Just as the power of the open-source design paradigm has driven down the cost of software to the point that it is accessible to most people, the rise of open-source hardware is poised to drive down the cost of doing experimental science to expand access to everyone. To assist in this aim, this paper introduces a library of open-source 3-D-printable optics components. This library operates as a flexible, low-cost public-domain tool set for developing both research and teaching optics hardware. First, the use of parametric open-source designs using an open-source computer aided design package is described to customize the optics hardware for any application. Second, details are provided on the use of open-source 3-D printers (additive layer manufacturing) to fabricate the primary mechanical components, which are then combined to construct complex optics-related devices. Third, the use of the open-source electronics prototyping platform are illustrated as control for optical experimental apparatuses. This study demonstrates an open-source optical library, which significantly reduces the costs associated with much optical equipment, while also enabling relatively easily adapted customizable designs. The cost reductions in general are over 97%, with some components representing only 1% of the current commercial investment for optical products of similar function. The results of this study make its clear that this method of scientific hardware development enables a much broader audience to participate in optical experimentation both as research and teaching platforms than previous proprietary methods.


As the applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) diversify, providing secure communication is emerging as a critical requirement. In this paper, we investigate the detection of wormhole attack, a serious security issue for WSNs. Wormhole attack is difficult to detect and prevent, as it can work without compromising sensor nodes or breaching the encryption key. We present a wormhole attack detection approach based on the probability distribution of the neighboring-node-number, WAPN, which helps the sensor nodes to judge distributively whether a wormhole attack is taking place and whether they are in the influencing area of the attack. WAPN can be easily implemented in resource-constrained WSNs without any additional requirements, such as node localization, tight synchronization, or directional antennas. WAPN uses the neighboring-node-number as the judging criterion, since a wormhole usually results in a significant increase of the neighboring-node-number due to the extra attacking link. Firstly, we model the distribution of the neighboring-node-number in the form of a Bernoulli distribution. Then the model is simplified to meet the sensor nodes' constraints in computing and memory capacity. Finally, we propose a simple method to obtain the threshold number, which is used to detect the existence of a wormhole. Simulation results show that WAPN is effective under the conditions of different network topologies and wormhole parameters.


Single particle electron microscopy (EM) plays an important role in structural biology because it allows derivation of biologically relevant information about proteins and macromolecular complexes. A large amount of randomly oriented images of the specimen under study (so-called particles) are collected from micrographs taken with an electron microscope. These particles are then computationally aligned and combined to yield the 3D structure, which is subsequently subjected to visualisation and interpretation. In most cases, the resolution attained with this technique precludes tracing of the polypeptide chain or the clear visualisation of the secondary structure elements. Nevertheless, the integrative combination of the information provided by the different structural techniques (X-ray crystallography, EM, etc.) at different resolution levels has allowed a comprehensive interpretation of the structure. The recent advancements in instrumentation and computational procedures are now making it possible to obtain maps at sub-nanometre, and even near-atomic, resolution.

Key Concepts

Single particle electron microscopy (EM) allows the structural determination of proteins and macromolecular complexes.
The combination of the structure obtained by single particle EM and the high-resolution information obtained by other structural techniques allows the derivation of biologically relevant information.
Structure determination at sub-nanometre, and even near-atomic, resolution is also being possible in a growing number of cases.
The biological material has to be specially prepared prior to be imaged in the electron microscope.
The 3D structure of the specimen is determined by collecting, aligning and combining a large number of randomly oriented particles of the specimen that are extracted from the microscope images.

Keywords:

single particle electron microscopy;
electron cryomicroscopy;
structural biology;
image processing;
structure determination


We study online algorithms for selective sampling that use regularized least squares (RLS) as base classifier. These algorithms typically perform well in practice, and some of them have formal guarantees on their mistake and query rates. We refine and extend these guarantees in various ways, proposing algorithmic variants that exhibit better empirical behavior while enjoying performance guarantees under much more general conditions. We also show a simple way of coupling a generic gradient-based classifier with a specific RLS-based selective sampler, obtaining hybrid algorithms with combined performance guarantees.


This thesis examines the life experiences of a sample of women in English prisons. It is focused on developing a greater understanding of the experiences and needs of women in prison in areas where the research literature is lacking, or where women s experiences are not yet fully understood. The research is set within the context of significant increases in the women s prison population, developments in policy and practice relating to the treatment of women offenders, and recent reports from the Ministry of Justice that the UK government lacks a thorough understanding of the needs of women in prison.
Approved by HM Prison Service National Research Committee, the research includes review of Offender Assessment System records and in-depth interviews with 43 women from three English prisons. Adopting a primarily qualitative approach, the data are thematically analysed with the aid of NVivo to explore women s experiences in childhood and growing up; adult life circumstances; parenthood; alcohol and drug use; mental health; and experiences within prison.
Key findings from the research suggest that for many women in prison their past experiences are specific responsivity factors that require focused input in order to tackle the reasons underlying their criminogenic needs. Specifically, the research highlights that women in prison attribute much of their life experience and offending as related to past experiences, but that there is a need to broaden the definitions of childhood trauma and victimisation used when discussing women offenders in order to more fully reflect the lived experiences of women who offend. The research identifies a number of gender specific issues that have been previously neglected in the literature.
The findings challenge some of the recent literature around the drug and alcohol use of offenders, and also highlight how poor relationships can exacerbate women s issues with drug and alcohol use. The research provides evidence of consistency in mental health problems experienced by women in prison and the underlying causes of these problems, answering questions concerning the extent to which women s mental health problems exist prior to prison. Furthermore, the research documents how prison can present an opportunity for women to engage with treatment. However, the research also highlights the failure of the prison service to fully record the scale and scope of mental health and emotional problems experienced by women in prison. The thesis concludes that there is a need for a gender-informed focus in prison in both assessment and treatment.


This chapter explores the nature, context and consequences of ageing in prison, focusing on the experiences and needs of older prisoners, and using the work of Nancy Fraser (2005, 2010) as an innovative and original framework for ana- lysing and exploring ageing in prison as a social justice issue. In England and Wales, and many other countries, including Ireland, the US and Australia, older prisoners, including older women, make up a significant and growing minority within a penal estate populated primarily by young men (Davoren et al., 2015; Mann, 2012; Baidawi et al., 2011; Human Rights Watch, 2012; Stevens et al., 2018). Although older prisoner numbers are growing, older prisoners form a minority of prisoners, and older women form a minority within a minority, as around 95% of prisoners are male (Wahidin, 2011). Just as the number and proportion of older offenders is increasing, so is the published research, and there is a large and growing international literature which approaches issues related to older prisoners including perspectives from psychiatry, psychology, medicine, health and gerontology, sociology, social work, social and penal policy, criminology, corrections and prison management (Aday, 2003; Baidawi et al., 2011; Kim and Peterson, 2014; Fazel et al., 2001). This research literature has utilised a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to render older prison- ers and their experiences and needs much more visible in criminological and penological contexts. This chapter uses the work of Nancy Fraser as a tool to develop an understanding of ageing in prison as an issue not only of criminal but also social justice.


Few medical histories are as compelling as the story of the conquest of poliomyelitis. This viral disease suddenly emerged in epidemic form at the turn of the 20th century, causing paralysis and death, mainly in children. With unrelenting predictability, the disease began each year in the spring, and the number of cases inevitably increased with the onset of hot weather. Poliomyelitis was truly a terror because no one quite understood how it was transmitted or how it could be prevented and its victims were seemingly chosen at random. Beginning in 1906, when the virus that causes poliomyelitis — poliovirus — was identified, many scientists worked to defeat the disease. The story of its conquest is filled with trial and many errors, a "scientific hegira" (1), in the words of polio researcher Dorothy Horstmann, that has been well documented in many scientific publications and books.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the hugely successful field trial of the inactivated poliovirus vaccine developed by Jonas Salk. Thomas Francis announced the results of this landmark field trial (in which 1,800,000 children participated) at the University of Michigan on April 12, 1955. In Splendid solution: Jonas Salk and the conquest of polio, Jeffrey Kluger tells the story of how Jonas Salk became a hero.

The terror once caused by polio, now mostly forgotten, is vividly portrayed at the onset of Splendid solution, which begins in New York City in 1916. The sources of hysteria are all too evident: nurses and policemen surreptitiously roaming the streets in search of lame children; black cars patrolling neighborhoods, bringing doctors who search homes for paralyzed children (the mothers "did not surrender their sick babies easily, often cursing the city physicians as soon as they arrived"). Quarantining children in city hospitals in an attempt to stem the disease was a disruptive practice at best and had no benefit. Many years later, it became clear that paralytic cases represent a small fraction of all infected individuals; for each paralytic case, there were 99 individuals infected with the virus but displaying no symptoms of the disease.

In 1916, Jonas Salk was 2 years old. He was raised in New York City but, fortunately, did not contract polio, although his parents were very much aware of the disease: Salk's mother reminded his father to leave his shoes outside each day as he returned home from work. While attending City College of New York, Salk decided to become a doctor and enrolled at New York University School of Medicine. But he did not want to practice medicine — he wanted to go into research. In medical school, he became acquainted with Thomas Francis, whom he eventually followed to the University of Michigan. There, Francis and Salk developed an influenza vaccine for the military. Five years later, Salk moved to the University of Pittsburgh, where he began his work on a poliovirus vaccine.

Interwoven with the history of Salk's early years is the story of Franklin Roosevelt, the US president who played an important role in the conquest of polio. Roosevelt was perhaps the most famous victim of polio; his desire to eliminate the disease led to the establishment of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which provided financial support for Salk's research. The interactions between Roosevelt and his law partner Basil O'Connor, who directed the foundation after Roosevelt's death, are vividly and colorfully portrayed.

The book is written as a narrative with a significant amount of dialogue among the main characters. The conversational style lends immediacy to the writing; we feel as if we are in Salk's laboratory, listening to him discuss results with research personnel, or at one of the many conferences on poliomyelitis that were so charged with tension and debate. Kluger is clearly adept at telling a story; the book is always engaging as it rolls toward the clinical trial of 1954. He builds tension, starting with the hysteria in New York City, then continuing with the disastrous vaccine trials of the 1930s, Salk's dogged pursuit of an inactivated vaccine, his legendary clashes with Albert Sabin over whether to use a killed or live virus vaccine, and his loss of anonymity once his vaccine research was revealed to the general public.

Splendid solution assumes little scientific background — as a writer for Time magazine, Kluger is adept at communicating to a general audience. While the style is entertaining, the book is unsatisfying because the main characters are portrayed in a superficial manner. Despite the dialogue, we never get to know Salk very well; his character is established by his actions, not by his thoughts. What was Salk's reaction when, in 1955, vaccine produced by Cutter Laboratories caused 204 cases of polio? We never learn that Salk was "a keen young man who knew his business and was independent in forwarding his own ideas — one who could outline a program of experimental work and carry it through in spite of formidable difficulties . . . a slight man who radiated a sort of restless eagerness and energy" (2).

The science in Splendid solution also needs improvement. While Kluger explains the principles of vaccination reasonably well, there are many errors that sully the text. He ascribes to Sabin the theory that poliovirus entered the nose and spread to the brain from the olfactory mucosa when in fact this harebrained idea was the brainchild of Simon Flexner; it was Sabin who proved him wrong. Kluger does not quite understand how adjuvants work ("the more viscous mix would not be able to break down so easily in the blood") or realize that poliovirus does not multiply in the stomach. The caption to the photograph on page 239 showing Salk holding a rack of tubes is incorrect: Kluger writes that Salk "posed with a rack of test tubes similar to the ones in which he first mixed live virus with his experimental vaccine. The vaccine stopped the virus in its tracks." Rather, Salk mixed serum from humans immunized with his experimental vaccine in order to determine whether antibodies that would block poliovirus infection of cells were present. Perhaps Kluger should have studied John Paul's excellent A history of poliomyelitis (2). Although Kluger's book is written for a general reader, the use of colloquial terms such as "bugs" to describe viruses is neither correct nor useful; such terms are not appropriate for an adult audience. To understand science, one must use the words of science.

It was particularly revealing to learn how the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis used an iron hand in directing the research of its grantees. For example, after hearing of John Ender's results on propagating poliovirus in cultured human cells, Salk wanted to use this method to produce an inactivated vaccine. He wrote to the National Foundation to outline his ideas, and he was ordered not to pursue this work but to continue his virus-typing studies. As Kluger writes, "He would not be permitted to try killed-virus studies, though he could work with live viruses." This draconian control is contrary to progress; the best science emerges when good scientists are let loose. The NIH, which subscribed to the latter view for years, may now be emulating the foundation in its attempts to direct research through the NIH Roadmap.

Despite the deficiencies of Splendid solution, the remarkable story of the conquest of polio prevails. Salk's inactivated vaccine reduced the incidence of poliomyelitis in the US from 57,879 cases in 1952 to 1,312 cases in 1961. As a result, Salk became a cultural hero, an unusual role for a scientist. In a cruel twist, Salk's vaccine was pushed aside in 1962, when the US switched to the live vaccines developed by Sabin. Salk spent many years and much energy defending and promoting his vaccine, a chapter in the history of poliomyelitis that Kluger omits. Sadly, Salk did not live to witness the change in US immunization policy in 2000, when the live poliovirus vaccine was replaced with Salk's splendid solution.


The aim of this qualitative case study was to ascertain factors impacting the examination preparation process and causing concerns for London upper secondary students, to learn steps taken to reduce and/or resolve the concerns, and to discuss the implications for teachers and teaching. A subsidiary yet important aim was to give the students a "voice" in the research literature. Using convenient or opportunity sampling, 14 Grade 12 and 13 students, ages 16–18 in a south-west London secondary school, were interviewed face-to-face. The analysis of the data revealed external factors and a personal need factor, that is the need to pass the exam, impacted the examination preparation process and caused concerns for students. Schools and students have use various solutions to reduce and/or resolve concerns. For example, school-based solutions included offering make-up or additional sessions or extra classes. Students—when faced with large amounts of material and information—employed solutions such as "things-to-do lists" and breaking down tasks into manageable sections. Implications for teachers and teaching include the need for teachers' lesson contents to address factors impacting exam preparation and students' concerns. Teachers also need to equip students to use a variety of revision strategies, encourage students to use social support and ensure that promised extra lessons materialize.


The late Carboniferous–earliest Permian age estimate (300–280 Ma) for maximum ice volume during late Paleozoic glaciation of Gondwana is challenged. Past estimates assume a direct relation between extent of depositional glacial record and former ice cover; this assumption cannot be sustained, given that the glacial record is composed predominantly of glacially influenced marine strata that accumulated on the margins of ice-covered areas. We argue that Gondwana ice cover expanded in the Early Carboniferous in response to polar position, availability of moisture from a mediterranean sea, and epeirogenic uplift of the Gondwana interior. In Namurian time (ca. 325 Ma), Gondwana ice cover attained a maximum extent of about 21 × 10 6 km 2 , nearly the area of maximum Pleistocene ice cover. Despite extensive ice cover, the depositional record is meager; continental glacial deposits are poorly preserved on a regional unconformity. Thereafter, extensional subsidence of intracratonic basins promoted marine flooding, fragmentation of the ice cover, and the accumulation of thick glacially influenced marine deposits. In Stephanian-Asselian time (ca. 285 Ma), ice cover had decreased to about 15 × 10 6 km 2 , but glacial marine strata were being deposited and preserved across a very large area of the Gondwana supercontinent.


Illinois justice: The Scandal of 1969 and the Rise of John Paul Stevens. By Kenneth A. Manaster. Foreword by Justice John Paul Stevens. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. Pp. xv, 317. Photographs, bibliography, index. $27.50) Illinois politics in the middle of the 20th century was rough and colorful, punctuated by scandal and corruption that ranged from Paul Powell's infamous "shoebox" to Otto Kerner's imprisonment. Kenneth Manaster has written an interesting and valuable book that contributes to our understanding of this turbulent period. Through his study of the investigation and eventual resignation of two Illinois Supreme Court Justices in 1969, Manaster gives us a peek into some of the sordid details of Illinois politics. In February 1969, Sherman Skolnick, a self-appointed Chicago crusader and local gadfly, began investigating the stockholders of the Civic Center Bank & Trust Company. In June, he publicly accused Illinois Chief Justice Roy J. Solfisburg and Associate Justice Ray I. Klingbiel of accepting stock in the bank from Theodore Isaacs, Chicago lawyer and Democratic Party power broker, in exchange for a ruling to vacate a judgement against Isaacs. The Alton Evening Telegraph and Chicago Daily News began investigating Skolnik's charges of corruption, and the public soon demanded action. The Illinois Legislature appointed a special committee to investigate, but under Illinois Law, the Supreme Court had the authority to examine judicial impropriety through the Courts Commission. In mid-June, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed a Special Commission with a charge to report by the end of July on the "integrity of the judgment" in the Supreme Court's ruling on People v. Isaacs. Having served as one of the lawyers on the Special Commission's staff, Kenneth Manaster, currently a professor of law at Santa Clara University, brings special insight into his well researched book on the investigation of Chief Justice Roy J. Solfisburg Jr. and Associate Justice Ray I. Klingbiel. Using court records, interviews, and correspondence with the participants, Manaster provides a taut account of the "Scandal of 1969." He carefully unfolds the tedium, hard work, dead ends, and frustrations of the Special Commission's investigation. With a certain dramatic flare, Manaster depicts the colorful personalities surrounding the Scandal; the "imperious" Albert E. Jenner, of Watergate fame, the "eccentric" Skolnick, the "formidable presence" of Solfisburg, and the "unquestioned integrity and talent" of John Paul Stevens. John Paul Stevens receives special attention from Manaster. Indeed, one of the principal purposes of the book is to explain the rise to prominence of John Paul Stevens. According to Manaster, Steven's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court can be attributed in part to the reputation he earned as Chief Counsel to the Special Commission. Equally significant, Manaster contends, Justice Steven's experience on the Special Commission "distinctly shaped" his later work on the bench. …


This thesis is the study of the kinds of defense mechanism developed by Frank McCourt in order to survive the ordeal of his childhood. The background of Frank McCourt?s childhood is Irish society especially Catholic Irish society which influences much to the main character, Frank McCourt himself. In this thesis, I want to reveal, through the analysis, how the main character reacted to his poor condition by developing a defense mechanism. Considering those facts, I want to know what kinds of defense mechanism developed by the main character in order to survive the ordeal of his childhood. In doing the analysis with regard to the aim of the study, I will apply psychological approach namely defense mechanism of the ego from Sigmund Freud. By employing this theory, I come to my findings that McCourt finally able to survive the ordeal of his childhood by employing three kinds of defense mechanisms. Also, besides being able to survive himself from the ordeal of his childhood, McCourt is also able to draw the lesson from the ordeal of his childhood and live to share his story with others.


This study is based on the premise that sport occupies a unique and prominent position in Australian culture, such that it can be considered in institutional terms. Sport's interaction with another institution in Australian society government, has undergone significant changes in the second half of the twentieth century. This changing relationship has had a substantial impact on sporis public policy. The purpose of this study is to describe and explore this relationship in greater depth by examining the case of the Western Australian Football Commission (the 'Commission'). Australian Rules Football ('Football') is the largest spectator sport in Australia and is Australia's major indigenous sporting innovation. It is also a reflection of larger dynamics in Australian society. On the one hand it is a big business, driven by commercial considerations and its positions of power are coveted by the rich and influential, and those aspiring to be so. However, its roots are firmly anchored in tradition, the common people, identity and rivalry. Despite the relative importance of sport in Australian society it remains the case that it has only recently began to attract serious academic attention, this situation is amplified even further in relation to Football. The Commission's performance has not been subjected to systemati(; external review, even though its decisions have a ~j:·ect impact on thousands of Western Australians and it has received substantial ongoing public funding. Tl.is case study will use a public policy approach to evaluate the performance of the Commission. It will seek to provide an answer to a question that has been prominently and frequently debated in the Western Australian community has the Commission delivered on its range of objectives and in particular how has the public interest been scned by thr legacy of the government's 1989 rescue of Western Australian Football?


The objective for this study was to explore if characteristics of personality type using the Preferred Communication Style Questionnaire, in concert with the demographic characteristics of age, education, and race/ethnicity, are associated with, and help predict, individuals' medication adherence behavior.
Data were collected via an on-line survey, sent to a sample of adults residing in the United States, between April 28 and June 22, 2015. Out of 26,173 responses to the survey, 16,736 reported taking one or more medications and were eligible for inclusion in this study.
The development of the Adherence Predictive Index (API) used mean Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) scores for each of eight personality types as a starting point. API scores were calculated by adding or subtracting specific values to each group's mean MMAS-8 score based on personality type, age, education and race/ethnicity characteristics which were demonstrated to have significant effects on adherence. The weighting system was informed by linear regression, logistic regression, personality type literature, researcher experience, and previous qualitative and quantitative research. The resultant score was converted to an API score that ranged from 1 to 5 so that it would be feasible for health care providers to understand and use.
The findings showed that an Adherence Predictive Index (API) could be developed based upon a relatively small number of questions that focus on personality type and generational, educational, and cultural experiences. It was developed in order to be a component of a comprehensive program that has the goals of (1) identifying and describing specific behavioral strategies individuals are most likely to successfully employ, (2) motivating patients by using their preferred communication style, and (3) predicting each patient's propensity to adhere. Future research is needed to evaluate the index's validity, sensitivity, and effectiveness in actual practice compared with other risk indices.

Type: Original Research


The purpose of this Thesis is to develop a robust and powerful method to classify galaxies from large surveys, in order to establish and confirm the connections between the principal observational parameters of the galaxies (spectral features, colours, morphological indices), and help unveil the evolution of these parameters from $z \sim 1$ to the local Universe. Within the framework of zCOSMOS-bright survey, and making use of its large database of objects ($\sim 10\,000$ galaxies in the redshift range $0 < z \lesssim 1.2$) and its great reliability in redshift and spectral properties determinations, first we adopt and extend the \emph{classification cube method}, as developed by Mignoli et al. (2009), to exploit the bimodal properties of galaxies (spectral, photometric and morphologic) separately, and then combining together these three subclassifications. We use this classification method as a test for a newly devised statistical classification, based on Principal Component Analysis and Unsupervised Fuzzy Partition clustering method (PCA+UFP), which is able to define the galaxy population exploiting their natural global bimodality, considering simultaneously up to 8 different properties.

The PCA+UFP analysis is a very powerful and robust tool to probe the nature and the evolution of galaxies in a survey. It allows to define with less uncertainties the classification of galaxies, adding the flexibility to be adapted to different parameters: being a fuzzy classification it avoids the problems due to a hard classification, such as the classification cube presented in the first part of the article. The PCA+UFP method can be easily applied to different datasets: it does not rely on the nature of the data and for this reason it can be successfully employed with others observables (magnitudes, colours) or derived properties (masses, luminosities, SFRs, etc.). The agreement between the two classification cluster definitions is very high. ``Early'' and ``late'' type galaxies are well defined by the spectral, photometric and morphological properties, both considering them in a separate way and then combining the classifications (classification cube) and treating them as a whole (PCA+UFP cluster analysis). Differences arise in the definition of outliers: the classification cube is much more sensitive to single measurement errors or misclassifications in one property than the PCA+UFP cluster analysis, in which errors are ``averaged out'' during the process. This method allowed us to behold the \emph{downsizing} effect taking place in the PC spaces: the migration between the blue cloud towards the red clump happens at higher redshifts for galaxies of larger mass. The determination of $M_{\mathrm{cross}}$ the transition mass is in significant agreement with others values in literature.


In Rachel Carson and Her Sisters , Robert K. Musil redefines the achievements and legacy of environmental pioneer and scientist Rachel Carson, linking her work to a wide network of American women activists and writers and introducing her to a new, contemporary audience. Rachel Carson was the first American to combine two longstanding, but separate strands of American environmentalism - the love of nature and a concern for human health. Widely known for her 1962 best-seller, Silent Spring , Carson is today often perceived as a solitary "great woman," whose work single-handedly launched a modern environmental movement. But as Musil demonstrates, Carson's life's work drew upon and was supported by already existing movements, many led by women, in conservation and public health. On the fiftieth anniversary of her death, this book helps underscore Carson's enduring environmental legacy and brings to life the achievements of women writers and advocates, such as Ellen Swallow Richards, Dr. Alice Hamilton, Terry Tempest Williams, Sandra Steingraber, Devra Davis and Theo Colborn, all of whom overcame obstacles to build and lead the modern American environmental movement.


In this paper, we obtain exact traveling wave solutions of a variety of Boussinesq-like equations by using two distinct methods with symbolic computation. The Boussinesq equations play an important role in physical applications, such as in nonlinear lattice waves, acoustic waves, iron sound waves in a plasma, and vibrations in a nonlinear string. More precisely, the modified tanh-coth method is employed to obtain single soliton solutions, and the extended Jacobi elliptic function method is applied to derive doubly periodic wave solutions. Further, it is shown that soliton solutions and triangular solutions can be established as the limits of the Jacobi doubly periodic wave solutions. The employed approaches are quite efficient for the determination of the solutions, and are practically well suited for solving nonlinear evolution equations arising in physics.


A digital electronic computer consists of two types of circuits, combinational and sequential logic circuits. The building blocks of combinational logic circuits are binary logic gates which act as the switching elements in a digital computer. The sequential circuits, on the other hand, are implemented by using flip-flops which act as the memory elements. In this thesis these basic most logic elements are designed and implemented optically for a digital optical processor based on the polarization-encoded optical shadow-casting (POSC) technique.

Binary optical decoders have been designed in POSC scheme by using the POSC modified algorithm. The exclusive aspect of this design is that the multioutputs are always generated separately and simultaneously at the output plane. In particular a 3-to-8 line decoder and a BCD to an excess-3 code converter have been developed The scope of multiple valued logic is explored in general and particularly in optics based computing. Moreover the design and implementation of some trinary combinational logic elements is presented in POSC scheme.

In the end we have proposed a novel POSC scheme to optically implement different types of sequential logic elements. The proposed system architecture is capable of implementing synchronous as well as asynchronous sequential circuits. The design and implementation of various flip-flops has been presented. The main features of these flip-flops is that various sequential operations are performed optically by utilizing optical feedback


Objective: To investigate the association between muscle-specific creatine kinase (CKMM) gene polymorphism and the effects of endurance training on running economy. Methods: 102 biologically unrelated male volunteers from northern China performed a 5000-m running programme, with an intensity of 95–105% ventilatory threshold. The protocol was undertaken three times per week and lasted for 18 weeks. Running economy indexes were determined by making the participants run on a treadmill before and after the protocol, and the A/G polymorphism in the 3′ untranslated region of CKMM was detected by polymerase chain reaction-restricted fragment length polymorphism (NcoI restriction enzyme). Results: Three expected genotypes for CKMM-NcoI (AA, AG and GG) were observed in the participants. After training, all running economy indexes declined markedly. Change in steady-state consumption of oxygen, change in steady-state consumption of oxygen by mean body weight, change in steady-state consumption of oxygen by mean lean body weight and change in ventilatory volume in AG groups were larger than those in AA and GG groups. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the CKMM gene polymorphism may contribute to individual running economy responses to endurance training.


Chlorophyll a is often used as a proxy to estimate marine phytoplankton biomass given its optical properties that can be easily measured both in situ and remotely. The Chl:C ratio which is used to convert from chlorophyll to biomass, is, however, not constant in phytoplankton. It depends on temperature, light and nutrients, and is assumed to be regulated by the cells to maximise the growth rate under limiting environmental conditions. This process, called acclimation, increases the chlorophyll content under low light and decreases it under nutrient limitation. The Geider model that allows for dynamic Chl:C ratios is now included in an increasing number of marine ecosystem models. However, the ratios are seldomly validated and their effect on net primary production estimations from chlorophyll data is still highly uncertain. The aim of this study is to compare the Chl:C ratio in eight model simulations from the MARine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (MAREMIP) and/or the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), i.e. REcoM2, TOPAZ, MEM, NOBM, PlankTOM5.3, BEC, CNRM-PISCES and IPSL-PISCES. We focus on the annual climatology of the ratio in surface waters for the period 2000-2005. To assess the ability of these simulations to represent the chlorophyll field, we first compare model outputs with satellite observations. It appears that the main patterns in chlorophyll distribution are modelled quite well in the open ocean, but not in coastal areas, partly due to the coarse resolution of these model runs. The core analysis of this study consists in investigating the reasons behind the discrepancies in the Chl:C ratio among models. We highlight that models have different ways of dealing with this ratio: MEM uses a constant ratio, the ratio in NOBM is only light-dependent, and the remaining models allow for a variable ratio. Nevertheless, they all agree on the fact that the slope of the linear regression between phytoplankton carbon and chlorophyll is a number smaller than 1. In the group of models considering a variable ratio, the annual climatology of the Chl:C ratio simulated by REcoM2 substantially differs. We demonstrate that the Chl degradation rate is probably too high in this model run and that the minimum tolerated values of the ratio are too low. Eventually, an interesting feature about REcoM2 is that it can handle unbalanced growth conditions. Some of the other models are only valid under the hypothesis of balanced growth, which rarely happens in natural environments. We hope this present study brings some enlightenment on the variability of the phytoplankton Chl:C ratio and will contribute to improve our estimations of primary production and by this means, future climate projections.


Objective: This study aims to add non-clinical benefits to the virtues for adopting Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM). The objective is to quantify the commercial benefits of EBVM through an online survey of veterinary professionals, giving clear indications of the key areas of non-clinical benefits of EBVM. Further, the study aims to outline barriers to the wider implementation of EBVM and find preferred ways of overcoming those barriers. Background: A PICO-based literature review (Hauser and Jackson, 2016) found that while there are some papers suggesting a link between the practice of EBVM and better non-clinical benefits such as client satisfaction, a single study, focusing on the non-clinical benefits of EBVM, had yet to be conducted. This study builds on the findings of an exploratory study (Jackson and Hauser, 2017) outlining key areas of non-clinical benefits of EBVM: increased client satisfaction and retention, improved reputation, confidence, as well as employee engagement. Evidentiary value: This online survey of veterinary professionals (n=407) provides evidence for practitioners, universities and other veterinary staff regarding the non-clinical benefits of EBVM, the barriers to a wider adoption of the practice and ways of overcoming those barriers. Methods: The online survey of veterinary professionals was conducted during September – October 2016 and contained 23 questions. Survey participation was voluntary and the data used for analysis were de-identified. Results: The survey responses of 407 veterinary professionals provide quantitative evidence of how EBVM is put into practice, how EBVM is perceived to impact client behaviour and employee engagement, what the barriers are to practising EBVM and how these could be overcome. Key findings are that veterinary professionals are more likely to practise EBVM if they have been taught how to do so at vet school. EBVM is a way to provide value to and build trust with clients. Survey respondents who practise EBVM are more likely to find their workplace inspiring and to be an intellectual challenge and the main barriers to EBVM are: time and access to information. Respondents, especially those who were employees suggested overcoming these barriers through attending journal clubs and other training opportunities. Conclusion: The study provides the view of veterinary professionals on the non-clinical benefits of EBVM, the barriers to wider implementation and ways of overcoming those barriers. Further research is needed to obtain the perspective of clients and more detailed cost effectiveness analyses could shed more light on specific practices of EBVM. Application: Findings are applicable to universities, veterinarians and vet nurses seeking to increase the practice of EBVM. The ultimate beneficiaries are those vets who seek additional non-clinical reasons for the adoption of EBVM in their practice.


Cuba is perhaps the country with which the United States has had the longest lasting troubled relationship. Dating back to the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the public's response to Cuba is often visceral and negative. Our response to baseball is similarly visceral and positive. Baseball has inspired songs, jingles, poetry, and some of our most beloved movies. When the relationship with Cuba collides with the sport that is perhaps our nation's most cherished, the result is bound to be explosive. Consider this: our relationship with Cuba in the last decade has included the shooting down of civilian aircraft by the Cuban Air Force, the Helms-Burton Act which tried to expand the Cuban embargo, and the Elian Gonzales saga. Yet, at the same time, numerous Cuban baseball players have made their way to the United States and to Major League Baseball (MLB). This article will examine several issues at the intersection of Cuba, the United States, and baseball. Inevitably, and sometimes unfortunately, dealings with Cuba involve politics. The first part of this article will examine the broader politics and laws governing the relationship between the United States and Cuba regarding baseball. This section will examine the experience of the Baltimore Orioles in their travels to Cuba to play baseball and their hosting the Cuban National Team in the United States. This section will also analyze the controversy caused by the Orioles when they announced that they would not hire Cuban defectors. The second part of the article will focus on the narrower issues raised when Cuban defectors come to the United States and want to play baseball. This section will review the history of Cuban player defections to the United States and then focus on the recent court case brought by a Cuban player against Major League Baseball alleging discriminatory rules regarding free agency.


Because of its presence in antifouling coatings, stormwater, and industrial and municipal discharges, copper is a ubiquitous contaminant in estuarine and coastal environments. We integrated a system‐wide field program with a one‐dimensional model to evaluate the overall mass balance of copper in a representative coastal harbor, San Diego Bay, California. Field results from four surveys over 1 yr showed remarkably similar distributions of total copper, with a general increase from the ocean into the Bay followed by a slight decrease in the inner Bay. Total copper concentrations ranged from 5 nmol L‐1 to nearly 60 nmol L‐1. Highest levels for both total and dissolved copper were observed during the winter. Results from a one‐dimensional model accounting for the balance of sources, flushing, and losses to the sediment illustrated the importance of accounting for losses of copper to the sediment, without which water column concentrations are overestimated by as much as a factor of five. The time scale for the loss term is on the order of 8‐10 d. The model reproduced the field measurements quite well with a loss term controlled by partitioning and settling parameters. The overall balance of total copper in the Bay appears to be split between losses to the ocean via tidal flushing and losses to the sediments via settling. Settling plays an important role in the fate of copper in the Bay, and the sediments are a key endpoint for copper.


In this paper, we describe the organization and the implementation of the CAMOMILE collaborative annotation framework for multimodal, multimedia, multilingual (3M) data. Given the versatile nature of the analysis which can be performed on 3M data, the structure of the server was kept intentionally simple in order to preserve its genericity, relying on standard Web technologies. Layers of annotations, defined as data associated to a media fragment from the corpus, are stored in a database and can be managed through standard interfaces with authentication. Interfaces tailored specifically to the needed task can then be developed in an agile way, relying on simple but reliable services for the management of the centralized annotations. We then present our implementation of an active learning scenario for person annotation in video, relying on the CAMOMILE server; during a dry run experiment, the manual annotation of 716 speech segments was thus propagated to 3504 labeled tracks. The code of the CAMOMILE framework is distributed in open source.


The three essays in this dissertation examine questions related to the R&D boundaries of the firm and the governance of R&D alliances. The first essay draws on institutional theory to examine the history of corporate R&D in the U.S. since the mid-19th century. Formal and informal institutional rules and constraints are shown to play a role in the initial rise of markets for technology in the 19th century, their decline during the early-20th century, and their eventual return at the end of the 20th century. The influence of formal and informal institutions on the adoption of in-house R&D labs in the US during the mid-20th century is also examined. In the second essay, the focus shifts to an investigation of the discrete project-level R&D outsourcing decision. A framework for understanding the direct and indirect influence of strategic considerations and environmental factors is developed. The impact of project- and transaction-level characteristics on the R&D outsourcing decisions are also considered, highlighting the importance of integrating information possessed by managers from different levels of the firms. Finally, the second essay proposes that cross-level interactions may exist within the framework, which may help to explain why the decisions observed in some cases run counter to the predictions traditionally derived from theory. The third essay includes two empirical studies that examine different aspects of the contracts designed to govern R&D alliances. Using a unique set of contracts from the medical device industry, the studies in the final essay investigate the factors that influence the structure of R&D alliance contracts and the assignment of key decision and control rights in such contracts. In addition, the final essay investigates the impact of previous alliance experience on the relationship between the key factors identified and the structure of R&D alliance contracts.


Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that causes recurrent, unprovoked seizures. Focal, refractory epilepsy is characterized by seizures that start in a specific area in the brain and do not respond to antiepileptic medication. This study was conducted to characterize the connectivity of the focal brain region where seizures originate, known as the epileptogenic zone. Connectivity was measured from electrocorticogram (ECoG) recordings, during seizure events, using information theoretic measures mutual information (MI) and (TE). MI is the amount of information shared between two discrete random variables. TE is the directed information transfer between two discrete random variables. MI provides information about the strength of the connection and TE indicates the direction of information transfer. The analysis is performed in high frequencies, >30 Hz, in order to examine this spectral range of EEG activity, including events called high frequency oscillations (HFOs). The results show three trends in the connectivity of the epileptogenic zone. The first is that there is a reduction in the connectivity of the zone with the rest of the brain just after seizure onset. The second shows the connectivity increases just prior to the termination of the seizure. Finally, the third trend indicates that the direction of the information transfer during the seizure is from outside of the epileptogenic zone to inside. The epileptogenic zone is characterized by a disconnection at seizure onset, fol-lowed by a reconnection just prior to the seizure termination. The results show that the epileptogenic zone exhibits unique properties with respect to connectivity when compared to electrode sites from outside of the zone. These unique behaviors can help in accurately identifying the epileptogenic zone, thus leading to its successful removal.


Sternal foramina may pose a great hazard during sternal puncture, due to inadvertent cardiac or great vessel injury. They can also be misinterpreted as osteolytic lesions in cross-sectional imaging of the sternum. On the other hand, variant xiphoid morphology such as bifid, duplicated, or trifurcated may be mistaken for fractures during imaging. The distribution of these anomalies differs between populations, but data from Africans is scarcely reported. This study therefore aimed to investigate the distribution and frequency of sternal foramina and variant xiphoid morphology in a Kenyan population. Eighty formalin-fixed adult sterna (42 males [M], 38 females [F]) of age range 18-45 years were studied during dissection at the Department of Human Anatomy, University of Nairobi. Soft tissues were removed from the macerated sterna by blunt dissection and foramina recorded in the manubrium, body, and xiphoid process. The xiphisternal ending was classified as single, bifurcated (2 xiphoid processes with a common stem), or duplicated (2 xiphoid processes with separate stems). Results were analysed using SPSS version 17.0. Foramina were present in 11 specimens (13.8%): 7 M, 4 F. The highest frequency was in the sternal body (n = 9), where they predominantly occurred at the 5th intercostal segment. Xiphoid foramina were present in 2 specimens (both males) (2.5%), while manubrial foramen was not encountered. The xiphisternum ended as a single process in 64 cases (34 M, 30 F) (80%). It bifurcated in 10 cases (5 M, 5 F) (12.5%), and duplicated in 6 cases (4 M, 2 F) (7.5%). There were no cases of trifurcation. Sternal foramina in Kenyans vary in distribution and show higher frequency than in other populations. These variations may complicate sternal puncture, and due caution is recommended. The variant xiphisternal morphology may raise alarm for xiphoid fractures and may therefore be considered a differential.


The spatial statistics of several resonant bending modes in an irregularly shaped flat plate have been measured experimentally and calculated in a finite element model. The variations due to changes in the boundary conditions have also been included. The spatial statistics for one boundary condition are essentially the same as the statistics obtained over random variations in the boundary conditions. This is consistent with an ergodic model for the vibration pattern in an irregular plate in that one realization of the plate boundary condition represents the same statistics as the ensemble over varying boundary conditions.


BACKGROUND
Progesterone, a female sex hormone, is known to induce secretory changes in the lining of the uterus essential for successful implantation of a fertilized egg. It has been suggested that a causative factor in many cases of miscarriage may be inadequate secretion of progesterone. Therefore, progestogens have been used, beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy, in an attempt to prevent spontaneous miscarriage.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the efficacy and safety of progestogens as a preventative therapy against miscarriage.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (1 August 2013), reference lists from relevant articles, attempting to contact authors where necessary, and contacted experts in the field for unpublished works.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials comparing progestogens with placebo or no treatment given in an effort to prevent miscarriage.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors assessed trial quality and extracted data.

MAIN RESULTS
Fourteen trials (2158 women) are included. The meta-analysis of all women, regardless of gravidity and number of previous miscarriages, showed no statistically significant difference in the risk of miscarriage between progestogen and placebo or no treatment groups (Peto odds ratio (Peto OR) 0.99; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78 to 1.24) and no statistically significant difference in the incidence of adverse effect in either mother or baby.A subgroup analysis of placebo controlled trials did not find a difference in the rate of miscarriage with the use of progestogen (10 trials, 1028 women; Peto OR 1.15; 95% CI 0.88 to 1.50).In a subgroup analysis of four trials involving women who had recurrent miscarriages (three or more consecutive miscarriages; four trials, 225 women), progestogen treatment showed a statistically significant decrease in miscarriage rate compared to placebo or no treatment (Peto OR 0.39; 95% CI 0.21 to 0.72). However, these four trials were of poorer methodological quality. No statistically significant differences were found between the route of administration of progestogen (oral, intramuscular, vaginal) versus placebo or no treatment. No significant differences in the rates of preterm birth, neonatal death, or fetal genital anomalies/virilization were found between progestogen therapy versus placebo/control.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
There is no evidence to support the routine use of progestogen to prevent miscarriage in early to mid-pregnancy. However, there seems to be evidence of benefit in women with a history of recurrent miscarriage. Treatment for these women may be warranted given the reduced rates of miscarriage in the treatment group and the finding of no statistically significant difference between treatment and control groups in rates of adverse effects suffered by either mother or baby in the available evidence. Larger trials are currently underway to inform treatment for this group of women.


Informed by austerity politics and the disillusionment with classical welfare policies, governments are looking at civil society as provider of community services. Citizens are supposed to establish community enterprises to provide services that were before administered by the state. We contextualize the emergence of this policy ideal as part of a wider process of neoliberalization, and in a study on community centres in Amsterdam we investigate how the ideal works out in practice. Drawing on an inventory of 183 community centres and 49 interviews with representatives of community centres, we distinguish different constellations according to civic participation and funding sources. While almost all respondents emphasize that they want to become more entrepreneurial to generate funds to sustain their initiatives, only one of the centres conforms to the ideal of an independent community enterprise. Enduring dependence on formal institutions is widespread. However, instead of acknowledging that structural state support is apparently necessary to sustain these types of activities, community centres have to make it seem as if they are nearly financially independent in order to qualify for funding. Despite the fact that their civic action is tightly circumscribed by the demands of funders, community centres act out the ideal of autonomous community enterprises.


Personalized medicine is the future of health care, and as such incentives for innovation in personalized technologies have rightly received attention from judges, policymakers, and legal scholars. Yet their attention too often focuses on only one area of law, to the exclusion of other areas that may have an equal or greater effect on real-world conditions. And because patent law, FDA regulation, and health law work together to affect incentives for innovation, they must be considered jointly. This Article will examine these systems together in the area of diagnostic tests, an aspect of personalized medicine which has seen recent developments in all three systems. Over the last five years, the FDA, Congress, Federal Circuit, and Supreme Court have dealt three separate blows to incentives for innovation in diagnostic tests: they have made it more expensive to develop diagnostics, made it more difficult to obtain and enforce patents on them, and reduced the amount innovators can expect to recoup in the market. Each of these changes may have had a marginal effect on its own, but when considered together, the system has likely gone too far in disincentivizing desperately needed innovation in diagnostic technologies. Fortunately, just as each legal system has contributed to the problem, each system can also be used to solve it. This Article suggests specific legal interventions that can be used to restore an appropriate balance in incentives to innovate in diagnostic technologies.


In this paper we provide a brief introduction to a new version of the Coruña Corpus Tool. Currently available for Windows, macOS and Linux, the Coruña Corpus Tool is a corpus management tool that facilitates the retrieval of information from an indexed textual repository. Although it works like most concordance programs, its distinguishing feature is that it allows users to search for old or non-standard characters and tags in texts and metadata files, as well as to extract and export specific data f or the purposes o f r esearch. With a new s et o f advanced search features and other recent improvements, researchers now have access to functionalities that significantly enhance the previous user experience.


In Spirit Baptism: The Pentecostal Experience in Theological Focus David Perry demonstrates the enduring value of the experience of Spirit baptism to the Pentecostal community by focusing on its importance as a powerful and transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit.


Abstract Engineering design reviews, which take place at predetermined phases of the product development process, are fundamental elements for the evaluation and control of engineering activities. These meetings are also acknowledged as unique opportunities for all the parties involved to share information about the product and related engineering processes. For product development teams, the knowledge generated during a design review is not as secondary as it may seem; key design decisions, design experiences, and associated rationale are frequently made explicit. Useful work has been carried out on the design review process itself, but little work has been undertaken about the detailed content of the meeting activity; it is argued that understanding the transactions that take place during a meeting is critical to building an effective knowledge-oriented recording strategy. To this effect, an extensive research program based on case studies in the aerospace engineering domain has been carried out. The work reported in this paper focuses on a set of tools and methods developed to characterize and analyze in depth the transactions observed during a number of case studies. The first methodology developed, the transcript coding scheme, uses an intelligent segmentation of meeting discourse transcriptions. The second approach, which bypasses the time consuming transcribing operation, is based on a meeting capture template developed to enable a meeting observer to record the transactions as the meeting takes place. A third method, the information mapping technique, has also been developed to interpret the case study data in terms of decisions, actions, rationale, and lessons learned, effectively generating qualitative measures of the information lost in the formal records of design reviews. Overall, the results generated by the set of tools presented in this paper have fostered a practical strategy for the knowledge intensive capture of the contents of design reviews. The concluding remarks also discuss possible enhancements to the meeting analysis tools presented in this paper and future work aimed at the development of a computer supported capture software for design reviews.


Modern Hebrew (MH) is undergoing a change in its morphological structure. Unlike earlier periods of the language, in which all nominal suffixation processes resulted in stress shift to the suffix, MH has a few suffixes that exhibit variable behavior. When attached to canonical bases, they pattern with other suffixes in that they attract stress and may cause phonological changes to the base. When attached to non-canonical bases, they do not attract stress and cause no phonological changes to the base. Additionally, stress neutral suffixation is much more regular and productive than stress attracting suffixation in its morphology, distribution and semantics. I argue that these two different patterns can be accounted for in terms of morphological levels within the theoretical framework of Stratal Optimality Theory (Kiparsky 2000, 2002, to appear). The different phonological behavior is accounted for in terms of different ranking of two constraints, applying at stem level vs. word level. The morphological and semantic correlates are attributed to the different properties of stem vs. word-level morphology. The diachronic change, namely the activation of word level for nominal suffixation, triggered further changes in MH's morphological system: the development of several default suffixes, and the emergence of two distinct subgrammars, which differ from each other in gender assignment and the correlation between gender and inflectional class (in the sense of Aronoff 1994).


134 Remote sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are included in discussions of how technology and innovation can improve humanitarian action and international peacekeeping. These technologies have the potential to improve the capacity to assess needs and to monitor changes on the ground and can be useful for both the mine action (MA) and broader humanitarian sectors. Even though remote sensing and AI are not the silver bullet in MA and come with several challenges (e.g., operational and data protection), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) believe that the integration of remote sensing and AI into the MA sector will enhance evidence-based decision making, aiding in determining priorities for surveying and clearance of contaminated areas and enabling the scarce recourses available for MA activities worldwide to be appropriately directed and used as efficiently as possible. On the 20th and 22nd of April, ICRC and GICHD co-hosted a webinar on remote sensing and AI in the mine action sector. The following is a review of the key benefits and challenges discussed during the two days.


Researches are being carried out world-wide to
understand the nature of temperature change during recent past at different
geographical scales so that comprehensive inferences can be drawn about recent
temperature trend and future climate. Detection of turning points in time
series of meteorological parameters puts challenges to the researches. In this
work, the temperature time series from 1941 to 2010 for Asansol
observatory, West Bengal, India, has been considered to understand the nature,
trends and change points in the data set using sequential version of
Mann-Kendall test statistic. Literatures suggest that use of this test
statistic is the most appropriate for detecting climatic abrupt changes as
compared to other statistical tests in use. This method has been employed upon
monthly average temperatures recorded over the said 70 years for detection of
abrupt changes in the average temperature of each of the months. The
approximate potential trend turning points have been calculated separately for
each month (January to December). Sequential version of Mann-Kendall test
statistic values for the months of July and August is significant at 95% confidence level (p 0.05).
The average temperature for most of the other months has shown
an increasing trend but more significant rise in July and August temperature
has been recognized since 1960s.


Augustine's Cyprian retraces the demise of Donatist Christianity in ancient North Africa. Set during the Roman Empire's collapse, this work accounts how Augustine of Hippo initiated one of the most prolific re-appropriations of authority in ancient Christianity: Cyprian of Carthage.


Many successful American businesses have been accused of anti-competitive practices. Drawing on 50 years of experience with U.S. antitrust laws, attorney and author Edwin S. Rockefeller sheds light on why lawmakers, bureaucrats, academics, and journalists use arbitrary and irrational laws and enforcement mechanisms to punish capitalists rather than promote competition. The Antitrust Religion argues that everything most people know about antitrust is wrong. The orthodox view is that antitrust was created to protect competition. But Rockefeller's account is strikingly different. He argues that antitrust in practice has often benefited, not the public, but specific businesses that wanted to take down their competitors. In cases ranging from early antitrust targets like Standard Oil to the more recent IBM and Microsoft cases, he reveals why some companies are punished for being winners in the market. Rockefeller vividly shows how antitrust has been transformed into a quasi-religious faith. He explains that this antitrust religion relies on economic theories that bestow a veneer of objectivity and credibility on law enforcement practices that actually rely on hunch and whim. On issues such as mergers and price fixing, Rockefeller thoroughly examines arbitrary antitrust laws that lead to ill-informed juries and bureaucratic abuse. He concludes that those laws also create a perverse incentive for entrepreneurs to hold down sales volume and avoid improvements in price, quality, and service. Otherwise, such entrepreneurs could become the next targets of the antitrust priests. The Antitrust Religion will greatly assist business professionals, journalists, policymakers, professors, judges, and all others interested in government regulation of business in understanding how our antitrust laws actually work.


Photoionization (PI) cross sections of the ground state 1s2 2s2 2p6 1 S0 of Ne-like Ar8+, Fe16+, Kr26+ and Xe44+ ions are calculated by using the Dirac atomic R-matrix code based on a fully relativistic R-matrix method. To analyze the detailed resonant structure, systematical calculations based on the multiconfiguration Dirac–Fock method are performed for the dominant 2s → np resonant transitions, and the resonant energies, strengths and total natural widths are presented. The resonant structures and characteristics of the PI cross sections and resonance strengths along the Ne-like sequence are discussed with emphasis on the influence of relativistic effects. For the Ar8+ ion, good agreement is found between the present results and available theoretical calculations and experimental data.


OBJECTIVE
The objective was to determine the risk of stroke associated with subclinical hypothyroidism.

DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION
Published prospective cohort studies were identified through a systematic search through November 2013 without restrictions in several databases. Unpublished studies were identified through the Thyroid Studies Collaboration. We collected individual participant data on thyroid function and stroke outcome. Euthyroidism was defined as TSH levels of 0.45-4.49 mIU/L, and subclinical hypothyroidism was defined as TSH levels of 4.5-19.9 mIU/L with normal T4 levels.

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS
We collected individual participant data on 47 573 adults (3451 subclinical hypothyroidism) from 17 cohorts and followed up from 1972-2014 (489 192 person-years). Age- and sex-adjusted pooled hazard ratios (HRs) for participants with subclinical hypothyroidism compared to euthyroidism were 1.05 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91-1.21) for stroke events (combined fatal and nonfatal stroke) and 1.07 (95% CI, 0.80-1.42) for fatal stroke. Stratified by age, the HR for stroke events was 3.32 (95% CI, 1.25-8.80) for individuals aged 18-49 years. There was an increased risk of fatal stroke in the age groups 18-49 and 50-64 years, with a HR of 4.22 (95% CI, 1.08-16.55) and 2.86 (95% CI, 1.31-6.26), respectively (p trend 0.04). We found no increased risk for those 65-79 years old (HR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.86-1.18) or ≥ 80 years old (HR, 1.31; 95% CI, 0.79-2.18). There was a pattern of increased risk of fatal stroke with higher TSH concentrations.

CONCLUSIONS
Although no overall effect of subclinical hypothyroidism on stroke could be demonstrated, an increased risk in subjects younger than 65 years and those with higher TSH concentrations was observed.


Background Clinical trials suggest that oral anticoagulation therapy (OAT) self-monitoring is safe and effective, however little is known about the patient experience of this process. There is a lack of understanding about how best to train and support patients embarking on OAT self-monitoring. Aim To collect in-depth information about patients' experiences of OAT self-monitoring outside of clinical trial conditions and to produce a set of recommendations on how best to support such patients. Design and setting Semi-structured qualitative interviews with patients who self-monitor and live in England. Method In total, 26 of the 267 (9.7%) who participated in the Cohort study of Anticoagulation Self-Monitoring (CASM) and were still self-monitoring after 12 months' follow-up were interviewed. Topics discussed included experiences of OAT self-monitoring, healthcare support, training, and decision making. Framework analysis was used. Results Following initial problems using the monitoring device, interviewees described a mostly positive experience. Although less effort was expended attending monitoring appointments with health professionals, effort was required to conduct self-monitoring tests and to interpret and act on the results. Desire to self-manage was variable, especially when dosing advice systems worked promptly and reliably. Interviewees overcame patchy healthcare system knowledge and support of self-monitoring by educating themselves. Family and friends provided support with learning to use the monitor and managing OAT dosage adjustments. Conclusion Better, more-consistent training and health-service support would have alleviated a number of problems encountered by these patients who were self-monitoring. This training and support will become even more important if self-monitoring becomes more accessible to the general population of people on OAT.


ABSTRACT The importance of a mutual participatory model in medical care and decision making is supported by literature that now shows a link between patient participation and an improved health outcome. Illness (and the sick role) constitutes a state of diminished autonomy and mutual participation may help patients to regain control. Patients who participate most frequently are under 65 but above 30 years old, are better educated, have a higher income and profession and a higher socioeconomic status. Patients are keener to participate in decision making when more serious illnesses are present and when they have had prior experiences with a serious illness. They participate more fully if they feel that they are well enough, have enough knowledge and are allowed to participate. Patients are able to participate to a greater extent when they see themselves as experts in experiencing the illness. It is therefore important to encourage active participation by those patients who are less likely to participate. It is important for health workers to have at least the following personal values and skills, which will enable them to encourage and foster active participation: humility, the ability to relinquish the role of the expert, an awareness of their position of power and the ability to value even the poor are needed to set the scene for participation. It is important that health workers acknowledge the patients' right to self-determination and autonomy. Empathic listening, unconditional positive regard, sensitivity for the patients and their values and an ability to tolerate ambiguity create an atmosphere conducive to mutual participation. When health workers become aware of differences in opinion or in the balance of power, this should be acknowledged and discussed and a mutual understanding should be negotiated. Health workers have the potential to manipulate "mutual decision making" with the information they give. It is therefore essential to be open and honest about biases and opinions.


This Essay, forthcoming in Constitutional Commentary, discusses three recent books about judicial decision making: Richard A. Posner's How Judges Think, H. Jefferson Powell's Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision, and Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry's Judgment Calls: Principle and Politics in Constitutional Law. It uses them as the foundation for an exploration of the nature and role of judicial character, or judicial virtue, in constitutional judging. All three books have in common the rejection of any single comprehensive theory of or approach to constitutional judging. What divides them is the extent to which they focus descriptively on the "is" of judging or normatively on the "ought" of judging: here, Posner and Powell represent the respective poles, with Farber and Sherry located somewhat awkwardly in the middle. I argue that in order for us to find some livable space between the "is" and the "ought," we must take the aretaic turn: we must focus on the nature of judicial character or virtue and what it demands of the judge. Drawing on work on virtue ethics and virtue jurisprudence, I explore the role of judicial virtue and its relationship to constitutional decision making. I argue that the aretaic turn may help us to develop an understanding of judging that is both consistent with the judicial "is" and productive of new ways of thinking about the judicial "ought." In particular, I argue that reflection on the meaning and implications of the judicial oath may provide a fertile space in which to recapture and reconceive a normative sense of the judicial virtues without neglecting the real-world motivations and limitations that act on judges. This Essay is a prelude to larger work on the relationship between oaths and the Constitution.


Themes of inclusion, empowerment, and participation are recurrent in development discourse and interventions, implying enablement of agency on the part of communities and individuals to inform and influence how policies that affect them are enacted. This article aims to contribute to debates on participation in rural development and environmental conservation, by applying a structure-agency lens to examine experiences of marginal farm households in three distinct systems of resource allocation in Lao PDR's northern uplands--in other words, three institutional or (in)formal structures. These comprise livelihood development and poverty reduction projects, maize contract farming, and a national protected area. Drawing on qualitative data from focus group discussions and household surveys, the article explores the degree to which farmers may shape their engagement with the different systems, and ways in which agency may be enabled or disabled by this engagement. Our findings show that although some development interventions provide consultative channels for expressing needs, these are often within limited options set from afar. The market-based maize system, while in some ways agency-enabling, also entailed narrow choices and heavy dependence on external actors. The direct regulation of the protected area system meanwhile risked separating policy decisions from existing local knowledge. Our analytical approach moves beyond notions of agency commonly focused on decision-making and/or resistance, and instead revisits the structure-agency dichotomy to build a nuanced understanding of people's lived experiences of interventions. This allows for fresh perspectives on the everyday enablement or disablement of agency, aiming to support policy that is better grounded in local realities.


ABSTRACT Coaches have been shown to detriment athletes' health, well-being and development. Knowledge of this long-term effect and what it means for athletes to live with such stories is under-explored. Using self-narrative, we examine the long-lasting impact of the coach-athlete relationship in the stories of a former figure skater, Fanny. Guided by Arthur Frank's dialogical analysis, we present creative non-fictional stories to show how Fanny made sense of her figure skating experiences, which were framed by a sport investment narrative and a career-wrecking injury that terminated her dream of becoming a professional figure skater. We suggest that if handled as an act of self-care, storytelling can re-configure the dominant coach-athlete relationship and sport investment narrative and help athletes to understand and reconstruct their stories. Finally, we reflect upon the impact of Fanny's story on her advisers and consider the pedagogical implications of such narrative work in sport coaching and sport education.


Ground anchors are a form of ground improvement technique that strengthens and stabilises structures to the surrounding ground, whether it be in soil or rock. Steel strand ground anchors have many advantages when transferring applied loads into the surrounding sub-base; however the environments in which they can be constructed in are aggressive and can cause corrosion and premature failure of the anchor should they not be adequately protected. Current ground anchor best practices require a complex double protection boundary layer system to encase the bond length, free length and the anchor head and may not guarantee complete protection against corrosion. Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) materials in the construction and infrastructure industry has seen significant interest and development in recent years. Unfortunately these developments have not extended to the ground anchor industry. As such, little is known about material performance under adverse ground anchoring conditions, where exposure to extreme alkaline, acidic or briny environments is not uncommon. This thesis investigated two different types of Carbon Fibre CFRP strands to assess if they are suitable for ground anchor applications and what environments they a can perform safely and successfully unprotected. Absorption, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), spectroscopy and tensile performance tests were conducted in aggressive alkaline and acidic groundwater environments and neutral solution for a period up to six months at elevated temperatures of 30 degrees Celcius and 60 degrees Celcius. These tests were conducted unstressed and stressed. Results showed that although absorption of aggressive environments were observed and localised penetration of the aggressive solution had occurred (without damage or deterioration of the composite structure) the tensile performance of the CFCC product was unaffected by the aggressive ground environments in both a stress-cured or unstressed-cured state. Absorption levels and penetration of aggressive solutions were higher for the HS25x2 material. This penetration showed signs of composite and fibre breakdown over the six months curing. Tensile performance was still efficient, with most results performing better than control results; however, inconsistencies in the tensile results were reported as a result of gripping issues developed during material curing. Ground anchor bond assessment was conducted under confined conditions on a single CFRP strand over various bond lengths, bonded using a standard ground anchor cementitious based grout mixture with no additives. Pull-out tests were conducted on both CFCC and HS25x2 materials. Results identified the minimum bond length required to induce strand rupture for the CFCC specimens was calculated to be 775mm. No minimum bond length was established for the HS25x2 due to a large scatter and variance in results over the numerous bond lengths tested. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was conducted on the CFCC strand to develop greater understanding of the progressive debonding during axial loading and bond stress distribution along the bonded length of strand. FEA model was able to predict ultimate loads capacity and bond slip prior to failure accurately. FEA model was compared to full scale test results and strong linearity between bond stresses and progressive debonding distribution were identified. No FEA modelling was developed for the HS25x2 product as a result of the inconsistent bond pull-out results. CFRP anchors are restricted with the methods available to lock the anchor off and the head. Bond type anchor heads are good reliable method for anchorage, but minimum bond length requirements are long and restrictive for ground anchor applications. This project identified the issues with current bond type anchor heads and developed a reliable and compact "modified bond type" anchor head system suitable to CFRP material similar to the profile of CFCC strand. The anchor head was successfully tested on CFCC strand where a four and 10 strand anchor head assessment was conducted. Results from the test identified specimen failure occurred as a result of strand rupture in the bond length and no movement or cracking at the distal end of the anchor head. The success of this anchor head enabled the development of a full scale gun barrel test to be conducted. Using the anchor head technology developed a four strand CFCC gun barrel test was conducted with a 3.0 meter bond length and 2.0m free length. Testing was conducted as per an acceptance test program for steel strand ground anchors with cyclic loading over 10 equal load increments up to proof load of 800kN. Results showed a linear elastic extension over each load increment. Creep was observed at each cycles peak load (held for 50 minutes). The net anchor extension was a direct result of the creep. There were no signs of strand deformation from the data collected. No strand movement was observed at the anchors distal end, nor any movement, cracking or pull-out of the wires within the anchor head system. Strain gauges mounted along the strands free and bond lengths plotted load and bond stress distribution along the strand throughout the loading process. Bond stress distribution results replicated FEA model results obtained from the single strand bond model. An apparent free length of 3.5 meters was calculated. Progressive debonding of each strand throughout the test was established. Strain results verified the calculated apparent free length of 3.5 meters. The research conducted of CFRP strand identified that there are limitations for exposure to aggressive ground environments and bond strengths for selected FRP material. CFRP strand which can be securely anchored (using bond or other methods) and resist aggressive ground environments, such as CFCC, could perform as a permanent ground anchor in an unprotected state for the duration of the anchors design life. Guidelines and standards needs to be urgently developed to assist in designers utilising the knowledge developed in research the superior performance of CFRP strand in aggressive environment compared to steel strand ground anchors.


Due to their high efficiencies and their potentially low production costs, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have attracted much attention during the last few years. The technology is based on a layer made of mesoscopic TiO2 film which significantly increases the optical path for light harvesting by the surface-anchored sensitizer molecules, whilst keeping an efficient contact with the electrolytic solution. These sensitizer molecules are often based on ruthenium polypyridyl complexes because of their high absorption coefficients in the visible, but any dye could be used to sensitize the semiconducting TiO2. The standard DSSC usually contain organic electrolytes with dissolved triiodide/iodide as the redox couple. Cells based on alternative electrolytes have been developed and were used in early DSSC designs, but showed somehow deceiving photovoltaic performances. Until now, endeavors to increase the photovoltage of dye-sensitized nanocrystalline cells by replacing iodide by a one-electron, outer-sphere redox couple with a more positive oxidation potential have not succeeded. This has been largely due to limitations imposed by the dark current and the slow diffusion of the alternate mediator. The work presented here focused on finding efficient alternative redox couples for the DSSC, able to rival the classical triiodide/iodide couple. The tested compounds were triarylamines, platinum complexes and cobalt complexes. Triarylamines and platinum complexes proved considerably less effective than the classical couple in term of photoelectrochemical efficiencies. Cobalt complexes however displayed far more interesting behavior. The experiments carried out demonstrated that the [Co(bip)2]3+/2+ complexes were the most suitable candidates to be used as redox mediators as their photoelectrochemical and kinetic behavior rivaled those of the triiodide/iodide redox couple. The system however had to be optimized to reach high efficiencies. Heteroleptic dyes incorporating long alkyl chains were found to be the most appropriate category of dye, boosting further the DSSC efficiency by reducing the dark current within the cells. Co-grafting the sensitizer and co-adsorbent led to an improved photovoltaic efficiency through the increased photocurrent. Silver addition in the dye solution also leads to a global improvement of the photovoltaic parameters. To avoid diffusion problems with the large molecules in the electrolyte, very thin nanocrystalline TiO2 layers had to be employed. A 3 μm thick nanoporous layer with a 3 μm scattering layer was found to be optimal. As cobalt complexes may undergo electrochemical processes on the SnO2 layer of the photoelectrode, a blocking layer of compact TiO2 was used to reduce the dark current. The electrochemical regeneration of the cobalt complexes with the SnO2 is not fast enough to support cell function and the counter electrode must be covered either with platinum or gold layer to ensure a good fill factor. The optimization of the electrolyte itself mainly concerned the choice of the solvent, the redox mediator concentration, the best degree of oxidation, the additives that can be used to improve the photovoltaic parameters and finally how to increase the redox couple solubility. The best efficiencies were achieved with an acetonitrile/ethylene carbonate (2:3) solvent mixture, with a total redox mediator concentration between 0.10 to 0.15 M. If 10% of this total concentration is oxidized, the current density reaches its maximum whilst having a negligible effect on the photovoltage. 4-tert-butylpyridine (TBP) and lithium perchlorate were tried as additives in the electrolyte, as TBP increases the photovoltage and Li+ the photocurrent. The optimal concentrations of these two additives was found to be around 0.05 M TBP and 0.1 M LiClO4 for an electrolyte having a total cobalt complex concentration of 0.1 M. Mass-transport within the cell is the limiting factor for high currents when using cobalt complexes as redox mediators. Attempts to reduce the solvent viscosity by using alternative solvents to the acetonitrile/ethylene carbonate mixture were not successful. One way to solve the diffusion problem was to irradiate the cell from the counter electrode side. This method works well at high irradiation intensities. Finally, reduction of the distance between the electrodes also enhances diffusion. The use of [Co(bip)2]3+/2+ complexes, with appropriate dyes and taking into account the optimizations already described above, allowed efficiencies of 8% under an irradiance of 95 W · m-2, as well as IPCEs over 80% at 540 nm to be obtained. At full sun, efficiencies of over 4% were reached, with short circuit current densities of 9.5 mA · cm-2 and open circuit voltages of the order of 860 mV.


The doctrines of hell and the existence of God seem to pose a formidable paradox for both Christianity and Islam. The paradox can be stated as follows: Given that God is perfect in every sense, how can he allow any of his creatures to suffer eternal perdition? In this paper, I undertake a critical examination of the arguments for and against the doctrine of hell and conclude that on balance, arguments against the existence of hell heavily outweigh those for its existence. This calls for a radical revision of the traditional doctrine of hell. I contend that what is needed is a gentler and more sinner-friendly theology of hell that recognizes God's mercy and infinite patience. Nevertheless, belief in hell can serve the social function of deterring potential sinners from sinning.


We developed a methodology to evaluate the changes in cooling technologies of agricultural buildings derived from different scenarios of global climate change. Four 2080s scenarios were analysed for 6 European locations, using as a case study fattening pig farms and 3 cooling technologies: natural and forced ventilation, and cooling pads. The climate scenarios were constructed as a combination of general circulation models (Had CM2 and ECHAM4) downscaled for Europe with the HIRHAM and RCA3 regional models and driven by the A2 and B2 socio-economic scenarios. A steady-state heat balance model was used for the energy analysis in the livestock farms. The results showed that no changes in cooling technologies are necessary in the Mediterranean Basin; cooling pads were efficient enough for adequate climatisation both in the present and future scenarios. In northern European locations results were different, depending on the future scenario. Most scenarios indicated that cooling pads will be needed in fattening pig farms in the 2080s, while ventilation is efficient enough in the present scenario. The economic consequences will be important, as the costs associated with cooling pads are much higher than the costs of natural or forced ventilation


It is widely believed that learning good representations is one of the main reasons for the success of deep neural networks. Although highly intuitive, there is a lack of theory and systematic approach quantitatively characterizing what representations do deep neural networks learn. In this work, we move a tiny step towards a theory and better understanding of the representations. Specifically, we study a simpler problem: How similar are the representations learned by two networks with identical architecture but trained from different initializations. We develop a rigorous theory based on the neuron activation subspace match model. The theory gives a complete characterization of the structure of neuron activation subspace matches, where the core concepts are maximum match and simple match which describe the overall and the finest similarity between sets of neurons in two networks respectively. We also propose efficient algorithms to find the maximum match and simple matches. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments using our algorithms. Experimental results suggest that, surprisingly, representations learned by the same convolutional layers of networks trained from different initializations are not as similar as prevalently expected, at least in terms of subspace match.


The noncanonical amino acid S‐allyl cysteine (Sac) is one of the major compounds of garlic extract and exhibits a range of biological activities. It is also a small bioorthogonal alkene tag capable of undergoing controlled chemical modifications, such as photoinduced thiol‐ene coupling or Pd‐mediated deprotection. Its small size guarantees minimal interference with protein structure and function. Here, we report a simple protocol efficiently to couple in‐situ semisynthetic biosynthesis of Sac and its incorporation into proteins in response to amber (UAG) stop codons. We exploited the exceptional malleability of pyrrolysyl‐tRNA synthetase (PylRS) and evolved an S‐allylcysteinyl‐tRNA synthetase (SacRS) capable of specifically accepting the small, polar amino acid instead of its long and bulky aliphatic natural substrate. We succeeded in generating a novel and inexpensive strategy for the incorporation of a functionally versatile amino acid. This will help in the conversion of orthogonal translation from a standard technique in academic research to industrial biotechnology.


There are many use cases in the medical industry and in research that require clinical information extraction from the narrative notes in electronic medical records. Significant advances have been made in recent years from using clinical text processing systems which rely heavily on the natural language processing pipeline of sentence segmentation, tokenization, part-of-speech tagging, and dependency parsing. This approach relies on the text conforming to the rules of grammar in order for the underlying algorithms to perform well. However, for text that is entered by the clinician at the point of care, where time efficiency is paramount, a shorthand style of text is used which is heavily abbreviated and tends to ignore the rules of grammar, punctuation, and white space. In a corpus of 1,200 notes coming from the US Veterans Administration, grammatically clean text constitutes only of 5% of the total text leaving 95% of the text not amenable to the approaches proposed in extant literature. This is especially significant as the Veterans Administration the largest healthcare provider in the US. This research describes an approach that is robust to grammatically deficient text by not relying on grammatical structure but on the phrasal patterns that are prevalent in the medical domain. It relies on techniques that are able to incorporate micro-contexts by taking into account scope, proximity, and location of multiple interdependent matched patterns in order to extract the relevant attributes of medical concepts. Patterns that rely on dictionaries of terms and the results of other extraction algorithms are also accommodated. In addition, in order for the medical concept extraction to be useful in real clinical decision support systems, the extraction has been optimized for run-time efficiency for near real-time performance. This validity of this approach was established by employing it to create a semantically rich cognitive search assistant that runs in near real-time over the corpus of clinical notes from the Veterans Administration. The system is able to extract medical concepts that are signs and symptoms along with their contextual attributes including location, severity, onset, duration, certainty. In particular, pain was used as the initial use case because of its prevalence within clinical notes. It is also the most difficult of all the symptoms because of the wide variety of ways in which pain can be expressed. The cognitive search assistant was able to extract semantically structured representations of occurrences of pain events in the text with a positive precision of 87%, a positive recall of 93% at a rate of 0.31 seconds per note. The semantic representation of the results also permits a reasoning system to be incorporated to perform cognitively rich searches when used in conjunction with predefined medical ontologies. This allows, for instance, a search for arm pain to include results that involve elbows, wrists, hands, or fingers using the part-of relation defined in the ontology. The result is a semantically rich cognitive search assistant capable of near real-time structured search over clinical text that can be used in interactive applications such as clinical decision support.