Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with progressive and inexorable loss of dopaminergic cells in Substantia Nigra pars compacta (SNc). A full understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of this cell loss is unavailable, though a number of mechanisms have been indicated in the literature. A couple of these mechanisms, however, show potential for the development of radical and promising PD therapeutics. One of these mechanisms is the peculiar metabolic vulnerability of SNc cells by virtue of their excessive energy demands; the other is the excitotoxicity caused by excessive glutamate release onto SNc by an overactive Subthalamic Nucleus (STN). To investigate the latter hypothesis computationally, we developed a spiking neuron network model of the SNc-STN-GPe system. In the model, prolonged stimulation of SNc cells by an overactive STN leads to an increase in a 'stress' variable; when the stress in a SNc neuron exceeds a stress threshold the neuron dies. The model shows that the interaction between SNc and STN involves a positive feedback due to which, an initial loss of SNc cells that crosses a threshold causes a runaway effect that leads to an inexorable loss of SNc cells, strongly resembling the process of neurodegeneration. The model further suggests a link between the two aforementioned PD mechanisms: metabolic vulnerability and glutamate excitotoxicity. Our simulation results show that the excitotoxic cause of SNc cell loss in PD might be initiated by weak excitotoxicity mediated by energy deficit, followed by strong excitotoxicity, mediated by a disinhibited STN. A variety of conventional therapies are simulated in the model to test their efficacy in slowing down or arresting SNc cell loss. Among the current therapeutics, glutamate inhibition, dopamine restoration, subthalamotomy and deep brain stimulation showed superior neuroprotective effects in the proposed model.


Talkback radio has the power to attract and repel, delight and disgust in equal measures. The talkback phenomenon is defined by the extension of an invitation from the presenter to the audience to participate in the programme by phoning in, SMS messaging or emailing their views, opinions and contributions. While much of the Australian research in this field has been preoccupied with the talkback radio host as shock-jock and celebrity,! little attention has been paid to the way audiences conceptualise the space and themselves within that space. We initially set out to explore how talkback radio programmes affected audiences' perceptions of diversity, multiculturalism and current issues associated with these themes.2 However, it became evident in the course of the research that issues around the perceived ownership of and right of access to the talkback space and identityboth cultural and national-were closely bound up with the original question we set out to explore. As we began thinking about and talking to mainstream talkback radio audience members, we identified another gap in the research-the scant attention paid by researchers to talkback spaces created as alternatives to populist talkback programmes. In considering those spaces and the mainstream commercial talkback agendas of recent times around ethnicity and religion, we identified two culturally distinct talkback spaces and subsequently gained access to some of their audience members, who we gathered into focus groups to discuss the issues outlined above.


This survey reviews the growing use of patent data in economic analysis. After describing some of the main characteristics of patents and patent data, it focuses on the use of patents as an indicator of technological change. Cross-sectional and time-series studies of the relationship of patents to R&D expenditures are reviewed, as well as scattered estimates of the distribution of patent values and the value of patent rights, the latter being based on recent analyses of European patent renewal data. Time-series trends of patents granted in the U.S. are examined and their decline in the 1970s is found to be an artifact of the budget stringencies at the Patent Office. The longer run downward trend in patents per R&D dollar is interpreted not as an indication of diminishing returns but rather as a reflection of the changing meaning of such data over time. The conclusion is reached that, in spite of many difficulties and reservations, patent data remain a unique resource for the study of technical change.


The ever-increasing number of wind farms has brought both challenges and opportunities in the development of wind power forecasting techniques to take advantage of interdependencies between tens or hundreds of spatially distributed wind farms, e.g., over a region. In this paper, a sparsity-controlled vector autoregressive (SC-VAR) model is introduced to obtain sparse model structures in a spatio-temporal wind power forecasting framework by reformulating the original VAR model into a constrained mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. It allows controlling the sparsity of the coefficient matrices in direct manner. However this original SC-VAR is difficult to implement due to its complicated constraints and the lack of guidelines for setting its parameters. To reduce the complexity of this MINLP and to make it possible to incorporate prior expert knowledge to benefit model building and forecasting, the original SC-VAR is modified and a correlation-constrained SC-VAR (CCSC-VAR) is proposed based on spatial correlation information about wind farms. Our approach is evaluated based on a case study of very-short-term forecasting for 25 wind farms in Denmark. Comparison is performed with a set of traditional local methods and spatio-temporal methods. The results obtained show the proposed CCSC-VAR has better overall performance than both the original SC-VAR and other benchmark methods, taking into account all evaluation indicators, including sparsity-control ability, sparsity, accuracy, and efficiency.


The biodegradability of three of the most frequently halogenated aliphatics (trichloroethene, chloroform and 1.1.1.-trichloroethane) found in drinking water aquifers by a nitrifying enriched mixed biomass was investigated during batch tests. Within this mixed biomass, ammonia oxidisers were the effective degraders. The presence of ammonia stimulated chlorocarbon biodegradation, and the presence of chlorocarbon inhibited ammonia oxidation. This contrasted phenomenon was explained by a balance between electron supply from ammonia necessary to sustain the chlorocarbon oxidation and competitive inhibition for the ammonia monooxygenase active site between both substrates. About 0.03 to 0.2% of the electrons generated by ammonia oxidation were used for chlorocarbon degradation. Trichloroethene and chloroform oxidation induced a biomass inactivation (around 30 to 40 mg of proteins inactivated per μmol of chlorocarbn oxidised). Biomass re-activation due to exergonic ammonia catabolism was estimated to 24±6 mg of proteins reactivated per mmol of ammonia oxidised in both cases. No inactivation of re-activation was observed in the case of 1.1.1-trichloroethane.


Evidence about the role for reproductive and hormonal factors in the etiology of lung cancer in women is conflicting. To clarify this question, we examined 407 female cases and 499 female controls from the Environment And Genetics in Lung cancer Etiology population‐based case–control study. Subjects were interviewed in person using a computer‐assisted personal interview to assess demographics, education, smoking history, medical history, occupational history, reproductive and hormonal factors. Associations of interest were investigated using logistic regression models, adjusted for catchment area and age (matching variables), cigarette smoking (status, pack‐years and time since quitting). Additional confounding variables were investigated but did not substantially affect the results. We observed a reduced risk of lung cancer among women with later age at first live birth [≥31 years: odds ratio (OR) = 0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.31–1.06, p‐trend = 0.05], later age at menopause (≥51 years: OR = 0.49, 95%CI = 0.31–0.79, p‐trend = 0.003) and longer reproductive periods (≥41 years: OR = 0.44, 95%CI = 0.25–0.79, p‐trend = 0.01). A reduced risk was also observed for hormone replacement therapy (OR = 0.63, 95%CI = 0.42–0.95, p = 0.03) and oral contraceptive use (OR = 0.67, 95%CI = 0.45–1.00, p = 0.05) but no trend with duration of use was detected. Menopausal status (both natural and induced) was associated with an augmented risk. No additional associations were identified for other reproductive variables. This study suggests that women who continue to produce estrogens have a lower lung cancer risk. Large studies with great number of never smoking women, biomarkers of estrogen and molecular classification of lung cancer are needed for a more comprehensive view of the association between reproductive factors and lung cancer risk.


This article provides an account of precedent that does not call upon it to do the one thing that everyone expects: constrain judicial decision-making. Instead, precedent is tasked to do something else: identify lawful options. So instead of beginning with precedent's limited ability to constrain, the argument focuses on what precedent enables.

On reflection, precedent has always had two aspects: a permissive aspect that enables certain options and a prohibitory aspect that rules out others. When combined, precedent's permissive and prohibitory aspects can render certain outcomes mandatory. But that arrangement is contingent, not essential, and precedent's permissive aspect alone can do a great deal of work. First, precedent's epistemic value allows it to operate as a shortcut, affording judges an efficient way to arrive at pretty good legal answers. Second, precedent's rhetorical value allows it to operate as a shield, thereby helping judges resist political and other pressures to deviate from case law. Precedent can thus foster convergence across jurists as well as fidelity to past decisions—even if it imposes no constraint whatsoever.

The upshot is a new "permission model" of precedent, in contrast with the more familiar "binding model." The permission model challenges longstanding views of stare decisis, particularly horizontal stare decisis in the U.S. Supreme Court. For example, stare decisis is often lambasted for being a malleable doctrine that overlaps with the merits. But the permission model would celebrate that state of affairs. Malleable, merits-sensitive stare decisis helps the justices manage controversial legal transitions based on their understanding of underlying law. And the binding model could simply be infeasible without enforcement. The permission model also points toward novel reforms, including ways of combining both permissions and mandates. Counterintuitively, the best way to strengthen precedent may be to make it more of a permission.

The permission model may not be the kind of precedent we were looking for, but it usefully informs the mode of precedent that we actually have.


The AcrA/AcrB/TolC complex spans the inner and outer membranes of Escherichia coli and serves as its major drug-resistance pump. Driven by the proton motive force, it mediates the efflux of bile salts, detergents, organic solvents, and many structurally unrelated antibiotics. Here, we report a crystallographic structure of trimeric AcrB determined at 2.9 and 3.0 angstrom resolution in space groups that allow asymmetry of the monomers. This structure reveals three different monomer conformations representing consecutive states in a transport cycle. The structural data imply an alternating access mechanism and a novel peristaltic mode of drug transport by this type of transporter.


Frequently, road traffic accidents are modelled as discrete and independent random and rare events, which pos sess a low probability of occurrence through time. Nevertheless, in order to study each accident individually it is necessary to obtain details of a number of characteristics that surround it, which may be correlated with each other. In this article, we propose to associate the probability of occurrence of an accident with a large number of features such as weather conditions, incidents caused by the start and end of a roadwork, geographical location of speed control radars, roadway infrastructure, etc. The influence of these features is significant and should be taken into account when proposing measures to help alleviate these undesirable events. The big data methods employed to extract the variables or features allow us to compose a series of vectors that will serve as a basis to study road accident distributions.


The Social Value Orientation (SVO) explains individual differences in cooperation attitudes. In this study, we examine whether the SVO affects the time taken, and amount of information gathered, when judging the trustworthiness of other people. Participants were able to choose a partner based on the past allocation patterns of candidates, mimicking how people are able to select with whom they cooperate in their social environments. We investigated the effect of the SVO on the method of gathering information on character and choosing a social exchange partner. The results revealed that participants with a prosocial (cooperative) orientation took less time to choose a partner, gathered less information, and tended to choose partners who behaved equally with everyone, compared to participants with an individualistic (selfish) orientation. Our findings suggest that people with a prosocial orientation prefer partners who treat everyone equally, regardless of the relationship, while people with an individualistic orientation deliberately seek out candidates who are likely to provide a relationship which is beneficial to themselves.


Lung cancer is one of the most fatal cancers in the world. To early distinguish benign and malignant pulmonary nodule is critical for disease prognosis. Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) can be used to explore bronchus mucous membrane, alveolar elastic fiber structures and microvessels, and could be helpful for the diagnostic imaging and for the localization guidance. In this report, we presented two cases of peripheral pulmonary nodule. Under the guidance of X-ray and endobronchial ultrasound, needle-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (nCLE) could directly approach the peripheral pulmonary nodule via an exploratory puncture needle. The results indicated that the utility of the nCLE is helpful to precise positioning and characterize the peripheral pulmonary nodule. This report presents for the first time the application of nCLE for positioning the peripheral extraluminal nodule and describe the different confocal imaging features between adenocarcinoma and tuberculosis.


Recently, we presented a steady-state analytical hillslope stability model to study rain-induced shallow landslides. This model is based on kinematic wave dynamics of saturated subsurface storage and the infinite slope stability assumption. Here we apply the model to investigate the effect of neglecting the unsaturated storage on the assessment of slope stability in the steady-state hydrology. For that purpose we extend the hydrological model to compute the soil pore pressure distribution over the entire flow domain. We also apply this model for hillslopes with non-constant soil depth to compare the stability of different hillslopes and to find the critical slip surface in hillslopes with different geometric characteristics. In order to do this, we incorporate more complex approaches to compute slope stability (Janbu's non-circular method and Bishop's simplified method) in the steady-state analytical hillslope stability model. We compare the safety factor ( FS) derived from the infinite slope stability method and the more complex approach for two cases: with and without the soil moisture profile in the unsaturated zone. We apply this extended hillslope stability model to nine characteristic hillslope types with three different profile curvatures (concave, straight, convex) and three different plan shapes (convergent, parallel, divergent). Overall, we find that unsaturated zone storage does not play a critical role in determining the factor of safety for shallow and deep landslides. As a result, the effect of the unsaturated zone storage on slope stability can be neglected in the steady-state hydrology and one can assume the same bulk specific weight below and above the water table. We find that steep slopes with concave profile and convergent plan shape have the least stability. We also demonstrate that in hillslopes with non-constant soil depth (possible deep landslides), the ones with convex profiles and convergent plan shapes have slip surfaces with the minimum safety factor near the outlet region. In general, Correspondence to: A. Talebi (email@example.com) when plan shape changes from divergent to convergent, stability decreases for all length profiles. Finally, we show that the applied slope stability methods and steady-state hydrology model based on the relative saturated storage can be used safely to investigate the relation between hillslope geometry and hillslope stability.


Abstract: The famous Rancho La Brea tar seeps of Southern California trapped thousands of Pleistocene and early Holocene vertebrates, preserving them as jumbled columns of millions of disarticulated bones. Previous work has contributed to a hypothetical entrapment scenario, however, it lacks detail in the period between the time the animals perished and the permeation of their bones with tar. Additionally, previous work has shown that skeletal elements moved apart from each other at least 1–3 meters but it is unclear whether this movement occurred near the surface of the tar, soon after submersion, or later after burial by sediment and compaction. To help answer these questions of disarticulation and transport, we conducted an actualistic experiment to record the progress of microbial succession and skeletonization of specimens in tar. We submerged dismembered bobcat (Lynx rufus) carcasses in an undisturbed tar seep and recorded the progress of microbial faunal changes and tissue decay. Microbial communities differed between tar environments and tissue decay, and changes in microbial communities across the stages of decay indicate rapid microbial succession, with the microbes most involved in the decay likely originating from the liquid surface tar. The minimum time to achieve clean bone was 40 days, from which we conclude that a surficial process may have been responsible for the movement of bones in the La Brea tar seeps.


The problem of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) has been studied thoroughly in the past decade in the field of mobile robotics. Taking into account the information that we can find on literature, it is possible to face the SLAM problem from three different points of view: the Metric SLAM, the Topological SLAM and the hybrid Metric-Topological SLAM. When we use the metric approach, we represent the environment and we compute the robot location through geometrical information with certain accuracy. On the other hand, when we face the problem using the topological approach, the objective is to represent the environment information by means of a list of locations within a graph, maintaining connectivity relationships between them. Finally, the metric-topological approach consists of a combination of the both techniques, trying to take advantage of both methods. Nowadays, the use of computer vision is usual when we want to build a map and localize the robot in the map, because of several advantages (they are passive sensors, have a low cost and provide us with a great amount of information). When we use a vision sensor on a SLAM problem, we can approach the problem from two points of view: using the local appearance (landmarks) or using the global appearance to extract the necessary information from the scenes. The use of local appearance implies the extraction of distinctive landmarks from the images. When we use techniques based on local appearance, we typically need more computational time to build the map and locate the robot within the map. It is due to the fact that we need to extract the distinctive landmarks from each image and find each landmark extracted, in all images that compose the map. However, it presents an advantage: the possibility of including metric information to the system. Conversely, the global appearance methods need a lower time to work (they allow us to work in real time) but they do not directly include metric information in the map. The main objective of this work is to build and test an algorithm to solve the SLAM problem using the global appearance of omnidirectional visual information and the robot internal odometry. Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of the methods previously listed, we have decided to use a hybrid metric-topological approach to solve the SLAM problem.


The wake steering control in wind farms has gained significant attention in the last years. This control strategy has shown promise to reduce energy losses due to wake effects and increase the energy production in a wind farm. However, wind conditions are variable in wind farms, and the measurements are uncertain what should be considered in the design of wake steering control strategies. This paper proposes using the Probabilistic Learning on Manifold (PLoM), which can be viewed as a supervised machine learning method, to enable the wake steering optimization under uncertainty. The expected power generation is estimated considering uncertainties in wind speed and direction with good accuracy and reduced computational cost for two wind farm layouts, which expand the application of machine learning models in wake steering. Furthermore, the analysis shows the potential gain with the application of wake steering control.


Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems research. In this paper, we identify a range of measures that can be used to assess the success of open source software (OSS) projects. We identify measures based on a review of the literature, a consideration of the OSS development process and an analysis of the opinions of OSS developers. For each measure, we provide examples of how they might be used in a study of OSS development.


Reservoir sedimentation is worldwide a problem and requires a sustainable solution. The idea of maintaining sediment in suspension by a jet induced artificial turbulence and releasing it through the water intake was tested in laboratory experiments. Therefore, two jet configurations and the influence of their geometrical parameters and the jet discharge on the sediment release were investigated: (i) a circular jet configuration with four jets arranged in a circle on a horizontal plane and (ii) a linear jet configuration with four jets arranged on a line parallel to the front wall. Turbidity measurements accompanied by flow velocity measurements give information about the efficiency and its reasons. The circular jet arrangement was more efficient than the linear arrangement and reached with the highest tested discharge (ΣQj = 4050 l/h) an evacuated sediment ratio of 0.73. An optimal parameter set was identified having a release efficiency of between 1.5 and 2 compared to no jets, depending on time and discharge. The optimal jet configuration indicates best installation and discharge practice of the jets when fighting against reservoir sedimentation. A pilot prototype set-up underlines the experimentally found promising results.


In Latin America, privatization started earlier and spread farther and more rapidly than in almost any other part of the world. More, and larger, firms were sold, and more proceeds were raised. Despite positive microeconomic results, privatization is highly and increasingly unpopular in the region. The core social criticism is that privatization contributes to growing poverty and inequality levels in Latin America—and circumstantial evidence supports the claim. But recent and rigorous studies dilute or counter the negative views, concluding that privatization has contributed only slightly to rising unemployment and in equality, and either reduces poverty or has no effect on it. Still, while privatization may be winning the economic battle it is losing the political war: The benefits are spread widely, small for each affected consumer or taxpayer, and occur (or accrue) in the medium-term. In contrast, the costs are large for those concerned, who tend to be visible, vocal, urban and organized, a potent political combination.


The Asia-Pacific region is set to remain the world's economic powerhouse in terms of economic growth for the next few decades. In value terms, Asian GDP increased between 1970 and 2015 from $4.63 trillion to $45.39 trillion in constant prices, an increase well above the rise in population growth, raising millions out of poverty. If current trends continue World Economics predicts that the share of the Asia-Pacific region in world GDP will have risen to 63.5% by 2050 with Europe declining to 12.1%, the Americas at 18.9% and Africa rising marginally to reach 5.5%. Slowing growth in China will not halt the Asian growth story as conditions for expansion exist across South Asia, particularly in India.


A new concept for dual parameter fiber optic sensor has been developed and characterized, both in a two-fiber and single-fiber configuration. The liquid sensor measures ethanol concentration with a stimuli responsive hydrogel which constitutes a low finesse Fabry-Perot cavity, and refractive index with a Mach-Zehnder type fiber optic interferometer. The two-fiber configuration utilize a fiber optic 1310/1550 nm wavelength division multiplexer to separate the two parameters, while a versatile filtering algorithm extracts and separates the two parameters in the single-fiber configuration. No cross talk were observed for the measured parameters of free spectral range and refractive index for the two-fiber configurations, while for the single fiber configuration cross-talk were observed. The two configurations prove to be versatile dual parametric fiber optic sensor concepts for accurate detection of specific parameters, based on stimuli responsive hydrogels.


Investment policy makers have consistently sought to promote inward investment through investment incentives of various kinds (e.g. capital grants, depreciation allowances). In applying these instruments, governments seek to influence companies as they apply a traditional investment decision making approach known as Net Present Value (NPV) analysis. Each of the government investment incentives influences some aspect of the NPV calculation.

Relatively recent research by McDonald Siegel (1986) has show n that for certain classes of investments, the NPV approach is inaccurate, often by a factor of two or more. This is because the NPV approach neglects the value of the option gained w hen a company chooses not to invest; by waiting a year or more, a company gains insight into macroeconomic and industry factors. If a company chooses to invest today, it must be sure that the return is sufficient to justify giving up the value of this additional information.

The value of this option can be quantified, based upon the underlying volatility and trend of the investment, and the company's cost of capital. This research creates an explicit linkage between traditional NPV analysis and the option valuation approach, before considering a whole new set of policy instruments designed to increase a company's likelihood to invest. The research develops several potential new instruments, screens them for the desired behaviour, and selects the most promising instrument. The new instrument is then validated by using an investment case example adapted from the public domain and a large computer model.

The research also discusses several related areas. It describes the effect of overlaying Poisson type events on an investment decision (i.e. a sudden shift in the value of the investment), and draws the implications of this thinking on the policy approaches that should be taken by incumbent and opposition regional policy makers. Lastly, the research includes a review of the U.K.'s regional policy objectives and an analysis of different approaches to corporate investment decision making.


Abstract A major challenge for online vendor website operations is serving information that meets visitor needs at a given point in their purchase process. The problem arises from the complexity of human behaviour, as well as changing needs with the evolution of consumer knowledge and skills through the purchase process. The most difficult element, however, is determining the effects of information provided on the site, as well as from other sources that the consumer may access, and anticipating resulting consumer needs. This paper discusses the contributions and limitations of current modelling techniques and utility studies of online consumer information to model consumer needs in real time. An alternative basis for real-time customer need appraisal is proposed using clickstream and customer input data combined with online information utility to enable more effective information serving. This requires further academic research and changes in practitioner online marketing operations.


Support for the international fight against "human trafficking" evolved quickly and comprehensively. The campaign launched by the UN General Assembly in December 19981 led to adoption just two years later of the Trafficking Protocol to the UN Convention against Organized Crime.2 U.S. President George W. Bush was among those particularly committed to the cause, calling for collective effort to eradicate the "special evil" of human trafficking, said by him to have become a "humanitarian crisis."3 One hundred and twenty-two countries have now ratified the Trafficking Protocol, agreeing in particular to criminalize trafficking and to cooperate in investigating and prosecuting allegations of trafficking.4 The antitrafficking cause is not simply of interest to states; it has been firmly embraced by prominent feminists, 5 leading international human rights organizations,6 and all key international agencies.7 This is not to say that there is universal agreement on the specific means adopted by the Trafficking Protocol. The Trafficking Protocol is most commonly criticized for being overly focused on criminal investigation and prosecution. 8 In particular, it is said that the accord fails meaningfully to protect the victims of human trafficking,9 who normally are granted access only to discretionary relief'0 under processes that may not be explained to them."' Indeed, only a minority of states has adopted mechanisms even to consider the protection of trafficked persons, 12 and these programs generally offer no more than strictly provisional assistance.' 3 The Trafficking Protocol's drafters, moreover, rejected a proposal to require that repatriation of trafficked persons be "voluntary" in favor of a duty on the part of countries of origin to "facilitate and accept" their trafficked citizens back "without undue or unreasonable delay,"'14 albeit "with due regard for the safety of that person."' 15 Similar inattention to the human dimension of trafficking is said also to be evident in the Trafficking Protocol's failure to move beyond rhetorical support for efforts to address the social and economic phenomena that make people vulnerable to traffickers in the first place.' 6 Yet it is striking that despite these concerns, there has really been no fundamental, overarching criticism of the effort to stamp out human trafficking as a worthy objective and, more specifically, as an appropriate focus of international law. At best, critique of the Trafficking Protocol leads to calls for enhanced commitments to address the "root causes" of trafficking-in particular, global socioeconomic inequality and the various forms of marginalization that make subgroups particularly vulnerable to trafficking 1 7-and/or to demands that the protection of the victims of trafficking be made either mandatory or at least more substantively durable. 18 In essence, the concerns expressed accept that the fight against human trafficking could and should be retooled in a way that enhances its overall net positive contribution to the human rights arsenal. 19 Indeed, with human trafficking having been equated by virtually every faction as a clear moral wrong,2 0 who would want to argue against the marshaling of international resolve and resources to bring it to an end? My own view, in contrast, is that the fight against human trafficking is more fundamentally in tension with core human rights goals than has generally been recognized. Language: en


Conclusions: French military downsizing and reconfiguring is part of a NATO-wide trend. All French forces, including the nuclear force de frappe, are affected. Three factors are shaping French and European post-Cold War militaries: 1) disappearance of the Soviet Union; 2) budgetary pressures, especially competition between security needs and European integration needs (meeting the Maastricht "Convergence Criteria"); and 3) new missions replacing the Cold War outlook. The military issue for France is whether the planned, professionalized, rapid-reaction forces will be adequate to post-Cold War missions, or whether downsizing and budget problems will result in a hollowed-out military. Success will depend on relaunching strong economic growth and on the Chirac government's determination to see through tensions between security and integration until the single European currency is launched and less constrained budgetary times return. Maastricht Economics and Chirac's Military Reform Jacques Chirac's succession of Socialist Francois Mitterrand as the president of France in May 1995 raised questions as to what balance of continuity and change there would be in French foreign and security policy, as well as in France's European integration policies. Similarities and differences between neo-Gaullist and Socialist policies sometimes are not what stereotypes would indicate. On the one hand, Mitterrand's European security and European integration policies turned out, from the beginning, to be quite realistic-leading to much more continuity than many had expected. On the other hand, Gaullism has always been more an attitude than a policy; Chirac's neo-Gaullist policy, like de Gaulle's own, is a remarkably flexible pragmatism sitting atop a few basic principles, above all the pursuit of national interest. Chirac, for example, has surprised stereotyped expectations that a neo-Gaullist would naturally back away from European integration. Having campaigned in 1995 on a "national" platform promising that unemployment would be his "priority of priorities," Chirac has instead maintained Mitterrand's hard choice of austerity and a "strong Franc," meaning belt-tightening domestic suffering in order to meet "convergence criteria" requirements for joining in the single European currency. A traditional "statist" and "national" policy of deficit-spending to create jobs would increase inflation, the budget deficit and the national debt, making French Single European Currency membership problematic. Not surprisingly, the popularity of Chirac and Prime Minister Alain Juppe's is very low, not least of all because of the French government's "Bundesbank policy." These European integration factors are connected to Chirac's military reforms and his turn toward the NATO command in European security policy. Chirac's downsizing and reconfiguration of French military forces, and his turning toward the integrated command-long recommended by military leaders themselves, (who realized how much technology and training the French military missed by being outside)--was provoked by the need to finance Maastricht commitments. It was also a reaction to inadequate French military performance in the Gulf war and in Bosnia, where French technology, weaponry, interoperability and the conscription army's constraints all caused problems. Chirac has launched a wholesale recasting of French defense, military and security policies which Mitterrand had only begun. Examples of Mitterrand's intentions are the European agreements to build advanced satellite intelligence capabilities and a large European transport aircraft--both designed to reduce Europe's dependence on U.S. assets. Mitterrand's Nuclear Moratorium and Chirac's Last Round of Tests Just weeks after taking office, determined to relaunch French defense efforts, Chirac broke with Mitterrand's moratorium on nuclear testing. …


We demonstrate how to efficiently derive a broad class of inequalities for entanglement detection in multimode continuous variable systems. The separability conditions are established from partial transposition (PT) in combination with several distinct necessary conditions for a quantum physical state, which include previously established inequalities as special cases. Remarkably, our method enables us to support Peres' conjecture to its full generality within the framework of Cavalcanti-Foster-Reid-Drummond multipartite Bell inequality [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 210405 (2007)] that the nonlocality necessarily implies negative PT entangled states.


Proteins with long, pathogenic polyglutamine (polyQ) sequences have an enhanced propensity to spontaneously misfold and self-assemble into insoluble protein aggregates. Here, we have identified 21 human proteins that influence polyQ-induced ataxin-1 misfolding and proteotoxicity in cell model systems. By analyzing the protein sequences of these modifiers, we discovered a recurrent presence of coiled-coil (CC) domains in ataxin-1 toxicity enhancers, while such domains were not present in suppressors. This suggests that CC domains contribute to the aggregation- and toxicity-promoting effects of modifiers in mammalian cells. We found that the ataxin-1–interacting protein MED15, computationally predicted to possess an N-terminal CC domain, enhances spontaneous ataxin-1 aggregation in cell-based assays, while no such effect was observed with the truncated protein MED15ΔCC, lacking such a domain. Studies with recombinant proteins confirmed these results and demonstrated that the N-terminal CC domain of MED15 (MED15CC) per se is sufficient to promote spontaneous ataxin-1 aggregation in vitro. Moreover, we observed that a hybrid Pum1 protein harboring the MED15CC domain promotes ataxin-1 aggregation in cell model systems. In strong contrast, wild-type Pum1 lacking a CC domain did not stimulate ataxin-1 polymerization. These results suggest that proteins with CC domains are potent enhancers of polyQ-mediated protein misfolding and aggregation in vitro and in vivo.


Nitroxide radicals are paramagnetic contrast agents, used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), that also exert antioxidant effects. Participating in cellular redox reactions, they lose their ability to provide contrast as a function of time after administration. In this study, the rate of contrast loss was correlated to the reducing power of the tissue or the "redox status." The preferential reduction of nitroxides in tumors compared with normal tissue was observed by MRI. The influence of the structure of the nitroxide on the reduction rate was investigated by MRI using two cell-permeable nitroxides, 4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6,-tetramethyl-1-piperidynyloxyl (Tempol) and 3-carbamoyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidine-1-oxyl (3CP), and one cell-impermeable nitroxide, 3-carboxy-2,2,5,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidine-1-oxyl (3CxP). Pharmacokinetic images of these nitroxides in normal tissue, tumor, kidney, and artery regions in mice were simultaneously obtained using MRI. The decay of Tempol and 3CP in tumor tissue was significantly faster than in normal tissue. No significant change in the total nitroxide (oxidized + reduced forms) was noted from tissue extracts, suggesting that the loss in contrast as a function of time is a result of intracellular bioreduction. However, in the case of 3CxP (membrane impermeable), there was no difference in the reduction rates between normal and tumor tissue. The time course of T(1) enhancement by 3CxP and the total amount of 3CxP (oxidized + reduced) in the femoral region showed similar pharmacokinetics. These results show that the differential bioreduction of cell-permeable nitroxides in tumor and normal tissue is supported by intracellular processes and the reduction rates are a means by which the intracellular redox status can be assessed noninvasively.


The study analysed the effect of lairage on some indicators of welfare and meat quality in lambs. Forty-eight lambs were divided into two treatments: T1 without lairage and T2 with 12 h of lairage. Blood samples were collected at slaughter to analyse cortisol, lactate, glucose, creatinine kinase, non-esterified fatty acid, white blood cells, red blood cells, haematocrit and ratio of neutrophil : lymphocytes. Meat from the M. longissimus was analysed in terms of pH 24 h post-mortem, water-holding capacity, texture and colour. Sensory analyses were performed by a trained panel. Lairage had a significant effect on stress response, but had no effect on haematological variables. The lambs with a lairage period before slaughter (T2) had significantly (P ≤ 0.001) lower values of cortisol at the time of slaughter. A similar result was observed for lactate and glucose, with T1 lambs showing significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher values than T2 lambs. The creatinine kinase activity and non-esterified fatty acid concentrations were highest in T2 lambs (P ≤ 0.05). Instrumental and sensory meat quality were not affected, with the exception of water-holding capacity and some meat colour indicators. The water-holding capacity was significantly higher for T2 (P ≤ 0.05), while T1 lambs had a higher yellow index (P ≤ 0.05) and hue (P ≤ 0.05). The results obtained in this study suggest that animals will be less stressed at the time of slaughter with an overnight lairage compared with slaughter on arrival at the abattoir. While stress at the time of slaughter can influence meat quality, these changes were small and always within the normal commercial range.


In this work, inorganic ammonium ions, NH4+, and carbonate ions, CO32-, are reported for the first time as catalysts for organic reactions in atmospheric aerosols and other natural environments at the Earth's surface. These reactions include the formation of C-C and C-O bonds by aldol condensation and acetal formation, and reveal a new aspect of the interactions between organic and inorganic materials in natural environments. The catalytic properties of inorganic ammonium ions, in particular, were not previously known in chemistry. The reactions were found to be as fast in tropospheric ammonium sulfate composition as in concentrated sulfuric acid. The ubiquitous presence and large concentrations of ammonium ions in tropospheric aerosols would make of ammonium catalysis a main consumption pathway for organic compounds in these aerosols, while acid catalysis would have a minor contribution. In particular, ammonium catalysis would account quantitatively for the aging of carbonyl compounds into secondary "fulvic" compounds in tropospheric aerosols, a transformation affecting the optical properties of these aerosols. In general, ammonium catalysis is likely to be responsible for many observations previously attributed to acid catalysis in the troposphere.


Diasporic journeys of South Asian women are examined in this thesis as a record of British
Asian oral history and migration. Biographical mapping is used as a means to interrogate the
complex diasporic relationship between national identity and race. The thesis seeks to
investigate the relationships between the racialised body and the experience of dislocation
lived through by South Asian women in London. Identity, memory and landscape are core
themes that run through the thesis. Remembered landscapes and environmental memories are
points of identification. These environments and textures of memory have a multisensory
nature. These in turn are refracted as icons in the visual and material cultures of the home.
Home as a site of belonging becomes a space through which these women express their
relationship with citizenship in Britain, their experience of life in the colony, and their
experience of rupture with their birthplace. Relationships between various lands, landscapes,
social and cultural iconographies are revealed through a study of cultures in the home.
Iconographies of "home" are further investigated in the thesis through a visual project
conducted with landscape artist Melanie Carvalho, and the study group. A set of 17 canvases
have been painted from the women's descriptions of "home". These are, in turn, analysed as
visual representations of remembered, idealised icons of intimate landscapes. This results in
an examination of the multiple axes within which the diasporic group practises identification,
and through which they are themselves configured. The research study uses a process of
grounded theorising by examining biographies, oral histories, and investigating visual and
material cultures in the home. These are treated as triggers of identification which operate as
metonymical devices of negotiation, resistance and placing.


In this paper, we introduce a water level control for small-scale hydro-generating units based on fuzzy logic. The difficulty of small-scale hydro-generating systems is the small capacity of reservoir and they often operate under strict water level control by a feedback control. However, the adjustment of the feedback control is difficult because of nonlinearity and disturbance. By the application of fuzzy logic, the control strategy can be written in the IF-THEN rule form, which is highly conformable to the human logic. The conditions of the water level control are expressed by fuzzy sets, and fuzzy reasoning performs a multi-attribute decision making. Model analysis is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the fuzzy logic control. The simulation results show that the fuzzy logic control is suitable to maintain the water level within certain limits while pursuing other operational goals at the same time.


This paper presents a case study comparing the hardware description language "Constructing Hardware in a Scala Embedded Language"(Chisel) to VHDL. For a thorough comparison the Heston Model was implemented, a stochastic model used in financial mathematics to calculate option prices. Metrics like hardware utilization and maximum clock rate were extracted from both resulting designs and compared to each other. The results showed a 30% reduction in code size compared to VHDL, while the resulting circuits had about the same hardware utilization. Using Chisel however proofed to be difficult because of a few features that were not available for this case study.


AIM
Description of maternal outcome of pregnancies complicated by cardiac disease.

SETTING
Pelonomi Hospital, Bloemfontein.

POPULATION
Black African women of low socio-economic background who presented with cardiac disease during pregnancy.

SAMPLE
All patients who delivered from 1 January 1990 to 1 January 1995.

DESIGN
Descriptive retrospective study.

RESULTS
Cardiac disease complicated 0.6% of pregnancies. Rheumatic valvular disease dominated in this population. The maternal mortality rate was 9.5% while the maternal morbidity rate ranged from 50% to 100% for the various lesions.

CONCLUSIONS
Cardiac disease in pregnancy has high maternal mortality and morbidity rates. Hypertension, anticoagulation therapy, late referrals and inadequate counselling were important contributing factors. A high priority should be given to meticulous contraceptive counselling in patients with cardiac disease. Collaboration between obstetricians, physicians and cardiothoracic surgeons in imperative.


I review the empirical comparative law literature with an emphasis on quantitative work. After situating the field and surveying its main applications to date, I turn to methodological issues. I discuss at length the obstacles to causal inference from comparative data, and caution against inappropriate use of instrumental variables and other techniques. Even if comparative data cannot identify any single causal theory, however, they are extremely important in narrowing down the set of plausible theories. I report progress in measurement design and suggest improvements in data analysis and interpretation using techniques from other fields, particularly growth econometrics.


This essay explores how Ezra–Nehemiah partially inverts the traditional paradigm of exile found in other biblical writings. When one community is formed at some distance from another in antiquity, the derivative community normally appears as a dependent community (or colony). Yet, in Ezra–Nehemiah the homeland repeatedly experiences renewal through initiatives undertaken by diaspora Judeans. Particular attention is given to how the vertical alliances forged within the Achaemenid administration by two diaspora leaders—Ezra and Nehemiah—are deployed to benefit Yehud. The commendation of Ezra and Nehemiah raises fascinating issues about developing notions of Judean ethnicity and identity in a world dominated by imperial interests.


The global climate changes touch the forests of the Earth. Forests of Europe are an important component of global ecological system. Forests of Eastern Europe are a subject of particular interest from the point of view of their ecological potential, as until recent time they were a part of closed socialistic system of former USSR. It was ascertained, that one of the most effective way of combating global climate change is to increase percentage of forest land in the region. By using of the original technique, experimental and literary data, ecologic potential of the forests of the region and its influence on climate changes was estimated. The main point of the technique is an integral combination of conversion ratios of phytomass components for main forest forming tree species of the studied region and forest cadastre data. Based on the abovementioned technique, amounts of phytomass and sequestered carbon in forests of nine Eastern European countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) were calculated. A complex index which enables estimation of efficiency of use of ecological potential of forests is density of carbon in forest ecosystems. By the end of the last century in the abovementioned countries this index was equal 4.08 kg·(m 2 ) -1 (Moldova) to 6.28 kg·(m 2 ) -1 (Lithuania). Because of scarcity of statistical data on dynamics of forest areas, stocks and productivity in the abovementioned countries, authentical estimation of trends of carbon dynamics is problematical. Regional trends of influence of forests on climate change can be observed on an example of Ukraine. Results of the study prove an increase of carbon content in forests of Ukraine during a period from 464,5 millions of tons (1988) to 658,9 millions of tons (2008). Average carbon density has increased correspondingly. Taking into account big afforestation potential of Ukraine (2.5-3 millions of hectares) on former agricultural lands, regional ecological potential is going to increase.


High core recovery at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 210, Site 1276, provided a high-resolution porosity-depth relationship and an equally impressive age-depth model based on first and last occurrences of microfossils. Site 1276 was drilled over transitional crust in the Newfoundland nonvolcanic margin, offshore Canada, between known continental crust on the west and apparent oceanic crust on the east as identified by seafloor-spreading magnetic anomalies M3 to M0 (Barremian–Aptian, 129.8–124.8 Ma). At Site 1276, two diabase sills were drilled at depths equivalent to the U reflection, a bright reflection that overlies transitional crust interpreted from seismic reflection profiles throughout the Newfoundland Basin. The sills were emplaced within uppermost Aptian fine- to coarse-grained sediments, 100–200 m above basement as estimated from seismic reflection data. Magma emplacement occurred at shallow levels within the sediment column, as evidenced by: (1) the occurrence of vesicles in the sill, and (2) compaction-induced folding of calcite veins that were emplaced near vertically in the sediments and are assumed to be coeval with the intrusion. By calculating the degree of shortening of the calcite veins and determining the reconstructed porosity of the sediments during vein emplacement, the age of magma emplacement can be deduced. From the porosity-age curve, the age of sill emplacement is estimated to be 82.5–109.1 Ma, consistent with recent 40Ar/39Ar radiometric dating of the upper sill that gave ages of 105.95 ± 1.78 Ma and 104.7 ± 1.7 Ma. The source of magmatism responsible for the diabase sills is necessarily postrift, and the sills are temporally equivalent to alkali basalts dredged from the Newfoundland Seamounts. The simplest explanation for the Site 1276 diabases and the widespread distribution of the U reflection relates to the migration of the Azores, Madeira, and Canary plumes across the Newfoundland Basin between 80 and 120 Ma.


Introduction: This review provides an updated analysis of the evidence supporting intra-arterial thrombolysis (IAT) for the treatment of central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO). Methods: A systemic review of the literature indexed by Ovid MEDLINE was performed for the following medical subject headings: central retinal artery occlusion, thrombolysis, intra-arterial, fibrinolysis. Studies were analysed individually and categorised by study type, and extracted data grouped together for statistical analysis. Only studies with five patients or more were included in the review. Results: Twenty-three studies were identified in the original search; eight were selected for the analysis. Of these studies, 158 patients were represented, in which treatment was instituted within an average of 8.4 (SD 4) h of symptom onset. In these patients, visual improvement occurred on average in 93% of patients, with 13% achieving 20/20 or better, 25% achieving 20/40 or better, and 41% achieving 20/200 or better. Complications occurred in 4.5% of cases. Conclusion: IAT may produce superior visual outcomes compared with conventional treatments for CRAO when instituted in certain situations. At the moment, there is insufficient evidence to support the routine use of IAT to treat CRAO. Well-designed prospective, randomised trials remain to be done.


Mechanical ventilation is vital for supporting patients with pulmonary insufficiency. However, experimental data suggests that pulmonary injury can occur during mechanical ventilation as a result of elevated regional lung volumes resulting in excessive alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) stretch due to basement membrane deformation and reduced barrier function. AECs maintain integrity of the blood-gas barrier with gasket like intercellular tight junctions (TJ) which are anchored internally to the actin cytoskeleton. Our goal was to evaluate the effect of physiologically relevant, high magnitude biaxial stretch on the actin cytoskeleton, a principal regulator of monolayer barrier properties, as a foundation to develop strategies to reduce mechanical injury in stretched AECs. We used primary rat type I-like AEC monolayers cultured on flexible membranes and stretched biaxially to mimic the alveolus during high volume mechanical ventilation. We hypothesized that the actin cytoskeleton underwent rapid remodeling initiated through activation of the Rac1/Rho signaling pathways and resulted in increased monolayer permeability. We have demonstrated that AEC monolayers stretched biaxially undergo rapid magnitude and frequency-dependent actin cytoskeletal remodeling to form perjunctional actin rings (PJARs). PJAR formation during stretch was mediated by the Rac1/Akt pathway but not by the Rho kinase and myosin light chain pathway. Inhibition of several Rac1 pathway targets, including PI3K, Rac1, and PAK-1, resulted in the attenuation of stretch-induced PJAR formation and preservation of barrier properties in stretched monolayers. Rac1 pathway agonists platelet derived growth factor and calyculin-A were shown to induce actin cytoskeleton remodeling to form PJAR in unstretched monolayers. Furthermore, exogenous PIP3 increased Akt phosphorylation in unstretched monolayers and reduced cell death, but increased monolayer permeability in stretched monolayers. In summary, stretch of primary rat AEC monolayers increased Rac1 pathway activity, cytoskeleton remodeling, and monolayer permeability, all of which could be attenuated with Rac1 pathway inhibitors. With this data we can begin to develop novel treatment strategies aimed at preventing mechanical ventilator associated barrier dysfunction in vivo. We anticipate these treatments will reduce the incidence of pulmonary injury and mortality in patients that require mechanical ventilation. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Bioengineering First Advisor Susan S. Margulies, Ph.D. This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1556


The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence rate, worm load, effects of strongyles infestation on blood parameters and comparative efficacy of Oxfendazole, Ivermectin and Pyrantel anthelmintics against strongyles in the horses at Quetta and suburbs. For this purpose, 100 horses were randomly selected and kept untreated for anthelmintics for 3 months before commencement of study. Overall, prevalence was found to be at 48%. Among them, 40 positive horses were randomly divided into 4 groups namely A, B, C and D comprising 10 horses in each group. Group A was treated with Oxfendazole, group B with Ivermectin, group C with Pyrantel while group D was kept an untreated (No Anthelmintic). The efficacy of anthelmintics was evaluated on reduction of eggs per gram (EPG) of the faecal sample on day 7 and 14 post-medication. The efficacy of Oxfendazole in Group A was 91.43% and 97.14%, efficacy of Ivermectin was 95.24% and 97.62% whereas efficacy of Pyrantel was 87.18% and 94.87% on day 7 th and 14 th day post-medication respectively. All the anthelmintics administered were effective against strongylosis with ivermectin having comparatively better efficacy followed by oxfendazole and pyrantel. Worm load had direct relation on blood parameters and its reduction showed significant improvement in total erythrocyte count (TEC), Haemoglobin (Hgb) and Packed Cell Volume (PCV) on day 7 and 14. Efficacy of routinely used anthelmintics should be regularly determined through faecal examination for EPG count to cater for development of resistance.


Passive air samplers (PAS) including polyurethane foam (PUF) are widely deployed as an inexpensive and practical way to sample semivolatile pollutants. However, concentration estimates from PAS rely on constant empirical mass transfer rates, which add unquantified uncertainties to concentrations. Here we present a method for modeling hourly sampling rates for semivolatile compounds from hourly meteorology using first-principle chemistry, physics, and fluid dynamics, calibrated from depuration experiments. This approach quantifies and explains observed effects of meteorology on variability in compound-specific sampling rates and analyte concentrations, simulates nonlinear PUF uptake, and recovers synthetic hourly concentrations at a reference temperature. Sampling rates are evaluated for polychlorinated biphenyl congeners at a network of Harner model samplers in Chicago, IL, during 2008, finding simulated average sampling rates within analytical uncertainty of those determined from loss of depuration compounds and confirming quasilinear uptake. Results indicate hourly, daily, and interannual variability in sampling rates, sensitivity to temporal resolution in meteorology, and predictable volatility-based relationships between congeners. We quantify the importance of each simulated process to sampling rates and mass transfer and assess uncertainty contributed by advection, molecular diffusion, volatilization, and flow regime within the PAS, finding that PAS chamber temperature contributes the greatest variability to total process uncertainty (7.3%).


Static type checking allows programmers to locate potential bugs prior to code execution. However, developing a static type checker is a complicated endeavor. Implementers must address a number of concerns including recursion over syntax elements, unification of type variables within environments, and generation of meaningful error messages for users. The inherent complexity of type checkers can lead to code that is difficult to both understand and maintain. This thesis presents the design and implementation of an abstract type inference engine and its use in the revision of a student-oriented type checker for the Scheme programming language. Our inference engine provides a complete set of unification facilities to programmers for the specification of a type checking system. It allows for a clean separation of unification algorithms, inference rules, and error generation. We also demonstrate the applicability of the engine by using it to construct a type checker for Scheme targeted at novice programmers. This checker borrows a student-friendly type notation from a previous version and extends its system, providing for language native module support, a more complete treatment of advanced data types, and better error messages.


This paper studies the smooth transition regression model where regressors are I(1) and errors are I(0). The regressors and errors are assumed to be dependent both serially and contemporaneously. Using the triangular array asymptotics, the nonlinear least squares estimator is shown to be consistent and its asymptotic distribution is derived. It is found that the asymptotic distribution involves a bias under the regressor-error dependence, which implies that the non-linear least squares estimator is inefficient and unsuitable for use in hypothesis testing. Thus, this paper proposes a Gauss-Newton type estimator which uses the NLLS estimator as an initial estimator and is based on regressions augmented by leads-and-lags. Using leads-and-lags enables the Gauss-Newton estimator to eliminate the bias and have a mixture normal distribution in the limit, which makes it efficient and suitable for use in hypothesis testing. Simulation results indicate that the results obtained from the triangular array asymptotics provide reasonable approximations for the þnite sample properties of the estimators and t-tests when sample sizes are moderately large. The cointegrating smooth transition regression model is applied to the Korean and Indonesian data from the Asian currency crisis of 1997. Signiþcant nonlinear effects of interest rate on spot exchange rate are found to be present in the Korean data, which partially supports the interest Laffer curve hypothesis. But overall the effects of interest rate on spot exchange rate are shown to be quite negligible in both the nations.


Anaerobic digestion and the production of biogas can provide an efficient means of meeting several objectives concerning energy, environmental and waste management policy. Interest in biogas is increasing, and new facilities are being built. There is a wide range of potential raw material, and both the biogas and digestates produced can be used in many different applications. The variation in raw materials and digestion processes contributes to the flexibility of biogas production systems, but at the same time makes their analysis and comparison more complicated. In this thesis, the energy performance in the life cycle of biogas production is assessed, as well as the environmental impact of introducing biogas systems to replace various fuels and existing strategies for the handling of various raw materials. The energy performance and environmental impact vary greatly between the biogas systems studied depending on the raw material digested and the reference system replaced. The results are largely dependent on the methodological assumptions made, for example, concerning focus, system boundaries, and how the energy required in joint operations is allocated to the raw materials digested. Many of the environmental implications depend on how changes resulting from non-energy-related aspects of the implementation of biogas production can be taken into account. For example, changes in emission of methane and ammonia from the handling of the raw material or changes in nitrogen leaching from arable land. There are several potential barriers to the successful implementation of biogas production. The aspect to which most attention was devoted here was the prospect of using digestate from large-scale biogas plants as a fertilizer in agriculture. Reliable and generally accepted disposal of the comparatively large amounts of digestate produced is necessary if biogas production is to be implemented. Agriculture is currently the most common, and sometimes the only suitable means of disposal of the digestate. Serious resistance to or problems associated with this use could therefore jeopardise the development of biogas systems. (Less)


The purpose of the paper is to analyze the housing security policy for rural immigrant workers in Chinese cities and its performance, to contribute the policy frame for solving the housing problems of immigrant workers. Investigation method and public policy analyses are jointly applied in study. Based on the investigation on housing status of rural immigrant workers in Chinese cities, it will check the performance of current housing policies, including affordable housing policy, very low rent housing policy, public accumulation fund policy. The orientation of rural immigrant workers in cities, the social security system and the housing supply policies related to them, will be found to be the primary factors influenced government policy. It emphasizes that the housing policy should be set up on the measures of housing supply and demand of rural immigrant workers in Chinese cities. And it will try to construct the countermeasure system that produced by theoretical model. The result shows that the housing demand of immigrant workers should be considering with the supply and security system of urban residents' housing together. Accordingly, the proper measures the government should take focus on the construction of effective institutional arrangement of distribution, so as to prompt the housing policy to achieve its maximal economic and societal effect using the market mechanism.


Widely praised for its indepth coverage of Drupal internals, bestselling Pro Drupal Development has been completely updated for Drupal 6 in this latest edition, and there are even more tricks of the trade to help you further yourself as a professional Drupal developer. Assuming you already know how to install and bring a standard installation online, John K. VanDyk gives you everything else you need to customize your Drupal installation however you see fit. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition delves deep into Drupal internals, showing you how to take full advantage of its powerful architecture. What youll learn Find out how to create your own modules, develop your own themes, and produce your own filters. Learn the inner workings of each key part of Drupal, including user management, sessions, the node system, caching, and the various APIs available to you. Discover how to optimize your Drupal installation to perform well under highload situations. Gain the knowledge needed to secure your Drupal installation and other best practice techniques. Learn to integrate Ajax into and internationalize your Drupal web site. Who is this book for? Web developers maintaining and creating sites with Drupal. It is assumed that you already know the basics of Drupal and are able to install and bring up a basic installation. This book takes you deeper into the internals of Drupal and teaches how to tweak and modify it in order to create that perfect web site. Simply put, if you are working with Drupal, you need Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition. About the Apress Pro Series The Apress Pro series books are practical, professional tutorials to keep you on and moving up the professional ladder. You have gotten the job, now you need to hone your skills in these tough competitive times. The Apress Pro series expands your skills and expertise in exactly the areas you need. Master the content of a Pro book, and you will always be able to get the job done in a professional development project. Written by experts in their field, Pro series books from Apress give you the hardwon solutions to problems you will face in your professional programming career.


This paper introduces the concept of Intersection Schemas in the field of heterogeneous data integration and dataspaces. We introduce a technique for incrementally integrating heterogeneous data sources by specifying semantic overlaps between sets of extensional schemas using bidirectional schema transformations, and automatically combining them into a global schema at each iteration of the integration process. We propose an incremental data integration methodology that uses this technique and that aims to reduce the amount of up-front effort required. Such approaches to data integration are often described as pay-as-you-go. A demonstrator of our technique is described, which utilizes a new graphical user tool implemented using the AutoMed
heterogeneous data integration system. A case study is also described, and our technique and integration methodology
are compared with a classical data integration strategy.


This dissertation takes up the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) schism in 1946 in Namibia from the Rhenish Mission Society RMS), due to a protest against the inhumane treatment that the Nama leaders were forced to accept from the German missionaries belonging to the Rhenish Mission Society. The agitation movement of 1946 organized a church separated from the RMS which was started in response to the Africans' need for opportunities for self-expression, fuller involvement in the Church of God, and in society as a whole. It was the answer to a cry for social recognition as human beings, and the means through which a group of people started on a programme which gave them a growing sense of dignity and self respect. The underlying and longer term problems of this first schism in Namibia come out above all in the correspondence between the missionary Christiaan Spellmeyer and Petrus Jod, Markus Witbooi and Zacheus Thomas. These documents shed some light on the policy and attitude of the RMS in Namibia and in Gibeon in particular, mainly during the 1930's and early 1940's. This thesis records the significant role played by the Nama leaders to voice their grievances against the RMS. The involvement of the RMS missionaries in colonial politics has contributed to the subjugation of the black people. By concentrating their efforts on pioneering incentives in education, social care and ordination, the Nama leaders made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of AMEC in Namibia, the church which responds closely to the needs of the Nama people. This study should be of interest to those who are doing research on the history of Christian missions in Southern Africa, and in particular in Namibia. It is hoped that the findings of this study will bring a local perspective on the activities of the AMEC in Namibia, as up to the present, much available information has been written by German missionaries. A complete history of the indigenous clergy in Namibia, is unwritten. Much that would be most interesting and valuable went to the grave with those who had no possible means of transmitting it except by the uncertain and unreliable method of tradition. What made Zacheus Thomas, Markus Witbooi and Petrus Jod different from the Rhenish Mission Society's staff was the fact that they were from the IKhobesin clan, who understand and respect the culture of the Nama people. They could see and appreciate the structures of the Nama society and planned a development project from the African perspective. The researcher presents this work as a tribute to these pioneering Nama leaders whose lives and relationships are a true reflection of their Christian faith.


The Genius is in. You don't have to be a genius to switch from a PC to a Mac. But if you want to make the move with less hassle, put this savvy Portable Genius guide to work. Want to share data between your Mac and your PC? Understand the differences between Mac OSX and Windows? Learn how to perform everyday Mac tasks? Transfer important stuff like calendars, contact lists, and music? You'll find cool and useful Genius tips, full-color screenshots, and pages of easy-to-access shortcuts and tools that will save you loads of time and let you enjoy your Mac to the max. Paul McFedries is the president of Logophilia Limited, a technical writing company. He has written more than four dozen books that have sold more than two million copies worldwide. These books include Macs Portable Genius, Teach Yourself VISUALLY Macs, and Teach Yourself VISUALLY Windows Vista. Paul encourages all readers to drop by his Web site, www.mcfedries.com. Portable GENIUS Fun, hip, and straightforward, the new Portable Genius series gives forward-thinking Apple users useful information in handy, compact books that are easy to navigate and don't skimp on the essentials. Collect the whole series and make the most of your Apple digital lifestyle.


This volume is devoted to interactive and iterative processes of decision-making I2 Fuzzy Decision Making, in brief. Decision-making is inherently interactive. Fuzzy sets help realize human-machine communication in an efficient way by facilitating a two-way interaction in a friendly and transparent manner. Human-centric interaction is of paramount relevance as a leading guiding design principle of decision support systems. The volume provides the reader with an updated and in-depth material on the conceptually appealing and practically sound methodology and practice of I2 Fuzzy Decision Making. The book engages a wealth of methods of fuzzy sets and Granular Computing, brings new concepts, architectures and practice of fuzzy decision-making providing the reader with various application studies. The book is aimed at a broad audience of researchers and practitioners in numerous disciplines in which decision-making processes play a pivotal role and serve as a vehicle to produce solutions to existing problems. Those involved in operations research, management, various branches of engineering, social sciences, logistics, and economics will benefit from the exposure to the subject matter. The book may serve as a useful and timely reference material for graduate students and senior undergraduate students in courses on decision-making, Computational Intelligence, operations research, pattern recognition, risk management, and knowledge-based systems.


This thesis discusses the possibility and feasibility of designing sustainably in harsh climatological extremes. It more specifically covers the typology of single family residential dwellings, better known as townhomes. It is proposed through the theoretical premise/unifying idea that the definition of sustainable architecture and all areas of sustainable design for that matter, do change in terms of technical application from region to region, and climate to climate; keeping in mind that the underlying concepts and general goals remain the same. The justification behind this thesis is that without a sustainable approach to design and building, our ecosystem and eventually the human race will suffer the ill effects of poorly thought-out and inefficient solutions to problems. It is only through proper research and careful consideration that we can more responsibly use our natural resources, in turn creating and maintaining a healthier environment for ourselves and future generations. The townhomes being designed are intended for middle-class families ranging between two and five members. The development will consist of twenty single family units. These townhomes would likely be privately owned and operated by a small team of employees under the direction of a landlord. All units within the complex will include a master bedroom and bathroom, a modest guest room, closest and additional storage space, a kitchen and dining area, a great room, private laundry facilities, and based on unit size, additional bedrooms and bathrooms. Square footages per unit will range from 1900 square feet in two person units up to 3150 square feet in five person units. The site for the project is located on along the south facing bluff along county road 43 in Winona, MN. The main goal of this project is to create a sustainable living solution for first time home buyers/renters in a geographic region harboring harsh climatological extremes. This design is not to be completed lavishly, rather through modest yet inventive sustainable techniques, thereby remaining affordable for the bulk of middle class citizens. Prior to design, extensive research and case studies will be conducted covering the areas of site and typology, as well as historical matters concerning sustainable design. The bulk of the research will be done through a mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative means.


The detection of small road hazards, such as lost cargo, is a vital capability for self-driving cars. We tackle this challenging and rarely addressed problem with a vision system that leverages appearance, contextual as well as geometric cues. To utilize the appearance and contextual cues, we propose a new deep learning-based obstacle detection framework. Here a variant of a fully convolutional network is proposed to predict a pixel-wise semantic labeling of (i) free-space, (ii) on-road unexpected obstacles, and (iii) background. The geometric cues are exploited using a state-of-the-art detection approach that predicts obstacles from stereo input images via model-based statistical hypothesis tests. We present a principled Bayesian framework to fuse the semantic and stereo-based detection results. The mid-level Stixel representation is used to describe obstacles in a flexible, compact and robust manner. We evaluate our new obstacle detection system on the Lost and Found dataset, which includes very challenging scenes with obstacles of only 5 cm height. Overall, we report a major improvement over the state-of-the-art, with a performance gain of 27.4%. In particular, we achieve a detection rate of over 90% for distances of up to 50 m. Our system operates at 22 Hz on our self-driving platform.


Handbook of Product Graphs, Second Edition examines the dichotomy between the structure of products and their subgraphs. It also features the design of efficient algorithms that recognize products and their subgraphs and explores the relationship between graph parameters of the product and factors. Extensively revised and expanded, the handbook presents full proofs of many important results as well as up-to-date research and conjectures. Results and Algorithms New to the Second Edition: Cancellation results A quadratic recognition algorithm for partial cubes Results on the strong isometric dimension Computing the Wiener index via canonical isometric embedding Connectivity results A fractional version of Hedetniemis conjecture Results on the independence number of Cartesian powers of vertex-transitive graphs Verification of Vizings conjecture for chordal graphs Results on minimum cycle bases Numerous selected recent results, such as complete minors and nowhere-zero flows The second edition of this classic handbook provides a thorough introduction to the subject and an extensive survey of the field. The first three parts of the book cover graph products in detail. The authors discuss algebraic properties, such as factorization and cancellation, and explore interesting and important classes of subgraphs. The fourth part presents algorithms for the recognition of products and related classes of graphs. The final two parts focus on graph invariants and infinite, directed, and product-like graphs. Sample implementations of selected algorithms and other information are available on the books website, which can be reached via the authors home pages.


Nowhere is the inadequacy of American public education more striking than in high-poverty, urban schools populated by disadvantaged minority students. Despite decades of legal, policy, and scholarly efforts aimed at addressing the challenges facing these schools, the academic prospects of poor students are currently as grim as they have been in recent memory. Reformers seeking to address this problem have largely focused on transforming public education from within by focusing on school conditions or teacher performance.. These efforts have largely failed to bring about real progress: despite decades of litigation and reform, our nation's most disadvantaged children continue to lack access to meaningful educational opportunity.This Article argues that prior reforms have enjoyed little success because they have failed to address head-on what we believe is the predominant factor in perpetuating educational inequality: the numerous challenges disadvantaged students must overcome in their home and neighborhood environments. These well-documented challenges include a lack of household resources, suboptimal parenting practices, and the prevalence of neighborhood crime, violence, and other risk factors, all of which inhibit poor children's ability to succeed academically.Recognizing that the societal conditions that perpetuate these encumbrances are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, this Article argues for the creation of voluntary, public boarding schools as an option for educating disadvantaged children from as early as Kindergarten. As the SEED Foundation and others have demonstrated, there is a significant demand for boarding school education among members of poor communities and considerable private and public sector support for innovative education reform efforts. Recognizing that this proposal nonetheless will likely be met with resistance, this Article addresses a number of potential objections, including the suggestion that it is motivated by a desire to deprive underprivileged children of their cultural identity and that it is not financially feasible.


markdownabstractChina has maintained rapid growth for nearly 40 years, achieving significant economic development. However, it also caused many problems including resource shortages and environmental pollution. This is partly because China pursued a pattern of extensive growth by relying on primary resource inputs. China has now begun to adjust its development and environmental protection policies to handle these problems. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized the construction of an ecological civilization given China's energy constraints, serious environmental pollution, and degraded ecosystem.
This study aims to characterize the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection in China. Using data envelopment analysis, the generalized method of moments, and a coupled modelling method, we studied the mutual relationship between environment and growth, as well the effect environmental regulation has on economic activities. The following results were obtained:
(1) There are wide disparities in pollutant emissions across regions of China. The developed eastern provinces are facing the worst environmental issues, especially water pollution. The provinces with a lower level of economic development experience relatively fewer environmental problems. There are also significant pollution differences across industries. Environmentally degraded industries are mainly concentrated in the capital-intensive manufacturing sector.
(2) A significant linkage is found between energy input and environmental total factor productivity, which is the promotion of environmental efficiency that can facilitate energy saving. Therefore, it is necessary and useful to promote environmental efficiency.
(3) There is a coupling relationship between environmental protection and manufacturing industries, which is evolving from a moderate and low to moderate one. However, from a dynamic perspective, the degree of coupling is not as optimistic as expected. The coupling relationship is associated with disordered development.
(4) China's environmental regulation would worsen employment conditions, which is consistent with results that do not consider open conditions. This finding may be attributed to the cleaner production environment brought about by socioeconomic development. Enhancing the intensity of environmental regulation may block the flow of foreign capital, which may ultimately reduce employment.
Based on these results, we provide the following policy suggestions. China's central government should encourage the eastern provinces to adjust their technological structure and give priority to the development of environmental protection technology using incentives and regulatory mechanisms. In addition, the eastern provinces should transfer such technology westward to inland provinces as soon as possible. China should strengthen the coordination and sustainability in the central region, which will have a significant national impact. China should promote the rationalization of industrial infrastructure and appropriately boost the development of advanced and clean industries. The rationalization of industrial infrastructure is the first step towards smooth industrial development. The central regions should actively undertake industrial transfer from the east in this process. China should support small businesses and emerging industries to achieve the goal of employment growth. Industrial upgrading from labor-intensive industries to capital- and technology-intensive industries should not be too rapid in order to ensure the steady growth of employment.


With the striking exception of the USA, countries around the world are committed to the implementation of stringent targets on anthropogenic carbon emissions, as agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement. Indeed, for better or for worse, the transition towards decarbonisation is a collective endeavour, with the main challenge being a technological one. The path from a fossil-based to a sustainable and low-carbon economy needs to be paved through the development and deployment of low-carbon energy technologies which will allow to sustain economic growth while cutting carbon emissions. (First paragraph)


The seminal study of the antecedents of Deaf culture is now back in print. Edited by renowned scholar Harlan Lane, "The Deaf Experience: Classics in Language and Education" presents a selection of the earliest essays written by members of the nascent French Deaf community at the time of the Enlightenment, a rich period of education for deaf people. The fourth volume in the "Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies" series features works written from 1764 up to 1840. Pierre Desloges offers a stirring paean to sign language in an excerpt from his book, the first ever published by a deaf person. Saboureux de Fontenay and Jean Massieu, two prominent leaders, relate their respective experiences in autobiographical accounts. In separate essays, Charles-Michel de l'Epee and Roch-Ambroise Sicard describe systems for teaching manual French, followed by a critique of these methods by Roch-Ambroise Bebian, a well-known hearing friend of Deaf people during that era. Ferdinand Berthier, a renowned Deaf teacher and writer in the 19th century, concludes with a history of Deaf people up to that time. "The Deaf Experience" shows clearly how this extraordinary era of French deaf education influenced the adoption of the manual method by the first schools for deaf students in America, in sharp contrast to the oral movement that repressed sign-language centered education for nearly a century afterward. Deaf studies scholars and students alike will welcome the return of this invaluable resource.


A field study and scenario study were conducted to investigate the impact of a structural solution in the management of a natural resource dilemma: the effects of individual metering in a water shortage. It was predicted that metering would be beneficial in promoting conservation, in particular, when people experienced a shortage. Consistent with expectations, the results of both studies revealed that conservation efforts were greater among metered (vs. unmetered) participants when they perceived the water shortage as severe. Additional analyses suggested that the positive effect of metering could be partially explained by a greater concern with the collective costs of overconsumption during the drought. Our findings suggest that structural solutions, such as metering, may produce concomitant effects that extend beyond the outcome structure of the social dilemma.


Measurements for the viscosity of cyclopentane in the liquid phase are presented. The measurements cover the temperature range from 210 to 310 K, from atmospheric pressure up to 25 MPa, and were performed in a vibrating-wire viscometer. The uncertainty of the measurements is estimated to be 0.5%, rising to 1% at low temperatures, an estimate confirmed by the comparison of the viscosity of water and toluene with standard correlations.


(By Vladimir Frolov. The Moscow Times, Jan. 14, 2016, p.
 2. Complete text:) Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic and trade ties
 with Iran in retaliation for the provocative ransacking of the
 Saudi Embassy in Tehran by what appeared to be a
 government-directed mob. The escalation follows the execution by
 Saudi Arabia on Jan. 2 of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia
 cleric and a Saudi national, who was sentenced to death last year
 for leading peaceful protests among the Shia in the Saudi Eastern
 Province, the Kingdom's main oil-producing region. ... This development threatens to unleash the most serious
 Saudi-Iranian confrontation in the already destabilized Middle
 East, while also inflaming the sectarian tensions between the
 region's Sunni and Shia to extreme levels of violence. Domestic
 [policy] considerations in both countries contributed to the
 escalation - a show of force by an insecure leadership in Riyadh to
 stamp out signs of domestic unrest; a coming parliamentary election
 in Iran in February where the hardliners are determined to upstage
 moderates led by President Hassan Rouhani. But it's the spiraling
 rivalry for regional dominance between the two powers in the Gulf
 that fuels the conflict. ... While a direct military confrontation between Saudi Arabia and
 Iran appears unlikely, both having too much to lose from the war,
 and Iran, emerging from its international isolation, would be loath
 to scuttle this process, it is on the regional battlefields of
 Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon that Tehran and Riyadh are waging
 bloody wars by proxy. [That is where] the impact of the latest
 escalation will be felt. The oil market will be another battlefield
 with Russia as collateral damage. ... Russia may not seem a part of this confrontation, but in reality
 it is now pretty much ensnared in it. Riyadh's latest escalatory
 moves are as much a signal to Moscow as they are to Tehran. And the
 message is clear - stay neutral or stay out of the region.
 Unfortunately, Russia has not been neutral in the great Sunni-Shia
 divide. ... By plunging into the civil war in Syria, Moscow has allowed
 itself to be entangled in the Shia alliance with Iran, [President
 Bashar] Assad's regime in Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah, the sectarian
 Shia government in Iraq and armed Shia militias on Iran's payroll.
 Russia, whose Muslim population is predominantly Sunni, now finds
 itself bombing Sunni Arabs and Turks in Syria while protecting
 foreign Shia militias who are no less extremist than the Sunni
 jihadists Russia is fighting. ... This is not a good position to be in, given that the vast
 majority of Muslims in the Middle East are Sunni. The Kremlin's
 argument that it does not distinguish between Sunni and Shia in its
 "war on terror" in Syria speaks volumes about the quality of its
 decision-making. ... Russia's strongest asset in the Middle East in the post-Soviet
 period has been its impartiality and its ability to stay on good
 terms with almost all players, while avoiding becoming beholden to
 their narrow agendas. This accorded Russia the enviable status of
 an honest broker with all the freedom of maneuver it wanted, while
 the US had boxed itself into a rigid anti-Iran alliance with Saudi
 Arabia and Israel. ... That changed in 2015. US President Barack Obama's reluctance to
 do "stupid sh*t" has now turned the US into a free agent in the
 Middle East, while Russia is joined at the hip with Iran and Assad
 in a sectarian Shia alliance. While the US is playing its own game
 in the Middle East to reduce its dependence and footprint, Russia
 is increasingly being played by others with no regard for its own
 national interests. ... It now owns Assad's bloody mess in Syria and is a target for
 Sunni jihadists to a much greater extent than a year ago. ... The political talks between Assad's government and the Syrian
 opposition due to start in two weeks in Geneva could be the first
 casualty of the Saudi-Iranian confrontation. The Saudis are furious
 with the way Russia and Iran managed to steer the Vienna talks into
 broader international acceptance of Assad's prolonged stay in the
 transition process. They are intent on derailing Moscow's efforts
 to shape its outcome in Assad's favor by blocking the participation
 of armed Islamist groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam -
 Zahran Alloush, the leader of the latter and a Saudi ally, was
 killed in an air strike on Dec. 25. ... Riyadh will be watching to see whether Moscow will deliver
 Assad's acceptance of the transition process in line with the
 Geneva Communique of 2013 [sic; 2012 - Trans.] with a
 complete transfer of power to the transitional authority. The
 Saudis need a settlement that would limit Iran's influence in Syria
 and give Syrian Sunnis their due share of power. Barring such an
 outcome - which Russian is unlikely to deliver - the Geneva talks
 will be blocked, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey will proceed to bleed
 Russia and Iran in an endless proxy war in Syria.


When rare gas atoms are submitted to a short pulse of radiation delivered by an infrared laser with peak intensity beyond I ≈ 1018 W/cm2, highly charged ionic species and fast electrons are produced. In this context, we discuss several issues raised by the results reported in very recent experiments, in which ion yields have been measured. We shall address the questions related to the population dynamics of the successive ionization stages, in order to account for the observed ion production yields in finite duration pulses.


This master thesis investigates and assesses the productive use and spread of solar PV (photovoltaic) systems among rural SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in two rural regions in Tanzania. It also analyzes sustainability aspects of productive solar PV usage and the future prospects for this type of activities. As the situation is today there is a lack of electricity in a major part of the country and there is a big need for rural electrification. In recent years there has been a lot of effort and money put into the solar PV industry in order to achieve a higher quality of life for the rural poor. One of the goals except for producing electricity, has been to achieve a self-sustaining market where solar PV are used for generate income in rural areas, i.e. productive use of solar PVs. The aim of this report is to, by a case study, map to which extent there is a productive use of solar PV and what type of businesses that has evolved. Moreover, the features of these businesses have been investigated in order to predict future prospects and diffusion for these types of activities. In addition, the research has comprised a sustainable development approach in order to investigate how and if productive use of solar PVs fit into the norms of sustainability on an economic, social and environmental level.
It was found that, within the two investigated areas, there was an extensive use of solar PVs for productive use. The most common type of business was cell phone charging business, followed by barber shops cutting hair. Other businesses that were found were TV-shows, cold beverage sales and light equipped hostels.
The prospects for further diffusion of solar PVs seems to be good, mainly because of the short payback times encountered, but also due to appropriate actions on a governmental level that has resulted in acceptance and awareness among the inhabitants. In addition, people saved money and time switching from other energy sources such as generator to Solar PVs because of low running costs.
Concerning the sustainability issues, solar PVs for productive use definitely is a step towards a sustainable development, particularly on a local level. On a larger level, PVs alone might not be the sole solution but is still of importance. However, there are some improvements that can be done such as a more effective usage of batteries and implementation of recycling stations for used batteries in order to decrease the environmental load.
During the initial phase of the project literature studies were performed in order to gain as much knowledge as possible within the subject of solar PVs for productive use and also aiming to be prepared for a working in a completely different environment and culture. On site, interviews with businessmen and other for the study important people were conducted. The gathered information from the interviews was then analyzed and evaluated in order to be able to draw appropriate conclusions.


Parallel computer architectures require innovative software solutions to utilize their capabilities. This statement is true for system software no less than for application programs. File system development for the IBM SP product line of computers started with the Vesta research project, which introduced the ideas of parallel access to partitioned files. This technology was then integrated with a conventional Advanced Interactive Executive™ (AIX™) environment to create the IBM AIX Parallel I/O File System product. We describe the design and implementation of Vesta, including user interfaces and enhancements to the control environment needed to run the system. Changes to the basic design that were made as part of the AIX Parallel I/O File System are identified and justified.