This article focuses on how to boost innovation by stimulating the emergence of joint R&D projects within cluster initiatives. Based on empirical studies on R&D-oriented cluster initiatives, it sheds light on cluster R&D management, a key but hardly ever studied issue, and explains how cluster managers attempt to stimulate and to intermediate innovation by applying three central tactics, possibly enriched by other ex ante and ex post peripheral tactics. Drawing on these empirical results, tested on 15 cluster managers, the article then illustrates that the encompassing model of upstream innovation intermediation process proposed by Sieg et al. (2010) addresses in fact only one among the several possible forms of such processes. Then, splitting Noteboom's notion of 'optimal cognitive distance' into two different dimensions, it shows that this refined notion of cognitive proximity/distance between actors helps understand such a diversity of innovation intermediation processes and their varied efficiencies.


Abstract The phylogenetic relationships of fossil and extant members of the primate superfamily Hominoidea are reassessed by using both conventional (morphological) cladistic and stratocladistic (incorporating morphological and temporal data) techniques. The cladistic analysis recovers four most parsimonious cladograms that distinguish postcranially primitive ("archaic") and derived ("modern") hominoid clades in the earliest Miocene of East Africa and supports distinct hominine and pongine clades. However, the relationships among the pongines and hominine clades and other Eurasian hominoids remain ambiguous and there is weak support (Bremer decay indices, reduced consensus, and bootstrap proportions) for several other parts of the proposed phylogeny. An examination of the partitioning of homoplasy across the two major hominoid clades recovered in the cladistic analysis indicates that the majority of the observed homoplasy resides in the postcranially derived clade. An examination of the partitioning of homoplasy across anatomical regions indicates that dental characters display a significantly higher level of homoplasy than postcranial characters. A rarefaction analysis demonstrates that the higher homoplasy associated with the dental characters is not the result of sampling biases, indicating that postcranial skeletal characters are likely the more reliable phylogenetic indicators in the hominoids. The branching order of the most parsimonious cladograms shows better than average congruence with the observed ordering of first appearances in the fossil record, implying that the hominoid fossil record is surprisingly good. As with morphologic parsimony debt, most of the stratigraphic parsimony debt in these cladograms is associated with the "modern" hominoid clade. A stratocladistic analysis of the data recovers a single most parsimonious phylogenetic tree with a different cladistic topology from the morphological cladogram. The most striking difference is the elimination of the postcranially primitive clade of hominoids in the early Miocene in favor of a pectinate succession of taxa. The relative position of the late-appearing taxon Oreopithecus is also altered in the stratocladistic hypothesis. Topological differences between the cladistic and stratocladistic hypotheses highlight two intervals of significant discord between the morphological and temporal data—the early Miocene of eastern Africa and the late Miocene of Eurasia. The first discrepancy is likely the result of poor preservation and morphological homoplasy in Morotopithecus, as the fossil record in the early Miocene of eastern Africa for the ingroup is rather good. The second discrepancy is likely the result of the unusual preservation conditions associated with the late Miocene hominoid Oreopithecus.


Title of Document: AN ANALYSIS OF PRINCIPAL ATTRITION IN A LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT Douglas W. Anthony, Doctor of Education, 2016 Directed By: Margaret J. McLaughlin, Ph.D., Chair, and John Norris, Ph.D., Director Principal attrition is a national problem particularly in large urban school districts. Research confirms that schools that serve high proportions of children living in poverty have the most difficulty attracting and retaining competent school leaders. Principals who are at the helm of high poverty schools have a higher turnover rate than the national average of three to four years and higher rates of teacher attrition. This leadership turnover has a fiscal impact on districts and negatively affects student achievement. Research identifies a myriad of reasons why administrators leave the role of principal: some leave the position for retirement; some exit based on difficulty of the role and lack of support; and some simply leave for other opportunities within and outside of the profession altogether. As expectations for both teacher and learner performance drive the national education agenda, understanding how to keep effective principals in their jobs is critical. This study examined the factors that principals in a large urban district identified as potentially affecting their decisions to stay in the position. The study utilized a multidimensional, web-based questionnaire to examine principals' perceptions regarding contributing factors that impact tenure. Results indicated that:  having a quality teaching staff and establishing a positive work-life balance were important stay factors for principals;  having an effective supervisor and collegial support from other principals, were helpful supports; and  having adequate resources, time for long-term planning, and teacher support and resources were critical working conditions. Taken together, these indicators were the most frequently cited factors that would keep principals in their positions. The results were used to create a framework that may serve as a potential guide for addressing principal retention. AN ANALYSIS OF PRINCIPAL ATTRITION IN A LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT


We introduce new revelation mechanisms for simultaneous common agency games which, although they do not always permit a complete equilibrium characterization, do facilitate the characterization of the equilibrium outcomes that are typically of interest in applications. We then show how these mechanisms can be used in applications such as menu auctions, competition in nonlinear tariffs, and moral hazard settings. Lastly, we show how one can enrich the revelation mechanisms, albeit at a cost of an increase in complexity, to characterize all possible equilibrium outcomes, including those sustained by non-Markov strategies and/or mixed-strategy profiles. (JEL C72, D82, D86)


In the last decades, the increase of industrial activities and of the request for the world food requirement, the intensification of natural resources exploitation, directly connected to pollution, have aroused an increasing interest of the public opinion towards initiatives linked to the regulation of food production, as well to the institution of a modern legislation for the consumer guardianship.
This work was planned taking into account some important thematics related to marine environment, collecting and showing the data obtained from the studies made on different marine species of commercial interest (Chamelea gallina, Mytilus edulis, Ostrea edulis, Crassostrea gigas, Salmo salar, Gadus morhua). These studies have evaluated the effects of important physic and chemical parameters variations (temperature, xenobiotics like drugs, hydrocarbons and pesticides) on cells involved in the immune defence (haemocytes) and on some important enzymatic systems involved in xenobiotic biotransformation processes (cytochrome P450 complex) and in the related antioxidant defence processes (Superoxide dismutase, Catalase, Heat Shock Protein), from a biochemical and bimolecular point of view.
Oxygen is essential in the biological answer of a living organism. Its consume in the normal cellular breathing physiological processes and foreign substances biotransformation, leads to reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, potentially toxic and responsible of biological macromolecules damages with consequent pathologies worsening.
Such processes can bring to a qualitative alteration of the derived products, but also to a general state of suffering that in the most serious cases can provoke the death of the organism, with important repercussions in economic field, in the output of the breedings, of fishing and of aquaculture.
In this study it seemed interesting to apply also alternative methodologies currently in use in the medical field (cytofluorimetry) and in proteomic studies (bidimensional electrophoresis, mass spectrometry) with the aim of identify new biomarkers to place beside the traditional methods for the control of the animal origin food quality.
From the results it's possible to point out some relevant aspects from each experiment:

1. The cytofluorimetric techniques applied to O. edulis and C. gigas could bring to important developments in the search of alternative methods that quickly allows to identify with precision the origin of a specific sample, contributing to oppose possible alimentary frauds, in this case for example related to presence of a different species, also under a qualitative profile, but morpholgically similar.
A concrete perspective for the application in the inspective field of this method has to be confirmed by further laboratory tests that take also in account in vivo experiments to evaluate the effect in the whole organism of the factors evaluated only on haemocytes in vitro.
These elements suggest therefore the possibility to suit the cytofluorimetric methods for the study of animal organisms of food interest, still before these enter the phase of industrial working processes, giving useful information about the possible presence of contaminants sources that can induce an increase of the immune defence and an alteration of normal cellular parameter values.

2. C. gallina immune system has shown an interesting answer to benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) exposure, dose and time dependent, with a significant decrease of the expression and of the activity of one of the most important enzymes involved in the antioxidant defence in haemocytes and haemolymph. The data obtained are confirmed by several measurements of physiological parameters, that together with the decrease of the activity of 7-etossi-resourifine-O-deetilase (EROD linked to xenobiotic biotransformation processes) during exposure, underline the major effects of B[a]P action.
The identification of basal levels of EROD supports the possible presence of CYP1A subfamily in the invertebrates, still today controversial, never identified previously in C. gallina and never isolated in the immune cells, as confirmed instead in this study with the identification of CYP1A-immunopositive protein (CYP1A-IPP). This protein could reveal a good biomarker at the base of a simple and quick method that could give clear information about specific pollutants presence, even at low concentrations in the environment where usually these organisms are fished before being commercialized.

3. In this experiment it has been evaluated the effect of the antibiotic chloramphenicol (CA) in an important species of commercial interest, Chamelea gallina. Chloramphenicol is a drug still used in some developing countries, also in veterinary field. Controls to evaluate its presence in the alimentary products of animal origin, can reveal ineffective whereas the concentration results to be below the limit of sensitivity of the instruments usually used in this type of analysis.
Negative effects of CA towards the CYP1A- IPP proteins, underlined in this work, seem to be due to the attack of free radicals resultant from the action of the antibiotic. This brings to a meaningful alteration of the biotransformation mechanisms through the free radicals.
It seems particularly interesting to pay attention to the narrow relationships in C. gallina, between SOD/CAT and CYP450 system, actively involved in detoxification mechanism, especially if compared with the few similar works today present about mollusc, a group that is composed by numerous species that enter in the food field and on which constant controls are necessary to evaluate in a rapid and effective way the presence of possible contaminations.

4. The investigations on fishes (Gadus morhua, and Salmo salar) and on a bivalve mollusc (Mytilus edulis) have allowed to evaluate different aspects related to the possibility to identify a biomarker for the evaluation of the health of organisms of food interest and consequently for the quality of the final product through 2DE methodologies.
In the seafood field these techniques are currently used with a discreet success only for vertebrates (fishes), while in the study of the invertebrates (molluscs) there are a lot of difficulties. The results obtained in this work have underline several problems in the correct identification of the isolated proteins in animal organisms of which doesn't currently exist a complete genomic sequence.
This brings to attribute some identities on the base of the comparison with similar proteins in other animal groups, incurring in the possibility to obtain inaccurate data and above all discordant with those obtained on the same animals by other authors.
Nevertheless the data obtained in this work after MALDI-ToF analysis, result however objective and the spectra collected could be again analyzed in the future after the update of genomic database related to the species studied.

4-A. The investigation about the presence of HSP70 isoforms directly induced by different phenomena of stress like B[a]P presence, has used bidimensional electrophoresis methods in C. gallina, that have allowed to isolate numerous protein on 2DE gels, allowing the collection of several spots currently in phase of analysis with MALDI-ToF-MS.

The present preliminary work has allowed therefore to acquire and to improve important methodologies in the study of cellular parameters and in the proteomic field, that is not only revealed of great potentiality in the application in medical and veterinary field, but also in the field of the inspection of the foods with connections to the toxicology and the environmental pollution.
Such study contributes therefore to the search of rapid and new methodologies, that can increase the inspective strategies, integrating themselves with those existing, but improving at the same time the general background of information related to the state of health of the considered animal organism, with the possibility, still hypothetical, to replace in particular cases the employment of the traditional techniques in the alimentary field.


Sketching in immersive 3D virtual reality (VR) environments has great potential for a variety of interactive 3D design applications. Precisely sketching the intended strokes in mid-air, however, can be a challenge. In this paper, we present a set of controlled studies to analyze the factors affecting human ability to sketch freely in a 3D VR environment. In our first study, we directly compare traditional sketching on a physical surface to sketching in VR, with and without a physical surface to rest the stylus on. Our results indicate that the lack of a physical drawing surface is a major cause of inaccuracies in VR drawing, and that the effect is dependent on the orientation of the drawing surface. In a second experiment, we evaluate the extent to which visual guidance can compensate for the loss of sketching precision in VR. We found that while additional visual guidance improves positional accuracy, it can be detrimental to the aesthetic quality of strokes. We conclude by distilling our experimental findings into design guidelines for sketching tools in immersive 3D environments.


New 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates from the Jemez Mountain volcanic field (JMVF) reveal formerly unrecognized shifts in the loci of pre-caldera volcanic centers across the northern Jemez Mountains; these shifts are interpreted to coincide with episodes of Rio Grande rift faulting. Early activity in the field includes two eruptive pulses: 10.8–9.2 Ma basaltic to dacitic volcanism on Lobato Mesa in the northeastern JMVF and 12–9 Ma mafic to silicic volcanism in the southwestern JMVF. While 9–7 Ma eruptions persisted in the southern JMVF, a new eruptive center developed on the La Grulla Plateau in the northwestern JMVF (8.7–7.2 Ma), corresponding with a period of rift widening caused by reactivation of Laramide faults in this area. The older 8.7–7.8 Ma mafic lavas emitted from Encino Point and the younger 7.7–7.2 Ma trachyandesite and dacite erupted on the La Grulla Plateau are assigned to a new unit called the La Grulla Formation. The chemical composition of a 640 m stack of lava flows exposed in the northern margin of the Valles caldera changes from dacite to andesite, then back to dacite upsection, becoming slightly more alkalic upward. The shift to more alkalic compositions occurs across a sedimentary break, marking a subtle change in magma source for the older Paliza Canyon Formation and the younger La Grulla Formation lavas. New age constraints from a rhyolite intrusion in the southern JMVF and pumiceous rhyolite deposits in the northern JMVF suggest an episode of localized, 7.6–7.8 Ma rhyolitic volcanism that occurred in the central part of the JMVF between 12–8 Ma Canovas Canyon Rhyolite and 7–6 Ma peak Bearhead Rhyolite volcanism. Younger Bearhead Rhyolite intrusions (7.1–6.5 Ma) are more widespread than previously documented, extending into the northeastern JMVF. Tschicoma Formation dacite erupted at 5 Ma in the Sierra de los Valles and then erupted throughout the northeastern JMVF 5–2 Ma. The more refined geochronology of the JMVF indicates that pre-caldera volcanic centers were characterized by geographically and chemically distinct, relatively short-lived, episodes of activity. Volcanism generally migrated eastward through time in the southern JMVF, but the pattern in the northern JMVF had a more complex east (10–9 Ma) to west (9–7 Ma) to east (5–2 Ma) pattern that reflects the timing of motion on faults. The new ages, coupled with detailed mapping of both volcanic rocks and the Santa Fe Group, document significant pulses of faulting, erosion, and deposition during middle Miocene time and during late Miocene time across the Canones fault zone in the northern JMVF.


Public spaces in Dutch city centres are increasingly subject to facelifts. The car parking that dominated city squares until the 1980s has been removed and replaced by modern street furniture, city stages, and an abundance of sidewalk cafes. At the same time, public spaces are more controlled by camera surveillance and strict regulation. Why and how do these makeovers occur? It has been the central aim of the present study to answer this question; that is, to elucidate the social antecedents (background) of the redevelopment of Dutch city squares and to chart its course (process). To this end, we have portrayed the historical development and the main current trends in the design and management of Dutch public space (Chapter 2 and 3). In addition, we have investigated the increasing involvement of the private sector in redevelopment processes and have explored to what extent this might affect the design and management of public space (Chapter 4). Through this actor approach, the thesis complements the main body of public-space literature, which tends to focus on the users (the 'demand side') rather than reviewing the role and objectives of the responsible actors (the 'supply side'). The empirical section (Chapter 6-8) outlined the results of case-study research performed in the city centres of Rotterdam, Dordrecht, Enschede, and 's-Hertogenbosch. In each of these four cases, the redevelopment of a cluster of two squares has been investigated: respectively the Schouwburgplein and Beurstraverse, the Grote Markt and Statenplein, the Oude Markt and Van Heekplein, and the Markt and Loeffplein. The research is conducted by means of desk research, semi-structured interviews with key persons engaged in the redevelopment of public space, observations, and policy analysis. The research results indicate that recent redevelopment tends to occur in public spaces located within or very close to the historic city centre, yet lack historicity themselves. Consequently, they could be thoroughly upgraded without much resistance from the local population and thus offered much freedom to the actors involved to create spaces that fit the needs of the current society and the main stakeholders. The private sector has been involved in the redevelopment of four out of eight squares, but its tasks were limited. Except for the Beurstraverse, the role of the local government was still extensive regarding all redevelopment tasks, especially process and maintenance. The private sector's financial involvement was mainly limited to indirect contributions via the price paid for the land. Private-sector representatives regarded these as tangible financial payments, while the public sector did not. Private-sector involvement improves the coherence between buildings and public space and has no negative effect on the duration of redevelopment processes. It leads to restricted accessibility, but only in areas that are private rather than public space. The involvement of the private sector in the redevelopment of public space needs further questioning in urban policy and future public space-research, because in the long run it could effectuate spatial differences in quality and homogenisation in function and design of the city centre.


Stratigraphic architecture exerts a powerful influence on the vertical distribution of fossils and should be considered before biostratigraphic and paleobiologic interpretations to avoid interpretations of patterns that are actually stratigraphic artifacts. Previous numerical models of the stratigraphic distribution of fossils were developed for siliciclastic settings, which also work well for mixed carbonate-siliciclastic settings. These models are evaluated here using the Upper Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite, which was deposited on a tropical carbonate platform. The Bighorn Dolomite contains three third-order, unconformity-bounded depositional sequences, which correspond closely to the Steamboat Point, Leigh, and Horseshoe Mountain Members and are correlative with the C2, C3, and C5 sequences of the eastern United States. The Steamboat Point and Leigh Members record greenhouse conditions and are characterized by meter-scale parasequences with weakly defined flooding surfaces and minor internal facies changes. Absent in these units are well-defined parasequence sets with strong upward-deepening or upward-shallowing trends. In contrast, the Horseshoe Mountain Member reflects a transitional climate and consists of 10-m-thick, well-developed parasequences that clearly stack into upward-deepening (transgressive) and upward-shallowing (highstand) systems tracts. Fossil associations within the Bighorn Dolomite fall into five biofacies that reflect depositional environment and age. The brachiopod biofacies is found in deep subtidal facies, with the gastropod facies and crinoid biofacies in shallow subtidal facies. The dasyclad biofacies and coral biofacies are limited to the shallow subtidal facies of the Steamboat Point and Horseshoe Mountain sequences, respectively. In the greenhouse sequences, biofacies transitions are gradational, whereas they are abrupt and correspond to major flooding surfaces in the transitional climate sequences. Similarly, first and last occurrences are not clustered in the greenhouse-climate sequences, although they are elevated near the maximum flooding zone. First and last occurrences are clustered in the transitional-climate sequence where open marine facies border the sequence boundary, at major flooding surfaces, and where open marine facies are last expressed.


During the 20th century a process of internationalisation concerning children's rights has been operationalized via, among other events, International Congresses held to exchange experiences and common protection policies between some European and American countries; and the emergence and application of national protection policies. In addition, working from the promulgation of three important international treaties in 1924, 1959 and 1989, these policies have expanded and are being used as a model by countries that are implementing them progressively. However, it can be proven that discourse on childhood in this period has been continuous, highlighting the rights to autonomy and above all those regarding protection and help for boys and girls in social exclusion situations.


Recent studies have shown that robots can form concepts and understand the meanings of words through inference. The key idea underlying these studies is the "multimodal categorization" of a robot's experiences. Despite the success in the formation of concepts by robots, a major drawback of previous studies stems from the fact that they have been mainly focused on object concepts. Obviously, human concepts are limited not only to object concepts but also to other kinds such as those connected to the tactile sense and color. In this paper, we propose a novel model called the ensemble-of-concept models (EoCMs) to form various kinds of concepts. In EoCMs, we introduce weights that represent the strength connecting modalities and concepts. By changing these weights, many concepts that are connected to particular modalities can be formed; however, meaningless concepts for humans are included in these concepts. To communicate with humans, robots are required to form meaningful concepts for us. Therefore, we utilize utterances taught by human users as the robot observes objects. The robot connects words included in the teaching utterances with formed concepts and selects meaningful concepts to communicate with users. The experimental results show that the robot can form not only object concepts but also others such as color-related concepts and haptic concepts. Furthermore, using word2vec, we compare the meanings of the words acquired by the robot in connecting them to the concepts formed.


The description of the language as used by children along the acquisition period leads to question about the most elementary principles which base all theory about language organization. The principal tools and concepts of the Lexicon-Grammar theory give account of the language organization inspite of the fact that they were not conceived to describe the language in acquisition. In particular the organization of the language in a set of discourses which gives the way of discovering its organization allow children to acquire the language through Reformulation. To acquire language children produce their predications as a function of previous predications. They repeat a part without any change and modify the rest of the source utterance. The invariant part and the modified part change in the course of the acquisition.


We demonstrated high performance long wavelength InAs/GaAs0.09Sb0.91 type-II superlattices infrared photo-detectors grown on InAs substrates. Superlattices photodiodes with InAs layer thickness from 14 to 24 ML showed 50% cutoff wavelength from 6 to 12.5 μm while the lattice-mismatch was kept smaller than 4.0 × 10−4 without any additional interface layers for strain balance. Quantum efficiency spectra showed oscillating characteristics which were attributed to the plasma effect in the highly doped InAs buffer layers. The absorption coefficient of 1800 cm−1 and diffusion length of 10 μm of minority carriers in the SLs on InAs have been obtained through simulation. A photodiode exhibited a 12.5 μm cutoff wavelength with a peak detectivity of 7.4 × 1010 cm Hz1/2 W−1 and 2.6 × 1011 cm Hz1/2 W−1 at 76 K and 52 K, respectively.


Soil and groundwater pollution by chlorinated solvents, such as tetrachloroethylene (PCE) are common throughout the industrialized world. These so called DNAPLs pose environmental health risks and sites contaminated with DNAPLs often require remediation. One of the most effective and economically feasible methods for NAPL cleanup is in-situ bioremediation. Early bioremediation activities were directed at contamination plumes. However, recently, interest is growing more and more in the application of biodegradation to source zones. This thesis strengthens current knowledge and adds valuable insights into biodegradation within a DNAPL source zone. We have combined batch, column, and sandbox experiments and numerical modeling. All experiments were carried out under anaerobic conditions with groundwater containing a dechlorinating microbial assemblage originating from a tetrachloroethene (PCE)-contaminated site. In batch experiments, no dechlorination was found in solutions with initial PCE concentrations higher than 0.5 mM. In column experiments, however, dechlorination was observed not only in columns with dissolved PCE, but even in columns containing PCE liquid. This difference in biodegradation behavior between batch and column arrangements is believed to be due do the interplay of biodegradation, advection, and diffusion. These processes create a pore-scale distribution of PCE concentration, varying from solubility limit, next to a blob, to lower-than-toxicity values within a short distance. These processes also lead to enhanced dissolution of PCE. In columns with residual PCE, we found a bioenhanced dissolution factor of 5, which is comparable to values found in the literature. A bioenhanced dissolution factor higher than one indicates that the longevity of the source zone can be shortened significantly. Similar results were found in experiments carried out in a 2D tank with inner dimensions of 2000 x 940 x 45 mm. In the tank, horizontal groundwater at rates comparable to field conditions was established and a zone of residual PCE over the height and a pool at the bottom of the tank were created. Biodegradation in the residual source zone was established. Bio-enhanced dissolution is believed to have occurred as the total chlorinated ethene concentration was about four times higher than the solubility limit of PCE. The bioenhanced dissolution factor resulted from a higher concentration gradient, higher PCE solubility limit, and an increased dissolution rate coefficient. Model calculations with a traditional constant dissolution rate coefficient and solubility limit will lead to an underestimation in mass removed. In both column and tank experiments, we have established that mobilization of residual PCE occurred as a result of dechlorination activities. Mobilization and the observation of an increase in dissolution rate constant in the presence of dechlorination are probably effects of the production of surfactants by the dechlorination microbial assemblage. Modeling studies from the various experiments were performed. From the batch experiments, biotic parameters were estimated with a sensitivity analysis to determine significance of other biological reactions influencing the dechlorination process. From the column experiments parameters to describe DNAPL dissolution and dechlorination were estimated for porous media. We concluded that the dissolution rate coefficient increased with time. Parameters obtained in the column experiment were used to model the tank experiment. Computations closely matched the total mass that left the tank from the laboratory experiment


Abstract This paper attempts to explain the trajectory and unusual outcome of this courtroom encounter by applying Erving Goffman's approach to interaction. It employs his notions of frame and footing, plus those of face, ritual deference and demeanour when they are useful. This perspective shows that, as well as the socially constituted power asymmetry, the participants create an interactive asymmetry in which the accused, Penelope Soto, although a canonically ratified participant, is sometimes effectively 'de-ratified'. However, as the encounter progresses, Soto and the judge shift their footings back and forth such that into the court-hearing frame, another frame, that of the social encounter, is insinuated. This clash of frames is shown to be a major cause of the trajectory taken by the encounter. The Goffmanian perspective also points up the effect of the use of a video link for this encounter. This application of Goffman's framework functions as a test of some of his concepts and the paper concludes with some comments and suggested elaborations.


BACKGROUND: Rectal endometriosis can cause debilitating symptoms. Rectal resection in this setting has been shown to improve symptoms; however, there remain some reservations about this intervention because of the risk of complications such as anastomotic leak and rectovaginal fistula. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to review our experience with rectal resection in patients with rectal endometriosis. DATA SOURCES: Hospital records and prospectively maintained electronic databases of an endogynecologist and colorectal surgeon were reviewed. STUDY SELECTION: This is a retrospective study of consecutive patients who underwent rectal resection for endometriosis from 2001 to 2010. INTERVENTIONS: All patients underwent either disc or segmental resection of the rectum. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcomes of interest were operative complications and recurrence requiring surgical reintervention. RESULTS: Ninety-one patients underwent 92 resections for endometriosis. Sixty-five (71%) were disc resections, 25 (27%) were segmental resections, and 1 patient underwent both disc and segmental resections. Eighty-one (88%) procedures were completed laparoscopically. Patients requiring segmental resection had more extensive disease, and this was associated with open conversion (p ⩽ 0.0001). Average duration of procedure was 209 minutes. Three patients (3%) required defunctioning ileostomies. Intramural endometriosis was confirmed in 96.7% of specimens. Complications occurred in 13 patients (15%); 4 were minor. Three patients had small pelvic collections treated with antibiotics, 5 patients required transfusion for bleeding (3 intraoperative, 2 anastomotic bleeds that settled conservatively), and 1 patient sustained ureteric injury that was reimplanted with no sequelae. None had anastomotic leak or rectovaginal fistula. Ten patients (11%) required reintervention for recurrent symptoms. Of these, 8 (8.8%) patients were found to have recurrent endometriosis. No correlation could be found between involved margins on pathology and need for redo surgery. LIMITATIONS: This study is limited by its retrospective nature. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic rectal resection for deeply infiltrative endometriosis is feasible and safe, and it provides durable symptom control with acceptable recurrence rates.


: Copyright law's requirement of substantial similarity requires a court to satisfy itself that a defendant's copying, even when shown to exist as a factual matter, is quantitatively and qualitatively enough to render it actionable as infringement. By the time a jury reaches the question of substantial similarity, however, the court has usually heard and analyzed a good deal of evidence about: the plaintiff, the defendant, the creativity involved, the process through which the work was created, the reasons for which the work was produced, the defendant's own creative efforts and behavior, and, on occasion, the market effects of the defendant's copying. Despite having this large body of evidence before it, the jury is required to answer the question of substantial similarity through a mere comparison of the two works. In this Essay, we report results from a series of experiments in which subjects were presented with a pair of images and asked to assess the similarity between the two works using the criteria ordinarily given to fact-finders for the substantial similarity determination. When provided with additional information about the simple fact of copying, or about the amount of creative effort that went into the protected work, we saw an appreciable variation (i.e., upwards) in subjects' assessments of similarity between the works, suggesting that fact-finders are sensitive to additional information about the two works and the creators who produced them, contrary to what current law assumes. Our study suggests that the availability and salience of such additional information actively distorts fact-finders' assessments of the similarity between the two works, calling into question the purported objectivity of the substantial similarity requirement as a whole.


Algebraic effects are an interesting way to structure effectful programs and offer new modularity properties. We present the Scala library Effekt, which is implemented in terms of a monad for multi-prompt delimited continuations and centered around capability passing. This makes the newly proposed feature of implicit function types a perfect fit for the syntax of our library. Basing the library design on capability passing and a polymorphic embedding of effect handlers furthermore opens up interesting dimensions of extensibility. Preliminary benchmarks comparing Effekt with an established library suggest significant speedups.


Software correctness in general is a hard problem, and especially so for high performance computing (HPC). One problem being that array layout and traversal may depend on array size and hardware properties (cache size, core count, etc), making verification almost specific to every execution of the software. Can one of the reasons for the difficulties be that we are focussing too much on specific instances and low level detail, and not enough on abstraction and generic code? There exists several meta-theorems for generic code, one promising correctness by testing of minimal data sets, another free theorems. Here we present three generic array algorithms which can form the core when implementing explicit solvers for finite difference methods (FDM). Knowing the size for the computational grid, the first two generic algorithms requires one test each to ensure correctness. The third requires dw tests, where d is the number of dimensions, e.g., 3, and w is the width of the difference operator, e.g., 3 or 5. This verification is fast enough to be an integral part of a simulation run, which typically will have hundreds of calls with these parameter combinations. Generic implementations also provide free theorems, which gives rise to optimisation rules for the FDM code. We illustrate this on a 3D Burgers' solver using these generic core codes implemented for CPU and GPU.


We describe a methodology and a tool for performing scalable bit-precise static analysis. The tool combines the scalable static analysis engine PREfix [14] and the bit-precise efficient SMT solver Z3 [20]. Since 1999, PREfix has been used at Microsoft to analyze C/C++ production code. It relies on an efficient custom constraint solver, but addresses bit-level semantics only partially. On the other hand, the Satisfiability Modulo Theories solver Z3, developed at Microsoft Research, supports precise machine-level semantics for integer arithmetic operations. The integration of PREfix with Z3 allows uncovering software bugs that could not previously be identified. Of particular importance are integer overflows. These typically arise when the programmer wrongly assumes mathematical integer semantics, and they are notorious causes of buffer overflow vulnerabilities in C/C++ programs. We performed an experimental evaluation of our integration by running the modified version of PREfix on a large legacy code base for the next version of a Microsoft product. The experiments resulted in a number of bugs filed and fixed related to integer overflows. We also describe how we developed useful filters for avoiding false positives based on the comprehensive evaluation.


You can shop anywhere you like -- as long as it's Tesco The inexorable rise of supermarkets is big news but have we really taken on board what this means for our daily lives, and those of our children? In this searing analysis Andrew Simms, director of the acclaimed think-and-do-tank the New Economics Foundation and the person responsible for introducing 'Clone Towns' into our vernacular, tackles a subject none of us can afford to ignore. The book shows how the supermarkets -- and Tesco in particular -- have brought: " Banality -- homogenized high streets full of clone stores " Ghost towns -- superstores have drained the life from our town centres and communities " A Supermarket State -- this new commercial nanny state that knows more about you than you think " Profits from poverty -- shelves full of global plunder, produced for a pittance " Global food domination -- as the superstores expand overseas But there's change afoot, with evidence of the tide turning and consumer campaigns gaining ground. Simms ends with suggestions for change and coporate reformation to safeguard our communities and environment -- all over the world. This book has been written and published independently from the Tescopoly Alliance and is not endorsed by them.


In any political setting, a few people will defy political authority. The main challenge for theories of rebellion is to explain when and why others join en masse. Scholarship on social movements typically develops answers to this puzzle on the basis of either of two microfoundations. Explanations that conceptualize individuals as utility-maximizers contend that they protest as a means to other ends. Explanations that see individuals as driven by values and beliefs suggest that people protest for the inherent benefit of voicing dissent. Both perspectives generate compelling explanations. Yet how do purposeful individuals act when utilitarian calculations and cherished values recommend contrary courses of action? Why might an actor prioritize one or the other at different points in time? Taking on these questions, I argue for an approach to microfoundations that focuses on emotions. Emotions such as fear, sadness, and shame promote pessimistic assessments, risk aversion, and a low sense of control. Such dispiriting emotions encourage individuals to prioritize security and resign to political circumstances, even when they contradict values of dignity. By contrast, anger, joy, and pride promote optimistic assessments, risk acceptance, and feelings of personal efficacy. Such emboldening emotions encourage prioritization of dignity and increase willingness to engage in resistance, even when it jeopardizes security. When instrumentality and values offer different answers to the question of whether to resign or rebel, therefore, emotions can shift individuals toward one or the other. I ground this argument in findings from the neurosciences and illustrate it with evidence from the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and the absence of an uprising in Algeria.


Background: Quinolones are among drugs used in the treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs). However, there has been an increase in quinolone-resistant uropathogens over the last decade. The aim of this study was to assess the sensitivity pattern of isolated uropathogens to levofloxacin. Methods: Urine samples (n = 519) from suspected UTI patients were collected from July 2014 to September 2014. Microorganisms with significant growth were identified after initial culturing at 370C for 24 hours. Susceptibility of isolated uropathogens to levofloxacin at a break point of 5 μg was done by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: The prevalence of UTI among sampled patients was 18.3%. Predominant microbial isolates were: Escherichia coli (56.8%), Coliform spp. (24.2%) and Staphylococcus aureus (9.5%). Overall resistance of isolated uropathogens to levofloxacin was 51.6%. Levofloxacin resistance by predominant uropathogens was 63% for E. coli, 34.8% for Coliform spp. and 22.2% for S. aureus. Conclusions: High resistance of some isolated uropathogens to levofloxacin, especially with E. coli was observed in this study. Thus, the need for coordinated susceptibility monitoring of clinical isolates to levofloxacin.


Assuring food security for the next 25 years requires meeting a number of political, social, economic, and technical challenges. One of these is the successful use of new biotechnologies in agriculture. Research in recombinant genetics and biotechnology aims to develop plant varieties that provide reliable high yields at the same or lower costs by breeding in qualities such as resistance to disease, pests, and stress factors such as aridity. Realization of these goals could lead to tremendous gains in food production. However, biotechnology is now evoking the same objections that have been raised against the Green Revolution that its benefits are distributed inequitably in favor of the large, rich farmers and that it is potentially environmentally destructive. In this brief, Leisinger discusses the need for biotechnology and its sociopolitical ramifications and he looks at the roles played by the public and private sectors. In conclusion, the author states that biotechnology offers no silver bullet for food security there are no silver bullets but biotechnology is an important instrument in the difficult fight against hunger. The sociopolitical obstacles must be removed not only for the successful implementation of biotechnology, but also for an equitable and sustainable tomorrow for the world.


We study astroturf political campaigns on microblogging platforms: politically-motivated individuals and organizations that use multiple centrally-controlled accounts to create the appearance of widespread support for a candidate or opinion. We describe a machine learning framework that combines topological, content-based and crowdsourced features of information diffusion networks on Twitter to detect the early stages of viral spreading of political misinformation.  We present promising preliminary results with better than 96% accuracy in the detection of astroturf content in the run-up to the 2010 U.S. midterm elections.


We derived a new GPS site velocity field by integrating the data of ten newly built stations across the Liupan Shan Fault, in the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau and those of pre-existing sites in this area for the period of 1999 2015. The GPS velocity field in a Eurasian plate-fixed frame shows a clockwise rotation around the Ordos cratonic block. Relative to the Ordos block, GPS sites generally move northeastward. The inferred GPS velocity profile across the Liupan Shan Fault shows that fault-normal velocities decrease from west to east from 5.4 ± 0.9 mm yr-1, at the central of the Lanzhou block to 0.1 ± 0.8 mm yr-1 at the western Ordos craton. We estimated the locking degree and the slip deficit rate on the Liupan Shan Fault using the tectonic elastic block model. Modeling results show that the Liupan Shan Fault is characteristic of segmentation in terms of locking degree and slip deficit rate. The southern segment has the largest locking degree, with complete locking to the depth of 13 15 km; the locking degree in the central segment is smaller than that of the northern and southern segments. On average, the slip deficit rate at the northern segment is larger than that of the Southern and central segments. We estimate the maximum magnitude of an expected earthquake based on the moment budget since the last large earthquake of M 6.7 in 1921. If the accumulated energy was completely released by a single earthquake, the expected maximum magnitude would be Mw 6.7. The model prediction suggests a high potential for seismic hazard in the Liupan Shan area. Article history: Received 28 January 2018 Revised 7 August 2018 Accepted 10 September 2018


OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study was to examine the hypothesis that a combination of cyanobacterial biomass containing microcystins, acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and anticoagulant can enhance avian toxic effects produced by single exposures only.

METHODS
A total of 48 two-month-old Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica) with average body weight of 160 g were randomly divided into 8 experimental groups of six birds and sex ratio of 1:1. Experimental groups of control Japanese quails (C) and birds exposed to single and combined sub-lethal doses of paraoxon (P), bromadiolone (B), and microcystins in cyanobacterial biomass (M) included: C, P, P+B, B, B+M, P+M, M, and P+B+M. During the 10-day exposure birds in the respective groups received biomass containing 61.62 µg microcystins daily (i.e. 26.54 µg MC-RR, 7.62 µg MC-YR and 27.39 µg MC-LR), two 250 μg/kg doses of paraoxon, and two 500 mg/kg doses of bromadiolone. Group responses were compared using standard plasma biochemistry and antioxidant/oxidative stress parameters in tissues.

RESULTS
While single and double combinations of toxicants induced responses in individual biochemical parameters measured and evaluated using univariate statistical analysis, those in the triple exposure were most extensive. The principal component analysis of antioxidant/oxidative stress parameters (glutathione reductase, lipid peroxidation, and ferric reducing antioxidant power) in tissues (liver, kidney, heart, brain, lungs, gonads, and pectoralis major muscle) clearly separated the triple group (P+B+M) from all single and double exposure groups and the control and indicated thus marked joint effects in the overall pattern of antioxidant/oxidative stress responses of this group. The separation was driven by the modification of the ferric reducing antioxidant power levels in heart and brain and the cardiac lipid peroxidation level, in particular.

CONCLUSIONS
This experiment contributes to the understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms of combined sub-lethal exposure to natural toxins and agrochemicals and may be used for risk assessment of environmental pollution in birds.


In discussions of postcolonial nationhood and cultural identity, Taiwan is often overlooked. Yet the island—with its complex history of colonization—presents a particularly fascinating case of the struggle to define a "nation." While the mainland Chinese government has been unequivocal in its resistance to Taiwanese independence, in Taiwan, government control has gradually passed from mainland Chinese immigrants to the Taiwanese themselves. Two decades of democratization and the arrival of consumer culture have made the island a truly global space. Envisioning Taiwan sorts through these complexities, skillfully weaving together history and cultural analysis to give a picture of Taiwanese identity and a lesson on the usefulness and the limits of contemporary cultural theory.

Yip traces a distinctly Taiwanese sense of self vis-a-vis China, Japan, and the West through two of the island's most important cultural movements: the hsiang-t'u (or "nativist") literature of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Taiwanese New Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. At the heart of the book are close readings of the work of the hsiang-t'u writer Hwang Chun-ming and the New Cinema filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. Key figures in Taiwan's assertion of a national identity separate and distinct from China, both artists portray in vibrant detail daily life on the island. Through Hwang's and Hou's work and their respective artistic movements, Yip explores "the imagining of a nation" on the local, national, and global levels. In the process, she exposes a perceptible shift away from traditional models of cultural authenticity toward a more fluid, postmodern hybridity—an evolution that reflects both Taiwan's peculiar multicultural reality and broader trends in global culture.


Abstract The article outlines the inception and subsequent development of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, describes its mandate and working methods, reviews its activities and makes several recommendations to restore its effectiveness. Established in 1980 with a humanitarian mandate, the Group saw its duties steadily increase and, when the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances was adopted, it was entrusted with the task of monitoring States' compliance with their obligations deriving from it. Its humanitarian task includes an elucidatory procedure to trace the whereabouts of missing persons. In its task of monitoring compliance with the Declaration, the Group verifies that the obligations deriving from it are duly performed by States and addresses general observations and recommendations to them. During its existence the Group has made substantial contributions. For several reasons, however, it has lost much of its effectiveness. Yet enforced disappearances are not a thing of the past, nor are they diminishing. The Group and its mandate are as necessary as ever.


This paper shares the details of the Yield Enhancements that were done at 28nm full chip level sharing the complexity involved in implementing such a flow and then the verification challenges involved , e.g., at mask data preparation. We discuss and present the algorithm used to measure the efficiency of the tool, explaining why we used this algorithm while sharing some alternate algorithms possible. We also share the detailed statistics regarding run time, machine resource, data size, polygon counts etc. We also present good techniques used by us for efficient flow management involved in large complex 28nm chips.


An objective method is developed to identify concentric eyewalls (CEs) for tropical cyclones (TCs) using passive microwave satellite imagery from 1997 to 2014 in the western North Pacific (WNP) and Atlantic (ATL) basin. There are 91 (33) TCs and 113 (50) cases with CE identified in the WNP (ATL). Three CE structural change types are classified as follows: a CE with the inner eyewall dissipated in an eyewall replacement cycle (ERC, 51 and 56% in the WNP and ATL), a CE with the outer eyewall dissipated first and the no eyewall replacement cycle (NRC, 27 and 29% in the WNP and ATL), and a CE structure that is maintained for an extended period (CEM, 23 and 15% in the WNP and ATL). The moat size and outer eyewall width in the WNP (ATL) basin are approximately 20–50% (15–25%) larger in the CEM cases than that in the ERC and NRC cases. Our analysis suggests that the ERC cases are more likely dominated by the internal dynamics, whereas the NRC cases are heavily influenced by the environment condition, and both the internal and environmental conditions are important in the CEM cases. A good correlation of the annual CE TC number and the Oceanic Niño index is found (0.77) in WNP basin, with most of the CE TCs occurring in the warm episodes. In contrast, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) may not influence on the CE formation in the ATL basin. After the CE formation, however, the unfavorable environment that is created by ENSO may reduce the TC intensity quickly during warm episode. The variabilities of structural changes in the WNP basin are larger than that in the ATL basin.


We examined the antiobesity effect of a saponin-rich fraction of a Gymnema sylvestre R. Br. aqueous leaf extract (SGE) using cafeteria and high-fat diet-induced obese rats for a period of eight weeks. SGE was orally administered at a dose of 100 mg/kg body weight once a day to the treatment group. It significantly decreased the body weight, food consumption, visceral organs weight, and the levels of triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoproteins, very low-density lipoproteins, atherogenic index, glucose, and increased the levels of high-density lipoproteins. There was no significant difference with respect to all parameters of the study in case of normal (N) diet and N diet + SGE rats. In vitro, SGE inhibited the pancreatic lipase activity. The present study gave clear evidence that the SGE has a significant antiobese action, supporting its use in traditional medicine, and can be used as a substitute for synthetic drugs.


Abstract This paper explores the contributions of Answer Set Programming (ASP) to the study of an established theory from the field of Second Language Acquisition: Input Processing. The theory describes default strategies that learners of a second language use in extracting meaning out of a text based on their knowledge of the second language and their background knowledge about the world. We formalized this theory in ASP, and as a result we were able to determine opportunities for refining its natural language description, as well as directions for future theory development. We applied our model to automating the prediction of how learners of English would interpret sentences containing the passive voice. We present a system, PIas, that uses these predictions to assist language instructors in designing teaching materials.


Purpose
The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of customer brand engagement (CBE) by proposing and empirically testing a model of antecedents and consequences of CBE for user-initiated online brand communities (OBCs).

Design/methodology/approach
The model is tested using a sample of 584 participants in two relevant OBCs created and managed by brand fans. Specifically, data were collected from two communities in the photography products category: Nikonistas and Canonistas.

Findings
The results indicate that community and brand identification positively and significantly influence CBE. Furthermore, the supporting role of OBCs' moderators facilitates CBE and moderates the influence of community identification on CBE. Regarding the outcomes of CBE, the results show that higher levels of engagement are positively, directly and significantly associated with favorable intentions towards the brand and the community. These effects are then mediated by brand affective commitment.

Research limitations/implications
The study has been conducted in two Spanish OBCs of two specific high-involvement products category: it is cross-sectional and focuses on a limited number of antecedents and consequences.

Practical implications
Evidence from this research supports and emphasizes the potential that these platforms have for brand management such that firms' resources could be best allocated on those elements that lead to superior CBE.

Originality/value
The study endorses the role of CBE in fostering brand and community-related favorable outcomes in the context of user-initiated OBCs. It shed lights on the potential that these online platforms have for brands and on the role that brand management should play in digital contexts that are outside the direct control of the company.


Think about it - and it moves. Think harder, the robot moves faster. But don't worry; as a robot it knows to avoid the black border so it doesn't fall off the table. "Make a Mind Controlled Arduino Robot" shows you how to build your own. You learn to measure attention level with a NeuroSky headband and send this information into Arduino. You will also build a line-avoiding system into the bot. And, of course, you will build the chassis of your robot from scratch.


The use of organic residues as fertilizers and soil conditioners requires their maturation and the quality monitoring of the final product. Vermicomposting is a technique which, along with the composting process, eliminates the potential harmful effect of manure residues to human health and soil. The stability and maturity degrees of a given vermicompost are usually inferred from the quantity and quality of the humic substances in the resulting compost. This study aimed to evaluate the quality and maturity of vermicomposts from six different residues: cattle manure (CM), sheep manure (SM), pig manure (PM), quail manure (QM), coffee dregs (CD) and mate-tee dregs (MD), by determining the content of humic substances (humic, HA, and fulvic acids (FA) and their chemical composition, after 70 days of composting. The humic substances were chemically fractionated according to their solubility in basic and acidic medium. The distribution of total C in the different humic fractions was determined, and the humification indices HA percentage and HA/FA ratio were calculated. The elemental composition (CHNO) and chemical composition by infrared spectroscopy (IRSP) were determined in the purified HA and FA. An aromaticity index (I1630/I2920) was calculated based on the IRSP spectra. The vermicomposts differed in humic substance content (FA+HA), which decreased in the order CD > SM ≈ MD ≈ CM > PM > QM. The maturity degree was greater in the vermicomposts of vegetal residues (coffee and mate-tee dregs). The HA showed that the proportion of O containing functional groups and the aromatic degree were lowest in these two vermicomposts.


The known acridoid fauna of the Kalahari Desert comprises 160 species of which 11 % are endemic. Compared with South Africa and Lesotho together, the Kalahari is a species-poor region of low endemicity. Most species seem to occur in the northeast, and the lowest number in the central Kalahari. Apart from endemics, various distributional components of the fauna are identified. As expected, there is a Southwest Arid Region component and an element of the tropical Zambezian Region centred northeast of the Kalahari. Another, major component is a group of species whose distributions span the arid-mesic divide in Africa south of Zambia. The Zambezian element, while making a major qualitative contribution to the fauna of the northeastern Kalahari, becomes attenuated towards the southwest. This, together with the paucity and low endemicity of the total fauna and other evidence, supports the view that the Kalahari Desert cannot be regarded as a distinct biogeographical region. However, there may be a group of widespread common species which provide some coherence to the greater part of the Kalahari.


It is a widely accepted principle in both theology and the human sciences that the self, though each person perceives him- or herself as a singularity, is also characterized by multiplicity. The author analyzes this apparent paradox as it appears in contemporary social cognitive psychology and in Christian theological models of the person that are grounded in the doctrine of imago Dei. He argues that, whereas there are evident differences in the psychological and theological conceptions of the nature of persons, both disciplines endorse concepts of personhood that are characterized by a dynamic process of self-unification. Thus, the conceptual divide alleged to exist between theological and secular scientific models of the person may not be as pronounced as many suppose.


The problems of heuristic programming-of making computers solve really difficult problems-are divided into five main areas: Search, Pattern-Recognition, Learning, Planning, and Induction. A computer can do, in a sense, only what it is told to do. But even when we do not know how to solve a certain problem, we may program a machine (computer) to Search through some large space of solution attempts. Unfortunately, this usually leads to an enormously inefficient process. With Pattern-Recognition techniques, efficiency can often be improved, by restricting the application of the machine's methods to appropriate problems. Pattern-Recognition, together with Learning, can be used to exploit generalizations based on accumulated experience, further reducing search. By analyzing the situation, using Planning methods, we may obtain a fundamental improvement by replacing the given search with a much smaller, more appropriate exploration. To manage broad classes of problems, machines will need to construct models of their environments, using some scheme for Induction. Wherever appropriate, the discussion is supported by extensive citation of the literature and by descriptions of a few of the most successful heuristic (problem-solving) programs constructed to date.


Because the notion of 'relevance' is deeply context bound, I argue that we need to broaden our understanding of development to include 'conditions for development'. In this paper, I reflect on the well-known adage about 'give a fish' and 'teach to fish' by adding the following: 'create the conditions for fishing, we will fish forever'. At the beginning of the 21st century, wich is also an era of rapid globalization, I reflect on (a) what it means to speak of development work (b) in a continent like Asia, wich has emerging industrial giants like China and India, both of whom know extremely lopsided development. Within this framework, I think about what it means to speak of developmentally relevant research. Without losing sight of the hard-won understanding of developmental work acquired over the decade, I plead that we look at development as a multi-layered process. If we do so, we can appriciate the fact that different kinds of research are relevant at different levels: what is relevant at one level does not need to be relevant at another. Thus, criteria for developmentally relevant research will have to keep these different levels seperate from each other. To answer the four questions posed by the taks force, I suggest that we split the global problem about 'developmentally relevant research' into three tractable subproblems, each of which giving a different answer at an appropriate level.


This study analyzes the context, outcome and implications of the recent U.S. Federal Circuit decision in AMP v. USPTO, which was announced on July 29, 2011. The decision, which is also referred to as the ACLU/Myriad "gene patenting" case, partially overturned a much debated judgment by a New York District Court, which had held unpatentable claims to isolated DNA per se, as well as claims directed to diagnostic methods relying on the claimed DNA, and processes for cell-based drug screening. Part I first recapitulates the rather complex procedural history of this specific case and explains in more detail how it relates to the recently invigorated U.S. debate on patent eligibility and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bilski. Next, the basic outcome of the case will be summarized. The synopsis includes an account of the majority opinion authored by Judge Lourie, as well as a short description of the separate opinions by Judge Moore and Judge Bryson. Part II, which is deemed to be published in Volume 2, Issue 1, will provide a comprehensive analysis discussing the decision's actual potential implications from a broader innovation perspective, as well as the chances for an ultimate Supreme Court review. Based on the analysis, this article finally presents some general conclusions.


In recent years, there has been a significant trend toward land acquisition in developing countries, establishing forestry plantations for offsetting carbon pollution generated in the Global North. Badged as "green economic development," global carbon markets are often championed not only as solutions to climate change, but as drivers of positive development outcomes for local communities. But there is mounting evidence that these corporate land acquisitions for climate change mitigation—including forestry plantations—severely compromise not only local ecologies but also the livelihoods of the some of the world's most vulnerable people living at subsistence level in rural areas in developing countries.


Abstract. Today municipalities are searching for new tools to empower locals for changing the future of their own areas by increasing their participation in different levels of urban planning. These tools should involve the community in planning process using participatory approaches instead of long traditional top-down planning models and help municipalities to obtain proper insight about major problems of urban neighborhoods from the residents' point of view. In this matter, public participation GIS (PPGIS) which enables citizens to record and following up their feeling and spatial knowledge regarding problems of the city in the form of maps have been introduced. In this research, a tool entitled CAER (Collecting & Analyzing of Environmental Reports) is developed. In the first step, a software framework based on Web-GIS tool, called EPGIS (Environmental Participatory GIS) has been designed to support public participation in reporting urban environmental problems and to facilitate data flow between citizens and municipality. A web-based cartography tool was employed for geo-visualization and dissemination of map-based reports. In the second step of CAER, a subsystem is developed based on SOLAP (Spatial On-Line Analytical Processing), as a data mining tools to elicit the local knowledge facilitating bottom-up urban planning practices and to help urban managers to find hidden relations among the recorded reports. This system is implemented in a case study area in Boston, Massachusetts and its usability was evaluated. The CAER should be considered as bottom-up planning tools to collect people's problems and views about their neighborhood and transmits them to the city officials. It also helps urban planners to find solutions for better management from citizen's viewpoint and gives them this chance to develop good plans to the neighborhoods that should be satisfied the citizens.


System Identification of an Unmanned Tailsitter Aircraft Nathan W. Edwards Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science The motivation for this research is the need to improve performance of the autonomous flight of a tailsitter UAV. Tailsitter aircraft combine the hovering and vertical take-off and landing capability of a rotorcraft with the long endurance flight capability of a fixed-wing aircraft. The particular aircraft used in this research is the V-Bat, a tailsitter UAV with a conventional wing and the propeller and control surfaces located within a ducted-fan tail assembly. This research focuses on identifying the models and parameters of the V-Bat in hover and level flight as a basis for the design of the control systems for hover, level, and transition modes of flight. Models and parameters were identified from experimental data. Wind-tunnel tests, bench tests, and flight tests were performed in a variety of flight conditions. Wind tunnel tests yielded force and moment coefficients over the full flight envelope of the V-Bat. Models and parameters for longitudinal, lateral, and hover flight are presented. Bench tests were conducted to enhance understanding about the ducted-fan propulsion system and the effectiveness of the control surfaces. The thrust characteristics of the ducted fan were measured. Control derivatives were derived from force and moment measurements. Flight tests were completed to obtain dynamic models of the V-Bat in hover flight. Using frequency-domain system-identification methods, frequency-response and transfer function models of roll, pitch, and yaw responses to aileron, elevator, and rudder control input were derived. The results obtained from these experimental tests were used to identify models and parameters of the V-Bat aircraft, giving insight into its behavior and enhancing the control analysis and simulation capabilities for this aircraft, thus providing the increased levels of understanding needed for autonomous flight.


Consider a BGP free core scenario. Suppose the provider edge BGP
speakers PE1, PE2,..., PEn know about a prefix P/m via the external
routers CE1, CE2,..., CEm. If the PE router PEi loses connectivity to
the primary path, it is desirable to immediately restore traffic by
rerouting packets arriving from the core to PEi and destined to the
prefix P/m to one of the other PE routers that advertised P/m, say
PEj, until BGP re-converges. However if the loss of connectivity of
PEi to the primary path also resulted in the loss of connectivity
between PEj and CEj, rerouting a packet before the control plane
converges may result in a loop. In this document, we propose using a
repair label for traffic restoration while avoiding loops. We propose
advertising the "repair" label through BGP.


The dispute over the role desert should play, if any, in assessing criminal liability and punishment has a long and turbulent history. There is some indication that deserved punishment - referred to variously as desert, just punishment, retributive punishment, or simply doing justice - may be in ascendance, both in academic debate and in real world institutions. A number of modern sentencing guidelines have adopted it as their distributive principle. Desert is increasingly given deference in the purposes section of state criminal codes, where it can be the guiding principle in the interpretation and application of the code's provisions. Indeed, a recent committee of the American Law Institute proposed revising the Model Penal Code's purposes section to adopt desert as the dominant distributive principle for sentencing. And courts have identified desert as the guiding principle in a variety of contexts, as with the Supreme Court's enthroning retributivism as the primary justification for the death penalty. But there remains a good deal of controversy over the reliance upon desert. It is strenuously argued by some that desert is inappropriate as a distributive principle because it is mean-spirited and harsh, because it has an unhealthy preference for prison, because it is based upon only vague notions that at most mark punishment extremes to be avoided, because people are in hopeless disagreement about what it requires, because it fails to avoid avoidable crime, because it is immoral, and because it is impractical to implement. This Article argues that many of these objections are valid, at least when applied to some conceptions of desert, but that there are at least three distinct conceptions of desert to be found in the current debates, typically without distinction being made between them. The three include what might be called vengeful desert, deontological desert, and empirical desert. Each of the offered criticisms of desert is a fair objection to one of these conceptions of desert but often an unfair objection to another. Thus, an accurate assessment of desert as a distributive principle requires that these three conceptions of desert be distinguished from one another, and that the strengths and weaknesses of each conception be judged on its own.


Many parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts to induce specific behavior for the benefit of the parasite (i.e., to increase its reproduction and transmission). The complex ability to take over a host's central nervous system has been studied extensively in ants (Camponotus castaneus) infected by the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l., but not as much in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) infected by the fungus Entomophthora muscae. One behavioral change seen in ants infected by O. unilateralis s.l. is a reduced response to olfactory stimuli; however, this has yet to be tested in infected fruit flies. In this study, I tested olfactory response in flies infected with E. muscae, healthy flies (positive control), and flies without odorant receptors (negative control) via a preference experiment using a saturated sucrose solution and distilled water. The results supported the hypothesis that fruit flies do have a reduced perception of olfactory stimuli when exposed to E. muscae, as they perform more like mutant flies without odorant receptors than healthy flies with a functioning olfactory system (p < 0.05). Although, it is not fully understood how E. muscae enters and takes control of the fruit flies' nervous system, knowing that E. muscae reduces their olfaction gives us more insight into the functionality of this parasite overall. Further research that allows us to understand how a nervous system is overtaken could potentially provide insight into the vulnerable parts of the nervous system and thus deepen our understanding of neurology as a whole.


We report two new, simple, and cost-effective all-optical methods to generate ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio signals. The proposed methods are based on fiber-interferometric structures, where an input pulse is split and propagates along the two interferometer arms. The interference of these pulses at the output of the interferometer leads to UWB pulse generation. A theoretical analysis is provided and some relevant simulation results are presented. Large bandwidths are obtained while satisfying the requirements of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). With these two techniques, UWB pulses can be readily generated and cost-effectively propagated through optical fibers.


Data analysis in many scientific domains, such as high energy physics, pushes the available resources of even big research collaborations to their limit, because it not only requires huge amounts of data but also compute intensive calculations. Current approaches require increased storage and computing resources, lack sufficient flexibility and are still far away from interactivity. In this paper we present ideas to cope with challenges posed by compute-intensive analyses of high-volume data in a many-userand resource-restricted environment. Extreme selectivity of user queries (that is inherent in high energy physics analyses, for instance) permits us to reduce the computational effort to a small portion, when irrelevant data can be discarded by more efficient means. Our focus lies on providing execution strategies for analysis queries, guided by the expertise of the user and executed as a scalable, scan-based preselection (introduced in DeLorean [8]). Future research will encompass the development of a compact data summary that facilitates fast, columnar scan queries, as well as a domain specific language that provides us with the required information to generate them.


Many practical problems in river engineering require predictions of velocity distributions in single and compound open channels. In this study, velocity distributions in rectangular and compound open channels under different flow regimes, in terms of roughness and turbulence conditions, were investigated experimentally and numerically. The detailed results from the experiments and numerical simulations were then used to assess and improve two velocity distribution models, which are widely used for rectangular and compound channel flows. The focus was mainly on the flow in narrow open channels.
Two sets of experiments were conducted on rectangular and compound channels that had different hydraulic and roughness characteristics. In these experiments, three flow regimes in terms of the roughness (smooth, transitional and rough regimes) were established by changing roughness of the bed. Detailed measurements of velocity distributions were carried out to study the effect of roughness on the non-uniformity of velocity distributions in such channels. The channel flows tested in the experiments were also simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) models. The CFD models were developed and run using CFX package (v.15).
The effect of the roughness on the velocity distributions in outer region was found to be significant. The non-uniformity of the velocity distribution, which can be described by the energy coefficient (α) and momentum coefficient (β), was considerably high in fully rough flow regime than in smooth and transitionally rough flows. The values of α are ranging from 1.07 to 1.16 in fully rough regimes while α values are varying from 1.05 to 1.13 in the corresponding smooth flow cases. The similar trend can be seen for β values, where β lies within a range of (1.013 – 1.032) in smooth flows and (1.022 - 1.045) in rough flows. It was also found that the velocity distribution coefficients (α and β) can be related to roughness Reynolds number (Re*) and aspect ratio (Ar) in rectangular channels and to the relative depth (Dr) in compound channels. The relationships for the velocity distribution coefficients (α or β) proposed in the present study can be used to describe the non-uniformity of the velocity distributions and solve engineering flow problems that depend on the velocity distribution such as sediments and pollution transports.
The detailed CFD results were also used as part of an investigation in the significance of secondary flows and turbulent eddy viscosity in the calculations of primary velocity distributions. Two analytical models for velocity distribution were used in this study. For rectangular channel flows, the dip-modified log wake law (DMLW-law) was used. The DMLW-law accounts for the effects of the secondary flow and turbulence by two representative parameters. These two parameters are the dip correction factor (μ) and the wake strength parameter (Π). The analytical model developed by Shiono and Knight (1988, 1991), which called SKM model, was applied for depth-averaged velocity calculations in compound channels. The SKM model relies on three parameters, namely friction factor (f), dimensionless eddy viscosity (λ), and secondary flow term (Γ).
For velocity prediction in rectangular channels, expressions for estimating the values of μ and Π has been proposed in this study. Comparison with the experimental results indicated that the proposed expressions to calibrate the parameters (Π and μ) can provide efficiency to the application of the analytical model (DMLW-law) for rectangular channel flows under different flow regimes. For compound channel flows, it was found that the application of analytical SKM model with the existing expressions for the three parameters (f, λ, Γ) does not fit to the compound channel with narrow floodplains such as the one used in the present study. Therefore, the detailed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results were used to modify the traditional expressions. The modified expressions for λ and Г parameters proposed in the present study were proved to give better predictions for the narrow compound channel flows than the traditional calibration expressions.


Naphthalene and benzene are ubiquitously found at former gasworks sites. In order to demonstrate that monitored natural attenuation (MNA) is an alternative strategy for remediation of groundwater at the investigated site, biodegradation was characterized by: (1) reduction of contaminants; (2) correlation of contaminants concentration changes with geochemical parameters; (3) enumeration of anaerobic microorganisms and correlation with geochemical data; (4) laboratory assays with site-specific enrichment cultures and naphthalene as the sole carbon source and electron donor; (5) modeling plume extension of naphthalene along the centerline and (6) carbon stable isotope (CSIA) analysis. The study demonstrated that naphthalene attenuation mainly depends on high sorption on aquifer material. In contrast, benzene is predominantly attenuated by biodegradation.


A copper(I)-catalyzed synthesis of β-keto sulfones through a multicomponent reaction of aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates, 3-arylpropiolic acids, sulfur dioxide, and water was developed. This reaction proceeds through a tandem radical process, and the sulfonyl radical, generated from the combination of aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates with DABCO·(SO2)2, acts as the key intermediate. The transformation involves sulfonylation and decarboxylation, which allows for the efficient synthesis of the desired β-keto sulfones.


Amygdalo‐cortical projections were analyzed in the macaque monkey (Macaca fascicularis) in a series of experiments in which 3H‐amino acids were injected into each of the major divisions of the amygdaloid complex and the anterogradely transported label was demonstrated autoradiographically. Projections to widespread regions of frontal, insular, temporal, and occipital cortices have been observed. The heaviest projections to frontal cortex terminated in medial and orbital regions which included areas 24, 25, and 32 on the medial surface and areas 14, 13a, and 12 on the orbital surface. Lighter projections were also seen in areas 45, 46, 6, 9, and 10. The heaviest projection to the insula terminated in the agranular insular cortex with a decreasing gradient of innervation to the more caudally placed dysgranular and granular insular areas. The projection to this region continues around the dorsal limiting sulcus to terminate in the somatosensory fields 3, 1–2, and SII. Essentially all major divisions of the temporal neocortex receive a projection from the amygdaloid complex with the most prominent projections ending in the cortex of the temporal pole (area TG) and the perirhinal cortex. The entire rostrocaudal extent of the inferotemporal cortex (areas TE and TEO) is also in receipt of an amygdaloid projection. While the rostral superior temporal gyrus (area TA) is heavily labeled in several of the experiments (with light labeling continuing into AI and adjacent auditory association regions) there was little indication of labeling in the caudal reaches of area TA. There was a surprisingly strong projection to prestriate regions of the occipital lobe and, in at least one case, clear‐cut labeling in areas OB and 17. Labeling in the parietal cortex was primarily observed in the depths of the intraparietal sulcus. In all cortical fields, label was heaviest at the border between layers I and II and in some regions layers V and VI also had above background levels of silver grains.


Studies on the spatial organisation of so-called creative industries have exploded the last decade. This has resulted in an impressive amount of research on the clustering of creative industries, their reliance on buzz and why they are based on projects, and so forth. This literature has, however, neglected paying attention to the role of the state in general but more importantly in facilitating the emergence of a film cluster from scratch in the context of global Hollywood dominance. This is a problem as the state plays a central role in constructing catching up oriented competitiveness in many creative industries, especially film industries outside Hollywood. Based on an original empirical study of the Danish film cluster we show how it has emerged almost from scratch and positioned itself as a noteworthy player on the global scene industry during the last 20 years. Special attention is paid to the lessons on the role of the state in this process.


This book includes studies of main conflict areas in modern Western societies where religion has been a central element, ranging from popular movements and narratives of opposition to challenges of religious satire and anti-clerical critique. Special attention is given to matters of politics and gender. With this theme, it provides a useful guide to conflict areas in modern European religious history.


Diabetes people who take antibiotics regularly to treat multiple infections are more likely to develop a fungal mouth and language infection. The fungus thrives in people with uncontrolled diabetes at high levels of glucose in the saliva. A yeast infection called oral thrush is common among people with diabetes. It looks like a white layer coating your language and your cheeks' insides. The Yeast grows in a higher amount of sugar found in your saliva. The early diagnosis is required for tongue image classification. In this study, the automatic classification of tongue image classification for diabetes detection system is discussed. Initially, the input tongue images are given to median filter for pre-processing. Then the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and Haralick features are extracted. Finally, Random Forest (RF) classifier is used for Prediction. The performance of proposed system produces the classification accuracy of 95%using RF classifier.


Abstract The second part in the 1284 Book of Games of Alfonso X. contains the description of twelve medieval games of dice. Certain information on the amount and timing of bets of the players are only very briefly displayed and are completely missing in several games. The exact course of such games is therefore unknown. What did the players know about their chances of rolling dice and how they could use them when playing the dice? In order to imagine the process of betting for gain, the characteristics of these games of dice are examined and compared with contemporary games of chance.


The late Prof. Charles Lapworth inspired me with a desire to test the validity of his hypothesis, put forward as long ago as 1898, that the Upper Severn was added to the Lower Severn as a result of the impounding of a glacial lake in Shropshire and Cheshire. The lake, according to the hypothesis, rose until it flowed out over the former watershed between the Shropshire plain (which originally had drained to the Dee or the Mersey) and the headwaters of a tributary of the Worcestershire Stour. The same view was put forward independently by F. W. Harmer in 1907, in a paper accompanied by an excellent contoured map, which may be conveniently consulted in connexion with the present work. Neither Lapworth nor Harmer attempted, so far as I know, to bring forward detailed evidence in support of the hypothesis. Lapworth called attention to the rejuvenation of the Severn and its tributaries, which he regarded as resulting from the diversion, into a diminutive tributary of the Stour, of the copious waters of the Upper Severn which had originally flowed into the Dee; while Harmer pointed out the existence of Glacial lake-deposits on the Shropshire Plain. Harmer threw out the suggestion (op. cit. p. 479) that the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to Bewdley was initiated as a marginal drainage-channel on the west side of the ice-lobe that left so many Scottish and Lake-District boulders around Wolverhampton and Bridgnorth. As may be seen from any contoured map, the Cheshire-North Shropshire Plain is


The basic rationale of this research was to identify as many relevant factors and issues as possible that have enabled Sierra Leonean women emerging from a brutal civil/rebel war in Sierra Leone to develop resilience( "To spring back into shape" –Oxford English Dictionary) and Adversity-Activated Development(AAD) as they resettled, integrated and became part of their new communities. Their resilience enabled them to adapt successfully in the face of threats and disaster into a new society, environment and community in the United Kingdom (UK). This was despite the fact that they had endured many different types of adversity, including sexual and psychological violence during the civil/rebel war in Sierra Leone.
The research examined various relevant and contributing factors, including personal, professional, family and community circumstances, status, attitudes, religious belief systems, social networks as well as behaviours. It also investigated the unique way that Sierra Leonean refugee women (a) experienced adversity (connected with the civil war in Sierra Leone), (b) addressed adversity at different stages (e.g. during the war, their flight, their transition through various, countries, refugee camps and also during their final phase of resettlement in the UK), and (c) integrated into their new communities.
This research is based on the theoretical framework developed by Papadopoulos who:
(a) Mapped out the four stages of the refugee experiences, i.e. Anticipation, Devastating Events, Survival and Adjustment (Papadopoulos, 1999), and
(b) Differentiated the range of responses to adversity by using the Trauma / Adversity Grid that includes not only the negative responses but also the retained positives (i.e. resilient dimensions) as well the new positives that were the direct result of being exposed to adversity, that he termed Adversity-Activated development (AAD). (Papadopoulos 2004, 2007).
The research followed a qualitative research methodology and took into account a gendered perspective on the views and personal experiences of Sierra Leonean refugee women living and working in the United Kingdom (U.K.). The data was collected through in-depth interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, group meetings and individual sessions with the participants, who are all Sierra Leonean refugee women living and working in the United Kingdom (UK).
These participants had all been granted full refugee status. They were given time to complete questionnaires and they were also interviewed about their life histories using the heuristic method, theory and approach. This allowed the participants and the researcher to experience self-awareness and self-knowledge throughout the research process, while understanding the phenomenon of the factors that led to the resilience of these Sierra Leonean refugee women.
Particular attention was paid to understanding the cultural framework (the use of traditional and cultural values and practices), coping mechanisms and capacities, integration and participation of these participants as well as to the wider psychosocial dimensions of their experience and how these women were able to adapt successfully to a completely new unknown environment, integrating and resettling into new ways of life in the United Kingdom (UK) despite all their traumatic experiences.
The research also investigated the multidisciplinary nature of the care of refugees in general and how this relates to some of the specific issues affecting refugees, including their socio-economic development, human rights, cultural and traditional disorientation and dislocation, and sought to connect these to the loss of home, personal identity and community for refugees.
The research is extremely topical, especially right now at this very moment in time when the world is facing an unparalleled crisis with migrant and refugees streaming into more developed countries, particularly in Europe.
This refugee crisis created a lot of emotional responses in everybody, it touches the sensitivities of people, some react with fear and horror that their safe countries will be invaded by unruly and uneducated refugees that would burden their already economically stretched countries and others react with compassion wanting to open up their homes and welcome these troubled refugees who had to flee their unsafe countries looking for places of refuge.
What happens in these situations, people see the refugees as a threat, as an additional burden and they cannot possibly see that these people may be in a position to help their host country and enable it to thrive.
This research has shown that these Sierra Leonean women that came to the UK following the horrors of the civil war in their country certainly they did not prove to be a burden on the UK. On the contrary, they not only survived and supported each other but they also thrived and contributed to the development of the local communities where they settled.
Therefore this research can be used as a proof that there is no justification to bring all the refugees under one umbrella and consider all of them as a burden to the host country.
What this research also shows is that it is important to allow refugees tell their own story and help them digest their experiences and identify the various factors that contributed to them being able to survive and thrive.


1. Splenic blood flow and splanchnic haemodynamics have been studied in twenty patients with splenomegaly due to blood dyscrasia or diseases involving the reticuloendothelial system. Thirteen of these patients had portal hypertension, three had abdominal collaterals on arteriovenography and one oesophageal varices. 2. Total spleen blood flow was increased in all with values up to 1550 ml/min, and associated with this liver blood flows increased up to 2·61 1 min −1 m −2 . In four patients the cardiac output was raised. 3. In five patients a raised wedged hepatic vein pressure was found which was solely related to the increase in liver blood flow, but in two others, in whom hepatic histology was abnormal, there was also an increase in postsinusoidal resistance. Nine patients had a raised hepatic pre-sinusoidal resistance. This was related to a greatly increased liver blood flow with portal tract fibrosis and cellular infiltration as possible additional factors. 4. The haemodynamic findings in these patients were similar to those found previously in patients with tropical splenomegaly. In both groups spleen blood flow in ml 100 g −1 min −1 was inversely proportional to spleen size. There were similar increases in total spleen and liver blood flows and in the percentage of patients with an increased pre-sinusoidal resistance. In contrast, in cirrhosis there was no inverse relationship between flow in 1 100 g −1 min −1 , and of spleen size, and for the degree of splenomegaly total spleen blood flow was relatively greater.


We study platform markets in which the information about users' preferences is dispersed. First, we show how the dispersion of information introduces idiosyncratic uncertainty about participation decisions and how the latter shapes the elasticity of the demands and the equilibrium prices. We then study the effects on profits, consumer surplus, and welfare of platform design, blogs, forums, conferences, advertising campaigns, post-launch disclosures, and other information management policies affecting the agents' ability to predict participation decisions on the other side of the market.


Solar chimney (SC) together with earth to air heat exchanger (EAHE) is being employed as a low-energy consuming technique to remove undesirable interior heat from a building in the hot seasons. A numerical program "FLUENT 6.3 code" of an earth to air heat exchanger (EAHE) is studied for predicting the outlet air temperature and cooling potential of these devices in Basrah climate. Theoretical analyses have been conducted in order to investigate the ventilation in a solar chimney. The investigation into the viability of Low Energy Earth Pipe Cooling Technology in providing thermal comfort in Basrah. The demand for air-conditioning in buildings in Basrah affects the country escalating energy consumption. Therefore, this investigation was intended to seek for an alternative passive cooling to air-conditioning. The passive technology, where the ground was used as a heat sink to produce cooler air, has not been investigated systematically in hot and humid countries. A sub-soil temperature model adapted for the specific conditions in Basrah is presented and its output compared with CFD modeling. The results have shown that the potential of Earth Pipe is providing lower output temperature of air inlet to the room. We found that the resulting temperature at the buried pipe outlet decreases with increasing pipe length, decreasing pipe diameter, decreasing mass flow rate of flowing air in the pipe and increasing depths up to 4m.