Stress fractures are common in the limb bones of human and equine athletes alike. Repetitive
skeletal loading can lead to remodeling and the accumulation of microdamage in bone, which only
becomes grossly evident during catastrophic fracture of the bone due to the accumulated
microdamage. Though various metrics attempting to quantify bone health exist, none have
distinguished themselves as early predictors of the susceptibility of bone to fracture. In this
exploratory study, we examine the ability of several evaluation methods to distinguish between
third metacarpal (MC3) bones from racehorses that have experienced a limb-bone fracture and
from those that have not. Third metacarpal bones were harvested from deceased Thoroughbred
racehorses and categorized into four groups: MC3 bones from horses whose cause of death was
not related to skeletal fracture (Control group, n = 20), MC3 bones form horses that were
euthanized after fracturing proximal sesamoid bones (Sesamoid group, n = 20), MC3 bones from
horses that were euthanized after fracturing a non-MC3 long bone (Long Bone group, n = 19), and
MC3 bones from horses that were euthanized after fracturing an MC3 (MC3 group, n = 5). Each
MC3 bone underwent testing using a variety of tools and methods at the proximal, midshaft, and
distal levels of the lateral, dorsal, and medial surfaces. All tools and methods (OsteoProbe
reference point indentation, BioDent reference point indentation, x-ray, micro-CT, and pQCT)
exhibited some capability in differentiating between control and fracture groups. The long-term
objective of this project is to create a model that will utilize data from a set of evaluations and
output the susceptibility of the horse to fracture a bone, a long bone, or the MC3, specifically.
Although the sample size in this study is not sufficient to create a reliably predictive logistic
regression model, promising results from preliminary models provide incentive to further explore
the possibility of creating one. While clinical practicality will be a vital consideration for a model
in the future, establishing this basis for the capability of each evaluation at hand is a necessary first
step in predicting and preventing fracture in bone.


ABSTRACT The growing prevalence of atherosclerosis means that perioperative myocardial infarction (PMI) is of significant concern to anesthesiologists. Perioperative revascularization (if indicated medically), beta blockade (in high risk patients) and statin therapy are therapeutic modalities that are currently employed to reduce PMI. Statins not only lower low density lipoprotein levels but, via their actions on the isoprene pathway, exhibit pleiotropic effects. Statins stabilize vulnerable plaque, predominantly via their anti-inflammatory effects, and improve the functioning of the endothelium in atherosclerosis. These effects appear to reduce the perioperative complications of atherosclerotic lesions. It is important to have an understanding of newer developments in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis to be able to appreciate the mechanisms of action of statins. The focus has changed from identification of stenotic coronary lesions to the identification of vulnerable plaque. This review is divided into 2 parts. The first part focuses on the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis. The second part will be published in a later issue and will discuss the pharmacology of statins and the mechanisms whereby they may reduce the incidence of PMI.


We derive structural parameters and evidence for extended tidal debris from star count and preliminary standard candle analyses of the Large Magellanic Cloud based on Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) data. The full-sky coverage and low extinction in Ks present an ideal sample for structural analysis of the LMC. The star count surface densities and deprojected inclination for both young and older populations are generally consistent with previous work. We fit the projected density with an exponential disk or spherical power-law model with an optional two-dimensional elliptical bar. The derived disk scale length is R = 1.42 ± 0.01 kpc for models without the bar and R = 2.15 ± 0.01 kpc for models with the bar included. The median value for the bar axis ratio is q = 3.4 for intermediate and old LMC populations and q = 4.1 for young populations. The radial profile shows evidence for disk truncation near 3 kpc. We use the full areal coverage and large "LMC diameter"/"Galactocentric" distance ratio to infer the disk inclination based on perspective. The values for inclination derived from different populations range from 22° to 29°, with the variance weighted average i = 24.°0 ± 0.°3. The inclinations derived from models including the bar result in a larger estimate, i = 38.°2 ± 0.°4. A standard candle analysis based on a sample of carbon long-period variables (LPV) in a narrow color range, 1.6 < J-Ks < 1.7, allows us to probe the three-dimensional structure of the LMC along the line of sight. The intrinsic brightness distribution of carbon LPVs in selected fields implies that σM ≲ 0.2 mag for this color cut. The sample provides a direct determination of the LMC disk inclination: 42.°3 ± 7.°2. Distinct features in the photometric distribution suggest several distinct populations. We interpret this as the possible presence of an extended stellar component of the LMC, which may be as thick as 8 kpc, and intervening tidal debris at roughly 14 kpc from the LMC. Alternatively, these features may be intrinsic to asymptotic giant branch evolution and motivate additional theoretical modeling.


This paper summarises an emerging new theory of competition, contrasts the new theory with the 1980's view, and outlines the main implications for managers and public policy makers. This new perspective on competition is termed the Resource-Advantage (R-A) Theory. The R-A Theory is grounded in empirical research which shows that variation between firms account for 45- 58% of firm profitability compared with industry effects of around 8-10%. This means that the key strategic task of managers is to create and nurture the resources and core competencies of the firm, rather than simply to decide which industries to compete in. The conventional wisdom in the 80's was that strategy was essentially about the fit between the firm and its environment. The R-A view, on the other hand, maintains that strategy is about creating core competencies and other strategic resources so that the firm can positively influence its environment. The successful firm is pro-active, not just reactive. The new theory also points out that industry level analysis - as exemplified by Michael Porter's 5-Forces model - is not an appropriate tool for analysing individual firms. In this paper, we show that the 80's perspective on using industry as the key influencer of firm profitability, and the inappropriate use of industry analysis at the firm level leads to a dialogue breakdown between managers and public policy makers concerned with competition, productivity and economic growth. We also show that superior performance is a reward for meeting customer needs and may be complementary to public policy. Successful firms need not be apologetic. The paper concludes with the main implications for managers and public policy makers.


Both the state and capital have been crucial for the evolving political economy of the Internet. This article briefly sketches the history of U.S. state action to shape and manage the extraterritorial Internet and explicates the escalating challenge to U.S. dominance that stems today from other governments. The article then examines the role of capital, viewed not as money or investment but as the contradictory social relation that is built around wage labor. Drawing on insights offered by Rosa Luxemburg, communication processes and practices—including but not limited to the Internet—are situated in relation to the historical reconstitution of the global working class.


The thrusts and associated fold structures of the Bristol–Mendip area are interpreted in terms of a thin skinned, piggy-back foreland thrust belt of Variscan age with dominant northward transport. Strike-normal balanced sections and compatible strike-parallel sections have been constructed to illustrate the 3-D geometry of the linked thrust system. North–south shortening of c. 20 km (40%) is calculated from deformed and restored strike-normal sections. A thick and extensive thrust wedge of pre-Old Red Sandstone basement in the west of the area is responsible for culminations expressed at the surface as the Mendip periclines. Uplifted culminations permit erosion to lower stratigraphic levels in the west and south of the area. Strike-parallel sections and a hanging wall cut-off map indicate that the majority of thrusts in the area are mainly oblique ramps rather than simple frontal and lateral ramps, or flats. The en-echelon pattern of the Mendip periclines may be related to the oblique NE climb of two of these thrusts. The angle of frontal ramp climb through the Dinantian stratigraphy is generally low, and this explains the presence of numerous klippen of Lower on Upper Carboniferous rocks, whilst suggesting that certain thrust sheets were much more extensive than present outcrops indicate. Early, pre-thrusting movement on basement lineaments in the Variscan foreland created uplifts, angular unconformities and a predominance of N–S structures in the north of the area.


Large areas in the tropics and at mid‐latitudes experience pronounced seasonality and inter‐annual variability in rainfall and hence water availability. Despite the importance of these seasonally dry ecosystems (SDEs) for the global carbon cycling and in providing ecosystem services, a unifying ecohydrological framework to interpret the effects of climatic variability on SDEs is still lacking. A synthesis of existing data about plant functional adaptations in SDEs, covering some 400 species, shows that leaf phenological variations, rather than physiological traits, provide the dominant control on plant‐water‐carbon interactions. Motivated by this result, the combined implications of leaf phenology and climatic variability on plant water use strategies are here explored with a minimalist model of the coupled soil water and plant carbon balances. The analyses are extended to five locations with different hydroclimatic forcing, spanning seasonally dry tropical climates (without temperature seasonality) and Mediterranean climates (exhibiting out of phase seasonal patterns of rainfall and temperature). The most beneficial leaf phenology in terms of carbon uptake depends on the climatic regime: evergreen species are favoured by short dry seasons or access to persistent water stores, whereas high inter‐annual variability of rainy season duration favours the coexistence of multiple drought‐deciduous phenological strategies. We conclude that drought‐deciduousness may provide a competitive advantage in face of predicted declines in rainfall totals, while reduced seasonality and access to deep water stores may favour evergreen species. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.


This article focuses on the treatment of collective intentions in individual criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity and war crimes, at the example of the emerging International Criminal Court's (ICC) jurisprudence. It is argued that collective ('joint' and 'indirect') perpetration accounts of ICC ought to provide first of all a coherent conception of collective intentions and actions to identify individuals involved in cooperative harm doing, to attribute harm to causally responsible individuals, and to provide grounds for formulating a 'decision method' necessary for distributiveness of moral blame. Secondly causal responsibility test for harm brought about in accordance with such intentions should (a) rely on strong sufficiency rather than normative attribution standart (real rather than hypothetical attribution); (b) specify that irreducible collective intention is a 'NESS' condition for attributing harm to liable individuals; (c) distinguish principals by formulating a stronger collective intention threshold that requires 'meshing' of individual participatory intentions. Finally allocation of moral blame for harm brought about collectively should (a) explain how moral blame is distributive among participants of collective actions, in order to avoid its blending into metaphysical shame or 'guilt by association'; (b) rely on collective intentions as a 'decision method' of harm-doing that distributes moral blame; (c) consider that 'strong' formulations of such 'decision method' blame superiors, and vice versa a weak 'decision method' would increase morally responsibility of final perpetrators.Whereas it has been argued in the literature that criminal prosecutions for human rights atrocities are at odds with liberal premises of human rights law including individual culpability, it is the purpose of this work to argue for such grounds and that ICC can address collective complicities based on respect for individual autonomy and without degenerating into collective guilt theories that disregard free will and moral responsibility.


Commercial aircraft today require efficient high-lift and control systems on the wings to reduce the drag in flight or decrease the take-off and landing speeds. Morphing mechanisms are one approach for improved high-lift systems. In most cases the objective function is an increased lift to drag ratio or the noise reduction. On closer examination control systems as well as morphing mechanisms are located in a certain wing segment. The transition between a moving wing part and the fixed wing is a step, which creates additional vortices. This segments the wing in span-wise direction and reduces the efficiency. A flexible skin between a moving and a fixed wing parts smooths the contour and minimize the efficiency reduction of the wing. A full scale demonstrator of a wing segment was manufactured with two flexible skin designs.
 The first subcomponent connects a morphing leading edge with a rib of the wing over a span of one meter. The skin is a material mix of ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) rubber and fiberglass-reinforced plastic. The rubber is the basis of the skin and the glass-fiber is added as local skin stiffeners in the form of strips in chord-wise direction. The second subcomponent blends the aileron with a rib of the wing in a triangular design. The connection of three different hinges realizes a morphing triangle, which is loaded in an in-plane shear only state of stress in each aileron position. The core of the triangle is a 3D printed structure, which is free in shear. The covering skin is a combination of EPDM with carbon fibers oriented in +/−30° direction to obtain shear compliance and to resist the loads on the triangle.
 The deformation of each concept is identified at the demonstrator. Therefore, an optical measurement system scans the surface in the initial and deflected state. The required deformation precision of the concepts differs due to their design. The contour at the leading edge requires a certain shape over the span. The analysis of the skin buckling is one requirement at the transition triangle during the aileron motion.
 The experimental results show a smooth transition contour at the leading edge and no buckling effects at the triangle. The results can be used for the validation of simulation models. Furthermore, both skin concepts cover the gap between a moving wing segment and a fixed wing part. The elimination of steps in span-wise direction can improve the aero-acoustic behavior along the wing for future aircraft.


Experimental apparatus and data analysis techniques used in neutral particle analyzer (NPA) diagnostics on the Tokamak a Configuration Variable (TCV) are described. Two NPAs are used on TCV to measure the energy spectrum of neutral particle fluxes from the plasma. The "five-channel energy analyzer of atomic particles" used in double electrical analysis mode with fast voltage sweeping detect particles without atomic mass discrimination in the energy range of 0.6-8.0 keV with a time resolution of 0.5-2.0 ms and an energy resolution of 7%-20%. The 28-channel "compact neutral particle analyzer" (CNPA) is an EIIB spectrometer with mass and energy separations designed for medium sized fusion machines featuring a carbon neutral stripping foil, a permanent magnet for dispersion, and channel-electron multiplier detectors. The CNPA simultaneously detects two mass species [hydrogen (H) and deuterium (D) or D and helium (He)] in the 0.5-50 keV energy range with a resolution of 60%-10% and a time resolution of 0.5-4.0 ms. The CNPA views the plasma across the path of the diagnostic neutral beam and can perform active charge-exchange NPA measurement. Data analysis procedures and numerical algorithms developed for NPA measurement are routinely used on TCV to obtain information on the plasma ion temperature, ion energy distribution function, plasma isotope ratios, and other plasma characteristics. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.


In this paper, we develop a framework to assess and communicate short-term risks to the general government budget. The project is motivated by the need to keep budgetary developments under constant surveillance and to timely identify sources of fiscal stress, such that the government can mitigate or even eliminate these by taking appropriate measures. We consider a concept of fiscal risk defined in terms of the expected deviation of the budget balance from its fiscal target. Our framework consists of three parts. First, we collect data input from various sources and identify potential one-off effects. Second, we forecast end-of-year values for revenue and expenditure items of the budget. We design a forecasting method that combines a simple heuristic method of time series forecasting with expert assessments. Third, we use the forecasted output to evaluate and communicate the fiscal risk level for a current fiscal year. Specifically, we use a concept of traffic light colors to report expected deviations of fiscal outcomes from their budgeted targets.


Efficient auto-scaling of cloud resources relies on the monitoring of the cloud, which involves multiple aggregation processes and large amounts of data with various and interdependent requirements. A systematic way of describing the data together with the possible aggregations is beneficial for designers to reason about the properties of these aspects as well as their implications on the design, thus improving quality and lowering development costs. In this paper, we propose to apply DAGGTAX, a featureoriented taxonomy for organizing common and variable data and aggregation process properties, to the design of cloud monitoring systems. We demonstrate the effectiveness of DAGGTAX via a case study provided by industry, which aims to design a cloud monitoring system that serves auto-scaling for a video streaming system. We design the cloud monitoring system by selecting and composing DAGGTAX features, and reason about the feasibility of the selected features. The case study shows that the application of DAGGTAX can help designers to identify reusable features, analyze trade-offs between selected features, and derive crucial system parameters. c © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Program Chairs.


Leucoencephalopathy with intracranial calcifications and cysts (LCC) is a rare disorder of unknown origin characterised radiologically by white matter abnormalities, calcifications and cysts with contrast enhancing nodules.1–4 Neuropathology reveals "angiomatous-like" rearrangements of microvessels and Rosenthal fibres (RF).1–3 The onset is almost invariably in early infancy to adolescence. Occurrence of disease in siblings suggests autosomal recessive inheritance.2 3 Neurological manifestations include cognitive decline, seizures, obstructive hydrocephalus, and progressive cerebellar, extrapyramidal and pyramidal signs. As some patients have visual disturbances and retinal vascular abnormalities resembling Coats' disease,2 LCC has been linked to Coats plus syndrome, a rare disease characterised by retinal vascular abnormalities, leucoencephalopathy and calcifications without brain cysts.2 5 Systemic involvement is common with haematological, enteric, dermatological or skeletal abnormalities.2 5 We describe two sporadic patients with late onset LCC.

### Patient No 1

A 27-year-old woman, born to healthy non-consanguineous parents, presented with 5 month progression of symptoms of intracranial hypertension. Brain MRI showed the following: a large left thalamic cyst compressing the aqueduct and the third ventricle with triventricular hydrocephalus; another cerebellar cyst with a rim of post contrast enhancement; supratentorial and left cerebellar white matter hyperintensities on T2 weighted images; and post contrast enhancing nodules in the basal ganglia, thalami and centra semiovalia, densely calcified at CT (fig 1). Spinal …


A problem posed by Freund is how to efficiently track a small pool of experts out of a much larger set. This problem was solved when Bousquet and Warmuth introduced their mixing past posteriors (MPP) algorithm in 2001. In Freund's problem the experts would normally be considered black boxes. However, in this paper we re-examine Freund's problem in case the experts have internal structure that enables them to learn. In this case the problem has two possible interpretations: should the experts learn from all data or only from the subsequence on which they are being tracked? The MPP algorithm solves the first case. We generalise MPP to address the second option. Our results apply to any expert structure that can be formalised using (expert) hidden Markov models. Curiously enough, for our interpretation there are two natural reference schemes: freezing and sleeping. For each scheme, we provide an efficient prediction strategy and prove the relevant loss bound.


Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas Thunberg 1793) have been introduced into the Wadden Sea (North Sea) by aquaculture in the 1980s. Subsequently, natural spatfalls occurred and wild oyster populations became established. For settlement, oyster larvae need hard substrates to which they attach themselves permanently. By settling on top of each other, they may create massive biogenic reefs. On the sedimentary tidal flats of the Wadden Sea, epibenthic mussel beds (Mytilus edulis L.) represent the main insular hard substrates, wherefore the oysters attached themselves mainly to the shells of living and dead blue mussels. Resident mussel beds became more and more overgrown by C. gigas and the question arose, whether they all might soon be replaced by oyster reefs. In this context, the bjective was to assess the impact of C. gigas on the native ecosystem by investigating the population development in the northern Wadden Sea, and by evaluating the scope for coexistence with resident mussels. In general, this may be a test case whether an introduced species is capable of displacing a native analogue in a sedimentary shore environment.The invasion of C. gigas in the northern Wadden Sea started in 1991 when the first wild oysters had settled on an intertidal mussel bed in the vicinity of an oyster farm that has started its business in 1986 in the List tidal basin (island of Sylt, Germany). At first, abundances on intertidal mussel beds remained low and patchy (1995: 3.56 ± 3.21 individuals m-2; 1999: 3.71 ± 3.79 individuals m-2). The population slowly expanded its range from intertidal to subtidal locations as well as from Sylt north- and southwards along the coastline. However, a succession of three summers (2001 2003) with anomalous high water temperatures led to a massive increase in oyster abundances (2003: 125.80 ± 119.47 individuals m-2, 2004: 244.44 ± 172.84 individuals m-2). It is assumed that the further invasion of C. gigas in the northern Wadden Sea will benefit from high late-summer water temperatures when these oysters reproduce. However, length frequency distributions revealed that successful cohorts survived for at least 5 years, allowing for population persistence even when warm summers are rare.Studies on recruitment showed differential settlement of oysters and mussels that may lead to niche separation and coexistence of both species. As oysters settle preferentially on conspecifics, a positive feedback of adults on recruitment may facilitate rapid reef formation. Mussels may find a refuge underneath a cover of the brown macroalga Fucus vesiculosus. Potentially, mussels may overgrow oyster reefs in high recruitment years especially if a facilitating barnacle cover is high. However, biotic interactions with C. gigas that reaches about three to four times the size of mussels may prevent M. edulis to become abundant on oyster reefs.Growth experiments revealed a faster growth of C. gigas compared to M. edulis in intertidal and subtidal habitats. Whereas oyster growth is not hampered by the presence of oysters, mussels, and barnacle epigrowth, the growth of mussels is reduced in the presence of these species, thus suggesting competitive inferiority.In field experiments, a high survival rate of juvenile oysters was found and presumably caused by very low predation pressure. About 70% of juvenile C. gigas survived the first three months on an intertidal mussel bed and about 40% reached their first reproductiveperiod one year after settlement. Only early recruitment in the subtidal zone was reduced due to predation. Laboratory feeding preference experiments confirmed that the main benthic predators, shore crabs (Carcinus maenas L.) and starfish (Asterias rubens L.), strongly prefer mussels to oysters. Size selective feeding by the main mussel predators together with an early size refuge from predation due to faster growth and larger size may facilitate a competitive advantage of C. gigas over M. edulis.As C. gigas is well adapted to the Wadden Sea ecosystem and competitive superior to their native congeners, a further increase of the oyster population in the Wadden Sea is expected. The development of massive intertidal and possibly also subtidal oyster reefs that may contain a variable amount of mussel epigrowth depending on recruitment success in different years is considered as a likely future scenario. As oyster recruitment depends on high summer water temperatures whereas high mussel recruitment usually follows severe winters, a possible climate change leading to warmer summers and milder winters will further support the displacement of M. edulis by C. gigas. This regime shift is expected to have profound impacts on the Wadden Sea ecosystem, mainly because oysters are less integrated in the basic food web. A massive increase of the oyster population may lead to food limitation of other suspension feeders, especially in the wake of decreasing eutrophication, and to a decline of benthic predators. However, in which way the resident community will adapt to this new invader will be a future task to tackle. I conclude that the invasion of C. gigas in the Wadden Sea is facilitated by a high efficiency of using space and food resources and by low predation pressure by resident predators.


There are many unanswered questions about cerebral lateralization. In particular, it remains unclear which aspects of language and nonverbal ability are lateralized, whether there are any disadvantages associated with atypical patterns of cerebral lateralization, and whether cerebral lateralization develops with age. In the past, researchers interested in these questions tended to use handedness as a proxy measure for cerebral lateralization, but this is unsatisfactory because handedness is only a weak and indirect indicator of laterality of cognitive functions1. Other methods, such as fMRI, are expensive for large-scale studies, and not always feasible with children2. Here we will describe the use of functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD) as a cost-effective, non-invasive and reliable method for assessing cerebral lateralization. The procedure involves measuring blood flow in the middle cerebral artery via an ultrasound probe placed just in front of the ear. Our work builds on work by Rune Aaslid, who co-introduced TCD in 1982, and Stefan Knecht, Michael Deppe and their colleagues at the University of Münster, who pioneered the use of simultaneous measurements of left- and right middle cerebral artery blood flow, and devised a method of correcting for heart beat activity. This made it possible to see a clear increase in left-sided blood flow during language generation, with lateralization agreeing well with that obtained using other methods3. The middle cerebral artery has a very wide vascular territory (see Figure 1) and the method does not provide useful information about localization within a hemisphere. Our experience suggests it is particularly sensitive to tasks that involve explicit or implicit speech production. The 'gold standard' task is a word generation task (e.g. think of as many words as you can that begin with the letter 'B') 4, but this is not suitable for young children and others with limited literacy skills. Compared with other brain imaging methods, fTCD is relatively unaffected by movement artefacts from speaking, and so we are able to get a reliable result from tasks that involve describing pictures aloud5,6. Accordingly, we have developed a child-friendly task that involves looking at video-clips that tell a story, and then describing what was seen.


Purpose: In this study, we developed a new software tool for the analysis of renal scintigraphy which can be modified more easily by a user who needs to study new clinical applications, and the appropriateness of the results from our program was studied. Materials and Methods: The analysis tool was programmed with IDL5.2 and designed for use on a personal computer running Windows. For testing the developed tool and studying the appropriateness of the calculated glomerular filtration rate (GFR), -DTPA was administered to 10 adults in normal condition. In order to study the appropriateness of the calculated mean transit time (MTT), were administered to 11 adults in normal condition and 22 kidneys were analyzed. All the images were acquired with ORBITOR. the Siemens gamma camera. Results: With the developed tool, we could show dynamic renal images and time activity curve (TAC) in each ROI and calculate clinical parameters of renal function. The results calculated by the developed tool were not different statistically from the results obtained by the Siemens application program (Tmax: p=0.68, Relative Renal Function: p:1.0, GFR: p=0.25) and the developed program proved reasonable. The MTT calculation tool proved to be reasonable by the evaluation of the influence of hydration status on MTT. Conclusion: We have obtained reasonable clinical parameters for the evaluation of renal function with the software tool developed in this study. The developed tool could prove more practical than conventional, commercial programs.


Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting and solar fuels hold great promise for harvesting solar energy. TiO2-based photoelectrodes for water splitting have been intensively investigated since 1972. However, solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies of TiO2 photoelectrodes are still far lower than theoretical values. This is partially due to the dilemma of a short minority carrier diffusion length, and long optical penetration depth, as well as inefficient electron collection. We report here the synthesis of TiO2 PEC electrodes by coating solution-processed antimony-doped tin oxide nanoparticle films (nanoATO) on FTO glass with TiO2 through atomic layer deposition. The conductive, porous nanoATO film-supported TiO2 electrodes, yielded a highest photocurrent density of 0.58 mA/cm(2) under AM 1.5G simulated sunlight of 100 mW/cm(2). This is approximately 3× the maximum photocurrent density of planar TiO2 PEC electrodes on FTO glass. The enhancement is ascribed to the conductive interconnected porous nanoATO film, which decouples the dimensions for light absorption and charge carrier diffusion while maintaining efficient electron collection. Transient photocurrent measurements showed that nanoATO films reduce charge recombination by accelerating transport of photoelectrons through the less defined conductive porous nanoATO network. Owing to the large band gap, scalable solution processed porous nanoATO films are promising as a framework to replace other conductive scaffolds for PEC electrodes.


The importance of both the CYP1A1 exon 7 (ile:val) and GSTM1 (0/0) polymorphisms in oral cancer susceptibility was assessed by examining polymorphic prevalences in 135 patients with oral cancer and 135 noncancer controls frequency-matched by age at diagnosis (+/- 5 years), race, sex, and institute of patient recruitment. The prevalence of the GSTM1 (0/0) genotype was approximately 51% in both cases and controls. The prevalence of the CYP1A1 (ile:val) polymorphism [including both the (ile/val) and (val/val) genotypes] was significantly higher in cases as compared to controls (17.6% versus 7.6%, respectively; crude odds ratio, 2.6; confidence interval, 1.2-5.7). No association was observed between polymorphic prevalence and levels of smoking or alcohol consumption in cases. These results suggest that the GSTM1 null genotype is not associated with oral cancer risk. These results also suggest that individuals with the CYP1A1 exon 7 ile:val polymorphism are at increased risk for oral cancer, and that this risk may not be influenced by differences in exposure to tobacco smoke.


Abstract Community-based question-and-answer (Q&A) websites have become increasingly popular in recent years as an alternative to general-purpose Web search engines for open-ended complex questions. Despite their unique contextual characteristics, only a handful of Q&A websites have been successful in sustaining members' active participation that, unlike lurking, consists of not only posting questions but also answering others' inquiries. Because the specific design of the information technology artifacts on Q&A websites can influence their level of success, studying leading Q&A communities such as Yahoo! Answers (YA) provides insights into more effective design mechanisms. We tested a goal-oriented action framework using data from 2,920 YA users, and found that active online participation is largely driven by artifacts (e.g., incentives), membership (e.g., levels of membership and tenure), and habit (e.g., past behavior). This study contributes to the information systems literature by showing that active participation can be understood as the setting, pursuit, and automatic activation of goals.


As Jimmy Carter ascended to the presidency the heir apparent to Democratic liberalism, he touted his background as a born-again evangelical. Once in office, his faith indeed helped form policy on a number of controversial moral issues. By acknowledging certain behaviors as sinful while insisting that they were private matters beyond government interference, J. Brooks Flippen argues, Carter unintentionally alienated both social liberals and conservative Christians, thus ensuring that the debate over these moral "family issues" acquired a new prominence in public and political life.The Carter era, according to Flippen, stood at a fault line in American culture, religion, and politics. In the wake of the 1960s, some Americans worried that the traditional family faced a grave crisis. This newly politicized constituency viewed secular humanism in education, the recognition of reproductive rights established by "Roe v. Wade," feminism, and the struggle for homosexual rights as evidence of cultural decay and as a challenge to religious orthodoxy. Social liberals viewed Carter's faith with skepticism and took issue with his seeming unwillingness to build on recent progressive victories. Ultimately, Flippen argues, conservative Christians emerged as the Religious Right and were adopted into the Republican fold.Examining Carter's struggle to placate competing interests against the backdrop of difficult foreign and domestic issues--a struggling economy, the stalled Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, disputes in the Middle East, handover of the Panama Canal, and the Iranian hostage crisis--Flippen shows how a political dynamic was formed that continues to this day.


To the Editor: In response to the emergence of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus (1), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued interim guidance for preventing spread of the pandemic virus in schools. Initial guidance recommended that dismissal of students be considered for schools with confirmed cases of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 infection. The guidance was subsequently revised to recommend monitoring for respiratory illness and exclusion of ill students until they were noninfectious, rather than dismissal.

In Chicago, Illinois, USA, the first cases of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 infection were identified on April 28, 2009, of which 1 occurred in an elementary school student (2). In accordance with CDC guidance at the time, the school (school A) was closed for 1 week, April 29–May 5, 2009. CDC and the Chicago Department of Public Health investigated respiratory illnesses among students and their households during the period surrounding the school closure.

A telephone survey of students' households was conducted during May 15–20, 2009 (3). One adult member of each household was asked whether any household members had been "sick with cold or flu symptoms or fever" since April 12. Age, date of illness onset, and symptoms and signs (fever, cough, sore throat, rhinorrhea or nasal congestion [runny or stuffy nose]) were recorded. Acute respiratory illness was defined as >1 symptom or sign from the list provided. Influenza-like illness was defined as fever plus cough or sore throat. Reports were excluded if onset date was before April 12 or unknown. Descriptive analysis was performed, and household attack rates were calculated. Dates of onset were used to evaluate timing of illness in relation to school closure and possible transmission within households. The investigation was approved as nonresearch by CDC.

Of 609 eligible households, 439 (72%) had a working telephone number, of which 170 (39%) completed the survey. Thirty-nine (23%) households, representing 181 persons, reported 58 illnesses that met the acute respiratory illness definition, of which 37 (64%) also met the influenza-like illness definition. Median age was 10 years (range <1–48 years). Of 57 household members for whom age and student status were recorded, 42 (74%) were students at school A. Thirty-four (60%) reported onset of symptoms before or on the day of school dismissal (Figure).

Figure

Respiratory illness in households of school-dismissed students during the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 outbreak, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2009. Arrows indicate dates when school A closed and reopened.

Household attack rates ranged from 10% to 100% (median 25%). Five (13%) households reporting illness had no ill students who attended school A. In 4 of 11 households reporting >2 illnesses, students became ill before nonstudent household members. In the remaining 7 households, onset dates did not suggest student-to-nonstudent transmission.

Even though the school was closed almost immediately after the first pandemic (H1N1) 2009 case was confirmed in a student, onset of ≈60% of reported illnesses occurred before or on the day of school dismissal, suggesting that unrecognized transmission was already occurring in the school or community. These results are supported by data on confirmed cases of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 in Chicago, which suggest that community transmission was high during the survey period (2). Our results also indicated that at least some illness among school A households originated from sources other than the school and support the approach of considering school dismissal only in conjunction with other community mitigation strategies.

In Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China, where all primary schools, kindergartens, and child care centers were immediately closed for 14 days after identification of the first local case of pandemic (H1N1) 2009, school closures were concluded to have substantially decreased transmission (4). The applicability of these findings to communities where such sweeping measures might be less acceptable is unclear.

If school dismissal is considered as a strategy, dismissal early in the pandemic most likely would have the most impact, depending on duration of dismissal, other mitigation measures, and compliance with social distancing recommendations (which was mixed during the 2009 pandemic [3,5]). Polling of parents whose children experienced school dismissal showed high acceptance of short-term (3–5 days) dismissals and low economic impact, especially on lower income families (3,6). However, dismissal for longer periods needs to be balanced by the adverse impact on education, loss of student services, and socioeconomic impact on families (7–9).

This investigation was limited by the relatively low response rate; however, demographics for the sample in our study were similar to those of the school as a whole (3). Other limitations included the exclusive use of reported symptoms to document illness, possible unrecognized asymptomatic cases, and absence of similar data from later in the pandemic. The 1-week closure period might not have provided enough information to capture any effect, and comparative data were not available from schools that were not dismissed during the pandemic. Further investigation is needed to evaluate the efficacy and impact of school dismissal, including the timing of dismissal in relation to recognition of cases in a school or community and the impact of school dismissal relative to other community mitigation strategies.


Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) have developed to widely utilized technologies for short-range telecommunications. While the technologies enable various new services, the wireless environment and the constraints of WLAN devices set new requirements for network security and its realization. In addition to a security specification, a security processing implementation has a key role in protecting WLANs. This Thesis presents designs and implementations for protecting WLANs using cryptographic mechanisms. The focus of the Thesis is on the security of the standard WLAN technologies which have recently been driving the markets and the research work. The technologies, their problems, and proposed improvements are surveyed. A design specifically addressing the vulnerabilities of Bluetooth is presented. Furthermore, designs for protecting stored data and maintaining time synchronization in WLANs are developed. The generally accepted security design practices and the constraints of the WLAN devices are respected throughout the presented designs. Cryptographic software implementations cannot often provide security with high performance and usability while meeting the restrictions of WLAN devices. Therefore, the Thesis presents cryptographic hardware architectures that can efficiently be used for securing WLANs. The architectures support the cryptographic mechanisms of the standard WLANs as well as the mechanisms proposed in the Thesis. Several solutions providing different trade-offs between performance and resource consumption are developed for Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES), and RC4 as well as for the modular exponentiation of public-key schemes. Related implementations are surveyed and compared. As an example of a full, security-oriented application, the separate components are integrated into a novel wireless Real-Time Betting (RTB) application. It utilizes the security designs and implementations on the wireless data link layer as well as on the application layer in order to support efficient embedded terminal implementations. The RTB application is especially seen well-suited for providing local services through WLANs.


HPV16 is a double stranded DNA virus which has a close association with cervical cancer development. HPV16 expresses two oncoproteins E6 and E7, which when overexpressed transform the virus-infected epithelial cells. E6 and E7-encoding RNAs have been shown to be alternatively spliced to give at least four mRNA isoforms (E6 full length, E6*I, E6*II, E6*X) however it is not known what functions any putative alternative oncoproteins or indeed, RNA isoforms may have. Alternative splicing is regulated by host cell factors, namely SR proteins and hnRNP proteins. SR proteins are the positive splicing regulators in the cell and generally promote splicing of both cellular and viral RNAs. It is not known which RNA splicing factors are required for E6/E7 RNA processing during infection and transformation. HPV16 viral RNAs are extensively alternatively spliced therefore identification of the host factors involved in the processing of viral RNAs could have therapeutic benefits because completion of the virus life cycle requires alternative splicing and if this could be prevented by targeting of the splicing factors involved, then the virus infection could be prevented. Similarly if splicing is altered upon transformation of the cervical epithelial cells, then prevention of this alteration in splicing could perhaps inhibit virus-induced transformation of the cervical epithelial cells. Recently it has been shown that overexpression of SR proteins can lead to cellular transformation and certain SR proteins have already been reported to be upregulated in some cancers. Therefore the focus of this PhD was to investigate the expression of the alternative E6/E7 RNA isoforms and identify the protein (s) responsible for their processing.
The first aim was to investigate the expression of the E6/E7 RNA isoforms in virus-infected cells and during cervical epithelial cell transformation and to try to assign any function to the individual isoforms. E6 and E7 are encoded by the viral early genes but are expressed in both undifferentiated and differentiated virus infected cells. Therefore I investigated whether the expression of the isoforms was altered during differentiation. RT-PCR experiments were carried out using RNA extracted from undifferentiated and differentiated W12E cells (HPV16-infected cervical epithelial cells). Results indicated that E6/E7 splicing is not altered upon epithelial differentiation however E6 and E7 mRNA abundance increased upon differentiation. Furthermore, experiments carried out in W12G cells, where HPV16 genomes are integrated into the host genome and no viral life cycle is taking place, suggested that the increase in E6 and E7 RNA expression was not due to cell differentiation, but due to a virus-induced increase in expression. Further RT-PCR experiments in HPV16 transformed cells lines demonstrated that E6/E7 RNA isoform expression is altered as cervical epithelial cells become tumourigenic. Small E6 isoforms, E6*II and E6*X are upregulated in virus transformed cells suggesting a tumour promoting function for the isoforms. To test this, E6/E7 isoform-expressing constructs were created and transiently transfected into HPV-negative C33a cervical cancer cells and the proliferation rate and ability to form colonies in soft agar investigated. Compared to the longer E6/E7 isoforms the two smallest isoforms promoted cellular proliferation as the cell growth rate increased. However anchorage independent growth assays were inconclusive suggesting there may be a combinatorial effect of the E6/E7 isoforms on transformation of the cells.
My next aim was to investigate the expression of SR proteins during transformation of HPV16-infected epithelial cells. Western blot and immunohistochemical analysis showed that SR proteins SRSF1-3 were specifically upregulated upon cervical epithelial transformation. For SRSF2 and 3, this was not due to gene amplification as qPCR analysis of gene copy number showed no significant difference in CT values between the W12 cell lines suggesting that upregulation of SRSF2 and 3 may be at a transcriptional level. However there was a significant difference in SRSF1 gene copy number that may account for its upregulation.
My final aim was to identify the SR protein (s) responsible for the alteration in E6/E7 isoform expression in HPV16-transformed cells. This was achieved by siRNA depletion of the overexpressed SR proteins and RT-PCR of E6/E7 RNA. Surprisingly, none of the SR protein knockdowns resulted in any detectable alteration of RNA isoforms. However, SRSF2 knockdown specifically resulted in a significant reduction in all E6/E7 encoding RNAs. Moreover, after SRSF2 knockdown, p53 levels were increased suggesting an impairment of E6 protein function. The reduction in E6/E7 RNA was not due to a decrease in transcription as demonstrated by transcription assays utilising an HPV16 LCR luciferase reporter. Interestingly, E6/E7 RNA stability assays showed that RNA half life is reduced when SRSF2 is knocked down. SRSF1 and 2 have previously been shown to be oncogenic in breast and ovarian cancers respectively. So the effects of SRSF2 knockdown on cell growth rate, colony formation, apoptosis entry and cell cycle were analysed in transformed cervical epithelial cells. The results from these experiments indicated that overexpression of SRSF2 in cervical epithelial cells is tumour promoting. My data clearly indicates that SRSF2 should be considered to be a proto-oncogene.


Living and working at Amsterdam Johannes Schouten (1716-1792) became in 1744 member of the guild of gold and silversmiths and in 1756 of the guild of booksellers. He was only amateurishly occupied with the execution of topographical and townscape-drawings. His son Hermanus Petrus Schouten (1747-1822) lived in Haarlem from 1792 on but still made regularly drawings of his native town, besides rendering strange town- and landscapes during his journeys, which prints unfortunately seldom are dated.
The modest amount of signed townscapes of Amsterdam and environment by Johannes Schouten are sketched with black crayon and, opposed to the pen-strokes of his son, outlines and details are rendered with pencil. Showing stylistic features of the drawings of father and son the attribution of the unsigned sheets is problematic, Schouten often making copies after contemporaries and the son often finishing what his father had started.
Taught by Paul van Liender (1731-1797), a pupil of Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759), H.P. Schouten perfectly mastered the rendering of chiaroscuro after Pronk. The three categories within his oeuvre as there are the engravings for the Atlas van Pierre Fouquet, the pen-drawings in Indian ink with grey washing and the third category, executed in colour, supply a detailed image of his working-method.
The first and third category being preceded by a sketch registering the topographical situation forms the second category a quite puzzling comparison between the works of father and son. Figures were added to the preliminary sketches for the Atlas van Fouquet. Although these engravings are seldom signed, comparison between prints and preliminary sketches undoubtedly points out Schouten as their maker.
His colourful detailed pen drawings of the third category depicting bourgeois life at the end of the 18th century, already at the time were a real collector's item. Schouten's almost photographic prints often are less realistic than it seems by the omission of architectural details to obtain a better composition. While fictious trees and figures are used for this same purpose, strengthened perspective and chiaroscuro are even more surprising employed to manipulate reality.
Part of Schouten's preliminary sketches and other sheets were owned and accurately copied by Gerrit Lamberts (1776-1850) and, although less capable, by Schouten's pupil G.D. Galen (1755-1794). The study of Schouten's and of 18th century topographic prints in general learns, that the measure of reality of these drawings only can be determined by analyzing several pictures of the same subject at the same time.
Hardly any stylistic development present in his work, the many unsigned sheets and the often large time difference between preliminary sketch and definitive version still evoke many questions as to the dating of H.P Schouten's work.


This study is a part of the larger Qualities in Education project, in which three upper secondary schools in Mid-Norway—an urban and two rural schools—with seemingly stark differences in quality are compared to identify possible reasons for such differences. Quality in upper secondary education in Norway is measured primarily according to students' performance and throughput. In our study, we investigated factors connected to their geographical context that could inform quality in Norwegian upper secondary schools for students in vocational tracks. The school's collaboration with the local labour market and its access to equipment relevant to in-depth vocational study module has been of particular interest. From interviews, we accessed the opinions of vocational teachers, heads of vocational departments and school counsellors, whereas we collected responses from 277 students in various vocational programmes by administering a survey. Our results reveal that, despite seemingly major differences in quality, the rural schools have much in common; all students become involved with the working lifestyle and tasks early on and compared to students at the urban school, most significantly agreed that vocational training as well as involvement with the working lifestyle and tasks early on work well. School counsellors particularly highlighted the benefits of using so-called "tailor seam" and "sharp assignments" for examining how they organised work processes to suitably pair students and workplaces as well as for facilitating students' motivation and the experience of meaning. Overall, the urban and rural schools pose different benefits and challenges related to ensuring the quality of their upper secondary education.


Researchers estimate that information and communication technology (ICT) is responsible for at least 2 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Furthermore, in any individual business, ICT is responsible for a much higher percentage of that business's GHG footprint. Yet researchers also estimate that ICT can provide business solutions to reduce its GHG footprint fivefold. However, because the field is new and evolving, few guidelines and best practices are available. To address this issue, a consortium of leading organizations from industry, the nonprofit sector, and academia has developed and tested a framework for systematically assessing and improving SICT capabilities. The Innovation Value Institute (IVI; http://ivi.nuim.ie) consortium used an open-innovation model of collaboration, engaging academia and industry in scholarly work to create the SICT-Capability Maturity Framework (SICT-CMF), which is discussed in this paper.


Canopy porosity is an important viticultural factor because canopy gaps favor fruit exposure and air circulation, both of which benefit fruit quality and health. Point quadrat analysis (PQA) is standard for assessing canopy gaps but has limited utility because the method is laborious and time consuming. A new, objective, noninvasive, image-based method was developed and compared with PQA to assess the percent canopy gaps in vineyards with diverse viticultural conditions and grape varieties in New Zealand, Croatia, and Spain. The determination coefficient (R2) of the regressions between the percent gaps using both methods exceeded 0.90 (p < 0.05) at each site, and R2 of the global regression was 0.93 (p < 0.05). The time of day and side of the canopy photographed did not significantly affect the performance of the algorithm. With this new image-based assessment method, canopy management may be optimized to configure a desired amount of canopy gaps and thereby improve fruit quality and health.


MILLION DOLLAR RED by Jennifer M. Ghastin The novel Million Dollar Red connects the lives of six women in Eastside San Jose in pursuit of a common set of desires to be beautiful, happy, and something other than what they were when they walked into Quynh's Nail Salon. The third person limited point of view shifts protagonists every time a character comes into contact with a certain shade of red nail polish, Million Dollar Red. According to Quynh, the owner of the salon, the polish has the magical power to give women what they need but not what they want. Once the six women have encountered the color, the narrative rotates through their lives, alternating between manicurist and client. Each client enters the salon with a personal conflict, but this conflict changes with the application of the red polish and the interaction with the manicurist. In the backdrop, the manicurists struggle with the central conflict: the impending health inspection. Million Dollar Red exaggerates the differences and similarities of the women in Eastside San Jose, pitting their cultural stereotypes against each other comically, ironically, and sometimes tragically. The women, propelled by a desire to be at least a little different from who they are, find themselves driven towards each other, and in some cases, realize that they do want essentially the same things, no matter where they come from.


The Bakken Formation underlies much of eastern Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan, with correlative units extending in the subsurface beyond these regions. It is composed of three informal members: an upper shale member, a middle silty limestone/dolostone member, and a lower shale member. The Bakken petroleum system acts as a conventional and unconventional reservoir within the Williston Basin and fractures that occur naturally within the Bakken petroleum system can either help or hinder reservoir characteristics. Unconventional reservoirs, such as the Bakken Formation, rely heavily on fracture enhancement (hydraulic fracturing) to become producible oil plays. Pre-existing fractures and weaknesses open more readily with fracture stimulation than the creation of new fractures, and have been correlated to increased early production in shale plays. To determine the influence of these fractures on the reservoir in the Bakken Formation and its correlative units, fractures in core and outcrop were examined. Clay-rich shales, such as those within the Bakken Formation, display high intrinsic anisotropy, which can be helpful in interpreting seismic profiles. Despite the importance of shale oil reservoirs, the contribution of preferred orientation of minerals to shales is not well constrained. These constituent clay minerals are phyllosilicates that acquire preferred orientation during sedimentation and early diagenesis. Hard X-rays produced from a synchrotron source are effective at extracting orientation distributions of individual mineral components within a shale. Crystallographic preferred orientation can be determined through synchrotron X-ray diffraction and the interpretation of three-dimensional images by using a Rietveld refinement method. This method incorporates a least squares approach to produce a calculated model of the degree of preferred orientation. Samples of the Bakken shales from wells in North Dakota and Montana, and outcrops from southwestern Montana were investigated. Individual phyllosilicate minerals such as illite, smectite, muscovite, and chlorite yield individual orientation patterns. The elastic properties of each shale sample were determined by averaging the calculated properties of each mineral phase over their orientation distributions. The presence of specific clay minerals and degree of anisotropy is highly variable from well to well. A better understanding of shale anisotropy could help improve exploration and production of unconventional shale oil reservoirs.


Purpose : As compared to conventional manually-assisted administration, the automated-control of end-tidal inhalation anaesthetic concentration (EtControl® Aisys® Cs2 - GE) allows for a reduction of halogenated gas consumption and an improvement of the target end-tidal fraction (Fet) controllability. However, recent real time decision support software may help anaesthesiologists to optimize manually-assisted halogenated agent delivery (VaporView®, Perseus A500® - Drager). The aim of this study was to compare these two delivery methods.

Methods: This was a prospective randomized study comparing the consumption and controllability of Desflurane (Des) between the Vaporview® and Etcontrol® modes of administration in daily clinical practice conditions with a hypothesis of non-inferiority. The Vaporview® mode followed a protocol similar to the Etcontrol® mode for the wash in and wash out periods, and followed the Vaporview® curve to adjust the delivered Fraction (Fd) during the maintenance of the end-tidal fraction (Fe) at 0.5 l.min-1 fresh gas flow. Consumptions were measured by micrometric weighing of the vaporizer.

Results: 58 patients were randomized. The Desflurane consumption in the Perseus Vaporview` group was 13.71 ml.hr-1 (95% CI: 13.02-14.41) versus 13.27 ml.hr-1 (95% CI: 12.30-14.24) in the reference Aisys Etcontrol® group, satisfying statistical criteria for non-inferiority. There were no significant differences either in time to reach MAC 1, or in the number of Fd/Fe adjustments per hour.

Conclusions: Within clinical daily practice conditions, consumption of Desflurane with manually-assisted delivery (Drager Perseus Vaporview®) was not statistically different from automated control delivery (General Electrics Aisys EtControl®), with the same Fe kinetic profiles and ventilator adjustment requirements.


Research and processes of knowledge production are often based on racialised and imperialistic frameworks that have led to either the exclusion or the pathologisation of minority groups. Researchers address issues of exclusion by adopting recruitment strategies that involve negotiating with gatekeepers to ensure the inclusion of minority or marginalised groups. This often involves in-depth scrutiny of gatekeepers and requires the researchers to negotiate deals and to make personal disclosures. However, there remains relatively little discussion on the pragmatic ethical issues facing researchers in the field as a result of these interactions. This article suggests that interactions with gatekeepers present ethical issues that can be effectively addressed and managed by researchers through the exercise of phronesis. Phronesis allows researchers to make critical ethical decisions based on the specific characteristics of the research sites and subjects, not least of which are those issues that emerge as a consequence of researcher positionality. Such decisions are not necessarily identified or accommodated through bureaucratic processes which govern research ethics. We advance the notion of research ethics as an ongoing process that requires researcher skills and engagement, rather than a one-off bureaucratic exercise.


As classical planning is known to be computationally hard, no single planner is expected to work well across many planning domains. One solution to this problem is to use online portfolio planners that select a planner for a given task. These portfolios perform a classification task, a well-known and wellresearched task in the field of machine learning. The classification is usually performed using a representation of planning tasks with a collection of hand-crafted statistical features. Recent techniques in machine learning that are based on automatic extraction of features have not been employed yet due to the lack of suitable representations of planning tasks.In this work, we alleviate this barrier. We suggest representing planning tasks by images, allowing to exploit arguably one of the most commonly used and best developed techniques in deep learning. We explore some of the questions that inevitably rise when applying such a technique, and present various ways of building practically useful online portfoliobased planners. An evidence of the usefulness of our proposed technique is a planner that won the cost-optimal track of the International Planning Competition 2018.


In 2004, there were 580 cases of suicide in Queensland, and not 453, as reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on 14 March 2006.1 These data alone reverse the declining trend for suicide mortality nationally in the most recent years. The Queensland Suicide Register, maintained by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), receives data directly from the Office of the State Coroner, and crosschecks them with other Queensland coroners, the John Tonge Centre (the Queensland Health Scientific Services mortuary), and the National Coroners Information System (NCIS). The ABS receives data from the state registries of births, deaths and marriages, and crosschecks them with the state coroners' offices. The agreement between the two agencies has been decreasing in recent years, with AISRAP detecting 550 suicide cases in 2003 and 588 in 2002, compared with 466 and 537, respectively, detected by the ABS.


This article analyzes aspects of the distribution of West Flemish verbs in terms of Kayne's (1994) antisymmetry approach. The distribution of the auxiliary in the Infinitivus pro Participio (IPP) construction provides evidence for three functional heads in the lower middle field: Neg, T, and F2. The word order in the IPP construction is derived by head movement of the auxiliary and XP-movement of the IPP complement. The IPP complement moves to [Spec, FP2] to check its formal features; the finite auxiliary moves either to F2 or to a higher functional head, T or Neg; the nonfinite auxiliary remains in F2. The analysis accounts for the finite/nonfinite asymmetry in the distribution of the negative affix en. The article includes concrete proposals for the implementation of feature checking.


The paper is an overview of international variations in financial systems and corporate governance. Traditional theories of the firm emphasize the importance of managerial incentives, disciplining and finance in corporate governance. The paper argues that these are not the fundamental distinguishing features of different financial systems. Instead, ownership and control emerge as displaying more substantial variations across countries. These differences are associated with the formulation, implementation and adaptation of corporate strategy. The insider systems of Continental Europe and Japan may be superior at implementing policies which involve relations with stakeholders. Outsider, Anglo-American, systems may be more responsive to change.


The research described in this thesis was aimed at analyzing the regulation of the channeling of carbon into different terpenoid pathways including the terpenoid indole alkaloids (TIA) and their iridoid precursors in Catharanthus roseus cell suspension cultures. Of the different terpenoid classes; monoterpenoid (C10; TIA), triterpenoid (C30; sterol), and tetraterpenoid (C40; carotenoid), the latter was the largest pool. The production of carotenoids and TIA through the methyl-erythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway was increased after jasmonic acid elicitation, while the sterols from the mevalonate (MVA) pathway were not increased. Mevalonate feeding only increased the sterols. The effect of geraniol feeding alone and in combination with jasmonic acid elicitation resulted in increased levels of loganic acid and strictosidine, respectively. Catharanthus roseus cell suspension cultures overexpressing geraniol synthase in the plastid or cytosol were successfully developed and metabolic analysis by NMR-based metabolomics showed different metabolic effects related to the subcellular compartmentation of geraniol synthase. In conclusion, reallocation of C5 units between MEP and MVA pathway seems difficult, but both have different regulation which could be further studied to increase alkaloid production.


Three simple, accurate and precise spectrophotometric methods have been developed for simultaneous determination of Losartan potassium and hydrochlorothiazide in a binary mixture. In method I absorbance were measured at 235nm and 271nm corresponding to the absorbance maxima of losartan potassium and hydrochlorothiazide. Concentration of each drug was obtained by using the absorptive values calculated for both drugs at wavelengths 235nm and 271nm. Method II by dual wavelength method, losartan potassium and hydrochlorothiazide were quantified using principle that absorbance difference between two points on mixture spectra was directly proportional to concentration of component of interest and independent of interfering component. Method III describes Area Under Curve and involves measurement of area under curve in the range of 265-282nm(For LOS) and 229-242nm(For HCTZ) for the analysis in methanol. Linearity range was observed in the concentration range of 5-30μg/ml for losartan potassium and hydrochlorothiazide. Developed methods were applied to marketed formulation. The methods were validated statistically and recovery study was performed to confirm the accuracy of both methods.


A coherence-free microwave photonic filter configuration is presented. The configuration is based on a Sagnac loop interferometer containing a single-drive intensity modulator without a nonreciprocal bias unit. A notch response is obtained by modulating the clockwise and counterclockwise propagating waves inside the Sagnac loop at different times. A general theoretical analysis for both the reflected signal and the transmitted signal is obtained. Measured results verify the theoretical expressions and demonstrate a robust notch filter response.


The fluoroquinolones have become an increasingly popular class of antibiotics for use in a variety of infections. This study investigated the effect of the spectra doses of sparfloxacin on the clinical chemistry parameters of healthy albino rats. The rats were evenly distributed into four groups such that each group had similar mean weights. Group 1 (control group) was administered 2.0 ml of 0.9% normal saline solution throughout the experimental duration. Group 2 (sub therapeutic dose) was administered a loading dose of 0.7 mg/kg body weight by oral route on day 1 and 0.35 mg/kg body weight p.o on days 2 to 7 while Group 3 (therapeutic dose) was administered a loading dose of 0.35mg/kg body weight p.o on day 1 and 0.175 mg/kg body weight p.o on days 2 to 7. Group 4 (toxic dose) was administered a loading dose of 3.5 mg/kg body weight p.o on day 1 and 1.75 mg/kg body weight p.o on days 2 to 7. The elevated levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in the sub-therapeutic group are suggestive of liver-related malfunction or injuries to the liver parenchyma. It can also be seen that sub-therapeutic doses of sparfloxacin has some inductive effects on the ALTs but inhibitory effects by the toxic doses. Since no elevated levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were seen in the treated groups, this suggests sparfloxacin is not hepatotoxic. There was no statistical difference in the creatinine levels of the control as well as all the treated groups. Thus it can be concluded that the renal function is not affected as serum creatinine level is a more reliable indicator of renal function


Implementing environment comprehension into machines is a challenge for mankind. The ability to fetch, classify and interrelate the perceptible elements captured by cameras is the link between our global net of cameras and the Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, the next giant leap will occur when the digital captures of the outside world are observed by neural networks, without requiring a human interpreter and translator. In order to make pictures understandable by machines, these have to be reduced to atomic describable concepts like points, lines or ellipses. The most simple forms, like points or lines, are referred to as primitives. The most traditional techniques detect primitives and classify them attending to their apparent attributes. During these early stages many problems had to be solved, originated by limitations of the digital technology, the similarity between primitives in the same image, the impossibility of characterizing them unequivocally, and the nature of the capture of light with changes on illumination or contrast. These approaches for description and matching of primitives have been developed in parallel with spatial abstraction methods, in such a way that nowadays it is common to derive from a series of pictures an unique 3D representation including estimations for some of the captured primitives with the relative position and orientation of the cameras. This memory is focused on a single kind of primitives: the straight line segments. It goes through straight segment matching between images and the other operations that lead to the creation of 3D representations from these detected primitives. Straight line segments are frequently found in captures of man-made environments. The inclusion of straight lines in 3D representations provide structural information about the captured shapes and their limits, such as the intersection of planar structures.


In 2003, the Federal government provided funds to 69 state agencies to implement reentry programs for adult and juvenile prisoners. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) programs partner correctional or juvenile justice agencies with other government, community, and faith-based organizations to provide a range of services to participating individuals. A fully implemented SVORI program incorporates assessment, services, and programming for offenders while incarcerated, under supervision in the community, and once released from supervision. The individual SVORI programs share the common goals of improving employment, education, health, housing, and criminal justice outcomes. Each program, however, is unique in the approach taken and array of services implemented to address these common goals. Measuring the implementation of multi-faceted programs is a challenge for researchers and one that the SVORI multi-site evaluation is confronting. In this paper, we describe an approach to categorize the types of services being provided that incorporates both the number of services provided and the proportion of individuals receiving each service for each service group.


A near-symplectic structure on a 4-manifold is a closed 2-form that is symplectic away from the 1-dimensional submanifold along which it vanishes and that satisfies a certain transversality condition along this vanishing locus. We investigate near-symplectic 4-manifolds equipped with singular Lagrangian torus fibrations which are locally induced by effective Hamiltonian torus actions. We show how such a structure is completely characterized by a singular integral affine structure on the base of the fibration whenever the vanishing locus is nonempty. The base equipped with this geometric structure generalizes the moment map image of a toric 4-manifold in the spirit of earlier work by the second author on almost toric symplectic 4-manifolds. We use the geometric structure on the base to investigate the problem of making given smooth torus actions on 4-manifolds symplectic or Hamiltonian with respect to nearsymplectic structures and to give interesting constructions of structures which are locally given by torus actions but have nontrivial global monodromy. AMS Classification numbers Primary: 57R17 Secondary: 53D20, 57M60, 57M50


Problem statement: In recent decades, the Iranian fashion industry, despite its historical background, has faced particular economic and social considerations that have faced many challenges. Accordingly, social institutions have sought to bring this art-industry into the field of creative industries through commercial, publicity and cultural activities and in turn have created a trend that will be reflected in the economic development of the Iran's cultural industries. Since exploring value changes in society is one of the key elements in the cultural system of any society, the main issue of the present research is to focus on cultural industries and accept the transformation in the value system of Iranian society to gain an understanding of the economic value of art-fashion industry and its dimensions and weaknesses, strengths and intensifiers. This has helped to organize the concept and position of the creative economy in this area through oversea interactions and the cultural process. Research objectives: The present article seeks to achieve a value-based process in intervening contextual factors and explaining the selective strategies of developing the cultural economy of Iranian fashion industry and answering the fundamental questions. What role can the fashion industry play in realizing the prospect of a Iran's cultural economy? How can the economic growth of art that is produced be shaped by changes in value systems? Research method: This research is qualitative, descriptive-analytical and data gathering is done through documentary sources and field findings were based on discourse analysis. Conclusion: The results suggest that combining art with creativity, knowledge management, up-to-date technology and business process reengineering will boost Iran's economic growth by inserting the moral economy into the fashion industry.


Abstract Background Pain and delirium are common in people with dementia admitted to hospitals. These are often under-diagnosed and under-treated. Pain is implicated as a cause of delirium but this association has not been investigated in this setting. Objective To investigate the relationship between pain and delirium in people with dementia, on admission and throughout a hospital admission. Design Exploratory secondary analysis of observational prospective longitudinal cohort data. Setting Two acute hospitals in the UK. Methodology Two-hundred and thirty participants aged ≥70 years were assessed for dementia severity, delirium ((Confusion Assessment Method (CAM), pain (Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia (PAINAD)) scale and prescription of analgesics. Logistic and linear regressions explored the relationship between pain and delirium using cross-sectional data. Results Pain at rest developed in 49%, and pain during activity for 26% of participants during their inpatient stay. Incident delirium developed in 15%, of participants, and 42% remained delirious for at least two assessments. Of the 35% of participants who were delirious and unable to self-report pain, 33% of these participants experienced pain at rest, and 56 experienced pain during activity. The odds of being delirious were 3.26 times higher in participants experiencing pain at rest (95% Confidence Interval 1.03–10.25, P = 0.044). Conclusion An association between pain at rest and delirium was found, suggesting pain may be a risk factor for delirium. Since pain and delirium were found to persist and develop during an inpatient stay, regular pain and delirium assessments are required to manage pain and delirium effectively.


Much has been written about the challenges faced by first year students at university. This paper adds to that literature by exploring student interest, known to be associated with persistence and learning. Using data from a qualitative study following 19 students through their first year at a regional Australian university, the paper examines the antecedents and consequences of student interest. Findings show the students' existing individual interests and goals interact with the teaching environment to trigger situational interest. Situational interest then enhances behavioural and cognitive engagement and leads to better learning and grades. Perceived relevance of the learning task is shown to be a particularly important determinant of student interest. Students' emotions, self-efficacy, and their sense of belonging are also important factors in explaining the links between student interest, the teaching environment, and student engagement.; ;


The study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the role of women in agriculture in Halaba Woreda. Based on the out put of this study, the contribution levels of women were identified. The study result showed that women's contributes 46% of labor to agricultural activities. Men, boys and girls also participate in agricultural activities. However, women's work in the agricultural activities documented as marginal and they have been considered more as consumers than as producers. More than 89% of the Halaba population is residing in the rural parts of the Woreda and half of the population is women. According to the study analyzed that rural women spend their time in productive activities, which directly benefit their families and society in economic terms. The study showed that the average day for a rural women in Halaba involves food processing, water and fuel wood collection, assisting family farm, marketing and labor exchange for community services. Also the level of participation as women's labor is more participating in agricultural activities, community services and contributing more in securing their household members food demand than other household members do. But women receive no remuneration for their labor, no monetary or maternal gains and no benefits in leisure time and improved living conditions. Women suffer from discriminatory practices that prevent them from accessing land in the same way and extent as men. As such, men control land and women gain access to land mainly through either inheritance, their male relatives or in that of their husband. . In general the contributing factors that influences women's role in agriculture depends upon the women's dependence on their husband. The other one is illiteracy, ignorance, low socio-economic status and traditional religious and cultural dominance and low political participation in the community. Also, in the study area there were few supporting organizations to promote women in agricultural activities and empower them. However, those that do not have a specific gender focus, but undertake some single or combined gender –related activities which are generally mother and child care, nutrition, water, girls' education, women savings and credit facilities. The study analyzed that those few NGOs and government organizations that have attempted to tackle gender issues have encountered serious problems of resource availability, limited technical capacity, poor organization and lack of coordination, which have made it impossible to streamline their gender concerns in a concrete way into effective programmed interventions.


Experiential avoidance is the attempt to escape or avoid certain private experiences, such as particular feelings, memories, behavioral predispositions, or thoughts In this article, we discuss evidence that experiential avoidance is both pervasive and often harmful to human functioning We argue that experiential avoidance can be explained by two verbal processes, and we provide basic behavioral evidence on both the bidirectionality of derived stimulus relations in verbal humans and the insensitivity to the effects of responding produced by verbal rules If this analysis is correct, experiential avoidance is built into human language and thus can be undermined only with difficulty


Introduction How should we characterize the functional role of conscious visual experience? In particular, how do the conscious contents of visual experience guide, bear upon, or otherwise inform our ongoing motor activities? According to an intuitive and (I shall argue) philosophically influential conception, the links are often quite direct. The contents of conscious visual experience, according to this conception, are typically active in the control and guidance of our fine-tuned, real-time engage- ments with the surrounding three-dimensional world. But this idea (which I shall call the Assumption of Experience-Based Control) is hos- tage to empirical fortune. It is a hostage, moreover, whose safety is in serious doubt. Thus Milner and Goodale (1995) argue for a deep and abiding dissociation between the contents of conscious seeing, on the one hand, and the resources used for the online guidance of visuo- motor action, on the other. This "dual visual systems" hypothesis, which finds many echoes in various other bodies of cognitive scientific research, poses a prima facie challenge to the Assumption of Experi- ence-Based Control. More importantly, it provides (I shall argue) fuel for an alternative and philosophically suggestive account of the func- tional role of conscious visual experience.


SUMMARY The 10th anniversary of Soeharto's resignation was coloured by disappointment with the slowness of reform, and with the government's reluctance to confront blatant religious intolerance. Nevertheless, economic growth is strong and investment spending buoyant. Inflation has risen well above target, suggesting that a more effective approach to monetary policy is needed. The recent surge in global rice prices coincided with bountiful domestic harvests, putting the government under pressure to restrict rice exports rather than imports as it has in recent years. However, restricting exports has been recognised as a 'starve thy neighbour policy', and the ASEAN trade ministers have jointly agreed 'to continue fair trade practices and to achieve an orderly regional rice trade'. The government has at last increased domestic fuel prices significantly, mind-ful of the waste of valuable resources and the inequity involved in keeping such prices constant in the face of world price increases. It will implement a cash transfer program to compensate the poor for the resulting increase in living costs. The Ministry of Finance is leading reform of the central government bureaucracy. Its most fundamental initiatives are in human resource management, where it is attempting to match remuneration to skill requirements and responsibilities, and to align the pay structure more closely with that in the private sector–with pay rates rising much more rapidly than hitherto as levels of responsibility increase. It is also encouraging competition to fill vacancies by advertising them internally, rather than continuing to rely on promotion by seniority. At local government level, a small number of heads of government have gained a reputation as pioneers of reform. Two interviewed for this survey are exemplars of precisely what it was hoped would result from bringing government closer to the people through decentralisation, and from the switch to direct election of heads of local government. Both have considerable experience in the private sector, and their success seems related to their more entrepreneurial (as distinct from bureaucratic) way of thinking. 'Good corporate governance' has now become the mantra for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). It is recognised that this depends heavily on choosing the right people to manage each firm and to oversee it on behalf of its owner. Accordingly, almost all directors and commissioners of the 11 SOEs indirectly studied here have been replaced in recent months, and there is now a willingness to appoint professionals from private companies and from academia in order to gain access to needed skills. In addition, the initial selection of candidates has been shifted outside the bureaucracy to professional recruitment agencies.


Abstract. The CARRIBA (Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence in the trade wInd regime over BArbados) project, focused on high resolution and collocated measurements of thermodynamic, turbulent, microphysical, and radiative properties of trade wind cumuli over Barbados, is introduced. The project is based on two one-month field campaigns in November 2010 (climatic wet season) and April 2011 (climatic dry season). Observations are based on helicopter-borne and ground-based measurements in an area of 100 km2 off the coast of Barbados. CARRIBA is accompanied by long-term observations at the Barbados Cloud Observatory located at the East coast of Barbados since early in 2010 and which provides a longer-term context for the CARRIBA measurements. The deployed instrumentation and sampling strategy are presented together with a classification of the meteorological conditions. The two campaigns were influenced by different air masses advected from the Caribbean area, the Atlantic Ocean, and the African continent which led to distinct aerosol conditions. Pristine conditions with low aerosol particle number concentrations of ~100 cm3 were alternating with periods influenced by Saharan dust or aerosol from biomass burning resulting in comparably high number concentrations of ~ 500 cm3. The biomass burning aerosol was originating from both the Caribbean area and Africa. The shallow cumulus clouds responded to the different aerosol conditions with a wide range of mean droplet sizes and number concentrations. Two days with different aerosol and cloud microphysical properties but almost identical meteorological conditions have been analyzed in detail. The differences in the droplet number concentration and droplet sizes appear not to show any significant change for turbulent cloud mixing, but the relative roles of droplet inertia and sedimentation in initiating coalescence, as well as the cloud reflectivity, do change substantially.


The aim of this article is to challenge the widespread acceptance of player burnout as an athlete's personal inability to deal with the situational demands of sporting competition. Adapting Coakley's earlier assertion that burnout is 'a social problem rooted in the social organization of high performance sport itself', the interactions between Gaelic athletes and the social world in which they exist are unpacked within an Irish context. Linking findings to Gramsci's theory of hegemony, 'dominant power relations' within the competitive sport setting are identified and critically analysed. It is argued that Gaelic players are exploited within a competitive culture in which they feel entrapped, because their actions are informed by the cultural norms of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the sport's National Governing Body, and dependent upon relationships with coaches and others in positions of authority in the federation. As such, Gaelic footballers are not voluntary agents, somehow acting independently of the constraints of the complex structures in which they compete. Instead, and aware of the often very intricate interdependencies that exist within the sport, it is argued that player burnout in Gaelic football is best explained through the deployment of a Coakley's 'vocabulary of empowerment'.


The basic object of study of this dissertation is those texts conventionally
known as 'the writings of the Roman land surveyors'.
It deals in particular with the nature of the works of a body of authors (Frontinus
and his later commentator, 'first' and 'second' Hyginus, Siculus Flaccus and
Urbicus) which have come down to us, within the aforesaid collection of writings
characterized by a diversified technical framework, through a peculiar manuscript
tradition.
Their treatises are of a special importance because they do not simply illustrate
various principles and aspects of the technique of land measurement connected
with areas of territory which have been parcelled and allocated.
These authors, in fact, also describe those different kinds of markers which typify
the boundary system used to enclose private/public areas or parcels of land.
Such descriptions are connected by them with a discussion about different types
of disputes which may arise either about the boundary line/strip or an area of
land. The aim of the research is double.
On the one hand, it seeks to ascertain more precisely the interrelation between
the writings (or part of the writings) of the above mentioned authors: what was the
extent and character of the influence each treatise may have exerted on the other
by means of the technical terminology and systematization of the subject (along
with any development of the land surveying technique) they followed.
The first part of this study is, therefore, devoted to a close analysis of the way
their works have been transmitted and all the most relevant passages which may
lead not only to a better understanding of the nature of such works, but also to a
more reliable chronology.
On the other hand, this investigation is aimed to ascertain what was the actual
province of the Agnmensores in the procedure for settling private and public law
cases concerning land disputes in Imperial Rome.
By commenting on all the most relevant epigraphical and documentary records
dealing with this subject, along with those collections of laws concerning the
'action for regulating boundaries', it is possible to maintain not only that, according
to the Roman law in force, the Agrimensores never held any office of arbitrators
or judges to settle such disputes, but also that the jurists' and the Agnmensores'
way of indicating the object of disputes about 'boundary' and 'site' was different,
since their technical needs were different.


The Forest Operations Unit of the Southern Research Station has been studying biomass-related topics since 1977. This CD aids the reader by organizing these publications in one easy-to-use CD. This CD is comprised of an executive summary, two bibliographies, individual publications (in PDF format), and a keyword listing. The types of publications included on this CD are presentation reports, published reports, portions of books, and Web postings.


Feature extraction by digital image analysis and cell classification is an important task for cell culture automation. In High Throughput Screening (HTS) where thousands of data points are generated and processed at once, features will be extracted and cells will be classified to make a decision whether the cell-culture is going on smoothly or not. The culture is restarted if a problem is detected. In this thesis project HeLa cells, which are human epithelial cancer cells, are selected for the experiment. The purpose is to classify two types of HeLa cells in culture: Cells in cleavage that are round floating cells (stressed or dead cells are also round and floating) and another is, normal growing cells that are attached to the substrate. As the number of cells in cleavage will always be smaller than the number of cells which are growing normally and attached to the substrate, the cell-count of attached cells should be higher than the round cells. There are five different HeLa cell images that are used. For each image, every single cell is obtained by image segmentation and isolation. Different mathematical features are found for each cell. The feature set for this experiment is chosen in such a way that features are robust, discriminative and have good generalisation quality for classification. Almost all the features presented in this thesis are rotation, translation and scale invariant so that they are expected to perform well in discriminating objects or cells by any classification algorithm. There are some new features added which are believed to improve the classification result. The feature set is considerably broad rather than in contrast with the restricted sets which have been used in previous work. These features are used based on a common interface so that the library can be extended and integrated into other applications. These features are fed into a machine learning algorithm called Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) for classification. Cells are then classified as 'Cells attached to the substrate' or Cell Class A and 'Cells in cleavage' or Cell Class B. LDA considers features by leaving and adding shape features for increased performance. On average there is higher than ninety five percent accuracy obtained in the classification result which is validated by visual classification.


Within the framework of the GTS-LCS project (Grimsel Test Site – Long-Term Cement Studies), an in-situ experiment lasting about 5 years was started in 2009 to study water-cement-rock interactions in fractured granite. A solid cement source (OPC) was installed in a borehole intersecting a water conducting fracture. Two other boreholes at about 0.56 m (observation) and 1.12 m (extraction) from the emplacement borehole were used to monitor the evolution of water composition in the fracture. Prior to the experiment, a tracer test was performed to characterize the initial flow and transport properties of the rock around the experimental boreholes. The flow and reactive transport calculations have been performed using the Retraso-CodeBright code. Solute transport is assumed to be controlled by diffusion in the cement and by advection-dispersion in the rock fracture.

Initially, the flow model calculated from the results of the pre-emplacement tracer test, assuming a homogeneous fracture, was used to model reactive transport after emplacement of the cement. Since the small grid size from the flow model led to excessive computational times, the domain was divided into (a) a 1D radial model for the emplacement borehole and a small volume of rock around it, and (b) a 2D model for the rest of the domain. The results from (a) were used as input for (b).
The model results show dissolution of portlandite and C-S-H in a thin (mm) external layer of the cement (emplacement borehole). In the rock fracture there is dissolution of the primary silicates (except phlogopite) and precipitation of C-S-H, C-A-S-H and calcite. Fracture porosity is reduced in a belt around the 3 boreholes, converging at the extraction borehole (due to the magnitude of the extraction flow rate). The decrease in porosity, due mainly to the precipitation of calcite, is stronger right next to the extraction borehole, due to the more favorable mixing conditions between Grimsel groundwater and cement porewater. The changing water injection rate conditions in the emplacement borehole lead to changes in the flow field and in the position of the mineral reaction fronts.