CONTEXT: Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is a rare autosomal-dominant disease characterized by recurrent self-limiting episodes of skin and mucosal edema. Morbidity and mortality are significant, and new and pending therapies are now available to reduce the risk associated with the disease. OBJECTIVE: To update the reader on new advances in HAE to improve patient care. METHODS: We performed a literature search of Ovid, PubMed, and Google to develop this review. Articles that are necessary for the understanding and use of the new therapeutic options for HAE were chosen, and studies of high quality were used to support the use of therapies, and in most cases, results from phase III studies were used. RESULTS: Until recently, therapy for HAE attacks in the United States consisted of symptom relief with narcotics, hydration, and fresh-frozen plasma, which contains active C1 inhibitor. Therapy to prevent HAE attacks has been confined to androgens and, occasionally, antifibrinolytic agents; however, both drug groups have significant adverse effects. The approval of C1-inhibitor concentrate for prevention and acute therapy has improved efficacy and safety. Ecallantide has also been approved for therapy of attacks, and icatibant is expected to be approved in the next few months for attacks. Recombinant C1 inhibitor is presently in phase III studies and should be available for attacks in the near future. CONCLUSION: In this article we review the changing therapeutic options available for patients in 2011 and beyond.


In this pathbreaking and far-reaching work George Oster and Edward Wilson provide the first fully developed theory of caste evolution among the social insects. Furthermore, in studying the effects of natural selection in generally increasing the insects' ergonomic efficiency, they go beyond the concentration of previous researchers on the physiological mechanisms of the insects and turn our attention instead to the scale and efficiency of the insects' division of labor.Recognizing that the efficiency of the insect colony is based on a complex fitting of the division of labor to many simultaneous needs, including those imposed by the distribution of resources and enemies around the nest, Professors Oster and Wilson are able to construct a series of mathematical models to characterize the agents of natural selection that promote particular caste systems.The social insects play a key role in the subject of sociobiology because their social organization is so rigid and can be related to genetic evolution. Because of this important consideration, the authors' work has consequences not only for entomology but also for general evolutionary theory.


Abstract Until 2018, Belgium had a unique corporate income tax system due to its notional interest deduction, also known in public finance literature as the allowance for corporate equity. At the same time, it had one of the highest corporate tax rates in Europe at 34 percent. The latter came under severe pressure to reform and, as of 2018, the government has started to reduce the rate, gradually to reach 25 percent in 2020. The reduction is accompanied by other measures, including a limitation of the notional interest deduction. This paper argues that the lower CIT rate is likely to be conducive to economic growth. Yet, the effects on growth would have been more favorable if the notional interest deduction would have been strengthened, rather than diminished.


Topological constraint theory is a convenient theoretical framework to predict structure–property relationships in glasses and identify optimal compositions featuring targeted macroscopic properties. Although introduced for chalcogenide glasses, molecular rigidity concepts have since been applied with great success to new families of materials, such as silicate glasses, phase-change materials, and proteins. Here, we review recent developments in the extension of rigidity theory to concrete, which is by far the most heavily manufactured material in the world. By capturing the important atomic topology while filtering out less relevant structural details of calcium–silicate–hydrate, the binding phase of concrete, topological constraint theory was used to nanoengineer concrete from the atomic scale by predicting the compositional dependence of hardness, toughness, and creep. As such, rigidity concepts represent a promising tool to accelerate the discovery of new materials with tailored properties.


We are on the cusp of a new monetary era. Central bankers around the world are increasingly worried that privately controlled digital currencies will relegate them to the sidelines of monetary affairs. To avoid this fate, central banks have been studying, and in some cases actively pursuing, issuing digital currencies of their own: so-called central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Although this is one of the hottest topics in macroeconomics and central banking today, the discussion has all but overlooked the most straightforward and, we argue, most appealing strategy for implementing a U.S. dollar-based CBDC: expanding access to the bank accounts the Federal Reserve already offers to a small, favored set of clients. These accounts consist of entries in a digital ledger—just like other digital currencies—and are extremely desirable, offering high interest, instant payments, and full government backing no matter how large the account balance. But U.S. law restricts these accounts to an exclusive clientele consisting primarily of banks. Privileged access to these accounts creates a striking asymmetry at the core of our monetary framework: government-issued physical currency is an open-access resource, available to all, but government-issued digital currency (in the form of central bank accounts) is not.

In the current digital era, there is no respectable justification for this dichotomy. Congress should authorize the Federal Reserve to give the general public—individuals, businesses, and institutions—the option to hold accounts at the central bank, which we call FedAccounts. Unlike the CBDC approaches currently under discussion, which would use complicated and inefficient distributed ledger technology and would be walled off from the existing system of money and payments, the FedAccount CBDC would be seamlessly interoperable with the mainstream payment system and would rely on technologies that the Federal Reserve has used successfully for decades.

The FedAccount CBDC would offer an astonishing range of benefits that other CBDC proposals—not to mention privately controlled digital currencies—cannot match, including a much more inclusive financial system, better consumer protection, faster and more efficient payments, greater financial and macroeconomic stability, improved monetary policy transmission, reduced payment tolls (interchange fees), streamlined regulation and regulatory structures, and increased fiscal revenue arising from the recapture of economic rents from the financial sector.


The author starts with the observation that as new legislationbegins to take effect—specifically, the Uniform Prudent InvestorAct (UPIA) and the Revised Uniform Principal and Income Act(UPAIA)—trustees are under increasing pressure to exercise bestpractices in trust management. Further, as the pressure on trusteesincreases, levels of service and performance from the past nolonger meet today's higher standards. The author illustrates thedefinition of "prudent" with regard to UPIA and UPAIA andoffers specific trust management lessons to be learned as a resultof recent litigation and the subsequent judicial decisions. Then,he argues that UPIA not only requires a higher standard of duediligence on the partof trust managersbut also in fact compelsthem to consider newinvestment products, such as derivativesand exchange-traded funds. Finally,he explores the proper appli-cation of these investments as a means of risk management, aswell as the necessity of leveraging best of breed financial advis-ersfor such highly specialized instruments.


Proteomic studies can offer information on hundreds to thousands of proteins and potentially provide researchers with a comprehensive understanding of signaling response during stress and disease. Large data sets, such as those obtained in high-dimensional proteomic studies, can be leveraged for pathway analysis to discover or describe the biological implications of clinical disease states. Obesity is a worldwide epidemic that is considered a risk factor for numerous other diseases. We performed analysis on plasma proteomic data from 3 separate sample sets of postmenopausal women to identify the pathways that are altered in subjects with a high body mass index (BMI) compared to normal BMI. We found many pathways consistently and significantly associated with inflammation dysregulated in plasma from obese/overweight subjects compared to plasma from normal BMI subjects. These pathways indicate alterations of soluble inflammatory regulators, cellular stress, and metabolic dysregulation. Our results highlight the importance of high-dimensional pathway analysis in complex diseases as well as provide information on the interconnections between pathways that are dysregulated with obesity. Specifically, overlap of obesity related pathways with those activated during cancer and infection could help describe why obesity is a risk factor for disease and help devise treatment options that mitigate its effect.


This book contributes to the discussion about the relevance of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship for industrial innovation in the context of traditional low-technology industries.


This paper addresses data-aided (DA) synchronization, in which the reference parameter acquisition is aided by a training sequence known to the receiver. The Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRB) for the DA timing and/or carrier phase recovery is presented. For DA parameter estimation, the CRB typically varies with the training sequence. This indicates that different training sequences offer fundamentally different performance. In the literature, the widely cited closed-form CRB for timing and carrier phase recovery was derived under the assumption that the training sequence is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) and sufficiently long. We derive a closed-form CRB for timing and carrier phase recovery with respect to an arbitrary training sequence and pulse shaping function for the over and under sampling cases. It turns out that the CRB is a weighted summation of the aperiodic correlation of the training sequence and the weighting factor is determined by the pulse shaping filter. Therefore, this paper reveals the fundamental link between a training sequence and its corresponding performance limit.


In this paper, we propose a simple frequency offset estimation (FOE) algorithm for high-speed coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) systems, which avoids the exhaustive search computations on the integer part of FOE by using a merit function. In time domain, the FOE algorithm can estimate all the frequency offset in the range of [-5GHz, +5GHz], for satisfying the practical application requirement, based on only one redesigned training symbol. In addition, we provide the theoretical analysis about the quantitative influences of the residual frequency offset (RFO) on CO-OFDM systems. In order to reduce the final estimation error, a new zero-overhead residual frequency offset estimation (RFOE) algorithm is also proposed in this paper. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed FOE and RFOE algorithms are demonstrated in a 464 Gbit/s polarization-division multiplexed (PDM) 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) CO-OFDM system by the simulation, and numerical results validate the proposed algorithms.


A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers. A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.


We introduce an approach to model surface properties governing bounces in everyday scenes. Our model learns end-to-end, starting from sensor inputs, to predict post-bounce trajectories and infer two underlying physical properties that govern bouncing - restitution and effective collision normals. Our model, Bounce and Learn, comprises two modules -- a Physics Inference Module (PIM) and a Visual Inference Module (VIM). VIM learns to infer physical parameters for locations in a scene given a single still image, while PIM learns to model physical interactions for the prediction task given physical parameters and observed pre-collision 3D trajectories. To achieve our results, we introduce the Bounce Dataset comprising 5K RGB-D videos of bouncing trajectories of a foam ball to probe surfaces of varying shapes and materials in everyday scenes including homes and offices. Our proposed model learns from our collected dataset of real-world bounces and is bootstrapped with additional information from simple physics simulations. We show on our newly collected dataset that our model out-performs baselines, including trajectory fitting with Newtonian physics, in predicting post-bounce trajectories and inferring physical properties of a scene.


The systematic literature review was carried out to identify and analyse qualitative and quantitative articles published in the last 20 years relevant to the self-management of type 2 diabetes. The aim of this review was to identify and synthesize the contemporary qualitative and quantitative research on the selfmanagement of type 2 diabetes focusing on the factors that play an important role in self-management of diabetes in Pakistan. This systematic review synthesized the knowledge and identified the gap in the literature regarding type 2 diabetes self-management among the middle-aged population of Pakistan. The review has revealed that there is lack of studies in literature on self-management of type 2 diabetes in Pakistan. This review will be useful for health care professionals suggesting that coping with diagnosis and living with diabetes is affected by a complex constellation of factors, including life circumstances, social support, gender roles and economy.


After the fall of the Iron Curtain Austria's position within the framework of Europe's migration league table shifted from a marginal one to that of an appealing "Gateway to the Golden West" with a strong attraction for migrants. So it is not surprising that the inflow of labour force from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary was growing during the 1990s. This has led to the formation of a new transnational labour market which includes the eastern regions of Austria and the countries of East-Central Europe. In 1981 5,911 Polish citizens legally lived and worked in Austria. In 1991 the figure was three times as high (18,321), including 8,932 Polish citizens who had taken Austrian citizenship in the meantime. The highest number of labour migrants from Poland (19,421 persons) was registered in 1995. In 1995-96 there was a clear decline in numbers. As the range of information about Polish migration to Austria provided by official census data was quite inadequate we made field research among Vienna's Polish community. The location chosen for the inquiry was the Polish church, one of the favoured meeting points of the Poles. A sample of 408 Poles were interviewed during a spring week in 1993. Naturally, the financial and personal resources of our Institute were too meagre to aspire to an overall study of Vienna's manifold 'Polon a'. So we tried to concentrate our analysis on some specific topics listed below: socio-demographic characteristics; educational background and qualifications level; labour market position (distribution of migrants among the sectors of the economy, the role of the brain drain and its tranformation into brain waste, illegal employment); position on the Viennese housing market; spatial distribution of the areas of origin in Poland. The main empirical results of the survey which needs stressing are: the selectivity of Polish immigration by socio-demo graphic criteria; the broad variety of family and household structures; the uneven spatial distribution of the areas of origin of Vienn ese immigrants; the overrepresentation of the large urban regions among migration origins; the importance of the mainly economic pull factors o f the Austrian labour market; the growing importance of temporary migration; the high proportion of highly-qualified personnel among migrants; the broad range of occupations; a substantial degree of dequalification and brain waste; an upward occupational mobility which depends on the duration of stay in Vienna; significantly better housing conditions than those of Turkish or Balkanese guest-workers; the phenomenon of large-scale illegal employment.


While a number of sociolinguistic studies have examined intraspeaker variation and how it allows a speaker to negotiate identities related to class, much of the existing work on speakers and their physically-delimited communities has focused on interspeaker variation. The present study examines (th) and (dh)-stopping in two sociolinguistic interviews conducted as part of the Language and Communication in the District of Columbia (LCDC) project (Schilling and Podesva 2008). It examines topic-related style-shifting in two African American speakers, matched for age, from one neighborhood in the District of Columbia known for its high integration and cross-racial acceptance. As Washington, D.C. is a city whose rate of racial segregation is increasing (US Census 2010), I argue that these speakers use this ethnoracially-marked phonological variant in topic-based style shifting as a means of aligning with the race-neutral identity of the community of Takoma. Statistical results, supported by discourse analyses of the content of both speakers' talk, reveal that both speakers vary their rates of the stopped variant to contrast constructed dialogue of Takoma residents and nonTakoma residents and in talk about their relationships with their community in ways which reinforce the indexical links they make between themselves and the reification of Takoma as racially-neutral, integrated space. Many studies have shown that processes understood to be indexical of racial and class identities on an interspeaker level also function on an intraspeaker level (e.g. Rickford and McNair-Knox 1994). This study provides evidence that speakers' indexical relationships to their physical community can be studied at the level of the individual speaker as well. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/


Aim: The aim of this paper is to report a rare case of sporadic Burkitt's lymphoma of the maxilla and its response to chemotherapy and emphasize the importance of early diagnosis in the treatment and prognosis. Objective: The objective of this paper is to present a rare case of sporadic Burkitt's lymphoma. This type of Burkitt's lymphoma is seen in other parts of the world except equatorial Africa where Endemic form is found. Sporadic Burkitt's lymphoma usually presents in the abdominal organs, mostly in the ileocecal area, but, in our case, it occurred in the maxilla. Endemic type of Burkitt's lymphoma is reported to respond well to chemotherapy, whereas this form is not reported to behave so. Results: The case reported herewith was referred at the earliest for chemotherapy and it responded well to the currently used CODOX(M/IVAC regimen. There has been no short term recurrence in this case for 6 months. Conclusion: It is important to remember not to delay time in leisurely investigations in Burkitt's lymphoma cases, in order to achieve complete remission and a better prognosis.


Zinc (Zn) is an essential nutrient and its deficiency causes immunodeficiency. However, it remains unknown how Zn homeostasis is regulated in mast cells and if Zn transporters are involved in allergic reactions. We show that Znt5/Slc30a5 is required for contact hypersensitivity and mast cell–mediated delayed-type allergic response but not for immediate passive cutaneous anaphylaxis. In mast cells from Znt5−/− mice, Fcϵ receptor I (FcϵRI)–induced cytokine production was diminished, but degranulation was intact. Znt5 was involved in FcϵRI-induced translocation of protein kinase C (PKC) to the plasma membrane and the nuclear translocation of nuclear factor κB. In addition, the Zn finger–like motif of PKC was required for its plasma membrane translocation and binding to diacylglycerol. Thus, Znt5 is selectively required for the mast cell–mediated delayed-type allergic response, and it is a novel player in mast cell activation.


An April 1998 New York Times Magazine article described Ronald Munger's efforts to obtain blood samples from a group of extremely impoverished people in the Philippine island of Cebu.[1] Munger sought the blood to study whether there was a genetic cause for this group's unusually high incidence of cleft lip and palate. One of many obstacles to the research project was the need to obtain the cooperation of the local health officer. It was not clear to Munger, or the reader, whether the health officer had a bona fide interest in protecting the populace or was looking for a bribe. The health officer asked Munger a few perfunctory questions about informed consent and the study's ethical review in the United States, which Munger answered. Munger also explained the benefits that mothers and children would derive from participating in the research. The mothers would learn their blood types (which they apparently desired) and whether they were anemic. If they were anemic, they would be given iron pills. Lunch would be served, and raffles arranged so that families could win simple toys and other small items. Munger told the health officer that if his hypotheses were correct, the research would benefit the population of Cebu: if the research shows that increased folate and vitamin B6 reduces the risk of cleft lip and palate, families could reduce the risk of facial deformities in their future offspring. The reporter noted that the health officer "laughs aloud at the suggestion that much of what is being discovered in American laboratories will make it back to Cebu any time soon." Reflecting on his experience with another simple intervention, iodized salt, the health officer said that when salt was iodized, the price rose threefold "so those who need it couldn't afford it and those who didn't need it are the only ones who could afford it." The simple blood collecting mission to Cebu illustrates almost all the issues presented by research in developing countries. First is the threshold question of the goal of the research and its importance to the population represented by the research subjects. Next is the quality of informed consent, including whether the potential subjects thought that participation in the research was related to free surgical care that was offered in the same facility (although it clearly was not) and whether one could adequately explain genetic hypotheses to an uneducated populace. Finally, there is the question whether the population from which subjects were drawn could benefit from the research. This research intervention is very low risk--the collection of 10 drops of blood from affected people and their family members. The risk of job or insurance discrimination that genetic research poses in this country did not exist for the Cebu population; ironically, they were protected from the risk of economic discrimination by the profound poverty in which they lived. Even this simple study raises the most fundamental question: "Why is it acceptable for researchers in developed countries to use citizens of developing countries as research subjects?" A cautionary approach to permitting research with human subjects in underdeveloped countries has been recommended because of the risk of their inadvertent or deliberate exploitation by researchers from developed countries. This cautionary approach generally is invoked when researchers propose to use what are considered "vulnerable populations," such as prisoners and children, as research subjects.[2] Vulnerable populations are those that are less able to protect themselves, either because they are not capable of making their own decisions or because they are particularly susceptible to mistreatment.[3] For example, children may be incapable of giving informed consent or of standing up to adult authority, while prisoners are especially vulnerable to being coerced into becoming subjects. Citizens of developing countries are often in vulnerable situations because of their lack of political power, lack of education, unfamiliarity with medical interventions, extreme poverty, or dire need for health care and nutrition. …


In this paper we present a system for the interactive exploration of large-scale spatiotemporal city models. Our system focuses on interactive techniques that allow the user to navigate freely in space and time, and which can also be used to query particular features of the model. For that purpose we introduce a novel data structure based on a binary space partitioning tree. A four dimensional kD-tree is introduced, which adopts some of the methods that have been used so far for the construction of 3D space partitions. In particular, we extend the SAH method towards its use for partitioning spatiotemporal geometry models. Based on the constructed data structure, our system provides methods to interactively render large-scale city models and to answer spatiotemporal queries. For the visualization we employ rasterization hardware as well as hierarchical occlusion queries that have been adapted to four dimensional models. Spatiotemporal queries are handled by defining a 4D shape and intersecting it with the nodes of the tree. By using a tree-structure as proposed, we will show that large time-varying city models can be explored interactively and at high quality.


[1] We investigate the tectonics of the South Shetland Trench and Bransfield Strait by performing a detailed study of local seismicity. During 1997–1999 we deployed seven land seismometers and 14 ocean bottom seismometers in the South Shetland Island region. The data we obtained indicate a high level of local seismicity (mb 2–5), and we accurately located ∼150 earthquakes. Many of the earthquakes occur at locations and depths indicative of ongoing subduction in the South Shetland trench. A focal mechanism for the largest event in the forearc indicates shallow angle thrusting. The maximum depth of seismicity is ∼65 km, but the majority of the events are shallower than 30 km. These seismic results are consistent with recent magnetic, GPS, and multichannel seismic reflection data that suggest continued subduction at a very slow rate. The South Shetland trench thus represents an extreme end-member of hot subduction resulting from slow convergence of young lithosphere, and the absence of intermediate depth earthquakes is consistent with thermal assimilation of the slab at shallow depths. We have located many earthquakes associated with volcanism and rifting in Bransfield Strait. A swarm of events near a submarine volcano suggests current magmatic activity. A normal faulting focal mechanism in the northeastern part of the strait gives evidence of extension. Earthquakes associated with rifting in the northeastern portion of the strait are clustered along well-established rifts, but the seismicity is much more diffuse to the southwest. This observation is consistent with other evidence that extension has propagated from northeast to southwest.


Background: In Uganda in each year approximately
27,000 new cases of cancer are reported affecting 1.5%
of the population.1 However a shortage of Doctors,
wide geographical distribution, and poor transport
systems leads to many patients especially in rural areas
experiencing severe uncontrolled symptoms.
Hospice Africa Uganda developed a community
volunteer worker programme where local villagers are
trained to identify patients with palliative care needs.
The volunteers refer patients to the hospice and provide
basic care and support for patients and families. A
training course with ongoing support has resulted in 45
volunteers currently practicing. The volunteers receive
no payment, except for a bicycle enabling them to
reach remote rural areas. The aim of this study was to
evaluate the impact of the volunteer programme on
patients, hospice staff and volunteers.
Methodology: A qualitative methodology using semi
structured individual and group tape recorded
interviews was adopted for the study. A purposive
sample of a volunteers (22), patients (11) and hospice
staff involved with the programme (2) were invited to
participate in the study. Data was analysed for emerging
themes using thematic analysis.
Results and discussion: The volunteers were seen to
be providing a positive impact to patients in helping
them to receive appropriate care and intervention from
the hospice team; additionally they were providing
basic nursing care, support and advice to patients and
their families. For volunteers, the role increased their
confidence by providing care for their community.
Additionally for the hospice team it enables patients in
rural areas with palliative care needs to be identified
and provided with appropriate care. This paper will
discuss the findings from the study and provide an
overview of the structure of the programme.


In star-forming galaxies, dust plays a significant role in shaping the ultraviolet (UV) through infrared (IR) spectrum. Dust attenuates the radiation from stars, and re-radiates the energy through equilibrium and non-equilibrium emission. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), graphite, and silicates contribute to different features in the spectral energy distribution; however, they are all highly opaque in the same spectral region—the UV. Compared to old stellar populations, young populations release a higher fraction of their total luminosity in the UV, making them a good source of the energetic UV photons that can power dust emission. However, given their relative abundance, the question of whether young or old stellar populations provide most of these photons that power the IR emission is an interesting question. Using three samples of galaxies observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope and our dusty radiative transfer model, we find that young stellar populations (on the order of 100 million years old) dominate the dust heating in star-forming galaxies, and old stellar populations (13 billion years old) generally contribute less than 20% of the far-IR luminosity.


OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the legal actions and behavior in the doctor/patient relationship, as used by Dental Surgeons practicing Orthodontics. METHODS: the population sample of the present study consisted of dental surgeons, active in the area of Orthodontics, and registered with Editora Dental Press - Maringa/PR, with a total sample size of 525 professionals. The research was conducted using a 17-question survey geared to these professionals. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: the majority of participants in our study are specialized in Orthodontics; 75% of professionals use some sort of contract at the office/clinic; 73.7% of professionals periodically request maintenance x-rays; a large percentage of professionals (58.9%) keep patient records on file for life. The surveyed professionals demonstrate good knowledge of the Code of Ethics in Orthodontics, especially of Chapter XIV - on Communication.


The aim of this study is to implement Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) in a continuous injection molding industry. By implementing TPM, the industry can increase their Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and productivity. Before implementing TPM, overall equipment efficiency, availability rate, performance rate, and quality rate of the injection molding machine were 74.9%, 88.54%, 88.5%, and 95.6%, respectively. It needs to be improved for good operating condition of machines. In this paper, some tools are suggested to improve their productivity and maintenance procedure. These tools are cause and effect diagram, Pareto chart, WWBLA, and preventive maintenance schedule. TPM program is to change the culture of the company maintenance policy with involvement of all employees toward the maintenance system of the company. Through the proper planning of maintenance schedule, productivity can be improved. This schedule helps to maintain machines in good operating conditions as well as a good OEE value, and a world class standard OEE is achieved.


It is common in the internet industry to use offline-developed algorithms to power online products that contribute to the success of a business. Offline-developed algorithms are guided by offline evaluation metrics, which are often different from online business key performance indicators (KPIs). To maximize business KPIs, it is important to pick a north star among all available offline evaluation metrics. By noting that online products can be measured by online evaluation metrics, the online counterparts of offline evaluation metrics, we decompose the problem into two parts. As the offline A/B test literature works out the first part: counterfactual estimators of offline evaluation metrics that move the same way as their online counterparts, we focus on the second part: causal effects of online evaluation metrics on business KPIs. The north star of offline evaluation metrics should be the one whose online counterpart causes the most significant lift in the business KPI. We model the online evaluation metric as a mediator and formalize its causality with the business KPI as dose-response function (DRF). Our novel approach, causal meta-mediation analysis, leverages summary statistics of many existing randomized experiments to identify, estimate, and test the mediator DRF. It is easy to implement and to scale up, and has many advantages over the literature of mediation analysis and meta-analysis. We demonstrate its effectiveness by simulation and implementation on real data.


Transcriptomic regulation of human liver is a tightly controlled and highly dynamic process. Genetic and environmental exposures to this process play pivotal roles in the development of multiple liver disorders. Despite accumulating knowledge have gained through large-scale genomics studies in the developed adult livers, the contributing factors to the interindividual variability in the pediatric livers remain largely uninvestigated. In the first two chapters of the present study, we addressed this question through an integrative analysis of both genetic variations and transcriptome-wide RNA expression profiles in a pediatric human liver cohort with different developmental stages ranging from embryonic to adulthood. Our systematic analysis revealed a transcriptome-wide transition from stem-cell-like to liver-specific profiles during the course of human liver development. Moreover, for the first time, we observed different genetic control of hepatic gene expression in different developmental stages. Motivated by the critical roles of genetics variations and development in regulating hepatic gene expression, we constructed robust predictive models to impute the virtual liver gene expression using easily available genotype and demographic information. Our model is promising in improving both PK/PD modeling and disease diagnosis for pediatric patients. In the last two chapters of the study, we analyzed the genomics data in a more liver disease- related context. Specifically, in the third chapter, we identified Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and its related pathways as potential targets underlying human liver fibrosis through an integrative omics analysis. In the last chapter, utilizing the largest-to-date publicly available GWAS summary data, we dissected the causal relationships among three important and clinically related metabolic diseases: non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and obesity. Our analysis suggested new subtypes and provided insights into the precision treatment or prevention for the three complex diseases. Taken together, through integrative analysis of multiple levels of genomics information, we improved the current understanding of human liver development, the pathogenesis of liver disorders, and provided implications to precision medicine.


AIMS
This paper reports the development of a tool to measure parenting self-efficacy as an aid to evaluating parenting programmes.

BACKGROUND
Whilst there has been increasing interest in parenting programmes from parents, government and professionals, there is a lack of rigorous evaluation studies of their effectiveness, particularly their longer-term outcomes. Equally, there is little research evidence of the views and experiences of parents themselves. It is important to develop robust outcome measures which draw on well-developed theoretical constructs to measure parents' perceived abilities to manage their children based on their own views and experiences. Self-efficacy, a self-perception of one's ability to perform competently and effectively in a particular task or setting, may provide such a framework.

METHODS
Data from 12 focus groups conducted with parents and parenting programme facilitators informed the development of the tool. A thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts identified key items to be included in the self-efficacy instrument, and these were developed into 82 Likert-format statements. A multi-method approach was used to test the instrument for validity and reliability.

FINDINGS
Nine domain specific sub-scales of parenting were identified from the analysis of the focus group data. Internal reliability coefficients for the subscales ranged from 0.80 to 0.89, and the overall scale reliability was 0.94. External reliability coefficients ranged from rs = 0.58 (n = 19, P < 0.01) to rs = 0.88 (n = 19, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
A valid and reliable tool to measure parenting self-efficacy has been developed, which will aid evaluation of parenting programmes.


The highly specialised brain capillary endothelial cells (BCEC) that constitute the blood brain barrier (BBB) exhibit high resilience to the penetration of xenobiotic and biologic therapeutics, making drug delivery to the central nervous system (CNS) a challenging feat. Endogenous BCEC receptors such as transferrin receptor (TfR) have been proposed as exploitable targets for therapeutic payload transport into the CNS, and have been successfully targeted using monoclonal antibodies to deliver therapeutic molecules into the brains of rodents and non-human primates via receptor mediated transcytosis (RMT).

The overall aim of this study was to develop a BCEC drug delivery system using alternative domains to antibodies e.g. peptides and ssDNA aptamers, as a means of exploiting endogenous receptor transport mechanisms to deliver macromolecular drugs into the CNS via RMT.

The expression of three receptor candidates, TfR, low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) and low-density lipoprotein-related receptor protein 1 (LRP1) were characterised for use as selectable targets on the cell surface of Immortalised human brain endothelial cells (hCMEC/D3) by flow cytometric analysis. Aptamers and cyclic peptide domains were then selected via in vitro selection techniques.

The present findings highlight the selection of 13 peptides that demonstrate species cross-reactivity to human, mouse and rat TfR as determined by phage ELISA. Moreover, the lead candidate Pep1 was identified to share homology with a conserved 'DCSGNFCLF' motif found on transferrin. When expressed as a bivalent peptide-Fc fusion molecule, Pep1 was shown to internalise within the mouse and human brain endothelial cell lines, bEnd.3, and hCMEC/D3. Additionally, the overall enrichment of hTFR specific aptamers was demonstrated following twelve rounds of selection and high throughput sequencing of selected pools, data that warrants further investigation.


Difficult and sensitive issues will command the attention of US and Korean officials as they negotiate a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). The United States will have to put long-standing US barriers to Korean exports of textiles, apparel, and steel on the table and resolve problems with South Korean access to the US visa waiver program. In turn, South Korea will have to open new opportunities for US goods and services, including autos, beef, and rice. Such a deal will pose a stiff political challenge for Korean officials. However, they will be under pressure in any event to reform their farm programs--either in the context of a final deal in the WTO talks or in response to Chinese initiatives in the region, which Korea will need to match. Both Korea and the United States also have important foreign policy interests in the FTA, particularly enhanced security on the Korean peninsula. South Korea would like the FTA to promote the policy of constructive engagement with North Korea, which the former has been pursuing by extending trade preferences to goods produced in the Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea. However, such a request would put the entire negotiation in jeopardy since the US Congress would reject preferences for the North Korean regime.


The scrap metal recycling industry is a growing industry that plays an important role in the sustainability of a large global metal supply. Unfortunately, recycling lacks many standards, and test procedures in place for mineral processing. These standards and practices, if used in recycling, could aid recyclers in determining and achieving optimal separations for their plant.. New regulations for scrap imports into China make it difficult to obtain the metal recoveries that have been achieved in the past. In order to help scrap yards adhere to the new regulations the Eriez RCS eddy current separator system was tested in full scale. The principles this system uses, called circuit analysis, have been used by the mining industry for years, and can be used with any separation system. The Eriez RCS system surpassed the requirements of the Chinese regulations, while simultaneously increasing the recovery of metals. In order to further analyze eddy current separator circuits, tree analysis was attempted for single eddy current separators, as well as more complex circuits mimicked using locked cycle tests. The circuits used in the locked cycle test were a rougher-cleaner, a rougher-scavenger, and a rougher-cleaner-scavenger. It was found that it is possible to use tree analysis to compare different eddy current separator circuits using the same settings, however standards for this practice need to be established for it to be useful. Using the data analysis methods developed for this particular tree analysis, the rougher-cleanerscavenger test had the best performance overall. This is the same result as the full scale testing done on the Eriez RCS system, but more testing should be conducted to confirm the data analysis techniques of calculating theoretical efficiency, recovery efficiency, and rejection efficiency.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to assess the utility of two levels of hyperglycemia as predictors for mortality and infectious morbidity in traumatically injured patients.

METHODS
All patients >or= 17 years old presenting to a Level I trauma center as a "trauma alert" or a "trauma code" from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2000, were reviewed. Hypoglycemic patients (glucose concentration < 70 mg/dL) were excluded (n = 4). Patients were considered hyperglycemic with an admission glucose concentration > 200 mg/dL (moderate hyperglycemia) or an admission glucose concentration in the upper quartile for the group (mild hyperglycemia [glucose concentration > 135 mg/dL]).

RESULTS
Seven hundred thirty-eight patients were included in the study. Hyperglycemia was associated with increased mortality among both patients with moderate hyperglycemia (34.1% vs. 3.7%, p < 0.01) and those with mild hyperglycemia (15.5% vs. 2%, p < 0.01) compared with corresponding normoglycemic groups. Hyperglycemia proved to be an independent predictor of mortality and of hospital and intensive care unit length of stay after multiple logistic regression while controlling for age, Injury Severity Score, Revised Trauma Score, and gender. Infectious complications, including pneumonia (9.4% vs. 2%, p = 0.001), urinary tract infections (6.6% vs. 1.4%, p = 0.001), wound infections (4.9% vs. 0.6%, p = 0.039), and bacteremia (5% vs. 1.1%, p = 0.004), were significantly increased in patients with elevated glucose concentrations. Hyperglycemia is an independent predictor of increased infectious morbidity controlling for age, gender, and Injury Severity Score in multiple logistic regression models.

CONCLUSION
Hyperglycemia independently predicts increased intensive care unit and hospital length of stay and mortality in the trauma population. It is associated with increased infectious morbidity. These associations hold true for mild hyperglycemia (glucose concentration > 135 mg/dL) and moderate hyperglycemia (glucose concentration > 200 mg/dL).


Toxicity on soil bacterial community growth caused by the antibiotics oxytetracycline (OTC) and chlortetracycline (CTC) was studied in 22 agricultural soils after 1, 8 and 42 incubation days. The leucine incorporation method was used with this aim, estimating the concentration of each antibiotic which caused an inhibition of 50% in bacterial community growth (log IC50). For OTC, the mean log IC50 was 2.70, 2.81, 2.84 for each of the three incubation times, while the values were 2.05, 2.22 and 2.47 for CTC, meaning that the magnitude of OTC toxicity was similar over time, whereas it decreased significantly for CTC with incubation time. In addition, results showed that the toxicity on bacterial community growth due to CTC is significantly higher than when due to OTC. Moreover, the toxicity on bacterial community growth due to both antibiotics is dependent on soil properties. Specifically, an increase in soil pH and silt content resulted in higher toxicity of both antibiotics, while increases in total organic carbon and clay contents caused decreases in OTC and CTC toxicities. The results also show that OTC toxicity can be well predicted by means of specific equations, using the values of pH measured in KCl and those of effective cation exchange capacity as input variables. CTC toxicity may be predicted (but with low precision) using pH measured in KCl and total organic carbon. These equations may help to predict the negative effects caused by OTC and CTC on soil bacteria using easily measurable soil parameters.


Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17938 is a probiotic bacterium manufactured by the company BioGaia AB and was in focus of this study. If a probiotic product is to confer its benefi-cial health effect to a consumer, it must retain high viability levels during long-term storage. A common practice for conservation of living microorganisms to meet this crite-rion is freeze-drying. Freeze-drying of bacteria is a process dependent on many factors and needs to be carefully designed in order to be successful. Preconditioning the bacteria before freeze-drying by subjecting them to different conditions during cultivation is one of the ways toward optimizing the survivability of freeze-drying and subsequent storage-stability. In theory, finding more robust mutants of L. reuteri could be yet another way of reaching this goal. It has been discovered that at least in some species of bacteria, in-creasingly resilient generations of mutants arise in consecutive waves during prolonged batch cultivation and are referred to as "growth advantage in stationary phase" (GASP) mutants.
The overall goal of this study was to work towards a viable and storage-stable product based on L. reuteri. The first objective was to investigate if survival of a freeze-thaw assay, in which differently preconditioned L. reuteri are subjected to cycles of freezing and thawing, correlates with storage-stability. This could verify the potential use of the freeze-thaw assay instead of performing slow and laborious long-term stability studies when optimizing the production process, as well as provide insights into which cultiva-tion conditions confer the highest storage-stability. A second objective was to investigate prolonged batch cultures of L. reuteri as a hypothetical source of GASP mutants. It was further hypothesized that appearance of GASPs would be detectable by isothermal micro-calorimetry.
L. reuteri was cultivated at different settings of pH and temperature and freeze-dried in a 15% w/v sucrose formulation. Survival of the freeze-thaw assay and an accelerated storage assay at 37 °C were compared by viable counting and subsequent ANOVA and Tukey's test. This was complemented by microscopic morphology and Gram-stain stud-ies. For the mutant-related experimental objective, L. reuteri and E. coli (as a control organism) were cultivated for up to 70 days while their heat production was measured in isothermal microcalorimeters (IMC).
A consistent inverse correlation was found between the freeze-thaw assay and the ac-celerated storage assay. High pH, and to a lesser extent, high temperature were associated with higher stability but lower freeze-thaw assay survival. Microscopic studies did not find any consistent association between stability and morphology except for the absence of cell clumps in the most storage-stable case. No GASP-revealing heat flows could be observed, neither with L. reuteri or E. coli controls. The collected data implied that L. reuteri did not produce GASP mutants. Future effort is suggested to be put into finding out if survival of the freeze-drying and subsequent storage-stability can both be improved independently and in such case, separate assays for both criteria should be employed. In conclusion, it is likely that the causes for differences in storage-stability and freeze-thaw survival reside in biomolecular phenomena affected by cultivation conditions. IMC does not seem to be a feasible tool for GASP detection; the possible reason could be lack of agitation and thereby no GASP growth. However, IMC devices with stirring could still be evaluated as a tool for GASP detection.


The Eleventh Circuit vacated its panel opinion in Patterson v. Secretary and reheard the case en banc. The court's new opinion revisits the prohibition against "second or successive" habeas corpus petitions in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) and embraces the dissenting view in the prior opinion, rejecting the reasoning of the majority. A new state court judgment resets the habeas clock, allowing a prisoner to file an additional federal habeas petition without running afoul of section 2244(b). Previously, the court offered an expansive view of such judgments, looking to whether the state court has substantively changed the prisoner's sentence. The court now offers a narrow view, looking only to whether the state court has authorized the prisoner's custody. This Article describes the majority and dissenting opinions in both iterations of Patterson v. Secretary. The Article then identifies both textual and subtextual disputes among the judges, arguing that the opinions are proxies for a deep division in criminal law between finality and justice.


We present a dynamic extension of the classic static model of Bertrand price competition that allows competing duopolists to undertake cost-reducing investments in an attempt to "leapfrog" their rival to attain low-cost leadership—at least temporarily. We show that leapfrogging occurs in equilibrium, resolving the Bertrand investment paradox., i.e. leapfrogging explains why firms have an ex ante incentive to undertake cost-reducing investments even though they realize that simultaneous investments to acquire the state of the art production technology would result in Bertrand price competition in the product market that drives their ex post profits to zero. Our analysis provides a new interpretation of "price wars". Instead of constituting a punishment for a breakdown of tacit collusion, price wars are fully competitive outcomes that occur when one firm leapfrogs its rival to become the new low cost leader. We show that the equilibrium involves investment preemption only when the firms invest in a deterministically alternating fashion and technological progress is deterministic. We prove that when technological progress is deterministic and firms move in an alternating fashion, the game has a unique Markov perfect equilibrium. When technological progress is stochastic or if firms move simultaneously, equilibria are generally not unique. Unlike the static Bertrand model, the equilibria of the dynamic Bertrand model are generally inefficient. Instead of having too little investment in equilibrium, we show that duopoly investments generally exceed the socially optimum level. Yet, we show that when investment decisions are simultaneous there is a "monopoly" equilibrium when one firm makes all the investments, and this equilibrium is efficient. However, efficient non-monopoly equilibria also exist, demonstrating that it is possible for firms to achieve efficient dynamic coordination in their investments while their customers also benefit from technological progress in the form of lower prices.


Buildings are responsible nowadays for more than half of the energy consumption worldwide, significantly contributing - with the CO2 emissions they trigger - to the very causes of climate change. The knowledge gap that exists with respect to how emissions from built environments can be mitigated and, simultaneously, how buildings and their occupants can adapt to shifts in global and local climate must be filled, involving integration of established knowledge, advanced design strategies, application of innovative technologies and multidisciplinary research. Although the evidence of climate change is supported by large consensus, the amount of data and predictions currently available often results in ambiguous information for climate non-specialists. Starting from a review of the Fourth Assessment Report published by the IPCC, the paper examines the interactions between human systems and dynamic environmental forces, trying to underline the causes and consequences of the evident alteration in the climatic equilibrium of the planet and exploring how built environments can contribute to mitigate and adapt to these changing conditions.


In the past two decades, a large number of Nigeria's valuable human resources and intellect has been relocating from the country in search of 'greener' pastures to the urban areas and the world over. These problems have taken a turn for the worse with the economic down turn in the country, in the last 20 years. Nigerian rural areas has seen highly skilled professional migrate from their communities to areas where they could fulfil their potential. This trend of Brain Drain has escalated in magnitude to the level that has been causing serious concern and the inherent implications for the Countries ability to sustainable capacity building for development and plan strategically. As the country continue to search for developmental strategy to help limit the effect of Brain Drain there is a need to introduce to modern and digital technology media as part of the strategy to help limit the effect of Brain Drain on educational learning in rural communities in cross river state of Nigeria. A strategy anchored on technology based on two way partnership with developed countries that benefits more from this kind of migration to help reduce or limit this kind of migration.
This research will be investigating the reasons why valuable human resources are leaving the rural areas to urban areas, although the reason appears to be diverse, ranging from professional to economical. There are also pull and push factors, some of the reasons for the departures stem from lack of fund, internal conflict to political indifference by the government of the day to develop a strategy in other toexecute capacity building and domestic policies, which has resulted in imbalances between labour supply and demand. The imbalances are now being acutely accentuated by the impact of the Brain Drain.


This paper evaluates the impact of idiosyncratic productivity shocks to individual firms on aggregate output. Two sources of firm-level heterogeneity contribute to aggregate fluctuations: (i) asymmetries in supplier-buyer relationships and (ii) the skewed distribution of sales to final demand. We first develop a model with monopolistic competitive firms and derive a generalized centrality measure that takes these two sources of heterogeneity into account. The model is subsequently estimated using unique data on firm-to-firm transactions across all economic activities in Belgium. The model generates aggregate volatility from micro origins in the same order of magnitude as observed volatility in GDP. The top 100 firms contribute to 90% of the volatility generated by the model, underlining a strong granularity of the economy. Counterfactual analysis further shows that both sources of micro heterogeneity contribute substantially to aggregate fluctuations, while the relative contribution of each channel crucially depends on the labor share in the economy.


Extracted from text ... TRANSFER PRICING
6 May 2006 Moneyweb's TAX BREAKS
SARS looks at deals
done ten years ago
By JACQUES VAN RHYN
SOUTH African taxpayers - particularly
large companies - beware!
SARS has refocused attention on
the disclosure of transfer pricing for
cross-border transactions retrospective
to the late Nineties, which could
result in the payment of billions of
rands in additional taxes and penalties.
Transfer pricing legislation
(Section 31 of the Income Tax Act)
has been around for more than ten
years, but in recent months there
have been differing views concerning
what exactly is required from
taxpayers regarding transfer-pricing
compliance ..


Background

Fluoxetine, one kind of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), has rarely been reported to be related to vasculitis in adults.

Methods

Herein we present a boy who developed Henoch–Schonlein purpura (HSP) during treatment with fluoxetine.

Results

This 8-year-old boy suffered from depression about 3 months after he entered a new school. He visited a psychiatric clinic and fluoxetine was prescribed. The response was good and he went back to school smoothly. Sixth weeks later, he developed purpuric rash over bilateral lower extremities which extended to buttock and hands in two days. Mild painful swelling over left ankle was also noted when he was admitted. The investigations were normal including complete blood cell & platelet count, blood biochemistry, liver function tests, prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time, serum immunoglobulin A and fibrinogen level. Yet D-dimer level was elevated to 8927 μg/dl (normalA¯Â¼Âœ500), consistent with vasculitis. The diagnosis of HSP was made and fluoxetine ceased. Treatment was given with Prednisolone and Ranitidine, after which the purpura resolved in one week.

Conclusions

HSP related to fluoxetine medication has rarely been reported in the young adults. Our case may attribute to be the youngest one who receives fluoxetine therapy and give us an example of the potential adverse effect of fluoxetine to the children.


Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled growth and proliferation whereby cells have escaped the body's normal growth control mechanisms and have gained the ability to divide indefinitely. It is a multi-step process that requires the accumulation of many genetic changes over time (Figure 1). These genetic alterations involve activation of proto-oncogenes to oncogenes, deregulation of tumour suppressor genes and DNA repair genes and 'immortalisation' which will be discussed in this chapter. Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences Publication Details Bommer, U., Vine, K. L. & Cancer Council Australia, O. (2014). Cancer biology: molecular and genetic basis. In S. Sabesan, I. Olver & O. Cancer Council Australia (Eds.), Clinical Oncology for Medical Students (p. On Line). Sydney: Cancer Council Australia Oncology Education Committee. This book chapter is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/ihmri/478


The recent era of economic turbulence has generated a growing enthusiasm for an increase in new and original economic insights based around the concepts of reciprocity and social enterprise. This stimulating and thought-provoking Handbook not only encourages and supports this growth, but also emphasises and expands upon new topics and issues within the economics discourse.


There was only one catch, and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was deeply moved by the simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. "That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.


IoT devices have complex requirements but their limitations in terms of storage, network, computing, data analytics, scalability, and big data management require it to be used it with a technology like cloud computing. IoT backend with cloud computing can present new ways to offer services that are massively scalable, can be dynamically configured, and delivered on demand with large scale infrastructure resources. However, a single cloud infrastructure might be unable to deal with the increasing demand of cloud services in which hundreds of users might be accessing cloud resources, leading to a big data problem and the need for efficient frameworks to handle a large number of user requests for IoT services. These challenges require new functional elements and provisioning schemes. To this end, we propose the usage of multi-clouds with IoT which can optimize the user requirements by allowing them to choose best IoT services from many services hosted in various cloud platforms and provide them with more infrastructure and platform resources to meet their requirements. This paper presents a novel framework for dynamic and secure IoT services access across multi-clouds using the cloud on-demand model. To facilitate multi-cloud collaboration, novel protocols are designed and implemented on cloud platforms. The various stages involved in the framework for allowing users access to IoT services in multi-clouds are service matchmaking (i.e., to choose the best service matching user requirements), authentication (i.e., a lightweight mechanism to authenticate users at runtime before granting them service access), and SLA management (including, SLA negotiation, enforcement, and monitoring). SLA management offers benefits like negotiating required service parameters, enforcing mechanisms to ensure that service execution in the external cloud is according to the agreed SLAs and monitoring to verify that the cloud provider complies with those SLAs. The detailed system design to establish secure multi-cloud collaboration has been presented. Moreover, the designed protocols are empirically implemented on two different clouds, including OpenStack and Amazon AWS. Experiments indicate that the proposed system is scalable, authentication protocols result only in a limited overhead compared to standard authentication protocols, and any SLA violation by a cloud provider could be recorded and reported back to the user.


T his paper pr esented a study of the laser jet soldering process based on 55 μm tin balls. In the tin ball-based laser jet soldering, t he N 2 pressure should be increased and the laser energy value should be decreased as the diameter of the tin ball decreased. Moreover, the distribution of laser energy significantly affected soldering quality. Through using DoE methodology, the optimized parameters for laser jet soldering based on 55 μm tin balls were obtained. To eliminate the increasing of dispersity of the pitch static angle (PSA) caused by soldering micro-deformation, an optimized soldering sequence and two additional supports on tongue piece were taken. Volume production showed that the proposed laser jet soldering process based on 55 μm tin balls can manufacture HGA products with a qualification ratio of approximately 99.3%. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.22.4.16164


Recently, the information-theoretical framework has been proven to be able to obtain non-vacuous generalization bounds for large models trained by Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) with isotropic noise. In this paper, we optimize the information-theoretical generalization bound by manipulating the noise structure in SGLD. We prove that with constraint to guarantee low empirical risk, the optimal noise covariance is the square root of the expected gradient covariance if both the prior and the posterior are jointly optimized. This validates that the optimal noise is quite close to the empirical gradient covariance. Technically, we develop a new information-theoretical bound that enables such an optimization analysis. We then apply matrix analysis to derive the form of optimal noise covariance. Presented constraint and results are validated by the empirical observations.


The player draft in Major League Baseball began in 1965. This paper examines the reasons for the draft and how it has changed over the years. With the advent of free agency in 1975 and the growing strength of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the draft has played an important part in compensating teams for the loss of a free agent, and the players' union has become a participant in the determination of draft rules. There is also an interesting legal overplay to consider because the draft is anticompetitive and restricts player movement in the labor market. Of special interest in this paper is team preference in drafting players who have participated in college baseball. In the past, a large percentage of players chosen in the draft have come out of high school. In recent years, however, clubs have come to place a higher value on college players because of the seasoning and maturity they possess. Of course, more men attend college today than ever before, so it is only natural that a greater proportion of the draft would come from the collegiate ranks. We take this into account in our analysis of draft preference. The problems in the operation of the draft and proposed changes to it are also reviewed in this paper. ORIGINS OF THE DRAFT The first professional draft in team sports was in the NFL. In 1935 two of its teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Eagles, got into a bidding war for the services of Stan Kostka, an All-American fullback from the University of Minnesota. (1) The result of this competition was that Brooklyn paid Kostka a salary of $5,000, which was the same as that of the highest paid player in the league, the legendary fullback for the Chicago Bears, Bronco Nagurski. Ironically, Kostka played only one season in the NFL. As a result of this incident, Bert Bell, who was the Eagles' owner and later NFL commissioner, proposed a draft system in which teams would select amateur players in reverse order of their record in the previous season, with the worst team getting the top choice. The NFL draft went into effect in 1936. The top draft pick in the first draft was running back Jay Berwanger, who had won the inaugural Heisman trophy at the University of Chicago. Berwanger chose to pursue a business career and never played in the NFL. Today, all of the major team sports have amateur drafts that operate on the same principle of allowing weaker teams higher choices. The NBA'S draft went into effect in 1949, and the NHL'S in 1963. The biggest difference in the various drafts today is that the NBA and NHL have lottery systems in which several teams with the poorest records have a chance at the number one pick. This was done to prevent teams from intentionally losing games late in the season in order to get the highest choices. Beginning in 1954, Major League team owners established a system that required any player who received a signing bonus of more than $4,000 to be kept on the team's Major League roster for two years. The problem with this rule was that the "bonus babies" were young players who were often not ready to perform well at the big-league level. Yet they could not be sent to the Minor Leagues for necessary seasoning. A case in point is Sandy Koufax. In 1954 Koufax signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers for $20,000, including $6,000 as his first year's salary and a $14,000 bonus. (2) Because of the bonus rule, the Dodgers had to keep Koufax on their Major League roster for the 1955 and 1956 seasons. Koufax was a great prospect and became one of the finest left-handed pitchers ever, but he had problems throwing strikes early in his career. With a veteran pitching staff and fighting to win pennants, Dodger manager Walter Alston seldom allowed Koufax to pitch. He appeared in only 12 games as a rookie and 16 games in 1956, pitching a total of only one hundred innings. At least Koufax later became a success. …


The paper presents a philosophy and theory for the design of a system that would mediate between the librarian as a knowledge worker and the library as a learning organization. It does this by combining Activity Theory and Ecological Interface Design.. The task to be supported is that of classification. The hypothesis is that the task of library classification can be supported by using the surrounding organization as an interactive learning environment, as the process of organizational learning depends on an appreciation of the cognitive process of classification.


We present a new method using Bayesian probability theory and neural networks for the evaluation of speckle interference patterns for an automated analysis of deformation and erosion measurements. The method is applied to the fringe pattern reconstruction of speckle measurements with a Twyman-Green interferometer. Given a binary speckle image, the method returns the fringe pattern without noise, thus removing the need for smoothing and allowing a straightforward unwrapping procedure and determination of the surface shape. Because no parameters have to be adjusted, the method is especially suited for continuous and automated monitoring of surface changes.


: Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the management of the products and goods flow from its origin point to point of consumption. During the process of SCM, information and dataset gathered for this application is massive and complex. This is due to its several processes such as procurement, product development and commercialization, physical distribution, outsourcing and partnerships. For a practical application, SCM datasets need to be managed and maintained to serve a better service to its three main categories; distributor, customer and supplier. To manage these datasets, a structure of data constellation is used to accommodate the data into the spatial database. However, the situation in geospatial database creates few problems, for example the performance of the database deteriorate especially during the query operation. We strongly believe that a more practical hierarchical tree structure is required for efficient process of SCM. Besides that, three-dimensional approach is required for the management of SCM datasets since it involve with the multi-level location such as shop lots and residential apartments. 3D R-Tree has been increasingly used for 3D geospatial database management due to its simplicity and extendibility. However, it suffers from serious overlaps between nodes. In this paper, we proposed a partition-based clustering for the construction of a hierarchical tree structure. Several datasets are tested using the proposed method and the percentage of the overlapping nodes and volume coverage are computed and compared with the original 3D R-Tree and other practical approaches. The experiments demonstrated in this paper substantiated that the hierarchical structure of the proposed partition-based clustering is capable of preserving minimal overlap and coverage. The query performance was tested using 300,000 points of a SCM dataset and the results are presented in this paper. This paper also discusses the outlook of the structure for future reference.


The article is devoted to the study of English semi-idioms (a term suggested by A. Kunin), units with both terminological and metaphorical meanings. These units were studied from different angles but here their dual nature is viewed through the possibility of providing an experiment. The paper shows how a linguistic experiment can reveal not only the meaning of some unit, but the peoples' attitude towards the use of these phrases, their individual level of understanding, interpreting and realising. As cognition is very important in the understanding of semantics, as well as a new perspective in the study of phraseology, a synergetic approach as well as a cognitive one is becoming one of the ways to scrutinising the nature of terminological phraseological units. The paper focuses on the possible ways of showing that terms can develop metaphorical meanings though sometimes people have no ideas of the etymology of some units. An experiment to show the dual nature of such units as terminological phraseologisms was provided on the bases of a specially created questionnaire. The result of the experiment proved that some terms can acquire new metaphorical meanings and function in the language and speech as phraseological units. The results of the experiment as well as various references to the matter of the study – semi-idioms – may turn to be useful in language studies, learning English as a second language, investigating English Terminology and Phraseology.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


This study examines how Spanish native speakers (NSs) and second language (L2) learners deal with changing frames in talk. Goffman's (1974) ideas of frames and 'keys' are extended to NS-learner informal interviews to characterize the pragmatic resources that NS and learners use to change frames. The data indicate that the participants signal changes using various pragmatic resources, such as questions implying a new frame, personal comments, and emotional reactions such as laughter or sympathy. Frame changes can also be rejected. The study illustrates the role of pragmatics in pointing to changes in the discourse, showing that L2 communication difficulties can stem from such changes. These pragmatic resources should be part of the description of 'shared repertoires' that facilitate dialogue in NS-learner communities.


This paper will describe CiDRA's patented clamp-on, passive sonar array-based flow meter technology which performs two fundamental and independent measurements – flow rate and entrained air. Firstly, the meter provides the volumetric flow rate of the mixture by measuring the speed at which naturally occurring turbulent structures convect with the flow past an axial array of sensors wrapped around existing process pipe. Secondly, the meter utilizes similar sonar-based processing techniques and the naturally occurring acoustical propagation in the process pipe to measure sound speed and hence the entrained air levels in slurries and fluids. This unique ability enables robust, reliable flow measurements in a wide variety of flows – high solids content slurries, heavy oils, bitumen flows and liquids/slurries with entrained air content. Also to be presented in this paper is the adoption and application of CiDRA's SONARtrac™ product technology in a variety of oil sands, oil & gas, and minerals processing applications, helping to address the needs of measurement integrity, reliability and value delivery to the customer. In addition, case studies will be presented describing how the clamp-on sonar-based technology can be leveraged and applied to help characterize and deliver new insight into fluid mechanics of slurries and fluids in these industries, leveraging the two fundamental measurements of the clamp-on, passive sonar-based technology into new product extensions such as velocity profiling, gas hold-up for column flotation and secondary-phase measurement for density-based meters in the presence of air/gas.


The Goonumbla Volcanic Complex (GVC) of central-west New South Wales, Australia, is part
of the Ordovician Macquarie Island Arc. The upper unit of the GVC, the Wombin Volcanics,
comprises submarine shoshonitic lavas and associated volcaniclastic rocks, and hosts four
economic porphyry Cu-Au deposits, Endeavour 22 (E22), E26, E27 and E48. Together these
deposits have a combined ore reserve of 63.6Mt @ 1.1 % Cu and O.5g/t Au. Mineralisation is
centred on thin, pipe-like quartz monzonite porphyry (QMP) complexes that intruded the
\Vombin Volcanics in an ex tensional regime towards the end of the Late Ordovician.
Despite being some of the smallest economic porphyry deposits in the world in terms of
tonnage and cross-sectional area, detailed pit mapping and drillcore logging has led to the
recognition of eight intrusive phases within the QMP complexes of the Endeavour deposits. The
oldest intrusive phase is a coarse-grained, equigranular monzodiorite intrusion that is restricted to
the deeper parts of E26. This intrusion has a sheared contact with the next oldest phase,
equigranular to weakly porphyritic biotite quartz monzonite (BQM) intrusions, which are
recognised at all four deposits. A series of three variably felsic QMP phases emplaced over a
short period of time after the BQM comprise the central QMP complexes; 1) volumetrically
minor early- and late-mineral biotite phyric QMP (B-QMP) dykes and dykelets, 2) volumetrically
dominant syn-mineral K-feldspar phyric QMP intrusions (K-QMP) and 3) less abundant syn-to
late-mineral augite-biotite K-feldspar phyric QMP (KA-QMP) intrusions, which intruded the
cores of the K-QMP bodies. Basaltic trachyandesite dykes and augite phyric monzorute porphyry
("zero" porphyry) dykes at E26 represent post-mineral phases of intrusive activity associated with
the Endeavour deposits. Mafic dykes of uncertain age also intrude the Endeavour deposits.
Four main stages of hydrothermal activity have been recognised at each deposit. The Early
Stage, associated with the intrusion of the BQM and comprising biotite-magnetite alteration of the
host volcanic rocks and K-feldspar alteration of the BQM, overprinted pre-mineral albite-sericite
alteration assemblages in the BQM and host volcanic rocks at each deposit. Transitional Stage
vein dykes, brain rock and other related anisotropic textures formed during the transition from
magmatic to hydrothermal activity. Main Stage sulphide mineralisation at all four deposits is
spatially and temporally associated with the K-QMP, and to a lesser extent, KA-QMP intrusions
and their associated orthoclase alteration assemblages, which are characterised by multiple
generations of quartz, K-feldspar and sulphide veins. Late Stage phyllic alteration is magmatic -
hydrothermal in origin and comprises sericite-quartz-Cu-sulphide-carbonate-haematite assemblages. Part of the distal carbonate-guartz-sericite-base-metal sulphide propylitic
assemblages may be associated with the proximal phyllic assemblage. A second generation of
phyllic alteration is related to minor late stage faulting. Weak to moderate post-mineral propylitic
alteration assemblages associated with the thermal collapse of the Endeavour systems are the last
alteration event related to the Q:MP intrusive complexes.
Fluid inclusions in quartz from early, transitional: main and late stage veins have been analysed
from all four deposits. :M.icrothermometric results indicate that the Endeavour deposits were
emplaced to depths between 1000 and 1700m below the palaeo surface. Early, metal-rich
magmatic - hydrothermal fluids, were typically hot (>550°C) and had salinities of -60 wt% NaCI
± KCI eg., whereas those associated with transitional "magmatic" guartz were slightly cooler (550
- 500°C), though still as saline. Fluids that produced the transitional "hydrothermal" quartz had
average calculated salinities of -55wt% NaCI + KC! eg. and circulated at temperatures of
-500°C; they wer~ more metal-rich than the egually saline, cooler (-460°C) fluids associated with
the main mineralising event. These relationships are interpreted to imply that transitional
hydrothermal fluids represent the ore-carrying fluids, wruch cooled and thus precipitated metal
sulphides during the main mineralising event of the Endeavour deposits. Late stage fluids were the
coolest (350 - 400°C) and least saline (-40 wt% NaCl eg.) and had elevated K and Ca contents
compared to other fluids; fearures consistent with wallrock buffering of cooling magmatichydrothermal
fluids.
&34S values for the Endeavour sulphides range from -19.7 to +0.7%0 (mean -5.1 %0; standard
deviation 2.7%0); those for sulphates range from +4.4 to +21.8%0 (mean +9.2%0; standard
deviation 4.2%0). The isotopic compositions of sulphate - sulphide pairs and temperature
estimates from the fluid inclusion study were used to establish that the initial &34S" of the
magmatic - hydrothermal fluid was -+1.5%0. A broad temporal and lateral zonation towards
heavier Isotopic compositions in sulphides with time and distance from the cores of the
Endeavour deposits is interpreted to reflect wallrock buffering as th~ systems cooled. The
extremely negative &"S values may reflect local sulphide precipitation from hyper-oxidised ore
fluids Wlth H,S:SO, ratios much less than the original magmatic - hydrothermal fluid.
Biotite halogen contents indicate that the magmas that produced the BQM and QMP
intrusions were depleted in Cl and enriched in F relative to the magmatic - hydrothermal fluids
that produced Cl-rich secondary biotite. These magmatic - hydrothermal fluids also caused Clenrichment
in many of the primary biotite phenocrysts in the K-QMP intrusions. Apatites in
regional intrusions are relatively Cl-poor and Fe-rich compared to the F- and Fe-depleted apatites
in the BQM and QMP intrusions associated with the Endeavour deposits. The higher F contents
of biotites and apatites, and lower Fe contents of apatites in ore-related intrusions are consistent
with higher degrees of fractionation in these intrusions compared to regional intrusions Geochemical characteristics of the regional volcanic and intrusive rocks deftne a systematic
trend consistent "vith high-temperature magmatic fracuonation of basaltic trachyandesite through
trachyte, with increasing K,O and decreasing TiO" Al,O), Fe,O), CaO and MgO contents with
increasing Si02 contents. These trends continue through to the QMP intrusions associated with
the Endeavour deposits. However, while there is progressive fractionation through the se9u~nce
of ore-related QMP intrusions, a direct progression by fractionation from the BQM intrUsions to
the QMP intrUsions is not indicated. Contrary to previous models that invoke the BQM as the
parent stock from which the Q:tvfP phases emanated, this srudy shows that the Ba, Sr, Rb, Y, Nb
and Zr contents of the BQM preclude it from generating the trace element compositions
characteristic of the QMP complexes solely by crystal fractionation. The REE patterns of Ql'.1P
phases are also not explainable by crystal fractionation effects alone. Instead, the QMP complexes
and associated alteration and mineralisation assemblages at E22, E26, E27 and E48 are interpreted
to have formed in response to the emplacement of a series of mafic shoshonitic melts into the
base of a crystallising, zoned, monzodiorite to monzonite magma chamber. Episodic movement
along deep-seated, mantle-tapping (?) strUcture(s), possibly the Lachlan Transverse Zone, could
have triggered the emplacement of these mafic shoshonitic melts. Related movements on
shallow-crustal fault systems above the magma chamber probably caused instantaneous
depressurisation and the repeated simultaneous egress of melt (QMP) and exsolved aqueous fluid
into dilatant zones. Localised fracturing and additional volatile exsolution from the QMP melt is
thought to have led to the formation of the narrow QMP complexes and associated Cu-Aubearing
stockwork veins and related orthoc1ase alteration. The volatile-rich aqueous fluid
partitioned LREE preferentially to MREE, preferentially to HREE, resulting in the development
of distinctive "u-shaped" REE patterns of the ore-related intrusions.


Xisha Islands are in the central South China Sea and form one of the four large island groups in this region. They include more than 40 islands, reefs and cays, and have considerable ecological and biodiversity value, both intrinsically and as a source of larvae for coastal ecosystems throughout the South China Sea. Yongle atoll is the biggest and one of the most important atolls in the Xisha Islands. The detailed surveys of the marine habitats in the Yongle atoll were conducted from June to July 2013. This baseline survey revealed coral communities in a relatively healthy condition. Mean coral cover of different geomorphic habitats varied from 2 to 29%. Branching corals were most important, followed by encrusting and massive growth forms (48, 29 and 17% of coral cover). Pocillopora (29% of total cover in line transects), Porites (19%), Acropora (17%) and Montipora (16%) were the four dominant genera. Communities differentiated into four clusters, namely, lower reef slope, upper reef slope, outer reef flat, and inner reef flat and lagoon slope. This baseline investigation highlighted the ecological value of these reefs. Destructive fishing and overfishing are presently the most serious threats for these coral reefs. They should receive much more scientific and conservation attention.


The base pairs in double helical nucleic acids have been compared to see how they can be recognized by proteins. We conclude that a single hydrogen bond is inadequate for uniquely identifying any particular base pair, as this leads to numerous degeneracies. However, using two hydrogen bonds, fidelity of base pair recognition may be achieved. We propose specific amino-acid side chain interactions involving two hydrogen bonds as a component of the recognition system for base pairs. In the major groove we suggest that asparagine or glutamine binds to adenine of the base pair or arginine binds to guanine. In the minor groove, we suggest an interaction between asparagine or glutamine with guanine of the base pair. We also discuss the role that ions and other amino-acid side chains may play in recognition interactions.


This chapter reviews the progress in developing new tools and procedures for the rapid and reliable diagnosis of tuberculosis. A definitive diagnosis of tuberculosis requires the identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli in patient specimens. A definitive diagnosis of tuberculosis requires the identification of M. tuberculosis bacilli in patient specimens. In general, the commercially available assays display sensitivities and specificities approaching 100% for the detection and identification of these species and can usually be completed in a few hours. One easily detected component of M. tuberculosis is tuberculostearic acid, which can be detected in femtomole quantities by gas-liquid chromatography. Several diagnositic procedures have been described for use with M. tuberculosis and include strand displacement amplification (SDA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, transcription-mediated amplification (TMA), reporter phage systems, oligonucleotide ligation amplification, and Q-beta replicase amplification. If one uses a physician's diagnosis of tuberculosis as the gold standard, then the MTD test displayed 95% sensitivity and 96% specificity for correctly identifying persons as having tuberculosis. Given the importance of drug-resistant tuberculosis, it would be advantageous to determine drug susceptibilities directly from clinical specimens and avoid the time required for culture. The luciferase reporter technology has been used to develop simple and rapid screening procedures to identify new antituberculosis agents.


Successful application of piezoresistive sensors for stress measurement requires both properly designed sensors and accurately calibrated values of the piezoresistive coefficients as well as a knowledge of potential sources of error that may be encountered during sensor application. In this work, results of analyses of errors associated with the design, calibration and application of piezoresistive stress sensors fabricated on (100) silicon are presented. In particular, sensor rotational alignment errors during fabrication and resistance measurements errors during calibration have strong effects on the values of the piezoresistive coefficients that are extracted from the calibration process. Also, calibration errors induced by mismatches in the resistor values and/or the actual piezoresistive coefficients of the various resistors in a sensor rosette have been quantified, and the importance of using data acquired only from well-matched resistor rosettes is demonstrated. Finally, it is shown that temperature measurement errors play a pivotal role in determining accuracy of the results obtained during calibration and application of these sensors. >


The continuous flow focussing and manipulation of particles and cells are important factors in microfluidic applications for performing accurate and reproducible procedures downstream. Many particle focussing methods require complex setups or channel designs that can limit the process and its applications. Here, we present diamagnetic repulsion as a simple means of focussing objects in continuous flow, based only on their intrinsic properties without the requirement of any label. Diamagnetic polystyrene particles were suspended in a paramagnetic medium and pumped through a capillary between a pair of permanent magnets, whereupon the particles were repelled by each magnet into the central axis of the capillary, thus achieving focussing. By investigating this effect, we found that the focussing was greatly enhanced with (i) increased magnetic susceptibility of the medium, (ii) reduced flow rate of the suspension, (iii) increased particle size, and (iv) increased residence time in the magnetic field. Furthermore, we applied diamagnetic repulsion to the flow focussing of living, label-free HaCaT cells.


The Expediency of Culture is a pioneering theorization of the changing role of culture in an increasingly globalized world. George Yudice explores critically how groups ranging from indigenous activists to nation-states to nongovernmental organizations have all come to see culture as a valuable resource to be invested in, contested, and used for varied sociopolitical and economic ends. Through a dazzling series of illustrative studies, Yudice challenges the Gramscian notion of cultural struggle for hegemony and instead develops an understanding of culture where cultural agency at every level is negotiated within globalized contexts dominated by the active management and administration of culture. He describes a world where "high" culture (such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain) is a mode of urban development, rituals and everyday aesthetic practices are mobilized to promote tourism and the heritage industries, and mass culture industries comprise significant portions of a number of countries' gross national products.

Yudice contends that a new international division of cultural labor has emerged, combining local difference with transnational administration and investment. This does not mean that today's increasingly transnational culture—exemplified by the entertainment industries and the so-called global civil society of nongovernmental organizations—is necessarily homogenized. He demonstrates that national and regional differences are still functional, shaping the meaning of phenomena from pop songs to antiracist activism. Yudice considers a range of sites where identity politics and cultural agency are negotiated in the face of powerful transnational forces. He analyzes appropriations of American funk music as well as a citizen action initiative in Rio de Janeiro to show how global notions such as cultural difference are deployed within specific social fields. He provides a political and cultural economy of a vast and increasingly influential art event— in site a triennial festival extending from San Diego to Tijuana. He also reflects on the city of Miami as one of a number of transnational "cultural corridors" and on the uses of culture in an unstable world where censorship and terrorist acts interrupt the usual channels of capitalist and artistic flows.


Self-propelled catalytic micromotors offer considerable promise in terms of many applications. Catalytic micromotors are strongly influenced by the presence and concentration of specific ions and chemicals in the environment, making them useful as sensors and actuators. In this work, copper (Cu)-platinum (Pt) micromotors were fabricated by using the magnetron sputtering method for the first time in the literature and their applications based on the detection of miRNA-21 were evaluated. We analyzed the dependence of the mobility of Cu-Pt micromotors using different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H$_{2}$O$_{2})$. The presence of surfactants in the environment is also important for the movement of the micromotors. Thus, we studied the effect of three different surfactants: anionic as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cationic as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and nonionic as Triton X-100. Cu-Pt micromotor motion was observed even at very low concentrations of surfactant (0.01%) and hydrogen peroxide (0.25%). miRNAs have been regarded as biomarker candidates in early diagnosis. Our sensing strategy relied on dye-labeled single-stranded DNA immobilization onto Cu-Pt micromotors that recognize the target miRNA-21. The changes in the fluorescence intensity as well as the changes in the speed of micromotors were examined before and after hybridization.


A method for automatically suppressing the polarization fluctuation in a resonator fiber optic gyro by adopting a resonator with twin 90° polarization-axis rotated splices is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. The scheme ensures that the input electric field excites only the desired eigenstate of polarization in the resonator by automatically setting the length difference of the fiber segments between the two 90° polarization-axis rotated splicing points at one half of the beat length of the polarization maintaining fiber. The feasibility of the proposed scheme is shown by simulation using a mathematical model based on the Jones transfer matrix. It is also demonstrated experimentally that the bias stability is enhanced when the feedback scheme is adopted.


Legacy radioactive tank waste is slated to undergo vitrification at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plate (WTP) using Joule-heated, ceramic-lined melters. A high-fidelity, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the pilot-scale DM1200 melter has been developed to provide an understanding of the heat transfer and fluid dynamics within the WTP melters. Monitoring of the non-radioactive pilot-scale system has been primarily done through visual observations. However, visual observations will not be possible in the full-scale radioactive melter and process control will be based upon the measured plenum temperatures. Using the CFD model, the effect of the cold cap coverage on the plenum temperature can be assessed. The plenum temperature within the DM1200 is primarily driven by the amount and distribution of the cold cap coverage on the melt pool, since thermal radiation is the dominant mode of heat transfer at these temperatures. Plenum temperatures in the DM1200 obtained during pilot-scale testing by the Vitreous State Laboratory were used for model validation. A standard LeNet-1 convolutional neural network (CNN) is used to predict the spatial cold cap coverage of the model from the computed plenum temperature distributions derived from known cold cap topologies. With a 16 cm × 16 cm filter applied, an accuracy of 89% was achieved.


Modeling the deformation of shapes under constraints on both perimeter and area is a challenging task due to the highly nontrivial interaction between the need for flexible local rules for manipulating the boundary and the global constraints. We propose several methods to address this problem and generate ldquorandom walksrdquo in the space of shapes obeying quite general possibly time varying constraints on their perimeter and area. Design of perimeter and area preserving deformations are an interesting and useful special case of this problem. The resulting deformation models are employed in annealing processes that evolve original shapes toward shapes that are optimal in terms of boundary bending-energy or other functionals. Furthermore, such models may find applications in the analysis of sequences of real images of deforming objects obeying global constraints as building blocks for registration and tracking algorithms.


Surface vibrational spectroscopy by sum-frequency generation was used to study hydrophobicity at the molecular level at various interfaces: water—surfactant-coated quartz, water-hexane, and water-air. In all cases, hydrophobicity was characterized by the appearance of dangling hydroxyl bonds on 25 percent of the surface water molecules. At the water-quartz interface, packing restrictions force the water surface layer to have a more ordered, ice-like structure. A partly wettable water-quartz interface was also studied.