The overwhelming majority of convictions in the United States are obtained through guilty pleas. Many of these guilty pleas are a product of plea bargaining, where a defendant enters a guilty plea in exchange for some form of official concessions. Despite its prominence, plea bargaining is subject to limited regulation. One consequence of this limited regulation is that courts generally only require the direct consequences of a guilty plea to be communicated to a defendant. Thus, when a defendant is deciding whether to plead guilty, he is often operating with incomplete information about the costly collateral consequences that may attach to a criminal conviction. The dominant theory of plea bargaining suggests that outcomes will largely mirror trial outcomes because bargaining occurs in the shadow of trial, but this may not be accurate if failure to communicate collateral consequences influences decisions to plead guilty. Using an experiment, this Note examines the extent to which communicating collateral consequences influences the decision to accept a plea bargain. Results from the experiment demonstrate that communicating collateral consequences decreases the rate of plea acceptance, but the effect of communication dissipates as the difference between the plea bargain sentence and the potential sentence at trial grows larger. Because communicating collateral consequences has an important effect on guilty pleas, this Note suggests that a lawyer's failure to communicate such consequences to their client should be grounds for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.


Background: Previous studies have shown an inverse relationship between prostate-specific antigen (PSA) concentration and body mass index (BMI). It has been recently proposed that this relationship may be explained by the larger plasma volume of obese men diluting a fixed amount of PSA (hemodilution effect). We examined this hypothesis in a cohort of men enrolled in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. Methods: Of 38,349 men ages 55 to 74 years randomized in PLCO to receive annual PSA and digital rectal examination screening, 28,380 had a baseline PSA, complete demographic information, and no prostate cancer diagnosis within 6 years from baseline. Self-reported height and weight were used to calculate BMI and to estimate plasma volume. PSA mass was estimated as PSA concentration times plasma volume. Multivariable linear regression models were used to investigate the relationship between PSA concentration, plasma volume, PSA mass, and BMI. Results: PSA concentration significantly decreased with increasing BMI (P < 0.001); mean PSA values were 1.27, 1.25, 1.18, and 1.07 ng/mL among normal (BMI, 18.5-25), overweight (BMI, 25-30), obese (BMI, 30-35), and morbidly obese (BMI, >35) men, respectively. However, plasma volume also increased with increasing BMI and PSA mass showed no association with BMI, with mean values of 3.78, 3.95, 3.97, and 3.82 μg across the four BMI categories (P = 0.10). Conclusions: This study confirms earlier findings that the inverse relationship between PSA concentration and BMI may be explained by a hemodilution effect. These findings could have implications for prostate cancer screening in large men. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(3):748–51)


An increasingly popular view holds that institutions--in particular, the rule of law--are the keys to unlocking the developing world's full growth potential. But what exactly does this mean? Which legal institutions matter and why? How can policymakers use this knowledge to promote growth? In The Law-Growth Nexus , Kenneth Dam brings five decades of experience as a legal scholar and policymaker to bear upon these questions. After reviewing the burgeoning literature on legal institutions and economic development, Dam unpacks the "rule of law" concept. Successive chapters analyze enforcement, contracts, and property rights --the three concepts that collectively define rule of law --and examine their roles in the real estate and financial sectors. Dam uses an extended analysis of China to assess the importance of the rule of law. This case study illustrates several of the book's central themes, including the difficulty of building a strong, independent judiciary and firstclass financial sector. The stark fact is that many parts of what we call the developing world have stopped developing, while other regions have seen a slowdown in once-promising growth. Could new or better legal institutions help jumpstart these economies? In exploring this question, Th e Law-Growth Nexus g oes beyond regression results to examine the underlying mechanisms through which the law, the judiciary, and the legal profession influence the economy. The result is essential reading for analysts and policymakers facing the challenges of legal and economic reform.


The McGill University Health Centre Reflective Practice Program, which began in 2003, provides a theory and structure for reflection and is the basis of an ongoing professional development program for nurses in leadership positions. It is designed to improve their knowledge and skills, and to provide support to nurse leaders who are continually facing difficult interpersonal situations involving staff, patients, families and the interdisciplinary team. It is based on a well-developed theoretical framework, a theory-of-action approach to reflective practice (RP). This approach is described in some detail, together with the training program for RP facilitators. This RP program involves regular monthly small group meetings to discuss challenging interpersonal situations. To date, 37 facilitators have been trained and currently about 120 nurses are participating regularly in RP groups. To illustrate this approach a detailed example of a typical RP session is presented, together with some illustrative feedback data collected over several years. We conclude with recommendations for implementing this type of RP program and describe how our theoretical approach has spread beyond the nursing department and has been introduced to some students and faculty in the School of Nursing and to interprofessional staff in one of the clinical groupings.


Most action potentials in the nervous system take on the form of strong, rapid, and brief voltage deflections known as spikes, in stark contrast to other action potentials, such as in the heart, that are characterized by broad voltage plateaus. We derive the shape of the neuronal action potential from first principles, by postulating that action potential generation is strongly constrained by the brain's need to minimize energy expenditure. For a given height of an action potential, the least energy is consumed when the underlying currents obey the bang-bang principle: the currents giving rise to the spike should be intense, yet short-lived, yielding spikes with sharp onsets and offsets. Energy optimality predicts features in the biophysics that are not per se required for producing the characteristic neuronal action potential: sodium currents should be extraordinarily powerful and inactivate with voltage; both potassium and sodium currents should have kinetics that have a bell-shaped voltage-dependence; and the cooperative action of multiple 'gates' should start the flow of current.


Carnivore and humans live in proximity due to carnivore recovery efforts and ongoing human encroachment into carnivore habitats globally. The American West is a region that uniquely exemplifies these human-carnivore dynamics, however, it is unclear how the research community here integrates social and ecological factors to examine human-carnivore relations. Therefore, strategies promoting human-carnivore coexistence are urgently needed. We conducted a systematic review on human-carnivore relations in the American West covering studies between 2000 and 2018. We first characterized human-carnivore relations across states of the American West. Second, we analyzed similarities and dissimilarities across states in terms of coexistence, tolerance, number of ecosystem services and conflicts mentioned in literature. Third, we used Bayesian modeling to quantify the effect of social and ecological factors influencing the scientific interest on coexistence, tolerance, ecosystem services and conflicts. Results revealed some underlying biases in human-carnivore relations research. Colorado and Montana were the states where the highest proportion of studies were conducted with bears and wolves the most studied species. Non-lethal management was the most common strategy to mitigate conflicts. Overall, conflicts with carnivores were much more frequently mentioned than benefits. We found similarities among Arizona, California, Utah, and New Mexico according to how coexistence, tolerance, services and conflicts are addressed in literature. We identified percentage of federal/private land, carnivore family, social actors, and management actions, as factors explaining how coexistence, tolerance, conflicts and services are addressed in literature. We provide a roadmap to foster tolerance towards carnivores and successful coexistence strategies in the American West based on four main domains, (1) the dual role of carnivores as providers of both beneficial and detrimental contributions to people, (2) social-ecological factors underpinning the provision of beneficial and detrimental contributions, (3) the inclusion of diverse actors, and (4) cross-state collaborative management.


In-game actions of real-time strategy (RTS) games are extremely useful in determining the players' strategies, analyzing their behaviors and recommending ways to improve their play skills. Unfortunately, unstructured sequences of in-game actions are hardly informative enough for these analyses. The inconsistency we observed in human annotation of in-game data makes the analytical task even more challenging. In this paper, we propose an integrated system for in-game action segmentation and semantic label assignment based on a Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) model with essential features extracted from the in-game actions. Our experiments demonstrate that the accuracy of our solution can be as high as 98.9%.


This study investigated biofeedback using heart rate variability (HRV) and psychometric measures. An original, mixed, quantitative and qualitative, within subjects, pre-test and post-test design was employed to evaluate the influence of a HeartMath training programme on measures of HRV, sense of coherence, mindfulness and relaxation in a convenience sample of 13 participants with age range 26-62 (M = 41.46, SD = 14.39) years. Participants were required to attend a three-hour workshop and complete 30 minutes of HeartMath training that included 5 different biofeedback sessions. Paired sample t-tests indicated significant differences on all outcome variables with medium to large effect sizes. Qualitative findings revealed positive and informative experiences of taking part in the research. Integrated findings supported and extended previous studies attesting to the value of HeartMath training.


Abstract Carers' views about their role in recovery are under-researched, and studies investigating their needs are underdeveloped. In this study, participatory action research was used; I was supported by a steering group of eight stakeholders to co-produce a training programme on recovery and data collection methods to explore the meaning of recovery for carers. The programme was delivered by me, an expert-by-experience with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and a carer of her son with a similar diagnosis, to a group of eleven participants. Mainly qualitative data was collected together with supplementary quantitative socio-demographic data from the participants. Selected findings based on the carers' discussions are presented which focus on how the relationship between carers and professionals can most effectively facilitate service user recovery. Issues of information exchange between carers and professionals and the impact of patient confidentiality are highlighted, the nature of recovery practice is considered, and the participants' need to be regarded as 'experts' is addressed. A conceptual model of service design based on a recovery-oriented 'triangle of care' is presented. The potential implementation of this model in the current UK mental health service context is considered with the need for co-production between all stakeholders to ensure its development.


1779 SOX2 Immunoexpression in High-Grade Gliomas: Potential Marker for Targeted Therapy G Aggarwal, S Sharma. Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Health Sciences University, Augusta, GA. Background: Gliomas may arise from neuroectodermal stem or progenitor cells. SOX (SRY-like HMG box) genes may be of particular interest as these represent a family of transcriptional cofactors implicated in the control of embryonic development of CNS. It is highly expressed within the embryonic neuroectodermal progenitors, and is downregulated as neural cells exit the cell cycle and differentiate. SOX genes are amplifi ed/ upregulated in tumors, and Sox2 is overexpressed in malignant glioma. Sox2 silencing in glioblastoma tumor-initiating cells inhibits proliferation in mice. We aimed to study the distribution of Sox-2 positive cells in high-grade (malignant) gliomas. Design: A total of 44 malignant gliomas (WHO grades 3 and 4) were identifi ed from pathology archives. These were diagnosed and graded using WHO classifi cation. These included 39 glioblastomas (GBM), 2 gliosarcomas (GS), 2 anaplastic astrocytomas (AA) and 1 anaplastic oligodendroglioma (AO). Sox2 immunohistochemistry was performed on formalin-fi xed paraffi n embedded tissue from these cases. The staining was reviewed for percentage positivity of tumor cells, staining intensity semiquantitatively (1+ to 4+), and various tumor patterns including positivity in infi ltrating tumor cells (ITC), pseudopalisading, perivascular and pleomorphic tumor giant cells (PGC). Results: All 44 (100%) malignant gliomas exhibited nuclear positivity of neoplastic cells. The control non-neoplastic autopsy brain tissues did not show any staining of normal cells or those in reactive gliosis. Of the tumors that showed specifi c patterns, 41/41 showed Sox2 positivity in ITC, 37/42 in perivascular tumor cell aggregates, 25/29 in pseudopalisading cells, and 5 had positivity in subpial accentuation. PGC were identifi ed to be positive in 11/11 cases, including 1 GS. The sarcomatous component of GS was negative. Of note, endothelial cells in microvascular proliferation were negative. Only 11/44 (25%) showed <100% tumor cell staining varying from 5% to 90%, including 2 GS and 3 grade-3 gliomas. Conclusions: The present study confi rmed the strong immunoexpression of Sox2 in high grade gliomas, including all GBMs, and was undetectable in normal cortex. Since SOX2 immunoexpression in this study was also noted in infi ltrating as well as perivascular and pseudopalisading (hypoxic) tumor cells, which are relatively refractory to chemoradiation, anti-Sox-2 targeted immunotherapy carries the potential to complement conventional therapy in high-grade gliomas.


This thesis investigated the design decisions and associated optimisation methods of a 1.3 GHz Multiple Beam Klystron (MBK) for use in the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC). In this regard refinements have been made both to the MBK design, and investigation and optimisation methods used. The high desired efficiency of 80% requires low perveance beams, to achieve the specification output power 20 beams are needed. The choice of cavity used in the interaction structure of a klystron has a large impact on its size and efficiency. To optimise this a number of possible cavity designs were produced and compared to confirm selection of the most appropriate. The fundamental mode (TM0, 1, 0) coaxial cavity was selected due to its superior R/Q of 130-210 W and suitability as a 2nd harmonic cavity. Although the dipole mode proved to be close in frequency to the operating mode (within ~ 50 MHz), raising concerns of stability issues in an MBK. A novel model was developed using standard wake field theory to investigate the effects of this mode the klystron's stability. A strategy for shifting this mode using a coupled shifting gap was proposed and achieves a shift of 125 MHz, although the models findings suggest it is not a significant problem. Existing methods of calculating dipole and higher order modes proved time consuming thus impeded a fully investigation of stability issues. An extended method of moments model allows efficient calculation of monopole and higher order modes. The model's basis functions are altered to represent a range of TM and TE modes with azimuthal variation, allowing their rapid and accurate calculation. Optimising the klystron interaction structure by hand to find a viable configuration revealed shortcomings in this standard approach, although the target efficiency was achieved. An algorithmic approach was deemed necessary to allow a full investigation within reasonable time limits. The field of evolutionary algorithms is presented and an evolutionary algorithm to automate the optimisation of klystron interaction structures was developed. A number of important related issues were dealt with and suitable interaction structures (optimised for efficiency, bandwidth, length and electron exit velocity) produced. Finally a design was proposed for both the input and output couplers which is inspired by a coupler used in a gyrotron. Unconventionally, the latter exits the tube axially avoiding the focusing solenoid, but excessive heating may preclude its use.


Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are an extraordinary source of information when it comes to revealing the common variations of human complex diseases. Until now, the large amount of data generated from these studies have not been shown its full potential enough to identify the molecular and functional framework to be able to understand how a molecular system works. Following a more specific perspective, this study focused on the identification of commonly affected pathways of psychiatric diseases. The pathway term as used in molecular biology, depicts a simplified model of a process within the cell or tissue. Lately, several GWAS datasets are publicly available for various disease types such as psychiatric, immune-related, neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and such. A study on each disease and pairwise comparison to understand the behavior of disease and system would be time consuming and exhaustive. Instead of handling the results of these studies one by one, grouping diseases by target points is a more efficient way. This work aims to get one step closer to reveal key points of diseases and target these points to develop personalized medicine approaches. Especially for complex diseases, every drug doesn't show the same effect in every people. This paper contains the definition of molecular pathways, methods to identify disease related pathways, and to find common pathways pairwise in psychiatric diseases.


Ten studies are presented which show how and why individual differences in gratitude are related to well-being, with six key conclusions.

Grateful people view the help they receive in everyday life as more costly, valuable, and altruistically intended. Cross-sectional (n=253), multi-level process (n=113), and experimental (n=200) studies showed these attributional biases explain why trait and state levels of gratitude are linked.

Trait gratitude involves the habitual focusing on the positive in the world, suggesting why gratitude is linked to well-being. Two studies (n=206 and n=389) presented exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showing that each of the existing measure of gratitude and appreciation (the GQ-6, GRAT, and Appreciation Scale) assess the same latent construct.

Two studies (n=389) and (n=201) show gratitude is uniquely linked to subjective well-being (satisfaction with life) and psychological well-being (personal growth, positive relationships with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance), after controlling for the 30 facets of the Five Factor Model.

Two longitudinal studies (n=156 and n=87) showed that during a life transition, gratitude led to lower stress and depression, and higher perceived social support. Structural equation modelling disproved other models of causality.

Grateful people were shown to use more adaptive coping strategies, characterised by seeking help from others and actively coping rather than avoiding the problem. Across two samples (n=236) these adaptive coping strategies were shown to partially explain why grateful people feel lower level of stress in life.

In a large community sample (n=401, 40% with clinically impaired sleep) grateful people had a better quality of sleep.

Together, the ten studies show that individual differences in gratitude (1) are related to specific information processing biases, (2) involved a habitual orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in life, (3) uniquely predict well-being, (4) lead to well-being over time, (5) are related to positive coping, and (6) predict better sleeping quality.


This study examines the user survey of five women's college libraries in south campus, University of Delhi. A well structure questionnaire was used for collecting opinions of the library users about uses of documents collections and services. Out of 500 users, only 425questionnaires were selected for analysis of data from the respondents. The present study demonstrates and elaborates the various aspects of library collections uses within the available resources, frequency and purposes of visit, adequacy of library hours, use of library services & collections, ways of document searching, infrastructure facilities, and users satisfaction with the overall function of the library. Conclusion of the study has given at the end of the article.


"Conventional conceptions of property rights focus on static definitions of property rights, usually as defined in statutory law. However, in practice there is co-existence and interaction between multiple legal orders such as state, customary, religious, project and local laws, all of which provide bases for claiming property rights. Legal anthropological approaches that recognize this legal pluralism are helpful in understanding this complexity. Individuals may choose one or another of these legal frameworks as the basis for their claims on a resource, in a process referred to as "forum shopping." Legal pluralism can create uncertainty especially in times of conflict because any individual is unlikely to have knowledge of all types of law that might be relevant, and because rival claimants can use a large repertoire to lay claim to a resource. However, at the same time the multiple legal frameworks facilitate considerable flexibility for people to maneuver in their use of natural resources. Legal pluralism also introduces a sense of dynamism in property rights, as the different legal frameworks do not exist in isolation, but influence each other, and can change over time. Unless these aspects of property rights are recognized, changes in statutory law intended to increase tenure security may instead increase uncertainty, especially for groups with less education and contacts. This paper illustrates the implications of legal pluralism for our understanding of natural resource management and policies toward resource tenure, using the example of water rights. (text of Abstract)


We consider the structure and performance of a multistage decoding scheme for an internally bandwidth efficient convolutionally coded Poisson fiber-optic code division multiple access (CDMA) communication system. The decoder is implemented electronically in several stages in which in each stage, the interfering users' coded bit decisions obtained in the previous stage is applied for computing the likelihood of the coded symbols of the desired user. The first stage is a soft-input Viterbi decoder for the internally coded scheme, in which the soft-input coded symbol likelihood values are computed by considering the multiuser interference as a noise signal. The likelihood of coded symbol computed in each stage is then entered into the convolutional decoder for the next bit decisions. The convolutional codes that are used for demonstrating the performance of the multistage decoder are super orthogonal codes (SOCs). We derive the bit error rates (BERs) of the proposed decoder for internally coded Poisson fiber-optic CDMA systems using optical orthogonal codes (OOCs) along with both ON-OFF keying (OOK) and binary pulse position modulation (BPPM) schemes. Our numerical results indicate that the proposed decoding scheme substantially outperforms the single-stage soft-input Viterbi decoder. We also derive the upper bound on the probability of error of a decoder for the known interference case, which is the ultimate performance of a multiuser decoder, and compare the result with that of the soft-input Viterbi decoder.


In this paper, we investigate the structure and evolution of customer-supplier networks in Japan using a unique dataset that contains information on customer and supplier linkages for more than 500,000 incorporated non-financial firms for the five years from 2008 to 2012. We find, first, that the number of customer links is unequal across firms; the customer link distribution has a power-law tail with an exponent of unity (i.e., it follows Zipf's law). We interpret this as implying that competition among firms to acquire new customers yields winners with a large number of customers, as well as losers with fewer customers. We also show that the shortest path length for any pair of firms is, on average, 4.3 links. Second, we find that link switching is relatively rare. Our estimates indicate that the survival rate per year for customer links is 92 percent and for supplier links 93 percent. Third and finally, we find that firm growth rates tend to be more highly correlated the closer two firms are to each other in a customer-supplier network (i.e., the smaller is the shortest path length for the two firms). This suggests that a non-negligible portion of fluctuations in firm growth stems from the propagation of microeconomic shocks – shocks affecting only a particular firm – through customer-supplier chains.


This book provides a broad account of the international history of East Asia from 1900 to 1968 - a subject that is essential to any understanding of the modern epoch. Whereas much of the scholarship on this subject has focused purely on the immediate origins and consequences of violent events such as wars and revolutions, this book demonstrates the importance of also considering other forces such as ideology, trade and cultural images that have helped shape East Asian international history. It analyses how the development of the region was influenced by ideological competition and 'orientalism', by both multilateral and unilateral efforts to instil order, and by the changing nature of international trade. It considers a number of important topics such as the concept of the 'open door'; the rise and influence of progressive internationalism in the forum of the League of Nations; the development of anti-colonial nationalism and anti-Western internationalism in the shape of pan-Asianism; and the onset of the Cold War. It also includes detailed case studies of subjects including the administration of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service; the international effort to regulate the trade in opium; and the significance of intra-Asian trade. Overall, this book constitutes an impressive account of the international history of East Asia, and is an important contribution to the interpretive study of this crucial period of history.


Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has become the most frequently seen gastrointestinal disorder in outpatient clinics. The esophageal mucosal epithelium will be affected by gastric acidity due to the altered gastroesophageal junction. Aim of the study: To examine the association between circulating levels of adiponectin and GERD among patients undergoing upper endoscopy. Type of the study: A case-control study. Patients and methods: A planned study by Al-Kindy College of Medicine, done from January 2017 to May 2018. Data were collected from 40 GERD patients and 30 healthy control individuals and endoscopy were done for them. Their weight, height, waist circumference, body mass index was calculated. Lipid profile and adiponectin were done for them. Results: The results showed that there was a strong negative correlation between adiponectin and age, height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL. There is only a positive correlation between adiponectin and HDL and LDL/HDL (+0.214 and +0.014 respectively). Conclusions: This present study highlights that derangement of circulating adiponectin gut hormones is involved in the pathogenesis of GERD and may predispose to Barrett's esophagus.


We consider the problem of planning in domains with continuous linear numeric change. Such change cannot always be adequately modelled by discretisation and is a key facet of many interesting problems. We show how a forward-chaining temporal planner can be extended to reason with actions with continuous linear effects. We extend a temporal planner to handle numeric values using linear programming. We show how linear continuous change can be integrated into the same linear program and we discuss how a temporal-numeric heuristic can be used to provide the search guidance necessary to underpin continuous planning. We present results to show that the approach can effectively handle duration-dependent change and numeric variables subject to continuous linear change.


Countries with weaker domestic institutions hold fewer foreign assets and exhibit concentrated corporate ownership. An equilibrium business cycle model of international capital flows with corporate governance frictions between outside investors and insiders explains both phenomena. Investment dynamics under insider control leads relative dividend and labor income for outsiders to be more negatively correlated in countries with weaker institutions. Consequently, outsiders hold more domestic assets to hedge labor income risk. I provide empirical evidence on this hedging demand. Concentrated ownership arises because international diversification through the sale of domestic assets by insiders is penalized by lower stock market valuation. © The Authors. All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced without the permission of the authors. Institutions, Corporate Governance and Capital Flows∗ Rahul Mukherjee†


Traditional communities oppose multinational corporations' efforts to patent traditional remedies. Native Americans contest the Washington Redskins trademark as disparaging. A small New Mexican Indian tribe sues the state government for using a spiritual symbol on the state flag. Australian aboriginal communities seek collective copyrights in their artwork. Indigenous peoples in Canada want copyrights in traditional stories. More and more, historically subordinated groups are turning to concepts of intellectual property - albeit grounded in identity and culture, not economic incentives - as a means to protect against cultural imperialism, cultural appropriation, and digital appropriation. Current trends in academic thinking do not bode well for these new claims for property in personhood: commodification scholars warn that commodification will lead to the alienation, rather than the preservation, of indigenous culture. Anthropologists argue that property rights essentialize and freeze traveling cultures. Others view these claims as the first step on a slippery slope toward slavery. Finally, there are the critiques from intellectual property, where increasingly scholars bemoan what is called the new enclosure movement in ideas. But the new claims for intellectual property rights as social relations cannot be dismissed easily. Assertions of power over one's own identity necessarily lead to assertions of property ownership. As Radin has taught us, property is an essential part of what it means to be fully human. Property enables us to have control over our external surroundings. Seen in this light, it is not enough to see all claims for more property simply as intrusions into the public domain - that is, bad intellectual property - or as cultural essentialism, that is, bad identity politics. Instead, we may begin to see them as assertions of personhood. Just as contemporary property law recognizes property as social relations, we must begin to view intellectual property in a similar way. Indeed, to the extent that contemporary property law offers a balanced, complex, and dialogical view of social relations, the possibilities for property rights in identity are not entirely bleak. Indeed, where scholars increasingly criticize identity politics for relying on a monologic understanding of identity, property could be just what identity politics needs. In other words, while current claims for property in personhood tend toward essentialized views of both property and culture, they need not do so. Far more sophisticated understandings of both property and culture exist. We should not categorically fear the rise of new property rights. Rather, there is much to be gained from articulating competing descriptive and normative visions of intellectual property, particularly those that challenge the historically dominant paradigms.


In this study, the focal mechanism of Indian Ocean earthquake is determined by combination of GRACE gravity gradient change and analytical model of Okubo (1992). To do so, the co-seismic gravity gradient change resulting from Indian ocean earthquake is derived using monthly solution of GRACE level 02 data after removing the contaminations from hydrological effects and post-seismic creep. Since, De-striping methods lead to reduction and distortion of a co-seismic gravity  change signal, it is suggested to compute a set of gravity gradient tensor components e.g. ΔVxx and ΔVxz, because they are more sensitive to small-scale signals and they reduce the striping errors without need to any de-striping filtering. Then the computed gravity gradient components are compared with the gravity gradient components from Okubo model (1992), which accounts the focal mechanism of the earthquake. By the way, the nonlinear inversion algorithm is constructed and solved by Genetic algorithm to find the best value of fault parameters for Indian Ocean earthquake. For better constraining the fault parameters in the inversion process, a sensitivity analysis is also conducted which reveals that the selected model is highly sensitive to a strike angle, dip angle, length, width and average slip, although it is less sensitive to a depth of a fault. The ultimate optimal estimate of the fault parameters shows a good correspondence compared with some existing slip models obtained by various constraints or via inversion of seismic observations.


An analysis showing that phase noise in a master diode laser is converted to amplitude noise in an injection-locked Ti:sapphire power amplifier was recently published ["Intensity noise of an injection-locked Ti:sapphire laser: analysis of the phase-noise-to-amplitude-noise conversion," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 23, 1276–1286 (2006)]. As this analysis might discourage the broad implementation of injection locking, we report amplitude noise and laser linewidth measurements in such a system and note that these lasers have sufficiently low noise to be useful in a wide range of experiments in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. A low-power diode laser is amplified to 1.6 W at 846 nm. Amplitude noise is measured using a high-speed photodiode. Frequency noise is measured relative to a low-noise commercial Ti:sapphire laser using an offset lock and heterodyne technique. Under optimal conditions, the relative rms amplitude noise is 1%. The linewidth of the injection-locked laser is 300 kHz. As others in this field have shown, the amplitude and frequency noise characteristics depend critically on the lock circuit characteristics.


An entrepreneur named Ken Kam has transcended the conventional interpretations of how to go about picking mutual-fund stock pickers. Compared to the S&P500, his mutual fund has been delivering significantly better returns with a significantly better "beta." His discovery is not aptly described as merely new information, and thus illustrates the point that knowledge ought not be flattened down to mere information. Does Ken Kam's mutual fund falsify the so-called market efficiency hypothesis? If not, why not? And if not, what would?


This article reports on the world's first prospective longitudinal study of relocation disputes, otherwise known as 'mobility' or 'moving away' cases. Interviews were conducted with 80 parents who have been involved in relocation disputes in Australia. The majority were proposed relocations to different states in Australia. In ten cases the proposed relocation was overseas. In all but two cases the applicant for relocation was the mother. Fifty-nine per cent of the cases required a judicial determination. This compares with about 13% of family law cases in Australia generally that are not resolved without a trial being commenced. This indicates how difficult these cases are to settle. The costs of the legal dispute caused severe hardship to parents, with 11 parents losing their homes. In a few cases where mothers were allowed to move, they either decided not to do so or returned within a year afterwards. Six fathers have so far followed the mother. In some cases, non-resident parents have lost contact with their children following the relocation or have had significant difficulties maintaining the level of contact envisioned by the court. In other cases, there have been issues about the burden of travel on the children. The research indicates the importance of reality testing in relocation disputes both by lawyers in advising their clients, and by judges. The realities that need to be considered are the legal costs both in applying for relocation and opposing it, particularly if the case does not settle early, the cost and burden of travel if the relocation takes place, particularly with young children, and whether the proposed visitation plan can and will be maintained.


Higher accurate forecasting in such fields as sales, shipping is an urgent necessity in industries. There are many researches made on this. In this paper, a hybrid method is introduced and plural methods are compared. Focusing that the equation of exponential smoothing method(ESM) is equivalent to (1,1) order ARMA model equation, new method of estimation of smoothing constant in exponential smoothing method is proposed before by us which satisfies minimum variance of forecasting error. Generally, smoothing constant is selected arbitrarily. But in this paper, we utilize above stated theoretical solution. Firstly, we make estimation of ARMA model parameter and then estimate smoothing constants. Thus theoretical solution is derived in a simple way and it may be utilized in various fields. Furthermore, combining the trend removing method with this method, we aim to improve forecasting accuracy. An approach to this method is executed in the following method. Trend removing by the combination of linear and 2 nd order non-linear function and 3 rd order non- linear function is executed to the manufacturer's data of sanitary materials. The weights for these functions are set 0.5 for two patterns at first and then varied by 0.01 increment for three patterns and optimal weights are searched. Genetic Algorithm is utilized to search the optimal weight for the weighting parameters of linear and non-linear function. For the comparison, monthly trend is removed after that. Theoretical solution of smoothing constant of ESM is calculated for both of the monthly trend removing data and the non-monthly trend removing data. Then forecasting is executed on these data. The new method shows that it is useful for the time series that has various trend characteristics and has rather strong seasonal trend. The effectiveness of this method should be examined in various cases.


SUMMARY We analyse the relations between a viscoelastic damage rheology model and rate- and statedependent (RS) friction. Both frameworks describe brittle deformation, although the former models localization zones in a deforming volume while the latter is associated with sliding on existing surfaces. The viscoelastic damage model accounts for evolving elastic properties and inelastic strain. The evolving elastic properties are related quantitatively to a damage state variable representing the local density of microcracks. Positive and negative changes of the damage variable lead, respectively, to degradation and recovery of the material in response to loading. A model configuration having an existing narrow zone with localized damage produces for appropriate loading and temperature‐pressure conditions an overall cyclic stick‐ slip motion compatible with a frictional response. Each deformation cycle (limit cycle) can be divided into healing and weakening periods associated with decreasing and increasing damage, respectively. The direct effect of the RS friction and the magnitude of the frictional parameter a are related to material strengthening with increasing rate of loading. The strength and residence time of asperities (model elements) in the weakening stage depend on the rates of damage evolution and accumulation of irreversible strain. The evolutionary effect of the RS friction and overall change in the friction parameters (a − b) are controlled by the duration of the healing period and asperity (element) strengthening during this stage. For a model with spatially variable properties, the damage rheology reproduces the logarithmic dependency of the steady-state friction coefficient on the sliding velocity and the normal stress. The transition from a velocity strengthening regime to a velocity weakening one can be obtained by varying the rate of inelastic strain accumulation and keeping the other damage rheology parameters fixed. The developments unify previous damage rheology results on deformation localization leading to formation of new fault zones with detailed experimental results on frictional sliding. The results provide a route for extending the formulation of RS friction into a non-linear continuum mechanics framework.


We are the eyes of our discourses. This is the point of departure. The disourses make us see, think, talk, act. be and move in certain ways. They contribute to forming our bodies, our souls, our genders. Therefore, to consider how such discourses are ordered becomes an important project. How is the manuscript of the social drama written? How is meaning constructed in our lives? What effects may the construction of meaning have? The ensuing research assignment will be to design a discourse analysis which is justifiable from the perspectives of gender theory and ethics and which can function as a research strategy, and to apply that discourse analysis to three areas or texts: a traditional social science text, texts from the contemporary discussion about gender theory, and a story of my own from social work with children.First, a frame centered around the philosophy of language and the theory of knowledge is constructed to encircle the discourse analysis as a research strategy, and then the analysis is described out of an example. The first application—to a classic, sociological text—clearly illustrates how a disourse analysis can be made, and it also demonstrates how gendered meanings can be constituted and discursively reproduced in social science texts as well as what potential effects the constitution of meaning can have. This application makes up an illustration of how gender differences are constructed and naturalised in a concurrence of discourse and practice.The second application is a discursive reading of the contemporary discussion about gender theory and its various gendered meanings and varying effects. Here I posit my own view of gender/sex in relation to that discussion. Both in scholarly work and in everyday life there are discursive controversies about which gendered meaning to naturalise, about which drama to enact, about which manuscript to use. The discourse analysis can visualise such controversies.In the third application of the discourse analysis, the relation between discourse and practice is focused. It concerns social work with children and departs from my own story about a child who is taken into custody. In the analysis, social work is described as paradoxical and contradictory, a discipline whose governing purpose is the maintenance and administration of central social values and orders like class, gender, and ethnicity (here focused on gender).The discourse analysis in the three applications opens up opportunities for a discussion and an ethical reflection about how discursive constitutions are made and what effects they have. Contrarily, the analysis also demonstrates what discursive constitutions aggravate or silence in reference to other approaches or modes of expression, and consequential forms of social practices, relations, life styles, and ways of life.


This research concerned with the designing and implementation of a distributed database system for the medical purposes. The system has been applied on dental clinic unit and statistics department at Al-Khansaa Educational Hospital at Mosul, and dental clinic unit at Woman Health Care Center at Mosul as a case study. Client/server model has been used to implement the proposed system's architecture. The computers have been connected together through a local area network (LAN). Horizontal fragmentation technique has been used to distribute the database which achieved a good level of local autonomy. Oracle software were used and utilized to implement the system. It played a dramatic role in protecting data using combination of passwords and user roles hierarchies in addition to achieving transparency and data integrity concepts in the system. The proposed system simplified saving and retrieving data of dental clinics. It also provides dental clinics units and statistics department with necessary reports and statistics. The proposed system has the ability to automatically perform daily backup for the database in addition to the manual options for database backup and recovery.


Polyelectrolytes in dilute solutions (0.01 mmol/L) adsorb in a two-dimensional lamellar phase to oppositely charged lipid monolayers at the air/water interface. The interchain separation is monitored by Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction. On monolayer compression, the interchain separation decreases to a factor of two. To investigate the influence of the electrostatic interaction, either the line charge density of the polymer is reduced (a statistic copolymer with 90% and 50% charged monomers) or mixtures between charged and uncharged lipids are used (dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC)/ dioctadecyldimethylammonium bromide (DODAB)) On decrease of the surface charge density, the interchain separation increases, while on decrease of the linear charge density, the interchain separation decreases. The ratio between charged monomers and charged lipid molecules is fairly constant; it decreases up to 30% when the lipids are in the fluid phase. With decreasing surface charge or linear charge density, the correlation length of the lamellar order decreases.


Subwavelength-diameter tapered optical fibers surrounded by rubidium vapor can undergo a substantial decrease in transmission at high atomic densities due to the accumulation of rubidium atoms on the surface of the fiber. Here we demonstrate the ability to control these changes in transmission using light guided within the taper. We observe transmission through a tapered fiber that is a nonlinear function of the incident power. This effect can also allow a strong control beam to change the transmission of a weak probe beam.


The Trinity approach is an attempt to provide methodological support for knowledge brokerage activities. Knowledge brokers are a type of knowledge managers dedicated to problem solving processes in knowledge-intensive multi-actor problem contexts. Trinity was originally designed for environmental problems. The approach however is generic, and may be used to support multi-actor problem solving processes in other domains as well. In this paper, some of the foundations of Trinity are sketched. Parts of the Trinity modelling language are presented. The use of Trinity is illustrated by means of parts of a small case study, concerning reduction of the emission of air pollution, that was conducted for the Dutch government. The paper ends with a short discussion of Trinity from a knowledge management point of view.


This paper analyzes changes in the monetary policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland following the policy shift from exchange rate targeting to inflation targeting around the turn of the millennium. Applying a Markovswitching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, switches in the policy parameters and the volatilities of shocks hitting the economies are estimated and quantified. Results indicate the presence of regimes of weak and strong responses of the central banks to exchange rate movements as well as periods of high and low volatility. Whereas all three economies switched to a less volatile regime over time, findings on changes in the policy parameters reveal a lower reaction to exchange rate movements in the Czech Republic and Poland, but an increased attention to it in Hungary. Simulations for the Czech Republic and Poland also suggest their respective central banks, rather than a sound macroeconomic environment, being accountable for reducing volatility in variables like inflation and output. In Hungary, their favorable developments can be attributed to a larger extent to the reduction in the size of external disturbances.


Electrochemically mediated amine regeneration is a new post-combustion capture technology with the potential to exploit the excellent removal efficiencies of thermal amine scrubbers while reducing parasitic energy losses and capital costs. The improvements result from the use of an electrochemical stripping cycle, in lieu of the traditional thermal swing, to facilitate CO2 desorption and amine regeneration; metal cations generated at an anode react with the amines, displacing the CO2, which is then flashed off, and the amines are regenerated by subsequent reduction of the metal cations in a cathode cell. The advantages of such a process include higher CO2 desorption pressures, smaller absorbers, and lower energy demands. Several example chemistries using different polyamines and copper are presented. Experimental results indicate an open-circuit efficiency of 54% (15 kJ per mole CO2) is achievable at the tested conditions and models predict that 69% efficiency is possible at higher temperatures and pressures. A bench scale system produced 1.6 mL min 1 CO2 while operating at 0.4 volts and 42% Faradaic efficiency; this corresponds to a work of less than 100 kJ per mole.


This research critically assesses the press coverage of Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership bid and subsequent first months as the leader of the United Kingdom's Labour Party. A content analysis (n = 812) found that the British press offered a distorted and overly antagonistic view of the long-serving MP. Corbyn is often denied a voice and news organisations tended to prize anti-Corbyn sources over favourable ones. Much of the coverage is decidedly scornful and ridicules the leader of the opposition. This analysis also tests a set of normative conceptions of the media in a democracy. In view of this, our research contends that the British press acted more as an attackdog than a watchdog when it comes to the reporting of Corbyn. We conclude that the transgression from traditional monitorial practices to snarling attacks is unhealthy for democracy, and it furthermore raises serious ethical questions for UK journalism and its role in society.


Individual users of English as a first or second language are assumed to possess or aspire to a monolithic grammar, an internally consistent set of rules which represents the idealized norms or conventions of native speakers. This position reflects a deficit view of L2 learning and usage, and is at odds with usage-based approaches to language development and research findings on idiolectal variation. This study problematizes the assumption of monolithic ontologies of grammar for TESOL by exploring a fragment of genre-specific lexico-grammatical knowledge (the can you/could you V construction alternation in requests) in a single non-native user of English, post-instruction. A corpus sample of the individual's output was compared with the input he was exposed to and broader norms for the genre. The analysis confirms findings in usage-based linguistics which demonstrate that an individual's lexico-grammatical knowledge constitutes an inventory of constructions shaped in large part by distributional patterns in the input. But it also provides evidence for idiosyncratic preferences resulting from exemplar-based inertia in production, suggesting that input is not the sole factor. Results are discussed in the context of a "plurilithic" ontology of grammar and the challenges this represents for pedagogy and teacher development.


Indonesia has become a grow developing country with more than 260 million of people in size and 132 million Internet subscribers are interconnected. The Internet penetration and the number of online shoppers in Indonesia continues to grow significantly. This study aimed to analyze online consumer behavior outside Java Island based-on Lazada Indonesia' case, in-order to provide solutions to reach new target markets in each province. The study was using online survey method and descriptive statistics analysis which used Lazada Indonesia's customers and non-customer as the target respondents. Some variables such as online shopping motivation, media accessed, product category preferences and other variables associated with online shopping were included in the research. The results indicated a significant growth in mobile device purchases by online shopping and high demand in fashion product categories. Digital marketing efforts would also become important tools in online marketing activities.


This is a wonderful volume of Conrad's short fiction, reissued alongside the new film The Secret Sharer. This volume of Conrad's short works explores a vast array of human experience in a variety of settings across the globe, from the sea to the colonial world, from the Far East and Africa to Europe. 'The Nigger of the "Narcissus"' shows life on the 'small planet' of a ship threatened by storms and anarchy, while 'Youth' and 'The Secret Sharer' portray men at sea confronting turning points in their lives. 'The Informer' reveals anarchy and activism in London, 'Il Conde' depicts a secret double life in Naples and 'The Duel' dramatizes conflicts and obsession in Napoleon's army. All show Conrad to be a continuously experimental writer, ranging across time and place and constantly reinventing the nature of storytelling. This volume includes: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'; Youth, A Narrative; The Secret Sharer - The Lagoon; An Outpost of Progress; The Idiots; The Informer; Il Conde; and The Duel. Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 he travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924. Gail Fraser (introducer), author of Interweaving Patterns in the Works of Joseph Conrad (1988), has also written on Conrad's short fiction forThe Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (1996) and Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies. Allan Simmons (co-editor) is author of Joseph Conrad (2006). J.H. Stape (co-editor) is the author of The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad (1996).


Secure function evaluation (SFE) allows a set of mutually distrustful parties to evaluate a function of their joint inputs without revealing their inputs to each other. SFE has been the focus of active research and recent work suggests that it can be made practical. Unfortunately, current protocols and implementations have inherent limitations that are hard to overcome using standard and practical techniques. Among them are: (1) requiring participants to do work linear in the size of the circuit representation of the function; (2) requiring all parties to do the same amount of work; and (3) not being able to provide complete fairness. A promising approach for overcoming these limitations is to augment the SFE setting with a small set of untrusted servers that have no input to the computation and that receive no output, but that make their computational resources available to the parties. In this model, referred to as server-aided SFE, the goal is to tradeoff the parties' work at the expense of the servers. Motivated by the emergence of public cloud services such as Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure, recent work has explored the extent to which server-aided SFE can be achieved with a single server. In this work, we revisit the sever-aided setting from a practical perspective and design single-server-aided SFE protocols that are considerably more efficient than all previously-known protocols. We achieve this in part by introducing several new techniques for garbled-circuit-based protocols, including a new and efficient input-checking mechanism for cut-and-choose and a new pipelining technique that works in the presence of malicious adversaries. Furthermore, we extend the server-aided model to guarantee fairness which is an important property to achieve in practice. Finally, we implement and evaluate our constructions experimentally and show that our protocols (regardless of the number of parties involved) yield implementations that are 4 and 6 times faster than the most optimized two-party SFE implementation when the server is assumed to be malicious and covert, respectively.


PURPOSE
Large copy number variations (CNV) can contribute to increased burden for neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we analyzed the genome-wide burden of large CNVs > 100 kb in primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), a neurodegenerative disease of the eye that is the largest cause of irreversible blindness.

METHODS
Genome-wide analysis of CNVs > 100 kb were analyzed in a total of 1720 individuals, including an Indian cohort (347 POAG cases and 345 controls) and a Caucasian cohort (624 cases and 404 controls). All the CNV data were obtained from experiments performed on Illumina 660W-Quad (infinium) arrays.

RESULTS
We observed that for both the populations CNVs > 1 Mb was significantly enriched for gene-rich regions unique to the POAG cases (P < 10(-11)). In the Indian cohort CNVs > 1 Mb (39 calls) in patients influenced 125 genes while in controls 31 such CNVs influenced only 5 genes with no overlap. In both cohorts we observed 1.9-fold gene enrichment in patients for deletions compared to duplications, while such a bias was not observed in controls (0.3-fold). Overall duplications > 1 Mb were more than deletions (Del/Dup = 0.82) confirming that the enrichment of gene-rich deletions in patients was associated with the disease. Of the 39 CNVs > 1 Mb from Indian patients, 28 (72%) also were implicated in other neurodegenerative disorders, like autism, schizophrenia, sensorineural hearing loss, and so forth. We found one large duplication encompassing CNTN4 gene in Indian and Caucasian POAG patients that was absent in the controls.

CONCLUSIONS
To our knowledge, our study is the first report on large CNV bias for gene-rich regions in glaucomatous neurodegeneration, implicating its impact across populations of contrasting ethnicities. We identified CNTN4 as a novel candidate gene for POAG.


Abstract. Many remote sensing applications demand for a fast and efficient way of generating orthophoto maps from raw aerial images. One prerequisite is direct georeferencing, which allows to geolocate aerial images to their geographic position on the earth's surface. But this is only half the story. When dealing with a large quantity of highly overlapping images, a major challenge is to select the most suitable image parts in order to generate seamless aerial maps of the captured area. This paper proposes a method that quickly determines such an optimal (rectangular) section for each single aerial image, which in turn can be used for generating seamless aerial maps. Its key approach is to clip aerial images depending on their geometric intersections with a terrain elevation model of the captured area, which is why we call it terrain aware image clipping (TAC). The method has a modest computational footprint and is therefore applicable even for rather limited embedded vision systems. It can be applied for both, real-time aerial mapping applications using data links as well as for rapid map generation right after landing without any postprocessing step. Referring to real-time applications, this method also minimizes transmission of redundant image data. The proposed method has already been demonstrated in several search-and-rescue scenarios and real-time mapping applications using a broadband data link and diffent kinds of camera and carrier systems. Moreover, a patent for this technology is pending.


The phase behavior of multicomponent metallic liquids is exceedingly complex because of the convoluted many-body and many-elemental interactions. Herein, we present systematic studies of the dynamical aspects of a model ternary metallic liquid ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{40}{\mathrm{Zr}}_{51}{\mathrm{Al}}_{9}$ using molecular dynamics simulations with embedded atom method. We observed a dynamical crossover from Arrhenius to super-Arrhenius behavior in the transport properties (self diffusion coefficient, self relaxation time, and shear viscosity) bordered at ${T}_{x}\ensuremath{\sim}1300$ K. Unlike in many molecular and macromolecular liquids, this crossover phenomenon occurs well above the melting point of the system $({T}_{m}\ensuremath{\sim}900$ K) in the equilibrium liquid state; and the crossover temperature ${T}_{x}$ is roughly twice of the glass-transition temperature of the system $({T}_{g})$. Below ${T}_{x}$, we found the elemental dynamics decoupled and the Stokes-Einstein relation broke down, indicating the onset of heterogeneous spatially correlated dynamics in the system mediated by dynamic communications among local configurational excitations. To directly characterize and visualize the correlated dynamics, we employed a nonparametric, unsupervised machine learning technique and identified dynamical clusters of atoms with similar atomic mobility. The revealed average dynamical cluster size shows an accelerated increase below ${T}_{x}$ and mimics the trend observed in other ensemble averaged quantities that are commonly used to quantify the spatially heterogeneous dynamics such as the non-Gaussian parameter ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{2}$ and the four-point correlation function ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{4}$.


This thesis deals with Symbol Error Rate (SER)-simulation of wireless communications and its application into throughput analysis of UltraWideband (UWB) systems. The SERs will be simulated in C++ using the Monte Carlo method and when some are calculated, the rest will be estimated using a novel extrapolation method. These SER values will be very accurate and in this thesis go as low as 1.0e-14. Reaching that low values would otherwise be impossible using the traditional Monte Carlo method, because of very large computation time. However, the novel extrapolation method, can simulate a SER-curve in less than 30 seconds. It is assumed that the noise belongs to the Generalized Gaussian distribution family and among them noise from the Normal distribution (Gaussian noise) gives the best result. It is to be noted that Gaussian noise is the most commonly used in digital communication simulations. Although the program is used for throughput analysis of UWB, the program could easily be adapted to various signals. In this thesis, throughput analysis means a plot with symbol rate vs distance. From any given symbols, the user can, with a desired minimum SER, generate an extrapolated SER-curve and see what symbol rate can be achieved by the system, while obeying power constraints of signals imposed by international laws. The developed program is, by comparing with published theoretical results, tested for QAM and PSK cases, but can easily be extended to UWB systems.


Hyporheic zones increase freshwater ecosystem resilience to hydrological extremes and global environmental change. However, current conceptualizations of hyporheic exchange, residence time distributions, and the associated biogeochemical cycling in streambed sediments do not always accurately explain the hydrological and biogeochemical complexity observed in streams and rivers. Specifically, existing conceptual models insufficiently represent the coupled transport and reactivity along groundwater and surface water flow paths, the role of autochthonous organic matter in streambed biogeochemical functioning, and the feedbacks between surface‐subsurface ecological processes, both within and across spatial and temporal scales. While simplified approaches to these issues are justifiable and necessary for transferability, the exclusion of important hyporheic processes from our conceptualizations can lead to erroneous conclusions and inadequate understanding and management of interconnected surface water and groundwater environments. This is particularly true at the landscape scale, where the organizational principles of spatio‐temporal dynamics of hyporheic exchange flow (HEF) and biogeochemical processes remain largely uncharacterized. This article seeks to identify the most important drivers and controls of HEF and biogeochemical cycling based on a comprehensive synthesis of findings from a wide range of river systems. We use these observations to test current paradigms and conceptual models, discussing the interactions of local‐to‐regional hydrological, geomorphological, and ecological controls of hyporheic zone functioning. This improved conceptualization of the landscape organizational principles of drivers of HEF and biogeochemical processes from reach to catchment scales will inform future river research directions and watershed management strategies.


Explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations have been used to complement preceding experimental and computational studies of folding of guanine quadruplexes (G-DNA). We initiate early stages of unfolding of several G-DNAs by simulating them under no-salt conditions and then try to fold them back using standard excess salt simulations. There is a significant difference between G-DNAs with all-anti parallel stranded stems and those with stems containing mixtures of syn and anti guanosines. The most natural rearrangement for all-anti stems is a vertical mutual slippage of the strands. This leads to stems with reduced numbers of tetrads during unfolding and a reduction of strand slippage during refolding. The presence of syn nucleotides prevents mutual strand slippage; therefore, the antiparallel and hybrid quadruplexes initiate unfolding via separation of the individual strands. The simulations confirm the capability of G-DNA molecules to adopt numerous stable locally and globally misfolded structures. The key point for a proper individual folding attempt appears to be correct prior distribution of syn and anti nucleotides in all four G-strands. The results suggest that at the level of individual molecules, G-DNA folding is an extremely multi-pathway process that is slowed by numerous misfolding arrangements stabilized on highly variable timescales.


In this work of thesis, a new, detailed and complete proprietary non-commercial model, for two- and three- dimensional accurate and efficient fuel cells and thermo fluid dynamic problems simulation, has been developed. The Artificial Compressibility (AC) matrix inversion free version of the Characteristic Based Split (CBS) algorithm has been specifically implemented, for the first time, to simulate heat and mass transfer phenomena in free fluid channels and porous electrodes of an anode-supported planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC), in order to reduce computing requirements and allow easy parallelization procedure. The generalized porous medium model has been adopted to describe heat and fluid flow in domains containing simultaneously a porous and a free fluid layer. The Finite Element Method (FEM) has been employed, for the spatial discretization of the governing partial differential equations (PDEs) over the computational domain, in order to allow multidisciplinary applications. A single domain approach, for the whole fuel cell, has been successfully used, in order to increase to flexibility of the algorithm. A stability analysis for the AC-CBS scheme has been specifically carried out, in order to stabilize and speed up the solution process.
The algorithm has been applied to many complex engineering problems simulation, both in two and three dimensions, related to isothermal and non-isothermal incompressible flows, flow through saturated porous media, flow through interfaces between saturated porous media and free fluids and SOFCs. All the results obtained by using the present algorithm have been undergone a Verification and Validation (VV) procedure against analytical, experimental and numerical data available from the literature, in order to ensure their accuracy.
The present work of thesis can be involved in the more general survey of energy saving. This issue is becoming significant due to increasing power demand, instability of the rising oil prices and environmental problems. Among the various renewable energy sources, fuel cells are gaining more popularity due to their high efficiency, cleanliness and cost-effective supply of power demanded by the consumers. SOFCs are considered particularly interesting thanks to their modularity, fuel adaptability and very low levels of NOx and SOx emissions. Furthermore, because of their high operating temperature (≈800°C), natural gas fuel can be reformed within the cell stack eliminating the need for an expensive external reformer and also less expensive catalyst materials can be used. The high operating temperature also allows cogeneration, making SOFC technology particularly suitable for stationary power generation.
Nowadays, despite the intensive research and significant progress, SOFCs are still not ready for commercialization, due to high manufacturing and operating costs and low reliability, compared to the traditional energy conversion systems. To make SOFCs commercially competitive, more research effort is required to better understand some of the fundamental aspects of these systems. Under operating conditions, several phenomena (mass, energy and charge transport; chemical and electrochemical reactions) take place in different parts of the fuel cell. Such phenomena occur simultaneously, and are strongly coupled to each other. Therefore, a physically representative prediction of the fuel cells operating conditions is not an easy objective to achieve. In the author's opinion, the development of flexible and detailed proprietary codes is still extremely important in order to simulate the complex physical phenomena evolving in SOFCs, predict their overall performances and face future challenges effectively. In particular, more efficient, accurate and stable algorithms are needed to solve the strongly coupled PDEs governing fuel cells operation. In fact, many commercial and proprietary codes can fail in finding the solution of such complex thermo fluid dynamic problems, mainly because of instability issues. For example, the presence of large source terms, due to both porous domains with very low permeability and high buoyancy forces, is one of the main causes of numerical instability. The present model has been specifically developed to overcome such difficulties and produce a fast, efficient and accurate solution for complex thermo fluid dynamic and SOFC problems.
The thesis is structured as follows: the first chapter presents an overview of fuel cells technology; chapter two describes the analytical model proposed for SOFCs simulation; the third chapter presents the numerical model employed to solve the governing PDEs; chapter four shows the VV procedure for the thermo fluid dynamic model, adopted to ensure the correctness of the results obtained by using the present algorithm; finally, chapter five presents the results obtained for the simulation of an anode-supported planar SOFC, in different operating conditions, while some conclusions are drawn at the end of the thesis, together with the description of the future developments of this work.


Recognizing multiple mixed group activities from one still image is not a hard problem for humans but remains highly challenging for computer recognition systems. When modelling interactions among multiple units (i.e., more than two groups or persons), the existing approaches tend to divide them into interactions between pairwise units. However, no mathematical evidence supports this transformation. Therefore, these approaches' performance is limited on images containing multiple activities. In this paper, we propose a generative model to provide a more reasonable interpretation for the mixed group activities contained in one image. We design a four level structure and convert the original intra-level interactions into inter-level interactions, in order to implement both interactions among multiple groups and interactions among multiple persons within a group. The proposed four-level structure makes our model more robust against the occlusion and overlap of the visible poses in images. Experimental results demonstrate that our model makes good interpretations for mixed group activities and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the Collective Activity Classification dataset.


The structure of upper crustal magma plumbing systems controls the distribution of volcanism and influences tectonic processes. However, delineating the structure and volume of plumbing systems is difficult because (1) active intrusion networks cannot be directly accessed; (2) field outcrops are commonly limited; and (3) geophysical data imaging the subsurface are restricted in areal extent and resolution. This has led to models involving the vertical transfer of magma via dikes, extending from a melt source to overlying reservoirs and eruption sites, being favored in the volcanic literature. However, while there is a wealth of evidence to support the occurrence of dike-dominated systems, we synthesize field- and seismic reflection–based observations and highlight that extensive lateral magma transport (as much as 4100 km) may occur within mafic sill complexes. Most of these mafic sill complexes occur in sedimentary basins (e.g., the Karoo Basin, South Africa), although some intrude crystalline continental crust (e.g., the Yilgarn craton, Australia), and consist of interconnected sills and inclined sheets. Sill complex emplacement is largely controlled by host-rock lithology and structure and the state of stress. We argue that plumbing systems need not be dominated by dikes and that magma can be transported within widespread sill complexes, promoting the development of volcanoes that do not overlie the melt source. However, the extent to which active volcanic systems and rifted margins are underlain by sill complexes remains poorly constrained, despite important implications for elucidating magmatic processes, melt volumes, and melt sources.


This case study describes the early phases of integrative, long-term psychotherapy undertaken with a child subjected to chronic domestic trauma including violence, alcohol abuse, neglect, abandonment, and bereavement resulting from HIV/AIDS. Recent statistics on the prevalence of violent trauma, domestic abuse and HIV/AIDS in South Africa are reviewed, as are principles of trauma intervention that have been established across a range of psychotherapeutic modalities. Following from integrative trauma work undertaken locally, this therapeutic process acknowledges both indigenous and western frameworks of meaning, the latter most heavily informed by principles of analytical psychology. Selected aspects of the therapy are discussed in light of both perspectives, with reference to the child's process of recovery. This paper seeks to add support to practised and published local work in which a range of possible healing practices, meanings, and experience are taken into account. It is proposed that such integrative efforts contribute towards an evolving African psychotherapy. Keywords: child, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychotherapy, South Africa Journal of Psychology in Africa 2005, 15(2): 165–175


The representation of religious figures in Islam has become particularly controversial in recent years. The creation of religious films has, therefore, turned into a highly sensitive undertaking. Iranian cinema is one of the very few in the Muslim world to have employed this new medium in imagining and narrating stories of revered religious figures. In this article I examine the complex socio-political context of Iran to study the relatively late emergence of the epic genre in Iranian cinema. I then study the recent creation and development of 'Qur'anic Films' within Iranian cinema with specific reference to Kingdom of Solomon (Mulk-i Sulayman-i Nabi, Shahriar Bahrani, 2010), which I argue is the first Qur'anic epic in Iranian cinema if not in the Muslim world. The article also draws from the Iranian television series Imam Ali (Davud Mirbaqeri, 1997) in examining the ways in which Iranian filmmakers negotiate the balance between religious authenticity and dramatic effectiveness.


In this study, the capture efficiencies and catch rates of three different traps were compared for the blue crab Callinectes sapidus in Beymelek Lagoon, Antalya, Turkey. All gear was used simultaneously and in the same habitats. The mean catch per unit effort (CPUE) was determined to be significantly higher for hoop nets than for traps. Gear effectiveness was examined by comparing CPUE (CPUE as number of crab per trap per haul, and g per trap haul), mean weight of individual crabs, catch composition and width frequency distributions of the blue crab for each gear.


This paper describes how a group working around the emotionally-charged topic of cultural and linguistic appropriateness created new knowledge about practice, and in particular practice about keeping a knowledge problem constantly open for inquiry. The group's work focused on the creation of a database of materials to support and educate practitioners in their field. Interviews with 23 participants revealed that key to their success was learning and growth in understanding the importance of opening up discussion on what "appropriateness" meant to group members, assumptions about appropriateness, and how to approach appropriateness on the way to deciding what to include in the database. Moreover, the group learned how to discuss and move forward a project based in the discussion of "hotly contested" areas in the face of "passionately held" beliefs. Cook and Brown's (1999) view that new knowledge arises from a generative dance between what knowledge is possessed by the individual and what is inextricably linked to practice, resonated with the kind of interaction and problem solving we found in this group. We adopt their perspective to interpret our data and further appropriate their terminology when we refer to and identify generative knowledge: an epistemically productive kind of knowledge predicated on constant openness, and characterized by repeated evaluation and interpretation of a problem.


In this contribution, a nearly comprehensive survey among creators and performers in media, arts and entertainment in the Netherlands is presented. It concerns the implications of digital reproduction and distribution for the creative professions as perceived by those working in it. Based on regressions and cluster analysis of the survey data, an analysis is provided of income developments and perceived threats and opportunities of digitisation, as well as an exploration of the underlying socio-economic and professional factors. Many creators and performers perceive digitisation primarily as a threat. Although age is a relevant explanatory factor for the opinions regarding digitisation, the notion of a generation gap is shown to be an oversimplification. Other relevant dimensions include income development, education level and the way digitisation has affected respondents' discipline.


Detecting arcing faults is an important but difficult-to-solve practical problem. Many existing methods of arc detection are based upon acquiring a signal that is proportional to current and then making an analysis of the signal's power spectrum (or, equivalently, its covariance function). Since the power spectrum, i.e., the absolute values of the Fourier transform, carries only partial information about the signal, a natural question is: why should we restrict ourselves to the use of this partial information? A related question is caused by the fact that even the most efficient methods still miss some arcing faults and/or lead to false detection; what methods should we use to improve the quality of arc detection? Our analysis is much more general than the arc detection problem and can be used to justify and select detection methods in other applied problems as well. 2 J. Beck, D. Nemir, and V. Kreinovich Mathematics Subject Classification: 42A38, 42B10


A quantitative survey of the bird community of Kaitoke wetland, Great Barrier Is., New Zealand between May 1998 and July 2000 using 5-minute counts recorded 33 species, most of which occurred in less than 10% of counts. The commonest species were North Island fernbud (Bowdleria punctata), fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa), silvereye (Zosterops lateralis), grey warbler (Geygone igata), welcome swallow (Hirundo neoxena) and (collectively) the exotic finches, yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) and goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis). Native wetland species also recorded were spotless crake (Porzana tabuensis), banded rail (Rallus phillipensis), Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), pukeko (Porphyrio melanotus) and Australasian harrier (Circus approximans). Distributional analysis of the commonest species (those occurring in more than 10% of counts) showed most had some association with a particular vegetation type(s), while few showed any change in conspicuousness with season. There was little apparent movement of buds associated with phenology of the main wetland plant species. The sigruficance of Kaitoke wetland in providing habitat for a range of native wetland bud species is recognised. The current threat to this ecosystem from introduced pests and development pressure, and the paucity of data available on native wetland bird species to inform conservation management, is discussed. Anderson, S.; Ogden, J. 2003. The bird community of Kaitoke wetland, Great Barrier Island. Notornis 50(4): 201-209.


The concept of planetary boundaries has resurfaced the discussion on carrying capacity and target setting for overall environmental impacts. Some authors see the concept as complementary to and compatible with the concept of sustainability [1]. We argue here that the concept of planetary boundaries has a different ethical basis than the concept of sustainability, and that this is parallel to the incompatibility between Distance-To-Target and Damage approaches in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). The main relevance of the notion of planetary boundaries is that it raises the issue of tipping points. We argue that it is possible to include the concern for a tipping point in the utilitarian damage approach, without the need to introduce targets, and we discuss this with the global warming metric as an example.


"Race and Time" urges our attention to women s poetry in considering the cultural history of race. Building on close readings of well known and less familiar poets including Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Sarah Louisa Forten, Hannah Flagg Gould, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sarah Piatt, Mary Eliza Tucker Lambert, Sarah Josepha Hale, Eliza Follen, and Mary Mapes Dodge Gray traces tensions in women s literary culture from the era of abolitionism to the rise of the Plantation tradition. She devotes a chapter to children s verse, arguing that racial stereotypes work as nonsense that masks conflicts in the construction of white childhood. A compilation of the poems cited, most of which are difficult to find elsewhere, is included as an appendix.Gray clarifies the cultural roles women s poetry played in the nineteenth-century United States and also reveals that these poems offer a fascinating, dynamic, and diverse field for students of social and cultural history. Gray s readings provide a rich sense of the contexts in which this poetry is embedded and examine its aesthetic and political vitality in meticulous detail, linking careful explication of the texts with analysis of the history of poetry, canons, literacy, and literary authority."Race and Time" distinguishes itself from other critical studies not only through its searching, in-depth readings but also through its sustained attention to less known poets and its departure from a Dickinson-centered model. Most significantly, it offers a focus on race, demonstrating how changes in both the U.S. racial structure and women s place in public culture set the terms for change in how women poets envisioned the relationship between poetry and social power.Gray s work makes contributions to several fields of study: poetry, U.S. literary history and American studies, women s studies, African American studies and whiteness studies, children s literature, and cultural studies. While placing the works of figures who have been treated elsewhere (e.g., Dickinson and Harper) into revealing new relationships, "Race and Time" does much to open interdisciplinary discussion of unfamiliar works."


The purpose of this thesis is the development of efficient formation control and fault accommodation algorithms for a team of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The team of AUVs are capable of performing a wide range of deep water marine applications such as seabed mapping and surveying, oil and gas exploration and extraction, and oil and gas pipeline inspection. However, communication limitations and the presence of undesirable events such as component faults in any of the team members can prevent the whole team to achieve safe, reliable, and efficient performance while executing underwater mission tasks.
 In this regard, the semi-decentralized control scheme is developed to achieve trajectory tracking and formation keeping while requiring information exchange only among neighboring agents. To this end, model predictive control (MPC) technique
and dynamic game theory are utilized to formulate and solve the formation control problem. Moreover, centralized and decentralized control schemes are developed to assess the performance of the proposed semi-decentralized control scheme in the simulation studies. The simulation results verify that the performance of the proposed semi-decentralized scheme is very close to the centralized scheme with lower control effort cost while it does not impose stringent communication requirements as in the centralized scheme.
 Moreover, the semi-decentralized active fault recovery scheme is developed to maintain a graceful degraded performance and to ensure that the team of autonomous underwater vehicles can satisfy mission objectives when an actuator fault occurs in
any of the team members. In this regard, online fault information provided by fault detection and isolation (FDI) modules of each agent and its neighbors are incorporated to redesign the nominal controllers based on the MPC technique and dynamic game theory. Additionally, FDI imperfections such as fault estimation error and time delay are taken into account, and a performance index is derived to show the impact of FDI imperfections on the performance of team members. Moreover, centralized and decentralized active fault recovery schemes are developed to evaluate the performance of the proposed semi-decentralized recovery scheme through comparative simulation studies with various fault scenarios. The comparative simulation studies justify that the proposed semi-decentralized fault recovery scheme meets the design specifications even if the performance of the FDI module is not ideal.


This paper considers the approach taken by the UK courts to the use of visible, overt police surveillance tactics in the context of political assemblies. Contrasting judicial attitudes to the direct experiences of protesters themselves, the paper argues that the narrow approach taken by the courts to questions of privacy, based on informational autonomy and the 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test, has led to the insufficient recognition of the psychological, social and political harms arising from intensive surveillance operations. The paper argues for a broader view of privacy, or in the alternative, a more robust application of the right to freedom of assembly, to protect protest mobilisations and assemblies from disruptive and intrusive aspects of overt state surveillance. Keywords: Surveillance; overt photography; data-gathering; policing; privacy; intrusion; autonomy; freedom of assembly


We propose a scheme to realize a quantum cloning machine in an ion-trap system. In the scheme, the optimal 1→2 symmetric universal quantum cloning and the optimal 1→2 phase-covariant quantum cloning can be realized. The required experimental techniques of the scheme are in the range of what can be obtained in the ion-trap setup. Therefore, the scheme can be realized with presently available ion-trap techniques.


This paper considers the operations of affective technology within contemporary technocapitalism through affect theory. It is argued that affective technologies enter into power arrangements with political and corporate interests, altering an acting bodies' affect — in the Spinozan definition, the "capacity to affect and be affected" — within social and political life. Affective computation uses machine learning techniques to 'capture' and quantify affective intensities in data form, automating a normalizing logic of division and categorization that classifies bodies, emotions, and objects. Affective technologies invoke what Luciana Parisi called "automated decisionism," where machine learning processes digitize incomputable states in order to impose a self-rationalizing logic structure that regulates a user-subject's actions (Parisi, "Reprogramming Decisionism"). Affective technologies exert biopolitical control over users through quantified logics of division and devaluation. It is suggested thataffect might simultaneously operate as an analytic lens to speculate on whether collective affectivity and political agency might be reclaimed through using these technologies. The following concludes with an engagement with Deleuze and Guattari's "assemblages of desire" to suggest that affective technologies might produce other micropolitical arrangements that increase user agency as social and political subjects.


A decelerator is presented where polar neutral molecules are guided and decelerated using the principle of traveling electric potential wells, such that molecules are confined in stable three-dimensional traps throughout. We compare this decelerator with that of Scharfenberg et al. [Phys. Rev. A 79, 023410 (2009)] and we show that the current decelerator provides a substantially larger phase-space acceptance, even at higher acceleration. The mode of operation is described and experimentally demonstrated by guiding and decelerating CO molecules.


production, low yield is limiting the commercial exploitation of tetraploid red clover. To explore if pollination is the limiting factor for the seed yield in tetraploid red clover, we investigated pollinator behaviour and plant reproductive success in diploid (2x) cultivar 'Rajah' and tetraploid (4x) cultivar 'Amos' using honey bee and hand pollination approaches. We measured the seed set at the flower head level with the increasing visitation rate of honey bees (one bee, two bees and open pollination) and pollen diversity (one and two pollen donors) of hand pollination. We found no difference in honey bee pollination behaviour (visitation rate) between the diploid and tetraploid red clover. Surprisingly, the seed set in two bees was significantly lower than that of one bee in 'Rajah'. We suggest that honey bees prefer to visit already tripped florets or to visit fewer florets due to scent marks left by the previous honey bees. In open pollination, seed number per flower head in 'Amos' (on average 11) was half of 'Rajah' (on average 20). Seed set in 'Amos' was lower than 50% of 'Rajah' in honey bee (one bee treatment) and hand pollination (one and two pollen donors treatments). There were no differences in stigma receptivity whereas pollen viability in 'Amos' was lower than 'Rajah' after the peak pollen viability was reached (six days after the onset of flowering). We suggest that the fertility problems such as low pollen viability may be the reason for the low seed set in tetraploid red clover. This conclusion should be verified by investigating other fertility traits during the ovary, embryo and seed development with a broader range of diploid and tetraploid cultivars.


Achieving an accurate description of fermionic systems typically requires considerably many more orbitals than fermions. Previous resource analyses of quantum chemistry simulation often failed to exploit this low fermionic number information in the implementation of Trotter-based approaches and overestimated the quantum-computer runtime as a result. They also depended on numerical procedures that are computationally too expensive to scale up to large systems of practical interest. Here we propose techniques that solve both problems by using various factorized decompositions of the electronic structure Hamiltonian. We showcase our techniques for the uniform electron gas, finding substantial (over 100x) improvements in Trotter error for low-filling fraction and pushing to much higher numbers of orbitals than is possible with existing methods. Finally, we calculate the T-count to perform phase-estimation on Jellium. In the low-filling regime, we observe improvements in gate complexity of over 10x compared to the best Trotter-based approach reported to date. We also report gate counts competitive with qubitization-based approaches for Wigner-Seitz values of physical interest.


Examination as a word evokes varying degrees of anxiety in students depending on the importance of the examination, perceived difficulty level of the subject, and degree of preparedness for the examination. A perceived difficult subject would elicit higher anxiety levels, and test anxiety as a psychological condition can adversely affect people in every field of life (Cohen, 2004), and especially it adversely affects students who face different examinations. The suspicion is that test anxiety may not exist alone but co-exist with other forms of psychological distress such as depression, and psychological intervention such as cognitive therapy is expected to reduce students' anxieties and any other psychological distress and consequently improve their academic performance. In an attempt to verify our suspicion and confirm the expectation, 420 senior secondary school students made up of 210 males and 210 females aged between 13 and 19 years responded to test anxiety, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms inventories. 72 of the students whose test anxiety scores were higher than the group's average score were divided into three groups and treated under three conditions of "no treatment", "relaxation treatment alone", and combined "relaxation and cognitive restructuring treatment". Results obtained show that test anxiety, trait anxiety, and depression co-exist and are positively related, and they are negatively related to academic performance. In addition the combination of relaxation and cognitive restructuring treatment reduced anxiety and depression better than relaxation treatment alone or no treatment and improved test performance of the students much more than any of the other two conditions. The findings thus confirm the effectiveness and efficacy of cognitive therapy in managing anxiety and depression and improving academic performance, and when combined with relaxation technique, the combination optimizes academic performance.