J; = 1.3 Hz, that is close to the inverse of the dUl.ation of displacement pulses at the two closest recording sites. This value of corner ti.equency and the two values of seismic moment yield a Brune stress drop larger than 500 bars. However, a corner frequency value off; = 0.6 Hz and the seismic moment resulting from regional data allows the acceleration spectra to be reproduced on the entire available frequency band yielding to a Brune stress drop of 210 bars. The ambiguity on the corner frequency value associated to this earthquake is due to the limited frequency bandwidth available on the strong motion recordil1gs. Assuming the seismic moment estimated at regional distances from broad-band data, the moment magnitude for this earthquake is 5.7. The higher local magnitude (5.9) compared with the moment magnitude (5.7) is due to the weak regional attenuation. Beside this, site amplifications due to surface geology have produced the highest peak ground motions among those observed at the strong motion sites.


Energy-efficiency laws and policies have great ability to improve economic wellbeing and human health, while reducing the adverse effects of energy use on climate and the environment generally. New Zealand, like many countries, has a legal framework for energy-efficiency measures, including a specialist agency, a process for strategic planning and the making of regulations. This framework has certain strengths, but shows deficiencies in its use of strategies. Its use of regulation for labelling and minimum energy performance standards is similar to that of a number of other countries. In this article, New Zealand law on energy efficiency is compared with that of California and Germany. Insights from social sciences and behavioural economics have considerable promise in the design of energy-efficiency measures. However, a clear legal framework is necessary to put energy efficiency at the heart of energy policy, and to pursue it with conventional legal regulatory measures.


Hilmar Kaiser, one of the first German historians to work on the Armenian Genocide and one who has often written about it as a historical fact, is now trying to dilute that history. In his latest article, which consciously avoids use of the term genocide, Kaiser seeks to portray Mehmed Djemal Pasha, a member of the Young Turk triumvirate ruling the Ottoman Empire during World War I, as an individual resisting the genocidal policies of his co-conspirators within the Committee of Union and Progress. Kaiser claims to employ Ottoman documents to demonstrate that the initial intention of the Turkish government was to relocate the Ottoman Armenians for military reasons, although he admits that they posed no imminent danger to the state. Kaiser indicates that the first "relocations" of Armenians took place in areas controlled by Djemal and were initiated by him, then goes on to claim that even though the infamous death camp of Deir-es-Zor was located within his sphere of power, he, in reality, protected the Armenians. However, facts showing the extent of the genocide have been overlooked. This article will use archival documents from the Foreign Office of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire's wartime ally, to demonstrate the shortcomings of Kaiser's evidence and arguments.


Although promising results have been achieved in video captioning, existing models are limited to the fixed inventory of activities in the training corpus, and do not generalize to open vocabulary scenarios. Here we introduce a novel task, zeroshot video captioning, that aims at describing out-of-domain videos of unseen activities. Videos of different activities usually require different captioning strategies in many aspects, i.e. word selection, semantic construction, and style expression etc, which poses a great challenge to depict novel activities without paired training data. But meanwhile, similar activities share some of those aspects in common. Therefore, we propose a principled Topic-Aware Mixture of Experts (TAMoE) model for zero-shot video captioning, which learns to compose different experts based on different topic embeddings, implicitly transferring the knowledge learned from seen activities to unseen ones. Besides, we leverage external topic-related text corpus to construct the topic embedding for each activity, which embodies the most relevant semantic vectors within the topic. Empirical results not only validate the effectiveness of our method in utilizing semantic knowledge for video captioning, but also show its strong generalization ability when describing novel activities.


Objectives: To evaluate the effects of curcumin mouthwash on oxidative stress levels in patients undergoing fixed orthodontic treatment by assessing the levels of 8hydroxydeoxyguanosine in GCF. Design and Setting: 50 patients (27 females and 23 males) participated in the study and were randomly allocated between two groups. Group 1 subjects who were given curcumin mouthwash and toothpaste; group 2 – subjects who acted as control group (only toothpaste). Methods: The levels of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine from GCF samples of patients were used to assess the oxidative stress levels of the periodontiumat three time periods: pretreatment (T0),3 months of treatment (T1) and 6 months of treatment (T2). Kruskal Wallis test was used to test the null hypothesis that there was no difference in biomarker levels across the three time periods for both experimental and control group followed by Dunn's post hoc analysis.The non-parametric Mann Whitney U test was used to perform the comparisons between the experimental and control group during the three time periods (P <0.05). Results: The median value for 8 hydroxydeoxyguanosine level was lowest when taken at the 6 months interval (8.24 ng/L; IQR=6.94-9.84) in experimental group (Curcurmin mouthwash + toothpaste group). The results of Mann-Whitney U test showed that there was statistically significant difference between experimental (Curcurmin mouthwash + toothpaste) and control groups (Toothpaste group) during the 6 th month. Conclusion: Curcumin mouthwash can serve as an effective way of reducing the oxidative stress levels in patients undergoing fixed orthodontic treatment.


We provide the first joint evidence on the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities, their personality and earnings for Germany. Using data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study, we employ scores from an ultra-short IQ-test and a set of measures of personality traits, namely locus of control, reciprocity and all basic items from the Five Factor Personality Inventory. Our estimates suggest a positive effect of so-called fluid intelligence or speed of cognition on males' wages only. Findings for personality traits are more heterogeneous. There however is a robust wage penalty for an external locus of control for both men and women.


For over 30 years, techniques have been developed that allow for the microscale (10-30 /zm) measurement of chemical signals with high temporal resolution (1-200 Hz). Such measurements, called in vivo electrochemical recordings, allow for the direct determination of neurotransmitter molecules and related compounds in biological systems. Multiple recordings, simultaneously performed at different, closely spaced, well defined locations throughout a three-dimensional tissue volume in the brain, are of interest inneuroscience. Developments inmicroelectronic techniques enable the fabrication of multi-electrode microprobes for recording extracellular action potentials generated by individual neurons simultaneously. Ahigh-yield microfabrication process has been successfully developed for the fabrication of a novel semiconductorbased, four-site silicon microprobe that involves a three-mask process and standard UV photolithography. A plasma process has been developed for dry etching of the gold electrodes and conducting lines. The electrochemical behavior of the microprobe is investigated by a high-speed computer-based in vitro electrochemical recording system. The electrochemical signals are measured at 5 Hz and varying gain. Itis found that a selectivity of over 500:1is achieved, and the signal tonoise ratio of the recorded signal is particularly suitable for in vivo recordings.


This proposal seeks support for a study of the influence of the Scotia Sea on global ocean circulation. During a 35 day research cruise using RRS James Clark Ross, we shall undertake a high quality hydrographic and tracer survey of the southwest Atlantic in the form of an enclosed box. This box incorporates repeats of three hydrographic sections completed during the last decade, so we shall detect any changes in water mass properties. It crosses the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) twice and so enables us to quantify its transport. The Scotia Sea is a region believed to exhibit intense water mass modification. Deep waters from the Weddell Sea escape through narrow passages into the Argentine Basin and are also entrained into the eastward flowing ACC. Deep waters flowing east through Drake Passage are believed to undergo freshening and cooling in the Scotia Sea. When taken together with previous hydrographic sections, our survey will complete a set of boxes, so we shall use inverse techniques to determine horizontal and surface fluxes of heat and freshwater in the Weddell Sea, Scotia Sea and Southwest Atlantic. Thus we shall quantify the rôle of the Scotia Sea in the ocean-atmosphere climate system.


eleed, Iss. 10 - Teaching is a dynamic activity. It can be very effective, if its impact is constantly monitored and adjusted to the demands of changing social contexts and needs of learners. This implies that teachers need to be aware about teaching and learning processes. Moreover, they should constantly question their didactical methods and the learning resources, which they provide to their students. They should reflect if their actions are suitable, and they should regulate their teaching, e.g., by updating learning materials based on new knowledge about learners, or by motivating learners to engage in further learning activities.
In the last years, a rising interest in 'learning analytics' is observable. This interest is motivated by the availability of massive amounts of educational data. Also, the continuously increasing processing power, and a strong motivation for discovering new information from these pools of educational data, is pushing further developments within the learning analytics research field. Learning analytics could be a method for reflective teaching practice that enables and guides teachers to investigate and evaluate their work in future learning scenarios. However, this potentially positive impact has not yet been sufficiently verified by learning analytics research.
Another method that pursues these goals is 'action research'. Learning analytics promises to initiate action research processes because it facilitates awareness, reflection and regulation of teaching activities analogous to action research.
Therefore, this thesis joins both concepts, in order to improve the design of learning analytics tools. Central research question of this thesis are: What are the dimensions of learning analytics in relation to action research, which need to be considered when designing a learning analytics tool? How does a learning analytics dashboard impact the teachers of technology-enhanced university lectures regarding 'awareness', 'reflection' and 'action'? Does it initiate action research? Which are central requirements for a learning analytics tool, which pursues such effects?
This project followed design-based research principles, in order to answer these research questions. The main contributions are: a theoretical reference model that connects action research and learning analytics, the conceptualization and implementation of a learning analytics tool, a requirements catalogue for useful and usable learning analytics design based on evaluations, a tested procedure for impact analysis, and guidelines for the introduction of learning analytics into higher education.


DC power distribution has been proposed as an alternative to AC power distribution in data centers, but misinformation and conflicting claims have confused the discussion. A detailed analysis and model show that many of the benefits commonly stated for DC distribution are unfounded or exaggerated. This paper explains why high efficiency AC will likely emerge as the dominant choice for data center power distribution. Executive summary >


An approach to the analysis of complex modes in lossless isotropic dielectric waveguides is presented. The existing theory of complex modes is extended to the case of open structures by techniques of functional analysis. Mathematical and physical properties of complex modes, including some criteria of existence and mechanisms of occurrence, are formulated. The theory is demonstrated by the numerical example of a waveguide with a large core-cladding refractive-index difference. Computed complex-mode dispersion characteristics are analyzed, and the mode vector field, together with the power distribution in the waveguide cross section, is shown.


The manufacturing industry aims at reducing the time-to-volume for new products with new production sites. A ramp-up team needs to find a capable production process for a new production site to produce the product in sufficient quality and volume efficiently and with reasonable investment costs. Capable production processes have to be qualified first regarding the specification criteria of the created product. However, currently the ramp-up team does not have a well-structured process to follow or a measurement system for guidance. In this paper we propose the "knowledge-based production ramp-up process" (K-RAMP) for the ramp-up of a new product with specified requirements in a target production system. Based on these knowledge assets, we introduce the "ramp-up recommender system" that systematically helps determine reusable processes in the target production system. We use semantic web technology to define, design, and evaluate the ramp-up process knowledgebase and recommender system with a real-world use case. In the evaluation context the K-RAMP showed promising results and should be evaluated in a wider range of production processes to help master shortening product life-cycles.


Increased standards of living and indoor comfort demands have led to an increase in the demand for air-conditioning in buildings in South Africa. Conventional vapor compression systems use refrigerants that damage the ozone layer and contribute significantly to the global warming effect. Therefore, there is an urgent need to implement environmentally cleaner ways of satisfying this air-conditioning demand and absorption cooling systems have shown great potential to do so. This project is concerned with finding the technical and economic effectiveness of solar powered absorption cooling systems for South African climatic conditions. Solar cooling systems are made up of a solar collector array, water storage tank, absorption chiller and cooling tower for heat rejection. In this study, two complete systems, one utilizing an open wet cooling tower and another using a dry cooler were studied and their technical and economical performance analyzed. One system was installed at Netcare Moot Hospital in Pretoria and comprised of a solar collector array made up of 52 evacuated tube collectors, two 6000litre hot water storage tanks, 35kW LiBr-water absorption chiller, and a wet cooling tower. This system was coupled to an existing vapor compression chiller so that cooling is provided even when no solar energy is available. The installation controlled and remotely monitored through the internet and parameters logged through a Carel Building Management System. The other system is at Vodacom World in Midrand, Johannesburg and is an autonomous solar heating and cooling system aimed at maintaining the building environment at comfort conditions throughout the year. It is made up of a 116m evacuated tube collector array, a 6500litre hot water storage tank, 35kW LiBr-Water absorption chiller, 1m of cold water storage, a dry cooler for the chiller, and two underground rock storages to pre-cool the supply air to the building and the dry cooler respectively. Long term system performance studies were carried out by varying the system control strategy for the chiller, hot water storage tank, existing vapor compression chiller (in the case of the Moot Hospital installation) , hot water storage tank, dry cooler ( for the Vodacom installation) and the system Coefficient of Performances were calculated and life cycle cost analysis carried out. Due to the fact that solar availability and cooling demand are approximately in phase, solar powered absorption cooling presents a great opportunity for reducing peak electrical cooling energy


With age might come a decline in crucial driving skills. The effect of a collision warning system (CWS) on older drivers' head movements behavior at intersections was examined. Methods: Twenty-six old-adults, between 55 and 64 years of age, and 16 Older drivers between 65 and 83 years of age, participated in the study. A CWS (Mobileye Inc.) and a front-back in-vehicle camera (IVC) were installed in each of the participants' own vehicles for 6 months. The CWS was utilized to identify unsafe events during naturalistic driving situations, and the IVC was used to capture head direction at intersections. The experimental design was conducted in three phases (baseline, intervention, and carryover), 2 months each. Unsafe events were recorded by the CWS during all phases of the study. In the second phase, the CWS feedback was activated to examine its effect on drivers' head movement' behavior at intersections. Results: Older drivers (65+) drove significantly more hours in total during the intervention phase (M = 79.1 h, SE = 10) than the baseline phase (M = 39.1 h, SE = 5.3) and the carryover phase (M = 37.7 h, SE = 5.4). The study revealed no significant differences between the head movements of older and old-adult drivers at intersections. For intersection on the left direction, a significant improvement in drivers' head movements' behavior was found at T-junctions, turns and four-way intersections from phase 1 to phase 3 (p < 0.01), however, two intersection types presented a decrease along the study phases. The head movements' behavior at roundabouts and merges was better at phase 1 compared to phase 3 (p < 0.01). There was no significant reduction of the mean number of CWS unsafe events across the study phases. Conclusions: The immediate feedback provided by the CWS was effective in terms of participants' head movements at certain intersections but was harmful in others. However, older drivers drove many more hours during the active feedback phase, implying that they trusted the system. Therefore, in the light of this complex picture, using the technological feedback with older drivers should be followed with an additional mediation or follow-up to ensure safety.


This thesis deals with the characteristics and performance analysis of hybrid optical-wireless 802.11 broadband access networks. The main focus of this work is on the behaviour and performance of the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer when Radio over Fibre technology is used to distribute Radio Frequency signals from a Central Site to Remote Antenna Units. Data throughput impairments due to constraints imposed by the IEEE 802.11 MAC are considered in Single Mode Fibre systems. The results presented in this thesis are based on the current DCF access scheme specifications using both the Basic Access and RTS/CTS Access mechanisms (at the MAC layer), as well as TCP and UDP protocols (within the transport layer). It is shown that the length of the fibre is constricted to a maximum limit in a standard hybrid system. However, with minimal changes to the parameters of IEEE 802.11 standard this limit can be expanded. It is also realised that data throughput decreases with different rates (depending on parameters chosen) as fibre length increases. It has been observed that the network fails long before physical layer limitations set in due to the timeout values defined within the MAC protocol. In this thesis experimental enquiries are first used to provide a set of validation points before extending these results by simulations using the NS-2 platform. Mathematical approximations are then presented to these results that would allow designers of Radio over Fibre systems to quickly and accurately predict the data throughput and performance behaviour given the specific parameters of their network. Finally, two different strategies are investigated within an 802.11 Fibre Friendly MAC that significantly enhance the data throughput. Due to the common functionality of the MAC layer the basis of this work can be applied to a number of IEEE 802.11 systems, including 802.11a/b/g networks. To the knowledge of the author this is the first analysis of this kind for a long reach fibre system.


The Impulse Excitation Technique (IET) is a non-destructive technique for evaluation of the elastic and damping properties of materials. This technique is based on the mechanical excitation of a solid body by means of a light impact. For isotropic, homogeneous materials of simple geometry (prismatic or cylindrical bars), the resonant frequency of the free vibration provides information about the elastic properties of the materials. Moreover, the amplitude decay of the free vibration is related to the damping or internal friction of the material. At present, IET is a well-established non-destructive technique for the calculation of elastic moduli and internal friction in monolithic, isotropic materials. Standard procedures are described in ASTM E 1876-99 and DIN ENV 843-2. IET can also be performed at high temperature (HT-IET) using a dedicated experimental setup in a furnace and constitutes a valuable tool in the field of mechanical spectroscopy. In the present work, the most recent advances in high temperature characterization using IET at K.U. Leuven are presented: the deformation behaviour of WC-Co hard metals, softening phenomena in TiB2, relaxation mechanisms in ZrO2 composites and "in-situ" monitoring of the damage evolution in uniaxially pressed metallic green compacts during delubrication.


The internationalization of construction companies has become of significant interest as the global construction market continues to be integrated into a more competitive and turbulent business environment. However, due to the complicated and multifaceted nature of international business and performance, there is as yet no consensus on how to evaluate the performance of international construction firms (ICFs). The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to develop a practical framework for measuring the performance of ICFs. Based on the balanced scorecard (BSC), a framework with detailed measures is developed, investigated, and tested using a three-step research design. In the first step, 27 measures under six dimensions (financial, market, customer, internal business processes, stakeholders, and learning and growth) are determined by literature review, interviews with academics, and seminar discussions. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey is conducted to investigate weights of these 27 performance measures. The questionnaire survey also supports the importance of measuring intangible aspects of international construction performance from the practitioner's viewpoint. Additionally, a case study is described to test the framework's robustness and usefulness. This is achieved by benchmarking the performance of a Chinese ICF with nine other counterparts worldwide. It is found that the framework provides an effective basis for benchmarking ICFs to effectively monitor their performance and support the development of strategies for improved competitiveness in the international arena. This paper is the first attempt to present a balanced and practically tested framework for evaluating the performance of ICFs. It contributes to the practice of performance measurement and related internationalization in the construction industry in general.


This article seeks to reconcile a historicist sensitivity to how intellectually virtuous behavior is shaped by historical contexts with a non-relativist account of historical scholarship. To that end, it distinguishes between hierarchies of intellectual virtues and hierarchies of intellectual goods. The first hierarchy rejects a one-size-fits-all model of historical virtuousness in favor of a model that allows for significant varieties between the relative weight that historians must assign to intellectual virtues in order to acquire justified historical understanding. It grounds such differences, not on the historians' interests or preferences, but on their historiographical situations, so that hierarchies of virtues are a function of the demands that historiographical situations (defined as interplays of genre, research question, and state of scholarship) make upon historians. Likewise, the second hierarchy allows for the pursuit of various intellectual goods, but banishes the specter of relativism by treating historical understanding as an intellectual good that is constitutive of historical scholarship and therefore deserves priority over alternative goods. The position that emerges from this is classified as a form of weak historicism.


A Gram-positive bacterium, which can usually be found in cultivating plants and soil, causing it commonly universal is regarded as Bacillus cereus. It is said that most strains present in B. cereus is specifically called the primary cause of food poisoning illnesses which is characterised by either emetic or diarrheal syndrome, the most essential purpose of the current research was, therefore, to isolate and identify the enterotoxin genes in B. cereus through using a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR)technique. To achieve this aim, thus B.cereus was isolated from raw milk then cultured on mannitol egg yolk polymyxin agar and chromogenic B. cereus agar. The samples were then examined using biochemical investigation then established using partial sequencing of 16SrDNA. Among 40 samples, 20 of them were found to contain hblC and hblD, a hemolytic enterotoxin (HBL) complex encoding genes. The total mean of contamination samples in the B. cereus was proved to be higher (1.4×105 – 3.2×105 CFU/mL) than the acceptable detection level of B. cereus in dairy products ~103 CFU/mL. The isolates (10%) were shown to express hblC gene whereas the isolates (20%) were shown to express the hblD gene. The findings suggested that the detected enterotoxin genes of B. cereus which were found in raw milk may create a potential danger to the health of the public.


We develop a new approach to quantifying habitat use within the foraging ranges of satellite-tracked seabirds. We applied kernel estimation techniques to 167 days (3738 locations) of data from Black-browed and Grey-headed albatrosses Diomedea melanophris and D. chrysostoma during the chick-rearing period of the breeding cycle at South Georgia. At this time the activity range of these two species covers an estimated 440 000 and 640 000 km2, respectively, with very substantial overlap. In contrast, kernel estimation reveals that the main foraging areas of these two sympatric, congeneric species are very distinct. Based on location density categories accounting for 50% of locations, the foraging areas cover c. 81 500 and c. 119 700 km2, respectively, with 42% and 50% of the range of one species overlapping with that of the other.


Smart systems, in which sophisticated software/hardware is embedded in physical systems, are part of everyday life. From simple products with embedded decision-making software, to massive systems in which hundreds of systems, each with hundreds or thousands of embedded processors, interoperate the use of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) will continue to expand.

There has been substantial investment in CPS research in Europe and the United States. Through a series of workshops and other events, the TAMS4CPS project has established that there is mutual benefit in the European Union and US collaborating on CPS research. An agenda for collaborative research into modelling and simulation for CPS is thus set forth in the publication at hand.

The agenda includes models for many different purposes, including fundamental concepts, design models (e.g. architectures), predictive techniques, real-time control, human-CPS interaction, and CPS governance. Within this framework, seven important themes have been identified where mutual benefits can be realised by EU-US cooperation. To actively advance research and innovation in these fields, a number of collaboration mechanisms is presented and concrete actions to encourage, enhance and implement trans-Atlantic collaboration in modelling and simulation of CPS are recommended.


A diverse diet is important to address micronutrient deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition, one of the greatest challenges of today's food systems. In tropical countries, several studies have found a positive association between forest cover and dietary diversity, although the actual mechanisms of this has yet to be identified and quantified. Three complementary pathways may link forests to diets: a direct pathway (e.g., consumption of forest food), an income pathway (income from forest products used to purchase food from markets), and an agroecological pathway (forests and trees sustaining farm production). We used piece-wise structural equation modeling to test and quantify the relative contribution of these three pathways for households in seven tropical landscapes in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nicaragua, and Zambia. We used survey data from 1,783 households and determined forest cover within a 2-km radius of each household. The quality of household diets was assessed through four indicators: household dietary diversity and consumption of fruits, vegetables, and meat, based on a 24-h recall. We found evidence of a direct pathway in four landscapes (Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Zambia), an income pathway in none of the landscapes considered, and an agroecological pathway in three landscapes (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Indonesia). We also found evidence of improved crop and livestock production with greater forest cover in five landscapes (Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Indonesia). Conversely, we found negative associations between forest cover and crop and livestock production in three landscapes (Cameroon, Indonesia, and Zambia). In addition, we found evidence of forest cover being negatively related to at least one indicator of diet quality in three landscapes (Indonesia, Nicaragua, and Zambia) and to integration to the cash economy in three landscapes (Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua). This is one of the first studies to quantify the different mechanisms linking forest cover and diet. Our work illuminates the fact that these mechanisms can vary significantly from one site to another, calling for site-specific interventions. Our results also suggest that the positive contributions of forests to rural livelihoods cannot be generalized and should not be idealized.


PURPOSE
Current training and education delivery models have limitations which result in gaps in clinical proficiency with equipment, procedures, and techniques. Educational and training opportunities offered by vendors and professional societies are by their nature not available at point of need or for the life of clinical systems. The objective of this work is to leverage modern communications technology to provide peer-to-peer training and education for radiotherapy professionals, in the clinic and on demand, as they undertake their clinical duties.

METHODS
We have developed a free of charge web site (https://i.treatsafely.org) using the Google App Engine and datastore (NDB, GQL), Python with AJAX-RPC, and Javascript. The site is a radiotherapy-specific hosting service to which user-created videos illustrating clinical or physics processes and other relevant educational material can be uploaded. Efficient navigation to the material of interest is provided through several RT specific search tools and videos can be scored by users, thus providing comprehensive peer review of the site content. The site also supports multilingual narration\translation of videos, a quiz function for competence assessment and a library function allowing groups or institutions to define their standard operating procedures based on the video content.

RESULTS
The website went live in August 2013 and currently has over 680 registered users from 55 countries; 27.2% from the United States, 9.8% from India, 8.3% from the United Kingdom, 7.3% from Brazil, and 47.5% from other countries. The users include physicists (57.4%), Oncologists (12.5%), therapists (8.2%) and dosimetrists (4.8%). There are 75 videos to date including English, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Thai.

CONCLUSION
Based on the initial acceptance of the site, we conclude that this open access web-based peer-to-peer tool is fulfilling an important need in radiotherapy training and education. Site functionality should expand in the future to include document sharing and continuing education credits.


We consider the role that gender-stereotyped behaviors play in investors' evaluations of men- and women-owned ventures. Contrary to research suggesting that investors exhibit bias against women, we find that being a woman entrepreneur does not diminish interest by investors. Rather, our findings reveal that investors are biased against the display of feminine-stereotyped behaviors by entrepreneurs, men and women alike. Our study finds that investor decisions are driven in part by observations of gender-stereotyped behaviors and the implicit associations with the entrepreneur's business competency, rather than the entrepreneur's sex.


Abstract. Sea ice affects primary production in polar regions in multiple ways. It can dampen water column productivity by reducing light or nutrient supply, provide a habitat for ice algae and condition the marginal ice zone (MIZ) for phytoplankton blooms on its seasonal retreat. The relative importance of three different carbon sources (sea ice derived, sea ice conditioned, non-sea-ice associated) for the polar food web is not well understood, partly due to the lack of methods that enable their unambiguous distinction. Here we analysed two highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) biomarkers to trace sea-ice-derived and sea-ice-conditioned carbon in Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and relate their concentrations to the grazers' body reserves, growth and recruitment. During our sampling in January–February 2003, the proxy for sea ice diatoms (a di-unsaturated HBI termed IPSO25, δ13C  =  −12.5 ± 3.3 ‰) occurred in open waters of the western Scotia Sea, where seasonal ice retreat was slow. In suspended matter from surface waters, IPSO25 was present at a few stations close to the ice edge, but in krill the marker was widespread. Even at stations that had been ice-free for several weeks, IPSO25 was found in krill stomachs, suggesting that they gathered the ice-derived algae from below the upper mixed layer. Peak abundances of the proxy for MIZ diatoms (a tri-unsaturated HBI termed HBI III, δ13C  =  −42.2 ± 2.4 ‰) occurred in regions of fast sea ice retreat and persistent salinity-driven stratification in the eastern Scotia Sea. Krill sampled in the area defined by the ice edge bloom likewise contained high amounts of HBI III. As indicators for the grazer's performance we used the mass–length ratio, size of digestive gland and growth rate for krill, and recruitment for the biomass-dominant calanoid copepods Calanoides acutus and Calanus propinquus. These indices consistently point to blooms in the MIZ as an important feeding ground for pelagic grazers. Even though ice-conditioned blooms are of much shorter duration than blooms downstream of the permanently sea-ice-free South Georgia, they enabled fast growth and offspring development. Our study shows two rarely considered ways that pelagic grazers may benefit from sea ice: firstly, after their release from sea ice, suspended or sinking ice algae can supplement the grazers' diet if phytoplankton concentrations are low. Secondly, conditioning effects of seasonal sea ice can promote pelagic primary production and therefore food availability in spring and summer.


PURPOSE
Children's Oncology Group defines very low-risk Wilms tumors (VLRWT) as stage I favorable histology Wilms tumors weighing less than 550 g in children younger than 24 months of age. VLRWTs may be treated with nephrectomy alone. However, 10% to 15% of VLRWTs relapse without chemotherapy. Previous studies suggest that VLRWTs with low WT1 expression and/or 11p15 loss of heterozygosity (LOH) may have increased risk of relapse. The current study validates these findings within prospectively identified children with VLRWT who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fifty-six VLRWTs (10 relapses) were analyzed for mutation of WT1, CTNNB1, and WTX; for 11p15 LOH using microsatellite analysis; and for H19DMR and KvDMR1 methylation.

RESULTS
11p15 LOH was identified in 19 (41%) of 46 evaluable VLRWTs and was significantly associated with relapse (P < .001); 16 of 19 were isodisomic for 11p15. WT1 mutation was identified in nine (20%) of 45 evaluable VLRWTs and was significantly associated with relapse (P = .004); all nine cases also had 11p15 LOH. All evaluable tumors showing LOH by microsatellite analysis also showed LOH by methylation analysis. Retention of the normal imprinting pattern was identified in 24 of 42 evaluable tumors, and none relapsed. Loss of imprinting at 11p15 was identified in one of 42 tumors.

CONCLUSION
WT1 mutation and 11p15 LOH are associated with relapse in patients with VLRWTs who do not receive chemotherapy. These may provide meaningful biomarkers to stratify patients for reduced chemotherapy in the future. VLRWTs show a different incidence of WT1 mutation and 11p15 imprinting patterns than has been reported in Wilms tumors of all ages.


Montane forests are one of the most decimated of Neotropical biomes even though they provide a suite of valuable ecosystem services such as provision of water to lowland settlements and prevention of erosion and mudslides. In some instances, to restore these and other ecosystem services, degraded montane forests are replaced by exotic tree plantations, which cover sizeable areas in several countries. Despite their importance for assessment of ecological services and for intrinsic ecological value, comparative studies of paired native montane forest and conifer plantation are scarce along the Northern Andean Cordillera. Additionally, extrapolations are challenging because each pair of communities is highly site specific due to environmental setting, age and density of plantation, and reforestation species. Here, we assess and compare structure, biogeochemistry and ecosystem services provided by closely positioned native forest and pine plantation from a protected montane area in Venezuela. Soil nutrients and soil carbon content were 60 and 54 % respectively higher in the forest. As consequence of pine' growth form and leaf biochemistry, aboveground biomass and litter mass, as well as nutrient content and carbon stocks, were higher in the plantation. This results in the plantation storing 30 % more MgC ha-1 than the nearby forest. Canopy structure and litter properties influence the hydrology of both ecosystems through differences in rain throughfall. Most of the ecosystem services itemized are superior in the native forest, with exception that the younger plantation sequesters more carbon. An additional service provided by plantations might be that of ecological corridors that connect fragmented native forests. Our study, a specific case of nutrient and carbon cycling dynamics in paired montane forests and pine plantations, provides another set of data for the design of policy and management of considerable areas in the Neotropics with established conservation plantations.


This article looks at whether there is evidence to support two prevailing assumptions about open access (OA). These assumptions are: (1) fully OA journals are inherently of poorer quality than journals supported by other business models and (2) the OA business model, that is, paying for publication, is more 'competitive' than the subscription journal access business model. The assumptions have been discussed in contemporary industry venues, and we have encountered them in the course of their work advising scholarly communications organizations. Our objective was to apply data analytics techniques to see if these assumptions bore scrutiny. By combining citation‐based impact scores with data from publishers' price lists, we were able to look for relationships between business model, price, and 'quality' across several thousands of journals. We found no evidence suggesting that OA journals suffer significant quality issues compared with non‐OA journals. Furthermore, authors do not appear to 'shop around' based on OA price.


This paper deals with the experimental assessment of refrigerant desorption leading to foam formation in R134a/POE oil mixtures undergoing controlled depressurization. An experimental apparatus was designed and constructed to allow measurements of pressure drop rate, foam height and refrigerant gas mass flux resulting from decompression and desorption from a saturated liquid mixture. High-speed video recording of the phenomenon enabled the identification of three main periods during the depressurization/foaming process, namely, depressurization without cavitation, vapor flashing and rapid foam growth, and foam layer decay. The experimental results for the maximum foam height, foam lifetime and liquid supersaturation during desorption were explored as a function of the overall initial refrigerant mass fraction and physical properties of the liquid phase.


With the increasing age of the population, cognitive dysfunction has become a serious concern in the elderly. The attention given to Alzheimer's disease has increased anxiety in many women, leading to fear that some symptoms which might be purely related to natural ageing are in fact a forewarning of later dementia.
The effect of the peri-menopause, post menopause and ovarian hormones on brain function is reviewed and strategies to prevent and modify cognitive dysfunction in women passed the menopause are discussed.


The Australian members of the Scutelleridae are revised. Twelve species are recognized. Descriptions, diagnostic measurements and keys are provided for the identification of these species. The following new synonymy is recognized: Coleotichus discrepans Walker, 1867, C. sordidus Walker, 1867, C. nigrovarians Walker, 1867, and C, testaceous Walker, 1867, as junior synonyms of Coleotichus artensis (Montrouzier, 1858); Philiafulgurans, Stal 1873, P. aerea Distant, 1892, P. femorata Distant, 1899, and P. insignis Schouteden, 1904, are junior synonyms of Lampromicra senator (Fabricius, 1803); and Calliscyta australis Distant, 1899 is a junior synonym of Choerocoris stalii (Vollenhoven, 1863). Choerocoris stalii (Vollenhoven, 1863) is transferred from Calliscyta. A new subfamily, Tectocorinae, is erected for Tectocoris Hahn, 1834.


Abstract This paper examines the available literature on single older non-home owning women in Australia and their housing issues. Preliminary information suggests that this subset of the population is increasingly at risk of becoming homeless or inadequately housed in later life. In fact, there is a historical dearth of research on women's housing in general. This invisibility and vulnerability is interrogated within this paper through a feminist standpoint lens. We argue that in order to better understand the situation for single older women who do not own their own homes, it is necessary to revisit the social landscape inhabited by these women in their early years. Firstly, however, the current landscape is explored. It appears that ageing and single status are compounding factors which place non-home owning women at higher risk of homelessness or inappropriate housing. The paper then attempts to assess how the social and economic conditions that were extant in the mid-twentieth century led to the present situation. Our analysis leads us to suggest that women's traditional roles in society are largely responsible for housing insecurity in their later years.


The traffic characteristics of real-time and non real-time applications require a certain Quality of Service (QoS) from the Internet in terms of bandwidth, delay, packet loss, fairness and jitter. However, most of the current Active Queue Management (AQM) algorithms at the internet routers do not guarantee QoS for real time traffics such as video and audio. This is because; most of the algorithms handle different packets of different traffics by the same strategy. In this paper, we propose a new AQM strategy to guarantee QoS for real time traffics. The proposed strategy uses three queues at the internet routers, each of which handles a single class of traffic. Where, the arriving packets are queued according to their class type. Additionally, the queued packets are scheduled according to a predefined weight. The proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with the most recent algorithms by using the Network simulator NS-2.


In Germany, nearly 6 million people suffer from coronary heart disease. The disease is caused by calcium deposits which constrict the coronary arteries. Doctors generally use a stent to widen the narrow pathway. However, the blood vessel often constricts further, thus necessitating further interventions. For this reason, a drug-coated balloon catheter inserted in minimally invasive cardiac surgery is increasingly serving as a replacement for the risky stent treatment. In current practice, the balloons are often coated manually. A new device is intended to automate this time-consuming procedure. Along with partner companies, a team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK is developing a prototype of such a device.


Background- Despite government strategies to reduce the number of unintended or unplanned pregnancies, the number of adolescent pregnancies in South Africa continues to rise. The aim of this study was to determine the adolescent pregnancy delivery rate at Paarl Hospital and to see what the trend was over a 10 year period (1999-2008).

Methods- A retrospective observational study was done and the data was obtained from the birth register at Paarl hospital and therefore information of pregnancy statistics over the 10 year period. This research study included adolescent females giving birth at age 19 years and younger.

Results- Of the 40576 mothers giving birth at Paarl Hospital from 1 January 1999 until 31 December 2008 8182 (20.16%) were adolescents (age 19 years and younger at the time of delivery). Adolescents younger than 15 years of age were a total of 200 (2.4%) of the total adolescents giving birth and showed an upward trend over the 10 year period. The trend of adolescents' age 15-19 years of age at delivery had stabilized since 2001.

Conclusions- Adolescent pregnancies are a relevant and significant point of concern in the Paarl area, which is important not only because of its associated socioeconomic problems but also for the health implications such as HIV/AIDS.


We develop new stochastic gradient methods for efficiently solving sparse linear regression in a partial attribute observation setting, where learners are only allowed to observe a fixed number of actively chosen attributes per example at training and prediction times. It is shown that the methods achieve essentially a sample complexity of $O(1/\varepsilon)$ to attain an error of $\varepsilon$ under a variant of restricted eigenvalue condition, and the rate has better dependency on the problem dimension than existing methods. Particularly, if the smallest magnitude of the non-zero components of the optimal solution is not too small, the rate of our proposed {\it Hybrid} algorithm can be boosted to near the minimax optimal sample complexity of {\it full information} algorithms. The core ideas are (i) efficient construction of an unbiased gradient estimator by the iterative usage of the hard thresholding operator for configuring an exploration algorithm; and (ii) an adaptive combination of the exploration and an exploitation algorithms for quickly identifying the support of the optimum and efficiently searching the optimal parameter in its support. Experimental results are presented to validate our theoretical findings and the superiority of our proposed methods.


Membranous nephropathy (MN) is a glomerular disease that is the leading cause of nephrotic syndrome in non-diabetic Caucasian adults. MN is most often primary (idiopathic) and the remaining is secondary to systemic disease or exposure to infection or drugs. The majority of patients with MN have circulating antibodies to the podocyte antigens phospholipase A 2 receptor (PLA2R) (70%) and thrombospondin type-1 domain-containing 7A (THSD7A) (3–5%). Immunologic remission (depletion of PLA2R antibodies) often precedes and may predict clinical remission. Untreated, about one-third of patients undergo spontaneous remission, one-third have persistent proteinuria but maintain kidney function and the remaining one-third will develop end stage kidney failure. All patients with idiopathic MN should be treated with conservative care from the time of diagnosis to minimise proteinuria. Immunosuppressive therapy is traditionally reserved for patients who have persistent nephrotic-range proteinuria despite conservative care. Immunosuppressive agents for primary MN include combination of corticosteroids/ alkylating agent or calcineurin inhibitors and rituximab. This chapter will review the epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of MN, particularly focusing on idiopathic MN.


This is the tie-in book to a two part "BBC 1" documentary series to be screened at 9.00pm in October and which will end on the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October. Chris Terrill is famous for his fly on the wall documentaries which have been watched by millions and received wide critical acclaim. We have had "HMS Brilliant" and "The Cruise" (audience reached 11 million). Chris has based himself for the last few months in the very heart of the modern day naval experience. We will see: a Royal Naval Chaplain exorcising a haunted barracks in Portsmouth, a vodka-fuelled Trafalgar Day celebration in the British Embassy in the Moscow in 2004, a Polaris submarine crossing the Atlantic on an exercise in which it will 'pretend' to nuke America, the patrol of the frigate HMS Chatham in the Gulf, suddenly diverted to Sri Lanka after the Tsunami and the Fleet Review, where HMS Chatham in honour of her humanitarian role in Asia will lead the entire assembly of a hundred warships, British and foreign, down the Solent. Chris is the only film maker to be granted exclusive, behind the scenes access by the Navy this year. During the filming Chris will capture the heart and soul of the sailors aboard, and on shore, there will be plenty of irreverence, practical jokes and laughs, and the human reality of the families left behind for months on end as warships and submarines go on extended tours of duty. This will be the fullest ever account of the Modern Navy in a year when the Trafalgar Day celebrations and the Fleet review will attract an avalanche of publicity.


Recent corporate scandals demonstrate that rank-and-file employees often remain silent in the face of significant fraud. This silence is unfortunate because corporate employees have inside knowledge of misconduct that gives them an information advantage over more traditional corporate monitors, such as independent directors and government regulators. To address this problem, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act utilized a new approach that encourages employee whistleblowers to disclose information about corporate wrongdoing. This approach, which Professor Richard Moberly labels the "Structural Model," requires that corporations provide a standardized channel for employees to report organizational misconduct to official monitors within the corporation. This Article offers an original framework for analyzing the effectiveness of Sarbanes-Oxley's Structural Model. Utilizing behavioral science research that analyzes whistleblower motivations, Professor Moberly finds that the Structural Model reduces difficulties corporate employees experience in disclosing misconduct, and thereby provides an improved mechanism to encourage employees to become more active and effective corporate monitors. However, the Structural Model has significant flaws, which Professor Moberly addresses by offering several suggestions for improving the model's usefulness as a tool against corporate crime.


In my dissertation, I illustrate the way in which processes in contemporary urban India structure the making/ unmaking of gendered identities for young men in a working class, scheduled caste neighborhood in the western Indian city of Pune. Present day Pune, an aspiring metropolis, presents a complex socio-spatial intersection of neoliberal processes and peculiar historical trajectories of caste exclusion; this dissertation seeks to highlight how socio-spatial dynamics of the city produce and sustain gendered identities and inequalities in Pune, a city hitherto neglected in academic research. Also, my focus on young men's gendered identities speaks to a growing recognition that men need to be studied in gendered terms, as 'men,' in order to understand fully the dimensions of gendered inequalities and violence prevalent in South Asian cities today. I follow the lives of young men between 16 and 30 in a neighborhood in the eastern part of Pune, who belong to a scheduled caste called Matang. The historical incorporation of this caste group as municipal sweepers in the city's labour regime has had adverse implications for the young men, in terms of low levels of education and precarious chances of employment in an increasingly skill-based and informalized labor market. I explore ethnographically the deep sense of gendered inadequacy that this lack generates in the young men, articulated in explicitly spatialised terms: through the continuous dismissal by the young men of their neighborhood as 'backward' as opposed to the middle class 'standard' areas in the city; and through their aspirational struggles to master the new spaces of consumption in the city. Relevant to my dissertation are the practices of local, exclusively male voluntary associations and of local electoral politics, which I argue constitute distinct subcultures shaped by and embedded in the historical, socio-political and spatial organisation of the city. I demonstrate in ethnographic terms how the membership of the neighborhood voluntary association and its activities enables the enactment of a 'moral masculinity' for the young men in the neighborhood, while simultaneously equipping them with the tools to acquire specialised knowledge about the informal, criminal city, itself a highly gendered terrain. The young men's participation in local political brokering is an expression of the peculiar culture of urban local politics that incorporated poor neighborhoods as vital nodes of populist political bargaining in post-colonial urban India. I show how the spatialized nature of these processes allow the young men temporary feelings of power and self-worth during these negotiations, thus constituting a sense of self which tightly binds location/ place with caste, class and a gendered identity. I also illustrate the role that women's evaluations and expectations play in shaping the gendered identities of men in the galli. I conclude that the construction and enactment of gendered identities of young men in the neighborhood is intimately moulded by their multiple marginalisations from the city's economic, social and democratic political processes, a historical trajectory intensified in the city's current neoliberal ethos. At the same time, the possibilities of recuperating this gendered sense of inadequacy in the spaces of the neighborhood also ensures their being trapped in these very spaces, further entrenching them firmly in the geography of the city's caste and class based exclusion. Making Men in the City Articulating Masculinity and Space in Urban India


Variation and transcription factor binding Little is known about the phenotypic and functional effects of genetic variants that result in amino acid changes within functional proteins. Barrera et al. investigated whether amino acid variants changed the DNA binding specificity or affinity of transcription factors. Predictive analyses identified changes in the proteins, and protein-binding microarrays verified changes that affected transcription factor function, including those associated with disease. Thus, within-human protein sequence variation can affect transcriptional regulatory networks, which, depending on the genetic variant, may confer robustness and buffer against amino acid changes and could explain phenotypic variation among individuals. Science, this issue p. 1450 The functional consequences of amino acid substitutions in transcription factors that bind to DNA are predicted and verified. Sequencing of exomes and genomes has revealed abundant genetic variation affecting the coding sequences of human transcription factors (TFs), but the consequences of such variation remain largely unexplored. We developed a computational, structure-based approach to evaluate TF variants for their impact on DNA binding activity and used universal protein-binding microarrays to assay sequence-specific DNA binding activity across 41 reference and 117 variant alleles found in individuals of diverse ancestries and families with Mendelian diseases. We found 77 variants in 28 genes that affect DNA binding affinity or specificity and identified thousands of rare alleles likely to alter the DNA binding activity of human sequence-specific TFs. Our results suggest that most individuals have unique repertoires of TF DNA binding activities, which may contribute to phenotypic variation.


Purpose: Thickened liquids are frequently recommended for patients with dysphagia to minimize aspiration. When discussing the use of thickened liquids with graduate students in Communication Sciences & Disorders (CSD), it is beneficial to discuss the potential effect(s) of this dietary recommendation. Graduate level preparation involving first-hand experience with thickened liquids may help future speech-language pathologists (SLPs) develop a more complete understanding of the effects of diet modification. The purpose of the current study was to examine the reactions of graduate students in CSD to a brief period of thickened liquid use as an experiential learning activity. Methods: Sixty-eight graduate students enrolled in an accredited CSD program completed the study. As part of a class assignment, students were instructed to consume only thickened liquids for 24 hours. No further restrictions on food intake were made. Each student wrote a brief summary detailing his/her experience at the conclusion of the thickened liquid intake session. The narratives were examined for key terms that seemed to define the participants' experiences. Results: Experiential terms were divided into physical symptoms, emotional responses, and behavioral changes. Common symptoms included persistent thirst, dryness, fatigue, perception of the experience as being unpleasant, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. Conclusion: Many of the symptoms were associated with dehydration secondary to reduced fluid intake, per the students' reports. Specific symptoms included craving water, fatigue, and headache. All participants reported a greater understanding of thickened liquid use upon completion.


The premature birth and the hospitalization in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are potential risk factors for the development and behavior of the newborn, as has been shown in recent studies. Premature birth of an infant is a distressing event for the family. Several feelings are experienced by parents during hospitalization of their baby in the NICU. Feelings of guilt, rejection, stress and anxiety are common. Also the attachment processes have the potential to be disrupted or delayed as a result of the initial separation of the premature newborn and the mother after the admission to the NICU. Added to these difficulties, there is the distortion of infant's "ideal image", created by the family, in contrast with the real image of the preterm. This relationship-based family-centered approach, the Neonatal Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP), promotes the idea that infants and their families are collaborators in developing an individualized program to maximize physical, mental, and emotional growth and health and to improve long-term outcomes for the high risk newborns. The presence of parents in NICUs and their involvement caring their babies, in a family centered care philosophy, is vital to improve the outcome of their infants and the relationships within each family. Proceedings of the 11 th International Workshop on Neonatology and Satellite Meetings · Cagliari (Italy) · October 26 th -31 st , 2015 · From the womb to the adult Guest Editors: Vassilios Fanos (Cagliari, Italy), Michele Mussap (Genoa, Italy), Antonio Del Vecchio (Bari, Italy), Bo Sun (Shanghai, China), Dorret I. Boomsma (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Gavino Faa (Cagliari, Italy), Antonio Giordano (Philadelphia, USA)


Part I. Diels-Alder cycloadditions of 1,2,3,4,9,9-hexachloro-1α,4α,4aα,8aβ-tetrahydro-l,4-methanonaphthalene (32) and 1,2,3,4,9,9-hexachloro-lα,4α,6,7- tetrahydro-l,4-methanonaphthalene (33) to 4-methyl- and 4-phenyl-l,2,4-triazoline-3,5-dione [MTAD and PTAD, respectively] and to N-methylmaleimide (NMM) have been studied. The structures of several of the resulting cycloadducts were determined by X-ray crystallographic methods. The observed stereoselectivity of each of these Diels-Alder reactions was further investigated via application of theoretical methods. Thus, semiempirical (AMI) and ab initio molecular orbital calculations were used to calculate relative energies. Ab initio calculations were employed to perform frontier molecular orbital analyses of diene-dienophile interactions.


In examining Michel Foucault's philosophical vision I have used Gilles Deleuze's definition: "A seer is someone who sees something not seen." Being situated on the border between the discursive and the non-discursive, images offer an opportunity to get out of the discursivity; this rupture enables one to see and say something new. The images carry in themselves "an uncertainty essential for creativity". This property relates images to Foucault's philosophical vision, aimed at destroying the evidence characteristic of a historical formation in the sphere of what is seen and what is said. In addition, one can notice three different directions in Foucault's understanding of art, which correspond to different periods in his thinking. In his first work Folie et deraison. Histoire de la folie a l'âge classique (1961) there is a vertical view. Influenced by Martin Heidegger's ontological conception of art, Foucalt sees images as "growing out of the Earth", as a specific truth which he valued highly during this period." Archeologie du savoir (1969) reveals a different vision of art. In this work, Foucault stressed that, at least in one of its dimensions, art is a discursive practice "at the most superficial (discursive) level". In this "superficial" phase, his account of art may be compared to George Dickie's institutional theory of art. I call the gaze moving along the surface the horizontal . However, as early as the 1970s, Foucault's understanding of art becomes spherical : art lacks an ontological dimension; instead, images emerge in a historical fabric, within a network of power, as a result of complex interaction between various forces. Foucault participates in this "fight" mainly at the discursive level, but he does not suffocate images with text; instead, he revitalizes them, making them visible again in a novel way. Eventually the question arises whether the direction of the view has an effect on the interpretation of art. Firstly, there is the problem of value. In a broader wider perspective, the vertical is inherently tied to this. It touches on hierarchy, on looking up from below and the awe this invokes. A connotation is assigned to divine structures and the symbolic significance of such things. Growing from the artist's hand via forces unknown, self-made artworks thus evoke a different kind of reverence than those produced merely on a flat surface. Foucault's earlier works in his vertical period reference visual art notably more than his later works. Pictures made in the vertical seem to offer him more inspiration. It is only during this period that pictures speak to him, later it would be reversed – he would speak of the image. Admittedly he never finished his horizontal interpretation, producing only a barebones sketch. Such an approach does not demand viewing or listening to the art itself, but rather offers a possible way to hold a discussion on it. Maybe Foucault just did not have the time to write on the horizontal or maybe it simply did not engage him enough. The horizontal approach, specifically the version put forth by Dickie is a consumer-centric vision. Art would mean a market that is based purely on supply and demand. With this approach, artworks tend to contract the one time use and disposability of commodities. Secondly, there is the issue of visual art's material or virtual nature. Words like verticality and Earth remind us that art has been material (until now) and thus literally originates from the ground. One can easily argue that works come from the Earth and emerge with the help of the artist, as Heidegger claimed. If we say that artworks have been material until now, we draw attention to the evolution of art as a configuration of shining pixels on a computer screen. The screen may be material but how and in what way is the light emitted from the tiny points of light material? However one approaches it, the virtual image is material in a different way than traditional works of art. Might it be that Foucault's spherical view is a good fit for analyzing such virtual art?


Stem infusion of Peltophorum pterocarpum Baker ex K. Heyne used in dysentery, for gargles, tooth powder and muscular pain. In present paper antimicrobial, antioxidant along with their phytochemical evaluation will be performed. Pet. ether, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and methanol fractions were tested for their antimicrobial (using agar well diffusion method) and antioxidant activities (DPPH and FARP methods). Bioactive fraction was further subjected to GC-MS analysis for evaluation of its chemical composition. Maximum antimicrobial inhibition was demonstrated by ethyl acetate extract against Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Satphylococcus aureus (IZ 17.33 ± 0.33, 17.00 ± 0.00, with MIC of 31.25 and 125 μg/mL respectively). In antioxidant potentials, similar fraction showed significant activity i.e. 6 μg/mL with IC50 value of 96.70 ± 0.22 at 80 μg/mL concentrations, coinciding with FRAP results (1310.00 ± 0.00 mg AAE/g dw antioxidant potentials). Based on the results, ethyl acetate bioactive fraction was further subjected to GC-MS studies where 58 distinct peaks were observed. Valeranone (RT: 13.67 of Total: 28.00 %) identified as the major peak with β-sitosterol (area 5.51%), isosativene (RT: 10.70, area 2.77%), hexadecanoic acid (area 3.71%) and octadecanoic acid (area 2.39%).


Events play a prominent role in our lives, such that many social media documents describe or are related to some event. Organizing social media documents with respect to events thus seems a promising approach to better manage and organize the ever-increasing amount of user-generated content in social media applications. It would support the navigation of data by events or allow one to get notified about new postings related to the events one is interested in, just to name two applications. A challenge is to automatize this process so that incoming documents can be assigned to their corresponding event without any user intervention. We present a system that is able to classify a stream of social media data into a growing and evolving set of events. In order to scale up to the data sizes and data rates in social media applications, the use of a candidate retrieval or blocking step is crucial to reduce the number of events that are considered as potential candidates to which the incoming data point could belong to.In this paper we present and experimentally compare different blocking strategies along their cost vs. effectiveness tradeoff.We show that using a blocking strategy that selects the 60 closest events with respect to upload time, we reach F-Measures of about 85.1% while being able to process the incoming documents within 32ms on average. We thus provide a principled approach supporting to scale up classification of social media documents into events and to process the incoming stream of documents in real time.


This paper is about Sedition, a barbershop located in Darlinghurst, Sydney. As well as operating as a barber, owner Michael Joyce is an artist and uses his shop as a studio. Joyce lets members of the local arts community use the space to exhibit work, conduct interviews, play music, dance and put on performances, generally free of charge. The site is critically analysed through the lenses of modernity and postmodernity and when considered simultaneously the contrasting frames of reference serve to enhance our understanding of Sedition. Sedition can be seen as a microcosm for the present moment: both goal-oriented and irrational. Whilst seemingly incongruous or oppositional, understanding and appreciating the validity of both ideas of modernity and postmodernity in relation to the site allows us to understand not only the site itself but, by extension, the present moment. Sedition can be broken down into two parts: Sedition the business, which details the barbershop aspect of the venue, and Sedition the cultural hub, an after-hours venue with no regard for clear direction or for turning a profit. Examined separately, the two sides correspond to metanarratives of modernity and the questioning of those same metanarratives respectively, as outlined by Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition (1997). Examining business and hub side-by-side, whilst seemingly confusing, increases our understanding of the dichotomous nature of the site and serves to provide us with a means of understanding not only the site but the present moment in which we live, characterised by an unprecedented use of technology.


Purpose – To review and critically discuss the current state of privacy in the context of constant technological changes and to emphasize the pace of technological advancements and developments reached over the time when the last EU data protection laws came into effect. These facts inevitably affect the perception of privacy and raise the question of whether privacy is dead or takes the last breath in the digital age? This paper is an attempt to address this question. Design/Methodology/Approach – Based on the comparison and systematic analysis of scientific literature, the authors discuss problematic issues related to privacy and data protection in the technology era – where these issues are too complicated to be clearly regulated by laws and rules since "laws move as a function of years and technology moves as a function of months" (Ron Rivest). Therefore, this analytical approach towards the issue may help to facilitate reaching the best-fit decision in this area. Findings – The authors emphasize the change of perception of privacy, which originated and grew on the idea of "an integral part of our humanity", the "heart of our liberty" and "the beginning of all freedoms" (Solove, 2008), leading to the recently raised idea that privacy is severely hanging with threat. The authors are of the opinion that legislation and regulation may be one of the best and effective techniques for protecting privacy in the twenty-first century, but it is not currently adequate (Wacks, 2012). One of the solutions lies in technology design. Research limitations/implications – The aspects of privacy and data protection in the European Union have been widely discussed recently because of their broad applicability. Therefore, it is hardly possible to review and cover all the important aspects of the issue. This article focuses on the roles of technology and legislation in securing privacy. The authors examine and provide their own views based on the critical analysis of the outstanding scientific material. Practical implications – The authors highlight the ongoing change of perception of privacy. If regulation is left behind the development of technology, privacy will hardly stay alive. On the other hand, if legislation is applied on an ex-ante basis, technological development will depend on the legislators. The balance of both may be the golden means and it basically depends on the coordinated behavior of all the stakeholders. Value – The article emphasizes that the rising role of sharp development of technology by itself does not violate privacy. It is the people using this technology and the policies they carry out that create violations (Garfinkel, 2000). In fact, threats, in the first instance, are the consequences of human behavior. In other words, technology can be a significant factor of violating or demolishing privacy, however, it may also be the major method of protecting it. The balance of both may be the key means. Research type – general review.


It is with great regret that readers are notified of the retraction of 3 Experimental and Clinical Transplantation papers from the laboratory of Dr. Maroun M. Abou-Jaoude, of the Department of Surgery, Sacré-Coeur Hospital, Baabda-Hazmieh, Lebanon. The same retraction notice is being applied to 3 papers.1-3 The journal of Experimental and Clinical Transplantation was notified of several cases of ethical misconduct by Dr. Abou-Jaoude with regard to the use of unrelated living donors in his clinical practice, who constitute a large proportion of the patient population examined in the 3 articles mentioned. This is in direct violation of the Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism endorsed by this Journal and the Middle East Society for Organ Transplantation. As stated in the Instructions for Authors, one of the conditions of submission of a paper for publication is that authors declare explicitly that their work has been carried out in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, and they are required to sign an ethical disclosure form to this effect. It also has been noted that the article "AbouJaoude MM, Nawfal N, Najm R, Shaheen J, Almawi WY. Effect of pretransplant hemoglobin blood level on kidney transplant outcome. Exp Clin Transplant. 2009;7(4):214-217" was republished at a later date in essentially the same form under the following title: "Abou-Jaoude MM , Nawfal N, Najm R, Honeidi M, Shaheen J, Almawi WY. Effect of pretransplantation hemoglobin blood concentration on renal allograft survival and function. Transplant Proc. 2010;42(3)760-762." This constitutes a serious copyright infringement by the authors and the other journal also has been informed of this situation. The authors of these articles were contacted on 2 occasions for their comments, but no response was received. Upon due consideration, the Editorial Board has decided to formally retract these 3 papers. In retracting these articles, it is the Editors' hope to deter other scientists from citing them in the future. Apologies are offered to readers of the Journal that this was not detected during the submission process.


Conversational agents change the way we think and live, as they have the ability of being present and ready to provide help anytime and anywhere. From mobile phones or PCs to smart homes, virtual assistants may ease our lives, by doing tasks while conducting conversations. The effects bots can have on education change the humanity forever, implementing new educational principles designed as complementary to traditional methods and to teachers. They may have a major role in delivering pedagogical content and assessing, covering a wide variety of lessons and subjects by using multimedia content and speeches. New eye candy ways of evaluating students and perpetual learning may be conceived, while getting real time feedback from targeted learners. They convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner and enhance the attraction of technology, gaining the trust of the students. To sum up, chatbots may be cheap and easy to use educational tools, meant to be closer to nowadays students in a more pleasant way, adequate to modern styles of learning. This technology, could have a large potential in schools, universities and other training scenarios, reaching a wide variety of targets. The future belongs to robots, and they are already here. Robots surround us, even though they may not have the shape the users imagine. This paper discusses the development and capabilities of conversational agents and the added value they can bring to the educational process: the concept of chatbot is provided, the most important frameworks are underlined, a set of successful educational examples of chatbots, the benefits and challenges of using chatbots in education are also reviewed. In the end, a model of using an education chatbot to increase quality of life is proposed.


Dinuclear metal complexes have emerged as a promising class of biologically active compounds which possess unique anticancer activity. Here, we describe a novel series of arene-linked dinuclear organometallic Ru(II) complexes, where the relative conformation of the ruthenium centres is controlled by the stereochemical configuration of 1,2-diphenylethylenediamine linker moieties, as confirmed by X-ray crystallography. The reactivity and cytotoxicity of these compounds is compared to flexible dinuclear and mononuclear analogues, demonstrating in all cases the complexes can undergo aquation, coordinate to typical biological donor ligands and importantly, in the case of dinuclear analogues, crosslink oligonucleotide and peptide sequences. Differences in the conformation of the isomeric dinuclear compounds lead to significantly different levels of cytotoxicity against A2780, A2780cisR and HEK-293 cell lines; isomers with a closed conformation are significantly more cytotoxic than isomers with a more open conformation and they are also significantly less susceptible to acquired resistance mechanisms operating in the A2780cisR cell line. These rigid dinuclear compounds possess markedly increased cytotoxicity relative to the non-cytotoxic mononuclear analogues that does not appear to be related to differences in complex lipophilicity or cellular uptake, which, in general, remain similar in magnitude across the series. Thus, the molecular conformation of such dinuclear species may be crucial in determining the nature of the adducts formed on coordination to biological targets in a cellular environment, and opens up a novel route toward the development of more active metal-based anticancer agents.


Many scholars who have worked on reconstructing Proto-Semitic postulate that the
original forms of the Semitic roots consisted of three radicals, with the occurrence of the
infrequent biradical and quadriradical roots needing explanation (Bergstrasser, 1983).
Other scholars such as Moscati et al. (1964) and Lipinski (1997) assert that Semitic roots
had both biradical and triradical forms.
My hypothesis consists of two parts: 1) that all the words in the first language
spoken by the Semitic peoples consisted of biradicals; 2) that the majority of the
postulated biradicals entered the Semitic languages after being expanded by the addition
of a third radical, with the resulting triradical having a semantic relation to the original
biradical. In support of this hypothesis I develop a lexicon whose content has both to
satisfy the assumed communication needs of an early people and to consist of productive
biradical forms that generate triradical reflexes with associated meanings in some or all
of the following languages: Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ge'ez,
Sabaean, Mandaic, Ugaritic, and Syriac.
The following example illustrates how the lexicon items are generated. Preliminary
inspection of Semitic roots yields the potential etymon ĦM1 with the basic meaning hot

1 Ħ, ħ denote a voiceless velar fricative. vii
(Hebrew xam, Arabic ħamm, Ugaritic xm, Akkadian ememu, and Aramaic xamam).
But hot solely in the sense of temperature has too narrow a meaning for the biradical after
other reflexes are identified:2
Arabic: ħamas: zeal; ħammam: spa, hot bath; ħamasa: enrage, infuriate;
ħummah: fever; ħumr: red, bloody, excited; ħumam: lava,
embers; taħammus: fanaticism; ħamaza: burn the tongue while
tasting
Hebrew: xemed: desire; xamar: become inflamed, agitated; xomas4: be
ruthless; yaxem: be hot with anger or desire, conceive; xamas:
do violence, injury
Mandaic: hamida: hot passion; hamima: feverish, incensed; sxm: be red,
blush; sxn: be inflamed by passion
Aramaic: xemah: wrath; saxam: burn to brownness; nxam: show warm
feelings
Syriac: xm: heated, glowing, fervent, violent; xmt/: anger; xm/: grow
faint with heat
Ge'ez: xemame: passion, disaster; xemud: burnt to ashes; xamama:
have a fever, be afflicted; xamz: rage, venom
Ugaritic: xmt: venom; xmxmt: ardor
Consequently, the biradical ĦM is redefined as hot, inflamed because of these
reflexes. The core of meaning is evident from the reflexes.
 The following anomalies are discussed and accounted for within the framework
of the hypothesis: that there exist biradicals in all these languages having the identical
third radical and no others; that apart from the triradicals that are reflexes of the
biradicals in the lexicon, there are many other triradical cognates.
Parallels in Indo-European are presented to bolster the theoretical basis of the work.
The resulting lexicon is compared to Phoenician and Sanskrit attested glossaries, as well
as to Eurasiatic and Nostratic word lists.
Since the postulated language was spoken…


Received: December 02, 2018 This article adresses the shift of politeness strategy made by the Indonesian caregivers in Japan. This current study focuses on two things; they are the strategy of politeness chosen and the shift of politeness strategy made by the Indonesian caregivers. The Indonesian caregivers used as the subjects of the study totaled 68. They were employed at eight homes for the elderly where the elderly people they served stayed, located in Osaka, Toyohashi, and Yokohama Japan. The data in the form of conversational text which was gathered in natural setting when the caregivers interact with the elderly people. The result shows that the Indonesian caregivers used more than one politeness strategy in the process of communication between them and the elderly people. They used both the negative and positive politeness strategies. Even in one event of communication, they alternated the two strategies, indicating that the context of situation in which one utterance was made caused them to shift from one strategy of politeness to another. As already known that Japan is a country with a 'high context culture', meaning that the context in which one event of communication takes place is highly important in the social culture where the Japanese language is used. Accepted: December 29, 2018 Published: January 31, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.1.30


This paper examines documented studies of the early reader,
the child who learns to read at home before entering formal
schooling. The historical view of when reading instruction
should commence is outlined, as well as the recent intensive
studies of the early reader by Dolores Durkin and Margaret
Clark. Predisposing factors in early literacy are extrapolated
from research studies and several early readers were examined
in local state schools to ascertain how closely these young
children matched those in studies cited. This leads to a
discussion of the relationship between studies of young fluent
readers and recent reading acquisition theories, and how these
relate to classroom practice.


Distance-bounding protocols allow a verifier to both authenticate a prover and evaluate whether the latter is located in his vicinity. These protocols are of particular interest in contactless systems, e.g., electronic payment or access control systems, which are vulnerable to distance-based frauds. This survey analyzes and compares in a unified manner many existing distance-bounding protocols with respect to several key security and complexity features.


There have been many claims about the benefits that the use of technology can bring to music learning. In fact, examples of successful applications and high levels of motivation associated with computer-based music learning reported in the literature have evidentially substantiated both the feasibility and adaptability of technology applications to music education. This paper describes the experience of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) integration in primary school music education in countries where both pioneering and relatively advanced developments have taken place. A comprehensive study of related literature and curriculum documents has been undertaken, aspects including major software programs development for music education and its pedagogical orientation, hardware configuration and classroom organization, applications of ICT in music teaching and learning, requirements for curriculum, hardware and software, and technology competency requirements and related professional development for music teachers are studied. Findings from the literature reviewed and documents analyzed reveal that ICT can best support constructivist approach to music learning, particularly activities of creative nature such as composing, improvising and creative music making; in addition, resource and related circumstantial factor as well as music teacher's readiness were found to be the most influential factors of successful ICT integration. Coupled with these findings, conclusion and implications for ICT integration in primary music curriculum in Hong Kong are then drawn and discussed.


Title of dissertation: AUTOMATED SOFTWARE DEBUGGING USING HYBRID STATIC/DYNAMIC ANALYSIS Ethar Elsaka, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Professor Atif Memon Department of Computer Science With the increasing complexity of today's software, the software development process is becoming highly time and resource consuming. The increasing number of software configurations, input parameters, usage scenarios, supporting platforms, external dependencies, and versions plays an important role in expanding the costs of maintaining and repairing unforeseeable software faults. To repair software faults, developers spend considerable time in identifying the scenarios leading to those faults and root-causing the problems. While software debugging remains largely manual, it is not the case with software testing and verification. The goal of this research is to improve the software development process in general, and software debugging process in particular, by devising techniques and methods for automated software debugging, which leverage the advances in automatic test case generation and replay. In this research, novel algorithms are devised to discover faulty execution paths in programs by utilizing already existing software test cases, which can be either automatically or manually generated. The execution traces, or alternatively, the sequence covers of the failing test cases are extracted. Afterwards, commonalities between these test case sequence covers are extracted, processed, analyzed, and then presented to the developers in the form of subsequences that may be causing the fault. The hypothesis is that code sequences that are shared between a number of faulty test cases for the same reason resemble the faulty execution path, and hence, the search space for the faulty execution path can be narrowed down by using a large number of test cases. To achieve this goal, an efficient algorithm is implemented for finding common subsequences among a set of code sequence covers. Optimization techniques are devised to generate shorter and more logical sequence covers, and to select subsequences with high likelihood of containing the root cause among the set of all possible common subsequences. A hybrid static/dynamic analysis approach is designed to trace back the common subsequences from the end to the root cause. A debugging tool is created to enable developers to use the approach, and integrate it with an existing Integrated Development Environment. The tool is also integrated with the environment's program editors so that developers can benefit from both the tool suggestions, and their source code counterparts. Finally, a comparison between the developed approach and the state-of-theart techniques shows that developers need only to inspect a small number of lines in order to find the root cause of the fault. Furthermore, experimental evaluation shows that the algorithm optimizations lead to better results in terms of both the algorithm running time and the output subsequence length. AUTOMATED SOFTWARE DEBUGGING USING HYBRID STATIC/DYNAMIC ANALYSIS